by Tim Pratt
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For Jeff and Katrina
1
A RIVER CROSSING
“What I don’t understand is why you believed her,” Hrym said.
Rodrick shifted around, trying to find a more comfortable position on his belly under the bush, which was difficult, given all the roots and rocks beneath him and the scratching branches pressing down from above. “We’ve been over this. She said she forgave me. I thought she was doing me a good turn.”
“‘Go to Lake Encarthan,’ she said. ‘Nirmathas,’ she said. ‘The shores are thronged with wealthy idiots!’ And you believed her.”
Rodrick squinted. Were those feet over there? If they were feet, were they the feet of mere passing foresters of no consequence, or the feet of people who wanted to beat him to death with sticks—or whatever people in Nirmathas beat dishonest gamblers to death with? He shouldn’t assume it was sticks. That was probably his city-dweller’s prejudice talking. Maybe they used barrel staves, or threw clods of dirt. “I admit my trust in her was misplaced. What can I say? I never took her for the vengeful type.”
Hrym chortled. “I am a talking sword, barely capable of telling humans apart, and even I knew she was the vengeful type.”
“Fair enough. I didn’t think she was the subtly vengeful type. I thought she might stab me in my sleep, not smile sweetly and send me into the wilderness. You must admit, her argument was plausible.”
“It’s not my job to judge plausibility.”
“What is your job, exactly?”
“Dazzling the rubes, and saving your life from rubes who are insufficiently dazzled.”
“She said there was gold here. New mines discovered every day, people striking it rich with picks and shovels—she said Nirmathas was full of the new rich, who are so much less suspicious and more poorly guarded than the old rich. Of course I believed her. Gold must come from somewhere. Why not the shores of Lake Encarthan?”
“I did like the parts about gold,” Hrym said. “How long are we going to hide under this bush?”
“Until I believe the threat has passed.”
“Rodrick. I am a wondrous talking sword of magical living ice, and you are a half-competent swordsman. A few months ago we bested a rakshasa in battle. Half a dozen sawmill workers—”
“And a foreman.”
“—and a foreman aren’t likely to pose any great difficulty.”
“I don’t want to kill them, Hrym. They aren’t demonic monsters. They’re just people. Killing them would be murder.”
“They want to kill you. I think they call it self-defense in that case.”
“I doubt the magistrates would see it that way. Besides, if I killed everyone who wanted to kill me, the world would be a far less populous place.”
“We could freeze them in place, then. My magic isn’t inherently lethal.”
“If we froze them out here in the dark, they’d be eaten by … forest monsters. Wolves. Bears. Whatever they have here.”
“So? Doesn’t the moral burden fall on the forest monsters in that case? You baffle me.”
“We’ll make it through the night, Hrym, and then head out in search of better prospects. We’re not so far from Cheliax, really. That place is full of rich people.”
“Not naive people, as a rule, though.”
“True. But at least many of them are evil. We were going to focus on stealing from the evil, whenever possible.”
“That was your idea, not mine,” the sword said. “I don’t much care where the gold comes from. I don’t suffer from guilt. I’m a sword.”
“There’s a pragmatic aspect to preying on the villainous, though. The evil are more likely to have lots of money, since they aren’t scrupulous about how they get it, and once they have it, they don’t go around giving any of it to charity, and so forth. They keep it.”
“Excellent. So the current plan is, we hide under this bush until you, a person with demonstrably terrible judgment, decide it’s safe to leave, and then we start hiking in the general direction of Cheliax?”
“We’ll probably steal a horse, rather than hike,” Rodrick said. “Since our old horse is in the hands of an angry mob.”
Hrym went hrmm. “Seven gamblers don’t count as a mob. The horse is probably worth more than you cheated them out of dicing tonight anyway. Why are they still chasing us? They should be glad of their good fortune. A free horse! Why bring violence into it at all? Wait, don’t tell me. Morals again, right?”
“Something like that. Or setting a bad precedent. Or beating a stranger to death with sticks counts as an unusually good night’s entertainment in this gods-blighted wilderness.”
“Wait, you want to steal a horse? Isn’t that evil? Or is it an evil horse? Or an evil owner?”
“I am prepared to be flexible regarding the horse’s moral alignment, so long as it’s fast. Or even slow. Just as long as it’s faster than walking, honestly.”
“Honesty is very important—”
“Over there!” someone shouted, which was how you could tell they were workers in a sawmill and not hunters, because hunters knew better than to startle their quarry with shouts.
Rodrick rolled out from under the bush, Hrym in his scabbard digging painfully into his thigh in the process, then leapt to his feet and set off running in a direction that seemed to lead away from the voice.
He was so busy concentrating on not tripping over roots or rocks, and avoiding all the tree branches that hung inconveniently just at head height, that he was quite surprised when he fell into the river.
* * *
“I could freeze the river, if it would make you feel better,” Hrym said. “In a retaliatory way. Unless you think that would be immoral. I’m not sure if it’s an evil river or not.” The sword was unsheathed, stuck point-first in the earth, helping keep watch.
Rodrick sat under a tree, which would have been an improvement over hiding under a bush, if only he hadn’t been soaking wet. He kept his hand on Hrym’s hilt, and the sword’s magic kept him from suffering the effects of the chill night air, so at least he wouldn’t die of exposure. He still squished every time he shifted, and didn’t dare try to light a fire to dry himself out, lest the flames give away his position. “Yes, yes, you’re hilarious. Do you think they’ll keep hunting me, or am I safe now?”
“That depends on whether their desire to kill you is greater than their reluctance to ford a river in the dark. Or on whether there’s a nearby bridge we don’t know about. With luck they’re still searching the other side of the bank for you. Your blundering into the river and floundering some ways downstream could be construed as a clever way to evade pursuit—it’s hard to track
someone after they’ve gone into the water, and difficult to guess where they might emerge.”
Rodrick opened up his pack and poked through it gloomily, looking for something dry to eat. The people of Nirmathas favored jerkies with the consistency of tree bark, and he probably had some stashed away against emergencies. Chewing it would distract him from his other miseries, the same way slamming your fingers in a door could distract you from a stubbed toe.
His hand touched his cloak of the devilfish, one of the magical items he’d acquired—which is to say, “stolen”—during his adventures to date. “Hmm. I could transform into a devilfish and jump back into the river, and swim through the night. We could get a long way away from here.”
“A marvelous plan. It’s a nice, deep, fast river, too. Shame about all the fishing boats and nets strung along its length. When a lucky fisherman hauls an immense, seven-tentacled monster out of nightmare onto his boat, I’m sure you’ll have time to explain your secret humanity before he stabs you to death.”
Rodrick found a piece of only moderately damp jerky and began to gnaw on it. He might as well have been chewing on his own belt. “Mmm. You make a good point. Walking might be more sensible. I think I’ll wait until daylight, though, as blundering around in the dark hasn’t proven very effective.”
“Fair enough. Or we could investigate the campfires to the west.”
Rodrick squinted into the night. “I don’t see anything.”
“The fact that you’re looking east might account for that.”
He grunted and swiveled his head, and in the depthless dark of the forest he did detect a few distant flickers. “Hmm. People. Probably not the ones who were hunting me, either.”
“Which means they could offer hospitality.”
“Or they could have horses to steal.”
“Or that, yes,” Hrym agreed.
* * *
Rodrick prided himself on his stealth, though for maximum effect he had to keep Hrym sheathed on his belt so his hands remained free for occasional periods of crawling on all fours. He looked like a dashing swordsman (or else a dangerous thug, depending on whether you asked Rodrick himself or someone else) but moved like a sneak thief. He circled around the source of the light, keeping an eye out for sentries, and as he drew closer, counted no fewer than three fires, spaced some tens of yards apart. That configuration suggested a party of some size—which, on the one hand, was a bit daunting, but on the other hand meant they might have lots of horses, and might not notice one little mount missing from the crowd.
He only had one close call, when he went still with his back against a tree while a sentry in a bucketlike helmet walked past less than a dozen feet away, muttering to himself and poking at the underbrush with a pike. Rodrick moved fast after that, hoping to complete his work before the man made his next circuit of the camp.
There were two groups of horses, tethered separately, and Rodrick wondered if they were sorted by disposition. He chose to approach the horses situated farthest from the fires to avoid detection, and since he was no particular judge of horseflesh anyway, selected the one on the outside without much internal debate. The beast was gray or black or brown or who knew what color—impossible to say in the darkness—and looked like more of a pack animal than a racing mount, which suited Rodrick fine. Spirited women had their attractions, but he didn’t feel the same about spirited mounts. The animal was sleeping, but Rodrick touched its side gently and murmured reassuring sounds as it woke up, and the horse blinked at him and then waited with every appearance of patience as he untied the tether from a tree branch and slowly led the horse deeper into the forest. The animal wasn’t saddled, of course, and riding bareback was even more horrific than ordinary riding, but needs must.
Rodrick wasn’t about to ride a horse in the forest at night and risk breaking the animal’s legs and his own neck, but the trees thinned out closer to the riverbank, so if he could lead the horse in that direction he should be able to ride safely—
“Thief!” someone shouted, and as usual, it was the second most unpleasant thing he’d ever heard anyone shout. (The first most unpleasant was “My husband’s home early!”) Rodrick attempted to climb up on the horse’s back, because caution was suddenly less important than escape, but the horse failed to cooperate, skittering away—Could horses skitter? He wouldn’t have thought so, but this one managed it—in alarm as the camp was roused. Rodrick slid along the horse’s side, lost his footing, and sat down hard on a tree root, at which point he decided his feet were the only form of locomotion he needed. The camp was roused now, full of shouting voices, and Hrym was complaining, too, demanding to be let out of his sheath so he could see what was going on, and Rodrick hissed, “Shut up shut up shut up” at the world in general as he did his best to run away from the noise.
He tripped on some abominable forest-related bit of the landscape, banged his chin on the ground hard enough to make his teeth snap together, and watched the night become even darker as black stars filled his vision. He pushed himself up on his elbows, lifted his head, and nearly put his own eye out on a spear point. The spearhead was shortly joined by two sword points, all pointed at his face, which was really more weaponry than anyone should require to kill someone like him.
2
A JOURNEY ON HORSEBACK
“Thank Erastil you’re here,” Rodrick said. “I’ve been in pursuit of a notorious horse thief, and tracked him to your camp—”
“Lie,” a harsh voice said. Rodrick risked turning his head, and was alarmed to see a hulking figure with long gray hair wearing a chainmail shirt and no pants, holding a sword so large it seemed like it should be merely decorative—the sort of weapon you might hang on a wall in a castle, not actually fight with.
“Our spiritual adviser says you’re lying,” a milder voice said. Rodrick looked in the other direction, where a younger, dark-haired, more fully dressed woman stood, holding a more reasonable-looking sword.
That giant was a priest? And one who could detect lies, apparently. He’d encountered people with that power before. They were annoying. They forced you to tell the truth very carefully.
“Ah.” Rodrick stayed flat on the ground, because the armed people around him hadn’t invited him to stand. He lined up the words just right in his head, then spoke. “I apologize. I’ve spent the past few hours being pursued by men who believe I cheated them in a dice game, and during my flight I had various unpleasant experiences, including falling in a river, and as a result I became rather desperate and made the incredibly bad decision to try to steal one of your horses. I deeply regret that.”
“True,” the big man said.
The woman grunted. “They believed you cheated them, you say? Did you cheat them?”
Rodrick winced. “Not on every throw.”
She laughed. “So you’re a cheat and a thief, and confess to those crimes from your own mouth. Very well. By my authority as a captain of the crusaders of Lastwall—”
“Wait, Lastwall? This is Nirmathas!”
The big man grunted. “He thinks it’s true. Amusing.”
She shook her head. “Nirmathas is on the other side of the river you fell into, I’m afraid. As I was saying: by my authority as a captain of the crusaders of Lastwall, I accept your confession, and sentence you to death by hanging, said sentence to be carried out with all due haste.”
“Let us go now, or everyone here dies.” Hrym’s voice was muffled by the sheath, but he was clearly audible. “Well, not everyone. Not me, obviously, and not Rodrick. But the rest of you, most definitely.”
“True,” the priest said, in tones of wonder.
There were suddenly a lot more swords pointed at Rodrick, and a lot of people frantically looking in every direction. “Who said that?” the captain demanded.
Rodrick closed his eyes. “My sword has a mind of its own. His name is Hrym. Hrym, meet captain … something … of the crusaders of Lastwall.”
“True.” The priest sounded impressed.
“A talking sword.” The captain squatted on her heels, bringing her eyes level with Rodrick’s. “Show me this sword. Very slowly.”
“May I stand up? Drawing a blade while sprawled in the dirt isn’t a skill I’ve practiced often.”
“You may kneel.”
“How kind.” Rodrick got to his knees and slowly drew Hrym from the scabbard. He got about halfway before the captain spoke again.
“That’s far enough.” She peered at the glittering, icy blade. “Do you truly speak, sword?”
“Speaking is the least of my abilities. Set us free, or I’ll show you rather more remarkable powers. Very painful ones.”
“Mmm. How did a wandering horse thief come by such a remarkable weapon? Perhaps it’s some kind of trickery.”
“Would you like a demonstration of my powers?” the sword said.
“Hrym, let’s not escalate matters,” Rodrick said.
“I’d say they’re fairly well escalated already.” Icy vapor swirled around the blade. “I’ll freeze every one of you into a lump of ice if you don’t set us free right now.”
“True,” the priest said. “If it were just a lump of steel, and the thief were throwing his voice or something, I don’t think my ability to detect lies would work on it. It’s real.”
“Fascinating.” If the captain feared for her life, she wasn’t showing it.
Rodrick wished, not for the first time, that he had a good relationship with any particular deity, because this seemed like an optimal time to pray for divine intercession.
“You aren’t listening.” The temperature dropped, and frost formed on all the exposed metal in the vicinity. “Let us go, or die in ice.”
“We’re listening,” the priest said mildly.
The captain nodded. “You think we fear death? We’re crusaders. We face undead horrors and orc hordes, and we chose that life. Death holds no terror for us.”
“Horrors and hordes are causes worth fighting, and perhaps even dying for,” Rodrick said. “I, however, am just a man who made some bad decisions. No one has to die here. Just let us go, all right? We’ll be back across the river and out of your territory within the hour.”
