Chapter 28: The Avenging Stranger

Tanelickt and Danka departed from the Great Temple before sunrise on August 6, only four days after Danka first entered the city. The two penitents had very little time to spare if they were going to cross the entire western valley, go into the mountains, cross the pass near Novo Sumy Ris, and navigate the hilly country along the road that lead to their destination in Novo Sokukt Tok before the weather became too cold to travel. The real problem was the pass dividing the western valley from the eastern valley: it could receive snow as early as the first week in September, which was not good news for two people having to travel as naked penitents.

Danka carried her bucket, while Tanelickt carried a sack containing some wrapped packages the Priest had given him, along with flint and tender for lighting campfires, string to set snares, a small knife for cleaning game and preparing food, a sling, and fishhooks in case they camped by a stream. They’d be able to stay in churches and chapels until they passed Starivktaki Moskt, but then they would have to camp in the forest until reaching the pass. He would have preferred to carry the sack over his shoulder, but was prohibited from covering his body and therefore had to carry it in his hand, in the same way Danka had to carry her bucket.

Danka wondered why Oana would be stationed with guards at the other side of the Duchy and in territory only nominally loyal to the Royal House. Tanelickt explained there were two reasons: Oana had some friends serving in the Vice Duke’s Provincial Guards, and also she needed to stay away from other former Defenders. Tanelickt was not the only member of the militia who had serious doubts about Oana’s performance in the battle. The Grand Duke would not have had time to worry about a single ex-nymph, given that his commanders had to find places in the Royal Army for nearly 500 new recruits. If the Vice Duke wanted Oana for an assignment in the eastern valley, he could have her.

Danka enjoyed the walk to the east much less than she enjoyed the walk from Gordnackt Suyastenckt to Danubikt Moskt. The pace which she and her companion traveled was nearly twice as fast as the leisurely speed she had walked in the month before. Tanelickt was used to walking with a quick marching shuffle that was just short of running, Danka was hard-pressed to keep up with him, but she dared not complain. Tanelickt knew the pass well enough to understand they absolutely had to arrive before September 1. They had to go on foot and they only had three weeks to reach it. If they did not get over the pass before the first snow, they’d be stuck for eight months waiting for the area to clear. Danka was too exhausted at the end of each day to want sex, but she had promised her companion he could have sex with her when he wanted, and he did want sex every night. They made love, fell asleep, and within a few hours Tanelickt was tapping her on the shoulder so they could have breakfast and head out. Tanelickt even considered stopping to collect food along the route as a waste of time.

Danka had to credit Tanelickt for his self-discipline and efficient traveling the day they passed to the north of Gordnackt Suyastenckt, less than two weeks after departing the capitol. Because it was the middle of the afternoon, Tanelickt had no desire to stop there, to Danka’s relief. The last thing she wanted was run into Isauria. She had said goodbye and that farewell needed to be final. It would not do to part with her former ward only to show up a month-and-a-half later and have to say goodbye all over again.

They crossed the hills overlooking the town and descended towards the road that went into the mountains and eventually to the Vice Duchy. The landscape was mostly forested, with some small pastures in a few areas flat enough for livestock. The road climbed above the Rika Chorna River, which flowed rapidly through a canyon that was increasingly deep and narrow. Tanelickt kept up his frenetic pace, but as the elevation rose and the nighttime temperatures dropped and they cuddled each other for warmth, Danka fully understood they would be in deep trouble if they didn’t get over the pass within a few days.

When the road veered from northeast to east, they passed a series of rapids and waterfalls. Then the road moved away from the river. The road continued along the hillsides, but the river flowed through a large valley, the middle of which was completely flat and covered with thick dark vegetation. Tanelickt commented they were passing the Great Swamp of Misery.

“It’s definitely not a place for humans. The land is cursed and will actually eat you if you try to cross it. At night sometimes you can see illuminated ghosts deep in the marshes. There are wolves and every kind of blood-sucking insect you can imagine.”

“So, no one goes in there, even to hunt?”

“No. Why would anyone go in there? It’s too dangerous. You’ll just have to believe me. You told me you spent three weeks walking across the Kingdom of the Moon with nothing more than the protection of the Ancients and I believe you. You’ll have to believe me when I tell you that ground eats humans.”

The shivering penitents arrived at the pass on September 2. There was a small shrine and an inn run by the Old Believers’ faction of the Danubian Church. The resident Priest and Priestess were in their eighties and had been working in the same location for six decades. Danka recognized them: she had once seen them visiting Babackt Yaga’s settlement. Tanelickt handed over a sealed letter from his supervising Priest at the Great Temple. The old man read the letter and smiled mischievously. He handed the document to a much younger attendant, who immediately mounted a donkey and rode off to the east.

Tanelickt relaxed slightly, knowing the most risky part of the trip was finished. They still had to spend a couple of days descending the eastern slope, but from that point the threat from the weather would lessen the further they progressed. The travelers sat by a fireplace while Tanelickt updated the Priest on the aftermath of the Defenders’ disastrous campaign and what he saw as he and Danka crossed the western valley. As she lay on a thick wool blanket, Danka promptly fell asleep, completely exhausted from nearly four weeks of frantic walking.

Tanelickt and Danka woke up early the next morning and continued their trip. The pace remained the same, but most of the traveling was downhill and for the first time Danka was able to enjoy some panoramic views of the Vice Duchy of Rika Chorna. She was curious about the name, given that at no point did the Rika Chorna River actually flow anywhere through the Vice-Duchy. Her companion explained that when the refugees from Lower Danubia first entered the area in 1512, they harbored resentment against King Vladik for not having defended their homeland against the invading Ottomans. Therefore they wanted to claim for themselves as much territory in the eastern half of Upper Danubia as possible, which included the Great Swamp of Misery and the headwaters of the Rika Chorna River. According to the Vice Duke, the border between the Grand Duke’s realm and the Vice Duchy was located at the entrance of the canyon they had just passed through. According to the Grand Duke, the boundary was the pass itself.

“So far,” Tanelickt said, “neither side has formally challenged each other’s claims about where the Grand Duke’s control ends and the Vice-Duke’s control begins. Of course, the Grand Duke says the border question is irrelevant because the Vice Duchy is part of the Grand Duchy. The Vice-Duke has different thoughts on the matter. I’m not sure how, short of a war, that’ll be resolved.”

Danka said nothing, the thought to herself: I do know how it’ll be resolved. The Grand Duke will send his illegitimate daughters, dozens of them, to marry into the leading families. That’s what he’s planning to do with all those girls. He’ll conquer this place without firing a single shot. And, of course, the girls will have no say in the matter.

Three days after crossing the pass, the two penitents entered Novo Sumy Ris, the first town in the Vice Duchy. The town itself was not big, but it boasted an over-sized church that was an exact replica of the one in the original Sumy Ris. Danka couldn’t resist the urge to go in. She was greeted by a black-robed Priest who angrily chased her out, hitting her several times with his staff. When the penitents knelt on the steps, several True Believer Clergy-members, all men, kicked their upturned bottoms and hurled insults at them. A group of city guards, wearing uniforms that were different from the ones worn in the western valley and Horkustk Ris province, grabbed the visitors and forced them to leave the town. Both Danka and Tanelickt were shocked at the treatment. Penitents were respected in the western half of the Duchy, but in the Vice-Duchy, which was still under the control of the True Believers’ faction, it turned out True Believer priests had very little respect for collared penitents. Church rules forbade Old Believer penitents from entering churches and local Clergy members were free to mistreat them. As they were forced to move towards the crossroads at the entrance of the town, Danka and Tanelickt passed the market square and a young man who was chained to a pillory. Apart from the petty criminal, Danka and Tanelickt were the only naked people in the entire town.

The guards kicked Danka and Tanelickt in their backsides and thighs before pushing them to the ground. The penitents were not sure what more the watchmen would have done had to them had not the apprentice from the chapel at the pass not reappeared. When he whistled loudly for them to step away, the guards bowed their heads as he took charge of the two visitors. As soon as the guards left, he apologized about not getting back in time to prevent Danka and Tanelickt from entering Novo Sumy Ris. He offered to tie their belongings to his saddle, but did not say much more after ordering the naked couple to follow him. It turned out they would have to be escorted for the rest of their trip. They exited the main road to continue east for a day before turning south again to finish their journey along back roads and farming paths. Villagers and field workers stared at the two penitents, but didn’t say anything because they were being escorted by a Church Apprentice.

The trip between Novo Sumy Ris and Novo Sokukt Tok was much longer than Danka had expected. They spent almost all of the remainder of September on the final portion of their journey. Danka had not realized that Novo Sumy Ris was as far from Novo Sokukt Tok as it was from Starivktaki Moskt, and they were not going along the most direct route. The final week of the trip was the worst. The autumn rains started and the penitents spent several miserable days walking in chilly drizzle along muddy paths. On the last day of the month, finally ... finally ... finally ... Novo Sokukt Tok’s rooftops and church steeples came into view through the rainy mist. The apprentice handed back his companions’ belongings and escorted them to a farmhouse owned by the family of one of the town’s Priests. As soon as his guests were at the door, the apprentice departed.

When Danka and Tanelickt entered, they were greeted by a young man she had studied with at the university, and who had been one of her many lovers during her year of studying. She remembered his name as Ernockt, which was fortunate because she had so many lovers at the university that she had forgotten most of their names or never knew them in the first place. Ernockt was considerably more talkative than the apprentice had been, asking Danka and Tanelickt to talk about their trip while an assistant prepared a hot bath for both. While the two penitents were cleaning up, the assistant unpacked their belongings and laid them out to dry near the fireplace, along with their soggy boots. A farmer’s wife came in and served a meal of deep-fried vegetables and blackberry bread, both of which were specialties of the Vice Duchy. Tanelickt exited his bath first. Ernockt produced a key and unlocked his penance collar, then told him to put on a new set of worker’s clothing. Danka noticed a peasant’s dress hanging on the wall and realized she’d be wearing it as soon as she exited her bath. When no one was looking, she unlatched and removed her collar. The others would realize she was wearing a fake collar, but all she could do was hope they’d understand it was a secret that needed to be safeguarded. The two men were surprised to see her with her collar already removed when she exited the tub to put on the dress, but neither said anything.

As they ate, Ernockt explained what was going on. He was officially a scribe for the city council, but he also was part of a secret network of Old Believers and ex-Followers who were working in the Vice-Duchy to undermine the authority of the True Believers and the Vice-Duke. The group wanted the Duchy to be united under a single independent Church and a single Royal Household. The secret society viewed the True Believers as traitors to the Duchy’s culture because of their ties with the Roman Church. They collected information about the various True Believer parishes, identified sympathetic Clergy members who would be likely to work with the rival faction if it took control of a town, and laid out plans to eventually seize Churches. The conspirators’ plans sounded far-fetched, but it was precisely through a well-timed conspiracy and the good luck of friendly council members that the Old Believers seized control of the parish in Severckt nad Goradki. That coup essentially drove the True Believers out of their last stronghold in the western valley and cut the eastern parishes off from their contacts in Rome. Ernockt’s position was especially important, because as a scribe he had access to all of the records of the town councilmen and the True Believers’ parish. The Prophets in the Great Temple knew, in detail, everything that was happening in Novo Sokukt Tok. Considering the way they were treated in Novo Sumy Ris, neither Danka nor Tanelickt had any misgivings about working with a man whose Path in Life it was to undermine the True Believers.

Dressed in their workers’ disguises, Danka and Tanelickt followed the scribe into town. They entered a small but very clean residence that Ernockt’s group used as a safe-house. The host pointed out the window at a fortress-like building just a few doors away. It was a True Believers’ convent, the only one in the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia operating at that time. Danka commented that she had heard of convents in other countries, but was surprised to find out there was one in the Duchy. The idea of a bunch of women isolating themselves from society and spending their entire lives in celibacy struck Danka as totally odd. She had no clue why anyone would want to live like that. Ernockt responded:

“The lifestyle has its attractions, especially if you’re a woman in the Vice Duchy and don’t want to marry.”

The purpose of the visit was to talk about Oana, not the convent. It turned out the former squad leader had used her connections to find a comfortable position as the leader of a group of female guards protecting the Convent. Her set-up was quite nice. The leader of the convent had issued Oana a small house, adjacent to both the main gate and the barracks where the other female guards were staying. She lived alone, but usually there were city watchmen milling about. Ernockt handed a shawl to Danka and a hat to Tanelickt. It was raining outside, which would allow the former Defenders to cover themselves and avoid being recognized, even if they did come within sight of their target. Before doing anything else, they needed to become completely familiar with the streets and buildings near the convent and the main church. Danka and Tanelickt examined alleyways, doors, windows, and walls to consider how they would access and escape from Oana’s house. After eating dinner and resting, the couple went back out to see how the town looked at night and consider how darkness would influence their selection of hiding places and escape routes.

At midnight Danka told Ernockt and Tanelickt to wait a block away from Oana’s house. She couldn’t resist the urge to see her. Like the ghost she would pretend to be, she silently slipped past a city watchman and snuck around the house. The windows were closed, but one in the back had a gap wide enough to allow her to see most of the house’s interior. Danka looked in. Sure enough, there she was. Oana was not alone. A much younger male guard was with her. They both were naked, and Oana was bent over in the submissive position. Apparently she liked having sex that way. Danka tightened her lips. If Oana entertained men in her house every night, obviously getting to her when she was alone would be difficult. But somehow she’d have to do it.

She could not simply go in and kill her or kidnap her. Just as she promised Dalibora she’d find and punish Oana, she had promised the Priest in the Great Temple she’d not spill Oana’s blood. There was nothing more for her to do for the moment than try to memorize the interior of the residence and the arrangement of the furniture. Danka realized it would be a good idea to re-create the entire layout of Oana’s residence and practice moving about in the dark. As best she could, she tried to memorize the size and distance between each piece of furniture within her range of vision. When Oana’s lover departed and she extinguished her lantern, only the dim light from the stove was visible. Good. Now Danka knew what the house interior looked like when only the stove was lit. Still, the detail that Oana’s house had a cast-iron stove for burning cave-charcoal irritated her. Danka had introduced the stove to comfort her companions in the Defenders’ base camp, but it was the woman who had betrayed the others who was benefiting.

When she was ready to leave, Danka had to time her movement to slip past the city watchman milling about the house. That was another problem, what to do about that watchman. She rejoined her companions and they returned to the nearby safe-house. Danka described what she saw and sketched the layout of Oana’s living quarters. Over the next few days she’d go back to verify the size and placement of the furnishings, assemble a replica in the basement of the farmhouse, and practice moving about in total darkness. Also, she needed to figure out what she wanted to say to Oana when she confronted her.

Five days after Danka saw Oana’s new house for the first time, Ernockt showed up with a young woman who looked exactly like one of the recruits Oana had brought back with her the previous spring. At first Danka wondered if one of Oana’s nymphs had miraculously survived the battle and, like Danka, had managed to escape. The woman, whose name was Jeskeckta, was not the nymph, but instead was her younger sister. She wanted to join the conspiracy against Oana. It turned out that Danka’s group were not the only nymphs Oana left behind. There were two additional injured nymphs, one from Dalibora’s squad and the woman from Oana’s squad, who she had tricked into not joining the evacuation.

The surprising news came from a musketeer of another commander’s company who Danka had never met. However, according to the story he told Jeskeckta’s family, his circumstances in Aksheriri Ris were very similar to Danka’s. He was watching over the injured nymph from Dalibora’s squad and trying to construct a sling from bed linens to carry her out, when Oana showed up with Jeskeckta’s sister, who had broken her leg when falling off a rooftop. Oana ordered the musketeer to leave the house and accompany her. She ordered the two injured nymphs to stay in the house and bolt the door. The Grand Duke’s army was positioned outside and already the first Defenders were leaving. Oana ordered the musketeer to cover her as she ran towards the gate. To his horror, the man realized the squad leader was leaving with no intention of attempting to bring out the two injured nymphs. He screamed at her that they needed to go back and help the injured women evacuate, but Oana ignored him and ran off. He ran back, having to evade a squad of Red Moon troops when he got near the house. When he returned, it was too late. A squad of Red Moon troops already had broken the door and decapitated the two nymphs. They were holding up the heads as trophies and playing around with the Danubians’ crossbows.

The musketeer was furious at Oana, because it was completely her fault those two women had been killed. Had they been helped to the north gate, there would have been enough Defenders to carry them down the hill. The musketeer couldn’t do anything against the enemy soldiers, because there were at least 20 of them. He tried to return to the north gate, but the Red Moon troops had re-taken that section of the city and the only remaining escape route was through the ruins of the garrison building. The musketeer was determined to get out, but it was obvious he would not make it to the Grand Duke’s evacuation. He remained hidden, hoping to survive until nightfall. Shortly after he found a promising hiding place, the Lord of the Blue Moon’s soldiers launched an assault against their rivals. The Danubian survivor crawled through burning ruins as fighting raged all around him. By nightfall he had made it outside and was able to crawl through the partially-filled defense trenches to move away from the city and the fighting. He spent several nights sneaking northward until he reached the Duchy. Upon returning, he did not go to the capitol, because he did not know the evacuees had been taken there. Instead, he stole a horse and a set of clothing to set out for the Vice Duchy. He knew the names and the hometowns of the two dead nymphs, so he decided to look for their families and tell them what happened. He found Jeskeckta’s family first and told them what he knew about their dead family member and Oana’s betrayal. He then departed to find the second nymph’s family and was not heard from again. From their description, Danka was able to confirm the identities of the two nymphs. So, it turned out that Oana had left not four, but six nymphs to be killed by the Kingdom of the Moon’s troops. The only consolation was that the two other nymphs were killed quickly. Danka could only guess they must have had their crossbows ready and forced the enemy troops to shoot them as soon as they pushed the door open.

During the month of October, Danka and her companions worked out the details of their revenge. They scouted the house several more times, making note of their target’s schedule and the schedules of her various lovers. They bought furniture that matched Oana’s furnishings, set up a replica of her living area, and practiced moving about in total darkness. They became completely familiar with the streets around the convent and how they would access the house and escape from it. Danka was happy to have Jeskeckta as part of the conspiracy, and even more happy that Jeskeckta looked exactly like her dead sister. For the ruse Danka was planning, the stroke of luck was perfect. While Danka and Jeskeckta worked out the lines they would say to Oana, Ernockt and Tanelickt purchased oil lamps and a prepared a chemical mixture that made lantern oil burn an eerie bluish-green. They prepared special dye to blacken skin and assembled several sets of tightly-fitting black clothing and matching face masks.

October seemed to pass by very quickly. The four conspirators spent most of their days planning their trap for Oana, but there was time to relax, enjoy each others’ company, and even explore the area around Novo Sokukt Tok. Jeskeckta took her companions to her village and talked about the days when she and her sister were children, before her father tried to force her into an arranged marriage. Fortunately for Jeskeckta, the father had since died and a brother was running the family farm. Jeskeckta would have to leave eventually, but she was not in a hurry and was determined to have more say over who she married than her sister had.

Within a few days of meeting Jeskeckta, Tanelickt lost interest in Danka. He quit approaching her for sex and shifted his attentions to the villager. He entertained her with tales of the Defenders’ exploits and descriptions of what life was like for the nymphs and musketeers. Not having seen anything apart from her farm and Novo Sokukt Tok (which she considered very cosmopolitan), Jeskeckta listened to the description of a fascinating world of adventure and danger. Danka noticed that Tanelickt exaggerated the bravery and performance of Jeskeckta’s sister. In life she had not been an exceptional fighter, but her sister did not have to know that. Meanwhile, Tanelickt started asking about land and farming in the region and if there were available farms near Novo Sokukt Tok or homesteads further east. Jeskeckta promised to ask her brother the next time she saw him.

At first, Danka was glad to be free of Tanelickt’s attentions. She liked him, but there was nothing intellectual about him and she would have been bored with him had they attempted to stay together. Being with Tanelickt, she realized she would be very hard-pressed to find someone as interesting as Ilmatarkt. Yes, her husband had a lot of strange ideas, but she was never bored talking to him and the conversations challenged her to think about the world in ways she had not previously imagined. Tanelickt was more a man of his era, competent with a musket or a plow, but not one to trouble his mind with things that did not directly affect his life. And yet, as Danka watched him and Jeskeckta flirt with each other, she felt a twinge of jealousy. It was the first time in her life a man who had been interested in her turned away to pursue another woman. Oh well. There was nothing for her to do other than wish them the best and finish her plot against Oana.

By the last week of October the rains in the eastern valley had stopped. The first snowfall was only a few weeks away, but in the meantime cold dry winds whipped the last of the leaves off the trees. Now that the rain and fog had cleared, Danka had the chance to look at the steep mountains immediately to the southwest of Novo Sokukt Tok. In the distance Danka could see jumbled peaks where the headwaters of the Rika Chorna River were located. Just a year before she had been on the other side of those mountains in the Defenders’ encampment, wondering what the Vice Duchy was like and listening to stories of fellow nymphs who were from places like Novo Sokukt Tok.

During the middle of the month, various friends of Ernockt snuck in with barrels of preserved food to lower through the floor and hide in a secret compartment under the house’s basement. The Vice Duke’s tax collectors were roaming around and typically barely left the farmers with enough food to make it through the winter. Danka and Jeskeckta helped Ernockt’s friends with some of the cooking and preserving, which forced them to delay their plan to confront Oana. Finally, the farmers left at the beginning of the last week of October and Danka could resume her plot against Oana.

On October 26th, Guard Mistress Oana Adonckta, the head of the security of the True Believers’ Convent in Novo Sokukt Tok, entertained one of the town’s young male watchmen, as usual. She did the same thing every night, unsure herself why she gave sex away for free. When she reflected on the matter, the only explanation she could come up with was that she simply enjoyed having sex and young men did not entangle her in any commitments.

Oana had lived alone for many years. She once was married, but it turned out she was unable to have children and her husband left her. She took advantage of her childless status to have a series of lovers. Eventually she joined the Defenders, mostly out of boredom. The militia life gave her much of the life she wanted, until that nasty newcomer Danka started causing so many problems for her squad and Dalibora undercut her leadership. Well, she did get even with those two, didn’t she? Many would have said that it was inexcusable for a nymph to abandon another nymph, but that was just too bad. Danka and Dalibora, and the others for that matter, had caused trouble for Oana, so their deaths at the hands of the soldiers of the Kingdom of the Moon was what they deserved. Besides, it was the Destroyer, not Oana, who ultimately determined their fates. Meanwhile, she had started a new life and was proving her value to the True Believers, so her future seemed bright, maybe even more so than in the militia.

However, after her lover departed, Oana felt strangely uneasy. Something was not right. She lay awake in the darkness, listening to the cold wind blow through the streets and rooftops of Novo Sokukt Tok. She could swear she could hear a ghostly whisper:

“Nymphs take care of each other. A nymph never leaves her sister in the hands of the enemy. No nymph ever faces the pain of defeat alone...”

She took a deep breath and threw off her bed covers. She needed to light a lantern and see what was causing that strange whispering noise. The problem was she couldn’t move her arms. Something, or someone, was holding her hands and feet to the bed. Then, to her horror, a woman’s face slowly came into view. As it became increasingly illuminated, she recognized who it was, the injured young recruit from a village near Novo Sokukt Tok she had left behind in Aksheriri Ris, just before she fled though the north gate. For a few moments the face said nothing. It was obvious it must be a ghost, given the sad expression and weird blue-green illumination that could only come from the Realm of the Afterlife.