Chapter 9

Evanis was about two-hundred yards away and stormed toward Sybelien and the Warlord, looking as inevitable as a natural disaster. One-hundred yards distance left and she drew her dagger and falcata. The children behind her noticed and ran after her. Sybelien caught a glance of Jorsha’s hand moving to the hilt of his knife. She grabbed his wrist but her gaze stayed on Evanis.

“Jorsha,” Sybelien said and tightened her hold on his wrist. “You said you trust me and now I need you to trust me. Let me talk to Evanis. If you talk to her - you, I and the children following her - we are all going to die. Evanis will hack us to pieces.”

The tension in his arm lessened and he gave Sybelien a short nod. Letting go of his wrist, she stepped forward. Her uplifted arms displayed her empty hands and visibly stayed away from any weapons she carried about her body - openly or otherwise.

“Where is Jabbit?”

Evanis bellowed her question just before she reached them. Sybelien took another step forward and Jorsha took a half-step back. Meanwhile, the children caught up to them and surrounded the three adults.

“Let Jorsha and the children go and I’ll answer all your questions,” Sybelien calmly responded.

“No one leaves until I know where Jabbit is and why you are here!” Evanis replied, less peacefully.

Her green eyes pierced Sybelien, her body weight balanced on the balls of her toes and every muscle showing beneath her skin was tense. Evanis’ body was a spring ready to snap.

“I stole his bundle,” Sybelien answered. “We sold the items to the Ibanee on the galley. Jabbit found us and demanded his possessions be given back to him. He is still on the galley in the company of the royal var Dosha family.”

“So it was your shadow I saw last night at the Banyan Dream,” Evanis hissed. “I should skin you alive and sell your traitorous hide as well.”

“You can do that if you want to but let the others go,” Sybelien replied. She stepped closer to Evanis, took the celestial stone out of her pocket and showed it to her. “Jorsha ordered me to find some strange items but I stole them for a reason only you can understand.”

Evanis stared at the small stone in Sybelien’s hand. A long drawn-out groan escaped her lungs and all tension left her body.

Sybelien turned around and looked at Jorsha Sammon. “You once saved my life and today I saved yours,” she told him. “I will always be your friend, Jorsha, but I can’t be the Warlord’s right hand anymore. Take your moppets and go. Don’t let yourself become any deeper involved in this. That’s my last advice as your right hand.”

Jorsha curtly nodded, accepting Sybelien’s decision, and left without a further word. The ‘Moppets’ followed their Warlord and they were silent, too.

“Let’s get out of the open,” Sybelien told Evanis. “Not everyone needs to see us talking.”

They chose one of the many rundown storehouses by the harbor. As they entered through a derelict wooden gate hanging off its hinges, they heard the sound of many little feet clawing the ground - the resident rats rushing to hide. They cautiously climbed a rotten ladder to an open upper floor, a gallery running along the sides of the wooden building. They sat down at a place by the wall from where they could watch the waterfront through gaps between the planks.

“So you stole his bundle while Jabbit was sleeping in my mother’s home?” Evanis asked after they had been silently watching the Ibanees war galley for a while.

Sybelien breathed out, very audible and protracted; it sounded like the sigh of a forlorn soul. “Yes,” she quietly answered.

“You and Jorsha, you sold his bundle to the Ibanees Royals?” Evanis continued her questioning.

Sybelien only nodded in response.

“But you kept the little blue stone for yourself,” Evanis rather stated than asked.

“Yes,” Sybelien answered. “And no one knows I kept it. No, that’s not true. I should better say no one could have known I kept it but it appears that some people knew it anyways. Jabbit, obviously, although I have no idea how he knew I took it, nor how he knew where I went with it. He found us, however, and didn’t bat an eyelash when he saw the sapphire I used to replace the celestial stone. And the Ibanees Princess Anjatta gave me the distinct feeling she knew it, too. Now you’re just one more who knows it.”

“That doesn’t change the fact you stole from Jabbit while he slept in my mother’s home and stood under my family’s protection,” Evanis growled. “I thought you were in love with Ansa and regarded you a friend. But a friend wouldn’t betray us.”

Sybelien shrugged. “Only someone you trust can betray you,” she replied. “I do love Ansa but I’m not her lover. My body stopped growing before it reached the maturity which would allow me to become anyone’s lover. I’m too damaged and can’t feel anything a lover feels. Maybe it’s for the best because I can love your sister but don’t feel jealous because she is a whore.”

Evanis stared at Sybelien but there was no fury in her gaze anymore.

“How did you get the copper coin?” Sybelien asked. “Did he give it to you or did you steal the coin like I stole the little blue gem?”

Evanis eyes widened. “When I ... at first I ... He gave it to me,” she stammered but then she stopped and sighed. “Yes, I stole it too. He often told me to give it back. I wish I could give it back but I can’t. Return the little blue stone to him or it will ruin your life. That’s exactly what happened to me since I took the copper coin.”

Sybelien laughed mirthlessly. “I betrayed my friends. I betrayed and lost my warlord, the man who saved my life. Now I sit here with you and think about how to rescue my new boss from a royal family in whose hands he is because of me. I think it’s safe for me to keep my booty - my life already is ruined.”

Evanis chuckled when Sybelien had summed up her tale of misery. “Yep, sounds like the same evil bastard shat on both of us,” she surmised. “Maybe we don’t need to rescue him, though. I’m almost certain he’ll find someone on that galley to rescue him; someone who will ruin her life in doing so.”

Sybelien chuckled too now. “Anjatta var Dosha,” she said. “She was very respectful toward Jabbit and tried to protect him from her less polite mother. She also knew I had given them a false gem but kept it secret from everyone else and she even arranged my escape.”

Evanis nodded. “Yes. Yesterday, when I saw the young Ibanee Princess walking by, I knew I was watching a kindred spirit on the path to misery.”

“So let’s wait and see if Jabbit can escape without our help or if we need to rescue them both,” Sybelien suggested.

Evanis agreed.

The younger of the two bouncers retracted the lock bolt from the backdoor and opened it. He looked at the men standing in the small alley leading to the back entrance of the Banyan Dream, then showed his thumb and two fingers to the people present in the kitchen.

“Tell your mistress I want to talk to her.”

Inandrey heard a man’s voice and nodded in response to the questioning look the mute bouncer blocking the doorway cast at her. The bouncer cleared the entrance and waved the men inside. Three warriors walked through the door, clad in heavily reinforced, dark leather armor. They also wore long black cloaks and their large hoods hid the faces of the men.

“I’m surprised to see the ‘Order of the Bhansun’. Didn’t the Alorian priesthood disband them when they failed to protect the Empress and her children from being raped and slaughtered by the Yorak?” Inandrey calmly expressed her surprise.

“Your memory is accurate, Whore,” a deep, hoarse voice answered her. “They dissolved our Holy Order but recent events persuaded the High Priest of the need to revive it. The Bhansun warriors are once again called to do our holy duty. Besides, serving as guards to the Imperial family never was our Order’s foremost duty.”

“I remember all too well, it seemed your foremost duty was to harass evil sinners like me - a whore. Pray tell, how could such a common whore suddenly be of any help to your holy duty?” Inandrey asked sweetly.

“Simply enough, you’ll answer my questions,” the Bhansun warrior replied. “We heard your daughter was searching for a certain individual known as Fyn Rhosson. We found and seized him. During our questioning, he confessed to being a member of a conspiracy against the Alorian priesthood. He named your daughter, amongst others, as another conspirator. He confessed Evanis Danjala had been tasked to abduct the Princess of Danuba. Now we want to question your daughter about it. Most importantly, we need to know the whereabouts of Princess Rhaseris.”

Before the cloaked man could ask any particular question, the governess suddenly jumped off her chair.

“That’s the Princess!” She screamed pointing at Rhaseris. “The evil woman abducted us and brought us here and her mother is hiding us. Help us please!” She blubbered, before she broke down, crying.

The governess’ sudden outburst changed the situation in the kitchen tremendously. All three order-warriors drew long wickedly curved blades. Knives, daggers, and bludgeons appeared equally quickly in the previously empty hands of some of the house denizens. Simultaneously, the inner door to the kitchen burst open and the huge figure of Kuwasi stormed in, swinging a scimitar matching his body size and bellowing a war cry.

“Danjapur!” He yelled and his scimitar cut through the shoulder and into the chest of the enemy closest to him. The mute bouncer at the other side of the room blocked an attack of the warrior next to him but used his unprotected underarm to do so. The leader of the Bhansun had chosen his target, too. Unsurprisingly, it was Inandrey Danjala, the Queen of Whores. He jumped on the table and dodged a hit from Ghostras’ cudgel. He kicked the older bouncer in the face and watched him fall over backward before he took another step toward his selected primary victim.

At that moment the famished looking cook displayed an extraordinary skill-level in handling cooking utensils. A thrown paring knife struck the wrist of the Bhansun attacking the mute bouncer, and his fillet knife cut effortlessly through the leather boots and hamstrings of the warrior on the table. His fluidly executed next cut expertly dissected the femoral artery of the falling man’s right thigh. However, it was Inandrey who killed the man on the table as she stuck a dagger in his neck, ending his life before the man could bleed out.

The skillfully disarmed Bhansun, who had attacked the mute doorman, was the last of the three men who died. Concurrently, Kuwasi hit him in the back with his scimitar, severing his spine, and the mute bouncer bashed in his head with his spiked bludgeon. He wasn’t the last victim of the conflict, though. Anseyla slit the governess’ throat, while others were already cleaning up the bloody mess the fight had caused.