Even Zara appeared surprised by the bard’s sudden thrust, though she showed her surprise by grinning as she parried the attack.
◆◆◆
For a moment, both combatants observed each other. Gnochi’s heart raced under the hidden layer of leather. Adrenaline soaring in his body urged him to attack. His breathing, though heavy, was not as labored. He charged at Zara with his blade at an angle that reflected dusty purple light from the evening sky. Zara’s blade, black like the coming night, sprang at the last moment to deflect the incoming blow.
She risked showing a wild grin at the clashing blades that seemed for a moment cemented together. “I hope you’re not holding anything back, Bard, because I am not.” With the slightest flick of her wrist, her blade twirled in an arc so that it pinioned Gnochi’s. The motion brought the sharpened point of the steel within a breath of his neck. He could a feel the minuscule breeze tickle against the newly grown stubble.
“Are you trying to kill me?” he barked out as he recovered from the shock of the near decapitation. He retaliated with a low swipe, but that, too, was met with a late parry. Frustrated, his dark eyes zeroed in on her hands, as though he might spy a tell-tale to predict how she would strike. To his dismay, though, her grip seemed comfortable on the plain leather handle as though she held an instrument of merriment, not one of death. He doubted the hands would betray their master. Because her eyes were locked steady on his and not likely to reveal a weakness, the next time she moved to swipe, he borrowed a grain of his attention and finally spied the quarter-master’s tell. Her feet angled themselves in the direction she planned to lunge. Gnochi could see the dirt mound up next to her boots as she rooted into the ground to maintain her balance.
Now he waited for her feet to foretell her attack. The next time she made to swipe, before her blade had even breached half of the gap between the two combatants, his own blade plowed through, deflecting the attack and allowing him to guide a momentous swing for her ribs. As the blade inched closer to the exposed body, his mind cleared for a moment. No longer under the bloody fervor, he angled his blow so that the brunt of the force impacting her was the flat of the blade. Despite his restraint, he was sure that a hefty bruise, a biting sting and a thin cut were left from the blade’s edge.
◆◆◆
Though sitting far from the action, Harvey winced as he heard the thud of Gnochi’s blade slamming into Zara’s ribs. He watched her topple to the ground, still clutching her blade. He felt Roy tense up as if preparing to spring in and stop further violence. Harvey rested a hand on Roy’s arm.
Gnochi bent over his fallen opponent and was muttering apologies when Zara sprung up and struck out with her blade, glancing his shoulder. The bard coiled up, swapping his sword to his other hand in preparation for more fighting. The apprentice lurched between the two. She looked to Zara and said, “Enough.”
Zara stepped back, wiped her bloodied sword on the grass beneath her feet, then sheathed it. She looked first to the teen, then to Gnochi with a confused pitied frown. “You should’ve killed me.” She then walked around to the front of her wagon and entered it without offering another word.
Chapter 24
“I think you’re crazy, Boli,” Roy said as he led his grey gelding, Debs, alongside Perogie. His face was stark with sweat, his cheeks rosy from the strong sun. His usual wool-lined jerkin and rough-spun shirt were missing. In their place was a cotton vest that left little hidden in the way of his fibrous muscles. Dark splotches of sweat stained the thin vest. “Wearing that poncho in heat like this.”
Cleo spent the last two days swimming in her own sweat. The menagerie, it seemed, was passing through a heat wave. In an effort to combat the heat, the bard’s apprentice had already removed her leather armor. The poncho, however, was integral to her disguise as it hid the fact that her clothes tugged a little too tightly on her chest where it would not tug on a boy’s.
“The nights still hold a chill that warns of the incoming winter,” Cleo said, fishing for an excuse to hug the poncho tighter despite the near oppressive heat.
“Hey, Boli, listen. About what happened—”
“There’s really no need to bring that up. It was weeks ago,” Cleo said, training her eyes on the path ahead, not trusting them to stare into the deep oceans nestled in his eyes.
“I know, but—”
“Dorothea was pretty clear that we were not to be intermingling, seeing as you’re soldiers.”
“That cannot be true. I’ve seen Gnochi up before the sun on at least a dozen mornings heading over behind Zara’s wagon.”
A jolt of chilled surprise trickled down Cleo’s spine. She relished the shiver it caused, masking it quick enough that she thought to have concealed it from Roy.
“Throwing knives,” he remarked.
“Oh, so you’re spying now?” Cleo asked, venom evident in her tone.
“I am always up giving Debs here a morning walk before the camp stirs,” Roy said, patting the horse’s muscular neck. From the tail of the caravan, where the wagons trudged along at a honied pace, Gnochi approached the pair, riding atop Fester.
“Hey Boli, I managed to take a look at the—oh, hello, Roy,” Gnochi said. He winced with each bump in the horse’s gait. In one hand, he clutched a cluster of pages decorated with intricate script.
Cleo recognized one of the copies of the play she had transcribed. She saw that he also held his shoulder stiff, the cut on his shoulder apparently still bothering him.
“The copies look good,” he said. “They are all neat and legible. I’ll pass them around to potential actors tonight around camp.”
Cleo nudged Perogie with her knee, allowing the mare to slow until the bard and his apprentice were level. Once she was within an arm’s reach, she snatched the paper and fanned her sweating face with it. Scarce relief came as a few loose strands of dark brown hair fluttered in the manufactured breeze.
“I had better scout behind us,” Roy said, nodding to Gnochi before pulling back and disappearing.
“Thank God for these papers,” Cleo said, chuckling.
“Yes, very funny. I do wish you wouldn’t use your work as a fan though,” Gnochi said. “You’re going to crease the pages.”
She was drumming up a complaint when a call came from the front of the caravan for a halt.
“Come, let’s go see what’s holding us up,” Gnochi said, snaking in between players to get towards Dorothea’s horse. The ringleader was stopped at the crest of a hill looking down, a grimace painted on his face. As Gnochi and Cleo cantered up the hill, Gnochi said, “Hey, Dorothea, why’d we—oh no.” Before the group, situated in a lakebed long-since dried to the dirt, was a town devoid of life.
“What? Isn’t that Brichton?” she asked.
“It is, little scribe,” Dorothea said. “It seems to have been abandoned and I can guess why.” He pointed to the north. River Middle Creek has dried up. “I need to see if Middle Creek proper was abandoned or if anyone yet lives in the city. I have contacts in the city.” He turned around and looked down to the awaiting weary eyes of the menagerie members. “Let’s assemble the guard. Keep your blades hidden under your cloaks. We don’t know who is down there. Half of us are going to Brichton with a goal of heading up to Middle Creek proper. Once we are sure that Brichton is safe, I want the second half to escort the Perm into the town and set up camp among the buildings.” Dorothea turned back on his mount looking down towards the abandoned lake-town.
Gnochi pursed his lips and scratched at the light stubble adorning his chin. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
“I am too.” Cleo snuck in her interjection.
Dorothea sent an icy glare at the bard and his apprentice. “Don’t get in my way,” he grumbled.
◆◆◆
“It must be a million times hotter in this desert than it was up on the hill,” Cleo groaned. She found herself wishing for the comfort of a single cloud overhead, though the barren blue sky offered nothing but the harsh s
un. The large party trudged through the sand in the direction of the empty town. She moaned, feeling with every step the dozens of rogue grains of sand that had snuck their way into her boots, socks and into the hemming of everything she wore. Looking to the north, she swore that she saw the tops of a distant forest, but their peaks might as well have been across the world. In frustration, she pulled her hat from her head, not caring who saw her hair growth, and fanned her face with its faded brim.
“This whole desert used to be a freshwater lake when the river ran undammed through,” Gnochi said to no one in particular. “Good fishing here, from what I’ve been told.”
The horses were skittish as they marched in the hot sand. They seemed to pick up on ethereal wisps steaming up from the dried lakebed, their feet not resting too long on the shifting ground for fear of some unseen skeletal hand reaching up and dragging them to a grainy abyss. “Ever since the river was dammed though, only a stream has managed to trickle through this far south to Brichton.”
“How’d you hear that?” Roy asked. “As far as anyone has ever told me, Brichton was always a dry town, and Middle Creek proper was always a city of temporary residency for travelers.”
“Let’s just say that because I make my living telling stories, I like to make sure my information is valid.”
“Oh, really? I thought—”
“Cease and desist your mindless prattle, would you two?” Dorothea snapped. The group of over two dozen plodded into the desolate town of Brichton. Parched sandy streets snaked in between the decrepit carcasses of abandoned businesses.
“Not a plank of wood. Not a toothpick’s worth,” one of the travelers said, exiting from within one of the buildings. They dismounted, leaving their horses in the shade of a metal awning as they walked through the town.
“This confirms what I’ve been saying,” Gnochi responded. “Winteryear is approaching and these folks have left their homes here in the heart of Lyrinth for either Blue Haven or Imuny. Probably Blue. Their thinking is that the seat of Lyrinthian government is capable and willing to keep them warm and fed. Imuny is the better option though. It’s closer to the winterbush forests that’ll sprout up on the ocean-tundra.”
“It was probably looters,” one of the travelers remarked. “We’ve still got another year before the winteryear.”
“No,” Gnochi said. “Looters wouldn’t have taken the wood and left the metal. They would’ve taken the metal, thinking to melt it down and make pence. Look around.” Gnochi gestured with his hands. “All you see is metal.”
Dorothea huffed out in frustration. He rubbed his temples, mumbling aloud about bickering and bards.
“The man is right,” a voice called out. It seemed to come from above, though none of the travelers could pinpoint from where it came. A few skittish hands already rested on their cloaks above concealed blades.
“Come out and show yourself,” Dorothea announced.
A man jumped down from the metal roof of a nearby building. He landed with a roll and took a bow as though in front of an eager audience. Draped over his shoulders and tied tight to his waist was a long blue overcoat that seemed faded as though from salty ocean air. Folded half up his muscular calves were light britches and below were the high crests of shined black boots. Despite his stout stature, the man waltzed up to the group and eyed Gnochi, then Cleo. He mumbled under his breath as his eyes, lighter than the film of suds sitting atop calm ocean waves, scanned the pair.
Cleo shirked back as the mysterious man’s gaze once again swept over her.
Turning back to Gnochi, the man said, “You’re right about the townspeople. They left little over a month ago. Broke down the trusses and stilts left over from when the town was on a lake. Took all their wood and food with ‘em and up and left. Most travelled west; some, east.”
“Who are you?” Dorothea asked. “A villager? Are you from Middle Creek proper? Can you tell me if the city proper is still populated?”
Seeming to ignore Dorothea’s questions, the man looked to Gnochi. “Call me Ren,” he said, waiting as though expecting recognition. With no response from Gnochi, he reared over to Cleo and said, “What’re you doing with these rough men little—”
“He’s a child, and my apprentice,” Gnochi barked, angling himself between Cleo and the footman, “and that’s enough from you.”
Ren glowered at Gnochi, then turned to Dorothea and said, “There’s a military outpost that is still manned in Middle Creek proper, but I doubt they’d talk to scum like you.” He hissed out a laugh. “Simpletons and bright-panties that you are.”
“Boy! I’ll cut that tongue of yours out for that disrespect,” Dorothea spit.
“Is that a threat?” Ren, backing towards the nearest building, reached for his waist under the coat and slid a scimitar from its hidden scabbard. It glinted fearsome in the sun. His fingers clasped themselves around the plain hilt with an unmistakable arrogance that betrayed battle prowess. As if by a silent cue, all the members of Dorothea’s troupe armed themselves with their own blades.
“You’re outnumbered.” Dorothea belted a thunderous laugh.
“Give me these two,” Ren demanded, gesturing to Gnochi and Cleo with his scimitar. “And you can escape with your lives.”
“I don’t just hand over my vagrants,” Dorothea said in a tone that was both mocking, yet defensive. “But I’ll offer you a chance. Leave now, and we can forget this misstep of your judgment without having to spill your blood onto this dead patch of earth.”
Ren made a fake show of considering the offer. He ran a finger along the edge of his blade. “It has been a while since it has tasted blood.” He tested the sword with a gaudy swing through the arid air. With a start, he wrapped his knuckles against the hard metal of the adjacent building three times. Each time he knocked on the metal, a sharp clatter echoed down the streets in either direction. A score of bandits emerged from atop various buildings and hiding spots.
One man, having breathed through reeds jutting above the surface, emerged from a pile of sand in a dramatic display, though Cleo doubted his efficiency in a fight as he furiously rubbed at sand that had seeped into his eyes.
The bandits armed themselves with weapons of all sorts. One brute even wielded a log of wood that appeared thin as a walking cane in his huge arms. “Seeing as you’re a bunch of prissy entertainers, I’d say our odds are about even,” Ren said with a smile splitting his pale face. “Yeah, I saw your wagons and elephant. Now, hand over the two and we can both walk away from this unscathed, and you can still claim whatever respect you think you have, Ringleader.”
Roy approached Cleo and placed himself between her and Ren. He eased the longsword of its hilt, his grip tight enough for his knuckles to match the pale tone of the sands below. “Don’t worry,” he said, not once removing his eyes from the nearest bandit, “I won’t let Dorothea hand you over.”
For her part, Cleo readied the staff that Oslow had given her, wishing that she had practiced handling it more over the past few weeks. She bounced it in her arms, testing the weighted weapon. She was not sure how it would fare against a blade, but she was not about to sit unarmed.
As if thinking similar thoughts, Gnochi handed her the hilt of his hunting knife. He whispered to her, “Keep clear once the fighting begins.” She thought about commenting but stayed her tongue, realizing that in a full battle, she would have few advantages over the bandits.
Dorothea once again bellowed out a feral laugh. He drew his own sword, which glinted in the sun. Its handle appeared more gaudy and golden than formidable. “You are hopelessly outmatched,” he said with a smile, betraying his own bloodlust. For a minute, the only sound heard was the wisp of wind as it trickled sand into piles on the ground. Then, as if on a silent cue, the bandits all charged at the travelers. Ren himself ran for Gnochi, with his blade trailing in the sand, kicking up a tail of dust.
Chapter 25
In a moment’s notice, Gnochi drew his own short sword. He rushed forward t
o meet Ren away from Cleo. “You are making a grave mistake.” He snarled, hoping to sound more imposing than he felt.
“Not afraid to fight me, are you, shapeshifter? Why don’t you change forms to be something a little more physically able,” Ren said, barking out a laugh.
Ignoring the odd remark, Gnochi braced himself for the inevitable onslaught. As the distance between the two dwindled, Ren leaped at Gnochi, swinging his scimitar in an arc for his unprotected neck.
◆◆◆
The brawl had spread across the sandy street. Cleo watched Roy slice through half a dozen of the bandits, his longsword preventing any of them from even swiping within range of scoring a hit. Her eyes drifted to Dorothea who, despite his size, barreled through a handful of the bandits that singled him as the leader. He seemed to take great advantage of their dismissal of his skill due to his short size and, with precise looking strokes, severed arms and legs from three bandits before those remaining retreated from within range of his sword. Elsewhere among the clash, she saw that the soldiers from Dorothea’s army proved to be the better combatants and emerged victorious in nearly every battle. One of the troupe members was felled by a bandit, but the victory was short-lived as Roy scythed his blade through the victor’s neck.
◆◆◆
Gnochi, however, was evenly matched with Ren, their contest a stalemate. He had barely managed to dodge a cheap swipe when he griped aloud, “I see you fight dirty and with a curved sword. What are you, a pirate?”
Ren attacked with a renewed vigor, and Gnochi was forced to roll to avoid a slice through his still-healing shoulder. The blade came so close to shredding flesh that it tore through the front of his shirt. The swipe cut the shirt from its ties on his chest to the stitching near his shoulder, exposing his leather armor underneath and the pendants that nestled over his breastbone.
Gleeman's Tales Page 21
