by Alex Sapegin
“A dragon!” Andy froze in a stupor. The powerful beating of the enormous wings pushed Andy back with gusts of air. He stumbled on one of the cords and, stepping carefully about to avoid falling, scrambled into the clearing and right into a pale-faced guy in a black frock.
A punch in the jaw snapped Andy out of his stupor. The thug put his foot in Andy’s stomach and let out a guttural cry. His face was distorted into a repulsive grimace. If Andy hadn’t studied hand-to-hand combat with Sergey, as well as archery, everything would have ended here. The lessons weren’t very systematic, as opposed to the shooting lessons, but it was some kind of self-defense. Instinctively, Andy jumped back slightly and tightened his stomach muscles to absorb some of the energy from the blow. All the same, he lost his breath for a few seconds, and a bloody film covered his eyes. A knife glinted in the man’s hand. He again cried something out to the others; people stopped.
Andy took a long step forward to meet the hand that suddenly brandished a knife and, as Sergey had taught him, knocked the knife away. He leaned his torso away from another possible blow and, crouching, struck the guy in the liver with his right hand. The man wheezed. Andy felt something warm on his hand. His enemy seized the hand that hit him and squeezed it like a vice.
A lump of bile welled up in Andy’s throat. He had stabbed the man in the liver with a long dragon’s fang. I KILLED him! What now? The pale-faced man wheezed and collapsed to the ground. Andy stared in horror at his bloody hands.
A blow to the back of his head caused a whole host of various-colored stars to appear. The stars went out, and everything went black…
***
Northwestern border of the Kingdom of Rimm, the Wildlands.
“Take it easy, little fellow,” Chutka muttered between clenched teeth, hiding a lead mace-and-chain in his sleeve. “No point in flailin’ yer arms around here.” He kicked Andy with the toe of his boot, sending him collapsing to the ground in a heap. “Arist, what’ll we do? The dragon got away! Grok, the magician, is already telling Hel off; he’ll have a dark afterlife.”
The seven hunters stared silently at the two bodies lying on the ground.
“Eet, were’d he come from? He sailed in from nowhere, like a morning fog!” Gichok’s voice put in. “Chutka, you didn’t knock him off by chance?”
“What? He’ll be back on his feet by mornin’.” Chutka squatted and turned the stranger’s body face up. Then he started. “A lad!”
The rest of the hunters’ faces showed surprise and disbelief in equal measures. They questioned how a boy had taken out an experienced mage, and so quickly, that no one had had time to blink an eye.
“What are you gawking at!” Arist took the lead. “Chutka, Drai, run to the magician’s tent, look for some notrium shackles. Grok should have some.”
“Why?” asked Titus, a hunter with a narrow, pockmarked face.
“Because the lad is a mage. Or d’ya think Grok was walking about without a defense amulet?” Arist called their attention to an entire bundle of chains with various amulets around the dead magician’s neck. “Besides an amulet, Grok always kept a shroud on him, and it’ll be a fine day afore ya break through ’er. Yer hand’ll sink in, and you’re the one who’ll go limp then! And the lad sent him to his maker in three seconds! Explain that t’me? If he ain’t a mage, I’m Madame Dora from the public haus in Pulha!”
The hunters chuckled at their commander’s crude humor.
Drok was overweight and clumsy, with the sloping mustache of a southerner. He poked the boy with his finger and waved in the direction of the hill. “The little wizard chopped up the spider web and cut the anchoring ends that were holding the dragon,” he explained in gestures.
Arist gave the remaining hunters work to do: Gichok chopped sticks; Titus and Drok wind an entire spider web into a roll; Taylor, a former legionary, searched Grok’s pockets. The commander himself squatted down near the boy, knocked senseless by Chutka, and retrieved two more dragon fangs from Andy’s belt. He held them in his hand and contemplated. The boy was somehow strange. His camisole was sewn from some sort of thin fabric; he wore tight pants made from a dense sackcloth. Arist inspected the boy’s hands. Peasants’ calluses were absent, although he saw characteristics typical of professional archers: thickened skin from the protective thumb ring and abrasions from the bowstring on the pointer and middle fingers of his right hand. The former foreman was well versed in deciphering such details. The boy had a well-developed frame and muscles, was built proportionally correct, and had the wide shoulders of a bowman.
Arist continued the examination. He had an even, oval face and hair cropped short. A nobleman, perhaps. It was most likely, but what had he been doing in the woods like that, obviously for more than one day? He was ragged, dirty as an urban pauper, swathed in cuts and bruises, with his hair covered in white cobwebs. Just then, Gichok tossed a new handful of dried sticks onto the fire, and the blaze flared up, shedding light on the field. Arist frowned in surprise. The boy’s hair wasn’t entangled in a cobweb—it was gray….
***
Behind Arist, Taylor let out a choked wheeze. Sensing danger, Arist threw himself on the ground just as he heard the resounding slaps of bowstrings against leather gloves. Gichok screamed, and in the next second, the scream became a death rattle. Drok fell to the ground on his back, and Titus lay beside him. Forest Watchmen! But why? Why were they shooting them down?
“Don’t shoot! Arist show yourself!” The old hunter heard a familiar voice call. Arist stood up. No sense in jerking about, they had taken his men completely by surprise. A stately man in Watchmen's garb entered the field. He wore high soft boots, a green, loose-fitting camisole weaved of dense fabric, and pants of the same, with a wide belt wrapped several times around his waist. A short sword was attached to his belt. The watchman was holding a small, cocked crossbow with a short bolt.
“Hands in the air. Higher. Don’t move, or one of us will send you to the great beyond. You see how nervous they’ve become; they killed all your men!”
“Dimir!” Arist recognized the watchman’s voice. He used to be a hunter until he disappeared a few years ago. “What do you mean by this? What did we do?” he ran his gaze over the field of lifeless bodies. Titus had stopped writhing and was eternally quieted. The watchmen had the notorious habit of coating their arrow tips with poison.
“There’s only one punishment for poaching on the land of the Duke of Lere—death!” Dimir said, squinting contemptuously and brandished his weapon.
“What duke? What are you saying! These are no man’s lands!”
“You’re mistaken. A week ago, His Majesty, in exchange for services to the crown, bequeathed these lands to the Duke.”
“But we’re not subject to the edict! We’ve been in the forest for two weeks! According to the code, a watchman has to warn a free hunter first if laws are being broken or if rules have changed!”
“Consider yourself warned.” Dimir grinned. Muffled laughs were heard from behind the brush. “We have no problems with you personally, but you made such a bad choice of employer, Arist. You’re losing your grip. You didn’t know the Duke had offered a reward for Grok the magician of 200 Imperials? That’s a decent amount of money for you. Grok owed him—owed him quite a lot.”
The commander shook his head; Dimir’s message was news to him. It was useless to argue or try to prove anything to the Duke’s Watchmen; they did everything just like that. Just try to find some wiggle room, and you’d be shot full of arrows. They had almost certainly covered the base camp as well. Confirming the hunter’s worst fears, three watchmen appeared on the field, one of them bearing Drai’s head in his hands. Arist closed his eyes and said a silent prayer to Hel that she would grant his bozles a light afterlife; they didn’t deserve to die like that.
If the hunters had known these lands had been given to Duke Lere, they never would have agreed to such a job just for some stupid perks. The Duke was known for his cruelty toward trespassers. But Dimir, h
ow could he? He was a former hunter! Arist watched as Dimir’s men patted down the dead hunters’ clothes, ripped away their belts with knives. They then took Arist’s belt, confiscated his steel and flint, and collected the remaining dragon fangs. Deft hands grabbed the small dagger from his boot.
“How is it that you, Arist, failed to protect your employer?” Dimir asked, grinning malignantly. The hunter shrugged. Dimir snapped his fingers and pointed to the mage. Two watchmen walked up to Grok’s body and cut off his bald head, immediately placing it in a dense sack. Dimir explained, if caught dead, the duke would pay 150 Imperials—still not bad.
“And who is this?” The crossbow turned toward the boy.
“A stranger, he came from the woods. He’s the one who killed Grok.” Dimir raised his right eyebrow skeptically. “We thought he was a mage.”
“Dorit, come here.” Dimir turned to the bushes. The branches rustled and a thin, short figure stepped onto the field. “Have a look. Is it a mage?”
Dorit removed her fur-lined hood and cape to reveal a yellow-haired gnome. Her short hair was glinting like fire, she leaned over the stranger and whispered something.
“He’s been stunned very badly; his aura is barely intact,” Dorit said in a melodious voice, concluding her examination. “He might have been knocked into permanent foolishness.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Dimir interrupted her.
“Calm down. He’s a mage. I haven’t figured out his elements; everything’s topsy-turvy with him. Targ himself couldn’t make sense of it!”
Dimir nodded and pointed at the half-dead guy. “Put him in the master shackles, the ones we prepared for Grok.”
The same watchmen who had cut the mage’s head off deftly clamped the metal bracelets onto the unconscious boy’s wrists and ankles, and threaded them with a thick chain. They produced a rideable reptiloid from the bushes and strapped the boy’s unfeeling body to the lizard’s back.
“What do you need him for?” the gnome asked her boss.
“We’ll sell him tomorrow on the road, get a couple of gold coins in the common purse.”
Dorit nodded in agreement.
“We’re done here! Let’s go!” Dimir cried to his subordinates, once they had plundered the corpses and destroyed the special hunters’ crossbows and tackles. A couple of men collected the knives, daggers and broadswords in a sack. The gnome picked up the third dragon’s fang, which had fallen to the ground from Taylor’s hand. A gust of wind brought the smell of smoke to Arist’s nostrils; they had burned the base camp.
The squadron of Watchmen disappeared into the darkness of the forest. Arist remained alone on the bloody field. The pigs! How could they! It would have been better if they’d killed him…
A callused hand lay on the hunter’s shoulder. Arist turned. Chutka! Alive! But how he had changed! He looked…older.
“Let’s go, Commander. Mustn’t a-stay here, mrowns’ll smell the bloode. We won’t be aible to defend us’selves, the two of us!”
Chutka pulled the commander along by the hand, as one would a child. Arist, lacking any will of his own, not heeding the roads at all, followed the bozl. “Not all is lost, Commander! I’ll now surprise ya!”
Chutka led him to a small clearing where, tied to trees, two reptiloids stomped the ground. It turned out the sly hunter hadn’t fulfilled the commander’s order to fetch the shackles but instead started going through the mage’s tote bags, thereby getting his hands on something that was nothing to sneeze at. He grabbed the totes and snuck out of the tent, intending to bring the thing back to his commander. Then he had seen Drai’s feet lifted off the ground and some unnatural adornments appear on his chest. Chutka plopped down to the ground and crawled away from the camp. The reptiloids, smelling strangers, broke the pegs they were tethered to and rushed to the woods, where our hero intercepted them. There were 300 weighty Tantrian pounds and a couple of purses of jewels in the leather totes. The mage had been a person of means.
“Where shell we a-go from here, Commander?” asked Chutka, climbing into the saddle.
Arist thought for a moment. “North, to the vampires. One former hunter owes us big time, don’t you think?” A desire for vengeance burned in his eyes.
The bozl’s lips stretched into a gap-toothed smile. He too could almost taste revenge. “We’ll exchange this purse of jewels for Dimir’s head.”
The two reptiloids, despite the dark of night, carried their riders to the mountains.
Part 3: Fire of the Soul
Raston, the capital of the Kingdom of Rimm. Nirel.
…Therefore, Duke Lere represents the most compelling threat to the interests of the forest. He has a policy of centralizing management of his dukedom and reacts negatively to any interference in his affairs. In the last several years, the number of royal officials in Lere’s dukedom has decreased two-fold. All the posts that have become available during that time are now occupied by people loyal to the Duke personally.
The king has no reason to trouble him—a third of the Duke’s revenue goes to the treasury. King Hudd’s attempts to decrease treasury spending on border security by transferring those functions to landowners have allowed the Duke to increase the standing number of his personal guards to 15,000 or 20,000 men—almost comparable to the royal army. What does the Duke need that kind of force for?
All expenses for maintaining the personal guard are covered by the Duke’s personal funds. Check all possible means of income, post-haste. Does Tantre have anything to do with this?
Lere’s actions are aimed at supporting the urban population, large and mid-sized manufacturing, and artisan guilds. The burgeoning development of skilled craftsmanship and the creation of workshops is possible due to the introduction of a new tax collection system in the dukedom. The per-head tax has been changed to a capitation tax; the workshops and guilds send a firmly fixed percentage of the profits: a tenth to the Duke’s treasury and one-twentieth to maintain the internal and municipal guards. There’s a road toll and a merchant fee…
There was a knock at the door. Nirel ran his hand over the paper and the ink faded. The newly written text was replaced by another.
“Come in!” Nirel said, standing up behind the desk. The door silently opened, and a freckle-faced kid in the light blue uniform of the Royal House of Heralds and Messengers entered.
“Sir,” the herald bowed low before the head executioner of the Kingdom of Rimm. “Master Hugo requests your immediate presence in the fourth cabinet of the courthouse.”
Nirel smiled in comprehension. Apparently, Hugo’s interrogation method was not yielding the necessary results. He needed urgent help of the magical kind. He often needed help to break through the mental barriers of his subjects, but the subject was reduced to barely functioning. Nirel was called when the information was needed, and the person was not.
He commanded the herald to wait and began to gather the necessary instruments in an unassuming valise, casting sideways glances at the mirror on the wall. Just as he thought, the herald had crept toward the desk and was staring at an unfinished letter. Well, well! How rude it was to read other people’s love letters! So young and so curious. Who’s compensating you for your curiosity?
Countess Vinetta Menskaya had a string of admirers; tomorrow—possibly even today—the court would learn of a new devotee to her beauty. Nirel welcomed the idea of wooing the Countess. She was not bad at all, even to his picky elf’s taste. It was highly possible, of course, that the scenario would lead to some tension with Duchess Reirskaya. The jealousy of the king’s eldest daughter would add a certain spice to the situation. A woman in love could become a great source of information, especially one like her; he just had to think a few steps ahead.
“Let’s go,” Nirel commanded bluntly and, letting the boy lead, left his office.
***
Stepping along the dark underground passageways of the palace complex, the elf swore silently at the king’s stinginess. What kind of king has mon
ey for amusement and women but can’t spend a pittance on magical lanterns for the underground corridors?
The courthouse met the elf with silence. Even the clerks, it seemed, were not walking but hovering above the floor in order not to disturb their reverent awe before the law. Nirel snickered. Dark deals were dealt while the law kept silent. He knew all the ins and outs of the royal judicial machine and the cost of any given service.
Accompanying Nirel to the cellar entrance, the herald bowed and departed to attend to his own affairs; he hadn’t the slightest desire to descend to the executioner’s lair. A pair of royal guards silently stepped aside, allowing Master Hugo’s assistant to proceed to the fourth cabinet. The smaller torture chamber was known by this unassuming title.
With an ear-splitting metallic screech, the doors of the antechamberslammed behind Nirel, and he stepped into the brightly lit torture chamber. The ineradicable stench of singed flesh, blood, iron, and excrement assailed his nose. Master Hugo lounged in a comfortable leather armchair. The old man appreciated comfort, and at his request, resting corners had been installed in all the torture chambers. The investigator’s clerk was napping behind a desk, smacking his lips sweetly. The Master’s second helper, Journeyman Migur, was going through the inventory spread out on a shelf. In the corner, a brazier crackled with coals.
At the center of it all was a bloodied man who lifted a glance at Nirel as he entered. Recognition flashed in his eyes, and his lips pursed, but Nirel, stepped quickly toward the chair and interrupted his exclamation with a punch to the temple. He was a mage! Targ take him! The guy recognized him as an elf.
Nirel switched to true vision and examined the mysterious mage. The aura of the person limp in the chair dimly sparkled with a violet light. He was a sharp-wit! This wouldn’t be so easy to crack. Sharp-wits could block and intercept painful sensations.