Kelc watched her for a moment, until Jista neared enough that he could talk to Varrl. She seemed almost bored. Probably irritated with anything that keeps us from town, Kelc thought. Or terrified. Even Kelc felt his hackles rising.
“Varrl Ligelson,” called Hull, his voice strong on the open plain. “A word.”
“Hull Jista,” Varrl called, “approach and be at ease,” answered Kelc’s father in the expected manner.
Jista urged his steed forward, the horse cantering a little sideways as it arrived within twenty paces of the wagon.
He was massive. Not only did he look to stand more than three reaches in height, his shoulders looked broader than Kreggen’s, though the enameled black armor and royal blue cape might have leant to that. His hair was thick and black and fell out of his open-faced helm, falling in wild swirls until it stopped just past his shoulders, though that was hard to judge as a thick black beard confused the issue somewhat. Inside of the helm, black eyes offered nothing more than a sense of challenge.
“Is there some trouble in the area?” Varrl asked.
“Not much, not much. I rode along Hagwin gorge and climbed out up over in the hill ere three, four leagues over there and saw you.” He looked past Varrl to Shy and Adda, where he paused for a few moments. He then raised his eyes to Kelc. “Afraid, boy?”
Kelc breathed in slowly, offering nothing to the warden. No weakness, he thought, though he suddenly needed to relieve himself.
It seemed to Kelc to be too long a time that the deputy held his eyes before Jista finally acknowledged him with the slightest narrowing of his eyes and a negligible nod before his eyes moved to Kreggen. There they stopped. “Thought I might get a look at this son of yours that everyone tells me is such a talent with a blade.”
“Of course.” Varrl’s words gusted from him, his relief obvious. “Of course. Kreg, dismount.”
Kreggen stood for a moment, not moving a muscle. Then he looked sideways, to his father where he remained on the driver’s bench. “Yes, sir,” he said, his tone almost predatory, as if the command were both beneath him and unnecessary.
Kelc felt the hair on his neck stand up as Kreg’s eyes caught his for a moment. His older brother had changed instantaneously from jovial and free, to tight, controlled and deadly. He’s gone, Kelc thought. Now he is a true Symean. The thought was unsettling.
Kreggen dropped off of the wagon and took several steps away from it toward Hull Jista.
“What would you have of me, deputy?” Kreg’s tone made it plain that the deputy was not the warden.
Shy and Adda sat together, their heads touching, holding one another’s hands. They’ve all been expecting this or something like it, Kelc realized. They expect blood. Did they know it would come today?
Varrl’s eyes darted from Kreg to Jista over and over as if one of them might explode into flame at any given moment.
“Just to get a feel for you, boy,” Jista said, dropping from his mount into the waist-high brown grass. “Just to get a feel for you. I’d not fulfill my purpose out here amongst you rustics did I not check on your minimal skills and haggard daily toils.” He nearly sneered as he spoke.
“I am a man by law and a Symean by birthright,” Kreggen answered. “If you insist on offering insults, I will have little choice but to draw my steel and then your blood. It is your honor that must decide that outcome.”
“You’ve grit, I’ll warrant that,” laughed Jista, “but is it earned, or is it pride.”
“Both, I expect,” Kreg said smoothly. “I am a man after all.”
“You are,” Jista said, “but I see little more than an untested boy. You live out where none can see you nor judge you. And everyone, the warden included, knows that your family practices some type of dark art.”
“Lies,” Varrl’s voice cracked like a whip.
“Truth.” The deputy started to raise his hand toward the wagon, but Kreggen closed on him, his sword ripped clean of its scabbard.
“Attacking a deputy?” hissed Jista. His sword appeared like a lightning strike. “Very well.”
“Wait,” roared Varrl. “Kreggen!” The older man dropped from the wagon and sprinted to his son where he stood only five paces from Jista. “Kreg, this man is not the warden. He is not,” he said emphatically.
“He profaned us, Father, he…”
“He did,” agreed Varrl, “but he did so because he fears you. If you act on this now, you will never get a chance to see the warden about joining him.”
“You’ll see him, sure enough. He means to come have a look at every one of your…brood.” Jista’s eyes looked past the two men near him to the wagon. “He says there have been signs of… strangeness out your way.” The deputy let the words hang in everyone’s minds for a few moments before continuing. “No one else lives anywhere near you.”
“Go back to your warden and bring him then,” Varrl barked, but his voice sounded less sure by the moment.
“He’ll come, Varrl. You see, there are only a few options.” Jista flexed his hand before extending one finger. “Some witch may have snuck into the territory, or…” he raised a second finger, “you have failed your Rending duties, allowing spirits to take form on your lands, or you or one of your family is a practitioner.” He raised a third finger. “Seems like a greater chance that it’s you or yours than some unexpected evil.”
“Madness,” Varrl said. “Madness.” The older man’s hands hovered by his sides, a ready position Kelc recognized.
“The warden will be able to tell which it is when he visits your home, next Kingsdol or Herdol. Any fault on your part is death, of course.”
“Markadol, Queensdol, Firsdol, Kingsdol, Herdol,” whispered Shaia to Kelc’s mother, waking Kelc from the almost unbelievable turn of events happening between Kreg, father and Hull Jista. “Only four or five days.”
“We are fine, daughter,” said Adda, her hand holding Shy’s jaw so that she faced her mother, squeezing hard enough that she winced. She spared a glance for Kelc. “He seeks to rattle us and defame Kreggen just before the warden comes to test him. Your father told you: Stand capable. That means now. Stand strong or doom Kreg and perhaps all of us. Symea is unforgiving in its tests of strength and loyalty.” Her eyes migrated to Kelc. “I expect you should know that by now.”
“We’ll be there,” yelled Varrl, suddenly backed up almost all the way to the wagon, Kreggen next to him, his sword still in hand.
“Make sure it is so, gravedigger. If you flee, as I expect you must, then there is nothing but a hangman’s noose for you.” Jista swung atop his warhorse with ease. “Kingsdol,” he called. “Yah!”
His horse exploded forward, straight at the wagon. Varrl brought out his blade. Kelc followed suit, unsure of what to do.
The deputy drew steel, hanging it off the side of the horse, though he did not swing it, a sign of contempt. As he charged past, Kreg stepped into him and clashed his sword against the idle blade, but the deputy kept on.
Kelc watched Hull Jista disappear into the grasslands, somewhat dumbfounded.
“What now?” asked Kreggen. “Do we head for home, or…”
“To the very hellfires with Jista and his greeching claims!” The words came from Adda, shocking all of her children.
“Wife!” Varrl said, displeased. “Hells, woman! You can’t…”
“We live strong, does this family. Even if we face death on Kingsdol. We are going to town this day and enjoying it.” She leveled as contemptuous a gaze on Varrl as Kelc had ever seen, by leagues and leagues. The woman had never defied him as he thought about it. “My only daughter has needs if we are to find her a rich courtier.” A silence fell heavy on all of them, seemingly no one brave enough to brooch it. Father gave a curt nod.
“Very well, wife.” He climbed back onto the driver’s bench and gathered the reins. “Mount up. We live strong.” The world felt upside down.
An anxiety crept into Kelc’s chest, a feeling that he learned long ago not to ignor
e. It spoke of a change in things, the sort of change that someone had to pay for, and he often found himself paying.
Kelc looked to Shy. She shook her head, silencing her little brother. He let his head slowly rock to a side, quietly imploring her to give him any sign that things were okay, but she just glared at him until he gave over.
“Your instincts are good, little brother, but your tactics are bad.” Kreg’s voice sounded deflated, tired, though he offered a weak smile.
“What?”
Shy spoke finally.
“Focus on town, Kelc. Anything else is going against the flow of a river.” She looked at him as if he would somehow gain wisdom from her furrowing brows. “A very strong river.”
“Hush,” Varrl interrupted. “What we need for a while is silence.”
Kelc turned from Shy and looked behind the wagon, watching the ground rush beneath his feet as they dangled. He looked where they had come from, wondering if he understood it as well as he thought.
Haggon’s Mill was the biggest town within ten days travel of the house and the biggest town Kelc had ever seen.
Four cobbled lanes comprised the main square, giving a sense of importance to the shops that opened out onto the grey and purple thoroughfare along with the many market wagons that dotted it. More impressive still, to Kelc, was the requirement that every shop on the main square have a painted sign hung from a sconce just outside and above their door.
The signs were fun to look at. A number of shopkeepers put a great deal of effort into them, painting symbols or images of their work along with beautifully scripted letters naming the shop.
Feldagar, the candle girls’ father, had a sign that read Feldagar’s Shoppe. Just under that he’d painted Chandeleer, Lamp Artisan and Oils Within, and all of it in flowing script.
Kelc stepped up to the doorway and looked in, knowing exactly what he hoped to see and afraid that he might see it. Racks lined every wall and tables crowded the rest of the shop, all of them stacked with candles. But no people.
Kelc let loose of the breath he hadn’t realized he held and backed away from the open doorway. “Skeesh,” he whispered, thinking that Kreg would never have felt such fear over so small a thing. But then, he thought, I don’t even have a copper prince to spend. “I’d look like an imbecile.”
With that, Kelc began to wander through the square. He’d managed to get away alone because Shaia and his mother needed to seek out the town administrator to find a list of suitors for his sister while Varrl needed Kreggen to pick up a couple barrels of silvering and furnace oil. His father made no mention of including Kelc. So off he went, free for at least a short while.
Kelc naturally gravitated to The Symean Pride, where armor and weapons of nearly every kind could be purchased. He looked at great two-handed blades and inlayed eating daggers, appreciating the workmanship and fantasizing that he had both the coin and the expertise to use them all.
“You Varrl’s boy?” asked a man in the corner, his deep voice surprising Kelc out of his daydream.
“Yes, sir.”
Stern eyes glared at Kelc from beneath a bald head and thick eyebrows. Strong, overdeveloped shoulders named this fellow the blacksmith, though the bulging belly begged the question as to whether or not he could still wield any of the weapons that surrounded him. He lifted a heavy gloved hand.
“I heard some things about you and your brother,” he said, frowning beneath his thick mustache. “Not sure what to think about it. Your father rend and buried my pa. He seemed a fine enough Symean. Don’t see how he could have raised you boys as anything else.” The man’s tone didn’t suggest an overwhelming appreciation for Varrl.
Kelc wanted more than anything to ask what the man had heard, but his stomach roiled as icy prickles ran all over his skin. Outwardly, he showed none of his concern, but his fear of the deputy and the warden grew by the moment.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, to break some of his own tension. “I didn’t ask your name, nor that of your father.”
“Sorry,” murmured the armorer, as if the word held a taint. “Yes,” he then said. “Name’s Cobb Gebbelson. My pa was Gebbel Aradson.”
To his own surprise, Kelc actually remembered the man. “Big man, your father. Died…ten or eleven years ago.”
Cobb’s head rocked upward as he reconsidered the boy before him. After a moment he offered the barest hint of a smile.
“That’s about right by my recollection,” he said. “Your father looked like he ate a stinkroot when he saw him. Mumbled that he’d have to work extra to prepare him, maybe even have a neighbor come and help move him about.” The big blacksmith laughed suddenly. “Told me that no fewer than ten times, as if I had coin to tip a mortician, what with all the other debts my father had. A lesson for you, young man. I have no debts now because of all that mess, and I reckon I’m happier for it. Now my copper’s honest. I earn it and its mine to do with as I please.”
“Yes, sir,” Kelc answered, smiling. “As advice is all I can afford today, I’ll accept that and follow it.”
He shared a laugh with Cobb.
“So you’re wandering around with not a prince or crown to spend, eh?” Kelc nodded. “I’ve been there,” laughed Cobb. “Too many times at that.”
He surged up off of the stool he’d been on, grunting as he did, and stumped across his shop.
“If I recall, you’re pa is a fair hand with a sword. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I see you’re wearing one there on your belt,” Cobb added. “I’ll make you a deal then, since there’s not a hint of them rumors in you.”
“A deal?” Kelc asked.
“That’s right. No young man should have to flatten his boots tromping around the market and get nothing new, though in truth, I’m not offering nothing new, though I think it’ll suit you better,” Cobb said, his breath beginning to fail him. “And I oughtta know since it’s what I’ve done every day for the past forty-seven years.”
Cobb disappeared into the back of his shop behind a work table. Kelc could hear him moving things around and cussing as a few metal items crashed to the floor. After a little while, the noise quieted and Cobb came lumbering back into the front room of his shop.
“Okay, Kelc Varrlson, I’ll give you this belt here, which is actually correct for your size, along with this flat black iron skiver-- I pulled and wound this iron wire handle myself. The blade isn’t pretty unless you’re a fighter. Then,” he said, his words gusting from him, “it’s a great offhand.” He pulled in a few lungs of air. “What say you?”
Kelc looked at the skiver, fifteen knuckles of perfect black steel with a matched scabbard along with a black sword belt. They were beautiful.
“Sir, I cannot…”
“Skeesh and bones, boy! You can and here’s why. That belt strapped around you is naught but a hindrance. It’s made for a man at least four knuckles taller’n you.” Cobb stepped right up to Kelc and dug a hand under the top of his sword belt, hitting his ribs, forcing Kelc to wince despite the fact that the ribs were mostly healed. “Belt’s got you raw, eh?” Kelc nodded. “See here. I can oil that belt of yours up and sell it for more than the value of these others. Fact is, I still owe you something.”
Cobb spun and picked up a wooden back pipe, a black lacquered sheath that usually looped into a backpack to carry a spare sword or allow for it to be carried on a fighter’s back.
“Here,” he said, smiling. “You drive a hard bargain. But that’s all, young man. I can’t afford to put a sword in the pipe unless you can pay.”
Kelc looked at all of the great equipment and started to shake his head, but he stopped. “You can really sell this belt?” he asked. Cobb nodded. “Very well, I can only accept.”
“Ha!” Cobb exclaimed, “a good decision after all. Let me arm you,” he said. “It’s my job.”
He took the heavier belt after Kelc unbuckled it and slid the sheath off of it, smoothly slipping
it onto the new belt.
“This black one has a few creases here,” said Cobb, showing it to Kelc, “but you can see there’s no crack even starting. It’ll last longer’n you, provided you oil it now and again. And here, if you’re traveling afoot or ahorse, you wear this skiver dead center, so it’s riding right down your ass. It’s a loop sheath so it’ll slide easy. You’re camping, you pull it around to the right, but back just a bit.”
Kelc smiled, and slid the black blade around behind him. “Here?”
“Perfect,” Cobb said. “Now it can act as a piece of armor if you don’t need it.” He flipped the wooden sheath in his hand. “You know how to wear this back pipe?”
“Use my belt across my chest, don’t I? And then the pipe’s loop will come over my shoulder to keep it up?”
“That’s right, young Kelc. You’re definitely a Symean. Haven’t known a woman yet, but you know how to wear a sword.” His laugh boomed from him. “And the black suits you, it does. You look like a soldier.”
“Well, you have my thanks, Cobb Gebbelson. You’ve made my trip into town a worthwhile one.” Kelc extended his hand and the armorer took it, gripping his forearm in a formal Symean greeting.
“Hope that skiver comes in handy one day. Use it to bleed your opponent. Never overcommit to an attack with a short blade, it exposes you.” Cobb nodded once emphatically, a dismissal.
Kelc nodded back and took two steps before stopping. “Sir, I cannot leave here without asking what the rumors are that concerned you when I first came. I have heard naught of them and suddenly…”
“Well,” the big smith said. “Some folk have made mention that both of the territorial warden’s deputies have been out around your land and found signs of the dark practice. Since your father and mother are well known, and your sister has been out meeting suitors and no one has felt ill of her… Well, it was said that it must be you or your brother. Since then I heard that your brother is joining the warden’s service, so…” He shrugged.
Dread of Spirit: Rise of the Mage - Book One Page 4
