Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2013 22:25:41 GMT -5
Renault had crept into his room, reaking of sweat and honeyed mead. The boy whimpered in the dark. Pretend you're sleeping... Pretend you're sleeping and he'll go away... Boris clench his eyelids as shut as they would go, and his eyeballs began to burn and water from the pressure. Go away, go away. I am asleep! he cried out silently, not even daring to fake a snore or a sleepy murmur. He just lay, stone cold.
"It's your turn tonight, little boy." The man's fat, sausage hands worked at the strings on the boy's trousers, and little Boris felt the scruff of the Swadian man's face against the soft skin of his own, young neck. Boris could resist no longer. Renault wasn't going anywhere. Hauling back, Boris slammed his elbow, hard, into Renault's nose, just as the fat orphanage proprietor had gotten the strings free.
Renault swore and tumbled backward off of the small, hard cot and onto the cold floor. "Little fucker, I'll tear your throat out for that."
Boris smiled at the man. "Not tonight. Lads!"
They emerged from the shadows, from Boris' closet. From beneath his bed. Some of them barely more than toddlers, the others with wispy beard, but all of them mere boys. "We've had enough of you, you old, dumb fucker." Boris frowned. He had wanted to give a better speech than that....
"W-what is this? Back to your beds, whelps!" Renault stomped his foot at the final word, as he was wont to do.
"So we can wait and see who you get next? I don't think so." There. That was better. "Lads," cried Boris again, producing the shard of glass hidden away in his shirt. "Get him."
"No... N-no! No!"
A dozen tiny, chubby hands turned Renault into bacon....
* * *
Boris awoke with a start, quaffing in a stream of thick, humid air. Coughing, he sat up, only to see his men had already awoken and were moving about the encampment. A few men-at-arms sat on the sand, dicing. Other soldiers sat, honing their blades or breaking their fasts. They all smiled as they worked and played, but no matter what they were doing, the sweat trickled down their noses like the mighty river of Khudan.
Except for Umay. The Sarranid tracker was used to the swealtering heat of his homeland. His tan, swarthy skin was dry and smooth. He smiled as he saw Boris approach.
"Good morning, Lord Grimjaw," he smiled. His accent was thick, but he spoke the Common Tongue well enough. "Your men are looking like pigs this day. Sweating, and the Sun has made them pink." He chuckled. The desert bandit had a terrible sense of humour. But then, Boris had little need for humour. He had not been called "Grimjaw" for nothing, after all.
"But not you, though," continued Umay. "Yes, your skin crackles under the Sun like a suckling on a spit. In that, you are like your Vaegir comrades. But you do not sweat as they do... Why is this?"
Grimjaw shrugged. "Vaegir though I may be, I grew up in Swadia."
"In Praven?"
"No. Uxhal. By the time I returned to my homeland, I was already a man. My teeth still chatter sometimes when I am there." Boris bit into a wormy apple. The green inchworm, severed down the midsection by his teeth, squirmed within. Grimjaw pulled it out with his two fingers and ate it. Umay wrinkled his brow. "How far are we from Bariyye?"
Umay shrugged, "Two, maybe three days. Providing we meet no more bandits."
Grimjaw grimaced. "Yes, your friends. I'm beginning to wonder if you're more trouble than you are worth, Umay."
Umay frowned, "I have served my Lord Grimjaw well. Men you have lost, yes, but that is life in Calradia. Men die. Women and children, too. If you want to avoid that, I suggest taking the money you will make in Bariyye, buying a ship, and sailing to the Lands Beyond the Sea. There, you will find women wet with wanting, and men with no bloodlust and no fire in their bellies, and you can grow fat and satisfied and die without a squirt of seed left in your cock, I am sure. But for now, you are in Calradia. Law and order are the exception, as you know... not the rule. So for now, your men may die. As may you. As may poor Umay."
The Vaegir frowned. What his guide said was true enough... Still, Boris knew that Umay had been a desert bandit. The man had admitted as much when he met him at that tavern back in Dugar. Umay has claimed that his brothers had abandoned him... But what if he was lying? What if I am a mark? It wasn't uncommon for brigands to send "guides" to cities, that would lead merchants down goatpaths or abandoned highways, only to be ambushed by their rapacious brethren.
"I have to admit," sighed Boris at last, "I thought a merchant's life would be easier than a soldiers."
"All men in Calradia are soldiers. Or dead. Or both, I suppose. Still, a soldier can run and save his own tail. A soldier can hide in bogs or up in trees or even beneath the sand, and ambush... A merchant with cartloads of goods, though? He is a sitting duck." Umay took a sip of wine from the skin that was perpetually present at his hip. "Still, why iron, Lord Grimjaw? You might have brought ten times as much wool with you, for half the weight."
"For a fraction of the gold. There are sheep in the desert, Umay. And in the Khergit foothills just to the north. There aren't, however, any mines. Iron will sell high here. I only paid a pittance for all of this up in Sargoth. I will have a fortune for it from the merchants of Bariyye."
Umay shrugged. "I guess this is why you are a lord, and I am a drunk." He quaffed some more wine. "Excuse me, my lord. But I must make ready for the march."
Boris nodded. "As must I."
Noon would be upon them soon, and with it, the Sarranid sun would be at its most oppressive. The party went on a slow march for a time, with Boris riding up and down the column with his most trusted men. He rode, for a time, alongside Ivos, the caravan steward. "I caught two men trying to make off with bars, my lord," Ivos informed him.
"Who?"
"Dourn and Gast. It was last night, milord."
That's what I get for letting bandits join our party... I needed the men, but they were more trouble than they were worth... "What did you do?"
"Dourn spat and said he was entitled to some of the profit my lordship was going to make,"
"His wage, his freedom, and his life weren't enough?" Ivos merely shrugged at the question. Boris went on, "And Gast?"
"Gast cried and said Dourn told him to. So I asks him, 'If Dourn told you to kill yourself, would you?' And he says, 'No, sir!' And I says to Dourn, 'Tell him to kill himself.' So Dourn, that fucker don't care about nothin'. He tells him to. Gast says he won't. I tell Gast, 'You was willin' to pilfer from his lordship on Dourn's word, why ya doubtin' him all a sudden?' And I tell him if he don't do what Dourn says, I'd leave him naked in the desert with cow's blood all over his body. The jackals could have him, I says."
Grimjaw narrowed his brows. "And?"
"And so then Gast did what Dourn told him to. Stabs himself right in the heart!" The steward chuckled and beamed, his three, lonely yellow teeth showing behind cracked lips.
"That was ill done, Ivos. From now on, bring all prisoners to me. I trust Dourn was similarly executed, though?"
"Yes, milord. And forgive me, milord. Just havin' some sport, is all."
Grimjaw frowned, "We are here to do business. Keep your sporting to a minim - MEN! TO ARMS!" He unsheathed his longsword as his horse reared. Ivos, to his credit, raised his spiked mace almost as swiftly as Grimjaw had readied his own weapon. The desert bandits erupted from the dunes beside the caravan, and even, Grimjaw saw, from the sands beneath them. The shrieked their shrill, ululating cries, their curved swords and sharp spears gleaming in the midday sun.
A turbaned warrior ran at Grimjaw. The Vaegir swung his longsword, truly more of a bastard sword, with one hand and met the man's notched axe at the apex of its swing. A swish of the wrist sent the bandit's axe into the air, out of his hands, at that angle. Grimjaw swung again. The unarmed man could do naught but cover his face with his hands. Grimjaw's blade bit through skin and bone, whistled briefly in the wind, and then bit through skin and bone again. The desert bandit fell to his knees, half of his head missing. His fingers and half of his left hand fell in front of him a moment after.
Grimjaw reared his courser, a white mare with a glorious mane, and as he did, he surveyed the battle. His men were holding their own, and the bandits, underarmed and inexperienced at fighting men this hardened, were falling in scores. Grimjaw rode through their ranks, cleaving and killing as easily as he had with the first bandit. In the corner of his eye, he saw Umay ride a man down, his lance piercing the desert bandit's back and bursting forth from his chest.
Beyond Umay, Grimjaw saw Ivos, unhorsed somehow, bashing and blocking. He backed up as three bandits clashed with him. Grimjaw sheathed his sword, and pulled out his shortbow. Fashioned by Khergits for mounted archery, the short bow was harder to shoot than a long bow, and couldn't go as far. But Grimjaw had become deadly with it in his campaigns. He narrowed his eyes, his mare still galloping beneath him, carrying the two of them across the battlefield, through the carnage.
Wuuuffffffff Grimjaw let his first arrow fly. A moment later, it embedded itself in one of the bandits that was pressing on Ivos. Not fatal, but the man stumbled enough for Ivos to bash him with a backhanded blow with his shield.
Grimjaw let fly again, and struck a second bandit, this time in the heart. Ivos turned and called, "Thank you, my lord! I got this one!" Grimjaw ignored him. Ivos had an eye for numbers and was better than anyone else in the party at keeping count of the iron. Ivos' brain was more valuable than his pride. Grimjaw pressed his mare on toward Ivos, and fired a third shot, felling the last bandit.
"I said I had him!" spat Ivos as Grimjaw trotted up to him.
Frowning, Grimjaw looked down at the steward. "You were supposed to stay with the iron. And where is your horse?"
Ivos shrugged and spat, and began trudging back toward the caravan.
The field was littered with dozens of slain bandits, and only a few of Grimjaw's own men. He saw one man, a grievous wound to his chest, lying in the sand, which was staining a darker brown from his blood. When the lad saw Grimjaw, he wheezed. "Mercy, my lord. Please..."
Grimjaw leapt off of his horse, and pulled his dirk from his belt. "What is your name, son?"
"Erenchin... F-from Tismirr."
"Erenchin of Tismirr. Go with God."
And Grimjaw slid his dirk into the man's heart.
Climbing to his feet, he called to his men. "Reassemble the column! Dress wounds. Quickly loot the dead, if you wish, but be respectful. To ours as well as theirs. I will not have a curse brought down on us. Make ready, we ride for Bariyye! I want us to make double time!" The had only lost five men in this skirmish, but counting the three yesterday, the seven the day before, the two before that, the ten before that.... Only twenty or so men remained, and Grimjaw needed to make a return trip. Assuredly, gold was easier to carry than hundreds of bars of iron, but still...
"Uh, my lord... I am not sure Bariyye is the most prudent destination for us," Umay called out. He was kneeling beside a slain desert bandit. "Look at this surcoat. These were no desert bandits my lord.... These men belong to Emir Ghanawa."
Grimjaw swallowed. Emir Ghanawa was prickly, Sarranid noble. And his seat was at Bariyye.
"It's your turn tonight, little boy." The man's fat, sausage hands worked at the strings on the boy's trousers, and little Boris felt the scruff of the Swadian man's face against the soft skin of his own, young neck. Boris could resist no longer. Renault wasn't going anywhere. Hauling back, Boris slammed his elbow, hard, into Renault's nose, just as the fat orphanage proprietor had gotten the strings free.
Renault swore and tumbled backward off of the small, hard cot and onto the cold floor. "Little fucker, I'll tear your throat out for that."
Boris smiled at the man. "Not tonight. Lads!"
They emerged from the shadows, from Boris' closet. From beneath his bed. Some of them barely more than toddlers, the others with wispy beard, but all of them mere boys. "We've had enough of you, you old, dumb fucker." Boris frowned. He had wanted to give a better speech than that....
"W-what is this? Back to your beds, whelps!" Renault stomped his foot at the final word, as he was wont to do.
"So we can wait and see who you get next? I don't think so." There. That was better. "Lads," cried Boris again, producing the shard of glass hidden away in his shirt. "Get him."
"No... N-no! No!"
A dozen tiny, chubby hands turned Renault into bacon....
* * *
Boris awoke with a start, quaffing in a stream of thick, humid air. Coughing, he sat up, only to see his men had already awoken and were moving about the encampment. A few men-at-arms sat on the sand, dicing. Other soldiers sat, honing their blades or breaking their fasts. They all smiled as they worked and played, but no matter what they were doing, the sweat trickled down their noses like the mighty river of Khudan.
Except for Umay. The Sarranid tracker was used to the swealtering heat of his homeland. His tan, swarthy skin was dry and smooth. He smiled as he saw Boris approach.
"Good morning, Lord Grimjaw," he smiled. His accent was thick, but he spoke the Common Tongue well enough. "Your men are looking like pigs this day. Sweating, and the Sun has made them pink." He chuckled. The desert bandit had a terrible sense of humour. But then, Boris had little need for humour. He had not been called "Grimjaw" for nothing, after all.
"But not you, though," continued Umay. "Yes, your skin crackles under the Sun like a suckling on a spit. In that, you are like your Vaegir comrades. But you do not sweat as they do... Why is this?"
Grimjaw shrugged. "Vaegir though I may be, I grew up in Swadia."
"In Praven?"
"No. Uxhal. By the time I returned to my homeland, I was already a man. My teeth still chatter sometimes when I am there." Boris bit into a wormy apple. The green inchworm, severed down the midsection by his teeth, squirmed within. Grimjaw pulled it out with his two fingers and ate it. Umay wrinkled his brow. "How far are we from Bariyye?"
Umay shrugged, "Two, maybe three days. Providing we meet no more bandits."
Grimjaw grimaced. "Yes, your friends. I'm beginning to wonder if you're more trouble than you are worth, Umay."
Umay frowned, "I have served my Lord Grimjaw well. Men you have lost, yes, but that is life in Calradia. Men die. Women and children, too. If you want to avoid that, I suggest taking the money you will make in Bariyye, buying a ship, and sailing to the Lands Beyond the Sea. There, you will find women wet with wanting, and men with no bloodlust and no fire in their bellies, and you can grow fat and satisfied and die without a squirt of seed left in your cock, I am sure. But for now, you are in Calradia. Law and order are the exception, as you know... not the rule. So for now, your men may die. As may you. As may poor Umay."
The Vaegir frowned. What his guide said was true enough... Still, Boris knew that Umay had been a desert bandit. The man had admitted as much when he met him at that tavern back in Dugar. Umay has claimed that his brothers had abandoned him... But what if he was lying? What if I am a mark? It wasn't uncommon for brigands to send "guides" to cities, that would lead merchants down goatpaths or abandoned highways, only to be ambushed by their rapacious brethren.
"I have to admit," sighed Boris at last, "I thought a merchant's life would be easier than a soldiers."
"All men in Calradia are soldiers. Or dead. Or both, I suppose. Still, a soldier can run and save his own tail. A soldier can hide in bogs or up in trees or even beneath the sand, and ambush... A merchant with cartloads of goods, though? He is a sitting duck." Umay took a sip of wine from the skin that was perpetually present at his hip. "Still, why iron, Lord Grimjaw? You might have brought ten times as much wool with you, for half the weight."
"For a fraction of the gold. There are sheep in the desert, Umay. And in the Khergit foothills just to the north. There aren't, however, any mines. Iron will sell high here. I only paid a pittance for all of this up in Sargoth. I will have a fortune for it from the merchants of Bariyye."
Umay shrugged. "I guess this is why you are a lord, and I am a drunk." He quaffed some more wine. "Excuse me, my lord. But I must make ready for the march."
Boris nodded. "As must I."
Noon would be upon them soon, and with it, the Sarranid sun would be at its most oppressive. The party went on a slow march for a time, with Boris riding up and down the column with his most trusted men. He rode, for a time, alongside Ivos, the caravan steward. "I caught two men trying to make off with bars, my lord," Ivos informed him.
"Who?"
"Dourn and Gast. It was last night, milord."
That's what I get for letting bandits join our party... I needed the men, but they were more trouble than they were worth... "What did you do?"
"Dourn spat and said he was entitled to some of the profit my lordship was going to make,"
"His wage, his freedom, and his life weren't enough?" Ivos merely shrugged at the question. Boris went on, "And Gast?"
"Gast cried and said Dourn told him to. So I asks him, 'If Dourn told you to kill yourself, would you?' And he says, 'No, sir!' And I says to Dourn, 'Tell him to kill himself.' So Dourn, that fucker don't care about nothin'. He tells him to. Gast says he won't. I tell Gast, 'You was willin' to pilfer from his lordship on Dourn's word, why ya doubtin' him all a sudden?' And I tell him if he don't do what Dourn says, I'd leave him naked in the desert with cow's blood all over his body. The jackals could have him, I says."
Grimjaw narrowed his brows. "And?"
"And so then Gast did what Dourn told him to. Stabs himself right in the heart!" The steward chuckled and beamed, his three, lonely yellow teeth showing behind cracked lips.
"That was ill done, Ivos. From now on, bring all prisoners to me. I trust Dourn was similarly executed, though?"
"Yes, milord. And forgive me, milord. Just havin' some sport, is all."
Grimjaw frowned, "We are here to do business. Keep your sporting to a minim - MEN! TO ARMS!" He unsheathed his longsword as his horse reared. Ivos, to his credit, raised his spiked mace almost as swiftly as Grimjaw had readied his own weapon. The desert bandits erupted from the dunes beside the caravan, and even, Grimjaw saw, from the sands beneath them. The shrieked their shrill, ululating cries, their curved swords and sharp spears gleaming in the midday sun.
A turbaned warrior ran at Grimjaw. The Vaegir swung his longsword, truly more of a bastard sword, with one hand and met the man's notched axe at the apex of its swing. A swish of the wrist sent the bandit's axe into the air, out of his hands, at that angle. Grimjaw swung again. The unarmed man could do naught but cover his face with his hands. Grimjaw's blade bit through skin and bone, whistled briefly in the wind, and then bit through skin and bone again. The desert bandit fell to his knees, half of his head missing. His fingers and half of his left hand fell in front of him a moment after.
Grimjaw reared his courser, a white mare with a glorious mane, and as he did, he surveyed the battle. His men were holding their own, and the bandits, underarmed and inexperienced at fighting men this hardened, were falling in scores. Grimjaw rode through their ranks, cleaving and killing as easily as he had with the first bandit. In the corner of his eye, he saw Umay ride a man down, his lance piercing the desert bandit's back and bursting forth from his chest.
Beyond Umay, Grimjaw saw Ivos, unhorsed somehow, bashing and blocking. He backed up as three bandits clashed with him. Grimjaw sheathed his sword, and pulled out his shortbow. Fashioned by Khergits for mounted archery, the short bow was harder to shoot than a long bow, and couldn't go as far. But Grimjaw had become deadly with it in his campaigns. He narrowed his eyes, his mare still galloping beneath him, carrying the two of them across the battlefield, through the carnage.
Wuuuffffffff Grimjaw let his first arrow fly. A moment later, it embedded itself in one of the bandits that was pressing on Ivos. Not fatal, but the man stumbled enough for Ivos to bash him with a backhanded blow with his shield.
Grimjaw let fly again, and struck a second bandit, this time in the heart. Ivos turned and called, "Thank you, my lord! I got this one!" Grimjaw ignored him. Ivos had an eye for numbers and was better than anyone else in the party at keeping count of the iron. Ivos' brain was more valuable than his pride. Grimjaw pressed his mare on toward Ivos, and fired a third shot, felling the last bandit.
"I said I had him!" spat Ivos as Grimjaw trotted up to him.
Frowning, Grimjaw looked down at the steward. "You were supposed to stay with the iron. And where is your horse?"
Ivos shrugged and spat, and began trudging back toward the caravan.
The field was littered with dozens of slain bandits, and only a few of Grimjaw's own men. He saw one man, a grievous wound to his chest, lying in the sand, which was staining a darker brown from his blood. When the lad saw Grimjaw, he wheezed. "Mercy, my lord. Please..."
Grimjaw leapt off of his horse, and pulled his dirk from his belt. "What is your name, son?"
"Erenchin... F-from Tismirr."
"Erenchin of Tismirr. Go with God."
And Grimjaw slid his dirk into the man's heart.
Climbing to his feet, he called to his men. "Reassemble the column! Dress wounds. Quickly loot the dead, if you wish, but be respectful. To ours as well as theirs. I will not have a curse brought down on us. Make ready, we ride for Bariyye! I want us to make double time!" The had only lost five men in this skirmish, but counting the three yesterday, the seven the day before, the two before that, the ten before that.... Only twenty or so men remained, and Grimjaw needed to make a return trip. Assuredly, gold was easier to carry than hundreds of bars of iron, but still...
"Uh, my lord... I am not sure Bariyye is the most prudent destination for us," Umay called out. He was kneeling beside a slain desert bandit. "Look at this surcoat. These were no desert bandits my lord.... These men belong to Emir Ghanawa."
Grimjaw swallowed. Emir Ghanawa was prickly, Sarranid noble. And his seat was at Bariyye.
