by Damien Lake
“Excellent! Doubled wages and a pay increase when we’re elevated to the next class. I should be able to pay you back in no time at all!”
“Depends how much Sennet wants for that set.” Marik paused. “It’s a beauty you know.”
“I know, believe me I know.”
“Veeerrry nice craftsmanship.”
“You don’t have to tell me!”
“Could cost you a pretty copper if Sennet knows his weapons.”
“Tell me a new story, mate.”
“And Sennet really knows his weapons…”
Dietrik stopped his trot. “You aren’t helping at all.”
“Maybe you should start tightening your own belt,” Marik snickered.
“And maybe you need your lips sewn together.” He resumed his pace. “They’re probably wondering where we are.”
Marik laughed and followed. Before they reached the range, Dietrik commented, “You know, you don’t laugh much.”
“What’s that?”
“A fact I realized just now. You spend most of your time focused on your goals and looking so dreadfully serious.”
Marik thought about that. “I don’t want to fail.”
“I know that, I was only commenting.”
“I’m not oblivious, if that’s what you were asking.”
“No, but I thought it interesting that a person with a sense of humor spends most of his time looking so serious. Like the clerks.”
With a scowl, Marik replied, “The clerks have no sense of humor at all.”
“I know. That’s why it’s strange you resemble them most of the time.”
Marik punched Dietrik’s arm. “I don’t think that’s much of a compliment.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” Dietrik replied and punched him back on the side of the head.
Marik chased him the rest of the way to the range.
* * * * *
The daylight marks had started lengthening, heralding the coming change of season. Marik and Dietrik entered a tavern and were looking over the tables when a voice called out over the noise.
“Well, switch me up an’ down! It’s been long days an’ many nights since the path o’ my once so promising young friend crossed my own route through this troubled world!”
“Gods, why did I agree to this today?” Marik mumbled under his breath, so softly Dietrik barely caught it.
“Don’t stand there like a barn raised gully puppy! Come hither an’ rest your oh so weary bones, lad-o!”
“What’s wrong with you, Chatham? Hello Maddock, Harlan.”
They both nodded, Harlan as gloomy as ever. Maddock’s expression lightened. He looked happy to see the younger man.
“It is good you see you, Marik.” Maddock arranged his features in a stern expression, spoiled by the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. “Now young lad, you were supposed to keep in touch with us more often after we all crossed the threshold into this lauded haven. It’s been over two eightdays since we last got together.”
“I’m sorry about that. Things have been busy…” Marik trailed off, unable to think of an adequate excuse for having not met them as frequently as he originally intended.
“That is all right, my young friend,” Maddock soothed. “Rumor has it that you have had a busy time of it.”
Marik and Dietrik both pulled out chairs to sit at their table. “That’s one way of putting it. We’ve had to work hard to make sure we don’t get booted from the band soon.”
“That is understandable. From here, I’d say you have come quite a distance since we traveled together.”
“Or say you’ve left behind the sallow flesh o’ callow youth.”
“Or at least hardened it up a tad,” Dietrik added. “We’ve met once before, haven’t we?”
“Indeed, that is the case if my own aged an’ faulty memory can be trusted. I was watching as you so deftly handled the Brute o’ Craggy Slopes over yonder, an’ then you two showed a fair bit o’ talent against his friend o’ the impaired mental capacities.”
“You heard about that?” asked Marik.
“Not a bit, lad-o. I just so happened to be walking along the walls at the very moment Lady Fate played buggers with you.” Chatham placed a hand on his chest while extending his other in a festival attraction caller’s broad sweep. “I have no doubts we’ll be sharing many a fine, glorious day upon fields o’ battle yet to come in our part as warriors for the Kings o’ Crimson!”
“Oh, shut up,” muttered Harlan.
“It speaks! An’ only two days since the previous utterance as well! Harlan my friend, you must be going senile as old age approaches to become so talkative.”
He continued on. Dietrik sat and watched the flamboyant Chatham run amok with an expression approaching wonder. Marik thought he should be embarrassed at harboring a friendship with such an odd man, but sitting in the presence of the trio who had allowed him escape from the prison of Tattersfield, he felt a deeper relaxation than he thought he would this night.
“Tell me what you have been up to recently,” requested Maddock after Chatham petered out.
“Oh, training and the like.”
Dietrik chimed in, “Modest fellow, aren’t you?” He turned to the table at large. “I won’t say we’re leaving the other D Class recruits in the dust, but it’s obvious who’s been training seriously and who hasn’t.”
“That sounds promising.”
“He’s still ruffled because we came from the last mandatory meeting. It was the sandy desert this time.”
Marik sulked low in his seat. He did not want to talk about it.
“Are you troubled, Marik?”
“He has an aversion to the mages. He never enjoys their T-R spell work on the training fields.”
“Who would?” Marik spat.
“I have encountered others with this issue before. Please tell me the details.”
Dietrik happily obliged while Marik ignored the conversation as best he could. He called to the server, another older boy. Shortly after entering the town he had noticed no servers in any tavern were women. Probably this was the smart decision on the part of the tavern owners, disallowing their daughters serve in a town filled with mercenaries looking for fun during the long, cold nights.
When the food arrived, he concentrated on slopping up stew with bread chunks and ignored Dietrik’s contented gabbling.
“It does not sound serious, Marik,” Maddock directed at him in an effort to cheer. “I know many who greatly distrust mages and their workings. Some even suffer from sickness if they become involved with them.”
“I don’t get sick,” Marik snapped. “I just feel uncomfortable under my skin. I hate being near them and their unnatural witchcraft!”
“That is also not unknown. Try and deal with it as best you can.”
It sounded the best advice anyone had offered yet, and coincidentally the path Marik had decided he needed to walk. At least Maddock had not attempted to convince him it only existed in his head.
“Or perhaps you should walk over to the Tower tonight an’ ask them to change your lovely visage to that o’ a snake or an equally cuddly swamp critter. Get the waiting over with, you know. End the suspense.”
Marik’s eyes shot venom at Chatham. The loquacious fool sat back in his chair with hands raised in mock surrender. Maddock looked ill-pleased with his friend.
“At any rate, the warmer months are near. The units and squads assigned to farther regions will be setting out before too much longer, so they may arrive at the start of the conflict rather than in the midst.”
“Messengers and lesser nobles have been arriving by the day,” added Dietrik. “The officers must be wading through a pile of contracts as we chin.”
“All the more reason to rise above your fears and finish your training in the time you have left. Spring approaches, as do our marching orders.”
Marik glanced at the three men across the table. “What are the odds of us being assigned togethe
r?”
Harlan answered, “Not very high. We probably won’t see each other until next winter once we set out.”
“All the more reason to drink to our health an’ live for today!” paraphrased Chatham. “Come on, lad-o, let’s have a run an’ see where our luck takes us!”
Marik laughed. “This isn’t the Randy Unicorn, Chatham. You have a long walk ahead of you to get to Hanson’s Alley tonight.”
“Alas, your words are filled with a sad, sad truth. But there’s always sport to be had in a civilized setting such as this fine establishment, if you but know where to find it!”
He knew he would probably regret letting Chatham take the lead, so he pled exhaustion and stayed at the table awhile longer. Marik shrugged off Chatham’s promise to liven him up before the night waned, watching while the jester left in search of the serving boy for a new round.
To sit with his friends around a table, drinking ale and talking into the night…Marik found his life good as spring drew nigh and the last of the winter nights deepened.
* * * * *
The last of the winter nights deepened as Colbey stood atop the walls of Kingshome, gazing to the southwest where the far off Rovasii Forest of his birth lay.
Soon. The thought echoed repeatedly with increasing fervor following each frozen day that grew slightly warmer. Soon it starts.
The waiting had always been his worst times on duty, the patience required by the Guardians coming much harder to him than to his training mates. Sitting in blinds while his quarry gradually believed themselves safe to step into the killing zone was quite a different waiting altogether than the festering stagnation he now suffered. That he had brought it about by his own accord did nothing to ease this insufferable exile.
Colbey had known the best, indeed the only course of action would be to wait for his enemies to make their next move. The back trail was nonexistent, leading nowhere, teaching him nothing. No clues or spoor were there at all to reveal the nature of which unseen hand had wrought such destruction among the Euvea.
If Elder Orlan had been right in his assessments, the preliminary preparations for whatever force gathered should be near their conclusion. A great foe would emerge, one with designs to match its resources. Whatever their reasons, whatever their target, be it the lands of Galemar as a whole or an object much smaller in size, if not importance, Colbey did not care. Let them make their move. He was ready.
But he was no fool. No, despite what the council had believed, Colbey had never been so blind as to disregard his own shortcomings. He well knew that others in the village misunderstood him, misconceptions born of his pride and bearing to be sure, yet misconceptions all the same. Colbey never cared for what others thought of him. To his mind, their inability to read him was a strength in his favor.
No single man could ever do what needed to be done, even be he an army of one, a soldier of the gods, a warrior without peer. The odds were long Colbey would ever find the men who had planned the attack, though he intended to try with all his skill and cunning. Still, if he should fail in the larger mission, simply fighting against those who had destroyed his home, his life, would be enough. Thomas understood that.
Thoughts of the Guardian who held the responsibility for ensuring their people’s survival, a responsibility thrust on him without warning, touched Colbey’s own interior winter momentarily. Thomas had understood him deeper in the end than anyone else. The younger scout would never forget that. Especially here in this den of outland vagabonds.
He lived among them without being of them. Thankfully that truth had been quickly recognized by the other men in the Second Squad. They recognized him as an outsider. In their minds the words they used were undoubtedly loner and solitary.
The attempts to open him up and welcome him into a larger circle of friends within the squad quickly died, to Colbey’s satisfaction. He had nothing to say to them nor any inclination to be near them. He would never be one of them.
His few practice sessions that he allowed them to observe further served to separate him from them. The skill and ability he displayed far surpassed theirs, they who constituted the specialist squads. It made him even less approachable in their eyes.
So let his superior skill be a wall to keep them at their distance. All these deluded amateurs were capable of was annoying him, anyway.
Colbey cast his gaze across the town while his thoughts wandered. The mercenary fighters were a slight cut above the rest outside these walls. He supposed these facilities were impressive by their outland standards, except they could never compare to the real testing grounds of the deep forest, nor to the training required by the scouts, let alone the Guardians. In the harshest environs, he had been trained to handle anything from man to beast, from winter to summer, from fact to myth. Within the sealed areas those pairings were often interchangeable, bringing one face-to-face with denizens far stranger than an outlander’s wildest nightmares and maddest imaginings.
His mentors trained him to be the best, for only the best would survive. These men could scarcely dream what he had been taught to handle. They would never believe if told. To them, they were the cream of their crop, and had no hint how little talent they truly commanded.
Most, at any rate. Colbey had spent a great deal of the winter watching the others in the top squads, looking for potential. Of the three hundred or so men, only eleven might be worth anything. These men could blossom under Guardian training. Here were men Thomas would love to take under his wing and entrust the village’s safety to. If their strength could be brought out. If they could be trusted.
Likely these were the men Colbey would need to use. How he would use them and in what fashion depended on what move the other side opened with. With himself at the lead, a dozen skilled men could do true damage to an enemy force. If he could find the right places to hit. If he could find the fracture lines in the enemy’s structure.
Talking with these uncultured heathens was a chore and a strain on his patience, but he needed to hook those other men, draw them in, give them a reason to break and follow when he called. Colbey turned his back on the night, deciding that waiting would only increase the difficulty. It had already taken far too long to distinguish their potential from the trash midden they were mixed among. He traipsed down the plank steps in the darkness with supernatural ease to plunge back into the abyss, searching for his school of fish.
Book 02
Mercenary
Interlude
Footsteps echoed hollowly from the irregular stone. Torchlight flickered in a phantom halo surrounding Secunda. Deep in the catacombs, the narrow voids within the earth widened into passages and caverns. Blackness beyond the light created an illusion of endless space belied by the wet heat pressing down with claustrophobic weight. All around, damp stone columns loomed from the darkness, their dancing forms calling to mind starving creatures, ready to slaughter everything they came upon in desperate hunger. Their fluted surfaces reminded her uncomfortably of glistening fangs.
Falling drops echoed between her footsteps, plinking into shallow pools. Or perhaps not so shallow after all. This subterranean world could be wickedly deceptive. Stone gleamed in the fire light. The pillars clinging to the cave ceiling looked to be sweating from the heat of the land’s secret heart.
Each step required care through the outer passages. The cave floor was uneven with cracked rock and sharp points that strove toward a stalagmite future. Dark pools could appear as solid stone in the faint torchlight, light the darkness only scoffed at. Acolytes had vanished at times when they were due back. She had no intention of joining them in their undiscovered fates.
Secunda reached the door she sought at the cavern’s far end. Dark and heavy, its deep inlays had been carved with ancient designs. Three shadowy figures, their genders hidden beneath the same acid-green robes she wore, stood near the door. One nodded after she made the proper signs and allowed her access to the portal.
Set in the stone wall several feet abov
e the uneven floor, the door concealed the next passageway. She carefully climbed a curving ledge barely wide enough for her feet. Cautious to keep from pitching backward, she performed the precise series of knocks required. One knock on the carving of people gathered under a tree large enough to conceal the sky. Two knocks on the scene of a deep cavern pool surrounded by dark figures. Three knocks on the carving between.
This carving held a black figure, so black that at first she had taken it for a silhouette, but the truth was far less simple. Features existed within that deep blackness, if one had the courage to search closely for them. She had, once. After the sensation of being pulled into an endless void of cold nothingness, of losing herself, Secunda never wished to do so again.
A pulsing throb arced through her knuckles with each rap. She felt warm heat ripple through her hand in time with her knocks as an unseen heart added its rhythmic beat to her own flesh and blood. The dark life within the carving reached for her. Secunda shivered as the last knock sounded.
The door swung inward on soundless hinges. Beyond, the caves changed, for here the catacombs had known the hand of man. Doors set in the stone corridor led to rooms sculpted for human use. Natural architecture had been enhanced by artisans, transforming the depths into a splendorous palace far below the surface.
Mats of woven reeds carpeted the hallways to provide sure footing on the damp stone. The plain doors were new, the originals having been lost long ago to the ravages of time and water. Intricate carvings still covered the natural rock columns and walls, but were worn down, their edges softened, the definition lost. They too would be restored in time when trusted, loyal artisans could be brought to the true faith. Originally the carvings had been astoundingly lifelike and biological, combining with the earthy heat to create a sensation that the beholder stood within the throbbing body of a mammoth god. Now, with the damaging erosion, the healthy supernatural essence seemed diseased. Walking the reclaimed passageways felt like traveling through decomposing intestines, rotting even as they still served their host.
