Oath of the Outcast

by C M Banschbach

  Rhys did the same and led the way onto the bridge. They were five paces from the edge when four figures stepped out and blocked their way. Rhys glanced behind and saw six more men had come up on the opposite bank. Their motley collection of clothes and weapons declared them as bandits.

  “No guards. Only us.” A man in a stained jerkin swaggered forward. He carried a plain short sword that looked like it had begun its life as a foot soldier’s blade.

  “Let me guess, you want our money?” Rhys dropped Draco’s reins to free his hands. Bandits from the lowlands were harmless as kittens compared to the outlaws who roamed the mountain wilds.

  “That had crossed my mind. But I don’t like your tone, so we’ll be taking your horses and weapons as well.” The bandit leader smirked.

  “Demanding type, isn’t he?” Alan turned to confront the thieves that approached them from behind.

  “You’re out of your lands now, clan boy. No room for your arrogance here!” another man snarled.

  A smile tugged at Alan’s mouth. “Clan boy? Well, I’ve heard worse, I suppose.”

  The man drew a dagger and jabbed it threateningly at Alan.

  “And if we don’t comply?” Rhys asked the leader.

  “We cut your throats and leave you for the crows.”

  “How many people do you usually ‘leave for the crows?’” Rhys asked, genuinely curious. I could possibly get something out of this. If they’re halfway decent, we could use them up at the Keep.

  “As many as we have to. Most are usually smart enough to do what we say.” The bandit puffed his chest out, obviously pleased by their thieving prowess.

  “They’ve got me trembling in my boots now. What do we do?” Alan tapped his thumb against the pommel of his sword.

  “Yes, what are you going to do?” The bandit sneered, leaning closer to Rhys.

  It worked out better than Rhys could have planned. He grabbed the leader’s tunic. A moment later, the man found himself halfway over the rail and dangling above the raging water below.

  Rhys grabbed the bandit’s right hand and raised it for inspection. Alan had half-turned at the commotion behind him and a smirk crossed his face at the look of slack-jawed amazement among the bandits at seeing their leader in Rhys’s hold.

  As Rhys expected, an X had been branded onto the back of the man’s hand, and he twisted to let Alan see.

  “Do you know what this brand means, Alan?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” Alan said. “The brands aren't widely used among the clans.”

  “It means that this man is an outlaw and destined for the Cardic Mountains. So tell me.” Rhys jiggled the man a little further over the rail. “Why aren’t you in the mountains, bandit?”

  The man eyed the river fearfully. “That’s the Baron’s territory. He wouldn’t want me in his service, so he’d kill me.”

  “You’re right. I don’t think I’d want you, but to assume I’d kill you right off?” Rhys clicked his tongue. “I don’t like the fact that the people who insist on making outlaws think I’ll be their executioner.”

  “You’re the B-Baron?” The man’s eyes widened in fear and a little incredulity.

  Rhys nearly rolled his eyes. The reaction was almost always the same. Most didn’t believe that a man only a few years from thirty could already have such a fearsome reputation.

  He released the bandit onto the bridge. “Indeed I am, and even though I don’t like your tone, I might just let you all live.”

  There was much muttering and shifting among the band as they finally recognized the curling dragon insignia stamped on the left breast of his jerkin, and the unfortunately legendary scars. Rhys pushed through them onto the road and Alan followed.

  “Let me see your hands,” Rhys barked at the bandits. A flurry of hands shot into the air. Some were bare; others had only one horizontal mark signifying they had only been outlawed in their county. There were a few more burned X’s on the hands of those banished to the mountains.

  “I’ll give you one chance,” Rhys addressed the leader. “Take your men and go to the Dragon Keep. Ask for Fulke, and tell him the Baron sent you. He’ll deal with you in my name. No, he won’t kill you!” Rhys raised his voice in exasperation at the quick look of fear in the bandit’s eyes. “But, if you don’t go, and in one month I send a man down here and he reports getting attacked on this bridge, I will.”

  “What if we kill your man?” another bandit tremulously asked.

  “You have very high opinions of yourself.” Rhys turned away and mounted his horse. “The choice is yours.”

  He and Alan rode away leaving a very somber group of bandits behind them.

  Once out of range, Alan burst out laughing. “Never thought I’d see the day when one man could defeat ten bandits without drawing his sword! I think I underestimated your reputation.”

  Rhys raised a shoulder in acknowledgment of Alan’s merriment. “I have to keep in practice.”

  Alan laughed again. “I think I might have to come visit you.”

  “Be warned, we do have more creative ways to insult you, clan boy.” Rhys almost smiled.

  “Good, I do have certain standards.”

  “Perhaps we can accommodate.”

  “So is that an invitation, or do I just need to ambush you at the nearest bridge?”

  Chapter 5

  Sean jolted awake from wild and confusing dreams. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes. None of it made any sense.

  “You dream again?” the prisoner in the opposite cell asked.

  The other prisoner had been in his cell long before Sean had arrived, and though Sean had yet to see his face, the other prisoner had been a source of sanity when the world kept turning upside down.

  Gerard patrolled the hallway so they could talk without fear.

  “Yes, but I don’t know what any of it means,” Sean admitted. “That should make the long beards happy.”

  “Why don’t you do what they want?” The man crossed his arms and settled more comfortably against the stone wall, the dark shadows concealing most of his features.

  The man’s voice lacked the gruff deepness of full maturity. As always, Sean wondered how old his neighbor actually was. Surely he couldn’t be much older than Sean himself was.

  “They’d use my gift to serve their demon god, and innocent people would suffer.” Sean scoffed. “Lord Adam wants war, and he’s bent on me being his fortune teller.”

  “Do you think you can resist them forever?” The prisoner shook his head, his tone growing sad and soft. “I’ve seen some of the prisoners they experiment on, the so-called criminals.”

  “My Clan will send someone for me. I don’t know who or how they’ll try and free me, but they’ll come.”

  “Well, you have more to hope for than me.”

  The sound of despair so deep in a voice so young twisted Sean’s heart.

  The dim light of the dungeons made it hard to make out much of the man’s features. He might be around my age. But he was already here when they threw me in this cell. I wonder how long he’s been here?

  “What’s your crime?” Sean asked.

  “Existing,” the man said wryly. “I stood in the way of power, and Adam did away with me. I’m not the last one he’s destroyed to gain more control. He’s taken over most of the western half of Alsaya. He imprisons those who don’t immediately bend to his demands, kills some, or--”

  “Or what?”

  “Gives them to the druids.”

  Sean shuddered, forcing away thoughts of the long-bearded men. “How long have you been here?”

  “Seven years, since my eighteenth birthday.” He pulled his legs up onto the cot, as though the action might soften the bleak truth.

  “Seven years!” Sean whistled.

  “I don’t have any family left or anybody who knows I’m still alive.” The creeping moonlight illuminated his shrug. “So, here I am.”

  Sean shook his head. He’d watched the man exercise as well as
he could in the confines of the cell, balancing on his hands and toes and pushing himself up and down, or hauling himself around the bar that stretched across the top of the cell.

  “After that long, why bother with the exercise?” Sean asked.

  “Because one day I will get out of here and I won’t be helpless when I do.” His voice rang with determination. “And until then, I’m doing it to spite Adam. I’ll force him to expend resources on me by not giving up and dying.”

  The two months of Sean’s own captivity had dragged on with horrifying slowness. He couldn’t imagine being trapped here for seven years. All the moments where he and his fellow prisoner had shared brief snatches of conversation felt more poignant now. Why had he not engaged with his neighbor sooner? He could use the excuse that he spent a good deal of time in his cell unconscious after the sessions with the druids, but that wasn’t the truth.

  If he got comfortable, if he got familiar, it felt like giving up. It felt like admitting that no one would come for him. It felt like accepting that his remaining days would be contained in this dank, dreary dungeon.

  What good had guarding that part of his heart done for him? Not much. And it certainly hadn’t helped his neighbor, who had kindly offered stability and some sense of normalcy to him after every earth-shattering session with the druid’s dark god and asked nothing in return.

  Sean cleared his throat. “I never asked for your name.”

  A sad silence followed, long enough that Sean wondered if his neighbor had even heard him.

  “I'm nobody.” The prisoner sighed. “Not anymore. Adam made sure of that.”

  But he was somebody. The darkness obscured the man’s features, but he pronounced his consonants with an abnormally crisp edge. He’s not just anybody.

  “Why didn’t he kill you then?”

  The prisoner shrugged. “Maybe he thinks it’s more entertaining to let me sit down here and dwell on my helplessness.”

  “From what I’ve seen of Adam, that sounds about right.” Sean offered a smile even though his friend couldn’t see it. “But everyone is somebody, and I’d like to know your name.”

  The prisoner chuckled. “Damon. My name is Damon.”

  “Nice to meet you, Damon.” Sean leaned forward and bowed toward him with a painful laugh. “My name is Sean MacDuffy.”

  The man lifted his head. “MacDuffy?”

  Sean raised his eyebrows. “Aye, that’s right.”

  Damon paused for a moment, settling back against the wall before he spoke. “I knew a few MacDuffys in the war.”

  “You fought in the war?”

  Rhys had been seventeen when he joined Brogan on the way to fight in the war, and it had lasted four long years. Four horrible years of bloodshed and turmoil and trauma that had transformed his beloved elder brother into someone he barely recognized. If Damon had fought in the war--well, maybe he only sounded young.

  “Every man and boy fought in the war.” Damon’s voice held the same sadness that everyone’s did when they spoke of the Sea Wars.

  “I didn’t. It took my brother, so I had to stay home and help farm. Laird MacDuffy let me remain home out of respect for my father. Besides, I don’t think my older brother would have let me go to war.”

  “Older brothers are always protective, aren’t they?” Damon’s words were heavy with wistfulness.

  “You lost yours?”

  Damon gave a nod, crossing his arms tighter across his chest.

  “So did I,” Sean said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Faint bitterness welled in Sean’s throat at the thought of Rhys. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to get out of here someday.”

  Damon huffed a rueful laugh, leaning his head back against the cell wall. “No matter how I train, no matter how I hope, I’ll most likely die in this cell.”

  “Maybe,” Sean said. “But if I were you, I’d find a way to escape, and spend the rest of your life making Adam regret leaving you alive.”

  Damon chuckled in the darkness. “I’d forgotten how stubborn you Clansmen can be.”

  Sean smiled. “That’s the hazard of being born in the clan. Everyone expects it of you.”

  “What happens when your people come for you?”

  “That depends on who they send.” Sean took a slow breath. “Lord Adam wants war, and there are more than one who would happily give it to him.”

  Chapter 6

  Ihate rain. Alan hunched deeper into his cloak.

  Rain had been pouring down since early that morning, but Rhys, no the Baron, had insisted on riding onward. Alan gazed wistfully at the lights of the town below them, nestled on the banks of a small river that powered the town mill. The now-swollen river threatened to spill out of its banks as it rushed and roared beneath the stone bridge that spanned its width.

  “We’ll go around,” the Baron said.

  “Why not stop for the night in the inn?” Alan sagged in his saddle. “I can see it from here.”

  “I don’t trust the river.”

  “You don’t trust anyone or anything.” Alan rolled his eyes. “The bridge looks sturdy enough. We’ve been on the road for days now. Surely a warm bed and a fire wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “No.” Finality rang in the Baron’s voice. It startled Alan.

  “You don’t want to—Surely no one will recognize you.” He looked closer at his companion. “How long since you’ve been in the south?”

  The Baron looked away, the rain soaking through his thick dark hair.

  “Long enough,” the Baron replied shortly.

  It didn’t matter what town or village they stopped in. The Mountain Baron had a reputation, one that issued a siren song to bandits and thieves eager to prove their worth and forge a reputation of their own. Avoiding people was a wise precaution if they didn’t want to get into some type of skirmish every other mile.

  “You don’t think anyone will want to challenge you in this downpour, do you?” Alan grimaced.

  The Baron sat back in his saddle and turned his face to the sky, allowing the rain to stream down his face in rivulets. He sat like a statue in the rain until Alan wondered if he’d frozen in place.

  “Fine.”

  Alan arched his eyebrows. “Fine, what?”

  “We can stop tonight.” The Baron reined his mountain horse toward the town.

  Well, that was sudden. Alan gathered his reins and urged his own horse to follow the dark bulk of the Mountain Baron toward the village. “Any particular reason why you changed your mind?”

  “Ask me any more questions, and we’ll keep going.”

  Alan raised a single hand in promise and silently guided his horse into step with the Baron’s. The Baron spurred his horse forward without another word and they entered the town. Most of the houses had a foundation of pale sandstone, and finished with white pine from the surrounding forests. Darker boards trimmed the windows and gables.

  The rain kept most of the decent folk indoors, but there were still a few passersby that barely spared them a glance. Stray dogs huddled in alleys and doorways.

  Their horses slopped through the mud, occasionally stumbling over a stray stone on the path. The Baron tugged the collar of his jerkin higher in what appeared an attempt to cover the scar on his neck. He pulled his cloak forward to better hide the crest of the Dragon Keep. The Baron glanced up to meet Alan’s gaze for a second, and something akin to panic sparked in his dark brown eyes. Alan almost grabbed the reins to drag them both around and out of the town, but the Baron spurred his horse up to a trot.

  Shaking his head, Alan followed as the Baron headed for the two-storied inn across a wider paved street. Lights flickering in the numerous windows revealed a full common room on the first floor. A large wooden sign featuring a plump black-robed friar holding an overflowing mug hung above the door declaring St. Erskine’s Pint.

  A stable boy ran out from behind the inn under the shelter of a piece of burlap sack and took their horses.

  Alan led the
way inside. A blast of heat welcomed them as they stepped up into the common room. Smoke from the fire and a few patrons’ pipes lingered in a haze near the heavy wooden ceiling beams darkened with age. Conversations buzzed from the crowded tables, nearly drowning out the loud crack of the fire that roared on the hearth.

  Alan headed for an empty table in the corner and sat in a chunky wooden chair while the Baron sat across from him in the seat that allowed him full view of the room. Alan adjusted his seat so he comfortably leaned against the wall and stretched his legs out under the table. They tossed their cloaks over the backs of the chairs and the damp cloth steamed gently in the warmth from the fire.

  The innkeeper made his way over, drying his meaty hands on a stained apron.

  “What can I do for you gentlemen?” His reddened cheeks dimpled in a jovial smile. Alan returned the smile. The innkeeper bore more than a passing resemblance to the saint on his sign.

  “Some ale, a meal, and rooms for the night,” Alan replied.

  “It would be my pleasure.” The man beamed. “We don’t see many Clansmen around here.” He nodded at Alan’s checkered cloak. “What brings you two down this way?” His smile faltered a little when he met the Baron’s simmering gaze.

  “An old comrade of ours from the war died. We’re on our way to pay our respects,” Alan said easily.

  “Ah, the war. I’d like to thank you lads for your service then.” The innkeeper bobbed his head respectfully. “That’d be how you got that, then.” He looked to the Baron and gestured to his own cheek.

  “Aye, that’d be how I got it.” The Baron gave an acidic half-smile.

  The innkeeper’s smile fell and he hurried away to get their ale.

  “Would it kill you to smile occasionally?” Alan pressed his palms into the rough wood of the table.

  “It might,” the Baron retorted.

  Alan waited until they had mugs in their hands before daring to ask. “How did you get that scar anyway?”

  “I tripped and fell.”

  “Of course, you did.” And when no real explanation seemed probable, “Oh, come on, Baron, what will it take for you to trust me?” As much as he hated using the title, he didn’t dare use Rhys’s name.