Even with Snowflake doing most of the heavy lifting, the overland trip from Moscar to Alcatia was a long one and the Borga Pass was, to say the least, an awe inspiring experience. For days, breathing air so thin it clouded my head, I was surrounded by the tallest mountains the world. It was beautiful, to be sure, but the scale made even me feel tiny.
But I found I liked traveling alone on horseback, at least compared to walking along a carriage anyway. I like to think I'm fairly social for a giant freak, but after all that time with the girls, a little peace and quiet wasn't such a bad thing.
Of course a woman my size traveling alone is bound to attract a little attention. But not necessarily in a bad way all the time. Just outside of LangLo, the village on the south side of the pass, I caught a kid sneaking around my campsite. I wasnt really rough with him, but his buddies must have thought I was going to eat him or something, so they came out of hiding, begging me to let him go. I couldn't resist the opprtunity and did exclaim something about eating all of them, but I couldn't keep a straight face. I like children sometimes.
Upon returning to Alcatia, I was paid, not just my wages, but a hefty reward as well for delivering Effie safely, and between that and what I got selling Snowflake, I found myself suddenly with a very heavy purse and with few responsibilities for the next month.
It was a good time to see friends, Alfredo, Pongo and of course Jona. I'll get back to him in a moment. Pongo had completed a mission as well, and with his earnings, was having a custom made breastplate. After going with him for a fitting, I decided to try something similar, a although I couldn't get used to all that metal he favored and most of the designs they had just didn't suit my body. I'd never get used to heavy armor, nor did I really have need of it, but I did try, and had a leather halter made, with a few plates sewn in, along with a skirt, and even a custom made tunic.
Jona was back in the city as well, fresh from patrolling in Tulis, near the Kargellian border and we settled back into things quite well, for the most part, each recanting our experiences and enjoying each others company. There were even a few times when I thought he might kiss me again, but he didn't, and that was fine, if not all that I could have hoped for. Things might have cooled off, but they were certainly not frigid.
After about a month of training and doing guard work around the city, Lord Kriven himself called me in and told me I was being dispatched to Tulis, along with Pongo, the Eastern woman whose name was Wu, and an entire company of regular soldiers.
Tulis is an ancient city, older even then Alcatia, situated at the Eastern edge of the Middle Sea. Several hundred years ago, the king of Tulis had sworn fealty to Alcatia, and by this time, although technically still a sovereign state, it was for the most part, a part of Alcatia.
Tulis was the second biggest city in the Alcatian empire, with a large seaport, and was the trading center for the while of the Eastern Middle Sea. It was also situated on the Western entrance to the Cassian sea, less than a mile from the Kargellian fortress on the other side.
Given the proximity, you might expect trade and even cultural exchanges might take place, but Kargel is no ordinary neighbor.
As the Alcatians told us as soon as we landed, Kargel was a world apart. While there were expatriate Kalgellians to be found, they were few and far between and all were of lower status. In fact, the few that had managed to escape the "yolk" were mostly peasant stock, field workers who knew little of their masters.
Katrina was the exception, an old woman who'l her life serving Karga, had born their children and raised their young. She was selected to brief us, and it was quite a briefing.
Taken as young girl from a small farm near Tulis, Katrina had been a breeder, and she'd born seven children, two of which were prized Karga males, and had been a wet nurse and caretaker to another 3 Karga children. Over the course of about an hour, Katrina told us the story of her life and offered her own accounts of what it was like to be a human servant to the Karga.
When Katrina was finished, they brought in a what we first thought was another older man, holding one arm oddly and limping. It was only as he began to speak that we realized this shell of a man, a former officer in the Alcatian guard, was only in his late thirties. He too had been taken prisoner by the Kargellians, and eventually put to work on the mines. His tale was sobering, but I think what frightened the men the most was what the female Karga did to him before she got tired of him.
That hit home with the men in a way that Katrina, who told a horrifying story of a lifetime of servitude didn't. Katrina didn't focus on rape but Eli did, and while some of the men snickered at first as he told how helpless he was at the hands of a woman, by the end of the tale I think they got it. The Karga, male and female, were natural predators, only smarter, and the human Kargellians were little more than sheep, unable to help themselves.
After that, both Ely and Katrina showed us the brands on their neck, and briefly told us how and why they'd escaped their masters. Ely had been left for dead after a mine collapse, and retrieved by an Alcatian scouting party. Katrina, on the other hand, now valueless due to age, but oddly loved by her sons, had been left on the Alcatian coast.
Next, a soldier spoke, a man named Alex, who filled us in on why we were there. The Kargellians evidently had defiled a temple of Aspardia and taken several of the accolytes, among them several young women of noble lineage. While their families had all but disowned them for pledging their bodies to the sex cult, such things are complicated, and the insult to Alcatian sovereignty at least, demanded some response.
Our mission would be symbolic, a brief invasion of Kargellian territory, specifically Thundertarr, an estate near the coast from which rumors said a large number of raids on Alcatian territories originated.
The idea was to show Alcatia could mass a small fighting force on Kargellian soil, something which had not been attempted in decades. Based on what limited intelligence we had, we'd face little resistance. While Kargel had sizable legions, it was believed they were all engaged in a war in the south with native tribes.
Liberation of the girls was not a goal. Our odds of finding them were slim to none, and even if we did, once a human woman was taken by a Karga, she was most often changed. Katrina, old as she was, still got teary eyed talking about her master, despite the fact that she assured us it had been years since he'd touched her.
After the main briefing was over, Lu, Pongo and I were kept for a separate meeting, where Alex told us a slightly different story from what he'd told the rest of the men. Heinrich, the Karga Lord of Thundertarr, a man who'd ruled for more than a century, was said to be old and senile. One of his grandsons, Karlo, was believed to have been responsible for the latest series of raids, as well as a number of less known "feral hunts," basically murders of Alcatian peasants. Old Heinrich had been a crafty old bastard who knew, despite Kargellian policy, that a full out war with Alcatia would spell disaster for his own estate. It was Heinrich who'd taken Katrina, and arranged for her to return to her people in her own age.
A few months ago, shortly after Katrina's escape, Heinrich's secret messages had stopped. Our mission was to find out what was really happening, and, if possible, to eliminate Karlo, in the hopes that a more reasonable Lord of Thundertarr might step forward.
The most likely successor was Latarra, one of Heinrich's granddaughters, who'd openly fought with Karlo. While far from a friend to Alcatia, she was at least a rational enemy, and rumors were that the Kargan assembly had been grooming her, if not to take over Thundertarr, for perhaps some even greater role based on her successes in battles in the far south.
Twice previously, Alcatian spies had tried to contact Latarra to no avail. If we could accomplish nothing else, intelligence on this rising Karga leader would make the entire affair worthwhile.
The briefing was a very strange one. Pongo, Lu and I were not trained spies, or political operatives, and we were all outsiders in Alcatia. When we said as much, the only response we got was a smile.
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