by By The Sword
The sky was filled with stars and sound. A great wind raced out of the mountains to the north, bending treetops and snapping twigs, scattering dead leaves and the remnants of the harvest, chasing summer before it to the edge of the sea.
In the vast forest beyond the village of Markan, there was no light at all save for the sputtering glow of a campfire at the back of a small clearing. Two men huddled over the stone-ringed flames, studiously ignoring the crawling shadows the fire cast on the lower branches. Their clothes were ragged and ill-fitting, singed in a few places that had nothing to do with the fire at hand, and their threadbare hooded cloaks were gathered around them like blankets.
They could hear the wind, and were grateful they couldn't yet feel it; they couldn't see the stars.
"I tell you, I have a bad feeling about this, Trax," the first man said. He was burly and tall, his face and hands scarred by knife and sword. In his left hand he held the slightly overcooked haunch of a scrawny rabbit. The rest of the animal was still on the spit over the flames.
Trax, who was smaller but no less strong, sighed with exaggerated patience. "So? You always have bad feelings, Castus."
"It's my nature."
"And you're usually wrong."
Castus chewed thoughtfully, staring at the flames. "Usually doesn't mean all the time."
Trax didn't bother to argue. His friend got that way sometimes, all introspective and contemplative, thinking about things a mere mortal shouldn't concern himself with, especially in a strange place in the middle of a night that shouldn't have been so cold. In Trax's view, living was what counted. As long as you could. Stealing, too, of course, but that was part of living. His living, anyway. And if the gods wouldn't mind a touch of hubris here, he was pretty good at it, too.
The problem was, being a thief, even one with the skills and panache he had, hadn't gotten him very rich. In fact, he thought glumly, rich didn't even enter into it. Bloody poor was more like it.
Until now.
A hand reached out to be sure the bundle that lay between them was still there. It was long, swathed in thick black leather that shone in the firelight, and securely tied with heavy cord. It had taken them over a week to get it. It had cost them the lives of four of their band.
Of which, unpleasant truth be known, only he and Castus remained.
Castus gnawed the bone to get at the marrow. "You think he'll come?"
"He'll come."
The clearing lay fifteen paces from the woodland trail; they sat at the clearing's back so they could see, or hear, anyone approach.
"You think he'll bring the money?"
"He will."
"A hundred dinars, Trax."
"Gold," the thief corrected with a dreamy smile. "A hundred dinars in pure gold, my friend. And we'll get twice, three times that much from the changers in Sparta if we're lucky. Midas should be so rich."
"You think—"
Trax thumped him impatiently on the top of his head with a loose fist. "Stop it! You think too much.
It'll make your head hurt."
"It hurts now."
Trax thumped him again, just for the hell of it. Castus was a lifelong friend; they had been through a lot of adventures together, shared cells and women and too many close calls to count, but there were times—
like tonight—when he wanted to thump the man into the ground, just to shut him up. Castus worried at his worries as if they were that stupid rabbit's bone.
Sparks flared from the pit.
The wind soughed.
"I'm going to buy a chariot," Castus announced, and yanked another haunch off the rabbit on the spit.
Trax stared at him in disbelief. "You're what?"
"I'm tired of walking all the time. My feet hurt. When my feet hurt, I can't think straight."
Trax was about to thump him again, but reconsidered when he realized that the man actually had a decent idea for a change. Why sneak into a village, rob the inn or whatever, and have to run away? Lately it seemed as if there were at least a dozen men who could run faster than they did, which often led to him getting a thumping of his own, not to mention the kicking and gouging and slapping around.
Half the time, now that he thought about it, he and his cohorts never even made it out of the village.
But a chariot... !
"You're a genius," he whispered in reluctant admiration.
"My head hurts."
A chariot would give them an advantage no other thieves in the kingdom had—at least four more feet.
Of course, on the downside, there was the expense. You had to buy a horse, or the chariot wouldn't work. Then you had to feed the horse, grease the wheels so they wouldn't squeak at night, keep the reins in good repair, cushions in the back in case one of them got lucky.... He frowned, then shrugged. No matter. It was better than getting pounded by a dozen angry villagers. That tended to take the spark out of thieving, no question about it.
On the other hand, if the village had a good chariot of its own . ..
"I hear something."
Trax looked up, automatically adjusting his hood to keep his face in shadow.
Someone had left the trail, and was making no effort to conceal his approach.
"You think it's him?" Castus whispered, nervously nibbling on the haunch.
Trax lay a protective hand on the bundle. "If it's not, you'll have to .. . you know."
He shouldn't have worried; his friend already had his dagger in hand, hidden now by the folds of his cloak. Castus thinking was a danger only to himself; Castus fighting with his trusty spiral dagger was a danger to everyone else.
Seconds later a figure broke through the underbrush and entered the clearing. He was tall, wearing thick black leather armor studded with medallions of burnished silver and polished bone. His heavy boots laced up to thighs thick as trunks. His gleaming black
cloak rippled. The hilt of his sword caught the firelight-He wore no helmet, made no attempt to hide his face.
"Do you have it?" was all he said.
Castus lumbered to his feet, still holding dagger and haunch. "You have to give the password."
The man scoffed. "You can see it's me, you fool." "The gods have been known to assume human forms."
Trax held the bundle protectively to his chest and rose cautiously, suddenly wishing he were as tall as his friend. He sincerely hoped Castus remembered the password, because he sure didn't.
"The password," Castus repeated, his voice deep, exposing the dagger's blade.
The man lowered his head and shook it slowly. "My feet hurt."
Castus bobbed his head and grinned. "So do mine. I'm going to buy a chariot, you know. If the horse's feet hurt, I won't care."
The man glared. "That's the password, you idiot!"
"Oh." Castus laughed. "Right. I forgot."
I will disappear now, Trax decided; I will find a rabbit hole and I will jump into it and disappear.
"The prize?" the man demanded.
Trax stepped around the fire pit and said boldly, "The reward?"
They stared at each other for several long seconds before the man plucked a small sack from his belt and tossed it to Castus, who caught it against his chest. Trax hesitated, then handed the bundle over, retreating quickly as soon as the man had it.
The man began to unwrap it. "I have to be sure."
"Of course," Trax agreed readily. "You wouldn't want to be cheated."
The man glanced at him. "I am never cheated."
"Of course not. And we wouldn't think of it, would we, Castus?"
"Trax?"
The rope slithered to the ground.
Trax li
cked his lips impatiently. He wanted to be gone. He wanted to be in Sparta, convert the gold, and be gone. Preferably somewhere a hundred leagues across the sea.
"Trax?"
"What?"
Castus held out his hand. "It's empty."
The leather wrapping dropped to the ground.
"What's empty?"
"The sack. There's no gold, Trax. He didn't give us our gold." Suddenly the fire pit dimmed as the clearing filled with a brilliant red light. Oh boy, Trax thought. Just before he screamed.
Markan was a village of fair size and reasonable prosperity. Its businesses were located on three sides of a cobblestone square, while the open, southern side allowed a sweeping view of rich grassland, distant forest, and the towering, now snowcapped mountains beyond, perpetually swathed by pale mist. In the center of the square was an ancient well around which had been set hard-carved, slightly curved stone benches for the comfort of local and traveler alike.
The homes of the village's inhabitants were set primarily behind the square, reached by narrow streets and alleys most felt perfectly safe in walking alone, even at the darkest hour of the stormiest night. There was no fortress wall here; even the farmers and herders in the valley had little fear of raiders and thieves.
It wasn't that such bloodthirsty men didn't exist; it was simply that the vigilance of the king's patrols didn't permit them to exist for very long.
Most Markans agreed in public and private that King Arclin was, except for the occasional tax and tithe, a pretty fair man for a king. Like his father before him, he never executed anyone who didn't deserve it, and, like his father, he knew how to throw one hell of a party when the harvest was in.
On this particularly warm afternoon the square was busy and pleasantly noisy. Brightly clothed women gathered at the well for water and gossip, strapping young men gathered at the well for water and the women, some shopped, some haggled, some laughed, and a demented flock of wild-throated children pursued imagined monsters and evil warriors in and out of the area in a manner just shy of chaos.
Comfortably nestled at the north side was the Bull and Bullock Inn. Outside, beneath an overhanging roof of well-kept thatch, the owner had placed a quintet of small tables for use during pleasant weather, or when the air inside grew too stifling. Within were twice that number carefully placed across the constantly swept floor; plus lanterns on the roof posts to keep the large room bright, a long table that served as a bar for those who didn't want to sit at the tables, decorations on the walls, and a barmaid whose beauty had been measured against the best the kingdom had to offer, and not found wanting.
Nikos Veleralus was content.
Business was good, especially now that Markan had taken long strides in establishing itself as a regular stopping place for travelers going south to escape the harsh winter. Nikos had six fair rooms upstairs and a four-stall stable behind the main building, and they were always filled. His barrels of wine and ale were regularly tapped. And his food, while perhaps not the same elegant cuisine as might be served to a king, sufficed to keep a good man's belly filled without complaint. Even now, during that part of the afternoon when the inn was usually empty, a man sat at one of the tables, enjoying the daily special.
Life, in other words, was pretty much perfect.
Except, Nikos noted sourly, for the urchin racing through the doorway.
Nikos couldn't stand urchins. They were short, they were unbearably noisy, their clothes were disgustingly filthy, and they had the tactless habit of pointing out at the tops of their shrill voices that his nose was too big for the rest of his face. Much too big.
This particular one, who couldn't have been more than eight or nine, fell heavily against the bar, gulping for air. "Nose," he gasped breathlessly, his grimy face puffed with exertion. "Nose."
Nikos glared. "What?" he said flatly. Although he wasn't more than average in height and looks, and noteworthy for nothing other than his nose, he had an experienced bartender's grasp of moderately sincere expressions, ranging from sympathy for a man's troubles with his wife or cattle to if-you-cause-any-more-trouble-ITl-belt-you-senseless-with-my-club.
For the urchin he used the tolerant mode, but only because one couldn't belt a child with the club.
"Bones."
Nikos rolled his eyes. "Sorry, lad, but I gave them to the dogs last night. You have to be quicker than that."
The boy shook his head as he tried to catch his breath again, and Nikos shuddered when something fell out and crawled erratically across the floor. "Bones," the boy repeated. His large eyes blinked wildly, his grimy hands fluttered dangerously over the just-cleaned bar. "Bones."
Experience finally suggested that something was wrong. Urchins generally didn't hang around the Bull and Bullock gasping "Bones" every day. "Nose," maybe, and once in a while "Beak," but never "Bones."
He dipped a small cup into a bucket of water, walked around the bar, and sat as he handed the drink to the child. Gingerly. "What bones?" he asked.
The boy drank gratefully, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and said, "In the forest."
The innkeeper put a thoughtful finger to his chin. "Bones in the forest, eh?"
"Yes."
"Animal bones were they?"
The boy's eyes widened further, and he shook his head vigorously. Luckily, nothing else fell out.
"Oh no. People bones."
Nikos' eyes narrowed in suspicion. "People bones? Are you sure, boy?"
"Oh, yes." The boy gestured feebly toward the door and took a deep breath. ' 'We were playing Hercules, you see, and 1 was a cyclops and Dorry was Hercules and he chased me into this clearing and I almost got away except he jumped on me, which he wasn't supposed to do because 1 wasn't supposed to get dirty today, but Dorry didn't know that, so he jumped on me and we fell down and we landed... we landed on—"
The boy hiccuped as soon as he ran out of air.
Nikos, who was still lost somewhere back in the just-getting-to-the-clearing part, waited patiently.
Smiling as only adults can do when they haven't the faintest idea what a child was talking about but didn't want to admit it.
Then he saw the unmistakable glint of a tear in the corner of the boy's eye.
More accurately, he saw the pale track the tear made through the grime on the boy's face.
"All right, lad, all right," he said gently, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder before he realized what he was doing. "You take it easy, take your time, tell me when you're ready."
"But I already told you!" the boy wailed in exasperation. "We was in the clearing, Dorry jumped on me, we fell on some bones, they were people bones, Dorry got scared and ran home, and so did I."
Nikos blinked in astonishment, squinted, and looked closer, prepared to be appalled.
He was.
"Bestor, is that you?"
The boy, who, as it turns out, was Nikos' son, nodded, and hiccuped, and another tear track began to work its way toward his chin.
"By the gods, boy, you're filthy!"
"We was playing."
"You look like an urchin!"
Bestor lowered his head contritely. "Sorry, Father."
An urgent shout outside distracted Nikos for a moment, just long enough for his son to throw his arms around his waist, bury his face in his chest, and begin to sob. The innkeeper patted the boy's back awkwardly, torn between the realization that his very own son had turned into an urchin when he wasn't looking, and the news that human bones had been discovered in the forest.
He sighed loudly. Life had been a lot simpler when the boy's mother was alive.
Bestor lifted his face. "Father, what shall I do?"
"Take a bath."
The boy gasped in horror.
Nikos scowled, not at the boy's reaction but upon hearing another shout, this one rather frantic, and coming from the square. "Wait here," he ordered as he rose.
"But, Father, the bones!"
Nikos didn't respond. He strode angrily to the doorw
ay, determined to find out who was disturbing his peaceful afternoon. Probably more urchins. The selfsame urchins who had seduced his only son into for-getting his manners, his lessons, his station in life.
He stepped outside just as a woman screamed.
He put a hand to his chest and muttered, "Oh my."
It wasn't urchins.
It was the Corsco brothers.
For well over a year, the two Corsco brothers had, for some unknown reason, made it their profession to terrorize the village whenever they needed a few dinars, some free food, or some illicit recreation. Homes had been damaged, bones and skulls broken, purses snatched, and women defiled. While the Markan men certainly weren't cowards, neither were they, singly or in groups, capable of taking on ill-tempered men whose arms and legs were broad as boulders, and whose strength was such that tables had been split in half with a single one of their blows.
"Oh my," Nikos said again.
The brothers had cornered two women by the well, and the square, in a disturbing fit of self-preservation, had emptied without a fight. Every few seconds a foolhardy man would race in, wave his arms threateningly, and race out again.
The brothers only laughed as they pushed the women back and forth between them.
Then Nikos growled.
The women were Lydia Cember and her younger sister, Dutricia.
"Father," Bestor exclaimed from the doorway, "look, it's Lydia!"
Nikos nodded grimly. Both he and the boy were in love with Lydia, and she, it appeared, with them. It had been his plan, in fact, to propose a union before the season was over, and he had no doubt she would accept.
"Nikos!"
She had seen him, started to run toward him, and was grabbed from behind by Francus Corsco, who immediately began a disgusting, and loud nuzzling of her neck.
Enraged beyond reason, Nikos whirled, raced inside, reached over the bar, and grabbed the hefty club he used to keep the peace on nights when his customers threatened to become rowdy. He had never actually had to use the thing, just display it, but this was an emergency. He smacked it against his palm and, once outside again, saw that Sinius Corsco had lifted Dutricia onto the well's lip, held her by one arm, and laughingly threatened to shove her over the side. Lydia was on a bench, Francus snorting and pawing hungrily at her skirts.