The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (15 page)

Ti'Shed still spoke through his palms. “I
had to be fast to fight a Servitor like that. A woman Servitor.”
Ti'Shed squinted. “Never heard of such a thing.”

“What's a Servitor?” Krothair asked.

“It is one who possesses the magic of
service. Don't they have knowledge of these things in the country?
Their powers are physical skill enhancements, near-endless stamina.
A dangerous, dangerous enemy to have made. And a woman to
boot.”

“She's not too keen on men,” said
Krothair.

Ti'Shed nodded and lowered his hands. “I
have to get clean,” he said indicating his clothes and body in
general.

“Me too,” Krothair said. Katya's touch was
still on him.

But she was a Servitor.
There's a term I've not heard of. How to I get to be that? Maybe,
if I was a Servitor, I could be on the Kingsguard!

Something occurred to him. The stories he'd
heard of the Kingsguardians seemed impossible for men to do. But
maybe not . . . maybe not if magic was real. Krothair had heard
rumors of magic in his travels but had never met anyone who had the
powers. Now Ti'Shed was talking about it like it was common
knowledge.

And it dawned on him that every single
member of the Kingsguard was probably a mage.

A Servitor.

“Damn,” Krothair whispered. “No wonder
Germon steered me to the Vaporgaard.”

As far as Krothair knew he didn't have a
lick of magic in him.

T
he blows fell around Krothair and he suddenly understood how
Katya must have felt yesterday. Ti'Shed had attacked her
relentlessly and he was doing the same thing here. The sword master
backed up and stopped momentarily.

Training had begun in the field behind the
house. A quick breakfast of what little of Krothair's food had
survived, then it was right out into the yard.

“I could have a better grip on that hilt
with my asshole,” Ti'Shed said, indicating Krothair's sword.

Ti'Shed was different during training. He
turned from someone that Krothair liked into someone Krothair
didn't like. The sword master had warned him about his moods, but
Krothair wasn't going to let that stop him learning from this
man.

“Quit staring off into space and look at
your hand,” the old man barked.

Krothair looked down at his fingers. He
couldn’t see anything wrong. He looked back up helplessly.

Ti'Shed looked off to the side and smirked
to himself. “You've got to rotate your hand at least twenty degrees
to your right or you couldn't kill a crippling kitten, let alone a
Foglin.”

Krothair tried to do as he was asked and
must have succeeded because Ti'Shed said, “That's better.” The
sword master's weapon started slashing through the air again and
Krothair met it, steel ringing on steel several times in quick
succession.

“Congratulations,” the old man said. “You
are now dead.”

Krothair looked down to see a small knife in
Ti'Shed's hand, the tip poking just below his ribs.

“We're sword fighting!” exclaimed the
boy.

“Is that what you will tell
a Foglin? Let me test it out. Excuse me you daft fucker, but we are
sword fighting! Likely they will be your last words if you ever
breathe them at all. First we must unlearn your reflexes. From this
point on you will not be having sword fights, you will be
having
fights
.
You must know what every single part of my body is doing at every
moment. Of course, that's true in a sword fight too, but it is even
more imperative here. Foglins can have as many as twenty different
appendages, each capable of ending your life.”

Krothair's mind was already overwhelmed. In
his travels it had always been easier to fight. His opponents
hadn't been especially clever and there had always been rules.

“So far this has been damn disappointing,”
Ti'Shed said, sheathing his weapons. “You're fast, but fast alone
won't do it! Your instincts are all wrong! Blocks my tea kettle
with a sword,” he said to the air. “I should have known just
then!”

“You're not giving me a chance,” Krothair
protested. He braced himself against whatever would come.

Ti'Shed nodded. “You're right. I apologize.
I told you. Something is off . . . it . . .” His throat choked. “We
are done for today. Think about what I told you. You will never
sword fight again. Understand that and embrace it. The sword is
only a tool in the arsenal of what you will become if we continue.
It is the most easily understood, and the one we will start with,
but it is only a beginning.”

The sword master turned then and went into
his house.

The sun was beginning to set, so Krothair
followed him, not really knowing what else to do.

I
t
was the middle of the night and Krothair awakened from a
nightmare.

The walls of his room felt as if they were
closing in on him so he went out to the kitchen to get a bit of
reprieve.

An odd metal tin he did not recognize rested
on the table. Krothair picked it up gently and looked inside. A
white powder sat in the bottom of it. He sniffed at it and his
heart sank as he recognized it.

His sword master was using Duller.

“T
he shipment was supposed to be here a week ago,” Polk said, a
vein bulging in his fat forehead.

Halimaldie sipped a bit of his rum. The only
other sound in the room was the ticking of his clock as he dealt
carefully with this situation. “Surely you understand that in an
operation of this magnitude there will be obstacles.”

“You shoulda stuck to
trading crab, spices, and pearls, my friend.” Polk
said
friend, but it was
likely that he didn't mean it.

“The gems will arrive.”

“I've heard rumors, D'Arvenant. Some say
your ship disappeared. Taken by a ghost crew or some such.”

“Ah, yes. Rumors. So
reliable. Shall I build a business plan around them?” It was good
that Halimaldie was slightly drunk.
It
gives me the courage to prove this asshole wrong. Even if the
asshole is right.

“My customers are getting antsy.”

“You're getting antsy,” Halimaldie said,
pointing an accusatory finger. “Your customers will drag on a line
as long as you tell them to.”

“This could be bad for you, D'Arvenant.
Promise people the world and they get angry when you can't deliver.
The gem trade has been on the black market since the war and people
are getting tired of it. I deal in luxuries, not some kind of back
alley addiction. This needs to be on the up and up and I thought
you would be the man to bring that back to us.”

Halimaldie stood up from
his large chair. “I understand the situation Polk. I
made
the situation. I've
got men risking their lives in the mines near the Vapor for my
cargo. It's hard enough keeping them paid and alive in those harsh
conditions, let alone dedicated to the task of mining. Their
salaries are
double
that of normal laborers. You disrespect them when you hound
me.” He tapped the glass front of his Trirenese clock. “I have
other things to do if you're done berating me.” He didn't have
other pressing matters at the moment, but he was quite done with
this. There was no explanation that Polk would find truly
acceptable. Halimaldie was in a stalling pattern.

“Your word falters,” Polk said, standing up
and gripping his cane.

“So be it,” said Halimaldie. “I won't be
bullied by someone to whom I owe nothing monetarily.”

“There are things more influential than mere
crown notes,” Polk said.

Halimaldie gave a wry smile. “I am sure you
will be disappointed to find out that you are mistaken. Tobbs! Jak!
See this man out, please.”

Two of Halimaldie's house servants came into
the room and escorted the fuming Polk out quite handily, leaving
Halimaldie alone again. That was the fourth disgruntled
intermediary he had dealt with in the past week and he was getting
quite good at it, but also quite tired of it. Halimaldie didn't
believe there was anything he couldn't handle; those type of
thoughts simply weren't in his consciousness.

But this was certainly bad.

He had promised so much to so many people in
what he now reflected was probably not a very good idea. It was
helpful to get the customers talking about something long before
you obtained it, but something this large . . .

The war had put a stop to many types of
trade. Hardeen Kingdom and Shailand used to mingle together in a
complex, ever-changing grid. It made trade a little easier when the
lines were loosely held. The war had changed that. Suddenly
everyone was incredibly territorial and new statutes and laws
sprang into being like weeds. Halimaldie had needed to look for
other sources of goods.

The southlands weren't ideal, but he'd heard
rumors of gems down there, so he'd set up an operation at the start
of the war: scout, establish, dig. There was no government in the
south. Halimaldie had once mused about the type of person who would
want to rule over thousands and thousands of square bands of hot,
mucky swamps. He didn't come up with anybody.

Halimaldie had used his family's vast
fortune to set up the fire ruby mine. Money could accomplish almost
anything.

But unfortunately his words
to Polk just now had been false. Halimaldie
knew
there were things that were
more influential than crown notes. Reputation was everything, but
he hadn't been about to let Polk know that he had scored a point
there. And that garbage about the black market? Of course Polk was
dealing with addicts. There was no other explanation for people's
actions.

Once the war had gotten underway, the
Shailand gem had trade dried up, and this made the merchants more
desperate. Halimaldie had been among the ones who were willing to
risk the capital to fill the gap in the market. King Maxton had
outlawed gemstones of any kind to try and stop the needless waste
of time and resources. The men that were mining were told to come
back and join the army against Shailand. Halimaldie's operation
hadn't been public knowledge, so he had continued his plans.

The instant the war was over Halimaldie was
leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else, because he had never really
stopped at all.

Halimaldie walked over to a large bookshelf
and selected a tome, levering it from the rest with his pointer
finger. He ran his hand over the cover and took it back to his
desk. It was entitled 'Koppler's Guide to the Rarer Medical
Afflictions'. Halimaldie opened to the contents.

He was just starting to
skim the page when his door opened silently. He only caught the
motion out of the corner of his eye.
It
usually squeaks,
he thought.
I made it so it squeaks.

“Tobbs,” he said. “What the hell is going on
with my door?”

“Nothin',” replied a voice that did not
belong to Tobbs. “Had ta see ya again, do ya see.”

Halimaldie slammed the cover of the book
shut with a loud clack. “Telin,” he said. “What a . . . pleasant
surprise.”

“I
told you our paths would cross again,” Telin said. “So here
we are.”

“What is it that you want?” Halimaldie
asked. “Rum?”

Telin turned up his nose at
the offer. He was dressed in a silver and purple tabard over
lighter purple clothing. He did not have armor or a shield, but he
definitely had his sword. What was that thing called again? All the
Kingsguard had such stupid pet names for their weapons.
Warbeater? Warmeat? Something like that.
Of course, some of these weapons
had
been forged through
some complex process that people said involved magic. Halimaldie
had always intended to learn about it. Mostly just so he could
debunk it.

“Not rum, then,” Halimaldie said. He poured
another glass for himself anyway.

“I want the full details of your mining
operation.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“You know full well which one, D'Arvenant.
The general population may be blind to your methods but do not
believe for a moment that the crown is. So do us both a favor and
get to the point.”

“That's gonna be difficult,” said
Halimaldie. “There are many things I don't write down.”

“A man like you has ledgers.”

“Don't pretend to know me so well, Telin.”
He did have ledgers.

“So hostile all of a
sudden. Perhaps I shoulda let that
Foglin
get your ledgers, if ya
catch.”

Halimaldie didn't want the minutiae of his
operations falling into the hands of the crown, but he wasn't
entirely sure there was a way out of this. He had to think.

“Do you plan on going down to the mine?” he
asked.

“It will likely come to that,” Telin said,
idly picking at one of his fingernails. “I need to know exactly
where it is so I don't waste time wandering around the
southlands.”

“I have certain rights that protect my
business, you know,” Halimaldie said.

“Not when the safety of the Kingdom is at
stake, D'Arvenant.”

He well knew that. His mind raced. Stalling
with Telin wouldn't get him as far as it had with Polk. The
Kingsguardian's threats were very real.

The clock ticked.

“Can we compromise perhaps?” Halimaldie
asked.

“I am not sure you are in the position to do
so.”

“Well, the way I figure it, we both have
each other by the balls. You could expose me as aiding and abetting
the enemy, and even though it's not true, that would probably put
the kibosh on my fun little entrepreneurial bent. But on the flip
side I doubt the crown would be very well loved if the people knew
what a fantastic job you were doing of not keeping Foglins out of
the most secure of cities.”