Chapter 10

We left Stone Lodge and the stench that lay over it two days later, with me leading our party mounted upon the grey. No one saw us off save Lord Hawke and he did so grudgingly. At the time he was a very busy man, what with cleaning up the rotting carcass of the dragon that was causing the stench that we were fleeing, but regrettably I didn't give him much choice in the matter. I had him ride beside me until we were beyond the gates of the city and out of range of any weapons that could be fired from the city ramparts.

It wasn't that I didn't trust the man because I did. He wanted me gone and I knew that, but in between the hour in which I'd killed the dragon and the hour that I mounted up to leave I'd made several requests of the ex-Captain of the Guard and now Lord of Stone Lodge and those requests had been costly. In fact they'd become more costly than Lord Hawke had expected and while he'd conceded to my requests, he had done so less willingly that he might have had I'd just packed up and left with what I had arrived with. I hadn't.

Instead I'd taken six of the finest horses out of the late Lord Jared's stable including the grey stallion which had been his favourite. I needed these mounts because the number in my party had grown. I hadn't planned it that way but it happened. The first addition to our group was Nimue. She came to me the night that I'd killed the dragon.

Lord Hawke and the others who had witnessed my actions had decided my victory over the beast should be celebrated with a feast. I had told them no but nobody listened to my protests and when I explained that killing the beast had been a combined effort, everyone laughed at me and told me no it had not. It had been I who had rode forth to taunt the winged fire-breather and it had been I who had led it into the path of the spear-thrower and while the spear-thrower had knocked it out of the sky, it had been me who had proposed using it, and in the very end, it had been me who had leapt on the beast's back to plunge my sword into its back to finish it off. In the end I acquiesced.

So I went to the feast and enjoyed myself. I ate heartily and drank some very excellent ale from the cellars of the late Lord Jared and I met people that I hadn't met before and shook the hands of many that I'd forget before the night was over and even though I had come to the meal with Kola on one side of me and Caitlin on the other, every woman in the place from the late Lord Jared's mistresses to the wives of the most prominent merchant of the city offered themselves to me. It was during all of this merriment that Nimue came and sat by me and uttered the words that took me by surprise and eventually added her to my party.

"I want to go with you when you leave Charles."

"Why on Earth would you want to trudge around Game World," I asked her pointedly, "and follow me into danger? You're better off staying here where it is safe."

"It's called Urt in my mother's universe," Nimue corrected me, "and it is for that reason that I want to go with you."

"I don't understand," I said in reply, wondering what she was on about.

"I'll tell you then if you'll hear me out without interrupting me," Nimue told me with a very serious look upon her face.

I looked at her and scratched my chin and then I sighed and agreed to her terms. She suggested we go elsewhere to talk, which made things a little awkward. After all, I was the guest of honour. Fortunately, even guest of honour can get away to use a bathroom. Hopefully no one would notice that I was heading upstairs and that Nimue was with me.

Five minutes later I was in Jared's old office again and fifteen minutes later I knew Nimue's life story including the reason that she wasn't pissed at me for killing her daddy. The short version of things was that Nimue's mother was like all the other outworlders running about Stone Lodge and Game World. She'd been dropped into the area one day some sixteen years ago and she'd been immediately captured by Jared and his henchmen. Jared took her as his mistress against Nimue's mother's will and forced himself upon her. Nimue had been born ten months later. Five years after that Nimue's mother bore another child, only this time she died in childbirth. Nimue had tried to raise that child with the help of some of the other mistresses, but in the end, after a year and a bit, Jared had sold the child. Now Nimue wanted to find the child.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your mother," I said to Nimue, feeling saddened by her obvious pain, "and for what happened to your baby sister, but I don't see how you can find the girl after so many years."

That's when I learned that elves could sense each other over great distances and while the sensation was currently very weak, Nimue was certain that it was coming from some place to the south.

"Still it would be safer for you to do this on your own," I told the elf-girl, "rather than with me. My involvement could put either you or your sister into danger."

"It is what I want Charles," Nimue insisted forcefully, "and it is the favour that you owe me for last night."

"Are you certain about this Nimue?" I asked hoping that she'd see sense.

"Yes Charles," Nimue said without hesitating, "I am certain. Think of it like this my friend, this could be a rescue mission which would add to the entertainment value of your mission and perhaps lessen what threats the other people keep throwing at you. Besides, I can ride a horse and shoot a bow and I'm pretty good with a sword. I would be a great addition to your group."

Nimue had me there and she was absolutely right about the so called rescue mission. It could be the thing that kept the network people off my back for a while. Of course, it could also lead to danger, particularly for Nimue's young sibling. Unfortunately, while I'd love to think about it some more, there wasn't any time to do it seeing that we'd be leaving in a day or so, and truthfully, I had promised Nimue a favour and if she insisted, I would have to agree.

Nimue wasn't the only one who wanted to go with us. Rory now had a girlfriend called Zahra. Zahra was one of the ex-mistresses of Jared who had helped educate Rory the night that I'd claimed Caitlin's virginity. I saw her the night of the feast, sitting with Rory and attending his needs and showing him affection publicly and I had smiled at that and then forgot about it until after I'd spoken to Nimue. That was when Rory cornered me about the woman.

"We're not a travelling tour," I said scornfully, still miffed that I couldn't back out on my promise to Nimue.

"I know that," Rory snapped back, obviously feeling a little defensive.

"Then tell me why I should let her come with us," I sighed with frustration, "knowing full well that her life would be in danger the whole time that she'd be with us?"

"She can fight," Rory told me point blank. "Zahra told me that she used to be a soldier."

"A soldier," I said with doubt in my voice. "Zahra is a Muslim woman. It is very rare to find a Muslim woman who was a soldier, in all the worlds that I know about. Whose army was she in?'

"Zahra said that she had served as a Sergeant in something called the IDF," Rory replied, "although I'd not heard of it before on my world, which doesn't mean much seeing that I was a kid when I left it."

"True, ' I acknowledged, "but I do know what the IDF is and if Zahra was in it, I want to talk to her."

We ended up talking in Jared's old office once again. Zahra was a medium tall woman, with an average build. She was certainly attractive looking with the standard Mediterranean appearance; you know olive complexion, dark eyes, and dark short wavy hair. She looked to be in her early twenties and she was cute. On top of that she had an excellent set of teardrop breasts that drew a man's attention to them the moment his eyes fell upon the woman. I could see why Rory wanted to bring her along because given any other situation I'd be wanting her as well. Unfortunately, my mission wasn't one of those other situations.

In my world IDF stood for the Israeli Defence Force, which had a world renowned reputation as being a kickass organization. Zahra had told Rory that she was a Sergeant in the IDF which could mean anything in her world. For all I knew she could have been a member of the Iranian Defence Force or something like that. I had to ask.

"The IDF is the Israeli Defence Force," Zahra told me without hesitation as we sat across from each other and sipped watered down wine. "I had just re-enlisted when I got snatched by the bastards you told us about. I'd only been a sergeant for a week when it happen and I was on my way to my brigade in the Golan Heights. I was all excited about that because I'd been assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Yoni Brigade. It was a prestigious posting."

"What is the Yoni Brigade?" I muttered questioningly.

"It was an elite infantry brigade," Zahra went on, smiling proudly as she did, "that had been named after Yonatan Netanyahu, the hero of Entebbe and the former Prime Minister of Israel. Yoni was his nickname."

I knew the name and had heard of the hero of Entebbe before. The only thing was that in my world Yoni Netanyahu had died at Entebbe. I kept that little piece of information to myself.

"So why do you want to come with us?" I asked her bluntly, pushing beyond the obvious fact that she came from a different reality to the one that I had known.

"Because if I stay here," Zahra told me forcefully, "I will be just another concubine waiting to be used by the lord of the city. With you I will be someone again. I know how to fight and Rory likes me. It would be a better life than I know here."

"I doubt very much that it will be a better life," I responded gruffly. "We'll be on the road for the next eleven months and during that time we'll be in constant danger. As for your ability to fight, I don't doubt that you have skills that you picked up with the IDF that might be useful, but unless you've got an Uzi hidden away somewhere, you're going to need to learn to use a sword or spear and a bow."

"I don't have an Uzi," Zahra admitted with regret, "but I will learn to use the other weapons and I can fight. I really want to go with you."

"What about Rory?" I asked her pointedly. "He's a boy and you're a woman. How long will that last before you get tired of it?"

"He isn't a boy anymore," Zahra said with a smile, "and physically he is taller and more developed than most men of this world. I don't think that I'll be bored anytime soon."

There wasn't much more to talk about. In a way I was happy that Zahra was going to be travelling with us. With my new relationship with his sister, I wanted him distracted, at least for part of the time. In the end I agreed. Then I returned to the party and my two mates and the pleasures that were being offered me. I'd worry about Zahra and Nimue another time.

One of the first things that I'd done the next morning was to corner the new Lord of Stone Lodge before he got too busy for the day. I wanted horses from the keep's stable for my people and Lord Hawke gave them to me. Then I wanted armour for my people and weapons. That called for the keep's armourer to work all day and night adjusting shirts of chain to fit the women in my group, but Lord Hawke made it happen. As for weapons I raided the late Lord Jared's personal armoury for what my people needed. I found cavalry sabres for Kola, Caitlin, Zahra, and Rory that looked like they would do for them and I found crossbows for Zahra and Rory so that we would all have a long range weapon when we were out and fighting the bad guys. I even found some more throwing knives and I gave them to Zahra who had told me that she was skilled in hand-to-hand fighting and the use of a knife. Finally I grabbed three items for me. One was a medium size round shield that was made of iron. I hadn't included a shield in my original kit because I had felt that it would be too cumbersome to drag around with me when I was walking. Now that I had three pack animals in addition to my own mount, I figured that a shield might just come in handy. I also grabbed a spare quiver of arrows for my long bow. They weren't anywhere close to being as good as my high tech arrows, but they were expendable and replaceable and that was what mattered. The last thing I grabbed was a leather sack of caltrops. When I spotted the bundle of spikes just sitting in the armoury, the hairs on the back of my head went up and I knew that I needed to take them, so I did.

The only person I hadn't had to worry about supplying was Nimue. It turned out that the elf-girl had everything that she needed for the trip, from armour and weapons to a mount and bedroll and unlike the others in our group she knew how to ride. Thus while I sent Kola, Caitlin, Zahra, and Rory off to the stable to learn how to care for their mounts and to get a little experience sitting a horse, I put her to work provisioning our trip. Thankfully, the elf-girl was very familiar with managing the staff of the tower and in no time she had panniers of food packed that would last at least two weeks and huge skins filled with water waiting to be loaded onto our pack animals. I had to admit that Nimue was useful.

Of course the real reason that Lord Hawke was miffed at me was the treasure that I'd commandeered for my party's use. I didn't take much but it had put a serious frown on the new Lord of Stone Lodge's face. When I saw his reaction, I just smiled back at him and reminded him that I was leaving the bundles of skins and furs that we'd brought to the city to trade, along with the two swords that I'd taken off of Barak and his lieutenant, and the sword I'd taken off of the swordsman, and that he could dispose of these items to recoup his loses. That really didn't alter his outlook on things and I couldn't blame him. While the furs, skins, and weapons would garner him a small fortune, what I was taking was worth a lot more.

So I'd invited him to ride out with us that morning and I made certain that he couldn't refuse. As I said Lord Hawke rode beside me and we chatted. Behind us rode Kola and Caitlin and behind them rode Nimue and Zahra with Rory bringing up the rear. Because only Nimue and I knew how to ride we kept things at a walk until we were at least a mile from the city gates and the guards stationed there. Then I bid Lord Hawke farewell and wished him luck. The man forced a smile onto his face and did the same. Then he turned his mount about and rode back the way we had come, kicking his beast into a gallop.

From there I pushed our mounts into a trot and led the way out of the fields that surrounded Stone Lodge. In a short while we were climbing the tree covered hills that dominated the landscape south of the city. Here the trees were cultivated orchards. There were plum and apricot trees in abundance with an occasion apple or pear tree thrown in. None were even close to being ready to be picked. The orchards climbed the slopes of the hills for several miles until they ran into the wild growth of the woodlands that stood behind them. Quickly the fruit bearing trees gave way to groves of birch, elm, oak, and evergreen. Once in amongst the trees I picked what looked to be a well travelled track and set us at a cantor for a bit, leading the group further and further away from the city. When we hit a clearing, I brought everyone to a halt.

"I want you to follow this track for another half hour on foot," I told everybody. "It will help the soreness in your legs and buttocks. While you're doing that, I'm going to take a jaunt back down our trail and make certain that the good ex-Captain hasn't gotten stupid. It won't take me long."

I didn't wait to hear any protests. Instead I rode off at a trot leaving the others in Nimue's care. It really didn't take me long to retrace our route. Fifteen minutes later I was back amongst the fruit trees and five minutes after that I was on a rise staring down along our back-trail. With my spy glass pressed to my eye, I scanned the trail that we'd taken and the distant road that led from the city. To my great relief I spotted no one trailing us or any other sign that might suggest danger to my party.