by Paul Kidd
A sudden blast of light speared from the nearby brush. The Justicar hurled himself aside and turned to take a fierce blast of heat across his back. The hell hound pelt jerked as flame licked across it, the fireproof fur shielding the Justicar from the blast. Flame licked along his left arm, and the Justicar fell sprawling in the smoking ferns.
Feet pelted toward him as the last bandit made good his retreat. As he came near, the Justicar erupted from the ground with a lightning-fast swing of his sword.
His opponent was swift. The sword blow that should have sheared him off at the knees instead whipped through empty air. The Justicar cursed and sprinted in pursuit, his right arm suddenly crawling with pain.
Something dodged into the dead trees. A flame blast thundered out from Cinders’ nostrils, instantly setting the brush afire. The flames litup the figure of the running bandit, and he turned just in time to block the Justicar’s black sword with his own glittering silver blade. The raw force ofthe blow threw the bandit back toward the camp, and he fell sprawling in the dirt.
Placing himself and his deadly sword between his enemy and escape, the Justicar’s heavy, savage figure stood backlit by the flames. Hisenemy made a feral hiss in the firelight. As the trees behind him burned, the creature’s demonic face shone mottled and skull-like in the gloom. The creaturewas scaly, inhumanly slim, and dripping with lordly disdain. Long needlelike fangs disfigured an already ugly face. It gazed in distaste upon the savage sight of the Justicar, and firelight flickered inside the creature’s eyes.
Shifting his blood-smeared blade, the Justicar gazed at his enemy as though slowly measuring it for its grave.
Cambion.
A half-demon, part man and part monster, cambions were an abomination. As the Justicar poised his blade, breathing slow and hard, the cambion gave a sudden scream and charged forward.
They traded blows-the silver sword moving fast as lightningto block the Justicar’s black blade. The two swords met again and again, theforce of the Justicar’s barrage driving his enemy down, and then the manviciously kicked his enemy in the knee. The creature cursed and grunted as the Justicar hacked his sword into its armored hide.
The thing’s flesh jarred like teak, almost denting theJusticar’s blade. Scarcely scratched, the creature twisted and stabbed its swordat the man’s head. Steel screamed as one cheek guard almost tore free from theJusticar’s helm. The big man roared and butted his head into the hellspawn face.As the creature staggered back, the black blade chopped a thin wound across its cheek. Scenting the kill, the Justicar brought his sword back around in a blow designed to shear the creature in two.
Screaming an arcane incantation, the cambion shot a force bolt from its palms that staggered the Justicar back an instant before his blade could strike.
With shocking speed the Justicar bulled into the attack. His sword blow came blindingly fast, flicking aside the cambion’s blade and sweepingin a blur to cleave toward its neck.
The cambion streaked aside, launching itself away from the terrifying black sword. It sped toward the wagon camp, racing past the teamsters and crossbowmen and heading away from the blazing woods.
Lumbering hard in pursuit, the Justicar bellowed in anger at the caravan guards. “Shoot, you damned fools!”
Whipping up its hand, the cambion cast a spell as the crossbowmen sighted and fired. Crossbow bolts ricocheted away from a half-seen disc of force. The barrage failed to touch the cambion-yet it stalled thecreature long enough for the Justicar to bring it back into the range of his blade. Whirling about, the cambion saved itself an instant before it could be sheared in two. The colossal force of the Justicar’s blow still drove thecreature back and chopped a gash deep into its side.
The two combatants hammered at each other while the caravan crews gathered to stare in shock. Sparks spattered across the dirt, steel screaming as the Justicar drove his enemy back. With a roar, the cambion parried, shrieked another incantation, and slapped its open palm against the Justicar’s blade. A savage crackle of lightning wreathed the sword, and theJusticar spilled backward, swearing in pain. His enemy tried to stab down with its own blade. The Justicar roared and kicked the creature in what should have been its crotch, but it merely made the thing stagger one pace back and skin its blade past the Justicar’s armored hide.
The creature rebounded off the fish oil wagon, hissed through its needle fangs, and took a firm grip upon its sword. With his own blade lying three paces away, the Justicar tensed in order to dive away from the inevitable blow.
Die!
The hell hound seemed to scream with laughter as it blasted out its third and final flame for the day. The cambion ducked underneath the firebolt, which smacked into the wagon, instantly catching the oil-stained barrels afire.
“Cinders!”
Fire! Burn! The hound seemed to dance with utter glee. Burn! Burn!
Flames climbed the wagon, wreathing the oil barrels in light. Framed against the fire, the cambion raised its hand and let the air crackle with the power of a magic spell. With a scream of triumph, the creature prepared to blast the Justicar into nonexistence.
Oil barrels suddenly burst open in the heat, and blazing fish oil gushed out to drown the cambion with flame. Blinded, the creature instinctively whipped about, giving the Justicar the instant he needed to snatch his blade and attack. The cambion tried to heave itself out of the black sword’spath. It lifted a hand to shield itself as the Justicar whipped his blade downward in a terrifying blur of speed.
The sword rang as it hacked into demonic flesh. A severed hand flew into the fire, the cambion screeching in pain as it clutched at the stump of its wrist. The mutilated monster staggered wildly aside, then quite suddenly sprinted off into the dark.
“Damn it!”
Shielding his face, the Justicar tried to pursue through the flames, only to fall back as more and more oil barrels exploded in the heat. Oxen reared and screamed as blazing oil burst amidst the trees, the whole forest suddenly catching flame.
His teeth set in a wide, unmoving grin, Cinders gave a gleeful wag of his tail. Good fire! Good fire! Burn! Burn! Burn!
“That’s great, Cinders. That’s about a thousand goldnobles worth of oil!”
Burn!
The Justicar irritably sheathed his sword and cursed. The bandit chieftain had escaped, and burning fish oil had set the entire forest ablaze. Swearing bitterly, the Justicar shoved his shoulder against one wagon and helped the teamsters roll it slowly away from the flames.
Oxen stampeded off into the night, and the scout’s horsebroke its tether to bolt off to gods-knew-where. Scorched and sweating teams of men managed to roll wagons out onto the soggy plain, losing their bedding and their tents to the rushing fires.
In the end, three wagons were a total loss. The Razor Wood wreathed the entire sky with flames, trees crisping and huge sheets of fire soaring up into the sky. Sitting on the grass a few hundred yards from the blaze, the Justicar could only curse and grumble as he used a fistful of weeds to scrub clean his blade.
Having managed to collect a brace of oxen, Polk the teamster came over to sit at his side. The teamster watched the forest burn, unable to hear the tittering glee of Cinders in his own mind. Taking a bite of barbecued oxen, he passed a lump of meat over to the Justicar and then uncorked a brandy jug.
“Sentient hell hound pelt, hey? That’s a mighty strangepartner, son.” Apparently unconcerned by the sulphur hissing from Cinders’jaws, Polk took a drink. “It’s a nice touch. Unusual. A real fighter needs atouch of the unusual about him.”
Polk parked himself beside the Justicar, forgetting to offer a pull from his brandy jug.
“Your technique’s good, son! Don’t get me wrong!” The manworked a piece of meat out from between two teeth, then pitched the morsel at the fires. “See, I knew they had to have someone watchin’ over us! A specialagent, a guardian angel. You work for the County Guard?”
“Special commission.” The Justicar should his head. “Countess
of Urnst. She asked. I listened.” The Justicar examined his blade. The enchantedsteel was unmarked by the evening’s work. “She knew I’d be… inclined.”
Polk thoughtfully screwed the cork back into his jug, settling it in place with a decisive thud.
“How did you know that scout feller was a spy?”
“He was heading off to lead the ambush.” The Justicarcarefully examined his tools. “When a rider goes to the stream after makingcamp, he takes a bucket or he leads his horse.”
“Good reasoning, son! Fine reasoning.” The teamster watchedas an oil barrel deep inside the burning forest somehow shot itself up into the sky. “Unless he watered his horse when he first went into the forest-before hecame back to the caravan.”
The Justicar glared at the man and stripped the grinning hell hound pelt away from his back. “The ogres made a convincing argument.”
“I suppose so, suppose so….” The teamster watched as hiscompanion began to brush the hell hound pelt into a lustrous shine. The creature leaked sulphurous smoke from its nostrils, squeezing its eyes shut in pleasure as it basked beneath the brush.
Most other men would be loath to intrude upon a man and his dog-particularly a fire-breathing sentient hell hound pelt-but Polk hadobviously decided he was made of sterner stuff.
“Well, at least you picked up a few pointers from me. Notmany folks are smart enough to know when they have a failin’.” The teamsterpatted the big man with a paternalistic hand. “See, I told you that you needed agood sword fight! I admire a beginner who’s not ashamed to learn, son. I admireit, I really do.”
More explosions sounded from deep inside the forest fire as more oil barrels fed the hungry blaze. With half the landscape aflame, Polk strode off to see if any ale had been rescued from the camp. Sitting cross-legged in damp grass with a skinned hell hound purring in his lap, the Justicar could only gnaw upon his half-cooked meat and pray that tomorrow would be a better day.
3
Someone was trying to make sure Urnst’s northern bordersettlements failed, and whoever they were, they were good. The Justicar could chalk at least three caravans up to his enemy’s credit, and the gods only knewhow many other raids had gone unreported. Whoever orchestrated these bandits had power enough to secure inhuman help and an intelligence network that let them slip their own men into each expedition. That meant the leaders had wealth, had power-and had a larger plan. Yet, they were subtle enough merely to try to makethe settlers lose hope and leave. This seemed to rule out the obvious culprit, the half-demon king Iuz. Iuz would have simply eradicated the settlements through violence, and he had far more power to call upon than a handful of ogres and a cut-rate cambion.
The Justicar’s current employer, the Countess of Urnst, was awise woman. She knew that her counselors were security risks and that her border patrols had been infiltrated. Obliterating this problem would require a certain silent, savage touch. Hence came the Justicar. He had a simple commission: Get the wagon trains safely moving. To accomplish this, he would have to eliminate the cause of the raids.
Because the caravans left from secret locations and took secret trails, someone was obviously seeding agents among the caravans to lead them into ambush. This meant that the enemy must have a spy that somehow discovered the caravan routes.
To find that spy, the ranger had accompanied the teamsters on their journey back to their usual home base. Somewhere here, there was a spy, the next step up a ladder that would lead the Justicar to the head of the conspiracy. He had followed the trail back to where the caravans began, and now once again he hunted for unworthy souls.
Along the Franz River, on the border of the County of Urnst and its eastern neighbor Nyrond, there lay an area of careful neutrality. Both kingdoms watched each other in mutual hostility and therefore had opened a niche for exploitation.
The river had become a haven for showboats and pleasure barges. As long as gambling, prostitution, and alcohol were peddled on the river, the boats were technically under no one’s tax and no one’s law. Thebarges were careful never to touch upon the shore, plying rowboats back and forth to pick up passengers and supplies. Huge, lordly, and teeming with revelers, each barge existed as a tiny kingdom with its own power struggles, its own politics, and its own maze of petty crime. They were floating worlds the size of villas, crewed by dozens of sailors, waiters, cooks, prostitutes, card sharks, and armed guards.
A typical barge of its kind, the Saucy Gannet measured two hundred feet in length, soared three stories tall, and had been decked out in painted wooden feathers from gilded stem to crested stern. Onboard gambling halls, bars, and brothels catered to a bizarre array of tastes. Cheap tavern housing could be found below decks while the upper levels were as opulent as a palace. The whole contraption plodded through the water, propelled by a huge stern wheel. Guests who had tried to skip their gambling debts now walked along a treadmill that turned the wheel.
Festooned with banners and with its idiotic figurehead grinning at the world, the Saucy Gannet was a universe all of her own.
The Justicar did not approve.
In a world where so many suffered and where so much work still needed to be done, he objected to seeing such effort being wasted upon sheer banality. Watching a pair of leggy women wiggle past, the Justicar leaned on a rail and distastefully wondered if merely touching the ship would somehow taint his soul.
Two tourists seemed to be enjoying their little dip into debauchery. They were dressed largely in ostrich feathers, most of which were placed to the rear. They looked the shaven-headed man slyly up and down, leaning back upon the rails in invitation. All of a sudden, one girl saw the hell hound skin grinning wickedly at them from the Justicar’s backpack, bugged her eyesout, and dragged her companion into a hasty retreat to the farthest possible corner of the ship.
From his nest inside his friend’s backpack, Cinders gave ahappy sniff of the air.
Girlie girl smells nice!
The Justicar pulled an apple from a passing tray. He bit into it, chewed for a while, and carefully examined the barge with its waving bunting and its dens of sin. Every person aboard was being fleeced by the captain, robbed by crooked games and thieving waitresses, yet more and more visitors came aboard at every stop. With the end of the war, people seemed in a frenzy to spend their time upon frivolity.
It was a monument to wastefulness, illusion, and greed. Cursing in disgust, the Justicar pitched his apple core down into the river. “Ihate this place.”
Burn! Cinders seemed to jiggle with glee. Burn! Burn!
“Look, just have a snack, will you? And no burning!” Aftershoving a piece of coal into the hell hound’s mouth, the Justicar angrilysnatched another apple from a passing dish. “You do realize they’retrying to make us pay for all that damned fish oil?”
Just to make the day perfect, a bystander decided to invade the Justicar’s private retreat beside the rail. The intruder had the physique ofa piece of knotted string, a huge axe-beak nose, and had decked himself out in an archer’s cap adorned with pheasant plumes.
“So there you are! Thought I saw you there. Said to myself,‘Polk,’ I said, ‘now there’s a fellow in need of company!’”
“Oh, lovely.” The Justicar seethed with raw hatred forthe entire universe. Polk the teamster was exactly the right thing to worsen an already irritating day. “You’ve woken up.”
“Had to, son. I’m your host! Brought you here, should lookafter you. No telling what trouble a young ’un like you might blunder into in aplace like this. You need an old hand to watch out for you, someone who knows the ropes, has an investigative mind.” Polk helped himself to a bite from theJusticar’s apple. He decided to keep it and finished the entire fruit as hetalked.
“This is the life. This is the payoff. Here’s where we comeat the end of every trip.” The man managed to shower droplets of apple juice allover the front of the Justicar. “Wagoning! That’s the life. You take my word forit, son. Give up this ne’er-do-well trapping you
do and take up a proper job!”
“Yeah, right.” The Justicar had worked long and hard to makehimself into a fearsome figure. He had eliminated bandits and preyers-upon-the-weak from Celadon forest to the borders of Iuz. In stark, unyielding efficiency he had no equals. Wrenching his eyes away from the sight of the riverbanks, the Justicar turned himself to the job at hand.
As annoying as it seemed, Polk was his first, best, and only source of information. The big ranger turned to glower down at his companion.
“Talk to me, Polk. So, this is where you were just before youwent out on your job? All of you?” The man tried to leave Polk no openings forfuzzy logic. “This exact barge at this exact town?”
“Right here! The Gannet’s the best punt on the river,and every teamster knows it. Best spread of crowds, too.”
“So I’d heard.” The Justicar rested one hand on the pommel ofhis sword. “Who do you talk to when you get here? Is there one barmaid whoalways listens, one gambler you always see, one woman you always request?”
“You mean do we blab about where we’re going? Pfffft!” The teamster mimed his own mouth being stitched tight. “Our lips are sealed!That’s for us to know and the world to find out! You know me,son-professionalism first! Never interfere with the job!”
Apparently, someone was interfering with the job. Someone knew the days and dates that the northbound supply caravans were leaving. Since the teamsters and wagon crews had all been slaughtered to a man, it seemed unlikely that the spy was one of their own.
Clearly, a spy had made a business out of eavesdropping on the wagoners. All in all, it would be easiest to let the spy seek out the wagoners. Much as it pained him, the Justicar decided to attach himself to Polk and his friends.
A gaggle of teamsters had gathered to spend their wages on booze and women before heading out on yet another supply train. Walking slowly after the wagoners, the Justicar followed them down through the gambling dens and into the barge’s painted halls.