The Lesser Kindred

by Elizabeth Kerner

  The stead was a scant hour’s easy ride west from where we stood. Devlin told us we’d ride at first light, to somewhere close but sheltered, and he’d go in on his own to spy out the place, learn how we could capture the lady quick and quiet. I wondered why he was worried, for I liked the fighting and I was good at it, but he seemed to want as little fight as he could manage. I remember thinking he must be a bit of a coward.

  The next day was cold, bone-chill cold, and as grey and cheerless a winter’s day as you’d grumble to find. I remember thinking the horses were sluggish first thing, but then so was I. It got better as we rode, but we came up on the stead faster than we’d thought, and without warning. Worse, there was no convenient clump of trees nor houses or anything. We just had to stop at the edge of the marked fields, tramp out a place in the frosty scrub ground to set up a fire, and tend the horses until Devlin got back. I was well content to think of getting as warm as I could and was about to take the saddle off my horse when suddenly Devlin calls me out and says I’m to go with him. Ross wasn’t best pleased, but Devlin laughed and said nobody’d believe he had a son so old as Ross. We left our horses with the others. The stead buildings were just a few fields away.

  I was happy as a pup in a mud puddle to be in the thick of it at last. Devlin explained as we walked. I was to be Devlin’s son, weak with cold, “So lean over and look weary, idiot, not like you’re aching for a fight,” and we both were to be strangers from the south looking for my “aunt” who had moved away north and might live thereabouts. They wouldn’t know her, as she didn’t exist, but we’d learn soon enough who lived in the place and what protection they had.

  I was mighty impressed by Devlin, coming up with that so quick. It seemed so clever.

  Well, we came up to the stead to find hardly anybody about. Dev was well pleased about that and he started walking around the buildings, having a good look at the double doors on two corners of the main square. It was a hell of a big place and the doors were good and strong, made from thick wood and hung from the stone walls on forged hinges made so you couldn’t take out the pins. The main stables—for we heard the horses—ran along three sides of the square, as best we could tell, with what looked like a granary at one corner and what Dev guessed was a tack store in the other. The fourth side was the house, only a little ways from the stables. We could see from the roofline that the stone wall was double thick between the stables and the house. There were other barns dotted around the place, but this had to be where the really valuable horses were kept.

  Devlin was talking to me, quiet-like. “Somebody here knows a little something. This place is made to defend. They don’t have to step outside these walls unless they damn sure want to.”

  We’d been getting the lay of the place for near half an hour when we got back round to the doors we’d first come to, which were open. Devlin raised up his voice and called out “Hallo the house!”, loud, and just a minute later out comes a man. He was no more than middlin’ high, grey at the temples but strong-built and walked like a man much younger. He came up close to us right quick, like he didn’t want us to come no closer to the house.

  “I see you, lads. What is it brings you here on such a cold day?” says he, looking at me and Devlin in turn.

  “We’d be mighty glad of a place by your fire for a minute or two,” says Devlin, tryin’ to sound old and weak. “My boy here is weary and my bones are chilled through. We slept on the cold ground last night, and truth told I’m gettin’ too old for that sort of lark.”

  The man just stood there, never offered us water or chélan or even room by the fire, so Devlin started tellin’ him the story he’d thought up, about how I was his sister’s new-orphaned boy and she’d just died and we was looking for my ma’s sister. I tried to feel and act wretched, but I couldn’t help watchin’ the old man’s face. He stared at us for a minute, like he was lookin’ through us, then he started in to laugh. “You damn fools, is that the best you can do?” He laughed harder, and I could see Dev workin’ to keep quiet. The old man just kept on laughin’.

  “Stranger, my captain gave us that same story to use thirty years ago. Either it’s come back into use or it’s never gone away, but in any case I know it too well to believe it for a single breath.”

  Devlin never said a word, just looked at him.

  The man straightened up and stopped laughing. “I don’t know your names, lads, and I don’t want to. Only thing I need to know is—

  Then he started talking nonsense, least it sounded like that to me. None of the words made sense. I near fell over when Devlin answered him in the same language.

  Jamie

  I hadn’t used merc—mercenary cant—for many years, but these things never really leave you.

  “Right, you. Are you what you seem or just an upstart wanting to make a dirty living? Can you understand me?”

  “Of course I can, granddad,” the leader answered. His accent was strange, and he was surprised to say the least. “Never thought to find a brother here.”

  “I’m not your grandsire nor no more your brother than that youngster is your son, and don’t you think otherwise. I left your life a long time since and I’ve no mind to rejoin it. What are you doing here, and what do you want?”

  “A mark.”

  I instantly slipped into the darker tongue of the assassins. “You don’t have the look of this about you, but if you know what I am saying you are bound by blood to answer. Are you here for death or for taking?”

  “What in the hells did you just say? That wasn’t cant,” the man responded in merc, angry. Well, that was a blessing in any case. He didn’t look bright enough to lie that well.

  “Very well,” I said, speaking in common again for the younger lad’s benefit. “This is fair warning. I know who you are. I don’t know why you’re here but I can guess. Know that I have lived your life, and a darker one yet than that, and you do not frighten me. Go now, tell your buyer you couldn’t find what he sought. Come back here, by sun or moon, and I will not waste time in speech. If I see either of you again I will assume that you mean death or harm to me and mine and I will kill you the first chance I get. Be warned. Next time I will not stop to speak.”

  The older one nodded ever so slightly and I knew he believed me. “I give you leave to go, right now,” I said. “Once you are out of my sight don’t come back.”

  Callum

  I couldn’t believe Devlin was just taking this. Here was this skinny old man, no sword on him, not even a knife, and he was threatening Devlin and me both. I’d seen Devlin kill a man, right in front of my eyes, for a lot less, and here he was backing down.

  “You don’t scare me, old man,” I cried, standing up to him. Small as I was, he was only a little taller. “Talk never won a fight! You’re old and slow, you’d best watch your back or some dark ni—”

  I had to stop speaking. I didn’t want to, I had a few good insults I’d thought up, but when a man has a knife to your throat and your arms pinned to your sides, there’s not a lot to say. Damn, I’d have sworn he was unarmed.

  “He’s not worth it,” says Devlin, calm as can be. “Hells, he’s green and stupid, but don’t take it out on him.”

  “I’m not in the habit of slaughtering idiots,” says the old man. He put away his knife and turned me around to look at him, still holding my arms pinned. He was lot stronger than he looked.

  He looks deep into my eyes and shakes his head, real slow. “You’re brave enough, lad, but you’re cocky and you’re slow. Get out of this business now, while you can. There are other ways to get through life and almost all of them will see you living a lot longer than this one. You’re not made for it.”

  He threw me towards Devlin, who caught me before I fell on the cold ground. “Warning taken, master,” said Devlin. “But I’m nor green nor foolish. And I’ve been paid.”

  “Hells help you then,” says the man. “You’ve been told.” He turned on his heel at that and went back through the big doubl
e doors and closed them behind him.

  Devlin pulled me away with him, swearing. When we were out of earshot, I had to ask. Just casual, as we were walking back to the others.

  “What was that you two were saying?”

  “It’s merc’s cant,” says Devlin. “Shows we’re both mercenaries with some years of fighting and a measure of blood behind us. I’m not sure what that other noise he was making was, but I’ve a feeling it was rather worse than better.”

  We walked in silence a few moments more. “You’re not afraid of him, are you?” I said.

  Devlin just kept walking. “Yes, I damn well am. He’s faster than I am, and I’d wager he knows everything I know and more as well. Even without the cant I was worried. He’s. sharp. Like a knife he’s sharp.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  Devlin sighed. “We are not going to do anything. I’m going back to the others, and you’re going to get on your horse and go home.”

  “What!” I cried. “You can’t believe that old man, he was just lucky, I wouldn’t—”

  And for the second time in half an hour I was held helpless. Devlin wasn’t as strong or as quick, but he managed all the same. “If I can do you, lad, that other one would have your heart on a stick before you knew you were dead. I’ve thought it before. He’s right, you’re just too slow. Go home. Find a girl, work on a farm, join the King’s Men somewhere, find any sort of life you want but get out of this one. You’re not right for it.”

  And what really scared me was that Devlin wasn’t angry. He talked like he was talking about the weather. “I’ll do what I please, it’s my life!” I cried, struggling.

  He let me go and kept walking. “So it is. Please yourself, Callum. But when you’re dying in some ditch before the year’s out—or maybe the week—remember I warned you. So now your dying curse can’t touch me.” He brushed his hands one against the other. “I’ll not say word more, I’ve done what I could. The rest be on your own back.”

  I shook myself and walked alongside him. I was mad: at myself, at Devlin, at that scary old man. I wasn’t about to give up. But even then I wasn’t completely stupid, and in the hidden part of me that admitted to fear I started to wonder if maybe there was something in what they said.

  When we joined the others we drew back to that little bit of woodland we’d left the night before—it gave at least some shelter and there was enough wood to burn without spending every second looking for more. Our cook started up a good fire and put some potatoes by to bake in the foot of it, then made up a broth from the last of the meat we’d bought at the market some days since and a handful or so of barley. It wasn’t much, but it was food and it was hot and that’s all that mattered.

  Ross and Devlin called us all together in the twilight of that early winter’s night. We all sat as near the fire as we could. I was shivering something awful despite the food and regretting the mild southern winter we’d left behind when Devlin started talking.

  “Right, lads. We’re up against worse than we thought. I never saw the woman, but I’d swear my life she’s there. Problem is, she’s got a lot of help. The man we met, whoever he is, has been a mere, and he’s told us straight he’ll kill us if he sees us again. You all need to know that.” He described the man so we’d all know him on sight.

  “If you think I’ve come this far and been this cold just to walk away now, you’re daft,” says Ross.

  Devlin smiled. “Aye, so I thought, but you had to know. And make no mistake, he surely will kill us quick enough if he sees us. So we can’t let him see us. We move tonight. And he’s been a mere, knew our story off pat, so he’ll also know all the standard distractions and ignore them. So no cries for help in the middle of the night, no stray saddled horse come rattling into their courtyard, no howling wolves too close to the house. I need some fresh ideas and I need ’em fast.”

  “Our luck, the bloody wolves’ll howl fine on their own,” said Jaker sourly.

  Ross spoke up. “That courtyard’s mostly stables, isn’t it? The lad in the village said they breed horses.”

  “Aye,” says Devlin. “And so?”

  “Horses hate fire, don’t they?”

  “You don’t say,” put in Jaker. He was in charge of the horses—guess that’s why he said that about wolves. “They hate it, and it makes ‘em stupid. I’ve seen ’em run back into a burning barn just to get killed—and a hell of a noise they make.”

  Then Ross says, “So why don’t we set fire to the barn?”

  Even in that company there was a hiss of quick-drawn breath. Fire happens when it happens and every man alive works to put it out. We were mercs, not outlaws. My da had once told me about a fire he’d seen, a house caught somehow and they couldn’t get the people out. He’d said he’d heard the screams for what seemed like hours. I still sometimes had nightmares about that.

  Dev just waited, but nobody else said a thing.

  “Not as easy as it sounds,” he says after a few minutes, thoughtful. “They build with stone around here. Those barns are stone to the rooftree and slate tiled above. Not much to burn there.” He stared into the fire for a moment, then he smiled real slow and looked around at us. “But the stalls have windows on the outer wall, and they’re closed with wooden shutters,” he says, right pleased with himself.

  “But fire …” says Hask. I was surprised. I’d always thought him a hard man.

  “It’s not as bad as that,” says Devlin. “We won’t burn the people, we’ll just scare the horses. Jaker, we’ll all ride halfway there and walk the rest—you keep the horses where we stop, safe for our retreat. The rest of you—if Old Man Merc comes out to fight, you kill him before he can do you. Anybody else, just take them out the fight fast as you can, no need for killing unless you’ve got to. The girl’s tall as a man, she should be easy to spot. Soon as one of you has her, let out a long whistle and all scatter. We’ll meet back at the village—not here, it’s too close.”

  “I don’t like it, Dev,” says Hask. He stood up. “Fire ain’t right. I near got kilt in a fire when I were young. Fire ain’t right.”

  Dev just looked up at him, for Hask was a big man. “You got a better idea?”

  Hask shook his head.

  “Then it’s set,” says Dev. “Jaker, you reckon Hask could take care of the horses for the time?”

  “Sure,” says Jaker. He and Hask had been working for Dev a long time, and they were as close to being friends as men got in such places. He took Hask aside and started talking horses at him.

  I got out my knives and started in to sharpen all three of ’em. I planned to take Old Man Merc myself, pay him out for making me look a fool in front of Dev. My speciality was throwing knives and I was damn good at it.

  Well, I thought I was damn good at it.

  Lanen

  Jamie told us about the mercenaries at the noon meal. Varien was appalled by the idea of men that were paid to fight but he wasn’t stupid, and even he could tell that the expression on Jamie’s face wasn’t one that invited questions.

  “I’d guess that someone from your trip isn’t happy about the way it worked out, my girl. Maybe Marik got better,” he said. “I certainly haven’t done anything to rattle anyone lately. Can you think of anyone else who’d come this far and pay mercs to look for you?”

  “Only Marik, or the demon master he works with,” I said. “He’s the only one I know of with a reason, but I’d be amazed if Marik could even speak yet, let alone plan such a thing.”

  Jamie thought for a moment. “Must be the demon master, then. Why in all the Hells has he sent men instead of demons?”

  Varien spoke, but his calm voice was belied by the anger in his eyes. “Demons demand quite a price for their services. Perhaps he is not wealthy, or has run out of blood he is willing to part with.”

  “Where is Marik, anyway?” asked Jamie, looking relieved that we weren’t going to have to fight demons just yet. “Someone must be looking after him, surely. Who would it be?
You said he was the head of a Merchant House.”

  “His men carried him from the ship,” said Varien quietly. “I know not where they took him.”

  Jamie sighed. “Truth to tell, I’ve almost been waiting for this. Stories are all well and good, my Lanen, and they sound fine coming from a bard, but real people who are after you don’t just let you get away. You’ve come away the winners of this last bout, but it sounds like there is too much at stake for it to stop just because you give up. There are always loose ends from any weave. You seem to have left a right trail of them behind you.”

  I laughed, imagining a ravelling bit of rough-woven cloth trailing behind my horse, but I was the only one. Varien looked thoughtful.

  “What are they most likely to do, Mas—Jamie?” he asked. “Would they attack such a stronghold as this?”

  “Depends on their numbers,” Jamie said. “If there’s a score of them they might try it, but if they’re less than ten they’ll think of some distraction to make their way easier. We need to know what they’re after first.”

  “Could it be the gold?” I asked quietly. “I don’t think anyone saw it, but we brought back—quite a lot from the Dragon Isle.”

  “What!” cried Jamie. “Lanen, you never said word!”

  I grinned. “You never asked. I was going to leave it as a surprise. The dragons—well, they—they have plenty, and we decided it might come in useful here.”

  “How much do you have with you? I’ve seen the circlet you wear,” he said to Varien. “That’s bad enough. Most men don’t ever see that much gold in their lives. Many don’t see gold at all. Did you bring—is there much more?”