Good Company

by Dale Lucas

  Hard folk. Survivors.

  He wasn’t entirely sure he could break them or convince them.

  “We’re only after two people,” Torval said. “If you can point us toward them, we’ll leave you be.”

  He imagined he heard a gasp from the lord marshal, far behind him, but he didn’t bother turning around to see if that was true. That blue-clad bastard might have his own ideas, but Torval meant to keep his word, even if he had to use force of arms to do so. They’d left far too many dead already. If they couldn’t extract what they needed without undue coercion, they had no business seeking it.

  “First and foremost, we want the Lady Tzimena Baya, alive and well. Barring her whereabouts, we ask for the Red Raven. We know he’s your leader, but his surrender could buy freedom for the lot of you.”

  A tall, handsome woman surrounded by children snorted and made a dismissive face at the word leader. Torval stepped nearer, spearing her with his gaze.

  “Care to disagree?” he asked.

  The woman stared right back. “He’s not our leader. Not any longer.”

  A number of the women present hissed and bade the speaker shut her mouth.

  “Bite me,” she said in answer. “I’m telling them nothing that they might not learn soon enough.”

  “Not your leader?” Torval asked, stepping closer. He heard footsteps behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see who was approaching. It was Tuvera and the lord marshal. They had looks of incredulity and astonishment on their faces.

  “He was tried and convicted and stripped of his powers,” the woman said. She drew a squirmy baby closer to her breast and yanked a wandering toddler at her feet closer. “That’s our way. When we lose confidence in a leader, they’re removed.”

  Torval threw a glare at the lord marshal. “A sound plan.”

  “Where is he, then?” the lord marshal demanded, striding forward. “Tell us, now, and there will be no need for further violence.”

  Captain Tuvera didn’t even try to hide her displeasure. “Lord Marshal, if I may remind you, the Lady Tzimena is who we’re after—”

  “Who you’re after,” the older man snapped. “I have scores of my own to settle.” He turned back to the speaker from the crowd. “Tell me, woman, or so help me I’ll snatch that babe at your breast and—”

  Torval stepped into the lord marshal’s field of vision. “And what?” he asked.

  “Stand aside,” the lord marshal growled.

  “Make me,” Torval countered. “I promised these people safety in return for their cooperation—”

  “A vow you had no business making,” the lord marshal said. “You have no power here, master dwarf.”

  Torval took a step closer. “Last time I checked,” he said slowly, “I was still armed, and so are you. If you want to presume to give me orders again, you’d better draw steel—”

  Tuvera stepped between them, clearly eager to break up their standoff, but equally keen to reach the woman in the crowd and speak directly to her. “Tell me,” she said, with real need in her voice, “where is the Lady Tzimena?”

  Torval turned as the woman responded to Tuvera’s petition.

  “They were both locked in the cave, up there,” the woman said, nodding toward one of the rocky outcroppings protruding from the hillside, still bleeding smoke. “But they were taken out early this morning, a couple hours before you lot came upon us.”

  “Shut your mouth,” an old man said, rather forcefully, Torval thought. The threat in his voice was implicit.

  “Shut your own,” the woman said. “I might die for my children or any one of you, but I won’t die for that philandering brigand and his royal whore!”

  Torval saw Tuvera tense beside him, responding unbidden to her ward’s being branded a whore.

  “Where?” the captain pressed again.

  The woman stood and pointed eastward. “That way,” she said. “Through the birch wood. It was most of the leadership that took them—Tymon Longstride, Orhund the Bear, Dedrik Firebow, and a half dozen others. I don’t know where they were headed, exactly, but I heard them talking before they fetched the Raven and the girl to set out. They had an appointment to keep.”

  “An appointment?” Torval asked.

  The woman nodded. “A buyer,” she said. “Someone eager to trade for both the Raven and the girl.”

  “No,” the lord marshal said quietly.

  “I’ll swear on the heads of my four children, every word is true,” the woman said. “There are others here who know just as well as I do. Ask them! One or two of them are bound to back me up—”

  “We need to go,” the lord marshal said.

  Torval and Tuvera stared at him. “Go where?” Torval asked slowly. “Do what?”

  “He’s still out there,” the lord marshal said, then addressed the group. “Take what you can carry and go, all of you. If you linger or challenge us, you’ll be cut down. Find other holes to crawl into—this camp is yours no more!”

  Wallenbrand approached his commander. “Now, see here,” the old man said, “Croften’s hurt, and we barely know where we’re going.”

  “You still have a contract to fulfill,” the lord marshal said. “Refuse to follow me now, you can march back to Yenara without so much as a copper in your pocket. I didn’t ask you—any of you—whether you agreed. Our quarry is waiting east of here, and we’re wasting time.”

  The lord marshal set out down the slope, eastward.

  Someone limped up beside Torval. It was Elvaris, still favoring her wounded leg. “I hate that man,” she said quietly.

  Torval could only nod. Aye, that. He hated him, as well.

  He only longed for the right pretense—the right conflict—to make splitting that bastard’s hard skull an unavoidable action.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Tzimena had no idea how Korin’s people could see anything for that first hour, the world was so muddy and dark. They set out just before dawn, when the first gray light of the sun was a thin band rising over the hills to the east, and descended into the woods, following a winding, narrow path. Their company carried only two lights, tiny tin lamps borne by the outlaws at the head and tail of the column. Beyond the modest glow of those small, half-hooded lamps, however, everything was blackness and cold. And yet, somehow, they managed to find the necessary track and carry on, with few interruptions or respites, through a dark and silent world of towering, ancient trees, gradually stirring birds, and curious beasts.

  At last light seeped into the world, and the wild landscape around them faded into view, a washed-out slate gray at first, then bruised purple, then watery blue. The gathering twilight of morning gave to everything an ancient and pensive quality that Tzimena found alternately beautiful and frightening. One didn’t really know what the word wilderness truly meant until one was lost in the middle of the Ethkeraldi. There was, literally, no civilization here, no mark of human passage, no indication that human thoughts or desires could do any more than notch a tree or leave a footprint that would soon be erased by a fall of leaves or the seep of groundwater. Tzimena briefly considered trying to break from the group and flee, to run south, toward the river, and throw herself in as that boy Rem had, and thus take her chances with the current. But in the end she knew she was not so daring. She could endure just about anything, including whatever vile captivity she was about to be traded into. Wait and see, that was her strategy. She could always flee later, fight later, kill herself later. But she could not do any of those things, could not take any wild chances, without first seeing what her alternatives were.

  The sun was well up by the time they saw a figure in a hunter’s cloak emerge from a stand of trees some distance ahead of them. Tzimena heard words exchanged by Dedrik Firebow—who led their way through the wood—and the stranger on the far side of the clearing they traversed. She was, however, too far away to hear just what those traded words were. After a brief exchange, Dedrik stepped from the line and called back down its length.<
br />
  “He wants to see the prisoners,” he said, voice echoing blasphemously in the early-morning stillness of the ageless forest.

  Tymon, who’d trudged along behind Tzimena all the way to their destination, took Tzimena roughly by her arm and dragged her sideward, out of the line, where she could easily be seen by the stranger. Up ahead, towering Orhund yanked Korin out of the line in the same manner. For a long time, the two of them stood like that, held by their handlers, on display, until at last the stranger in the hunting cloak raised his hand in agreement, then started waving the party on.

  Tzimena was shoved back into line, and the whole group carried on.

  They crossed that little clearing, were swallowed by another tree line, and wound along another barely perceptible path before coming, at last, to another clearing, much larger than the first. Well shaded by a perimeter of tall spruce, redwood, and ash, the great glade’s edges were demarcated by spidery ferns interspersed with beds of mounding sedge, cream-colored yarrow, and manzanitas squatting in the shadow of the trees. A little brook wound through the center of the clearing, filling a small pond rippling in the sunlight on the glade’s western edge. Men in hunter green and sturdy cloaks milled about, drinking hot brews warmed over a small fire crackling near the pond. A number of horses were gathered round the pond, dipping their heads to drink or cropping at the moist grasses at its edge. They were good animals—sturdy, well cared for, adorned with first-rate tack and harness.

  Tzimena counted the men, then counted the horses. There were ten mounts, but only seven men.

  There are more in reserve somewhere, she thought. Probably surrounding us.

  She also thought it strange that the men visible were dressed like common woodsmen or hunters, while their mounts—as well as their tack and saddles—were clearly expensive. Those weren’t the stolen mounts of forest brigands at all.

  The cloaked herald who’d met them at the edge of the clearing, who had led them into the grove where his superiors waited, now turned and faced the outlaws. He drew back his cowl, revealing a thoroughly ordinary face with a neatly trimmed beard and hair recently shorn and oiled.

  That’s no outlaw, Tzimena thought. That’s a courtier.

  “We welcome you,” the man said expansively. “I trust this place was not hard to find?”

  “We know these woods better than you ever will, sir,” Tymon said from her place in line behind Tzimena. “What say we dispense with pleasantries and get down to business? Where is your buyer?”

  One of the men at the fire lifted his head as though hearing his name. He set down the steaming mug in his hands, rose from his seat on a flattened old tree stump, and approached the party. As he did so, the rest of the men around the fire fanned out in a broad line behind him. No one moved quickly or deliberately; their movements were measured and patient, calculated to look as unthreatening as possible.

  But they were preparing for something, weren’t they? At least the possibility of something.

  The cloaked man from the fire approached the group. “May I see the prisoners?” he asked, his face still shadowed by the cowl of his cloak.

  Orhund shoved Korin out of the line again and presented him. Tymon did the same with Tzimena.

  “Bring them forward,” the man said, halting.

  Tymon and Orhund directed Tzimena and Korin to the front of the line to meet their buyer. Tzimena began to have a suspicion about who was under that cowl, and it gave her no pleasure.

  It can’t be, she thought. He wouldn’t dare. To be so brazen, so bold . . .

  The man drew back his cowl and revealed himself: youngish, early thirties, with a blandly handsome face, a perfectly groomed mustache, and hair the color of honey. He smiled as though greeting old friends in the most unexpected of places.

  Tzimena heard Korin snarl a single name. “Verin.”

  “Good morning, Brother,” said Verin Lyr, the Duke of Erald, as he stepped forward and put his arms around Korin, the man he’d stolen a duchy from. “You look as though you’ve had a hard time of it.”

  Verin embraced his brother and hugged him tightly, clapping his back with manly emphasis, then drew away again. Korin, of course, had made no effort to return the gesture. He stood, hands tied before him, staring with narrowed eyes and knit brows at the man whose treachery had routed his life into its present dead end.

  Verin Lyr turned to Tzimena and smiled. “And this,” he said, “must be my blushing bride.” He approached her, studying her as he did, clearly enamored by what he saw. “The portraits were lovely, my dear, but in person—even in such dire straits—you are more stunning than I ever could have imagined. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Tzimena stared back, doing her best to offer neither venom nor bravado. Neither would serve her in the present instant. “The Duke of Erald, I presume?” she asked.

  He bowed magnanimously. “At your service, milady. And most charmed—”

  He reached out to take her tied hands and kiss them. Tzimena jerked them away and took a reflexive step backward. Tymon caught her and shoved her forward again.

  “Fair enough,” Verin Lyr said with a sigh. “I do understand, this is not the optimum circumstance under which the two of us should meet. What can one do, though? These are strange times.”

  “To business,” Tymon said shortly. “State your offer again, so that all can hear it.”

  Verin nodded, turned to his herald, and gave a little nod. The man who’d met them hurried back across the clearing to the camp and set about extracting some large leather sacks from the saddlebags on one of the horses.

  “Our agreement,” Verin said, “was for the delivery of these two individuals in return for four hundred pieces of gold and a privateer’s contract between myself and your organization.”

  Tzimena felt her mouth fall open. She hated the man for shocking her so, but that agreement was, indeed, a most brazen and unbelievable gambit.

  “Three years?” Tymon asked. She was clearly the leader of the Devils now that Korin was out of the picture.

  Verin Lyr nodded. His herald had returned now, bearing with him two large, heavy sacks adorned with actual locking mechanisms, as well as a leather dispatch case. He set down the heavy burden of the bags of gold and handed the case to his master. Verin extracted a rolled scroll from the dispatch case, gave it a quick review, then offered it to whoever would take it. Dedrik stepped forward to do so.

  “Three years to make of the wood what you will, free of my interference or the attentions of my soldiers, so long as I receive one-fifth of your take, four times a year. It’s all there. You can read, can’t you?”

  Dedrik—who had already been studying the scroll—threw a hateful glare at the duke, then offered the scroll to Tymon.

  “Of course I read,” she said bitterly.

  The duke shrugged. “My apologies. I try to make no assumptions.”

  “So that’s what this has all been leading to?” Tzimena asked incredulously. “A crowned duke receiving tribute from outlaws and brigands in exchange for free rein?”

  Verin Lyr held out his hands. “Politics, milady. Why eradicate one’s enemies when one can simply buy them? Better to let a single outlaw band hold the wood and maintain some semblance of order—while paying me tribute—than to leave it the chaotic mess that it is presently. Besides, when someone has something you want . . .”

  She didn’t care for the way he stared at her and let that statement trail off into the empty air. Not at all.

  “If you think I’ll marry you now,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Oh no,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t. No, milady, I’ve bought you to make sure you’re disposed of in a manner befitting your station—and wholly exonerating myself. All of this—this devil’s bargain, the whole mess—is for him.” He pointed to Korin. “He’s the one I’ve been after all along. You were just a convenient political device. And bait.”

  Korin suddenly turned, his pained eyes seeking those of hi
s onetime companions. He looked to Orhund, to Tymon, to Dedrik. “Please,” he said. “Don’t let him do this. I’ll go with him—won’t even put up a fight—but don’t give him Tzimena. She’s innocent in this.”

  “I would argue otherwise,” Tymon said. “For her sake, you endangered us all.”

  “And I’ll pay for that,” Korin said. “But she shouldn’t.”

  Dedrik suddenly moved closer to Tymon and whispered something. Tzimena could not hear just what was said, but Tymon instantly shook her head and spoke her response at full volume. “No,” she said loudly. “I won’t consider it.”

  “Are we still negotiating?” the Duke of Erald asked, endlessly amused. “I thought we’d settled all this. Here’s your gold, there are my prisoners, let’s exchange and be on our separate ways.”

  “Hold it,” Dedrik said, stepping away from Tymon to place himself just beside Tzimena, halfway between his chieftain and the duke as they stood staring at one another. “Let’s offer a counterproposal.”

  “Dedrik, get back in line,” Tymon said, “or I’ll sell your hide, as well.”

  Dedrik looked to Orhund. “This isn’t what we do. You both know it.”

  Orhund threw a pitying glance at Korin, then shrugged. “The Red Raven is dead, old friend. It’s a new world, with new rules.”

  Dedrik looked back to Tymon. “The girl, Tymon. It’s not fair—”

  “Little is fair,” Tymon snapped in answer, “without blood or gold making it so.”

  “I like that,” Verin Lyr said. “I’m stealing that.”

  “Tzimena, run,” Korin hissed. “Now.”

  “No,” she said, still staring at the duke.

  Verin Lyr saw the determination in her eyes and nodded approvingly. “Clever girl.”