Andrew Hartley - Act of Will

“We will have an armed escort-” began Renthrette, but he cut her off.

“I know that, but what is to say they won’t just hit us with more men still? They always win, you know? They’ve never been beaten yet, did you notice? Our predecessors were valiant, weren’t they? It didn’t protect them. I mean, if the valor doesn’t produce results, what’s the point?”

There was a long silence. I looked at the floor. His sister just stared at him.

“I don’t know,” he said with a gesture of his pale hands. “It just seems sort of hopeless. We have nothing to go on and we could find a hundred soldiers waiting for us as soon as we leave the castle. I say we go back to Stavis.”

Another long silence followed, cold and sharp as the ax on the table before us.

“No,” said Lisha gently but with enough conviction to show that there would be no further debate of the matter. “Not yet, at least. I appreciate you speaking your mind so frankly, Garnet, but we can’t say it is hopeless until we have begun our investigations. I suggest that we start with a journey to Seaholme. All of us.”

Garnet fell silent, frowned, and then nodded, looking suddenly young.

So this was where the party leader pulled rank on us, I thought, as everyone made for the door and bed. The others seemed content, so I couldn’t even complain that the decision wasn’t democratic. I didn’t know what to do or say. Even if I had wanted to go back to Stavis I wouldn’t dare attempt that journey alone, and Garnet would always jump back into line when Lisha cracked her whip. For the moment I was stuck with them.

As I turned to go, Lisha caught my eye and smiled, a smile that was small and cool.

“Bravo, Will,” she said, “a fine performance. And clever.”

“What? What do you mean?” I stammered, but she was already leaving the room.

I slept poorly that night, partly because of my long rest in the wagon but also because my mind wouldn’t stop turning the day’s events over and over. Moreover, I was afraid. A touch of bluish moonlight glowed through my barred window, giving an icy hue to the castle’s cold, grey stone. I lay there still and quiet, trying not to think of dukes and counts and the business we had undertaken, or those who had been hired to do the job before and now lay in shallow graves by the roads where the wagons had burned.

Over breakfast, Lisha assigned tasks. Mithos was to speak with Arlest about the logistics of our trip to Seaholme and the coal that would await us.

“Have you decided on a route yet?” he asked.

“The most direct route is also the most inconspicuous,” Lisha answered. “We’ll go under the southernmost tip of the Iruni Wood. If the count asks, say we haven’t decided yet but we will probably take the Hopetown road.”

Mithos accepted the point without comment. I think that I was the only one who was surprised at her lack of faith in our employer. Lisha turned to the rest of us, saying, “Renthrette and Garnet. We need horses and a wagon. Don’t forget to get a mount for Will. Shop around a bit, because prices will be high.

“Will and Orgos, I want you to go through all our arms and armor. Find out what needs replacing and see what you can pick up. One of the crates of venom flasks got dropped when they were unloading the Cormorant, so look out for small vials and bottles. I will get the ingredients from an apothecary myself.”

Orgos frowned, but Lisha held his eyes and he nodded.

“Don’t like poisoning our enemies, huh?” I remarked as soon as she was gone.

“I would rather meet them sword-to-sword,” said Orgos, looking away. “Equal terms. Their skill against mine. Their courage against mine.”

“But Lisha said we should load up on venom, so I guess it’s all right,” I remarked. “These will be honorable poisonings. I’m beginning to see what you meant about her.”

“What?”

“She’s special,” I said, walking away before he had chance to respond.

It took us about an hour to go through the crates. The armor was all fine, but some of the leather padding inside was mildewed. We found a poorly stocked arms dealer just off Adsine’s poorly stocked market, and we bought pads, two hundred arrows, a pair of ash-wood lances, and three leather-covered shields, rimmed with beaten copper. The lot cost us forty silver pieces.

“Daylight robbery,” muttered Orgos contemptuously as we humped them into the back of the cart. “Remind me never to go shopping in Adsine again. Now, back to the keep?”

“Those venom flasks?” I reminded him.

“Oh,” he said with a touch of irritation, “I forgot.” He cracked the whip moodily and we rolled off.

“I don’t know why we need to buy weapons anyway,” I said, nodding at the pommel of his sword. “Couldn’t you just-?”

“Drop it, Will,” said Orgos warningly.

I did.

We weren’t exactly surrounded by happy faces in Adsine. Sometimes children gathered around the cart and held out their thin hands for food or money. At first we gave a few pennies, but it caused such violent squabbling that we stopped, unsure of ourselves and the ethics of the moment.

“You want to hear that story still?” he said suddenly. “The one about how I became an adventurer?”

“Yes,” I said. “I collect stories.”

“This one is not unlike your own.”

“How so?”

“I stumbled into adventurers who protected me from the Empire.”

“They were after you too?” I said, pleased. “What for?”

He sighed, then said, “I killed a man. A boy, in fact.”

I stared at him.

“It was an accident, of sorts,” he went on. “It was many years ago. My father-who’d been a great smith-was dead, and I was forced to help out at home, trading the stuff he had made. I hated it. I wanted to make blades as he had done, so I spent hours trying to teach myself, heating, pounding, and folding the steel.”

The cart creaked and he flicked the horses absently, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead or on something long ago that I couldn’t see. He gave a snort of self-mockery and went on. “But I was no craftsman. So I trained with the swords I had made and couldn’t sell, learned to cut and thrust and the showy tricks of swordplay. Soon I could spin a broadsword around my wrists, toss it from hand to hand, or swing it dramatically from behind my back. Spectacular and worthless. I scorned my family’s pleas for help in the shop or in the fields. I was a swordsman. Swordsmen don’t pick vegetables.

“Once I was taking a mule-load of pots and pans to a distant village in the hills south of Bowescroft: a rare concession to my mother. I had passed on the goods and was heading home when a storm came up. I decided to spend the night in a tavern. It was called the Brown Bear, I remember, though for years I tried to forget.

“The men in the tavern weren’t used to men of my color, and presumed I was some rich kid running errands. When the first comments were made, I should have known to leave. Three men of about my age, all drunk and jealous of what they thought I had come from, began to throw insults at me. I shouted them down and one of them came at me. I knocked him down. The barman tried to calm them, but I drew and flourished my sword. One of them, a blond lad of perhaps eighteen, came for me with a bottle.

“I lunged, intending only to tear his tunic as a demonstration of my prowess,” said Orgos. “Perhaps it was my anger, or the unsteadiness of my adversary, or perhaps my aim just wasn’t as good as I thought. I ran him through.”

I looked at him and was shocked to see revulsion in his eyes. What, I wondered, was so special about this corpse, which had begun the pile he must have accumulated since? He went on hurriedly, concluding a tale he wished he hadn’t begun.