She blanched.
“Excuse me,” Sand said, fanning the air with his hand. “Maybe I’ve had a bit too much of this damn sheep. I don’t recall it being this rank going in.”
Bess’s eyes watered as the scent hit her full on, her nostrils burning. She reeled back.
Kaede coughed. “Did one of those vampire sheep crawl up your ass and re-die?”
“Sorry,” he said. “My stomach’s a bit upset. Happens every time someone tries to hang me.”
Bess stared at him through blurry eyes, clenching her nose shut with her fingers. “This has happened before?”
Sand nodded. “A couple times after I left the crown’s service. I get hungry when I drink and then—”
Bess waved him to silence. “No and then. I don’t want to know. What goes on between you and the farm animals after dark is your business. Let’s keep it that way, please.”
“I’m kind of curious, to be honest,” Kaede admitted with a chuckle.
“We are so not going there,” she told him, images of things far worse than sheep romance flitting through her imagination. “Now let’s get back to talking about the tournament.”
“Yeah,” Sand started, suddenly becoming thoughtful. It looked as if it hurt him. “You’ve told me what I get out of winning the War God tourney, but what do you get out of it?”
Bess swallowed her smile. Maybe the big lunk of mud wasn’t as dumb as he let on. Maybe. “Money, of course.”
“And honor,” Kaede added. “I’d had my chance at the tourney when I was younger but I’m no natural warrior like you.” Kaede nearly choked spitting that lie out. “I lost in the final round and could never find the courage to try again. You, though, are a man of steel will. I could never be so bold as you.”
“The winner of the tournament will be rich beyond his wildest dreams. And since we,” she motioned to the old pit fighter, and then to herself, “are putting up the entry fees and paying to equip you and spending our valuable time training and taking care of you, it’s only fair that we share in a small portion of the wealth. Right?”
“It’ll be a pittance, really. Copper on the gold crimp” Kaede said. “Compared to all you’ll make from being the War God you won’t even notice our meager requirements.”
“We’ll manage you, keep all the complicated realities of entry fees and travel and territorial field maintenance where you don’t have to worry your handsome head over them. It’s all quite a pain in the ass, really.”
“But we’re more than happy to do it, of course,” Kaede told him, donning his most serious of faces. “It would be our pleasure to manage the new War God. It really would be. Fulfill the prophecy, young Sand. Become your destiny.”
Sand leaned back on the log he’d been using as his seat. He stared at the forest canopy as it swayed above, his gaze distant. He was buying every bit of it, swamped under by the double-team.
Bess had worried she’d need boots that came up to her collar bones to keep from stepping in all the trollshit she and Kaede were flinging but Sand hadn’t batted an eye. He sat there squeezing the sheep leg in a way that made Bess slightly uncomfortable and just soaked it all in. No wonder the sheep wouldn’t look him in the eye when we killed it.
“What else do you have to do with your life, Sand?” she asked after a few quiet moments. “How often do you get a chance at godhood?” The last bit seemed to sway him.
“I’ll do it,” he said, foregoing his indecisive mutton mangling. “I’ll win the tourney.”
“Huzzah!” Kaede shouted, raising his mug. He winked at Bess and downed his mead with celebratory gusto.
They settled in after that and ate, each retreating to their thoughts. They’d a long road ahead of them and they weren’t even sure Sand could fight worth a damn, though if he’d been in the army he couldn’t be horrible. Fortunately Kaede could teach a tadpole to wield a sword well enough to fake that it had a snowball’s chance of surviving in Thurfur’s fiery ass in Hrol. Sand was big and strong and looked the part of a pit fighter, just as long as you didn’t stare him in the eyes. His big browns were swamps of ineptitude, a blank scroll his parents hadn’t bothered to buy a quill for, let alone ink. It would be a challenge, for sure, Bess thought, but her magic was up to the task. She and Kaede would have Sand ready for the first of the tourneys that started in a sevenday, or else. There was simply no one left to gamble on. It had to be him.
Bess took a sip of her mead and let its grittiness wash over her tongue. Soon she wouldn’t have to drink such swill. She smiled and imagined the mead as a fine wine, a servant there to top her glass off the moment she took a sip. It was a pleasant dream, but like all dreams it had to come to an end.
Voices carried on the breeze and the thump of steel against wood echoed through the forest.
“What was that?” Sand asked, jumping to his feet.
“Quiet, boy,” Kaede told him, drawing his falchion and getting to his feet with cold deliberateness. “We’re not alone but we’re the only ones who know it yet.”
Bess sighed and wiped the foam from her mouth, getting up and going over to stand beside Kaede. “Do we check it out?”
“It’s that or wait for them to come to us.” The look on his face made it clear he didn’t think that was a good idea. He went over to his pack and pulled an axe from it. Kaede handed it to Sand. “Take this. Now’s as good a time as any to see what you’re made of.”
“Mutton and perversion,” Bess mumbled under her breath, hiding her comment behind a wide smile when Sand glanced her way. “And a terrible, terrible funk.”
Kaede started off toward the sound and Bess followed, Sand conveniently staging himself last in line. If that was any indication of the big man’s courage she and Kaede had one hrol of a job ahead. Still, he had only to survive until the final round. Then he could die as miserably as he liked. Bess grinned. She might even help him along.
Hopefully she could wait that long.
They crept through the woods toward the unmistakable sound of spades shifting dirt and whispered voices that might well have been shouts. Kaede led the way, easing through the foliage with feral intent. His skills hadn’t been learned in the pits, only honed there.
Bess followed, casting a spell to keep the thunderous steps of Sand from being heard in the stillness of the forest. The fingers of her left hand flittered, stuffed inside her cloak to keep the glow of her magic hidden until after the spell settled over them. It was a subtle cast but it would keep the big buffoon from giving their presence away with his elephantine footsteps before she and Kaede had a chance to see what was going on.
At the tree line Kaede came to a halt and ducked low, waving for them to do the same. Bess knelt beside the fighter and pulled Sand down alongside them. He started to balk but she put a finger to her lips, and then pointed off past the edge of the trees. Sand followed the line of her finger and his eyes narrowed, his normal blankness replaced by a growing uncertainty.
“What are they doing?” he whispered.
Bess said nothing but glanced between the swaying branches to spy the gray monuments of an old, overgrown cemetery. There between the stones was the source of the noise they had heard drifting through the trees. Three men stood about a kicked-over headstone and a pile of dirt, two more inside the hole, nothing visible but heads and shoulders and a pair of shovels flinging dirt.
They were robbing graves, she realized.
Bess looked closer at the one nearest the foot of the hole and spied a sheen of emerald scales trailing down his forearm. He straightened to dump a load of dirt and she caught sight of his profile and groaned.
“They’ve a damn troglodyte with them.”
“That’s rather rude,” Sand muttered. “Not everyone is born attractive like us, you know?” He cast a surreptitious glance Kaede’s way.
Bess rolled her eyes.
“Probably best to leave them alone,” the pit fighter said, inching closer to the pair so his voice wouldn’t carry.
&nb
sp; “I still don’t get what they’re—” Sand turned his head sideways like a dog, confusion settling in, and then he stiffened, bolting upright and stumbling out into the clearing. “Wait. They’re stealing from dead people! That’s not right. Hey! You there!”
His words burst past the delicate weave of Bess’s spell and echoed across the cemetery. The men all turned to stare and shovels hit the ground to be replaced by swords. The two in the hole crawled out to join their companions, the lizard man snarling, showing off a mouthful of jagged, yellow teeth. He held two short swords in his gnarled, clawed hands.
“Or maybe we should yell and get their attention.” Kaede sighed and got to his feet. “That would have been my next suggestion considering we’re outnumbered and they have a trog on their side. Sound tactics, General Sand.” He turned to Bess. “Slow the lizard down a little, yeah?”
She nodded and stepped out after him, Sand leading the way with boisterous indignation. “For a guy found half naked and drunk in a pen full of ashamed sheep he sure has a weird sense of moral justice.”
“Hey!” he shouted again, though he already more than his fair share of their attention. “What are you doing?”
“I thought we’d established that already,” Kaede whispered to Bess.
“Well, he did say he worked for the crown at one point. Redundancy and all that. It’s not real unless the quill’s scratched it out three times, or so I hear.”
“What’s it look like we’re doing, boy?” one of the men asked; a pale-skinned Alitte by the looks of him, hundreds of miles from his northern homeland. He smiled and his teeth were speckled like robin’s eggs as if he’d been eating the dirt instead of shoveling it.
“I’d say you’re robbing dead folks.”
The Alitte tapped his nose with his finger. “Seems you’re not as dumb as you are pretty.” The others laughed, closing in with ill intent. “Probably damn close though.”
Sand’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s not a compliment,” Kaede told him. “Just in case you were wondering.”
His knuckles white on the haft, Sand raised the axe and almost managed to look menacing.
Almost.
“What you gonna do with that little thing, boy? Bugger a gnat?”
The trog rumbled, its kind’s pretense of a chuckle. Its serpentine tail swished behind it, slapping at the dirt.
“Sssslaren here thinks you’re funny,” the Alitte went on. The troglodyte grinned, baring a mouth far too full of teeth. “I just think you’re a corpse who doesn’t know well enough to lie down and stop yapping. Good thing we’ve already got a hole dug for you. Though I hope you don’t mind sharing. It’s going to get rather crowded in there.”
“You’re talking to the future War God,” Sand countered, puffing his chest out as if a million bees had stung it. “You will regret your insolence.”
The grave robbers burst out in raucous laughter and Bess tried not to join them. Kaede, however, took advantage of the moment. He leapt at the Alitte, falchion out front, gleaming in the gloom.
Bess raised her hand and whispered an incantation, ducking behind Kaede to keep her motions hidden. Illusions were the quickest of her spells but they were the least effective in circumstances like these where the enemy was so close, so prepared for conflict. Still, expectations could be manipulated. The men expected violence and treachery so she gave it to them ten-fold.
Around them a dozen corpses burst from the ground, wretched hands clawing loose of the dirt, hoary throats wailing. And from the earth nearest the trog the blackened hood and skeletal features of a wraith drifted into the air, scything upward through the blackness, blood dripping from its boney fingertips.
“Who disturbs my slumber?”
“What the twerk?” the Alitte cursed, eyes going wide as the airy voice filled the graveyard.
The trog growled and backed away, eyeing the illusion. Sand came to a grinding halt, his axe still held above his head in trembling hands while he stared at the illusions wrought by Bess’s magic.
Kaede punched a hole in the stomach of the Alitte with the point of his sword and swept the man aside with a twist of his wrist, tearing the blade from its sheath of flesh. The pale man stumbled, clutching his guts as they spilled through his fingers, slithering worms escaping with a hiss. Kaede ignored the Alitte’s howls and cut down another of the grave robbers with a short chop to the neck. It shattered bone and drove the man to the ground.
Bess looked away from the bloody ruin. The falchion wasn’t a weapon of finesse. It was brutal and cruel and designed to inflict as much harm as possible upon its victim, crushing and hacking, breaking bones as it cleaved through. It was the perfect weapon for an old pit fighter. Bess had seen her fair share of blood both in the pits and out and, though it didn’t bother her much, she never felt the need to add more to her memories.
Kaede finished his opponent off with a downward stab just as her illusion faded. The other two grave robbers had seen enough, however, and bolted into the night. Only the trog remained. It turned from the place where the wraith had been and glared daggers at Kaede, seeing its companions cut apart and twitching in the dirt. It charged with murder gleaming off the steel of its twin short blades.
The pit fighter met its advance and snapped his falchion right then left, knocking the trog’s swords from its hands. That didn’t stop the beast though. It crashed into Kaede and the two went down in a snarling heap. Kaede held the flat of his falchion against the trog’s throat to keep its snapping teeth at bay and squirmed to avoid the slash of its claws, wrapping his legs about the lizard man in an attempt to hold him in place. He managed it, though just barely.
“A little help please,” he called out with a grunt as claws raked his shoulder, drawing crimson lines.
To Bess’s surprise Sand charged. He dropped his ax, grabbed the trog, and yanked him off Kaede, lifting him high in the air, as if he weighed nothing, before slamming him into the ground. The lizard man hit with a solid thump and groaned at the impact, eyes spinning in their sockets. Sand stood over him with a raised fist, ready to strike, but he held his ground, gaze flitting about the cemetery like he was still seeing ghosts.
Bess didn’t hesitate though.
She yanked her dagger from its sheath and jumped on top of the trog, runes gleaming the length of the reddened blade. The trog roared, shaking off his lethargy, and rolled to meet her. Bess sank her dagger into the well of his eye, twisting the blade inward as the hilt struck bone, a flicker of ebony exploding in the depths of the creature’s skull. The trog went rigid and stared at her with his one good eye before slumping to the dirt.
Kaede got to his feet. “The axe might have been the better choice of weapons than your hands but I suppose I can’t complain too much given the results,” he told Sand, giving him a nod of thanks.
Bess decided not to mention Sand’s hesitation at the end but it was something Kaede would have to work on if Sand was to survive the pits. A fighter was nothing without an instinct to kill. At least, if nothing else, they’d learned just how strong the boy was. That was something positive they could take with them.
“What was all that?” Sand asked, his eyes looking as if they might tumble from his face as he continued to search the cemetery, no doubt looking for the source of her illusion. He still trembled, though from excitement or fear Bess couldn’t tell.
“It’s a haunted graveyard most likely,” she answered, the lie rolling smoothly off her tongue. She’d plenty of practice with them. “Guess they didn’t appreciate these guys robbing them anymore than you did.”
“Spectral energies, is all,” Kaede said, sheathing his sword and dusting himself off before going over to the grave. “They obviously knew who was on the side of the righteous here and showed their hand to help us out.” He peeked into the hole and jumped inside, his boots thudding against old wood.
“Hey!” Sand shouted and ran to the edge. “Don’t do that. You’ll bring them back.”
“It’
s okay.” Bess went to the edge of the hole. Inside the worn casket was a body only a few years in the ground, though it still smelled better than Sand, Bess noted. A warrior dressed in ratty, outdated leathers, it clutched a golden mace to it sunken chest. Kaede ran a curious hand over the weapon.
“You’re not thinking of taking that, are you?” Sand asked.
Kaede chuckled. “Of course not, boy. We’re not common thieves like these scum.” He gestured toward the dead grave robbers above, his arm swinging in a wide arc. Sand sighed as he followed the fighter’s motions, looking back just in time to see Kaede dropping the lid of the coffin back in place. “I just wanted to preserve this fine warrior’s dignity as well as possible so no one else defiles his final resting place. Cretins.” He smiled at the casket and tapped on the lid. “That should appease the spirits.”
Kaede crawled from the hole and snatched up one of the discarded shovels. He tossed it to Sand.
“Now let’s get the old boy re-buried before the wolves come looking for a meal and piss the ghosts off again.” He thumped Sand on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Sheep Boy grinned and started to work, shoveling loads of dirt into the hole. Kaede turned away to grab another shovel and opened his cloak so Bess could see the gleam of the golden mace hanging inside. He winked at her and straightened his cloak to keep the weapon out of sight, watching Sand work for a few moments before finally joining in to help.
“You’re a good man, Sand,” Kaede told him. “You’ll make a fine War God.”
Bess rolled her eyes and glanced over at the trog. And you, my dead little lizard, will make a fine pair of boots.
Chapter Three
“Did you have to bring that thing with us?” Sand asked as they marched along the road a short distance outside of Callipur, the first stop in their journey but far from their last.
Institutionalized (Demon Squad Book 10) Page 18
