by A J Dalton
Mordius cocked his head at Saltar, literally trying to see him from a different point of view. ‘Saltar, you ask peculiar things. No, I cannot discount it is my own desire. And, indeed, this quest is driven by my own desire, my desire for freedom from fear, the need to hide, the war, King’s Guardian’s, other necromancers and, ultimately, death. In a way you are right about me justifying myself by talking back at myself. Yet in the same way are we not acting out and living out an exploration of just what a life means? By seeking out what my life means, I give my life some sort of purpose and meaning. You are the same, Saltar, for you too seek to discover who you were and what the significance of that life was. Remember, paradox is central to the magic of a necromancer.’
Saltar shook his head as if he was bothered by flies. ‘This is a fool’s errand then, but a fool’s errand that has some sense to it.’
‘If you like.’
‘Enough! It’s time we made camp for the night. Kate!’ he called. ‘We should stop amongst those trees.’
Kate nodded in acknowledgement and guided her horse off the road.
‘It will be good to rest,’ Mordius groaned, putting a hand to his lower back and stretching it.
‘You won’t be resting for a while yet,’ Saltar said flatly. ‘You will cut us a staff each and I will teach you to defend yourself.’
‘Will it hurt?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘Will I be humiliated in front of Kate?’
‘Most assuredly.’
‘I can’t wait.’
They found a suitable clearing and tethered the horses. Saltar began to rub them down, Kate began to make a fire ringed by stones and Mordius found two unusually long, straight branches to act as weapons.
All too soon for Mordius, he was facing his animee and bracing a staff horizontally in front of him. Saltar twirled his own staff with an expertise neither of them were surprised he possessed. Kate lounged by the fire and looked on with interest while still managing to keep half an eye on a stew that was gently simmering.
‘Balance your weight on the balls of your feet!’ Saltar said curtly.
Mordius was still trying to work out what this meant when Saltar brought his staff to vertical, came forwards and simply pushed it against Mordius’s. Mordius staggered backwards and barely avoided tripping.
‘Why did you let me get so close?’ Saltar asked. ‘You do not have the strength for fighting at close quarters. Use the staff’s range and your quickness of eye and hand, Mordius.’
Mordius spread his feet more and put one foot slightly in front of the other. He bent his knees slightly and angled his staff with one end higher than the other. As Saltar came forwards, Mordius flicked the end of his staff one-handed towards Saltar’s head. The soldier batted it aside with one end of his own staff and then brought the other end round to catch Mordius in the side of his knee. The necromancer yelped in pain and went down.
‘Keep both hands on the staff as much as possible.’
Mordius rose. Their staffs clashed and Saltar slid his weapon down against Mordius’s to catch the man’s fingers and knuckles.
‘Arrrgh! That hurt!’ the small man cried, putting his numb hand under the opposite armpit. He looked over at Kate, but she kept her features neutral and offered no comment.
‘The best remembered lessons usually do,’ Saltar said patiently and with no obvious amusement. ‘You must watch your fingers. If that had been a sword I’d slid down on you there, you’d have to learn to wipe your arse with your other hand.’
‘And how am I to avoid such an indignity, pray tell?’
‘Disengage, Mordius. Step away, avoid, spin, do whatever is necessary. There is no such thing as cowardice or right and wrong when you are in a fight for your life. There are no rules, parameters, prescribed behaviours or absolute methods. It is, as you say Mordius, all about desire and acting out of that desire. You have to want to live enough to do what is required to live. Make ready!’
Mordius jumped back and raised his guard. Saltar paced to the side and then launched himself at the hateful creature.
It spat at him and scuttled backwards. Without fear, he came in fast and low. It caught him with a blow to the shoulder, but failed to reduce his momentum or knock him off his line. He collided with it and knocked it onto its back. Bearing down with his weapon, he struck it hard in the abdomen. It screeched in agony.
‘Saltaaar!’ the stricken necromancer squealed from the ground.
Kate tackled Saltar from behind and wrestled him backwards. They fell down and she back-handed him across the face. ‘What’s wrong with you, you crazy son of a bitch-demon!’ she screamed angrily.
He’d dropped his staff in the fall and suddenly knew where he was again. ‘Kate? Oh, no! Mordius! Are you alright?’
‘No thanks to you!’ the necromancer gasped and grimaced. ‘That’s enough weapons’ practice for tonight. I thought you were going to kill me!’
‘I was,’ Saltar said quietly. He had hoped that the staff would be safe for him to touch where weapons like a sword and knife were not. It had nearly worked, until he had started to think of fighting for his life.
Kate crawled over to Mordius and carefully helped him up. She put a shoulder under him and moved him carefully over to the fire. All the while, she kept a wary eye on Saltar.
‘With rest, food and warmth, let’s hope you’re not too sore to ride tomorrow,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll keep watch tonight,’ Saltar said starkly and moved away from them into the trees. He didn’t need the company or light. After all, he was dead.
***
CHAPTER SEVEN: Versed in the ways of man
They rode in silence through a subdued landscape. The grey of the sky seemed to have bled into the trees and grass. The only sound was the occasional soughing of the wind, apart from the strangely muffled clopping of the horses on the road. Mordius smelt a trace of wood smoke on the air and knew they had to be close to Holter’s Cross.
‘How can he be on watch all night and then set such a punishing pace like that?’ Kate asked from her horse, nodding to the long-striding Saltar, who had already crested the rise ahead and was disappearing down the other side.
Mordius shook his head sadly. ‘He sets a punishing pace to punish himself, Kate. He probably feels bad about the fight with the staffs last night.’
‘What was he playing at with that?’ she asked in bemusement.
‘That’s precisely it, Kate, he wasn’t playing. It’s not a game, you see. To him, weapons and the ways of war are a matter of life and death, not just a necessary evil as they are to you and me. He has been damaged by this war. Do not blame him for what he is.’
‘That’s a generous way to look at it, when he could have killed you.’
Mordius was quiet for a while and Kate thought he was not going to answer, when he said: ‘Saltar said that the best remembered lessons are the ones that hurt. There may be some lessons in life that can only be learnt by way of the prospect of the ultimate hurt, death.’
‘It strikes me that you are more philosopher than trader or manservant, Mordius.’
He nodded. ‘Well, travelling with Saltar, I’ve been set thinking more than I ever have in my life. I am grateful to him for that. And last night’s lesson has set us thinking once again.’
‘I never realised thinking could be so painful.’
‘Oh, to be sure that it is!’ Mordius laughed. ‘Why else do you think it is avoided by so many?’
They reached the top of the rise and looked down on the perfectly straight road that led towards a smoky haze on the horizon. A horizontal dirt track cut across the road not too far ahead, where Saltar waited, apparently pondering the options offered by the crossroads and a rough signpost. They trotted forwards to join him.
‘The road to the left into the woods is marked with the symbol of an axe,’ Saltar said without inflection. ‘It presumably denotes a woodcutter’s home or a logging operation. The road to the right is signed b
y a pitchfork. A village of farmers or peasants, no doubt. What do you think?’
‘Holter’s Cross is straight ahead,’ Kate supplied. ‘I thought we were going there. Going around it by one of these routes will take longer.’
Saltar waited for Mordius to pipe up, which he duly did: ‘That is true, but we may avoid trouble by taking a more roundabout route. Holter’s Cross is very populous and full of weapons-for-hire. There is a good chance that someone would recognise either Saltar or his uniform there.’
Kate pursed her lips and considered their dilemma. ‘But we still need clothes, leather armour and weapons for the two of you. I suppose I could go there myself and…’
‘No, no!’ Mordius protested. ‘We’ll make do with the staffs and get simple clothes from a village or something. It’s a better disguise because we’ll get less attention if we appear to be itinerant labourers.’
‘Surely, not! If you’re travelling with a King’s Guardian who’s carrying a crossbow and wearing green… ah, I see!’ she said suddenly as realisation dawned. They regarded her silently. ‘How stupid of me! There’s no real reason for us to travel together anymore, is there? Very well, if that’s the way you want it!’
She pulled her horse round in the direction of Holter’s Cross.
‘No, I didn’t mean…! Don’t go, Kate! Saltar, say something!’
‘There are horses coming.’
‘What?’ Mordius and Kate said together, casting around. From a small copse of trees several hundred yards down the road, a group of six riders emerged. Even at that distance, they were clearly armed.
Mordius pulled out the two staffs threaded through his baggage and tossed one to Saltar, who caught it cleanly. Kate unhitched her crossbow, used a hook on her saddle to pull the string into place and then turned the ratcheting mechanism on the weapon until the string vibrated with tension. Calmly, she pulled a quarrel from a quiver at her waist and set the shaft in place. She rested the bow on her thigh and waited for the riders to draw near.
There was a clear leader: a sour-looking man with an unkempt moustached that failed to hide his hare lip. The other riders fanned out to each side and slightly behind him. They were a strange mix – a sulking, handsome youth, a muscled axe-woman in her middle years, a knife-wielding weasel, a feathered libertine with a rapier and a solid looking fellow whose sword was as notched as his features. They were a typically incongruous mercenary band. Unless this band was newly formed, they would have complementary fighting skills that made them more formidable as a group than as six individuals.
Kate wondered if they were sizing up Mordius, Saltar and herself in the same way. She realised that the three of them might actually pass for mercenaries themselves. The weasel’s fingers twitched towards one of the numerous throwing knives strapped to his vest. Kate lifted the end of her crossbow an inch in warning and the man went preternaturally still. The tension was palpable.
Hare lip leaned forwards on his pommel. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ he sneered at Kate, keeping his eyes on her.
‘What business is that of yours?’ she asked coolly. ‘This is a public road.’
‘You are entering the environs of Holter’s Cross. We are tax collectors and enforcers of the peace. Use of the road is taxed.’
‘Indeed, by the King!’ Kate said through gritted teeth. ‘And it is paid by the burghers of each city, not by poor travellers.’
‘The King,’ hare lip said harshly, ‘does not dictate to Holter’s Cross. The Guild rules here and collects local taxes as it sees fit. You will pay.’ Then he hawked in his throat and spat, the gobbet landing just shy of Saltar’s feet.
Saltar turned his head slowly and looked at Kate.
Mordius spoke up hopefully: ‘How much is the tax? I fear we will not have the funds but perhaps we can travel on the grass next to the road so that there is no need for taxation?’
‘I think not…’
‘No one will be paying tax here!’ Kate projected sternly, sitting tall in her saddle. ‘I am a King’s Guardian and you will stand aside or face the full wrath of the throne’s displeasure.’
Behind her, Mordius groaned quietly.
Kate’s pronouncement had the desired effect on hare lip’s followers, who fidgeted and glanced at their leader for a cue. The leader, however, refused to be phased and knew better than to give up the upper hand so easily.
‘And who would these other two be? Guardians travel alone, don’t they? I think you lie, my sweet siren. And why would your succubus offer to pay if you were as you claim to be? Now, you will surrender everything you have of value or face the full wrath of the Guild. If I decide your body is of value, woman, then I will take that as well.’
Letting fly with the crossbow and reaching for one of her long-bladed knives with her other hand, Kate screamed, ‘Kill them all, Saltar!’
In an instant, Saltar was back upon the blood-drenched battlefield where he’d fought a number of times before. He saw the ground was made up of the bones and flesh of the dead trodden down hard as if by the feet of giants or a passing army of millions, so that it was as solid underfoot as earth and rock. Ranged against him were black dragons mounted by leering simians. The fire lizards screeched and pawed at the earth, their eyes the burning coals of torture.
The front simian had been lanced in the shoulder and his voice was like a series of detonations that echoed off the horizon. It rallied the others and they prepared to strike at Saltar all at once. He knew his only chance was to move first.
He leapt into their midst and whirled his staff, thumping dragon, then rider, dragon, then rider. The beats were slow to turn and jostled each other. The riders found it hard to swivel in their seats. As Saltar came around the back legs of one dragon and its rider’s head turned to follow his path, Saltar jumped high and punched the end of his staff up under the simian’s jaw. There was a sickening crunch and the simian toppled from its perch.
Saltar’s foot came down on the back of the dragon’s haunch and he pushed off hard. He turned in the air and brought the other end of his staff slashing round to catch another rider in the head. The simian’s skull broke open like rotten fruit.
Two more dragons joined the melee, but Saltar refused to panic. If anything, the increased threat only increased his hatred and appetite. Rather than tiring, his limbs were fired with a frenzied and frantic energy. He cast his staff aside and launched himself at the back of another simian rider. He wrenched its head round savagely and heard its neck break. The dragon reared onto its back legs and Saltar was propelled over the creature’s back with the deadweight of the simian rider.
Saltar expelled all the air from his lungs and tensed his stomach muscles before the impact with the ground came, meaning that he avoided being winded and immobilised. Despite landing flat in his back, he was immediately able to throw the dead body off him and spring to his feet. It was fortunate for him because it ensured that the axe that came thundering in from an unseated simian missed him.
As the rider sought to haul the weapon back into a fighting position, Saltar trod on its haft and forced it from his enemy’s hands. He came inside the creature’s reach and butted it in the face. Following it as it reeled backwards, he hammered a fist into its throat, crushing its windpipe. The creature’s whole body juddered as it sought to draw an impossible breath. It fell to its knees and then onto its face and lay still.
The dragons that had lost their riders were fleeing. The lead simian, who had received the lance to the shoulder, was escaping with them. Saltar had no chance of catching it. Two more simians remained and he advanced on them without hesitation.
They backed away making grunting noises. As he stooped for a knife he could throw, they began to shriek in fear. He felt no pity for them, nothing. They had entered the field of death and sought out this very battle. The lesson, judgement and consequence must be visited upon them.
‘Mordius, what are we going to do?’ Kate asked querulously. ‘Saltar, it’s us!’
‘Do what that mercenary did. Run! This way!’ urged the necromancer and kicked his horse down the path signposted by the pitchfork.
Saltar drew his arm back and threw the blade unerringly. Mordius knew Saltar’s aim would be true, so made sure he moved as soon as the knife left Saltar’s hand. Solid light flashed past him and the threat was gone.
The animee broke into a run, but gradually fell behind them.
‘Well, I guess that answers the question for all of us!’ Kate called wildly over to Mordius, the adrenaline of their struggle and flight making her grin like a crazy woman. ‘We’re not going through Holter’s Cross after all. That filthy piece of Lacrimos’s dung will ride straight back and have half the Guild out after us. It’s a shame I didn’t shoot him with a poison-tipped quarrel.’
‘Couldn’t we just explain to them it was all a misunderstanding, or is that naïve of me?’
‘Mordius, five dead mercenaries is not just a misunderstanding. It is the wilful damage of Guild property. The Guild might settle for financial compensation, but that would only be them rifling through our pockets once we were dead. They won’t even give us the chance to explain that I’m a King’s Guardian, that the King will consider any claim they have, that you’re innocent and that their patrol deserved everything it got. The Guild puts its reputation for fierceness, the protection of its members and delivering on contracts above all else. They have to be seen to avenge the five members that we killed. It’s simply good business practice. They will always have customers as long as they can maintain their reputation and all but guarantee results. And when there’s good business and protection on offer, more and more mercenaries will want to join the Guild.’