Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Brady, Robert

  Their attention had been so focused on me and on controlling their skittish mounts that the raiders didn’t realize that Tareen and the four Volkhydrans had been picking their moment up until now. They crashed like thunder into the bewildered raiders, swords falling, horses and metal screaming in a short, bloody fight. I trimmed the arm from the man I had wounded and one of our men took a bad wound to his shoulder while the rest hammered the enemy, most taking only scratches and bloodying their swords. It only lasted a few seconds, but then eight warriors and two horses lay dead in the mud.

  I wheeled Blizzard around once more and shouted, “To the wagons!” then galloped back the twenty-five yards to our teamsters. They had not fared quite as well and were standing on the wagons themselves, fighting hand-to-hand with five mounted raiders. One more lay dead on the road behind them and another two had fallen back with crossbow bolts embedded in their armor. Blizzard and I, with Tareen right behind us and three more Volkhydrans close behind him, led the rescue.

  I doubt the raiders expected to see us at all. It made more sense that their well-equipped fellows could handle us with the advantage of numbers on their side. Again I rode Blizzard into the side of one man’s horse, the animal screaming in terror as Blizzard bore him down and I drove the point of my sword directly into his riders’ breastplate. The fine sword, with the momentum of the huge stallion behind it, punched clean through the other’s armor, killing him. I held on with two hands and struggled to pull the sword free before that same momentum dragged its wet hilt from my hand.

  At the last moment, fearing I would lose it, the sword came loose, whipped out to my right and beheaded another of the raiders’ horses, dropping him clean and pinning his rider. Even then another was attempting to disengage the teamster he had pinned to the beer wagon, and was not fast enough to prevent me from slashing down his back, parting his armor and severing ribs, revealing the pink inside of his lung. He fell from his horse, which reared in confusion.

  I had passed through them again, and facing one of the two wounded men. He threw down his sword and raised his hands, presenting me with a problem. I really hadn’t thought of taking prisoners in the middle of the battle, and the other men needed me. I made ready to kill him anyway when I heard Tareen and our other men engage.

  The wounded man dismounted as I spared a quick glance and saw that Tareen had tried to imitate me and rammed one of their horses. Not every horse was Blizzard, however, and it had been Tareen’s who had gone down. Fortunately, this left the other so shaken that Verne had been able to follow up and kill his rider, driving the end of his sword into the man’s visor. The last raider fighting attempted to run and took a sword in each kidney from our remaining two guards. The other wounded man followed suit and threw down his sword.

  It had seemed to take an hour but I doubted it had lasted ten minutes. In that time, thirteen men had died, many more wounded on both sides and a few horses had perished. I shook the blood from my blade but didn’t sheath it. As Tareen picked himself up, muddy from the ground, I wondered again at my luck in somehow staying alive.

  There is this thing called, “War’s Wages.” Men captured in battle were allowed to ask for a quick execution on the spot, rather than being taken prisoner. They didn’t have a slave trade here. Some existed in southern Toor, women were little better than slaves to the Andarans, and foreign captives were passed among the denizens of the Swamp of Devils before being eaten, but nothing else. Prison labor, on the other hand, was both a time honored tradition and a short, arduous life.

  The two wounded men were dying from blood loss and immediately called for War’s Wages. Before I could stop them, the guards had beheaded the both of them, and were already trying to catch their horses.

  One man lay pinned beneath the mount I had beheaded. I pulled his helm from his head, spilling out a mop of long green hair. I had never doubted that these were the Uman whom we had seen in Bawser’s compound.

  I sat down on his dead mount’s flank, Blizzard looking over my shoulder, the rain falling around us and into the Uman’s eyes as he tried to look up at me. He had to hold his head up to keep from drowning in the puddle he lay in. I would be surprised if at least one leg wasn’t broken.

  “War’s Wages,” he gasped up at me. The other men were out of earshot, the mounted men trying to catch the raiders’ horses, the teamsters mending their own and looting fallen bodies.

  We had lost two draft horses, both of them for the heavy beer wagon. The raiders’ horses would make poor draft horses but were still better than nothing – and would get us to the next city, where they would be worth more than a draft horse, and were also useful as extra mounts or for sale.

  “The rain should take care of that for you,” I said, looking into his brown eyes, upturned in the Uman fashion with pencil-thin eyebrows.

  “War will frown on you if you deny Him His Wages,” the Uman warned.

  “Possible,” I said. “I would like to know first what you were trying to prove just now, though. I would probably kill you quick if I knew that.”

  The Uman stayed tight-lipped. I shrugged and stood.

  “You can’t leave another warrior like this,” the Uman insisted. It would be a really bad death, I thought. His neck would throb like fire as he tried to keep it out of the puddle. Finally it would weaken and he would drown, over time, in mud and silt, alone in the rain with the pain of a broken leg.

  “You die regardless,” I said. “I never offered you surrender, and I haven’t taken you prisoner, so then War can collect His own wages. If you want to die quick, then you tell me what I want to know.”

  “You are that hired man from Bawser’s,” he said. I nodded.

  The Uman swallowed nervously, seeming to fear his decision. “Jerarl had this plan, to take as many wagons as he possibly could to this contact he had in Conflu. We were going to sell out our services to all of the big traders and then drive the wagons back empty and sell them again. By the time the first load was questioned, we would have been paid twice and stolen as many as fifty wagons.”

  “And your reputation?” I asked.

  “We were going to Andoran, anyway. They wouldn’t care. No one who hires mercenaries really trusts them, anyway.”

  “So why raid us now?” I asked.

  The Uman groaned and sighed. “Jerarl had all of our gold on him when he died. You owed us for that. We decided that you would move fast and come along this road, so we waited for you. We were going to take your wagons and drive them ourselves to Volka.”

  I nodded. “Who was the contact?” I asked.

  “No one knew but Jerarl.”

  “The rain isn’t getting any lighter.”

  “I swear it!” he half screamed. That made me nervous as to the others in the group. I didn’t know that they would respect my technicality or me for using it. I hefted the sword and looked down at the mercenary.

  I had already killed so many! To be expected when War is your god, I suppose. The idea of taking this one in cold blood, though, turned my stomach. What if I missed, and he suffered? What if he wept, or I did? What would I see in his eyes?

  He shut them and I swung the sword down as fast as I could. It took him in the neck and his head sank immediately into the puddle he had been laying in. The water turned red, the rain making ripples in it like from some horror movie. I left the sword in him for a minute or more, just looking down at him, sitting in the dead horses’ flank.

  I had killed three Uman at the head of the Llorando, and a Dorkan soldier in cold blood the next day. Over one thousand, five hundred more Dorkans had died in the Battle of Two Mountains. Jerarl was the only man I had ever killed whose name I knew. I had claimed two in the first part of this battle, two in the second, and this one now.

  I had been afraid that I would never be able to make a living by my sword, and I had killed ten with it already. The Battle of Two Mountains proved that the brain is a more efficient killing instrument. I wanted to throw up.

  Ta
reen found me sitting there and must have guessed what I had done. He just put his hand on my shoulder. When I didn’t react to him he took charge and ordered the bodies pulled to the side of the road. The teamsters started preparing camp and worked out a watch rotation, and a lot of other stuff I didn’t pay attention to.

  Kendo was a city much like Myr. They were also busy with the Sentalan harvest when we rode in the next day under a sun shining brightly. While riding I had been removing my armor piece by piece and cleaning the extensive rust from it. The other guards were doing the same thing, save for the man with the wounded shoulder, who paid a teamster a handful of coppers to do his. That man, Vled, sat glum in his saddle, not saying anything, riding the center guard with me.

  In Kendo we sold the ten raider horses we had caught for two draft horses and a hundred eighty gold coins, which we split twenty ways. Tareen, of course, had thought that he and I should takes captain’s wages (about half of the total, and the rest for the men) and I had just stared him down. I was ready to ask Verne how much it was worth to him in retrospect to save Tareen’s sorry behind when he had fallen from his horse, but hadn’t had to. Another indicator that I had a better handle on my bad temper.

  I couldn’t stop Tareen before he discharged Vled, however. I guess that it is standard practice not to keep a seriously wounded guard longer than necessary. Vled was supposedly a family man and now wouldn’t make all of his wages from taking the train to Volka. A silver a week for three weeks on just this one trip, maybe lose the rest of the season as well, I could see where he would be upset, although the nine gold coins more than compensated him. I shook his hand as he departed, his replacement already having been hired while our head teamster negotiated the price for the horses.

  “You saved my family a hard year, friend Rancor,” he said to me, his hand tight on my forearm as we said good-bye. “If that long shanks had his way, I would have been out with ten silvers.”

  “You took someone else’s sword stroke, my friend,” I told him. “You earned the coin.”

  “Others might not be as quick to say so,” he said, and spat, releasing me. I looked into his eyes.

  “Can you write?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. I thought for a moment and then went with him to find a scribe. Where illiteracy among the masses was quite common, scribes were also common. The one I found could also, for a price, arrange to deliver letters just like a post office. I saw no need since Vled would return to Myr.

  The letter went:

  My dear Aileen,

  I am writing you from Kendo to inform you that we were attacked by those Uman mercenaries on the road yesterday. Tareen and I are both fine, though we did lose two horses and this man, Vled, took a nasty hit. There are still thirteen of the mercenaries on the loose somewhere, but we are being careful. We did split the booty from the mercenaries, so Vled and his family should be quite all right.

  After I arrive in Volka I must travel on to Trenbon. I cannot guarantee what my life has in store for me after that, but I cannot be selfish and ask you to wait for me for what will most likely be several months, even years.

  I am sorry that this was done in a letter. I wish you well and a good man and a huge family – they will be lucky people, all of them.

  Best wishes,

  Rancor

  It was weak, and a lie. I felt like chicken shit for breaking it off this way but I didn’t want to look her in the face and do it either. This was the easiest way, at least for me. My relationships had always ended badly and likely always would – I just don’t trust women. I paid the scribe and put the letter in a scroll tube similar to my own from the Dwarves and sent it on with Vled.

  From Kendo we rode three more days to Vol which, again, looked a lot like Kendo. They did less river trade and much more of a sea trade here however, with sailing ships actually plying up the Llorando to take shipments straight to the other Fovean nations. I think that, had one of them been Trenboni, then I might have left Volkhydro right then, but no such luck. The Harbor Master, when I asked him, assured me he knew of no ships bound for there in the near future.

  Two roads lead from Vol. One goes south, to Hydro, where I could likely get a ship to Trenbon. It was two days’ ride. The other went west, to Volkha, a four-day ride. On Blizzard I could likely make it to Hydro in one day. However, I had been with these men for six days and had gotten to know them. I couldn’t know if the thirteen remaining Uman mercenaries were on our trail, and the Confluni, as well, would be waiting.

  Getting embroiled in merchant politics would be stupid, but it felt right for the time. I trusted to my gut and, the next day, the seventh of our journey, we went west together on a well-worn road. From what we heard, no wagons had come ahead of us and our best defense would be that whoever might be preying on wagon trains would not expect ours to be coming so soon.

  It didn’t make me feel much better.

  Three nights later I sparred with two of the other men while the teamsters put the horses up and Tareen actually stood watch for a change. We were using long, straight branches instead of our own swords and were wearing the padding for our armor. My armor had been much the topic of discussion since leaving Vol, more so because I wouldn’t discuss where I got it.

  I had the better of the other two and they finally confessed defeat. I tossed my branch into the fire and we sat down, getting ready to sleep before our watches, those of us who had them that night.

  I had been thinking recently, on the long, quiet rides between the cities, that these were these men’s lives. Riding in season, hopefully living through it, and then using the coin to provide for families, hoping to stretch the money to the next season, then doing it all over again. No education, no “upward mobility.” Live by your sword and the strength in your body until that gave out or someone better armed or luckier than you wanted what you were guarding and could take it.

  An American has no idea of the opportunity before him. I had met mercs in foreign ports while I was in the Navy, but never really wondered about them. They were just losers to me – shiftless, ruthless, a lesser form of human. Now I had eaten with them, looked in their eyes and been one of them.

  “You are a true son of War, Rancor,” Varne said, sitting next to me.

  My ears perked immediately and I stiffened. “How is that?” I asked him.

  He laughed, the others with him. “No offense, no offense. It is just that you are as lethal as I have seen with that sharp sword and that big horse of yours, and the armor to boot. Even without them you are the best swordsman here, including Tareen long shanks out there in the woods.”

  I scowled. “I didn’t think I was that good.”

  Again they laughed. Our new man, Krell, said, “You are as good as I have seen, Rancor, and I have seen many. I took you for a bounty hunter or a gentleman in distress by your fancy Dwarf armor. Where have you fought?”

  I didn’t like that he recognized the armor and I didn’t like talking about myself. I decided to change the topic and asked, “What is a bounty hunter, that I keep hearing things about?”

  “Pah!” the third man, Chennog, spat. “They are what scum as goes out and kills or hunts men down for money, Rancor. And it is good that you don’t know what one is, that you should never be one.”

  “Not the most popular of people, then?”

  “Not by far,” Varne agreed. “Think, Rancor, what is your opinion of someone who pulls decent men from their beds in the middle of the night and sells them to rich men for money?”

  I didn’t see anything wrong with it, so long as the men were guilty of something, but I didn’t say so. I nodded solemn agreement with all three.

  “There’s two types o’ them,” Chennog said. “There’s the independents, jes’ startin’ out or them as is so good that they don’t need no help surviving. Them’s the ones you see in bars and places, or looking for posters by the Master At Arms.

  “Then there’s the guild – them that sticks together like maggots on
puss and feed no different.”

  “A bounty hunters’ guild?” I asked.

  The other men nodded. “They’re to be feared,” Varne said. “They hunt down men for the wealthiest or those who want vengeance so bad that they will spend everything to have it. They cost more, but they don’t fail. If the first of them doesn’t get the man they’re after, they can send another.”

  I filed this away in my mind. I wondered if there were other such groups as these.

  We would be in Volka tomorrow, and I would be leaving for Trenbon at my earliest opportunity. I would change my name, as well.

  That is when someone decided to put out the fire with Tareen’s dead body.

  Chapter Nine

  The Dead

  Sparks flew up into the night and the horses screamed. Varne swore as he went scrambling for his sword, Chennog and Krell right behind him. Lucky for me that Krell had wanted to see mine before we were sparring; it lay right there where we were sitting. I crawled to it through dirt and soot and put my back to what remained of the fire, searching the night with eyes not yet adjusted to the dark. The moon was down so I had only starlight to see by, my toes and fingers doing more than my eyes to guide me.

  This time the teamsters took the brunt of it – dying alone and in pairs, most screaming for help as the attackers rooted them out from under the wagons where they slept. I heard more than one scramble into the woods, and possibly one or two pursuing them.

  I thought to myself, “If it were me, and I were this ready, then I would follow the assault up with arrow fire.” As that thought occurred to me I dropped to the ground and, moments later, heard the first missiles sail over my head. Whip, whip, whip – through the air. I couldn’t tell how many archers.

  Verne was still cursing a blue streak. Krell and Chennog at least had the sense to be quiet. I could hear men rustling in the underbrush – how many I didn’t know – looking for more of us. As my eyes adjusted I couldn’t help worrying that at any moment I would feel one of their swords in my back. I smelled the ashes from the fire in the musky odor of the dirt I pressed my body into. The padding I wore under my armor was, unfortunately, white. I could assume that they would find me pretty quickly. The armor itself took a good twenty minutes to get on. No way could I stall them that long, much less avoid the racket I would make donning it.