Nightlord: Sunset (57 page)

Maybe I just don’t have enough capacity for hate.

Let me be honest.  Another part of me—a small part, but it’s there—wants to just go home.

Then there’s the smartest part that realizes, here or home, this Church will still come after me.  My own sense of self-interest is telling me I
can’t
leave them alone.

Such are my thoughts on a long ride to Eastgate.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20
TH

I
am not at all happy with the incompetent boobs.  Firebrand was still on the table when I got there.  Nothing else was around, but my swordbelt was, with sword and dagger still on it.

             
Let me back up a second.

We were still on the way to Eastgate at nightfall.  I pulled over, rolled up, and waited for it to finish.

The sunset came down like fire in my blood.

I don’t know how to describe it. It was the power of a whole village of people, several professional magicians, and a bunch of livestock.  It
can’t
be described, any more than I can describe the feeling of a sneeze or an orgasm to someone who hasn’t had
one.  You can get the idea, but until you feel it, you don’t
know.

It didn’t fade, but kept on long after the sky turned dark.  I felt like I could walk on air or through walls, leap tall buildings or crush through them.  I felt
powerful
.  Not just confident or capable—I’ve often felt that way.  I can do this, I can do that, I feel certain I can manage that particular deed…

This was a feeling of
power
.

I understood, instantly, why absolute power corrupts. It was intoxicating and wonderful and I could tell it was very, very dangerous to like it.  But I did. 

It took me a while to get my whirling head to slow down, but when I felt a little less dizzy, I mounted up on Bronze and discovered that riding a flame-spouting block of living metal is a lot like flying.  So I was in a fairly exhilarated, perhaps even intoxicated mood when we did make it into town.

I stopped outside the inn and left Bronze out front.  I treated it as a potential trap; Bronze I left outside as a reserve.  When the trap sprang, Bronze could break its teeth while I fought it from the inside.  She doesn’t like being left outside like that, but she takes it with good grace.

Inside, the innkeeper looked surprised to see me. Turning pale and sweating at the sight of me was not endearing; it implied he was guilty of something.  So I marched across the room to him, snatched him close by grabbing the front of his shirt and apron, and demanded what he knew about my kidnapping.

“N-n-nothing!” he sputtered.  I
lifted
, raising him up off the floor.  He squeaked.  I could see he wasn’t telling the truth; his spirit rippled with a pattern I knew.

“You’re lying,” I stated.  “Tell me the truth or I’ll kill you.”  I didn’t raise my voice; that made it more frightening.  He didn’t know I wouldn’t kill him, so he spilled his guts before I did it for him.  A pair of magicians had come in, asked about me, asked if I was alone, all that sort of thing.  They had paid gold, too, for the information.  Then they had gone upstairs.  They didn’t come back down.

“Oh.  Then you just sold me out on the spur of the moment?  Don’t your patrons have any privacy?”

“Lord!  What was I to do?” he begged.

That stopped me, cold.  He had a point.  I put him down.  I couldn’t have really hurt him, anyway; he didn’t do anything worth a pounding.  Caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, he’d done the only thing he could.  No options.

I can sympathize with that.

“Fine.  Consider yourself extremely fortunate I am trying to be a fair and honest man.  Where are my things?”

“In your room, lord,” he answered, backing away.  “I’ve touched nothing.”

So I got another key from him and went upstairs to find it was already unlocked.  Of course, the room had been robbed.  I somehow doubted the kidnappers had locked the door when they left.  The only thing left was Firebrand, along with a faint smell of burned meat.

I can guess why no one stole my sword.

I belted on Firebrand and hung my mundane sword on the other side.  I felt silly wearing two swords, one of which would take two hands for normal people to wield effectively—and sadly naked without my vest and pistol.  I like having an edge over people who are trying to kill me.  Preferably one that is chopping down at them.  I wonder what became of my stuff? 

Well, fine.  I could find my stuff when I found a spot to sit and quietly toss around a few spells.  But I wanted some new magical tools—a small mirror, a glass ball, colored yarn, that sort of thing—before I went hog-wild on it.  Especially since my vest and pistol were probably in the hands of an escaped magician or two; Bronze and I didn’t find anything I’d left in the room during our excavation.  It could take
work
to put a locator on either.  I feel certain they’ll have shields up.  Good ones.  Especially after my little fit of temper.

With some luck, maybe someone will look down the barrel and hit the trigger.

I left the inn and I don’t think I’ll ever go back.  Not that it’s not a good inn; it’s just not someplace I think I ever want to see again.

We stopped at a couple of shops and I picked up things.  I got some crunchy bits for Bronze at the smithy—her scrapes and scuffs were already fading—and I found both Sirs Raeth and Bouger.

“Hey, you made it!” I said, striding in to greet them.  I was terribly pleased by this; I guess I was half-suspecting people I met would die just from the association.  I also realized I was in something of a foul mood from all the killing and dark thinking.  Seeing friendly faces was cheering.

They both broke into smiles and clasped forearms with me, clapped me on the shoulder, greeted me.  The journey to Eastgate was not terribly hard, but it was longer than they’d hoped; afoot, weary, and hungry, it had taken them several days to trek the distance.  But they did it.  Not a single goblin, orc, or troll to be seen.

I was again pleased.  Maybe I wasn’t a jinx after all.

“So where are you staying?” I asked.  “Where are the others?  And have you eaten recently?”

“We are staying with Lord Heledon, by his courtesy,” Sir Raeth answered.  “Our other companions have scattered throughout the town to find work where they can.  We ate this morning, but we would be honored to have you join us for luncheon.”

“My pleasure.  But don’t let me take you away from your business here.”

“Indeed.  The good smith was just explaining why he is not yet done with the blades we were promised.”

The smith—Larel, I thought, if I recalled his name correctly; I didn’t slip into my inner wizard’s study to look it up—was quietly waiting for us to finish; it’s impolite to hammer metal while your betters are talking.  Now he sighed.

“Sirs.  I can nae make a sword as quick as a snap o’the fingers.  One I have, for I had it near to ready and t’was what ye needed.  Another I am making, alike to what ye said.  Will ye not return in a fortnight?  Or would ye have it shatter or chip at the first blow struck?”

“He has a point,” I offered.  “I’d rather wait and have a decent sword than get a worthless one now.  Whose is it to be?”

“Mine,” Raeth said, looking unhappy.

“I’ve an extra—not a fine blade, no, but good enough to get by with.”  I offered him the one I’d filched from the ruins.  “Do me the honor of accepting it as a gift.”

Raeth looked at me as though I’d just asked him to marry my daughter—sight unseen.  Both honored and appalled at once.  But he took it, drew it a few inches, slid it back home again, and accepted it.

Sir Bouger surprised me.  “Have you no other?” he asked.

I noticed he had a sword.  I blinked and thought,
He’s already got a sword, but he wants one from me?  Well… okay…

“If you like, yes.”

“If Sir Raeth will take your sword, then so shall I.”

Now, a normal person would have thought something was up.  I didn’t.  All I can say is it’s different when you’re
there.
  Right now, I’m writing it down on some paper I suspect is just a neuron, magically enhanced, but looking back on it, it’s obvious even to me… after the fact.

So I asked Larel about weapons in town, found where to buy a decent sword, and told him to keep working on the one in the forge.  I laid down money on it, just in case we decided we needed it later.  Then we all trooped out to head for another smithy.  Eastgate isn’t really all that large, but it supports several smiths; there’s iron in them thar hills.  I walked, leading Bronze, and my two companions stayed at either hand.

Raeth broke the silence after we had gone a hundred yards.

“Sir Halar?”

“Yep?”

“I regret we did not have all at hand at your knighting.  Might we stop, after you present Sir Bouger with his sword, and see to that matter?”

Ah, yes
, I thought. 
Shada told me about this—the ceremony and whatnot.  Right
.

“Sure.  Be happy to.  Then we’ll see if I have enough money left over to get either horses or some armor of some sort.  It just seems wrong that you guys are on foot.”

They chuckled and agreed wholeheartedly.  Cavalry hates becoming infantry.

We found Sir Bouger a sword, and he seemed to expect I would buy it and offer it to him.  I intended to, but it was a little irritating he would take advantage of my generosity like that, especially when he already
had
one.  Maybe he was a two-weapons man, rather than sword-and-shield.

Nope.  He handed me back the sword he’d already purchased and belted on the new one.  Privately, I was wondering about the significance of giving gifts among the nobility; I haven’t exactly found a book by Duchess Emily Post, after all.

I sold the spare sword, did some accounting, found my total funds, counting loot from the village, might possibly buy a pair of nags and some chainmail… and decided to share the news with Raeth and Bouger.

“Well,” Sir Bouger said, thoughtfully, “you might offer your services as a wizard.  Eastgate has a resident wizard, but he seldom comes out of his apartments.”

“What about heal-the-hungry day?” I asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Back in Baret, there was a day when the wizard came out to heal anybody who wanted to risk it… ?”

He looked surprised, then nodded.  “Oh, yes!  I had heard something of it.  The Baron is an odd one, coddling his people with such luxuries.  No, that is not done anywhere else I know of; the wizard must be
hired
by the ones so ill.”

“I, also, have never known it elsewhere,” Sir Raeth agreed.  “Although I admit that it does seem a noble thing to do, even if the Church might object to such reliance on secular power.”

“So I can charge the rabble for spells?” I asked.

“I should not see any reason against it,” Sir Raeth replied.  “What sort of spells might you perform?”

“I have no idea.  Healings, of course—minor ones.  What else do people
want?
” I asked.

“That is difficult to say.  Better crops, healthy children, stronger backs, a bed free of vermin.  Can you give them these things?”

I shrugged.  “Given time and effort, I’m not sure there’s anything I can’t do; it’s just a question of
how much
time and effort.  So we have a short-term cash flow problem, not a long-term one.  I’m looking to get you two into some armor and on horseback.  How can we accomplish that?”

Sir Bouger chuckled.  “The rabble will be of no help; you must speak to someone with gold.”

“Granted.”

“Then let us pay a call on Lord Heledon; his lordship may have need of a wizard.”

“You said he has one.”

“Yes, but there are wizards and then there are wizards.  Some task beyond his pet wizard’s power may be a sore point with his lordship; he may be willing to pay for a more powerful wizard’s aid.”

“He’s the guy in charge of Eastgate?”

“That he is.  Sir Raeth and I are guests at his courtesy.”

I shrugged.  “Okay.  Let’s go talk to the man and see what he can afford.  Right after I get some wizarding supplies.”

Slightly lighter in funding and much heavier in useful bits and pieces, we made our way to the fortified manor of Lord Heledon.

The place wouldn’t stand a siege, but it was perfectly adequate for beating off an attack by a rampaging mob.  The windows (windows!) on the ground floor had heavy brass shutters, while the upper floor had crossletted wooden ones.  The whole place was stone, with a slate roof.

After listening to the man for a bit, I got the impression that beating off an attack by a rampaging mob was about what he expected.  He was pompous and grasping and generally offensive, and I’m glad I let Sir Raeth do all the talking.  Since I had no immediate plans for the future other than wandering a bit and scouting out more of the kingdom, the arrangements turned out to be quite satisfactory.

The Duke felt horses were no problem.  Happy to provide them.  Armor?  Well… plate would take too long to fit.  Scale and chain, though, were readily available.

Provided…

… provided we were willing to go in place of the King’s Levy on Eastgate.