The Unwilling Warlord

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “We can sleep on the ship,” Lady Kalira replied, irritated. “And eat there, too, if we have to. Now, where’s this market?”

  “How do we get across?” Alder asked. “Is there a bridge?”

  Sterren had to think for a minute. “Well, there is on the Upper Canal, which turns off this one—or maybe it’s on the New Canal right before the Upper Canal turns off, I’m not sure.”

  “Boats,” Kendrik pointed out. “There must be boats going across.”

  “Of course there are,” Sterren said, although he hadn’t known there were until he saw what Kendrik had spotted: A small, flat-bottomed boat, obviously unfit to leave the calm waters of the canal, tied up to a dock on the opposite side. A man lay dozing in it, and some rotting fruit rinds were bumping gently against one gunwhale. Looking around, Sterren saw that a similar dock on the near side jutted forty feet out into the canal and had a space on one side where just such a boat could readily tie up.

  “A ferry, that’s what it is,” he added, as he led the way down to the dock.

  He hoped it actually was a ferry; if not, he knew he was going to look very foolish.

  “I don’t understand why we’re doing this,” Zander muttered as he followed his warlord down the cobbled slope.

  “Because Shiphaven Market is where people recruit for foreign adventures; I told you all that,” Sterren retorted, as his feet hit the first planks.

  Zander was not silenced. “Is it always this cold?” he asked, pulling his tunic tighter at the throat.

  “No,” Sterren and Lady Kalira replied, simultaneously.

  Sterren was not particularly pleased with the cold and wind, or with Zander’s whining. Both acted as deterrents to desertion. The immense size of the city did, as well; Sterren, being a native and accustomed to it from birth, had not realized how intimidating it must be to a foreigner, newly arrived from the rural openness of Semma, to find himself surrounded by a seemingly endless maze of walls and streets.

  Even the rich city smell that he found so comforting probably seemed like an alien stink to the Semmans.

  He was rapidly losing hope that all four of his volunteers would desert, but if even one did, he thought he could send the others after him, while he and Lady Kalira supposedly continued his recruiting mission. That might provide sufficient opportunity for his own escape.

  He came to the end of the dock, stopped, and waved an arm above his head.

  “Hai!” he called, shouting at the top of his lungs in order to be heard over the wind. “Over here!”

  The man in the flat-bottomed boat looked up, startled out of his doze, and saw the party on east side. He sat up, then stood, and picked up a long-handled oar.

  Sterren could feel Lady Kalira’s impatience as they stood and watched while the ferryman casually used the blunt end of the oar to push off from the dock, and then began paddling his way slowly across the canal, fighting the steady breeze that wanted to push his ungainly craft out to sea. The gap between the two docks was a good forty yards, Sterren judged, and it took several long minutes for the boat to cross it.

  When it drew near, the ferryman stopped rowing, reached down, and came up with a coil of rope. He threw one end of it up onto the dock.

  Alder, with admirable presence of mind, caught it and began hauling the boat in.

  The other end of the rope was secured to the boat’s blunt bow, and in a moment that bumped up against the battered end of the dock.

  “Bunch of barbarians, is it?” the ferryman muttered in Ethsharitic. “I can’t take you all at once!” he called aloud.

  The Semman soldiers spoke no Ethsharitic, and were all crowding forward toward the boat. “Wait!” Sterren called. “Not all at once! You’ll ... you’ll...” He could not think of a Semmat equivalent for “sink,” “swamp,” or “capsize.”

  He didn’t need one; the soldiers got the idea, and stopped pressing.

  In his native tongue, Sterren called to the boatman, “Yes, they are a bunch of barbarians, but I’m stuck with them. How many can you take?”

  “How many of you are there?” the boatman asked, eyeing the little mob.

  Sterren did a quick head-count to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anyone, then answered, “Eight, in all.”

  The boatman considered, and said, “I can take four each time, easily enough. Two trips will do it, then. I’ll give you a cut rate, too—six bits the lot.”

  Sterren was not at all sure that was actually a cut rate, but he paid no attention. Here, sent by the gods, was a chance to split the party. He turned to Lady Kalira. “He says he can only take four at a time,” he explained. “I’ll go on ahead with Zander and Alar and Bern, say, and then he’ll come back for the rest of you.”

  “Oh, no!” she replied. “No, I stay with you! You, me, Alder, and Dogal go first, and the rest can follow.”

  “My lady, need I remind you that I am in charge here, and not you? This is my city, and I am your warlord...”

  “This is your city, all right,” Lady Kalira interrupted, “and that’s exactly why I’m staying with you.”

  Sterren opened his mouth to argue, and then caught sight of the expression on Alder’s face.

  It was not an easy expression to describe, having something of resignation, annoyance, and doubt in it, but Sterren knew immediately that it meant Alder didn’t trust him any more than Lady Kalira did. He closed his mouth.

  “All right,” he said after a moment, “we’ll go first, then those four.” He pushed his way past the soldiers, and climbed down into the boat. “My lady, if you will?” he said, turning back and offering a hand.

  Lady Kalira accepted his aid, stepping down into the boat. She settled on one of the seats in the bow.

  Dogal followed, and then Alder with the bowline, and Sterren, prompted by the ferryman’s gestures, settled the two of them amidships, while he sat in the bow beside Lady Kalira.

  “Oars are on either side,” the ferryman pointed out from where he stood in the stern.

  Sterren translated, and Alder and Dogal each took an oar as the ferryman reached over them with his own long oar and pushed them away from the dock.

  It took the Semman soldiers a minute to get the hang of rowing, but even so, the trip west was much quicker than the ferryman’s solo trip east had been. Once across, they clambered quickly ashore.

  The ferryman waited, and once they were all safely on the dock he said, “That’ll be six bits. I don’t get the others until I see the money.”

  Sterren did not bother to translate this for the others; he just pulled the money from his purse and tossed it to the ferryman, who caught it deftly.

  Then the foursome had to stand on the western dock and wait while the ferryman returned for the other soldiers.

  It was only then that Lady Kalira realized that none of the other four spoke even a single word of Ethsharitic, or even Trader’s Tongue. The ferryman did his best to make himself understood in both languages—bits of his shouting carried across the water—but the four Semmans were very slow indeed to find places in the boat and cast off successfully.

  Sterren watched the others carefully, glancing back now and then at the city streets behind them, but he saw no opportunity to make a dash for shelter. He waited, unhappily, until the party was reunited.

  The north wind was chilly, and Dogal was shivering badly by the time the others scrambled up out of the boat. Even Sterren felt the cold.

  “This way,” he said, with no idea whether it was the right way; he just wanted to get moving and out of the wind.

  He led the way up away from the canal, past a cross street, around a sinuous bend, and through two three-way intersections.

  Then he stopped, trying to figure out where he was.

  The other seven, all close behind him, nearly trampled him.

  He looked about. The others followed suit.

  They were obviously in Shiphaven. Most of the people in sight on the streets wore the blue kilts and white tunics of sailors. Two c
handlers’ shops were in sight, and a cooper’s as well. A red-haired woman sat on the balcony of a nearby brothel, but wore a heavy shawl wrapped about her against the wind. She called a greeting, judging the soldiers to be potential customers; Kendrik in particular stared at her greedily.

  Sterren did not recognize the street. He considered stopping one of the sailors strolling by, but rejected the idea immediately; he would not admit so easily to being lost in his native city.

  Even over the clatter of passing feet and the whistle of the wind in the nearby eaves, he could hear voices ahead and to the left. “This way,” he said, marching on.

  The Semmans followed, Alder and Dogal close on his heels, Lady Kalira just behind, and the others trailing along.

  The next intersection was another cross street, and he turned left, to find himself looking directly at Shiphaven Market, two blocks away.

  He recognized the street, then; he was on East Wharf Street. He still could not identify the one he had followed from the canal, however.

  “There you are,” he said, pointing. “Shiphaven Market!”

  He was rather proud of having led the party successfully through an unfamiliar part of the city, but none of the Semmans seemed impressed by his accomplishment. None of them realized, of course, that this part of the city was unfamiliar.

  In fact, he wondered if it had really sunk in yet that the city was big enough that he wasn’t familiar with all of it.

  “Good,” Lady Kalira snapped. “Let’s go find a wizard and get back to the ship, before we all freeze.”

  “Doesn’t have to be a wizard,” Sterren began, but Lady Kalira’s glare discouraged him from saying any more. He marched on.

  The market was not crowded, probably because of the weather, Sterren guessed. The foul winds would have kept down the number of ships reaching the harbor, with goods to sell or vacancies in their crews to fill, and the cold would discourage the casual browser. He doubted he saw much more than a hundred people milling about.

  One of them, however, was unmistakably a wizard, complete with crimson robe and an assortment of well-filled pouches and sheathes on her belt. Another, tall, thin, and pale and wearing black, might well be a warlock.

  Sterren suddenly began to think that his presence here was a mistake. What did he want with magicians? All he wanted was to be left alone. He stopped walking.

  “Come on,” Lady Kalira said, and Alder reached out for his elbow.

  He walked on into the market square, found a quiet spot, and then stopped again.

  “Now what?” Lady Kalira demanded.

  Sterren was overcome with irrational fear—stage fright, although he had never encountered that term for it. He knew that the time had come to call out his recruiting pitch, but he could not bring himself to speak.

  Inspiration struck. “You tell them what we want,” he told Lady Kalira.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you; as your warlord, I demand it.”

  “But my lord, I don’t speak Ethsharitic!”

  In his panic, Sterren had forgotten that.

  Reminded of it, a sudden inspiration struck him, and before he could lose his nerve again he raised his hands and shouted, “People of Ethshar! These barbarians think I’m going to give a recruiting speech for them, but the truth is that they’re holding me prisoner against my will! I ask that you summon the city guard!”

  “Wait a minute,” Lady Kalira said, hauling down one arm, “what was that you said?”

  “I said...”

  “You didn’t say anything about magicians, and I heard you say something about the city guard, I think.”

  Sterren saw that doubtful expression on Alder’s face again, and saw his hand fall to the hilt of his sword. He cleared his throat.

  “Just warming up,” Sterren said. He looked about, and realized that nobody else had paid any attention to him, anyway. The wind had apparently carried his words away unheard—or perhaps they had been taken for a joke, or a stunt to attract attention.

  He looked over his own party, and for the first time he noticed that Kendrik was gone.

  He smiled, but decided not to point this absence out.

  Not yet, anyway.

  For now, it would clearly be safer to behave himself and seriously try to recruit magicians; his chances of slipping away might well improve later on.

  He turned back toward the center of the square and shouted in Ethsharitic, “Magicians needed! Magicians needed! I represent his Majesty, King Phenvel the Third of Semma, and I am here to hire fine magicians of every school to aid the royal Semman army!”

  “That’s better,” Lady Kalira muttered, recognizing the familiar names.

  A young man stopped to listen as Sterren continued, “Excellent pay! Comfortable accommodations! An opportunity for glory and honor in a worthy cause! Magicians of every sort are needed!” He found himself getting into the spirit of the occasion; it wasn’t really all that different from the times he had had to talk a losing opponent out of retaliation.

  “You think you’re going to find decent magicians here, at this time of year?” the young stranger asked, smirking.

  “Shut up,” Sterren answered conversationally. “Magicians!” he called.

  The listener snorted.

  A middle-aged couple in fine clothing wandered up to listen.

  “We need magicians! Payment in gold and gems, all expenses to be borne by the royal treasury!”

  The red-robed wizard approached, and then the tall man in black.

  “You, wizard,” Sterren asked, beckoning, “would you be interested in a trip to Semma, the jewel of the Small Kingdoms?”

  The wizard smiled wryly and turned away.

  “I might be,” the man in black answered.

  “Are you a magician, sir?” Sterren asked.

  The man in black raised a hand, and a thick swirl of dust rose up from the hard-packed ground of the market, spiralling upward before him, ignoring the wind that should have scattered it across the marketplace. The dust gathered into a ball the size of a fist, hung there in the air for an instant, and then burst apart and vanished, whipped away on the breeze.

  “I’m a warlock,” said the man in black.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After an hour’s harangue, Sterren gave up. His throat was sore, his voice giving out, and he had lost the crowd’s interest completely.

  The warlock had stood by, waiting patiently the whole time. He had neither committed himself to the venture nor turned it down, had not demanded to know more, but had simply waited.

  A black-haired woman with a runny nose, about Sterren’s own age and wearing a purple gown with stains that resembled those one might acquire sleeping in the Hundred-Foot Field, had also turned up, claiming to be a wizard, and she had actually volunteered. She had been more concerned with Sterren’s guarantee that she would be fed for as long as she was in Semma’s employ than in the particulars of the job, or the payment offered.

  The sun was low above the rooftops on the western side of the square. “Time for dinner,” Sterren said in Semmat, turning to Lady Kalira. “Don’t you think so?”

  “I suppose,” she said.

  She had spent much of the hour wandering about the market, looking at the goods offered for sale, but she had not bought anything. Sterren suspected that she had been too embarrassed by her poor command of Ethsharitic—if you could call her dozen or so phrases “command”—to try to haggle in that language, and the local merchants, while likely to speak several tongues, would not be likely to know anything so obscure as Semmat.

  Of course, Lady Kalira spoke Trader’s Tongue, Sterren remembered, and most of the merchants could probably handle that, but perhaps she didn’t realize it. Or maybe language had nothing to do with it, and her funds were running low. That might be inconvenient, since he had hoped that her purse would be there to fall back on in an emergency.

  Whatever the reason, Lady Kalira had returned, empty-handed, a few minutes before.

>   Dogal and Alder had stayed close at hand throughout Sterren’s pitch; even while speaking he had watched for a chance to slip away from them, but had not seen one.

  The same could not be said of Alar, Zander, and Bern, all of whom had wandered off. Zander and Bern had returned; Alar, as yet, had not, nor was there any sign of Kendrik.

  Sterren switched back to Ethsharitic and asked the warlock, “Would you care to join my companions and myself for dinner, and perhaps discuss the job further?”

  The warlock nodded casually.

  “Is there somewhere around here where we can get a decent meal,” Sterren asked, “or should we head down to Westgate?”

  “This is not my part of the city,” the warlock replied.

  Sterren hesitated, and thought better of asking him any further questions, such as which part of the city was his, and why wasn’t he in it. Instead, he turned to the wizard, a questioning look on his face.

  Before he could speak, without a word, she pointed to a tavern on the north corner of Flood Street, where a faded signboard depicted a golden dragon.

  “Good enough,” he said, as he led the way.

  “Wait a minute,” Lady Kalira objected. “What about Kendrik and Alar?”

  Sterren stopped. “My lady,” he said, “Kendrik deserted before we even reached the market; I last saw him among the ... the...” He paused, and then resorted to using the Ethsharitic word. “...the brothels on...” He paused again, sighed, and said, “East Wharf Street,” in Ethsharitic. Switching back to Semmat, he continued, “Alar wandered off some time ago, and I have no idea where he has gone, and I don’t want to either search for him, or wait for his return.”

  “But you can’t allow desertion!”

  “I can’t allow myself to starve, either, or perish of thirst.”

  A look at Lady Kalira’s face let him know that that was not going to be sufficient. “All right,” he said, capitulating, “Zander, you and Bern go find Kendrik and Alar. Then meet us at that inn, there.” He pointed to the Golden Dragon. “If we aren’t there, go back to the ship. It’s at the...” He stopped. He wished he knew the word for “wharf” in Semmat, but he didn’t, and besides, if these two asked for directions in Semmat, nobody would know what they were saying. “Tea Wharves,” he said in Ethsharitic, then asked in Semmat, “Can you say that?”