So when the Fall came, he was caught flat-footed.
He knew that the Via Appalia was somewhere to the north of him. And he knew that Raven’s Mill was somewhere to the west on the Via. And he knew how to find north. So he started out.
There had been no food in the house at all. And the only material for shelter was a cloak that Rachel had given him years before. It was far too small, but it served, barely, for his needs.
The greatest initial problem was that there were no human trails anywhere around his home. And the terrain and vegetation were horrible; the area was flat and covered in streams, all of them running in full spate with the weather. And the area was thick with privet plants, choking the way for miles on end.
He had followed game trails and his own nose for two days before finding the first human trail. Then he followed that north, striking for the Via Appalia.
What he found, instead, was Dionys McCanoc.
At first he’d just been glad to see him. Dionys had his usual cluster of sycophants around him and it was at least a group to attach himself to. But the attachment palled quickly. Benito had tried to make a bow and arrow to hunt, but none of the rest of the group bothered to try to find food. They had had a small amount of food when Herzer arrived, but the eight full-grown males, nine with Herzer, quickly ran through it.
After that Herzer had tried to forage, but his training had never run that way. He had borrowed a knife and whittled a gorge, then baited it and fished. But it took all day for him to catch just two fish and they were both distinctly strange looking. Neither of them was shaped the way a fish was supposed to be shaped and they had strange whiskers coming from their lips. He also had no idea how to prepare them but he finally decided that doing it the same way as game would work. So he cut of the heads, gutted and skinned them. Then he had to get a fire started in the pouring rain. Dionys had a very old fashioned lighter and with great reluctance he gave it up for the experiment. After several tries Herzer managed to get a fire going in the shelter of a fallen tree. Then he cooked the fish by sticking them on a forked stick. The first stick had caught on fire after getting too hot, nearly dropping the precious piscines into the fire and ruining them. After that Herzer kept in mind the prescription about a “green” branch for cooking. Several pieces of the fish had fallen in the fire anyway as they cooked. And when he was done there was a bare mouthful for everyone in the group. But it was something. And it was hot.
It was only this morning, after going through all of that for a mouthful of half-cooked fish, that Herzer had started to wonder about Dionys’ plans. The giant didn’t seem to be going anywhere or doing anything. He seemed to have an attitude of waiting.
As soon as he flung off the sodden cloak in the morning, Herzer braced Dionys on his plans. It had not, in retrospect, been the most politic move possible. There was no breakfast and no prospect of dinner unless one of them somehow found some food in the rain. And Dionys was not one to take a challenge to his authority lightly. He had heard about half of Herzer’s diatribe then struck the young man in the center of the chest with a punch that would fell an ox.
Herzer had been in innumerable full sensory fights but rarely with his fists and never at full stimulation; only real idiots or masochists had the pain systems turned all the way up. So for just a moment he lay in the mud wondering if the madman had killed him. Finally he got up out of his fetal curl and walked away into the woods.
He wasn’t sure where he was going, just that he wasn’t going to look Dionys in the face for a while.
He returned to the encampment after noon having found no food and no answers. Dionys, in the meantime, had sent some of the hangers on out to watch the trail. Then Dionys had gathered the rest, including Herzer, together for a speech.
“The days of weakness are over,” he said, standing in the rain with his sword unsheathed and planted on the ground in front of him. “Now is the time for the strong to take their proper place.”
It continued in that vein for a good thirty minutes as the four who were not out on watch sat in the rain and, at least in Herzer’s case, wondered where this was going. Finally the purpose of the speech got through to him.
“So, you’re saying we’re going to become bandits?” he asked incredulously.
“Only for the time being,” Dionys responded reasonably. Since Herzer returned he had been treating him with more respect than he had any of the others. “In time we will take our proper place of leadership in this New Destiny.”
“New Destiny,” Herzer said, wiping the rain out of his eyes. “Isn’t that what Paul calls his group? And doesn’t Sheida sort of have control of Norau?”
“For the time being,” Dionys responded. “For the time being. But that depends upon her allies on this continent. In the meantime we can carve out our niche and get out of all this,” he said, gesturing around at the sopping woods. “Surely you don’t want to live in this for the rest of your life?”
“Hmmm,” Herzer said, not looking around. He had done several scenarios where there were bandits to be dealt with and in most of them one of the ways to win was infiltrate the bandit camp. Well, I’ve infiltrated the bandit camp, he thought. How many points do I get?
But he suddenly realized it wasn’t about points. Dionys was deadly serious. Emphasis on deadly. The sword was not out just as a prop; he was more than willing to use it. And Herzer felt a cold chill run through his body as he realized that Dionys was primarily thinking he might have to use it on Herzer.
“Well, of course I don’t want to be in this for the rest of my life,” Herzer snorted. “And I see no reason that we shouldn’t take our rightful place.” There, absolute truth.
Dionys stared at him for quite a while and then nodded.
“Benito, Guy and Galligan are out on watch. There will, eventually, be people moving on these trails. Some of them will choose to join our little crusade. Some will have items to pass on as a toll for use of the roads. All of this to the good. Some will demur. They will have to be… persuaded.”
There was a rough chuckle from around Herzer and he realized that the entire charade had been for his benefit; the… creatures around Dionys had long since sold their souls and had no problem at all becoming bandits under the conditions of the Fall. Only then did he wonder if they had all started off as he had, a toy to be added to Dionys’ collection of fallen souls. He also realized what Dionys had been waiting for. He had been waiting until any of the remnant holdouts, like Herzer, were hungry and desperate enough to have stopped caring.
Herzer also knew that he was surrounded; probably by prior arrangement the others had gathered to either side and at his back. And whereas several of them had knives, and Dionys of course had his sword, Herzer hadn’t even found a stick that was to his liking; he was essentially unarmed.
But at the same time he finally realized just where he stood. He was damned if he’d be the villain. He was damned if he would fall to the level of banditry and brigandage, which was what Dionys was talking about even if he didn’t know the words. Herzer might have some questions about his feelings, especially his feelings about women, but he had never acted as anything other than a good and just person. And he wasn’t going to start just because he was a little hungry. There were too many strange looking fish in the world.
The only question was how to extract himself without having his throat cut. And right now the answer was: acting.
So he’d acted. He knew that acting fully convinced would be wrong, but he’d been willing to go along. Thereafter he noticed that one of the others was always around him, watching, waiting.