The Worldwound Gambit

by Robin D. Laws

  "Down before, you blocked my arm. How many would I have roasted, had you not done that? A dozen men? Two dozen?"

  "That was no place to let off a fireball," Gad says.

  "And so you stopped me," Hendregan burbles. "As well you should. But all I thought was, I am fire. Let fire burn! I am as mad as she!" He gestures to Sodevina's body. "And I think myself ready for a place of even greater madness?" He stops to gasp for breath. "Take me back to my prison."

  "You don't belong there," Gad says. "No one does."

  "I am no longer the man you knew."

  "We'll find that man again."

  "In the tower of Yath?"

  "What do you fight fire with?"

  "Fire," says Hendregan.

  "And so what do you fight madness with?"

  "Madness?" Hendregan contemplates this for a moment.

  "Let's get down from here," Tiberio says.

  Jerisa sets and tests her hook.

  "That's the stupidest notion ever uttered," Vitta grumbles. "Fighting madness with madness?"

  Jerisa elbows the halfling locksmith in the shoulder.

  They rappel down the wall, Hendregan first, Tiberio last.

  Through arrow slits they see a handful of armed figures still gathered by the locked door, waiting for them to come out. The rest of Zharech appears to have already lost interest in them. In a half-crouch, the six dash through the scrub to the forest beyond. Once in the trees, Hendregan unfolds his light-stick. They find a fallen log to slump behind.

  "What do we do about the horses?" Vitta asks.

  "I'll go," says Calliard. "I wasn't with you in the mob. I'm least likely to be recognized. If they're still waiting for us."

  "We'll wait here for fifteen, then circle around to the main road."

  "By the big oak?"

  Gad nods.

  Calliard goes.

  "Can we believe her story?" Jerisa asks.

  "The part about the tournament at Tala is true," Vitta says. "I was invited to participate, as a trapsmith and lockbreaker."

  "You were there?" Gad says.

  The halfling responds with an incredulous snort. "Walk myself undefended into a nest of paladins and lawmen? Hardly."

  "The salve against demon madness is real," says Gad. "We've used it before."

  "What now then?" Jerisa asks.

  "We get that salve."

  Chapter Eight

  The Thing They Need for the Plan

  Approaching the corral, Calliard spies two armored men speaking to its proprietor. A pair of standing torches silhouettes them. Calliard ducks below a rubble pile.

  Their voices are familiar. He listens intently, straining to identify them. Their words remain muffled. Calliard makes out only the tenor of their exchange. They are asking questions: hopeful, insistent. The old woman deflects them: casual, disinterested. They persist; she bridles. It takes a few more minutes before they relent and clank away. Their path brings them into town, in the direction of Calliard's hiding place. He scuttles around it as they pass. For an instant, he glimpses them. He sees on their over-tunics the crest of the Everbright Crusaders.

  Can he trust the woman? She seemed resistant to the lawkeepers' inquiries. He heard no coins drop into her palm. Jerisa seemed to know and prefer her.

  Calliard decides to risk it. To lose the horses would be too great a setback. He straightens and moves toward her.

  The woman sees him coming. She shifts in her elevated chair. When he is close, she says, "You saw those two?"

  "I did," says Calliard.

  "They were asking about you. Not you, troubadour, but your party. They asked about someone called Gad. Is that one of you?"

  Calliard hesitates.

  "Don't answer," she says, "I don't care. You're with a Suma, and that's enough for me."

  With the end of her long spear she unlatches the corral gate. Calliard goes in for the horses.

  The corral-keeper looks along the path the crusaders walked. "They'll find few friends in Zharech," she says. "Stinking paladins."

  The sand-colored stones of the Monastery of Tala gleam orange in sunset light. Thick pines and twisted spruce range around it, crowding the hill it tops. They obscure all but the upper edge of a stone-and-cement wall surrounding the main structure. Three cloisters compose the monastery structure, each marking a different era of construction. The nearest looks down at the world from a quartet of squared, latticed windows built in the manner of the First Crusade. A second cloister attaches to the first, its windows arched in Second Crusade style. A wrought-iron railing edges its roof, protecting a garden. Early spring shoots climb up a hanging rack built for the cultivation of squashes and cucumbers. Behind the second cloister juts up the third, an imposing cube several stories in height, and from behind that rises a chapel cupola.

  Through a miserly gap in the treeline, an arched gate, barred by twin portcullises, can nearly be seen. Warrior brothers stand outside it, halberds ready, the blade of divine Iomedae upon their fraternal robes.

  The density of the forest works both ways. The crew has hidden itself and its horses behind a wall of reaching cedars.

  Jerisa has been gone for a quarter-hour. They have spoken little since their departure from Zharech. They are not talking about Sodevina's fate, or that of the Tala champions. Gad occupies the others with a dice game. When Calliard catches him at it, he stops letting them beat him.

  "I don't suppose you've heard any sinister rumors about the brothers of Tala," he asks the bard.

  "You'd prefer it if they deserved to be robbed," Calliard replies.

  "We need what they have," says Vitta. "Everyone stands to gain if we have it."

  Gad nods his agreement. He rolls a triple and sweeps their coins into his pile.

  "Everyone gains except us," Vitta adds.

  The cedars rustle. They turn, weapons ready.

  It's Jerisa.

  "You couldn't get in?" Vitta asks.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You're back already?"

  "After I finish a job, I leave." She throws the vials of salve to Calliard.

  Vitta's eyes widen. She scoops up the dice. Tiberio unties the horses' reins.

  Jerisa removes one of the daggers from her belt, wiping blood from it with a soft cloth.

  Gad gives her a questioning look.

  "Don't worry," she says, moving to his side. "Nothing permanent."

  She edges closer.

  He smiles, a little, and turns away to address the group. "Now comes the hard part," he says.

  Jerisa's expression darkens.

  "Oh, wait," says Gad. "First a detour. Then the hard part."

  Gray fog lies on the hamlet like a layer of batting. A ring of stakes marks its border. Atop each stake is a head, mummified or skeletal. Most belonged to animals: sheep, cows, goats, pigs. One is the bulbous red pate of a demon, like the torturer Gad saw on his way north from Krega. Another head belongs to a gigantic centipede. A third looks like an orc or bugbear; its withered condition eludes precise identification.

  Inside the protective ring huddle several dozen leaning, misshapen huts. Fist-sized green spiders patrol the roofs. Scrawny chickens wander the hamlet's crumbled pathways. A horrible cooking smell drifts from the huts and toward the visitors.

  Vitta frowns. "You sure you want to go in there?"

  "I'm sure I don't," Gad says. "You know anyone else in the vicinity who can produce a scroll of banishment to our unique particulars?"

  "I'm sure I don't," Vitta echoes.

  He steps through the ring of stakes. Tiberio and Jerisa make to follow him.

  "Stay here," Gad says. "I'll be alright."

  "I thought you said it was dangerous," Jerisa says.


  "Not that kind of danger."

  He walks slowly, clearing his throat to announce his presence.

  Hovel doors creak open. Rheumy eyes blink out at him. A cackling erupts. Hunched women jig from the cottages and surge to greet him. Heads of snow-white or dull gray hair trail after them as they run. The youngest of them can't be less than six decades old. With liver-spotted hands they paw at Gad. The crones run palsied fingers over the leather of his hauberk, his cloak, his face. They pinch his cheeks and yank at his hair. High-pitched coos loosen themselves from wattled throats.

  "Oh, Gad!" they cry.

  Their gabblings collide into a single rush of chatter: "So long it's been!" "Finally you've come back to us." "Oh, you're still a fine one, aren't you ..." "Need to fatten you up ..." "This time it's my soup you must taste." "You mustn't only visit her this time." "She won't want to see you." "You're always welcome at my hearth, you handsome devil." "Every time you leave, you break her heart." "You break all of our hearts." "Oh, but it's her heart you break the most." "You're only saying that because you don't have one; you've locked it in a chest and forgot where you buried it." "You and your nonsense!" "Send a message ahead next time so we can pretty ourselves up." "So we can lay in a feast." "All I have for meat is salt pork, but if you wait, we'll cast a deer-luring, and there will be venison for all." "Why don't you bring your friends in?" "You're not ashamed of your grandmothers, are you?" "Speak for yourself; I'm no grandmother at all and certainly not his ..."

  He breaks gently free from the press of fondling hands. "Sorry, ladies. Now that I'm here I can't leave without seeing her."

  "You always say that." "Heartbreaker." "Thoughtless cad." "Gad the cad. "That's what they call him, all right."

  He moves hesitantly toward the loneliest of the cottages, one that stands at a remove from the others. The door swings wide as he hits the front step. He moves inside. It smells like cinnamon and dust.

  A tall figure stands in a beam of faded sunlight. In the set of her elevated cheekbones and the curve of her ears, there flickers a hint of elven ancestry. Deep folds crease her face. A head of pallid hair frazzles and tangles its way to her waist. Fraying threads dangle from the cuffs and hems of her green velvet robe.

  Gad stands frozen in the doorway.

  She comes to him, circuiting around a well-kept wooden loom, and cups her hand around his jawline. "Their clucking woke me," she says. "It could only be you. I slumber more and more these days." She stands back to take him in. "Still the same, I see."

  "Maeru," he says.

  "You're here for a favor," she says.

  "That's right."

  She turns from him. "You only come for favors."

  "I prefer not to cause you pain ..."

  "What's the rip?"

  "You're better off unaware."

  "Because whoever it is will knock on my door and break me till I spill?"

  "I'm already one unintended casualty in the hole."

  "A village of witches has its means of defense."

  "I can see that from the stake ornaments, but nonetheless ..."

  "A heavy target, then."

  "Let's just say the scroll I need from you is one of demon banishment. Big demon banishment."

  "Yath," she says.

  "Ahead of me as usual."

  "We don't get out, but news comes our way. I've no banishments in my repertoire."

  Gad opens his pack. He produces a folio of loose-leaf parchment pages. "The fruit of Calliard's researches."

  "Of his library thefts, you mean."

  "The terms are of course synonymous. He figures that there must be one among you that can do the trick. I understand less of this business than he does. Should I bring him in to confer?"

  She pales. "I won't be seen."

  "Sorry to ask. It's just ...if you're following the war..."

  Maeru recovers her composure. "The demons have mostly left us alone so far. Once they take the fortresses and cities, they'll scour the villages. They'll get to us last, but they'll get to us, if Yath is allowed to stand."

  "So you'll help?"

  "When have I disappointed you, Gad?"

  "We need it woven, not inscribed."

  "A piece of cloth?"

  "That's right."

  "And so you came to me. I'll need to weave in the sigils with enchanted thread."

  "You've done it before, yes?"

  "It's difficult, but not impossible. Like so many things." She takes the folio and pages through its contents. "I'll puzzle it out. Choose the most suitable incantation."

  "Also if you could sew a drawstring on it ...you can see from this diagram Calliard's drawn."

  She nods.

  "How long will it take?"

  "You'll have to make camp for a day. Maybe two. Your team is good?"

  "I wouldn't go in with a wrong team."

  "Foolish of me to ask," she says. She parts a gauzy curtain to look out the window. Gusts have blown the fog away. She appraises the others as they stand uneasy guard on the other side of the stakes. "Does that one love you?"

  "The halfling? Be serious."

  "You be serious."

  Gad's face screws itself into a wince.

  "How much encouragement did you give her?"

  "Too much. It was a time ago."

  "Not long ago enough, from where she stands."

  "Is there foraging we can do for you?"

  She shakes her head. "So you're gaffling Yath. And you expect to do this, and still observe Rule One?"

  "Yes. Rule One: Everybody gets out."

  "As always."

  "Yes, as always."

  "But not necessarily in one piece."

  "Well, sometimes you warn someone not to go down a certain corridor and they go ahead and do it anyhow."

  Maeru sighs. "To look at the two of us, me and her..."

  "Maeru, don't."

  "You wouldn't think ..."

  He tries to embrace her.

  She evades him, pressing closer to the window, staring at Jerisa. "You'd assume I was so, so many years older ..."

  A row of wardstones marks the Worldwound border. They line a ridge of raw earth, angling like bad teeth. The obelisks here are huge, perhaps thirty feet high and carved with holy markings. At each base, a patting of cement holds them in place.

  The sky on the Mendev side is a turbulent gray. On the other side, it is a purulent purple, slashed with streaks of red.

  As it creeps from Mendev to the Worldwound, the vegetation steadily thins. Ordinary shrubs and grasses give way to dried and twisted weeds. The seed pods of some great sprouting contort themselves to look like shrieking faces. Wind blows through the drier specimens, producing an arrhythmic whistle.

  The Worldwound side is a vast depression, as if a gargantuan demonic hand once swept down to claw the earth away. Gravel and dirt line its slope.

  The angle of the depression conceals the terrain on the border's other side. Gad and Jerisa dismount and crawl to the edge for a better look.

  Everywhere before them the earth is broken. Madly circuiting trenches zig through the ground like insect burrows. Pools of goo bubble from the earth, sometimes spewing over into the trenches. Stunted trees twist around one another, their bark deformed into serpentine scales. Spiny weeds stake out scattered patches of ground, black snot dripping from their sharpened leaves. In the distance, a geyser spouts bile-colored liquid.

  Half a mile in the distance, a platoon of armored men works its way through the broken earth. Atop glossy, muscled steeds, they trace a winding trail, moving systematically around the trenches. From a herald's pole flaps a pennant bearing a familiar crest.

  Gad mutters his most reliable profanity.

  "What?" Jerisa asks
.

  "They're like a curse. Wherever I go, they're in my way."

  "Who?"

  "The Everbright Crusaders." He peers through a spyglass handed him by Calliard. "And damned if that isn't Fraton, taking point." He puts down the spyglass. "What are they playing at?"

  "They're a crusader order, chockablock with paladins, aren't they? Isn't this what crusaders do—plunge into the Worldwound to fight demons and get themselves killed?"

  "Fraton prefers to hunt sinners in Nerosyan. And occasionally, Kenabres."

  "We knew members of his order were in Zharech. Looking for you," she adds.

  "How does he have any idea we were there?"

  "Maybe he asked his god. Paladins can do that, yes?"

  "If they can't, their priests can."

  "There's your explanation, then."

  "Fraton's headed to the tower of Yath to capture me?"

  "Does he despise you that much?"

  "On full consideration?" says Gad. "Yes."

  "This is the best place for miles to cross the border. Unless you want to pick your way through rocky hills or dense forest. Anyone coming from Zharech would cross here now."

  "It's bad enough having paladins spying on my doings, without having Iomedae herself peeping over my shoulder."

  "So it's true," Jerisa says.

  "What?"

  "Women find you irresistible."

  Gad coughs drily.

  A touchy silence follows.

  Jerisa breaks it: "He's after you. That we can treat as a given. But if he knew you were coming here, now, he'd be set up over there ..." She points to an outcrop of damaged rock. "...where we couldn't see him, and readying an ambush."

  "True," says Gad. "I still don't like it."

  "We can detour to another crossing point. Or simply wait a couple of days."

  "No waiting," says Gad. "We've seen him and he hasn't seen us. We'll give him time to get out of sight and no more."

  They crawl back toward the others. Halfway there, they hear the rattle of sword against shield. Bolting up, they dash onwards.

  Plate-armored warriors, the Everbright crest sewn on their tunics, encircle Vitta, Tiberio and Hendregan. Calliard is gone.