Sleep was the thing I most craved and hard-to-find. As soon as I closed my eyes, images of the lives I had taken mocked and taunted me. They begged to know why I had taken their lives when it should have been mine ended. I re-lived every minute of their deaths and felt again the sheer exhilaration as their brief existence ceased under my teeth.
I woke engorged and on the verge of climax, when I came, I was not satisfied and it woke in me another hunger. I was afraid to satisfy it for any woman I took to bed would not survive the act. I shivered under my cloak and cursed the King that had made me this way, I hoped that my own curse would have as life altering an effect on him.
I’d listened to the conversations around me in the bar and learned a few things. There was a permanent Gate in the Wall. It was manned by Elassan Faet soldiers on one side and King’s Imperials on the other. It cost a stiff quarte to go through but it paid both ways. Only new users were stopped, searched and questioned. Those unlucky few had to produce papers showing that they had legitimate business passing beyond the barrier.
I checked the packet I had stolen from the drunk and luckily, they were in Freidsch, one of the seven languages I knew. Adam Kendley from Mirsk.
Part of the trick of getting into a place and not being challenged was acting like you belonged there. Striding purposely through, not hesitating and being confident that you belonged. With my newfound Dracule arrogance, I did just that as the dawn sky lightened over the snug gatehouse that lay on the road. On both sides of the one-lane paved road, the mist hovered as if cleaved in two. It coruscated, changing into amorphous shapes and pearlescent colors behind that fracture. It made my skin twitch and my hairs lift. I could hear it whispering to me yet it was far enough back not to affect the Newlanders who came through and so did not shriek in alarm as I approached.
The gatehouse was built of brick with windows and resembled the Wall. Inside, two Imperials were seated relaxing, drinking one of the hot beverages I remembered from Averon’s dinner table. Like coffee but richer with the taste of chocolate. The smell of their blood was sweeter.
As I approached, the one nudged the other and both straightened up as he spotted me in the long cape. I dared not use the allure to silence them or make them forget. I had no idea how that would make the mist react or if they were spelled against my glamour.
“Up and out early, merchant?” One asked in Erhesh. “Your name?”
“Kendley. Adam Kendley. From Mirsk.”
“No luck returning with your second cargo of spices?”
I patted my pockets. “I picked up some 3 pounds of saphron threads for a song. Big money in little packages.”
“Good for you. Papers?” I handed over the wallet and he made a cursory glance, studying my eyes under the hood. I was not sure if they glowed red as Arianell had told me but they seemed to satisfy him. “Good luck on your sales, Adam Kendley from Mirsk,” he said and the other wrote it down on a ledger near his hand.
I walked through. After a hundred yards, I encountered the King’s version of the gatehouse which looked exactly the same only here, there were more guards, horses tied to hitching rails and men moving about checking a long line of wagons, peddlers and merchants. I saw Dragoons and Hussars, Lancers and Grenadier’s waiting to be admitted through the entry side. My side was empty and I was hurried through by a bored Army Sergeant who was in the process of leaving to help with the overflow.
I walked past all of them at a normal, uncaring pace while my heart was racing and sweat covered my body in sudden fear. I think it was fear; I had the insane urge to attack all of them in a furious bloodbath. Sans weapons on my part. Insanity, yet a part of me said I could take them all.
Once out of sight of the soldiers, I hurried. I wished I could steal one of the horses I saw, running a horse didn’t cause comment where a running man would.
Here, the land didn’t look familiar. Instead of towering mountains, icy streams and thick forests, the land was gentler in nature. Rolling hills covered with small thickets in the gullies and grass knee-high in thick golden green leaves. It was a breeder’s paradise.
Here and there, I spotted substantial holdings and beef cattle grazing in the meadows. It looked peaceful and prosperous. The bad thing was that there was little in the way of concealment from sharp eyes and the coming full rays of the sun.
I jogged where I could trying to reach the next town which I assumed from Kendley’s papers was Mirsk. When they found and asked him to produce his papers and could not, it would draw official eyes to the traveler who had passed through the gates under his name. So I couldn’t stay in Mirsk any longer than necessary to get passage on a ship bound for home. I had enough cash for that but what worried me was whether I could survive the sea journey without feeding on the crew. Of course, a man or so overboard was a routine disaster so no one would miss a seamen or two. If there was live cargo, I could take my food there, animals sickened and died on board every day.
Mirsk finally came into sight. A pretty town built along the lines of Albans, the
Capital and as busy. It was on the Tacomi River which led to the great Tacomis Bay, clear across the continent of the Newlands from Cayden’s Valley.
I could see the port, the wharves and the buildings that lined both sides of the road. It was called Deep Port Drive. There were sail makers shops, lumber dealers, taverns, ale houses and boarding houses next to the tax offices and harbormaster’s.
Uniform shops, greengrocers and dried goods procurers. Anything you could need for a ship voyage you could find on this stretch of avenue. I watched as they walked by searching the ship’s offices where I would book passage in one of the boats bound for the East coast. I could see the masts of several just beyond the backside of the buildings. Saw six masted speed schooner that could make the trip in half the time yet when I inquired at the Departure windows, I was told that all shipping east had been curtailed due to the war. There was a blockade and nothing was getting past it. Ships had been sunk, shanghaied and crews impressed. I couldn’t bribe any of the captains to change their minds and didn’t try because seeming too desperate would make them look at me too closely.
I was told that the only option left open was to ride cross-country or fly one of the Condorlas. If I could persuade the Klese pilot to do so. In the end, I booked a small state room on a ship called the Smoky Dolphin to the furthest port of call on the Western Reaches just before the Badlands. From there, I could hire horses and ride east skirting the Border Wall which would take me back towards Cape Fear.
Truthfully, that was the last place I wanted to be but was my only option other than to strike out cross-country roughing it, depending on my hunting skills and senses to keep me safe and on track.
I purchased a horse, a sturdy brown cob named Almond. He was smooth and willing as I rode out of town. The hostler had thrown in a saddle and bridle, I bought new saddlebags, packing gear with the last of Kendley’s monies. I kept his wallet with the Sinise’s cup and the belt wand hidden where I could reach it easily but where it could not be found.
Rode out of town towards the dock where The Dolphin was birthed, showed my ticket and saw the gelding loaded into the cargo hold. I made sure he was comfortable before seeking my own accommodations. The cabin was just large enough to hold a bunk, table, chair and privy pot. No room for a hip bath but then, it was a palace compared to the berths the midshipmen and third class slept in. They had tiers of shelves and a bench with holes in it that flushed clean every time the ship rolled. The animals in the hull were better off and in cleaner conditions.
I didn’t have long to wait, after seeing to my gelding and making sure my gear was stowed in my cabin myself, I could hear the captain ordering the lines cast off, felt the sails fill and The Dolphin marched serenely out of the harbor and onto the Great Sea. I watched from the rail as the sailors climbed the lines like monkeys and the bustle of ship life went on around me.
There was quite a bit of talk about the warlord and his counterpart in the Elassan forces. I hadn’t heard his name before but he was supposedly some relative of the King and already responsible for several battles where he’d been victorious.
I heard that the witch Blackfin was being used to plot campaigns and strategies–sort of like Earl Gleneden’s right-hand man. Or woman. Both camps were still searching for me.
I went to my cabin before the moon rose, locked the door and slept through the daylight hours. I had barricaded the door with the table and chair and since I hadn’t paid for food, no one tried to wake me for meals. On board, the only stress I encountered was minimal and my last feeding should last me until I left for the country.
The trip was quiet and uneventful. The captain hugged the coastline and remained in sight of land. He wasn’t the only one to do so–most of the ships we saw were locals doing the same. The sails and masts we spotted out to sea belonged to the Oldlands and were the enemy.
I could see further than even the lookout in the crow’s nest and each one carried either the Earl’s banner, the Emperor’s standard or the mailed fist of the southern coalition. None were Newlander lines and I wasn’t sure what the Elassan flew or even if they had a Navy.
The captain put into Zion just after dark and cautioned all to wait until daybreak to disembark as the town was dangerous, filled with thieves, murderers and cutthroats. He told me I was an idiot when I insisted I be allowed to leave. Grumbling, he ordered his men to bring up the horse, and I led him down the gangway. There were men waiting to see what and who was so foolish as to leave without protection. Before I had gone ten feet down the alley, I was held up by bandits dressed in rags that had seen better days but their weapons were sharp and well cared for.
Four of them, scruffy looking men with beards, long hair and in desperate need of a bath. They spoke Esperan, their accent made their words slur and run into each other but their intent was clear.
“Hand over your wallet, weapons and horse,” the leader said hoarsely. He had a scar across his throat where someone had tried to decapitate him and missed. His eyes were a flat black, his hair dirty brown and his skin tone dark as if he came from the Southern Reaches. Two of his companions looked like brothers with large hooked noses. The last was a youngster near my own age and rail thin as if food wasn’t plentiful.
“I suggest you turn around and leave me be,” I warned. “If you value your lives. I’m not hungry, yet.”
They laughed and he mocked me. “You don’t even carry a blade. What are you going to do, bark at me and frighten me to death?”
I threw back my hood and stared at them with the full force of my power. Motionless, they stood there as I divested them of their meager possessions and hesitated at the very last. In the end, I killed the three older ones with their own swords and drained the younger to the very brink of death but not quite. He would wake and remember only being attacked by a black demon that killed his companions.
Mounting the horse, I rode on and was accosted at least three more times before I left the town behind.