A Warrior's Burden: Book One of Saga of the Known Lands

by Jacob Peppers

  “No doubt not out of practice in getting black eyes, though,” she said, smiling. “I reckon we’re about to find out.” She turned to look at the stairs. “Herb—” she began.

  But just then, Chall managed to catch hold of the magic, gripping it tight as it thrashed around like an oily eel in his grasp. He focused his attention on it and then the magic was there, forming in his mind as clearly as it ever had, creating that which he had meant to create. At least, mostly. What he had meant to do was to create a dozen roses—always a sure fire way to a woman’s heart, at least, that was, when coin wasn’t an option. Instead, he was left holding a single, rather wilted lily.

  She turned from the stairs, scowling at him and then at the lily then back at him for good measure. “And what? I’m supposed to be impressed that you carry a wilted flower around with you, that it?”

  “What?” he said, frowning. Fire and salt, but roses would have been better. “No, that is—look, I just made this, you see?”

  She opened her mouth again, likely to yell for Herb, so with a quick, practiced flourish, he made the flower disappear. Only, the flourish wasn’t quite so much a flourish as a panicked gesture—Herbert really was a big man—and it had the side effect of also making a half-empty ale cup vanish to shatter on the floor a moment later. He winced, expecting the black eye she’d promised from her if not from the hired help, but the innkeeper was left blinking at him, apparently unaware or uncaring about the glass he’d broken. “How’d you do that?”

  “I told you,” he said, smiling triumphantly past his increasingly bad headache, one which a bit of prestidigitation always made worse. “Magic.”

  She frowned doubtfully but, at least, refrained from shouting for her bouncer, so that was something. “Do something else.”

  He grunted. “Want a free show, is that it? Well, I can’t say that I’m inclined to—”

  “It’s good enough, maybe I’ll let you stay the night. If it ain’t, you can take your ass outside and sleep in the street for all I care.”

  Chall considered that. He hadn’t performed much magic in the last few years, having largely found his “gift” to be more of a curse than anything. Besides which, he knew that doing so would make his headache worse than it already was. Still, he’d tried sleeping in the street plenty and didn’t particularly care for it, so he nodded. “Of course. Tell me, Palla,” he said, smiling his best flirtatious smile, “is there a man in your life? Or, better yet, one you wished would be in your life? Or, at least, your bed?”

  She scowled. “My personal life’s my own business, charlatan, just as my lovers are. Now—”

  Chall thought she was being far too optimistic if she thought he—or anyone sober enough to still be conscious—would believe that she had not only one lover but multiple. But he didn’t think that was the most politic thing to say, so he held up his hands to show he meant no harm. “You don’t need to tell me anything about him—or her, who am I to judge? All I ask is for you to picture this man—or woman—in your mind, alright? Just an image.”

  She frowned. “And then what?”

  He smiled. “Then, prepare to be amazed.”

  She studied him for several seconds then finally sighed. “This had better be good.” Then, she closed her eyes.

  Chall studied her for a moment. She really was unattractive. Rail thin with hands calloused from work, her hair a dull, lank brown. A man would have to be a far more powerful magician than he—or anyone, come to that—to see her womanly charms. Certainly, she had no curves to speak of, no softness neither in her body, nor in her manner. A damned miserable excuse for a—

  “Well?” she demanded.

  Oh, right. He took a slow breath, calling on his magic again. This time, it answered more quickly, if still somewhat reluctantly, and he winced as he performed his working and a fresh spike of pain lanced through his temple. “Okay, open them.”

  When she did she let out a satisfying gasp. “Faerie dust, but you were telling the truth.”

  Chall grunted. Of all the curses his people used, that was probably his least favorite. He’d had some run-ins with the Fey—far more than he’d ever wanted, in fact—and knew there was no such thing. Unless, of course, people referred to dust actually made from faeries after they’d been set ablaze, and somehow he doubted it. Still, the last thing he needed was to get on her bad side, so he sketched a bow—the best of which he was capable still seated at the table with his gut pressed against its wooden edge—more of a nod, really. “I said as much.”

  She smiled, and there was some slight warmth to it. She stared at him then, and he was about to ask her what was wrong, if maybe he had a booger or had messed up the nose—the damned nose was always the trickiest part—but then he realized that nothing was wrong. At least, not with him. She was trying—and failing miserably, it had to be said—to give him a seductive look. But doing so as if she had only read about it in some book or maybe not even that. All in all, a thoroughly shitty job. “So,” she said in a seductive voice which was at least as bad as the look, “you were saying you wanted a room, that it?”

  Chall considered that, considered whether the price of said room would be worth it or if he’d prefer the street after all. It took over a minute, and he would have kept considering it if a frown hadn’t slowly begun to spread on her features. “Well?”

  “Oh, right,” he said, giving a sickly smile, “of course.”

  “Well,” she said, offering him her hand, calloused and all, as if offering him some great treat. “Come on then.”

  Chall allowed himself to be pulled to his feet—well, he was a big man now, too many ales, so he had to do quite a bit of helping and there was grunting involved all around—but he paused as she tried to lead him up the stairs. “One thing, though,” he said, unable to help himself now, as always, in feeling that he was a charlatan just as she had claimed. For now, as always, he felt that he had messed up the illusion, somehow, felt that there was some terrible flaw in it.

  His friends—or, maybe better to call them coworkers—had always given him a hard time about that, about how he always thought there was something wrong with the products of his magic, but they could never understand. A painter might, or a poet, any artist that knew exactly those heights to which their work reached just as they knew that they were inevitably doomed to fail. True, a layman, looking upon their art, might see only what had been done right, but they, like Chall, would know that something was always wrong with it, that it had fallen short somehow, even if he could not pinpoint where the flaw lay. “Do I look like him? Your would-be lover, I mean?”

  She grunted. “Don’t look like yourself anyway, and that’s a plus. Now, come on—let’s see about that room.”

  ***

  Two men stalked through the darkness. Great trees loomed up around them, radiating malice, their shadowed limbs seeming to reach for these trespassers in their home, meaning to scoop them up and devour them. One of the men, young, little more than a boy, really, took note of this and was afraid. He walked behind the other, casting furtive glances around him, thinking that he was in danger. He was right to be afraid, for the place where they trod was an old place, one of old jealousies and old scores. It was a place of death, and it did not take kindly to the living.

  The man who walked in the front was a big man with wide shoulders, with arms and hands that looked as if they could crush boulders. There was a grim expression on his face, not because of their circumstances, but simply because it was the only expression he seemed to know. This man carried no weapon, yet he exuded a primal energy, a ferocity which only the world’s greatest warriors did, and any who saw him would know that he needed no weapon, for he was one. This one did not seem to take note of the danger they were in or, more likely, simply did not care, for his life had always been one of danger and murder and death, and he had thrived, going on when so many others had fallen.

  The men walked. And the forest watched.

  Then, the vision shifted,
changed, and the men walked through the wood no longer but stood at its very edge, gazing out onto fields covered in pale yellow and brown grass, signs of winter’s coming. Others crouched amongst that waist-high grass, but the boy was still too busy gazing back at the forest anxiously to take note of them. The other man, too, did not notice them, for his gaze was distant, and it seemed that he gazed back at some far different and—by the expression on his face—far worse, time.

  And so the two set off into the field, the grass rasping and crunching beneath their feet, and the others—at least fifty all told—waited, positioned so that the two would walk into the midst of them, would be caught unawares and surrounded, cut down by the blades the waiters held ready.

  One of those who crouched in the grass was familiar to Chall, and he recognized him immediately. He had been a good man, once—perhaps even a great one—that man, but he, like all things, had changed, and he was that man no longer. He was, instead, something altogether…different.

  The big man with the thick rippling muscles and the grim expression was also one he knew, one he had counted a friend, long ago, at least as much as anyone might have counted such a man a friend. He, too, had changed, his dark hair now with specks of gray, but his eyes were the same, eyes so pale blue as to be almost gray. Eyes that showed no compassion and no mercy. Killer’s eyes, Chall had always thought, and looking at them now only reaffirmed that belief. Killer’s eyes, yes, but eyes which did not see the trap into which he and the boy walked, a trap which was only moments away from—

  Chall woke with a gasp and a snort. He jumped up in bed, or at least intended to, but there was something—or someone—lying on his ample stomach, and his movement did no more than serve to send that something—or someone, definitely a someone, given the shout of surprise—flying off the bed and onto the floor to land with a clatter and a curse.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” a woman’s voice demanded.

  “Not me,” he said, finding it difficult to breathe. “Not me.”

  “What?”

  “Them!” he shouted, his voice hoarse and afraid. “Don’t you get it? They’re waiting for them, they’ve set a trap and they’re going to walk right into it!”

  “Who?” the woman demanded. As she climbed back to her feet, the swirling fog of panic which had clouded his thoughts faded, and Chall remembered that the woman he had so unceremoniously—perhaps even rudely—dumped onto the floor was the owner of the bed and the whole inn in which he found himself. The same woman who, just then, was staring at him like he was a particularly ugly bug she’d particularly enjoy squashing.

  “It…never mind,” he said, “i-it doesn’t matter.” But of course it did. It mattered a lot. He had thought that a lot of his feelings, what he now considered his misplaced loyalty, had faded over the years. The big man with the rock-crushing hands was his problem no longer. Let him be someone else’s problem, let the blood he spilled stain someone else’s clothes for a change. Chall wanted nothing to do with it. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with it then and he certainly didn’t now. And yet…

  “No,” he told himself. “Not this time.” There were a thousand reasons not to get involved and not a single good one to do so. Not. A. Single. One. And yet…“Shit,” he muttered. “You damned bastard.”

  “What did you call me?” Palla demanded.

  “Wait, what?” Chall asked, realizing he’d forgotten the woman was there at all, thinking maybe it was time he gave up drinking. “No, not—forget it.”

  She snorted. “That shouldn’t be too hard,” she said, shooting a pointed look at his stomach and down past it where the covers had been draped over his waist, covering his member—not that hard a task, he had to admit. A doily would have served well enough. Still, the blankets didn’t cover his ample gut or spindly legs, and even he had to admit that the parts which did show weren’t all that impressive. Maybe even grotesque.

  “Look, there’s no cause for that, alright? I mean…” He paused, giving his own meaningful glance—never let it be said that Chall couldn’t give as good as he could get. “It’s not as if anyone’s coming by to pin a ribbon on you anytime, unless there’s a livestock competition in town that I haven’t heard about.”

  “You son of a bitch,” she growled, then turned toward the door. “Herb!” she screamed. “Get up here! We’ve got some trash needs takin’ out!”

  “I’ll tell you what’s trash, your lovemaki—” Chall froze in his insult—not his best, maybe, but certainly not his worst—as the woman grabbed a candleholder off the nightstand and stared toward him. He leapt off the bed—or would have done, if his leaping days weren’t far behind him. What he did, instead, was a panicked roll which sent him spilling onto the other side of the bed from the enraged innkeeper. The next few minutes were spent in a mad, painful scramble as he tried to put on his clothes and fend off the mad woman and her candlestick at the same time.

  By the time he was out of the room and into the hall, one trouser leg on and his shirt hanging from about his neck, aching in several spots where he was quite sure there would be some livid bruises later, he had to count it a failure on both counts. “Crazy bitch,” he muttered, walking toward the stairs with what dignity he could muster while several other of the inn’s guests—no doubt woken by the woman’s screams and threats, how could they not be the way she was carrying on?—looked on.

  “Everything okay?” an older man asked. “Thought I heard someone cry out.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Chall assured him as he moved past, “just an upset woman, is all.”

  “Sounded like a man.”

  Chall turned to scowl at the man. “Crazy bitch,” he muttered again, then he started toward the stairs.

  “What’s that, you son of a bitch?” the woman screamed, and then she was in the hall, and Chall was forced to abandon what dignity he’d managed to gather—along with his trousers—as his stately walk turned into a mad dash for the stairs, stairs which he took two at a time—very nearly all at a time as his foot caught on one and he only just managed to save himself from falling.

  He made it down them though and reached the door, turning and meaning to shout some rejoinder, some answer to his current state, at the woman. He had even begun, getting so far as “You filthy ha—” when something which looked and felt suspiciously like a bronze candlestick struck him in the head, and he abruptly forgot what he’d been about to say. Hag, maybe? Or had it been harlot? He wasn’t sure as the first blow drove the thought from his head, and the second drove him out of the door, rolling down the inn steps to plop very unceremoniously—and with no signs of dignity anywhere in sight—in the dirt of the village road. Or, at least, it would have been dirt had the gods not seen fit to send what had apparently had been a real bitch of a storm the night before.

  Lying there, staring up at the pale morning sky, Chall consoled himself with the fact that mud was far softer than dirt and that he had never really liked those trousers anyway. They were only his second favorite pair. Of course, he only had the two pairs…one now. “Shit,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  He turned his aching head to glance dumbly over at the woman standing in the doorway, some poor bastard’s blood on the candlestick she held. She was still naked, and the early morning light didn’t do her in favors, that much was certain. He considered saying that, then remembered the way the candlestick had felt and decided against it. Instead, he picked himself up—with a bit of groaning and more than a bit of cursing, and stared at her—and the dozen or so onlookers that had gathered behind her in the doorway—raising his nose with as much dignity as he could. “My lady, I have found your establishment…inadequate and your hospitality, such as it is, appalling. I, then, will remove myself from the premises at once and take my business else—”

  “What business?” she snorted. “And say one more word,” she went on, stepping out of the doorway to reveal a man that, while not as big as the man from his dream, certainly see
med plenty big enough to make sure a man’s day went to shit and fast, “and I’ll get Herb to show you exactly how I feel about you and your business.”

  Chall opened his mouth to do just that, to launch into some scathing remark involving wrinkles or fence posts but in the end—and as was so rarely the case—greater minds prevailed. He told himself that his lack of speech had absolutely nothing to do with the big man with his arms folded across a chest so big he could have made barrels jealous, and everything to do with taking the high road. Then he turned and walked down the street, leaving the inn—and his trousers—behind him.

  The dream, though, could not be left so easily, and despite the people staring at him as he walked—including a guardsman who frowned suspiciously at his lack of trousers—Chall found himself remembering it, found the vision replaying over and over in his mind. Dead men stepping into dead fields—couldn’t be much more of an obvious omen than that. The other men crouching in the tall dry grass, waiting for them, their blades ready.

  He had seen the big man overcome incredible odds—impossible odds—but taking on fifty men, all of whom were armed and had the advantage of surprise? Even calling such odds impossible would have been far too optimistic. He told himself that it didn’t matter. The man’s problems were his own, had ceased to be Chall’s many years ago, and it would be the height of stupidity to make them his again. After all, what was the point of a man faking his own death and creating a new life for himself if he was wound up making the same mistakes he had the first time around? Better to make all new mistakes, better for the worst danger he faced to be an innkeeper’s hired tough instead of soldiers and Fey creatures with murder on their minds.

  Besides, it wasn’t exactly as if it were a surprise that the man had people looking to kill him. It seemed he always did, certainly, he had in the past. Live a life like he had, and the only people you knew ended up being ghosts and those who wanted to make you one. Only made sense that, sooner or later—sooner, if the urgency the vision had made him feel were any clue—he’d be joining them. A city of the dead, one which he had populated himself with each swipe of his axe.