Fool's Quest - Страница 103

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“Dead! Dead or run away with the others.” He turned his head and shouted, “Hogen!”

My smile became mostly teeth. I stooped and seized a handful of snow. I crushed it into a ball and threw it at him. He dodged, but not fast enough. It hit his shoulder. He was stiff. And slow.

He took a step toward me, sword at the ready. “Stand and fight!” he demanded.

I’d maneuvered to the far side of the tent, out of Hogen’s view. The old man moved slowly, keeping his eyes on me and his weapon up. I rested my axe on the snow for a moment, to see if I could tempt him to charge me, but he kept his place. With one hand on my axe, I drew my knife and stuck the blade into the canvas of his tent. I dragged a long cut in it and watched it sag. “Stop that!” he roared as he saw his shelter destroyed. “Stand and fight like a man!” I glanced at Hogen. He was cursing and fighting with the tree branch, completely oblivious to us.

I widened my cut in the tent. The old man advanced farther. I stooped and reached in through the cut and began to drag his supplies out into the snow. I found a sack of food. I seized it by the bottom and soundlessly flung the contents wide into the deeper snow. I kept one eye on him as I reached in, groped, and found a bedroll. I dragged it out and threw it.

My behavior was frustrating him. “Hogen!” He actually screamed the man’s name. “An intruder raids our camp! Will you do nothing?” With an angry glance at me, he suddenly veered and began to stump off toward Hogen. Not what I wanted.

Axe down, knife sheathed. I stripped off my gloves, then took out my sling and the carefully selected stones that went with it. Nice round stones. A sling makes a sound, but not a loud one. The old man was shouting as he went. I hoped it would cover the whirling of my sling. I hoped I could still hit with it. I threaded the loop over my finger, set the stone in the pouch, and gripped the other knotted end of the cord. I swung it and then gave the snap that sent my missile flying. It missed. “You missed!” the old man shouted and tried to hurry. I chose another stone. Launched it. It went winging through the trees.

Hogen was trudging back to the camp, awkwardly, using my wall-sword as a crutch and gripping the ends of several branches under his arm as he dragged them back to the fire. My third stone struck a tree trunk with a loud thwack! Hogen turned toward the sound and stared. The old man followed his gaze and then turned to look at me. And my fourth stone glanced off the side of his head.

He went down, half-stunned. Hogen had resumed his trek toward the camp, dragging his firewood. He passed an arm’s length from his fallen leader and never once looked aside at him. Using the tent for cover, I slipped toward the forest and circled the camp. My prey had fallen onto his back in the deep snow. He was thrashing feebly, disoriented but not unconscious. Hogen had his back to us. He had dropped his branches near the fire and was examining the slashed tent and scattered supplies in consternation. I raced toward the downed man.

He was struggling to sit up when I dived on him. He gave a wordless cry and groped for the sword. Wrong tactic. I was inside the range of it and I let all my frustration power my fists. I hit him hard in the jaw, and his eyes went unfocused. Before he could recover I rolled him facedown in the snow. I caught one of his flailing hands and took a tight wrap around his wrist with the sling cord. I had to set my knee between his shoulder blades and struggle before I could catch and control his other arm. He was old and half-stunned, but also tough and fighting for his life. When I finally controlled his other arm, I took two tight loops of the sling cord around it at the elbow and then bound it as tightly as I could to his other wrist. Elegant it was not, but I hoped it was as uncomfortable as it looked. I checked my knots, and then rolled him onto his back on top of his bound arms. I picked up Verity’s sword, seized him by the back of his collar, and dragged him kicking through the snow. He came to himself enough to shout obscenities at me and call me, with absolute truth, several different varieties of bastard. I welcomed his shouting. While Hogen was unable to respond to it, it might mask whatever small sounds I made as I panted and heaved to haul him well away from the camp.

I stopped when I could no longer see the tent or the campfire. I let go of him and stood, my hands on my knees, catching my breath. I tried to judge how much time I had alone with him. The other mercenaries might be returning. Or might not, if they’d encountered the Ringhill Guard. Riddle, Lant, and Perseverance might be coming. Or they might not. It was entirely possible that they’d chosen to follow the direct road to Salter’s Deep. I evicted these thoughts from my mind and crouched in the snow next to my captive. I pushed my Wit-awareness down. I did so reluctantly, knowing it would leave me more vulnerable to stealth attack. Yet it was essential that I quench shared sensations to be able to do what I needed to do.

“Now. We are going to have a conversation. It can be friendly, or it can be very painful. I want you to tell me everything you know about the pale folk. I want to know all about the day you invaded my home. Most of all, I want to know about the woman and the girl that you took from my home.”

He cursed me again, but not in a very inventive way. When I wearied of it, I scooped a great handful of snow and pushed it into his face. He sputtered and shouted, and I added more until he grew silent. I sat back on my heels. He shook his head and dislodged some of it. Some had melted and was running down his wet red cheeks. “That doesn’t look comfortable. Would you like to talk to me now?” He lifted his head and shoulders as if he would sit up. I pushed him back down and shook my head at him. “No. Stay as you are. Tell me what you know.”

“When my men return, they will cut you to ribbons. Slowly.”

I shook my head. I spoke Chalcedean. “They won’t return. Half lie dead in that camp. The one you have left can’t hear or see you. Any that fled have run into the Buck troops by now. Or if they made it to Salter’s Deep, they found that the ship has been moved. Would you like to live? Tell me about the captives you took from my home.”

I stood up. I set the point of Verity’s sword in the soft spot just below his sternum. I leaned on it, not hard enough to make it penetrate the fur and wool he wore but hard enough to hurt. He kicked his feet wildly and yelled a bit. Then, abruptly, he went limp in the snow and glared at me. He folded his lips stubbornly.

I was unimpressed. “If you won’t talk to me, you’re useless. I’ll finish you now, and go after Hogen.”

The crow cawed loudly overhead and then suddenly swooped down to perch on my shoulder. She cocked her head and stared down at my captive with one bright black eye. “Red snow!” she rejoiced.

I smiled and tipped my head toward her. “I think she may be hungry. Shall we give her a finger to start with?”

Motley sidled closer to my head. “Eye! Eye! Eye!” she suggested rapturously.

I tried not to show how unnerving that was for me. I had not taken my weight off the sword. The tip of it was slowly and inexorably nudging its way through the layers of clothing that protected him. I watched the corners of his eyes and the set of his mouth. I saw him swallow, and in the instant before he tried to roll out from under it, I kicked him as hard as I could just where his ribs ended in the softness of his belly. The sword sank through clothing and into flesh. I did not let it go too deep. “Don’t.” My word was a pleasant warning.

I leaned over him, Verity’s sword still in his wound, and made a suggestion. “Now. Start at the very beginning. Tell me how you were hired and for what. As long as you are talking, I won’t hurt you. When you stop talking, I will hurt you. A lot. Begin.”

I watched his eyes. His glance darted once to the camp. Once to the crow. He had nothing. He licked his chapped lips and spoke slowly. I knew he was trying to gain time for himself. I had no objections.

“It began with a message. Almost a year ago. A pale messenger came to me. We were surprised. We could not decide how he knew where to find our camp. But he had found us. He came with an offer of a great deal of gold if I would perform a service for people who called themselves the Servants. They were from a distant country. I asked how these faraway people had heard of me, and he told me that I had figured in many prophecies in their religion. He said they had seen my future, and over and over they had seen that if I did as they willed, not only did great good come to them, but I achieved the power that I had rightfully earned. In their prophecies I was a figure of change. If I did what they asked, I would change the future of the world.”

He paused. Obviously, he had been flattered by such claims and perhaps expected that I would be impressed. He waited. I stared at him. Perhaps I jiggled the sword a tiny bit.

He grunted breathlessly. I smiled at him and he resumed. “He assured me that helping them with their task would put me on the path to glory and power. The path. They spoke so often of ‘the path.’ He came with funds, asking me to bring a picked force of men and come with him to a port in the Pirate Isles. There he had an army of soothsayers and visionaries, ones who could guide us to success because they could foretell what would be our best tactic. They could pick ‘the one path of many’ that would best lead us to success. And he hinted then that they had with them a very special person, one who could make it impossible for us to be seen or tracked.”

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