Leodan the Son of Lion Chapters 1-7

CHAPTER 3

As well as Casta hoped, Nirran agreed to help her. She left at Nirran`s her bag with things and immediately went to Plague Ditches. She had still hope that orc Tulkan was alive.

Plague Ditches were located behind northern gate of Darnat, and Casta had to pass through all city to reach the place. However, night walk did not bring any troubles — after midnight the street of the Old city became absolutely empty and rare patrols of city guardians did not pay any attention to the hurrying woman in a black attire. The soldiers of Darnat couldn`t even imagine that the stranger who was so diligently hiding her face under a hood was the arena star, a ruthless and blood-thirsty Casta the Amazon. Their indifference saved their lives: Casta decided that if something happens she won`t sentimentalize. But she had not to shed blood fortunately. The guardians of northern gate took her for the wife of the criminal thrown dead into Plague Ditches and passed her out, having limited to several malicious and obscene remarks.

Still long before Casta left the city, she felt the disgusting stench going from Plague Ditches. They began just behind gate, on the right side, and lasted on several hundreds of steps along a wall, to a stocky stone tower where the guild of grave-diggers was located. Once in these ditches were being burned corpses of the dead during the pestilence but then the authorities began to dump there the bodies of executed criminals, slaves and tramps. Grave-diggers for a small fee used to bury some of them in common graves, burned others, but most of the dead thrown there remained unburied in Ditches, infecting air with a smell of death and feeding hordes of rats, flies, stray dogs and jackals. The grave-diggers burned the oil lakes located in ditches to banish deathbirds and though to take away a little the dense stench of decomposition, , however black fat smoke poisoned air even more, accumulated black soot on walls of ditches, making this terrible place even more ominous.

One of such lakes was burning directly on the way of Casta. Having convinced that she moved rather far away from gate, the girl kindled the laid-up torch from the red smoky flame dancing on a surface of the lake. Rolled up the face with matter strip impregnated with tar — she took both tar and fabric at Nirran's tavern. Then extended a sword from a sheath and began to go down in a ditch. All surrounded her from the first steps could cause horror in the most brave hearts. On the ditch bottom covered with ashes and a soot and impregnated with fat of burned corpses, the charred bones and skulls were scattered. Here and there ominous remains were collected in heaps in which fuss and growl were heard. The bonfires made of bundles of the straw watered with oil and prepared for new kremation rose nearby. Then dead bodies began to come across to her. Some of them had left here long ago and absolutely decayed, others seemed fresh, but all of them were spoiled by deathbirds. Somewhere absolutely close howls of jackals and a mad laughter of hyenas sounded: several times some dark shadows were cast away at her approach. Choking with a stench and whispering guarding prayers, Casta went further, crossing through deformed corpses corroded by decomposition and deathbirds, trying to see Tulkan among them. Her hopes to find Tulkan alive thawed every minute.

— "Tulkan!" — she shouted, having taken ten more steps. — "Tulkan!"

Some bird flew by absolutely near her head and soared up into darkness, having let her cry. From darkness behind heaps of bones spiteful growl was heard, and Casta saw the eyes of unknown creatures whom she disturbed with the emergence flashing in the dark like green sparks. She was motionless and waited. At last, growl ceased, was replaced by a crunch and champing. Having lifted the torch, Casta went further on. From a dense smell of death the head began to be turned, painful nausea squeezed stomach. It seemed to her that the worms teeming on remains begin to creep on her. Under her boots something crackled, squelched, soles slid, and she nearly fell directly to the decaying weight, once being the living man. Having inhibited mad desire to run away from this underworld, Casta nevertheless reached the middle of a ditch, to the second oil lake and set fire to it. Oil flashed with booming sound, and it became lighter in the ditch.

Suddenly she heard low moan. Heart of Casta joyfully clogged, she ran forward, maneuvring between heaps of the charred bones and the bodies rolling in a ditch. She appeared soon in the distant end of a ditch where bodies of the executed slaves had been dumped. They had been executed right there, near Plague Ditches next to a fortification. Again the groan, this time absolutely nearby was heard.

— "Tulkan!" — Casta shouted.

Two hyenas rushed on her from darkness. Casta began to squeal, threatened on creatures with brightly burning torch — in its light she could see the grinned snub-nosed muzzles of predators, their mad eyes full of animal rage. One of hyenas moved back away, but another with hoarse bark rushed forward. Casta stuck with a sword edge directly into the blood-stained muzzle of hyena and got into an eye, and then struck with a sword from below up, so, that the hyena flew up in air and plopped down on a heap of remains. The second beast ran off Casta on ten steps, but then rushed off to her with big clumsy jumps. Blow of a sword rejected a hyena back, having killed her a forepaw, and the second blow of Casta nailed the wounded creature to the ground. After that she already slowly finished the first hyena trying to rise and again to rush on her. Having finished hyenas, the girl hurried there, from where, as it seemed to her, groans reached. In several moments she saw Tulkan.

The orc lay on a heap of the disfigured bodies in a ditch corner. Casta shuddered: the right leg of an orc was covered with lacerations, and there were shapeless bloody tatters instead of the left foot. Hyenas had come here before her. But Tulkan was still alive: having dropped an ear to a mighty breast of orc, Casta heard weak faltering heart beat. Then Tulkan quietly sighed.

— "Tulkan!" — Casta whispered, having taken a hand of orc.

The orc moved, made the hoarse bubbling sound. The girl saw that he opened eyes.

— "Tulkan, it`s me!" — she told, having bent over the dying. — "I am Casta!"

— "Tulkan not to see!" — the orc croaked. — "Eyes night. Woman?"

— "Yes, Tulkan, it`s me, woman", — lips of Casta begun to tremble. — "Forgive me, Tulkan!"

— "Tulkan to die", — the orc exhaled. — "It is good to die. Pain to come end. Why woman here?"

— "You wanted to see me".

— "Dinche!" — Tulkan told. — "To go Dinche. She to tell. Ayvari's stone. Shenay-eshgan-rokh-ammar-denna!"

— "What?"

— "Now the woman to leave. Tulkan to die quietly".

— "Tell that you forgive me".

— "Tulkan not to be angry. The woman to live quietly. Tulkan to die quietly".

— "Tulkan!" — Casta unexpectedly for herself broke into tears. — "I will revenge, I swear!"

— "To go Dinche", — the orc barely audible exhaled and began to shake and wheeze. Casta screamed, but Tulkan did not hear this shout any more.

The girl was captured by strange catalepsy, and she continued to stand near a dead orc, holding his hand in hers, listening as the jackals ransacking near ditches exchanged the cries similar to children's crying. Then she understood that she only wastes time. Night passes, and she should still manage to make about what Tulkan asked her. And to take care on unfortunate orc that hyenas would disturbe him nevermore.

* * *

The gray-haired person such thin and emaciated that looked like the skeleton fitted by skin opened her the door in a tower. He looked at Casta with amazement, but then saw her tear-stained eyes — and understood everything.

— "Come in", — he ordered.

Casta steppeed inside and flat-out fell by the clay scaffold covered with dirty mats. Everything floated before her eyes. Then she felt light touch. The lean person stood nearby and stretched her a cup with water.

— "Drink", — he suggested.

She broke a tar rag from a face, brought a cup to a mouth, but spasms smothered her, and water spilled on a breast. The person knowingly nodded, brought to the girl a dirty wooden tub. He made it in time: next moment Casta began to vomit.

— "The silly woman", — quietly said lean man. — "Who goes this place at night? You were lucky that hyenas and ghouls did not break off you in pieces!"

— "Who ... are you?" — Casta wiped a wet mouth with edge of a cloak.

— "Conductor. I take care for those who needs to nobody".

— "You are a grave-digger?"

— "Foreman of grave-diggers guild". — The old man filled a cup with water from a jug again. — "Is there anyone of your relatives?"

— "My friend. He ... is an orc".

— "Twice silly woman, if you have friends among cannibal orcs. Though there is no more terrible being under the sun than the humans".

— "Can you bury him?"

— "It will cost one sakkar. Do you have one sakkar?"

— "I have two sakkars for you". — Casta opened a bag with shivering hands, threw gold coins to the old man. — "I beg ... you".

— "Olan!" — the old man shouted, hiding money in the loincloth.

The thin teenager came to call of the old man from the neighboring room: in his indifferent eyes the curiosity flashed when the Caste threw off the cloak, and the teenager could see her sparkling steel armor covered with skillful stamping and the long sword with the handle trimmed with nacre which was hung up to the belt.

— "Olan can clean your clothes with special composition which neutralizes ptomaine and takes away death smell", — the old man told. — "It will cost one more sakkar".

— "Let him clean".

— "Undress", — the old man ordered and left the tower.

Casta threw the cloak to the boy, shuddering from loathing, pulled dirty boots, then unknit belts of the armor skirt and the semi-cuirass protecting a breast. It didn`t borther her that she remained naked, and the boy was looking at her. But Olan was more delicate, than she thought: having looked down, the boy picked up her things and carried them away. In a minute he returned with a basin of hot water and a bast. Water in a basin was dark and had a strong smell of some herbs.

— "Wash up, madam", — he told and smiled.

Casta grabbed the bast, dipped it into water and began to rub herself with rage of the madman convinced that his skin is covered by parasites, invisible to the others. The strange composition in the basin foamed on skin and caused strong burning, but it was seemed to Casta that she was finally exempted from the terrible smell which contaminated her body and from horror which she felt this night. Her nausea settled, a shiver in legs began to pass gradually. She continued to rub herself with a wet bast, spilling caustically smelling water and moaning from pleasure. She stopped only when all her body began to burn and itch as if it was whipped a nettle, but the terrible smell absolutely disappeared. And then there was Olan and brought her cloak and armor.

— "Take", — Casta generously threw gold in the boy's hand. Olan rolled up the head.

— "No, madam, is too much here!"

— "It is not a lot of. Take! For such work you should be showered with sakkars from head to feet".

— "As madam wishes", — Olan bowed. — "May I help madam to put on"?

— "I`ll handle it. Go, don`t stare at me".

— "As madam wishes".

The old man returned when she almost stopped putting on.

— "I have taken care of your friend", — he told. — "He is already on the way to the world of the ancestors".

— "What is your name, old man?"

— "Why do you ask my name?"

— "Just I want to know who forced me to believe in people today again".

— "You are very kind, the Warrior. But do not do similar nonsenses from now".

— "Did you recognize me?"

— "You are recognized by anybody who once saw you in the arena".

— "Thank you, father".

— "I have only made my work".

— "May gods bless you. You are a good person".

— "Grandfather, who was this woman?" — Olan asked the old man when Casta left the tower of grave-diggers. — "Was she really Casta the Murderer, huh?"

— "Remember, Olan, you saw nobody this night", — the old man told, bolting a door. — "There was nobody here. It was just the dream. Understood me? No words to anybody, even to our guild fellows".

— "I understood, grandfather. She gave me five sakkars".

— "It is good. Hide them better and never speak about them to anybody. Perhaps, day will come, and this money will help you to escape from hell in which we live ... And now go to sleep. Morning is soon, and we will have a lot of work. While there are judges and executioners in Darnat, we will not be left without piece of bread".

* * *

The slave gatekeeper who opened doors to Kuvlad's house was unfamiliar to her and looked sleepy and frightened. Casta did not begin explainings why she came so late — having pushed away the slave, entered inside, to the spacious lobby of the house brightly lit with a set of the trimmed lamps. Eventually the owner of this house is her lover so there is absolutely no need to wait at doors when she is deigned to be accepted.

She decided to visit Kuvlad not at once. This thought came to her already to ways to port — in the beginning she was going to stop for the night at Nirran`s tavern. She changed her mind when Nirran reported to her that he had agreed with the Saiss captain, and for Casta there was a place by the Sais galley leaving Darnat at sunrise. Thought of Kuvlad and decided to say goodbye to him. Young Darnatian was her official lover. Their communication continued three months — Kuvlad, the hereditary aristocrat and one of the richest people in Darnat, tried to get her attention very long. He went to all her fights in circus, sent her rich gifts which Casta did not accept — was afraid to be fond of Kuvlad really, to lose the head because young Darnatian attracted her. Unlike most of her admirers Kuvlad was young and beautiful — high, swarty, with pensive black eyes, refined and perfectly well-mannered. But Kuvlad did not frighten off such coldness, he was annoying, and Casta surrended. In long series of her lovers Kuvlad was the first to whom she was really attached. Darnat gossiped about their communications, but it concerned Casta a little. She needed Kuvlad at least sometimes to feel like the woman. Their relations were less, than love, but were more than sympathy. Casta herself also understood that they will never be able to get married — similar marriages were prohibited by Darnat laws, — and she also did not want to be just the concubine. Kuvlad seemed to be satisfied their meetings. He tried to obtain love of the amazon and achieved it, the rest did not matter. But this night before leaving Darnat forever Casta wanted to see the young man once again. It is possible because it was nobody closer to her than Kuvlad in this city. Having taken away things from Nirran`s Casta went to Kuvlad.