“And you know more about a faith you claim is gone for more than 1,000 years?”
D’gattis said nothing.
Arath chimed in, “I have known Dilvesh for some time, and Dilvesh has never betrayed me, or anyone else I know.”
“If he did so now, then Adriam would turn him to ashes,” scoffed Thorn, drawing a dark look. “I am with Lupus on this. I follow Adriam. I trust His will.”
Nantar nodded. “And I follow War, and will be guided by Lupus.”
I really didn’t like this now. This decision fell to Ancenon as our leader. The two Uman-Chi were looking right at me as Nantar and Thorn sided with me openly for the first time.
“And your opinion, Genna?” Ancenon asked.
She regarded me, then Dilvesh. “Lupus seems to know more about ancient peoples than the rest of us,” she said finally. “If Druids are to be trusted, he would know.”
She knew that was crap. She played her game.
“Apparently our warriors have spoken,” Ancenon said. He hadn’t asked for Shela’s opinion, she was a slave. Instead he looked at Drekk – I watched alliances break apart and form as Ancenon turned from bad guy to good guy on a dime. “I am sorry, Drekk, but I must be guided by the majority in this, and Adriam is on his side, as well.”
Drekk slouched back into his usual sullen pose on his horse. Hands were offered as we each introduced ourselves to Dilvesh. We learned that the Druidic home in the Lone Wood belonged to Dilvesh to protect, and that Arath had stumbled into there and met Dilvesh, many years ago.
“I nearly killed him,” Dilvesh chuckled. “Certainly that is the penalty to enter the Lone Wood. However, I saw his skill as a woodsman and decided that this was a true son of Earth – and we have been friends ever since.”
Everything about Dilvesh spoke of power, from the shine on his boots to his faith in his Natural Trinity to the confident way he spoke about being able to kill out of hand. I had known people like him in the Navy; the first to fight and the first to seek greener pastures when the going got too difficult. I decided to keep an eye on the Druid in Green as events played out.
Our marching order changed somewhat as Dilvesh took the roving position. Now Arath had our rear, Thorn our point, Nantar and I the right and left wing, spread out over hundreds of square yards on the plains. Rather than recon, Genna ranged behind us on the off chance that someone came after us from behind. It took two days to ride to Steel City – closer to three as cautiously as we traveled – and we stopped every now and again to talk to peasant farmers, traveling merchants and the like to get the lay of the land.
Dilvesh proved more than adequate to take the point – nothing escaped him and his mount seemed almost as tireless as mine. His Natural Trinity of Earth, Water and Weather informed him of the presence of anything that swam, walked or crawled if it came near him. Drekk talked avidly to Shela as we traveled and the Uman-Chi kept their own council.
On our first night in the plains with this new person among us, Genna approached Ancenon. We gathered around a campfire, the sun setting red on the plains, and Arath, who had the second watch, prepared to go to sleep.
“It is time to bring me into the Fire Bond,” she said to Ancenon.
“I don’t know that I can do that,” he said. D’gattis, sitting next to him, nodded.
“Why?”
He looked at Dilvesh, his robes back, the green question mark turned upside-down on his breast a brilliant contrast against his white blouse.
“Adriam has determined our number,” Ancenon said.
“You mean that you have,” Genna said.
I had been waiting for this. I had caught Genna’s comment when we met Dilvesh, I suspected no less myself. Ancenon had created a fire bond that matched his own agenda and somehow included Dilvesh in it accidentally.
“I don’t understand you,” Ancenon said, his politic smile painted back on his face.
“She thinks you arranged the fire bond, cousin,” D’gattis interjected. “And lied about its parameters.”
“It would tend to explain things,” Genna said.
Ancenon, seated in his saddle by the fire, hung his head down, then looked back up at Genna. The smile wasn’t gone but it had certainly faded. I caught myself holding my breath and exhaled slowly.
“I would defy my own god to exclude someone from the fire bond whom I thought had died, and to include someone whom I had never even heard of?” he asked.
“You created the bond to bind us to some agreement other than Outpost X,” said Genna.
Shela shook her head. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Oh, who asked you?” Genna snarled at her. Shela pulled her head back and raised her eyebrows. I don’t think the daughter of Kills With a Glance would be too used to that tone. “Stupid girl, just because you know some plains magic –“
“I would hesitate to say that Shela is a stupid girl,” said D’gattis.
“She is a Sorceress of the Andoran plains,” Thorn said. “Every bit as much a priestess as Ancenon is a priest.”
Shela stood slowly. I watched her and said nothing.
This had been brewing.
“Genna, what these men entered into is a fire bond,” she said. “Do you know what that is?”
“Yes.”
“What is it, then?”
The men all remained quiet.
Genna stepped up to confront Shela. She stood a few inches shorter, in age a few years older and she made her living as a recon marine or this world’s equivalent to it. She had no respect for Shela.
Shela seemed to have something to say about that.
“It is a bond that keeps them from betraying one another over the treasure in Outpost X.”
Shela looked from Genna to Ancenon. Ancenon nodded.
“The group holds each other in special confidence,” Genna continued, “and are pledged not to take the gold without the knowledge of the others, to tell no one else not in the bond of the treasure, of the location of Outpost X or how to find it.”
Shela looked at me next. “Is that how you understand it?”
I nodded.
She looked at Drekk, asked him the same question, got the same answer.
Shela turned her attention back to Genna.
“They all believe this, and they are bound,” Shela said. “And they are only bound because they all believe it. Ancenon couldn’t throw another condition into the bond, because they wouldn’t know of it, and they would not be bound.”
“Then how do you explain this Druid?” Genna demanded.
“I cannot,” Shela said. “Except to say that the will of a god is a strange thing. I know that, now that he knows the conditions of the fire bond, they bind him. Were he not then it would fly from his chest or destroy him.”
Wow, I thought to myself. How unfair was that? To be bound without being asked to a group of strangers, and the penalty for not accepting the decision is death.
“Then why can’t I join this bond?” Genna said, pressing her. I knew Genna. She took things apart and put them back together in her mind. She did that now.
“I don’t know that Ancenon can bind you,” Shela said, “but I know that he shouldn’t. Ancenon has clear sign that Adriam’s will is for a chosen few, and that He has determined them. He should not interfere.”
“Your opinion,” Genna said.
“And mine,” Ancenon said. “Believe me, Genna, I want you to be bound by the fire bond, but there is a good chance that Adriam will not allow it.”
“And so it will just not work,” Genna said.
Ancenon shook her head. “That is one of many alternatives.”
“There are others less pleasant,” said D’gattis.
“Such as killing you outright, or Adriam arranging for you to die,” said Shela.
“The risk is not worth it,” Ancenon said. “Take on the fealty and be bound to us.”
“Will I wear the mark?” Genna asked. She grasped for something now. I
think this is where the need came from. She felt like an outcast and this brought her back into the fold.
Or she wanted to have something over Shela.
“Wear it if you want,” Ancenon said. “Understand that if there is some other beside Dilvesh whom we have not met, then the color you chose may be taken from you.”
Genna thought for a moment, then nodded. Ancenon began the rights for the spell.
Genna had found her angle. I didn’t doubt that we would be apprised of it.
As we traveled through Eldador, we stopped and spoke with the common folk whom we passed. People seemed to be peripherally aware of the government here, but King Glennen didn’t seem overly anxious to involve himself in anyone else’s life. He had created a ducal system whereby certain nobles – appointed by him – governed areas of Eldador and maintained the law. These nobles, his friends from days spent as some sort of wandering warrior during the middle years of the Fovean High Council, seemed much more interested in gathering wealth, pursuing pleasure and fighting petty wars with each other than they were in some concept of an Eldadorian state. Eldador existed as a nation in name and a patchwork of shifting alliances in fact. If any place might be ripe to start recruiting Free Legion soldiers, it would be Eldador.
We camped on the plains at night. Shela’s leather lean-to seemed equally suited to be a small tent. Her time of the month of the month had come, leaving her less interested in lovemaking than in discussing this new addition to our forces.
“Drekk is furious, and he blames you,” she told me. “He tells me that Genna is only slightly less so.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I argued. “Why not blame Arath? He brought Dilvesh here, not me.”
She shook her head, her pretty hair flying out around her. I lay on my back, in our tent, my belly full of venison from one of Arath’s kills. I lay naked and Shela rested on my chest, dressed in nothing but a leather g-string. I had my arm around her thin waist – thin for a few more months, anyway.
“Adriam brought Dilvesh here, Arath just accompanied him for the last steps,” she said. “At least,” she added, covering my lips with her soft fingers, “that is how our rogue sees it. The warriors look to you for guidance and you guided them to let the Druid in. Drekk hates the half-breed, hates Druids more and sees lost gold every time he looks at Dilvesh.”
I shook my head this time, and bit her fingers to make her let me speak. She laughed and flicked my nose, which I crinkled at her. “I take it Druids are about a step below bounty hunters?”
“Oh, no! Bounty hunters are a time-honored profession, husband, at least in this part of the world. What does a weak man do, when a stronger man takes what is his?” I hadn’t considered that. “But Druids sacrifice animals and each other,” she pressed her lips to my ear; her hot breath on my neck aroused me. “They draw energy from three gods, not just one. They are a crux, unpredictable.”
“Yet he is no match for you?”
She smiled and raised her chin. “My strength is drawn from the needs and wants of mankind, as is my god’s power. So long as man is unsatisfied, he will pursue Power and feed me.”
I considered how that made sense. Her beauty had the men in the group obviously wanting her, although they wouldn’t violate the fire bond. In every simple thing she did, her sexuality and her self-confidence were evident. There were times when we were riding that I just wanted to take her right there on the plains. If man’s unfulfilled desire became her strength, then that made Shela strong indeed.
“Genna worries me more than Drekk,” I said.
“Genna has decided that there will be no common ground between her and I,” Shela agreed. “I should have thought better about saving her life.”
“Shela!” I was shocked.
She giggled evilly.
“We’ll be in Steel City in two days,” she said, changing the subject. “Is this where you want to begin recruiting this army?”
“I think so. Steelworkers are strong and used to dangerous work. If this is a feudal system, then they are likely underpaid -”
I caught her vacant stare. Socio-economics and the role of the State weren’t things she thought about.
“They have strong men,” I said. “If they’re poor, the place is ripe.”
“And what of the Duke of Steel?” she asked. “This friend of Ancenon’s, Rennin, won’t just let you take his men and make an army in his duchy. What if you turned it on him?”
“Ancenon has said he knows Rennin,” I said. “If Rennin won’t let us recruit, and won’t be bribed, then we’ll just move to the edge of his lands and recruit from there.”
Shela grabbed the back of my head and kissed me. “You are such a fool, you know,” she said, after she broke the kiss. I couldn’t help but be hurt. “Rennin is a Duke and he’s rich. He has no need of your gold, and he has no reason to let you grow an army. He won’t let you recruit near his lands and neither will the other Dukes and Barons of Eldador. If you’re successful, you threaten their power directly and leave them weaker to defend themselves.”
“But with people coming to join us -”
“They’ll be an unwashed, untrained mass by your own admission. Rennin maintains a standing army that will scatter them to the winds. Eldadorians are always attacking each other’s cities, White Wolf. They have real armies that will crush you now, just so that they won’t have to do it later.”
That made particularly good sense, I thought.
“Think as I do for a moment, my love. What need are you fulfilling for these nobles?”
If gold didn’t matter and friendship with Ancenon couldn’t turn the deal, then the need eluded me.
“What need do these nobles have, then?”
If not gold? “To stay in power,” I said. “To defeat their neighbors, apparently. Control the masses.”
“And how do you suppose they do that?”
My eyes popped open wide. Of course! It turned out to be so simple – we should have been doing this all along! She just smiled knowingly, my slave girl, my wife. Another who, like Blizzard, not only made it happen, but credited it to me.
I kissed her deep and pulled her g-string off. She giggled and spread her thighs to me. It went fast and hard and furious, and I could almost feel War and Power grinning over our shoulders.
“We want to pay your criminals’ fines,” Ancenon said.
The silence felt as thick as velvet.
We stood together in Steel City’s Great Hall, in the ducal court of Rennin of Steel City. It had taken us two days to get here and a week to get an appearance at the court. In the meantime, we had made ourselves as obtrusive as possible. The city held a regular horse race that I had won six days out of six with Blizzard. I had bet six gold bars on myself the first day at thirty-to-one odds and about bankrupted the place, then invested half the money back for a twenty percent silent share of the profits. The owner, a roly-poly weasel of a man named Heverk, with a heavy jowl and a very young servant girl, agreed to place my share in a holding company maintained by the Eldadorian State. I warned him that if I had to come back here to get my money, it wouldn’t go well for him. Shela backed me with a demonstration of fire in a stable on the other side of the town, a small fire which would have been a disaster were it to happen in the middle of the night instead of during the day. He seemed to get the message and he sure needed the gold. I also felt relatively confident that he had murdered the person who had taken my bet.
Not to be outdone, the rest of the Free Legion employed themselves in various semi-legal pursuits. The gladiatorial ring at the edge of town lost three of their favorite champions to Nantar’s sword. He made a tidy profit until, like me, the odds against him evened out to one-to-one. Genna, fighting in the ring as well, did no worse, and earned the title The Red Dagger by locals at the ring. Between them they cleaned out many of the local favorites.
Drekk displayed great slight-of-hand skills at the state-run casino until they forbade him re-entry and stationed armed g
uards at all of the entrances when Arath and Thorn walked him in. I don’t think that my winnings came anywhere near his, but I got to see the rare sight of him smiling on the fourth day.
Even D’gattis got into the mix, selling his services to repair broken foundations and sagging stone walls with his magic far more economically than stonemasons would have been able to do the job. This might have been seen as an actual service except that in every case, Ancenon had preceded him and discreetly created the damage that D’gattis sought to fix. Very few people fell for that trick, but everyone paid.
It didn’t take the citizens of Steel City long to complain to the Duke whose job supposedly involved protecting them from people like us. I am not ashamed to admit that the trouble making had been mostly my idea, but I had been inspired when Ancenon’s old friend Rennin seemed unable to remember him. I just figured that if Steel City were anything like New York City – and I saw more and more similarity – then construction and gambling would be where bribes and corruption were the most frequent and lucrative, and where Rennin would really feel the pinch. Considering that Ancenon had immediately disregarded Shela’s (presented as my) idea of buying prisoners instead of recruiting openly, being snubbed both changed his mind and gave him an ax to grind.
So here we were, called before the Duke himself to face our peers and to explain why we had dipped deep into the coffers of his two most lucrative and corrupt industries. The Hall appeared to be just that: a long, low building with a raised dais at one end and stands for courtiers on either side. The floor had been made from brickwork carpeted down the middle in a low, blue shag (not a footprint on it – had to admire that!). Clean granite columns, solid cylinders instead of being fluted, supported a vaulted ceiling, once white but now with a gray residue of soot. With their people removed from the planet for a thousand years, I could still recognize the Cheyak influence in the design.
The attendees dressed in relatively nice clothes made of cloth, mostly dull colors like dark blue and gray, with splashes of bright orange and white. Sashes and medals seemed to be popular among the women. They ushered us in alone past the long bandstand of courtiers and court functionaries. Only Rennin sat atop his dais, waiting like judgment, twirling the end of his thick, black moustache.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 33