Vankara (Book 1) (6 page)

The wall only had
one opening and it was here in the desert terrain of the Outlands, a place no vankaran
or fae was likely to travel to unless it was for a purpose.  Barren of water
and vegetation, the Outlands wasn’t fit to sustain very many people. 
Everything, including food and water, had to be shipped in from outlying
villages.  Only those people who shunned civilization, or who civilization
shunned, lived this far out.

Even from a
distance, the small village surrounding the outpost didn’t look in any better
shape than the outpost itself.

Gabriel checked on
Queen Emma to make sure she was still sleeping before we set out on our mission
to find John Fallon.  As we made our way down the steps from the Queen’s
compartment, I saw Inara already waiting on us at the foot of the stairs.  She
tugged her leather gloves off and tucked them over the cinched in black belt
around her waist.

“How long do you
think you’ll be?”  She asked Gabriel.

“I’m not sure,”
Gabriel answered as he held his hand out to me to help me down the last step
onto the pale desert sand.  Even though it was winter, the temperature here in
the Outlands was more like spring.  I was glad I decided to leave my cloak back
in the ship.

“Is Emma awake?”
Inara asked.

“No, she’s sleeping. 
If she wakes up before we return, let her know we’ll be back as soon as we can
with Fallon.”

The commander let
her arms drop to her side and headed up the stairs to watch over the Queen
while we were gone. 

“Come, Sarah.”
Gabriel said, forcing me to return my attention back to the task at hand.  “We
need to find John as quickly as we can.”

Chapter 4

The small town
built around the outpost was a perfect illustration of the term slatternly. 
The combined smells of human waste and liberal amounts of alcohol hung in the
air like a fog permanently encasing the squalid little hovel in a haze of
uncleanliness.  There were ten rickety wooden buildings comprising the town,
five on each side of the solitary sand strewn street running through the middle
of the village to the outpost.  Each one leaned towards the east and all looked
on the verge of collapsing if a strong gust blew within an inch of their
boards.  I assumed it was only the two foot dunes of sand surrounding the
bottoms of each ramshackle dwelling which kept their walls standing in an
upright position.

Why this John
Fallon chose to live in such wretched conditions when he could have been living
at the palace was beyond my reasoning.  I literally held onto my breath as we
walked down the street towards the old outpost.  Only until my lungs burned for
more air did I dare pollute them with the noxious fumes of the Outlands one and
only settlement.

At mid-day, the
outpost and town looked completely deserted with no one on the street but
Gabriel and me.  As we passed the only two-story building in the village, a
husky female voice called out to us from the balcony on the second floor.

“Heya love,” the
woman crooned.

She was dressed in
a thin, almost transparent white silky robe.  Her makeup was so heavily laden
on her skin I was having a hard time telling how old she was, which was
probably the point.

“Would ya like to
come up for a little visit, sweetie?”  Her eyelids lowered coquettishly for a
moment, a seductive smile spreading her ruby stained lips as her eyelids lifted
to find Gabriel once again.  “I won’t charge ya much since yer new in town an’
travellin’ with the Queen an’ all.  Plus, most everyone’s takin’ their midday
nap and I’m itchin’ for some company right about now.” 

“Thank you for the
kind offer madam but we are on urgent business for Her Majesty,” Gabriel
replied, ever the gentleman.

“What kinda
business?”  The woman asked, genuine curiosity taking root as we came to a stop
directly beneath her.  She leaned her elbows on the railing and looked down at
us displaying an ample amount of bosom in the process.

“We’re here to
discuss an important matter with Captain John Fallon,” Gabriel informed her.

“Oh are ya now?” 
She smiled and gave us a conspiratorial wink.  “Then ya need to come inside, love,
‘cause he’s been here the better part of the day.  I think he’s still down in
the parlor playin’ with the girls.”

“I see.”  Gabriel
turned to me with a troubled look on his face. “Maybe you should go back to the
ship, Sarah.  This isn’t the sort of establishment a lady should be seen in. 
Plus, I have no idea what all
‘playin’ with the girls’
might entail in
such a place.”

I considered
Gabriel’s chivalrous offer and felt a great temptation to go running back to
the cleanliness of the Queen’s quarters but thought better of it.

“No, if I’m going
to be a leader of people, I should know how all the people of Vankara live,” I
told him.  “Not just the clean, presentable ones.”

Gabriel hesitated
for a fraction of a second but seemed to think better of arguing with me and
just nodded his head in acquiescence. 

Gabriel and I
cautiously made our way up a set of crooked wooden steps to the porch of the
brothel.  There was a scattering of six rocking chairs along the porch, two of
which were positioned on either side of the front door.  The establishment had
been painted white at one time but years of wear and desert sand had eaten the
paint away in spots and peeled it back in others.  I could see what once must
have been white lacey curtains hanging just inside the windows.  From years of
abuse, they were stained yellow with ragged edges as proof of ill use and
neglect.

As soon as Gabriel
opened the front door, I was assaulted by the stench of tobacco smoke mixed
with alcohol and cheap perfume.  Sadly enough, it was a slight improvement to
the outdoor aromas.  The cackle of females could be heard coming from a room to
the right of the small foyer as soon as we entered. 

We walked over to
the entrance of the room and saw a group of six women sitting around one of
five tables laid out in a cross shape pattern.  All of the women were in
varying states of undress.  A man clothed in the black leather uniform of the Queen’s
guard was sitting amongst them shuffling a deck of playing cards with dexterous
fingers.  His dusty jacket was unbuttoned to the waist revealing what should
have been a white undershirt, but it was stained a light brown from being
exposed to too much sand and too little washing.  His dark brown hair was long
and unruly, and the thick beard covering his face made it difficult to discern
his facial features.  The only visibly attractive element to the man was a
slight twinkle of amusement shining in his dark eyes.

When I glanced
down beside his chair, I saw a large pile of women’s clothing on the floor
composed of mostly corsets, skirts and silk stockings.  It certainly explained
why the women around him were only a few garments shy from being completely
devoid of what little propriety they had left.

“I swear, John,
yer a cheat!”  A buxom blonde said, her right foot resting on top of the table
while she rolled a black thigh-high silk stocking down her leg.  She carelessly
tossed it in the pile of clothes at the captain’s feet.

“Now, Dora
darlin’, just because I win a lot doesn’t mean I’m a cheat.”  He looked at her
with a lop-sided grin meant to be roguishly endearing. His intonation held the
accent of the people who lived in the southern part of Vankara where they
lingered over their words in a slow drawl. “I was just born under a lucky star
is all.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” Dora
rolled her eyes at him, feigning exasperation.  “Did ya ever think to consider
that maybe we just let ya win?”

John Fallon’s grin
grew wider revealing surprisingly white teeth.  “Well then that would just
prove my point.  How many men would be lucky enough to find a group of lovely
ladies willing to let a man beat them at anything?”

“Ya got a point
there, Johnny,” a brunette sitting beside him giggled.  She was young and could
have been pretty if it weren’t for the thick pasting of rouge on her cheeks and
blood red lipstick attacking her lips.  I assumed she was trying to look older
than her years but instead conjured up the image of an out of place court
jester.

Gabriel cleared
his throat gaining the attention of the ladies immediately.

“Excuse me for
interrupting,” he said.

At the sound of
Gabriel’s voice, the captain’s eyes snapped up from the deck of playing cards
in his hands and rested on Gabriel with an openly hostile glare.  The smile on
his face vanished, quickly replaced by a steely set to his jaw.  The captain
slowly laid the deck of cards down on the table and sat back in his chair
studying Gabriel with distrustful eyes before speaking.

“What brings you
all the way out here, Gabriel?”

“The Queen needs
to see you, Fallon.  It’s urgent.”

The captain
crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair with a brooding
look of contempt on his face, his eyes no longer laughing.  “If it’s so damn
urgent maybe she should have come here to talk to me in person.”

“Her airship is
anchored on the outskirts of town.  She’s simply in no state to come in here
personally or she would be standing in front of you instead of me.”

The captain’s eyes
widened for a fraction of a second.  It was obvious he hadn’t actually expected
the Queen to be within walking distance.

“What does she
want?”  He asked gruffly.

“Just a word,”
Gabriel said, cautious with his own, not wanting to overstate our real purpose
for coming in front of mixed company.  “You can spare a few minutes for your Queen,
can’t you, John?”

The captain leaned
forward and gingerly picked up the deck of cards.  “I’m a little busy right
now.  Tell her I’ll be there if I can find the time.”

The disgruntled
way he spouted these words made me understand why the Queen knew she needed to
replenish her strength before speaking with John Fallon again.  He was an
uncouth boar.  I seriously considered the strong possibility the Queen’s fever
had affected her ability to reason properly.  Not only had she decided to sit
me, a peasant farm girl, on the throne of Vankara, but she wanted this wretch
of a man to be one of my trusted advisors.  Considering the state the captain
was in, I didn’t want to stand near the unclean lout, much less listen to any
advice he might have. 

“She sent you this
gift,” Gabriel pulled out a small silver canteen with the royal seal etched on
its front from his inner jacket pocket.  “She said it used to be your favorite
drink when you were stationed at the palace and thought you might enjoy having
some since it’s been so long since you were there last.”

Gabriel walked up
to the captain and sat the canteen down in front of him on the table.

“We’ll be here all
day,” Gabriel told Fallon in a quiet voice.  “We don’t plan to leave the area
until you agree to see her.”

Fallon stared at
the canteen before letting his hostile eyes slowly slide up Gabriel’s arm up to
his face.

“I’ll see if I
have a free spot in my schedule,” was the captain’s reply, causing the women
around him to snicker softly.

Gabriel nodded
graciously and returned to my side.  In a low whisper he said, “Let’s wait out
front.”

Once we were back
on the porch, Gabriel motioned for me to sit in one of the wooden rocking
chairs by the door while he stood against the banister keeping a watchful eye
on the captain through a sand dusted window.

“What are we
doing?” I asked.  “Are you expecting him to come out soon?”

“Not on his own,”
Gabriel sighed regrettably.  “But after he drinks what’s in the canteen, the
question of whether or not he
wants
to come with us will be a moot point.”

I cocked a
suspicious eyebrow at Gabriel and asked, “What exactly did you give him to
drink?”

“It’s the
fermented plum juice the palace winemakers make for the royal family.  I simply
omitted the fact this particular batch of wine has been enchanted to act as a
sleeping serum.”

“Ahh,” I said,
finally understanding Gabriel’s earlier statement of
‘he won’t have a
choice’
when I asked if John Fallon would willingly come with us to speak
with the Queen.

We didn’t have to
wait long.  Approximately five minutes later, we heard a loud
thunk
,
like the sound an axe makes when propelled into the trunk of a tree, followed
by several female gasps coming from the interior of the bordello.

“Do you think you
can help me carry him to the ship?”  Gabriel asked, pushing off from the porch
banister he had been leaning against.

“I’ll try,” was
all I could promise.

When we went back
inside, we could see the captain slumped across the table with his head face
down in a pile of scattered playing cards.  Dora was vigorously shaking his arm
in a futile attempt to awaken her patron.  The other women stood around him in
a chatter of confusion, uncertain what should be done next.

“Excuse me,
ladies,” Gabriel said pushing his way through the group of women to the
captain’s side.  He lifted the captain from his chair placing one of his limp
arms around his neck and grabbing a firm hold around the captain’s waist.

“Sarah, if you
would be so kind as to help on the other side please,” Gabriel requested in a
strained voice.  It soon became apparent to me the captain’s dead weight was a
lot more than Gabriel had bargained for.

I made my way
through the gaggle of women and propped Fallon’s other arm across my
shoulders.  The unclean stench emanating from every pore of the man’s body
almost caused me to gag.  I took slow, shallow breaths to help prevent my
breakfast from making an unwanted reappearance. 

“Now just where do
the two of you think yer takin’ our John?”  Dora asked with undisguised
hostility as she stood from her chair.