Chapter 10: The Grand Adventure

We spent the rest of the night, after dinner, discussing everything about this. I voiced my concerns and they pushed them aside. I told them I had no mission to find a Damsel, which was all the more exciting to them. It could take years to accomplish what I needed to do. None of it mattered, and there was no way I was going to dissuade them.

Samuel thought that some of the best Chaos companions to travel with were sneaks. Having known Samuel’s thoughts about that, members of every generation were now trained as sneaks. Tyler and Jane were living with Roy due to an unfortunate event: their parents had been killed in a house fire. Roy’s wife had died a few years earlier and so Tyler and Jane lived with him, and all he had was them too.

Kathy seemed to be the only one not inclined to take to them, then everything she experienced and heard had probably made her want to stay with us instead. Jane noticed her lack of enthusiasm and talked about training her to be a sneak like they had been trained. Then Kathy seemed more willing to stay with them.

With my last ally of concern taken care of, the battle was lost. In my mind they were children to me, but on Chaos, they were old enough to voluntarily place themselves into slavery for a given period to raise funds. Our group of three became five that night. We tried to stay at the inn, but Roy and the twins would not hear of it. So we crowded into the house and spent the night there.

Jasmine stayed with me; since she was my companion, it was expected. It took all the will power I had not to be with her, the thought of her trapped for some period was enough to make me restrain myself but just barely. We were up early and in the kitchen when someone knocked on the front door.

Roy opened the door and exchanged some words with the man at the door. He closed it and then said, “Your presence has been requested at the main hall of the Citadel.”

“What do you mean requested? Why didn’t Robert just come in?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, in all of this confusion I didn’t remember to tell you. We lost Robert a year after Samuel’s passing. It took a few years to sort that out, and well ... What’s going on in there is not the best way to run a Citadel.”

“What do you mean requested and what does all of that mean to me?”

“Well they actually summoned you to appear before them and...”

Jane then cut in. “Grandpa calls it a mess of the first order and swears up a storm every time they go off on some harebrained scheme.”

Roy looked uncomfortable, like, he knew more than he was saying. “Is there something more I should know?”

“Do you have the amulet the General Hero Samuel gave you?”

I fished it out of my clothing where it hung from a chain around my neck; Tyler and Jane started at it. “This one?”

“That would be the one.”

“What does this have to do with what is going on in the Citadel?”

“It’s in the book General Hero Samuel left for you.”

“Do you think you could give me the short version of it what it says.”

“You are to take over as the Commander of the Citadel when you return. General Hero Samuel created this Citadel, and it was designed to be run by a Hero who was not concerned with the matters of the men of Chaos.”

“You’re saying it’s a mess, and I have to clean it up?”

“It’s a royal screwed up mess, and you’re going to have to clean out a pile of rat bastards,” Tyler said.

“Now kids,” Roy said.

“Grandpa, that is what you’re always saying, every time they go off and do something you don’t like,” Jane added.

We spent the rest of the morning talking about the rat bastards, and what they had done that needed to be corrected. It was a major league snafu, and was not going to be easy to correct overnight. I would need someone I could trust to help me with this. Poor Roy didn’t know what was about to hit him.

We were going to go to the Citadel just after lunch. I had looked up the references that Samuel had written about in the book. The long and short of it was that there were rules and the first rule was that a Hero upon his sole discretion could take control of the Citadel and all of its holdings by simply presenting Samuel’s amulet to the general in command.

With Samuel gone so many years and Robert also, those who had followed were firmly entrenched. It was a minefield I was walking into. I would need every advantage I could muster. No doubt, there would be a play by the rat bastards to keep power. So, we planned to arrive fashionably late. We arrived a couple of hours after we were supposed to be there.

I took our entire group with weapons fully displayed. Before we went inside, I looked at Jasmine and said. “I know what we talked about before. They will make an attempt on my life. Do not wait even a second to kill them all if that needs to be done. The rest of you, listen up! If we are to live today, when you hear Jasmine’s voice, do whatever she says. Do it immediately; If you hesitate you will die.”

She just nodded her head and James looked at me giving a slight nod. Kathy’s eyes went wide, and I got nods from both Jane and Tyler. I went to Roy and asked that he take care of Kathy. He gave me a nod, and we went into the Citadel.

It was a long walk; there was no doubt, we were being watched, and we were being taken the long way around on purpose. Finally, we entered the main hall and there, sitting elevated on a large chair, was no doubt the general in command. He smiled like the proverbial Cheshire cat as we walked forward. When we were finally in front of him, he came down from the chair and extended his hand for me to shake. Jasmine screamed down and pulled me to the ground with her. Bolts flew over our head; then, before I knew what was happening, the General’s head was rolling across the floor.

It had been a trap of the first order, and every one of those military men in the room was part of it. They quickly paid with their lives for their part in it. Jane and Tyler found others that were hiding and killed them also. The room was awash in blood by the time it was done. We heard the sound of feet running down the halls, and when we stopped at a window we heard the sound of horses being ridden away from the Citadel at a brisk pace.

We spent the rest of the time searching the rest of the building. Tyler and Jane would be with us one moment and then gone. We heard cries as men who were looking to do us harm died no doubt as they were found in their hiding places. We were exhausted by the time we had looked through all of the rooms.

We needed to eat and rest, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing either here. So we made our way outside and then back to the inn, where we had eaten the night before. We had a meal and then we went back to Roy’s house and had an uneasy night there.

As we got ready to go back to the Citadel the next morning, the streets were lined with people. The question in our minds was would they be loyal to the memory of General Hero Samuel or would they kill us today. I didn’t see any more weapons on them than was normal for being in Chaos, but the question still remained unanswered.

We walked down the streets, and there were cheers of “Welcome Hero John.” By the time we had made it back to the Citadel, I felt much more at ease.

I tensed up when we got to the door, but became more relaxed when a man opened it; he said. “Welcome, Hero John. The staff and I are glad that you chose to return.” I felt a little more relieved. Jane and Tyler scurried past to do a reconnaissance of the building.

Samuel had been right: having sneaks was one of the best defenses you could have. Having a fighter the quality of Jasmine was just also quite important in my book.

When we got to the great room, it had been cleaned; the bodies were gone along with the blood that had been all over the floor. They must have worked all night doing that. There were still coverings for windows missing. More than likely they had been removed to remove the blood from them and repair the rips from swords that were made when killing the person hiding behind them. It was an uneasy feeling being in there again, but I needed to be there to establish myself as the owner of the Citadel.

One way you could describe my feeling was that of being a king. I spent the day meeting with a number of people; all of them wanted to let me know that they were glad a Hero was back and in command. They also wanted to assure me of their loyalty to me. Some of them were no doubt as loyal to me as they were to breeze.

I wouldn’t know which ones were which, but by mid-afternoon I had finally met with enough of them. I needed some time to assimilate it all. So when we were at a late lunch, I told Thomas that I would not be seeing any more visitors today. I saw a man standing at the side, and I asked him if he was the man who we had met at the outside door.

“Yes, Hero John.” He said, and was off again. As we dined — yes the food was that good to elevate the experience from eating to dining — I decided to break the news to Roy.

“Roy, can you tell me how Samuel organized the staff to run the Citadel?”

“Well he had one man who directed the staff for the actual building, that is Thomas today; then a General who controlled the army.”

“Well Thomas will run the building, I am sure. But, I don’t know if I have any Generals left that would be loyal to me after yesterday.

Then Roy said, “I know of some who hated these men. They knew their loyalty should have been with the principles of General Hero Samuel. They of course were placed at locations well away from the Citadel, helping to control the outlying areas.”

“Well, we should call them in from out in the cold then. I will have to choose one of them to be the General of the Army when I am away. But, that leaves me with another problem.”