Transcendent (Ascendant Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

  Bjorn nodded silently, poised to give the second arrow to his archer companion. It was good Bjorn did not blink, for the second arrow was snatched from his hand while the first was in the air. The second sentry barely had time to be startled by the other man’s cry of pain when an arrow thudded into his chest also, and he tumbled off the rock he had been perched on. Bjorn took the opportunity to dash forward, running without caring about concealment, Koren on his heels. They were forced to drop to the ground behind a pair of rocks half as tall as they stood, as poorly-aimed arrows came flying at them. One of the arrows knocked a chip off a rock, Bjorn was pelted in the face by pebbles. Crouched behind the rocks, Bjorn tapped the quiver on Koren’s back. “There are eight of them that I see, you have three arrows left. We need a plan.”

  “I have a plan,” Koren said, though the shaky tone of his voice did not fill Bjorn with confidence. Koren popped his head around the side of the rock. Lekerk was not more than twenty feet from him, sheltered under an overhanging rock. The bandit leader was trapped; to get out of the rocks, he would need to come past Koren, or climb. If he climbed, he would be exposed. “Lekerk! I wish to speak with you.”

  “Speak? You mean to kill me. Good luck to you on that, I count only two of you, while there are eight of us,” Lekerk taunted.

  “Your counting didn’t work so well for you earlier,” Bjorn shot back, thinking that Lekerk was either foolish or overconfident, to have confirmed the number of bandits they faced. “And you’ve been hit, we see the blood.”

  “This?” Lekerk laughed and pointed to the bloody bandage around his thigh. “There are mosquitos in the swamps that bite worse than this scratch.”

  “Aye,” Bjorn retorted, “and you walked through the stinking water of that swamp with a leg sliced open. How many days until you are burning up with fever, and your leg begins to swell?”

  That wasn’t funny at all to Lekerk. “I can take care of myself,” he snarled. “And my men will take care of me.”

  “Not when your leg begins to stink with gangrene, they won’t,” Bjorn laughed.

  “That is my concern. The two of you must want that reward money badly, in order to follow me this far.” Lekerk jested.

  “I don’t want any reward money!” Koren insisted.

  That made the bandit leader pause. “Now you have my attention. I’m curious. Why else are you here? If you’re looking to join my merry band of cutthroats, you’ve made a bad start of it.”

  “I’m going to stand up,” Koren said slowly.

  “Don’t shoot at him,” Lekerk ordered the other bandits, his curiosity overcoming his caution. “Not yet.”

  Koren stood, ready at any moment to duck behind the rock. He took the pendant from a pocket and held it up in the sunlight, dangling from its chain. “A serving girl at a tavern in Witheringdale told us you gave this to her. I’m going to throw it you.” He bent down to pick up a stone, wrapped the chain around it, and tossed it underhand. It fell to the ground at Lekerk’s feet, and the man stooped warily to pick it up, never taking his eyes of Koren.

  “A cheap pendant?” He laughed. “Why would anyone care about this? I can buy a better one in any market.”

  Koren clamped down on his anger, clenching his teeth so hard that they slipped. and he bit the inside of his cheek. The pain helped him to focus. “That pendant was stolen, from a baroness who hired us to learn who stole it from her. We need to know where you got it,” Koren repeated the tale he and Bjorn had cooked up while riding together.

  “This little trinket?” Lekerk asked incredulously.

  “There’s a reward.” Koren reached into a pocket and pulled out his coin purse, jingling it for emphasis.

  Neither Lekerk nor his men could believe their ears. “You are going to pay a reward to me? For information?”

  “That is the deal, yes,” Bjorn confirmed. “It may be a cheap trinket,” he made an apologetic glance at Koren, “but it’s a family heirloom. The Baroness wants it back, and she wants to know which of her servants stole it. So, we tracked it to Witheringdale, and now we’re here.”

  Lekerk shook his head in amazement. “And you set up an ambush for my band, just to speak with me?”

  “No,” Koren declared. “We joined the dwarf, because he was hunting you, and we didn’t know how else to find you.”

  “You found me,” Lekerk admitted. “All right, I’ll look at this, don’t know as I can say for sure where I got it,” he lied. He remembered giving that pendant to the girl in Witheringdale. And so he remembered where he’d gotten the cheap pendant. “As you can imagine, I handle a lot of jewels.”

  “We would appreciate you searching your memory,” Bjorn said with dry humor. “My companion has a purse that is yours, if you tell us where you got it, and we’re satisfied with the answer. We do know roughly where and when it went missing.”

  “Could you give me a hint,” Lekerk asked, holding the pendant up close and pretending to examine it. He wished to learn how much the two men seeking him already knew.

  Bjorn chuckled gruffly. “My companion may be young, but neither of us was born yesterday. Lekerk, the truth costs you nothing. Tell us, give the pendant back, and you will have more coins in your pocket. And we’ll be on our way. The longer you delay,” Bjorn warned, “the more time you give for the dwarf to bring his men here.”

  Lekerk considered. This may be the one time in his miserable life that telling the truth would be of benefit. “Very well. I can’t promise my men won’t kill you later, as you’ve made them mad as a nest of hornets. But I will tell you what you want to know. I can tell you,” he winced from the cut on his leg, “this is the strangest thing I’ve heard in many a year. I got this worthless trinket in Winterthur, it was near a village, it was, yes. It was near Tinsdale.”

  Koren’s hands began to shake; he stuffed them in his pants pockets so the bandits would not see his distress. “Who?” He asked in a strangled voice. “Who had it?”

  Lekerk smirked. “I can’t tell you their names. A man and a woman, riding a wagon. They had a good amount of coins with them, if that helps you.” He smirked. “Your baroness lost more than a trinket, I think. The woman in the wagon had this pendant.”

  Bjorn saw that Koren was unable to speak, and he guessed what question his companion wished to ask next. “You robbed them along the road?”

  “Very good, master huntsman,” Lekerk taunted. “As we are bandits, that is what we do. Yes, we robbed them, and if they were not so stupid and stubborn to resist us, they would be alive today. And so, alas, if they were the thieves your baroness seeks, they have both already paid the price for their crimes.”

  “Where,” Koren breathed in a quavering voice, “was their wagon going?” He heard his voice, and it was as if another person was speaking. “There is a crossroads north of Tinsdale. Was the wagon headed north of the crossroads, or south and east?”

  Lekerk truly did have to think about that for a moment. “North. Yes, I’m sure of it. We had a devil of a time getting that damned wagon off the road and hiding it,” he added with an evil grin. “Is that enough for your baroness? I couldn’t describe the man or women to you, it was so long ago, and there have been so many-” Lekerk stopped talking.

  Koren’s head spun, his knees gave way, and he staggered forward onto the rock, only a hand kept him from sprawling on it and falling over.

  Lekerk saw his opportunity. Maybe the two mercenaries who had followed him with such dedication actually would pay a reward for the information he had provided. Maybe they would not. What Lekerk did know is that if he and his men killed both of the mercenaries, he would have their reward money, plus whatever money of their own they carried. And, in a twist of irony, he would keep the pendant. Keep it, to give to another girl. Most importantly, the quicker the two mercenaries were dispatched with, the sooner Lekerk and his men could get away. He knew that, with the price on his head, the dwarf and those archers would be on his heels as fast as they could. Lekerk shook his left arm, l
etting a throwing dagger slip down from its sheath. He grasped it with his right hand and swung his arm back to throw.

  Bjorn threw first, having watched not the bandit leader’s hand but the expression on the man’s face. Bjorn saw when Lekerk made the split-second decision to kill Koren; even before that, Bjorn had seen Koren go limp, and knew the bandits would seize their chance to kill. Lekerk’s right arm moved forward in a well-practiced throwing motion and he released the knife just as Bjorn’s own knife buried itself in Lekerk’s chest. The bandit leader gasped with shock, reaching down to clutch the handle of the knife embedded in him. His eyes rolled back and he fell forward full length on the ground, the weight on him plunging the fatal knife in deeper.

  Lekerk’s aim had been thrown off just enough to miss Koren. The young man did not even hear or feel the deadly blade as it sliced through the air close enough to cut off a lock of his hair, and clattered against a rock behind him. “Duck, you fool!” Bjorn yelled as he tackled Koren to fall behind the rock. An arrow thudded against the heel of Bjorn’s boot before he landed to sprawl on Koren. “Kedrun!” Bjorn slapped his companion’s face. “Wake up and make that bow useful. You can ponder your troubles later!”

  Koren shook his head, feeling the sting of Bjorn’s hand against his face but not knowing the source of the pain. “Here,” Bjorn thrust the bow into Koren’s hands.

  “Arrow,” Koren said automatically, shifting the bow to his left hand. Without thinking, he took the proffered arrow and nocked it. He took a breath, two, three-

  Koren popped up above the rock and let fly and arrow that caught a bandit dead center in the belly, then Koren was yanked down by Bjorn’s hand on his shirt tail. “To the left, around that rock,” Bjorn pointed to the danger. He had seen two bandits cross the gap to hide behind the rock. Both of the bandits had bows, and if they came at Koren and Bjorn from both sides, Bjorn did not like their chances.

  Koren didn’t speak, simply holding his hand out for the last arrow in the quiver. He set the arrow to the bowstring and waited, shifting his gaze from the right side of the rock to the left. There was a shadow moving to the right side of the rock and- Koren released the arrow aimed at the left side of the rock, where a bandit had leaned out to shoot at him. Koren’s arrow took the bandit in the shoulder and the man dropped his bow.

  “That’s three of you dead just now,” Bjorn shouted from behind the rock that provided their only shelter. “There’s only five of you left. How many more do you-” Bjorn’s question was cut off by a warning shout from one of the bandits. Barlen was crashing through the woods with another dwarf and more than a dozen men with him. That was too much for the remaining bandits, who could not run away fast enough. Bjorn gestured for Barlen’s men to pursue the bandits, make sure they didn’t double back and cause trouble. “Lekerk is dead!” Bjorn called out.

  Koren had dropped the bow and was on his knees, his stomach trying to decide whether to be sick. Bjorn knelt beside him and squeezed Koren’s arm. “Ah, those people in the wagon,” Bjorn asked softly. “They were your parents, weren’t they?”

  Koren nodded silently, then his body was wracked by sobs. Bjorn stayed with his, saying nothing, only patting his companion on the back for reassurance. Barlen, having satisfied himself that Lekerk was indeed dead, came over to speak with Bjorn.

  What is going on, the dwarf mouthed silently.

  Bjorn merely shook his head sadly, and Barlen took the hint to walk away. The Farlane army men who had chased after the bandits came back, reporting that the bandits had horses corralled in a field close by, and the bandits had gotten away. With Lekerk dead, no one wanted to chase after bandits in the wilderness. The group was gathered around Lekerk’s body, having gone through the bandit’s pockets, when Bjorn walked into their midst. “Did anyone find a golden pendant on a thin chain? It may be on the ground.”

  The men shuffled their feet awkwardly, so Bjorn added “That pendant is worth no great sum to any of you, but it is precious to my friend over there. Anyone wishes to match swords with him, well, more the fool you are. And you’ll taste my blade first,” he said with a hand on his sword hilt.

  “I found it,” one of the Farlane men explained, and handed it over to Bjorn. “I figured it was part of the reward, like.”

  “You thought wrong,” Barlen ran a thumb along the blade of his axe for emphasis. “Any loot you find around here goes into the pool, to be split as part of the reward.” To Bjorn, he asked quietly “What’s wrong with that other fellow?”

  “He just learned that Lekerk killed his parents,” Bjorn explained quietly .

  “Ah,” Barlen’s sentiment was echoed by many others. “The pendant belonged to Kedrun’s mother, then?”

  “I think so,” Bjorn guessed.

  “It did,” Koren said from behind Bjorn, wiping his red eyes.

  “And you killed him?” Barlen asked.

  “No, Bjorn did,” Koren did not know whether to regret not killing the bandit himself, or to be grateful to Bjorn for doing it. “You saved my life,” Koren said to Bjorn. “Thank you.”

  Bjorn shrugged. “It happens, in battle. You’ve saved my life more than once.”

  Barlen looked at Bjorn. “You two will be expecting a greater share of the reward, then?”

  “No!” Koren said angrily. “I don’t want any blood money. You can keep it.”

  “Are you sure, lad?” Bjorn didn’t see any harm in filling their pockets with coins. They had hunted, trapped and killed a bandit who had plagued northern Tarador for years.

  “I’m sure. You can take your cut, if you want. There’s something else I want as a reward, Barlen.”

  The dwarf looked at him warily. Having one less person to share the substantial reward money with would be popular with everyone involved. If, that is, whatever Kedrun wanted instead did not cause worse problems for Barlen. “What is that you want, Kedrun?” He asked the young man who he barely knew. Although, he certainly knew Kedrun well enough.

  “I want passage into your homeland. I have business in Westerholm.”

  Barlen looked at Bjorn, who shrugged again. “What kind of business?” Barlen asked.

  “I need to speak with someone, that is all. I mean no harm. I will tell you who I seek, after I cross the border. You can provide me with passage?”

  “And me. I go with Kedrun,” Bjorn declared.

  A message from Duke Falco caught up with Kyre as the battalion was preparing to load into barges, to float down the Tormel river. Going across the hills to reach the watershed of the Tormel had been arduous; wagons had broken down and horses strained against the steep grades on the rough roads. Captain Jaques had to order supplies taken out of wagons and distributed amongst the soldiers, who were already loaded down with heavy packs and their personal gear. Kyre had again taken coins out of his own pocket to hire additional horses, mules and even oxen to get the battalion over the hills. Even getting to crest of one hill did not provide relief; the road went up a hill, down, and up another hill. In that area of Tarador, the hills that ran north to south formed part of the border between Anschulz and LeVanne provinces. There was no way west except to cross four ridges of hills, even though the royal road had been planned along the easiest route.

  When they reached the banks of the Tormel, Kyre was heartily glad of it, because his backside was sore from being in the saddle for long days. He had gotten off his horse and walked several times each day, telling his officers that he wished to get to know the sergeants in the battalion, and as sergeants did not have horses, they had to walk. In truth, Kyre welcomed the walking to give his aching backside a rest. When his feet began to well in his boots from the unfamiliar strain of marching long distances, he gingerly climbed back on his horse, and tried to keep the soreness from showing on his face.

  Luckily, as the hired barges had not yet arrived, the battalion had only unloaded one wagon before the messenger from the Royal Army rode up the road, shouting for Kyre and Captain Jaques. “Lieutenant Reeves of
the Royal Army, with a message for Your Grace,” the woman announced, out of breath. She bowed, brushing her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes as she handed a sealed envelope to Kyre, then saluted Jaques.

  Kyre slit the envelope open with a knife, read it, and handed it to Jaques. The captain read it quickly and looked at Kyre in surprise. “We are hereby ordered to proceed south-south-west into Demarche, with all dispatch, there to join forces with Duchess Rochambeau’s army along the River Fasse. Lieutenant,” he addressed the Royal Army messenger, “what is the situation in Anschulz?” The battalion’s original orders were to support the Royal Army’s defensive line on the east bank of the Tormel river in Anschulz, almost directly to the west. The battalion would have been able to float down the Tormel on barges most of the way to the new defensive line. Jaques considered that now, the battalion would have to go ashore where the Tormel made a sharp turn to the west, and march the remainder of the way into Demarche province.

  “You haven’t heard?” Reeves asked in surprise. “General Magrane attacked the enemy’s flanks from north and south along the Fasse. The enemy column was cut off and defeated, we are now chasing down pockets of the enemy force between the Fasse and the Tormel. It was a tremendous victory. The queen,” she remembered that Ariana wasn’t yet queen. “The new Regent allowed General Magrane to attack. We attacked!” She exulted. For an army that had been held on the defensive for far too long, a victory over the enemy that had picked away at Tarador’s defenses since their king had died in battle.

  “Captain,” Kyre observed, “regardless of our ultimate destination, we need to wait for the barges. Lieutenant Reeves, you must be thirsty, and your horse needs to be cared for. I will send for refreshments, and you will tell us of the battle?” Kyre and Jaques were burning to know details of Magrane’s victory.