by A. C. Cobble
“I’m already givin’ ya everything I can spare!”
“A bushel last week, two bushels this week! It ain’t right, and you can tell that bastard lord I said so!”
“My youngest already conscripted. Can’t I get credit for ‘em? It ain’t fair, man, not givin’ credit for those who already agreed to serve! I can’t give up both sons. They’re my only help.”
“What about death pay? Ya offerin’ death pay? Back when Whitehall last marched to war, ole Brinn was givin’ yellow gold to yar family if ya died. That’s tha way it oughta be, if ya ask me.”
Ben met Amelie’s eyes. No one was answering the farmers’ questions, but Ben knew what he needed to know. Taxes, conscription, these men were paying the price for their lord’s war. He gestured to his friends, and they kept walking down the road.
On the other side of the cabbage farmers, a bald-headed man was sitting at a camp table flanked by a pair of soldiers wearing Whitehall’s livery. The man had a quill in hand and a pair of wagons behind him. Cabbage, gold, or blood, the lords were going to get their due.
“This is why we have to continue,” muttered Amelie.
Ben nodded agreement. Even Rhys shook his head and kept looking over his shoulder.
“These people, they’ll be forced to go to war?” asked Prem.
“If they can’t pay, then yes,” answered the rogue. “It’s the way it always is. Armies need to eat. The quartermasters need coin for weapons and armor. The men have to be transported to the battle field. There’s all the logistics that go into moving a big group of people from one place to another. It costs gold, a lot of it, but more than all of that, they need bodies. Issen has tall, thick walls. Without mages, there are only a few ways in. If you’re not willing to sit for a long siege, you can try to bust down the gates with a battering ram. You can lob missiles at the gate and walls with catapults. Depending on the terrain, you might be able to dig under, but most common? Climbing ladders and ropes.”
Ben winced. All too recently, he’d defended a wall against an army of goblins. Half of the creatures were cut down before they made it to the top.
“That doesn’t sound very safe,” Prem said softly.
“Most of these farm folk will die,” confirmed Rhys.
“Can we—”
“There’s one thing we can do,” declared Ben. “We can put a stop to this foolish war. Whitehall and Issen are half a continent apart. There’s no reason this battle has to take place. There is no reason these people need to die.”
“There’s never been a good reason for any large-scale war amongst men,” responded Towaal. “They’ve still fought them, though. Fought them since the birth of our kind.”
Ben grunted. “You’re right, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It doesn’t?” asked Towaal.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“People have been fighting long before my time,” mentioned the mage, “and they don’t seem to be in a hurry to stop. For war to stop, something would have to change. Something drastic.”
“Some people only respond to force,” added Rhys. “Let’s be honest. There’s nothing you can do about that, unless you somehow change our nature. No, the only way to deal with them, to stop them, is by applying even more force. Escalate until they give up, but we know where that can lead. Look at the Alliance and the Coalition. That’s what happened there. Small escalations of force until full-scale war breaks out. Look at Avril and the Veil. Do you think either of those women will bow down to anything other than overwhelming force?”
Frowning, Ben kept walking down the dusty dirt road, autumn vegetables spreading uninterrupted for leagues around them.
“You’re right, Rhys,” he finally admitted. “Some people do only respond to force, to the threat of violence, or the understanding that they are beat.”
“This is a depressing conversation,” muttered Amelie. “If the world only responds to violence, what are we doing? Why are we bothering to stop this war if it only means another will happen later?”
Ben answered, “Every fight, every battle, every war, there is a point where it could be stopped. You’re right, Amelie, we can’t put an end to all of it. We can never be everywhere. Even if we could be everywhere, we couldn’t stop every conflict. There are some we could stop, though. We know Saala, and we’ve met Jason, so maybe we can reason with them. In other fights, other battles, other wars, there is someone else who can stop those. It may be that person is just waiting for a sign, for inspiration. We can’t stop everything, but we can stop some things. We can save some lives and hope that others save other lives. There are good people out there, and we can show them how it’s done. Violence does not have to be the answer.”
“That sounds like a plan,” said Prem.
“That sounds like the words of a leader,” claimed Towaal.
Ben snorted.
“It makes sense, Ben,” responded Amelie. “We can’t do it all, but we can do something, and by our example, we can show the way.”
“Of more immediate concern, what are you going to do about that?” asked Rhys, pointing ahead.
Arrayed across the road were a dozen men, gripping farm implements and looking menacing. Bandits. Desperate men.
Ben groaned and glanced at the rogue.
“Don’t look at me!” complained Rhys.
“We don’t want any trouble,” called Ben when they drew within shouting distance of the men. He glanced over his shoulder to see if Whitehall’s soldiers had started to return, but the road was empty. The soldiers were two or three leagues back, and they hadn’t seen a soul since they had passed them.
“We don’t want trouble either,” answered a coarse voice. “We just want your silver. Throw your pouches and any jewelry on the ground. Then, be on your way. You can keep your weapons and food. Like I said, we don’t want trouble.”
Rhys glanced around at the endless agricultural fields that spread out from either side of the road. “You don’t want our food? We have radishes.”
“Don’t get smart with me!” shouted the bandit leader, shaking a wood axe.
Ben and his friends stood thirty paces away from the men. The land was flat all around them. There was nowhere to hide, and he didn’t feel like running.
“Look,” said Ben, a hand dropping to his longsword. “We’re armed, and we know how to use these weapons. You should stop this before it’s too late.”
The leader of the bandits glanced up and down his line and then nodded toward Ben’s party. The scruffy group started taking slow steps forward.
“You got a sword,” growled the leader to Ben, “and you might know how to fight, but you don’t have armor. You don’t work for no lord around here who could help you, and there’s only two men amongst you. I got twelve.”
Amelie put her hands on her hips.
“Should I—” started Prem, drawing her long knives.
Ben held up a hand.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he implored the bandit leader. “There is no need for violence. Think about what you’re doing. Whitehall’s soldiers are a bell behind us. They’ll hang you if they catch you.”
“Nice try. Those soldiers are headed west,” said the grizzled leader of the bandits. “They won’t be back this way for days. Leave your coins and valuables on the road, or prepare to fight.”
“Unbelievable,” muttered Ben to his friends.
The gang of bandits closed half the distance and raised their weapons. Ben could see in their faces that there was no hesitation. They had killed before, and they were willing to do it again.
“Uh, Ben,” said Rhys. “I know you just gave that big speech about avoiding violence, but—”
“Fine,” snapped Ben.
In one smooth motion, he drew his longsword and shrugged out of his pack. Rhys drew as well and stood by his side. Prem took the other flank. Amelie and Towaal fell back.
“Last chance!” shouted both Ben and the leader of the bandits at the
same time.
Ben glared at the man and then sighed. If there was going to be bloodshed, then they may as well get it over with. When the bandits were half a dozen paces away, Ben sprang into action, his friends a step behind. He lunged at the leader, feinting low and then thrusting high.
The bandit, used to outnumbering and intimidating his foes, wasn’t prepared to be attacked. His wood axe dipped to parry, but the tip of Ben’s longsword stabbed over his weapon and punched into the bandit’s face, slicing through skin and crushing bone.
Beside the bandit leader, two men leapt at Ben while he was engaged, but he’d been anticipating their attack.
He ducked a sickle and caught the first man in the gut with his shoulder, shoving the bandit back before pivoting on his heel to parry a strike from a poorly sharpened shovel. He knocked the farm implement from the stunned bandit’s hands.
Ben shook his head, angry that the men were forcing the confrontation. Growling to himself, he whipped his longsword around. The dark Venmoor steel cleaved through the shovel wielder’s neck, passing through flesh and coming out in a spray of blood to catch the sickle bearer in the eye. Ben leaned into it, pushing his weapon deep and piercing the man’s brain. He drew back when the man’s movement stopped. He raised his longsword, ready for the next attacker.
There were none.
Eleven of the men lay dead in the dust. The twelfth was pelting down the road a score of paces away from them, shrieking a high-pitched whine and tossing his pruning shears to the side.
Prem took a step and hurled a long knife at the man. The blade spun, end over end, until it smacked into the fleeing bandit, burying to the hilt in his back. The man stumbled and collapsed onto his face, unmoving.
Ben spun to face the former guardian. “Was that really necessary?”
Prem shrugged.
“After everything we were just talking about?” complained Ben.
“Sorry,” mumbled Prem. “I forgot.”
“I like her,” declared Rhys.
Prem smiled at him, and the rogue flushed, glancing away.
“We know you like her,” grumbled Ben, kicking the hand of a dead man in disgust.
Amelie placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Ben. They were bandits, and they attacked us.”
“They were farmers,” argued Ben.
“Were,” said Towaal. “They were farmers, but not any longer. They chose the life of bandits.”
“It’s not like they couldn’t find anything to eat,” offered Rhys, gesturing to the fields around them. “Towaal’s right. They chose the life.”
“If we hadn’t stopped them, who knows how many people they would have robbed,” added Amelie. “Who knows how many they would have killed. It’s possible we just saved dozens of innocent lives.”
“I’m sorry, Ben,” said Prem, glancing at the dead man down the road. “I was always trained that once a fight starts, you finish it. If you don’t, they will. I’ll try to not kill them all, though, next time.”
Ben, frustrated at the situation, declared, “All right, after today, we don’t kill anyone unless absolutely necessary.”
“After today, so until midnight—”
“Rhys!” snapped Ben. “After this moment, no more killing unless we have to.”
“Only if we have to,” agreed the rogue.
Ben eyed him suspiciously, then cleaned his longsword and slammed it into the sheath. “Let’s go.”
3
Pass and Provisions
A nervous tingle crawled down Ben’s spine, refusing to go away even as he reassured himself there was no reason to worry, no reason they should expect anything other than a place to stay and a chance to restock their provisions.
“Snowmar Station,” said Rhys, glancing at the sharp peaks that framed the western edge of the Blood Bay. “A day’s hike up and we’ll be there.”
“There’s somewhere else we may want to stop first,” mentioned Ben.
Rhys raised an eyebrow at him.
“Meredith.”
“Oh,” gasped Amelie. “I-I’d forgotten…”
Ben pointed at a twisted pine, standing alone in between split chunks of granite. “I remember that rock. This is where we left the road to lay her to rest.”
“Who is Meredith?” asked Prem.
“The first one to pay the price for our quest,” answered Ben.
“We should keep going,” responded Amelie.
Ben glanced at her.
“Issen was her home, too. Last I heard, her family is still there. Her mother, her father, her sisters… If she knew what was happening, that two armies are marching on her home, she would want us to continue.”
“If you think so,” said Ben, unsure.
They continued to hike, entering the sinuous confines of the road as it passed through steep ridges on the way to Snowmar Pass. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben watched Amelie. Her face was blank, but her eyes glistened. Meredith, her companion since birth, lay just one bell’s walk off the road. What Amelie had said was true. Meredith would want them to hurry, but they had two months of hiking and sailing before they reached Issen. A two-bell detour was insignificant in the scale of their journey. No, Amelie didn’t want to visit Meredith’s grave for another reason. Ben watched her, walking close, offering the comfort of his presence, but not speaking and interrupting her thoughts.
Finally, she said, “I never think about her, Ben. After all that we’ve been through, it seems like a different life. I was a different person, but how could I forget her? Why do I not want to visit her grave?”
Ben reached out and clasped her hand. He didn’t have an answer.
The next day, they neared the top of Snowmar Pass. Ben kept his eyes upward, looking for the cylindrical watchtower that he knew presided over the road. The last time they’d been through Snowmar Station, the towers had been empty. They’d found the bodies of the guards on the road where they’d tried to flee, the first sign of the demon swarm which had swept over the place. This time, Ben’s breath caught when he saw the tower. As he watched, a dark-haired head poked out of the window for a moment before disappearing back inside.
“Looks like we’re not a threat,” declared Rhys.
“How do you know?” asked Ben.
“There’s no bell ringing,” responded Rhys. “If the guard felt we were dangerous, he’d bolt his door and ring the bell, alerting the station to close up and prepare to defend.”
“Two men and three women aren’t enough to storm the walls, I guess.”
“What is this place?” asked Prem as they made their way through the last narrow gap in the rock and saw the open gates of Snowmar ahead of them.
“Originally, it was a defensive position for Whitehall. There are upward of one hundred soldiers stationed here. With those walls in these mountains, they could hold ten times their number for a week or more. Plenty of time to light a signal fire and receive help from Whitehall, or at least prepare the city for attack.” The rogue gestured to the road around them, “Not that you could even get a significant force through the mountains. You could move fifteen abreast at the most. You’ll need more men than that to get over Snowmar’s walls.”
“It’s been centuries since there was a serious attack,” added Towaal. “These days, the place serves primarily as a waystation for travelers who need to restock while in the mountains. During the winter months, it can get quite cold up here. It’s not unusual for parties to spend a few days in shelter while inclement weather blows over.”
“There was at least one attack recently,” reminded Ben. “Last time we were here, a swarm of demons overran the place. We found everyone inside dead.”
“A serious attack by man, I meant,” replied Towaal.
Ben grunted. He was glad to see men moving about on the walls that spanned the pass. As they entered the wide-open gates, it appeared a long merchant train had arrived just before them. Wagon men were swarming over their charges, making sure canvass was tied do
wn over the contents of the wagons, putting chocks under the wheels, unharnessing and tending to the horses, and squaring their gear away for the night.
“We’d better get into the tavern before they do,” advised Rhys.
“Worried they’ll drink all the ale?” jested Amelie.
Rhys grinned. “Well, the thought crossed my mind, but if they order food before us, we’ll be waiting two bells until the kitchen catches up. If you want to eat before full dark, we’d better hurry.”
Amelie gestured to the low-slung mess hall at the side of the courtyard and bowed for Rhys to lead the way. The rogue ambled to the stout wooden door and ducked inside, Ben and his friends following close behind.
The place was filled with smoke from a goat turning over the fire, dripping fat and juices on the smoldering coals below it. It made Ben’s eyes water, and his stomach growl. A handful of soldiers, off duty from protecting the station, clustered on one end. They were sipping ales and joking loudly amongst themselves. On the other side of the room, there were a few groups of merchants and other travelers. None stood out, and none seemed an overt threat to Ben. He and his friends made their way to the back of the room where a harried-looking woman stood behind an unvarnished, splinter-studded wooden bar, taking orders for food and ale.
“Do you have any wine?” asked Amelie.
The woman pursed her lips and looked Amelie up and down. “We do, girl, but it’s a mite expensive. It’s for the highborn who are passing through. I don’t got any bottles open now, and I don’t got time to open one unless there’s something in it for me. The other barmaid’s sick, you see. Just me tonight.”