The Middle of Nowhere Page 5

  “You see?” said the kender. “I’m not a thief. All those tales about my people stealing are vicious lies!”

  Hume beckoned Khorr to bend down. The minotaur stooped, and Hume had a word in his ear.

  “Very well,” said Khorr. The shaven-headed swordsman lent the minotaur his weapon. Khorr stretched his long arm up, up, until the point of the Khurian’s blade was below the kender’s chin.

  “Don’t be rash!”

  “Come down,” Caeta repeated.

  Everyone tensed as the kender gathered himself to jump. He landed lightly between them. Raika seized the back of his collar roughly.

  “No,” said Malek. “Let him be.”

  Scowling, she complied.

  “What’s your name?” asked Caeta.

  “Carver. Carver Reedwhistle of the Balifor Reedwhistles.” He stuck out a slim, rather dirty hand. “Maybe you’ve heard of us?”

  “Nobody’s heard of you, worm,” Raika snapped. Carver withdrew his hand.

  “We do seem to keep running into you,” Malek said. He sat down on a hay bale, and the others followed his example. “What do you want? Why are you following us?”

  The kender tapped the side of his sharp nose. “I listen to this,” he said, smiling, “and I smell something interesting brewing. I mean, what brings a band of sod-scratchers all the way to Robann? Robann, a sinkhole that collects every out-of work mercenary, hardcase, and sword-slinger for a hundred leagues around?” He pointed dramatically at Malek. “You’re forming a robber band, aren’t you?”

  For the first time in many days, Malek and his companions laughed out loud. Carver joined in, not sensing the joke. Caeta sobered and explained their mission.

  Carver’s jaw worked. “Don’t give me that! Hire swords for room and board only? Nobody’s that desperate!”

  “Some are,” Hume replied. “Others like myself seek honorable service instead of menial servitude.”

  The kender cupped a hand to his lips and said to Raika in a loud whisper, “What did he say? Who’s he calling menial?”

  “Throw the runt out.” She lay back in the straw, pillowing her head on her hands. “Let’s get some sleep. Unless anybody wants to cut his throat first?”

  “Yurk!” Carver clapped a hand to his throat. “Let’s not be hasty! I’m not here to spoil whatever it is you’re planning. I want to join up!”

  “We told you,” Malek said. “We intend to save our village from marauders. It’s dangerous business.”

  “Sure, sure. The more dangerous, the better! Let me go with you!”

  “I don’t think you have much to offer,” Caeta said. “We need fighters, not sneak thieves.”

  Carver adopted a pitiful expression, but one by one they turned their backs on the kender. Malek and Nils dragged their bags of provender to where they’d been sleeping and lay down with the precious food between them. Hume stood by the ladder with the lit candle.

  “Good-bye,” he said.

  Shaking his head, Carver went to the ladder. “Big mistake!” he muttered angrily. “Anybody’d be lucky to have a Reedwhistle in their band.”

  Before he turned to descend the ladder, Hume booted Carver in the rump. It was a good blow, and the kender sailed out of the loft, landing with a soft thump in the fodder below.

  “Farewell!” Hume said, grinning. He snuffed the candle. For some time after, Raika could be heard snickering in the dark.

  Cessation of the rain brought the inhabitants of Robann outdoors in great numbers. Early in the morning, the farmers found the throngs in the streets so thick they could scarcely make any headway. Raika and Hume had come with them, leaving the too-conspicuous Khorr behind in the stable.

  “Who knew—oof!—there were so many—ow!—people in the world?” Wilf said, trying to shoulder through the crowd.

  The Saifhumi woman told the young farmer that none of these people lived here. They were all drifters, soldiers of fate and fortune. By winter, none of them would be in this province.

  “Where will they go?” asked Nils.

  “Wherever there’s money or jobs,” said Raika.

  “Or to their graves,” Hume added.

  They split up once again, Raika going with Wilf and Caeta, Hume following Malek and Nils. Raika parted the mob ahead of her with ill-grace, pushing idle conversants apart and shoving dawdlers aside. Some took exception to this, but one look at the towering sailor, her large hands and taut muscles, and they sullenly let her and her companions pass.

  The companions did not do so well that morning, even with Raika beside them to give weight to their purpose. They were laughed out of four taverns, three inns, and ejected bodily from a pawnbroker’s warehouse. The broker was buying up arms sold by out-of-work warriors, and the presence of recruiters, even shabby ones, disturbed his business.

  Hot, tired, and discouraged, Caeta and Wilf sat down by the only public work in all of Robann, the Pool of the Skymistress. This was a shallow, stone-lined basin. A very old, very worn statue of the ancient goddess of healing stood in the center, water dribbling from her open hands. Caeta cupped her hand in the pool and brought some liquid to her lips. Thirsty as she was, she quickly spat it out.

  “Bad?” Wilf was thirsty himself.

  “Foul.” Caeta looked up at the eroded face of the goddess, feeling very old herself. “Nothing in this town is fair.”

  They sat down on the rim of the pool. Raika mopped her brow with a scrap of homespun. She dipped it in the water, wrung it out, and tied it around her neck for cooling.

  The pool was in a small, irregular square in the northwest quarter of town. This had once been the elves’ quarter, and while there were more of them about than in other parts of town, they no longer predominated. The stream of folk striding, shuffling, or sauntering past the seated trio was much the same as before—humans mostly, with the odd dwarf, goblin, or kender. The gang ruling this part of town was still made up of elves exclusively, the strangely named Brotherhood of Quen.

  Across the square, the crowd stirred. Voices multiplied and grew loud. Raika stood up to see what was causing the commotion.

  A pair of elves strode toward the center of the square followed by a pack of curious onlookers. At the center of the park, just a few yards from the Pool of the Skymistress, they halted, turned their backs to each other, and began pacing off a gap between them. Raika recognized this scene.

  She said, “Stand up. This is worth seeing.”

  Wilf helped Caeta stand. They could only see over the crowd by standing on the moldy rim of the pool. Wilf clutched Raika’s arm for support until the latter’s cold glare caused him to gingerly remove his hand.

  “What’s happening?” Caeta asked.

  “Watch.”

  The square was forty yards wide. The two elves stood, some thirty yards apart. Between them the ground was clear. Everyone else in the square kept back. Each elf was handed a clay flagon by one of the party that had followed them in. This they placed on top of their bare heads, holding it in place until they stood upright and steady. One of the elves was slim and fair-haired, dressed in a sky-blue tunic and wearing knee-high suede boots. He looked rich and confident. Facing him, the other elf was black-headed and swarthy, a forester of the kind who usually painted their faces with strange designs. He was garbed like a woodland hunter in a tight green leather jersey, trews, and ankle boots. His garments were well covered with stitched-up tears and patches.

  A young human, dark-skinned like Raika, came out of the crowd. Like a herald, he proclaimed loudly, “Take out your slings!”

  The elves produced identical slings of braided twine, with deerskin pouches for their sling-stones.

  “Load one stone!”

  Carefully, so as not to disturb the vessels balanced on their heads, the elves each pulled out a smooth river stone from their respective belt pouches. They loaded these into the slings.

  The speaker stepped back. He cried, “Loose when you will!”

  The fair elf raised his rig
ht arm and started whirling his sling, taking care not to strike the tankard poised on his head. His opponent whirled his weapon with his hand at his side, almost lazily.

  The crowd erupted with partisan shouts for one elf or the other. Caeta and Wilf heard cries for “Amergin” and “Solito” in equal measure. They couldn’t tell who was who.

  After a long windup, the fair elf loosed his missile. The quartz pebble flew swiftly at the dark elf’s head. At what seemed like the last possible moment, the forester looped his stone into the air. Incredibly, the projectiles collided in mid-air a few feet in front of the dark-haired contestant. Caroming off each other, the stones whizzed away. Wilf heard one crash into something behind him—something that broke loudly.

  The mob cheered. Puzzled, Wilf muttered, “What are they trying to prove?”

  “It’s a duel,” Raika replied. “One of them is going to die.”

  It didn’t seem likely, given the carnival atmosphere. However the farmers noticed that while the crowd was boisterous and cheerful, the elves were utterly serious.

  Without being prompted, they reloaded their slings. Again they whirled their weapons in differing styles, the swarthy elf slow and deliberate, the blond elf with eye-blurring speed. This time the forester threw first, and his missile was deflected away by a well-aimed fling by his opponent.

  Money and goods changed hands in the crowd. A chant of “Three! Three!” began. Nodding slowly to each other, the elves loaded a new stone each, and quick as they did, both hurled at the same time. As close together as two events could be, both tankards exploded in a spray of red clay fragments.

  The blond elf stalked to the center of the square and flung out a hand at his opponent, pointing. A hush fell over the raucous mob.

  “You see!” he shouted. “I am as good as you!”

  The forester combed potshards from his hair with his fingers. “No,” he said coldly. “You lost.”

  “We broke each other’s cups at the same time!”

  “Mine hit first. Yours broke before mine did.”

  He turned to go, but the well-dressed elf charged in, caught his arm, and spun the dark-haired elf around.

  “Once more then! Without cups!” he cried.

  An acorn falling on the cobbles would have shattered the sudden hush. The forester looked up at his taller antagonist with wide, black eyes.

  “You know what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  “Stand to your place!” was the haughty answer. The blue-clad elf stalked back to his spot, while the forester calmly resumed his stance.

  “Fifty steel on Solito!” someone yelled.

  “Shut up!” A scuffle broke out to the farmers’ right, quickly squelched by those watching.

  Instead of stones, this time the elves loaded sling-stars, flat pieces of iron or bronze with four to six razor-sharp points. Thrown by an expert, a star point could pierce plate armor.

  This time, as Solito raised his arm to spin his weapon, his opponent made a single underhand swing and let fly. Wilf and Caeta followed the glittering bronze missile in flight. One point buried itself in the center of Solito’s forehead. Stricken, his own star flew wildly away. It flashed between Raika and Wilf. The Saifhumi woman stood her ground. Wilf threw himself backward into the pool to avoid the hissing projectile.

  Without a sound, the blond elf fell dead.

  Having been in Robann four days, the farmers expected the crowd to break into cheers for the winner. No one did. In fact, those on the outside edges of the crowd began to hurry away, eager to be gone. Before long, genuine panic seized the square, and witnesses were rushing to find every available avenue of escape.

  Raika snagged a goblin hopping by. The ugly little creature squirmed and tried to bite Raika’s hand, but she held him by the neck so tightly he couldn’t bend down far enough to get his teeth in her.

  “Leggo! Leggo!” he whined, waving his arms uselessly.

  “Why all the rush?” she said. “Surely duels are common in Robann?”

  “Not like this! Leggo!”

  Raika shook the goblin hard. “Tell me,” she said tersely.

  “That one dead—he Brotherhood!”

  She opened her fingers and let the goblin drop to the cobbles. Coughing, he gathered himself up and staggered away.

  “What does it mean?” asked Caeta.

  “The dead elf was a member of the gang that rules this part of town.” Raika glanced at the blue-clad figure, left leg still bent, arms flung wide. “When the Brotherhood of Quen finds out one of their own has been killed, they may take their anger out on anyone who was here.”

  “We ought to go!” Wilf said. He jumped down from the pool. Algae dripped from his ears.

  “Not yet. I’ve no desire to get trampled in some back street. Besides, we may want to talk to the winner.”

  Caeta’s eyes widened. “You’re right. He’s certainly capable.”

  Against the thinning tide of fleeing spectators, Raika, Wilf, and Caeta reached the forester. He was standing with his head down, working beeswax into his sling to keep it supple. Wilf marveled at his coolness. The killer was the calmest person in the square.

  “What do you want?” demanded the elf before Raika or the farmers could speak.

  “Just a word.” Raika looked at the elf’s fallen foe. “That was quite a throw.”

  “He was a large target.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Caeta.

  “Amergin.” He slurred the last syllable, Ah-mer-zheen.

  “They have a proposition for you,” Raika said. “You should listen.”

  Amergin finished working his sling. He tucked it away and recovered his blue-green cloak, left on the ground during the contest. To the farmers’ amazement, they saw it was made of thousands of tiny green or blue bird feathers arranged in overlapping rows of graduated color.

  “I’ve no time to listen to propositions,” said the elf.

  Caeta said, “We’ll give you shelter.”

  “Not wise. The Quen Brotherhood will slay anyone they find at my side.”

  Amergin started moving. He did not run, but his movements were remarkably swift. Wilf had to jog to keep up, and even tall Raika had to hurry.

  Breathlessly, the farmers gasped out their plea as they hastened through an alley toward Silver Circle territory. During the explanation Amergin said nothing, just kept moving. At the border between the Brotherhood’s territory and the Silver Circle’s quarter, five elves in sky-blue tunics stood watch. Amergin flattened against a wall. Raika and the farmers did likewise.

  “They wasted no time!” Wilf whispered.

  “The first to leave the square warned them,” Amergin answered quietly. “In hopes of a reward …” He uncoiled his sling. “They’ll not take me—at least not alive.”

  “Wait,” Raika said. “There might be a better way.”

  She grabbed Wilf by the front of his rough shirt. “Play along,” she murmured and shoved him out of the alley into plain view of the Brotherhood guards.

  Storming out after him, she shouted, “Worthless rat of a husband! How dare you come home at this hour, reeking of drink! Where have you been? Who have you been with?”

  A bit stunned, Wilf could only stammer, “None of your business!” He embellished this with a belated sneer. “Wench!”

  “Wench? I’ll show you who’s a wench!” She threw a punch at the hapless young farmer, who closed his eyes and cringed. Raika deliberately missed him and pretended to go reeling across the street from the force of the missed blow. She collided with three of the Quen guards.

  “Shameless lout, see what you made me do!” she screamed.

  “Get off, human!” said one of the elves, pushing Raika away.

  “Now you want to push me around, too? There’s no justice in the world, no honor for a suffering wife!”

  She drew back her large fist and knocked the closest elf cold. Wilf blundered into another, diverting him until Raika could knock him down as well.

&nb
sp; The remaining three Quen gang members tried to seize them. They carried swords and batons, and though Raika was more than a match for them in terms of strength, they were agile and alert now, and she and Wilf received several punishing blows. Wilf went to his knees, arms encircling his head for protection. A Quen guard stood over him, ready to put him away, when a flat river-washed stone hit him squarely on the back of the head. It sounded like a melon being opened by a housewife.

  Caeta burst out of the alley, shouting, “Sonny! What are they doing to you, dear boy?”

  Distracted by the old woman’s sudden appearance, one of the remaining guards mistimed his attack, and Raika tore the baton from his hands. He went for his sword, but she smashed his fingers against the hilt with his own stick. White-faced, the elf abandoned the fight. He ran up Moneylender’s Street, holding his shattered hand to his chest.

  Raika turned to face the last guard and saw Amergin had disposed of him already. They raced on, eager to be away before the injured guard returned with reinforcements and didn’t stop until they reached the stable.

  Inside, Khorr stood with one foot propped up on a bale of hay. One hand upraised, he declaimed,

  Thus did Edzi, courageous captain, lift high his awesome ax,

  To smite his former friend, now the treacher Toral,

  Traitor, taunter, and terrible foe—

  Sitting cross-legged at the minotaur’s feet, leaning back on his splayed out hands, was Carver Reedwhistle.

  “Hiya,” he said, seeing them enter.

  “Why are you here again?” said Raika.

  Khorr lowered his arm and took his foot from the hay bale. “He was a willing audience. I was reciting The Rage of Captain Edzi, a famous ballad of my people.”

  Taking in the minotaur and kender, the elf asked, “What is this? A refuge for refuse?”

  “You might say that,” Caeta said, smiling. “Take your ease, Master Amergin, and we shall explain.”

  The elf listened in silence to the story of Rakell and the victimized village. When the woman was done, he said, “I cannot help you.”

  “Why?” Wilf said. “You’re amazing with that sling—and you don’t seem intimidated by any odds.”