The Merchant Adventurer

by Patrick E. McLean

  “Ah,” thought Boltac, “These would be Orcs.”

  There was no way Rattick had fought one of those things. And there was no way they wore jewelry. Perhaps a necklace made of ears, but not expensive rubies.

  The Orcs converged on the Man in Black. For a moment, Boltac thought the wolves would tear the man’s face off. But then the Man in Black said something and the growls and snarls changed to frightened whimpers. Two of the Orcs dismounted and their wolves ran away.

  The Orcs turned as if to chase after their steeds, but a sharp bark from the Man in Black stopped them. Who was this man who commanded monsters, Boltac wondered?

  Boltac sighted his crossbow on the Man in Black, and then thought better of it. After all, he wasn’t involved in this transaction. He should stay calm, keep his head down, and hope they passed his store by. That was the surest way to avoid a loss in this situation. At least that’s what his head told him. But his heart offered a different commentary as he watched the two Orcs kick in the door of The Bent Eelpout.

  Asarah!

  She’d be fine, Boltac told himself. She was a strong woman and used to dealing with unruly customers. She had come through raids before. She’d be fine. The Man in Black dismissed the remaining, still-mounted Orcs. The… whattaya call a bunch of Orcs anyway? A troupe, a band, a herd, a gaggle? Anyway, the rest of them rode south.

  With a crossbow in the crook of his right arm, not taking his eyes from the square, he eased back to the weapons rack and grabbed a double-headed axe without looking at it.

  He asked himself, “What are you doing? Asking for trouble, that’s what. Don’t do anything stupid. You’re a Merchant, not a Hero. She’ll be fine. You’re no help to anybody dead.” Then he placed the axe, head down, beneath the windowsill, beside the other crossbow.

  Across the square, he saw the two Orcs emerge from the inn holding Asarah between them. She struggled against them and cursed.

  “Still think she is going to be okay?” he asked the voice in his head. It didn’t answer.

  The Man in Black turned to look at Asarah, and she spit on him. Then the Man in Black struck her across the face. Knocked sideways from the blow, Asarah struggled to bring her head upright again and roll her hair out of her eyes. The Man in Black stood with his back to Boltac’s store, so that Boltac could not see his face. Whatever expression the unpleasant man wore, when Asarah saw it she screamed.

  Something broke inside of Boltac. Before he knew what he was doing, he had fired both crossbows and was charging out the door with the axe in hand. The first crossbow bolt took the Orc on Asarah’s left in the throat. The second hit the other Orc in the shoulder.

  Asarah screamed a plea and a question, “Boltac?”

  But the Boltac she knew was no longer there. The rational, calculating, cunning Merchant who stuck his neck out for nobody was not the same creature whose lungs burned and heart pumped as his feet pounded across the cobblestones. That Boltac was lifting the axe and imagining cleaving the Man in Black from neck to breastbone.

  That Boltac didn’t hear it coming until it was too late.

  If it had been a man on a horse riding him down, he would have heard him coming from a week away. But the pads of a wolf on the cobblestones? He realized his mistake when it was too late. The wolf’s fangs sank into his shoulder and lifted him from the ground at a dead run.

  “HORRRRRRRRRRRRRRK!” cried the triumphant Orc.

  In pain and with animal rage, Boltac slashed blindly with the axe. He felt the edge sink deep into the wolf’s neck. He heard it grunt in pain. The pressure in his shoulder went away as the wolf let go. Wolf, Orc, and shopkeeper tumbled across the cobblestones and landed in a heap. Somehow, Boltac kept his grip on the axe.

  In a haze, he watched Asarah struggling with the Man in Black. She was shouting, but the only thing Boltac could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He pulled himself from beneath the wolf, tried to stand, and failed. His knee folded sideways underneath him. The pain from the second fall was worse than the first. Clutching the axe, he started to crawl.

  Behind him, the Orc got to his feet and recovered his pike. He cocked his head sideways at this strange man crawling towards The Master. Then he lifted his weapon and went to finish him.

  “Hold!” commanded the Man in Black. The Orc stayed the final blow.

  “My, my, my, but you are determined,” said the Man in Black with an air of amusement that made Boltac hate him even more. “You are something more than a Merchant, I think,” said the Wizard.

  “En-henh,” Boltac said, and kept crawling.

  “Boltac, what are you doing?” asked Asarah. Boltac could not answer because he was fighting off a wave of pain. But still he crawled. He was oblivious to the pike above his head and only aware of the Man in Black’s expensive boots in front of him. He was going to cut the bastard’s feet off and see where it went from there.

  Dimsbury shook his head at the poor spectacle beneath him. A fat Merchant, crawling to his death as the hot stuff of life trailed on the cobbles behind him. How was it that the poor Merchant’s arm had not been completely severed? He turned to his prize. “Come, my dear, let me take you away from all of this.”

  “Let me go!” she cried, “I must tend my inn.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Dimsbury. He waved his hand without taking his eyes from her, and the front of The Bent Eelpout was engulfed in flame.

  Asarah screamed again.

  “Please,” said Dimsbury, “refrain from screaming in my ear.” To the Orc he said, “Finish him.” Then he gripped Asarah around the waist and held her to him. Before she could struggle, he took flight and disappeared straight up into the night with her.

  Boltac fought his way to his knees and reached after her.

  The Orc brought the butt end of his pike down on Boltac’s back and knocked him to the ground. Boltac heard some of his ribs separate from his spine. He thought that was bad, until the Orc kicked him in those same ribs. His world went white with pain and Boltac rolled over onto his back.

  This was it. The Orc spun the pike and touched him gently on the nose with the point. Then lifted the pike into the air for the coup de grace.

  In that final moment, Boltac discovered that he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t even angry. His last thought was of Asarah, and he was sad. Sad that he would never get to see her again. Sad that he would never again get to play the game of cheating her out of a drink, or drive her mad with his haggling, or marvel at the way her hair would bounce and turn like a living thing as she worked her way through the common room of her inn.

  At times like these, ordinary men try negotiating with death. They offer every promise, pledge, and advantage they can think of in exchange for life. But Boltac was not an ordinary man. And certainly not an ordinary negotiator. At that moment, he realized that his life alone was not worth negotiating for. If he was to haggle with fate, it would not be for his life–it would not be for his store or his fortune. Boltac was surprised to discover that, in the final accounting, those things were worth nothing to him. The only thing worth negotiating for was life with her. Without her, he couldn’t come up with a reason to bother.

  As if in a dream, he watched two feet of steel blade emerge from the Orc’s belly. The pike fell, not on Boltac’s head, but next to him on the cobbled street. As the Orc’s body fell away to one side, Boltac saw the Farm Boy standing there, trying to hold the Orc up with the sword Boltac had given him. No scream of victory echoed from the boy’s throat. Instead, he looked at the blood and the blade and the corpse that was dragging his hand towards the ground as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just happened.

  “That blade is a quality item,” Boltac said. Then he passed out.

  10

  The Farm Boy was so terrified he left the sword in the Orc.

  “Mister? Mister? What do I do?”

  “Henh?” said Boltac, wondering why he wasn’t being left to die in peace. Then he realized that he wasn’t dead, but was in a tremend
ous amount of pain. “The store, get me to the store.”

  “Okay, I can do that.”

  “Good kid. I’m gonna pass out now.” But as soon as the mule-strong Farm Boy started dragging him across the cobbles, the pain of his injuries brought him back to consciousness. “Ahhhhh–AHHHH!”

  “Sorry,” said the Farm Boy.

  “Don’t apologize. Just draAAAAAAAAAHag!” Boltac screamed, then passed out from the pain.

  When the Farm Boy got Boltac into the store, he propped him up against the counter. Boltac came around enough to say, “Take the keys. In the back, the chest on the left. Very important, only open the chest on the LEFT. Bring me the bottle.”

  “Which bottle?”

  “The only bottle. And hurry up. I’m dyin’ here!”

  “The only bottle. Right.”

  The Farm Boy hurried to the back. Fear caused him to fumble with the lock. And drop the keys. He had never seen that much blood come from a person before. And that thing he had stabbed out there. What was that? He hadn’t really thought about it. He’d woken up and seen it about to kill the Merchant. There had been a sword in his lap. There had been no time. He had just done what needed doing.

  He dropped the keys again. He never thought it would be anything like this. They sure didn’t sing about this part. What if more of them came? What if they could smell blood? What if they were coming to the shop right now? Had he shut the door? And if he had shut the door, had he remembered to bar it? He was confused and his head really, really hurt.

  He opened the chest. Inside were many leather bags filled with coins. Ye Gods, how many coins were in here? Tucked in a corner was a cut-glass bottle with the stopper wired shut. It seemed very old, and the edges of the bottle were painted with gold leaf. The Farm Boy picked it up very carefully. Drop the keys all you want, he told himself, but don’t drop this bottle.

  He carried it out to where Boltac sat propped up in a pool of his own blood. As he handed it to Boltac, he heard a buzzing as if an angry hive of bees were close by and with it, the smell of burning wood. “Gods,” the Farm Boy exclaimed, “flaming bees!”

  “Shut up, kid,” Boltac said weakly, knowing that it was only the Magic-detecting wand under the counter reacting to the potency of what was in the bottle. “It’s Magic. Now, undo the wire.”

  The Farm Boy did as he was asked. Boltac held the bottle in his left hand and took the cork out with his teeth. He spit it across the room. Then he raised the bottle in a toast and said, “Listen, kid, if I don’t make it. All this…”–he indicated the store he had worked so hard to build–“You don’t take a single friggin’ thing, you understand? I wanna be buried with all of it.”

  Up until that point, the Farm Boy hadn’t thought of stealing. It wasn’t what Heroes did, so it wasn’t what the Farm Boy would do. But now he couldn’t help himself. As Boltac drank the bottle, the lad looked around. But when Boltac screamed in pain, the Farm Boy’s attention snapped back to the shopkeeper.

  Boltac writhed and his back arched at a frightful angle. There was a snapping and popping noise as his knee twisted back into place on its own. Sweat poured from Boltac’s face as he spiked a fever and broke it in less than a minute. A wave of nausea came, and then a sense of calm. The ragged wound in his shoulder spit out a wickedly curved tooth and closed.

  “Wh-wh-wh-what was that?” the Farm Boy asked in amazement.

  “That,” Boltac said, the snap returning to his voice, “was a Magic potion. The genuine article. Most of what I sell is herbs and healing tonics, a couple of smelly poultices made by this old crone out in one of the villages. I won’t say they’re garbage, but uh, you slap a poultice on a serious wound? Ya gonna die.”

  “Do you have any more?” the Farm Boy asked with wide eyes. Carrying a few of those potions with him would be an antidote to the fear that was still causing his limbs to shake.

  “Ah, no. Very rare. Very expensive. Help me up.”

  Boltac tried his recently mangled leg. It felt good. In fact, it felt better than he could remember it ever feeling.

  “Are you okay?” asked the Farm Boy.

  “En-henh.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What am I going to do?” Boltac thought hard. Set his jaw, narrowed his eyes and then fell dead asleep on his feet. He didn’t even wake up when he hit the floor.

  11

  When Boltac awoke, he found himself in his bed. Bright light streamed in through the window and he was, inexplicably, alive. He returned to consciousness slowly and from a great distance. At first he couldn’t remember how he had gotten here, or what had happened. Then, as the memory of it flooded back, he became fearful. Unable, at first, to separate fantastic dream from terrible reality, he flung back the covers. His leg was straight. His shirt was ripped, but the skin underneath was perfect and unscarred. That really had been a Magic potion. Hell of a way to find out.

  He got out of bed and stretched. Then he went downstairs.

  At the foot of the narrow stairs, he found the Farm Boy asleep in a pile of cloaks. Even in his sleep he clutched the sword Boltac had given him. When Boltac nudged him with his boot, the lad awoke with a start.

  “Ahh!” screamed the Farm Boy, jumping back. When he saw it was Boltac he said, “I was standing guard. In case those things came back.”

  “No kid, that’s sleeping guard.” Boltac softened a little. “But, uh, I appreciate it.” He stepped over the boy and brought out a loaf of thick black bread and some butter. “C’mon, breakfast.”

  They ate in silence for a time. Finally, Boltac asked, “Do you have a name?”

  “In my village, they call me Relan.”

  “En-henh,” said Boltac. “I thank you, Relan. You saved my life.”

  Relan asked, “What were those things?”

  “Evidently, what you killed was an Orc.”

  “An Orc?”

  “An Orc,” Boltac said with a shrug, to indicate that he wasn’t the guy making the rules.

  “So they were bad,” said Relan.

  “Yeah, kid, they were definitely bad.”

  “Are we going to go get them?”

  “We? No. I’m not going to go get them. That’s why I pay taxes.”

  “But that Evil Wizard took the woman you Love!”

  “Love is a strong word to use, for a pleasant association. Besides, I’m a Merchant, not a fighter.”

  “If you’re not in Love with her, why did you charge out of your store to save her?”

  “I, uh… hey, look. It’s complicated.”

  “And if you’re not a fighter, how did you manage to kill two Orcs?”

  “And a wolf,” said Boltac, shaking his head.

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “That’s only because you suck,” snapped Boltac.

  “Suck or not, I’m going after that Wizard. Somebody has to do the right thing.”

  “Kid, the right thing to do is almost always to keep your head down and make a buck.”

  “That sounds like something a coward would say.”

  “Eh-henh. It’s the kind of thing the living says. Get this, I was very stupid. And I am lucky to be alive. So I am not gonna push my luck. Besides, this kind of thing is why I pay taxes. Let the guards deal with this.”

  “You’re a coward,” said Relan.

  “Whattaya want from me? I’m a Merchant. I ain’t no Hero.”

  “Well, why would anybody want to be that?” asked Relan. “If the whole world were Merchants, nobody would have saved your life.”

  “If the whole world was Merchants, everybody would buy and sell instead of stab and hack,” snapped Boltac. “Look, I’m grateful for your help. It’s not like I’m not grateful. So, uh, as a reward, take what you like from the store–as much as you can carry without horse or wagon–and then go to your death. Have fun. Me, I’m going to find the Duke and see what he’s gonna do about all this. See if he can get my innkeeper lady friend back.”

  Relan shook his he
ad and took another bite of bread.

  12

  When Boltac stepped outside, he was greeted by smoke hanging thick in the air. Everywhere, there were signs of carnage. The Bent Eelpout and most of the other side of the street had burned to the ground. Boltac saw the dead wolf and Orcs, but did not linger over them.

  He turned and headed north. On his walk, he passed several bodies lying in the street. One was a young girl, maybe nine. Her pretty dress was torn and soaked with blood. Boltac looked away from her corpse and muttered, “Bad for business,” as if the phrase was a charm that could ward off emotion.

  As he crossed the bridge to the keep, he expected to see a line of petitioners. But there was no one. Not even a guard at the gate. The court should have been full of angry citizens demanding redress and protection. The walls should have been decorated with Orcs’ heads on pikes. By now, he should have been able to hear wounded members of the Ducal Guard drinking by the stables. Their laughter and the exaggerated stories of their bravery should have carried over the wall. There should have been smoke from the blacksmith, and the sound of weapons being sharpened.

  But there was nothing.

  In the courtyard, he passed the royal carriage standing all alone. It looked like someone had abandoned it in haste. From the stable, he heard the whinny of a horse.

  Boltac pushed his way through the half-opened door and into the keep. There was no one in the antechamber. There was no one anywhere. Every room he checked was empty. It was as if all the people had simply vanished. He cried out, but only the echo of his own hello answered.

  When he reached the empty throne room the penny dropped. Mostly, it was the tapestry flapping in a wind that shouldn’t have been blowing. Behind the heavy, musty, overly stylized scene of a Heroic battle that had never happened, Boltac found a secret door. Behind the door was a staircase.

  He followed it down and down again, through narrow stone passageways until he emerged at a set of docks hidden in a high-walled cove on the north side of the island. From this island in the middle of the river Swift, he could see that all the boats were gone. Discarded items were strewn everywhere. Over there was a guard’s helmet; at his feet was a chest of silks. He could almost see the scene as it had happened: