Book 2 Dead Man's Hand: The Knights of the Golden Dragon

by Troy Reaves

  He had little trouble picking up the trail of the horse thieves once he set his mind to it. They appeared to have sacrificed stealth for speed once they had made their way farther into the forest proper, well beyond the edges of the trees. Boremac noted two things about the one that led the horse; they were obviously familiar with the beast because Gray Mane did not appear to struggle against the guide, and they were either very light on their feet or could float above the ground as they passed. He arrived at the second assumption because there was a marked lack of footprints near the hoof prints the horse left, despite a marked number of clearly discernible heavy boot prints surrounding the hoof prints. Boremac found this odd. Even poor thieves should have been more careful.

  It took him little more than the first nightfall to find out why the people were so careless. They had made a lean to shelter that served to hide their numbers overall and protect the fire they had lit from being too exposed but, Boremac mused, any idiot could have followed the smoke from the edge of the wood to here. “Well, maybe any idiot tracker, it would seem.” The forces he would be facing and the quality of the challenge was immediately disappointing. Three men had their backs to the outside of the lean to, obviously more concerned with warming their hands than protecting their backs. “Damn it… poor, poor, poor… It would be better to let them live in hopes some measure of wisdom might hit them in the face. Ah, I understand, Alchendia. Now my middle name is Wisdom. Well, so begin the teachings of Boremac to the uneducated masses. Bring me your naïve, your stupid, and so on. Let’s do this.” Boremac took to the shadows and proceeded to slide into position, pulling his leather gloves on. He took a pair of his throwing daggers into his hands and prepared to thump the back of the two skulls nearest him. He hoped not to have to kill anyone, but one could never be too careful.

  “Oh good, just eight of you.” Boremac stated casually as he cracked two of the men with their backs to him neatly on the backs of their heads. “…and that takes care of two.” One of the men across the fire, the youngest among the commoners assembled, made a move to stand, and stopped. Boremac was certain his abrupt change of heart had something to do with the firelight glimmering off both his small weighted daggers. “Ah, you must be the blacksmith’s apprentice, or weaponsmith perhaps, to admire the purpose and workmanship of these daggers, though they do make handy strikers in a clutch. We work with what we have. Sit… now.” The last word brought the immediate intended response, despite being spoken just loud enough to carry over the noise of the crackling fire. “Now that we have an understanding, get comfortable. These two have.” Boremac tipped the two unconscious men forward by way of illustration. The man between them had sense enough to raise his empty hands. Boremac smiled as he thought, ‘This is going to be fun, for me at least.’

  Boremac wasted no time with introductions and other nonsense. “You had to have known you all would have been caught. Your foolish behavior speaks for itself but that does not make you all fools. Will the leader, such that they are, please raise their hand?” No one moved. They seemed to be in either complete shock or loyal to a fault. Boremac was starting to lose patience with them either way. “Speak, now… or someone will die.” The words carried an unmistakable taste of deadly poison, venom so strong that even these common people could not mistake the seriousness of their situation. Still they held their silence and he had to admire them for that.

  One, however, did not. “I am.” Boremac turned quickly on his heel to face the person who had spoken behind him, staring into the empty dark of the wood. A swift kick to his ankle made him lower his chin enough to look into the fiercely proud eyes of the mere child that had managed to take him off guard, twice. The boy’s arms were full of sticks intended for the fire and his arms matched the thickness of the strongest among them. The scrawny boy, dressed in worn, well-kept rags, dropped the wood at Boremac’s feet, crossing his arms over his chest defiantly. Boremac choked down a laugh. “You will slay me first, robber, before you will harm one of my friends. I made the plan and they followed me. You should know why we are here before you draw your weapon against me.”

  The fire in the boy’s gut could have overwhelmed the flames of the campfire, perhaps even burned down the whole forest at once, judging from the spirit that lit his eyes. “You could have slain me,” said Boremac, “taken me like a common bandit, but you choose to face me and plead your case. Make your last words good ones so that the trees will speak well of you if the druids ever question them.” Boremac had already lost the stomach for killing but the boy utterly destroyed his will to complete this contract, Jun be damned. The child was so much like so many he had run with in the streets of Travelflor. Still there was no reason to tell the boy that.

  “Our Lord gives us no choice. He is focused on his great army so much that whatever bit we make or mend goes to equipping and training them. We starve. We wither. He takes the few strongest of us to serve him, safe and wealthy in his keep where he pleases himself watching us suffer at his whim. Death for us is freedom. Kill us all, mercenary. Maybe the next life will be better.”

  These words brought shouts and pleading from the others at Boremac’s back. The boy was ready to face his fate with grace and Boremac was not going to have a bunch of whining ninnies interrupt what was becoming a very interesting conversation. Besides, he needed to think. He turned so quickly that the men had no warning. It was as if the dagger he threw appeared in the young man’s shoulder, the one who had been so ready to charge him before, causing him to pass out instantly. The others were silenced as the young man tipped backward. “He will live… for now. The next one that breathes too loudly without my leave will not.”

  Boremac had pulled the boy’s name from the whimpering others’ entreaties and swiveled to face him once more. “Toca? Really? That is your name?”

  Toca cast his eyes down at his feet for the first time since his arrival. “Father and Mother wanted a girl child. Mother says it means’one who can endure’ and father says it means’one who can put up with a screaming wife’, so…” Boremac could not stop the burst of laughter this time. Tears ran down his cheeks before he regained his composure. When he did, Toca was staring up at him once more. “It is not that funny!” Boremac managed to restrain himself to a snort as Toca’s voice pitched up to a higher tone with the shout. Boremac had to place the boy at being no more than twelve years with the shifting of his voice. That thought sobered him.

  “Well, damn the abyss!” Boremac swore staring down at the boy. “Now I have a problem. I do not like having problems with contracts. It always complicates things. On the one hand, I have to kill you all and return Lord Gional’s horse and on the other hand I have encountered a young man that makes the others in his company look like simpering children by comparison, and a kind comparison at that. Alchendia would play far too much mischief on my humble soul if I should snuff out such a fire. Damn the abyss! How did you come to have the horse anyway?”

  “I care for Grey Mane, and besides, who would ever suspect me?” Toca smiled and Boremac felt his heart swell. This little one would do great things in life, if he got to grow to his full potential. He was a cunning one too and, as Boremac realized this, a plan snaked into his own slippery mind. One that might get him out of the woods both figuratively and literally.

  ***

  “Lord Gional, this was not the contract!” It had been three days since Boremac had met Toca and hatched the master plan that was being concluded now. Toca had brought Grey Mane back and received a reward for’finding’ the horse lost in the wood, a reward that would feed him and his family for years, and the other men had drifted back into the city returning from’hunting trips’ with varying degrees of success. Boremac had given Toca plenty of time to gain audience with the Governor long before his own return.

  “You are correct, mercenary. The child who managed to return Grey Mane has been paid. No horse thieves’ heads were returned to me. You completed none of your contractual agreements but I am an honorable man.
Your handler has been sent his percentage. I will place no mark against your performance. You may go.” Boremac scowled appropriately as Lord Gional dismissed him, turned curtly and waved off the approaching guards in the room.

  “I know my own way out, pawns!” Boremac held his grin until he had made it to the street. Soon it would be time to visit Toca’s cousin, Cerinta, a tavern lass in Travelflor, and maybe stop by the old haunts, but first back to Verson. Something told him Jun would have words waiting for him.

  30

  Conscientious Objections

  “Jun, I will not kill innocents. There is no point in harassing me further. Either you want to provide me with contracts or you do not.” Boremac had to admit, at least to himself, that Jun had been less disappointed than Boremac had expected. Jun had said very little, as if he was preoccupied by something of much greater importance than the minor harm Boremac had caused Jun’s substantial reputation. The agent had gotten paid his full percentage, after all.

  “You speak of ‘innocents’ as if such creatures existed beyond the realm of nature. You are naïve, Boremac. One of your marked character flaws that I find so amusing actually.” Jun’s usual giggle that should have followed the statement was absent. “Your moral education is of no concern to me in any case. Believe whatever you like. There is something much more important to talk about at the present. An old friend of yours is coming to Verson to contract your services personally. I believe you will be very pleased to see him, perhaps settle up some debts of your own.”

  Boremac replied with a single word that tasted vile even as his tongue formed it. “Rinoba.”

  “Yes, your old friend wishes to remake your acquaintance to enlist you in another partnership. He is being very close with the details, no surprise there, but did insist that it would be you he employed. I assured him that would not be a problem and it will not.” Jun’s light tone carried an uncharacteristic harshness as he spoke the last words. “You will take this contract and you will either fulfill it or, I suspect, die in the effort. I do not care if you two kiss and make up so long as I am paid. Rinoba’s father and I have had a long, and mutually profitable, past. If that were to be damaged, I would be very unhappy.” A jeweled short bladed dagger slammed into the table very near the edge of where one of Boremac’s hands rested. He did not realize he had been cut until a slight crimson pool of blood had begun to gather at the edge of his palm. Boremac felt it better to hold his tongue for the moment lest he lose it. “You are very entertaining, Boremac, and show a great deal of potential. I would hate to lose you.” The dagger vanished as quickly as it had appeared and Boremac dabbed at his hand to clean the wound, noting the skin had barely been broken.

  “If I may, do you think Rinoba is using me as a bodyguard? More importantly, will I be held accountable if he does something stupid and gets himself killed?” Boremac did not bother to hide the inner glee that the thought of Rinoba dying brought him, even if he was not the one who killed him.

  Jun did giggle this time in a way that would have made a cat screech. “Those are both entertaining thoughts, Boremac, really. No and no would be the simplest answers. He has every intention of using you again, probably killing you too I suspect, but he is much too prideful to take you as a guard. This should be very interesting, for all of us.”

  “When is he due?” Boremac inquired.

  “I estimate three days or so from now, if he encounters no… delays.” Jun stated. A broad smile coupled with heavy-lidded eyes when he finished speaking left no doubt in Boremac’s mind that Rinoba would in fact be delayed, and Jun knew exactly who would be responsible. It was time to go see The Gang.

  31

  Old Fiends

  So here Boremac was, once more drinking rancid liquor and swapping stories with The Gang. He was glad to see that they were no more the worse for wear than usual; at least no one was dead yet. He had come with the specific purpose of recruiting them to hold up Rinoba on his way to Verson. It was not just a business proposition for The Gang, it was a chance to reconnect with old friends. The number of people he trusted numbered so few that he sometimes felt he valued The Gang too much. It was almost inevitable that one of their heists would go terribly wrong one day and he could only hope he would be there to help them. He did find his outings with The Gang an interesting change of pace occasionally. The fact that these men who were drawn together, mostly by ridiculous circumstances, then melded into a halfway effective group, fascinated Boremac. Their idolization of him, so plain every time he came to see them, did not hurt either.

  “So here is the deal. A single rider will be coming down the road by tomorrow night and I need you to hinder his passage toward Verson. I think in this instance a rope across the road between two trees should do the job nicely. I don’t want him killed. Strip him of his weapons and horse. Should be pretty simple. He will be easy to spot as he will be riding like a prince at a nice comfortable canter on a well bred horse so you will have to be ready to bring the rope taunt with that in mind. My interactions with this man suggest that he will take the most direct road to Verson, mostly due to his arrogance.”

  Spike was the first to answer, as was his way. “We supposed to do this outta the kindness of our hearts? Don’t see much profit in it for us even for what seems so easy to be done. Dead Man, I know from previous that the whole story ain’t being told, especially knowing you ain’t gonna be there when we do the job. Think we need a bit more before agreeing to do this one.” Spike’s words brought various reactions form the other members of the group. Twitcher looked both excited to be helping Dead Man and confused. Harse just looked confused. Frost nodded in agreement with Spike, though a wicked smile broke across his face at the same time, as if he already knew the rest of the story. Boremac had never spoken much to Frost about the highwayman’s past, but he knew there was much more to Frost than Frost let on.

  “Fine.” Boremac stated, as if he were giving in to appease Spike. He had found long ago it was the best way to get The Gang’s leader to do what he wanted. “The man in question is part of a very well established Thieves’ Guild some days travel from here. The less you know about that the better. I will tell you that underestimating him would be a grave mistake, as in at least one of you would end up in a shallow grave dug by the survivors if it came down to fighting him. I recommend you, Spike, should have a club ready to knock him out once he hits the ground, but do your best to hold back enough not to do any permanent damage, like crushing his skull. Watch yourself approaching him to strike. He is good at playing dead. Trust me.” This brought a round of hearty laughter as the group reflected on Boremac’s own ability to’play dead’ that had brought The Gang into contact with him in the first place. “Once you are able to make sure he is in fact no longer a threat, take his horse and fine daggers only and leave him with a short sword from your less than useful stockpile and this note.” Boremac handed Spike a folded piece of paper. “That note is important, Spike, so make sure it does not get lost.” Spike simply handed the note to Frost by way of reply. “So do you think you could do this for me? Oh, let me sweeten the deal just a bit.” Boremac extended a small leather sack that clinked. “Here are some coins to get some better drink.” Boremac’s face pinched in a grimace to emphasize his point. “I would recommend getting two good ropes with the monies in case you miss with the first one.” The Gang laughed at Dead Man’s jib, all except for Spike. The leader still felt there was something he was not being told. Spike was right.

  ***

  The Gang had set their trap the next night on the main road to Verson from Travelflor as instructed, distancing the two buried ropes they had acquired a good bit apart. Spike had argued over the need and expense for two but in the end Frost, mostly quoting the last evening’s words from Dead Man, had suggested strongly that to err on the side of caution was better than someone being bled out. Frost thought rightly that the one that would potentially be hurt would be one of The Gang. The group had done well with Dead Man’s aid in the p
ast and Frost especially had grown to trust the man.

  The plan was simple enough as were most of The Gang’s plans that had worked in the past. Twitcher was up a tree tending a small tar fire that would be snuffed out when he saw the approaching rider. Harse, being the strongest, was positioned at the end of the first rope trap with eyes up where Twitcher hid. The plan was that Harse would swipe his fingers quickly across his throat when the fire went out and then bring the rope up. If the first rope missed, Spike had the second one in position a bit closer to the ground. If both ropes failed to take him down, Frost was positioned just a ways down the road with a bit of flash powder he had been saving and a mace he was all too familiar with how to handle. He had no intention of needing to use either, but his past had taught him well enough that there were never too many plans when facing an unknown enemy.