Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  Fere leaned closer, examining his face. "There's something different about you today. Your eyes don't look like doused ashes." Her eyes dropped to the feather in his hand. "Or maybe my brain's starting to go soft. Throw away your toy and get back to work, boy."

  Joti dropped the feather on the pile of leaves and dirt he'd gathered. As he went back to work with his broom, he was careful not to damage the feather, and when he dumped the leaves in the midden, he plucked it out and put it in his pocket.

  During his stay in the house, he hadn't paid the other residents any more attention than was necessary to complete his chores without earning any more beatings. Now, he lingered in the background, both ears open as he scrubbed and polished.

  He was in the Gru city of Ankin Drog. He was two hundred miles from his homeland. And he was a slave.

  They hadn't branded his face like he'd heard some slavers did, but he and every other servant in the house wore a red brass ring around the left ankle, with their breeches cutting off mid-shin to leave the ring exposed. Whenever Joti got too near an open outside door, an anxious hesitation swept through him, compelling him to shut the door and stay inside.

  His memories started to come back to him. Including ones he didn't want. Had his tribe gotten away? Or had the Tusker army caught up with them? He promised himself that Drez was too cunning to be captured. That he'd saved her. That it had been worth it.

  The more he emerged from his fog, the more often Movo, the man with the disapproving mouth, began to drop in on him. Soon, Movo expanded his tasks to include weeding and pruning the courtyard, and then trapping and killing the ever-present population of rats. Joti didn't mind the extra work. Now that his head was reassembling itself, it was nice to have some variation in his routine. Besides, it gave him the excuse and opportunity to better learn the layout of the house.

  Yet whenever he thought about trying to escape, he got a tingle in his ankle and a quiver in his heart. If he tried, and got caught, they'd kill him. If it wound up they'd captured his family and were keeping them somewhere else in the city, they might hurt them, too. So he worked, and watched, and waited for his strength to come back.

  Four weeks after Joti found the red feather, Movo walked up on him weeding the garden. "Get up. Dame Fere will see you."

  Joti held out his earth-blackened hands. "I should wash first. I'm filthy."

  "Do you think Fere doesn't know how disgusting her animals are? Quit wasting master's time and get moving."

  Joti lowered his head and fell in behind Movo, who brought him to the great hall. Dame Fere sat in a fortress-like chair of black lacquered wood.

  She tipped back her head, regarding Joti from down the length of her nose. "Movo claims you appear to be feeling better. Is that true?"

  Joti ducked his chin. "Yes, ma'am."

  "Incredible. When you were brought here, your captors thought you'd never speak again. They were so sure of it they asked if they could buy your tongue for meat. I refused them. And look at you now." She raised a pure white eyebrow. "Don't you think you should thank me for the quality of my care?"

  "Well…thank you."

  "You're welcome. Naturally, your sense of honor will compel you to repay me for my kindness?"

  Joti frowned, sorting through her elaborate words, then realized he was giving a sour look to his master. "Naturally. Ma'am."

  She smiled, flashing hints of fangs that seemed to have been filed down until they were neat and symmetrical. "Excellent. For I have leased your services to the construction of the Great and Mighty Monument of Graband the Heavy-Handed. Your labor begins today."

  12

  Wit was not unconscious for long. When he came to he was being held up from behind and a knife was being pointed in the vicinity of his throat. His dagger had been taken away. Three men with drawn blades were facing Wa'llach, who was standing just inside the doorway; the man who had helped with the horses was standing just outside the doorway, holding a knife.

  "Take off your belt, or we kill the wizard," said one of the three.

  Wa'llach unbuckled his belt. The man nodded and Wa'llach tossed it into the center of the room.

  "Now your jacket and shirt."

  He took the jacket off, and threw it by the belt, then took off his shirt and threw it into the room as well. A knot of chains with strange pendants hung from his neck. His chest was covered with tattoos of dwarven symbols, most of which were disfigured by scars.

  "Boots."

  Wa'llach gingerly took the knife from his boot and threw it with his other things.

  "No, take the boots off."

  "Are you sure? My feet, I don't think they smell so good," he said with a half smile.

  Wit felt the knife press into his neck.

  "Boots."

  "If you say so, but I warned you." He took off the boots and threw them into the room.

  The man who had been doing the talking made a motion, and the man who was standing behind Wa'llach stepped forward quickly and ran his hands over the dwarf's legs and groin. After determining that he was unarmed, the entire group let out a sigh of relief. The man who had helped with the horses pushed Wa'llach into an empty corner of the room.

  "So what do we do now?" someone asked. "Do we kill him?"

  The man who had been doing the talking, who Wit had decided was the leader, shook his head. "We get an extra hundred if he gets to put the knife in him himself. Johnny, ride off and get the old fellow, tell him we have his dwarf."

  Johnny dashed out the door, and soon they heard hooves galloping down the road.

  Wit was shoved in a chair, and the man who had been holding him sat on a table behind him, the knife still in easy reach of Wit's throat.

  "At the risk of stating the obvious," said Wit, "that dwarf is currently the property of the Order, if you damage that dwarf, you will damage the Order, and I will use Our Power to make Us whole—by Binding you to serve us for the rest of your lives."

  "You damaged any dwarves?" the leader asked.

  "I ain't damaged a dwarf," replied one of the others.

  "He looks fine to me."

  "But if you do damage him…"

  "Then we'll see if you can use your Power faster than Lou can cut your throat."

  They waited a little while. One of the men walked over to the pile of Wa'llach's things and inspected the boots. Another knife came out of one of them, while two gold coins and a small coil of wire were in the other. A search of the jacket revealed a little more gold, some rope, and two knives, one of them a pretty folding knife.

  "Think I'll keep this one," the man said.

  "We're doing a job," said the leader.

  "The job is to deliver the dwarf. Didn't say a thing about his stuff."

  The leader was impressed with this. "I get the axe then." He and the other man descended on Wa'llach's things, and began testing blades.

  "Do you think this is worth fifteen pieces of gold?" asked one of the men, holding up a knife, "I don't know when I've seen one this sharp."

  Wa'llach, who had sat on the floor with his back to the wall and been watching the proceedings with a pained expression, at this point let out an audible groan. "Fifteen pieces of gold! If you sell that for less than forty, you won't deserve to live long enough to spend any of it!"

  "For a six inch knife?"

  "A six inch knife of dwarven mithril."

  "I'll take that, Pete," said the leader.

  "I had it first," shot back Pete.

  "Idiots! You are like children fighting over a shiny pebble in front of a mountain of gold."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What do you think? Why should I help you if you're only going to kill me."

  "How do you want to die, dwarf?"

  "You the one who's going to come here and do something?" Wa'llach glared at his captors.

  After a moment, the leader turned to one of the other men. "Al, go see what is in those packs."

  Wit's bag was emptied with scorn—the books were of n
o interest and even his nicer dagger was underwhelming next to the arsenal they had taken off of Wa'llach's person.

  Wa'llach had carried a large bundle with them throughout their trip. Wit knew that it contained weapons, because he had seen Wa'llach sharpen them at night, but had previously not thought much of it.

  Their captors unwrapped this bundle now. There was a sword, heavy, slightly curved, with a single edge and tapering to a point. "The man I took that from," said Wa'llach, "he killed more people than you have ever seen in your life."

  Next were three daggers. After the daggers was a collapsible spear. Wa'llach watched the proceedings with feigned disinterest. The last thing they took out of the pack was a strange object that Wit did not recognize. At one end was a guard made of four connected loops, in which the user's fingers were clearly supposed to go. Connected to one end of the guard was a short bit of metal with several small levers on it, and this connected to the back of a foot-long assemblage that seemed to consist of two narrow tubes and various strips of metal. At the other end of the tubes from the guard, a curved strip of metal extended down into an odd shaped club.

  Al toyed with this object for a while. He managed to unfold it, so that the club locked into place in back of the guard, nearly doubling the object's length. Pressing a lever caused a blade to snap into place at the other end.

  "This is awfully good steel," Al commented.

  Wa'llach suddenly turned pale. "Don't you melt that, don't you dare. It's far too precious a thing for the likes of you, but don't you dare melt it!"

  "Why? What is it? What's it worth?"

  "To a bunch of yokels like you, who don't know anything? Not so much, probably only…seven or eight hundred."

  "That's madness. I've never even seen a sword sold for that much."

  "But that's no sword."

  "What is it?"

  "Idiots. Don't even know what they have in their hands. It's an orcish death-stick, you fools."

  "I've heard of those," Lou said behind Wit. "I've heard they can drop a man dead from a mile away."

  "No, that's a lie," said Wa'llach. "You can kill a man from, oh, five hundred, six hundred yards, not any more than that."

  "How does it work?"

  "It shoots little stones. They go faster than any arrow, and will break through plate armor like it was paper."

  "Stones?" The leader took the weapon from Al and inspected it.

  "Bullets, the orcs call them. They're as precious as diamonds, difficult to make, no one but the smartest orcs knows how. You don't see them around these parts much. But when you find one, if you have that in your hand, there isn't a man, dwarf, orc, or dragar that you ever need to fear."

  "Do you have any?"

  Wa'llach shook his head.

  "Show me how it works." He slid the weapon across the floor to Wa'llach. Lou pointed his knife closer to Wit, and the other three men watched Wa'llach carefully, with blades in their hands.

  Wa'llach picked it up slowly. He stood up. He flicked a lever, and the knife folded back into the assemblage. He held it so the tubes pointed away from him, and rested the club against his shoulder, with his fingers in the guard.

  "You hold it like this." He lowered the weapon, and then flicked one of the levers so that the tubes broke away from the guard at a 45-degree angle. He turned it so that everyone could see that they were hollow. He put his finger in one of the tubes, at the point where it connected to the rest of the weapon. "Bullet goes in there. Without one, it isn't so dangerous." He snapped the weapon shut, spun it, pointed it at his own temple and pulled a lever. There was a sharp metallic click and Wa'llach laughed, and broke the weapon open again. "Yeah, not so dangerous without a bullet."

  Wit barely saw Wa'llach's hand move as he yanked an object off one of the chains around his neck, dropped it into the tube, and snapped the assemblage shut. The men looked around in desperation, and then quickly raised their blades at the dwarf.

  Wa'llach let out a slow, low laugh. "Which one of you sons of bitches wants to be the one to die?"

  "We'll kill him," said the leader, nodding at Wit.

  Wa'llach pointed the weapon at Lou. "Take a step away, this will kill you awful fast."

  Lou slowly shifted away from Wit, who stood up and got out of his chair. The other three men started to slowly advance on Wa'llach, while he kept the weapon trained on Lou. Suddenly, Wallach turned the weapon on the leader and yanked the lever again; the leader started to dive to the floor, and everyone flinched.

  Nothing happened with the exception of the metallic click. The noise had not died before Wa'llach sprang forward, swinging the club end of the weapon; he caught Al neatly on the temple and he collapsed to the ground.

  Pete swung his sword at Wa'llach, who blocked it with the hand guard of his death-stick. He flicked a lever, the knife blade shot out from the end again, and with a quick jab, he plunged it all the way into Pete's chest. Wa'llach snatched a knife out of Pete's belt, and threw it into Lou's stomach, as Lou slowly advanced on Wit.

  Lou reached for the knife in his belly, dropping the knife in his hand. Wit's instinct was to run, but he did not. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the leader and Wa'llach swinging their weapons at each other. Wit stepped forward, towards Lou, grabbed the handle of the knife in Lou's stomach with both hands, and twisted as hard as he could. Lou let out an agonized scream. Wit released one of his hands on the knife and used it to strike Lou as hard as he could in the face; Lou fell backward and collapsed in pain. Wit snatched the knife that Lou had dropped from the floor and stabbed the leader in the back with it—after which he realized that Wa'llach had already cut the leader's throat.

  Wit leaned on a table while Wa'llach stepped over and rammed the blade on the end of the death-stick though Lou's eye.

  After a moment, Wit looked around the room and found his staff. There was a bar in the back of the room. A back door led into a kitchen; a flight of stairs led up, presumably to the guest-rooms. Wit poked open the kitchen door: four dead bodies lay in a pile, three men and a woman. Judging from their clothes, they were the owners, a servant, and a traveler.

  Inside the main room, Wa'llach had found a stone jug of spirits behind the bar and was carefully inspecting glasses.

  "They killed all the people of the inn," said Wit.

  The dwarf looked carefully at the glass in his hand, saw a speck of dirt on the edge, and tossed it over his shoulder, where it broke against the wall. A second glass met the same fate; the third finally met with his approval and he filled it, drank it down, and filled it again. He carried the jug and his glass over to a chair where he proceeded to very slowly put on his boots, carefully restoring the weapons and tools to their hiding places, and pausing to sip his liquor.

  "There's four people dead in there," said Wit.

  Wa'llach shrugged. "What did you think they'd done with them?"

  Wit quickly re-packed his bag, sticking the good dagger in his belt—he assumed that one of the dead bandits had his old one, but did not want to waste time finding out.

  Wa'llach had put on his boots, shirt and belt, and was drinking his fourth glass, with a thoughtful expression on his face.

  "What are you doing?" said Wit. "There's more coming, let's get out of here."

  Wa'llach took a sip. "Safer to meet them behind walls, than on the road."

  "We won't meet them at all, idiot. Whoever is coming wouldn't even show their face until you were disarmed and practically naked. When they see that that didn't stop you from killing four of their best men, I assume they will head back the way they came."

  "Someone willing to pay a hundred gold to put a knife in me. I think I want to meet him."

  "I don't. All the gods, I haven't the slightest interest in who wants to hurt you for which horrible thing you did; I'll just end up feeling rotten for keeping you alive."

  Wa'llach was standing in front of him faster than Wit had thought possible. The dwarf's hand snapped to the knife in his belt, and he manage
d to get it two inches out of its sheath. His muscles stopped moving, but his eyes again betrayed an enormous exertion of will. Wit almost flinched.

  The dwarf dropped the knife back into the sheath, barred his teeth and laughed, a full chested laugh. "You don't understand. Eighty years ago, when you sons of bitches first got me, with that thought in my mind, I couldn't even touch the handle of a blade. Now…" He drew the knife again; Wit stared into Wa'llach's eyes, not checking to see if he had managed to draw the knife any farther. "One hundred years." He put the knife back in the sheath. "It's a long time for a human, shit, it's a long time for a dwarf—you'll probably die first. But maybe, maybe, I get you in time, eh?" He snapped the knife out, Wit looked down in panic, and Wa'llach laughed in his face.

  Wit swallowed and looked back into the dwarf's eyes. "Do you really have a bullet for your orcish death-stick?"

  "No."

  "Show me."

  Wa'llach retrieved the death-stick from where he had left it on the table. He took it over to Wit and broke it open. He pulled an object out of the tube, cylindrical, metal, ending in a dull point. "It's what they look like," Wa'llach said. "But the real ones, inside is chemicals, magic, I don't know…this is just metal. I made a hundred of them once, most of them I sold to idiots who thought they were the real thing." He chuckled fondly, as he reattached the object to one of the chains around his neck and tucked it under his shirt.

  "How did you get the weapon?"

  "Killed its owner, the fiercest orc you'll ever meet."

  "How drunk was he?"

  "Not drunk at all." Wa'llach looked at Wit defiantly.

  "These are untrained hill country ruffians. You killed the fiercest orc, armed with a weapon like that, in combat?"

  "I didn't say that." A smile curled around the dwarf's lips. "The orcs, not everyone believes but it's true, when they eat the liver of a human or a dwarf, they fall into a stupor. They love it, say it's better than wine. He was one of the greatest killers I have ever known—I strangled him with a rope while he was smiling like a child." The dwarf sighed. "We going to get out of here?"