Erol set out from Lothkir on his scouting mission to Dor Bremkin the same day his companions planned to leave for Virzon, setting out in the cool hour before dawn. He and Jeb rode Chancellory horses, which they would be able to ride hard and trade of for fresh horses at Royal Posts within Arushal. Grover rode on his usual perch on Erol’s left shoulder, occasionally scampering down and leaping across to ride the rump of Jeb’s horse. But as the ride wore on, he eventually settled down to sleep in an open saddle bag.

They made almost 40 kilometers that first day, arriving at the Abbey of Revelsa in the early evening, just in time to take supper with the monks. They set out at dawn again the next day, and made it to the last Post Station at the border by mid-afternoon.

Trading in their winded horses for one last set of fresh ones, despite the misgivings of the post commander at letting his steeds leave the kingdom, they made the last ten kilometers to Dor Urdol before sunset. They took rooms at an inn on the outskirts of the small town, keeping a low profile without seeming to skulk.

Sitting in the common room, eating his dinner of stewed mutton, Bianguen cheese, plums, pickled eel and several mugs of a decent rye ale flavored with heather, Erol found himself slightly disoriented to be back in his once-beloved Republic… still beloved?

His years away had changed him, toughened him, certainly made him more cynical… he had none of the illusions of the young man who had enlisted in the Legions to avenge the wrongs done his country. And yet he found he did still care what happened to the Republic, even if it was no longer really his home…

A third full day of riding, taking it a bit easier since there would be no trading off of horses again, brought them to the Darikazi border. Much of the countryside they rode through was strangely empty and quite – a generation of war, suppression and heavy exactions of the conquered populace had left much of this once-fertile region to fall back into semi-wilderness.

And it was no better crossing into Darikaz – the hand of the Korönian fighting order that had seized Bremkin from the Republic lay heavy on the people they now ruled. Actually, Erol knew that the current overlords were a splinter order, who had broken from the original conquerers some years ago… but they seemed no better, if the sullen, beaten-down looks he saw on the few peasants they passed along the road were any indication.

The keep of Bremkin was just 10 kilometers from the border, but the sun had set by the time the weary and saddle-sore travelers rode into the town that surrounded it. Neither man was an experienced horseman, and it was with groans of relief that they stopped at the first inn that looked half-way reputable. Erol took a private room, while Jeb slept in the loft in the stables, where he could keep an eye on the horses.

The next day, still stiff and sore, Erol began circulating through the town, stopping at the local market, enjoying a leisurely drink at various taverns, chatting up the workers at smithy, ostler and mill. Bremkin was not especially large, with a permanent population of perhaps 300, but the business of the Order of the Fist of Shangtor, and its sponsoring Order of the Burning Blood, came close to doubling that during the fighting season.

And while the natives were clearly oppressed and resentlful, there was something in the air… a feeling of hopeful anticipation, Erol decided after a few hours of carefully subtle probing. But the conditioning of many years kept most folk from being too open about what they might be thinking, or hoping, especially with a stranger.

When they compared notes over supper that evening, Jeb had discovered much the same thing in his time with the stable hands, servants and farm folk of the area. “It’s like they’re awaiting on something, m’lord,” he summarized after a long pull on his ale. “But they’re too canny… or scared… to say what it is, exactly.”

That night in the common room, talk danced around the mysterious subject,and while alcohol loosed some toungues, it wasn’t enough. But Erol knew better than to push, and contented himself with making some new friends. Eventually he’d get what he wanted…

♦ ♦ ♦

The next afternoon, in a tavern on the edge of town frequented by farmers in from the hinterland for the market, Erol’s patience paid off. A yeoman from a nearby manor, for whom he’d stood several rounds of drinks the night before, happened to be taking his lunch there when Erol arrived. He was pleased to see his generous friend from the night before, whom he believed to be an unemployed mercenary seeking work, and motioned Erol to join him.

Several ales later, he leaned in close and whispered conspiratorially, and a bit hazily, into Erol’s ear. “You’d do well to hold off hiring on with any of these Fist bas’rds, my mercenary friend,” he confided. “There’s big ch’nges comin’, I know from my bru’ther, he’s a guard up’t the Keep… yep, big ch’nges… wit the King a deader, they’s giving the town back to the Republic!”

He sat back and gave Erol a broad wink. “What’da’ya thin’ of that, eh! The good ole days are coming back… an then you can hire on as a prop’r Legioneer… legionhair… you know, with the Legions…”

Further questions managed to get little more out of the tipsy yeoman, aside from the repeated assertion that it would happen “soon… verra soon!” It was what King Dorikon and his advisors had feared, but Erol wanted more confirmation before he sent word. He continued his rounds, and knowing enough now to ask the right leading questions, by the time he met up with Jeb for supper he had confirmed the story with three other sources. Jeb hadn’t gotten quite as precise information, but what he had gleaned pieced together well with Erol’s information.

“It’s solid enough,” Erol said, eating the last of the pickled beets. “I wish we had more than just ‘soon,’ but it will have to do… I’ll send Mariala a message tonight.”

Jeb gave a little shiver of combined fear and fascination… he was still a bit leery of the arcane forces that his employer was involved with, but felt drawn to them at the same time. Certainly Mariala’s parchment was the one magic he was most familiar with, and though he hadn’t ever actually used it himself, he’d seen Erol or the others use it often enough. It still gave him a thrill, he had to admit…

As Jeb was contemplating the exciting dangers of magic, and the odd direction his life had taken since the Gülvini had attacked his home last year, Erol’s eye was drawn across the room to a dark-haired woman seated alone near the fireplace, a cup of wine on the table before her. She had large, dark eyes and very red lips – which parted as she brought the wine to her mouth. She took a slow sip, and then those eyes looked up and locked with Erol’s.

She was dressed in dark green traveling clothes, a matching cloak draped on the bench beside her, and she looked quite fit. And healthy lungs if I’m any judge, Erol thought as he was distracted by the movement of her bossom. Not enormous, which he had never found particularly interesting, but a pleasant handful nonetheless…

She arched an eye at him suddenly, and he flushed a bit as he realized he’d been straing. But she smiled, and motioned ever so slightly with her head, her eyes glancing down to the empty spot beside her… a clear invitation if he’d ever seen one!

“Jeb, why don’t you retire for the night,” Erol said as he rose to his feet. “we may want to get an early start tomorrow…”

“But it’s barely past sundown,” the youth objected. “And I’ve only had the one ale! I was thinking –”

“Yes, yes,” Erol replied absently, moving away from their table. “Just as you please…”

At this point Jeb noticed the object of his master’s attention, and he snorted a laugh. Wasn’t that just the way of the world? The finest looking woman in the place, and of course she’d only have eyes for a hardened fighter… a poor farm boy wouldn’t even rate a glance, however good he might be with a bow. Or any other tool.

With a sigh and a wry grin he raised his empty mug at the serving wench, as Erol sank down next to his new friend. She leaned in towards him, then laughed merrily at something he said. She had a beautiful laugh, Jeb thought…

♦ ♦ ♦

Later that night, in Jerila’s room (a beautiful name for a beautiful creature, Erol thought as he brushed a lock of hair from her face), they lay entwined in the blankets and each other. She smiled at him and pulled away slightly.

“Now perhaps we can enjoy some of that expensive Valtirian wine I ordered,” she suggested. She had seemed a bit annoyed earlier, when his passion had overwhelmed any interest in more drinking, but that had faded quickly enough, Erol fancied rather smugly, in he heat of the moment. Her passion had certainly seemed to match his own! Still, no sense in risking that annoyance anew – and he was feeling a bit dehydrated just now in any case.

She stood up, letting the sheet fall away, and he was taken again by the supple curves of her athletic form. She seemed unconcerned by her nudity, and gave him a coy smile over her shoulder as she poured the wine. Turning, she returned to the bed, sinking down beside him and handing him one of the goblets of deep red wine. They both drank deep. It was indeed a very fine vintage, Erol thought, for the little he knew of such things.

“You know, I believe we have an acquaintance in common,” Jerila said after a moment, setting her goblet down on the floor next to the bed and standing back up even as Erol reached out to stroke her arm. He looked puzzled, and rose up to a sitting position. As he did so he felt a sudden wave of dizziness spin his head around.

He shook his head and the dizziness passed. “An acquaintance? Who? And how –”

“Can’t you guess? It’s been awhile since you last saw him, I understand, but I doubt you’ve forgotten him. He certainly hasn’t forgotten you!” She stepped further away, moving behind the table. Erol frowned and stood up – or tried to. But the dizziness returned even stronger than before, and he staggered to his knees on floor, spilling his wine and knocking over Jerila’s goblet as well.

“Who… what… what have you.. done..?” He looked up blearily at her smiling face, which suddenly seemed to be moving in several directions at once.

“He is quite wroth you, my dear – you betrayed his trust, he says. But to be truthful, given the fury in his eye when he speaks of you, I wonder if there isn’t a bit more to it than that… oh well, I suppose I’ll never know for sure, as my work here is done now.”

With that she began to don her clothes, much more speedily and much less seductivley than she’d slipped out of them an our ago.

As the world went suddenly dark Erol had time for just one last thought.

“Oh shit!”

♦ ♦ ♦

Erol came very slowly back to consciousness. His head felt as if packed with ten thousand worms squirming all over themselves, and his vision, when he finally pulled his eyes open, was doubled. Sound seemed muffled, except for the thud of his own heart beat.

Slowly he became aware of his body, from which he felt strangely disconneted. He appeared to be seated… he was aware of his arms resting on the arms of a chair… he elt his back pressed against wooden slats… yes, he was seated, but not restrained…

His vision began to clear, and he began to make out his surroundings. He appeared to be in a large, well appointed chamber… stone walls… window to his right, and one straight ahead… he blinked in the bright sunlight… southern exposure…

He was seated before a large, ornate table cum desk of dark wood, its top cluttered with papers, ink bottles, pens and other instruments he couldn’t currently make out. And behind the desk, staring back at him, was the last person on Novendo he wanted to see.

Gordek Tramano, Deputy Grandmaster of the Izmirk chapter of the Korönian clerical Order of the Seven Pillars, master of the Taruthani Games in the Darikazi capital… and the slave master from whom Erol had escaped less than two years ago.

“So, you’re finally coming around,” Gordek said, his tone conversational. “I’m afraid we went a little heavy on the soporific, but then I know your stamina and resilience of old – I didn’t want to take any chances on your escaping my little honey pot.”

Erol said nothing, but closely eyed his captor. The Korönian cleric was little changed from when he’d last seen him – wearing the dark red robes of his office, trimmed with deep yellow, slender and trim, of medium height, with sandy brown hair, lightly dusted with gray at the temples, and strangely soulful brown eyes for such a hardened man in such a brutal position. He stared back at Erol with no apparent emotion… which was not at all like the last time they’d been this close.

Erol felt the sensation of time slowing to a snails pace that was so familiar to him in battle, and it seemed to speed the clearing of his head. As Gordek continued to stare at him cooly, Erol’s situational awareness told him that they were alone in the room. He sensed no quards, not servants –

With a speed that belied his apparent doped condition, Erol leapt from his chair, aiming to get across the desk and his hands around the cantor’s neck before the older man could react –

Gordek reacted not at all… but Erol suddenly found himself on the floor, writhing in a white-hot pain that seemed to come from every nerve in his body. Even as his mind started to white out, he had the random thought that it was much like Mariala’s  Fire Nerves, which he’d once had the misfortune to experience, but even more intense…

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but when he opened his again the room and light looked unchanged, and as he dragged himself to his feet he saw Gordek seated just as he had been – although he now sported a slight smile. The pain was gone as if it had never happened.

“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way quickly,” Gordek said, motioning Erol to resume his seat. “The collar you’re wearing around that muscular neck of yours is quite special, you know.”

Erol’s hand went to his neck… yes, there was band, as wide as two fingers, of very smooth metal… steel?… loosely bound around his neck. He could just squeeze a finger between it and his flesh.

“Very expensive, and we only have a handful, but well worth it when it comes to controlling recalcitrant slaves who forget their place,” the cleric explained in that same tone, as if they were discussing the weather. “If you try to attack any consecrated servant of the Chained God, you will suffer as you just did… and if you try to leave the bounds I have set for that collar, you will suffer even more incapacitating agony.”

“Gordek,” Erol began. “I–”

“SILENCE!” Gordek roared suddenly, surging to his feet, his face a mask of rage and all pretense of pleasantry gone. “You will address me as Master, you lying, deceitful, treacherous dog!”

Erol was no more moved by the cantor’s sudden anger than he had been by his seeming calmness. He knew this man, knew his feelings… could he still play off them? He forced himself to lean back in his chair and give the slave master a slight, rueful smile.

“You were… fond of me… once,” he began. “And I was not–”

“No!” Gordek hissed, regaining control of his features. He came around the desk to stand in front of Erol. “You will not speak honeyed words to me again, you faithless ingrate!

“Fond of you? Yes, I did perhaps let a foolish weakness blind me to your true nature… I could have taken you as I have many another slave, but I offered you more. And you wasted no time in exploiting my lapse, didn’t you? Betraying my… trust… and absconding with yourself.”

He raised his hand to stop Erol when he tried to speak. “You will not speak unless I ask you a question, slave. And I will –”

“Gordek, if you ever had –” Erol was cut off abruptly as the searing white agony caused his body to spasm in the chair. This time when he regained his senses he found Gordek leaning hipshot against the desk, watching him. Again, there was no residue of pain, only the memory that it had happened.

His stoic expression never changing, Erol smiled inwardly… it had been worth the pain to goad his enraged nemesis, for the man had moved his right hand to touch a shiny silver band around his left wrist just before the pain had hit. A control device, no doubt…

“So, let us be clear where we stand,” Gordek said, calm once again. “You are again the property of the Oder of the Seven Pillars, and you will again bring money into our coffers. Perhaps.” Now he smiled a thin smile and moved back to his chair behind the desk.

“You see, there is a big celebration coming soon – the Order of the Burning Blood has finally decided to turn this shit hole of a town over to the Republic once again. And in honor of this historic moment they wish to put on a spectacle for the populace – hence my presence in this backwater, to oversee the Games.

“And I have promised them something… big.” Now his smile became a grin. “Big indeed! And with the God smiling on me, I now have a way to make my surprise even better – you!

“Treacherous, lying cur you may be, but there is no doubt you are one of the best gladiatorial fighters I have ever seen… and live or die, in five days time, you will give these bumpkins – and the representatives of the Republic, of course – a show they’ll never forget!”

With that he lifted a bell from his desk and rang it three times. A door behind Erol opened and two Seven Pillar guards strode into the room. As they dragged Erol from the chair, he had to resist the instinct to resist – he definitely didn’t want to invoke the pain again. Not without good reason, that might forward his chance of escape…

As they hauled him from the long room he caught a glimpse of his armor, weapons and saddle bags, piled near a large cabinet against the wall opposite the windows. He wondered with a deep mental sigh if that was the last he’d ever see of them…

♦ ♦ ♦

Meanwhile, Jeb was frantically trying to decide what to do.

He had awakened in the night to the sound of tramping feet and the clink of armor and wepaons. Peering down from his nest in the stable loft, he had seen four large men, obviously soldiers of one of the Korönian fighting orders, although he had no idea which one, carrying off the limp form of his master. Two more followed behind, carry Ser Erol’s possessions, and a seventh man, unarmored but who seemed to be in command.

The leader paused in the circle of light cast by the single torch near the inn’s back door, turning to speak to a figure in a dark green traveling cloak that had stepped out behind him. The woman Erol had gone off with! The leader handed her a pouch that jingled musically with the sound of coins, saying something Jeb couldn’t catch. She threw back her head and laughed equally musically, then turned and faded into the night.

Pulling on his boots as quietly as possible, Jeb scurried down the ladder from the loft, careless of waking any of the stable hands and servants asleep there. He followed the soldiers and their prisoner from a discreet distance, which wasn’t hard, given the midnight hour – they were the only people moving through the street, and the torches let him keep them in sight without getting too close. They weren’t going far. After only a few turns along Bremkin’s narrow streets, they came to the central square where the local arena stood. Crossing the plaza under its dark mass, they entered a long, low building on the far side.

Standing there in the dark, after  the last torch had passed through the large ironbound oak doors, Jeb tried desperately to think what his employers would do. His thoughts were interrupted, and his heart nearly stopped, when there came a sound behind him. Hand on his dagger, he whirled around, only to have Grover leap from the shadows and land on his chest, then scamper up to sit on his shoulder.

Once his heart had sowed down, Jeb turned to examine the building across the street, and Grover seemed to be doing the same. It was, as he’d noted before, long and low – two stories, but with no windows. No, wait – there were two windows, on the second floor, at the south end.

Sticking to the shadows, Jeb and Grover moved slowly around the building, viewing it from all sides. There were a total of six windows, all on the second floor, all at the southern end. The only other obvious entrance was a back door onto the narrow street east of the building, near the southern end of the building. A tall inn across that same street would give him a view down on the building… but skulking around in the night seemed a good way to get arrested (or just beaten to death) as a thief.

For the next two days, Jeb, with Grover usually close by, cased what he quickly learned were the gladiatorial barracks of the Order of the Seven Pillars. And tried desperately to think of some way of rescuing Erol.

He did mange to rescue the horses from the inn’s stables – fortunately Erol had paid in advance, so his disappearance was not viewed too seriously. Indeed, Jeb thought the inn keeper seemed rather too surprised to see him show up to claim that his master had moved to another inn and wished him to bring the horses. But the man could hardly object without revealing his complicity in a guest’s kidnapping… and Jeb had made sure their meeting was very public.

Jeb sold one of the horses to the local ostler, allaying the mans suspicions by claiming his master was wroth with him, and had decided he could walk from now on. The man cheated him outrageously, of course (Arushali post horses were good, sturdy horses), but it left him with enough coin to take a room on the third floor of the inn across from the back of the barracks.

From this vantage point he was able to see that there were six large skylights on the northern two-thirds of the roof, and a trap door near the southwestern side. He could also see into the the windows of what looked to be the office and bedroom of the leader of the men who had taken Erol away.

Which is why he was able, on the second day, to see that same man seated at his desk and pawing through Erol’s possessions. And at that moment Jeb knew what he had to do. Grover was a clever little beast, and seemed as agitated by his master’s absence as Jeb was. Jeb had watched many of his training sessions…

It took several hours, but in the end Jeb was pretty sure the ferret understood what he needed. As the anxious youth watched from his window in the inn, Grover made his way up the rough stone wall of the barracks, to the open window of the office. Thank Kasira it was a hot summer day, Jeb thought, as the animal snaked through the opening.

Cantor Tramano, whose name he had learned in the course of his casing, had left his chambers half a turn ago. Given the time of day, Jeb could only hope it was to take his midday meal, and that he would be gone for some time. He stared fixedly at the window, willing the little beast to return quickly…

It seemed like hours, but in fact it took less than a turn for Grover to reappear at the window, something square and white clamped in his mouth. Jeb gasped when he lost his grip halfway down the wall, but the lithe ferret managed to turn the fall into a leap, and landed atop a passing woman. Shrieks and crying ensued, but Grover scampered down the woman’s dress and was gone in a flash.

A few minutes later he reappeared at the door to Jeb’s room, scratching to be let in. When Jeb opened the door, Grover dashed past him, leaped to the small table, and dropped his prize with an air of satisfied accomplishment.

Jeb absently stroked the ferret’s head as he picked up the packet of Mariala’s magic paper, crooning words of praise even as he considered what he had to do next. Fortunately, Mariala and Vulk had been teaching him his letters, and while he still struggled to read, and his handwriting was childish at best, he at least knew enough to get the gist of the problem across.

Reaching for the pen and ink he had purchased that morning, his hearing pounding at the thought of doing magic, Jeb laboriously began to write his message…