M y new patron clambered down the wagon, dark hair slicked back like wet otter fur, eyes roaming the stable yard in a measured sweep. He fixed on me briefly before continuing his survey, and it occurred to me, just as it had a hundred times since accepting the commission, that this would be unlike any other job I’d done.
Captain Braylar Killcoin beckoned me over as he spoke to a young soldier mounted on a horse. I hadn’t seen the captain since the initial interview several days ago, but where he’d looked neat and well put together then, he now looked worn and road-dusty.
As I walked toward the wagon, the young soldier nodded to the captain and rode my way. Despite having ample room to go elsewhere, he headed directly for me. I backed up against the barn, but he continued angling the beast in my direction, stopping only when its muscular shoulder was rippling in my face. I clutched my satchel, trying not to flinch as the hooves nearly crushed my feet and the youth’s scabbard jabbed me in the side. The soldier leaned down, face a battalion of freckles, tuft of sandy hair on his chin vaguely threatening, and said, “Bit of advice?”
I wasn’t sure if he was soliciting or offering. “I’m sorry?”
He cocked his head back towards the wagon. “About riding with the captain there.”
That still didn’t settle who was dispensing the advice, but I assumed he meant to, so I nodded, hoping to encourage him to move his animal.
He grinned, big and toothy. “Try not to get killed.” Then he flicked the reins and disappeared around the corner.
Yes, this would be a far cry from recording the tales of millers, merchants, and minor nobility. I approached Braylar as a woman led her horse around from behind the wagon, both of them short, stocky, and shaggy. She had the telltale coppery skin and inkblack hair of a Grass Dog, and wore trousers and tunic like a man. If I wondered what a nomad was doing in the company of a Syldoon commander, she wouldn’t have been faulted for wondering what a scribe was doing there as well. And no one would have been faulted for wondering what the Syldoon were doing in this region in the first place, with or without nomads or scribes. All very peculiar.
She regarded me as a seasoned drover might regard a cow. Determined not to be cowed, I looked her up and down as well, stopping when I saw that the fingers and thumb on her left hand had been amputated so only the final bits nearest the base remained. I hadn’t meant to stare, but certainly did, and she wiggled her nubs in my face like the death throes of a plump, brown beetle overturned on its back. I gulped and looked away.
The woman turned to the captain. “Skinny.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Skittish, too.”
“That, I noticed,” Captain Killcoin said. “No matter. You lack digits, he lacks fortitude, but neither absence will prove overly detrimental, Lloi. Make sure Vendurro is actually fetching Glesswik. I don’t want to find them drowning in a cask.”
I turned to watch her go and nearly bumped noses with the stable boy. He turned to Braylar. “Your man, inside? Told me to outfit that other wagon of yours, which I done. Waiting inside the barn. The wagon, that is. Can’t say where your man got to.” The boy craned his neck to look at the wagon behind Braylar. “Nice rig you got here. Why you want that other one?”
Braylar snapped his fingers to reclaim the boy’s attention. “Do you know horses, boy? Or were you hired solely for your shit-shoveling prowess?”
“None better.”
“With horses or shit?”
“The horses, I was meaning. Your man said to be ready when the captain rode up. What you a captain of, then? You’re no Hornman, that’s for certain, and the only sea around here is the big grassy one, so I’m guessing it’s no ship of no kind. Unless it’s a river skiff. But that’s a queer thing to call yourself captain of. Small like. Are you-?”
Braylar tossed a silver coin to the boy who plucked it out of the air. He flipped it over, looked closer at the markings, and whistled, having forgotten all about captaincy.
“There’s another to match it if you care for my horses half as well as you boast.”
The boy’s face scrunched up. “Honest?”
“Honest. But I expect the finest care. Do you have apples?” The boy nodded. “Salt lick?” Another quick nod. “Clover?”
He started to nod and stopped himself. “Think so. Have to check. Ought to.”
“Very good. Unharness these horses, and unsaddle those two at the rear. Mind, though, the bay in the black saddle. Her name is Scorn, and with good reason. She likes no one, myself included, so take care she doesn’t bite your face off. You find that clover, your chances improve dramatically. See to it they’re treated as if they belonged to your baron himself, and you’ll be rewarded.”
The boy looked at the coin again. “Seen the baron, once or twice, riding past in a big party. Never stopped, nor gave no coin. Bet he wouldn’t have done neither, even if he had stopped.” He looked back to Braylar. “I’ll treat them like the king’s, I will-like the king’s very own.” He said this with an earnestness bordering on alarming.
When Braylar clapped him on the shoulder, the boy jumped as if stung and then ran over to the wagon. Among the horses, he moved slowly again, touching one on the neck there, talking quietly to another there, seeming far more at ease in their company.
Lloi returned with two men following. I assumed the rider that bullied me into the barn was Vendurro. The other-Glesswik, by deduction-had a long face, splotchy and deeply pocked as if it had been set on fire and put out with a pickaxe. He said, “Welcome back, Cap. Starting to wonder if your she-dog there led you astray in the grasses.”
She replied, “You can be sure it was you I was leading by the nose, you would have been astrayed real good.”
The corner of Braylar’s mouth jumped as if caught doing something wrong, tugging small twin scars with it, and this twitch turned into a smile. Of sorts. “Move everything to the other wagon. And ensure our new… prize makes it to your room. Locked down tight. Don’t dawdle, and don’t draw attention to yourselves. Understood?”
Vendurro and Glesswik began to raise their right fists in unison, but Braylar waved them down, scowling. “Is that your idea of discretion, then? Have you been telling every lass you bedded that you’re the Syldoon scourge as well?”
Vendurro flushed around his freckles. “Sorry, Cap. Hard habit, that one.”
“See to the wagons, you sorry bastards. And give the horse boy no trouble, or I’ll hear of it.”
After fighting off the urge to salute again, they moved to the rear of the wagon. Captain Killcoin started towards the inn with Lloi on his heels, carrying a small trunk with a crossbow and quiver balanced on top, and I hurried to keep up.
The building was two stories, walls gray and in dire need of a new coat of whitewash. Otherwise, it seemed sturdy and in good repair-the thatched roof appeared to have been recently replaced, and the wattle and daub looked sound and well-patched.
The door to the inn was swung wide, propped open by a cask to let some air flow through. The floor was wooden, and while I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to how many feet had walked across it over the years, it was worn and faded, especially just in front of the bar. There were a few unlit iron lamps on the walls, and two wide windows with the shutters thrown open above an empty fireplace. Due to the windows and the open door, the room was exceptionally sunny and motes floated in the broad shafts of light. A dozen small, round tables were scattered around the inn, as well as two long tables, all surrounded by chairs, and only a small number of them were currently occupied.
I grew up in an inn like this, though that was on the road between Blackmoss and Everdal, not in the middle of a city. But they were largely interchangeable-sticky floors, the reek of stale ale, shabby furniture, sooty smoke stains on the walls and ceiling-and I felt the same rush of ugly emotions entering every single one of them.
We headed to the bar and Braylar hailed the innkeeper, an angular man whose one soft feature was a bulbous nose.
He walked over to us and Braylar said, “Is that your boy in the yard?”
The innkeeper immediately looked defensive. “Martiss. What of it? What’s he done now?”
“You’re to be complimented. He seems to have a way with horses. A rare thing.”
“I got nothing to do with it. Can’t stand the beasts myself. But he practically lives out there-better be good with the plaguing things.” He wiped his hands on his dirty apron. “Name’s Hobbins. Welcome to the Three Casks. You here for food? Drink? We got no more rooms, but there might be a space or three on the common floor if you got intent to stay.”
Lloi said, “Won’t be needing no new rooms. Arranged already. Bristly bastard, been here a few days, sure you seen him.”
Hobbins rolled his tongue across his lower teeth, bulging his lip out. “Built like a boar? Half as agreeable?” Lloi nodded. “Ayyup. I seen him.” He turned back to Braylar. “Told him I didn’t like renting rooms to them that weren’t there; liked to see who I got under my roof. But I thought he was about to draw that big cleaver of his, so I made an exception.” He glanced at Lloi, and despite noticing her blade and the crossbow, he said, “Can’t say I like making exceptions for the likes of her, though. Her kind makes the other patrons right uneasy.”
Lloi started to respond but Braylar cut her off. “She makes me uneasy as well. But never fear-she won’t sleep under this roof.”
If Hobbins was mollified, he didn’t show it. After looking like he was chewing on another comment, he finally said, “Guessing you’ll be needing food and drink, then.”
“Indeed. Do you by chance have a tub to wash away the dust from the road?”
“No tubs. Got no time to heat them. Small family, big inn. We got some barrels in the back, though, full of water. But don’t you be trying to climb in them. Got no time to be fixing broken barrels.”
“And soap?”
“Course we got soap. Like to scour your skin clean off, and no perfumery of no kind, but it’s soap, just the same. When you’re ready to eat, you’ll be needing to do it at one of them tables. No eating at the bar. I keep my bar clean as a priest’s bunghole.”
“Fastidious,” Braylar replied.
Hobbins either failed to recognize the word or the sarcasm, as he was nonplussed as he pulled a key from behind the bar and handed it to Braylar. “Room’s top of the stairs, last on the left. Just grab a table when you’re clean and settled and Syrie’ll be by, take your orders.”
“Very good. And those barrels, that I’ll be careful not to mistake for tubs?”
Hobbins pointed a bony finger. “Only one back. Opposite the front.”
We walked up the stairs and unlocked the room. It was hardly extravagant-two bowed beds, a table and bench-but when Braylar looked at Lloi, you would have thought we were bedding down in a leper colony. “No window? The second floor, and no window?”
She set the chest down and glanced around to be sure he hadn’t missed a small window hiding in a corner somewhere, then shrugged. “I was riding with you, you recollect, not renting out rooms. You got issue, take it up with that whoreson, Mulldoos.”
“As someone much misliked in these parts, you’d do well not to tweak the nose of the only one inclined to protect you.”
“I protect myself plenty fine. What’s more, if anyone’s doing any protecting around here, it’s-”
“Enough, Lloi.” His words were placid enough, but his expression stopped her short.
She looked at me, and then back to him. “Right. Less tweaking. You be needing me for anything else just now, Captain Noose?”
“Yes. I meant what I said. Keep a tight rein on your tongue tonight.”
She gave him a look that was impenetrable, at least to me, and said nothing.
“You’ve ridden with us for some time now. Too long not to have reached an understanding with him.”
“Oh, we understand each other real good. He wouldn’t mind seeing my guts on the floor, and I wouldn’t weep overmuch to see his. Real easy relationship we got.”
Sighing, Braylar grabbed another tunic out of the chest. “Make certain my horse hasn’t killed the boy.” Lloi headed out to the stables and we headed out to the barrels. When the door shut behind us, Braylar began unlacing his ankle boots and said, “Stop anyone who attempts to come out.”
I was unarmed and had a bookish quality that rarely stops anyone from doing anything, so I asked how exactly he expected me to accomplish that.
He replied, “Tell them your patron is particularly shy. And violent.”
So I stood near the door and watched as Braylar unbuckled his weapon belts; on the right hip, a very long dagger, and on the left, a steel buckler and his wicked-looking flail. I noted something odd about the weapon during our initial interview, but now I got a closer look. The two flail heads resembled monstrous visages, though stylized-each had a mouth clenched tight in fury or horrible pain, a nose of sorts, but above that, neither eyes nor ears. Where they should have been, there was simply a ring of spikes continuing around the crown of the head. The heads weren’t large, each about the size of a child’s fist, but I was sure they hit a great deal harder.
Though those visages were rarely seen anymore-they were outlawed, reviled, or largely forgotten, depending where you were from-it was clear the spiked heads represented the Deserter Gods. Which was strange. Not so much that a Syldoon would have a weapon with holy images designed to cause unease-causing discomfort presumably came naturally to them-but that one would have something with holy images on it at all. The Syldoon were rarely accused of being pious. It was said they’d pay to have twelve temples built without setting foot in a single one.
The captain unwound his scarf and it was immediately clear why he wanted a guard-the Syldonian black rope tattoo around his neck was on prominent display. When he pulled his tunic over his head, there was perhaps another reason for privacy as well. His torso was an overworked map of scars of all kinds, long and pale, short and puckered. Having already made the mistake of staring too long once today, I quickly looked back to the door.
Being only a chronicler, and never to rich patrons, I wasn’t accustomed to perfumed soap or copper tubs-it was usually the public baths for me, and often the end of the line to get in-but at least I’d never had to resort to a barrel. I wondered why a Syldonian captain opted to stay in such an establishment; surely, he could have afforded the finer stuff. If anything, they were known for being ostentatious and extravagant; even if he was clearly trying to hide his affiliations, he still could have roomed at a place with a proper tub, copper or not. It was curious.
As I watched the water blacken, I also wondered what he’d been doing in the days since our interview-he looked to have taken to the road, and ridden it hard-but opted to hold my tongue on that count as well. The captain didn’t seem the kind of man to tolerate intrusive questions. Or even nonintrusive ones for that matter.
When he finished scrubbing and rinsing, he dressed and led me back to the room. As we entered, I was surprised to see two people waiting for us. I assumed they were Syldoon as well, though they both had small hoods covering their necks and inked nooses around them.
One was standing, leaning against a support beam, his dark skin barely contrasting with the wood behind him. He was incredibly tall and not lean, and he looked over at me, his upper lip bare above a multi-braided beard that tumbled down his chest, and regarded me coolly for a moment. Then he tilted his head and gave me a long, slow nod that, if not openly warm or welcoming, was at the very least cordial. I’m not sure, but a small smile seemed to be playing on his lips. Compared to the other two men clothed in muted, earthy colors and modest cut, his outfit was nearly outlandish. His trousers, striped black and white, wouldn’t have drawn undue attention on their own, but they fed into leather riding boots folded over above his knees that were almost impossibly red. His hood, bright red as well, was noteworthy for the elaborate dags like broken teeth all along its edge, and the extreme length of the tail that was looped through his belt behind him. The flanged mace hanging on his hip was also overly ornate for something designed to bludgeon someone to death.
The other man was seated and equally well-armed-a trait common to all Syldoon, no doubt, even when battle doesn’t seem imminent-with a nasty-looking falchion on his hip. He apparently had been speaking, and acknowledged my interruption with an expression normally reserved for hated enemies or piles of manure. He had close-cropped hair, so blonde it was nearly white, pale skin, and judging by his frame-wide and thick with muscle-I assumed he was Mulldoos. Everything about him looked hard, except for thin eyebrows that would’ve been more at home on a petite woman. He turned to Braylar and said something in a tongue I didn’t understand.
Braylar replied, “In Anjurian, if you would. No need to be rude.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked me over again, then he said to his comrade, “What do you figure? Longer or shorter? I’m going with shorter.”
The other man saw my puzzled expression and laughed. “I wager this one outdistances them by a fair amount. I have a good feeling.”
Braylar looked at me and said, “You might have deduced as much already, but these are my two lieutenants. The pale boar is Mulldoos Smallwash. He doesn’t believe we have need of a chronicler, but-”
Mulldoos broke in, “The Emperor mandates we need one, we need one. Thing I object to is the choice. I still say we could use a Syldoon. Retired, injured maybe-”
Braylar ignored the interruption. “You might try to win him over, but do so at your peril. The tall laconic one is Vatinios of Stoneoak, called Hewspear. You have an equal chance to earn his affection or contempt. Hewspear handles logistics. Which, admittedly, has proven an easier task since our company has been winnowed down to handle more… subtle affairs. And Mulldoos maintains the discipline and readiness of our small band. Both advise me on matters of strategy.”
Mulldoos said, “Which you promptly ignore.”
“The perks of being captain. And as you two have obviously surmised, this is our new resident scribe, Arkamondos.”
Hewspear nodded. Mulldoos didn’t. I took a seat on a bench and Braylar addressed his lieutenants. “Are we ready to move, then?”
Mulldoos leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Sounds logistical to me.”
Hewspear said, “We’ve only been awaiting your arrival, Captain. Did you…” He paused, eyes flicking to me for the briefest instant before returning to Braylar, “accomplish all you hoped to on your journey?”
“I did, indeed. Vendurro and Glesswik are securing our new cargo. See to it they do a good job.” He gave Mulldoos a pointed look. “That encompasses logistics and discipline. We’ll be down shortly.”
Mulldoos stood, rolled his head around on his monstrous neck, and Hewspear followed him out.
Braylar sat on the bed, wood groaning as the ropes under the mattress were pulled tight. I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so sat waiting. He folded his arms behind his head and looked over at me. “You have your quills and parchment, yes?”
I nodded and he said, freighted heavy with irony, “I’m not certain I should like you, Arkamondos-you’re too impertinent by half-but I can’t seem to help myself. Still, we should reestablish something here. I didn’t solicit you because you’re the most sublime scribe, and I didn’t hire you because you’re the most lyrical; the bargain was struck because you reputedly miss nothing. It’s said you’re perceptive and quick. I want you to get it all, and you claim you can do this thing. So… miss nothing. Record everything. No matter how contrary or nonsensical it might seem to you at the time. Digressions, tangents, observations. All of it. But you aren’t to pollute it with poetry. This is our bargain. This is our understanding. You’ve been hired to record everything. So get out your pens and ink and record what you will of our meeting today.”
He closed his eyes and fell asleep faster than I believed possible, even before I had even gathered my writing supplies. And some time later, when my quill finished scratching across the page, linking and inking my brief account together, his eyes opened back up and he immediately sat upright. “Very good. And with that, Arki, my young scribe, we should quit and fill our bellies with the local fare, such as it is. Tomorrow, we continue on the road.”
I looked at him, probably blinked stupidly a few times, and then asked, “The road?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Leave. Trek. Depart. Journey rather than sojourney. Tomorrow after breaking fast.”
“But… but you didn’t say anything about this. Our contract-”
“You’re right. I didn’t. I also disclosed no information about where our interviews would be conducted. You assumed, I assume, they’d take place in Rivermost. How unfortunate. But if you’ve been misled, you’re at least partially to blame for not asking more astute questions. You’re wifeless and childless, yes? With few friends, I imagine.”
Harsh, but I didn’t protest as he continued, “Whatever it is you think you leave behind, consider what you stand to gain: while you’ll be paid well enough for your services, I can give you something much grander than coin. Fame. Fame for having been the archivist of an amazing tale. I could’ve chosen any scribe to record this, but I chose you. Among many. And you’ll have the rarest of opportunities to record something exceptional firsthand. For now, I’ll tell you this much. All empires crumble. All borders change. All kingdoms die. Where I’m taking you, you’ll witness the death of a body politic, the expiration of a way of life, the redrawing of a map. Something singular and priceless. So put away your bleak looks and let’s eat some of Hobbins’ slop. My belly grumbles.”
The captain had chosen well, even if his tone and phrasing were on the hurtful side. Whatever reticence I had about leaving Rivermost, he was spot on-I had no family, or none that had claimed me as such for years, and no friendships of any lasting duration. The promise of being part of something larger than my life-which, admittedly, up to this point hadn’t exactly been consequential or noteworthy-was exciting, even if my involvement was restricted to observing and recording. At least it would presumably be something worth setting to parchment for once. And there was no denying the draw to that. If I had to scribble down another ledger report or the history of one more self-satisfied grain merchant, I might jab a quill in my eye.
Captain Killcoin started towards the door. This discussion was clearly at an end, so I stowed my supplies and started after him.
I was in a daze as I followed my new patron down the stairs. I’d been in Rivermost for some time, and I fully expected that if I ever left, it would be because I’d run out of work, not because I was accompanying a Syldoon commander on a mysterious assignment. After all, no one accompanied them anywhere on purpose if they could help it. And yet there I was, trailing behind one. He had his scarf tight around the tattoo again-clearly, he was cloaking his origins. But part of me wanted to yell to everyone in the inn, “I’m traveling with the Syldoon!”
I’d been around soldiers on a few occasions, on rare instances as a boy at the Noisy Jackal when I was actually allowed in the common room, and occasionally in my travels since, but I’d never had cause to really share their company-violence always seemed to be both the question and the answer with their kind, which made me decidedly nervous. And given that my nerves were delicate enough as it was, I avoided them whenever possible.
What’s more, the Syldoon were no ordinary soldiers. The prospect of spending a long period of time working with this man and his company was equally exciting and discomfiting. Exciting, because it was a unique opportunity-even if he wasn’t especially forthcoming about the particulars, it was clear we would be on a venture of some import. And what better way to establish myself as a chronicler worth following than by following a patron who intended great things?
Discomfiting, because he was a Syldoon, after all. While I wasn’t a native Anjurian and didn’t have any direct experience with the Syldoon, the tales of their atrocities and treachery were well known. I suspected they were exaggerated, as these things usually are, growing more horrifying with each retelling. But there must have been some truth there, too. And even a little of it was enough to cause pause. A lot of pause, really.
My mother always said that Syldoon were best to be avoided, and if that failed, placated. Of course, despite serving at the Jackal on one of the busiest highways in Vulmyria, she never traveled farther than five miles from the hovel she was born in, so it’s unlikely she had first- or even secondhand knowledge of their kind. And no one would have accused her of being brilliant, even on the handful of things she had experience with.
Still, while her wisdom had been suspect about most things, the Syldoon were regarded by practically everyone with fear, hatred, or at least hot suspicion. Even if she only parroted what she heard, my mother probably stumbled onto the truth with that single warning. But here I was, the newest member of a Syldoon retinue, willing rather than conscripted. It was difficult to believe.
I almost wished she could have seen me now.
While chronicling the staid sagas of grain merchants and overstuffed burghers was undeniably tedious, it was at least safe. There was next to no chance of any physical danger to myself. But that was also the problem-it was so incredibly… safe. The “death of a body politic” might have been something best recorded from far away or well after the fact. In fact, I was certain of it. But the chance to witness something of real historical significance unfolding before me, to attach my name as scribe, to perhaps achieve some measure of fame because of it… there was no denying the draw-it was loaded with intoxicating possibility.
Most chroniclers led the life I had-penning away the vastly uninteresting details of men, or occasionally women, of no lasting significance. Tales flat and turgid, dusty and without meaning except to close family or sycophantic friends. Maybe not even them. At least with those from the middle or lower castes. And even those archivists with noble benefactors often secretly complained that nothing really ever happened.
But now, for reasons I didn’t really understand, I’d secured the patronage of a Syldoon commander. And not one in his dotage relating glories from days gone, but one promising adventure, action, consequence. Perhaps it wasn’t wise of me to accept so quickly. Perhaps I should have deliberated, weighed the draw against the potential drawbacks more carefully, judiciously…
But reservations or not, the choice was made. If it proved too dangerous down the road, I would simply extricate myself from the arrangement. I wasn’t doing anything that couldn’t be undone. I hoped.
Though the inn was crowded with the expected miners, masons, river sailors, and the most meager fieflords, it wasn’t especially large, so even in the low light of oil lamps, spotting Mulldoos and Hewspear wasn’t difficult. They were at a long table next to the empty fireplace, along with Vendurro and Glesswik. I didn’t expect Lloi to join us, but she was there as well.
As we walked towards them, Braylar’s flail rattled and clinked at his side, and more than one patron looked up to see the source of the noise, though most returned to their conversations quickly enough, it being too dark to make out the Deserters on the end of the chains. The one exception was the table of Hornmen we passed. Another weapon in the room always earned more than a cursory glance from them, no matter what the weapon looked like. Especially when the owner was heading towards a table where every occupant was armed. Mulldoos a falchion, Hewspear a flanged mace, Vendurro and Glesswik swords, and Lloi a sword as well, though curved and shorter, in the fashion of the Grass Dogs. And each member of Braylar’s retinue also had a mug in hand. Ale and armament. Yes, soldiers did make me nervous.
Braylar took a seat alongside Hewspear, and while there was an opening near Mulldoos, I thought it prudent to choose one between Vendurro and Lloi. As Hobbins promised, Syrie was there almost immediately. She dropped off four mugs of ale with the Hornmen and made her way to us. It was obvious she was her father’s daughter. She had the same height and angles, with just enough womanly cushion to pad the straight lines. Her arms were bare, shoulders rounded with small muscles from a lifetime of carrying trays. Luckily, her nose must have come from her mother.
She set her tray down on the table and tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. “You two look thirsty enough, am I right? What can I get you?” She smiled, and while she wasn’t the kind of girl to immediately excite the loins, I could see someone forgetting she was forgettable, especially if she kept smiling like that. I wondered if my mother had ever had a smile that did the same; if so, she never used it on me.
Braylar said, “We are thirsty indeed, lass. What would you suggest?”
“Going to a different inn. But seeing as you’re here, I’d say the ruddy ale. It’s no good, but better than anything else the Canker brews.”
I asked, “Who is the Canker?”
She tilted her head back toward her father. “Called on account of his cheery disposition. So, two ruddy ales then?”
Braylar nodded. I nearly asked if they had any casks of wine, but I doubted someone lovingly called Canker knew how to discern good grapes from bad. I inquired after cider, which elicited a laugh from Mulldoos, but Syrie’s smile never wavered. “It’s as thick as oil, and half as tasty, but it’s there if you’ll have it.”
I opted for the ale.
Braylar asked, “Is the fare as fine as the drink? If so, I don’t think we could miss an opportunity to sample some.”
“The Canker cooks as well as he brews, true enough. But tonight my brother’s in back, and he’s a fair hand. We’re serving some capon brewet or civet of hare. The ale compliments neither, so you can’t go wrong.”
“Then some of both, yes?”
“Both it is. Back soon enough.” She headed into the kitchen, skirts swishing.
Mulldoos bit off the corner of his thumbnail and spit it onto the floor, glaring at me the whole time. “Bad enough we got to deal with your dog at the table, but now your scribbler, too? Almost enough to put me off my drink.”
Hewspear laughed. “The largest army assembled would fail in the attempt. I doubt very much a crippled girl and a reedy scribe are up to the task.”
Lloi leaned over to me. “Don’t take no offense, bookmaster. The boar’s got no love for man nor beast, so you’re in fulsome company.”
I wasn’t sure if she intended Mulldoos to hear, but he clearly did. “Your savage folk should have cut the tongue in place of the fingers, done us all a favor.”
Lloi was about to respond when Braylar held his hand up. Syrie arrived with our mugs and set them on the table. “You’re free to spend your money as you please, but if you’ll be drinking for long, I’d recommend the pitchers. Cheaper on the whole. The Canker would just as soon I served empty mugs and charged twice as much, but that won’t stop me from speaking my piece.”
Braylar replied, “Honesty, integrity, and beauty, all in one girl.”
The prettying smile again. “You repay my truth with lies, but I can’t fault you for the exchange.” She winked and moved off to another table.
After taking another swig, Braylar wrinkled his nose. “It might actually be worth paying twice as much for an empty mug.”
I took a drink, and the ale was like bitter silt. Ruddy indeed. But that didn’t stop Vendurro-he tipped his mug up as if it contained the finest elixir on earth, then elbowed me in the ribs. “Guessing you never had cause to ride with the likes of us before, huh?”
I nodded and he said, “The bloodletting, well, that will tweak your dreams some, until you stop noticing. And the cursing and farting, no shortage of that, and that’s no kind of pleasant to deal with. But the hardest thing to get used to is ale that tastes like it came straight from a donkey’s cock. But that’s soldier swill, son. So best get accustomed.” He wiped some foam off his lip and said, “Guessing, too, you haven’t seen Cap put that nasty flail of his to good use yet then either?”
Hewspear flashed him a look brimming with warning and wrath, but Mulldoos went one better. “Best shut your hole right quick. Son.”
Vendurro held his hands up, supplicant. “Easy, easy. I wasn’t going to go on about the… unnatural bit. Just talking about the captain and his flail spinning bloody circles around someone, is all. That’s all I was getting at. No need to go hostile.” He looked at Glesswik. “Remember Vortnall, Gless? Remember that?” He rapped on the table. “That was some kind of something, eh?”
“Graymoor.”
“What?”
“Wasn’t Vortnall at all, but Graymoor.”
Vendurro was drunkenly dubious. “You sure?”
“Graymoor.”
“Huh. Could have sworn it was Vortnall.” He elbowed me again. “We were at a tavern-good one, too, with some of the plumpest barmaids you ever seen-and the captain there, well, he took to his drink like a man dying of thirst. Drank his share and mine and yours and more besides. Our rooms were all at an inn, other quarter of the city.” Vendurro stopped, looked at Glesswik. “You sure it was Graymoor? Vortnall had those really narrow streets, and I seem to recall-”
Glesswik hit him on the arm and almost sent him off the bench. “Tell the bloody story.”
“Whoreson.” Vendurro steadied himself and laughed. “So, we all left to go back to the inn, all save the captain. Mulldoos and Hewspear, the rest too, they were already there, bunking down. Mulldoos here, he sees me come into the inn, charges up to me, saying, ‘Where’s the captain?’ I say, ‘Drinking, I’m thinking.’ Mulldoos, getting real angry like he does, says, ‘You left the captain alone? Drinking? Go fetch him.’ I protest that the good captain wasn’t one to be fetched by the likes of me, nor no man, when it came to it. But Mulldoos spins me around by the shoulders and kicks my backside, saying, ‘Go fetch him or spend the next tenday digging latrines.’ Now, seeing as how we were in a city, I almost asked if he got permission from the mayor for those new latrines, but I kept that to myself.”
Glesswik burped and added, “Good thing, too. You’d still be digging them.”
“True enough. So off I went. But I wasn’t about to go fetch the captain by my lonesome, so I pull Glesswik with me. It was late then, after curfew, and the streets were mostly deserted. Watch should have been out patrolling, but if they were, we saw no sign. We round a corner, getting near the tavern, and not too far ahead of us, we see four street toughs barring the captain’s way. Now, not sure how it is where you’re from, but in Graymoor and most cities like them in these parts, the street toughs like to arm themselves with lash balls. Long piece of leather, one end looped around the wrist, the other tied to a weight of some sort. Sometimes iron in the shape of an egg, sometimes a small bag full of lead pellets, sometimes a little stone wheel, like a tiny millstone. Quick, quiet, easy to hide, and more than capable of cracking a bone or three. Handy in a street fight, not handy for much else.
“Now, these toughs, they drop their lash balls, practically in unison, like they been practicing the move for effect half their years, thinking they got themselves an easy mark, lone man staggering. The captain, though, he starts to laughing, looking at the weights and the leather lashes, laughing like they popped daisies out of their sleeves. Hand on his knee to steady himself, he’s laughing so hard. Then he straightens and says something we can’t hear. Gless and me, we start sprinting, but before we even make it halfway there to help, the captain rips that wicked flail off his belt. Flips the handle up with one hand, snatches it out of the air with the other. Most nights, he does that smoother than silk, but that night, he caught it on the belt hook some.
“But the closest tough, he hadn’t been expecting much in the way of resistance, he’s slow to react. He whips his own weight around on the end of his lash, but the captain’s already slipping left, takes the weight a glancing blow on the temple. Then he whips his flail around, taking off the top half of the tough’s head. Another tough moves in, lash ball coming down, but the captain steps into the blow, catches the leather with his free forearm, ball spinning around, and the captain’s flail is on the move again, coming down hard. Snaps the tough’s collar bone like an old broomstick. Drops him like a stone. But the lash was still wound around the tough’s wrist, pulled the captain off balance some before he wrenched if off the tough’s arm. The other two, if there was any time to bludgeon the captain bloody, that was it. But they seen enough. Both tear off into the dark, lash balls trailing behind them like tails, not looking so tough after all.
“Now Gless and me reach the captain. The boy he broke is sitting in the dirt, cradling his busted shoulder, spit bubbling on his lips, saying please over and over like it might do some good, eyes full of the wide fear of one about to be murdered. The captain is staring down at him, flail in one hand, a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite read. Gless asks if he wants us to kill this one, or give chase to the others, clearly expecting to hear yes to one or the other, maybe both. The captain ponders for a moment, then says, ‘No. Let them run. Let them run.’” Vendurro did a fair imitation of Braylar. “‘And as for this one…’ he leans over, the wicked heads of his flail dangling just in front of the not-so-tough, who closes his eyes and sets to mumbling some prayer or other. Then the captain tosses the lash ball into his face; he cries out as if struck a mortal blow.
“When he finally opens his eyes, the captain is already striding toward the inn, Gless moving fast to keep pace. I look down at the dumb prick, can’t resist saying, ‘You got more luck than any low bastard deserves. It was me you tried thieving, you’d be as dead as dirt.’
“I catch up, Gless and me flanking Cap, looking into the shadows for anything else that might want to tussle, but it’s quiet. Halfway to the inn, Gless asks the captain what he said to the toughs, just before pulling his flail, and I admit curiosity got me to wondering too. Cap was wiping the blood off the cut on his temple, stops and looks at Gless like he’s daft, then says, remembering-well, why don’t I let the captain here tell it?”
Glesswik rolled his eyes. “Awfully big of you.”
“Remember what you said, Cap?”
Braylar swallowed before replying, “I told them I’d never seen such tiny flails before.”
“That’s right. Just like that!”
The whole table laughed, and after the merriment died down, Glesswik looked at the captain. “I never did understand why you let that one live. The one on the ground, that is. Seemed… out of character, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Uncharitable, Sergeant Glesswik. Most uncharitable.”
“Oh, I mean no offense, Captain. None at all. Fact being, it’s actually a compliment of sorts. You’re the hardest plaguer I ever met. Not so much nasty as just… hard, like I said. Half the reason we follow you, I’m thinking. Anyone in this company would die twice for you, if they could, because they know that if anyone crosses us, that’ll be the last thing they do, maybe their whole family, too.”
Hewspear ran a finger around the rim of his mug. “I believe what the good sergeant is getting at is that it isn’t your affable demeanor or endless ribaldry that endear you to the men, but your absence of mercy for those who oppose you.”
Mulldoos laugh-snorted. “Ribaldry, he says.”
“My apologies, Mulldoos. I’d forgotten your intolerance for weighty words.”
“Only intolerance I have is for windmills like yourself.”
“A windmill doesn’t spin simply to hear itself spin. It performs a service.”
Mulldoos said, “Then I stand corrected. You and the windmill got nothing in common.”
While Lloi remained generally quiet, the Syldoon continued telling tales, often punctuated by a curse or a shove or some expectorating. I looked over at the Hornmen a few tables a way, and their behavior wasn’t much different, and might actually have been worse. These exchanges must be what passes for friendship among the soldiering kind, at least when primed with ale.
One Hornman in particular seemed to have upended more cups than the others. His speech was slurred around the edges, and his cheeks and nose looked almost painted red. Earlier, I noticed that he nearly came to blows with one of his own. Now, returning from relieving himself, he brushed shoulders with a man heading in the opposite direction. This seemed inconsequential enough, but the Hornmen grabbed the other patron by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall.
Another Hornman jumped up and pulled his comrade off, though it took some prolonged and intense encouragement to persuade him to return to the table.
The scene nearly convinced me to wait, but my bladder couldn’t have been more full, so I planned as circuitous a route as possible around the Hornmen table and made my way outside. After returning a short time later much relieved (again skirting the Hornmen table with due care), I discovered the Syldoon in the middle of another… lively discussion.
Drawing on a disquieting wealth of experience with death and dying, they were arguing the worst way to go. Vendurro volunteered drowning, especially under ice. Mulldoos countered that burning trumped it, and described a corpse he’d seen with blackened skin broken open in fissures, revealing the pink flesh beneath, like a hog that had been roasting too long. Lovely. Glesswik described a man he’d seen pressed to death in a public square, the administrators turning the screws of the device extra slow, screams carrying on for half a day before the end.
After a pause, as everyone at the table was imaging that awful ending, Vendurro said, “Oh, that’s rough. To be certain. But seems like we ought to be excluding torture and the like. Not really in the spirit.”
“In the spirit? Gods be drunk! What are you going on about? Why should we exclude them?”
Vendurro looked up from his mug. “Those are designed to cause damage. Usually slow. Got no other end.”
“And weapons do?” Glesswik asked. “No, the captain mentioned dying slow from a spear in the gut, you didn’t say nothing about that. You whoreseon-you’re just bitter yours wasn’t worse, is all. You’re a bitter little bastard, you are.”
“Battle wounds is something different,” Vendurro maintained.
“How? You tell me how, I’ll buy your next drink.”
Vendurro thought for a moment before responding, “Torture, the dying bastard’s got no say, no chance. Can’t defend hisself at all. No hope. Any battle, a man’s got some say in the finality of the thing. And if he doesn’t, gets struck when he’s looking the wrong way, well, he knew that was something possible when he set to marching. But torture, it’s not, that is, I can’t rightly say, it’s just…”
Glesswik smiled broad, victorious. “Nope. No drink for you. We said death. Worst death. Nothing at all about cause.”
Hewspear had remained silent through this exchange, but he leaned forward and said, “You lads are thinking small. While those are without question poor ways to die, they’re too brief by half to be truly considered.”
Mulldoos shook his head. “Here we go. This ought to be good. Go on, go on, can’t wait.”
Hewspear ignored him and continued, “You’re sons of the plague-every one of you has seen its ravages. But the last plague was nothing compared to the one that preceded it. I’m guessing not a one of you is old enough to remember that one. When I was a boy, half my village buried the other. Elders and babes were taken in equal measure, and all those in between too. Oh, make no mistake, I’m confident that burning and pressing are painful. Intensely. But they don’t last for days or weeks. My father and I outlived my brother and mother. My brother was young, so he didn’t last as long as most in the village. Fevers, boils that rupture, phlegmatic poisons spilling from the wounds. Vomiting. Coughing fits, so long and hard that blood vessels burst in his throat, to give the watery bile a bit of color. His whole body itching, as if he’d rolled in nettles or rashleaf-we had to bind his arms, so he didn’t tear at his flesh, which was already a mess of pus and blood. This went on for eight days, each worst than the last. My mother lasted twice as long. There are countless awful ways to go. But I would take any of them over a bad plague. Truth be good, I won’t see another in my lifetime. You young pups won’t be so lucky.”
Our table sat silent while conversation hummed all around us, large and drunken. Finally, Glesswik muttered, “Leave it to Lieutenant Drizzlethorn over there to take the fun out of death.” He seemed genuinely disappointed that the macabre topic was at an end.
Mulldoos banged his mug on the table. “All you whoresons have the wrong of it, even old venerable father plague, there. Worst death? Seems you all are forgetting about that skeezy bastard, Rokliss.”
It took a moment for everyone to react, but when it happened, there was a raucous explosion of laughter. Vendurro slapped the table. “Oh, Rokliss. Now there was a twisted son of a whore. Oh, gods, I’d forgotten about him.”
The laughter rolled on, all save Lloi, who looked at the Syldoon soldiery around her like a mother ready to scold impertinent children. Clearly, everyone knew the tale but me.
Vendurro didn’t wait for me to ask. “Rokliss was in our company. Good soldier. Better than Glesswik, not so fine as me.” Glesswik shoved him and Vendurro nearly toppled off the bench, laughed, and continued. “Patron of the arts, he was. Real somber. Pious as a priest most days. But he had a thing for whores. Nothing peculiar there-soldiers have appetites, most have dipped their wicks in a whore a time or ten. Even them that’s married.”
Glesswik added, “Especially them that’s married.”
“So, no judgment on whoring. But the thing of it was, Rokliss had a peculiar hunger. Liked his whores big. We’re not talking a little extra stuffing or padding, neither, but busting the seams big. The fatter the better. Plenty of ugly whores in the world, but not many big enough to satisfy the appetite of Rokliss. So when he found one he had a preference for, he became a right regular.”
Mulldoos raised his mug in mock solemnity. “Andurva.”
The others hoisted their mugs as well. Vendurro said, “We ribbed him something fierce, but Rokliss never minded. Seemed to take a queer pride in his amorosity. We asked him why he didn’t rent a grain cart and pull her along behind us on campaigns, but old Rokliss, he said that he might have been a deviant, but he had limits. He’d only visit Andurva when we was stationed close. And so he did. But besides loving his swollen whores, he also loved his strong wine. Big appetites, Rokliss had, but bad combination.”
The laughter carried around the table again, and Vendurro let it run its course, a huge smile on his face. With a true storyteller’s patience, he waited for it to quiet enough for him to go on. “Well, one night, Rokliss didn’t come back to the barracks. And that just wasn’t like him at all. Like I said, real proper soldier. So we set off to track him. Checked a few taverns on the way to be sure, but we pretty much knew where we’d find him holed up. Case you hadn’t guessed, Andurva’s room at the Golden Griffin. Thing of it was, we had no idea at all how we’d find him.”
More snorts and chuckles. Vendurro rapped his knuckles on the table three times. “Whoremaster knocked on Andurva’s door. No answer. So he apologized to us, over and over as he sought the key, getting more agitated by the second. Finally finding it, he let us in. And there they were. Andurva slumped over him like a pale mountain, her hands wrapped around his ankles, snoring as loud as three men. And underneath was poor Rokliss. Head buried under her massive thighs, most of him hidden under the avalanche, except for his skinny legs. For his own sake, I’m hoping Rokliss went black first. Or at least at the same time. However it played out, passing out while licking the nether regions of the fattest whore you ever laid eyes on is a mighty bad thing to do. His last breath had to be the worst ever drawn.”
The table exploded again, and even Lloi couldn’t stifle a laugh. When the chance presented itself, I asked what became of Andurva.
Glesswik replied, “The captain’s generosity, that’s what.”
I feared the worst, but Hewspear added, eyes twinkling, “The whoremaster was horrified that one of his girls had taken the life of a Syldoon, however inadvertent. He summoned the bailiff, and was intent on having her hanged.”
“Would have taken a ballista rope,” Mulldoos said. “And that might have broke.”
“True enough. Vendurro sent another soldier back to summon the captain, Mulldoos, and me, and we arrived just a few moments after the bailiff. The flummoxed whoremaster was screaming at Andurva, who, as you might imagine, was weeping, now that she’d been sufficiently roused to discover she was being charged with the murder of her finest patron. But, upon hearing the story, and the condition the pair had been found in, it was clear Rokliss had obviously brought this upon himself. Captain Killcoin assured the whoremaster that Andurva’s life wasn’t required to satisfy us, and would in fact displease us greatly if he insisted. The whoremaster argued she shouldn’t have been so drunk, and accident or no, the death of a Syldoon was on her hands.”
Vendurro amended, “Thighs.”
“Indeed.” Hewspear continued, “We convinced the whoremaster that we wouldn’t hold her nor himself responsible. Once his fear and anger were assuaged, he calmed, but still discharged the poor girl immediately and told her to quit the city. Which she did. The captain paid for her passage by cart to the next closest city, advising her to sleep more lightly.”
“Must have been a big cart,” Glesswik said, “pulled by a lot of oxen.”
Mulldoos raised his mug again and lead the toast. “To Rokliss, then. Dumb whorelicker that he was.”
Everyone else joined even, even Lloi, though with less enthusiasm. “To Rokliss.”
The Syldoon really did seem to have an unhealthy fixation on all things whorish. Their breed of camaraderie was crude, coarse, callous, and whatever other alliterative pejorative I could summon. Cruel? Perhaps. But there was another quality there as well. Or lack of one. There was no preening or pretension at the table. Their rough humor made no excuses for itself.
Most of the patrons I’d penned for were doing their best to elevate themselves, to impress, to solicit the attention of the caste above. And though it was difficult to admit, even to myself, but my own experience was little different-growing up a bastard, I was always conscious of what others thought, and did my best to overcome any prejudice and earn as much approval as possible, especially since my own livelihood depended on me pleasing and placating my benefactors.
The Syldoon couldn’t care less what anyone thought of them, and that was refreshing. If gross.
Perhaps with a patron like the captain, I could focus on events for once, on history unfolding, on something truly significant.
I was thinking on that when I heard some commotion to my right. The curly-haired Hornman who got into a scuffle earlier was banging on a table, yelling, “Gods and devils, man, you think I want to throw my life away for that bastard? And we don’t have to. That’s what I’m telling you. Incompetent, cockless bastard.”
I jumped at the word, though he clearly hadn’t been talking about me.
The Hornman next to him looked around, and realizing his friend was attracting quite a bit of attention, laid his hand on the man’s shoulder to try to quiet him down. The curly-haired soldier slapped it away. “Lay off.” He looked around the inn, eyes red with drink. “You think I give a horse’s shit what any of these bastards think? I don’t. They can rot. The lot of them. The whole lot.”
A woman nearby whispered angrily to one of the men at her table, who promptly shook his head no.
The surly soldier noticed this silent exchange. “Your skinny bitch there got a problem?”
The man ignored the glaring woman. “No, Hornman, no. No one here has a problem.”
“Good. That’s good.” He tapped the hilt of his sword. “That kind of problem only got one kind of solution.”
A tall soldier with wild yellow hair said, “Our friend is drunk, he means no harm. Didn’t mean no offense to the woman nor yourself. Our apologies.”
The curly-haired man turned on his companion. “Apologies? Don’t you apologize for me, Scolin, you whoreson.” He started to rise out of his chair but Hornmen on either side restrained him.
He tried unsuccessfully to pull free. “Off me, you poxy bastards! Nobody tells me when to, who to… when to speak. You hear me? Not you, not no man, and for certain, not no uppity wife of no cuckolded prick like this weasel.” To the woman again, “That your problem, skinny bitch? Not getting enough good cock?” He grabbed his crotch. “That problem I use the other sword for.”
So much for refreshing.
Syrie appeared at their table. “Now then, now then, what’s the problem here? Mugs empty again, that it?”
The curly-haired soldier grabbed a mug off the table and turned it upside down, emptying half a mug of ale onto the floor. Syrie jumped back to avoid the splash as he said, “That’s right, you ugly calf, empty again. Fill it.” One of the other soldiers laughed.
Scolin said, “Don’t pay him no mind, missy. None at all.”
She grabbed her skirts in one hand and knelt down, pulling a rag from her apron. “Not the first time these boards have tasted ale.” Her voice was pleasant enough, but her eyes were narrow and her jaw tight. She finished wiping up what she could and stood up. “Now then, maybe some hot food would help soak up some of this ale, eh? Would you gentlemen be needing some supper then?”
The curly-haired soldier said, “We’ll be needing some more ale to soak up the ale,” and he laughed.
The other soldiers joined him, all but Scolin, who said, “Food would be fine. Another round as well.”
“Short enough.” She turned and headed back to the kitchen. She emerged a short time later, tray laden with steaming food, and her father handed her two fresh mugs of ale. Another boy who I assumed was a brother trailed behind her, and it became immediately clear why he remained out of sight most of the time. All of his features were horribly asymmetrical. The left side of his face was several inches higher than the right; eyebrow, nostril, lips, ear-all horribly aligned. Body as well. Both his left arm and leg were shorter than the right, and he walked with a noticeable hitch.
He stopped by the bar after Syrie, and his father placed four fresh mugs on his tray as well, scowling at him. The brother limped over to the table of soldiers and set their mugs down. All of the soldiers look at him with the same expression I must have worn, one of awe and revulsion. But when the curly-haired soldier saw him, he immediately let out a loud laugh. “Gods and demons, we got a monster serving us. What hobgoblin buggered your mother, boy?”
The poor boy set the bowls and spoons on the table as quickly as he could as Syrie made her way to our table. She heard the mocking but tried to ignore it as she sets our bowls and mugs before us, smile nowhere in sight.
The brother bowed quickly and turned to head back to the kitchen, but the curly-haired soldier stuck a leg out and tripped him. He fell face first, tray sliding across the floor. The soldier jerked out of his chair and stood over him. “Who said you was going anywheres, goblin boy? We were just getting started conversing.”
Several of the other patrons stood up as well, though I wasn’t sure why. Clearly, no one was going to contest the actions of a table of drunk Hornmen. Hobbins and Syrie rushed over to the boy. Hobbins grabbed the back of his son’s tunic and hoisted him to his feet. “Up, up with you. Back to the kitchen, boy.”
Scolin had the curly-haired soldier by the elbow and was trying to guide him back down to his seat. Syrie grabbed some mugs off the table and said, “No worries-you won’t be charged for these.”
She started to leave but the curly-haired soldier grabbed her hair and pulled her back, saying, “Whoa there, calfling. We got use for those yet.” Scolin tried to restrain him but the drunken soldier shoved him away and pulled her hair again. She tripped over a chair leg and fell to the ground, mugs of ale overturning in all directions. The drunk soldier kicked her backside and she slid forward in a puddle of ale. “You stupid bitch.” He reared back to kick her again and found a blade next to his throat. Braylar’s.
I’d been so transfixed, I didn’t even see him approach. But Braylar had his long dagger across the soldier’s throat, a full mug of ale in his other hand. Braylar lifted the mug very slowly to his lips, blew some foam onto the floor, and took a long, slow swig, eyes never leaving the Hornman. After he swallowed, Braylar smiled and said, loud enough for the innkeeper to hear, “Your ale tastes like ox piss, Hobbins. Truly it does. And you know what they say of pissy ale, yes? It makes patrons irritable. Of course, if a patron doesn’t like the drink or atmosphere, he’s free to move on. The city has many inns to choose from. Myself, I don’t mind a little pissy ale, makes you appreciate the finer brew. So I’ll stay.” He took another measured swig, licked his lips, and asked the soldier, “How about you? Are you going to ride on, or are you going to stay and enjoy the ale?”
The Hornmen behind curly-hair suddenly appeared more sober than they had all evening, and their hands were one and all wrapped around the hilts of their swords. I glanced at Braylar’s retinue, and they seemed equally poised to spring out of their seats.
As Syrie gathered the mugs and ran off to the kitchen, Mulldoos whispered, “Easy, lads. Let it play out a bit. Nothing rash now.”
Hobbins was there then, nervously wiping his hands on his apron. “It is pissy ale. Can’t deny that. And my daughter, she’s a clumsy cow. But neither’s reason to spill blood. No, no reason at all. Been no blood spilled here in… some time. So why don’t you-”
“Ride or drink?” Braylar put a little more pressure on the dagger. “What’s it to be then?”
There was a long pause. I was sure the Hornmen and Syldoon would clash any moment, and Hobbins would be mopping up blood for days. But in a quiet, croaky voice, the curly-haired soldier said, “Drink.”
Braylar pulled the dagger away and slid it back in the scabbard. “Very good. Hobbins, fetch another tray of ales, yes? These boys seem thirsty yet. I’ll pay for those that spilled and the coming round as well.”
Hobbins mumbled something to himself and started back to the bar. Braylar was walking back to our table when the curly-haired soldier drew his sword and tried to stab him. I thought the captain a dead man for certain, but he must’ve heard the sword clear the scabbard, because he pivoted and spun to his left. The blade slid past him and Braylar swung the mug, a spray of ale trailing behind. It cracked across the drunken soldier’s face, splitting his lip, and from the sounds of it, breaking his nose as well. Then Braylar cracked him in the back of the head, just above his neck. The soldier started to slump forward, and Braylar hit him again on the way down for good measure. The mug broke with a loud crack and the cylinder landed on the man’s back and rolled to the floor.
The other Hornmen had their swords out now, all of them pointing in Braylar’s direction. The retinue were on their feet as well, weapons drawn. Braylar looked at the handle in his hand and called out, “Your mugs are weaker than your ale, innkeeper. I regret I have to pay for either. Still…” He reached into a pouch and tossed a silver coin over his shoulder. “That ought to make amends.”
A soldier with thick ropy hair said, “You just struck a Hornman, dungeater.” He was younger than the rest, but now that the first man was unconscious, clearly the drunkest man standing.
Braylar turned and examined the swords. “A Hornman?” he asked. “Truly? I’m a stranger to these parts-is that some kind of musician?”
“You watch your filthy dungeating tongue, dungeater. I’ll cut it out and… and… I’ll cut it out of your filthy mouth, I will.”
“Bold words when facing a man armed with a mug handle. Are all Hornmen so fearless, or are you one of the elite?”
The boy took a step forward but Scolin put a hand on his shoulder. He gave Braylar a hard look. “What he means to say is, striking a Hornman is a bad idea. Bad as striking at the law itself. Usually, a man strikes a Hornman, we just throw him in the stockade, and if he got no friends, he’ll stay there a good long while. But generosity’s a lean commodity these days. So maybe we hack off the offending limb. Or, we got the time and a good tree, we just hang the dumb bastard until the life stretches out of him. Just not a good idea, striking a Hornman. If you take my meaning. Now, you look like a traveler, maybe you just didn’t notice our surcoats and baldrics. That right, stranger? You just didn’t realize who you was striking? Didn’t see our surcoats? Or our horns hanging on our sides?”
Braylar replied, “No, I didn’t immediately notice your surcoats. What I did see was a drunken lout abusing a cripple and beating a girl. That must not be a hanging offense, or any offense at all, no?”
The ropy-haired soldier said, “Let’s cut him open, Red. Open him cock to nose.”
Braylar fixed him with a stare. “Surely you would find naught but dung, Hornling, but I welcome you to try.”
Scolin, who for mysterious reasons was called Red despite the light locks, looked down at the unconscious soldier. A small puddle of blood was pooling around his head, mixing with the ale. Red Scolin nudged the man with his foot, and he moaned. Red Scolin sighed. “Lunter’s as big an ass as you’ll find when he’s got ale in his belly. Truth is, you done us a favor by shutting him up.” He sheathed his sword and took a step forward. “But you see these surcoats now, stranger, and you’ll mind that tongue of yours, or I’ll have it out and fry it with our morning bacon. You hear?”
Braylar chose his next words carefully. “No doubt it would be finer than anything Hobbins has planned for us, but I’m rather fond of my tongue and would hate to see it in a pan. So I’ll mind myself, particularly when addressing those bearing horns. At least, so long as they aren’t musicians, who are naught but scoundrels.”
Red Scolin laughed, and though the other soldiers didn’t, they reluctantly put their blades away. Braylar slid the mug handle in his belt. “Unarmed and amiable again, you see? In fact, I’d do even more to make amends for my uncouth behavior.” He turned to Hobbins. “Two pitchers for the Hornmen, innkeeper, and one for myself, yes?”
Hobbins looked at Braylar and back to the soldiers. He licked his lips and left to fetch the ale. The other soldiers moved back to their chairs, but the ropy-haired soldier was still peevish. “That it, Red? Lunt’s bleeding like a, like a butchered hog, and all you gonna do is warn him?”
Red Scolin sat back down at the table. “No. I’m going to drink his ale and be glad to hear no more from Lunt tonight. Take him upstairs.”
“The dungeater?”
“Lunter, you ass. Take Lunter upstairs. Clean him up, put him in bed.”
“You ought not to let him go like that.”
Red Scolin asked, smiling, “Lunter?”
Ropy-hair looked confused. “The dungeater, Red. He struck a Hornman. We all saw. Struck him in the face, and in the head. He hit him with his mug, across the face and mug. I mean head. He-”
“Right enough. Struck him with his mug. Right after Lunter tried to stab him.”
“But the dungeater, he drew blade first, he-”
“Enough. I gave an order, soldier. Get him upstairs, now, or maybe it’ll be you seeing the inside of a stockade, you hear me?”
Ropy-hair gave Braylar a hateful look before bending down and sliding his hands under Lunter’s armpits. “Give me a hand here, Looris.”
Another soldier started to rise, but Red Scolin replied, “Just you, Barlin. Don’t forget to clean him up, neither. Basin’s by the bed. I want to see it full o’ red when we come up later. No blood on Lunter, no blood on the bed. You got that? Clean him good before you come back down. Go.”
Barlin cursed. He hefted Lunter up, almost slipping in the puddle of blood, grunting with exertion. “Lunter… you sack of guts… nothing but a…” but the rest of his declaration was unintelligible. Barlin slung the larger man over his shoulders. He wobbled as he walked, from the ale and the weight, and he tottered dangerously up the stairs, swearing the entire time. I expected the two to come rolling back down at any moment in a wild tangle of limbs-but somehow he completed his task and disappeared down the hallway.
The conversation resumed in the room, hushed at first, but gradually regaining its boisterous volume. Ale makes for short memories.
Braylar nodded to Red Scolin and returned to our table. Mulldoos laughed. “Got a real special way with people, you do, Cap. Should have been an emissary, diplomat maybe.”
“We all have talents.”
Syrie brought a pitcher and new mug and filled it for Braylar.
When she finished, he lifted it to his lips and drained it top to bottom. He tapped the brim and she filled it again. “We try to keep him in back, my brother. Easier that way. For everyone, but especially him. He doesn’t like it when people stare, and people are always staring. Likes it less when people abuse him, and they do that often enough as well.” She sets the pitcher down. “So what I’m saying, trying to say, is thank you. For stepping in like you did. You didn’t need to. We would have handled it. Always do. But thank you, just the same.”
Braylar drained most of the rest of his mug and wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Sweet, sweet Syrie, I’d happily break a thousand mugs over a thousand skulls if only to see you smile again.”
And with that she did. “Now, they’ll be no more of that, you can have the smile for free. I got enough to clean up without worrying about no thousand mugs and thousand skulls. But I thank you kindly just the same. For the rescue and the compliment. Now, I’ll be back straight away with your food.”
Vendurro said, “Cap, I got to say, if I’d have known that’s what you meant by discretion, that would have clarified things right quick. See, I had a whole different idea in mind.”
Syrie arrived with our food a few moments later. “And will you be needing anything else this evening?”
“One more pitcher, Sweet Syrie,” Braylar said. “Perhaps a tumble or two in your bed. Nothing more.”
Syrie laughed. “The ale you shall have, but I won’t be tumbled so easy.”
“No? Pity. I suppose I’ll have to settle for the smiles alone then. And the ale. Please, please, don’t forget the ale.”
She laughed again and spun off with her platter to the next table. I couldn’t help wondering how many times my mother had been propositioned like that. Or more to the point, how many times she had rebuffed someone when she had.
The other Syldoon continued their talk, mostly of seductions or failed attempts, and Lloi stood up to go.
Mulldoos said, “Not leaving now, are you, dog? We’d all love to hear of the maids you’ve stuck your filthy nubs into.”
Lloi replied, “Betting you would. Only difference is, mine would be true whereas yours are all drunken lies swelled up like a cow bladder.”
“You got a mouth like a rasp and a cunt full of nettles. Even that fat sow Andurva knew enough to talk sweet once in a while. Guessing that silk house rued the day they paid for you.”
I wondered what he meant when Lloi started walked around the table toward Mulldoos, taking her time. I watched her hand, afraid it might drift to her blade, but it stayed clear. She laid her good hand on Mulldoos’s shoulder and leaned down, mouth close to his ear. “You nailed it true. I should be sweet as honey, especially to them that show such kindness like yourself. Starting now. Let’s say we go up to your room, you and me, and I file the rasp down some, give that massive cock of yours a good tongue bath? Or-”
Mulldoos knocked her hand off his shoulder and glared at her, but she continued undaunted, “Maybe prune the nettles some and drop my slippery nest down on your horsedick, show you what a good little-”
He shouted, “Enough!” And when some of the other patrons looked at the commotion, he quieted, if a little, “Enough. By the gods, you’re a filthy beast. Go to barn with the rest of them. Leave the men to their drink.”
“And bloated boasts. You’re welcome to them.” She nodded to Braylar and headed out the door.
The rest of the Syldoon struggled not to laugh, and ultimately failed. Vendurro spit out, “Could have had yourself a free one there, Mulldoos.” That set the table to near hysterics.
Mulldoos nodded in exaggerated fashion, clearly not amused at all. “That’s right, you whoresons, that’s right. Have your fun.” He took a huge swig of ale and turned to Braylar. “I swear to Truth, Cap, you didn’t need her so awful bad…”
He left the thought unfinished, but Hewspear didn’t. “You’d take her for your very own?”
That set off another raucous round of laughter.
“Leper lesions, the whole stinking lot of you.” Mulldoos slammed his mug on the table.
With the latest potential bloodshed diverted, I finally settled in to eat.
After we finished our meals, Syrie collected our plates and dropped off more ale, and before I knew it, my mug was again empty and in need of refilling. Unaccustomed to drinking at a soldier’s pace, my head was truly beginning to swim. I excused myself and returned to the room.
I woke several hours later. My bladder was full and my head was pounding, so I suspected one or both being the cause of my rousing. But then I realized I heard a muffled laugh and low voices. Disoriented, and my head still clouded from the ale, I thought for a moment it must have been one of the patrons in the next room. But when I heard the voices again, I realized they were coming from within my room. Braylar and a woman. A giggling woman. They spoke again, but low and soft, and I couldn’t make out the words.
Without a window the room was near pitch, and I couldn’t see anything either. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want them to know I was awake, but wondered if the woman knew I was in the room. It occurred to me she must have, for the entire inn saw that Braylar and I were sharing the room. I doubted a patron had arrived in the middle of the night, and doubted even more that even if she had she would’ve immediately made her way into a strange man’s bed. Presuming then that it was a woman already in the inn, I began to wonder who it could be when the answer struck me like cold water. Syrie.
Would my mother have cared about a man being in the room? Probably not. Why should Syrie have been different?
I felt my cheeks grow hot and wondered how I could excuse myself. Perhaps I should have simply cleared my throat and gotten up with a blanket, heading downstairs to join the others on the common floor. That would’ve been awkward, but so was staying put. Deprived of all sight and now fully alert with my anxiety, I heard the rest of the noises with an almost inhuman clarity. And really wished I hadn’t.
There were some soft sounds and movement-what I assumed was them slipping out of whatever remained of their clothing-and a giggle from who I was certain then must have been Syrie. There was a sharp wooden sound-the slats of the bed adjusting to the weight shifting above them-followed by another giggle. Braylar said something, though, trying as hard as I could despite my paralyzed embarrassment, I couldn’t discern individual words. I heard nothing for some time, save my own breathing mixed with theirs, and while much of me hoped they’d fallen asleep, I’m shamed beyond my ability to express that there was a part of me that yearned to hear more. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that it was a common enough human curiosity, nothing more-a fascination with what people do in the dark when they’re alone (or believe they aren’t being spied on)-but I wasn’t certain I believed that.
Their breathing became slightly more rapid, and I tried very hard to maintain my own, wondering how it had sounded before my waking and trying to approximate the breathing of a sleeping man as best I could. I heard Syrie moan as their bodies shifted, a small sound that seemed to originate from the back of her throat and exit through a closed mouth. I closed my eyes, hoping to block out what was occurring on the next bed for a moment or two and fill my mind with some other, more pure thought, but in doing so, I found myself imagining more keenly what they were doing. Was she spreading her legs for him? Was his hand on her thigh or small breasts that had caused her to moan so, or had it traveled to the core of her sex? I felt filthy with such questions and visions in my head, but the more disgusted I became, the more I found I couldn’t think of anything. I was horrified to discover that I was becoming physically aroused myself, listening to them couple in the dark alongside me.
And my horror only increased when, unbidden, I began to wonder how many men my mother must have lain with like this. It wasn’t even her father who ran the Jackal, so there was even less reason to be chaste or selective. I remembered far too many nights when she hadn’t returned to our room until dawn, and even at a young age I knew it wasn’t because she’d been cleaning as she so often claimed, but only vaguely guessed at what the real reason was. At least she hadn’t brought them to our bed. There was that small mercy.
Syrie moaned again, slightly louder this time-I pictured her mouth opening, her head thrown back, perhaps turning to the side-and then Braylar began whispering unintelligible words again. I tried to remember the last time I’d whispered words to a lover, to recall exactly what it was I might have said, but I couldn’t focus. The whispering ended, and I heard his lips on her body-I pictured his mouth moving down from her ear, traveling along the course of her neck, her head twisting again as he did, kiss by kiss down her shoulder, her arm. I might have been correct, but if I was, judging from the sucking sound I heard next, the lips had detoured off an arm and made their way quickly to a breast.
She exhaled sharply as he sucked, and the slats creaked again as they changed position on the bed. I imagined him, mouth on her breast, one hand in her hair, rubbing the nape of her neck, the other traveling up her thigh, her legs spreading farther. And with each sound, and each instance I interpreted those sounds, I found myself becoming increasingly more aroused as well as disgusted with my arousal. I felt the urge to touch myself, and an equally strong urge to roll over and press my stomach to the mattress, to prohibit my perversion from growing further.
I could tell Syrie was trying to muffle her sounds, and I was sure her head was turned, her mouth in her pillow. I imagined her pulling the edge of it up with one hand in an attempt to stifle the growing intensity of her passion. If so, she removed the pillow long enough to whisper something to him. I couldn’t understand much, but from the tone, she was concerned about waking me. Braylar responded, and I heard him clearly this time, “Fear not-he sleeps like the dead tonight.” She whispered something else in return, and he replied, “He’s sotted, I swear.” There was another movement, and I heard her cry out sharply, whatever momentary concern she might have had overcome with lust.
Still, her small show of modesty and consideration for what she believed to a sleeping man shamed me still further. But it still didn’t cool my heated blood. The slats groaned, and I heard him shift his weight-was he mounting her now? had she succumbed and spread her legs to accept him? — she moaned her muffled moans anew and I was sure I had my answer. Feeling torn in my two directions, I twisted my blanket in my hands and balled it into my fists, closing my eyes as tightly as I could, trying to think of the look of pain on Syrie’s brother’s face as he was mocked by the soldiers, the look on the soldier’s face as Braylar had a blade to his throat. But these were fleeting, and couldn’t distract me from the two bodies joining only a few feet away from me. I simultaneously wanted to touch myself to release the growing ache in my stomach and to scream, “I’m here!”
But I did neither and then something surprising occurred. I heard Syrie say “No.” Braylar continued groaning-was his head buried in her hair? were his hands locked in hers? was he kneading her flesh? — and she repeated herself more loudly, “No, I can’t do this.”
I still heard their bodies slapping together with the same pace, and Braylar replied through gritted teeth, “You can, Syrie, yes, yes, yes you can.”
She said “I won’t,” loud enough that if I hadn’t already been awake her protests would’ve changed that. The slapping of skin on skin stopped then, and I heard nothing more but their heavy breathing for a few moments. I was afraid the captain was going to force himself on her, but the next thing I heard was feet hitting the wooden floor soundly. Braylar said, “Get out.” Followed by silence. Then, more loudly, “Out with you! Get dressed and go. Now.”
I imagined her holding the blanket up to her chin, her face flushed with fleeting lust and confusion. Barely above a whisper, she said, “Please. Don’t be angry. It’s just, well, were we alone and all, I’d-”
He laughed, “You grow suddenly shy in the middle of fucking a stranger because there’s an audience? No. Get out.”
I heard her shift her weight, perhaps rolling onto one elbow, touching his shoulder or his elbow, saying, “This doesn’t mean-”
But again, he didn’t let her finish. “It’s a simple word. There’s no mistaking its meaning. Much like the word ‘no.’ Out.” Whatever fire she might have still felt went out as surely as if he’d pissed on it. Which was ironic, considering what happened next. I heard him stand and take a few hesitant steps. The sound of metal rattling on the wood. A few seconds later, the sound of liquid hitting the metal. In the silence, it sounded like thunder or battle.
She felt around for her nightclothes and slipped into them. Braylar remained standing where he was, clearly waiting for her to leave. After a few more seconds he kicked the chamber pot and said, “I’d ask you to take this on your way out, but that would be discourteous to the other guest in the room, no?”
I heard Syrie sigh and the floorboards told me she moved toward the door. I imagined her hand feeling its way down the frame to the handle, then I saw a space of black slightly less black than our own as she opened the door and slipped out, pushing it closed behind her.
Syrie was a better woman than my mother. I felt equally awful for having judged her so harshly and for allowing my own lust to rise up.
Braylar stumbled back to his bed, threw back the blanket, slid in, and said, “Would that I’d rescued a whore.” I listened as his breathing quickly grew heavier, woollier, and some time later, sure he was asleep, I walked over to the chamber pot as quietly as I could and emptied my own overfull bladder.
After I lay back down, my mind was ablaze with everything that transpired that night, and I felt like my chance for more slumber had disappeared completely. But as it often does, sleep snuck up and ambushed me again.
I was shaken awake, bladder somehow full again and head pounding. The room was still dark, and I was completely disoriented. Was it morning? Braylar was standing next to the bed. He shook me harder. “Get up. Now. Up.”
“What is it?”
“Get your things.”
Half asleep, I didn’t understand. “But it’s dark. What’s happening?”
I heard him move across the room. A few moments later, the lantern bloomed and I blinked and covered my eyes. When I adjusted to the brightness I saw Braylar pull on a boot, his weapon belts already buckled around his waist.
I sat up and put my feet on the floor. “It’s not yet dawn. Why must we-”
“They’re coming. We don’t have much time.”
I pulled my tunic and trousers on. “Who? Who’s coming?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, pulling on the other boot as he hopped to maintain his balance, adding, “I wish I had time to shit.”
“If you don’t know who it is, how do you know we need to go? I don’t-”
“Violence is coming, Arki, coming fast. I don’t mean to be here when it arrives.”
My mouth was desert dry and my head felt like it had been run over by an ox and a heavy wagon behind. I wanted dearly to use the chamber pot, but he clearly wasn’t in a mood to tolerate any delays. I got dressed as quickly as I could and threw my satchel over my shoulder.
“Good, then-” He stopped to cock his head, listening.
I listened as well. There it was. A creak. And another. And then muffled voices coming from the downstairs common room.
Braylar said, with much bitterness, “A room without a window. You deserve to be caught and hung.”
“But, but you said you didn’t know. Didn’t you? You don’t know they’re here for us, or who they are even, isn’t that right?”
He ignored me, circling one last time like a bear staked to a post, waiting for the dogs to descend, and then he shoved me roughly back toward the bed. “They’ll be here in a moment. It’s likely they’d sooner kill us as not. And I won’t be taken alive. I’ll take out as many as I can, and then-”
“But why? Even… even if they are here for you, why not surrender? So long as you live, there’s a chance to-”
“To what? Escape? Be rescued?” He laughed. “You’ve read too many romances, Arki. I doubt they’ll take me prisoner, but if they do, it will only be to hang me on the morrow. That’s the good scenario.”
“The good? To be hung? What’s the bad?”
“They ask questions. Questions lead to more questions, none of which I’ll answer truthfully. That will lead to torture. Then I’ll answer very truthfully. All men do in time. So, I kill as many as I can before they cut me down. And then they’ll turn on you-”
He broke off and listened. I heard it, too. The stairs were creaking. Men were ascending.
“Surrender if you like. However, I wouldn’t advise it. Torture is very unpleasant.” He pulled his dagger out, spun it, and held it out to me hilt first. “I suggest you slit your throat first. Cleaner.” He nodded. “Quicker.”
I refused the dagger and held my satchel to my chest. “They could be anyone. They, they might not be here to kill us, or arrest us. And I’ve done nothing wrong! They-”
He snatched his dagger back. “We all make choices.” And then he moved to the left side of the door so it wouldn’t hit him when it swung in, his flail and buckler at the ready.
There was more creaking, the floorboards now. Whoever they were, they were close, coming down the hall, almost to our door. I clutched my satchel and wondered for a brief instant if I should have taken the dagger, before reminding myself that I was innocent. I just hoped whoever it was cared about such things.
We waited. I looked at the door, sure someone was right in front of it, equally sure I’d be the first thing anyone saw if they broke through. But I couldn’t move. My body didn’t respond, even as my mind screamed danger was on the other side of the door. And then I heard another creak, and almost emptied my bloated bladder. This creak was followed by another, and another still, as whoever had been in front of our door moved further down the hallway.
I looked at Braylar, and there was confusion in his eyes, and for the briefest moment, I thought doubt as well. I don’t remember doing it, but I’d begun holding my breath at some point, because I exhaled then, and felt faint.
A few more moments went by, in which I heard nothing at all, and then there was a horrendous crack, the splintering of wood down the hall. And then chaos erupted. Shouting, a man screaming, ordering someone else to surrender peacefully, more shouting, all of it running together, several voices at once, made incoherent.
I sat against the wall as the source of the commotion made its way back down the hall again. From the sounds of it, men fought other men, some shouting that an injustice was being done, others shouting for silence. There were collisions, the prisoners no doubt struggling against their captors as they were ushered past us, slamming into walls and doors as they went.
Braylar waited until he was certain danger had moved down the stairs, and then he cracked his door, just enough to look out and gauge the situation.
I whispered, “Who is it? Who did they apprehend?”
He tilted his head and opened the door an inch or two more. “I don’t know.”
“What’s happening?”
He didn’t respond, but opened our door entirely and stepped out into the hall. Poking my head out, I saw Braylar wasn’t alone. In fact, I’m sure there wasn’t a sleeping soul left under the roof. Most had come out of their rooms, but there were a few peering out from behind doors. That seemed prudent.
Braylar was standing alongside a wagon driver, leaning out over the railing. I walked over quickly and stood behind him. The common room below was a flurry of activity. Those who had slept on the floor between the benches were being pressed out of the way at spearpoint, pushed toward the walls to make room for the prisoners who were being escorted down the stairs. A few grumbled complaints, but that ended the moment the spears got too close. Reluctantly or not, everyone moved back, leaving a clear path to the door.
Hobbins was on the floor below, looking none too happy. I glanced down the rail and saw the Hornmen (all save Lunter) in their nightclothes as well, though a few had grabbed their swords. The same held true for the Syldoon as well, Mulldoos and Hewspear on our level, and Vendurro and Glesswik below-underdressed but hands on weapons. It struck me that, other than the men conducting this raid, Braylar and I were the only other people in the inn who were fully dressed. I wasn’t sure if anyone would notice, but my regret at leaving the room was growing by the moment.
The men who had woken everyone were dressed plainly and without indication of their position or rank. They wore blackened mail over dark gambesons, but no surcoats, livery, or badges. At a glance it was impossible to determine anything about them besides the fact they were abducting two very frightened-looking patrons whose faces I dimly recalled from the crowd the night before. There were at least ten soldiers, most armed with short spears and round shields, but some had swords drawn, and there was a man at the foot of the stairs with his sword still in the scabbard. He had brown-and-gray hair receding sharply above his temples, and he appeared to be the only man not doing anything. I supposed that made him the leader.
Red Scolin looked remarkably alert as he called down over the railing, “There are Hornmen under this roof. Unhand those men and explain yourselves. Now.” Despite the fact that he had no armor and his small group was badly outnumbered by the soldiers below, he issued this command as if there wasn’t any chance it would be ignored.
The leader looked up. “Ahh, yes. Thought you might still be here.” He unrolled a scroll and handed it to another soldier who started up the stairs with it. “Baronial writ. We are to apprehend these men and deliver them urgently.”
Red Scolin replied, “Maybe you didn’t notice, but this is an inn. Full of travelers. And subject to the laws of the road. Our jurisdiction, none other. Any arresting needs to be done here, we’re the ones doing it, and if not us, then the city watch.” The soldier handed Red Scolin the scroll.
The leader below said, “Peruse at your leisure. You’ll find it a binding document. We have authority in matters of sedition, from now going forward. On the road or off. In an inn or not. Your jurisdiction has been superseded.”
The rest of the Hornmen cursed and one or two called out insults as Red Scolin examined the scroll. When he looked up, he seemed less certain, but still said, “I heard nothing of this from my commander. Until I do-”
“We’re leaving. If you attempt to interfere, you’ll be arrested as well, on grounds of interfering with the baron’s business. Mayhap sedition as well.”
Red Scolin threw the scroll at the soldier. “You’re making an awful error here, Brunesman. Our order isn’t beholden to your baron, nor no other. Even the king himself-”
“Is likely abed. As should you all be.”
The leader turned towards the door and the soldiers began herding the prisoners across the common room.
One of them, no doubt in a moment of panic, elbowed a soldier in the jaw and ran toward the door. The spearmen in the room were more concerned with keeping everyone out of the way, and they didn’t turn right away, even as they heard shouting, and the swordsmen could do little but pursue and shout as he ran. For an instant, it looked like the patron was going to win his freedom, or at least access to the door and the world beyond, but two soldiers who’d been stationed just outside entered the inn, and the patron’s legs almost went out from beneath him as he changed direction, heading towards the kitchen. However, he’d taken only a few steps when a spearmen stepped in his path.
Apparently realizing all escapes were closed off, and having no other idea what to do, he jumped on a bench, and from there onto a long table, waving his bound hands before him. He looked up at the Hornmen in desperation, hoping for some kind of reprieve.
He opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was snuffed out. A spear flew across the room and the prisoner doubled over when it sunk into his stomach, dropping to his knees. His nightshirt protruded in back, the spearhead having gone through him entirely but not quite through the fabric. The prisoner grabbed at the haft of the spear, mouth moving silently, but with his hands bound he wasn’t able to do much with it, and then he fell forward. He jerked like a fish yanked from the sea, his body convulsing, head rising and slamming back onto the table, finally letting out a low moan that seemed to carry on forever. The leader stepped forward, glaring at the man who threw the spear as he did. He pulled the prisoner up by the hair, who finally let out a shrill scream, as if the hair pulling were more painful than the spear sticking through him. The leader drew a dagger across his throat, covering the table with a fresh coat of blood.
We all watched silently as the red pooled on the table and began to run onto the floor. Hobbins stepped forward, incensed, which temporarily made him bold. “I said you could come in, take who you wanted-but this blood here, this blood is a different story. You told me you wouldn’t be spilling no blood, but here you are, spilling plenty all over my good wood. I got a reputation in Rivermost, a good one-this here is a clean establishment, clean as you find anywhere. But this-” He looked around the inn with his arms spread wide-“this here is a mess, no two ways of looking at it. People hear about something like this, it’s bad for me, see? People ride on by if they think there’s murder in the night here. Do you see my problem? I said you could come in, take who you wanted, so long as you was clean about it, but what do I see here, but blood. Blood, blood, and more blood-”
“Count yourself lucky it’s not yours. Perhaps next time you’ll think twice about sheltering traitors under your roof.” The leader wiped his dagger on the dead prisoner’s back and turned to face Hobbins as he sheathed it.
The soldiers prodded the other prisoner out the door. This one, not surprisingly, offered no resistance at all.
Hobbins gulped, his thin neck bobbing, but he found some small reservoir of courage to continue talking. “Traitors? Now, you didn’t say nothing about no traitors here. You said criminals. I know nothing and less about no traitors.”
“Then you best learn how to tell, and learn quickly. Dangerous times, old man. These are certainly not the last.” He walked toward Hobbins, who took two quick steps back. “Pray we have no cause to visit your inn again.”
Hobbins nodded weakly and looked around the room at the rest of us suspiciously, as if the Brunesmen might have left a traitor or two behind as some kind of test. He looked at the blood again and yelled for Syrie. She came out from the kitchen, having anticipated his order, carrying a pail of water and a thick-bristled brush.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the puddle of blood. “Hurry up now, it’s soaking in.” Then he looked around the common room again. “You people, I’m sorry you had to be woken like that. But a man can’t account for all those that sleep under his roof, can he?” No one answered. “No, no he can’t. I knew nothing about no traitors, same as you good folk. We got nothing to do with them, they got nothing to do with us. And that’s all there is. So you go on back to sleep. Few hours left in the night, and you paid for the roof, so use it.” He turned to go, but something passed across his face-so blatantly it might have been a curtain being pulled back, revealing a mind calculating all things against silver made or lost-and he no doubt considered the damage word of mouth might have on his future patrons. He stopped and added, “I got no use for breaking fast myself, least not until the sun’s in the middle of the sky. Don’t serve it neither. That is, most days. But tomorrow, I’ll rustle up something first thing, and those that partake will get it at half cost.”
I looked down the railing, but the Hornmen had disappeared back into their rooms. Hewspear and Mulldoos walked over. Braylar turned to them, and twitch-smiled. “You see? Our timing will be perfect.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but clearly the other two did. Hewspear said, “The baron does seem to be ferreting out treachery in all corners.”
Mulldoos yawned. “Who says those two were traitors? Besides the baron’s ferret boys, that is?”
“That’s all that matters,” Braylar replied. “The baron’s predisposed to see treachery, whether traitors exist or no. Appearances, Mulldoos. That’s what we trade in.”
Mulldoos scratched at his testicles and said, “Going back to bed. Long ride tomorrow.” Then he burped and returned to his room.
Hewspear watched him go and turned back to Braylar. “He does have a pronounced lack of imagination. But he might also have a point, however blunted. Who’s to say the baron isn’t playing at something less obvious than traitor hunting?”
Braylar started back towards our door. “We shall see.”
After closing and locking the door behind us, he started undressing. I asked, “What were you discussing on the balcony? What-”
“You’ve been in my company for less than a day. Do you really suppose that makes you a confidant? Trusted adviser?”
Of course I didn’t. But how could I avoid asking? After I emptied my bladder and stripped down to my nightshirt, I kept thinking about the man dying on the table in the common room. So much blood. So much struggling ended so abruptly with the quick swipe of a dagger.
As a boy at the Jackal, they generally kept me in the back, scouring spoons and plates, emptying chamber pots, so I rarely even saw the patrons, let alone any attacking each other.
Since then, I’d seen brawls in a few taverns-though I typically tried not to frequent the places those were likely to occur, sometimes it was unavoidable. And once I saw a drunkard actually pull a knife and stab someone, but the blade was short, and he’d caused only a small wound before the innkeep clubbed him to the ground.
But this… tonight… this was something much different, and much more disturbing.
Braylar laid back on his bed, arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
I said, “When you woke me up, you said you knew violence was coming. And it did. What woke you? Did you hear horses outside? And why were you sure the baron’s men were intent on violence?”
He didn’t answer right away, long enough that I sat up to see that his eyes were still very much open. His left hand drifted down to his flail, fingertips absently running up and down the handle. I was about to say his name when he responded, eyes still fixed upwards. “There are many things to be explained when the time is right. You can be sure I’ll know when that is.” He looked at me for another moment or two and then reclined again. “Turn out the lamp, Arki.”
He closed his eyes. Mine stayed open long after it was dark.
The next morning, I woke up to find myself alone in the room, Braylar and his gear gone. I felt like I’d been subjected to the press-my head pounded fiercely, and the room tilted as if I were on the deck of a ship on a rough sea. I promised myself I would never try to match the drinking pace of a Syldoon again.
Gathering my supplies, I headed downstairs. Many who’d been sleeping in the common room were already gone, no doubt at first light, perhaps before, given the sequence of events in the night, and the inn was surprisingly empty. The Syldoon were seated around a table.
Vendurro saw me and waved me over, which elicited a groan from Mulldoos. Most of the bowls in front of them were nearly empty, clotted with the remains of whatever Hobbins had thrown together on such short notice.
I passed the table the prisoner had been killed on, and while Syrie had done what she could to clean it, there was no disguising the bloodstain, and the entire contents of my stomach nearly came rushing up.
I sat down next to Vendurro. He whistled, which seemed to be the most piercing noise ever made by man. When Syrie showed, he said, “We’re about through here, but the scribe could use a bowl and some bread, I’m thinking.”
She looked at me quickly and nodded, her cheeks flushed, and then headed to the kitchen without a word.
Glesswik said, “Touchy little bird, ain’t she? Think she’d never seen a man’s throat cut before.”
I wondered at the conversations they must have had that morning. Had they seen Syrie creep into Braylar’s room? If so, had they pressed Braylar for details of his conquest? Had he lied about what a wild minx she was? Or admitted that some belated modesty got the better of her?
In retrospect, I’m glad I wasn’t privy. The whole episode would have only mortified me further.
The Syldoon pushed their chairs back and rose from the table. Braylar turned to me and said, “Eat something. But don’t dawdle.”
I nodded and watched them walk out the open front door. Syrie arrived a few moments later her tray laden with a bowl of steaming slop with a heel of bread half-submerged on one side and a spoon on the other, and a mug of watery-looking ale. My stomach wrenched and I took a deep breath.
She set the bowl and mug down in front of me and asked, “Anything else you be needing, just now?” This seemed more perfunctory than pleasant.
I looked up at her and immediately regretted it. Had she known I was awake while Braylar slid inside her? Was she repulsed? Or perhaps ashamed? My cheeks were inflamed, and hers no less so.
“No,” I mumbled. “Thank you, Syrie. No.”
She looked away quickly. “Safe journeys then.” A moment later she was back in the kitchen. I felt as if I should have said something, but had absolutely no idea what.
I was sure I’d been born after my mother tumbled into a patron’s bed, just as Syrie had. Though I couldn’t possibly imagine she was overcome with any sudden bout of modesty. Where Syrie struggled to smile in the face of circumstances designed to prevent it, I remembered my mother as a tough, calculating woman possessing some low cunning and little enough else. She was intent on changing her lot in life but grew increasing bitter as it failed to happen.
Perhaps she’d given herself over to those men in the hopes of winning a heart attached to a loose purse string. Had she imagined someone might rescue her? Sweep her out of the Jackal and into some better life? Or had she simply been trying to distract herself from just how few real options she actually possessed by slipping into as many different men’s arms as possible?
I stared at my food for some time before taking a bite, until I remembered Braylar’s warning about dallying. I forced myself to eat what I could and made my way to the stables.
Lloi appeared to be in the final stages of packing Braylar’s new wagon. The wood was painted a faded green, and the canvas that was pulled tight across the frames was dyed blue. Four horses pulling, with his other two tethered to the side, as before.
The other Syldoon were mounted near the front of the wagon. As I approached, I heard Braylar addressing Mulldoos, “I’ve heard your reservations, weighed them, and found them too slight to burden me just now.”
Mulldoos looked about as pleased as a man who rolled around in rashleaf. “Course you did, Cap. That’s what you do. But it’s not just me thinking this here. The gray goat, the other two, we all of us think the same. Maybe you didn’t need guard detail coming to Rivermost-though, when it comes to it, I’m sure you did there too-but you sure as shit need detail going out.”
Braylar shook his head. “We’ve discussed this. And now we’re done discussing. You ride ahead. Lloi will accompany me. We’ll take a different route. No detail is necessary. You’re needed ahead. I must get there undetected. It isn’t so very complicated.”
“Me and Hew can handle what’s ahead. At least keep Ven and Gless with you. Not much, but you get in a scrap, even two more-”
“I need stealth. You need speed. Every moment you delay puts the entire enterprise at risk. This discussion is over. Ride out.”
Mulldoos spit in the dirt. “Going on record-this idea stinks worse than a dead leper whore.”
“So noted. We’ll meet up in five days time at the Grieving Dog.”
Mulldoos looked ready to argue or spit some more, but spun his horse in a circle instead and spurred it off to the street. Vendurro and Glesswik followed. Hewspear rode over to the bench and looked at Braylar. “You know it pains me to say it, but Mulldoos might have the right of it on this point. Traveling with a scribe and crippled girl for protection isn’t especially safe.” He lowered his voice. “Not with the cargo you carry.”
Captain Killcoin watched the others head out of the yard. “I value your input, Lieutenant, as always. Now safe journeys to you as well. Five days time.” He nodded, and Hewspear did the same, though with a small smile playing on his lips.
After Hewspear rode off, Braylar looked down at me and arched a dark eyebrow. “You don’t look particularly well rested.”
I replied, “It wasn’t the most restful night.”
“At least your belly is full, yes?”
I said, “It was fine, if you like a little peas and grain with your oil.”
“There’s a basket of plums behind your seat. They’re a very nice plum color, although not having tried one I can’t vouch for their taste. Beside the basket there’s some dried goatmeat, and beside the goat, flasks of coppery water and watery wine. They’re indistinguishable. Flasks and taste.”
Balancing my satchel as best I could, I climbed up into the back of the wagon and made my way inside. I wasn’t certain how long our journey was going to be, but if the supplies were any indication, it was meant to last half of forever. There was what passed for a narrow path between miscellaneous boxes, barrels, buckets, sacks of grain, and a large chest. Hanging from a variety of hooks, large and small, were copper pots, a shovel and a hand axe, as well as several curious bunches of dried herbs and plants that smelled of mint and lemons. I wondered if they were for cooking or keeping insects at bay.
I set my satchel and bedroll alongside a barrel and was about to settle down when the wagon started forward and I nearly fell on my face. I regained my balance, moved to the front, pulled the flap aside, and took my seat alongside him, just as we came to a stop again. Syrie’s brother Martiss was standing below us and Braylar said, “You kept your face intact. You must have done something right.”
The boy patted the flank of one of the harnessed horses. “That one tethered, nasty as could be, just like you said, but after a time she and me worked something out. Others were easy enough.”
Braylar opened his pouch. “You can be sure I’ve looked them over, nose to tail, and true to your word, the care appears to have been exemplary.”
The boy wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, but when Braylar tossed him two coins instead of the promised one, his face lit up. “You’re a fair dealer, by my account. I’ll tell anybody that asks, too, maybe a few that don’t.”
“And I’ll be sure to tell anyone that travels this way, a stay at the Three Casks will involve bad food, bad drink, and good horse care.” Braylar flicked the reins and we were off.
I noticed a package alongside Braylar, wrapped in felt. He saw me eyeing it and said, “It’s a gift.” And when I didn’t respond, or move, he added, “For you. Meaning, you should open it.”
I picked the package up, finding it surprisingly heavy, and slipped the small cords off the cloth and unwrapped the object. I didn’t have a particular thing in mind, but what I found would have exceeded even the greediest expectations. It was a large brass box, inlaid with fantastic scenes of silver and niello. On the top, two horsemen carrying crossbows and a pack of hounds bringing down a huge stag. On one side panel, a unicorn lying down, legs folded serenely beneath it, and on the other, a gryphon at rest in much the same position, with its wings down across its back and a large collar around its neck. The box (or case, as it turned out to be) was a metalsmithing masterwork of exquisite and elaborate detail, the likes of which I’d seen only in the inventories of some of the highest of nobles who had interviewed (but never retained) me.
I tried thanking Braylar, but he interrupted me before I said two words. “Do you know what this is?”
After examining the case again, I said, “No. I can’t say that I do.”
He pointed to finely worked clasp on the front. “Open it. Your gratitude should double.”
Freeing the clasp, I lifted the lid. There were several small holes along the upper right side, perfect for holding sharpened quills. Below those were two rectangular openings with small hinged lids, one for sand and another for a container of ink. Alongside the small compartments for ink, a polished smooth writing surface flashed in the sun, with a small lip running along the bottom to keep pages from sliding off. Then I saw the small clasps on the inside of the lid, designed to hold any finished pages as they dried. I turned back to Braylar again, but he indicated that my inspection wasn’t complete. Turning the brass box around, I noticed the gryphon panel was actually a cleverly disguised drawer that held extra sheets of vellum, some quills, and a small knife for keeping them sharp.
I also noticed two knobby legs that popped out from the rear of the pen and parchment case that enabled the whole station to sit at a slight incline, perfect for writing. Braylar had been wrong-my gratitude more than doubled. The generosity was almost appalling. I said, “Thank you, Captain Killcoin. But this is much too fine.”
“You’re not wrong,” he replied. “It’s a lordly gift so I expect you to perform well enough to warrant its gifting. Fill it with whatever supplies you need.”
Having thanked him again, and retrieved the necessary supplies, I reclaimed my seat at the front of the wagon. I was fiddling with the case, trying to set it on my legs to eliminate as much movement as possible, when Braylar said, “Perhaps I’ve not thought of everything, but what is the category just beneath everything? That’s what I’ve thought of.”
He handed me a thin board and I set it under my writing case. I was sure I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank him again, so I did, and then set to recording.
Braylar took us out of the alley and into the traffic on the thoroughfare. Even with the board, it wasn’t like writing on a secure table or desk. The quill tip made countless unseemly scratches with every small bump and shift of the wagon, skipping across the page in small jumps as of its own volition.
I noticed that Lloi had ridden off as well. “I thought you said she’d be accompanying us.”
Braylar replied, “She won’t ride with us. Or seldom enough to count as a passenger. As you can see, Rivermost is crowded, even at this early hour. She moves among those strangers, looking for any that might show any… unusual interest in my passing. If it sounds as if I have a good many enemies, you can be sure there are a good many reasons. So, if you happen to see her ride past, don’t hail her, don’t address her, and do your best to pretend that you haven’t noticed her at all. Do you understand?”
I nodded, not understanding. We rode down narrow dirt streets, the stone and timber keep shouldered against the river to the east, looming behind us, its tall towers stark in the new morning light. Even at that early hour, the city was awake. Odors were everywhere: fish and a heavy mud smell from the river, urine a sharp undernote, excrement sometimes mingling with the mud, bread baking, horses, the poor and unwashed. Shops opening, small wagons of apples and oranges rolled out by sleepy merchants, awnings raised, tables of furs and spices and ceramic pots and bolts of cloth set up. Hammers striking steel in smithies. A courier ran by in a crisp court tunic, a cylindrical pack of summons and missives bouncing on his back. Three feral cats darted between boots and hooves, their fur matted and muddy. Guards leaned lazily against the walls, waiting for their shift to end. A heavy wagon pulled by a team of tired-looking oxen rolled by, creaking with its burden of barreled ale. The last patrons left whorehouses and returned to their work, caravan guards, miners, magistrates.
Once we joined the flow of traffic, I asked, “We are obviously leaving. As you said. But you never said where we were going. Exactly.”
“I didn’t even say vaguely, did I?”
I laughed, mostly forced. “So, where are we headed?”
He pointed straight ahead in exaggerated fashion. “That way.”
Seeing the look on my face, he added, “A destination doesn’t matter until you get there, yes?”
I didn’t understand the need for this secrecy-was there a practical purpose or was he doing it simply to torment me? — but it was clear I wouldn’t accomplish anything by protesting further.
He drank some weak wine or strong water and flicked the reins, and we turned down another street in the city, the dirt turning to cobblestones beneath our wheels. It was obvious we were traveling through a newer section of the city. On our left masons began ascending what looked to be a rickety scaffold on the north facade of a monastery, their heads wrapped with dirty cotton cloth or covered in floppy straw hats to protect them from what promised to be an unrelenting sun. The monastery was several hundred years old, but all the buildings around it-a hospital alongside the monastery, a glassblower’s shop alongside that, a grain silo a little further down, the curtain wall behind the silo-were of newer construction.
We rode only a few more streets, once nearly running over a man leading a mule laden with baskets. I thought I saw Lloi walking her shaggy mount down a street running parallel, but it was only for an instant before the person disappeared from view as we passed the connecting street, so I couldn’t be certain.
We turned down another street, closing in on the gates, and traffic was thickening. Men bent over with bundles and baskets of all manner of things on their backs, small carts and large wagons, most laden with goods, some leaving empty, shoeless dirty children chasing each other or fleeing their mothers, women hawking trays of sweetmeats, beggars begging, guards in quilted jerkins ushering them off and generally looking disinterested in anything else. I looked at Braylar, examined him in the sunlight, and little had changed since the previous night. A new tunic, though of the same cut and ash color as the previous one. The same scarf around his neck, hiding the inked noose. The same tics around the corner of his mouth. I noticed his eyes-gray-green like mossy stones, and about as friendly or revealing. Much like they’d been when he arrived at the Three Casks, they were constantly moving, like a predator’s. Subtly, to be sure, but moving nonetheless, a measured sweep past every face without any noticeable stop, although I’m sure he was registering more than the casual air admitted. Perhaps dreading to see a look of recognition. Perhaps hoping to.
I glanced up to see the city gates growing before us. It struck me with finality that we were leaving a place I’d hoped to settle in for some time, heading to a destination I knew nothing about. Growing up a bastard son in a small inn, I thought I’d live and die as my mother had, never dreaming I’d travel anywhere. Even after attending university, my ambitions were still modest, constrained. Secure a decent patron, live a life of letters, obtain some level of steady comfort.
Rivermost wasn’t the largest city in the world, but bigger than anything I’d ever experienced or expected, and already farther than I envisioned traveling. So even if the limited range of patrons there wasn’t inspiring, I’d already gone farther than I’d ever imagined. I was content. Or at least thought so. Until Captain Killcoin approached me, presenting an enterprise so unlike anything I’d ever conceived of.
And there I was, suddenly on the move again, the scope of my life again growing in completely unfathomable ways. I tried telling myself that this was a good thing, even if I didn’t have much in the way of detail. It was growth. And growth was good. But the company I’d chosen, or that had chosen me, was enough to dampen that enthusiasm.
There was some congestion, one wagon entering, another leaving, neither allowing the other to move, but the guards cursed and threatened and one gave way and then suddenly we rumbled beneath the portcullis and over the open bridge, and I found myself looking back through the wagon, the opening behind us like a window, wondering if I’d ever see this city again.
Journeying with a destination in mind and small distances between was fine. That was all that I’d known since receiving my schooling, moving from one small city to the next, hoping to find a patron who wouldn’t dismiss me. Travel was necessary, and I accepted that, or at least tolerated it with minor grumbling. I knew where I was going, how to get there, and roughly how long it might take.
But this journey was secretive, and even the necessity for that was opaque. If I at least knew why I was kept in the dark, I wouldn’t have minded. As much. But the captain didn’t seem inclined to reveal much of anything. And that left me feeling more than unsettled.
My nerves, already tight, were being ratcheted even tighter. At the outskirts of Rivermost, I felt it across my chest, up my back, through my neck, taut with tension.
“Don’t look so melancholy, Arki. Travel is good for the constitution.”
We crossed over the dry moat, made our way through the shanties around the outskirts of the city. This was my second summer in Rivermost, and each spring the shanties had appeared almost overnight, like persistent weeds. The hovels and patchwork tents were populated by dirty, thin musicians and street performers, religious zealots, those peasants and low-enders who couldn’t afford the wares or entertainments of the city, and a menagerie of diseased prostitutes who serviced them all. My mother might have been a loose barmaid, and heartless besides, but at least she wasn’t a full-fledged prostitute. Though some might contend that was only a matter of semantics and economics. Why the guildmasters didn’t burn the shanties to the ground or drive off their occupants, I’ll never know, but I was happy there was an armed and somewhat nefarious man in the wagon with me. Those places tended to attract only the worst sort of clientele.
Braylar remained silent as the countryside rolled past, and he was motionless for the most part, only occasionally flexing his right hand or twitching a bit. Farms began to spread out in all directions, and the road became rougher.
We sat in silence for a time when Lloi fell back alongside us. She kept pace next to the wagon bench and Braylar looked down at her, finally asking, “I assume if you spotted any following us, you wouldn’t be waiting for me to ask, no?”
Lloi arched her back and replied, “Go back far enough, plenty of folks following. Don’t call them roads for nothing. Can’t vouch for intent, but if any had harm in them, didn’t seem to be aimed your way none.”
Braylar stopped the wagon and Lloi halted her horse, neither looking at the other. Finally, Braylar said, “You could tether up and ride awhile, if it suits you. Or not. They don’t call it a wagon for nothing.”
Lloi shrugged her shoulders and then did as he suggested; after securing her shaggy horse to the side of the wagon, she climbed in the rear and settled inside.
Braylar flicked the reins and we started forward again. He took a swig of what must have been very warm wine. We had the road largely to ourselves, and so he untied the scarf and used the end to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“There’s no reason for us both to bake. Take a respite beneath the canvas, if you wish, as Lloi has done already. You’ll lose the breeze, but at least you’ll be out of the sun.”
As the sun was high and scouring, I decided to follow his advice and move inside the wagon. Lloi was sitting cross-legged near the back, leaning back against a box, lazily swatting at flies.
The indecision must have been inscribed on my face, but she waved me in with her half-hand, which was surely the most disconcerting invitation I’d ever received.
I found a space against a barrel and, after folding my blanket over and placing it behind me as a cushion, sat down as well, though I shifted and tried again, as nothing I did seemed to make any position remotely comfortable.
Lloi smiled, but had the good grace not to laugh outright. After letting me settle in, she held out a pouch balanced in her palm filled with some sort of seeds.
I’d never eaten seeds before, and assuredly not when offered in a fingerless hand, but uncertain how she’d take a refusal, I reached into the pouch and grabbed a few. She pulled out some with her other hand, popped them in her mouth, and began working them around. A few seconds later, she spit some shells out the back of the wagon.
I did my best to mimic her, but breaking the seeds open in my mouth without swallowing the shells proved more difficult than I imagined. I managed to work a few open with my teeth and then promptly swallowed the shells, choking and sputtering as I did, and this time Lloi did laugh. However, hers seemed less prone to mockery than Braylar’s, and it wasn’t harsh on the ear, so I smiled in return.
I broke a few more open and managed to dislodge the contents without swallowing the shells this time. The meat of the seeds, tiny though they might be, was surprisingly tart, but not unpleasant. Still, not being near the rear of the wagon and not wanting to spit them onto Braylar’s back on the front, I had no idea what to do with the shells. Having no alternative but trying to swallow the tiny husks again, I spit them into my hand and dropped them on my lap.
Lloi spit a few more shells out the back, still smiling. “Bought them in the city. Good?”
I nodded, but when she offered me the pouch again, I said, “Many thanks, but I’m fine.”
Lloi withdrew the pouch, pulled a few more out. “As you like.” She popped them in her mouth and turned to look out the back of the wagon.
Worrying that this would be the full extent of our conversation, and reluctant to return to Braylar’s side until requested, I said, “Forgive me if this is too brusque, but it strikes me as, well, a little odd that you’re with a Syldoon commander. What exactly do you do for him?”
She turned back to me. “I do what needs doing. That’s what I do. Got nothing to do with the Syldoon, except by incident. Captain the only one that got my loyalty, and him only just barely.” She smiled broadly, discovered a shell in her teeth, worked the tip of her tongue around to dislodge it, then spit it out. “Syldoon the same as all men-greedy, crafty devils that use you when they got appetite, spit your husk out when they’re done. A lot like these.” Out came another shell. “No, I’m not tethered to them nor theirs. Just Captain Noose. Him and me, we got some sort of…” she searched for the word and stumbled across the wrong one, “affiliatory thing betwixt us.” The words “Captain Noose” conflated, with the rugged “t” dropping out entirely.
I said, “So, you have some kind of history or bond, is that it?”
“You asking if he mounts me?” She cackled, spitting out shells. “No, none of that. No mounting going on.”
That wasn’t quite where I was going with that. “How is it you came to share each other’s company?”
“Same as any two people, I guess. One day, we were strangers. The next, we weren’t.”
I could see I’d need to be exceptionally specific. “Where did you meet?”
“Captain Noose was right-you got more questions than a leper got sores. Met in a whorehouse.”
I coughed and tried to hide my shock.
She laughed again. “You got a lot of red in the face for not being the one there. Wasn’t you whoring or being whored, was it? Or maybe that’s it, maybe you was wondering which it was I was doing there? Maybe that’s what coloring you up like an apple, eh? Well, I’ll tell you straight, I wasn’t fucking of my own volition, and that’s as factful a thing as ever’s been said. Clear it up some?” Seeing my hot cheeks, she added, “All bookmasters as delicate as you, or you that glass-fragile all on your lonesome? Or maybe you’re just struck dumb because you’re wondering how a beauty like me came to be a whore, that it?” She cawed a rough laugh and continued, “Like I said, wasn’t no choice of mine. Didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Lloi, I think today’s the day you go whore.’” Another few seeds in, another few shells out. “Sold off before my thirteenth summer.” She said all of this with the complete nonchalance of someone talking about porridge. “That’s right. My tribe gave me a trim first,” she wiggled her nubs, “something nice to remember them by, then they sold me to the first slave company that come by. Turns out, these slavers were on the coin for a silk station, edge of the Green Sea. So that was that. Until it wasn’t.”
“Why… why would they do such a thing?”
“Expect they didn’t want nobody thinking it was on accident. A missing hand, well, that could be just about anything, couldn’t it? Crushed under a wagon wheel, eaten by a ripper, a souvenir of battle. Lots of ways to go getting a hand lopped off. But the fingers, all of them but the little bit by the meaty part of the hand proper? Well, hard to mistake that for much else but a real deliberate chopping, one by one. Not many accidents happen that particular.”
I’m sure I blanched before clarifying, “Why did they mutilate you at all, I mean?”
“On account of what I was, of course. No mistaking that for much else, neither. Some tribes, they send my kind through the Godveil.” Lloi shivered a bit, though I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or done for my benefit. “Ought to count myself lucky they just cut me up some and turned me whore. Silk house would’ve done me in, time enough, weren’t for the captain coming along, but the Veil… well, that would’ve done it straight away, sure as wind is windy. Seen it happen. No kind of way to go at all.”
She looked at me blankly, gauging my reaction, then continued, “Guessing they do something different to my kind where you from, eh? Can’t guess it’s six shades of nicer, though. Might even be worse, though can’t imagine how. Still, people got a whole lot of creativity when it comes to maiming and killing.”
She pulled the drawstring on the pouch shut, tucked it into a sturdier leather pouch hanging from her belt and looked ready to close the conversation off. But she was right about one thing-I did have questions, and I wanted to hear more, so I tried a different tack. “I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. I certainly have nothing in my experience that compares. But we’re not all that different, for that.”
Her hands fell into her lap and she leaned against a barrel, looking me up and down in that quiet, disconcerting way she had. “Do tell.”
“Well,” I tried to frame the words carefully to avoid being disingenuous, “I might not have been a nomad, or a girl, or mutilated and sold off exactly, but I do know what it’s like to have no family to speak of.”
She nodded slowly, still seeming less than convinced. “You do, do you?”
I debated backing away from the statement all together, leaving the conversation where it was. I wasn’t sure how revealing I really wanted to be-but if that’s what it took to keep her talking, I supposed it was worth it. “My mother worked at an inn, a lot like the Three Casks, but it was on a road. I was born there, grew up there. I never knew who my father was, and my mother refused to discuss him at all. Even bringing up his name earned me a wooden spoon across the backside, so I learned to avoid the topic.
“When I was young, not eight nor nine, a man showed up at The Noisy Jackal-that was the name of the inn, and he-”
“Good name.”
I stopped and looked at her.
“For a tavern. Good name. Better than the Three Casks. No kind of character at all in a name like that. Might as well call it The Three Boards, or The Three Drunks, be done with it. Come to think of it, though, that wouldn’t be half bad. The Three Drunks, I was meaning. Says there’s some kind of story behind the name, which there ought to be. Otherwise no sense naming a thing at all.”
I waited until I was sure she was done and tried again. “Yes. Well. This man appeared, and-”
“Was it your da?”
“Oddly enough, I was just about to tell you who it was.”
She smiled. “Course you were. Go on.”
“No, he wasn’t my father. But he was his retainer.”
“What’s that, then?”
I felt we were nearing an impasse. “What’s what?”
“Retainer, you said, was it? What’s that?”
I nearly rolled my eyes before remembering that Anjurian wasn’t her first language and she’d had no formal schooling besides. “His man. My father’s man. Like Vendurro and Glesswik are the captain’s men. His retainers.”
She started to nod, accepting that, and then stopped, eyes widening. “Your da was a Syldoon?”
“No. I was giving an example. Explaining the term. Retainer.”
Lloi looked puzzled. “So, not a Syldoon, but a soldier then. Your da was a soldier.”
I tried hard to keep the frustration off my face. “No. Likely a merchant or a noble. Any man with some wealth or power can have a retainer. A retainer is like a servant, or someone in a man’s service anyway.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say as much, then? Got to go confusing things with terms that don’t mean nothing in particular.”
I opted not to debate the point, and was nearly going to drop the topic altogether, when she rolled her hand in a circle. “Go on then. Tell me about your da’s man who come calling. Only do it without confusing things no more.”
I smiled despite myself. “Fair enough. I’m not sure how he found me. Maybe my father had known of me for some time, though if he had, I’m not sure why he waited so long to send a ret-… his man. Either way, the man was there at my father’s behest to-”
Lloi’s eyes started to narrow but I rode past any objections or queries. “My father sent him to offer my mother a bargain. For some coin, the man was going to take me away and set me up in a university. I didn’t really understand what was happening at all. But my mother didn’t exactly agonize over the decision, so it all moved very quickly. She accepted the terms and money, however much it was, made me gather my things, gave me one stiff hug, and sent me off with the man.
“I was confused. I thought maybe he was my father, but he explained in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t. He loaded me and my meager belongings onto a cart and led me away from the Jackal.”
“Your ma?”
I was about to clarify when I saw her gap-toothed grin. “You are forgiven for thinking so. Yes, he led me off, telling me I was heading to a school. I didn’t really know what that entailed, never having seen one, but hoped my father would be there, as that was the only thing that kept me from bawling the entire time. The thought that at least I would finally know who my father was.”
She scrutinized my expression. “Guessing you didn’t though, did you?”
“No. No, I didn’t. Altunis-my father’s servant, as I discovered, though that was about all I’d learn about the man. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. Altunis transported me to a university several days ride away. And after paying my tuition, deposited me there among strangers. My father paid for my schooling for the duration of my stay, but never visited me or the school that I knew of. I never met him. I don’t know if he had other bastards, or put them up somewhere if he did. I might even have had brothers and sisters at the university and never known it. And I never saw Altunis again to ask.
“While my mother could be cold at times, cruel even, it was crueler still to allow me to be wrenched out of that life so abruptly, and to have any illusions about ever meeting my father completely shredded. I never forgave her for that.”
I hadn’t expected to provide that many details, but they seemed to be coming out of their own accord, and even over a tenyear later, the memories they evoked were still a little jagged. “So, while I might not have suffered as you did, Lloi, I do know something about losing a family, real and imagined. And I know something about bitterness, too.”
“Expecting you do. Only that’s where the comparison ends real sudden like. I got no bitter to speak of.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “How could you not? What happened to you was far worse than my fate.” The words were out before I could stop them. But if she was stung at all, she didn’t show it, and I tried to move past it quickly. “Why did your people do that, Lloi? That’s what I don’t really understand. You said ‘on account of what you were.’ What was that? Why would they treat you like that?”
Lloi cocked her head to the side and looked at me queerly. “Huh. I was thinking Captain Noose must have told you a fair bit more than he done told you.”
She stood, having to stoop only a little. “Real nice chatting with you, bookmaster. Real nice. Excepting the part about your family. But I’m thinking we won’t be doing much more of that before you round some things off with the captain there. Gets real particular about who says what without his say so. Anytime you want to share some seeds, though, you just say as much. Got near as many as you got questions.”
Lloi stepped over my legs, nearly tripping on an ankle as I tried to pull them out of her path. She disentangled herself and looked down at me. “This wagon gets tiny right quick, don’t it?”
Then she hunchwalked to the fore of the wagon, pulled the flap back, and shouted, “Coming through, Captain Noose.”
Braylar jumped slightly just before the flap fell closed behind her. I heard him say, “I’ve told you before, don’t shout in my ear, yes?”
“You said so, yeah. But I also know how you don’t like being snuck up on much neither. Last time I snuck up on you, you got more raw than the last time I shouted coming through, so I figured I’d go with the shouting again.”
“I take your point. But if you shout or sneak again, you’ll be walking the rest of the way. Perhaps in the harness.”
I suspected that wasn’t as much of a jest as it should’ve been.
They fell silent and left me to wonder at this strange former savage turned whore turned, what, exactly, scout? Servant? Retainer? I nearly laughed, though the whole thing was infinitely more sad than funny. And yet she told her story-what she did tell of it, anyway-in such flat, emotionless terms, so at odds at the utter tragedy of the tale. It was all so exceptionally strange and perplexing.
We rode the road from Rivermost for some time, though it was mostly just a collection of ruts. After setting my pages to dry, and hearing no noteworthy conversations coming from the front of the wagon-Braylar and Lloi had lapsed into that silence only old comrades or complete strangers can sustain or tolerate-I moved to the rear. There were some travelers far in the distance, but their wagon must have been going just a bit slower than ours, as it incrementally grew smaller on the horizon until it was barely distinguishable as anything at all.
I fell asleep like that, head resting against a barrel. When I woke, we weren’t on the road, the sun had slipped much lower in the sky, and my face probably looked like the wood. I climbed out of the wagon and looked around. The road was some distance off, and I would’ve missed it in the tall grass if it weren’t for a single man leading an ox-drawn cart down it. I walked around to the front. Braylar had unharnessed the horses and led them off to graze. Braylar’s own horses were still tethered on the side, and one looked up at me briefly before returning to its grassy meal. Neither Lloi nor her horse were in sight. Braylar was brushing the horses while they ate. I raised my arm and waved. The gesture wasn’t returned.
I waited for some time as he led his horses back and fitted them to the harness again. I thought he’d ask for my assistance, but he didn’t, which I thought just as well-my experience with horses was certainly of little value, and I was sure I would’ve only gotten in the way.
Braylar pulled himself back up to the bench and acknowledged me for the first time when I said, “Lloi doesn’t stay in one spot for very long. Where’s she off to now?”
“I do believe you’re infatuated. She’s off scouting the area.”
I looked around, seeing little besides rut and grass. “Is there that much to scout?”
“There are four basic elements to soldiering: training, logistics, strategy, and tactics. Of these, the first is the only one you can do-that is, with even moderate success-without the aid of intelligence. There’s more than one way to gather intelligence, but scouting is surely the most fundamental and immediate. Particularly in a foreign land. So, while we’re not a full company on a large-scale campaign, the principles remain the same. I have enemies, known and unknown, I’m not in friendly territory, and I wouldn’t travel without intelligence of what is over the horizon, yes? Lloi rides the horizon.” He cast a sideways glance at me and added, “Fear not. She’ll find us. She’s a creature of the steppe. We could be a thousand miles distant, but so long as we were still in the grass, I’m confident she would track us down. More importantly, she knows the route we intend to take.”
Like so many things he said, this did nothing to clarify anything. I asked, foolishly perhaps, “Is Lloi your woman?” I would’ve said lady, but that clearly didn’t apply.
Captain Killcoin laughed and punched me on the arm so hard I nearly fell off the bench. “That’s the height of hilarity, Arki. Truly. Even if I could love one such as her-and that, if you failed to observe, is what I find so amusing-but even if that were possible, do you suspect I’d retain her on a dangerous journey such as this? Or order her to scout alone, and not rend the hair from my scalp in worry? No. A camp follower who cooks a good quail or sucks a good cock, you keep around. But someone who’s ensnared your heart is someone you leave at home for peace of mind.”
I started to ask something else but he cut me off, “Enough on that. When I determine the time is ripe, you shall know more of her… utility to me, and not a moment before. And if that only inflames your curiosity, I say to you, a writer without curiosity is a bird without feathers.”
I expected he’d turn us about and return us to the road, but we continued rolling on over the tall grass, gusts of wind turning it about like choppy waves. I held my tongue, waiting, thinking perhaps he was simply anticipating a curve in road ahead, and that we were only crossing a relatively small stretch of steppe before stumbling across it again.
However, the time passed in silence and nothing was going as expected. As calmly as possible, I said, “We’re not returning to the road.”
“Very astute. And I’ll preempt a few more observations to save you the trouble: the sky is still above us; the sun continues trekking west; our wagon is pulled by horses, not unicorns.”
“But… I don’t understand. Why did we take the road at all if you only intended to leave it?”
He replied, “Immediately riding off into the wilderness would have drawn undue attention. It’s simply not done. But there are few eyes this far out, and I no longer wish to be part of traffic. And as to the why of it, that’s for me to reveal, not for you to puzzle out. I hired you to archive, not navigate. When next you’re hired to navigate, your counsel on such subjects shall be welcome and warranted, but not before.”
I tried to quell the small bursts of panic in my chest. “But we’ll… we’ll get lost won’t we?”
He laughed. “I don’t intend to strike through the heart of the Green Sea. We only cut across one small bay. And though Lloi hasn’t called this place home for some years, she still knows it well enough to guide us through. Fear not, Arki. I’ll return us to civilization soon enough.”
I could tell his patience with my line of questioning was growing thin, but I couldn’t stop myself. “But… but the grass isn’t safe, is it? There are Grass Dogs, and I’ve heard of a number of creatures that-”
“We will be safer there than on the road. Of that, you can be sure.”
“But there are Hornmen on the road, to protect travelers. And-”
“And do you believe no one is accosted or robbed or killed on the road?”
Now I understood the point Mulldoos was arguing before leaving Rivermost. “I didn’t say that. But surely it must be safer than going where there’s no protection at-”
“Enough.” He pulled his gloves tighter on his hands and glared at me. “You yammer like an old addled woman. Be silent or go back in the wagon.”
So rebuffed, I opted to get off the bench and walk alongside the wagon for a few miles. As the sun neared the horizon, he signaled that we were halting for the day to make camp. Braylar leapt down and unharnessed the horses. I offered to help, hoping he’d decline, but he nodded. While I was hardly comfortable around them, I followed his lead, unbuckling the straps as he had. We didn’t lead them out to graze, however. Braylar retrieved some hobbles from the wagon and fitted them to the horses’ legs. Then he handed me a brush. Not being a groom, I wasn’t sure about the best way to proceed and made the mistake of asking.
He replied, “You stick it as far up their asses as you can. When you’re through, withdraw it and brush your hair. It will make your coat shine.”
Opting not to follow those lovely directions, I did the best I could. Though I’m sure it was an inexpert and clumsy job, and I was probably too delicate, or too rough, the horses were benign enough, and the chestnut-colored one even bumped me with its snout in what I assumed was approval of sorts.
Braylar returned with a bucket of grain and fed them. I wondered aloud why we fed the horses grain when there was grass in every conceivable direction.
“A mixed diet is best. You’re bookish in the extreme. Have you never encountered a horse before? Or were all of your previous patrons walkers?”
I ignored that and asked, “Do you need help preparing a fire?”
“We’re still not so very far from the road you were so loath to leave, and a fire would serve as a beacon for any brigands. One fire means only a few people huddled around it. And that means easy prey, yes?”
Knowing that I was likely to only irritate more, I asked, “What about a lantern?”
“By all means,” he said, “if you want to draw every raider in the territory down on us, light one. Light two! Did we bring two? If not, then one will have to suffice.” He laughed. “I brought it in the event that I must use it. If that time comes, you’ll know, because it will be lit. Not before. Record whatever you wish to record before the light fails, or wait until after dawn. Your choice. Were it mine, I would eat some of that goat and find a spot in the wagon before the whole world goes black. For one accustomed to the city, it can be disconcerting. So, sup and repose. Or starve and be fretful. The choice is yours.”
The night was mostly undone by fretting. While I enjoyed seeing new cities and locales, I never really enjoyed the travel between, and that was even with companions on a short road, with fires, hot food, and a modicum of merriment. Not all at my expense. From the university in Highgrove to Rivermost, with all the small stops in between, more often than not I begged the kindness of strangers to allow me to travel with them, and given the dangers on the road, most travelers were more than happy to have one more among their number, even if I clearly looked incapable of defending anything or anyone. But those were well-trod byways patrolled by Hornmen, and the duration was never all that long.
Here… we’d clearly left behind traffic, and commerce, and community. All the things ordinary people clung to as they moved from place to place. There was nothing at all out here, except the unknown, and large quantities of it. Emptiness in all directions. Or the appearance of emptiness. Who knew what things crept or slithered among the grass, or buried beneath it.
And Braylar was correct about the dark-I’d never seen the stars look so sharp, and the crowned moon was in its full glory, both the moon itself and its single ring bleeding bright light everywhere. Sleeping in the wilderness didn’t prove restful. The pots gently chimed against each other throughout the night. The wagon rocked on its springs, driven by the wind, and while the flaps were secured front and back, they billowed like the sails of a small ship as cold drafts found their way into the wagon and beneath my blankets.
I finally fell into a fitful slumber when I heard Lloi ride up. She unsaddled her horse, fed it, saying gentle things in her tongue, which must have been soothing, because I went back to sleep immediately. When I awoke at dawn, she was gone again. I rose and stretched, splashed some water on my face, and climbed out the front of the wagon. Braylar was finishing rolling up his sleeping mat.
After filling our bellies, we took care of the other tasks that needed tending: feeding the horses, harnessing them, checking all the straps and wheels and axle and tongue and anything else that moved for something in need of repair. Discovering nothing, we set off. I took my place alongside him on the bench and asked, “Would you like me to get the writing table? Is there anything you’d like to record or dictate?”
Without looking at me he said, “Record the grass.”
Most of my previous patrons could hardly stop their mouths-they regaled me with mundane minutia and inane stories, most of which involved the glories of mercantile conquest. Hardly riveting, but it was why they hired me. Pollus the apothecary, old wheezy Winnozin the priest, Nullo the foul-mouthed (and foul-smelling) tanner, Lektin the pinched-faced banker. Dull and duller, the whole lot. Even the Lady Anzella, who inherited her husband’s shipping business after the plague took him, and managed not only to keep it afloat, but to make it thrive… beyond the novelty that she was a woman entrepreneur, and a successful one at that, she was just as mannish in her ability to bore a person to tears.
They all shared one thing in common-they loved to talk about themselves, and it was my job to keep them prattling as long as possible, asking as many questions as I could think of to keep their narratives (and my employment) going. However, few jobs lasted more than a year; only one patron kept me on for near two. Being social-climbing burghers who’d generally made their own fortunes rather than inheriting them in noble fashion, they clutched those hard-earned coins tight, which ultimately always proved at odds with just how long-winded they were inclined to be. They would have talked forever if they hadn’t had to pay for the recording.
But the captain seemed completely disinterested in talking to me at all, except when absolutely necessary, and rebuffed most attempts at conversation. So long as I was paid, I wasn’t particularly bothered by this, but it was queer, and more than that, had the effect of stretching the hours out interminably.
Sitting inside the wagon, I often looked out the back. Except for the cloud of dust and absence of horses, it was identical to the front-an endless trail surrounded by an endless expanse of tall green grass, rustling as far as the eye could see. We couldn’t have been more alone, and it felt as if we were truly the last travelers on Earth, doomed to travel these steppes together forever.
The next day passed exactly as the previous day had. The only real deviation in our journey was that Lloi was absent. She didn’t return in the middle of the night. She didn’t return at all.
The following day, after our usual morning rituals and preparations, Braylar summoned me to join him. When I took my seat, he glanced at me briefly. “You never look well-rested. I’m beginning to think that you don’t have it in you.”
I didn’t bother countering that I slept just fine when I wasn’t trapped on a wagon in the wilderness with the least loquacious man in the known world.
We sat in our customary silence for a time when Braylar finally said, “Have you grieved, Arki?”
I didn’t answer right away, equally surprised he was asking me a question and uncertain what he expected as a response.
“No? I thought as much. You haven’t lived until you’ve grieved. Death, life, together, the same. And if you’ve only experienced life you’re only half-alive. Of course, there are many kinds of grief. When we’re betrayed, when a lover leaves us in the middle of the night, when our fortunes overturn and dump us penniless in a ditch. Anywhere there’s loss, there’s a little grief. But they’re minor, and quick to disappear. We can take a new lover, take revenge on our betrayer, take the fortune of someone else. The losses can be recouped, and this is what makes these griefs minor, fleeting, inconsequential.
“But when you lose something that can never be replaced, and more particularly, someone, then you’ll know grief, true grief. The kind that tortures and warps and threatens to destroy, the kind that turns your insides to ash, that draws you toward madness or your own death. This grief will never leave you, ever. It will change shape, and if you survive its initial ravages, it will subdue, but it will never leave, periodically springing up again to catch you unaware with a new fierceness, like a plague that lies dormant for years only to return again with renewed ferocity. You’ll never fully escape it. For your sake, I hope you experience this grief soon. You’ll be that much closer to living a complete life.”
After that happy outburst, he lapsed into silence again. I was about to return to the wagon when he pointed out a figure on the horizon. At first I was worried it might be a Grass Dog, but his smile told me it was only his Grass Dog. When Lloi finally reined in next to us, Braylar said, “Report. What have you seen?”
She jerked a thumb in the direction she came from. “More than seen. Found.”
When she didn’t immediately expound, Braylar sighed. “Yes?”
“Best see it for yourself. I could spend the time telling you about it, but without presupposing I know what you’ll say or do, I know you’ll be wanting to just see it yourself anyway. So, you want me to lead you there?”
“How far away is this find of yours-should we follow on horse?”
“Horse be quicker, sure as spit. But seeing as to what I saw, I wouldn’t be leaving the wagon untended, Captain Noose, not if it were my wagon. Which it weren’t, of course. Just saying.”
Braylar seemed to be balancing between amusement and annoyance. “Very well, I’ll heed your cryptic and garbled advice. Wagon it is.”
Lloi’s horse trotted ahead of us. Braylar snapped the reins and had the horses moving at a fairly brisk pace-we rumbled over the ground, rocking as we went. Still, Lloi’s horse was quicker, even with its short legs, and she maintained enough distance between us that she was only a silhouette on the horizon, stopping on occasion to ensure the wagon didn’t fall too far behind.
Finally, Lloi stopped and got down off her horse. Braylar looked at me and said, “Pay attention. I believe this might be something worth recording.” Then he hopped off the wagon and it rocked gently on its springs. I got caught on a nail getting down, nearly tearing my tunic, and by the time my feet were on the ground, Braylar was striding after Lloi.
I hurried to catch up, but there was no need-they stopped a short distance away before a large area where the grass had been trampled down. That’s when I noticed the stench. Two odors intertwined, instantly recognizable to anyone who’s paid a visit to the butcher-meat and death.
As I approached, I saw something past Lloi’s shoulder, rising up above the grass. One of the largest creatures I’d ever seen was lying on its side before us. Easily as big as our wagon, perhaps bigger still.
It had short, squat legs, so that its belly must have swung very low to the ground, but now that belly was torn open, its thick, tangled, ropy innards strewn along with a great deal of dried blood across the flattened grass.
After a moment, Braylar and Lloi walked on, but never having seen anything like this before, I couldn’t help circling and taking account. Most of its body was covered in bulbous scales of dark gray, almost charcoal, interspersed with strange tufts of stiff hair. It had a short tail, a shorter neck, and a wedge-shaped head. Its mouth was agape, huge purple tongue lolling over knobby teeth, eyes like small black stones still open under a broad, bony ridge. Large flies scattered from the open wound at its belly as I came close, buzzing their protest. Its hide, more of an armor, really, was marked with white scars or punctures, particularly around the neck and head.
I looked up, and when I didn’t see my companions right away, there was a flash of panic before I noticed the tops of their heads twenty feet away. I walked over quickly and found another scene of carnage, much more dreadful than the first.
There was a chariot upended, comprised mostly of stiff grass. Harnessed to the front was a dead dog at least as big as Lloi’s pony, its thick mottled fur caked in a wide splatter of blood. Its throat had been torn out. I imagined what kind of creature could kill a dog this big, and in such gruesome, efficient fashion, and I couldn’t stymie a shiver.
Most of the harness straps disappeared underneath the dog, but it appeared there had been another dog pulling the chariot, though if it was in the vicinity, I didn’t see it. I wondered if that’s what Lloi and Braylar were inspecting and walked in their direction, suddenly wishing I’d stayed with the wagon.
Braylar and Lloi were squatting before a dead man, disemboweled from sternum to crotch, his bloated guts slung across his waist and pooling in the grass on either side.
I turned away, gagging, struggling to keep my last meal in my stomach. I tried to think on something else, anything else-beautiful flowers, a rolling brook, pen and ink-and the nausea nearly passed until I remembered I ate dried goat that morning, and then there was no stopping it-my stomach roiled and heaved. I took several steps back towards the chariot and vomited into the grass.
I dreaded Braylar’s ridicule and didn’t want to embarrass myself by spitting up bile, but I also didn’t want to walk alone back to the wagon. Whatever assaulted the Grass Dogs was still out here somewhere. And so, once I was sure my knees had wobbled their last, I approached again, reluctantly.
Braylar had just finished asking a question.
She pointed. “Over there.”
The two of them began walking without sparing me another look.
I glanced down at the man again, though I was careful not to linger on his innards. He shared Lloi’s dark coloring, both in skin and hair. Feet, sandaled; legs, bound in strips of felt wrapped tight; chest (what I allowed myself to see), once housed in a breastplate of dark gray leather that had been slashed open; left arm, still clutching a long wooden shield that had been flung wide; his spear is a few feet away, just outside the dried blood that coated the grass in all directions. He had a gray helmet that bore a striking resemblance to a bowl and was obviously fashioned out of the hide of a beast like the one also dead nearby. His eyes stared up into the cloudless sky, mouth still open in an unfinished scream. A fly traipsed across his lips and I turned away to find Braylar and Lloi before my stomach betrayed me again, my feet heavy as I dreaded what else they might be investigating.
They were standing on either side of another dead body, though this one was thankfully face down in the grass. For a moment, I feared Braylar meant to turn him over with his foot, shuddered, and began to avert my eyes.
Braylar saw, smiled quick and small. “No matter. Dead is dead. So, Lloi, you have my attention in full. Tell me what happened here.”
“Wasn’t here. But I can hazard a guess or two.”
“As could I. But I’m hopeful yours will contain more insight.”
Lloi pointed back where we came from. “That beast back there, what my people call a rooter, it-”
Braylar interrupted. “No longer, Lloi.” She looked confused until Braylar clarified. “They haven’t been your people for some time.” Surprisingly, this was said somewhat gently, less a reprimand than a reminder.
Lloi pulled her misshapen hat off her head. “Nah. They’re still my people, even if I’m not theirs. Can’t help who you are, Captain Noose. Can’t help it none at all.”
Braylar looked poised to argue, but conceded the point. “As you will, Lloi. Continue, then. What of the beast?”
“Called a rooter, on account of it eating not much more than roots. But mean as spit, for all that-can crush a man easier than I can crush a flower. Usually hunt them with a small party, like this, though I’m guessing they wished they’d a brought a bigger one right about now. But here, they got two chariots, probably four or five men, and-”
“Two? Where is the other, then, and those that rode on it?”
Lloi waved away a big fly. “I’m coming to that, short. Get there faster, you just let me.” She set the hat on her head and adjusted it, but I couldn’t fathom why-it was only a different kind of shapeless now. “Trails and ruts say two chariots, four, maybe five men. They hunt this rooter to ground, I’m thinking. Wasn’t expecting them to be this close to the road, but I’m guessing they followed that old devil away from a herd, he led them on a chase outside where they meant to go. You notice the skin? Thick. Tough to kill a rooter with spears. But worth it, if you can manage. So they chased, finally made the kill back there.”
We followed her back toward the chariot and dog. “Looks like they set to butchering when something took them unawares. Guessing the two we got dead here, they were carving the rooter. The other two or three, back over here with the chariots. Must have been when they heard it.”
She didn’t elaborate as she walked around the perimeter of the scene, her hand grazing the tops of the grass.
Braylar snapped, “What, pray tell, did they hear?”
“Ripper come on them. Looks like it attacked near the chariots first.”
I said, “Ripper? Let me guess. On account of it eviscerating everything?”
“If that word means ripping, then yeah, on account of the ripping. Biggest killer on the plains. Vicious bird, taller than a man on horse, and faster too, least in short bursts. Quicker and meaner than anything you ever see. No wings to speak of, but rippers got arms with long claws. Hook their prey still when they shred it with that massive beak of theirs. Eat ferrets, groundhog, gazelle, pretty much whatever else it come across. Loves horse. They usually steer clear of men and dogs, though, least of all, when in number. Can’t rightly say what it was doing here. Could be it had its eye on the old rooter, too, got territorial. Could be its stomach was just that empty. Guessing it came on them unawares. One wagon had time to cut loose. But those poor bastards, looks like one tried to run, the other tried to fight. Either way, dead is dead.”
Braylar dropped his hand to the flail on his hip and scanned the horizon. “Thank you for advising me to don armor before leaving the wagon. Most kind.”
“Wouldn’t help you none, if the ripper come calling. Steel armor would’ve surprised it some, true enough-not much of that out this way-but just would’ve taken a chunk from somewhere that didn’t taste so steely. You ever see a ripper up close, pretty much the last thing you ever see, no matter what you’re wearing. Unless you’re sitting in an iron box. But we got a real shortage of those around here too.”
She looked off across the grassland. “Ripper didn’t stay here long, guessing it took off after that other chariot. Guessing there’s another scene played out just like this one, some miles away. Guessing the ripper’s getting its fill right now, else it would’ve run back here already, before the scavengers come calling. That’s what I’m guessing.”
Braylar turned and began walking back towards the wagon, rather quickly. “Next time you’re tempted to lead us to a ripper’s trencher, think better of it, Lloi.”
We got moving again. Though it could’ve been my imagination, Braylar seemed to be snapping the reins with more enthusiasm. He asked Lloi to sit alongside him on the bench and began shooting volleys of questions at her, all dealing with what she saw while scouting. Particular tracks or trails, the locations of rivers or dried river beds, outcrops, likely spots for ambush, other signs of the Grass Dogs, rooters, or rippers.
A small cluster of strange trees appeared off to our tight. The trunks were incredibly thick-wider than three stocky men standing shoulder to shoulder-but they were also very short, no taller than our wagon. The branches were stout, too, comprising a dense canopy of foliage with prickly looking leaves. I couldn’t imagine many trees surviving the wind on these plains, but these appeared oddly suited to the task. It was only a small cluster, though, the trees huddled together, and they quickly disappeared.
We were now truly in the wild. If there was any doubt, Lloi leading us to the ripper’s bloodbath confirmed it completely. We were deep in the wilderness, in the middle of the alien Green Sea, far from anything or anyone familiar, and I was as afraid as I’d ever been in my life. I should’ve heeded my mother’s advice. Even if she was wrong about most everything else, she was absolutely point on when it came to avoiding the Syldoon.
Lloi and Braylar alternated watch during the night. I volunteered to help and was equally relieved and insulted when Braylar said they wouldn’t trust their lives to my vigilance.
Lloi was gone with daybreak, if not before. I didn’t see how she could spend half the night on watch and then a full day scouting ahead or behind us, but her endurance didn’t seem to flag at all.
After we set off, the wind picked up considerably, turning into a roaring, howling thing. Braylar pulled his scarf up to his eyes to keep the grit out of his mouth and nose. I tried asking him a question, and he swore repeatedly and told me to be silent, as if I were in league with the wind.
When we finally halted for the day, the wind hadn’t abated at all. We ate and I attempted to sleep. But between listening for Lloi’s return or the ripper’s approach, it was largely a restless night. Lloi didn’t return. But at least the ripper didn’t either.
The next day was much of the same. No reprieve from the wind. No sign of Lloi.
After feeding the rest of the horses, Braylar saddled Scorn. As he was getting ready to ride off, his crossbow and quiver on either side of the saddle, I asked him what I should do if the ripper showed up.
He either failed to hear me or failed to care and rode off without a word.
So abandoned, I sat inside, the wagon rocking back and forth, the canvas quivering against the wooden ribs, and the hand axe at the ready, though I knew I had little chance of fending a ripper off if those Grass Dogs fared so poorly.
Hours later, Braylar returned and dismounted. Alone. One glare killed any questions I might have had.
Another restless night. And another dawn without Lloi.
By mid-afternoon the following day, the wind finally ceased. The grass stopped churning, the horses lifted their heads once more, and we began to move at our normal pace.
After another quiet hour, I sat next to him. He said, “And you were worried this wouldn’t be a pleasant journey.”
Whatever mirth he was trying to summon disappeared when I asked, “Is Lloi… does she usually go this long? Is she-”
“I can’t say,” he replied. “You must have failed to notice, but I’m not with her, I’m with you. She’s alive or she’s dead. One of those is a certainty. Beyond that, it’s pointless to question. I would have her rejoin us, but I can’t will it-”
Braylar stopped mid-sentence and closed his eyes. The twitch returned on the edge of his lips, the scars lifting and falling. He cocked his head to the side as if he were straining to hear something far away, then stood and pulled the flail off his belt, the corners of his mouth beginning to twitch more rapidly. And his lips opened and closed slightly, as if he were trying to find the beginnings of words that refused to come out.
Suddenly, he raised the haft of the flail in the air, the two spiked Deserters swinging gently on their chains. Then he began spinning the heads, slowly at first, so they began a gentle arc, and then faster, until the chains were whistling through the air. With each pass, he mouthed the non-words more frantically.
He stood on the seat, spinning the flail, turning at the waist, this way and that, like some twisted, warlike weathervane moved by a wind only he could feel. I’d never had direct dealings with a man afflicted with madness, but I was sure those were likely signs.
Not knowing what else to do, I asked, “Captain Killcoin? Can I get you something? Some, uh, some wine perhaps?”
He cursed, told me to be silent, and continued turning.
All I could do was watch, until, like a storm that threatens but is blown past by the wind, the spinning slowed and then stopped, and he grabbed the chains with one hand to still them before placing the weapon back on his belt. And then, as suddenly as he stood and began the madness, he sat again, as if nothing occurred at all. Leaning forward, hands on his knees, he stared straight ahead, sweat on his brow.
I was trying to think of something to break the silence when he jumped off the wagon, moved a few feet off into the grass, pulled his trousers down, and emptied his bowels as loudly and grotesquely as I’d ever heard bowels emptied, a wet explosion as if all his insides murdered him and were trying to flee the scene of the crime at once.
Disgusted, I turned away.
A short time later, he walked back toward the wagon, face pale, hands shaking slightly. I couldn’t begin to think of what to say, but he said, “I always have to shit before a fight. Now go into the wagon, Arki. Bring me the crossbow and bolts. The quiver should be propped up alongside it.”
I didn’t move right away and his head snapped in my direction. “Be quick about it.”
Utterly confused, I did as he asked and returned a few moments later, laying them on the seat. “Not for me. For you. You’re going to learn how to span a crossbow today.”
At a loss, I asked, “Span?”
“Span it. Load it. Load the crossbow, yes? That’s what I said, was it not?”
He unloaded the crossbow and handed it to me. “This bow is beyond the pale. With some, usually for hunting, you load with your muscle and a foot in a stirrup. With more powerful ones, you need tools-a belt hook, pulley, crannequin, or demon’s tongs. Here, you have the tongs, but as you can see, they aren’t a separate tool, but a built-in mechanism. This decreases the load time. Especially mounted. But you have it easy-you’ll be in a wagon and not a saddle. Now pay attention.”
He pushed the lever forward and slipped the short pair of curved hooks on the thick hempen bowstring-if that’s what it’s called on a crossbow, I didn’t know and didn’t want to deal with more derision by asking. There was another pair of slotted prongs, much longer and gently curved, that were fitted on a metal rod protruding from either side of the stock. With a quick pull of the lever, the long prongs slid along the rod as the short hooks drew the string back and fitted it to a nock. He maneuvered the lever forward again, releasing the hooks, and then folded the contraption flat against the top of the stock.
So prepared, he dropped a bolt-at least I knew enough not to call it an arrow-into the groove in front of the string. He preceded to unload and load it once more as an example, unloaded it a final time and handed the crossbow and bolt to me, asking me if I had any questions.
I had dozens but withheld them.
He commanded, “Now you.”
I made an attempt, albeit clumsily. While the lever mechanism eliminated the need for brute force, the action wasn’t nearly as easy as he made it appear-the short hooks slid off the thick string several times.
Braylar scowled. “Faster. You must go faster. You aren’t loading this to shoot quail, you’re loading it to kill a man who wants to kill you. Now faster.”
I tried to speed up, and fumbled even more.
He leaned over me. “A man is going to kill you. He’ll do this if you aren’t quicker. Be quicker.”
I reached for the trigger and he grabbed my hand. “No. No loosing without a bolt. Very bad for the weapon. We’ll simply have to do with losing some bolts until you get the hang of it, yes?”
With shaking fingers, I dropped the bolt in place as he’d done, aimed it off into the grass, and squeezed the long trigger. The crossbow jerked, the string twanged, and the bolt disappeared almost faster than I could see. I repeated this a few more times and noticed that Braylar was scanning the horizon to the south.
I looked as well and saw nothing and he said, “Did I tell you to cease? Continue. Continue, continue, continue. You must be fluid, you must be fast. Or you’ll die. Continue.”
Not understanding any of this, I continued nonetheless.
Over and over, losing count, bolt after bolt into the deep grass, my fingers getting sore until they began to blister. The demon’s tongs, as he called them, made the process much less strenuous than it would’ve been using the back and legs alone, but my hand was still starting to cramp. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of repetition, he said, “Still too slow. But we have no more time. Which is just as well-I don’t have an endless supply of bolts.” And then he looked at the horizon again. “Very soon a group of riders will approach us. I don’t know who they are. But there will be a handful or more. They’ll be armed. And they won’t be friends.”
Predictably, I said, “I don’t understand. How do you know that?”
He looked at me, eyes narrow. “You do remember our night at the Three Casks, yes? Our little rude awakening?”
It took me a moment before I understood what he was getting at. He hadn’t spun his flail like a madman, but he’d somehow known blood would be spilled. “I still don’t-”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s enough that I know. Now give me the crossbow, hide in the wagon, and be ready with the quiver. And hand me a blanket.”
I simply looked at him, sure I’d misunderstood the directions.
He raised an eyebrow. “Was that too complicated, Arki? I thought it fairly simple. You didn’t think I wanted you to shoot it, did you?” And then he laughed, though I clearly didn’t know why.
I had no interest in handling the thing, let alone shooting it-I’d never even threatened someone with violence, let alone carried it out-but I didn’t appreciate being made sport of. “Why did you have me reload it until my fingers bled if you didn’t want me to shoot it?”
“Because, if I hand it back to you it will be empty. And you’ll need to span it. I thought that much had been clear. You practiced reloading because… you’re going to reload it. One job. That’s all. And if you do it half as poorly as you just practiced, there’s a very good chance we’ll both die. Do you understand me now?”
I nodded numbly.
He took the crossbow from my hands. “Good. Now get in the wagon and keep your mouth shut. And hand me a blanket.”
I was reaching for a blanket when I saw him open a chest near the front of the wagon. A moment later, he slipped a cuirass of brass scales over his head and then pulled another larger tunic on over that, covering the armor completely.
He saw me staring. “I did mention a battle was forthcoming, didn’t I? I thought that much was clear. Now hide yourself.”
After handing him the blanket, I sat down in the wagon and set the quiver next to me. At that moment, I thought Lloi was lucky to be running around in the grass with a ripper.
I was considering that riding off into the wilderness with a stranger, no matter how much fame or money might be won, was perhaps the worst idea ever, when I heard something. Hoofbeats. Faint, so much so that I didn’t recognize them as such at first. But real enough. As they got closer, I could tell they belonged to several horses.
Braylar whispered, “Six. Better than seven. Much worse than four.” I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me, himself, or the flail.
I scooted against the wall of canvas, and noticed a worn spot, just thin enough that I could see out without anyone seeing in. There were six riders. One had a shirt of rusty and poorly-patched mail that barely stretched over his wide girth. He was much older than the other five, and I assumed he was the leader. He had straight gray hair hanging in a sweaty curtain beneath his iron helm, and a thick white mustache that obscured most of his mouth. In his hand, a round, wooden shield, and a sword in a scabbard at his side. On his other side, a cracked and weathered horn hanging from a baldric. That didn’t bode well.
The other five riders wore dirty gambesons, similar to the quilted jerkins the city watch wore in Rivermost, though these were raw, undyed, and thicker. They had either short axes or long daggers at their hips, and carried spears and shields, each with a quiver of javelins alongside their saddles. These soldiers looked around as they approached and shifted in their saddles like they ached to be out of them. They look inexperienced, bored, and young. But they were definitely a handful of armed men. Just as Braylar predicted.
Our wagon rumbled and creaked along slowly, tack and harness jingling. The five young soldiers halted about thirty feet away, with the leader riding a bit closer, and Braylar stopped the wagon. And I began to sweat in earnest. Three of the soldiers moved out of my square of vision, still maintaining their distance, fanning out slightly, but I could still see Braylar’s back, the leader, and two of the young men in quilted armor.
The man in mail spoke-he sounded congenial enough, and I hoped Braylar was wrong about their intentions. “Greetings. I’m Hornman Urlin. And you are…?”
“Very pleased to see you.” Though I couldn’t see his face, it sounded like he was smiling. Smiling was good. Unexpected, but good. “I am Thutro. Sometimes called Thutro the Prosperous, though few enough remember the second part now.”
Hornman Urlin crossed his arms in front of his substantial lap and leaned forward. “Heading to the Great Fair, then?”
Braylar sounded nothing but affable, which must have taken heroic effort. “Yes, I am. I suppose you hear that quite a bit this time of year?”
Hornman Urlin nodded. “A good number of folks on the way to the Fair. A good number, true enough. But you picked a strange road to take, stranger. No road at all.”
“I thought it looked suspiciously grassy as well.”
“Why not take the trade roads, friend Thutro? Safer on the road, with fellow travelers.”
“Fellow travelers, yes. But also brigands who prey on them. You and your men, you do a good job protecting travelers, I have no doubt. But you can’t be everywhere, no? So, being undefended, I thought it safer to stay away from the roads.”
The Hornman didn’t take long mulling this over. “Maybe. Maybe safer. The Grass Dogs might have a thing or three to say about that, I’m thinking. But maybe it’s not safety you’re worried about at all. Maybe you’re carrying something you wouldn’t want inspected on the roads. Maybe your cargo, you don’t want inspected at all. Could that be it?” He said this casually, jovially even, which seemed to be at cross-purposes with the intent.
“Possible? No. It’s true. I don’t want my goods inspected. But that’s only because of their extreme paucity. It hasn’t been a good year. A good stretch longer than that, truth be known. Ten years ago, I had five wagons, all outfitted with drivers and guards. Five years ago, three, outfitted with my reluctant brothers and their lazy sons. This year, as the last of my fortunes deserted me, my family did as well. So I’m left to shepherd myself and depend on the good fortune of meeting protectors in the wilderness, rather than brigands and nomads. So you’re correct, I’m reluctant to show my small goods, but please, if you would shame a broken man further, inspect as you must. It won’t take you long. You’ll find nothing objectionable.”
Braylar told these lies with complete ease and conviction. It was really quite impressive.
Hornman Urlin shaded his eyes against the setting sun and surveyed the wagon again. “And this pauperish cargo of yours of no objectionable nature, what is it then?”
No hesitation. “Quills. Parchment. Inks. A fine stylus or two.”
Urlin laughed, monstrous mustache shaking like a tree bough overburdened with snow. “Quills, is it?”
“Clerics and lawyers are a pestilence on this world, but they do have their uses. A wise man would avoid their company altogether, it’s true, but a man of commerce, a merchant with a strong stomach, he might find a way to work their company to his benefit.”
Hornman Urlin continued to laugh. This seemed like a clever stratagem on Braylar’s part-he claimed to possess goods unlikely to interest a Hornman and his crew, and even those Hornmen who could read and write enjoyed making sport of those who make it their professions. “Fleecing the fleecers? I salute you. But five wagons? That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Five? And guards? For quills?”
Braylar continued to lie as easily as he breathed. “Clerics and lawyers are notorious for clutching their coins with iron fingers, but they’re also vain. And I carry nothing but the finest materials. Even in my depleted state, I refuse to sell unworthy merchandise. For quality, rare quality, the clerics and lawyers paid, and paid dearly. I did well enough to warrant the wagons as my reputation increased, and the guards were necessary to protect my wares. If a merchant loses his goods, he loses everything. But now, well… the plague claims men from all walks, but the last outbreak struck clerics and lawyers with particular ferocity. Perhaps the gods have a sense of humor after all, eh?
“But it’s been years now, and their ranks have been slow to recover. I tell myself that it’s only a matter of time, that more fleecers will be called to their duty soon enough. But until then, I load and unload my single wagon, dream of lost riches, and struggle on. I couldn’t afford a crippled guard in my state. I can barely afford the food to carry me between Fairs. I-” Braylar lifted a hand. “Pray forgive me, good Hornman. I don’t seek your pity. The life of a merchant is hard, and I’m reduced, it’s true, but I carry great hope to the Great Fair. And again, I’m far luckier to have met a Hornman, rather than a nomad or brigand, so forgive me for prattling on. I’m sure even in this wilderness, you have pressing duties.”
If Hornman Urlin’s face was any indication, he didn’t register this deference as feigned, and seemed to enjoy receiving it. “You do me great honor, merchant Thutro. But what I do is duty, duty alone. We see a wagon having wandered far from the road, we investigate. Sorry to hear of your troubles, but duty is duty.”
“Yes, of course. I’m glad to hear that some still take their posts seriously. I thank fortune that I met you. I wish you well, and pray that you continue to protect the innocent, and punish those deserving of it.”
“I pray likewise. But I’m thinking I’ll still need to inspect those wares of yours, innocent though they might be. Man can’t do half of a duty and be done, now can he?”
Braylar paused, and when he responded again, the deference was sliding free. “No, of course. Duty must be fulfilled in total, or not at all. But I’m curious about something, Hornman Urine.”
This wasn’t going to end well.
The Hornman straightened in the saddle, face coloring. “That’s Urlin, merchant. Hornman Urlin.”
Braylar didn’t acknowledge the correction. “Your order is charged with protecting the weary travelers of the world on the well-worn tracks they trod, correct? That, and taxing them egregiously at toll stations, to pay for your noble efforts. But first and foremost, patrolling the road, yes?”
The Hornman nodded curtly. “You hit the mark, merchant. Though I’m misliking your tone. I suggest you rein it in some.”
In Braylarian fashion, he did the opposite. “Therein lies the curiosity, you see. You correctly point out that I’m far from the road, but the same charge could be leveled at you. It strikes me as peculiar that Hornmen would be compelled to ride so far from it. Quite peculiar.
“The road is your lifeblood. In fact, it seems to me that there’s only one reason you might have drifted from the road you’re sworn to protect.”
Hornman Urlin’s patience was drying up. “Two ways of going about this, merchant. You step down off that rig, meekly, let us conduct our business, and we’ll be on our way. Or you keep on crowing like you are, and my men haul you down, beat you bloody, and everything else happens exactly the same. Either way, you’re coming down now. Only decision you need to make is how.”
Braylar paid no heed at all. “It seems very likely, in fact, that the reason you slipped so far from your assigned stretch of highway and all the witnesses that travel on it is you seek to engage in something nefarious. In fact, I suspect you want to inspect my supplies not because you suspect them of being contraband, but because you’re inclined to engage in some criminal activity yourself. Yes, it seems very likely you’re thinking of lightening my load. And to that I say, I wouldn’t hand over a wooden penny to a brigand, but I’d at least respect his honesty in the attempt. But you and yours… you’re a perversion of your purpose.”
The Hornman drew his sword slowly. “You got some mouth on you, merchant. You get down off that wagon, real quiet, maybe I let you live. Maybe even leave you a horse. But you keep flapping your tongue, I’m going to cut it out, cut you down, and do a little more cutting just for the sheer pleasure of it.”
Braylar pulled the blanket off his lap and leveled the crossbow at the Hornman. “Granted, this isn’t a siege bow spanned by a windlass, but it’s powerful enough to get the job done. The question isn’t whether the bolt will kill you, but which organ I plunk and how long you lay dying. At this range, I can pick and choose. Do you have a preference?”
We were doomed.
I grabbed the quiver of bolts.
The leader appraised the crossbow, then the owner, looking at Braylar as if seeing him for the first time. He tried to smile, but it was clearly forced. “It’s one on six, merchant. You’ll die.”
Braylar nodded slowly. “That’s likely true, but you’ll beat me to the afterlife, Urine. You could ride off, and we both could live. But I’m guessing you won’t do that.”
The three soldiers I saw looked at the leader, shifting the grip on their spears, uncertainty on their faces. I couldn’t see the rest, but I’m guessing they shared the same look. The leader licked his lower lip, overlarge mustache jiggling above the pink tip of his tongue, and he seemed to waiver a moment as well, and then, eyes still on Braylar, he jerked his head to the side. I heard horses moving as his men began to close in. The leader pointed his sword at Braylar. “You lower the bolter right now. Do it and-”
Braylar loosed his crossbow. The next instant, the leader fell into the grass and lay twitching there, fingers clutching the fletching on his chest. Braylar threw the crossbow through the flap-it slammed into my arm, knocking the quiver loose, bolts spilling in all directions. I looked up as I tried to reclaim them-two soldiers closed in on Braylar with spears raised overhead. And then he moved as fast as a snake. Faster. He reached beneath his seat and pulled out two smaller steel crossbows, one in each hand.
Both soldiers saw this and instinctively tried to turn their horses from their course. Braylar shot a bolt at each, hitting one soldier in the shoulder as he tried to wheel his horse around, missing the second entirely, though not by much. Both soldiers were riding away from him for the moment, neither a danger of throwing a spear in his direction.
Not so for the third soldier behind them-he came on, spear raised above his shoulder, standing in his stirrups, and all he saw before him was an unarmed man who was about to die.
Braylar tossed the crossbows into the grass on either side and then crouched there, still as stone, head tilted slightly to the left as if he were straining to hear something. Any other man would’ve jumped behind the bench for cover or leaped free of the wagon, or failing that, at least pulled the buckler off his belt. Braylar did nothing. It looked like his courage or rashness had finally deserted him now that he needed it most. I was sure he was a dead man.
And then several things happened in such quick succession, even now I’m uncertain if I perceived them accurately or the precise order in which they occurred. As the young solider cocked his arm back to throw the spear, Braylar flicked the haft of the flail off his thigh with his left hand and reached over and grabbed it in the air with the other. The soldier released the spear as Braylar pulled the flail off his belt and dodged to his right. The spear struck exactly where he’d been crouching, puncturing the bench, splinters flying. I thought he’d fall off the wagon then, but he’d reached back and grabbed the haft of the spear behind him as he moved, despite not being able to see it. This was truly impressive, the sort of thing you only see at fairs by knife throwers and acrobats who’ve rehearsed their movements their entire lives and learned them from their fathers and father’s fathers. But as he was dodging, reaching, and grabbing with his left hand, his right came across his body with the flail, snapping it out towards the young soldier with more speed than I would’ve guessed possible. Though all of this was nearly a blur, and I was witnessing it through a worn patch of canvas, there was one detail I recall with perfect clarity. The boy’s eyes. He clearly expected to pin Braylar to the bench, and when he didn’t, and he saw the unarmed man suddenly armed, it still took his mind a moment to register the danger, and then his eyes began to widen, and continued to widen as he saw the spiked flail heads arcing out towards him. The soldier tried to duck behind his horse’s neck for cover. I couldn’t see the terminus of the attack, only the boy ducking and Braylar grabbing onto the spear behind him with one hand to steady himself as he reached as far to the right as he could, the two spiked heads whistling… but the rest was lost even as I pressed my face as close to the edge of the faded canvas as I could, practically pushing myself through it in an effort to see the result of this impossible act. But thankfully, I saw none of it, and the horse’s hoofbeats combined with the blood pounding in my ears rendered that sense useless as well. I was left to guess if he’d struck or missed.
After lashing out, Braylar pulled himself back, jumped over the seat and into the wagon, knocking me backwards. He pulled the flap shut and I looked at his weapon, my stomach rolling as I saw the bright spots of blood and a small tuft of brown hair decorating one of the spiked heads. Then I saw the dark spatter of tiny drops on the side of the canvas, like ink that had been flung from the quill of a drunken poet.
I’d been so absorbed in watching I hadn’t retrieved all of the bolts-most were still scattered on the wooden bed of the wagon. Braylar kicked the crossbow at me and hissed, “Load it, you shrunken cock.”
Stunned by everything that was happening, I didn’t respond immediately, but then saw in his eyes that the violence would turn on me in an instant if I failed. I worked the lever as quickly as I could. A moment later, a bolt was in the groove and I started to hand it back to him.
“No,” he said, “you might need to loose it yet.” He pointed at the rear of the wagon. “If you see anyone come through, pull the trigger. Don’t jerk it-you’ll shoot through the roof.”
Horses were whinnying outside, ours and theirs. I heard a horseman ride past on our left. There was a shout, followed by another, but I couldn’t make out what was said. It sounded like they were arguing.
Braylar pulled his helm on, the nasal and cheek guards obscuring much of his face, and snatched the buckler off his belt. It didn’t look like there was room to swing his flail in the wagon, but I thought advising him on matters of bloodletting was probably a bad idea. He glanced at me and gestured towards the rear flap. “If a man comes through there without a bolt in his face, I’ll toss you into the grass to fend for yourself. Do you understand?”
I tried to imagine what it would be like to pull the long trigger as he had, releasing death so quickly.
He shouted, “Attend me! Do you understand?”
I nodded quickly, but silently wondered if I could truly do the horrific thing that he ordered me to do.
I looked at the back flap and held my breath. Trying to distract myself from the possibility of shooting a man in the face, I asked a flurry of questions, my voice a frightened whisper: how had he known the Hornmen were coming? how had he managed to dodge the spear so miraculously? as well as several others I don’t recall. He swore and told me to be silent. I glanced at him, long enough to see that his eyes were closed again. I turned my attention back to the rear and waited quietly as long as my patience could stand it. Unable to stop myself, I said, “Maybe they’ll ride off now. The leader is down, and others wounded. Maybe-”
“Only one is dead. Now watch that back flap and-” He stopped and hissed “Silence!”
I heard another horse galloping past again, very close this time, and then a javelin tore through the canvas on my left and stuck in the side of the barrel behind me, quivering there. It was a little shorter than the spears they carried, but seemed no less deadly for it. It’s amazing my bladder didn’t set free. I stared at the javelin until Braylar yanked it from the barrel and stuck it point down in the floor near his place in the front of the wagon. He looked back at me. “Take those sacks of grain and push them against-”
Another javelin tore through the canvas from the other side and continued its path through the opposite panel, disappearing into the grass.
Then I heard the wagon’s axle creak as the load changed. Someone else had climbed aboard. A moment later I felt Braylar shift and turned to see why. A soldier was pushing through the front flap with his shield and was stepping over the bench. Braylar snapped the flail forward, as if he were wielding a whip, the movement so exact and economical. The spiked heads flashed out and the soldier raised his shield to block the strike. He caught the haft of the flail on the rim but the chains and heads wrapped around and shot behind, striking his hand or arm. The soldier had been throwing his own blow at the same time, but Braylar caught the haft of the small axe with the edge of his buckler. Though the axe didn’t have a spike on top, the soldier thrust it forward towards Braylar’s face. It skidded off his temple as Braylar smashed the solider with his buckler. The soldier’s mouth and nose exploded as if he’d been hit with a stone from a catapult. He opened the red ruin of his mouth, no doubt to scream, but Braylar slammed the edge of the buckler into the side of his head and he toppled backwards out through the flap without a sound.
I turned to the rear of the wagon and a spear tip flashed before my eyes. I thought for a moment it was another javelin and then realized the spear was held by a soldier entering the rear. It had been a wild thrust, and clanged off one of the pots hanging in front of me. Without thinking I squeezed the long metal trigger of the crossbow. The bolt was loosed, sailing high through the rear flap and into the grass beyond, a shot somehow even wilder than the spear thrust.
The young soldier drew back to thrust again and I tried to scoot back, bumping into the barrel behind me. The soldier lined up his second thrust better, and I was sure it would pierce me in the chest, but it struck the crossbow I was cradling in front of me. The soldier wrenched it free, nearly pulling the crossbow out of my hands with it, and I again tried unsuccessfully to scoot back through the barrel, my heels skidding on the wooden floor in front of me. The spearhead came forward again, but Braylar’s buckler caught the tip and deflected it past my cheek.
And then he was moving past me. The soldier might have been overeager or frightened when he first entered the wagon, but he recovered quickly enough-he feinted a thrust at Braylar’s face, no doubt hoping that Braylar would lift the buckler and temporarily blind himself, and then aimed his real thrust much lower, at Braylar’s stomach. Braylar didn’t fall for the feint or overcommit himself in the block-he brought the buckler back down quickly when he saw the true strike and knocked the spearhead off line to his left. The soldier was drawing the spear back but before he could thrust it again Braylar had closed the distance between them and snapped the flail out, the spiked heads flying forward in a blur. The soldier raised his shield and caught both heads on the surface, splinters of wood exploding as he did, but he lost sight of Braylar when he did. He thrust blindly, but Braylar was already past the spearhead. He snapped the flail heads forward again, his wrist and forearm doing the work rather than the wild swing of his arm I imagined was necessary to work the weapon. I thought the heads would simply smash into the shield again, but the soldier was lowering it to look over the edge-the shield caught one Deserter but the other whipped past the edge and into the soldier’s helm, just above his eyes.
The soldier stumbled back, raising the shield as a reflex to protect himself even though the blow had already landed. He dropped his spear and fumbled for the dagger at his belt, but he was clearly dazed. His hand hadn’t even come across the hilt when the flail heads snapped down and caught him on the outside of his knee. The soldier screamed and almost fell, his leg barely supporting his weight. Braylar redirected the flail heads, up and back around to the other side towards his opponent’s head again, but even dazed and injured, the solider kept his wits about him and lifted the shield, catching the heads before they could do more damage. The soldier found his dagger as well, and stepped forward and thrust it towards Braylar’s belly. Braylar brought the edge of his buckler down hard on the soldier’s wrist. The soldier yelped like a scalded dog and dropped the dagger, his wrist clearly broken, and staggered backwards. But in doing so, he gave Braylar the room to use his flail again and he used it. The spiked heads landed on the soldier’s exposed neck, rending the flesh easier than canvas on the wagon, and he fell to his knees. He dropped his shield and reached up with both hands as he bled from his wounds and struggled to breathe, eyes wild with panic. Braylar watched him struggle for a moment. The soldier made short, wet, gasping sounds, the blood trickling between his fingers and staining his gambeson, eyes darting around the wagon, and for a moment, I felt his panic as urgently as if it were my own. Even though this soldier had tried to stab me and nearly succeeded, he looked only like a terrified boy now and I felt nothing but horror and pity, and wished only that his suffering would end.
And then, suddenly, it did.
Braylar brought his flail up and whipped it forward again. Even with a shattered knee, a broken wrist, and a destroyed throat, the soldier lifted his good arm above his head to defend himself, not realizing that if he was successful he’d only prolong his terror and pain. But thank the Truth, his arm offered little in the way of protection-the chains wrapped over his forearm and the flail heads crashed into the top of his helm. Mercifully, the soldier collapsed to the floor. Only the smallest twitch betrayed that a moment before he’d been a terrified young soldier fighting for survival. Now he was only a broken and bloodied body that continued to stain the floorboards five feet from where I sat. But I’d seen enough sacrifices to know that even his bleeding was short-lived, and would stop right after his heart stopped beating.
Braylar looked down at me and at the crossbow, no doubt appraising both of us for any significant damage, and sneered. I saw then that blood ran down the side of his face from where the axe haft had scored a hit, but it seemed an insignificant amount, especially in light of the large puddle of blood surrounding the dead soldier at the rear. My stomach churned as I stared at the prone figure, and then Braylar hit my arm hard with the edge of the buckler. “Span that crossbow, you whoreson. And if I see you loose it again before you line up your target, I’ll gut you myself.” I loaded the crossbow again as quickly as I could, though my hands were shaky and I fumbled quite a bit. I just finished fitting a bolt to the slot when another javelin flew through the canvas-it slid off Braylar’s shoulder and then through the canvas on the opposite side.
He spun, cursing, his buckler up, and I wondered why he wasn’t bleeding badly before remembering the scale corselet he wore beneath his tunic. Braylar said, “Buckle the quiver around my waist. Quickly.”
I didn’t understand but knew better than to ask. I finished buckling and then he said, “Slip the crossbow strap around my neck.”
I must have stared at him like a dullard, because he raised the buckler as if to strike me and yelled, each word louder than the last, “Now, now, now!”
I did as commanded, more confused and frightened than ever.
Then Braylar began to walk toward the front of the wagon, flail and buckler in front of him, crossbow hanging on his side. Realizing he was abandoning me, I scooted towards him, grabbed his torn tunic and asked him what he wanted me to do.
He looked at the dead soldier and the spear and dagger alongside him. “I see no shortage of weapons. And you don’t need to load any of them. If anyone else enters, stab them in the face. Gut them. Kill them.” He turned to go but I didn’t let go of his tunic, not caring that I was surely a coward in his eyes. He looked at me fiercely and said, “Kill the soldiers or kill yourself, I don’t care. Your life is your own.” He pulled his arm free and moved toward the flap at the front.
I considered the spear for a moment, shuddering as I looked at the blood all over its haft, imagining how sticky and gummy it would feel in my hands. I looked at the hand axe and shovel, and both seemed clumsy to me, so I picked up the dagger instead, looking back and forth between the rear flap and the one Braylar was just about to leave from. But before I could ask him what he meant to do, he swung the flail out through the flap to the right-I saw it strike the canvas-and then he sent the flail heads to the left with the same effect. He pulled the flap aside and stepped over the bench, buckler out before him. His head swiveled left to right, and then he ducked and brought the buckler up quickly. A javelin skipped off the top of it and flew into the distance behind him. The flap fell shut and then, judging by the creak of the axle and shifting wagon, he jumped off. And I was alone, armed with a sack of grain and a dagger.
I wondered what madness had overtaken him that he thought he could outrun them on foot, but then remembered he had his own mount tethered to the side. A moment later I heard him ride off.
I felt utterly deserted and desperate. I thought another javelin would sail through and strike me at any instant, or another soldier would enter the wagon, and wondered absurdly whether it would be more painful to die being chopped by an axe, stabbed by a spear, or pierced by a javelin. I wondered if perhaps I could surrender, and then remembered that well-aimed or not, I had shot at one of the soldiers.
Then I heard the shouts from both sides of the wagon, followed by more horses galloping off after Braylar.
He’d drawn them off. It’s possible-perhaps likely-that hadn’t been his intention. Given how poorly I’d performed at the task he assigned, I’m sure I wasn’t a primary concern for him just then. But intentional or not, I heard the horses ride away, their riders yelling with the youthful bloodlust of hunters who have sighted their prey.
I crept to the front of the wagon and, after listening for nearby sounds and confident that no one remained behind, pulled the flap open just far enough to see what happened. Braylar was ahead of the three riders, but the distance wasn’t great and they had their javelins held above their shoulders. I noticed one of the riders had a dark splotch on the back of his padded jerkin, and assumed he was the one Braylar had struck as he’d ridden by in the initial attack.
Braylar was holding the crossbow with both hands, flail and buckler again on his belt. I’m sure the young soldiers assumed they’d won by putting him to flight, and it was only a matter of time before they captured or killed him or both.
That isn’t what happened.
Braylar turned around as far as he could, controlling his horse with his knees, and then they saw he was still armed. I didn’t see the bolt fly but I didn’t need to. Three horsemen were suddenly two, and one riderless horse galloped off in a different direction.
The remaining two soldiers whipped their horses to close the distance. A javelin sailed through the air but fell a couple horse lengths short. That boy, the one with the stain on his jerkin, whom Braylar had previously injured, still managed to pull another from the long quiver at his side. The pursuit continued.
I thought Braylar would have no choice but to ride off now, hoping to disappear in the coming dark, and then his pursuers would eventually return here, whether they’d hunted their quarry down or not. And then no bag of grain was going to protect or conceal me.
I considered grabbing as many supplies as I could carry and taking a horse, but I had absolutely no idea where to go. That way also led to death, but took a less direct route. I considered then that my only option lay in hiding in the grass somewhere and hoping they simply didn’t find me. I didn’t know if Braylar would return for me, but thought if he lived, he’d eventually make his way back for his cargo, if nothing else.
But I didn’t flee into the grass, as Braylar didn’t flee the battle.
He was maneuvering in a wide circle, working the lever on his crossbow while guiding his horse with his legs, and a moment later turned in the saddle and shot again at his pursuers. The bolt didn’t find its target, but the two soldiers suddenly seemed much less confident in their hunt, and slowed their pace. Still galloping, Braylar reloaded again with a speed and efficiency that was amazing. Then, seeing his pursuers falling behind, he slowed his horse to take better aim. The young Hornmen had seen enough. They rode off in the other direction. Fast.
Braylar halted his horse and stood tall in the stirrups, crossbow level as he took careful aim. I was sure he’d shoot again, and equally sure another horse would lose its rider, but then Braylar slowly lowered his weapon and sat back down in the saddle, shoulders slumped forward.
The soldiers fled in the direction they had originally come from.
I sat there in the wagon, heart thumping like a trapped animal. I’d never known such terror nor witnessed such carnage. I was split in twain, one half morbidly fascinated and disgusted by such violence and waste of life, the other half celebrating that I’d survived, and glad it was me sitting there in my sweat and stink, still breathing, and not lying in a heap at the back of the wagon like a bloody bundle of meat.
I climbed out of the wagon and saw Braylar in the distance, slowly riding in my direction, the crossbow hanging from the strap at his side. Then I heard a noise below me, and suddenly remembered the other soldier Braylar had bashed out of the wagon. He was in the grass, struggling to crawl out from beneath the horse and harness. I wasn’t sure if I should slink back into the wagon or call for help. He tried to stand, wobbled and almost fell back to his knees. That’s when he turned and saw me, the front of his gambeson covered in blood, face a ruin, eyes full of fear.
The soldier turned and stumbled as he tried to run. I waved to Braylar and realized I was still holding the dagger-the bloodied soldier must have assumed I was coming to finish him off.
Braylar saw me and pushed his horse to a trot, and then saw the fleeing soldier and spurred his horse forward, riding hard.
The soldier hadn’t gone far when Braylar turned his horse before him, the crossbow aimed at his chest. The soldier stopped, realizing he couldn’t outrun a bolt, and dropped to his knees, arms raised in the air, the left more awkwardly, as the gambeson was torn near the elbow and Braylar’s earlier strike had clearly wounded him there as well.
While I’d been paralyzed by fear just a moment before, I now found myself scrambling off the bench and down into the grass, nearly falling face first as I did, shouting “no” as I ran up to the pair.
Braylar looked at me and made no effort to disguise his irritation. “Is there something you need?”
I stopped alongside the soldier. “Wait. Don’t do this.”
Braylar glanced at the dagger and back to me. “Do you wish to do it, then?”
“No. And I don’t want you to either.”
Braylar’s horse pawed the grassy earth, equally as impatient as his master. “And what would you have me do? Take him prisoner?”
The question was asked in such a way that any answer other than “no” would only be worthy of ridicule. I replied, “And why not?”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but we’re headed back to civilization soon. Perhaps you’ve also forgotten, civilization is a place where they don’t appreciate their militia-even their thieving bandit militia-being held captive after their entire outfit has been killed or driven from the field. Please tell me you’ve forgotten these facts, lest I think you a complete ass.”
“You can’t kill him,” I replied.
“I can. In fact, it isn’t altogether difficult.” Braylar drummed his fingers along the outside of his crossbow. “A little pressure is all it takes. Now, step aside unless you want his blood on you.”
The soldier moaned then, a mournful, honking sound through his battered nose. I pleaded, “Don’t take him prisoner, then-release him.”
“Simply let him wander into the wilderness, until he winds up getting torn to pieces by a hungry family of rippers or skinned alive by Grass Dogs? Is that your idea of mercy, then? It would be better to kill him quick now.”
He leveled the crossbow at the soldier’s chest, but I surprised all three of us by stepping in front of the soldier. “He’s unarmed,” I protested. “Badly injured. He’s no danger to you.”
Braylar didn’t lower the crossbow, and for an instant I was sure I’d acted far too rashly, but he didn’t shoot. “Injuries heal. And what’s more, tongues wag. He’s seen me. That’s no large matter-the others who fled, they can identify me as well. But he’s also seen you. This unarmed, badly injured boy who’s so wholly won your heart, he’s the only one who knows you exist.”
I couldn’t argue this point, and so didn’t. “If his life or death don’t affect you, only me, shouldn’t I be the one deciding his fate?”
Braylar lowered the crossbow slightly and his horse snorted. “And you would have me let him go, even though he can identify you? You have your own fate to consider, so I recommend you consider it well.”
I turned and looked down at the soldier, his arms still in the air. There was a large welt on the side of his head, his eyes were bloodshot, nose twisted in the wrong direction, lips swollen to obscene proportions, face crusted with dark blood. I knew what I was doing might be madness, or at least monstrous stupidity, but I’d seen enough bloodshed for one day. And so I said to the solider, “Do you swear that you won’t speak of what happened here?”
He nodded quickly as spittle dribbled from the corners of his lips.
I couldn’t hope to intimidate like Braylar might, so I mustered as much solemnity as possible. “You must swear it. On the life I’m giving you. Swear that you’ll say nothing of this. If your commander or comrades ask what befell you, you must say you were struck in the head, which your injuries will bear out, and that you remember only falling from the wagon, crawling free when this man rode off, and then riding off yourself before he returned. If you speak of what occurred here, or of me, I won’t do anything to save you again. In fact, this man will likely take his time killing you, and enjoy every moment. Do you understand?”
He nodded and said he did, although it was absurdly difficult to make out through his torn and puffy lips.
I asked, “And you swear to reveal nothing?”
He said, with a great deal of desperation, “Ah sweah.”
Braylar laughed behind me, clearly mocking, but I didn’t turn around. I believed the soldier meant his oath just then, but I wasn’t certain he’d keep it. Still, there was no turning back. So I told him he could have his horse and whatever food and water he’d brought.
He looked past my shoulder, at Braylar, and back to me again, wondering if he was being toyed with.
I told him to go and I thought tears would roll down his cheeks. He said, “Thank oo” and tripped over his feet, barely righting himself as he ran off through the grass to claim his horse.
Even after he was in the saddle, he gave a final furtive look in our direction before digging his heels into his horse’s flanks and galloping off.
Braylar ordered me to remove the body from the wagon. I balked, but he insisted, claiming I was lucky that was the full extent of my punishment, given my incompetence during the battle and foolishness after. There wasn’t much I could say to that.
After steeling myself to the task, I unlatched the back gate of the wagon. The dead soldier was slumped in a pile, the floorboards stained a dark red all around, nearly black. I took hold of his belt and the one ankle I could reach, closed my eyes and tried unsuccessfully to pretend I was moving something other than a body, and pulled until I felt the weight slide free of the gate and fall in the grass. Forcing myself not to look at the body or its awful wounds, I quickly walked to the front. Braylar was standing next to the horses. He moved from one to the next, rubbing their necks, wiping them down with handfuls of grass, and though it was difficult to reconcile coming from a man who’d shot two men today and struck down two more, he was apologizing to the horses for having to endure such an ordeal.
I stood there, looking at the spear that was still lodged in the seat. My eyes traveled up to the canvas flap, and the small spray of blood, the handiwork of Braylar’s buckler. Looking away, I noticed he was walking into the grass. His back was stiff, arms at his sides, feet heavy and halting as if his balance were off.
Wondering if he was hurt, I called after him, but he didn’t respond. I started after him.
He eyes were closed, face pale in the fading light. He braced one arm on his knee and turned his back to me. His shoulders shook, and for a moment I thought he might be weeping, but then he suddenly turned to the side and vomited, doubled over. He wiped his mouth with his forearm, started to straighten, and then took several steps forward before heaving violently again, almost falling to his knees with the force of it.
Staring, I wondering at this oddity, when he compounded it further. Hands on his knees, he cursed and muttered something to himself. Although it was still little more than a rough whisper, I heard him say, “Are you not appeased? Have I not sacrificed enough? Leave me.” And then he trailed off, repeating himself, “Leave me be.”
I walked back to the wagon. Not long after, he returned. He grabbed the spear with both hands, pulled it free from the seat, and threw it in the covered section. “Get in.”
I said, “You drove our attackers off. They’re gone. We’re safe.”
“Safety is an illusion for imbeciles. Get in.”
He waited a moment, and when I didn’t reply, flicked the reins and the wagon creaked into motion. I stumbled alongside awkwardly, trying and failing to get a good handhold to pull myself up.
He stopped the horses, looked down, and said, “I tell you to load, you load, I tell you to get in, you get in, I tell you to shit, you shit. This is our arrangement. As you’ve seen already, our lives, mine and yours, may depend on you doing what I say when I say it. Do you understand? This is our arrangement.”
I nodded and he allowed me to climb on. I didn’t want to sit next to him and made my way inside the wagon again. The sight of the large bloodstain on the floor sent my stomach fluttering, so I sat down, leaned against the side panel, and positioned a barrel to block the view as much as possible. And recorded these events to the best of my abilities, which admittedly, was somewhat suspect, given that my hands were still shaking and mind racing from the battle and its aftermath. That said, it was the best that I could muster.
We traveled some miles from the site of the attack in the dark before making camp with only the dimmest of moonlight to light our work.
When I finally crawled back in the wagon and tried to sleep, careful to stay far from the stain at the rear, my mind kept revisiting moments of the battle, a chaotic jumble… the spearhead coming at me like a striking serpent, or that same soldier’s body pumping his last lifeblood onto the wagon floor after Braylar had struck him repeatedly with the vicious flail; the Hornman captain gently stroking the fletching of the bolt that barely protruded from his chest, as if touching the wing of an injured bird; the soldier with the ruined mouth pleading for his life, bubbles of spit and blood dancing on his torn lips.
Sleep was elusive, to say the least.
I woke in the morning when the wagon lurched into motion. There was some jerky by my side, a hard heel of bread, and a flask of water. I hadn’t heard him harness the horses, or move inside the wagon, but he’d obviously done them.
After eating what I could, I rejoined Braylar on the bench. We sat in silence. I wondered if this was a normal reaction among the soldiering kind-did they need time to put their violent deeds in order or to forget them? Was he filled with thoughts of guilt? Triumph? Regret? I couldn’t say, and doubted my companion would if I asked, so I didn’t.
Instead, I said, “You don’t seem to have an especially good relationship with these Hornmen, do you?”
“I don’t have a good relationship with anyone, Arki. I would’ve thought that much obvious by now.”
“What were they doing out here in the Green Sea?”
He looked at me and shook his head, “I would’ve thought that obvious as well. Road tolls only go so far. Hornmen are opportunists like anyone else. Only with swords.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, you quivering dullard, there’s profit to be had in the grass. Smugglers, sly merchants attempting to slide past the toll stations, pilgrims, anyone else who can be bullied and-”
He broke off suddenly, closing his eyes. After a moment, his head snapped forward. He pulled the scarf loose and touched the back of his neck, and his hand came away bright with blood. He dabbed at his neck a few more times, looked at his hand again, swore quietly, and then casually wiped the blood on my pants. I jumped and attempted to move away, but it was too late.
I looked at his neck. “You’re wounded?”
He nodded slowly, voice strangely flat, like he’d woken from a deep slumber and wasn’t sure of his whereabouts. “A wound, yes.”
“From the attack?” I asked.
“From the attack?” he said, suddenly far away. “You could say that. Yes.”
“Do you need… that is, do you need any help? Assistance cleaning it maybe?”
He paused a long time before answering. “No need to clean it. I wouldn’t trust you to do so if there were. But it will bleed no more. The wound has closed.”
Having seen how much blood coated his hands, I didn’t believe him. Realizing it was impudent and possibly dangerous but unable to restrain myself, I leaned over and looked at his neck. There was no wound at all. Only a scar. An old, white, long-healed scar.
He saw me inspecting and pulled the scarf up higher, covering his neck. “Begone, nurse-mother.”
I looked at the blood he’d smeared on me and said, “But scars don’t bleed.”
“You’re correct. The wound isn’t mine.” He mistook my confused silence for skepticism and added, “I’m many things, but charlatan isn’t one of them. The wound isn’t my own. It was inflicted on another, by my hand.”
He closed his eyes and ignored my slew of questions. Receiving no answers, I relented and waited. Braylar rubbed his temple with the knuckle of his thumb, eyes still closed, scowling. Unsure if I wanted to truly know the answer, I asked if he was well.
He didn’t respond, didn’t even move.
I waited and waited, uncertain what to do, when he finally opened his eyes again and blinked several times, like a man coming out of a darkened room into bright sunlight. “No conversation. We’re done. Go inside the wagon. Walk alongside. I don’t care what you do, so long as you’re silent.”
I started to say something, but he said, “Don’t make me tell you again. If I must silence you myself, I will.”
That’s all it took. I returned to the interior of the wagon. The bleeding scar would’ve been strange enough on its own, but Braylar’s behavior only compounded it. Every time I started to think I’d seen the oddest thing on this journey, I was proven wrong.
I looked at the red smear on my leg and then glanced at the much larger bloody stain near the gate. So much blood. Front to rear, the wagon was marked with it.
I rolled a barrel over the stain, nearly covering it, but not quite. I pushed a box over the remainder, and resolved not to think on the things that happened in the wagon yesterday. It was a hollow resolution.
We traveled the rest of the day in silence. Like a hound that had been kicked but couldn’t help itself, I kept one ear perked, waiting for Braylar to call me back to his side, but that never happened, and I was reluctant to approach.
He pinched his nose or knuckled his temple on more than one occasion, and if his face was any indication, he was sorely grieved by something.
I wondered if this was the result of the blow he received from the haft of the soldier’s axe, but while I’m no expert in judging such things, the helm seemed to absorb the brunt of it, and he had only a mild abrasion on his scalp and no apparent swelling. Still, this was all exceedingly peculiar, even for him.
The second day after the attack began much as the previous day ended, with Braylar uninterested in anything, even mundane conversation. A few directives to be silent, some clipped orders, and a handful of threats, though lacking the usual venom or verve.
I was riding inside when he quietly announced, “The boy is dead. I felt it coming since yesterday, but… he’s dead now.”
I immediately moved to the front, sat next to him, and asked, “Who? What boy?”
He looked at me like I was the one behaving strangely. “The soldier boy. I struck him across the neck as he passed, do you recall? The back of the head. The neck. Do you see?” He locked eyes with me, waiting. I glanced at his neck and the dried blood on his scarf. He nodded. “There you go. Now you have it.”
I was absolutely positive I didn’t. And almost as sure I didn’t want it.
“He lingered for a time,” he said. “But now he’s dead for a certainty.”
With a shiver crossing my shoulders, I asked, whispering without meaning to, “How do you know?”
He pulled the flail off his hip again, and I reflexively scanned the horizon for approaching horses. Seeing nothing, I looked back to him. He held one of the Deserters on a level with his own, rubbing the edge of his thumb across a spike as he stared into the small contorted face.
“Bloodsounder.” He twisted the head quickly and the chain jingled.
I was awash in confusion. “The boy’s name was Bloodsounder?”
“No, you idiot. The flail.” Eyes narrowing when I still didn’t comprehend, he added, “You asked how I know, yes? His death? Well, I’m telling you. Bloodsounder. Bloodsounder; the flail. The flail; Bloodsounder. It isn’t so very complicated.”
Sure the question would come out wrong no matter how I phrased it, I asked, “How does Bloodsounder… tell you these things?”
His lip twitched, and the twin scars with it. “I wouldn’t use that word. Tell. That implies voices, where there are none. Unless you mean in the sense of signs. Tracks in the earth can tell you what made them, how many travel, what direction they go, if you know how to read them. If that’s your meaning, then yes, Bloodsounder tells me he’s dead. In so many signs.” He closed his eyes and said, “I now know several things about the man-child I struck down. Things I’d much sooner not know.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring, and closed his eyes. “He loved pears. The smell of their blossoms in the spring, an invisible cloud. The texture of their skin, when perfectly ripe. But especially the taste. And the fact that he first bedded a lass in no bed at all, but underneath the pear tree on his farm. In their rutting, they rolled over the overripe pears that had fallen, soiled their clothes in the juice as the bees buzzed around them.”
I watched his face, eyes still pressed shut, and he looked pained as he spoke. “That same girl whose purity he stole among the pears, he married. Under the very same tree. And they had some small life together, happy, as far as small lives go. But it didn’t last long. He was recruited by the Hornmen and quartered in a castle, far from the farm, the pears, and his new ripe wife. His duties kept him on the road for most of the next year. When he was finally allowed to return, he discovered she’d been struck a mortal blow defending the farm from bandits. An arrow… ” His forehead wrinkled. “No… not an arrow, a spear, a spear thrust. Spear or sword, but most likely spear-the wound was too large to be made by an arrow. But by the time our boy had returned a Hornman, it was too late. She was alive, but there was no forestalling the end, as the wound had festered.
“He sat by her side, three days, four, wiping her brow as the wound worked its greasy green magic, burrowing deeper into her flesh, filling her with a raging heat no damp cloth would absolve. It would’ve been awful enough if she’d been screaming. But she whimpered mostly, waiting for the end, which was somehow worse. Whimpered and mewed and called out nonsensical things while the fever burned the life out of her. But one thing she kept repeating wasn’t gibberish. He prayed he heard wrong, but after the tenth repetition, he could no longer pretend he had. A name. His brother’s name. His brother who had stayed behind while he trained as a Hornling.
“While I don’t know if he murdered his brother, I do know he remained with his faithless wife in her last moments as she tossed and turned in the fester dream. I think he hated her, but still he stayed. I would have abandoned her to murder the brother, but he stayed. And would remember those last days and hours with horrible vividness. Her lying there, sweat-slicked hair plastered to the mattress, face blanched, all the color having gone to the wound and the sick, hot flesh around it. And the choking stench rising off her. Like a thousand rotting pears.”
He opened his eyes, blinking quickly. “And now I remember it as well. As if I’d been standing in that very sickroom with the dying slattern and the heart-wounded soldier. This, Bloodsounder does. Bombards me with memories such as these. Random, horrible, stolen memories. And these signs, this telling? That’s how I know the final thing. That young Hornman, who stood by his faithless wife and watched her die, and later rode out into the grass with his greedy fat captain… he’s now dead himself. Because the stolen memories only come to me after a man I’ve struck with the flail dies.”
He stared at the flail head with equal parts hate and disgust. After a long pause, he added, “The other I killed with this grotesque little monster and its twin, in the wagon, his stolen memories have been flooding into mine already. Yesterday. Last night. This morning. But the boy’s have just begun.” He dropped the flail head and it clinked off the other. “And if previous experience is any measure, they won’t stop. At least, not until I’m cleansed.”
“Cleansed? What… how-”
He turned and regarded me, “I will either be cleansed or I won’t. If it happens, it will be explained, and if not… not.”
I pressed on, “And if you can’t be… cleansed?”
He rattled the chains. “Difficult to say. Each time is a little different. But one thing is the same-the onslaught of stolen memories will continue. They begin to blot out my own already. How much more, I can’t say. I only killed two men with the flail. It could be worse. But even two…? It will be nothing good, I tell you that. Better to be tormented by ghosts, I think. That must be easier to endure. But these memories… the most heinous grave robbing imaginable. It’s as if I’d killed someone I knew intimately. I learn things about the dead their closest comrades weren’t privy to, secrets and fears and dreams that should’ve died with them and yet live in me. And it fills me with corrosive grief.”
I sat in stunned silence, completely out of questions.
He let out a long sigh and leaned forward, his usual rigid posture broken. “I can see you’re struggling with this. But struggle somewhere else just now.”
I didn’t move right away and he shouted, “I said enough! Leave me!”
When I finally started to rise, he grabbed my wrist and squeezed tighter than a shackle. “One last thing. I’ve revealed something to you few enough know. Reveal it to anyone else, and I won’t need Bloodsounder to tell me you’re dead. Your spattered brains will be proof enough. Do you understand?”
I nodded quickly and he released me. I climbed inside, sweat coming fast, mind drowning in too many thoughts to name. Stealing memories from the dead? The stuff of dark fairy tales. What else could it be but madness? And yet… what of the bleeding scar? His foreknowledge of the approach of the Hornmen? I saw those. Didn’t I? If not madness, what was it? Was he hounded by demons? Spirits? Something else?
All I knew was, an inanimate object couldn’t do these things.
Could it?
I began to wonder if the endless steppe sapped a man of his wits. Maybe it was me who was going mad. Perhaps we were losing our minds in tandem.
Nearly getting impaled by a spear had been the most frightening thing I’d ever experienced. And yet, his revelation filled me with a dread far more gripping. And far less temporary.
The wind picked up again, buffeting the wagon, and I sat and listened to it howl. I’d entered the wild with a haunted, cursed, or blighted man, and I prayed I’d find my way back out again.
The next days, Braylar retreated as far away as a person can who still sits right next to you, like a snake disappearing into a hole. His eyes, when open, took no real notice of the surroundings. He closed them for long stretches, apparently trusting the horse’s judgment. He paid no attention to the huge flies plaguing us, even when they landed on him. One looked ready to crawl across his eye until he absently swatted at it.
As I passed through the flap at the front and looked out, I spotted something in the distance. It looked large, though it was difficult to judge such things on those flat plains. Out of habit, I asked Braylar what it was, and why we appeared to be heading towards it, but as might be expected, if he knew the answer to either he kept them a secret.
As we got closer, I saw it was some kind of structure built entirely of sod. While it was only one story tall, it was built on three very thick tiers of sod. I wondered if the building was some kind of meeting place, and that filled me with equal parts hope and anxiety.
While the construction was crude, the building otherwise had all of the regular features-walls, windows, an open doorway. The far corner had collapsed, revealing that the walls were several feet thick. The roof also was made of large slabs of sod, and in a choice surely more whimsical than practical, the builders left the grass on top of the roof, and the old, brittle, yellow blades rubbed against each other in the breeze, producing an endless chorus of tiny clicks and clacks like a thousand miniature wood chimes.
I craned my neck to see it as we traveled past. Part of me longed to jump off the wagon, run back to the earthen hall, and scream for him to halt, to turn around, but I was sure he’d simply leave me there, and possibly not even notice my absence.
And so I moved back inside the wagon and sat down near the rear. I watched the blighted structure recede into the distance as it lost distinction and form and eventually disappeared altogether. I thought it might be the last building I ever saw.
I closed the flap and tied it shut.