And here it was again.
The baroness certainly had impressed Durine as capable of cruelty, but that wasn't what this smelled like. If she had simply wanted to torture an animal, she could have done it out at the Residence, if she didn't mind others knowing. She couldn't expect her guard not to talk at all, so even if they were closemouthed, whatever she was doing she didn't mind them knowing about.
Unless -
There was the slightest of sounds behind him, barely audible over the whispering of the wind through the trees.
Durine rolled to one side as the bearded soldier behind him charged, sword thrust out in front of him. He scrabbled back, crablike, the heels of his boots kicking against the dirt of the road, ignoring the damage that stones were doing to the palms of his hands.
But not quickly enough. The sword point took him high in the right thigh, only stopping when it grated against bone.
The man took a step back, and lunged again, but Durine was able to kick the point of the sword aside with a sweep of his good leg while warm blood poured from the wound in his thigh. It hurt surprisingly little - more of a shock than pain, although as he tried to stand, he found that his leg would barely support him.
Somehow or other, he had managed to get the hilt of his sword in his hand, and whipped his arm to clear the scabbard and belt away.
By the pulsing crimson and purple of the overhead Faerie lights, the enemy's face shone with sweat as he smiled. "Oh, so you're faster than you look, are you," he said, beckoning toward Durine with his free hand. "Come on, let's see how your steel moves, eh?"
The fool. With his lifeblood pouring out of his wound, all the other had to do was keep Durine occupied, retreating if need be, until the loss of blood led to loss of consciousness and Durine fell. But the idiot wasn't having any of that -
No. He was smarter than he wanted to appear. As he closed, his lunges and parries were only tentative. He didn't approach closely enough to be within a short lunge of Durine, and Durine was in no condition to lunge at him.
He was just toying with him, and there wasn't much time. With every thump of his heart, Durine's blood was dripping away, his life was dripping away.
Durine had a flask of healing draughts in his pouch, but his pouch hung from the belt that held up his trousers, and on the right side. He was right-handed, after all, and -
That was it. He switched his sword to his left hand, and dropped back into a ready stance, holding his opponent's gaze with his eyes as his clumsy fingers tweaked at the mouth of his pouch.
"Ah," Durine said as the man's eyes widened. His words were ragged and harsh in his throat. "You don't like fighting a left-handed swordsman, eh?" That was true enough - and common enough - but Durine wasn't a left-handed swordsman, and in a moment the other would realize it, and at that moment it would be all over but the dying.
His fingers seized the brass capsule and he spun the cap off and away with a quick, hard motion of his thumb.
Smooth as smooth could be, a glass vial, sealed with wood and wax, slipped into his hand. If he'd had the time, Durine could have scraped away the wax to pull out the wooden plug, and poured perhaps a quarter of the contents into his wound. That would surely be enough to seal it up, to heal it up.
If he had had the use of both hands, he could have simply snapped the vial open over his wound and let the healing draughts pour in. He really only should have needed part of what was inside.
But he needed one of his hands for his sword, and there was no time at all.
So he brought the vial up and into his mouth, and bit down, hard, glass shattering and grinding between his teeth.
His gums stung in a dozen places, for just a moment, and then the pain was replaced by a sense of warmth that flowed into his jaw, then across his face, down his neck and through his body, wiping away not only pain but even the memory of it.
He felt his muscles seize together and knit, while the aches in his body were washed away as though they had never been. He stood firmly on what had been blistered feet, and he spat out the fragments of glass, then spat again.
The bearded man closed, but this time Durine didn't retreat.
Instead, he pushed both of their swords to the side, then dropped his blade to wrap his arms around his opponent, his blunt fingers locking tightly behind the smaller man's back, lifting him up and off the ground.
Durine squeezed, as hard as he could.
The other's sword fell from nerveless fingers, and his hot breath, reeking of garlic and onion, came out in a whoosh across Durine's face. He writhed, trying to escape, trying to bring an arm or a knee up, but Durine held him too tightly, and squeezed harder.
Durine squeezed and squeezed, until bones cracked and the air was foul with the stink of shit.
And then he dropped the corpse to the ground.
It would have been worth a few moments to try to hide the body, but there was no real point. The dirt road was splattered with Durine's blood, and while nobody would be able to make it out by starlight and Faerie light, in the morning the evidence of a fight would be written on the dirt for anybody to see.
Whatever was going on down in the cave was a matter for another time, and Durine would make sure that there would be another time. With the right weapons and the right companions, he wouldn't hesitate to try to sneak up and take on a half-dozen men in the dark. But not now. He must have been more shaken than he realized. He almost forgot to retrieve and empty the dead man's pouch before he turned and limped down the road in the dark.
But only almost.
Chapter 13
The Road
Day broke all dark and wet and mean, with streams of water running down the single set of stairs down from the top of what remained of the curtain wall. One end had been blocked with rubble, it seemed, and a gutter from the flat roof of the keep had been extended not quite far enough to dump the water beyond the wall.
Pirojil stood at the window, thinking about how nice and dry it was here, and how wet and miserable Durine must be out in the woods. There was only so much you could do to stay dry under the best of circumstances, which this wasn't
Kethol probably should have been the one to go spying on the baroness; let the would-be hero once again suffer the irritations of his heroism. That seemed only fair, and while life wasn't fair - Pirojil had heard that more than once - Pirojil tried to be. It was something he had gotten from the Old Emperor.
Damn little else.
Erenor was at his elbow. "Nasty day out. I take it we stay here until things dry out?"
Pirojil shook bis head. "No. Kethol's seeing to the team. It won't take us more than a few moments to pack up. We're leaving this morning, as planned." The sooner they were out of here and back in Biemestren, the better. And more: the sooner they were out of here, the better. Dereneyl in particular and Barony Neranahan in general weren't good places to be spending a lot of time. "Go help Lady Leria pack."
"Of course. I live but to serve." Erenor smiled. "It will be my - "
"No."
The wizard raised an eyebrow. "No, what?"
"No, don't," Pirojil said. "Whatever you're thinking, don't. The lady's above our station, and even though I've little doubt your oily charm and perhaps a small cantrip or two could get past that, don't do it. You're a servant for now, until we drop her off in Biemestren." And then the wizard could go his way and the three of them could go theirs. Setting himself up in a new town would be no new thing for Erenor, and it would do Pirojil good to see the back of him.
But for now, having him along had already proved handy, and it might be invaluable.
Wizards were not common coin.
Erenor frowned broadly. Had he been on stage, even the patrons in the back row would have thought it overdramatic. "Very well," he said, with a tug on the forelock. "I shall go be a lady's maid, and help her to pack." By the time Pirojil got back down to the stables, the rain had eased to a sodden drizzle, and Kethol had the team hitched and his own horse saddled, wit
h Durine's large bay, its back bare, hitched to the back of the carriage. He took a look out through the open doors toward the rain.
"I figured that Durine wouldn't mind if we didn't leave his saddle and blanket out on his horse's back to get all wet," he said in a low voice. He pointed his chin toward the carriage boot. "Plenty of room in there; our Lady Leria packed lightly, all things considered."
The stable storeroom produced some extra oiled slickers, which would at least keep them less wet for a while, and a selection of wide-brimmed hats. With march provisions provided by Tarnell stowed away, it was just a matter of waiting for Leria and Erenor.
That was the point at which Treseen showed up, half a dozen of his guardsman trailing along.
"I really think you should reconsider leaving today," he said. "The weather is horrid, in case you have not bothered to notice."
And you brought along enough swordsmen to kill us easily if we don't reconsider? Pirojil kept his face studiously blank. "I have, Governor. But my orders are clear, and they don't say anything about staying out of the rain."
"Be sensible, man," Treseen said. "It would be a nice change." He gestured out at the downpour. "Yes, the paved roads will be passable for the carriage - except where they're in need of repair, perhaps - but anything unpaved has already turned to mud, and you're likely to get the lady's carriage stuck, and then where are you?"
Kethol grunted. "So we'll stay to the paved roads, at least until the weather clears."
"This isn't an inner Biemish barony, completely rebuilt since the war. All the roads, even the old prince's road, are gapped in spots."
Pirojil nodded. "Yes, we've seen that. But if peasants have been known to remove paving stones from roads for their own use, perhaps that's something the governor should take up with them, and not with us. We have our orders, and one of our number has already been dispatched as pathfinder."
Kethol nodded. "Amazing fellow, Durine. You'd think with his bulk he'd not be good at that, but not only can he slip through the woods like a spirit, he can scout out a path better than any man I've ridden with."
Pirojil's mouth twisted into a grin, but he made it a confident one. "The man is something to behold. When you can behold him."
He saw that Treseen took their meaning: So if there's going to be a bloodletting here, Governor, word will get out, unless you manage to bring Durine down, too, and you won't be able to do that.
Even if he didn't believe them about Durine, the implicit threat might keep the governor cautious. Pirojil wasn't sure how far Treseen would go, or why he was so nervous about them. But there were few witnesses, and if a fight broke out that left Pirojil and Kethol dead on the ground, perhaps that would solve several people's problems -
- unless one of them were free to tell another side of the story.
Were they being overly cautious? It was hard to say at all, and impossible to say for sure. Treseen was fealty-bound to the empire, after all, but...
"Really," Treseen said, bristling.
Pirojil felt Kethol shifting slightly to one side. It was going to happen now. His mouth tasted of steel and blood, as though he had, as he once had before in the service of the Old Emperor, stopped a blade with a chomp of his teeth. He forced himself not to swallow, not to drop his hand to the hilt of his sword, not to take a step back into a fighting stance.
No need for Pirojil to begin it. He would let the governor start it all.
And then Pirojil would kill him, while Kethol took out Tarnell, and the two of them would see how many could be brought down before they, inevitably, fell beneath the swords of the local soldiers.
The governor went blithely on. "I wasn't aware he had returned at all. I hadn't heard - "
"No, Cap'n," Tarnell put in. "He was here, all right Came in last night dropped off for a quick sleep, and then was out into the rain while it was still more black than gray out." His mouth twitched. "Not that he came in all that quiet; I could hear the clomping of that little chestnut mare he was riding long before I saw bis ugly face."
Treseen clearly wanted to question them all further, but he was interrupted by the sight and sounds of Erenor splashing his way through the mud, his hair already plastered down tightly against his head by the rain.
"The lady is ready, Governor," Erenor called, peering out from under the hand shielding his eyes from the worst of the rain. "May I tell her that her carriage is ready for her?"
Treseen's mouth twitched. "Of course."
Tarnell eyed him levelly, as though to say, / didn't do it for you. I'm not afraid of you. He looked over at Treseen, and barely moved his chin to indicate the governor.
Pirojil nodded. He hadn't needed to be told. The old soldier was still protecting his captain, and never mind that Treseen was not the man he had been twenty years ago. That wasn't something that Tarnell was to judge, any more than Pirojil would have thought it his place to judge the Old Emperor.
"I see no reason to delay the lady's journey," Pirojil said, returning Tarnell's smile.
Treseen misunderstood whom the nod and smile were for, what the nod and smile were for.
He thought it was relief that Erenor had intervened in their argument - the effete, sag-jowled idiot actually thought that Pirojil was smiling in relief.
He probably never would understand that it was a salute from one warrior to another, and Treseen wasn't the other warrior - Tarnell was.
Tarnell would have leaped at Pirojil's throat if his legs still had the spring of youth in them, and he would have whipped out his sword if that could have protected Treseen.
But, instead, he'd just said a few words, disarming the situation as neatly as a master swordsman, with a flick of a muscular wrist, could send a novice's blade tumbling end-over-end through the air.
Of course, that maneuver had saved Tarnell's life along with Treseen's, and Pirojil's, and Kethol's - but Pirojil didn't for a moment think that was the reason.
Tarnell's lips tightened into a thin smile that didn't quite hide the old lion's teeth.
No, that wasn't Tarnell's reason. That wasn't his reason at all. He might not even see it as a benefit.
Pirojil nodded, and raised his hand - slowly, carefully - in salute. They caught up with Durine exactly where Pirojil had expected they would: at the opening in the forest, where the path through the woods to the baroness's residence split off from the main road out of town.
At first, there was no sign of him out in the dreariness and the rain, and for a moment, Pirojil thought that something had gone dreadfully wrong, and that Durine wasn't where he was supposed to be. What would they do? They couldn't go after him, and not just because that would bring Leria into danger, but because searching for him in the rain would be -
But then a large and soggy mass detached itself from the underbrush and straightened into Durine's familiar bulk. The big man shook himself off like a dog, and, shivering, plodded his way through the mud toward the carriage, while Kethol carefully stopped his horse next to the carriage so as to block any possible view from inside.
"What is happening?" came from the carriage in Lady Leria's voice, higher and sharper than it had been before. "Is there some problem?"
Kethol leaned his face in through the window. "Not at all, Lady," he said. "Durine has just returned from scouting for us, and Pirojil is taking his report. Nothing of consequence, nothing to concern yourself with."
Durine's grip was every bit as firm as usual, but his hand was icy cold as he accepted Pirojil's help up to the driver's bench. It had been a long, cold, and wet night. Which was to be expected: the only way to stay dry if you were outdoors in a storm was to get indoors. Silently but with obvious gratitude written on his gray face, he accepted a heavy woolen blanket from Erenor and a corked bottle from Pirojil. He drank heavily, thirstily, until his huge hands stopped trembling.
"Long, wet night, eh?" Pirojil asked.
"Yes." Durine grunted. "I've had shorter and drier, and that's a fact." He eyed the bottle with naked longi
ng for a moment, and then recorked it with a steady hand. "And the sooner we get back home, the sooner they can send out somebody to find out what is really going on out here." He bit his lip for a moment, just barely drawing blood. "If they were to ask me, I'd say they start with a dozen troops of the Home Guard, or better yet, Ellegon. There's something wrong here, and it's more than the three of us can handle."
Kethol had joined them while Durine quenched his thirst. "Three?" he asked with a smile. "You're not counting Erenor?"
That drew a smile from the big man. "No," he said.
Durine had finally dried off by the time the clouds finally began to clear in late afternoon, just as the sun had finished clumsily trying to hide itself behind the wooded hills.
The hard rain had given way to gray drizzle, which had slowly wheezed to a stop. Pirojil had taken a turn riding point, and then another turn driving the carriage, leaving the soft, clean seats inside the carriage to Kethol, Durine, and Erenor. Lady Leria didn't enjoy looking at his face. Not that she said so, but she didn't have to.
Who would?
"Right about now," Durine said, as he rode up alongside Pirojil, his eyes not leaving the road ahead, "I'm thinking that we have an obvious plan for the night, and I don't much care for that."
"Well, I didn't like the baroness at first sight, but that didn't matter much, either."
"It would be nice if, for a change, what you and Kethol and I liked and didn't like made much of a difference." The life of a soldier wasn't largely about doing what you wanted. Life wasn't largely about doing what you wanted.
"Well, it would be a change."
"True enough."
Ahead, the road twisted along the curving ridgeline, ducking in and out of the fringes of the forest as though it were a rocky thread, left behind when some ancient giant had hemmed the world. It also provided more places than Durine cared to think about for an ambush, although there was nothing that he could do about that. Kethol had the sharpest eyes and perhaps nose, as well, and he was riding point. Down the slope, a village spraddled across the silvery cord of stream that marked the valley floor. It was a short ride off the road, and the web of dirt roads around it proclaimed it used to visitors. There would be an inn suitable for travelers, and that was the obvious place for them for the night.
Not Exactly The Three Musketeers Page 17