by Rob J. Hayes
“I'm afraid I have an appointment with my father,” Vance said. “We should talk later, Arbiter Darkheart.”
“Right,” Thanquil said.
Vance said a formal goodbye and then turned and walked away. Thanquil noticed the man carried no weapons. Most Arbiters carried a sword or a similar metal weapon, some carried unique arms such as Kosh with his twin hand scythes but Arbiter Vance carried none. A large tome hung by his side, locked with a metal clasp and attached to his belt by a chain.
“That was awkward,” Thanquil said after a while.
“Why is it you feel the need to pick fights with the most powerful of enemies?” Kosh asked with a shake of his head. “You know he'll be an Inquisitor one day...”
“Odd eyes,” Thanquil mused, interrupting his friend.
“He has the sight. Came from his mother, it’s said.”
“His mother is a witch?”
“Was a witch, dead now from birthing him.”
“Hardly seems fair,” Thanquil said with a sigh. “Why doesn't he get lumped with a name like Darkheart?”
“Because his father is Grand Inquisitor Artur Vance.” Kosh pointed out. “Come on. Unless you've got somewhere pressing to be let’s go get blind drunk. I know a great place just down the road; strong spirits and clean women. Oh, and I'm going to want my ring back.”
Thanquil dug into his pocket and pulled out the plain gold band, he didn't even apologise as he handed it back, apologies had long since lost their meaning with Kosh. “You should get out in the world more, Arbiter Kosh. Clean is overrated.”
The BladeMaster
Jezzet would have liked to say she wasn't the type of woman to take things lying down. However, when you had to take them, lying down was often the best way. So she lay there, on her back, staring up at the wooden ceiling making sure her expression looked as bored and bland as possible. Eirik, on the other hand, made no attempt to hide his pleasure as he propped himself up on top of her, naked as a babe, thrusting rhythmically and being rewarded by a moist squelch and the soft thwap of skin on skin.
The handsome warlord grunted with each thrust and his long red hair dangled down and tickled Jez's face. The whole thing wouldn't have been so bad but he was quite good at it and Jezzet was enjoying it, though the last thing she wanted was for him to know that. Despite her determination she could feel her treacherous heart beating too fast, her breathing becoming hot and heavy and the familiar aching pleasure between her legs made her jaw tremble.
A wonderful and yet horrible tingle of pleasure shot through her body from her groin all the way up to her chest and escaped from her mouth as a gasp followed by a low throaty moan.
Damnit! She could feel it coming and it was the last thing she wanted right now.
Then Eirik gasped, tensed and stopped thrusting. His mouth opened and closed like a fish on dry land and Jezzet had seen it all before. She had won again though it had been far too close for her liking this time.
The big warlord collapsed on top of her, his weight a crushing, uncomfortable force for a moment and then he rolled off to the side, breathing heavy and with a contented chuckle. They were both hot and sweaty and now they both stank of sex. Jezzet would have hated herself if she'd had any pride left.
Bastard keeping me here like some sort of slave. Should have killed him months ago.
She grabbed a handful of the bed sheet and wiped between her legs then threw the soiled cloth at Eirik. “There, you can have that back,” she snarled at him.
He laughed a deep, low sound that shook his entire body and the bed. “Don't be like that Jez, I know you enjoy it. Why else would you keep coming back?”
A question she'd asked herself many times over the last ten minutes. Three times she'd left this backwater fort now and each time something pulled her back, or drove her back. The first time it had been food, or lack of it at least; one day out she'd realised she hadn't packed any. In truth she was pretty sure she had packed food but it wasn't there when she'd checked so she'd crawled back with her tail between her legs and for two weeks had to put up with Eirik between them. The second time she'd managed near a week before running into a bounty hunter with piece of paper that said, 'dead or alive'. The drawing didn't hold much likeness but Jez had been fool enough to tell the bounty hunter her name. The bastard had chased her all the way back to the fort. Eirik had let her in and then stuck the bounty hunter full of arrows. Jezzet had stayed at the fort a month after.
Not this time, Jez. I'm getting out of here the first chance I get. Just gotta help fight off a small army first. Easy.
She realised Eirik was staring at her or staring at her breasts. She'd been sat quiet and still for too long and he'd become bored waiting for an answer. A grin spread across his face and he made a grab for Jez's arm. As graceful as a cat she flowed up from the bed and onto her feet away from his clutching hands. She crossed to the door and cracked it open, just enough to poke her head round and look out. A lazy guard turned his head and looked at her.
“Get some water for a bath. Make sure it's hot,” Jez ordered the dopey guard. His eyes sunk down from her face, trying to look around the door but she made sure her body was hidden. “Now!”
She slammed the door shut and turned, nostrils flaring in anger. Eirik was still staring at her, his eyes moved up and down and then stopped. He was staring at her scars again. It was instinct that made her react, instinct that made her look away and cover her chest with her hands. She hated herself for doing it.
“Bath sex is good. I can wait,” Eirik.
“It's not for you. I need to wash your touch off me. It would defeat the point if you were in the tub with me.” Jezzet's voice was cold; her jaw locked so tight it hurt.
“You're a harsh mistress, Jez.”
“I'm not your mistress. Now get out,” Jez ordered the warlord in his own quarters.
Eirik made a show of shrugging his big shoulders and then stood, scooping up his discarded clothing in one hand and started for the door. He stopped next to Jezzet, reached up and grabbed a handful of breast. His thumb made slow circles around her nipple, stroking it, and he leered into her face. She stared back, defiance right in his smirking face. She felt her nipple stiffen, he felt it too and he grinned.
“Until later then, Jez.” And with that Eirik let go of her breast and walked to the door, leaving his quarters without even dressing.
Jezzet waited until the door was shut and then spat. A thick glob of spit smacked against the wood and then started sliding downwards. She sat down on the edge of the bed with a loud sigh and waited.
There was a cold breeze out and about and it felt good. Jezzet had bathed, washed herself as thoroughly as she could, dressed back into her dirty leathers and decided to take a stroll around the little fort. It wasn't like she was going to be leaving any time soon. Soldiers and mercenaries stared at her as she walked past but they'd been doing so for months now. Jezzet wasn't tall, shorter than most of the men here. She was thin but not skinny; enough muscle to swing a sword, her training had made sure of that. She had a pretty face, she knew, only marred by a small snip of a scar underneath her right eye, and she wore her black hair short like a boy's. All in all she had an appearance the men in the fort seemed to like. Of course the few women in the fort seemed to take great exception to it.
There were ten other women in the fort in all and all of them were whores. Some of them had been in the fort since before Eirik had taken it; it was a permanent home for them where they were fed and paid no matter who was in control. Some of them even had children running around their heels, they were the ones who couldn't afford or didn't wait to wear a charm. Jezzet had bought her charm twelve years ago and she made damned sure it could never be taken off, lost or stolen. She'd had it sewn into her flesh underneath her skin. So the men leered at her and the whores sneered at her as if she were taking their business away from them.
They should be happy. Chances are they get more business when I'm around, just the men aren't
thinking of them. Jezzet thought with a bitter grin as she endured the whores' hostile stares.
At least the wind was chill. It felt good against her skin, reddened her cheeks a little and took the breath away if you tried to breathe into the gusts. It was pleasant in a strange way but it also meant something else. A chill tended to precede rains in these parts, sometimes even storms.
The sun was dipping and darkness beginning to take hold as Jezzet walked around the fort. Soldiers hung out lamps and the whole place became lit in a warm yellow glow. It wasn't much of a fort. Wooden buildings for the most part. Living quarters for those in charge and the whores, barracks for the rest of the men, a mess hall, food storage, armoury. There was a well in the centre of the fort and a courtyard by the gate and all surrounded by thirty foot walls made of strong wooden trunks sunk deep into the ground. One thing the region had in abundance was tall trees.
Eirik was a warlord only in the sense that he commanded three hundred men. The truth of it was he was a bandit who'd managed to storm this little fort a couple of years ago. Men followed him because he was big, loud, handsome and could swing a sword, so he'd gathered his army, taken the fort and now he held it while the local governor, some blooded folk or other Jezzet couldn't name and didn't care to, paid him to hold it under the pretence of Eirik defending the governor's land.
The way Jezzet heard it, for two years Eirik hadn't defended shit. He rode out from time to time with a hundred men on horses and raided villages in the next province but until now the fort hadn't been attacked. She had no idea whether Eirik knew how to defend a fort against a determined force and she didn't fancy finding out. Unfortunately she was trapped here for now and had no choice but to fight alongside him because if Eirik somehow died here there was always the chance that the next commander of the fort wouldn't ever let Jez leave.
No choice but to stick close to him when the fighting starts and keep him alive. Then, if he doesn't let me leave, I'll kill him.
The biggest problem with a fort of this size, Jezzet found, was the boredom. There just wasn't anything to do when nothing was happening.
There was a nervous tension in the air; no doubt by now news of the impending battle had spread to all areas of the fort, but still everything seemed quiet and calm. For the past couple of months, in these situations Jezzet would retreat to Eirik's quarters find him waiting for her and end up having sex but that was the last thing she wanted and Eirik, for once, was busy commanding his men.
Jezzet decided to tour around the battlements. Two sets of steps winding back on themselves led up to the wooden platform that ran all the way around the fort just four feet below the top of the walls. Every five paces along the battlements the wall was shortened for bowmen to shoot from and men littered the walkway all the way around. It seemed all three hundred of Eirik's troops were out tonight.
Here from the west side of the battlements all Jezzet could see were trees. Dark outlines against the fading light in the sky. The Red Forest, so named because of the colour of some of its trees, stretched out for miles in every direction and bordered two provinces. It was the same forest Jezzet had been in just three days ago which meant there was a good chance the enemy would be coming from the west. The forest also stretched out towards the north where the gate was located, the enemy would have to attack there to stop a counter attack or escape. To the south were the plains and three days ride was the city of Beswith and to the east were mountains, nigh on impassable save for an old, broken trail. Any enemy attack would have to come from the forest.
“What's the chief's mascot doin' up 'ere?” The voice was cracked gravel grating against her nerves. Jezzet knew the man, a veteran of more than a few fights and he had the scars to prove it. Scars all over his face in fact. Jezzet had only ever seen one man uglier. “Bit lonely are ya? Need some company?”
You could kill him, Jez. And it was true. One flick of her sword, out of its scabbard and back in before anyone even knew what had happened and the man's throat would be laid open. Of course the rest of the men might take exception to that and the damned annoying thing was Jez could feel her hand shaking.
“You ain't got what it takes to keep me company,” Jez said putting on her best sneer.
“I got everything you need.” He was close enough to smell now and Jez had to admit she'd rarely smelled much worse.
“We all know you don't. Eirik himself says you're a eunuch and all the whores agree.” That earned a bark of laughter from the rest of the men but the ugly, stinking veteran only went red with anger. Jezzet always seemed to have a knack of winding up the wrong people.
“I'll bloody prove I ain't, bitch. Come 'ere,” he said reaching into his britches and then stopped, a confused look on his face and an arrow through his skull. The man teetered on his feet for a moment and then dropped, his body falling down to the earth below. For a moment the soldiers behind stood looking confused. For a moment Jezzet stood looking confused.
“What the fuck?” screamed one of the men close by and as one they all looked over the battlements, Jezzet included, just in time for a scattering of arrows to hit.
Most of the arrows hit the wood of the walls and stuck there, some flew high completing their deadly arc somewhere inside the fort. Two hit their marks and two more men dropped, one screaming with the shaft in his shoulder, the other man already dead and slumped over the wall not two paces from Jez.
“Shit!” shouted Jez as she ducked back below the wall. Battles were always so much more dangerous than fights. You could never tell where the fatal blow was going to come from. It was hard enough to tell friend from foe.
She wasn't the only one ducked behind a wall; men all around her had done the same, hiding from arrow fire. Taking a chance Jez glanced over the wall and saw the men who had fired the arrows retreating back towards the woods whooping all the way about who had shot the killing shafts. What caught Jez's full attention, though, was the sight at the edge of the forest.
Torches. Hundreds of small flames each one attached to a person and more appearing from the forest all the time. Jezzet had never been too good with numbers but even she knew it was fair to say Eirik's little army was outnumbered.
Looks like a fuck and a fight again today.
The Arbiter
Waking with a hangover that felt like your brain was two sizes too big for your head was never a fun start to a day and today was no exception. Alchemists and herbalists the world over had no shortage of remedies and concoctions for the pain and the nausea and that strange feeling of floating just outside your own body but rarely would any of them work. The Inquisition had long ago come up with its own cure. It wouldn't look good for an Arbiter to be unable to function due to a hangover; it would no doubt lessen the fear the common folk had of them. No, it was much better that people could see Arbiters drink an inn dry and have no effect. So now one of the first things the Inquisition taught to its initiates, after the compulsion of course, was the hangover cure; a small charm, made from wood and carved with a powerful enchantment then hung around the neck. Simple and genius but the charm always seemed to work its way to the bottom of Thanquil's pack.
He hadn't even opened his eyes. To do so may well have induced vomiting and the last thing he needed was to be seen throwing up in the middle of the barracks. Instead he kept his eyes closed and rooted around in his pack with one hand while praying to Volmar that he hadn't lost his charm.
“Arbiter Darkheart,” came a voice, the same voice that had awoken him. Quiet, demure, male and with a touch of fear. Who the hell had decided to wake him?
Thanquil's hand closed around the charm, as always, at the bottom of his pack and he pulled it free, spilling the contents of his bag all over the floor. He hung the small wooden rectangle around his neck, waited for a few moments then sat up and pried open his eyes. The world gave one violent lurch sideways and then settled down the right side up. The pounding in his head began to slow and then fade and the nausea quieted, though his throat tasted of
bile.
The man standing in front of him was dressed in the emperor's white and gold and wore a look of one part fear to two parts determination. He was young, still in his teenage years so half a man and half a boy and had been ordered to come to the Inquisition compound and rouse a sleeping Arbiter. Thanquil was impressed.
“Hello,” Thanquil said, still squinting at the man-boy and wishing the world were less bright.
“Emperor Frances requests your presence,” the messenger said in a most imperious tone.
“Now.”
“Um... yes, I think.”
“I have time to bathe first,” Thanquil said.
“Um...”
“I smell like a brothel, lad.”
“Uh...”
“Don't worry, it won't take long. Wouldn't want to offend the God-Emperor by turning up looking and smelling like an outhouse would I. No. Exactly.” With that Thanquil lurched out of bed, pushed the spilled contents of his pack under the bunk and walked for the exit, the messenger keeping up behind him while spouting a constant stream of words that Thanquil refused to listen to.
He'd never been to the Imperial palace before. Glimpsing it from afar as it rose with exaggerated majesty above the rest of the city was one thing but up close it just looked monstrously tall. How had men managed to build such a thing? Thanquil couldn't imagine it. It must have just been here all along, or maybe Volmar just willed it into existence. A God could do such a thing but there was no way men could have built a thing so tall and yet so sturdy.
Huge, reaching spires hundreds of feet tall all white and shiny in the morning sun. Windows of all shapes and sizes, some round, some square, some rectangular, some small, some larger than any Thanquil had ever seen before and all made from expensive, clear-glass
To his left Thanquil spotted fountains taller than a man with tens of tiers where water could pool and then spill down to the one below. To his right he spied a carriage waiting to take some noble folk or other away from the palace. The carriage was bigger than any he'd ever seen; eight wheels and twelve horses all magnificent and black. Thanquil's own chestnut mare would be embarrassed to be called a horse if it stood next to the stallions that pulled that carriage.