by Brandon Barr
Payette appreciated the look he gave her. His concern for her safety was a constant comfort.
He looked down at her bloodied metal sword. “You used the right sword I see.”
“Naturally,” said Payetta with a smile. “I didn’t want to miss out on my side of the bargain.”
He laughed.
She tossed a look over her shoulder. “She Grunts was the real hero. Nailed one of them right between the eyes.”
Justen winced. “Yeah, I can smell it. You’re going to need a mud rub and a bath before I perform my end of the bargain.” He wrinkled his nose. “You stink.”
Payetta grinned. “A lovely day, wouldn’t you say?”
Justen cocked an eyebrow. “Sweetie, you’ve got problems.”
“A romantic picnic, killing five of Titannus’s men, then a mud bath, and you and me all night.”
“I’ll take it all but the killing. I don’t enjoy it, I do it because it’s right and we must.”
“Come on, hotass. Let’s head to the river. You can start philosophizing once you’re packing mud on me.”
Justen glanced toward the eastern peaks. They were still topped with snow. “There could be more out there. Keep your Eartheye open.”
Payetta clapped her hands for She Grunts, and the little striped skunk leapt into her arms.
Justen sighed as he put his arm around her. “We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow. Call a Heroes Brigade meeting, bury the bodies, then warn Mayor Brundig about a possible threat. I suspect the men we killed were spies.”
“Tomorrow sounds boring,” said Payetta, scratching She Grunts under her chin. “Let’s enjoy the rest of our day. If we have any luck, I’ll spot a few more of Titannus’s men.”
Justen gave a wry little laugh. “Only girl in the Meadowlands who’d prefer fighting to the death over a mud bath.”
Payetta nodded. “The day I kill Titannus, my priorities may change. Killing mages and their raiders is priority number one. Next is my love of swordplay and magic.”
“I thought those were two leaves on the same branch. You know, one and the same.”
She stroked the side of She Grunts with a thumb while her free hand slid down to rest on Justen’s butt. She gave it a helpful squeeze.
“Oh,” declared Justen. “That kind of swordplay.” He laughed. “After four years of marriage, you’d think I’d have learned by now.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder as they walked. “It’s more fun if you don’t.”
CHAPTER TWO
Daeken Zee Walton could smell the meat cooking over the stench of the festering marsh. The sun was setting and smoke from a nearby fire wisped out from behind a clump of rocks.
He’d traveled the Dead Grey Road since dawn that day and his feet were sore, toes raw with blisters. Besides, any sign of life was a call to stop and see if there was hope to be had.
So far, he’d had to kill most of the hope he ran across.
He left the road and made his way through the marsh. His newest pair of boots, stolen from a dead body three days prior, were the nicest pair he’d had since his journey began three months ago.
Or however long ago it was. It felt like five days ago sometimes, and in other ways, it wore on him like a lifetime.
The marsh water came to his ankles as he picked his way through the shallows, sloshing straight for the rocky outcropping where the smoke and sweet-smelling meat rose like a fragrant summons, beckoning him.
Free of the marsh, he entered a scattering of round boulders, most of which were a little taller than himself.
Coming around the first boulder, he saw the fire and two men sitting around it. At first glance, Daeken couldn’t be sure if these were normal men or brutals.
One man in a red tunic stood immediately upon sight of him, and the second followed his lead a moment later.
Their eyes fell upon his sword, Wickedbane, jutting from his back where it was strapped to his pack.
“Mind if I join you?” asked Daeken kindly.
The two looked at each other. Daeken noted the weapons each wore attached to their belts. One had a sword, the other a small ax.
The man in the red tunic wagged his head back and forth in a strange motion. “Won’t share food, but you can sit if-if-if ya like.”
“Fair enough,” said Daeken. As he walked over, the man nearest him backed away beside his friend in the red shirt.
Definitely not brutals, thought Daeken. If they had been, the two men would have tried to hack him in two already.
Daeken sat on a flat, squarish rock then peered up at the men. “Don’t stand on my account,” said Daeken. “I’m no lady.”
The red-shirted man snickered. Then he snorted in laughter, a little drool running down his chin.
Daeken tried not to look disgusted, but he knew the signs. The man was a raver, like so many he’d met along the road. Whether he was full-blown crazy or just half mad, he couldn’t yet say. And his friend, though shirtless and likely just as insane as his companion—he had eyes that seemed to hold more intelligence in them. Or so he thought, until he too began to laugh like an idiot.
“I get it!” shouted the shirtless man, “He’s not a lady! SO WE DON’T HAVE TO STAND!”
They both burst into laughter again.
“What’s for dinner?” asked Daeken, eyeing the meat cooking on a sheet of metal. The crude cooking pan had likely been salvaged from one of the old ruins. Daeken had run across hundreds of them on the Grey Road. He hadn’t realized how vast civilization had been in the past; some of the destroyed old structures rising to impressive heights beyond his imagination. It also saddened him to see them blackened and crumbling. A visual picture of what man had achieved and to what he had now descended.
The two men had grown quiet at his question about dinner. They looked at one another with a mix of concern and fear.
Daeken took another look at the meat and eyed it with disgust. Human flesh.
Ravers were notorious in their casual enjoyment of man meat, a result of their former lives as brutals, back before they had been mind-screwed by a mage. There were a few signs that set a raver apart. Once a mage had twisted and tortured a brutal’s mind, they went crazy. Not the typical, bloodthirsty craziness of a brutal, which is their natural state of being, but crazy, as in they became idiots.
They also lost their savage edge. There was no sharing a fire with a brutal, as he was now with these two ravers. A brutal would have lunged at him like a rabid dog at the first sight, but ravers—having had their brains stirred up like a pot of hot soup—somehow gained a certain decorum and civility.
It was a bizarre thing. Civil enough to share a fire with Daeken, but still crazy enough to eat another human. Perhaps civility was too strong of a word. Daeken was for damned sure not going to spend the night with them. Chances were they’d fall upon him as he slept, slit his throat, and make a weeklong meal of him.
He took off his pack and rummaged inside. The two ravers sat, squatting on the ground before the fire.
“Do you have any friends with you?” asked Daeken.
“One,” said the red-shirted man. His mouth sprang open and his eyes went wide. “Right here, dirty bugger.” He grinned like a wolf. “Right here! Stuck between my two front teeth!”
Again, the two men burst into laughter.
Daeken nodded.
“Know where any sane folks live around here?”
A scowl formed on the face of the shirtless man. “You calling us stupid?”
Daeken’s eyes narrowed on the man, “No. Just crazy. There’s a difference. You can be smart and crazy, or sane and stupid, but you can’t be stupid and smart.”
The scowl dropped from the shirtless man’s face and he looked to his friend for support.
“He-he called us smart, you idiot,” said Red Shirt.
The shirtless raver nodded. “I know what he said.”
Daeken pulled out a gutted fish and a pan from his pack and placed them on the fir
e. “So, no one around here but you two gentlemen?”
“There’s too many round here,” groused Red Shirt. “Most of them are with the mage.”
“Which mage are you referring to?” questioned Daeken. In the five months—or whatever span of time—he’d been on the road, he’d heard the names of four mages, but one name had carried on throughout this entire trip. Krolan.
“His name’s Zarith Smith,” said the shirtless raver. “He’s got other mages working for him. Like Titannus—dirty mind digger he is. Zarith lives a five-day trek that-a-way,” he pointed northeast. “And Titannus, he’s got a fortress north of here, up in those mountains. You could get there in two, maybe three days.”
Daeken eyed the tall pinnacles rising over the trees to the north. “These mages give you trouble?”
“Damn straight they do! We used to have a group of us. Thousands of us.”
“Hundreds, not-not-not-not thousands,” interjected Red Shirt.
“Yeah, well we were big. And then Zarith and Titannus came with their raiders and made us choose to follow them or they said they’d kill us. We didn’t know nothing about magic—not until they started getting in our brains. Some of us escaped. But they took most of the group. That was four years ago.”
“Three and a half years ago, not-not four,” corrected Red Shirt.
The bare-chested man reddened. “Whatever, dammit!”
Daeken frowned. “Zarith Smith and Titannus… haven’t heard of them before. I’ve heard a lot of the name Krolan. Does that name mean anything to you?”
The two ravers shook their heads.
“So it’s just a few smart guys like yourselves and the mage and his men?”
“There are others west of here,” said Red Shirt, drawing a knife out and stabbing his roasting meat with the end, then placing it on a wood plate. “If you take the Grey Road west another day, to the south you’ll find the Caulderi. Strange folk in white robes. Skin dark as night. Dangerous. Then to the north of the road are the Meadow People. Farmers they are. Don’t like us much.”
The other man added, “They have some mighty tasty crops. We swipe them as often as we can.”
For the first time in months, Daeken felt the tug of hope in his heart. Farmers. Those were his people. Men and women who worked for what they had, produced instead of took, and, if they were like his old community, gave and helped whenever they could.
He took out a fork and flipped his fish. The sizzling juices made his stomach twist. He was incredibly famished from the day’s walk. “Tell me more about these farmers.”
“Eh, what’s to say?” said Red Shirt, cutting the meat in half and handing one chunk to his friend. “They don’t-don’t go out of their valley m-m-much.”
The shirtless man laughed and pointed at the cooked flesh on his plate. “Otherwise they end up in our bellies like this one did.”
Daeken’s eyes narrowed and a fire lit under his skin.
The man bent to take a bite when the flat of Daeken’s sword smacked the piece of meat from his hands, sending it rolling onto the ground.
The shirtless man swore and shook his fingers. Red Shirt was on his feet, backing away and stuffing his portion of meat in his mouth.
“Spit it out,” growled Daeken with a tone cold, deep, and deadly.
The man snarled, and shook his head, stuffing as much of the cooked man flesh into his mouth as he could. The remainder that he couldn’t fit in hung in a flap halfway down his chin. With his free hand, he reached for an ugly looking sword.
His shirtless companion had retrieved his piece of meat from the dirt and glared at Daeken. “I’ll kill you for that,” he roared, teeth bared like a wolf. “Kill ya and eat-eat-eat ya!”
Daeken’s lip curled in disgust. “What are you going to kill me with? Your good looks or your sweet smelling armpits?”
The raver’s brow drooped in confusion.
“Maybe I was wrong about you,” snorted Daeken. “You are stupid and crazy.”
The shirtless man howled, beat his chest with his fists, then charged, weaponless, toward Daeken.
Daeken sidestepped and Wickedbane snapped through the man’s ribs and sternum. The shirtless raver stopped and stared down at the carnage below his neck. Then Daeken retrieved a silver bladed knife from under his cloak and punched it through the man’s back and into his heart.
A quick death was the only act of mercy he could give when it came to ravers.
Daeken removed the knife and pushed the dead man onto the fire.
Red Shirt stared at Daeken as if he were watching some frightening entertainment show. The flap of meat still dangled from his mouth as he chewed vigorously on the portion he’d stuffed his face with.
“Hungry?” growled Daeken. He gestured toward the fire where his friend lay. “Plenty more food to eat.”
Red Shirt’s eyes darted uncertainly at the flame. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Then he nodded and made his way back and sat on the ground. With his crude sword, he began to dress and butcher his friend.
Daeken stared at the man in disbelief. Finally, he shook his head. He’d had enough.
Wickedbane cut a tune in the air. The song of Mercy followed by that thwack of Justice.
CHAPTER THREE
“Watch this,” called Payetta, dragging the body of a raider she’d killed the day before beside his dead companion.
Justen was rummaging through one of the men’s packs. He’d been scouring them ever since they’d arrived back at the kill site that morning. Finally, Justen looked up from the pack. “All right, let’s see this big show you’ve been promising.”
She closed her eyes and focused her energy on the tree roots. Lying on the ground above was the dead raider. The dirt and pine needles surrounding the corpse began to shake, then split. Striking up out of the ground rose a myriad of snaking tendrils. She directed each on a precise course, sliding them around the man, wrapping him in a wooden embrace. She was like a spider spinning a victim in her silken web.
As she wrapped him, she focused another portion of her energy to the other nearby body, locating it in her mind while not releasing her hold of the pine tree. Slowly she drew out another branch of roots and slid them over the second man she’d felled yesterday. The one She Grunts had sprayed. The one she’d used her wooden sword on and her husband was none the wiser.
Once both dead men were entangled, she pulled them down into the earth. Using more roots below ground, she upheaved and churned the soil, creating room for the two bodies. She opened her eyes a crack. Visually, it was morbidly stunning. The men appeared to be sinking into the earth.
“Nicely done,” came Justen’s voice.
Payetta finished the burial, then released her grip on the trees, pleased that she’d finally gotten a fingerhold on the art of controlling two living things at the same time.
Trees were a good first start, next she hoped to succeed at animals, a much more difficult task that required greater concentration. She’d come close several times, but the exertion had left her exhausted. Time would change this, as it always did. The more she flexed her mental power, the stronger her stamina and magic became.
“Thank you,” replied Payetta with a slight bow. “If you’d get up at dawn with me, you might glimpse all my secrets.”
“You’d find ways to hide them anyway,” Justen mused. “Besides, Cluckruck and I like to sleep in together.”
Payetta snorted. “You and that lazy chicken.”
Cluckruck was their faithful egg-laying chicken, and she was as fat as a river toad. Whenever they slept at Honey Hideout—their preferred place to spend the night—Cluckruck would roost in Justen’s tangled hair and wouldn’t get up to dig for worms or lay eggs until he stirred awake.
“I’m just proud I was able to heal you,” replied Justen. “I don’t know how you do it, but I’m exhausted after I do magic—no matter how piddly it is compared to your stuff.”
“It takes time,” replied Payetta, fingering the spot on her
forehead that Justen had repaired. It had taken him an hour to do what would have taken her minutes. “Remember, the more passionate you are about the magical act, the more power you’ll have. Kinda like sex.”
Justen folded his arms and frowned, but she saw right through it. He was hiding a smirk behind those deliciously shaped lips. “Is that another comment about my stamina last night?”
“Not at all dear,” purred Payetta. “You were very powerful...while you lasted.”
Justen dipped his head, a smile breaking through his serious facade. “Outlasting you is like trying to drink up a river.”
“That’s ridiculous. I have my limits.” She winked. “We just haven’t discovered them yet.”
“I think one hour is my max.”
“Don’t say that!” cried Payetta. “We’ll just keep practicing, sweetie. That’s the fun part!” She walked up to him and put her hand on his chest. “Same with our magic. We keep working on it. Expanding what we can do. I know there’s so much more potential inside us. I can feel it!”
Justen laughed. “If I had half your fiery passion I could heal a dead man.”
She wrinkled her nose playfully then looked down at the two grave sites with a satisfied breath. Justen was wrong about his lacking passion. It just took on different forms than her own. He was fierce in his protection of her, devoted to her beyond any man to his wife that she knew.
He had told her many times about his sense of calling to protect her life and her magical gift. He believed she was divinely chosen in some way. Chosen or not, she only wanted vengeance for what had been taken from her. While Justen walked his father’s spiritual path, she stalked her failures…and her nightmares.
Never again would she stay silent when the innocent were abused. She would give her last breath to see the blood of heartless men spill out upon the ground.
Anger. Rage. That’s what drove her. The demons from her past couldn’t haunt her if she shouted loud enough and cut them down with magic and sword.
Payetta looked away from the burial site to where Justen was digging through another pack. He retrieved a peculiar object and held it up. A smooth bronzed metal shimmered in the sunlight. Payetta scowled at the sleek cylindrical device.
