Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Brady, Robert

  I nodded. “Was he a heavily muscled Dwarf with a heavy hammer?” I asked.

  “He was.”

  “I owe my life to him,” I said honestly. “He died saving me.”

  Lelekt looked up into my blue eyes, his brown ones searching me. I saw a tear run out from each side. Dwarven children are rare and dear, and the Dwarves were never many.

  “I appreciate your saying so,” Lelekt said, “and respect the courage to admit that to a father who has outlived his son.”

  “I am wearing armor made by Fovea’s premier artisan,” I said. “I have nothing to fear.”

  Lelekt smiled ruefully. “Oh? I made it, Man. I know where the chinks are, you know.”

  “This is true.”

  I felt it better to do this than to tell him that his son stood up at the wrong time and had died not paying attention. No father should remember his son that way.

  He went his way, and I went mine. The path to the goat plains from their mountain home required that I be passed from Dwarf to Dwarf through a maze of tunnels. By the time I arrived they had already saddled Blizzard, and he stood stomping and snorting, upset by so many other living things around him.

  I saw Kvitch there, mounted on a small pony with a saddle like my own. We didn’t talk much. There were other Dwarves heaping him with good wishes and compliments, and he pretty much just waved. I jumped on my horse, which fixed me with an angry glare for the extra weight of the saddle and the armor, and turned him towards Sental to find Trenbon and the Fovean High Council, whatever that was.

  Chapter Six

  My Encounter with Volkhydrans

  I traveled for two weeks down the Llorando. I had managed to abscond with the bedroll they had given me, as well as the pouch full of gold coins (when I finally counted them, there were fifty, in addition to those I had found on the Sentalan), but seeing as I didn’t know their value I didn’t know if that made me rich. I had my armor, my sword, a bow and a quiver with two-dozen arrows, a saddlebag full of provisions, and Blizzard. The Dwarves had been right that the Llorando could be drunk, if barely, so I didn’t want for water.

  At night, the river seemed to cry. I have no explanation for this except to say that, rather than the roar of rapids or the “babble” of a brook; the Llorando made a sound like a man weeping. I didn’t realize when it began, I would merely feel very depressed and then realize that I had been listening to the noise for some time.

  This affected Blizzard as well. I remember the day that we left the Great Northern Mountain Range. We both stopped on a rise as the sun moved past its zenith and just stood there for a very long time. When I had roused myself, that same sun had become an angry orange orb hovering just above the tops of the farthest mountain. The stallion put its head down to the grass, his front legs splayed, as if the river’s grief had become his own, and I found myself thinking of the ill luck that had brought me to this place. I looked down at the sleeves of my armor and saw them stained gold by the sun, dressing me up like a doll instead of a man while the river wept to know me.

  Self-pity had never been my thing and it infuriated me now. I was not about to give up to some damned river! This place, this land where they thought the very Earth to be a god, had finally taken up arms against me. Now the sun glared down at me like another god sent here to judge me and to find me unfit, then to color me so that all of the world would know it.

  Ahab swore that, if the sun were to curse him, then he would smite it, because if the sun could curse him then that would mean that it must expose itself. I had stood before the god War and trembled in his wrath. I didn’t smite War because he had the power to tear my soul apart. I couldn’t stand before War, but that didn’t mean I could be pushed around.

  I drew the Sword of War and pointed it at the setting sun. The end of the blade burned almost red in the light as if to match my anger. Blizzard’s head came up, sensing my motion, looking for whatever had roused me.

  “You will not beat me down!” I screamed. I don’t know if it was at the river or the Dorkans or the sun or the angry god War, but my voice echoed from the far mountains and my throat ached as I released two weeks of pent up fury at the Llorando. “Lay what you want to on me! I have a right to be here and you will not interfere.”

  It might have been a solar flare or a warning from War, but at that moment the sun flashed back at me like an explosion of red and orange, and Blizzard reared, not in terror but in anger at the moment. He screamed his challenge and I screamed mine and together we bolted toward the end of the mountain path along the weeping river.

  Down out of the mountains we rode like a storm into the nation of Sental. We saw wide plains of hay and I could not restrain Blizzard from bolting headlong into them. He ran as if all of the wind on Fovea ran through his mane and tail, as if by running, he could undo fourteen days pent up in sorrow by the Llorando. His muscles bunched and released between my legs, the plates in my armor clanking as I rode him squinting into the wind. That giddy exaltation you feel after a near accident or a bad fight had me shaking in my saddle, that disbelief that you had really survived it. We must have gone five miles before he slowed and another five before, winded and lathered, he cantered again. By then we had left the Llorando far behind on the horizon and were well into the hay field.

  Now I could see a neat square beginning on the far horizon where corn began. Someone farmed here and would not be happy to see a Man and his horse tearing through it. I worked at turning Blizzard back to the river gradually. When I looked behind us I could see the arcing path we had cut and knew, if anyone tended the field, then they would have no trouble finding us, and no more trouble telling from where we came.

  Uman are light and quiet and an armored man on a huge stallion is big and noisy, so it is no wonder that I didn’t hear them coming. As I worked Blizzard back to the river, pretty much against his will, he suddenly stood stock-still and I barely had time to draw my sword before they were around us.

  There were seven, all armed with pitchforks with the exception of one carrying an ax. One made a grab for Blizzard’s bridle but the stallion snorted. I leveled my sword at his eye and he changed his mind.

  They spoke in a language I didn’t understand, and then once again I felt a burning, tingling sensation in my brain and the speech made sense.

  “-have no right to be here, Man. How will you compensate us for the hay you have ridden down?” the man with the ax demanded. I looked behind me, at a swath of grass that curved out back to the horizon. I turned back to the grim-faced and angry Uman. He had long, green hair and high-tilted eyes. His thin fingers gripped the ax with white knuckles, and I could see the veins standing out in his forearms. Unlike the scouts I had seen, these Uman were more heavily muscled from long days spent farming. I wouldn’t like to think what he could do with that ax.

  “How valuable is your grass?” I asked. I thought he was being ridiculous, actually. In a day the hay would be standing again and the trail almost invisible. Surely they had walked through it to get to me.

  He obviously didn’t like my tone. “It is a matter of principle,” he informed me, and the others nodded. “We cannot have every errant Dorkan deserting from the army-“

  I leveled the sword at him again. “I am no Dorkan.”

  Here I thought I might have an advantage. If they thought they were dealing with a Dorkan, then they likely thought they could intimidate me, and even more likely believed that they could turn me in to the Dorkan Wizards for some reward. By playing offended, I decided I had my best chance of turning the tables on them.

  “Don’t tell me you weren’t with that army that marched through here,” he said. His fellows had started backing up.

  “How many of them were dressed like me, farmer?” I asked him, making “farmer” almost a curse. “How many were mounted, and how many had blond hair?”

  I could only go this far because I had taken the time to study the Dorkan army and know that they tended toward mud-brown hair and tan skin. Regar
dless of whether the Uman had gotten a good look at them or no, he would have seen that they were infantry, not cavalry.

  And it hit home. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes.

  “Then what are you?” he asked, twisting the ax handle in his grip, still unwilling to give ground, although his fellows were easily a foot farther from me than they had been. “What are you doing in Sental?”

  “I’m on my own business,” I countered. “Who among you stands between it and me?”

  I believed the farmers would fight if they saw me as a threat to them; and they would just as likely fight if they thought that they could bring me down and turn me in to the Dorkan Wizards for a reward. However, an unfamiliar warrior on a horse, in armor, was a different matter. If they pressed this, someone among them would get killed. They were not as committed to turning back a stranger as I was to going my own way, and I took the upper hand.

  The one with the ax knew it. “You’d better get out of here, Man,” he told me. “Sental is no place for you.”

  I snorted. “I take that as a compliment,” I said and, pulling back on Blizzard’s reins, backed him up out of the circle and turned him around, keeping them to one side until I was too far for them to throw a pitchfork. Then I headed straight for the river at a gallop before they could get their courage up.

  I don’t know if I would have been a match for so many. Surely the armor I wore would have helped me and, of course, none of them could keep pace with Blizzard. However, a pitchfork in his side might have put my stallion down, and a lucky hit to my face could have blinded me. I felt glad we didn’t fight because I saw no point in it, and I think they saw that, too.

  I rode for five more days before I could look across the Llorando and see the city of Myr. A peaked bridge made of wood and stone, in good shape, crossed the river to its east. Myr had to be an important trade city for both the Sentalans and the Volkhydrans. I had followed a loose Sentalan road on this side, leading to the southwest. No one traveled on it.

  A high wall formed a semicircle around the city on the landside, standing open at the river harbor. Docks made from wood and stone, moss growing up the pylons from the river, stood half-empty before me. I could see human workers, but not many. The place seemed not to be doing too outstanding a trade.

  I wondered at this – the hay was ripe and golden. I did pass a cornfield that had half-ripe ears (never eat those, by the way, they are awful). I would have questioned the many Sentalans that I saw, but they behaved just as taciturn as the ones I had first met.

  I started Blizzard across the bridge, his hooves beating a tattoo on the wooden planking. Another priority would be to have him shod, and soon, if the streets were paved with cobblestones here. His speed would be worthless with a split hoof. I looked down at the stallion’s proud neck and wondered how he would react to that.

  The saddle had been hard enough on him. The first night on the road he had tried to chew it, and I had caught him just in time to cover it with his saddle blanket. He had tried again several nights later. Fortunately I knew how to keep a saddle and lay a blanket so that the horse wouldn’t have sores.

  Sitting in a saddle all day had me grimacing as we topped the bridge. I shifted my sore butt in its padding as I saw a steel-shod gate several miles into the city, standing no less than fifty feet in height. A wide, cobbled road led straight to it from the bridge, shops and warehouses on either side. The reek off of the streets hit me full in the face then – the painful stench of human living coming in on the wind. I knew that it would take about thirty minutes before the receptors in my nose were saturated and I could no longer smell it.

  I chuckled softly to myself as I thought, Maybe War brought me here to be a plumber. If that’s true I’ll die a wealthy man! If only it were that easy!

  A man in a tight-fitting leather jerkin stood guard at the end of the bridge. I saw the long pole he held, and its wicked-shaped spearhead, as I topped the bridge’s center. He looked up at me in surprise when I came down the rise to meet him. The bridge itself must have stretched a good quarter-mile, peaking no less than a hundred feet in the air. A low-slung merchant ship would easily make it underneath. River boats were often pulled by teams of oxen in early American history, and were usually geared for shallow water, with wide bottoms. The teams would walk on cattle paths along the river’s edge as the boat moved back upstream. As I saw no road here and the harbor extended far upstream along the river, I guessed that they either poled or rowed their riverboats.

  “Halloo,” the man said, holding tight to his pole arm. “You are a big fish to come up out of the water.”

  I chuckled. Better to be friendly if I could. “Let me dismount,” I said, as I came within reach of him.

  He shook his head. “No need,” he told me. “There is no search and no tax to enter the city in off season. You are here to get a jump on the season, I am guessing.”

  It was tempting to play smart and say, “Sure, I am!” Anyone who did that didn’t know beat cops and security guards, though. They are notoriously bored and usually know a lot more than people give them credit for. I only know this myself because I had worked as one while in college. If this guard was bored and friendly, I could get a lot of information from him.

  “I’ve never been here before,” I told him. “What season?”

  He laughed and beckoned to me to get down, smiling knowingly as I did. The saddle creaked and my armor grated, and I smiled, having guessed right. Blizzard shivered off a big horse fly and I patted his neck, standing between him and the guard, towering a foot above him.

  “The season is harvest, um…”

  I extended my wrist for him to grab. “Rancor,” I told him.

  “Rancor,” he said, taking my wrist in his hand, and me taking his in mine. I felt the small dagger in his sleeve and he looked into my eyes. “Rourke.”

  “A pleasure, Rourke,” I said. “The harvest from Sental, I‘m guessing?”

  He smiled his knowing smile. I was content to play the big, dumb guy right now. We spoke for no less than a half-hour about the seasons, and I learned a lot.

  First, there were thirteen months in the year, each with twenty-eight days. One day, called All Gods’ Day, came between the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, and every four years another day followed it called ‘Steel.’ The months themselves were named after their gods, Adriam, Eveave, Weather, Earth, War, Destruction, Chaos, Water, Law, Order, Life, Power and Desire – in that order. We were in the month of Water, and in Law the Sentalans would bring the Harvest in. I had arrived near the beginning of Chaos, apparently. Somehow that made sense.

  When the Harvest came in, the city made the biggest portion of its money. The produce would be weighed and the Sentalans paid, the money being credited to the Sentalan collective body. Then it would be moved from here to other cities and other nations via caravans and by river.

  They would be hiring armed guards. Thieves and cutthroats from all over the world would be arriving to prey on the caravans on the open roads. Sental provided a huge portion of the region’s food at this time of year and the trade promised to be lucrative.

  Rourke had seen my armor and assumed that I had come here looking for caravan duty. The drivers liked big men, and I was the biggest that he had seen so far. As well, a man so heavily armored must have had a successful career as a mercenary.

  “You are a lucky one, Rancor,” he told me. “To get a man of your size, they will hire you quick as a wink. You will be sitting on your arse for a whole month on the pay, or swilling down ale in the taverns and chasing our girls, before they even think to need you.”

  He gave me a sly wink and I laughed. “You have the right of it,” I said. Here I thought it best to lie. I remembered Hvarl’s warning on the public opinion on Dwarves. “Who would you think pays best?”

  “Ah, be smart, Rancor,” he said, slapping my armored shoulder. It couldn’t believe how bad his breath stank. He was missing four teeth on one side and I figured th
ere were no less than three gone on the other. “The highest pay is to the farthest, most dangerous places.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  He laughed until he coughed. “Ah, you big buck! Fine for you, then – go to Ulek or Volka – I think it is Bawser’s Shipping what goes there. Both are on the Confluni border, and it seems as them Confluni aren’t afraid to make a little side trip on their own into good ol’ Volkhydro to get their wares a little earlier and a lot cheaper, if you get my meaning.”

  I did and said so. “More toward the Bay, though,” I told him. “I want to go to Trenbon Island later this year.”

  He nodded. “Smart move,” he said. “I’m told as they hire Men for guards for the ‘Chi and they pay well for them. I might should go with you, except that my wife won’t want to live in Outpost IX.”

  Blizzard bobbed his head and had begun stomping, and I had learned a lot. I thanked him and shook his hand. I almost gave him one of my gold coins, but thought he would find it odd to get so big a tip (if it was a big tip – and I had to think so) from a traveling mercenary. I promised I would buy him a drink if I saw him while I stayed here, and he promised he would take me up on it.

  He directed me to a good smith. He looked at Blizzard and commented on his size, then recommended Iron Jack inside the city gates. Not only did he handle heavy horses like mine, he worked out of a decent hostel that would put me up at a deal if I were already doing business with Jack.

  That night I perched on a stool in a smoky tavern, still in my armor, my sword over my shoulder and my helmet fastened to my belt, eating the best food I had ever tasted only because it was hot and someone else had cooked it. The Dwarves seemed to prefer their food bland. Here I had paid a precious gold coin for a month of two meals a day, a room with a door that locked and a bed with brand-new straw ticking.

  The stew consisted of a rich broth with big hunks of carrots, potatoes and some beef-like meat, gobbets of fat floating on top of it. My lips and chin were already coated from eating so fast. There were two owners: a one-armed man with a heavy paunch and a patch over one eye named “Fat Garret” and his wife, a rosy-cheeked matron with breasts lying on her stomach, dressed in a white peasant dress and no shoes, named “Elle”. Both laughed and Elle put another bowl in front of me, no charge. I smiled up with a mouth full of food, feeling like a little boy, and just kept eating. Fat Garret put down a thick, foamy beer in a wooden stein next to the bowl.