Richard Baker: Swordmage

Geran, Hamil said silently. The swordsman sensed his small companion’s sudden alertness and slowed his steps. He followed Hamil’s gaze and saw what the halfling saw-a gang of five men watching over the street. Three lounged on the sagging stoop of a dismal alehouse, and two gathered around a firepit on the opposite side of the street. They carried cudgels and knives, and each man wore a red-dyed leather gauntlet wrapped in chains on his left hand. Crimson Chains. Slavers.

“I see them,” Geran answered. A slaving company from the city of Melvaunt, the Crimson Chain had a bad name throughout the Moonsea. He’d met them a few times in the Vast, but he never would have expected to find them in Hulburg. The harmachs had outlawed slaving long before he’d been born, and it was a law they kept rigorously. Geran’s mouth tightened, but he kept walking. The Chainsmen might have some legitimate business in Hulburg, he told himself. And even if they didn’t, it wasn’t his place to object. The Shieldsworn would roust them out if they intended trouble.

“Not so fast, friends.” One of the Chainsmen-a short, stocky man with a shaven head and a long, drooping mustache-stepped down from the alehouse stoop into their path. He grinned crookedly, but his eyes were hard and cold. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, hey? You’ve some dues to pay.”

Geran scowled. He’d seen this sort of thing more than once, but never before in Hulburg. In any event, he was not inclined to pay off thugs anywhere as long as he had good steel on his hip. “Dues? What exactly do I owe dues for, and who’s collecting?”

The bald Chainsman studied Geran with a shark’s smile. “There are lots of bad sorts about, you know. I’m Roldo. My boys and I keep order in the Tailings. Your dues buy you safe passage, my friends. Everybody pays.”

Hamil rolled his eyes. “And how much are your dues?” he asked.

“How much’ve you got?” another one of the slavers asked.

“More than I’d care to part with.”

“Then hand over your purse, little man, and I’ll see how much you can afford,” the Chainsman Roldo said. He spat on the ground. “We’re reasonable fellows, after all.”

Geran studied the Chainsmen surrounding them. Five on the street and possibly more in the alehouse or another place nearby, and most looked like they knew how to use the cudgels at their belts. It would be easier to play their game and buy them off with a couple of silver pennies, but the thought of paying for safe passage in his own hometown did not sit well with him.

Besides, he told himself, they’re probably not as reasonable as they say they are.

Deliberately, Geran let his duffel drop and shrugged his cloak over his shoulder, revealing the backsword at his hip. Harassing two nondescript passersby was one thing for a gang of ruffians, but a man carrying a blade might know how to use it. Hoping the Chainsmen might see things that way, he rested his hand on the pommel. “I think we’ll look after ourselves,” he said easily. “Now, if you don’t mind…?”

The slaver’s face darkened, and his false humor fell away. He scowled and jerked his head, and the Chainsmen nearby pushed themselves to their feet and started to close in around Geran and Hamil.

“You don’t understand, friends,” Roldo rasped. “Half the ditchdiggers and dirtgrubbers in this town wear steel, hey. I ain’t seen one yet who knows what to do with it. Everybody pays. And your dues are getting steeper.”

Not so steep as you think, Geran reflected. He supposed he could simply walk off and see if the Chainsmen tried to stop him. Or he could wait for one of them to make a move. But he could see where this was going, and if he was right, well, there was no reason to wait for the slavers to start it, was there? He took a deep breath and looked down at Hamil.

The halfling glanced up. Now? he asked silently.

I’ll take care of the alehouse if you deal with the other side of the street, Geran answered. Try not to kill any of them if you can help it.

Done, Hamil replied. Then, without another word, the halfling’s hands flashed to his belt and came up with a pair of daggers. He threw both in the same motion, sinking each dagger into a Chainsman’s knee. Before either ruffian could even cry out, Hamil had the big fighting knife from his shoulder harness in his hand, and he dashed into the stunned pair by the firepit without a sound. Apparently neither of the men there had really thought they might be set upon by someone no bigger than a ten-year-old child. To all appearances the halfling had simply gone berserk.

“What in the Nine Hells?” the leader of the gang growled. He went straight for his own knife, a good piece of fighting iron almost a foot and a half long. The two men on the wooden steps of the alehouse yanked their cudgels out and started to clatter down to the street-but Geran was faster.

By the time the leader had his hand on his knife hilt, Geran had already swept his sword from the scabbard. The elven steel was etched with a triple-rose design, and it was superbly balanced by a pommel in the shape of a steel rose. He’d earned it in the service of Coronal Ilsevele soon after arriving in Myth Drannor, and the sword suited Geran better than any other he’d ever taken in hand. He swept the point up and across the slaver’s knife-hand in one smooth motion with the draw, laying open the man’s forearm. Roldo cursed and reeled away holding his wounded hand, blood streaming through his fingers.

“Take ’em, lads!” he snarled.

The two men on the steps came at Geran in a quick rush. He retreated several steps, emptied his mind with the quick skill of long practice, and found the invocation he wanted. “Cuillen mhariel,” he whispered in Elvish, weaving a spell-shield with his words and his will. Ghostly streamers of pale silver-blue light gleamed around him, seemingly no more solid than wisps of fog. Then Geran stood his ground as the first man lunged out at his skull with the knobbed cudgel. The swordmage passed the heavy blow over his head with the flat of his blade, then slashed the fellow’s left leg out from under him with a deep cut to the calf. The Chainsman went down hard with a grunt of shock.

The second man came at him an instant later. Geran spun away from the one blow, batted aside the other with a hand-jarring parry near his hilt, and smashed the rose-shaped pommel of his blade into the slaver’s nose. Something crunched, and blood gushed as the fellow staggered back and sat down heavily in the street.

A sharp thrumm! whistled in the street. Geran caught a glimpse of a crossbow’s bolt just before it struck him high on the right side of his chest-but his hasty spell-shield held. The bolt rebounded from a sharp, silvery flame flaring brightly in the shadows of the street and clattered away across the cobblestones. The Chainsman leader stood open-mouthed, a small empty crossbow in his good hand.

“Damn it all, he’s a wizard!” the first slaver by Geran snarled. The fellow scrambled awkwardly to his feet and quickly backed away, favoring his injured leg. Then he turned and fled into the night. The man with the broken nose followed, lurching blindly after him. On the other side of the street, the remaining two Chainsmen were limping away from Hamil as fast as they could, giving up the battle.

Geran ignored them. If they thought he was a wizard and wanted no more of him, he wouldn’t say otherwise. He advanced on the slaver Roldo. The man was already drawing back the string of his crossbow for another try, but Geran put a stop to that by striking him hard across the side of the head with the flat of his blade. The blow split Roldo’s shaven scalp and stretched him senseless on the wooden steps of the alehouse. “That was for taking a shot when I wasn’t looking,” the swordmage growled. He was tempted to give the slaver something more to remember him by, but he held his temper. At least half a dozen spectators were peering through the alehouse’s windows and doors, and some might not be friendly.