The Staff of Sakatha (23 page)

“You know the healing arts?” said Jon as he returned at that moment, his sword sheathed, and a thick pile of dead wood in his arms.

Proteus nodded, “All knights need to know such things in case there isn’t a priest with healing magic available after a battle.”

Jon nodded, “The knights of Tanelorn can learn much from those of Elekargul,” he said as he put the wood onto the fire which almost immediately sprang back to life.

“They stole the map,” said Proteus to Jon, “but they didn’t kill the horses or take anything else that I noticed.”

“That means …,” said Jon.

“That they know exactly why we’re here,” finished Proteus. “The only way that can be is if they watched the trail because they captured or killed the others.”

“That makes sense,” said Jon. “It also means we’re on the right track. They were stupid not to kill the horses when they had the chance.”

“Probably just low level thugs sent with orders to steal the map and nothing else,” said Proteus. “That’s the problem with slave based militaries. You can’t trust the average soldier with even the simplest task because they have no motivation to think on their own.”

Jon nodded, “It’s the same in Tanelorn. We defeated the orcs of the Five Nations just a couple of years ago when they attacked us. The orcs themselves come from five different tribes and don’t coordinate well, but they also relied on slave auxiliary who never fought like soldiers.”

“I thought you didn’t fight wars of aggression,” said Proteus as the two moved over to Sorus. “Keep pressure on that for a few more minutes,” he said and examined the blood-soaked bandage, “I don’t like the look of that, we’ll probably have to stitch.”

“It was a strange war. I was only eleven or so when it started” said Jon with a shake of his head. “It began with them trying to fight a group of elves that live on the opposite side of Tanelorn. They marched across our territory and we didn’t allow it. After that they sent an army but we defeated them and all of sudden the orcs began to revolt against their leaders, against the idea of slavery. My father says the presence of a free nation like Tanelorn makes every right-thinking man want a better form of government for themselves.”

“We’ve seen similar things here in Elekargul,” said Proteus, “but I think now we need to take care of young Sorus here. Have you ever stitched someone up before?”

Jon shook his head.

“Now’s as good a time as any to learn and I’d prefer you practice on the boy in case something happens to me later!” said Proteus as he clapped Jon on the shoulder.

Sorus looked up while he still held the bloody bandages to the back of his head. “Do I get any say in this?”

Proteus shook his head, “Nope.”

Jon looked nervous as well. “Do I get any say in this?”

Proteus smiled and walked over to his pack and began to rummage around for the needle and thread. “You want to put the needle in the fire for a bit to keep down the chance of infection,” he said, “and we’ll douse Sorus’s head with some of the bourbon to clean the wound.”

“Can I drink some as well?” said Sorus as he eyed first the needle that Proteus pulled out of his pack and then Jon Gray’s huge hands. “Do you think you can handle something so fine?” he asked the big knight.

Jon shrugged, “There’s a first time for everything,” he said with a smile, took the needle from Proteus, then looked to the fire as he twisted the little thing in his hand back and forth. He thought about it for a moment and then pulled a fiery brand from the blaze and held the needle up to it for a few moments. Meanwhile Proteus found the flask of bourbon and applied it in equal doses to Sorus’s head and mouth. Jon attempted to thread the needle several times without success but eventually managed the trick.

“I’m gaining a new respect for mother,” said Jon with a shake of his head as he tried to tie a knot in the end of the string after watching the thread slip out the first time.

“Your mother,” said Sorus, “Not your sister; hey can I have another swig?”

“My sister,” said Jon with a snort as he finally managed to tie off the thread. “She wouldn’t know a needle and thread if I stabbed her in the behind with it. You think I’m a stubborn mule? I wish you could meet her,” he finished as he walked over to Sorus and Proteus with the tools of his new trade. “All right Sorus, this will hurt you more than it’ll hurt me!”

“Great,” said the young knight with a smile and bent his head over. “Let’s get this over with.”

Proteus leaned over and offered advice as Jon began to slip the needle through the skin on the top of Sorus’s head, “Come in at a steep angle, that’s right, there you go, and pull it through, excellent. Now repeat that about ten more times back and forth.”

“What are we … unnh … going to do without the map?” said Sorus as he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain.

“Good question,” said Proteus as he watched Jon’s work carefully. “You’ve got to pull the thread tight but you don’t want to break it, that’s the way.”

“You pretty much know that map by heart anyway, don’t you Proteus?” said Jon, his huge hands on Sorus’s forehead making the knight look more like a child than a young man. “I think we just go on with the mission. Our other choice is to head back down the mountain, find the First Rider, and then climb all the way back up and be pretty much in the same position.”

Proteus nodded, “That’s right, now loop back one more time, there, I can’t say I disagree with you, Jon. I’d rather get in trouble for doing something than not doing something, but the thing that concerns me the most is that our foes know we are here, they know where we are headed, and they might even know what we are looking for if they captured the other knights.”

“We don’t even know who are foes are,” said Sorus and winced as the needle passed through his skin one last time. “They can ambush us any time.”

“That is true,” said Jon. “There, now what?”

Proteus looked down at the stitch work and smiled, “You’ve got to make a little knot there at the end, no, don’t cut it until after you finish the knot. Here,” he said and took the needle from Jon’s hand, “it’s a special kind of knot called a square knot, like this. There we go. Good as new, Sorus. I’ll want you to clean that out with bourbon or alcohol every day but we’ll dress it for now with some more cloth. Was that too bad?”

“No,” said Jon and Sorus in unison and then they laughed.

“I think he was talking to me,” said Sorus and held a wad of fresh cloth to the back of his head while Proteus wrapped a length of leather around it.

“This won’t be such a great hold,” said the older knight as he cinched the bandage on, “but it’ll do for now. The light is coming up already so we need to decide on our next course of action pretty quickly now.”

“They might still be watching us,” said Sorus with a pat to his head to test the bandage.

“Don’t play with it,” said Proteus. “You could be right. There are plenty of places to get a good vantage point. They probably had scouts at the pass waiting for the next group of knights to come up. Then, whoever is in charge ordered last night’s little show.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Sorus and suddenly sat upright which made him dizzy for a moment. “Bury me and head back.”

“What?” said Jon.

“Not really bury me, make a cairn while I hide somewhere, and then ride back like you’re giving up. Then I’ll stay here and watch who comes along. Head back a couple of hours and then get in a fight or something and pretend to change your minds. When you get back I can report what I saw. I might even overhear something important!”

Proteus looked to Jon and nodded his head while he tucked his lower lip under his upper, “That’s actually a pretty good idea, Sorus. Jon, what do you think?”

“It’ll be dangerous,” said the gray knight and looked intently at Sorus. “You’ll have to be very quiet and don’t do anything heroic. Just watch and listen.”

“My head hurts so much I’m not sure I want to move around all that much anyway,” said Sorus with a wan smile.

“We need to get going with this then,” said Jon as he suddenly stood up and looked around. “If they are watching us it’ll be light soon, so you need to figure out a hiding spot while Proteus and I build a cairn.”

Sorus looked around, “There are plenty of spots, over there behind those rocks, back there beyond the tree, somewhere overlooking this camp is probably good because that’s the first place they’ll come.”

“Here,” said Proteus, “take your blanket, some food, and water too. You might be there for hours depending on how long it takes Jon and me to get down the mountain a ways and turn around. I think we should go a couple of hours at least to convince them we’ve really quit.”

“Good idea, Proteus,” said Jon. “Take that stuff and get yourself hidden. We can check if you are visible. Get a decent distance too or they’ll hear you breathing. But, not far enough away you can’t hear them talking. Proteus, maybe we should start talking like Sorus is dead.”

“Right,” said the older knight with a nod of his head. “Here Jon, help me with these rocks. We’ll bury Sorus and then decide what to do.”

The two busied themselves building a rock pile until light began to filter in from dawn, and then saddled their horses and headed back down the mountain as they continued their phony conversation. Sorus waited in the shade wedged between two large boulders partially under a massive tree root. It seemed like a comfortable spot when he first chose it but as the minutes wore on it became less so as a colony of ants began to stir and wander around. “At least they don’t look like the biting kind,” he muttered to himself as they wandered over his boot. “They’ll be in my pants before too long.” He tried to tie his cuffs off with some string he had in his pocket and managed a moderately effective job. He also took a few sips from his water flask and ate a bit of leftover goat meat from yesterday. The voices that came from down near the camp didn’t sound much different from the songs of the morning birds and it wasn’t until they were almost on top of him that he noticed.

“I’ve heard Whitebone is here,” said the voice suddenly and almost in the ear of Sorus. The boy almost jumped up but managed to control himself, although his breath sounded suddenly extremely loud. He peeked through the small crack in the rocks, towards the clearing where they spent the night, and saw the shadow of a man but nothing else.

“Once the dragon died that was inevitable,” came a softer voice, more like a whisper and Sorus barely heard it. “We need to find the staff before he gets here or sending it off to the High Priest will be that much more difficult.”

“Our soldiers are overdue as well,” said the first voice. “General Pharrassa and the others were to arrive by now.”

“We cannot count on them,” said the soft voice. “Their ships might not clear the Dorian peninsula, they all might be drowned.” At that moment the two figures suddenly appeared in the clearing. One wore a heavy brown cloak up over his head and soft leather gloves on his hands.

“It must be a darkling,” thought Sorus to himself, as he knew the creatures did not like to expose themselves to the intense light of the sun. The second figure was very thin and his head looked like a snake with a narrow, green-scaled neck, and no ears. There was a mouth, thin little slits for a nose, and its body appeared more humanoid although the heavy green cloak with red trim around the arms and neck hid almost everything from Sorus’s view.

The darkling spoke next as it pointed to the rock pile, “One of them died in the night,” it said. “We ordered those damned goblins not to attack but simply steal the map. I’ll have Ugred’s hide, we want them alive.”

“It’s no matter,” said the soft voice, its strange snake’s tongue flickering out to taste the air. “The others survived and have fled for the moment. They will be back with reinforcements eventually and without the warriors of Sakatha to aid us we cannot stand against them in the open.”

“Why face them in this awful brightness,” said the darkling. “We can lure them underground where my people have every advantage. We will slay them all.”

“Advantage or no,” said the snake creature as it turned to face the darkling. “How many of your men did you lose capturing that first group of knights?”

“We underestimated their strength,” said the darkling. “A mistake we will not make again. We killed them in the end though.”

“Yes,” said the snake. “You killed them in the end against my orders. I wanted prisoners. We must find out how much they know about the Staff of Sakatha and what they intend to do with it if they recover it.”

“Why must we waste time with such things, master,” said the darkling. “You will find the staff and we will transfer it to your high priest so that he might awaken Great Sakatha from his slumber.”

“It is not so simple as that,” said the snake man. “With Whitebone on his way, he brings not only his power to the task but also that of the delusional mistress who currently occupies the throne in the Abyss. Against undead armies we might well lose the staff forever and potentially Great Sakatha himself might fall under her sway. This must not happen. We might be able to use the freeriders to our advantage. Let them take the staff back with them to their capital and then wrest it away for delivery to the high priest.”

“That is a dangerous course,” said the darkling.

“There are no easy paths,” said the snake creature with a little hiss. “There never are. Both of the children of dragon are dead and we don’t have access to the dreams of the Toxic One anymore. The staff is somewhere nearby but under who knows how many tons of rock in some hidden chamber of the Old Empire. Your excavators work hard but without those dreams we are simply flailing about like a blind man in a brothel.”

“As you so correctly point out, master,” said the hooded creature with a shrug of his shoulders and the two men began to move again and quickly left Sorus’s view. “There is much rock and even with great effort the chances of stumbling on the site is unlikely. Given enough time the slaves will dig into the right chamber but the work is difficult and killing them is a costly procedure. We have to bring up new ones from the lower levels and train them in the use of the tools.”