A Sellsword's Valor Read online

  She’d only taken a few steps down the alleyway when something flashed by her in a blur, and she saw what she thought was the creature, its impossibly long, slender arms extended out behind it, and then she let out a cry of surprise and terror as it came to an abrupt halt only feet in front of her. It can’t be, she thought, her mind panicked and wild. It’s impossible. There had to be two that was all. One in front of her, one still in the street.

  Decided, she turned and ran back toward the mouth of the alleyway. She’d only made it two steps when there was a flash of something at her side, so swift that she could feel the wind of it, and in another moment the creature was standing at the entrance to the alley. Its hood had been thrown back by its movement, and Allia was unable to repress a whimper as she saw that the creature’s eyes shone a bright, ghostly amber in the light of the still burning torch. They weren’t human eyes at all and resembled nothing so much as the sharp, somehow haunting eyes of a cat.

  “What…what are you?” she gasped, her fear and exhaustion making each word a struggle.

  The creature didn’t respond, only cocked its head to the side on a neck that seemed somehow too thin and too stretched like the rest of it. “Well,” a voice said from behind her, and Allia spun to see a man approaching, “that, I’m afraid, would take a little bit of explaining.”

  Allia found herself backing up against the alley wall, trying to keep her eyes on both figures at once. “Oh, there’s no need for all that,” the man said, his voice cool and calm, “you’ll break that pretty neck of yours, bending it so much.” He held up a hand, gesturing. There was a gust of wind and abruptly the creature was standing beside him, its hood once more covering its face.

  “There,” the man said, “that’s better.”

  “W-who are you?”

  The man smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about it. Hector had smiled in much the same way when he’d looked down at her lying in the alley and told her she would be punished. At least, that was, until his head had flown from his shoulders. Allia was surprised to find tears gathering in her eyes, not because of Hector or his men but because of the sudden, shocking violence that had descended on the alleyway.

  “You may call me High Clerk Evane,” the thin man said, walking forward and coming to stop only a few feet from Allia herself.

  “What…what do you want from me?”

  “Oh, we’ll get to that,” the man said. He took a moment, looking her up and down. “I have heard about this Oleander thief. A woman, it is said, of great beauty, one whose words glide along a man’s ear like honey, whose unparalleled allure is matched only by her equally impressive swiftness.” He chuckled. “Some even theorize that the woman has the blood of some animal—a deer or antelope, perhaps—running in her veins, claiming that it is the only possible explanation for such uncanny speed.” He shrugged helplessly. “Fools, of course, but then even fools manage to be right every once in a while, and I must admit that your beauty is truly a thing to be admired.”

  A new kind of fear wormed its way into Allia at the man’s words, at the way he was looking at her—like a man considering purchasing livestock. She took a slow, deep breath, forcing her building panic back down. She was no terrified child to be sent scurrying into her bed. She was a woman grown, and she would act like it. “If you’ve got…that in mind, you’ll have to kill me first.”

  The man chuckled again, the sound grating to Allia’s ears. “Ah, but you are a sweet thing. Have no fear, young one, I’ve no intention of using you for ‘that.’ No,” he said, stepping closer, “my interests in you are quite…different.”

  Allia let him draw nearer until he was right in front of her, his hand reaching out and caressing her face. “Still,” he said, “even a man such as myself can find himself tempted—”

  His words turned to a scream of surprise as Allia’s palm flashed out, striking him in the nose. The cartilage gave way with a loud pop and blood gushed from the wound. The man stumbled backward, but before he could regain his composure, Allia’s knee flew out, hitting him hard between the legs. The stranger let out a sound that was halfway between a squeal and a shout, but Allia was already turning, sprinting back toward the alley’s entrance.

  “Get her!” the man screeched, and before Allia had made it to the street, the creature appeared in front of her once more. Its arm lashed out, a blur that was impossible to follow, and Allia felt rather than saw, the handle of its sword strike her in the head. The next thing she knew she was lying on her back in the alleyway, starbursts dancing before her eyes.

  “Bitch,” the thin man said, coming to stand over her, the creature beside him. “I heard she was fast,” he said, one hand cradling his broken nose, “but gods, I hadn’t imagined that.”

  Allia tried to speak, to beg the man to leave her alone, but her thoughts were muddled and unclear, and she couldn’t make the words come. Darkness gathered in the corners of her vision, and the last thing she heard before it overcame her was the man grunting, “Take her.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Odel took the rag from his back pocket and wiped it across his brow as he stared into the blazing forge. The fire was burning in earnest now, and sweat traced tiny rivulets down his thick arms and face. But he didn’t mind. He and the fire were well-known to one another—not friends, of course, for no one could ever be friends with a thing whose existence depended on destruction, but acquaintances at the least. For thirty years they had spoken to one another nearly every day, and though there was no friendship, there was perhaps at least some mutual respect.

  He reached for the long metal tongs lying on his worktable, then turned and glanced at the boy, Andiel, grunting in disapproval. “Work those bellows like you mean it, boy,” he growled, “the metal won’t answer to anything less than your best.”

  The boy worked the bellows faster, rolling his eyes. Odel frowned. It had been ten years since he’d trained his last apprentice. Ten years, but not long enough. Not nearly. Ten years of bliss, only him and the metal and the fire. He still couldn’t believe he’d been fool enough to take on another apprentice. If the lad’s mother hadn’t shown up begging, claiming that her son had fallen in with a bad crowd and needed a good trade to keep him busy, Odell would still be enjoying his time alone, watching the metal take shape with a satisfaction that never seemed to wane.

  Studying the boy, the way he held the handles of the bellows in dainty hands, his nose upturned as if to keep his face away from the heat of the flames, Odel had a hard time imagining him getting into any trouble. At least, not the kind of trouble he’d gotten into when he was younger, back alley fights and bar room brawls. When the boy showed up for work that morning—late, as always—Odel had been certain he’d smelled some sort of perfumed scent on him. As far as he was concerned, the only trouble the lad’s mother had to worry about was the boy deciding to wear face paint, maybe starting to go by “Andrea” instead of “Andiel.” And what sort of name was “Andiel” for the son of a clerk anyway?

  Odel sighed and started toward the forge. “Harder, lad,” he said, not bothering to turn and not really needing to. Six months the boy had been helping him, if help it could be called, and he knew well enough that Andiel would slack off in his efforts as soon as Odel’s back was turned. Odel paused at the fire, glancing at the length of metal within it, the steel glowing a bright orange with the heat. Then grunting with satisfaction, he clamped it with the tongs and drew it out. He stepped to the nearby basin of water and slid the glowing metal inside. The water hissed and steam billowed around him, carrying with it the smell of fire and metal, and he breathed it in.

  There was peace in the forge, satisfaction of coaxing a shape from the metal, of working it and hammering it until it was straight and true, but it wasn’t a satisfaction he could make the boy understand. It was in the making of something from nothing, of realizing a thing’s potential. He hadn’t much understood it himself when he’d been the boy’s age. His own master had tried to tell
him, but Odel had been young and stupid, his thoughts on chasing skirts and fighting. Now though, he realized that neither of those things offered anywhere close to the satisfaction he felt here, in this sanctuary of heat and steam and sweat.

  Still, fighting had been a distracting enough pastime, and Odel had always been bigger, stronger than others. It meant that there were few bar room brawls or back alley scuffles that he didn’t win. Sure, he’d have a few more bruises and aches, but the other man—or men, as his stupidity and courage had known few bounds in his youth—would be lying unconscious in the street. At least, later, when he was sober and the urge to fight was no longer in him, he’d hoped that they’d only been unconscious, but the truth was that his had always been a strength few could match, and he’d held nothing back in those brawls. For all he knew, there were some corpses lying in their graves with his fists to thank, another brick to stack on the shame that he carried on his back wherever he went. Great strength or not, that load was a heavy one, and it was only in his refuge, among the fire and the smoke, that he could set it down. At least for a time. For the thing about fighting was, win or lose, it left its mark on a man. Knife scars from blades he’d never seen coming, an ear that was little more than a fat lump of flesh on the side of his head, and a gap in his teeth that whistled if he breathed the wrong way.

  Still, between fighting and chasing skirts, Odel would take fighting any day. When he’d been young, he’d had a fair enough idea of what he would do with those skirts, those women, once he finally caught them, but age had brought some degree of wisdom, and he now understood that those women weren’t running at all, not really. They were only biding their time as the men pursued, waiting to lay a trap and ensnare them. At least in a fight, a man understood the dangers he faced, knew that his opponent’s anger was the twin to his own, his emotions the same. It was a dirty, bloody business, but it was an honest one, and he had been one of the best at it, a man whose fists were legendary in Baresh. As for his dealings with women, well, the worst beating he ever took in a fight didn’t hold a flame to those, and that was a fact.

  Sighing, he drew the steaming blade out of the quenching tub and laid it flat on the worktable, giving the metal time to cool before he would heat it once more. It wasn’t that he didn’t liked women—he did, had liked many in his time, and had the scars to prove it. But love? No. Never that. He loved the forge, loved the smell and the feel of the heat and the fire, loved the sweat of an honest day’s work and the way it felt when he stepped out and the night air cooled it against his skin. That was freedom for him, and it was enough—at least it always had been. It was only that he was a battered old warrior, weary beyond his fifty years, and though much of the size and strength of his youth remained, the will to use it had withered.

  He took the filthy rag from the back pocket of his trousers and wiped the sweat from his face again, “That’s enough for now, boy,” he said. “Go on and grab yourself somethin’ to eat, if you’d like. Just come back tomorrow, and we’ll get to it. With all the orders the castle’s been puttin’ in, the work’ll be steady for months to come.” He glanced at the massive blade lying on the table, then at the finished swords lying in a bundle beside it and shook his head. Lengths of steel six feet long with a weight greater than any man he’d known—himself included—would ever want to swing in battle.

  He looked back at the boy in time to see him roll his eyes at the prospect of the work to come and decided that though some words might fall on deaf ears, they needed to be said anyway. “I don’t want to catch you rollin’ your eyes again, lad. Not about the work. There’s plenty of clerks and merchants you can go apprentice to, if you want to get fat at some desk, let your hands grow soft like a woman’s. It’s a privilege to work the metal, to shape it, and you’d do well to understand that.”

  The boy nodded, properly chastised. “Sorry, sir.”

  Not a bad lad, not really. Just spoiled and that was alright—the world would break him of it soon enough. It always did. “It’s alright, boy. You’re young yet, but you won’t always be. Right now, I reckon you think you’ve got a thousand different opportunities, standing at paths reaching to the hundreds, any one you could walk down if and when you chose, and you’d be right, mostly. Thing is, as you get older, the paths grow over with weeds and bushes and soon you can’t go down them at all. Remember that, lad. Choose your path before one is chosen for you. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

  The boy nodded again. “Yes sir. I was wondering…could I take the rest of the day off?” His face colored slightly, “There’s a dance being held at The Tilting Cup tonight, and a girl there…well,” he said, hesitant, “a girl will be there who is a friend of mine.”

  Odel grunted. A boy his age didn’t have girls who were friends, only girls he was after and that was alright. Odel could tell him a thing or two, share some of his own wisdom on that subject as well, but why bother? The years between his and the boy’s age weren’t so many that he’d forgotten what seemed more important than everything else at the time. “Your mother okay with it?”

  The boy smiled, seeing hope. “Yes sir I asked her before I came.”

  Odel nodded. “Alright then, but I want you here bright and early in the mornin’. There’s plenty of work to be done and not enough hands to do it.”

  The lad beamed. “Yes sir, thank you. Thank you.” He turned and started toward the door, pausing when Odel called out to him.

  “Boy?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “I want you here on time, understand? If you can’t make it on time, don’t bother comin’. I got no patience for a worker can’t show up on time.”

  “Yes sir.” The boy nodded, serious and meaning it, at least then. But Odel knew well enough that a boy of that age was capable of meaning a thing passionately one moment and then forgetting it the next. There were plenty enough pregnant single women in the city who could attest to as much.

  Still, he smiled and waved at the boy. “Go on then, off with you.” The youth didn’t need any more encouragement. He turned and disappeared out of the shop door almost too quickly to see.

  Odel stared after him for a minute, wondering if it was too late for him to find a wife, maybe have some kids. They’d be a trial sure, but he thought they’d be good, too. He’d forged enough blades in his time, shaped and made them, he thought it would be a joy to help mold a human being. And just who are you kidding, old man?

  Shaking his head ruefully, he turned back to the work and slid the next impossibly long length of steel into the forge, grunting with the strain of the heavy metal. The gods alone knew who would be wielding these things. Unless maybe they’d discovered some giants somewhere, but he didn’t think it likely.

  He’d only been at it for a little over an hour when he heard a knock coming from the other section of the shop, the area—separate from the forge itself—where he displayed his finished goods. He grunted, tossing the hammer on the worktable and glanced back toward the shop front with a frown. He’d learned over years of working with the public of Baresh that you could tell a lot about a man by his knock and this one was imperious, no doubt belonging to an equally imperious, self-important person. It was a knock he’d become familiar with in recent weeks.

  Sighing, he removed the leather apron he wore and wiped his hands on the rag. He walked to the store-front past rows of the over-large swords he’d been commissioned to forge, past the counter where the boy often stood and took orders—when, that was, he could be troubled to do anything. He didn’t bother to hide the frown on his face as he unlatched the door and swung it open.

  A thin man stood in the doorway, an impatient twist to his features, his hands on his hips as if he intended to punish the man who had invented doors and thereby stolen a few moments of his precious time. “The shop’s not open yet, clerk,” the blacksmith growled, staring down at the man who was at least a head and a half shorter than Odel no matter how he might strut and lift his nose. “Not for another two hour
s or more.” He glanced meaningfully at the sun, only just now rising over the horizon, then back to the thin man. “The only reason I’m here this early at all is because I’m working on the job you commissioned me for. It’s a lot of swords and not a lot of time you gave me to do it in, and with the strange specifications it’s taking even longer than it normally would. Each interruption like this is only going to increase your master’s wait.”

  The clerk sniffed, “My master, the king, does not wait, blacksmith, and you will call me High Clerk Evane, in future.”

  Odel snorted. Another woman’s name, that. He wondered why the man’s parents hadn’t gone all out, named him Mary or Elizabeth, maybe. “Threats and pronouncements won’t smith your metal for you, clerk. Words are only that, with no shape or substance, and no blade has ever been sharpened by the use of them.” He raised a bushy eyebrow at the man as he leaned forward, his thick bulk and height towering over the small clerk. “Not sharpened by them, but dulled often enough, I think.” He sighed, telling himself to control his temper. “Anyway, words won’t get your blades made in time, only I will, and I won’t be able to do that if I’m constantly being interrupted.”

  The thin man frowned for a moment then gave a slight shrug, a smile appearing on his face. It made his mouth look strange and alien, as if the man weren’t exactly sure how to do it and whatever muscles it required were weak from disuse. “Never mind the swords,” he said, waving a hand dismissively, “I’ve come on another, more important matter.”

  “That so?” Odel said, only now taking the time to look behind the clerk at what he’d first taken as a castle guard who had no doubt been brought along to convince him of the seriousness of the situation. He couldn’t see much of the man or his face as he wore a hooded cloak, but he could see enough to know that the shape underneath that cloak was big. No, not big. Huge. Odel had always been the biggest man in the bar or the alley or, if he was being honest with himself, the whorehouse, but this man was a giant, standing at least as tall over him as he stood over the clerk. And where Odel’s shoulders and arms were thick with slabs of muscle from years spent in the forge, this man seemed bigger than him by far.