The Wicked Men At Red Rock
"Is it really true?" Orin burst out excitedly the next morning, in the same way he'd been blabbering ever since he'd woken up. "We were truly not visible to anyone save for that old dog that sniffed at Bartram's arse as he walked by?"
"Why does it have to be my arse?" The archer asked. "Why can't it be your arse?"
"It is true, Orin." Sundri asserted. "I suppose those gypsies had a nice surprise when they crept into that hut and did not find us there. And Orin, the correct word is invisible, it isn't 'not visible' as you've been saying it."
Bartram looked behind them and down the road. "I don't suppose they are planning on following us."
"Why would they?" The sorceress questioned. "The hut was in direct sight of their fire, and none of them saw us leave. If they look for us, it will only be in the village."
"They could ask the dog to tell them the truth." Orin chuckled.
Bartram remained skeptical. "The men won't follow us, because if they did they would be missing out on their day's work. Those jealous women, on the other hand, might convince them to do otherwise; if only so they could enact whatever revenge they were planning on us."
"They didn't have any horses, and we have been walking all night except for that short rest we took." Sundri reminded him.
"They had horses for rent at Tooker's Ferry."
"And what gypsy can afford to rent a horse?"
"Not that many of them, judging by their standard of living." Bartram admitted.
"Well, the next time I become not visible, or invisible," Orin mused. "I will run around and goose all the maidens!"
"Orin!" Sundri laughed.
"It could be worse." Bartram replied. "He could have said he would go off and steal every man's coin purse."
"Not my Orin!" Sundri protested. "Orin has a good heart! Speaking of which, Orin, did you learn anything about women while we were in the gypsy camp?"
The youth grinned back. "I found that I like hairy muffins."
Sundri yelped out chortles.
"Those women were a bit on the hairy side, weren't they?" Bartram nodded. "I don't think that is what Sundri meant. I think she wants to know if you've discovered anything new about the behavior of women."
"Oh, yes!" The young man replied. "That portly girl went out of her way to get me to bed her, not because she wanted me, but because she wanted to boast to her rivals. I even saw her fuming as I walked away from her. She was behind all of that mess back there, wasn't she?"
"I would say that she was." Sundri agreed. "What else did you learn?"
"Hmm." Orin considered. "That woman Tala was very agreeable to sleeping with Bartram and I, but her friend Kizzy was not. Jaelle and Fifi were also willing, but they had to keep things under the covers because they were both married."
"Not their behavior, Orin," Bartram cut in. "But their thoughts that motivated them."
"For that, I would say that Tala was more of a free spirit, while Kizzy would dare up to a certain point, but not more. Jaelle and Fifi simply wanted a good cockle."
"Kizzy looked to be a good woman, but not one prone to sleeping with any casual man she meets." Bartram elaborated. "The rest, as you surmised, were out to have a little novelty in their lives."
"Which woman did you like the most?" Sundri wondered.
The young man deliberated over this. "I would say all of them except for Kizzy. I believe she would have tried to rope me to her."
"Very good, Orin." Bartram said. "Kizzy is a woman any decent man would like to marry and settle down with."
"But not the sort of woman a man takes with him to a tavern." Sundri added. "She was too practically minded, I would say, and probably not much fun to have a beer with."
"You don't want to settle down yet, do you, Orin?" Bartram kidded. "No, you want a few years of adventure before you hang up your sword!"
"I want to travel the world over and see all it has to offer!" Orin beamed, before he became thoughtful again. "Do you know, Jaelle set her mouth around my cock before she bedded me. This is the first time I've had a woman do that. I thought it was... Well, a bit on the exciting side."
"Really, Orin?" Sundri laughed. "Are you telling me that no woman has ever blown the candle with you?"
"No, that was my first one. I've told you, I had no lovers before Rohanna and you. Is that what it is called, blowing the candle?"
"You can do that to a woman as well." Sundri flirted.
"But how? A woman has no candle!"
"With a woman, you can sniff the rosebush and lick the petals." She laughed. "Bartram, I am enlisting you later, to show Orin how it is done. When he is ready to try it for himself, I can be his first seduction."
"What's good for the goose..." Bartram started.
"Is good for the gander." She finished for him. "Yes, Bartram. I will have two candles to blow out when we come to a stop."
"Let's stop right now!" Bartram exclaimed.
"But I'm not tired." Orin argued. "And Sundri said this rock fort lies at a four day's walk from here."
"I am sure you are strong enough to walk for an entire four days, but we can't." Sundri frowned. "We will walking stop at noon, or earlier if a wagon rolls by to give us a lift."
As it happened, a wagon did come by, carrying a load of dried foodstuffs that was destined for Red Rock. Since they were headed in the same direction, the driver agreed to take them for one shilling. Sundri sat up front with the man, while Orin and Bartram jumped into the back, crowded in with the supplies.
"What can you tell us about Red Rock?" Sundri asked.
"It's the Devil's business up there." The man nodded. "You see how full my wagon is. I only go up there when I have to, otherwise I wouldn't go at all. That's why I have so much food in the back! This is what I've gathered from the people leaving that haunted place. The Devil has let loose three of his agents. They plague the residents of the fort night and day, and they also keep new people from finding the place. Some say they were traveling on the road to Red Rock, heading south the same as we are. All of a sudden, they look up into the sky and the sun is on the wrong side of the world! Without knowing it, those people have gotten all turned around! They're heading away from Red Rock instead of toward it, I tell you!"
"How bizarre." Sundri said. "It sounds like the work of a witch to me."
"Oh, no, they are demons." The driver persisted. "Some people have seen them sitting on the side of the road. There are three of them, disguised as wicked men or wicked women, depending on who is telling the tale. They cast their dark magic on all who pass them by. That's not all. They want to keep the miners out of the mine, but no man can understand why. At first, the tittle-tattle was that the demons are guarding some great treasure. That made more men to want to come to Red Rock to try and find it. When those men began to vanish, that put a scare into everyone. The men vanish, but the people searching for them always find their empty boots. That's the single sign the demons leave to prove they have stolen those men away."
Orin and Bartram were listening to the account from the back of the wagon.
"I think we should stay far away from that mine." The archer hinted. "This does not sound like what took place at Dunnidale, does it?"
Orin did not reply, but at the same time, he was already thinking of how he might have a tussle with those bad spirits.
Red Rock was named for the many red-tinged boulders and stones found in that area. They were of such a poor quality of pig iron that it was hardly worth the effort to smelt them down. According to the wagon driver, the actual amount of usable iron those rocks produced was negligible, when compared to the large amount of waste that was left behind.
The fort was made of wood, meant to keep out small bunches of bandits but nothing larger. Its palisade walls were only ten feet high, easy to scale for any determined man. It only had two towers, one up front facing the road, and a second in back to watch over the small mountain where the mines were located. Outside the fort were farmhouses that kept orchards of apples and pears, but very few farmers were still left to maintain them. Most farmers did their work during the day, before crowding into the fort at night, to keep from encountering the three demons that were always roaming about causing havoc.
Thanks to the wagon, they reached the fort late the next evening, where they right away met the men in charge. The first was the magistrate, who had been a supervisor at the mine before the misfortune began, and now he was the unofficial arbitrator and judge for any disputes. His name was Nettle. The second man was Dunder, who was a fair and respected trader of skins until he'd somehow ended up as the small fort's only constable. Besides those two were four men that served as sentries, with two on watch at all times, a dozen scared farmers and half a dozen miners that were scared even more. A few worn and scraggly prostitutes lived in a battered shack, and that was about all, as every other person had sense enough to leave Red Rock a long time ago.
The wagon driver was so eager to depart that he allowed Sundri to keep her shilling, in exchange for Orin and Bartram helping him to unload his merchandise. The two men carried the sacks of flour, crated goods and jarred goods into the storage house. Food that would spoil faster, such as salted fish and jerky, were taken into a cooler basement below the house. The underground room had been dug out of the earth and filled up with straw, giving it a strange, damp smell that Orin disliked.
"The miners haven't gone up there in a week." Nettle was heard saying to the driver, when the loaders had finished up and rejoined them. "Not since two of their number went missing while following a vein of copper."
"The same as the others?" The driver queasily asked.
"The same." Nettle nodded. "The men were seen going into the mine, but they were not seen coming out. Just like the rest, their boots were found just outside the mine only a few days later."
"No sign of the men? No blood, no bones?"
