Paul Thompson - The Middle of Nowhere

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 right 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.