The Merchant Adventurer

by Patrick E. McLean

  “That’s gonna have to change.”

  42

  When he’d seen the large Orc fall to the floor in agony, Rattick had decided it was time to go. Concealed in his cape of fading black, he slunk from the chamber. As he started up the main passageway, he could see flashes and hear crashing noises behind him. He quickened his step and said, “Don’t know, don’t want to know.”

  Good thief that he was, it pained Rattick to leave so much gold behind. He was good at taking things, and he enjoyed it. But Rattick was even better at surviving.

  By the time the Wizard had started throwing lightning bolts around like they were party favors, Rattick was halfway up the main passage. And just as the walls started shaking, he stepped out into the forest and ran for all he was worth, never looking back.

  Rattick couldn’t imagine that the Merchant stood a chance against the Wizard, but he couldn’t see a percentage in sticking around either way. Rattick had seen Dimsbury lose his temper too often. At the very least, Rattick was certain the guy would unleash his considerable powers to see Robrecht burned to the ground. No, that wouldn’t be enough for Dimsbury. He would want to see Robrecht burned to the ground and then its ashes shoveled into the river.

  But where there was chaos, thought Rattick, there was opportunity. So when he had escaped the depths, Rattick hid himself away in his favorite tree to see what happened next. What happened next was nothing. Clouds drifted across the sky, and a gentle breeze caused the tree to sway so gently that Rattick fell asleep. As he drifted off, he thought to himself, “No worries, you’ll never sleep through the sound of a howling mass of Orcs unleashed on the countryside.”

  But Rattick awoke to something very, very different. It was the sound of a horse being harnessed. The jingle of metal on metal, the clop of hooves, and the slap of leather. He opened his eyes and realized it was night. The clouds had cleared, and a bright, waxing moon hung in the sky. By its light, he saw Boltac and Asarah help Relan into the Duke’s carriage. They had survived? But how?

  He watched Boltac and Asarah climb onto the front of the carriage and drive away. Rattick waited many minutes, expecting to hear the howl of bloodthirsty Orcs hurrying in pursuit, or to see fireballs raining down from the heavens upon them. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. Was he dreaming? What was going on?

  He descended from the tree and followed them. Of course, he couldn’t keep up with a horse-drawn carriage, but the track it left was distinctive enough, and it led back to Robrecht.

  He walked through the night, recognizing darkness for the old friend it was. And he had all the small hours of the night to wonder why the cries of Orcs weren’t burning up the road behind him.

  In the morning, he came upon a small cottage in a clearing. There was smoke rising from the fieldstone chimney. And behind the cottage, in space that was hard-won from the thick, primeval forest, were a garden and a pen with three pigs. Hungry, Rattick made for the garden. As he was rooting around the leafy plants, he heard the door to the cottage open behind him.

  In one motion, he swirled his cape of concealment around him and stood stock still in the middle of the garden. He would fool the peasant, he thought, and then resume his free breakfast. What a fine thing to be a thief, and free at the start of a new day.

  Peering through a fold in his remarkable cloak, Rattick watched an old man carry the remnants of breakfast to the hogs. The pigs squealed greedily as he filled their trough. The peasant turned and, seeing his garden, he froze.

  Rattick remained motionless, wondering what the peasant might be looking at behind him. Then the Peasant asked, “Whattaya doing standing out there in the field? Are ye daft, man? Are ye hurt?”

  After a long moment, Rattick unwrapped his cloak and asked, “You can see me?”

  “Of course, I can see ya. I may be old and poor, but I’m not blind, am I?”

  Rattick stammered. How had the farmer seen him? A master sneak-thief like Rattick, espied by this pie-faced rube?

  “If yer simple,” the Farmer continued, very slowly, “Follow the road down to Robrecht. There’s them that can look after you there.” Then the Farmer had a thought, “Or you can stay here and I can hire you as a scarecrow.” The Farmer cackled at his own joke as if it was the funniest thing that had ever been said. Rattick hurried away to escape the mocking noise of it.

  • • •

  When Rattick reached Robrecht, it felt strangely empty. But as he entered through the north gate, the noise of many people gathered drifted to him from the south. At any other time, Rattick would have used a major gathering as a chance to burgle few houses.

  Right now, he just had to know what was going on.

  43

  Rattick slipped into the back of the crowd that was gathered in the courtyard of the old keep. At the center of them all, Boltac stood on a low table, waving his hands for quiet. “C’mon. C’mon, shut up already,” he cried.

  “Why do you get to be King?” someone demanded. A fine question, thought Rattick: Boltac, King?! How ridiculous would that be! Still, he had apparently defeated the Wizard somehow. Rattick had lived so long for two reasons. One, he had no compunctions about killing; two, he was cautious, cautious, cautious. If he didn’t understand it, he avoided it. And as he stood there watching a greedy fat man make his appeal, he realized that there was something here he just didn’t understand.

  It was not a feeling he was comfortable with, by any stretch of his dark and twisted imagination.

  Boltac smiled at the man who had questioned his divine right to Kinghood, “I’m glad you asked that question. And there are three reasons. One, ‘cause the treasury is bare. That sneaky bastard Weeveston either spent it all or took it with him when he left like a thief in the night.” Of course, Boltac meant this as an insult, but Rattick found himself hoping that the former Duke really had been shrewd enough to heist his own Kingdom. That would have been well-played and Rattick would have to remember that trick, if ever he found himself in a similar position.

  “But why do you get to be King just because he took the money?” asked another in the crowd.

  Rattick didn’t like to see what should be a typically surly crowd treating Boltac with anything resembling deference. It disturbed the order of things. Still, that tingle of fear said, you never know who could wind up being a King in these strange days. Always best to err on the side of caution.

  “Why? ‘Cause I’m going to refill the treasury with my own money. Anybody else want to do that?” The silence was deafening. “Okay, reason #2 why I should be your King is that, effective immediately, I’m cutting taxes,” Boltac shook his head. It hurt him to say the next words, but desperate times called for desperate measures, “in half.”

  A cheer went up, but the naturally skeptical Robrecht crowd still wasn’t totally with him. They had heard too many lies about taxes in their days. Boltac didn’t hesitate.

  “And reason number three. At this very moment, the forces of the Mercian Empire–of which we were so recently a protectorate–are on their way to reclaim us. By force, even if that’s not even a little bit necessary. Because that’s the way people think when they are part of an Empire.”

  “That’s not a reason to make you King. That’s a reason to surrender!” said a fat man in the front.

  “En-henh. I’m not too sure they’re gonna take ‘uncle’ for an answer, if you know what I’m saying. No, they’re gonna be plenty pissed and looking for someone to blame. And if I know my Mercian tactics, they are going to come stomping in here looking for someone to make an example of.”

  “Well, then the Horks, surely. They’ll take it out on the Horks.”

  “Yeah, but I told you: no more Horks. Orcs. Whatever. I took care of them.”

  Relan jumped up on the table next to Boltac. Rattick could see, before the lad even opened his mouth, that the crowd was ready to believe him. The thief shook his head. You just couldn’t fake that kind of innocence and naiveté. If Rattick could fake that, he’d be a much w
ealthier man by now. “I can vouch for his story,” said Relan, “I was there. And what’s more, this man saved my life.”

  Boltac didn’t waste the opportunity. “Anyone woulda done the same,” said Boltac, playing to the crowd. “But the thing is, not finding any Orcs, the Mercians are gonna say it was a hoax. A revolt of some kind. And they will want to take out their frustration by cracking some heads open. And since the only heads here are ours, well, friends, something should be done.”

  Affirmative cries rose from the crowd. Yeah! Something should be done!

  “Anybody got a plan?” Boltac asked, dead earnest.

  “But you’re supposed to have a plan. You’re the King!”

  “Oh, am I?”

  There was a grumbling in the crowd. Rattick thought Boltac was going to falter. But he saw Boltac look to a balcony high on the keep behind him. There, in the sunlight and clean air, was Asarah, as radiant as spring. She smiled and waved her palms in a motion that said ‘keep calm.’

  Boltac turned back and smiled at the crowd, armed with new confidence. “So, here’s the deal. I have a plan, and if I’m your King, I’ll use it. If any of you have a plan, well then, you can put your own money in the treasury, face not only the wrath of the most powerful Empire in the Four Kingdoms but also the ire of your fellow citizens… you know, come to think of it, I don’t want this after all.” In a display of master showmanship, Boltac jumped off the table. “Nah, I’m taking my plan and going home.”

  “No, no, no!” rose the cries around him. The negotiation successfully concluded; Boltac climbed back onto the table and smiled.

  “Okay, here’s what we are going to do…” And Boltac told them the plan.

  And through all of it, Asarah beamed down on him like an angel.

  “Wait just a minute,” said an old man, missing a few teeth said slowly. “If you’re to be King, don’t you need a coronation first?”

  “Ahh. Maybe it’d be best to wait until after I’ve saved my new Kingdom, hunh?”

  Nobody argued.

  And with that, Rattick decided that the jig was up. He spent the night in a house of questionable virtue and reasonable rates. And when he cinched up his pants the next morning, he was certain it was the last time he would ever see Robrecht.

  Later, as he drifted down the river Swift in a stolen boat, he was also certain Robrecht would never see Boltac’s coronation either. Doubted the dismal, foggy burg would last much longer. And he couldn’t say that he was going to miss it.

  44

  Weeveston Prestidigitous RampartLion Toroble the 15th stumbled out onto the stone terrace and flung himself down on a divan. Down the terraced hill, he could see the slow-moving remnants of the river Swift. Here in the Southron lands, the name and character of the river had changed completely. Weeveston smiled to himself without knowing why. But he didn’t need a reason. He was still pleasantly drunk from a night of revelry that had not yet ended.

  On the other side of the river, the pure, clean, hopeful light of a new day had made its way through the twisted streets and high towers of the fabled Scented City of Shatnapur. By the time these rays of dawn had reached Weeveston, they had fewer illusions and far less purity. Still, the miasma of incense and highly cultivated vice rising from the city towers tinged the light a pleasant shade of red.

  There was the pad of a sandaled foot on the flagstones behind him. He turned and smiled at his wife Tryphaenae, who was a vision of beauty in the corrupted light of dawn.

  “I have ordered the servants to bring us breakfast,” said Tryphaenae as she sat next to him with flounce of bangles and jewelry.

  “Ah, my darling, you shouldn’t strain yourself so, making breakfast for me.”

  Tryphaenae smiled. “Ordering breakfast is the least I can do for your return, my loving husband.”

  “And what is the most you might do?” Weeveston said lewdly. Tryphaenae turned to avoid his grope so he could not see the look of distaste on her face.

  She removed herself to another couch and said, “Save your strength, Weeveston.”

  Then a train of servants emerged with the first course of breakfast. As Weeveston lay back and let himself be waited on, he thought, this is what I was born to be.

  There was a tremendous pounding at the door. Weeveston finished sucking the contents of a poached sparrow egg and said, “My dear, are you conducting renovations?”

  Tryphaenae shook her head. “No, Weeveston.”

  The pounding continued, this time even louder.

  “I say, is that your, I mean our, front door?”

  “I believe it might be. But why the pounding? It is unlocked.” The pounding was replaced with a commotion inside the house. Weeveston saw the glint of highly polished armor before he recognized who it was walking out onto the terrace.

  “Uncle Torvalds,” said Weeveston, “Why, you are just in time for breakfast.”

  “My breakfast was three hours ago,” barked Torvalds.

  Weeveston continued, “And a good morning to you too, Uncle. Are you sure you wouldn’t care for some toast? Or whatever passes for toast here in the south–you do have toast here, my darling? You remember my wife Tryphaenae, Uncle?”

  “I arranged the marriage,” growled Torvalds. He turned to the nearest servant and commanded, “Have a horse saddled for my nephew.” Torvalds tone was such that the servant didn’t even look to the mistress of the house before he ran off.

  Torvalds turned his attention to his niece-by-marriage. “Ah, my dear Tryphaenae, you are as lovely as the day you were married.”

  From her divan, Tryphaenae smiled. “Torvalds, you old rogue.”

  He bowed. “Guilty as charged. I am sorry that I must take him away from you so soon after you have been reunited, but the affairs of state…”

  Tryphaenae smiled invitingly and said, “I have always been very understanding when it comes to affairs. Do what you will.”

  Torvalds kissed her hand and said, “Our time together is always so brief, my dear.” Then the smile dropped away from his face and he turned back to his nephew.

  “You have lost a Kingdom–”

  “Duchy?” offered Weeveston.

  ”–and we take our army to win it back.”

  “Army?” asked Weeveston. “What army? I thought all of our forces were far, far to the north?”

  “I have hired the Free Companions. All of them. At present they are marching north. We ride to join them and retake your throne.”

  Weeveston did not get up.

  “Time is of the essence,” Torvalds said through clenched teeth.

  “That’s it? Hired an army and off we go? No ‘hello,’ no ‘how are you’? No ‘glad to see you’? No niceties at all, Uncle? No concern for your poor nephew, driven from his seat by an army of creatures most foul. Horks, as they are called in the benighted regions of my former Kingdom.”

  “Duchy,” corrected Torvalds “Let’s go.”

  Weeveston, with uncharacteristic courage, sat his ground.

  Torvalds sighed. “Nephew. I am not glad to see you. Your debacle has torn me from pressing business in the west. I should think it enough that I am here to help you fix your problem and restore you to the function and station to which your family has so graciously appointed you. However, if you require a reminder of the warm embrace of family which is denied to you due to your own obvious shortcomings, then I will tell you that your Aunt sends her best.”

  Weeveston jumped and checked behind him for a highly skilled assassin. Finding himself not murdered, he rose and said, “Yes, yes. Posthaste, Uncle, as you say.”

  • • •

  Within two days, they joined the main body of the Free Companions, an army-for-hire 20,000 strong. The men were open and easy with each other and their commanders. Their laughter and song on the march provided a fine counterpoint to grim Uncle Torvalds and the detachment of Mercian BattleMages with him.

  Even on a good day, a BattleMage was an odd sort of duck. Weeveston couldn’t re
member a Wizard who wasn’t, in one way or another, but the four that his uncle had brought seemed particularly humorless. Still, they did their job. The threat of their sinister Magic kept the Free Companions civil. Really, thought Weeveston, mercenaries? Not a very good idea. How could one trust a mercenary? How could one trust anyone, for that matter, thought Weeveston.

  As he considered this, the leader of the Free Companions–a swarthy, long-haired man known as Laughlin–turned in his saddle and looked at him. Weeveston found it disconcerting and gave the man a nervous little grin. Laughlin smiled broadly revealing several gold teeth. Then he turned forward again and laughed a booming laugh. His long black hair was bound with a red scarf–the mark of the Free Companions—and Weeveston could see it shaking with laughter long after he could no longer hear the sound.

  Weeveston shivered. He did not like these Companions. They showed no rank or discipline. They had no uniforms. All that was required of them was that they display some red piece of armor or apparel. Laughlin had boasted it was so they would be easier to find. And these crass braggarts were feared fighters? Weeveston was not a warlike man, but he could not understand it. These were men you could only trust while winning. His uncle always won. But against Horks?

  The column continued the northward march for a week and a half. When the river Swift was not lost in deep gorges and defiles, they traveled the road beside it. And in its rapids and falls, Weeveston often thought he could hear mocking laughter.

  When he left Robrecht the last time, he had really believed he’d gotten out from under. But it seemed the world did not work that way. No, a man couldn’t change his station just because he wanted to. So Weeveston was being dragged to a reunion with his destiny already in progress. A damn damp destiny in a dank castle at the center of a dull town. Weeveston blinked back a few tears as he thought about it.

  His self-pity was interrupted by a commotion from further up the road. He heard the cries of “Scout! Scout!” and spurred his horse to reach his uncle in the vanguard. From a distance he could see his dour uncle perk up. Weeveston got there the same time as a rider on a lathered horse. Torvalds demanded, “Have you sighted them? How many are there? How are they armed? What is their disposition?”