Suddenly, the loss of his eye seemed the least of Yendor’s problems.
~ELEVEN~
Vykers, the Lake Bed
The crimson armor worn by the next army in was strange stuff. It looked as if it was made of wood, painted and then shellacked with an incredibly hard resin. It wouldn’t stand up to Vykers’ sword, but he’d no doubt it was lighter on the body and cooler in the hot sun than plate mail or even chain. Underneath, soiled red tunics and trousers kept the armor from chaffing the skin. The little group did not have long to ponder these curiosities, though, before they were met by a larger group of soldiers approaching from all directions. Before violence could break out, the Historian said “We seek a match between champions, that we may earn our passage deeper into the circle.”
The soldiers pressed closer, anxious to get a look at these strangers who dared such a challenge. As with Penarion’s folk, however, they pulled back considerably upon getting a better view of Vykers and the Frog.
“There’s none will fight you, here,” one of the soldiers said. “We’re on the outside for a reason.”
“Wrong, Voorst!” another of the men snapped. “I will challenge their champion, whatever he may be. We cannot wallow in our own cowardice forever!”
At this, the other soldiers muttered and grumbled demonstratively, but none, Vykers noticed, cared enough to contradict the assertion.
The second man stepped forward and spoke to the Historian, though his eyes were fixed firmly on the Reaper. “I am called Hjuest, Second Finger of the Right Hand.”
“Second Finger, is it? Well, I’m the middle finger,” the Reaper quipped. He jumped from his horse and approached the fellow. Like Penarion before him, Hjuest was a good head shorter than Vykers. His pale skin was burnt and peeling from too much time in the sun. His paler moustache and beard were gathered into a tight iron ring, just under his chin.
“I don’t mind killing you,” Vykers said in the Historian’s direction, so the Shaper could translate. “But this ain’t any kind of a fair fight.” He waited until the Historian caught up. “My sword’ll cut right through that armor o’ yours and you, well, you ain’t exactly a giant.”
“I’m big on the inside,” the man retorted with a fatalistic grin. “And if I’m not, I’m big enough to die. Besides, there’s always the chance I’ll touch you, first.”
It was a strange thing to say, but Vykers believed he liked the man and uncharacteristically decided to disable rather than kill him. He was just about to draw his sword when the smaller man whipped his own to within an inch of the Reaper’s nose. To Vykers’ amazement, it was also made of wood. The little bugger was fast, give him that. But a wooden sword? He slapped it away with his right hand and put Hjuest on the seat of his pants with a quick left jab to his chin. The other men hadn’t wasted any time in forming a tight circle ‘round the combatants. Vykers closed on his opponent and, to everyone’s surprise, offered him a hand up. Unfortunately, Hjuest attempted to throw sand in the Reaper’s eyes as the bigger man reached down to help him up. Vykers spun out of the way and at last drew his sword.
“That’ll teach me to be nice,” he said to himself.
Hjuest got to his feet under his own power and stared in terror at the Reaper’s sword.
“And well you should be afraid, little man,” Vykers said. Of course, the Historian had been excluded from the ring, so he wasn’t able to translate Vykers’ words, but Hjuest understood their meaning well enough.
He feigned a retreat and then leapt at Vykers with his sword extended, hoping to catch the Reaper off-guard. He’d have had better luck making a snowman outside his tent. Vykers anticipated the move and brought his sword smashing down on the smaller man’s weapon, obliterating it and Hjuest’s hopes in one swing. Vykers then shot his arm all the way out and hit his adversary full in the face with the pommel of his sword. Hjuest crumpled like a year-old cornstalk.
The men surrounding the fight made little sound at their champion’s easy defeat.
“He’ll live,” Vykers said. “But his smile won’t ever look the same.”
The circle parted to admit the Historian, the Fool and the Frog, along with the two prisoners the group held in tow.
“Tell you what,” Vykers said to the nearest soldiers, “I’ll trade you my prisoners for this one, here.”
The crowd looked from Vykers to his prisoners to the unconscious form of Hjuest. “What do you mean to do with him?” one of them said.
“Teach him the mysteries ‘o steel.”
The crowd laughed. “Good luck with that, my friend!” another of the men cackled. “It’s against our religion to handle the stuff.”
“Kinda damned fool religion’s that?” Vykers scoffed.
“And as for your prisoners, we wouldn’t dare take them. The Emperor would destroy us!”
“Be that as it may,” Vykers rumbled, “I’m taking this one.”
*****
Kittins, Adrift
There was nothing in the world but cold, black water, or, if there was, Kittins never achieved consciousness long enough to discover it. He ought to have sunk to the river’s bottom or been pulled there by the current, but he’d gotten entangled in the buoys that fishermen set out for their crawfish traps. Eventually, his momentum tore them away from their precious burdens, and he and they floated free down the river.
This might have lasted an age; he had no way to know. Most of the time, he barely remembered his own name. He was freezing, in pain, constantly choking on water splashed in his face. Why was he taking so long to die? Once in a while, he was roused long enough to find fish and other creatures gnawing at his wounds. He hadn’t the strength to shoo the bastards away. And if they’d eat him, they must be desperate, indeed. Later, Kittins heard the sounds of an unfamiliar bird cooing and cackling loudly in his ear. Something grasped him by the hair and pulled him through the water.
Time passed. He gradually became aware he was no longer surrounded by or immersed in water. He was dry, warm. There was a firm surface under his back. He slept. He had a terrible fever. Each time he opened his eyes, he saw nothing, but that the quality of light had changed: it was daytime, it was night, it was afternoon, it was morning. One night, he came well and truly awake.
And found himself flat on his back in a hovel. A fire he could not see cast flickering shadows upon the ceiling above him, revealing a patchwork of sticks, cloth, and dried grasses. He doubted it held up to the rainy season.
An old, withered face with pinprick eyes, a large hooked nose and an almost toothless mouth gazed down on him. Above it all, an unruly mop of white hair, in spikes and snarls and elf knots completed the picture of someone not quite human. Kittins suspected he didn’t look quite human, either.
“Awake!” the crone crooned. “Awake, awake, awake at last! Such good care I takes, such good care.”
Kittins was surprised to learn he could talk.
“Who are you?”
“Who? Ha ha! Who? No one. Some one. What does it matter? Poor Tom, poor
Tom.”
She was mad, clearly. Kittins tried to rise, could not.
“Too soon, too soon!” the crone remonstrated. “Dead, you were. Dead and gone, but for Croonbasket!”
If he’d been stronger, in greater possession of his wits, Kittins might have been worried to find himself at the mercy of such a lunatic. His memory currently played at hide and seek with him, but he imagined he was probably deserving of such a turn.
“Drink now!” the hag sang out. “Sip and sip, drink and drink, but slowly, for ‘tis hot.”
She held a shallow bowl to Kittins’ lips and allowed him to slurp at its contents. He’d been expecting something foul, something loathsome. Instead, he was pleased to find the broth’s flavor appealing. “What is this?” he asked.
Croonbasket cackled. “No, no you don’t! Is my secret, it is. For me to know, for you to drink.”
There was magic in it. Of that, Kittins had no doubt, for he began to re
lax as soon as the liquid ran down his throat. The woman – if she was a woman – was a witch then, a sort of rustic cross between a Shaper and an A’Shea, self-trained and, therefore, utterly unpredictable.
“Why did you save me?” Kittins demanded in a break between gulps.
“Why? Why why why. Always questions. Croonbasket sees worth where others doesn’t.”
“Don’t. Where others don’t,” Kittins corrected, although he couldn’t say why he’d felt the need.
“Doesn’t don’t can’t won’t. You’re alive.”
“Don’t know as that’s welcome news.”
More cackling. “’Course it is! Croonbasket’s seen the other side, she has. Foh! ‘Tis no place to be!”
Kittins tumbled off to sleep again, hoping it all would make more sense when he awoke again.
*****
Vykers, the Lake Bed
The next army attacked Vykers’ group the instant it appeared at the makeshift gate. Frankly, he found this refreshing. He was tired of talk, negotiation, and the like. He’d travelled for untold leagues, and all he really wanted was to take his miseries out on someone else, to maim and kill and destroy. To his delight, his newest foes had given him just that opportunity.
The men of this army wore billowing white robes over shining breastplates. Their heads were wrapped in fabric, too, atop which sat small, pointed skullcaps of steel. Their swords were great, curved things. Vykers couldn’t wait to get his hands on one, see how it handled in combat.
As the men of this latest army attacked, Vykers turned to the Frog and said, “Do what you have to do, boy. It’s them, or it’s you.”
The Frog didn’t need telling twice. He flew into the oncoming mass like a blast of lightening, here, there, everywhere at once. The Reaper was proud. With the maniacal laugh of a madman, he whipped his sword from its sheath and spurred his horse into the rush of charging hostiles. Some fell back at the sight of his fearsome weapon; others fell down beneath its bite, shorn in half or even multiple pieces. It was good to be back at work!
The other men of this army did not stand idle whilst their fellows engaged Vykers and his crew; scores of them ran to the scene and from all over their camp, carrying the now-familiar curved swords, but also spears and short bows with arrows. In no time, the throng at the gate had grown so large, there was scarcely room for the combatants to swing their weapons, a mistake that favored the Reaper and his friends, who, instead of having to deal with ten or fifteen times their number could focus their efforts on the handful of foes within reach. And, Vykers saw, whenever anyone on his side toppled anyone on the other, the fallen man was immediately replaced by another idiot, equally hemmed in and unable to move. Oh, the attacking force had its moments. Someone had managed to lame the Reaper’s horse, and he had to abandon it for fear of being crushed when it went down. He hadn’t been especially close to the beast, but it had still meant more to him than most men he had known. He was angry to see it fall as it had and took his fury out upon his attackers.
There had been no Shaper in evidence in the first two armies Vykers’ crew had encountered, but this current force seemed to boast two or three, who stood just beyond the swirling conflict and attempted to conjure and direct deadly energies at the warrior and the chimera in particular. A powerful burning throughout the Reaper’s body satisfied him that Arune and, presumably, the Historian were hard at work counteracting the enemy’s Shapers. Vykers even heard the telltale hysterical laughter amongst his opponents that was proof of the Fool’s handiwork. Yes, it was an impossibly small army Vykers had. But it was capable of astonishing carnage for all that. He looked up at one point and saw that the other side’s Shapers were down and, in one case, on fire. He didn’t expect this fight to last much longer. There was only so much damage an army’s commander was willing to sustain in order to repel a few trespassers. Better to let them in or through than suffer insurmountable losses.
Vykers watched the bodies pile up for another ten minutes before several horn blasts from within the camp signaled at the very least an end to the army’s attack, if not outright retreat or surrender. There followed several moments in which all activity, even breathing, seemed suspended while the attacking force decided how best to extricate itself from the mess it had created. Into this silence walked a tall, dark man dressed like his kinsmen, save that his breastplate was gold rather than the dull silver of steel. His full beard and eyebrows were blue-black. His deep, dark eyes stared at Vykers and his friends in absolute consternation. He did a quarter turn to his left, to survey those injured or killed in the just finished action; he then made the same turn in the opposite direction. Along the way, his eyes swept across those fallen in between the two extremes. He fixed his eyes on Vykers once more and spoke.
His words made no sense.
“Historian?” Vykers asked the Ahklatian.
“A moment.”
When the stranger tried again, Vykers understood.
“I am not willing to pay the price necessary to subdue you,” the man said. “We have paid enough as it is. Say what it is you want.”
Vykers addressed the Historian without ever taking his eyes off the stranger. “Tell him we want passage through his camp. And a horse!” the Reaper added, “To replace the one his men killed.” He thought of specifying that it be a good horse, but the stranger did not look stupid, or, if he was, he’d been reformed by the beating his men had just received.
The man raised a hand to his lips, whistled. A pair of boys came running at the sound, bowing almost to the sand upon their arrival. The stranger said something too soft to be overheard, and the boys raced off again. The stranger unfastened a water skin from his belt and walked towards Vykers.
“It is not even noon, and it is already too hot. May I offer you drink?”
Vykers squinted, thought it over for an instant and then reached for the water skin. Arune?
It’s water, she replied. Safe enough.
The two men watched each other with interest and suspicion as Vykers unstopped the spout and took an experimental sip. The water tasted of fruit, tart and tangy, a flavor with which he was somehow familiar, despite being unable to name or picture it in his mind. He puzzled briefly over this paradox and took another, deeper swig. Whatever it was, it made the water a good deal more satisfying. He held the skin out towards the Historian. “Know that this is?”
The Shaper sniffed the open mouth of the water skin. “Water. Flavored with lemon, I should think.”
“And lemon is?”
“A sour fruit. There’s probably a market for these in Ahklat.”
So, he’d been right about the fruit in his water. Still, he’d never heard the word ‘lemon’ before. “I take it they don’t grow back home?”
The Historian shook his head. “The climate’s too cool in spring and summer.”
Now it was Vykers who shook his head. Too cool in summer? Not as far as he was concerned. He drained the skin and handed it back to its owner, behind whom Vykers could just make out the two boys returning with a fresh horse, a sleek, black beast that looked made for running. The other man saw the look in the Reaper’s eyes and turned to watch the boys’ approach.
“Ah, Shalea. A fine horse. A fast horse. She will make you happy.”
“She will not make me unhappy,” Vykers corrected.
The Historian translated.
“You are welcome to continue on your journey, then, warrior,” the man replied, standing aside and pointing the way forward with a sweep of his hand.
Vykers wouldn’t be rushed. He needed to move the saddle Cindor had created for him from his dead mount to the new one, Shalea. Truth be told, he also needed a few moments to compose himself. The wound in his side was hurting him more than he cared to admit, even to himself. Now that the Queen was almost within reach, he could not countenance any weakness of mind or body. He would succeed; he would win, as he always had.
You sure know how to make friends, Arune teased.
I know how to make corpses. Everywhere Vykers looked, he saw expressions of fear, anger and awe. Good, he thought. Good. I’m in familiar territory, now.
The Historian, the Fool and the Frog seemed largely unscathed by the recent action, though the two prisoners, ragged with travel and exhausted from the heat, appeared almost wall-eyed with panic. The Reaper approached them, stood near the Historian so the Shaper could translate.
“I expect we’ll run into some o’ your fellows soon. You’d best hope they’ll let us buy our way through their force with your lives. If not…”
But the Historian did not translate. Instead, he faced Vykers. “That seems unnecessarily harsh, given everything they’ve been through these last few weeks.”
Vykers stared at the prisoners, who could not muster the courage to meet his gaze. “Never mind, then. I can see they understood me just fine.” If he lived to be as old as the Ahklatian, Vykers would never understand the fellow. Sympathy for the prisoners? Hadn’t they attacked Vykers and the rest of his party with some sort of bullshit magical ‘leap’? Hadn’t they killed Three? They’d earned whatever was coming to them. They were already dead men. The only question was whether or not their countrymen valued their dead.
As Flies to Wanton Boys (Immortal Treachery Book 2) Page 39
