A Sellsword's Wrath

by Jacob Peppers

  Eventually, they came upon the training grounds where mens’ breath plumed in the air as they exchanged blows with practice swords, the edges of the blades dulled, most covered in sweat despite the cool air of the morning.

  Between the shouts of men and the steady ring of dulled steel, the clearing was a raucous tumult of sound. Any ears that might be listening would have to be close indeed to hear over the cacophony. “What would you have of me, Advisor?” The captain of the guard asked, studying the movements of those arrayed before him with a slight expression of disdain on his face.

  “Well,” Caldwell said, “the king’s decision is not the one I would have liked it to be, nor is it what our mutual acquaintance would have wanted.”

  “Yeah,” Savrin said, “well, the drunken bastard wouldn’t even let me speak. I’ll tell you, I was tempted to carve a piece of his hide—”

  “Shut your mouth, fool” Caldwell hissed, “Someone could hear you, even here.”

  The assassin turned casually, crooking an eyebrow at him.

  “There are not many, advisor, who have called me fool to my face and lived to speak of it. A man in your position, unarmed as you are, might be wise to consider that the next time you open your mouth to chastise me. As for our mutual acquaintance, he isn’t here, is he? And even if he were, what of it? With a blade in my hand, there is no man alive that I fear, Caldwell. Remember that.”

  Caldwell forced his expression back to its normal passivity. If he could deal with Belgarin’s blather and mockery without losing his patience, surely he could deal with this ignorant wretch. “Threats?” He said, “Do you think to threaten me, Savrin? I will give my life, gladly, if it is what is required for our mutual master. And unarmed, am I?” He shrugged, “With blades, perhaps. I have never taken the time to learn the knowledge of them and care little for it. But I am not without my own weapons, Savrin. Yes, you strike an imposing figure there, with your sword at your waist so casually, as if born to it. The men, I hear, fear you. So much so that you must force them to practice with you. It is said that men who engage in such a bout walk away injured or not at all.”

  Savrin smiled a small smile, “It isn’t my fault the bastards don’t know how to fight. It’s their job after all.”

  “Yes,” Caldwell said, “you are quite fearless, that cannot be denied. Confident in your own skill and bladework to protect yourself and that, it seems, is justified. I wonder, though,” he said, leaning in closer so that he was speaking into the man’s ear, “Does your sister share such skill?”

  The captain of the guard’s body went rigid at that, and his jaw clenched. Caldwell allowed himself a small smile of his own. “Oh yes, captain, we know of her. Did you really think you might keep her secret by leaving her halfway across the world?” Caldwell chuckled. “There are very few things in this world our master does not know. I wonder, do you think your sister would be able to protect herself, should men come at her in the night? What of her child? A young boy, isn’t it? Three now, maybe four years old? Does he possess his uncle’s skill with a blade?”

  “You’ll leave them alone,” the captain said, turning to him, “they’ve no part in this.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, captain,” Caldwell said matter of factly. “You have a part in this and so, then, do they. Understand that I would happily tear into your sister and the boy both, would hold their bleeding organs before them as they died if my master willed it, or if I so much as suspected you of not doing what you’re told. And if you draw that blade at your side that your fingers seem tempted to, know that I will die if that is necessary, but that your sister and your nephew will bleed out their last in screams of terrible agony while men look on and laugh.”

  The captain’s hand froze inches from the handle of his blade, and his jaw clenched. “One day, I will kill you.”

  Caldwell smiled, “Ah, captain, a pleasant enough fancy, I’m sure. A dream to keep your feet on the path and that’s just as well. Only, see that it stays just a dream—all men have something to lose. You just like the rest. Now, our master requires your service.”

  The captain of the guard studied him for several seconds, making his way to understanding that he had no options. Then, finally, the truth of the thing settling in, he frowned, “What do you need me to do?”

  Caldwell nodded, satisfied, “You will go and tell the master that Belgarin marches in six months’ time—no other, you.”

  “Very well,” The captain said, “is there anything else?”

  Caldwell smiled, “Yes, there is. Before you go, why not pay our dear friend, Nigel, a visit. Have a little talk with him. The man must learn a lesson that money given comes with certain expectations.”

  The captain winced, “The boy lover? What would I have to say to him?”

  “You need not do any talking at all, dear captain.” He glanced at the sword at the man’s hip, “Play to your strengths in this. Do you understand?”

  The captain grunted, “I understand.”

  “Finish here and be about it,” Caldwell said, “I want you gone within the hour. I will find an explanation for the king.”

  Savrin nodded and started away, but Caldwell stopped him with a hand on his arm, “One more thing, captain. Have your fun as you will with our dear Nigel, but it must not link back to you or to us.”

  “Of course,” the man hissed, “I’m no fool.”

  Caldwell nodded, “Then prove it.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Aaron didn’t wake so much as surface from the waters of unconsciousness, a scream on his lips that he only just managed to hold back. This scream was not of pain. Or, at least, not mostly of pain. It was a scream of fear, of some sort of knowing, of being brought face to face with a dark knowledge that things were not right, had never been right, and were too far gone for saving. He couldn’t remember, as he laid there, his breath coming in gasps, the nature of his dream, his nightmare. He could only remember the feeling of fear, of being studied by an evil too vast and terrible to truly understand or comprehend. For a time, he only lay with his eyes closed, relieved to have escaped whatever dark specter had haunted his dreams.

  Then, slowly, he opened them. Warm hands were on his face, and he saw Adina above him, her brow creased in worry. When she noticed Aaron rousing, she bent closer, studying him. “Aaron, thank the gods. Are you okay?”

  “I’m alright,” Aaron said, sitting up and wincing at the soreness in his side where the arrow’d gone in. It was morning now, and he held up a hand to block the bright sun. “Where are we?”

  “Still headed west,” Adina said, as she went about changing the bandage on his side, “We thought it best to leave the tent and those men as quickly as we could, so we were forced to carry you on one of the horses. We only just stopped. I was scared the jostling might have upset your wound, but Pellan said he had experience in such wounds, and that you’d be okay.”

  Aaron frowned, “Pellan, you said?”

  Adina nodded, “That’s right. The man that was in the cage in the tent, his name’s Pellan. He’s quiet, maybe a little strange and definitely shy, but he seems kind enough. He was the one that saw to your and Leomin’s wounds.”

  Aaron’s frown grew deeper, and he remembered, in fractured images, what had happened before he’d passed out. He remembered thinking of Owen and that was strange. He hadn’t seen Owen since they’d been children in the orphanage, since Master Cyrille had taken him away and beaten him to death. Strange that he would have thought of him in the state he’d been in, before unconsciousness had claimed him. Strange that he’d think of him now. Still, Pellan she’d said. Not the rarest of names but rare enough that he’d only ever met one. His father. “Where is this Pellan now?”

  Adina glanced around the woods, “I’m not sure. He said he was going to find us something to eat—said that you and Leomin would need cooked meat to heal the fastest, but that was an hour or so ago now.”

  Aaron nodded slowly, thinking of th
e man who’d been standing in the cage in the slaver’s tent. He’d only seen him for an instant and that in poor, fitful light and shadow, but there had been something familiar about the man. Something in the shape of his face that had reminded him of Owen. “Alright,” he said, “help me up, will you?”

  “Pellan said that you should rest and that, should you wake up before he was back, to make sure you didn’t get up.”

  “Well, help me up anyway, Adina,” he said, and she must have caught something of his thoughts in his expression because she frowned, draping one of his arms across her shoulders and helping him to his feet.

  “Is everything okay, Aaron?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, wincing as he rose, blinking in an effort to clear his lightheadedness. “I’m sure it’s fine, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. Where’s Leomin?”

  “Ah, Mr. Envelar, welcome back to the land of the living.”

  With Adina’s help, Aaron turned and saw the Parnen sitting a short distance away. He was propped up against a tree, smoking a pipe and blowing great smoke rings into the forest air. Aaron noted that a bandage had been wrapped tightly around his head, no easy thing considering the man’s long, thick hair. “Leomin,” Aaron said, surprised at the amount of relief he felt at seeing the Parnen captain alive and well. “It’s good to see you up and about. When I found the blood, I thought that maybe ….” He shrugged, “Well. It’s just good to see you.”

  Leomin smiled, displaying his white teeth, “Well, Mr. Envelar, I am up, anyway. ‘About’, perhaps, is another few hours off, but I thank you for your concern. I woke only a short time ago myself—there are, I find, few things more effective than a club to the head to induce a man into a deep sleep. I hear that I have you to thank for saving us. I’m sorry that I missed it.”

  Aaron thought back to the night before, questing at the memories like a man searching blindly in the dark, and he recoiled at what he found there. Memories of blood and screams and pain and pleasure. Co, he thought, what happened last night?

  I don’t know, the Virtue said, sounding lost and scared, I don’t remember, Aaron. Only pieces. I remember being angry, angrier than I’ve ever been. I remember, screaming? Maybe? But not in pain … I remember … enjoying it. This never happened to me with Eladen, nor with all those that came before. I just … don’t know.

  Aaron grunted. Much the same as himself. Pleasure and blood. “I’m glad you’re okay, Leomin,” he said, wanting to close off that line of conversation, not sure he wanted to remember what he’d done.

  He turned back to Adina there at his side, “Are you okay?” He said.

  “I’m okay,” she said, a sad smile on her face. “Last night, I was afraid. For you. And Aaron,” she said, her voice low and troubled, “I was also afraid of you.”

  Aaron met her eyes, saw the worry in them and made a decision. “We need to talk,” he said, “I’ll tell you. Everything. If you don’t want me around after that, I’ll understand, but you need to know. About last night … in the barn, before. And about what happened in the tent and the woods. I don’t remember everything, but what I do remember, I’ll tell you.”

  “Yes,” Leomin said, rising unsteadily to his feet and putting his hand on either of their shoulders. “We will speak, all of us,” he said, glancing meaningfully at the two of them, “but not now. Just now, I think I hear the sound of breakfast coming.”

  Aaron raised his eyebrow. He’d heard nothing, had been so focused on Adina, on what he would say, that he hadn’t been paying attention and, sure enough, in another moment a man came out of the woods carrying two dead rabbits.

  Aaron studied the figure as he approached, some instinct making him reach for his sword on his back only to find that it wasn’t there. As the man drew closer, coming out of the shades of the trees and into the clearing, Aaron stumbled in shock and would have fallen had Adina not caught him. “Owen?” he said. “Is that you?”

  The small man looked up from where he’d been watching his feet as if worried he’d step on a stone or snake, and he looked at Aaron with dark brown eyes that Aaron remembered well. Eyes that always seemed somehow sorrowful, even when he laughed that tittering, nervous laugh of his. The laugh that he gave now, “You’re awake,” he said.

  “You’re alive,” Aaron said, stunned.

  Owen—for it was Owen, he could see that in the way he stood, hear it in the way he spoke—smiled and held up the two rabbits. “And I have breakfast.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Aaron and the others sat around the campfire, Owen—gods, but he was alive—stirring the rabbit meat into a stew, Aaron staring at him, speechless for possibly the first time in his life. Leomin and Adina, too, remained silent. They’d both heard him speak of Owen before, knew about the childhood friend he’d lost, and so they did not speak, letting him work through it on his own, and he was incredibly grateful to them for that. “I found the pot at the slaver’s tent,” Owen said in that nervous, self-deprecating way that was so familiar, “I didn’t think … well, they wouldn’t need it anymore, I thought. Do you think it was wrong of me to take it?” He glanced at them, hunching his shoulders as if expecting to be hit for his troubles.

  Aaron still found that he couldn’t seem to make his voice work, so Adina smiled, patting Aaron on the hand from where she sat beside him even as she spoke, “I’m sure it’s fine. As you say, they won’t need it anymore. Besides, they were going to make us slaves.”

  “Right,” Owen said, patting his forehead as if to show he was a fool, “You’re right, of course. Still, it’s a good pot, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to blame it for the meal. I warn you all, I’m not much of a cook.” He glanced down at the stew he was cooking, stirring it, “Not much of a hunter either, I’m afraid. I suspect we’ll all get a belly of broth and little else.”

  Aaron shook his head slowly, still shocked to see this man he’d thought long dead, this friend, crouched before him stirring a pot of rabbit stew. It was surreal and strange and wonderful all at the same time. He glanced at Leomin and was surprised to find the Parnen captain studying Owen intently, as if he was a puzzle he was trying to piece together.

  “So,” Aaron said, finally managing to find his voice, “Pellan, is it?”

  Owen looked up from where he stirred the pot, his eyes wide like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Ah, about that … well, after I left the orphanage, I thought it would be the smartest thing to change my name. I remembered you talking about your father, once, and I had always liked the name, so I decided that it would do as well as any other.” He started as if just realizing something, “I … gods, Aaron, I hope you’re not offended. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” Aaron said, “really, Owen, it’s fine. I’m just … I can’t believe that you’re here. I thought … shit, Owen, everyone thought you died.”

  Owen nodded, his expression growing troubled. “I almost did. It … I don’t remember all of it. I know that Cyrille was beating me, I remember that. I remember thinking he was going to kill me.” He frowned, “I think maybe I passed out? Or he knocked me out, I’m not sure. All I remember is when I woke up I was in an alleyway in a part of the city I didn’t know, hurt pretty bad, I guess. I couldn’t move much—couldn’t see much either, really. Some of his hits had got me in the face, so my eyes were mostly swollen shut.” He paused, as if remembering, “Anyway,” he said, smiling at Aaron, “I’m here now, so that’s a good thing.”

  Aaron nodded, “Yes, it is a good thing. Whatever happened, Owen, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Adina was surprised to see Aaron get up and move toward the thin man. For his part, Owen seemed surprised too, taking an anxious step back until Aaron wrapped him into a tight hug. Adina smiled, never having seen this side of Aaron before, and she turned to Leomin, trying to meet his eye, but the Parnen captain was staring at Owen, a troubled expression on his face.

  “It’s good to have you back,” Aaron said, with m
ore emotion in his voice than the sellsword often showed. “And I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad, and I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Owen asked, a surprised look still on his face, patting Aaron’s back in an awkward, embarrassed way, “Why would you be sorry?”

  “It was my fault,” Aaron said, “my fault that Cyrille targeted you. They told me what happened—told me that you took the blame for what I’d done, tearing up his rooms.”

  “Yeah, well,” Owen said, still patting Aaron’s back awkwardly, “he was going to hurt you, Aaron, and you were my friend. Friends look after friends. Don’t they?”

  Aaron nodded, finally releasing the man from his embrace only to grab both the man’s shoulders in his hands, “They’re supposed to,” he said, “but there are few enough people in the world who would go through what you did for their child or mother, let alone a friend.”

  “Ah,” Owen said, rubbing the back of his neck, “it wasn’t a big deal, Aaron, really…”

  “No,” Aaron said, “it was a big deal. You looked after me, and I intend to look after you. Though, I’ll admit that you could have picked a safer time of showing up than you did. Still, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Sounds good,” Owen said, smiling in that shy way of his that Adina was beginning to see was a smile that was his alone. “Okay. Oh, and Aaron?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think maybe the stew is burning.”

  Aaron laughed and let go of the thin man’s shoulders, clapping him on the back. Then he moved and sat down beside Adina. She stared at him, thinking that he was happier now than anytime she’d ever seen him. This, she thought, is the man he could have been. The man he would have been, had not the world stepped in with its own pains and its own tortures.