Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  It all came down to how well the disguise could fool whoever was waiting at the end of the road. He felt confident that it was going to work, but things never worked out quite the way he expected most of the time. He looked like an Arakite, and he could speak Arakite as well as a native. His accent was a little strange, but he could pass that off as being from Yar Arak, rather than Saranam. His disguise was an effective one, all the way down to the vegetables in his rickety wagon and the tired horses that were pulling it. Judging from their condition and the fact that they were tamed, the horses had to be farm animals. Tarrin wondered idly just from which farmer Sarraya had stolen the horses when she conjured them. Tarrin hoped that it didn't put the man in a bad spot. He grew up on a farm, he understood just how important farm horses could be to the production of the farm.

  He had everything he needed to get past the obstacle ahead. All he needed was an absence of bad luck. He didn't even need or ask for good luck. Just an absence of bad luck. He'd had enough bad luck over the last year, he didn't need any more.

  Tarrin scratched at his arm again, enduring the nagging ache of spending so many days in human form. He only had a little more to go, then he would be free of this cursed endless pain.

  The stewing over the pain ended late that afternoon, as the sun began to creep towards the horizong, as they crested a small rise and found themselves looking down on what could only be called an army encampment. Fires and ragged tents flanked a cluster of warehouses and buildings, and figures mulled about, sat by fires, or marched up and down or stood sentry to defend the encampment. On the fringes of the fires were large pens, and some of them held Wyverns, which were being tended by human handlers. Beyond the fires and the buildings, much to his surprise, was an expanse of bare rock, which simply stopped. A cliff! Beyond that cliff, a cliff that ran from horizon to horizon, was a bare expanse of beige, a wide swath of sand that extended to the limit of his vision.

  An escarpment! He didn't know that was there! And he had no idea how high it was. This changed things, he realized. With an escarpment there, it wasn't going to be just quite so easy as running over a border. That escarpment may only be a few spans high, or maybe a few hundred. There was an escarpment in Shacè, his father had told him, a gentle disruption in the grasslands south of the forest that was ten spans high, and ran for nearly fifty longspans from the east to the west. Tarrin fervently hoped that this escarpment was similar to that one, an escarpment easy to navigate.

  Tarrin surveyed the land. There was about a longspan of bare rock from the outer edge of the trading post to the escarpment. From this distance, he couldn't judge the escarpment's height, because the featureless sand of the desert was unfamiliar to him and gave him no landmarks to use as a guide. He had to get closer before he could make that kind of guess. Judging from the fires and what figures he could see, there were a few thousand creatures here, and not all of them were the same. Some were very, very tall, even taller than him. Those were Trolls. There were others too, smaller and stocky, with large ears on their heads. They looked like Waern. Some were obviously human, and he even saw a few dog-headed Dargu here and there in the throng.

  Again, he was amazed at how whoever had assembled them was keeping order. Trolls considered Waern good eating, and Waern killed Dargu whenever they found them to cut down on competition for a territory's resources. And all of them hated humans, and killed them whenever the opportunity arose. Yet there were Waern and Trolls within spear's cast of one another, and Dargu and Waern actually crossing paths, with no bloodshed. Something had to scare them so much that they wouldn't fight amongst themselves. And anything with that kind of power was something Tarrin had better fear.

  The disparity of the group was one thing, but its numbers were the other. The invaders surrounded the trading post--it had to be one, with the number of warehouses he could see--and hemmed the humans inside. He could see some of them, rushing out in relatively empty streets, probably getting out of sight as quickly as possible. He couldn't blame them. There had probably already been any number of messy accidents and object lessons to keep their captive humans under control.

  Tarrin considered it. He had to get into and through the post, travel a longspan, then navigate the escarpment to get into the desert. Because of the distance he'd have to travel and the Wyverns that could quickly overtake him, the attempt was something best done at night, when he had the advantage. It was about an hour or so from nightfall, so if he just ambled along and took his time, went slow once he got there and let them put him in the trading post with the other captives, he should be able to sneak out of the city after nightfall and get into the desert. That seemed a good enough plan.

  "Look at them all," Sarraya breathed to him. "Thousands! And they're not fighting each other!"

  "I know. I've seen this before. There has to be someone commanding them that makes them so afraid they won't kill each other. That's not someone I want to meet, Sarraya."

  "I can't argue with that logic," Sarraya grunted in agreement. "It's about a longspan to that cliff there, and it's all desert past it. We should try it at night."

  "I'm way ahead of you," he told her as he urged the tired horses into a slow walk forward. "Do you know how high the cliff is?"

  "I didn't know it was there," she said hesitantly. "Let me go see. I'll be back in a while."

  He felt her lift up from the top of his head, and the sound of her wings faded quickly as she darted towards the escarpment. Tarrin sighed in relief. At least he would know if he'd be jumping off or climbing down the cliff before he got there.

  Moving as if he had all the time in the world, Tarrin's wagon approached the post and its occupying force. Tarrin used the time to prepare himself, to suppress the urges he knew would come if he was put face to face with Goblinoids. He had no idea who he'd be dealing with when he got there, whether he'd be trying to talk himself past a human or a Goblinoid. He had to be ready for either eventuality.

  When he was about five hundred spans from the outer edges of them, two armed humans on horses rode towards him. They wore black leather hauberks underneath a voluminous sand-colored cloak, and both of them looked uncomfortable wearing the armor in the dry heat of the summer afternoon. One of them looked Dal, the other Torian. Both had black hair, with one man stocky and muscled with wide features, the other built like a reed but with considerable height. Tarrin let them ride towards him without stopping. After all, he didn't know who they were and what they intended to do.

  "Hold!" the Torian said in harshly accented Arakite. "What business you have here?" he asked in broken Arakite.

  "I speak the western trade tongue," Tarrin said in heavily accented Sulasian, which was something of the common trade language in the West. An Arakite wouldn't know it to be Sulasian, so he didn't call it that. "What is all this? Are the Selani attacking?"

  "We ask the questions here!" the Torian snapped. "Who are you, and what business do you have?"

  "I am Tek, a merchant," he replied in a quiet tone, trying to sound humble. But sounding humble was difficult for him. "I come to sell my wheat and carrots to the Selani. But if they're trying to attack, I think I'll just sell them in Sargon."

  The man reached up and pulled off Tarrin's visor, staring into his eyes suspiciously. "Strange eyes for an Arakite," he said dangerously.

  "My mother was Torian," Tarrin told him, reaching up and pulling off his turban, letting him see his black hair. "It's the only way I favor her."

  The man seemed to try to take issue with that, staring intently at Tarrin's dress, his eyes, his face. The man was looking for something to identify Tarrin as Tarrin, he realized. Tarrin felt his heart try to speed up, but he kept himself looking calm and collected. Just like Triana. Give the man the face of stone and let him do the sweating.

  "You have bad timing, Tek," the man sneered. "This region is now under the rule of the ki'zadun. Your goods will be confiscated and you'll be put in the trading post with the other guests. Step down and submit to sear
ch."

  "Key-who?" Tarrin asked. "Is that some kingdom I never heard about?"

  "You'll discover who we are soon enough," the Torian barked. "Now get down!"

  Tarrin allowed himself to look irritated and outraged as he gingerly got down from the wagon. Muscles locked in the human form for days protested at the activity, making him have to support himself with the wagon after putting his rough-shoed feet on the ground. He stooped considerbly, both because his back hurt and to help hide his height.

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "I'm not as young as you, son," Tarrin told him bluntly, making it sound convincing, though Tarrin was probably younger than the man before him. "You'll find out what's wrong with me when you get to be my age."

  The two men dismounted, and the Torian roughly searched him by patting down his robe. He found only the small dagger Tarrin had put on his belt to complete his disguise, which he immediately removed. He then was pushed back while the two men began going through the wagon. But they found nothing out of the ordinary for a solitary merchant.

  "Why are you travelling alone?" the Torian asked harshly as they overturned a basket of carrots into the wagon.

  "Ain't nothing out here to attack a man, your honor," Tarrin replied calmly. "No bandit in his right mind sets up this close to Selani land, cause there ain't nowhere to hide. I travel alone when I can cause it cuts down on extra hands I have to pay."

  That seemed to quell the man's questions. They finished going through the wagon, finding nothing that identified Tarrin as the man they were looking for, and Tarrin could see it in the Torian's eyes that his disguise had worked. The green eyes had made the man suspicious, but the black hair, the dark skin, the manner in which Tarrin moved and the way he spoke, it convinced the Torian that Tarrin was not the man they were seeking. That made him very much more relieved. All he had to do now was wait for them to put him in the trading post and forget about him.

  Tarrin stood to the side patiently and waited for the men to finish, getting out of the wagon. "Get back up and follow me," the Torian ordered. "My silent friend here will follow behind, just in case you get any stupid ideas. But I don't think an old potseller like you is going to be that stupid. I think you know that those two nags could never outrun our warhorses, and resisting us will get you into a Troll's stewpot."

  Tarrin said nothing, just giving the man a hard look, then he limped back to the wagon and pulled himself into the seat. He put his turban and visor back on, and took the reins as the two men mounted their horses. He didn't look it, but inside Tarrin was silently rejoicing. The disguise had worked. Now he just had to wait for sunset, and he would slip right through them.

  The Torian led him right into the trading post, which consisted of a large circular area surrounded by warehouses and smaller buildings, all of which was surrounded by a very low stone wall. It reminded him of the Green in a strange way, back in Aldreth. The large field around which the village's buildings were arrayed. This place was organized along the same lines. The circular open space was empty, and fresh dust covered the hard packed earth that was blown in on the wind. Everyone who was here was in the buildings, and there was no sign of wagons or other items of trade. A patrol of ten men wearing similar devices as the Torian on their black tunics marched into view, looking to be doing a circuit of the outside wall. He didn't see any other patrol; that one patrol may be guarding the entire post. Then again, with all those Trolls out there, what prisoner in his right mind would try to escape? It would be much safer inside the prison than outside in this situation.

  "Get down," the Torian ordered sharply as Tarrin reined in the wagon. He set the brake and crawled down from the wagon seat slowly, rubbing his side gently after a rather bad spasm struck. He spotted several faces staring at him from a window on the second floor of what looked to be an inn as he took off the visor to give his nose a rest, but they quickly disappeared when the Torian dismounted and approached.

  "Beggin' your honor's pardon, but when will I be allowed to leave?" Tarrin asked. "I've got business to tend."

  "You'll leave when we tell you to leave," the man sneered, pointing to the building where Tarrin saw the faces. "Go find a room over there in that inn, and make sure you stay out of our way. You can go anywhere on the post's grounds you want, but if you're caught inside any warehouse or outside the wall, you'll be a Troll's dinner. Is that clear, old man?"

  "Perfectly," Tarrin said with sudden sharpness, a sharpness that made the man look strangely at him.

  "Don't give me a reason to not like you, old coot," the Torian sneered even harder.

  The man's manner was getting to him. Tarrin came out of his stoop, rising to his full height and staring down at the shorter man with hard, unforgiving eyes. For a fleeting moment, Tarrin assaulted the man with all of his hidden power through his stance and gaze and posture, an aura of unshakable strength that told the man that his continued survival was determined only by Tarrin's will. The man gaped up at Tarrin for a second, then stepped back unconsciously against such a blatant display of strength. But Tarrin realized what he was doing nearly as he found himself doing it, and gently and smoothly returned to his stoop and put on a less intimidating expression.

  Silently kicking himself, Tarrin watched the man. Now he had a good reason to think that Tarrin was something other than what he appeared. A solitary merchant would not act in such a manner. Part of him got ready if it came down to a fight, planning his actions. Kill the man, run for the far side of the compound. Hope that he could get to the escarpment before the Trolls could cut him off, and hope that it wasn't a fatal distance down to the desert floor.

  The man stared at him for a long moment, but for some reason, he only shook his head as he climbed up into the wagon. Tarrin moved to step away from it, but the man's boot struck him in the chest, sending him staggering back wildly. Tarrin's aching muscles couldn't find a center, and he toppled over onto his backside, sitting down heavily enough to feel his teeth click together. He stayed where he was, watching the Torian take the wagon and its wares down the compound, towards a warehouse that had its doors open. The Dal came up behind and took the reins of the Torian's horse, then followed silently behind the wagon, leaving Tarrin sitting in the middle of the compound.

  He waited until they entered the warehouse before pulling himself back up to his feet and sighing in tremendous relief. He almost gave himself away. The man's treatment of him provoked an instinctive response. Tarrin was not used to showing throat, was not used to being submissive. The man's threats had provoked his sense of dominance, had seemed to challenge him. He came about a rat's tail from showing the man just who was the dominant of the two. Blind luck, that, or the man was afraid of him. One or the other had kept the man from doing something about it.

  The fluttering of chitinous wings heralded Sarraya's return. She landed lightly on his shoulder as he limped towards the inn, aware that eyes were on him around the compound. "I've got good news and bad news," she whispered in his ear. "The bad news is that the cliff is about a hundred spans down where we are. The good news is that the cliff's height lowers as you move to the north. If you can get a longspan north, the cliff is only forty spans high. You could jump that, there's a sand drift at the base to land in."

  That explained why it took her so long to get back. "I've gotten past them," he told her in a bare whisper. "I think we can make a longspan in the dark, because I'll be behind them."

  "Good. Where are we going?"

  "Where I was told to go."

  Tarrin reached the door of the inn and immediately opened it. Beyond was a rather dirty common room, full of partially destroyed furniture sparsely scattered across a bare earth floor. Inside was packed nearly fifty people, men and women and children, sitting on the few chairs and sitting or standing on the floor. All of them had the look of a prisoner, despondant and wary, with the look of fear in their eyes. They all wore dirty clothes, and most of them had dirt and dust streaked on their faces. The majorty o
f them were Arakite, but he did see four pale-skinned faces in that crowd, what looked like Torians.

  This was not something he expected. Being cooped up with so many strangers would certainly wear on him, and wear on him quickly. The fact that he was already dealing with the aggravating ache of a body locked in an unnatural form for too long would make his temper very short, as it had been with the Torian guard. These were all strangers, and what was worse, they were all potential enemies. Any one of these would probably turn on him if they knew who he was, that they were looking for him, in the hopes that calling him out would get them released.

  There was nowhere to sit. All of the few chairs were occupied by the largest of the men, who had probably bullied their way into them. With no guards to separate the prisoners, Tarrin had little doubt that this inn was ruled by the largest and meanest of the humans, who took what he wanted from whomever he wanted.

  There was nothing like imprisonment to bring out the worst in a human.

  It would bring out the worst in him, and he knew it. It was only about an hour until sunset, so he only had to stay out of the way until then, until it was dark enough for him to slip out and away. But the first order of business was to get out of sight of the inn's bullies. He was new, his ageless face made it easy to mistake him for an older man, and he was moving like he was old and weak. That would make him a prime target for them.

  Tarrin grimaced slightly when one of the seated men suddenly stood, looking in his direction. It certainly hadn't taken him long. He was an Arakite, big and broud-shouldered, wearing a rust-spotted tunic that told him that this was a mercenary. He was used to having armor over that tunic. He had strangely wide features for an Arakite, with a scar puckering the right side of his nose. He had his head shaved, but days without access to a razor had put black stubble over his forehead. The man blocked Tarrin's path into the inn with hands folded before him, staring into Tarrin's eyes with an ugly look.