Chapter 6

Deep breath. Step inside. The glass door slides shut behind me. I’ve got everything I can take with me in an over the shoulder cloth bag. Shield belted to my waist, sword slung through one of the loops of my belt. Floppy hat for effect.

I give Aiden a half smile which he returns. He’s an asshole a lot of the time, but he’s almost always there to make sure I have everything I need, that I’ve been properly briefed, that the transport goes off without a hitch. Awww, I think he loves me after all.

You do get used to the trip after a while, but I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the aloneness. One minute, I’m there with my friends, my family, my co-workers, in my native time and place. The next minute, it feels like a million teeny tiny icy cold needles are being driven, hard, through my body. Like the worst acupuncture treatment ever. And then I’m alone. Everything and everyone I know is gone and I’m all alone, a thousand or so years out of my time. Just weird, I tell you.

But there I am. 13th century . And the pictures simply don’t do it justice. Rolling green hills with black rocks jutting up here and there. Tall trees, birds singing loudly. Not a hydro to be heard, no airplanes overhead, no subways below. And no people. Not a one. Dillon certainly picked a secluded spot for the drop.

It only took a minute to recover from the trip. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not really painful either. Just takes your breath away. As soon as I was satisfied which direction I needed to travel, I started over a hill. Dillon had dropped me about five kilometers south of the village in question, . My current plan was to go into the village and find out as much as I could about any strangers that had come into town recently. I realized this was probably not going to get me too far, but without any other way to track the non-lin, town gossip was all I had to start with. I could also get directions to the Duer castle. We knew it was in the area, but there were no exact coordinates to help me out. Find the castle, figure out whether or not the guy running things was a good guy or my bad guy, then take action as appropriate. See, iron clad plan. And you wondered why I often needed help with these things.

I could see in the distance as soon as I topped the hill. I could also see something I really didn’t plan on. Dead bodies. They were wearing armor of some type which I couldn’t quite make out from here, but yeah, they’d died in some kind of battle. One still had the spear sticking out of his chest and another one was lying about 10 feet from his own head. I’m not weak stomached or anything, but, yuck. I stayed behind the hill till I was sure none of the combatants were still hanging around. All seemed quiet so I headed out into the open.

I thought I might try to figure out who the less fortunate guys were in the field. They probably wouldn’t have drivers’ licenses or anything, but they could be wearing a crest of some sort that would give me a clue whose team they played on. And that might help me later. I don’t know how, but you never know. Information is power.

The headless fellow wasn’t of any help. He was wearing mostly dirty fur over dirtier wool clothes. I pulled a rag off his leg and covered his head. Wasn’t much more I could do in the way of a burial. I walked over to a guy who’d had his belly torn open. The smell was just too awful. I couldn’t stand to get close. Go ahead, I dare you to call me a weakling.

I went over to the guy with the spear in his chest. Looks like he went fast. His eyes were still open. Clean hit. He had a pouch tied on to his belt and I rolled him a bit to get at it. Yes, it was gross. Let’s move on.

The pouch had a crest on it. A dove flying over a heart covered the body of the crest and a knight’s helmet decorated the top. Not what I was looking for. The Duer crest had the knight head, but three flowers on three colored stripes marked the body. The bag had a couple of pieces of less than fresh bread and a knife. Not much help either.

That’s when I heard them. Just a rustle in the bushes off to my right, but I had amped up before I stepped through the box and could hear them as clear as a bell. I didn’t look up from what I was doing, but I moved my hand to release the tie on my shield. Let them make the first move. If they were trying to avoid me, fine. If they were intent on attacking me, I’d be ready.

I straightened from Spear Guy and took one last glance at He didn’t have a bag, didn’t look like there were any pockets in his furs. Just plain not worth it. I picked my bag back up, one hand holding the shield in place, and started toward the only thing that could have passed for a road in the visible area. For better or worse, the path led right past the bushes where my observers were sort of hidden.

I whistled. Cliché, I know. But what better way to make them think that I didn’t know they were there? As I passed the bush in question, I realized it was awfully small for more than one man to hide behind, let alone more than one. Way, way too small. Then I realized.

As fast as I could, which was pretty fast, I spun around behind the bush and grabbed my watchers. Two of them, a boy, maybe 8 or 9, I’m not good at judging these things, and a girl, a few years younger. Giving them credit for courage, neither of them screamed. They just looked at me with unbelievably large, blue eyes, not particularly frightened, not challenging me, either.

“What are you two doing here?”

The boy looked over toward the field where the dead bodies were lying. He didn’t look particularly sad, so I didn’t figure anyone out there was a relative. Then it hit me.

My belly flopped a bit. These two were going to ransack dead bodies for scraps of food. Beautiful, 13th century just got a little less attractive.

“Where are your parents?”

Just stares.

“Where do you live?”

Both of them looked back into the forest behind them. Great, homeless orphans. Remember what I said about not killing anyone? Well, the counter of that is that I’m also not supposed to save anyone. What if one of these adorable little urchins ends up being a previously unleashed Hitler? Make as little impact as possible, that’s the directive.

So, these two could grow up and be productive citizens and be fine. Or they could die of starvation or exposure and rot out here in the woods. And I wasn’t supposed to do anything to help, either way. Right.

“You guys should probably head into town. Isn’t there anyone there who could take you in?”

They both continued to stare as if I was speaking a foreign language, which I might have been, my Gaelic is far from flawless. I sighed, opened my bag, and took out a generous supply of my rations.

“Only eat a little at a time, and then drink some water. Keep doing that till you’re full. These will last a long time.”

Continued stares and neither reached for the food.

“Go ahead. It’s ok. It’s food, see?” I bit a chunk off. I knelt down and offered it to the little girl. “Try it.”

She leaned forward and bit off a tiny piece from the bread in my hand, although she still didn’t take it. The teeniest of smiles showed as she chewed. I was a goner. Dammit. The little boy took a piece from my other hand and ate vigorously.

“No, no, only a little at a time.” He dropped it immediately and backed up a few steps.

“No, honey, its ok, just remember to only eat a little at a time.” I gave him a new piece and pulled out my water pouch and gave them both a drink. The little girl bent down and picked up the dropped piece and started munching on it. Now, I’m not what anyone would ever call maternal, but mommy-mode kicked in. I pulled it out of her hand, tossed it behind me and gave her a new piece. She looked at me like I was insane. I guess when you haven’t eaten in a few days and have low prospects of eating any time soon, even a dirty piece of bread looks tasty.

“All right, now I’ve got to go, but you take these and remember what I said, eat a little at a time, lots of water.” I put the pieces of food in the boy’s hands. You’d think I’d handed him a pot of gold.

I straightened up and slung the bag back over my shoulder. With a sad last glance, I turned and continued on the path toward what I hoped would be the town. Then I felt the littlest of hands grab on to a couple of my fingers. Crap. Big blue eyes stared at me from under her dark brown dirty hair. I’d misjudged her age. She was probably only 4 or 5 at the most. I absolutely refused to get emotional. I pulled my fingers out of her grip. Gently.

“You can’t come with me, kiddo. You’ve got to do your own thing. You can stay here or you can go into town, but you can’t come with me.”

I turned and kept walking. And yeah, I looked back. They were following. The little girl had the dirty piece of bread in her hand that I’d thrown away and she was munching on it again. Like damn cats. Feed ’em and look what happens.

“Go! You guys gotta go back. I can’t take care of you! Go!” I even went so far as to stomp my foot. Both of them stepped back.

Have you ever seen the look in a child’s face when you let it play with a puppy and then take it away? Yeah, just like that. I’d just acted like a caregiver, a provider, shown them some kindness and then turned my back on them, yelling at them no less. How shitty did I feel? I’ve had to watch people die before. Lots of times. And it never gets easy, but I’ve always known it needed to be that way. If it wasn’t my fault they were in a predicament, I had to stay out of it and let history take its course. But these two were practically babies. I had no idea if they were supposed to live or die; I just knew they didn’t have any way of taking care of themselves for the long term. And I knew I couldn’t possibly leave them standing there.

“Ok, as far as the edge of town, but that’s it. Then you’re on your own. Got it?”

Again with the stares. I sighed. “Come on.” I held out my hands. The little girl trotted up to me and took a couple of fingers in her grip. The little boy was still a little leery but he took a step forward. Ok, he’d cover the flank.

And we walked to town. Sometimes I’m such a sucker.

“Ok, if either of you has any world domination fantasies, get them out of your head right now. You hear me?” The little girl looked up at me and nodded emphatically. Oh, sure. That she understood.