The Iron Ring

by Auston Habershaw

  Tyvian was on his feet immediately, knife drawn and backing away from Hool. “Calm down! I don’t know where they are, all right? I didn’t take them!”

  Hool’s aggression quieted somewhat, the ridge of hair running along her spine slowly lowering to its normal height. “Who did?”

  “I know a man who knows who took them. His name is Hendrieux.”

  “The fake-­man on the screaming snake-­thing.”

  Tyvian nodded. “The spirit engine, yes—­that’s the thing. The real Hendrieux double-­crossed me, you see, and he knows where the other gnolls are, understand?”

  Hool pointed at him. “You will take me to this Hen-­droo.”

  Tyvian nodded, grinning. “Nothing would give me more pleasure, Hool. Now, are we done assaulting each other for the evening?”

  Artus was slowly getting to his feet. “I’m all right. Thanks for asking.”

  Hool retreated back to her place on the other side of the campfire.

  Tyvian, knife still drawn, crouched back down to get nearer the warmth of the flames. “Gods, Hool! I’m not one in favor of slavery, mind you, but I must say your reaction to the bondage of your fellow creatures is a bit . . . extreme. Do you know them, by any chance?”

  Hool’s face grew suddenly still. “I know them.”

  “Friends of yours?” Tyvian asked.

  “They are my puppies.” Hool’s copper gaze focused on Tyvian’s face. “Hen-­droo has my children.”

  Tyvian suddenly felt his guts clench in terror. “I . . . I see.”

  Hool said nothing, her gaze still fixed on Tyvian. The smuggler read a lot of things in that gaze, for the gnoll’s eyes were deeper and larger than any human’s. One thing, though, stood above the rest—­there was nothing on this earth that Tyvian Reldamar could do to Zazlar Hendrieux that could ever hope to equal the terrible wrath of a mother gnoll. If she caught him, his death would not be quick.

  Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the feeling of terror faded. Tyvian found himself smiling more broadly than he had for days. “Let’s to bed, shall we?”

  That night, Artus dreamed of home. It was springtime, and Ma had the shutters open to let in the fresh air. Outside, he heard the rhythmic chop of his second-­eldest brother, Marik, splitting wood. The back room of their four room cottage was quiet, save for the humming of the insects.

  Days like these Artus would spend helping Ma and his sisters with the chores while Conrad, Marik, Balter, and Handen would be plowing the fields. Artus ran outside to the yard, looking for Marik. He wanted to see his favorite brother again, more than anything. He ran across the soft grass, trying to round the corner of the cottage to where Marik had always stood, his broad shoulders bare to the sun, axe in hand. Or it could have been Conrad, or Balter, or even Handen—­whichever brother who would tell him what year it was. Conrad, the eldest, was the first to be drafted—­he had died in Roon, under Sir Markus Gravel. Then Marik, whom they had never heard from again. Then Balter and Handen went together, and came back cripples in the same wagon. The villagers said the boys up at Jondas Crossing had a curse on their heads. Ma said the curse was that the army-­clerics knew where they lived.

  Artus couldn’t round the cottage. He was lost somehow, in a sea of waist-­high wheat, rolling over the gentle hills in golden waves. Suddenly he could see the cottage and the barn in the distance, the smoke from the fire snaking out of the chimney in a thin gray line against an azure sky.

  “MA!” he yelled. There was no echo.

  He ran toward the cottage, but he got no closer. His feet churned up the soil, the wheat slapped against his bare knees but he felt nothing. He stopped and screamed again. “MA!”

  “You can’t go back, kid.” The voice was felt more than heard. There was something amiss, like it wasn’t quite there. Still, Artus knew it was Marik.

  Marik stood in the sun, stripped to the waist, sweat glistening off the thick hair on his chest and arms. His beard was short and his eyes were smiling, like always. Marik was ten when Artus was born, the day after Da got called up to the army. Da had told Marik that the baby was his responsibility while he was gone, while Conrad was to care for their three sisters. Marik had held true to that promise, even when Da never came back. Where Balter and Handen were always teasing and fighting with him, Marik was his protector. Marik told him what was what.

  “Marik!” Artus said. “You’re back!”

  Marik shook his head. “You can’t go back, kid. She don’t want you.”

  “It’s suppertime. You’d better put on a shirt.” Artus tried to look back at the cottage, but he couldn’t find it.

  “She don’t want you, understand? Stay away.”

  “I can’t! Who’ll chop the wood? Who’ll see to Maya and Kestra and Tori?”

  Marik only put his callused hand on Artus’s shoulder and shook him . . . and shook him . . . and shook him . . .

  Artus’s eyes popped open to see Tyvian shaking him. “Will you wake up already? Gods, you sleep like the dead.” The smuggler whispered.

  Artus sat up. “What is it? Is someth—­”

  Tyvian slapped a hand across his mouth. “Shhhhh!”

  This time, Artus whispered. “What?”

  The cool gray light of dawn illuminated the walls of the tent with enough light that Artus could see Tyvian’s eyebrows pinched together in thought. “Hool’s gone.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  The smuggler shook his head. “More important is why hasn’t she returned? This time of morning she’s already back from her predawn hunt. Something prevented her from coming back.”

  It dawned on Artus suddenly, and he gasped. “Mirror-­men! You think they’ve found us?”

  Tyvian nodded, grimacing. Clutching his right hand to his breast, he handed Artus a fur cloak. “We need to split up. Here—­take this and run west, I’ll head east. They can—­” Tyvian gasped and wrung his hand in the air. “They can only catch one of us.”

  Artus frowned, his eyes on the iron ring that was clearly torturing the smuggler. “What’s wrong?”

  Tyvian, teeth clenched, threw the fur cloak on Artus’s back. “We haven’t time! Just go, will you? Run!”

  Artus found himself shoved through the tent flap and into the breathtaking chill of the morning air. The charred remnants of their campfire were coated in a sparkling layer of frost, and a crisp breeze made him shiver and clutch the cloak more tightly around him, noticing that it was a bit large on him. It was Tyvian’s.

  Before Artus had much time to ponder why the smuggler would give away his own cloak, he heard the sound of hoofbeats at a gallop closing in. Cursing, Artus ran to take shelter behind the tall rocks that circled the camp, getting out of sight just as two mounted figures—­one woman in gray robes with a magestaff across her knees, the other a man in black and worn leathers—­appeared on the crest of a nearby hill. The woman had a slender wand in her free hand, its tip a swirling pool of pure shadow. From his hiding place, Artus could see her focusing upon this strange darkness, and watched as she altered the course of her mount in accordance with some perceived change in its the shape or demeanor. He had never seen one of these before, but he knew them by reputation clearly enough—­it was a seekwand.

  She was the Mage Defender—­Artus remembered her name was Alafarr—­and her dour, bearded associate who rode into their camp. While Alafarr puzzled at some strange indication by the wand, the man dismounted, making for the tent. Artus held his breath—­Tyvian was still inside!

  “Jaevis!” Alafarr snapped, pointing her wand directly toward where Artus was hiding. “Reldamar’s not in the tent. He’s up there.”

  Jaevis’s head snapped in Artus’s direction and he drew a short sword with a wickedly curved blade from underneath his worn black cape. He advanced on the rocks quickly, but carefully, his black eyes missing nothing. As he did, Artus reali
zed Tyvian’s plan and why he had stuffed him in his clothing. Patting down the cloak’s crude pockets, he found Tyvian’s knife, as well as a pair of worn-­out socks that weren’t his. “That son of a bitch . . .”

  Tyvian popped out of the tent silently, clad in his cloak. Jaevis and Alafarr didn’t see him, as both were fixated upon Artus’s hiding spot. As Tyvian grabbed the bridle of Jaevis’s horse, a hot flash of anger caused Artus to stand up and point. “You damned liar!”

  Both Alafarr and Jaevis spun around in time to see Tyvian swing up into the saddle of the bounty hunter’s sturdy mare. Alafarr dropped the wand and moved to raise her magestaff, but Tyvian quickly snatched the staff out of the Defender’s lap and jabbed his heels into the mare’s sides. It sprung into a gallop as the smuggler raced out of the campsite, laughing as he went. “Thanks for the staff, Alafarr!”

  The Mage Defender, face red, turned her horse and spurred it in pursuit. Artus watched in fascination as the two rode recklessly down the steep slope of the hill, certain one or the other’s horse would stumble and fall. Both mounts, however, proved to be surefooted and they hit the floor of the small valley below with riders intact.

  Jaevis, meanwhile, sprinted to where Artus stood and, looking down on his fleeing mount, put his fingers to his lips and produced an ear-­splitting whistle. “Kuvyos! Rixte!”

  The mare Tyvian rode stopped suddenly, digging its hooves into the frozen ground and rearing back, pitching him from the saddle and throwing him flat on his back. Alafarr pulled up short, and, extending her hand, summoned her staff to it with a single word. Leveling it at the prone Tyvian, she shouted. “Stand down, Reldamar!”

  Abruptly realizing what was happening, Artus tore his eyes away from Tyvian’s arrest to flee for himself. The bounty hunter Jaevis, however, blocked his path. The dour Illini thrust his fat curved blade at the boy’s chest, but stopped short of impaling him. “You stay,” he stated.

  Artus put up his hands. “Okay . . . you got it.”

  They were nicked. Again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE OL’ SWITCHEROO

  “I’m surprised, Reldamar. That was the kind of trick I expect out of sneak-­thieves and thugs, not you.” Myreon Alafarr was unaccustomed to gloating and so she wasn’t doing it right. Tyvian was relatively certain that enduring such subrate mockery was worse than the genuine article. At least in the latter case one could appreciate the artistry of the insult. Alafarr was like a child painting with mud and bringing it to the art gallery for approval.

  Tyvian and Artus were bound hand and foot and sitting on the bottom of a soggy river barge as it was solemnly poled downstream by a gray-­haired Galaspiner with one eye. Tyvian had always thought depth perception would be important in the riverboat trade, but evidently he was wrong. Either that or this trip down the Trell River was doomed to a cold, wet end. In any case, his mood was hardly improved by their method of transportation.

  The bounty hunter named Jaevis had a compact Kalsaari-­make crossbow across his knees and he was watching the riverbank exclusively, confident that Tyvian and Artus constituted less of a threat than any potential attack from the shore, which lay some thirty or forty yards off. Tyvian had heard of Hacklar Jaevis and was singularly unimpressed with the man’s appearance—­he was dirty and unkempt to the point where the shaggy Hool was manicured by comparison—­but he was forced to admit the man knew his business. It had been eight hours and he hadn’t yet been able to loosen the knots around his wrists one bit, which was no mean feat, especially without enchantment of some sort. Most bounty hunters were good trackers and fighters, but only the best of the best could tie knots like that.

  “What? Nothing pithy to say?” Alafarr chuckled. The Mage Defender was riding a barrel of beer sidesaddle directly across from Tyvian. Her cheeks were red from the icy gusts of wind coming across the water, which only made her smile look all the more cheery.

  Tyvian ignored the Defender, looking instead at Artus. “I thought I told you to run, not reveal my position.”

  Artus, who had been quiet since his capture, scowled. “You set me up, Reldamar! You hung me out to dry! They was chasing me, and you were gonna leave me!”

  Alafarr laughed. “Oooo . . . he’s mad at you, Reldamar.”

  Tyvian sighed. “Yes, Artus is quite unused to the comings and goings of criminal enterprise. He, apparently, was raised with some perverted sense of fair play. His mother’s fault, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Why you son of a . . . I’ll kill you!” Artus struggled against his bonds, squirming like an angry snake as he tried to head-­butt, bite, and ram into the smuggler. Jaevis grabbed a handful of the boy’s shirt and pulled him off.

  Alafarr shook her head. “Reduced to baiting fourteen-­year-­olds, are we?”

  Tyvian shrugged. “Say, Alafarr, how is it that Jaevis here comes to be working with you? I thought Defenders did all their manhunting in-­house, so to speak.”

  Alafarr shot Jaevis a glance, but the bounty hunter was still peering at the riverbank and wasn’t paying attention. She glared at Tyvian. “Don’t worry yourself about it, Reldamar. You should just wonder what kind of statue a Saldorian court is going to make you into and for how long.”

  Tyvian nodded—­it was a good question. “I hope a fountainhead. You know—­something pretty, but not too gaudy.”

  “I’ll see to it they make you a birdbath, so animals will shit on your head for years on end,” Alafarr snarled.

  “What are you talking about?” Artus asked. “What do you mean ‘birdbath’?”

  “Saldor is a civilized country, Artus,” Tyvian said, “We don’t whip or maim or clap criminals in irons. The guilty are made to contribute to society in the form of stone statuary by way of a semipermanent Dweomeric alteration ritual. For us, that means we will be transformed into stone benches or flagstones or something and left as an attractive piece of public artwork in some penitentiary garden for however long as we are sentenced to ‘serve,’ all the while being left alone with our thoughts.”

  Artus turned white. “How . . . how long?”

  “For being an accomplice to Tyvian Reldamar,” Alafarr stated, “you are looking at a minimum five years, barring any association or collusion with the several murders he’s committed.”

  Tyvian nodded. “More than enough time for you to either go completely insane or become a perfect citizen thereafter. I must warn you, though, that the ‘insane’ bit is far more common.”

  Artus’s mouth opened and closed for a few moments. “But . . . but . . . I’m only a kid! You can’t do that to me! I don’t want anything to do with this guy!” he sputtered, pointing at Reldamar. “He didn’t tell me what we was doing! I didn’t kill nobody! He was just going to pay me ten marks—­only ten!”

  Alafarr nodded. “I understand, boy—­you’ll have an opportunity to plead your case. If you serve as a witness against Reldamar, it could go well for you.”

  Artus was still pale as a sheet. “Oh, oh thank you, Magus! I’m sorry—­I really am.”

  Tyvian smiled quietly and caught them boy’s gaze. “And now tell me, Artus, who is hanging whom out to dry?”

  Alafarr grinned. “Looks like he’s catching on to the ‘comings and goings of criminal enterprise’ after all, isn’t he?”

  Tyvian looked out at the river. It was dark and wide, and though it was too warm for large chunks of ice to form in its waters, he knew it was cold enough to kill a man before he got to shore. The scenery on the bank consisted of isolated stands of bare trees and firs, as well as an occasional mill, ruined old watchtower, or ferryman’s boathouse. Judging by their speed, he estimated they would be in Galaspin in less than two days, and every hour put Freegate farther and farther away. He wanted to swear, to jump up and down in rage, but there was little point. His only plan for escape involved some of the equipment he had left aboard the spirit engine and some spontaneous mis
hap that would delay their progress southward. Neither of them, he knew, were likely to happen.

  It was just at that moment that there was a whistle of air and the boatman cried out just before pitching overboard.

  Alafarr stood so suddenly she almost fell overboard herself. “Kroth’s teeth! What the hell . . .”

  “Silence!” Jaevis suddenly barked, leaping to his feet with much more grace than the Defender had, crossbow at his shoulder. “Get down!”

  Alafarr crouched, muttering an abjuration under her breath that Tyvian couldn’t quite follow, save that it was channeling the Lumen. Over this, Tyvian could hear a rhythmic whirring coming from the riverbank. Rolling himself over to get a good look in that direction, both he and Jaevis searched for the source of the noise, whatever it was.

  The whirring grew higher and higher in pitch until, suddenly, a monstrous golden-­furred head and torso appeared over the riverbank and released a long strap. Jaevis threw himself to the deck, but the sling-­stone wasn’t targeted at him. White sparks flashed a foot from Alafarr’s head as the projectile smashed against her magical guard. Even unharmed, the shock of it was enough to make her fall backward.

  Tyvian grinned. So that was how Hool was catching those birds . . .

  Jaevis lined up his crossbow for a shot, but Hool had already vanished from sight, and the whirring started again. The bounty hunter swore in Illini.

  Meanwhile, the horses, who had only recently accepted the presence of the gnoll-­reeking Tyvian and Artus, began to panic at the nearness of the real thing. Their nostrils flared and they yanked at their bridles, which were looped around a rail at the center of the barge. Alafarr stood up, putting a hand on the reins of her own horse and yelling, “Jaevis! Control your horse!”

  “Silence!” Jaevis roared over the scream of his own steed and Alafarr’s yelling. “I can no hear sling!”