Freedom Fighters of Trelandar
A Tale of Adventure in the Second Dark Age
Book Nine of the Warlady Series
By Jerome B. Bigge
Chapter Fourteen
     
"We'll stay here for the night," Carl said to me as we rode
into a lovely little seaside village. The Pacific gently rolling
its breakers up on to the shore. A few fishing boats in the har-
bor, the smoke of cooking fires drifting up into the clear blue
sky above the colorful roofs of the gathered houses. We'd come
perhaps thirty miles here now since our wedding this morning, far
enough that little evidence was seen of the warfare to the north.
Yet, if one looked closely you could see that everyone knew what
was coming... The people on the road we'd passed heading to the
south fleeing the Imperials, some perhaps thinking now of leaving
the country, or seeking the safety of the Sierras to the east...
The stores here in this little village now boarded up, deserted.
The people on the street we passed having a "look" about them I'd
seen elsewhere, the look of a people who know disaster is coming.
That only a "thin line" of what now remained of Trelandar's once
vaunted fighting forces held the Imperial invaders still at bay.
The sun now hovering low over the Pacific making me sense that it
was setting on Trelandar, hiding its face from what was to come.
That we were all living under a sword hanging over our heads now.
     
"We are a beaten people, fleeing from an enemy we no longer
have the will to face," I said, glancing about at the scene here.
"Ruled by a Queen totally incompetent to command, defended by a
retired old Warlady who doesn't understand `what' we're facing."
Tirana really wasn't that "old", but to one twenty nine, a woman
of ninety seemed "old", even if the anti-aging serums kept you in
pretty good shape for at least a century and often times more...
Tirana was a competent military commander, but more the sort of a
military leader who should have been guided by a competent Queen.
Paula simply let Lady Tirana do whatever she felt proper, leaving
to poor Tirana every detail of fighting this war against Darlanis
while she herself made a proud figure "visiting" battlefields and
consoling those injured and dying. Such not being what we needed
a Queen to do, especially against someone like Darlanis here now!
     
"There is still `hope'," Carl answered, dismounting, helping
me down from my saddle, a few idlers at the tavern watching us, a
"look" about them that made me glad there was a sword at my hip.
The black of Carl's attire leaving no doubts as to his caste, my
own being such that it was hard to say just what caste I was now.
My red silk blouse and pleated leather skirt dress any could have
worn, although the sword at my hip left no "doubts" as to me now.
The gleaming links of my neck chain leaving little doubt that we
were just married, as did the ribbon someone had tied to the tail
of my unicorn, such being often done when a couple gets married.
I wore riding hose, a rich green cotton protecting my legs along
with an ornate "stylish" hat, the black net veil of the "Lady"...
     
"You've got a `good one' there," one of the idlers spoke to
Carl, regarding me in a way that a man might regard a slave girl.
"Bet she can sure give a man a good `ride' too!" he laughed here!
     
"I would suggest that you learn to `behave' yourself before
your `betters'," Carl snapped, stepping up and yanking the man
out of his chair, my husband's clenched fist now before his face.
None of these men were "openly" armed, but I had no doubts that
they carried weapons, if of a sort that left few doubts of them!
     
"Don't interfere..." I hissed, the point of my sword press-
ing up against another's throat, his eyes now showing his terror!
"And if you attempt drawing that blade you're no doubt carrying,
just consider what will happen to your `friend' here," I said to
a third, who was obviously thinking of doing something "sneaky".
"Unless the two of you have just confessed your sins to a Priest-
ess and thus are ready to stand before Lys for Her Judgment." It
being taught by the Priestesses of Lys that after one's death one
is judged by Lys for your sins, it being the practice when a per-
son is dying to confess your sins in a hope of forgiveness here.
     
"Your kind should be required by law to wear black!" the man
hissed back, regarding me in a way that left no doubts here as to
the thoughts that were going through his mind just then. Carl at
the moment "shoving" the first man back down into his chair there
against the wall of the tavern, while a couple more men stood in-
side the door and watched the proceedings without "interfering".
A whore on the other side of the doorway grinning as she watched.
     
"Do you want to stay here, Sanda?" Carl ventured now to me.
     
"Makes you `proud' of what we're fighting for, doesn't it?"
I spoke, stepping back, slipping my sword into the sheath there
at my left hip. The sarcasm in my voice leaving little doubt...
I suspected that the "good" people of the place had for most part
already fled. Leaving their lovely little settlement to such as
these here, these predatory jackals and vultures of our country.
The Imperials often hanging such from any handy tree without the
"bother" of a trial, just to "clean up things" a bit, I recalled.
This being one of the reasons why so many "never do wells" had
fled from their own villages and towns to seek the safety of our
own lines, and that part of Trelandar still under our Queen yet.
     
"I guess we can put our `trust' in steel," Carl smiled back
at me, perhaps suddenly aware that I was a better wife than he'd
expected of me, more the Warrioress he'd hoped I'd be to him now.
The trio deciding that there were better places now to loaf here,
scampering off like whipped curs down the street, glancing back.
     
"See if you can find a room without too many mice and spid-
ers," I smiled back, such insects in this era growing to as large
as a foot wide, horrid ugly bloated things out of some nightmare!
Mutations left over from The War five centuries ago between Earth
and Mars. A reminder in a way too of the foolishness of Mankind.
"I'll watch the unicorns and our things," I added, Carl nodding.
The whore giving me another smile, a grin I didn't much like now.

     
"It's not the `honeymoon' that you deserve," Carl said to me
as we ate dinner, keeping our backs to the wall, our watch upon
the patrons of the establishment, who looked like the sort who in
a better run society would have been run out of town here. Dregs
of society who were remaining behind to pick up what they could.
Our short walk through the town having left us no doubts of this.
The stores broken in on the side streets, the few women who yet
dared to walk the streets mostly those hard eyed women with dag-
gers at their hips, skirts almost crotch high. A few men at arms
there at the bar, swilling down beer, enjoying a few days of R&R
before returning back to the "lines" that stretched across Tre-
landar from the sea now to the foothills. Fighting a "defensive"
war that we could never win, commanded by a Queen who understood
"nothing" of warfare, and a Warlady who understood little of this
new type of warfare, of a fluid flowing war that we were losing.
A couple of guardsmen from the small force that manned the inade-
quate defenses against attack from the sea. Adequate enough for
stopping some pirate, but totally inadequate against an invasion.
Further proof in my eyes of my sister's incompetency as a leader.
On the other hand Trella's far heavier defenses had been useless.
     
"Just being together is enough," I answered, drinking beer.
I think Carl had been surprised that I'd reacted as I had, draw-
ing my sword and keeping the two other men at bay as I had here.
I'd acted without thinking, knowing it was the right thing to do.
     
"I'm got my `Warrioress', even if `she' doesn't think she is
one," he answered, taking my hand and holding it then in his own.
     
"A woman should stand by her man," I smiled, squeezing his
hand in mine. We'd rushed off and gotten married without really
"knowing" that much about each other, but when one lives from day
to day, not knowing if that day is going to be your last day upon
Earth, then you start looking upon things somewhat "differently".
At any time the Imperials could gather their forces, smash their
way through our lines, and thirty miles was not beyond the dis-
tance that well mounted fighting women might cover in a few hours
if Darlanis was willing to sacrifice lives for a diversion here.
It was also possible that she might attempt landings from sea, a
"tactic" that she'd used before, proving that while she wouldn't
have made a good squad leader as we used to joke about her behind
her back at the Academy, she was still a very dangerous enemy...
     
"I keep wondering what it's like in Trella now," Carl said,
our meal hardly any "better" than military fare, I thought to my-
self. The meat was tough, the baked potato overcooked, not even
the equal of what I'd been served many times in a Peasant's home.
     
"It's an Imperial city now," I answered, aware that his own
family had died there as the Imperials had come swarming in, our
own defenses having proved to be inadequate to the task set here.
Darlanis had landed men in the dark of night, taken the forts now
protecting the harbor, and then using the supporting fire of her
galleys, had landed a force of men there on the docks themselves.
The galleys moving in close and firing over the heads of her men.
Using this force as a diversion while she then landed two smaller
forces up and down the coast; crossing the outskirts of the ruins
of Los Angeles (a true no man's land) to attack Trella from the
rear while our forces were engaged in fighting off her force from
the sea! While the Imperial losses were heavy, the Sarnian Queen
was able in only a period of a day to take "most" of Trella here.
Queen Paula being able to escape only through the most daring of
assaults, smashing through the thin Imperial lines at a high cost
of life, but one that at least assured that we still could fight!
It being likely that had Paula been captured or killed, no one in
authority would have been willing to carry on the fight any more!
     
"Odd how `competent' Darlanis is," Carl said, looking at me.
No doubt "remembering" some of the things I'd told him about her.
     
"Hara Eslund was her Warlady then," I pointed out to him. I
knew of Hara, who had resigned when ordered to violate the caste
codes, something that Princess Tara was quite willing to do here.
Well aware too that my sister's incompetence was a major part of
the problem, Paula having little idea of how to fight such a war!
When someone grabs you by the throat, you knee him in the groin!
Paula instead had tried to fight a "defensive" war, just the type
of a war that Darlanis was no doubt delighted to fight here too!!
     
"I've got a question for you," he said, sitting there beside
me. The two of us sitting so that we faced "out" into the room.
"One that I've been meaning to `ask' ever since I first met you."
     
"And what is `that'?" I asked, holding his eyes with my own.
     
"You and your sister are `enemies', aren't you?" he spoke.
     
"She's a good Queen, but `incompetent'," I answered back.
     
"She's also a very `proud' Queen," Carl pointed out to me.
     
"And she will cost us Trelandar," I replied in level tones.
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