Paul Thompson: The Middle of Nowhere

“You need a plow to cultivate a field,” said the Elder, wheezing a little as he shifted on his haunches. “For this great task, you need warriors to fight warriors.”

“What are you saying, Papa?” asked Caeta.

“Set a wolf to eat a wolf! The world is full of spillers of blood and wielders of iron. They afflict the land as fleas torment a dog! Go and find some to fight your battle for you. Let their blood be shed, not ours!”

Everyone began babbling at once, debating the old man’s notion. Nils spoke for the nay-sayers when he asked, “How will we pay warriors? They’ll want steel or gold. We have nothing!”

“The granaries are full,” replied Malek. “Despite the drought, the harvest will be fair. We can pay in grain.”

“No mercenary will fight for barley!” scoffed Bakar.

“Some may for a full belly,” countered the Elder. “Find the hungriest, and make them your champions.”

After long wrangling, the farmers finally agreed. Four villagers would go forth from Nowhere to seek out warriors for hire. Malek wanted to go, and his brother Nils also volunteered. Daunted by the prospect of leaving their familiar land, no one else was quite so eager to join the expedition. Impulsively, Wilf offered to go. His twin brother Lak had been one of those taken by Rakell. Lastly Caeta announced she would go too. Someone older and more level-headed needed to go along to keep the hotheaded Malek out of trouble.

“Where should we go?” asked Wilf, scratching his rough thatch of straw-colored hair.

No one knew. None of them had ever been more than a day’s walk from Nowhere in their lives.

“Go west,” growled the Elder at last. “Follow the setting sun. That way lies the path of blood.”

Malek clasped hands with his fellow travelers. “We’ll be back in less than thirty days,” he vowed.

They hastily packed a few supplies for the journey and departed before sundown. As they passed the well, Wilf noticed something strange. The Ancestor bore a large horizontal crack.

Caeta and the rest paused to examine the old stone. The sandstone pillar was broken right across.

“Must’ve happened when the ogre fell against it,” said Nils.

“A bad sign,” Caeta murmured, running worn and callused fingers over the break.

“Will the well dry up?” Wilf wondered.

Malek resumed walking. He was forty steps away before he turned back to call, “Leave that broken stone before your courage dries up!”

One by one his companions rose from the wall and joined him. Last to leave was Caeta. By the dying light of day she could see a dark stain spreading from the crack in the red stone. It spread very slowly, but when she touched the stain, her fingers were not colored or damp. The stain spreading from the broken stone did not leave a trace.

Seven days’ journey west from Nowhere lay a border where the corners of three lands came together in one place. No country had the power to hold this shadowed spot, and none would claim it. In a way, it was another kind of nowhere, but this nowhere was well known. Many are the rogues who need a place out of the sun to heal their wounds, nurse their hates, and hatch their schemes.

The town was called Robann, a girl’s name, but no one living remembered who Robann was. Bordered on two sides by forest and on the third by plain, it was a ramshackle affair of half-timbered houses, plank shanties, and squat, ominous stone towers. These last were strongholds of the town’s rulers, the seven gangs of Robann.

It was a windy day, and the wind poured in the shutterless windows. Raika kept one hand over her cup, to keep the dust out. It wasn’t very good beer to start with, and a leavening of sand and dry horse dung would not improve it.

She sat with her back against the wall of the tavern. This was a firm habit of hers. She’d seen a man stabbed to death from behind in a wineshop in Kalaman once. He was a famous general, and he trusted his loyal retainers to guard his back. One of them drove an iron blade into his master’s kidney. Raika had no retainers and trusted no one but herself to protect her life.

The tavern was called the Thirsty Beggar. Raika thought the name was apt after she met the owner and barkeep. Taverners were usually bluff, ruddy-faced fellows with expansive waists and red noses. The proprietor of the Thirsty Beggar looked as if he had just survived the siege of Valkinord. What a dried up, hollow reed of a man.…

As she thought of him, he appeared before her with a dented copper pitcher full of brown beer.

“You want more?” he rasped, hefting the pitcher in his bony hands.

“I’ve enough for now.” She kept her hand in place on the cup.

His eyes narrowed. “This ain’t a lodging house. Taverns are for drinking. You don’t drink, you don’t sit here.”

Raika waved a hand at the nearly empty room. “Yes, a mob is clamoring for my table, isn’t it?”

The barkeep curled a lip and stalked away, head hunched between his narrow shoulders. Too mean to afford a bouncer, he had no way of forcing the rawboned woman from the premises if she didn’t want to go. Raika didn’t. She had no place to go.

She hailed from Saifhum. Her home had been the galley Manarca , now at the bottom of the sea with most of her crew. All that treasure had broken the good ship’s back and put her under the waves. Bags of gold and ingots of steel, row upon row, nestled between Manarca ’s ribs. Each pair of timbers framed a prince’s ransom, and Raika’s share would have been a handsome sum. Then a storm came out of the great wide ocean and broke the galley in two, and down went Raika’s fortune.

She’d had enough of the Beggar’s cheap beer not to notice the four men when they first entered. They tiptoed in, wide-brimmed straw hats in their hands, looking distinctly out of place.

The barkeep made a beeline to the newcomers. Evidently they didn’t want a drink, because the old scarecrow fell to berating them in a loud, screeching voice.

“What do you think this is, a temple? You want to warm my benches without drinking my brew? Get out, miserable fools! Get out before I take a broom to your backsides!”

“Shut up, man,” Raika found herself saying.

“You can’t talk to me like that! This is my place!” he shouted back at her.

“Horsedung! The Silver Circle gang owns this place. You just run it.”

His gaunt face flashed more color than Raika had ever seen there. “That’s a lie! I pay the Silver Circle good coin every week to stay open, but I own it.”

The cause of this dispute huddled by the tavern door, listening. While the farmers cowered, a slight figure brushed past them, making for the bar.

The barkeep spied the newcomer. “You! Kender! I told you not to come back here!”

“Not me, boss. You must’ve told someone else. I’ve never been here before in my life, I swear on my granny’s knickers-”

Raika laughed. This reminded the owner of her, and he turned back to say, “Mercenary trash! Get out of my tavern!”

She stood up, a study in contained power and careful lethargy. A full six feet tall with ebony skin, sun-washed sailor’s togs, and a thick Saifumi turban, Raika seemed to fill the low-ceilinged room. Even the kender, seated nonchalantly on a barstool, turned to gaze at her.

Raika strode toward the barkeep. A head taller and far more robust, she backed the stooped shell of a man up against his own bar. She pushed her face to within a hair’s breadth of his.

Glaring at him, she said, “What do I owe you?”

Trembling, he replied, “Nine cups of Number One brown beer, two sticks of boar jerky, let’s see …” He counted on his fingers. “Three silvers, if you please.”