Randall rode in near silence for the rest of the day until night fell. Finding a reasonably thick patch of grass off the road, he decided to bed down for the night. Storm Chaser grazed on the moist, green grass, pawing at the ground and snorting as he tore mouthfuls from the dirt with sharp twists of his head.
Having no wagon to sit against for his evening exercises, Randall decided to improvise and checked the saddlebags. They were stuffed full of food, most of which was heavy vegetables and grains, which were perfect for his purposes.
After a few adjustments to balance the bags, he slung the bags over his shoulders and tested his legs by squatting down until his heels touched his buttocks and pressing back up. The weight of the saddlebags was significant—at least as much as he weighed himself, and probably half again as much if his guess was correct—and he managed to get a dozen squats in before his legs began to quiver uncontrollably.
With that completed, he took a look at a nearby hill, which had a relatively steep slope facing him, and he shook his head in wonderment. He would never have guessed that he would actually be exercising like some kind of soldier of his own volition, but Dan’Moread had essentially said that whatever reserves it had used in the battles until now were nearly depleted, and Randall had no desire to discover the outcome if and when the sword’s reserves were exhausted.
So he ran the hill’s steep face until his entire body seemed to burn and he felt like collapsing, which he actually did after slipping on a particularly slick patch of grass on his way back to the horse. Storm Chaser had laid himself down on the grass and watched Randall with barely-concealed disdain as he had finished his sprints up the hill.
“Yeah, yeah,” Randall grumbled as he walked stiffly back to the ad hoc campsite, “I’m sure you’ve seen better; won’t someone around here cut me some slack?”
Almost as if in direct response, Storm Chaser snorted and pawed the ground slightly before turning to look away from him.
Shaking his head, Randall took out some raw vegetables and began to snack on them. His Ghaevlian blood made consuming raw fruits and vegetables—even relatively unclean ones fresh from the ground—less problematic than it would be for a human, so cooking his food was really only something he would do for flavoring, or changing the food’s texture to be more agreeable.
And much as he would have liked to heat up a small pot of soup to warm him for the night, Randall knew that the last thing he wanted was an encounter with people like the Fleshmongers. The light from a campfire would have made him a target for such people, so he went that night without a fire.
After his evening meal, he ran through a half hour of position drills with the sword before settling down and falling fast asleep.
Chapter XXVIII: The Trail Gets Warmer
Afternoon, 2-0-6-659
“Give me what I want, witch,” Hale rasped as he gripped the half-elf crone’s throat in one gauntleted hand. In his other he gripped the hilt of his Equalizer, which he had lodged in her belly, “If you don’t, I’ll let my blade finish you…I’m told that’s unpleasant.”
His helmet was still on, which afforded him increased protection from her twisted sorceries. But it also prevented him from amplifying his truth-divining magics to their maximum, and this woman was far from likely to be persuaded by anything as mundane as simple terror. That left him with nothing but crude, simple interrogation techniques as old as humanity itself—with which he was all-too-familiar.
“Never, dog,” she spat defiantly, and to Hale her eyes seemed to burn with a primal, eldritch light just as his armor warmed all around him. Such a sensation signified that she had attempted to use her elf magics on him. “I won’t make this any easier for you!”
Hale was tempted to cut her throat in the face of her intransigence but he kept his temper in check as he squeezed her throat even tighter, causing her baleful eyes to darken and roll back in her head briefly before he let up just enough to restore blood flow to her brain.
“Your pitiful powers are no use to you, half-breed,” he said coldly as her eyes rolled around briefly before refocusing on him. His Equalizer had neutralized her most powerful abilities and was rapidly draining what little energy she still possessed. “Give me what I want or I’ll find someone who will—a neighbor, perhaps? Maybe one of those sweet farm girls down the road,” he added thoughtfully before slowly tightening his grip again. “I won’t be as polite with her as I’m being with you…is that what you want?”
The old woman’s eyes began to burn again, but then they rolled back in her head as she briefly lost consciousness. Hale didn’t particularly enjoy this aspect of the hunt, but neither did he recoil from it; it simply needed to be done. Each mission presented unique challenged but regardless of the obstacles placed before him, he was determined to succeed in the service of his mistress, Senator Vendo. She had granted him gifts beyond imagining, and in return he had sworn to enact her will in spite of the unpleasantness it might entail.
“Alright…I’ll tell you…what you want…” the woman croaked, and Hale released his grip and let her crash to the floor of her dark, musty cave-home into a gasping heap.
Hale left his dagger in her belly, knowing that she was already too weak to remove it herself and he turned to appraise the hut-like cave. It was filled with all manner of contraband, including outlawed herbs and distillations which had been forbidden decades earlier by the Federation after it had forced the submission of these formerly wild lands.
“You people won’t learn,” he said with equal parts amusement and disdain. “You surround yourselves with this poison,” he reached up to the rafters and pulled down a line of tightly bound Helia flowers, whose still-fresh petals were the color of the midday sun. “These herbs and seeds blunt your already dull minds; why you choose to live in their stupor is beyond me.”
The old woman had just seemed to regain her breath, and Hale turned to stand over her as a pool of dark blood spread from her gut wound.
He shook his head as he crushed the delicate flowers in his gauntlet. “What a waste,” he spat as he threw the poisonous plant to the ground beside her face, which was twisted in agony as she clutched at her belly. He knelt beside her and removed his helmet, which he set down on the earthen floor of the cave-house. “You could have served a purpose in our society; we’d have welcomed you as a healer. You could have saved thousands with your knowledge.” He shook his head contemptuously as he took her chin in his hand and roughly turned her face up to look at his. “I’ll never understand your kind’s need to rebel against the inevitable, but thankfully understanding isn’t required for me to administer justice—only obedience is.”
She looked up at him defiantly and even though he could tell she was in pure agony, she kept her features flatter than any before her had managed as she said, “You could not find justice with the Judge’s own light at your command…but justice will find you, and sooner than you think!”
He let her chin go and her head fell to the earthen floor with a muffled thwack. “Give me what I need or I’ll find someone who will,” he rasped. “This is my final offer of mercy; refuse only if you wish to see these fields littered with the broken corpses of those you have protected. My patience is exhausted.”
“Very well,” she said with a resigned nod. “I have seen the sword, and its bearer.”
“How long ago?” he asked evenly, knowing her words to be true. Soon after subduing the woman, he had intoned a truth-detection spell designed specifically for half-elves. This woman was of purer stock than any he had used the spell on before, but her weakened state—caused by the Equalizer lodged in her abdomen—allowed him to use it effectively.
“Two weeks past,” she replied as he went to the fire and took out an iron poker and placed it in the bed of hot coals—with which she had likely intended to cook her midday stew—as she continued, “he saved a young boy…from a farm not far from here whose…parents were…killed by raiders,” she said, stopping only to grit her teeth in pain.
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“Go on,” Hale urged as he stirred the coals with the poker, sending sparks cascading about the hearth and a few to spill onto the earthen floor where he knelt.
“He…went to follow the…raiders and try to…help stop them,” she panted, her eyes rolling around in her head as she did so.
“How noble,” Hale deadpanned, “this man is a swordsman then?”
The woman hesitated and Hale turned to face her and saw her stick her chin out defiantly before saying, “Nay; I doubt he knows which way to hold the thing.”
This caused him to chuckle, both in amusement and in disappointment that he would be denied a proper end to the hunt. “You say you saw the sword,” Hale prompted as he continued to stir the coals with the poker, “describe it.”
“It was…pure star metal,” she wheezed, “with neither grip…nor crosspiece; merely a blade and…leather-wrapped tang with…Godstones set into the blade—five of them.”
“Anything else?” he asked idly as he stoked the fire. The woman’s mind must have been addled to believe that five Godstones would ever be set into a blade. What possible purpose could they serve in a weapon? he thought distractedly.
The old woman shook her head, but Hale knew she was holding something back—he didn’t even need his magic to tell as much. He stood from the fire, leaving the poker in the coals as he strode toward her. “Your reticence will cost you,” he said in a conversational tone, “resist me again and it will cost others.”
She closed her eyes and Hale knew he had finally broken her. Her lips trembled as she said, “I have seen it before…when I was a young girl.”
Hale arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Who wielded it then?” he pressed, channeling the energy of his armor into the truth spell to facilitate her compliance before she lost consciousness.
Her eyes snapped open and Hale knew she was trying to resist, but the last remnants of her magical reserves were already gone. Her eyes went blank and she spoke as though in a trance, now completely at the mercy of his incantation, “I do not know….”
“Where did the half-elf take the sword?” Hale asked in as mild of a tone as he could manage.
She shook her head. “I…do not…know,” she panted weakly. “I—“ she began, but froze suddenly as Hale increased the power of his truth spell to the most he had ever utilized for that particular spell—and more than he thought was safe. Her thoughts were a disordered jumble—he would even describe them as ‘animalistic’—but he caught two flashes before his spell was broken: a name, and a place.
Disappointed with her answer, but having gained the truth directly from her thoughts, Hale withdrew the Equalizer from her belly and wiped it on her tattered clothing as she clutched at the now open wound and moaned in pain.
“I suppose I can’t hold your ignorance against you,” he said with a piteous shake of his head as he sheathed the magical weapon. “You’ve been less cooperative than I hoped, but more so than I expected,” he said grudgingly as he returned to the fire to withdraw the poker, which was glowing a faint, dull red. “As a gesture of compassion, I’ll go against my nature and confine your punishment to this household, and this household alone.”
The old crone rolled to her side and nodded as she wept. “Thank…you,” she gasped.
“Don’t mention it,” Hale said as he lifted the red-hot poker to the low roof, which was covered in tiny, dry roots that began to smolder almost immediately. A few seconds later and those roots were burning and producing an acrid, purple smoke. Hale went to the fire to kick the coals out onto the floor beside the bed, where the sheets began to burn just as he exited the cave-house through the rickety, front door and made his way to the horse which had carried him these past few days.
The crone’s screams died—presumably along with her body—just before the den of filth and poison disappeared from view as Hale rode on toward Jacob’s Plow, and he considered the implication of Ser Cavulus’—one of the seven White Knights—involvement in the affair.
Hale felt a thrill of excitement, and spurred his mount in the direction of Jacob’s Plow knowing that this hunt just got a lot more interesting than he could have ever dreamed.
Chapter XXIX: A Hound at Play
Midday 6-0-6-659
Hale dismounted and approached the larger of the two buildings, which appeared to be run-down farm buildings. His armor amplified the sounds issuing from the building until he could hear a man’s deep voice speaking authoritatively.
“It takes time to re-build, Charles,” the man explained. “You’re the last man of your family; it will soon be your responsibility to care for those who depend on you.”
Hale came around the corner of the doorway leading into the main barn and saw a large, pureblood human speaking to a half-elven boy who looked no older than fourteen.
The man turned to face Hale, who barred the front door of the building with his armored body and considered the man and half-elf standing before him. After a brief, tense pause, Hale stepped forward a few paces into the building and looked around pointedly.
“So this is Jacob’s Plow,” he said with obvious disappointment before gesturing to the large man. “Would that make you Jacob?”
The well-built man held Hale’s gaze for a moment, and Hale knew from his demeanor that this man had seen his share of battle. Then the man looked down at the half-elven young man, “Run back to the farmhouse and bar the door, Charles.”
The half-elf seemed inclined to argue, but one look at Hale sent him scurrying out the back door of the barn, and the large man took a pair of steps toward Hale before squaring his chest. “What brings a Senatorial Guardsman out here?” he asked in a hard, yet even voice.
Hale shrugged his shoulders emphatically. “I found myself craving fresh air,” he rasped as he reached up to undo the clasps fastening his helmet in place. An unarmed farmer—even one with obvious experience in combat like the man before him—presented no challenge, and Hale’s armor detected no sources of magic nearby.
His helmet released with a hiss as the pressurized air within escaped, granting him the fresh air he had just lied about wanting. Holding the helmet in the crook of his arm, he regarded the man for several seconds before asking, “What is your name?”
The man gritted his teeth, through which he replied, “I am Drannis.”
Haled gestured toward the now-open rear door of the barn. “Do you think he could get far enough to do any good if you don’t give me what I want?”
Drannis’ hands balled into fists at his sides, and for a brief moment Hale thought the man might do something foolish. But then the other man’s fists relaxed and he shook his head, “No…I’ve seen your kind in action.”
Hale took another pair of measured steps forward as he looked around in mock appreciation, “And what about you; do you think you could do anything to deter me?”
Drannis took a step forward of his own. “If you’re here to kill me, then save us both the grief and give it your best.”
Hale stopped and considered the man’s proposal. “I could do that,” he agreed with a thoughtful nod. “But I’m not here to kill you; I’m after a man that passed through here recently. About this tall,” he held his hand out to the side at the level of his armpit, “wearing a terrible disguise.”
Drannis’ brow furrowed in confusion, but he quickly schooled his features as he shook his head, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Are you sure?” Hale rasped as he summoned the energy to activate a passive truth detection spell. The spell activated quickly, since his armor was still well over three fourths charged. “Think hard now,” he urged in a light, almost carefree voice, “much depends on your reply.” His eyes flicked to the open door where Charles had fled and his gaze lingered there for several moments before returning to meet the large, burly man’s.
Drannis tensed again, but Hale knew from years of experience that this man had no desire to die over the information he was guarding. Still, Hale had killed men for less obstruction, an
d would do so again if the man’s reluctance persisted.
“You’d have to describe the disguise,” Drannis grated through clenched teeth.
Hale snickered and gestured toward Drannis’ face. “His face looked almost as bad as yours,” he explained, taking more than a little pleasure at seeing the other man fume from the insult, “but that’s because he’s not human—he was just pretending to be. Might have been carrying an unusual sword…” he let the word linger between them pointedly.
After a brief, silent battle of wills, Drannis’ shoulders slumped perceptibly and Hale knew he had him. “Aye,” the burly man replied with a look of cold, impotent anger, “I’ve seen such a man.”
“Indeed?” Hale remarked as though it was some great revelation from on high. “Do tell…” he urged with a cold glint in his eye.
“Called himself ‘Baron’ something…” he trailed off in thought, “Pendergast, I think. And he had a sword alright—enchanted, judging from the story Charles told.”
“Oh?” Hale cocked an eyebrow. “Should I speak with Charles, then?”
Drannis stiffened and took a step forward, closing the distance between them to less than a pace. “He’s told the story so often I’ve memorized it,” he growled. “Take it from my mind if you must, but leave the others alone.”
“Tempting…” Hale mused as he looked the other man squarely in the eye. It was rare to find a man whose height matched Hale’s—especially when he was in his armor—and he felt a thrill of savage anticipation at the prospect of discovering first-hand just how good this Drannis was. He cracked a lopsided, utterly unpleasant grin as he prepared the spell which would do precisely what the man had suggested.
“But leave them be,” Drannis repeated as a fiery look entered his eyes.
Holding the other man’s gaze for several moments, Hale eventually sighed in resignation. “I’m feeling generous,” he rasped, “so we’ll do it your way. If I find what I need, I’ll leave them be. If not…”
Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1) Page 31
