The Brand of the Warlock

by Robert Kroese

  “I must confess,” I went on, “that I misrepresented myself to you the day I came to you six years ago. I had not been honorably discharged, as I claimed. I deserted for fear that if I remained in the janissaries, Beata would tire of waiting for me and marry another. When I came to see you, it was in the hopes of marrying her and running off to the western provinces, out of the reach of the janissaries. But my plans were interrupted by the man at the tavern. I was arrested and released the next day into the custody of the janissaries. I was forced to serve another six years on the frontier and have only now been released.”

  Beata’s father stared at me, a mix of anger and skepticism on his face. “I think you should go.”

  “Please, sir,” I said. “It is not for my sake that I inquire of your daughter. As you can see, Turelem has punished me for my disobedience, and I have given up conceits of marriage. Although I still love Beata, I would not punish her by forcing her to look upon my face. I only wish to find out if she is alive and well, and, if she is in trouble, to assist her however I can. But the trail has gone cold. Is there anything you can tell me about where she might have gone? I promise you that whatever I find out will be shared with you as quickly as possible.”

  “I know nothing that could help you, and I would not tell you if I did. At best you are a dishonorable man who told me lies in order to abscond with my daughter; at worst you are her murderer, who has returned to torment me anew. Be gone, scoundrel. My wife has already died of grief; there is nothing more you can take from me.” He slammed the door in my face.

  The meeting having gone about as well as I’d expected, I considered my options. My priority was to find Beata, but if I was going to conduct a thorough investigation, I would need more than a handful of ermes. I had not put much thought into what I would do when I found Beata, but for all the lies I’d told her father, I had meant it when I said I no longer intended to marry her. The mark on my face was only one reason; the fact is that six years in the darkness of Nincs Varaslat had changed me in ways that I did not yet fully understand. A man who has learned to live inside his mind does not so easily return to the land of men.

  Chapter Ten

  I turned Ember south, following the road until nightfall. The territory east of Nagyvaros is mostly open plain, but there are enough stray trees scattered about that I was able to gather several armfuls of twigs. I made a fire and hung my cloak on a few sticks I’d thrust into the ground in order to make a screen that blocked the wind and reflected the heat from the fire back toward me. After spreading some dead grass for a bed, I lay down and slept.

  I had to get up several times during the night to tend to the fire, but otherwise slept well. Ember kept watch; horses are light sleepers and can sleep on their feet. The air was cold but dry, and the wind was never more than a mild breeze. I awoke at dawn, ate what was left of my bread, and set out again.

  The journey to General Janos’s estate took two days. I did not know the exact location, but when I reached the vicinity I stopped to ask a farmer near the road for directions. I had no doubt he would know where the estate of the famous general was, and I was right. The man gave me accurate, though curt, instructions. If it weren’t for my frightening appearance, he might have told me something else as well: the esteemed general was dead.

  I learned this by inquiring of the groundskeeper, who seemed to be the only person in residence at the estate. The place was in a sorry state, as it required more upkeep than the old man was capable of performing. The estate was owned by some distant cousin of the general, who lived in Nagyvaros and had no interest in it. The groundskeeper, who seemed to welcome the company and was oddly incurious about my bandages, told me that General Janos had died four years earlier, and that the general’s will had listed a soldier named Konrad as his sole beneficiary. When this Konrad could not be located, the general’s holdings defaulted into the hands of the cousin. I thanked the man and left.

  Thus I found myself with no friends, no clues regarding Beata’s disappearance, and no means to continue my investigation. Soon I would run out of money, and my appearance would make it difficult to secure reputable employment. I could return to the janissaries, but soldiers are superstitious types; a man with arcane markings on his face would likely find his flank undefended at a critical moment. In any case, unless I wished to join as an infantryman without rank, I would need to prove my identity, which would be difficult given the loss of my discharge papers. Perhaps Istvan still had them, but I hadn’t had the presence of mind to request them on the occasion of my release. Even if I had the papers, they would likely be no more convincing to the janissaries than they had been to the judge. There were two men who could authenticate the papers and confirm my identity; one was dead, and the other had an active interest in foiling my efforts. My one advantage over Major Bertrek was that he assumed I was still imprisoned; it would not serve me to reveal myself to him. The time for my vengeance against him had not yet come.

  Other than banditry, only one option remained for a man like me: assuming the janissary still offered a bounty for the heads of Barbarok chieftains, I could conceivably make a living as an assassin. As a Scout, I’d often gotten within a stone’s throw of a chieftain without them being the wiser; at the time I’d been pursuing other objectives, but I could easily adapt the tactics I’d learned to assassination. The bounty was not much, but I did not doubt I could make a modest living at it. It would be a rough life, though, and I’d have to spend most of my time on the frontier. My quest to find Beata would be frustrated.

  I did not intend to travel to the frontier without first exhausting my resources. If I were frugal, my remaining money might last me a month—longer if I sold Ember, although was loath to do so, as she was proving to be a fine companion. Maybe a month would be enough time to find Beata. I mounted Ember and began the journey back to Nagyvaros. By evening, I was within a day’s ride of the city, but a cold wind had begun to blow from the north, and there was no wood for a fire. I had not eaten all day, and when I came to small town called Kalyiba, I resolved to warm up and have a meal in the local inn if there was one.

  I had no trouble finding the inn; it was abuzz with activity—rarely a good sign in such little towns. A dozen or so horses were tied up outside, and over the whistle of the wind I could hear an animated discussion going on inside. I hesitated, thinking I might be better off to avoid such a congregation, but hunger and curiosity got the better of me. I tied Ember up between two other horses, hoping to give her a chance to warm up a bit, strapped her feed bag on, and went inside.

  There were some thirty men in the little inn, about half of whom were actively involved in the discussion. No one took any notice of my entry, and I sidled alongside the group and raised a hand to get the attention of the innkeeper. I pointed to the pot of stew simmering behind the bar and then to a barrel of ale, and he gave me a nod. I retreated to a corner where I could listen to the proceedings.

  It didn’t take long to get the gist of the situation: evidently the son of a local count, a young man by the name of Pyotr, had been abducted by bandits, who were known to have a hideout in the woods a few miles to the west. One of the bandits had delivered a ransom note to the sheriff, who had sent a messenger to inform the count, whose estate was ten leagues to the southeast. The bandits were demanding a thousand ermes for young Pyotr’s release.

  The sheriff, eager to be rid of the bandits—and probably sensing an opportunity to earn a reward for the return of the count’s son—was trying to raise a posse. The sheriff thought the bandits numbered ten or so and were traveling on foot. It was his opinion that a posse of a dozen armed men on horseback could have the young man back before sunrise. Others thought it would be wiser for a larger group to go, in the hopes that a posse of overwhelming size would convince the bandits to surrender without a fight. As they had only a dozen horses, though, this would require some of the men to travel on foot.

  I finished my second bowl of soup and my third pint of beer,
and still the discussion showed no signs of coming to a conclusion. Wanting nothing more than to let the warmth of the fire and the droning of the men’s voices lull me to sleep in my chair, I got to my feet, left an erme on the table, and slipped outside.

  Ember whinnied in protest as I mounted her, and I assured her I didn’t want to go chasing after bandits any more than she did, but young Pyotr might well die of old age before the locals managed to assemble their posse. In any case, the bandits would no doubt hear them coming and flee. A lone man with the proper training, on the other hand, might slip into their camp while they slept and abscond with the captive. That man would then be the sole claimant of any reward.

  I was familiar with the geography of that area, and I thought I could find the bandits’ camp based on the information I had gleaned from the discussion at the inn. The sheriff said the bandits had been waylaying travelers on the way to Menedek, which meant their camp was probably not far from the old Cotton Road. There was little cover to be found on the southern side of the Cotton Road for several miles, and the lands farther south were Torzsek territory. A violent and perpetually impoverished people, the Torzseki wouldn’t take kindly to bandits setting up shop on their land. That meant the bandits were to the north, and since they would want to be near a source of fresh water, they would be camped along one of the creeks that fed the Zold. I had only to ride west on the Cotton Road until I came to the first bridge and then head north on foot along the creek. The Moon was three quarters waxing and the sky was clear, so there would be plenty of light. If I didn’t find the bandits by the time I reached the place where the trees began to thin, I’d head west until I reached the next creek and follow it south back to the road. By zigzagging in this way, I could uncover any likely hiding place before dawn.

  It took me a little under an hour to reach the first bridge, a simple structure of pine timbers under which trickled a small, half-frozen creek. I dismounted Ember, brought her to the creek to drink, and then led her north until we were out of sight of the road. I tied her to a sapling, murmured a word of encouragement, and set off along the creek.

  I found the bandit camp in a clearing not a mile down the creek. There were thirteen of them, sitting around a roaring fire, laughing and drinking and taking no precaution not to be seen or heard. After removing my bandages—which were all too visible in the moonlight—I crept close enough to make out their conversation. I had not seen any sign of a captive, and I soon learned why.

  One young man, more finely dressed than the others, seemed to be enjoying the center of attention, and it took no great feat of deduction to ascertain that this was Pyotr, the ostensible kidnaping victim. He expounded to the others on his father’s vast wealth and immense stupidity, and assured them that in no time they would all be living as princes. The others, who were mostly no older than the one to be ransomed, accepted Pyotr’s story with such credulity that I determined they were no hardened criminals but rather a band of ill-mannered youths who had somehow made the acquaintance of the young aristocrat and together hatched a plan to bilk his father out of some money by playing the part of bandits. A few wore knives, and a rapier in a scabbard lay on the ground near the aristocrat’s feet, but they certainly were not the well-armed band of vicious killers the sheriff had described.

  Moving silently from tree to tree, I crept within five feet of the nearest man and then stepped into the light of the fire. “Ho there, fellows!” I bellowed, and several of the men started. One of them fell off the log he’d been sitting on, and another stood up, tripped over his own feet, and went sprawling to the ground. Two others managed to get to their feet without incident, while the others remained frozen in place. Even in the dim firelight, I could see that the young aristocrat’s face had gone white.

  “Who approaches?” demanded one of the standing men, producing a knife from his belt and taking a step toward me.

  I grasped the man’s wrist and twisted in a precise manner, causing him to drop the knife and fall to his knees. I kicked the knife into the bushes and then broke the man’s nose on my knee.

  “Only an innocent traveler, much like yourselves,” I said, maintaining my cheerful demeanor. “Who is the leader of your little band?”

  The other man who had gotten to his feet ran toward me with his knife aimed at my belly; I stepped aside and threw him into the trunk of a tree. There was a wet crunching sound followed by a brief moan, and then silence.

  The oldest member of the group, whom I’d already picked out as the leader, got to his feet. He had a knife at his side but didn’t make a move for it.

  “You?” I asked, feigning surprise. “I had thought perhaps His Lordship was in charge.” I glanced at Pyotr, who got reluctantly to his feet.

  “None of this is any of your business,” said Pyotr.

  “Oh, but it is,” I said. “I understand the going rate for a young nobleman is a thousand ermes, and I have use for such a sum.”

  “And you think you’ll just walk into our camp and take him?” the one who’d identified himself as the leader demanded.

  “I had assumed he would come of his own volition,” I said, “as I was led to believe he’d been taken against his will.”

  Pyotr started, “I’m sure we can come to some—”

  “Shut up,” the leader barked. He turned to me. “He’s ours. If you have any sense, you’ll leave here and not come back. You may be able to take on two or three of us, but you’re no match for all of us.”

  “You’d be surprised what I’m capable of,” I said, removing my hood. Gasps went up from around the fire. The warlock’s brand must have looked particularly frightful in the flickering firelight.

  “What in the Sweet Mother’s name are you?” the leader asked.

  “Just a traveler, as I said. I am shortly going to be on my way, and I’m going to take young Pyotr with me. You’re going to—”

  “You can’t just—”

  “Quiet!” I growled, startling the man into silence. I continued, “You’re going to let me, and I will tell you why. If you don’t, you’re going to have to fight me. It’s one thing to rush in a fit of drunken bravado at a stranger you think unarmed; it’s quite another to attack a man such as myself, having seen what I can do—and I promise you, you haven’t seen a tenth of what I’m capable of. You imagine that you can overwhelm me en masse, but if each of you looks to his left and his right, he will discover himself in the company of cowards. If one of you attacks, he will attack alone, and I will crush you as I’ve crushed two of your number already, with less effort than I expend buttering a slice of bread.

  “Now perhaps you don’t mind a few broken bones, and are therefore still weighing your chances. In that case, let me tell you how I found you. Two hours ago I happened to stop by an inn in the town of Kalyiba, where a posse of thirty men was about to set out after some bandits who had absconded with a young aristocrat named Pyotr. As one man traveling alone can move faster than a posse, particularly if that man has an extremely fast horse, as I do, I was able to find you first, but the others are not ten minutes behind me. And lest you think I located you only through some prodigious feat of tracking, let me assure you that a blind man could have found your camp, situated as it is on the first available source of fresh water to the west of the Zold, and the man would have to be deaf as well to miss the din you’ve been making. Now, I see from your movements that you’re thinking of making a run for it, which is all well and good except that you have enough supplies to last perhaps three days while the posse is equipped for a week of travel. You may stay ahead of them for a few days, but you will find no shelter in any town, and when the posse catches you, they will hang you all from trees so as to not risk having to go through the trouble of finding you again.

  “But that, fellow travelers, is not why you are going to let me walk away with your well-dressed companion. You see, in these woods live bandits. Not spoiled youths playing at banditry to take advantage of an old man’s wealth. I speak of actual band
its, who will kill you for a copper or because your nose reminds them of something unpleasant in their childhood. It may amuse you to know that the only reason the sheriff is bothering with such a substantial posse on your account is that he imagines you to be these bandits, who have been tormenting travelers along the Cotton Road over the past months. I would wager that those bandits, who consider these woods to be their own property, are even now aware of your encroachment on their territory and are only suffering you to live out of curiosity. Perhaps they have overheard you talking about the ransom you imagine you’ll soon have, and are discussing amongst themselves whether to take the aristocrat off your hands or simply wait for you to get the ransom and then rob you of it. More likely, they are waiting for an opportune moment to kill you all and take whatever you have on you, as bandits are not, as a rule, prodigious planners, nor are they devotees of the principle of delayed gratification.

  “If you wish to survive, then, your best bet is to remand the young aristocrat into my possession and flee this place with all possible haste in the hopes that the posse will not pursue you and the bandits will find me and your well-dressed friend a more attractive target.”

  I let my words hang in the air for a moment, but no one spoke. I turned to Pyotr. “Grab your things and come with me.”

  Pyotr looked to the leader and then to some of the other men and back to me. He got up from his log, bending over to pick up the rapier.

  “Leave that,” said the leader. Pyotr hesitated.

  “Go,” I said to Pyotr. “Walk toward the creek.”

  After a moment, Pyotr complied, stepping past the fire and disappearing into the trees behind me. When he was safely out of sight, I looked at the leader and asked, “How far do you trust your comrades?”