by Bruce Blake
Suath shifted slightly, keeping himself alert. Eager to pick up the trail before it grew cold, he’d ridden two days without stopping except to feed and water his horse. He didn’t dare drift off now. There would be time to nap once he returned to the saddle.
Another hour passed before an older woman waddled out the door, a wooden bucket swinging in her grip. On her way to the well, she passed a few feet from the bush hiding Suath. The mercenary didn’t so much as flinch. The woman—perhaps the young one’s grandmother—fished water from the well, then struggled back to the cottage, slopping water over the lip of the pail to be quickly absorbed by the parched ground. Suath could have easily reached out and taken her. He didn’t.
Two accounted for, one to go.
He put thoughts of his quarry’s increasing lead from his mind, breathing quietly through his nose. He could make up the time spent waiting, but it would be more difficult if he had to fight his way out of town because of impatience.
The sun had reached its zenith when the third woman appeared. By then, the blonde had retrieved the laundry and the old one had hung a fresh batch. Both of them were in the house when the last resident walked out of the woods, a man in tow. They crossed the yard, giggling. The woman’s disheveled hair fell across her pudgy face still caked with day-old make-up. The man caught her by the arm, spun her toward him, and drew her in for a kiss, but she pushed him away, admonishing him with the shake of her finger.
“You got your money’s worth already,” she said playfully.
The man dipped his fingers into a pocket and pulled out a copper. The woman smiled and kissed him, took the copper and tucked it into her bodice.
Whores. No wonder the town’s women gave them up so easily—he didn’t have to spend a penny to get the information he needed to find them. Normally, when a one-eyed man in well-used armor asks questions, it takes money or threats to get an answer. The threats Suath didn’t mind handing out, but he didn’t like parting with his coin.
The man watched the dark-haired harlot disappear into the shack, waved good-bye as she entered. He stared at the closed door for a moment before spinning on his heel and striding toward the bush hiding Suath. The mercenary pounced, dagger opening the man’s throat before surprise registered. Blood spurted from the wound, thirstily absorbed by the dry dirt the same way the water had been.
Messy.
Suath chastised himself as he concealed the man’s corpse in the bush where he’d hidden. The door of the hut opened and the mercenary squatted by his victim. The dark-haired one came out and walked past, oblivious to the mercenary and her dead lover concealed in the brush, unaware of the bloody dirt sticking to the sole of her foot. She went to the well and retrieved some water then drew a cloth from her bodice and dipped it into the pail. She hiked up her dress and removed her undergarment. Suath stared at the patch of black hair between her legs, quelling the stirring he felt as she bathed her woman parts. No time for lust, this was the time to make his move.
The mercenary emerged silently, the dagger in his hand still dripping blood. She didn’t notice him until he was too near for her to react. The cloth dropped from her hand, her mouth opened.
“No sound.” He flashed the bloody blade before her eyes. “Or you’ll get what your boyfriend got.”
Tears came quickly to the woman’s eyes, the corners of her mouth pulled taut, but she did as he said and kept her tongue still. Suath pressed his blade against her throat, the keen edge drawing blood to trickle down her alabaster skin and blossom into a rose as it soaked into her lace bodice. The mercenary pushed her toward the door; she went without resistance.
“Open it,” he whispered. She did and they stepped into the dim interior. “Call your friends.”
He tightened his grip on her arm and felt her flinch. Tears ran down her pretty face and he fought the urge to lean close, lick them from her cheek. Nothing tasted so sweet as tears shed in fear. She opened her mouth, throat working against the knife held there, but no sound emerged. He squeezed again and she whimpered.
“Despina,” she called, voice cracking. “Aryann.”
No one answered.
“Again,” Suath growled. Her hair smelled of sweat and honeysuckle. He wanted to bury his nose in it.
“Despina. Aryann,” she called again, voice steadier but high and tight. “Can you please come here?”
The old one came first, wiping her hands on an apron strung about her waist.
“Leigha? Are you all right? You sound as though...”
Her words and steps halted as she saw the knife at the dark-haired one’s throat. The young blonde came after her, but the old one put out her arm, keeping her behind her.
“What’s happening?” the blonde asked.
“Don’t speak,” Suath commanded, his voice calm and even. No point inciting them, they would be panicking soon enough.
“What have you done, Leigha?” The old one remained composed in spite of the scene before her.
Not the first time she’s been threatened with a blade.
Grown men had pissed their pants at the sight of him, yet she kept calm. The old whore showed more balls than most. The pudgy one shook her head in answer to the question sending a fresh trickle of blood down her neck.
“What do you want?”
“The vial.”
The pretty one peered out from behind her grandmother’s broad back. “What does he mean?” she squeaked, tears flowing.
The old one’s gaze held steady on him as she answered, her voice still even and firm.
“We have no vial. You’ve made a mistake.”
Suath almost smiled. This one won’t cry. Not until the blood flows.
“A woman,” the mercenary said, “a whore like you. She passed this way with two men—strangers.”
“There has been no one here,” the old one said but the gasp from the blonde confirmed what he already knew. The pudgy woman wriggled against his grip. He pulled her close against him, pressing the bulge in his breeches against her pillowy ass.
“Lies. The young one knows. Where did they go?”
He pushed against the dark-haired one’s back, ushering her closer to her friends, stopped her a few feet from them.
“Tell me or the fat one dies.”
“It’s okay,” the young one said stepping from behind the other. Tears streaked her smooth cheeks, her voice quaked as she spoke. “Everything will be all right, Leigha.”
The old one moved to keep the blonde behind her, protected, and Suath saw what he needed to do. He drew the blade across Leigha’s throat sending a fountain of blood splashing across her friends. While they gaped in horror, he grabbed the blonde’s wrist, pulled her to him. The old one tried to fight him; he punched her in the face and she stumbled back.
“Where?” he asked, the calmness gone from his voice.
Impatience tingled his limbs. He wanted to be done with this before the pudgy one’s body grew cold. At his feet, she gurgled through a mouthful of blood. The blonde sobbed and shook in his grasp.
“South,” the old one shouted, blood streaming from her nose, her composure finally broken. “She took them to the entertainers.”
“How many?”
“Just the three of them.”
“Horses?”
The old one’s eyes dropped to the dark-haired woman on the floor. Blood still pulsed from the slash in her throat but she no longer moved.
“Horses?” he asked again, more insistent. The pudgy one’s eyes were going glassy. The grandmother shook her head. “Where are these entertainers?”
She shook her head, crying now. “Don’t hurt my Aryann.”
“Where are the entertainers?”
“South—outside of town. I don’t know where.”
“And then?”
She squeezed her eyes closed, shaking her head. Suath waited until she opened her eyes again, then dragged the point of his dagger down the blonde’s cheek. She screamed.
“Tasgarad,” the old one
squealed. “They’re going to Tasgarad.”
Suath nodded.
He lunged, burying his dagger to the hilt in the old one’s eye, then spun the blonde around and slid his blade into her belly, drawing it upward to her breast bone. She gasped and coughed, spattering his breastplate with blood, then slumped to the floor between the other whores as he withdrew the knife. Suath bent over and wiped the blade on her dress then put his hand on the pudgy one's leg.
“Warm enough.”
He pulled her dress up above her waist. As he removed his sword belt, he saw the blonde looking at him, tears still running from her eyes. He smiled at her as he removed his breastplate and the shirt beneath. Uncountable white scars criss-crossed his chest. He searched across the ridged landscape of scars with his fingers until he found a clear spot, then brought the tip of his dagger to it and made four new incisions.
“One for each of you,” he told the blonde, “and one for the fat one’s lover.”
He set his blade purposely on the floor just out of the blonde’s reach, removed his breeches and knelt between the dark-haired one’s legs.
“It’s okay,” he said, though he doubted the pretty one heard him anymore. “You can watch.”
Sitting on the edge of the well, Suath used the cloth the dark-haired one had used to clean herself to wipe blood from his boots, then cleaned his dagger, sheathed it, and tossed the blood-soaked cloth down to the dark water below. Gray smoke snaked its way from the thatched roof of the whores’ house, but he didn’t hurry. A few of the men from town would want to rush to extinguish a fire in this particular hut, but their women wouldn’t let them. He snickered at the thought of those self-righteous town’s people putting less value on the lives of whores because of how they earned their living. Didn’t they know all their lives were worthless?
Suath rose and walked into the woods, leaving behind his thoughts of the town and the dark-haired whore. His quarry had three days head start, but he had a horse. If he hurried, he might catch them before they reached the border.
The vial would be in his hands soon.
Chapter Eighteen
The rough land of low scrub through which they rode from Tasgarad became new-growth forest littered with brush, slowing their progress. A fire had ravaged this area many years before, leaving blackened stumps and logs scattered throughout—burnt-out skeletons laid to rest beside their replacements. Khirro supposed there were roads through the woods, but they avoided them. The only people traversing them would be soldiers or merchants escorted by soldiers and nothing good would come of any encounter.
Khirro coaxed his horse forward to ride beside Ghaul.
“Why did you do that?” He kept his voice low so the others wouldn’t hear.
“Do what?”
“Kill that man in Tasgarad. He was a soldier of the king.”
“Use your head, Khirro,” Ghaul said making no attempt to conceal his words from anyone. “Forget what he may have done to Elyea, what would have happened had he alerted the guards? What would they think of us carrying the blood of the king toward the Vendarian border? Do you forget we’re hunted men?”
Khirro neither answered Ghaul’s question nor met his angry look. Killing came too easily to this man for Khirro’s liking, but it may be exactly this which would keep him alive.
There must have been another solution.
Ahead, Elyea and Athryn’s mounts leaped over a fallen tree. A moment later, Khirro’s did the same, nearly unseating him.
“They wouldn’t have known I carry the king’s blood,” he said, blushing after his rough landing.
“True, but a vial of blood in your pocket, no matter whose, would have raised questions we couldn’t answer. When soldiers don’t get answers, they employ crueler means to get what they want, and you are the worst kind of liar: a bad one.”
“Ghaul’s right. It’s far better one drunken lout dies than our mission be discovered.” Elyea slowed her horse to join them and poked a finger at Ghaul’s shoulder. “Though I could have taken care of myself.”
Ghaul harrumphed. “Of course you could, m’lady. I forgot we ride with the warrior harlot of Inehsul.”
“I’ve kept myself safe from worse threats than him—or you.” Her tone remained playful but Khirro saw the pride burning in her eyes.
“That sounds like a challenge.” Ghaul raised an eyebrow as he guided his horse past a thorny bramble brimming with over-ripe blackberries. He plucked one from the tangle and popped it into his mouth.
“No, simply a fact.”
“And would you have taken care of yourself in the same manner when first Khirro and I came upon you?”
“I’d have handled them without problem had two fools throwing stones not interrupted.”
“Such gratitude.” Ghaul smiled, teeth purple with berry juice.
“I need the aid of no man.”
She urged her horse forward, rejoining the magician and his brother, ending the conversation.
“Women,” Ghaul mock whispered, intending for Elyea to hear. “What are we to do with them?”
She ignored him.
They pushed on for several more hours with little more conversation before Athryn called a halt. Khirro glanced at the sun dipping toward the horizon and judged that an hour remained until sunset.
“The border is a few leagues from here.” Athryn lowered Maes from their horse, then slid from the saddle. “We will rest a while.”
They unsaddled and fed the horses before settling to partake of the food purchased in Tasgarad. The pork tasted tough and bitter to Khirro’s tongue, but it would do as well as anything to return his strength. As he ate, he watched Athryn cut bite-sized pieces and hand them to Maes who accepted them with a nod. They seemed so different from the men performing in Inehsul, more real than the larger-than-life figures commanding the stage under that sweltering tent. As he watched the tenderness with which they shared their meal, questions came to his mind. He swallowed a mouthful of salt pork and asked the first.
“How did you know we’d be in that lane?”
Athryn looked up from cutting a chunk of hard cheese for Maes, his flesh-colored cloth mask inscrutable. His blue-gray eyes held Khirro’s gaze for a moment before he answered.
“Does it matter?”
Khirro shrugged. “I guess not. It’s just... I don’t understand how this all works.”
“It is not to be understood, Khirro. Accept it is and be glad it works for you, not against you.”
“But it’s not all working for me. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for sorcery.”
Khirro thought of the undead thing standing over him, threatening to end his life and a shudder ran down his spine. He’d let a detail of this journey slip from his mind: the only practitioner of magic capable of animating those dead soldiers and the man they needed to raise Braymon were one and the same.
“What do you know of Darestat?”
“The most powerful sorcerer there is. The only man who can raise the king. Why do you ask?”
“I saw strange things at the Isthmus Fortress.”
“‘Strange things’ is an understatement in my estimation,” Ghaul said through a mouthful of bread. “Your words could only be deemed accurate if you consider walking dead men a ‘strange thing’.”
Khirro nodded. He didn’t want to dredge up these memories, but he needed answers.
“It’s as Ghaul said: dead men fought alongside the living Kanosee. Walking corpses with flesh hanging from their bones and the stink of rot on them. One of them killed Braymon. And Bale.” His voice sank to a whisper. “And nearly me.”
“Ugly bastards,” Ghaul commented as he sliced a bite of cheese.
“How many, Khirro?”
“I don’t know. I saw only a handful, but the Kanosee army numbered in the tens of thousands.”
“One is too many, if my opinion is wanted.” Ghaul wiped his knife on his breeches and replaced it in his boot.
“Darestat does not meddle in
the trivialities of men. He has never lent his hand to sway a war.”
“If this Necromancer doesn’t meddle in man’s affairs, why do we risk our lives to take the blood of the king to him?” Ghaul’s eyes narrowed. “He won’t help us, especially if he sides with the Kanosee.”
“There is a difference between raising the dead and animating a corpse.” Athryn shook his head. “He will aid us, but not for the sake of the kingdom or Braymon. He will do it because Bale was his student once.”
“The Shaman is dead,” Khirro said. The pit of his stomach twisted and writhed, upset by salt pork and dread. “How will he know Bale sent us?”
“He will know.”
Maes wandered to a nearby tree and dropped his breeches to relieve himself—scars even blemished his buttocks. Khirro looked away from the little man to the magician, his eyes diverted in deep thought, and noticed for the first time how frustrating it could be when a man’s face is hidden. Elyea sat beside Khirro and rested her hand on his forearm.
“Everything will be okay,” she said. He tried to smile a thanks to her for the reassurance, but concern waylaid his intent.
“Tell me more of these undead soldiers,” Athryn said returning from his thoughts.
“There’s no more to tell. I spent my time defending myself or fleeing.” His eyes flickered to Elyea, but he saw none of the judgment in her expression he might have seen from someone else. “They were decomposed, but not skeletons. And fierce fighters.”
“Recently dead.” Athryn nodded. “Without fear of death, the re-animated make superior warriors. Do you recall anything else?”
After a moment’s thought, Khirro said he didn’t.
“You certainly are a farmer.” Ghaul shook his head and laughed. “A soldier is trained to observe his foes. The undead fighters wore black chain mail splashed with red paint, as though splattered with blood.”
