by Damien Lake
“Right!” Marik continued. “If they had, you’d be having your hide kicked through those gates right now no matter how great a fighter you are! What in all creation were you thinking?”
“Are you reneging on your word? On your sworn word?” Colbey asked in a near whisper. His devouring gaze still inspired in Marik the feeling of standing on a quicksand pit.
“About that,” Marik addressed while firmly pushing away his discomfort. “What makes you think I’m going to leave the band on your account?”
“You swore to aid me when the time arose that I needed you!”
“And you also agreed not to leave me in the dark! Have you forgotten that? ‘I will help you unless I have a strong moral reason not to’. That was our agreement. So if you want my help, start explaining why and what and where!”
Colbey glared at him. His dangling fist tightened until the knuckles whitened. “You refuse to go with me?”
“Go where? You haven’t told me anything yet, and I’m not about to quit the band and travel for months without damned good reason!”
They spent the next moments in a contest of wills. Dietrik glanced between them as they stared each other down until at last Colbey, without explanation, whirled to storm away.
Not sure why he did so, except perhaps that his instincts demanded it, Marik opened his magesight to peer at Colbey. The scout’s aura shocked him. Gone was the mossy green that had always defined the man. It had faded to a dull color barely recognizable as its former shade.
But most shocking was the jet black rents streaking through Colbey’s nimbus. Marik could not see Colbey’s body through those parts. The midnight tears were rips in the etheric plane’s fabric, or great swaths left behind by a brush dipped in tar.
“Gods above, mate,” Dietrik uttered in a sigh. “I don’t know what all he’s been through since he left for Tullainia, but I care little for what it has done to him.”
“He’s exhausted, that’s all,” Marik explained in an effort to convince them both. “I’m sure he arrived home this moment. Rest and regular food should put him back to rights.”
“I hope so. I do not relish being anywhere near him otherwise.”
* * * * *
“Don’t grow impertinent with me, Colbey,” Torrance warned the ragged scout across his desk. “Your favors have already been called in.”
“I ask you for nothing,” Colbey responded tightly. “I am telling you what choice you face.”
“My concerns are for the Crimson Kings as a whole. You believe I care enough about any single man within the band to allow them free rein to the degree you apparently think you command?”
“The quality of the whole is dependant on the quality of the individuals. So, yes, I believe you care. You care that much about me. And I know it.”
“I would not care if you were Basill Cerella reborn! We may be mercenaries, but no one in this band dictates to me!”
Torrance glared at Colbey, who returned the self-sure confidence with an unflinching gaze no less haughty. After a moment, Colbey announced, “Then I will be off. Other matters call to me.”
“Hold,” Torrance ordered when Colbey made to leave. He paused to consider his next comment’s phrasing, looking for words that would not admit the truth of Colbey’s assessment. “You have not yet given me your reports on the situation in Tullainia.”
“I am free to quit this band whenever I choose to,” Colbey reminded the commander. “If you wish me to stay long enough to deliver my reports, then you know what will convince me to remain.”
“Why are you insistent on this?”
“I have my reasons.”
Torrance shook his head in a negative. “The band, and everything that happens within it, are my concerns. You will explain, or I will watch you walk out that door.”
Colbey hesitated before answering. “I have a particular interest in him.”
“Because of what you two accomplished together at the Hollister?”
The scout opened his mouth to reply, closed it quickly, then simply replied, “Yes.”
“So why now? Why not last winter?”
“From what I have seen,” Colbey said slowly, his words carefully considered and drawn out, “I will need a capable shieldmate to fight against them.”
Torrance studied Colbey deeply for long moments. If a fighter and loner of Colbey’s stature were admitting this… “I want you to report everything you know by nightfall. Here, in this office, as soon as you unpack and eat.”
“You agree?”
“Yes. Go on.”
Colbey nodded. Before he made it through the door, Torrance called out, “Colbey.” When the scout looked back, the commander added, “This time you had valuable information. Next time, it will not matter.”
After the man left without acknowledging Torrance’s promise, he rang the small bell on his desk.
“Yes, commander?” Wainright asked, entering the office.
“Send a note to Janus,” Torrance instructed his secretary while he shuffled through papers on his desk, looking for the latest estimates on Tullainia’s problems. “Tell him that Colbey, Second Squad, is immediately being transferred to Ninth Squad, Fourth Unit.”
* * * * *
That night, Beld snarled, “Don’t you be second guessing me! I had him fat, dumb and happy until that bastard interfered!” He pounded his fist on the table. A harsh gasp followed when pain shot through his bandaged arm.
“It seems relying on you was an act of foolishness,” Tallior replied coldly.
Beld scowled. Veji defended their group. “Ain’t our fault! We ‘bout had them out the gate when that cracker man popped out of the ground! Look at what he did to Beld! Tried to off him!”
“I don’t care about that! What I care about is the fifteen men with poisoned arrows I had to pay to wait in those woods!”
“Don’t put yourself in a fit,” Beld shot back. “They didn’t do the killing, so you’re covered!”
“As a matter of fact, I am not,” Tallior sneered back. “I am not dealing with whatever rabble you may be used to. Rain or shine, I still need to pay them, even if they end the day without drawing strings! I used the last of my ready coin on your assurance to have them outside this afternoon!”
“I thought you been saying funding wouldn’t be an issue.” Beld wanted to put Tallior on the spot. His arm hurt like all hells, and pretty boy wanted to split hairs as if none of his plans had ever hitched before. “Your boss was supposed to be a high dealer who wanted him out of the way.”
Tallior rose, his hands flat on the table. “You haven’t the slightest idea how matters like this proceed. Is the world so simple to you that you imagine a handful of roughnecks in an alley can simply throw your man in a sack and lump him up? Only idiots would fall to that end, and especially not a mage! Not the dumbest alive, I’ll warrant!”
“And your fancy archers are so much better?” Beld sneered.
“Yes,” Tallior returned the sarcastic tone, “they certainly are. The best way to kill a mage is from a distance. We paid high coin to learn he is an actual mage instead of a different type of user. We paid a small fortune for sixteen of these!” He held up one hand, displaying a plain silver ring around the smallest finger.
“You some kinda woman to be so proud of your fancies?” Veji wanted to know.
“Idiots,” Tallior murmured. “This is a Nolier creation. Smuggling them across the border cost more than you fools will ever see in your lifetimes. They can hide us from his sight. He can’t see us if we wear these!”
The giant mercenaries smirked at each other. Tallior could believe whatever nonsense it pleased him to believe, but he was plainly visible where he leaned on the table across from them. But if others would pay so much for these little trinket rings, well then, they might have to keep close tabs on the men he doled them out to. After all, once the mage and his friend were dead, they would not need Tallior or his puffed-up hirelings any longer.
“You sayin
g that’s what you blew all of your metal on?” Beld asked.
“Without these, I seriously doubt any plan you concoct would have the slightest chance of success!”
“Then find a gang of hard boys around here and deal your Nolier rings out. Isn’t that hard to pull a bowstring, and you don’t got to pay them until the job is done.”
“I refuse to take such chances. I, and my employer, have not prevailed by settling for second class.” He cast scorn on them as he allowed his gaze to travel across Beld and Veji. “Or lower classes still, for that matter.”
Veji, though usually with a cooler head than Albin, lunged across the table. Tallior lashed out with his club, a blow that would have split Veji’s head apart but for Beld tugging him back. The blow glanced off Veji’s reaching fist with a nasty crack.
After planting Veji firmly back in his chair, his eyes watering in pain as he cradled his fingers, Beld returned his attention to Tallior. “You can keep you mouth shut, unless you want real trouble. You got to deal with me because you can’t get into the town. From now on you’ll keep to yourself unless I ask you a question.”
Tallior opened his mouth for a hot retort. Beld raised his eyebrows in a silent dare. The enforcer hated it, but knew Beld had put his overlarge finger on the exact problem. As long as the quarry remained in Kingshome, they were beyond his personal reach.
“Right,” Beld took control once Tallior returned to his seat without comment. “I’m not going to wait a month while you wait for hard metal from your boss. If you don’t want to go with my plans, then start suggesting better ideas. Start telling me about all these smart ways you got of killing mages.”
* * * * *
Marik stood alone behind the warehouse mockup in the Third Training Area. Rain masked his presence behind a gray curtain of falling water, which suited his mood perfectly. In the last two eightdays, everyone he knew clamored to monopolize every candlemark in his days. Tollaf prowled like a hunting wolf in his attempts to sequester Marik in the Tower for magecraft lessons. The old man was unmatchable in terms of his incessant and annoying demands…or so Marik had thought until Colbey’s return.
Colbey’s reassignment alone had stunned him and Dietrik. Most of the veteran men in the Ninth welcomed the addition of such an outstanding fighter, even if few acknowledged it beyond a simple nod or greeting. Marik had thought it fortunate as well. Lately he reconsidered. The scout no longer acted like the man he had come to know.
Every day the scout would roughly roll him from his cot if Churt’s crossbow quarrel had yet to send him scurrying from dreams of highway bandit ambushes. Renewed training under this superior swordsman proceeded worse than before. Rather than the harshly precise instruction, Colbey instead beat Marik down without pity. Several times Marik felt certain the scout barely pulled the final blow.
Fighting off Colbey’s intense strikes required all the skill Marik could muster. Though the scout frightened him at times, though he pounded him into the mud mercilessly until his body pained him, Marik nevertheless felt pleased. Before, Colbey’s superior swordsmanship had left him absolutely helpless. His speed and precision had always been on a level that Marik could scarcely register during their training last winter.
Those same strikes looked slower. Marik could see the slashes, even if he still lacked the speed to block them all. His extensive practicing had paid off. His swordsmanship must have increased greatly if he could manage a better pace against Colbey! He relished the fact that he had finally improved to a true B Class fighter.
But after two eightdays of relentless beatings, he decided Colbey pushed too hard. Eating mud before he had the chance to vary his attacks taught him nothing new.
Both he and Dietrik had discreetly hoped to get the scout talking about his time in Tullainia, about what he saw there and whatever concerns might be clinging to his back. Regular food helped eliminate the hollowness about his frame. His body regained solidity, yet his eyes remained sunken in deep shadows of their own. Colbey never offered any words beyond his demands on Marik.
Whenever Marik succeeded in dodging a session with him, Colbey would later hover close at hand, his eyes never leaving Marik for long. The grim, intense gaze of the those fixated orbs unnerved Marik greatly. He and Dietrik speculated endlessly on what had changed the scout so drastically.
With these two major demands on his time already, he hardly needed any further distractions to pull him away from his personal training program. Yet a third diversion had arrived two days previous. This new drain was both the last thing he wanted and that which he thought about beyond any other. A note arrived from Kerwin stating that his new business partner had arrived.
Ilona must surely know Kerwin had informed Marik of her arrival. If he failed to show up immediately and welcome her heartily to the southern kingdom, she would undoubtedly question his apparent lack of enthusiasm regarding her. Irregardless of it being late afternoon when Kerwin’s note arrived, Marik had set off along the road to the inn-under-construction. It would be a long walk back in the dark and the cold. Not that an excuse like that would likely soften her tongue if he put it off until the next morning.
Truth be told, he would have gone anyway even if she had not been possessed of a firebrand temper.
Kerwin’s inn, still unnamed, sat roughly two candlemarks walking time to the west. The lands around were well forested, if sporadically. No farmers tilled the lands. No towns occupied it, the nearest village being three miles south. Except for the Southern Road with its plentiful traffic, the place was completely isolated.
Marik knew Kerwin had wanted to purchase the land from the baron through whose domain this stretch of road ran. The land still belonged to the baron. Kerwin had bitterly recounted that meeting one evening shortly before exiting Kingshome. Apparently the baron, whose name Marik could never remember, held low opinions of commoners in general, and mercenaries in particular. It mattered not that the land lay almost on the border separating his lands from the Crimson Kings’. He would be dead and rotting before he handed over one single shred more than what the mercenaries had already conned away from the crown.
Somehow Kerwin had walked away with permission to construct the inn, but only because he needed to pay property taxes each season to the baron of an amount the gambler grumbled darkly over without revealing.
The framework came into view while Marik walked under a fading sky. Kerwin’s hired refugees had so far constructed an impressive skeleton in the fragmented woods. Great lumber piles were scattered everywhere under canvas tarps. Barrels, crates and hand wagons littered the ground surrounding the intricate latticework of wooden bones.
Men were laboring on the far side. Marik wound his way through the phantom walls to where Kerwin and several others held thick beams in place while their partners hammered large nails through T-shaped metal plates. No one noticed him at first while he took the opportunity to glance around.
He had always known Kerwin to be ambitious, but this…
The gambler had attempted to describe his vision. Either he did a poor job or Marik’s preconceived mental imagery had clouded it. This ‘inn’ would rival the command building in size. Its common room alone, assuming it filled the majority of the ground floor, would comfortably hold over two-hundred men!
Kerwin at last noticed him and, with a broad smile, directed him to a clear area beneath the tree line. Several tents were pitched in no formation. A large one, or large by the standards of a man who had spent an entire season stuffed into a coin pouch with three other mercenaries, sat quite a distance off from the others. Landon reclined at his ease nearby, propped against a crate stack.
They greeted each other as blood brothers. The archer never said so during the brief conversation, yet Marik suspected he rested where he did for the purpose of keeping his eye on the lady’s tent. Or to be precise, to keep an eye on any hired hands who wandered near. Marik made a silent promise to find a way to thank Landon later.
Inside he found Ilona. He
was unsure what to expect. Finding her shuffling through massive paper piles had not been one of the scenarios he imagined. Nor was her response anywhere along the lines of the expected.
“What are you doing here? I’m still unpacking all this.” She carefully laid aside two stacks, keeping them separate.
“Uh…well, Kerwin said you arrived today, so I thought I’d come see you.”
She watched him through lidded eyes from where she sat. Marik had an uncomfortable impression she might be peeling his comment apart and examining the simple statement from multiple angles.
“What’s all this?” he asked with a gesture at the papers. She always made him nervous when she acted like that. Best to change the subject.
“Records for the lands surrounding this place. I stopped in Spirratta on the way to get copies of everything I need from the city’s census office.”
Marik crouched to finger one jumbled pile. “They gave you their records? And what’s all this for anyway? I can’t believe it would take an entire single sheet to list the name of every person living nearby.”
Ilona scowled at him, and it made him happy to see she remained the same woman he’d fallen in love with in Thoenar. “They didn’t give me anything! You know how much this cost me?” She snorted and returned to sorting through the various piles. “Of course you don’t,” she muttered. “And for your information, I need this to start the publicity campaign for the Standing Spell’s new branch!”
“Need what? People will find out when they start trickling in, once Kerwin opens.”
She cast him a glance to wither plant life. “I’m not interested in local farm boys. I need to start spreading the word along the Southern Road, and through as many merchant establishments as possible. And I need all this,” she waved a handful of papers at him, “to plan it right! The Spell is not a backwoods whorehouse, and I refuse to allow word of it to spread in a fashion that will paint it so! Our reputation will remain what it should be! Sex is the least service of a true gentleman’s establishment.”
