Gracchus stood at the edge of the Disipica dock, nervously scanning around for the person who was supposed to pay him upon return. As there didn’t seem to be anyone like that around, he paced the docks area impatiently. After a little while longer, he moved off to the tavern where this whole mess started. As he walked along the street, nothing seemed out of place, but he had an overwhelming sense of foreboding.
He rested his hand on the pommel of his short sword and continued walking as he glanced around nervously. Shortly he arrived at the tavern, looked around once more, and then ducked inside. Standing in the doorway, he waited as his eyes adjusted to the taproom, which was dim compared to the daylight outside. He glanced around but did not see any among the sparse patrons that particularly stood out.
He walked over to the bar and waited. The portly tavern owner’s wife saw him and, as they made eye contact, tilted her chin up slightly in recognition. She placed two cups from a tray on a table in front of two customers, and then she walked around behind the bar. She placed the tray behind the counter, moved to stand in front of Gracchus, and said, “Been a while. What can I get you?”
Gracchus dropped a copper coin on the bar and said, “Has anyone been asking after me?”
“Not since I last saw you, no.”
He grunted and glanced around the taproom, but couldn’t discern anything out of place. His feelings were a mixture of bitter disappointment, as he was expecting his payment, and almost debilitating apprehension because of his instincts. He looked around for a few more moments, and said to the woman, “Can I put something in my safety box?”
“Sure. Come.”
She walked around the counter and led him to a staircase hidden at the back of the kitchen. They went down the stairs and through a thick barred gate. He walked over to the shelf where his safety box was located, unlocked it and put most of the money from the sale of the Haldermen inside it. He thanked the woman as he passed her a gold coin. She gasped and hid it within the folds of her bodice. As he climbed the stairs, he took a deep breath and mopped the sweat from his brow with a kerchief. After pausing a few moments to gather himself, he crossed the taproom and went back out into the street.
Although he was only inside the dimly lit tavern for a few minutes, he squinted in the daylight, and then he started noticing a commotion as people were running from the direction of the docks. Gracchus stopped a man and asked, “What’s happening? What is everyone running from?”
“There’s a fire on the docks!”
He let the man go and stood confused for a moment. Then he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He started walking fast and broke into a run towards the docks. Gracchus had to struggle his way through as he moved in the other direction of the fleeing townsfolk. As he neared the dock, he saw armed men clashing on the pier at his ship’s berth, and a large plume of black smoke wafting across. As he looked, he realised it was his men fighting some unknown assailants. His men were trying to get away from the spreading flames but were being cut down, one after another. All he could do was grab the sides of his head in despair as he slowly backed away from the scene. He turned and started running with the rest of the crowd.
As he was running, he saw a figure standing still. The people fleeing were avoiding him. As Gracchus looked, he realised it was one of the robed figure’s bodyguards from the tavern. He stopped in his tracks and dashed into a narrow alley to his right. As he was looking over his shoulder, he didn’t see until it was too late. He ran headlong into a solid figure who barely registered the impact. Gracchus, on the other hand, practically bounced off and landed hard on the ground. As he looked up at the man he’d bumped into, a look of terror came over his face. He began scrambling backward to get away, only to bump into a pair of legs behind him. He looked up to see the man he was running from peering down at him and saw his rapidly approaching fist before everything turned black.
His vision blurred, his head pounding, Gracchus came to. As his eyes focused, he could see that he was in a dingy room with dusty paintings and pieces of old, some of them broken, furniture. He attempted to touch the welt on his face but then realised they had fastened his hands behind his back. Although he could hear the two figures talking in their gruff voices on the other side of the room, he couldn’t see them.
“I told you to leave the words here, you idiot!”
“But if I did that, any old sod could come along and use it!”
“How in the hell are we supposed to use it now? He’ll have us killed if we don’t figure it out soon. He’s expecting us today!”
“Wait…” Gracchus could hear the last speaker rummaging around. “Ah!” The second voice began laughing triumphantly.
“You’re lucky. If you didn’t find it, I was considering cutting your throat.”
“Piss off! You could try, and while you’re at it, you could dream you were the emperor.”
“Alright, come on. Read the damn thing already.”
“Corruwah jaghanan surrjugh mirrning sul fuwragh han murrniu zargh un.”
No sooner was the last syllable pronounced, than a sound like a crashing cymbal resounded through the room. “All right, let’s get this fat prick to the boss.”
He heard them moving toward him, and so he lay still and closed his eyes.
“Looks like he’s still out. That was a pretty good hit, if I do say so myself.”
“I’ll give you that. You’ve always had a mean punch.”
Gracchus felt himself lifted bodily by the arms. As they dragged him, he bit his lip to keep from crying out as the tops of his toes scraped along the rough floor of the room. He opened his eye a crack and saw a large oval-looking glass frame with a strange script etched into its metallic surface all the way around the edge. It covered most of the wall, but the surface inside the frame did not reflect the room. It was pitch black. He began panicking, and scrambled to his feet, attempting to backpedal away from the strange surface the two muscular men were dragging him toward.
“Shit, he’s awake!” The two men threw him to the ground and stomped on him several times about his head and shoulders. He felt as much as heard a meaty thud as one stomp had found the mark and smashed his head into the floor. A high-pitched whine drowned out almost all other sounds, and he felt himself floating toward the blackness until it surrounded him as he drifted out of his own mind.
ᚲᚺᚱᛟᚾᛁᚲᛚᛖᛊᚱᛁᚾᚾ×ᛟᚱ×ᛟᚱᚾ
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Shufi had managed to climb over the back wall of the pits compound unseen. On silent feet, he dashed from cover to cover. He made his way around the compound, making a mental note of the layout of the place. He had spent hours prior clocking the routines of guards and trainers.
Finally, he found his way to where he wanted to be, the slaveholding cages. He waited, immersed in shadow, as a guard lazily made his way from his patrol through the cages and exited. As soon as he passed, Shufi slipped into the building, and along the hall of cell doors. He peered into each one.
Finally, he saw them. Three men, too tall to be local, and too pale to be of any nations on the south end of the continent. They were in various states of health. One had severe injuries and lay down while the fittest of the group tended to him. The other was in a corner, nursing his left arm with a long, deep cut on it.
Shufi moved on, checking the other cells, swore and returned to the cell where the Holvelans were. He gently tapped on the bars, and the one who appeared uninjured looked over.
Shufi waved him over, and in a hushed tone said, “Do you know where they are keeping the other three?”
His eyes widened slightly at hearing his own language spoken. “We are all that’s left. Thorsten and Kurt were killed in the fights on Serday, and Vylder was taken somewhere else during the last week.”
Shufi cursed quietly. He then said to them, “Can you hold on? We are here, and we’ll have you out of there soon.”
Just as Shufi said that, shouting erupted around the compound, and he could hear frantic activity outside. Shufi moved to the doorway and snuck a peek outside. What he saw was bedlam. Trainers and guards were running toward the front gate, some with bows, some with spears. Shufi quickly moved between two buildings, shimmied up onto the roof of the slave housing, and crawled to the edge to try to get a better vantage point.
From there he could see legionnaires pouring in through the front gate, and…Sir Uhter?
ᚲᚺᚱᛟᚾᛁᚲᛚᛖᛊᚱᛁᚾᚾ×ᛟᚱ×ᛟᚱᚾ
As they neared the pits, several of the units had peeled off to surround the slave complex. The commander and two units headed to the main entry gate with Venna, her sons, Thayn, Hans, and the knights.
The men halted, the soldiers turned in unison and formed into two ranks. Tall shields facing forward, spears held at the ready.
Pavlo rode forth and turned his horse to face the guards at the gate and spoke to them in Nevan. There was a small amount of back-and-forth, then the men dropped their weapons and made to bolt.
Uhter’s knights had already moved to both ends of the street and cut off their escape. The legionnaires took them and forced them to open the gates. Venna and Thayn had dismounted, and Venna turned to her sons and said, “You two stay here with Hans.”
“But…”
“Stay!” Their mother’s expression was of the kind the boys knew better than to defy, and so merely nodded their assent.
The commander had dismounted and ordered his men to enter the compound, followed closely by Thayn, Venna and Sir Uhter, who had dismounted and joined them. He had ordered his knights to surround the two boys and protect them.
The two deci of legionnaires had formed a four-by-five testudo, as the guards inside had tried to put up some resistance, and were shooting bows from cover.
Sir Uhter strode forward without any regard. Not that he needed to worry, as arrows loosed at him merely bounced off or shattered against his plate armour. He walked over to the hastily constructed barricade, kicked it in and then strode on through, smashing men to the ground with his hammer.
This disruption to the volume of arrows enabled the legion soldiers to abandon the testudo and rush through the breach, crushing any further resistance. They would have prevailed eventually, but Uhter’s intervention sped up the process significantly.
The other legion deci had found a secondary entrance and had moved in, securing those that tried to flee that way. The slavers and pit trainers that the town watch hadn’t slain in the general melee, they rounded up and secured in the training field. A cry sounded out from the cages in Nevan. Thayn, Venna and Uhter recognised a single word, the only word they were interested in – “Haldermen”.
As the legionnaires brought forth the three remaining Holvelan villagers, Thayn gasped and turned to Venna. “Can you take your two boys and go fetch Gereld? We need him here quickly.”
“I’ll go with them if you can lend me a horse.” Shufi’s voice sounded from behind them.
Thayn cocked his head to peer over Venna’s shoulder and saw him approaching. He smiled at Shufi and was about to greet him when Venna cut in. “What about my husband? Where is Vylder?”
Shufi gently touched her shoulder in a consoling manner. “I’m sorry, Great Lady, he isn’t here. He has been moved to the south to fight in another town. But worry not, he is strong. I have no doubt he is yet lives.”
“Where is your horse?” Thayn enquired.
“It is tied up out front of a tavern near the back wall of the compound.”
Venna’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but then she gathered herself turning to Thayn. “I will be back as soon as I can.” Then she and Shufi headed toward the front gate.
Thayn called after them, “Send Hans in here. I need him!” Shufi waved acknowledgement without looking back.
Soon Hans shuffled up to Thayn. He was puffing from the exertion of running. Something to which he was unaccustomed. “You asked for me, Your Grace?”
“Ask someone to take us to our brethren.”
“Certainly, a moment…”
A legion sergeant led them to where they had found the three remaining Holvelans. Thayn spoke to the two conscious men. “We have a skilled healer on the way, so just stay with us.”
The man with the sliced arm said weakly, “Are we going home?”
“No. We cannot get you home just yet. Let’s worry about getting you healed first.”
After about an hour, Gereld strode into the compound, flanked by Venna and Orn, with Erik trailing behind. “Show me where they are,” Gereld demanded curtly.
Thayn inclined his head and led the way to the cells. Gereld entered and went straight to the unconscious man. He checked him, as his face wore a doubtful, yet resolute expression.
He placed his hands first above his head and chest. His hands began luminescing as he focused life energy, coalescing it around and into the worst of the man’s injuries. The man’s breathing seemed to become less laborious and more regular.
Gereld moved to the man with the wounded arm. He waved Orn over, then turned back to the wounded man. “I need you to be a little patient for me, all right?”
The man nodded weakly. Looking back at Orn, Gereld asked him, “Did you see what I did over there?”
Orn nodded.
“I want you to place your hands over the wound. Now close your eyes, and think of all the life in the air, in the ground, all around you. Not the people, only the air and the ground…Do you feel it?”
Orn opened his eyes, and with a sorrowful expression, shook his head as he looked at Gereld, “I’m sorry Master.”
“Not at all. It is not a problem. ‘No single man can do it all’, as they say. Now move aside.” Orn moved, and Gereld healed the man’s arm.
The pit guards and trainers were all rounded up and escorted off by the legionnaires. Duke Thayn and the members of the party present at the pit compound mounted up and, with the Holvelan villagers, headed back to the forum, where Praetor Darius Decimus met them on the steps once again.
Thayn updated him with what had occurred and what they had found. Darius touched his forehead, an expression of genuine regret on his face. “Please accept my sincerest apologies for this affront, and for the loss of your people. When you continue on your journey, I would invite you to entrust these three men into my care. They may stay at my home until they can be taken back to their land.”
“I thank you for your generosity, honoured praetor. These men have been through enough of an ordeal.”
“I also would invite you and your senior companions to dine with me this evening.”
“I am humbled by your gracious offer, honourable praetor. But we really should head after the last remaining captive. We cannot guarantee how long he will survive, formidable as he is.”
“Please, it is late, and it is the middle of the week. The main fights are on Serdays. Since it is Middenday today, I am doubtful he will be fighting. Join me and head out first thing in the morning. I shall send rapid patrols ahead to ensure a clear road so you will have no delays. It is a three-day ride to Anitala, two if you push.”
“A moment, if you will, sir.” Thayn moved over to Venna and quietly said, “I think we should leave first light tomorrow, but I will permit you to decide.”
“I am impatient to move on, but it might be wise to send Shufi ahead, so we can have advanced warning of any potential problems. We shall go in the morning.”
Thayn nodded, and returned to where Darius stood, and said, “We accept.”
“Marvellous! So, if I may be so bold, who is this lady Venna who would have a prince seeking her council?”
To the surprise of everyone standing on the steps of the basilica, Thayn stated in a clear voice, “She is my older sister, Princess and Shield Maiden Venna Avdlak, with my nephews, her two sons beside her, Prince Erik and Prince Orn.”