He had been abandoned with nothing, not even a basket or swaddling. Just a naked baby in the snow, screaming at the top of its lungs outside the gates. The snobby rich folk wouldn’t take him in, nor could the poor afford to. It had been the hardest winter Pelt ever endured, and food was scarce. In the end, Berdon offered to keep him, since he had been the one who had found him in the first place. He was not wealthy, but he had no mouths to feed and he did not rely on the seasons to work, so in many ways he was ideal.
Fletcher harboured deep hatred for his mother, even if he had no idea who she was. What kind of person would leave her naked baby to die in the snow? He had always wondered if it had been a girl from Pelt itself, unable or unwilling to raise him. He would often look searchingly into the faces of the women around him, comparing their features to his own. He didn’t know why he bothered. None of them looked anything like him.
Fletcher’s stall, now laden with shining swords and daggers, was already set up by the main road that ran from the gate to the back of the town. His was not the only one. Along the way there were more stalls, heavy with meats and furs. Other wares were on display: furniture hewn from the tall pines that grew on Beartooth and silver-petalled mountain flowers in pots for the gardens of the rich city housewives.
Leather was another of Pelt’s famous wares, their jackets and jerkins prized above all others for their fine craftsmanship and stitching. Fletcher had his eye on one jacket in particular. He’d sold most of his furs throughout the year to other hunters, and had managed to save over three hundred shillings for this one purchase. He could see it hanging further down, although Janet – the trader who had spent several weeks making it – had told him he could only buy it for three hundred shillings, if nobody made a better offer by the end of the day.
The jacket was perfect. The inside was lined with downy mountain-hare fur, soft and grey with a peppering of hazel. The leather itself was a deep mahogany colour, hardy and unblemished. It was waterproof and would not easily stain, nor would it be torn as he chased his prey through the forest brambles. It was closed by simple wooden toggles and came with a deep peaked hood. Fletcher could already picture himself in it; crouched in the rain, warm and hidden with an arrow nocked to his bow.
Berdon was seated behind him outside the forge, beside an anvil and a pile of horseshoes. Although his weapons and armour were of high quality, he had found that there was plenty of money to be made in reshoeing the packhorses for the weary traders, whose long journey to the remote villages along Beartooth had only just begun.
The last year the traders had stopped by, Fletcher was kept busy the entire day, even sharpening their swords after the stall had been emptied. It had been a good year for selling weapons. The Hominum Empire had declared war on a new front on the northern side of the Beartooth Mountains. The elven clans had refused to pay their yearly tax, money that the Hominum Empire demanded in exchange for their protection from the orc tribes of the southern jungles, all the way on the other side of Hominum. The empire had declared war to extract their dues and the traders had feared elven raiding parties. In the end, it became a war of principle with a few skirmishes but nothing more, and ended in a gentlemen’s agreement not to escalate. There was one thing that both Hominum and the elven clans agreed on implicitly; the orcs were the true enemy.
‘Will I have time to look around this year?’ Fletcher asked.
‘I should think so. Not much call for new weaponry at the moment. Beartooth’s new military may be old men and cripples, but I think the traders believe the presence of troops will dissuade brigands from roaming around here and attacking their convoys. The worst part is, they’re probably right – can’t see them having to defend themselves much this year. We won’t get a lot of business from them. But at least we know there’s still demand for my services from the military, after your visit to the front line last month.’
Fletcher shuddered at the memory of his journey over the mountain to the nearest fort. The front line was a grim affair, full of dead-eyed men, waiting for release from their military contracts. The elven front was the dumping ground for the men the military didn’t want. The empty bellies who could no longer fight.
Chaffing. That was what the soldiers had called it. Some considered it a blessing, away from the horrors of the jungle trenches. Men died in their thousands on the orcish front, their heads taken as trophies and left on spikes at the jungle’s border. The orcs were a savage, mindless race, dark creatures with merciless and sadistic intent.
Yet it was a different kind of horror on the elven border. A steady degradation. A slow starvation from half-rations. Endless drills from tired sergeants who knew nothing else to do. Uninspired generals who would stay in their warm offices, whilst the men shivered in their cots.
The quartermaster had been reluctant to buy anything, but his quota needed to be filled and the supply lines over Beartooth had long been reduced to a trickle as the demand on the orc front increased. The bundle of swords Fletcher had been carrying on his back since that morning were sold for far more than they were worth, leaving him with a heavy, but considerably lighter load of a bag of silver shillings. If he had brought muskets he would have been paid in gold sovereigns. Berdon was hoping that the traders might trade firearms for swords. If that happened, he could upsell the muskets to the quartermaster next season.
As Fletcher lay in his borrowed bunk in the barracks that night, waiting for the morning so he could return to Pelt in the light of day, he resolved that should he ever join the military, he would never allow himself to end up in such a place.
‘You, boy. Move your stall back from the gates. You’ll block the way for the traders,’ an imperious voice snapped at him, breaking into his thoughts.
It was Didric’s father, Caspar; a tall, slim man dressed in fine velvet clothing, hand-stitched from purple cloth that had been delicately embroidered with gold. He glared at Fletcher as if his very existence offended him. Didric stood behind him with a grin on his face, his hair plastered with wax into a blond side parting. Fletcher looked at the next stall over, which was considerably closer to the road than his.
‘I won’t tell you again. Do it now, or I’ll call the guards,’ Caspar barked. Fletcher looked at Berdon, who shrugged his broad shoulders and gave him a nod. In the grand scheme of things, it would make no difference. If someone needed weapons, they would find them.
Didric winked and made a shooing motion with his hands. Fletcher reddened, but moved to do as Caspar asked. Didric’s time would come, but his father was an incredibly powerful man. He was a moneylender and had almost the entire village in his pocket. When a baby needed medicine from the city, Caspar was there. When the hunting season went poorly, Caspar was there. When a fire destroyed a home, Caspar was there. How could a villager who could barely sign his own name on the lengthy contract understand the concept of compound interest, or the complex numbers written above? In the end, they all found the price of their salvation came at a cost higher than they could afford. Fletcher hated that Caspar was revered by many in the village, despite being nothing more than a conman.
As Fletcher struggled to shift the stall backwards, dropping several carefully polished daggers in the dirt, the village bell began to toll. The traders had arrived!
3
It began, as it always did, with the creaking of wheels and the crack of whips. The path up the slope was uneven and steep, yet the traders would push their horses to the limit in the final stretch, eager for the prime locations at the end of the village’s main road. Those who were last inevitably ended up by the gate entrance, away from the milling crowds deep inside the village.
Caspar stood at the entrance and waved them through, nodding and smiling to the drivers of the heavy-laden wagons as they rolled through the gates. Fletcher could see the horses had been pushed hard on this journey; their flanks shone with a froth of sweat and their eyes were wild wi
th exhaustion. His face broke into a guilty grin at the state of them, knowing Berdon would be kept busy today. He hoped they had enough horseshoes for all of them.
As the last of the wagons pulled through the gate, two men with heavy blond moustaches and peaked caps trotted into the village. Their horses were not the plough horses that pulled the wagons, but heavy chargers with wide flanks and plate-sized hooves. They tossed their bridles as they moved from the dirt path on to the uneven cobbles. Fletcher heard Berdon curse behind him and grimaced with sympathy.
The men’s jet black uniforms with brass buttons identified them as Pinkertons – lawmakers from the city. The muskets they held in their hands left no doubt of their status. Fletcher glanced at the metal-studded truncheons that sat holstered by the panniers in their saddles. They could break an arm or a leg with ease, and they had no qualms about doing so, for the Pinkertons were only answerable to the King. Fletcher had no idea why they were accompanying the convoy, but their presence meant that there would be little need for protection on the route. There would be few sales at his stall that day.
The two men looked so alike they might have been brothers, with curling blond hair and cold grey eyes. They dismounted and the taller of the two strode up to Fletcher, his musket hanging loosely in his hands.
‘Boy, take our horses to the village stable and have them fed and watered,’ he said with a hard voice. Fletcher gaped at him, taken aback by the directness of the order. The man motioned at the horses as Fletcher paused, unwilling to leave the stall unattended.
‘Don’t mind him. He’s a bit slow in the head,’ Caspar’s voice cut in. ‘We don’t have a village stable. My son will see to your horses. Didric, take them to our personal stables and tell the stable boy to take extra care.’
‘But, Father, I wanted to—’ Didric began, his voice wheedling.
‘Now, and be quick about it!’ Caspar interrupted. Didric reddened and flashed Fletcher a black look, before taking the bridles of the two horses and leading them down the street.
‘So, what brings the Pinkertons to Pelt? We haven’t seen any new faces for several weeks, if you are chasing outlaws,’ Caspar said, holding his hand out.
The tall Pinkerton shook his hand reluctantly, forced to be civil now that his horse was in Caspar’s care. ‘Our business is with the military on the elven border. The King has expressed a desire to conscript criminals into the army, in doing so writing off their prison sentences. We are investigating whether the generals would be amenable to that, on his behalf.’
‘Fascinating. Of course we knew that the enlistment rates had dropped recently, but this comes as a surprise. What an elegant solution to the problem,’ Caspar said with a fixed smile. ‘Perhaps we can talk more about it over dinner and some brandy? Between you and me, the local inn is filthy, and we would be happy to provide you with comfortable beds after your long journey.’
‘We would be grateful. We have travelled all the way from Corcillum and have not slept in a clean bed for almost a week,’ the Pinkerton admitted, doffing his cap.
‘Then we must draw you a bath and have a hot breakfast brought to you. My name is Caspar Cavell, I am a village elder of sorts here . . .’ Caspar said, leading them down the road.
Fletcher considered the news as their voices faded. Criminals, being pressed into the armed services, was something he had never considered. Rumours had abounded that forced conscription for all young men was right around the corner, something which both worried and excited him. Conscription had been implemented in the Second Orc War, centuries ago. That war had been fought over orc raiding parties that stole livestock and slaughtered the townsfolk in the fledgling Hominum Empire. Hundreds of villages had been wiped out before the orcs were driven back into the jungles.
This time it was Hominum who had started it, by clearing away their forests to fuel the industrial revolution that had just begun. That had been seven years ago, and the war showed no sign of ending any time soon.
‘If I could forge those muskets, there would be no need to open the stall at all,’ Berdon grumbled from behind him. Fletcher nodded in agreement. Muskets were in high demand on the front line, manufactured by the dwarven artificers that lived in the bowels of Corcillum. The techniques used to create their straight barrels and mechanisms were closely guarded secrets that the dwarves harboured jealously. It was a lucrative business, yet the technology had only been recently implemented in the military. Where before the orcs could endure a hail of arrows, a barrage of musket fire had far more stopping power.
It was then Fletcher noticed a final traveller enter through the gates. He was a grizzled soldier, with grey hair and an unshaven face. He wore a red and white uniform, the cloth tattered and worn, spattered with mud and dust from the journey. Many of the brass buttons from his coat were missing or hanging loose. He was unarmed, unusual for a member of a trading convoy and even more so for a soldier.
He had no horse or wagon, but instead led a mule that was heavily laden with saddlebags. His boots were in a sorry state, the soles worn through and flapping with each staggering step he took. Fletcher watched as he settled in the space opposite him, tying the mule to the corner post of the next stall and glaring at the vendor before he could protest.
He unpacked his saddlebags, spreading out a bundle of cloth and arranging several objects upon it. The soldier was likely on his way to the elven front, culled for being too old to fight as a soldier, yet too incompetent to have been promoted to an officer. As if he could sense his gaze, the old man straightened and grinned at Fletcher’s curiosity, showing a mouth full of missing teeth.
Fletcher craned his neck to get a better look at the soldier and his eyes widened as he saw what was for sale. There were huge flint arrowheads the size of a man’s hand, the edges pitted to create barbs that would snag in the flesh. Necklaces made from strings of teeth and desiccated ears were untangled and laid out like the finest pendants. A rhino’s horn, tipped with an iron point, was arranged at the very front of the collection. The centrepiece was a huge orc skull, twice the size of a man’s. It had been polished smooth and bleached by the jungle sun, with a heavy brow-ridge jutting unnaturally over its eyeholes. The orc’s lower canines were larger than Fletcher had imagined, extending out into tusks that were around three inches long. These were souvenirs from the front lines, to be sold as curiosities to northern cities, far from where the real war was being fought.
Fletcher turned and looked beseechingly at Berdon, who had also seen what the man had for sale. He shook his head and nodded at the stall. Fletcher sighed and turned his attention back to the arrangement of his own goods. It was going to be a long, fruitless day.
4
A small crowd had gathered around the soldier, children mostly, but also a few guardsmen who had nothing to trade and no coin to spend.
‘Come round, all of you! Everything you see here is the genuine article, the real deal. Every item has a blood curdling tale that will make you thank your lucky stars you live in the north,’ he yelled with the flourish of a fruit vendor, tossing a spearhead high in the air and deftly catching it between his fingers.
‘Perhaps I could interest you in a gremlin’s loincloth or an orc nose-ring? You, sir, what do you say?’ he said to a young boy with a finger firmly inserted in his nose, who was certainly not qualified to be called ‘sir’.
‘What’s a gremlin?’ asked the boy, his eyes widening.
‘Gremlins are slaves to the orcs. One might compare them to a squire to one of the knights of old, tending to his every need. Not great fighters; it’s in their breeding to be servile. That, and the fact that they barely come up to the height of a man’s knee,’ he said, demonstrating with his hand.
Fletcher eyed the image with renewed interest. Most people had some idea of what gremlins were, even this far north. They stood on two legs, as the orcs did, but wore nothing but tattered scrap
s of cloth around their waists. Their large bat-like ears and long crooked noses were distinctive, as were their elongated and nimble fingers, expert at prying snails from their shells and insects from rotten logs. Gremlins had grey skin, just like an orc’s, and their eyes were large and bulbous with sizeable pupils.
‘Where did you get all this stuff?’ asked the boy, kneeling to take a closer look at what was on offer.
‘I took it from the dead, my boy. They have no use for it, not where they’re going. It’s my way of bringing a little taste of the war up here.’
‘Are you on your way to the elven front?’ asked a guardsman. Fletcher saw it was Jakov, and ducked behind his stall. If Jakov noticed him, he might extract the price of the drink Fletcher had promised. He needed all his money to purchase the jacket.
‘I am indeed, but not because I’m a useless bag of bones, no siree. I was the only survivor in my squad. Got caught in a night raid whilst on a scouting mission. We barely had a chance.’ His voice had a hint of grief in it, yet Fletcher could not be sure if it was genuine.
‘What happened?’ Jakov asked, his voice dripping with disbelief as he looked the old man up and down.
‘I’d rather not say. It’s not a memory I relish,’ the soldier murmured, avoiding Jakov’s gaze. He lowered his head with apparent sadness. The crowd jeered and began to disperse, taking him for a liar.
‘All right, all right!’ the soldier yelled, seeing his customers slipping away. This was probably his last stop before reaching the elven front, and he would likely find it difficult to sell his goods to the soldiers there, many of whom would be all too familiar with the goods he had on offer.
‘Our orders were to scout out the next forward line,’ he began, as the crowd turned back to him. ‘The lines were advancing again. You see, the wood behind us had all been cleared, and we needed to move the trenches up.’
Summoner: Book 1: The Novice Page 2
