He looked up at Slate. “I’d say you should just lemme’ go. You done stomped all my friends into the mud. I’m probably done for anyway.”
“Hmph.” Slate’s mouth twisted. He spat. “No imagination. It’s a wonder you’ve made it this long, because that was the most uninspired plea I’ve heard all week. But tell you what, let’s cut a deal. We’ll hold a little contest. You win, you’re free. I win, and I’ll turn you in to the nearest warden. Deal?”
Red narrowed his eyes, but after a brief pause, nodded.
“Fantastic. What shall we do, what shall we do . . . say! Let’s have a footrace. I’m an old man anyway, so you should have at least a fighting chance.” Slate unbuckled his belt, and then his cape and scabbard from his back. He folded it all into a neat stack and laid it gingerly on a nearby island of dry land, a treasure amidst the shitty mud. “Give a man a second to stretch, would you lad?”
His knees ground into the dirt, but Rafe forgot the pain at the blonde man’s words. Yeah, they’d underestimated him and his giant friend, but a footrace? He flexed his calves. Nothing prepares you to run quite as well as a childhood spent in the streets.
Legs spread wide, the blonde man put his hands on the ground. Rafe gave him a second inspection. Not quite as old as he made himself out to be – late thirties, at most. A hint of silver peeked out from within the depths of his shaggy, shoulder-length blonde hair, but his stubble was free of grey and his face unlined. Beneath the tight fitting clothes, muscles strained, and the outline of an abdominal wall showed through the thin white shirt. Good thing it’s just a race and not a fight, he thought.
The blonde man’s voice interrupted his study: “Now, let’s start behind this line – here.” He toed the dirt and drew back his boot, the result a line an inch deep and no less than four feet across. “And we’ll end it yonderway. See that corner sign?” Rafe nodded, the barber’s emblem promising a clean haircut one of the street’s only promising features. The blonde man continued, “There.”
They moved to the line. “Ready?” Rafe didn’t dare draw a breath, afraid that the exhalation would cover the sound of the blonde man’s words. He waited, waited . . .
“Go!”
He saw the blonde man’s leg move, but then Rafe was gone, a candle snuffed with damp fingers. The breath he’d held for so long hammered from his lungs. His shoes flattened the earth, and the sounds of his footfalls made a pitter-pat as he reached firmer dirt. What a chump. He was so far ahead that –
What? Damp earth and dry feces filled his mouth, and his wrist snapped as he put it forward to arrest his fall. Nothing hurt, but then, no, his calf blazed, and his wrist hung like a dead man in a noose. There was a knife jutting from his leg. He reached for it with his good hand.
A second blade flew with a hushed path, burying itself in Red’s uninjured hand, and a wail cut across the street. Teacher, still harassing the cat, looked up.
Slate lowered himself next to Red, whose eyes drilled bloody holes into Slate’s forehead. He smiled in return, and then reached down and grasped the knife stuck in Red’s hand, ripping it up and out of his palm, creating a separation between his ring and middle finger that hung open. Another wail filled the street, one that only grew louder when Slate yanked out his other knife and cut through Red’s Achilles. Eyes that had peeped through blinds entered the street, and broken doors were moved to the side to allow exit from even more broken houses, their insides gutted, furniture sold for food or smashed for a fire’s fuel in the winter.
A small crowd gathered around the two, a mishmash of adults and children, each bundled with multiple layers of clothing, primarily earthy colors, though he spied a moth-eaten, baby blue hat on one child’s head. Slate peered through the crowd and spotted Teacher’s head. His shoulders relaxed and, reassured, he turned back to Red.
“Well, lad, it looks like I’ve won the day. Mind you, I cheated, but we didn’t outline any rules, so is it really cheating? Nevermind, don’t answer that. It’s hard to argue with a man about cheating if he doesn’t understand the concept. Ready for the funeral song? It’s catchy.” He started walking around Red, a gleam in his eyes.
A third cry near the street’s side pierced the air, deflating the crowd. Teacher walked toward Slate, a frown and glistening eyes all that could be seen in front of a still pile of fur.
“But dammit all, Teach. You couldn’t give me another minute, could you?”
Slate turned to Red. “It’s your lucky day, son. Seems it’s time for me to go.” He flipped the boy onto his side and sliced through his remaining Achilles, and then twisted his broken wrist so that Red squirmed on the ground, clawing at it with his separated hand, unable to propel himself forward with anything other than a brown elbow and stained knees.
“Don’t you think he’s had enough, mister?” asked the young girl holding the blue-hatted child.
Want to join him?” Slate held his knife out invitingly.
The crowd took a step back, and so did Slate, who wiped his dirty hands on the front of his pristine shirt, a move he instantly regretted.
“Now, I know you weren’t the only fish in this pond. Your fins weren’t sharp enough. Actually, I bet you guys were a pest to some of the big boys. My bet is, if I leave you here, they’re going to do all sorts of fun things to you, which means you’re staying on the ground, because I doubt any of these good people have love for you. So long!” Slate turned and put his hand on Teacher’s bicep, ready to leave, already thinking of good women and better whiskey.
The last thing Rafe saw before a hood enveloped his head and he was shoved into a burlap sack, its insides smelling of potatoes, was the blonde man walking away with his big friend, deep in a one-sided conversation that was full of laughter.
Alocar
The finest teas. Imported from the northwest region of the Maldaran Empire, the seller had guaranteed each tealeaf for several infusions, and every brew promised a subtly different flavor. Delivered in gilded boxes - valuable by themselves - the tea was considered delicious by every account and imbibed by the most selective palates Dradenhurst had to offer.
Alocar couldn’t stomach the stuff.
Years on the road will do things to a man. Sometimes it makes him appreciate the finer things – the parties, the dinners, and the invitations from important people to do important things at presumably important places. However, after time the parties and the dinners become mundane, things that make a man long for the simplicity of life on the outside: sitting atop the careworn saddle of his old horse Luckless, the taste of a lukewarm beer after eating the dust of his company’s ride, the smell of coffee black enough to darken a man’s soul.
He took a sip of the sweet white tea and grimaced. The road called his name, for there, with men at his back, was where life’s real experiences took place, where fools are hardened into the wise or else tossed aside like rubbish. But life was no stagnant pond; instead, life was a river, and Alocar felt that too soon he would reach its end, swept into the salty sea, his legacy and memory ingloriously swallowed by a passing fish.
Alocar place the teacup, light orange with bluebirds balancing on a flowering branch, on a matching saucer, two more bluebirds flying off its edge with lush berries in their beaks. He narrowed his eyes at the steaming contents, his tongue faintly scalded.
Lundy jumped, tufted ears perked up and his huge brown eyes locked on Alocar. He reached down and gave the dog a pat on its head, now-empty teacup dangling from his pinky. The lemon-yellow ivy that wound its way up the porch’s column – known as the Strangler in upper Dradenhurst – was drenched, but he felt better.
“Bella!” She arrived moments later, her waist-length ash brown hair tied back in a simple knot. Devoid of makeup, with overly large ears, she reminded Alocar of a particularly cute mouse. He felt a rush of paternal love, but only said, “What’s on today’s agenda?”
“You’re due to spend some time with your granddaughter tonight at seven, and Rupert should be over soon for your ses
sion. The rest of the day is open.”
“That’s it?” Alocar harrumphed. “Very well, thank you.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, skirt swishing around her ankles as she departed. She’d grown into a smart young girl, and he hoped that Meriman – rest his soul – approved of the way that Alocar had taken care of her after Meriman had fallen to pneumonia nearly twenty years ago, further shrinking Alocar’s already small circle. He felt the furrow creasing his brow and made a conscious effort to smooth it, an image of a greying bulldog entering his mind unbidden.
Alocar heaved himself from his chair, startling Lundy. Mouth quirked, he stared at the ground, only the tips of his shoes visible past his stomach. Muscle still resided there, but it hibernated under a layer of fat that had grown with the years. He sighed. His only hope of finding victory against Rupert today would come in the form of his body falling atop the man. Maybe he could suffocate him with his prosperous man’s gut.
A pox on old age and retirement.
The view from the porch, pleasant from his wicker chair, made him tug his mustache when on his feet. Set on a small hill, Alocar’s house overlooked the street where Dradenhurst’s wealthy rubbed posh shoulders, sometimes so vigorously that they afterwards decried their neighbors for injury, baring decadent arms to reveal small bruises, blamed on each other but likely picked up from one of their many mistresses. Early still, the street was nearly barren, a policy enforced by the city guards, arranged in trios and protecting nothing, vastly more useful and needed in the merchants’ part of the city. Street vendors, shops, and the like didn’t appear until farther into Dradenhurst, the better for the precious and easily scandalized eyes of the rich to avoid. As Alocar stood on the porch, absorbing the morning’s quiet, humid air, a Priestess with a shaved head and a light blue dress passed, her shoulders set and her chin tilted slightly upward.
At least somebody has something important to do today.
With a last look at the city before him, he spun a neat one-eighty and strode through the oaken front door into the house. “Josephs!” He waited, ramrod straight as the house’s wooden floors, fitted by Alocar’s own hands, carried the echo to his manservant.
Josephs popped into view. Another that had found refuge with Alocar, the boy’s hair was so blonde as to appear almost colorless, and his were the type of cheeks that were never far from a blush. Loyal to a fault, Alocar appreciated the boy’s spirit, if not always his lack of decorum. “Go find my sparring gear. Rupert is going to be here any minute, and I still owe him for that beating he gave me last week.”
“Yessir! Be right out. If you’d like to go ahead and walk to the back, I’ll have it ready to go by the time you’ve made it.”
“I’ll be there momentarily.”
Josephs nodded his head so violently that Alocar questioned the solidity of its perch, and then ran off. Alocar stayed, studying a painting, revealed by the removal of the blockage that had been Joseph’s gangly frame.
The painting leapt out at Alocar, the figures within it more real than any one person. Commissioned when the world was still big and full of magic, he saw the glow of life that had surrounded both of them. What a woman – the only one that he had ever loved. Even now, deep in the ground, Lanthe’s green eyes stared into his very soul. He could still remember the way her raven’s hair, a tumble of endless ringlets, had settled on his chest when they lay together at night, and how she’d always put a touch too much emphasis on the front of his name, like she was excited just to be able to say it.
He shook his head, reverie broken. Josephs would be at the back by now. He left the painting, eyes straight ahead to avoid the others haunting the walls. Soon, the backyard came into view, one of Alocar’s favorite places in the entire city. A trellis, made from a lightly colored wood that grew near the Idranian River, ran horizontally across the width of the house. Cup-and-Saucer vines, still white in summer’s heat, grew in twists and gnarls down the frame. Morning Glories, their vibrant colors just beginning to dull, lined the squared enclosure, along with other flowers that Bella cultivated, their names known only to her. Alocar wished for a bigger yard, one whose end he couldn’t shoot an arrow past, but life in the city had a way of squashing even simple yearnings.
In the middle of the yard, Josephs had drawn a large circle with white chalk, running a line across its middle, the grass only high enough to hide the dirt beneath. The area around the circle was free of clutter, Alocar’s private well the closest object, twenty feet away. Josephs had set two battered cups on the well’s rim, and a sealed wooden bucket hung on the rope behind them. A foot outside the circle, as promised, stood Josephs, wooden sword held in a belt across his shoulder and a padded quilted vest thrown over the other.
“What’d you do, grab a horse and gallop here?” Josephs opened his mouth, but Alocar stopped him with an upraised finger. “Don’t answer that. I feel old enough already. Now help me put that blasted thing on.”
Between the two of them, they managed to squeeze Alocar into the padded vest until all that could be seen from his torso was the spillage of his love handles. Red-faced and out of breath, Alocar took the proffered sword and stepped into the circle. Timely, as always, Rupert’s voice boomed, “Warming up without me, I see, eh General? Now how is that fair?”
“You know good and damn well I don’t respond to that name anymore,” said Alocar, his back to Rupert.
“And yet, by responding to it, what have you done?” asked Rupert, who walked in front of Alocar to the other end of the circle, vest and wooden sword already outfitted on his spare frame. Rupert’s face had filled out in his retirement, its harsh edges softened to simply angular. Alocar almost smiled at the sight, one of his few friends that wasn’t six feet under or gone to embrace a future that he could never quite understand.
“Why don’t you take that flapping jaw of yours and find someplace to stow it.” Alocar thumped his chest. “Josephs?”
“Here you are, sir.” He fitted a small buckler on Alocar’s left hand, a black affair with a half-circle atop its frame, the better to deflect thrusts and save his old arm.
“Ready, General?”
“Ready to beat you into forgetting that name,” Alocar said. Without pause, he took a step forward, and then turned, bringing his sword across in a one-handed swing that cut at Rupert’s head.
Rupert, already in motion, brought his wooden longsword around and, instead of blocking, ducked and used his sword to push Alocar’s in a wide arch, far past its intended target. Buckler still over his head, Alocar managed to move it across his body and between him and the stroke that came from Rupert. Pushing forward, he closed the distance between them, negating the longsword’s advantage and putting them both near the circle’s edge.
Rupert stepped back, but couldn’t create enough space in time to counter, a misstep that allowed Alocar to smash the buckler into Rupert’s face, a blow that knocked Rupert off balance and smashed his chin into the air. Advantage his, Alocar took a two-handed grip on his sword and thrust it at Rupert’s vest, prompting a grunt of pain and sending Rupert into the dirt.
Alocar stopped. He’d court martial his breath for deserting him, if he could. Rupert lay on the ground, and for a second he feared that he’d injured the man, but then Alocar yelled and pawed at his eyes. He blindly swung his sword, buckler covering his face and eyes weeping. A sharp smack echoed in the courtyard, and he dropped his sword, hand afire. Alocar withdrew farther, and then a foot sprouted from the ground and down he went.
Alocar lay on his back, unable to take breaths deep enough to satisfy his cantankerous lungs, a sting in his left hamstring. The morning air caressed his face, but damned if that vest had done a blasted thing to cushion the fall. Distantly, he heard the sound of laughter. He lay there another few moments, his eyes slowly clearing until he again saw Rupert, who had leaned against the side of the well and was sipping from one of the cups Josephs had left.
Rupert walked back into the circle, and Alocar found hi
mself resting in Rupert’s shadow. “There was once a man who told me the only time a man was allowed off his guard was his deathbed. Forget your own teachings?”
“Sand was a dirty trick,” said Alocar. He stood, knees announcing their age in protest, dry logs in a merry bonfire. “That was a good move, although I’m pretty sure my sword was in your heart the series before.”
“Never fought a man in armor? Besides, you know I’m a heartless bastard, been that way since my wife served it to me for dinner. Have another go?”
They sparred a few more rounds, wins split between them, but all too soon they were back in the shade of the front porch, swords and vests stowed with Josephs, Lundy a furry fixture within easy reach of Alocar’s throbbing right hand. In front of them, the street was awakening as servants bustled about the yards of Alocar’s counterparts, trimming flowers and performing the chores that their masters wouldn’t stoop to handle.
“You know, General, there was a time when we could go for days, energy left to spare for a few girls and able to drink enough to fight a dragon,” Ruper said. “We’re getting old.”
Alocar let the name slide. Admonitions never did any good, not with a man like Rupert, and truthfully, he didn’t mind. It brought him back to a time when his life had purpose, meaning. “You’re right, you’re right.” Lundy pushed his head into Alocar’s palm. “You still enjoying retirement?”
Rupert cocked a weathered eye at him, thumb and forefinger interlocked to hold a cup of that horrid tea. “Don’t know if I’d go so far as to say I’m enjoying it, but it’s a living. Of sorts.”
“Ever miss the old life?”
“You mean the military? A plague of insects at every camp and eating week-old food just to stay alive, hoping disease didn’t finish us off before the enemy?”
Fallen Victors Page 3