Unfortunately, as the trio of travelers had just learned, Losalis only wanted certain kinds of attention.
“I told you,” Jassion growled, struggling to keep his voice in check, “this is important.”
“And I tol’ you,” said one of several gruff, dirty, but very heavily armed men who blocked the meandering deer trail on which they’d been riding, “the captain don’t want to see nobody ’cept potential employers.”
“How do you know we’re not?” Mellorin asked from atop her palfrey, less in challenge than honest curiosity.
“ ’Cuz anyone makin’ a serious offer’d know enough to bring a whole heap o’ coin as down payment. And you three ain’t got the bags to carry it. ‘Nless”—he leered up at her—“they’re thinkin’ o’ offerin’ you. You’re a bit skinny, but—”
Kaleb opened his mouth and advanced, but Mellorin was faster. She dropped gracefully from her horse, hand flying to the hilt of her new blade.
The mercenary looked down at the gleaming metal, the stiff and unmarred leather of the scabbard, and snorted. “Ain’t that cute? Baby’s first sword. You named it yet, sweetheart?”
“I have.” Her face was pale, but her voice and her hand remained steady. “Eunuch-Maker.”
The mercenary’s grin slid from his face as Kaleb, Jassion, and even a few of the man’s comrades chuckled.
“Now, see here …,” he began, hand reaching for her wrist before she could draw. And just as swiftly he froze, for while the sword hadn’t budged an inch, the knife concealed in Mellorin’s left hand poked abruptly against his groin.
“Look, friends,” Kaleb interjected, hopefully before things got any worse. “There’s no need for unpleasantness, is there? No, we’re not looking to hire your company—but we do need to speak with Captain Losalis, and there might be some degree of payment involved if he can help us out.”
“Not interested,” the mercenary grunted, his attention glued to the ugly blade.
“Really? Losalis must put a lot of faith in you, my friend. Letting you make decisions like that, considering how much gold and how many contracts it could cost him? And the rest of your men? Well, so be it. I’m sure that when he hears about this, he’ll be grateful you kept his best interests at heart.”
It took the bulky fellow a few moments to work through that, but he eventually arrived at the point the sorcerer was trying to make. His lips curled in a sneer, but he nodded. “All right. Tell the girl to put her knife away, an’ I’ll take you to him.”
Mellorin’s blade vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
“You see that?” Kaleb asked as he and his companions gathered up the reins and followed the grumbling fellow. “I knew he’d see reason eventually. I’m sure it just took him a while to recognize it, since I doubt it’s very familiar to him.”
“Could you possibly refrain from insulting the heavily armed men aloud while we’re in the midst of their camp?” Jassion asked as the mercenary glared back over his shoulder.
Kaleb cocked his head, apparently considering it. Then, “Probably not.”
Following their reluctant guide, they picked their way through clusters of tents, fire pits, and other components of an encampment only halfway organized. Losalis was known for maintaining an unusual level of discipline, but these were still mercenaries, and there were still limits.
They halted before a tent that, though larger than average, otherwise had little to distinguish it. A small throng of warriors had pressed close, curious to see what their visitors had to offer—and how their captain might react if said offer proved insufficient—while their guide stuck his head through the canvas flap.
Moments passed, mercenaries whispered and jested, the summer breeze died to nothing as even the winds decided the weather was just too damn hot for all this running around. Jassion tapped a foot and drummed his fingers on his thigh, Mellorin looked about in rapt fascination, and Kaleb just waited.
Finally, the canvas flipped open and the mercenary returned, followed by two more men. One was huge, the other even bigger.
Losalis was a dark-skinned giant, a foot taller than Jassion’s own six feet and muscled enough to crack small rocks like chestnuts. The eyes peering over a thick growth of beard were of two different hues, and he wore a triangular, razor-edged shield bolted to his armor in place of his missing left hand.
His lieutenant—a moment’s quick reminiscence provided Jassion with the name Ulfgai—was only slightly smaller, but otherwise his captain’s polar opposite. The barbarian from the frozen south was pale practically to albinism, and his long blond locks and beard were wildly tangled.
They’d killed enough people in their careers, between the two of them, to qualify as a plague in their own right, and neither looked particularly thrilled at being yanked away from whatever discussion they’d been having. Jassion and Mellorin both suppressed the urge to recoil, or grab for their blades.
“All right, my lord,” Losalis said in a surprisingly soft voice, nodding first to Jassion, then Mellorin. “Reng here tells me that you need to speak with me, and that you seem to have difficulty with the word no. You don’t want to hire my company—you don’t have enough gold with you, and besides, you’re obviously not here on behalf of Pelapheron. So would you care to explain why you’re wasting my time—while I’m in a good mood?”
Kaleb’s mouth began to open, but Mellorin swiftly stepped on his foot.
“It’s a simple enough arrangement, Captain,” Jassion told him. “I want some information and advice from you, and I’m willing to offer coin in return.”
“Do we look like sages to you?” Ulfgai grunted from behind Losalis.
The sorcerer threw Mellorin a glance, all but begging for permission to comment. She shook her head, struggling to stifle a grin and failing miserably.
Jassion, perhaps inspired by the presence of so many unfriendly mercenaries, kept a lid on his temper. “Not a lot of people might know what I need to know.”
“Go on,” Losalis said, raising a finger to silence his lieutenant.
“We’re hunting,” the baron told him, “for Corvis Rebaine.”
Every nearby face darkened with anger.
“I know,” he continued, “that you’ve little cause to bear him any affection. Rumor has it that he abandoned the lot of you after the Battle of Mecepheum. Help us find him, and we’ll all enjoy some measure of justice.”
“What makes you think, after six years, that I know anything useful about that traitorous rodent?” Losalis asked them.
“You were his lieutenant,” Jassion pressed. “You led his armies while he was imprisoned.”
“By you, as I remember it. Which means you let him escape.”
Again, the baron kept his calm, and again it required more of an effort than anyone would ever know. “My point, Captain Losalis, is that even if you don’t know where he is, you can help us. Knowledge of his habits, how he thinks, anything he might have revealed to you about his plans and objectives beyond defeating Audriss. Anything would prove helpful, and you’ll be paid for all of it.”
Losalis stood for long moments, ignoring the impatient shuffling of not only his “guests” but his own mercenaries as well. Until, finally, “No.”
Jassion—and, to judge by his expression, Ulfgai as well—couldn’t have been more thunderstruck if Losalis had dropped his trousers and given birth to a unicorn.
“No?” The baron’s voice almost squeaked.
“Captain,” Ulfgai protested, “maybe we should hear what he’s—”
“No,” Losalis said again. “Gods know I’d like to see you succeed in your hunt, but even if I knew anything useful—which I don’t believe I do—I wouldn’t tell you.”
“But—”
“It’s taken me a long time to get where I am, my lord. Me, my company, we’ve got a reputation as the best, and we get paid the best. And part of how I keep my reputation as a man worth hiring is that I don’t blab the secrets of my employers, even after I’m
done working for them. I’ll fight a man I’ve worked for in the past, but I won’t betray him.”
Ulfgai looked as though he’d swallowed something venomous, with many wriggling legs, but he nodded in agreement with his captain.
“I’ve heard it said,” Kaleb interjected, “that Rebaine didn’t actually hire you, though. That he reneged on payment when he abandoned you.”
The southern barbarian snarled something ugly, but Losalis’s own expression never wavered. “Rumors only. I can’t stake my reputation on people believing a rumor’s true, can I? There would always be some folk certain that I’d violated my code. No, my lord, I’m sorry to disappoint, but it’s time for you and your friends to be off.”
And Jassion, fists clenched and jaw quivering, began to turn away.
NO. KALEB SCOWLED INTERNALLY, though his face remained impassive. No, this won’t do.
Largely unnoticed, save for his single interjection, the sorcerer hung back by the horses, watching the proceedings. So Losalis wouldn’t or couldn’t help them; the sorcerer found no surprise there. But now the mercenary posed something of a problem.
Losalis knew, now, that Jassion was seeking out Rebaine’s old minions. He knew, too, that Mellorin was accompanying them—by face, if not by name. So far he’d not noted the family resemblance, but if he gave it any real thought, or if someone were to ask …
And since Jassion wasn’t an employer, there was nothing to stop Losalis from revealing all this to anyone who made him an enticing offer.
No, this simply wouldn’t do at all. Something would have to be done.
And that, Kaleb abruptly decided with a hidden smile, was a good thing. It meant Losalis could yet prove useful after all.
Two quick spells, in rapid succession. He saw Mellorin shiver as the first washed over her, and then he tensed, ready to act as his carefully crafted illusion began to form …
JASSION SPUN, Talon leaping free of its scabbard, as one of the mercenaries burst from the throng, his own blade raised to attack. The Kholben Shiar swung, hewing armor and flesh with equal ease. Jassion, who had expected far greater resistance, stumbled as his momentum carried him full circle, but if he thought about it at all, he attributed the ease with which he’d cleaved a man nearly in twain to the power of his demon-forged weapon.
For less than a heartbeat he paused in a half crouch. Losalis was actually recoiling, a look of stunned horror on his face, mirrored on Ulfgai’s own.
Clearly, they’d anticipated a different result from their cowardly attack. Jassion leapt, Talon held high, and allowed his ever-burning fury to flare bright. Before him, before the Kholben Shiar, men and women fell. Their blades were as twigs, their shields as parchment. Blood flew, bones shattered, and the Baron of Braetlyn rejoiced.
MELLORIN STAGGERED BACK from the unprovoked assault, footing unsteady as she fought to remain standing against a pressing tide of terror. Gods, what was I thinking? She wasn’t ready for this, not nearly! A few street fights, squabbles picked as much for the practice as anything else, that was one thing, but this …
Despite her terror, or maybe because of it, she moved faster than ever before. Kaleb’s falchion protruded from one fist, her ugly dagger from the other, and she couldn’t remember drawing either. She watched Jassion plow into the assembled warriors like a whirlwind of razors, saw the mercenaries lunging to protect their captain, to punish these interlopers who dared raise steel against them. And though everything in her head screamed at her to run, Mellorin moved to meet them.
No, wait. Not everything. In the back of her mind, behind her thoughts and memories and dreams, a voice spoke to her. She heard it in her soul, calm, steady, and she trusted it without hesitation.
And when it warned her, she listened.
Whether it was real or imagination, Mellorin never knew. What she did know was that, though a fast learner, she’d not had anywhere near sufficient training to stand toe-to-toe with even one of Losalis’s men, let alone the many who were closing—and yet, she did just that. Guided by that voice, she wielded falchion and dagger in twisting parries, deflecting swords that should have split her skull. She stepped and whirled as though in the midst of a formal ball, and blows rained harmlessly in her wake. She struck, falchion opening holes in her enemies’ guard so her dagger could open holes in their flesh.
Blood washed over her hands, and Mellorin felt sick. She gritted her teeth, swallowed hard against the bile that threatened to choke her, and continued to dodge, and to parry, and to kill.
KALEB LIFTED BOTH HANDS above his head, but this was clearly no surrender. Flames blossomed from his palms, not in a sweeping wave as in the depths of Theaghl-gohlatch, but pouring in torrents to the earth. They swirled away to either side, sweeping across the soil and igniting sunbaked grass. A wall of roaring fire sketched a rough circle around the center of the camp, preventing the bulk of the company from entering the melee. One or two attempted to leap through the crackling barrier, assuming they could pass with only a painful singeing—and were reduced to blackened bones by the heat and hunger of the unnatural conflagration. Roasting flesh, burning grasses, and a faint whiff of brimstone combined in a choking miasma that rose more slowly and more stately than the screams of the dying.
Satisfied that the barrier would hold so long as he maintained his concentration, Kaleb glanced about him. Jassion was cutting a swath through the soldiers, reaping them like wheat, though a few rents in his hauberk and trails of blood leaking down his sides served as ample evidence that this particular crop had blades of their own. Mellorin largely held her own, though the sheer press of enemies was forcing her slowly back, step by step. The sorcerer was impressed, despite himself. He’d known the girl had the potential to be good, had cast his spell so she might survive long enough to reach that potential—but the ease with which she’d acclimated to his magics suggested a budding greatness.
It was something else about her worth cultivating, definitely. Time to see how that cultivation was progressing.
This next bit—Kaleb braced himself—could hurt if I’m wrong.
The torrent of fire still cascading from his hands, feeding the blazing wall, Kaleb took a step nearer Mellorin and aimed a blast of flame over her head. The mercenaries fell back, shrieking as hair and beards ignited, and the young woman smiled her thanks.
A smile that fell from her face as though it, too, had melted. For when Kaleb hurled fire her way, a gap had opened briefly in the fiery bastion. The footsteps of a mercenary pounded across the earth behind him, but he pretended not to hear. He saw Mellorin tense, begin to move his way, and only then did he look behind …
THE LAST OF THE INTERVENING WARRIORS slumped at Jassion’s feet, and the baron stood face-to-face with Captain Losalis. The one gripped Talon rock-steady in both hands; the other had produced a crescent-shaped saber and raised the knife-edged shield before him.
“My lord,” Losalis began, “stop! I swear I didn’t—”
But Jassion was already lunging, and though he heard the words, the pounding in his ears and the fire in his mind had long since rendered him incapable of listening.
With nigh supernatural grace, Losalis ducked beneath the first slash and swung the saber in a brutal cross-cut. Jassion’s chain took the blow without parting, and the blade left only a light scoring on the steel, but the impact doubled the baron over, ribs aching, struggling for breath. Losalis raised his shield-hand high and brought it brutally down, an axe as deadly as any executioner’s, but Jassion allowed himself to tumble left, turning his pained collapse into an awkward roll. He staggered upright and parried another slash as Losalis pressed his attack, refusing Jassion the moment he needed to recover.
Losalis was better than he; of that, even in the midst of his murderous fury, Jassion had no doubt. But he held Talon, and that would have to make the difference.
Again he parried, and again—first saber, then shield. Only the unnatural speed of the Kholben Shiar allowed him to bring the massive blade in line,
and even so he found himself retreating. Gradually, he allowed his parries to rise ever higher, leaving himself open for another slash. Mentally he braced, girding himself against the pain to come.
Maybe Losalis recognized the trap for what it was, or perhaps he simply knew that his saber couldn’t penetrate his foe’s armor. Rather than delivering another bruising blow to Jassion’s ribs, as the baron had hoped, the mercenary swung at his legs.
Desperate, Jassion dropped to his knees lest he find himself crippled. The blade indeed rang against chain and Jassion brought his right elbow down, briefly pinning the saber to his side. That was as he planned; being on his knees rather than his feet, as Losalis raised the shield overhead once more, was not.
Swiftly as he could given the awkward posture, Jassion swung the Kholben Shiar upward even as Losalis brought his brutal shield down. And indeed, Talon’s infernal magics made all the difference. With the hideous squeal of rending metal, the shield—and a small portion of the flesh to which it was strapped—pinwheeled away to land in the dust.
Losalis screamed in agony. Jassion fell sideways and rolled across the earth, taking the mercenary’s saber with him. He kicked at the ground, spinning on his back, whipping Talon around him.
Leather, flesh, and bone parted before the Kholben Shiar and Losalis, now silent as his body convulsed in shock, tumbled to his back, both feet severed at the ankles.
The baron staggered up once more, ignoring the pounding agony in his chest, raised Talon one last time—and Losalis, former lieutenant of the Terror of the East, suffered no more.
“KALEB!” MELLORIN SHRIEKED, SPRINGING toward him even as she recognized that she couldn’t possibly reach him in time.
The sorcerer was fast, spinning to meet the man who had burst through his faltering flame. He almost dodged, so that what would have been a murderous thrust through his chest instead sliced along one arm, spraying drops of blood to boil away in the roaring fire. Again he shifted the angle of his magics, and the warrior who’d dared attack him fell to earth in a burning heap of human wreckage.