The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2)

by Scott Michael Decker

  “I care about the morale among my men, Lord Eagle. Yours is adversely affecting theirs, and I want it to stop. Whether you change your attitude or whether you transfer to another post makes little difference to me. You're an intelligent man. I know you're not here because you chose to be here, but I'd like you to gain what you can from this rotten situation. My former liege lord once told me always to find the useful and good, even in situations pointless and bad. Although I don't approve of everything the General Bear does, I respect him and honor him as my father did before me. I remember every word he ever said to me. Tonight, the Lord Emperor repatriates the General officially. I doubt his being Snarling Jaguar's hostage was pleasant for him. I don't doubt that he used the opportunity to learn a few words of the language, acquaint himself with their political system and gain some knowledge of their culture. Of course, he fought off a few assassins and swordsmen, also, eh?” He smiled. “My point, Lord Eagle, is that whatever his situation, he finds a way to benefit from it. As I'd like to see you benefit from this one.”

  Spying Eagle grunted and nodded.

  Probing Gaze eased himself to the parapet, not knowing if he'd reached the man with reason. On occasion, the Captain had met those who understood only force or the threat of force. He sincerely hoped a psychological Wizard understood more than that.

  “I used to have a thriving practice in Emparia City,” Spying Eagle said, speaking softly. “I was the best Wizard available. A few days before the negotiations, the Matriarch Water asked me to treat the Lord General Bear. My treating him may have affected his behavior there. Someone had implanted him, and I removed the implant. Since I don't often use implants, I might have missed the most important one—the one compelling him to attack the Lord Emperor Jaguar. I don't know if his behavior was implant-driven. I wasn't there. During the negotiations, I was in the dungeons of Emparia Castle, undergoing interrogation. I guess the … authorities wanted to know how much I'd gleaned from the Lord General's mind. Then they shipped me here, because Burrow's the worst post in the Empire, with the highest rate of attrition. Here, the bandits can do their killing for them, eh?”

  Probing Gaze knew that the other man was crying inside, grieving the loss of his previous life. The sectathon guessed that Lurking Hawk had ordered Spying Eagle's interrogation and induction. Others had suffered similarly at the Sorcerer's talons. The Wizard's reluctance to blame those responsible surprised him. “I doubt that you're responsible for the Lord General Bear's attack on Snarling Jaguar. The Lord General had plenty of motivation. Does he know what happened to you?”

  “I don't know, Lord Captain,” Spying Eagle said.

  Probing Gaze nodded. “Lord Corporal, I'll need you to make a commitment with no guarantee you'll get anything in return. I'll try to find you another post, if you'll reform your attitude until I can make the arrangements.”

  “Why would you do anything for me, Lord Captain? I've made your command as miserable as I could.”

  The sectathon smiled. “Because you truly don't belong here. You're a good man trying to get out of a bad situation with methods I personally don't approve of but can't judge. You're wasting your talents here. You'd be happier and much more useful…”

  Hearing news on the psychic flow, Probing Gaze let his words trail off and laughed. “The Lord Emperor has just welcomed the Lord General.” He smiled, relieved that the Emperor had officially repatriated his former liege lord. Ironic, he thought, that the Emperor now honors him for the act that required his expatriation.

  Then he frowned. While listening to the flow, the sectathon had scanned the area southeast of Burrow. He detected a person off the road connecting Burrow and Emparia City. The person was traversing fields choked with snow. He or she was too far away to identify by signature but moved distinctly northward. Unusual, Probing Gaze thought.

  “Do you see him too, Lord Captain?” Spying Eagle asked.

  “Who, Lord Corporal?”

  “Range, sixteen miles, bearing two-oh-five, Lord Captain.”

  “I see the person, but can't tell who it is at this range.”

  “I can. I'll always remember that signature, Lord.” Spying Eagle's hand worried the hilt of sword.

  “You've quite a talent, then. I can't identify beyond fourteen miles. Who is it, Lord?”

  Smiling, Spying Eagle drew himself straight, standing at attention. “Lord Captain, I formally request permission to leave the garrison until oh-six-hundred hours tomorrow.”

  “Permission denied, Lord Corporal, unless you tell me who it is and why you'd like to intercept the person.”

  Again, the Wizard smiled. “I suspect the subversive activities of a traitor and wish to investigate. With your permission, Lord Captain!”

  Probing Gaze laughed at Spying Eagle's formal demeanor. The man hadn't behaved with this much protocol since he arrived. “All right, Lord, but I wish to accompany you and watch your investigative techniques. You have free rein to investigate fully, Lord Corporal.”

  “Thank you, Lord Captain,” Spying Eagle said, bowing deeply, correctly. The two men marched down the stairs to the forecourt, then exited through the northern gate of Burrow Garrison. They turned westward through city streets only recently cleared of the last storm's snow.

  * * *

  On the road out of Burrow, two bandits trudged west under the weight of their packs. Slithering Snake checked the immediate area for the presence of others, seeing few people and none north of them. With his talent, he could detect from almost twenty miles away and identify closer than thirteen. The Eastern Empire border was fifteen miles north of the pair. The sectathon detected not a single person between them and the border, between them and the sanctuary of the empty northern lands. No one.

  “How are you holding up, Lord Elephant?” he asked, the cold having abated with the exertion of travel. He glanced toward the north, toward the ghosts of snow-covered hills. The road itself was clear of snow, either blown off by the wind or shoveled off by the levithons who maintained the roads.

  Lumbering Elephant breathed easily despite more than a hundred pounds of plunder in pack. “We sure did clean out that place, eh?”

  Loping along beside the larger man, Slithering Snake smiled. “We had a good take.”

  Having slipped into Burrow that morning, the two men had spent the day wandering through the main market south of the garrison itself, looking for a likely house, preferably of an absent merchant of modest wealth. After night had fallen, they'd entered the chosen house. The Infinite had blessed their choice with the home of a tailor who for whatever reason didn't trust banks. The two bandits had found caches of gold secreted throughout it. In addition, they'd stripped the home of as many bolts of raw silk as they could carry. They had enough to keep the Elk Raiders clothed for several months.

  “How soon do we turn north?” Lumbering Elephant asked.

  “Here is as good a place as any,” Slithering Snake replied. “North of here is all open country. We're only ten miles from the garrison, though. With the loads we're carrying, Imperial warriors still have a chance to catch us, but they'd have to be fast.”

  The two men turned northward, soon finding a game trail to follow. The larger Lumbering Elephant leading the way, their pace was moderate, the heavy packs unwieldy in rough terrain.

  Casting back with his talent, the sectathon saw that two men had just left Burrow on the west road. Slithering Snake recognized one of them. “The Captain Probing Gaze and a companion have just left Burrow and are coming this way.” Slithering Snake didn't need to tell Lumbering Elephant to increase his pace. “The other man is a Wizard by his signature, but I don't recognize him.” The cold night air nearly seared his lungs. His feet began to grow cold from their traverse through snow. He warmed them with his trace pyrokinesis.

  Silently, the two bandits pounded swiftly northward, the snow absorbing most of the noise of their passage. Slithering Snake continued to track the two Imperial warriors. When the bandits were still eight mile
s south of the border, the two Imperial warriors left the road and went south. Puzzled by the maneuver, Slithering Snake reported this to his companion, having thought the two warriors pursued them. At the limit of his talent, almost directly south, he saw a third person, someone moving northward. The sectathon could neither identify the person nor determine his or her talent because of the distance.

  The game trail had led them into a narrow defile, from which they'd have to climb later, Slithering Snake was sure. The sides of the narrow canyon had grown steeper. The canyon suddenly twisted ahead, the path narrow. Ten feet below was a stream bed.

  As Lumbering Elephant took the twist on the trail, he collided full force with someone, sending the person off the ledge into the gulch, flailing his arms not to fall into the gulch himself. Slithering Snake stopped and pulled the other man back from precipice.

  The two men crouched against the canyon wall, their breathing ragged from fright and exertion. “Glad you didn't take that fall too, my friend.” The sectathon looked over the edge at the motionless form below. Shrugging off his pack, he climbed down the nearly sheer rock face.

  Sprawled half in the stream was an old man, and near his outstretched hand was a staff.

  Slithering Snake bent to peer into the face, and the fetor struck him like a physical blow. He almost vomited as he reeled away.

  The man began to stir, and the staff—or so the sectathon's eyes reported—inched toward the open palm.

  Terrified, Slithering Snake scrambled up the ten-foot rock face. “Go,” he whispered urgently as he regained the trail. Shoving the other man to get him moving, Slithering Snake donned his pack and followed, his legs trembling with fear.

  Only after the two men were well away did the sectathon realize he hadn't detected the old man before the collision. He casted backward with his talent and saw no one behind them.

  Somehow, that scared him even more.

  At a mile from the border, Lumbering Elephant slowed, his lungs laboring so hard he couldn't even say he needed to stop.

  His own lungs about to burst, Slithering Snake welcomed the respite. Scanning again for the old man, he didn't find him. Further south, beyond the road that he and the levithon had taken from Burrow, he did see the sudden, massive use of psychic talent. Indeed, he couldn't have failed to notice.

  Brilliant lights exploded across the sky south of them.

  * * *

  Probing Gaze tracked the man at bearing two-oh-eight, whose signature he didn't know. The two warriors on an intercept trajectory, the Wizard Spying Eagle led them from the city along the west road.

  If the Wizard's sectathonics were a trace talent, as he'd mentioned, then the abilities of the sectathon-Wizard Probing Gaze were negligible. Despite their fearsome reputations, psychological Wizards were usually no more powerful with a single talent than a Wizard of that particular talent. What distinguished psychological Wizards was their ability to combine multiple talents in such ways that no person could dominate them psychically. If Spying Eagle's sectathonics were a trace talent, Probing Gaze didn't want to be anywhere near the man when he employed multiple talents.

  Ten miles ahead of them, the two brave souls risking the dangers of nighttime travel quit the west road and turned northward. The sectathon belatedly recognized them. “Infinite blast it, those two ahead of us are bandits! I want to go after them, Lord Eagle.”

  “I'd rather get this traitor, Lord Gaze,” Spying Eagle said over his shoulder, his feet pounding the frozen dirt of the road.

  “Tell me who it is, so I can decide who's more important, eh?”

  Spying Eagle told him.

  Probing Gaze muttered an imprecation. “All right, Lord Eagle, you're investigating. Those two bandits have plagued this area for years. I'll get them eventually, but not tonight.”

  The sectathon automatically tracked the two bandits with one part of his mind while watching their quarry with another. When the two warriors were about five miles from intercept, the two bandits stopped eight miles short of the border. Odd, Probing Gaze thought, and then his talent reported something he didn't quite believe. A third presence flickered momentarily into view, then disappeared again. Impossible, the sectathon thought, having never seen anyone's talent disguise him or her from his sensitive sight completely. All psychic cloaks had some flaw. The third presence near the two bandits didn't reappear. Probing Gaze soon forgot about the anomalous appearance.

  Their quarry grasped that they hunted him and maneuvered to elude them. The two Imperial warriors had to change course and leave the road. “Halt, by order of the Captain Probing Gaze of Burrow Garrison!” the sectathon sent.

  The trespasser didn't reply.

  “That way,” Spying Eagle rasped through clenched teeth, his breath puffing from his mouth like smoke from a dragon's nostrils. Again they changed course, their quarry four miles away and seeking to avoid interception. For the next half hour, they played predator and prey.

  Abruptly a bear appeared between the two trees in front of them. Spying Eagle ran through the illusion and Probing Gaze followed, his scalp prickling.

  More psychic impediments followed, Spying Eagle deflecting most the quarry's exertions with his own talents. As they neared the third man, Probing Gaze concentrated on keeping his shields intact. The two Wizards' energies nearly overwhelmed them. As in a nightmare, apparitions appeared, flames sprouted, trees fell, and ground disappeared. Probing Gaze struggled through the treacherous terrain, Spying Eagle outdistancing him. Finally the sectathon simply stopped, no longer sure his senses reported accurately to his brain. The two Wizards had now fully engaged in their battle of talent. Crouching, Probing Gaze put his hands over his head, as if mere flesh might protect him. The surges of energy battered him mercilessly.

  Suddenly the fight was over, the only sound a scream. He discovered that the voice screaming was his own. Choking it off, Probing Gaze stood unsteadily, sweating in the freezing air. I should have used an electrical shield, he thought, having one on his belt.

  Moving toward the two Wizards, he detected only Spying Eagle's signature. The sectathon passed a tree fully engulfed in flame, skirted a deep pit gouged from the earth, and passed a rock so hot it had melted. He found the two Wizards in a clearing that had been dense wood moments before. Only shards and shreds and splintered trunks of trees remained.

  On the ground lay Lurking Hawk, captive in Spying Eagle's talent, both men breathing raggedly, both sweating profusely.

  “Well fought, Lord Wizard,” the Sorcerer whispered between breaths.

  Spying Eagle didn't comment.

  “What are you doing here, Lord Sorcerer?” Probing Gaze asked.

  “None of your Infinite-cursed affair!” Lurking Hawk hissed.

  “Can you probe him, Lord Eagle?”

  The brown, brown Wizard shook his head. “Holding him takes most of my talent. If I try to probe him, he'll probably kill us both. Lord Captain, I request permission to send the Traitor…” Spying Eagle didn't finish.

  “ 'Onward,' Lord Corporal?” Probing Gaze finished for him.

  Spying Eagle sighed. “No, Lord Captain, forgive me, I spoke rashly. Even traitors deserve justice.”

  Probing Gaze frowned. I'd have killed the Sorcerer without hesitation, he thought. Pulling a portable damper from his belt, he drew his sword and stepped toward the captive Sorcerer. He put the activated damper on the man and the sword point under his chin. “I hereby formally charge you, Lord Sorcerer Lurking Hawk, with trespass, evasion of Imperial authority, and psychic assault upon an Imperial officer. You'll receive official notice of the charges and a date to appear before the magistrate in Burrow, when you may provide for your defense. If you fail to appear—”

  Lurking Hawk twisted, knocking away sword and damper in one motion and sending the sectathon sprawling.

  After an instant of struggle, Spying Eagle subdued him again, deflecting most of the energy.

  Standing, Probing Gaze realized the Traitor had almost killed
him. The sectathon sheathed his sword and stepped over to the Northerner. With one hand, he lifted him by the collar and brought his other fist up into the solar plexus, then dropped him to the snow.

  Lurking Hawk collapsed, writhing and grimacing and glaring at the sectathon.

  Probing Gaze knew he'd just earned the Traitor's deadly enmity. Turning, he gestured Spying Eagle to follow and walked toward the road.

  Chapter 4

  Innovation often arises from immoral or illegal acts. Skulking and Lurking Hawk, father and son, experimented with illegal talismans long before the fall. Historians revile them both as traitors and criminals, yet humanity owes them a debt of gratitude. They helped to end the dominion of the Swords.—The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.

  * * *

  Beside the road west of Burrow Garrison, Lurking Hawk rested, his back to a tree. His insides felt as if a lion had disemboweled him, chewed up his intestines and then vomited them back into his abdomen.

  Infinite curse that warrior! the Sorcerer thought, groaning again. I hope the Lord Lion feels safe enough to come this far south. Feeling miserable, Lurking Hawk sent his mind northward to find the former Emperor, his concentration less than optimal.

  Neither Lofty Lion's invisibility nor his own diminished capacity stopped Lurking Hawk's psychic scan for the other man. Since his defeat at Flying Arrow's hands, Lofty Lion had carried a staff that Lurking Hawk had made to hide Lofty Lion. After building the talisman, the Sorcerer had produced the slim bracelet on his wrist, a talisman to control the other talisman.

  There! The former Emperor was still miles away. Patiently, Lurking Hawk rested near the west road, waiting.

  While serving Lofty Lion as the Northern Sorcerer, Lurking Hawk had experimented with talisman design and construction. Lofty Lion hadn't approved, but had never caught him. Eventually, Lofty Lion had been grateful for his Sorcerer's avocation. After Flying Arrow had wrested the Northern Imperial Sword from him, only Lurking Hawk's talismans had kept Lofty Lion alive.