War in Tethyr

5

"Have you heard?" the peasant asked. He had a large and colorful wart on the side of his nose and a leather bonnet pulled down over his ears. His garments had been patched until they were more quilt than clothing and still more hole than fabric. "There's a strong man rising in Zazesspur town. And high time, too. He'll bring order back to the land."

"Aye," said another, equally ragged, who was chewing a tufted stalk of timothy grass. He pawed through the assortment of brass implements and cooking vessels Zaranda had spread upon a horse blanket beneath an oak tree that shaded one patch of the tiny village green. He wore a tattered and shapeless felt hat against the noonday sun. "We need strong government, an' that's a fact."

The rest of the throng of prospective shoppers nodded and murmured assent. Like the two who had spoken, and like the village and farmhouses themselves, the villagers had a dusty, threadbare, ground-down look.

The caravan's mules grazed on the grass of the common-for which the local mayor had exacted an advance fee-while their drovers and riders watered themselves in the village's lone tavern-for which the local mayor also exacted tariff, inasmuch as he was the tavernkeeper.

Zaranda had left the bulk of the train encamped in a laager and made a detour through the city of Ithmong with a few muleloads of nonmagical luxury items- spices, dyes, vials of scent, incense-cones. They found an increase in prosperity and decrease in paranoia since the ouster of Gallowglass, with his tyrant's dreams and schemes. Zaranda had parlayed the wares into a dozen new mules loaded with more conventional goods such as tinware, pins, nails, and bolts of colored cloth to trade to the peasants and village folk along the route to Zazesspur.

It was penny-ante commerce, and Zaranda would be doing well to break even. She didn't care. It was a cheap way to garner intelligence and goodwill, and be-sides she felt for the people of the Tethyr countryside. Between bandits and big-city ambitions, only a rare armed caravan such as hers ever reached them. Other-wise the countryfolk had no access to goods beyond what they made themselves, which was why every mo-bile soul for miles had come pouring into town as news of the caravan's arrival spread.

Goldie stood to one side watching the proceedings with interest. Now she cocked an eye at the grass-chewing peasant who had proclaimed the need for strong government.

"Why do you say that?" she asked. The man only goggled at her slightly; word that the caravan leader rode a talking mare had spread quickly through the village.

"That's like saying you need more locusts."

"Now, Golden Dawn," Father Pelletyr said, munching a cold chicken leg, "you shouldn't talk that way."

"You don't think I should talk at all, Father."

"Now, child, you know that's not true-"

"Begging your leave," the peasant said pointedly around his grass stalk, "but our neighbors have more wealth than we."

"Truer words never saw daylight," agreed his friend in the cap. "A good, strong government would take it from them and give it to us."

"Why should they do that?" Goldie asked.

The locals looked at her in consternation. "Because we are hardworking and worthy sons and daughters of Tethyr."

"Aren't they the same?"

The crowd began to give the mare hard looks. "Do not trouble yourself overmuch with her babblings, good folk," Farlorn said suavely. "She's merely a dumb animal."

The peasants looked at each other, then nodded and went back to their shopping.

"I'll show you a dumb animal, you ringleted gigolo," Goldie grumbled.

"Goldie!" Zaranda said sharply.

The bard laughed. "Would you rather be thought a dumb animal or someone whose opinions are so seditious she should be chopped up into food for hounds?"

For once Goldie had no answer. Father Pelletyr beamed indulgently as he bit into a raw onion he'd bought from a farmer-more early yield from the long Southern growing season. "They're right, anyway," he said. "A good, strong government is a benefit to all."

"Isn't envy a sin in Ilmater's eyes?" Zaranda asked quietly. The cleric looked blank. She decided not to press it; the crowd might decide she was better off as dog food, and while she was intrepid, by her reckoning she'd faced enough angry mobs in her lifetime.

The inn door opened. Three men emerged into the brilliant midday sun, managing at once to saunter and swagger. They were typical Tethyrian bravos in garish costume, with puffed blouses and extravagantly padded codpieces, which tended to turn any sort of walk into a swagger. They arranged their broad-brimmed hats and floridly dyed plumes and walked across the road to the green.

Stillhawk watched them closely with his brooding dark eyes. He had sealed his bow in a waterproof case of some soft and supple hide that Zaranda suspected to be kobold skin-the elves had some folkways that seemed pretty abrupt by human standards. A man of the Dalelands, and an obvious ranger at that, was a substantial novelty in the sparsely forested Tethyrian plains. Zaranda feared he might excite the villagers unduly if he wandered around with an elven longbow strung and ready for action. He wore his long sword, also of elvish make, scabbarded at his hip.

He dropped a hand as dark and hard as weathered wood to the hilt and looked a query at Zaranda. Stand easy, she signed to him.

The newcomers carried swords with elaborate hilts and blades so broad they each had two deep, wide fuller grooves-which lightened weight and increased structural integrity and hadn't a blessed thing to do with letting blood flow, as the ignorant would have you believe. These swords weighed about five pounds each, which was in the upper range for anybody of human strength to wield one-handed and expect to live. Daggers they had as well, daggers in profusion: broad-bladed daggers, slim poniards, misericords, dirks, toadstickers, and hunting knives with grips of kobold bone. These blades hung all about their harness as if, come combat, they anticipated sprouting extra arms and fighting in the manner of the intelligent octopi rumored to haunt the rocks off the coast of Lantan in the Trackless Sea. But enough of blades.

There was nothing intrinsically sinister about the three. Their garb, outlandish and weapon bedizened as it was, was no more than what was fashionable among Tethyrian bravos, particularly soldiers-of-fortune-which these appeared to be. Their gait was fairly steady, which indicated they likely hadn't imbibed enough in the tavern to make them boisterous. They could turn into trouble, but didn't constitute automatic menace. "Ho," said one with ginger-colored mustachios waxed into wings. He approached Stillhawk. "Are you the master of this traveling circus?"

The ranger nodded to Zaranda. The bravos looked to her and shrugged. Taller than any of them, with her man's garb and her saber with its well-worn hilt slung now at her own waist, Zaranda Star did not invite men to trifle with her, for all her handsomeness. Instead they craned to look past the mob of locals rummaging through the goods on the racks and drop cloths.

The tallest of the sell-swords, whose black hair hung in tight perfumed curls to his shoulders and who wore tights that were vertically striped red, blue, and yellow on one leg, and purple with yellow stars on the other, elevated a long and lordly nose.

"Rubbish for rubes," he opined. A general growl rose from the locals, but instead of pressing, they edged away from the heavily armed trio. Ignoring them, the black-ringleted bravo looked square at Zaranda. "Have you nothing more worthwhile than straight pins and thimbles?"

"Straight pins and thimbles are amply worthwhile for folk who have none," said Zaranda evenly. She made it a habit not readily to take offense, and to deal in general in the calmest manner possible. This habit was highly profitable to a merchant. Her mastery of swordsmanship and her latent skill at magic made it easier for her to maintain the required serenity of mind.

"We have some swords and daggers from the East," Farlorn said. "Wondrous work, of a style seldom seen in these parts." Zaranda had coached him carefully in advance: Tethyrians tended to prize craftsmanship above all things.

The third man waved him off. His close-cropped brown hair and the yellowish scar that ran from one eye to his broad, stubble-clad jaw belied the foppery of his dress. "Weapons we have. Have you good magic?"

Farlorn cocked an eyebrow at Zaranda. A little sardonically; this was her call to make, though Farlorn was one who little cared to defer to others. But he was, after all, in her pay.

Here was a cusp of sorts. Zaranda was ready enough to sell her goods to whoever was willing to pay a good price for them. The nicety here was whether the query sprang from mere curiosity, a prospective customer's interest, or something more sinister. On their own account, these three worried Zaranda little, particularly with Farlorn and grim Stillhawk at her side. But who knew how many comrades they had out of sight outside the village, who might be eager to ambush even such a well-guarded caravan as this for sufficiently tempting plunder? Magic items were always in demand, immensely valuable in their own right and readily convertible to cash anywhere in Faerun.

Which, of course, was why a comparative handful of rare and powerful objects from fiend-haunted Thay provided the backbone of the profit Zaranda hoped to realize on this expedition.

"Are you mages?" she asked. "Could you, say, read a spell scroll, or ply an enspelled wand?"

Ginger Mustachios spread hands no less scarred than Stillhawk's. "We are simple fighting men. We have no skill with spells. Still, we can use enchanted weapons as readily as the next man."

Zaranda shook her head and smiled thinly. "I regret that the only magic weapons we have are those we ourselves carry. And they're not for sale."

It was the truth. They had won some enchanted weapons on the Thay expedition, but without exception these had been cursed, or such that they would turn and bite the hand of anyone who tried to wield them who wasn't a devotee of a dark god such as Cyric or Talos. Such objects were valuable to certain folk, of course, but Zaranda found it uncomfortable at best to have dealings with them. They were also of considerable interest to collectors with more risque tastes, particularly in the West. In Zaranda's experience, though, the potential for trouble outweighed the potential profit, so she had-not without a twinge of regret- opted to leave them where they lay.

Ginger Mustachios frowned briefly, and for a moment Zaranda thought he might cause trouble; Tethyrian bravos often dealt poorly with disappointment and tended not to reckon odds when they were angry. But instead, he shrugged and glanced over at his burly, scar-faced comrade, who had found a brazen oil lamp that had in fact come from far Rashemen in the Unapproachable East, and represented the upper limit of the luxury items the countryfolk might afford. This the man was rubbing surreptitiously on his sleeve.

"What ho, Argolio?" the mustachioed man sang out, clapping his companion's thick shoulder. "Think what you're doing, man. If by some chance this tall, foreign-born vixen had overlooked a magic lamp from the East, what then? Had a djinn appeared with a flash and a puff of smoke, next thing you knew you'd be down at the village midden, wringing out your codpiece!"

The heavily built man flushed, turning his scar a painful pink. He hurriedly put the lamp back.

The tall one shook back his aromatic hair. "I'm bored," he announced to the afternoon breeze, gradually rising from the east. "Let's away."

"Whither bound?" asked Farlorn.

"To Zazesspur," the ginger-haired man declared as the three walked back to where their mounts were tethered to tarnished brass rings on stone posts. "Baron By-Your-Leave-Fanny, or whatever they may call him, is hiring men with strong arms and stout hearts for the civic guard. His gulders spend as well as any man's, or I'm an Amman." The inhabitants of the country immediately to the north were generally considered boors by Tethyrians, few of whom had ever actually encountered one.

"Better yet," the scar-faced man said too loudly, trying to make up for his earlier embarrassment, "there are monsters to slay and treasures to seize. That's the way to go adventuring! Never faring far from the comforts of favored tavern and favored wench, ho-ho!"

The three mounted their horses, turned them with flamboyant caracoles and accompanying swirls of dust, and rode off to the west, uttering high-pitched yips.

Zaranda watched them go, arms akimbo. "The civic guard," she repeated.

"Perhaps this Baron Faneuil is just the man anarchy-ridden Tethyr needs," Father Pelletyr said. He took another bite from his onion.

"How can you do that, Father?" Zaranda asked.

A day and a half west from the little village in which they had encountered the three mercenaries, the country took on a bit more of a lilt and roll. East of Zaranda's county, which lay almost in the Snowflake foothills, the land grew steadily flatter and more sere. Now it was beginning to green about them again as they drew nearer the sea. They even began to see trees, alone or in small woods, that did not cluster along watercourses and had not been planted to give shade or windbreak.

It was still all but desolation to the northerly eyes of Zaranda's comrades.

Farlorn had his yarting unshipped and was playing and singing a song in a strange tongue as they rode. "The very words are music, О Bard," Father Pelletyr said. "What language is that?"

"Wild Elvish," Farlorn said. He had a distant, dreamy expression on his face. "The language of my mother's people. Do you know much Elvish, Father?"

The cleric shook his balding head. "Alas, I do not. I am only a poor priest of Ilmater, blessings to his name. It has never been my calling to minister to the folk of the woods."

Farlorn laughed, not unkindly. "You've saved much breath in that wise, Father. The Green Elves have email use for the religions of man. Or any other of their works, or aught to do with them at all."

"They must have some use for humans," Goldie remarked, "else where did you come from?"

It seemed to Zaranda that the bard colored slightly, but he ignored the mare, continuing to address Father Pelletyr: "Small matter at all events, for the wild elf tongue is strange even to elven ears, though all the people can with effort comprehend it. And you have spoken wisely, for of all the tongues of Faerun, Wild Elvish is the closest to music pure."

"And what is this beauteous song about, good bard?" the cleric asked, taking a bite from a plum he'd bought from an urchin up the road.

"An elvish maiden sits by a pool in the wood, watching her tears mingle with the clear crystal waters. She has just learned that her lover has been taken and tortured to death by orcs. Soon she will open the veins of her wrist, and she sings of how she will be joined once again with her love, when her lifeblood stains the water like wine."

The cleric swallowed. "Delightful, Fm sure," he said weakly.

Farlorn urged his gray knee-to-knee with Zaranda's mare, favoring Zaranda with a wink. "It's really a set of bawdy limericks I heard in Teshwave," he told her in Elvish. They do sound pretty translated into my own tongue, don't they?"

Zaranda just shook her head. Farlorn flashed her a quick grin, and she felt a tug at her heart, like fingers plucking her sleeve. No, she told herself firmly. All that's between you and him is business. Leave it thus.

Farlorn struck a fresh cord on his yarting.

Riding about twenty yards ahead of Zaranda, Still-hawk suddenly held up a hand.

"What is it?" Zaranda called softly.

Fighting, Stillhawk signed. Up ahead.

Zaranda sighed. Well, 'tis Tethyr. What can you expect? She wasn't yet ready to fall into lockstep behind this baron in Zazesspur, but she did have to admit something needed to be done about the bandits.

After having passed the halfling barricade, the caravan had encountered little trouble. Occasionally it had been shadowed by furtive watchers. Zaranda lacked the wild-craft of her two companions, inborn in the case of Farlorn, gained through painstaking training in Stillhawk's case, but as a veteran campaigner, she had seen her share of re-connoitering and ambush. The covert surveillance had never gone long undetected. In the cases in which it persisted, Stillhawk had slipped off to discourage it-puzzled by his friend and employer's insistence that he take no life unless he was offered violence.

On two occasions Stillhawk detected skulkers actually lying in ambush, and these he dealt with in summary fashion, leaving no survivors to learn new lessons in the need for stealth.

Several larger armed parties with no obvious busi-ness had likewise been encountered, including a score of men on horseback, warriors with ill-kept weapons and ragged cloaks. But Zaranda had assembled her caravan with care. To the observer the caravan looked neither unduly large nor prosperous, and while well guarded, was not so much so as to indicate the richness of the pickings. In truth it was formidably guarded indeed: the crossbow-and-halberd guards were all hand-picked fighters, tough and well seasoned, their morale stiffened by good pay, decent treatment, and the prospect of fighting side-by-side with warriors of the ilk of Farlorn, Stillhawk, and Zaranda herself.

'The menace it did present to the world was sufficient. Across a turbulent life, Zaranda had observed that predators, whether two-legged or four or more, preferred prey that could be taken with a minimum of risk. Though there were a few tense heartbeats during which Zaranda palmed one of the resinous pellets used in her fireball spell, the large mounted party had scrutinized the caravan with some care and then ridden away.

At least half a dozen times they saw to left or right tall spires of smoke rising into the pale sky. On occasion, Zaranda clamped her jaw shut and set her eyes on the road ahead. She hated those who preyed on intelli-gent beings, but there was nothing she could do. Until now, with trouble lying athwart her path. Goldie had pricked up her long, pointy, well-shaped ears, of which she was exceptionally vain. "Louts," she said with authority. "Perhaps a score. Half a mile along the road. From their yelping it seems they harry someone-or thing-like a pack of hounds, not quite daring to close." Father Pelletyr looked skeptical. "Now, Golden Dawn, dear, prevarication is a sin. How can you tell so much more than our seasoned scout?"

"Because she has ears like the lateen rig on an Amnian fishing felucca," supplied Farlorn. "She ought be able to hear a fly fart at that range." Goldie cast him an aggrieved look. Stillhawk signed, She's right. He had his bow across the pommel of his saddle, but hadn't taken an arrow from his quiver. He seemed satisfied that, whatever the disturbance was, it wasn't coming their way. Zaranda ordered Balmeric and Eogast to get the beasts off the road and into a defensive circle in a field of yellow and white spring flowers. Before she could hear their complaints at the exertion, she wheeled Goldie and was trotting forward again. "Let's go see what transpires."

"Must you always rush headlong into potential peril, Zaranda?" the cleric asked despairingly.

"Yes," she said. "Besides, some poor soul may need our help."

"Oh," he said. "Oh." And he twitched the flanks of his ass with a little green-leafed twig he'd picked up for the purpose, urging the creature to follow Zaranda, who'd set Goldie into a rolling lope.

"That was manipulative, Randi," said Goldie, who wasn't really exerting herself at this pace. "And you say I'm bad."

Zaranda frowned briefly, then shrugged an laughed. "It was easier than debating with him," she admitted. "At least this way I'll know where he is."

Their only contact with the Zazesspur road had been Zaranda's side trip into Ithmong. As one of only two major east-west routes through Tethyr, it was well maintained and relatively easy faring. For that reason it also attracted much attention from brigands. Zaranda therefore kept her train to the back roads, despite the fact some were scarce better than wagon ruts or goat tracks.

They were on a somewhat better stretch of road here, a country lane that showed signs of having been improved in the past by being metaled with streambed gravel. Still-hawk rode protectively thirty paces in the lead, longbow ready in his hand. Then came Zaranda, with Farlorn to her left, and finally Father Pelletyr, ass trotting furiously to keep up, cleric and beast alike grunting softly in time to the impacts of its sharp little hooves.

A round mound of hill rose to their left. A lone pecan tree sprang from the top, its roots gripping earth just on the far side of the crest. As the road bent around the hill's base, the clamor of excited voices grew louder, and then the riders beheld a crowd of angry peasants wielding sticks, farming tools, and the odd wolf-spear, confronting a lone figure that stood at the base of the lordly pecan.

Powerfully built, with short bandy legs, the lone figure wore a gray cowled cloak despite the day's warmth. In either hand it clutched a short, heavily curved blade. With these it was fending off the half-hearted thrusts and blows of such mob members as sporadically worked up the nerve to close with it.

"Slay the beast!" peasant voices urged from the back of the mob. "Slay the vile thing!"

Stillhawk slipped from the saddle and let his reins drop. Well trained, his bay would not move from where it stood unless it were threatened or summoned. He nocked an arrow. Farlorn frowned.

'Something about that shape I mislike," the bard murmured. His yarting was slung across his back. "And the cast of those blades-"

The cowl fell back to reveal the hideous tusked face of a great orc-an orog.