by C. Greenwood
The prisoner scowled. “I know the barra-banac.”
I started at the heavily accented words, the first understandable syllables he had uttered. So he could speak the common tongue if he chose.
“What is this barra-banac? Is that what you call my bow?” I asked.
He only looked at me scornfully.
In the face of his silence, I tried a different tact. “Tell me how the Skeltai warriors travel so quickly from the Black Forest to Dimmingwood,” I commanded. “It is an immense distance, yet you cover it quickly and invisibly. Is this done by magic?”
I thought of the circle we’d found etched in the ground near Hammond’s Bend and remembered the lingering sense of fresh magic still on the air. How it had felt almost as if a door had been shut and locked in the face of any who would follow through the portal.
I took a guess. “Is it only your shamans who can operate the portals, or do all of you have that ability? How far can they transport you and for how long does the magic hold them open?”
A sudden change come over the prisoner’s face. His lips remained set in a flat line but his eyes took on a vacant look as if he stared straight through me to some invisible place beyond. I had never seen a breathing being look less alive.
Unnerved, I forgot all my questions. I waved a hand before his face and received no response, not even the batting of an eye.
“What’s he doing?” Nib breathed nervously from behind me. “Is it some heathen mind trick?”
“Maybe it’s the Skeltai magic,” Dradac suggested.
I didn’t respond to either outlaw but stretched out with my talent, seeking any foreign threads of magic surrounding the prisoner. There were none. Whatever he did, he did within his own mind.
“I think it’s just a rigid form of concentration,” I said. “He doesn’t want to talk so he mentally takes himself someplace where he doesn’t have to.
Nib frowned. “Well he may think he’s escaped inside a dream world of his making, but he won’t be staying there long.”
He seized the Skeltai by the hair and slammed his head back hard against the wall, before shouting in his face, “Answer the questions! What attacks do you savages plot against us next?”
The Skeltai didn’t move nor make a sound. Not so much as an indrawn breath. His discipline was unsettling.
Nib dealt him a vicious punch to the belly that would have had even the toughest of men doubling over. The force of the blow sent the prisoner toppling to the floor, where he remained, making no move to right himself. Another outlaw seized his hair and dragged him upright again, propping him against the wall. A thin trickle of blood ran from the captive’s split lip and his face was marked red where the blow had fallen but his eyes were still fixed on a distant spot.
I sensed rising desperation in my companions. None of us had ever encountered an enemy who failed to respond to a beating. Even as I admired the Skeltai’s self-control, I knew we needed to break him. We had to discover the magical capabilities of the enemy, what their plan of attack was, and where they meant to surprise us next. The answer to any of these questions could lie inside this prisoner’s head. I was keenly aware that lives depended on what I discovered here.
So we tortured him. Or rather Nib did while Dradac and I stood by and said nothing to prevent it.
But hours later, the sinking sun found us no closer to answers than we had been. I could come up with no explanation for the Skeltai’s incredible self-control but not once did he utter a single scream or a curse or even a gasp. Not even when Nib took up a knife and added to the extensive decorations etched up and down his torso.
I finally called a halt to the proceedings. The Skeltai was bleeding heavily, and beyond the sheen of sweat slicking his skin, he showed no reaction to our treatment; I felt sure no human being could endure much more and survive.
“He’s useless to us as a corpse,” I pointed out, secretly unsure whether it was the prisoner or I who could take no more of the stomach-turning violence. I ordered his wounds cleaned and bandaged, lest we lose him sooner than we wanted to infection or blood loss, and assigned two men to guard him. The chosen guards complained it was excessive, but I couldn’t forget we weren’t dealing with any ordinary prisoner.
I was relieved to call it a day as I stepped out of the dimly lit little shack and into the waning daylight. It grew dark early in Dimming due to the density of the forest canopy.
“How much longer do you think this will go on?” Dradac asked, following me outdoors.
“As long as it has to until we find out what we need.”
I suspected that might be a very long time, but aloud I only said, “I hope we’ll have more success when we have Ada here to ask the questions. Either way, we begin again at sunrise.”
The giant said nothing, but I was aware of his reluctance and privately shared it. I wanted to ask if he thought less of me after this day’s work but didn’t dare voice the words for fear he would say yes. Silently we headed back to camp. We would allay suspicion by making an appearance around the fire, and then I would be off to my shift on the night watch.
I sighed. I hadn’t slept at all today and was going to have difficulty keeping my weariness from showing before those who would question it. Heading the inner circle as well as appearing a normal member of Rideon’s band was proving harder than I’d thought.
The following morning Ada was back in camp. I took her out to the prisoner’s shack, dreading what was to come every step of the way and regretting that, as leader, I couldn’t invent other duties to take me away. I couldn’t show softness before the others, of course, but inwardly I doubted our prisoner himself could face the day with more trepidation than I did.
The guards I had assigned to watch the shack where nowhere to be found as we approached. I called out to let them know who was coming but received no response. An eerie sense of premonition tickled at the back of my mind, but I pushed it away. I was so accustomed to the bow’s soft whisperings I scarcely paid attention to them anymore.
We rounded the shack and found its door standing open, squeaking on one hinge as it swung in the wind. We dropped everything and ran then, ducking through the doorway to find both the guards sprawled bloody and motionless on the dusty floor. Their throats had been mercifully cut, but I couldn’t determine whether that had occurred before or after deep marks had been carved into their flesh. Their hands were unbound, their weapons rested on them, untouched, as if the men had never had a chance to draw them. But their faces were frozen in expressions of horror that said they’d known what was coming.
Appalled, it took me a moment to tear my gaze away from the corpses, but when I did, I was unsurprised to discover our prisoner absent, only the empty ropes that had bound him left behind.
I ordered a widespread search for the Skeltai, turning out every available member of our circle who could be spared without creating suspicion. As for our dead fellows, I had their corpses removed from the shed and all sign of their existence sponged away. Much as I would have liked to give our brothers a distinguished burial, that wish had to take second place to our need for secrecy. I was no longer the foolish Hound who had risked so much for the dignity of one man’s corpse.
Because of the unique carvings etched into the flesh of the bodies, there was no chance of making their deaths look like a random act from a roaming rival band. I had them carried off and buried in a far corner of Dimmingwood where the outlaws seldom ventured. Heavy rocks were piled over the graves to prevent wild animals digging up the remains and dragging them closer to camp.
After one day, I called off the search for the escaped Skeltai warrior. Our best efforts had proved unsuccessful, even as I had known they would be before they had begun. He had vanished into thin air.
Chapter Nine
“Silver again?” I asked when Kipp dropped the jingling purse at my feet.
He nodded. “Twenty pieces. I tell you I don’t know which is more painful, being bribed by the Praetor or selling o
ut for so little. You’d think by now the greedy old man would see we’re worth our weight in gold.”
I tossed the purse back to him. “Take it, Kipp, and divide it evenly among the others. I trust you.”
Grinning, he snatched the bag from the air with the skill of one who has been pocketing other people’s money for a lifetime. “I’m glad someone trusts me. There’s a rumor to the effect that I’m a thief. My little brother has been accusing me of stealing his share of the earnings.”
The earnings and how we came by them were something I preferred not to think about. It had been two months ago, immediately after the escape of the Skeltai prisoner, that I first put before the others the idea of passing information about the Skeltai on to Selbius. Our questioning of the warrior had turned up nothing, but I felt the spot where he had been captured near a little settlement along the Dimming Road to be of importance. For the sakes of the villagers there, I felt it was our duty to send the Praetor word that an enemy scout had been found in the area, so he could have his Fists on hand in the event of another attack.
Of course, in any dealing with Selbius and our longtime enemy, the Praetor, we outlaws had to take measures for our protection. Word needed to be passed anonymously through an intermediary. I told the others in the circle that I had a friend already in place within the city, one I was confident we could trust, and who was experienced in matters of subterfuge. I didn’t tell them Fleet’s experience usually ran along the lines of thievery and blackmail. As it was, I had enough of a fight on my hands convincing them at all.
Initially, no one stood in favor of contacting Praetor Tarius. He had been our enemy for so long, was still technically our enemy, it was difficult to countenance the thought of a temporary alliance with him. In the end, it took a force of persuasion to rival the powers of Rideon himself to convince them there was reason behind my mad scheme.
It was simple enough once I broke it down for them. The inevitable day was coming when we were going to have to fight the Skeltai raiders in all their numbers, and if we hoped to succeed against them, we had to bring the Praetor into knowledge of the true situation with the savages. However bitter the truth tasted, it remained a fact that we needed the strength of the Praetor’s Iron Fists behind us if victory were to be accomplished.
When the opposition gave way, we made contact with Fleet in Selbius, and through him, Praetor Tarius. I didn’t question how the clever thief had achieved an audience with such a powerful man. What mattered to me was the end result of the meeting. Failure. The Praetor gave no credence to our warning and more or less had the impudent Fleet tossed out on his ear.
Within days the Skeltai had struck again. Unsurprisingly, the Dimming Road settlement all but disappeared into the night. When we scouted its perimeter, all that remained were the bodies of those who had attempted to fight or flee and the burned-out shells of a few homes. We sent Fleet again with word of the destruction. Fists were dispatched to verify our findings and shortly afterward came the word via Fleet. The Praetor commanded us to fulfill our duty to the province in continuing to supply him with information on the mysterious happenings within Dimmingwood.
He also demanded we step forward to identify ourselves and explain how we came by this uncanny knowledge of the enemies’ intentions. There had been a general hoot of laughter over that, but no one had laughed at the fat pouch of silver accompanying the bearer of the message. We kept our anonymity, pocketed the silver, and from that day forward were, by a strange twist of fate, under the employ of our old enemy.
Shaking my head, I returned my thoughts to the present. “Give your brother whatever extra it takes to make him happy,” I told Kipp. “We cannot afford to lose our runner.”
The young man opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. “Just do it. He risks his life in helping us and is worth his hire. I don’t know about you, but I’d as soon not think of myself as living off the Praetor’s generosity anyway.”
He shrugged. “You won’t find me giving up my share of the coin. I don’t care where it comes from.”
He must have sensed my response was going to be something unpleasant because he said the words over his shoulder, already moving away. I glared at his back, then quickly stiffened as another pair of outlaws strolled past the sheltered nook among the rocks where our exchange had taken place. On their way to some errand, they never glanced at me and soon moved out of sight, but I made a mental note to warn Kipp about being too open in his reports around camp. How many times had I told him circle business wasn’t to be discussed here? There were too many others in the band who might report to Rideon.
I sighed and leaned back against a sun-warmed boulder, trying to regain the relaxed mood I’d been in before I was interrupted. The bow dug painfully into my back, and I had to shift to slip it off and let it rest on the rocky ground beside me. Now here at least was one content with our current situation. Sometimes I believed it was the bow in the first place that had driven me to form the circle, just as I half gave it credit for my actions to save the villagers at Hammond’s Bend. I couldn’t remember ever worrying too much about other people’s welfare before. Now, thanks to the subtle prodding of the bow, I found myself risking everything I valued most for the sake of strangers.
Not that I was fooled for a moment into thinking the bow actually cared for the woods villagers or their fates. It merely hungered for blood and death. I had realized that long ago. I could well imagine what Hadrian or even Terrac—the old Terrac—would have had to say about that. But I didn’t believe the bow was evil, so much as mischievous. Or maybe I gave it the benefit of the doubt because I had, as Hadrian would say, been under its influence for so long.
Even now, I stroked the smoothly grained wood of the bow’s limb and regarded it with mingled affection and frustration.
What are you, barra-banac? What is it you want from me?
I thought I felt faint warmth seeping through the wood beneath my fingers at my use of the Skeltai name, but other than that, there was nothing. The bow was silent today. Smugly silent, I thought, and resisted a sudden temptation to snatch it up and smash it into kindling, an action I knew I would immediately regret.
“Hound.”
I snapped out of my musings.
“What is it, Pelt?” I asked the outlaw who had appeared seemingly from nowhere.
“Kinsley’s sending us out on a hunt,” he informed me. “Want to come?”
That aspect of my life hadn’t changed with the forming of the circle. I was still an outlaw. Sometimes in the midst of our secret activities in the circle it was easy to forget our other functions as members of Rideon the Red Hand’s band.
I agreed, following him to where the others were congregating and was pleased to see on arriving that Dradac would be with us. We had always been friends, but since the forming of the circle, our relationship had changed subtly and we were no longer at ease with one another as we had once been. I often sensed he was trying to keep a distance between us and that he held himself back from the friendly advice and criticism he had given so freely in my youth.
I didn’t know if this was a reflection of my new status as circle leader or if he was just coming to realize my maturity and trying to give it room to grow. After all, he’d been there to watch Brig’s mistakes when he’d tried to hold me back for so long. Either way, I hoped the familiar routine ahead would allow us to slip back into our old roles, if only for the day.
Only we never made it that far. En route to the location we’d chosen for our hunt, we stumbled over a disturbing scene. We were following a path that led us near one of the many small, single-family wood holdings scattered throughout Dimming’s expanse. Our party skirted the area cautiously to avoid being spotted by the inhabiting family, for just as many of the woods folk were friends to us, there were others with less trust for thieves.
I kept a thick screen of greenery between me and the hold yard, so that only small snatches of the cabin and surrounding buildings were visible to
me. I heard none of the ordinary sounds of bustling livestock or of the family laboring around the yard at their chores. Such silence at midday struck me as unusual, but I didn’t spare it much thought, trailing along behind Dradac. Intent on keeping pace with my companion while eluding the eyes and ears of the hold family, I spared little attention for the woods around me.
When Dradac released the low branch of a tree and it swung back to smack me sharply in the face, I shoved it aside without thought, only swiping at the sticky trail the leaves left across my face. What was the stuff anyway? Tree sap? I glanced at my fingers. Red tree sap. And with a globular consistency I had learned to associate with congealed blood. I looked back at the tree but there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Even so…blood didn’t just drip from trees. I doubled back for a closer look.
At closer examination, I found more blood spattered across a lower limb of the sapling, and when I swept a foot through the tall weeds below, there it was. The object of my search. He must have been taken by surprise when it happened, for the eyes in his decapitated head bulged wide open. The disgusting sight evoked memories of the way Terrac and I had once found outlaws of our band decapitated by the Fists in a similar manner. But this wasn’t anyone I knew, I reminded myself, swallowing hard. Just a stranger.
I glanced around for a body to go with the head, but there was none in sight. If it was here, it was hidden. Hidden just as cleverly as the ones who had worked this violence might be hiding even now. I pictured them crouching in the bushes nearby, studying my reaction, biding their time. Reaching deep inside for the magic lurking within me, I prepared to cast my talent out to search for other life senses.
A twig snapped behind me, making me start and release the magic. I’d been so engrossed in my discovery I had forgotten about Dradac and had been too rattled to notice his approach.
