A Sellsword's Compassion_Book One of the Seven Virtues

by Jacob Peppers

  Gryle swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes sir.”

  Aaron released him and winked at the princess, “Alright then. You two kids stay out of trouble. I’ll see you in a bit.” With that, he turned and started toward the armory, waiting until he was out of their hearing before he finally released a gasp of pain and gritted his teeth at the pain lancing up his arm. He uncovered his wounded arm enough to see that it was shaking badly, before throwing his cloak over it again. He was surprised by the deep sense of guilt that spread through him as he replayed his words to the princess. After all, a well-told lie was as much the tool of a sellsword as his blade and often more dangerous. Especially when you’ve only got one good arm.

  Despite what he’d told the others, he knew that it was a great risk he was taking, but what choice did they have? Even if he did somehow manage to make it past the dozen or so guards surrounding the fat bastard—an impossible task—he damn sure wouldn’t make it out. The soldiers would come in swinging and their blades wouldn’t be blunted. So it was time to take a chance; it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before. Still, the thought gave him little comfort. It was almost as if he could hear Iladen’s dice rattling in his godly cup, and he thought he knew what the roll would be.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  Inside, torches had been placed in brackets against the wall, and the reddish, orange glow spilled over the floor and everyone inside, making them look as if they were covered in blood. He stumbled and plopped down on a nearby bench, using the tail of his cloak to wipe cold sweat, what his old master had called pain sweat, from his forehead. Stop if I feel weak or tired, he thought, shaking his head, that’s a joke.

  Flexing his hurt arm against the pain building here, he glanced around the room. Men of all shapes and sizes crowded the benches or stood by themselves putting their blunt weapons through practice strokes. Several groups of two or three nobles, smiling and richly-dressed as if for a ball, bragged to one another as they shot disgusted or pitying looks at the commoners in the room. “I feel sorry for them,” One young dandy said, laughing and nudging one of his friends, “Perhaps, if the weapon was a hoe or a shovel they’d stand a better chance. It seems unfair.”

  Aaron shook his head as he glanced around the room at the lean, hard-faced commoners of which the youth spoke. Hard faces and hard men, he thought, and the boy would have to be blind not to see it.

  They are blind, Co said. Blind to the suffering of others and their own shortcomings.

  Yeah, Aaron thought back, in my experience, firefly, gold has a way of doing that.

  He turned away from the nobles and raised an eyebrow as he noticed a man in the corner of the room. The man had to be at least seven and a half feet tall with shoulders as wide as three of the nobles standing side by side. The man noticed Aaron watching him and his eyes drew down in a scowl before he popped his knuckles and spat. Aaron ignored the challenge and looked to the man sitting on a bench near the giant, a thin man whose long, filthy hair hung in his eyes. The man was reclined against a support beam, his eyes closed as if in sleep.

  On the other side of the room, a short, stocky man with a thick jagged scar across his throat knelt in prayer. The man had been hung—that was certain—but apparently it didn’t take. Except for the nobles—to whom all of this was only a game—all of the men in the room shared a look in their eyes and the sets of their jaw that he knew well. It was the look of a killer, or of a man who was prepared to become one. Aaron had been given occasion to see such looks before.

  To the nobles, five thousand gold pieces was nothing, but to the commoners that were gathered in the room, it was a fortune, enough so that they’d never half to spend any more days digging and rooting in the muck like an animal, enough so that their sons and daughters, their wives and parents would never go hungry again. If that’s not enough to make a man a killer, he thought to himself, what is?

  You told the princess that there would be no men to fear in the contest, Co reminded him.

  A lie, he answered simply, and not the worst I’ve told. Surely you must have known that. You couldn’t have existed for hundreds, thousands of years and not gained a better understanding of men than that. Shit, there are plenty of men who would murder their own family for that kind of money. How much easier to beat to death some man you’ve never met?

  I had thought that, perhaps, you knew something I didn’t, Co answered, the annoyance clear in her girlish voice, I didn’t think you’d be foolish enough to take on would be murderers wounded.

  Aaron laughed inwardly, the man who taught me the sword once told me that we are all murderers in the making, firefly. We’re just waiting for the thing that is more precious to us than another man’s life. For some, it is gold, for others women, for most pride, but make no mistake it is always something. Besides, being capable of killing someone is quite different from being able to. You worry too much.

  The last time you told me I worried too much you ended up with a knife in your back and another in your arm. Maybe you don’t worry enough.

  He scowled at that but chose not to respond. Instead, he rose, took a moment to steady himself against the pain the movement brought on, then began to inspect the beaten weapons and ragged suits of makeshift armor hanging by hooks in the center of the room. He tested the weight and quality of several of the blades until he finally settled on a long, thin sword. The grip had been wrapped tight with leather, and the steel of the sword was beaten and nicked from use. Still, the weapon was surprisingly well-balanced.

  Satisfied, he walked back to his spot and sat down, leaning his newly-acquired blade on the bench beside him. What of armor? Co asked.

  What, he thought back, those tin cans? No thank you. It would only serve to slow me down, and I doubt I could heft the damned things right now anyway.

  You’re determined to get yourself killed.

  Aaron smiled a tight, humorless smile and lay back on the bench. Co made a frustrated sound in his mind, but he paid it little attention. Instead, he closed his eyes, and waited for his name to be called, wondering idly if he’d be able to raise himself off the bench when the time came.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “He’ll be okay, Mistress.”

  Adina turned to the chamberlain and tried to force a smile, “Thank you, Gryle. I pray to the gods that you’re right.” All around them, the benches were packed with people chattering eagerly, laughing and bragging about their favorites in anticipation of the bouts to come.

  “You heard him,” Gryle continued, “he said that—“ the rest of what he said was lost in a sudden roaring cheer from the crowd that was so powerful that it shook the bench beneath her as an announcer, dressed in the white and blue of Eladen’s house, made his way into the melee circle. He stopped in the center and turned to face the nobles. He held his hands up for silence and the cheering subsided.

  “Gentlemen and gentle ladies,” the man shouted in a nasally voice that carried to everyone present as he spread his hands wide to encompass all of the nobles seated in front of him, “I welcome you to one of the largest tournaments Baresh has ever seen, where some of the world’s best warriors are gathered to pit themselves against one another in three contests, single combat, general melee and, of course, the joust, for your entertainment!”

  The commoner side of the arena erupted in shouts and cheers. A few of the nobles, those not too preoccupied with appearing bored or unimpressed, clapped half-heartedly. “Our noble Duke Claudius,” the announcer said, bowing in the Duke’s direction before continuing, “is offering an unheard of purse of five thousand gold to the contest winners as well as --” He paused as the commoner side of the arena broke out in wild applause again at the mention of gold. Once the cheers died down, the man continued, “As well as an audience with the Duke himself!”

  This time, it was the commoners turn to remain silent while the nobles clapped loudly. All seeking favor with their new ruler, Adina thought angrily, fawning and postu
ring while their true ruler lies dead. Not that they knew that of course—no doubt Claudius himself was aware of it, but Belgarin would have commanded him in no uncertain terms to keep it a secret until he took power—but she was still disgusted at how quickly the loyalty of the nobles had shifted. Perhaps Aaron wasn’t wrong about them, after all.

  Still, it was no great surprise. Eladen had been one of the few rulers who treated the common folk like people instead of livestock, treating them as equals to the nobles themselves, a fact that rankled those pompous lords and ladies of old blood who thought themselves as different from commoners as men were from dogs. Eladen had allowed the commoners to bring their issues and grievances to court, had often even punished nobles who mistreated their workers, a thing unheard of in other parts of the world.

  Up to a week ago, when she’d first arrived in Avarest and met Aaron, Adina had thought that her brother was foolish for so often taking the side of commoners over nobles. To her, it served to alienate the nobles—men of power and wealth in a time when he needed both to overcome Belgarin’s armies—for no purpose. It wasn’t six months ago, in fact, when she’d argued with him about it. She’d been angry and rash with her words, but Eladen had only smiled the same warm smile she remembered from her childhood and said, “The ‘commoners’ grow our food, working long, hard days so that their families, as well as ours, might not starve. While the nobles boast of our certain victory in the war it is the commoners who give up their sons, their fathers and husbands, to fight it. Which seems more noble to you, dear sister?”

  At the time, she’d been furious with him, amazed that he couldn’t understand the importance of the old blooded families and their wealth. After all, it took money to make weapons, money to feed and clothe armies, but she’d finally given up, storming out of Eladen’s palace and leaving for Edrafel without so much as a goodbye. It was the last time she’d ever seen her brother alive. She shook her head and wiped angrily at the tears that had begun to gather in her eyes.

  If only you’d listened, El, you might still be alive. She hated herself for the thought; she was beginning to understand that her brother had been right, after all, but that didn’t change the fact that one, possibly several, of those nobles on the other side of the arena could have known something about Eladen’s assassination before it happened. Those men and women dressed in rich silks and velvets that laughed and preened, the women fussing over their hair and their clothes while the men no doubt spoke vehemently about the glory and honor of battle—though most of them had never fought in one themselves—might have saved her brother’s life. She knew, as she had the thought, that she was right, and she hated herself for it.

  She frowned, staring angrily across the tournament grounds at Claudius. The duke was laughing at some joke told by one of ambitious lackeys as he stuffed his face with some sweet meats. You’ll pay for what you did, she thought bitterly, even if I have to die to see it done. I swear by Nalesh, Father of the Gods. You’ll pay.

  She was so caught up in her own thoughts, her own fury, that it wasn’t until two warriors emerged from different armories and began to make their way to the center of the circle that she realized the announcer had called for the first contestants.

  The crowd whispered in hushed disbelief as the two contestants stopped in the center of the circle, facing each other. One of the fighters was a big, brutish bull of a man with a thick neck and massive hands that looked like they could crush stones. His head was shaved bald revealing a thick, ugly scar that ran down his forehead to his jaw. The man’s massive, slab-like muscles pressed tightly against the dirty linen shirt he wore, as he popped his neck, his grin displaying rows of rotten teeth.

  The other contestant, an old gray-haired man that couldn’t be any taller than Adina herself, looked unconcerned at the hulking savage towering over him. He must be insane, she thought sadly. “Give up now, and I’ll let you live, old man,” the monster growled, and despite her fear for the small, gray-haired contestant, Adina was impressed—and more than a little unnerved—by how well the arena amplified the sound, so that it seemed as if the man had spoken from right beside her.

  The old man pulled his long pony tail of gray hair over one shoulder, smiled and nodded his head, saying something that she couldn’t hear. “Hah!” The giant barked, “There won’t be enough of you left for your family to bury when I’m done with you, you stupid bastard! That money’s mine!”

  The old man’s casual smile remained in place as the announcer made his way to the center of the circle and stood in front of the two contestants. Once again, he turned to address the nobles, “The rules are simple: The contestants will fight until one man yields or is unable to carry on. The winner will be allowed to leave until later this evening when he will participate in his second match. The loser will be eliminated.” He turned to the two fighters, and spoke in a normal voice that was still loud enough for everyone in the arena to hear, “Are you both ready?”

  The big man reached behind his back and withdrew the massive two-handed sword strapped there, and Adina let out a quiet gasp of surprise. Blunted blade or not, the old man would surely be killed with one hit of that blade. She clenched her jaws, why wasn’t the fool wearing armor? Why did he enter the contest in the first place? He looked like someone’s favorite grandfather, not a warrior.

  The small man took a step back and withdrew his own long, slender sword. “Begin!”

  Adina winced expectantly, as the big man growled and charged forward, bringing his blade down in a vicious blow that would decapitate the small man despite the blunted edge. A sharp intake of breath from the crowd made it clear that Adina wasn’t the only one watching in dreaded expectation, but when the huge sword cleaved through the air where he’d been standing, the old man was no longer there.

  She had just time enough to register the look of surprise on the bald man’s face before the gray-haired contestant, who’d stepped neatly to the side, whipped his sword around and under the man’s throat. “Do you yield?” The old man asked, his voice surprisingly calm.

  “Fuck you!” The big man growled, shoving the blunted blade away with one hand and swinging his own weapon in a wide arc meant to cave in the old man’s face. Instead of retreating, the old man ducked smoothly under the blow with less than an inch to spare, and countered with his own blade, slamming it into the side of the man’s leg.

  The giant let out a grunt as his leg gave out underneath him, and he fell to one knee, his sword slipping out of his fingers and clattering to the ground. He started to rise and again the old man’s blade was at his throat. “Do you yield?”

  The giant shouted wordlessly, grabbed the dull blade, tore it from the man’s grip, and threw it away. The old man backed up as the other contestant waded toward him, his fists swinging wildly. Finally, the small man stepped to the side of one of the other contestant’s haymakers, and his own fist lashed out like lightning and connected with the man’s temple.

  The giant staggered drunkenly for a few steps, a dazed look on his face, before crumpling to the ground, unconscious. For several seconds, the arena was impossibly silent as everyone took in what had happened. Then the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter so loud that Adina thought her head would burst. “Did you see that?” Someone close to her shouted, “He knocked that big bastard down like he was a stripling!”

  For their part, Claudius and the nobles gathered around him appeared bored and, Adina thought, cheated, as if they’d been hoping to see the old man’s brains dashed out with the giant’s claymore.

  The announcer beckoned to two men standing on the sidelines. They rushed forward, grabbing the giant by his legs and under his arms, visibly straining under his weight as they carried him off the field. When they were gone, the announcer moved forward with a strut of importance, and motioned the winner forward. He draped an arm across the old man’s shoulders as if they were lifetime friends, turning him to face Claudius and the other nobles, “Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the firs
t bout,” there was a pause as he leaned toward the contestant and asked him something in a whisper. He nodded as the wiry old man answered, finally turning back to face the crowd of nobles once more. “The winner of the first bout, Rashan Caltier!”

  The old man turned to face the commoners and bowed low, and the cheering and hollering grew louder still. After a moment, the wiry old man rose, tossed his long gray pony tail over his shoulder, and walked away from the circle without sparing the nobles a glance.

  There’ll be trouble for that, Adina thought as she noted the frowns of Claudius and the other around him. It was, after all, one thing for the nobles to act uninterested in everyone else, it was quite another for everyone else to act uninterested in them. If there was one thing she’d learned from the years spent in her father’s court, as well as her own, it was that nobles were worse than children when it came to jealousy.

  Finally, the commoners grew silent, and the announcer called for the next two contestants. Several more bouts took place, and Adina had begun to grow restless—not to mention cold, how did these northern women stand it?—when the announcer stepped into the circle again, avoiding several new splatters of blood on the ground and waiting for the two men to drag another unconscious form away. At least, Adina hoped he was unconscious, but the blow he’d taken to the head could have easily been fatal.

  She jerked forward in her seat as the announcer called for Flynn Daltan, the name Aaron had used. After a moment, the sellsword appeared, walking out of the armory and toward the circle, and though he didn’t limp she noticed that his jaws were clenched tightly. He’s hurt more than he said, she thought worriedly.