The Sellsword aot-1

by Cam Banks

  The Sellsword

  ( Anvil of Time - 1 )

  Cam Banks

  Cam Banks

  The Sellsword

  PROLOGUE

  Palanthas, 422 AC

  The Journeyman was surrounded by ghosts. He sat at a small desk in one of the rarely-used archival basements of the Great Library of Palanthas. The shelves were crammed tight with volumes and reached all the way up to a ceiling shrouded with cobwebs. Bearing the soot from a thousand years of oil lamps and the dust from a thousand years of being barely browsed, the archival basement was creepy enough. The ghosts made it downright macabre.

  The Journeyman’s lamp, perched on the edge of the desk between a pile of historical treatises and a large omnibus of Nordmaaran horse poetry, sputtered as yet another spectral figure sailed by. They were the ghosts of Aesthetics who chose not to pass on through the Gate of Souls to the hereafter, but instead preferred to continue their work in the library, just as they had when they were living.

  The ghosts were visible only by the light of a naked flame, which revealed the translucent outlines of dead librarians drifting back and forth. Upstairs, where the living Aesthetics worked, the ghosts were never glimpsed; the magical lamps set into the fine polished desks of the East Wing couldn’t reveal their presence. Down in the basement where all the old and unused books came to die, a candlelit parade of souls was omnipresent.

  The Journeyman never spoke with the ghosts. He wasn’t sure they’d respond or even hear him, for one thing, and he couldn’t escape the crawling feeling that went up and down his spine whenever he was close to one. Others had, or so he assumed, because the Senior Council of Aesthetics that presently ran the day-to-day affairs of the library included at least one spectral representative at its table.

  The Journeyman rubbed his temples with aching, calloused fingers and tried to put the ghosts out of his mind. Some months earlier, he was assigned by the late Bertrem, former head of the library, to the remote City of Lost Names. There he was instructed to use the mysterious Anvil of Time’s time-traveling properties to investigate the past and uncover the truth behind many of history’s legends. Bertrem had chosen him, he said, because he was unremarkable in appearance yet knew a little about a lot of things. The Journeyman was taken aback by the unexpected honor, but one does not turn down the head of the library.

  After one or two excursions, the Journeyman determined that he didn’t have a large enough reference collection on site at the Anvil, so he made his way back to Palanthas. With the help of a fisherman who had turned to smuggling under the rule of the Dark Knights, the Journeyman stole into the city and to the Great Library.

  At the Anvil, he had nobody around to keep him from his research, neither alive nor dead. In the library, on the other hand …

  He heard the hurried slap-slap-slap of an Aesthetic’s sandals coming down the basement stairs. The ghosts swiftly vanished into the darkness as the new arrival emerged into the lamplight.

  “There you are!” she said. Stella Cordaric, exotic with her raven hair and caramel-colored skin, was one of the living Aesthetics. One slender hand grasped the bunched-up hem of her robes; the other waved in her usual loosely frantic way.

  “Yes?” the Journeyman said, noting her excitement. “Trouble?”

  “In the streets,” she said, words running together excitedly like a gnome who’d been given a three-function wrench for Yule. “The Dark Knights. All of Lord Kinsaid’s occupation forces. Somebody heard they were getting ready to leave. They’re cleaning house.”

  The Journeyman squinted. “Leave? But they’ve had the city under martial law for over thirty years. Why now all of a sudden? Is something happening? Should we get out? We should get out.”

  Stella grinned, showing gleaming evidence of Ergothian pirates somewhere in her family tree. “No, this is good news!” she said. “The Dark Knights leaving? No more curfews! Come on upstairs, we’re all of us watching through the windows.”

  The Journeyman started gathering together his papers, tossing books and scrolls into a worn knapsack. “No, no. I have to get back north. I can’t stay here. Not in another city being invaded.” He shuddered at the memory of a previous excursion through time.

  “Another city? Invaded?” she asked, watching him pack.

  “Never mind. Are you sure there’s nobody chasing them out? Is it the Knights of Solamnia?”

  Stella looked back in the direction of the stairs. “I’d know more if I were still up there watching out the windows.” When she turned her head to look at him again, she was grinning even wider.

  “No. I think I really need to leave. Is it safe on the streets?”

  “Maybe. Look, do you need some help? Some of the spirit Aesthetics are down here, right? They’re very helpful. They’re always helping me.”

  The Journeyman, standing, cocked his head to one side. “What? The ghosts? No. How could they?” He gave the darkness a searching glance-no sign of them anymore-and stuffed the final sheaf of papers into his knapsack.

  Stella shrugged. “Just a suggestion. I’ve always liked ghosts. The way they move things around. You know. Like this.” She wriggled her fingers at him.

  “No, I don’t know what you mean. Look, Stella. Is there a way to the waterfront? I need a boat. The Dark Knights must have the whole of the Old City locked down.”

  “Hmm. Let me think. Oh! You know, if they’re leaving, and it’s the Solamnic Knights coming in-though I think I heard it was some lady wizard-not Jenna, the other one-anyway, if it’s the Solamnic Knights, then my brother Etharion’s probably leaving too. The Legionnaire? You met him. He smuggled you into the city last week.”

  The Journeyman shouldered his knapsack and lifted the oil lamp from the table. Shadows skittered across the shelves, and he was sure he saw a row of ghostly faces watching him. “He was your brother? The trout fisherman with the bad teeth?”

  Stella shook her head. “Those teeth are fake. Yes, that’s him! He’s with the Legion of Steel. I’m sure he can smuggle you out again; he’s a master of disguises. His Legion cell was only in Palanthas to watch the Dark Knights, anyway. If the Solamnics are coming in, he’ll be following Lord Kinsaid and his men out.”

  “That will have to do,” the Journeyman said, following Stella to the stairs. “I appreciate it. I’m sorry. I can’t afford to be caught … all my notes. You understand.”

  Stella turned and punched the Journeyman in the upper arm, making him almost drop the knapsack. “Silly. Of course I understand. Now come on! You’ll have time to watch the liberation of the city from the windows while I send word to Etharion. One of the Aesthetics is baking cookies. He can show you the recipe, and then you could help him. You’re multitalented.”

  Rubbing the shoulder, the Journeyman let out a long, tortured breath. “I’m a terrible cook, Stella. The library in Solanthus was nothing like this. And Bertrem must be rolling in his grave.”

  Stella giggled. The Journeyman followed the slap-slap-slap of her sandals up the stairs, leaving the ghosts to their silent routine in the absence of his lamplight.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nordmaar, 357 AC

  The sellsword was surrounded by ghosts.

  Vanderjack sat with his boots up in a roadside bar in the middle of a rainstorm. A leg was missing from his table, so it had been propped up on a barrel of cheap wine. His clothes were soaked by the water leaking through the roof. He had used the last of his steel coins to pay for the mug of watery beer awaiting his pleasure; one hand rested on the hilt of his sword, Lifecleaver, which lay beside the beer. He was in no mood to be heckled by ghosts.

  “You won’t get any more steel just by sitting here!” said the Balladeer.

  “This isn’t doing you any good,” s
aid the Apothecary.

  “You’re not a warrior; you’re a drunk,” said the Cavalier.

  They were his own personal ghosts. When they appeared, they looked like ordinary people, albeit transparent. Their voices sounded like echoes, and when they moved or expressed any activity, it was all flickering shadow. They didn’t glow, as one might expect, although firelight seemed to catch in their incorporeal forms and illuminate them the way it does in a glass figurine or a precious gemstone.

  Actually, the ghosts haunted the sword, so Vanderjack called them the Sword Chorus. He had bought the sword from his mother, an infamous Saifhumi pirate, on her deathbed. Or at least that was what he told everybody, but in truth he hadn’t really paid for it at all, which he supposed was only fair, given the sword’s curse. So long as he gripped Lifecleaver’s hilt, the souls of those who had not yet been ready to die on the end of the blade haunted him.

  So far seven souls had been snared by the sword’s curse, and they had come with the sword when he acquired it. Legend had it that with two more souls, Lifecleaver would break. Vanderjack made every effort not to test the legend’s veracity, and so far, at least in his opinion, everybody he had killed with the blade had deserved it.

  “Drinking is no substitute for true thought,” advised the Philosopher.

  “True thought? He hasn’t had a true thought in months,” said the Aristocrat.

  “No prey in sight, so no motivation,” said the Hunter.

  An enchanted sword such as Lifecleaver was a vital asset in this day and age. Although he had little of it anymore, Vanderjack made his steel by killing people. The so-called War of the Lance had been won, the Queen of Darkness had been defeated, her Temple of Darkness destroyed. None of that meant the fighting was over, however. The dragonarmies had retreated to the five corners of Ansalon, tenaciously holding onto lands they had conquered during the war. There weren’t enough knights in shining armor to hold back the tide, so the free nations of the world had taken to paying people such as he for protection.

  “The sword’s magic is wasted on him,” said the Conjuror.

  Vanderjack exhaled and muttered, “All I’m trying to do is have a blasted drink.” He lifted his hand from the sword, and the shimmering phantoms around him vanished.

  When standing, the sellsword was over six feet tall, with muscles that had been much harder when he was twenty years younger. He was still relying on his dark Ergothian complexion and shaved head to make him stand out among the other mercenaries. Vanderjack had many imitators, several of whom were being rounded up to answer for the numerous jobs he’d done and enemies he’d made. He’d heard many rumors about his own demise. If it weren’t for the ghosts in the sword, he’d be wondering if he were a ghost himself.

  Vanderjack reached for his beer. As his fingers closed about it, the mug shattered.

  “Ackal’s Teeth!” he cursed, snatching up his sword from the puddle of beer and leaping to his feet. The Sword Chorus swirled back into his vision again. A crossbow bolt was still quivering in a wooden post a yard away from him, the source of the exploding mug. “That was my last beer!”

  “What did we miss?” asked the Balladeer.

  “We’re under attack!” said the Cavalier.

  “Be quiet for one blasted minute,” barked Vanderjack. There were no other patrons in the common room; it wasn’t a busy time of day, and it wasn’t a good enough bar. The bar’s owner was still dozing under an awning over in one corner, oblivious. All he could see outside through the open window was rain, but the bolt couldn’t have come from anywhere else, so he ran to the door and ducked outside. The ghosts sailed after him in his wake.

  Outside, the rains of Nordmaar were warm and heavy, as they always were in early summer. The road between Pentar and Jotan wasn’t paved; rumor had it that old King Huemac had decreed it, but the dragon-army invasion put an end to any public works. King Huemac’s captive son, Prince Shredler, had more than enough to worry about, so the surface of the road was an inch of mud. Thirty feet from the bar, wheels deep in the slick sludge, Vanderjack saw, was an expensive-looking carriage was under attack.

  Vanderjack took in the immediate situation with a seasoned veteran’s eye. He hadn’t been the target after all. The carriage had a single driver, the owner of the crossbow that had robbed him of his beer. A passenger inside the carriage was fending off one of the six assailants with a narrow sword. Despite the rain, Vanderjack could still make out wings on the carriage’s attackers; they were draconians.

  Draconians were the scaly reptilian soldiers of the dragonarmies. They were created from the eggs of the dragons of Light, eggs that had been stolen from the Dragon Isles and subjected to dark rituals. Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, had told the good dragons not to interfere with her holy war against the free people of Krynn, or she would destroy their eggs. When the good dragons learned that the eggs had been used to spawn the abominable draconians, they had entered the conflict, and that had been the beginning of the end.

  Some years after the end of the war and the triumph of the forces of the Whitestone Armies and their good dragon allies, those few draconians who survived had been reduced to grunt troops for the surviving dragonarmies or, more often than not, mercenaries just like he was. The draconians threatening the carriage, with their red tabards over chainmail hauberks, belonged to the Red Wing of the dragonarmies holding Nordmaar. The carriage’s occupant was in serious trouble.

  “We have to help that man!” said the Aristocrat.

  “Well, he looks rich,” muttered the mercenary, wiping water from his eyes. “He might appreciate the assistance.”

  The Cavalier shook his spectral head. “Mercenaries. Have you no honor?”

  Vanderjack smirked, setting off across the road in long, easy strides, sword held out to the side. “Do I look Solamnic to you?”

  The closest of the draconians didn’t see him coming. Vanderjack ran right by the first one, bringing the sword up in a lazy arc that took the draconian’s horned head clean off at the neck. The mercenary was at the carriage before the draconian had toppled forward, turning to stone and landing heavily in the muck.

  Vanderjack hated draconians. He’d fought alongside them once, when he was on contract with the Blue Dragonarmy, and learned all of their worst traits up close and personal. Consequently, when he later switched sides and fought with the Armies of White-stone against the Dark Queen’s forces, he knew just where to hit them and just what to do when they died. They were baaz draconians, which meant a quick kill was the only way to avoid having your sword trapped as their death throes turned them to stone.

  “Two closing in beside you!” warned the Hunter. Vanderjack spun in place, his sword slicing a lethal trace through the rain and through the upper bodies of the draconians the ghost had warned him of. Their stony faces were frozen in shock.

  To the casual observer, the mercenary appeared to have eyes in the back of his head, for he was the only one who could see or hear the Sword Chorus. Most of the time the ghosts settled for incessantly heckling the sellsword. In battle, however, Vanderjack had learned to listen to the Sword Chorus’s warnings, responding so quickly to his opponents’ actions that onlookers could scarcely believe his skill.

  The carriage driver had loaded another bolt into his crossbow. Vanderjack ducked around the side of the carriage as the other draconians caught on to his presence. In so doing, the mercenary smacked the side of the carriage driver’s seat with his sword and shouted, “Aim for the head!” The driver swung about, following one of the draconians with his crossbow, and released. The bolt struck its scaly target just beneath where an ear would be on an ordinary soldier. It was enough. The baaz fell dead against the carriage with a thump.

  Vanderjack stood ready by the window of the carriage. The carriage’s occupant, a sharp-nosed man in soaking-wet velvet clothes, looked as if he were trained in the fancy style of dueling that nobles in Palanthas favored. He was completely out of his depth. “Stay inside!” called Van
derjack. “I can handle these lizards.”

  “You will die with the baron!” hissed one of the two remaining draconians. It was typical baaz bravado. They weren’t the brightest of their kind, and they were often drunk; those fighting him did seem a long way from being sober.

  “I don’t think so,” said Vanderjack. He stepped to the side, feinting with Lifecleaver, and the first baaz fell for the misdirection. Vanderjack took the draconian’s arm off with the follow-through, and kicked outward. The draconian fell backward into his companion, who yelled with surprise and fumbled with his own broadsword.

  Vanderjack pressed the attack, catching one draconian after the other in the abdomen, where the armor was a poorer-quality chainmail. The links parted under Lifecleaver’s magically keen edge, and the draconians were stone-dead a second later.

  The driver leaned over the side of the carriage. “Milord! That’s all of them!”

  The baron was wiping at his face with his voluminous sleeve. “So it is,” he said. “And we have this one to thank for it.”

  Vanderjack watched as the petrified bodies of the slain draconians crumbled into powder and became mixed in with all of the rest of the mud. He let the rain wash the greenish black draconian blood from his blade, and nodded once at the baron. “Well, I’m used to draconians.”

  “How can I repay you?” asked the baron.

  “The noble thing would be to help him out of the mud and see him on his way,” said the Balladeer.

  “You don’t need to be paid for the rescue,” said the Apothecary.

  “It wasn’t much of an effort,” agreed the Conjurer.

  Vanderjack ignored the ghosts. “Steel is the universal thank-you.” He grinned, sliding the sword back into its scabbard.

  The baron didn’t seem shocked. “Of course,” he said. “And in fact, I may have something even more lucrative for a stalwart fellow like yourself. Let’s talk about it somewhere dry.”