Read Online Fortress of Lost Worlds by T. C. Rypel - Free Book Online
Authors: T. C. Rypel
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First Catalonian Lancers, flower of the territory’s defense, had gone to seed. No clopping of patrol hoofbeats; no morion-helmed sentry at the south guardpost; no morning assembly or drill.
Desolation. Dissipation. Lassitude.
He took another sip of rum, let its velvet warmth roll over his tongue and inner cheeks before swallowing.
Desolation. What in hell are we doing here?
Dissipation. What have we come to?
Lassitude. I must restore order and discipline. Must…must…
His eyes focused on the crumbling cross fixed to the roof of the empty chapel. He would go there today. Si, today would be the day— Jesus-Maria, let today be the day! He would go there and pray as he hadn’t since…when?
Anita’s voice called to him from inside.
Si, later. Later he would go to church, and there he would seek answers from his angry God.
“Hernando,” she called again, “come inside. Hace mucho frio.” She shivered and drew her robe tightly about her.
The captain of lancers raked his fingers through his white-fringed beard and shuffled inside. But he remained in the foyer, gazing vapidly through the portico windows.
“What were you doing out there?” the magistrate’s daughter asked. “I reached over to you, but you were gone. Now why would a man with your needs flee the arms of a woman with my…fullness?” She moved up behind him and began massaging his neck.
Salguero’s shoulders stiffened and flexed to feel the cloying warmth of her touch. He drew away in vague annoyance.
“Iglesia— the church,” he said, nodding. “I was thinking about going to church today.”
Anita laughed in the low, throaty manner he had always found so seductive before. She reclined on a parlor sofa, her twined legs bared to halfway up the thighs. Her dark, flowing hair spilled over the arm of the sofa with artless grace.
The captain tore his eyes from her languid command as an exercise in discipline but looked back again a moment later, not from lack of resistance to her charms but searchingly, trying earnestly to understand what she meant to him.
“The church is cold,” Anita said at last. “Ever since the warlock burst the windows. Colder than the mountain nights. It’s so much warmer in here, no?”
“Why hasn’t the town seen to its repair?”
“Why don’t you?” she parried. “You’re the military governor. Why doesn’t God , if He wants it used again?” She smiled placidly. “Why don’t you just forget the whole thing and come jump on my belly, mi amore?”
“Silencio, bitch!”
Salguero smashed his mug against the lintel of the archway, startling her so that she cried out.
“Are you loco?”
“Si, loco,” the captain snarled. “Why don’t you give me space for what’s left of my morality to breathe one guilty breath?”
She laughed and walked toward the center hall. “Ah—a poet, then. Morality’s last poet. Morality,” she repeated scornfully. “What do you suppose those friars who so fill you with fear are doing behind locked chamber doors?”
“Sacrilege!” Salguero roared. He stalked after her as if to strike her but was paralyzed by her calm withdrawal to the kitchen and larder area.
He pounded a fist into his palm as he bemoaned his fate. He was jaded and broken in spirit. The failed campaign against the warlock’s power had produced diabolic effects in his life that he would not have believed scant months before. His command decimated, degenerated into roistering rakehells; his days spent in debauchery; his sleep troubled by terrible nightmares of unimaginable death. The world was going to the Devil.
And worst of all, Salguero no longer cared. His world had ended when Port-Bou, his home garrison and his family’s adopted town, had been given over to the French. Bartered away over dinner, in the Lancers’ absence, by the fat architects of power. Even he had begun to believe that was true.
What was left? Who was left to believe in, save the God who had set him adrift?
The
Desolation. Dissipation. Lassitude.
He took another sip of rum, let its velvet warmth roll over his tongue and inner cheeks before swallowing.
Desolation. What in hell are we doing here?
Dissipation. What have we come to?
Lassitude. I must restore order and discipline. Must…must…
His eyes focused on the crumbling cross fixed to the roof of the empty chapel. He would go there today. Si, today would be the day— Jesus-Maria, let today be the day! He would go there and pray as he hadn’t since…when?
Anita’s voice called to him from inside.
Si, later. Later he would go to church, and there he would seek answers from his angry God.
“Hernando,” she called again, “come inside. Hace mucho frio.” She shivered and drew her robe tightly about her.
The captain of lancers raked his fingers through his white-fringed beard and shuffled inside. But he remained in the foyer, gazing vapidly through the portico windows.
“What were you doing out there?” the magistrate’s daughter asked. “I reached over to you, but you were gone. Now why would a man with your needs flee the arms of a woman with my…fullness?” She moved up behind him and began massaging his neck.
Salguero’s shoulders stiffened and flexed to feel the cloying warmth of her touch. He drew away in vague annoyance.
“Iglesia— the church,” he said, nodding. “I was thinking about going to church today.”
Anita laughed in the low, throaty manner he had always found so seductive before. She reclined on a parlor sofa, her twined legs bared to halfway up the thighs. Her dark, flowing hair spilled over the arm of the sofa with artless grace.
The captain tore his eyes from her languid command as an exercise in discipline but looked back again a moment later, not from lack of resistance to her charms but searchingly, trying earnestly to understand what she meant to him.
“The church is cold,” Anita said at last. “Ever since the warlock burst the windows. Colder than the mountain nights. It’s so much warmer in here, no?”
“Why hasn’t the town seen to its repair?”
“Why don’t you?” she parried. “You’re the military governor. Why doesn’t God , if He wants it used again?” She smiled placidly. “Why don’t you just forget the whole thing and come jump on my belly, mi amore?”
“Silencio, bitch!”
Salguero smashed his mug against the lintel of the archway, startling her so that she cried out.
“Are you loco?”
“Si, loco,” the captain snarled. “Why don’t you give me space for what’s left of my morality to breathe one guilty breath?”
She laughed and walked toward the center hall. “Ah—a poet, then. Morality’s last poet. Morality,” she repeated scornfully. “What do you suppose those friars who so fill you with fear are doing behind locked chamber doors?”
“Sacrilege!” Salguero roared. He stalked after her as if to strike her but was paralyzed by her calm withdrawal to the kitchen and larder area.
He pounded a fist into his palm as he bemoaned his fate. He was jaded and broken in spirit. The failed campaign against the warlock’s power had produced diabolic effects in his life that he would not have believed scant months before. His command decimated, degenerated into roistering rakehells; his days spent in debauchery; his sleep troubled by terrible nightmares of unimaginable death. The world was going to the Devil.
And worst of all, Salguero no longer cared. His world had ended when Port-Bou, his home garrison and his family’s adopted town, had been given over to the French. Bartered away over dinner, in the Lancers’ absence, by the fat architects of power. Even he had begun to believe that was true.
What was left? Who was left to believe in, save the God who had set him adrift?
The
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