Jeff Salyards - Scourge of the Betrayer

Once we joined the flow of traffic, I asked, “We are obviously leaving. As you said. But you never said where we were going. Exactly.”

“I didn’t even say vaguely, did I?”

I laughed, mostly forced. “So, where are we headed?”

He pointed straight ahead in exaggerated fashion. “That way.”

Seeing the look on my face, he added, “A destination doesn’t matter until you get there, yes?”

I didn’t understand the need for this secrecy-was there a practical purpose or was he doing it simply to torment me? — but it was clear I wouldn’t accomplish anything by protesting further.

He drank some weak wine or strong water and flicked the reins, and we turned down another street in the city, the dirt turning to cobblestones beneath our wheels. It was obvious we were traveling through a newer section of the city. On our left masons began ascending what looked to be a rickety scaffold on the north facade of a monastery, their heads wrapped with dirty cotton cloth or covered in floppy straw hats to protect them from what promised to be an unrelenting sun. The monastery was several hundred years old, but all the buildings around it-a hospital alongside the monastery, a glassblower’s shop alongside that, a grain silo a little further down, the curtain wall behind the silo-were of newer construction.

We rode only a few more streets, once nearly running over a man leading a mule laden with baskets. I thought I saw Lloi walking her shaggy mount down a street running parallel, but it was only for an instant before the person disappeared from view as we passed the connecting street, so I couldn’t be certain.

We turned down another street, closing in on the gates, and traffic was thickening. Men bent over with bundles and baskets of all manner of things on their backs, small carts and large wagons, most laden with goods, some leaving empty, shoeless dirty children chasing each other or fleeing their mothers, women hawking trays of sweetmeats, beggars begging, guards in quilted jerkins ushering them off and generally looking disinterested in anything else. I looked at Braylar, examined him in the sunlight, and little had changed since the previous night. A new tunic, though of the same cut and ash color as the previous one. The same scarf around his neck, hiding the inked noose. The same tics around the corner of his mouth. I noticed his eyes-gray-green like mossy stones, and about as friendly or revealing. Much like they’d been when he arrived at the Three Casks, they were constantly moving, like a predator’s. Subtly, to be sure, but moving nonetheless, a measured sweep past every face without any noticeable stop, although I’m sure he was registering more than the casual air admitted. Perhaps dreading to see a look of recognition. Perhaps hoping to.

I glanced up to see the city gates growing before us. It struck me with finality that we were leaving a place I’d hoped to settle in for some time, heading to a destination I knew nothing about. Growing up a bastard son in a small inn, I thought I’d live and die as my mother had, never dreaming I’d travel anywhere. Even after attending university, my ambitions were still modest, constrained. Secure a decent patron, live a life of letters, obtain some level of steady comfort.

Rivermost wasn’t the largest city in the world, but bigger than anything I’d ever experienced or expected, and already farther than I envisioned traveling. So even if the limited range of patrons there wasn’t inspiring, I’d already gone farther than I’d ever imagined. I was content. Or at least thought so. Until Captain Killcoin approached me, presenting an enterprise so unlike anything I’d ever conceived of.

And there I was, suddenly on the move again, the scope of my life again growing in completely unfathomable ways. I tried telling myself that this was a good thing, even if I didn’t have much in the way of detail. It was growth. And growth was good. But the company I’d chosen, or that had chosen me, was enough to dampen that enthusiasm.

There was some congestion, one wagon entering, another leaving, neither allowing the other to move, but the guards cursed and threatened and one gave way and then suddenly we rumbled beneath the portcullis and over the open bridge, and I found myself looking back through the wagon, the opening behind us like a window, wondering if I’d ever see this city again.

Journeying with a destination in mind and small distances between was fine. That was all that I’d known since receiving my schooling, moving from one small city to the next, hoping to find a patron who wouldn’t dismiss me. Travel was necessary, and I accepted that, or at least tolerated it with minor grumbling. I knew where I was going, how to get there, and roughly how long it might take.

But this journey was secretive, and even the necessity for that was opaque. If I at least knew why I was kept in the dark, I wouldn’t have minded. As much. But the captain didn’t seem inclined to reveal much of anything. And that left me feeling more than unsettled.

My nerves, already tight, were being ratcheted even tighter. At the outskirts of Rivermost, I felt it across my chest, up my back, through my neck, taut with tension.

“Don’t look so melancholy, Arki. Travel is good for the constitution.”

We crossed over the dry moat, made our way through the shanties around the outskirts of the city. This was my second summer in Rivermost, and each spring the shanties had appeared almost overnight, like persistent weeds. The hovels and patchwork tents were populated by dirty, thin musicians and street performers, religious zealots, those peasants and low-enders who couldn’t afford the wares or entertainments of the city, and a menagerie of diseased prostitutes who serviced them all. My mother might have been a loose barmaid, and heartless besides, but at least she wasn’t a full-fledged prostitute. Though some might contend that was only a matter of semantics and economics. Why the guildmasters didn’t burn the shanties to the ground or drive off their occupants, I’ll never know, but I was happy there was an armed and somewhat nefarious man in the wagon with me. Those places tended to attract only the worst sort of clientele.

Braylar remained silent as the countryside rolled past, and he was motionless for the most part, only occasionally flexing his right hand or twitching a bit. Farms began to spread out in all directions, and the road became rougher.

We sat in silence for a time when Lloi fell back alongside us. She kept pace next to the wagon bench and Braylar looked down at her, finally asking, “I assume if you spotted any following us, you wouldn’t be waiting for me to ask, no?”

Lloi arched her back and replied, “Go back far enough, plenty of folks following. Don’t call them roads for nothing. Can’t vouch for intent, but if any had harm in them, didn’t seem to be aimed your way none.”

Braylar stopped the wagon and Lloi halted her horse, neither looking at the other. Finally, Braylar said, “You could tether up and ride awhile, if it suits you. Or not. They don’t call it a wagon for nothing.”

Lloi shrugged her shoulders and then did as he suggested; after securing her shaggy horse to the side of the wagon, she climbed in the rear and settled inside.

Braylar flicked the reins and we started forward again. He took a swig of what must have been very warm wine. We had the road largely to ourselves, and so he untied the scarf and used the end to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“There’s no reason for us both to bake. Take a respite beneath the canvas, if you wish, as Lloi has done already. You’ll lose the breeze, but at least you’ll be out of the sun.”

As the sun was high and scouring, I decided to follow his advice and move inside the wagon. Lloi was sitting cross-legged near the back, leaning back against a box, lazily swatting at flies.