Steel And Flame (Book 1) (14 page)

Marik would be happy to leave behind these people who
so reminded him of the chickens penned in Macie’s yard; completely reliant on
their caretaker and helpless on their own.  It might not be an entirely correct
view after spending only a day among these people, yet he desired not in the
slightest to remain and give them a chance to prove otherwise.

Besides, time wasted here was that much time longer
before they reached Kingshome, and with it the first answers to his father’s
whereabouts.

Exiting the city the next morning progressed in
similar fashion as their arrival.  Harlan roused them with the sky lightening
in predawn gloom.  As a result, they were near the line’s front this time, only
forced to wait through six groups ahead.  The words exchanged with the
cityguards at exiting were much faster.

“Names?”  After the second man wrote them on his
scroll, the guard asked, “Residents or travelers?”  “How long did you stay in
the city?”  “That’s all.”

“It’s another glorious day o’ blisters an’ sunburn, eh
my fair companions?”  Chatham appeared to have forgotten he’d ever been in a
fouler mood than his customary lightheartedness.

“Is Kingshome going to be anything like this?”

“It’s a rather grand view you have o’ the Crimson
Kings Mercenary Band, is it?  A hundred thousand fighting men gathered in one
spot an’ the king not minding?”

“I meant is the town like this place?  Going soft like
an old soldier gone to fat, boring his grandchildren with the same old stories
by the hearth again and again?”

Chatham’s eyebrows rose slightly.  Marik expected one
of the flippant remarks which appeared to be the only method by which the
jester could talk with his companions.  This time the man surprised him.

“You know old son, that’s about the best description
o’ the cities I’ve heard yet.  My best explanation was that the more the lords
an’ nobles in the cities try to protect their citizens, the more dependant they
become on that protection.  The more ‘civilized’ a group makes itself, the more
vulnerable they are to being cast down by the baser side o’ human nature.”

“That’s exactly what I was feeling inside there!  They
have more than the towns, and better quality, but they gave up their edge to
get it.  That’s the perfect explanation!”

“Hmm…I still like yours better.  An’ the fact you feel
so proves to my humble mind that you were never meant to be anything other than
a wielder o’ the blade.  But watch yourself,” Chatham said as he reached over
to rap a hard knuckle against Marik’s head.  “Don’t make the mistake o’
underestimating them.  They might not have ever trusted their lives to cold
steel in their hands, but living in the city as they do can be just as
dangerous.  Don’t think their lack o’ weapons skill means they can’t take care
o’ themselves in other ways you haven’t thought about.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well that,
lad-o
, is a tale for a later day,
as the bards like to put it.  Perhaps I might be cajoled into revealing my
deepest secrets, but at this particular moment, I smell smoke on the wind.”

The others lifted their noses.  Soon they too
distinguished the odor.  Smoke all right, and not the fresh wood smoke their
campfires emitted.  Marik saw it first when he turned to look for the source. 
He pointed it out.

Behind, within the city walls, a smoke column rose
from one of the districts.  It looked like a building or two had caught fire. 
They stood still in the road, watching.

Marik asked, “Should we go back?”

It was Harlan who answered.  “Why?”

“I thought, well…they might need help putting it out.”

“There’s enough men to handle it.  We’d waste our time
and be in their way.  Let’s move on.”

So they did, turning away from the city to follow
their feet along the Southern Road.

*        *        *        *        *

Later, with the sun shining directly overhead, they
were roughly stopped by five men on horseback.  They had ridden up behind, from
the direction of the city, and shouted at them to halt.  The five were dressed
in the stylized tunics Marik recognized from the cityguards manning the gates.

Maddock, the acknowledged leader in this type of
situation, stepped forward to address them.  “For what reason do you detain us
from our journey, Master Sergeant?”

“Did the four of you take residence in the city this
past night?”

“Indeed we did, as I am sure you already know.”

“State what your business was in the city.”  He
delivered the demand in a cold tone, full of suspicion.

“As you see, we are travelers.  Our purpose was simply
to enter one side and pass out the other.”

“What did you do while you were in residence?”

“We rested and visited the many shops of Spirratta. 
When was that declared a crime?”

The sergeant ignored that and gestured to his men.  “I
trust you will have no complaints to a quick search of your packs then?”  It
was not a question.

Marik had several complaints about it.  Harlan placed
a hand on his shoulder to keep him from making a scene.

“Not if you are quick about it.  The sun westers and
we still have miles to make this day.”

The search of their belongings took longer than they
liked.  Nothing caught the riders’ interest until one pulled an object from
Marik’s pack.  He brought it to the sergeant.  Marik recognized it as his extra
coin purse.

The sergeant briefly inventoried the contents and
studied a scroll he pulled from his belt.  Though unsure, Marik would bet it
was the scroll from the desk at the gate, or a copy.  One guardsman grabbed his
arm and hauled him forward to face the sergeant.

“This is a substantial sum of hard coin for a traveler
to have on hand, wouldn’t you say?  Substantial for a non-merchant at any
rate.  Care to explain this?”

Irritation and temper rose in Marik.  He tried to hold
it back with marginal success.  “Explain what?  It’s mine and I know of no laws
against owning coin.”

“No, none against owning coin, but carrying it in
suspicious amounts such as this raises questions.  If you don’t answer my
questions here, I have every right to bring you back to the holding cells in
Spirratta.  I’m sure you’ll be inclined then.”

Marik felt inclined to offer words other than the
answers he sought, but as Maddock had pointed out, time would be wasted.  “My
mother died this last summer in the town of Tattersfield.  I decided not to
stay there and sold the cottage we had lived in to the town council.”

The sergeant considered this for a moment before
conferring with the man holding his pack.  After hushed whispers, he studied
the scroll anew.  “Very well, that may be so.  There is one other matter I’d
like to clear up before I send you on your way.”

He stood waiting when the sergeant suddenly pulled his
sword from the sheath at his side.  The mounted man swung at his head.  Marik
missed hearing the sharp intake of breath from his companions as he writhed to
avoid the blade.

Not expecting an attack, he’d been unprepared, and
dodging the strike from a cold start was near impossible.  He twisted in an
attempt to jump backward.  His feet slid in the dirt, causing him to land hard,
sharp stabs of pain racing from his tailbone.

Marik scrambled across the ground fast as he could,
trying to find the sergeant, expecting to find the blade’s edge whistling
toward him.  Instead, he saw the man sitting atop his horse with the sword
resting on his shoulder.  The sergeant remained grimfaced.

“Very well, I believe you.  No assassin would react
like that to an attack.  You’re free to go.”  With that, he kicked his horse
into motion.

Marik turned to his companions.  Maddock spoke quietly
but quickly to a guardsman.  After hasty words, the guard mounted his horse and
followed his sergeant.

*        *        *        *        *

“Apparently someone tried to kill Duke Tilus.  They
trapped him in a storehouse he was inspecting and set it on fire.”

“Indirect, yet also ineffective if you’re trying to
off a man.  Lots o’ ways that sort o’ thing can go wrong.”

“Yes.  The duke was able to climb out onto the roof
where several of his servants saw him.  They grabbed tarpaulins from the other
nearby storehouses and formed a safety net.  He jumped and they saved him.”

“Sounds like amateurs.  No professional assassin would
leave so much to chance,” Harlan commented.

Marik still smoldered.  Being questioned on the road
was one thing, but having his belongings pawed through and then placed under
suspicion because he owned coin was another.  He could hardly wait until they
stopped for the night so he could work out his aggressions in a sparring
session with Chatham.

They passed the sergeant and his men the next day.  He
rode back for the city with his men.  The sergeant spared not so much as a
glance for them.  Marik did not especially want to look at him either, then
felt like shouting at the man as he passed.

No other disturbances occurred during the passing
days.  At times the Southern Road crossed into the domain of a different lord,
the borders sometimes marked by guard booths but more often by a lone
signpost.  Maddock always read these signs aloud, a habit he obviously indulged
in as custom rather than because he pandered to their newest member’s
illiteracy.  Chatham rolled his eyes each time Maddock solemnly intoned who’s
barony or earldom they were entering.

Marik could see no point in having guards posted on
the road, unaffiliated with the larger highwayguard outposts they passed every
second day.  Several booths stood empty.  In others men serving their lord
manned the watch.  Why?  They never stopped travelers on the road, and they did
not guard against intruders into their liege’s lands.  Anyone could leave the
road to walk across the boundary line a hundred yards away without ever being
noticed.  The few guards manning the watch were too busy talking or eating to
glance at the men walking past their station.

His skill with the sword improved until he could
almost hold Chatham off when the man felt playful.  When he felt serious, Marik
would be on the ground within five strokes of his blade.  It was often
humiliating, but he never slacked in his practice.  When he stood before his
father he intended to be a fighter worthy of the blade he carried.  Assuming he
owned a blade worth carrying by then.

One morning when they broke camp, seventeen days after
leaving Spirratta, Maddock announced that they should reach Kingshome by noon. 
It startled Marik, then he wondered why it should.  He had known they were
drawing closer to their destination, drawing closer to their goal.  After consideration,
he realized his mood derived from his impending separation from these men who
had become his friends.

In Tattersfield, the closest person he could have
named as friend had been Puarri, and that might not have truly been the case. 
While the man held a softer spot in his heart for the youth than the town’s
other residents, that stemmed from his friendship with Marik’s father. 
Otherwise he probably would have been as hard toward him as the rest.

Marik nearly laughed at the notion of Pate and Allen
as anything to him other than adversaries.  The merchants around the town who
had given him jobs did so with the knowledge of his mother’s condition, not
from any desire to throw a starving dog a bone.

But these men with whom he’d traveled across half the
kingdom had become closer to him than anyone, with the exception of his
parents.  Talking with Maddock, learning what he could about the world of the
road, felt so much like the advice and tidbits of experience his father would
gift him with during his visits home.  Clashing blades against Chatham every
night reminded him deeply of the instruction received when his father finally
decided he could follow the training patterns without dropping the sword. 
Harlan’s grumbling cynicism recalled Rail’s observations of the simple folk
around the town.  Also, beyond reminding him of his past, he felt able to
talk
to them and be himself.  Marik felt at home on the road as he had not felt in
Tattersfield for several years.

Was it any wonder he felt reluctance at the thought of
parting from these men?

He still sorted through these jumbled thoughts when
Maddock addressed him.  “We should still have about an eightday, if my
information is correct.  Have you any plans once we reach the town?”

Confused, Marik asked, “An eightday?  I thought you
said we’d reach there today.”

“We’ll reach the town today, but we should still have
time before the tryouts commence for applicants desiring to join the band.  I
wanted to know if you had plans concerning the questions you have about your
father.”

The question reminded Marik he still had not thought
very long on what he would do once he reached the Crimson Kings.  But he could
hardly say so in front of them.  Instead, he said, “I don’t know what I’ll find
there, so how can I make a plan?  I thought I’d start by finding the highest
ranking mercenary who’s willing to talk to me and go from there.”