He looked down at Ancenon as if the Uman-Chi had just kicked him. Rennin’s body resembled a Sumo wrestler, including a fetlock. I could see that in his day he could have been a warrior to match Nantar, but that day had past. He still wore a steel breastplate, though the leather fasteners on the side were stretched and fat pushed out here and there. His finger rolled and unrolled his moustache as he played with it unconsciously.
“I was not aware that your nation was so philanthropic, Ancenon of Trenbon,” he said slowly.
“Everything is for sale, your Grace,” said D’gattis.
“I was also not aware that I was talking to you,” Rennin said, his baritone voice sounding incredulous. The Uman-Chi stepped back with a bow, his eyes unreadable but the stiffness of his posture speaking volumes.
“My apologies, Duke Rennin,” Ancenon said, bowing also. “He is my equal, yet you would have no way of knowing it.”
Thorn chuckled.
“And these?” Rennin said, indicating the rest of us. “Your equals as well? Or a gang of thieves, here to rob honest businessmen and cheat my subjects.”
“We are the Free Legion,” Ancenon said, with an imperious wave that encompassed all of us. He introduced us all by name and the color of our question marks. Shela had been left with the horses and our gold – little did they know it but the best among us guarded our wealth.
Rennin’s eyes hung on Nantar as Ancenon introduced Drekk, and on Dilvesh as Ancenon introduced Thorn. Genna, her question mark just an outline on her leathers, we called Clear Genna. Ancenon finished with me, and that left the Duke and me eye-to-eye. Shela had polished my armor almost to blinding, the horns on my helmet only a little less so. I felt reasonably certain that a spell of some sort had been involved.
“I saw you race on that great stallion of yours,” he said.
“I am honored, your Grace,” I said, bowing.
“Don’t be – I bet against you and lost mightily. I am told that we are business partners at the track now, and that you don’t take cheating very much in stride.”
“I believe in fair trade, that much is true, your Grace,” I insisted. I didn’t like where this was leading.
“Pfaugh!” he spat, and winced as he gave his moustache a pull. “The beast is a menace! Fair trade indeed! I am told that he all but killed two other stallions in the stables.”
“You have been misinformed, I fear, your Grace,” I said, bowing low again.
Rennin smiled shrewdly. “Ho, ho! Have I?”
I looked up, met his brown eyes with my blue ones, and held them as I straightened. “Indeed, your Grace, I assure you, the other stallions were quite dead.”
He slammed his fist down on his chair, and Ancenon winced visibly. He really liked to be the one doing the talking, and this proved why, I feared. “Your Grace,” the Prince continued, “about the matter at hand?”
“Hmmm – matter at hand?” Rennin said. “Ah, yes – well, seeing as you have my partner among you, I would suppose that I am obliged to hear you out – but I warn you – speak in this court of some sort of slave trade, and I will forget that you are Royal, much like myself.”
I smirked at that – Ancenon’s wore his nobility closer then his skin – he had been a prince for centuries. He would see Rennin as an upstart appointed by another upstart. Either Uman-Chi probably had bad habits older than the entire nation of Eldador.
“Of course, the Fovean High Council forbids any trade in slavery, your Grace,” he said. “However, is it not a tradition that one can – say – buy the time of prisoners in exchange for bonded service?”
Rennin slammed his ham-like fist again on the arm of his chair. I thought that the piece of furniture had demonstrated remarkable strength. “It is not,” he stated flatly. “Not to Uman-Chi foreigners, at any rate. This Lupus fellow, and this Drekk, here, come as close as you have to Eldadorians, and even they don’t have the title or the nobility to bond men to their lands – even if they had lands!”
“This, then, is why,” Ancenon pressed, thinking on his feet, “we thought that we might pay the fines of those who have been imprisoned within your excellent city. These persons might then be pardoned.”
That caught Rennin off-guard. If the law read that way then certainly he had to follow it. “You can, indeed, do that, but then those men – and women – are free, Prince Ancenon. They do not then become thralls to you and your Free Legion.”
Ancenon bowed, yet still managed to display the politic smile. “We of the Free Legion are altruists, your Grace. I assure you, were there any way to meet with and speak to these prisoners of the State, then we would be able to -”
Rennin waved off the rest of his comment with closed eyes. “Yes, yes, I am sure that only those amenable to whatever dark purpose you have will be freed. If I can make a profit on something I have to pay to keep, and it is legal, then so be it.
“But be warned,” he said, looking darkly at Ancenon, his hand leaving his moustache for the first time, “you are watched men. I will have no more complaints about broken walls, shattered purses or bankrupted businesses. Adriam himself look out for you, should you use those men against me or the Eldadorian nation.”
Ancenon bowed, taking a step back to indicate that he had finished, if Rennin would dismiss him. Rennin nodded as regally as he knew how, and we turned as one to leave. Dilvesh’s robes managed to billow out behind him as we went, D’gattis’ a little too. I could feel Rennin’s eyes boring into me as I left.
As usual – only the best hotel for us. My private suite had a bedroom and a sitting room. Shela nearly killed the maids the first day they came in to clean, catching her lying topless on a divan, throwing nuts up in the air and catching them in her mouth. Seems that, in a pinch, an Uman can run faster than an Andaran can spell cast. Since then, she cleaned the place herself and the maids were content to focus their attention on other guests.
I always argued that expensive hotels made us too easy to find, and the Duke’s men proved that when they rapped on the door.
Shela answered it, dressed in her travel-outfit, the once-piece leather halter and her skirt slit up the side for riding. “Yes?”
Two men eyeballed her up and down, then one, an Uman as tall as she, his green hair held back in a silver circlet, pushed her aside to enter the room. His friend, another Uman with crew-cut gray hair and eyebrows almost as thick as a Man’s, followed him.
Both wore steel breastplates and legging; both had swords at their sides. Shela stepped back with her mouth open, the change coming over her face similar to storms I had seen brewing at sea. Really bad storms.
I made sure that I could reach my sword, laying on the room’s one table, and said, “I think you might want to rethink treating my woman that way.”
They stopped – obviously not expecting to see me. The track ran during the day, after all. The first one closed his mouth while the second laid his hand on his sword.
“We were – um – that is to say,” he said, confirming my suspicion.
I looked at Shela. “Darling?”
Her lip curled and she held out her hand, behind them, as if reaching for their balls. Before either could turn or barely move, she closed her hand into a fist.
Both men fell to their knees, any thoughts of their swords forgotten. One grabbed his stomach, the one next to him pushed off the circlet he wore and gripped his hair, blood already flowing from the corners of his eyes.
“She is a sorceress, my friends,” I said, as one and then the other of them bowed his forehead to the floor in agony. “You have no idea of the pain she can cause you.”
The one with blood flowing down his face looked up at me with blind eyes. “What – why?”
“Who sent you two here?” I asked, squatting down on the floor before them. Blood pooled before one. A dark stain that could have been either blood or urine formed down the inner leg of the other.
“The track,” the blind man gasped.
“Say … nothing,” the oth
er warned, doubling at the middle. Shela’s fist shook behind him. He moaned and pressed his cheek to the floor, a red stain forming on the thick boards at his knee. “Oh – Adriam.”
“We are the Duke’s men,” the blind man said. “Sent to bring her – your woman – to be questioned -”
The look on Shela’s face scared even me. She slapped her hands together and both men whimpered. Blood spilled from the first man’s nose as well as his eyes.
I knew of nothing that could do this – and she hadn’t spoken a word. Her will alone could tear two men apart from the inside.
“Please, no more,” the second men said. He pulled out two tufts of long green hair from his head, held them before him in his hands. “I don’t think – Adriam, protect me – he would have killed … just scared …”
“I don’t think she is very scared,” I said.
“Heverk thought you cheated him – didn’t like to have the books watched – threatened to take your share out of the Duke’s,” the first finished.
Shela opened her fist. Both of them fell immediately to the floor. I could see the tears in their skin, the blood oozing out, their chests still because they were dead.
Shela looked at me, and I at her. “I can dispose of these,” she said, indicating the two bodies with a flick of her hand, “but we have a larger problem, White Wolf.”
I looked down at the bodies. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
She chuckled, walked up to me, lay her hand on the side of my face, looking into my blue eyes with her brown ones. “I could have done far more than that – they came here to rape me. My strength is in their desire for more power.”
I nodded. How nonchalant to mention the heinous crime about to be done to her? Then again, she had taken her vengeance. I took her chin in my hand. “I think there will be more,” I continued. “Ancenon, D’gattis and Drekk are recruiting in the prisons now, and will be for several more days. Perhaps it is time for that fire?”
“Twenty percent of the damage is yours,” Shela said. “Rennin and Heverk know that. Should we break something, I think it needs to be more personal.”
She grinned up at me. Over her shoulder, all that remained of the two Uman were dust, bones and a stain on the floor.
She sent me out for a walk, so that she could dispose of the mess. She didn’t like anyone else cleaning up for us, even me. The next day one of Heverk’s retainers died suddenly – his young serving girl. A fire in Rennin’s castle killed almost a score of his warriors and probably cost him half a year’s gold reserves to repair. We were a week in Steel City, and I never heard from either of them, save to verify that my twenty percent off the top arrived regularly in the State account.
Sometimes, it is not so much who you know, as it is what they find out about you.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A Better Class of Evil
I had learned most of what I knew about fighting on the fly. Nantar, Arath and Thorn had all been trained in warrior gyms like the ones I had visited briefly. D’gattis and Ancenon had been schooled for centuries in their arts; Dilvesh had been educated as well for some lengthy time that he wouldn’t describe. Genna enjoyed membership in a Volkhydran guild that trained scouts and hired them out to the very wealthy. Even Drekk had apprenticed to some sort of master assassin or something. Shela had come to know of her gifts by the Andaran oral tradition and with other sorceresses among her people.
That made me useless for training our Free Legion soldiers. It fell to me instead to recruit and to keep the peace with Eldador while the two Uman-Chi organized our growth, the three warriors trained and Drekk skulked our perimeter with a handful of Uman whom he had trained as scouts. Shela, of course, went with me. Neither of us wanted to argue differently.
But there were more than the two of us to consider.
“I just don’t think that is a good idea,” Ancenon argued.
We agreed that the Free Legion base camp would be on the Plains of Angador. Angador remained remote enough that the Eldadorian hierarchy didn’t mind, yet central enough so that we could send a steady flow of new recruits there. There were wild horses for the catching and wide spaces for training, plenty of room to march and to bivouac, and you could see an approaching army for miles before it arrived, not that one did.
We sat together in the base camp that we kept on those plains. We had a simple log cabin, our recruits slept in cloth tents. We would have furnaces for them when the weather turned cold.
Since being healed of the poison, Genna hadn’t stopped moving. She paced the room now, between us and around us. We sat on low stools; Shela sat on her hip on a rug at my feet, her eyes boring into Genna.
“And what is a better idea?” Genna demanded of him. “Let Lupus and Shela leave alone, with our gold and our name and no guidance, to be way-laid by the first band of brigands – “
“I really don’t see that happening,” D’gattis said.
The support surprised me but I didn’t argue. I needed it.
Shela and I were going north on a recruiting mission and Genna wanted to come with us.
“Let’s just make this very simple,” Nantar said. “Lupus, Shela, do you want Genna’s company with you on this trip?”
I smiled, Shela shook her head.
“I think I would rather survive the journey this time,” I said. “We can try something else later.”
Thorn barked a laugh out loud.
Since Chatoos, Genna had become more and more antagonistic of Shela. Having seen the result of Shela’s temper, I became more and more worried about it. Genna was no fool – she wouldn’t put herself in a position to have Shela kick a spell off and try to weather the results. The knife coming for Shela would be in Genna’s hand and aimed for the back, not the breast.
Shela knew that full well.
“All the more reason for me to come then,” Genna said. “Unless you think this little girl can protect you.”
Everyone’s eyes widened. Shela leapt up to her feet.
“He is mine to protect, little bitch,” Shela hissed at her. “As if you could protect him when you couldn’t even keep him.”
Genna pulled a knife from her bandolier, Shela raised a hand glowing white with power.
The Sword of War shattered the blade. My own reflexes surprised me. Little pieces of steel scattered across the room.
D’gattis, Ancenon and Dilvesh were on their feet to three sides of Shela. The Druid’s staff buzzed like an angry bee, Ancenon chanted in some throaty language. D’gattis made no noise as his eyebrows dropped in concentration over his ambiguous eyes.
Shela could take her, but not the other three together. She might survive the three, but could not then contend with Genna.
Shela obviously still considered it. I kept my sword between Genna and Shela, ready to cut the little marine’s head off if she charged and pressed the issue.
Shela’s eyes met mine.
I shook my head. “This is not what I want,” I told her.
She nodded, made a fist. The power faded from her hand.
Ancenon, Dilvesh and D’gattis weren’t fooled. They waited until Shela seated herself back on her fur before they themselves stood down. Shela had speed and power and no fear of using them.
I looked at Genna, quivering with anger, a tear running down her face from the corner of her eye.
“So your decision is made,” she said to me.
“It is,” I said. “We are going alone. I am not going to deal with the two of you every day. The best thing for all of us is for you to be kept apart –“
“I hate you,” she screamed, and before I could react she kicked me right in the leg. She ran out the door into the night before anyone could stop her, not that anyone tried.
I sat back down. We were all quiet. A few minutes later Ancenon told us that he was going to bed. We all followed his example right after.
Genna left that night and didn’t come back the following morning. D’gattis told us that she traveled
north, but didn’t say how he knew.
Shela stayed oddly quiet that night, and didn’t get more talkative the next day. She did chores as she thought they were needed and then cooked for us because she did it best. She could dress a deer faster than I could saddle Blizzard, which was saying something.
D’gattis cornered me doing just that, in the lean-to where the horses would be kept until something better could be built.
“We cannot sustain this, Lupus,” he said.
“So build a barn,” I said, pretending not to understand him. “We can afford it.”
He sighed. “You know what I mean, Lupus,” he said. “Your paramours are at odds with each other and the rest of us spend our time and our resources preventing pitched battle.”
“Well, that problem is moving north, it seems,” I told him.
“And why do you think she is doing that?” D’gattis asked me.
I had meant Shela and I but it was a good question.
“You don’t suppose that she is –“
“Planning to ambush and kill you both?” D’gattis finished for me. “She can take no action against you for the fealty, but Shela is another matter. And though you can clearly damage her weapons, I think you know the consequences if you attack her person directly.”
I hadn’t thought of that at all. “Should I have been able to do what I did last night?” I asked him.
He considered. “I asked cousin Ancenon about that,” he said finally, “and he tells me that yesterday morning he would have thought not. Apparently there is more room for maneuvering in fealty than in bond. She kicked you, for example, and declared her hate. If I did that to you myself, I don’t think I would survive it.”
“Kind of makes us wonder about those guards we left behind.”
“I should say not,” D’gattis protested indignantly. “You will note that she took no action against me, or against Ancenon. We cast the spell.”
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 34
