A Chance Beginning

by Christopher Patterson

  “Poor girl,” he said as he covered her with dirt.

  He wished he could have given her something better than this makeshift burial, but this would have to do. Chances were no one else would have cared enough even to give her this. He stuck his shovel in the ground and rested on the handle, huffing a little and thinking. He looked back toward the north.

  “I hope you do find those boys, and I hope they give you what you deserve.”

  Chapter 46

  “WATER,” SWITCH SAID, HANDING ERIK a cup.

  Erik grabbed the cup, looked at it, and then looked at Switch.

  “Get me some damn water you fool boy!”

  Erik nodded slowly, walked to his horse, retrieved a water skin, and filled the cup. He handed it to Switch. When he turned to walk away, he heard Switch clear his throat.

  “More,” the man said, handing his cup back to Erik.

  “Are you serious?” Erik asked.

  “Do I look like I’m bloody joking?” Switch asked, and Erik just stared at him. “Are you dumb, boy? Get me some more water.”

  Erik looked to his brother and cousin. Befel just looked back and shrugged, but the look on Bryon’s face was one of anger, frustration, and irritation. His face grew red. He could tell he was breathing faster, and he saw him squeezing his fists. If Switch kept this up, then they might get very thirsty before they found more.

  Erik nodded. He retrieved Switch more water.

  “Are you going to want more?” Erik asked, after handing the man his cup.

  “Yeah, I just might,” Switch said with a smile on his face that made Erik want to punch him. “Am I making you mad?”

  “No, not at all,” Erik said with a feigned smile.

  Switch laughed.

  “I like this one,” he said, sitting down and looking at Vander Bim. Then he pointed at Bryon. “That one over there wants to hit me. I can tell. I guess I don’t blame him. He likes to fight. I like to fight, too.”

  Bryon had turned around. Erik recognized the move. That’s what Bryon did when he wanted to avoid an argument or fight, just turn his back.

  “Can’t imagine you winning too many fights,” Bryon muttered. Erik didn’t think he meant for Switch to hear him, but he did. The man laughed loudly and slapped his knee.

  “That was a good one,” Switch said, staring at Bryon with a smile that was certainly insincere.

  “You’d be surprised. Growing up on the streets of Goldum, you have to learn to fight. Its kill or be killed. And even a little piss ant, gutter shite like me has to learn how to fight.”

  “You grew up in the east?” Erik asked. “In Goldum?”

  “Aye,” Switch replied. “The wonderful east. Grew up thieving and pickpocketing in Goldum. Was pretty good at it, too.”

  “You were nothing but a thief?” Bryon asked, but it also sounded like a derogatory statement.

  “Aye, that’s right,” Switch replied, ignoring Bryon’s tone of voice. “Until I decided to become a mercenary.”

  “Does anyone else need water?” Erik asked.

  Everyone shook their heads, and Erik walked to the horse to return the waterskin. Standing there, he looked up to the sky and could see the faint outline of the moon.

  “A damn thief,” Bryon muttered, walking up alongside Buck and beginning to brush him. “We’re employed by a damn thief. What do you think about that?”

  Erik shrugged. “I don’t know. Was Wittick any less a thief? Twice the work and less than half the pay. He may not have been a pickpocket, but I call that stealing.”

  “We have three more hours of light I think,” Erik heard Vander Bim say, “and if we go another hour after sundown, that’ll be a good day’s travel.”

  “Three hours,” Erik repeated. He still hadn’t completely grasped the concept of an hour. Rory had tried to explain it to him. Count to a certain number, and that is a minute. So many minutes equaled an hour. And, supposedly, there were so many hours in a day. How could someone split the day up into hours and minutes? In the summer, the days were longer. In the winter, shorter.

  The sun began to disappear to the west as they rode, and Erik watched the shadows lengthen along the ground.

  “I hated nights like this back home,” Erik said to Turk. The dwarf rode next to him.

  “Oh,” Turk asked, “how so?”

  “There’s just something about dusk,” Erik replied, “that just seems so unnerving. It’s not the daytime, and it’s not quite night. The shadows look weird, and the animals don’t know what to do. My grandmother used to tell me that this was the time of the day spirits chose to walk our world.”

  “Growing up in a city built inside of a mountain,” Turk said, “it was the deep, darkness of night that always scared me.”

  “Midnight never bothered me,” Erik said. “I love watching the stars.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, under the mountain, there are no stars. Only darkness,” Turk said.

  Just then, Erik’s horse reared up with a scream. Erik almost tumbled off backward and had to grab a fistful of mane to keep himself in the saddle.

  “Oi!” Switch cried. “Can’t you control your horse?”

  When the horse came back down, Erik looked to the ground and promptly vomited.

  “What in the bloody nine hells?” Switch yelled but then threw his head back and covered his nose with his arm.

  “Is that a man?” Erik asked, also covering his nose now and watching the ground.

  A mist crept across the ground in dusky light, clinging to the horse’s ankles and snaking through their legs. A warmth rose from that mist, hotter than the sun-filled day, and it carried the smell of carrion with it. The rot brought on a swarm of flies, hovering just above the ground, flittering in and out of the fog. The haze seemed to part just enough to reveal a nose, a forehead, an arm bent upwards as if reaching for the sky.

  The mist dissipated as if the wind had kicked it away, and there lay a body, charred black. Both of the arms were bent at strange angles, elbows driven into the ground and hands in the air. Black skin flaked from the chest and arms, but the face—a man’s face—remained flesh colored. His eyes stared upward in a fixed gaze, blank and meaningless, and his mouth lay open, stuck in a silent scream. His ribs lay bare, poking through burnt flesh.

  “That used to be a man,” Switch said, shaking his head.

  “Isn’t that one of the men that attacked The Messenger?” Drake asked.

  “Aye,” Vander Bim said, and Erik nodded in agreement, “See the deep cleft chin?”

  “I think I found the second man,” Demik, one of the dwarves, said in his rough, Westernese accent.

  The guy with the beard wasn’t burnt. His head was twisted completely around the other way, the skin on his neck stretched and mangled. His tongue hung limply from his mouth and rigor had set in on his body, hands clutching close to his neck, and his knees brought up to his stomach.

  “Bandits?” Vander Bim asked.

  “Slavers?” Erik asked, to which Bryon shot him a dirty look.

  “What would bandits want with th
em?” Switch asked. “And slavers—why kill two men who might fetch a decent price?”

  “These wounds are unnatural,” Demik Iron Thorn said.

  “What do you bloody mean, unnatural?” Switch asked, but Erik knew what Demik meant.

  Demik said something to Nafer, the third dwarf, in their native tongue, a language that Erik couldn’t help to think sounded hard, like the squatty, muscular bodies of the dwarves. Nafer replied and nodded. Turk said something as well.

  “No weapon made these wounds. No hand of man either,” announced Demik.

  “Then what?” Erik asked.

  “Magic,” Turk said. “Dark magic.”

  Erik saw Drake shutter.

  “You think magic did this?” Erik asked.

  “I don’t know what else could have,” Turk replied.

  “The Messenger did say they would get their due punishment,” Vander Bim said.

  “But we left before The Messenger of the East,” Befel said, and the dwarves spoke amongst themselves, again in their own language.

  “The Black Mage would be capable of this kind of magic,” Demik said with a quick nod and spat. “Yes. This would be within his power. From some distance.”

  A low murmur rippled through the group of mercenaries and their porters.

  “We have maybe an hour of light left,” Vander Bim said, looking to the sky. “We need to get away from the dead. Away from this . . . darkness.”

  No one disagreed, but the sun had set, and the moon was fully in the night sky before they stopped. The stench of burnt flesh and the vision of twisted limbs still hung in Erik’s mind, and he continued to feel his stomach twist. They had only stopped for a short while when Switch returned with several plump rabbits. The thief threw them in front of Erik.

  “You skin those up, boyo,” Switch said with a smile. “I’ll make us a stew.”

  Erik stared at the rabbits for a while, remembering the ones he used to throw rocks at behind his father’s barn at night. Tia had snuck out with him one time, and he remembered her giggle as the cotton-tailed creatures would scurry away as the stones bounced around them. The ones dead at his feet reminded him of his sister’s toys, and he felt a sudden craving to be with her.

  “What’s the matter?” Switch asked, giving Erik a sincere look.

  “Nothing,” Erik replied, shaking his head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

  Erik skinned the rabbits while Switch boiled water over a fire Bryon had built, throwing in what looked like leaves and grass.

  “What are you putting in there?” Erik asked.

  “Pepper, mint, and some grass that tastes like lemons—it all grows wild around here,” Switch replied. “Oh boy, this is going to be good.”

  It was good and, for the first time, Erik was glad for Switch. The man proved crass and crude in some ways but seemed quite resourceful. Even after he had eaten all the meat—he was sure he got less than Vander Bim and Drake, but possibly more than the dwarves—he drank the broth, which filled him, and he leaned back for a moment against his saddle and closed his eyes.

  “Reminds me of home,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” Befel asked.

  “This reminds me of home,” Erik repeated, looking at his brother. “Mother’s cooking, our family around the table.”

  “I suppose,” Befel said. His voice sounded unconvincing and irritated.

  “Does home really harbor so many terrible memories?” Erik asked.

  Befel shook his head and shrugged slowly. “No. No, I guess not.”

  Erik closed his eyes but then sat up with a quick breath, his eyes shooting open.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “I don’t know,” Erik lied. “I close my eyes, and all I can see are burnt bodies. Dead bodies. Twisted bodies. All I can smell is burning hair and flesh. I can hear screaming.”

  “Really?” Befel asked.

  “We’ve seen so much death, Befel,” Erik said. “So much death.”

  “Don’t worry,” Switch said, apparently overhearing Erik and Befel’s conversation, “you’ll see more.”

  “Thanks,” Befel said, “that is very helpful.”

  “Just trying to be honest,” Switch said.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Erik said.

  “I don’t think any of us have ever seen something like that,” Turk replied. “I’ve seen many things but those men . . .”

  The dwarf ’s voice trailed off as he stared into the campfire.

  “The first time is always the hardest,” Drake said. “I remember the first time I saw a dead man. It will pass. In the morning, you will feel better.”

  Erik nodded with a smile, but his thoughts went from two men, burnt and twisted, to a woman hanging from a great oak tree with a broken neck, slit throats and dead children at the hands of slavers.

  “I’ve never seen something like that,” Switch said, “but I’ve seen some pretty terrible things. In Goldum, my two mates—Shifty and Rat—died by the bloody smile.”

  “What’s that?” Erik asked.

  “Man slits your throat,” Switch replied, “and pulls your tongue out. Looks like just that—a bloody smile.”

  Erik covered his mouth, and he saw his brother crinkle his nose as if he had smelled something bad.

  “Who would do such a thing to another man?” Befel asked, but Erik thought of Fox and the leader of the slavers. They were certainly capable of such a thing.

  “Here,” Vander Bim said, uncorking a clay bottle and offering it to Erik, “have some apple rum. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Erik took the bottle and poured some of it into his cup. It was strong and tasted of sour apples.

  “Better?” Vander Bim asked.

  Erik nodded, lying.

  “Here,” Vander Bim said. “Everyone have some. My own special recipe.”

  Erik sat back and savored the rum. Nothing would make him feel better. Nothing would rid his mind of the sight, sounds, and smells of death.

  “Are you still thinking of home?” Befel asked.

  His brother’s voice woke Erik from a half-sleep. His eyes were closed, and he was trying, quite unsuccessfully, to erase the two dead men from his mind. Erik nodded.

  “I suppose I am too,” Befel said, “at least, a little. The good memories.”

  “There are no good memories from home,” Bryon said.

  Erik finally opened his eyes and looked at his cousin.

  “You speak as if home was awful,” Erik said. “You speak as if you never had a happy moment in your home.”

  “You didn’t have to live in my home,” Bryon replied quietly, as he sat and stared at the fire.

  “Nights like this remind me of home as well,” Drake said, and the firelight caught his teeth as the memory brought out a brief smile. “I remember sitting outside with my wife and children, staring at the stars. When you’re mining in the Gray Mountains, you learn to appreciate the stars and the moon, a little light in the darkness.”

 
“I know what you mean,” Turk said, and Demik replied in their Darvish language. Turk nodded. “Aye. A vein of diamonds can certainly look like stars.”

  “Where were you a miner?” Erik asked.

  “In Nordeth,” Drake replied. “For many years before I started doing this nasty business.”

  “You just didn’t want to mine anymore?” Erik asked.

  “Mining is dangerous business,” Drake explained. “More dangerous than this business if you could believe that. Every man in Nordeth has to serve in the militia. That’s where I learned to fight, and I was good at it. Figured I could make a living doing this and, if I die, at least it’s in the open, not under a mountain or by some dwarf ’s ax.”

  Demik Iron Thorn grunted at that, but Turk put his hand on his companion’s arm, silencing him.

  “You know, these nights don’t remind me of home,” Vander Bim said, “but they do remind me of nights on the ocean.”

  “You were a sailor, weren’t you?” Erik asked. “Like Rory?”

  “I was a sailor,” Vander Bim replied, “but not like Rory. I never served in the navy of some nation. Just sailed on my own, working for merchants or sailing my own ship. I miss those times, in a way.”

  “Were you worried about dwarf axes on your ship also?” Befel asked. Even Demik laughed at that.

  “No,” Vander Bim said with a brief chuckle. “But sailing is still dangerous, very dangerous, in fact. Pirates, the weather, creatures that live in the deep darkness of the sea. Five years ago, a storm wrecked my ship, killed most of my crew, and I was damn lucky to be washed up on shore. That’s the last time I ever sailed a boat. I met Drake in Finlo, protecting some Nordethian noble, and we’ve been working together ever since.”

  Drake patted Vander Bim on the shoulder.

  “Here’s to good memories,” Drake said, lifting his cup.