Brigands (Blackguards)

by “Melanie Meadors”

  “My death, little birdie,” he says with a sad smile, a glimmer of maddening light sparking in his eyes. It’s the look I remember during his mumblings. “They must pay.” He cups my cheek, wipes my tears. “Kill her. Kill Drizana in the name of the Brenton Empire and we can dance in the ashes. This place can be ours once more.”

  Yet this place was never ours to begin with. It was a promise of power, a promise that was a lie, a lie that brought us here and left us a dangling footnote in their history. My father knew this, having felt the repercussions of their betrayals, yet as I stare into the eyes like mine, I see he still he hungers for a power that would never be his. A power that cost our standing, our lives, his sanity.

  All for nothing. All for him to hide in the shadows of this city for thirteen years, hide in the place we both died a little.

  I have stayed loyal to the memory of a man living and breathing the same wretched air as me, who chose to rob me of what little warmth I might have had left within me for the sake of his selfish intentions.

  Who would have one daughter kill his other to complete that task. My heart aches as I turn into his palm, kiss it with a tear and say, “I cannot, Father.”

  THE AIR STILLS between us, his eyes watering, thick eyebrows twitching as he studies my face. His rough hand slips from my cheek, bits of blistered flesh scraping my sensitive skin.

  “Wh-why?” His voice is wounded, and I feel the weight of it in my chest.

  “Where have you been?” I ask again. He frowns, then opens his mouth, anger contorting his face, and I stop him with another slap. Its impact is minimal, considering the odd positions we sit in, but it does what I need. “We have time for this. Make time for this or, so help me Hades, I will turn you in myself.”

  “Your own father?” he has the fucking nerve to gasp.

  I grit my jaw. “My father died at the stake thirteen years to the day the eve before this. Do not tell me of my father.”

  He smirks, the expression nearly violent. I now know where I get it from. “Correction, my little birdie. Your father died long before.”

  “Answer my question,” I push, my jaw tight.

  “He died when his love’s belly was robbed of his son—”

  My jaw hangs loose, eyes filling with moisture. “Wh-what?”

  “—when they stitched her up, yet let her bleed in their marital bed—”

  “I-I don’t understand! I had a brother?”

  “—when they took his son and flung him into the depths of the waters surrounding the Castle of Torner—”

  “Stop it!” I slam my hands against my ears, and instantly I smell burning flesh, his flesh. A memory, yet effective. My shoulders sting.

  “—when they took his love’s body from that funeral bed, dragged it through the streets, and strung it from the statue made in his own image, the statue they commemorated him with for his contributions to the crown,” he sneers. “The same contributions they executed him for.”

  And it is then I stop whimpering, my anger renewed.

  “How old was I?”

  He eases back, swallows soundly. “What?”

  “How old was I when Mum—” I choke on the word, the taste of it like dust. “—when she died?”

  “Aelian—”

  But I can’t stop, not now. “How long were you married to Lady Mayne? How did you make love to her make that… thing that is my sister? How many times before she fell pregnant with her? How long did you watch me suffer? How many times did you watch me being beaten and pecked at? How long did you wait before seeing me take a john for a loaf of bread? How long have you watched me suffer? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ALIVE, FATHER?”

  He shifts next to me, but I am fogged by tears, my eyes on Fauna. The Friesian’s ebony coat and knee-long mane shine in the pre-dawn light, further distorting my vision.

  “I-I did not… see you, per se, I just—”

  “Learned of me from afar? Kept distant tethers through—” My eyes widen as it clicks. I turn to him. “Your birds.”

  He grins, then stills, remembering himself. “Yes.”

  “Augustus?”

  “She only did what she was made to do,” he says, eyes dropping from mine. “Do not be cross with her.”

  “You still haven’t answered me. Where have you been, Father? How are you alive?”

  That mad gleam goes off again and he giggles. “I perfected it!”

  I shake my head. “Perfected what?”

  He clicks his tongue, a gesture of impatience I recognize from his lessons. “The formula to raise the dead.”

  I gawp at him, lost for words.

  “Yes, my little birdie! The formula I’d so frantically tried for your mother—but she was much too gone for it to work. One must ingest the potion before the time of death. When I knew I had no chance of surviving, I drank it. It wouldn’t hurt either way, yeah? They doused the fire once my screams stopped, believing me vanquished, which I was but… it hardly matters, does it?”

  I glare at him. “To my scars? No.”

  He deflates, his head falling back against base of the statue.

  “Have you tried this… formula with any other living beings?”

  “Not since my own resurrection, but with your help—”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “What?”

  “You are not God, Father,” I growl. “You are no Fate to any living being. How dare you?!”

  He opens his mouth, but I hold up a finger, giving one short shake of my head. “No more, Father. No. More.”

  I stand.

  “You let her die.” He twitches, affronted. I hiss back, annoyed. “You needed a specimen. With all your knowledge of the body, you could have helped her. You’ve made birdwomen, for fuck’s sake! Long before the Kingdom turned on you! On us!” My chest is heaving from lost breath, from the pent-up anger of abandonment, from abuses unspeakable, even to myself, even in the dark. Most of all, I weep. I weep for the family I lost and for the family who left me to the cold, bitter winds of a country not mine. Never mine.

  My father chuckles from behind me and I turn to see him on his side, knees tucked under his chin. “Smart girl.”

  I shrug. “I had the best teacher.”

  He shifts, eyes pleading. “Me?”

  “Myself,” I spit.

  I GAVE HIM a choice before walking away and mounting Fauna to ride back to my home, the brothel.

  In seventeen hours, he is to show at my doorstep with his decision.

  It is then I will either save my father by exiling him to the pillaged lands my mother had longed for or kill him where he stands.

  Sleep doesn’t find me as I await the early evening hour.

  At hour fifteen, there is a knock at my door.

  TROLL TROUBLE

  Richard Lee Byers

  THE FOREST OF Thorns is well named. Briars scratched and snagged me with every step, or at least it seemed that way. Meanwhile, the soft ground mired my boots, and cold rainwater dripped on me from the weave of branches overhead.

  In other words, this little excursion into the wild was unpleasant enough to remind me of one reason why I’d abandoned the life of a mercenary—marching in the snow and heat, eating half-spoiled rations or none at all, and sleeping rough—to set up shop as a fencing master in Balathex, City of Fountains. I strove to stay alert lest discomfort distract me.

  Yet despite my caution, when I first glimpsed the troll peeking out at me, he was only a few strides away. It seemed unfair that a creature so large could nonetheless hide so successfully, even behind the broad, mossy trunk of an ancient oak.

  Truly, though, there was no reason why he shouldn’t, because he wasn’t as tall as a tree. Such towering specimens may have existed long ago. They may still, in far corners of the world. But in all my wandering, I’ve never seen one.

  Illustration by OKSANA DMITRIENKO

  No, his long arms knotted with muscle, hide mottled brown and gray, red eyes shining under a ridged brow and
fanged mouth smirking and slavering at the prospect of cruel sport and fresh meat, this fellow merely loomed half again as tall as I was. That was still big enough to make a sensible man turn tail.

  I didn’t, though. Nor did I reach for my broadsword in its scabbard, though my fingers itched for the hilt. Instead, as the creature shambled into the open, I gave him a nod and said, “Hello. My name is Selden. I come as an envoy of the August Assembly of Balathex.”

  Then I studied his brutish face in an effort to determine whether he believed the lie, and if so, whether it mattered.

  MY ERRAND BEGAN three nights earlier, in the shop I’d rented and through hard and fumbling work—I’m no carpenter—transformed into a space suitable for teaching swordplay and associated arts. Effort wasted, it seemed, for no students had presented themselves to study there.

  The problem was that I was a stranger. No one in Balathex knew me as a successful duelist or an instructor capable of raising others to proficiency. The obvious remedy was to pick a few quarrels, but I was reluctant to go down that path.

  I’d grown tired of killing for no better reason than to put silver in my purse, and besides, I was loath to start my new life by instigating feuds. I didn’t need vengeful brothers, sons, and friends of the deceased leaping out at me for years thereafter.

  Unfortunately, that unsatisfactory scheme was the only plan I’d been able to devise. Thus, on the night in question, I sat alone drinking cheap Ghentoy red laced with raw spirit, and never mind that I’d squandered coin originally intended for next week’s rent to purchase the jugs. Morose as I was, I had more immediate needs.

  Someone rapped on the door.

  My first half-tipsy thought was that I’d lost track of the date, and the landlord had come for his due, but a moment’s reflection assured me that couldn’t be so. Perhaps here was my first pupil, then, unlikely as that seemed at this late hour.

  I straightened my jerkin, smoothed down my hair, and hurried to answer the knock. When I did, a stooped old woman squinted at me from the other side of the threshold.

  She wore charms, talismans made of bone and feathers and other items hidden in little cloth bags, dangling around her wrinkled neck. But had you seen her, you wouldn’t have thought sorceress. You would have thought witch.

  For there was nothing about her to suggest the sort of citified mage who pores over grimoires, compounds elixirs from rare ingredients, and commands devils via complex ritual and force of will. Rather, she was manifestly a village wise woman who knew only the patchy lore her mother passed down to her, brewed dubious remedies from whatever happened to grow nearby, and dickered with goblins in a manner little different than she’d haggle with a neighbor.

  Surprised, I said, “Mother Elkinda.”

  She sniffed twice. “You stink of drink.”

  “Whereas you stink of the usual.” It was true. There are rustic folk who give the lie to the insult dirty peasant, but she wasn’t one of them. “And I suppose that, as we both smell already, a hug won’t make it any worse.”

  We put that to the test, and afterward, I ushered her inside.

  “How did you know I was in the city?” I asked.

  “The wind whispered it to me, and then I dowsed my way to your door.” She hefted a gnarled walking stick.

  “Well, it’s good you came when you did,” I said. “In a week or two, I’ll likely be gone.” Soldiering again, if I could find a captain to take me on this late in the season.

  I don’t think she even registered the glumness in my tone. “I need your help,” she said. “I…may have done a bad thing.”

  Concern nudged aside my self-pity. I waved her on toward the rickety table.

  She stumbled before she got there. It was a long hike from her little forest village to the city, and she’d exhausted herself making it. I caught her, got her into a chair, poured her a cup of wine, and sat back down across from her. “Tell me,” I said.

  She took a long drink first. When she set the goblet down, she said, “There are trolls in the wood.”

  More concerned now, I nodded. “I know.”

  “Well, what you may not know is that sometimes they need blessings and medicine just like people do. Then they come to me.”

  I frowned. “That’s like trafficking with outlaws, only worse. People would hang you if they found out.”

  She glowered. “I give the trolls things they need, and in return, they leave the village alone. We couldn’t live where we do, otherwise.”

  “I can believe it,” I said. “And I wasn’t condemning you, just worried for your sake. Please, go on.”

  “Well…two of the trolls who came to me were Skav Hearteater, their chieftain, and Ojojum, his mate. Their problem was, she couldn’t conceive.”

  “And that upset them?”

  “Yes. In some ways, trolls and people are alike. Through my craft, I discovered the fault lay with Skav, but when I tried to quicken his seed with the usual remedies, nothing happened.”

  “So you tried something unusual?”

  “Once I was fool enough to tell the trolls the notion that had come to me, they insisted. Had I refused, how do you think it would have ended?”

  “With your flesh in their bellies,” I said. “So what did you do?”

  “I called a spirit of lust and fertility and put it inside the Hearteater. My thought was that he would share the imp’s vigor the next time he and Ojojum coupled.” She smiled. “And I was right. She’s with child.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  The smile disappeared. “Skav changed. He’d always doted on Ojojum. But afterward, he started beating her until, fearful she’d lose the baby, she ran away.”

  “Ran away and came to you. Because she suspected your magic was to blame? More to the point, do you think it’s to blame?”

  Elkinda sighed. “Perhaps. When the spirit came, I sensed it was something crueler and less biddable than I meant to catch. Something from the netherworld and not just out of Nature.”

  “You should have tossed it back and tried again.”

  “That’s easy to say now, but I’d had trouble summoning anything. I didn’t know if I’d be lucky a second time, and with the trolls watching and waiting…”

  “I understand,” I said. “Well, partly. Do you believe the spirit’s touch poisoned Skav’s mind?”

  “Worse. I fear it didn’t leave his body when it was supposed to. I need you to find out if it’s still inside.”

  “What, now?”

  “I can fix it so you’re able to see the incubus once you’re close enough. I need to know for a fact that it’s there and how it looks before I can set about casting it out.”

  “Then go peer at Skav yourself. You’re the one who’s friendly with him.”

  She shook her head. “The spirit would be suspicious of me.”

  “Whereas the trolls will eat me simply because they’re hungry.”

  She grimaced. “I know what I’m asking. But dangerous as trolls are, the ones hereabout mostly leave people alone. They won’t do that much longer if a demon has possessed their chief. They’ll start hunting humans every chance they get, and you’re the only one I can ask to help me keep it from happening.”

  She didn’t add that I owed her my life. Apparently she trusted me to remember that for myself.

  I came down with the plague called the Bloody Noose when my mercenary company was chasing bandits on the fringe of the Forest of Thorns. For fear of contagion, my comrades abandoned me. Mother Elkinda found me a day later.

  She always claimed the foul potions and gruels she gave me cured me of my affliction. I had my doubts. But I didn’t doubt that after the delirium passed and I was breathing normally again, my lingering weakness would still have killed me had she not nursed me through the two long months of my recovery.

  Now the debt had come due. I poured us each another drink and said, “Tell me how I’ll be able to spot the imp.”

  NOW YOU KNOW how I came to find mysel
f deep in the woods facing a troll. But you may still wonder why I approached the creatures openly when I might have spied on them instead.

  This was my thinking. Mother Elkinda knew the trolls; she watched the trails in the heart of the wood, but not where they laired. I could have crept around for days before I found the place, and even when I had, I might not recognize Skav. I’d never seen him before, and to human eyes, one naked beast-man tends to looks like another. And once I did identify him, I’d still need to come close to discern the incubus inside, close enough to make concealment problematic.

  Thus, passing myself off as an emissary seemed a better option. Or at least it did until the troll roared and rushed me with ham-sized, jagged-clawed hands outstretched.

  I jumped aside, and he lunged past me. As he lurched back around, I snatched my sword out. He hesitated, but not, I judged, because the blade frightened him. He was simply considering how to contend with it.

  At least that gave me another chance to talk. “I know where Ojojum is,” I told him. “I think the Hearteater will want to hear, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he growled, then instantly swatted at the sword in an attempt to knock it aside.

  I twitched the blade above the arc of the blow and sliced him across the knuckles. He snatched his hand back, and in that instant, I lunged closer and set sharp steel against his dangling, warty genitals. He froze.

  “Give me your word,” I said, “that you’ll take me to Skav without any more nonsense. Or I swear I’ll geld you.”

  “I’ll take you,” he said. His voice still sounded like growls and coughs. It reminded me of the lions I’d seen in the grasslands of Lazvalla.

  I shifted my sword away from his maleness and returned it to its scabbard. I didn’t like doing it, but it seemed unwieldy to approach Skav as an envoy and a hostage taker, too.

  To my relief, the creature before me didn’t try another attack. Instead, he led me on down the path. Evidently the feel of a blade against his tender parts had made a lasting impression.

  His cooperation notwithstanding, I never dropped my guard. But eventually I relaxed somewhat, and then I asked, “What sort of mood is the Hearteater in today?”