Williams, D M - Renegade Chronicles [Collection 1-3]

by David Michael Williams

  Situated on Capricon’s northeastern peninsula, Rydah was no stranger to storms. The cityfolk never let a little rain bother them. The heaviest of downpours never kept the Rydans holed away for long.

  Even when the Thief Guild was at their worst, people refused to let that secret sect dictate where and when they would walk the streets. If it meant one had to be a little more wary of cutpurses, so be it. Rydah was a big city—the largest in Capricon—so a little crime was to be expected.

  Steering his team down the familiar avenues, Mitto watched a young man run from building to building, using the awnings of shops and inns to his best advantage. The fellow spared the wagon and its driver hardly a glance. Mitto wondered if the man was a member of the infamous Thief Guild, but he doubted it. Guildsmen had a reputation for being nearly invisible.

  Anyway, the citizens of Rydah had something worse than thieves to worry about these days.

  Mitto resisted the urge to watch the man until he disappeared from sight. He, for one, would not give into the paranoia that had people all over the island seeing rebels at every turn. He hated Renegades as much as the next guy, but they had no cause to interfere with his life. Or so he hoped.

  He looked in the windows of the public houses he passed and couldn’t help but notice there were far fewer patrons within compared to a year ago. But that had been before Edward Borrom and the other Kings of Continae forged the Alliance with dwarves, centaurs, midge, and even ogres.

  Before the rebels started making trouble out of hate for the nonhumans, a desire to chip away at Superius hold on Capricon, and gods only knew what other reasons.

  Before Capricon and Continae Proper were plunged into what some were already calling the Renegade War.

  Mitto missed the days when his greatest concern was keeping an eye on his purse. One never knew what Renegades were up to or what trick they might use to strike at their enemies. It didn’t matter he was an honest merchant who cared no more for politics than fashion trends in the Deathlands. At least one knew what the Thief Guild wanted—money.

  Then again, there were rumors the Guild was working hand-in-hand with the Renegade movement in Rydah…

  Mitto let out a long sigh as he jumped down from his perch. He hadn’t even been paying attention but had instinctively known when to pull back on the reigns. He recognized the stable boy that ran out to lead the horses to their shelter, though he never could recall the lad’s name.

  Smiling a preoccupied smile, he flipped a copper coin into the boy’s hand and said, “Clean them up, and you’ll get two more just like it. And let them eat their fill of oats. Gods know they’ve earned it!”

  Without waiting for a reply, Mitto walked toward the entrance of the inn. An old sign hung on rusty hinges from a post beside the door. Faded gray-white letters declared the name of the establishment: Someplace Else. Mitto had always thought it a terrible name for an inn, but the proprietress insisted it was perfect.

  “What if two people cannot decide where they want to spend the evening?” she would propose whenever he brought up the matter. “‘Let’s head over to Garland’s Feat,’ says the first. ‘Naw,’ says the other, ‘that place reeks. Let’s try someplace else.’ And sure enough, they’ll end up here.”

  Mitto rolled his eyes—as he done the first time she explained the origin of the inn’s name—and opened the door. The light in the common room was bright compared to the shadow-strewn streets outside. He saw a couple of familiar faces, but there was no mistaking that Someplace Else had seen better days.

  He did his best to brush the water off his cloak and removed the saturated, three-cornered hat from off his head. He wrung the water from bedraggled hat with both of his hands. The puddle at his feet swelled into a veritable lake, and a wandering rivulet was meandering farther into the common room.

  “Mitto O’erlander, quit dampening my doorstep and come to the fire before you catch your death of cold!”

  The merchant’s eyes were inextricably drawn to the owner of the voice. Although the woman who had spoken was roughly his age—or perhaps a bit younger than his forty-odd years—she spoke with the tone of a doting mother. Somehow, Else Fontane had a way of making him feel closer to five years old than fifty.

  A wide smile stretched across her round face as she snatched up a towel from behind the bar and hurried over toward him. She was pretty—no denying that—and he had thought on more than one occasion that being more than simply friends with Else might be a grand thing.

  But those thoughts tended to surface when he was more than a little drunk. She had been a dear friend for the past fifteen years. Too much time had passed for them to transcend the status of their current relationship.

  And yet whenever he crossed the threshold of Someplace Else and looked into her big blue eyes, he felt as though he had come home.

  Mitto caught the towel a second before it would’ve hit him in the face.

  “Look at what the cats and dogs dragged in,” she sighed, shaking her head sadly. “I’ve seen mermaids dance in less water than you’ve brought into my inn.”

  “If you’ve seen even one mermaid, then I’m the Queen of the Sea,” Mitto replied, running the towel through his dark curly hair. “Tell me you have a spare room, so I don’t have to go back out into the rain.”

  “I’ve always got room for you, Your Majesty,” she said with a wink. “Without the money I make playing dice with you, I’d have had to close the inn long ago.”

  He gave a low chuckle but then thought she might be serious. “Is business that bad?”

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “Don’t you worry about me, Mitto. It’ll take more than a measly war to shut Someplace Else down. Come on now. Don’t make me drag you to the fire. I meant what I said about winning your money, and it’s no fun playing dice with someone in a sickbed.”

  “All right, all right,” the merchant muttered, allowing himself to be led to a high-backed chair near the hearth.

  “I’ll be right back with a cup of tea,” she promised.

  He opened his mouth to correct her—he never drank tea!—but caught himself at the last moment. I must be getting old, he thought. First Baxter makes me look more gullible than a newborn midge, and then I almost believe Else would actually bring me tea.

  Shaking his head at his foolishness, Mitto eased back in his seat and basked in the warm glow of the fireplace. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the innkeeper pull out two glasses and a bottle of Dragon’s Hoard, his favorite spirits, from behind the bar.

  As she poured the drinks, Mitto looked around the common room and wondered how many hours he had spent there. He couldn’t remember why he had chosen the inn over all of the others, but fifteen years after his first visit, Mitto now spent most of his free time at Someplace Else.

  Perhaps it was the name, after all. Since he spent most of his life on the road, traveling from town to town, he did not bother with a house of his own. His whole life was about “someplace else.”

  Of course, he’d never admit it to Else. She was a swift-thinker and had a quick tongue to match. Someone had to keep her in check. But he wasn’t so foolish as to believe he could beat her in a game of riddles. No, Else Fontane was as clever as they came.

  Why, it had taken him more than a year to realize she had managed to sneak her own name into the name of her beloved inn.

  Passage II

  Mitto gazed contentedly into the fire, watching the flames flicker and undulate in an almost hypnotic manner. Suddenly, he was aware of someone standing behind him.

  Perhaps it had been all of that thinking about thieves and rebels because he was on his feet in an instant to confront whoever it was. He didn’t recognize the man who had stolen up on him as silently as a ghost. For that matter, the stranger resembled a wraith, draped, as he was, in a tattered cloak and cowl that cast most of his face in shadow. Dark, sunken eyes peered out at him from between a sharp nose.

  Mitto took a step back.

  The intruder pull
ed back his hood, revealing the wrinkled visage of a very old man. “I did not mean to startle you, boy. I only want to talk. Please sit.”

  His voice reminded Mitto of a creaky-hinged door in want of oiling. Because he had no reason to deny the old man’s request—because there was no reason to be afraid of the ancient stranger—Mitto sat down and offered him the vacant seat.

  The old man set himself down with a not-quite-stifled grunt. That was when Mitto saw the geezer wasn’t alone. A second shorter form followed him to a spot on the other side of the chair. Mitto tried to discern what he could about the addition to his unexpected company, but the shorter stranger wore a long hooded coat to match the old man’s.

  A dwarf, maybe…or perhaps a midge? Mitto thought sourly.

  He couldn’t consider the bundled mystery further because the old man spoke again, drawing Mitto’s gaze and full attention.

  “Was that your covered wagon I saw out front?” he asked.

  Mitto did not answer right away. He was lost in the intense gleam of the old man’s dark eyes.

  “Might be it is, might be it’s not,” Mitto said at last.

  He had never been one to jump at bumps in the night, but there was something suspicious about the old man—something menacing.

  Swallowing despite his suddenly dry throat, Mitto asked, “Who are you, and what do you want from me?”

  “My name is Toemis Blisnes. I need a ride to Fort Faith…whatever is left of it.”

  Mitto sat back in his chair, letting the old man’s croak-like voice echo in his mind. The stranger’s name meant nothing to him, but the mention of Fort Faith left him bewildered.

  Fort Faith was a smallish fortification out past Fort Valor, nestled up against the Rocky Crags. The place had been abandoned since the Ogre War. Nobody lived there now, except maybe the ghosts of the Knights butchered by the brutes. What could Toemis Blisnes want with a deserted fort? The man was far too old to be gallivanting halfway across Capricon…

  “Will you take us there? I can pay.”

  Toemis withdrew a fat purse from inside his coat. The mention of “us” reminded Mitto that he and Toemis were not alone. Mitto’s gaze wandered back over to the cloaked figure, but as the small stranger had taken a seat on the floor on the other side of Toemis’s chair, he saw only the top of a brown hood.

  “Look, Mister Blisnes—”

  “Toemis.”

  “As you like, Toemis,” Mitto said, inspecting a seam staring of the three-cornered hat on his lap. “I can’t guess what interest you have in that old heap of stone, and I don’t care. Fact of the matter is, I don’t venture that far west…not on that road, anyway. I’ve been known to make deliveries to Fort Valor, but there’s nothing worth my while beyond.”

  He glanced up at Toemis. The old man returned his stare without expression.

  “My route takes me to Hylan, Steppt, and Kraken regularly. Sometimes, I’ll go up to the Port of Gust if the money is right, but I’ve never even seen Fort Faith,” Mitto said, filling the silence with facts. “There’s nobody at Fort Faith to trade with.”

  But then Mitto remembered a rumor he had heard during his stop in Steppt while sharing a drink with Miles Tentrunks. Tentrunks, a fellow traveling merchant and notorious gossip, had heard on “good authority” that the Knights of Superius were planning to reoccupy Fort Faith due to increased Renegade activity in the region.

  At the time, Mitto hadn’t put much stock in his rival’s words, but now…

  “I can pay,” Toemis repeated, holding a coin purse out to Mitto.

  He resisted the urge to take the purse and look inside. The profit from his trip to Kraken and back was considerable. That sum, added to what he would make from his last run to Hylan before the first snowfall, would see him comfortably through the winter.

  It’s probably full of rocks…like the old man’s head, he mused. And it would take a small fortune to tear me away from Someplace Else. I’ve earned this little bit of respite!

  The veiny, wrinkled hand remained outstretched, the coin purse just inches away.

  “I can’t,” Mitto protested, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Toemis. His refusal didn’t seem to dishearten Toemis Blisnes in the least. If anything, the old man looked more insistent, more determined than before.

  Without a word, Toemis loosened the purse’s drawstrings. The firelight made the shiny gold coins inside within sparkle and shimmer.

  Mitto’s eyes widened. The old man was, in fact, offering him a small fortune.

  A certain fable his mother had told when he was small came unbidden to mind, and Mitto had the ridiculous notion he was face to face with the dastardly Goblin. In the stories, Goblin would give gold in exchange for a favor. But in the end, the man or woman in the tale always regretted helping Goblin with his seemingly simple request.

  Beneath his supposed generosity, Goblin was as sneaky as they came.

  Mitto had never considered himself to be a greedy man—at least no greedier than any businessman. And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of the gold. With those coins, he wouldn’t have to worry about hauling scratchy hay or heavy barrels of Hylan lager for miles, praying to the gods to keep the snow at bay.

  Hells, with that much money, he’d not have to leave Rydah for a year!

  Suddenly suspicious, he looked up at Toemis. Where had the old man gotten so much gold? Whose purse had been pilfered? Whose throat had he slit to gain this treasure?

  As though reading his thoughts, Toemis crossed his arms and said, “It’s what’s left of a lifetime of saving…and it can be yours for nothing more than a ride to Fort Faith.”

  The old man could be lying. Looking down at the gold once more, Mitto was fully aware that Toemis, in spite of his age, could be a thief—could be the fabled Guildmaster, for all Mitto knew. And then there was Toemis’s diminutive accomplice. Where did he fit into everything?

  Mitto didn’t trust the old man, and yet whatever deception Toemis and his companion might be weaving, the gold looked real enough. Of course, in the stories, the gold was always real.

  “Are you two with the Guild?”

  Toemis’s brow furrowed in momentary confusion before he answered, “No.”

  “Are you Renegades?”

  “No.”

  Even as Mitto recalled the terrible endings of those childhood tales—orchestrated, always, by Goblin—he knew he would accept the impossibly simple job. He silently cursed Toemis for the tempting offer and then cursed himself for accepting the shiny bait.

  “Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, sounding as defeated as he felt. At least the would-be hero in the story was allowed a moment of joy before his downfall. Mitto, on the other hand, felt nothing but worry. “What do you say, half now and half when we arrive at the fort?”

  Toemis closed the purse and thrust it back into his coat. “Nothing until we get there.”

  Mitto opened his mouth to argue but then shrugged his shoulders in surrender. He couldn’t blame Toemis for being cautious. Besides, with Goblin it was always all or nothing.

  “When do you want to leave?” Mitto asked.

  “Now.”

  Mitto had that nothing Toemis could say would surprise him. He was mistaken.

  “Now?” he demanded. “It’s raining like mad. The city’s half-flooded for gods’ sakes.”

  Toemis’s piercing black eyes didn’t blink. All or nothing, Mitto reminded himself. Well, I may be a fool for gold, but I’m not completely crazy.

  “Look, Toemis, even if the gatekeepers would allow us to leave Rydah at such a suspiciously late hour and even if the Renegade War weren’t lending courage to every rogue and brigand this side of the Strait, I’d still have to insist that we wait until morning on account of my horses. They need rest. It won’t get you to Fort Faith any quicker if they collapse a mile outside the city.”

  That last bit was pure hyperbole, though the horses deserved to rest—as did he. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted a slight movement, a
bobbing, as it were, of the brown hood beside Toemis’s chair. The old man dropped a bony hand down atop the other’s head, though Mitto couldn’t decide if the gesture was intended to calm or control.

  “Very well,” Toemis said, rising from his chair. “We’ll meet here at sunup.”

  Mitto nodded, and when the old man stuck out his claw-like hand, he quickly got to his feet and extended his own hand to seal their deal. Toemis’s skin was warm but not as sweaty as Mitto’s was. And the old man was possessed of a strength that caught Mitto off guard.

  Without another word, Toemis Blisnes made his way over to the bar, where Else was trying hard to look like she hadn’t been watching them the whole time. The small, silent other followed Toemis without hesitation. But the shrouded stranger did pause long enough to take a quick glance at the merchant, providing Mitto with an unobstructed, albeit brief, peek at the enigmatic creature.

  Which only left him with more questions.

  * * *

  An hour later saw an additional chair before the fireplace. The few patrons who had shared the common room earlier were gone except for Loony Gomez, who was using one of the tables as a pillow and whose loud breathing could be heard all the way to the fireside, where the three of them sat in silence.

  Mitto chewed at his thumbnail as he stared into the crackling fire. Now that Toemis had gone to one of the rooms upstairs, he had come up with a long list of reasons why he should’ve turned the old man down—fables aside. It might be Toemis was planning on clubbing him over the head once Rydah’s alabaster walls were out of sight, taking his horses and wagon as his own…

  “You can bet I’ll look into this,” Baxter Lawler promised for the second time.

  Mitto didn’t bother glancing over at the Knight. His friend was talking more to fill the stillness than anything. Mitto had told Else all that had transpired between him and the old man after the two strangers left for their room. He had repeated the story when Baxter showed up at Someplace Else not an hour ago.