War in Tethyr n-2

by Victor Milán

  It wasn't enough to incapacitate the tree-trunk arm. With blood streaming black from a wound too large for Crackletongue's sparks to close, Togrev swung the axe in a howling horizontal arc. Once again his reaction time surprised Zaranda. She had no time to parry, could only jump backward with arms flung high to keep them from harm's way.

  Father Pelletyr cried out in shared anguish as the axe blade kissed her flat belly. The marauder section of the audience stamped and hooted approval. Goldie whinnied alarm.

  "I'm fine," gasped Zaranda. Her awareness of her own body was good, good enough that she needn't glance down to know that the axe had done no more than lay open skin. Which was good, because had she glanced at herself, she would have died.

  With shocking speed the half-ogre brought the axe around and up and down. Zaranda had to throw herself into a shoulder roll to avoid being split in two as the axe plunged deep into the earth.

  Togrev snatched it free again, hurled it high, and ran at his foe as she rolled up onto one knee. His face split in a jag-toothed grin. He had her now; she was in no position to shift left or right fast enough to escape him, nor could she run away. The axehead seemed to scream in triumph as it descended for the killing blow.

  Zaranda dived for the monster. She ducked her head and somersaulted forward. As she and Togrev passed in opposite directions, Crackletongue licked out and caressed the back of one great knee.

  Togrev vented a pain-squeal like that of a cracked organ pipe. He went crashing past her like a bouldern down a Snowflake peak. His wounded leg simply folded beneath him when he put his weight upon it. Zaranda's blow had hamstrung him.

  Once more he showed himself hateful-quick, slamming the butt of his axe-helve against the earth like a crutch, saving himself from rolling headlong. He got his uninjured right leg beneath him, came back upright, took three great hops away and pivoted, leaning on the great axe.

  Zaranda got deliberately to her feet. The half-ogre stood snarling at her, his left leg booted in scarlet.

  "Now," she said, "let's finish this." She started forward.

  "Randi!" Goldie screamed.

  By reflex Zaranda dived forward. As she did, something struck the back of her head with jarring impact and clawing pain. She went sprawling on the grass.

  Sparks fountained behind her eyes. Her head rang like a dwarven smith's forge. She blinked to clear her vision, saw Togrev looming over her like a colossus, great axe poised above his head. He had only to fall forward to cleave her in two.

  Behind her she heard malicious laughter and the sliding song of a spiked morningstar head circling on its chain. Her right hand, miraculously, still held Crackletongue. She looked back at the marauder who had struck her from behind, flung her left arm toward him, forefinger pointed.

  "Twenty feet and six!" she gasped. A light like an orange-glowing crossbow bolt flashed past the morningstar man's left hip.

  He hooted shrill triumph through his nose. "Missed!" He swung the morningstar.

  The light-bolt flew twenty feet away and six feet up, then exploded. Laughter turned to scream as the fire-ball's fringe engulfed the man with the morningstar.

  Zaranda turned her head. Togrev was in the process of toppling toward her, his axe making the air itself scream pain. With all the power in her flat-muscled belly, Zaranda jackknifed, thrusting Crackletongue into his gut.

  Her magic blade bit through the overlapped steel plates of his hauberk and the thick leather beneath, through sweaty, hairy skin and then fat to muscle bunched beneath. And there Crackletongue's magic and Zaranda's strength failed her. The saber would penetrate no farther.

  Zaranda's presence of mind had not deserted her, though. She guided the butt of her basketed sword-hilt to the earth beside her, then rolled clear as Togrev's own momentum completed the task of spitting him.

  For a while Zaranda just lay on her belly, tasting grass-flavored air and bits of dark, moist soil that had found their way into her mouth. They tasted good. Even the dirt.

  Finally she rolled over and tried to sit up. Her head began performing interesting acrobatics, and she almost fell back. A hand grabbed her biceps and held her up.

  She nodded weak thanks and looked up. To her surprise it was Farlorn who held her, not Father Pelletyr. The priest was hunched over, shoulders heaving as if he were gasping for breath. He clutched the center of his chest. His face was red.

  With Farlorn's help Zaranda picked herself up. She nodded again, patted the half-elven bard's hand to signify that he could let her go. He hesitated, then did so and stepped back.

  Stillhawk had an arrow nocked and drawn back to his ear, holding down on the surviving captives, who had all gone the color of new papyrus or old paper behind their sundry whiskers and coatings of grime. They were staring at the smoking corpse of the morningstar man, their eyes like holes in sheets.

  "That's right," she croaked. "He was right. I am a witch. A wizard, in any event. But unlike him, I'm one who keeps my faith. Now go."

  The marauders cast a final look at Stillhawk, then lit out running over the gently rolling hills.

  Zaranda turned back to Father Pelletyr.

  "Randi," Goldie said, "he doesn't look too good."

  "Father, are you all right?" Zaranda asked.

  "I'm fine." He waved a hand at her. "It's just-these pains in my chest and left arm. They soon shall pass, martyred Ilmater willing."

  "If you say so." Zaranda walked over to her mare. What she intended as a hug turned into a grab for support as her knees momentarily buckled.

  Goldie held her head up, shying from Zaranda's attempt to stroke her cheek. "You take some crazy risks, Zaranda," she said with exaggerated primness.

  Zaranda realized the mare was humiliated by her earlier panicky lapse into horse. She laughed and scratched Goldie's neck until she found the itchy spot horses always have, and the mare arched her neck and bobbed her head in pleasure. Zaranda hugged her again and let her go.

  The erstwhile lord high commander of the Barony of Pundaria lay in an unmoving mound, Crackletongue protruding from his broad back. The curved blade no longer crackled and sparked with magic. Dead meat knows no alignment.

  "All right, then," Zaranda said. "Who'll help me turn this carrion over and reclaim my blade?"

  5

  "Have you heard?" the peasant asked. He had a large and colorful wart on the side of his nose and a leather bonnet pulled down over his ears. His garments had been patched until they were more quilt than clothing and still more hole than fabric. "There's a strong man rising in Zazesspur town. And high time, too. He'll bring order back to the land."

  "Aye," said another, equally ragged, who was chewing a tufted stalk of timothy grass. He pawed through the assortment of brass implements and cooking vessels Zaranda had spread upon a horse blanket beneath an oak tree that shaded one patch of the tiny village green. He wore a tattered and shapeless felt hat against the noonday sun. "We need strong government, an' that's a fact."

  The rest of the throng of prospective shoppers nodded and murmured assent. Like the two who had spoken, and like the village and farmhouses themselves, the villagers had a dusty, threadbare, ground-down look.

  The caravan's mules grazed on the grass of the common-for which the local mayor had exacted an advance fee-while their drovers and riders watered themselves in the village's lone tavern-for which the local mayor also exacted tariff, inasmuch as he was the tavernkeeper.

  Zaranda had left the bulk of the train encamped in a laager and made a detour through the city of Ithmong with a few muleloads of nonmagical luxury items- spices, dyes, vials of scent, incense-cones. They found an increase in prosperity and decrease in paranoia since the ouster of Gallowglass, with his tyrant's dreams and schemes. Zaranda had parlayed the wares into a dozen new mules loaded with more conventional goods such as tinware, pins, nails, and bolts of colored cloth to trade to the peasants and village folk along the route to Zazesspur.

  It was penny-ante commerce, and Zaranda would be doing w
ell to break even. She didn't care. It was a cheap way to garner intelligence and goodwill, and be-sides she felt for the people of the Tethyr countryside. Between bandits and big-city ambitions, only a rare armed caravan such as hers ever reached them. Other-wise the countryfolk had no access to goods beyond what they made themselves, which was why every mo-bile soul for miles had come pouring into town as news of the caravan's arrival spread.

  Goldie stood to one side watching the proceedings with interest. Now she cocked an eye at the grass-chewing peasant who had proclaimed the need for strong government.

  "Why do you say that?" she asked. The man only goggled at her slightly; word that the caravan leader rode a talking mare had spread quickly through the village.

  "That's like saying you need more locusts."

  "Now, Golden Dawn," Father Pelletyr said, munching a cold chicken leg, "you shouldn't talk that way."

  "You don't think I should talk at all, Father."

  "Now, child, you know that's not true-"

  "Begging your leave," the peasant said pointedly around his grass stalk, "but our neighbors have more wealth than we."

  "Truer words never saw daylight," agreed his friend in the cap. "A good, strong government would take it from them and give it to us."

  "Why should they do that?" Goldie asked.

  The locals looked at her in consternation. "Because we are hardworking and worthy sons and daughters of Tethyr."

  "Aren't they the same?"

  The crowd began to give the mare hard looks. "Do not trouble yourself overmuch with her babblings, good folk," Farlorn said suavely. "She's merely a dumb animal."

  The peasants looked at each other, then nodded and went back to their shopping.

  "I'll show you a dumb animal, you ringleted gigolo," Goldie grumbled.

  "Goldie!" Zaranda said sharply.

  The bard laughed. "Would you rather be thought a dumb animal or someone whose opinions are so seditious she should be chopped up into food for hounds?"

  For once Goldie had no answer. Father Pelletyr beamed indulgently as he bit into a raw onion he'd bought from a farmer-more early yield from the long Southern growing season. "They're right, anyway," he said. "A good, strong government is a benefit to all."

  "Isn't envy a sin in Ilmater's eyes?" Zaranda asked quietly. The cleric looked blank. She decided not to press it; the crowd might decide she was better off as dog food, and while she was intrepid, by her reckoning she'd faced enough angry mobs in her lifetime.

  The inn door opened. Three men emerged into the brilliant midday sun, managing at once to saunter and swagger. They were typical Tethyrian bravos in garish costume, with puffed blouses and extravagantly padded codpieces, which tended to turn any sort of walk into a swagger. They arranged their broad-brimmed hats and floridly dyed plumes and walked across the road to the green.

  Stillhawk watched them closely with his brooding dark eyes. He had sealed his bow in a waterproof case of some soft and supple hide that Zaranda suspected to be kobold skin-the elves had some folkways that seemed pretty abrupt by human standards. A man of the Dalelands, and an obvious ranger at that, was a substantial novelty in the sparsely forested Tethyrian plains. Zaranda feared he might excite the villagers unduly if he wandered around with an elven longbow strung and ready for action. He wore his long sword, also of elvish make, scabbarded at his hip.

  He dropped a hand as dark and hard as weathered wood to the hilt and looked a query at Zaranda. Stand easy, she signed to him.

  The newcomers carried swords with elaborate hilts and blades so broad they each had two deep, wide fuller grooves-which lightened weight and increased structural integrity and hadn't a blessed thing to do with letting blood flow, as the ignorant would have you believe. These swords weighed about five pounds each, which was in the upper range for anybody of human strength to wield one-handed and expect to live. Daggers they had as well, daggers in profusion: broad-bladed daggers, slim poniards, misericords, dirks, toadstickers, and hunting knives with grips of kobold bone. These blades hung all about their harness as if, come combat, they anticipated sprouting extra arms and fighting in the manner of the intelligent octopi rumored to haunt the rocks off the coast of Lantan in the Trackless Sea. But enough of blades.

  There was nothing intrinsically sinister about the three. Their garb, outlandish and weapon bedizened as it was, was no more than what was fashionable among Tethyrian bravos, particularly soldiers-of-fortune-which these appeared to be. Their gait was fairly steady, which indicated they likely hadn't imbibed enough in the tavern to make them boisterous. They could turn into trouble, but didn't constitute automatic menace. "Ho," said one with ginger-colored mustachios waxed into wings. He approached Stillhawk. "Are you the master of this traveling circus?"

  The ranger nodded to Zaranda. The bravos looked to her and shrugged. Taller than any of them, with her man's garb and her saber with its well-worn hilt slung now at her own waist, Zaranda Star did not invite men to trifle with her, for all her handsomeness. Instead they craned to look past the mob of locals rummaging through the goods on the racks and drop cloths.

  The tallest of the sell-swords, whose black hair hung in tight perfumed curls to his shoulders and who wore tights that were vertically striped red, blue, and yellow on one leg, and purple with yellow stars on the other, elevated a long and lordly nose.

  "Rubbish for rubes," he opined. A general growl rose from the locals, but instead of pressing, they edged away from the heavily armed trio. Ignoring them, the black-ringleted bravo looked square at Zaranda. "Have you nothing more worthwhile than straight pins and thimbles?"

  "Straight pins and thimbles are amply worthwhile for folk who have none," said Zaranda evenly. She made it a habit not readily to take offense, and to deal in general in the calmest manner possible. This habit was highly profitable to a merchant. Her mastery of swordsmanship and her latent skill at magic made it easier for her to maintain the required serenity of mind.

  "We have some swords and daggers from the East," Farlorn said. "Wondrous work, of a style seldom seen in these parts." Zaranda had coached him carefully in advance: Tethyrians tended to prize craftsmanship above all things.

  The third man waved him off. His close-cropped brown hair and the yellowish scar that ran from one eye to his broad, stubble-clad jaw belied the foppery of his dress. "Weapons we have. Have you good magic?"

  Farlorn cocked an eyebrow at Zaranda. A little sardonically; this was her call to make, though Farlorn was one who little cared to defer to others. But he was, after all, in her pay.

  Here was a cusp of sorts. Zaranda was ready enough to sell her goods to whoever was willing to pay a good price for them. The nicety here was whether the query sprang from mere curiosity, a prospective customer's interest, or something more sinister. On their own account, these three worried Zaranda little, particularly with Farlorn and grim Stillhawk at her side. But who knew how many comrades they had out of sight outside the village, who might be eager to ambush even such a well-guarded caravan as this for sufficiently tempting plunder? Magic items were always in demand, immensely valuable in their own right and readily convertible to cash anywhere in Faerun.

  Which, of course, was why a comparative handful of rare and powerful objects from fiend-haunted Thay provided the backbone of the profit Zaranda hoped to realize on this expedition.

  "Are you mages?" she asked. "Could you, say, read a spell scroll, or ply an enspelled wand?"

  Ginger Mustachios spread hands no less scarred than Stillhawk's. "We are simple fighting men. We have no skill with spells. Still, we can use enchanted weapons as readily as the next man."

  Zaranda shook her head and smiled thinly. "I regret that the only magic weapons we have are those we ourselves carry. And they're not for sale."

  It was the truth. They had won some enchanted weapons on the Thay expedition, but without exception these had been cursed, or such that they would turn and bite the hand of anyone who tried to wield them who wasn't a devotee of a dark
god such as Cyric or Talos. Such objects were valuable to certain folk, of course, but Zaranda found it uncomfortable at best to have dealings with them. They were also of considerable interest to collectors with more risque tastes, particularly in the West. In Zaranda's experience, though, the potential for trouble outweighed the potential profit, so she had-not without a twinge of regret- opted to leave them where they lay.

  Ginger Mustachios frowned briefly, and for a moment Zaranda thought he might cause trouble; Tethyrian bravos often dealt poorly with disappointment and tended not to reckon odds when they were angry. But instead, he shrugged and glanced over at his burly, scar-faced comrade, who had found a brazen oil lamp that had in fact come from far Rashemen in the Unapproachable East, and represented the upper limit of the luxury items the countryfolk might afford. This the man was rubbing surreptitiously on his sleeve.

  "What ho, Argolio?" the mustachioed man sang out, clapping his companion's thick shoulder. "Think what you're doing, man. If by some chance this tall, foreign-born vixen had overlooked a magic lamp from the East, what then? Had a djinn appeared with a flash and a puff of smoke, next thing you knew you'd be down at the village midden, wringing out your codpiece!"

  The heavily built man flushed, turning his scar a painful pink. He hurriedly put the lamp back.

  The tall one shook back his aromatic hair. "I'm bored," he announced to the afternoon breeze, gradually rising from the east. "Let's away."

  "Whither bound?" asked Farlorn.

  "To Zazesspur," the ginger-haired man declared as the three walked back to where their mounts were tethered to tarnished brass rings on stone posts. "Baron By-Your-Leave-Fanny, or whatever they may call him, is hiring men with strong arms and stout hearts for the civic guard. His gulders spend as well as any man's, or I'm an Amman." The inhabitants of the country immediately to the north were generally considered boors by Tethyrians, few of whom had ever actually encountered one.

  "Better yet," the scar-faced man said too loudly, trying to make up for his earlier embarrassment, "there are monsters to slay and treasures to seize. That's the way to go adventuring! Never faring far from the comforts of favored tavern and favored wench, ho-ho!"