by Max Keith
“Quiet, child.” The mage sounded quite mild. “You’ll wake people.”
“I’m not a child. You keep your money,” she went on, quieter. “I’ll take it when we get to where we’re going. Where are we going?”
Drinn looked up at Franx, who just shrugged. “I told you,” he said calmly, “to the streambed by the latrine. We ready?”
They had to wait for the merry tinkle of the guardsman’s urine to stop dancing through the night from downstream before continuing their hushed conversation. “We need you to take us somewhere toward the Tangled Mountains, along some sort of path that has either villages where we can steal food, or streams where I can catch fish, or game where Drinn can shoot some, or something like that. We’re bringing food for a week or so, and that’s all I could get. We need to get to the Realm eventually, but you needn’t go so far; if you can get us to a decent pass, we’ll be happy to pay you off and send you back.”
She stared at him from her starlit seat on the far bank of the little brook, her eyes widening, and then shook her head. “You both show good sense in wanting to leave this place,” she began kindly enough, “but you continue to stun me with your stupidity. Why would you assume I would want to return? Have you not been paying attention? Did you not look around by daylight?” She spread her arms. “This is the Northern fucking Rump. There is nothing to do here but get beaten by your father, then married to your cousin, and then spend the rest of your life mucking through the marshes for whelks. Whether or not you wish to believe me, I’ve been waiting my entire life for the chance to sit in a shitstained streambed with two fools.
“You two jokers,” she went on, marveling at the irony of what she was about to say, “are the best thing that has ever happened to me. How sickening is that?”
The men glanced at each other. “I’m Poildrin, by the way. Poildrin Franx.” He leaned forward to stretch his hand across the stream.
“Charmed.” She shook, her grip quick and strong. “I’m Chiara of Much Ormold.” She frowned in the dark. “Well, I suppose just Ormold now. There’s no more Lesser Ormold, thanks to your friends, so I guess there’s no more Much Ormold either.” She paused. “Of course, in another week, there might not be any more Much Ormold left, either.”
“War,” Franx said diplomatically, “is a shockingly sad business.”
“Mmm.” Drinn was dozing again. “We apologize, for what it’s worth.”
The girl shrugged. “I’ve described life in Much Ormold to you,” she said coolly. “I had aunts in Lesser. Hard to imagine life there was any better, but it’s still no way to die.”
“No way indeed.” The warrior sighed. “When can we leave? This whole gully stinks.”
Franx stood cautiously, peering around over the lip of the tiny valley, his grey hood beginning to blend into the pearly mist. “Soon. Prepare yourselves.” He looked hard at Chiara. “Ready to lead us? We cannot be found by our patrols, nor by yours.”
“Keep yourselves silent,” she replied evenly, “and we won’t be.” She grimaced, then, as somebody else downstream whipped his cock out and emptied it into the stream.
Two
Nobody was much concerned by getting past the Duke’s sentries; just this evening, Drinn and Chiara had passed through them twice already, and the mage was quiet as a wind in the grass when he wanted to be. But they were unsure what to expect from the Imperials of the 12th Legion. Chiara had told them discouraging tales about the three boys from Much Ormold who had joined up once news of the Duke’s invasion had come, a month before.
“One of them was a shit. A sot who signed on while drunk; if the likes of him are on watch, we could walk through the lines naked with a drummer in tow and be fine. But the other two…” She’d sighed. “One was the baker’s son, Vinno. He was a sharp, serious young man; about my age, tall and firm, and good with his fists. Big cock on him, too,” she’d mused. Drinn had glanced over at Franx.
“So why’d he join up, then?”
She’d giggled. “He’d got Jinny Whelker’s mother with child, you see, and didn’t want to become Jinny’s stepfather.” A shrug. “The two of them had been fucking, see, Vinno and Jinny. So when the mom fell pregnant, well it was all very awkward.”
There was a silence. “Lot of fucking in Much Ormold, then?” Drinn had been deeply affected by Chiara’s recital of the local affairs. He’d hoped the darkness was deep enough the she wouldn’t see him adjusting himself.
She’d shrugged. “I told you, there’s little enough to do here. As for the third… well, it’s my cousin Pede. He’s another good one, a nice kid and a really good fisherman.” She’d frowned and glanced at Drinn’s sword. “I’d rather we not meet him tonight.”
“We’ll be quiet.” The mage had tried to sound comforting, but by then the mist had fallen fully; they couldn’t really see each other, and it was time to go. They stole hunched over, creeping through the low fog, nearly crawling where the land rose; soon enough, though, Chiara led them to a drainage ditch she knew and they made better progress.
When the sun began to rise above the Tangles, the mist growing bright and pearly about them, she thought they’d probably cleared the 12th Legion. The drainage ditch had led to another, then another, in a dizzying maze that carried them across the barley fields south and east of the Ormolds. Once, very late in the night, they’d frozen in fear as they heard the snuffling of three or four war-horses on a road above them, keeping pace, while the three of them huddled in cold, knee-deep water at the bottom of yet another gully; if the horses knew they were down there, though, the riders did not. Voices rose and fell in the sharp accents of the Northern Rump, so like Chiara’s, but after awhile they’d faded off, the riders headed slowly back toward the coast, and the three escapees had stolen onward.
Dawn found them cold and clammy, all of them damp beneath too many cloaks and with their backs running with sweat beneath their packs. “We’ll need to find a place to rest,” the mage said softly; he stopped on a hillock and turned to see what he could, the sun over his right shoulder and spreading slowly over the plains as it peeked over the summits.
“We’re clear,” he said at some length. Drinn, standing balanced with his burly arms folded over his chest, just nodded knowingly. Poor poxy Chiara, her legs so unaccustomed to such a night, panted to an exhausted halt. “Nobody follows.”
“You’re feeling… well?” Drinn asked the girl in a low voice. Her face was oddly mottled, the pinkness of the fever streaking weirdly under the little cataracts of sweat that rolled down; she looked awful, but under the new daylight Drinn found himself caught by her beauty.
Despite her affliction and the hellish night behind, there was something fresh, even vibrant, about Chiara. She sprawled now beside a bush, a pair of clumsy water-boots poking out from the bottom of a pain brown dress beneath her green cloak. She looked up at him, her face unreadable. “I need a piss,” she told him flatly. “I’d be obliged if you’d find another place to stand.”
“As you wish,” Drinn replied, rolling his eyes; she’d get over that quickly enough, he knew, pox or no pox. He’d been traveling with women for many years now, and it always surprised him how quickly they stopped worrying about privacy on the road. Alorin Kaye would squat and shit right next to a man, and not even interrupt her conversation.
But then Alorin was special, Drinn had always thought.
He clumped down the little hill, only to see Franx following Chiara’s example beside a bush of his own, his grey robes hiked up to his waist. “She’s looking awful,” he confided quietly. “The sunlight shows it.”
“I’ll see what I can do for her.” He finished, then glanced over at the warrior. “Or what she’ll let me do. She’s a spirited wench, it seems.”
Drinn hesitated. “I might have chosen unwisely,” he admitted, “but nobody else was leaving that fucking town, not for our money.”
“It makes no real difference,” the mage said grimly. “We’ve got the owl to scout the way, at n
eed. She knew the ditches and the canals, and she got us clear of the damned Duke. I swear, Drinn, I begin to think that man’s military prowess is overrated.”
“As do I,” and nothing that occurred later that day would have changed their minds; it was the Duke’s first defeat, and he showed what a poor loser he was. They were not around to see it, but then again there was little enough to see: a tired and cranky Royal army, waking up to blink stupidly at the watery landscape all around, bounded now by a grinning ring of Imperials, spearpoints glimmering, plumed helms twinkling in the morning light. They had archers as well, and the Duke had taken one look at where they were drawn up on the high ground, and then had looked back at Much Ormold, its residents coming out onto their rooftops to see the show. So the Duke had decided then to try his hand at negotiating.
He missed Poildrin Franx then. For, as it turned out, he was a poor negotiator. It became clear that a lifetime of privilege and power might not have been the best preparation for life-and-death negotiations involving hundreds of men.
The end of the morning had seen long lines of Royal troopers staked out in two long, long lines among the barley, far more than the customary 15%; a full quarter of the Duke’s army had been marked for death, and the angry Imperial commander had not accepted the wounded within the total. The relief in the pox-tents had, no doubt, been heartfelt, though only briefly: with sadistic joy, the Imperials had ordered every healer to join the slain.
The 12th Legion worked all morning, making stakes, and once the numbers had been established the downcast Duke had sat on his mighty horse and watched as the stakes were hammered efficiently into each man’s hands and through their bellies, their screams filling the noon air as they were then killed by the simple expedient of driving laden carts over them many times.
Fully half the army had been enslaved then. The Royal officers had listened in disbelief as, again in contravention of the custom, even the rich and mighty were named. Slavery was illegal in the Empire, so technically they were not enslaved by the 12th Legion. Instead, a sallow-eyed group of Royal traders from the ill-favored port of Norther Town had appeared under safe-conduct to do the business of branding, chaining, and invoicing; they’d paid the Imperial army a “fee” for this privilege, and as night fell they’d marched their branded captives, including some of the finest blood in the Realm, off to a waiting squadron of ships for overseas sale.
Finally, it was time for the last quarter of the army to be released. And again the Duke had been honored sarcastically, the only Royal invited to eat and sleep in comfort while his men, three-quarters killed or enslaved, had their remainder stripped and driven into the cold, houseless countryside to die. Except the wounded and the poxed, who were simply forgotten about by everyone, waiting in the long tents without food or water.
And at last, at the end of it all, when the 12th had stirred the next morning to two stinking broken lines of bodies in the fields and a howling whine from the sick tents, the Duke had been rolled from his rich purple bed and taken to the ruins of Lesser Ormold, where it turned out not all the residents had died. But the Duke did, once the 12th gave the Lesser Ormolders a few knives and spears, and some kindling. The bards of that region say it took all day for the Duke to at last expire.
All the camp followers who weren’t poxed, wives and whores both, were told they had new husbands now, and were given summarily to members of the 12th Legion.
A shockingly sad business.
But before he died, the Duke had not been silent. He’d offered much for his freedom, and eventually much for his life, and although it had not availed him, the Emperor’s commander rode away from his victory with something to think about: news of a secretive and powerful Shadowmage, a close confidante of the Princess Raxillene, now seemingly gone, at large in the Rumps. So the commander had summoned his own mage, a quiet young fellow of the Fire class, and asked a few questions.
“You say his name is Franx?” The little mage had tugged at his red hood, his tiny mustache drooping in a frown. “Poildrin Franx?”
“That might have been the name.” The Commander waved dismissively; he’d had much to deal with that day, and the babblings of a tortured Royal Duke were not at the front of his mind. “Something with a P, at any rate.”
“There is a Shadowmage named Poildrin Franx,” the firemage mused. “A bit older than me, but he was at the College long before; something of a prodigy, I think. He’s a noted spell-writer, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.”
“What does he do, Mim?”
The Firemage shrugged. “No idea, sir. The yearbooks are all out of date these days, with the War being what it is. But I do know there’s a Shadowmage working for the Regent’s sister, down in the Borderlands; this is likely him.” He glanced up at the Commander. “You know of the sister, sir?”
“No.” The Commander tapped at a map, one of his officers quietly making notes. “Make it quick, please.”
“The Regent is a drunken fool, the Kingdom is barely holding together, and she thinks she should be the new regent.” Mim arched an eyebrow. “So she seems to have a great many secret friends on both sides of the mountains, and a few closer friends that she sends around the Continent on little jobs.” He rose. “It would nor surprise me if one of those jobs had involved advising the Duke.”
“Huh.” The Commander frowned. “So he can make trouble in the Rumps?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Fine then.” The Commander was a man of fast decision. “We must pursue him. I shall assume he wants to head home, meaning the Claring Pass, meaning the Central Rump. Meaning the 4th Legion down there.” He nodded. “I’ll send a messenger to their commander, and you’ll take a squad of men and see if you can find and kill this princess’ troublesome mage. Yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Leave as soon as you can.” The Commander smiled craftily. “We’ve got plenty of horses to choose from now, and no doubt you can find a guide in the village. Go to work, Mim!”
The Firemage nodded. “Yes, sir.”
* * *
“So we’ll lie up this morning,” the mage explained, “and then we’ll move on again when we feel up to it.”
“My feet are sore.” The girl still looked horrid, but the ruddy tinge was at last fading from her face.
“And they will be,” Franx told her gently. They’d found a hollow in the earliest fringe of the foothills, far from the nearest village they’d been able to find. “I told you I’d do what I could for you, but I am not the most skilled healer in the Realm. Plus, I’m not sure I could do anything for your… your affliction, even if you trusted me to take a look beneath your skirts.” She’d blushed at least, but her eyes still screamed defiance. “Blisters, though, Drinn and I can help you with.”
“And this evening?” The warrior rubbed his hands together. “Another fun night march through some foothills!” She’d favored him with a scowl, a look he was beginning to look forward to from her; it turned out she had freckles over otherwise dusky skin, and they looked cute when she grimaced at him. Cute only, he told himself, not yet sexy. He hadn’t seen enough of her for that yet.
He had noticed, and quickly, that she was far from as young as he’d expected. She told them she’d seen twenty summers, and in this part of the world that made her very much a woman. She kept her shapeless dress and her thick cloak obstinately on, but that was understandable; she was a woman on the road with two strange, rough men, and she was afflicted, so it was entirely understandable she’d be anxious about her vulnerability, all her bravado aside.
“We’ll need to get you some new boots,” the warrior mused, looking hard at her feet. “Or maybe there’s something we can do with those to make them a bit better?” They were high, hard boots made for wading after shellfish, and not for crossing the Tangles.
“I don’t want us breaking into villages just to steal boots,” Franx shook his head. “To steal food, eventually, is fine; weapons, perhaps. But not boots, not yet. We mus
t leave no trace until we get up into the peaks.” He looked thoughtfully at the craggy east, and then down at Chiara. “You do know a pass, I assume?”
“Surely.” She shrugged. “Claring.”
The mage closed his eyes for a moment, sighing. “Dear Chiara,” he began, “Claring is the main pass through these mountains. We know it, too.”
She tossed her hair pugnaciously. “Then what did you need me for?”
Drinn chuckled grimly. “Well, you see,” Franx went on carefully, “Claring Pass is perhaps two weeks from here, provided your feet hold out.”
“We were hoping for something closer,” Drinn added. “More secret, maybe.”
The girl shrugged, completely unapologetic. “No such thing as a secret pass through the Tangles. As you’d have known, had you asked me before you hired me.”
The warrior rolled his eyes. “When? When you whispered at me from the latrine, or while you were running away from home?”
“’Tisn’t my fault,” Chiara pointed out primly, “if you didn’t do a proper job in hiring me. Speaking of,” she went on remorselessly, like a bird of prey, “I was assuming board is included in my wage?” She looked up hopefully, her face still streaky and odd-looking. Drinn was about to give her a kick to the ribs, but Franx merely smiled.
“You assumed incorrectly, Chiara,” he said, quite reasonably. “I’ll deduct an eightkloster per day that we need to provide you with food.” He beamed. “As you’d have known, had you asked us before we hired you.”
She glared, her head thrust back, but her angry retort faded when she spotted Drinn casually biting into a slip of jerky. “Fuck you both,” she muttered.
“And fuck you too,” Drinn shot back, cramming bread into his mouth. “Now take your boots off. I’ll see if I can make them a bit more suitable for walking.”