(Continued from Ch 36, Dealrath)

The Chronicles of Rapina
Chapter 37, The Dungeon of Daelrath

Before she could think of what to say, Rapina was escorted to the dungeon. They went through a barracks, and then a guardroom. One of the two guards unbolted a door and let them pass into a room that ringed a stone-lined pit under the keep. Around the bottom of the pit there were three cell doors. The floor of the pit could only be reached using a long ladder, or by being lowered down via a rope and pulley. When she saw how much it looked like Evaneline's dungeon she froze and became frantic. Tears streamed down her cheeks. 

"Noooooo."

The guards carried her to the edge of the pit and used a rope to lower her. On the floor of the pit she assumed the fetal position, shaking and crying as the guards picked her up, carried her past two upright posts with manacles attached, and threw her into a cell. The door slammed shut as the guards left her.

---

Baron Daelrath turned over for the hundredth time that night. He couldn't sleep. Why was this bothering him so much? Hadn't the girl killed Evangeline Avengene? She had been so confident. She had worked with spooks, but as soon as she was dragged into that dungeon she had come unhinged. Daelrath could still see her shaking on the floor, and it was tearing him apart.

The baron got out of bed. He slid the silver slider of Rapina's magelight down the rod and the room filled with red light. Another push and the light would be white, but he had found the red light much easier on the eyes in the middle of the night. He picked up the poster. "Wanted for the murder of Reverend Evangeline Avengene: Brianna Barter, reward: Five hundred gold pieces," It said. It did not even say how or where she had killed the man. The baron got some clothes on and went down to the dungeon with the poster in his hand.

"Good eve milord," the guards said.

Good evening men, "If you heard a fifteen-year-old girl killed a man, what do you suppose her motive would be?"

"Hard to say milord. How was he killed?" Guard Gowen asked. 

"The poster doesn't say. Um, say it was with a dagger," Daelrath said.

"She could have been robbing him, but it isn't a likely profession for a young girl. More likely she'd be a harlot. Maybe he caught her pickin' his pocket and they had a scuffle. Could be lots of things. Could be he wanted to sink his meat in her and she wasn't havin' any of it. She's got one hell of a body, milord," Guard Gowen observed.

"Yes, yes, she does. Lower the ladder for me guard. I would feel remiss if I didn't at least ask her how it happened," Baron Daelrath said.

"Yes milord," Gowen said.

It was dark in the dungeon. The only light came through the barred window in the cell door from a torch on the wall above the pit. There was a cot with one blanket, a chamber pot and some old corn cobs to wipe with. At mealtime there was a candle stub on her tray so she could see to eat.

Rapina had counted six meals since she had been interred in the cell. Once during the first night in the cell she had seen a strange light flicker on the wall of the cell, but it had gone out after about ten minutes.

Rapina heard the guards unbolting the door to the room that ringed the pit to let someone pass into it. She saw red light and heard footsteps. The ladder was lowered and someone climbed down before it was again raised.

The Baron opened the door to Rapina's cell, walked in and sat down on the cot next to her. "I would like to know how it was you killed Evangeline." Daelrath said. 

"Penance," Rapina answered.

Daelrath raised an eyebrow.

Rapina began to explain, "Evangeline ran my hometown. Most people hung on his every word. He was a nobleman and a reverend, but for as long as I can remember there were also rumors that he was a lecher of the first degree. My Aunt used to sell petty curses against him to the young women who he had wronged. She taught me about the herbs, including the ones that could control a woman's fertility. After a while the reverend had her hung for her curses. 

Sarah Brailings told on him. She sickened and died. Brenda Dawes fell from a cliff. Later when I fell into his clutches, I learned that all these events and more were things he had done to young women who had refused to hold their tongues. He was above the law and he knew it. The constable was a man who was under Evangeline's command in the past when he was in Avengene's army. He said that Evangeline was both one of the smartest and one of the most vindictive people he had ever known.

When my aunt was still alive, my mother would not even let me see her because the reverend's sermonizing had turned her against her sister. I used to like to sneak out and visit my aunt. When I was twelve, Evangeline raped my friend Avaine. She didn't tell many people. She was afraid. I knew about Evangeline even as a child and I was so glad he never tried to rape me, probably thanks to my Auntie, but then when I was fifteen my aunt was dead, and daddy caught me with Raymond Thompson. He was one of my boyfriends. He helped teach me to read while his daddy was teaching him, but we were not reading at the time," Rapina smiled. It had not been the first time I had been caught, even though I was very careful. My mother felt that I was out of hand and beyond her ability to discipline anymore, so she sent me to Evangeline for penance.

He had a one-room dungeon under the church. It was there from before the constable's office had been built. That's where he always kept his latest victim..."

The baron put his head in his hands.

"His dungeon was similar to your dungeon. He had to climb out on a ladder, but he did not have any guards up top watching him rape and torture, so it was possible to escape if he could be knocked out, but he had very carefully selected the furnishings. There was nothing you could hit him over the head with, and I did not know self-defense at the time. He was a wily twisted man who tried to convince me that what he was doing to me was all part of my penance. The more he raped me, the purer I was supposed to become, and the pain of the beatings was supposed to be purifying as well. I was very like Bruhnhilda only I didn't even have her education. I could read a little bit is all. If it were not for the prayer book he gave me to read, I think I would have lost my mind, but instead I was too busy trying to learn all the words so I could read the prayers. He taught me to read a few, and that helped on the rest.

He raped and tortured me, he fed me only on Sundays, and he twisted my mind around in knots whenever he could spare the time. Before that I had always enjoyed sex, and I was good at it, but what he was, and what he was doing was all wrong. Maybe his horrors activated some talent that I never knew I had. I was trying to tire him out so I could try to escape, and he was especially crazed that night. He always got that way after Sunday services. No matter how tired I got him, he kept waking up and pulling me down from the ladder, beating me and raping me until Mortaebius took his rotten soul to hell where it belonged," Rapina said stonily.

The baron shook his head, "No weapon, no marks?" Baron Daelrath asked.

"Either he just had a heart attack or I somehow drained the life out of him," Rapina continued. "I was not even trying to kill him; I just wanted him to go to sleep so I could try to get away. Either way he deserved what he got, but I was not so stupid as to believe his family would see it that way, so when he did die, I escaped. I became an outlaw; what choice did I have? After a while I found out that I was a hero to Kroz and the protectors of the church of Mortaebius because I had killed Evangeline, and the reverend had been very instrumental in convincing his father that the vindicator was the one true god and all the others should be disposed of one way or another." 

"Unfortunately, it was too little too late, and the church of the vindicator continues to destroy the temples of Mortaebius with their secret gangs of thugs. They have largely cleared Avengene of other faiths and now they seem to be trying to destroy the church of Mortaebius outside Avengene. Up here I think they have a different strategy. The population is so low all they have to do is put up some settlements and convert your heir through her governess, and Virtusar dies with you. They can clean up the temples to other gods in the south of your barony with bandits from the north. After all, that's where everyone's used to trouble coming from anyways."

"Why do I have to deal with all this subterfuge? I am a war lord. I kill trolls!" Daelrath said.

"Evangeline's legacy is that you are stuck in a battle zone next to a conquering faith. Doing nothing, or believing in their false decency and trying to humor them is the same as letting them take over, and they would like to make you believe you have no choice. You do have a desperate choice. You can make it." Rapina said.

"I don't know what I will do. I don't even want to give you to them anymore, but as you say, I believe I have little choice." Baron Daelrath sighed and stood up, "I will mull over it further," Daelrath said.

Two days later Rapina was startled as she heard the raging voice of Daelrath.

"Predator! Charlatan! Pretender!"

Rapina could hear the sound of someone being punched or slapped after each expletive, and then she heard the doors being opened above, and someone being lowered down and affixed to the posts outside.

"Your manhood is as twisted as your religion!" Daelrath raged.

Rapina heard the scourge bite hard ten times. Then she heard the shackles being removed. The bolt on her cell was shot back, the door opened and reverend Vindictine was shoved in. Daelrath peered in through the doorway. The expression on his face was deranged with vindictive, seething anger. 

"Here REVEREND, there's another girl for you to RAPE. Sorry she's not a virgin, but you'll be happy to know she was raped repeatedly by your very own reverend Evangeline Avengene. Thus purified by his foul seed, she should be even more palatable to you than any virgin. Why hello, Brianna, do you know what this slime just did?"

Rapina shook her head; she noticed one of the veins in Daelrath's redened forehead was sticking out, he was so angry."

"A boy heard something and got two of my knights. They snuck into the church and there was Vindictine, RAPING my DAUGHTER!" the Baron shouted. She was begging him to stop the whole time the knights were stealing up on them." The baron sounded almost frantic. 

"And because you had swallowed his wise council against teaching her how to defend herself, she was helpless to stop him, or even delay him. Fool!" Rapina snapped.

The baron glared at her, "He's a full grown man, she didn't have a chance!" Daelrath bellowed.

Rapina kicked the reverend between the legs. Her knee collided with his forehead as he bent in reaction to the pain. His head came up, recoiling from her knee. As it did, Rapina slammed a snap-kick into the reverend's solar plexus. The preacher's back hit the wall and before he could come to his senses, Rapina's spinning kick caught him in the side of the head and sent him to the cell floor.

The reverend tried to get up but he couldn't. He was so dizzy and all he could do was cough blood and whimper softly from the floor.

"She could have taken this man apart!" Rapina said.

Baron Daelrath stood in the doorway to the cell, muttering, sobbing and slamming his forehead against the edge of the open door as he slowly sunk to the floor. "Fool! Fool! Ignorant Fool! A warlord's daughter, and she cannot even defend herself from a weakling priest!" Daelrath howled.

"She said herself, she cannot do a single push-up, she does not know how to kick, she cannot lift a sword, she cannot shoot a bow, and she cannot use a spear from the wall or dump boiling oil from the cauldrons or fire a bullistae. She cannot ride a horse or drive a wagon, she cannot escape, she cannot defend, and she feels worthless. She carries your blood but cannot even be counted a Daelrath!"

The baron shielded his eyes with his hands as he sobbed his way to the floor.

"Don't blame yourself, your ignorance was carefully coached by that paragon of virtue lying next to you, just like a thousand other fathers have been coached by similar men," Rapina said coldly.

The baron dragged himself back to his feet and wiped his eyes with his forearm, "How I would love to lock him in here with you, lovely black widow, but I mustn't. You might do to him what I would like to do; after all, they can only kill you once. Guards, lock him up in the cell across the pit. Give him water to drink, but feed him only on Sundays."

---

It was just past dusk when the guard heard the horses. "M'Lord, four riders on two horses approach the gate wearing the colors of Avengene."

Daelrath had his head in his hands. How could he do it? How could he just turn Brianna over to those swine when one of their priests had just raped his daughter only two days before? Power was a cruel master. How could a simple warlord hope to survive if his neighbor, Lord Avengene became angered at him?

Daelrath stood and rushed outside, "Pardon me guard, did you say four on two horses?"

"Yes sir," the guard said.

Daelrath raised an eyebrow and hastened towards the gate. The gate was just closing behind a horse with two riders when a troll burst through it. Simultaneously the alarm was raised.

"Trolls sighted and incoming milord! We lost the other horse and riders, it bolted as they came towards the gate," a gate guard said.

Call out the garrison! Man the walls! Every able-bodied man... and WOMAN grab a pike, damnit! The visitors have brought us company!" Daelrath bellowed.

Guards boiled out of the barracks, tradesmen snatched up their swords and hastily donned armor. 

The baron drew steel and joined the men hacking at the troll who'd just taken a chunk out of the Avengene's horse and was eating as he attempted to claw at his new attackers. The number of attackers mounted and the troll was soon cut down.

---

The battle died down as the trolls realized they could not get into the keep to get their prey without being killed in the process. The more intelligent trolls withdrew while their less brainy brothers got themselves killed.

"Now that the battle is won, let me state my business, Captain Tarsus of Avengene said. "I am part of a fifty-man force sent here to convey the prisoner Brianna Barter to Avengene for trial."

"Where are the other forty-eight?" Daelrath asked.

The captain sighed, "I will tell you the tale..."

"Let us go up and have a brandy in my sitting room, shall we? You can tell me how it was you were wearing a tail of trolls when you got to my keep," the baron said.
-------

This ends, The Dungeon of Daelrath, chapter 37 of The Chronicles of Rapina.
The story continues in chapter 38, Rampage of the Trolls.

Copyright 2001 by Rapina