Liar's Bargain: A Novel

by Tim Pratt

  Rodrick had used his own not inconsiderable charm in similar ways in the past, forging bonds of fellowship that seemed solid but were actually as ephemeral as spiderwebs … but Eldra was so good at it, she almost made him believe her. Maybe if she pretended affection long enough, it would become true? Or maybe she’d decide that to well and truly wrap him around her finger, she should actually sleep with him at some point. Conservatory-trained courtesans were supposedly proficient in arts he’d never experienced, but only seen in salacious illustrations, and though Rodrick was generally a lazy student uninterested in learning, he was willing to take instruction along those lines.

  Eventually they judged it was the dimmest watches of the night and went to rouse Merihim and the Specialist. The latter was rather groggy until he lifted a vial of something to his nose and sniffed the vapors, and then he sprang to his feet as if he’d been poked in the nethers with a needle, eyes wide and body positively vibrating with energy. Alchemists were such strange folk, and he was at least an alchemist, even if he was other things, too.

  Rodrick rolled out his blanket, then opened his coin pouch. His total net worth, in gold, was a mere three coins, including the one Hrym had extorted from the Specialist. Rodrick scattered the paltry array on the ground before resting Hrym atop the gold.

  “What a pitiful hoard,” Hrym muttered. “Why do you have to spend our gold all the time? I don’t go around bartering away your mattresses.”

  Rodrick ignored him, turning his attention to more interesting sleeping companions. “Want to huddle together for warmth?” he whispered to Eldra.

  “We both know we wouldn’t get any actual rest if I nuzzled up against you. Save it for a night when we’re not on a mission, hmm?” She rolled herself up in a blanket a decorous distance away.

  She’s really very good, Rodrick thought, and then went to sleep.

  * * *

  He woke to birds singing in the grayish half-light of dawn. The fire was cold, having reduced the horse and dryads to a pile of ashes and bones and unidentifiable lumps. Merihim and the Specialist were up, saddling the mounts that hadn’t died yet. Rodrick rose and yawned, and Eldra rolled over and smiled up at him, blinking her long eyelashes prettily.

  Prinn walked into camp, limping slightly, his face covered in scratches, his expression as impassive as ever. Merihim raised a hand and beckoned him over. Prinn removed the glowing bracelet of linked arrows and handed it to his mistress, who slipped it over her wrist. Prinn then murmured into her ear at some length, and the devilkin scowled as she listened. She patted him on the shoulder—he stiffened as if she’d threatened him with a whip—and said, “Gather round, children, for the good news.”

  Rodrick picked up Hrym and the gold and wrapped up his bedroll, while Eldra yawned and stretched most fetchingly, then they ambled over to join the others.

  “Prinn scouted ahead. There’s a very obvious trail, which he followed, and it led to a concealed pit full of spikes smeared with animal dung, because apparently ordinary wooden spikes aren’t unhygienic enough. He found a much less obvious trail, and followed that, thinking it would lead us to Bannerman … but instead it led to a series of traps made with vines and bent-back limbs and more wooden spikes smeared with more dung. He had to dive into a briar patch to avoid being impaled, which is why he’s all scratched up. Two other likely trails led to similar sets of traps, but he was prepared for those, now, and managed to set them off without being caught himself. Beyond the most treacherous set of traps, though, he found a hillside with a dry creek bed full of boulders, the sort of thing that doesn’t leave any sign of tracks, and scurried up it … and on the other side of the hill, there’s a pond, and in the midst of the pond a rocky island, and in the midst of the island, a small opening in the rocks that leads to a cave. That’s where Bannerman is hidden. The bracelet flashed and pulsed like mad when Prinn got close.”

  “Assuming we’re operating from correct foundations,” the Specialist said. “The bracelet will lead us to whomever left that shred of fingernail in the clearing, but we have no proof that was Bannerman.”

  “There could be another wily ex-crusader hiding out in the forest laying traps, I suppose,” Merihim said, “but I’m willing to bet it’s our man.”

  The Specialist shrugged. “I’m merely pointing out that few things in life are certain.”

  “That’s what makes it exciting,” Eldra said.

  They led the horses to a grassy clearing Prinn had found, where a flowing creek belled out into a pool before continuing on its course, so they could eat and drink in pleasant surroundings. Prinn and Merihim did something magical, driving stakes into the ground in a loose circle around the horses, apparently setting up some kind of sorcerous perimeter, presumably to protect their mounts from fey or other monsters. Rodrick appreciated the precaution. Not enough horses was better than no horses at all, and he didn’t relish the idea of returning to the Bastion on foot.

  Once the animals were as safe as possible, the party moved on. Prinn led the way, since he’d scouted beforehand, followed by Merihim. Eldra was in the rear, keeping her keen eyes on their back trail, leaving the Specialist and Rodrick to walk together. The Specialist handed over another gold coin and listened solemnly as Hrym spun the most outrageous nonsense about being taken on a Shory expedition to a blasted temple in what was now the Sodden Lands, where an enclave of serpentfolk plotted to restore the supremacy of their race. The Specialist was rapt. At least Hrym’s blather kept the Specialist from educating Rodrick about the economic importance of the Fangwood or the social organization of woodland fey and their demon-corrupted counterparts. He’d have preferred chatting with Eldra, though.

  Before noon they found the first of the traps Prinn had triggered, nasty and inventive things set off by tripwires and loose stones. Who knew you could achieve such terrible effects with the odd bit of rope, vines, branches, heavy logs and rocks for counterweights, and gravity? Their progress slowed a bit as the forest grew more dense, the underbrush thicker, the trees here younger and closer together, mostly firs bristling with needles and oozing sap. Prinn was content to slither and crawl beneath branches, but Merihim laid about her with a heavy blade, hacking out a path. They skirted a pair of five-foot-deep pits bristling with spikes, which had been covered with thin latticeworks of branches covered with fir boughs until Prinn found them. Rodrick watched the ground very carefully, and made a point of following as precisely in Merihim’s footsteps as possible.

  They made it through the traps safely, and reached the rocky hillside with its dry creek bed. Calling it a “hill” wasn’t quite descriptive enough, Rodrick thought. If the incline had been just a bit steeper, it would have been more properly termed a cliff wall. You could climb it without ropes and spikes, probably, if you went slowly. The stones scattered on the hill ranged from pebble-sized to wheelbarrow-sized to one high up near the ridge that was nearly as big as a carriage. The Specialist started talking about glaciers and geological forces and Rodrick let the words wash over him without bothering to take in their meaning.

  “Prinn will go up ahead and make sure the path is clear,” Merihim said. “I don’t like how exposed we’ll be on that hillside. Bannerman could be watching.”

  The pale sorcerer scuttled up the steep hillside, finding hand- and footholds with impressive dexterity. He was halfway up when the immense boulder Rodrick had noticed before started to shift forward. “Look out!” he shouted, and Prinn stopped and looked back at him, which was entirely the wrong thing to do, as the boulder began to roll ponderously toward him.

  But it was only ponderous at first. The combination of weight and gravity caused the boulder to speed up rapidly, and when Prinn finally looked the right way he flung himself to one side and rolled, bouncing, down the hill. Fortunately, the boulder bounced along a different route, hitting the creek bed and then rolling as smoothly as a ball dropped down a chute.

  Right toward the rest of them. They broke in different directions, and all manage
d to get clear in time, watching the boulder hit the level ground and actually bounce before caroming off into the underbrush and coming to rest.

  Prinn didn’t seem troubled by his brush with death-by-crushing. He resumed his climb, pausing often to look up occasionally this time, and reached the ridge, peeking over the top. He turned and beckoned, and the rest of them began to make their way up the hillside. Rodrick stuck to the creek bed, since it seemed to offer the most handholds, grunting with effort and trying not to slide backward with every step. His calves burned with effort. “You’re lucky you don’t have legs, Hrym.”

  “I do have legs. They’re called ‘Rodrick.’”

  When they reached the top, Prinn was crouched down examining the place where the immense boulder had been. Merihim and the Specialist joined him. “Yes, I think it was deliberate,” the Specialist said. “You can see where the hillside was undermined, here and here, to make the boulder more precarious.”

  “Also there’s a six-foot-long branch on the ground,” Merihim said dryly. “Looks a lot like a lever to me. Bannerman’s definitely keeping an eye on us.” She held up her wrist, and the bracelet was pulsing with light faster than the heartbeat of a running man. “Rodrick, you and the Specialist are going over the top first. Blast ice, throw fireballs, make a lot of noise. Rodrick, when you get close enough, use Hrym to freeze the pond. Eldra and Prinn will flank and approach from either side, crossing the ice to the island proper, to see if they can catch Bannerman unawares. All right?”

  They all gave their agreement, none with great enthusiasm.

  “Go on, then.”

  Rodrick and the Specialist leapt over the top of the ridge and raced down the gentler slope on the other side. There was a miniature valley below, dominated by a large, algae-slimed pond with a small rocky island in the center. The word “valley” was too idyllic, though: the area around the pond was full of shaggy, knee-high grass and large mounds of rotting vegetation. The Specialist threw a pair of small clay bulbs overhand at the island. Both fell short, landing in the water, but seconds later erupted with loud booms and sprayed geysers into the air. Hrym spat long spears of ice before them, which landed in the water harmlessly or shattered on the rocky island. There was no sign of Bannerman or any other life.

  The Specialist howled something as he ran down the hillside, maybe an orc battle cry, and Rodrick yelled right along with him, feeling rather ridiculous. They were supposed to make noise, though, so make noise they would. Rodrick pointed Hrym toward the pond, and once they were in range, the slimy water began to freeze, tendrils of ice racing out and meeting to connect until a solid sheet of ice filled half the pond, connecting the shore to the island. Prinn and Eldra appeared from either side, moving low and fast—though Prinn was rather lower and faster; the man moved like a lizard—and slowing down only slightly when they hit the ice.

  The Specialist kept hollering but stopped throwing bombs, and Rodrick didn’t bother to yell anymore. If Bannerman was here, he’d certainly noticed their arrival. Rodrick noted a shadow among the cracked stones of the island that was probably the cave mouth Prinn had mentioned. Maybe Bannerman was holed up in there, pointing a crossbow at the opening, waiting for them to cross in front of it, silhouetted nicely and turned into appealing targets.

  “See how I made the sheet ice uneven?” Hrym said. “All rippled? That’s to help Eldra and Prinn walk across it without slipping. Something like that deserves praise, I think. My teamwork is exemplary.”

  “Well done,” Rodrick said distractedly. He and the Specialist stopped at the edge of the iced-over pond, both scanning the rest of the valley while Prinn and Eldra crawled all over the island, carefully avoiding the cave mouth, to make sure Bannerman wasn’t crouched in some other crevice. They both came together at the highest point on the island, just a few yards above the cave opening, and shook their heads.

  Merihim joined Rodrick and the Specialist, looking at the even-more-rapidly-pulsing light of the bracelet on her wrist. “He’s very close. Must be in that hole.”

  “I could toss a bomb into the cave mouth,” the Specialist said. “I have a few left.”

  Merihim sniffed. “We’re supposed to bring Bannerman back alive and unharmed, not a charred corpse.”

  “There are other sorts of bombs.” He reached into his pack and took out a bulb of reddish clay, about the size of an apple. “This is a concussive, not an explosive, and it makes a bright flash, too, to blind anyone who looks in its direction. We can throw this into the cave, wait for it to go off, and then rush in. If Bannerman is there, he’ll be dazed and easily taken.” The Specialist paused. “Unless it’s a deep complex of caverns, and he’s hidden off in some side tunnel, but I don’t think that’s likely given the prevailing local geographic factors—”

  “All right. Drop your bomb. Then you and Rodrick and Hrym will go in to subdue Bannerman.”

  “Can we hit him just a little?” Rodrick said. “He dropped a demon-tainted dryad on our heads, after all.”

  “Don’t hurt him unless it’s necessary to subdue him.” Merihim grinned. “But I’ll let you be the judge of what’s necessary or not. I have total faith in the rightness of your choices.”

  They walked across the ice, leaving Merihim on the far side, watching over the valley in case of surprise attack. Rodrick waved jauntily at Eldra, who waggled her fingers at him in a friendly wave. He was careful not to cross directly in front of the cave mouth, which was about four feet wide and three feet high and as black as a slaver’s heart. He’d had some experience crawling around in caverns and barrows, and wasn’t eager to add more.

  Rodrick and the Specialist flanked the hole, and the Specialist tossed in the reddish bulb before turning away, squeezing his eyes shut, and putting his hands over his ears. Rodrick followed suit hastily, as well as he could with a magical longsword in one hand. The noise was shockingly loud, a boom that reverberated through the soles of his boots and into his bones, and the blast of light from the cave mouth was so bright he could see it clearly even through his eyelids.

  After a moment he blinked, caught the Specialist’s eye, and they ducked and headed into the cavern. The Specialist drew a tube that glowed yellow as the sun from his pack, and it illuminated a small space, barely a hole in the ground, with a fallen figure on its back, unmoving, next to the shards of the Specialist’s bomb. “He’s in here!” Rodrick shouted.

  Eldra entered the cave. “Merihim’s on her way.”

  After a few moments the devilkin descended as well, bracelet flashing brightly in the dimness. “Ha! Excellent. Drag him out. We can give him one kick each, all right? Just be careful not to rupture anything vital.”

  The Specialist knelt by the form on the cavern floor. “This isn’t Bannerman,” he said.

  Merihim stiffened. “Who is it, then?”

  The Specialist shrugged. “An old man. I’d guess some kind of forest hermit, by the state of his beard and teeth. He’s been dead … oh, a few weeks, at least. No signs of murder. Probably just passed away naturally.”

  Merihim held up her bracelet, which flashed wildly. “Then where’s Bannerman?”

  The Specialist held up the dead man’s arm, and then straightened one of his fingers. “Look here. The fingernail was ripped off, probably after death.”

  Merihim groaned. “It was a trap. We have to get out of here—”

  Outside, beyond the cavern mouth, someone screamed.

  10

  BANNERMAN

  They rushed out of the cave, Rodrick going first with Hrym outstretched, though he hated to lead. There was only the one scream, which was either comforting or terrifying, depending on why the screaming had stopped.

  Prinn was kneeling on top of a prostrate man, twisting his captive’s arms up behind his back as the man tried without success to heave the pale sorcerer off him.

  Rodrick lowered the sword. “I think Prinn caught Bannerman.”

  The renegade crusader was a huge man, dressed in green and brown
and gray, garments ideal for blending into the forest. A quiver of arrows and a large bow lay on the ground beside him.

  “It’s good we didn’t all rush into the cave,” Merihim said. “What was the plan, Bannerman? Shoot us with arrows as we emerged?”

  “Don’t know any Bannerman,” the man said gruffly. “I’m just a huntsman, out looking for deer. I heard some kind of a boom and came to see what it was, and this fella jumped out and knocked me down and sat on me.”

  Merihim squatted, grabbed him by the hair, and twisted his head so she could get a good look at his face. “Looks like the sketch of Bannerman to me.”

  Rodrick had to agree, and the Specialist said, with his usual certainty, “It’s either Bannerman, or a doppelganger, or a totenmaske who stole his face, or someone using an illusion to disguise themselves—”

  “Yes, it’s Bannerman, I agree, too.” Eldra crossed her arms, looked to the cave, and shuddered. “Can we get out of here now?”

  Merihim reached into her pack and brought out a pair of black iron shackles. “Temple gave me these. Get him upright, Prinn.” The sorcerer unfolded himself and dragged Bannerman to his feet. The former crusader towered over Rodrick by at least a foot, and Rodrick wasn’t a small man. The top of Eldra’s head would have barely come up to Bannerman’s breastbone.

  The fugitive tried to do some sort of clever move, twisting his body and moving his feet and trying to lift his arms, but Prinn adjusted his grip on the man’s elbow minutely and made Bannerman bite back a cry of pain and drop to one knee.

  “We’d be just as happy to bring you back dead,” Merihim said. “Keep resisting, and we will. The reward’s the same either way.”

  Bannerman snorted. “Temple needs me alive. There’s knowledge inside my head she needs.”

  Merihim shrugged. “It was worth a try. We were told not to kill you, or permanently break you, but that leaves a wealth of other options to make you behave, doesn’t it, Prinn?”