The Conqueror's Shadow (25 page)

The tavern had no name. It had never needed one. Among those merchants who traversed the treacherous road and those hardy few willing to brave the icy slopes and powerful storms of the Terrakas, it was as well known as the mountains themselves. It was the only place a man could find a good drink, a hot meal, and possibly a nighttime companion before trudging once more into the snows. It offered rooms for rent and stables for any animals that survived the trek—all the comforts that could possibly be expected in such a desolate place. And all at prices a mere four or five times those common to Imphallion's greatest cities.

Today was a fairly typical day at the tavern. The barkeep, also the owner, was remarkably well groomed. His hair, tied in a series of tails, was relatively clean, and he'd lost only a small number of teeth to rot and barroom brawls. Standing behind the thick oaken bar, he occupied himself wiping a heavy wooden tumbler with a rag even cleaner than he was.

Slumped at several tables was a motley collection of men, all wrapped in furs, and most grown rather pungent over the course of time. Many folks believed that bathing during winter was an unhealthy practice, and the winter was long indeed in the Terrakas Mountains. Gathered around them, or fluttering through the large common room, were the tavern's other “employees.” Business for them was slow today. Only one of the whores had managed to drum up any custom, and the
sounds of that transaction, emerging from an upstairs room, irritated the other patrons.

The grumble of conversation filled the room, bouncing from table to table, careering off the oilcloth windows, and swirling about the shoulders of the stranger who sat alone in a corner, a mug of bitter ale perched before him. He was tall; that much was clear even through his heavy layers of fur. His hair reached past his shoulders. He wore a matching beard, a thick growth more likely the result of neglect than any conscious choice. The angry red of his face and the rough chapping of his skin suggested a man unaccustomed to the bitter environs.

With the exception of a single word—“Ale”—he'd spoken not at all since he'd appeared in the doorway, snow-encrusted, three hours past. One of the whores, dark-haired and slender, made as if to proposition him when he first sat down. She might, in another life, have been pretty, but the years had smothered her spirit long ago, and her eyes were dull. The stranger shook his head and sent her on her way, and then he'd simply waited.

The door swung open to bounce loudly against the wall, the latch gouging another chip from the scarred wood. Framed against the snow stood a man whose grandfather must have been a grizzly. Though well over six feet tall, the breadth of his shoulders made him appear squat. Shaggy brown hair sprouted from every visible inch of his head, face, and his arms. It was impossible, without close examination, to determine where the furs he wore left off and his own coat began.

“Beer!” the man roared with a voice like an onrushing avalanche.

“Right away!” the bartender squeaked. “One beer!”

“Didn't say ‘one' beer! I said ‘beer'! Keep 'em coming till I say otherwise!”

The smaller man nodded and all but attacked the nearest tap. The bear-man stood impatiently, scanning the room with brown, beady eyes as he waited. Apparently, he didn't care for what he saw.

“Hey, you!”

The grey-haired stranger glanced up to see the bear making a beeline toward him. No surprise, that. It had, he decided, been inevitable.

He did not tense. He did not rise. Instead, he leaned back just far
enough from the table to provide a clear view of the wicked axe that lay beside him.

“If you even try to tell me I'm in your chair,” the stranger said, “I'll kill you.”

Caught with his mouth half open, the mountain man bristled-looking rather more like a hedgehog than a bear at that instant—and then deflated. Something in the stranger's eyes suggested that, just maybe, he ought to be taken seriously.

With a nod and a sickly grin, he pivoted to go back to the bar.

As soon as the bear's back was turned, the stranger stood up and clocked him over the back of the head with his mug. The building shook to the rafters as the trapper toppled, unconscious, to the floor.

At the incredulous stares, the stranger could only shrug. “He'd just have come back after he'd gotten drunk,” he explained.

“You can't do that to Grat!” one of the fur-clad men protested, starting to rise from his own seat.

Grat? That was Grat? Crap
.

“I just did.” The newcomer raised his axe for all to see, then set it very softly on the table. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No!” the barkeep shouted, waving frantically at the man who'd spoken up. “No problem! We're all happy here! Everyone's happy!”

A few snarls and scowls suggested everyone was
not
happy, but there was no further trouble.

The stranger resumed his seat, sparing a single glance for the unconscious giant who now lay snoring in the center of the taproom. “Well, this is great. What the hell do I do now?”

“Perhaps, good Master, I may be of some small assistance?”

From behind the stranger appeared another fellow, clad in furs bleached an ugly off-white. He was slender, a far cry from the barrel-chested trappers around them. His skin was a shade darker than theirs, and there was a foreign cast to his eyes. His long black hair hung in a single tail, and his smile, an unctuous expression, showed a mouthful of yellowed teeth.

“You shouldn't sneak up on people, friend,” the stranger said to him, slowly loosening his grip where it had dropped instinctively to the haft of his brutal weapon. “That's a good way to get yourself killed.”

“I humbly bow to your superior wisdom, good Master.” The new arrival gestured toward the table. “May I have the honor of joining you?”

“Why not?”

For several moments they sized each other up. Finally, the man in white deigned to speak. “I watch you for some while, good Master. You were waiting for this man Grat, were you not?”

“I was,” the stranger admitted. “I was given his name in the last village as a man I might hire to guide me into the mountains. Unfortunately, even if he wakes up anytime soon, I don't think he'll want to talk to me.”

“Indeed? But this is to your good fortune!”

The stranger frowned. “How do you figure?”

“Grat is a competent trapper, good Master, but he is not the man to be your guide into the Terrakas peaks. It is a treacherous place, very dangerous. A man of purpose and importance, such as yourself, should have only the best and most skilled of guides. You, my good friend, must have one of the Terrirpa as your escort.”

Native to the Terrakas, the Terrirpa were said to thrive in the mountains as no one else could. They possessed not only an astounding resistance to cold, but the ability to breathe comfortably at elevations that would cripple most people. Add to that a nearly infallible sense of direction, and they did indeed make excellent guides.

“You have a point,” the grey-haired man admitted. “I hadn't expected to find any of the Terrirpa in this place. But,” he added, before the other man could speak, “it seems, by the great fortune you so shrewdly mentioned, that I have just such a one sitting before me. Is that not so?”

“It is indeed, most astute Master.” The other man's eyes twinkled. “For a modest fee, if you will condescend to allow one so unworthy to travel beside you, I will be delighted to take you wherever it is in these magnificent lands you need go.” He stuck forth his right hand, palm upward in the local custom. “I am called Sah-di, good Master.”

The stranger placed his own palm above the other. “Very good, Sah-di. And I am called Cerris.”

The Terrirpa nodded. “Cerris. It is well. Let us get past the distasteful task of negotiating my humble fees, and we shall be off.”

THE HAGGLING TOOK
well over an hour, and at the end, all Corvis managed was to drag a truly appalling figure down into the realm of the merely distressing. Yes, he possessed more than sufficient funds, but it was the principle of the thing that galled him.

While his new guide went to his room to gather his equipment, Corvis sauntered to the bar, glaring down at the proprietor, who was trying his absolute hardest to keep a simpering grin fixed to his face.

“Can I help you, m'lord?”

“Yes. I've a horse resting in your stables at the moment.” Poor Rascal, who'd barely made it this far through the cold, couldn't possibly have gone one step farther. At the moment, he was shivering under three or four layers of blankets and probably wishing dreamily, in the way only homesick horses can, for wide-open grasses and fresh apples. “I need to leave him there until I return. Possibly as much as several weeks.”

“I see, m'lord. Of course.” Already, Corvis knew, the bartender was thinking over a list of the men who would be willing to pay good money in exchange for good horseflesh.

“And the cost for stabling a horse for two weeks, friend?”

“Ah, I believe two silver pennies should cover it, m'lord.”

An outrageous price, but no less inflated than the rest of the costs in this tavern at the edge of nowhere. Corvis removed a small leather pouch from beneath his coat and plunked it down onto the bar. The barkeep's eyebrows rose at the solid clank, and Corvis could swear he saw the man's lip quiver. With a smile, he upended the bag. The fellow's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the small glinting disks—gold, not silver!—piled before him.

“Three half-nobles,” Corvis told him steadily. “There are three more in it for you when I come back to claim him.”

The bartender gaped and gasped as though something obscene was happening beneath the level of the counter. “I—that is, yes, m'lord! Of course.” He began scooping the proffered coins into the strongbox, and moved as if to hand the empty pouch back to Corvis.

“Keep that.”

The other man frowned. “Keep the pouch?”

“Indeed. You might need it.”

“I'm not certain I follow you, m'lord.”

Corvis's smile widened, splitting his recently acquired beard. “You see,” Corvis explained, casually examining the edge on Sunder, “if the horse
isn't
waiting for me when I get back—and in perfect health—you're going to spend the rest of your life carrying your testicles around in your hands. So a pouch might come in handy.

“Do you follow me now?”

“Yes, m'lord!” The other man gulped. “Quite well!” And then he was gone, having suddenly decided that something on the other side of the bar needed his attention
right away
.

“I'm so glad,” Corvis called after him. With a satisfied nod, he strode back through the front door, moving around to the stables to bid Rascal farewell.

HIS LUNGS BURNED
from the icy air within his chest. Even with a thick cloth wrapped about his nose and mouth, and another tied over his eyes to blot out the worst of the light reflecting from the endless white, his face felt as if it would soon fall off the front of his skull. It was an all-consuming task to keep placing one foot in front of the other. His only signs of progress were the crunching of ice and snow beneath his boots, and the endless trail of footprints he and his guide left snaking along the mountainside.

With the butt-end of Sunder, Corvis tapped Sah-di on the shoulder. The Terrirpa stopped and turned about. Corvis was certain he'd said something, but his voice was lost in the howling of the winds.

Apparently seeing his employer's confusion, Sah-di practically shouted in his ear, “You wish something of me, good Master?”

“I just …” Corvis coughed twice, attempting to regain some feeling in his numbed throat, and tried again. This time his voice, though rough as coal, was intelligible. “I just wanted to know if this really is the easiest route,” he shouted.

“To all intents and purposes, good Master.”