The others said nothing which he chose to take as acquiescence, and he began making his way toward the building in the village center. It was a strange feeling, walking through the village, watching the lazy tendrils of smoke drift into the air from burned out fires. An eerie, off-putting feeling, as if he walked through a ghost town, but Dannen fought it down. If something appeared wanting to take his life, just then, they wouldn’t have to do much convincing to get him to hand it over, for he had no more running left in him, not today at least.
He shambled wearily toward the inn door and as he reached it noticed that it had been left standing half-open. Another bad sign, then, that the owner hadn’t even bothered to close it in an attempt to protect his possessions. Likely, it meant that the man—or woman—didn’t plan on coming back. Or that they’re dead, a voice inside him whispered. After all, dead men aren’t much good for closing doors.
Dannen did his best to ignore the voice. After all, he didn’t need some inner voice to tell him how much of a shit-show the world was—he’d been one of its reluctant actors long enough to know the truth of that for himself. He stepped inside the inn.
Mariana grunted from behind him. “I’m gonna go have a look around the village, see if I can figure out what happened—back in a minute.”
Dannen nodded, his eyes studying the room before him. A heavy silence lay on the common room. No fire burned in the hearth, and so the room and its contents were cast in shadow. But what Dannen could see was more than enough to tell a story, and not the type of story loving mothers told their adored children before they went to sleep. Unless, of course, they wanted those adored children to wake up screaming from nightmares.
The common room was clearly well kept, the owner obviously having taken pains to keep it tidy, orderly, but whatever had caused the villagers to abandon Alberdine had also disrupted that order. Several chairs had been knocked over, and tables, too, lay on their sides. Ale glasses, some shattered, some not, lay here and there, many with ale still inside, more proof, if any had been needed, that whatever had come upon the village had come quickly, leaving them little time to react.
Fedder came to stand beside him, looking around and grunting. “I need a drink.” Before Dannen could say anything—like agree wholeheartedly—the mage bent and grabbed hold of one of the toppled wooden tables, lifting it with seeming ease and righting it once more. That done, he grabbed a chair and put it down before nodding. “Gonna go see if there’s some ale left.”
Dannen was about to do the same when there was a wooden creak behind him, and he turned to see Mariana appear in the doorway. “I think I know what happened.”
“Oh?”
The woman nodded, turning back to the doorway and grunting with effort as she pulled at something. In another moment, she had dragged her burden onto the floor inside the door, and Dannen grunted. It was a skeleton, one looking much like those he’d seen on the bridge, the only noticeable difference being that this one, for the time being, at least, wasn’t trying to kill them.
Although, he couldn’t help but note that it held a sword in its bony fingers, and he felt his breath catch. “Why did you bring it here?”
Another smirk—he was really beginning to despise that expression from the woman. “Relax. Unlike those others, this one seems pretty well dead. Or…more dead?”
“Deader,” Tesler offered.
Mariana spared a scowl for the man before looking back to Dannen. “Anyway, point is, it doesn’t look much like trying to kill us anytime soon,” she said, giving its ribs a nudge as if to accentuate her point.
Dannen let the breath he’d been holding go and thought. Of course he should have known it would have been the undead which had caused the villagers to flee. After all, the skeletons they had seen had obviously come from somewhere, and brought to life by magic or not, it wasn’t as if they could just appear out of nowhere. He should have seen it sooner, but he told himself that being chased by a troll bent on murder had a tendency to wreak havoc on logical thought.
“They fled from the undead,” Tesler said, putting it together.
Dannen grunted. “It would appear that way,” he agreed, feeling some hint of relief. Strange, maybe, to be relieved at an undead army, but it helped that that same army was currently lying at the bottom of a chasm hundreds of feet below where they now stood.
“Hey, Butcher, you want an ale?”
Dannen stared at the skeleton for another moment then turned to look at Fedder who was now behind the bar. “Better make it two.”
He and the others moved toward the table Fedder had stood up and, in a moment, they had all procured their own chairs. Dannen sank gratefully into his, breathing a heavy sigh of relief and, moments later, Fedder returned with the ales, sitting them on the table.
With a contented sigh, the mage sat, and Dannen leaned forward, reaching for an ale. That, of course, was when they were interrupted in their relaxing by a gravelly voice.
“Butcher,” the voice said. “That wouldn’t be the Bloody Butcher, would it?”
They were all on their feet in an instant, Mariana’s rods appearing in her hands, Fedder’s own hands balled into fists, all of them watching as a figure stepped out of the shadowed corner of the inn. The figure was an older man, with a long white beard, and a slight hunch to his posture. Dannen was gratified, at least, to note that the figure held no weapon, not that he could see, but despite the man’s age there was a wideness to his shoulders, a sinewiness to his arms and body and something about the way he stood that let Dannen know that he was a warrior. Or, at least, that he had been once.
“Who in the name of the gods are you?” Dannen demanded, his heart hammering in his chest.
The figure moved forward slowly, his hands raised in front of him.
“Right there’ll be just about close enough,” Mariana said, an obvious warning in her tone.
“Easy, young lady,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to give you a fright—I don’t mean any harm.”
“Forgive me if I don’t take your word on it,” she said.
He smiled, and Dannen frowned, feeling as if there was something familiar about the man’s face, though he couldn’t figure out what it was. “Bit of advice,” he said, “if you’re trying not to scare people, it might be better, you know, going forward, if you don’t lurk in shadowed corners and maybe announce yourself when they come in.”
The old man nodded. “Fair enough. I heard you come in, of course, and I considered introducin’ myself.”
“Only you didn’t,” Fedder growled.
The man turned to look at the mage, standing there obviously spoiling for a fight, but if he was put-off by the giant red-bearded man, he gave no sign, instead only smiling again. “So then, if you’re the Bloody Butcher,” he said to Dannen before turning back to Fedder, “then that must make this here Fedder the Firemaker. I heard you were big, but I gotta say the stories don’t do you justice. Why, you might even be bigger than Strength was, and I long ago lost count of the number of chairs that broke underneath that poor bastard’s weight—must make walking through doors a pain in the ass.”
“I manage,” Fedder growled, but there was a note of uncertainty to it, one that Dannen understood.
He’d been recognized plenty of times in the past, of course, usually by someone who, once his identity had been established, took it in mind to pick a fight, maybe so they’d have a story to tell their friends later, win or lose, about how they got into a scrap with a famous hero, so that perhaps they could borrow some of his fame. Stupid, of course, as Dannen would have been happy to give it to them for free—in his experience, fame only meant that the people and creatures of the world had a name to shout when they tried to kill you.
He was staring at the man, trying to piece together why he looked familiar, when something he’d said struck him. Strength. Dannen’s eyes went wide as he realized who the man had meant. “Wait a minute…you knew the Ethics?”
“As good as anybody, I re
ckon,” the old man said, “considerin’ that I was one of ‘em.”
Dannen grunted in surprise. His name, like Fedder’s, was known throughout the land, or at least had been once, but there had been other heroes before them, other poor bastards who’d risked their lives for poor pay—when they got paid at all—so that the writers would have stories to tell, the bards songs to sing. In fact, when he had been just a child, he had grown up hearing about the Ethics, a group of men and women who were known for their virtue, for standing against evil wherever they saw it, and he remembered more than one day spent waving a wooden stick, pretending it was a sword and he one of that fabled number.
He realized, then, why the man’s face seemed familiar to him. “Damn,” he said, breathless. “You’re Honor.”
The older man gave a sour expression at that. “Honor’s dead. I’m Hank.”
“Hold on a damn second,” Fedder said, turning to Dannen, “you mean to say that this old bastard here is one of the Ethics?”
Dannen hissed a shushing sound, but the old man only laughed. “It’s fine. I am old, and there ain’t no harm in telling the truth. Anyhow, to answer your question, no, I’m not one of the Ethics—for they don’t exist anymore. But I was. Once. A long time ago.”
“The Ethics?” Tesler asked innocently. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Dannen rubbed at his temples where a headache was beginning to form. “Sorry, sir, they mean no disrespect, only—”
“Oh, no offense taken,” the man said, waving a wrinkled hand dismissively. “Matter of fact, it’s sort of nice, not being recognized.” He met Dannen’s eyes. “Might be you understand that a bit, eh?”
Dannen nodded. He’d been struck by a lot of things in his life—clubs, fists, and unicorn hooves among them, but he had never thought to be star struck before. Yet he was now, for the man standing before him, undeniably the famous warrior once known as Honor now that he’d said the name, had been a hero of Dannen’s since he was a child. He was finding it difficult to speak, staring at the man who, along with his other famous companions, had defended the world against uncountable threats in his time.
A childish excitement suddenly flooded through him, and he could do nothing to stop the stupid grin that spread across his face. “The others—I mean, the other Ethics—are they here, too?”
Honor or Hank, as he appeared to wish to be called, shook his head. “No, as I said, the Ethics don’t exist anymore. Some have died and those as haven’t have moved on to…well, they’ve just moved on, that’s all.”
“Moved on?” Dannen asked.
The other man nodded. “That’s right.”
Dannen knew, of course, that logically, the Ethics were just men and women and that they couldn’t be heroes forever, but it gave him an odd feeling, listening to the man who he had revered when he’d been a child talking like any other man might, saying they’d moved on in a casual, off-handed sort of way. As if heroing was just a job to be taken or abandoned whenever one saw fit. Which, of course, Dannen knew, it was.
He knew that, yet the child in him—the one who had heard far too many stories about shiny knights on their shiny horses than were good for him—wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “But surely some of you still do it. I mean, what about Chastity?”
Fedder grunted from beside him. “Always was a fan of hers.”
Hank sighed. “Last I heard, Chastity had decided to take a different direction with her life. Still gets paid for her time, but…well, let’s just say the folks come running at her, sweatin’, they ain’t tryin’ to kill her.”
Dannen blinked. “I…but that…and Courage?”
Hank shrugged. “Gave it up, said he didn’t have the stomach for it anymore. Lives with his grandson and his family now, though the truth is the poor bastard’s barely livin’. I went to check in on him a few years back, and he wouldn’t even come outside to talk to me, seemed scared of his own shadow.”
Dannen didn’t know why he would be surprised, why such news would hurt, for he knew well what the world was, what it did to people. And yet, despite that, the news did hurt, and he was beginning to realize—in the same way he had struggled to make his own fans realize in their time—that his heroes were just men and women like anyone else. Those knights in the storybooks didn’t exist or, if they did, they were only able to do so for a few pages. Even the books, Dannen thought, if they went on long enough, would start to show the truth of those knights, to show the scars and blemishes that hid underneath that shining armor, to show the sins, the jealousies and cruelties and lustfulness which hid under the moral, rousing speeches. Sure, maybe the dragon did need to be killed, and maybe the knight was even the one to do it. But then…how many dragons could a man slay before he grew to hate it or, worse yet, got a taste for it?
Still, he wasn’t ready to give up on his childish fancies. Not quite yet. “And Truth? He wouldn’t have…I mean he was always so—”
“Truthful?” Hank asked, a small smile on his face. “Nah, sad to say Truth isn’t with us anymore. Turns out, he got down on his luck, ended up gettin’ caught cheatin’ at cards and took a knife—several from what I’m told—in the back for it.”
“Huh,” Dannen said, sitting back.
Hank nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
And then, since he could think of nothing to say, Dannen took a long swig of his ale. It didn’t taste as good as he had hoped it would. “And you?” Dannen asked. “Did you come here to fight the undead?”
The old man snorted. “Me?” He held his hands out to the side. “I look in danger of fightin’ anyone to you? No, my fightin’ days are long behind me. Heroing’s a young man’s game, and I’m far too old and too tired for it.”
“Right,” Dannen said. “So why are you here then? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Instead of what?” the man asked in a raspy voice that sounded on the border of laughter. “Sitting in some palace with my feet propped up, having half-clad virgins feed me grapes while others massage my feet, fawning over me and talking in hushed tones about all my exploits?”
“Well…yeah.”
Hank snorted. “Turns out, the grapes turn sour in time, and those beautiful, fawning women care a lot less about reputation than they do about coin. Anyway…” He paused, shrugging. “That’s all done now.”
“Still haven’t said why you are here, in this shithole,” Mariana observed.
Dannen wanted to give her a good shake, to tell her that she was talking to the Honor, the man many believed to be the greatest of the Ethics—certainly Dannen did. But if the older man was offended by her casual, almost rude tone, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled. “Shrewd as well as beautiful.” He glanced at Tesler, raising an eyebrow. “I’d be careful of this one, lad.”
The lad in question made a strangled sound in his throat, his face turning a deep, livid red as he studied his feet. “Anyway,” Hank went on, looking back to Mariana, “to answer your question, young miss, the reason I’m here in Alberdine is nothing more than that a man has to be somewhere, don’t he?”
“Maybe,” she said dubiously, speaking to a man who had been said to embody honor as if he were the world’s greatest cheat. “But then, there are a lot of places in the world, places that aren’t on freezing cold mountain-sides.”
The man gave a small smile at that. “Always preferred the cold.” But when Mariana only kept staring at him, Hank grunted. “Fine. Well, truth is, maybe I got some folks in a few cities want to have a talk with me, one I’m not too keen on having.”
“So why not just…tell them that?” Tesler asked.
Dannen turned to look at the man, wondering, not for the first time, how in the name of the gods he was still alive. Hank gave his head a small shake. “These ain’t the kind of folks that like to listen, lad. They much prefer to do the talkin’ themselves. Or breakin’, as it goes.”
“You mean…you have debts?”
“Well, now, that’s a question, ain’t it?” Hank as
ked. “Does a thief, having stolen something—maybe a few somethings—owe a debt?”
“Um…yeah,” Dannen said, “yeah he does.”
Hank grunted. “Well, in that case, say I do have some debts. Quite a few, in fact, and the debtors not the type that can be put off with a kind word or a promise to pay next week.”
“Thievery,” Dannen said, disbelieving, “but…but you’re Honor.”
The man snorted at that, but there was something angry in the sound of it. “Honor,” he repeated, an unmistakable look of disgust on his face. “I’ve seen people do a lot of things for the sake of their honor, Dannen. Fact is, I’ve done a lot of those things myself, and they’re almost without fail, stupid, selfish, ignorant things. Things all done in service to something you can’t eat or drink or wear to keep you warm. Why, I’ve seen nobles kill each over a spilled glass of wine, defending their honor. I’ve seen whole tribes of people wiped out in its name. No, Dannen. I’ve had enough of honor.”
“Honor without reason is not honor at all,” a voice said, and Dannen turned to see Tesler staring at the older man, and instead of looking embarrassed when everyone’s attention turned to him as he usually did, there was a confidence, a strength, something that might even have been anger in the young man’s eyes. “Honor, you say. My father spoke of it to me once, many years ago, before he left me, abandoned in the woods, exiling me from my home, my life. But his wrong was not to be laid at honor’s feet. What you speak of, sir, is not honor but selfishness wearing its guise so that it might not be recognized for what it is. You are right, you cannot eat honor, you cannot drink it, but neither can you eat love, nor can you drink sacrifice—yet it is these things which are responsible for what small good may be found in the world.”
The old man sat back in his chair, a surprised, impressed look on his face. “Damn,” he said, “so the lad does talk after all. Selfishness in disguise, you say?” He grunted. “Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as much as ‘Honor’ though, does it?”
The young man had apparently been prepared for an argument, was leaning forward in his chair intently, but when Hank spoke so casually, he blinked, obviously surprised. “Um…no. No, it doesn’t.”
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