Escana (25 page)

It
flung its arms down and drew its sword in response, an odd metallic
ring sounded in the air as the blade vibrated with force. 'I warned
them, if they chose to take retribution that I would destroy them,
commencing with the fools they sent to oppose me. This is your final
warning, cease your attack or be destroyed.'

The
vibrations cut out, the creature took some meaning from this that
Gadtor couldn't understand. 'I see now that my chance to destroy you
has passed. It is a true stalemate.'

The
Hermit nodded, the creature flung the map in his direction.

'Take
the map, leave this place. Your position will become untenable should
you remain in the presence of the guards, which your companion shall
do until you swiftly alleviate him from the stress of imprisonment.'

The
Hermit nodded once more.

An
unspoken agreement about him had been reached and Gadtor had no say
in the matter. It was to the sound of marching feet approaching that
he realised he was being abandoned to the Urian guard.

R
e'tak
sniffed the air purposefully, he had found them.

The
storm front had erased their tracks but had also kept them from
progressing any further. The humans would shelter in their thicker
skins and claw their way out once the sands had passed.

He
had been ordered to follow their trail and had stuck to his task
diligently by keeping them in range but out of sight. He didn't
understand why the humans would be out this far in the first place, a
sentiment echoed by his clan. Not since the days of Torr had they
gained such a foothold and in modern times they had been dying in
droves while falling back to the border. Why scout a position they
couldn't hope to take?

He
closed his inner lids and dug his claws deep into the rock face to
find better purchase, a higher vantage point may help determine their
progress through the dunes as they entered the open desert.

He
had been following them for close to four days, they didn't appear to
be taking any extra precautions. This couldn't help but pique his
interest initially, even the most hardened travellers were constantly
vigilant of the threat from his people, out here in their element
they had been undisputed overlords for many centuries. The two men
walked with a nonchalance that had grown increasingly irritating as
the days passed. His restraint had been slipping incrementally, so
focused was he on his task that he hadn't noticed the erosion until
it had reached the point where his primal instincts could barely be
controlled. He had no hope of capturing and interrogating them, he
could not communicate with them, his observance of their seemingly
meaningless and often circular wanderings being all he had to go by.
Whilst killing the apes would go some way to dispel claims of his
being soft, his objectives forbade such bloodshed without the
divination of their purpose. As tedious as it was, he was too
honourable to lie to the chieftain, nor could he conjure up a
believable story given his quarry's traversals of the desert.

The
urges rose like a new brood stretching out to a dangling carcass,
they whispered to him of violations and assured him of the
righteousness of his impending brutality.

They
had no hope of outdistancing him. Even if the sand was packed hard he
could run them down with ease. Nor could they hide long, their
perspirations left a scent he could follow straight to its source.
Yet he found there was no pleasure in descending upon his prey
announced, the joy of the kill came from the craft of the execution,
not the tactless massacre much of his herd swore by. Prowling out of
sight until the final fatal pounce was his to savour, he chose to
revel in elusive skill rather than the brash charge.

In
the midst of his prey-riddled mind, an unease had started to fester
within the irritation. Too long had his people dominated the deserts,
these bipeds held no great threat to that in spite of their bright
claws and hides. Nevertheless the peculiarity of this specific
incursion continued to needle at the caution others mistook for
weakness. He cursed the mentality of his race silently, it was the
very reason he worked alone.

He
crept down the face of the cliff using the rock to shield his
movement, springing silently onto the desert floor and lying prone as
he scouted out the first dune. The humans lay three dunes beyond, an
adequate distance. Creeping forward, his long limbs covered the
distance quicker than he would have liked, the pre-natural
disposition was starting to cave his resilience. Impatience finally
seized him and he bolted over the final dune with a roar.

He
saw the large pole moments too late. A blinding light caught it as it
was punched upward into his ribs.

All
was darkness.

H
ern
didn't bother exchanging pleasantries with the guards, he had too
many misgivings about where their loyalties lay when entrusted with
his bound form.

It
had been an uneventful transportation, one that neither smacked of
subtlety or mockery. Instead there was a quiet efficiency about it
all that suggested his plight had now been entirely forgotten about
by most of the council. At this point discretion was probably virtue,
there was no need to call attention to himself when he knew exactly
who would be swiftest to answer.

It
was a particularly hot summer's day as they led him down the dusty
streets, the local populace were out in force and paid little heed to
his plight. Why would they indeed? The slave market was but the
common daily grind of bartered human flesh in this swelter. He
stifled a chuckle at the thought of his future owners and the
unconscionable misery he'd cause them.

For
now a safe transit to his glorious locale was the order of the day.
He knew little of where he was being taken beyond its near constant
demand for slaves. He doubted there was a Harem so deep into the
disputed desert and his mind had long occupied itself with the
various grisly permutations. He had settled upon one in particular, a
populist theory no doubt and perhaps an altogether too optimistic one
given his disrepute. It was most likely that he was to be heroically
transported to one of the various gladiatorial arenas scattered
throughout the outskirts of the land. The only positive contact
Je'dara had with the Empire was when it had been invited to their
annual games. Apparently it was a point of pride for his noble
rulers, who sent forth the strongest slaves to a variety of camps
controlled by both imperial and native rulers.

He
knew of the ever-changing imperial fort in Sah'kel through a variety
of tales, he was also aware it had been called Greyhawk for any
number of years now. This surprised him, not that the terrible naming
scheme had stuck for so long, but the implication that the current
administrator had managed to run it for any length of time without
disposition. The more he pondered over the possibilities the more
convinced he was that this was the test that lay before him.

His
eyes drew attention away from his well worn thoughts to a familiar
series of structures, huge wooden cages on wheels driven by two
larger horned Urkata each. A sizeable procession of armed guards
flanked either side of the cages, they were there to see him off too,
how kind.

People
watching had been a favourite past time of Hern's, you could learn
far more from simply observing people than was often given credit.
The slave cages in particular contained an ever-changing plethora of
human squalor for him to see. Perhaps he had been noted in his
observances one too many times and inhabiting the very cages he
perceived was a devious irony on the part of the guild.

Had
he not already learned to dampen his receptors, the overflowing
misery of the throng mingled with hopelessness and some more
alarmingly base instincts would have been far too much to handle. At
present it felt like savouring a large fleshy buffet as his bonds
were cut and he was prodded rather ungracefully into one of the
cages. He purposefully avoided surveying the Negroid cage, their
primal thoughts were like jagged edges to his mind, both incoherent
and merciless. Instead he focused his attentions on present company,
an unsurprisingly lacklustre group of varying hue and girth, their
positional play like so many pieces in a game of strategy.

The
strongest and most dominant of the players were settled in their
corners, their eyes like daggers on any encroachment, no doubt aware
that there would be a few initial tests of their mettle for the
guard's sport. The arena had little use for cowards and the men that
died were a good source of meat, the few corpses Hern had spotted
amongst the yellowing bones seemed to indicate that they had been
packing the giant cages for close to a day with little care for
policing their contents. He inspected all this with a quiet
detachment, there was little here that phased him when compared to
the horrors the guild had exposed him to. He would just have to work
his way from embodying a potential meal to gaining enough power to
manipulate his impending release.

The
cage doors slammed shut with a wearily regimental precision, there
were various mixtures of begging and pleading and not all the
laughter came from the guards, though the more desperately pitched
sources soon found themselves silenced. He silenced a number of them
himself, finally settling beside a dispatched corpse and gnawing on
one of the arms in a mockery of cannibalistic glee. He hoped that
henceforth he wouldn't be troubled or encroached upon in his journey
from the city streets into the dunes. It was the guild who taught him
that instability is an unpredictability that requires termination,
yet he had found that a mockery of such remained a useful tool.

The
cages pounded along the sandy outskirts of Je'dara and carried Hern
and the rest of the slaves out into the deep desert.

T
he
burly smith strode purposefully up the path towards The Chipped
Flagon, if Harold knew something about this there was going to be
trouble.

He
threw the door open rather too hard and the resulting crash ensured
that all eyes were fixed upon him in varying mixtures of surprise and
curiosity. He marched up to the skinny old man behind the bar, a
number of people making way for him with great haste.

'Where's
Harold?' he said, barely keeping his voice below a roar.

Aldred
set a mug down and eyed him sardonically, a quick retort forming on
his lips and dying in the space of time taken to gauge the man's
mood. 'He's out back,' he muttered sourly, as if wanting to say more
but holding his tongue for fear of the smith's wrath.

Garth
lifted the end of the bar up and walked past uninvited, Aldred wisely
made no move to stop him. He went through a small door that led to a
bustling kitchen and through another door that led outside.

Gooseman
sat on the bench outside in his usual position, sharing the butt end
of a cigarette with a portly cook, he looked up at Garth with a
genial smile. 'What's troubling you on this fine day, old friend?'

Garth
knew that tone, the kindly and reasonable balm to his more
impassioned rants about the hardships of work. He shook his head at
the small man, fear starting to creep up on him now that he had to
speak. 'We need to talk.'

He
eyed the cook in what he hoped wasn't an overly unfriendly fashion
and the man took the hint and waddled back into the kitchen. Now that
they were truly alone there was nothing more to it than to tell it as
it was. 'I had a visitor last night,' he began, seating himself next
to a concerned Gooseman. 'He came on official business, or so he
said. Threatened me in my own home and called me by rank.' Garth
turned to face him now, to see if there was anything but surprise
etched on those features.

Gooseman
hadn't so much as lifted an eyebrow at his startling revelation, as
always, he knew something.

For
reasons he later couldn't explain, Garth seized his friend by the
shirt and shook him. 'How does he know? What do you know? Why can't
they just leave me alone?'

He
caught sight of a dangerous flicker on Gooseman's face and hastily
let go as if stung, that had been a bad decision.

Gooseman
readjusted his shirt, taking a steadying breath and closing his eyes
as if in great pain. Garth wondered for a moment if he had
inadvertently hurt his friend with his own blunt stupidity.

'He,
if that's what you choose to call it, is privy to much information
that the rest of us are not. Your secret was not divulged, I told you
that no living man would know but I doubt that remains the case.' He
shifted on the bench, the hard wood offering little comfort. 'When I
made that promise to you, I wasn't anticipating the likes of this
creature to take any interest, it cares little of such matters as
yours. Nevertheless the subject in question has no doubt informed its
superiors of your exile for some unknown reason and they will no
doubt send for you.'

'So
that's it then?' Garth said, trying not to lose his cool. 'Twenty
years of playing the smith and now I'm being dragged back into it?'