The rain fell harder, and the sky darkened. Gaedynn judged it was around midday, but it looked like dusk. That was why he didn’t spot the guard outpost until he and Jhesrhi were nearly on top of it. That and the fact that there was no watchtower or bastion there, just a barricade of tangled brambles across the trail and a hole in one of the hillsides it ran between.
Gaedynn reined in the black mare. “Shouldn’t your damned wind have warned you we were coming up on that?”
“This is new country,” Jhesrhi said. “I’m still making friends with it. But I don’t see anyone. Maybe it’s abandoned.”
As if to mock her hope, two dwarf-sized figures with reptilian heads emerged from the opening. They were kobolds, specimens of one of the barbaric races often found in service to dragons.
Gaedynn grimaced. Had they detected the outpost in time, he and Jhesrhi could have ridden around it. But they couldn’t do that now without arousing suspicion.
Oh well. Like his companion, he’d disguised himself as a shabby drifter in search of nothing more than the chance to shoot, forage, filch, or-if absolutely necessary-earn his next meal. He expected to put the deception to the test many times before his mission was through, and he supposed this might as well be the first.
He kept one hand on the reins and raised the other to show that it was empty. Then he walked his horse forward. Jhesrhi did the same, except that she lifted both hands and guided the gelding with her knees. Show-off.
They halted their mounts in front of the barricade. For an instant Gaedynn wondered how the hunched, stunted kobolds with their oversized skulls, long lashing tails, and musky stink could simultaneously be so like and unlike the dragonborn he and his comrades had come to know over the course of the past few tendays.
“Names,” rasped the kobold on the left. Like his comrade, he wore the crossed-scepter-and-wand emblem of Kassur Jedea. Kassur was the nominal king of Threskel, although it was common knowledge he took his orders from Alasklerbanbastos just like everybody else.
“I’m Azzedar,” Gaedynn replied, “and this is Ilzza.” They were common Untheric names, and many Threskelan families descended from Untheric stock.
Two more kobolds wandered out into the rain. They must have had a sizable warren under the hill.
The black mare wasn’t a war-horse. Possession of such a valuable mount would have immediately discredited Gaedynn’s disguise. She was just a nag, and she tried to shy away from the reptiles. He drew back on the reins to steady her.
“Coming from Chessenta?” asked the kobold who’d spoken before. The glint in his narrowed eyes belied his casual tone.
“Abyss, no,” Gaedynn said. “Or mostly no. I may have done some hunting on the other side of the line, but not lately. Too many patrols. Mainly I’ve been camped just a little south of here.”
“Where are you headed?”
“My brother’s farm. His bitch of a wife wouldn’t let Ilzza and me winter there, but they’ll need help with the spring planting.”
“Well,” said the kobold, “maybe they’ll get it. If you can pay the toll.”
“Toll?” Gaedynn asked.
“Maybe you haven’t heard, wandering around in the wild, but we’re going to war. And the Bone Wyrm needs coin to fight it.”
Gaedynn was reasonably certain that no copper collected at this remote outpost would ever find its way to Alasklerbanbastos’s coffers. But from his perspective, that was hardly the point.
“I don’t have any coin,” he said.
“You’ve got horses,” the kobold answered. “True, they don’t look like much, but they’re something. How do you feel about walking the rest of the way to your brother’s place?”
“Wait.” Gaedynn rummaged in a saddlebag. “I have a little dreammist.” He pulled out a bundle wrapped in a rag and leaned down to proffer it.
The kobold slipped around the end of the barricade, opened the packet, and sniffed the few bits of brown crushed leaf inside. “You don’t have much.”
“Enough for you and your friends to have some fun,” Gaedynn said.
“Oh, take it and let them go on,” a different kobold said. “We’re getting soaked.”
“All right,” said the first kobold, evidently a sergeant or something comparable. It waved a clawed hand, and its fellows started to drag the mass of brambles aside.
“Stop,” a new voice rumbled. Less sibilant and two octaves deeper than the kobolds’ voices, it spoke Chessentan more clearly. Perhaps because it issued from a throat and mouth better shaped for human speech.
Gaedynn turned. Something more or less man-shaped, but as tall on its own two feet as he was on horseback, peered back at him from the darkness inside the burrow.
The big creature yawned. “What do we have here?”
“Nobody,” said the sergeant. “Just vagabonds.”
His superior emerged into the light and the rain. Perhaps it was a kind of kobold too. It had the same sort of claws, fangs, and greenish leathery hide. But sorcery, or conceivably mixed blood, had produced something more closely resembling one of the hulking giant-kin called ogres.
The big creature looked at the weapon clipped to Gaedynn’s saddle. “That’s a fine bow for a vagabond.”
Wishing he’d made do with an inferior one, Gaedynn inclined his head. “The one fine thing I own, sir. You wouldn’t take it, I hope. It’s what keeps the woman and me alive when times are lean.”
The leader grunted. “We’ll see.” It turned to the ordinary kobolds. “Search them. Persons and baggage both.”
If Jhesrhi knew a spell to change the creature’s mind, or to extricate herself and Gaedynn from this situation in some other way, now would be an excellent time to cast it. Before the kobolds unwrapped her staff or found the gold and silver they carried. Hoping to nudge her into action, he shot her a glance-then felt a pang of dismay.
Since they’d reached the barricade, she’d sat silently with her head bowed. She was trying to look cowed and submissive before the kobolds.
But now appearance had become reality. She was trembling.
By the Nine Hells and every flame that burned there, what was the matter with her? He’d watched her battle foes far more intimidating than kobolds and ogres without flinching.
“Get off your horses,” the kobold sergeant said.
Gaedynn wished he could drive an arrow into the reptile’s upraised snout. But an innocent traveler wouldn’t have had his bow strung, and so his wasn’t either. He yanked his sword from under the bundle intended to render it inconspicuous and cut.
The sergeant jumped back out of range. One of the other kobolds cast a javelin. It flew past the black mare’s head.
Spooked, she reared. Caught by surprise, Gaedynn tumbled from the saddle and over her rump to slam down on the ground.
Kobolds rushed him. Luckily they had to maneuver around the barricade and the frightened horse to do it, in the moment before she galloped back down the trail. It gave him time to roll to his feet and meet his first attacker with a slash that split its belly.
Javelins jabbed at him, and he knocked them out of line. Back foot splashing down in a puddle, he retreated to keep the smaller reptiles from encircling him. Then, from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something looming on his flank. He pivoted in that direction, and the big creature’s long, brass-studded war club whizzed down at his head.
His warrior’s instincts kept him from trying to parry, lest he break his sword and perhaps his arm with it. Instead, he sidestepped and slashed the officer’s forearm. The brute snarled.
Instantly, before it could heave the club into position for another swing, he followed up with a second cut. A poorly aimed one-it missed the officer’s torso but at least gashed its lead leg. The brute stumbled backward, and Gaedynn turned just in time to parry another javelin thrust from one of the lesser kobolds. As he did, he noticed more of the creatures running out of the warren.
“Jhesrhi!” he yelled. “Do something, damn it!”
&
nbsp; But she just kept sitting on the paint that, eyes rolling, looked like he’d bolt as soon as he discerned a clear path through the combatants. She wouldn’t even lift her head and look at the fight. Which likely meant Gaedynn wasn’t getting out of this.
The leader dropped its war club, turned, and ran at Jhesrhi. Perhaps caught by surprise, or simply still frozen with dread, she didn’t even try to resist as it grabbed her, dragged her out of the saddle, and held her up in the air like a toy.
“Drop your sword!” it bellowed. “Or I’ll pull her arms off!” Apparently Gaedynn’s prowess had impressed it enough that it didn’t want to risk losing any more of its warriors or getting sliced up any worse itself.
It would be idiotic to surrender. By her inaction, Jhesrhi had forfeited any claim on his consideration, and yielding probably wouldn’t help either of them anyway. He’d likely be trading a slim chance for none at all.
Yet he didn’t know if he had it in him to ignore the threat. He was still wondering when she finally came to life.
Perhaps it was the awareness that she was actually being held, touched, that roused her. She suddenly screamed and thrashed, and though her frenzy had no art in it-no precisely articulated words of command or flowing mystic passes-magic answered her anyway. The officer’s face burst into flame.
The hulking thing roared and let Jhesrhi drop so it could slap at the fire as it floundered backward. It reeled into the barricade. There was little chance of the thorns piercing its thick hide to any great effect, but Gaedynn supposed every little bit helped.
Jhesrhi rounded on her horse just as the animal lunged to follow the mare back down the trail. She rattled off a brief incantation, and the paint froze, his momentum nearly pitching him forward onto his nose. Even though Gaedynn wasn’t the target of the spell, for an instant his muscles bunched and locked as well.
Jhesrhi darted to the gelding and grabbed her staff. The rawhide lashings around the wrapping unknotted themselves.
A pair of kobolds rushed Gaedynn. He smeared the first one’s eye down its face with a stop cut and balked the second by chopping the steel point off its javelin.
Then he scrambled to interpose himself between Jhesrhi and as many of the enemy as he could. Now that she was belatedly making herself useful, it was his task to keep the kobolds off her while she cast her spells.
He landed a cut to a kobold’s flank, then twisted aside from a javelin thrust. Almost nimbly enough-the steel point ripped his jerkin and shirt and grazed along a rib. Because shiftless poachers, Glasya take them, didn’t wear brigandines. He killed his assailant before it could pull the weapon back for another try.
Behind him, Jhesrhi chanted a rhyme. For a heartbeat iridescence shimmered through the air. Rain fell upward, leaping from the puddles toward the clouds. A point of red light flew past Gaedynn into the mouth of the burrow-where, with a roar, it exploded into flame. The blast ripped the kobolds that were just emerging into burning, tumbling limbs.
Jhesrhi rattled off another spell. Rumbling and thudding in big chunks and little pellets, earth fell from the roof of the opening. The collapse didn’t quite fill it all the way to the ceiling, but no more kobolds would be coming out that way.
When the reptiles who’d already emerged saw what Jhesrhi could do, they hesitated. Panting, Gaedynn wondered if he and his companion could get past without having to fight the rest of them.
Then the big creature bellowed. Gaedynn glanced around just in time to see it launch itself at Jhesrhi. Its face was a charred, oozing mass. But the fire was out and had spared the brute’s eyes.
Jhesrhi spoke a word of command and stabbed with the tip of her staff. A fan-shaped flare of yellow flame leaped from the staff. It seared her attacker, but the creature kept charging, war club raised for a bone-shattering blow.
Gaedynn was too far away to interpose himself between the officer and Jhesrhi. So he hurled his sword.
He was no expert knife thrower, nor was the blade balanced for throwing. Tumbling, it hit with the flat, not the point, and did no more harm than if he’d tossed a stick.
But perhaps it startled the brute, for it looked around. And maybe it was that momentary hesitation that gave Jhesrhi time for one last spell. She stamped her foot, and the ground split beneath the officer’s feet. It howled as it plunged into the chasm. It released the club and snatched for the edge but failed to grab hold.
Whipping out the hunting knife he wore on his belt, Gaedynn spun back around to face the remaining kobolds. It wasn’t much of a weapon for a man battling multiple opponents, but to his relief, the reptiles looked even less inclined to keep fighting than they had a moment before.
One of them spoke in their own harsh, hissing tongue. Then they retreated, at first backing away with weapons leveled, then turning and scurrying into the rain.
Gaedynn watched to see if their withdrawal was a ruse. It didn’t appear to be.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jhesrhi said, looking around for creeping kobolds like he was. “You?”
“Scratched.” And the graze was starting to sting, now. “Some healer’s salve would be a good idea. What happened to you?”
“It won’t happen again.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“But it’s all I have to tell you.”
“Curse it, woman, it was my life in danger too.”
Her voice was ice. “It won’t happen again!”
“How deeply reassuring.” He took a breath. “Do you know a charm to help us catch the horses?”
*****
The Brotherhood had conducted its first successful raid into Threskelan territory. Now they were bringing their plunder into Soolabax. Laden with sacks of flour and seed, the carts squeaked and rumbled. The skinny sheep baaed, and the goats bleated.
As Aoth watched from the battlements atop the gate, it occurred to him that his men had just condemned a bunch of peasants to hardship if not starvation. They’d left the wretches with nothing to eat or plant, with no better justification than that the farmers happened to live on the wrong side of the border.
For a moment, he felt guilty. Which was stupid, since he’d given the same order many times before and, if Lady Luck smiled, would give it many more. This kind of predation was just a part of war.
Better, then, to focus on the reaction of the people in the street below. Watching, grinning, chattering to one another, they seemed happy that someone had finally hurt the Threskelans as the Threskelans had injured them, even if it had taken a war-mage to lead the way.
Aoth waved his hand at the scene below. “You see, milord, with griffon riders scouting from on high, we can find what we want, hit it, and get away before the dragons and such even realize we were there.”
Hasos’s lip curled. “You were lucky your first time out, Captain. It doesn’t mean your overall strategy is sound.”
If anything, the baron seemed even colder than before. Maybe he felt that the sellswords’ quick success pointed out his own shortcomings as a soldier.
If so, then Aoth agreed with him. But he didn’t want Hasos to resent him. It would make his job harder. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see much to do about it, except keep offering the noble the chance to participate in his endeavors and so earn a share of the credit.
“Be that as it may,” Cera Eurthos said, “to me this seems a portent of greater victories to come.”
Short, snub-nosed, and pleasingly plump, Cera was one of several dignitaries who’d climbed to the top of the gate to watch the plunder come into town. With curly hair as yellow as her vestments, she seemed a fitting high priestess for the sun god.
She had a warm, sunny smile too, although, after his experiences with Daelric Apathos, Aoth was surprised to find it shining in his direction.
Hasos inclined his head. “With respect, Sunlady, perhaps that’s why you’re a cleric and not a soldier.”
“Oh, very likely, milord. Captain, now that you too are what passes for a
notable in this sleepy little town, we should become better acquainted.”
Aoth inclined his head. “You honor me.”
“Perhaps we can start with a stroll along the wall.”
He looked out to the end of the column and beyond, making sure no one was in pursuit. Nobody was. “That sounds nice.”
Seeming more a coquette than the wise mistress of a temple, she reached to take his arm, then smiled at her own awkwardness when she noticed something was in her way. He shifted his spear into his other hand, and they set off down the wall walk. He fancied he could feel Hasos’s glare boring into the back of his skull.
Cera looked at the blue sky above the fields speckled with blades of new green grass. “Here in Chessenta, we have a saying. ‘Precious as a sunny day in Tarsakh.’ ”
Aoth smiled. “The gods know sellswords have reason to dislike this time of year. You have to come out of winter quarters and start making coin. Of course, you want to anyway. You’re half mad with boredom and confinement. But you always end up marching through storms and mud.”
“Like the man and woman who rode out just a day after you arrived.”
He started to frown then caught himself. His instincts suggested it was better to go on matching her light, casual air. “Keeping track of us, Sunlady?”
“Everyone’s keeping track of you, Captain. You’re objects of great curiosity. So be gallant and satisfy mine. Who were those people, anyway?”
“Just scouts.”
“On horseback. When I’ve just heard you extol the advantages of reconnaissance from the air.”
“You see things from on high that you wouldn’t from the ground, but occasionally the reverse is also true.”
They sauntered up on a sentry. He was one of Hasos’s men and looked like he couldn’t make up his mind how much courtesy he owed to Aoth. In the end he decided to salute, and Aoth acknowledged it with a dip of his spearhead.
“Interesting,” Cera said. Aoth couldn’t tell if she meant his explanation of the spies’ mission or the sentry’s reaction to him. “Do you know, you seem like a very… practical sort of person. If I had to guess, I’d have said you weren’t profoundly interested in any religion, let alone a mad cult like the Church of Tchazzar.”
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