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A Seafaring SagaChapter 7: Kidnapping!
“Put me down! Ohhhh, put me down, you great oaf!”
The princess was squealing and squirming like a worm on a hook. At last Targon ducked into a stable and with one last look behind to make sure no one had followed, threw the princess unceremoniously down on a pile of straw. Targon himself flopped down beside her after a moment.
“Ah-ha-ha, if I had known it was that much fun inciting riots I would’ve started years ago.”
And Targon let lose with a roaring laugh.
“What are you doing!” the princess interrupted Targon. She was standing over him now, leering down at the Dragon Master. “Are you trying to kidnap me?”
Targon looked up. It was the first good look of the princess he’d gotten. She was a rather petite girl, not tall but still pretty as far as crusader girls went.
“What?” said Targon in hurt voice, “Now why on earth would you think that?”
“Mother says I should always be on the look out for kidnappers.” she folded her arms and turned up her nose with a look of superior intelligence.
“Well, sounds you’ve got a smart mother. Always listen to yer Mum. That’s what I say. So happens, she’s right. I am kidnapping you.”
The girl gasped. “Well! You’ll never get away with it!”
“Oh, I think I will. By the time they realize you’re gone, I’ll be out to sea in a pinched sailboat. Speaking of which, time we’re off.”
“Oh! You’re not going to put me over your shoulder again?”
“I just might.” said Targon, scooping her up.
“Why you brute!”
“Why thank you miss. Oh, and I’ll remind you to keep a civil tongue in your head from now on. I’m not above putting you out for a spell.”
And with that Targon slipped from the stable into the empty streets of Port Crowne, face turned to the wharf.
Viktor at last managed to disentangle himself from the insane crowd. As he backed himself away, his feet scraping across the cobblestones, he shook his head. The crowd had devolved into a mindless mob, and were now being slaughtered. How stupid. Something suddenly caught Viktor’s eye. It was a man, with -- no, could it be? -- the Crusader princess slung over one shoulder. He was running away from the mob and into the narrow streets of Port Crowne.
Bloody odd time to kidnap someone... thought Viktor wryly.
He began to run after the man. Viktor, with no burden to carry, was beginning to catch up when suddenly he ran smack into another person coming on from a side street. Their skulls cracked together and then collapsed to the ground, utterly stunned. The other person was the first to get up. Viktor saw a once it was a woman. She had short, black hair and was clad in a light blue tunic.
“Whoa...darlin’…” groaned Viktor, attempting to push himself to his feet.
Suddenly a knife was at his throat.
“Don’t call me that!” she hissed.
Megabloks...what’s her problem? Viktor thought, befuddled.
“What the tyco are you doing!” he shouted.
The knife pressed closer.
Bad move, he thought to himself, this is not a gal to mess with...let’s try a change of tactics…
“Er...sorry...for running into you…” he murmured.
The woman’s eyebrows rose.
“Well, that’s a first. Usually megabloks in your position snarl and swear...then I kill them.”
Definitely not a gal to mess with. Viktor confirmed inwardly.
“I know when I’m not in a position to swear at my enemy.”
“Then you’re smarter than you look.”
The woman withdrew her blade and stood a distance away.
Viktor muttered, “Much obliged.” and stood, brushing grime off his cloak. They stared at one another, both tensed, both ready to square off in an instant, then the woman nodded sharply and snapped, “Watch where you’re going next time.”
Then she was off down the alleyway. Viktor stared after her, rubbing his neck.
“I wouldn’t want to meet ye up a dark alley.” he said, then turned away. The prospect of having his throat split open made him thirsty.
“I need...a pub.”
Rosa continued on down the street without a second glance. She ran cautiously, with her knife hidden under her tunic. She didn’t want to slip on a cobblestone and skewer herself on her own blade.
Never run with a naked blade in front of you. she thought to herself.
As the streets widened and the large Port Crowne harbor came into view, Rosa slowed down to an ambling trot so as not to look too suspicious. She turned her head left and right, but saw no sigh of the armor-clad man with the princess over one shoulder. In fact, she saw no one at all. T he expansive docks were completely void of people. All, presumably, had gone to watch to the coronation, and some no doubt were now hacking one another to pieces.
Stupid men...
A wayward mutt came up to Rosa and sniffed forlornly as her hand.
“Go ‘way.” she brushed the dog away and stepped onto the rocking planks of the dock itself. It was high tide, and the filmy seawater lapped at the underside of the dock like the dog now following Rosa.
“Go ‘way.” she repeated again, though not very earnestly.
The dog wasn’t bothering her, really. Rosa sighed and looked about the dock and the dozens of ships. Most of them were quite ugly, lumbering masses of rotten timbers incrusted with barnacles and creaking like a chorus of haunted houses. Sails and rigging hanged limply in the near-breezeless air, and the decks appeared to be deserted. T he Crusader fleet, once the best in Dametreos, was now in pitiful ruin, all due in thanks to the ailing, and now dead, king, and the exploits of BloodVaine.
“Hmm.”
Rosa had lost the scent. The man with his victim had vanished.
“Robert! Robert!” King Robert turned to the voice calling his name. It was over now, the riot, but only just over and Robert hadn’t a second to think before he heard someone calling his name. It was the voice of his wife the queen. Across the stage he saw her, surrounded by his guards. Her face…there was a pained look on her face. Something was wrong.
Targon whistled as he stepped down onto the docks.
“There you are, Missy.” he said, dropping the princess into a light skiff.
The Dragon Master bent down to undo the moorings and throw the ropes into the boat. It didn’t occur to Targon that anyone could be there before him, just as it hadn’t occurred to Rosa that she could have overtaken her quarry and reached the docks before him. In actuality she’d slipped passed him when he ducked into the stable, being distracted by the man she ran into. So it happened that as Targon stood again, he found himself gabbed from behind and a blade pressed to his neck.
“What the--”
“Try it! Just try it and make my day.”
Targon froze.
Tyco, he thought, That sounds like a bloody women.
“Uh listen, miss,” said Targon, opting for diplomacy, “I uh--”
“Shut up! I’ll do the talking here. Now would you care to tell me what you’re doing with the king’s daughter?”
“Sailing lessons?”
“Funny.” said the unseen voice, dryly, “You know I was planning on turning you over to the guards when they arrived, but at the rate you’re going…the voice trailed off but the knife inched closer.
Targon rolled his eyes. “A’right miss, ya got me. I’m stealin’ the princess. You got a problem with that? Since when is your type concerned about royalty?”
Rosa flinched.
“‘Your type’, what was that supposed to mean? I’m concerned about a filthy man making off with a young girl!” she practically spat back.
“Well that’s a fine tale darl’n, but we both know you just wanted an excuse to get yer arms around this burly hunk a man.”
That did it. Targon’s throat was slit before you could say Viktor Okzskcarouldghf. Actually, maybe that’s a bad example. Though perhaps a man whose example Targon should’ve followed. The princess screamed at the grizzly sight as Targon slumped onto the dock.
“It’s okay.” said Rosa, stepping over Targon and extending her hand.
“You saved me!” said the princess, in awe.
But the princess didn’t hold that expression long. The form of the Dragon Master was moving. Rosa whirled around but Targon was already on the attack. Her knife hit the water with a splash as Targon grabbed her neck.
“Shouldn’t play with knives, Missy.” Targon’s other hand was on his bleeding throat and there was no mistaking the cold anger in his voice, “Do you have any idea how much that hurt?”
Rosa tried to speak but she couldn’t even breath. The world was fading into blackness. Blackness…
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