by W. C. Conner
They could see the movement as one man stood and the other swiveled around to watch them as they appeared from the cloak of darkness. Tenable limped along behind them at the end of his reins.
Morgan could plainly see the face of the man on the far side of the cooking fire. The face of the nearer man was obscured by the darkness and the halo of light coming from the fire behind him gave him a vaguely sinister look. Morgan’s hand moved briefly toward the hilt of one of his daggers even though his instincts felt no threat.
“Your timing is good, my tardy travelers,” said a friendly voice. “Our meal will be ready before long and we were fortunate in acquiring a generous supply of reasonably fresh vegetables and a brace of accommodating rabbits to share the pot. There is enough and more for the four of us.”
Morgan bowed in acknowledgement of their hospitality and stepped fully into the dancing light of the fire. Peg followed at his side. Her large green eyes took in their host, standing in his pointed leather cap with a strange looking feather protruding from it at a rakish angle, then moved over to the nearer of the two. He looked young, and he was very large ... not fat by any means, just large. He had enormous arms and broad, muscular shoulders. His straw colored hair looked like a poorly laid haystack. With the fire mostly behind him it was difficult to tell the color of his eyes, but his face was smooth with just the hint (or hope) of a mustache on the upper lip. Even though she couldn’t see their color, Peg could tell that the eyes were steady and thoughtful – and they were studying her carefully. She looked aside, uncomfortable under the close scrutiny.
“The name is Tinglesser,” the tall, lean man with the leather cap was saying, “and that’s my wagon over there.” His arm pointed off to their left where they could see the side of the tinker’s wagon, the pots and pans gleaming dully in the yellow light of the fire. “Just call me Tingle, though,” he continued, “I’m more comfortable with it anyway.” After a quick look at Morgan’s face he decided against making his customary joke about his imaginary wives being the only people who called him Tinglesser instead of Tingle.
“I’m Morgan and this is my daughter, Peg,” Morgan said. Peg turned her head to look up at Morgan’s face but he did not look at her and she kept her silence. “By a turn of poor luck, I recently lost my employment. You find us on our way to whatever place there may be that has need of a man of my particular skills. My horse injured his hoof today as we crossed a stream several miles back, leaving us afoot as you can see.”
Tingle had noted both the lack of a title of heritage or rank for the warrior, as well as Peg’s reaction as she was introduced. He tucked these tidbits away in that part of his mind that stored potentially useful information, then bowed slightly to acknowledge the honor of their names.
“My silent companion is Kemp,” he said, indicating the large man who now sat facing the fire and ignoring them. “He’s perfectly capable of speech but only when he has something he feels is worth the saying.” He chuckled and grinned. “In that,” he added, “he is quite the opposite of me.”
“Have you come far?” Morgan asked.
“Kemp here has come from Wrensfalls which is a fair distance on the far side of the Duchy of Confirth.”
Morgan colored slightly as the tinker named the duchy, but in the darkness and flickering yellow firelight Tingle missed it.
“I’ve known Kemp since before he was apprenticed to old Bork, and a fine apprentice he was too.” He looked fondly over at Kemp. “I customarily stop here at this crossroads on my travels and I was most surprised when he wandered in this afternoon.” Kemp had been staring into the fire this entire time.
“Come, Kemp,” Tingle called across the fire, “tell our warrior friend here your tale.” Without raising his head, Kemp shook it back and forth in refusal.
“Well, then,” Tingle said, rubbing his hands together and looking pleased, “it seems the responsibility falls to me.” Kemp glanced up at Tingle in apparent disapproval but said nothing and looked back to the fire.
“Actually, it is a dreadful tale,” Tingle began. “Bork was an honorable and skilled smith of high repute, and Kemp here was bidding fair to be a worthy successor.” A frown crossed his brow as he continued. “Understand that I heard this from Kemp’s lips not two hours before you arrived, and I was as incredulous as I trust you also will be when you hear of his misfortune.”
Morgan and Peg were silent, their attention on Tingle.
“You know of Greyleige, the head of the Wizard’s Guild, I have no doubt.” Without noticing Morgan’s increased level of interest or waiting for a reply, he continued. “Greyleige came to Bork three weeks ago, demanding he make him a specific tool or weapon of some sort. Kemp was not made privy to the nature of the request but he knew that Bork was vehemently opposed to helping the wizard in any way. After he was refused, Greyleige gave him a week to change his mind, but Bork had already given the wizard the only answer he ever would.
“Greyleige was furious and stormed out of the smithy cursing Bork and vowing revenge for his refusal. The next night a freak storm blew through town, heavy with thunder and lightning. It seemed unnatural to the townspeople and they all stayed abed with their doors and shutters bolted in fear of whatever force was passing.
“In the morning, Bork’s smithy was nothing more than an ash pile, having burned to the ground in the middle of the night in the face of a slashing rain storm. His bones were found amidst the ashes. Kemp was spared only because Bork had sent him to Dunlivit that morning to pick up a load of iron he had purchased from the ironmonger there, a trip that requires an overnight stay due to the distance. Perhaps Bork suspected that trouble was afoot, but we will never know.
“When Kemp returned and found Bork dead, and the smithy razed by what the townspeople agreed could only be a wizard’s wrath, he picked up the few salvageable items he could find in the ashes and started down the road in this direction with no particular destination in mind. His only destination was ‘away from the smithy’.”
Morgan’s gaze wandered over Kemp’s silent form as he considered how they had both been cast upon the mercies of the road because of the machinations of Greyleige. How many others? he wondered.
“As for me, “Tingle continued, “I am recently departed from the eccentric but honest village of Wisdom which lies at the end of the west road, close up against the Old Forest. Wisdom lies two long days travel by wagon or horse, three or four days if afoot, depending on your urgency and your burden.”
He looked shrewdly at Morgan. “There likely is employment for my friend Kemp there,” Tingle said, “but I think it unlikely they’ll have need of your talents. You’d undoubtedly have a better chance of finding those who would value your skills in the port city of Afrah.” Morgan noted Tingle’s brief glance toward Peg whose face had paled as he named the city.
“I’m aware of the opportunities Afrah offers,” Morgan allowed, “but those who would seek my skills there aren’t the type of people I would be willing to offer them to. We will look elsewhere. If needs must, my Peg is not too proud to work in the scullery to keep the two of us from starving, but I am bound that shall not happen except at the uttermost need.” As he finished he glanced at her and wondered as he saw the color returning once again to her cheeks.
I was such a poor father to my own daughter, he thought, perhaps I can make amends by being the father to Peg that her own father could not be. His eyes took on a distant look. I wonder where my own daughter is and what has become of her ... or even if Thisbe yet lives.
The clouds had piled up during the night and now completely quenched even the thin light of the sliver of moon and stars. The profound darkness gave Morgan the same niggling feeling that had bothered him at the stream where Tenable came up lame and caused him to insist on taking the last watch of the night. He had put his and Peg’s bags into his own blanket along with a few odd branches of wood to make it appear as if it was occupied the same as the other three in which Tingle, Kemp and Peg slept soundly
.
Picking a spot well clear of the low burning campfire from which he could observe both the crossroads and the camp, he stood wrapped in a formless black cloak with the hood up. Leaning motionless against a tree he was no more than a deep shadow wrapped in deep shadow, virtually invisible in the now moonless night.
The snap of a twig to his right and behind Tingle’s wagon caught his ear and he turned his head slowly inside the hood of the cloak, listening for what other sounds there were to hear and where they came from. His finely trained senses detected at least three people, more likely as many as five, moving carefully and quietly in from all sides of the darkness surrounding the campfire.
As the intruders crept toward the sleeping figures, the nearest of them passed close by the motionless Morgan and stopped not three feet from him. In a single silent movement, Morgan’s dagger slid from its sheath and out across the throat of the outlaw whose attention was fully on the sleepers by the fire. His strong arms caught the man as he fell. After silently lowering him to the ground, he started toward Tingle’s wagon where he could just discern the ghostly outline of another man approaching its protected rear side. This was the outlaw who had earlier alerted him when he stepped on a twig. The man looked over and saw Morgan’s outline moving carefully toward him. Believing him to be his now dead companion, he waved at him to stay to the left and continue moving forward, but Morgan had his own plans.
The outlaw had just turned back to his own approach as Morgan broke into a dead run directly at him. The man had no more than one or two heartbeats to realize that danger was upon him before Morgan slammed into him and they fell heavily against the wagon, raising a cacophony of clanging pots and pans. Morgan sprang quickly away from the wagon, while the outlaw sank to the ground, a low groan of departure escaping his lips as he reached weakly for the handle of the dagger protruding from his chest. He stared sightlessly as his life blood pulsed down the handle with each weakening beat of his heart and into the measuring cup which had been knocked loose in the collision and landed on the ground between his legs.
At the clatter of the pots and pans the other three outlaws hesitated briefly in surprise before launching themselves at their intended victims who by then were awake to the danger. Kemp leaped out of his bedroll and grabbed an enormous hammer that had been lying by his side. Though an uncertain swordsman at best, Tingle had grabbed his short sword and swung himself around in a circle, trying both to defend and analyze in the same motion.
One of the three outlaws launched himself directly at the unarmed Peg who had raised herself only as far as her knees by that time. Kemp, who was the closer of her two companions, flung himself across the path of the man, knocking him off his course but taking a serious slash across his left shoulder in the process. As Kemp rolled to his feet, the outlaw raised his sword from an awkward sitting position in an attempt to slash at Kemp’s hamstrings. He had barely begun his swing, however, when his head exploded in a mist of blood and bones and brain as Kemp’s hammer slammed into it.
At the same moment, with a cry of challenge, Morgan leaped from the darkness behind the last two, his long sword held before him in both hands. Armed with short swords and daggers, the two turned to face him, ignoring Tingle for the moment as the lesser danger. The larger of the two attempted to draw Morgan in with a quick feint but before he had completed his movement, his sword, with his severed right hand still gripping the hilt, dropped to the ground as Morgan whirled past him, slicing him nearly in two just below the rib cage on his way by. The last outlaw had already turned to flee but took only a few steps before a thrown dagger from Morgan’s boot caught up with him, burying itself in the back of the man’s neck at the base of his skull.
Almost before the lifeless body hit the ground Morgan was at Peg’s side, scooping her into his arms and checking her for wounds. Kemp stood silently over them, holding his wounded shoulder. Peg’s eyes were wide with terror but she had taken no physical harm. Morgan looked gratefully up into Kemp’s eyes which glittered in the flickering firelight. “I owe you my daughter’s life,” he said simply.
Kemp said nothing but the sparkle in his eyes as he looked back clearly came from unbidden tears that stood in them. He turned and sat down before the fire, holding his wounded shoulder and silently rocking back and forth.
Their world seemed to stand in place for the space of several breaths as they presented a stunned tableau of the living surrounded by a grim harvest of the dead.
Finally, Tingle dropped his sword and walked over to where Kemp still rocked back and forth. “Come with me to the wagon, Kemp,” he said, gently urging him to rise with his hand. “I have medicines and bandages with which to dress that wound.” As they moved toward the wagon, Tingle was saying, “I’ll need to light a lantern so I can get a good look at that. It looks like it may need several stitches.” He glanced briefly back towards Morgan, the expression on his face clearly showing his awe at the warrior who had killed four of the five assassins in less than a minute.
Peg looked up at Morgan who still held her in his arms. Her heartbeat had slowed and her breathing was returning to normal. “You have called me ‘daughter’ twice,” she said, laying her head against his arm.
“I didn’t want them to think the wrong thing about us,” Morgan began defensively.
Before he could say more, Peg cut him off. “No, don’t,” she said softly, “I like the sound of it. I’m very proud to be thought your daughter.”
6
By the time the sun cleared the hills in the morning, the dead outlaws had been stripped of their clothes and buried in shallow graves surrounded by a dense growth of young trees and shrubs. Their clothing was burned at Morgan’s direction. Tingle salvaged their weapons, reasoning they would likely bring a fair price at one or more of his stops.
Morgan had carefully inspected the weapons as well as the bodies and clothing before they were disposed of to make certain that these were nothing more than the common outlaws they appeared to be. He didn’t share whatever he learned from his inspection with the others, but Tingle noticed a grim set to Morgan’s mouth as he returned from the burial site and tucked that into his brain for future consideration.
Tingle finished hitching his little gray mare to the wagon and turned to Morgan. “Whither now, my friend?” he said. “You said you have no destination. Would you travel with me? I go east toward Confirth and beyond and would welcome the company of one with your impressive skills.” After a quick glance toward Peg, he added, “and your daughter too, of course.”
“There is nothing for us in that direction,” was Morgan’s reply. “West, north or south at this point are our only choices. I am not yet decided.”
Tingle looked toward Kemp, turning the gaze of both Morgan and Peg toward him. “And you, my silent giant,” Tingle said gently. “Where are you bound now?”
Kemp ran his right hand through his hair, wincing slightly at the pain it caused to the wounded left shoulder. “I was no more than a wanderer until last night,” he said, uttering the first words Morgan and Peg had heard from his mouth. “In naming Wisdom, you have set my destination for me.” He had a deep and rich voice, his words well formed and clearly, though softly, spoken.
Tingle’s eyes danced at the surprise in both Morgan’s and Peg’s faces. “Perhaps you would care for companionship on your road?” he questioned, looking toward Morgan.
“One direction is as good as another, save toward the east,” Morgan allowed, “and I owe him my daughter’s life. By his leave, we would accompany Kemp.”
With only the barest shift of his eyes toward Peg, Kemp responded, “You are welcome to travel with me. I travel to find a place to be, as do you. Perhaps together we will find what we seek.”
“Well and well,” Tingle said as he mounted to the seat of his wagon. “Farewell then, my friends. I will listen for news of you and watch for you when next I pass this way.” His little mare pricked up her ears as if eager for the road and Tingle, with his wares r
attling and clanking, clattered off toward the east as snatches of one of his bawdy drinking songs drifted back to them over the noise of the wagon.
The three remaining watched him briefly then turned to their own departure. Tenable was still favoring his hoof, leaving them all yet afoot. The injury was not so serious, however, that he couldn’t carry their meager supplies. Thus, only lightly loaded, Morgan turned Tenable’s head toward Wisdom.
They walked in silence with Kemp to the right of Tenable’s head and Morgan to Tenable’s left holding the reins loosely in his hand. Peg walked at Morgan’s left, occasionally stepping slightly ahead of or slightly behind him to steal a glance across at the man who had saved her life just a few hours earlier. Although she tried to be discrete about her curiosity, both Morgan and Kemp noticed, but neither commented upon it.
In the full light of day, Kemp was an even larger and more imposing presence than he had been by the campfire where his silence seemed to diminish his bulk. His eyes were of a hue that made them appear to change color. They could appear blue or gray depending on the shade of the sky, or appear green when surrounded by a meadow in spring, or amber like sun-dried grass in the summer. His skin was clear and fair, and in the daylight it was apparent that the pale mustache over a full mouth and strong chin was being cultivated, though with a notable lack of success at that point, for his size belied his youth.
“There is a clear running stream to the right of our path,” Morgan said, looking over the saddle at Kemp who was clearly in pain and doing his best to not show it. “Since it is high noon, I propose we stop here to refresh ourselves and fill our water skins.” Kemp nodded his agreement and they moved into the shade of some sycamores at the bank of the stream.
After watering Tenable, Morgan hobbled him and left him free to graze. The three of them ate some nuts and a small bit of cheese and biscuits washed down with the clear, cool water from the stream. As they sat in the shade of the trees to escape the heat of the midday sun, Morgan ordered Kemp to pull his shirt off the injured shoulder so Peg could clean the wound and change the dressings. He stood and watched briefly as Peg worked on Kemp’s shoulder, then walked over to Tenable to inspect his hoof before returning to stand over the two of them.
