Blood Ties (7 page)

“Of course there is!” said the gnome with entirely too much joy for my comfort. “Usually I just hang out here and torment passersby. And I usually have to hide because I don't need them taking shots at me. But you! You I can follow around and say whatever I want, and thanks to your precious sense of honor, you can't do a damned thing about it!”

“And if I get fed up with you and shoot you myself?”

“Then I prove that your word means nothing. It's win-win for me!”

“Being shot is a win for you?”

“It would mean I wouldn't have to listen to your puerile opinions anymore, so yes.”

“Fine,” I said, doing my damnedest not to let my exasperation show. “Do whatever you want.”

With that comment, I continued on my way. I resolved right then and there that the smartest and simplest way to handle things was to stop talking to the stupid creature. It was just reacting to my discomfort. If I gave it nothing to respond to, then sooner or later, it would get bored with following me around and look for fresh game to torment.

That was my reasoning, at any rate.

In retrospect, I have to admit that when I'm wrong about something, I'm not just wrong in a small way. I'm wrong in a huge way.

I WALKED FOR SEVERAL DAYS, AND THE
gnome stayed right with me. It was incredibly annoying because if the stupid thing hadn't been following me, I would actually have enjoyed the time to myself. Instead, he continued to harangue me almost nonstop. It seemed the only time he ceased was when he was gathering breath, which surprised me since I would have sworn the stupid things had no need to breathe.

It was all I could do to ignore him. He kept spewing out scattershot insults about everything and anything, regardless of whether it had any bearing on my life. He insulted my nonexistent wife, my deceased parents (as if they still lived), and my never-born offspring. Although, to be truthful, I was simply assuming that I had no offspring. It was entirely possible that somewhere out there, little Finns were running around who only had secondhand knowledge of their father courtesy of tales spun about me by their mothers. I suppose I could have checked back with all the women I'd slept with to see whether any of those trysts had borne fruit, but really, who has that kind of time?

Basically, he was just trying to get a rise out of me, and there was no way I was going to allow him to do so.

After several days of travel, I was feeling weary around midday and found a relatively secluded spot where I could grab a quick rest. I wasn't the least concerned that something would sneak up on me and try to kill me. The gnome was having way too much fun hurling insults and he wasn't about to allow the object of his dissection escape through the expedient of being slaughtered by a passing balverine or some such. I actually managed to fall asleep despite the harangues. When I awoke, the sun had moved a bit through the sky, indicating that at least a couple of hours had passed. I waited for the usual avalanche of snide comments from the gnome, but none were forthcoming.

“Maybe somebody shot it,” I said hopefully to the empty air.

I started walking, still braced for a flurry of insults.

Still nothing.

It seemed too good to be true, but after several more hours had passed, I was convinced. The gnome had tired of my lack of response and moved on to find more-easilyinflamed prey. My strategy had paid off.

Before I could celebrate my newfound freedom from the perpetual harassment of the gnome, I heard the thundering of hooves in the near distance, which surprised the hell out of me because it always seemed that there was never a horse in Albion when you needed one. Whoever it was was approaching very quickly. I had no idea who it could be, nor did I desire to find out. There were simply too many things that could go wrong in Albion to take for granted that someone wasn't going to be out to get you.

To that end, I decided to dodge the issue entirely by heading into the woods themselves rather than sticking to the main road. It seemed a reasonable tactic to take. I could continue parallel to the road, especially if I stayed within sight of it, while at the same time making it impossible for casual passersby—not to mention would-be thieves or highwaymen—to spot me.

So I left the road, retreating into the woods until I could see the road but no one traveling it could spot me. The trees were far enough apart that passing between them posed no difficulties. It wasn't as if I had to hack a path through them with my sword.

I watched from a safe distance as the riders I'd heard earlier rode past. They were cloaked in gray, their horses gorgeous white beasts. I didn't know who they were or where they put their allegiance, but it didn't matter. As long as they were no threat to me, I honestly didn't care.

As the sounds of their mounts faded into the distance, I relaxed once more. Between my more secure way of traveling off the road and the absence of the gnome from my life, I began feeling as if a weight had been lifted from me. I walked with a new spring in my step. I even felt so jaunty that I startled to whistle. You would think that I would have known better than to draw attention to myself in that way, but no, apparently not.

Remember how I discussed just how distinctive the sound of a trigger being cocked is? How it can freeze you on the spot in anticipation of a shot being fired at you? As it so happens, I was no less vulnerable to such noises, especially when I heard it multiple times.

Such was the case on that occasion as at least half a dozen triggers were cocked into place from various points around me. Whoever it was, they were secure behind trees and bushes, and they clearly didn't have my best interests at heart.

“Hello?” I called tentatively. I didn't raise my hands because that was a bit too much of a defeatist posture for me to take. I had my pride, after all, as battered and shredded a thing as it might be. However, I took great care not to do anything even the slightest bit provocative. “May I help you?”

“Who goes there!” came a sharp voice, offering the traditional three-word question that was typical for military campsites and outposts. Hell, I'd uttered it enough times myself back when I was part of the Swift Brigade at Mourningwood Fort . . .

Then it came to me. The voice that had spoken sounded very familiar to me. Tentatively I called out, “Baron? Is that you?”

There was a brief and, I could tell, puzzled silence, and then the same voice came back to me, except far less formal and belligerent. “Finn? Ben Finn?”

“The very same.”

“I'll be damned.” A young man emerged from the lengthening shadows of the forest. “God, Finn, I didn't expect to see you here!” Then he raised his voice to his unseen companions. “Stand down, you idiots! It's Ben Finn, Major Swift's pride and joy, the gods rest his soul!”

“The gods rest his soul,” I repeated. I hated saying it because even after all this time, I despised the idea that Swift was dead; gunned down by the tyrannical Logan while I had stood there helpless to do anything to avert it.

Baron was a young soldier whom I had encountered in my travels. I'd first run into him during a bar brawl in Bloodstone. Some fool was coming in behind me, ready to crack my skull open with a bottle, and Baron had taken him down with a swift blow to the side of the head. “Not much for seeing people hit from behind,” said Baron, which wasn't his actual name, by the way. It was just a nickname he'd picked up because he had a curious code of ethics that prompted many to liken him to a nobleman.

Thanks to his saving my skull, he'd earned my gratitude. Last time I'd seen him, we'd served together at Mourningwood Fort. Major Swift had dispatched Baron to try to bring up reinforcements from Silverpines, and I'd never seen him after that. I'd assumed that he'd been killed on the way, but obviously not. Turned out that by the time he'd gotten back, the battle with the hollow men was long over, and most of the remains of the Swift Brigade had decamped. “I was too little, too late,” Baron told me. “Sorry to have missed it. I bet it was a hell of a fight.”

“It was sure a hell of something,” I assured him, remembering the sight of monsters trying to overwhelm the Fort through sheer, terrifying numbers. It was there at Mourningwood Fort that I had first encountered the noble Hero who would become our ruler, and I—along with other members of the Brigade—had agreed to fight by our ruler's side in the quest to rid Albion of Logan.

My obligations to the ruler had wound up separating me from most members of the Swift Brigade although I had caught glimpses of them in pitched battle against the dark forces that tried to overrun Bowerstone that fearsome day.

Now I was seeing more of them as, like Baron, they came out of the shadows and regarded me with a mixture of interest, suspicion, and even some hostility. I had no idea where such hostility might be coming from, but sometimes it seemed as if people needed no excuse to take a dislike to me. Hard to understand, I know. I'm normally such an utterly charming fellow.

“What're the lot of you doing out here?” I said.

“Making camp. Come.” He gestured for me to follow. “We have a lot to talk about.”

We do?
I thought, but saw no reason to say that aloud.

The rest of them had eased up the hammers on their weapons, so that was a positive thing. They weren't planning to fill me with holes, or at least not yet they weren't. Baron moved toward me and draped a friendly arm around my shoulder, telling me that it was good to see me and that I shouldn't at all take offense at the fact that they'd all been pointing weapons at me earlier.

In short order, we arrived at an encampment. There were tents pitched and more soldiers, at least a dozen or so, cooking up food and throwing back drinks. A few of them afforded me brief, disinterested glances before returning to whatever they were doing.

I also saw several horses there as well. Most of them were old, tired-looking, and seemed as if they wanted nothing more than to get some rest. There was one, though, that was quite striking, and I remembered him from my time at the Fort. He was a proud, brown stallion named Clash, and there had been times where I stepped in to help with his grooming just because he was that magnificent an animal. I stared at Clash, and he looked back at me with what appeared to be full recognition. I might have been imagining it, but Clash seemed genuinely happy to see me.

“So these are the men you fetched back from Silverpines?” I said.

“Some of them are,” said Baron. “There were more; you're looking at what remains after the battle of Bowerstone. Truth to tell, we're really not much in the way of soldiers anymore.”

“Mercenaries, then?” I supposed I had no business sitting in judgment on someone else. Certainly I had done far more scurrilous things than being a mercenary in my time. Still, I was always something of a right bastard. I hated to see trained soldiers falling into disorganization and becoming swords and guns for hire. On the other hand, I suppose there are worse things that they could become and, as I said, who am I to judge?

“More or less.” Baron regarded me cautiously. “You disapprove?”

“Not for me to approve or disapprove. Although I don't understand why you can't simply join up with the soldiers who serve our leader. There's always need for finely trained men-at-arms.”

“Funny you would mention arms,” came a gruff voice from nearby.

I looked over and was amazed. Considering I lived in a world populated by creatures of evil and darkness, it took quite a bit to amaze me, and yet there I was, amazed.

“Trevor?” I said.

Trevor it was, or at least a considerable portion of him. Trevor had been one of the soldiers at the Fort and had fought as valiantly as any man against the onslaught of the hollow men. He was a big bear of a man who favored using a battle hammer. I had thought he died in the course of the battle, but obviously that wasn't the case, for there he was.

Unfortunately, the toll that the battle had taken upon him was obvious for all to see. He wouldn't be wielding a hammer anytime soon, for he was absent his left arm. All that remained was a burned-away stump. It looked like someone had used an iron snatched out of a blacksmith's furnace to cauterize the wound.

“Finn,” he replied, with a slight nod of his head and a growl in his voice. “So you're still alive.”

“Not for lack of people trying to kill me.”

“Tell me about it,” he said ruefully. Another man would have inclined his head toward the missing limb by way of emphasis. Trevor did not do so. “So what the hell are you doing here?”

“Looking for something to keep me occupied. Any thoughts on the matter?”

Trevor didn't respond immediately. Actually, he didn't respond at all beyond staring at me as if I had just robbed his sister of her virginity. Then he turned away from me, strode over to the other side of the camp, and dropped down in front of a pot of what smelled like beans cooking.

I looked at Baron questioningly. He shrugged in response. “Trevor's not the happiest of individuals.”

“I noticed that. Can't say as I blame him.”

Evening fell, and I joined the mercenaries (I cannot even now find it within me to refer to them as “soldiers”) for their evening meal. The hunting had not been plentiful, but it hadn't been scarce either. A wild boar was sizzling on the main spit, with a couple of rabbits that I suppose would have served as appetizers cooking on other fires. Ale was also flowing freely. I had no idea from where they'd acquired it although I suspected that it was not through what one might call honest means.