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

by Jacob Peppers

  Nearly two dozen wounded at least, most of them badly. The beast within him stirred once more in its fitful slumber, not waking, not yet, but close. Too close. The Fey did not usually leave wounded, for their victims served another, darker purpose than just as corpses to them, and they were not often wasteful. Neither would they ever be stalled in one of their attacks by villagers with pitchforks and shovels and a three-foot wall as their only defense. Which meant that this had been intentional. The ruined village, the wounded suffering and dying, all of it was, for Shadelaresh, a message, one meant for Cutter and him alone, one that was impossible to ignore.

  The room was in chaos, with people hurrying this way and that, some carrying water or cloth strips cut into makeshift bandages, some seeming only to hurry for the sake of hurrying, their minds too broken from the night’s madness and the day’s following spectacle to focus on what they meant to do. Cutter understood that, too, the madness that overtook a person when their world had been turned upside down, and they were faced with not just their own mortality, but the fact that the living were all not just made to suffer death, but often to suffer a terrible, agonizing death.

  There were others, though, who did not walk with purpose or without, who only stood, unmoving. They gathered in dazed clumps, not speaking to each other, only standing as if they were puppets whose master had foregone their strings, abandoning them. The only person who seemed to have any real idea of what to do was an old woman with a hunched back and one withered hand who moved about the room, seeming to be everywhere at once, and despite her frail appearance, she carried with her a strength of personality, of will that was obvious. Obvious, too, to those at whom she barked orders in a voice that did not waver or quiver with fragility or sadness, but one which was resolute, one which was focused not on the dying but on the living, on doing what needed to be done.

  Here, then, was their leader. Even as he watched, the woman paused at the huddled groups of those too stunned to do anything but stand there, saying words too low for Cutter to hear. Some of those in such groups, upon hearing her, seemed to blink as if waking from a dream, then set about doing those things that needed to be done.

  Not all of them, but enough to bring some order back to the chaos, an order that was threatened every moment by the despair lying thick like fog in the room. Cutter watched with appreciation as the woman shouted orders, noted the sometimes sullen—and quickly covered—stares of those she directed before they inevitably set about the tasks she’d set them. He wondered if they thought her cold, callous, immune by some lack of humanity to the devastation around her. Probably they did. That was a thing Cutter understood, just as he understood that they were lucky to have her.

  He had stood among such devastation countless times in his life, far more than any right-minded man should, and in such times he had discovered that it was often the most unlikely of people, shy clerks and elderly grandmothers, who rose out of the chaos as champions of order. In normal times, such a person as the hunched old woman might have passed her life quietly and unremarked, but war and chaos, while it brought out the worst in some people, it also, in some select few, brought out the best. Cutter knew that, just as he knew that he was not one of those, one of those champions of order. He was and always had been an agent of chaos, perhaps the greatest—or worst—of its agents. Still, knowing that did nothing to lessen his respect for the old woman, and he watched her for another few seconds, admiring her humble greatness while knowing he could never share it.

  “Cutter?”

  He turned at the sound of the voice to see the others watching him. Chall and the lad with curious expressions on their faces, as if wondering what he was about, and Maeve with a small, humorless smirk, as if she knew all too well. Probably she did. Anyone, seeing their group, the group he had led, in the past, might have thought he’d kept Maeve around for her skills with the knives she’d once carried or her ability to seemingly talk anyone into doing nearly anything, but they would have been wrong. Maeve’s greatest asset—one which, likely, even she was unaware of—was her ability to see past the superfluous to the heart of things, the heart of people. It was what made her great, what had, once upon a time, made her terrible as well.

  “Are you…okay?” Chall asked, his voice tenuous, uncertain.

  Cutter grunted. “I’m fine. Come on.”

  He led them toward the bar where a few stools—those currently not being used by the “healers” scattered about the room—were left empty. He looked around for whoever was manning the bar but the space behind the counter was empty, the shelves where liquor was no doubt normally kept in clean rows mostly empty save for a few bottles lying on their sides, the rest, he suspected, carried away to be used as makeshift disinfectant.

  “Might as well have a seat,” he said to the others. “This might be a minute.”

  Chall didn’t hesitate, half-sitting, half-collapsing wearily into one of the stools which creaked threateningly under his not inconsiderable weight. Maeve frowned at the mage as he let out a heavy sigh of relief then she, too, slid quietly into another stool, somehow imbuing the simple gesture with a dignity, as she always seemed to do.

  The boy, though, looked at the stool guiltily before glancing back at the wounded and those ministering to them. “Sit, lad,” Cutter said. “What can be done for them is being done already.”

  “But…but they’re dying,” he said, and Cutter winced at the volume of his tone as some of the would-be healers glanced their direction.

  “People die, lad,” he said softly. “It’s what they’re best at.”

  “We’re,” Maeve said.

  Cutter frowned. “What?”

  “It’s what we’re best at,” she answered, meeting his gaze with a challenge in her own.

  Cutter grunted. “Right. Anyway, what I mean, lad, is that we all have our own journeys and never mind that they end up in the same place. And the fact that others are suffering does not diminish your own. Now, sit. You have had a long journey—you refusing to rest will do nothing to help those you pity.”

  The boy opened his mouth as if he might argue but something—his own weariness, most likely—decided him and in another moment he sat. Cutter waited another few minutes, watching the lad seem to sink further and further into the stool, as if he were dissolving before his eyes like a snowman in the heat, then he reached out and clapped one of his hands onto the wooden counter.

  A moment later, a figure stepped around the counter, scowling at them and wiping bloody hands on a rag that was little better. Cutter was unsurprised to see that it was the hunched old woman who had been commanding those inside the common room moments before. A general among her army and in her command tent no less. “Ain’t got time to be pourin’ drinks just now,” she said. “In case you all hadn’t noticed, we’re a bit busy at the moment.”

  “No drinks,” Cutter said. “We only need rooms.”

  The woman stared at him as if he were insane. “Rooms? Here? What is it, you got a death wish? Like those mad bastards go chasin’ after hurricanes and the gods alone know what else?”

  “No,” Cutter said. “Not that. Though I’ve heard that lightning can’t strike in the same place twice.”

  The woman grunted, glancing over his shoulder at the wounded. “Maybe it can and maybe it can’t, though I don’t see as it makes much difference either way. You ask me, once is pretty well enough to get the job done. More than. Anyway,” she went on, bringing her attention back to him, “I wouldn’t hang around here, if I were you. I’m afraid Ferrimore’s hospitality ain’t up to what it usually is just now. Better you go to Valaidra. A big city, plenty of rooms there, no doubt.”

  “We won’t make it to Valaidra,” he persisted, not bothering to share that even if they did, they had Feledias and the gods alone knew how many others waiting on them. “We’ve had a long journey. We’re weary, and we need rooms.”

  “A long journey, is it?” the woman asked. “Well, last night I watched my husband get torn
apart and eaten—at least parts of him—by creatures most folk think are just bedtime stories for when mommy and daddy want their little ‘uns to wake up in the night screamin’. We all got problems. So forgive me if I’m not as sympathetic as I might be when you tell me you’re tired, maybe a little foot sore, and lookin’ for a room.”

  She watched him, waiting for what he would say, but Cutter said nothing, only watching her back, and after a moment she glanced over at Matt, the boy barely more than a puddle in the stool now, and some of the hardness left her features. She sighed. “Alright. Might be I can spare a room or two. But if you’re expectin’ warm soup and a bedtime story, hate to say I’m fresh out.”

  “The rooms will be fine,” Cutter said.

  She grunted. “Alright,” she said, then she reached under the counter and passed him two keys. He glanced up at her, and she shrugged. “Two’s all I can spare. The rest are taken up by folks bleedin’ or dyin’ or both. If it ain’t up to your standards, I ‘spose you can go sleep in the fields—plenty of room out there.”

  “Two’s good,” Cutter said. “Thanks.”

  “You go on and get some rest, lad,” she said to Matt, who mumbled what might have been assent. “And you, big fella,” she said, turning back to Cutter, “you want a piece of friendly advice—I’d get yourself in one of those rooms quickly as possible, don’t come out ‘til you plan on leavin’ Ferrimore behind ya, understand?”

  Cutter frowned. “No, I don’t—” He cut off as he felt a hand fall on his shoulder. Not much to go on, maybe, but it was enough, and he understood even before the man spoke.

  “A big bastard, ain’t ya?”

  Cutter fought down a sigh, turning in his stool to look at the man standing before him. He had the broad shoulders and thick, calloused fingers of a man who’d spent his life in manual labor, and the protruding gut which said he liked his ale more than was healthy. The two men standing on either side of the first and slightly behind him were also big, though not quite as big as the man himself and which, considering that men, when violence was on their mind, were not so very different than wolves, explained their respective positions easily enough.

  “Something I can do for you?” Cutter asked.

  The man flashed him a grin without humor, glancing back at his comrades. “Oh, I was thinkin’ there might be somethin’ we can do for you. Or maybe to you’d be more accurate.”

  Cutter had plenty of problems on his plate, and the last thing he needed was to get in a pissing contest with a man who, following the night’s events, had found himself with a lot of anger, a currency that only ever spent one way. Blood. “Look, we aren’t looking for any trouble, alright? We’ve been traveling for a long time and are looking for a room, that’s all.”

  “Weren’t lookin’ for trouble myself, last night when I laid down with my wife. Didn’t stop those things from comin’ in the night, rippin’ her out of bed and givin’ her a good chew for I bashed the bastard’s skull in. Sometimes, fella, trouble finds you whether you look for it or not.”

  “Oh, let off, Cend,” the old innkeeper said with a weary voice. “These folks don’t—”

  “No, you let off, Netty,” the big man said, holding up a warning finger. “You know well as I do who this big fucker is. This bastard is the one responsible for what happened last night.”

  The woman grunted. “That right? He the one that attacked us, that it? He the one that killed your wife and my husband? Got to be honest, Cend, he don’t much look like the thing that took my Berden from me. But if your aim is to pass around blame, well, why don’t we blame him for my stiff bones too, how’d that be? Maybe blame him for the bad weather or old Frank’s horse goin’ lame a year gone.”

  The man’s face twisted with rage, a rage only brought on by suffering some terrible loss. Perhaps in normal times, he was a nice enough man, pleasant. Probably his wife had thought so. But rage makes monsters of all men, and he was fully in its grip now. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth, you old hag,” he said, thrusting his finger at her like it was a sword. “You heard the same shit I heard from that green demon last night. There’s a man comin’ he said, one responsible for your fate and the fate of your loved ones. He described ‘em, shit, and while I was lyin’ there half unconscious, well, I listened, didn’t I? Listened so close I’d know that bastard, if he came, know him as well as I know my own brother, as I knew my wife,” he finished, the last word little more than a bestial growl. “And if that weren’t enough, that green demon, he said this man, if he showed up, would be carryin’ an axe, an axe, friend,” he said, staring at Cutter, “much like the one you’re carrying.”

  “Look,” Cutter said, knowing it would be worthless but trying anyway, “I’m sorry for what happened to you and your people. But—”

  “Damn your sorry,” the man hissed, lifting him up by the front of his jerkin with a not inconsiderable strength. “Someone needs to pay, you son of a bitch, understand? Someone needs to pay.”

  With his free hand, he drew a knife, a cruel, wicked looking thing, and he brandished it in front of Cutter’s face. “I’m owed, stranger. And I mean to collect what I’m owed. I mean to cut the price out of your flesh bit by bit until I’m satisfied, and—”

  “Hold on, Cend,” one of his companions said, narrowing his eyes and studying Cutter like he was a mystery in need of solving.

  “What?” the big man, Cend, growled. “Look, if you don’t have the stomach for it, then turn around and—”

  “It ain’t that,” his friend interrupted. “Only look at him, Cend. Really look at ‘em. Seems I know that face.”

  The man, Cend, frowned, studying Cutter carefully. Then, his eyes went wide. “Fire and salt, it’s him,” he said in a voice that was not full of menace, not at that moment, but shock and disbelief.

  “Yes,” the other man said, nervousness clear in his voice now. “That’s the Crimson Prince. I seen ‘em once before on campaign, and by the gods, that’s him.”

  “Prince Bernard himself,” Cend said, his tone emotionless in his surprise.

  “Prince?” Matt asked, his voice weak with exhaustion but still obviously confused.

  The men, though, paid him no attention, and Cutter didn’t have a moment to spare to explain it to the youth, not that he would have known what to say even if he had.

  “Look, Cend,” the third man said, licking his lips, “maybe we ought to just leave off, eh? Might be better for everybody if we just—”

  “Fuck that,” the big man growled, finally getting over his initial shock. “I’m owed, damnit. I don’t give a shit if he’s one of the gods himself, this fucker is responsible for what happened to Kira, he’s responsible for all of it.”

  “Yeah, sure, sure, Cend,” the second said, “but it’s the Crimson Prince. Let’s just go, alright? There’s Kira’s arrangements to make and—”

  Cend let out a bestial growl, one that, matched with the fury on his face, made it clear that he was past listening, long past. He lifted the blade over his head, and Cutter waited, trying to decide the best way to take it from him, trying to decide if he wanted to take it at all or let the blade finish its lethal arc.

  That was when Matt got off his stool, stepping forward. “Please, just leave him alone. We don’t—” His words turned into a shout of surprised pain as the man, Cend, backhanded him with the blade holding the knife, hitting him in the face. The youth’s lip busted and blood splattered as he fell back, tumbling over his stool to hit the ground.

  Some of that blood, of the boy’s blood, struck Cutter in the face. They had escaped a doomed village, had made their way through the Black Wood, without any harm—physical, at least—befalling the boy and now, here, this angry farmer had struck him for no reason, no reason at all. Cutter turned and looked at the boy lying there, a hand over his bloody mouth. The beast of his fury did not slowly come awake, not in a way that it might be soothed back down. Instead, it sprang awake, its teeth already bared, its claws out, as they always were.
The man holding him was saying something, but he might as well have been speaking in a different language, for Cutter could not understand it, and he did not care to. Maeve also said something but her words, too, were drowned out by the storm inside him, the storm which was the beast’s growl, and he could not make it out.

  And he did not try. The beast sprang forward, and Cutter, as ever, was carried along with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Some likened him, in his wrath, to a storm, but he was not a storm.

  Storms might be weathered, might be sheltered against, and there was no shelter, not from him.

  Some others said he was like a beast in his rage but this, too, fell short of the mark.

  Most beasts, after all, kill from necessity. The Crimson Prince, though, killed for no other reason than that he enjoyed it.

  No, not a storm, then, and not a beast.

  His wrath, his fury, was far worse than both.

  —Exiled Historian to the Crown, Petran Quinn

  Maeve saw it happening, that terrible transformation. Or perhaps transformation was not the right word, for it was not as if Cutter became something else. Instead, it was as if he were that thing all along, and the normal man, the man who spoke softly when he spoke at all, was only a mask he sometimes wore in the hopes that it might hide who he really was, even from himself.

  She had seen it before, that change, that becoming, and now, like then, she found herself watching with a dreaded fascination as the man took in the boy lying bloody on the ground, as the dull, emotionlessness left his gaze to be replaced by a rage that seemed to threaten to burst its way free of him. “Cutter,” she said, knowing it would do no good but knowing, too, that she had to try. “It’s fine, the boy’s fine, okay? Just a bloody lip, that’s all, folks have suffered a lot worse and—”