by Drew Hayes
“Remember,” Frank reminded them. “Leave a few alive. The first one probably won’t talk, but the ones I make watch will.”
Jack carefully put his hand on his rapier’s hilt, though he didn’t yet pull it from the scabbard. “I guess today we find out which of these goons are lucky, and which ones get captured alive.”
* * *
Weser stirred from his sleep slowly, climbing out from the land of dreams with considerable effort. It was a welcome surprise; usually he slept horribly in the wild, preferring the comfort of his soft mattress and fine sheets. But luxury did not pay for itself, so such sacrifices were necessary from time to time. Not much longer now and the town would pay, they always found a way to pay, and Weser would have enough gold to live off for at least a year, perhaps two if he was less free with women and drink. So a year then, at the most.
Trying to rise from his bed, Weser found that his arms and legs were heavier than normal. Putting some effort into it, he managed to lift his left leg several inches before it was halted. Peeling his eyes open, Weser glanced down to see shackles binding his legs and arms to the bed where he’d fallen asleep. That was disconcerting enough, but far worse was when he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. No one was allowed in here except during emergencies, and even if one arose all of his men would know better than to linger about. And they certainly wouldn’t have shackled him to his bed.
“Hello? Who’s there?” With more time to think or a clearer head, Weser might have come up something a bit more probing, but he was working with what he had in the moment.
“Ah. You’re awake.” At the sound of the voice, Weser felt his stomach drop toward his feet. It was impossible to say precisely why; there was no threatening tone in the words. Some part of him simply recognized it as off. Wrong. A thing that should not be. And that thing had him clapped in irons.
“I warn you, stranger, I am not a man to trifle with. My wealth affords me a private force that will hunt you to the shores of the Endless Sea if you harm so much as a nail on my finger.”
“No, you had a private force. They, or at least the ones you had set to ambush anyone who came looking for the children, are no longer in your employ. Some have ceased to breathe, and others decided there were things they valued more than loyalty to you. They were kind enough to point us in your direction, eventually.”
It was the calm that bothered Weser the most. This voice was bordering on placid, its wielder was so calm. There should be tension in his tone, especially if he just murdered a mercenary squadron and captured their leader. If he was truly calm in a moment like this, it meant he had encountered untold numbers like it before, and that was very bad news for Weser. He did still have one card left to play, however, and it was a big one.
“So you killed off my men? Impressive, certainly, but I trust you can figure out what will happen to a town’s worth of children without someone getting them food regularly. Starvation is an ugly death, I’ve seen it firsthand, and it would be a shame to sentence so many innocents to such a fate. Free me now, and we can talk terms. I’m not an unreasonable man; I can still be moved to release them for a fair price.”
“Bold. Very bold. Trying to swing your leverage about as if you’re the one in charge. It’s an understandable move, but a wasted one. You will tell me what I want to know. The only question is whether you’ll do so in time or not.”
At last the speaking figure stepped into view. He was holding a bottle with a tube of some strange clear material poking out the bottom. Lifting it up, Weser’s captor hung the thing carefully from a hook fixed in the ceiling, one that hadn’t been there earlier in the day. As he did, Weser caught sight of the man’s hands from under his expansive robe. They were terrible things, pale and scarred, yet to watch them move was impressive. The fingers possessed an inhuman grace that was fascinating while being repulsive in an oddly contradictory manner. Delicately, the hands ran down the clear tubing until they reached the end, where a small needle had been attached. In a motion so quick Weser barely caught it, the needle was plunged into the skin on his arm, and liquid from the bottle began to flow into him.
“What is that? What are you doing to me?”
“Don’t worry, this will help keep you alive,” the man told him. Despite the assurance, Weser found the concept very worrying all the same. He’d have protested, but the man kept going. “You were still asleep when we first drugged you, and I needed time to make preparations. Now, at last, we are ready to continue. Tell me, pied piper, where are the children? I know you won’t listen, but I urge you to heed my advice: take this chance. You will tell me eventually, and you will curse yourself for not doing so at this opportunity.”
Weser was, for a moment, actually tempted to tell this man all he wanted. The detached way he went about this process was unnerving, as if he really didn’t care what it took to make Weser talk. But it was obviously a bluff, a bit of theatre meant to scare him. Knights and princes were the sort who came after missing children, and none of them would ever stoop to something as base as torture. When the bluff failed, the bargaining would begin, and Weser had no intention of trading his leverage for a dungeon cell.
“Children? I can’t seem to recall at the moment. You know how the forest is, and I have no sense of direction.”
“So be it.” The robed man stepped out of view again, and when he returned he was carrying a small table. Lying on his back, Weser couldn’t see much. The only bit that was easy to spot was an hourglass. That, and a few brief shimmers of metal reflecting light from an unseen source. His captor carried the table down to the end of the bed, perfectly in Weser’s view, and set it down. “This hourglass counts down thirty minutes. After every answer, I flip it over and we begin anew. My prediction is that you’ll tell us what we want to know by the third turn, but perhaps you’ll be smarter than that.”
From the table, the man lifted a piece of smudged coal in one hand, then began to roll up Weser’s right pant leg with the other. “Do you know why you’re going to tell me where the children are? Because I understand the value of patience. The gain in going slow. Jack and Marie are both impulsive; they’d rip an arm from your socket or stab you in the lungs to start things off. But I understand that taking away something essential at the outset will make you feel despondent, as though you have nothing left to lose. You’d be wrong, but by the time you realized that it might be too late. So I’m not beginning with something truly necessary to your way of life as a piper. I’m staying away from your hands, and eyes, and the lower instrument every bard is fond of having others play, at the outset. I want you to understand the stakes first. I want you to feel the slow, crushing terror of realization as you grasp what’s happening. Because once you do, you’ll talk. You may prefer death to jailing, but I promise you don’t have the fortitude to face the fate I’m offering.”
Moving with that same grace, the hand smeared coal marks down the front of Weser’s right ankle, just above the foot. When that was done, he set the coal aside and wrapped a heavy cloth around Weser’s shin, a bit above the line he’d drawn. The cloth was drawn tight, painfully so, and pulled into a knot. It felt like his foot was already starting to fall asleep, and with every step in this process Weser’s certainty that this was all a show waned more and more.
“What…what are you doing?”
“Cutting off the circulation so you don’t bleed to death. I’ve got a pan heating over your fireplace to cauterize the wound, but this will make sure I have enough time to work in. Too much blood loss and you’d pass out, which wouldn’t serve either of our purposes well.”
There was no more denying it now, this man meant to either cut off Weser’s foot or convince him that was the plan. Eyes wide, Weser began to struggle, pulling against the shackles with what little strength he could muster. Dammit, why did his body still feel so heavy? Was this lunatic using potions, and what was that the liquid running from the bottle to Weser’s veins?
“You can’t do th
is!”
“I can. I have before. I’m going to again.” Still calm. Still deadly calm.
“You can’t, though! That’s not the way this works. The Narrative leads champions to fight people like me. You…you’re a monster!”
For the first time, those scarred hands fluttered as the hood craned upward. Weser’s captor stepped out of view briefly, making his way around the bed. When he appeared again, it was directly over Weser’s face, giving him a glimpse into that hood that he dearly wished he hadn’t gotten. The face was scarred up and down, but horrifying as it was it had nothing on those eyes. That burning, clearly non-human eye in the left socket was bad, yet it was the blue one in the right that bothered him more. There was sadness in that eye, deep and unspeakable. The sort of sadness one who has seen, and done, horrendous things might carry with them.
“You’re right. About almost all of that. From what I’ve heard, the Narrative didn’t used to work this way. The Endless Sea used to, presumably, be truly endless. But times change, and perhaps the Narrative is changing with them. I have my theories, though none I’ve been able to prove yet. And you’re right, piper, I am a monster. Not for the reasons you think, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. The problem is, you’re a monster too. You steal children in the night and threaten to kill them if not paid. I think as far as the Narrative is concerned, you and I pitted against one another is a wash. Two monsters fight each other in the woods, no knights need intervene. Which brings us to the one thing you were wrong about: I can do this. And I will. If I had to kill the whole town to get the information, I would, and without a moment’s hesitation.”
The face leaned forward, until it was so close Weser could feel the breath on his face. He shut his eyes, trying to purge the face from his mind.
“I will never fail another child. My sins are already too heavy to bear.”
A small drop of something fell from onto Weser’s forehead, the unexpected drip causing him to open his eyes and look upward. There, on the patchwork face before him, was a small line of what appeared to be tears, running from the blue eye down the scarred cheek.
“Are you…crying?”
“Part of me is. Perhaps the only decent part I have. She mourns for you, piper. She mourns for what I am about to do to you. Sometimes, that would give me pause, make me reconsider my actions. Today, however, I know I must see things through.”
Pulling himself upright and out of view, the stranger walked back down the length of the bed, to where the table and Weser’s exposed foot were waiting. He pulled a gleaming handsaw from the table, inspecting it carefully before turning back to face Weser.
“I’ll flip the timer when this one is finished. Once I start, you’re going to be tempted to tell me whatever I want to make it end. Feel free to lie, if you like, but know one thing: this all ends when my friends return and tell me they’ve found the children, not when you speak up. So if you give us a false location, the only person you’ll be hurting is yourself. I imagine the loss of time sending them on a wild chase will take up quite a few turns of the hourglass.”
A prepared lie died on Weser’s tongue at the words. This didn’t end until after the children were found…but he’d stashed them some ways out. How fast were these friends? How long would it take them to check out his story? Maybe there was still a bargain to be made. He opened his mouth to speak, but the stranger in the hood pressed the edge of the saw down, right along the coal marks that had been drawn on Weser’s ankle.
“One last thing. I have no interest in hearing you beg or bargain, so whenever you’re speaking to say something that isn’t telling me where the children are, I’m going to work faster. So choose your words very carefully, because I’m quite adept at this kind of task. It’s a family tradition.”
* * *
Dusk was lingering at the edge of the horizon, but the smiles of the townsfolk were shining so brightly the sun may as well have been right overhead. All through town square parents were scooping up their children in big, powerful hugs that tried to convey the sense of terror and loss they’d felt at being separated from one another. Deep down, in a part of his heart rarely touched, Jack felt the slightest flutter of homesickness. It had been a long time since he checked in, and next time he was in the area he would see how things were going.
Absent from the touching display was Frank, who’d holed up in a dark room almost as soon as they’d finished bringing the children back. Days like this took a toll on him, even if he liked to pretend otherwise. Despite the appearance, it was generally agreed upon by Jack and Marie that Frank had the kindest heart of all three of them. Curiously, that didn’t mean there were lines he was less likely to cross; rather it meant that Frank could do truly horrible things when the occasion demanded it. Frank was the sort who would put another stain on his soul before he’d let an innocent suffer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spotted the Sheriff ambling over. Marie was across the square, and Frank was missing, so perhaps he wanted to try to get the jump on Jack when there were fewer people to fight. Or he simply wanted to chat. Jack dismissed neither possibility as he watched the large man lumber his way across the poorly paved stones of their square. When he arrived at Jack’s side he halted and didn’t go for his sword, which seemed like a good sign to start things off.
“All of the children are here and accounted for.” The Sheriff was beaming, waving to people who were shouting their thanks to him. Jack wasn’t sure the tale this fellow had spun, nor did he care, but it was apparent the Sheriff had painted himself into a heroic role.
“My people and I may be many things, but we aren’t the sort who take on jobs we can’t handle,” Jack replied.
“Yet I can’t help noticing that the son of a bitch who actually did all this is nowhere to be seen. Happy as these folks are right now, sooner or later they’re going to remember that someone actually stole their children in the first place, and at that point I’d better have a body to hang. Any insight as to what I should tell them?”
“The truth.” Jack often found that to be the best answer to any question, although there were certainly ways to frame or structure the truth that made it more advantageous to the speaker. “Tell them that the piper is not a sight appropriate to put in front of children, so we left him where he was. I assure you, unless he’s got incredible arm strength or some magic potions tucked away, he won’t have gotten far. I’ll be happy to give you his location once my people and I have our prisoner back and our investigation is complete. Can’t have you not needing us just yet, it wouldn’t be prudent.”
A long sigh slipped out from the Sherriff’s beaming face. “About that prisoner of yours…seems someone slit his throat this morning. And they didn’t stop at the skin. Came in to find him dead as can be. I’ll look into who did it, but as you might imagine there are a lot of suspects. I’m happy to keep my word and turn him over to you, if you want to haul a corpse down the road.”
Reaching into a pouch on his side, the Sheriff pulled out a modest bag and offered it to Jack, who accepted. With one brief shake Jack knew that the sack was full of gold coins, and while he didn’t get the exact number from one jingle he knew it was at least close to what they’d agreed.
“I felt a bit bad about what happened to your prisoner, and I don’t think I want bad blood between us, so I spent the day talking to folks, seeing if one of them remembered the man meeting with anyone. One of the barkeeps did, said your gent met with some figure in a black cloak with red trim a few weeks back. No description, but the mystery person went north. I’ve got a stable master who saw that rider leaving town. Wish I had more to give, but it seems that’s all we’ve got.”
Jack appreciated the gesture. Not as much as he appreciated the gold, but still. Inclined as part of him was to start slicing his way through the guards of this town for daring to touch someone under his protection, ultimately the act would cost more than it gained. Best to put this place behind them, give Frank some distance. He’
d be better when they were on the road again. It always took a day or two’s ride to shake these situations from his mind.
“Thank you for your efforts,” Jack said. “And for prompt payment. We’ll leave behind a map with the piper’s location at the inn just before we ride off. One word of advice though, if I may. Send only men with strong stomachs. What awaits them is not for the faint of heart.”
The Sheriff’s head dipped into a nod as he stared at Jack, worry clouding his eyes even as he kept smiling for the townsfolk. “I’m grateful for what you three did. Truly I am. All the same, I think I’d prefer if you were out of here as soon as possible, and you didn’t come back anytime soon. You three don’t quite fit right in these lands.”
Tucking the sack of gold carefully away in his larger bag, Jack let out a brief chuckle before turning toward the inn. “Trust me, Sheriff, we are keenly aware of that fact. One could even say it’s how we make our living.” Jack walked away without another word. They needed to leave this place as quickly as they could. Eventually the good humor would wane and people would start thinking too hard about the sort of monsters they’d let into their town. Better to be gone before that happened, vanishing under the safety of nightfall and riding north with no real idea where they were going.
A cloaked figure headed north wasn’t much to go on, but there were a lot of towns and kingdoms in that direction. Jack was sure they’d find a way to turn a profit, no matter where their journey led next.
The Tale of the Angry Frog
Conversing with magical animals wasn’t especially dangerous, per se, but as a rule the Bastard Champions didn’t do it much for the simple fact that it was boring. A goose with the power of speech might seem as if it would be interesting, but that ignored the fact that it would only want to talk about goosely things like bread and swimming. In practice, it was best to treat talking animals like strangers one passed on a road: give a polite nod to acknowledge them and then pointedly avoid any further engagement.
