Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (71 page)

They worked together to flank Kerwin’s horse, closing
in from both sides until they sandwiched the mount between them.  Gair’s
reaching hand seized the dangling reins and soon he led the horse back to the
mercenaries.

Marik’s mount, on the other hand, would not be subdued
so easily.  They found it in the trees, still tossing its head as though the
rain were a swarm of stinging flies that persisted in annoying it.  When at
first they attempted to close, it kicked at them, whirling to bite if they
managed to near.  It cantered through the trees when they tried to flank it and
moved in whatever direction they were not.

Riley finally captured it when the trailing reins
caught on a fallen branch.  He returned every aggressive gesture with one of
his own until the horse reluctantly acquiesced to his wishes.  The captain had
much to say on the subject when they returned with the ill-tempered beast. 
Marik heard little of it over the pounding deluge and his own fiery agony.

The mercenaries rode double until they reached the
next village, another small farming community by the name of Errinton.  A local
innkeeper greeted them with surprise at having new guests so early in the day. 
She ran to fetch the local herbman after quickly studying Marik’s wounds.

Salves were applied to the four Kings.  They decided
rest for the remaining day would be the best course.  Riley offered his regrets
but he needed to reach Kingshome with maximum haste.  Landon assured him they
understood and expressed their gratitude for the third time.  With the exception
of Marik, who sat in a chair beside a large fire in the common room, they stood
in the doorway to wave as the guardsmen rode on.

When their forms faded into the downfall, the three
glanced at each other, lips pursed, knowledge alight within their eyes.

*        *        *        *        *

Sneezes plagued Marik the remainder of the journey. 
He took his foul mood out on his mount, seeing no reason the evil beast should
suffer any less than he.  The horse seemed to be of the mood it had endured
their presence long enough anyway without this new encroachment on its
wellbeing.  It cantered a step to come behind Dietrik.  Before it could scalp
the smaller man, Marik thumped it between the ears with absent redress.

His leg still ached to the bone where the dog had
bitten, leaving tears in the flesh and bruises completely throughout the
muscle.  He could walk, though prolonged time on his feet made the limb swell
with dull pain.  Due to this he rode his horse while making it his job to keep
it under a semblance of control to assuage the minor guilt from watching his
friends travel afoot.  Kerwin’s horse took turns bearing the other three as
they rotated their time on the mount according to whose wounds troubled them
worst at the moment.

The day spent over in Errinton left them with strength
enough to resume the road.  Their bodies mended beneath various bandages, aided
by poultices they received from the herbman.  They saw no reason to remain any
longer.

That night they had discussed the attack.  Suspicions
and speculations were all they could base their conclusions on, leaving them
nothing in the way of options.  “It was a risk to confront the baron,” Landon
spoke in a low voice over the table.  The common room only contained three such
furnishings to seat visitors staying over in the small farming village.

“What else should we have done then?” demanded Marik,
pausing when a round of coughing wracked him.  He continued while massaging his
throat.  “Dump his body down one of the sewer grates?”

“Don’t get testy, mate,” Dietrik remonstrated.  “Choices
were not exactly plentiful that day.”

“I still believe we made the best decision,” Landon
affirmed.  “But we assumed too much on Sestion’s part.  We left too many loose
ends lying in the conversation when we spoke.”

“Loose ends he took it in mind to pick up,” Kerwin
added.  “You wagered on him making a risk assessment of his situation that
would convince him to end his interest in us and Hilliard.”

“What’s his problem?” Marik raged, his voice raw.  He
had contracted a cold from the day’s exposures on top of everything else.  “You
and I told him what we would do if he made a play like this!”

Landon shrugged.  “That we are aware of his black
business ventures is enough, I think.”

“Yeah,” Kerwin extrapolated.  “I doesn’t matter if you
kept quiet about it the rest of your life.  People like Sestion, especially
noble
people, don’t want anybody to know.”

“Then he’ll get what’s coming to him!” Marik decided
fervently.  It took him a moment to notice the three faces of his friends
gazing at him.  “What?”

“Think about what happened,” Dietrik explained calmly,
with an edge of patronization that grated on Marik’s nerves.  “Try to see all
the ins and outs of our sudden adventure.”

“Don’t act like my mother, you,” he shot back
venomously.  He addressed Landon as Dietrik looked startled.  “And don’t you
spend all night leading me through a garden path just to see if I can do it. 
I’m not in the mood to waste the time, not when I feel like twelve pounds of
horse manure in a ten pound bag.”

Landon kept his composure, stating, “You recall when
we spoke with the baron?”

Marik nodded, then grimaced when a stab of pain lanced
through both his head and bandaged leg.

“We never declared who we were, only implied we served
Hilliard as his personal guard.”

“Which we are!  Were!”

He nodded.  “Then where did this assault on the road
leading away from Spirratta come from?  After we left him, he must have set
about learning all he could regarding us.”

“So what?  What difference does that make?”

“The difference,” Kerwin cut in, “is how he might plan
on dealing with the rabble who crossed him.  If we were actually Hilliard’s
men, or Baron Garroway’s I suppose, Sestion might have left it alone.”

“But we are not,” Dietrik completed the reasoning. 
“We do not have the protective umbrella extending over us that shields the
nobility.  We have no ties to anyone with power enough to make crossing swords
with them a danger.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that we’re going
to ruin his illegal dealings!” Marik returned.

“Actually it does, mate.  Since he knows us to be
Crimson Kings, he knows we will not be in or near Spirratta or Thoenar.  How
will you inform the cityguard in either city of the few deals we know about?”

“And,” Kerwin added, “as soon as he knew we were on
the road, I’m certain he rearranged everything connected to him.  If we
squealed, the guards wouldn’t find anything, then we’d be in hock for falsely
accusing an aristocrat.  We haven’t been in the cities, so there’s no way we
could have kept our finger on how he’s shifted his cards around.”

“But…” Marik felt lost.  “If we’ve lost our hold on
him, then why did we bother at all?”

“We bluffed.”  Landon stated it simply.  “I hoped he
would think we were in positions both where we could keep our eyes on him, and
have the backing of the Garroway barony for whatever additional blockade it
might have presented the likes of him.”

“Seems he has decided to call,” Dietrik said.  “I
suppose Hilliard’s not out of the kettle yet, then.”

“Don’t count on that one,” Kerwin interjected.  “If
he’s figured out we never told Hilliard the specifics of who was standing
behind the assassination attempts, he might write Hilliard off.  After all,
he’s back under Duke Tilus’ protection, and there are other ways of changing
the duke’s mind that will probably be less work.”

They had kept the truth from Hilliard, leaving him to
think they were as mystified as he regarding the last attack.  Landon feared
the youth would take up a crusade against a fellow noble who had chosen to walk
the path of shadows if he learned the truth.  If such a time ever arose, they
preferred not to be enmeshed in it, so had kept their silence.

“That is working on the assumption that this was not
simply an imaginative gang of highway bandits,” Dietrik reminded them.

“The dogs,” Landon thought aloud.  “Two for each of
us, or specifically for our mounts.  They must have known we would be riding
and needed a way to negate the advantage our horses afforded us.  Instantly
killing four animals as large as horses with precision shooting is all but
impossible, even with crossbows.”

“And if these were the same bastards,” Kerwin added,
“they would know that a simple surprise rush probably wouldn’t work.  Not after
all our playtime in Thoenar.”

Landon nodded.  “Hunting dogs to occupy our horses,
except they weren’t counting on Riley upsetting the numbers.”  He tapped his
finger on the table while mulling his memories of the fight, stopping suddenly
with finger raised.  “Let’s not forget about that exceptionally skilled lady
rider who lured us off the road in the first place.”

“That has to prove it,” Marik declared.  “I’ve never
heard of a woman bandit!  There is far too much preparation to be anything but
a planned attack against us!”

Dietrik jabbed him in the ribs with his finger.  “So
you are the wisest man in the mountains now, are you mate?  Ready to share your
knowledge of all in this world if I pass your trials?  Sorry, but I’ve managed
to misplace my knitting needles.”

Marik struck away the intruding appendage.  “If you
want to live in a tavern song, I’ll help you live out ‘Wondrous William’s
Wedding’,” he snapped, glaring at the hand.

“Which version?  The one where he ends owing the town
council seventy-three rutabagas and his left hand, or the one where he actually
gets married?”

“Whichever sounds worse.”  Marik pushed on as
Dietrik’s expression grew thoughtful.  “Forget that and say what you meant.”

“I simply meant that nothing should ever be assumed in
these matters.  This may end as nothing more than one of those strange stories
of coincidence you hear all winter around the barracks.”

He thought of asking whether Dietrik meant matters of
women or matters of the poisonous baron’s machinations, but a dull throb
through his leg prompted him to end the conversation as soon as possible. 
“Whichever it turns out, what should we do?”

“Watch our backs,” Kerwin replied, Landon nodding. 
“Not much else we can do, is there?  Not until we report to Torrance.”

“Yeah,” Marik said.  He rose gingerly.  “Come to think
of it, I bet the commander might have enough muscle to put a hurt on Sestion.”

“Perhaps he does,” Dietrik replied, “but is it worth
the price he would need to pay to have those strings pulled for him?  Better
not to count on Torrance setting a cat among the pigeons merely on our
accounts, mate.”

Marik had retired to his room to sleep through the
worst of his healing itches while the others remained downstairs, lobbing the
issue back and forth between them, never drawing any nearer to an answer.

His cold worsened.  The summer rains continued their
attempts to wash away the world.  Every gloomy day of trudging through the mud
preceded a new day of torrential deluge.  Their pace slowed until Marik felt
certain the other members in their unit who had remained longer in Thoenar must
surely beat them home despite their lead.

Twelve days after departing Errinton, the hill bearing
Kingshome finally appeared on the road when they exited a small wood.  Marik’s
leg no longer pained him overmuch but he would be glad to report to the
commander and retire to his cot as soon as possible.  The summer had not been
the easy contract everyone promised tournament duty would be.  They rode for
the hill, Marik dreaming of the dry rest awaiting him after spending a
candlemark or so telling Torrance about everything that had happened.

*        *        *        *        *

“What mental failure induced you to pay out
five
silvers
to rent a handcart?”  Janus glared at him with the intensity of a
high-magistrate, so fixated that Marik half-expected foam to bubble through the
corners of his mouth.  “Have you the slightest notion of the value of hard
coin?”

Marik wanted to shout, ‘
Have you the slightest
notion of the value of a blown contract?’
, but did not quite dare.  Though
he would love nothing so much as being sent from Tollaf’s sight forever due to
his irreverent attitude, this other old, cankerous man held a different power
no less the fearsome for its mundane nature.  Janus, as head clerk, controlled
the payroll and evaluation reports on each man in the band.  Crossing him would
likely be an act regretted bitterly.  This lent him a godlike presence in the
Crimson Kings; a man to be obeyed at once and tread lightly around.

“We felt getting Hilliard Garroway to shelter as
quickly as we could was worth five silvers.  In fact the Healer said if he’d
been any further gone, he would have died from shock despite her efforts.”

“In the event of a nobleborn’s peril, you had every
right to confiscate any conveyance on the street!”  Janus slapped Marik’s small
leather-bound ledger on his desk with a loud
thwak
.  “It’s kingdom law! 
Everyone past the age of ten days knows this, but inexplicably you saw fit to
hand over a fortune to a carrot farmer!  Explain!”