Abbalar Tales ~ 10

 Abbalar Tales ~ 10 Meyam 

By Len Morgan

Skaa grabbed their last ride-able mount and took up the chase at speed, leaving the rest of his men way behind.   "You’re mine boy," he yelled as he dismounted, and headed in pursuit, seeing his mark a quarter of a mile ahead and two hundred feet above him.   He started to climb and almost immediately, felt the fear churning in his guts.   He stopped in surprise, then uttered an angry curse "Where you go, I can follow!"   He continued the climb.  

Aldor glanced back, a grim smile on his face.  

"You're becoming distinctly tiresome boy, I'm going to have to kill you," Skaa yelled into the wind.

"I am not a defenceless woman Skaa, you will have to work hard to accomplish that you overweight windbag," his hand brushed the hilt of his knife somewhat foolishly; it was no match for a sabre.   He climbed over the lip of the plateau, onto an area of level ground, he gazed down at the older man puffing hard but, grim-faced and determined, his eyes still confident and business like.  

Aldor looked around him.   There was a small copse nestled in against the next face to be climbed.   Selecting a substantial sapling he cut and stripped it of branches cutting a five foot length with the heavy knife he'd acquired from the guard.   He returned calmly to confront his shadow, waiting patiently, as he breasted the lip of the small plateau.

"Nice of you to join me for some healthy early morning exercise," he smiled.

"Healthy for me," Skaa replied.   "You've led me a merry dance," he added in a matter of fact voice as he drew his blade.   "We can do this the easy way, you can come with me, or I can take your head back as a trophy.   Either way I still get paid," he looked askance at Aldor.

"I have never done anything the easy way, do not think I am going to start now," he said assuming the en garde stance, stave to the fore.

Skaa chuckled, "I hoped that would be your answer," his voice a whispering menace.   He darted forward with speed and grace that belied his heavy frame.

"By Phaedra's light, you’re ugly!"

Skaa chuckled again and slashed a crisp feint left to right, a swift move, without warning and a lightning change of direction.   Aldor was not surprised, he was ready, he'd learned early in his life to always respect a man with a blade and to expect anything.   He sidestepped neatly striking the flat of the blade with his stave "Ha!"

The older man reversed direction like a bow released under tension, cutting six inches from the stave.   But, could not totally avoid the follow through he received a deep gash, across his ribs, from the now sharpened stave come spear.  

"First blood," Aldor called out displaying his old arrogance.

"You've never fought a man to the death have you boy.   If that were a sabre I might be concerned," he lunged, as Aldor stepped back, slightly overextending.   The stave cracked hard and sharp against his skull.   He just grinned, "Little turd!" he growled, "you can't hurt me with a stick, any more than your little Corvalen whore could with her gutter talon's, she was even better than Eldoriel, squealed like a pig when I took her…"

'Genna!’ he thought, his heart turned to ice.   "Aaaagh!" he yelled like a madman, rushing in to attack an armed man with a green stick.   He aimed a blow at Skaa's head, with all his strength.   The older man, displaying his experience, sidestepped with ease and neatly cut the stave in two.   They were eye to eye, and Aldor saw the triumph in his eyes.   He stabbed out with his remaining stick, pushing it hard into the heavy gut, and backed off rapidly until his back came up against the cliff face; his next climb if he survived.   He darted sideways into the copse where the density of young saplings inhibited the use of a sword.   Skaa was reduced to stabbing ineffectually until in his frustration he swung a heavy speculative cut which succeeded only in severing a dozen or so saplings.   Aldor ever the opportunist grabbed one and quickly stripped off the extraneous branches.   He jabbed with the severed end just as Skaa advanced, catching him squarely in the solar plexus, winding him.   He gasped and retreated, tripping over a severed sapling and sat down heavily just inside the circle of the copse, he continued slashing with the blade to keep Aldor at a distance while he was down.   Aldor grasped a springy sapling with both hands, just above head height, and launched a two-footed attack on Skaa using his own momentum and the spring of the tree to good effect.   The element of surprise worked in his favour, and the strength of the attack brought a grunt from the older man, the sword cluttered from his hand.   Aldor released his grip and landed his full weight on his opponent’s chest.   They both went down awkwardly, and they heard a sharp crack.

"Aah!"  Skaa cried out involuntarily, as he felt a sharp pain in his left leg, as he reached out instinctively to retrieve his blade.   Aldor read the intention and rolled off him reaching the sword first.   A look of anguish came over the old man's face, as he instinctively went for the dagger at his belt.   Even as he did so, a picture came into his mind, of his knife ringing as it struck the rocks on its way down the face of the recent climb, the sheath had hooked up on an outcrop a third of the way up.  

He flashed a disarming grin "You seem to have me at a disadvantage boy, Mayhap you could lend me…  No?"   He smiled again as he attempted to rise "Aaah!" he cried out, in genuine distress, as he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his lower left leg.   "I think my leg is broken," he said.   He reached down gingerly.   A sharp branch, probably cut by his own sword, had penetrated deep into the flesh of his calf, it was protruding an inch through his blood stained hose.   It had lodged between his tibia and fibula and stuck fast.

"You'd better finish me quickly, no sense leaving me for the buzzards…"

"What about your men, they can't be far behind?"

"Use your brains boy, this place has an enchantment on it.   Do you think my mangy band of throat slitters will venture up here, braving the feelings of fear that we faced?"

Aldor nodded and took a pace backwards.

"Help me up boy, I'd like to die on my feet like a man, is that too much to ask?" he held out his hand.

"Why did you kill Eldoriel," he asked, ignoring the proffered hand.

"I didn't, I thought you were the killer, right up to the moment you accused me, but then was not the time for explanations or doubts."

"If it wasn't you then who?"

"My feeling, and that's all it is mind, is Grym-Baal…"

"Her husband Why would he..?"

"He was eaten up with jealousy, even before she met you.   If he couldn’t have her to himself, then nobody else could."

"Then what was all that talk about Genna!   You say you raped and killed her."

"Ah!   That was her name, I never met her, I heard she arrived with you and you were living together, I guessed at an association."   He looked at Aldor's face, he was not convinced.   "Come on boy, you’re not that naïve.   It was just an old soldier’s trick, to rile you, to anger and make you act reckless.   Nearly worked didn't it?"

Aldor nodded, he made a decision and reached out towards Skaa…

'His leg is not broken; the crack was a branch beneath him.’    The words came to his mind unbidden.   He stepped back quickly, just as Skaa lunged forward with one hand swinging a rock in the other.  

Aldor ducked and it flew harmlessly over his shoulder.   He looked down and shook his head with a pained expression on his face.   He stepped on the branch, noting with satisfaction the grimace on the old man's face.   He grabbed Skaa's left boot and wrenched sharply upwards.

"Aaaagh!   Lyandra's teeth!   I didn't know torture was one of your specialities, ooah!" he sucked in hard with the pain, but his leg was free.   "Can't blame me for trying, eh?" he said with that same childish grin on his face.

‘He was telling the truth about the women, he didn't kill either.   Wizomi confirms she is still alive and living in Mandrell,’ said the voice in his head.

‘Who are you?’   He thought.

‘You were sent to find Orden?   I am he.   Climb up, to the next plateau, I will await you there.   He will not follow, his muscles are too badly torn but, he will, however, be able to make his way back down unaided.’

   "If you want your sword, you had better climb down and get it," said Aldor hurling Skaa’s sword over the cliff edge.

"You're going to let me live, after all my ruses?" he answered in surprise.

"If you can survive the climb, but answer me one thing first, did you know there are no ants in the Land of the Dead?"

Skaa’s face creased into a grin, "I thought it was a nice touch.   My men didn't know, Grym-Baal didn't, and you didn't know either, your face told all."

"Mayhap I should climb down with you to see your face at the bottom," said Aldor his grin mirrored Skaa’s.

"Heh Heh, best of luck boy, if they ask me, you got clean away.   None of them would hazard a chase up here anyhow."

"I would consider it a kindness if you would leave my horse at that farm,” he said pointing to a thin plume of smoke in the distance.

 "Consider it done boy," said Skaa offering his hand.   They shook, and then he painfully lowered his torso over the edge.

Aldor watched awhile as he made his way slowly and painfully down the cliff face.   Then he climbed up to the next plateau.   At the top, he looked down again but, Skaa was out of sight.

(To be continued)

Copyright Len Morgan