Beguiler

by Maxx Whittaker

  He underestimated a layer of muck at the bottom of the gatehouse steps and his boot sunk into the ankle, taking the hem of his cassock along for the ride. “I see the ground gears of Madainn have claimed the street sweeps and bucket men as casualties.”

  “You mean it’s not always like this?” Witt managed through a plugged nose.

  “The poorest in Madainn are better off than some burghers to the east. Dwarven engineering, goblin tinkering. Heat, light, rubbish bins filled with scraps fit to be set at evening table. The goblins keep even the lesser parts of their city clear. They want merchants to return and buyers to stay and spend, and accept loans, and spend some more.”

  “But they’ve let –” Witt paused for what sounded like a woman screaming bloody murder over the crowd’s hum. Two men bolted from a side street, chasing a wild-eyed sow. Hooves gave her an advantage in the muck, but the sow didn’t seem to realize this, screeching and squealing her way along the high street and over two or three bystanders.

  A small white dog made mostly of teeth and spittle leapt from the back of a wagon onto the sow. The sow screamed one last time and fell over in the mud, stone dead from fright. The first man tripped over the sow, his partner tripped over him, and the dog proceeded to mount his arm while a woman built like a potato pulled fruitlessly on its tail, shouting obscenities.

  “You were saying?” murmured Bannock, staring at the spectacle.

  “I don’t…” Witt shook his head.

  The bottom-most man flailed for something, anything to save him being crushed between his friend and the pig. His grip found purchase on the woman’s bodice. At the ripping sound, Witt turned his back and fixed his eyes on Bannock. “We can take it up again when we get where we’re going.”

  “Good idea.”

  Scenes grew less amusing as they climbed the high street. A man lay face down in the shite, not moving, while two women rifled his pockets and satchel. Whether they were responsible for the blood stain across his back Bannock couldn’t say.

  Further up, a man in a heavy grey cloak slumped against the wall of a letting stable, surrounded by four thinly clad half-elf girls. Despite downcast eyes, Bannock could see their faces bore scares, the sharp white lines of a blade and the red pitted remnants of pox. A fifth girl slipped from an alley beside the group; a man followed her out, still doing up his britches. He scurried off, hat pulled low to hide his face.

  The cloaked man snatched coins from the girl’s hand and prodded her to the back of their group.

  “What is he?” whispered Witt, not being the least bit circumspect in his gaze.

  “A slaver and a pimp. With the duwende not holding the mountain pass, sylvan are at the mercy of anyone who pays the guild enough to go up into the forests.”

  “I thought elves were wise and quick.”

  “So is the hare. Sometimes the wolf still catches her. Here it is,” he nodded to a black-lacquered rooster on a sign up ahead, glad to put the street behind them.

  Whether that gladness would last remained to be seen.

  -Eleven-

  The Black Rooster’s interior felt like a one room inn on to which five or six people who didn’t get along had built their own public rooms. It was clean by tavern standards, though the floorboards held a patina of things tracked in from the street. Still air smelled of good golden ale, a musk of woodsmoke from the back-wall fireplace, and searing fat of some spit-roasted bird that whispered to Bannock how long it had been since Girt’s stew.

  The taproom was full for so late an hour. The Black Rooster must not close, or at least, not during the current crisis. Not when there was lodger’s coin begging to be palmed. Only two of the long trestle tables sat empty. Six traveling merchants claimed one for themselves. None could seem to agree between their grumbling what would solve Madainn’s stalemate, just that they were glad to be rid of sailors for a while. The inn keep booed their sentiment, patting at the thin jingle in his apron pocket.

  A hostler about Witt’s age scurried from the back room with leather lead in hand. Bannock tugged up his hood and waved the boy off. “We’ve no horses.”

  “A wagon then?”

  “No. We’re on foot.”

  “Foot! Can’t think where you’ve come from on foot,” the lad muttered, disappearing. Bannock was just glad the hostler wondered and didn’t ask.

  “Only strong libations and spirits here. No small beer I’m afraid, Brother,” said Waltram at their approach, leaning on the bar. The inn keep was thin with a proliferation of silver facial hair all well-kept, with even the whiskers across his cheeks swept like gills. Sleeves rolled to the elbows revealed lean but not especially well-muscled arms. The general appearance of his frame was of a long sheet of paper waiting to be caught up in a sharp gust.

  “No refreshment. Just some information, if you would. I’ve come on business for the cooper.”

  Waltram nodded, expression flat. “Have a sit. I’ll ask around and see if anyone’s come about such a thing.”

  Bannock and Witt moved through one of the Rooster’s maze of doors only to find this one didn’t lead to another bar room. It dead-ended at two benches and a table set in the street’s amberlight glow that radiated through diamond-shaped windowpanes. A candle sputtered in its earthenware dish, crying out a general neglect of the clandestine space.

  “Are we in the wrong place?” asked Witt, slipping with Bannock onto a bench beneath the window.

  “Guess it depends on whether our tight quarters turn out to be a coincidence.”

  “Or an... assassination?” The voice was rich, low, amused. She slipped from the deep shadows of a corner Bannock had taken for an angled wall. Or maybe it had been a wall, moments before.

  Bannock observed her blades, the cold steel on her lean hip and silver at her back. “A fiendslayer.”

  The woman made a surprised purr, settling next to Witt on the bench. “Not many would know me for what I truly am, not even in these lands.” She spoke from the depths of her grey hood, thick soft wool he knew came from the highlands above Tainn. Her armor, greaves and pauldrons, was old. Craftsmanship and care made this almost impossible to tell for anyone who didn’t know the pieces as an older style.

  “Was it the blades?” she asked, looking them over.

  “The smell, actually.”

  Witt’s eyes widened. He shook his head in a small tremor Bannock struggled to decipher.

  “Oh, is that how introductions are done now in the South? Then you must be a fishwife and a mara, in some combination.”

  Ohh. Bannock looked to Witt, who rolled his eyes. It’d been so long since he’d spent time with a woman not trying to curse or kill him.

  He considered the woman again.

  Not actively trying to curse or kill him.

  “I’ve offended you.”

  “No, you’ve wasted my time. And you’re not a monk.”

  She was bluffing. No one, not even a sylvan could know what he was.

  “I’m an apostate.”

  “You’re a Bloodsworn.”

  “Whoa! She’s good!” shouted Witt.

  Bannock could only blink at the boy and count back from ten until red subsided.

  She laughed. “You on business for the cooper or not?”

  “I was told the duwende might craft me some… light weight armor in exchange for a bit of tidying up.”

  “Jeorge told you right enough. But only one set of papers.” She chucked her head at Witt. “Lad’s on his own.”

  “Oh, I don’t need papers. Laws don’t apply to me.”

  “He your boy?” she asked.

  “No, thank Dagda.”

  “Hey! I’m his squire,” said Witt, ruddy cheeked.

  “He is not my squire.”

  “I’ve been more useful than he gives credit,” said Witt.

  “Be even more useful and go ask Waltram for a tankard,” said Bannock, surprised when Witt jumped to without a drop of nonsense.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked
her when they were alone.

  “Do you?”

  “Bannock.”

  “Just Bannock?” she asked.

  “Need more?”

  “No. I think it’s long enough.”

  “Not the first time I’ve been told that.”

  “I hope we’re still talking about your name; I’m not interested in the length of anything else you’ve got. Unless it’s a blade.”

  “Not the longest thing I possess, but it’ll get the job done.”

  “Mmm. That puts you ahead of most men I know.”

  Bannock laughed and pulled back his hood. “Then I have the job?”

  She did likewise, drawing her face into the candlelight. “Why do you want the job so badly?”

  “I… I…” Bannock couldn’t say why he wanted it. That was, he knew but he didn’t dare form the words.

  A lock of hair slipped the loose knot atop her head, spilling down her slender jaw. It reminded him of starlight, new fallen snow; some other godforsaken metaphor a bard would use. But in this case, there was no escaping the necessity. Her eyes, the first shade of blue after sunrise, held his, unwavering. Full lips rolled in consideration.

  Something terrible has happened; Bannock thought. She’s made me attracted to her.

  Fortunately, he was almost entirely immune to this.

  “You…” she murmured, looking at him in a way that made Bannock worry she knew everything. “You smell like a god, a witch; someplace forbidden and… fire.”

  Bannock winced at this despite himself.

  “There is so much about you. Why are you so eager to have this job?”

  “A witch I met needs something only the goblins can get. And I promised I’d get it.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “You made a promise to a witch?”

  “You don’t think I’m an honorable man?”

  “I think you’re a madman if you imagine I can’t smell that imbued silver on you.” She patted the hilt at her shoulder. “I carry some every day of my life.”

  “So... I don’t want the job; I need it.”

  “Well…” She sat back, considering him, and trilled her fingers on the splintered tabletop, “at least I know you’re motivated.”

  “More than you know. I have somewhere to be and no time for prancing about. I’m ready to work if you’re ready to hire. And if not…” He could go to the source. He could complete the contract without her, now he knew what it was.

  “If not? Hah. If not, no papers for you and I find someone else to give the contract.”

  Bannock leaned in, tired of the itch of a dirty cassock scraping the rope burn around his neck. “You’re a fiendslayer. From what I can see, a skilled and well-equipped fiendslayer. The fact you need help with the lords of the Four Corners? Tells me not just anyone can take this job.”

  “What makes you not just anyone? Besides being Bloodsworn.”

  “Räsvelg makes me not just anyone. Bloodsworn is enough.” He stretched out a leg beneath the table and rattled lead glass vials tied at her hip. “Immune to all but innate magic.”

  “You’re wearing a witch bracelet…”

  “And witches are the only innate magic I know of. You? Anyone else in your travels possess it?”

  She stared him down, openly weighing something.

  “Your runecasting won’t work on me.” He grinned at a shadow passing through her bright blue eyes. “And if you think I can’t smell the arcane aura on you, you must be a madwoman.”

  “It’s not runecasting. It has a name,” she muttered. “And it seems we have each other over a barrel.”

  “Bannock!” hissed Witt, loping back to the table with tankard and mugs cradled like a newborn babe. “There’s a lady.”

  “Oh hell. Is it a witch?”

  “No, no.” Witt fumbled his load to the tabletop, splashing their companion with a tongue of ale. “A lady in the taproom. She asked me for help.”

  “That sounds like a witch,” Bannock and their companion said in unison.

  “Not a witch. She asked me to grind her corn. Corn! I’m a squire, not a miller. So, then she said could I come upstairs and shake out her sheets. Anyone can do that. So, I told her I’d bring this over and let you know I’m going up to help her.”

  “Squire,” said Bannock, pointing to the open spot beside their guest, “some deeds are beyond your station.”

  “Oh! Oh. Really? I thought we were supposed to help anyone in need.”

  “You’ll run yourself ragged that way,” said the woman, pursing a smile.”

  “I’m Witt,” he said to her, thrusting out a hand like it was his first real shake. Bannock wondered how long Witt had been in that swamp.

  “Kennadale Maddhageal.”

  “Whoa! That’s a nameful,” said Witt, filling his mug.

  “Kenna’ll do.”

  “That your given name?” asked Bannock, watching her reaction.

  Kenna bristled. “I was supposed to be a boy.”

  “I meant Maddhageal.” White Wolf. It was no commonplace moniker.

  “It’s just a name in these lands.” Kenna kept eyes fixed on her mug, pouring slowly. “It doesn’t mean anything…”

  Anymore.

  Bannock heard her silent conclusion. He knew the feeling all too well.

  -Twelve-

  “I hope I die right now,” Witt said again, fanning arms and legs back and forth across the quilt.

  “You don’t get off that bed, you may get your wish,” said Bannock, wrestling out of his cassock.”

  “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

  “Well…” Bannock gestured to the rug, the hearth, and an oversized by structurally questionable chair barricading the wardrobe door.

  Was it keeping something in? Maybe he should check.

  “Not a chance!” Witt stopped fondling the bed and sat up. “My coin paid for this room. I get to sleep in a proper bed.”

  “In a day I’ve been tried, hanged, cursed, hunted, burdened with a squire and provoked by a whatever she was. I’ve earned a bed.”

  “Fine.” Witt rolled to one side.

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Men in the army don’t sleep close?”

  “I’m not in an army.”

  “No. You’re in an inn. With a bed!” Witt made an exaggerated snoring sound and Bannock gave up.

  He’d been under the quilts for at least five minutes when his eyes shot open. “You told me you don’t sleep!”

  Bannock felt the boy’s panicked flail through patchy down. “Well… that’s because I never had a proper bed. Turns out I do sleep.”

  “Oh. Proper bed.” Bannock rolled away. “Hope no one put a pea under the mattress.”

  “A what?”

  “Go to sleep.” Low tongues of flame seeped into the coals. Bannock lay in red gold light and counted the days. He’d passed the corn cutting on the road. Slaughter had already ended in Varnay when Ferth had him arrested. By the time he finished here in Madainn, Ýlir would be mostly done.

  And then… Black Frost.

  He had to be in Hastings by the last day of Ýlir. Fourteen days from now; no more.

  He had to be on the last ship. Waiting half a year was not an option; he’d be back on Orilus by then.

  Or worse.

  “What?” whispered Witt in the darkness.

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Bannock, turning further away.

  “You’re breathing different.”

  “Why are you listening to my breathing?” Sometimes Bannock missed being alone.

  Witt did a horrible thing and rolled over. “Were you really a duke?”

  “I really was. And a king… for about an hour.”

  “A king! King of where?”

  “Nowhere. Doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Places always exist,” said Witt as if Bannock was an idiot. “They don’t disappear.”

  “Maybe I just can’t see it a
nymore. It’s been a hundred years.”

  “You’re one hundred.” The boy sounded beyond dubious.

  “One hundred and twenty-three, give or take. I lose track of the years now and then.”

  “Huh. Because you’re a Bloodsworn? I mean, that’s why you’ve lived so long?”

  “No.” Bannock clenched his eyes shut. His skin burned and withered beneath the Orilus sun. Grit lodged between his teeth, hard and thick as new bone. He cupped the rope burn around his neck, packed with dirt and sand and wished the hardest he’d wished in a long time for a bath. Water to wash away the sensation and the old fear.

  “No,” he repeated, exhaling. “There were other reasons.”

  “You didn’t just burn your men because they died…”

  Bannock almost told the boy to shut his mouth and go to sleep. “Argus betrayed us by taking his men from the field. But he left his necromancer. My men were raised as… as –” He couldn’t.

  “I’ve never seen a real necromancer.” Witt’s voice was soft with fright.

  “Almost no one has. Do you know what it takes to practice the antediluvian magics? Absolute devotion. Ruthlessness. Cruelty. Fearless obedience to a fickle, dangerous master.”

  “What’s a mortal lord have that anyone like that would trade for?”

  “Exactly.” Witt was keener than he’d given credit. “And the Inquisition, for all their talk of purging the Church, Iron into Steel, would have the most terrible magics in their armory.”

  “What do they want from you?”

  “Bloodsworn have more than common Aspect but less than a demi-god – Aspect being the magic anyone can use, and demi-god powers unable to be harnessed by any means I know.”

  “So, you’re the best it gets for them.”

  “No.” Bannock tucked up to sit against the headboard beside Witt. “That’s why they persecute witches. A witch has innate power. She’s the only being in the world made of magic. She has to learn to focus her powers, but unlike a wizard she doesn’t have to learn to possess powers in the first place.”