Chapter 21: Unwanted Visitors

~~ August - Week 34 ~~

They were starting to get the gear not required, packed up when Terry commed Sean.

“More trouble is coming Boss. There is a large party coming in from the same direction the others came from. With horses and wagons,” he told them.

Lee and Kyle looked at each other. Their medallions had gone from warm to very warm. Lee had thought the sickness was the danger, but after she had cured the little girl, her medallion was still warm. Obviously, the illness wasn’t the threat it was warning her about.

Sean and Gavin had all the visitors get into the tents and told them to stay there. The team took up defensive positions around the clearing while Sean, Lee, Philip, Haf and Kyle waited for the new visitors.

A group of six Genteli males and an equal number made up of the other three main races rode up the pass on ponies. DT commed Sean that the rest of the party consisted of about twenty-foot soldiers and about an equal number of what he guessed was slaves. They were following about a click behind. They had six wagons with them and spare ponies.

One of the Genteli halted the party and looked down on the humans. “Greetings, we are chasing a group of dangerous criminals and believe they came this way,” he said.

Sean stepped forward with his zapper over his arms. He noted they all wore a sword on their hips. They also had a gun that looked like a revolver butt forward on the other hip. Four of the men also had a version of what he assumed was a rifle, in a scabbard on their ponies.

“Sorry, can’t help you. We haven’t seen any dangerous criminals,” he replied.

The man looked around the camp. “I was led to believe you humans lived in the valley,” he said.

Sean nodded, “That we do.”

“Then why are you camped out here?” he asked.

Sean looked at the guy. He decided he really didn’t like the man’s attitude. Plus, it’s not very polite to give the people you are visiting the third degree without even introducing yourself first.

So, Sean decided it was his turn to ask the questions. “My name is Captain Sean Watson, who do I have the honour of addressing?”

The man on the front pony sat us straighter and looked down his nose at Sean, “I am Prince Carl de Bou. I need to speak to your superiors.”

“Well, hi, Carl. Nice of you guys to drop in and visit us,” Sean replied nonchalantly.

The shorter younger man on the pony next to Carl’s rode his pony closer and snarled at Sean, “Watch your mouth you insolent cur. Haven’t you been taught how to address your superiors?”

Sean gave him the same nonchalant expression, then flicked his eyes back to Carl and said, “Sure, I’m always polite to my wife. Oh, how remiss of me. Carl, I’d like to introduce you to my beautiful and talented wife, Lee. Darling, this gentleman is apparently a Prince, and he has a bit of an inferiority complex.”

Carl looked at Sean as if he was mad. ‘Who the hell did these people think they were treating him like a serf,’ he thought. He looked at the woman. She was indeed beautiful, but she was dressed the same as the others, in the strange suits. He couldn’t see what was so special about her.

His brother Rod had taken even greater exception to the man’s insolence. He spurred his pony forward to strike at Sean with his sword. The pony only got about three steps, when a shot rang out. The pony stumbled beneath him and then rolled over on him pinning him to the ground.

Sean and the people with him hadn’t moved. Carl’s people, however, suddenly found they were trying to control excited ponies. It took some effort to get them calm. They had to get off them before they settled down.

Sean’s team made no move to help the downed rider. Rod finally wiggled out from under his distressed pony and was nursing his shoulder and whimpering. He then screamed at his brother, “Kill the son of a whore.”

Lee had enough of the whole shenanigans and stepped forward. She turned on her bling, and before Rod knew it, the point of her wand was touching his forehead. “Haf,” she said, in the coldest voice any of them had ever heard her use. “What is the penalty for an attempted assassination, of the Lord Wizard’s Consort?”

Every man and woman there, even Sean, had shivered at her words. Carl blanched as much as his brother did.

Haf drew himself up into an important posse, and he calmly replied, in his best courtly voice, “My Lord, I believe it is death by whichever means you wish to choose.”

Rod looked into the eyes of the woman standing over him and promptly fainted dead away.

Carl screamed, “You killed him, you killed my brother.” He let go of the pony and flew at Lee. He drew his sword and screaming as he ran at her. Lee put a hand up, indicating she didn’t want anyone to interfere.

Kyle and Philip had to stop Sean. “This I’ll be good,” Kyle said with a grin, reassuring Sean that Lee was fine.

As Carl got into striking distance, he bought the sword up to slash it down on her. Lee watched him and then stepped forward and performed an aerial manoeuvre, so she ducked under the sword. She flipped her legs over, and with her wand extended, she smacked at the back of his thighs as he went passed her.

Carl stumbled and then righted himself. He turned frantically, trying to find where she was. Lee had regained her feet and stood there calmly looking at him, with her wand on her shoulder. Her nonchalance enraged him more. Again, he tried to run and slash at her with the sword.

Lee again ducked under the blade, and this time, she slapped her wand across his stomach as he went passed. He pulled up and gasping. He turned to face her again. This time he stepped more cautiously and tried slashing at her body.

Lee smacked his hand with the wand first, slapping the sword away from her. He stepped away, shaking his hand. He screamed and then ran at her again. Lee again ducked, and this time, she collected his shins from the front and flipping his feet out from under him.

Carl, face dived into the dirt. He lost his sword when he put his hands out to save himself. He got onto all four, so he could stand but found the point of the wand digging into his neck.

“Tisk, tisk, tisk,” Lee said, as she shook her head at Carl. “Carl, you are a disappointment to me. A smart man never goes off half-cocked until he knows all the facts. Your brother is not dead. He merely fainted from shock and pain. Now get up,” she finished none too kindly.

She turned to find that the rest of his party had dropped onto their knees. She directed Carl over to the rest of his party, with her wand. She made him sit in the dirt with them. She placed her wand over her shoulder and paced up and down in front of them.

The men in front of her gasped, and she looked around to see what was happening. Kyle had approached the pony and laid his hands upon it. The wound in its shoulder had been bleeding profusely. They watched Kyle glow, and then he removed his hands. He took the bridle and helped the pony to its feet.

DT and Gavin approached and picked up Rod. They were carting him off to the medical tent. Lee turned back to Carl and his people. Qu and Jo gathered up the ponies and were took them aside. The servants and troops were also kneeling behind the leaders of the little band.

Lee projected her voice to be heard by them all. “So, what am I to do with you lot? Carl, please state what your true purpose, at being here is. Please remember, I will know if you are lying to me,” she said, piercing him with her eyes.

Carl was not totally immune to her effect, but he fought it. “Some of my slaves ran away, and we came to retrieve them,” he said carefully.

“How, did these people become your slaves?” she asked.

“Um well, they worked on my lands,” he offered.

“Did this land belong to anyone else, before you claimed it?”

“I claimed it by right of conquest,” he said pugnaciously.

Haf chipped in at this point, “I assume you have copies of the declarations to conquer and the reports covering the three attempts of negotiation?”

Carl paled and then recovered. He said belligerently, “We don’t follow those old laws. We follow our own.”

“So why did you need to conquer these people?” Lee asked.

“I needed the workers,” he finally admitted.

“Why, what was wrong with your own?” Lee inquired.

One of the other men spoke up. “I’m Fil de Tray, your Lordship. Sailors from Yandel a town to the south of Ogilhinn on Queland visited us about four months ago for trade. They left the pestilence behind. We have lost about one in four who have gotten the illness. The slaves seem more susceptible than us.”

“So why didn’t you just ask, the people you enslaved to work for you? Why did you have to enslave them?” Lee queried.

“I wasn’t paying the lazy bastards wages. Princes are supposed to have slaves,” Carl snarled.

“Mr de Tray, would you have paid them wages they were due? And what is your part in this business?”

Fil looked at Carl and then hung his head, “Yes, your Lordship, I’d have paid them. I am a cousin of Carl. We all are, except for his brother Rod of course. That’s the man whom you have taken away.”

Lee looked at the other Genteli. Then she said to Haf, “So what is the penalty for illegal enslavement, Haf?”

“The same. If someone illegally makes another a slave then, in turn, they can be made a slave,” he said, taking his duties as royal advisor seriously. He was one of the lucky few not to born in slavery, but he still resented his people being enslaved.

“So, Carl and his brother, are now my slaves?”

“No, Lord Lee, dead men can’t be slaves. Unless you wish to hold off on the death penalty and would prefer to have them as slaves,” Haf told her. He knew Lee did not intend to kill them, but he couldn’t resist taunting the Genteli.

“You can’t enslave a Prince, it’s not done,” squealed Carl, starting to realise he was in an awful situation.

“So, you would rather be dead?” Lee asked him. Carl looked at her in horror as he grasped the alternative. Lee addressed Fil, “Mr de Tray by your ‘rights of conquest’, does that make his slaves my slaves?”

Fil nodded and said in a resigned voice, “Yes and us as well, since we came here with him. If the leader of a war party is defeated, then all his followers are automatically forfeited to the winner.”

“Haf under Utopian laws, what be the case?”

“Well normally the nobility is ransomed back to the families, and only the slaves, that were in battle with him are yours,” Haf told her.

“So, Prince Carl de Bou, whose laws should I obey?”

Carl bowed his head, “Your laws, Lord Wizard.”

“An astute answer Carl there is hope for you yet,” Lee told him.

Lee asked Haf to get Murri and his people. She waited while they assembled behind her. Carl was not happy to see them here looking healthy and happy. Lee spoke to them, “So are we all in agreement that I have the right to decide your fates?”

One of the other Genteli spoke, “But you haven’t said what you intend to do?”

Lee gave him one of her stares, “What I’m going to do isn’t the issue. The issue is that under your laws, my laws and Utopian laws, I have the right to do as I bloody well wish with you.”

Sullenly, Carl’s people agreed that she did. Murri and his people nodded and smiled. As far as they were concerned, she had saved their lives, so they were hers to with as she wished. They would rather be her slaves than Carl’s.