I sighed and cupped my brow. “Reiwyn doesn’t want him around her anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I just need to know that you and yours aren’t going to seek vengeance for what happened here, and that all of you, especially Antioc, will let this be the end of it.”
I looked him in the eye. “Can you make similar assurances regarding Ferun?”
“He has given me his word─”
“His word?”
Arn looked sternly. “I have known Ferun a great while longer than I have known any of you, and he is a lot of things, but an oath breaker he is not. Now, do I have your word?”
I hesitated, but nodded. Arn patted my shoulder and left with Sharkhart.
We sat with him for hours, skipping our evening meal and even remaining after Nol left for the day. When the evening came, it was just the five of us. Zin had returned to her barber’s station to shave and preach, and the Volteri had gone to do whatever it is they did in the evenings.
As soon as we were alone, and the stillness of the night outside the infirmary assured me no one was passing by to overhear, I turned to the matter at hand. “We’ve waited long enough. As soon as he’s well, we’re leaving for Xanas Muir.”
No one argued, least of all Reiwyn.
18.
I remember the first time I saw Antioc fight. I’d always figured he was a formidable warrior, but I never really appreciated his grace and strength until I saw him in battle. We’d only just met the week prior, and were on a back road from Lurrip Keep on our way to Jirtdale. It was an unsafe route, but the quickest and most direct. I had heard in Larrami that the barge to Forlorn left every four months, and we were only a month away from its next departure. If we were to reach Horaceport in time, we’d need all haste.
It was evening, as we passed through a patch of forest darkened by an overgrowth of fat oak trees, when we were waylaid by brigands. The first of them stood in the middle of the road, his head down, face covered by the brim of his hat, and his hand on the hilt of his sword. Antioc slowed our approach, gripping the shaft of his spear.
The brigand looked up, half his face covered by a cloth mask. “Well, what do we have here? Passersby!”
Antioc stopped me behind him and lowered his spear. “What’s your business, stranger?”
“My business is warning travelers. You should be careful. There are rough men on these roads tonight.”
“Is that so?” I asked, incredulous.
“Oh, indeed.” He took off his hat, revealing scraggly brown hair crowning a bald scalp as he bowed. “And I’m afraid you’ve just met one of them.”
“Just one?” said Antioc.
The brigand chuckled and shook his head. Four more figures emerged from the woods on either side of us: three men and a woman with a crossbow, all masked and filthy. They wore piecemeal armor and clothing, and held rusted weapons that looked like they might have once served in the royal army. Whether these were the original owners, having taken them upon desertion, or they’d scavenged them from their corpses, I couldn’t say. And they didn’t seem in the mood to answer questions.
“We’ll take your gold,” said the brigand, drawing his sword slowly. It was the only one in the lot that looked to have been properly cared for, but was still pitted with use and age. “We’ll also take your weapons. And your boots. And anything else we like in the interim. And then you may live.”
“Come take them,” said Antioc. I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Let’s not be hasty,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and stepping forward. “I think we can come to some kind of arrangement so nobody needs to get hurt.”
The brigand stuck the tip of his sword in the earth at his feet and leaned on the blade. “An arrangement?”
“Yes. You see, we don’t have any gold.” That wasn’t a lie.
“I understand. In this economy, who can blame you? War on and all that.” He sighed. “We’ll just take your weapons and boots and be done with it.”
“And this one’s armor,” said a fat one, eyeing Antioc’s chain mail shirt. He looked as though he might be able to squeeze into it, if he didn’t mind never getting out of it again.
“No, see, we need those. Like you said, there are rough men out.” I looked around with a smile. “Present company excluded, of course.”
The brigand leaned forward. “Your boots, weapons and armor won’t do you no good if you’re dead.” He somehow made it sound like a friendly suggestion.
The rest of them laughed. I heard the shrill of the female’s laugh over all the others. I choked back the fear taking me and forced a chuckle of my own. “A fair point. But, I propose that I give you my weapons. Here . . .” I drew my dagger, and was interrupted by a flurry of action as the woman’s crossbow came up and aimed at my head.
“No need for that,” I said, slowly tossing the dagger to the ground. It embedded in the earth between the brigand and me. He barely even regarded it. “Would you like my boots as well?”
“Don’t give him your boots, Lew.”
“It’s fair.” I looked back at Antioc. “I can walk without them. A small thing, compared to our lives.” I reached down to take them off.
The brigand threw back his head and laughed. “You’re new at this, eh, boy? You don’t offer us anything. We take it. Not a little. All of it. Take off your boots and tell your man there to lay down his arms and do like we ask, or we’ll slit your throats and leave you on the road to rot.”
My hands shook. “Shouldn’t there be a more reasonable way to settle this?”
“Surrender is reasonable.”
I backed away slowly, expecting Antioc would do the same. What hope could he have against five highwaymen? Sure, Antioc was big, but he was just one man, and I was next to useless in a fight. But he stood his ground, gripping the shaft of his spear with white knuckles. The woman’s crossbow aim went from me to him, and so did the brigand leader’s eyes.
“Drop the spear,” she said with a voice that in the dark I’d have mistaken for a man’s.
“Best do as she says, big one,” said the leader. “She’s not much of a shot, but at this range she can’t miss.”
“Neither can I,” Antioc replied. And with that, he came to motion, throwing the spear into the woman’s chest. She screamed and the crossbow went off, but Antioc had already spun out of the way. The bolt landed in the brigand diagonal from her, sending him to the ground clutching his throat as blood poured from it. Antioc drew a dagger from his belt and jumped into the fat one, stabbing him in the gut. When his hands went to the bloody wound, Antioc finished him with a slash to the throat. He hadn’t even hit the ground before Antioc spun and hurled his dagger into the fourth one charging him, axe held high. The blade took him square in the chest, staggering him enough that he stumbled and fell.
Antioc reclaimed his spear from the woman’s corpse just as the brigand leader charged him, sword high, a battle cry bellowing from his throat. Antioc intercepted the blow with the shaft, then twisted the spear to send the sword aside. He spun the tip of the spear around and jabbed at the brigand, but he dodged and brought his sword back around for another blow. Antioc blocked it, sending slivers of wood flying. The brigand raised his sword over his head again and swung down hard. Antioc’s block spared his life, but his spear was broken in two with a loud crack.
That’s when I saw the fourth and final highwayman get to his feet. He pulled the dagger from his chest and stumbled, but was composed enough to flip the bloody blade into an underhand grip for stabbing. “Antioc, look out!” I shouted, but it didn’t matter. Antioc already knew he was there. He struck the leader across the jaw with the blunted end of his broken spear, staggering him back long enough for him to spin and toss the pointed end into the other one. The brigand fell, vainly gripping the half-spear embedded in his chest.
The leader backed up and lifted his sword defensively. Antioc charged him. My heart raced as I saw the leader turn his sword and s
wing at Antioc’s head. A second before the blade connected, Antioc went down, rolling under the attack and stopping clear behind him. The unrequited attack set the brigand leader off balance.
Antioc grabbed my dagger from the ground and spun to meet his opponent as he regained his footing and turned. Antioc rewarded him by jumping up and driving the blade under his ribs, burying it up to the hilt. The brigand leader let out a hollow gasp as his eyes widened and blood poured over his belly.
“You should be careful,” said my friend, locking eyes with him. “There are rough men on these roads tonight.”
With that, he let the brigand fall.
I was still in shock even as Antioc began searching the bodies of the fallen for salvageable loot. He found some gold pieces, a few jewels, and a couple of usable daggers. “That was . . . by the Daevas; I’ve never seen anything like that!”
Antioc took the leader’s sword belt and reclaimed the blade. “Most of these weapons are useless. You might get some use out of that crossbow.” He gave the sword a few cursory swings. “I don’t generally favor a long blade, but it’ll have to do until we reach Horaceport.”
So, armed with the crossbow and a dozen bolts that looked like they’d been carved from rough sticks, we went along our way. It was almost an hour before I could muster the will to speak to Antioc, “Does it bother you?”
“What?”
“You just killed five people.”
“I’ve killed more than that.”
“Of that I have little doubt. But . . .”
“But what?”
“Does it bother you?”
He didn’t answer right away, taking his time as though he were chewing on something I’d just handed him to eat. “Sometimes.”
“This time?”
“No. They’d have killed us without a second thought. For nothing.” He stared at the darkened road ahead of us. “Some men can’t be reasoned with. They kill you or you kill them. That’s all.”
I wasn’t used to this world. Where I came from, men talked. And talked, and talked, and talked. There were duels between gentlemen, but rarely were they to the death. Men of a higher station had a certain code. I wouldn’t call it noble, as it very rarely was, but they thought so much of themselves that they rarely wanted to push each other to the point of death. I wasn’t in that world anymore. I was in a darker place, where men killed each other for a few pieces of gold and a scrap of steel.
“Did it ever bother you?” he asked at length.
“I’ve never killed anybody.”
He gave me an incredulous grin. “You built artillery. Am I to assume you never operated it?”
“Very rarely, but . . . that’s not the same thing.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t have to look them in the eye.” Only after I said it did I realize how ridiculous I sounded. Of course I’d killed men. How could I play the fool and say otherwise? Still, I wasn’t like Antioc. He was brave, willing to face death just as a matter of course; and loyal, willing to risk death for others. I wasn’t either of those things. I supposed then that I was fortunate to have him to do it for me.
19.
I was awoken from my slumber by footsteps on the creaky wooden floor. After everyone else had left, I’d stayed with Antioc well into the next morning. I’d fallen asleep on the stool with my head on the cot next to Antioc’s shoulder. When I heard the sound of someone else in the room, I slowly raised my head and turned, expecting to see Blackfoot, Uller, Reiwyn, or anyone other than the person standing there.
“What the Daevas are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see if he would be fair,” said Claster, shifting nervously.
“Why do you care?”
“I never got to properly apologize.”
“Apologize? For what? For ruining his life? You’d have seen him killed just for affronting you. What apology could remedy that?” He didn’t look at me after that, just stood there with his eyes cast down and his shoulders sunken. I could have struck him. “Get out. Don’t come back.”
Claster turned and left.
“You shouldn’t be so mean to him,” came a weak voice. I turned and saw Antioc looking at me through bruised, swollen eyes with a feeble grin on his battered face.
“Why? He’s a bastard. He’d have seen you beheaded.”
“Once, yes. But he’s not that man anymore.”
“How do you know?”
Antioc closed his eyes. “Because he’s here. He’s lost everything, and now he’s one of us.”
“That doesn’t make him a good person.”
“Maybe not. But it means there isn’t anything else we can do to him that would matter.”
“You could give him a thrashing. Once you’ve recovered, of course.”
“That holds no appeal to me, Lew.”
I looked at the spot where Claster had stood. It certainly held appeal for me. After a time my anger subsided, and I turned back to my friend, only to see he’d fallen back asleep. I patted his hand and smiled. He was a better man than me. I’d never had any illusions otherwise. Sometimes I wondered why he felt so obligated to me. Sure, I’d saved his life, but there was little nobility in the deed. In truth, I’d done it because it amused me. Would it have amused me equally to see him beheaded if it served my purpose? I didn’t like asking myself such questions, because I didn’t care to know the answers.
I knew now, though, that I’d never let any harm befall Antioc so long as I could prevent it. Granted there was little I could do for him in response to a challenge that he couldn’t do for himself, and better. But I could help in other ways. No one would disturb his sleep, as I would stand constant vigil. I wouldn’t ask him to risk his life for me. I’d rather die than see that happen. Knowing that felt vulnerable. I hadn’t ever known someone I’d die for before. I can’t quite say I enjoyed the feeling.
The next few days passed slowly. Antioc spent most of them in bed as Nol ordered, but that didn’t stop him from trying to get up well before his wounds had healed. We often had to threaten to hold him down, which fortunately for us in his wounded state Uller, Reiwyn and I were able to accomplish. He would always grudgingly agree and slouch back in his cot. Nol kept him sedated most of the time with juice from that swollen fruit. It always seemed to knock him flat, no matter how awake he was beforehand.
My friendship with Reiwyn had become tense, but didn’t feel near to breaking. She visited daily, staying at Antioc’s side almost as much as me. We didn’t say much in those times, and looked at each other even less. I’d not seen this side of her. I’d always suspected she had a compassionate core beneath the layers of river soaked leather wrapping her beautiful skin, but it took seeing it firsthand to truly know it.
After the fourth day of sitting at his side, changing his bedpan and bringing him his meals, Antioc demanded that we give him some privacy. “I can’t stand knowing there are things you’d rather be doing than tending after me like a babe,” he said when we protested. “Reiwyn, you’ve got archers to train and arrows to fletch. Uller, you have your studies with your hedge wizard . . .”
“Witch,” he corrected.
“Lew, you could be building something and Blackfoot, you . . . could be doing whatever it is you do around here.”
“I catch crabs and sleep, mostly,” he replied.
“There really isn’t anything we’d rather be doing right now,” I said. The others nodded.
Antioc chuckled. “Just go. Gargath and Nol will take good care of me. I don’t need all this attention. I shall be fair within a night, and we will all go to the lagoon together and take a meal in the shade.”
With that, as well as a series of protracted well wishes, we left him. We walked along the main avenue: Reiwyn and I in front, Uller and Blackfoot behind. The two of them chattered along about something Uller had been trying to teach the little urchin but that he wasn’t quite understanding, while Reiwyn and I walked silently. A wall built between us, with bricks of si
lence mortared by regret. I still partially blamed her for what had happened to Antioc, and she knew it. I didn’t have to say it. And she didn’t have to say it for me to know she did, too.
I got a shave from Zin and went to my yurt. Exhausted from days of unsteady sleep on a stool next to Antioc’s cot, I collapsed to my bunk. It didn’t feel fair sleeping here without him across the room from me, but I was almost too tired to notice his absence. My eyes felt heavy as I let the Daevas of sleep and dreams guide me away from the world of the waking.
“Lew, wake up!” Blackfoot was shaking my arm.
“What is it, you little urchin?” I moaned, rolling over.
“You’ve got to come quick! It’s Reiwyn!”
That got me up. I grabbed my little sword belt from the table next to my bunk and strapped it on as we ran down the avenue, and around the corner to Reiwyn’s. I met Uller and Arn there. Sharkhart and Ferun were there as well, though the latter kept a respectful distance. It didn’t stop him from giving me a wolf’s look, but I was too concerned to give it any mind. My heart was pounding, but it almost stopped when I saw blood on the ground before the entrance of Reiwyn’s yurt. If she’d been hurt, I would topple the peak of the Sentinel to find out who was responsible.
Uller came up behind me as Gargath emerged from the yurt, a despondent look over his normally resolute face. I couldn’t imagine a scene grizzly enough to jade a Volteri, much less one exiled for desecrating the corpse of his brother.
“What is happening?” Uller asked, his brown eyes darting from me to the bloody-handed vulture man.
“Is Reiwyn?”
“She’s fair,” said Gargath, looking me in the eyes. He grabbed the curtain of the yurt and pulled it open. Inside I saw Reiwyn sitting alone, clutching a bloody dagger to her chest. “She wouldn’t come out of there until you all arrived.”
I stepped to the door but stopped short of going in. The scene inside, though dimly lit, told the story of what had happened. Three men lay dead on the floor, two with their throats cut and another with a gash in the side of his head. They didn’t look like exiles, in fact they were almost unmistakably Scumdogs. They’d secreted into Reiwyn’s yurt that night with the intent to make her a slave. A mistake; one they’d paid for with their lives.
Exiles of Forlorn Page 17
