Book I of III: The Swords of the Sultan (21 page)

In unison, both riders snapped their reins
while crying out, “Hee-yah!”

Both voices, Baltor noted, sounded manly.

What seemed only seconds later yet at the
very same time, the two masked men drew their swords back in order
to slice Baltor into tiny pieces! Meanwhile, Baltor had just risen
up on his feet on top of the saddle though his body remained in a
crouching position, and then he patiently waited.

At the precise moment, he twisted his body,
before leaping off his camel and toward the closer of the two
men—the one on his left.

While still flying through midair, Baltor
performed a quick roundhouse swing—the saber’s very sharp edge not
only chopped off the head of the first rider, yet it even caused
this man’s body to jerk back in the saddle, which in turn caused
his hands to jerk back upon the reins. A moment later, the horse
stopped in its tracks, reared back and threw off the headless
corpse!

Already had both of Baltor’s hands met the
ground before him, just before he performed a forwards roll with
his sword paralleled to the ground—a moment later, he was back on
his feet in the ready position with saber still clutched in his
right hand.

Meanwhile, the other masked man, due to
Baltor’s unexpected maneuver, had completely missed striking with
the initial sword attack; he continued to ride in the direction he
was going for ten seconds before turning his horse around.

Without pause, Baltor hurried over to the
other horse, hopped into the saddle, and then snapped the reins
just in time; as his newly acquired horse bolted forward, he heard
the sounds of the man’s sword zinging just inches near his left
ear!

This man, being more cautious than his dead
friend, did not pursue, but pulled back on the reins to stop his
horse.

Once Baltor had gotten about fifty feet away,
he turned his horse around, and challenged, “You want some of this?
Come and get it!”

Because Baltor expected his opponent to
charge his way on the horse and attack, he grew a bit surprised to
see the man turn his horse around toward the direction of the
camel, snap the reins, kick his feet hard into the stirrups, and
cry out, “Hee-yah!”

The horse began to gallop hard and fast
toward the camel.

Baltor only now realized that this man’s goal
was not himself, but the map. After sheathing the saber onto his
belt, he immediately snapped hard the reins on his horse.

As the man rode by the camel a few seconds
later, his sword was extended; the very pouch containing the map
was cut; in midair was the pouch caught, and again, his horse’s
reins were snapped.

Baltor was only about forty feet behind him,
all the while continuously snapping the reins and kicking his
stirrups into the sides of the horse, in order to get it to go even
faster. Fortune smiled again upon him, as his horse ultimately
turned out to be a bit faster, for with every passing second, he
drew nearer.

The man periodically glanced back at Baltor,
and when he saw that his enemy was only about fifteen feet behind,
he waved his sword high into the air in warning. Baltor, on the
other hand, kept his sword sheathed.

After one final snap on the reins, Baltor
stood on the saddle, let go of the reins, and leapt into the air at
his opponent with his arms and hands extended straight out in front
of him as if he could fly.

Not even two seconds later, his fists
collided hard into the man’s back, just before the rest of Baltor’s
body did, which caused both men to fly off the horse and crash to
the ground, as did their weapons and the pouch!

Yet right away and for the several minutes to
come, the wrestling was on. Just like before when he battled
Thesmul, this opponent was more skilled and inevitably gained the
upper position, this time with fingers already clutched around
Baltor’s throat and squeezing …
murderously!

This time, Baltor knew exactly what to do
when this type of situation happened. He thrust his knee hard into
his opponent’s groin area, pushed the opponent off and then rolled
right on top.

Baltor threw full-forced punches into his
masked opponent’s face, left and right, repeatedly—perhaps a dozen
hits and a dozen seconds passed before he finally had his opponent
knocked out cold…

Breathing raggedly, he removed the veil and
hood, becoming completely surprised when he saw just whom this
person was—Salmot!

At that moment, he could have picked up his
saber lying in arm’s reach, and easily killed this ruling member of
the High Council. In his mind’s eye, however, he saw Lydia’s
smiling face while her voice resolutely defended many years before,
“I’m with someone and am deeply in love with him.” For this reason
alone, Baltor chose not to kill this vermin of a man.

Instead, he pocketed the veil and turban,
before grabbing his saber and rising to his feet. It was only then
that he observed with a bit of disappointment that Salmot’s sword,
which was also lying on the ground nearby, had gotten severely bent
during the fight and was now unusable. After picking up the pouch,
he shooed one horse away, hopped on the other and followed the
trail back, all the while searching for his camel.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, he located his
camel traveling westbound toward Pavelus. Once he got near his
camel, he hopped off the horse, shooed that horse, climbed into the
saddle of his camel, and then the two made their journey east….

More than four months passed as Baltor and
the camel that he had named Valuspo traveled their way through
hundreds of miles of the “deadly” Sharia Desert, yet “Lady Luck”
blessed them in quite a few ways, many times over!

For one, they ran across nearly a dozen
oases, some bigger than others, each consisting of palm trees,
shrubbery and a pool of water. There, they were able to replenish
their water supplies though not always food supplies, except for
the occasional fresh fruits which only lasted two days at the most,
which was why he strictly rationed out his dried rations. Before
they left each oasis, he always ensured that Valuspo had a chance
to eat and drink, and that every water canteen was full before they
left.

The second blessing was that even though his
path crossed several times with different caravans of travelers,
especially around the oases, all of them left him alone in peace.
Though wary at all times, he never sensed anyone following,
especially Salmot.

And the third blessing was, throughout this
trip, there were only four mild sandstorms, which blew in from the
west or north. Whenever one came about, Baltor covered his own head
with the turban and face veil as quick as he could, before
just-as-quickly using his blanket to cover Valuspo’s head and
wrapping twenty feet of rope over and around the blanket at the
base of his camel’s neck, so it wouldn’t fly away. Standing in
place, they would then wait the storm out; and once over, sometimes
several hours later, only then did they continue on their “merry
way.”

On a geographical note, it was during the
first five months and twenty-four days that they passed through
desert terrains of all types, primarily rolling sand dunes.
Throughout these last two days of travel, however, the sands had
sharply rose in elevation, which became interspersed by small to
large patches of rock or vegetation, and finally, replaced by rocky
hills bearing small random patches of prairie grass, cactus and
palm trees.

Finally, the morning came when the sun rose,
Baltor awoke and looked eastbound, observing tiny jagged mountain
peaks throughout that entire horizon, approximately fifty or so
miles away—the Bospa Mountains!

By noon, and another ten miles closer, he
could even make out a very wide and fertile valley where he could
safely cross. Without stopping his camel, he pulled out the map in
order to check his coordinates, but after gazing at it for a few
moments, he muttered aloud to Valuspo, “Hmmm. It appears that there
is no exact way of knowing where I am on this map; the mapmaker
just scribbled a bunch of angled lines to indicate the general
shape of the mountain range, while certainly giving no clues as to
the best route to pass them. But that’s all good—all we have to
remember is that we have to keep heading east, right Valuspo?”

Valuspo turned his head back and grunted in
agreement. It wasn’t until late that night that Baltor decided to
stop and set up camp, which passed by without incident. The next
morning, he happily discovered that he had halved the distance to
the mountains.

Well into the afternoon a day later, they
finally entered the fertile valley that mainly consisted of
four-foot tall patches of prairie grass. Spread chaotically about
in various-sized clusters were lush green trees. All the while, he
listened to the songs of birds, primarily sparrows, as they played
amongst one another just about everywhere up there in the clear,
blue skies.

Up ahead and to his left, his keen eyes
spotted several deer that had just started to bolt away from a
small lagoon. He lightly tugged on the reins until his camel faced
that lagoon.

After arriving nearly fifteen minutes later,
he hopped to the ground, leading his camel by the reins to drink
and refill. While his camel drank, Baltor pulled out all the water
canteens in order to refill them.

Once he had hung the filled-up canteens back
onto his camel, he pulled out some dried jerky from the bag,
plopped onto the ground, and began to eat lunch and drink some
water. After a thirty-minute break, he hopped back onto his camel’s
back, and they pressed on.

It was when the furious colors of the dusky
evening set in that

Baltor decided to make camp. After hopping
off the camel and tying him to a tree stump, he compiled together a
bunch of dead twigs and branches, collected some rocks while
forming them into a complete circle around the twigs, lit the
campfire with his flint, and then began to relax about ten feet
away.

However, as Baltor continuously listened to
Valuspo munch on some grass, his own stomach started to grumble yet
again. He stood up, pulled out a piece of jerky from the bag, which
he had a dozen pieces/meals left, and began to gnaw on it.

Suddenly, “a brilliant idea” crossed his
mind—hunt for some fresh dinner before nightfall!

Baltor therefore used all of his stealth
skills, and only five minutes later, had caught an unsuspecting
rabbit.

After snapping its neck, he headed back to
camp, and once there, he created a poker from a stick, skinned the
rabbit as best he could with his saber, stuck a poker through the
carcass, sat down near the fire, and then held the poker over the
fire. The rabbit slowly began to roast.

Night finally set in, and approximately forty
minutes later, Baltor ate heartily. Once dinner was over, Baltor,
who now had a full stomach, fell fast asleep. The night passed by
without incident.

Just after sunrise the next morning, he
packed everything up on his camel, eliminated all signs that there
had even been a camp, hopped on his camel, and then continued on
his journey deeper into the heart of the mountains.

He immediately noticed that the valley
continued to escalate upward, as did the mountain peaks; and by
dusk, he felt the temperatures had gotten a tad bit chillier.

After tracking another rabbit down and
killing it, he set up a campfire, made and ate his dinner, and went
straight to sleep—this time sleeping with the blanket wrapped over
him.

The next morning, he awoke and they pressed
on. The valley continued higher and higher; and by afternoon, he
not only observed that there were small patches of snow here and
there on the ground, yet most of the trees were now pine.

It was then that he decided to put on an
extra layer of clothes and socks, after dusting off most of the
desert sands.

Afternoon turned into night, but despite the
campfire nearby, he shivered quite a bit underneath his thin
blanket and two layers of clothes. Barely was he able to fit on one
final layer of clothes.

Valuspo apparently wasn’t happy with the
weather changes either, as he kept snorting his irritations out.
Moreover, a light snow fell from the sky for most of the night.

While they both fought against the
below-freezing temperatures to get to sleep, he realized that the
blanket and a small fire would simply not provide adequate
protection for the nights to come, for he or for his camel.

Although it is true that two creative ideas
sprang forth in his mind on how to attain that protection, he was
dismally aware that he did not possess the skills to accomplish
them. Those ideas were, one, make a bow and arrow in order to make
a ranged attack upon at least one large animal: two, strip, cut,
and sew together some cold weather attire for them both from the
furs.

The furs from what?
Baltor then
silently asked himself.
I haven’t, brrrr, seen any large animals
around here, other than those two brown creatures that bolted like
lightning away from me back at the lagoon, a couple days ago.
Brrr
.

His last thought before falling asleep was,
I wonder why the Guild doesn’t offer a fur-making course—I
certainly would have taken it… Brrrr…ignore the cold, Baltor!
Ignore the cold
….

The next morning, he awoke—cold, stiff and
tired. While rubbing his hands briskly over his arms and legs in
order to warm them up from the cold, brisk air, he observed that
there was a good one-inch layer of snow everywhere. It had just
stopped snowing several hours before he had woken up.

It was then that he heard Valuspo shaking his
head, grunting out his irritations, and prancing around as far as
the reins would allow him—all at the same time.