Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (36 page)

Another man with shoulder-length blonde-hair
joined the bald guy on top of the wagon, and he began to sing in a
deep-bass voice to the tune. Of course, everyone else joined in
with the singing as well—a song sung in the language of
Pavelian.

“
Yo—ho—ho,

I’ve got this song I know!

You—hoo—hoo,

I’ve got some news for you!

I was alone and lost,

Being pulled, whipped, and tossed!

It wasn’t until just yesterday,

That I joined my family at play!

And we sang, yo—ho—ho,

We’ve got this song we know!

And we sang, you—hoo—hoo,

We’ve got some news for you!

Family is my number one goal,

Harmony is what makes me flow!

You wanna mess with the best,

You gonna die like the rest!

And we sang, yo—ho—ho,

We’ve got this song we know!

And we sang, you—hoo—hoo,

We’ve got some news for you!

We have come, never gone,

We’re just hidden in this song!

Strike that bell and make your ding,

Imagine the treasures that we will bring!

And we sang, yo—ho—ho,

We’ve got this song we know!

And we sang, you—hoo—hoo,

We’ve got some news for you!”

At the same time they finished with their
song, Baltor casually emerged from out of the depths of the
darkness, walking into the perimeters of the oasis—feeling
unbelievably thirsty.

Several of the members, mainly men, glanced
at Baltor as he walked by their current positions, but said
nothing. He had begun to near the campfire, when a large, fat man
with a thick, black beard and a drunken slur raised his mug toward
Baltor, and called out, “Who are you, stranger?”

Baltor calmly answered, “I am Lord Poleax
from Pavelus.”

Someone nearby, whose gender was unknown due
to a hooded cape that cast his or her face into shadow, attempted
to stand up from the sitting position, but collapsed back to the
ground, most likely due to his or her drunken state.

The man with the beard either did not notice
or care, as he declared, “Lord Poleax from Pavelus—well then, come
and join me for a drink! My friends call me Big Bear.” He then
began to chortle in laughter.

Baltor smiled, but found that his gums were
already sticking to the roof of his mouth—he was indeed getting
rather thirsty, but not for alcohol!

He sat down next to Big Bear, but found that
he had to clear his throat.

Still after several attempts, he could not
speak. To make matters worse, his chest began palpitating very
hard, and he found his breath to be short.

Unnoticing, Big Bear extended his mug to him,
and said, “Drink, Lord Poleax.”

Baltor took the mug and tried to take a long
swing, however, the moment that the fluids touched the insides of
his mouth, he couldn’t help but spit it all back out—it was
repulsive to say the least.

Big Bear laughed, patted him on the back, and
said, “Sure it takes a bit of getting used to, but it’ll get you
feeling nice and cozy once you do—take another deep swig!”

Baltor shook his head and barely managed to
muster the words, “No thanks.”

Big Bear patted him heartily on the back
again, and suggested, “Come on! What’ll it harm you? It’s just some
wine!”

Baltor extended the palm of his hand out that
held the mug, and rasped, “No really.”

Big Bear looked quite offended as he stood to
his feet, pulled out his dagger, and growled, “I said,
drink!
”

“Are you threatening me?” Baltor somehow
managed to ask through his dry mouth, while simultaneously rising
to his own feet and assuming the ready position.

Surprisingly, Big Bear shook his head,
dropped the dagger to the ground, and sighed, “I’m sorry. I don’t
know where that came from. It’s just that the wine takes a bit of
getting used to, but once you do—you’ll love it! My wife spends a
lot of time preparing it for—”

At that moment, the hooded figure rose from
the ground, and said in a strangely familiar man’s voice Baltor had
not heard in a very long time, “The brat’s obviously not going to
drink the wine! Let’s just kill ‘em now and get it over with, Big
Bear. Surely, he’s got to have the rod or the map on his person
somewhere, probably hidden somewhere the sun don’t shine! We’ll
just have to find out now, won’t we, boys?”

Quite a few of the men laughed—meanwhile, Big
Bear chuckled while nodding and picking up his dagger from the
ground. Baltor didn’t laugh at all, nor even smile.

Just then, the hooded man pulled back his
hood, so that Baltor could see his face—it was indeed Salmot!

In turn, Baltor no longer contained himself
as he instantly lunged toward Salmot. Before Salmot even had the
chance to draw his sword, Baltor had not only clotheslined him to
the ground, yet had already leapt on top of him and bit deeply with
his vampire fangs in Salmot’s jugular vein.

For the very first time, Baltor’s body began
to rapidly transform from man and into the twenty-foot tall beastly
vompareus, all the while ravenously feasting upon his hated enemy’s
blood. Every previous time he had remained in human form.

The moment everyone saw the physical
transformation, all freaked out—those that could run into the
desert, including Big Bear, did!

Those that couldn’t move, due to being too
intoxicated, watched in pure shock, horror and disgust as Baltor
continuously feasted on Salmot—not only did quite a few pass out
from fear, yet several more became violently sick and retched all
over themselves.

Besides the physical transformation, a mental
transformation also occurred—for the very first time, Baltor
surprisingly found that his bestial side and his human side had
just become connected. Simply put, he had the instincts of an
animal combined with the intelligence of a man—actually, two
men.

For, Baltor even saw Salmot’s life flash
before his own eyes, and learned all of the man’s master thievery
skills—as well many more personal things! Salmot was the one who
had brought Thesmul to the Guild. He was also a double agent with
the thieves’ guild in Mauritia. He was also the one who had
ensured, for the last six years, that Humonus had been passed for
promotion to Senior Drill Instructor three different times, and all
because of what happened between Thesmul and Baltor. Salmot evilly
hated Baltor and Humonus!

Just as evilly, Salmot was the one who had
secretly arranged and bribed three-quarters of the other High
Council so that Lydia became a Mistress Thief at such an early age.
The underlying reason why he spent nearly ten million parsecs
wasn’t because he believed she was High Council material, but
because he wanted to hook up with her, which actually worked out
that way.

The whole time, he deceivingly made it appear
to Lydia as if he really loved and cared about her. Up until the
last second of his life, everything that Salmot did in his life was
to satisfy his own lustful desires, because he really only gave a
damn about himself all along, and certainly not about Lydia, the
Guild, or anyone else!

Though the night skies previously had been
cloudless, from across the western horizon, they came and
quickly—deep, dark thick and angry clouds filled with dazzling
bolts of green lightning—a very, very tempestuous thunderstorm it
looked to be.

Once the very last drop of Salmot’s blood and
life force had entered Baltor’s mouth, he slowly rose to his
feet.

From all around, the winds picked up and
howled out into the night skies like screaming banshees, causing
dry sand to fly everywhere through the air. Only a few moments
later, large drops of rain splattered down, fast drenching all
those around!

He didn’t care about the sand or rain but
tilted his head back, and roared a beastly roar that literally
filled the stormy heavens!

A moment later, his roar was answered back by
a loud clapping of thunder that rolled across the fast-moving
clouds, while thousands more green lightning bolts zigzagged
everywhere above!

Only seconds later, Baltor came to discover,
ecstatically, that his two sets of wings were allowing him to fly
higher and higher into the air. Just below him on the ground,
thirty feet below, he could see the fearful expressions of the
people gazing up.

He flew up to the height of fifty feet; and
through the pouring rain, his eyes scanned all across the deserts—a
few moments later, his vompareus eyes found exactly what he was
looking for.

With but a willed thought, Baltor flew toward
Big Bear, who was hightailing it across the desert sands at top
speed—the one who had pretended to be his friend in order to get
him drunk, so that he could easily kill Baltor after he had passed
out.

Seconds later, he caught up and engulfed this
man’s blood from his jugular vein, as well, his memories. He
learned that Vamen, a.k.a. Big Bear was no nice guy at all either,
although he pretended to be such to his unsuspecting victims whom
he then typically robbed. Yes, “victims” was the appropriate
pluralistic word.

If that wasn’t enough, there were dozens of
times during his life that Vamen had sadly backstabbed those that
called him a “friend” or “family member.”

From all the intoxicating bloods and
knowledge that now flowed through his veins and mind, things became
quite a bit distorted and blurry, as if he was again flying through
the skies. Several moments later, he blacked out.

The next night, Baltor awoke to find himself
buried underneath the earth, with no knowledge of how he had gotten
here, or where he was. Now, he only knew that it was night, and for
the first time in a very long time, he wasn’t hungry.

He pulled himself out of the sandy ground,
noticing that he was still wearing his clothes and boots. And once
he happily discovered that he still had the map tucked underneath
his shirt, he looked all around his terrain.

The first thing he noticed was that both half
moons were now in the sky above, although the larger moon was to
his northwest while the other was to his southeast. This not only
cast distant shadows all across the sand dunes, yet made it look
like the sky was actually late evening, and not night.

The next thing that he noticed—with
surprise—was that the city walls of Pavelus lay about a mile or so
to his west.

As his eyes gazed to the south-southwest, he
discovered something that he hadn’t seen when last he left Pavelus.
There was now, under construction, a megalithic coliseum about a
half-mile to the south of the city. Three-quarters of this
structure was still incomplete.

As he glanced back over to the city itself,
he remembered that he had been able to fly the night before, so he
jumped straight up to get some air, in order to fly again. Even
though he jumped more than forty feet high into the air, there was
obviously no flying power within him now.

Just then, all of Salmot’s master-thieving
skills again resurfaced within Baltor’s mind—he used those very
techniques to work his way around shadowy parts of the sand dunes
that rendered him nearly invisible from the passing formations of
marching guards, until he finally neared the six-hundred-foot
wall.

Once he was ten feet away from the wall, he
made a springing jump for it and again got forty feet high.

Perhaps nine seconds later, Baltor was
already at the top.

As a safeguard, he first scanned the lengths
of the guards’ walkway to make sure the coast was clear. Once he
saw that it was, but only for a few seconds, he quickly snuck
across the one-hundred-foot span in only a second, and then he
scaled his way back down the other side and into the heart of the
city.

Once he stood upon the streets, a strange
sensation occurred as if his eyes were yanked out of his body. His
“gaze” moved ahead two more blocks, then to the right, moved three
blocks ahead, and then went to the left—deep inside the scummy
sections of Pavelus.

That “gaze” stopped in its movement, and
focused upon a very-familiar-yet-much-older-looking white stallion
that bore the crest of the Sultan, just like the one he saw in his
dream.

The stallion snorted a bit as it returned the
gaze back, and the image instantly dissipated.

He knew exactly where to go. And only a few
seconds later, he saw the same stallion with his very own eyes,
though he was quite a bit in shock that his vision actually had
been true.

He looked up from the horse, as well at the
two-dozen other horses also parked outside, and then to the bar
that bore the sign,
The Rusty Pipe
. Even from outside, this
bar sounded packed full of drunkards. Without fear, Baltor
entered.

Indeed, the bar reeked of stale beer and
sweaty people, and to confirm, ruffians, sailors and fat-old women
occupied this dismal environment. Of course shady-looking people
sat in the dark corners.

As he scanned throughout the crowd, he
thought,
Now why would someone who works for the Sultan want to
come to a putrid worm hole like this?

He next walked to the far end of the bar,
observing a concrete staircase that led down into a
basement—already could he hear the loud cheers and jeers coming
from below, for some reason.

From the depths of this smoky environment,
two drunken patrons clamored up the concrete steps; the man on the
left was excitedly telling the man on the right that he had just
won five hundred parsecs. Thankfully both men ignored Baltor.

Upon nearing the bottom step, the answer to
Baltor’s earlier question came as he saw exactly what was going on
down here within this concrete basement, whose parameters were
about ninety feet by sixty feet. Not only was it filled with more
than a dozen large circular tables, though only three had a single
lit candle, yet there were nearly sixty chairs surrounding all
those tables. Nearly half the chairs were filled with drunk and
loud patrons. A liquor bar without stools sat in the far-right
corner; behind the bar, there was a middle-aged man dispensing
drinks to the ugly waitresses who dispensed out the drinks to the
customers.