Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 17:12:20 +0300 Reply-To: Marko Lidman Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Marko Lidman Subject: In The Dark I of VII Well, this is the first book in the continuous story about a young man called Francis Carrera. This first story consists of seven parts which are all already written, but I'm sending these one or two at a time to annoy you 8). Well, I only want to make the gap between this and the second story shorter as it is still under production. *All comments are welcome! If you find any spelling-errors, you are welcome to inform me about them, so I can make sure that the rest of the story parts don't contain the same mistakes. I'm sure the historical facts in this story aren't necessarily correct, but give me a break (just this time, not always!) 'cause I'm reading to some entrance examinations... Enough of this useless battering! (Who said that?! hint: HL II -the Sickening...). Let the story start! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IN THE DARK (c) by Marko Lidman PART I 1702, France, Anjou Cool morning wind blew in the streets of a little country town as the early raisers were putting up their shops for a busy day. It was the time of the harvest festival. Young man called Francis Carrera took of his dark green beret, thus letting the wind play with his long dark hair. Standing on a roof of a building near marketplace he bit into a cinnamon-bread, which he had 'acquired' just a few minutes before from a bakery below. He did not have to steal, but he felt that he needed some more exitement than his normal job offered. Francis had found his entertainment working in local theater, doing acrobatic trics. He finished eating the stolen bread and jumped agilely into a sidestreet below, holding his expensive rapier on his side so it would not hit on anything. The rapier was not his either. At least not in the sense that he had paid for it. No, he had found it in a possession of a rich merchant, who had been in the town to sell some expensive old swords to the local lordship. Apparently neither of them had missed the rapier, or cared about losing it. Francis had given up his studies with small sword, a little lighter version of rapier, and started practising with a true weapon. His agility and studies in acrobatics had helped him to become one of the best young fencers in the town. Lord Daumier, the local member of aristocracy was Francis's target today also; at some point the lord was bound to come to the markets and at that same point Carrera would be heading out to the expensive mansion the lord resided in. -------------------- Later in the evening Francis arrived to the mansion. It looked fantastic, which made Francis only more angry. He didn't like those people who gained their money by stealing it from the poor. 'Tonight, I'll see that the poor people get a little of thei money back,' Francis thought as he started his slow stalk towards the mansion. A few guards here and there did not really bother him and eventually he arrived at the main house. He tested the vines groving along the walls of the main building and took a firm grip of them climbing the short distance to nearest window, pushed it open and agilely rolled inside. The room was quite small, only a little bed on one corner and a variety of toys stashed in another. Francis surmised that this room belonged to one of the kids in the house, unfortunately the kid wasn't anywhere to be seen. Quickly he moved to the door and opened it a little. Again no-one was there and so Francis moved on trying not to give too much attention to all the riches around him; the main goal was still ahead of him. Lord Daumier's study would most assuredly hold quite a treasure. Silently he moved down the corridor to where he presumed lord Daumier's study would be. Slowly Francis neared one of the doors on the right side of the corridor slipped in. The room was a bedroom, but not lord Daumier's. Francis could hear someone breathing steadily in a bed surrounded with draperies. The room was not as richly decorated as the rest of the house and it made him very curious about who lived there. He sneaked nearer the bed and carefully moved part of the drapery aside, sleeper was a girl, the most beautiful girl Francis had ever seen or met. For a long time Francis just stood there watching, then he suddenly remembered why he was there and left the room silently. 'The girl must be Daumier's daughter, Dorine, She is truly a girl of any man's dreams,' Francis thought to himself as he continued his way to lord Daumier's study. Suddenly a child came around a corner ahead and stopped, staring at him wide-eyed. Francis tried to think something witty to say, but all he could come up with was: "Hi, kid. I am just looking for the cook. Do you know where he is?" The child did not answer. He just stood there staring. Francis turned around and started walking away from him, listening carefully what the boy would do. "GUARDS! Guards, there is a strange man here." 'Damn!' Carrera started running and almost bumped into two guards who suddenly came from a room in front of him. Francis turned around and saw two more guards coming from the other direction. Thinking quickly, Francis drew his rapier and turned back to the first two guards, who already had their weapons drawn. "Stop right there, brat. Don't try to do anything." "I'm sorry but I really cannot do that," Carrera shouted and lunged forward aiming at nearest guard's hand. Luck was with him and the guard yelped in pain. The other guard wasn't ready for such a desperate action and did nothing to parry Francis's next attack. Sword cut cleanly through guard's chest and he fell down coughing blood. Meantime, the first guard had regained his composure and made a low attack for Carrera's feet. Carrera was just drawing his blade out of dead guards' lungs and so he had no time to dodge. Guard's small sword found its target and Francis groaned as he felt a sharp pain in his right calf. Carrera never heard the other guards as they came behind him. Just when he was doing a yet another attack, he saw, rather than felt, a point of a rapier sticking out from his chest. Strangely enough, Francis didn't think about how horrible the death would be, but what it would do to his father when his only son was caught braking into aristocrat's mansion. That in mind he found the strength to burst through the guards and run away from them. Amazingly, he got out of the house without meeting any more guards, the ones coming behind him were enough already. Staggering and coughing blood he got to the vineyard then the darkness swept over him for the first time in that awful night. -------------------- Darkness cleared away. Francis opened his eyes and saw the blue sky. He turned his head side to side and saw that he was in a ditch somewhere. 'How the hell did I get here?' He asked himself, but could not find the answer. He sat up and inspected himself. Bloody shirt and sword, in fact two swords, the other one thrown aside a few feet away. It was the guard's sword, the one that had been piercing through him. Startled at his realisation, Francis ripped his shirt off and saw no sign of his wound other than a faint scar. 'What the hell has happened to me!' He rose up and looked around, vineyard spread around him and the mansion could be seen a mile away. Field was empty, people were still celebrating in the town. Suddenly Francis saw many men coming out from the mansion to the vineyard, weapons in their hands. Apparently they had waited till morning before conducting an organised search in the fields. Francis picked up his sword and started his journey back to the town. He was very confused about what had happened to him, but just now he could not stop and think things through. -------------------- "Milord, the men just got back from the fields," the house servant said to lord Daumier who was sitting behind his desk writing a letter to the sovereign, Ludwig XIV. "I'll be just outside to see the body." "Oui, milord" As the servant turned and got out of the room, lord Daumier got up and stretched his muscles. He hadn't slept all night and he felt really tired. When he had come home the last night and heard about the burglar he had straight away started to go through his things to see if anything was missing, but nothing was. The burglar had had no time to steal anything before the guards had caught him. The next thing to do would be to find out who the burglar was and throw his body to the town-folks as a warning. This kind of behaviour had to be rooted out as soon as possible. Daumier put on his swordbelt, which he never took off for long and walked to the door. Carnot, his first in command, was waiting just outside. "Well, Carnot, where's the body?" "Milord, I think you should see this." "What is it?" "We didn't find the body but the place where it had been." "Had been? What do you mean 'had been'?" Daumier started to sound a little inpatient. "Someone must have taken it away before we got there, our tracker is just there to find out more." "Good, let's go" Carnot and Daumier got to their horses and started the short ride to the field. "How the hell did he get this far? Didn't you tell me one of your men impaled him?" "Oui, milord. I don't really know any reason, I suppose he was just very strong or persistent. As you may see, he has bled quite badly at this point, collapsing once and a while." "It appears that he was heading to the town." "Oui, milord. Well, here we are, he collapsed into this ditch here and bled to death." Carnot dismounted and jumped in to the ditch. Daumier stayed in his saddle and looked curiously around the death-scene. "Excuse me, milord, commander. You left me here to try to track where the body got from here but I have found no other tracks than his own. No-one seems to have carried him away." Speaker was stout-built guard in his forties. "What do you mean? That guy cannot have just disappeared," Daumier said. "Milord, I know it is impossible, but I just cannot find any other tracks. Only one man got in and out from here." "How can you be so sure? Surely there has been much harvesting people here and ground is hard on those footpaths. Isn't it possible that someone came in here carefully, only stepping on hard ground and took the body away?" Daumier reasoned. "Milord, it cannot be. If someone came here and took the body, he should have stepped somewhere on this soft ground around and in the ditch and I really cannot find signs of anyone else being in here." As Daumier grew silent, Carnot rose from the ditch looking really sceptical. "What you are saying then is that this guy, who bled all this blood we see here, just got up and walked away?" "Eh... Well, commander. I'm just saying what I can see, I don't really like to draw any conclusions about all this. By the way, he didn't bleed any longer when he left here... May I go now, milord?" "Hmm? Go, go. I don't need you any longer." Daumier was furiously thinking and looking around the ground. "Carnot!" "Oui, milord?" "I want you to take those guards who saw this man and go to the town, maybe you can find him. And if you do, bring him to me alive. I'll be in my study." "Oui, milord." -------------------- * The secret of a warm heart is a fireplace | __ (just throw it in to the flames...) |/ \ Check out my WWW-page for a cool gif of a rapier O[&%&%&%<====>================================================- \_____/|\__/ Dedicated Amiga-user now and in the future | -Rapier (malidman@kauhajoki.fi) * (http://kauhajoki.fi/~malidman/) =========================================================================