Death Mark

by Robert J. Schwalb

  There wasn’t room at the oasis to accommodate many caravans at once, so the elves welcomed those who paid the best price and turned all others away. The elves promised their guests security, yet the great risk to travelers was from the elves themselves, who would rob even their guests. It made Alaeda wonder why anyone would stop there at all. Water, of course, was the only thing she came up with. Walk the desert, and one finds water worth any price. The dozen silver coins she dropped into the elf’s long-fingered hands had won her and Phytos a spot to raise their tent and insurance against sticky fingers prowling through their belongings.

  When they rounded the bazaar, they saw they were not the only guests. Camped near the muddy water’s north shore stood a knot of tents, supplies, and a few wagons. The other caravan sprawled across the entire space, leaving little room for Alaeda and Phytos to camp. Alaeda pulled up on her reins to stop her mount. She dismounted, as did Phytos, and they led their beasts to a quiet spot near the wall. Firelight from the other merchants threw shadows against the walls. Phytos raised their tent and unpacked their supplies while Alaeda watched. She searched the cluster of tents for a symbol to designate the house—a black diamond, House Vordon.

  She laughed then turned to their beasts.

  Phytos looked up from his work, curious.

  “We have Vordon for neighbors,” she said.

  He chuckled and pulled out their near-empty water skins to refill them from the oasis.

  She would have been surprised had Phytos understood the implications. She had kept much from him about her house’s plot to destroy House Vordon and seize their contracts. She trusted him; he just didn’t need to know. He was aware of the deal she had struck with Mordis, and though it was clear he didn’t like it, he had so far kept his opinions to himself.

  “Let me,” she said, reaching for the skins.

  He shrugged and handed them over.

  “I won’t be long,” she said and headed off to the oasis. Drawing near the other camp, she saw at once it wasn’t just any Vordon merchant caravan. She knelt when she reached the muddy shore and dipped the bags into the filthy water—neither silver nor a spring. She kept her eyes on the Vordon camp. They didn’t carry cargo, or at least not saleable cargo. Instead, it looked as if they were moving equipment, chairs, desks, weapons, foodstuffs, and the like, all tied down on wagons or heaped in piles next to the mekillots, great armored beasts of burden, who bore them on their broad backs. The beasts lowed as their handlers brought them food.

  As she scanned the encampment, she spotted someone watching her. Dark eyes peered out at her from the flat, brutish features. A dwarf, young and female, also fetched water. Her simple garb suggested she was a slave, as did the bone collar around her neck. She had noticed Alaeda’s attention, and Alaeda could sense she was suspicious.

  Alaeda looked down and pulled the bag from the water. She capped it and dipped in her hands to take a drink. It was foul, dirty stuff, filled with silt and something worse. She stood and turned back but looked once more at the slave and found her staring still. Alaeda touched her brow and hastened back to Phytos.

  Pakka watched the slim woman walk away from the oasis. There was something about her she didn’t like. She couldn’t see her very well, but she could see she had been watching the camp with interest. She wasn’t even put off by Pakka’s warning glare. No surprise. Pakka was a slave, after all.

  “Silly Pakka,” she imagined Rek saying, “so concerned with your mistress, you see enemies in every shadow.” The guard captain had gently mocked her for as long as they had known each other. She would have been offended had he not also been so kind to her in other ways. Still, he couldn’t understand her commitment to Talara Vordon. Pakka had dedicated her life to making sure the Vordon heir was both safe and sound. Pakka had hidden her singular dedication to her mistress from everyone, even Talara herself, since few understood how serious such an oath could be. It was more than an oath, more than some vow. It gave Pakka her identity, her reason for being. So long as Pakka lived, nothing would harm Talara. The ancestors ensured anyone who failed to uphold their oaths did not rest easy in death, and she would face an eternity struggling to make restitutions for her failure.

  Pakka filled the second bucket with water. The water was foul. Pakka would clean it before she’d let her mistress drink. Excrement, poisons, and worse substances swirled in the fluid. Drinking too much would sicken even Pakka, despite her constitution. The buckets full, she lifted them by their rope handles and walked back to Lady Vordon’s tent. She maneuvered around the guards seated around campfires, sipping broy and throwing dice to pass the time. None spared her even a glance. No one noticed slaves.

  Talara’s tent stood in the camp’s center, where some two score guards and servants attended the mistress and also the caravan’s guard captain, Pakka’s oldest friend, Rek. She spotted the human warrior. He stood outside his tent, smoking a pipe. Ghostly rings hung in the still air. He nodded.

  Rek had always been kind to her. He had favored her with small gifts. He made sure she had enough to eat. He even gave her rare treats such as flowers and the small, honeyed almonds she adored. She blushed, just thinking of it, and ducked through the tent’s flaps without spilling a drop.

  Inside, Talara Vordon sat on a folding cot’s edge, leaning forward to catch the light from an oil lantern hanging from one of the support poles. She was reading the scroll again. She read it several times a day since they left Vordon’s Watch, a tiny outpost not far from Urik. She had kept the contents to herself, except to say her cousin Thaxos Vordon had ordered the outpost abandoned and called for their return to Tyr. Pakka hadn’t wanted to leave; it had been her home for a decade. She knew her place, though, and voiced no complaint. Her sadness was hers alone, though she suspected Talara felt as she did.

  Talara noticed Pakka. When the trader looked up, a lock of her long red hair fell across her face. She brushed it aside. “You were gone longer than I expected. No trouble I hope?”

  Pakka thought about the woman she saw but set it aside. “No, mistress. I am sorry for the delay.”

  “No worries. How is the water?”

  “Undrinkable, mistress,” she said.

  “Silver Spring hasn’t changed, then,” Talara replied. She stood, stretching her long legs. She folded the scroll and slipped it under the pillow on the cot.

  In the light, Pakka could see Talara was exhausted. Dark circles ringed her eyes. “Trouble?”

  “No more than usual,” she walked to Pakka’s side and peered into the buckets.

  “It will take me a moment to purify the water, mistress,” said Pakka.

  “Fine,” said Talara. She left Pakka to her water and went to her desk, where she examined the maps. It had been a while since Talara had been in Tyr.

  While Talara reviewed the route, Pakka drew a small pouch on the leather cord around her neck. The leather bag held herbs, leaves, and bits of bark. She shook a few pieces into her hand so she could pick out the ingredients she needed. She replaced the rest. Using her thumb to grind them into a powder, Pakka sprinkled them into the murky water. She then raised her hands and began an incantation. She whispered to the spirits of the clouds and the essence of morning dew, rain, and laughing streams long forgotten. She called them forth, evoking the primal magic she needed to cleanse the water. Although she spoke each evocation with strength, her words were nothing more than a whisper. The herbs floating on the oily water’s surface spun until they formed into tiny eddies. Dark mist rose from them, carrying the disease and filth away. A moment later the water was clear enough that Pakka could see to the bottom.

  She dropped her hands and breathed hard for a few moments. When she recovered, she filled a clay cup to sample the water. It was clean. She fetched another cup and brought the freshened water to Talara.

  “I don’t like magic, Pakka,” said Talara.

  “I understand, Mistress Vordon. I do not work magic, though.”

  “Looks like magic to me,”
said Talara.

  Pakka paused, searching for a way to explain. “I suppose you are correct, mistress. I did use magic. But I did not use the magic of the sorcerer-kings and their templars. Their magic requires life energy from plants, animals, anything living. Each spell cast destroys a part of the world.

  “My magic comes from the land itself. Nothing is harmed. Nothing is damaged. My spells, evocations if you will, call forth the land’s spirits to heal the damage, to restore life and health and vigor. I serve the living land and fight death. Am I making sense?”

  Talara snorted. “Evocation, spell, whatever. I have always felt no good can come from sorcery. Still,” she took the cup and sampled the water, “if this is the result, I cannot complain.”

  Both moons hung high in the night sky when their agent entered the encampment. Alaeda stood watch. At first she thought he was a thief. She had her steel short sword at his neck in a blink.

  “Old friends abound,” said the intruder. He spoke the words. He was the contact.

  Alaeda released him. Phytos threw his thin blanket aside, drew his mace, and sat up.

  “It’s fine. He’s a … friend,” she said.

  Phytos climbed to his feet and stepped away from the small fire. He watched from the shadows by the mounts.

  The visitor was human. He was middle-aged, his brown hair streaked gray, and wine stained his left cheek. He wore a hooded desert cloak. Alaeda could see his rust-red uniform underneath. He appeared to be a member of the Vordon entourage.

  “I was beginning to wonder,” said Alaeda.

  The man smirked.

  “So? Why are we here?”

  He looked around for eavesdroppers. Not even Phytos was in earshot anymore.

  “You’re to go with Talara Vordon. To Tyr.”

  Alaeda stifled a groan. “Tyr? If I’m needed in Tyr, I could have just gone straight there. I would have been there by now.”

  The agent shrugged.

  She could kill the man before he could blink. She stayed her hand. Instead, he saw the threat in her gaze.

  He paled. “I don’t know why they didn’t send you. Seems to me they want you to infiltrate the caravan.”

  “So I gathered,” she said. “They already have guards. I doubt they’ll need two more.”

  “I’m making the preparations tonight. There will be two vacancies by morning. Just see you’re there at dawn. I’ll vouch for you.”

  “Fine. We go to Tyr. Then what?”

  He looked around again then continued. “When you reach Tyr, go to the Red Kank and wait for your contact. He or she—I’m not sure which—will have your description, but they’ll test you to be sure of your identity. When you’re approached, say ‘Hear the lion’s roar.’ He should then say, ‘All tremble before its fury.’ Got it?”

  Alaeda nodded.

  “Repeat it back to me,” he said.

  She did so. “So what am I to do in Tyr?”

  The man shrugged.

  She waved him off. He got up and disappeared into the shadows beyond the firelight. Alaeda saw him in the Vordon camp a few moments later. He was laughing and jesting with the caravan guards as if he belonged there.

  Phytos returned a moment later. “What was that all about?”

  “New marching orders,” she said with a sigh. “We’re guards now.”

  The dream shattered when screams woke Pakka. She struggled up from the pallet. Talara had already left.

  Pakka scrubbed her face with her hands and got to her feet. More shouting. Pakka pushed through the tent’s flaps. There, Rek, Talara, and the Silver Hands’ chieftain, a rogue named Toramund, argued.

  “We paid your ridiculous fee for protection, you treacherous bastard. Now I have two dead guards on my hands and who knows what missing from my wagons.”

  “I assure you,” said Toramund, his voice as oily as the water he peddled, “none of my people had anything to do with it. By the spirits of my ancestors, we work very hard to ensure none of our guests come to harm.”

  “Then explain them,” said Talara, pointing to two guards whose names Pakka couldn’t remember lying in a heap. Their throats had been cut.

  “I cannot. I would suggest you look to your own for the culprit. I do recall many of your men were deep in their cups last night. Women, dice, and spirits can all lead to arguments. And even the best of friends can resort to violence over any of those things as I’m sure you know.”

  Rek shook with fury. The muscles in his neck bunched up. He balled his hands into fists and looked as if he might strike the elf.

  The elf ignored him.

  Talara placed a hand on Rek’s arm. “I am sure Toramund is right. My sincerest apologies for bringing this trouble to your door.”

  If Pakka was surprised, Rek was doubly so. He spun on Talara and started to argue. He looked to the tents. Pakka followed his gaze. There, across the oasis, waited twenty elves. Each held a bow, arrows nocked and ready to fire.

  “It is I who should apologize,” said the elf, but he offered nothing more. “If there is nothing else?”

  Talara’s lips pressed to a thin line. She shook her head.

  Toramund bowed and walked away. Pakka could hear him chuckling.

  “We could have taken them,” said Rek when the chief was gone.

  “We already have two deaths. We don’t need any more. Let’s just put as much distance between us and this … place … as possible.”

  She made as if to return to her tent but stopped when a caravan guard came forward. “Mistress?” He looked down at the guards and blanched. Standing at his side was the woman from the night before along with the ugliest mul Pakka had ever seen.

  “Yes, Rukan?” said Talara, gesturing to two slaves to haul off the dead.

  “This is not the best time, but I ran into these two at the oasis.”

  Talara nodded in greeting.

  “This is Alaeda and …”

  “Phytos,” said the woman.

  “I’ve known her for a long time,” he said. “Seems they’re in need of work.”

  “I see,” said Talara.

  Pakka felt it was all too convenient. She inched over to Rek’s side to get his attention.

  “We appear to have … two vacancies,” said Talara.

  Pakka reached up for Rek’s arm. She stopped when Talara said, “Get your things. I mean to be gone within the hour.”

  The two bowed and hurried off.

  “Lady Vordon,” Pakka whispered, “is this wise? They had to be involved. I saw her watching the camp last night.”

  “I’m sure they were. But I’d rather keep my enemies where I can see them.”

  Late in the afternoon on the same day they left Silver Spring Oasis, the guard captain, Rek, called a halt. A wagon had thrown a wheel. It would take until nightfall to repair it. Rek had made it clear he would not travel by night. The roads between the city-states were in dreadful repair, and great sections would vanish beneath the sands at a time, freed for short times when sandstorms tore across the landscape.

  Alaeda had not caught more than a glimpse of Phytos since they left the oasis. No one trusted them. Alaeda couldn’t blame them. When their contact said he would set them up to join the caravan, she never expected such sloppy work. The guard captain put them on either side of the caravan. Since they had stopped, Alaeda got guard duty on one side of the camp and Phytos stood on the other.

  When night fell, so did the temperature. It got cold in the desert. Alaeda drew her cloak around her and leaned on her spear. Her breath plumed as she watched the sands.

  She had little confidence in the spear. Crude, it was not much more than a bone haft shaved down to a point at the end. It would be good for about one strike. Firelight shone from behind her. She could hear muted laughter as the guards ate and chatted around the fires. Although she would have preferred the warmth, she believed it would be better to focus on her task.

  Across the road, Alaeda could see the dark smudge marking the Ringing Mountain
s. Something moved.

  She lowered her spear and widened her stance. She stared. All was still. To her side, she glimpsed something. She couldn’t tell if it was person or a shadow. And then it was gone.

  Just as she opened her mouth to sound a warning, someone cried out. Shouts rose up all around.

  Alaeda looked back. The firelight blinded her. She saw Phytos and a few other guards fighting, though what or who, she couldn’t make out.

  She took a few steps back. Several shapes burst up from the sand on all sides. They were stunted things, hideous mockeries of men, flabby faces and knobby features. Each one shrieked and hooted as it closed. One shouted, “Charge the blood!”

  They grasped for her, claws extended. Alaeda punched the first in the face with her spear. She lifted it, but the weapon snapped. A second rubbery monster, a few paces away, howled and stamped its feet. As it did, crackling blue energy danced across the sand, fusing it into glass. The light built until it was too much to look upon, and just as Alaeda turned away, the energy coalesced into a burning claw. It snaked out and wrapped around her. She was helpless to resist the jolting pain, the agony making it a struggle to fight against its pull. She screamed and stumbled but somehow managed to draw her sword from its scabbard. When she got close enough, she slashed. The blade bit. The monster’s magic leaped away into the desert, bursting a dune one hundred paces away. Alaeda stumbled again but recovered enough to plunge the blade through the creature’s throat.

  Alaeda regained her feet and surveyed the battle. The other enemies had already moved into the camp. More erupted into lightning. Actinic blasts blew men to chunks of meat. Other monsters attacked with claws. Flesh curled into ribbons beneath their assault.

  Alaeda caught her breath. She charged the nearest enemy, catching it by surprise. One stab into its neck and she pulled the blade free in one smooth motion. Crimson strings of blood flew in the air to splash onto the sand.

  She spied Phytos as she searched for another enemy. He was caving in skulls with his stone-headed mace, but there were too many. He fell back. He called to the other guards to form up into ranks. Alaeda stepped up to join him but saw a hideous monster leading two smaller wretches, each crackling with energy, toward Talara and her dwarf slave. Talara and the dwarf had slain two monsters, but they had paid with blood. Numerous cuts bled. The new threat was bigger than the rest. Each step he took caused the sand to rumble with violent force.