Chapter 23

Saturday morning they stepped through the portal and arrived in the white transfer room.

They had a longer than usual wait for Susan.

"Oh Rolly I'm so glad you're here, you too Rachel, I've missed you so much. We have to go to the war room, right now."

"What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you there."

The war room was simply the conference room adjoining their private suite. It was where they laid out the files, maps and supplementary information.

"There is a damsel who we think is about to be killed, and if you leave in the next few hours we think that she can be saved."

"What's going on?"

"There is a lord, Alphonse, in a backwater little place at the head of the Sachs River that has been kidnapping women and children. The damsel is being held with two others. We don't know exactly what he is doing with them. But there are three women in the room and since several more people have disappeared before that we fear the worse. His parents also died under mysterious circumstances. He claimed that they died of illness, but he didn't let any of the house staff care for them. He started rumors of witchcraft to explain the disappearances, so the village is scared. It looks like he kidnapped them himself, and we don't see much security around his tower."

"His tower?"

"It's a stone tower house. Not really a castle, but you can't break in. I think that maybe you can climb to the top and get in that way.

He doesn't have any knights there?

Not since his father died. The local reeve is in charge of the town guard, but the house is some distance from the village, and isolated, so you should be able to sneak around.

"He only has people like the cook and housekeepers, in the house at night but we've seen them leave for the night once. There is at least one door onto the roof. We've seen someone working up there from time to time."

Why do you think I can do this in time? Why hasn't another hero taken this?

This is happening now, and you are here. Balkat is the second closest bank, but you can get horses, equipment, and men faster there."

"Equipment?"

"You trained those boys to rock climb didn't you, can't you climb the tower?"

"Maybe, let me look at this again."

Rolly and Rachel left the bank with little more than traveling clothes and minimal weapons. When they couldn't find all of the horses they wanted at the local livery they appropriated three more from the barony trading headquarters. That gave them three horses each and they headed down the south bank of the Balkat at pony express speed. They rode all day and into the night to get to the ferry at Cattle Crossing.

They didn't bother with the ferry because the ferry man was asleep in his cottage on the other bank. Instead they swam the horses across the river in the dark.

At the company hacienda he woke up the bunkhouse and sent a rider ahead through Westgate Pass. Riding straight through with a string of horses he could get word to Sir William in under a day.

Rolly and Rachel had been up for more than twenty four hours and riding hard for ten hours. They needed sleep.

The K-B Cattle Company had plenty of horses but not that many available men to let go at short notice so Rolly only took three men with them the next day.

Sir William was constrained more by horses than by men since Rolly wanted three horses each for the journey. He picked up four knights that claimed to be good rock climbers.

After the pirate adventure, each of the military estates began training and equipping their men for unusual missions. Squire Wilven was at home because his knight had broken a leg and wouldn't need him for several months, so Rolly took Wilven along as Rachel's helper. It was Rachel's job as companion to take care of Rolly, but the baroness couldn't be expected to be a camp wench. With Wilven there she was camp manager. Wilven had already taken it upon himself to act as quartermaster for the expedition in hopes that Rolly would allow him to go along. Rolly, on the other hand, wanted him because he was still smaller than the other men, and that could be useful.

After a night's sleep Rolly, Rachel, Wilven and seven knights set off. Two of the knights knew the way, more or less.

The Tyndell Trail wound through the mountains for several weeks, traveling by foot, and came out of the mountains east of the steppes in what was the more heavily populated north central part of the continent. The Sachs River was past that point, with its headwaters hidden in the mountains. A trail from the Sachs Valley met with the Tyndell Trail near its end.

What would normally take weeks took a matter of days with the riders rotating horses. Their speed was constrained more by the availability of grass for the horses than their stamina. Mountain meadows were few and far between so the horses lived mainly on oats that they carried on their own backs.

The two guides brought them to the start of the Sachs Trail, but from there it was a guessing game until a scout came back and reported finding the village. He got confirmation from a farmer that the local mill stream was called the Sachs. He was also shown the direction of the lord's tower.

When the party got within a mile, Rolly left one man with the hobbled horses and everyone else snuck close and spread out around the building to watch for activity.

The tower house was a massive thing of stone, nearly thirty feet high. It reminded Rolly of a cinderblock standing on end. The single doorway opened in from a wooden stoop no more than seven or eight feet square. It didn't even have a railing around it. From the side of the stoop, wooden stairs went down along the side of the building to the ground, which meant that there was little room for men to operate a battering ram against the heavy wooden door. With the wooden stairs and stoop removed the doorway was ten feet off the ground.

There were no windows, just arrow slits on the second and third floors. The building was square in cross section and tall, with the only deviation being a protrusion a few feet wide and deep that ran almost to the top of the building on the back side. It was the chute down which waste fell from the privy rooms to an enclosed stone honey box. The location of each privy room could be seen by a narrow arrow slit next to the chute, presumably used more for ventilation than for defense. At the very top, directly above the terminus of the chute was a round window.

On one side of the building at ground level was a drainage grate for waste water from the well near the kitchen. The grate was both small and barred.

From his vantage point Rolly could see what looked like a small flag pole extending out the top of the building, but there was no enclosed doorway in sight. That suggested that a trapdoor was used to get to the roof battlement, something they already suspected.

_What a hell of a place to get in and live in, _ Rolly thought. There were a number of ways the rooms and stairwell could be laid out, and the arrow slit windows were little help since they were few and far between. The house was built to protect the inhabitants rather than to fight back. Presumably that would be done from the top, if at all.

The building would have made an adequate keep for a castle, but it had no curtain wall around it or out buildings to do all of the dirty work. The nearest outbuildings were more than a hundred paces away where the ground wasn't so uneven. The village itself didn't start for another quarter of a mile or more.

Rolly didn't like working off of so little information, but after he saw the place he didn't think that he would get any more.

The weather was turning bad and they had few hours of daylight left, so he sent four men back to get equipment from camp and kept his three best climbers there.

The knight standing next to Rolly looked pensive, so Rolly said to no one in particular, "Wilven is lucky today."

"How so, Milord?" the knight asked.

"I brought him along in case the honey chute opened above ground rather than in a box."

The knight almost laughed aloud, but instead put his hand over his mouth.

"What's he laughing for?" Rachel asked.

"Wilven would have had to crawl up the sewer pipe and through the privy seat to get inside."

"That's disgusting."

"It would be better than crawling through a running sewer pipe, or walking through some of the streams around most towns."

As they waited, they saw several women leave the house, and shortly after that they saw a figure briefly do something on the roof.

By the time the men got back with the equipment it was dark and raining. They found their way at the end mostly by the light of the lightning flashes.

If the storm was anything like a Kansan thunderstorm, they might only have a half hour to work.

Risking being hit by lightening, Sir Johnsten, the professed best climber of the group, started up along the angle between the wall and the honey chute. The climbing gear included crude pitons that could be hammered into the lime mortar between the rocks. A narrow hook slid over the piton and a rope attached to the climber's harness ran through an eye opposite to the hook.

A second climber, Sir Truven, held the rope on belay on the ground in case Sir Johnsten fell.

The thunder drowned out the sound of the hammer -- at least on the outside.

Johnsten climbed faster than Rolly expected and was near the top when the worst of the storm hit. Rather than risk his life, he came back down.

It was a good thing he did because from below they could tell that lightning hit the tower at least once.

As soon as the worst of the storm had moved passed Sir Johnsten went up again, finished pounding in anchors, and made his way over the top.

A few minutes later a signal passed down the rope and Sir Truven, went up.

They worked until the rain stopped and thunder could only be heard in the distance.

They had a line with knot signals in it that they sent down. One knot meant they had a way in (presumably the trapdoor) and that everyone should come up. Two knots meant that they needed Wilvern to try for the privy window. Three knots meant send equipment and weapons up.

The line had a series of three knots and then two knots so Rolly tied the bags of equipment on the rope while Wilven got into a climbing harness.

It took two loads to get the equipment up, and then Wilven made his way up, half climbing, half being pulled from above.

What no one could see in the dark is what happened next.

Sirs Johnsten and Truven had rigged ropes to allow Wilven to get down to the privy window and make his way in.

Wilven tried but he couldn't get his shoulder in and he lost leverage to get himself out. He ended up flailing and kicking with his legs in mid air until he finally worked his way free.

They pulled him back onto the roof, and soon he was back down on the ground.

"Milord. I cannot fit. It was a close thing, but my shoulder would not go. They had a good harness set up for me, but if I would have pushed harder I would still be stuck."

"Alright, Son. Could you see or hear anything up there?"

"It was silent. There was very dim light coming in from under the door, but I do not think it was not bright enough to be a hall candle."

"Wilven? Could I get in?"

"You, Milady?"

"Yes, me?"

"Milord?"

"Speak up."

"Yes Milady, I believe so, but you might want to put a sack against the stone so that you do not scrape yourself as I did."

Wilven removed his climbing harness and helped put it on Rachel. She had been rock climbing in her Topeka health club, but she didn't even need that since the men up top pulled her up like a sack of potatoes.

While she was getting reharnessed up top, Rolly made his way up the wall, followed by Wilven and two more knights. That left two on the ground and one back at camp,

Rachel made her way over the wall and felt her way down eight feet to the sloping top of the privy chute. The distance between the ledge it provided and the window was awkward, but even so, the sloping ledge gave her some reassurance.

She had no real trouble wriggling through the hole even though for a moment she thought that her hips were getting stuck. That caused her to curse having a fat ass, even though it wasn't. Silently she thanked Wilven for his suggestion as she struggled in through the rough stone hole in the wall.

Once in, she tugged on the line tied to her waist and an oilskin sack was lowered to her. In it was a crossbow protected from the rain, and a dagger and sword, but like Wilven's shoulders, the arms of the crossbow would not fit through the window. She decided to leave the cross bow hanging and rely on her dagger and sword for protection in case stealth failed.

After listening for a few minutes she opened the privy door a crack and looked out. Her eyes were accustomed to the dark and the faint light coming from under one of the doors was enough for her to see the outline of most of the hall.

She listened and still heard nothing.

She opened the door and stepped out, careful of her footfalls so as not to creak the floor boards.

She knew from the position of the trapdoor on the roof that the stairwell was on the front side of the building, and thus at the far end of the hall.

With sword in hand she softly made her way to the door that had the light coming from under it. She stopped and listened.

Nothing.

She moved past, into the dark end of the hallway.

She was almost to the stairwell when she heard _huff_ in the darkness in front of her. That was followed by the sound of a large body beginning to move up the stairs from below. She recognized the _click click_ of toenails on wood, and was running back to the privy even before she heard the first deep, rumbling, snarls and bellowing barks.

She was sure that before she could get in to the small room she would feel huge teeth sink into her and drag her down.

Above, the men could hear the snarls and barks of an attacking beast.

Rolly was beside himself. Instead of staying at the wall listening to the woman he loved be torn apart he ran to the trap door ring and pulled on it with all of his might, --but to no avail.

Rachel made it into the privy just before the huge mastiff caught up to her. She wedged herself with her back against the door, and with her feet pressed against the box of the privy seat she pushed the snapping beast back. The dog had her out weighed by thirty pounds and the only thing that saved her was the fact that it couldn't slam a shoulder into the door like a man could.

She could hold the dog off, but there was no way that she could leave the door to get back out the window.

When the initial shock wore of she thought that maybe she could get out the window when men came to pull the dog back, -- If she had enough time. Maybe the fall wouldn't kill her. Maybe she could grab hold of one of the ropes.

Somehow she had kept hold of her sword.

Her mind cleared a bit more and she knew that there was no way she could get out of the window. She had a good defensible position and realized that she could do some damage before they got to her. She decided to strike when they pulled the dog back. It was her only chance.

But no one came to pull the dog back.

"To hell with this." she said after comparing her situation of that of a rodeo clown facing an angry bull. Her little room was better than a clown's barrel.

The dog had let up momentarily and was standing outside the door growling and waiting for a chance to get at her.

Rachel wedged her feet apart, one at the lower edge of the box and one on the floor so that the door could open just enough for her to get her sword out.

She got ready and let her weight off of the door.

Nothing happened.

Adrenalin coursed through her as she pulled the door open an inch and stabbed out as hard as she could.

She missed and stubbed her knuckles when her sword's cross guard hit the doorframe.

The action cause the great beast to renew its attack on the door and Rachel started blindly stabbing again. She felt resistance against the blade once, but the ferociousness of the attack only increased, and the door was pushed open further.

Then snapping jaws bit the blade and tried to wrench it out of her hand.

She pulled back, which gave the dog enough room to wedge its snapping head halfway in.