by Bill McCurry
It wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Vintan was carrying the prince right to the Denz capital and its several thousand inhabitants, which was unfortunate. However, the Denz Lands lay beyond the Blue River, which likely was running high from snowmelt and spring rain. If we hustled, we might catch Vintan before he could ford the river.
“I have betrayed my king. Will you let me go now?”
“Stand up.” I didn’t mean to, but I imagined five different ways to kill him without taking a step. I pulled my hand off my sword’s hilt. “Take off your boots.” I realized my hand had grasped the sword again, all by itself. And with some help from my debt to Harik. I reached behind my back and grabbed my belt.
Steven raised his eyebrows but started pulling off the boots, hopping to keep his balance.
“Good thinking,” Ralt said, drawing his sword.
I knocked Steven on his ass into the tall weeds, just beyond Ralt’s swing. I kicked Ralt hard in the shin, and when he bent over, I dragged him forward until his face hit dirt. I backed off five paces. My hands tingled from the desire to kill them both and everybody else around.
“Steven, go on home now. I’m taking your boots, and every other boot around here. We’ll dump them ten miles or so down the trail so you can get shod again. By then, we’ll be far enough ahead.”
Steven looked sick, like a man who escaped drowning by standing on his brother.
“One more thing. An army will be coming through here in a few days, so stay off the trail. Our business is done, young man. You don’t need to say anything else.”
I walked toward Desh to find out what horrible chunk of horseflesh he’d selected for me. Ella intercepted me halfway there. “Bib, how many of these Denzmen did you kill?”
I shrugged. “A couple.”
“From the details I’ve assembled, I should say four, or perhaps five.”
“It doesn’t matter a speck. For all you know, any number of them were struck dead by your wit or my beauty.”
“And when you dispatched the dying man, you virtually exuded satisfaction. It seemed almost… intimate.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Not many people have put me in that situation, and it was the second time she’d done it in as many days.
When I didn’t comment, she said, “Yet when I gave that Denzman over to you for interrogation, you preserved him from harm. If he had confessed all he knew, why not let Ralt execute him? It would have been less bother.”
I gave a big smile. “I didn’t want Ralt to kill him. I may be in the southlands again someday, in painful need of a Denzman to murder. I may say, ‘Where’s Steven? I could kill him now, if only I hadn’t squandered him on that son of a bitch Ralt all those years ago.’”
“Horseshit.”
“Governess, that was rather coarse, wouldn’t you agree?”
Ella drew her sword, and for an instant, I pictured her stabbing me in the chest. Instead, she offered me the hilt. “I want you to take this weapon.”
The sword looked unexceptional in every way. The blade was a bit longer and heavier than mine, which was a hair light for me anyway. Ella had been whirling this sword around in a highly professional manner, and I reconsidered just how strong she might be.
“Where the hell did you learn to fight, anyway?” I asked.
“One does not entrust a prince to someone who cannot protect him.”
“Well, that didn’t answer even a little bit of my question.”
She looked down and scratched her forehead. “The customary places.”
“And you can kiss my foot also.” I looked down the blade, and its edge seemed as good as mine. My sword was a fair enough weapon, but I had no tender feelings for it. “Well, thank you, Ella. That is gracious of you, and I accept your offer. Please take my sword as a gift so you won’t be caught weaponless and killed by any vagrant who wanders by.”
Ella smiled. “It has a name.”
“What?”
“The sword has a name. The Blade of Obdurate Mercy.”
“Shit! That’s a god name. It’s the kind of pretentious, meaningless name that gods give to things! The Pillars of Woeful Omnipotence. The Shoes of Radiant Satiation. Crap like that.”
She blinked a couple of times. “I have never observed any divine or magical properties. It hasn’t even brought me good luck. If you prefer not to accept it, I won’t be offended.”
She sounded like she’d just baked me a cake, and I told her it tasted like the bad part of an ox.
“Where did you get the thing?”
“The queen gave it to me when I entered her service.”
“Well, why in the name of Krak’s left thumb would you give it to somebody like me?”
“The sword is not mine. It belongs to the person who defends the prince. Or frees him.”
One might think that by accepting the sword, I was also signing on for Ella’s monumentally stupid rescue plans. That would be faulty thinking. I only kept it because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I wasn’t agreeing to get killed by ten thousand Denzmen so she’d feel less guilty about not protecting the prince like she was hired to do.
“Well… thank you. And thank the queen for me the next time you see her. If she seems to be in a gift-giving mood, tell her I’ve always wanted to own a bar. And I look good in green silk.”
Eight
Bib,
If you are reading this, then you have survived the ambush. I cherished no great hopes that it would eliminate you, but setting an ambush there was almost obligatory, a workmanlike bit of warfare, and I should have felt irresponsible had I forgone it.
I must apologize for the extreme, almost bombastically evil tone of my previous message. I sought to inflame your rage and send you away on a false path. You have seen through that ploy, which does not surprise me.
I know quite a lot about you, sir, as you are a killer of singular reputation. To further your understanding of me, I do not embrace evil or destruction more than does any other person, although I would not hesitate to employ the most diabolical methods imaginable in the service of my king. Also, the screaming of innocents is such a dubious pleasure.
When elicited with purpose, it is like a congratulatory pat on the back.
When produced through mere thuggery, it is an aggravating display of loud noise and mucus.
Jesting aside, go home, my friend. I feel a tithe of relief that you survived. However unlikely, I wish we could meet and share thoughts, admittedly from differing perspectives. But if you pursue me further, I will destroy you and your companions in the most gruesome of fashions.
—Vintan Reth
We found that note inside a worn-out boot a mile down the trail from the ambush. I might have ridden past it in the moonlight, except it sat on top of a five-foot-tall pile of dead brush and branches somebody dragged from the side of the road. The mere fact that Vintan had left a note was bizarre, and his message was well-organized but deranged. The idea that he knew a lot about me was ridiculous.
This note got stuffed into my pouch along with Vintan’s first one. I didn’t care if I ever read the damned things again. But he had touched them and composed them, and that could be a handy ingredient in any magic employed against him, in case the universe stopped hating sorcery one of these days.
I doubt we would ever have overtaken Vintan without the extra horses we appropriated from those Denzmen we killed. When engaged in a pursuit, the better-mounted party usually prevails. Vintan’s band may have been riding fine beasts, but now we each had two horses and could swap before we’d tired out the one we were riding. A man with two horses is always better mounted than a man with only one, unless that one has wings or magic horseshoes.
We pushed hard to catch the Denzmen, rarely pausing, and resting only during the moonless part of the night. Dozens of fat streams tumbled through the forest on their way to the Blue River, and they kept us well-watered. Our food stores started out meager, though, and by the first night, none of us felt
well-fed.
I took early watch the first night, and no one objected. Stan and Ralt hit the ground, stretched out, and were snoring before I’d made the first turn around our little camp. Ella caught up with me and said, “Bib, I understand you’re a superior swordsman, but my prince’s life will depend upon your skill. Just how good are you?”
“I’m so good I’ve already saved your life once and you didn’t even know it.”
“Thank you, that certainly is a mark in your favor. But I need to understand your proficiency by a more objective standard.”
This was a ridiculous conversation. I knew why she was asking, even if she didn’t. She had just realized that she’d handed her job, the job of rescuing the prince, over to me. She feared I might perform poorly, or I might do the job better than she could. Throw in some guilt and fatigue, and this conversation was the only way she could feel a little better about trusting me. To be fair, I’ve met a lot of people who thought trusting me was a chancy proposition.
“Well, I’ve killed enough men to fill up Crossoak and even pack a few into the barns.” That was true, if you considered just my early years as a murderer, before I really began to apply myself.
Ella shook her head. “Only one objective standard means anything.” She drew her sword.
Deep dusk was sinking into the forest, but at this distance, I saw her perfectly well. She was not smiling, grinning, winking, or twitching eyebrows. I’ve faced a lot of people intent on killing me, and it felt like I’d met another one.
I wanted to kill her too.
I wanted it more than I wanted food in my rumbling belly. I stepped back and crossed my arms, trapping my hands in my armpits. “I prefer not to fight you. You might kill me, or give me a scar that would mar my beauty.”
“Not to appear insensitive, but one cannot mar that which does not exist. Come, I won’t harm you in the least. My control is superlative.”
“I don’t doubt you, but you may get distracted by Desh’s fish-belly-white chest and stab me through the head without meaning to.” I nodded toward Desh, who was shirtless and washing himself in a stream not far away.
Ella lowered her sword. “Have I made a mistake? Can I trust you?”
“Certainly, you can trust me. Just point me like a crossbow at whomever you don’t like, and I’ll kill them deader than my grandma.” Of course, that was a lie. I liked Ella, but I didn’t owe her anything. We happened to be traveling down the same stretch of road at the same time for my convenience. She just didn’t know it.
“Very well.” She sheathed her sword but made no move toward her bedroll. I walked around the camp once, and she walked with me, silent.
At last, I said, “I welcome the companionship, but I’m not clever enough to chat and guard at the same time, and all this silence verges on annoying.”
I couldn’t see her smile, but I heard it in her voice. “May I ask you a question?”
“Does it have anything to do with how I stay so charming and sweet out here in the wilderness?”
“No.”
“Well… I am disappointed, but all right.”
“You spoke of your daughter yesterday. She is dead, isn’t she?”
I almost wished she’d stabbed me instead. “Of course she is. If she were alive, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here.”
Ella patted my shoulder, which might have been condescending, except that it wasn’t. She headed off to sleep, and I kept walking circles.
We caught up with Vintan three mornings later, not much after sunrise. We’d been riding since before midnight, downhill through chilly, brittle air. Stan spotted the feathery smoke first and yelled, “Three campfires! What’s left of three fires, anyway. I bet they ate bacon this morning. Wish I had some bacon. Damn them knobby buggers for having bacon.”
We guided our horses at a sedate walk just beside the tree line for less than an hour. Then I topped a shallow rise, edged under a tree, and looked down into the Blue River valley. It was immensely wide, over a mile, and popping with millions of red, yellow, and orange flowers, as if they’d been painted on. The river itself was a hundred paces across and ran straight through the valley with never a curve. It really was a frosty blue. That’s all the detail I noticed, since about a dozen men sat their horses on the far riverbank, and two dozen sat mounted on the near bank, looking at the water as if they might swim their horses across any minute.
Desh rode up beside me. “They must have had to stop until the water dropped. We’d never have caught them otherwise, regardless of how hard we rode.”
“Get back over there!” I hissed. I turned my horse and chased him back out of sight of the river.
When we’d all dismounted, I said, “Desh, you hold the horses. And don’t go taking them down to the river for a romp and a drink. Or to wave at the Denzmen and make friends with them. Stay here.”
Desh blinked and pulled at his collar. “I only rode up with you for just a few seconds.”
“If I find out they saw you, I’m only going to stab you with just a few inches of steel.”
Ella, Ralt, Stan, and I sneaked among the trees back to the lip of the valley, and then crouched to get a clear view of the Denzmen by the river. One man had ridden out into the water. He had reached mid-river, and the fast water splashed no higher than his thighs.
Ella said, “We will follow them, of course, but perhaps now is the time to dispatch a messenger back to the army and guide them here.”
Ralt and Stan began squabbling in dramatic whispers over who would get to go back. Before I could whack them both with my hat, a wagon-size piece of the river surged up beside the rider, overwhelmed him, and carried him under.
“Shit. I’m the one going back,” Ralt said. The rider didn’t resurface, and neither did his horse. “I’m not going down there. I’m the one going back if I have to kill every one of you.”
“What did we just see?” Ella hissed.
It didn’t make any sense. We’d seen something that could not have been natural, but every supernatural thing in the world had been stamped out years ago when the gods took their party elsewhere.
Ten men and one boy, probably the prince, rode into the river while the rest waited on the near bank. Ella scrambled to her feet, slipping once, and sprinted back toward the horses. I stared a moment before realizing what she was doing, and I ran after her. As she was pushing Desh out of her way, I snatched her arm and spun her.
“Wait!” I stepped between her and the horses. “It won’t make any difference. He’ll be mid-river before you get there.”
She bared her teeth at me. “Move!”
“If he survives, you can’t help him by charging down there and getting killed.”
She roared at me, and I glanced back toward the river.
“If he doesn’t survive—”
Ella punched me right in the nose, and I staggered. I felt the blood running and figured it might be broken. She was on her horse and galloping toward the river before my vision cleared.
I wiped my upper lip as I mounted the nearest horse. “Well, come on, Desh. You were the one who was so keen to see the river.”
Halfway down the valley, I remembered this was exactly the kind of thing I had planned to avoid doing. I also saw that the prince had already crossed the river’s midpoint without getting crushed and drowning, and the closer Denzmen had already ridden into the current. It didn’t appear that any more Denzmen had been killed, either.
Ella’s horse bolted past the cooling campfires and stopped dead. She flew straight over the creature’s head and smacked faceup onto the soft riverbank, her sheathed sword twisted under her and one foot stretched out in the choppy water.
Having seen Ella’s catastrophe, I drew rein at the campfires, so my horse was walking when he got scared and tried to throw me. I slipped off and let him gallop after Ella’s horse back up the hill. Ella was still on her back and shaking her head, paying no attention to the fact that she was slipping into the river. I hopped down and began
pulling her up higher onto the bank, but she was solider than she looked. Just as I’d shifted to a better grip, the water jumped from choppy to roiling. I hauled again and realized something was trying to pull her in. Desh showed up and grabbed one of her arms. We pulled her out by slow inches, and every second I imagined all three of us getting devoured by some gigantic, cold-water crocodile.
Once we’d dragged Ella out, we all scooted far back on the riverbank and panted, staring at the water like mice staring at a snake. The river didn’t let us catch our breath. Ten paces out from the bank, something surged to the surface, cascading water in every direction. It soaked us and the ground behind us.
The figure said, “Blood or brains?” just like a waitress might ask whether you wanted beer or wine. A touch friendly, but mainly just doing her job. It appeared to be a woman, although exceptional in various ways. For one, she was naked. For another, she was light blue—skin, hair, eyes, and everything. She was beautiful. She was perfect, really, so perfect that if you looked hard at her for a few seconds, you’d get terrified, because nothing natural could be that perfect. And she was standing on the surface of the river, the water just covering her feet.
I had heard a fair amount about river spirits back in my sorcery days, but I’d never met one. This had to be one of them—the stories and descriptions of floating women with floating hair matched. I’d even seen an engraving owned by a monk who was addicted to root oil. He charged the local boys two copper bits apiece to look at the red, naked woman on the water. Apart from the creature’s color, it all fit. I walked down to the water’s edge. “Blood or brains? Can’t I have both?”
“I’m sorry, that’s against the rules. Most people choose blood.”
I pointed across the river. “Did those fellows take blood?”
“In a way of speaking. They chose blood, and I took it. What is your name, Ir-man?”
“I think I’ll avoid letting you charm me with my name, if that won’t offend you.” I glanced back at Desh and Ella, sitting on the flower-pocked grass with eyes as big as barrelheads. “You can call me Hrothkir, the Red-Handed Butcher of Gurk.”
