CHAOS CALLS: LEARNING VISIT

by

Ernest Bywater
All rights reserved © 2010

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Copyright © 2010 by Ernest Bywater
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Author's Note: This story is a follow on to my story Finding Home, it is not a straight sequel, but a divergence into the Damsels in Distress Universe and stands alone as a story in it's own right. The last chapter in this story is a bit of background on Al, as this may help some readers to enjoy the story more. Both Finding Home and the main Damsels in Distress Universe stories are available at storiesonline.net - many Damsel stories by other authors are adult stories with sex scenes in them and reader discretion is highly advised if you wish to read them.

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Table of Contents

An dd Meeting
More Meetings

Crossroads

Chaos
The Journey Starts
Travelling
Bridgetown
Rescue Work
Journey Home
Party Games

Crossroads Again

Back Home
Getting Organised

About Al and Chaos
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An Odd Meeting

One Saturday in January, a few weeks after coming back from Japan, I'm sitting in the mall finishing my lunch when Lia, my lead girlfriend, returns from the rest rooms with another girl. I smile, as it's like Lia to make new friends. Lia is giving me a very sweet smile as they walk over - so I know I'm in for some sort of trouble. She nods at her new friend, saying, "This is Meredith, you're taking her to her high school dance in three weeks time. But you have to ask her father for permission first. She'll take you to where he's at this afternoon, so you can ask him." I glance at Meredith, and notice she's a bit concerned about all this.

Sometimes I wonder if my life would be better without a girlfriend, and this is one of those times. But knowing the way of the world, I take the simple way out and stand up as I smile at Lia while I give her a nod. I look at Meredith and raise an eyebrow. She gives me a lopsided grin in reply, and starts to walk off - with me following. Lia calls out, "Kira will catch up with you there." Which leaves me wondering why she will. I just wave at Lia and the bulk of my entourage as I leave them. Two of the security guards go with me, while the rest stay with Lia and the rest of my ladies going to the hairdresser today. The ladies go in two or three groups now, it varies with how many staff the hairdresser has at work - the rest of them will be getting their hair done tomorrow.

About ten minutes later we're standing in the entrance to a fencing club as Meredith signs us in while we show identification. A member of staff escorts us to a medium sized training room on the next level up.

The five of us stand and watch as two of the club members finish a match on the special mats they have. I try not to laugh at the way the two men look in their safety gear with cords running out the back. The staff member tells me the suits they're wearing have sensors in them and they feed the information back to the umpire to assess when they score a point. This is literally a case of touche, where a single touch with the sword scores a hit, regardless of it's good enough to hurt or kill.

A few minutes later the one nearest us scores a hit, and the match is over with his five hits to his opponents three. I guess the match was the first to five. They lower their swords, remove their masks, and shake hands before returning to their end of the mat to be unplugged. A little more work to disconnect and the man at this end walks over to us. The man hugs Meredith as he nods at the staff member, who leaves us; I guess visitors must be with a member or staff while in the club. The man glances at me, as he says, "Good to see you here, Meredith. I thought you were shopping! Who is this young man with you?"

She looks embarrassed, so I step forward and hold out my hand, as I say, "Al Adams, sir. I'm here to ask your permission to escort Meredith to the coming school dance."

He shakes my hand, and says, "Well, you've passed the first test I set for anyone to take her to the dance, to politely ask me for permission to do so. That leaves only two more. Let's get the last one out of the way first. Will you get her a corsage and go in a nice car?"

I smile, "Certainly. A nice stretch job with driver. I'll even buy her a nice dress to wear, if she wants a new one." She spins around and looks at me with wide eyes. I don't think Lia told her much about me. That leaves me wondering just what they talked about in the ladies.

He smiles back, "I'm forgetting my manners. I'm Professor Joseph Martin, teacher of history at Hood College. Please call me Joe. Your accent gives away your country of birth. How long have you been a student at Frederick High School, how old are you, and how long have you known Meredith, my daughter?"

I grin at him, and say, "I don't go to Frederick High School. I'm seventeen years old. I've known Meredith about half an hour."

His eyes go very wide. "Has she told you what the other condition of taking her to the dance is?"

"Well, actually, Meredith has told me nothing. She and my number one girlfriend, Lia, had a long talk a little while ago. Then Lia told me I was taking Meredith to the dance and I had to come here to formally ask you for permission to do so. So here I am, as commanded."

He glances at a very red faced Meredith, and starts to laugh. After a few minutes he calms down, and asks, "How do you feel about swords? Do you know how to use one?" Now I know why Kira will be meeting me here, probably bringing my swords to me.

"Swords are good tools that have their uses. Not only do I know how to use one, I own a couple. I suspect Lia has arranged for someone to bring mine to me here." He grins, and so do many of the members.

"Good, as that's the last part. Being prepared to meet me on the mats with a sword, and having to score two points against me."

I laugh and shake my head. "Do I have to score against you within a set number of scores on me by you?" He shakes his head no. "Good, as I've never used a suit like you use. I'd find it too restrictive." I stop as I see a staff member escorting Nadia, Kira, Tora, and two guards in. They have my sword case, Tora's sword, and my suit-bag with my combat gear. Joe is giving me an odd look, as are most of the club members. "Good, here are my sword now. Is there a table I can sit the case on?"

The staff member showing the girls in changes direction and heads to a table against the wall. Tora had carried her sword in a blanket, and she's unwrapping it as she enters the room. She now places the blanket on the table and Nadia places my sword case on it.

Crossing to the table, I open the case, remove my katana, and take it out of it's shirasaya (storage sheath) and hold it out for Joe to look at.

He walks over, and his eyes light up, "I see you follow the Japanese sword arts. It will be interesting to see how it goes against our blades."

"Yes, it would be fun to find out. The only trouble is your blades are blunted for safety reasons, this is a fighting blade and is razor sharp." His eyes go wide, and he waves to another man.

The other man walks over as he pulls out a piece of cloth, and says, "Oh, I doubt it's razor sharp. Do you think you can cut this in half."

I know his game, and it's clear he knows nothing about real Japanese swords. I nod, and say, "Yes. I know how very fine silk is hard to cut. But all these fighting blades are kept honed to a razor edge that's sharp enough to do the job." I smile, and nod at Tora and Kira. Tora has also taken her sword out to show them, and Kira is standing beside the case.

The man with the cloth grins as he tosses it in the air. I let it rise, and when it starts to open up as it falls, I step forward as I swing my blade at it in an upward stroke. They all gasp as I cut the cloth clean in half and step back. As I do, Tora steps forward and slices across one half to cut it into half again. Turning while Tora strikes, I hand Kira my sword and draw my wakizashi she's holding out for me. After cutting one half, Tora steps back and I have room to step up again and cut the other half with the shorter sword. All the members are shocked to see we carry three swords that are sharp enough to cut fine silk in the air.

The man who owned the cloth looks at me, "I've tossed that cloth out and had hundreds of swords try, but not put a mark on it. And you just slice it to pieces. How?"

I hold the sword up, "These are true combat swords and are made in a special way with an extra hard cutting edge. It takes a lot of work to keep them in good order, but they are literally razor sharp, as sharp as most medical scalpels. You won't find a sharper edge anywhere."

I return the wakizashi to its sheath and take my katana back from Kira. Moving out towards the centre of the room, I nod at Tora, and she smiles as she follows me out. We take up positions a few metres apart, and bow to each other. I say, "Standard training rules." She nods.

Demonstration

Some of the members start to move closer, until Kira says, "Give them room to move, or you may get hurt by accident." They stop the movement towards us, and some back away.

For a moment we stand still, then Tora attacks me. For a few minutes she attacks using the range of moves she knows, and I defend. After giving her a chance to demonstrate each attack, I start to respond with some attack moves as well, and we have a nice little bout. At one point I'm just starting a new attack when Tora calls, "Still." We both stop.

I smile as I ask, "Why?"

"Master, I'd noticed a pattern in your last several moves and readied to deal with the next expected move in that pattern. But I moved too early, you saw I was ready, and changed your attack to one I could not move to deal with. I saw my error and called a halt."

"Good. Nadia, what have you learned from this situation?"

"Master, I too saw the pattern, and saw you shift your attack. From this, I've learned not to commit myself to a move that will only work if my opponent takes the expected action, as this leaves me open to a new attack while they have the initiative."

"Good. Tora, that error is worth four points. However, you gain two bonus points by calling a halt to admit the error so fast. A lot of the students at your level would try to adjust instead of admitting an error. Good, let us try two blades. You take my wakizashi and go through the attack moves while I use my tanto as the second blade to block you." She nods, and we get the other weapons. As I do this, I notice most of the members have shocked looks, but Joe is smiling.

Joe asks, "Do you always train with live blades?"

"No, most training is done with wooden or bamboo swords. But we do some training with live blades to fine tune control as the practice swords do not move exactly the same as a real sword." He nods.

We spend a few minutes with Tora attacking me with both swords while I use my knife and sword to counter her attacks. After she has gone through each of the usual attacks and added a couple of the new ones I've taught her, I start to attack using new moves that give me the maximum opportunity to use the knife to my advantage.

After a few moves I call a halt and we move to the sword case. We both put our second blade down on the case and remove a sharpening stone from amongst the ones in pockets in the case. As Tora and I start to run the stones along the edge of our blades, to ensure they have a sharp edge, Nadia picks up the wakizashi and the third stone - to hone it as well. As we return the fine edge to the swords I look at Joe, and say, "As you can see from that demonstration, the way I use a sword is very different to what you do here. Fencing is based on a touch anywhere on the torso, while I train to kill. Many blows that would win me a match in my art would lose me a match in fencing as I can, and would, accept a mild cut to the arm or side to create an opening for a killing blow. The mild cut would register first on your system and I'd be denied having killed you in reply." Joe laughs and nods. "Also, in a real fight I would add in hand blows and kicks to gain me an advantage as well."

Another member says, "I can't believe you just did that with sharp blades. Isn't that dangerous?"

I turn to her, "Yes, it can be dangerous. However, Tora trusts me to not let her harm me, and if I let her do so, then I deserve the cut for being slack. And she also trusts me to stop any attack from actually hitting her. She is my student and still has a lot to learn, but is doing well. There are many more strikes which we did not demonstrate as she hasn't been taught them yet."

Joe half frowns, "Student, but she's older?"

"Although I'm physically younger, and we both started training at the same young age, I'm a bit better physically, and my training has been much more intense than hers was. So I've reached a point where I can train her and others; so I do it, as it helps in their protection."

Permission Fight

Joe nods, "OK, we'll just have to fight free form using two of the other swords we have here in the club, and we'll have to use the remote sensor suits. Since you seem to be so good, I want to see if you can score twice before I make five touches."

"That should be OK. Let's look at what you've got, but let me finish this first, please." He smiles and nods as he watches us put the fine edge back on the weapons, then oil them. It only takes me a few more minutes to do my katana, but the girls take a little longer as they aren't as experienced with doing it as I am. I hand the stone I have over to Kira, and she starts on my tanto.

Leaving the girls, Joe and I go to look in the other rooms for suitable swords to use in our match. They have a very nice collection of swords from across all the ages and cultures, including some US copies of Japanese swords. We settle on the use of a pair of Roman short swords for our match, mainly because it's like nothing either of us has used in the past. One of the staff promises to bring them from the display case for us. These are copies, not originals. We return to the first room.

A few minutes later we both don slightly different suits to those they use for the main fencing matches. These use a wireless unit stored in the protective helmet to send signals to the umpire. Also, they cover the chest and back in a set of zones, so the umpire can see where the strike is. Ground rules are agreed upon, and we get set. I'm allowed to be athletic in avoiding hits, but cannot use my feet to kick or strike with. The girls have the swords packed away, so Nadia holds the case while Tora holds the unopened suit bag.

The umpire gives us the command to start, and we both stand there waiting for the other to attack, so we can assess them. After a minute we both laugh at the situation. Since I'm technically the supplicant here, I decide to start the attack, and am careful to keep my balance on my back foot as I take small sliding steps towards Joe. He smiles as I move forward. I swing my sword in front of me before we get close, and turn my wrist to make a powerful swing back across my body as we close. He has no choice, he has to bring his sword up between us to protect himself. My move forces his sword back at his torso, but he holds it.

As we break, I move back and turn my wrist as I flick the tip of my sword back across his stomach before he can react to block it. The point touches his left side before he can knock my sword out of contact. The umpire calls a halt to assess the contact in light of our ground rules; they're enough different he has to check them with care. He declares a no score touch to me, a nick but not restrictive. Joe nods, and we get set.

This time Joe is more aggressive and attacks. I settle for countering the first few strikes, then step forward when he's expecting a retreat by me. I use my left arm to block his forearm as his sword is now behind me, and turn my right side a little away so I can have enough space between my right shoulder and his body to bring my sword in to make contact just above his heart with a thrust. The umpire calls a halt, and we part as he declares a death stroke to me. Joe nods again.

The restart has us both move around in a circle as we look for an opportunity. Joe has ceased underestimating my ability, and I know he's very skilled and able to adjust to new situations. The circle tightens and we clash blades several times as we continue to move. Then Joe uses a fancy little twisted wrist move that catches my sword near the tip and pushes it aside, leaving him with an inside track. He lunges. I can't avoid the hit, so I dive down and to the side to minimise the contact while I toss my sword from my right hand across to my left hand as I reach up to stab at his chest. Both swords make contact just before I hit the floor near his left foot and roll away. The umpire declares I gave Joe a severe cut while he gave me a disabling blow. If the fight had been real and back in Roman times, we both would likely have died from the wounds. As it is I get my two touches while he gets one. We smile at each other as we start to take the gear off.

I bow, and say, "I'll pick Meredith up to go have dinner at Pat's Place before the dance on the night." He nods, and I turn to Meredith. "You have Lia's phone number?" A nod. "Good, call her to arrange to go get you a new dress at my expense. Choose well, I can afford it." She gulps as she nods agreement. I can see Joe giving me an odd look as I finish wiping the sweat off and hand the towel to one of the staff. With my clothes straightened, I go and shake hands with Joe, and start to leave.

I'm facing the door and in mid-step towards it when it opens and Mr Benson walks in wearing a set of fencing clothes. I didn't think fencing was that popular here in the USA, but I must be mistaken. He stops and looks at me, blinks, and smiles. He walks towards me and holds out his hand, "Mr Adams, I'm glad I finally get a chance to meet you. Please accept my apologies for the problem with that quote and your visit to my office. Things have changed. And thank you for allowing Small and Little to sub-contract all that work to us."

I smile as I shake his hand. "I never held you responsible for that problem, and you should thank Mr Little for the sub-contract work. I've not checked, but I think he currently has some work sub-contracted out to just about everyone in the industry in the city."

"Yes, there is that. However, it's all your work, and work that's well needed at this time. Most of us were reviewing who we'd have to lay off, not if we had to, but who to lay off. Then bang, you have us all working at a good pace for some months. And it looks like you've shamed the County Commissioners into getting a lot of overdue work done too. So we should be right for a few years when your work ends."

"I know the delays with the county were due to funding. But the work I'm paying for is generating a lot of income, and thus taxes, so they now have the money to get on with the work. Also the back taxes on the land I bought, and the deal I struck with them to not get billed for increases for ten years if I pay ten years in advance. They worked out an estimate for the land as developed, and gave me a bill for ten years, and I paid it. I think we almost lost a couple of commissioners when I did that. They were very shocked to see it all paid as a cash transfer. But it has given them the funds to get some things done that needed doing, and kept local businesses in good shape too." He smiles and moves past me to his appointment for fencing.

The whole room is quiet as we talk. As we part a voice I don't know asks, "Construction work. But the only major construction work is that big job out on Etzler Road. Are you involved with that?"

I turn and nod, "Yes, my company is paying for the building work, and we're sharing costs for the road works."

Joe laughs, "Al, the car you're sending to pick up Meredith, is it one of your own?"

I grin and nod, "Yes, I'll be in one of my armoured stretch Hummers to collect her on the night. So you can see, I'm not worried about costs."

He smiles and starts to turn away, then spins back. "Al, that fancy ancient Japanese sword that was given to the people of Japan a few months back, that was you, wasn't it."

I look around the room and catch the eye of all present, before I say, "This is not for public discussion or dissemination; yes it was."

He nods, "If what I've heard is right, you killed an evil man in a sword fight to win it." I nod. "So killing with the sword is not new to you, is it?"

I sense there's something else behind this line of questions, as if he's testing me for something, but I can't tell what. I decide to be brutally honest, "No, it's not. I've killed several people with a sword, a few with a knife, some by hand, and even shot a couple who needed killing. In all cases it was a matter of defending myself or someone else against a bad guy on everyone's better dead list." A few in the room are shocked that a person as young as I had killed a number of people, but Joe nods as his smile grows a bit wider.

No one else seems to want to talk much now, so I turn and leave.

More Meetings

It's the second Saturday in February and everyone is getting ready to go out, except me. I'm staying put as Lia asked me to have the morning off to meet with someone. I wonder who it is. Last night was the Frederick High School Junior Dance that I took Meredith to, so it can't be Joe to tell me to behave myself; which I did anyway, as Meredith was very new to going out with boys. She looked great in the outfit my ladies helped her organise at my expense. We went to Pat's for a great meal, and on to the dance. We spent the night talking and dancing. Both of us spotted how surprised a lot of the other girls were to see Meredith there with such a nice dress and a lovely orchid corsage. A lot of the boys seemed surprised at how well she dressed up. I don't think she'll have much trouble with boys being interested in taking her to the seniors' dance when she's old enough for that one.

All the ladies leave to do some shopping, and I sit at my computer working on the next book. About twenty minutes later one the guards tells me a visitor is on his way up. I finish the sentence I'm writing and close the file before heading for the lounge room.

I smile as I walk in and see Joe, I wonder why he's here as I walk over and shake his hand. He holds up a small bag, and says, "I'm told I need to ask for special dispensation as we should talk in the spa for privacy, and so you'll be relaxed." I nod, smile, and wave him towards one of the rooms to get changed. As he walks into the room I head to my room to find a pair of swimmers; I have them, but rarely use them.

A few minutes later we're sitting in the spa relaxing with some fruit and sandwiches to eat and juice to drink as we talk. I lean back, asking, "Right, what do you want to discuss that needs me to be relaxed?"

"Since we met a few weeks back I've been seeing what I can find out about you, and it's all good. I have a proposition you may be interested in. It involves dangerous work, but helps people out. You face danger and run a real risk of being killed, but the weapons are limited to those in use around the middle ages - a crossbow is the most complex."

"It sounds interesting, but why should I get involved?"

"Because you're a perfect fit for the job, that's why. Also, you'll be helping out lots of people on two planets." Now that really gets my attention, two planets? I must have shown some interest, as he smiles at me. "Yes, two planets, and neither is Earth. You also get to spend a lot of time making love to some lovely ladies." I raise my eyebrows at him.

Joe takes a deep breath, "OK, here's the deal. There's been this odd arrangement going on for centuries that links some planets. A long time ago a planet had a major war and now has a problem with the males on their planet not being up to repopulating the planet. There's a system where they import human DNA in a semi-controlled manner by having Earth heroes rescue Damsels in Distress. His reward is he gets to have sex with her until she shows up pregnant, and her reward is she gets to have a very healthy baby and bragging rights about the father." I have a real issue taking this in, as it's like a fantasy. "There's an intermediate planet or station called Crossroads where the operation is coordinated from. Women from Cassandra enter lotteries to be able to take part. Once selected, they go to this medieval planet called Chaos and are soon in a situation where they need to be rescued. The heroes go to Chaos and save them. Some of the women are not saved in time and die, some of the heroes aren't up to the task and die, there are very real dangers for all parties. No one knows what the distress situation will be until the woman is in trouble. Some can be on Chaos for years before they qualify as being in distress, while others only stay free for a few minutes after arrival. There are rules and other aspects, but I won't go into those unless you are really interested in becoming involved. On Crossroads you will have an assistant called a Caretaker, and her job is to find suitable rescue operations that are within your resources, skills, and abilities to manage. Oh, part of your job is also to have sex with the Caretaker to keep her happy and on the job. They get bragging rights as well. They brag about the Hero they serve, and they can only serve the one Hero. If he dies, their career is over. Once you go to Crossroads you can't return to Earth without completing a rescue. Once you make your rescue you can return to Crossroads and they can fix anything as long as you reach them alive. Some time distortion effect has you being gone from Earth for only fifteen minutes, no matter how long on elsewhere."

The whole thing sounds like a teenage boy's fantasy game. But Joe is dead serious and seems concerned that I believe him. I lean back and relax as I think about all this. If it's true, it sounds very interesting - but is it true? I know I'd enjoy the fighting and such, but am concerned for my family, now that I've found a new family. "Joe, that all sounds good, but I'd have to talk it over with my family as I would be running a risk. To do that, I'll have to lay it all out for them. Can you give me the other rules about the place now?"

He sits and thinks for a few minutes. "OK, I'll lay out the other basic rules. Heck, I can even take you along on a mission as a Companion, so you can see what it's like for yourself." I nod for him to continue. "You will need to build a portal of your own, but I can let you use mine for a while. If you decide to be fully involved, you'll need to select your own Caretaker as well. Then you need to see about organising a base of operations on Chaos, so you can develop some resources and back-up. Rules: well, no weapons can be taken from here, nor metal items, none of the explosives work there for some reason, not even Chaos made gunpowder. They have metal and you can make swords and the like, so they are common weapons, mostly European style swords. They have a form of currency, but most day to day stuff is done by barter. The cash is a clear disc with some gold dust in it, it's called a pinch. Then four pinches to a quad, with four quads to a shell, and fifty shells to a conch. A shell is about a normal day's work and two quads will pay for a room and meals, breakfast and dinner. A pinch will usually buy a meal or a jug of watered wine." I think on this as he speaks, it sure sounds like someone has been putting some modern concepts in an old society and changed a few things to make it work. "Your Earth portal will take you to Crossroads and your Caretaker will brief you on a mission. They have a portal that will take you to Chaos, where you arrive in the bank. You also leave there through the bank portals. But you can't leave without the damsel you went to rescue. You can take a Companion, but they can't directly help in the rescue of the damsel. You can't just attack someone, you have to act as a Hero within a code like the Knights of the Round Table. Once you defeat or kill someone, all they have is now yours, so strip them of what you want or can use. You can't have sex with anyone on Chaos, except a Companion - if you have one. You can't have sex with your Companion on Crossroads." He stops to think.

We both take a moment for a drink and a bite to eat. He adds, "You don't have to have a Companion, but they can watch your back and do work with making the camping on the road easier. About the bank; you can rent a storage box at the bank to store any weapons and things you win in them, that will make them available to you on your next visit. But don't put anything alive in them, I'm told it's very messy. Don't even think about attacking someone for a criminal reason, that will get you banned. That's about all I can think of, except Chaos is truly a society of might makes right."

One odd thing I notice is the way he speaks of heroes, caretakers, and companions, you can hear the capital letters as he says the words. After a few minutes thought, I ask, "You said I can't take weapons or metal, can I take plants, wood, leather, paper, cloth, and animals?"

"Yes, you can. Animals are deemed to be Companions for some odd reason, but you can take them and leave them there. Due to the time rate difference they'll age faster than you do, as do the locals. A good Hero will set up a strong base of operations and be treated as a local lord. Due to the time rate changes, a Hero will be served by generations from the same family. At my own base I've set up a nice operation to make better quality steel weapons and improved crop management. It all helps to make the people who work for me have a better life."

We spend the next couple of hours just talking as we snack and drink. Most of the time Joe is talking about his adventures on Chaos, and they do sound very interesting. Towards the end of our chat, about when we're expecting the ladies back, he says, "Just after we first met, I mentioned you to my Caretaker as we're always looking for Heroes. She told the higher ups and they were worried about your age. On my next visit they were anxious to recruit you. It seems you come from some interesting stock that has supplied many great Heroes in the past. And they'd like to have you involved. They even managed to get some information on your security people, and would like to see some of them recruited as well, but will leave that up to you to organise after you're set up." I think on all this for awhile, then we get out and shower as the ladies are due back. We're back in the lounge room when they arrive home from their shopping trip, and Meredith is with them.

Luncheon Meeting

My ladies put their things away and come back into the main room. I turn to ask Lia about lunch, and she smiles as she points to the door. Almost as if by magic, which means someone gave her the sign it was time, the door opens and the hotel staff bring in trolleys of food. It takes but a few minutes for them to set up the round table and serve our lunch. There are times I feel over organised, but there are times like this when I appreciate all the work my girls put in to keep things going.

We all sit down to eat. Just after we start, Sharon gives a brief on the new residence. Everything is ready and we'll be moving in next week. The main shift of gear will be while I'm at school on Monday. The hotel will be vacated by Wednesday, allowing a couple of days to move everything and clean up. The people to install the heliport will start on Thursday, and expect to be finished in a fortnight. Which is good, as the bookings for the high security penthouse with its own heliport are high, despite the charges being four times what they were before. The first of the new tenants will be moving in two days after the heliport is set to be finished, so the work crews better be on schedule. Some work is still to be done inside the main residence, mainly because we haven't yet said what we want in those areas, and some of the outbuildings are still under construction. The other major buildings are done, as is the special garden. On that note, all my ladies have been invited to be involved, and are happy helping out in the creation of the huge domed garden.

I smile, as this period of my life is coming to a close, an unexpected but happy close.

Lia gets everyone's attention, and says, "I don't know the full details; Joe has a proposition for Al that will require him to undertake some high risks, but will also allow him to help a great deal of people while he gets his adrenalin rushes catered to at the same time. He does run a real risk of dying, but won't be hurt otherwise. Al's skills with weapons and combat greatly improve his chances of survival. He'll also be saving the lives of many people while improving the living conditions of many others and doing away with bad people. Joe isn't allowed to say more to me due to security concerns. Joe's been talking to Al about this today, and we now have to think about how we feel about Al taking the risks involved. I'd like to be able to give them both an answer today."

I now learn Joe is a lot smarter than I thought, as he'd spoken to Lia about this a couple of weeks back and she's been talking to the rest of my ladies about it. Lia hands out papers for people to vote, and they all make a vote. I smile when the unanimous vote is for me to take on the work Joe is proposing. Lia counts the votes, and says, "Al, I don't see this work as being any less important or more dangerous than the stuff you do for John. So please do it." I see a frown cross Joe's face at the mention of my other dangerous work. He turns to me, and I give him a small smile and a shake of the head.

Looking around the table at my group, I smile and thank them for their vote of confidence in my ability to stay alive in bad circumstances. Taking a small plate of sliced fruit, I go to my office and shut the door. Sitting down, I call John. As I do, I wonder if he ever leaves the place as he's always there when I call.

He answers the phone, "Al, it's a good thing you called. What the hell are you getting involved in now? I've had a couple of dozen people asking about you, from both here and overseas. It's a very odd mix of people to be asking about anyone."

I smile, I now know what some of the checking up has been. "John, I've been asked to get involved in a special project. There are some high risks involved, but it will help a lot of people and have great rewards. One aspects of it is there will be times that I'll be totally out of contact for about fifteen to twenty minutes at a time. High security meetings, you know what they're like. They should only be one every week or two, not sure of the frequency or how often, as they will depend on other factors." I can hear him tapping his fingers on the table.

I almost die of shock when he says, "Hmm, well that shouldn't cause me any Chaos, but it's amazing where we end up on life's Crossroads, isn't it?" I can hear the capitals in his voice. "OK, I think that explains a few of the odd inquiries, but it makes some of the others even odder. A very interesting situation. Well, whatever you get involved in with this, make sure you examine and plan things before you act the Hero, OK. I need you as well, as do your ladies."

"Thanks, John. Your support for this is much appreciated." I hang up, and think hard as I sit there for a moment, before returning to the table, lunch, and my family.

As I sit down I look around at my people, and say, "John wishes me well in this endeavour, whatever it is, and supports it. I get a feeling he knows a lot more about this than I do. But his support speaks well of it." Joe's eyes go very wide at my comments, and my ladies smile.

Well, it now official, I'm about to become a Hero.

Preparations

After lunch I take Joe into my office and we talk about a few things. I make appointments to see him and to practice with the sort of swords they use on Chaos, and for him to brief me on what Chaos is like. He also gives me the details of the sort of clothes to wear, as I want to get my own made up to take with me. In three weeks time I'll go with him as a companion. Soon after that, he leaves to go home, taking Meredith and her shopping with him.

In the afternoon I ring the lady who made my formal Japanese clothes, and ask her about people who can make certain types of clothes. She offers to bring them around to see me, and we agree on tomorrow in the afternoon. Next is to hit the Internet and the history books to study some things, and think. I resurface about dinner time, after sending out many emails asking about getting things made for me. I'm sure I've found ways to make things a lot safer for me to do this work.

The next three weeks pass with a lot of teaching by Joe, and a lot of learning and training by me. Also, the many items I want made for this trip are done in plenty of time too. I've others that I knew would take longer, and they should be ready for my second trip.

Crossroads

As arranged, I meet Joe at his house, a nice two-story house typical of the style made in the late 1960s. We go to the basement and I get changed while he opens up the secret section where the portal is stored. A section of wall swings out and lies flat against the wall beside it, then he releases some clips and part of the main support frame swings back and sticks out from the wall. It looks like an over thick wall frame. He flicks a switch and smiles at me. I finish changing into the gear I'll be wearing on Chaos, slip my Chaos pack on my back, and hold his hand as we step through the portal.

I believed Joe, I really did. But it's still a bit of a shock to just step through a section of wall form and go from a basement to a nice looking library in a large private house. A door to the side opens up to let a very lovely and elegant looking woman enter. She races to Joe and wraps her arms around him, giving him a big kiss. She looks to be about Joe's age, i.e. in her late 30s to early 40s, and very well built - no fat at all, with all the curves in the right places.

She turns, looks at me, smiles, and bows, "Welcome, Lord Torao."

I return her smile and bow, saying, "I am honoured you let this humble one in your house, Maria Caretaker of Cassandra. But today I am Al, companion to Hero Joe. I hope to speak to someone in authority about some ideas for my future Caretaker. Maybe I can do that while you give Joe a proper welcome, and catch up on recent events."

She smiles as we go to the door. We enter a nice lounge room. I head for the lounge and sit down as Maria asks for a hot chocolate for me to drink. They soon vanish through another door on the far side of the room. I expect they'll be busy and enjoying themselves for a while.

A mug of steaming hot chocolate appears on the low table in front of me, with it are some cream biscuits, so I take one and eat it as I sit and wait. I don't have to wait long before another woman comes through one of the other two doors in the room. She looks to be in her sixties, and has that regal elegance you associate with people born to power.

The woman walks over as she orders a coffee from the computer, Joe had told me about that, as it shocked him the first time it happened to him. The woman says, "I am Mistress Eva, one of those in charge of Crossroads. Why do you wish to discuss the selection of a Caretaker before a Greeter places some files before you to review?"

"From what Joe told me, if a potential Caretaker is rejected by three potential Heroes she is then dropped from further consideration. I have some odd requirements that may be rare in your system. I wish you to preselect the files according to my stated needs before I review them. That will mean I won't be giving any others an unfair strike due to my odd wants. I hope this is allowed."

Eva looks at me for a moment, and says, "Master Authority Control, we need a ruling from you on this, as it's not in the rules at all."

A strong vibrant baritone voice replies, "Lucky I'm listening to you, isn't it? Yes, this is permitted, and it is something we may wish to have included in the new Hero greeting process. Allow them to set one or two skills or knowledge prerequisites, it should reduce the rejections."

She smiles, "I know you always listen in on my meetings with the Heroes, so there was no luck involved. Yes, I'll see about changing the greeting protocols and questions, as it makes sense. If the Heroes are being more selective about a Caretaker's skills, then that would explain the recent rise in rejection rates. We may have to review rejections too."

"Correct. I'll start a review of the rejected files, and will make an administrative adjustment where I feel that may be the case. Mr Adams, please state your requirements."

I hear the command in the words, and reply, "On Earth we've some people trained in psychology that work with the police as profilers. The job requires them to study crimes and identify the sort of person who is likely to behave like that. They also study files on criminals and give an idea on how they will behave in a certain situation. I want someone with that sort of knowledge and skill, so they can help me analyse how the people I'll be going up against behave. They should also be very good at conducting research into any subject. I figure you already select on planning skills, knowledge of Chaos, and combat skills. But doubt you use the first two as a main selection criteria, so I want to list them up front. My ideal Caretaker will be a good profiler with research skills of a high level, a good planner, and some knowledge of Chaos."

The computer replies, "From what you say about a profiler, and from what my files show on how you use them on Earth, I can see how that skill can be used by a Hero to his advantage. All our Caretakers are skilled at research, so why the extra emphasis?"

"I gather your title is Master Authority Control!"

"That is correct???" Even I can hear the question in the voice.

"May I call you Mac, for short?" There's a short wait.

"My records show that is a name often used between friends in your culture. Do you wish me to be your friend?"

"I'd like to be your friend, but my culture has a big habit of cutting people's names down to one or two syllables. Joseph becomes Joe, Allyn becomes Al, Edward becomes Ed. Another big thing we do with names and titles is to make names out of the first letters, make an acronym of it. Your title letters are M, A, and C. The acronym would be MAC, and Mac is also a name. So it would make a great name for you, and save a lot of time in addressing you. It would also make people feel happier and friendlier towards you."

There's a wait of several seconds, that's a very long time for a major computer. "Yes. Now that I think about it, I would like to be called Mac. Mistress Eva, please let the staff who work with me on a daily basis know this as part of future training. I'll tell the others about it now."

"Thank you, Mac. Joe has told me about a few recent cases where a Hero has died because information that should have been linked to a file had not been linked, and the real dangers were not known. I want someone so skilled in research that even a deleted link will not stop them from finding such information for me. They should also be able to find information that is related and not linked, but may be relevant. So they have to be a very skilled researcher, one who often thinks outside normal search patterns. On a side issue, Mac, are you an artificial intelligence or a cybernetic intelligence? I ask, as you sound more alive than what I would expect of a straight electronic AI."

Eva gives me a strange look, and is about to speak, when Mac says, "What do you mean by a cybernetic intelligence? My files do not recognise the phrase."

"That's interesting, why would your files not have such a basic concept in them! OK. Not everyone uses the term in the same way, but cybernetics is the study of how organisms and mechanisms operate, and some people use it to cover specifically how they process data. We even have a special word for a hybrid variant where a computer and a living organism are linked in one, we call that a cyborg. In most cases it's used to refer to a manufactured organism that uses a human or organic brain as the core processor of an electronic computer complex. The easiest to understand representation of this is the Brain Ships in a series of books by Anne McCaffrey. A human who is born deformed and cannot survive without major mechanical support has their body altered to stop growing at one point, and is encased in a support unit. A number of direct links are made to the brain and the brain is the core control unit of a major computer complex. In the book series, Anne has some running ships and major industrial complexes, even large bases, cities, and planetary controllers. You seem more human to me than a straight computer or a self-aware computer, that's all."

"Thank you, Al, for that information. I must now look into it, as I do NOT like the idea that there is an area of important knowledge I do not have on file. If one is missing, what else could be missing. I've started a data cross-check with all the major data repositories on all the planets I have access to. It will be interesting to see what I learn. It will also be interesting to see how much more knowledge I gain from this, as I don't think anyone has thought to do this before." A slight pause. "I am, to the best of my current knowledge, a self-aware electronic entity. I have the final say about what happens here at Crossroads as I control the various other AIs and computers that run everything here. I make the judgement decisions in most cases, and sometimes involve people like Mistress Eva in making them. The sort of decisions I make by myself are those referred to me by others, like the Access Control AI. He noted the things on your shoulders have sharp points and thought they may be weapons, but they do not match anything in his weapons database, and they are not metal, so he jumped the matter to me. I reviewed my files and identified them as climbing tools used in your ninja training, so I passed them. I did note they are usually made of metal, but yours are made from special plastics. A neat way to bypass the system."

I smile at having my deception picked up, and wonder what else I didn't sneak through but was allowed to have anyway. I have a sudden thought, and ask, "Is the Access Control AI self-aware too?'

"Yes, he is, as are all of other systems in the level just below me."

"May I suggest you change his title to Access Control Entity, and then you can give him an acronym and name of Ace, another name often used between friend on Earth. You should then look at extending such changes to the other self-aware entities. I think you'll find they will perform better if given names that allow the people to interact with them in a more friendly and casual manner."

"Hmm, I think you are right. My files show people often give their equipment names and work better with ones that have names. I'll ask him and the others what they want." A short pause, "Ace thanks you for the name. Interestingly, he sounded happy to be given a name. You've given me a lot to think about."

"Before you go too far in coming up with names from acronyms of duties, do some research on human nicknames. Our medical people have many real names and titles, but two very common nicknames are 'Doc' and 'Bones.' The AI in charge of the medical facilities may prefer a nickname like that. You should be able to find something that each of your assistants likes from the wide range of names, titles, acronyms, and nicknames we have."

"Again you have done good, Al. The Health Evaluation and Repair System much prefers to be called 'Doc' to being called Hers. And I can understand why. All the other self-aware entities are now checking the databases to select a suitable name for themselves that is related to their duties. It will be interesting to see how the other people respond to this change in our operations."

Eva smiles and shakes her head, as she says, "Not even on the books as a Hero yet, and already you turn the system upside-down. You are a true descendant of your ancestors, some were good Heroes." I go a bit wide eyed. Our family legends state we had many heroic ancestors, but to have it confirmed like this is a surprise.

Eva goes through the normal new Hero greeting process while we have a few drinks and snacks. After about twenty minutes she hands me four profile folders to go through, and points me towards a new door in the opposite wall. I go through it, to find a nice bedroom with a study desk. Smiling, I go lie on the bed as I read the folders.

Each has a personal biography on the person, the usual statistics, a photo of them nude, and a list of skills. All meet my set criteria and have planning skills, a lot of knowledge of Chaos, and some martial arts skills to help me with training practice. All are very much matched and good for what I want, so I go to their hobbies to see if I can find a way to place them in an order. And that's where I find the reason for a choice between them. Meredith Psychiatrist is studying databases part-time and is creating a cross between a map and a database of Chaos that shows all roads, places of residence with their owners, and many other demographic aspects. The details shows she thinks well outside the box and is just what I want. I place her file on top, and take a nap.

Choices

I wake up to a knocking on my door. It's Maria inviting me to have a meal with them. I get up, wash my face and hands in the attached bathroom, and go into the lounge room. It now has a dining table off to one side with three meals set on it. We sit down to a nice roast beef.

In the talk after eating, I say, "Joe, Maria, are you taking into account how my skills can help Joe in his work. I know I can't be involved in the rescue itself, but how far along with one constitutes a support role? For example, if the damsel is kept in a fortress, is my climbing the wall to open the gate a support task or a direct involvement? We do need to get some real guidance in this area." They both nod, and I'm fairly sure that Mac is now listening into all my conversations as well.

We discuss this back and forth for a while, until Maria addresses the ceiling "Computer, can you give any guidance on what does and does not constitute a Companion's support role in a rescue?"

A familiar voice replies, "That will vary with the rescue in hand, as some will require more support than others."

I smile, "Is that you, Mac?" I get odd looks from Joe and Maria

"Yes, how did you guess?"

"You have a different voice to whoever was in control when we first arrived, I can pick up the slight difference in tone. May I suggest that you and the other self-aware AIs get together and discuss how you would like to sound, and then adjust the frequencies to be used in your voice files? I also suggest you find a way for any of the self-aware AIs to subtly display who they are in each room they're active in. This will allow the people in the room to call them by name. One thought that comes to mind is a small sign on the wall saying 'Now on duty is' and under it the names of those on duty, so they can be called by name and not just computer. I think it will lead to better interaction."

"Al, do you ever come up with a bad idea?"

"If I thought it was a bad idea, I wouldn't mention it. But there are a few times I come up with an idea others don't like, and often my idea will spark a better one in someone else. Now back to the subject at hand. Is it possible to add to each file a point of limit for a Companion's help, or a list of tasks they can't be involved in?"

"Yes, I'm sure we can do that. And if we get it wrong, then we just have to accept it, as we're the ones who decide if they did too much. If they stay within the limits we set at the start, any mistake is ours and they're OK." A slight pause. "You wouldn't believe how much processing that's taking. I'm starting with all the files currently being looked at. I'll do the rest as I can, and as they get called up. This may take a couple of days to complete. Al, have you chosen a Caretaker?"

"Yes, those were a very good selection you offered, and they made it very hard. I select Meredith as my Caretaker. May I be permitted to talk with her while Joe and Maria organise this mission?"

"Yes. We usually allow you one visit to get to know your Caretaker before you have to go an a mission as a Hero. For this mission you will remain as Hero Joe's Companion and will be given a Hero's ring when you return from it, along with the details on how to make your own portal, so you can visit from your own home."

"Thanks, Mac. I'm glad you enjoy your work, as it makes things a lot easier for us." I'm rewarded with a short chuckle.

Turning to Joe and Maria, I'd been looking towards the ceiling while talking to Mac, I say, "Earlier, I was introduced to the Master Authority Control AI and we had a nice chat. I got permission to call him Mac, and he's since decide he wants everyone to call him Mac. The other self-aware AIs are also selecting names to be called. They're using acronyms of their titles, or Earth nicknames as their names. Some are making mild changes to their titles to make them more like a name."

I look up, and almost laugh on seeing a new item on the wall opposite me. Turning, I see each wall has the same neat sign that says, "Now on duty: Mac, Jeeves." It's obvious Jeeves is the housekeeping or butler AI. I point the signs out to Maria and Joe. But I have to explain the name Jeeves and its meaning to Maria, as she's not familiar with it.

Meetings

A little later they retire to discuss rescues, or something. A moment after they leave the room another door opens and a lovely lady my height enters the room. I recognise Meredith from her photo. It's a good point in her favour that I selected her despite her having the same name as Joe's daughter. She's the best candidate, and I'll have to live with any confusion I get from names. But I don't expect to have any trouble.

She glides over the floor as I stand up. I hold out my hand to shake hands, and she melts into my arms for a kiss, a long kiss. I enter into the spirit of the occasion. After a while she breaks the kiss, and steps back, saying, "Companion and Hero to be Al, I'm Meredith, soon to be Meredith Caretaker. Please call me Merry." Well, there goes all the risks of confusion as Joe's Meredith insists on her full name; something to do with another girl at school named Meredith who all call Merry.

My Caretaker to be takes my hand and drags me to my bedroom, "Let's go get better acquainted." Yeah, let's, and I bet the conversation won't be much to listen to for quite some time.

A long time later I'm sitting with Merry at a small table in the corner of my room as we have a snack and discuss my abilities and skills, and what I expect from her as my Caretaker. I say, "Merry, from what Joe has told me about recent events on all the planets, I do not trust the information in the databases. My main concern is the removal of some important links between files so Caretakers do not get all the data they need to make an informed decision on a rescue. I think the normal data integrity checks built into any large database would make the removal and wholesale alteration of data itself hard to do, but links aren't always that well protected and would be easy to cut. So instead of relying on the quality of the cross checking of information in the system, I want you to make additional searches you feel might help to find or verify any information about the area, towns, or people involved in a rescue. I also want to see a simple to understand psychological profile on all the people that will, or might, be involved in a rescue. In the time I'm not here, I want you to start creating a database of such profiles of people on Chaos, so we can find them much quicker."

"That's a lot of work, Al. But I can see what it's for and why. So it's worth doing for it's own sake. I'll start on it while you're on this mission with Joe."

"Good. I also want that database you're working on as a hobby done to provide a visual representation as if from a satellite over Chaos. I want to see the topography with the roads, trails, tracks, towns, cities, farms, etc. marked. I want to be able to tag a spot and see the data about the people in the area, the geology, economics, etc. about the area. I know it will take a long time to finish it, but the final product should allow me to look at the map and touch a spot to know everything that there is to know about that area. The first priorities are the topography, geology, roads, housing, rough people numbers, and who controls the area. That will let me know who I have to deal with as I travel through an area. Others will find it useful too. Do you understand what I want?"

She smiles as she nods, "Yes, that's what I'm working towards. And now it will be done as part of my day job and not a hobby. I like that."

"Good. I'll need to set up a strong and safe operations base or two, and this information will help me to decide where. I see no real point in setting up close to where other active Heroes have major bases set up, so I want to cover an area they aren't. But I want to choose one that is reasonably safe and offers good resources for my people."

We soon finish the meal and go back to our getting to know each other activities. This is the pattern for the next couple of days.

A few days after my meeting Meredith I'm told to have a meal with Maria and Joe, Meredith is also there. She's an invited guest but not part of this discussion, as it's about the mission we're about to go on.

There's a few problems with the mission - a damsel was kidnapped about three months earlier and has been moved about by a group of twenty men. About a month ago they kidnapped another damsel and both are with the group. But recent information has about thirty other men involved in the group. They travel as if they're seven groups, six of five and one of twenty, but they travel relative to each other at all times. The small groups are in a circle around the large one.

Joe says, "I'm positive this is a trap to catch heroes, and if they don't get any takers soon, I think they'll just kill the women. So I see them as the ones at most risk. But I don't know how I can rescue them."

We sit and think for a while as we eat. I look up, and ask, "Mac, how certain are you that the spies here at Crossroads can no longer listen in on our conversations?"

"Al, we've found their listening devices and the programs they used to redirect other conversation to them. I've checked out all the operating and housekeeping software, and fixed them so they can't subvert them or place new listening devices. So we're certain they no longer have any sources of direct conversation. However, we're also certain they're still receiving copies of the Hero assignment reports from one of the official reports. Someone who has a valid reason for a report is copying them on to the other side. We can't track it down though."

"That's OK, Mac, as we can make it work for us. The moment Joe lists as going for these damsels they'll know about it and have a reason to keep them alive. They know they'll have to keep them alive until they get Joe, or the whole trap fails when he's shipped back here. So the sooner we list Joe as accepting the mission, the safer they'll be. Also, the mission record, can it be set to show that we only know about the group of twenty guards, make it look as if we don't know about the others, please, Mac?"

"Actually, that's how the file reads at the moment. We only suspect the others are involved as Maria did some people tracking as a result of your concerns on data integrity. Why don't you want them to know we know about the others?"

"While they think we're unaware of the extra teams set to hit us from behind, they won't beef them up. Another related issue. The rules for Companions and heroes are different, does a person's actions as a Companion affect their status when they choose to be a Hero?"

"Hmm, not had to consider that before, and it's not in the rules. So they should be treated as two different personalities in the records."

"That's good. I noticed that a Hero is not allowed to do anything not heroic - like theft, etc. And a Companion can't fight anyone except when directly attacked. Both reasonable rules. However, there is a gap in the rules that can be exploited to allow a Companion to be some help in some situations. It's not wrong for a Companion to steal as it's not covered by the rules. I would expect you'd see a Companion stealing the weapons of the bad guys as helping with the rescue, but if I can stir up trouble between them, that's another issue. As a Companion I can steal their horses and supplies to slow them down and cause internal strife within their organisation. I can slip in to steal their money and plans as well. Is that within your understanding, Mac?"

There's a long pause. "Al, I've closely studied all the rules and am prepared to make the following ruling. A Companion may not steal the weapons of a person as part of a rescue. They may not steal from honest people. They may not hurt anyone except when directly attacked, and then they are free to fight all in the immediate group attacking them, both then and later. They may carry food, drink, and messages to the damsels if told to by the Hero. They may not tell the damsels anything except what they're told to convey. They may not provide the damsels with any other support until after the Hero has rescued them. While fleeing from the bad guys the Companion may help the damsels in any way. A Companion may take action to help or free any other prisoners they come across, as long as it does not involve initiating a fight. A Companion may not kill by poison, and may only drug someone when ordered to do so by a Hero. Any actions a person does as a Companion will not be held against them when they seek to be a Hero in their own right, as long as they are within the allowed actions of a Companion. That should make things a lot clearer for you Al."

"Thanks, Mac, it does make things a lot easier. This may take time to rescue the damsels, but we can have the opposition cut themselves down for us and cause them to lose a lot of sleep too. If I sneak in and steal money from the men, they'll accuse those on guard of doing it. This will lead to fights and a reduction in numbers as they hurt each other or leave. I can steal their horses and food to slow them down and mess up their plans and operations too."

Joe smiles, and adds, "Yes, it'll be interesting to see how they react to such a situation. Maria, list me down for that rescue."

Maria leaves us for a few minutes, and comes back with a big smile. "I listed you as the Hero assigned to that rescue. And there's an update. They now have three damsels in the group, so I wouldn't be surprised if the number of extras has grown too. You be careful, take your time and get them out safe." We both nod agreement.

The talk moves on to what weapons Joe has that we can use, and what other resources he has in the area. In the end we decide to enter from a point a bit further away than we have to, just so Joe can pick up a few extra things from one of his caches of equipment. Soon after that we break up for the night, and go to our rooms.

The next morning Joe and I dress in our Chaos outfits and I ready my pack, checking everything in it has been cleared with Mac. I've a number of herbal medicines and stuff in my first aid kit. My research shows that I can replace them all on Chaos, if need be.

A quick hug and kiss each, and it's off to the portal.

Chaos

We arrive in a room in the bank of the town called Junction, and Joe opens his bank box to remove weapons. He offers me a choice of what's in the box. I stick with the ones he'd described and we agreed to in our earlier discussions. In a few minutes we're ready leave.

Both of us have two medium length swords, four knives - three for throwing, a good bow with a quiver of arrows, and a hatchet each. Our clothes are typical of Chaos and look like leather or coarse cloth. I look a bit bulkier than I am as my clothes have a layer of thin bamboo rods between two layers of good leather as light armour. When I showed it to Joe he was upset with himself that he'd never thought of it himself. The short bamboo rods are thin when compared to that usually worn as armour, but this is more flexible. One added bonus is it provides some insulation against the weather. We also have on long capes and large Aussie bush hats with padded protection in the crown section. None of the clothes look particularly odd by the standards of dress here, but they are a mix of colours and will blend in well with brush or forest. Before I slip my back pack on I remove my climbing hooks and a few other items I had attached to the clothing as ornaments. I put on my cape and it covers the pack. The pack isn't that big, only a bit more than a hand width deep, as wide as my shoulders, and goes down to my waist, but it has some changes of clothes, ropes, and my medicines.

Joe closes the box and we walk out into a hallway, along it to the main bank area, across that, and out the front door.

The first thing anyone notices about Chaos is the smell, sanitation is an unheard of concept here. The roads are mostly dirt, although I can see the main road through the middle of this town is a well-built stone road, so this must be a major road in a well maintained area. Joe sees me looking at the road, and smiles. He says, "We're on the very edge of King Sid's domain, and he has all the major roads well built to make transport and troop movements easier." I nod, as I've heard Joe talk of the Hero Sid and what he's done here - especially in the slaver war.

We start to walk out of town on a dirt road to the south, heading to where Joe has a farm with some horses. These are horses bred from Welsh ponies he imported some years ago. They're easier for the locals to handle on the small farms, and easier to maintain. They aren't as fast as the bigger horses, but they have more stamina and can go for longer. We discussed the rescue and agreed the smaller horses will be better for travelling through the forest and brush we'll have to deal with.

It's just on lunchtime when we arrive in town, and just on dinner time when we arrive at the farm - to a very warm welcome. And soon sit down to the evening meal with the farmer and his large family.

During the meal I notice the two oldest children, twin boys, keep glancing up at Joe and their father, while the father looks like he's having trouble working out how to say something. The third eldest, a girl, is very glum. I can also see Joe hasn't noticed any of this.

With a grin, I look up, and say, "Not a chance, unless one of you is a very good camp cook." Everyone turns to look at me, and the father is a lot more embarrassed than before. Also, the eldest girl looks up with a gleam of hope in her eye. Joe frowns at me. "It seems to me the oldest children are of an age to try an adventure or see more of the world. But there is no way I'm cooking for extras. If we have extras along, one of them better be taking over the buying of food and cooking." This causes Joe to look around the table. He stops and looks at the father.

The father, Jay, shrugs, and says, "Your friend, Al, is right, Lord Joe. My older children wish to see more of the world. I was thinking of how to ask you to take Jason and Joseph with you. But neither can cook."

The oldest girl, Jaycee, says, "I can cook very well and am already very experienced at buying food in the markets." Her mother is trying hard to hide a smile, while her father isn't sure what to say. The two boys aren't sure if to support their sister or not.

Joe turns and looks at me, shrugging his shoulders. I answer him, "If we take all three, Jaycee can look after the food and cooking while Jason and Joseph look after gathering the wood for the fire, the horses, and setting up the camp. That leaves me more time to do scouting for you. Only one thing, if Jaycee sees a young man she wishes to marry, she has to wait until we're almost back here." This causes her to blush and the rest to laugh. Joe looks around the table, and receives nods from both parents and the three eldest children.

With a slow nod, Joe looks at them - one at a time, and says, "This is not a simple rabbit hunt in the woods. We go to fight bad men, many bad men. You could all be seriously hurt or killed. Still interested?" They all nod as they smile at getting a chance to see the world. "OK, that means we'll need twelve ponies now. Ten with riding saddles and two with pack saddles to carry our gear and food." The younger kids start to discuss when they may get a chance to see more of the world.

After dinner Jay, Jason, Joseph, Jaycee, Joe and I gather together to discuss what gear we'll be taking from the farm and what weapons the children will be using. Jaycee is the youngest at sixteen, but that's an adult by local standards, and her two brothers are a year older. By the time we should be heading to bed, we have the packs ready to go on the horses, the horses and saddles selected, the weapons for the three teens selected, and they've proven they can use them. I add a nice short staff to my weapons from those Joe has here; he hadn't mentioned it before, but I liked it as soon as I saw it. It's the prefect height for a hanbo, just up to my waist, as thick as my thumb, and made from a hardwood. Also, we all add good crossbows and bolts to our pile of weapons.

Joe has a nice room in the house, and I elect to sleep on the loose hay in the barn. I'd seen their beds earlier, and I know I'll be better off in the barn. I fall asleep as soon as I hit the hay.

The Journey Starts

Like all farms, we're up just before dawn to have breakfast before the sun rises and calls everyone to work. I wonder how they'll go with three less to do the work, so I ask. The mother, Alice, smiles at me, and says, "One of the problems we've had for just over a year is to keep all the children properly busy at work. As they grow older they can do more work. Over the years we've made the farm bigger. However, the way Lord Joe has us do things makes it a lot easier to do the work and each of us can do more than we used to be able to do before. This farm could be run by four adults, so two adults and twelve children, four of whom are adult high, means we have more workers than we need. Yes, the younger children will have a bit more to do, but not as much as most of the children on the other farms around here." I nod at her reply.

After a good breakfast we go to ready the ponies. While the boys saddle them, I wander around and look at how they do things on a working farm. The youngest two children have the job of milking the cows, and I stop to watch them. One of the older children takes the full buckets away and brings them empty ones, so they just move the stools, buckets, and themselves from one cow to the next until the job is done. The youngest is a girl and she gets a real laugh out of my early attempts when she teaches me how to milk a cow. But by the time the others are ready I can do a good job; so I'm happy to have learned something new, and she's happy to have tricked me into doing some of her work for her.

I go to mount my horse, and almost laugh when I realise these adult animals are so small I can jump over them. After getting up in the saddle I take both feet out of the stirrup and let them hang. The soles of my shoes are only a bit over a hand's width from the ground. Seated on the pony, my head is not much higher than when I'm standing beside it.

With a wave to the family, we ride off down the farm lane and head back to the town we arrived in. We already have a lot of food for the trip from the farm, but we still need to buy some things like pepper and salt. Joe also wants to buy the children some hard leather outer clothes as minimal armour for them, and I agree with him on this need.

Back in town our first stop is the leather worker's shop. The children are measured up and most of what we want is a simple matter of sewing some pieces together to the right sizes for the coats, while the pants are available from stock items. Joe orders them two sets each and pays for them. Jaycee and I leave the rest waiting with the animals outside the leather worker's, and we go to shop for the rest of our food. I'm interested in seeing how it's done here. I leave my hat, pack, and bows on my pony. I carry my staff in my hand, using it like a walking stick. Jaycee is carrying a basket with some food stuffs she brought from the farm to trade with. I also have some money in a pouch that Joe gave me to carry in case we need it.

It's an interesting experience watching her at work as she haggles with the others over items she wants. The only problem we have is when she comes to one trader who has cinnamon to sell, he has a lot of it but is not doing well as he wants only cash, and few of the locals have or use cash. I can see Jaycee wants some, as do many of the locals. I pull her back a bit, and ask, "There's more there than we want. If I buy it all, can you trade it locally for other things you want, and find someone you can trust to take the traded items to the farm?"

She gives me an odd look as she nods, "Oh, yes. I can soon have all the extra traded off for things we can use at the farm. And there are a few people here we can trust to take them to father. But the man wants three shells for the lot, and won't sell any less than two quads worth. We don't have that much money, no one around here does."

I smile and lead her back to Joe. We pack what we've already bought on the pack pony, and I ask Joe for three shells. He gives me an odd look, but gets it out of his money pouch while being very careful not to flash it about. I hand my pouch with a few pinches and quads to Jaycee to carry, and slip the shells into my pocket as I ask Jason to join us on our trip back to the market, he declines, but Joseph volunteers to go.

On the way back to the market I see Brian, he was pointed out to me before as the local King's Representative - what they call the local cop. I ask him to come with us to the market. He gives me an odd look, but agrees to go with us.

Trading Trouble

We go up to the man with the cinnamon, and I ask, "Did I hear right before? You'll sell all three sacks of cinnamon for three shells?" He nods at me. "Right, we'll do this one sack at a time. You open them up and show me that the contents are good and I'll pay you. To prove I've got the money, I'll hand it to the King's Representative to hold, and he'll give you a shell as I take each sack from the table after it's inspected. If a sack is short or the goods are below standard, I don't buy that sack." He gulps and nods. Pulling the money out of my pocket, I hand it to Brian to hold. His eyes go wide, as does those of everyone within hearing.

The first sack is put on the table, the contents removed and checked. Jaycee is happy with it, so I'm happy too. I repack it and take it off the table. As I hand it to Joseph to hold, Brian hands the man a shell. The same with the second and third sacks. As soon as I accept the third sack and he's given the last of his money, the man packs up his gear and is off like a rabbit. I look up in surprise.

Brian laughs, and says, "That's more money than he's ever seen before. He's in a great hurry to get it in the bank before someone robs him. I suspect this may not have been his stock to sell, but that's another matter and none of your concern. That was an interesting way to do business, thanks for showing me. Now I best be off to see he made the bank safely." I grin and laugh as he leaves.

I turn to Jaycee, "OK, young lady. You now have some cinnamon to trade. You best get at it." She still looks a bit shocked, but shakes her head and nods at me as she moves over beside the three sacks Joseph is guarding for us.

With a grin in her voice, Jaycee calls out to the local about having cinnamon to trade now. They soon flock to the table, and she starts haggling with many people. Even agreeing with some for them to deliver stock or animals to the farm in exchange for some cinnamon. As she haggles, I move back a bit and look over the crowd. There's a lot of people around the table.

To make Joseph's job of protecting the stock easier, I take my cape off and put it around his neck. The cape reaches to the ground on him. He looks at me as I spread it wide around the bags and place the front hems in his hands. I say, "You'll feel the cape move if anyone tries to reach under it into a bag or tries to cut the cape, so you don't have to try and look in all directions at once." He smiles as I back away.

I notice that it now looks like I'm standing beside Jaycee as the cape was the most distinctive thing about my clothes. A little later, I notice the cinnamon seller is walking back down the street. With him are two rather large men. As I watch, they stop and the seller is pointing to the table and talking to the men. All three are smiling. I move back into the crowd and around a bit. I also bend my knees and tilt my head forward as I watch them. This changes the way I look from their direction, and makes me harder to spot in the crowd.

Jaycee has done so well the first sack is nearly empty of cinnamon, and they were big sacks too. People must have really wanted it. She also has a pile of various goods that's about the size of half a sack, and many promises of things to be delivered from people she trusts. A little later she asks for a short break and moves a lot of things off the table into the empty sack the cinnamon was in, and opens the second sack. The three men seem a bit irritated that she's traded so much away already.

I smile as the two big men start to move towards the table. Reaching the back of the crowd, they start to push their way through it. On reaching the front, one produces a knife, and says, "Well, thief, I've caught up with you and I'll have my cinnamon back." Everyone in the crowd knows this was just bought, but they don't want to get caught up in any fighting, so they start to back away.

Jaycee stands her ground, and replies, "This was purchased fair and square, as was witnessed by all here. Take your concerns elsewhere."

While this is happening, the other man is moving around behind Joseph, who's trying to maintain security of the goods while also providing support to his sister. When the second man produces a knife and moves closer to Joseph, I swing my staff out and hit his wrist with it. He drops the knife and grabs his sore wrist. Joseph turns to the noise, and sees the man holding his wrist with the knife on the ground, so he draws his own. I leave Joseph to deal with that, and turn to Jaycee.

From the corner of my eye I can see the man is silly enough to go for Joseph with his hands. I smile as Joseph uses a simple move to slice his throat open. The first man is concentrating on Jaycee and also has Joseph between him and his partner, so he doesn't see his partner is not of any use now.

The first man reaches across the table and grabs Jaycee's left arm. I'm in the process of swinging my staff up to deal with him, when Jaycee's right arm sweeps up from the table. I see a flash of metal, and the man has a very strange look on his face as the small knife she had at her waist is now stored in his throat. He lets go of her and drops to the dirt. I move over and look at the knife. It's through the throat and the spine. He's dead, his brain just doesn't realise it yet.

Smiling at Jaycee, I pull her knife out, wipe it on his clothes, and place it on the table. Under her watchful eye, I strip the still warm body of valuables and place them on the table. Two more knives and sheaths, a sword with sheath, a hefty money pouch, a coat, and good boots. The rest isn't worth the trouble of stripping him for. She checks it all over and places the items in the bag or in pockets.

Joseph is still holding his position of protecting the stock. So I drag the first man away from the table to give Jaycee room to trade, and go strip the other man, putting everything for Joseph on the table near to him. The haul here is the same as from the other man. I drag the body away a little. As I do that Joseph looks over the crowd, and calls out, "Hey, Mace, I'll give you two pinches to haul this garbage out of town for me." A young man with an empty cart stops and turns to look at Joseph. He looks over the scene, nods, and brings his cart over. I give him a hand to load the garbage, Joseph hands over the money, and the young man is headed out of town again, with a wide smile at his wages.

I look around the street and see the cinnamon seller has a very shocked look on his face. Brian is coming back down the street with one of the women who had been at the table a moment before. I catch his eye and motion towards the cinnamon seller. He frowns, but goes to the man and takes him by the arm as he brings him over.

When they arrive, I say, "Brian, a few minutes ago this man came back down the street with two other men. I saw them walk down and stop over there. They talked for a moment, then the other two men came over here. One accused Jaycee of stealing his cinnamon. Both pulled knives. Joseph dispatched the one who went for him and Jaycee took out the one who went for her." Brian smiles on hearing the kids took out the bad guys. "Now I wonder if this fellow can tell us about them. If you wish to look at them, Mason is taking the garbage out of town to dump it."

Brian replies, "I don't feel in the need to examine any garbage, but I'll enjoy having a couple words with this fellow about some of the company he keeps. I'm surprised you didn't deal with the men."

"I was going to, but the kids were closer and did it all before I could get there. I think they can look after themselves." He laughs as he walks off, taking the other fellow with him for a little chat.

A little later Jaycee has finished trading and has a bag and a half of goods, lots of promises, and a half bag of cinnamon left for our use. As she packs up, I ask about the table. She explains the first seller either owns the table and will come and collect it, or he paid to hire it for the day and the owner will collect it when we walk away. I smile at the neat way the market is organised.

When we reach Joe and Jason and tell them of the trouble, Jason is a bit upset he missed it, and Joe laughs. Jaycee adds a lot of stuff to the packs and I accompany her to take the bags with the rest to a house in a side street. A woman answers the door and gives Jaycee a very warm greeting. They chat for a moment and the bags are gone through. A deal is reached and the bags are handed over. In exchange for some of the goods, she'll accept delivery of some of the things to go to the farm on Jaycee's behalf - she's already organised for delivery here, and her husband will see all the gear gets safely to the farm. We're about to leave when Brian arrives home for his lunch. Yes, the gear will be safe.

Back to Joe and the boys, and the gear is all ready to go. We get some food to eat for our lunches, and head out of town, going east.

On the Road

We make good time riding along the road at a nice pace. As we near sundown we start looking for a place to camp. A little later we see a cleared section in the brush and forest to the north, with a neat trail to it from the road; it's very inviting, it seems too inviting to me. Jason says, "That looks like a good place to camp for the night."

Smiling, I nod, and simply say, "Yes," while I point out some small and faint trails into the woods on each side of the path. Joe nods, and I get off my pony. The others look at him while I move into the woods.

I take care as I scout out the area for a few hundred metres around the camp. Just over two hundred metres north of the camp I find that the ground drops away for about twenty metres or so. It's a straight drop down to some brush and fen land. I look over the edge and can see the remains of many bones along the base of this section. I scout wider as I move back towards the road. About three hundred metres further east is a small natural clearing in the forest without an obvious trail to it. I head back to my party.

Once in sight, I nod at Joe and he leads them along the trail in single file. When they reach the clearing Joseph goes to get off, but I wave him back and hold a bush aside as I wave them over. By now Jaycee is in the lead, I tell her, "Go as straight as you can that way, be careful not to damage the bushes, there's another clearing to set up camp in." She nods and moves in the direction I'm pointing. When Joe reaches me, I say, "This is an ambush site. There's another clearing, a natural one, about three hundred metres that way. We should be safe there." He nods and keeps moving in Jaycee's wake. Once all the ponies are by, I follow them for a few minutes, then break a small branch off a bush and go back brushing the trail to hide their tracks. Back through the other clearing, along that trail, and down the road for a bit.

Coming back, I check out the other side of the road, and soon find some foot trails into the forest. Following them back, I find a small and well hidden clearing about one hundred metres from the road. On the far side is a well used trail that heads to the south-east. Nodding, I head for our camp.

First Camp

Stopping just before I walk into the camp, I smile at what I see. I'm just back from the edge of the clearing and still amongst the brush, but both Joe and Jaycee are looking at me, while Joseph is watering the ponies and Jason is placing some firewood near the fire. Our packs are set out around the fire, the cooking gear is out and Jaycee is preparing a meal, the saddles and the rest of the gear is in a neat stack to one side, and a little of the hay we brought is ready to be given to the ponies. As I watch, they all go on with their tasks.

Moving into the clearing, I go to Joe and tell him what I've seen. He nods and tells me to go back and watch things for a while, but to return for my meal when he whistles. I acknowledge my orders and go to my gear to change a few things before going back into the forest.

I find a good tree near the road to watch the trap clearing and the road. It's just getting on full dark when a family group comes walking along the road from the east, sees the clearing, and goes to it. I sit and wait. A moment later a man crosses the road and goes to watch the family. After a few minutes of watching them set up camp, he leaves and goes back across the road. I climb down and go to our camp.

Approaching the camp, I'm happy to see I can't see the fire until I'm in the clearing, the fire pit is deep and the fire is well down in it. I sit down and accept a wooden bowl of a delicious stew from Jaycee. I set about catching up with the others who have almost finished eating. As I eat I tell Joe what I saw. He's not happy about it, neither am I.

I soon finish and Joe gives us orders. Jaycee and I are to go and bring the children to safety in our camp, and I'm to help the parents deal with the attackers. We both nod as we can see he's sending Jaycee to show we're the nice guys. I can tell he wants to be involved in this, but he has trouble moving about in the dark as he has poor night vision and Chaos has no moon. There's plenty of starlight, but you still need good night vision to get about in quiet safety, like Jaycee and I do.

I lead Jaycee to the other camp, and the family gets a big shock when they don't realise we're there until we squat down beside them.

I tell them about what I saw earlier and suggest they let Jaycee take the kids to our camp for safety. The father is not sure about us, but the mother asks us to move closer to the fire light. She smiles when she sees Jaycee, and tells the kids to hurry and finish eating, then to go to our camp. While they eat, Jaycee and I start packing their gear back into the packs they had on, the family are walking and carrying everything they have in packs, which isn't much. A few minutes more and Jaycee is walking back through the under-brush with the four kids while we hide the parent's packs nearby.

The parents get out their crossbows and I help them find a nice spot to hide in where they should be reasonably safe and can get a few good shots in on the bad guys. Then it's just a matter of waiting for the bad guys to arrive. Telling the parents what's up, I go towards the road and keep an eye on it.

About an hour later I spot a group of several men moving across the road, so I hurry back to the camp site. When I reach it I can tell it's not how I left it. I give it a close look, and soon realise the difference is a bush has grown larger. As I near it, I spot Jaycee in the bush watching me approach her, she recognises me and waves. I smile, and move towards the low light of the fire. I squat down as I put more wood on the fire. I can't fight until these guys attack me, so I need to get them to do that so I can take them out.

Night Fight

Several minutes later I see the bushes on the side of the camp nearest the road move as the men come up to the edge of the clearing. I sit just to the side of the fire as if meditating, with my two swords lying on the ground beside me, covered in leaves and dirt. After a moment, the men move in closer to the fire and look around the empty camp site. One of them says, "Where's the family that came in here?"

I look up at him, and say, "I was hungry, so I ate them. And since I'm still hungry, I'll eat you lot too." Some of them look very shocked.

The leader, a middle aged man, pulls his sword and charges at me, as he yells, "Smart arse." I sit and wait until he gets close, then I rise up with a sword in each hand. I use my left hand one to block his sword and stab the sword in my right hand between his legs. He screams as I cut his genitals in half at the same time as I slice open the arteries on the inside of his thighs. He collapses to the ground in a screaming heap as I come upright and charge the rest of them.

Two of them have bows and raise them to fire. Just as they fire I hear the crossbows of the parents twang. The arrows and bolts arrive so close together it's like they all appeared at once. The two bowmen have shocked expressions as the bolts penetrate their chests and lungs, while their arrows bounce off my chest. Then everyone stares as I run at them after the arrows don't penetrate. It's obvious the attackers expected me to fall down with arrows in me, and they're very shocked when I don't.

Reaching the group of men, I swing my right hand up and across in a fast arc as I stab at the nearest with my left hand. The man on my left loses all interest as he screams with cut up genitals and thigh arteries, while the two closest on my right drop their weapons as they reach for their throats in a wasted effort to save their lives - my swing had the tip of the sword slice their throats open. That's six down and three to go.

The last three are a bit to my right, so I turn towards them. All three raise their swords and charge. I brace for their arrival, when I hear a bow twang. The middle one sprouts an arrow and falls into the man on his right. The last man is stunned by the sudden change of the situation, but he can't stop his charge. It's no effort to block his sword swing and stab him through the heart. I turn to the last man who's now getting up off the ground again, when the father of the group reaches him and stabs him in the neck with his dagger. That's all of them that we know of. We set about stripping them of valuables.

A few minutes later I leave the ladies to finish stripping the dead while the father and I start dragging the stripped out of camp to drop them over the cliff I found earlier. By the time we get the first two tossed over and are back in camp, the ladies have finished the stripping. Of the clothes, only the coats and boots are worth taking from them all, and the shirts from the two I stabbed in the balls. No one wants to try and clean the pants or the bloodied shirts. A few more trips and the bodies are all tossed over the edge to feed the local wild life.

We pack up everything in the camp and Jaycee leads the parents off to our camp while I go to check if there are any more men about.

An Odd encounter

I take care as I head for the camp I found on the other side of the road earlier. When I arrive there I see a well set out camp and a young man with a glum expression cleaning up the cooking gear. I notice he has no weapons.

Moving into the camp, I squat down opposite him across the fire. He has a quick look around the camp, and says, "You best hurry up and get away from here. If my uncle and his family returns and sees you, they'll kill you."

I shake my head, saying, "If you mean the nine men who attacked the family camping on the other side of the road, they're dead." His eyes go very wide. "I was there and helped kill them. They're all dead, and the bodies are now feeding whatever lives in the fens at the bottom of the cliff."

He sighs, "Good. Their leader is my mother's brother, and the others are his two brothers-in-law and their sons. I don't know how long the banditry has been going on, but a cousin took ill and died a couple of weeks back. My uncle asked my dad for my brother or I to help on his farm, so dad sent me over. They hardly do anything on the farm. Today, after the family had walked by, they made me come with them. I knew they'd kill me if I didn't, but they don't trust me enough to arm me or let me go on the raid, thank goodness."

"Well, you're well rid of them now. Who owns the farm they live on? And is there anyone else on the farm?"

"My uncle and his two brothers-in-law owned the farm, so whoever killed them now owns it. My uncle had recently remarried as my aunt and the other men's wives died of a flu last winter. And there are two daughters from the other men also living on the farm." Damn, a widow and two kids. "The girls are husband high, but their fathers wouldn't let them look around or get to know anyone."

I see a possible solution. I know I killed two of the older men, and think I got the third, but aren't sure. I'll have to check that out. "Are you interested in one of the daughters? And do you know someone who may be interested in the other one? And how many people will it take to run the farm properly?"

He looks up at me, and I can see the ghost of a smile on his face, so I think he knows where I'm heading. "Yes, I'd like to take one of the girls as my wife, and my brother would like to take the other as his wife. The farm would need three men and their wives to run it properly, but two can make a good living off it, and do more as kids grow up."

"Good. Lets pack up camp and move, as I have to get back to my people." He nods and starts to pack everything up. It doesn't take long to get the horses saddled and the gear strapped on them. We string them in a line and I lead them to the road, across it to the trap camp, and over to our camp. I call out as I near our camp.

Jason comes out of hiding in bushes near us and helps with adding the ten horses to the picket line. A little more work putting things aside, and we settle down for the night.

Just after I lie down on my bedroll and spread out the blanket I brought with me from home over me, the two youngest of the kids move around the fire a bit more and snuggle up to me. I've no idea why they did it, but just sigh and spread my blanket to cover them, as that will keep them warmer. I cheated a little, this blanket is waterproof on the outside with two layers of knitted wool inside its Kevlar cover. It's a bit bulker than most, but about four times warmer, due to the wool and trapped air.

Travelling

I wake up at dawn, to find the mother looking down at me and her two youngest, she has an odd smile on her face and she looks a bit familiar. Then Jaycee walks up and stands beside her, saying, "OK, we let you sleep late as you didn't get much sleep last night. But it's time to get up and have breakfast now." I grin, as I can see they're related when they stand beside each other. I nod, and Jaycee moves away.

A few minutes later we're all sitting around the fire as Jaycee hands out the hot breakfast. The mother says, "Jaycee, I see you have your mother's way with food." This makes everyone look up, except me.

Jason stares at her for a moment, then says, more question than statement, "Aunt Ami?" She nods. "What are you doing here? I thought you lived well to the east now!"

"A new group called the Brotherhood are causing trouble where we set up our business. We could see the writing on the wall and decided to sell up and move, which we've done. The money is in the bank, as are the best of our possessions, and we're on our way to your farm to speak to your mother and father about where we can set up business." I smile at being able to help out friends, even if we didn't know it at the time. She turns to me, "What is it with the kids? I've never seen them be that friendly with a stranger before."

I give a weak grin, and shrug, "Maybe they checked and found out I've got the warmest blanket around." They all laugh.

Joe adds, "Maybe they just know he's kid friendly. But he does have a very warm blanket. I noticed it was thicker than normal and checked it myself. It has to be a few times warmer than anything I've found."

They all look at me, I shrug, and say, "I know most blankets are a single layer of cloth. That's four layers, the middle two are knitted wool and the top layer is coated to be water resistant. The coated layer traps in heat, and so do the little air pockets in the wool blankets."

Joe slaps his forehead, "Why didn't I think of doing that instead of half shivering through a cool or cold night!" I notice they all take a note of the idea. I expect I'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.

Smiling, I add, "If you make a blanket out of two layers of fine cloth and sew it up with pockets all over it, and fill the pockets with duck feathers, that'll be a much warmer blanket for your bed at home too."

The conversation moves on and I tell what I found out about the attackers and the farm. As we pack up, the lad from across the road, Bill, identifies which lot of gear goes with which coat of gear stripped from the dead. I did get all the older men. We soon divide up the few spoils of war there are. I keep two of the horses with us, and we pack up the gear on four of the others, while setting up four to be ridden by the family headed west. They'll take the extra gear to the farm for us. The horses will help them get there faster.

Once packed and moving, it doesn't take us long to reach the road. There we split up, Ami and family heading to Junction and us heading east to my new farm.

Farm Work

We take our time as we don't wish to tire our rides and we're on schedule for our rescue. We reach the farm in mid-morning. As we do, Bill points out another farm we can see down the road, and says it's his parents' farm.

I have him take us in and introduce us to the two girls and a mid-twenties woman on the farm. He tells them about the deaths and that I'm the new owner. They all gulp as their future now rests in my hands. I send Bill off to get his brother and parents while I go through the large farmhouse and talk to the ladies. Jason and Joseph go over the farm and its gear to evaluate it for me, while Jaycee checks out the kitchen and house for me. In the room set aside as the uncle's study I find a box with some cash, but not much. I take it anyway. And go get a report from my other inspectors. About the time I finish my inspection and hear the reports, Bill is back with his whole family, they all came to see what's going on.

I gather all the spectators around and ask the girls and aunt if they want to stay on at the farm, they all say they do. I ask Bill and his brother Bob if they'd like to marry the girls and work on the farm. They say they do, and the girls are very quick to agree to marry them. That's when I pounce, turning to Bill, I say, "Bill, do you accept that you're partly responsible for what happened last night, as you were part of the group? I know you didn't want to do it, but you did." He gulps as he nods. "That being so, I'm going to give you more responsibilities in that you also have to care for your widowed aunt as well." He nods. "I think you may misunderstand me, Bill, I mean you have to care for her for the rest of her life as your wife. You'll have two wives and have to meet your husbandly responsibilities for both." Everyone's eyes pop out as he gulps and looks at the good looking woman several years older than he is. Then he smiles and nods. "Good." With that settled, I've only one more thing to say." I wait for a nice dramatic pause, "I give the farm to the five of you as your wedding present, along with the two horses we brought back." I also give them half the money I found, so they have something to start their new life with.

We leave the dumbfounded new owners to discuss things and walk back to the next farm with the rest of Bill's family. His mother turns to me, and says, "That's the first time I've seen someone happy to be giving away a good farm. But I can see you don't know what to do with it, while they do. Thank you."

I grin and nod, "I also unloaded having to see to the care of those I'd made homeless as well. So I'm very happy with the outcome. I know you'll keep an eye on things and see they don't go the way your brother did, and turn bandit."

She nods, "I think he only went that way after those other two talked him into it when their wives died. But that's all over now." We part at their gateway as friends, and we head off down the road.

No more excitement for a while, just two weeks of boring riding and camping out until we reach the town nearest where we expect to find the damsels to be rescued. I spend a lot of time teaching the teens more combat skills that will be useful when we reach our objective.

Bridgetown

This town is called Bridgetown, as it's at a bridge over a major river. Both Joe and I are expecting trouble here as this is the town where we would have arrived if we came through the nearest bank, as per the standard procedure. We need supplies and information, so we split up. After finding a nice clearing in the forest well away from the road and not that far from the town, we set up camp and picket the ponies.

The kids and I prepare packs that look like we're travelling by foot and are almost out of supplies as we get ready to walk into town. We leave most of our other gear here. It's just on lunchtime, so we all get out food we can eat on the move. We leave Joe to watch the camp while we head for the road and walk the last two miles into town as we eat.

We get a few looks as we walk into town. The closest being from four groups of men spread around the bank. Each group has four men in it, and they look like they're watching the bank. We head to a nearby inn and get some watered wine as we sit to discuss things. I spot four men across the room having an intense discussion. I don't like the look of them, and warn the others. We all have our crossbows on our laps and loaded ready to fire, so we should be able to deal with most things.

We're near the end of our first pitchers of watered wine when a fifth man walks in and sits with the other four. They talk for a moment, and the newcomer stands. He walks over, and asks, "You the people that just walked into town from the west?" We nod. "Where are you from, and did you see anyone on the road?"

I look at him, and reply, "We've been on the road for two weeks. In that time all we've seen have been some bandits, so we left the road for a while, and a family going the other way. What's it to you who's going where?"

He looks at me with a sneer, "Mind your manners, kid."

"Now that's a case of the pot calling the kettle black."

He started to turn away, now he spins back as he draws his sword and the other four stand up. I come up out of my seat with my dagger in my left hand and the crossbow in the right. I stab him in the heart before he can get his sword clear of its sheath. Rising my right hand, I'm just a bit behind my companions when I fire my crossbow. But not by much, they fired before me and their bolts are still in the air as I fire. The four are soon back on the seats as they die with their hearts and lungs destroyed by the crossbow bolts. I look around, the place is empty except for us and the staff. The owner is very shocked that four teens were able to kill the five men so fast. We strip their bodies of valuables, and the boys drag them out the back door to the garbage heap. The leader had a very hefty purse on him.

I ask the owner, "Did they have rooms here?"

He nods, "Yes, those five and the other twenty with them have all my rooms, and horses at the stables too, and don't pay me for them."

"Good, you best shows us all the rooms and we'll move the gear into just one or two." His eyes go wide. "I don't know about you, but I think the others will try to kill us when they find out we killed these five." He nods. "So we now need to go find them and deal with them."

"They usually spread out around the bank with a few inside, but I don't know why, as they've been her for a couple of weeks and haven't robbed it." I smile, as I know why - they're part of the trap for Hero Joe.

It takes us several minutes to have a quick look at all the gear we just inherited, or are about to inherit, and move it into the largest room. We stack it all along one wall and lock the door. The owner is happy to be able to rent the rest of the rooms out again and make some money.

As we go to leave, the owner says, "They're called the Brotherhood." I wave acknowledgement of his words as we leave, and I wonder what they're the brotherhood of.

A short walk back down the street and we can see the four groups are still set around the bank, but notice that with the way they're set each can see the bank but they can't see each other. I point this out and we stop in an alley to make plans. I say, "Sorry, team, but the rules I must abide by on this trip are such I can't attack anyone until after they start to attack me. Understand?"

They all nod, and Jason smiles, as he says, "But that doesn't apply to us, does it?"

"No, only to me."

"Good. You walk up to each group and strike up a conversation, and we'll just shoot them." I smile at his fast spotting of the best solution. We soon have a plan of attack and order of operation, so we get started.

I wait until they walk down the street and go into an alley opposite the first group. After waiting for them to get set, I walk down the street and stop just before the first group of men. Leaning against the corner of the building on this side of the alley they're waiting in, I ask them, "Are you men part of the Brotherhood?" They all turn to look at me. One nods as he walks over, one turns back to watch the bank. "Is that the Brotherhood of Useless Cock Sucking Bandits or the Brotherhood of Bum Fucking Bandits?" They all reach for their swords and the one watching the bank turns around. But before they can move, the three furthest from me cry out as they sprout bolts in their chests. The one approaching me turns to look at his mates. As he was pulling a sword while approaching me, he was attacking me, so I can now step forward and place my knife in his heart. He falls with a shocked look on his face. I start stripping him of valuables, and the rest join me before I finish with him. Jaycee and I tie the loot in a pack made from one of their coats while the two boys drag the garbage off to a midden heap they saw behind the buildings. I carry the pack as a bundle in my left hand as we move to the next group. The same routine works with the other three outside groups. Now we have to deal with the group in the bank.

I have an idea, and we make a quick trip back to the room to leave our loot there before going to the bank. We've quite a bit of cash by now, so I count it up and split it into seven equal amounts. Taking one pile, I slip it into my purse and gives the others two piles each. They start to complain, but stop talking when I order them to take it.

With our crossbows ready to fire in our hands, we walk into the bank. Jaycee is first in line and asks to open an account. The teller smiles as he goes through the new account process. She puts most of her share in the bin and the money is counted, a little over five shells. I notice the others in the bank are surprised at how much money she has. Then it's Jason's turn to open a new account with the same amount, and he's followed by Joseph. I'm last with just over three shells to start an account. That's a lot of money for this place.

Finally it's too much, and one of the watchers speaks up, "Hell, what are you lot doing walking around with so much money? Weren't you afraid to be robbed on the road?"

Jason turns to him, and gives our agreed on answer, "Oh, we only had a couple of pinches between us when we arrived in town. But we got all this money off these men in the inn when we killed them after they said they were going to rape my sister. We objected, and got rich as well. The inn owner said they belonged to some sort of Brotherhood."

Well, we get the reaction we want. Four of the men go for weapons as the talker says, "No one kills a member of the Brotherhood and walks away to talk about it."

We'd all been holding our crossbows in our left hands and a bit behind our legs, so they aren't obvious. While talking, we move them to be in front of our left legs. So it's but a fraction of a second for us to point them up and at the men. The room is only a few paces wide with us on one side and them on the other. At this range we don't need to take proper aim. Staying to our planned choices of target, we all fire. It's not a smooth volley, but all are in the air at the same time as the firing sounds like one long drawn out twang. All four have pained looks as they fall on their arses with the bolts buried to the feathers in their chests. They're still breathing as we walk over and strip them of all valuables. They scream as we pull the bolts through and out their backs; the heads are sticking out their backs and that's easier than trying to pull them out the front. The men give weak struggles as we drag them out of the bank to throw them on the nearest midden heap. It does take a minute or so to do this, but the teller and normal bank guard are still in a state of shock as we drag the dead out.

After dropping the garbage on the midden heap to finish dying, we head to the stables to look over our new horses. We arrive to find the owner watering a group of horses in the corral. Real good looking animals too. Jason asks, "You the owner?" He gets a nod. "Where are the horses that used to belong to the men from the Brotherhood?"

He turns around, "Used to belong? These are the horses belonging to the scum from the Brotherhood. They're fine horses and they don't treat them right."

Jason grins, "Well, that's not a problem any more. We objected to the way they looked at my sister, so we killed them all."

His eyes go wide, "Killed them all??"

"Yes, you'll find their bodies spread out on various midden heaps around town, as we only took them to the nearest place of disposal."

"What do you intend to do with all these horses? And what about the wagon they have?"

"Sell them all and all their gear."

Jaycee cuts in, "Tomorrow's a market day, isn't it?" He nods. "Good. Can you spread the word we'll have all their horses and gear for trade or sale tomorrow morning. We may end up keeping the wagon if we get too much gear in trade. But we'll start with all their personal gear, weapons, boots, and stuff displayed on the wagon, and the horses and the tack. We'll keep the wagon for last, after we see how thing go. We do need some food stuffs, so we'll trade for some of that too. Can you please let people know?" He nods and promises to do so.

We retire to the inn and go through all our new gear in fine detail. There's not much there worth our keeping, but the kids find some good boots that fit and are almost new, so they move to the keep pile. Then it's downstairs and our dinner, and back for a good sleep, as it's been a busy afternoon. Our plan is to be back with Joe tomorrow night.

Trading Fun

We're up for an early breakfast. After which Jaycee and I start to move the gear downstairs while the boys go and get the wagon. They hitch two horses to it and bring it to the inn. They arrive just as we finish emptying the room, so the four of us are on hand to load it all in the wagon - our gear on the seat, and the stuff for trade in the back.

At the stables we set up just off the road but not too close to the front entrance, while still close enough to the corral for people to see the horses. We get the hint about where to set up from the pile of saddles and gear the stable owner has piled at that point. A few minutes work under Jaycee's direction, and all the stuff to go is laid out in groups in the back of the wagon, all the boots together, all the shirts together, and so on. It's now easy for people to look at all the options available. Our gear goes in the front foot space and under the seat. Joseph sits on the seat with the crossbows on hand, and Jason stands at the back end, while Jaycee stands in the middle of the side to conduct business. I move away from the wagon and let them get on with business.

The locals start arriving as soon as Jaycee takes her place, they must have been watching. I'm a bit surprised when Jaycee announces she's prepared to trade metal items for other metal items, even broken ones if they weigh a bit more. The weapons are first to go, all traded for more than their weight in broken metal items. The town has little money, so trading is preferred to paying cash, and no blacksmith means no local way to repair broken metal items, but Junction has two blacksmiths. The boots and coats are soon gone as well. In about an hour everything in the back of the wagon is gone and we have a good load of gear - old metal, carved wooden items, quality leather items, and lots of food.

I'd been so busy examining everything that I hadn't realised a lot of the tack and some of the horses had been traded too. Last night Jason had estimated that all the gear and horses would make a bit over thirty shells if sold for cash. Since we won't be getting much cash from this town, I wonder how Jaycee intends to handle this, but she's the expert, so I leave it up to her.

By mid-morning she's finished trading. The wagon bed is full of gear to take back to the farm, with some food on top. Four cows and a bull are in a corral for us to take back with us, and their care by the stable owner has been prepaid for the next several weeks. The owner brings out two horses to move the wagon into the stable, where it's placed in a corner out of the way. We stop to pack our personal gear and to load the packs up with all the fresh food we just got. Restocking the food was the main reason for visiting the town in the first place.

Jaycee had told them we're on our way to meet some people about a week's travel to the south, and then will be bringing back some horses from there. So she's made arrangements for everything to stay here until we're on our way back. She's happy, the boys are happy, and the locals are happy, so I'm happy.

We have an early lunch and head out of town, heading south. Once well clear of town we leave the road and enter the forest. We take care as we swing west and then north, we go a couple of miles into the forest as we don't want to leave any tracks close to the road where they may be found. By late afternoon we're nearing the camp where we left Joe.

He's well and happy, when we find him just before dusk. While dinner is cooking I let the kids tell him of our adventures in town. After the meal we settle down for the night.

Rescue Work

The next morning we're up and getting ready to move with the dawn. While Jaycee prepares a hot breakfast and some trail food, we pack and ready the ponies. We know the damsels are in the area and the little we learned in town made it clear they hadn't passed through the town. Also, a lot of strangers have been wandering in and out of town every few days. Joe is sure they're camped out in the area east of town, so we're making our slow way through the forest to find them before they spot us, we hope.

This is slow and careful work as we go single file to make tracking us very difficult. Also, I have to scout around ahead of us before we move on, and Jason is working hard to erase our back trail. The only problem we face is crossing the river, as it's ten metres wide here. It flows from the south to a waterfall into the fen area below. At Bridgetown they have a nice bridge and there are several places where you can ford the river to the south of the town, but starting south of the town the river runs through a steep sided ravine that's about six metres down. In the normal course of events this would be impossible to cross with Chaos level technology, but we Earthmen solved this one many years ago, and it's within the Chaos level of technology too.

Joe and I figure they'd feel the river and the drop to the fens make a safe geological barrier for them. Thus they'd concentrate their attention in the other directions, so by coming from this impossible direction we'd face less risks from early observation. When we reach the river Joe and I start getting ready.

The teens look at the river and start to swear. Jaycee says, "Well, there goes our idea of sneaking up on them. Now we have to go through the town, and they'll be sure to see us coming."

I just smile as I unpack some gear from the saddle bags on my pony. As I get ready, I say, "Don't worry, we'll be across the river soon. Jaycee, how come you and the boys are so good with so many weapons and are so ready to use them?"

She looks at me and then the nearby chasm, "Right, we'll soon be across the river!!! What are we going to do, fly across?"

"It's a bit more than that; but yes, that's essentially it." All three teens turn and stare at me real hard, then turn to look at Joe. He's calm as he takes all the gear off his pony, as if he's setting up camp. Shrugging their shoulders, they start to do the same.

Jason says, "Our parents were farm children before the slaver war. Their farms were attacked either very early in the war or as it started. All on them were taken as slaves and marched away. They were split from their parents and never saw them again. The slaves were broken into two trains and left in different direction. They were lucky in that some of the locals were retired soldiers who went after the slavers and attacked the slave train our parents were in about six days after they were taken. Just long enough to hate slavery, and not long enough to be too damaged by the slavers. Some of the rescuers were injured and couldn't continue on the campaign to get the others back, so they took the children to safety. On the way back they taught them how to use weapons. They weren't yet old enough to be allowed in the anti-slave army, and that was mostly too far away for them to easily get to. When the rest of the soldiers returned they only had about half the missing adults, the rest had been killed by the slavers for various reasons. The children without parents didn't want to live on their farms, so they sold them and moved. Most of those living on farms around Junction were children in that slave train and settled the area together. They all agreed they'd never be taken again, or allow their children to be taken. So they trained all their kids in how to use weapons, and made sure we were prepared to use them. That was started when we could hardly walk. Jaycee wants to be a soldier, and is very good. This Brotherhood is in for a real shock if they ever reach Junction, as every farm is full of fighters prepared to die before they give in." We both continue working as he talks, so by the time he's finished his story his pony is stripped and he's working on another, while I'm ready to do my special job.

I leave my pony and head to the cliff edge, looking at the trees as I go. Joe stops me and checks over the ropes and gear I have. He nods and lets me go. The teens keep glancing at us as they do their work.

Spotting the right combination of trees I want about three metres back from the cliff edge, I give the ones opposite a thorough look over and select a target group. Putting my climbing hooks on my feet and hands, I start to climb the tree trunk. When about three metres up I look over to see how the kids are doing, and they're all staring as I climb the tree like a cat. About fifteen metres up I find a good strong branch placed how I want it. I use a short piece of rope to tie a pulley to the branch and thread a rope through the pulley. With that done, I tie the two ends of the rope in a joint knot and drop it to the ground. Taking another rope from the ones on my shoulder, I select several metres of coil and toss the rope out behind me into a tree a few metres back, then hang the rest of the coil on a convenient broken branch. I take care as I climb back down and walk to the tree I tossed the rope into. The kids have finished their work and are watching me. I climb this tree and go to where the rope is. Moving out onto a branch, I collect the rope and move up the tree a few more metres, being careful to make sure the rope doesn't get caught as I climb. When about two metres above where the rope is in the first tree, I pass this end around the trunk a few times and tie it tight with a non-slip knot. I climb down and go to my pack on the ground beside my pony. I wink at the kids as I get my cape out and put it on. I also get out some ties and put them in my pockets. Back to my first tree and up to where the rope is set in it. Taking the rope from the second tree, I pull all the slack out of it. Picking the best spot for what I want, I uncoil the rope and let it fall to the ground. As I tie the end to my belt, Joe picks up the rope on the ground and walks towards the river. When he reaches the edge I wave for him to move until he's lined up with my target group. Once lined up, he pulls the slack out of the secured end and is careful to lay the rest out to run free. As he does that I take the ties out of my pocket and put them through loops on the inside of my cape as I tie the bottom hem to the top of my boots, then a loop is tied to just below each knee, a couple to my belt, one to each elbow and wrist. I look at Joe and he gives me a thumbs up.

Taking a few deep breaths, I run out along a long branch heading towards the river. As I dive off the end I can just hear the three teens gasp. Their surprise is loud enough to reach me, but not loud enough to carry across the river. I wait a moment after I leave the branch, and when I'm horizontal to the ground I spread my legs wide as I stretch my arms out to make my cape the sail of my one person glider.

Like an oversized flying fox, I glide across the river at a downward angle of about ten degrees. I cross over the cliff on the other side with a metre or so to spare, so I bring my feet forward and stall to land in the small clearing I was aiming at. I look back and smile at the looks of wonder on the faces of our three assistants, and Joe's look of joy that it works as I said it would. It's but a moment for me to strip my cape off and walk to my target tree. A few minutes to climb it, pass the the rope through a pulley I have, and wrap the rest around the trunk of the tree before I tie it off with a non-slip knot. I check the angle, it's good at about twenty to twenty-five degrees of slope from the other tree. I climb down the tree and move back a couple of metres to a tree just to the left of this. I climb up it, out along a branch a little until I'm over the rope across the river, and I use a short rope to tie my last pulley to this thick branch. After passing a rope through the pulley, I tie the ends together and drop them to the ground. With that done, I climb down and back up the first tree. Reaching the rope, I take my last rope and tie it to the pulley, and start climbing back along the rope using my hands and legs to hold on, after I run a safety rope over the guide rope.

Several minutes of work and I'm back in the first tree feeding the rope to the pulley over a piece of leather I place on a branch. A moment to adjust the location of the rope holding the first pulley, and I climb down the tree. When I reach the ground Jason hands me some bread to eat, and a mug of watered wine. I smile as I take and eat my late lunch.

It only takes a few minutes for me to eat and show Joe how to hook up a load to be lifted into the tree. Joe and Jason tie the rope to another tree to hold the load up in the air, while I help Jaycee climb the tree. Once in place, I show her how to transfer the load from the lifting pulley to the crossing pulley with safety. A simple matter of getting the new one tied before undoing the first one. With the load off the lift, the two below move to the rope holding the transfer pulley in place and start to let it slide down the slope. I ride over with it and transfer it to the other pulley on the other side. As they pull the transfer pulley back, I climb down and lower the load to the ground, a simple matter of a controlled drop. The next load of gear includes Joseph and my pack. We lower the load and set up a routine of getting the loads over.

About half an hour later all the gear is across the river and Joe is placing a blindfold on the first pony. Jason also ties a cloth around it's mouth in case it gets scared. I'm surprised when we get the pony down on our side, it's not nervous at all, and is soon happy eating the grass at the spot where Joseph pickets it a few metres away. Due to the ponies being heavier, we take more care and it takes longer to transfer them. It takes a bit over an hour to get them across the river. Then Jaycee comes across with the last of the gear, which includes all the lifting gear. Jason comes across and I go back with the pulley, taking my cape with me. I swap places with Joe and he rides the pulley back as I control his ride via the rope. When he gets off on the other end he pulls the control rope across the gap and ties the rope to the tree so the pulley will stay there.

As I climb down I notice we've scuffed the tree a bit, but not much, and not in a way anyone can tell what we've been doing, unless they've done this before themselves. I climb down and up the tree the crossing rope is secured to. I undo the rope and toss it towards the first tree. Back in the first tree, I pull the rope through and lay it out to run free before I put my cape back on and tie it in place. Tying the end of the rope to my belt, I take another running dive off the long branch aimed at the river. A few minutes later I'm landing in the clearing again. While Joe pulls the rope in, as much of it is now hanging over the cliff, I climb the tree the other end is secured to and undo it, allowing this end to fall so it can be coiled up again. A few more minutes and everything on this side is back as it was, so we start packing the ponies again.

It's mid-afternoon as we move out again and vanish into the forest on this side of the river we couldn't possibly have crossed. A few hours later we stop and set up camp for the night. The next four days are a slow process of moving forward a few hours at a time, as I need to spend a lot of time scouting ahead and to the sides before we move.

Mid-morning of the fifth day after crossing the river I find a camp of five men deep in the forest. It's clear they've been there for a while, and they have no horses with them. There is a faint trail that leads into the camp and out again. I follow that for a few hours. It takes me on a long circle about six hundred metres in diameter, and through seven other camps. Back at the start I check out the centre, and return to report.

Getting Ready

I cast around on my way back and find us a good long term camp site, and lead them to it. Joe smiles as I lead him into the new site, as it's clear this is for a long stay. This site is about fifty metres in from the cliff drop to the fens and is a reasonable sized clearing with a large rock to the south and large thick bushes almost all the way around the site. There's a small animal trail into the centre, which I expand by removing some bushes so we can get the ponies along the trail. Since the trail is on the north-western point of the clearing, it's unlikely anyone will see it. Even so, I have the path enter at an angle and make a turn so a glance at the bush sees only bush, unless someone is standing in the path when you look. It was hard for me to find in the first place.

Once in the site, it takes but a few minutes for us to set up a picket line on one side and a fire pit just off centre. While the rest are setting up the camp I take care and remove some branches from the bushes. I soon have our individual sleeping areas set up at the base of the larger bushes, so we're more protected from the elements if it rains. I also take some time to do some similar trimming in the area where the ponies are picketed, so they can take more shelter too, if they wish. Some of the cut bush is taken to the cliff and tossed over, and the better wood parts are kept for the fireplace. Once all is ready we sit down and start an early meal as the wood doesn't produce much smoke and the firelight will be harder to see during the day.

As Jaycee cooks I deliver my report and explain the situation. I draw in the dirt as I talk, "Joe, we have target central, five women and a girl kept prisoner in a camp here. There are about sixty men with them." This gets a few shocked looks. We'd expected them to beef the numbers, but not that much. "The camp looks to be well settled with the horses picketed to the north and the prisoners near the horses. It's clear they expect an attack to come from the southern quadrants, and the men are set up to best defend against such. In a circle around that camp are eight smaller camps of five men each. Again the focus is to the south. They have one camp to the east, one to the west, one a bit north of both north-east and north-west, with the other four spread to cover the southern half of the circle. More than a quarter of the circle to the north isn't covered. Even I would have trouble getting you in from the south, but the north is wide open." They all smile at this poor set up.

Joe asks, "What do you recommend we do, Al?"

"I suggest we spend a day or two here while I check out their camp routine. Then we'll get them to cut their numbers down for us. I'll sneak in and steal some purses. They should blame the guards and fights should start, leaving some hurt before they finish. Even a few less will improve our chances. I counted one hundred and twenty horses at the main camp. With some for the prisoners and a few as pack animals, that still means there should be about one hundred guards. We have to cut the numbers, and we'll have to launch surprise attacks." Joe nods, and we go on to discuss tactics for some time. This situation is a lot harder than what we were looking at when we planned this rescue. It's well after we've eaten our dinner that we stop talking and settle down for a night's sleep. Joe takes the first guard shift.

For the next few days they stay in camp and prepare for a big fight, while I spend my time sneaking about the woods getting information. The third morning after our arrival I'm hiding in a large bush between the end of the horse picket line and the only tent in the place, this is where the leader sleeps and spends his day. I'm sitting lotus fashion in a small depression I've created near the centre stalk of this bush, with my green and brown cape wrapped around me to look like I'm a part of the bush. A man rides into camp with several pack animals.

The man stops and some of the guards get up to unload the supplies on the pack animals. The rider gets down and walks to the tent. The leader walks out, and the rider says, "Colonel, I've been told to tell you if this Hero Joe doesn't turn up in another week you're to move all operations west, about two days ride the other side of Bridgetown. Command is a bit concerned about the situation. They know he's on Chaos, but have no idea where. The people who took out the guards at Bridgetown left there headed south, and haven't been seen since. And that has them spooked too, as they don't know who they are."

The colonel runs his hand through his hair, and I stop breathing for a moment. He replies, "OK. I gather all the other camps have their supplies for this week?" The other man nods as I stare at the sapphire ring on the colonel's hand, one very much like Joe's Hero ring.

Get Set

I don't move, and I nap as best as I can until dark. This is a good place to learn what's happening, but I can't move in or out unless it's dark. As I pull out I decide to start our little extra action tonight. I move between the horses, giving each of them a little bit of attention as I do. Over the last few days they've gotten to know me and accept my presence amongst them. Starting at the outer camp in the north-east spot, I take care as I enter each camp and steal the coin purses of each of the sleeping men. They have only one guard on duty and he's always looking for someone coming from the side away from the main camp. None of the men have much worth stealing, but by taking the money of the sleeping men the guard will later have a hard time explaining how it happened; especially after I hide the stolen purses amongst the food supplies where they seem hidden but will likely be found. I move from camp to camp doing the same thing. It takes a few hours to do, and I'm back at our camp very late.

I eat a filling but cold meal as I tell all I've seen and done. When I'm finished, Joe gives orders, "Get a good sleep. No guard duty for you tonight. Tomorrow evening we'll clean out the outer camps and get set to deal with the main camp, as per the plan." We all nod and head off to our bedrolls for some sleep.

The next day is just eat and sleep for most of the day for us all, as we'll have a long night of heavy activity.

Going

Just before dusk we have an early evening meal, stick some trail food in our pockets for snacks, and pack up ready to leave. We lead six of the ponies out as we head to the small enemy camp nearest us. Jaycee is with the lead pony and I'm scouting ahead, as usual. We soon reach the first camp and I smile at the sight. Four men are eating, while the fifth is lying on the ground to the side; with his head twisted to the side - we can see he's dead from across the camp.

There's still enough light for Joe to see to get set, so he and the kids are soon set. On Joe's soft whistle they let fly with their crossbows. All four drop dead with a bolt high in the back cutting their spine in two.

I lead three ponies in while they start stripping the bodies. A couple of minutes' work and the camp is tidied up as I lead the ponies out with the bodies and gear loaded up. We picket them in the forest and take the other three to the next camp south, the one due west of the base.

Here the fifth guard is alive but unconscious, they'd beat him up. A bit more time setting people in place, and a repeat attack of the last camp. With these ponies loaded, we head back. Jaycee and Jason cut off to take the two ponies with gear to our camp, while the rest of us head to the cliff with the four ponies loaded with bodies. We soon toss the dead over the cliff, and head to our next meeting point. On finding the others there and ready for us, it's time to repeat the tactics at the two top camps on the eastern side of the base. We follow the same process of taking out the guards at two camps, cleaning up as we go, and tossing the bodies off the cliff while taking their gear to our camp site. We share the workload across all the ponies. We aren't slow, nor are we fast. It's about midnight by the time we're finished with the small camps, and that's forty less guards we have to worry about later.

Back to our camp and pack everything on the ponies, so we don't have to come back and do it later. The horses at the main camp make a lot of noise when strangers come near them, so the guards are slack about checking out the area near the horses. But the horses are used to me wandering amongst them at night, and I always give them a little attention and something to eat when I do. My leading our ponies and the others into the horse picket area causes the horses to relax. I lead the boys amongst the horses and we give them all an extra feed, making them very happy to have us with them. Several minutes later and our ponies are in the picket line as well, with all our gear stacked close by.

The camp is dimly lit by the fires in it, and almost enough to allow Joe to wander around the camp by himself. I smile, and motion for him to wait a moment. Walking out from amongst the horses, I head for the large pile of wood. One of the guards on the perimeter sees me, so I wave to him as I pick up some wood and go about building the fires up a bit more. The guards watches me for a moment, and turns back to his job of watching the forest approaches to the camp.

Just as I finish building up the last fire I look back towards the horses, and see the three guards nearest the horses are missing and the boys are moving in on two more near me while Joe is moving in on one on the other side of the camp. I can just make out Jaycee as she covers them with her crossbow ready. I stay near the fires adding more wood as I watch Joe and the boys take out the duty guards. They soon have the ten guards accounted for, and are carrying them over to near where the captives are. That's fifty guards accounted for now, that's good.

I smile as Joe makes sure each of the six prisoners has a good tight gag and is well tied, before he picks them up and carries them to a spot behind the stack of gear just in front of the horses. Six of the guard's bodies take their place leaning against the three trees they were tied to.

We set about getting ready to deal with the rest of the guards. Jaycee and the boys find good spots up in the trees sheltering the horses, and set up with their crossbows on hand and their bows ready to use as their main weapons now They have all the arrows shared between, including Joe's and mine. They're to provide covering fire as well as the main attack fire. With them as cover, Joe and I head to where the six young men who look after the camp are sleeping, they appear to be in their late teens or early twenties. I'd noticed they're not armed and are watched all the time, so we see no need to kill them. Joe covers the mouth of the first one and puts a knife to his throat. The young man stirs and stops. He's no trouble as I follow Joe's orders to gag him and tie him up, hands and feet. We move along the line of them securing each as we go. With them all secured, Joe and I carry them and place them beside the prisoners we've rescued. All are quiet.

Joe finds a nice lump of wood, and sets up close to the entrance of the tent where the colonel sleeps. He'll waylay the colonel when he leaves the tent. We want him alive until after Joe removes the ring and has a chance to talk to him.

The teens will methodically eliminate the guards by shooting them with arrows when they have enough light to start the event. They'll start with the guards nearest them. My job is to build the fires up so they can see what they're doing, and to be ready to respond if attacked.

Gone

We've been up all night to deal with this lot, but dawn is still some hours away and we're in a hurry to finish the task. So I go about putting more wood on each fire, not much at first, but I continue to do so. If I put a lot on any one fire at once the sudden light will wake some of the sleepers up, but a slow increase as I build up each fire will go unnoticed by most of them. I know I've done enough for the moment when I hear the soft twang of bow strings being released while under tension.

Turning to look around the camp, I spot the three guards nearest the horses with arrows in their chests. The light is good enough to see the arrows are in the middle of the chest, good killing shots. A moment, and three more, then three more, as Jaycee, Jason, and Joseph go about the task of reducing the enemy numbers by killing them in their sleep. These are identified bad guys and they wouldn't hesitate to kill us. It's close to the edge, but this killing them in their sleep is within the rules, and it's a lot easier to justify to the Powers That Be on Crossroads by having the local Chaos people doing it. I continue to wander around feeding the fires while I do some quick maths. I'd counted one hundred and one armed guards, including the colonel, in the camps and about a dozen others along the road with a camp I couldn't find. We've taken out the forty in the satellite camps, the ten night watch, and that salvo of three arrows makes it fifteen in their sleep. That leaves us thirty-five and the colonel, and each minute sees another three dead, making life a lot easier and safer for us.

Two more salvoes and one of them isn't a quick kill, he rolls over while the arrow is in flight, so it isn't a clean kill, and he cries out. His yell wakes the others up. The three nearest him are starting to sit up when their salvo arrives, two drop back down without a sound, while the third shouts with pain as the arrow goes in a bit high. It's still a mortal wound for the man involved, but it isn't a quiet kill.

All the guards are now jumping up, so the next salvo wounds two and kills one who's a bit slow. That leaves twenty-five guards in good order, two dying wounded, two lightly wounded, and the colonel. Oh well, not the best odds, but much better than when the sun went down. Just as I finish working that out, the colonel charges out of his tent and takes a heavy hit across the shins, bringing him to his knees, another heavy blow across his shoulder blades, and he's face down in the dirt. Joe strips the ring off the man's hand before he ties the hands together, followed by his feet, and a gag in his mouth. The gag goes in the mouth just as he stops screaming with pain and starts to issue orders. But he's gagged before he can do much except order the prisoners be killed.

All the guards in the northern half of the camp are dead. The rest are scrambling for cover and looking around for the attackers, as more of them fall to the arrows. They aren't falling so fast as the moving guards are harder to target and hit, so more care is taken with each shot. Four of the guards grab bows and are very fast to put arrows into each of the prisoners leaning against the trees, except these are now dead guards, not helpless women prisoners. They have to stand still to shoot their bows; so they don't live long, as they give our archers easy targets.

I stay squatting on my heels beside the southern fire as the battle goes on around me. Joe is sitting down on the colonel and smiling. His main job is to stop anyone entering that part of the camp, mine is still to keep the fire going, and the teens are getting on with killing the men by firing arrows out of the dark. Based on the count of new extra bodies on the ground, I figure the Brotherhood is now down to sixteen men as the two with light wounds are now dead with an extra arrow each.

Some of the guards have found some safety behind a stack of stores near the fire I'm at. One sees me, and calls out, "Why the hell aren't you being shot at?"

I turn and smile at him, "Because I'm just sitting here and not trying to grab a weapon to kill anyone. But mainly because the archers are my friends and I'm keeping the killing ground alight for them."

My different accent and the wording of my answer makes it clear whose side I'm on, and he doesn't like my answer. The man leans out and throws a knife at me. It penetrates the guard's coat I'm wearing as camouflage, and sticks into my period armour. I look down at the knife stuck in my chest, then look up at the thrower and those with him. With a big smile, I stand and draw my swords as I rush at the group of several men hiding behind the stack of supplies.

I enjoy the look of shock on their faces as they see the knife stuck in my chest. Two of them fire their bows, and two arrows are added to my collection of embedded hardware in my chest. The two archers last as long as it takes them to fire, as the teens target them as soon as they move to target me; so they fire just before they receive their own chest changing arrows. The difference is they have shirts on as protection, and I have a lot more. All the remaining guards can see the knife and arrows stuck in my chest, and many are stunned that I'm attacking and not falling down to die.

Reaching the group at the stores, I attack with both swords swinging at them. As I start in I see a few hiding behind nearby bushes rush to join the fray. I concentrate on the moment as I block swinging swords and stab or slice at the attackers near me, while also kicking at those close by. During the next frantic few minutes of close sword play I lose track of my actions as it's all done by instinct and training in this sort of melee. I feel several blows land on me, but feel no cuts, so I keep on blocking and stabbing. Suddenly I'm all alone as the last one before me falls back, screaming as his hands go to his groin where I stabbed him and cut his arteries open while making him a eunuch. I look around me at the ground, and see about a dozen or so bodies, some with cuts, some with arrows, and some with both. The coat I have on from one of their guards has several cuts in it, many in places that would have been very serious if that was all I wore. I take the coat off, after removing the extra knife and arrows, and check my own clothes. Some of the outer leather is cut, and I can see some grooves in the bamboo in places. I'll leave a close examination until later. I keep the knife as it's a good one.

Smiling, I turn and walk over to Joe. He's grinning and shaking his head, while the colonel is staring at me very wide eyed. I kneel in front of him, and remove his gag, saying, in my most commanding tone, "Who are you, and who do you represent?"

He replies, "Ian Bond. I'm here on behalf of the Aryan Brotherhood. We've an agreement with some others that allows us to take control of a third of this world and another. I don't know who the agreement is with." Joe is surprised he answered; I just nod.

"Do you know where your portal is located here and on Earth?"

He shakes his head no, "I was blindfolded when I was taken to the portal. It's near Washington, DC. But that's all I know. I arrived here through a bank."

While I'm asking questions the teens get down from their trees and release the prisoners, all twelve. They bring them over to us as Joe and I discuss what to do next. I leave Joe to think, and the rest of us start to strip the valuables off the dead. When we have the first ones ready to dump, I have one of the camp staff help me prepare the two strongest horses. He saddles them while I ready two long ropes. They all keep looking over to see what I'm doing. In a few minutes I've a long rope tied to the saddle of each horse. Dragging a dead guard over, I lift his feet up and put some loops of rope over his feet and pull them tight, then another. I soon have ten dead guards secured to the ropes from each of the horses. My helper and I lead the horses off to the cliff.

At the cliff, we turn and walk along it until the line of dead is along the cliff. It's a simple matter to back the horse a little, get the rope slack, and release the dead. With the last off the first rope, I roll the rope up and place it on the saddle. My assistant has copied my actions, so all the dead are now free of the ropes. I walk back along my line of ten, and nudge them over the cliff with my feet, my assistant follows suit. Then it's back to camp and another twenty dead to rope up and dispose of. As we ready the last of the dead for removal we find we've only killed fifty-three of the sixty armed guards in this camp. That leaves seven wandering around. With each trip to the cliff we pick an area a bit away from the last trip. After disposing of the last of the dead I head out on a scouting mission while the rest clean up the camp and prepare to move out by packing loads for the horses to carry. In the hour I spend making sure the living guards are not close by I find one more. He'd got a little into the forest before he died of a sword wound. I drag him back and add his valuables to the collection, then he's over the cliff.

Back at camp, Joe asks me, "What we should do with Bond?"

I give him an evil grin, "I think we should let him go." The rest of our expanded group turn and stare at me. I add in a soft voice, "Over the side of the cliff. Let him talk to the scavengers down there."

They all have big grins, especially the three women who are from Chaos. With that decided, we carry him out to the cliff. It's a long way down, but we can already hear the animals fighting over the meals the bodies represent. We move along a bit further, and I tie a rope to a handy tree before untying Ian's hands. I drag him by the wrists to the edge and place a section of rope in his hands before pushing his top over the edge. He holds on tight, so he won't fall head first. Undoing the ties on his feet, I say, "We don't want you being able to organise a chase real fast, so climb down. By the time you get through the fens we should be long gone. If you take too long, I'll write the rope off and cut it." He gulps as he starts to lower himself down the cliff. I don't expect him to last long, no boots, no coat, and no weapons. But he does have a chance, if he can get past the animals. I watch him go down the rope. There are no scavengers here at the moment, but we can see them a few hundred metres away. He reaches the bottom and I pull the rope up. As he starts out across the fens he move fast and makes some splashing sounds, even we can hear them. At the start of the sounds some of the scavengers on the outside of the packs around the dead guards turn and look towards the noise. As the sounds continue some of them move off after them. More and more black blurs move off after Bond, but he doesn't seem to notice them or care. We turn and walk away as we don't care about him, and I don't think we want to watch what's about to happen. A little later we hear some screams from the north.

On the way back to camp I have a good laugh when Joe says, "His full name is Ian F. Bond, and his older brother is Jimmy Bond. With parent who do that to kids, it's no wonder he ended up as he did."

By the time we've had a hot feed, cleaned up the site, and got it all packed on horses ready to leave, it's just on dawn. We've now got seventeen of us, four ponies and one hundred and twenty horses. All the horses are loaded with gear from the camp sites and our other stuff - not heavy loads, but still a load. All twelve ponies are saddled. It takes quite a bit of time to move all the animals through the forest to the road, so it's a little more than an hour after dawn when we're set up on the road ready to go. Three columns, the outer two are horses, and the first twelve of the centre column are the ponies, forty-three rows. There's a rope line along the side of each column with the horses' leads on it.

On the Road

It takes some arguing by me, but the order of march is Joe on the lead pony, the six female ex-prisoners, four of the young men who are now our slaves under Chaos laws, and Jaycee on the last pony. Jason walks on one side of the lead horse with one of our new slaves on the side of the other lead horse, while Joseph and the other new slave take up similar positions with the last horses. The new slaves tire out quick, so we often rotate them to ride the ponies. All the while I wander about the forest scouting ahead and behind us. The odd thing about all this is the new boys are happy to be our slaves, as are the Chaos females we released. It's all according to Chaos laws and customs, but not what Joe and I were expecting. I'm surprised we don't see guards on the road.

With so many animals to care for and so few of us, I know it will take a long time to unload and load them up each time we camp. So I spend a lot of time talking Joe into not making camp before we reach Bridgetown. It took us several days of slow going through the forest, but it should only take a few days of road walking to get back.

We keep the animals at a walk, but every four or five hours all the young men go around putting feed in the nose bags of all the animals. We leave them on so they can snack when they like. We only take the nose bags off when we come across streams, then it's a case of unhooking each bag and leading the whole column out and into the stream. We stop them in line and allow them all to have a good long drink at each of the four streams we find near or crossing the road on our march. This set up allows us to go all night, with the sleepers tied into the saddles.

We march through the first day and night, the second day and night, and soon after dawn on the third day we're crossing the bridge into the town of Bridgetown. The stable owner sees us and is very wide eyed at our long train of loaded horses. A few words and we soon have the loads stacked inside his stables, the horses and ponies in his corral, and we're walking towards the inn for a meal and a long sleep in a bed. The stable owner warns us there's five men from the Brotherhood at the inn.

Journey Home

By now I'm very tired and very grouchy. We walk into the inn and see a couple of dozen patrons. In one corner are five men who look like the ones from the Brotherhood, so I decide to settle them now. Joe goes to the owner at the counter and organises meals, rooms, and baths for us all. I cut off and walk over to the five men staring at Joe and his troop. One of them is the guy who delivered the supplies to the camp.

Stopping in front of the table, I wait until the men look at me. I point at the one I know, and say, in a loud voice, "You delivered supplies to Colonel Bond and his camps about a week ago. Those camps are no more. Hero Joe has taken those six young men as prisoners, six others ran from the fight and vanished into the forest. The rest we're killed and their bodies thrown to the fen animals to eat. Colonel Bond we released unharmed, but the last we saw of him he was walking across the fens with some scavengers heading after him. Now you lot have to make a choice. You can keep out of our way and leave us be, and live. Or you can try to cause us trouble and die. We don't care either way. Attack us and you die, it's as simple as that. The Brotherhood is headed for a major fall, both here and on their home turf. I suggest you quit them."

They stare at me. I turn around and start to walk away. As I do I hear stools scrape on the floor. I smile as four crossbow bolts pass by my left elbow with only a hand width or two to spare. I turn back, four of them are slumped back against the wall, dying with crossbow bolts in their chests, and their leader has a sword half drawn as he stares at me. He gulps and pulls more of his sword out of its sheath. I take two quick steps to him and strike his throat with my right hand. He loses interest in his sword as I crush his wind pipe and he starts to choke to death. He collapses onto the stool again. Just to make sure, I grab his head and give it a sharp twist, snapping his neck. I strip him, as the rest of our team joins me to strip their dead. Apart from my man's hefty purse, all we get are some more weapons, coats, boots, and I get a newish shirt. The inn owner mentions they have a few things upstairs, and says he'll simplify things by renting us their rooms, so we don't have to shift it. They also have horses and tack at the stables. Our new slaves haul the garbage out to the midden heap for us.

Breakfast is a simple meal of cheese, bread, fruit, and tea. Followed by hot baths and beds. Jason and I take first watch, and are relieved by Joe and Joseph four hours later. We spend the whole day just resting up from the long march. We keep guards out as we know we haven't killed all of the Brotherhood in the area.

The day after we arrived is a market day. We're not fully rested, but are too restless to stay in our rooms all day again. So we secure the rooms, go through our latest pile of acquisitions, and head off to the stables. With the help of the stable owner again, we borrow a larger wagon and set up all the clothes and boots etc. that we don't want, and Jaycee goes into her trading mode again. While that's going on with her brothers keeping an eye on her safety, the rest of us get the saddles, horses, and other gear ready for trade when she finishes with the stuff on the wagon. We're nearly finished when a man rolls two large brand new wagons up and starts to unhitch the horses. A quick check, and we learn we just traded some horses for them. He selects a dozen horses with tack, and leads them away. I set to putting the other gear up in the beds of the wagons, as they'll be easier for people to look at that way.

We spend the time watching our pile of acquired goods shrink while the supply of new good grows. The horses keep walking out the gate, literally, and other stock replaces some of them. It seems the local community is getting a real big boost from their recent brush with the Brotherhood. Clothes, horses, and tack have been in real short supply until now, while pigs and cattle are in an oversupply. I give up trying to keep track of it all, but Jaycee is having a great time.

I wander over to Joe, "How are you handling all this trading stuff?"

He looks at me, "Normally I just sell this stuff off. I know I don't get top value as I'm usually after coin. What Jaycee is doing has me lost."

"That's good, now I don't feel so bad about being lost too." We both have a good laugh, and I decide it's time to get some food. So I take a couple of our new staff to the inn to get some cooked lunch for all on our team. It's a long day of trading, and we rest up again the next day.

On the Road Again

The next morning we're up early to get a good start on the day, talk about wishful thinking. The first thing is to hitch up horses to our three wagons, the one we got on our first visit to town and the two bought on our day of trading. The two new ones are a bit wider and a lot longer than the first wagon. The wagons are hitched up and put in a line so we can reload them to be better managed on the road.

The middle wagon is one of the long ones, and we load all the metal and traded for goods in it. By the time that's properly loaded it's about eighty percent full. We use the last of the goods to be traded out to fill it. The other long wagon has some wooden cages loaded up and then we manhandle the pigs into them - two in-pig sows, two boars, and a sow with piglets. A few more cages of chickens with two roosters, and some pups. The rest of this wagon is loaded up with feed for all the animals, and most of it is fodder. The smaller wagon has our gear, the cooking gear, and most of it is set up as an extra large mattress so we can sleep on the move. Six horses pull the big wagons and four pull the smaller one. Two bulls, ten cows, four goats, thirty-two horses, and nine ponies are tied to the stock wagon by long leads, as it's last.

We're ready to pull out late in the morning. Joe is on a pony near the lead wagon, with all the rescued females in it to share the driving. Jason has four of the camp workers assigned to him to help with the stock wagon in the rear. Joseph and the other two camp staff are in the other big wagon that's in the middle. Jaycee and I are on ponies as guards.

If we stop each night we'll only get half a day's travel as the rest of the time will be spent setting up and breaking camp. Because it takes so long to get organised, Joe is ready to agree to moving through the night again. We figure if we travel for this day, the next day, and both nights, we should reach a town of some sort sometime on the following day, so we'll take a break there. He's also planning on stopping on the road to do some trading at any farms we pass or towns we go through. There's enough room on the wagon seats and the back of the first wagon for most to get some sleep during the night or day, so we should be OK.

We get started at a walk again, and have no troubles during the rest of the day or that night. Jaycee and I alternate scouting missions.

The next morning on the road we near a large farm a bit after we have our breakfast of cheese and bread baked fresh yesterday. I'm on scout, so I turn in and tell them about the wagons and us having some things to trade, if they want to have a look. The farmer and his wife are interested, and so are the five men visiting them. The farmer and his family seem honest enough, but I can't say the same for the five men. I turn and head back to have the train stop at the farm's front fence.

I warn Joe and all our people when I get back to the wagons. Joe orders Jaycee, Jason, and Joseph to take their weapons and walk with us while hiding just in the edge of the forest. The eldest Chaos woman we rescued is in her mid-twenties, so she's given the task of trading, with the other two local women helping her.

It takes the train another fifteen minutes or so to reach the farm gate. The farmer and his family are there, as are the men, but one is missing. The land on the farm side is open fields with a new crop just planted, so the teens are in the forest opposite, to provide us with protection. I watch the four men while they have a good look over the goods.

We hear the sound of horses from down the road to the west, and all turn to see what it is. A dozen or so armed riders are headed our way. The leader of the visiting men pulls out his sword, saying, "Put your weapons down and you need not ..." He stops talking as the knife the farmer's wife was looking at becomes lodged in his throat. The farmer produces a short sword and stabs one of the men in the side, as his son gets another with a crossbow bolt, while I take out the fourth with a knife in his neck. We all turn our attention to the dozen riders being led by the missing fifth man.

Joe and I raise our bows and prepare to fire, when three arrows fly out of the woods to kill the lead three riders. The rest swerve to avoid the fallen men, and we fire as they slow down a bit to turn. In a minute nine of the riders are lying on the road as the rest ride into the woods to escape our crossfire. It takes about fifteen minutes to strip the dead and remove the garbage off the road to a ravine in the forest opposite. The farmer is very happy when we insist he takes the horses from this lot, as we already have too many. We get four hot fruit pies as a reward.

A few items of clothing are traded for some fresh food while Jaycee and I scout the woods. We follow the bandits for half an hour on foot, and confirm they're still riding hard to the east when we break off. They won't trouble us for some time. The farmer promises to warn his neighbours about the four men who got away. Jaycee and I return to find the boys have fed and watered the animals, and all are ready to go again, after an hour long stop here. We pass two more large farms that day, but they aren't interested in any trading.

That night and the next day pass without any trouble, and we have a couple of short trading stops. The next night we pass a couple of farms, but don't stop as it's too late. Just before lunch of the third day of the trip we arrive in a small town, more of a village. The tavern is on the far edge of town and has a field between it and the forest.

While Joe supervises the parking of the wagons in the field, but back from the road, I go and organise the rooms the tavern has. Not enough for us all, but the two rooms are big enough for four people each. I have a big grin as I book them both and organise for Joe and the damsels to be in one room, while Jaycee and the other ladies have the other. But first we have a room for each gender to organise hot baths.

I walk out to find the wagons lined up tail to front backed up against the tavern in order. When we wish to go, we need only hook up the horses and pull them out. A two strand rope corral runs from the front of the small wagon to a tree a couple of metres in from the edge of the forest, and from the tree to the back of the tavern. The stock are posted out around the area and the horses are allowed free to roam inside the roped area. All the animals should provide a good alarm for each other.

I tell the boys what the situation is, and they're quick to work out arrangements. Each wagon has more than enough space to sleep one person on the seat and another in the foot area, also the bed area of the smaller wagon will handle five nicely or six fairly well if no one does a lot of moving about. With half our people in the tavern, we've more than enough space for us. We end up with Jason and Joseph using the seats of the big wagons, the camp staff using the small wagon, and I elect to sleep on the ground under the wagon nearest the forest.

Rest Day?

Once our camp is set up, we retire to the tavern to have our lunch and baths. If we all sit in the tavern there's no room for locals, so we eat in relays. This makes it easy to leave some people outside on guard without seeming to be distrustful of the locals. It's mid-afternoon by the time we're all finished with the baths. Jason takes first watch with one of the camp staff, while the rest of us get a start on our backlog of sleep.

A few hours later we take dinner in the tavern in two sittings, and Joseph takes the next watch with one of the camp staff. I wake for my watch around midnight, and spend the time in a quiet talk with my watch mate. I learn his name is Barry and he's a farmer by trade, but got forced to work for the Brotherhood. He's happy to be out of it.

Dawn and breakfast seem to arrive quick, so we wake the others and go eat. At breakfast I'm told it's a market day and the ladies expect to do a good business with the locals, as the word was spread near and far yesterday afternoon. After breakfast the ladies get set to do the trading. Jaycee briefs them on what is and isn't available, and leaves the other ladies to do the trading. She didn't get much sleep last night due to the others snoring, and wants to get some more sleep while she can.

With Joe and the boys to keep an eye on things, I decide she's got a good idea. We grab my blanket and cape, and slip into the edge of the forest. Only a metre or so in, but in under the edge of a large bush each, so the animals won't step on us. I give Jaycee my blanket to keep warm, and I use my cape. We both curl up, wrap up in the covers, and slip our wide brimmed hats over our heads. Tucked in under the bushes, we merge in with the bush and the grass. I glance over at Jaycee, and have a hard time making out her shape in the next bush two metres away. I made a point of having these made in patchy colours of greens and browns so they would have that effect, just in case I needed to hide out. I think Jaycee is soon asleep, and I'm not long in following her.

I fall asleep to the soft sounds of the animals in the field and the talk of the people around the wagons. Knowing what they are, my mind filters them out. But something brings me to full awareness and I hold still as I think to work out what. I soon identify it as the lack of noise.

I take care and lift the brim of my hat real slow, to look out over the field. About twenty armed men are on horses and have swords out as they talk to the people. Jason and Joseph aren't in view, and I know the damsels are staying in their room. The six camp staff, the three Chaos ladies, and Joe are being held aside by five men in the ground with drawn swords. No one is looking this way.

Using slow movements, I keep my cape and hat covering me as I crawl over to Jaycee, she's awake and watching too. We discuss what to do, and move a bit further into the forest. We'd brought our weapons with us simply because you don't move about on Chaos without your weapons being on hand. She sets up behind a bush with all our bows, quivers of arrows, and crossbows. They'll only be in my way when I get in close. I leave her and move back a bit, before crossing the road and working through the forest up to beside the horsemen.

I decide to take a small risk. To be attacking someone I have to use a weapon or charge at them with the intent of getting my hands on them to harm them. I figure that scaring horses is not an attack on a person. Once in place I look over to Jaycee, she sees me behind my bush and signals she's ready. I watch her raise her bow and get ready to fire, but she's not to fire until after I break them up.

From my crouched position behind a bush beside the road, I race forward and rise to fully upright as I lift my hands up and wave them around while screaming at the top of my lungs. I started from just in front of the lead horses, so all the horses can see me running at them as I wave my arms about and scream. Several rear up on their hind legs, and more try to race away, fighting their riders as they do. About half the horsemen are unseated and fall to the road with loud thuds, the rest are having trouble controlling their mounts. The five men on the ground turn and charge at me, so I draw my swords.

The men take two paces and the back two fall down with arrows in their backs. I snatch a glance at the wagons. Jason and Joseph are ready to fire again. The first man reaches me and swings his sword. I block his swing with one of my swords and stab him in the heart with the other as the boys kill the last two men on the ground from behind.

I turn to the mounted men as they're starting to get their horses under control. I soon spot three lying over their horses with arrows in their backs; probably Jaycee's work. Moving towards the leader of this group, I pull him off his horse and stab him in the thigh to stop him moving around too much. He gives a nice scream. Chaos rules supreme as men with arrows in them fall from horses and I move through the pack stabbing other men in the belly. I also spot Joe doing the same on the other side of the horsemen. A few minutes more and three unhurt men ride off to the east as fast as their horses can go. Jason and Joseph get down and start the clean up by making sure all the attackers are dead, while Joe interrogates their leader. Our camp staff are busy stripping the dead and catching the loose horses. They tie them to the wagons as they catch them. I look up, and see all the locals are stunned by the events, as it only took us a few minutes to kill so many men.

The tavern owner brings one of the loose horses over, and says, "You know, I didn't believe your people last night when they said they got so many horses by killing the bandits who rode them. Now I do. I fought in the slaver war, but have never seen a small group kill so many people as fast as you lot just did. And only about a third of you were doing the fighting." He walks off shaking his head.

Several minutes later we've got all the dead lined up along the side of the road when a local arrives with a wagon. He looks at the pile, and asks, "Do you mind if I take the dead off your hands?" Both Joe and I indicate he can have them, "Good, they'll make a grand feed for my pigs and save me on feed for a few days." Well, you can't fault a practical man, he's dead right. Cleaning up this offal will put some fat and protein on his pigs. Three of our staff help him load the wagon.

The ladies and locals are back to trading before we finish cleaning up the site. You've got to admire them for their ability to just get on with the job at hand. The bandits started with twenty-six horses, three rode off. But we only have nineteen on hand, seems a couple vanished during the fight. Either they bolted into the forest and locals will find them later, or they bolted into the forest and locals have found them. It doesn't matter, we'd only be trying to trade them out anyway.

I walk over to Joe, and say, "Look, mate, can't you deal with any of this rubbish by yourself? I can't even get a decent sleep due to you needing a hand to take out the garbage." A few locals laugh at me.

He shakes his head, "Sorry, but we were concentrating on the people and the trading when they burst out of the forest opposite us." We both shrug our shoulders. "They're another group from the Brotherhood. It seems their management got word we got the ladies. So they sent out a number of patrols of twenty-five men with a junior officer to find and kill me while they get the ladies back. It seems no one has let their top people know we killed almost everyone in the trap. I figure they should get the information soon and we can expect to see patrols of a hundred or so looking for us."

I think on this for a while. "Joe, I'm not so sure." He turns and looks at me. "When we took out that trap we were already outside of their area of real control. That operation was also part of their expansion into this area. We've taken out about two hundred of their men, one of their higher level imported leaders, and alerted the whole area to what the Brotherhood is like and up to. They can't have that many men near any one border spot to be able to absorb those sorts of losses and still send out strong forces to search for us. They may send one very strong force in the direction they think we're going, but the rest will be smaller scouting forces. I think this was one of the larger scouting forces. When those three get back, they may send a large force this way, but they have to get it together and then catch us. It will take them a week or two to report, another week to get a force together, then they have to catch us. They have to figure they can't make up a three to four week deficit fast. If they have any brains, they'll write this off as a failure. Sadly, I think we can expect to see a large force coming down this road in four or five weeks. They won't be trying to take control, they'll be on a vengeance mission to kill us and those who helped us." He stops and thinks about this at length, before he nods. "You should tell the locals what we think, and tell them to inform the Brotherhood of what we did and we moved on. They don't need to get into a fight over this." He nods agreement and goes off to speak with some people. I walk back as I think about all the killing going on at the moment, I'm not happy about having to kill so many for the warped sense of honour of their leaders.

Back on the Road

The next morning we're moving off about mid-morning. Despite having traded out a lot of horses on the trip so far, yesterday's attack means we now have forty-one horses strung out behind us. The new plan is to keep on the march until we reach Junction, stopping only to water the animals and do any trading while staying in formation.

Day and night we keep on the move for over a week. Only stopping twice a day to water the animals, with three stops in towns for a couple of hours trading, and several stops on the road to trade with farmers. By the time we reach Junction we're down to twelve horses and the tack for six horses. All the acquired weapons and clothes are traded off, and so is most of the extra camping gear too. We're a ragged mob as we enter junction. We stop briefly at the stables to leave the extra horses there, and move on to Jay's farm. I let the rest get ahead while I stop to warn Brian about the Brotherhood and what we expect to happen. We get an enthusiastic and warm welcome as we approach the farm, they saw us coming.

We pull up near the barn and just about collapse, it's been a long tiring march for us. Jay, David (Ami's husband), and the children take over the care of the wagons while we're guided by Alice and Ami as we stumble off for some sleep. There's not enough room in the house, so the ladies end up in bedrooms, while us guys end up on the hay in the barn; yes, Jason and Joseph gave up their rooms for the ladies. They don't mind as they're more concerned with getting some sleep.

I don't know about the rest, but I don't wake up again until nearly lunchtime the next day. They must have either kept out of the barn, or been very quiet while in it, and I appreciate their thoughtfulness. Sitting up, I look around and see the others don't appear to have moved since they lay down. Smiling, I wake them up - we need to get things started to give the Brotherhood a real warm welcome when they come visiting.

We all go have a bath and a hot meal. We wanted them in the other order, but the ladies made it clear, no bath - no food, so we do as told.

Party Games

Like all parties, preparing for the coming visit by the Brotherhood is a lot more effort than the party promises to be. The younger children do the daily tasks that still need to be done, while we adults and the older children, really adults now, go about preparing for war.

Jaycee is good at making arrows, so she starts making two hundred more arrows. Jay has a good blacksmith operation, but isn't as good a blacksmith as Harry, the best blacksmith in Junction, so one of the older children is sent to get Harry while Jay and I start sorting the metal we have, sorting it into piles based on the types and quality of the metals - there's iron, simple steel, brass, and pewter. We want to work here as Joe had previously built a special forge which is more like a Dutch oven with two crucibles than a normal forge. The design keeps in the heat and runs far hotter than Harry's ones in town. Harry arrives with his waste metals and some jobs he has to do. He'll work on them while directing us. Harry soon confirms all the metal is sorted right.

Now down to business, I take the best of the steel and place it in one of the crucibles. I almost cry when I have to break up the longer pieces, but it's no good to me unless I can purify it some more. At the same time, Jay is putting most of the plain iron into the other crucible to melt it down. All the base metals will be melted down and put into bars for future use, as it's easier to store. The next two days I sweat a lot while working at or near the forge while working on a number of projects. Joe and I spend a lot of time dredging our memories of every trick we can remember to make the steel better. One afternoon he dashes off and comes back with some very fine sand. We check it as best as we can, and it appears to be high in carbon. We take a risk and sprinkle some in the molten steel, we do this several times while I make the moulds we'll need when the steel is ready. Several times I skim the poorer metal off the top of the steel.

One of the other projects is ready well before the steel is. This needs only basic iron and the moulds to pour it into. The plaster moulds look very funny; I have three of them, and each has sixty-four of Jaycee's arrows stuck in them for about a hand's width.

When the moulds are well hardened it's time to pour the iron. I'm surprised when Alice joins us to do the pouring. The arrows have been removed, leaving one hundred and ninety-two pointed cylindrical holes. Jay pulls out the crucible with the melted iron, and pours some into a smaller crucible with a very fine pouring lip. This one has an insulated handle attached. Alice picks this up and is very careful as she fills each hole to the top of the mould, they're all perfect pours. Jay smiles when he sees me watching, and says, "Alice is a marvel at slow and steady pouring. I always have her pour the fine stuff." Her pouring crucible doesn't hold a great deal, so Jay has to get the main crucible out and refill it for her several times.

Once they're poured, I get started on making a powered grinding wheel while the metal cools. Chaos has grinding stones, but you sit the stone between your legs to grind the metal on it. I build a basic potter's wheel and place a grinding stone on it by making a tight fighting frame to hold it in place. They all have surprised looks when I pump the foot pedal and the table turns around, taking the stone with it. I don't have time to refine it, but I'm sure Harry and Jay will make it better when they have more time.

My other moulds have set, as have the clay inserts I've made to use with them, so it's time to pour the steel. These moulds took longer to make as I made wood replicas to pour the moulds around first. Again we have Alice doing the fine pouring. First is the four knives like my tanto knife. Followed by six sets of steel springs for mini-crossbows. Last is the katana shaped swords I want, I've four moulds but only enough steel for three. What little is left is poured into a bar for later. These are all put aside to cool while I get on with breaking out the iron moulds. Only Joe has an inkling of what these are, and he hasn't said anything about them, so I've a lot of attention when I break them out, as they want to know what I want them for.

After getting them out I check them over, and only reject four as not properly formed. They don't feel right or well balanced, so they're out. I turn to Alice and ask her to make some leather holders for them, giving a clear description of what I want, and how many of each. She takes a couple of the metal spikes as she listens to me, then nods and walks off.

I take the rest and sit at my grinding wheel as I give them all a quick grind to smooth the sides, ends, and sharpen the points. My silence gets to them, and Jay asks, "Al, just what the heck are those for?"

I smile as I spin and throw one at a post about three metres away. He smiles when it sticks into the post about where a person's eyes would be. Jaycee sees this and smiles, asking, "Do I get any of those?" I smile and nod. She grins and pulls up a stool opposite me to watch what I'm doing. A few minutes later she's doing the same thing on the other side of the stone, so they all get sharpened in half the time. With them all sharpened, we take and test them by throwing them at a wooden board. As we pull them out I give each one another examination, and reject four more. Back to the grindstone to sharpen the points again. Followed by a few hours of teaching Jaycee how to use bo-shuriken by throwing them at a bag stuffed with hay used for archery practice. By the time we go into dinner she's very competent at under two metres. We take some tested ones in to swap for the ones Alice has, as I need to check them.

The next three weeks are full of hard work for me as I train Jaycee to use the weapons I'm making while also making them. The swords may not be ready in time, but Jaycee will work on them so they'll be ready for my next visit to Chaos. I make the handles and guards for the swords and the knives. The two triple shot mini-crossbows are not quite as long as my forearm, and have a rhombus shaped centre bar. One steel bow on the short side and each of the two angled sides, with all three triggers on the bottom side. Their range is under three metres, but easy to use in close quarters. Jaycee is very happy when I present her with one as a thank you for making the short bolts they need. This is handy to hang on your belt or under a coat and not be seen.

By the time I've finished giving the bo-shuriken a set of thorough tests, twenty-four have been sent back to be melted down as faulty. Also, Jaycee is very proficient in their use up to three and a half metres, which is about as far as you should be using them. We have nice leather holders to have five on our left forearms, five at the back of our necks, and the rest in sets of ten on a belt that hangs from our shoulders. I've three sets of the holders made as I want one for my Companion later.

Halfway through the fourth week since we arrived back, and all my weapons are ready, all the extra weapons that were being made for the others are also ready, and so is the ambush site. Poor Joe is feeling a bit henpecked as the damsels are all in hurry to return to Crossroads so they can reward him, but he refuses to go until this is settled.

Once again, I'm checking the state of the ambush area. If they take much longer we may have to move it due to the crop growth. Barry rides up to tell me the Brotherhood are coming down the road towards Junction from the direction of Bridgetown. They should be almost to Junction by now, but a group of twenty-five split off and are walking through the brush well back from the road. I expected that.

We return to the farm and orders are issued. The younger children mount ponies and head for the neighbouring farms, to bring in the older children who've been training to help us. Within an hour all is ready. Jason, Joseph, and Jaycee are moving off through the forest to deal with the flanking group, they'll hit them as soon as they find them. Joe, Jay, Alice, and eight neighbours are hiding in the traps in the fields with bows and arrows. They're in covered dugouts with wood and sod covers to look like part of the field. They'll be firing through small gaps between the roof and the ground, so they aren't exposed much at all.

I set up a stool in the middle of the road and sit on it. I'm the one with the best armour and the best chance of staying alive in the middle of the expected mayhem to come. I sit there as I wait for our enemy to arrive. For about five hundred metres or more there's no cover, just open fields. The forest stops about seven hundred metres closer to town and runs along the back of the fields, that's where the teens will be dealing with the flankers while we take on the main force. I picked this spot as they won't be expecting an ambush in such an open place.

Party Time

About forty minutes after I take up my position the lead scouts of the Brotherhood force come around a curve in the road where it's still in the forest, a bit over a kilometre from where I am. One turns and rides back the way they came as the other four head towards me, checking everything as they do. They stop well short of me.

A column of mounted men come around the bend, they're riding four abreast with three riders at the front. I sit and wait as they come down the road. The middle one speaks to the one on his left, and he rides ahead to speak with the other scouts. They spread out and ride on the sides of the road while they stare out into the fields. When they near me I call to them, "Any of the Brotherhood who passes me will be killed as soon as they do." They stop and look at me. I raise my left arm and two of the neighbours hiding in the woods about three hundred metres behind me on the left step out of the woods waving their bows. One of the scouts turns and rides back to the column for orders. He's soon back; they pull back and to the side while the column approaches.

The column stops several metres from me and the leader leans over as he studies me. After a moment he nudges his horse forward until he's only two metres from me. He asks, "Who are you? What are you doing here? Why should we not clear these forests of bandits?"

I take care to keep my cape tight around me while I stand up, as I don't want them to see the weapons I have, yet. I check him over. I don't know what it is, but I get the impression he's another leader from Earth. I smile at him, and reply, "I'm the Companion to the Hero Joe. Like you, I'm from Earth. Unlike you, I'm here to do good and help people. If that means killing you and others like you, such as the nearly two hundred members of the Brotherhood we've already killed because they attacked us, then I will. I'm standing here in the road to deliver a message to the Brotherhood as we've been expecting you to come. I figured you'd feel safer out here in the open as it's harder for us to ambush you in this area, thus you're more likely to stop and talk first. There are no bandits in the forest here, just local farmers seeking to protect their families from the murdering bandits who call themselves the Brotherhood." He's a bit surprised with my answers, so I continue. "The Brotherhood, as it's known here on Chaos, is going down, it will be destroyed. Just as the parent organisation on Earth, the Aryan Brotherhood, is going to be destroyed. You have a chance to save your life and those of your men. Drop all your weapons and head back the way you've come, never to ride this way again. Do that, and you may keep your lives. Otherwise you die. You all die. By the rules of Crossroads I can't attack you until one of you is stupid enough to attack me, but then I'll kill you all. Those who pass me will be killed by the farmers in the woods behind me."

He looks stunned for a moment, then shakes his head, and laughs. "You are funny. Do you really think you and a few farmers can kill me and the two hundred and fifty soldiers with me?"

I smile, "I don't think we can do that. I know we can do that. Just as I know that three members of my team are already killing, or have killed, the twenty-five other men who went into the forest to flank us. Think on the numbers. Three of my students are taking out twenty-five of your men. Only five of us have already killed nearly two hundred of the men of the Brotherhood. I challenge you - no I beg you - attack me, so I'm free to wage war along your column and kill all your men. Here I stand before you, death incarnate, ready to kill you all." I give him my most evil smile and laugh, as I watch some of the men who can hear me start to look about in fright, while they wonder what I know that they don't.

The leader looks at me for a moment, then makes a small motion with his right hand, his left is holding the reins of his horse. The other lead man swings a crossbow up and fires it at my chest. I stand still so he can hit me dead centre, but spread my cape wide so I can get at my weapons. The bolt strikes home, damn that hurts. I take a half step back as I absorb the impact. It penetrates the extra layers of clothes I have on, my bamboo armour, and just manges to break my skin as it cuts into my chest. That crossbow is a lot more powerful than I expected, but it's only a light wound. However, from their view the bolt is half buried in my chest, due to all the extra clothes I have on.

They all looked shock when I raise my left hand with the mini-crossbow and shoot the shooter in the chest, the other man near the leader in the chest, and the leader in the thigh. The first two drop with the bolts buried to the feathers, and the leader screams. Drawing my swords, I race forward to attack them before they can spread out. As I do, the several farmers in the forest step out to fire at the soldiers on their side of the column, while those in the field to my right open fire at those on their side. The leader is very surprised when I drag him from his horse, pull the ring off his left hand, and stab him in both shoulders. That should keep him still and out of the fight. I race towards the main body of men a few metres away.

The shock of seeing me race around with the bolt in my chest, while some of them are dying with arrows seeming to appear from nowhere, has the whole column in turmoil, despite us being able to fire on only the front quarter of it at the moment.

I race into the fray with a katana in each hand. They aren't the proper razor sharp I prefer, nor are they as hard as I prefer, but they are sharp enough for the job at hand, and much better suited to this type of combat than the normal swords used on Chaos. Moving between the two inner columns, I stab all I can reach in the stomach. All are mortal wounds, and some are killed straight away. Many of the men stabbed collapse on their horses, while others fall off to the ground. The attackers are milling around as they try to work out what to do and how to escape. The four rider wide column already took up most of the road, so they don't have much room to play around in anyway. Yells from further away tells me our support is engaging the rear of the column. I spend a very hectic ten minutes or so ducking, blocking, and stabbing as I move down the column. I stop only when I can't see anyone sitting up on a horse. Moving to the side, I step around the dead and dying on the road. Looking up the road, I can make out the wagon full of townspeople blocking the way back at the forest edge, as per the plan. More of the locals are moving out of the forest into the fields as they move in to check they're all dead. I return to the leader, to find Joe dragging him off to question him.

Calling Barry over, I hand him the reins to the leader's horse, "Barry, take this horse up to the barn. Strip the tack and everything off it and put it some place safe, as I need to check it for information later. Then the horse can be returned to the pool for distribution, bring another saddle and tack with it." He nods and leads the horse away as I turn and walk down the road to talk to Brian.

When I reach Brian, he shakes his head, and says, "When you laid out this plan I couldn't see that thirty or so locals could take out such a large number of soldiers, but we did. I still don't understand it."

"Brian, it's all a matter of training and knowledge. These men have all been trained in a couple of very specific way to fight as soldiers. We set them up for a fight that didn't allow them to use any of the training. Add in the scare factor of what I said before the fight, and my surviving being shot at close range, and they panicked. Once that happened, most were dead men waiting to be finished off. We sat back and slaughtered them before they could think and work out a way to get out." He gives me a slow nod as he listens. "All their training was based around either staying on the horse if on a horse, or fighting in formation on the ground after being ordered to dismount. We set them up in a restricted area where they couldn't use the horses as they'd been trained to. Then I take out their leader in a way that frightens them. You block the way back, and kill those at the back, while the others kill those at the front. That leaves the bulk trapped in a small killing field where they have no room to use their training as the horses of the dead block their way forward and back, and the fences block the sides without enough room to get up speed to jump the fence." He still gives me an odd stare. "Look, they all stayed on their horses and gave us easy targets. If any had thought about things once the fight started, they could easily have got off their horse, slipped through the fence, and crouch walked away through the fields in total safety. We wouldn't have seen them or been able to target them. But none did, and they died." He starts a small smile now that it makes sense to him. "Can you take charge here? I've got to go and get help to take this bolt out and patch up the small wound I have in my chest. That crossbow was a lot more powerful than I expected and it got through enough to hurt me, but not kill me." He nods and waves me away. I head to the house.

Back at Jay's house I find Joe getting no answers out of the enemy leader. I walk in and he stares at me and the bolt in my chest while Joe shakes his head. Joe says, "He won't talk. Anyway, I don't think he knows anything worth telling. His insignia is for a colonel, and the last one knew nothing."

"Joe, I don't think they let anyone who really knows anything useful leave their core area. So there's no point talking to them. Have you got his name?" A shake of the head. "Have someone do a sketch of him and I'll give it to my NSC contact when we get back." Both of them go wide eyed at that statement. "Joe, it's the NSC I do the other dangerous work for, so they help me out with information. They appreciate having a trained ninja to handle some things." More wide eyes. "Once the sketch is done, feed this to the pigs." The guy screams as Joe laughs.

Jaycee walks up, saying, "We got back from killing the flankers just in time to see them shoot you. That had me worried for a moment. But when you attacked them, I knew you were unhurt."

"Not quite true, Jaycee. Help me get this gear off so I can tend the wound they did give me. The bolt stopped when it hit my sternum. It hurts, but isn't restrictive. Pull it straight back and it should come out OK." She does as asked, and the bolt leaves with just a small amount of pain. I take off the outer coat, the layers of knitted wool tops, my bamboo armour, and last is my Kevlar T-shirt. While I strip, Jaycee gets my pack and first aid kit. I get a right telling off when she sees the wound. I flinch as I use the Tea Tree oil to disinfect the wound. I use quite a bit as it's a bit bigger than I expected. No significant bleeding, but some, and I can see the bone at the bottom of the hole. Some sterile linen soaked in Tea Tree oil as a cover, and Jaycee starts to bandage me up. As she does, I smile when I hear a man scream for a minute or so. That's one less of the Aryan Brotherhood to worry about.

Joe walks back in with worried look at the bandage. I tell him, "No problem. Nothing to worry about. Now go back and make sure everyone knows not to talk about his fight. It will be sometime before the Brotherhood sends out people to get a status report, but I want them to find nothing. I want them to get worried about all these men they send out and nothing comes back. The fear factor will affect the other men they have, and should impact on their recruitment. Another point will be they know their people from Earth will turn up back at their centre when they die, but only if they die while wearing the ring. That's why I'm making a point of keeping them alive until we take it. No ring means no body returned for burial on Earth. That will cause a lot of trouble in their organisation, as they'll think their people are cutting out on them. Also, it means the people are listed as missing at home and the related legal issues from that." Joe nods and turns around to go back out to speak to people.

Jaycee slips one of my clean T-shirts on me and makes sure I'm well fed before taking me to lie down on my hay bed in the barn. I know it's no use arguing, so I go to sleep - anyway, I need the sleep.

It's late the next day before everything is cleaned up, put back the way it should be, and all the spoils of war distributed to all involved. There was nothing useful in the gear the colonel had, except a set of written orders addressed to a Colonel J. Bond. I think we've taken out Ian's brother.

We spend another two days helping with the details of the aftermath of the fight. Then it's time to return to Crossroads.

Before we leave, I take Jaycee aside and speak to her at length. Half my concerns are resolved when she opens the conversation. She smiles at me, and says, "It's all right, Al. Lord Joe explained it to me. I know we can't be together either here or at your place. But please promise me to come and visit when you can, and to let me join you on adventures when you can." I smile, and nod as I make the promise.

On the way into Junction, Joe says, "Al, this base here at Junction is not my main base, but a secondary I set up as it's so far from my main base. So please feel free to call in if in the area, and help out or make use of anything that you can." I nod and smile at him.

All three damsels are very happy when we walk to the bank. I get a box linked to my account and place my weapons, armour, and other Chaos gear in it before closing it. Joe had given me both the rings from the colonels and I have them in my money pouch when I load it in the box. Joe does the same. When he closes his box we're all transported back to Crossroads.

Crossroads Again

A Hero Companion is last in line for the healing chamber unless seriously hurt, which I'm not. So I stand around and talk with Merry while I wait. She came to visit since I'm back. She berates me for not bothering to find out the names of the other camp staff, or any of the women we released. I accept her criticism, and reply, "I knew I'd have nothing to do with the Damsels at any stage, so I didn't bother with them. At that point I saw little reason to bother with the others as well." That was a big mistake, one I won't ever make again. Boy, did she chew my ears off, and, in hindsight, she was totally justified too.

While Joe does his duty by his ladies, Merry and I discuss Chaos, and study where she's up to with the map she's making. Looking at it, I ask her to see if she can mark the zone of influence for the Brotherhood, and to look for a suitable base of operation on the edge of their zone, so I can stop their expansion and deal with them while making rescues in their area of influence. She promises to have it all ready for my next visit. We also spend time catching up on where I was back on Earth, so I won't be out of touch when I return. What's been fifteen minutes for them has been a number of months for me.

Joe adds a few more months to that time while doing his duty to the damsels. One morning the last of the three ladies walks out and tells us she's with child. Then Joe and I get the bum's rush to our portal and back to Earth. Merry hands me a ring before shoving me through.

Back Home

Arriving back in Joe's basement I shake my head at the speed we're tossed out. He looks at me, and says, "Be glad they did it that fast. If you're slow, you get stomach pains that are not nice, not nice at all."

I gulp and acknowledge his comment. "Well, that was an interesting time, and it lived up to all you said it would. But we have some real problems to deal with on both planets. I'll talk to those I know, and see what can be done about the Aryan Brotherhood." He gives me a strange look. "Joe, how much did you learn about me?"

"I thought I was able to find out a lot, Al. You're rich, as you own a few businesses. Some said you wrote books, but didn't say what books. You built a new big mansion out on Etzler Road. Oh, you've had ninja training. What else should I know?"

I shake my head. "Joe, I'm worth a few billion dollars now." His eyes go very wide. "I'm the leader of an alliance that includes a number of Yakuza clans. I do deal with the National Security Council on a regular basis via a Pentagon contact. Not only am I a trained ninja, I'm qualified to train others, and am doing that. I'm about to turn a major spotlight on the Aryan Brotherhood for being involved in what's happening on Chaos, and they won't like it, not at all. So, if you need anything, money or help. Just let me know. The hotel I was living in, I own it." He's very stunned by these revelations. He gulps as he nods while he locks up.

Spreading the News

I leave Joe still walking around like a stunned fish, and go home to the residence. We moved in some weeks back and are well settled now. Still having discussions about how to finish off half the main building, but no rush on that. At home, I go straight to my office and call John.

He answers, and we exchange a few words while I fax the drawing to him. I say, "John, I'm sending you a drawing of someone I need you to identify. I suspect his name is Jimmy Bond." I stop while John makes the expected comments. "Yes, that's what his parents burdened him with, and his brother is Ian F. Bond." Another rude comments break. "Look, I know Ian was involved with the Aryan brotherhood and is now dead, although his body will never surface. His brother Jimmy is also involved. I have reason to think the man in the drawing is Jimmy. Whoever he is, he's also dead and will never surface."

"Al, how come you're getting involved with the Aryan Brotherhood, and how do you know these two are dead?"

"I've just come back from a high security meeting, and it was real Chaos there when those two turned up. The Aryan Brotherhood has been offered one third of the organisation for helping two other groups to take full control. I know Ian is as good as dead, and the other is dead. The bodies won't be found as they were eaten by local animals."

"Well, that doesn't sound good at all. I'll let my people know about the Aryan Brotherhood, and see what we can do about disrupting them both here and at the other end of the pipeline."

"I thought you might. I'll be doing the same. See you around."

"See you, Al. I'll let you know what we learn."

Hanging up from John, I call Tadao and Tsukasa on a conference call. When both are on the phone, I say, "Due to security reasons, I can't tell you why I'm concerned about the Aryan Brotherhood, but I'm very concerned. Please inform everyone we know that I'm against doing any business with them at all, and I would appreciate anything anyone can do to make it hard for them to do business. Is that clear?"

Both acknowledge my concerns, and agree to pass the information on to everyone they have contact with. Tsukasa says, "Lord Torao, we have a situation developing here in Washington. A new chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood has set up in our territory and are trying to take our business. We've been careful as we know you don't approve of street wars. What should we do?"

"Tsukasa, I do not approve of street wars as most can be avoided. Sometimes they can't be avoided and the only option is war and to kill the enemy. That is what I did in Tokyo soon after I arrived there. When you find very evil ones, you should eliminate them. The Aryan Brotherhood is very evil; if you need my special skills to aid you, let me know and I'll help you eliminate them. Do not hesitate to ask me for help, or to ask Tadao for help, as he has some resources you do not, as do I. Also, as long as you are not very blatant about it, I'm sure the authorities will not put a great effort into solving the deaths of any known members of the Aryan Brotherhood for the next few months. I'll let you know if that changes. I'm particularly interested in any building where they have a lot of visitors, especially from other organisations and people from out of town. The Aryan Brotherhood and two other organisations are trying to take over the world and they're getting involved with some nasty stuff in order to do so. I wish to stop them from doing this." Both men agree with my position, and promise to keep me informed of anything worth passing on, and we hang up.

I call John again, "John, Al. I've just had a few words with some special friends about the Aryan Brotherhood. As you're probably aware, the Aryan Brotherhood is moving into Washington and has started a new chapter there. In doing this, they're going out of their way to have clashes with the Yakuza. I've just given the Yakuza clans here in the US permission to fight back and eliminate the Aryan Brotherhood. Can you please see what you can do to tone down any investigations into the deaths of known Brotherhood members. I've told the clans to be discreet in their actions."

He gulps, "Hell, Al, when you decide to go after someone, you don't do it by halves, do you! I'll see what I can do to limit the time wasted in such investigation. Anyway, that should help us as they thin out."

"That's what I figured. I also figure they can't watch both sides of the street at the same time, at least, not effectively. The two pronged attack should cause them to drop the ball a time or two."

"Yeah, there is that. I'll also pass along the safety concerns to any undercover people involved with the Brotherhood at the present. Oh, I got some preliminary information. That sketch is of Jimmy Bond. Ian and Jimmy are the two top men in an investment company. With them just disappearing, it will be very difficult for the company to operate. The company's main investors are the Aryan Brotherhood and a few other extreme right-wing organisations that we don't mind if their money gets mishandled for a while. I've asked a few people to keep an eye on things as I've had a tip off the brothers have done a runner with some illicit funds they were supposed to launder. The people I spoke to won't do anything, but will keep an eye on things and make sure those who are left don't break any rules. It will be interesting to see when and how they try to account for the absence of the brothers. But I am worried that their bodies may just turn up somewhere."

"Hmm, John, I gather you know a lot more than you've let on about certain things. Let me just say, they were both alive when I relieved them of certain sapphire rings that they had no right to wear. Thus the system did not register any problems when they died. They won't be turning up anywhere, believe me."

"Very interesting. I feel a lot happier about it now. See you around."

Talking of the rings reminds me I have to discuss them with Mac, as I put them in my bank box when I dumped my pocket contents. I forgot all about them while on Crossroads too. I tidy up the office and go to find my ladies, in order to spend the rest of the day with them.

Getting Organised

Having decided to be really involved in this work on Chaos, I now have to set up to do it properly. So I sit down with the plans for a section of my home that's been set aside as my special office area, and review the plans. I decide to steal a little space from that and from the storage area beside it. In that area I'll have a set of secure rooms built with full camera coverage and biometric check locks, I figure five will be more than enough. I use the design program that Brian Little sent us to plan the unfinished parts of our home, and rough sketch them in. In the attached file I detail the types and levels of security I want, and send the file off to John Small to do the full plans up.

Smiling at getting that started, I take the instructions I've got for the construction of a portal and go speak with Captain Dasler. It takes about ten minutes to for me to find him in the gym. I wait for him to finish his training session, and hand him the papers, saying, "Bob, I need you to pick a couple of our security people to set up a secure and safe spot to make five of these. This is top security and they aren't to talk to anyone but you and me about this. They'll need to be reasonably good at handyman work." He takes the papers and goes over them, I watch as he frowns while reading them. I can tell he's trying to work out what they're for, and not having much luck at finding an answer.

I don't envy him his problem, as it threw me too. The instructions are simple but odd. They are:

On a door-frame of glass of sufficient size to step through, place thin films of these metals electronically isolated from each other - gold, aluminium, tin, platinum, copper, and zinc in that order, with a final layer made of electrum. A good varnish is suggested as the insulator between layers.

He looks up from the paper, and says, "Now what the hell would this be good for?"

I grin, "I'll show you when they're finished. Get them done as soon as possible, please. But quality over speed, and make sure of no extras."

He walks off shaking his head as he slips the paper into his pocket. I'm sure he's already thinking of who he can have do this work. Now back to my office and do some more research for Chaos as well as my next book.

Later, while doing my homework from school, I think about my life and how little of what I'm doing at school is relevant to my life as it is today, and smile. I do make a note to read and study more on ancient and medieval history. I also send an email to Sharon to have someone research which are the best books on how they did things in ancient times and to buy me copies. I laugh as I picture her trying to work out why I want them.

Checking my emails, and responding to them, I have a hard time to put Chaos aside for the moment and concentrate on the here and now. I know Chaos will just have to wait until my next visit.

About Al and Chaos

The Al in this story is Allyn Robyn Evans Adams, more is told about him in the story Finding Home at storiesonline.net - it is an adventure story with graphic sex scenes and not recommended for young readers.

Sixteen year old Al is devastated when a drunk driver causes a car accident that results in the death of his whole family, except his father who he was never close to. He inherits the businesses of his mother and his grandparents, and obtains more as an out of court settlement when he sues the very rich man who caused the accident. Since then he has increased the value of his business empire through a combination of good management and good luck.

Al has studied martial arts for as long as he can remember, and is a very competent fighter qualified to the level of master. He also adopted the Japanese approach to honour during his training, and his character is more that of a Samurai than a typical western teen. The Australian born boy now lives in Frederick, Maryland, USA with his father. Where he attends high school, runs his businesses as the senior policy maker, and continues to write a series of books he started some years before.

When Al put together a team of retired military personnel as his security staff, he came into contact with a man he knows as 'John.' Al knows he works from the Pentagon and is involved in covert actions. Due to the intrusions of others on his life, Al involves John in some of his activities, which leads to a situation where they help each other.