Weapon of Flesh

by Chris A. Jackson

  Your weapon is ready.

  I will arrive with it in seven days.

  ~ Corillian ~

  “Arrogant bastard,” he muttered under his breath, crumpling the parchment again. “Sixteen years, and he makes me wait another week! Ha!”

  He turned and stalked back into the tower, casting the crumpled note into one of the glowing braziers that lit and warmed the eyrie. He could wait one more week. After all, he’d been waiting almost two decades for this. What was seven more days?

  By the beginning of their third day on the road, the boy was beginning to think that the only true danger in the world beyond the plateau was boredom. They’d been plodding along at a pace that could be challenged by any tortoise in good health, and the most dangerous thing they’d encountered had been a nasty patch of poison sumac. Every night they ate their stew and he watched while the Master slept; then in the morning they would eat their porridge and the boy would pack their gear. The Master allowed the boy the few hours of sleep he required in the back of the wagon during the early part of their daily travels. He would wake him around mid-morning and order him to once again resume his plodding pace beside the wagon. The boy’s keen senses attended to their surroundings as the Master studied his books and scrolls, lounging in the driver’s seat.

  The trip would have been endurable, even pleasant, if not for the boy’s nagging curiosity. So many questions rattled around inside his head that he began to be distracted by them. Where were they going? How long would it take to get there? What was a Destiny, and was his different than anyone else’s? He had even tried to ask the Master for some answers to these questions, but had just been told to be quiet and vigilant.

  After three days, he was bored with being vigilant. Oh, he was still watching and listening as best he could; the spells of obedience required him to do exactly as he was told. Yet, while his eyes and ears were tuned finely to their surroundings, his mind wound through complex trails of thought, surmising this and imagining that, all concerning his destiny. It was undoubtedly the distraction of his own tumultuous thoughts that allowed him to be so caught unaware.

  The snort of a horse snapped his attention back to his razor-sharp senses in a heartbeat, and he immediately knew that there were at least six people on horseback hidden in the brush on either side of the road. They were still a stone’s throw away, three on each side of the muddy track. The boy could hear their breath, their mounts shifting, the creak of leather on harness and belt, and the click of an arrow being nocked onto a bowstring. This did not bode well.

  “Master,” he said in his usual calm tone.

  “Yes, boy. What is it?”

  “Men with horses and weapons are hidden on either side of the road fifty paces ahead.” He heard the rustle of paper and the thump of one of the Master’s books landing in the bed of the wagon.

  “Well, now.” The Master’s voice held a waiver of interest, perhaps anticipation. “Well, well, then. Keep walking boy, but be ready. They mean to rob us, and we will have to kill them.”

  “Yes Master.” Some of the Master’s words were unfamiliar, but the last were clear enough. The boy relaxed, slipping into the pre-fight meditation that prepared his body and mind. He catalogued his opponents, their number (which was seven, not six as he’d previously thought), their weapons and their positions. From this, he estimated the order in which they would attack and whom his first target would be.

  As he predicted, the bandits crashed from the woods when they were about ten paces away, startling the carthorses, and bringing their bows to bear.

  “Ho there, old man!” the burliest of them said, leveling a heavily-built crossbow at the Master and bringing his fidgety black mount abreast of the two cart horses. “This here’s a toll road, and you’re only allowed to pass if you pay up.”

  “Toll road?” the Master said, a quirk of amusement in his voice. “I wasn’t aware of that. This is open land, sir, unless I miss my guess. And you are nothing but a thief. I’ll not pay, and you’ll let us pass.”

  The boy could hear the falseness in the Master’s voice and quickly reassessed their foes; six men and one woman sat astride well-kept mounts. They all had bows: three crossbows, three hunting bows and the woman bore a short hornbow. Her eyes flickered between the boy and his Master, nervously. The crossbows were cocked and loaded, which meant they could be fired readily. Those would be his first targets. The others would have to draw and take aim first, which would take at least two seconds; plenty of time. He shifted his feet upon the rocky road, readying himself.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, old man,” the burly man said, shifting his aim from the Master to the boy. “I own this road, and you’ll pay up, or I’ll put a quarrel in your young son’s eye.”

  “Very well, you brigand!” the Master snapped, reaching to his belt and plucking out a bulging pouch. “This is all the real money we have. The rest is just goods, things we’d planned on selling. Take the money and go, but leave us the goods to barter in town for something to eat this winter.” He tossed the jingling pouch at the leader, forcing him to lower his weapon to catch it. The others relaxed visibly as their leader laughed and hung his crossbow over the saddlebow. He loosened the strings and drew the bag open, but instead of coins pouring out, a skeletal hand much too large for the bag to hold lunged from the dark interior.

  “Kill them all, boy,” the Master said in a whisper as the long, clawed fingers plunged into the man’s throat. As the bandit fell from the saddle, screaming through the blood flooding his throat, the boy blurred into action.

  He leapt into the air, tossing up the stone that was clenched between his feet and catching it as he spun. Before his feet hit the ground, he sent the stone whistling at the nearest bowman, scattering bits of skull and brains among the bandits. A crossbow cracked, but the boy had already calculated the bolt’s trajectory and intercepted the shaft in flight. Spinning again, he flung the heavy crossbow bolt into the eye of the next bowman, and then bounded past their dying leader, his foot snapping the bow of another before his fist smashed the astonished man’s throat.

  A bow twanged, the hornbow from the sound, but the Master had erected a shield of shimmering energy, and the arrow glanced off. The boy snatched a dagger from the man choking at his feet, and flung it into the chest of the bandit who had not yet fired his weapon. As he turned to the other crossbowman, he saw that the man had dropped his weapon and drawn a long saber. The bandit’s sturdy mount bore down on the boy, the curved sword cocked back to take his head. The boy simply ducked under the blow, grabbed the saddle and swung up behind his attacker. His hands grasped the man’s head and twisted sharply. Hoofbeats rang in his ears as he stared into the man’s dying eyes and thrust him out of the saddle. The woman was fleeing.

  He was untrained in horsemanship, so chasing her was out of the question. He hopped out of the saddle beside the dead man, pulled a bolt from his quiver, and retrieved the discarded crossbow. There was a crank for cocking the thing, but the boy simply placed the stock against his chest and pulled the string back until it clicked. He placed the quarrel in the notch, took aim, adjusted for windage and fired at his fleeing foe.

  She toppled from the saddle, the bolt lodged squarely between her shoulder blades.

  “Well done!” He turned to the Master’s voice, but stopped in shocked surprise.

  “Mast --”

  He leapt, but it was too late.

  Another crossbow cracked, and the thick shaft plunged through the back of the Master’s neck before the boy’s fingers could intercept it. The last bandit, who had been hiding behind them in the trees, spurred his mount into the deep forest. The boy wrenched the heavy bolt free and considered his chances of knocking the fleeing bandit from the saddle; they were miniscule, so he dropped the bloody shaft and surveyed the scene.

  Seven bandits lay dead, their mounts scattered, some still running. The Master lay slumped over his knees in the seat of the wagon. One bandit had escaped.

  He
had failed.

  “Master,” he said, doubting that he would receive an answer. The bolt had severed the spine. The Master was dead.

  The boy’s head cocked to the side as his eyes took in the details that his mind was ill-prepared to handle. He had seen death. But this was the Master.

  The boy stood on the wagon for some time, wondering what he should do. He had failed to do as he had been instructed, which troubled him. But the Master was dead, which made him feel strange. There would be no repercussions for his failure, but there would also be no instruction from the Master as to what to do next. Should he dispose of the bodies, as he’d seen the servants do? He didn’t know how. Should he stay here? He doubted that anything would change if he did. The Master would stay dead, and he would be no closer to his destiny.

  “Destiny,” he muttered, wondering why he said the word aloud. He looked down the road in the direction that they had been traveling. The dead brigand still lay there; her mount had returned and was nosing the corpse.

  Midday arrived, so the boy ate an apple and a piece of jerky from the cart’s stores, thinking only that this had been his instructions at midday the previous two days, so he should do the same today. When the shreds of core and stem dropped from his fingers, he had made a decision.

  “Destiny,” he said clearly, dropping from the wagon to the road.

  How far?

  There was only one way to find out.

  What is my destiny?

  The answer was the same.

  For the first time in his life, the boy initiated an act of his own volition: He placed one foot in front of the other in the direction that he knew his destiny lay. He then repeated that act, then again, until he was walking. He did not look back, did not regret and did not mourn the loss of the only man he’d ever known. Such things were not part of his makeup. There was only a burning curiosity about his destiny, what it was and where it lay? And would he know it when he found it?

  He walked away from the wagon without taking a single thing with him. The two sturdy draft horses stood in their traces, the wagon sat there, full of their supplies and equipment, the Master still slumped dead in the seat.

  He had been trained to kill, not to survive.

  The boy walked through the rest of the afternoon, his pace somewhat faster than the plodding gait of the Master’s wagon. When darkness began to descend, he slowed, thinking for the first time about food.

  His steps faltered, the weight of his very first decision crashing down like a stumbling block. There would be no stew tonight. The Master had made the stew, and the Master was dead. He looked back in the direction of the wagon. There was food in the wagon, he knew, and he could be there easily before dawn. He would miss dinner, but he might yet have breakfast.

  His head turned the other direction; his destiny lay somewhere down this road. How far could it be? He was hungry, but not starving, and at this particular time his curiosity burned more urgently than the empty pit of his stomach. He estimated how far he could travel without food, but the information gained him little. He did not know how far he had to go, or even how much road there was. Surely it couldn’t go on forever.

  He walked on.

  The night descended, and his eyes took on the faint glow of the magic, illuminating the road for him to see. His mind mulled over the decisions he had made, wondering how he could have improved them as his feet trod on, tirelessly eating up the miles between him and his goal.

  Chapter IV

  When darkness began to descend the following day, hunger started to vie with his curiosity much more urgently. Thirst was less of a problem. Water from any of the roadside puddles quenched his thirst adequately, but hunger, he found, was a type of pain to which he was not immune. It was a frustrating dilemma. He tried eating some of the grass and leaves growing beside his path, but they tasted foul and offered him little energy. He saw many a squirrel and bird, and knew he could knock one out of a tree easily with a stone, but he also knew the meat had to be cooked before he could eat it. He knew nothing about cooking except that it required fire, and he knew nothing about building a fire.

  His pace slowed to a more conservative gait; he was not truly tired, not yet, but he had decided that he wanted to find his destiny before starvation found him. This was the pace that traded miles for energy at the most economic rate.

  As the night deepened, a sound that did not blend into the usual night-time noises of the forest pricked his ears, snapping his attention into focus. The sound had come from far ahead, beyond a low hill where a faint glow could be seen against the darkening sky. He heard another sound, metal against crockery and the lilt of a woman’s voice. He moved forward warily, remembering the Master’s words about the dangers of the lands off the plateau.

  He topped a small rise and moved into the forest for better concealment; then crept through the undergrowth for a better view of what lay beyond the hill. The tidy little collection of buildings that would barely merit the description of “village” did not look very threatening, but he had learned from his instructors that appearances could deceive. He moved forward cautiously, his steps disturbing not a leaf nor making a sound.

  Unfortunately, the road passed directly through the little village. There were nine small buildings made of wood and one made of stone on its lower half, which was the only one to boast a second floor. They were not built for defense and did not look at all formidable. When the woods gave way to pasture, and stone fences girded the road, the boy was forced to either walk in the open or take a wide detour that would cost him unknown miles and hours.

  He made a decision—he was getting good at making decisions, this being his third—and stepped into the open. He paused, listened, deemed it safe enough and strode cautiously down the road. His intention was to simply walk through the little town, but even before he reached the first building, a tidy little house with a pen of milling swine and a white painted porch, he smelled food.

  It was not so easy to make out through the pungent odor of the swine yard, but he definitely smelled freshly baked bread, roasted potatoes and brazed pork. His mouth began to water and his stomach growled loudly. He cinched his cloth belt more tightly around his slim middle, trying to stifle the sound. He did not want to be betrayed by the noise; it might provoke some kind of attack from the people who lived here.

  He was hearing many noises now: clinks and clatters of metal, pottery and glass, the dull thud of metal biting into wood, the murmur of voices, and the occasional higher pitch of laughter. He walked on, his gaze flickering among the faint movements behind windows, the shifting light of candles and lanterns; even the flitter of a silent flying owl gliding overhead caught his eye. The bird settled to a perch on the gable of the tallest building, its head swiveling to scan the twilight road.

  The tall building was set back from the road further than the others, its front yard lined with hitching posts. A large turning yard and a tidy stable were framed by split-rail fences to the left of the main building. He could see someone in the stable pitching hay into the stalls, and quickened his pace. When his steps brought him to where the wind carried the scents of the inn’s kitchen across his path, his mind virtually exploded with the fabulous aromas of cooking meats, baking breads and pastries, stewed and spiced vegetables and the pungent scent of ale.

  His feet stopped walking as if he’d received an order from the Master, his mind overwhelmed by the aromas of well-cooked food. He peered through the windows at the shadows moving within, catching glimpses of a woman carrying a huge tray of meats, cheeses and bread. His stomach made his next decision for him, and he approached the door.

  The boy paused there for a moment to listen, cataloguing the voices he heard. There were at least seven people inside, probably more. He would have to be cautious. He gripped the brass handle and turned it carefully. It was not locked. He pushed it slowly open, and stepped into the noisy interior.

  The noise abated somewhat as he swept the room with his gaze. He noted six
men seated at two tables, each wore a belt knife and all four at the larger table wore swords. There was an unstrung longbow propped in the corner behind that table. The two women wore no obvious weapons, but their skirts could easily conceal several, though nothing could be hidden in the tightly laced corsets. Another man stood behind a long counter that occupied one entire end of the room, a pewter mug in one hand and a rag in the other, the two working against one another, though it was doubtful that either would become cleaner or dirtier by the contact.

  The boy saw their eyes on him, and wondered what was so interesting about him.

  In their eyes he was a stranger, unarmed and alone, which was unusual enough. He was a bit travel worn, but no dirtier than several of the men sitting at the tables. His lack of a pack, belt pouch or any kind of a weapon marked him as highly strange. His clothes were those of a peasant and he wore no shoes, which might mean he was a slave.

  “You want somethin’, lad, or are you just gonna sit there and stare at us all night?”

  That brought laughter from four of the six men and one of the women, as well as the man who had spoken, the large one polishing the mug. The boy tensed, knowing that laughter was often a prelude to attack.

  When the laughter subsided and no one tried to kill him, he wondered if there might be other reasons for laughter. He approached the long counter where the big man still stood polishing the dirty mug and said, “I’m standing.”

  “What?” the man snapped, ceasing his polishing and putting the mug aside. “Yer what?”

  “I’m standing.” Everyone was looking at him strangely, so he elaborated. “You asked me if I was going to sit and stare at you. I’m not sitting. I’m standing.”