The Return (8 page)

“You do not need to thank me. I fully enjoyed last night as well, and that is thanks enough.”

As we were breaking camp, I saw one of the pindragons sitting on a branch at the edge of camp. Something nagged at the edge of my mind, and I almost seemed to remember something. I walked over and got a piece of leftover meat from my packs and walked over to Beth with the meat cupped in my hand. “Beth, go over to that pindragon slowly, make little cooing noises, and offer it this.”

Beth took the meat from my hand and started cooing and clucking to the pindragon. The pindragon was suspicious at first, and danced away from her on the branch. But soon the smell of the cooked meat was driving it crazy. It slowly and cautiously moved toward her. When it was about two feet from her hand, it looked up into her eyes. Then it pounced from the branch and into her hand to start gobbling the meat down.

“Look in its eyes and coo to it. Make it feel as if you like it.”

Beth looked into its eyes and continued to coo. She suddenly acted like she was mesmerized by the swirling sapphire eyes of the pindragon on her hand. Then Beth looked at us. “Her name is Beeko.”

“Welcome to my world”, I said, as I mounted Reaper.

As Beth turned to walk towards her horse, Beeko flew around her head twice, and then settled on her shoulder. Her tail wrapped up over her ear. Then she snuggled down against her neck and started cooing contentedly.

We rode for several more days, each night stopping to camp. Some nights Likka would join me in my tent, other nights Taina would join me. They told me I got too worked up when they both joined me, and they wanted to survive the nights! Laina and Beth both giggled when they said that to me.

Two nights before we were to arrive at Feck, Laina came to me as we made camp. “Can you be gentle with someone who is inexperienced?”

“Laina, I can be as gentle as a lamb, but you will still feel pain. The pain will be temporary, though, and soon will be replaced by pleasure.”

“How much pain would I feel?”

“It is different for every woman. Some feel a lot of pain, some very little. What you offer is also a precious gift you can only give once. I would be honored for you to give me this gift. I do want you to be sure I am the one you want to give it to, though.”

“I don’t know what to do!”

“Do what is right for you, and no one else. Do what your heart tells you to do.”

She wandered away from me, and went to talk to her mother quietly for a bit. I gathered my bow and went to hunt for some dinner. An hour later, I returned with a one hundred pound haunch from a large lizard like cow, which Likka called a drog. She told me they are quite tasty and the meat brings a high price in the inner kingdoms.

I came into the camp to see all of the tents set up and the fire already going. I set about filleting the haunch out into thin slices of meat, and placing it on spits over the fire. Taina had dug up some tubers and gathered some fruit and berries from the surrounding area. We made a meal that was the best we had had in days.

“Rhys?”

“Yes, Taina?”

“She wants to come to you tonight, but she is afraid. She has become convinced that our screams in the night are from pain as well as from pleasure. I don’t know what to tell her to convince her otherwise.”

“How do you feel about this?”

“Rhys, you are the greatest man I have ever met. I know your power and I know your strength. But I also know your love and passion. I know you will be gentle with her, and a mother could not want more than that for her daughter’s first time. I am not scared for her, but I want her to be sure she is ready.”

“Ask her to come to me to talk for a bit.”

Taina walked away to find her daughter. As I waited, Beth came to me. “Would you really take that little girl to your bed?”

“That is an interesting question. If she were back where you come from, she would be a little girl barely of age. Here, however, she is a woman five years past her marrying age. In this place, she would normally have three or four children of her own by now.”

“But she is so young.”

“Yes, she is by your standards. Here, though, people seldom live to see fifty summers. Most never see forty. These people live shorter lives, and have to grow up quickly. She is a woman, and has more than proven herself as such to me on this trip. If she chooses me, how could I dishonor her by refusing?”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make it seem so natural that a little girl might want you to have sex with her, and you make it into a loving expression?”

“I don’t know -- maybe it is because I care, sometimes too much.”

It was the flash of anger from Likka that had me moving. My swords were in hand before I even knew I had reacted. When I reached the north side of the camp I saw four men in red leather armor astride four roan horses. Two of the men had bows drawn and pointed at Likka.

“Likka, get back!”, I shouted, as I came to a stop in front of the men. As Likka stepped back, the two men lowered their bows.

The leader of the group looked down towards me with obvious disdain in his eyes. “Are you the man from the west who is calling himself Rhys?”

“I am Rhys.”

“For crimes against the empire, you are hereby sentenced to death.” Both bowmen raised their bows towards me as I tossed my swords high into the air. As they drew their arrows back, my arms flicked downward, and two flechettes dropped into each hand. As they released the arrows, my hands flicked forward launching the flechettes. As the weapons crossed paths in the air, I sidestepped the paths of the two arrows. My hands grasped both arrows as they passed, and two men screamed as they were blinded by the sharp barbs in their eyes.

The lead man, and the second, began to draw their swords as I spun and launched myself into the air. As the lead man’s sword cleared his scabbard, I landed feet first into his chest, knocking him off of his horse. As I rode his falling body to the ground, I ducked under the swinging sword of the other man. Rising up, I slammed the arrows upward, through his breastplate, and into his heart. I leaped into a twisting flip and landed over the lead man. As he tried to bring his sword up, mine fell back into my hands from being tossed. I instantly crossed them both across his throat, all in the time it took for our hearts to beat for the second time since it started.

I heard the ring of steel as Taina and Laina brought down the two blind men, and a gasp from behind me from Beth. “Take this back to your masters, you imperial dog. Rhys is back, and I am coming for them. This time there will be no war. I will hunt them down like the cowardly rats they are. Let them all know I am sending them a death notice. The challenge is on the table to face me, if they dare.”

, Likka screamed in my head.

“I hid my face in shame for six thousand years, Likka. I am not hiding anymore. Let them come, if they dare. I will tear their world apart, and bury them in the rubble.”

“Wrong! That is how I am going to face them. This time, there will be no hostages they can use to force my hand. I will wash this world clean of their stink as I strip the flesh from their very bones. For six thousand years, they have been killing children, just because their parents gave them the same name as me. This stops now.”

I turned to the terrified imperial guardsman lying below my swords. “Know this, dog. If one more child dies for bearing my name, I will hunt you, and every man that has ever worn that armor, and I will flay them alive.” As I spit these words in his face, I could see my reflection in his helmet. My eyes were burning with fire, as smoke curled up along my forehead. Cold fog was rolling down from them as well.

With a snap of my mind's eye, his armor and weapons crumbled to dust beneath me. I stood over him and pulled my swords away. “Get on your mount and ride. Ride like the wind, before I change my mind and deliver the message myself.”

The man moved as if he had seen Hell’s host coming to claim him. Before the space of an eye blink, he was on his feet, and leaping for his horse.

“Likka, take care of the girls. I will go on alone from here.”

Taina slapped me across the face. “You will not! I waited six thousand years, hiding like a mouse in the shadows, to get my revenge! Damn you, Rhys! You are not going to take that away from me.”

I stood up ready to fly into a rage at her words, until I saw here face. She had tears in her eyes, and was ready to face me with steel in her spine. I lowered my head, and turned to walk to my horse.

I reached up to my horse and pulled my backpack down. Again that nagging sensation had come to me. , Likka said in my mind. I looked at my reflection in the buckle on my pack, and tried to calm myself. As calm returned to me, the fires died, and the cold fog dissipated. I turned my pack upside down, and poured the contents out.

On the top of the stack fell a simple, leather bound jewelry case. I opened it to find the copper pendant, still on its gold chain from so many years ago. I pulled the chain out, and put it around my neck. Just as soon as the pendant touched my skin, it all flooded back. Every one of my memories were mine once again. My eyes rolled back in my head as I fell, face first, into the dirt.

I awoke in the dark. I was in my tent, and there was a warm body curled against me. I did not think before I turned in my half doze, and pulled her up against me to begin kissing her neck, as she was spooned into me.

“Rhys?”, Laina said as I kissed her neck.

“Yes.”

“You scared me last night, more than once.”

“You should never need to fear me.”

“I know that now. Mom spoke to Beth and I about what had happened to you. She said you had gone into what you call Mage Rage. It is when your magic boils to the surface, demanding release. But it was when my mother slapped you that scared me the most. I thought for sure you would rip her apart, but you just stood, and accepted her actions and words.  When you fainted, I thought you were dead, and all of us were lost. I cried like a child, until mom told me you were alive and breathing. Likka told us you were asleep, that you had fainted from something that happened when you put that necklace on. She didn’t know what happened.”

“I will tell that tale, when I only have to tell it once.”

“Rhys?”

“Yes, Laina.”

“I am yours, if you will have me.”

“Come to me again when we reach Feck. Your first time should be in a comfortable bed, not on the hard ground.”

“You promise me at least one night there?”

“I promise you it will be a night we will both remember. Laina, in a way you will be my first as well.”

She rolled in the darkness and looked at me. “What do you mean;  your first?”

“No one has ever given me the gift you offer. I have never bedded a virgin.” I could feel her smile in the darkness. I gently rolled her back and pulled her up against me. As she lay there, I began to caress and kiss her bare skin, until she drifted off to sleep. I sorted through my memories, as if each one was new to me. I lay there in the dark, waiting for dawn to break.

I had an odd feeling at this point. Usually, when my magic was used, I would be left in raging need that only iron will could control. But I had used my magic a few times since I arrived, and not once had that need come upon me. Did that need derive from the memories in me? I had used the magic before the memories returned, before I even remembered the effect. Did the need come from the fact that I remembered it?

A couple of hours before first light, Taina slipped into the tent to check on her daughter, and me. She smiled when she saw my eyes open. “Good morning, Rhys.” She whispered in the darkness.

“Lie down and get some sleep. I am awake nothing will get through me again.”

She no sooner had gotten undressed, and curled up behind me, when Beth and Likka crawled into the tent. Beth whispered, “You need a bigger tent”, and giggled softly as she curled up to go to sleep.

I lay there among the pile of beautiful women, with an enticing body part in my face no matter where I looked, and tried to concentrate on how to do what I had planned.

I slipped out of the tent at first light, and stirred the fire back to life. I started making coffee and breakfast. It was only a few minutes after the coffee finished when Beth came out, followed within seconds by the others. Likka sat down next to me in human form. “Time for you to do some talking Rhys. You scared the hell out of a few of us last night, and it is time to know if it was worth it.”

“Life Ward Taina, I need some answers first.”

Taina looked up at me in shock. “I will leave, Rhys, our failure is too much.”

“I have not dismissed you. I said I need answers.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“What happened after I left?”

“We managed to buy time for Morgana to escape, before the Mage Kings took us prisoners. They made us immortal, so they could torture us forever. They raped each of us at their whim. We endured this for almost five hundred years. We were broken, and all were begging for death. Then one night in the darkness, the wall of our prison was pulled out as if it was but tissue. Morgana came striding in like fire and passion. She pulled us out of our prison, and took us to her keep. There she cried and apologized, telling us she had been told we were dead. Morgana blamed herself for everything we had been through. We stayed with her and protected her, as she helped us to return to ourselves. Then one night about five hundred years ago, she sent us all to the town of Southport, to help the people there with the Lithan that kept raiding. Too late, we found out, she had sent us away to protect us. She went to the Arch Mage’s tower, to try to fight him. He had prepared a spell for her -- he turned her into a statue. There she remains, even today. Is that what you wanted to hear, how we failed you so miserably?”

“Taina, I want you to listen to me. I charged you with keeping Morgana alive until I returned. Is this not true?”

“Yes, M’Lord”

“Is she dead?”