He sat down in a chair at her bedside and gave her the cup of wine. She slowly sipped and her taste buds went wild over the strong taste of it. She couldn’t fight the smile that forced its way forward.
“I'd like to answer your questions now, Ewan.” She said while staring into the deep red swirling around in her cup.
“And what questions are those? You've been unconscious for two days now.”
“Sunflowers, this kind of wine which I brought from home, and like you, wool in the winter and cotton in the summer.”
She looked up at him with a sly smile. Ewan laughed, which quickly brought her to laugh herself for the first time since they had arrived at the wall. Both of them winced in pain, but this only made them laugh harder.
“There was one more you know.”
“One more what?” she asked.
“Question. Who was the boy who first stole the young lady's heart?” His sarcasm was all too welcomed, Agrias thought.
“You'll never know that one, Lieutenant,” she said into her cup.
“Fine. But, I'll have you know that you aren't called Emerald Eyes by the men anymore.” She shot him a look that seemed to contain a glimmer of the commander in it. She raised a single eyebrow at him. “Now it's just Agrias, the Emerald Eye,” he said, pointing to her face.
“That's cruel.” She responded, but the humor was still there.
“I'd say not. It's a beautiful eye,” he said, his all-too familiar grin coming upon his face.
“You're dismissed, Lieutenant. But, you're to leave the wine.”
“Not a chance in hell I'm missing this chance to share a drink with you, Cassandra.”
She scoffed at him as she finished off her first cup.
Rat-catcher
By Scott Washburn
The humans rode into the halfling village of Meadowbrook on a beautiful spring day. There was nothing unusual about this; the League of Rhordia was an alliance which held a number of different races. But these humans were not simple travelers or merchants; one was clearly a knight, and he was accompanied by a banner-bearer, carrying the emblem of the city of Norwood, a human city fifty leagues to the west. Official business of some sort?
So it seemed; an inquiry at the Heady Brew Inn directed the pair to an open field just outside the village. The halfling they were looking for was there—with several hundred others. A bit of shouting brought halfling and humans together.
“Rat-catching?” Dunstan Rootwell asked, his eyebrows arching up in surprise. “With all respect to the duke, Sir Hedrick, my rat-catching days are behind me, thank the gods.” He turned and gestured to his militia company of halfling archers practicing on the village green. “I’ve come up a bit in the world since those times.”
“Aye, he knows that, Master Dunstan,” said the tall human, nodding, “and he means no disrespect—quite the contrary! But he feels that your reputation, in both your past and current activities, makes you the ideal person to deal with this. The situation in Norwood is most serious, I do assure you.”
Talking with humans was often quite literally a pain in the neck for halflings, and Dunstan took a step back to reduce the angle at which he had to tilt his head. “Surely, a city the size of Norwood has its own supply of rat-catchers. Why would the duke want to bring me from fifty leagues away to deal with an outbreak of rats?”
Sir Hedrick, a thick-set and ruddy-faced man with a bushy mustache, looked from side to side as if afraid of being overheard, and his voice sank to a near-whisper. “If it was just rats, you’d be right. But the duke suspects—and I do, too—that it’s far more than just rats, Master Dunstan.”
Dunstan twitched as the man’s meaning got through to him. “Are you saying that…?”
“Aye, the signs are all there: people disappearing off the streets at night, granaries broken into, strange outbreaks of ghastly diseases all over the city, men sent to search the sewers not returning. The people are frightened.”
“Damnation,” growled Dunstan. “Ratkin.”
“So it would seem.”
“I thought we’d dealt with those vermin years ago.”
“We did,” said the knight. “I was there when we did, although I was just a squire. So were you and your people.”
“Just as an ordinary archer,” said Dunstan, shaking his head. “I was only learning the trade then—the usual rat-catching trade, I mean. Master Hadrin is who you really need for something like this.”
“Unless I’m sorely mistaken, Master Hadrin has been in his grave these ten years passed. Right now, the one we need is you—and as many of your troops as you can bring. You’ve proven your worth in… in this sort of thing.”
“You mean that we’re not afraid to go crawling through sewers, and short enough to walk upright in the ratkin tunnels.”
Sir Hedrick shrugged and looked sheepish. “A man is at a terrible disadvantage in those situations, and… well, as you say.”
Dunstan frowned and turned away. Ratkin! Of all the horrors spawned from the Abyss, there were few as hateful or horrifying as the ratkin. True, individually, they really weren’t much to fear. While full-grown adults could be nearly man-sized, most were smaller, and with their hunched-over stature, that put them almost eye-to-eye with a halfling. From what Dunstan heard of them, they were cowardly, awkward above ground in the sunlight, and not terribly skilled with weapons. The problem was that you didn’t have to deal with individuals, you had to deal with swarms. They bred at a furious rate, and their offspring could fight almost as soon as they were weaned. Most had little more intelligence than their normal-sized kin, but some had a cunning which could match that of a man—or even a halfling. They could make and use weapons and other fiendish devices, they carried and spread disease, and they were as cruel as anything that walked the earth. They took delight in capturing people alive and then working them to death as slaves, or just torturing them for amusement—and then eating them.
“Master Dunstan, the duke knows that he cannot command you or your people to come, but he hopes that you will remember the friendship and tradition of cooperation which our people share. I realize this is a difficult thing he is asking, but you know as well as I do that every hour is critical.”
Yes, time was surely against them here. If a band of ratkin could establish themselves under a city, with a rich supply of food just overhead, they could grow their numbers with terrifying speed. They would burrow out a vast network of tunnels from the city’s sewers until there was nowhere they could not strike. Deep caverns would hold their workshops, armories, and slave pens. With time, they could take a whole city—and then send out parties to infest the next one. Given enough time, they could form armies which no longer needed to hide in the shadows. Clearly, things had not reached so dire a state in Norwood, but if measures were not taken swiftly, they soon could. Years ago the whole eastern part of the Rhordian League was threatened by such an invasion. It had been defeated, and after a bitter struggle, the ratkin exterminated. Dunstan had been there.
But you could never get every last one…
He turned back to face the human. “You’re right. We’re wasting time.”
* * * * *
“There it is!”
The shout came from the head of the column and every weary halfling jerked upright at the sound. Dunstan stood in the stirrups of his pony and saw what had prompted the shout: the city of Norwood. A ragged cheer came from the halflings who still had the breath for it. A fifty league journey wasn’t all that much for a human on horseback, but the short stride of a halfling made it seem twice as far. And the pace had been grueling. Everyone knew that haste was needed, and they’d covered the distance in just twelve days. Dunstan was proud of his troops, proud of his people.
He’d feared that he would have trouble convincing the mayors of the halfling shires to send troops, but his fears had proved groundless. Everyone saw the need immediately. Humans tended to ridicule the ratkin threat—until they came to their city—but halflin
gs knew just how dangerous the things were. Mothers still used the threat of ratkin to scare unruly children into being good, and the old gaffers would thrill youngsters with tales of the old battles against them. The people understood, and even Dunstan’s wife understood. She wasn’t happy about him leaving, and his children had cried a little, but they knew he had to go. The militia companies had been mustered in short order, and Dunstan was now leading over a thousand troops down the long sloping road into Norwood. Five hundred more—people who could not leave immediately—were following three days behind.
Most were spearmen and bowmen, but Dunstan had made a special effort to bring along some engineers. Halflings in general didn’t like machines, but a few did, and those who did, really liked machines. Halfling engineers and builders were rare, but highly prized, not only in their own communities, but by other races as well. Dunstan suspected he would need their skills in the coming campaign.
“It’s bigger than I expected. But then everything about these bloody humans is bigger than you’d expect, eh?”
Dunstan looked to his side and saw one of those very engineers walking next to him. Paddy Bobart was a bit… odd, even for an engineer, but Dunstan had known him for years and could forgive him his eccentricities because of his obvious talents. He was a builder, tinkerer, and inventor who was almost legendary among the people. He was always creating new devices, and some of them were even useful.
But it was Paddy’s less obvious talents which might prove of the most use here. For Paddy was among the even rarer group of halflings who could channel magic. He couldn’t throw fireballs or call down lightning bolts, but what he could do, might be just what was needed. Dunstan had been doubtful he could convince the elderly halfling to make the journey, but to his surprise, he’d been strangely eager to come.
“They do seem to like their big, stone cities, don’t they?” said Dunstan, turning his gaze back to the road ahead.
“Silly sods. If they didn’t live all clumped together like this, they wouldn’t need t’ build sewers t’carry away their crap, and there wouldn’t be any easy place for the ratkin t’form a nest, and there wouldn’t be any need for me t’wear out me tired old feet marchin’ fifty leagues t’get here.”
Dunstan’s lips curled up in a smile. As a youth, Paddy had spent years among the dwarves, learning their arts. He’d also learned their language, and even though he’d come back to the shires years ago, he still had a noticeable accent. “I offered you a pony, Paddy,” said Dunstan. “Or you could ride in one of those wagons you insisted on bringing along.” He gestured to where a half-dozen large wains rumbled along, pulled by oxen.
“Ach!” said Paddy, spitting in the dust, as if that was an answer. “Like me feet better, tired as they are.”
Dunstan continued to look at the wagons. “What all are you bringing there, anyway? I saw that two of the wagons were full of your tools, but the others are all packed with barrels. What’s in ‘em?”
“Powder.”
“Gunpowder?!”
“Right enough.”
“Gods, Paddy! That could blow us all to bits! Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Safe enough. I put an enchantment on ‘em. Can’t go off by accident.”
Dunstan relaxed slightly. “Still, you should have told me.” Paddy just shrugged. “And why haul it all this way? The people in Norwood surely have a supply they could lend you.”
Paddy shrugged again. “Couldn’t be certain o’ that. I got me a plan for that stuff.”
“What plan?”
“I’ll let you know when I’m certain it’ll work.”
Dunstan frowned, but he knew he wouldn’t get anything more out of him. He nudged his pony into a faster pace and rode to the head of the column. Norwood was fully in view now. It stood astride the muddy waters of the Allsop River. Even from this distance, he could see the ships and barges on the water. The city was a trading center, and there was a lot of traffic on the river, even now in the dry season. Most of the city was clustered inside the high stone walls, dotted with towers, which stretched in a ring on both sides of the river. There were some newer buildings outside the walls, but only a few hundred. Most people preferred to live inside the protective defenses. Not that they can protect them from this threat! Further from the city lay small villages and isolated farmhouses, not too different from what could be found in the halfling lands. Fields full of crops and orchards filled the whole river valley. It was a prosperous land—which could quickly turn to a desert if the ratkin had their way.
As he watched, Dunstan noticed a pair of horsemen galloping along the road in his direction. When they got closer, he recognized Sir Hedrick and his squire. The knight had ridden off to Norwood as soon as Dunstan had agreed to come to tell the duke; now here he was.
“Ho! Master Dunstan!” he shouted, raising a hand. “You made good time!”
“Aye, we did, even on our short legs.”
“We’re setting up a camp for you outside the walls. We know your folk don’t much care for our big stone houses. We’ll have food and drink waiting.”
“That will be good. We didn’t burden ourselves with any excess that would slow us down.”
“You’ll lack for nothing, I promise. The people are very grateful to have you here.” He paused and his expression darkened. “And it’s none too soon. Things are getting worse day by day.”
“More disappearances?”
“That, and a few outright attacks. The scum are getting bolder and bolder. The duke would like to talk with you as soon as you’re settled.”
* * * * *
Duke Albustus Alberson occupied a sturdy keep on an island in the center of the river, connected by bridges to each shore. Sir Hedrick escorted Dunstan through the main gate a few hours later. Paddy Bobart insisted on coming, too, complaining the whole way. There were armed men everywhere along the route from their camp. They looked edgy and the common folk looked scared. But all of them seemed glad to see the halflings. They expect us to solve their problem. The thought disturbed Dunstan. What if they couldn’t? He looked at the children—many about the same height as him—and thought about what would happen to them if he failed. The ratkin had no mercy for anyone, young or old, big or small. Norwood held almost fifty thousand people, a nearly unimaginable number to Dunstan, and they could all become ratkin fodder.
The duke met them in a comfortable chamber overlooking the keep’s great hall. A half-dozen men were there with him, counselors and commanders, Dunstan guessed. The introductions were so hasty he could not match the names and the titles with the faces, but the only one who really mattered was the duke.
“Thank you for coming, Master Dunstan,” said Albustus. “There were some who didn’t think you would, but I never doubted.” He was short for a human, but still more than a head taller than Dunstan. A bit stout, but much of that muscle. He leaned over and offered his hand. Dunstan took it and squeezed.
“We take our membership in the League seriously, my lord. If we don’t stand by each other, we’ll all fall separately like ripe peaches.”
“Surely! Surely! But now that you are here, we need to decide what to do.”
“Tis not the what,” growled Paddy. “That’s plain as a pikestaff: root the bastards out and kill ‘em. It’s the how that needs to be decided.”
Dunstan hadn’t had the chance to introduce Paddy, and the duke—and the other humans—frowned at his plain speech. “Uh, yes,” said the duke. “And you are…?”
“This is Learned Paddy Bobart, Articifer, Master Engineer, and Channeller,” said Dunstan hastily. “He’s agreed to use his arts to help us, my lord.”
“Ah, yes, of course! I have heard of you, Learned,” said the duke, nodding at Paddy. “We are honored to have you…”
“Ach!” Paddy hocked, looked around for a place to spit, found none, and glared at the assembly as he swallowed. “Drop the blasted learned! Never wanted the damn title. And blast you, Dunstan Rootwell for even usin’ it! I�
��ve told ye that before!”
“Sorry, Paddy,” smirked Dunstan. “But on the way here, you said you had an idea. Can you tell us about it?”
“I can tell you what I need to know if it has a chance of workin’.” He looked around the room. “Have ye got records… drawings of yer sewers under the city?”
The duke looked to one of the men. “Kelson, find the master archivist. Tell him what we need and tell him we need it now!”
“Yes, m’lord!” The man scurried off.
“It might take a while, I’m afraid,” said Albustus, turning back to Dunstan. “While we’re waiting, can I offer you some refreshments?”
“Aye! That’d be most welcome!” Paddy said as he pushed forward. “Ale if you’ve got any worth drinkin’! Got fifty league o’ road dust to wash out of me gullet!”
The duke chuckled and sent a servant to bring food and drink. A low table had been placed in the middle of the room and Dunstan realized it had been brought special because of the halflings. Chairs had also been provided; small but conventional ones for them and large, but rather low-sling ones, for the humans.
Soon, they were all sitting around the table with cups of wine or beer and plates with simple, but good food at hand. The humans were extending them every courtesy, and even Paddy seemed to appreciate it. It is a true alliance. We need each other and everyone knows it.
“So, Sir Hedrick tells me you’ve brought a thousand of your people, Master Dunstan,” said the duke.
“Five hundred bow, four hundred spear and sword, and the rest odds and ends—like Paddy here. Another five hundred are three days behind us. What sort of forces do you have to hand, my lord?”
“Well, unfortunately, the bulk of the duchy’s troops are off at Eowolf for the annual muster. Nearly all the mercenaries, too. All I have on hand are five hundred of my household troops. Half of them mounted knights and men at arms; I’m afraid, probably not much use for this sort of work.”
Tales of Mantica Page 20
