Steel And Flame (Book 1) (4 page)

Now he wandered from town to town along the forest’s
fringes, asking ridiculous questions and being attacked by every disreputable
cutthroat who happened to glimpse his coin pouch when he stopped for a night. 
It would have been tolerable if new or useful information presented itself, but
he could have told the council everything learned so far before he had ever
left!

Seven towns down, only twenty-four to go.  By the
Twelve, what a depressing thought that was.  Colbey would be lucky if he
returned by winter at this rate.  Another good reason not to double back and
report to the town guards.

With no enthusiasm at all, Colbey shrugged his pack
into a comfortable position and continued his journey through exile.

*        *        *        *        *

Leaves were changing their hues and lazily spinning
while they fell to the ground, the foremost sign summer progressed inexorably
toward its close.  The fall winds washed across the hills outside town, still
lacking the bite of their winter cousins.  In the golden glow of the setting
sun one autumn evening, Marik laid his mother to rest in the hills beneath the
grassy sea.

Her death came as a surprise to no one.  Unable to
force her illness into submission via any of the herbman’s merchandise, Lilly’s
descent had been steady, if slow.  In the end her coughing fits expelled blood
mixed with the other fluids that had become constant.  They knew it would not
be much longer.

He had spent all his time with her, knowing he could
do nothing and yet constantly imagining a scene where the herbman would burst
though the door with a new medicine he’d acquired.  Marik knew it would not be,
yet still he dreamed.  His powerlessness made him cry at times when he was
alone.

A local priest from Lilly’s faith laid her to rest in
a brief, solemn ceremony.  Macie attended, as well as many of the women his
mother had worked with, including Minta.  They offered their condolences. 
Their words echoed hollowly.

The townspeople sympathized with Marik in the
following eightday before their previous opinions resurfaced, exacerbated by
his avoidance of Master Pate.  Jobs he had been able to garner to earn coin for
a sick mother mysteriously dried up.  Nobody ever had extra work for the lazy
son of a hire-sword.  Odd that he should be called such, considering the
efforts he made to find any work at all to do.

Pate and Allen clearly enjoyed his downfall.  Several
times Marik had passed the taverns his former master frequented, hearing his
bellowing and guffawing through a mouthful of half-chewed food.  He would hear
his own name drift through the common room’s noise in Pate’s rumbling voice. 
On a slower night he could distinguish their words.

“What’d I tell you?  Amounted to nothing in the end. 
Just a leech on the town.  Now that his mum’s gone he’s showing his true
colors.  Never comes in anymore, and after all the effort I put into teaching
him the best practices in the business!”

“Yer right there!  Spends the day wandering around the
town, beggin’ from people, I hear.”

“Don’t none of you men throw him so much as a crust,
you hear me?  Not a crust!  We don’t need to be encouraging his kind here. 
This is a decent town, by the gods!”

Decent, my ass!  As if you taught me anything except
how to sweep out your garbage!

The throbbing in his hands made him aware how
painfully tight his fists were clenched.  If Pate had appeared before him then,
he might have attacked!  That would give the town something to talk about,
wouldn’t it?

He avoided Pate’s places of patronage from then on,
though he still ran across Allen and his friends despite his care.

“Hey, dropout!  What’s the matter with my da’s shop? 
Honest sweat too good for your Highness?”

“Go on!  If ya stay ‘round here, I might forget myself
and clean my shoes with ya!”

“A beggar boy!  You want my left over bread here?”

One would usually throw a heavy object near at hand. 
The next time it happened, Marik felt certain someone would end up hurt.

Tattersfield had become a prison.  A hellish purgatory
existing for the sole purpose of tormenting him.  Rail
must
return
soon!  Marik needed to leave, yet feared departing on his own.  He had no clear
idea what there might be for him beyond Tattersfield, or how to go about
surviving until he found it.

All he knew was that he wanted badly to see his father
again.  Except Galemar was enormous.  How would he ever find Rail out there by
himself?  Best to stay where he knew his father would turn up eventually, his
logic insisted.

But every day he felt the chains wrapping tighter than
the day before.  If he did not decide what to do soon, this town might break
him forever.

*        *        *        *        *

Although everyone else showed him a cold shoulder,
Puarri still held kindness in his heart for a friend’s son.  Marik sat at a
corner table, eating a bowl of stew, when a set of familiar faces walked
through the door.  At first he struggled to place them before the memories
returned.  He watched the one with a scar on his neck and hair dangling over
his eyes throw an arm around the sullen man’s shoulders, rhapsodizing over the
decor in an exuberant manner.  The sullen one seemed irritated by his friend’s
antics, while the shorter one simply walked past them to claim a seat.

It was the trio who had been in the tavern that night
his mother fell ill.  They must be.  Back in the summer they had been traveling
through the town.  Right?  Marik struggled to recall the memory as best he
could.  Puarri arrived to offer food and drink.

The sullen one asked a question as the jester pulled a
pouch from his belt.  It sounded like he wanted news of the road ahead.  Hadn’t
they asked that before as well?  Yes, Marik thought they had.  They looked to
be fighters traveling from place to place, but not in uniforms or with a
commanding officer of any kind.  So they could not be a lord’s retainers or
with the king’s army.  To Marik it added up to mercenaries, which might be
useful, might it not?  Ideas rushed into his mind.  He felt a few links in the
chains binding him slip.

Marik glanced out the window.  The light glowed dimly
with dusk’s onset.  Probably they would stay the night in town.  That would be
good.

Thinking fast, Marik wolfed his remaining stew and
bolted from Puarri’s.

*        *        *        *        *

Summer turns to autumn, and the colors change among
the towering Euvea.  Though the seasons never robbed the monolithic trees of
their leaves, they reflected the deep molten shades of an autumn sunset.

It was the rarest of times for Council Member Orlan. 
The council had finished its business of the moment in timely fashion.  No new
crisis had erupted since the last had been resolved.  In fact, as a council
member, no pressing duties overshadowed him at all.  For the moment.

The elder made his way down a stairway spiraling
around a trunk to the pool covering the forest floor.  He sat on a smaller
Euvea root that arched out of the water, watching as a table-sized leaf floated
down from the canopy far above.  It settled on the placid surface.  Light from
the fading sun shone in shafts through the foliage onto the soft algae under
the surface, transforming the waters into liquid shades of greenish gold.

Orlan rested his feet in the water and waved to
passing people on the walkways above.  His mind was free to wander wherever it
willed, and as it did it touched on numerous subjects.  He thought about young
Colbey and wondered if the trip outside the forest would do him good.  He
thought about the council and future tasks that would need attention.  He
thought about the Guardians and wondered how well they would handle the seasons
ahead at their present strength level.  He thought about the pool before him
and the terrible secret it concealed within its depths.  He thought about the
various forest creatures he had not seen in several years since his council duties
tied him to the village, and felt a twinge of sorrow.

The tranquility seemed to be a thing eternal, existing
forever among the forest giants.  Orlan knew better, yet still wished it were
so as he cherished the moments he so rarely enjoyed these days.  That thought
would replay relentlessly through his mind during the next several candlemarks
after the peace was shattered by the unmistakable scream of a person dying a
violent death, and an unholy, terrible chorus of roars which shook the giant
leaves high in the majestic Euvea.

*        *        *        *        *

The daylight had faded to near darkness when Marik saw
Puarri’s front door open for the quiet, barrel shaped man.  Abruptly he
realized he had no idea what he was doing.  Well, too late now.  Unsure what he
would say, he stepped forward to intercept the men as they left the tavern.

“Pardon me.”

The man before him shifted his attention.  “Yes?  Is
something amiss?”

“No.  I wanted to ask if you were heading east
tomorrow.”

“We are heading east this moment,” he replied, gesturing
over his shoulder to where the other two were still talking with Puarri by the
cloak pegs.

“Oh.  What I really wanted to know was if I may
accompany you for a distance along the road.  I need to go east, but I don’t
want to travel alone.”

“And why not, may I ask?”

“There can be dangerous people on the road that I’d
rather not meet alone.”

“How do you know we are not of those dangerous people
ourselves?”

“You’re swords-for-hire, aren’t you?”

“If you mean mercenaries, then yes, we are.  Are you
looking to hire us as guards?”

“No, it’s as I said.  I need to travel east.”

“An’ what’s this, stoic Maddock?  Have you found a new
pet to care an’ feed for so as not to be forced to endure our lovely company?”

Their words with Puarri finished, the two men had collected
their belongings and joined their friend outside.  The jester had spoken with
an affected brogue while the sullen other stood on the barrel-man’s opposite
side, studying Marik.

“This young man would like to join our road eastward.”

“Is that so now?  Are we so captivating that we’re
drawing the young an’ impressionable in our wake against their better
judgments?”

“I told him,” Marik addressed this strange man, “I
need to travel east but would rather not go alone.”

“Why?”  This was from the quiet, gloomy one.

“Because I need to travel somewhere.”

“If you want us to take you, then tell us why we
should.”  He stared at Marik.

It would be better to leave out Pate and Allen.  It
would only sound like sniveling. 
“My
family here has passed on and all I have left is my father, a mercenary like
you.  He disappeared awhile back.  All I know about where he might be is his
last contract.  He joined a mercenary band to the east.  I want see if he’s
still there or ask them questions if he isn’t.”

The other man continued to study him as if he
suspected deeper motives.

“So it’s a babysitting job you’d have o’ us then, is
it?  My, my, but we
do
attract the glamorous contracts, don’t we?  If
this is the best you can manage, Maddock old sod, I just might have to find a more
suitable talent for the job!  Maybe that large stone over there, or possibly
the tree stump…”

“I can handle myself!”

“Can you now,
lad-o
?  Do you even possess
anything I might hazard to describe as a weapon o’ any sort?”

“I’ve got my father’s old sword.  It’s serviceable.”

“Indeed?  That might be true, but can you actually use
it?  You look like a town boy to me, if I may dare to mention the fact.”

“My father taught me, and I’ve kept in practice.  But
I want companions on the road to help in case of trouble.”

The shorter man called Maddock spoke again.  “Have you
ever been on the road before?”

Marik considered a bluff, but decided not to.  If they
accepted him, then his lack of experience in the world outside would probably
be apparent to them soon enough.  “No, I haven’t.  That’s another reason I
asked you.”

“Also, have you considered the likely outcomes your
search for answers will probably bring you to?  If your father has not
returned, either he chose not to do so or fell in the service of his contract,
an end most mercenaries eventually come to.  The answers you find might not be
the answers you hope for.”

“I know it.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be found, at
least not by me.  I don’t know why that would be true, but I’ve considered it. 
Perhaps he is dead like everyone around here seems to think, except my father
is not the sort to die quietly.  If he had fallen, we would have heard about
it.”

“I have my doubts.  Are you certain your eyes are
fully open?”