The bolt sank with searing, white-hot pain into her right shoulder. With two other guards rushing her and two more coming from the other side of the wagon, she had to work fast.
She pulled back the rope and brought her arm high over her head. With all the strength in her right arm, she swung the rope down, then pulled it back with equal force.
CRACK! The rope popped, becoming a whip that opened a bloody gash on the guard’s forehead. He screamed, dropped his club, and fell to the ground, wailing. Blood rushed between his fingers. He would have a nice scalp wound to remind him of his time with Astrid.
Her old master would have kicked her ass for laughing. Gloating was not seemly for a Knight of the Well, but sometimes, it just felt good. But the loss of focus didn’t help her. She felt the energy drain, but she didn’t need the Well to finish them.
Seeing the short work Astrid made of two of their buddies, the other guards slowed down and tried to flank her. It was another stupid move because it gave her time to rush the closest one. She took a chance that paid off by faking a wrestling lunge.
Just as she predicted, the dumbass tried to take her out with a haymaker swing of his club. She swung again with her rope, and it wrapped twice around his weapon arm. Pulling him into her shin, she made solid contact with his balls as she jumped aside deftly to avoid his vomit. He fell down and groaned in a puddle of his own puke.
“See how inconvenient those balls are, asshole? You shouldn’t think with them. I don’t have those, but I have two of these!” She turned to the remaining guards and held up two fists, knuckles forward. Corded muscles bunched and flexed beneath her skin. With the intensity of magic fading, her eyes turned glassy black. She still had enough energy to take out twice their number.
One guard stopped dead in his tracks, then turned and ran down the road. He had left behind his club, helmet, and what looked and smelled like a trail of piss.
But the other guard was still in the game. Astrid circled until his back was to the wagon as he tried to work up the nerve to strike her. Just before he tried to swing, she lunge-kicked him in the gut. He flew back and slammed hard into the wagon with a loud thud. The guard then fell to his knees before collapsing face down in the dirt, gasping for the air she had kicked out of him.
In a moment of pity, Astrid gave him a nudge with her foot to turn him over. He was inhaling dust as he tried to breathe again. She kicked his dropped club under the cart.
“Stay down,” Astrid advised. “Really. Just rest and rethink your life.”
A weapon sound made her whirl toward the crossbow guy. He had managed to reload the cumbersome weapon. Astrid took him out with a flying tackle, clearing the cart by three feet.
She didn’t think about it as she simply called on the energy again, and it became her strength. The crossbow flew from his arms and twirled down the embankment. The fat man screamed.
“What the fuck are you bleating for!” Astrid bellowed as she stood, then pushed the barbed bolt through her arm. It went clear through, coming out below her armpit. “I’m the one your flunky just shot.”
Fatso fainted, and Astrid was happy to hear his big, melon head hit with a thock against whatever was behind him.
“Fucking amateurs,” Astrid growled as she bent down to pick up the rope that had slipped off her shoulders.
“Damn it,” she said, resisting the urge to kick the wheezing crossbowman she had just tackled. He definitely had some broken ribs, but he wasn’t bleeding from the mouth, so she guessed it wasn’t all that bad. “You got my rope all tangled,” Astrid complained.
As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t kick a defenseless person who posed no threat to her. “Damn my ethics,” she said, spitting in the dirt. “You’re so lucky you’re a crappy soldier. Barely worth my damn time.”
The blood streaming down the inside of her ram’s hide tunic had already slowed. A wound like that didn’t take much energy from the Well to heal. She drew on her Knight’s training and focused energy into the wound. The skin sizzled as the hole closed.
The disappointment at finding assholes like those, however, was another matter.
After all that time in the wilderness, she so hoped that she would find someplace without all the tragic bullshit that destroyed her House and drove her away. Right then, she guessed it was the same everywhere. But then again, she had never been more than thirty miles away from Nistria.
She finished coiling her climbing rope again and slung it back over her shoulder. Astrid hopped up on the wagon and looked down at the fat man. Unconscious, he was almost palatable. Almost. She searched his pockets until she found what she was looking for.
With a feather quill pen, a pot of ink and parchment, she wrote a note. With a chuckle, she went back over to the discarded crossbow bolt. She used the bloody spike to nail her message to the cart.
The note read: “My name is Astrid Sala. Let it be known that I fully intend to pay my debts to the rightful authority of this land. Let it also be known that I will not bend to injustice.”
For good measure, she left a bloody thumbprint.
CHAPTER TWO
Somewhere in the forest, Protectorate of Lungu
Brooding, disappointed and bruised, Astrid climbed down the bank from the road. She hiked along a small stream until she found another path that ran parallel to the Toll Road. It was clear this way had been made by human feet.
A few critter tracks crossed the trail at certain points along the way, and Astrid took careful note of them until she found a fresh set of tracks, then followed them into the forest.
The fighting and resulting wound depleted her energy. She needed to eat soon, though a nap would do her even better. Drawing from the Well for fighting demanded complementary energy.
She found some white mushrooms along the way that she recognized from the other side of the mountain range. They were very much like the ones she often ate at home—but that place was a distant memory, almost like a dream.
If she stuck herself on recalling that memory long enough, the dreamlike quality became a nightmare. She didn’t want to remember home anymore. Nistria was gone. It may have kept the same name, but it was something else now. But she wondered if she would ever be free of the memories of how she lost it..
She had just stuffed another mushroom in her food pouch when she heard the rabbit. Kneeling down quickly, she closed her eyes and let the forest sounds surround her. The rabbit was close enough to smell her. It headed her way.
Astrid slowed her breath and emptied her mind, becoming part of the forest.
Time stretched out long enough to be forgotten as Astrid sat, becoming the perfect trap. The slightest sounds told countless stories, and one of them was a rabbit looking for food.
If she were quiet enough and lucky, her meal would come to her. She was, and it did. At the last second, when she couldn’t mask her intention any longer, she sprang to the left, fast and violent as a cat. It was over in seconds.
“Thank you, Mother Forest. Thank you, Sister Rabbit, for letting me live one more day.”
After giving thanks, she continued the hunting ritual by reciting a piece of the Knight’s Code. “Honor the place you plant your feet and where you lay your head.”
She made quick work of the prey, dressing it and taking care to bury the guts deep. She wrapped the skin in several layers of tanned leather to mask the smell from predators. To honor the animal, she intended to use every part of it she could.
When she was finally clear of the scent of her kill, she made camp. She dug a hole in the earth to make a vented, smokeless fire. Astrid was shaking with hunger by the time she finally had the meat roasting on a spit.
She pulled out a thin, old-world, metal pot from her pack and filled it halfway with sassafras tea from her water skin. She tossed the mushrooms in it. Then, carefully hanging the pot on the spit, she waited for her meal to cook while she meditated.
The sun was setting, and soon she would need to tune her senses to the darkness
. The sound of bubbling liquid announced her food was done. She gave another word of thanks to the Well and nature, then lifted the still-scalding mushroom stew to her mouth. She blew across the rim of the pot.
Just as she was about to test the broth with her lips, the forest exploded with motion. Something soft, yet firm and strong brushed her hand as it knocked the pot away.
Astrid jumped to her feet in shock. She was too hungry to put up much of a fight if those fuckbags had found her.
But when Astrid zeroed in on what came charging out of the forest, she couldn’t help but smile. Standing before her was the fattest man she had ever seen.
He stood a full head shorter than Astrid but was nearly twice as broad. His feet were splayed apart, and he held his arms wide.
“I come in peace,” the man said, with a funny accent.
“Strange,” Astrid snarled, trying to stay steady on her woozy feet. “Peace-comers usually don’t ruin my fucking dinner.”
“Your dinner was poison,” the fat man said.
“Nonsense,” Astrid replied. “I’ve been eating those mushrooms for years.”
“Then I suspect you are from beyond that range to the east,” the man said, pointing at the peak Astrid had just climbed days earlier. “For there is a very similar variety in those parts that look suspiciously like the death hoods you were about to eat.”
“Bullshit,” Astrid said, folding her arms across her chest.
“No,” the man said. “Not bullshit. You picked those mushrooms from a rotten log, probably facing south and near some fast-running water?”
“How did you… ” Astrid stammered.
“And the other mushrooms, the ones that have not been killing you—tell me where you found them.”
“I usually find them near the base of live trees,” Astrid responded. She slapped her forehead. “Shit. I usually find them among moss. These weren’t.”
“You’re welcome,” the man said, squatting down on his thick hams. He shucked a bulging rucksack off his beefy shoulders and set it on the ground. “Now, I see that you are practically starving. I imagine your form of magic drains you, as does mine.”
“What—” Astrid said, taking a half step back from shock.
“Not to worry,” the funny man said, stroking his long, pointed beard. His handlebar mustache jerked a silly rhythm as he spoke. “I am a man who is always prepared!”
He pulled out a smaller pouch from the rucksack and set it down beside the fire pit. Then, he deftly picked the skewered rabbit off the improvised rack Astrid had made. Half the rabbit disappeared into his mouth in two bites!
“HEY!” Astrid shouted. “My food!”
“If you call it that,” the huge man said, squatting back down by the pouch. He loosened its string and spread the loose cloth out on the ground. The presentation revealed two small clay pots and what looked like…
“Is that lamb?” Astrid asked, nearly drooling on her woolly ram tunic.
“Indeed it is,” the big guy said. In a flash, he whipped out a carving knife from somewhere Astrid hadn’t seen and cut off a big chunk of meat. “Eat this while I prepare another slice for you, this time, with chutney!” He ate the rest of the rabbit, then tossed the skewer over his shoulder.
“What is this flavor?” Astrid asked as the lamb melted in her mouth. As a Knight, she wasn’t supposed to revel in sensual pleasure, but…
“That is rosemary and a hint of thyme,” the stranger said through a mouthful of rabbit. “Hurry and eat that. You’re too skinny.”
Astrid didn’t know why she trusted the man. Even if he had just saved her life, she shouldn’t have trusted him as she did—and so quickly. Yet somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to think ill of him.
Before she knew it, the man had laid out two plates, complete with silverware. He cut more slices of lamb and pulled out glazed baby carrots from one of the pots. He handed her a plate.
“Now that you’ve taken the edge off that hunger, sit with me and we will feast,” the man said.
Astrid didn’t care that this mysterious fat guy had burst out of the forest, bashed her only cooking pot into the woods, and invited himself to her campsite. The meal somehow erased all transgressions, and grew her faith in him.
“What do I call you?” Astrid said after swallowing a bite of chutney-lamb that nearly brought tears to her eyes.
“I am Vincenzo Onorato Amatore Blasio,” the man said, puffing out his chest.
“Wow,” Astrid said, pulling out her waterskin. “Quite a few names you have there. Lots of vowels, too.”
“Oh, no!” Vincenzo bellowed. He made as if to grab the water skin, but Astrid’s eyes told him to back off. “Don’t drink water with this meal. That would be a crime. Try this.”
“It’s herbal tea,” Astrid said, annoyed.
“Even worse,” Vincenzo said. With another impossibly swift motion, Vinnie produced a large green bottle and two delicate glasses. He poured with practiced skill and handed her the glass with a flourish and a bow.
“Who and what the hell are you?” Astrid said after taking a sip that made her want to eat more.
“I am a seeker of truth, much like you. I am a metaphysician,” Vincenzo said.
“A whata-pha-wha-sian?” Astrid inquired with confusion.
Vincenzo cleared his throat and lifted his chin. He harrumphed his answer. “I am a student of the inner workings of the universe and all of its phenomenon. I am close to discovering the true nature of what we both call ‘magic.’”
“Uh huh,” Astrid said, taking the penultimate bite. “How’s that working out for you?”
He ignored the snark. “Don’t slow down,” Vincenzo said. “I have more where that came from.”
They had eaten most of the leg. Astrid eyed the bag, then tried to add up the weight of objects that spread out between them.
“That bag… ” Astrid trailed off.
“Is the result of my studies. I found the material in a ruined city in the wastelands near my home. It is called ‘nylon.’” The Ancients made it from oil that they pumped from the ground.” He deftly moved from a half-lotus position to kneel as he picked up the bag.
Astrid leaned forward and grabbed the bag’s handle and nearly dropped it. “This must weigh close to eighty pounds, but it looks like cloth. This is a single, thin layer. I don’t know any fiber that can handle that much without breaking..”
“Ninety-four pounds, to be exact,” Vincenzo sniffed.
Her mind was too blown to ask how he could be so certain. But given all she had seen from the short, rotund man in such a short time, she had very little doubt the bag weighed just as much as he said.
“It will be lighter by the time we’re done,” the man said.
“Do you have mental magic?” Astrid smiled. “Because I think you’ve enchanted me somehow, and I really don’t mind.”
“I am what you probably refer to as a polymage,” Vincenzo replied. “I dabble in many forms of magic, but I’m practiced in one special form. And I rarely make enemies, which is why your instincts tell you to trust me.”
“Polymages are very rare,” Astrid declared.
“Yes,” Vincenzo said, lifting his chin again. “I am indeed very rare, but more importantly, so are you.”
“And modest, too,” Astrid snorted. “Flattery will get you nowhere, though.”
“Telling the truth is never arrogance nor flattery,” Vincenzo said.
“But why are you here?” Astrid asked. “How did you find me?”
“I came across the men you so rightfully thrashed and thought I might find some of the answers I seek,” Vincenzo said. “I felt magic being used.”
Astrid paused. She read something more in his reply. It was something she couldn’t put her finger on. She sensed no ill intent, but he was holding something back. She would sleep on guard that night, just to be sure. She felt safe enough to say goodnight and unfurl her bedroll on some moss among the ferns.
Administrative
Keep 52, Protectorate of Lungu
“It wasn’t all that bad,” Pleth said to himself more than to his henchmen. “Skimming the tribute put more money in our pockets. When we tell Commissioner Krann that bandits robbed us, we’ll get a greater share of the law enforcement tax they’re sure to levy.”
“Speak for yourself,” Donu, the head guard, said. “I’ll need to spend my share on a healer. I think she did something to my neck.”
Dagbo groaned in the back of the wagon. “She broke my damn ribs, and you complain about a sore neck?”
Irving said nothing. He had just gotten the bleeding to stop flowing from his forehead. Getting whipped with that rope took a divot out of his flesh. He just sat there on the bench behind Pleth, looking to be near tears.
“You’ll make out fine, Pleth,” Dagbo whined. “We’ll likely get docked for failure to protect the load.”
“Well, you did fail… ” Pleth said, then trailed off when six sets of hostile eyes stabbed him. As they approached Administrative Keep 52, the junior guards were just beginning to light the lamps along the last few hundred paces leading up to the keep.
The Toll Road broadened here to allow carts to park. The massive gates set in stone walls stood ajar. Pleth counted nine carts lined up on either side of the gate. His wagon made ten.
“Damn, we are very late,” Pleth lamented.
“Oh, shut up with your made-up deadlines,” the driver hissed. “The only one that sets a daily deadline is you. You know harvest collections are open-ended. You just want to look like you’re better than everyone else.”
Sometimes Pleth hated the familiarity that skimming the tribute fostered between him and his partners in crime. Since Pleth let them in on his little scheme, they had dropped most of the formality that should have existed between them. Now, they almost always spoke to him with disrespect.
At least they had the good sense not to do it around the other Assessors. They were smart enough to keep up appearances. Breaks in protocol always caused suspicion.
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