Ordination Read online

Page 6


  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he murmured, taking their measure. “I am glad to see word traveled as fast as I had hoped, and that you have been enjoying the hospitality.” At this, he paused briefly, expecting perhaps a small, sarcastic cheer; there was merely restless shuffling. “Now, I am only looking to hire one man, not a band. I will talk to each of you in turn, but before I do, I have a simple question. How many of you are on your third round or better since walking in the door?”

  They looked oddly at him; one spat on the floor. Another finally spoke up. “Why’n the Cold does that matter?”

  “You interested in my weight or not? Answer the question now, all of you, unless you cannot count to three.” Allystaire paused, then spat out “Now” once more. His voice was calm, his expression placid, but there was something in the way he said the word, some snap of command, that reached down to the place in a man’s soul where orders were obeyed.

  And he was. Among the eight gathered there, five men nodded, lifted a hand, or spoke a word of assent.

  “Then thank you for coming and be on your way. There is a time and a place for drinking, gentlemen, and moments prior to trying to convince a man to hire you is not that time and place. Out.” Once again, Allystaire’s voice, even in a single syllable, conveyed a ring of power and authority; the five men left quietly, but swiftly.

  “Now then. One at a time, I will speak to each of you over there.” Allystaire pointed one thick finger toward the corner table that, he supposed, was now his. “From now on your drinks are on your own account.”

  He left it to them to settle the order. Probably need to reject the first as too eager. He sat down, offered Mol a disapproving stare as he saw her sipping from one of the cups, and lifted the pitcher to pour into his own. He slipped the warhammer out of his belt and stood it on its head by his right foot, with his hand leaning casually on its iron-shod handle. Not long after, the first man walked to his table. Of indeterminate age with a mouthful of blackened, yellowed stumps and a face marred by pox, he didn’t cut an imposing figure, but the hilt of the sword on his hip was well worn, the metal scales sewn onto his jerkin polished.

  “Where have you served?”

  “Wi’ Thanar, up nor’ apiece,” the man mumbled through his wreck of a mouth, the name coming out ‘Dannar’. “Keepin rivers clear mostly; nor’ern rivers go’ a bi’ cold for me now.”

  “Never heard of him. Battles? Towns?”

  “When I firs’ come down ‘ere, found me place in one o’ Baron Vyndamere and ’s ou’fi’s.”

  Allystaire leaned forward, his hand flexing against the handle of the hammer slightly. “What battles with him?”

  The man scratched at his stubbly neck. “When we forced da crossin’ up in Greenforks.”

  “Baron Vyndamere’s men slaughtered a mob of peasants in their haste to escape the Islandmen. I need a man who can do more than that.”

  “I figh’ whoe’ers in fronna me,” the man fairly spat. “So longs’s ey’s go’ a weapon an’ ain’ wavin’ no flag.”

  Allystaire studied the man’s face, arms, hands as they sat on the table. Has a pox. Thick wrists; probably quick sword. A survivor. But he will cut down a child if he has the scent of blood in his nose.

  Finally, Allystaire shook his head. “You will not do. Next.”

  With a simple shrug, the man was off, rejection rolling off his back like rainwater.

  Allystaire beckoned toward the bar and another man started forward. This one was large, larger than Allystaire across the shoulders and a good head taller, making him the biggest and tallest man in the room by far; he carried an enormous single-bladed axe that was taller than most men and swung it ahead of him in one hand like a walking stick. Meanwhile, still at Allystaire’s side, Mol had drained her cup, and, between the wine and the warmth of the nearby fire, had begun drifting to sleep against him.

  “Sooner you start your questions the sooner we can be drinkin’ to our arrangement,” the big man said, a broad, gapped smile splitting his beard as he sat. Something about the smile seemed uneasy, ill-suited to his features, much as it seemed on Allystaire’s own face. It parted his grey-threaded brown beard like a fissure in a stone, and it didn’t reach his eyes.

  Islandman, thought Allystaire. Confident.

  “Who are you and where have you served?”

  “Nyndstir Obertrsun, Trollsbane, and Giantslayer,” the man boomed. “Far north, just off the tundra. I was at Wroolst for the winter of mist and wolves; I’ve chased river pirates, hunted bandits, and killed every kind of man, dwarf, beast, and fey creature what walks this world. I’m your freezin’ man.”

  Allystaire shifted backwards in his seat and studied Nyndstir. “Who did you serve with and what has brought you to this part of the world?”

  He paused, took a slight breath, and answered, “I was with Daegan’s Hounds for nigh a dozen years. Followed the captain down to the Keersvast Archipelago when they started throwing gold around.”

  “Daegan’s Hounds?” Allystaire’s eyebrows shot up. Why are so many bold men showing their back to the tundra? What is scaring them away? “Heard of them,” he allowed with a nod. “More good than bad. What happened?”

  The larger man leaned his axe across his knees and pretended to study the blade. “When the captain died, we made a poor accord and fell out over it. Bad blood boiled up.” He looked up with a shrug, flicking a thumbnail against the blade of his weapon. “Everything ends ‘cept the tide, the waves, and the Sea Dragon what made ‘em. No use lookin’ any closer’n that.”

  Allystaire nodded. I like this one. “The job is simple, Nyndstir. I need you to protect a child. My niece.” He gestured to the girl sleeping soundly at his side.

  Nyndstir snorted, the whiskers around his mouth blowing indignantly. “I’m no freezin’ wet nurse. Who’s she to be protected from?”

  “I do not know. Anyone or anything that poses a threat. I need her safe and guarded while I am off on business in the town and environs.”

  Nyndstir turned and spat at the ground, making no effort to aim for a spit-bucket. “I’ll protect your precious niece.” He twisted the word, made it something ugly. “But it’ll cost you. You’re a lordly type and no mistakin’,” he drawled. “I will want gold or gemmary for this, mark me.”

  Allystaire fixed his eyes again on the large man across from him, blue gaze narrowing. He might be worth it. His eyes are hard and his hands are sure with that axe. He was about to open his mouth to speak, when he suddenly felt Mol’s small hand settle carefully atop his; for all her youth, her palm and fingertips were calloused. Her nails dug sharply into the skin of his hand, but he saw from the corner of his eye that she’d not opened her eyes or done anything to shake the pretense that she slept. The pressure on his hand was insistent, steady, and warning. Allystaire reached for his cup and took a long swallow, buying time.

  Finally, he settled on a question. “If a brace of crossbowmen were to corner the two of you at the mouth of a clear street, Nyndstir, would you be willing to die for my gold?”

  Nyndstir sat back, a hand tightening around the smooth wooden haft of his weapon. For a moment, Allystaire readied himself for violence, sitting up straight and curling his fingers around the hammer that rested against his boot. Then the other man relaxed.

  “No. No, I don’t think I would, and that’s the plain truth of it. A time not so long ago, my word for gold and I would’ve had their scalps after taking three bolts, and later over mead I’d have claimed it were a half dozen.” He shook his head, and stood. “But that man died in Keersvast.” He extended a huge, gnarled hand. “Sorry to waste your time, sir.”

  Allystaire stood and took the proffered hand. “No need for pardon. You were honest, and you know who you are; not many men can claim that.” Shaking Nyndstir’s hand was like having a gauntlet shaped around his fist by a clumsy blacksmith.

  Nyndst
ir nodded, turned, and walked out of the inn, holding his axe blade in front of him and studying it closely.

  With a weary wave, Allystaire called over the last man. As he was sitting and reaching for his cup, he heard dry laughter and a voice he knew too well.

  “Oh if this isn’t rich. This’ll be just the thing to get me back in his lordship’s good graces, it will.”

  Allystaire’s eyes sparked coldly. “Casamir,” he snarled, “Walk out of this place before I kill you.” In a flash, the warhammer was resting in both his hands, his shoulders tensed, his feet shifting.

  The man across from him was of medium height with a head scraped clear of hair; a hawk-like beak of a nose; and narrow, dark grey eyes. His arms were thick through his swordsman’s wrists, plainly visible as he raised his hands. “No, you won’t.” He took a half step back from the table, keeping his arms in the air. “You won’t because everyone sees you, because that’d make you a murderer, and you like playing the hero. You won’t kill me in front of the child, whoever she is.” He dropped his hands, but kept them well away from the sword and dirk resting on his hips, his eyes flitting to the stirring, blinking Mol, then back to Allystaire. His voice dropped, but the crowd was intently watching them; Allystaire, gritting his teeth, lowered his hammer.

  “I know you’re a killer, Allystaire. But you always worried about things like times and places and observances. And knowing your whereabouts is more valuable to me than taking the chance on gutting you now.” He laughed again, a fuller, throatier sound than his dry chuckling. “Rich indeed.” He leaned forward, eyes gleaming as they caught the light from the table’s lamp. His voice dropped into a grating whisper. “And so will I be, once I take this news back to his lordship. Oh I’ll bet he raved when he heard you’d fled—unless he exiled you, too?” The man smiled then, and what on Allystaire and Nyndstir was merely an unusual expression was disturbing on Casamir’s face. “I can only imagine what your lapdogs’ll say to him to placate him. He’ll never let you walk away, you know, not like me. Not the invincible lord.” His lips twisted into a sneer that played oddly with the shadows on his face. “And if I kill a horse or two, I can get back to Wind’s Jaw in what, a week? Ten days?”

  As Casamir spoke, Allystaire’s expression didn’t change, but his hands curled, white-knuckled, around the haft of his hammer. The threat of violence rolled so powerfully from him that several onlookers made hasty, silent exits. Kill him. Now.

  Casamir sneered back at Allystaire, lips curling away from his teeth. “One day, mayhap, I’ll take that hammer away from you and mash your stones with it.”

  “No time like the present to give it a try.” Allystaire’s voice, though eerily calm, belied none of his fury.

  “I’ve a long ride to start. Use the time to get further away, if you’re smart. But then, you never were.” Casamir, still smiling cruelly, began to back toward the door, his hands still held carefully away from his hilts. “I’ll be sure to give Audreyn your best.”

  Allystaire watched Casamir until he was gone, then lowered his hammer back to the ground and sat back on the bench, moving with deliberate care. Removing his hands from the hammer took effort. You’ll have to kill him one day. Should’ve been today. He placed his hands on the table and tried to steady them by lacing his fingers together, then wrenched them apart, seized his clay cup in one hand, flexed his wrist, and shattered the cup. Mol started and looked up at him strangely, but said nothing. His eyes fixed upon the table, and his breathing rose and fell audibly.

  “The cup’s not what made you look a fool,” put in a quiet, rough, and rasping voice from across the table, “though breaking it makes you seem more so.” Allystaire’s eyes lifted from the table, and he dropped the broken pieces stuck in his palm. Across from him sat a woman whose age he was hard-pressed to determine. A braided leather band encircling her forehead kept her dark hair swept back from her face; her eyes were deep pools in a shadowed face, but Allystaire thought he saw thin lines of scars on her chin, hard lines against dark brown skin.

  “It also seems like you’ve chased off all your best options, and I suppose now your schedule’s a trifle tighter. So why don’t we come to terms?” The woman leaned back in the chair and stretched her legs under the table, crossing her feet at the ankles.

  Allystaire cleared his throat, and, almost delicately, plucked a shard from his right hand, grunting as it tore free of his skin and brought a droplet of blood with it. He curled his fingers closed, cleared his throat. “Terms?”

  “Yes. I assume you still want a guard for the lass?” The woman pointed with her chin toward Mol, who now sat awake and bright-eyed. “I don’t work cheap, but I won’t cheat or steal, either.”

  Allystaire cleared his throat again and sat straighter, regaining a measure of his composure. “Who have—”

  “Nowhere you’ve heard of, with no one you’ve heard of. I don’t collect trophies, names, or titles, but I’ll work for a silver link a day plus room, board, and wine, and I’ll keep the child safe. I heard every question you asked the first two, and everything the third said, in case you were wondering.”

  She leaned forward, bringing her face closer to the lamplight. Her brown cheeks were high and broad beneath narrow eyes, and she was handsome despite the scars that started at the left corner of her mouth, ran down to her chin, and appeared to snake along the side of her neck. She looked younger than Allystaire would’ve guessed from the rasp in her voice.

  “I wouldn’t be fool enough to lead her into a clear alley where a brace of bowmen could corner us, and I’ve killed my share of peasants, but only when they were trying to kill me.”

  “How did you get into that chair?”

  “I sat.”

  “I meant without my noticing,” Allystaire half-growled.

  “You were too busy murdering the crockery while wishing ‘twere that other fellow’s neck.” She rapped a knuckle on the table and went on. “Silver link a day. Make a decision.”

  “First I have to decide if I want to hire you. I have to learn something about you.”

  The woman sighed and leaned back again, shaking her head. “Go ahead. Ask your stupid questions.”

  “Casamir. If he showed while you were guarding the girl, what would you do?”

  “Put a knife in his back—from ten paces away, if possible. He had that air of knowing how to fight about him.” She suddenly pointed a finger across the table at Allystaire. “So do you. So if I couldn’t do that, I’d lay low with the lass and wait for you to show up and club him to death.”

  “Are you saying you are a coward, then?”

  “I’m sayin’ I never fight fair if I can help it. At the least I’d try to put a knife into an arm or a thigh before I went blade to blade with him.”

  “If it came to it then, how would you fight me?”

  She tilted her head to one side, grinning, which brought her scar into sharp relief. “Knives in the dark if I could. If I couldn’t, stay well back, try to keep something between us, let you tire yourself. Hide. Slip it into your back between a gap in your armor; you’re the kind that wears a lot of steel, I can see that.”

  “That is an unseemly way to fight,” Allystaire remarked, his voice a mix of admiration and disapproval.

  “Could be, but it’s a freezin’ good way to kill a man who’s stronger and better armored than I am,” the woman retorted tartly.

  I like this one. “You are hired. One silver link a day, meals, shelter, wine.” He stood up and extended his hand toward her; the skin of her answering grip was every bit as rough as any swordsman’s Allystaire had ever known. “I am Allystaire.”

  “Idgen Marte,” the woman said. When she stood, she was of a height with Allystaire. “You’ve hired your niece a shadow.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Mercy and Strength

  With Mol left in bed and Idgen Marte to guard her, Allystaire was soon
out in the warm, moist night air, sweating beneath the cuirass he had put back on, along with the studded gloves, bracers, and a metal-banded leather cap. Sword on his back, hammer in belt loop, and shield clutched in his left hand, he set off in no particular direction, letting his mind wander the same as his feet.

  “Were I a slaver, how would I do business?” He asked himself this question aloud, though only just. He considered the answer while his strides methodically covered the hasty, unplanned roads.

  “Down at the docks, of course,” he replied to himself after a bit more walking. “Still, I cannot simply kick open every bracken-slimed warehouse.” He paused a moment and added, “Every warehouse with a door big enough for a wagon, anyway.” Leather-clad fingers drummed idly against the top of his hammer.

  Struck with a sudden thought, his strides became more purposeful; rather than wandering, he raised his eyes to the few roofs that hovered above the street. The dim outline of the palisade wall rose, a heavy shadow against the night sky. Following its outline, he moved his gaze along until the taller shape of a watchtower emerged; he mentally marked the spot and headed straight toward it.

  Bend’s streets had other ideas; none of them, it seemed, ran in true directions for more than a handful of yards. They spiraled, they dead-ended, they coiled back on themselves and made abrupt turns. But with his eyes fixed directly on the tower, a store of patience, and gritted teeth, Allystaire soon found himself at its feet.