Jalia in the North (Jalia - World of Jalon) (7 page)

Daniel and Jalia dismounted and paid a man standing beside a number of horses to guard theirs as well. They pushed their way through the throng until they were close to the platform.

There was an enclosed area in front of the platform with only a small number of men standing within it. A quick question to a man in the crowd informed Jalia that the area was reserved for the big bidders. A few moments later, she confronted a mountain of a man with an enormous wooden club in his hand, who stood blocking the way into the enclosure.

“We are bidders,” Jalia told him.

“Only Drefuss can say who gets in,” the man mountain told her.

“Can I kill him?” Jalia asked Daniel. The mountain of a man laughed good naturedly at Jalia’s comment and Daniel mentally removed him from the list of potential survivors.

“What’s the problem, Narg?” a well-dressed man asked as he moved across the platform towards them.

“They want into the bidders’ area, Drefuss.”

Drefuss looked at Daniel and Jalia with open curiosity. His first glance told him these young people were not only armed, but well capable of using the weapons they carried.

“Why should I even consider…” he began, only to be interrupted by a bag of money flying through the air. He caught it and was impressed by its weight. He didn’t look inside. He threw the bag back to Jalia and ordered Narg to let them through before retreating back across the platform.

Daniel was not the slightest bit interested that Jalia was carrying so much money, or for that matter, where she had got it from. He had reached the conclusion months before that if the two of them were to walk through the Attribar el’Dou desert, never once seeing a soul, she would still come out with more money than she had gone in with. He also found it bothered his conscience less if he never asked where it came from, as she had a bad habit of answering truthfully.

There were six other bidders in the enclosure. Daniel asked one of them what the normal procedure was. Apparently, there were nearly fifty slaves to be sold today, most of them young adult males, but also a smattering of young girls who would fetch higher prices. The slaves would parade around the stage tied at the wrists and linked with rope so that the buyers could get a good look at them.

The young men would be sold in lots of five so that the slave trader could mix in a few poor specimens with three of four strong ones. They would be brought out in groups and bids would be taken until the highest bid won. Most of the girls would be sold the same way, but any exceptional stock, such as very pretty girls or virgins would be paraded separately.

The crowd was mainly there for that spectacle. Girls would be stripped naked and requests from the crowd to view their intimate areas would be acted on by the slavers to make sure the crowd got a good view.

Daniel was horrified. His brother once tried to sell him into slavery, but that had just been for physical labor. Delbon’s King would never have allowed what was going on here, though Daniel was not naïve enough to think such things never happened in Delbon. They just didn’t do it out in a public place.

Jalia had been listening as the man talked to Daniel. The bidder was an enthusiast for such spectacles, even though he was only here to buy five men. She crossed him off her list of potential survivors. So far, her list was empty

The show started and fifty or so frightened young people were paraded in front of them. Daniel was unable to recognize either Ben or Bil as he only had their mother’s descriptions to go on. They could have been any one of a dozen young men. All the slaves carried marks of their captivity on the parts of their bodies that were visible. Bruises and welts showed everywhere.

The man running the auction was none other than Drefuss himself. He called the crowd to order and asked if there were any questions before they began.

Daniel raised his hand.

“Well, young sir. What can I tell you?”

“Can I ask it from up there with you? I feel stupid shouting up at you.”

Drefuss smiled good-naturedly and offered a hand to help Daniel mount the platform.

Daniel stared at the surface of the platform and gave every impression of being extremely embarrassed now everyone was looking at him.

Drefuss drank in the laughter from the crowd. Bids were always higher if he could get the crowd into a good mood before they started bidding. He looked sternly at Daniel and asked him what he wanted to know. The laughter in the crowd rose in volume as Daniel shuffled his feet, saying nothing.

The slaves stood at the back of the stage with their heads down. Six or seven guards stood around them, ready to quell any possible escape attempt.

“Oy! I want to come on the stage too!” Jalia shouted before Drefuss could get an answer out of Daniel.

“Why not,” Drefuss replied to loud applause, but he also signaled to his men and a few moments later the back of the platform was lined with armed men.

Daniel stood in the center of the platform and faced the jeering crowd.

“Why should any of you be allowed to live?” Daniel asked and the crowd fell silent, unsure how they should respond to this suddenly serious faced young man who stood before them.

“By being here, each one of you condones the actions of these men. You are as guilty as if you had taken a club and brained the families of the prisoners behind me.”

Drefuss moved to stop Daniel’s speech, a club raised in his hand. Daniel’s sword slid from his back as he spun to skewer Drefuss through the throat. The sword was so sharp and Drefuss had been moving so fast that he slid down the sword to its hilt. Daniel shook the sword from side to side and man’s body and head parted company.

Everything stopped and for a few seconds there was total silence. Daniel drew his dagger and with a command sent it spinning towards the cringing slaves. The dagger sliced through their bonds before spinning back into Daniel’s hand. It all happened so fast that no one was sure what had happened.

The slaver nearest Jalia swung a heavy chain at her. She skipped aside and before he could recover his poise, moved close to slit his throat with her knife. Pandemonium broke out as the crowd decided to run. The bidders in their enclosure were trapped and Narg punched those who tried to leave. Narg expected his masters to see off the fools on the platform and it was his job to keep the bidders in place until the auction was finished.

The sides of the platform were in chaos as the slaves tried to escape by pushing past the armed men. This prevented the slavers from reaching Daniel and Jalia en masse. Those that got through found they were no match for the two angry young people they faced.

Five minutes later the platform was littered with the bodies of the slavers and the slaves had escaped. Daniel and Jalia pushed the bodies of the fallen to the side as they tried to keep the center of the platform clear for fighting. Blood poured from the platform, and the bidders, still unable to leave, found themselves standing in a shallow crimson pond. Narg was bemused as his masters fell before these two destructive forces, especially the demon that at first glance had looked like a girl.

Finally, it came down a fight with two men, who arrived fresh on the scene. They were the financiers of the slave organization and had been drinking at a hostelry. They were tough men, having worked their way up from petty larceny and they weren’t going to let two young adventurers put a stop to a lucrative operation. The men drew their swords and picked their way across the fallen to get to Daniel and Jalia.

“At last,” Jalia said with evident relief. “We get some real swordfighters rather than morons with clubs. I was beginning to think we were going to be deprived of any decent sport.”

The one nearest her was a massively muscled man with a diagonal scar running across his face and carrying a much longer sword than hers. When he raised his weapon in proper swordsman etiquette, she responded with a flourish.

“So you have been trained,” he said as he moved like a cat among the dead, trying to find a place to fight her where the bodies of the fallen wouldn’t get in the way.

“My trainers would have spanked me for allowing myself to get scarred like that,” Jalia pointed out, her sword point making small circles in front of the man’s face as he stepped to one side.

“If I could be bothered I would spank you myself, but as it is I will settle for your death.”

Jalia swung at him. He feinted to the right, and Jalia’s follow-through left her falling to the floor. Seeing his advantage, he swung his sword in what should have been a death blow as Jalia was unbalanced and couldn’t possibly get her sword around in time to block him.

Jalia spun as she fell, pulled the knife from her belt and threw it at his throat. It was a fatal throw and enough to stop his sword in mid-flight He raised his hands to try and pluck the knife out. Jalia was back on her feet before he knew he was dead.

The other man was a much more impressive swordsman. Daniel and the man tested each other while Jalia took down her opponent. It was unusual for Daniel to find a swordsman to match him and this man was, in many ways, his superior. Daniel was slowly pushed towards the front of the platform.

“Are you going to play with him forever, because I’m getting bored?” Jalia asked. Daniel ignored her, but the other man turned his head to look at her. When he turned it back, Daniel’s sword point was embedded in his chest.

“Concentration is everything in sword fighting,” Daniel said quietly as he pulled his sword free and the man fell to his knees before death took him.

“Daniel, will you deal with the bidders?” Jalia asked wearily. They had won and killing evil sheep was a tedious thing to do.

Daniel pulled his dagger from its sheath and issued a command as he threw it towards the enclosure. Seconds later the men were dead and the dagger was back in his hand. Only Narg remained. He looked up at Daniel and Jalia with a puzzled expression. He could not comprehend how they were still standing and everyone else was dead.

Daniel was weary of killing and he took pity on Narg.

“I think you’re more stupid than evil. Why don’t you just run away and don’t look back.”

Narg worked out the meaning of Daniel’s words and turned to run away. Ten yards from the stage a dagger hit him in the back and he fell to the ground and died.

“He was just a stupid man, Jalia,” Daniel chided.

“Yes, but he laughed at me.”

Treasure Hunt

Daniel was annoyed with Jalia for killing Narg. It wasn’t that the man didn’t deserve to die; it was that Daniel had granted him his life and then Jalia had killed him. Daniel found this infuriating.

Jalia was furious with Daniel for being furious with her. He had no right to challenge her judgment. The idea that she had insulted Daniel by her actions didn’t even occur to her.

By the time they had retrieved their horses from the back of the market; they had stopped shouting and settled into a stony silence.

Daniel stopped at a building which served as the hostelry, eatery and brothel for the town. He dismounted and handed Jet’s reins to Jalia, who took them with a haughty sniff. He ignored her and stepped into the building. Men ran to the exits at the rear as soon as they saw who entered. Most of them had been in the crowd when the fighting started.

“There will be no more killings,” Daniel announced and there was an audible sigh of relief from the people still in the room. “However, I do expect those employed by the slavers and their customers to leave the town in the next few days. Spread the word that Buran no longer tolerates slavers and their trade.”

Daniel strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

The companions rode out of town towards Gilben’s farm, the only sounds being those their horses made.

When they reached the farm they found a barricade of barrels and boxes surrounding the farmhouse door. Gilben, despite his injuries, stood at the barricades along with his wife, and two young men Daniel vaguely remembered seeing earlier in the day. Before he could say a word, Maya clambered over the barricade and ran to greet them, hugging Jalia’s right foot tightly, as it was all she could reach from the ground.

“I told them you wouldn’t be dead, but they said you were!” Maya shouted as she held onto Jalia’s foot. Gilben crossed the barricade and limped towards them with his sons on either side of him.

“Welcome, Daniel, Jalia,” Gilben said, nodding at them, “My sons told me how you freed them. They thought you must be dead because you faced overwhelming odds. How did you manage to escape?”

“By making sure not one slaver still lives,” Jalia said, glaring at Daniel as she spoke.

“Including the one that I had granted his life,” Daniel said, glaring back at Jalia, “Some people regard my word as nothing of value.”

“You must be tired,” Megan said quickly as she and Lonny joined the rest. “Get down from your horses and I will prepare you a soothing tea.”

“He certainly needs one,” Jalia mumbled as she dismounted.

Yeta joined Maya and the two of them held tight to Jalia as soon as she was reached the ground. Jalia’s first instinct was to thrust them away, but she ended up looking in appeal at Daniel. He picked up Yeta and steered Maya away from Jalia by grabbing her hand.

“Don’t annoy Auntie Jalia or she might stab you in the back,” he told them quietly as he walked them back to the farmhouse.

Gilben formally introduced his two sons to his guests. They looked like younger versions of Gilben, now that all three could be seen together. His oldest son’s name was also Gilben so he was called Ben to avoid confusion. He was sixteen years old, but was so big he looked older. His brother, Torbil was always addressed as Bil. He was a less sturdy looking youth of fourteen years, though he gave Daniel the impression he might be able to pull a plough without the need of oxen.

The brothers ran for their lives when Daniel freed them, skirting around the edges of the town with the other escaped slaves.
 
They parted company with the others at the road to Taybee, before making their way back home across open country, arriving back half an hour before Daniel and Jalia. Bil was still open mouthed about them being alive and asked endless questions about the fight that the two ignored until his father instructed him to shut up.

Maya helped with the meal that Megan and Lonny prepared, adding spices from Daniel’s stores. They ate in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“What will you do now?” Megan asked as the silence became oppressive.

“Our plan is to go to Telmar, so Jalia can see a gold mine,” Daniel answered curtly.

“The gold mines of Telmar are not the best place to take children as young as these, especially as winter is approaching. Already the leaves are falling from the trees and winds have changed.”

Daniel grunted in agreement, but made no other comment.

“Perhaps we could take the children?” Gilben offered, “I mean no offence by the offer, but our children are practically grown and we miss the sound of children’s laughter.”

“I thought you two would never ask,” Jalia said as she looked up from her mug of tea. Daniel frowned at her and she lapsed back into silence.

“That’s a kind offer and we would welcome a good home for the children, but you hardly have the space for another three, or is that four, people?” Daniel looked meaningfully at Lonny who sat close to Ben. Ben seemed very happy to be getting so much of her attention and placed a hand possessively on her.

“My boys will begin work on an extension to the house tomorrow. We’ve planned it for a long time and there is stone from a ruin we can use, not as much as a league from here.” Gilben looked at his sons who nodded in agreement.

“Jalia and I will stay and help for a few weeks,” Daniel said as he also made a decision. “When it is certain you have the room, we would be happy for the children to join your family.”

Megan clapped her hands with joy and everybody smiled at her. It was clear that she, more than any of the others, wanted the girls, especially Serin. Maya looked pleased and Daniel smiled at the way her eyes kept tracking Bil as he moved around the room, she obviously had her mind on long term prospects.

Jalia and Daniel resolved their disagreement the next day when they went for a walk together. Megan wondered why Jalia was so careful sitting down that night.

Over the next few weeks, Daniel helped the brothers collect the stone for the walls of the extension to the house. The farmhouse was built on bedrock only a few feet below the level of the soil so foundations were unnecessary. The stones they found at the ruin were too heavy for a man to lift unaided so a simple derrick was put together to lift them onto the wagon.

Despite the back breaking nature of the work, Daniel was fascinated by the process of building the house. On the farm where he grew up, his father used wood for construction. Only the hearth and the chimney of their farmhouse were made of stone.

Here in the north, wood was scarce and the brothers explained to him that the winters could be very cold. Snow often built up many feet against the walls and on the roof and it was best to use stone wherever you could for both insulation and strength.

Jalia was bored out of her mind before the end of the first day. At first, she had been fascinated by how the stones were lifted and moved, but once she understood the process, it was just hard labor, and that she could do without. She went hunting instead and the larder was soon stocked to overflowing.

Daniel suggested she go into town and amuse herself gambling before she drove the rest of them crazy with her moaning.

Jalia was on the road to Buran within minutes of Daniel’s suggestion. There were many things she wanted to do in town and they were largely things she didn’t want to tell anyone about.

The first thing she did was to find a leather worker and explain to him how to construct a flat wide money vest for her. It had to be invisible when worn and yet still be flexible and hold a large number of coins. The coins were to fit in it to become a layer of armor that would turn away a knife in the places where flexibility wasn’t needed. The man she found was quick at grasping what she wanted, though she found his question about how she planned to find enough money to fill it annoying.

As she pulled up her leather jerkin to allow him to measure her she wondered how Gally Delbar was doing with the money she stole. Jalia knew that a woman who displayed such money became an instant target for cutthroats. Jalia hoped fervently that Gally was still alive, because she had planned a detailed revenge and would hate to see her creativity go to waste.

There is gambling everywhere where people gather and it didn’t take Jalia long to find a high stakes card game. Getting the other players to let her join the game took a little longer.

“I think we should let her play,” a tall sour face man suggested to the others at the table.

“You’re only saying that because she brought you so much business, Gasporin,” a fat man said jovially. “She cost me a lot of money when the slavers left town.”

“They didn’t go far,” a third said and laughed. “Just six feet down.”

Gasporin held up his hands. “She wants to play and she’s far better on my old eyes than you two. Besides, the town paid me almost nothing to bury that scum and my back still aches.”

He turned to Jalia. “If you promise not to kill anyone, we’d be happy to let you play. The fat man is Solly and he runs the town bank. The other is Tam and nobody is sure what he does, but he is never short of coin.”

“I only kill cheats,” Jalia said.

Tam laughed. “Then we three should be safe. Sit down and join us if you know how to play Fade, but I must warn you the reason we don’t have a forth is because everyone else in Buran knows better than to play with us.”

Solly made a ‘harrumphing’ sound, but despite his reservations sat back at the table.

“We know you hate slavers, but how do you feel about bankers?” Gasporin asked.

Jalia smiled. “I approve of them. It is much easier to find money if someone has gathered it up for you.”

They were good players and Jalia found it took a great deal of effort to win any money from them.

As she sat playing, she realized that with Daniel tied up in house building she had better not win too much, as she needed these gamblers to keep her sane. She didn’t want them to ban her from their table simply because she became too greedy.

However, Jalia resolved to take a tidy sum from them as soon as she and Daniel picked a date to leave. Jalia felt that it was her duty to educate other card players about their weaknesses.

A week later, Lonny asked Jalia to find out what Teague was doing, as she was frightened that he might decide to try and take her back. Jalia was told Teague had come into town herding his cattle and sold them to another farmer. He said he had decided to leave Buran and seek his fortune elsewhere.

It was remarked on by the players that he hadn’t visited the brothel, as this was his usual practice, and that he had been walking with a pronounced limp. Jalia smirked at this information and hoped he would stay limp for a long, long time.

It was later that day she became aware of an old man sitting at a table in the corner of the room. He talked to himself incessantly and sometimes shouted out randomly. When she asked, the other players proved reticent to say anything about him. After some prompting, Gasporin, finally told her the story.

“Faflin and his two sons went searching for treasure in the Caldorney Waste. They went in the spring four years ago. He came back alone in late summer almost starved to death. I built him a coffin in anticipation, but he recovered, if you can call how he is
recovered
. He said ghosts caught him and his sons and that he was the only one to escape.” Gasporin took a big swig of the strong liquor everyone in Buran drank.

Gasporin was a thin, slim and empty-eyed man who was the last person that Jalia could imagine would believe in ghosts. She waited for him to give some sign that he thought that the man had gone mad, but it didn’t come.

“You don’t believe him, do you?” she asked, grinning at the thought of an undertaker believing in such things. After all, how could he do his job if he did?

“The Caldorney Waste is not a laughing matter, young lady.”

“What is this Waste that it makes a grown man believe in ghosts?” Jalia asked when she realized he didn’t intend to say any more on the matter.

The other players saw that they wouldn’t be able to get back to a decent card game until Jalia was told what there was to know about the waste and badgered a reluctant Gasporin to tell her about it.

“Very well,” Gasporin said, taking another heavy drink of liquor. “The story my father told me was handed down from his father and so on from the time when the Magician Kings ruled the world.”

“In those days there were Fairie in the world. Big, strong evil creatures, who were neither man nor beast but believed themselves superior to any man, including the Magician Kings themselves. They made it clear that if any human was to harm one of their kind, then many would suffer in retribution.”