Nergei opened his mouth to offer a retort, then thought better and turned back around, to where Sten and Spundwand stood beside him.
Or rather, to where they had been standing beside him. But there was just a small gap in the crowd, one that widened as the crowd backed up, leaving the human archer, the half-elf, and Magla standing alone, pinned beneath the gaze of the archers, each nocking a barbed arrow, each pulling back the long black bow of his father’s failed station.
The human archers, the half-elf, and Magla all stood, attention locked on each other, waiting for some other to move, but the change came not from any of them but from Luzhon, who—when she could not stand the tension any longer—yelled, “Nergei, we must do something!”
Everyone—nearly everyone—turned and looked at the teenage girl, seeing her frustration, an emotion they shared, plus another, which perhaps they did not: Luzhon’s admiration for Magla was evident already, clearly visible in the flush of her cheeks, the set of her fists balled against her hips.
As for Nergei, he wanted nothing more than to protect the elf, whom he also found impressive, but whatever magic had risen in him when Luzhon and the others had been threatened by the kenku in the woods, it would not come to him, not even as two events unfolded in front of him simultaneously.
The first was the half-elf—still grinning his ridiculous grin—saying, “Since there’s no reason for me to get stuck in the middle here, I’ll just be taking my leave,” while turning the purse upside down in his already-dropping hand, moving so fast that despite the human’s movements he could not reach him before the half-elf’s hand was moving upward again, flinging the opening purse into the air.
The second was the twang of a released bowstring, its arrow flying in from the far end of the shooting lane toward Magla.
Luzhon screamed, and Nergei too, but what fell out of the rising purse was not silver but an orb the size of Nergei’s fist, perfectly round and greenish blue in color. The half-elf caught the orb and held it above his head, uttering some word of power which Nergei could not recognize but which the orb knew. The orb flashed green, then expelled a ball of sheer force forward toward the incoming arrow and through to the archer behind, catching both of them in its path and hurtling them off into some street behind.
Up until then, the crowd had been interested enough to wait for the impending violence, but once the fight was joined, most ran, heading for side streets and alleys, clearing the shooting lane that had turned from competitive to deadly. The noise of the escaping crowd rose louder as the human reached for his short blade, intent on keeping his fight with Magla short.
The human was fast, but as his hand closed upon the pommel so did one of Magla’s, and in her other hand she held one of her arrows, plucked from her quiver in an instant and quickly shoved through the man’s forearm and into his thigh, pinning his sword arm to his leg. Magla spun away, retrieving her bow before it could fall, then swung its length hard across the man’s back, sending him screaming to the street.
Magla and the half-elf were moving together, their backs angled toward each other. Two arrows from Magla’s bow removed two of the rooftop archers, and a magical green bolt from the half-elf’s orb removed another. Two more remained at the far end of the alley, and Magla raised her bow to take them down even as the half-elf threw up a shield of blue energy to block their frantically shot arrows.
Magla drew back, ready to take a shot, but before she could both men were jerked down, disappearing beneath the roof. The elf archer kept the arrow nocked until it was obvious the two men wouldn’t be reappearing. Then she returned her arrow to her quiver and her bow to her back before drawing a well-crafted dagger from her hip and kneeling beside the still-groaning human archer, who was desperately trying to work the arrow from his arm and thigh. She pressed her dagger to his throat, and in a low voice, she said, “Remember that it was not the elves of Lastwood who maimed you, as you believe they killed your forbearers. Not the elves at all, although one of their number pierced you with her arrow. Your loss of gold and blood falls only on yourself, and not on me.” The elf stood, returned the weapon to its scabbard. “I am blameless, innocent, in need of no forgiveness from you or from anyone.”
Magla did not wait for the man’s reply, only walked away as he screamed at the tearing of the arrow’s barbs through his flesh, cutting him anew as he tried to remove them from the wound the only way he could, back the way they came.
Across the street, Magla rejoined the half-elf in walking away from the scene of the scuffle, her face still just as impassive as his was effusive.
“What happened?” asked the half-elf, putting a hand over his eyes to aid his vision of the street’s end, where the other two archers still had not appeared. “We were just getting started, and they ran away? I thought they were the bravest descendents of Grandmoor.”
“The point isn’t for us to get in a fight. Next time, you could try to head off the trouble before it comes to blows. That is, after all, the point of your involvement—to double the money while lessening the risk.”
“And miss you giving that great speech? Not a chance in the world. The great bow-maiden speaks!”
“In any case, they didn’t run away. Didn’t you see our two friends?”
“What two friends?”
“Ask them,” she said, jerking a thumb behind her back, to where Nergei, Luzhon, Imony, Padlur, and Kohel stood. Luzhon gasped, and for the first time Magla made a smile to match the half-elf’s ever-present expression. “They’re friends of theirs, too.”
After Sten and Spundwand returned to the street, the elf and half-elf clasped hands with the warlord and the dwarf, exchanging pleasantries until it was obvious to Nergei that all four were acquainted, if not friends. Still, he waited until he and the others were motioned forward before approaching, and only then after Kohel, Padlur, and Luzhon had all introduced themselves did he offer his own name.
“And I am Mikal, Magla’s brother,” replied the half-elf.
“But you are only—” Nergei stopped, stammered, apologized. “I apologize. It is not my place to say anything.”
“No,” said Mikal, still smiling. “You are wondering, and you have expressed your wonder. Nothing wrong with that, especially in one like yourself. Yes, I am her brother. Born after, but surely first to die. That is the curse of the half-born. My elven longevity is a mere sliver of hers. This is why we travel together. We are the last family either has, and have vowed to stay at each other’s side for what short years we have between us. For in thirty or forty years I will be dead, and none of my years will show in her face. Perhaps then she will return to her people, and seek what inheritance might still await her among her father’s kin. But not now, and not yet. For now, she lives with me in what part of the world we share, and that is enough.”
“You said ‘one like me.’ What am I like?”
“You are an apprentice arcanist yourself, are you not? A student of the arts? In touch with the wild magic, perhaps?”
Nergei stammered again, suddenly afraid; his master would talk to the wizard, and the wizard would tell his master what he had done, what he had been forbidden to do. “No, wizard, I am none of those things. Merely my master’s boy.”
Mikal looked closer, stroked the trim triangle of his goatee. “Perhaps you are right. In any case, now we have both made some mistake about the other, and so we are even, and still well-met. And just in case I am wrong, perhaps there is a thing or two I can show you upon our journey.”
Magla waved them all over, so that once again Sten could explain to the two warriors what he had already explained to Imony, that together they would go to Haven, where they would protect those who could not protect themselves. There would be nothing in return. Not money, for the people of Haven had none. Not glory, for the people of Haven sung no songs that were heard outside their walls. Not the love of the gods, for what gods there were loved none on Haven’s peak save to bless them with the occasional bounty of a good harv
est, but rather had already abandoned them to what dark fate awaited.
There would be death or there would not be death, and nothing else would Sten promise those who might choose to follow him up the mountain and into the small, thankless village of Haven, hung below the highest observatory in the known world, because promises of greatness were for heroes, and the age of heroes had already passed them by.
With the party gathered, the villagers returned to retrieve the nag and their cart, and of course Pyla, who had stayed beside it while they had explored the city. Together, the four teenagers introduced Pyla to each of the warriors in turn: Sten, the ex-guardsman; Spundwand, the aged dwarf battlepriest; Imony, the warrior whose size and shape betrayed her power and grace in hand-to-hand combat; and the matched pair of the archer and the wizard, the elf Magla and her half-breed brother, Mikal.
As they gathered their things to go, Nergei once again consulted the growing perceptions within himself, the instinct complemented with some growing magic, searching for some sign of deception from any of them, some sign of danger. After days of close attention to everything in the city, he felt strangely quiet, he wondered at that too. When he’d first begun to tease at the magic within him, its whisperings had been loud, distracting, but his senses had felt nearly silent, and then—before they had even recrossed the plains to the foothills, he found himself waking up again, already shaking off the dullness of their return’s first steps. The birds that had been following them the entire journey down the mountain had returned to the sky far above, there again to escort them back up.
The Old Stargazer had claimed the kenku already knew exactly where Haven was, but if they didn’t, they would soon. The villagers and the mercenaries would lead them right there, through the old man’s illusions and wards. And yet what choice did they have but to return?
An urgency filled Nergei, pushed him past the exhaustion of the travel, of the constantly sloping ground. He did not share his concerns with anyone else yet, knew they would do them no good. He would take them directly to the Old Stargazer, and let his master decide who should be told, and how much. That was his duty, and he would do his best to fulfill it.
As the party made its way through the foothills, it fell to Luzhon to tend to her father, and so she spent her days walking beside the nag and the cart, talking to Pyla. His bulk made it hard for him to climb down and out of the cart, so at night he stayed in the structure, packed away like another piece of luggage, albeit one that complained, that scolded Luzhon whenever she did anything he didn’t care for. Chief among his complaints was her interest in the mercenaries, especially the warriors, whose equipment and skills fascinated her. Her home was in danger, and she wished to be able to protect it as well as the hired swords hopefully would.
Watching the fights in the city—an experience she relived often, in her quiet moments—it had become clear to Luzhon that while she had watched the boys at their budding sword play over the past few years, she had learned very little. Or rather, what she had learned was inaccurate: Kohel had swung a sword as if he were chopping wood, but Luzhon hadn’t realized how poor his technique—and hers—was until she saw the example of someone better, like Sten and the other warriors they had gathered.
So she wanted to learn from the warriors, if they would teach her, but of course her father did not want her to, had never wanted her to. He forbid her to do so, in fact, and while he was awake, she obeyed his orders.
While he was asleep? Then she did as she wished. Luzhon approached Sten by the fire, sitting down beside him where her father could not see her easily, if he happened to awake before she was finished. She might have preferred Magla or Imony, but she did not yet want to be an archer, or at least not only one, and she did not want to give up her blade. For the moment, Sten was the best choice—and anyway, he was awake, poking the flames with a found stick, while the others slept. Sitting down beside him, she asked, “Can you teach me to fight? Or to understand a fight as you do?”
“The life of a sellsword is not one to aspire to, my child,” said Sten, turning away from the fire and toward Luzhon.
“The life of a farmer, or the wife of a landed man is not, either.”
“I will have to take your word on both counts, there, I suppose. But, yes. I can help you learn to fight.”
“Thank you,” Luzhon replied.
“You have an aptitude for it already, you know,” said Sten.
“What do you mean?”
“Something in you. You watched Spundwand and I at the games, and knew that I was observing it in a different way, yes?”
“Yes, I saw that.”
“When you sat with us, I saw the same in you. But I spent years with a blade in my hands to learn my craft. You are different, I think.”
“If you say,” Luzhon replied, unsure what Sten meant. “May I ask you why you never bet on the matches? You and Spundwand could have done with the gold, you say. If you are aware of who will win and who will lose before the fight begins, why not wager?”
“It seems to me that there is no sport in it, child,” said Sten. But Luzhon peered at him skeptically, and after a moment he continued, “And, also, none of the gamblers would take my bets anymore. I was kept out of it. My friend and I were informed that we could watch whenever we wanted, but were told not to speak to any of the other gamblers, not to have anyone else place bets for us, and never to bet on the matches.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” said Luzhon. She scuffed a foot in the dirt.
“Gamblers make bets, child. The people who run gambling houses do not. They are not gamblers. They are merchants, even if the goods they sell are games of chance. They are also willing to protect their investments with great and powerful force.”
Luzhon looked at Sten. He had been taciturn up to that point. She had not expected him to have so much to say.
“Perhaps that is a good first lesson,” he said. “But sword play is not about odds. It is about balance.” And he pulled his blade from his sheath and stuck it in Luzhon’s hand, watched her curve her grip around the hilt, the blade tipping toward the ground. It was much heavier than her own, but Sten assured her that strength would come with practice, and skill soon after.
“And if the sword is not your weapon, then perhaps the hammer, perhaps the bow. There are many here who will teach you what you wish to know,” he said, stroking his moustache, “if only you will let them.” He corrected Luzhon’s grip with his own fingers, steadied the sword so she could hold it straight. “Talk to Magla, and to Spundwand, and of course to me. Even if your father does not want you to fight, that does not mean he will get his wish. Your village may be in very great danger, and everyone within its walls should be prepared, yourself included.
“I can sense it in you. You are—or have the capacity to be—very brave,” he finished, “and that bravery will serve you and your people well.”
“I do not feel brave,” said Luzhon. “Not as brave as I want to.”
“You are brave enough,” said Sten. “Any braver, and you might be foolish enough to believe that the fight ahead will be easy, or that it will bear no cost, and that would bring only tragedy upon you.”
Luzhon lowered the sword, turned her face back to his. “What do you mean?”
“Every battle I have ever fought in is one that I have won, or close enough. A lifetime of victory, and yet I have nothing to show for it.” His eyes looked into the fire, and Luzhon looked into its reflection there. “Nothing except the friendship of Spundwand, which I value more than any other. Everyone else we have befriended is dead, or else now an enemy of ours, and the world is no better a place now than when we started. It is a hard road, Luzhon, and already you have taken the first steps upon it. I hope your luck is better than ours.”
CHAPTER NINE
Temley pulled up his cloak to guard against the sudden, unexpected chill. As he and Erak approached the camp where the kenku staged their attacks on Haven, Temley noted frost on the ground, and the bite of
cold in the air. “It’s spring,” he said to Erak. “The cold?”
“Our doing,” Erak said. “Let me show you.”
They entered a camp of peaked, makeshift tents of animal hide and gathered branches. The kenku sat in small circles around campfires chirruping at each other, making quiet sounds from deep within their throats. Conspiring, it seemed. They cocked their heads at Erak and Temley, giving tense, sidelong looks until Erak made a gesture that appeared to calm them. They were sharing berries and strips of meat, tilting their heads back to swallow. They turned up skins to let wine drip down their throats.
“Provisions are getting low. We make the final attack soon, Temley. Now that you are here, the real work can commence. The final spells to be cast. The final plans to be made.” Erak led Temley to a tent, like the others but with glyphs roughly painted around the hide. A noise came from within. The ground before the flap was frozen solid, and a trail of white frost spread out from it.
“The cold,” said Temley. “It’s stronger here.”
“Indeed,” said Erak. He lifted the tent flap and snow blasted out. Inside, pure white frost hung in the air like fog. Inside, four kenku sat facing one another. They spoke or sang—to Temley, it all seemed like singing, the language of the kenku—a simple, repeating chorus. The chanting kenku were covered in heavy animal furs and only their beaks protruded. But still they shuddered in the extreme cold within the tent. “Winter bringers,” said Erak. “These kenku—this tribe conscripted by the Raven Queen for this siege—are from the Grand Spire Mountains to the north. They excel in cold-weather combat. When needs be, they bring their conditions with them.”
“Praise be to the great power of the mistress of winter,” said Temley, awestruck.
On the way to the kenku encampment, Erak had told Temley the story of their black-winged allies. They were not like the brigand kenku who roamed the rest of the world in small bands, stealing and breeding mistrust. They had the same features as their brethren, though a careful look showed them to be a bit bigger and a bit more substantial. They favored the same short blades and bows, but leaped a bit farther, and could hold themselves aloft a bit longer because of their greater strength. They could not soar like the ravens or crows who shared their earliest ancestors, but could push themselves into the air for a short time and use their winged arms to carry them. “And they can float from great heights without injury, making them natural tree-dwellers and ambushers,” Erak said. “And though stealth and misdirection remain powerful weapons in their arsenal, this tribe of kenku is able to face a war party head-on if needs be.” They were well trained with their blades and unafraid of one-on-one combat.
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