Jalia in the North (Jalia - World of Jalon) (14 page)

Ambush

Daniel and Jalia found the guests of the Jumping Trout in a state of some excitement. Wild rumors were flying around the city, including one that the city was under attack by giants. As the latest returnees to the safety of the hostelry, they were able to reassure people that this wasn’t the case, and that the bridge and the prison had suffered major damage, cause unknown.

Mart came to them about an hour after they returned. He wasted no time, inviting them into his office to talk.

“You could have told me what you were going to do. That way we would have been prepared,” he complained to Daniel, coming close to shouting at him.

“That assumes we had a master plan. We hadn’t worked it out that well. We agreed I would go and see if Tynes was willing to be reasonable. I arrived at their headquarters unarmed so they would take me to their prison, should they act as we expected they would. Jalia went ahead to scout the prison layout and plant some alchemist’s powder we happened to have with us. If she saw I was a captive, she was to set off the powder and help me escape in the confusion.”

“What about blowing up the bridge while most of Tynes men were on the other side?” Mart asked.

“Well the backup plan was to blow up the bridge to sow confusion. When we saw the guards rushing over the bridge, blowing it up then and there seemed like a good idea.”

“You mean you didn’t carefully plan this?”

“Complicated plans go wrong,” Jalia said as she looked out of the window and waved at Tynes men who stood looking towards her from the other side of the river. A number of crossbow bolts fired and she closed the shutters just before the bolts thudded into them. “They don’t seem happy to be stuck over there.”

Mart laughed grimly. “The guards over here have fared worse. A number of concerned citizens relieved them of their weapons and now man the city gates in their stead.”

“So you have your city back,” Daniel said as he put his feet up on Mart’s desk, “We’re always happy to help out.”

“Captain a’Dant has been seen on our side of the bridge and he is a formidable fighter. He has a lot of people worried.”

Captain Malfa a’Dant will not be causing you any problems,” Jalia said. “He was last seen trying to hold his guts off the ground, not to mention his testicals.”

“Jalia was a little annoyed with him over his behavior the previous night.” Daniel said in explanation. “What will Baron Tynes do now?”

Mart sat down on the edge of his desk and sighed, “It all depends on where he has stashed all the money. If it is on the west side of the river, I suspect he will collect it and head down the Magicians Road towards Ballis.”

“It isn’t, it’s on this side,” Jalia said with utter certainty.

“How can you be sure?”

“Good question,” Daniel said looking at Jalia through narrowed eyes, “Had we been here a few days I would expect you to know where every item of wealth was stored, but we have yet to be here a full day.”

“Firstly, if he had hid it in the headquarters he would have to be looking over his shoulders every day, in case one of his loyal guards decided to relieve him of the burden.” Jalia counted off on her fingers, “Secondly, anywhere he went on that side of the river would be seen as business and his men would have watched him to try and find out where the money was hidden…” Jalia paused.

“But that isn’t proof…” Daniel started to say.

“And thirdly, he would not be jumping up and down on the other side of what is left of the bridge cursing and swearing.” Jalia concluded, nodding towards the shuttered window. The two men went to the shutters and cautiously peeped out. Just as Jalia had said, Baron Tynes was on the far river bank cursing and stamping his feet to the point of apoplexy.

“Now that is a convincing argument,” Daniel said, returning to his chair.

“He will come across the river to retrieve his money and if he is going to do that, he may as well try to retake the city,” Jalia stated and the men didn’t disagree with her reasoning.

“Is there any way he can cross the river within the city walls?” Daniel asked Mart who had sat down and looked dispirited.

“No, the river moves too fast. The ancients had some way to control the flow and they preferred the river be deep and narrow here, but these days it flows in dangerous torrents for eight months of the year.”

“Is there anywhere upstream they could cross?” Jalia asked

“There is not. Wherever they try to cross they will end up to the north of the city and will have to enter through the eastern entrance.”

“That would bring them to the same entrance we came in, which is protected by an inner keep,” Daniel said.

“Well that makes it easy then,” Jalia said, grinning from ear to ear.

Later that night, Jalia nodded off in front of a roaring wood fire. She had been busy through the afternoon, helping Mart and Daniel rehearse the new citizens’ militia for the task ahead. They blocked the stairs in the keep.

As darkness fell, they had to rely on the light of torches to see four covered wagons approaching the gate. Unusually, children with their mothers walked in front of the wagons through the falling snow.

“Travelers seeking shelter for the night!” one of the women called. Once the sun had set travelers were usually locked out of a city, but there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. It would take a cold hearted man to leave women and children to spend the night outside.

Daniel motioned for the man on the outer gate to let the wagons in and signaled to the other men on the ground to follow the plan. The inner keep had two gates, an outer one and the other giving access into the city. There was a walkway running above the keep where Daniel and Jalia stood waiting.

The steps up to the walkway were currently unusable as they had been blocked off with stones and rubble. The only access to the walkway was from the city wall.

The men ran to the outer gate, and, as soon as the last wagon was through, they stepped outside the gates and pushed them shut before disappearing into the night.

Up on the walls, ropes dropped and twenty five men with crossbows descended outside the city wall to join their comrades. They took up positions with their crossbows pointing at the outer gate.

Tynes’ guards poured out of the wagons with crossbows at the ready and fired at the men standing on the walkway. The militia ducked behind barricades they erected earlier in the day and the crossbow bolts embedded themselves into the barriers.

In the keep below, Baron Tynes rallied his men as he leapt from one of the wagons. They rounded up the women and children. Tynes had over a dozen men with him, which was more than Daniel and Jalia had anticipated, but other than that, everything was working out much as expected.

“If you surrender now, you will get a fair trial. No one will be punished simply for doing his job,” Daniel called to the men below. Some of them looked at their compatriots gauging opinion. They signed up to be mercenaries, not martyrs.

“The first man who surrenders will be cut down where he stands,” Baron Tynes said loudly, drawing his sword. “You have the high ground, but if you move beyond those shields my men will kill you. And we can leave any time we want.”

Daniel sighed, he had hoped Tynes would accept defeat, but there hadn’t been time to cut arrow slots into the hastily cobbled together barricades and it looked as though Tynes was going to be difficult.

“Why don’t you check on that escape route?” Daniel shouted to him.

Tynes sent one of his men to the outer gate. As soon as he started to open it a hail of arrows shot through the gap, one of them hitting the man in the arm. He pushed the gate shut before collapsing.

“Nobody has been killed yet, Tynes. Shall we keep it that way?” Daniel shouted once again. “The inner keep gate is barricaded and your men will never get through it. You have lost, admit it.”

Baron Tynes snarled in anger. “We have a standoff, and I have a dozen women and children as hostages. Will you watch me kill them one by one?”

“If you do that we shall throw burning brushwood down on you,” Daniel said, making the plan up as he went along. “The stone of the keep won’t burn, but you and your men certainly will.”

Jalia darted between two of the barricades dodging crossbow bolts so she could hold a conference with Daniel.

“We missed that he might use hostages,” she whispered.

“Who would have thought he could find so many so quickly? We just got unlucky.”

“What about using your dagger?”

“Only as a last resort, I can’t command so it only kills the enemy.”

“It might work if you use the right words.”

“I’m not risking it until we have no other alternative.”

“Are you going to whisper to yourselves all night?” Baron Tynes shouted, “Send out your champion and we shall see who deserves to run this city.”

That was such an absurd idea that it took Daniel a moment to realize that Baron Tynes was being serious about it.

“We might let you go, if you were to beat our champion,” Daniel extemporized.

“With all my gold?” Tynes shouted back.

“If you were to tell us where to find it.”

Tynes shouted out instructions to retrieve his gold and Daniel signaled to Mart to go and get it. Mart headed off with several men.

“And if our champion was to win, you will surrender?”

“Of course,” Tynes said, and laughed. “However, I have never been beaten in a fight.”

“This is absurd,” Jalia snarled. “Let’s just loose our arrows at them and end this now.”

“A lot of innocent women and children will be killed.”

“You can’t always save everyone,” Jalia replied glumly.

Duel

It took half an hour to collect the money, which was stored in a large chest. Mart had the chest brought up to the wall to where Baron Tynes could see it.

“I’ll fight you,” Daniel said, “And if I lose, you’ll get your money.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“What choice do you have?”

Daniel stepped in front of the barricade and jumped down into the keep.

Tynes laughed in anticipation of the coming kill. He wore breast plate and helmet and Daniel was in his normal clothes. Daniel’s sword appeared ridiculously short compared with the one Tynes wielded. Tynes men lowered their crossbows and prepared to watch. For them, this was close to a win-win situation in that either they would leave with the money or they would surrender and avoid a fight, and be let go in the end. Very few of them had committed any crime beyond working for Tynes.

Daniel and Tynes walked warily around one another, neither willing to commit to an attack that would open their guard. Daniel saw that Baron Tynes was trained in swordsmanship. This wasn’t going to be an easy win like Jalia’s fight with Captain a’Dant. Thinking of a’Dant gave Daniel an idea.

“Have you wondered where your brave Captain is?”

“You have him in some lockup I imagine.”

“No, he’s dead.”

“I expect you are going to tell me you killed him next?” Tynes sneered.

“I couldn’t be bothered, so Jalia gutted him.”

The loss of concentration Daniel had been playing for happened. Tynes looked away from Daniel for half a second and gazed upwards at Jalia who stuck her tongue out in response. She knew what Daniel was up to and did her best to put Tynes off.

Daniel’s sword slipped through Tynes guard and cut the man in the arm before Tynes reflexes took over and he parried Daniel’s sword.

“That’s the trouble with military men. They just haven’t got the concentration of a trader.”

Tynes started a vicious attack, forcing Daniel on the defense as he rained down a stream of blows. The two men parted after a minute of swordplay that left them sweating, but Tynes was losing blood from the cut on his arm and his sword hand was slippery with it.

“Your girlfriend won’t like it when I gut you.”

“Why don’t you ask her,” Daniel said with a grin, but Tynes kept his eyes on Daniel. Being fooled once was once too often, and he didn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Did you do this for the gold?” Tynes asked as the two once again shadowed each other, neither willing to commit to what could prove a fatal move.

“We did this because you wouldn’t be reasonable. If you had halved the tax we would have paid it and gone on our way.”

Daniel spoke with such conviction that Tynes knew he was telling the truth. This situation was his fault for being too greedy. The weight of that thought plus the things he had been through that day made him feel tired. Crossing the river by raft had been a nightmare and he lost three of his men doing it. Life had been so simple this morning.

Tynes suddenly awoke from his reverie with pain as Daniels sword slipped around his breastplate and pierced him in the side. He staggered back and the world began to go black.

Daniel looked down on the Baron’s fallen form without any sympathy. He looked around at the Baron’s men and found they had placed their crossbows on the ground and held their hands in the air.

After the prisoners were taken away, Daniel was besieged by the women hostages. It soon became clear that Baron Tynes had left their menfolk tied up in the snow. Unless someone went to rescue them, they would soon perish.

Daniel found himself faced with crying women while their children pulled piteously at his trousers and begged him to rescue their fathers.

Jalia looked on from a safe distance and was amused that Daniel seemed unable to get away from the women. She was less amused when he ordered one of the men to turn the last wagon and climbed on board with one of the hostages. Moments later, they headed out into the night while the other women and children shouted encouragement. Not only was it dark mere yards beyond the gate, but a blizzard had started and visibility was close to zero.

Daniel wasn’t sure he had done the right thing and he knew that Jalia would be furious with him. He was exhausted, but it was either try to rescue the men or to have his heart torn apart by the cries of their children. At least it was quiet on the road.

The snow fell so fast that Daniel could barely see the horse he was directing. The woman he had asked to come and show him where the men were left was in her early twenties. She had found a blanket in the back of the wagon to shelter them from the worst of the snow and peered out into the night as if she could actually see where they were going.

“The city was in sight when we were taken,” She told him. “It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“My name is Talla,” she said as she grabbed the reigns from him to steer the wagon to the right.

“Daniel.”

“That was brave of you, to fight Baron Tynes, he was so much bigger than you.”

“The phrase you were looking for was ‘stupid of you’ but I wanted to try to keep the number of people killed to a minimum.”

“I’ll take you to the others; this is not a stupid thing.” Talla wiped the melting snow from his face.

“How can you know the way in this?” Daniel waved at the storm.

“Because I am desperate,” she said and steered the wagon further right.

After ten more minutes, she told him to stop the wagons and went out alone on foot. She was gone for what seemed a long time to Daniel and he lost sight of her the second she stepped down from the wagon. Then he heard her voice calling him and drove the wagon towards her voice. The horse came to a stop as Talla grabbed his head.

“They are here, but they are bound. Have you a knife?”

Daniel got down from the wagon and they staggered through the thick snow and cutting wind to where men lay on the ground. Daniel cut the ropes binding them, but the men were too weak to get to the wagon unassisted. By the time the men were in the wagon, Daniel was barely able to move because of the cold.

Talla pushed him into the back of the wagon and took the reins. She started back towards where she thought Taybee was, but she had lost her bearings and hesitantly urged on the horse, hoping she had the direction right.

An apparition covered in dark fur and riding a nearly invisible horse appeared from nowhere.

“You’re heading the wrong way,” Jalia shouted at her. Swift’s grey form was invisible to Talla. It was as if a dark furry girl rode the storm itself. “And if Daniel isn’t in the back of your wagon, you are going to wish I hadn’t found you.”

“He is,” Talla shouted, but Jalia ignored her. She had taken control of the horse pulling the wagon and turned it far to the left.
 
The wagon picked up its pace as Jalia guided them home.

Talla, who had been so certain as to where the men were, was left wondering how Jalia could move so fast and surely when absolutely nothing could be seen at all.

Jalia took them back to the eastern gate of the city; her sense of direction over such a short distance was close to infallible. Her only worry was that the wagon might hit a large stone, or a hole in the road, and be damaged.

The gate opened before they reached them. Mart peered out into the night between the iron bars of the observation window and had men standing ready at the gate. There had been considerable betting in the last few minutes, with most of the money on the bet that none of those that ventured out would return.

Jalia kept the wagon moving through the city and only stopped it when they were inside the stable of the Jumping Trout. She pulled Daniel from the wagon as people from the hostelry rushed to assist the other men. She carried Daniel to a prime position in front of the roaring fire of the common room and stripped his wet clothes from him without regard to anybody watching, or his modesty.

Similar things were being done for the other victims, but Jalia paid no attention. Only when she had dry clothes on Daniel and a warming drink in his hand did she pay attention to what was going on around her.

Two of the men Daniel rescued were dead. The seven remaining lay on blankets scattered across the floor. Talla and others were seeing to the living and giving them broth.

A short time later, bedlam broke out as women and children were reunited with their men. Jalia helped Daniel to his feet and took him back to their room where she put him to bed. She built up the fire in the room and then slept naked alongside him to warm his body. He had a chill and despite the warmth in the room, he never fully warmed through the night.

Next morning the Jumping Trout was in chaos. Two more of the remaining survivors had died during the night and Mart had gone to the local undertaker to get him to take the bodies. Daniel was too weak to move and Jalia went down to the common room to fetch him breakfast.

Emotions were high, with women and children weeping and wailing over the dead. Jalia had a plate full of food for Daniel and was leaving the room when she noticed Talla sitting on a chair and staring into the fire.

“I’m sorry for the threat I made against you last night. Daniel was exhausted and should never have gone out with you. I was worried for him.”

“I understand,” Talla said, giving Jalia a wan smile. “There didn’t seem to be any fresh heroes ready to go, so it was Daniel or no one.”

“How is your man?”

“He died during the night. Jord and I had been together for five years. We weren’t blessed with children, but we had many good times. We left Telmar after the miners took over the city. It’s no longer a place you can farm. My parents were killed by raiders’ only days after we decided to leave.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Not as sorry as I am.”

Talla turned to stare into the fire and Jalia took the food up to Daniel.

Daniel’s chill got worse over the next few days. Winter had set in with a vengeance, and there was no possibility they could have left if they had wanted to.

Mart offered Daniel the position of chief of the city. The council of elders had met and decided he was the kind of man to lead them. Daniel was far too weak to accept or decline so Jalia declined the role on his behalf. She suggested Mart should run the city and the elders thought that was a good idea.

While Daniel recovered, Jalia helped Mart and the council of elders with their plans to join the two halves of the city back together. A rope bridge was set up between the ends of the broken bridge and Jalia helped them plan and execute the creation of a wooden bridge using the old arches. Jalia was excellent at organization when she wanted to be and had a natural gift for knowing what would work, and what wouldn’t.

By the time Daniel was on his feet and could risk going outside, the new bridge was in place.

Daniel had many meetings with the council of elders and suggested that in the spring they should restart the farms on the western side of the river. If they patrolled the east side of the river and to north of the city, raiders couldn’t get any goods they had stolen across the river to Telmar. Once they realized that, they would cease to raid the farms, as there would be no profit in it.

Jalia spent the remainder of the winter month’s playing cards and rolling dice. She was too well known in the city to be able to win any real money, but there were always players who wanted to see if she was as good as was claimed, and she made a significant profit from exhibition games, especially after Daniel suggested she should charge spectators for the privilege of watching.

Daniel and Jalia became good friends with Talla, who now worked for Mart in the Jumping Trout. When the first melt waters of spring appeared they knew it was time to leave.

Daniel traded many goods over the winter. He was short of spices, but wealthy in the things miners needed. He refused to accept any of Tynes gold, which was being used to finance the guarding of the eastern banks of the river and to buy animals and grain for the farms. Daniel wasn’t sure if Jalia accepted any money from the elders. As usual, he felt it prudent not to ask.

Ferd and the other donkeys had got fat and lazy over the winter. Ferd protested loudly when Daniel loaded him and his fellows with his new trade goods. Jalia and Daniel felt heavy hearted as they made their way back to the eastern gate for the last time. They had made many friends in the months they had been in Taybee.