Chapter Three
My observation that this was likely a slave colony could not have been more close to the truth. It wasn’t a slavery of human versus human either. Not for the most part anyway.
There were human looking guards, but the major influencers on the scene where a hybrid combination of human and animal or bird as the case may be. It was like watching a literal scene of ancient Egypt come to life in front of me.
I ducked behind the corner of the building I was hiding behind as a jackal guard turned its svelte black head with wolf’s eyes to glance in my direction. Seeing the oppression of these people and the actual existence of entities only part human brought a whole new meaning to the plight of the Hebrews in Egypt off the pages of the Bible to me.
So far I’d only seen two hybrid creations. The more prevalent of the two being the jackal men and the less prominent number being men with the head of falcons.
The level of unease I felt at even being this close to such evil had me second-guessing as to why I was here. I was only one man after all.
I had exactly twenty seven bullets left and reversibly the jackal guards carried a power staff that I had seen the likes of before, which had a seemingly endless ability to fire repeatedly. Those staffs could blow quite a hole in an individual.
The more human looking guards were only outfitted with long knives and whips. I withdrew from my position in case the jackal guard should come over to inspect the area. He had seemed to be of the suspicious sort.
I skirted along the edges of the city in the valley. It was really two cities. One grand one and a second city separated apart from the first one, which could only be described as a dump.
As near as I could tell the grander of the two cities was sparsely populated and was host to only the hybrids and some humans, mostly women from the looks of it.
I spent all day scouting it out. As near as I could tell I placed the count of active bad guys at about five thousand, with only about five hundred of them being clearly of the hybrid persuasion.
Any way you looked at it there weren’t good odds to be had. Now if I only had some artillery pieces loaded with grapeshot and about two regiments of cavalry, things would have been different.
I left off scouting the city of vanity personified and drifted down the valley toward the slave city. It was a hunch on my part that they had some of those devices that scanned for body heat. It most likely was how they kept the slaves from escaping at night and then how they tracked those few down that did choose to run, as I’d seen earlier in the day.
The thought of that being me hanging in the air from barbed shafts impaled in my body just didn’t sit well at all. I could only imagine what had happened to the man after I had last seen him.
*****
In complete horror I watched from the edge of the forest the spectacle that was going on at the main gate of the slave city. There on a tall poll, which had a horizontal cross arm high up, hung the man from earlier in the day. He was still alive!
Not only was he alive, but he was still hanging from the barbed shafts stuck fast in the back of his shoulder muscles. Then as I watched one of the barbs tore free of the muscle and the man hung there from one barb only. It wouldn’t be long now.
Glancing to the ground I saw directly below the man an area of upward pointed stakes. The horrific quality of the scene was only added to by the group of people tied to short polls that ringed around the stakes situated beneath the tall poll.
All the slaves that had returned from the other city after a day of hard labor would’ve had to walk by this gruesome scene, and those slaves held over and chained to the posts were no doubt the man’s family. They were being forced to witness the man’s demise one muscle ripping moment at a time.
The man in the air was sobbing out and trying to gesture the stakes below him away even as those on the ground sobbed at having to witness the atrocity that they were being forced to. All of those on the ground were looking upward to the man hanging from the pole.
I saw one little girl look away and she was promptly whipped hard by a guard standing nearby. Still crying she glanced upward again as she even now had new scars to add to her young life.
“The need for deliverance is great Taran.”
I wasn’t overly surprised at the sound of the old indian’s voice from beside me. He’d appeared off and on over the years that I’d been in space.
“What are you going to do Taran?”
“Not sure, but I do know I’m not going to let this game go on any longer.” I said, not looking away from the man or his crying family on the ground.
The man’s actions had become more desperate as he no doubt felt the remaining barbed point start to tear free. I pulled my gun free and sighting down it I aimed a little above the man’s head. It was a long shot to make with a pistol.
“The evening breeze blows from the east.” The old indian commented.
“Yeah.” I said adjusting my aim to the left slightly.
I pulled the trigger. The report of the gun sounded loud, but I had the satisfaction of seeing the man’s body go limp. The lifeless body tore free and fell down to be plunged through harmlessly.
“May God have mercy on his soul.” I said meaning every word of it.
“He was a believer. Even so it will be accorded to him in the last day when he inherits eternal life.”
I looked to the old indian and asked, “What am I doing here?”
He smiled, “What you always do Taran.” He said, as he slapped me on the shoulder and started to move on by.
“Which is what?” I asked despondently.
“Good. You do good everywhere you go Taran. Men faithful to the Father’s will are hard to come by and you are one of them.”
Watching him go further into the darkness of the forest I called out, “I can’t do this one alone. God knows I can’t. This isn’t a little town or a little local fight for freedom. There’s a whole city of them!”
“Tell me Taran, all that you’ve done over these past few years, did you do it all yourself?”
“Well no. I wouldn’t have gotten far without God helping me.”
“What makes you think anything has changed Taran? There may be more of the enemy then you have encountered before, but is not God the same as before too? Have faith Taran. Victory is waiting to be claimed even as in all your other conquests for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now go into the city, because yes, they are scanning the perimeters of the city for body heat signatures.”
I glanced back toward the city only to see a great hubbub of activity brewing. He was right I needed to move, now.
“One more thing Taran. You were right about not being able to do this mission on your own, which is why you will need to acquire a partner if you hope to be victorious in setting your people free.”
“Partner? Who?”
He just smiled at me and I knew!
“Oh no you don’t! You surely know what she did to me! Look!” I exclaimed, as I pointed to the angry red scarring of flesh along my whole left side.
“She’s not fit to be a partner to anything but a snake and a cross eyed one to boot!”
The old Indian had the temerity to laugh at me as he faded from view.
“Now look here I’m not having this!” I cried out, but I spoke to empty night air.
Looking into the heavens I made my case directly, “She tried to kill me God!”
No answer.
“She’s nothing but a lying little thief!”
“She yet possesses a soul Taran. Tell me, do you wish Me to consign her to hell?”
Taken aback by the answer I stumbled backwards several steps and stammering I said, “No. No, I don’t wish that on her.”
“I know you don’t. It speaks well of you, especially in light of all that she’s done to you.”
I really needed to be going, but what was being asked was just too much. “I’ll do this on my own. With Your help I can do anything.”
“Yes you can, but you’re not a thief.”
There was no arguing with that. What did I need a thief for?
There was no more time to wait in indecision. I took off at a run and a quarter mile further I slipped into the slave city compound as the hovering drone of craft in the night air sounded loud over top of the surrounding forests.
*****
All the slave quarter doors were closed to me. I dodged down several side alleys in avoidance of search patrols. Pausing to catch my breath behind a shack I huffed out, “What makes you think she’ll listen to me? She hates anything that represents law and order.”
I ran on and several minutes later I continued my rant, “She’ll stab me in the back. Whatever needs stolen in order to free these people if it has any value she’ll make off with it and leave everyone in the lurch.”
Sighing loudly I pressed my sweaty forehead into a stone pillar and begged softly, “Please don’t make me find her.”
“Why?”
Gritting my teeth I ground my forehead into the stone and said, “You know why!”
I waited for an answer, but none came. Opening my eyes I saw a door open and several arms gestured for me to hurry.
Trustingly I broke away from the pillar and ran to the open door. It was completely dark inside and I was ushered along in the dark by unseen hands.
There was a loud creaking noise and then I was being pressed down into a recession in the floor. I went willingly.
I heard the chink of a jar and the smell of food assaulted my senses. The floor was laid back over top of me and I was closed off in a cocoon of dark silence. It was a good thing I didn’t mind tight spaces. Edgar would have been going nuts by now.
I reached out and claimed the half loaf of bread resting beside me. God bless whatever slave was going hungry tonight in order to feed me!
I ate hungrily until all the food and most of the milk was gone. Then I just lay there. I was tired and now was a good time to rest, but I lay there with my eyes open in the dark. My mind was full of all things Zayri LaRarque.
Somehow I had to get back down to the planet then somehow find the little backstabber. Convince her to come to a heavily enemy occupied moon and get her to steal something I didn’t even know about yet.
Presumably I then needed said unknown stolen object in order to do something yet undisclosed in order to free the people. I closed my eyes. The plan would never work.
I’d chased Zayri to long and learned too much of what made her tick, to think she would ever agree to risking her neck on behalf of someone else. She was as self-centered as she was beautiful. Which begged the question, what did God know that I didn’t?
What would cause someone to do differently than they normally would?
Somehow if there was to be a chance of her helping me she would have to somehow come to like me. Not only like me, but be bound to me in some stronger way than an iron manacle.
“God?”
“Yes.”
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“Always.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Yes.”
I sighed loudly, “Then what am I supposed to do? How else do you break a wild mare like her into being willing to accept someone else’s lead?”
“By being the honorable man that you are.”
I twisted in my dark prison uncomfortably. Honorable? Why?
Part of me wanted to strangle the life out of her, while the other part of me wanted to experience all the pleasure her body had to offer me. Images of her drifted through my mind and silently I acknowledged that I had deserved to be dumped in the desert.
When it came to her I was willing to break every law. I was a man structured by law and order and yet lawless when it came to her.
“God help me be honorable.” I said softly, as I gave in to agreeing to involve Zayri in the plan to free these people. Finally sleep came, but all I saw in the darkness was her smile.