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Chapter Three
“It’s not really a payment. It’s more like a partnership”
I glanced sharply at her. “What do you mean not really a payment? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have any money. All I can offer you is an opportunity.”
“An opportunity? What kind of opportunity?
“The kind that comes along once in a life time. The kind that will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Oh really? How’s that?”
“I have a map.”
“A map? A map of what? You have got to be kidding me.” I said throwing my stick in the fire.
“No. Really. It’s a map to a Ranekee treasure. My master gave it to me before he died.”
“Ranekee Treasure? I looked at her incredulously, “You mean I’ve brought you all this way out here for that? That’s just an old wife’s tale.”
“Is it?” she asked looking me straight in the eye.
I shrugged. “Everyone knows about that treasure and knows it’s just a myth to drive men crazy.”
“Have you ever seen a map of it before?”
“No.”
“Here– I’ll show you”. Getting up from the fire she walked over to her pile of belongings and pulled out a dark piece of parchment. “Here– Here it is. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
Taking it from her hands I could see course markings covering its ancient surface in the dim light. A low row of mountains could be plainly seen.
“That’s it. That’s what my master left me and that’s what the Turliks are after. That is the opportunity neither one of us has ever had or will ever have again. You say you hate to fight–if we could find the treasure– you would never have to fight again.”
“I don’t know.” I said holding the brittle parchment, a sense of great antiquity coming from it’s rough texture.  ”What if the map is a fake? What if we can’t find the treasure or it’s already gone? It’s a lot to risk just for a dream. How did your master come to have it and never try to find it?”
“That’s what we were doing when he died. We had come to Tunasia looking for help and met up with the group of Turliks chasing us. I think he knew some of them from before but he never really trusted them. All he would give them were vague directions. The only one he really trusted was me.” She said taking the map back and putting it in her pack. “I still don’t understand how he got sick. He was a great explorer and always in perfect health and very active.”
“Do you think those Turliks did something to him?”
“I never thought of that before. I know one of them was his friend but that one—Slavic, the leader. He didn’t like him much.”
“How did you come across the map?
“We found it with some clues from a book he discovered while searching an ancient Ranekee ruin a long time ago. He was quite the Ranekee scholar and knew all about them. That’s what he loved to do and made quite a good living finding and selling their relics. He was very excited when he found the map and said he had been searching for it his whole life.”
“I can’t believe you ended up with it.”
“He became sick quite suddenly. I know he had family back home but there was not enough time to send for them.” she said pacing by the fire. “Well—what do you think?”
“I don’t know”
“Why? What have you got to lose? The job in Kyzyl? I can tell you the Turliks believed him.”
“Hah.” I laughed. “It was just another mercenary job. How do you know the two of us can even pull this off?
“I don’t. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take. Look—if your not interested, take me back and I will find someone else who is.”
“I’ll tell you what. Let me sleep on it and I will give you an answer in the morning.”
*****
I awoke in the dim morning light to the sound of Parafague’s loud twittering. Looking over to where he was staked out, I could see him looking off in the distance in the direction from where the fires were last night. He let out another loud call.
“Damn it.” I said, seeing what he was staring at.
“What is it?” Lelee asked, wiping the sleep from her eyes from the furs I had rummaged from my pack for her bed. The morning light just now illuminating the campsite.
“The Turliks– they tricked us. Some of them traveled through the night to catch up with us.” Grabbing my shield and lance, and slinging the great axe behind my back, I headed for Parafague.
“Wait!” she called, fully awake now, running up to see what we were looking at. “You don’t have to go out there. There’s enough time to out run them.
“There’s no time for that.” Slipping his halter on, I jumped on his back and, having no trouble riding bareback, I raced off down the sand dune to meet them.
I could see that there were three of them charging at us, riding sogariths, and outfitted for battle with squat dome helmets, leather plate armor, and shields and swords. The closest one held a crossbow leveled in our direction and although he was too far away, bounced a bolt off Parafague’s feathery scales. A more direct hit, at closer range, instead of allowing the scales to flatten and form a tough armor, would have gone through. Knowing I had to do something before he reloaded his weapon, I went against everything I had ever been taught and flung my lance at him, which he blocked with a quick movement of his shield. Racing towards him at full speed I could see him re-cocking his weapon with a jerk of a simple lever. Raising Parafague’s reins while giving him a soft kick of my heals, he launched himself with a powerful burst of his hind legs straight at the crossbowman. Soaring on his small wings, his three feet wide span of talons reached out, snatching the crossbowman off his mount, the life twitching from him in the grasp of the rapterian.
One of his companions, or maybe it was his mount, the natural prey of a rapterian, turned and fled in the direction from which they had come.The other one pressed his mount forward and drew his sword. Parafague, barely losing stride after dropping his victim, raced to meet him. Launching himself again at my command, we sailed towards the rider who turned his mount to present sword and shield. While unable to sustain flight, Parafague’s wings enabled him to soar for quite a distance. Coming in over the head of the Turlik and his mount I leaned over, ignoring his sword, and holding the great ax one handed like the Turliks, with all the weight and speed of Parafague’s charge, I smashed through his shield, through his shoulder, through bone, blood and brain. Landing on the other side I turned to see his companion just a cloud of dust moving back up the trail.
“Are you crazy? I saw what you did.” Lelee gasped, running all the way from camp. “You could have been killed.”
“I’m all right. I was watching his sword the whole time. He was more worried about the ax.” Climbing off of his back I began to check him over, my limbs weak after the sudden rush of action. “I guess he’s never come up against a rapterian charge before.”
“Why? What are you supposed to do?”
“Duck.”
“Now what?” she asked, looking around at the carnage and Parafague eyeballing the riderless mounts.
“Go look for that treasure. If it’s important enough for them to die for, it’s importunate enough for us to try to find it.”