“That’s why he’s lived this long,” the red-haired man shot back. “Because he doesn’t believe anyone, and he tries to foresee everything before it happens. I don’t know how things are over in the West, where you are, but there’s danger lurking around every corner in the Borderlands. You have to always be ready for a fight.”
“Things really are tough around here,” I marveled. “Okay, tell me this, MacSummers: where can I find the local Tearful Goddess Order mission?”
Lennox scratched his head, thought for a second, and clapped his forehead.
“Ah, those idiots who never fight, not even with wooden swords?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied with a shrug. “They have a round ring above the building, with a strange symbol in the middle.”
“Yep,” Lennox said happily. “It took us so long to figure out what that was. They’re crazy, I’m telling you!”
“No more than you or me,” I said, sticking up for the knights. “They’re just different. But they’re good guys, and great fighters, believe me. I’ve stood back to back with them in battle, so I should know.”
Lennox scrunched up his face, letting me know that he didn’t really believe me, and therefore wasn’t buying my story about the knights. But he set off down the street, evidently showing me the way.
The mission was larger than the underground one I’d been in, though it was much smaller than, for example, the one in Aegan. That made sense: I was still in the provinces, and so they hadn’t even set a guard outside.
“I’m not going in with you,” Lennox announced. “Screw them. You need to go in, so you go ahead.”
The restless MacSummers had apparently found time to quarrel with the knights of the order. No, my dear friend, I need you there to make sure nobody accuses me of forgery.
“Not a chance,” I said, grabbing him by the sleeve. “Let’s go—I need a witness, and someone from your clan. You can tell the bayron that I didn’t write the parchment we’re going to show him.”
Lennox muttered away for another thirty seconds before walking up the stairs with me.
“What can I do for you?” A monk was sitting behind a table, and I couldn’t help but think back to the mission in Fladridge. Somehow, monks were in some places, but not in others… There’s a mismatch somewhere.
“Are any of your senior officers in the mission?” I asked him drily. I had the experience under my belt to know that there was no point getting into a conversation with him.
“Master Friedrich von Gottenvald,” the monk replied without a hitch. “Shall I let him know you’re here?”
“Immediately. Tell him that Hagen, Thane of the Western Reaches and friend of the order, as well as his escort, Lennox MacSummers, are here.”
“What do you mean, your escort?” Lennox grumbled from behind me.
“What else would you be?” I asked, turning to face him. “You came with me, and not the other way around, right?”
“You dragged me in here,” MacSummers clarified. “I didn’t want to come!”
The monk looked at us and quietly walked up the stairs, amusingly pulling up the skirts of his robe. Wait a second. Who do they pray to, the local monks, if there aren’t any gods? They could have been there just to fill out the cast of characters, I supposed. Or is there some kind of secret order? Something like the Nikelokevalists of the Fourteenth Day from the Advent of Saint Gennady.
“Thane, good afternoon!” a voice called from the top of the stairs. “I’ll be right down!”
I hear the tat-tat-tat of heels, until in front of us stood a middle-aged, broad-shouldered man with a nearly trimmed beard. He was wearing a hunting outfit and boots.
“Master von Gottenvald,” he said as he walked over. “It’s a pleasure to meet such a famed knight as yourself.”
“I’m not a knight,” I replied gently. “But it’s a pleasure to meet you, as well.”
“A warrior,” Friedrich said, correcting himself. “Of course, a warrior! How can I help you?”
“Here’s the thing, my dear Master,” I said, gesturing toward Lennox, who was looking ill at ease and holding his hand threateningly on the pommel of his sword. This time it was a longsword, the previous day’s claymore apparently being his parade weapon. “Bayron Fergus, the local leader, for some reason doesn’t believe me when I say I’m a thane. He’s demanding proof.”
“That’s humiliating—an insult,” von Gottenvald responded seriously. “Maybe you should think about killing him for words like that? I could be your second.”
Lennox ground his teeth.
“No, my friend,” I said. “I didn’t take much offense. It’s just that lives mean nothing in these parts, to say nothing of words. If someone says he’s a thane, he should be able to confirm it. That’s the only way you can earn trust.”
“So I need to confirm for Bayron MacSummers that you’re a thane,” von Gottenvald said easily. “Is that correct?”
“Almost,” I replied. “The whole thing is actually much easier than that. You should have gotten a document recently that had the order’s stamp, the signatures of your authorized officials, and my title. I’d really appreciate it if you could let me borrow it.”
The master smacked himself in the forehead and nodded to the monk.
“Oh, right, we got that a few days ago! Michel, go look in our correspondence.”
A few minutes later, I was holding the document in question, and I turned it over to make sure my memory hadn’t let me down. I thanked Friedrich from the bottom of my heart and assured him that I would be bringing him a bottle of wine that day—the next at the latest. With that, Lennox and I walked out onto the street, where we found a welcome party waiting for us.
Rinald was standing by the door to the mission, and he wasn’t alone: he had three large, heavily-armed gelts with him. He saw me and perked up.
“Ah, finally. Heather, the waitress from the bar, and old Oddo’s daughter, said she saw you coming here with this red-headed doofus. We’ve been waiting for you ever since.”
“Why wait for me? Do you need something?”
“Bayron said to bring you to him as soon as you come out, since you gave him your word and should keep it. Otherwise, we have orders to kill you. So let’s go, my friend—I like you, and I’d rather not have to spill your guts.”
“And they’re what? The honor guard?” I nodded at the three silent hulks who had unpretentiously walked around behind me. “I’m not hiding or running, am I?”
“They’re…” Rinald hemmed, embarrassed. “Well, yes, you’re our guest, and we don’t want anything to happen to you along the way.”
“I figured that,” I replied. “As soon as I saw this red-head, I realized what was going on.”
“Thane,” von Gottenvald said from the porch, having somehow had time to chance into armor. His palm was resting on the hilt of a sword sticking out of his belt, and there were two knights behind him in battle armor. “Is everything okay? Do you need our help? Just say the word.”
The site of the normally peaceful knights ready for battle appeared to surprise the gelts.
“No, Master,” I replied. “Everything’s fine. Like I said, Fergus is waiting for me.”
“Bayron Fergus,” one of my escorts said. “Show a little respect for your elders.”
“Bayron Fergus,” I repeated meekly.
The head of the MacSummers clan either lived or worked in a building right in the center of the town. The trio of escorts and the red-headed doofus waited outside, while Rinald and I walked in. We stepped through a small foyer into a large, cozy room with a roaring fire. It was equipped with sturdy oak furniture, and there were round, many-colored shields hanging on the walls.
“That’s an interesting design choice,” I said as I looked around. “Why shields?”
“Tradition,” Fergus said. Turning around, I noticed him walking out of an inconspicuous door that must have led to an adjoining room. “Three hundred years ago, they decided that hangi
ng the mummified heads of your dead enemies on your walls wasn’t the most civilized thing to do, and ever since then the clan has taken the shield belonging to the leader of the opposing clan whenever we have been victorious. It’s less imposing this way, but still.”
“Interesting customs you have,” I noted. “Original.”
“Centuries-old,” the old man said with a smile. “That’s just the first one you’re finding out about—there are plenty more. Anyway, did you bring proof of your lawful claim to the title of thane?”
The old bastard sure can turn a phrase. It makes sense that he’s in charge.
“Of course,” I nodded. “Here you go.”
I handed the scroll I’d gotten from the mission to the bayron. He unrolled it and read through it carefully, looking up a minute later.
“Can anyone confirm that this scroll was not written by you?”
“First of all, that’s the seal of the order right there, and that should be confirmation enough,” I explained to the distrustful fellow. “Second, I made sure I brought Rinald’s good nephew, Lennox, into the mission with me. He saw the order master hand me the scroll.”
The old man nodded.
“That is good enough for me. Thane, I hope you don’t hold my caution against me. When you hear my reasons, I think you’ll leave your resentment behind.”
You completed a quest: Proving the Obvious.
Reward:
1000 experience
+7 to your reputation among the MacSummers clan
“Would you care to tell me what those reasons are?” Color me intrigued. Although, I didn’t think it could be anything more than some social quest or other.
“You need to kill Rennor MacLynn, Laird of Marrigot, in a duel,” Fergus said in a very normal tone of voice.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In which we find that a debt to a friend can come with some nice kickbacks.
“And why is that?” I asked, a bit taken aback. It was proving difficult to get used to the game’s unexpected and absolutely illogical twists and turns. “What did he do to me?”
“To you? Nothing. But he did quite a bit to your friend Lane. Although Lane isn’t his real name.”
“I imagine I’m supposed to ask what his real name is now,” I replied with a sigh. “Let’s assume I asked.”
“Without going into all the details, your friend’s real name is Lossarnakh MacMagnus from the Magnus clan. He’s laird of Morrigot, and bailiff of Fassarlakh and Targot.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I had no idea. He’s quite the guy—I respect him even more now. Thanks for the info, anyway. If I get the chance, I’ll tell him you said hi. But in the meantime, I have to run, so I’ll see you around.”
I walked toward the door, knowing full well that he would stop me. Even if I hadn’t been sure of that, however, I still would’ve walked away. The old man and the iron fist he ruled with had gotten on my nerves. The situation was playing into my hands, as well: the old bastard obviously had his reasons for coopting me into his service, and I could only imagine that they were hefty. I needed to take out MacLynn regardless, or at least get him out of the way, and I was only too happy to see if I could use the MacSummers to make my job easier. And if I can earn a little something in the process…
“Well, he was laird of Morrigot—amongst his other titles. Now he’s just Lane the mercenary,” the bayron said from behind me.
“It didn’t look like he was too unhappy with that life,” I said sharply, turning around. “Yes, we fought together; yes, we were friends; and yes, I even saved him once, though that was after he helped me out. So what? Why do I have to kill that MacLynn, someone I’ve never even seen? And how do you imagine that going down? Just walk up to him and stab him under his windows? Or do I have to stage a coup? That’s not even funny. If I read it in some book, I’d think the author had run out of new ideas.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” the bayron said. “You’re talking a lot, you’re emotional, and you’re getting your spittle all over me. Let me just explain something to you. Sit down at the table, or wherever’s more comfortable for you.”
I sat down in a chair near the fireplace and stared at the bayron, who had no intention of sitting down. He was standing there looking at me.
“I’m sorry if I came across too blunt,” he said gently. “I just forgot that you people in the West aren’t like us here in the Borderlands. Here, avenging friends is a sacred duty, even more sacred than avenging your family. We don’t choose our families—they’re handed down to us. But we do pick our friends, and that means avenging their death or insults made to them is a duty we have to them and to ourselves. When three young Getsbirs killed Rinald’s friend in the hills, he hunted them like a wolf for three days and three nights. One by one, he slaughtered them.”
“I had to bite through the last one’s throat,” boomed Rinald. “He knocked my sword away, so…”
Ooph. That’s…different.
“So I just told you about your right to vengeance by habit.” The old man interlaced his fingers. “I told you who killed Lossarnakh’s family, who is responsible for the calamities that have befallen him, and I assumed you’d take the blood of his family upon your own head. It just looks like I jumped to conclusions.”
“You did jump to conclusions—pretty far, in fact,” I assured him. “But wouldn’t it make more sense for Lane to take care of all that? Lossarnakh, I mean.”
“Unfortunately, he lost his right to vengeance the moment he fled the country,” the old man said with a sad sigh. “But let me just tell you the whole story.”
The bayron took me through the whole thing thoroughly and in great detail, replete with all the beautiful turns of phrase he could muster. Over the next hour, I learned quite a bit about the Borderlands, its geography, its complex system of government, the traditions and customs of the gelts, and much more. Only toward the end did he get down to what was most important.
It turned out that my friend Lane was an important guy in local terms. He was a laird, and that meant he was lord of a number of lands in the Borderlands. His word was law, and nobody had the right to second-guess him. Nobody, that is, except a few friends he grew up with—they could get away with a lot more, but that was normal for the Borderlands. Future rulers always grew up with two or three sons of the people closest to the leader, and they ended up being companions through fire and water. They were permitted more than anyone else, though they were also killed first by enemies. The laird could even institute new laws in a few neighboring villages. Even though they had their own lords, his word was final.
Lane’s clan, the MacMagnuses, was one of the oldest and richest in the Borderlands, though there weren’t many of them left by the time my friend was old enough to take the seat of power. Some wars and a plague had ravaged their ranks, leaving just Lane, his father, his sister, and an aunt on his mother’s side who was neither young nor beautiful. He may have had other relatives as well, though nobody had heard of any, and they hadn’t shown up. Sad as it was, that played a key role in the problems that led to his downfall.
His lands and Morrigot Castle had long been coveted by his closest neighbor, the poor, if large MacLynn clan headed by the unmanageable, cruel, and ruthless Rennor. Even with those character flaws, oddly enough, he was highly intelligent. He knew full well that his chances in a direct conflict were slim to none. Lane may not have had many relatives, though he had plenty of warriors.
Then the old man stopped to mention how common wars were in the Borderlands. It was completely normal to have a couple clans get into it trying to figure out who had broken whose pitcher a hundred years ago. They would find a cozy hollow between some hills, and face off there in a healthy, sporting contest to see who could spill more of the other’s blood. It was a great custom. Sometimes the wars were aimed at conquering new territory, and those followed the normal rules of the genre: a siege, and then a slaughter in the streets. Nobody touched women or children, however, unless they pi
cked up weapons first. Wars were a man’s business, and women were supposed to sit at home with the kids. They didn’t kill anyone without a sword, either, since there was no honor in that—the gelts all enjoyed the right to die with a sword in their hand.
It was those unwritten rules that the practical and, it turned out, progressively-minded MacLynn decided to side-step. He went to see the sultan of the South, somehow weaseled his way into an audience, and used his silver tongue or maybe some kind of gifts to get the sultan to give him fifteen Nurabians—famed saboteurs and skilled killers.
One night, the guard was cut down, the gates to Morrigot were thrown open, and the MacLynns poured into the sleeping and unsuspecting castle. There was some resistance thrown up, though it was quickly put down, mostly with knives to the back. Lane’s friends all fought bravely and died in his defense, and he fell off the castle wall into the river and was considered dead. That was why the bayron was surprised when he realized I was talking about Lossarnakh. Joining the mercenaries was impossible for Borderlanders, it turned out. They could join the service of some baron and his wandering army as a free warrior or sign up for a city guard, but killing for money? The old man was no fool, and he knew that only losing everything could push someone to those lengths, quickly realizing who I was talking about. His suspicions were confirmed when I told him about the ring.
Anyway, back to the castle. The MacLynns, needless to say, captured it, and Lane’s “death” was far from the end of the story for them. Lossarnakh would have been succeeded by his sister, with her regent their older, but still entirely reproductive aunt. What happened next turned nearly all the clans against the MacLynns: Rennor himself killed the already wounded girl, and his pitiless nephew Flank finished off the last of the MacMagnuses. That Flank was an unusual and extremely dangerous individual: he was incredibly strong, clever, an excellent swordsman, and the owner of lots of other unpleasant habits. For example, he chopped the heads off all his enemies, even if they were already dead. That kind of person. Incidentally, the leadership of the MacLynn clan had shrunk considerably over the previous few years. First one, then another of them had died off mysteriously, the problems, somehow, confined to MacLynns with a claim to Rennor’s seat. What a coincidence.
Sicilian Defense Page 29
