All heads turned to the Scitai, the contempt barely veiled. In a moment I surmised the Scitai – Trenboni relationship. The third Uman-Chi opened his mouth to comment and I took my chance.
Yelling, “Ha!” I kicked my heels into the stallion’s sides. He leapt forward with the same bold contempt he usually held for all life, crashing into the side of Aniquen’s mount. The horse nickered and stepped sideways, falling. I turned and drew my sword as one of the Uman-Chi, of the two who had not yet spoken, drew a long, slim blade and, fast as light, cut in under my arm to my armor.
The armor rang, but held. I barely felt the blow. My sword swept down across his forearm, severing the limb just below the elbow, parting the silver armor like silk. Another blow rang across my back and I turned, seeing the first who had spoken withdrawing for another blow. This one Blizzard took care of, mule-kicking his mount in the ribs and lifting both horse and rider off the ground.
The stallion landed hard and jarred me. To my right an Uman-Chi charged in an effort to imitate what Blizzard had done. He failed to remember that surprise figured in that, and my extended sword impaled his chest a moment before his horse shied and turned. The two bolted away from the city, the rider holding his chest, bent over.
My left arm jumped and I turned to see the final rider withdrawing a blooded sword. I felt more than saw that he had gotten the tip up under my elbow joint. Xinto’s knife answered him before my sword could, catching him under the jaw and burying itself up to the hilt. The man fell backwards from his horse, which bolted.
Aniquen looked up at me from beneath his horse, which lay at Blizzard’s feet. The white stallion backed up and to his left, away from the horse he had killed and the other that he had humbled. Aniquen’s expression looked more like extreme offense than of fear. He looked to see fallen and deserted comrades, then back up at me.
“You have certainly made yourself a known man in Trenbon, Mordetur,” Aniquen said. “An unprovoked assault upon a member of a royal house –“
“Will bring a horde of bounty hunters looking for you, if you open your mouth,” I finished for him. “Or do you want it known that you tried to kill one of us when we refused to be hired?”
I leveled a serious look at him, lowering my sword, the point indicating his heart.
“No one will dare touch a member of a royal house,” he told me.
“Look around you, and tell me if that is true,” I countered.
That made him quiet and he looked away. I found Xinto extracting his dagger from the dead Uman-Chi and waited for his eyes to meet mine. When they did he held my gaze for a moment, then indicated with a turn of his chin that we should be leaving. I agreed, nodding, and he mounted.
“I expect that it would take thirty Dorkans to counter five of a royal house,” I said to Aniquen.
“Why Dorkans?” he asked, trying but unable to get out from under his horse. I realized that the beast had died, having struck its head on the ground when it fell.
“I don’t like Dorkans,” I said. I turned Blizzard and Xinto and I rode back to the city proper, bold as brass.
We sat at a bar that night, Xinto and I. “I do a lot of fighting and drinking on this world,” I thought. Too much. Old patterns were reasserting themselves – these were the things that had landed me in jail on a murder rap. We had already heard a rumor of a Dorkan assault on the persons of members of four royal houses. This, and their latest aggression on the Dwarves, would dig them a deep grave for the Fovean High Council
My arm hurt and had required stitches, which Xinto had gleefully performed. He used a blunt needle and did the work sloppy. At least the battle scar would look like one.
Now we drank warm ale and ate cold beef at the bar where I had been staying. I had no idea where Xinto stayed at night, except to say that it wasn’t with me. He usually found me in the morning.
“You aren’t a bounty hunter, are you?” he asked.
“And what makes you say that?”
“You invoked the Guild.”
“And?”
“And they will likely send a real bounty hunter to kill you now, if they get wind of it, and they likely will.”
“Why is that?”
“No one pretends to be a member of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, Mordetur,” he said. “A group that makes money killing important people for other important people and doing mercenary work usually doesn’t advertise that way.”
That made a lot of sense. I wondered if I could take on a real bounty hunter, and doubted it. At least I had a better idea of what they were.
“You need to take Ancenon’s offer.”
“I suppose,” I said. Made a lot of sense, now. It was time to get the hell out of Dodge.
“I was wondering if you were looking to join the Guild,” Xinto said. “Sometimes people come here to find them.”
“You are affiliated with them somehow?”
“Not precisely,” he said. “I don’t know what you know about
me…”
“Well, I know you aren’t from the Silent Isle, so I guess you are from some other group of Scitai.”
Xinto’s eyes widened. “How in War’s beard did you know that?” he asked. “I have been here off and on for months and no one has figured that out.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I said. “It is pretty obvious.”
“How?”
I chuckled, and clapped his thin shoulder. I could feel bulges and bumps even there – his cloak, which he never took off, seemed to be made entirely of pockets.
“You don’t have any friends, Xinto,” I told him. “You are like me. No one says hello to you, and you are quick to fight because you have nowhere to run.”
“Ha,” Xinto said. “You are wrong. I am seen with some of the most influential people on the Silent Isle.”
“No doubt,” I said. “But no one waves, “Hello,” to you in the street. We’ve been all over, and no one recognizes you, not even other Scitai, who go out of their way to greet each other.”
He thought about that, then he shook his head and laughed. He took a long pull of his ale and then sucked the foam from his moustache.
“There is a whole other race of Scitai in Conflu,” he said. “I am here, believe it or not, for archaeology.”
“Digging up old, dead Scitai?”
He looked up into my eyes to see if I was serious, so I gave him a half-grin. We talked for hours about migrations of different people before “The Blast” and I got to know him. We said goodbye late in the evening, another person walking into and out of my new life.
The next morning I paid my bill, mounted my horse and rode him outside of the city gate, landside, where Ancenon and his friends were waiting for me.
Chapter Twelve
Friends and Ill-Fates
I remember the first woman I ever fell in love with. Naturally, it was unrequited – she was a few years older, a cashier, long, black hair and hot, Spanish eyes. I was eighteen at the time, full of myself. I had all of these great things to make out of her. I should have caught on when she pawned the engagement ring I bought her. She screwed me over hard, had me paying her rent, went into debt for her, trashed my credit, got kicked out of college for missing classes and bad grades, and then I lost my job for recommending her and her even-worse cousin for employment.
I left her for a sweet and loving girl, willing to dedicate her whole life to me. Also Spanish, very intelligent, she had everything going for her. I did her so wrong it hurts to remember it. Just plain disgraced her in front of her family and left her flat, breaking our engagement after I had so-obviously deflowered her, a good Catholic girl.
I would love to say I felt bad about it, but in fact I found it invigorating. Years later, when I took the time to think about it, I realized that I had done myself as bad as I had done her. I never met anyone, ever, who could love me like that, and odds were I never would. As much as she got what she didn’t deserve, I got what I did.
I only mention this now because
I was reminded of it as I sat my horse outside of the wharf at Outpost IX. I thought about how my fate kept changing; my life kept moving itself in some obscure direction with me just hanging on. Would Fovea become the woman I had done wrong, or would I?
A tall, wide ship sat at anchor less than three hundred yards offshore, her crew of Uman seamen scurrying across her rigging, making her ready for sea. A barge – a shallow, flatbed launch that shuttled people between the ship and shore - wallowed wharf-side with a brow wide enough and thick enough for horses holding it in place. Ancenon, astride his horse, greeted me and introduced me to the rest of his team.
I met Thorn first. His hair and eyes were light brown, his face pinched in frown. He was an Andaran plainsman, skilled at horsemanship and hunting, and I caught him eyeing Blizzard speculatively. Nantar, heavily armored in plate as thick as mine, though not fluted like mine, with a heavy sword at his hip and a crossbow over his shoulder, was a warrior by trade. He had never been beaten in combat, a stocky man with black hair and beard with brown eyes and heavy muscles. Drekk was an Uman, lightly armored all in black, with a compact bow over one shoulder and a thin rapier on his hip. He had close-cropped grey hair and thin hands with long fingers. I couldn’t connect with his shifty green eyes. He had a pouch just like mine, so I took him for Sentalan.
D’gattis just looked at me. Dressed in a long, white robe and light cloak, he also carried a thin sword. He had the silver eyes and green hair of an Uman-Chi and was no doubt a relative of Ancenon’s. Arath also sat a horse, a big roan. He wore a long, chainmail shirt and carried a short, double-edged sword with an ax and a longbow tied behind his saddle. He was introduced as a woodsman and an Eldadorian. I liked his slow, easy smile. Finally, I met a human woman with long, red hair. She wore tight, black leather and carried a small crossbow – almost a cross-pistol – at her hip. Daggers adorned her lithe body – her upper arms, her thighs, her sides and the backs of her calves were covered, in addition to a bandoleer across her chest with seven more. They called her Genna, and I had never seen eyes so green.
“Well, here is a big piece of meat,” she drawled, seeing me. “What is with those horns, big man?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, meeting her green eyes. “The Dwarves made the whole suit for me after the Battle of Two Mountains.”
“You were there?” Arath asked.
“Probably a Dorkan mercenary,” Thorn speculated, just before he spat.
“I was there, and fighting for the Dwarves,” I said.
“He speaks the truth,” Ancenon intervened.
“You know the Dwarves?” Nantar asked. “They don’t like Men.”
“I was their emissary to the Fovean High Council,” I said.
“Doesn’t explain the horns – what is your name, anyway?” Genna pressed. She made a point of making eye contact, sizing me up. I recognized trouble with many sharp edges in her.
“Lupus,” I said. Ancenon raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Time for another name-change, I had decided. No need to make the Bounty Hunters’ job any easier.
She nodded. “Lupus, then.”
Ancenon took charge and we loaded the horses onto the barge. The other mounts deferred to Blizzard, shying their sides from his. I went over with Thorn, Arath and Nantar. I would learn later that Nantar and Thorn were the best of friends. Thorn looked Blizzard over one more time and then at me.
“He is from the Wild Horse Plains,” Thorn told me.
I nodded, wondering what he wanted. Three Uman sailors poled the barge out toward our ship.
“No man tames those horses,” he said, almost as if to accuse me of some hideous wrong.
“So I hear.”
“Well?”
“Well what?” I asked, irritably. I usually liked to know someone for a few minutes before I let him piss me off, but obviously Thorn wanted to be an exception.
“Will he let anyone else ride him?” Nantar asked, his voice booming, no doubt used to shouting through a battle. He stood with Thorn and me on either side of him. He stood six inches shorter than me, but he was solid muscle and probably out-weighed me.
“No one,” I said. “Though he has let two ride with me while I rode.”
“How did you tame him?” Thorn asked. He was persistent, anyway.
I sighed. “He was hungry, I had food, and we were by the Tears of the World. It took about a day or two, but he came around. He is very loyal and mean as a snake.”
“My father tried to bring a horse down from those Plains,” Thorn said.
“He died trying, you mean – not Lupus’ fault, and certainly not the stallion’s” Nantar said quickly.
Thorn turned away. “Just keep him away from me.”
Ancenon’s ship had been built wide but not too deep. This made for plenty of room for the horses in the hold, with extras already loaded for the rest of the team and a few more for baggage. I also saw supplies laid in tight bundles and barrels stacked in the stringers as if for a long journey. Experienced Uman sailors chained Blizzard’s fetlocks to keep him from kicking or attacking the other horses, and then hooded him as an added precaution. The stallion would likely sleep out the journey. Although I knew he had been through it once before, I still felt bad for him. Blizzard and I fought alone on this world.
I sensed more than felt the small hand in the center of my back – heard the whisper of well-worked leather. I turned to see Genna had come onboard and found me. She looked up at me, almost a foot shorter, still sizing me up.
“Thorn doesn’t like you,” she told me, her mouth set in a challenging smile.
“So I gathered,” I said, looking back toward the horses. I had resolved to stay here until we got underway. I felt reasonably sure the chains were too light for him if he started kicking. Even if they weren’t, I didn’t want him tearing his fetlocks apart.
“Don’t let it bother you, big man,” she said. “He hates everyone, except his wife and Nantar.”
“Married, huh?”
“So is Nantar.”
“You, too?”
“Nah. You?”
I thought of Aileen. “Nah,” I said. “Not for me.”
Her fingernails drummed the front of my armor. “Good to hear,” she said. “All of these have wives or some sort of serious lovers. I didn’t want it to be a boring trip.”
I looked down at her. She looked up at me, still gauging me. I guess a woman that heavily armed is going to be as forward as she wants. “I’m not looking for a whole lot of boring,” I countered.
“Oh, it won’t be for you, I’m sure,” she said, moving her hand along the front of my armor, resting light, long fingers on my breastplate. “When the Confluni figure out what we are about, you and all of the other big, strong men will be anything but bored.”
She traced an invisible pattern over the fluting in my armor, as if the metal ridges were the most fascinating things in the world. “But poor little me,” she continued, “is only along to run through the woods and pick pretty flowers; and seeing as there really is no Outpost X, I think that even that will be a pretty boring job.”
“If there is no Outpost X, why go?”
She chuckled. “Well, the Confluni count themselves the best trackers and the tightest security in the world. I want to be the only one – the only woman - to beat them.”
I looked right into her eyes. Blizzard had already settled and, although some of the other horses were skittish, they didn’t worry me. This seemed more important.
“Reputation is everything, after all,” I said.
“Big words from a Bounty Hunter,” she countered.
“True enough.”
“Soooo,” she said, drumming her fingernails on the breastplate, her inspection of that having terminated. “It’s a three-day trip to Conflu. I don’t know where we are dropping off, probably near the Sea of Xyr. So until then ...”
I ran my fingers through her hair. She leaned her head into my palm and closed her eyes. I wondered about her game pla
n. No woman this driven would give herself away so easily. Other than Ancenon, though, I had no other ally onboard the ship, so I saw no point in alienating her.
“Until then – how are the sleeping arrangements around here?” I asked her.
She opened her eyes and grinned up at me. “Looking better and better.”
Three days passed, and I got to know the other members of the team. Arath had made a name for himself in Eldador, prospecting the new nation for King Glennen and sending back information to be used for colonization. Glennen’s strengths supposedly lay in the men working for him, and he had become an expert at achieving his goals through others, mostly because both sides usually ended up the better for it. Arath seemed too smart to be used. He struck me as quick with his sword but slow to use it, if that made any sense. Thorn’s barbs bounced from his armor.
Thorn was another matter; he really seemed to hate everyone. Like Arath, he possessed exceptional skills both with a sword and as a woodsman. Only Nantar could beat him on the battlefield, and he had already penetrated deep into Conflu on behalf of his people.
Nantar had clearly been brought along as muscle. He made me look like an idiot when we sparred, and even then I had a hard time telling if I was getting his best fight from him. For someone who supposedly made his livelihood by killing, he had a huge, friendly smile buried in his black beard and, when you got to know him, laughing eyes. Muscle bulged on every inch of him, and when our swords first met my wrist felt like someone had hit it with a hammer.
Ancenon had married the Trenboni King’s daughter in order to be adopted as his son. He was very old – hundreds of years - and derived some sort of power from extreme favor from the god Adriam, the All-Father. I saw him in prayer on three of three mornings underway, which included singing and chanting. No one else participated with him – not even the Uman sailors. They gave him (as well as the rest of us) a wide berth.
Drekk was an enigma – dressed in black, including weapons of dark metal that didn’t glint, and none too friendly. He had been accused of pilfering from governments, important men and even chapels, and wore the talisman of Chaos, the god of anarchy. I think I heard him say ten words over the entire three days.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 18
