A Sellsword's Wrath

by Jacob Peppers

  Aaron studied the Parnen, curious to see what he might say. Leomin stared at him, a world of meaning in his eyes, somehow communicating to Aaron the importance of Adina not knowing about what he’d seen. An easy enough thing, really, since he didn’t understand it himself. Leomin turned back to Adina, smiling, “Ah, princess at the gate? Nothing of any import, really. Just a bribe to the guards to see us through. I’ve found in my experience that most men and women would rather be given a year’s wages than fight for their lives. Of course,” he smiled, glancing at Aaron, “men like dear Mr. Envelar here are the exception. Men who love to fight for the love of fighting and no more than that.”

  Adina frowned, “Aaron doesn’t love to fight, Leomin. He did it for coin and now he’s doing it for a kingdom.”

  Leomin acquiesced, bowing his head, “As you say, princess.”

  Aaron frowned, studying the Parnen. The man was clever, a master of avoiding saying anything he didn’t want to say, and perhaps he was right in thinking that Adina didn’t need to know the truth, but Aaron didn’t like it. He was tempted to tell Adina the truth then and there, but he hesitated, not knowing the dangers involved. Besides, what would he say? Whatever had happened, he didn’t understand it himself, so he decided he would speak to Leomin in private first to see what the man had to say.

  They rode on through the day and into the night and the fields outside of the city slowly turned into woods until they were surrounded by a dense forest on either side. In the darkening night, Adina reigned up in front of them, blocking the trail. “We need to stop now. The horses need rest, and only a desperate fool rides at night.”

  Leomin glanced at the sky and then looked behind them, as if expecting to see someone there. It was a quick, furtive glance, but Aaron did not miss it. Nor did he miss the troubled expression on the captain’s face. “Surely, my lady, we can make it a bit further tonight. Why, the moon is high and full, and the road is clear enough. A few more hours, I beg you.”

  “No, Leomin,” the princess said, her voice stern. “I don’t know what has you spooked, nor do I know why you won’t share it with us, but I will tell you something I do know. Whatever it is you fear catching us will have an easy enough time doing it if we’re forced to ride double because one of our horses steps into a hole it can’t see and breaks an ankle. My father warned me often about riding at night, not just for my own safety but for the horse’s as well, and I will not see a good horse suffer and die because you choose to keep your secrets close. We’re stopping. Now.”

  Leomin glanced at Aaron as if for help, but the sellsword only nodded. “Whatever you say, princess. Lead on.”

  Adina nodded, leading them off the trail and into the woods for a short time before dismounting and tethering her horse to a nearby tree. Aaron and Leomin followed suit. “Now then,” Leomin said, “what’s for dinner? Perhaps, we could hunt some squirrel, a nicely cooked meal would sit well, I think.” He smiled amiably, as if whatever worry he’d had was gone, but Aaron knew better. He could see it there still, dancing in the Parnen’s gaze.

  “No fire,” Aaron said, “not here. May as well send invitations to anyone that might be chasing us.”

  Leomin sighed theatrically, “Very well, as you say.”

  They laid out their bedrolls and sat down, eating a meal of dried jerky and drinking water from one of the water skins they’d purchased for the journey. Once he’d eaten as much of the dried, tasteless meat as he could stomach, Aaron sighed, glancing around them at the gathering shadows clinging to the trees and undergrowth. “It’s best if we keep a watch tonight, just in case. I’ll take the first one. You two get some rest—we’ve got a long few weeks ahead of us.”

  The exhaustion was plain on his companion’s faces and neither objected, instead unrolling their bedrolls in silence and lying down to sleep. Aaron made his way a little further into the woods to the top of a small rise he’d seen then sat in the shadow of a large oak’s trunk, watching over the camp and listening to the sounds of the forest. Alright, Co, he said, let’s talk about what happened back at the gate. What did you mean when you said ‘sister?’

  Very well. Do you remember when we spoke of the Seven Virtues, of how there was a mage for each of the Seven while Kevlane himself was meant to direct the gathered energies?

  How could I forget? Aaron asked, that was right around the time you made me weep like an old woman.

  Yes, well … the point is, there were seven virtues and seven mages, a mage for each virtue. One, myself, for compassion, another, Melan, for strength and so on.

  Right, Aaron thought back, I remember. Now, what difference does that make?

  You have to understand, Aaron, the Virtue said, being turned into … what we were turned into … being changed in that way … it is a difficult thing. There is much that is forgotten in the changing, much that is lost.

  So what do you remember?

  There was another of us, named Farah, and it was she who was tasked with the channeling of the virtue of charisma.

  And she was your sister? Aaron asked.

  No, the Virtue said, but there was uncertainty in her voice. No, I do not believe so. Though, I believe we were all brothers and sisters in our way, we seven. And Kevlane and Caltriss our fathers.

  Wait a minute, Aaron said, are you saying that Leomin is in possession of the Virtue of Charisma?

  Yes, Co said, I believe he is.

  Son of a bitch. No wonder. That explains the women at the inn, as well as the fact that Nathan and Janum acted as if they were losing their best friend when he left. And, of course, it explains how we made it past the gate.

  Yes, Co said, but I am worried, Aaron. The captain was not wrong to show concern. The use of such power as Leomin displayed will act like a lodestone to those who have dedicated their lives to finding and uniting the Seven Virtues into one.

  You mean people like that Aster Kalen? The man who spends his spare time throwing people through walls?

  Yes, and I do not believe Aster is the worst of it. There are other forces at work, Aaron. Darker forces. I do not know these things, but I feel them. I feel as if some serpent of darkness has twisted its way round in the night, has uncoiled and opened eyes long closed, that those amber orbs search, even now. For us.

  Great, Aaron said, many more people end up wanting us dead, they’re going to have to form a line. Maybe have an auction.

  Not us, Co said, they only want you dead. On me, they want to enact Kevlane’s Bond. To be used by such a person … trust me, Aaron. It’s better to be dead.

  Aaron grunted, his mood growing sour as he considered. Not making me feel any better, firefly. And as for better to be dead, I’m going to have to disagree with you. Where there is life, there is always the hope that things will get better again. False hope more often than not, but hope just the same. The world of the dead is bereft of such hope—the worms eat it and, believe me, they gorge their fill.

  There are worse things than death, Aaron.

  Only a thing the living say; I think, perhaps, the dead would disagree. If they could. He stared up at the moon, a pale sphere in the darkness, looked at the stars overhead glittering and shining, and he felt at once both insignificant and overwhelmed. A year ago, his life had been so much simpler. Safer, too, and that was saying something for a man who’d spent his time selling his blade to the highest bidder, the majority of his days working with or against criminals and keeping an eye on his back, lest someone announce their presence with a knife to it.

  True, being a sellsword wasn’t glamorous, and it wasn’t the type of thing that would get you famous—infamous, maybe. It was a job with a predictably short life span attached to it, one in which only the best made it more than a year or two and, of course, even they fell, sooner or later. It wasn’t the type of job a man grew old in. A life fraught with dangers and betrayals, lies and plots, but it was one he understood, its dangers old, familiar acquaintances, if not exactly friends. Now, though, he found himself in a world
he no longer understood. A world filled with creatures out of legend, with men and women hunting for him and those he cared about all, of course, while the ruler of the most powerful kingdom in the world did the same. It wasn’t a question of whether or not someone would catch them. It was only a question of who it would be and what would happen when they did.

  Thousands had already died in the wars between the Seven, and thousands more would die, he knew, before the thing was settled, one way or the other. Thousands of widows and widowers. Thousands of orphans, like he himself had been, he and his childhood best friend, Owen, up until the world did what it always did—used the skinny, kind boy up. Each life was a question, different in its own way, asked in its own way, and the world’s answer was always the same. Death. Even Adina’s late father, King Marcus, a ruler who’d been adored by commoners and nobles both, a man who was said to have been the wisest, kindest king Telrear had ever seen, still fell beneath the world’s answer, succumbed to its terrible truth. And yet the moon still makes its way across the sky and the stars, for all their beauty, for all that the poets might say of them, look on, unmoved and uncaring.

  If there was anything to be learned from life, Aaron thought it must be that. Let the philosophers debate and the scholars argue; ask a man who’d grown up poor, ask a man who’d watched his child starve or his wife die to an illness that was curable, if only he’d had the coin to pay for the medicine. The greatest truths, the most terrible ones, were not found in books, could not be discovered by endless debate and rhetoric. The greatest truths were not learned, they were felt. They were not understood—they were lived.

  The end of the story, of all stories; he died, and he was forgotten. And the world moved on, didn’t it? It was what it always did. The stage might change, the actors age and be replaced, and the audience none the wiser, for that was the greatest truth of the time—of any time. They lived. They died. They were forgotten.

  You’re wrong, Co said, the world may move on, but the world can also be changed. It is a great wheel spinning, and any man or woman—king or peasant or slave—can alter its course. It is not about strength or power or even righteousness, only will and determination to see the thing done that alters the course of that wheel, that changes the lives of those who ride or will ride upon it. Every man can make a difference.

  A wheel, is it? Aaron thought, fair enough, firefly. But you’re wrong about one thing—men don’t ride on the wheel. They’re crushed beneath it. Leaving little more than bloodstains on its surface to ever show that they were there at all. What was it the old headmaster at the orphanage had told him? Oh yes, men weep, and men die, and the gods laugh.

  You’re wrong, Aaron, and you will come to know it before—Co cut off as Aaron spun at the sound of footsteps in the darkness. He reached for his sword where it lay propped against the trunk of the tree and was rising to his feet when Leomin stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight, his hands held up.

  “It is only I, Mr. Envelar,” the Parnen said. “There is no need for your blade to do its work just now.”

  “Isn’t there?” Aaron asked with a grunt as he sat back down, leaning his back against the tree once more.

  The Parnen didn’t speak—a great surprise, that, considering that Aaron couldn’t remember ever being in the man’s company when he wasn’t speaking. Still, it was just as well. Aaron’s head was full of dark thoughts and dark premonitions, and just then he thought that anything coming out of his mouth would be poisoned, soured by the truths his mind held.

  Instead of speaking, Leomin walked up and sat down beside Aaron, following his gaze to the moon and stars high overhead. Some time passed and finally the Parnen spoke, “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked, “Ah, but the moon’s beauty is a cold one, I think. Give me the stars, any day—or, I suppose, any night. The markers by which a man in troubled waters might find his way clear of the storm, the gods’ gift to sailors and poets. The tapestry of creation, spread out above us each night, its meaning a mystery, yet there just the same.”

  Aaron shrugged in the darkness, “I’ve never been a big fan of art.”

  “No,” Leomin said, and there was a sadness to his voice, “No, I don’t suppose you have. You, my friend, are a man with devils at his sides and back, hanging on to him, pulling at him with each step he takes. And you will not beat them, you know, cannot, in fact. Not, that is, until you come to understand that you are those devils and that those devils are you.”

  Aaron scowled over at the man, “What in the name of the gods are you talking about?”

  Leomin smiled a melancholy smile in the darkness, “I think you know well enough, Mr. Envelar. The push and pull of a man’s soul is the cost—and the reward—for drawing breath. For each of us are possessed of light and darkness both, though you may not see it. It is, after all, difficult for a man to understand the workings of his own mind. The greatest lies are the ones we tell ourselves, after all, the strongest chains the ones we fashion link by link with each passing moment and the most impenetrable cage is the one that we build around ourselves, never seeing it for fear of opening our eyes.”

  They sat in silence for several seconds following that as Aaron considered the Parnen’s words. “You know, Leomin, I don’t have a fucking clue what you just said.”

  The Parnen laughed softly in the darkness, “Fair enough, Mr. Envelar. But know that I know, that you are not so foolish, nor so lacking in discernment as you would have people believe. A simple man looks out around himself and sees a simple world. A complex man, a complex one. So it is that we fashion our own lives, our own realities, build them up brick by brick or straw by straw, and what strength they have is a strength that we have given them in the making.”

  “Careful, Parnen,” Aaron said, “you’re starting to sound like a scholar, and I’ve little time for old men in old robes.”

  “Very well,” Leomin said, nodding, “Some truths are more easily spoken and understood than others, but I see that the topic troubles you, and I will speak of it no more.”

  “If you want to speak about something,” Aaron said, “why don’t you tell me what exactly you did at the gatehouse and what—or who—you think is after us.”

  The Parnen took a deep breath and let it out. “Do you know, Mr. Envelar, that I was an only son?”

  “Lucky for your parents,” Aaron said, “maybe there are gods after all. But what does this have to do with the gate?”

  “Everything and nothing, Mr. Envelar,” Leomin said, “for our beginnings meld into our present, our present into our ending, and they all mean what they all mean. Still,” he said smiling, “perhaps you are right. I would not truly know, one way or the other. I did not know my mother and father—or, at least, not in the way most children know their parents.”

  Aaron grunted, “Kicked you out at a young age did they? Couldn’t stop you from talking?”

  Aaron! Co scolded, but Leomin went on.

  “Not … exactly,” the Parnen said. “Tell me, Mr. Envelar, what do you know of my people?”

  Aaron shrugged, “Not much. A quiet lot, I know that much. Most live far to the south, beyond the reaches of Telrear in a country … Shit, I forget its name….”

  “Abalan,” Leomin said, and there was something wistful in his voice when he said it. “Please, go on.”

  Aaron sighed, “I know that the Parnen are known in many circles for their wisdom, for their tolerance and patience. A careful lot too, I’ve heard. They say that a Parnen will not eat an egg unless he knows its origins and its history, will not slay a beast for food if it was the only surviving member of the birth.”

  Leomin nodded, “It is true enough, particularly about the only birth. You see, Mr. Envelar, among my people, an only child—whether human or animal—is looked on as almost sacred, as blessed by the gods. For my people believe that each family is given the same amount of blessings from the gods as every other. Therefore, you see, an only child is revered, for he has no siblings with which to share
his blessings.”

  Aaron grunted, absorbing that. “It seems to me, then, that all a family needs to do to gain esteem in your country is to only have one child. A simple enough thing, isn’t it? After all, any village herb woman knows teas and brews that will make it impossible for a woman to get pregnant.”

  Leomin cringed, “We do not speak of such things as that, among my people,” he said. “For among my people, such measures as those of which you speak are looked upon as the greatest of all sins and, if any should be caught partaking of such, the punishment is death.”

  Aaron stared at the man, shocked, “You must be kidding. Death because they don’t want another child?”

  Leomin nodded, “It is the way of my people, Mr. Envelar. You see, it is believed that every man and woman owe the gods a debt, a debt that they cannot nor ever will be able to repay and therefore one that must be passed on to their children, the same as any debt owed to a crediting house or bank in your own country. In this way, with time and generations, a man—or woman’s—debt might be paid and it is only then that the individual’s soul will enter into the afterlife and reside among our people and our gods.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Aaron said, “I mean … with each generation, the overall debt just grows, doesn’t it? So that you’re always behind and always getting more behind. I mean … you’d never be able to get caught up.”

  Leomin laughed his lilting, musical laugh, “And this, my friend, is one of the many differences between your people and my own. You see, I say debt, that you might understand, but it is more than that. The gods are no crediting house, no clerk to collect their interest and be on their way, and the debt is really not a debt at all, but a duty, an acknowledgment that we are beholden. It is called the Fanea, in my land.”