Blood and Steel: Legends of La Gaul, Volume 1 Page 11

  Gorias stepped forward as Ryss kicked a few of the girls away. Ryss wrestled them off his back fast. A couple of the kids hit the ground in front of Gorias, thus slowing his progress to get Ryss. One of the girls kicked off her sandal, put her thin hand through it, timed the shot and let Ryss turn his head toward her. She swung, connecting with Ryss’ nose, breaking it austerely, causing blood to spray across the other girls. Baptized in blood, the kids fought on.

  Angered, Ryss drew a knife from his tunic and swung at the tall teen, but she leaned back, avoiding the shot. Wading through little bodies, Ryss forgot the girl and staggered, grabbing at the Queen anew, first by the hem of her gown and then a handful of her thigh. Ryss held the Queen in a headlock, his left arm about her head, the curved dirk aimed toward her throat with his right hand.

  Garnet never cried out, instead she punched Ryss in his already bloodied nose. Many might’ve figured her to slap him. Gorias didn’t think that, however, for he knew she had great fortitude. All of her pluck and girls near her couldn’t stop Ryss from pulling her near to hold a knife to her throat.

  Thynnes swore, “Dammit, big hero, why didn’t you get in there?”

  Gorias could’ve asked him the same thing. He didn’t believe Ryss would really slay her straight away, so he gambled, but didn’t explain that to Thynnes. “I’m here to deliver the preamble of the great Codex to the Queen, and all of these dead Prytens are just gravy to the bill,” Gorias spoke loud; making sure the man with desperate eyes heard him declare.“of Gorias La Gaul.”

  The girls receded, all staring at the man holding their monarch, save for the girl who struck him in the nose. She studied Gorias, head tilted, quizzically.

  Ryss snarled, “Back off, La Gaul.”

  Thynnes switched his sword to his left hand and held up his right. “Easy, Ryss.”

  Gorias walked in closer, but stopped a few yards from him. “There’s nowhere to go.”

  “I’ll kill her,” he promised, jowls shaking a little, his taut face covered in a shield of sweat.

  “Go ahead,” Gorias told him with shrug as crows cried out overhead. “If ya do, only my word will tell the tale of what happens today. I’ll get rich either way, but Garnet dead or no, get something straight, asshead…” Still gripping the pommel of his sword, Gorias pointed at him. “…you are gonna die.”

  “Big words. I hold the life of the Queen in my hands. An heir, the princess, will soon be in the arms of my Pryten allies. Things are going to change around this land, La Gaul, my Queen, Tancorix, will sit on the throne of Transalpina and you all will die, now back off!”

  “I don’t give a damn, I’m not from here.” Gorias cleared his throat. “Now do it for the luvva God. I ain’t gettin’ any younger.”

  A puzzled look in his eyes, Ryss realized too late Gorias didn’t speak to him. Gorias’ eyes focused on the face of Garnet.

  Ryss’ body coiled as pain wound through his body, emanating from his groin. The queen stabbed her long nailed fingers into her holder’s crotch and turned, making him move a few inches in his hold on her, enough for Garnet to drive her teeth into the hand holding the dirk. Amid the shouts and lurching moves of Ryss, Gorias charged, swords falling from his hands. His left grabbed the wrist of the hand Garnet still bit into. He squeezed and felt bones give way. Ryss’ fingers opened and the grip on the dirk loosened. A swinging right fist connected with Ryss’ left eye. Gorias wasn’t sure if he broke the orbital bone there, but something pushed in under his touch. After he struck Ryss, he let his fist go flat and slapped over the top of the Queen’s head. A firm grip on her locked in, Gorias took her scalp and moved her out of Ryss’ arms.

  Garnet flew back from the scene to the arms of General Thynnes. Gorias didn’t release Ryss’ wrist. “Done in by a woman,” Gorias jeered him and gathered a handful of Ryss’ velvet tunic, lifting his face up to meet a scorching stare. “Why the hell should you be any different?” Gorias kneed him in the groin and then swiped Ryss’ trembling legs from under him, his hold still on the man’s wrist. Ryss sprawled and Gorias held on, spiraling the arm and breaking the wrist at a crude angle. A few of the soldiers gasped as Gorias climbed on Ryss’ back and secured a knee into the busted wrist. Ryss’ screams muffled in the dirt as the big legend fixed him down.

  “La Gaul,” said Garnet as she tried to compose her breathing as she braced herself on the armored General protecting her. “Go easy, that’s my kith and kin.”

  Gorias drove his knee into the busted wrist with more force and clenched a handful of Ryss’ wavy hair. “Not any more he ain’t.” Ryss’ face arose from the earth when Gorias yanked his head back, but took care not to fracture his neck. “Son in law, huh? I’ve heard of hating the mother in law, but this massacre takes the cake.”

  Garnet murmured, “We expected a plot…” She then cleared her throat and stood tall, her vitality returning, a regal method oozing from every pore. Even though in a blood stained full-length dress, Garnet stepped away from Thynnes a pace, hands together like mating spiders in front of her. “A scheme was in the air.” Her voice, sturdy and prevailing, made one of the troopers take a knee. Another felt sheepish so he knelt, too.

  Turak sucked wind over by a stone altar, pushed off a corpse and sat down, his hand wiping blood from his baldhead.

  “From your own son in law? That is sweet,” Gorias faced the man under his weight. “Ain’t it?”

  “We’ll have your grand daughter,” Ryss huffed. “The princess will be in the court of Tancorix in the Pryten wilderness within a day. The child will grow up with the savages and be a cannibal like all men should. You can kill me

  “I will,” Gorias promised as Thynnes beheaded one of the wizards stuck to the logs, ending his misery.

  “…but the victory is only blunted,” Ryss coughed and giggled. “All of your heirs will soon vanish and you will be a victim of the desires of Pergamus.”

  At the mention of the name, Gorias got off Ryss and turned him over. Hands on Ryss’ chest, Gorias shouted, “What the hell did you say? Pergamus? Talk to me!”

  “Burn in Hell, La Gaul.”

  “Hopefully not, but yer gonna see it before me.” Gorias got up and used Ryss’ chest to stand on, making him wretch and squirm. Ryss couldn’t escape under Gorias’ boot. “Ma’am, where’s your granddaughter?”

  Her face unyielding, still as a statue speaking, Garnet answered, “At the royal home on the coast.”

  “The hunting lodge one where your papa used to breed horses?” Gorias could’ve added, and many of the maids, but he held his tongue.

  “Yes. Do you think he tells the truth?”

  “I’m gonna find out.” He took his boot off Ryss, who quickly curled into the fetal position. “Hell, might be too late, but I’ll get there as fast as Traveler can take me. It’s not far.”

  “Gorias if they have her…”

  He picked up his blades, wiping them off on Ryss’ trousers before placing them back in the scabbards. “I’ll get her back if I have to travel to the Pryten wilderness and kill ol’ Tancorix herself.”

  Thynnes grunted before he added, “You’ll need an army to do that.”

  “I might. We’ll see. First things first.”

  Gorias reached to his side and pressed a series of snaps, opening a seam in his armor. He reached his hand inside with difficulty, grimacing to get at what he wanted. In a moment, Gorias withdrew out a shiny object all looked at in the daylight.

  “That it? The damned preamble to the codex?” Thynnes asked, taking many breaths, his sword planted in the ground.

  “The copper scroll of Hengest, the preamble to the great book of Zenghaus, lost for eons, kept by the Oracle of Wodan not far from Bospurus.”

  Garnet gave it scant attention. “No scroll, no magick makers could stop the hands of fate. Would that all wizards were burned and destroyed.”

  Gorias chuckled.
“I thought maybe the Prytens came out after the scroll, as ya said it’d be here for the ceremony today.”

  The Queen rolled her eyes. “They wanted me dead. You over estimate your importance.”

  Thynnes interjected, “But I think they attacked before Gorias got here, figuring he’d be trouble if already there.”

  Garnet looked to the northwest like she could behold the Pryten wilderness. “War over the life of the princess?”

  General Thynnes bowed his head to her and sucked in a breath. “Give that order, mum, and the army would be happy to root them out for you.”

  Garnet turned to Gorias. “What say you?”

  “My words don’t matter, I’m just a hired hand, leave me out of this local crap.” He waved the scroll. “Sorry I showed up late. Reckon this doesn’t matter any more.”

  “Not really.”

  Gorias shrugged and rolled up the scroll again. “Somebody will want it if you guys don’t need it for the incantation and blessing.”

  “How many had to die for that scroll?”

  “None, Ma’am,” Gorias confessed, adjusting the snaps to his armor. “The Oracle of Wodan, Ivor, is an old friend. He handed it over to me as he felt it lacked importance.”

  Garnet’s nose flared. “That was a flippant thing for this Oracle to do.”

  “He doesn’t believe in your gods,” said Gorias as the Queen turned away, looking at the last man still alive adhered to the wooden beams. He wagered her faith pretty slight about then, too. Gorias thought of putting the last wizard out of his misery, but noticed Cyrus and Nahum flipped a coin to decide who’d do it.

  Ryss leapt up and reached out with his left hand for the scroll. He clasped the edge of it, but a chop from Gorias’ left hand smashed Ryss back to the turf. The scroll fell to the ground while Gorias delivered an open handed slap across the face, buckling Ryss at the knees.

  Thynnes picked up the scroll and squinted at the characters on the document.

  Garnet watched him read and spoke in a strident voice, clear enough for the survivors and soldiers to hear. “There was nothing clandestine in Lord La Gaul’s appearance. Many were aware that he would bring the fabled preamble to the Codex for the ceremony for Eostre. The event would heighten in its importance, which is why so many of the royals came out just to see him.” She stared at Thynnes who still read. “Men would kill for what you hold, General, and pay dearly to have it. Imagine, an impossibly rare document like that in the possession of a monarch, exclusive to what it says, a dearly revelatory experience for the one who keeps it.”

  Facing the sky, his right hand shielding his eyes from the sun, Gorias commented, “The holder of that could dispel a great many myths about various faiths and start a new form of devotion if they so chose.”

  “Yes,” Thynnes nodded. “I think that’d be so.”

  Gorias cracked his knuckles, eyes shut, recalling exactly what the scroll said: “Dear Gorias La Gaul. A great scheme to assassinate the royal family of Transalpina is underway. I cannot tell who the usurpers are, but I have a wicked suspicion my son-in-law, Ryss, is among them. I’ve not trusted him since the death of my daughter’s first husband on the hunt in Albion. Please attend the festival of Lammas and get them into the open. We shall say you’re bringing me the fabled lost preamble to the Codex of Zenghaus. They will fear the revelations therein and strike. They are surely controlled by religious fanatics across the channel. If not, they’ll be the first agnostics to want to seize a throne. I have my loyal guards, but any plotters will be after you and the idea of a consecrated scroll. They have a stratagem, my ears on the wall say, but I cannot tell when it will be executed. Hopefully, this will force their hand. If I am wrong, then we will have to figure another strategy. You will be well compensated. G.P.”

  Thynnes cleared his throat and rubbed his fingers together, feeling Gorias’ blood that had tainted the scroll. “Thanks for bringing this, Gorias.” He handed it to the Queen. “You better keep that, Mum. I wouldn’t feel right about holding it.”

  Eyes on the General, Gorias wondered, “So, what do ya think, Thynnes? That sound like the word a’God to you?”

  Scratching his cheek above where his beard terminated, Thynnes fell silent for a few moments. “Yeah. Not everyone needs to know such things.”

  “What’s with all of the little girls?” Gorias asked Thynnes, gesturing with his right hand at the girls meandering around but shadowing the Queen, changing the subject.

  Turak sucked on his flask, leaned back on the altar and said, “They must belong to the dead aristocrats here for the ceremony. Sure a lot of them came out for the ceremony of dedication. Probably bloodier than they counted on, huh?”

  Thynnes shot him a poisonous look then faced Gorias. “You keep bizarre company.”

  “Just another hired hand met on the road, he isn’t my brother.”

  Garnet rolled up the scroll and slid it into her sleeve as Gorias rubbed at a few of the splotches of blood on his face, smudging them worse, but accenting his weathered face in the sunlight.

  Thynnes informed him, “These are the daughters of General Appra. I think he has twenty of them and no sons.”

  “Huh. Where’s the General? I haven’t seen in him in decades.”

  “He’s not a palace sentinel, but the ol’ boy is dying.”

  “A shame, but his daughters stuck by their Queen, bless ‘em.” He watched as Nahum and other soldiers took count of the dead citizens, who came for a religious ceremony and to kiss the Queen’s ass, but ended up worm food. “Too bad the aristocracy ate it so hard, but they fought well in death.”

  Thynnes frowned. “On the bright side, they cleared out a buttload of snobs.”

  The Queen turned fast to face her General. “Many were members of the royalty family, however distant. Where is my daughter? Is she among the dead? I cannot even tell you who my only heir is now. Perhaps Princess Nykia is the last one left.”

  Cyrus stepped up, saluted, and announced, “She was at the bottom of the hill with the guys that tried to stop us, sir. Remember?”

  Thynnes’ look didn’t improve. “Yes, soldier, I recall.”

  Cyrus pulled his baldric off, bowed to the Queen and then stepped close to Gorias. He opened his mouth but didn’t speak.

  “What?”

  “Is it true your swords came from an angel’s wings?”

  Gorias glared at the Cyrus and exhaled noisily. “Is it true your daddy wanted a son?”

  He turned and heard Thynnes admonish the soldier. “Don’t ask Lord La Gaul about that nonsense or dragons, you damned idiot!”

  Meekly, the soldier replied, “Because he killed so many?”

  Thynnes replied, “Because he killed the last one.”

  The tallest of the girls knelt by the dead snakes, her brown eyes soon caught Gorias’ gaze. She asked him, “aren’t snakes blind?”

  “That’s the idea, I think,” he replied and turned from Ryss.

  “Why are the eyes blue and like a person?”

  Gorias squatted to his haunches as he checked the bodies close to her. “Valid question. I don’t think they are snakes proper, like something in the jungle or even the striped bull snakes around these parts.” He pointed to the body of the Pryten shaman that fell face up. “See the marks on her teats?”

  Garnet admonished him. “La Gaul, Alena’s a baby girl.”

  Alena’s eyes filled with curiosity where Gorias indicated. “There are holes by her tips.”

  “Yeah on her nipples,” Gorias said and winked at Garnet, who grimaced and faced away from them. “That shaman has marked between her boobs, too. This thing here fed off her, probably her soul too. Witches have an extra teat on them to suckle the Devil, that’s an old wives tale, but the port is to really feed blood directly to their creations.”

  Alena blinked and stood, her bare foot nudging the
split tail of one of the dead snakes. “Look at the ends of those double tails. They have five little bumps like toes.”

  “Ya got better eyes than me, missy,” Gorias declared. “If they’re growing feet and had eyes like people, glad I killed them.” He ruffled her hair. “I’ll tell that to the next old wife I see.”

  Alena took the lacy scarf from her head and doubled it over in her hand. She applied it to Gorias’ blood soaked beard on the right side.

  Gorias put his hand on hers and his blood ran through his brushy beard and wetted both of their hands. “Thanks.”

  “Does it hurt?” Alena quizzed him and patted his wet beard.

  Gorias winked. “Kinda. Ya get used to pain.”

  Alena bit her bottom lip and then stared at her scarlet colored fingers. “Will you be all right?”

  “Probably not, but I ain’t lucky enough to die easy.” Gorias reached down and took Ryss’ broken wrist. “Yer comin’ along for the ride, son-in-law.”

  Not caring how much Ryss screamed, Gorias dragged him to the bottom of the hill, he threw him down by Traveler and started to dig in his saddlebags.

  The short soldier Yavin emerged from a wooded area nearby carrying a body nearly twice his size.

  The Queen, helped down the hill by Alena, hurried over to Yavin. “Atirs, my daughter, the mother of the princess.”

  Yavin showed no fatigue for his burden. “I thought she fled in terror, but she drew a knife and tried to kill me. I let her run, what could I do, mum?”

  Tongue out of her mouth, Atirs’ chest lay still. Gorias saluted the small soldier not just for his strength in his task, but the guts to present a corpse to the Queen and not piss himself.

  No tears in her eyes or voice, the Queen asked, “What happened?”

  “She drank something.” A small ceramic vial fell from Yavin’s grip from under Atirs’ back. He lay her down on the long grasses. “She’s gone.” Yavin bowed his head, snatched up the vial and offered it to Thynnes.

  The General sniffed it. “I’m no judge of poisons. We should ask the herbalist Yannick on that one.”