Tooth and Blade

by Shad Callister

  Names.

  Pelekarr hunted with a quiet rage that showed nowhere except in his eyes. He carried with him a small purse, filled with his own gold, and used its contents here and there to loosen tongues. The city of Belsoria was full of soldiers milling among the streets or roistering their last coins away within the taverns. Uniform tunics and armor of all sorts could be seen. Among the sea of unemployed legionaries, Pelekarr hunted his prey alone, refusing his loyal sergeant’s offer to come along.

  He spent his gold like it was water. Tongues wagged, and amid all of it two names finally emerged that were of reasonable certainty.

  Chiss Felca. Pelekarr had heard of him before; he was of a house once great across the sea but now faded from any position of power at court. Ambition drove Felca, no doubt, to seek favor however he could with a man of Iscabos’ status. There was an excellent chance he had accepted his master’s call for loyal men to remain in Ostora and keep a place there for the scheming chariot general.

  Nolus Hykios, however, was nobody. A disposable scoundrel that Iscabos’ had reportedly cut loose as he sailed away, with naught but ten silver pieces for his part in the treacherous killing. Probably a criminal or slave sworn into service in the military as a way to escape justice in Kerath. It didn’t matter. He would die for what he had done.

  Two names, in a city full of them. But it was something to go on.

  Pelekarr hunted throughout the night, and more gold was spent. A man was beaten in an alley until the cavalry captain’s gloves were bloodstained. But by dawn he had a location.

  Belsoria was a tangled warren. Built in the earliest days of the Ostoran colonies, under constant attack from the barbarians, there had been little time for planning. Palisaded stockade walls of heavy logs had been thrown up in a half-circle around the harbor, facing inland, and in those early days only the constant arrival of new troops rushed from the ships directly to the ramparts had kept the raff from scaling the walls.

  Every seasonal lull in the fighting had seen the city added upon, growing always outward in concentric rings from the harbor. And though in later years the stockade walls were gradually taken down and reused elsewhere, still the streets retained their semicircular shape, so that Belsoria’s inhabitants lived among long, arcing avenues that always curved away just out of sight. Visitors often became lost among the oddly-shaped house blocks, the shops and taverns, and the bridges that spanned the White River which flowed due east into Belsoria’s harbor. Harlot’s dens, alleys, the great Kerathi barracks, warehouses, and marketplaces all sprawled and mixed in loose cooperation. It was next to impossible to find a man who didn’t want to be found, especially if he kept moving night after night.

  But Pelekarr persisted.

  A tip from a disgruntled bar-maid who hadn’t been tipped led him to a den called the Boar’s Teat, where he spoke briefly with the proprietor about the ugly charioteer with the scar who’d stayed the night there. That led him to another, even less reputable establishment named the Crushed Grape, a favorite retreat for tasteless wine-bibbers and girls who serviced even the roughest soldiers. A brief conversation with the owner of that place, during which the balance of his remaining gold changed hands, finally granted Pelekarr what he’d stayed awake all night to find.

  Pelekarr ascended the stairs at the back of the tavern and edged down the hallway to the third room on the left, which he promptly kicked open upon hearing loud snores from inside. His quarry, Nolus Hykios, was naked and sprawled across a bed full of empty bottles. Pelekarr swiftly dragged the man from the room and down the back stairs to the alleyway. The Crushed Grape’s owner had only divulged the presence of his odious tenant on condition that Pelekarr conduct his business with him out of sight of the other customers.

  The noise began to draw a crowd nonetheless as Pelekarr flung the man through a wooden door and onto the packed dirt with a wet smack. Pelekarr followed his quarry into the street, tossing a heavy bronze dagger into the dust at the man’s side.

  “Pick it up.”

  Several passersby stilled their laughter at the sight of the naked drunk, sensing that there was more brewing here than another brawl between soldiers. Nolus, still on hands and knees from his rough spill, stared at the dagger, then squinted up at Pelekarr. Recognition flickered in his eyes.

  “I won’t.” He eyed the small audience, then spat. “There’s witnesses here, Captain. Think this through.”

  “Pick it up.” The captain’s voice remained soft. His gloved fingers clenched and unclenched.

  “Jaimesh had it coming! And it wasn’t me that slew him, anyhow.”

  “You held him helpless while your traitorous commander stabbed him,” Pelekarr said, voice rising. Those watching perked up their ears. “The gods condone an open fight, but they hate murder.” He slid the dagger nearer the man on the ground and then stepped back, squaring off and putting a hand on the bronze saber at his belt.

  “Then what’s this?!” Nolus shrieked. “You’d cut a man down in the street, naked and without his friends?”

  “You’re going to pick up that dagger, and then it won’t be murder. It’s more of a chance than you gave Lord Jaimesh.”

  Nolus crawled away from the dagger, shaking his head. “Everyone’s watching. You can’t touch me, not like this!” He bawled loudly to attract more attention from the street, and three more men walked over to see the fight.

  “You won’t like the alternative, Hykios. It’s much worse than a clean death at my sword’s edge.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. You’re a captain of the king’s army, you—”

  Pelekarr dashed at him, sword clearing scabbard with a golden flash. Nolus screamed aloud before the blade even bit into the flesh of his thigh, then dissolved into a shaking mass as he watched bright blood stream from the wound Pelekarr had opened in his leg.

  “Would you live on as a cripple, then, coward? Are you completely gutless?”

  Nolus flinched as the captain’s sword rose again.

  “Rukhal’s bloody guts!” Nolus screamed. “Help! He’s killing me!”

  Pelekarr breathed heavily, eying the watching men around. No one moved to stop him, but after a moment his reddening face relaxed slightly.

  He bent down and hissed into the naked man’s ear. “I’ll give you this choice then, coward. Tell me where to find Chiss Felca, and we’ll take this quarrel up at another time, in another place. Tell me, or I hamstring your leg this instant. And then I will take your eyes.”

  Nolus felt the sharp blade on the back of his knee and slapped desperately at the ground. “The King’s Boots! He was staying at The King’s Boots last I saw of him.” He rolled his eyes sideways, trying to gauge from the captain’s eyes whether he was about to feel the sword again or whether he’d be let alone at last. His breath came in ragged gasps of fear and pain.

  Pelekarr slowly drew his blade across the man’s leg, but only the flat. When the blood was wiped clean, he stood and slid his weapon back into its scabbard. Then he stooped and retrieved his dagger.

  “This isn’t mercy, Hykios. This is a short reprieve, no more. The next time I lay eyes on you, you’ll die for your part in the slaying of my general.”

  With an angry glare at the bystanders, Pelekarr strode away, leaving the naked man to drag himself back into the inn with a trail of blood on the steps behind him.

  Pelekarr moved quickly through the streets, pitching his last silver coin at an errand boy to direct him to The King’s Boots before rushing on, eager to have his vengeance before the man could be warned he was coming. No doubt Hykios or some other ally who knew the fastest way through the crowded streets would try to beat him there with word of the captain’s dark errand. But Pelekarr would allow no man to stand in his way today.

  The tavern was a wealthier establishment located in the northern part of the city, as far removed from Hykios’ wretched hiding hole as it could be. Pelekarr’s mind burned to think of his quarry reveling with wine and women in the hours since carrying
out his foul deed, all paid for by the venal generosity of his master, Iscabos.

  The other man had been a tool, no more. But this one, Felca, was a worthier target for Pelekarr’s rage. He was Iscabos’ trusted second, his insurance in case the decision to leave Ostora needed to be reversed. The loyal toady would remain in the colonies and polish his lord’s image there while giving Iscabos the excuse that he’d only left for Kerath in the knowledge that his trusted proxy in the colonies was doing all that Iscabos himself would have done had the high king not been in need of his presence across the sea.

  It was infuriatingly shrewd of Iscabos. Lord Jaimesh had been a soldier first, a man of honor, whose genius lay in battle, not political maneuvering. Pelekarr now began to realize how out of his depth the general had been against men like Iscabos, a puppet played by more devious forces. The battle on the beach, no doubt, had been the final act of a game the more honest generals like Jaimesh and Lakon didn’t even know they were involved in.

  Wrath nearly choked the cavalry captain as he stalked up the street toward the King’s Boots. The blood he’d drawn from Hykios had only whetted his appetite; now he wanted to feel his bronze splitting through his remaining enemy’s muscle and bone until the life fled from the man’s twitching body. He swore he wouldn’t leave this time until he’d claimed a life in Jaimesh’s honor.

  The tavern loomed before him, and Pelekarr mounted the porch in two great strides. The thought occurred to him that he should reconnoiter first, understand the layout and the rear exits, but he discarded the idea almost immediately and burst through the doors. This was a moment for all-out vengeance and there could be no strategic maneuvering.

  Chiss Felca, instantly recognizable by his foppish dyed hair, was drinking at a table not six paces away. His face was flushed and two girls squirmed on his lap, giggling amid the rest of the open room’s raucous entertainment. Pelekarr’s eyes flashed in grim excitement at find his foe so close to hand.

  The captain was halfway to his target before Felca saw him. The drinking man raised his eyes from his goblet at the swift approach of the tall shape, and in an instant he realized the danger he was in. The girls fell away as Felca rose to his feet, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there—not in an establishment such as the King’s Boots. His face drained of color, but as Pelekarr grabbed his shirt front to hurl him against the table, he snarled in defiance and lashed out with a balled fist.

  Pelekarr anticipated it, adrenaline already coursing through his veins and increasing the speed of his reaction time into split seconds. He brushed away the man’s blow and landed a hard cross straight against Felca’s nose. He felt the bone crunch and then the man collapsed backward, knocking over the table and sending chairs flying.

  Pelekarr drew his sword and pointed it at the sprawling man’s chest.

  “You assisted in the murder of a great soldier and a lord of Kerath. You are a dog and a traitor, and you will die for it!”

  Pelekarr wasn’t going to give a traitor the honor of a fair fight this time; that noble impulse had denied him satisfaction in the day’s previous altercation. But as he positioned his feet for a deadly lunge, he saw Felca’s eyes flit to either side and realized the man had friends in the room.

  “Stop him! Grab his weapon!”

  The swiftness of Pelekarr’s initial onslaught had caught everyone in the common room off guard, but now three fellow soldiers came at him, circling to flank the lone cavalryman.

  Pelekarr took his only opportunity for a clear thrust at his target. Lunging forward, he got the tip of his saber into Felca before anyone could stop him.

  The man screamed hoarsely, but Pelekarr’s own eagerness proved his undoing. Instead of piercing the villain’s heart, the saber tip glanced off bone and raked along the ribs. It was a painful, bloody injury, but hardly lethal. Pelekarr’s momentum carried him crashing into the upended table, off-balance.

  In an instant they were on him, howling like hounds. They dragged him back, pulling at his cloak and tearing it. A knife gleamed in the hand of one man and came down on Pelekarr’s breastplate, which turned the blade aside but left a deep score-mark.

  The tall horse-captain fought back savagely, striving to get his saber back into play, fists buffeting every skull within reach. But he was pushed sideways and then someone got hold of his sword-arm.

  Chiss Felca scrambled for safety amid the welter of overturned table, scattered chairs, and fleeing bodies. He cursed and swore as he crawled backward, one hand pressed against his ribs. He turned toward the door to the kitchen, which one of the girls held open for his escape.

  The sight of his prey moving to safety redoubled Pelekarr’s flagging strength. With a titanic heave, the captain threw off two of the attackers who clung like leeches to his arms. He lurched toward Felca, and one of the man’s friends quickly leaped to bar the way. Pelekarr would have let him have the full weight of a horizontal saber swing, but another man tackled him from behind at the legs, folding him down on the floor with a painful crash. He snarled like a beast, wordless and moon-mad.

  Wrestling violently on the wooden floor, Pelekarr was vaguely aware of a shout and a dark shape rushing in to heave the men off him.

  “That’s a captain of the rank!” a gravelly voice thundered. “Give fair play, you wolves—if you knife him while he’s down, I’ll break your arms!”

  Pelekarr rolled and saw a man slightly shorter than he, with dark hair and an infantry officer’s tunic. He was in the act of hitting one of the attackers in the gut with enough force to lift the man off his feet.

  The cavalry captain moved to rise and get his sword up again, but a weight thumped hard against his skull and his vision wavered. The room was a riot of yelling, crashes, the ring of a blade, and screaming women.

  Someone came in at the door, followed by several hulking figures with cudgels and staves. But Pelekarr was losing grip on the scene. The man who’d been helping him in the fight, whoever he was, was thrown off his feet and fell against a chair, breaking it into splinters.

  Another blow thudded into the back of Pelekarr’s head like a hammer, and his eyes rolled back. He saw nothing more.

  CHAPTER 4: OUTLAWS AND WORSE

  It was Four-finger Korda who stood watch when the barbarians came. He spotted them from his post high in a hickory tree above the bandit camp. He shivered involuntarily; just watching them move silently across the forest floor made Korda uneasy. An Ostoran since birth, he knew better than most how dangerous these half-men could be.

  The Wolfsbane shaman trotted like an animal, hunched over, accompanied by five or six lean acolytes no less bestial. Naked from the waist upwards, their legs were partially covered with slitted leathern trousers and strips of hide that fluttered as they passed, breaking up their profiles amid the undergrowth around them. Their torsos and arms were covered with tattoos and the acolytes had long, matted hair and braided beards. Their leader alone was shaven both in face and scalp and his head was covered with even more tattoos.

  The wild men clutched flint-tipped spears, javelins, and bows, but their leader carried only a long knife of obsidian at his belt. They moved with a loping stride that was deceptively smooth; Korda had heard they could cover leagues at a time without stopping to rest.

  What Black Tur was thinking, allying with these fiends, he couldn’t guess. Korda whistled the signal for approaching friendlies and watched them come while the camp below stirred to life.

  As the bald-headed chieftain passed under his tree Korda felt a seething urge to send an arrow down into the heathen’s skull. When he thought of the family he’d lost to a barbarian raid as a boy, the urge grew so strong he had to grip the tree branches to keep his hands from his bow.

  It was that early loss which had set him on a path to be standing guard in a bandit camp instead of bedding down with a pliant farmwife in the hamlet he’d grown up in. It was that raid which had cost him a finger, and it was an enmity he’d never forget. Black Tur could parley with the Wolfsbane
devils if he wished, but Korda inwardly swore that he’d plant his arrows in their backs no matter how long he had to wait to do it.

  If the terms of this meeting didn’t please Black Tur enough, perhaps the time would come sooner rather than later. He imagined stalking them back through the forests as night fell, picking them off one by one. An avenging hero, he’d be lauded by Ostorans everywhere and someday be welcomed back into the good graces of the townsfolk. He could feel their warm congratulations already.

  The shaman, Loku, swept into the bandits’ camp without announcing himself and headed toward the tent in the middle. That was where these Ostorans always placed their important people, and Loku allowed his men to be slowly surrounded by the bandits without making any sign he’d noticed.

  The man they called Black Tur emerged from the pilfered Kerathi military tent to stand before his visitors. A tall man with a shock of midnight hair and cold dead eyes, he ceaselessly caressed the pommels of a bronze sword and brace of knives hung from his belt. Silken trousers black as his hair fit well with the name, and he was bare-chested save for a small vest of dark goatskin.

  He raised a hand in welcome, though his eyes were not friendly.

  “Again we meet, Loku of the Wolfsbane. You found our camp.”

  Loku sneered at the rough collection of tents and loot-piles around him. Nearly fourscore of the drunken cutthroats leaned against logs and bundles of stolen goods, still clutching wineskins and ale-jacks in their stained fingers as they watched what was about to occur. Like snakes that had just eaten, they would be useless until they grew hungry again. Only ten looked ready for a fight, fingering weapons as they stood stiffly behind the interloping tribesmen.

  “If camp you call this,” Loku replied. “We could smell it out from two leagues’ distance.”