Pathfinder Tales: The Crusader Road

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Serrana stood. "That's a small target, but the yellow will make for easy aim."

  Jerrad, slipping his bonds, held a hand up. "He didn't hurt me, Mother. I fell and bashed my head. He found me and brought me here."

  "There, you see, Tyressa. I did him no harm."

  "Then I thank you."

  "Gratitude may be premature." Blackshield dismounted and pulled a coiled bullwhip from his saddle. "I wish you to think back to when you first came here. I told you there were rules. Primary among them was that Mosswater was off-limits. I told you that trespassers, if they survived, would be severely punished. We found your son escaping Mosswater. He admitted it."

  "Is that true, Jerrad?"

  "I can explain, Mother."

  "Later, Jerrad." She shifted her gaze back to Blackshield. "I recall your warning."

  "Had we found anyone else, we would have brought him to Thornkeep, tied him to the pillory, and administered the punishment." Blackshield smiled. "Because he's your son, we brought him here. It's important you all see him punished. A hundred lashes with this whip."

  "A hundred lashes? You can't!" Tyressa's hands curled into fists. "You don't administer that punishment to everyone. Treasure-hunters break your rules all the time."

  "Treasure-hunters don't lie to me about how they came to be in Mosswater. Your son claims he got lost and just found himself there, then ran for his life. He didn't even have the intelligence to snatch a handful of loot along the way. Treasure-seekers do just that, and then buy their way out of the punishment."

  Baron Creelisk stepped up to Tyressa's side. "How much?"

  Blackshield shrugged. "Ten gold crowns a lash."

  Serrana stood and brought her bow to hand. "A thousand gold? No one has ever paid you that."

  "Market prices wax and wane." Blackshield let the whip's coils snake to the ground. "That's the going rate now."

  The search parties shifted position, moving to surround Blackshield's entourage. Serrana's hand dropped to an arrow. Two of Creelisk's solders closed the town's gates.

  Tyressa smiled. "I believe there's room for negotiation."

  Blackshield chuckled. "You don't honestly imagine I can allow this challenge to stand."

  "Is it worth dying for?"

  "I dispatched one of my riders back to Thornkeep. If I don't appear by dawn, he'll issue orders in my name that will make you prey. Your supplies will never leave Thornkeep. Your people will be ambushed. Workers will be hired away or their families will be threatened. And arson... amazing how fast things can be made to burn. My life is immaterial, but my good will is vital if Silverlake is to last twenty years."

  Jerrad limped between his mother and Tyressa. "Mother, I did break the rule. I was wrong. I'll take the punishment." He tugged off his shirt, revealing the blood that stained his spine. "You can bind me to the bell post."

  Creelisk reached out and stopped the boy with a hand to the shoulder. "Jerrad, a hundred lashes could kill you. If it doesn't, it will leave you crippled and scarred."

  The boy looked up, tears having tracked down through the dirt on his cheeks. "But no one else will be dead."

  Ranall Creelisk pulled off his tunic. "I'll take ten of those lashes."

  Blackshield arched an eyebrow. "Really, my lord..."

  "I'll pay for the privilege. A crown a lash."

  Jerrad shook his head. "Ranall, no."

  "I can't have my teacher crippled, can I?" Ranall smiled. "You can work on me, first, tire your arm out."

  Baron Creelisk nodded at his son. "And then me."

  "My lords, I would not shed noble blood."

  Tyressa's nostrils flared. "Then you will lash me for my son's indiscretion."

  "And me, for my brother."

  Mulish Murdoon stepped forward. "Can you be giving me a nice scar so's I can be drinking off the story for the rest of my life?"

  Selka of the Wolfmanes slipped between Mulish and Ranall. "Haven't you got a bigger whip?"

  One after another, the citizens of Silverlake demanded that they get lashed as well. They all pushed forward and in. Blackshield's horses shied at the press of people. The baron's face remained impassive, but the whip's impatient twitching betrayed anxiety.

  "There are more than a hundred of you here. You mean that the boy won't be punished."

  Jerrad straightened up. "I'll take the first and last." He walked through the parting crowd to the bell post and grabbed on tightly. "You'd best get started if you want to be home by morning."

  Blackshield stalked through the crowd, stopping a good twenty feet shy of where the boy waited. He whirled the whip overhead, then brought it forward, testing its weight. It cracked sharply, once, twice, and Jerrad flinched each time.

  Tyressa's broken nails dug into her palms. Oh, Jerrad.

  Blackshield stepped closer, bringing her son within range.

  "Just like Mosswater, you brought this doom on yourself, boy!"

  The whip whistled and cracked.

  The blow knocked Jerrad into the post. It marked him with a dark welt from right shoulder to left hip. Blood oozed. Jerrad clung to the post, his knees buckled, but he didn't go down. He arched his back and his fingers clawed splinters from the wood. Muscles bunched in his throat as he strangled any outcry.

  Then he gathered one foot beneath him, and the other. A fist pounded his thigh. He hid his face from everyone, walking north into shadows.

  Tyressa wanted to run to him, to cradle him in her arms, but she held herself back. Instead she nodded in his direction, then walked forward, her head high. She placed herself where he had been, then pulled her tunic over her head and swept her dark mane out of the way.

  "Be quick, my lord. The night's chill rises."

  The whip ignited fire in her back. It exploded through her, a thousand flaming needles driven deep. She cried out, sharply and quickly. She had wanted to remain silent, but couldn't. It's okay. Jerrad showed them how to be strong. I've show that to be mortal is not a vice.

  She clutched her tunic to her chest and walked away. Ranall replaced her, and after him came Serrana and Baron Creelisk. After them followed the original settlers, the woodsmen, the newcomers and locals, all mixing with each other. Some made brave requests as she had, others remained silent. The Wolfmane hunter just glared. Those who didn't cry out got solemn nods from the others—but no one was berated if they gave voice to their pain.

  Tyressa slipped her tunic back on and stood beside her son, watching each of the citizens step up to be whipped. Blackshield delivered more than a hundred lashes that evening. About a third of the way through, after people he recognized had passed into a stream of anonymous individuals, he appeared to lose heart. He still struck people, and struck them hard, but the avarice in his eyes had dulled to boredom.

  Finally Jerrad returned to the blood-spattered post. He spread his legs and planted his feet. He hung on tightly, but said nothing.

  Blackshield coiled the whip as he strode forward. Blood covered his hand. He stepped up to Jerrad, slapped the whip against his back, then dropped the weapon in the dust. "You've ruined the whip. It's yours now. But understand, if you violate the rule—if you stir up the ogres—I'll be back with another whip, and as Silverlake shared your punishment now, so they will share its full brunt then."

  He turned and nodded to Tyressa. "I am told, Ogrebane, that bog mud will take the fire out of your back. Mark what I told the boy. The ogres destroyed Mosswater. Silverlake would be as nothing against them."

  "We have no intention of incurring further ogre wrath, my lord." Tyressa walked with Blackshield to his horse. "Safe journey home. My respects to your wife."

  Blackshield hauled himself into the saddle and departed. Soldiers closed the gates behind his company and Tyressa breathed more easily. Then she realized the citizens of Silverlake stood around looking at her expectantly.

  "There are no words to thank you for your bravery this night. I would thank you for saving my son, but I know we would all have done this for anyo
ne's son, or daughter, or any citizen of Silverlake. We came here as a way to redress an injustice done in Ustalav. Now, here, we have fought another injustice. Silverlake may be small. It may be one of the youngest towns in the world; but no place has more honorable or brave citizens. Remember this night well. Twenty years from now, and a hundred twenty years from now, stories will be told. Many will be those who claimed to have been here, but only the most courageous will bear the mark. Wear it proudly, my friends. No matter where we've come from, today we are all from Silverlake, and that is a claim that will spark envy in faint hearts, and tell others everything they need to know about you."

  Tyressa noticed, already, that young men and women had slashed the backs of their garments. At first she thought it was to relieve the pressure of cloth on wound. Then it occurred to her that they wanted to display the mark. They are wearing it with pride.

  She worked her way through the crowd and found Jerrad. "If you don't mind, I should like to speak to my son alone."

  Jerrad looked up at her, his eyes wider than they'd been at any time since his return to Silverlake. "I'm sorry, Mother."

  "It's not about that." She led him to the longhouse and their quarters at the far end. Tyressa sat him on a stool, freed the makeshift bandage from his head, then took up a razor and began to trim blood-matted hair away. "It's a nasty cut. I'll have to sew it shut."

  "Yes, Mother."

  "I thank the gods it's not worse. What happened out there?"

  "If I tell you everything, I'll violate a promise."

  "I think things have gone beyond any promises you've made."

  His voice grew smaller and his shoulders slumped. "Yes, Mother."

  She used water and wine and a soft bit of cloth to clean the inch-long gash on the back of his head. As she did so she listened to his story of seeing a goblin performing magic, then finding evidence that the ogrekin they'd slain had been reanimated. To that he added magical transportation to the heart of Mosswater. That would have been the most difficult part of things to swallow, save that he'd previously told her how Nelsa Murdoon was able to find shortcuts which seemed to defy the actual geography of Echo Wood.

  He didn't flinch much when she pinched skin flaps together and began stitching. "What happened to the grimoire?"

  "I dropped it when I was running. I wanted to go back, but Lissa told me to keep running. I did."

  "I see." Tyressa sighed. "So, tell me what you did wrong."

  "The sun will be up soon."

  "The sun can take care of itself. What did you do wrong?"

  He shrugged. "I guess I shouldn't have kept a secret from you. And I should have told you about the bones when we found them. I just didn't want to get Nelsa into trouble."

  "That's something I'll need to discuss with her mother." Tyressa resisted the temptation to slip her arms around him and hug him. "What else?"

  "When I found the ogre, I should have come back and told you."

  "Do you know why you didn't?"

  Jerrad sighed. "I guess I wanted to be... I wanted to do my part for Silverlake."

  "No, no, let's go back to that first part. What did you want to be?"

  "I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to do something that everyone could look at and... There are so many people doing so much. Mulish and Ranall, they're both..."

  "Older? Better trained?"

  "I guess.»

  She leaned forward and kissed the back of his head. "There was a time, Jerrad, when I was sewing up a cut just like this on your father's head. And he made a comment. He said, ‘You know, for every scar I have from battle, I have five from trying to do stupid things before I was ready to get them done.' Jerrad, I know you want to be all grown up. You want to be a hero because it's in your blood and, frankly, Silverlake needs heroes. It's not an easy life out here. People do need someone to look up to. They need someone to be a leader."

  "I don't think I'm cut out for that, Mother." Jerrad sniffed. "I'm not a hero."

  Tyressa's heart ached. "A hero does heroic things. You may not have gotten any jewels or gold from Mosswater, but you survived. You were smart and clever and, yes, a bit lucky, but you survived. More importantly, here, facing down Blackshield, you did the most heroic thing I've ever seen."

  "That's not true."

  "It is. Do you know why people took lashes? Not out of pity, but so they could show they were as brave as you were. You accepted an unjust punishment so they wouldn't get hurt. They honored that. You may see Mulish and Ranall as heroes, but they acknowledged your heroism tonight."

  "Really?"

  "Doubtlessly." She knotted off the thread and trimmed the end with her teeth. "What happened here tonight may be more important to our survival than anything else we face. Tonight every Silverlaker accepted responsibility for themselves and the settlement. Because of tonight, twenty years doesn't seem that long at all."

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Messenger

  Standing on the battlements near the gate, Baron Anthorn Creelisk watched the people of Silverlake as they bustled through their business. As summer cooled into autumn they worked hard—much harder than he had expected they would. Their industriousness had increased in the weeks after Blackshield had visited.

  Above him, a flag showing a black whip slithering across a yellow field fluttered high atop a newly erected flagpole. People still wore slashed clothing to show off the scars they bore. The smartest among them had stitched those rents closed, but they used contrasting thread to mark the presence of their scar. Good-natured backslapping had become a grave insult overnight, and use of any whip, even on animals, all but stopped.

  The only exception was the use of the original whip on those who wished to join Silverlake. As the story of Jerrad's defiance spread, a trickle of people who'd had enough of Blackshield and Thornkeep headed to Silverlake. Once they announced their intention to join the community, they'd bare their backs and Tyressa or her appointed lieutenant would hit them with the coiled whip. They never did any damage, but the rest of the Silverlakers treated the newcomers as if their flesh had been laid open to the bone. They gifted them with plaited leather bracelets as a reminder of the ritual.

  Creelisk understood the value of the ritual, though he thought the whip wasted on newcomers. He'd truly have lashed them, so their pain would unite them with the others. The courage and determination required to accept scourging would weed out the weak and undesirable.

  Aside from that minor disagreement with the ritual—an objection he never voiced to Tyressa—he greatly enjoyed watching the settlement come together. He had no doubt that Silverlake would survive the winter. Because of the citizens' frugality, the supplies he'd bought had hardly been touched. He worked with Tyressa to draw up lists of new supplies to be ordered from Ustalav—a few luxuries like wine, but mostly tools for the spring plantings and emergency rations should the weather turn especially severe. By no means would anyone in Silverlake become fat, but starvation was not going to haunt the settlement this winter.

  Just as with the Ogrebane story, the fact that a brave Ustalavic boy had cleverly escaped Mosswater and then defied Echo Wood's petty dictator would play well back home. Creelisk had already chronicled the events in glowing terms. He'd felt it necessary to embellish on the Mosswater episode, having Jerrad liberate gold and jewels which was the motivation for Blackshield coming after him. Extortion made much more sense to people than worrying about ogre raids. Once he'd composed his stories, he used Sunnock's old agent, Pine Callum, to carry the documents west.

  The flag snapped like the whip when Blackshield had struck him. Creelisk's flesh tightened involuntarily. He wasn't alone among Silverlakers to have that sort of reaction. Everyone noticed it in others, and they shared a quiet laugh about it. At least they did amongst themselves. No one, save his son, laughed with him; and no one laughed at him.

  But, just for a moment, as the ghost of the la
sh again burned his skin, Creelisk felt a kinship with the people. For the first time in his life he shared an experience with others in a very direct way. He fully understood pain, but it was an abstraction in others. Yet here they'd all been hit with the same whip. Their blood had mixed on the lash. Some philosophers and magicians would maintain they all were now inexorably spliced together on a metaphysical level.

  Because of that tenuous link, he considered whether or not Silverlake truly had to die. His plans had been predicated on the settlement being wiped out. The resulting anger among Ustalavs would set many things in play. Chief among them would be a backlash against the prince for having exiled innocents to such a savage place. The Vishovs would become romantic figures around which people would rally. With the prince afraid of the people, he'd be happy to give Creelisk sufficient troops for a punitive expedition into Echo Wood.

  Creelisk would eliminate the ogre threat, liberating Mosswater, and then would have all the vast wealth in that dead city to fund an army which could go back and unseat the prince. In Mosswater he'd find evidence that the prince engineered the ogre raid which destroyed Silverlake. The prince would, of course, deny it, but the people would rally to Creelisk so he could avenge the Silverlakers.

  If I don't destroy Silverlake... The ends he desired could still be reached. Creelisk would have to work hard to promote the Silverlake saga in Ustalav, as well as devote time and effort to the town. The groundswell of support would be based on the Silverlakers choosing him as a champion. After a half-dozen years, when Silverlake had grown to rival Thornkeep, assassins linked to the prince would have to kill the Vishov family. The advantage there was that he'd have Silverlake as a base of operations.

  That will take too much time.

  Creelisk smiled at himself. Timing was a consideration, but it wasn't the primary reason for rejecting that plan. If he let Silverlake survive, he would have to place himself in a subordinate position to the Vishovs. Only as an outraged disciple and believer would he be credible. All credit and praise would go to the martyrs.

  And I am subordinate to no one.