"Glad to be out of this place," Jonvole said as
they trekked out where the wall had fallen into the fading darkness of the
land.
"The dank old keep of Barberdose scare you boy?"
Bridger asked in his usual choleric voice with a glimpse of judgment.
Bridger always picked at him the most. A shrewd moose of a
man in a band of thieves made Jonvole question the honor any thief could have.
"Dark and terrible things can fester in ruins," he said.
"Aye, worms, rats, and spiders… dark and terrible
things indeed… for a woman." Bridger eyed him again this time with a
sneer.
"Not any woman you've bedded I'd wager, Bridger,"
Derrick said with a soft chuckle counting coins in his hand.
"Puts me at unease is all I'm saying." Jonvole had
not forgotten the beating Bridger bestowed upon him and would say nothing to
raise quarrel.
He was always cautious and paranoid, and Bridger never let
him forget the weakness that brought. Jonvole's old gram spared no tale in the
late nights of foul and horrible things when he was a pup. "The March
waits in darkness and halls long abandoned lay betwixt hell and things best not
seen," she'd say. Old gram had hundreds of stories for the ruins of the
ancient world. The tale of Fogmount scared him the most, though he had only seen
it through words. Barberdose seemed eerily to resemble those words. Maybe the
mind just tells one what they wish not to hear.
Bridger spat a slab of phlegm at his boot. "Yet you had
no trouble purring like a kitten under dreams of blue skies and fields of
sweets within them halls."
"A sniff of nightsolts helped bring that to task I'd
say," Derrick put in as he started the count over.
Jonvole turned his head away as if not proud of the
revelation. "I heard noises rising from the lower keep."
"And shoving that shit up your nose makes your ears
hear no more? You hear noises everywhere that make you cold an awful lot
lad," Bridger said.
He should be the last one to cast judgment Jonvloe thought. Bridger's habits were of a far fouler nature. It was not just to find sleep in the
broken halls of Barberdose, but to silence the dreams as well. Fields of
cinder, rain of ash, and an army of riders atop steeds of hell, marching, came
relentless in sleep and the nightsolts kept them away. He would ingest enough
to turn his mind to mush and foam at the mouth if it meant not having to
witness that cold darkness again.
"Do you plan to count that coin all the way to
Helbrode?" Reese asked glancing back to Derrick.
Jonvole chuckled at that. A clean-shaven man, Reese stood
out from the rest of them with no hint of a murdering thief in his eyes. He
wore a fine red doublet peppered with bronze studs and trousers striped in gray
and black. In his youthful days he was a knight, Derrick had told him, but
bedding the wrong Lords wife and daughter lost him title and almost his head. A
stripped knight was worse a title than of a plague and even the outland
kingdoms of Vildeheim and Maytheral shunned them. Bridger and Derrik still
addressed him proper, but not Jonvole. He could see Reese did not like it.
"Making sure none of you snaked me while I slept, Sir
Reese."
Bridger leaned over to Derrick, sliding his blade half out
of its sheath. "If I'd snaked you, you wouldn't be here to count,
elf."
Derrick gave him a sharp grin Jonvole saw. The Treh elf was
confident. There wasn't anything he couldn't do with a pair of blades, and
Bridger knew it, feared it, though, he liked to pretend not to, and act as if
he could present some smidge of a challenge to Derrick. Jonvole witnessed the
elf rip a man twice Bridger's size from sternum to neck with a fork once.
Bridger saw it to. Until that moment, Jonvole never thought it possible for the
moose to reek of fear.
"Normare was a good score," Jonvole said and gave
a gentle squeeze to the bag of silver hanging at his hip.
"Helbrode will be better," said Reese.
They had never applied their trade in a province capital
before for fear of drawing too much unwanted attention. The thought of thieving
in Helbrode made Jonvole's guts rumble hollow. No job ever went without bloodshed,
as Bridger was all too quick to spill it. In Normare he planted his blade in a
man's skull who did not want to part with the family savings. Of course after
that, they could not leave any witnesses, so Reese ordered the man's wife and
two sons killed. It would have been better had he ordered Bridger killed.
Jonvole stared at him as he walked with his head lowered. The moose plodded
along burdened under a heavy leather coat with pelts stitched at its shoulders.
With a quickstep over and push of the blade, Jonvole could get rid the world of
the bastard. Or, he'd miss and Bridger would beat him to death?
"Praise the gods for King Freethinker without whom
these days of easy pickings would not be possible." Bridger spread his
arms and looked to the stars.
"Praise them again no Irons are on our trail,"
Jonvole said. He would much rather deal with province guardsmen than that of
the Iron High Guard.
Reese tossed a look back to him. "Not yet they
aren't."
"Irons don't worry me much," Bridger said.
"Just line them up and I'll have my go at them."
Derrick laughed. "You'd fair better with a mist
cat."
Bridger lost words at that remark and swept his eyes around
the fog slithering at their ankles. "This ain't no time to be japing about
such things…"
Derrick laughed again, with firmness in his throat this
time. "Woman," he said.
Jonvole did not have to guess which of two he would gladly
tussle with, as Irons made the savage wildlife seem tame. Bridger talked a
stout game, but Jonvole knew the smelly bastard would tuck tail at the first
sight of any Irons and if he wouldn't, the gods would dress him as a jester to
dance in their court once he arrived in their halls.
"Some horses would've served us well. Do away with all
his damn walking," Bridger grumbled moving away from Derrick's bait.
"Normare had no stables, but Helbrode does," Reese
said. "Be there by mid afternoon I reckon."
They cut through the trees, sliding down the Hill. Jonvole
worried his boot would catch under the fog and send him toppling into Bridger,
who was at his front. That would surely piss him off, bringing another beating.
At the bottom, Bridger stopped abruptly and Jonvole bumped into his shoulder
but tried shifting his weight to soften the tap, nearly throwing himself to the
ground. Bridger turned, caught him by the throat, and pushed his back to the
tree. Jonvole saw his other hand was on his pommel, the glaring in his dark
eyes was itching.
"Watch your damn step boy." His breath smelled of
anger and onion.
"I tripped," said Jonvole holding his hands in
surrender.
"Next you might fall on my blade."
Jonvole waited until he was a few feet along the road before
falling in behind them. The pines stood daunting in robes of shadows to either
side of the road, the gusting wind whistling through their needles. The thin
dark made him weary, as if eyes, by the hundreds, watched them stroll along the
road. Without warning, breaking the silence, a legion of wings spurred above
unseen from nowhere, clamoring like breaking thunder. Thousands of them
fluttered, pushing a force of air to the mist, sweeping it into up curl trails
at the edge of the woods. The chill in his spine came quick to that. They all
slowed their pace and threw eyes to the sky Jonvole saw. Even Bridger placed
quick hands to his blades. Almost as fast as the migration broke, the stream of
birds passed on, their disturbance fading in the wake. Out here in the wild,
Jonvole did not take comfort in his superstitions. The birds were an omen,
their thrashing, signs of a storm to come. He would earn a smack in the mouth
to dare speak of childish concerns, so he remained silent.
Bridger and Derrick both looked back to him then stopped.
Had they heard his thoughts he wondered? They were looking past him and he
hadn't heard it at first, the squeaking tip toeing further behind him. Reese
stepped between them harboring the same curious look that donned their faces.
Jonvole walked slower, turning eyes back as he did. Beyond, in the fog an
orange bloom wobbled above the screeching of rusted metal and worn wood. Some
travelling soul did not realize what they were about to pull into.
"Sounds like a wagon," Derrick said.
Reese pulled his sword and then said, "Sounds like
we'll make to Helbrode sooner."
Jonvole's blade was not as fearsome looking as theirs were.
Reese held a saber of silver with dark lining, Bridger wrapped his hand around
a polished bone handle broadsword, and Derrick favored his crossbow over the
two curve swords at his hips. Jonvole looked down, turning the pitiful rusted
dirk he held. Reese had told him he needed to steal something better, but
failed to mention he would have to fight the three of them to do so. All he
ever got were scraps, but the dagger's point was sharp enough to stab and that
is all that mattered to him.
He squinted as the fog rolled over the horse trap wheeling
into the opening. Its wood was dark and old, a long pole fastened at its side warped
at the top to the weight of the lantern. The frail horse's faded black coat
looked dried and pulled tightly against its bones as if the beast should be
walking the shadow lands. The rider sat hunched over draped in a tattered
hooded robe of dark green, with a scepter rising from the back, twisting in
shape and holding a roughened gem.
"What the hell is that attached to its back?"
Jonvole asked in an unsure voice. It reminded him of a weathervane, though he
could not recall ever seeing one on a person, or holding a valuable.
"Payday," said Bridger.
When the wagon stopped a few feet in front of them Reese
hollered. "We'll need you to be stepping off your wagon traveler, if you
wish to live that is."
The rider lifted his head but his face hid consumed in the
darkness under the ragged hood. For a moment, he did not move and Jonvole
thought Derrick to shoot a bolt into his chest, but then he slowly climbed
down. The traveler moved slowly as if every reach and step shot aches through
bones.
Unexpectedly, awareness began to claw at Jonvole. Something
he'd seen or heard, but did not reveal itself. A chill swept his skin and, cold
creeps pimpled his arms and neck. Something was not right, he felt. "Maybe
we ought let this one pass… I… think we should let him pass?"
"Are you daft?" Bridger asked then smacked Jonvole
across the back of his head.
Bridger wasted no time stepping to the traveler. The
impatient shit-headed moose wanted first pickings. "We should step
aside," Jonvole said to Reese and Derrick but neither replied.
"Be needing that jewel as well old man," said
Bridger as he ran his hand along the blade.
Jonvole winced before peeling eyes when a hint of twilight
rolled under the traveler's hood as it straightened its stance to Bridgers
request. A shadowed memory stood clear now. From dreams this Being came. Half
the faceplate it wore had no socket, only etched symbols that faintly burned
yellow. Bridger saw it to, but had no chance to react before the black blade
swept across his throat.
Reese howled and ran to his aid and fell face dead at a
glimmer no, sooner than he arrived. Jonvole squeezed his hand around the dagger
so tight his nails pierced his palm, filling it with warm blood. He could not
move nor stop trembling. When the Being caught the crossbow bolt mid air, he
pissed his pants. In half a blink, Derrick fell headless at his side. Jonvole
fell hollow as a bitter cold crawled up his legs wrapping him tightly in cloak
of dread.
The Being slowly turned to him, the wind pushing back its
threadbare robe revealing its jagged armor, forged wicked under shadows. For a
moment, Jonvole saw his reflection, marring back at him from under the Being's
hood, and darkness and deafness soon followed.
