Chased By War

by Michael Wolff

  “Here, my dear. These are some of my daughter’s things. They should fit you better.” She added a scathing look to Mykel for not making the offer beforehand.

  “Oh, these are beautiful.” Beautiful they were, indeed. They were also extraordinarily big. The sheer clothes would leave more fabric than flesh on any woman who wore them. On Caryl it made the pregnancy a slim and curved fit. Mykel pulled his fedora down to hide his lust-colored cheeks and hoped Carmella wouldn’t notice.

  “Well, I’ll be going now.”

  “Now, Carmella?” Caryl pouted. “You’ve only just arrived.”

  “There are other rooms that need cleaning, Caryl. You’ve got a strapping young man to look after you now. By the by.” Carmella’s hand pulled a small vellum from a hidden pocket and gave it to Mykel. “This is the bill, boy. See you pay every penny.”

  Mykel was gaping even as the door clicked shut. Their argument had only just begun.

  Civer’s home was impressive...in his own mind. During the journey, he had spoken almost nonstop about the glamorous wonders of the house, how it was forged from the ruins of a long-abandoned fort. Shayna hid her smirk well when they finally arrived at their destination. From the talk, the Companion was led to believe the fort had been razed down and the manor Civer kept talking about built over its remains. But no. The fort was the same as any other: tall, sharp-staked wooden walls, a garrison deep enough to house perhaps two hundred. It had none of the trappings of society and comfort. No matter how well one dressed a hovel, no matter how minute the comparison of the building huddled about it, a hovel was still a hovel.

  “Look at you. You’re sopping wet. Here.” He rounded to her back, taking the shoulders of her cloak and sliding the wool off her skin slowly. Shayna allowed herself a stretch to draw taut the sensual muscles of her back, the supple grace of her spine. It had the desired effect; Civer’s lips wet her neck between murmurs. “You are wasted on a man such as your husband.”

  “Oh really?” Deftly Shayna spun about so she was even tighter within the circle of his arms, her lips feathering the lobe of his ear. “In what way, exactly?”

  “He is a boy. You need – you deserve – a man. He has youth and drive, but I cannot imagine the frustration you bear. Were you with a man of experience, you would see his inadequacies.”

  Shayna decided not to answer. Instead she imagined it was the librarian’s trousers she was deftly unweaving, his bulge in the smallclothes she caressed with tapered fingers. Cradling his manhood Shayna raised tip-toe so that her hot breath sensually brushed against his earlobe. “He has more experience in his entire body than you have in one fingertip.” And then, when the insult flared his righteous indignation, she cast her spell.

  The look on Civer’s face was priceless. His eyes bulged to find his manhood encased in a cocoon of ice, glinting and cold and cracking under the Companion’s grip. Pain twisted his face as jagged cracks formed under the pressure of her grip. “What manner of demon are you?”

  “The kind that will make a deal.” She tightened her grip for emphasis. “You will cease the torture of Lyrad’s father. You will erase all debts in your books. You will restore their rights in their guild and allow them to open their shops in any place they choose.”

  “I can’t do that. I’d be out of business.”

  “Is your business more important than your vices?” Another twist and the cracks deepened.

  “All right, all right! I’ll do it!”

  “Good.” Idly Shayna made her way to the man’s desk, forcing the fool to stumble along to keep up. “Here. Write it down.” She kept her grip tight throughout the confession, twisting her wrists slightly as an ever-present reminder of the treasure the man was so desperate of keeping. When it was finished the Companion checked the document for loopholes and misdeeds, and when there was none, when the wax was fitted, she released her death-grip.

  “Bitch,” Civer hissed. “What’s stopping me from spitting you on my blade?”

  “This.” Her right hand bunched into a fist, and suddenly the fool’s manhood became ice once more. “You never should have touched me,” Shayna whispered. “Now that I have I can cast the spell anytime I wish. Even across distances I can feel your intent. Should I feel any dissent from the vows you have sworn, I will cast the spell anew. And next time I will break it off. Do we understand each other?”

  He did...but the cocoon remained. “Hey! We had a deal!”

  “You don’t honestly believe me to take you at your word, do you?” With a gesture, she summoned a pair of servants. “Get your best carriage ready. Your master and I are taking a little trip.” Their eyes darted past Shayna’s shoulder and withdrew at Civer’s reluctant nod. In short order, the carriage rumbled into sight, a thing of polished redwood and iron wheels wrapped in twine to better ride through the snow. “This is of Lyrad’s hand.”

  “It was the first payment he made.” It was a difficult thing, walking when the manhood was desperately fragile. It forced Civer to walk bowlegged so that nothing brushed the bulge in his trousers. Sitting, it looked as though an arrow drawn back for flight. “I can’t feel anything...Down there.”

  “Does it look like I give a damn?” Nothing else was uttered.

  Within minutes the Lyrad domicile was in sight, and the knotted group of blurred shapes resolved into people. First Mykel, clad in his usual attire, trying and failing not to shiver. Shayna smiled. For the next inn, maybe I should try dying his hair three colors. He would bitch and moan, but on him it was somewhat cute.

  The pair of slender, red-cloaked soldiers was Civer’s idea; the witness for his signed confession. Shayna did one better. The gray-haired, stoop-shouldered man was one Emmet Temme, the only guild official they could reach. Finding him was somewhat of a miracle. Thank the gods his addiction of smoke-pipes got the better of him; they might have never have gotten him out of the Guild’s congress. He looked ready to flay everyone in the general area, but he would keep quiet. It would nothing but trouble if it were found he had snuck away on the meetings the elders had closeted themselves for endless days.

  There at the heart of it all, embracing his son, was the ragged, emancipated man named Daryl Lyrad.

  Upon sight of Civer’s discomfort the ragged man broke out in a grin of yellowed teeth. “You the one that got the bastard’s short-hairs?”

  “Yes.” A glare got Civer to his feet, his frozen member protruding from him like a cold blue mast. Then she got the parchment and the confession from Civer and tossed them to Lyrad’s waiting hands. “Councilman, you recognize the transfer of authority and the official seal of business that binds this trade to the law?”

  “Yes yes. It will be put in the ledger immediately.” His mouth twisted in mimicry of the tobacco he so favored. “Now would someone please get me out of here? I can’t be seen.” The soldiers whisked the rebellious guild master back to the safety of a side alley and were gone.

  “Hey! What about me?” Civer’s whine was pathetic.

  “Oh, you. Hold on.” Her forehead creased, and the cocoon disappeared as though it had never been. “Keep in mind of our talks, Civer. I will always know the nature of your intent.” Grumbling, Civer set off in a lumbering pace and disappeared.

  “I can’t thank you enough.” Mykel and Shayna simply nodded. Gagging in front of a man would not do. “You saved my life and my son. If there was anything I can do for you...”

  “Well, there is one thing.” Shayna hid a smile; the poor boy was juggling between words and a face quickly going green. “We have need of transportation...”

  “Say no more. You can have this.” With a turn Lyrad pointed at the iron-wheeled carriage.

  Mykel blinked. “That one?”

  The pair e
xchanged glances. “We wouldn’t be able to pay you,” Shayna offered.

  “Please. After all you’ve done for me, this is nothing. Take it. I can make more.”

  There was no arguing the point. The woodsmith would not relent. Within five minutes’ time the pair was loading Caryl in the back seat, and in ten they were rolling down the road. “What’s this?” Shayna asked when Mykel tossed her a rolled-up parchment.

  “The bill for Caryl’s dinner.”

  Oh. It couldn’t be that bad. The way the librarian’s face was now, one would think the woman had eaten a fortune’s worth of food...“Oh my God. How...What...Why did you let her eat so much?”

  Mykel gave her a dark glare. Their argument had only just begun.

  LXIV

  Mathias Tolrep was not happy. When DeLuca claimed to hold peace offerings to both parties, he said nothing of staging the damn meeting on his boat. It was childish to think so, he knew, but he little liked being strung up like a marionette. Especially to one forgetful of the bargain between them.

  “Beautiful day, is it not?”

  Tolrep grunted as DeLuca came to his side. He had changed much since the day at the tavern. A blue cloak of dyed woolskin donned his shoulders; clasp at the neck with some sort of badge, though time and the elements made it twisted beyond mortal recognition. From somewhere DeLuca had obtained a military-styled haircut – Tolrep had ordered not even shavings to be in arm’s reach of the man; the depression could still choke him – in the manner distinguished soldiers preferred. Or at least, the privateer assumed it was a regular haircut. The Royal Army had not seen fit to visit the faraway fisherman villages for a century. And now their leaders were going to be on his boat. Oh yes, Mathias Tolrep was not happy.

  “You’ve got to get off that,” DeLuca replied to the statement. “It had to be a neutral place. What is more neutral than a boat in the middle of the ocean?”

  “An abbey,” Tolrep growled. “And look how that turned out.”

  A wooden creak turned Tolrep to the ramp. A pair of men ascended to the deck, but clearly not who everyone was expecting. These men were young; stocky and muscular in all the right places. There was a depression to their crinkled eyes, the surrender of a fate that rested upon the mind like a gravestone. It was not their will to be here, and their faces let everyone know it.

  “Jacob. Boyce.” DeLuca’s words were colder than the winter surrounding them. “Why are you here instead of your fathers?”

  “They wouldn’t come.”

  “Said it’s a trap once they heard you were to be the one organizing the affair.”

  DeLuca cursed with such vehemence that even the crew blanched. “You will have to do,” he snarled. But the dwarf had already been ignored.

  “Where is the captain’s cabin? I’m in need of a goose-down bed.”

  “And some food. I haven’t had a proper meal in ages.”

  Tolrep watched them enter his cabin, burning alongside DeLuca. It would have been too much to hope that the patriarchs of the conflict would send someone important. But these two weren’t even the firstborn. He could tell that without an eye-blink. Too lately born to handle estates or empires, they were the products of lust, scrubbing for the scraps their elder kin decided to cast their way. Their very presence was a slap to the face.

  “Now what?”

  DeLuca was as red as a tomato. “We make do with what we have.” A gesture sent a nearby pirate to retrieve the two buffoons from the cabin and deposited them before the dwarf’s feet.

  “How dare you treat us like common peasants!”

  “Shut up.” DeLuca sounded moments from murder. “Here’s how it’s going to play out. You two aren’t worth your fathers’ seed. However, I am going to catapult you into infamy. You two will go down in history as the men responsible for bridging the gap between these two forces. If you do exactly as I bid, when I bid it, you will enjoy the likes of your elders. Perhaps more. So, the question here is –” For the last DeLuca edged close to the two younglings so the whisper was for their ears alone. “– Do you have what it takes?”

  Their heads were too filled with dreams of glory to hear anything else. They nodded eagerly as though their heads were on coiled springs. “Good. Blueface!” The odd pirate appeared at DeLuca’s side so quick it was as if he were there all along. “Take these two fools to the galleys. We always need new hands at the oars.” Again DeLuca’s glare froze the pair’s protests. “We’ve got to roughen you up, gentlemen. You’ll get nowhere playing the noble.”

  Tolrep watched them go with a smile. “You are far more devious than the legends describe.”

  “That’s the thing about legends. They skip over the interesting parts.” Another glance at the fops. “Go to your cabin. Slowly. Casually.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it! Sheesh. You ask one person...” The grumbling faded as the dwarf disappeared around the main post. Probably for the best, Tolrep realized, for the man’s pettiness would go long in breaking the alliance the privateer shared with him. Slowly as possible, as casually as possible – how could one look casual if one was forced to make a show of it? – Tolrep made his way to his cabin.

  DeLuca was waiting for him. “About damn time.”

  Tolrep goggled. “How did you...” There hadn’t been enough time for the dwarf to sneak into the cabin. Especially when he was on the opposite side of the deck in the first place.

  “This would go a lot faster if you stop asking stupid questions and accept the situation.”

  Tolrep heard his teeth grinding. Big mouth for such a little man. It wouldn’t be a problem to hurl the bastard over the rail. The privateer squashed the notion before it became too enticing. “It would go even faster if we actually had diplomats instead of boatswain.”

  “What, you thought everything was going to magically work out for the best? Don’t they teach survival in smuggler’s school?”

  “I’m a privateer,” Tolrep said quietly. “Not a smuggler.”

  “A slip of the tongue.” Sighing, the dwarf jumped from Jelina’s favorite chair to the sea chest, which opened under DeLuca’s touch despite the iron-thickened lock. “Don’t give me that,” DeLuca said without turning. “I’m not going to screw this up.” He did choose a wooden cup many times smaller than the mug he usually favored. And he was taking small sips instead of quaffing the booze outright. “Do you want some?”

  It’s my ale. Tolrep offered a smile and shake of the head instead. There were more important things than to oblige petty grudges. “Do you have a plan?”

  “Bits and pieces. But you’re not going to like them.”

  The privateer felt every hair stiffen. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you won’t. Are you sure you won’t have a sip?”

  Tolrep reminded himself to breathe. He took a random stool and sat exactly opposite the dwarf bastard. “Start talking.”

  “Those two idiots are smug, arrogant and pampered as their fathers. Exactly what we don’t need.”

  “Don’t need?” Tolrep echoed with a crested eyebrow. Already he didn’t like where the conversation was going.

  “They’d never set foot to a battlefield; they’d blanch over their own blood.” DeLuca started pacing back and forth the chamber, one gnarled hand at the small of the back while the other sloshed the mug to either side. “We need to change their thinking. We need...we need to bring the war to them.”

  The dwarf bastard was right. Tolrep definitely didn’t like the way the conversation was going. “How would we accomplish that...” His eyes widened at the sudden burst of imagination. “You want to dock on a battlefield?”

  “No. No. Nothing
as savage as that. I was thinking a destroyed town, maybe. Something close after destruction, where the maggots are still ripe.”

  “You are mad. All this will just make them nauseous.”

  “I’m sorry. Who exactly is the one with the history of several peace-keeping talks? You? No. That would be me. And before you entertain the thought of throwing me off the ship, might I ask if you, the privateer captain, have a better idea.” The silence smoldered like a bed of hot coals stirring to flame. “Yeah. I thought so.”

  Tolrep stormed from his cabin before the murderous temptation became irresistible. The pampered youths immediately closed in on either side and were buffeted to the planks as the privateer stopped at the wheel. “Byron. Where is the nearest town?”

  “Selcin. It’s small enough but we should get enough supplies –”

  “I meant destroyed towns. Razed to the ground.”

  “Oh. That would be S’som. Maybe two days away. One day if the weather is favorable.”

  “Good.”

  Byron nodded. “Captain, are we mounting a rescue or something?”

  Tolrep caught the pampered idiots in the corner of his eyes and mentally released a pox of curses on DeLuca’s head. “No. We’re going to get some culture.” His eyes relayed a frosty warning for everyone’s curiosity. Tolrep stayed at the wheel the entire night, his mind as black as the twilight above. The things we do to each other. When was it going to stop?

  The morning was worse than the night and its ruminations. Both Boyce and Jacob heaved last night’s breakfast into the sea with the men placing bets on which one would go the longest.

  “You! Pirate!” Jacob was green from head to toe; swaying drunkenly across the deck, with small hot eyes angry over the fool’s wiping the bile on his sleeve. “This is a humiliation beyond reproach! My father, Sernam, has the ear –” The words sputtered as the fool fumbled the tied package Tolrep threw at him. So alien was the simple act that Jacob pin wheeled a few steps back and crashed onto the deck.