Orin The Great Ch. 05

The Wicked Men At Red Rock

"Is it really true?" Orin burst out excitedly the next morning, in the same way he'd been blabbering ever since he'd woken up. "We were truly not visible to anyone save for that old dog that sniffed at Bartram's arse as he walked by?"

"Why does it have to be my arse?" The archer asked. "Why can't it be your arse?"

"It is true, Orin." Sundri asserted. "I suppose those gypsies had a nice surprise when they crept into that hut and did not find us there. And Orin, the correct word is invisible, it isn't 'not visible' as you've been saying it."

Bartram looked behind them and down the road. "I don't suppose they are planning on following us."

"Why would they?" The sorceress questioned. "The hut was in direct sight of their fire, and none of them saw us leave. If they look for us, it will only be in the village."

"They could ask the dog to tell them the truth." Orin chuckled.

Bartram remained skeptical. "The men won't follow us, because if they did they would be missing out on their day's work. Those jealous women, on the other hand, might convince them to do otherwise; if only so they could enact whatever revenge they were planning on us."

"They didn't have any horses, and we have been walking all night except for that short rest we took." Sundri reminded him.

"They had horses for rent at Tooker's Ferry."

"And what gypsy can afford to rent a horse?"

"Not that many of them, judging by their standard of living." Bartram admitted.

"Well, the next time I become not visible, or invisible," Orin mused. "I will run around and goose all the maidens!"

"Orin!" Sundri laughed.

"It could be worse." Bartram replied. "He could have said he would go off and steal every man's coin purse."

"Not my Orin!" Sundri protested. "Orin has a good heart! Speaking of which, Orin, did you learn anything about women while we were in the gypsy camp?"

The youth grinned back. "I found that I like hairy muffins."

Sundri yelped out chortles.

"Those women were a bit on the hairy side, weren't they?" Bartram nodded. "I don't think that is what Sundri meant. I think she wants to know if you've discovered anything new about the behavior of women."

"Oh, yes!" The young man replied. "That portly girl went out of her way to get me to bed her, not because she wanted me, but because she wanted to boast to her rivals. I even saw her fuming as I walked away from her. She was behind all of that mess back there, wasn't she?"

"I would say that she was." Sundri agreed. "What else did you learn?"

"Hmm." Orin considered. "That woman Tala was very agreeable to sleeping with Bartram and I, but her friend Kizzy was not. Jaelle and Fifi were also willing, but they had to keep things under the covers because they were both married."

"Not their behavior, Orin," Bartram cut in. "But their thoughts that motivated them."

"For that, I would say that Tala was more of a free spirit, while Kizzy would dare up to a certain point, but not more. Jaelle and Fifi simply wanted a good cockle."

"Kizzy looked to be a good woman, but not one prone to sleeping with any casual man she meets." Bartram elaborated. "The rest, as you surmised, were out to have a little novelty in their lives."

"Which woman did you like the most?" Sundri wondered.

The young man deliberated over this. "I would say all of them except for Kizzy. I believe she would have tried to rope me to her."

"Very good, Orin." Bartram said. "Kizzy is a woman any decent man would like to marry and settle down with."

"But not the sort of woman a man takes with him to a tavern." Sundri added. "She was too practically minded, I would say, and probably not much fun to have a beer with."

"You don't want to settle down yet, do you, Orin?" Bartram kidded. "No, you want a few years of adventure before you hang up your sword!"

"I want to travel the world over and see all it has to offer!" Orin beamed, before he became thoughtful again. "Do you know, Jaelle set her mouth around my cock before she bedded me. This is the first time I've had a woman do that. I thought it was... Well, a bit on the exciting side."

"Really, Orin?" Sundri laughed. "Are you telling me that no woman has ever blown the candle with you?"

"No, that was my first one. I've told you, I had no lovers before Rohanna and you. Is that what it is called, blowing the candle?"

"You can do that to a woman as well." Sundri flirted.

"But how? A woman has no candle!"

"With a woman, you can sniff the rosebush and lick the petals." She laughed. "Bartram, I am enlisting you later, to show Orin how it is done. When he is ready to try it for himself, I can be his first seduction."

"What's good for the goose..." Bartram started.

"Is good for the gander." She finished for him. "Yes, Bartram. I will have two candles to blow out when we come to a stop."

"Let's stop right now!" Bartram exclaimed.

"But I'm not tired." Orin argued. "And Sundri said this rock fort lies at a four day's walk from here."

"I am sure you are strong enough to walk for an entire four days, but we can't." Sundri frowned. "We will walking stop at noon, or earlier if a wagon rolls by to give us a lift."

As it happened, a wagon did come by, carrying a load of dried foodstuffs that was destined for Red Rock. Since they were headed in the same direction, the driver agreed to take them for one shilling. Sundri sat up front with the man, while Orin and Bartram jumped into the back, crowded in with the supplies.

"What can you tell us about Red Rock?" Sundri asked.

"It's the Devil's business up there." The man nodded. "You see how full my wagon is. I only go up there when I have to, otherwise I wouldn't go at all. That's why I have so much food in the back! This is what I've gathered from the people leaving that haunted place. The Devil has let loose three of his agents. They plague the residents of the fort night and day, and they also keep new people from finding the place. Some say they were traveling on the road to Red Rock, heading south the same as we are. All of a sudden, they look up into the sky and the sun is on the wrong side of the world! Without knowing it, those people have gotten all turned around! They're heading away from Red Rock instead of toward it, I tell you!"

"How bizarre." Sundri said. "It sounds like the work of a witch to me."

"Oh, no, they are demons." The driver persisted. "Some people have seen them sitting on the side of the road. There are three of them, disguised as wicked men or wicked women, depending on who is telling the tale. They cast their dark magic on all who pass them by. That's not all. They want to keep the miners out of the mine, but no man can understand why. At first, the tittle-tattle was that the demons are guarding some great treasure. That made more men to want to come to Red Rock to try and find it. When those men began to vanish, that put a scare into everyone. The men vanish, but the people searching for them always find their empty boots. That's the single sign the demons leave to prove they have stolen those men away."

Orin and Bartram were listening to the account from the back of the wagon.

"I think we should stay far away from that mine." The archer hinted. "This does not sound like what took place at Dunnidale, does it?"

Orin did not reply, but at the same time, he was already thinking of how he might have a tussle with those bad spirits.

Red Rock was named for the many red-tinged boulders and stones found in that area. They were of such a poor quality of pig iron that it was hardly worth the effort to smelt them down. According to the wagon driver, the actual amount of usable iron those rocks produced was negligible, when compared to the large amount of waste that was left behind.

The fort was made of wood, meant to keep out small bunches of bandits but nothing larger. Its palisade walls were only ten feet high, easy to scale for any determined man. It only had two towers, one up front facing the road, and a second in back to watch over the small mountain where the mines were located. Outside the fort were farmhouses that kept orchards of apples and pears, but very few farmers were still left to maintain them. Most farmers did their work during the day, before crowding into the fort at night, to keep from encountering the three demons that were always roaming about causing havoc.

Thanks to the wagon, they reached the fort late the next evening, where they right away met the men in charge. The first was the magistrate, who had been a supervisor at the mine before the misfortune began, and now he was the unofficial arbitrator and judge for any disputes. His name was Nettle. The second man was Dunder, who was a fair and respected trader of skins until he'd somehow ended up as the small fort's only constable. Besides those two were four men that served as sentries, with two on watch at all times, a dozen scared farmers and half a dozen miners that were scared even more. A few worn and scraggly prostitutes lived in a battered shack, and that was about all, as every other person had sense enough to leave Red Rock a long time ago.

The wagon driver was so eager to depart that he allowed Sundri to keep her shilling, in exchange for Orin and Bartram helping him to unload his merchandise. The two men carried the sacks of flour, crated goods and jarred goods into the storage house. Food that would spoil faster, such as salted fish and jerky, were taken into a cooler basement below the house. The underground room had been dug out of the earth and filled up with straw, giving it a strange, damp smell that Orin disliked.

"The miners haven't gone up there in a week." Nettle was heard saying to the driver, when the loaders had finished up and rejoined them. "Not since two of their number went missing while following a vein of copper."

"The same as the others?" The driver queasily asked.

"The same." Nettle nodded. "The men were seen going into the mine, but they were not seen coming out. Just like the rest, their boots were found just outside the mine only a few days later."

"No sign of the men? No blood, no bones?"

"Nothing at all." Nettle said.

"I don't see how any of you can still live here." The driver worried. "I'm leaving now, but I won't be coming back for another three weeks."

Now that the wagon bed was empty, the miners loaded a pitifully few ingots of mined copper and tin, and also better iron than what was found out in the open. The farmers came next, putting in half a dozen sacks of fruits to be traded for other goods back at Tooker's Ferry.

"I won't bother asking if anyone wants to leave with me, because I already know the answer to that." The driver said. A short time later, he boarded his wagon and rolled out through the open gates.

The constable, Dunder, glanced at Orin and Bartram. "You're wanting to become sentries, like the two men on patrol at present?"

"Yes, we do." Bartram spoke for them both.

"Can't pay you much. I'll give you two pennies a day for each of you. We will share what food we have, and you can sleep anywhere you set your mind to, pretty much. We have the garrison that gets crowded up at night, the shack with the wenches, if they'll let you in there, and lastly the empty stables."

"The pay will be sufficient." The archer said, patting Orin's shoulder. "This young man needs to be taught how to keep a good watch. It will be a good experience for him."

'If you say so." Dunder replied.

"Can we sleep at a farmhouse, if we wanted to?" Sundri asked.

"Why would you want to?" Dunder questioned. "Not even the farmers sleep in those houses. They're completely unprotected. If the demons find out you're there, they will come knocking on your door this very night."

"Oh." The woman replied. "I thought we might try to spot the demons from one of the houses, to see if they are spirits or flesh and blood."

"If you go out of the fort at night, there is a good chance you won't make it back." Dunder warned. He glanced down at Sundri's shoes. "We'll be finding those by the front gate come morning, the same as we found the shoes of everyone else. Why are you here? You're a bit too long in the tooth to be a prostitute?"

"I am no prostitute." She replied. "I simply watch over these two blocks of wood standing here, for their own good because they tend to blunder into everything."

"Would you like to be?" Dunder asked.

"Would I like to be what?"

"A prostitute." The man shrugged. "All we've got is those ragged wenches you see by the shack. I'll give you a penny to spend the night with me in the officer's house. A captain slept there once, but he left when the rest of the soldiers did. Nettle sleeps there with me, but he won't mind you coming in, and neither will I."

"A penny?" Sundri smirked. "I am worth a little more than that!"

"I'm sure you are, but we aren't overflowing in the wealth at the moment. Nettle can tell you the same."

"Let me consider it. I'm sure an officer's bed will be more comfortable than the piles of hay in the stables."

When night fell, Dunder showed Orin and Bartram into the garrison, where the weapons were kept and also where the men ate their suppers.

"It will be a steady diet of pottage, loose if soupy and a bit thicker if stewed." The man informed his new workers. "If we are lucky, very lucky mind you, we might even have a serving of broth."

"I take it there isn't much game to hunt in these parts." Bartram presumed.

"No, there is plenty of game, just not enough men to go out there and catch it. The three wicked men that curse this place were always dismantling the traps I put out, the moment after I walked away from them."

"Are there any patrols outside of the fort, such as during the time the farmers are out in the fields?"

"The men under me are assigned to guard the fort and nothing else." The constable replied. "This forces the farmers to police their selves."

"I may go out there on the morrow." Bartram hinted. "To try my hand at bringing down a good buck or two."

"If you are looking for a quick way out of this world, be my guest. What are you men, adventurers? That sort doesn't last very long in Red Rock."

Because they were the new guards on the roster, Orin and his friend were given the turn of patrolling deep into the night. One seasoned man was assigned to the same turn, mostly to keep an eye on the newcomers, but the locals needn't have worried. Orin and Bartram were both able to stay awake during odd hours.

If there was to be any trouble, Orin figured, it would not come from without the fort but from within it. The farmers and miners were heard arguing frequently, over by the shack reserved for the wenches. Those heated words several times escalated into short scuffles before the combatants were calmed down.

Orin and Bartram were patrolling the back end of the fort, when the latest brawl broke out and men were seen chasing each other around the garrison and stables.

"Surely they are fighting over the prostitutes." The archer assumed. "What have I told you about fighting another man because of a woman?"

"You said don't do that." Orin recalled. "Not unless the woman is very dear to my heart, such as Sundri is."

"I am surprised you didn't fall head over heels for any of the gypsy women."

"Oh, there was no good reason to." Orin replied. "Do you recall what you told me about that last village, where we met that pretty lass Miriam? You said it was good and well to cavort with the women briefly, but not to grow attached to any of them, as we were only passing through that place."

"Here today and gone tomorrow." Bartram nodded.

"Do you know, the women at Sleepy Glenn were similar to the women at Tooker's Ferry." Orin compared. "The biggest different that I saw was that the gypsies were a much rowdier lot."

"Which bunch of women did you prefer?"

The young man deliberated this. "I haven't made up my mind yet. Perhaps I have set my sights too high, with the incomparable Rohanna being my first lover and all. Of all the women at Sleepy Glen and at Tooker's Ferry, I would choose none of them to be my committed lover. I would choose Sundri, even if she is so much older than I. Sundri is so open and warm and honest with me, I think, and I don't have to worry about her having any hidden plot to manipulate me."

No sooner had Orin said this, than he felt a form brushing against him and setting a brief kiss on his cheek. He and Bartram nearly jumped out of their boots when Sundri abruptly appeared beside them.

"Blast and spit, woman!" The archer cursed. "I nearly jumped over the palisade just now! Will you stop prowling about while invisible? How long have you been listening to us talk?"

"Not too long." The sorceress grinned back. "I meant to keep to myself for a while longer, but your words were carrying out and I heard them. When I came closer, I heard what Orin said about me, and I had to reward him for it."

"Do you remember that girl Miriam?" Orin inquired. "Do you think she would have made a good steady lover for me?"

"She might have." Sundri shrugged. "She seemed nice, at any rate. Don't tell me you are still thinking about her?"

"I would have liked to talk to her further, that's all."

"Why aren't you at the officer's house entertaining Dunder?" Bartram asked.

"That man Dunder chatters like a rooster at sunrise." She replied. "I know he is starved for company, but he is trying too hard to impress me. He said he once killed a bear with a hatchet. I looked him straight in the eye and asked him if that was true. He looked at me, before he looked away. At least he was honest, as he admitted that he didn't kill that bear alone, but with four other trappers to help him."

"And now you're going to stand watch with us?" Orin wondered.

"For a while, at least. I cloaked my form with a spell, before I strode by that sad excuse for a brothel. Those people don't ever stop fighting! While I eavesdropped, I heard a few things I thought interesting. Before the miners came out here from whatever place they came from, they had a good talk. They knew this fort was going to be an isolated place with few women in it. What they did was to go into brothel in some city, the poorest brothel they could find, and they stole away all those prostitutes that you see here. The prostitutes were unwilling at first, but the miners have treated them decently, and so most chose to stay. Only one or two went back to that city, as soon as they could afford the passage. Don't you think that is interesting?"

"I've heard a few stories such as that." Bartram said.

"Then we will have something to speak about the next time we are bored." Sundri told him. "Won't you walk away from us, Bartram? I have a few things I would like to discuss with Orin, regarding that candle he keeps in his pants."

"You won't get rid of me that easily." The archer refused. "I'll move a few strides off, but I won't go too far."

"Are you jealous?" Sundri questioned. "I didn't think you were that sort."

"Not jealous, just... interested in watching."

"I see. Take that with you, while you walk a few strides away."

She was pointing at the lantern the two men had left hanging nearby. Bartram took it and retreated, leaving Orin and the witch hidden in the night.

"I curse destiny, Orin," Sundri revealed. "For causing me to be born too early to be your wife. You are a man worth keeping in so many ways, and you are so young and uncorrupted. If I could turn back the sun, I would do it for you." She paused to shift away, looking out at the wilderness behind the fort, with darkened treetops and the vague form of the mountain looming behind them. "You remind me so much of the man I once loved, the man that ripped my heart asunder. I promise you, Orin, that I will allow nothing and no one to bring corruption upon your soul."