Peril & Profit

by M. H. Johnson

  "Due to fear inspired by wild accusations declared by a man who himself has done all he can to avoid questioning, you are ready to throw your lives away at this moment, by actively attacking the king's own guardsmen, an act that you well know would be treasonous, and rightly so! Don't you recognize when you are being manipulated? Think about it. Why in the name of all the Nine Hells would the king seek a two-front battle in the midst of a siege? Facing an army that has the entire continent in its grip? Do you truly think him a madman and a fool both?" The crow tisked and shook his beak in the breathless pause. "Any tactician worth his salt knows that only with good morale and a united front can a city hope to survive a siege, and even then the odds are iffy against a force as vast as the Empire's. By the same token, any tactician worth his salt also knows that were his positions reversed, and he desired to take a city quickly and forcefully, nothing would be better than sowing dissension within the enemy's ranks. And were he to succeed in enticing the city's wisest and most important figures, its greatest leaders, the city's nobles no less, to get slaughtered in a pointless brawl. Now wouldn't this too be a worthy goal of an enemy general?"

  Sorn paused to let his counsel sink in. He well knew that were it not for the niggle of fear he had awoken in them, forcing them to take stock of the fact that they were about to fight opponents that utterly outmatched them, they would doubtlessly have been too inflamed to even consider his words. Of course, the fact that they had been temporarily stunned by the very bizarreness of being addressed by a talking bird hadn't hurt.

  Indeed, the nobles had a bitter pill to swallow, and Sorn couldn't help but fear that their prickly pride might cause them to object to what was to him plain as day. He only hoped that they could appreciate the cruel irony of the situation that they were getting themselves into, once he depicted an accurate picture of it in its true grim colors.

  "Think of it, good sirs and wise nobles. For the sake of one man's screaming accusations, one man playing on your fears like the piper's own lute, you would kill yourselves in a pointless battle with the city's very enemy lying in wait for any advantage outside the gates. Consider this as well. You worry about pretexts for seizure? What greater cause could the king have for seizing a noble's estates than if the very estate's wardens were to have openly attacked the king's own personal guard? That, gentlemen, would be what dooms your families to poverty. Not the bizarrely contrived conspiracy theories asserted by Lord Vorstice here."

  Sorn paused a moment and couldn't help but take note of the fact that some of the men had the wide-eyed looks of having just wakened from a dream. They gazed in no small amount of alarm at their own raised rapiers and the steely-eyed king's men glaring at them only a handful of feet away. Many hastily sheathed their blades, others dropping them altogether with a yelp to the grimly amused smiles of the king's well-disciplined men.

  Foolish boys, every one of them. Sorn could read the look on the captain’s soldiers plain as day, and knew it was good that the king’s men saw the nobles more as silly fops than as threats to butcher. A minimum of bloodshed would be best all around.

  Vorstice, of course, was the first to recover, screeching in outrage.

  "Can't you see that bird is the wizard's own familiar? He is trying to cajole you out of defending your very lives so that they may butcher you unawares! It's all a magic trick, I tell you. Just further proving how deeply the king and his wizards are in cahoots to slaughter us all to a man!" Vorstice's declarations seemed to ring hollow, however, his voice laced with panic that had been lacking before, the mocking smile wiped clean from his face.

  A few of the younger hotheads looked angry and confused both. The majority of the young men who had been so hotly inflamed minutes ago, however, now appeared to be wondering how they had gotten into this most precarious position in the first place.

  Sorn was quick to address Vorstice's accusation. "I do not deny that my nature is a magical one, but as all should know, my form is that of the crow, and so I speak for the sake of prudence, and for the benefit of all! My words are true, this I swear to you. Please heed my heartfelt caution before you proceed further down a path that will lead to your doom and the disgrace of your families, all the more tragic for being so unnecessary. These guards do not wish to fight you, they want only to be left in peace to conduct their business. Business, I might add, which may well assure the safety and freedom of the very loved ones you yourselves strive to protect. For if treachery is indeed afoot, the cost of letting it escape our grasp could well be the doom of this city.

  "Think, men, you have all heard the hideous crimes the Empire perpetrates against its conquered peoples! The stripping of all rights, titles, and property of their nobles. Making men who once owned vast estates nothing more than base slaves now forced in chains to oversee the wealth and assets that used to be their pride and glory, allowed to eat no more than moldy bread while their captors feast on the victuals the former lord still must supervise and tend to with a skill that must surpass all earlier efforts, despite his deprivation and degradation. For to fail to do so would mean watching his children, one by one, be dragged off screaming to the auction block. The boys as often as not being sold into slavery in the copper mines, slowly dying as their bodies sicken and waste away. Even their final hours are spent in an agonizing delirium as their vicious masters score their flesh one last time with their whips, extracting every last ounce of sweat from the broken tattered creatures that were once vibrant, happy children, before they are allowed to collapse at last, death being the only mercy they will ever know."

  Sorn took no satisfaction in seeing near the entire council blanch at his words. No doubt many were fathers of fine young sons, and Sorn had just pricked their darkest nightmares, his own guts roiling as he forced himself to visualize these horrors, so as to better convey just how dire their situation truly was.

  "Just as ruthlessly, one's daughters are sold, wide-eyed and innocent, into a life of terrible degradation. Fragile lives once so filled with happiness and innocence, now forced to bear the depredations of dozens of soldiers for the remainder of their days, death the only path of escape most of those girls will ever find.

  "That is the fate that awaits every man's family in this city, should Caverenoc fall, and that is the very fate that the king's soldiers seek to save you and your children from, by uncovering treachery before it festers and consumes this city entire!

  "And you would think to attack these men striving to save your families as well as their own? What in the name of the seven gods are you thinking of? Can't you see that you yourselves are being manipulated by an instigator? Why else would you be pitting light blades and robes against master swordsmen?"

  Noble and city watchman alike stared mutely at the crow, utterly dumbstruck by his words.

  "I understand my counsel may shock you. But for your own sakes, and those of your innocent children whose love you hold like a fire in your heart, I pray that you heed my words carefully. You wonder now, I am sure, how you can tell what really is true, who really is the vindicator and who is guilty of conspiracy, no?"

  At that Sorn received some halfhearted nods, including Cantrose's own grim one, though most continued to simply stare at Sorn in open-mouthed wonder.

  "Then I will put this suggestion to you all, and you may deem it fit or not as you choose. Please understand, it is for you to decide whether you will do as I suggest. The King's Guards simply wish to be able to part from you in peace.

  "Here, good sirs, is what I recommend. First get a vial of tell-all from whatever healer you know and trust. Get two, for all I care. With that being done, give a portion to Vorstice and ask him the following questions."

  Vorstice, his look one of outraged terror, screamed his fury at these suggestions. "This is madness! Absolute madness! We will not be manipulated by a dark demonic silver-tongued construct at the behest of wizards!"

  "Now Vorstice," Lord Cantrose said coolly, "You have had your say. Let the bird speak. We can make our ow
n decisions, as the bird so aptly pointed out."

  "But Lord Cantrose!" Vorstice's sputter of outrage now seemed frantic. "It is the most sacred of rights that no man be forced to take serums or potions of any sort in the lord's court, lest it be a magicked stratagem of his enemies to destroy and discredit him. This whole thing is a well-contrived trap, I tell you, and we are playing right into the hands of the demon as we speak!"

  Lord Cantrose shook his head. "Actually, Vorstice, it would be more accurate to say instead that we as the council have the right to refuse any request for tell-all or any other drug or spell being cast on our own. We still, however, have the freedom to supersede that guideline with our own numbers in closed council, should it be judged prudent to do so." Lord Cantrose glared at Vorstice. "Now shut up and let the damn bird say his piece."

  Sorn bobbed his head. "Thank you, Lord Cantrose, though I'm hardly damned, mind you. In any case, the questions I suggest that you ask Vorstice here have, it may surprise you, absolutely nothing to do with the king, or Halence, or wizards, or anything of that nature. These questions are strictly for your benefit, and your benefit alone. They are as follows:

  "First off, ask Vorstice whether or not he is planning any action that he knows will be detrimental to his fellow nobles in terms of the wealth, status, and privilege they currently enjoy. Next, ask him what he thinks will happen to your children in the near future, should whatever stratagem he may be planning come to pass, and ask him how he feels about this. You may even ask him simply, should Caverenoc fall, would he himself be planning on buying your children when they are forced to auction, and what he plans on doing with them if he does.

  "Those questions are all I suggest, good sirs. Nothing at all to do with royalty, one way or another. The only thing they pertain to is the well-being and safety of your own lives and loved ones, and what Vorstice's intentions are in regards to them both. That is what I suggest to you, and that is all I have to say on this matter, though I will make you these following gestures of good faith, should you be willing to consider my recommendation."

  Sorn flapped around a minute, noticing that he had, as he had hoped, every man's attention.

  "If my proposal is acceptable to you, I will vouch for the guard here delaying our investigation long enough for one or more of your number to obtain some tell-all to ask Vorstice what questions you deem fit, so long as it is obtained quickly. And furthermore, should this be done quickly and expediently, I promise on behalf of Sorn, in whose name I do not lie, that each and every one of you lords present here will receive a sum of not less than twenty gold royals in honor of your considering what is, after all, only my suggestion."

  The lords immediately broke out into intense conversation, and Sorn deftly landed on the shoulder of the grim-faced captain. "I pray you forgive me for speaking with an authority that was not mine to claim," Sorn said apologetically.

  The captain, however, only shook his head. "You spoke as a diplomat would. I would be in poor grace indeed to begrudge you the time alone that you requested on my behalf after having already saved us, I suspect, from the spark that could easily have led to civil war within our very city at the worst of all possible times. Not to mention preserving my men for whatever lies ahead. No, good crow, I do not begrudge you your words, so long as you never speak in my place again."

  The last was said with grim forcefulness, allowing Sorn to realize how far he had, in this culture, overstepped his bounds, as well as letting him know how honorable the captain himself was, to have so gracefully yielded his own hard-won authority for the greater needs of the city. His smile, in fact, was a forgiving one.

  "Fret not, bird. I know you did your best, and I am sure your ways are not the ways of man in any case."

  "Err… right, Captain," a mildly abashed Sorn conceded. "Well, hopefully they will agree to my suggestion, especially with my enticement."

  The look the captain next gave him was a bemused one. "So you just happen to have a few thousand odd gold royals lying about, do you? A lot of wealth in this magic bird business I suppose?"

  "Well, no, not exactly," Sorn said smugly. "Let's just say Vorstice's outrage isn't completely without merit."

  "By all the gods!" the captain said, chuckling wryly. "Don't tell me you cuckolded the man out of his favorite nest egg now did you?"

  "If by that you mean robbed him blind? Absolutely!"

  Their voices were low but at least a few of the Royal guards shared amused smiles, and Sorlin was grinning outright. "What a useful little fellow you are.”

  At this time the lords' animated conversation had died to a murmur, a now strangely respectful sounding Cantrose waving his hand to get the attention of Sorn. "Excuse me there, bird. Were you serious in your claims of compensation, should we see fit to follow through on your proposal?"

  "Oh, absolutely, good Lord Cantrose!" Sorn affirmed happily, "you need fear not on that account."

  "Well, if you will forgive my asking, how did a bird, talented as you are, manage to get his err… talons on such a find?"

  "Oh, fret not for that. In fact, one of your own can vouch for the wealth now at my disposal."

  All the lords looked surprised at that.

  22

  "So tell me, Lord Vorstice," Sorn asked, savoring every word. "You claim that you were given no tell-all, correct? Merely coerced by the hideous tortures of Halence and a pack of warlocks. Do I have the right of it?"

  Vorstice's eyes blazed in fury, and he spat at Sorn in contempt. "That is correct, you vile creature, though it degrades me to even speak to one such as you."

  "Oh, all right then. Hmm, I guess that does put me in an awkward bind. I could have sworn I managed to come across ten sacks of gold each containing exactly one hundred gold phoenix somewhere. Now, where did I find it? Was it in a sewer somewhere? No… where could it be?"

  Vorstice screamed in horrified outrage, his face mottled with ugly purple blotches, so great was his blazing fury. "You hideous maggot ridden piece of horse vomit! You vile little piece of rotten tripe! You stole my gold, you monstrous demon spawn, you stole my gold!"

  Vorstice screeched, his fury now transcending his ability to give voice to, and charged full force at the bird which just happened to choose that moment to settle calmly on the captain’s shoulder. The captain was perfectly still in the face of Vorstice's furious onslaught. His grim little smile was the only indicator that he registered Vorstice's charge at all, until the moment his lightning fast jab hit Vorstice full force in the face with a sickening crunch, instantly stopping Vorstice's insane charge, and causing the goaded man to crumple into a heap. Vorstice moaned piteously as he cupped his shattered nose, broken for a second time that day, and spraying blood everywhere. More than one witness assumed that the incensed noble had merely tripped, the lightning-fast jab having happened so quickly that most of the watching nobles and city guard had missed the blow entirely, the only evidence being Vorstice's now supine form.

  "Ooh… I'll bet that hurt," Sorn tisked mockingly. "By the way, not to pour salt and vinegar into your wounds or anything, but you know that carefully hidden small steel chest with all those diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds cleverly concealed beneath a foot of dirt under that chest full of gold?" Sorn sighed. "Really quite exquisite pieces, to tell you the truth."

  Upon mention of his most precious treasures, now no doubt in the hands of his enemies, Vorstice without thinking stumbled to his feet once again, this time drawing several gasps from his erstwhile cronies as, perhaps without thinking in his desperate fury, he wrenched free his ornamental knife, holding it expertly with his uninjured arm. It was a blade that looked keenly sharp, for all its gaudy inlay of silver and gold. Heedless of all consequences, Vorstice charged the taunting crow with a wild scream of outrage, lunging with his dagger with such fury that even did it miss the target of his wrath, it looked certain to plunge into the captain upon whose shoulder Sorn perched.

  And perhaps Vorstice's mad lunge would have resul
ted in far more dire consequences than it did, several soft moans indicating what the noble party now thought of one of their number physically assaulting the captain of the Royal Guard, were it not for the fact that the captain had obviously achieved his present position through martial fitness as well as tactical proficiency.

  His fluid twist away from Vorstice's furious lunge and subsequent sweep of the incensed man's legs seemed effortless, yet nevertheless caused a screeching Vorstice to slam face first into the cobblestone walkway, stunning him with the force of the blow. The sickening sound of the man's nose being crunched for the third time that day was quite audible to everyone near. It was some seconds before the eerily still figure shivered and began to heave with spasmodic bursts of coughing.

  Though Sorn had not been too worried about the fully armed and armored captain, he had been completely taken aback to find that Vorstice was evidently left-handed. It appeared that he had bitten the wrong arm. Oh well, the bird thought, at least Vorstice’s dagger had gone flying when his face had hit the cobblestones with such a wet smack.

  "Ooh, looks like you lost a few teeth with that one," Sorn observed, peering disingenuously at the heaving figure spitting bloody gobs before him. "Care to try it again?" he asked brightly, earning himself a warning glance from the captain.

  "Err, thought not. Anyway, good Lord Cantrose, I ask you this."

  Lord Cantrose enigmatic expression raised from the heaving body of Vorstice to Sorn, acknowledging that he was listening.

  "If Vorstice's words are true, and he was not given a tell-all, as he, before us all, most staunchly denies, why on earth does he seem so disturbed by my speaking of having found a certain sum of gold? After all, he made absolutely no claims of being robbed, had he? Indeed, were any base robbers so crass as to try to torture the lord for his wealth, wouldn't lord Vorstice have simply directed the would-be thieves to his far more easily accessible stash upstairs? I'm sure Vorstice knows what I am referring to, the stash containing the bag of silver talons coated with contact poison!"