Damned if his training wasn’t going to get him killed.
Wollis looked at him for another long moment and responded. “Aye. Ho, Captain.”
Damned if Wollis’ training wasn’t going to get them killed too.
Naturally they couldn’t merely get on with what was planned. That would require participation from the people who’d hired them, in this case the three women who worked for Desh Krohan. Krohan was a legendary sorcerer. According to the stories he was not only old enough to remember the third Emperor, he was also powerful enough to kill his enemies from hundreds of miles away. The annoying thing about those sorts of claims was that they were damned hard to disprove. Maybe the wizard had killed an enemy in another part of the world and maybe he was just saying he had. What was known for certain was that a few people who’d angered him had died under unusual circumstances. Also, just because the books of lore claimed that a wizard named Desh Krohan lived four hundred years back didn’t guarantee it was the same man. Merros was hardly the only soldier to have borne his name, and yet no one mistook him for his great grandfather or his second cousin. Hard to prove.
What Merros knew for certain was that the alleged sorcerer paid in gold, and that whatever the hell was hiding under the cloak had offered him a very large sum of money and paid him enough in advance to supply the wagons. What he suspected was that the man was probably adept at certain magicks and had built a reputation for himself that was at least half false claims. In any event the money was good and it was best not to refuse a man who could just possibly destroy your entire bloodline with little more than a few drops of blood and the very large cauldron he’d seen delivered to the sorcerer’s domicile.
Even if that meant dealing with the three women who were now heading in his direction, while the surviving soldiers and workers gathered their dead and their belongings.
They were distractingly attractive women. Even dressed for the cold as they were, the soldiers turned and looked as the three approached Merros. He set his jaw and did his best not to look into their eyes. Despite extremely shapely forms – shapely enough that the furs seemed only to emphasize rather than detract from them – it was when he looked at their faces that he tended to forget how to think and to reason without wanting to–
Enough of that.
The brunette, Pella, spoke to him, her voice clear despite the wind. “Desh asks that you gather the bodies of the Pra-Moresh and take them with you as you follow the rider.”
“What? How does he know about the beasts? About the rider for that matter.” He didn’t mean to be curt, but he’d seen and heard nothing from the sorcerer in over a month, and had only encountered the women who served the wizard when they left their wagon to tend to nature’s call or to eat.
The blonde this time, her hair almost as white as the snow, her eyes so light a blue as to make him want to stare. Her lips full of promises and temptations best not thought about. Her name was – he looked away from that mouth with an effort – Goriah. “Desh has seen the battle with the Pra-Moresh. He has also seen your meeting with the rider.”
“Really? Would you care to tell me what happens then?” Even he heard the skeptical tone in his voice. He believed in the abilities of wizards. It was sorcery that had destroyed the land he stood on, magic that had raised the City of Wonders from the ashes of old Canhoon. Still, the claims of seeing the future always left him doubtful. How could it be proved after the fact? He had heard far too many claim they could see the future.
The red-haired one responded, waving one delicate hand dismissively. “What has been seen will come to pass. Your inability to believe in the Sooth does not change it.”
“So he knows nothing then?” Merros shook his head and damned near bit his own tongue. What had he been saying to himself ever since he took the commission? Angering mages is a wonderful way to end a life or twelve.
The redhead, Tataya, stared at him with hazel eyes that glittered in the cold. “You will lose your hand, find your fist and gain an ally. You will also meet your enemy face-to-face.”
Without another word the woman spun away, heading slowly back toward her wagon. He stared for a moment, cursing her shape for being distracting, cursing his tongue for asking questions and his mind for immediately trying to interpret the riddle of her words.
“Wait. What does that mean?” His voice was harsh, bordered on demanding as he looked to the other women.
Both of them lowered their eyes, lowered their faces, and then stepped back toward the wagon, not quite as dismissively as the redhead, but their postures told him he would get no more answers.
He gave thought to spitting, but it was cold enough that the damned stuff would likely freeze to his skin. Instead he pulled his scarf back over his lower face and moved to join the men as they readied the horses.
Fifteen minutes after the rider had left the campsite, Merros and his people did the same, following behind the stranger as best they could in the near-darkness of the late afternoon. They’d have surely lost him but the bodies of the Pra-Moresh left long trails to follow and even the constant winds of the Blasted Lands weren’t enough to scour away the heavy marks left in the occasional drifts of snow and ash.
The ride was long, and better men than Merros were in charge of following the trail and taking care of poor Lundt, who was sobbing softly as he fought to keep his life for himself and not for the great darkness. He left them to it. Instead he reflected on exactly how he’d come to this point and what it meant.
Retirement from the army meant a stipend. Not enough to live comfortably, but enough to eke out a living. As Merros had hired on when he was barely of age, he’d retired while young enough to do other things with his life. The sad fact was, however, that there was little he was good at aside from being a soldier. Little that interested him for that matter. So when the three women came to him and made their offer on behalf of the wizard, he said yes. There was a real possibility that he might not have said yes quite as quickly had they not been very attractive women, but the odds were still that he would have. The money was good and he was on the edge of going out to the pubs and looking for fights to join into, or worse, signing on with the City Guard to keep himself from getting too bored. The City Guard: as far as he was concerned they were the worst sorts of rabble. Most of them couldn’t make it as soldiers and so they had signed up as local enforcement and bullied their way around, believing that made up for their lack of actual skill. He’d lived in a dozen towns and as far as he was concerned it was the same in all of them.
He didn’t know why the wizard wanted to examine the Seven Forges. He didn’t much care, either. He understood the reasoning well enough. There were, according to the legends, numerous treasures just waiting to be recaptured: great war machines, cold and sorcerous weapons lost during the great Annihilation that founded the Empire of Fellein, hundreds of years ago – possibly more than a thousand, though, of course, no one could say with certainty any longer. Too many years, too many wars and catastrophes had happened to guarantee the accuracy of anything written in the history books.
All he needed to know was that gold was involved. If that sounded mercenary, then so be it. The fact was simple: he was taking on a very dangerous assignment and he had every intention of finishing it as quickly and efficiently as he could.
The rider they were following, however, did not go with any of the ideas he’d had for how this would play out. There were expeditions that had not come back in the past. Some did; Wollis was a perfect example of successful expeditions. He’d spoken with his second at length regarding what to expect and so far they’d encountered exactly what was supposed to be out here. Nothing.
Now Pra-Moresh came out of the damned shadows and strange riders came along to kill the monsters and take the bodies. He looked behind the last wagon and saw that the remaining carcasses were still chained to the end of the wagon, as they should be. Wollis had another rider with him, both trailing behind the wagons, and his second nodded before
moving forward. He hadn’t meant to summon the man, but didn’t much mind the company.
Wollis pulled up next to him, the horse under him looking as calm as could be, despite the way all of the animals had acted earlier when the Pra-Moresh came for them. That was good. The animals being skittish would have made everything worse.
“Do you think we’ll catch him?” Wollis’ voice was brusque. It was always brusque.
“Maybe not for a few more hours.” He squinted and looked toward the distant smear on the horizon. “Whatever that thing is he’s riding, it’s faster than the horses.”
“Damned well should be. Did you see the size of it?”
“It’s pulling four Pra-Moresh. Our best horses are struggling with the weight of three.”
“Well, they’ve also got a wagon.” Wollis looked back at the team of four horses. “Alright. And his mount is pulling four…” The man looked from the team toward the distant shape. He let out a low grunt of disbelief.
“So you can see why I think he might outdistance us with ease.”
“I don’t suppose we could take half the soldiers and catch up with him?”
Merros shook his head. “Much as I would like that, I don’t feel we can safely leave our supplies and our charges undefended.” Wollis opened his mouth to protest and Merros countered before he could. “We have just survived an attack by seven particularly large beasts. I don’t want to take a chance that there are more of them out there. Also, I don’t want to offend that rider without having a great deal of back up.”
“But–”
“He killed four of the beasts. Four. Think that through. We lost six men. Seven if you count poor Lundt. We killed three of the damned things.”
Wollis nodded his head and sighed. They rode in silence for a while and finally Wollis spoke up again. “I’ve been out here twice and never seen so much as a shrub growing. In one day we’ve seen more than I have seen in over a year of my life spent out here.”
“What do you suppose that means, Wollis?”
The man looked out at the distant mountains. The glow from the Seven Forges was lighting the sky in that direction a dark, angry red. Even from miles away the light from each mountain was distinct. There were seven red stains on the underbelly of the clouds.
“Honestly? I think it means I was lucky.”
“Why’s that?”
Wollis reached into his saddlebag and pulled a stick of dried meat from its depths. He brushed it clean of lint and dust and then clamped it between his teeth before he answered. “Either it means I’ve never had the misfortune of running across the Pra-Moresh before, or I’ve never had the misfortune of running across the sort of man who hunts them.”
“Hunts them?” Merros looked hard at him.
Wollis chewed on his dried meat for a moment while his eyes scanned the horizon. Best to be careful, a lesson they’d almost forgotten earlier. “Hunts them.”
“Why the hell would anyone hunt those things?”
“Merros, why would anyone come out to this gods-forgotten land and kill those things and then take the bodies with them? They wouldn’t, unless they were actively hunting them down to kill and keep.”
Merros stared hard at the distant shape. The shape they were following, because he’d ordered it.
“Well, that’s… that’s…”
“Insane? Maybe.” Wollis finally had the meat softened enough to actually tear a chunk free. The rest he put back in his saddlebag. “Now tell me, Captain, what does that say about the sort of fools who then follow the man who goes hunting after that sort of creature?”
Merros had no answer to that. Wollis drifted back to the end of the caravan, and Merros let him. He had to think. He had a lot to think about.
They kept riding, not quite immune to the cold, the ash and the wind, but close enough that they seldom noticed unless the winds gusted. Merros didn’t like to think about how long it had been since he’d had a proper bath. Back in the capital city of Tyrne he had bathed nearly every day, and when he was younger, before the army moved him to a different place, he had bathed every day in the river at the edge of the family farm. A smile crept across his face as he thought about a few of the encounters he’d had with Delih, the girl who’d lived just down the road from his family back then. He didn’t let himself dwell on those memories for too long, however, as the only women he’d seen in far too long were decidedly unavailable for his needs.
Not married. Never married. He told himself he was fine with that, but sometimes there was that little ghost of a voice that wondered how different his world would have been with a family of his own: a wife, children, possibly even a son among them.
Enough. The dot in the distance was growing a bit larger. Either the rider had stopped to rest, or he was waiting for them. Either way, he wanted this done.
No. There was one option he hadn’t considered. The rider was coming back. He gestured over his shoulder and a moment later Wollis pulled up beside him again, not the least bit inconvenienced by the change of plans.
“Is it me? Or is he coming back our way?”
Wollis stared long and hard and finally spat a wad of dark phlegm into the snow. Wollis was from a people that spat to show their dissatisfaction. In this case, however, he was merely clearing his mouth of the ash that constantly blew through the air of the Blasted Lands.
“It’s not you. He’s definitely coming back.”
“Right then. Alert the others and be ready.” He looked at Wollis long and hard. “I’m going to meet him.”
“Do you want company?”
“No.” He looked back at the Pra-Moresh being dragged behind the last wagon. “But I want those bodies. Have Lomma catch up with me.”
“He’ll be delighted, I’m sure.” The sarcasm was obvious, even through the winds. Lomma was not a fighter. He was a whiner. He’d been damned near crying at every opportunity since they’d started this fool’s expedition. That was the problem with hiring civilians for a trip, but in this case the man also owned the wagon and the horses. He had come along to protect his property.
“He’s not that bad, is he?”
“He is, and you know he is. I swear he whines more than my wife did when she gave birth to our ass-first son.”
Merros chuckled and shook his head. “Does Nolan know you call him that?”
Wollis rolled his eyes. “Gods no. If he did he’d have slit my throat in my sleep.”
That was probably true. At fourteen the lad was constantly in a bad mood. “Get on with it and wish me well.”
“Oh, I wish you very well. Make a friend, not a foe. I should rather not die today.” Wollis turned his horse and rode back at a fast trot, while the captain shook his head, checked his sword and weapons, and then charged forward, quickly moving past the caravan. He spared one look behind him to see that Lomma was indeed following, though not quite as quickly.
He had long enough to consider what he wanted to say to the stranger. Having seen the man kill four of the fiercest creatures he’d ever seen in motion, he wanted very much for their meeting to be friendly.
The wagon lurched to a halt next to his horse, and Lomma looked toward him, a worried sneer on the lame man’s round face. Lomma had been a soldier once, but hadn’t fared well in a border skirmish to the south. The end result was a right foot that was missing all of the toes, and a knee that refused to hold him in an upright position unless he was bracing himself with a cane. To that end, the man seldom left his wagon if he could avoid it.
“That the one I saw earlier killing all those things?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I just wanted to make sure.” He very calmly reached over and held up his crossbow: a massive thing, with a bolt large enough to take down a bear. It was also only good for one shot, because to reload it required the use of a pulley system.
“You plan on using that, don’t even raise it unless he attacks me first.”
“Don’t plan on using it at all, but if he kills you, I
’ll give it a try.” Lomma didn’t even bother looking at him. Instead he focused on the rider coming closer. Merros took the time to look the rider over again as well, and was not made more comfortable on the second assessment.
The man was large. Not gigantic, but decidedly large. Though like everyone else he was bundled up against the cold, his forearms were exposed to the elements, and even from a distance Merros could see the muscles moving smoothly under the skin as the rider casually moved the reins and rested one hand near the hilt of a well-worn sword pommel. His face was still covered by both a veil to protect from the ash and by the heavy helmet he wore under the hood of his cloak.
The thing he rode, first taken for a horse, was anything but. Closer up he could see the thick fur of the thing, the heavy, padded feet and claws designed for gripping the rough, icy surface, and the metal latticework over the face that both helped protect from the elements and, unfortunately, hid away the features of the thing. Merros thought he’d imagined the claws on the feet of the beast earlier, but now knew better. What the hell was he getting himself into?
Merros might well have continued staring at the man, but motion at the edge of his vision caught his attention and made him look to his left, where the three women of the mage were walking closer, their cloaks whipping in the strong winds.
“Why are you here?” His words were demanding. They were not here except to report to their damnable wizard. He didn’t like that they were suddenly comfortable walking where they pleased after so long keeping to themselves.
Their faces were too well-covered, but he recognized the blue eyes of the blonde woman. “In case you cannot speak his tongue. In case you need someone to speak on your behalf, Captain.”
“You know about this man? About the thing he rides?” The notion was preposterous. How could they know of him when they’d never been out here before?
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