“Easy, MarSevrin,” said the man. He was small and wiry, clad in hunting leathers and a mail shirt beneath his gray mantle. A few white hairs dusted his dark beard, and an angry red crease ran from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. “A boy your age should know better than to play with sharp things. Both of you, keep quiet. If you give us away, 111 hang the both of you by your balls for the others to throw rocks at.”
“Yes, Tavarre,” Embric and Cathan said together.
“Good,” the older man said. “Now sit tight, and wait for the signal.” He patted Cathan’s shoulder, then was gone, vanishing into the brush like a ghost.
Before the plague, Tavarre had been Baron Tavarre, the lord of Luciel Vale. He had seldom come down to the town in those days, keeping mainly to his keep, but Cathan’s father had named him a fair man. He was also an avid hunter, often roaming the highlands in search of game. It was said he knew every tree, every rock, for miles around. Staring at the bushes where Tavarre had disappeared, Cathan believed it.
The Longosai hadn’t left the baron’s keep untouched, so folk said, though Tavarre never spoke of what had driven him to flee its halls and take to the wilds. Others had joined him, men and women whom the sickness had spared. They were bandits now, roaming the hills in search of prey. Embric, a boy of twenty who had been a childhood friend of both Tancred and Cathan had been one of the first to join Tavarre’s band, and he’d urged them to join up too. They’d refused, however, not wanting to leave their family.
That was before.
Cathan had gone to the bandits as soon as Tancred’s body was burned, demanding to be brought to Tavarre. The baron had looked him over carefully, then nodded, agreeing to take him on. Since then, they had kept to their camp, hidden in the wilds, waiting. There was more waiting to banditry than Cathan had thought, and his restlessness grew to anxiety, even with the training at arms his fellows gave him. He needed someone to lash back at, a target for his grief.
Finally, the chance had come. The day before yesterday, Tavarre’s scouts had ridden into the camp with news. A party of Scatas, soldiers of the imperial army, were riding through the wilds nearby. There were a dozen of them, but they didn’t interest Cathan as much as the other who rode with them: a cleric of Paladine.
So they’d set out, two dozen men with Tavarre in the lead. The baron had chosen a likely spot for an ambush, along the road the Scatas traveled, and the’dy settled in and begun to wait anew. That had been last night, with four hours still lacking before dawn; it was nearly midday now, and Cathan was beginning to wonder if there really were soldiers nearby.
Just then, though, he heard the sharp, trilling song of a bluefinch. It wasn’t an unusual sound in the wilds, but Cathan’s muscles tautened anyway. Tavarre had taught his men several calls to use for signals, and the bluefinch was one of the most urgent. It trailed away, then came a second time, closer and shriller. He bit his lip as he reached beneath his cloak, feeling for the leather sling he kept looped through his belt. When he had the weapon in hand, he reached for a pouch he kept at his belt, and pulled out a jagged, white lump-not a stone, but a bit of broken ceramic. He’d taken the remnants of the holy symbol he’d smashed before his brother died. Now he rolled the shard in his hand, his mouth a hard line.
“Tancred,” he whispered, “be with me.”
He could hear them now: the thud of hoofs on the muddy road, a dozen paces away. Beside him, Embric loaded a battered crossbow, and together they turned to peer over the gully’s edge, at the road below. Cathan sneered as he saw the Scatas, their blue cloaks soaked, clouds of breath-frost blossoming from within their plumed, bronze helms. Behind them, beneath a canopy carried by a pair of drenched acolytes, rode the cleric. He was a fat man, his satin robes stretched tight where his prodigious belly pressed against them.
Hating him immediately, Cathan tucked the shard into the pouch of his sling and prepared for the attack.
Revered Son Blavian sniffled, loathing the accursed weather. It wasn’t like this in the lowlands. True, it was the rainy season in the Lordcity now, but at least there it was warm. Despite the covering his servants carried, and the warm, vair-trimmed vestments he’d brought with him, he was cold to the bone. He blew on his pudgy hands, trying to warm them.
“Paladine’s breath,” he grumbled. “What manner of man would want to live in this place?”
He expected no answer. The Scatas had spoken little since they’d set forth from the Lordcity for Govinna, Taol’s highland capital. They bore several coffers of gold coins and orders for Durinen, the province’s patriarch, from the Kingpriest himself. Blavian wasn’t sure just what the message said, but he had a good idea. Before he’d left, First Son Kurnos had spoken to him about the brigands who had absconded to the hills. No doubt the Kingpriest meant for Durinen to fight back against the robbers. That would explain the gold: waging such a campaign would not be cheap.
Whatever the reason for his journey, though, Blavian was proud the First Son had chosen him. Kurnos was the imperial heir, after all-it was good to have his favor. Hopefully, that would make up for having to slog through this damp, frigid country…
He heard the strange, trilling song again. He frowned, looking up to call out to the soldiers-pray, what bird makes such a call?-and saw something, just for a moment: a dark shape, moving behind a pine-dotted hummock. He gasped, and was drawing breath to shout a warning when the hillsides came alive.
It happened so quickly, it seemed over almost before it began. The Scatas had time enough only to lay their hands on their swords before more than a score of cloaked figures rose from the bushes to either side of the road, crossbows loaded and ready. A few others held slings, whirling them slowly above their heads. Blavian cast about, a cold stone deep in his gut as he realized quite a few weapons were trained on him.
“Show steel, and you’ll be dead before you finish the draw,” warned one of the ruffians, a wiry man with a scarred face. He perched atop a mossy boulder, a naked sword in his hand. He waved the blade, looking past the soldiers. “Let down His Corpulence’s covering, will you, lads? Let him feel the weather.”
Wide-eyed and white with fear, the acolytes tossed the canopy aside at once, and moved away from Blavian. The Revered Son winced as rain pattered down on his balding pate, then puffed out his chest as the man on the boulder laughed.
“What are you about?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
“I’d tilink that must be obvious.” Grinning, the man hopped from the rock down onto the road. He nodded toward the soldiers, who were glancing at one another, fingering their weapons’ hilts. “Tell your men to throw down their swords, Reverence, unless they want to leave this place with more holes in their bodies than they came with. It’s all right-we only want to rob you.”
“What!” Blavian exclaimed. He thumped a fist against his thigh, his voice rising to a roar. “This is preposterous! You have no right-”
Something hit him then, a mass that seemed to come from nowhere to slam into his collarbone. He heard a gruesome snap before he toppled from his horse, splashing down into the mud-then the pain hit, gagging him. He yowled, writhing, but his acolytes stayed where they were, too afraid of the bandits to move.
The lead brigand’s smile didn’t waver. “Reverence, you’ve seen what my men can do,” he said. “Next time, they won’t aim to wound.”
For a moment, the only sounds Blavian could manage were small, pained grunts. After a few tries, though, his voice came. “You heard him. Swords down, all of you.”