by Damien Lake
“How long has he been here?” he hurriedly hissed to Dietrik.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he a contender?”
“I suppose he might be, mate. I haven’t been paying attention to anyone competing outside Hilliard’s block.”
“Kerwin would know. I’ll bet he does! Why didn’t he say anything?”
Several feet away, Hilliard latched onto Balfourth’s commentary as the pompous fool continued expounding about his magnificent campaign against his neighbor, Baron Fielo. “Say,” Hilliard directed toward That Moron, catching the entire clique’s attention. His voice almost, but not quite, slurred. “Isn’t that a little extreme? The band south of our barony has always been…a capable lot.”
Balfourth laughed. “As I have actually been forced through not one but two separate campaigns with mercenary miscreants, I think I know where I speak of, Garroway.” He regarded Hilliard with a smug smile, matched by five sycophants around him. “And those cowards were supposed to be the best Galemar has to offer.”
Hilliard straightened in his seat. Or tried to. Instead, he listed in the other direction. “No, no…no! I know who the best mercenaries in Galemar are. They work for my father…at times.”
“Oh, do they?
“Yes! The…Crimson Kings! I don’t know who you worked with, but the…Kings could put them to shame!”
Again Balfourth laughed, far louder this time, mirth lacing the bellows. He slapped his palm against the table while he snatched fresh breath. “That is rich! Yes, it is indeed!” Tossing the contents of his small glass into his mouth, he swallowed the shot in one gulp. “So you know, it happens those were the very fools who couldn’t perform the simplest mission! Not only were they unable to keep Fielo’s ragtag marauders away from my main forces, not only did they allow their target to escape, but they also still demanded their bloodcoin!”
“That cannot be correct,” Hilliard countered. “I am sure you must be mistaken about…a fact or two.”
“I was there, Garroway! I saw what I saw, and later on they gave further proof of their inadequacy. Over and over they let the Noliers trample my forces when we rode our patrols. Then they let the southern defenses fail at the camp so the Noliers could ride straight into the heart of it! Pitiful, truly. If I was the king’s seneschal, I never would have given them so much as a copper. I would have jailed them for gross misconduct and treason!”
Raw, pulsating fury seethed through Marik as it had only once before in his life…on the night of Shalla’s demise. Rage burned as a fiery second heart in his breast. His temper, which he had kept mostly in check since joining the band, flared and drove him to act without thinking.
Marik stepped into the dining room from the hallway. Dietrik’s hand slapped at his wrist to stop him. He barely registered it. He did not care that he was a nobody among the cultural elite. He did not care that this could be the biggest mistake in his life. All he wanted was to beat Dornory’s brat into the floorboards right there in front of his peers.
He intended to slam his fist through That Moron’s face. Within five steps, his brain, in a frantic effort to save his neck from the hangman’s gibbet, proposed a better tactic. Instantly casual, laid back, at ease, he slipped his thumbs through his belt and sauntered closer. No one noticed him yet.
“I have never heard that the Crimson Kings were charged with camp security before,” Hilliard protested, his befuddled mind unable to formulate a better retort than that.
“They were bivouacked on the southern rim,” Balfourth returned heatedly, out of countenance and growing red. “And those idiots let the Noliers walk right past them! Were you there? No, you weren’t!”
“Funny,” Marik commented, causing Balfourth to spin and face him. “But I don’t seem to recall you were there either.”
Straightening, spine stiffening to face this new challenge, Balfourth demanded, “Who are you, to speak so disrespectfully to me? You overstep your place!”
Marik ignored that. “Hmmm, yes, as I seem to recall, that particular day you were last seen headed west as fast as your feet could carry you.”
“How dare you slander me? Who do you think you are?” Flecks of spit flew from Balfourth’s enraged lips.
“Well, Dornory,” Marik replied with calculated insolence, “I suppose I’m one of the fellows you owe your life to. With your stalwart leadership running into hiding with you, we ‘filthy mercenaries’ had to step up and kill Duke Ronley without you.”
The whole room’s attention focused on the confrontation; Marik’s own attention centered solely on this damned pompous deluded fool. Balfourth’s five new friends frowned as if to pass sentence on his existence.
“So,” That Moron spat. “You’re one of them, are you? I could have guessed as much. Anyone as insolent as you could only make a living as a mercenary. You dare to challenge me?”
“Why bother?” Marik asked with a toss of his head. “An army captain was able to lead our company with better skill than you. You spent an entire night screaming over a few stitches. You actually thought you were in charge of the progression to destroy Fielo’s dam, though damned if I know what put that fantasy into your head.” With every word, Balfourth’s crimson hue deepened. Humiliation. How does it taste, Moron? Nothing pains you as much as losing face, does it?
Several nobles laughed. None were the same ones who had nodded in appreciation while Balfourth ranted before. Perhaps they, like Hilliard, were the few nobles who believed in the duties their rank demanded.
One called out, “Tell us how you managed to get back to the supply line before the rest of the army, Dornory!”
This sparked renewed laughter from the gathered crowd. Apparently whoever the voice belonged to had also been present at the Nolier war. Probably he had fought alongside the rest at the catapults and knew Balfourth was hardly a tenth the man he wanted people to think he was.
Dornory’s brat opened his mouth to shout a denial. Marik moved in with fresh strikes. “Interesting how you cared more for your horse than your men. Or how you always stayed as far to the rear during those patrols as you could without actually running.”
“You…you slandering vulgarian! You dare to belittle me?” He reached for his rapier, but missed the first grab. Too much alcohol, Marik suspected. This only caused renewed laughter.
Though still furious with this phenomenal idiot, Marik was no longer so far lost in his anger that he could delude himself. An actual fight with Balfourth would end in nothing except disaster. With luck, he would only land in a prisoner work gang for the crime of drawing a sword against a noble. He needed to stop the fight before it began, and he had only one idea at the moment that might work.
Marik had never used his strength working in quite this way before. He prayed hard that his idea had legs. For a single instant, he suffered a confusion regarding whether a prayer to Ercsilon for a mage working to perform correctly was sacrilegious. No time to figure it out at the moment.
While he enabled the strength working and felt the raw power flowing through his muscles, he calmly asked, “Are you sure you want to draw that, Lord Dornory? Didn’t I already tell you I was the one you owed your life to? You couldn’t defeat me stone-cold sober and on the best day of your life.”
Balfourth persisted in grasping for his hilt. He finally managed a grip and began drawing the thin blade. Apparently he believe himself above the standard courtesy of cording his sword.
“Then allow me to demonstrate.”
Marik had drawn abreast of one chair pulled out from the table. He raised his right fist, then suddenly swung backward without a glance. His fist struck the flat chair back and he hoped his advanced strength would hurl the chair away at an impressive speed.
Instead, the chair’s back ripped off. It sped fast as an arrow, the splintered wood smashing to pieces high on the wall behind him while the remaining bottom half spun faster than a top.
Marik smiled, a feral cat, hoping his bared teeth masked the howl
ing pain racing up his arm. Slowly, he brought his fist up and flexed it as though what he had just done was absolutely nothing. In reality, he checked to see if his hand still functioned. Judging from the screaming agony he must have broken a bone or two.
Whatever he looked like, it stopped Balfourth in his tracks.
“Oh, hells!” a voice shouted. “I recognize you! You and that other man killed Ronley and his retinue of knights!”
New rumblings passed through the crowd, much of it appreciative. Balfourth snapped, “That’s a bald lie!”
“Is it?” Marik asked, refocusing attention on him. He folded his arms, tucking his injured hand into his armpit. “If you’d care to see the duke’s sword, complete with his family crest, I’ll be happy to produce it. Of course, you’ll have to spend a day in Kingshome if you want to see it that badly.”
“A nice ploy,” Balfourth hissed through his teeth, “but I know better! Claim whatever you wish, but I can see through you!”
Balfourth was not going to back down. It had gone too far and his pride lay on the line. If he cried off after suffering such humiliation in front of his peers, in front of the men he would be standing alongside the rest of his life, he would never regain whatever respect he once held. Marik had meant to humiliate him, and succeeded in grand fashion. Too grand. Unless Ercsilon or Fate personally reached a hand down to intervene, Balfourth would force him to fight.
“And what’s all this?” asked an interested voice.
Marik turned, finding Ferdinand framed in the entryway accompanied by ten beautiful women. Before anyone else could respond, Marik bowed. “We’ve been discussing the recent war against Nolier, Lord Sestion. I believe I have made my point, and so I’ll beg your pardon.”
He walked past a confused Ferdinand to rejoin Dietrik in the hallway. “What was that?” he heard their host asking as the dining room fell away into the distance. “And what happened to my chair?”
Before they got far, Marik darted into the hunting room. “Bloody daaamn!” he moaned softly, clutching his hand and crouching low.
“I can offer a big second on that, mate. Gods, Marik! Are you trying to get yourself bloody killed? Do you have any idea how bloody foolish that was? You must be the luckiest bastard alive that those lads back there thought Balfourth’s history was amusing!”
“Will you save it for later? I think I broke my hand.”
“Good! You damned near took my head off with that slat you chucked into the wall! You can use two or three times a normal man’s strength as much as you like, but your flesh will always be the same, dummy! Twice the strength mean’s twice the bloody damage when you punch a brick wall!”
The pain receded, so perhaps it was not so bad as he feared. Even his shirt sleeve had loosened up. Elation slowly crept into him. He began to laugh.
“What’s so bloody funny?”
“Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to do that?”
“You’re a reckless fool at times, mate. Right out of your crack-brained tree! Do you know that? You’ve just made the enemy of your life out there. He may be an idiot, but he does have some power.”
“I don’t care. I’ll take whatever he thinks he can hit me with.” Marik’s mirth suddenly cut off. “Oh, damn it! I forgot all about Hilliard!”
They crept back to the entryway in time to see Balfourth mounting the steps, his arm around a goddess’ waist. “You see he didn’t have enough spine to face me in the end? Of course he took the first excuse he could muster to flee! A coward like him take down a knight? I think not!”
He climbed the left stairway. His assertions sounded like a yapping dog. The kind of dog a distracted man could step on without ever noticing. Instead of growing angry anew, Marik took satisfaction in the fact almost no one paid him any heed. Only his five sycophants, each of whom were younger than he, shared in his indignation.
The moment he vanished off the top step, Marik and Dietrik crossed over to Hilliard. He still sat at the table, apart from everyone else, studying a small glass of dark green liquid.
“That washn’t verry nice,” he greeted Marik with when he recognized him.
“He’s not a very nice man. Or a very smart one either.”
“Watch thish,” Hilliard demanded, and lifted a crystal water pitcher. His voice slurred noticeably. “Have you everr sheen this beforre? Thish ish verry interreshting. Ferrdinand showed it…to me.” He squinted while he concentrated on pouring water into the small, half-full glass. “Green for Galemar!” he suddenly shouted, then peeled into laughter.
After pouring water all over the master-crafted table, he finally directed the stream into the glass with the green liquid. “Shee that? It went and turrned…turrned white as milk! Ish that not shtrrange?”
“Very strange,” agreed Dietrik. “How much of this concoction have you had?”
“I can’t rrememberr,” Hilliard admitted. “But it punchesh you like nothing you’ve everr had beforre!”
He swallowed the contents and flopped face forward onto the table.
“Let’s go find Ferdinand,” Marik whispered to Dietrik. “He’s disappeared again and I think it’s time we left.”
“Past time, I judge.”
Their search was slowed by several future barons, none of whom cared what had become of Ferdinand but all of whom wanted to hear about the fight against Ronley. After several minutes, their fruitless search brought them back to the table, where they discovered Hilliard had gone missing.
“Now what?”
“There,” Dietrik pointed. Halfway up a staircase, Hilliard laughed while clutching a woman close. Probably to keep from falling over. “Seems we won’t be going yet after all.”
“I’m not sure about this.”
“Come on, mate. We were hired to guard his body, not coddle it. That’s her job.”
Marik picked up the glass from which Hilliard had drunk. Dregs still clung to the bottom. He took a sniff. “What is this stuff? It smells evil!”
Dietrik lifted a nearly empty bottle. “At a guess, I think it’s absinthe.”
“And what’s that?”
“It comes out of Vyajion. I remember the Stygan traders used to hire dozens of chaps to guard certain shipments being transported off Vyajjonese ships. Silk was always the big one, but absinthe usually ran the rumor gamut as well whenever a ship docked carrying the brew. I’ve only heard about it, so I’m no expert.”
“Vyajion? Must be expensive as all the hells then.”
“I imagine so.” He set the bottle back onto the table. “Another toy of the rich and idle. I hear it is suppose to let you see bloody strange things when you drink it.”
Marik dropped the glass down beside the bottle. “Definitely not for me, then. I don’t know much about these sorts of things, except that they usually end up using you instead of the other way around.”
“I will make sure to mention that to young Hilliard in the morning.”
Tired yet still elated from shaming Balfourth, Marik decided he wanted another sandwich. This time when they set off down the hallway they made it slightly further back before Marik came to an abrupt halt.
What grabbed his attention sat in a much smaller room off to his left. The room, only large enough to hold five or six people comfortably, possessed no furniture other than a long couch. It bent at right angles hugging three of the four walls.
Sitting with her legs crossed was the most stunning woman Marik had ever seen. She did not see him, so immersed was she in the book she held in her lap. Her dark brown hair rippled past her shoulders, breeze-dimpled wavelets on a summer river.
The dress looked as expensive as the ones worn at the opening ceremony. It folded back in pleats below the waist, the top half apparently a single length of cloth wound around her body, though still hanging loosely.
“Who is that,” he whispered to Dietrik, who had continued further down the hallway.
Dietrik stepped back to look. “She came in with the other women. I saw her step
away from the group after you nearly beheaded me. So what?”
Marik gaped at his friend. So what? How could Dietrik look on her and only say ‘so what’? “You don’t know who she is?”
“She arrived with Sestion’s other high-priced prostitutes. You need not be an academy head to add up the possibilities. Ferdinand probably asked her to wait for him until he finishes his rounds.”
“How do you know?” Marik glanced back through the doorway to where she remained oblivious to them. “I’m going to talk to her.”
Dietrik grabbed his arm. “Mate, you have already swum through enough dangerous waters tonight. Don’t make an enemy out of Sestion as well by attempting to stake a claim to his property.”
That he had come so far already was what prompted Marik to yank his arm free. Elation from his successes still coursed through him. He was on a roll. Unstoppable. No puffed-up noble could face him down, life’s misfortunes would each pass him by and Kerwin would lose every copper he owned if he rolled his dice against him tonight! Nothing lay beyond his grasp at this moment, so he stepped into the room.
It slightly stymied him when, stopping three feet away, she kept her gaze firmly on the pages in her book. He plunged forward anyway. “I couldn’t help noticing you when I walked by. Are you a friend of the Sestion family?”
No reply issued, but he noticed her eyes held still instead of following the words back and forth across the page. So she was not ignoring him. Or rather, she was ignoring him, but was not oblivious to him. He pressed on, hardly considering his words in his rush to capture her attention.
“It’s just that I didn’t see you around earlier. I heard you came in with the other…uh…women.”
