"What think you, Elfuistas?" The other male turned to Elcarrios, who had asked the question from the ground.
"We slew most of them, my brother. The ones who are left will let their kind know that the ban on this side of the river is still enforced. We should see you to the homecamp. They have the skill to heal this injury, and if you are not treated, the poison in your blood will kill you where the ogres failed. These weapons are deadly, even to us, in time."
"Elcarrios, by the light in your mother's eyes, how did you let one of the darkspawn hit you?" The woman was speaking, her tone one of amazed disappointment. "They are so stupid and slow, and their thought is so easily read."
Elcarrios shook his head ruefully. "I am embarrassed, Ebeissa huntmistress. He was not thinking of striking me. He stumbled upon me blade first, and the weapon hit me before he even knew I was there."
"I am saddened to hear it. These darkspawn are even more stupid than men, and now one has put blade into one of us. It is a thing that has not happened in nine thousand turnings of the world."
"Let it be, huntmistress." Elfuistas laughed lightly. "It will serve as a lesson to Elcarrios not to be careless. Even Thushavra can be wounded through lack of care."
"I won't be careless again, huntmistress."
The other Thushavran hunter spoke for the first time. His voice was thin, like that of a young man, and he spoke in a tone showing more deference than the others. He had only been a hunter for a few decades, and he had much less experience than they. "Should we do something to help the Kirluni, huntmistress?"
"They have not called themselves that for many hundreds of years, Elbarvius. They call themselves Auligs now. We do not help the Auligs, not since King Marten's day. Besides, they were careless, sending their men off to war and thinking that the Bone River alone would protect them."
"Yes." Elcarrios added. "Let the Auligs look after themselves."
Chapter 25: West of the Dunwater River, Breaking Camp
"It is cursed gold."
"I told you, Aelfric." Jecha replied impatiently. "There is no such thing as cursed gold."
"He was carrying it when I killed him." Aelfric held the small pouch in his hand reluctantly and by his fingertips, loathe to touch even the skin of the beggarman's pouch. "It should be turned over to the Church for destruction."
Tuchek chuckled slightly, but said nothing.
"There is no such thing as cursed gold, Aelfric, I tell you again. Curses can only flow, they cannot remain in objects. Rivers carry curses, blood carries curses, even rainwater can be accursed, but not gold. The Church of Lio demands that all gold held or owned by those they call witches or warlocks be turned over, and they call it accursed. It is a lie. What do you think they do with all of that gold, Aelfric? Do you think they bury it or cast it into the sea? Nonsense. They recast it with a rayed star or the King's blessed crown and they put it in the church's coffers."
"The priests say…"
"The priests say whatever will get them gold and power, Aelfric." Jecha interrupted. "Take the gold. If you won’t take it, give it to Tuchek to carry."
The gold they were discussing was not an insignificant amount. When Haim had walked across the ground where the beggarman had died, he'd come across a stained leather purse, within which lay the unbelievable sum of thirty-two Mortentian Gilders bearing the mint marks of Northcraven. It was three times as much money as Aelfric had carried from the treasury of D'root manor, probably enough to halve his father's debt to Elderest.
Still, in Aelfric's mind it was cursed gold, given its origin, and he handed it to Tuchek at Jecha's suggestion. If he wanted to take a chance on bringing evil luck on his head, that was his business.
The gold was the last item to be considered before the three departed from the sudden cemetery that had been the Entreddi's travelling camp. Each of the men now had a decent horse as well as a packhorse laden with as many supplies as they could easily carry. Jecha would remain with the wagons and the balance of the horses until another band of Entreddi should come upon the camp, then she would join them.
Because Haim and Aelfric were hunted in Elderest Duchy and probably Pulflover Barony as well by now, and because of Tuchek's recent problems with the Baron, the three men decided to strike north toward the territory of Diminios. At the extreme eastern edge of Orr Duchy, they did not even consider traveling west. Orr Duchy had a well-earned reputation for being hostile to strangers, especially young men, who could wind up toiling in the iron mines of the Blackhill Dungeon or at one of the many farms between for minor or even imaginary offenses.
Diminios, on the other hand, was the vast domain of a Knight Regent who earned the lordship of the territory for saving the King's life not once, but twice during a secessionist war some thirty years ago. In gratitude, then King Byroth D'Cadmouth granted Lord Adlest nearly complete sovereignty over a wide and nearly empty swath of land reaching from the Dunwater to the Brinnvolle Forest, encompassing an area nearly as large as Elderest Duchy, if not remotely as populous. Whosoever could hold land in Diminios could keep it, so long as the taxes were paid and the Lord's cattle permitted passage.
Only two clusters of villages large enough to be called towns lay within the domain, Diminios itself, far to the north, and Silver Run, the wild and dangerous town at the meeting of the Silver River and the Dunwater. In Silver Run the three hoped to lose themselves among the throngs of cattle drovers, merchants, rivermen and fortune-seekers that made up the wild city's principle population.
They set off prior to noon on the day after the burials having spent an uneasy night camped out beneath the stars. Not one of them wished to sleep in the more comfortable wagons for reasons obvious, if not spoken. Jecha watched them leave the clearing in grim silence.
When the men had left, she returned to the wagon where her dicing table was. Grimly, she gathered her skirts and sat at the low chair, eyeing the dice with reluctance. Finally, after a long time spent staring into nothing, she put the dice into a small leather cup and let them fall onto the table.
She watched the dice fall, finally a true throw.
In the near darkness she grinned wolfishly, her milky blind eye like a glowsome pustule in her dark and bitter face. From the recent marks of grief and death emerged the grimly satisfied expression of one who recognized revenge as both an obligation and a duty to be enjoyed darkly.
Along the river the trees remained closely spaced so that the three men were all but invisible to any of the river traffic as they rode north toward the Silver Run ferry. To the west the underbrush gradually thinned, and the avenue of trees lining the road narrowed, until for many long stretches the riders could see far across the open plains. Herds of cattle dotted distant hills and an occasional cart path led off of the road to isolated hamlets or individual farms. Northeastern Orr Duchy was a lonely place, however, and each of the towns or farms was fairly self-sufficient, requiring little in the way of trade. Accordingly, they passed few travelers on the road, only an occasional farm cart or a lone rider with no time to spare for idle conversation with strangers.
They spoke little, for neither Aelfric nor Haim had the courage to break the brooding, dark silence that seemed to shroud the third member of their company. Tuchek, never one to waste words even in the best of circumstances, had grown positively dour. Aelfric's occasional glance at the face of the Aulig swordsman showed him only grim purpose.
This time of year the sun hung in the sky well into the evening hours, and they traveled for as long as they had light. Finally, and only when the edges of the road became difficult to see, Tuchek raised a hand and called a halt. "We can camp here."
Aelfric looked around in the near darkness. To the east the running lamps of a barge were fading from view behind them as it made its way south on the Dunwater, to the west lay only open fields bound by a single low stone wall adjacent to the road. The place where Tuchek had halted his horse lay up against that wall, a slight widening of the roadway with a single oft-used firepit at
its center. Haim gathered firewood from beneath the trees by the river while Aelfric ground-hitched the horses. From the stores taken from the Entreddi wagons Tuchek pulled a pan and a rasher of bacon, along with a long, narrow loaf of dark brown bread, strangely seasoned.
As the fire crackled and popped amid the damp logs Haim had managed to find, Tuchek put the bacon on and split the loaf into three parts.
"Where are you going after Silver Run?" Aelfric asked him.
Tuchek's face was grim. "I'm not sure." He said after an almost rude delay. "Wherever my vengeance takes me, I suppose."
Haim snorted, then looked down when Tuchek seemed to notice.
"Revenge harms the person who obtains it as much as it does its victim." Aelfric said solemnly, repeating one of prior Edarral's favorite sermon themes. Tuchek didn't seem to notice the words, but Haim stiffened in disagreement.
"Aye, so the priests say." The half-breed smirked. "I suppose that's why you ain't been after them as killed your father, right Aelfric?"
Stung, Aelfric was about to reply when Tuchek's voice interrupted, rebuking Haim. "He's right. Revenge harms the person who obtains it probably more than the victim." He paused while Aelfric looked at him in surprise.
"I thought you were in favor of it, Tuchek."
"I didn't say I wasn't. Doesn't mean I don't recognize what I'm doing. The Thimenians say that revenge is a morning star -that's a kind of spiked mace they favor, a heavy ball of iron or wood with nails going out in all directions- in the hand. You can push it into your enemy, but you have to be aware you are going to get poked, too. The northern Auligs say revenge is a two-edged dagger, with much the same meaning. Both of them agree that revenge must be taken, however. It is only you Mortentians that take the view that revenge is an evil of itself."
Haim offered his contribution. "Comes of having Dukes and Barons and Kings and all that, plus a lot of laws and courts and prisons. If you're rich or highborn, you get your justice from the law. Revenge is the poor folks' justice."
"But it accomplishes nothing." Aelfric replied. "You cannot undo the harm someone has done to you by harming them in response."
"No, but I can discourage him from harming me again. And if he kills some of my people, I can revenge myself by killing him and some of his. Then the next time someone thinks to come after me and mine, he'll think twice, maybe. That's Lio's Truth."
"So you would prefer lawlessness, then." Aelfric replied, turning to both of them across the fire as Tuchek sliced him a piece of bacon and grease to wipe his bread in. "What's the point of society if you can bypass the law and get your own revenge? The man with the most swords or arrows is the one in the right, since he's the only one who can enforce it."
"You think your laws and courts and such protect you?" Haim's skepticism was palpable. "Maybe after you have a region settled for a few hundred years and people are used to doing what the nobles and the judges say, maybe then. I can tell you this, though. For a breed like me or a full-blooded Aulig like Tuchek, there won't never be justice in no Mortentian court. Your whole court set up is based on money made off the peasant's back or land stolen from other people. If you think Tuchek or me would get a fair shot in a Mortentian court against someone like you, you are crazy."
Aelfric's face heated. "It depends on the judge, of course, but I can say that…"
"It don't matter who the judge is." Haim interrupted. "If he's highborn or even looks like a highborn, like all judges do by the way, he don't see things the way peasants do. I could get hanged for something you'd get fined a few pennies for."
"And if you go into the court believing that, its little wonder you don't receive justice. Every time I've sat in judgment of a matter I find that the peasants won't talk to me, or if they do, they only tell me half the truth. If you don't trust in the courts, they cannot function properly."
"It doesn't matter." Tuchek's voice was calm and grim by turns. "Revenge isn't about courts and justice or all of that anyway. It's about digging a grave for twenty people, some of them children, knowing that somewhere out there is a person responsible for putting them in it. There is no court in all of Mortentia I would trust to find whoever was behind this thing and exact something called justice. I don't want justice, anyway."
"What do you want, then?"
"I want to find the bastard responsible." Tuchek's voice was like a blunt-edged dagger. "I want to kill him and all of his offspring before him in front of his face. I want him to know that he leaves no legacy behind in this world. I want take his fortune and his power away from him, along with everything he's ever loved. I want to utterly destroy, demolish, crush and humiliate him, even if it costs me my soul. I want everything he's ever put his hand to to come to nothing. I want him to die in an ocean of pain, knowing that an abyss of eternal torment awaits his damned soul."
"That goes well beyond justice." Aelfric's voice was nearly a whisper, and even Haim's expression was somewhat awed at the ferocity of the Aulig's words, made more terrible by the utter calm in which he uttered them.
"Aye, that it does." Tuchek admitted frankly. "The Thimenians offer a prayer on behalf of the murdered like this: 'kinsman, as thee did love me, avenge me.' It isn't about justice. That's why I called it revenge. Eat your bacon."
In the morning they rode for two leagues and found themselves at the joining of the Silver River, a broad shallow stream coming out of the west, with the mighty Dunwater on their right. Here they were forced to ride some half a league out of their way before coming to the ferry. This time of the year the spring thaw made the Silver River swift and cold, but the ferrymen knew their business, and it took less than half an hour to affect the crossing.
To their north the domain of Diminios lay vast, gold brown and green. Drovers moved scattered herds of cattle east toward the market town and the Dunwater crossing. Here and there shadows of clouds outpaced the cattle in the broad monotony. The road to Silver Run was empty of traffic, but the ground beneath them was churned and muddy with fresh tracks of countless herds overlaying tracks from the years before. The cattle marks veered sharply off to the north and the cattle pens behind the town, and the road became again a narrow, well-worn track. They rode into the streets of Silver Run before noon.
"You two had better be careful in Silver Run." Tuchek cautioned.
Aelfric looked up sharply, somewhat resenting the patronizing tone. "You've been here before?"
"Many times. The people are solid, but the drovers and rivermen are a rowdy bunch, especially this time of year. The first fat herds are coming in. By the end of summer the market will be drowning in cattle, and prices will come down. In Pulflover they've been eating last year's beef and stringy winter stuff for six months, and they'll pay the best prices for the fresh spring beef. The rivermen are making gold charging to take the cattle across the river for the first time since the ice broke up, too. There's a lot of money moving around Silver Run right now, and a lot of people looking to get some of it.
"In the taverns the cattle pushers will be spending silver like mad on applejack and brandy that's been brewed over the winter, and there'll be more drunk young men in the streets of Silver Run tonight than when the royal fleet assembles in the king's harbor. It's a good time to be careful. You should wear your sword, too. This isn't Pulflover."
Aelfric looked the town over as they approached. Unlike the towns east of the Dunwater that he was used to, Silver Run had no wall, although several of the older buildings were two-storied, made of stone and defensible. The majority of structures seemed to have been hastily assembled from rough-milled lumber, and were single story, ungainly affairs that could have been blown over in a heavy gale. The town was laid out along a broad central roadway that seemed to have been curved to follow an old cattle trail, and several narrower alleys and streets branched off of it, not one of them running true. Along the broad road nearly half of the buildings seemed to be either taverns or hostelrys, and hundreds of horses, cow country stock, lined the walkways.
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br /> The sun stood pale but warm above a thin veneer of cloud. Along the muddy thoroughfare hundreds of people seemed to be walking. Aelfric saw a few peasants in worn woolens, but the majority of men in the street seemed to be either drovers with their leather pants, still unshaven and rough from the drives, or rivermen thick with muscle wearing homespun pants and vests over thin cotton shirts or in some cases, no shirts at all. Almost all of the men in the street wore weapons, although only a few bore long swords like his. Of those who did wear swords, however, fully half looked to be freemen, cattle drovers or rivermen. He was glad he would not stand out too much for being armed. Haim had belted on a curved short sword he'd taken from the Entreddi wagons.
Surprisingly, Aelfric saw several bands of soldiers walking about, tough looking men wearing chain mail shirts under several different types of tabards. Not surprisingly, he saw the blue bull on white livery of Diminios, but more often the soldiers wore the golden eagle on red that was the King's livery or one of many eye catching patterns that signified free mercenary companies.
"It looks like an army is assembling here." He observed, noting Tuchek's suddenly wary features.
"Aye." The big Aulig observed tersely. "It sure enough does." But the Aulig did not seem to be looking at the soldiers. Aelfric followed his sharp gaze to a large wooden sign that had been hung next to the entrance of the Silver Penny, one of the many taverns that lined the town's single main street. Head-sized black letters stood starkly against the pale wood.
SIGNORS AND OATHMEN FOR THE WAR ACCEPTED HERE
Aelfric looked at the hand painted sign with no small amount of surprise. "There's a war?"
Haim, who could neither read nor write beyond the simple runes needed to scrawl his name, looked quickly over to Aelfric. He did not wish to reveal his ignorance, so he remained silent. Tuchek scowled and dismounted, taking the leads of both his horse and his pack horse. He kept his face down as he tied the horses off. He had a fairly good idea who the Mortentians were fighting.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 23
