A Sellsword's Valor

by Jacob Peppers

  “Nor would you have,” Adina said, “I haven’t been to Galia in many years. My father was injured during a practice bout. Nothing life threatening thankfully, but enough to keep him from being able to perform his duties as a city guardsman. It wasn’t long after that realization that he took my mother, my sister, and me—I was little more than a baby at the time and know this only because my mother has told me—to a small village to the north and tried his hand at farming.”

  “Farming is no easy work,” the man said, “I’ve a cousin who’s a farmer.”

  “No,” Adina agreed, “it is not easy work. But, then, neither is being a city guardsman.”

  The man blushed at that as if embarrassed. “Well, it’s not so bad. They make sure that we’re well fed, anyway. About your father, I wonder if I haven’t heard of him. If you don’t mind my asking, what was his name?”

  “Marcus,” Adina said before she could think better of it, and she inwardly cursed herself for a fool.

  “Ah,” the man said, nodding, “named after the late king. A worthy name for what sounds like a worthy man.”

  Adina managed a smile past the sudden lump in her throat. “That is kind of you to say,” she said, scolding herself to be more careful. It was no great slip—Marcus was a common enough name as once many of the citizens of Telrear had named their children after their favored ruler—but it was a slip. Gods, protect me from my own foolishness. Still, there was more to be done, so she forced down her fear and took another chance. “My father once spoke highly of a man who served with him in the city guard.” She paused as if trying to remember. “Oh yes,” she said after a moment, “Oliver was his name. My father said that this Oliver was like a brother to him and, if I were ever in Galia, I should stop by and see him.”

  The man’s eyes went wide. “Do you mean Captain Oliver?”

  It was Adina’s turn to look surprised. “Captain, is it? I…don’t know. The man my father told me of served as a guard with him but then that was years ago.”

  The man nodded thoughtfully. “Did your father tell you anything else about this man?”

  “Only that he was short,” she said, pretending a grin, “my father said he was the shortest man he’d ever seen and that he and the other guards had always given him grief about it.” Not a complete lie, as the captain was short, an inch or two shorter, in fact, than Adina was herself. Not that anyone who’d spent time in a practice ring with him would risk saying it to his face—short he might be, but even in his relative old age, Oliver was known for his skill with a blade and his fierceness in combat. “Oh and there’s one other thing,” she said as if only just remembering it, “my father mentioned that this Oliver had a quiet way about him, rarely speaking and then only when he had to.” She shrugged. “It seems a strange enough trait for a captain, but then I am far from an expert on such things.”

  The guard grinned. “Oh, you’re talking about Captain Oliver alright. The man is shorter than most women,” he paused, glancing around as if he expected the captain to appear out of nowhere. “Not that I would ever tell him so,” he went on in a near-whisper. “The captain may be short, but take my word for it, there’s not a man in the city that would like to find himself on his bad side.” He shrugged. “Not that anyone would really know if they were on his bad side considering the fact that, as your father told you, the captain speaks very little.”

  “Really?” Adina said. “Well, that is quite a coincidence, me happening to meet someone the very moment I arrived in the city that knows the man my father told me stories about when I was a child.”

  “Not a bad coincidence, I hope?”

  “Are you kidding?” Adina said, not having to feign her excitement. “This is wonderful. I’ll confess that I had no idea how I would go about finding him. The gods themselves must have been smiling on me when I entered the city.”

  “Smiling on us both.”

  Adina nodded excitedly, pretending not to notice the intended flirtation in the man’s words. “Tell me…no,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “that would be too much to ask of you. Too much by far.”

  “What is it?” the man said, leaning forward, his hand finding hers. Adina’s initial reaction was to jerk her hand away, but she stopped herself. The man was friendly enough now, willing enough to help, but he might not be so if he felt his advances were being spurned, so instead she smiled.

  “Oh, I don’t want to sound selfish,” she said, “only…I was wondering if you might, I don’t know, arrange a meeting with me and this captain of yours.” She looked down at the table as if nervous. “I am sure that I could go to the guards’ barracks and find him, but he does not know me, you see, and I would not want to embarrass him. Or myself,” she added.

  “Is that all?” The man laughed, sitting back, and Adina felt a sense of relief as his hand—slimy with sweat—came away from hers. “Gods, but the way you were acting, I thought you were going to ask me to kill somebody or something.”

  Adina gave the man a scowl. “I’ll ask you to sing if you’re not careful.”

  “Please don’t,” he said, grinning. “I like it here, and I’d rather not be kicked out for life. Anyway, I’d be happy to introduce you to the captain. We can do it tomorrow, if you’d like.”

  “Really? I mean, you truly wouldn’t mind?”

  “Why would I?” the guard said. “It’s a favor I can do for a beautiful lady, not to mention the fact that my captain will, I’m sure, be thrilled to meet the daughter of an old friend of his. Why, the man might even go so far as to force the word ‘thanks’ out of his mouth, but I won’t dare to hope for too much.”

  The smile that came to Adina’s lips was genuine, and she felt a heady sense of satisfaction and excitement at her own success. “That would be wonderful,” she said, “thank you.”

  “If you really want to thank me,” he said, staring at her wineglass, and Adina noticed with surprise that it was empty, “you’ll stay for another drink.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, very well, if you insist,” she said. “Just so long as you don’t have another.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Adina sighed heavily as she unlocked the door and let herself into her room. She was tired from a day of traveling and a night spent pretending to be someone she wasn’t and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. Yawning, she closed the door behind her and bent to slip the shoes off of her aching feet.

  “It’s about time,” a voice said, “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come back to your room at all tonight.”

  Adina let out a squeak of surprise and nearly tripped, falling back against the door instead. “Who’s there?”

  There was a burst of flame in the darkness and a candle came to life, outlining the forms of May, Gryle, and Bastion. The two men sat at the small table in one corner of the room while the club owner lay reclined in Adina’s bed holding the burning candle.

  “Gods, you all nearly made me die of fright!” Adina snapped, “What are you doing sitting in here with the lights off—trying to scare me out of my wits?”

  “Of course not, dear,” May said in a humoring sort of way as if she regularly let herself into people’s rooms without their knowledge and didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Which, for all Adina knew, might very well be the case. “We were only waiting to hear how your night went. A quite boring, quite long wait, if I do say so myself…though perhaps not for some of us,” she said, giving Adina a wink.

  Adina let her breath out in a huff. “Nothing happened, May, don’t be ridiculous. I only went because of you, if you’ll recall. And anyway, all of you wanting to know if I learned anything doesn’t explain why you’ve been sitting in my room without even a candle to see by. What if I had screamed and one of the tavern’s bouncers had come running?”

  “Then I’m sure you would have done a marvelous job of convincing the man that you’d had a bad dream,” the club owner said as if it was obvious. “In that d
ress, I imagine you could convince a man of pretty much anything you wanted to. As for why we’re sitting here without a light, well, we didn’t want the innkeeper to wonder why there was a light on in your room while you were gone, come inside, and find us. We wouldn’t want him thinking we were waiting in here to ambush you now would we?”

  Which is, if I’m not completely wrong, Adina thought, exactly what you were doing. But instead of saying so, she merely sighed and finished taking her shoes off before sitting down in the bed beside the club owner. “And where is Beth?” Adina asked. “Am I going to find her hiding under the bed, ready to jump out like some bogeyman?”

  May sighed in a long-suffering way. “Of course not. Beth is sleeping, that’s all.”

  “Mistress,” Gryle said to Adina, “I do not mean to be prudish or to step outside of my bounds, but it is not normally customary for a queen, or a princess for that matter, to go on a secret rendezvous with a suitor. Especially without someone—her chamberlain, for example—to act as a chaperone and a shield against the man’s possible intentions.” Adina detected a hint of hurt and scolding mixed into the chamberlain’s voice. Or, at least, as scolding as he ever got.

  “It wasn’t a secret rendezvous, Gryle,” she said, turning to scowl at May, “and this man was not a suitor. As for what is customary, it’s not normally customary for a queen’s nobles to turn against her and steal her throne either, but that didn’t stop it from happening.”

  The chamberlain recoiled as if he’d been slapped. “Forgive me, Princess, I did not mean to—”

  “No, Gryle,” Adina said, waving her hand, “I am the one that should be asking for forgiveness. It is late, and I am tired from weeks on the road and a night spent acting as if I’m some sort of spy—and not a very good one, I might add.”

  “It didn’t go well then?” Bastion asked, the young soldier shrugging his massive shoulders as if he’d expected as much. “Well, it was a long shot. We can find some other way to get to this captain of yours.”

  “Actually,” Adina said, “it went quite well. Raste agreed to set up a meeting with Captain Oliver and myself tomorrow.”

  “What?” May said, her eyes going wide. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? Here you had us thinking that our plan had failed, and we were back at square one.”

  Adina gave the woman a smile. “And here I was thinking that I was going to come back to my room and get to relax after a long, tiring day. It seems that both of us have suffered our own surprises.”

  The club owner stared at her for a moment as if she was seeing her for the first time, then let out a loud, warm laugh, shaking her head slowly. “Gods, Princess, but I think it for the best you didn’t have too good of a time with that guard, and never mind how handsome he was. You and Silent were made for each other, and that’s a fact.”

  Adina nodded her head primly. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now,” she said, taking in all three of them with her gaze, “we had best talk about tomorrow and how it’s going to go. If we do this right, we’ll have several thousand more troops to stand against whatever my brother sends at us.” And there’s the little issue that, should we do it wrong, she thought, we’ll all be dead by tomorrow night. “So let’s figure out what we’re going to do and let’s do it quickly. I wasn’t lying before—I’m exhausted.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Aaron’s career as a sellsword had brought him in contact with some of the biggest, meanest bastards in the world, but as the hulking figure stepped inside the common room—bending nearly double to keep from knocking his head on the top of the door frame—he felt his eyes widening in shock. The man—if man it was—moved to the side of the door, saying nothing, and Aaron tried and failed to get a glimpse of his features beneath the dark, hooded cloak he wore.

  A second man stepped in behind the first, picking his way past the shattered remains of the door and this one, at least, was of normal size, though Aaron didn’t miss the sword sheathed at his waist. “General Aaron Envelar,” the man said smiling, “the one some call the Silent Blade. I have heard much of you.”

  “Well,” Aaron said, “I haven’t heard a fucking word about you, and I’d just as soon keep it that way. Why don’t you and your pet ox turn around and go back out what’s left of the door?”

  A twitch of anger came across the man’s face but it was gone in an instant, and he was smiling again as he ran a finger along first one of his eyebrows and then the other, “And just as pleasant as they say. I wonder, what of your skill with the blade? Is that true too or only an exaggeration?”

  “Keep on talking,” Aaron said, “you’re likely to find out.”

  The man nodded slowly as if he’d expected as much. “My name is Captain Savrin, leader of King Belgarin’s household guard and the best swordsman Baresh has ever seen.”

  “And I’m a flying horse and a golden halo,” Aaron said.

  The man frowned at that, raising an eyebrow in question, and the sellsword shrugged. “Turns out, saying a thing doesn’t make it true, stranger. But I’ll tell you this much, and you’ll never hear truer words—turn around and walk out that door now, or your day is going to get a whole lot worse.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid that’s just not possible, General,” the man said, his smile widening.

  They all looked up at the sound of heavy footsteps upstairs. The door to the stairway flew open and Nathan, the innkeeper, peered down into the common room. “Just what in the name of the gods is all this racket?” he demanded. “Here I am tryin’ to catch what little sleep I may, and—”

  “Go back to your room, Nathan,” Aaron said then considered. “Where’s your nephew?”

  “Asleep,” Nathan said, “just like I was before—gods curse it, is that my door lyin’ there?”

  “What’s left of it,” Wendell muttered, his eyes studying the hulking, cloaked figure.

  “Nathan,” Aaron said again, his own gaze never leaving the two men, “go get your nephew and get out of here as quick as you can. Is there another way out of this place?”

  “Sure there is,” Nathan said, “right behind the bar there, but what diff—”

  “Damnit,” Aaron said. The bar was in between his own group and the two strangers, and he had the feeling that the two men wouldn’t sit around and wait for him and the others to escape.

  Not men, Co said in his mind, and he could feel as much as hear the fear in the Virtue’s voice, at least not both of them. Don’t you feel it, Aaron? There’s something wrong with the other.

  I feel it, firefly, he thought back, but right now, I’m more concerned with not feeling a sword skewer me anytime soon. “Doesn’t matter,” he said finally. “You get your nephew and you both climb out of a damned window if you have to—I’ve had to do it before myself. Just get out, Nathan. Now.”

  “Look, Aaron,” the barkeep said, “I got respect for you and what you’re doin’, but ain’t nobody gonna come in my tavern and—”

  “Do you want your nephew to die?” Aaron shouted, finally turning to look at the man who recoiled as if he’d been struck. “Then get the fuck out of here, Nathan. While you still can.”

  The innkeeper disappeared up the stairs again, and Aaron turned back to see that the stranger was still smiling. “There’s really no point in all of that,” he said. “I’ll find them again after I’m done here. Of course, they will have to be made an example of, to show people what happens to traitors to their king.”

  “Somebody might find them,” Aaron agreed, “but it won’t be you. Dead men have their own worries and an innkeeper and a boy aren’t among them.”

  “Aaron,” Darrell said as he came to stand beside him, his steel in his hand, “how do you want to handle this?”

  “I was thinking maybe we’d try to get out alive,” Aaron said. “Start there.”

  “Wendell!” he yelled.

  “Sir?”

  “Find us another way out of this place.”

  “Yes sir.”r />
  The stranger sighed as if bored. “Are you done now?”

  “One of us is,” Aaron said, moving toward the man. “Darrell, Leomin, take the big guy. This bastard’s mine.”

  “A-are you sure you wouldn’t like to trade?” Leomin asked, but Aaron was barely paying attention. As so often happened when his life hung in the balance, the rest of the world seemed to fade until it was only him and the man in front of him, only the blades in their hands and the blood in their veins.

  “Well? You wanted to see if the stories you heard were true or not. Now’s your chance.”

  The man let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a hiss and rushed forward, his blade flashing out of its sheath like a bolt of lightning aimed for Aaron’s neck. He was fast but so was Aaron, and his own sword rose to meet it, knocking the stranger’s blade aside. He countered, lunging forward—careful of his footing among the shattered pieces of wood littering the common room’s floor—but the man parried the strike almost contemptuously.

  The stranger stepped back, his sword held at the ready and smiled. “I had heard you were faster than that.”

  Aaron shrugged, his own blade held in front of him. “I’d say the same, but then, I haven’t heard anything about you at all.”

  The man’s face twisted in anger at that, and he sprang forward again, his sword leading, whistling through the air. Aaron managed to parry the strike and the follow up, launching an attack of his own, and a deadly web of steel weaved itself between the two men almost too fast to see. Suddenly, their blades met with powerful force and both of them went wide. The stranger’s free hand lashed out, catching Aaron in the face as Aaron’s foot caught the man in the stomach, and they both stumbled backward with grunts of surprise.

  “Gods be good!” Leomin shouted, and Aaron risked a glance to see that the hulking figure had picked up two of the inn’s solid oak tables, one in each hand as if they weighed nothing at all. He was moving toward Darrell, the old man waiting with his sword extended down at an angle in front of him, his face a mask of serenity while Leomin stood beside him, his eyes wide, his own sword in a shaky hand.