by Tim Pratt
"That's the very one," Rodrick said. "Anytime I'm in the south, when people say the River Kingdoms are full of uncivilized idiots, I say, ‘Not so!' and tell them about the River Freedoms. Many of those I talk to begin to consider moving here immediately, to take advantage of such enlightened policies."
The bandit chuckled. "Now, I could make an argument that this place isn't part of the River Kingdoms at all. They call this part of the country the Stolen Lands, and that's because Brevoy reckons it was stolen from them, and claim it's officially part of their kingdom—though they don't do much to enforce it, I'll grant you that. At any rate, Brevoy has no such rule against tolls. But fine, suit yourself. If we can't charge a toll, then let's call this little exchange something else—how about, say, a robbery? Not highway robbery, since that requires a highway, but dirt-track robbery, at least. Does that make you feel better? I was just trying to be a bit more civilized than your average riverland bandit, but I can see courtesy is wasted on you."
When Rodrick next spoke, his voice was flat and dead, all pretense at joviality abandoned—because he judged he'd given Cilian enough time to get in place. He said, "Go away and let us pass, or we'll kill you."
The man snorted, and the men with him laughed. "There's three of you, and eight of us, and that's not counting the ones back in the trees—"
An arrow took the chief in the neck from behind as he spoke, the point bursting through the front of his throat. He toppled from his horse, which reared back, turned, and ran away, dragging the chief's corpse along behind, his legs tangled in the stirrups.
"Be still!" Rodrick shouted, before the startled remaining bandits could rush them. "Your men in the trees are all dead by now! And my men in the trees obviously have arrows pointed at you. And then...there's this."
He drew Hrym and held the shining blade over his head, drawing gasps from the remaining bandits. "My sword. Do you see how his blade shines white? That means he hasn't fed recently. When my sword gleams white and pale, that means he's hungry—and he hungers for blood. I have only to gesture, and he can draw the blood from your bodies, pulling it from your eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and other orifices, leaving you as white and pale as he is now ...but considerably more dead. You should see my sword when he's fed. His blade glimmers like rubies. Now, I don't like to feed him the blood of this many men—he becomes too strong then, you see, too hard for me to control—but if you leave me no other choice ..."
One of the bandits made a move—perhaps an attempt to raise a weapon, more likely just a panicked and pointless gesture—and an arrow from the trees struck him down.
"Let me drink him," Hrym intoned, in a rather horrid imitation of a Chelish accent. "Before his blood cools."
The bandits didn't give them much trouble after that.
∗ ∗ ∗
Rodrick made the bandits throw all their clothing and armor in a great heap, and Zaqen set the whole pile aflame. They left the men naked but alive, running off eastward through the marsh, to Obed's evident disgust.
"You're the one who's always saying we don't have time," Rodrick said, watching the bandits flee. "Cilian killed all their snipers in the trees, and then two here at the bridge—that proved our point sufficiently. Speaking of which, Cilian came through, didn't he? It's nice having a ranger with a gift for sniping around."
Obed stared at Rodrick in silence, but it was an annoyed silence. Rodrick was more and more able to read Obed's moods. It helped that the priest had only three: annoyed, emotionless, and bloodthirsty. He sighed. "Listen: it wasn't mercy to let them live, it was pragmatism. The thing about a group of men like that is, they'll cooperate if they think they'll survive. But if they realize you intend to kill them anyway, they start to fight back, and vigorously. You don't get to be a bandit in the Stolen Lands without being a hard man. Why risk any of us being injured when it could be handled so ...well, not bloodlessly, obviously, but with less blood, anyway."
Obed turned and walked away from him.
"I think Obed is just bothered by what a decent man I am," Rodrick said to no one in particular—which meant, as usual, to Hrym on his back. "Why, I'm practically holy."
"Wholly useless, anyway," Hrym said.
"You could have killed a few more of them." Zaqen was returning from the bridge, where she'd presumably sliced the eyes out of the unfortunate twitchy bandit. "The chief has been dragged halfway to Numeria by now. What a waste. He had nice eyes, considering how ugly he was otherwise."
"Why do you take the eyes, anyway?" Rodrick said. "I haven't asked, out of fear that you'd actually tell me, but I must admit, I'm curious."
"Your first instincts were good," Zaqen said. "You don't want to know. But if you annoy me, I might tell you someday, perhaps just as you're about to start eating."
"I'll keep that in mind. What do we do with their horses? We could tether them together and lead them to the next settlement, make a bit of coin—"
Obed began slapping at the horses and shouting at them, making them scatter off through the marsh, and Rodrick sighed. "Is he always so casual about wasting the spoils of battle?"
"It was hardly a battle," Zaqen said. "And my master does not want for money. It's not worth his time to sell these horses. I'm not sure he'd waste the time it would take to bend down to pick up a pile of gold coins he found in the middle of the road."
"To be so rich ..." Rodrick said. "I knew I should have gotten religion."
"The key is to not care about money." Zaqen clapped him on the shoulder, and it was a sign of their long time traveling together that he didn't shudder from her touch a bit, even though her hand seemed strangely misshapen, the bones too soft, or perhaps merely arrayed in an unusual configuration. "It's like chasing women, Rodrick. If you're desperate, they can smell it. You have to act like you don't want it, don't need it, and don't care, and all the things you want will come to you."
"Your man Obed certainly doesn't act aloof about this artifact we're going after."
"True," Zaqen said. "And look at how annoying the trip to retrieve it has been so far! My master seldom listens to my advice. I have higher hopes for you. Let's collect Cilian and get moving. If this is the Stolen Lands, Brevoy isn't far."
Chapter Fourteen
The Unstolen Grails
To Rostland!" Rodrick raised his mug in the tavern, and a ragged cheer went up from the farmers and pigherds gathered in the room. To befriend a crowd as pessimistic and generally grim as this one had taken a certain amount of aggressive cheerfulness, but Rodrick was equal to the task. A man who toasted the country where he happened to be standing at the moment could become almost as popular as a man who bought rounds for the house, and this way was considerably cheaper. He might have cried "To Brevoy!" but the inhabitants of this particular region, once the independent nation of Rostland, were still a bit touchy about their subjugation to their northern neighbors, and appreciated the pretense that they retained some independent identity. Rodrick, who was no more patriotic than an alley cat, could make use of such sentiments without entirely comprehending them.
Rodrick was delighted to be out of the River Kingdoms and into Brevoy. From here they'd head toward the northern border, recover this artifact—they'd probably have to plunder a tomb and slay slumbering horrors, but he'd done that sort of thing before—and then he and Hrym could enact their final plan, which was a bit hazy in the details, but essentially boiled down to steal everything and run away."
Rodrick wound his way through the backslapping, smiling crowd toward the dim corner table where his party waited, Obed and Zaqen heavily cloaked, Cilian perched awkwardly on the edge of a chair as if he'd never encountered such advanced technology before and wasn't sure how to use it. Rodrick set mugs before them—Cilian peered into his as if looking for guidance in the bubbling foam, which he probably was—and then dropped into a chair of his own. Hrym was sheathed on his back, and keeping quiet so far.
"We made it." Rodrick smiled at his cohort. This was the first village of an
y size they'd encountered since entering Brevoy, close enough to the East Sellen River to have some accommodations for travelers, and Rodrick was pleased at the prospect of sleeping in a bed tonight—ideally not alone. "So what now? We head north and recover this item we're looking for?"
"Not precisely," Obed said. Zaqen stiffened and looked at him sidelong, which was curious, since she usually just nodded along when her master spoke. Rodrick thought she looked surprised, and there was no way that could be good.
"Our journey will be a twisting one," Cilian muttered, staring into his beer. "I see trees upon trees, and icy walls, and fire, and blades, and spikes—"
"Yes, I'm sure we'll see all those things, we're in Brevoy," Rodrick said. "What do you mean, Obed? Why do I think ‘not precisely' is code for ‘not even remotely'?"
The priest held up a warning finger. "Just a moment." He reached into his robes and withdrew a palm-sized wooden box, placing it in the center of the table. Obed flipped open the lid, revealing a dull blue gem that pulsed with a flash of light and then went dark. Suddenly all the sounds of the crowded tavern dropped away, leaving silence, though Rodrick could still see drunks singing and arguing and laughing all around them. "Now that we have some privacy," Obed said, scowling, "I can tell you. The artifact we seek rests within a vault. That vault is guarded, of course, but even more importantly, the vault is locked. There are four keys, precious objects given over in days of old to the safekeeping of priests loyal to my god, but in the centuries that followed, the purpose of those keys has been forgotten. They are now seen merely as historical curiosities, family heirlooms, or valued relics. My researches have revealed that all four keys are still located in Brevoy—the magics laid upon them long ago were strong enough to keep them nearby, at any rate. One of the keys, in Restov, I have made prior arrangements to purchase. The others ...will have to be acquired by other means."
Rodrick groaned. "You mean we'll have to steal them?"
Obed shrugged. "Or win them, or convince their owners who refused to answer my letters to sell the keys to me anyway, now that I am here in person. The keys are worth far more to me than they are to those who have inherited them."
"Yes, fine, but if someone came to me and said, ‘Would you like me to take that ancient mysterious key off your hands?' my first question would be, ‘Why, what does it open?' My second question would be, ‘And how much is my cut?'"
"In that respect we are fortunate," Obed said. "The keys do not look like keys. They are not even truly keys, precisely, in the sense of being shaped metal objects one inserts into locks to operate tumblers. These are merely objects of power, which, when brought together in the proper place, will cause the vault to open."
"So they don't look like keys," Rodrick said. "That's lucky. What do they look like?"
Obed shrugged. "They look like magical objects. A jewel, an ancient vase, things like that."
"Oh, good," Rodrick said. "People never hesitate to part with that sort of thing."
"You're a thief," Zaqen said. "You're good at convincing people to part with things they'd rather keep. You should be happy about this."
From his back, Hrym chuckled, but Rodrick did his best to look stone-faced and offended. "You call me a thief? You know my reputation as an honorable mercenary—it's why you sought me out. If you seek to impugn my honor—"
Zaqen patted his hand. That was worse, somehow, than shouting or recriminations. "Rodrick. Did you really think we'd heard you were a warrior of great renown? Yes, we did hear that, don't worry, the rumors you caused to be spread were quite effective, though the details of your heroism were strangely difficult to substantiate. But we aren't from the River Kingdoms, Rodrick. My master and I come from farther south, and we also heard tales of a man and his sword of ice in Andoran, and Isger, and Cheliax—and those stories were alternately tales of daring banditry and clever double-crosses and confidence games that left rich men and widows considerably poorer and a bit bewildered. We heard you sold your magic sword no fewer than a dozen times, but that all the amazing talking swords you sold would only repeat the same phrases over and over, and melted after a few days."
"I always liked that one." Hrym's voice muffled by the sheath. "Rodrick would do a few flashy demonstrations with the real me, then reluctantly part with a fake. Making icy replicas of myself is easy enough for me, and it's not so hard to have a wizard cast a spell to fake the voice."
"I have sometimes strayed outside the conventional path of warrior heroism," Rodrick began, but when Zaqen laughed, he sighed and gave it up. "Yes, fine, I'm not a warrior. Not primarily. I can fight, but it's never seemed the best use of my talents."
Zaqen nodded. "We knew that, too. But we had faith that Hrym could handle any fighting that needed to happen. And I suppose my master must have wanted you around because he knew there might be a certain amount of stealing to do. I assumed he just wanted a thief to disarm any traps or pick any locks we encountered on the way to the relic, but I see only a portion of the grand tapestry of his plan." Somehow she managed to say that last part without sounding even remotely sarcastic—and Rodrick had to face the possibility that she meant it sincerely.
She prodded Cilian in the arm. "How about you, huntsman? Do you object to illegal behavior, in the pursuit of a godly end?"
The huntsman took a sip of his beer and winced. "How can anyone own anything? Even the clothes I wear were once the hides of beasts, and when I am dead, they will be stripped from me. My weapons are fashioned from the materials of the forest, wood and bone and gut and feathers, and they will return to nature when I am done with them. I do not object to stealing, because I do not believe any object can truly be owned. They only pass through our hands, for a time, and then pass on."
"Speaking as an object, I approve of that worldview," Hrym said.
"We will travel to Restov first," Obed declared. "That key will be the easiest to obtain." He rose and headed for the stairs leading to his room without another word.
Zaqen slumped against the wall, and Rodrick eased a bit closer to her. "You didn't know about the keys, did you?"
"I knew there was a vault," she said. "I knew it was magically sealed. I just thought we already had everything we needed to open it. I know my master likes to keep things to himself, but ..."
"It's a shame he doesn't trust you," Rodrick said. "Not trusting me, that's just good sense, but your loyalty seems beyond any reasonable question—"
Zaqen came out with one of her eerie giggles. "You won't drive a wedge between my master and me, and I won't join you in any plot to steal all his earthly possessions, either."
"Oh, now, that's not fair, I didn't mean that—"
"Of course you did. I'm sure you would have worked your way up to inviting me into a conspiracy, very deftly and skillfully, but I'd hate for you to waste your time trying to cultivate me. I told you, Rodrick, we know who you are, and what you are, and we hired you anyway. Anything you think to try, we're apt to see coming. Anyway, Obed can keep all the secrets he likes. I owe him more trust than he owes me. And I know this is wasted breath, Rodrick—you can't stop scheming, I'm sure, any more than Hrym can stop being a sword—but if at all possible, just accept your weight in gold, and serve us loyally, all right?"
"Your suspicion wounds me," Rodrick said.
"As long as we understand each other," she said glumly. Then she brightened. "It's not so bad. Am I really so eager to brave a vault of horrors in search of a great relic? I'm glad we'll get to travel around Brevoy a bit first. I love seeing new places. The world is fascinating."
"That is true," Cilian said. "Though I prefer wilder places."
"This place will be plenty wild once it gets a little later and the clientele gets a little drunker," Rodrick said.
"I meant the forest," Cilian said. "That kind of wild place."
"As a conversationalist, you're a wonderful archer, Cilian," Hrym said.
"Thank you," the huntsman replied, apparently in all sincerity.
; "I'm going up to my room," Rodrick said. "You two have a pleasant time."
Upstairs, in a small, oddly shaped room that was nevertheless indescribably wonderful because it was private, Rodrick unsheathed Hrym and laid him down upon a scattering of gold coins on top of the dresser.
"Ahh, that's nice," Hrym said. "Keep getting gold. I could get used to this."
"You aren't bothered by this? Obed neglecting to tell us we'd have to trek all over Brevoy looking for these keys of his? Or by the fact that Zaqen and Obed are suspicious about our motives and expect us to try and steal from them?" Rodrick sat on the edge of the narrow bed and began tugging off his boots. When had he last slept with his feet bare? He couldn't even remember. He kept his boots on in the forest so his toes wouldn't be gnawed by wildlife.
"So what if they're suspicious?" Hrym scoffed. "We've robbed people who knew we were criminals before. You've robbed the same people twice, on more than one occasion."
"True. But it does require a more refined approach, more planning ..."
"You're just lazy," Hrym said. "Embrace the challenge. I've been making nice with Obed, if you haven't noticed, listening to his whispers while you're sleeping. I'll get him to trust me, and we'll use that against him. As for the other thing, I don't mind tromping around Brevoy for a while. I'm immortal. It's not as if Obed is wasting my time. I've got plenty of that. Obed said the keys are magical. So after the vault is opened, we can steal the artifact and the keys and turn a tidy profit."
"Why can't Cilian be the one with the saddlebags full of gold?" Rodrick said. "I could convince him to give me his every last coin in the space of five minutes."
"If the half-elf were rich, someone else would have stolen his money long before we ever found him," Hrym said. "We're onto a good thing here, anyway. So you have to travel a bit more. The exercise will do you good."
"Spoken like someone who gets carried everywhere."
"It's a good life," Hrym said contentedly. "Speaking of the good life, I thought you were going to flatter a few barmaids and see if you could find one sufficiently broad-minded to let you bring her upstairs?"