Chapter 6

The Lady of Truth rocked comfortably in the mild waves, waking me gently as I lay in bed, thinking about last night. Yesterday, after keeping the warriors busy on deck with drills all afternoon, I had gone to the owner’s cabin to wash up. Julie and Apple were waiting for me with a wooden bath tub filled with fresh water. Having two naked women greet me quickly dispelled any thoughts of sore muscles. No one had told me that the temple girl was onboard, so their surprise was complete.

After stripping me of my clothes, they washed me for some time, toying with my manhood until I thought I’d reached my limit. Of course, at that point they stopped all ministrations and declared the wash time complete, despite all my grumbling protests. They called in our dinner, and we sat around naked and ate a light meal of fresh bread, eggs, onions and cold turkey legs. Once the meal was finished and cleared away, they took pity on me and the three of us made love until the sun went down. I savored the memory of their softness and hungry kisses.

“Wake up, Von,” Julie whispered in my ear.

“I know he is awake because there isn’t any more snoring,” Apple announced.

Sitting up in bed, I said, “I don’t snore!”

“No you don’t, but you do make a few funny sounds,” Julie declared while pulling me half off the bed.

I caught my balance only because Apple grabbed an arm and steadied me from Julie’s rough treatment. My bare feet felt the oak floor as I gathered my wits. A bellowing sailor’s shout blew the rest of my dreamy state away and I realized we were docking. I straighten and looked out the closed porthole window to see the walls of Conquest Point.

“We’ve arrived,” I said with parched lips.

Julie stroked up and down my sides, ever so gently drawing my hands to her hips while she rubbed her breasts against me. Drawing her hands down my shoulders and back, before boldly squeezing my buttocks. “Yes, we have.”

Her bare skin felt wonderful. I embraced her back, looking at Apple with an appreciative smile. She was dressed for the day in her town clothes, a flowing cream-colored dress that almost kissed the floor. It had a conservative cut that looked almost dowdy on a fertility temple woman.

“You two take all the time you want,” Apple said with a giggle as she opened the cabin door. “I have temple business to attend to before the ship leaves port to return me to Convey.”

“See you when we return,” Julie responded, releasing me and twisting to face our young lover, enveloping her in an embrace, “just like we discussed.”

For a moment, Apple’s eyes held my gaze with a look of longing, admiration and tenderness. Julie let her go; after taking a breath Apple found herself again. She winked at us and strode away, a pair of female temple guards followed her. The temple guards gave us a friendly wave before disappearing.

Julie closed the door. “Get dressed. I want breakfast.”

It didn’t take long. Once dressed we called for food and ate our fill. We gobbled it up in record time, even though the food tasted overly salted. Apparently the ship had slipped into the harbor just after dawn, the light having chased just enough of the shadows away to safely navigate. From the tiny window I saw half-a-dozen warships docked on the far side of walled harbor, their canvas sails all tidy and furled against their spars.

Since we weren’t in a hurry to get on deck, we both stayed in the cabin until the ship sounds changed to the shouts of dockworkers unloading cargo. It allowed me enough time to pen a letter to Derwen, so she’d know I was thinking of her. Julie took that time to record a message to Kate about our trip and status, having our tablets with us allowed us to stay in contact with Juniper Hills. Because of her space marine training, I was sure Julie would continue her role of providing mission reports to our other ladies. In this case, all Kate had to do was check her PDA for messages when she woke up. Of course Kate could call us back if she thought it was important, which I doubted. Kate preferred to focus on the goals before her eyes, and Julia would take away any sexual itch she had or otherwise feed Kate’s immediate need for socialization; the shuttle engineer had become completely devoted to Kate during their time together on the explorer ship while I was a castaway on Haven. “It was more likely that Merritt would call us and chat socially,” I thought.

The last few times I’d disembarked at a port, crowds had formed to get a look at me. We didn’t expect things to be any different this time. Fortunately, no one knew Julie and I were here, which gave us a head start before the city’s High Lord or his brother could make a fuss. We weren’t looking for formal greetings or escorts; rather we needed to sort out the details of our overland expedition with Derwen’s mercenary company. Our men on the ship were fully equipped with armor and arms, but we needed to acquire food for the trip. Indeed, we expected to pick up our supplies from the mercenary company’s compound.

Derwen had given me the name of the guide we were to hire, and she had stables of mules for our use in Conquest Point. One of her businesses was breeding mules from draft horses, and she sold most of them on the continent. What she didn’t sell was available for her own mercenary unit’s transportation needs. The moderately heavy mules were stronger than a horse of similar size, ate less and inherited the endurance and disposition of the donkey sire. The animal was perfect for our warriors who weren’t accustomed to riding because Hajin didn’t recruit from the noble class.

I had thirty-six Wolves with me, all hand-picked men who had trained and fought with me in the past. It was nearly a third of Hajin’s original training company. Thankfully, Hajin had expanded the company since our battles with the raiders, anticipating this cadre’s departure for the mainland. Each year, he trained new recruits in Convey and rotated a portion of them to the operational company on the mainland. The mercenary company provided both marines for merchant ships and small units of warriors for particular missions, such as escorts, temporary estate guard duties or wagon convoy protection. Occasionally, Derwen’s men got called to participate in larger operations, but I had been told there hadn’t been full scale conflicts in the Amarian Empire for some time.

However, the arrival of coastal raiding by large bands of slavers was changing the military dynamic, prompting concerns for the free flow of trade. The Amarian Empire was a sleeping giant; more often than not it was slow to act. The power of each province’s ruler was nearly absolute, unless the old king intervened. The feudal nature of the kingdom left them unprepared for the aggressive Caldavian raiders. The decentralized empire had no standing army and only a small coastal navy. The king didn’t like the expense of a standing army, and he hadn’t needed a large number of naval craft before. It was a recipe inviting invasion, if that was the goal of the Caldavian queen.

One of our warriors waited for us on deck while we looked over the medieval walled city perched on the rock covered hill. Tall towers loomed over the town and harbor, and stout, fortified walls secured it. Due to its location, the harbor played an important role in the continent’s trade routes. The natural harbor was deep and secure from even the most violent of storms. While ferocious storms were rare in this hemisphere, they did happen, and sailors required such a sanctuary. Our sailors told me the tides and trade winds were very favorable here, too. Wool and metals, and strangely enough cooking vessels, were a major export from this port, along with slaves. My sources told me they imported a lot of grain and wine from the Amarian coast, fish and expensive handcrafted goods from Convey. Indeed, Juniper Hills had recently been added as a supplier of fish too. As with Port City in Convey, Derwen was sensing Conquest Point was becoming too regulated, and she feared it might suffer an economic decline in the future. With the rising trade hubs of more free towns like Juniper Hills and West Branch, she expected some trade to shift. Even so, the city state would retain its greatest asset: its large, secure harbor and its prime location.

Julie and I bid the sailing master a good day and a safe journey. He wasn’t a chatty guy, so it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t question our fantastic attire—surcoats with large green and black squares over our sparkling metal armor. Perhaps he had seen so many strange things accompanying me that he just took it for granted that I’d always look strange. I thought he would at least say something about the impossibly vivid colors on the material. Then again, I had handed out the same livery to the men after one of our drills. It was unlike any other fashion on Convey and my wives had decided on a black and a green coat of arms with a wolf’s head to distinguish our outer garments. They had convinced me that such markings would become iconic symbols of our clan and useful in crowded markets or even battlefield situations.

We decided to make a martial entrance to the city rather than wrap ourselves in hooded cloaks ­– as if we had any chance of blending in. Before we left the interstellar spaceship we had loaded up with materials for the sojourn on Haven, packing the oversized shuttle until there were only tight paths among the cargo in which to pass among our hoard of goods. Among the obvious supplies we needed were clothes, armor and weapons. For this trip, we each donned a light-weight hauberk of chainmail, a short sword, a nanoblade dagger, a laser pistol and a bountiful number of useful tools in our pack. We were loaded down, but I felt dashing. The bold colored tabard covering our armor was a durable material that no one on this planet had ever seen before. The sleeveless short coat was open at the sides and was worn without a belt when we went unarmed.

Julie made a show of polishing one of my metal pauldrons in front of the detachment’s sergeant. Because the rounded plate had a wolf head symbol on it she wanted it to shine in the sun. The scar faced, barrel-chested man made a toothy smile at her act of kindness. Like the rest of the Wolves, he wore a similar pauldron over his boiled leather armor; it consisted of a single, dome-shaped piece to cover the shoulder with multiple attachments to defend the upper arm, neck, upper chest and back. I had them made on the starship to fit any man or woman. Since the assembled pieces had numerous adjustment straps and snaps the wearer could modify them for comfort and size. Granted, the metal plated pieces didn’t cover as much of the body as I would have liked. Adding a hundred chest plates to match the number of pauldrons loaded had occurred to me, but I had to consider the weight of the armor for the men and the space trade off in the shuttle for other items. Essentially, the Wolves were light infantry and I preferred that we not break the nature of the mobile unit.

In front of us, the tall ebony sergeant had patiently waited for instructions, while Julie had her fun at attempting to embarrass me. I broke the ice. “How are the men liking the addition to their armor, Scratch?”

Sergeant Scratch pounded his chest in a warrior’s salute. “They’re quite happy to have some magical armor, Lord Solon.”

“I suppose the high-tech, Hull-Metal did seem magical,” I thought, while answering, “Nothing’s going to break it; that is a certainty.”

“I have to agree. We broke an axe on one, didn’t even leave a mark on it.”

I must have blinked or otherwise shown my surprise because he quickly continued. “The men are certainly grateful for the added protection. However, they like to test limits, you see...”

“It didn’t have to do with a wager did it?” Julie asked, stepping forward into the conversation.

While they had been full of questions about Julie when we first boarded the ship, for the most part the Wolves had settled down and now accepted her physical differences. While her silver arm, pale skin and short stature were distinguishing features, she was only as tall as I, and we were a head shorter than most people.

He paused to consider his answer, which told me something about him. We knew each other only casually because of a little martial arts training on Convey. Hajin had a high opinion of Scratch. I didn’t know his real name. He went by the nickname because of the scars on his face, old battle wounds Hajin had explained. It seemed he wanted to be truthful but not seem careless with the incredibly expensive equipment.

Julie broke the short silence. “Of course, the poor warrior lost, only magic can destroy them. I’ve broken my fair share of equipment with measured tests.”

Scratch laughed, perhaps from relief. “Well the two-handed axe head shattered. We tossed it overboard before the sailors saw what we had done to their equipment.”

I laughed back understanding the rivalry between warriors and seamen. One of the sailors was bound to be blamed for the missing item. The Wolves had been smart enough not to test one of their personal weapons on the special armor.

“I’ll mention to the helmsman that I broke an axe, so they can replace it.” I snickered. “Escort my wife to the men. I see you assembled them on the dock.”

Scratch beat his chest and showed Julie to the gangplank. My wife shifted her rucksack on her back and followed. I went looking for the helmsman, telling the sailing master was just asking for trouble. The helmsman wouldn’t think of talking back to me. However, while I was Derwen’s husband, even as a guest I shouldn’t be throwing their equipment overboard, and the captain of the vessel wouldn’t hesitate to tell me off. “It’s only an axe, they’ll get over it quickly enough.”

The ship’s sailors went about their business rolling barrels containing who knows what down a doublewide gangplank. I avoided any possible calamity by staying out of their way, waiting for a gap in the work to rush down to the dock to the assembled Wolves. Scratch had them waiting in a column four abreast, facing the harbor gatehouse that protected the inner city. The men looked sharp and well poised. My wife patiently waited with the sergeant at the head of the column. I noticed she had tucked away her silver-colored arm inside the stylish surcoat, keeping it hidden from prying eyes. She was searching the top of the gray walls, memorizing the location of the guards who lazily walked their posts. “Always a marine,” I thought. “She is evaluating their security.“

I gave our men a sidelong glance as I walked the short distance over the stone pavement. The Wolves bottled up a suppressed excitement, held just below the surface of their neutral stares. They knew this mission was the reward for their hard work. There was pride in their eyes. All of the men had worked hard and proven their mettle to me. Indeed, their fighting to protect Derwen’s freehold and estate had stolen their innocence. Hajin had told me our success had pushed them beyond blind loyalty to hero-worship for the “white” wizard. Falling into the column next to Julie I prayed we wouldn’t need to expend any of their lives on this trip.

“Carry on, sergeant. Take us to the company’s compound,” I commanded, noting the stream of stevedores who had been manhandling barrels of cargo to an ox-drawn wagon were now out of our way.

He nodded and shouted at the men. “Column, march!”

Derwen’s mercenary company was well known in the city, as was her personal ship, The Lady of Truth. For that reason, we passed a routine identification at the harbor gate without problems other than stares at Julie and me. Regardless of our odd looks and short stature, no one questioned our right to pass under the portcullis into the first ring of walls. Derwen’s compound was on the opposite side of town, so we needed to travel through the second set of city walls, into the middle-city and through the other gate to reach our destination. The outer walls were massive, built for protection and the inner stone walls weren’t much different.

Immediately inside were forks in the boulevard, left and right were roads lined with warehouses that followed the curve of the wall. Wagons and inhabitants filled those streets. Reddish-brown-skinned laborers were loading and unloading their wares with gloomy faces, many with black collars. “Slaves,” I thought, none too happy at the sight. Worse, in the boulevard ahead a dead man hung from a post, which was just in front of a huge red banner with a golden crown. He had recently died, for there wasn’t any bloating yet. The sign around his neck declared the poor fellow a runaway slave. Neither Julie nor I liked the punishment.

“We really are strangers in a strange land,” I muttered.

“A dangerous place,” Julie answered with steel in her tone, an uneasy look passed between us.

“It is out of our hands,” Scratch replied. “Yes, we tell all the recruits to wander the city in pairs. People do disappear from the streets, even though the residents don’t talk about it much.” The full impact of his comment didn’t sit well with me, but I swallowed my apprehension.

Following behind Scratch, I was still trying to get accustomed to the distasteful smell of the warehouse district when a doorway to my left caught my eye. A fat, hooded man watched our column with interest. I wasn’t sure if it was the column or the two strange pale-faces he was interested in. Either way, he didn’t seem to fit in with the populace and I didn’t like it. Julie’s hand latched onto me with a questioning look, I shrugged as we marched out of sight of the doorway and the bronze-skinned man. Remembering Julie’s sorrow for the hanging man, I struck up a conversation about the unpleasant smells to get her mind onto something else. Nevertheless, the poor conditions of the old stone houses in this part of town dampened my spirits with each step. For the most part, we saw two-story residences with small living spaces. Curiously, only the second floors had windows, which made me wonder if there were first floor windows on the other side. A heavy layer of accumulated soot darkened most houses, whether tall and thin or short and wide, the shape of the building didn’t matter; the smoke nuisance of burning coal had created a black crust that took a heavy toll on the residences and no effort to clean it had been made.

At the next street corner, our efforts at a conversation quickly fell flat when we passed within feet of a pair of snaggle-toothed slave women with dark circles around their eyes, who were following a wealthy merchant on his business. Coming into contact with the dark soul of the city put a lump in my throat. After that we left all conversation behind and worked our way up the busy boulevard, street after street, climbing higher up the slope of the hill; not surprisingly, when they saw all the warriors, people on the street parted like water as if our men were the prow of a ship. Also, quite a few unwashed slave children watched us from the doorways and alleys, down the length of the block. Of course, Julie and I received lots of long stares.

It wasn’t until we arrived at the gate to the inner wall that I noticed any wagons entering the wide boulevard from side roads.

“Scratch, why was the harbor road free of wagons?” I asked.

“By proclamation. All horses, mules and wagons used for commerce must us the roads. The High Lord wants no trouble rushing soldiers or seamen and supplies to the harbor in times of troubles.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, keeping time to the marching step of the column.

“It spreads out the wagon traffic around the ring roads too. When wagons can’t use the most direct route from the docks into the middle city, where the upper class live, it really frees up this road to foot traffic,” Scratch answered.

“A ruler with some foresight,” Julie added, her first comment since the hanging post. “Urban planning and clear lines of communication, all wrapped up in one law.”

Scratch gave an assenting grunt, but I was sure he didn’t understand the meaning of urban planning.

A halted wagon full of hay was inspected under the shadow of the middle-city gatehouse. Above us, almost out of sight were a few crossbowmen walking about within the tower’s turret. By the time our column crawled up the wagon’s back-end, pikemen in chainmail had waved the farmer through. Julie hid her arm again, trying to avoid unnecessary questions until we found our guide, the city’s envoy. The column halted. Standing in the street and looking around, we saw a few other city guards nearby without their armor, but with swords on their belts and dressed in the same livery that was on the city’s banner; they were lounging with a lazy insolence, watching us from in front of a single-story house beside the road. “A small barracks or guardhouse,” I thought, “how convenient for their men.”

In under a minute, when we moved forward again, the two pikemen crossed their long pikes barring our entry. The older of the two, a mountain of a man in his forties said, “State your reason for entry.”

Scratch stepped forward, all business-like with his hand on his sword hilt, “We are here at the High Lord’s invitation to take an escort contract.”

Julie gave me a glance, we could see that the sergeant’s words had impressed the two men. Both of their stern faces melted.

“I don’t recognize the livery,” the younger guard stated, conversationally.

“The Lady of Truth’s special detachment, commanded by Lord Solon,” Scratch answered, extending an arm to point at me. “We call ourselves The Wolves.”

Obviously, believing the sergeant, the older guard tilted his head at me and lifted his polearm. “You may pass. Good day to you, my lord.”