Steel And Flame (Book 1)

by Damien Lake

  Only one clerk had his vest tied shut, a nearly bald man who wandered from clerk to clerk in the manner of an overbearing craft master supervising his apprentices. This could only be Janus, the clerk he had come searching for. He kept moving, which left Marik no opening to ask his questions. Besides, there were several other men ahead in line who were being registered for whatever selection processes would separate the hopefuls from those worthy to enter the mercenary band.

  The old man who was probably the head clerk kept moving. Marik watched him, thinking as he did so. He had approached the guards without any forethought or planning with only the vague notion of adapting to circumstances while they played out. This time he wanted to have a better notion of where he would place his feet before he took the first step. But as whenever he had contemplated his meetings with these mercenaries before, his mind remained blank. Without knowing how the conversation would start, his mind stubbornly refused to entertain possibilities. What did it matter anyway, if he could not get near enough to Janus to speak with him?

  Then luck, it seemed, chose to shine on him after the gate fiasco. During his continued mental debate, the old man circled the command tent’s corner away from the crowd. There, a table held water canteens along with several scratched and dented metal cups. Marik followed. He spoke firmly as the balding man poured a cupful.

  “Are you Clerk Janus?”

  The aged man turned, the cup in his hands. “That’s Head Clerk Janus, thank you, and who are you, boy?”

  He hated being called boy, but wanted to foster a positive relationship with the old man. Marik held his tongue on the matter, ready to bite it in two if it threatened to run thoughtlessly away again. “The guards at the gate told me to find you.” Well, that’s close to the truth.

  “See the others at the desk to register for the entrance trials. They’re perfectly capable.”

  He started back for the desks. Marik rushed ahead. “No, I was told you could tell me about a man who used to be part of the band. I need to find him.”

  “What for?”

  Why does everyone keep asking that? “Because I want to find him.”

  “That’s not good enough if you really want me to help you. Why should I help you find a member of the band if he doesn’t want to be found?”

  “He happens to be my father.” As soon as he spoke, Marik could see the same thoughts rising in Janus’ mind as had come to the guard’s. “No, he didn’t run out on us, he just didn’t come back one winter.”

  “That amounts to the same.”

  “No. He always came back, except for the last time.”

  “Then he’s dead somewhere.”

  “I’ve no proof of that.”

  The old man snorted, then gazed at Marik in an appraising manner. “What do you do boy?”

  Was that a change of topic? Well, he could go along and see if it would lead anywhere. “I’m searching for my father.”

  “No! Don’t be stupid, you know what I meant. What do you do?”

  “I was apprenticed to a woodworker in a small town, but there’s no future in that for me.”

  “And your mama?”

  “She died not long ago.”

  “Mmm. So now you’re wandering the roads?”

  “Searching. As far as I know, the last contracts he worked were with the Crimson Kings.”

  “Does he have a name or am I supposed to guess?”

  “Rail Drakkson. He disappeared five years ago.”

  Janus stayed quiet for long moments. He became deeply lost in his thoughts. Several emotions seemed cross the unfamiliar terrain of his face for nearly two full minutes. Marik had no idea what the old man was thinking about so deeply, but bit his lip, hoping. Janus at last grudgingly allowed, “Fine. You come back here tomorrow and maybe I’ll help you.”

  Why the wait? Why couldn’t he help right then? Except it was better than nothing and Marik didn’t want to push his luck. The fact the old clerk had even considered helping him was enough. For the moment. Perhaps showing an interest in the old man’s job might win a shred of regard and increase the odds of him exerting some actual effort on the search.

  “How are you going to decide who to accept from all of these? You’re not going to take everybody, are you?”

  Apparently Janus had thought himself rid of the young man. After tugging his vest and taking the last swallow, he answered the question while he filled a second cup. “No, we definitely are not. We register the fighters who wish to join by listing their stated skills with various weapons, field craft and campaign abilities. Once we have an accurate picture, we must collate the files into a comparative catalog for the officials to review. Then everyone is tested to ensure that their actual capabilities match their braggadocio.”

  “Test them? How do you do that?”

  “By watching them fight of course! How do think?” He did not wait for an answer. “Everyone is matched up and given training blades. Then the officials watch and assign each man a skill level from A to E. Once they choose who is acceptable, and if there are still more men than openings, then we go to the next test on the other side of the hill.”

  Marik followed the old clerk’s finger, which gestured at the town’s walls. “Presumably there’s something over there that’s not over here.”

  “Of course there is, boy! Can’t you see the rock?”

  He nearly pointed out that no one could see through walls, then thought better of it. Instead he focused on the western corner. Now that he looked for it, he could see a variation in the ground’s color near the horizon line. It looked like rock rather than the grass and scrub brush under his feet.

  “So the other side is all stone?”

  “No, the other side is stony! It’s almost a cliff with boulders everywhere. All these toughies get to show how they go when the going gets tough!” Janus laughed for a moment. It was a most unpleasant sound.

  “It sounds harsh.”

  “It is harsh, boy! We need harsh men. The second trial always cuts enough men. The officials also reevaluate the rankings after it. Since your pay’s based on the skill rank you’re judged at, you want to show everything you have.”

  “And how many openings are there this year? I assume it changes from year to year?” The conversation was proving more interesting than he had expected. Marik had assumed the old man would drone on about the various boring details of the clerk’s actual practice. Instead he’d chosen to explain the application process for the band.

  “It depends on how many fools get their heads chopped off during the summer! And on how many members choose not to renew their places in the band for the next year’s fighting.”

  “And on how many people get ejected from the band I suppose.”

  “Yes, that too. I won’t know how many places there are until I get reports from the stationed units hired through the winter. They should get here any day now and the challenges can commence a few days after. I’d say about two hundred openings this year.”

  That would have struck him as an amazing number of fighters for a group unpledged to any specific lord if Marik had not seen twice as many camped on the town’s outskirts. He started to ask how the officials kept the peace with the volatile men who were judged unworthy when a clerk called to Janus from the desks.

  “They need me, you don’t. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Janus returned to his duties without waiting for an acknowledgement. Marik felt he had put in a good day. He left to find Maddock and the others in the mob.

  * * * * *

  Or at least he tried to. With the encampment large as it was, he anticipated it would be difficult to find the one camp he wanted in the entire mess. Just standing still he could see a dozen that were absent of his three friends. The difficulties were compounded by a total absence of planning. Men had set their camps wherever they wanted. With no order to the layout, returning to areas already visited became easy. Also, everyone constantly moved about the encampment. Camps seemed different t
he second time he encountered them with new men there or no men at all.

  The afternoon neared its end. Marik had no idea how many camps he’d checked. Once again he found himself near the road and it irritated him that he had gotten turned around for the fourth time. He stopped to rest and think.

  While he’d been unsuccessful at finding his friends, he had seen quite a lot to consider. The variety of weapons alone wielded by this mob astounded him. Marik had never seen or heard about many and could only guess at their uses. Also, several dressed in manners that suggested they were foreign to Galemar. He could only guess at their origins. Maddock had described many different people beyond the borders, but a handful eluded his scant knowledge.

  A few women sat near private fires, speaking to no one, and Marik at first assumed they were companions to men who were busy elsewhere at the moment. Except they all wore chainmail, and one sharpened a dagger while she ignored the men around her. Maybe their stories ran deeper.

  He had heard from his father and many travelers in Puarri’s that the Crimson Kings Mercenary Band was the best to be found if you worked as a sword-for-hire. It stood to reason it would attract many who wished to become part. Still, the fact that so many applied from so far away made him wonder. Did they travel here solely for the band trials or were they wanderers in their own right who happened to be nearby at the right time? Short of asking, he would never know, and he bore no inclination to do so. Best to hold his tongue around this crowd.

  During his search he also discovered several impromptu businesses. They must be men from the next town coming specifically to make a quick profit. Men who were familiar with this gathering of applicants, an event that probably occurred every year. Most laid long boards across barrel ends to create a makeshift tavern. Kegs sat on wagons behind several such boards forming long countertops, protected by guards who resembled mountains with legs. One or two blanket peddlers sat near the road hawking trinkets. Marik saw a man with his own tent who specialized in equipment repair. He had immediately thought this man a fool to believe he could earn a profit here. No professional mercenary lacked the skills to care for his own equipment, except the tent held a considerable pile of leather goods, chainmail and several small weapons, forcing him to revise his view.

  Marik rested under a sapling beside an enormous pile of chopped wood he assumed had been left here by someone from inside the town. Apparently the mercenaries didn’t want all these hopefuls to chop down the nearby woods to fuel their fires. Not far away was a fragrant latrine trench he had taken pains to sit upwind from.

  He pondered whether to put his stomach at risk by eating what the impromptu tavern masters claimed was food when Chatham strolled by, gazing at the various men in their individual camps.

  “Hey now! An’ here we have our young inquisitor taking his ease from the toils o’ the day. What have his tireless efforts netted him from the vast sea o’ mystery an’ unfathomable knowledge?”

  “A ‘come back tomorrow’,” Marik laughed. Chatham’s loquacious antics soothed him in a way it never had before. Finding one of the few men he regarded as a friend lent a sudden relief he was unprepared to accept. The mere re-encountering of a familiar face should not have so great an effect on him. After all, hadn’t he spent the last few eightdays training his skills as much as possible so he could stand on his own wherever the road led him? He would think about it later, and shelved the thought in a back corner of his mind so he could focus on Chatham’s running dialog.

  “As could only be expected, I’m sorry to say. A hunter friend o’ mine from long ago an’ far away once told me that no matter how well trained the beast might be, if presented with a dilemma outside the scope o’ its meager capabilities an’ training, it will revert to the behaviors that it knows best. Such, I believe in my heart o’ hearts, is the case with yon members o’ the Homeguard. Anytime one is unfortunate enough to encounter a situation in which an oral response is required, all it has to fall back upon is the tried an’ true, ‘come back tomorrow’!”

  “Actually, they told me to piss off, though not in quite as cultured a manner. The head clerk over by the registration tables told me to come back tomorrow.”

  “Ha! Even more to their nature is a clerk not helping you in any manner whatsoever, though such is hardly their stated job description, an’ so you prove my point, my budding young pupil.”

  “It must be their habitat. Who’d want to be stuffed in a room full of scrolls and going cross-eyed by candlelight anyway?”

  “If world-worn Maddock were present, he’d tell you not to knock a roomful o’ scrolls until you’ve read them all. Forlorn an’ desolate Harlan would tell you a roomful o’ scrolls is only as useful as the people who scribed them. I happen to say there’s nothing as useful than a roomful o’ scrolls if the jakes happen to be full up at a critical moment.”

  “Err…ah, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Marik said, trying not to laugh out loud. For all that he had disparaged Chatham’s frivolity, listening to him now was a comforting familiarity during this first solitary step into the world. “Where did you set up the camp? I’ve been all over this damned place.”

  “Over on the far side o’ all these circus troupes an’ two copper attractions. Down by the base o’ this lofty perch near where that small brook burbles so pleasantly to the ear.”

  Marik followed Chatham’s outstretched hand. He saw the group had backtracked along the road climbing the hill. The brook skirting the hill passed through a small wooded grove near the base before joining a larger stream further to the east.

  Apparently Chatham had seen enough of the competition he would be facing, for he turned back downhill. When they drew closer, Marik could see the unlit fire in its stone circle, laid out in readiness under the tree line near the water. The packs lay on the ground marking each man’s preferred bunking spot. Maddock sat in the shadows, a squat barrel left under a tree. Marik only noticed him when he raised a hand in greeting. Harlan was gone, but that was normal. Most likely he was setting his clever wire traps for the local small game to wander into.

  As he dropped his own pack on the fire’s unclaimed side, a surge of comfort raced through him. Why? They had only been apart for a short time. Had he fostered a dependency on their experience and skills that he’d been unaware of even as he created the bonds? Perhaps the…relief, is it relief?, he felt at rejoining them was a deeper recognition of his inadequacies. If so, then had his efforts at becoming independent amounted to nothing in the end? Whatever it turned out to be, Marik decided he would need to spend time in deep thought.

  For today though, he intended to relax and enjoy another night spent around the fire and being in company.

  * * * * *

  Different guards manned the gate today Marik gratefully noticed when he approached. The young clerk from the registration tables who accompanied him must have informed the guards of his errand beforehand. One opened a regular sized door to the side without exchanging a word. Inside, Marik found a short, ten foot corridor through the wall. He could see the logs forming the outer layer of the wall and a twin set forming the back side in the same style. Wooden panels covered the layered dirt and rock filling the space between.

  When he stepped through into the sun, Marik gained his first view of Kingshome. It was unlike any other town he had passed through.

  Before him lay an open area of hard packed earth, much too large to be a road. At minimum it stretched two hundred feet wide and three times that in length. His guide led him to the east side of this empty space, walking toward the large building at the far end. The smaller buildings that edged the miniature field were either shops selling general merchandise or taverns, with matching establishments lining the western side as well.

  The wide building they headed for was the largest Marik had seen outside Spirratta, appearing to fill the earthen field’s entire northern end. He could see three floors of windows on this side, which must be the building’s front because a short flight of steps
led to the doors. Detail work and design had been put into the door, and as they drew closer he could see other ornamental bits added to the building. Other buildings rose beyond the taverns to the east, none so large as this one. Most likely this building housed the mercenary band’s most important functions.

  His guide turned east after passing the last shop, mere yards from the building, so their destination lay elsewhere. Once beyond the fancy structure’s corner, Marik spotted a smaller version nestled behind it, only half as large yet with the same design work. There were also many windows across its two floors, giving it a ‘lived in’ feel.

  Still further north were two smaller plain buildings which together totaled the size of the first. Their destination appeared to be the closer one on the right.

  “This is the records office,” the young man told him when they entered.

  Inside, a countertop desk split the front room in half. Behind it stood several shelves divided into a honeycomb of smaller squares containing variously sized scrolls. On the eastern wall hung a massive map displaying the kingdom. Two men sat behind the desk, their apparent purpose to intercept anybody who entered their domain.

  Lifting a hinged corner of the counter, the young clerk said, “I’ll tell Head Clerk Janus you’re waiting.”

  The young man, whose name Marik did not know, had been waiting when he arrived at the registration tables at noon. After taking a seat under the map on one of the three wooden chairs, Marik wondered if he’d really been waiting for him or if Janus had simply told his staff to bring him to the offices once he showed up. A few minutes later the clerk reemerged from the building’s depths and left without a word.