Implements of Destruction (Chapters 1-3)
by Michael P Calligaro
These are the first three chapters of my first novel, "Implements of Destruction." If you enjoy this, the full novel is available in trade paperback from Amazon and other fine booksellers.
Chapter 1
The sun finished its slide behind the distant snow-capped mountains as Theala's dilapidated old horse trudged to the summit of the final hill. Gatewatch, at last. Expectantly, she peered down into the worn-out little city that sprawled before her. She was disappointed. Pheyre's best warriors and wizards should have been training late into the night. Where was the sharp ring of swordplay? Why couldn't she hear magical explosions? If Gatewatch's sole purpose was to prepare the continent's citizens for the next daemon invasion, why did she hear nothing but the sounds of drunken carousing coming from a tavern at the base of the hill? Could she be in the wrong place?
With a sigh, Theala dismounted and ran a hand over her cheek. Her disguise needed refreshing. Hesitantly, she looked back into the city. Yes, even if this wasn't Gatewatch, she'd need her disguise in place. Sighing again, she scooped up some grime from the soft earth near the road. She rubbed it onto her face and hands and then frazzled up her hair, depositing more grime there. Then, trying to ignore her complaining back, she slouched down and let her face fall into its "despair and boredom" look. Wiping her dirty hands on her baggy cotton frock, she remounted the old horse.
As if to remind her that the situation wasn't completely hopeless, the seam of Theala's overgarment rubbed stiffly against her right leg. Her grandfather's silver pendant was still there, stitched into the material and out of sight. Even though she'd doubly sewn it in, she still fretted over losing X the Mystic's talisman.
As ready as she would ever be, she kicked her horse in the flanks. "Let's go, Swanfoot." He ambled down the grassy hill and into the city. Ahead of her, a small man staggered through the streets lighting torches with the one he carried. Theala judged that overtaking him would require moving too fast to be convincing in her disguise. Besides, Swanfoot would never go for it. Theala'd have to find someone else to query. However, as she looked around, she saw that most of the city's residents were in no state to answer questions. They slouched against buildings or slept outright in the dirt of the street. The smell of cheap mead permeated the place. They couldn't still be celebrating the Battle Day victory, could they?
Two stout-looking warriors sat outside a tavern at a slanted table that was half on the wooden sidewalk and half in the dusty thoroughfare. One of them slept with his face in his arms. The other sat up and glanced vacantly in her direction. She turned her head down as if staring at the road before her, but kept her eyes on him. He kicked his companion, who fell out of his chair and into the road. Theala could just make out the warrior's words, which were spoken loudly, but slurred by drunkenness. "A fine mate you turned out to be. Now who will share in my witty barbs about the ugly woman?"
Well, at least the disguise was working. Theala headed toward the warrior, letting Swanfoot continue at his shambling pace. The warrior glanced over his shoulder, looking from one unconscious or incoherent person to another. He was probably trying to find someone else with whom to share his witty barbs about her. She reached him while he was still searching. With a grimace, he turned back around and almost hit Swanfoot with his face. He jerked back, practically knocking his chair over. It hung precariously for a second before slamming back down on all four legs. As he stared up at her, the disgusted look on his face encouraged Theala. Her disguise was holding up to close scrutiny, even if the scrutinizer was just a drunken warrior.
Using her best "timid peasant" voice, she called down to him. "Sir, what is everyone celebrating?"
His mouth dropped. "Why, the victorious outcome of this decade's Battle, of course."
As she had guessed. Still, this seemed a bit excessive. "But Battle Day was over six months ago!"
The warrior belched loudly. "And now the continent is safe for another decade. We deserve to be merry!" He pointed an accusing finger at her. "I didn't see you here preparing this last ten years."
A flash of indignation shot through her, and her back stiffened with her ire. She quickly caught herself and bowed her head. "You are right, kind sir. I should not judge. We, the citizens of the continent of Pheyre, thank you."
His eyes squinted. Had he noticed her anger? Had she already let her disguise slip? Relief flooded through her when he shrugged and leaned back. "Damn right, you shouldn't." He slammed his fist to the table and lurched up. It was probably supposed to be a threatening gesture but, to Theala, he looked quite comical. Still, a peasant would be intimidated. She pulled back as if startled and afraid.
In a cowed voice she said, "I search for this decade's champion. I pray to Xavier that you will grant me the boon of taking me to him."
The warrior glanced into the tavern. Theala followed his gaze and noticed the bartender sleeping on the bar. With a frown, the warrior looked back up at her. "Why not?" He pointed a massive arm at the bartender. "He'll not serve me again 'til he wakes up, and Tierra could use a diversion from that boring old dwarf, Olnax." He stumbled off down the street, not even checking to see if Theala followed.
They came to the city center, where a tall, muscular man was sitting on a raised dais chatting amicably with a dwarf. The man wore a crown of fresh pine boughs and gaudy green fineries. The dwarf wore faded leather armor that looked to be fused to his skin. Theala guessed that the dwarf was the "Olnax" the warrior had mentioned. That made the large man Tierra. She wondered why Tierra the Hero wasn't off drinking with the other warriors and speculated that the dwarf kept him in line. The warrior walked right up to Tierra and said, "There's someone here to see you." He then plopped down in the dirt.
Theala dismounted and bowed. "So, you are this decade's savior. I owe you my gratitude."
The champion smiled and opened his mouth, but the dwarf piped up before he could speak. "Not just this time, lass. Tierra single-handedly saved us all last decade as well!" Tierra looked down at his clothes self-consciously.
Her eyes grew wide. "Two times in a row. That is very rare, is it not?"
The dwarf beamed, "It has never before happened in my hundred and seventy-eight years of experience."
Tierra the Hero laid a hand on the dwarf's shoulder and spoke in a soft, yet self-confident voice. "Don't mind Olnax, miss. He oversaw much of my training and likes to feel responsible for my success. What can I do for you?"
"I have heard that this Battle was different than previous ones. The daemon was not pulled back under when you defeated him."
"That is correct. Though the most of the daemons were banished back to Hell as normal, their champion stayed here."
The dwarf snarled, "And then you let it escape. Didn't I tell you to keep an eye on it?"
The hero shrugged, and the warrior on the ground sighed. It seemed they'd heard the dwarf rant about this a number of times. Theala chose to save them from hearing it again. She stretched her disguise's credibility to the limit by speaking quickly before the dwarf could start in. Looking into Tierra's eyes, she said, "I would speak with you of this daemon."
He nodded. "Of course."
She glanced at the dwarf and then bowed her head to Tierra. "I would speak with you alone."
Tierra motioned Olnax away. The dwarf jumped up, walked over to the warrior on the ground, and grabbed him by the earlobe. "That is our cue, warrior." As they walked away, the dwarf asked, "So, do you think we'll finally have someone to go after the daemon?"
The warrior stared over his shoulder at Theala. The mead still running his voice too loud, he exclaimed, "Who, her? What good will she do against it?"
Olnax frowned and kicked him in the shins. "You've had too much to drink, you ape. She's obviously not as she appears."
Theala sighed and turned to the hero. It seemed her disguise didn't hold up under the scrutiny of sober dwarves.
* * *
A frenzied man on a horse half-dead from exhaustion raced through the gates of the sleepy little community of Drayragev. He reined in the horse and screamed up at the gatekeeper. "You must close off the town! The Implementors are coming!"
Incredulous, the gatekeeper asked, "The what?"
The man waved frantically over his shoulder. "Implementors! We're all doomed! You close off the town and I'll go warn everyone." He kicked his heaving horse, but it refused to move. In fact, it barely had the strength to stand. The man jumped off and ran screaming through the streets. "Implementors! Take up arms. Protect your children!"
Shaking his head, the gatekeeper stared after the man. He had just witnessed more excitement than Drayragev had seen in the last year. The thought of an invasion force attacking seemed unbelievable. He doubted the rusted old gate even worked any more.
"Too long on a horse will make a man go crazy," he counseled himself. "There's probably nothing to worry about." He took up his post and scanned the horizon with uncertainty. Though he wanted to believe in the man's insanity, all that earnestness grated against his nerves. What would they do if an invading army really was just over the horizon? Drayragev supported less than fifty garrisoned troops, and its populace of farmers and peasants were more conversant in the use of a hoe than a sword. Any sizable army would wipe them out. He watched in worried silence.
Just as he'd convinced himself that nothing was coming to destroy his town, he saw something that made a chill run up his spine. Despite the hot midday sun, a thick fog appeared on the horizon and moved toward Drayragev at an alarming pace. He grabbed a spyglass and peered into the fog. A line of gaunt figures in tattered black cloaks approached. The fog billowed out from the bases of their garments, obscuring their feet and making it appear as if they floated. Though the gatekeeper only counted twenty of the Implementors, terror filled him. He pounded on the general alarm bell and set to work on lowering the gate.
As he had feared, the mechanism had rusted solid. Drayragev held no significance for any but those who lived there, so no one ever bothered to conquer it. The gate had not been dropped in at least a hundred years. He kicked at the lever, but it refused to budge. He leaned into it with all his might, to no avail. A glance outside showed him that the Implementors had closed half the distance to the city.
"Oil!" he screamed into the courtyard. "Someone get me oil."
The city's troops had gathered below, and one of them ran off yelling for oil. Another studied the approaching line of creatures and proclaimed, "Those bony things don't look very threatening. I'll show them a thing or two." He drew his sword, strode through the gate, and took up a defiant stance. The gatekeeper glanced up from his toils at the gate mechanism to see how the soldier fared. The line of Implementors did not falter. One drew an iron scepter from its cloak and pointed it at the soldier. Blue fire lashed out and blasted into his chest, causing him to fall to the ground. He screamed as he rolled about. As one, the other nineteen Implementors drew similar scepters.
His eyes wide with panic, the gatekeeper threw renewed vigor into the locking mechanism. He backed up to the opposite end of the tower and charged at the lever, smashing it with his shoulder. The bar bent, and his shoulder screamed out in pain, but the mechanism did not move. The soldier burst in with a vial of oil.
"Quick boy," the gatekeeper yelled, "bring that to the mechanism!"
The soldier uncorked the vial and was raising it when a blue flame leaked in through the window. As the fire's wispy tentacles found their way to the mouth of the vial, the gatekeeper dove aside and threw his arms over his face. The vial exploded, pelting him with glass shards. The young soldier died instantly.
That soldier turned out to be the second luckiest person in the town. The gatekeeper watched in horror as the Implementors burned every man, woman, and child, leaving them writhing on the ground for an unnaturally long time. The Implementors then set about leveling the buildings. In the end, the gatekeeper stood alone atop his semi-reinforced wall, staring out over a destroyed town, the screams of its citizens still tearing at his heart.
An Implementor slid toward his wall, and the gatekeeper knew it was his time. He considered killing himself rather than suffer the long burning death these monsters had wreaked upon his people. But he found that he could not. The Implementor pointed up at him with a bony hand and waved him down. Dread filling every step, the gatekeeper trudged down to meet his fate.
Bowing his head, he felt more than heard the Implementor's words. "You have witnessed what we can do. You will now make all haste to Taloria and inform them that we are coming."
The gatekeeper's head shot up, and he looked around in shock at the Implementors. One held the reins to a horse all saddled and ready to go. The gatekeeper leapt onto the horse and raced away, never looking back.
* * *
Now, five weeks from Gatewatch, Theala still had not heard a single word about the daemon. She started to doubt her mission and, more importantly, herself. "What are we doing out here, Swanfoot? Chasing wild dreams and fantasies?" The old nag didn't even bother to snort a reply; he just forced one foot in front of the other, plodding along at the snail's pace that had characterized their entire journey.
Theala hated the horse. He was slow, stupid, and lazy. He also made a lousy traveling companion. For the thousandth time since she'd left the monastery, she considered leaving the damn thing somewhere and continuing her quest on foot. No. That would be impulsive and stupid, she reminded herself.
Impulsive and stupid, just like the whole trip. Abbot Jameson had warned of this. He'd counseled her on the silliness of her crusade-that it did not make sense to dash off impetuously without any real thought on the matter. Unfortunately, she had ignored his valid points and had listened to his invalid ones. Taking Swanfoot had been his idea, as had her getup. She scratched at the dirt on her face and wiped some on the old sack that now made her clothing. After a surreptitious glance around to make sure no one could see her, she sat up straight and stretched out her back. It cracked audibly in complaint of her almost continual slouching over the last few months. Could any good really come of this? She tried to goad Swanfoot into picking up the pace a bit, but the damn thing ignored her.
Rounding a bend, Theala caught sight of a bit of gray fabric in the bushes. From what she could make out, the spy was not particularly large nor threatening. She searched about in concern anyway. Where there was one, there might be others. Seeing no one else, she began to wonder why he watched the road from hiding. Maybe he was a highwayman, waiting for an easy mark? Or, could he be the advanced scout for a group of them?
Abbot Jameson had once told her, "When in doubt, confuse the enemy." That advice, plus the fact that her mission hinged on finding someone who had seen the daemon, chose her course of action for her. She pulled up alongside the bushes, looked straight at the man, and said, "Excuse me, sir. May I have a moment of your time?"
Obviously thinking his location a better hiding place than it actually was, the spy started in surprise. He stood up, walked to the edge of the road, and examined her features, as well as her horse. He practically yawned. Theala reminded herself that this was the effect for which she strove-not that she liked it.
"Whatdaya want?"
"Please, fine sir, I do not mean to pry. But do you watch this road often?"
"Yeah, what's of it?"
He might turn out to be useful, then. At least it was worth hoping for. Theala had little left but hope at this point. And she didn't have much of that. "I search for a man-like creature and wonder if you have seen him?"
This caused his eyebrows to rise. "What're you talking about, bletcher?"
Theala did her best to ignore the insult and kept her face neutral. "I have recently come from Gatewatch. Are you familiar with the city?"
Nodding, he said, "Sure. I never been there, but that's where they gots the Competition and the Battle against the daemons. I could win their little games easily, but I never bothered to attend."
Sure you could. You might even last ten seconds. Aloud she said in her most fawning voice, "Yes, I can see that. The daemons themselves would fear you."
He puffed his chest out comically, "Damn right, they would!"
Theala smothered a chuckle. "And are you familiar with the last Battle?"
He shrugged. "Daemons ain't overrun the place, so I guess we won."
"How very smart you are, sir!" She almost choked on her words. "Our champion was victorious, but the daemon champion was not pulled back to Hell with the others. He now walks this continent, and I search for him."
"You're lying! A daemon in Pheyre?"
"I tell the truth as spoken by the human champion himself, Tierra Wulfen. The daemon looks very much like a human, but is unusually tall. He has dark eyes and darker hair. He also likes to dress entirely in black."
The man frowned. "That ain't much to go on."
Theala shook her head sadly. "All else I know is that he has a scar on his right cheek. Have you seen anyone such as this?"
He waved her away. "Naw, you chase a myth. Daemons can't comes to Pheyre."
Theala let loose a depressed sigh that was zero percent acting. "Thank you, kind sir, for your time." She pulled Swanfoot's face out of the bushes and kicked him in the side. He looked back at her with a mouth full of long grass, snorted derisively, and took a painfully slow step forward.
The watcher said nothing for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Hey, you."
Swanfoot stopped and stuck his face back in the grass even before Theala pulled on the reigns. She looked back. "Yes, sir?"
"Be careful on the road ahead. Thieves ya know?"
"I have nothing to steal."
He looked her over again. "I sees that. But some of the more vicious ones, they kills those that don't give them nothing."
She thought, "I'd like to see them try." What she said, however, was much different. "Thank you for the advice. Is there a town nearby? Perhaps I should stop there?"
She had tried to keep her face passive but must have let something slip. The little man's eyes went wide, and he stared at her more intently. She looked down at the ground, pretending embarrassment over his attention.
"You know, I been thinking about it. I might of seen a guy in black go by here not too long ago." Theala's head shot up and it took her a second to contain her interest. He backed up a step. "He must of been heading to Taloria. It's the next major city on this road. I knows he didn't stop in Earlsgood. I would of seen him around."
"Then I must make my way to Taloria and pray that I do not encounter the killer thieves. Thank you for all of your help." She kicked Swanfoot again, and the horse plodded off away from the man. Had he been telling the truth? She couldn't see much reason for him to lie. Had he not wanted her to stop in Earlsgood? Why not? She chose to believe in the small chance that he had been telling the truth and that she was on the right track. This was easier to take than the depressing thought that the last months of her life had been lived in futility. "To Taloria, Swanfoot!" The horse ignored her enthusiasm and trod on in his normal excruciating pace.
An hour or so later a sense of unease came over Theala. The road had led into a dense forest whose trees partially obscured the sky. Until recently, the forest had been alive with sounds of birds and insects. But she had just traveled into an area in which this cacophony was absent. That meant people were nearby. As if in response to her thoughts, five men stepped out onto the road, two in front of her and three more behind.
These had to be the thieves the man had warned of. Or were they the ones he did his scouting for? Perhaps both? Her hand instinctively reached for her walking staff, but she caught herself and patted Swanfoot's neck instead. There were only five of them and, with all the pent up frustration of her journey, she itched for a fight. But she couldn't go beating up every band of thieves along the way and hope to keep her cover. In a slightly frightened voice, she said, "Ho, sirs. May I help you?"
The one on the right in the front spoke in a mocking voice. "Yes, you may. You may give us everything you've got."
She added more fear to her voice. "But I am naught but a simple peasant. I have nothing worth giving. Here, see for yourself." She unstrapped her walking staff, dismounted, and used it to limp away from the horse. Maybe they'll kill the stupid thing and put it out of my misery.
The one who spoke before nodded to the thieves in the rear. The one in the middle rushed over to Swanfoot. He rummaged through the thin saddlebags, pulled out a piece of beef jerky, bit into it and spit it back out. He tossed Theala's only dinner over his shoulder and continued searching. Eventually, he pulled out a one inch cubed box and held it up. "This is all that could possibly be worth anything, boss."
Theala put a panicked pleading into her voice. "Please, no! That is a family heirloom and the only thing I own that means anything to me. It can't be worth much, but it has sentimental value."
The lead thief took the cube from the other and looked it over. It was split into eight smaller cubes, and half could be rotated along either axis. When rotated correctly, the six sides would each make a different solid color. It was currently jumbled up. The thief turned one of the sides and smiled. "A puzzle! I will keep this."
"Please, kind sir," Theala pleaded. "Have pity on me. That is all I have."
"No!" he yelled. "Be thankful that I don't kill you for having nothing better to give me. Now get on your horse and be gone from here!"
She sighed and limped back to the horse, pausing to pick up the jerky. One of the other thieves cleared his throat. "Are we just going to let her go?"
"You have a better idea?"
"We could have our way with her."
Theala made no outward notice of this and continued to limp toward the horse. Keeping her back slouched and her eyes vacant, she took a hand from her stick and wiped her dirty brow. The hand shook slightly, giving the impression that she was older than she truly was.
The lead thief laughed. "You want that? If you're that desperate, we'll go into Earlsgood tonight and let you rape that old hag on Fifth." The others laughed, and the one who suggested raping Theala said nothing else.
As annoying as her disguise and horse were, they served their purpose. Theala made a show of struggling back into her saddle, then slapped Swanfoot in the rump with her staff. The horse meandered off down the road while she strapped her stick to its side. She glanced back and, after verifying that the thief was playing with her cube, started counting slowly. At four hundred and thirty-seven, a loud explosion roared out behind her.
"Less than five hundred seconds. That's a new record for stupid thieves, isn't it Swanfoot?" The horse ignored her. She looked back and hoped nothing was on fire. The wizard had assured her the cube's explosion did not involve flame, but she hardly trusted wizards to count their own fingers correctly, much less get a spell correct. After gazing back for a few minutes and not seeing flames leap up, she became confident that the men were dead and that the forest would not burn down on her account. "It would be nice to someday meet a thief with half a brain, but I doubt such a beast exists." She extracted another cube from the false bottom of the saddlebag and dropped it into the main compartment.Chapter 2
Smithe MacGinsie watched the old hag disappear around the bend and shook his head. Why had she bothered him so? Something in her eyes, it had to be something in her eyes. Only the best actors could hide what their eyes showed. The woman was not who she pretended to be, and that gave him the shivers. Whenever he didn't understand the situation, it scared him. Unfortunately, this meant he lived most of his life scared. But he did take comfort in the thought that it was better to be alive and scared than dead and bold.
Unwilling to admit to himself how much the intense look in the woman's eyes had unsettled him, Smithe decided he'd done enough scouting for the day and began the long trudge back to town. Damn bletcher. She'd ruined a perfectly good day. He'd have to find some way to salvage it. Perhaps if he threw a bit of spice into the telling of the encounter, that little mouse Enran would pay beer to hear it.
At the town gate he waved up to the guard and walked through. The guard glanced down through the eye slits of his face shield, yawned, and looked away. It had been a slow day out on the road-just as Smithe liked it. Of the few travelers who did pass, most went straight to Taloria, bypassing the smaller and less exciting town of Earlsgood. The guard had little to do but stand his post.
Smithe wandered deep into the town (two short blocks from the gate) and approached his favorite drinking establishment. While Taloria's attractions were well known throughout Pheyre, Smithe was sure none of them could hold a burnt tree trunk to The Shattered Tooth. He smiled in spite of himself as the tavern's dilapidated old sign came into view. The sign hung from a single rusted chain link, and its letters were faded to the point that a reader would need to already know what it said to understand it. The chain on its other side had broken years ago. Sooner or later that no-good bartender would have to waddle his fat self up a ladder and fix it. Smithe would be sure to be present for that spectacle.
As always, the windows were tightly boarded over from the inside, keeping the illegalities transpiring within out of the roaming eyes of the city watch. The meanest and most unsavory characters in Earlsgood frequented this place, and the watch usually stayed out. The boards were there for their benefit, really. If a lawman happened by and noticed something illegal going on, he would have to take his life into his own hands and attempt to arrest the perpetrators. No one wanted that, least of all the city watch.
The tavern's doors were two gigantic slabs of oak, windowless, and with an ax head attached where an inebriated patron had unsuccessfully tried to cut one down. They were heavy things that swung inward, but Smithe knew that if he put his weight into it and kicked in just the right spot, they would burst open beautifully.
Bang.
All conversation in the tavern came to an immediate halt, and most of the patrons went for their weapons. Though there were two hours of sunlight left, the place was almost full. It must have been a boring day for everyone. Smithe smiled to himself and sauntered in like someone much bigger and more important than he really was. He loved to make an appearance. That he only got away with this behavior because his employers were even more ruthless than the rest of the people in the bar didn't diminish his enjoyment of it at all.
An unsightly man with a long beard and crooked teeth drew a shiny dagger and pointed it in Smithe's direction. "You keep that up, little man, and I'll cut that grin off your face. Ralstron can find another lookout."
Smithe nodded in his direction. "I'll let 'im know." He scanned the rest of the crowd. Many groups of two and three huddled around tables where they drank and carried on. None of these groups looked likely to want his company. Six people sat around a large table playing cards, but Smithe had no money to lose. Someone Smithe did not recognize sat alone in the one of the booths by the worn bar, but he couldn't see him very well from this angle. Before he could give the man much thought, he noticed Enran slouched on a stool at the bar. The little man perked up and waved Smithe over.
Oh good, he's bored too. I might be able to get two beers out of him. Smithe weaved his way through the crowd, giving a wide berth to the table with the one-eyed woman snarling at him through teeth filed to points. Having vicious employers only went so far.
"Ah, Smithe, my friend. How are things on the road to Taloria?" Enran was a pudgy little man who had spent more time sitting around listening to other people's adventures than he had spent moving, much less adventuring on his own. People like him annoyed Smithe, but at least he paid well for his vicarious exploits.
Smithe coughed once, then put his fist in front of his mouth and cleared his throat noisily. "Dusty, really. No rain in days and all those travelers kickin' up the dirt-it's enough to makes a man go hoarse."
"Well, we can't have that." Enran held two fingers up and motioned them toward Smithe. The bartender sent a beer sliding down the counter. Smithe absently snatched it up and into his mouth in an expert movement that spilled nary a drop. He downed half of it in one gulp and plopped onto a barstool, cupping his stein in both hands.
After pausing a moment for suspense, Smithe started into his tale. "Well, most of the dust came from these teams of bletching horses. They raced toward Taloria like Almaden fur traders to a newly discovered cave bear. I don't even knows what they were about. None bothered to stop 'n' chat." He noticed Enran eyeing the beer he'd bought with a wary expression. Dragging this out wouldn't do. "But after they'd all gone by, this woman shows up!"
Enran perked up. "Was she beautiful?"
"No way! She was ugly, let me tell you."
Creases ran along Enran's forehead as he scrunched his eyebrows together. "Then why bring her up?" For someone who spent most of his life listening to stories, he didn't do it very well.
"Let me tells it, let me tells it!" Smithe took a swig of his beer, putting it well past the half empty mark. He glanced down at the stein and up at Enran, but his benefactor made no motion to order another. With a sigh, he continued. "So this woman, and I gives her more gold than she's due to call her that, is riding a horse I swear is already dead. Her hair's a dirty mess and so's her face. She's wearing a baggy frock, not that tight clothes would of helped. Her saddlebags are practically empty, so there's no need to get word to my employers about her. In fact, I looked her over once, then went back to studying a leaf in front of me."
He finished off his beer and set it on the counter. Enran still made no motion to refill it. He just sat there nursing his own. Smithe continued. "Well, I'm hidden by the side, like always, but just like that, this bletcher rides right over and starts talking. I don't even knows how she saw me."
A little bit of interest showed in Enran's eyes. "What did she say?"
"She says she's a looking for something, and get this, he was a-"
"Wait, you said she was looking for something. Don't you mean someone?"
Smithe shook his head, looked both ways and leaned in close. "No, I means what I says. Something. She was looking for a daemon."
"A daemon!"
Several people in the bar looked over at them, and Smithe rolled his eyes.
"Well? Go on."
Smithe reached over to the bar and picked up his stein then feigned surprise on finding it empty. Enran frowned and ordered another for him. Smiling devilishly, Smithe continued, "Yes, a daemon. It seems-"
"But daemons don't exist!"
Smithe frowned. "Yes, they do. What? You don't knows about Gatewatch?"
Enran shrugged.
"You know," Smithe continued, "every ten years our best fights the bletching daemon's best in single combat? If we wins, the daemons get sucked back underground, where they belong. If they win they're freed from Hell to overrun us."
"Sure, I've heard about that. I thought it was just a story."
Smithe shook his head.
"So did the daemons win?"
"No, you'd knows that for certain. The daemons would shred this place if they ever got loose." He shuddered convincingly.
The woman with the sharpened teeth yelled out in a shrill voice, "I'm out of mead! I'll kill the fattest man here if this cup ain't filled in the next ten seconds." The bartender rushed to her table.
Ignoring the byplay, Enran said, "So how could she be looking for a daemon? You said they get sucked back underground when they lose."
"According to the woman, this one didn't."
"Is that possible?"
Smithe laughed. "Of course not! The gods, they holds the daemons in Hell. No way they'd let one out. I told her that too."
"So what happened then?"
"She lets out this depressed sigh and starts off. I guess she's been looking for a long time and probably will be for a longer time to come. I don't knows why, but I felt sorry for her. For some reason, I warned her that there were thieves on the road. She says she's got nothing to steal, and I told her some killed for that. Then the conversation got weird."
"It already sounds weird."
"Not like this. I been looking at this bletcher, thinking she was nothing more than an ugly peasant and wondering why she was looking for a daemon. But I tells her she might be killed for not having anything to give to my employers, and her eyes...flash."
"Flash?"
"You can't hides your eyes-not from me at least. I can always see through them. Hers were showing a lifetime of toil and depression, but then they flashed something else. Maybe it was defiance, like she welcomes someone trying to kill her. It didn't fit with a damn thing about her. And, well, it scared me."
"Scared you?" A hint of derision crept into his voice.
Like you're one to talk. "You didn't sees her eyes."
"So, what did you do?"
"What anyone with half a brain would do in a similar situation. I lied. I made like I suddenly remembered a guy in black-"
A fight broke out at the table with the card players. One of them, presumably the one who had been cheating, ended up with a knife in the neck. The extra blood didn't change the smell of the bar at all. Sighing, the bartender grabbed the body and dragged it out through the back.
While Smithe and Enran watched the body go by, Smithe mused that he was glad to see that one go. Enran dragged them back to the conversation. "Guy in black?"
"Oh, yeah, the daemon she was looking for looks like a tall human dressed in black. Anyway, I tells her I seen someone like that in Taloria and sent her along."
"You've never been to Taloria."
"So? She don't know that."
"But what about your employer?"
"Ralstron? He can takes care of himself. Me, I just didn't wants to deal with her anymore." He finished off his second beer.
Enran said, "I wonder who she really was."
Smithe shrugged and looked down at his empty stein.
Enran then mused out loud about stupid impossibilities, but Smithe refused to be dragged into it. Eventually the little twerp said, "So, tell me more about these daemons."
Smithe smiled. "That'd be a long story. A man's throat might get dry in telling it."
Enran nodded and pulled a cigar out of his vest pocket.
"Here, let me get that for you." Smithe stood and grabbed a lit candle from the end of the bar. He held the flame to the end of his benefactor's cigar and waited for him to puff smoke. Then he returned the candle to its holder and sat back down.
Enran motioned for another round.
* * *
Having just filled Smithe's stein again and finding no one else at the bar needing anything, the bartender began his rounds of the room. His first stop was the booth next to the bar-the one with that weird guy who'd spent the entire afternoon not drinking anything expensive. The bartender remembered wondering about this guy when he entered his bar. He was dressed from neck to toe in leather armor, but other than a tiny crossbow on his right hip, he carried no apparent weapons. Maybe he hid them under his long cloak.
Just as the bartender approached, this worthless patron finished off his drink and slid toward the edge of the booth. "What do I owe you?" he asked in a deep, quiet voice that somehow managed to carry to the bartender in the noisy tavern.
The bartender scowled. "I can't charge you for the water! Though I've half a mind to charge you rent for the booth."
The weird man shrugged and reached into a pouch. He withdrew a coin and flipped it over. "For the rent, then."
The bartender caught the heavy gold coin and stared at it in shock. It was worth considerably more than an afternoon's worth of drinking his best wine. "Hey, mister. You can come rent a booth in my tavern any time."
The esteemed customer stood and pulled up the hood of his cloak, casting a shadow across his face and obscuring it. With a nod, he spoke in the same powerful voice, "You have a nice place here. I'll be sure to stop in if I'm by this way again."
"Leaving, are you?"
The man ignored him and strode to the exit, his black cloak fluttering in the breeze created by his long strides.
* * *
Smithe's exit from The Shattered Tooth was far less dramatic than his entrance. He opened the left door just far enough to get through and slid out into the warm summer night. The air felt wonderful-cooler than the hot day but not cold enough to chill. Millions of stars twinkled down on him through perfectly clear skies. Smithe loved nights like these. It was almost enough to make him forget his depression. Almost.
With a deep sigh, he shuffled off toward home. He liked to think he was better than that pitiful tavern-dweller, Enran, but in reality, he was no different. Enran never had his own adventures. He just lived vicariously off those of others, but Smithe didn't do much more. He'd lived his whole life in tiny Earlsgood. The major city of Taloria was only two days ride up the road, but he'd never even been there. "My work is too important to leave," he told himself, but that was nothing but a poor attempt to make himself feel better. He just sat in the bushes all day watching people go by. Every once in a while he'd see something "important" and climb a tree to fly a red flag for his employers. Any idiot could do his job, and he was the living proof. He knew he wasn't very bright, and he knew he wasn't very brave, so he intelligently stayed in safe little Earlsgood. But that didn't make him feel much better on beautiful nights like this.
He'd talked Enran out of an evening's worth of drinks. Maybe that meant he was a good storyteller. Or maybe it just meant that everyone else could afford their own drinks and didn't bother to talk to the listener. Maybe Enran only paid him out of desperation for someone to listen to. If that was the case, Smithe couldn't tell who was more pathetic, the man who had to pay to hear boring stories or the one who needed to be paid for them.
He arrived at the tiny little hole he called home. Ralstron let him stay in the room above his house as part of his pay. The stairs creaked loudly as he climbed them, causing him to muse that at least he'd know if anyone tried to get him in his sleep. At the landing in the front, he fiddled with his key and opened the door. His living quarters consisted of only a bed, a chair, and a small kitchen with a bucket he could lower down to a trough below the window. As always, the place was a mess, with spare and dirty clothes mixed together in piles strewn about the room. He locked the door behind him and walked through the dark to the bed, stubbing his toe on the chair. This made him extremely thankful for his boots. He sat on the edge of the bed and removed the boots, as well as the daggers he hid in them. Then he slid the weapons under his pillow and dropped the boots on the floor. Pulling the covers over himself, he tried to fall asleep. Tomorrow would be another day, just like the last.
Despite his efforts, sleep evaded him, and he found himself thinking about the woman on the horse. She was gone and, undoubtedly, wouldn't be coming back. So why couldn't he purge her from his thoughts? Surely not just because she was something other than she appeared? So what? Curiosity never kept him up at night. Maybe because he'd lied to her? But he'd lied to many people. A combination of the two? Because he didn't know who she was, he was afraid she'd learn that he'd lied and come back to kill him? That was absurd. How could she possibly learn that he hadn't ever seen a man in black?
Trying to get comfortable, he rolled over and saw the silhouette of a large shape in the kitchen. He gasped, but the shape did not move. He must have hung up a cloak or something in there. No sooner did he think this when he looked back and the shape was gone. He listened intently, but heard nothing. He must have been seeing things. He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone else was in the room with him. Was that the sound of someone sitting down in his chair? He couldn't take this any more. He had a candle by his bed, but couldn't light it without going out to the street and using one of the torches that burned there. What else could he do?
Feeling stupid, he called out, "Is anyone there?"
"I don't know, Smithe. You tell me."
Smithe would have screamed if his lungs hadn't sunk down into his stomach. His hands shaking, he grabbed a dagger from below the pillow and swung out with it. "Who's there?" he croaked.
A candle by the chair flared to life, revealing a man in dark clothes dwarfing the chair he sat in. In the faint light of the candle, Smithe could not make out much about the man. But he sat back in the chair and didn't look ready to attack. At least he didn't have a weapon drawn.
"Put the knife away, Smithe, it won't do you any good." His voice was deep and quiet but carried well in the small room. The voice was also full of confidence. The man was more confident than anyone Smithe had ever talked to. Not even Ralstron sounded like that, and he was practically a god in these parts.
Smithe put his knife down but kept his hand on it. The stranger glanced down at it without comment. The initial shock subsiding a bit, Smithe sat up a bit straighter. "How'd you gets in my bletchin' house? I locked the damn door."
"It's pointless to lock your door but keep the window open."
There was a good ten feet of open space between the window and the landing. It would have taken a great deal of acrobatic skill to get in that way. "Well, how'd you get up the stairs without me hearing it?"
The stranger ignored him. "Do you know a tavern called The Shattered Tooth?"
Smithe thought for a moment. This didn't seem like a good time to lie. He nodded.
The stranger's face registered what might have been surprise, but it was hard to tell in the dark. "Honesty? I didn't take you for being that smart. Good. You were there tonight."
"You saw me?"
"With the way you came in, I couldn't miss you. A little guy like you busting in like you owned the place-it made me curious. So I listened in on your conversation with the bar rat."
"Hey, Enran's not a-"
"Ah, Enran. Thanks, I hadn't caught his name. Anyway, I found your story interesting."
"You means about the daemons?"
"No, I already knew that one. The earlier one, about the old lady on the horse."
"Well, she wasn't really 'old,' you know. She's actually pretty young. Just ugly."
The stranger nodded. "Young woman then. I'd like you to take me to her."
Smithe's heart began to pound. Leave Earlsgood with some strange man to go looking after an even stranger woman? That sounded too dangerous for his skin. "Um, no. I'd rather not."
The stranger smiled pleasantly and stood up. With the candle now behind him, his face became totally occluded. But there was no mistaking the firmness in his voice.
"Though asked, that last statement was not a request." It was not really anger in the voice, more an intensity. Somehow the figure's voice reminded Smithe of the calm that settled over the woods just before a massive storm struck. He clutched his knife more firmly.
"Now," the stranger continued, "pack up your traveling clothes, and let's get going."
"What? Now? You wants me to go out into the Taloria woods in the dark?" The amount of hysteria in his voice disturbed him. He tried to cover it with braggadocio. "You're bletched in the head!"
The stranger crossed the room in a blink. He grabbed Smithe by the neck and hefted him off the bed, holding their faces close together. Smithe could feel the man's hot breath on his cheek and could make out his features in the dim light of the stars coming in through the window. Even in the partial darkness, the stranger's eyes bit into Smithe. He'd have killed for eyes like the dark, bottomless pits this guy had. Then he noticed the scar on the stranger's right cheek.
"I've wondered about my sanity many times in the last few centicycles. I even talk to a friend who can't hear me and never will. But that doesn't change the fact that you and I will be going after the woman on the horse. Understand?"
Beginning to choke, Smithe tried to stretch his feet down to the bed. He couldn't reach it. Smithe made bobbing motions with his head. The stranger dropped him to the bed, and he fell back against the wall. With a wheeze and a gasp, he asked, "You're the one she's looking for, aren't you? You're that daemon."
The stranger turned his back and stared around the room, ignoring Smithe's question. Smithe saw one chance to possibly get out of this. He just wondered if he had the courage to try it. Clutching his knife so tightly his fingers hurt, he lunged for the stranger, hoping to stab him in the back.
With a flutter of his cloak, the stranger did something too fast for Smithe too see. He felt a hand grab the front of his shirt, extreme pain in his knife hand, and his back smashing into his chair-not necessarily in that order. In the end, he sat in his chair rubbing his knife hand while the stranger towered over him examining the weapon.
The stranger turned it over twice, then reversed it and offered it to Smithe, handle first. "You will try that one more time-while we're sleeping tonight. Then you will never try again, understand?" Smithe nodded dumbly and received his knife. "Now get your things. She doesn't have too much of a lead on us, but she's on a horse and we're not."
Smithe slid the knife into its sheath and retrieved the other one. He glanced around the room, but didn't really see anything else to take. He'd never gone traveling before. He pulled on his boots and turned to the stranger. "So tells me why I should go with you. You're just gonna kill me when we finds the woman."
The daemon stared at Smithe earnestly and replied, "When you point the woman out to me, I'll let you go free. You have my word."
Speaking without thinking, Smithe rattled off, "Hah! The word of a daemon."
The stranger's gaze did not falter, but his right fist clenched. He took a deep breath, then spoke in a slow, even tone. "Smithe, have you ever dealt with a daemon before?"
Thankful to still be alive and berating himself for his outburst, he barely heard the question. "Um, no."
"Do you know any overworlders who have?"
Overworlders? He must mean normal people. "Well, no. You're the first daemon to ever get out of Hell."
"Then how could you possibly have an opinion on the veracity of my word?" The daemon's eyes bored right through Smithe, and he could do nothing but shrug his shoulders and squirm.
With a nod, the daemon said, "I suggest you keep that in mind. Now come on." He blew out the candle and left through the door. Smithe was glad the daemon didn't make him try to climb out through the window.
* * *
They had not walked far down the road to Taloria before coming to an area teeming with scavenger birds. Smithe carried a torch the daemon had given him, but his kidnapper used no light source of his own. Smithe wondered if daemons could see in the dark. "What're all these birds doing here?" he asked.
"Eating." The daemon had a way with words.
They shooed the birds away and searched through the carnage. Bits and pieces of flesh covered everything and seemed to spread away from a charred hole in the ground. From the looks of the cloth, it was human flesh. The daemon bent down and picked up a dagger. He twirled it around in his fingers then tossed it in the air. He caught it by the blade and threw it at Smithe. Smithe's eyes went wide and he gasped, but he possessed neither the presence of mind nor the reflexes to do anything about it. The blade thunked into the tree beside him and stuck. His heart pounding, he glanced down at the shaking torch in his hand. At least he hadn't dropped it.
"There. Keep that. Your knife is hardly suitable for cutting through roasted troglodyte belly, much less an opponent's armor."
His hand still shaking, Smithe pulled the dagger out of the tree. It had been at head level. A foot to the right and it would have hit him right between the eyes. Brushing that aside, he swung the dagger around. It felt good in his hand. It had a nice balance and felt solid. He tried twirling it around in his fingers the way the daemon had, but only succeeded in nicking his hand and dropping it. "Penk!"
The daemon laughed. "You might want to learn to crawl before attempting flight."
The bletcher's words were mostly in Smithe's language, but he often put them together in strange ways. Smithe bent to retrieve the dagger and noticed the insignia on the handle. "Oh my god!" He snatched it up and rushed over to the daemon. "See this? This dagger was my boss'!"
The daemon nodded. "Well, I guess that puts an end to your plans to have your highwayman friends kill me for you."
How'd he know about that? Was Smithe that easy to read? "Did you kills them?" his voice cracked slightly.
The daemon shook his head. "No. I've never been this way before."
"Then who did this? The woman?"
His companion looked around and shrugged. "Could be. You said she was not as she appeared. Maybe that was an understatement."
Smithe shuddered. She could blow people up and not be hurt herself. And he'd spoken harshly to her. He didn't know which would be worse, seeing her again, or doing so in the company of a daemon from Hell.
"Did your friends usually stay in the woods at night, or did they always return to Earlsgood?"
This shook Smithe from his thoughts. "What's that? Oh, they often camped out."
"Then we'll sleep in their camp tonight. It appears we should proceed with caution in our search for the woman."
Smithe liked the sound of that.
"Lead the way, Smithe."
He looked both ways and decided they'd probably set up camp on the west side of the road. He started in that direction then stopped. After his earlier gaffe calling daemons untrustworthy, he didn't want to do anything else to annoy this one. But still, he had to ask. "What should I call you, anyway?"
"Call me by my name. It's Bytor."
"Bytor?"
"No," he responded, "Bytor." It sounded the same.
"Bytor what?"
The daemon sighed, but Smithe couldn't understand why. "Just Bytor."
Smithe shrugged. "Well, Bytor, I think their camp is this way." He walked off the road and into the woods, leaving behind the grisly scene, but not its memory.Chapter 3
Bytor watched intently as his companion dragged small pieces of a tree together and set to work lighting them. He held a smaller piece-he'd called it "kindling"-in the flame of his torch and waited until it caught fire. Then he put the burning kindling under the "logs" and waited for them to catch. Every time Bytor saw this done, he reflected on how it seemed a difficult procedure to just light a fire. He wanted to learn the overworlder traditions to better fit in, though, so he kept these observations to himself.
After the fire started, Bytor leaned back and stared into it. Smithe stayed crouched near the wood, holding his hands out to the flame. "We never had fires like this in Hell," Bytor mused. "Nothing grows down there so we didn't have any wood to burn." He lost himself in the flames, watching them dance randomly over the logs as they consumed them. "We used these black rocks that were far better. Two little rocks gave off as much heat as that whole fire. But they weren't nearly so beautiful when they burned."
He glanced up at Smithe, who avoided his eyes and made no comment. Is he ignoring me? Does it matter? Bytor sighed. He could drag the overworlder along on the journey, but he couldn't force him to be a traveling companion. A daemon, or a man for that matter, could only choose his companions of his own free will. Bytor, as always, was alone. He stared out into the dark forest beyond the fire. "All this wood just growing on its own. This is an amazing world you have here."
He jumped up suddenly, causing Smithe to fall over backward in fright. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." He pointed to the fire. "You overworlders always make these fires at night when you camp...what's the word? Outside?"
Smithe stood up and smacked the dirt off his rear. "Yeah. Most people does. I guess I wouldn't if I was hiding or something, but other than that, why wouldn't you makes a fire at night?"
"Why indeed?" Bytor leapt up and grabbed the lowest branch of a tree. He easily pulled himself up and grabbed another.
"What are you doing?" Smithe called up.
"Maybe our prey isn't hiding," he called back down. "If she's made a fire too, then we can get a feel for how far away she is." He reached the top of the tree quickly and scanned out ahead. A number of fires dotted the countryside, but nearby he could make out only two. He climbed back down and dropped the final four meters, landing with a roll.
Smithe raised his eyebrows. "For someone who's just found trees, you climbs 'em pretty well."
Bytor laughed. "I used to live in a cave fifteen meters up a steep wall. Once you've learned to climb rock, trees are easy."
"What's a meter?"
Bytor frowned. "It's about this high." He held his hand a little less than halfway up his body.
"Looks about three feet."
"Feet? No, these are feet." Bytor lifted a leg and pointed to his boot.
"Yes, well that's," he held his hand up to his sternum, "also about three feet tall."
Still frowning, Bytor sat down by the fire. Three "feet" to a meter, he'd have to remember that.
* * *
Bytor lay still by the dying remains of the fire, emulating sleep by taking long, slow breaths. He wished Smithe would hurry up and find the courage to attack. He wanted to get some real sleep. At least the little coward hadn't tried to escape. Traveling with him would be even more unpleasant if he had to tie him up every night.
The wood had consumed itself long ago, and now Bytor could just barely feel its coals' last heat. Though the fire was long gone, its memory stayed firm in his mind. He marveled at how the flame jumped from log to log, sliding along them as it wreaked its destruction. It was a beautiful sight-like none he had seen in Hell. He thought back and realized this was not true. His weapons instructor had used torches to light his training cavern. Bytor remembered thinking it strange that the daemon did not use magical glowspheres like everyone else, but he hadn't thought much more about it. Kof-dac, I don't even know where you got the wood for your torches. But I was too young and impulsive then to notice important details like that. I was too busy learning to use your weapons. He smiled inwardly but took care to keep his face still. Kof-dac had been an excellent teacher.
Now that he was alone in the overworld, he had no one to teach him. He hardly even had anyone to talk to. And so he took care to notice everything he had missed in his youth. Fortunately, the overworld itself was turning out to be a good teacher. His whole stay here had been a lesson in strange and interesting sights and sounds. The light part of the degree...no they called that a "day." More to remember. The day was so bright it made everything vibrantly colorful. Then there were all the noises with so many living things making them. Maybe the overworlders had such lousy hearing because their world was so loud. And he couldn't overlook the incredible fact that hardly any of the nighttime sounds he heard were made by creatures looking to eat him. It seemed that everything here had such an easy time finding food that it didn't need to try for him.
It simply amazed Bytor that the overworlders had kept the daemons underground for so long when their whole world allowed them to become lazy and complacent. It took a strong daemon to find food enough to survive in Hell, and it took an even stronger daemon to live through his encounters with that would-be food. In the overworld, not only did food grow everywhere, but the meat animals almost never bit back.
The sound of a dagger being drawn from its sheath jarred Bytor out of his musing. At least Smithe was smart enough to draw his weapon before approaching. He probably even thought he did it quietly. Bytor kept his breathing even and his eyes shut. Smithe's steps were awkward and unsure. From the sound of it, he tripped over his own feet at one point. Eventually, though, he kneeled next to Bytor. The fool didn't even realize that by putting himself between the warm coals and Bytor, he blocked the heat and told his intended victim where he was.
Bytor opened his right eye a slit and watched Smithe raise the dagger above his head. The human paused uncertainly and then tried to drive it down into his chest. Bytor shot his own hand out and caught Smithe's at the wrist. Keeping his grip tight, he sat up and twisted him off balance. With a slight push, Bytor held him above the smoldering coals. He let him dangle there for a moment before pulling him back away.
"Do you realize that you broke eighteen twigs on the way over here? You'll never kill me in my sleep making all that racket." He let go of Smithe, who rubbed his wrist gingerly while staring at Bytor in fear. "Now, get to sleep. We may have a long day ahead of us." Smithe nodded and crept back to his place by the fire. "And Smithe." His unwilling companion looked back. "Next time I will kill you. Understand?" Smithe nodded. "Good." Bytor lay back down and quickly fell into a light sleep. * * *
He awoke at first light as the overworld's single giant glowsphere rose up into the...sky, that's what they called it. He was proud of himself for remembering their word for the ceiling, but he wished he knew what they called the enormous glowsphere. When he first arrived in the overworld, he asked questions of everyone he met. But they all gave him strange looks and treated him like an idiot. "How could you not know that's a tree? Where did you grow up? Underground?" He hated being ridiculed even more than he hated being ignorant. It was clear that there was little he could do to stop being alone.
Smithe slept peacefully by the ashes of last night's fire. Quietly, Bytor picked up one of the logs and examined it closely. It was an interesting material that warranted further study. He set the log down softly in the ashes and looked at Smithe again. After convincing himself that the overworlder truly was asleep and not just pretending, he cast a simple spell. The log burst into flame. In his time in the overworld, he had yet to see anyone cast any real magic. They didn't have even the simplest of items he was used to seeing every degree in Hell. Other than the giant one in the sky, they didn't even use glowspheres. They carried around burning pieces of wood instead. How barbaric.
Bytor surveyed the nearby trees and chose the tallest one. He leapt to its lowest branch and pulled himself up. With his legs tucked beneath him, he climbed to the top and back down, then started up again. This, his daily morning ritual, always brought back fond memories of his best friend in Hell, Jhar-din. "See, my friend, I've kept up my strength training, even though I no longer have to climb up into your cave to sleep." His mentor had insisted that he climb the wall ten times every degree, right after waking up. The pretense had been to build Bytor's strength, but he figured the real reason had been that Jhar-din wanted him out of his hair for a few microdegrees in the morning.
On the last time down he tried to emulate an animal he had seen earlier. This animal climbed down the tree headfirst. Bytor wrapped his legs around a branch and lowered himself down. He then grabbed a branch below him and held it tight with his hands. This allowed him to grab a lower branch with his legs. It was very slow going and he did not make it very far before starting to feel woozy, but he made it farther than he had the day before. He finished his decent in the normal manner.
Smithe was still asleep, so Bytor wandered down to a nearby stream, where he stripped off his cloak and armor and dove in. So much water that people could actually bathe in it-this world certainly had its wonders. He dried himself off with his cloak and donned his armor. In the intense light of the glowsphere, his black armor felt very hot. Then he donned his magical cloak and it immediately cooled off. Smithe was awake when he returned.
"Why starts the fire again? I thought we was going to hit the road early."
"We need to eat! Did you think I'd make you march all day on an empty stomach? I'm a daemon, not a monster."
"But there's nothing to eat. We set no snares last night and-"
Bytor silenced him by holding a finger to his lips. There it was again, a rustle in the leaves. Behind him and to the right. From the sound if it, it was pretty small and on four legs. He took his finger from his lips and looked intently at Smithe. Trying to make his eyes say, "Watch this," he drew his crossbow from its sheath at his side, spun into a crouch, and fired at the spot his ears had pinpointed. He bound into the brush and brought out a small animal with brown fur and long ears. Smithe looked on in surprise.
"Are these any good to eat?"
"Rabbit? Yes!"
"Good. Show me how to prepare it." He extracted the metal tipped bone from the rabbit's neck and wiped off the blood on its fur.
* * *
Theala awoke more depressed than she had been at any other point in her futile quest. After sleeping on it, she'd concluded that the little man on the road had lied. Failure after getting one's hopes up being worse than just normal failure, Theala's spirits now ran at an all time low. She had no idea why he'd lied to her, but she deeply resented him for toying with her emotions. She frowned wryly at the realization that this resentment was really just there to cover her disappointment in herself.
"What do you think, Swanfoot? Should we slink back to the monastery with our tails between our legs and forget this hunt? We'll likely never find him, so we may as well give up."
The horse stared at her dumbly, just munching his grass. Theala felt like kicking him.
Still, the monastery was far away and Taloria was close. She could at least ask around the city before giving up. Besides, if she was going home, she might as well use a better horse to get her there. Chomping on a stale old piece of jerky from the secret compartment in her saddlebags, Theala grabbed Swanfoot's simple reins and dragged him to the road. There was nothing to collect at her campsite. She had slept in her one set of clothes and didn't need to clean herself in the nearby stream. Smelling awful was part of the disguise.
At the road, she mounted the horse and kicked her heels into his side. "Come now, Swanfoot. Get me to Taloria, and I will put you out to pasture. Our journey has almost reached its bitter end." The horse shambled off down the road, and Theala tried not to think about her decision.
Some large amount of time later, Swanfoot stopped. Theala, who had been lost in self-recriminations, looked up in shock. The sun was now three quarters of the way across the sky, and she found herself surrounded by men. How many highwaymen frequented this damn road? She tried to put on her act, but her heart wasn't much in it.
"Please, fine sirs, allow passage for a poor wretch with nothing to give."
One of them spoke. "You give yourself too little credit. I'm sure we'll find uses for you."
Theala dismounted slowly and leaned heavily on her staff as she crutched away. "My horse is hardly worth anything to me. I am sure he is unsuitable to great men such as yourselves. And I am nearly useless. What could you possibly want with ugly old me?"
The one who had spoken walked over to her. "You see, the only usable items that get past Ralstron are ones he doesn't want. So we've had to lower our expectations." He cupped a hand to her left breast.
Pitiful, thought Theala. All thieves were parasites, but these ones lived off the table scraps left by other parasites.
No matter how much she despised these men, she really should have played along and kept up her disguise. But she was tired of her disguise. She only used it to avoid situations like this one, and it was failing at that now. With her travels almost at an end, there was little use for it anymore. Besides, her anger really needed an outlet right then.
Her back cracking, she straightened up to her full height and threw her shoulders back. It felt glorious to stand up straight again, not slouched over like a common peasant. She reached up with her left hand and brushed her soiled hair out of her eyes. Then she smiled down at the would-be rapist. In a strong voice, she said, "You should have kept your expectations higher." She slid her right hand down the length of her staff and knocked his hand away with her left. Then she stepped back, brought the staff up, and pounded it into his groin. He screamed out. She pivoted around on her right foot, sent the staff flying outward, and smashed it into his skull. He fell over unconscious.
The rest of the crowd looked on dumbfounded as she stared them down. Damn, there were a lot of them. Oh well, no matter. One came to his senses and charged. Theala stepped aside and kicked him in the gut. He doubled over, and she smashed her staff down on the back of his neck. Sensing another behind her, she spun and kicked out three times, hitting him in the knee, groin, and face. He fell on top of the other two. The kicks felt like they took more than a second. All the traveling had made her rusty.
She scanned around quickly, picked the closest thief, and charged him. He tried to move aside, but she got him in the knees with her staff as she went by. Two more moved in. She poled one in the gut and broke the other's nose with the other end of the staff. Then something hit her in the back of the legs. She fought to stay up, but the attacker grabbed her legs and stood up. She tried to land softly, but he held on and refused to let her roll. She landed hard on her back-explosively forcing the air out of her lungs.
Trying desperately to get her wind back, Theala lay on the ground gasping. The thief who'd taken her down smiled smugly and let go of her legs. "You're a feisty one. Raping you would be more fun than we thought. Still, I think I'd better kill you now while I can." He drew a sword.
Theala held her staff in both hands in front of her. All she had to do was thrust out with either hand, and this man would go down. But her arms refused to listen to her. Any attempt she made to move just resulted in sharp pains in her chest. She continued to wheeze, but could not get in enough air.
The attacker reversed his sword and grabbed it in both hands. He grinned down at her as he raised the sword above his head. Theala's cheeks burned as she struggled to bring in air and move her arms. The sword stopped above his head. Now he'd thrust down and kill her. There was nothing she could do.
The attacker shuddered and gasped haggardly. He exhaled blood and slumped back. In amazement, Theala scanned down his body and found six inches of steel ending in a strange tapered point protruding from his chest. Suddenly her lungs refilled and her arm thrust out. The attacker fell to the side, revealing a man dressed in black, holding a bloody sword, and grinning down at her.
He stepped back and crouched down on his left knee. A sword whizzed by where his head had just been. He continued his motion, bringing his sword down, back, and up into a man's crotch. He cut up to the man's stomach, then stood up and kicked him away. He had turned "duck, spin, and kill a man" into one impossibly fluid motion. Theala found herself thanking Xavier this one wasn't currently trying to kill her.
She jumped up and put her back to his. "Thank you," she called over her shoulder.
"We're not out of this yet. Thank me if we make it," he called back. His accent was heavy and unrecognizable.
Theala spun her staff around in front of her as they circled slowly. She glared at the few remaining thieves and heard her companion growl like an animal. Intriguing.
One of the thieves looked over the eight bodies on the ground, looked to his comrades, and tore off into the woods. The rest followed. Breathing a sigh of relief, Theala stopped spinning her staff and turned around to face the man who'd saved her. "Now, I can thank you."
He stepped away from her and then abruptly spun back around with his sword out. She tried to get the staff up to block it, but he had caught her by surprise. The sword got by. It moved in a blur, but stopped instantaneously a tiny fraction of an inch from her neck. Any movement at all from either of them would have meant her death.
"You've been asking people about me. Who are you?"
In shock, Theala looked intently at the man. He was tall, well over six feet. He wore black leather armor from neck to boots and a black cloak over the armor. His sleeves were long, but his hands bare. His face was quite handsome, with short brown hair, high cheekbones, and incredibly dark eyes. He had a small scar on his right cheek where something had taken a chunk out of it. There was no anger in his eyes, and the sword did not waver or shake. He was very sure of himself and apparently more curious about her than scared. He had to be the one she was looking for.
A lifetime of fear and uncertainty. Months of agonizing travel spent imagining this moment. Theala could hardly believe her journey was about to end in success. The fear that this was a dream nagged at her, but she knew she was awake. Ever since she was a little girl, all of her dreams had been nightmares. Seeing him again couldn't be a nightmare.
"I will not ask again. Who are you?"
Theala sighed and looked deep into his eyes. "Your sister."
