Beguiler

by Maxx Whittaker

  Bannock decided he’d entirely misread her and gave Witt a sheepish look.

  “Now run your gob at this pair of useless teats and stop wool gatherin’, you great barnacle!”

  Girt’s final screech rang between the cliffs for a moment after she’d gone inside.

  Jeorge exhaled, long frame sagging. “Can’t do with her, can’t part from her. You know how it is.”

  Bannock kept silent. Witt kept silent. Bannock decided they did not know.

  “Come sit a spell and ask your questions. You’re safe for a couple hours at least. After a good screamin’, Girt sleeps like a whore after the army’s been through town.”

  Witt coughed.

  Jeorge patted a log beside his fire, a makeshift bench. He took a jug from behind it. “Something to wet your throat?”

  Bannock raised an arm to protect himself. “I’ve already sampled the onion draught, thanks.”

  “Onion! Only Girt likes that swill. This here’s a proper brew to do a Nordlander proud.”

  This time Bannock smelled before he drank. “What are you all doing out here, beyond the walls?” he asked Jeorge. “It can’t be safe, even hidden away. At the mercy of the fen, of bandits and deserters…”

  “The price of freedom,” Jeorge declared grandly on the heels of a long mouthful. “The guild wants coin just for a man breathin’ the air. Want to fish? Need a warrant. Want to cut trees? Warrant. Want to plough yer wife?”

  “Warrant,” guessed Bannock, seeing a pattern.

  “Warrant, warrant, warrant,” sang Jeorge, passing the jug to Witt. “No stamped warrant in hand, no doin’ a damned thing. Go against that and, well…” His grin was wide and rye. “You’ll wish they’d hanged you when all’s done and done.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me, with the goblins.”

  “But why does anyone stay?” slurred Witt.

  Bannock snatched the ale away.

  “A small man wants any importance. And the guild makes a lot of nobodies important.”

  “And rich,” Bannock guessed.

  “Quite rich. Well, not so much at the moment. I’d wager we’re a sight better off out here than folks are in there.”

  This was exactly the information Bannock needed. “How’s that?”

  “Guild’s in a bit of a mutiny.”

  “Which of the four is on the outs?”

  “All! They’re all baring teeth at each other.” Jeorge laughed again. “They was told. When the goblins stole those elementals from the duwende all those years ago, the dwarf lords warned ‘em it would come to a bad end. Maybe it’s coincidence but...” Jeorge concluded with a philosophical sip.

  Bannock perked up at this. “Elementals? As in elemental magic?”

  “Of course magic. How d’you think four goblins have stood against the duwende for a hundred years?”

  “Do you know anything about the elementals? Even a rumor?”

  “Three crystals and a magic box the dwarves dug from a mine high in the Ishkillen pass. Rumor says it were a tomb. Whatever the truth, those stones gived the duwende great power. And now give the goblin lords great power. Well…” His smile tightened, eyes dimming, “Gave. From what I hear, their good fortune’s hit a rough spot.”

  Bannock nodded, testing the weight of Agetha’s shackle. “I think you heard right.”

  “And while those green heaps of shite bicker, no ships make port, no goods come through the pass, and no produce or spirits cross the fen. Buggers are terrified of whoever’s got the relics making off with ‘em.”

  “Sounds like a lot of angry people,” Witt slurred again.

  And again, Bannock snatched the jug, planting it between his ankles. “And it sounds like we’ll find some friends in the city.”

  “Oh, don’t be hasty! Like I said, a lot of folks is makin’ coin off the guild. Swingin’ around a bit of influence or lapping up the cream of such a city. They’re waitin’ out this rough patch, sure the good days are comin’ round again.” He wagged a finger between Witt and Bannock. “Don’t think you know friend from foe in a place like Madainn.”

  Bannock chewed on this bit of tough news. “We do need a friend or two if we’re going to beat down the guild.”

  “You’ve always got friends here, so long as you’re makin’ trouble for that lot. And there’s a tavern in the low quarter, the Black Rooster. Has a certain reputation, if you take my meanin’.”

  Bannock was skeptical. “How long since you were last there?”

  “One of us slips in once a month. You don’t think we live so well off the land alone?” Jeorge chortled. “They’ve a buttery that joins to an old cellar next door. Guild tore the chapel down for a letting stable, but the guts is still there. Might be a place to do yer business or lie low. Tell Waltram at the bar that the cooper sent you.”

  “Thank you.” Bannock wasn’t so sure he’d tell Waltram anything. As Jeorge himself pointed out, it remained to be seen who was friend and who was foe.

  “Don’t thank me yet. You might get into the city while it’s ground to a halt, but the goblins still have a tight fist around things. Gonna need papers to do anything more than set foot inside.”

  Warrants, the three said in drunken unison.

  “We don’t have any coin.” Bannock made a note to pay those undertakers in Varnay a visit sometime.

  “Neither do we, but we’ve got some papers among us just the same.”

  Bannock leaned closer to the fire. “I’m listening.”

  “Same place. Black Rooster. Couple of factions less fond of the guild go there to hire out jobs.”

  “I’m short on time, and short is an understatement.”

  Jeorge wiggled his brows. “Running from or running to?”

  “Both.”

  “My word. But I think you can kill a nestful with one stone. A ranger comes there from time to time hirin’ on dwarf business. If you got the duwende to buy whatever you’re plannin’ against the guild, I wager the dwarves would get you two sets of papers on the house.”

  “Black Rooster it is,” declared Bannock, taking a celebratory swig. It wasn’t as though he had much to lose.

  This time he passed the jug to Witt.

  -Nine-

  Bannock and Witt slept at the fisherman’s camp until nightfall, when Jeorge woke Bannock with a stout shake.

  Girt brought wooden trenchers to the fire and served up fish stew that Bannock thought was one of the best things he’d ever eaten, even with all the onions. They sat in the sand, surrounded by quiet cliffs and the occasional snore over a low shush of the receding tide.

  “What?” Bannock said to Witt after his last bite.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been staring at me across that fire like we’re courting for half the hour. Get it out before we move on.”

  Witt chewed his lower lip. “Were you really one of those men? Were you a deserter?”

  “What you’re asking has a very complicated –” Bannock stopped and sighed. “Yes. The simple truth is yes, I deserted.” He was too far in to go on making excuses.

  Witt hugged up his knees, watching the fire. “What’s the more roundabout truth, then?”

  “Who says there is one? You saw Raulf and Murad and there are two or four more just like them about here somewhere. What says I’m any different?”

  “Well, you could have killed Girt. You’d have been justified at least four times today.”

  “I suppose I have to concede to that.” Bannock thought a moment, trying to gather the scattered, broken bits of his past. “Raulf belonged to the last scraps of a great army. He turned his back on that; when I discovered what he’d done, we parted ways.”

  “But you said you’re a deserter, too.”

  “I was. A long, long time ago. When the battle turned for the worse, men like Raulf cast their lot with a lord who fled the field – Tagis Argus. He’d had taken a literal king’s ransom to withdraw his men just as we rode into a narrow place between the hills. Ten-th
ousand men he called back, leaving the rest of us to die.” Old bitterness flavored the last word. “I promised my men I wouldn’t leave them, not to the last. But I was so filled with rage, with a fire for revenge.”

  Silence stretched in the half-dark while Bannock weighed if would have done it all differently.

  “And?”

  “And I did leave them. I rode up the hillock to a cairn between some standing stones. I swore myself to whatever god or deity would grant me vengeance.”

  “That’s what it means; a Bloodsworn.”

  Bannock nodded. “Räsvelg. I made my bargain and the hawk made his.”

  “He tricked you.”

  “No. That makes it sound as though gods aren’t known for tying knots in our schemes. Dagmara just added her own touch to it all. She doesn’t tolerate mortals interfering with her dead.”

  “Your men?” asked Witt, eyes wide in the firelight.

  Bannock took up a stick and prodded the coals.

  Necromancers. Until that day he’d thought he’d seen all the horrors of war.

  Wood smoke filled the breeze between him and Witt. All Bannock smelled was the stench of flesh, saw the charred and smoking chips of bone. He swallowed. “We had to use fire. The pyres burned so long and so hot that the vale lies barren still.”

  “Will you get revenge?” Witt was pale in the glow; Bannock wondered if he should have told the boy his tale.

  “My Burdens have nearly reached the Raven’s mark, and Argushas fled these lands. So, I’m not sure anymore.”

  “That’s why you need to make shipboard,” guessed Witt.

  “Aye. I can’t pass another winter in Theldulas. The Inquisition moves over the kingdoms and my infamy draws one idiot after another. Eventually one will come along I’ll have no choice but to kill.”

  “You’re immortal? Couldn’t you just… rob an Exchange? A caravan?”

  “Hah! Immortal, not invincible.”

  Witt scooped in the last bite of his forgotten stew. “Does it make a difference?”

  For a split second, Bannock felt his body shrivel under the hot, dry anguish of the Wastes. It passed. “Ask the last Bloodsworn caught by the Inquisition. They carved him into little more than a feast-day roast and buried him in a stone pit.”

  “For how long?”

  “Forever. He’ll never die, and the Inquisition will never end his suffering.”

  “Could they, if they wanted to? He’s a Bloodsworn, after all.”

  “Don’t let the name Silver Hand deceive you. The Inquisition feeds on magic as black as that of any witch or necromancer. They poison the Church and corrupt royal courts to their own ends.”

  “For what, I wonder?”

  “That’s a bit complex. They seem to want to beat me to Argus, so I expect he’ll have some answers.”

  “You have to make that ship.”

  “As soon as I’m done thwarting the goblins to help the dwarves to appease a witch to keep the Inquisition at bay, I intend to.”

  Witt bounced to his feet in the sand. “We should get started.”

  “Feel like getting me those three hundred crowns out of the kindness of your heart?”

  “I’m your squire, not your priest.”

  “You’re not my squire.”

  “Not to contradict, but I gave you that sword. That makes me a squire. What are you going to do with it, anyway, if you can’t use it kill anybody?”

  “Can’t sell it. Guess it’s use remains to be seen. Maybe it has more incidental value. I’m very curious why Inquisitors would kill one of their Crusaders and hide the body in a swamp.”

  “Kind of strange, all their powers and the mara still got them.”

  “That is strange. Good job. You may yet earn your keep.”

  “Are we going? Are you ready?” Witt bounced on his heels.

  “This is how you are after four hours of sleep?”

  “Oh, I didn’t sleep. I hardly ever sleep. Pretty much always awake.”

  Bannock wasn’t surprised to learn this. “I’m going to say goodbye to Jeorge. Don’t go running off just yet, alright?”

  “I won’t,” Witt bounced foot to foot again like a hare, “Probably.”

  Bannock shook his head. “Weird lad.”

  -Ten-

  “You should grow out your hair. And add a beard,” Witt imparted as they trudged across the moonlit fen.

  “How’s that?” Bannock had stopped listening to Witt somewhere back near the tide pools. What he’d mistaken for a shared lack of interest in conversation was proved by their respite to be a mild form of exhaustion on Witt’s part. The lad hardly shut up. Hell, the lad hardly took a breath.

  “It’s how I imagined you.”

  “Imagined me.”

  “Whoever you were. Whoever I’d squire for. It’s just... red-brown hair’s not very intimidating when it’s short. But now, if you had a proper mane, and beard plaits like a Nordlander…”

  “What do you know about Nords? And your hair is brown enough.”

  “And I’m not intimidating. See?” prodded Witt.

  Bannock exhaled slowly through his nose.

  “Now, black hair, that’s plenty frightening when cropped. The shorter the better! Bet you could find one of those fancy barbers in Madainn who does hair tonics and preparations. Make your hair black as sin.” He said the word with a little too much relish.

  “Not a chance so long as I draw breath.”

  “Fine,” grumbled Witt. “Oh! A face tattoo. A howling skull right around your eye!”

  “No.”

  “You’re head and shoulders taller than everyone! They would see you coming and piss their britches.”

  “They who?”

  “Whoever! Everyone. The more the better.”

  Bannock worried over the idea that Witt might ever be in a position of power. “No tattoos.” His arm twitched on a reflex. “I have more than I need.”

  “Fine,” Witt said again, petulant.

  “Sorry I’ve not lived up to your imagination.”

  “Oh, it’s not my imagination. I just don’t think you’re living up to your full potential.”

  “My full –” Bannock sputtered so hard he tripped in a divet and nearly ate grass. “Listen here boy, I had a duchy by your age. Commanded my own army and won battles before you were born.”

  “And what do you have now?”

  This knocked any further argument from Bannock’s lips. “Meaning?”

  “Not trying to pick a scab but...no duchy, no army. A witch bracelet and a sword you can’t use. All you really have is me.”

  Bannock grabbed Witt by the chin and peered down into the boy’s eyes. “I see what you’re about.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “All that nattering back in the swamp about fighting, adventuring… You don’t sound the least bit self-serving right now.”

  Witt grinned, shrugging off Bannock’s grip. “I had to try. Can you blame me?”

  Bannock laughed for the first time in a long time. “You’re all right. Now shut your gob; we’re nearly at the gates.”

  “Shouldn’t we try and sneak in?”

  “See that?” Bannock nodded to the gates, the walls, a practical city around a city. “The goblins hold Madainn, but that’s duwende engineering. Someone may be clever enough to slip through, but not us. Not anyone in at least a decade.”

  Despite the late hour, a small queue of travelers formed at the toll gate, long-faced traders with laden donkeys. Each was told by the toll master, in the same clipped language, that they could seek a room but not a stall. To Bannock, the implication was they were welcome to engage in black marketeering – if they dared.

  Papers. Papers. The toll master’s guard asked one after the next.

  No papers? No travel beyond the low quarter, no exceptions. This explained why it was distinctly seedier than the rest of Madainn. Anyone could and probably did get in.

  Bannock and Witt reached the toll master�
��s window. His gaze fell somewhere near Bannock’s thigh. His eyes became extra creases in his weathered face, and his black four-cornered cap slid to the ground long before he’d found Bannock’s face.

  The toll master gaped.

  Bannock was used to this.

  The toll master’s eyes bumped along Bannock’s cassock. “What’s yer business here?” he croaked.

  “Brother Guise. My acolyte and I seek shelter for the night.”

  A nearby guard made a growling sound that echoed the sentiment of most Madainns where religion was concerned.

  “Papers!” said the toll master, raking the air.

  “No papers. We’re not allowed any material possessions.” Including Witt’s pile of junk now buried outside Jeorge’s camp.

  The guard made a deeper sound. The toll master banged his stamp into a small scrap of foolscap and handed it to Bannock without looking. “Low quarter only. Sermonizing ain’t permitted. Be gone by the morning bell.”

  Witt held out a hand for his paper.

  The toll master slapped it away. “One marker! Stay together or else.”

  “Deal!” Witt rubbed his knuckles, grinning.

  “Solemnity! Piety! Obedience!” Bannock barked the three virtues at Witt, prodding him toward the gates with a finger-jab between each word.

  “I thought you weren’t a real monk!” whispered Witt, rubbing his smarting shoulder blade.

  “I was held hostage by real monks. And mind your tongue; the walls have ears.”

  “But hopefully not eyes. Look at the size of you!” said Witt when Bannock’s head barely cleared the trade gate.

  They passed inside the walls, a skeleton of wood and iron, cables and gears. Overhead, sections between the two layers were walled in here and there, small dwellings connected by a labyrinth of ladders. Soldiers moved between the shacks, stepping aside for a woman with a steaming kettle. A whole cityscape played out within the walls’ guts above Witt and Bannock.

  The low quarter glowed with the golden flicker of lamps fed from flammable miasma trapped deep beneath the mountain. Bannock thought lamplight was probably all the quarter had in common with the better parts of Madainn. Illumination certainly didn’t do the place any favors, casting a sheen on cobblestone streets slick with horse filth and throwing shadows into alleyways where nothing good ever waited.