Jalia on the Road (Jalia - World of Jalon) (13 page)

Jalia turned to face him.
Was he aiming to kill her?

“To what purpose?”

Despite the fact she had already won she was intrigued by this unexpected challenge.

“To prove to these men you aren’t a coward. With the single condition that should I humiliate you, I will take the pot.”

“I already have the pot.”

Looking at the faces of the crowd she could see Len had scored an important point with them. They wanted more entertainment and she would be denying it them if she refused. They would remember her as the girl with no guts. Such a thing was completely unacceptable.

“Very well, I’ll stand as your target.”

Jalia moved to stand with her back to the wall. She didn’t doubt that Len would miss her. The crowd would lynch him if he hit her. Jalia didn’t understand what Len was up to but she was not the sort of person who would allow anyone to label her a coward.

“Remember,” Len said as he took aim, “If I humiliate you, the pot is mine. Could you raise your arms a little, girl?”

Jalia raised her arms to stand in a T position and waited. Len threw the knife and she felt the shudder in the wall, as his blade stuck close to her right hip. Then she felt her skirt fall to the floor as Len’s knife severed the cord holding it up.

The crowd roared with laughter. Jalia was left standing naked from the waist down. She blushed crimson as she pulled up her skirt and knotted the cord back together again.

While she was busy, Len bowed to the crowd taking their applause. There was no doubt he had humiliated her. Len reached for the pot of money and Jalia’s knife shuddered into the table less than an inch from his hand. The noise in the tavern again dropped to silence. Jalia spoke in a deceptively calm voice.

“Turnabout is fair play. Have you the guts to stand as my target?”

Len’s blood turned cold and his face blanched as he realized how angry Jalia was. However, he knew she couldn’t kill him, and she was better at throwing a knife than he would ever be.

Len bowed to Jalia and then to the crowd. “If you wish me to, little girl, I would only be too delighted. But the pot remains mine.” Len went to stand against the wall.

The crowd was ecstatic. They knew this contest had become the stuff of legends. People would be talking about it for years. They didn’t see how the girl could top Len, but they were more than happy to let her try.

Jalia retrieved her knife from the table, tossing it into the air casually before catching it. The crowd thought she was grandstanding, but in reality she was checking that her knife’s balance hadn’t been altered by the previous throws.

Len stood and waited. Jalia made as if to throw and then stopped. “Would you mind opening your legs a little?” she asked mildly.

Len gulped, feeling anything but calm and he spread his legs until his feet were wide apart. Len’s hands clenched into fists as Jalia turned from him and towards the crowd. His body tensed in trepidation.

Jalia bowed to the crowd and then spun and threw so fast that everyone gasped. Len felt the shudder of the knife against the wood of the wall and then the sharp edge of the blade as his testicles dropped a fraction of an inch as he relaxed. The horror of how close he had come to losing his manhood caused him to relieve himself.

The crowd laughed as Len’s white trousers turned a darker color and urine ran down his leg and onto the floor to form a steaming pool.

The crowd cheered delightedly as Jalia bowed low to them, imitating Len’s bows perfectly.

“Luckily his balls are smaller than I expected, as my knife flew a little high,” she said to whoops of delight.

Len was pinned to the wall by his trousers. Jalia came over to retrieve her knife. When she put her hand onto her knife’s hilt, Len tried to stab her.

Len discovered Jalia carried more than one knife as she caught his in the guard of the knife in her left hand and pushed it back and up until it pressed against his throat.

“Now, let’s not be a sore loser.”

The crowd stood silent as they watched this final play between the contestants. Jalia calmly retrieved the knife in the wall.

“After all, you did win the pot fair and square.”

She released Len and stepped away, hands raised in the air and knife blades in her fingers so there could be no appearance of threatening him further.

Len dropped his knife and the crowd cheered. As he walked to retrieve his winnings, the men closest to it spat into the pot. The crowd milled around Jalia clapping her on the back.

Much later Jalia reappeared at her bedroom window and settled into her cot. Quieter than she could hear, Daniel sighed in relief and finally let sleep take him.

A cock crowed in the yard and its boisterous screech woke Daniel, bleary eyed from his sleep. He looked over to Jalia’s cot and saw it was empty. The bar on the door was in the open position so he presumed she was having her breakfast.

How she did it he would never know. She seemed to thrive on limited sleep and adventure while Daniel ended up tired out from nothing more than the chores of the day. It was unlikely today would prove quiet. His return to Delbon was long overdue and Yousef had never been patient, even when they were children.

Jalia had foregone breakfast and was in the stable saddling her horse, impatient to be off and into Delbon. She wore a veil she’d brought back from her evening in the tavern, though she couldn’t quite remember where she’d picked it up. Sometime after her eighth or ninth drink, she thought. She intended to wear it to disguise her from the City Guard.

To help with the disguise she’d changed into clothes a little more ladylike than usual. She harbored a suspicion that killing some of their number was not the sort of thing the Guard would forgive or forget.

The prospect of going into Delbon was making her uncharacteristically nervous and she planned to stay by Daniel’s side while he visited his brother, partly because he still didn’t seem to care what she did one way or the other. When he got down on his hands and knees and begged her to stay, well that was when she would leave. It was all a matter of pride.

She still felt guilty over nearly killing him. Nor could she get over his sudden ageing. Daniel stood six inches taller than her, when before the giants they had been the same height. He also looked older than her despite being a year younger. In Jalia’s view none of this was fair. The Fairie magic took away the round-faced compliant trader-boy she knew and had left her with an unfamiliar and uncompromising strong willed man.

If only she could persuade him to punish her she could use the pain to wipe away her guilt. Daniel was proving completely unreasonable about that as well. Jalia stamped her foot in a mixture of nervousness and annoyance. She would be glad when this day was over.

Daniel made his way down to the kitchen and bought breakfast. There were only a couple of other traders in the room and he didn’t recognize them. He was feeling nervous too, he’d made more money on this trip than he and Yousef had in their entire lives. He was far from sure his brother would appreciate it. Yousef’s accident had not improved his temper.

It was Yousef who sold the farm their parents owned and used the money to take up trading, and it was Yousef who wanted that life. Daniel would have been happy to have stayed on the farm and build something he could be proud of, but now it appeared he would always be a trader.

Magic was almost never seen in Jalon and he and Jalia had already encountered more of it than most people would encounter in a lifetime. Daniel had actually seen the Fairie twice, not counting his encounter with the sand fairies. When stories mentioned old gods it was always understood these were Fairie with human worshippers.

He was sure that a Fairie with the head of a bull had been a major god from legend, like the one he met in the woods. Clea’s name was the same as that of the Empress who started the war with the Magician Kings and he wondered if she was related to her. It seemed unlikely, though no one knew how long the Fairie lived.

With the help of a couple of the servants from the inn, Daniel moved his trade goods down to the stables. He had left Delbon with three donkeys, now he had seven and their increased numbers were only a small part of the wealth he had acquired.

He found Jalia waiting for him in the yard. Her horse had picked up on her nervousness and pranced impatiently. Daniel nodded, but did not smile. He would miss her when she was gone. Though she was trouble through and through and he was a little surprised she hadn’t left him already. After all, they had reached their destination.

Jalia let Daniel and the donkeys lead the way. She knew the size of his train would attract the Guards like flies to a honey pot as they tried to get the largest bribe they could to let him into the city. A woman on a horse was not as attractive as she might be a noble woman, and to try and extract money from a noble woman would be to risk censure.

As she expected, Daniel’s train attracted the guards’ attention and she was able to ride past the men as they pawed their way through his packs. No trader ever got into a city for free and Daniel was accustomed to the process. By the time he negotiated an acceptable sum with the Guards, Jalia had vanished into the city.

Daniel assumed she must have decided to leave, so he was a little surprised when he saw her riding behind him a few streets later.

Yousef was a thin man with a straggly black beard. Children taunted him because his gait frightened them. If he ever managed to catch them they would have found good reason for their fears. His pain had embittered him to the world.

Almost as soon as Daniel left Delbon Yousef found himself short of money. He was not a good gambler, but thought he was and this led to inevitable increases in his debts. He owed a great deal of money and the solution he found to keep his creditors from his door pricked at his conscience every day.

That morning he sat in a coffee shop and worried. He was sitting on a bright silk cushion he carried everywhere with him. To sit down without it caused him excruciating pain.

He worried because Daniel had been on the road for well over a year and his main creditor was getting increasingly impatient. If he and his magic dagger didn’t turn up soon that creditor might choose to extract payment from Yousef’s flesh.

Selling Daniel’s dagger behind his back was one thing, but Yousef had done something far worse. He tried to convince himself it was for Daniel’s own good. That he needed someone to tell him what to do, that he would be happier than being out on the road.

Yousef knew it was all a lie. It was just a way to justify that he was not a bad man. The truth was that he had no money and no prospects of earning any. He had sold the only things of value he still possessed, even though he didn’t really own any of them.

Yousef heard his name being called. The coffee shop was on one side of the market square. It was here that he and Daniel agreed to meet. Yousef stood up and grimaced at the pain that shot from the base of his spine and into his lungs. When he had his breath back he headed for the door, walking stick in one hand and cushion in the other, calling out Daniel’s name.

He didn’t recognize Daniel at first. The boy had grown into a man. Yousef’s eyes stared avariciously at the train of donkeys.
How had Daniel managed to buy as many as seven?
Yousef couldn’t imagine how it was done, but they would help him survive. He didn’t pay any attention to Jalia at the end of the train. It was beyond his imagining that such a noble lady could have anything to do with Daniel.

Yousef limped forward and hugged his brother warmly, “My dwelling is just a little way from here. Come, Daniel, let us make haste.” He led his brother from the market and through a narrow alley to the courtyard of a house he had bought on the promise of what his brother has sheathed on his belt.

Daniel didn’t question where his brother had found the money to pay for the house. He led his donkeys into the yard and started to tell Yousef how much money he had made.

“Yousef, I have been most successful. This should keep you in comfort for a considerable time.” Daniel passed his brother a heavy leather purse. It’s weight almost made Yousef regret the deal he’d made.

“Daniel can I borrow your dagger for a moment?”

Jalia had dismounted and was hidden behind the donkeys. She backed away as she sensed something was wrong. Daniel trusted his brother and gave him the dagger and its sheath without a second thought.

Yousef handed the dagger to the servant who had appeared from nowhere. He came with two burly men who stood either side of Daniel. The servant hurried away into the house.

Yousef clapped his hands and the men grabbed Daniel. Daniel stared at his brother in shock. Yousef spoke reassuringly as he began to struggle.

“Daniel, as your guardian I have indentured you to the Toxeth Clan. These are their men. They will take you to Glal Toxeth’s house and put the slave mark on your head. When you have the time to think about it, you’ll see this is the best for both of us. They will give you a life I could not afford and the money they pay me will enable me to survive. I’m sure you wouldn’t begrudge me that.”

Daniel spat in his brother’s eye. Yousef wiped his face and nodded to the men, who dragged Daniel away. He looked into the leather purse Daniel had given him and spotted the sparkle of gems and the glint of gold. He went into the cool of his house to investigate it further.

Jalia stood in the shadows and watched Daniel being dragged away. She would deal with that later she decided, first she had a theft to carry out.

She was furious at Yousef’s betrayal of his brother and was determined to recover Daniel’s money and dagger before she went to free him. If anyone was going to own that dagger apart from Daniel, it was going to be her. It certainly wasn’t going to end up with some low-life in Delbon.

Jalia had heard Yousef say Daniel was going to be branded, but she knew if she lost sight of Daniel’s dagger or money she might never see them again. Some things had to be put above mere facial cosmetics.

Yousef’s house was dark. Jalia waited just inside the door until her eyes adjusted enough to allow her to sneak through it. Though she regretted the delay, there was too much risk she would stumble over something if she didn’t.

After a couple of minutes with her eyes closed she found she could see well enough to locate and sidle passed the servant who took the dagger. He was in the kitchen preparing coffee and freshly cut fruit. Beyond the kitchen was a large room that was cool despite the oppressing heat outside. Yousef sat on a high backed chair pouring over the contents of the purse. He had them laid out on a table and was busy sorting the coins and gems into piles.

Just beyond the money on the table was Daniel’s dagger, which Yousef had unsheathed. The impossibly sharp blade glimmered in the dim light. Jalia considered running Yousef through with her sword. She calculated it would pass through the woven back of his chair without problem and into his back.

The problem with that plan was Daniel. He had shown unreasonable loyalty to his treacherous brother and might be upset if she killed him. Jalia dithered in an unusual state of inner conflict, well aware that time was passing and she ought to be rescuing Daniel. Finally her indecision became too much for her to live with and she drew her sword, advancing on Yousef, who was blissfully unaware as he counted his unexpected fortune.

Jalia stepped in front of him, her sword pressed against his throat in a smooth action.

“Take the money thief and spare me my humble life,” Yousef whispered hoarsely, scared that even talking might cause the sword to cut.

“It is you that is the thief, stealing money from your own brother and selling him into slavery. You should be ashamed.” Jalia also whispered, well aware of the servant only a room away.

“You know Daniel?” Yousef could hardly believe that a girl of such beauty and dangerous fire could be Daniel’s friend.
 
Daniel never had any contact with girls.

“I’m his best friend.” Jalia said as she took the dagger from the table.

“That dagger is promised to an important man. If you take it from me he will kill me.”

“You should have thought of that before you betrayed Daniel.”

Jalia scooped the money and most of the gems into the purse. “Keep the change,” she said as she headed for the door.

Yousef gasped in relief as the sword left his throat. He knew better than to call for his servant, this girl would kill them both for sure. He had seen the look in her eyes.

As she reached the door, Jalia had a thought. She turned back towards Yousef, sword in hand.