The Sellsword

by Cam Banks

  “Hand it over,” she said, her voice resonating though the mask. The terrified messenger handed her a scroll sealed in red wax. Rivven waved him off, and as the draconians roughly escorted the boy outside, she broke the seal—that of her black robe mage in Pentar—and scanned the scroll’s contents.

  “Aubec!” she shouted, getting to the last line of the message. Her chief aide, a stocky, bald Nordmaaran who had thrown his lot in with the dragonarmies years earlier, appeared in the doorway moments after.

  “My lady?” he said, watching the highmaster pace back and forth. “Troubling news?”

  Rivven crumpled the scroll in her mailed fist and shook it in Aubec’s direction. “Idiots!” she shouted. “The wizard Cazuvel writes that somebody in my army took it upon themselves to make an attempt on Lord Glayward’s life.”

  Aubec nodded. “Overzealous,” he said.

  Rivven Cairn removed her helmet and threw it onto a nearby armchair. “I will not abide this kind of behavior from my officers. I don’t care how bored they are or how much the baron mocks them over the lines of occupation. We have a system here, and it works.”

  Aubec shrugged. “He lives yet?”

  “They failed, yes. Some Ergothian swordsman intervened, and I lost six draconians.” Rivven kept pacing back and forth. “I’m not going to be able to get any more of those from Neraka either! Incompetents.”

  Aubec produced a sheet of parchment and crossed to a writing desk. “I shall draw up the necessary orders of reprisal to Captain Annaud, my lady.”

  “Cazuvel has been watching Annaud for the past three months,” Rivven said. “Annaud’s going to wonder how I got hold of this information. He’ll start to ask questions, and that’ll annoy Cazuvel. I need Cazuvel. And he’s more useful to me when the captain thinks he’s working for him.”

  The red Dragon highmaster was, like others in the upper echelons of the Dragon Queen’s forces, quite conversant with arcane magic. She was not in the late Ariakas’s league, nor even that of the white Dragon Highlord Feal-Thas. The moons of magic were just a means of tracking the passing of days to her.

  But Rivven had acquired a number of minor magical skills in her time, enough to bolster her considerable martial talents and enough to get a good read on black-robed mages such as Cazuvel. The human was far more studious and crafty in the arts than she, but he lacked what she possessed. He lacked the razor edge of conviction, a razor honed in flames.

  Rivven caught herself musing about her younger life, before the dragonarmy, before Ariakas. He’d seen in her an obsessive nature that rivaled his, and a zealot’s spirit. Unlike the dragon emperor, whose efforts were driven toward the acquisition of power and strength, Rivven focused on being where she needed to be. She could outlive all of the other highmasters and highlords. She knew it, and she knew Ariakas had known it. Leave the grandstanding and infamy to Kitiara or that general in the black army, Marcus Cadrio. Rivven could wait.

  The highmaster stopped her pacing near the window and reclaimed her glass of wine. As Aubec began writing, she looked out again over steamy Wulfgar, the dragonarmy banners hanging limp in the rain, and exhaled. “Six draconians vanquished, Cazuvel says. Make a note, Aubec, when you’re finished.”

  She looked over at her scribe then into her glass. “I want to know who that swordsman is.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before dawn Vanderjack woke with a grunt.

  It was still dark. His room in the manor house was drafty and small, with only one window opposite the cramped bed he’d been given. Outside, the rain had stopped. The red and silver light from the two crescent moons let the sellsword see pink-edged silhouettes in the room but little else.

  A mercenary lives his life in the dawn, one of his past associates had told him. Get up with the baker, gather your kit while the bread’s in the oven, and be on the road while breakfast is still warm in your hand. Vanderjack didn’t hold with every sellsword custom, but he had never been able to sleep in. He lived his life in the dawn.

  He didn’t know the manor house well enough to be used to its noises, to know if a creak in the floorboards was the shifting of the timbers or an intruder. But he had excellent hearing, and he could tell that an interesting conversation was going on elsewhere in the house. He heard voices that didn’t belong to the baron, his aide, or the driver.

  Vanderjack slipped out of his bed, pulled on his arming doublet, trousers, and boots, and strapped the baldric and scabbard for Lifecleaver around his waist. He pulled the sword an inch out of its scabbard and felt the Sword Chorus materialize around him.

  “Enjoying the comforts of the wealthy, I see,” said the Aristocrat.

  “A little too much,” said the Balladeer.

  Vanderjack frowned. “You must be looking at a different room than I am.” He approached the door and carefully opened it until a thin crack let him hear the voices more easily.

  “Sneaking about is hardly honorable,” said the Cavalier.

  “Wait—there is danger,” said the Hunter, and the ghost’s insubstantial form disappeared through the wall.

  The Hunter was often keenly aware of a problem without Vanderjack even having to mention it. Vanderjack could always count on the Sword Chorus for that kind of thing, especially when it catered to their individual roles. Some, like the Cavalier, were helpful in a fight. The Conjurer, alternately, had saved Vanderjack a number of times by identifying magic as it was being cast; could even allow the sellsword to react before a spell went off.

  Vanderjack blocked out the comments of the other ghosts for a moment as they continued to discuss the audacity of standing quietly in the dark. He placed his ear close to the crack in door. He could definitely make out the baron’s voice too.

  “… have no right to come in … time of night …”

  A baritone voice, in response: “… causing us to pay a visit … highmaster never approved of the attack …”

  The baron again: “… leave before I have you thrown out!”

  “… simply here to warn you to be careful … Ergothian mercenary …”

  At that last, Vanderjack winced. The visitors must be from the dragonarmy. How brazen were they, first attacking the man on the road, then showing up at his very house?

  The Hunter returned moments later. “Red Dragonarmy,” he said, confirming the sellsword’s suspicions. “Three draconians, one human officer. Two more draconians outside.”

  Vanderjack nodded. “You’ve been very helpful,” he said, sliding the sword back into the scabbard. Alone again in the dark, he opened the door just enough to slip out into the hallway and closed it behind himself as he left.

  He literally bumped into Gredchen as he turned a corner in the hallway. The baron’s ugly aide was fully dressed in traveling leathers and had a satchel slung over her shoulder. Was she going somewhere?

  “Idiot!” she hissed.

  “I was about to say the same thing,” whispered Vanderjack.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Vanderjack pointed down the hallway, past Gredchen. “I heard voices. I’m assuming you did too?”

  Gredchen sniffed. “Lord Glayward has visitors.”

  “From the Red Dragonarmy, I know. I, uh, was on my way to see if I could lend a hand.”

  “He’s in no danger. It’s Captain Annaud, from Pentar—one of the highmaster’s officers. Apologizing for the attack today. Says that was a rogue group of draconians.”

  “Sure it was. Is he looking for me?”

  “I’m afraid so. There’s a price on your head.”

  “Well, then. I’d better be off to do my appointed job.” Vanderjack grinned and started back in the opposite direction from the voices.

  “You can’t just leave!” said Gredchen, grabbing Vanderjack’s bare arm. “You don’t even know where the castle is. Have you ever been in the Sahket Jungle before? Or any further into Nordmaar than here?”

  Vanderjack stopped, looking down at Gredchen’s hand on his elbow. She withdr
ew it quickly. “Hmm, you’re right,” he said. “I should get a map.”

  “Maps are in the drawing room, which is where—”

  “Which is where the baron and his visitors are talking. Of course.” Vanderjack tapped his finger to his temple and showed his wide, white grin. “I guess you’re coming with me, then.”

  “I am?”

  Vanderjack grabbed her by the elbow, steering her alongside him as he continued walking. “As you say, I need a guide. You know the way. I’m sure the baron can take care of himself, and the driver knows how to use a crossbow. So come on and show me the back way out.”

  Gredchen sputtered. “But—”

  Vanderjack turned. “Look. It’s obvious that was what you had in mind. You’re dressed for the road and that satchel probably has all the maps we need. Am I right?”

  Gredchen said nothing, glaring at him.

  “I thought so. So we’re all square, then. And hey—maybe you can keep me honest!”

  That was what she had been thinking, by the look on her face.

  At the end of the hallway and through the kitchens, which would have been bustling with servants in a wealthier household, Vanderjack and Gredchen looked out a back entrance to survey their escape route. As the Hunter had said, there were two draconians patrolling the grounds—tall, hunched, scaly, with wings and tails in mockery of the dragons whose eggs they were created from.

  “Those aren’t baaz,” Vanderjack whispered. “See the curving horns?”

  Gredchen could barely see them in the poor light, let alone make out details. “No.”

  “You need to spend more time outside at night,” said Vanderjack.

  When Gredchen did nothing to respond, he continued. “Those are bozaks. Spellcasters, sometimes used as commanders of small units or religious functionaries. I knew one or two who were intelligence officers.”

  “So we have to worry about magic?” asked Gredchen.

  “Ordinarily, yes,” Vanderjack said with a glance around to scout the area and also to see if his ghosts were attendant. “But we should be fine. Come on. Wait until they’re around front, and we’ll make a break for it.”

  A stable, a barn, some outhouses, and a long, low-roofed building that might once have been kennels formed a roughly semicircular perimeter around the back of the manor house. The manor was on a lightly forested property that stretched for some considerable distance back from the buildings, sloping up toward a series of bluffs that looked out over the ocean to the north. Vanderjack could hear the sea perhaps a mile away. The road was to the southwest, but there were plenty of trees between their current position and there.

  Once the draconians were out of sight, Vanderjack ran off the months of the year in his head, in Ergothian. It was an old mercenary trick to measure time. Once he reached the month of Phoenix, he tapped Gredchen on the arm and moved away from the kitchen door in a low crouch.

  It was brighter than he had expected; he wasn’t sure why, but he could see a lot better out of cover. That was a problem, since it meant he and Gredchen were just as visible to anybody else. As the sellsword approached the stables, he pressed close to the wooden wall, looking across the yard to the side of the manor house.

  “Where are they?” Gredchen whispered.

  “I don’t see them. That’s odd. They should—” He stopped and held his breath. The sound of chainmail links clinking alerted him to the presence of something close by. A breeze, probably from the coast, stirred the puddles of water in the yard and also brought a distinct smell to the sellsword’s nose: dwarf spirits. It was the favorite vice of draconian soldiers.

  Vanderjack drew Lifecleaver immediately, bringing it up in a defensive position in case of ambush. With his free hand, he pushed Gredchen down, hard, against the side of the stable door. “Stay there!” he hissed, ignoring her furious look.

  A heavy curved weapon like a machete crossed with a scimitar took chunks of wood out of the wall where Gredchen used to be. It had appeared from nowhere, and it brought along with it one of the bozak draconians. He’d been invisible, but the spell had dropped once he’d made the attack. The other bozak was probably nearby.

  “No good being invisible if you’re going to smell like a Thorbardin brew house!” Vanderjack barked, bringing his sword up to shove the bozak’s blade away. The Sword Chorus was with him, watching the battle. The bozaks and Gredchen, of course, had no idea the ghosts were even there.

  “It is useless to resist!” the bozak said like a bad actor in a traveling minstrel show. It never ceased to amaze Vanderjack how such a dangerous and intelligent race as the bozaks could resort to such terrible dialogue.

  “I’ve heard that before!”

  Gredchen rolled away and got to her feet. “Leave him alone! He’s under the baron’s hospitality, you reptilian thug!”

  “She’s about to be grabbed from behind,” said the Hunter from about ten feet away.

  The other bozak, thought Vanderjack. Mortal eyes couldn’t penetrate their magic, but ghosts could see right through it.

  Vanderjack ducked a swing from the first bozak and launched himself away from the stable in Gredchen’s direction. Startled, she dropped to the mud. Lifecleaver cut through thin air but left behind it a gout of draconian ichor. The second bozak materialized, his invisibility spell ruined, clutching at his scaly throat.

  The first bozak raised a hand and uttered a string of words in the language of magic. Vanderjack had no fluency in it, of course, but he knew the spidery-sounding tongue when he heard it.

  “Lightning bolt!” cried the Conjurer before the bozak could finish the incantation.

  Vanderjack grabbed Gredchen and spun her out of the way, narrowly avoiding the hot white light of the bozak’s bolt as it seared past him and into an outhouse. The outhouse exploded, the bozak cursed, and Vanderjack grinned in the Conjuror’s direction.

  The second bozak, unable to vocalize spells thanks to the wound to his larynx, drew his scimitar and charged at Vanderjack. Bozaks were stronger and quicker than the lesser baaz, but Vanderjack was stronger and quicker yet. Turning the oncoming blade to the side, the mercenary swung his sword around in a heavy riposte and took the bozak’s arm off at the elbow.

  Vanderjack readied for another swing. A warning from the Apothecary stayed his hand, however, for Gredchen had picked herself up and thrown herself at the armless bozak. She tackled the draconian around the legs, knocking both of them over.

  “You really don’t want to stay out of this, do you?” the sellsword grinned.

  “Help me out here!” Gredchen yelled back, trying to force the bozak’s clawed hand from her face. The draconian made a sort of gargled snarl in an effort to intimidate the woman, but Vanderjack didn’t think it was having its intended effect.

  “I’ll be right with you,” Vanderjack said mildly, turning to face off against the other bozak. Where was he? Another warning from the Conjuror allowed the mercenary to sidestep a fan-shaped gout of flames and close with the astonished draconian. Vanderjack drove his sword through the bozak’s midsection before the draconian could bring its sword up to block the killing stroke. Remembering the way in which bozaks die, he leaped clear of his slain foe just as the creature’s flesh shriveled away and its exposed skeleton began to smolder. Moments later, the bones exploded, flooding the courtyard with a monstrous green light.

  A second explosion, just like the first, drew Vanderjack’s attention back to Gredchen. She had managed to end the life of the bozak she’d been wrestling with, and the look of shock and soot on her face was evidence enough to Vanderjack that she hadn’t faced a bozak’s death throes before.

  “Should have warned you about that,” he said. “Nice work. Rolled over on its own sword, did it?”

  Gredchen, who seemed mostly unhurt, though rattled from the blast, gave the sellsword a pained look. “Let’s just get out of here,” she said.

  “You’ll get no argument from me.” He grinned and followed her through the trees toward the road
to Pentar, quite aware that the noise they made in the courtyard would not have gone unnoticed.

  Theodenes sat in a high-backed chair in his new office in the Monkey’s Ear, going over a pile of paperwork. His poleaxe was within arm’s reach, which for a gnome was about half the reach of the chair’s former occupant. Theo was drawing up his to-do list.

  After only one day of being the newest recruiter in Pentar, Theo was already starting to realize that the position called for a great deal of bookkeeping. His cousin Thermocouplet was the family accountant, and Theo considered sending for him. All gnomes knew something about numbers, but the gang’s books were an order of difficulty higher than anything Theo had had to worry about before.

  Unfortunately, Theo’s family had largely disowned him, being a mad gnome and all.

  “Sir,” inquired a voice from the door. “I know it’s early, but there’s some recruits here for the muster.”

  “Yes, quite right. Send them in.”

  Theodenes knew he looked awkward in the overlarge chair, but he could manage a convincing enough look of professionalism when called to do so. As the three ne’er-do-wells came into the room, he lit a cigar and spun slowly around to face them.

  The three men stared at the little cigar-smoking gnome seated behind the desk.

  “Is there something the matter?” asked Theo, keeping his voice as deep and low as he could. “You look as if you’ve never seen a gnome in charge of an operation like this before.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” said one. “I don’t think we have.”

  Theo studied the recruits. The one who had spoken was an unshaven lout with a shock of dirty blond hair and sailor’s trews. The man next to him had Nordmaaran blood, by the look of him, and if the barbarian leathers were any indication, he more than likely had just come off the plains. The last was a pale, pudgy, nondescript sort of character, the kind Theo used to see a lot back west—definitely not a local.

  “Be that as it may, I am the new recruitment officer of this organization, owing to a recent change in leadership. My name is Theodenes. Learn it well!”