by Tom Lloyd
They were comfortably short of where the attack had happened so for a while they moved as quickly as the terrain permitted, but after an hour Payl raised a hand to stop her group. She crouched and squinted forward. It took Lynx a moment to pick Teshen out from the undergrowth, so he only caught the last of the man’s gestures, but it was no signal code he’d seen before anyway.
‘Kas has found ’em,’ Payl called softly back. ‘Lookout by the road, camp further down – Teshen will deal with the lookout.’
‘What’s the order?’ Lynx asked.
Payl glanced back at him, her face unreadable. ‘Employer wasn’t too specific there, she just asked for justice.’
‘We killing the bastards or not?’ Varain growled.
‘Piles giving you gyp again, Varain?’ Tyn asked.
‘You’re the only pain in my arse, woman.’
She smirked. ‘You’d love it if I was.’
‘Quiet, the pair of you,’ Payl said despairingly. ‘Order depends on what we find there. I want to take them unawares, quick and bloodless if we can. Varain and Tyn, on my right. Once we’ve got the target, take their right flank and follow my lead. I doubt they’ll put up a fight if they find a mage-gun in their faces. I’ll keep a burner in the pipe just in case, rest of you load icers.’
Lynx allowed himself a small moment of relief as he pulled his mage-gun from the sheath on his back. Too many mercenaries would just kill everyone in sight – it wasn’t like there was any law in these parts to object – but Payl clearly had no desire for blood.
He clicked open the chamber of his gun and slipped a slender brass cartridge from his cartridge case. One end was wadded tight, holding a porcelain bullet inside, while the other was capped with fired clay and marked with the runic shape denoting ‘ice’. When he pulled the trigger, the hammer would crack the clay and break the magic-charged glass core against the porcelain. That would shatter into dust, which for reasons Lynx didn’t understand was the best medium for the magic to explode forwards faster than any arrow. Icers had greater range and accuracy than other types – powerful enough to kill at almost half a mile – but lacking the terrifying destruction of a burner or sparker.
Lynx closed the gun up again, hands moving out of habit, and stood ready until Payl signalled for them to advance. Unwelcome memories intruded as the group slipped forward through the trees, moving quiet and swift towards Kas. His army career had been relatively short-lived, but the So Han elite commandos had fought this way – tearing a quick and efficient path through the unprepared militias they faced. From the outset, Lynx had learned in a baptism of fire as months of intense fighting had carved them a path hundreds of miles east across the continent. By the time the main army had caught up with their progress, most of the fighting was done and the defenders already shocked into capitulation.
Payl led the way, with Varain and Tyn slipping to the right so they were twenty yards away by the time she reached Kas. The bluff, light-hearted woman of the previous night was all business now, briefly describing the camp up ahead without a second glance at Lynx.
‘Hundred yards, I count five. No watch, just the lookout on the road. Tents in a hollow, small fire burning. Bracken all around. Teshen or I could get within ten yards without being seen. There’s a big oak up ahead, follow me and you’ll be close enough.’
Payl nodded and gestured forward with her gun. It was a heavy, blockish weapon – one that could be used as a club without much risk to the integrity of the barrel. The shorter barrel limited the accuracy, but given fire-bolts exploded into flames when they struck, that wouldn’t prove much of a problem.
Kas scuttled forward, all three moving at a cautious crouch. Lynx kept his eyes on Kas, doing his best to ignore the fact his view was mostly of her buttocks. Twice she paused, the second time for long enough that he almost raised his gun, ready to fire. She kept an arrow nocked and three more in her draw hand, but both times started forward again without a glance back. When they came to the oak Kas paused and looked right to check on Varain and Tyn. They were barely visible through the brush, but Lynx followed their progress forward until they had found a good position to wait.
The oak was ancient and low, split by a lightning strike further up so the top branches were twisted and withered. The lower ones had spread wide, a green canopy shrouding the ground around it for ten yards in every direction. Lynx could smell the rich, dark earth underfoot, mingling with the peppery scent of bracken hanging in the air.
Payl spared Lynx a final look and nodded towards the left-hand side of the oak. Seeing he understood, she gave Kas a pat on the shoulder and moved right herself, mage-gun levelled. Lynx skirted behind Kas before all three of them stalked forward through the oak’s gloom until they reached the edge of the branches. No more than thirty yards away he saw faces, three turned away from him and one facing their way. Pale-skinned under all the dirt and tousled hair, the man didn’t see them at first and when he did there was a moment of surprise that froze him to the spot. Before he could do anything Payl surged forward, her voice crashing through the peaceful forest.
‘Move and you’re dead!’ she roared, aiming her gun straight at the man. Lynx and Kas both held their ground, obvious enough to be a threat as they each picked a target. ‘Pull your weapons and I’ll burn you all!’
There was a frantic flurry of movement off to the right. A tall man jumped up from a tent, bow in hand, and Lynx turned to line up a shot, but never had a chance to do more than that. The whip-crack of an icer split the air and a white streak slammed into the man’s back. The bolt tore right through him, a cloud of blood and chill vapour bursting from his chest to hang briefly in the air as the man was hurled through it by the impact.
‘Stay where you are!’ roared Payl, holding her ground while Lynx and Kas advanced as fast as they could.
The echoes of the icer seemed to still be reverberating around the trees as they both added their voices to hers, repeating her orders as Varain and Tyn did the same. The hush of the forest was shattered by their shouts and Lynx could see the terror on the faces turning their way – bewildered and shocked into inaction by the noise and violence.
Here’s the moment, a voice said in the back of Lynx’s mind. Here’s where we’d have killed them all.
For a heartbeat he was back in the Greensea, the forest region surrounding a great inland sea that had been So Han’s first conquest. Rising from the undergrowth, flashing out through the dark, the commandos would converge as one man – gunshots echoing out, bloodthirsty warcries on their lips – and cut down the defenders before they even knew they were under attack.
Taking prisoners had been impossible – it would have crippled their lightning assaults – but there was little time to discern those soldiers trying to fight back and those still wondering what was happening. Before that could happen they were all dead, or watching swords and axes begin their final fall.
He stormed forward, aware he was outstripping Kas as the ghosts of his army days carried him on. From the right Tyn and Varain appeared too, still yelling madly, Varain closing the chamber of his gun as he came, another bolt loaded. Lynx stopped at the edge of the hollow, not wanting to get close enough for anyone to make a foolish grab at him. As he reached it what remained of their targets’ resolve dissolved. Two fell to their knees, sobbing and crying for mercy. The others stumbled back in the face of the onrushing mercenaries, hands raised in surrender.
‘On your knees,’ Lynx commanded. ‘Hands on your heads!’
They obeyed without question, the last two dropping down as if their strings had been cut. Varain slung his gun over one shoulder and drew a short-sword, holding it ready as he half-dragged the bandits all in a line and threw their weapons out of the way. It was a paltry selection of hunting bows, a spear, an axe and three long knives. Payl arrived last, carefully pulling the fire-bolt from her gun’s breech and leaving the gun empty as she spoke.
‘So, who’s in charge here?’
The four quai
led at her voice, but eventually the eldest of them, a woman with greying hair, coughed and croaked out a reply. ‘Guess it’s me now.’
‘Wrong!’ roared Varain, cuffing her around the head. ‘We are, got it?’
There was a moment of silence. ‘Ah, Diviner?’ Payl said, almost apologetically. ‘I meant which of them, you damn fool.’
‘Eh? Oh. Right.’ The veteran scowled and took a step back. ‘Answer the question, then.’
‘I … I am,’ the woman said hesitantly, cringing slightly.
‘Who do the bows belong to?’
She nodded towards the dead man. ‘Vass.’ A pause. ‘And Obe here,’ she added in a reluctant voice, turning to the youth beside her.
Two of the others were young enough to be her sons, but from the look of them Lynx guessed they weren’t. Obe was one of those, the last of the prisoners being a woman not much older than the boys. He couldn’t see much of the dead man, lying face down with a hole in his back, but he was bigger than any of them.
‘Dead man looks fat,’ Lynx said, ‘fatter’n the rest of you anyway. I’m guessing he was the boss?’
A nod.
Payl took a step forward and looked Obe in the face. ‘You ambushed a wagon a few days back? You shot a man.’
‘Weren’t me!’ the youth exclaimed, wild-eyed with fear. He was a gangly one, cheeks marked with spots of Vass’s blood. ‘Vass did it!’
Lynx watched the faces of the others as Payl replied. ‘The man who gives the orders took the shot? Not often how it works, that’s what being in charge means. You get some other fool to do stuff.’
The older woman’s face twitched as Obe continued to claim his innocence, the others just stared at the ground, but it was enough for Lynx and clearly Payl agreed.
‘Look on the faces around you says different,’ she continued, ‘and given I’m second in command o’ my company, I’m inclined to agree. My boss is still drunk somewhere most likely. He prefers me to do any work he don’t have to do himself.’
‘We never meant anyone to get hurt,’ the woman blurted out, ‘I swear it. We never killed anyone before, never needed to. Was a warning shot, just something to scare ’em into surrendering.’
‘That makes you fucking stupid thieves,’ Payl replied. ‘Sooner or later you’ll get hunted down if you let people live to tell the tale.’
She shook her head. ‘We were going to move on soon. Just needed food or money first. Obe ain’t the best shot; we weren’t finding much to eat in the forest. Vass reckoned if we didn’t kill anyone, we’d not be worth bothering with for a few weeks. Not before we moved on, not off the highway.’
‘So it was a lucky shot?’ Lynx demanded angrily. ‘The man was sitting right next to me! You got him plumb in the heart.’
‘We didn’t know,’ the woman insisted. ‘We just saw he’d hit someone then you starting firing mage-guns and we ran.’
Lynx grunted, realising it was probably true, but before he could say anything more Payl gave him a look that told him to back off.
‘Turns out you were right,’ she announced. ‘No one in Janagrai cared enough to want to run you off, the town watchmen weren’t interested in heading into the forest and the Brothers of the Oak only care about their road. Shame you killed a merchant whose widow actually liked him.’
The woman looked her straight in the face, over the initial shock of their capture. ‘What now?’ she asked in a quiet voice, clearly dreading the answer.
Payl scowled and caught Varain’s eye. The veteran nodded, standing just out of sight of the prisoners. ‘Widow asked us for justice,’ Payl said. ‘By my reckoning that’s whoever was in charge and whoever shot her husband. I’ve no doubt the rest of you’ll be long gone by the time we get back round these parts.’
The woman gasped and sagged in relief, while Obe whimpered and Lynx saw a darkening stain down the thigh of his britches. Varain didn’t give him long to accept his fate. In one practised movement he pulled a stiletto from his belt and slammed it into Obe’s ear. The young man spasmed, eyes widening with shock and pain for one long moment before the spark went from his eyes and his body fell limp.
Varain jerked the dagger out again, blood spattering over the other youth’s shirt, and let the corpse fall. There was a moment of fearful silence as they all looked down at the body of Obe, then Payl gave a sniff.
‘Give them both a proper burial,’ she ordered, looking at the remaining prisoners. ‘We’ll leave you your bows – you’ll need them to hunt as you’re moving on. None of you look dumb enough to come after us, but rest assured we’ll kill the lot of you if we ever see you again.’ She paused and glanced off in the direction of the road. ‘Our scouts had the match of your lookout easy enough. If you think you’ll be able to sneak up on ’em, day or night, it’ll be your last mistake, I promise.’
‘No trophy?’ Varain asked as they started to retrace their steps.
Payl shook her head. ‘Don’t want to waste the time cutting back to town to deliver it. We got paid half in advance, agreed we’d tap her for the rest when we headed back this way in a few weeks. It ain’t enough money to rush back for – nor for her to screw us over. Either there’ll be more reports of robberies and we’ll finish the job, or it’s done and she’ll pay up.’
They ghosted back through the trees with practised, ingrained stealth and as they were collecting their horses Teshen appeared in their midst as though by magic.
‘You kill the lookout?’ Varain asked him as he led his horse past the man.
The only reply he received was a scornful look, but it was answer enough. With a little of the day’s light left they cut through the woods once they found a path they could follow and headed out across open country in search of the road the rest of the company would be on.
There was a curiously restrained air over the group as they made camp at nightfall, tents strung from trees and a pair of ducks dripping fat into the fire built at the heart of a small copse. The last sun of evening cast golden shafts through the leafy canopy, just the contented coos of pigeons and the distant, shrill cries of swifts breaking the silence.
‘You’re quiet,’ Kas commented, settling down beside Lynx and giving him a gentle elbow.
He shrugged. ‘I’m always quiet.’
‘Not a problem with what went down?’
‘Nope. Wasn’t expecting anything else. They killed a man, almost killed me, no matter that they’re not hardened raiders. There’s no justice out here ’cept at the barrel of a gun. Most would’ve killed ’em all.’
She nodded. ‘Still felt like an execution, though. We knew they never stood a chance.’
‘Best fight to get into.’
‘Aye!’ She laughed. ‘There’s that. Saw you remembered some of your training. Not bad for a man who don’t want to fight no more.’
Lynx scratched his cheek. ‘Say what you like about my blood-hungry countrymen, the bastards know how to beat fighting habits into a man.’
‘Watches!’ called Payl from the far side of the fire where Varain was prodding the ducks expectantly. ‘Someone pull a deck.’
Kas reached into her jacket and withdrew a stiff leather wallet embossed with a Madman of Stars, holding it up for Payl to see.
‘That’s how you pick watches?’ Lynx asked. ‘You lot really are card-crazed.’
She grinned and slipped the fat wad of cards from the battered holder. Fanning the cards briefly she checked they were in no apparent order then handed him the deck.
‘Pull one.’
‘Two watches,’ Payl added, ‘lowest cards win.’
Lynx quickly fanned the deck and extracted a card – the four of Sun. He sighed and passed it to Tyn on his left, not bothering to watch her draw before heaving himself to his feet. ‘I’ll take first watch, then.’
The deck went quickly round the group, ending up with Kas who laughed as she drew Payl’s own card, the Knight of Sun. Llaith growled, having picked even worse than Lynx. He pinched out his latest smoke
and grabbed a hunk of bread, not waiting for the ducks to be cooked through now he only had half a night’s sleep coming.
Lynx peered out through the trees at the darkening sky beyond. Behind the clouds, the great arc of the Skyriver was a brightening smear across the sky. During the day it was easily forgotten, just a pale band in the heavens, but at night the dusty grey streak was a dull glow that matched the moon for light. At this time of the evening, the Skyriver was a regular arc from horizon to horizon across the southern half of the sky. Soon the world’s shadow would start to trace a path around the inner edge and provide Lynx with a simple means of charting the night’s progress.
‘Clear enough sky,’ he commented, ‘I’ll wake you at shadow’s peak, Llaith.’
‘No rush,’ the man said through a mouthful of bread.
Lynx pulled his coat back on, having shrugged it off as soon as they had stopped for the evening, and grabbed his cartridge box and gun, loading an icer.
‘Shout when there’s food,’ he commented before heading out to walk the fields surrounding them. If anyone bothered to reply, he didn’t hear it, but he was already lost in the sleepy peace of evening. He realised as soon as he was away from the small camp that he’d have happily volunteered for the first watch. For a man used to being alone, it became an effort to spend a whole day around strangers and a few hours of quiet – just him, the creatures of dusk and the Skyriver – was more than welcome.
‘Too often did I seek the solace of the wild, forgetting the pleasures of human company.’
Lynx patted his jacket where a slim book rested in a hidden pocket, the writings of the first Vagrim. It was no manifesto, the book of Vagrim, nor a philosophical text. Rather it was the thoughts of a man who had come late to education, but had hungered for more than the wisdom of battle that had been his only tutor for decades. It was plain-spoken and profound, however, written from the heart of a man who had looked deep inside himself and found more than he had expected.