Alastair Archibald - Weapon of the Guild

As he clambered into the saddle, Grimm noticed the swordsman's swollen left eye, surrounded by a dark-blue ring.

"Are you quite well, Harvel?" he asked, suppressing a smile.

"Quite well, thank, you, Lord Mage. I believe I did mention I had a few odds and ends to sort out. Although I prefer sword and bodyguard work, I'm also called upon now and again to persuade reluctant debtors to part with their money. Last night, one of my clients was none too pleased at my visit, and he hit me across the face with a moneybag. That was a bad mistake; he should have paid up without complaint. It'll cost him even more than he owed to pay a physician to straighten his nose and a dentist to replace his broken teeth."

Crest snorted. "Once, he'd never have come close to you," he said with a laugh. "You're getting too old for this game. I've told you before: you're slowing down, man."

"He was no bumbling duffer, this mark," Harvel protested. "Inches over six feet, built like an all-in wrestler, and he moved like greased lightning. Any other man would have gone down like a pole-axed steer at the blow he gave me."

A cheerful argument-and-insult session began between Harvel and Crest, to which Grimm was content to listen, marvelling anew at his companions' mutual talents for self-aggrandisement, poetic insult and vainglory. The tall tales lasted well after the party had left the town and taken the west road leading to their final destination, Crar.

****

A slight mist arose from the ground as the sun began to warm the land. Grimm took care not to press his horse too hard, caressing Jessie with his knees and making appropriate encouraging noises to persuade her to go where he wished. The fierce muscular pains of the day before did not assault him, and he felt much more cheerful than he had only twenty-four hours before.

The prepared route gave way to a simple track, which became at times difficult to distinguish from the barren, dusty plain through which it ran.

On the advice of Dalquist, the party rode all day, making only a brief stop in the early afternoon to rest and to eat. When the sun had dipped below the horizon for a couple of hours and it became all but impossible to follow the vague path, the senior mage finally called a halt. Crest pointed out a stand of trees and bushes some fifty yards off the track, suggesting that this would be a good location to rest for the night, and the senior Questor agreed.

The elf busied himself with setting a fire, using various sticks and branches he found littering the small, welcome copse. He began to search in his pack for a tinderbox, cursing under his breath, when a smiling Dalquist waved him aside.

"Questor Grimm: a little practice for you. Do you think you can light this without setting fire to the entire plain?"

"Can a bird fly, Brother Mage?" Grimm asked, returning the smile with only a little more confidence than he felt. He had practiced the control of his magical power over and over, until even the acerbic, critical Magemaster Crohn had declared himself fully satisfied. He felt certain he could evoke the necessary magic by force of will alone, without word or gesture.

The young Questor extended his Mage Sight into the depths of the woodpile, assessing its fragility and its flammability. He drew just a little power to himself, and clenched his brow and fists for a mere moment. In an instant, the wood burst into lambent flame, launching great curls of orange light into the night sky.

"Perhaps you'd like to use a little less force next time, Questor Grimm?" Harvel suggested. "It's not good practice to let the world know where you are."

"My apologies, friends," the young mage replied, happy that his spell had succeeded. "Next time, I'll just set a small flame on my finger and light it that way. That was at the lower limit of my projected power, I think."

"May the Names help our enemies, then." Crest grinned in evident appreciation as he spoke. "Does anybody want to eat now?"

Dalquist withdrew a dry cake of jerky from his pack, but Crest shook his head. "I advise you to save that tack for leaner times, Questor Dalquist. Watch and learn from Crest, the master hunter."

After a brief glance over his left shoulder, Crest sent the thin whip streaking out behind him. When he drew it back, Grimm saw a fat rabbit trapped in the coils, its neck broken. Crest repeated the operation twice more, and two more small animals joined the first.

"Heavens help the local wildlife, then," Harvel muttered in a stage whisper, and everybody laughed. Harvel set to work, expertly preparing and cooking the rabbits.

****

Producing a belch of heroic proportions, Crest offered to take first watch while the rest slept.

Grimm shook his head. "I do not feel sleepy," he declared. "I am happy to take the first watch."

The others accepted with grace, and Crest offered to take over in four hours. Grimm asked how he could judge the time without the guidance of the sun, but a military man, Crest explained, needed to be able to wake at will after any specified time interval. Grimm thought this was just part of the elf's habitual bluster, but for once Harvel did not contradict him.

When the others were asleep, Grimm took in the peaceful sounds of the area. Branches gently whispered and creaked in the breeze, and in the distance a wolf cried; an eerie, spectral sound. The embers of the fire changed their glowing patterns as if they formed the parts of a living thing, a luminescent chameleon, and Grimm wandered off for more sticks with which to feed the flames.

Was that the sound of the wind, or something more ominous? In an instant, Grimm's strained his sensitive ears until he could hear the blood rushing through his arteries and veins.

There is something there…

He started as a hand caught him from behind, wrapped around his mouth so he could not cry out. An arm that felt like iron clenched his arms to his sides. His heart pounded fiercely, almost deafening him, and then came a whisper that sounded like a storm to his sensitised ears.

"Thought to humiliate Harman Hammerfist, did you? Let's see you try those filthy devil-cursed magic words now, you undersized excuse for a wizard! So you choose to go around with that puffed-up fop and his mutant half-breed friend? No less than I expected. I've tracked you all day, all the way from Drute, waiting for the moment when you were alone. You never even looked around for an instant! Even on the bare plain, you never saw me.

"In the morning, your friends will find you hanging from this tree, a reminder of what comes to them that try to cross Harman. You should never have messed with me in The Broken Bottle. Goodbye, wizard, and good…"

The whisper finished in a loud gagging sound, and Grimm felt the hand fall from his mouth. Leaping forward, the Questor spun around, calling Redeemer to hand. He saw Harman clutching frantically at his throat, his eyes bulging, as Crest stepped from the shadows.

"You're a good tracker, Harman," the elf said, "and you skulk well in the dirt where you belong, but you make a lousy assassin. You should have made your kill quickly and got out. But you had to tell the mage your life story first. That was a bad move; a very, very bad move."

Crest released his whip from the big man's neck, and Harman's whooping gasps for air soon brought Harvel and Dalquist. The would-be assassin was now surrounded.

"I thought we'd see this piece of semi-human scum again sooner or later," Harvel spat. "He's obviously the forsworn traitorous bastard I took him for, but I never gave him the credit for being able to sneak up on us this easily. Well done, Hummer-pissed; you're easily one of the best crawlers I've ever met."

"Who's going to do the deed, eh?" Harman blustered, his eyes flicking from side to side like those of a cornered animal. "You think you're big enough to carry it off with that pig-sticker, you walking clotheshorse? Or let's see if that pointy-eared imp can take me on. Or are you all too scared to take on a real man, one-to-one?"