by Logan Jacobs
It was barely bigger than a quill pen. I plunged it into the side of the Savajun’s neck, right below his jaw. The tiny blade of the axe, no bigger than a shaving razor, severed his artery and remained implanted there. I let go of it and backed up as he gaped in shock, with his life’s blood pumping out from the small cut that elsewhere on the body could have been of little consequence at all. The tomahawk resumed its usual proportions, and the increased weight caused it to drop into the grass, immediately followed by the thud of its wielder’s, and last victim’s, corpse.
“We’re not after you, you can stop running, you fucking imbecile,” I could hear Theo’s voice yelling. I glanced over and saw that he was trying in vain to reassure the Savajun’s horse, in none-too-gentle terms. I wasn’t sure if the horse distrusted him due to the major role that he had just played in the killing of its master, or because it didn’t like talking animals any more so than Savajuns did, or because it could sense Theo’s thorough contempt for it, but either way, it was having none of it. Instead it fled into the distance, far enough that Theo gave up trying to follow after. The other dead Savajuns’ horses had already scattered. I guessed they’d become wild horses now. I just hoped they’d all find each other and form a herd.
Theo trotted back over to me as I searched around the five corpses strewn across the field until I located the one that had my sword jutting out of it.
“I like talking to Savajuns,” he announced cheerfully as I wiped the blade clean and resheathed it.
“Just don’t get in the habit,” I warned him. “I’m not the type to kill every Savajun I lay eyes on. Some men are that type, and I’d say they’re a large part of the reason that settlements keep getting burnt down by war parties.”
Theo merely snorted in response. I don’t think it was because he had stronger homicidal compulsions than I did, it was just because he was always a bit indignant about having to pretend to be a dumb beast, even for the best of reasons.
Then I heard faint female voices, and looked over to see the twins riding back toward us from afar, two specks of lavender and periwinkle upon their mares, and trailed by the long-suffering luggage mares. I hoped their knees were okay after running under all that weight.
I mounted back up on Theo, and we trotted over to meet them.
“What happened?” Katrina gasped when she saw me. She clasped her hands over her mouth in horror. “You need a doctor!”
“No, I don’t,” I blinked at her in confusion, then I looked down and realized for the first time that I was thoroughly soaked in Savajun blood. “Oh.” I grinned. “Not mine, I assure you.”
“Thank goodness,” Janina said.
“You saved us,” Katrina exclaimed.
“I know,” I said.
“I do believe we made a fine choice in you, despite everything,” Janina remarked thoughtfully.
“Despite what, exactly?” I demanded.
The blonde beauty grimaced as she gestured at me wordlessly. “Well-- mind now, you’re not a bad-looking man beneath it all, but what I mean is, you barely look less presentable now than you did when we set out this morning.”
“It’s true, we could never take you into polite society,” Katrina agreed apologetically.
“Even if you had a bath, a shave, and a new set of clothes, the entire effect would be ruined the moment you opened your mouth,” Janina lamented.
“Well, this is a nice way of thanking me,” I grumbled. Inwardly I was quite amused by the thought that upstanding members of what these frontier belles deemed “polite society” would be regarded as half-barbaric curiosities by the least of my former family’s vassals.
“Oh dear,” Katrina gasped suddenly as she caught sight of the nearest corpse, lying half hidden in the tall grass, and clasped her hand over her mouth again.
“Well, I’m quite glad they are dead,” Janina said disdainfully. “Haven’t you heard what animals like these do to white women, when they catch them? The entire race ought to be exterminated.”
“If every race of men that produced rapists were exterminated, then mankind would be extinct,” I said sharply. “There are worthless Savajuns that deserve worse than death-- and there are noble ones that the world is unworthy of. Just as with our own race.”
“So you have met good Savajuns yourself?” Katrina asked curiously.
“Indeed I have,” I said. I’d met chiefs that I respected, squaws who were kind hostesses, traders who were honest, warriors who were brave.
“But have you met more good ones, or bad ones?” Janina demanded.
I hesitated. Vera Carlisle’s chiseled, golden-skinned face glowed in my mind’s eye, her cat-like black eyes piercing mine, her luscious lips curving in the tantalizing hint of a wicked smirk, her beauty half cloaked by her waterfall of raven black hair. I certainly couldn’t call her a good person. I also couldn’t pretend that the scheming murderess was entirely devoid of redeeming qualities. That she wasn’t brilliant, passionate, adventurous, witty and playful, independent-minded, and fiercely strong-willed.
Of course, she wasn’t the only Savajun in existence. In fact, she was only half Savajun, and seemed to despise that identity just as often as she displayed her pride in it. But for as long as I could remember, she had been the Savajun that most haunted my mind.
“Couldn’t hardly say,” I said curtly. “A lot of folk don’t fall so neatly into either class.”
And I urged Theo onward, and he passed the Elliott sisters by, to continue on along our previous path to Sunderly.
Chapter Seven
I was especially on my guard for the next few hours, in case any other raiding parties from the same tribe might show up, but none did. I hoped that they wouldn’t find the bodies of their five missing warriors for a while, not until our trail had gone cold and they could no longer track us, if they were so inclined.
The twins, on the other hand, seemed to forget their narrow brush with danger fairly quickly and regain their high spirits. They asked me lots of teasing questions, and when I declined to answer or even answered in ways they deemed unsatisfactory, they contented themselves by inventing answers on my behalf that they preferred.
“Have you ever been married, Mr. Hale?” Katrina cooed.
“No,” I answered, honestly.
“Betrothed?” she suggested next.
“… No,” I answered after a moment’s consideration. When I was seventeen, there had been ongoing negotiations to marry me to a homely and sullen princess named Georgina. My mother had assured me that the princess in question, whom I had met briefly on a few occasions of state, was a girl of impeccable reputation and unimpeachable maidenhood. Regarding the latter, I had taken another glance at her portrait displayed for my benefit, and remarked dryly, “I don’t doubt it.” That hadn’t gone over very well. But for other, political reasons that had nothing to do with my personal preferences, negotiations had fallen through anyway, and then the year after that I had taken Theo and sailed away across the ocean before a suitable alternative could be determined. So it was true that I had never been officially betrothed.
“Well, then, have you ever wished to be betrothed?” Janina inquired slyly. She had probably detected my brief hesitation regarding the last question.
“No,” I answered without any hesitation at all that time.
“Don’t you ever say anything besides ‘no’?” Katrina demanded crossly.
“Yes,” I replied.
Theo grunted and whickered, which was his version of a laugh. He had an entirely human sense of humor, but his throat simply wasn’t formed to produce the same sounds of laughter. And there was no laughter forthcoming from the throats of the twins, that time.
“Well, why haven’t you ever wished to be betrothed, then?” Janina asked. “Haven’t you ever met a lass who caught your fancy?”
“To be sure,” I said, “but what does that have to do with marriage?”
“So, you’ve never loved anyone?” Katrina asked.
“P
robably not as you would call it that,” I said.
“But there was a girl,” Janina asserted, accusingly. “There was a girl in particular. Wasn’t there?”
“There’s never been any girl on earth who made me dream of marriage,” I stated, truthfully. I didn’t think that Vera and I would have survived one year of trying to live like a married couple, although it was a pastime she quite enjoyed. Along with other pastimes involving me such as trying to have me killed, enslaved, or turned into an immortal, sometimes all on the same day.
“None pretty enough for your tastes?” Katrina asked a little bitterly. I realized that she didn’t really care about my romantic history or the other women who had featured in it. This line of questioning was a matter of personal vanity for her. Even though she had already declared her own resolve never to marry at all, so even if I had reacted by throwing myself on my knees before her and proposing on the spot, she would, presumably, have refused me. Yet it upset her that I had no apparent urge to do so.
Women.
“None sensible enough for my tastes,” I said sharply. That quieted both twins. For a few minutes, anyway. Then it started right back up again.
“What must your parents have been like, to have raised a son like you?” Janina asked loftily.
“I was raised by wolves,” I snorted.
“It certainly shows,” Katrina sniffed.
“Well, what town did you grow up in, really?” Janina asked.
“You wouldn’t have heard of it,” I said. Unless she was better educated than I suspected, as it was the capital city of a nation across the ocean, and not a minor nation, but not among the Old World’s most powerful either.
The twins didn’t question that. It was a very natural thing to say in the West, when many of the hastily sprung “towns” existed only for a season, only until the potencium dried up, and then sank back into the desert, without ever having so much as earned official names.
“Did you always intend to be a mercenary?” Katrina asked. “Or did you ever dream of making something else of yourself?”
“I slid from the womb with an insatiable desire to crush skulls for money,” I replied dryly. “Did the two of you always intend to be thieves?”
“We’re not thieves!” Katrina objected indignantly.
“What she means is, we are ladies first and foremost,” Janina declared. “It’s true that, due to certain hardships to which we were subjected in our childhood, perhaps we must sometimes resort to unconventional tactics in order to maintain a respectable lifestyle, but that--”
“In order to fill twenty pieces of luggage, you mean?” I snorted.
“If you don’t look the part of a fine lady, society will never accept you as one,” Katrina informed me. “And a lady does not wear her traveling clothes to dinner.”
“Who exactly do you expect to meet in these wayside inns, who will judge you so harshly for having the dust of the desert on the hem of your skirt?” I asked dryly. “The President?”
“The President, probably, would not notice,” Katrina said.
“Then why--” I began.
“But his wife and daughters most certainly would,” Janina concluded the thought.
“And we won’t only be meeting people who are local to the towns we pass through,” Katrina added. “As we draw nearer to Sunderly, we will meet more and more people of importance, who are traveling to the poker tournament just as we are.”
“By people of importance, you mean people who can afford the entry fee?” I asked.
“That’s quite a crass way to put it,” Katrina told me.
“Out West, people have the freedom to say what they mean,” I replied.
“People like you do, perhaps,” Katrina retorted. “Nobody would expect any different from you.”
“Well, I should hope not,” I said.
“Well-bred people know better than to say exactly what they mean,” Janina continued.
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I am seldom obliged to interact with them,” I muttered. I thought of my family and all the poisonous flattery, courtly posturing, and duplicitous maneuvering that had been exchanged among its members, and reflected that Janina had a point there.
“If your clients aren’t… respectable, then how do you know they will pay you afterward?” Katrina asked curiously. “What if they tried to run away? Or kill you instead?”
“Some do conceive such ideas,” I acknowledged. “In such cases, I do not receive the substantial portion of their assets that was promised. Instead, I ultimately collect their entire estates.”
“Have you ever killed a woman?” Katrina questioned.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you thinking of defaulting on my payment?”
“Not in the least,” she said quickly. “You have served us well, so far.”
“We’re very pleased with you,” Janina agreed.
I chuckled.
“The answer is yes, isn’t it?” Katrina sighed.
“What could you gain by knowing?” I asked.
“Well, if you answered no, then I would know that you do have some moral principles!” she declared.
“I see,” I said. “So, you think it would be morally wrong for me to kill a woman? That is, even worse than killing a man?”
“Of course it would be,” Katrina stated.
“Then if a woman attacks you or Janina, I should not intervene?” I said. “If a madwoman comes at you with a knife-- let’s say she has been driven into a jealous rage by her husband’s wandering eye-- then because she belongs to the fairer sex, I should refrain from harming her?”
“Well, no,” Janina admitted.
“But perhaps you might restrain her without killing her,” Katrina suggested.
“Very likely I could indeed, if it were only one woman, of ordinary strength and without any magical ability,” I agreed. “But sometimes women travel with bandit gangs, and not only as the bandits’ consorts, but as participating gang members. Often, such women dress in men’s clothes and utilize men’s weapons. If we happen to cross paths with such a gang, shall I pause and check each bandit’s knickers before I engage, just to ensure that I do not unknowingly cause a fatal injury to one of the fairer sex?”
“You know what I mean,” Katrina huffed. “I understand that sometimes maybe you can’t avoid it. But it’s worse to kill women than men because we are weaker, and we don’t pose a threat to you.”
“Maybe not in hand to hand combat,” I said. “But who does or does not pose a threat has to do with a lot more than bodily strength. Who has a weapon and who doesn’t? Who’s asleep, or falling down drunk, and who isn’t? Who has social authority and who doesn’t? Who has the opportunity to poison food or drink, and who has the misfortune to eat it? You’re doing your own sex a great injustice if you claim that women are helpless to cause harm to men, let alone each other.”
“Well, if you don’t draw the line at women, then what about children?” Janina asked.
“I’d kill a child, for the right price,” I said flatly.
“… Then you never have killed one?” Janina asked.
“No one’s ever been willing to pay me a fair price,” I explained.
“Do you ask a particularly exorbitant price for children, due to the strain it would place on your conscience?” Katrina speculated.
“I ask exactly the same price I’d ask for an adult, under equal circumstances,” I replied, even though it was a bit of a lie. No one had ever asked me to kill a child, and I would have raised the price substantially.
“Then why--”
“Because children are less dangerous than men, or women,” I said impatiently. “And people hire me to kill people that they wouldn’t be capable of killing themselves. Think about it. You’re a young unmarried woman, seduced and then abandoned by some fellow who vanished off into the sunset when your stomach started to show. Your family disowned you. You have no prospects. Your only chance of being accepted as someone’s wife and living
the life that you always dreamed of, and avoiding beggary or prostitution, is to get rid of the baby once it comes. Do you hire someone like me, with forty gold coins that you certainly don’t have? Or do you smother it yourself? Or leave it in the desert for the sun and the wild animals to get?”
The twins exchanged uncomfortable glances.
“Well, surely there must be some cases when children are guarded by others, and that makes them more difficult to kill,” Janina suggested. “Or if the children themselves are magic users, or even sorcerers, then it would be quite a different matter than with ordinary children.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “There may be some cases when people find it necessary to hire an assassin to kill a child. But children are not only easier to kill oneself without any professional help, they are also less likely to have committed most of the offenses that put adults into a murderous mood, or to have acquired the kind of wealth for which adults may be willing to kill, or to be married to spouses whom jealous lovers covet, and so on and so forth. It’s not impossible that I may be hired to kill a child someday. But it just isn’t a common request.”
“Alright, well, if no life is sacred to you, what’s a line that you wouldn’t cross then?” Janina demanded.
“I wouldn’t break a contract,” I answered.
“That’s it?” Katrina asked incredulously.
“Well, I don’t rape… and I don’t harm anyone who doesn’t deserve it, unless I’m getting paid for it,” I said after a moment’s thought.
“That’s it?” Katrina repeated.
“Just about,” I shrugged.