Way of Gods

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Whitney was dumbstruck, looked around. “Grint-shogging-Strongiron, you—what? You kidnapped me, took me…” He cringed upon noticing he was surrounded by… tombstones. His vision swam. A short distance away, he could see the back of the Fettingborough church, Eye of Iam high above the rest of the town as if looking down with harsh judgment.

  “We’re still so near town?” Whitney asked. “What is this your first time bagging a man? Did you even think this through at all?”

  Whitney then regarded the man accompanying Grint. He wore no armor, but there was just something… Torsteny about him. The hard look in his eye directed toward Whitney maybe, like he recognized him. Whitney’s first thought was that this was the town’s constable out for one of the many bounties on Whitney’s head, not realizing his name had been cleared. If nothing else, he was a soldier.

  “I thought glass soldiers were supposed to be smart,” Whitney said. “What sort of lies did this rat-beard tell you about me?”

  “As did I,” the other man said, confirming Whitney’s suspicions. His eyes turned toward the dirt, brimming with shame. “But I haven’t done a smart thing in longer than I can remember.”

  “Quiet, both of ye!” Grint barked as he paced between tombstones. “I need to think.”

  “Something you, perhaps, should have done before breaking into my room.” Whitney shifted. He was seated, back against something—a post? No. “You tied me to a grave? Yuck!” He looked down and figured he was sitting precisely six feet above a dead body. His legs were straight out in front of him, tied at the ankles. They were in the Fettingborough cemetery, located down a muddy trail through tall grass, just north of the town.

  “You do realize that I have an entire troupe that’ll be looking for me?” Whitney said. “I’m practically family to them now.”

  “Final warnin,” Grint said.

  “Is this still about the crown? For Iam’s sake, you stole it from me first.”

  “I said last warnin!” The back of his furry hand crashed across Whitney’s cheek. Dwarves were small, but generations of mining left them stout and robust. The blow was hard enough to cut Whitney’s cheek.

  “What in Elsewhere are you doing?” The soldier seized Grint’s hand before he could strike again and shoved him away. It started to drizzle, and a bolt of lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the man’s face as if it were daytime.

  Realization hit Whitney like a ten-ton hammer as he stared up at the soldier. The last time he’d seen him, he was looking up at him as well, after a hard-fought battle. It only took watching the man act like a savior for Whitney to realize that he was more than just a soldier or constable—he was a Shieldsman.

  “You’re Ralph!” Whitney said, the fog of inebriation fading a bit. “You’re Torsten’s guy. The bastard who caught me in Troborough with the Glass Crown!”

  Grint stopped pacing and turned to Ralph the Shieldsman. “Ye were there?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ralph said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Ralphie!” Whitney exclaimed. “That was some mighty good soldiering you did that day—well, except for the fact that you were too late and let my home burn down.” Whitney lost his train of thought for a moment when it struck him that he’d referred to Troborough as his home.

  “At least you got the crown though,” Whitney said, recovering quickly. “It would have been too tough for King Pi to have a new one made… oh, wait…”

  A boot banged against Whitney’s thigh after Grint broke through Ralph’s blockade.

  “His name is Rand, ye dolt—”

  “Whoa!” Rand said, seizing the dwarf by the beard this time. “You didn’t need to tell him that! This was your yigging idea. You’ve dragged me into this enough already.”

  “Ah, yes,” Whitney said. “Rand Luney… Larily… Langley isn’t it! Wearer for a week. You’re the one who hanged all those fine, innocent folks. I had the pleasure of seeing their corpses swinging from the parapets upon my return from being a hero. Guess this… kidnapping is right up your alley, hmm?”

  “Of course not—I—you.” Rand released Grint; the dwarf flattened his beard. Rand then ran his hands through his hair and over his face before letting out a frustrated growl. “What did you do, dwarf!”

  “This little shog-eatin thief nearly killed us all when he and his dirty witch of a woman left us stranded at the gorge!” Grint argued.

  “Excuse me,” Whitney accused. “You started this whole gods-damned yigging thing with your rock-brained challenge to steal the King’s crown.”

  Rand tilted his head toward Grint, eyes going wide. “The crown? You were a part of that?”

  “Bah!”

  “No,” Rand said. “Not bah. What is he saying?”

  “I was minding my business in Troborough when fire-crotch over there waltzes over and challenges me to steal the King’s crown,” Whitney said. “Called the great King Liam a ‘prick who deserves his come-uppings’ if I’m remembering. Dwarves always sound like they’ve got a mouth full of shog.”

  “Who’d have thunk ye’d actually do it!” Grint said. “Ye were just some braggart who needed a dungeon.”

  “For starters: I’m not a dwarf.”

  Grint fought Rand to hit Whitney again, but this time the Shieldsman stood proud. At his full height, even Whitney had to admit he was rather imposing.

  “Stop,” Rand said, a harsh edge creeping into his tone. “So, it’s your fault all of this happened.”

  “It ain’t me fault the stupid thief got caught,” Grint said. “I just wanted him to shut his farmboy trap.”

  Rand turned away. His shoulders heaved as he drew long, beleaguered breaths. “I killed people,” he said softly. “I murdered. And it all started the day I caught this waste of breath holding the King’s crown and earned the Queen’s attention. No… it all started when you…” Rand released another frustrated growl and took a hard step away.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting this… moment… but what’s the plan here?” Whitney asked.

  “Shut up!” they both shouted at Whitney together.

  Hushed arguing continued between them for a while. Whitney picked up on bits and pieces. Rand accused Grint of being the reason he was left in charge of Yarrington when Torsten was temporarily exiled, and Grint claimed Sir Torsten Unger, the famed slayer of Redstar, would have left no matter what.

  “Look, Rupert—can I call you Rupert?” Whitney spoke up after he could listen no longer. They were arguing in circles because it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. They were just two fools who’d gotten in too deep and expected the world owed them something. If Whitney had learned anything for sure in Elsewhere, it was that it didn’t.

  “My name is Rand,” he said, seething.

  “Okay, sure… we all make mistakes, Rand. This one was yours. It was a stupid, big, giant, dumb-as-shog-in-a-barrel mistake, but it was a mistake. Everyone deserves another chance. You let me go, and we let bygones be bygones. I really can’t afford to be in this place another day. The troupe is moving at dawn.”

  “We ain’t lettin ye go, thief,” Grint said.

  “So, then you are going to kill me?”

  Grint punched a tree trunk, causing a bird to flee its nest. “Ye ruined me life, thief!” he howled.

  “I ruined your life? It’s your fault I stole that crown. Your fault I got caught. Your fault I lost Sora!” That wasn’t wholly true, Whitney realized. If not for Grint and his stupid challenge, Whitney never would have reunited with Sora to begin with. It was Barty Darkings’ fault he lost Sora. Darkings’ fault he ended up in Elsewhere with the personality-challenged Kazimir. It was Darkings whose throat would be split if Whitney ever found him again.

  “Who the yiggin shog is Sora?” Grint asked, then one of his bushy eyebrows lifted. “That Panpingese witch who helped ye steal my company carriage?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Whitney said as he tilted his head, trying to crack the kink out. “What happ
ened to the two big brutes you always had with you?” Whitney asked, desperate to change the subject from Sora. “And the fat, pouty trader. Oh, and the gray man? Did you tie them up somewhere and leave them for dead too?”

  “What is he going on about?” Rand asked, a hint of nervousness in his tone. “Gray man?”

  “I have no idea,” Grint said.

  Just then, another crackle of lightning struck nearby, and thunder boomed. From the south, a shrill scream erupted from Fettingborough. Then another. The strengthening rainfall drowned them out fast along with the now constant rumbling of thunder.

  Whitney couldn’t turn his head all the way, but it was enough to see beyond the graveyard’s sole, lonely tree—now with a Grint-fist-shaped hole in it. He couldn’t spot anything other than the rooftops and a field of bovines.

  “What was that?” Rand asked.

  “I’ll go check it out,” Grint said. “Stay here with the thief. Ain’t finished with him yet.” Grint said.

  “We need to return to the others. Enough is enough.”

  “Just stay.” Grint started off through the headstones toward the town, hand on the grip of his axe.

  “What is it?” Whitney asked.

  “Keep quiet, thief,” Rand said with a finger to pursed lips.

  “Oh, c’mon, you’re the reasonable one. Just let me go. I’m not worth anything, and Torsten Unger will vouch for me. I did my duty to the kingdom after you caught me. If anything, he owes me.”

  “Trust me,” Rand said. “Torsten doesn’t want to hear from me now.”

  “What—”

  “Just be quiet.”

  Whitney watched, sobering more and more by the second. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but fear gripped him and refused to let go. He’d heard enough screaming recently to last the rest of his life. The last time he’d been tied up and heard shrieks like that, he’d had a noose around his neck, and the Shesaitju invaded Winde Port right in front of him.

  He winced. Then his mind flitted back to Elsewhere, and he imagined the winged demons from that place hovering above Fettingborough. He could practically see the beasts tromping through the streets, teeth tearing chunks from the many citizens.

  I really should talk to someone about that… he realized, desperate to bury the memory.

  “See anything?” Rand called out to Grint in a raised whisper.

  A zip -thunk, preceded a dwarven grunt just before Grint dropped like so many rocks from a cliffside. He was impossible to see in the tall grass surrounding the clearing for the cemetery outside of Fettingborough.

  Rand swore and drew his longsword, looking around frantically. As Rand moved toward Grint, Whitney hissed, “Untie me, Shieldsman! You’re going to leave me to die? We’re under attack.”

  The Shieldsman shifted his weight between feet, turned his head several times.

  “What are you waiting for!” Whitney said. Rand disappeared behind him, and Whitney clenched his jaw. He waited in silence until suddenly the impact Rand’s sword made against the tombstone sent reverberations through Whitney’s entire body.

  Whitney leaned forward in the mud, the ropes falling off of him. The world spun a bit as he stretched out the knot in his back. A year earlier, he would have been gone into the darkness of the night before Rand had a chance to say anything.

  Presently, he took his time to think. Gentry, Lucindur, Aquira, and the others were all still back in town, clearly in danger. Reaching Panping where Sora hopefully remained was the most important thing in his life, but making it there alone now seemed impossible. After years working on his own, he’d grown used to traveling partners. Plus, if he reached Sora without Aquira, she’d kill him on the spot.

  A groan from Grint signaled that the insufferable dwarf was alive and stirred Whitney from his hesitation.

  “Go ahead, thief, leave,” Rand spat.

  “Leave?” Whitney said. “And go where? My friends are still in town.”

  “This is your chance to just go; run away,” Rand said, darkness coming over his features.

  “You think I don’t know anything about you? I’m not the deserter here.” In light of what Rand had been through, Whitney winced. It wasn’t a shot at the man’s integrity, but maybe that’s what he deserved. Whitney had heard talk in towns lately that Rand Langley had redeemed himself and saved Torsten, but Whitney knew it was all hogwash. He was there atop Mount Lister when Torsten ended Redstar’s reign, and Rand was nowhere to be found.

  Redeemer, Whitney scoffed at himself. It was probably a story the crown let out to make themselves seem heroic and forgiving. Torsten probably hated every second of it—someone getting unmerited praise. There’s no redemption for slinging the innocent over walls like dried meat, no matter how powerful the person is who demands it.

  “Now get down,” Whitney said to Rand. “Or did you forget there’s an archer out there?”

  As if his words willed it, another arrow whizzed by and stabbed the ground behind them. Whitney quickly exaggerated a fall as if he’d been shot. He grabbed Rand and pulled him down too. They splashed in mud, then skittered behind a gravestone.

  “Stay low. It came from over there,” Whitney whispered, thumbing over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

  “Who’s the Shieldsman here?” Rand said.

  “Not you, anymore.” Whitney didn’t wait for a response before he started crawling on his stomach, using the many headstones as he pushed toward the east where the arrow had come from. “Cemeteries, spider lairs. Why can’t I ever crawl through a palace?” he complained to himself.

  Grint continued to groan and writhe in the grass.

  “We should get him,” Rand said.

  “He’ll be fine,” Whitney said. “And if he isn’t, he yigging deserves it. Now hush before you wake the dead.”

  They crawled through wet dirt until they reached a small, dilapidated undertaker’s shack on the outskirts of Fettingborough. Whitney imagined it was filled with shovels and bones. Using the building as cover, he stood and peered around the corner. He could see the owner of the bow whose arrow had taken down the loud-mouthed dwarf. His weapon was high above his head as he waded through the waist-high grass, looking for Grint who still laid prone.

  “Drav Cra,” Rand said with venom. “Damn it. We’ve been trying so hard to avoid them in the Wildlands.”

  “So, we’ll take him together,” Whitney said. “He appears to be alone.”

  Rand raised a closed fist. A woman’s scream echoed over the storm, though this time closer. “That’s a scout for Drad Mak’s larger raiding party I’m guessing. Where there’s one savage, there’s always more.”

  Whitney instinctually reached for his dagger that wasn’t there. He turned to question Rand, but the Shieldsman held the blade by its tip, hilt extended toward Whitney.

  “I could kill you with this,” Whitney warned.

  “You won’t,” Rand said. “You flank him on the right. I’ll take his left. We’ll try to get him alive and see if he speaks common enough to tell us where his friends are.”

  Whitney and Rand exchanged a nod, then held eye contact as they flanked the Drav Cra. Rand was too noisy, and Whitney was disgusted with himself for being grateful for the series of louder screams which suddenly emanated from across Fettingborough keeping them from being discovered. All of that plus the storm made it impossible to tell what sounds came from where.

  Whitney signaled Rand to stop. He pointed to himself, then to the Drav Cra, then to Rand, then back to the Drav Cra. Rand offered a puzzled look.

  “Shieldsmen,” Whitney shook his head and whispered under his breath. He then shouted, “Hey, ice breath!”

  The Drav Cra warrior spun toward Whitney and reached for an arrow, but Whitney was faster. He threw his dagger; it spun end over end. The hilt bounced almost harmlessly off the Northman’s fur and leather armor. The warrior looked down, incredulous, then back up to Whitney with a smirk. He nocked an arrow and pulled back slightly, but couldn’t fire it before
Rand’s longsword buried itself so deep in the man the hilt slammed into his ribs. The blade protruded out the other side. His lifeless arms let the bowstring go, and the arrow arced a couple of feet in front of them as he crumpled into the grass.

  “I said to take him alive,” Rand scolded.

  “Iam’s shog man, you’re the one who killed him!” Whitney replied. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I was saving your life.”

  “I had him right whe—”

  “I’m over here, ye dolts!” Grint moaned.

  Whitney and Rand stopped arguing and followed the voice. When they got there, Grint was already standing, using a gravestone as a crutch. His head could barely be seen poking up over the tall grasses. The arrow was caught in his bicep, but only superficially. The dwarf’s ego would remain wounded far longer than his body.

  Grint reached up and cracked the shaft, wincing. Then, after dropping the feathered end, he pulled out the other end and dropped it too.

  “You okay?” Rand asked.

  “Bah!” he grunted. “Only thing worse than ye flower pickers are Dravs.”

  A chorus of screams carried on the wind.

  “Do you hear that? We have to get back to them, now.” A hint of urgency came over the Shieldsman’s voice. Whitney could see the fear in his eyes as the frightful screaming and clamor from the town grew louder.

  “Let’s go kill some Northmen then,” Grint said. “Sooner we’re done, the sooner I dun’t need to ever see a blade of grass again.”

  “Aren’t you a Northman?” Whitney asked, bending over to retrieve the dagger he’d thrown. Grint ignored him and started toward the town again, bouncing a two-headed axe in his palm.

  “Fine, fine, ignore me.”

  Grint spun on Whitney. “I don’t know why my friend there untied ye,” he said. “It’d been me, I’d of left ye to out there to feed their dire wolves. So, shut your lying, thieving mouth afore I split it with me axe.”

  “Testy,” Whitney said.

  “Would you two stop arguing,” Rand said. “We need to get the Cal—everyone, and get out of here.”

  Whitney stifled a reply. They pushed forward. By now, the screaming had died down, and Whitney wasn’t sure that was a good thing. The structures along Fettingborough’s main avenue stood in a neat line with their backs facing Whitney and the others in the open fields, the church the most prominent and the closest. Narrow alleyways fit snuggly in between each building.