The Road Home

by Joel Rosenberg

  Bren's eyes caught mine, but I didn't nod.

  Pemburne, eh? I needed a map, but that would have to wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow night, late tomorrow night, we'd be in the air. Ellegon would be able to pinpoint Jason's location, once we got close enough. Hang on, guys; I'll be there. "I think I'll have another beer."

  Chapter 12

  Mikyn

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.

  —Theodore Roosevelt

  Monkeys, whether you watch them in an Other Side zoo or in a Salket forest, fight the same way every time: they start off by threatening, then escalate to pushing and shoving, and then finally get down to it. This may be a good idea for monkeys, but it's a bad idea for humans. If you learn to go from utter peace to all-out war in a heartbeat, your chances of survival go way up. Unless, of course, you pick the wrong heartbeat in which to go from peace to war, but there you have it: the right policy doesn't do you any good in the wrong situation.

  —Walter Slovotsky

  Ahira raised his left hand, then extended his thick index finger. Single horseman ahead, he signed. "You'll hear him in a few minutes," he whispered.

  The dwarf pulled on the reins—too gently, then too hard; Ahira never quite had gotten the hang of horses—slowing his gray gelding from a sullen walk to a sullen stop on the broad, flat road.

  Jason was already out of his saddle.

  The road twisted along a hillside underneath broadleaved trees. Flat enough to engineer with; even where it narrowed it was wide enough for two broad carts to pass each other, albeit carefully. Flat enough for four horses to ride abreast—although that would have put the outermost rider frighteningly close to the edge. And while the wooded hills behind them were overgrown with leafy beds of fern and ivy that twisted snakelike around the bases of the huge trees, here it was not overgrown at all, as though some wizard had cast a death spell on plants that would dare to try to invade the trees' domain.

  Which was not particularly unlikely, come to think of it.

  It was the third time this morning that Ahira had stopped all of them, and the third time this morning that Jason and Toryn had, at that command, quickly dismounted, and moved their saddles and bridles from their present mounts to rested ones, and the third time that Jason had managed to beat Toryn back into the saddle. Jason had had good teachers, and hadn't just spent more time on horseback than Toryn had; when the riding lesson ended, it was Jason who had unsaddled and rubbed down the animal, then watered and fed it, while Toryn had probably just handed his horse over to some slave to take care of.

  So it was easily a minute before Toryn could possibly finish that Jason gripped the reins of the large roan gelding, put his foot into the stirrup, and hefted himself up to the saddle, kicking the horse into a slow canter, leaving the rest of them behind. If this horseman turned out to be a message courier from Estene, his leather shoulderbag bulging with correspondence, the way it had been the first time, or a squat Aershter whose business on the road was not apparent, the way it had been the second time, it would be simple.

  Jason would, for the third time this morning, slow his horse to a walk, because approaching a stranger quickly was a threat, and for the third time this morning hold up his right palm in a universal greeting that completely uncoincidentally demonstrated that he wasn't holding a weapon, and would accept the stranger's greeting with the same nod, and then simply wait beyond the next bend of the road and let the rest of them catch up to him. The dust his horse had kicked up would help to explain why the third member of Ahira's and Toryn's party coughed into a broad handkerchief that covered "his" face.

  Jason was so ready for it to be another false alarm that there was a quick heartbeat where he didn't recognize Mikyn.

  He could have argued that his old friend's thin brown beard had lightened marginally and thickened considerably since they'd last seen each other, and it certainly was true that Mikyn hadn't been nearly as battered looking in the old days, but mainly it was his eyes. They had always been Mikyn's eyes, nothing special or remarkable about them. Perhaps when Mikyn smiled, there used to be a certain something about the way they crinkled at the corners, or maybe there was something particular about the way he neither stared at nor looked away from things.

  These eyes, sunken, stared out at him, holding his own without blinking, without any trace of kindness or hostility. He was Jason's age, and he had always looked older, but now he looked easily forty years old.

  And there was something in his eyes. Something of determination at best, perhaps, but probably madness.

  And then there was something in Mikyn's face, a flash of fear before the recognition set in, and then the suspicion.

  "Jason," he said, and his face broke into a grin.

  Yes.

  They had been searching for Mikyn, but Jason hadn't worked out even in his own mind what he would say. It all depended on which Mikyn they found—the boy who Jason used to go swimming with at Home, the friend who was found as often in the kitchen of the Old House as in his adopted family's house, the comrade-at-arms who Jason had once let down . . .

  Or the cold-blooded killer who had all of the Middle Lands up in arms.

  "Damn it, Mikyn," Jason finally said. "You're a hard man to find."

  The grin broadened, but the stare was the same. "I meant it to be that way." A frown. "You're looking for me?"

  "Yes. Time to come in. To lay it down for a while." To have a bunch of folks who you might listen to explain to you that while the time may come to free slaves right and left, killing anybody in the way, the time isn't now, and isn't likely to come in our lifetimes.

  "No. I still haven't found him, not yet. I figure that when I make enough trouble for them, they'll send him after me." He grinned wolfishly. "And until then, I free a few, I kill a few slave-owners."

  Him. The slaver they'd met in Enkiar, the one who Mikyn was sure was the one that had abused him and his family, even though it was impossible, and Mikyn's plan madness even if it wasn't.

  "I'm sure that'll bother them," Jason said. "Slitting their throats while they sleep. Hell, it bothers me."

  A long pause. "It's easier that way. Nobody has the right to own anybody."

  "Not arguing that," Jason said. "I'm arguing tactics—and I'm arguing—"

  The slow clackity-clack of hoofbeats sounded off in the distance; Mikyn reached inside his cloak.

  "Ta havath, eh?" Jason said. Take it easy, huh? "It's just the rest of them."

  Mikyn's smile broadened when he saw Ahira, and even more a moment later. "Marnea," he said. "Well, I guess that saves me some trouble, eh?" He lifted his head. "Long time, Ahira."

  Ahira clumsily reined in his horse, his head cocked to one side. "I wasn't sure you'd be back for her. Didn't sound like you," he said, dropping heavily from his saddle to the road. The dwarf stretched his broad shoulders, and rubbed idly at his backbone.

  Mikyn snickered. "Just because I'm doing things my way instead of yours?"

  "Something like that."

  "Up yours." He shrugged. "You haven't introduced me to your friend."

  A chill washed across Jason's back. What would Mikyn do? What would Toryn do? He tried to remember the exact words of the geas—

  "Toryn, I want you to meet my friend and companion, Mikyn."

  Mikyn looked at him strangely, but Jason wasn't about to explain that Toryn's geas applied to Jason and his companions, and he had to get Mikyn under the tent of that promise right now.

  Toryn smiled. "Toryn the Journeyman, they call me."

  "Ah." Mikyn nodded. "Journeyman engineer, eh? They make them quicker every day. How is he?"

  Toryn shrugged. "Getting a little older every year. Still sharp as always."

  "That is the way of it."

  "And you? How do you like this new
career of being the Warrior?" Toryn asked, his voice just too calm, too level.

  Mikyn smiled. "I like it well enough. Jason's trying to talk me into giving it up for a while, with some nonsense about how I can come home and all will be forgiven, and—"

  "I don't know why he'd want to do that," Toryn said, with a quick smile. "When I'm here."

  Mikyn shook his head, not understanding.

  "You see," he said, "I'm not just Jason's associate—I'm a Journeyman—"

  —of the Slavers Guild, Jason completed in his mind. Of course.

  He had been one step too slow, and Ahira with him. Toryn's geas prevented the slaver from attacking any of them—unless and until one of them attacked him. It did not prevent him from telling Mikyn that he was a Journeyman of—

  "—of the Slavers Guild, partnered with Jason and Ahira with their agreement."

  Ahira was already moving, his feet pounding on the ground with a thump-thump-thump that sounded too slow, too late to be any good.

  He reached Mikyn's side just as Mikyn's sword was clearing its scabbard. A short leap, a squat, and the dwarf launched himself into the air, knocking Mikyn from the back of his horse.

  Jason eased himself out of the saddle. Mikyn was no match for Ahira's dwarven strength.

  Toryn's hands had never come near the hilt of his own sword as Jason stalked toward him. "You had your warning, young Cullinane, from the dwarf," he said, ignoring the grunting and groaning. "As much fun as it's been to travel with you, you didn't expect me to not follow my orders, did you?" He held out his hands palms up. "Even if I hadn't wanted to, I was under geas for that, too, although one cast by a wizard of rather smaller stature than Vair the Uncertain. Voluntarily undertaken, you understand; the Guildmaster was afraid that I would find your companionship too agreeable, knowing what a sociable fellow I am."

  Marnea was looking daggers at his back, and it was all Jason could do not to draw his own sword. Toryn was probably as good with a blade as his swagger suggested, but Jason wasn't unfamiliar with it himself.

  "You will stay where you are," a harsh voice cried out.

  Hoofbeats sounded from beyond the bend, a rapid pounding that slowed as the horses—Jason was sure it was at least six, maybe seven—came nearer.

  Jason turned, toward where Ahira and Mikyn were still wrestling on the ground. Beyond them, sealing off any escape that way, three bowmen stood, arrows nocked, a fourth man holding their horses.

  Lord Pelester, mounted on a huge white gelding, rode around the bend, trailed by a troop of half a dozen mounted soldiers, two with long lances pointed at Jason and the others, four with longswords naked in their hands.

  "I was fooled once by a supposed slaver, Journeyman Toryn," he said. "I resolved not to be twice so fooled," he said. "You will all put up your weapons and surrender, or you will die where you are."

  * * *

  He was a young boy again, sitting in front of a campfire, listening to old Valeran hold forth. Not that it was any hardship to listen to his teacher talk endlessly, the voice hoarse from too many years of shouting commands to his troop.

  "The thing of it is," the grizzled old warrior said, "that you always want to hold a little back. It's like keeping a reserve in battle: if it all goes to shit—and boy, more often than you'd like, it all goes to shit—you need something extra, to get you out.

  "So you don't go all-out, because when you do that, you're going to fall down out of breath when it's all done, leaving yourself vulnerable. And you can't count on it being done in a few moments.

  "So be careful, and don't go all-out. Unless . . ."

  Jason had first learned not to walk into a line like that, and then, when he was older, not to leave a line like that hanging. "Unless?"

  "Unless it's right. Then from flat-footed idleness you go into all-out action, without a breath, without a blink."

  * * *

  Without a blink, without a breath, Jason dove for the trees, drawing his sword as he did. Bowstrings thrummed.

  Chapter 13

  Ambush

  The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats' teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.

  —Mahatma Gandhi

  God, give me the strength to change that which can be changed, the strength to change that which probably can't be changed, and the strength to change that which can't possibly be changed. Hey, if You can't work miracles, what the hell good are You?

  —Walter Slovotsky

  They jumped us just outside the Inn of the Spotted Dog. I had about five seconds' warning.

  You do this long enough, and if you survive, you develop nerve endings far beyond the envelope of your skin. It's not paranormal, although I can't always say what it is, and it's never, ever an excuse for not paying attention to your surroundings. Dead men don't pay attention to their surroundings.

  I'd missed it.

  Looking back, there had been something in the way a pair of burly, stocky men that I had mentally tagged as stevedores had looked at me, then looked away from my eyes. Looking back, maybe I caught a half nod or a partial silence from the group of men by the door who had moved just a little too much on their rough benches as Bren and I passed outside, or maybe I noticed the heavy way a cloak hung over the shoulder of another.

  The night was clear and star-filled, good for flying. Give us another couple of hours, and we would be. First, we'd make our way to Scallen's Anvil just around midnight, and wait for the dragon. A few hours in the air, and we'd be at Pemburne. Hole up for the day, and then have Ellegon fly a spiral search pattern the next night, looking for Jason. Not a tight spiral, either: Ellegon had been mindtalking with Jason since before the boy was born, and could hear him further away than anybody else—even including Karl, when he was alive.

  Then locate Mikyn, finish things up with him, and get Jason and Ahira home. Things would have to be straightened out with Thomen, but that could still be done, particularly with the influence of Barons Cullinane and Adahan—and Ellegon, for that matter.

  It was going to be easy.

  Until I heard an almost inaudible whisper behind me, and Bren Adahan leaned over and whispered one word: "Trouble."

  I caught Adahan's arm and pulled him off-balance. "Hey, watch it," I said, loudly, maybe too loudly. "If you stumble and break your leg, I'll have to leave you behind." As he bumped against me, I muttered, "Break right: I'll break left," and moved, fast, to my left, not waiting for any acknowledgment.

  I mean, if he wasn't any use in a fight, fuck him.

  Something plucked at my right sleeve and something else tore at the right side of my face as I moved, running broken-field style. Back in the old days, it'd been my job to anticipate the sudden breaks in stride of somebody running with the ball so I could grab him and slam him to the ground, and even years later it gave me a sense of how not to be regular, predictable.

  Seven broken steps took me to the mouth of an alley, and I ducked down and in and into shadow.

  Given a large enough group, there's always going to be a hero, somebody brave and boldhearted enough to go in first. I had my sword out and ready, and sliced the tip past his swordpoint and through his neck, beating his sword aside and kicking him in the thigh as he staggered past, burbling until he crashed headfirst into a wall and fell down.

  By that time, I was supposed to have myself set up, ready to take on the next one, which would make me a sucker for a two-man combination—one ready to knock my sword aside, another prepared to lunge past the first man and into me—so I was already halfway up the wall, my sword clamped in my teeth, supporting myself with my fingertips and toes against the tiny projections of the beams beyond the wattle-and-daub walls.

  They surprised me: the first spun his cloak, the weights in the hem causing it to spread out nicely, and then they both lunged in underneath my feet.

  I would have applauded, but that would have ruined the effect.

  A throwing knife down the back of one neck slowed the first, an
d I landed both heels solidly on the shoulders of the other. His collarbone snapped like a piece of chalk, and he crumpled underneath me.

  By then, of course, I had my sword back in my hand, and had probed delicately for the heart of the first man. The way to a man's heart is through his back, if possible, blade parallel to the ribs.

  The other one was still moving, so I stepped on his sword hand while I slipped the tip of my blade in between his third and fourth ribs a couple of times until he quieted down.

  I stood there for a moment, panting.

  Shit, I'm getting old.

  Ten years before, I could have done this without breaking a sweat.

  Ten years before, I probably would have spotted the slip that Bren had made that had given us away—assuming it was Bren and not me who had fucked up.

  Ten years before, I would have known it wasn't me that had screwed up, not merely doubted it.

  Ten years before, I would have heard the men arranging themselves at the head of the alley long before their leader cleared his throat.

  "Put up your sword, Walter Slovotsky," he said. "I have a rifle," he said redundantly, bringing his piece up and into line. "It's all over. Your friends back at the Inn are dead, and another squad should have your companion down by now."

  There were three of them, blocking the entrance. I could have turned and run, but I was out of breath and they'd just run me down, even assuming that the one with the slaver rifle didn't miss. Even if I jumped aside fast enough to avoid his shot, I'd be off-balance, and they'd be on me before I could recover.

  Ten years before, I might have been able to run out of this trap, but ten years before, I wouldn't have been in this trap.

  But ten years before, I didn't have a snubnose revolver in a holster above my right buttock.

  I lunged to one side as I drew it, and his rifle went off with the loud and strangely flashless bang of slaver rifles, wind whistling by my ear, but as I lost my balance I was still able to get the pistol up at the end of an outstretched hand.