The Western Wizard

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Gradually, the conversations in the tavern of Porvada returned to normal. The drunkard found his way into the street. The well-dressed man retook his seat amid the laughter of his companions. The bouncers finished glaring and returned to their posts. Apparently, they drew their line of interference at or near bloodshed. Of that Mitrian was glad, and the Northmen’s huddled composure lulled her further. I was lucky. She considered the other possible outcomes. The drunkard could have gotten injured. The other man might have felt a need to fight back. Worse, the Northmen could have recognized me. Now, Mitrian felt better about her strategy. Clearly, her quick and competent action had rescued the drinker, cooled the other’s ardor, and handled the matter with minimal time and attention.

  The barmaid arrived with Mitrian’s dinner, a hearty portion of mutton graced with bread and a glass of wine. The sight of food reawakened hunger. She shoveled meat to her mouth without a pretense of delicacy, hoping her method would discourage amorous patrons as well as satisfying hunger. Occasionally, she tossed a glance at the Northmen. As the crowd changed and grew, Valr Kirin and his men remained for a third round of drinks. Soon, the shifting of Westerners around Mitrian grew familiar, and she paid them no heed. She turned her mind to the gathering of supplies and payment. For now, the best plan she could muster involved remaining until closing, then volunteering to clean in exchange for rations. She did not know how much more than her own meal this would buy, but she hoped the proprietor would have leftovers that would not keep until the following day.

  Though deep in consideration, this time Mitrian did not miss the subtle change in the pattern of moving patrons. One man had paused overlong at her right hand.

  Mitrian stiffened, trying to gather words to urge him away before annoyance goaded her to violence again. She opened her mouth to speak, prepared to modulate her voice to make her position dangerously clear.

  But he spoke first, his voice nearly a whisper. “Good evening, dear friend.” The accent was Western, the voice unfamiliar, and the phrase fluent Renshai.

  Mitrian’s blood seemed to ice over in her veins. Her hand tightened on her fork, but she gave no other outward sign of the riot erupting within her. Struggling for a look of confusion, she raised her head to the speaker. “Excuse me?” She used the Western trading tongue and her best rendition of the local dialect.

  The man met her gaze with eyes so pale they looked like the foam through which Mitrian had once glimpsed the faint blue glimmer of the sea. His face was the color of a sun-bleached skull, and his flaxen hair hung in neat braids. She estimated him as a few years older than Episte’s chronological age. A sparse beard grew in tufts from his chin. “My name is Tannin,” he said, still in Renshai. “We can’t talk here. There’re Northmen looking for you and the Golden Prince of Demons.”

  Mitrian wrestled uncertainty. She knew, with no means nor reason to doubt, that only Colbey and Episte’s father had survived the Northmen’s attack against Devil’s Island. Yet she could not guess how a Northman could have learned so many words of the Renshai tongue. Mitrian drew breath carefully, aware her hesitation would condemn her as much as a direct response to his words. Logic told her this man could not be Renshai, nor a friend. “I don’t understand . . .” she started and stopped. Pulling a rag from her pocket, she casually wrapped the food remaining on her plate. Despite her hunger, she had left a large piece of mutton and all of the bread. It would not feed every one of her companions, but it would prove better than nothing at all.

  Only after Mitrian pocketed the food did she bother to meet the stranger’s gaze again. Memory stabbed at her. She recalled catching snatches of Colbey’s prayers to Sif on the night that he returned from his search for Episte. She remembered the anguish in his voice, the familiar, pained entreaties of a pious man forced to question as well as revere. Though Mitrian had heard the elder’s words through the beckoning fog of approaching sleep, his final line returned to her now: “Mistress Sif, if my people earned your wrath, if it is your will to see the end of the true Renshai line . . .” Mitrian cringed at the memory of the agony that had filled his voice, so unlike Colbey’s usual impassive fierceness that she wondered if she had dreamed it. “. . . then your will be done.”

  Mitrian stared into the blue-white eyes until she felt lost within them. I shouldn’t trust him. I have no reason to do so, and every reason not to. The expression in those eyes seemed incredibly earnest. But if this is, somehow, a Renshai, I can’t just abandon him. I owe Colbey too much. She thought of all the elder had done for her, the heritage and skill he had shared, the encouragements he had given, the love and protection he had lavished upon herself and her family in his own passionless way.

  Mitrian set aside her fork and took the last swallow of wine. She used the Renshai tongue in a lipless whisper. “I’ll leave first. Don’t hurry. I’ll meet you at the northern corner of town. Bring food.” She added with a callous tone that could have challenged Colbey’s, “If you are other than you claim, you will die in agony.” Without awaiting a reply, she sprang from her seat, lashing an open hand across Tannin’s cheek.

  Tannin staggered with surprise.

  “A pox on this tavern! A woman can’t eat without being harassed!” Mitrian stormed through the barroom and out the door, leaving Tannin to pay her tab.

  Although Mitrian’s mood appeared as wild as the gales that guarded Shadimar’s ruins, it was more like a spring shower. Danger made her cautious, and she entered the dust-choked streets with every sense aware, prepared for an ambush. When she did not immediately skid into the swords of waiting Northmen, her hope rose guardedly. Colbey made rare mistakes, but he had been wrong about Episte’s monster. Maybe he did make a mistake counting survivors. Maybe Tannin is Renshai. Maybe Sif answered Colbey’s prayers. Surely, the world’s best swordsman could find a war goddess’s favor. Though excited by the possibility of her discovery, Mitrian did not relax her guard. She turned to her left, as much to free her sword arm from the hindering wall as to head toward the camp.

  Only a few strides along the road, she heard footsteps behind her. She glanced backward to find the three Northmen leaving the bar, nearly on her heels. Another joined them just outside. The false Renshai? Mitrian guessed, though time and distance did not leave her time to identify him for certain. Three carried bows, each with a quiver of arrows at his back. Joy vanished. Mitrian quickened her pace, snarling a curse at Valr Kirin and the Renshai-speaking Northman who had, probably, betrayed her. Mentally, she damned herself as well. I should have known it was too good, too coincidental to be true. Battle wrath rose in a welcome rush. She ducked into an alley and sprinted for its end, hoping to run through and out of sight before the Northmen reached the entrance.

  The footsteps grew louder behind Mitrian, and a misplaced bird call cut through the darkness. Barrels stood, lined and stacked along the walls of the cottages and shops. Mitrian dodged these effortlessly. As she drew within a few strides of the alley exit, she managed an extra burst of speed. She sprang for freedom.

  Suddenly, another four Northmen appeared before her, blocking escape. Each clutched a drawn broadsword.

  Mitrian drew up, nearly skidding into the Northmen at the exit. She backed into a stack of barrels, fitting her spine into an irregular niche. For an instant, her heart fluttered in terror. Then, the rhythm dropped to the heavy cadence of war, and killing lust strengthened within her.

  A sharp command issued from the opposite end of the alley. The three archers raised their bows, green-fletched arrows nocked.

  Mitrian crammed her back deeper into the furrow, hoping but doubting the barrels would give her enough protection to wait out the first round of arrows. Only then would she gain a pause long enough to try to cover the ground between them and attack. The three swordsmen waited, spanning the exit.

  As the Northern archers anchored their bow strings, Tannin fell on them from behind. His sword slashed open one’s neck. He continued the cut low, severing the muscle behind a second’s thigh. It curl
ed into a ball, and the man screamed, collapsing to the cobbles. Tannin lunged for the third, just as Valr Kirin bore in to his defense. The commander’s sword crashed against Tannin’s, its momentum curtailed by the closeness of his companion. The blow deflected the attack enough to spare the archer’s life. Tannin’s blade sliced the string, and the bow snapped taut, sending the arrow in a crazed arc.

  Mitrian wedged herself tighter between the barrels as the Northmen at the exit advanced. As one, they charged her. Mitrian blocked one stroke. The others thudded against the barrels. One blade bit too deeply. The seconds it took him to wrench it free became the last in its wielder’s life. Mitrian buried her blade in his gut, kicking him backward to liberate her sword and regain her opening.

  The barrels protected Mitrian, but they also prevented her from executing the sweeping Renshai maneuvers that fed off the power and redirection of previous strokes. Her opponents’ jabs fell unnervingly close, but they could only attack as singles. In a zealous attempt to finish Mitrian, one Northman made a wild lunge that she scarcely dodged. When his sword did not meet the anticipated resistance, momentum carried him onto her stop thrust. The Northman stumbled backward, blood boiling from his chest.

  Mitrian’s last two opponents retreated, winded. Mitrian caught her breath, momentarily lowering the heavy sword. From the corner of her eye, she watched Tannin hammering at Valr Kirin. Though competent, Tannin did not use any maneuver that Mitrian could identify as Renshai. She watched as the Nordmirian lieutenant caught Tannin’s blows on his crosspiece. He could not riposte for fear of hitting his archer companion, yet he held his ground before Tannin’s assault, each block chiming an echo through the alleyway.

  Beside Valr Kirin, the archer fended enough strokes that he had not found time to drop his bow for a more suitable weapon. It blocked many blows, but combat had whittled it, and the Northman was helpless to prevent it. When Tannin’s sword snapped the bow, Kirin surged in a frenzied sweep that forced Tannin to block. This gained the archer the opening he needed to escape.

  Western shouts wafted into the alleyway, apparently in response to the ring of swordplay. Footsteps pounded toward them.

  Town guard? Mitrian hoped. Then, the two Northmen near her leapt back to the attack, and she again found herself ensconced in her own battle. Her two remaining assailants lunged simultaneously, though there was little room for such a maneuver. Disgust momentarily replaced Mitrian’s concentration. If those fools won’t use swords in the correct manner, they should limit themselves to stone axes. While one positioned his broadsword, Mitrian slammed hers against it, driving the blade into his companion’s side. The other fell, never knowing whether his enemy’s sword or his ally’s had cut him down. Mitrian’s upstroke finished her last opponent. She scurried to aid Tannin, only to step into his path as he raced toward her.

  A voice thundered down the roadway in the Western trading tongue. “Hey! Drop the weapons. Don’t anybody move!”

  Tannin avoided a collision with an awkward sidestep. He seized Mitrian’s arm. “Come on!”

  Mitrian sheathed her sword, sprinting alongside her new companion. They whipped around the corner, onto a larger street.

  An indecipherable hubbub filled the opposite end of the roadway, where Tannin had fought. “Hey!” The authoritative voice rose over the others.

  Mitrian and Tannin did not slow, remaining in the shadows near the walls, their footsteps slapping through the semidarkness. “Kirin?” she asked, keeping the question short to conserve breath, though it left Tannin to guess at her intentions.

  “What?”

  “Their leader. What of him?”

  “Damn good fighter.” Tannin veered through an alleyway. “I got lucky. He backed into a barrel, then tripped over one of his own corpses.” Tannin took a jagged course through a series of cobbled roads, then gave the lead to Mitrian. “He got lucky, too. The town guard got there before I could press.”

  Having heard Colbey’s impressions of Valr Kirin, Mitrian wondered whether the second part was not Tannin’s good fortune as well. She doubted whether the youngster could have bested the Nordmirian, even with such an advantage; but she kept the thought to herself. She headed toward the fire-cleared plain surrounding Porvada. Once outside the city limits, she did not believe the town guard would follow. The Northmen started this battle. Let them try to explain it to the authorities.

  As they crossed the plain, Tannin continued breathlessly, “They followed you, and I followed them.”

  Mitrian grunted in reply. She dashed into the forest, plunging through a dense overgrowth of grasses near where she recalled the camp. She discovered only a patch of crushed weeds, a pile of ashes ringed with stone, and an oil-stained rag marred by slits that someone had used to clean a sword. Confusion came first, followed by alarm. The Northmen have been here, too. She spun, seeking signs of battle. She found none. “They were here.”

  Tannin sifted the ashes. “Still warm.”

  Mitrian trotted past him, seeking tracks into the forest. “My companions were here.”

  A wind wound through the foliage, rustling weeds. Thinking the sound too loud for its source, Mitrian traced it with her gaze. Weeds bobbed and danced in a line, though whether from the breeze or movement, she could not tell. Milkweed floated, ghostlike, from a broken pod. Mitrian’s neck tightened with discomfort, as if unseen eyes watched from the darkness. She shivered.

  Tannin came up from behind Mitrian and caught her arm. “Do you see something?”

  Mitrian shrugged her ignorance, gaze still playing over the dark blotch of brush.

  “You know, you haven’t told me your name. Nor how a dark-haired Renshai who knows the maneuvers wound up in a Western city.”

  Mitrian chose to address the simpler question. “Mitrian.” Recalling that Northmen considered sire’s name and tribe part of the title, she added, “Santagithi’s daughter.” The ‘Renshai’ seemed unnecessary.

  “Santagithi?” Tannin’s grip tightened, yet it felt less secure. “The strategy general?” He made a noise to indicate a drawn conclusion. “That explains the choice of Gullindjemprins.” He created the title “Golden Prince of Demons” from the Northern words.

  Mitrian did not fully understand the statement. She turned to face Tannin directly. Before she could speak, she saw shadowy figures creeping from the forest beyond Tannin. She shouted a warning. “Behind you!”

  Tannin whirled into a crouch, sword clearing his sheath as he moved.

  Mitrian recognized Garn, Rache, and Colbey. “Wait!” she shouted.

  Rache seized Tannin’s off-wrist. Tannin twisted, cutting at the youth. Mitrian bore in to protect her son. Before she arrived, Colbey’s sword blocked the stroke, metal clanging against metal. Garn’s hand closed over Tannin’s sword wrist. A slamming blow with his fist dashed the sword from the Northman’s grasp. With a yell of frustration and pain, Tannin twisted, then suddenly went still. Though Tannin was pinned between Garn and Rache, Mitrian guessed it was Colbey’s sword at Tannin’s throat that actually kept him immobile. The elder stood behind the newcomer, his blade hovering into the crevice of Tannin’s windpipe.

  Fearing for Tannin’s life, Mitrian addressed Colbey. “He’s all right. He saved my life. He fought Valr Kirin.”

  Colbey circled Tannin, never taking his blade from the younger man’s throat. He stared into Tannin’s eyes, as if to read the thoughts beyond them. Colbey’s grim expression told Mitrian that either he found nothing or the message was contradictory. Experience told her that Colbey read only those thoughts and emotions strong enough to radiate from others. Right now, were she in Tannin’s place, she guessed that fear would usurp all other reasoning. She could think of few things more terrifying than the wrong side of Colbey’s wrath and his sword.

  “You fought Valr Kirin?”

  Tannin swallowed cautiously. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re still alive?”

  Tannin answered the self-evident question without hesitation. “Yes,
sir.”

  “And he?”

  “Is too, sir.” Tannin rolled his eyes past Colbey to Mitrian. They seemed to beg her to tell him how to proceed, how to appease the Golden Prince of Demons.

  Though sympathetic, Mitrian gave Tannin no clues. She had passed Colbey the facts. Her loyalty lay with the elder Renshai, and she trusted his assessments before her own.

  “Who are you?” Colbey demanded.

  Apparently realizing he was on his own, Tannin grew defiant. He raised his head, despite the weapon, and met Colbey’s eyes. “I’m Tannin.” He added the remainder of the introduction slowly, as if measuring the effect of every syllable on Colbey. “Randilsson. My tribe is Renshai.”

  Colbey’s fingers blanched. Though his grip tightened, the blade did not move. “You’re lying.” Garn’s fingers gouged the flesh of Tannin’s arm, leaving bloodless creases. Rache’s gaze flitted from Colbey to Mitrian. He clung, less certain of his grip than his more experienced father. Mitrian could see Shadimar standing at the forest’s edge with his wolf, not involving himself in Renshai business. She saw no sign of Korgar, nor did she expect to do so. The barbarian came and went as he pleased, usually without a sound, and she only vaguely understood the bonds that held him to Colbey.

  Colbey gave Tannin a second chance. “Speak your name again. Say it correctly this time. Then tell me what you want and why we should spare you.”

  Tannin’s voice did not falter, although his gaze again rolled to Mitrian. “My name is Tannin. My father, Randil, is the leader of the Western Renshai. I came seeking the man the Pudarians call the Deathseeker, the rest of the West calls the Golden Prince of Demons, and the Northmen call Bolboda. If I am not mistaken, I believe I’ve found him.”