The Price of Faith

by Rob J. Hayes

  They were walking their horses through a small woodland on the south side of D’roan’s province. Jez remembered the place well. A few months after she had won her freedom by killing Catherine she had camped just north of the woodland with D’roan and his army. There had been a small skirmish, the remnants of an old bandit warband had misjudged D’roan’s force in the dark and had attacked. They had caught the army off guard and done no small amount of damage but once the soldiers got themselves organised they routed the bandits and slaughtered them all. Jez had stood by D’roan and saved his life, cutting down four men and scaring off another three. Afterwards she and the lord who’s life she had saved showed the same amount of vigour with each other as they had on the battlefield.

  Jez hated to think of those days. D’roan had kept her prisoner and raped her and after she had won her freedom she stayed with him of her own volition. The very thought of who she used to be was enough to make her angry these days and right now angry was the last thing she needed.

  “What about with Thorn?” Rose asked.

  Jez sighed and looked at the woman. Rose winked back at her. “No.”

  “You’re definitely missing out there. You should see the size of him.”

  “Didn’t he kill you brother?”

  “Oh yes. I made certain to thank him for that time and again though the pleasure was all mine.”

  Jez was acutely aware that they were once again the centre of all thirty members of their escort’s attention. Still, she couldn’t help but laugh at Rose’s blatant innuendo.

  “So why work for Drake?” she asked the woman.

  “With Drake,” Rose corrected. “I work with our good captain. Chade belongs to me, not him, but as long as our interests and ambitions align I see no reason not to give him his own reins. He’s very skilled at getting what he wants and certainly not without his own talents.”

  “Exactly how does delivering me to Kessick align with your interests?” Jez asked pointedly.

  Rose shrugged and flicked her head so her night-black, hair rippled. “He asks me for a favour and I, in turn, ask him for one of equal value. Besides, I had some spare time and I couldn’t pass up the offer to meet you and enjoy your company.”

  “Right,” Jez said with a snort. “Hope I live up to your expectations.”

  Rose pouted and sighed. “You’ve been a little dour so far.”

  Jez glanced sidelong at Rose.

  “Just like that,” the woman said smiling.

  “Didn’t think there were any knew me out here. Last time I passed this way no one had ever heard of me and now I have the magistrate of Chade looking forward to my company.”

  Rose laughed a deep, throaty chuckle. “Everyone has heard of you these days, Jezzet Vel’urn. The Blademaster. The woman who killed the Bloody Angel and took Deadeye’s deadeye in the same duel. Not to mention killing her in the seat of her power. The Black Thorn may have got all the credit for the slaughter at Hostown but everyone is well aware of your part in the play. D’roan loves to boast about how many times he had you. Truly that man is insufferable.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “He’s close by,” Rose said her voice icy cold all of a sudden. “I’m certain Drake wouldn’t mind if we made a short detour to visit D’roan.”

  Jez spat. “And why would we want to do that?”

  Rose grinned, all white teeth and wide as a wolf. “We could kill him.”

  Jez studied the woman and quickly came to the conclusion she was serious. Starting to see why Drake put her in charge of Chade. I’ve met less ruthless laughing dogs.

  “I think I’d be just as happy never seeing D’roan ever again. Let him boast if he thinks he has something to brag about. Thanquil is being led to Kessick so the faster I get there the better. And what do you mean, dour?”

  “Well like this,” Rose said with a pouty sulk. “I expected it to be a constant thrill with you around. Adventures and daring escapades. I admit, I’m a little disappointed.”

  Jez ducked her head under a low-hanging tree branch. “So sorry to disappoint. I would have thought you got all the excitement you could want ruling Chade and keeping all the backstabbing in check.”

  “Hmmm? I think Chade might have changed a little since your last visit, Jezzet. I keep everyone in a tight line, more dull that way but there’s no dissent and a lot more order. My back remains largely un-stabbed.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “By removing the competition. By the time of my brother’s demise, and that came about not a moment too soon, he owned half of the city and Drake owned the other half. I, being the sole inheritor of my brother’s vast fortune, took control after our mutual friend, Drake gave me his own half. Hence, no more back stabbing and no more council. Just me in charge of everything.”

  Jez snorted. “Sounds dull.”

  “Yes,” Rose agreed. “It really is. Much like whoring only far less honest.”

  Jez could agree with that sentiment. Whoring was perhaps the only honest profession left in the wilds and it was also one of the very few she refused to take part in. Sex was used for fun and for negotiating her way out of potentially deadly situations but never for money.

  “So why didn’t you screw Drake when you had the chance?” Rose asked her voice the very tone of innocence. “I assure you, it’s an experience.”

  Jez wriggled, feeling uncomfortable in her skin. “Because I’m with Thanquil.”

  “The Arbiter?” Rose said looking around. “I don’t see him.”

  Neither do I. Jez rubbed at the wooden ring on her finger.

  “What makes him so special?”

  Jez remained silent her thoughts turning inward to Thanquil. She missed him like she’d miss a part of herself. He kept her on the straight and narrow, protected her more from herself than from anyone else and yet, whenever she was with him she could feel the danger like a coiled snake in the darkness waiting to strike. He excited and comforted and protected and scared her and he knew just how to make her…

  “Oh I see,” Rose said with a grin that stretched from ear to ear and made her somewhere just short of radiant. “You love him.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a strange feeling, is it not? Indescribable and yet so warm and welcoming and thrilling and… I felt that once.”

  “Really?” Jez asked a little too quickly, eager to move the conversation away from her and her own feelings. She wasn’t certain she was ready to admit how she felt to herself let alone anyone else.

  “Mhmmm. There was a boy, Fey, back in Bittersprings. He was young and vigorous and had a wicked tongue.” Rose winked at Jez. “He started off buying time with me every so often, once a week or so, whenever he could afford it. Soon he started robbing folk coming to visit the springs just so he had enough money to pay for me. There was a time he would come every day and sometimes we didn’t even fuck, just enjoyed each other’s company and talked and he would hold me.”

  “What happened?” Jez asked surprising herself by genuinely caring.

  “My mother happened. Killed Fey in the street. Gutted him like a fish. She tried to make it look an accident, a simply robbery gone wrong for the thief but the woman trained me and I knew her work well enough to see her hand in it. There was nothing I could do, she had the magistrate by his shrivelled balls and nobody cared over one dead gutter rat never did anything for anyone but me... I miss him sometimes, even now. Is that how it is with your Arbiter?”

  Jezzet didn’t answer. She stared out into the thinning forest lit by rays of bright afternoon sunlight and remembered a time being attacked in a forest just like this. A time when she had been forced to fight for her life and all other considerations were forgotten. She desperately wished someone would attack them right now.

  Thanquil

  Rilly chewed noisily on a leg of chicken, or at least something that looked like a leg of chicken. Thanquil had yet to see one of the birds here in the wilds but, judging by the rest of the co
ntinent’s wildlife, he assumed they had something like chickens but much, much larger. The size of the animals here always startled him, the largest thing that lived back in Sarth was the domesticated cart horse and, large as they were, even they paled in comparison to some of the beasts that roamed wild in the wilds.

  “So what d’ya do ta them?” the little woman said around a mouthful of roasted meat. Shreds of half-chewed chicken hit the table.

  “Nothing. I just let them go. No sense in murdering folk who have done nothing to warrant it.”

  “I’m certain they were very grateful for that,” Anders chimed in from the other side of the table. He had two empty tankards beside him and third swaying about in his hand and Thanquil knew for a fact he had emptied his hip flask at least twice earlier in the day. “After all it was only their children who were evil, the parents were just innocent bystanders in the whole affair.”

  “I judged them to be innocent of their children's heresy.”

  “How benevolent. Did they thank you?”

  “Reckon he did right thing,” Rilly said waving half the chicken leg at Anders. “Least he has the intestinal fortitude ta actually do somethin’.”

  Anders snorted into his beer sending a wave of dark foam lapping over the edge of the pewter tankard. “My dear I have met a great many murderers in my time…”

  “Ya are gettin’ on in years.”

  “And I have never met a murderer quite so abhorrent as a righteous murderer. That being said, you’re a wonderful person and a joy to be in the company off. Please don’t burn me.”

  Thanquil couldn’t help but laugh. The Black Thorn had left him in the company of Anders and Rilly in the dubious location of the local tavern while the other members of the bounty hunter crew turned in a long standing bounty on a notorious murderer and rapist who went by the name of the Wilds’ Slasher. In was neither an original name nor one the culprit had earned but one she had given to herself, carving the letters into her victims in a crude scrawl. While the crew had no proof that they had completed the bounty it was apparently common knowledge that Thorn had caught up with the Wilds’ Slasher just outside of Foundhaven and a short chase later the murderer had suffered extreme, pronounced internal and external haemorrhaging; Anders’ words which Thanquil took to meaning the Black Thorn had stuck an axe in her.

  They were now just a few weeks travel from Absolution and from Kessick and already Thanquil could feel his gut churning. He was unsure of the heretic’s forces, unsure of whether their little band could get close enough to deal a killing blow and unsure whether he had the courage and will power to go through with Inquisitor Vance’s plan should he be unable to kill Kessick. The plan had more ifs, buts and maybes than a sinking ship had fleeing rats but there was too much at stake should he fail. A few heretics inside the Inquisition was one thing but Kessick was forming an army of demons in human form and should he ever lose control, Thanquil had no doubt that army would sweep across the world causing untold destruction. Only the Inquisition was able to deal with such a threat and, while they had the tools, Thanquil was no longer certain the council of Inquisitors had the fortitude for such a fight.

  “You know, I think we could do business together, you and I,” Anders slurred at Thanquil from the other side of the table. His eyes were lidded but bright as though feverish and he pointed a four-fingered hand at Thanquil, the little finger ending in a small stump.

  Thanquil simply narrowed his eyes in response causing the drunkard to grin. “I’ve been watching you, my good man, and I’ve noticed you like to…” he lowered his voice to a harsh whisper, “take things that aren’t yours. I too am fairly proficient in that particular field of procurement. Perhaps we might collaborate?”

  Rilly sucked at her teeth then spat a small bone onto the table. “Thorn might not understand ya when ya throw around ya fancy vocabulary like that, Anders but I sure as fuck do an’ Thorn said no attention.”

  Anders simpered. “My dear with a face as droll as yours and a mouth as eloquent as a chamber pot you draw all the attention we could ever not require.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “My point entirely. Besides what the boss does not know… hmmm?”

  Thanquil shook his head. “I’m not sure why I’d want to participate in such an exercise, Anders,” he paused. “I have this feeling I’ve met you before.”

  The drunkard paled. “Well we have just spent no small amount of time locked together in close quarters on a ship in a cabin the size of an outhouse. Besides, I’ve heard all us blooded folk look the same. Strong bone structure in the face, I believe. Now generally one partakes in the art of lifting to attain things that are not, in the strictest sense, theirs. The advancement of one’s monetary stockpile is also something of an incentive.

  “I myself am well able to spend an inordinate amount of money in a miraculously short period of time.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice even further. “The expenditure of money is something of a speciality of mine.”

  “That’s why Thorn don’t let ya nowhere near the coffers,” Rilly said with a smug grin.

  Anders nodded drunkenly. “And the boss is quite right to insist on such a precaution. However it does leave me with the awkward need to fund a very expensive habit I have spent a considerable amount of time nurturing.”

  Rilly sent a withering glance at Thanquil. “Anders has a habit of getting himself beat up.”

  The drunkard snorted. “And far worse. I have suffered more injuries since meeting the boss than in the entire previous years of my life combined. Many of them doled out by this little vixen right here.”

  Rilly stuck out her tongue. “Shouldn’t try ta touch me when I’m sleepin’.”

  “You don’t tend to complain when you’re awake, quite the opposite in fact, why should the tenuous matter of your consciousness make any difference?” Rilly opened her mouth to reply but Anders forged on. “Besides, that was not the habit to which I was referring. Drink, my good girl. Alcohol.”

  “Wouldn’t mind a couple more my own self,” Rilly agreed.

  “Precisely. You’re far more agreeable when drunk. As, I assure you, am I.”

  Thanquil laughed and fished a silver bit out of his pocket. He set the coin spinning on the wooden table. “Knock yourselves out.”

  Anders grinned wide and scooped the coin into his hand. “Oh I intend to try.”

  Both Rilly and Anders turned out to be excellent drinking partners but unlike the little woman Thanquil did not try to match Anders drink for drink. He was happy to get drunk and sincerely hoped that in doing so he could stave off the demon dreams but he had no intention of getting so inebriated he lost control. An Arbiter not in control was a disaster waiting to happen, especially one currently under the subversive influence of a demonic sword and Thanquil had no doubt he was under the blade's influence to some degree. His dreams were proof of that. He doubted the drinking would work but at least it was fun to try.

  The three traded stories, quips and in Anders' and Rilly's case meaningful glances. The relationship there was obvious if not obtrusive and only seemed strange in that Anders' looked to be at least twice Rilly's age. Not that Thanquil had cause to comment; Jezzet was was only slightly older than half of his age even if it didn't look that way. His faith and Volmar's magic made him age more slowly as it did all Arbiters.

  By the time the Black Thorn and the rest of his crew returned Rilly was sat in Anders' lap whispering in his ear and giving the occasional wriggle. Anders in turn seemed to be doing his level best to ignore the little woman and carry on telling a story about how he had once escaped the siege of Fairweather, a small port settlement in the pirate isles, by hiding himself in a chest.

  “...I made certain to bury myself under a pile of ladies' dresses of course. Quite why the pirates decided to take that chest I'm unaware but I have to say I'm glad they did. I much prefer surviving to burning alive in a raised town. Gave them the fright of their lives when they opened the chest a
board their ship though, let me tell you.”

  Anders quieted as Thorn sat down at the table but Rilly paid them no attention, proceeding to chew on the drunkard's ear. Ben pulled up a chair with a laugh and Henry sat down next to Thanquil shooting him a meaningful shrug in the direction of the others. Thanquil returned the shrug in kind and Henry grinned at him. He couldn't help but marvel at the change in the woman from the angry little ball of hate and murder who had once professed to hating witch hunters and who had also once tried to stab Jezzet on a bridge over the river Jorl. The Honin did not sit, Suzku took up position behind Henry and she gave him the barest smile from underneath her hat.

  A quiet murmur spread throughout the tavern and plenty of gazes turned towards them. It seemed the folk of Farpoint were not unaware of the Black Thorn's presence in their town.

  “You two done?” Thorn asked.

  Anders only cleared his throat but Rilly looked over her shoulder at her boss. “For you, Thorn, anything,” she slurred and disentangled herself from Anders lap walking around the table to the Black Thorn. The big man grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her down onto the chair next to him. She pouted but said nothing else.

  “Left ya here ta stop 'em gettin' into trouble, Thanquil,” Thorn said with a grin. Thanquil merely waved his own tankard at the man in response. “Right ya are then. Wouldn't mind me a drink too.”