Caine's Law

by Matthew Woodring Stover

  Well, okay: she’s not some girl. She’s a hero. A real hero. The kind most people only hear about in stories. The kind most people don’t even believe exists.

  It’s a fucking shame she has to die.

  “Hey, what can I say? I am who I am.”

  — CAINE

  Blade of Tyshalle

  Angvasse pays off the scow’s captain and gravely thanks him, then shoulders her satchels and we take the gangway onto the Lyrissan quay through the lengthening shadows.

  Lyrissan is decidedly strange. Weirder than anywhere else we’ve been; Ankhana will always be Ankhana, no matter what year it is, and even Harrakha has that English Midlands–village sort of tactile permanence. But the Lyrissan we walk into is only a collection of flops and whorehouses and taverns clustered around the big trading post in the middle of town. It doesn’t even have streets. It’s nothing but a stopover for hunters and trappers up in God’s Teeth, where they can sell their take, then drink and gamble and whore away the money.

  Forty-some-odd years from now, when the Overworld Company lays the seaward line of the Transdeian Railway, Lyrissan will become a wealthy market town, the first stop down from Khryl’s Saddle. Right now, the hill where Countess Avery’s manor will stand is a mound of trees two klicks off. There isn’t even a road. Just the river.

  And the river gives me the creeps.

  I don’t like looking at it. I sure as fuck don’t plan to take a dip. Just knowing that this is part of what Shanna will become … It still makes me queasy, somehow, even after days on the scow. It’s like finding a digigraph of your mom as a teenager and discovering she was high-grade fuckable, right? Anytime you think about it, it gets you again.

  At least I don’t have to worry about bumping into Shanna; as a Natural Power, She’s as time-bound as I am. Huh. More time-bound than I am, right now.

  Somehow that makes me queasy too.

  Angvasse has found her way to the Lyrissan version of a market square. She looks from one flop to the next, distaste deepening her frown a little more each time. She casts that distaste in my direction. “Night falls slowly here, but fall it does,” she says reluctantly. “We’ll not have light sufficient to reach the next village.”

  “That’s okay because there isn’t a next village. Not where we’re going.”

  “The least vile of these establishments inspires nightmare,” she says heavily. “I suspect we’d find better rest among trees upriver.”

  “Glad you feel that way.”

  There’s no actual stable or organized livery, just a couple of split-rail grass paddocks on the downstream side of town, and everybody in there looks pretty contented. A few others are ground-tied or hobbled a little farther out. A couple of them look pretty grumpy, but that won’t do it. Only four horses are actually amidst the scatter of buildings, tied to hitching rails … and there’s one on a rail by himself, a big old bag-of-bones black gelding going grey on the face.

  He’s still full-tacked, saddle and bridle and bags, and he’s tied where he has to crank his neck around to even see the other horses nearby, and after a second or two I realize he’s not looking at the horses, but at the water troughs beside them.

  Because he doesn’t have one of his own.

  From the building in front of him comes firelight and ale-blurred laughter, and somebody’s started to sing, and if I think too much more about some motherfucker having a few drinks and a leisurely meal while his horse is tied alone and thirsty in the dark outside I’ll just kill the sonofabitch, of which Angvasse won’t exactly approve.

  “What do we have left for coin?”

  She doesn’t need to count. “Three royals, seven nobles, and a long dozen peasants.”

  I squint at the horse. “A royal should be plenty.”

  “You gave me to believe we’re not staying,” she says, holding one out for me. “And for an Ankhanan royal one might buy a better house than these.”

  “I’m not buying a house.”

  Inside, the tavern is basically a shack somebody built around a primitive kitchen. An earth-banked cookfire at the far end is most of the light. A handful of dirty lanterns provide spots of local ambience along the trestle tables and rude benches. Five guys lounge roughly together—four like they know one another and one an extra arm’s length off, though they all seem friendly enough. A fair chunk of both walls is stacked with ale tuns, most of them with rusty iron cups hanging from hooks around their rims.

  A guy with soot on his face and hands so grimy Lasser Pratt would have puked in his own beer beckons me in from the other side of the fire without getting up. “Whatcher pleasure, pal?”

  “I’m just here to see a man about a horse.”

  He shrugs and sinks back down on his stool, clearly uninterested in anything that doesn’t involve collecting coin.

  I offer a friendly nod and trader’s smile to the five guys at the table. “Who belongs to the black gelding at the rail outside?”

  “Who’s askin’?” This from the guy an arm’s length off from the others, which is reassuring.

  “What do you want for him?”

  “Yuh-what?” He blinks like all of a sudden he doesn’t see so well. “Yer wantin’ to buy ol’ Shandy?”

  Having seen his horse, I understand his disbelief. “I’m not here to dicker, goodman. I’d like to take your horse, and I’d like to leave you with—” With a magician’s flourish, I make the shiny royal appear between my first and second fingers. “This.”

  He’s too lit to be subtle; his face goes slack for half a second, then tightens and his eyes go narrow. “I dunno, pal. I’m awful attached to him.”

  “Having your balls attached to my boot’ll be more awful. This royal can buy four horses better than him. Take it.”

  “My balls to your boot, you little dried-up pissant?” He lurches to his feet. He’s big. Big enough to have had a grill not too far back in his family tree. He pulls a knife that’s not much smaller than he is. “You want to say that again?”

  “Depends. You want to walk out of here with a royal in your hand, or get carried out with that knife up your ass?”

  He hesitates, which is good and bad. It’s good because we might get through this without me losing too much blood. It’s bad because it means he’s been around enough to know that a smaller, older, unarmed man who doesn’t flinch with a knife in his face might be a little dangerous for a casual brawl. So if this starts, it won’t be casual.

  Works for me.

  I lean around him to tip a nod at the other four guys. “This shit-hump mean anything to any of you? I’d like to know how many men I’m about to kill.”

  “Hard to know, freeman.” One of them swings his legs over the bench and gets up. “Jafe don’t mean much to anybody. But a fella who’s got a royal to piss away on a broke-down old bag of grillshit might mean sumpin to the rest of us. Cuz there’s gotta be more.”

  Now they’re all getting up and this is not what I had in mind. I’ve had a dustup or three with mountain trappers and none of them was any fun at all, even though they happened back when I was a lot younger and a hell of a lot tougher. And I never took on five at once.

  Apparently I should have taken a minute to think this through.

  On the other hand, there are some tactical advantages to traveling with a Khryllian Knight. Speaking of—

  “Oh, for the love of justice!” Angvasse’s voice comes from the doorway behind me. “Does this happen everywhere you go?”

  “Um … actually, yeah. Seems to be getting worse, though.” I give a sideways nod and shrug and spread my hands, because he’s looking past me at her now. “Sorry.”

  While I’m still half turning away, I snag his wrist with my left, his fist with my right, and drive his knuckles into the edge of the table hard enough to break any man’s hand.

  Well, almost.

  Still, it springs his grip enough for me to strip the knife into an ice-pick grip and while he’s yanking away and starting to cover against the
backhand stab he’s expecting in his chest or guts, I go overhand instead and give him the pommel square in the bridge of his nose. He still manages to get in a good solid knee just below my belt that’s gonna need some attention from Angvasse before I walk straight again.

  I jam the knife through his forearm and into the top of the table. He howls, and clouts me a solid star-shower upside my head with his free hand, so I wrench the knife back and forth deeper into the tabletop, which elicits more howling.

  “Remember my boot?” I remind him by applying it a couple times to his testicles, and his howling chokes down to grunting.

  The others are trying to maneuver to get at me. One manages to dive headlong over the table at my flank which would be more than trouble but Angvasse is there. With her customary uncomplicated display of terrifying power, she grabs the back of the guy’s jacket, whips him over her head, and hurls him the length of the room so that he lands in the fire.

  One-handed.

  This gives the others sufficient pause that for a moment the only sounds in the room are the choking of my pal and the blistering cussing going back and forth between the publican and his medium-rare patron.

  “Take ’im—jus’ take ’im—!” my new best friend forces out. “Y’kin have ’im. Jus’ lemme go!”

  “You sure? Sure for sure? Because I’m thinking maybe you really want me to do you right now. With this nice big blade of yours. Save you the embarrassment of telling everybody about the little dried-up pissant who gave you that new scar.”

  Behind my shoulder, Angvasse says softly, “Don’t.”

  Oh, sure. “Whatever.” I let go of the knife with half a shrug and step back.

  He’s practically sobbing with gratitude as he takes the hilt and starts to work the blade out of the table. While he’s still levering it back and forth, I drop the royal into the open palm of his nailed-down hand.

  I’m still not a thief.

  With Angvasse to cover my back, I take my time going out the door. Maybe one of them will try something. Even say something.

  Anything. Give me an excuse.

  But instead they just kind of huddle up and go quiet, and y’know maybe it’d be worth staying the night in this shit-hole town after all, considering what they’re talking about back there is pretty much certain to be a plan that would give me that excuse.

  Yeah, but never mind.

  Deliann asked me once what I’ve ever done that didn’t end in violent death. Maybe next time I see him, I’ll have an answer.

  Full dark now. The moon brushes silver across the mountaintops. The gelding doesn’t even look up when I untie his reins and unbuckle his bridle. I cut the girth straps and pull the saddle and leave it where it falls.

  Angvasse comes out the door behind me. “Khryl’s Love has restored his arm, as well as the other’s burns.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I shoot her a look. She’s got one of those ale casks in a rope sling over her shoulder. “I see Khryl’s Love has also restored your beer supply.”

  She sets it in the dirt. “And I have yet to assay its quality, which is as well. Alcohol seems to make me disinclined to overlook the imperfections of others.”

  “Was that supposed to be an insult? Better luck next time.”

  “You provoked that,” she says. Softly. Without a trace of accusation. “If I hadn’t been here, he’d be dead. So would you.”

  “If you hadn’t been here, he never would have seen me coming.”

  “You decided to kill him before you went inside. And you attacked when you could have retired.”

  “Nobody made him pull that knife.”

  “No denial?”

  “There’s nothing to deny. He’s alive. And temporarily wealthy. Who cares who started it?”

  “Apparently you do.”

  I cut one of the saddlebags free and dump it. Some miscellaneous hand tools and a bundle of dried meat fall to the ground next to the saddle. “If you don’t mind, check the other bags and the rest of the tack for grain or dried fruit or anything. I think my horse is hungry.”

  While she does that, I take the saddlebag to the nearest horse trough and scoop up a couple quarts. A third of it has already trickled out the seams before I can get it to the gelding, but it’s just as well. Slow and steady with the water; I’m still not experienced enough with abused horses to be able to tell how dehydrated he is, but I know better than to give him too much at once.

  “And what is this horse, that you would kill for it?”

  “Him.” I go back for another bag of water. “It’s not about him. It’s about somebody who would treat a horse that way. Anybody.”

  “It—he—appears to be in no great distress.”

  I hold the bag, and the gelding drinks again. “You don’t know how to look.”

  “You’ll forgive me, I hope, for pointing out that horses are after all only livestock. Cattle.”

  “That’s how we treat them. It’s not what they are.” I give her a shrug. “If I treat you like some ignorant fucking slag hustling two-peasant blow jobs behind the bar, what does that make you?”

  There’s just enough light from inside that I can see her brows pull together.

  “It makes you,” I tell her heavily, so she doesn’t have to guess, “a Lady Legendary of the Order of Khryl.”

  “Yes,” she says softly. “I understand. I am what I am.”

  “Right. And what would treating you like that make me?”

  The trace of a smile. “Unconscious. Possibly dead.”

  “That’s why it’s lucky most horses are nicer than you are.” I shoot her a look sidelong. “Kind of makes me think about how Khryllians treat ogrilloi.”

  She stiffens. “Ogrilloi are not nice.”

  “Depends on what you think that word means.”

  “And they are not mistreated in the Battleground.”

  “No? Stop by your fucking jitney landing some night, then come and tell me that again.”

  “If ogrilloi ruled where Khryl does now—”

  “Owning somebody is a knife that cuts both ways. It means one thing for them and a whole other thing for you. I don’t know if it does you damage, or if it only displays shit that was already wrong with you, and I don’t really care. It’s ugly either way.”

  “If you truly care not, why do you speak of it?”

  “Because you care.” I drop the empty saddlebag. “You can’t help it. You are what you are.”

  “This is a lesson from your horse-witch?”

  “She’s not mine. It’s more like I’m hers. Well, not really. Mostly, she just doesn’t try to run away.”

  “She must be extraordinarily patient.”

  “You don’t know what patient looks like until you meet her.” I pick a rope halter off one of the saddle pegs and slip it over the gelding’s head. “Come on.”

  “Where do you think to go?”

  “Upriver. Not far.” I grab my satchel and shoulder it. “We need to be out of town.”

  “What of his equipment?”

  “Leave it. Bring your pack. The cask too.”

  “What will you do without saddle and bridle? Let the horse go?”

  I smile at her. “Come and see.”

  The gelding’s balky on the lead; probably going extra-slow and careful because he’s expecting a whipping whether he acts up or not. He’s too hand-shy for me to pet him, and he won’t even look me in the eye, so all I can do is hum to him a little. “It’s okay, big guy. Come along. Just a little farther. Come on. It’s okay.”

  I keep humming and murmuring and whatever because the words don’t really matter anyway, just the sound of my voice, just a calm quiet human voice without anger or threat. A voice that doesn’t belong to the ratfuck I took him from.

  We don’t have to go far. A hundred yards or so beyond the last of the buildings, we come across a broad swath of weeds and scrub along a little creek wending for the river. I take the halter off and step back, and the poor miserable fucking thing won�
�t even lower his head to the grass. He just watches me out of the white rim of his left eye while he waits to find out how I’m going to hurt him.

  I come around beside him, facing the other way, out of arm’s reach, and give him my left eye while I talk. “Don’t be afraid. I can’t promise you’ll never be hurt, but I will not hurt you. I will never hurt you. And if I might ease any of your pain, I will. That’s not who I used to be, but it’s who I am now. Don’t be afraid.”

  “You speak to him as if he’s a person,” Angvasse says softly. “As if he understands.”

  “He understands. Not the way you understand, knowing what the words mean. At least, I don’t think so. Hard to know for sure. Horses are deep.”

  “Then how do you know he understands at all?”

  I shrug. “I’ve seen it. When you tell them the truth, they understand.”

  “Then why is he still frightened?”

  “Probably expects me to change my mind.”

  Slowly, carefully, Angvasse lowers herself to sit on the ground a few yards away. “I begin to understand why you wanted to kill that man.”

  “You see what this horse is?”

  “I see what he is to you,” she says. “That suffices.”

  The gelding has relaxed a hair or two; looks like Angvasse has the right idea. I take a couple extra steps away from him and sit down on a rock. “The man I hurt because of you called you Shandy. That’s just a word. You can pay attention to it or not. It’s not you. You don’t have to be anything but what you are. You can stay with us, or go where you please—though you should probably stick close for now, because there are wolves and bears and cougars in these hills, and we can protect you. But you don’t have to stay. You’re free.”

  “I don’t understand,” Angvasse murmurs. “You might have been killed to gain this horse—and now you cast him away?”

  “That’s not what this is.” I look up into the moon-shadow pool of his eye. “So we’re here. I know this time of year, you’re usually south and west, but we need you. There are three of us, and we all need you. Please come when you can.”