by Roland Green
* * * * *
Waydol was practicing with the cesti when Darin walked up the path to the Minotaur’s hut.
The spiked, armored gloves were sufficiently vicious-looking when sized for human hands. Fitting the hands of a large minotaur, they became monstrosities.
Waydol’s exercise target was a log, wrapped in leather and suspended from a tree by heavy leather thongs. The leather was already showing scars, and as Darin watched, another strip dangled and splinters flew.
But then, the power in Waydol had always been something Darin accepted as part of nature. He had seen the Minotaur break a mutineer’s spine by slapping him across the back of the head with less than full strength, lift anvils that two strong men could barely move, carry on his shoulders a boat large enough for five men, and otherwise show strength far beyond what one expected of any mortal being.
Waydol feinted with his left hand, drove home with his right a punch that snapped two of the thongs, then noticed his heir. He turned, unstrapped the cesti, tossed them on the bench, and signaled for Darin to bring him water.
“You are bleeding,” Waydol said when he had drunk. He was sweating heavily, and Darin knew that most humans found a minotaur’s odor as foul as a gully dwarf’s midden. Again, to him it seemed natural.
Darin rubbed his fingers along the left side of his neck. “Oh, so I am. I believe one of the brawlers caught me with a wild slash. He will not be slashing anybody, with that knife or anything else, until Sirbones heals his arm. It was a comrade who broke it, to keep the peace.”
“Good,” Waydol said. “But it should not have happened at all.”
Darin frowned. The Minotaur laughed shortly. “No, it is not that I doubt you. Had I done so, I would have come down myself and put matters in order. You have done well what you should not have had to do at all.”
Darin had to admit Waydol’s point. Their ingathering of outlaws and robbers in the north country was proceeding well enough, if one spoke only of numbers. Bands large and small were coming in, along with many single men, some of whom had plainly left their villages for the good of the other villagers.
Some of these men had already deserted, a few were undoubtedly spies, and far too many had been long accustomed to living without order, law, or discipline. There had already been brawls and stabbings over wine, women, and quarters—not as many as Darin had feared, but even one was too many. No one was dead yet, but that was luck and Sirbones’s healing, and the luck could not last.
Waydol’s band seemed at the moment in no small danger of choking on its own success, like a snake attempting to swallow too large a pig.
Darin licked dry lips. He was about to presume greatly, but the time to discuss desperate measures was before they become necessary.
“We could send north for help,” he said. “To your homeland,” he added, in case Waydol had not caught his meaning the first time.
The Minotaur stared, looking for a moment as if he had been poleaxed and was about to drop at his heir’s feet. Then he laughed softly and embraced Darin, so gently that the embrace would not have annoyed a housecat, let alone a stalwart warrior.
“In this moment, I feel almost like a god. I have put the soul of a minotaur into the body of a human. Do you really believe that the time has come to bring my folk south, to help us against yours?”
“If there is no other way but seeing our band and all its new recruits fall apart like a biscuit in hot soup from brawls and disobedience …” Darin found that he could not finish. He shook his head, but that failed to jar his thoughts or tongue into motion again.
Finally, he blurted out, “Whatever we must do for those whom we have sworn to lead well must be done. If it must be done by other minotaurs, so be it.”
Waydol sat down on the bench. It gave a faint creak, then a sharp crack, then snapped in two. The Minotaur picked himself up and contemplated the wreckage.
“A good thing that no one who believes in omens is in sight.” He lifted half of the bench in each hand and tossed both pieces on the pile of firewood behind the hut.
“I honor you, Heir, but I also ask you to think on this. Few minotaurs would come here at the behest of one said to have lost honor. None would come, save in the hope of bringing this band under their authority in place of mine. Then the brawls and wrangling we have seen would be like childish quarrels compared to what we would see.
“Also, none would come at all, unless I returned north with the message myself. That would leave you with the whole burden of keeping our band from turning into a pack of wild dogs.”
“I could accept that, as needs be.”
“I will trust you with it if the time comes, but I think my fate and the band’s now begin to drift apart. I must sooner or later return north, with what I have learned of human strengths and weaknesses. More of the first than of the second, I would say, and I do not expect to live long after speaking that truth.
“Those who follow us, however, must be given a safe path out of this land, and out of reach of Istar if there is such a place. We must labor together until that is done. Then you will need to remain behind and lead, while I take one of the boats and sail north.”
“Alone?”
“One could crew a large ship with those who have sailed alone from this land to the minotaurs’ coast or the other way. In the good sailing season, with a well-made boat, it is hardly a perilous enterprise.”
“Are we then to begin to consider our line of retreat now?” Darin said. “You spoke of the dwarven nations.”
“Yes, but that was before I spoke with Fertig Temperer. He said that the dwarves might not let us in, though if they did, they would not give us up readily. His fear was that Istar might make the dwarves’ taking us in a pretext for a war against Thorbardin.”
“Such a war would not sit lightly on my conscience,” Darin said.
“Nor mine,” Waydol added, emptying the water jug. “Hand me the brush and comb, please.” He began grooming himself, though even Darin’s hardened nose suggested that the Minotaur really needed a complete bath.
“Besides, here in the stronghold we at least command ground from which we cannot easily be driven. Even Istar might let us go rather than pay the blood-price of a fight to the finish. And there are other folk, less set in their ways than the dwarves.”
Darin was not sure whom Waydol meant by that, other than its not being the kender or the gully dwarves, but the Minotaur was right. Here in the stronghold, brawls or no, they could buy time at a price they could afford.
* * * * *
Haimya was awake, but only able to smile and press Pirvan’s hand, by the time they reached Pedoon’s camp.
The camp had the air of having been hastily enlarged to accommodate many newcomers within the last few days. It still held no more than fifty armed men, that Pirvan could see. Allowing for half as many more on guard, that meant fewer than a hundred, even counting those women and children old enough to throw stones and wield spears.
No match for Pirvan’s soldiers, had they not encountered the flood and left much of their weapons and gear at the bottom of the river, along with twenty of their comrades. As it was, the ragtag force posed a real peril to Pirvan’s march, if Pedoon wished to offer one.
It seemed that he did not.
“We both want to go to the same place,” the half-ogre said. He handed Pirvan a piece of what appeared to be bread and a lump of what was most likely salt. Pirvan’s tasting did not resolve all doubt, but faces around him eased nonetheless.
“And what is that place?” he asked after drinking to cleanse his mouth.
“Waydol’s stronghold,” Pedoon said.
“If this were so, what is your reason for—?”
“Sir Pirvan, do you think me a fool? I know that you are trying to bring Waydol to heel. This bothers me not at all. I was thinking only of how we might work together for this.”
“Your pardon,” Pirvan said, though he felt not in the least apologetic. It seemed prudent, ho
wever, to listen rather than talk.
Listening was rewarded. Pedoon had gathered under what might be called his banner more than a hundred forest-dwellers, most of them human or with ogre blood. He wished to march them north to Waydol’s stronghold, but feared rival bands and also the cavalry patrols of Aurhinius.
“But if you marched with us, Sir Pirvan, we’d be too strong for rivals to attack. As for the Istarians, if they see that I’ve given oath to a Knight of Solamnia, a sworn ally of Istar, they might leave us be.”
Pirvan’s rank as a Knight of the Crown had not been granted to him to serve as a shield to outlaws. But if letting it so serve removed these folk from this land, and carried both them and his soldiers peacefully to the north, that seemed honorable enough.
Yet there was something in the way Pedoon spoke of Waydol that set Pirvan’s teeth on edge. He rose and brushed soot and mud off his breeches.
“I would like to think about this alone for a short while. Will I be in danger if I remain within your circle of sentries?”
Pedoon pulled from a pouch at his belt a cloth that might have been white about the time Pirvan was cutting his first tooth.
“Wear this around your head and it will be a sign of peace between us.”
The rag was not only filthy, but it also stank. Pirvan did not know what he might attract on his walk. The stink might keep away insects, and if the rag itself kept away arrows and spears from quick-tempered sentries …
“I thank you, Pedoon.”
* * * * *
From Windsword’s deck, gray walls of water seemed to shut out the horizon as gray clouds shut out the sky. Last night the ship had been sailing along a coast where barren headlands, terraced hills, and stretches of woodland alternated. Now it might have been in a world that held nothing but wind and water.
With no duties to keep him on deck, Jemar the Fair went below to his cabin. Eskaia was in bed, with Delia sitting on the carpeted deck, apparently listening to one end of her staff as if it were an ear trumpet, while the other rested on Eskaia’s belly.
Wondering if he’d stumbled on some women’s mystery, Jemar turned to withdraw.
“No, stay,” Eskaia called. “She is nearly done.”
“Done with what?” Jemar nearly snapped. Bad weather this close to shore always made him uneasy. They had plenty of sea room unless the wind changed, but that could happen, and the coast hereabouts made the worst sort of lee shore.
“I am listening to the babe,” Delia said. “Not with the ears of my body, but with a spell bound into my staff.”
“Oh?” Jemar said. “And what is the babe telling you?”
“Nothing much, other than it is well,” the woman said. “It is not yet time for me to tell lad from lass, or hear a heartbeat.”
“This is not our first,” Jemar said. “Pray do not treat me as a witling in the matter of babes.”
“Fathers are seldom much better than that,” Delia said, but Eskaia squeezed her hand hard so that she turned the sharp words aside with a smile.
“I’m a sailor,” Jemar said. “As fathers, we’re apt to be around for the laying of the keel, but the building and the launching are mostly mysteries. Are you done?”
“Yes,” Delia said, and she gathered herself to make a retreat with more dignity than haste.
“I thought a sour-tempered midwife was bad for the babe,” Jemar said when the cabin door was closed.
“Oh, she has merely had more trouble than she cares to remember, with fathers who want nothing new done for their babes,” Eskaia replied. “But the babe feels well, say I who have borne three, and I feel better yet. May I go on deck?”
“No.”
“Not in this common storm?”
“It is a short, steep, inshore sea, and the ship’s motion is sharp.”
“I remember walking the deck when the wind was slicing off the tops of waves and hurling them at the ship. To be sure, I saw men looking at me as if I were mad—”
“You did, and one of them was me. My heart was in my mouth every moment you were ‘taking the air.’ Also, you were not as far along as you are now.”
“Very well. I shall be most docile and withdrawn, on one condition.”
Jemar sighed. Eskaia was not the daughter of a master bargainer for nothing, as he had learned to his cost—and as rivals and enemies had also learned, to a much greater cost. There were times when he thought that Eskaia would have made a much better adviser than wife, but those times had grown rare as the years passed.
“What is that?”
“You shall be honey-sweet to Delia. And if she smites any of the crew who look at her unlawfully, let it pass. Otherwise you shall have a sour midwife, which may not harm the babe but will surely put me out of temper.”
Jemar did not sigh again. Instead, he grinned, though somewhat ruefully. Living with Eskaia had taught him much, including when there was nothing to do but gracefully accept defeat.
* * * * *
The forest shrouded Pirvan in utter darkness outside, and there was more darkness within. This journey seemed to be taking him very far afield from what it had been intended to do, as well as from a knight’s honorable course.
His honor he would leave to Paladine and his fellow knights to judge, after he had done his best. But he could not leave to future judgments the very essence of his purpose in this land, which was to end the Minotaur’s threat before Istar did so by means that unleashed war. As far as he could see, he and his men had covered a great deal of country with their bootprints without taking more than a few steps toward that goal.
Now he heard the footsteps he had been waiting for, in the darkness behind him. In a moment he knew from the heavy tread that it was not Haimya, in her right senses and come to give him counsel.
It was instead Pedoon, the other he had been hoping to see. The half-ogre shortened his stride and fell in beside the knight.
“Have you orders concerning Waydol about which you can speak to me?” Pedoon asked.
Pirvan shrugged. “There are secret details, but they do not change what I have told you.”
After a moment’s silence, Pedoon nodded. “But—is there law or custom that says you cannot accept the bounty?”
Pirvan suspected this conversation was going in a direction where, by the strict interpretation of the Measure, he could not honorably continue it. However, he was the only Solamnic Knight within many days’ march to judge honor or dishonor. Also, his own honor, as well as that of the knights, rested heavily on bringing his men to safety.
“There’s little point in dividing something one has not earned. Even scholars know that.”
“I’m no scholar, Sir Knight. Just an old outlaw you once saw fit to spare. Am I now unworthy of being even heard?”
Pedoon sounded ready to weep, and the weariness in his voice seemed genuine. Pirvan punched the hairy shoulder lightly.
“Your pardon, again. I think my wits washed down the river with my biscuit bag.”
“No matter. But I think this. If we bring our united band into Waydol’s camp, we may be the largest there. I’ve heard there’s discontent with Waydol. Who better than us to rally it? For if Waydol is overthrown by men led by a Knight of Solamnia, we’ll all have earned the bounty and pardons to boot, and no one will say aught against us.”
Pirvan’s first thought was regret that he had spared Pedoon ten years ago. His second was that this might be unjust; what did he know of living as an outlaw in a world far harsher than the streets of Istar or its empire’s towns?
His third thought was that he must find a way of turning Pedoon aside from this course without a quarrel. That took a while to accomplish; the knight sensed Pedoon’s impatience before he was done.
“I think we price the calf before the cow is brought to bull,” Pirvan said slowly. “First, we have to bring our men safely to Waydol’s camp, past outlaw bands, Istarian patrols, flooded rivers, and, for all I know, earthquakes, forest fires, and plagues of stingflies!
“Third, even if there is discontent, we may still find it best to stand beside him. If he wishes to negotiate from strength, and I add myself to that strength, it may be the better for us all. Had you the choice between the bounty and losing your men to Istar’s justice or starvation, which would you choose?”
“My men, of course,” Pedoon said, and Pirvan could hear no untruth in the half-ogre’s voice. “We have been in the woods a long time, Sir Knight. Too long, I think. How to end it …”
Pirvan put a hand on Pedoon’s shoulder. “Two bands, like two heads, are better than one in that, I should think. Let us return to camp and set it afoot.”
Which does not mean I shall not speak to Haimya about keeping a sharp eye on Pedoon as we draw closer to Waydol’s camp. Treachery is a snake with many heads; cut off one, and others may still bite.
* * * * *
The messenger who brought the letter to Aurhinius arrived in camp on a lathered horse. He ran from his mount to the general’s tent, and all but flung himself through the door and onto his knees before Aurhinius.
Aurhinius thanked the messenger and ordered him and his horse given proper care. He made no great haste to open the letter, however.
It was his experience that the haste with which a message was sent depended less on its importance than on the rank of the commander to whom it was being sent. A message destined for one of Aurhinius’s rank always flew as if on the wind, even if it was only an invitation to some self-important archivist’s party celebrating his new theory of the origins of the kender.
However, after a half cup of wine, Aurhinius found curiosity prickling under his tunic. So he opened the letter—and let out a long, hissing breath.
“Bad news, my lord?” his secretary inquired.
“Not trivial news, certainly, but whether good or bad remains to be seen.” Aurhinius put the letter down and smoothed it out. “It seems that Jemar the Fair’s ships have been sighted off this coast. At least eight of them, perhaps more. The report is two days old. There have been no sightings since the storm blew up.”
