A Warrior's Burden: Book One of Saga of the Known Lands

by Jacob Peppers

  Cutter knew that time was of the essence, knew that every single second he wasted would be paid for in blood, yet he found himself frozen to the spot, staring at the dead man. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Matt what felt like a lifetime ago back in Brighton, when he’d claimed he wanted to be a soldier. He remembered the boy’s youthful excitement, his bright-eyed eagerness as he talked about something he did not and could not understand. Had this man lying dead before him been the same? Had he, only a few years recent, left home after having much the same conversation with his mother or father? Left seeking glory and honor and all the other bullshit the bards sang about once the bleeding and the dying was done only to find himself here, a corpse lying broken and forgotten in a dark alleyway of some out of the way village?

  There were shouts from nearby. Close. Likely, they’d heard their comrade’s shout and would be coming to investigate. It was enough to pull him from his dark imaginings, enough to bring him back to the present. He would die here, that much he knew, but each moment these men spent chasing him was a moment they would not spend hurting Matt or the others. Another moment where his companions, his friends might make it away.

  And so, he took a brief moment to pause and wipe the blade of his axe clean on the young man’s jerkin. No time for sentiment in war, no place for it even if there had been, and the blood would dull the edge of the blade, an edge he’d be using again before he was through.

  With that done, he replaced the axe in the sling at his back, and then he was moving again, not away from those men who approached, not this time. There was no hope in running, and he had never been a good runner anyway. He would buy his companions the time he could, but he would do it by doing the thing he was best at, perhaps the only thing he had ever been good at.

  He would kill. As many of them as he could. And then, in time, he would die. And with the course his life had taken, he found that the thought was not a very bad one.

  ***

  They were all whispering in hushed, frightened tones, huddled in little frightened groups making scared, frightened faces. Hundreds of people—the entire village, Netty supposed—or at least that part of it that had not been killed in the Fey assault. Hundreds of faces all of which she knew, the actors in her small, rural life. Small, rural, but, until the last few days, one she had never regretted.

  Berden had been a large part of that. She had not been born to this way of life, this living on the fringes of things. Neither had he, of course, but he had always seemed a natural at it anyway, had, in fact, seemed a natural at anything he ever did. He had never boasted or bragged, her husband, but had simply gone about his life—and what seemed to her to be his inevitable successes—with a quiet dignity that spoke not of arrogance but of confidence in himself, in the world, too.

  Berden, had he been here, would have known what to do with all of these people, looking so scared and so desperate. He’d always known what to do. Oh, sure, she’d given him grief enough, but then that was a wife’s job, just as it was a husband’s to try his level best to drive that wife insane. But she’d loved him, loved him even after more than thirty years. And in the end, when he was gone, after some creature that should never have existed in a right world—though only a fool might claim it as such—had taken him from her, she had realized that he had not just been her husband. Or, at least, that was the least of what he had been. He had been her rock. Her proof that the world was not so terrible after all. He had been her world.

  And now that he was gone, she felt empty, scoured out and used up. Useless. Oh, come off it, Netty, she told herself. What would Berden say, he could see you now, whining and bemoaning your lot? After all, you ain’t the one got killed in the night before you even managed to get out of bed. And the thing was, that if he were here, Berden would not have said anything. Or at least, what he would have said would not come from a place of anger or disgust, nor even annoyance. He would speak softly, kindly, truthfully, and she would, inevitably, find herself comforted and annoyed all at once. That was Berden. It was why so many of the people in the village had come to the inn so often. They had come for the ale, of course, and for the companionship with their fellow villagers. But they had also come for Berden.

  But she was not Berden, and while he might have been chock full of wisdom—she’d always joked he was chock full of shit, but she could tell the truth now, if only to herself—she thought her own life had largely been a succession of one confusing situation after another, all of which she had no damned idea what to do with. And this, with the crying children and their silently sobbing parents, was no exception. She was not the person to lead them, to comfort them. In fact, she figured there were probably thousands of people in the world better suited to the task, just so long as they had a heartbeat.

  But no one was stepping forward to take up the task, that much was sure, and yet it was still a task that needed doing. Maybe she wasn’t Berden, but she’d known him long enough to know what he would say to that—when a thing needs doin’, there’s no greater comfort than gettin’ started. She was not Berden, but what she was, was here.

  She moved toward Mack and Will, Cend’s hangers-on, and the two who were lucky to still be alive after challenging the Crimson Prince himself. She thought to ask them where Cend was, but she decided, considering how quickly Prince Feledias had known where Cutter was, that she probably didn’t need to. The two men were scared, standing with their wives and their little ones, them scared too, and why not? She knelt before the kids, two girls around eight years of age and thank the gods they didn’t get their looks from their fathers. The boy, the youngest, not even old enough to speak, with tears in his eyes, his lip trembling. Not sure why he was scared, maybe, just that his mother and father were scared and so he ought to be too.

  Scared just like everyone else, which was a problem. After all, scared people did stupid things, that was another favorite of Berden’s, one she’d found to be truer than she’d like. In fact, she would have gone a step further and said that people did stupid things, but being scared certainly didn’t help matters. “Mack, Will,” she said, “as I recall, there’s a couple of decks of cards down in the cellar.” She paused, glancing at the children. “Why don’t you go and see if you can’t fetch ‘em for us?”

  The bigger of the two—Cend’s stand in when the man wasn’t around to be a nuisance—Mack, frowned. “Don’t feel much like playin’ cards just now, Netty, it’s all the same to you.”

  Netty held back a sigh, telling herself that there were other qualities to recommend a man than his intelligence, otherwise the whole damned human race would have ended a long time ago.

  Natalie, Mack’s wife and therefore to Netty’s mind just about as close to godly patience as anyone was likely to get, let out a tired sigh. “She means for the kids, Mack.”

  “Ah,” the big man said, grunting. “Not sure if it’s such a good idea, that,” he went on, “teachin’ the kids to play cards.”

  Natalie tensed her jaw, and Netty thought that the woman’s patience, godly or not, was just about stripped bare, and when the woman spoke she did so in a low tone, without inflection. “I reckon there’s probably bigger things to worry about just now than them becoming gamblers, don’t you, Mack?”

  Perhaps the big man had heard that tone before and recognized it as an alarm bell, for he grunted, turning back to Netty. “In the cellar, you said?”

  “That’s right.”

  He grunted. “Come on, Will. Let’s see if we can’t find ‘em.”

  His friend—the dumbest of the three by Netty’s estimation, and that no small accomplishment—frowned. “But I thought you said—”

  “Shut up and come on,” Mack growled, and then they were gone, heading toward the cellar.

  When they were out of earshot, Natalie turned back to her. “Thanks, Netty.”

  It felt good, that thanks. Good, and by and large unearned, but she gave the best smile of which she was capable. “Don’t thank me yet—it’l
l be a damn shame these pretty little young’uns grow up to be the world’s worst gamblers.”

  The woman laughed at that, one that was pulled from her almost against her judgment, but she sobered up quickly enough, looking even worse than she had before. Gods, I’m a fool, Netty thought. A nice little joke, about the kiddies growing up to be gamblers, maybe, but one that wasn’t quite as funny when a body stopped to consider the likely proposition that they’d never have a chance to grow up at all.

  Netty thought it best to quit while she was behind, and she offered the two women the best smile she could before turning and walking away, trying to look around and decide who else’s life she could screw up before it was taken from them. Then an idea struck her, and she moved to Emille. The girl stood alone. A quiet one, Emille, pretty but a little unearthly, some said touched by the Fey. Foolish talk, of course, but there was no denying that she was different, a difference which had only been exacerbated when the girl’s father had died to the fever two winters past and grown even more when her mother had been taken by the Fey. The girl was pale, silent tears gliding their way down her cheeks, no doubt still traumatized from the prince’s threat.

  And then another saying came to Netty, this one not Berden’s but her own, passed down to her from her mother, usually accompanied by a whipping, one she likelier than not had deserved at the time. Idle hands do evil work.

  That was another she’d found to be true. Maybe she couldn’t give all the people comfort, maybe it wasn’t in her to give, not when she had none of it herself. But she could give them work, at least. That much she could do. And if the work didn’t help, well, it was a tavern, after all. There was always ale. “Emille,” she shouted.

  The girl started and looked up at her. “Ma’am?”

  “Come on, girl,” Netty said, loud enough for the entire common room, packed full of people, to hear, “I need your help. This is the busiest my and my husband’s inn has ever been, and I’ll be damned, I don’t take advantage and sell all these mopey bastards some ale.”

  That got a few laughs, and that felt good, felt damned fine, in truth. She moved toward the back of the bar and began pouring drinks, pausing after she’d poured half a dozen or so to look back at the common room, everyone seeming to watch her as if she’d lost her mind. And who knew? Maybe she had. But then, when a person was about to lose her life—and probably in a pretty uncomfortable fashion—she figured there were worse things. “Well?” she demanded, doing her best to adopt her slightly-scolding tone, the one Berden had always joked with her about. “I don’t know as I’ll be able to drink all this myself, but you all keep standin’ there, and I can promise I’ll give it a try.”

  There was some more scattered laughter at that, and people began to move forward, taking the ale, hesitantly at first, but then more, and it was as if a dam had broken, a dam of fear and terror, and they began to whisper again, to talk in hushed tones. And that was good. Netty thought maybe it was the best thing she’d ever done as she continued to pour the ales.

  True, they may still die, but then miracles had happened before, hadn’t they? Besides, there was always the outside chance that Feledias, once he had his brother—and hadn’t that been a shock, seeing the man return as he had?—qould leave them all in peace. And if he didn’t, well, there’d be worse things than getting drunk. All in all, she was feeling pretty good, feeling like she had made a difference, not in the way Berden would have, maybe, but in her own way.

  That was when she smelled the smoke.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  It’s not an easy thing, killing a man, watching him bleed out, all his hopes and dreams taken from him until he’s nothing but a husk. Not the sort of thing a man gets over, not the dead or the living.

  No, it ain’t easy, taking a man’s life.

  But, then, I figure it’s a damn sight easier than dying.

  —Veteran soldier of the Fey wars

  Maeve wasn’t as quick as she used to be, not as fast or as attractive either, but the two soldiers were distracted—as any right-thinking person might be—by the appearance of what appeared to be the Skaalden. They were too busy staring at the looming forms in the mist to notice the considerably squatter, considerably less-terrifying one that approached from behind them, her knives in her hands. The second didn’t even so much as look around as her knife slid into the throat of the first and a moment later the two were lying dead at her feet, two down as easy as breathing. Or not breathing.

  Maybe she should have felt good about that, but it was hard to feel good about killing terrified men, even if those same terrified men were getting ready to burn an entire village worth of people. She turned, meaning to continue the bloody business, when a man appeared in front of her, a soldier with a sword in his hands, and anger mixed with the fear on his face.

  Perhaps, she thought, as she watched the sword raise, not so easy after all. But just then, an arrow flew out of the thick mist, catching the soldier unerringly in the throat. He staggered, dropping his sword as he pawed uselessly at his throat. Maeve spun to look in the direction the arrow had come from but saw no sign of Priest through the thick fog. Of course, she didn’t really need to. The man was out there somewhere, and there was more killing to be done yet. It seemed to her, sometimes, that there always was.

  So she took a moment, gathering her breath—didn’t remember get winded so easily back then, but then she’d been a lot younger and killing was the type of thing, sadly, that a person did get better at with practice. Then, when the worst of the stitch in her side was gone, she crept forward into the mist. She couldn’t be sure, for the fog covered everything more than a few inches in front of her face, but she thought that she must be close to the inn now, not least of which because she thought she could smell smoke. And the last thing she needed was to sprint forward with the intention of saving the villagers only to knock herself unconscious on the building’s outside wall and burn to death right along with them.

  She eased forward, a knife in one hand, the other held out in front of her. She was moving for a few minutes, struggling to ignore the great forms of the imaginary Skaalden sharing the fog with her. It was not easy. The sight of them was bad enough, but the worst was the sound, the terrible, screeching, keening sound which always accompanied them, a sound which brought her mind back to many years ago, when she’d lost her husband and her child. Still, she gritted her teeth, forcing her reluctant feet forward, telling herself that the sound which filled her ears, the one threatening to make her run in terror, was not that of the creatures which had driven her and her people from their homeland, only their facsimile, one created by the closest thing she had to a friend. But telling herself that as some of those figures loomed out of the mist, walking past her, was not an easy thing, not when she could feel the chill touch of the fog against her skin.

  In time, the hand she held in front of her struck something, and she sighed with relief. But it was a sigh that cut off abruptly as what she’d taken to be the wall did something very unwall-like—it moved. “Hey,” a voice growled, “who the fu—”

  Not a lot to go on, just a voice and a chest with her hand on it, no face, at least none that wasn’t obscured by the mist. Not much, but Maeve figured enough. She lashed out with her knife, and the man’s words turned into a soft, breathless groan, as her questing blade found its mark. She pulled the knife free, and he collapsed to the ground at her feet.

  “Maeve, help!”

  She froze, a sudden, irrational spike of terror lancing through her. “Matt?” she whispered in a harsh voice, sure that, somehow, she had gotten turned around, that she had worked her way back to where the boy and the mage hid behind the house and had, even worse, wounded him.

  “Maeve!”

  But the voice, when it came again, did not come from below her where the man lay, and a quick check showed that he was dead anyway and far past speaking. At least, until he visited her in her dreams like so many others did, but that was a problem for later. The v
oice was not so close as the man. Instead, it came from somewhere off to her right. Had the soldiers found the mage and the boy, somehow? It would not have been an easy thing, but then it would not have been impossible either. Still, if they had, why was the mage’s illusion still working? It didn’t make any sense but then it didn’t really matter. What did was that she had heard the fear in Matt’s voice, and so Maeve abandoned her caution and sprinted into the mist in the direction from which the voice had come.

  “Matt!” she shouted as she ran. “Where are you?”

  But the boy did not answer, not this time, and she felt her panic threaten to overwhelm her. Did he not hear her? Was he too busy? Or was there some other, darker reason why he remained silent? “Matt!” she yelled again as she narrowed her eyes, struggling and failing to see past the thick fog.

  Again, there was no answer. She moved farther into the mist and heard the unmistakable sounds of fighting. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the fog, and could just make out the silhouettes of what appeared to be two figures stumbling around with their hands on each other as if in some awkward dance. Maeve hurried forward and saw that, indeed, one of them was Matt. And at a quick glance, she saw, too, why the youth had not answered her—it was not so easy to respond when a man who looked like he outweighed you by a good fifty pounds had his hands wrapped around your throat doing his level best to choke you to death.

  The soldier was so intent on killing Matt that he did not notice Maeve’s approach as she rushed behind him, burying her knife in his back. The soldier let out a wheeze, and stumbled away, falling. Maeve watched him for a moment, making sure that he was done, then she turned to Matt. “Are you okay?”