Dishon Chapter 9

IN THE TENTH YEAR OF RECAB, KING OF DISHON
The night had not been a pleasant one for Jot. To start out with, there was the infernal rain, the unending rain that had soaked his tent, and him as well. The water inside his tent rose slight above his paws. Sleeping in it was miserable, but things would only get worse. In the middle of the night he was awakened by a frantic soldier. After the man had calmed down enough to be understood, Jot learned that he was assigned to guard duty that night. Well he was at his post, he was assaulted, beaten, tied up, and his uniform taken. He had struggled to free himself from the ropes that bound for at least an hour, then ran back to his post to find a dead man lying on the ground. Jot slowly got to his feet, muttering a few curses. When the soldier blurted out that, though he wasn't completely sure, he thought the murdered was an important figure, Jot jerked to attention. The news was not pleasant under any circumstance, but its loathsome nature was compounded by the fact that Jot was in charge of the camps security.
Jot bolted out of his tent, his body looking anything but the powerful looking wolf it usually did, but now like a miserable wet wolf, a form that aptly fitted its owner. Jot raced through the camp, with the soldier two steps behind him, yelling out directions. Soon, he was at the body, a human male. He gently rolled it over with his head, to reveal a wound in both the stomach and the neck. It looked like the victim had bled to death from these injuries. Next, Jot looked at the bloodstained, but still recognizable face of Jole.


"What? Are you sure?"
"I checked the camp. He is no where to be found. His tent mate, Kile, says he left during the middle of the night to walk around because he couldn't sleep. It's him all right."
"Well keep going, what else did you find?"
Jot nodded to a soldier standing next to him. The soldier took a cloak out of a sack and displayed it for Miktesh. "Kile was able to identify this as Jole's cloak. We found it several meters outside the camp."
"Any blood on it?"
Jot shook his head. "None, he must have taken it off before he was cut."
"That's ridiculous. Why would anyone take off their cloak when it was raining like it was last night?"
"We don't know. We're also trying to figure out what he was doing outside of the camp in the first place. I assume he didn't have your permission."
"Your quiet correct, but the guards don't know that. Who let him through?"
"No one has admitted to it."
Miktesh looked down at the ground in thought. "Have you considered that his cloak might have fallen off in his struggle with the assassin, and then have been planted outside camp?"
"We haven't ruled anything out yet. It's possible."
"All right, keep me informed. Anything else?"
"As a matter of fact there is. The stolen uniform was found discarded next to the body. But more importantly, Kile claims Jole left with a package of papers. He didn't tell what they were for, and Kile says he was to tired to ask. The package has not been found."
"You think someone killed him to get the papers?"
"Like I said, we haven't ruled anything out. However, based on the evidence we might do well to seriously consider the possibility that Jole was a traitor. He used his authority to get out of camp without orders, gave away a package of our plans to a contact person waiting for him, and then was killed by the enemy as a cover up."
"That sounds a little far-fetched, but certainly not impossible. In any case, I'd better draw up new plans just in case. Send Kile and Kirtten to may tent, and have them bring a new military advisor with them." Miktesh turned around, and walked toward his tent.


Miktesh looked out his tent once more. "Why isn't he here?"
Kile shifted uncomfortably. "I was quite clear to come hear at once. I don't know what's keeping him."
"Well it's to late now. The plans are already drawn up. If you see him, tell him to report to me at once. He's got a lot of explaining to do."
Kile nodded as he and Kirtten exited the tent. Miktesh sat down on the edge of his bed to go over the plans one more time. Feeling a little tired, he soon decided to review the plans lying down instead. Before long, Miktesh had fallen fast asleep.


"Sir?"
Miktesh turned over in his sleep.
"Sir?" The voice came again, slightly louder. Miktesh gradually became aware that he had fallen asleep. He slowly arose from his bed, his face showed that he had not yet fully awoken. He looked at the soldier obediently standing by the bed.
"Perez?" Miktesh' face suddenly became one of great surprise. "Perez it's you!"
"I'm afraid I-"
"Nonsense Perez, already forgotten. I always knew you'd come back to my side. I've certainly proved my responsibility, haven't I?"
"You don't understand, I'm not-"
"Where were you? You practically disappeared after we parted company two months ago. I thought for sure Polad had killed you." Miktesh opened the door to his tent. Light flooded in. As the face of the soldier became illuminated, it became apparent that he was not Perez. Miktesh stood by the door for a long time, stunned by his disappointment.
"I am sorry I'm not who you thought I was," said the soldier after sometime.
"Your eyes, there, there-"
"I am a Nathorite, like Perez." The soldier blinked his completely black eyes.
Miktesh studied the soldier closely. "You must be related to Perez. You look-"
"I assure you, the similarity is only because we are of the same race."
"No, no it has to be more then that. Your voice is too similar. Your dark black hair is exactly the same as Perez. You even wear it down to your shoulders like he does. Your face looks like a younger version of his. Even your height is about the same as his, one point eight meters. Are you his son?"
The soldier took a deep breath and sighed. "Very well, I shall tell you the truth. Perez was my father."
"All these years I've known him, and he never told me he had a son."
"If I know my father, he didn't tell you much about his past life at all."
Miktesh face conveyed his complete agreement. "Yes, yes that's absolutely right. Why is that?"
"It's very painful for him to talk about. His past, our past, has not been a pleasant one."
Miktesh nodded in sympathy. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."
The young Nathorite sat down. "It's okay. You might as well understand why I my father has acted the way he has toward me. Your undoubtably curious as to why I remain a lowly soldier, while my father was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom." Miktesh nodded.
"Sir, I don't know how familiar you are with Nathorite history, but to understand what happened, I need to take you back about five hundred years. Up until that point, Nathorites had been working rather well with the other races. They had assimilated totally with the humans, almost to the point of intermarriage. In fact, a number of our people did marry humans, or other beings similar to ourselves. Zadka changed all that. Convinced he had spoken to Deka, and that Deka had commanded him to kill all the Nathorites, he began his campaign. Unfortunately, too many humans agreed with him. Many kings agreed with him, and followed Zadka's agenda. Nathorites were rounded up and slaughtered. We tried to fight back, but we were too scattered and too different to organize."
"One nation wouldn't allow that," Miktesh interjected. "Calet fought to help the Nathorites."
"You are getting ahead of me sir, but yes, the empire of Calet fought against the nations, called the Zadka League. The king of Calet, Perez, demonstrated his moral integrity by refusing to allow this genocide. Calet was not as strong as it once was even then, but it was still able to defeat the Zadka League."
"Kiltur, a Nathorite, demanded that this never happen again. He warned there would not always be Perezes to protect them from Zadkas. He demanded that Nathorites be given there own country, where the people would talk the same language, have the same culture, and have an army to defend themselves against attack. It just so happened that Calet was at that time fighting the kingdom of Roch, to its North. Kiltur made a deal with Perez, the Nathorites would help him conquer Roch, but then they got the land. Perez agreed, and when the kingdom of Roch was defeated, it became the kingdom of Nathor, the first and only exclusively Nathorite nation in known history."
"Unfortunately, as is often the case with this sort of nation, the haste in which it was established showed in its weak economy, its weak government, and its weak law enforcement. Its military remained strong for quite some time, mostly because all the original colonists had been soldiers, but that to became weak in time. Nathor quickly slid into chaos, a land filled with cruel dictators, ambitious assassins, ruthless criminals, and pointless civil wars. Now about two hundred years have passed since I began my story."
Miktesh nodded, fascinated since he had never bothered to look into much history besides that of Calet. The soldier took a deep breath and continued. "Two hundred fifty years later, my father was born. Conditions had improved insignificantly, if at all, by that time. My father was born to Derkstra, through his consort. Derkstra, a minor official of one of many warring dictators, was convinced the man he was supporting would eventually gain control of all of Nathor. Derkstra was dead wrong. When someone else, a man named Quintel, conquered his opponents to obtain absolute rule, Derkstra was one of hundreds executed. My father would have been killed himself, had not Polt interceded for his life. Polt was Derkstra's brother, who had chosen his allegiance a little bit more wisely then his deceased relative. In fact, Polt had been one of Quintel's top men. Quintel granted my father his life, but little more. My father was made to work as a slave in Quintel's palace. His name was changed to Gorgach, an idiot from Nathorite literature. Today, no one living knows what his real name was, including my father himself, who was an infant when all this occurred."
"My father grew up with every one hating him. As a slave, he soon learned that he didn't get enough to eat unless he stole from other slaves. When he was little, other slaves would steal from him, and he would have to steal from the kitchen to survive. If he was caught, it would have been instant death, but fortunately he was not. When he grew older, however, he found he was one of the strongest slaves there. He caused many to starve to death by his stealing, and in general was a brute. His barbarism even went as far as to rape several of the female slaves, which is how I was conceived."
Miktesh, who had been looking at his hands, shocked by this new information on his old friend, noticed a long pause in the story. He looked up to see the reason, and saw that the soldier was crying. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said, in a soothing tone.
"No sir, you should know what happened if you want to understand my father."