by Ed Greenwood
The man's armor—chain over stout leather—stopped it from sinking in, but the sword point drove the man's breath out of him explosively, along with some wine, and he sprawled helplessly forward, slamming into The Masked's good shoulder.
The impact made The Masked roar in pain, and reel on his feet. Which meant the winded Molthuni took the brunt of the second Molthuni soldier's vicious slash.
The Masked staggered forward, trying to use his newly acquired meat shield as a battering ram, but the man fell from his shoulder onto the legs and midsection of the second Molthuni soldier, driving both Molthuni to the ground with The Masked on top of them.
The third Molthuni had lost a few moments setting the skillet with meat sizzling in it back down on the fire-grate, and so was clear of the three men writhing on the ground right in front of him. Yet he'd been drawing his sword and launching himself into a charge, and was now just as hastily skidding to a halt to avoid tripping over the three men.
Which gave Tantaerra time enough to throw one unloaded and ruined crossbow and then the other at his face. The first missed, but the second struck home, glancing off the man's head and blinding him just long enough that his sword was down and aside and his eyes creased shut as the dagger she threw next came spinning in to bite at his throat.
It glanced off and away, too, but cut him, blood spurting. He clapped a hand to his throat and staggered, stepping on a downed Molthuni's leg and wavering, sword waving as he fought for balance—and Tantaerra's second dagger, arriving with her behind it in a leap, sliced open his throat properly and sent him blundering into a nearby tree in a choking explosion of gore.
Tantaerra saw no sixth or seventh Molthuni in sight as she landed, so she spun around, raced back to the three men struggling on the ground, and dealt with two more Molthuni throats.
Then she hastened around the ruin, panting hard, making sure the soldiers were dead. There were no war-horns or shouts from the forest around, and no sign that there'd been other Molthuni—but who knew how many Nirmathi were watching from the trees?
When she got back to him, The Masked had crawled off the dead soldiers and clawed his way upright against one of the walls.
She plucked what was left of the bloody map—southern Nirmathas, in some detail, so worth keeping—off the end of his blade, wiped it clean on the hair of the one Molthuni whose helm had fallen off, and held it out to The Masked.
"Stow and carry this, will you? I'll serve us wine and meat in a moment."
The Masked tried to laugh, but it obviously hurt, so he settled for saying, "You are a treasure."
"Yes," Tantaerra told him brightly, "but whose?"
He just shook his head, so she added, "Check them all for anything useful, will you? Belt flasks, nice daggers, rope, food ...that sort of thing."
"Searching the corpses, sir," he replied, and left the wall with a groan, heading for the body of the commander.
"We'll eat as we walk," she told him, as crisply as if she'd been giving orders for years. "I want to be far from here by nightfall."
The Masked looked up at the darkening sky, nodded, and went back to plundering the fallen.
When he was done, he sheathed his sword in favor of one still-warm skillet.
"It's a weapon," he told Tantaerra through his last piece of meat, in answer to the look she gave him.
She sighed. "No doubt we'll need it. Now, what's our best way on from here?"
The masked man pointed into the trees with the skillet, and they staggered into the forest.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was just a hollow in the depths of the forest, where a long-ago tree's roots had torn up earth when it had toppled, but it would have to do. Exhausted and near blind under the trees with full night fallen, they could go no farther. They huddled together and drank wine.
"It'll deaden the pain," Tantaerra told The Masked, passing him the last flask.
"For you, perhaps," he growled, hunched over the skillet in his lap. He wasn't even lifting his right arm now; it dangled at his side, useless, as if dead. The rest of him didn't look much better.
"Try to lie down," she told him, scrambling up. "Here, I'll help. If I—"
The thump was dull, a small and quiet sound, but The Masked fell sideways in slack-jawed silence.
Leaving Tantaerra staring at the face of the man who'd felled him from behind. An all-too-familiar face that was now giving her a half-smile over the daggers put to her throat.
"Orivin Ahrkholm, at your service," he said politely.
Tantaerra ducked away in a roll, trying to—
The thump of a dagger hilt clubbing a head is much louder when you hear it inside your own skull.
Chapter Eleven
Ahrkholm Unmasked
Her head throbbed abominably, and at the same time felt as large as a table. A table that hurt a lot. While one of her ears itched.
Tantaerra winced, watched half-seen tree branches in the darkness above her swim and mingle like schooling fish, and closed her eyes again. She was securely bound. Ankles, elbows behind her, and throat to a log her head was propped up against. At least some of her daggers weren't where they should be. Possibly—no, probably—all of them were gone.
Where ...oh. Right. Dung.
"With us again, Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra?"
The face and voice were above but behind her. Ahrkholm, of course. "The man you hired made quite a bit of noise while I cut the arrow out of his shoulder, but you didn't seem to hear us."
"Where—?"
"Right beside you. Tied to the same log. Awaiting your ...presence. He didn't want to hear what I had to say until you could hear it too. Such touching loyalty."
"What do you want with us?" Tantaerra managed to ask. She felt utterly drained, unable to move even if she hadn't been tied.
"I want you to listen to me. First, though, I want you to drink these."
"And what are 'these'? Drinks laced with hemlock, or something faster and more deadly?"
"No," the man who was calling himself Ahrkholm replied flatly. He unhooded a lantern sheathed in crimson smoked glass, that gave off a faint, ruddy light. Enough to show them his arms, reaching down. In one of his hands was a white ceramic vial about the size of his thumb. It bore a small sigil of a tankard—the sign of Cayden Cailean, the perpetually drunk, freedom-loving god so popular among the Nirmathi. Its cork stopper was securely sealed with a lot of red wax.
"This," Ahrkholm said quietly, waving it gently, "is the beginning of trust."
"As in, I have to trust that if I drink it, it won't harm me?"
"Yes, but more than that. I'm hoping that after you drink it, you will begin to trust me."
Tantaerra fought to control her face—it felt numb, and her vision kept sliding back into echoes and doublings. She managed to raise one eyebrow and give him a disbelieving glare. "After I drink it, I could be dead."
"If I wanted you dead, I could easily have killed you when you were lying senseless," he pointed out. "Instead, I only tied you up and removed your weapons. For my own protection."
"I take it you enjoyed searching me," Tantaerra spat.
Their captor sighed. "Not particularly. I know you mistrust me, but I want very much to be your friend—both of you. I ...admire you. Nirmathas has need of you."
"So you serve Nirmathas, mystery man?"
"I do. I spy for them in Molthune—as I hope you will, in times to come. Which is why I want you to drink this." He held the vial closer.
"I'm aware that I haven't a lot of choice," Tantaerra told him, "lying here trussed like a fowl ready for the spit, but I do want to proclaim my dislike of being asked to do something by a man about whom I know nothing, who won't even tell me his name. Let our trust begin there, hey?"
"Very well. My name is Orivin Voyvik, not Ahrkholm. I spy for Nirmathas, and I want to recruit you to my country's cause. You've both been mistreated in Molthune—you, Tantaerra Klazra, were enslaved for years."
"I had not, in fact, forgot
ten that," Tantaerra told him. "Yet I am what minstrels might term 'bitter with mistrust.' For all I know, you may be asking me to trade one enslavement for another. After all, how do I really know what's in that vial?"
"You don't," Voyvik replied simply. "That's where the trust comes in. In this small measure, you have to trust me."
"My life may be a small measure to you," Tantaerra told him sharply, "but it's rather more than that to me, I assure you!"
"If I drink it, will you gentle your tongue for a bit?" The Masked rasped, from beside her. He sounded terrible, a hoarse, hissing whisper. "Or better yet, shut up?"
Tantaerra gaped. "Uh ...ah ...yes. I suppose." She looked at Voyvik, who shrugged, got up, and moved over to The Masked.
"Swallow it all. It will help, not hurt."
"If I do that, how will there be any left for her?"
Voyvik smiled, dug into a pouch, and displayed a fistful of identical vials.
The Masked chuckled, or tried to, but it turned into a racking cough. "Feed me the damned vial," he husked, when he could speak again.
Voyvik sliced away the wax with infinite care, using one of Tantaerra's smallest, sharpest knives, and poured the vial down The Masked's throat. When the prisoner erupted in coughs again, the Nirmathi spy clapped his jaw up and held his mouth closed with swift, deft strength.
Then he let The Masked sag back against the log—which the trussed man did with a long, shuddering sigh of relief.
"Another one?" Voyvik asked, holding up a second vial.
"See to the lady first," The Masked replied.
The clear, minty liquid was accompanied by a cleansing warmth, a tingling relief so immediate it was almost a rapture. Her aches faded, her pain was sluiced away, her headache vanished, and she felt strong and contented and ...comfortable. Her vision was sharp and clear, the doubling and blurring gone.
She was fine. Just like that.
"Better?" Voyvik asked, as gently as any mother bending over a sickbed.
When Tantaerra nodded, he smiled as if he meant it and went back to The Masked. "Another, now?"
"Another," The Masked agreed, in a voice that held more satisfaction than pain, and received the contents of another vial.
Well, damn the man! He'd healed them both—using magical potions that likely cost more than a cottage and the farm that went with it. And he'd just expended three on the two of them!
It felt good to have the pain gone, and no longer be stiff and sick and hurting. She was whole, hale, hearty—and dumbfounded.
Tantaerra knew she should feel grateful that this Voyvik wanted to be a friend. Yet somehow, she couldn't warm to the man.
And they were still tied up, with their weapons taken from them. Lost in the dark heart of a night-shrouded forest, somewhere in Nirmathas.
"So," Voyvik asked her gently, "am I still a villain?"
"I ...I thank you, Orivin Voyvik. I am ...very grateful, and must confess I begin to feel I could trust you," Tantaerra said slowly, "but as my ...companion here will tell you, I'm not easily convinced of matters new and strange to me. I like proof, and need convincing. So convince me."
Voyvik nodded, leaned close, and fixed her with intent eyes. They glinted like copper, as if there were a fire behind them, brighter than their usual brown. "If this healing counts for anything, let it persuade you that I am not a foe. I have never been your foe—or your foe, sir." His burning gaze turned to The Masked for a long moment, then returned to Tantaerra.
She tried not to shudder. That stare made her feel as if she were being transfixed on the point of a knife.
"What I have been, and am, is a man with a dream. A dream of Nirmathas strong and triumphant, free of war and mighty enough to dissuade Molthune from daring to make war across the Inkwater. Molthune can turn from endless warfare and soldiering to making a stronger, greater land of forges and building and innovation—while Nirmathas becomes the verdant garden it was meant to be, breadbasket to many lands, peaceful and beautiful and a haven from want and hunger."
He spread his arms wide, impassioned, and looked at The Masked again, then back at Tantaerra.
"This is a dream. There are years of work ahead to make it real, and it needs more than just me and the few hidden ones who work with me. It needs bold, trustworthy sorts who can make their own fortune, who can survive in the midst of strife, and win through danger without fleeing in fear or abandoning the cause. It needs heroes. And I believe you are two of those heroes."
"And I believe," The Masked said slowly, "that you've been drinking deeply from different vials than you offered us. I admire your zeal, and I think your dream is wonderful. Yet forgive me, Orivin Voyvik, but I cannot see the road from here and now to the dream you seek. Nor do I see how a rogue like me could ever help build one."
"Great achievements are seldom accomplished with single deeds," Voyvik replied quickly. "Such abrupt attempts are apt to be a bit ...messy. For now, I seek only to recruit you. I know you've fought and slain both Molthuni and Nirmathi, but when every man's hand is raised against you, of course you defend yourself. I want you to be the strong hands at my side as I work for Nirmathas—and, in a way, for Molthune as well. I can train you, I can lead you, and although it will take many small steps, many missions, we can achieve this dream of mine."
"Perhaps so," The Masked said slowly, "but our memories are not as bad as you might hope them to be. We've seen you in action. I'm not sure I can trust you to be our leader, to obey you without wondering always as to your true intentions."
Voyvik waved a dismissive hand. "I realize this is abrupt for you," he said, rising and starting to pace, "and that trust is never won so swiftly or easily. But what I have done, I've done for the cause. It justifies all!"
Justifies all, Tantaerra thought. Well, now. That really meant he'd do anything to them, to get closer to his dream, didn't it?
Tantaerra recalled Voyvik's smile as he'd brought the Telcanors across the rooftop to fall on the Watchswords, and the gleefully murderous look that had risen onto his face during his vicious battle with The Masked.
"How can we believe you?" she heard herself snapping. "How can you prove, or stand by, a single word you've said? No. A thousand times, no. If such as you serve Nirmathas, then I reject Nirmathas utterly."
Voyvik frowned. "Please understand," he said earnestly, "that I'd do anything for my cause. Anything. My life is dedicated to so weakening Molthune that it can no longer make war on Nirmathas, so we can build this land—a land at peace—into greatness. A Nirmathas free of tyranny, of oppression! You endangered all I'd worked for in Halidon, by killing the investigator the General Lords had sent there before I could mislead him into making real trouble for the fools who squabble in Braganza. That meant I had to get out of Halidon, and what better way to do so than to chase you? I had to learn who you two were—and whom or what you were working for. You are formidable. Nirmathas needs you. Surely you've felt the hard hand of Molthuni authority, time and again? Well, I work to weaken that authority, in ways large and small. Preventing Halidon from felling the Backar Forest at will is one—and bringing down Braganza, with its warring local families and insane governor, is another."
"Words, words," The Masked said dismissively.
"Deeds," Voyvik countered, snatching up the empty potion vials and waving them.
"Heal us so you can use us?" Tantaerra flung at him. "You want praise for treating your intended slaves well?"
"I want no slaves! I want to free all Nirmathi from the bitter choice of death or slavery!"
"That," The Masked said grimly, "sounded just a little bit rehearsed."
"Well, what can I do to convince you? Does the healing, your freedom from pain, count for nothing? You were dying. If you'd gone on walking and fighting and not resting, with that arrowhead still in you, festering ..."
"I know," The Masked replied. "So I've listened, and largely kept quiet, and thought hard on this. And come back, again and again, to this: I don't trust you, Voyvik.
I don't believe you. I don't know that you can change that. You wanted to kill me, on that rooftop. I looked into your eyes as we fought. I saw your eagerness to slay, your hatred. I see it now, even as you ask us to trust you. We, your bound captives."
Voyvik shook his head. "You misjudge me. I—"
He stopped speaking and cocked his head, listening intently.
Then he bent, plucked up the dagger of Tantaerra's he'd used earlier, sliced the ropes binding their throats to the log, then drove the dagger into the forest loam right beside one of her hands.
"We'll continue this discussion later," he breathed, "when there isn't someone creeping closer to interrupt it. All your other weapons are piled on the other side of the log."
The crimson glow winked out as the lantern was rehooded and snatched up.
And then he was gone, a few branches swaying in his wake.
Tantaerra allowed herself time to spit out just one heartfelt curse, before she snatched up the knife and rolled toward The Masked.
∗ ∗ ∗
"You move quickly when you need to," The Masked whispered approvingly, as they caught their breaths atop a rocky ridge well west of the hollow.
"That potion left me wide awake and full of verve," Tantaerra replied, "and I did not want to have to fight another Nirmathi warband. Or a Molthuni patrol. After all, one or more of them just might have decided to put another hole in you. Or me."
The Masked winced at the memory, shook his head to banish it, and admitted, "I feel fresh and full-rested, too. What say we devote ourselves to some serious travel? Quiet and wary, but getting ourselves a good long way away from here."
"Certainly," Tantaerra agreed, "after we stop over there, where the moonlight's strong, and have a good search and feel to make sure our Nirmathi zealot didn't put anything on us that he can trace us by. A magic pebble, or some such. I do not trust that man."
"I'd gathered that—and it's just possible, after all you said to him, that he might have gathered that," The Masked joked, heading for the moonlight.