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Lear ‘Razor’ Hik
‘Captain’
‘Butcher of Drek River’
‘Man from Atetalerso’
Bloody favor
Part II
-Bring the bag-
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> Grand City of Irde* Ships logs
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> Supplemental
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> Month Primus of year two (2) of the New Calendar
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> Bearcub Forest, Canlita Sea.
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> (The battered Irde Hierarchy refugees under Lord Nard Van Calcar have stalled for a whole year by now before the angry waters of Lotus River and its hellish swampy terrain. The pressured Lord Nard hatches a plan to circumvent the natural obstacles by constructing a Lake fleet from scratch using the readily available timber from the nearby thick Bearcub Forest.)
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> But alas, it was a dubious plan from the beginning. Despite holding Lorian prisoners and collaborators, the Lord won’t manage it for another two and a half years which brought severe internal strife within the ranks of the Lakelords of Kaletha Lake. Eventually, six boats landed near Asturia, (their crews hanged speedily by the locals for piracy and myriad other indiscretions like defecating in a public beach and gazing at bathing maidens) one crashed-landed in Valeria (never to be heard from again), before ultimately nineteen small ships found a good landing spot beyond the Bogbeast Marshes.
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> The latter spot was not to Lord Nard’s liking who had been seduced with tales of the ‘untold riches’ of the North by flocking locals, but try as he did for a couple of more difficult years to loop around the endless Spine of Jelin, the furthest those still following him would reach was to be the swampy lands after Serene River.
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> Perhaps fittingly and despite Lord Nard’s dogged efforts the Issir Lakelords would settle near another massive lake, the last of the Issirs to find a new home, with the cursed Van Calcar picking by far the worst spot from anyone else.
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> During the fleet’s long construction phase Young Magister Karst Nijkamp ‘The Heretic’ with the assistance of the ‘mutineer and crab-gatherer’ Captain Hoff, now remorseful for splitting up from the clergy of Sessi and Ikete for political, theological but more so countless now-meaningless and ancient old realms antipathies, decided to lead a large group of priests and faithful deeper into the woods in order to find a passage through the mountains and mend relations with the other two Issir factions. Lord Nard ordered his men to pursue them and several of the more-cultured rich families got massacred inside the thickets by former crews that had worked for them not twenty years back, until the night forced the hardened warriors to stop.
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> Magister Karst managed to hide his people inside the forest and Lord Nard ordered the search abandoned ‘since the cold in there will finish them off afore the thaw of spring’. A desperate Karst created many small search parties to look for supplies, water or a way out of the forest, but lost sixty eight unsuited for the task men, women and children in three hellish weeks whilst the Magister himself fell gravely ill from cold and hunger. In the last week of the first Month of the New Calendar’s sophomore year Lan Nijkamp, the now in his deathbed Magister’s younger ordained brother discovered an opening inside the forest ‘where a single inn stands, run by an ill-tempered foul-mouthed dwarf named Hornborn’. When a disbelieving, now deemed a deserter by Lord Nard, Captain Hoff asked Lan Nijkamp how he’d managed to find the meadow, the man had replied famously…
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> ‘I followed Don Kot.’
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> The Issir nickname for the God of Luck and the hapless.
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> (While the majority of the Issir Armada’s logs were locked in the Archive in Midlanor some of the old families retained parts of the latter volumes or handwritten copies until the regional scribes took over from the dwindling surviving quartermasters a decade later.
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> The above is part of the, ever-distant from Reinut’s successors’ demands, Lakelords of Irde –now Pascor’s or Tollor’s- ‘secretly’ kept historical records that dealt with the ‘murky’ years after Reinut had violently overthrown the noble old Triarchy. An event that had elevated the pardoned two decades earlier with a split vote infamous pirate, mutineer, rapist and murderer of Bear Isle to a dictator. Reinut spend the latter years of his reign mercilessly wiping the record clean ‘or set the keel a-right’ as he frequently noted to justify the brutality of his actions. The latter the only way the now High King knew that worked for certain.
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> ‘Whatever can’t be explained or may make people start wonderin’ you bury under six feet of solid earth, lock in Flucht’s warehouse or drop in them deeps. Use the old texts the priests like to light yer fire and keep the children warm during the winters. If their ‘noble’ parents differ to my orders or opt to saunter down another path, remind them that dead menfolk can only convey their grievances or speak of past tales to the spirits of the begone that had the same yearnings and the fucking gods above that abandoned them all to their miserable fate.’
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> The text itself the product of a life-long rough translation by Lan Nijkamp of the long lost naval code, he then bound carefully in rough deer hide. It existed only in its original form in Edgefort up to the end of 192. The aged Captain Hoff’s sons had brought it there after Lan Nijkamp, who had founded in the meantime the first community or Irde’s Shrine into the woods, died in 29 NC. Despite Lan’s dying wishes for the Lakelords to come together, the now ruling Tollor Hoff’s descendants refused to forgive the Van Calcars. Eventually, a copy was made at the end of Maiden’s War and then given to the shrewd Duke Dolf Van Calcar of Pascor, a direct descendant of Lord Nard, as part of the armistice. The newly minted Duke wouldn’t budge on this point.)
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> *According to the historian Gallio Veturius who left some unfinished notes on the matter of the original Issir cities, the Kaletha Triarchy was a very big kingdom. The bulk of Gallio’s notes and portions of his hand-written work were smuggled out of Kaltha by his students and close family. They were still hunted down and assassinated one by one even twenty years after the historian had lost his life, with his whole line eventually dying out with Lord Sirio Veturius a little over a hundred years later.
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> Political machinations or a Queen’s spite aside, Irde was the smallest of the three major ports dominating the massive gulfs of Jumping (Leaping) Whale’s Peninsula that had Uher’s Spine mountain range running down its middle. Kaletha Gulf that had its entrance north at ‘The Claws’ with famous Ikete at its southernmost edge and the expansive plains of Midland to the east, and Caspo O’ Bor Gulf, shared between Irde who touched both the ‘brines and sweet waters’ and the colossus that had been Sessi who the Armada’s Logs insist it had a population close to one million souls.
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> Across the curving protracted massive whale’s fin, where Sessi had sprawled itself dominating the area, stood the misty Bear Isle with its communities of free people and its Great Northern Peak extending out of the clouds and visible from very far. The large island separated from the mainland by a pirate-infested channel named Bearcub Canal, the three cities just couldn’t clear out for centuries. The Issir people brought a lot of their old names to Jelin and used them with abandon those first years fearing they had exchanged their survival for a large chunk of their history and they had in a sense.
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> Of the over five hundred ships that originally attempted to cross the Deep in the mass exodus and then the Unknown Ocean in search of the fabled new realms, around a hundred of them belonged to the ‘pirate’ clans of Bear Isle. Their skull and bones banners proudly displayed in what they called ‘the biggest raid in all known history’.
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> The ‘pirates’ (not all of them sharing Reinut’s vision but the majority had supported his plans instinctively) were rewarded with no lands or cities on Jelin but most of them (of Bear Isle’s commoners) did settle near Issir’s Eagle and their Lord Reinut, not really making a big deal about it. Some crews though found kindred spirits in these new seas, even made friends. Lorians and Cofols that shared their unlawful proclivities and together they formed the ‘Brotherhood of like-minded gentlemen’ or simply the Brotherhood.
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> And then they started plundering again.
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18th of Tertius 194 NC
Irde Shrine
There was a foot on his face. Stepping on it. A rough, leathery foot but not a big foot. Dirty and a bit hairy at the ankles. A small chubby leg attached to it with thick thighs ending at a short baby’s tunic that gave him the shocking close view of a hairy bottom and two heavy low-hanging balls under a dirty arsehole.
Unholy damnation!
Lear stirred coming about, throat burning and mouth tasting of vomit. His nose felt clogged and he’d difficulty breathing. The creature turned its disheveled head around and then looked down at the groaning bounty hunter. Large turquoise eyes and big flapping ears, neither ugly nor attractive. Just weird.
The creature’s foot moved on his face, little toes mashing his nose on purpose.
Ye little cretin, a still dizzy Lear thought and swung with his arm to smack it off of his face. The cretin giggled not even flinching away and then Lear’s index finger got jammed on a table out of his vision but very close. The finger turning the wrong way and the pain blinding.
“Muargh!” Lear roared at the jolt piercing his foggy brain and heaved again despite the pain turning the table over and forcing his whole body to roll left on the bench, then drop on the floor with a bang.
Lost in the ungodly ruckus raised by several plates or bowls breaking, glasses shattering and bottles clattering down as the tossed table emptied everything on its surface on the tiled floor. A hurt Lear rolled on the hard surface, hearing small feet tip-tapping fast away and a giggle reverberating inside the…
Where in Tyeus gonads am I? He wondered trying to get his bearings.
“What crazy hell is this?” Lear groaned, the last thing he remembered was dying near the cabin under a bunch of pine trees with the sun on his face. He genuinely expected to find something more meaningful in the afterlife if such a realm existed.
Edge was there.
Ah.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, he cursed remembering his friend.
The sound of feet returning. Lear swung his head the other way, towards the sound of boots on the floor. Not tapping lightly but thudding this time. Feet belonging to a heavy-boned person.
A tall one probably, he thought and stood on an elbow, sweat rivulets running down the sides of his eyes and the tip of his nose. Lear blinked looking about what looked like an empty, or thrifty-constructed tavern’s hall with two tables and a large stone counter. The structure made out of finely cut stone.
Three tables counting the one that Lear had hurled near the wall.
It was a rather small table.
Lear stood on a knee and then pushed himself upright only to discover a windowless door barred from the inside and a narrow stone staircase leading to a second floor affixed to a wall. The ceiling Lear could touch raising his hurting arm. He lowered his eyes on the injured digit, grabbed it with his left hand and pulled at it hard to reset the joint. Mother-fucking-turds! The pain brought him almost to his knees again with a groan of agony and when his eyes cleared some more a hurtful moment later Lear came face to face with another unknown creature.
Big round nose, over a large, very miffed and big-lipped mouth. More black hairs than skin under the small brown eyes but nothing at the top of his head. The bald cranium shining a fierce angry red.
“Seen sturdier legs on drunken goats! Yes, I have!” The dwarf boomed judgmentally, the walls rattling and a bottle dropping on the stone counter with a loud clank but somehow didn’t break. It then rolled on the smooth surface until it reached the edge where it stopped weirdly as it backtracked a bit after a brief pause.
What in the name of the Allgods? A bewildered Lear mused steeling his weakened legs to return the dwarf’s glare. Lear had to gaze so low that the bounty hunter’s chin touched his throat.
“Did you receive a blow to the head?” The dwarf asked speaking loudly but much slower. “Blame yer drunkard friends! No refunds! Now,” he paused to stare at the mess on the floor. “Grab that broom and fix this blasted mess!”
“I’m not…” Lear shook his head still rattled and quite confused. “Edge brought me here?” He finally asked trying to put the previous events into a proper order.
The dwarf stood back, then placed two stubby hands on his hips. He wore a hemp shirt with long sleeves and small kid’s pants with large leather boots.
“You know,” the dwarf said in a softer, sort of reminiscing tone and pursed his mouth in a weird upper lip smile. It lasted but a brief moment since the dwarf raised his voice right after. “Think I’ve talked to bog Trolls much sharper than you! I sure did!”
“How about, you fuck off dwarf,” Lear rustled with a grimace of anger.
“Not this kind of inn. Broom.” The scowling dwarf retorted utterly impervious to the threat. “Fix thy mess. Earn yer blasted keep!”
“He means it,” Edge said coming down the staircase. “Why are you standing?”
“Eh… I’m feeling better?” Lear grunted glaring at the staring meaningfully at the broom dwarf.
“Are you sure?”
“Well…” Lear touched his chest and realized the wound was still there but seemed to be mending. “How long am I here?”
“Too long!” The dwarf boomed. “Leave girl talk for later. Get to work!”
“Almost a day,” Edge replied grimacing. “Listen, we’ll pay you for the rooms—”
“You better!”
“Hey,” Lear grunted and turned to stare at the tapping his boot down bearded creature. “Can you relax for a moment? What the hell happened?”
“The dwarf patched you up. A priest of Uher suggested it. Monk I guess. Mistook him for a beggar at first,” Edge explained and there was a bit more there given his embarrassed expression. “You were too far gone for us to try something else.”
Lear pursed his mouth and tried to lift his right arm. There was pain still there and the stitches bothered him but the flesh appeared healed. He smacked his lips. “Did someone piss in my mouth?”
“It’s the drug,” the dwarf explained. “You people haven’t advanced at all in centuries!” He protested looking at them frustrated. “You wrinkled turd,” the dwarf pointed at a frowned Edge. “Get that broom. Your friend made a bloody mess.”
“I had a…” Lear paused while Edge yelled for Mark to get down immediately. The bounty hunter looked about them curious. “There was… a fat kid.”
“I have no kids,” the dwarf replied gruffly. “Scratch that. I have a bastard in Tollor with a tailor’s wife. Margarita. Darn tits the size of me head! Sure were. He’s a tailor himself now. Tall lad,” he added reminiscing and placed his arm above his bald head, which would have made his bastard no taller than a ten year old.
“The tailor didn’t object?” Edge asked a bit curious.
“Eh. They couldn’t have kids of their own,” the dwarf explained. “Someone told them I could help. We worked something out after I explained to them no baby-making potion exists. Unless you look to pop out a Kobold but you need dragon blood for that.”
“You’re sorcerer?” Edge asked very impressed.
“What? No you idiot, I just know stuff in order to survive out in the open.”
“You live in the middle of the woods?”
“Your point being?” The dwarf asked furrowing the thickest of brows. “Anyways clean this and get the fuck out of my beard.”
“What about the kid? Because I saw something walking all over my face earlier,” Lear grunted very frustrated. Also in pain now that the ‘drug’ started wearing off.
“What’s your name?”
“Lear Hik.”
“What about the prisoner?” Mark asked from the top of the stairs.
“Bring him down,” Edge replied stiffly.
“He can barely see two feet. His eyes are all swollen. Infected or something,” Mark argued.
Edge glanced at Lear and then let out a pensive sigh.
“Help him down the stairs. If he trips up, the hell with it,” he told the waiting Mark.
“I want him alive.” Lear barked at the young ranger.
“What is it that you do?” The dwarf asked him whilst Edge grabbed a broom and started wiping the floor using a dustpan to gather the broken pieces. “I have a garbage can outside. Get them corners and under the other tables also.” The dwarf instructed the murmuring under his breath bounty hunter.
“We are contractors,” Lear replied and found an uncomfortable chair to sit on. “Your tavern is primitive dwarf.”
“Name’s Horgith Hornborn,” Horgith said crustily. “It’s a home. You people just keep showing up and ask for favors. What the fuck is the matter with you? Stumbling about like monkeys who dived into Naossis nectar! We’re sick mister Hor. We’re thirsty mister Hor. We need a place to stay for the night. Build yer own!” The dwarf paused taking a deep breath through his mouth.
“Did he just say whore born?” Edge asked still holding the dustpan.
“Hey!” Horgith grunted and tapped his left ear with three fingers suggestively. “Unclog yer fucking ears loggerhead! Use water this time not dirt.”
“Get the trash outside Edge,” Lear rustled his mind much clearer now. “I asked ye a query earlier mister Horgith,” he told the scowling dwarf.
“About the kid. It wasn’t a kid I reckon,” Horgith replied readily with a side-glance. “DonKot likes to spend time near his properties.”
Lar licked his cracked lips thoughtfully. “Who’s he?”
“The owner of this home,” Horgith replied.
“You share your home with a kid named Don Kot?”
“It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” An offended dwarf retorted. “It’s a blasted moniker and I said ‘it’s a home’ and not ‘it’s my home’ earlier. For a man-hunter you sure aren’t that bright. Ah, and I’m a priest of Luthos and not a bloody tavern keeper! Argh, not professionally.”
Lear kept his eyes on him warningly and Horgith returned his stare with a bored expression, then reached in a pocket in the back of his pants and got a hooked needle out, with string looped around it. He tossed it to Lear who caught it with a grimace of pain with his right hand.
“Stitches broke while ye were dancing wit him,” Horgith said gruffly. “See to patch yourself back up again. You are leaking on my floor.”
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An hour later, Edge brought him a bowl with meat and vegetable soup warning him Horgith had fished out any pieces of meat with his hand afore giving him the bowl. Lear downed the hot soup directly from the bronze bowl without a reply, his mind on the unfinished job.
“God dammit Captain,” Edge griped seeing his expression. “You almost bought that piece of blasted land back there.”
“As fine a ground as one would hope to find,” Lear rustled and placed the bowl down, next to the custom needle Horgith had given him. His stitches still bleeding. “What did he give me?”
“Some potion. Couldn’t argue seeing as ye were half dead.”
“How much did you pay?”
“What you had in the purse,” Edge replied.
“Eh. Damnation,” Lear grunted and stared at his hands. “What happened Roland?” He asked raising his eyes. Mark was feeding Paros some meters away. They were standing in front of the ‘inn’, in a large yard with a short fence. The monks of Irde beyond that fence going about their morning chores and not a tourist in sight. The walls of the two-story large inn behind them covered with crude moss-infested logs on the outside, as if to conceal its sturdier interior. The large stone chimney giving some of it away.
“I had to take a leak,” Edge admitted and it was something that had started bothering him lately. “Marshal was sleeping so I left the lad back. The lass told him she needed to relieve herself and he escorted her there.”
“Marshal freed himself?”
“Don’t know how he did it.”
“She had a hidden blade or a sharp pin in her bun and she passed it on to him when you weren’t looking,” Lear said gruffly. “Which is probably why she changed her hair later. Mark just let her go?”
“The lass told him you were going to torture her. Got him in the feels,” Edge said with a grimace and Lear got up. “I talked to him already Captain.”
Lear stared into his wrinkled face and then at the newer member of the team. “Why didn’t she kill him?”
Marion. And her aunt Diana Merck.
You don’t want to upset a shareholder.
You might need her vote in a future meeting.
Eh.
Mark just walked into a wolf’s den, slept the night with not a care in the world and then walked out none the wiser.
“What?” Edge asked and got up himself with a groan. “Where were you going with… wait a fucking minute here. How did you get your own dagger jammed in yer lung?”
“She did that. Looked away for a second,” Lear said a little self-conscious.
“Lass took it from you?”
“Fast as a snake.”
“I see,” Edge murmured and glanced at the oblivious Mark. “What do you think Captain?”
“Remember that Sana-something back in Frye’s Hold?”
“The stable girl? When was it? Eighty four?”
Lear nodded. “Told us the killer leaped from the third story window, caught the window’s edge and landed on the street. Ten meters from Bolt that covered the street corner. Bolt missed him for a hair. You commit to a drop like that, I bet ye can’t move for a minute at the very least.”
“It was dark. Bolt missed sometimes.”
“He moved fast as the desert spirits is what Bolt told me. Have ye ever known him to exaggerate anything?”
“Fine,” Edge yielded. “So you say she moved as fast though?”
“Oh she was swift alright,” Lear replied thoughtfully, “but it’s her not breaking anything from the tumble that I’m having a problem with.”
“She couldn’t walk afterwards.”
“Healed pretty fast,” Lear grunted and stared at his leaking stitches. “And she should have been crippled.”
Edge sighed and pursed his mouth.
“Jacomo paid to train his niece… I don’t know Lear.”
“Manuela did. The Bank has done it afore. Everything is for sale after a while.”
“Fausto Mclean married a Silent Servant?” Edge argued. “Yet he opted to fight ye unmounted.”
“He wasn’t unskilled but got caught up in the moment and as for the other part, Fausto was a front for Manuela to hide her indiscretions from the old man. I got the impression she has been bedding Eleonora for years.”
“How long?”
“Too long.”
“Federico might scold her but he’ll have us skinned and turned into pillows Captain, if word of this gets out.”
“Why do you care what’ll happen to you after you’re dead?” Lear grunted and clenched his fists looking at Mark and Paros.
“I don’t I reckon.”
“If word gets out.”
“Captain…” Edge said warningly.
Lear looked at the peaceful small meadow amidst the massive forest and the sun over their heads. The monks carrying wood and leading laden mules back inside gated monasteries. “A bird might reach Badum from here if you have it with you. Which they didn’t. Because they intended to return to the bank’s office. But they won’t. Now they have to head into the wilderness with Laudus, through the pass towards Ikete Shrine. Will the monks have birds there? Could they risk it? Irde was always an open safe space but Ikete answers to the Duke of Riverdor. Do you want a Duke involved?”
“What are they trying to do? Cover their tracks?”
“Killers cover their tracks. Look to hide,” Lear replied. “Criminals as well. But they won’t go out of their own way to eliminate anyone looking for them. They can’t. Criminals don’t have the resources for that. But Mclean & Merck does.”
“Why would the Bank help Laudus? He’s a small fish that killed a rich whale punching far above his weight. Now sharks are circling him.”
“There are bigger fish in the sea,” Lear replied and walked towards the duo stiffly.
Grand ambitions always have a cost and come with interest, was written on the walls of the Bank. Whose ambitions though? What grand scheme forced the Bank to intervene so blatantly? And was everything connected somehow?
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“Walk with Tyeus traveler,” a dirty priest working outside the old tower told them as they headed out of the settlement. An old blade strapped on his waist and his robes gathered over his skinny legs. “Praised be the Five.”
A frowned Lear gave a slight nod with his head, the pensive Edge not bothering with the priest at all and a pale-faced Mark bringing their mules and horses behind them in gloomy silence. Minus a horse that is they had to give to Horgith in order to bury Paros behind the inn.
Not all of him.
“How do we find the pass?” Edge asked an hour later with the light slowly dying in the horizon.
Lear pointed a finger at the setting sun. Its light shining between the high snowed peaks in the distant horizon. Three quarters north, a quarter west. Figure the rest of it out yourselves! The eager to get them out of the inn dwarf had told them, even if it meant the dwarf had to dispose of a bloody corpse himself.
For a fee.
“Head for the split and look for tracks,” he added.
“How many horses?”
“A lot,” Lear replied gruffly. “We might not make it.”
“I just want to die first and not bother with the aftermath.”
“We’ll see about that,” Lear grunted not in agreement as he’d still a couple of open jobs he intended to work on. Had those ruling over people from their celestial thrones wanted him gone they would have gotten rid of Lear much sooner, he mused. Plenty of opportunities to do that.
“He could have lied,” Edge probed. “Or Lucius might decide he wants no more conflict. He’s done nothing to address the matter. Everyone might be back in Regia’s Council before the year is over.”
“You don’t know that and I don’t care about what Lucius will do,” Lear replied hoarsely, his eyes on the darkening forest path ahead of them. “That cruel brat killed a lot of good people back in Yepehir to get what he wanted. Heard King Alistair praise him proud as a peacock afore a bunch of smiling lords. Most of them looked down on us a couple of years later when other agreements came to pass and marriages brought families that hated each other closer. Everyone wanting to place the blame on someone else to avoid their daughter in law-to-be gripping in their son’s ear.”
“I’m going to talk to the kid,” Edge decided seeing he wasn’t in a talking mood.
“Don’t go soft on him. He could have had us both killed back there easily. Came real close. All Marshal had to do was wait for me to pass out.”
“Captain… you got to give second chances to people,” Edge grunted.
“Not everyone deserves it,” Lear replied raspingly. “But I’ll keep it under consideration Sergeant.”
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22nd of Tertius 194 NC
The mouth of the canyon separating Moonberry Rises to the west from the titans of the Great White Mountain range. The undergrowth rich, rocky path, known as the Narrow or Hermit’s Gate according to Horgith Hornborn.
Fresh tracks.
The horses forced to follow the veins of muddy soil amidst the rocky terrain to protect their feet. All them trees and roots covering the walls now cracked from the cold and tumbling down inside the canyon with the melting snow.
“You think it’ll rain?” Edge asked from his horse.
“Better not. Not sure this doesn’t turn into a ravine or river. Which means we stand at its bottom.”
“Was thinking of those rocks over our heads and the rotten roots holding them,” Edge retorted. “But you went ahead and made it sound ever worse.”
“Shush,” Lear admonished him and turned to glare at the silent Mark. “Cover the animals’ mouths with the handkerchiefs. Be gentle about it.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Heard anything?” Edge asked looking about them. The walls of Hermit’s Gates continuing through the mountains forever it seemed. The cold breeze whistling through and sounds carrying for a long distance.
Then Lear heard the crying again. An animal in pain.
“How far?”
“We can’t hurry after them.”
“If it’s them.”
“No camping tonight,” Lear decided. “No fire.”
“I’m taking your blanket,” Edge warned him and Lear grunted. He snapped his heels and sent the horse forward, eyes peeled at the turns and swells of the difficult terrain. Patches of hardened snow still visible despite the season. Avalanches coming down from the unseen frozen tall peaks on either side.
The cold getting stronger the higher up they traveled.
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Lear climbed down the slope taking care not to trip himself up and approached them. Edge covered in a woolen blanket he’d tossed over him like a priest’s robes. Lear stopped to take a couple of good breaths and then rubbed his gloved hands together to warm them up.
“Pretty cold higher up the slopes,” Lear said and glanced at the two moons over their heads. Nesande’s blue ring half hidden from the imposing distant peaks. They looked near but they weren’t.
“Plenty cold down here as well,” Edge commented sourly. “Is that a fire?”
“Yep. They had to. Not to freeze.”
“Sounds like a sound idea,” Edge retorted shivering all over. “I wanted to piss but I can’t brave them breeches open.”
“Just pull the cock out. I did that. Took me half a minute.”
“Yer a braver man than me Captain. Always were truth be told,” Edge admitted sadly.
Lear groaned and walked to the shaking Mark. “Check your quiver.”
“I did.”
“Check it again. Cap might freeze shut. Better get the bolts out and put them in yer satchel.”
“What about my things?”
“Get them on the mules,” Lear retorted gruffly.
“Fuck’s sake Lear just leave him be,” Edge protested and a rock rolled down the slopes, crackling and clanging. Lear immediately moved behind a horse carrying supplies, a hand cupping the pommel of his sword.
They all stared at the moonlit rocky slopes in silence for a while.
“A mountain goat?” Edge whispered still standing in the open and not even stooped. Lear glared at him. The bounty hunter shrugged his shoulders. “I sit down now, I ain’t getting up anytime soon.” Edge explained in a hushed tone.
Lear watched the dark side of the slopping canyon walls and pursed his mouth stubbornly.
Just before the bounty hunter went back up the way he’d come from, the passage making a sharp turn a hundred meters from where they had stopped, a voice rang down the slopes. Bouncing off of the cracked granite and the snapped pines protruding like dark pillars from the chasms.
“That you Roland?” The voice asked and Edge glanced at the tensed Lear.
Lear signaled for him not to say anything. Edge ogled his eyes and pointed at their animals. Five horses and two mules blocking the path. A blind man could spot them.
“I told her you weren’t going to let it go.” The voice continued. “Marshal’s dead I reckon.”
“You got to speak louder Jack,” Edge replied over Lear’s comical objections. The bounty hunter clenched his teeth in a snarl and looked towards the spooked Mark.
‘Load the bow.’ He told him voicelessly, opening and closing his mouth to form the words.
Mark looked at his crossbow and nodded.
‘Good. Now get down from the horse,’ Lear advised him.
Fucking idiot.
“Hah,” Tracer Jack chuckled still unseen but on the west side of the canyon’s sloped wall. Motherfucker had looped around the corner higher and probably missed my arse for meters. “Sorry about Hik. Eh. You got to turn around now old bones. Nothing you can do here.”
“Guess you have to make me Jack,” Edge replied and got his cock out to let a stream of urine splash on the rocky terrain whilst talking with him.
“I got the numbers Roland. Tell you what, I’ll leave a heavy purse for you in the path. Just retire into the sunset mate. How’s Rita?”
Edge gathered his wrinkled cock and closed his breeches. Rubbed his face hard next with the same hand afore tipping his head back. Eyes pressed shut to keep the tears in.
“Five hundred gold pieces,” Jack continued too far to see more details.
“How about you keep it and bring Laudus down here?” Edge asked hoarsely wiping his eyes.
“I’m not working for him Roland.”
“I know.”
“You won’t make it out of the pass,” Jack warned him. “Only chance you have is heading back now afore the word reaches Atetalerso. Then everyone that can hold a sword will come after you old man. Head for the North. Beyond Ludriver all the way to Krakenhall. Word is the Duchess is paying premium for good swordsmen or trainers. You could retire a rich man there. You don’t owe Hik anything for crying out loud. How many of you he has to send in the mud afore you get it through yer thick head? He wasn’t in it for the coin or the glory. A lone wolf is never sated nor settles down. Your Rita knew that. Motherfucker would have kept on going for the next mark until he croaked. Well he’s gone now and you’re free.”
Edge smacked his lips and glanced at Lear out of the corner of his eye. The scowling bounty hunter still stooped behind the horse.
“Thing is, I don’t like the cold Jack. Aye,” Roland told him gloomily. “And can’t get myself to look at Nord lasses lately.”
“See ye in the morning Roland. I’m going back to my fire,” Jack taunted. “If you are still breathing.”
“Take my dagger as well,” Lear told Mark and tossed him the weapon. “Slot it in your pants. You can wield it better than a sword.”
Edge had walked to the horse to get the axe out.
“The sun just set,” Mark croaked looking at them getting ready for a scrap under the lovely moonlight.
And in the bitter cold of the windy Hermit’s Gates night.
You win some, lose some other.
“They are coming now lad,” Lear snapped hoarsely. “Stay near the horses. Use the bolts. They come near you go for the eyes. Slash for the head, stab for the torso. You worked on this.”
“I don’t really…” Mark mumbled sounding really nervous. “…remember anything right now Mister Hik.”
“None of us did,” Edge assured him and walked near a standing boulder to avoid the worst of the cold breeze.
“Really?” Mark asked hopefully.
“Ayup,” Edge lied with ease and then pressed his back on the hard rock to take the stress from his knees.
-
An hour after midnight
Hermit’s Gates
23rd of Tertius 194 NC
Two warriors had circled back around the path and came at them from behind. Fresh faces, in the sense that Lear didn’t know them from afore, but not young. In their thirties. Two Issirs wearing chainmail under their heavy coats, which they dropped in a pile afore coming towards them. Mist lobbing an arrow to get the seemingly asleep Edge following behind the mercenaries she had probably led there.
Two new hires, Lear thought an eye on Shin and the always careful Jack coming down from the northwestern side, with another spear carrying dude standing in the middle of the path but looking to get his bow out as well.
Three.
Or another team of Issir bounty hunters.
Unless the Bank is diversifying in its hires.
Edge moved out of the way, the arrow shattering as it struck solid granite instead of him and he walked near the horses to confuse the Issir with the bow who had stopped thirty meters away. With a curse the Issir mercenary dropped the bow and reached for the spear. Then he started walking towards Edge just as Shin arrived and unsheathed his sword. Roland got both his blades out one after the other.
Shin pursed his mouth and paused for Tracer Jack to arrive as well.
“Now,” Lear ordered Mark and the ranger got out from behind his mount, crossbow raised. Mark fired and Lear popped out of hiding as well. He walked with measured strides towards the two Issir warriors that had reached five meters from their animals, a sword in one hand, the razor in the other.
Mist, the fourth Issir present, hissed in shock recognizing Lear’s figure and switched targets from Mark to him. The spear carrying Issir mercenary got knocked back two meters in the meantime with a bolt lodged in his left plate-covered shoulder, the bone there splintered.
The terrified Mark managing a decent shot given the stakes.
“GAAH!” The man bellowed blinded by pain and the night came alive with grunts of anger, cries of surprise and manic yells from all and sundry involved. Most shouts coming from Tracer Jack who ordered everyone to go after the ‘resurrected’ Lear. The first Issir, who had no idea who Lear was, swung with his sword to cut him down, getting in Mist’s field of view, but the ever-advancing bounty hunter slapped the blade away with his and then hacked the mercenary savagely across the face without breaking his stride. The blade thudded on the nasal bone with a crunching sound, melted that and then shattered the hapless Issir’s right cheekbone, the flesh parting there and flapping away from the cracked cranium. Brain matter and hot gore splashing his recoiling friend in the face.
Mist cursed and sidestepped, her bow still trained on him but her foot found a loose rock in the semi-dark and tripped her up. She twirled around five meters from him in increasing panic to find her footing and Lear stooped left angling the razor, the next step bringing him near enough the stumbling backwards Issir to park the flat of the blade under the gasping man’s chin and then wrenched it left to right towards his own chest, the sharp thin blade severing the spine’s connection to the mercenary’s skull after going through tender throat flesh, epiglottis and the crunchy thyroid bone.
The head drooping sideways to hit the man’s shoulder and twisting around once, held back by strained bloody skin and a bit of flesh at the back of the neck. Gore exploding outwards in a great torrent and a few smaller gushes, dousing Lear’s left side completely from the head to the hip.
“Shit!” A panicked Mist cried out seeing him coming of the red curtain, his right arm raised above his head and loosed her arrow just as Lear chucked the longsword from four meters away. The scared shitless female scout jerked spastically to get out of the way not expecting such a development and missed everything. The longsword rotated once fully in a perfect circle, making a ghostly windmill-like sound and caught Mist right above her left leather-encased breast with the edge part of the blade, trapping her left arm there after snapping her bow to pieces.
The savage force of the blow hurled her back three meters, her left limb detaching and dropping between her wobbling legs, the ulna bone severed, the radius bone shattered and the longsword still lodged in her broken chest cavity.
“Earrg,” Mist cried and emptied her bladder when Lear reached her and pressed the bloody razor on the side of her neck after first hacking off three fingers from her right arm, which the fouling herself female had tried to raise to defend herself.
A solemn Lear finished her off and yanked his sword out to return to the main scrap.
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“Son of a rotten dog!” Jack cursed with ogling eyes, upon seeing him approach and received a nasty cut above the elbow of his sword-wielding arm by Edge’s blade. The veteran bounty hunter always attacked a distracted opponent first. Jack jumped back with a howl, blood dripping down his vambrace and Edge advanced on Shin now, swinging with both blades to force the younger nervous bounty hunter back.
By some years. Shin was over forty.
Lear snapped the right arm out to clean some of the gore from his sword and grimaced feeling the still healing stitches pulling at him.
“Water under the bridge!” Jack yelled, froth running down his blond beard and stepped back. “Hik, come on man!”
Lear glanced at Mark still trying to cut down the injured and bleeding out mercenary with his sword. The man defending himself well using the spear to keep him away.
“Use the darn crossbow!” Lear barked and Mark almost gotten himself killed dropping his guard. The young man jerked away from the spear thrust with a yelp and Lear groaned in frustration seeing out of the corner of his eye Jack legging it.
He glanced at Edge and Shin, both fighters looking at the other bounty hunter running away. The heavy breathing Edge recovering faster and hacking at the undecided Shin with both swords breaking his defense. Shin stumbled back, the spear-wielding mercenary limping away as well and a flushed Mark reloading his crossbow as fast as he could not ten meters behind him.
“I give up!” Shin declared seeing as the tables had turned again.
“Toss the blade,” Edge ordered walking near the bounty hunter and Shin dropped it on the ground with a resigned sigh.
“I can tell you where they—” Shin attempted to say with a nervous grin but Edge swung again with both swords and got him on the sides of the head just below the earlobes. The last part of Shin’s phrase a splash of gore that came out of his mouth but no words.
“By Allgods old ‘n new,” Edge cursed, clearly not impressed with the result of his fancy attack and watched Shin collapse to his knees with a hissing whimper bleeding from both sides of the neck. “Think I pulled a muscle doing this shite. Left arm went numb,” he griped at the watching Lear who nodded in silence, stooped to pick up the spear Mark’s opponent had dropped and walked to his horse.
Mark was reloading his crossbow frustrated a bit further down the path now, watching nervously the last Issir mercenary he was following increasing their distance. Mark had missed the previous shot but Lear knew the Issir, who was limping away as fast as he could, wouldn’t make it more than a hundred meters whilst bleeding like that.
So Lear rode after the glow of the campfire clearly visible after the canyon’s turn instead, with the still mumbling under his breath Edge wobbling towards his own mount intending to come after him.
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Lear reached the campsite five minutes later. In a strange twist of fate the two parties had almost walked on each other in the dark. It was set up in a flat wider area right after the turn. The walls of the canyon opening up and the edges sporting both dead and living tall bristlecone trees with rough bark and weirdly twisted trunks creating different shapes. Some resembling faces even, either laughing or screaming, the empty cavities haunting to stare at in the light coming from the large fire.
A tall Nord came towards him hearing his horse arrive. He was holding a large battle-axe and was bleeding down the right side of his face from a long nail lodged in his skull. Lear pursed his mouth and dismounted. He unsheathed his sword the moment his boots touched the hard ground, seeing less rocks in this part than what they had encountered coming up the path.
“Ummg,” the Nord grunted ineligibly and Lear circled away from him as that was a long reaching heavy weapon no sane sword could parry. His eyes searching the area of the camp quickly. The many horses gathered near the start of the small copse and the supplies left half-opened near the fire. The sound of old wood burning, cinders crackling and burning cones blasting out of the flames.
Someone had tossed a laden conifer branch in the fire and the discharging burning hard seeds had started spreading the flames first to the supplies and the blankets, then the dead standing trees near the campfire. Smaller fires sprouting out lighting up the coppice and creating strange moving shadows on the ground and the distant canyon’s sloped walls.
The breeze now warm on his face despite the cold evening, for the first time in weeks.
“Goush,” the Nord growled and collapsed to his knees five meters away, the battleaxe landing on the ground with a loud thud. Lear wiped some of the grime from his face, mostly dried up gore and brain matter, then set his eyes on the slowly covered with thick white smoke nearby coppice. The sound of a horse coming up the path behind him.
“Stay back Roland!” Lear boomed, clenching his jaw and a man came out of the trees. Short, badly cut hair, a goatee on his Lorian face and a hand kept on his bleeding chest. No, Lear decided on a second look, the man had his right hand nailed on his chest.
“She has a fucking…” the Lorian grunted and Lear jerked right abruptly, twisting around his axis and a sharp clanging sound was heard a second later. It came from of metal crossbow firing no further than ten meters away.
TANG!
Something whipped next to his ear and Lear growled like a beast and dived the other way, muscles protesting and mostly healed but not quite there yet chest-wound opening up again. His sword’s blade hit the ground as he dipped his right shoulder in the clumsy tumble. Lear stumbled to his feet, heard feet running inside the woods and branches snapping under boots.
Followed by silence.
With a guttural growl Lear sprinted towards the nearest trunk, heard another loud clang echoing amidst the trees and ducked mid-stride, hit the dead but still standing trunk with a peeved curse, the thin nail-resembling bolt sinking in the bark right above his left shoulder.
Shot from behind him.
The bounty hunter let out a manic groan and twisted on his feet using the momentum, knee joints burning and fingers scrapping at the hard bark for purchase as he rounded the trunk. Breathing heavy and sweating profoundly, a sporting a gnarly maddened sneer Lear appeared from the other side of the thick dead tree he’d just rounded and almost crashed on the fast approaching, clad in her leather pants, tight-fitting black leather shirt Eleonora. The scowling woman busy reloading mid-stride a small intricately designed metallic crossbow that must have cost her lover a fortune, caught whilst slotting another bolt in the groove.
She reacted like a gazelle, ducking and twisting her torso away from the charging not to allow her to reload Lear, her left arm extending to punch his right wrist and keep the sword away, her right arm turning the fancy crossbow inwards, nimble thumb pressing a button at its carved side that immediately pulled the string back and latched it automatically with a sharp click.
Or she could do that, an annoyed Lear thought, just as a snarling Eleonora pulled the trigger with her index finger from almost point blank range.
The bolt penetrated Lear’s left arm above the elbow skewering his bicep as he’d raised it instinctively, the sharp point scraping the bone and coming out the other way at least a finger. Then they both bounced off of each other, Lear feeling the worst about the encounter but Eleonora screaming not believing she’d missed the bounty hunter’s head.
Eleonora stepped back like a very large cat, left hand reaching for a leather quiver she had on a belt at her waist, her right leg rising abruptly straight up to block his sword from coming down, wooden heel corkscrewing mid-air to lodge between the man’s wrist and pommel.
The sword hit the ground and Eleonora dropped her leg catching him on the right shoulder and bringing him down to a knee, but missing his head since Lear remembered to jerk it aside.
Lear had never seen a man or woman performing the splits whilst standing on a leg. Or everything after that. Still, I would have kicked me in the face and left the fancier stuff for the circus or a lover’s bed. The groaning bounty hunter reached for the bolt that had paralyzed his left arm, whilst the now slightly smirking female calmly slotted another bolt in her crossbow in the time it takes one to say shite.
Shite.
Lear yanked the bolt out of his bicep abruptly with a muffled raucous grunt and as the stepping back still smirking Eleonora raised her small crossbow again to shoot him in the face, he punched the bloody bolt in her left kidney with a brutal heave.
Cling.
The weapon went but Eleonora stumbled to the side without pulling the trigger, a jolt of pain marring her pretty face. A soft cough of air escaping her lips. She blinked not understanding what had happened, a rapid loss of concentration caused by severe trauma. Got to ride the pain through lass. Swallow it all down and feel it burn in yer stomach like acid, Lear thought not really that sad that she couldn’t in this particular moment. When she came about a second later showing great resilience Lear’s right hand, now clenched in a fist caught her in the jaw and cracked it, splitting her lower lip and breaking at least three teeth, whilst snapping her head violently to the side.
The bleeding Eleonora faltered, dropped to a knee with a pained whine, but raised her right hand to shoot at Lear. The bounty hunter’s metal-reinforced heavy boot reached her first and broke two ribs on the right side of her torso lifting a groaning Eleonora clean off the ground. It wasn’t a fancy kick by any stretch of the imagination, or even particularly athletic but Lear was a heavy-set guy that had learned how to deliver a simple kick with the maximum vigor needed preferably with his boot on in the most traditional of ways.
Kicking a lot of people over the years.
Killing three of them with a boot to the face.
In a sense the woman was lucky.
In another sense…
She wasn’t.
For a while Lear stood and watched the small thicket of dead trees burn, strange frozen gapping mouths screaming in eternal silence. The flames highlighting the angles on his stern face. Then he grabbed Eleonora by the arm and dragged her back to the camp. Paused unsure for a moment, a sober Edge watching him knelt near the injured Lorian, then returned inside the weird trees to retrieve the fancy crossbow the woman had dropped.
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“I can’t believe I’m still alive,” the injured man said, holding his good hand over the wound. His other hand dripping blood on the ground. “Do you have a bandage on you? You’ll find some in the supplies. Hurry before they all burn.”
Lear pressed the punctured wound on his left arm to get some of the foul blood out and grimaced. The Lorian was looking at him intently.
“You need to finish her off,” the man advised him. “She’s a murdering bitch. Shot Goss in the fucking head in cold fucking blood!”
Lear raised his right arm and the man stopped talking. The Lorian pushed back on the fallen trunk he had collapsed on. Without hurrying the bounty hunter reached inside his dirty satchel and dug a crumpled scroll out. Unfurled it and stared in silence for a while at the crude drawing in the light of the nearby burning campfire. He then turned it around and showed the painting to the Lorian with the goatee.
“That’s not me.”
“That’s Goss though as ye just said,” Lear rustled and showed him the list of known associates underneath the drawing. “And I have Paros’ head in that sack. Might be a bit ripe now but you can tell it’s him.”
The Lorian gulped down nervously, his face draining of blood despite the heat coming from the fire and the gushes of warm wind blowing from all directions.
“I’m just a mercenary,” he croaked.
“Let me tell you what Paros said first,” Lear told him in a reassuring manner.
“He lied. Paros knew nothing.”
Lear nodded. “You don’t work for the bank.”
“That bitch just tried to kill me!”
“Paros said the same thing,” Lear told him. “About the bank. But with a twist of sorts.”
“What twist?”
“It’s what I want you to help me figure out,” Lear replied and stood up. He glanced about, stopped for a moment to stare at the pale, tarnished face of Eleonora and Edge who was trying to patch her up. That’s how Roland always was. Mark as well probably. Aye.
Rita.
Bolt was a nasty son of a bitch.
Lear the worst of them all when he got all wound up in the job. The taste returned after taking the first bite and then it was difficult to remember who he was before.
He stooped over the looking at him intently Lorian, his right hand fingers playing with the folded straight razor. Rolling it over the callused swollen knuckles, catching it with thumb and index finger, then rolling it between ring and pinky, afore pulling at the tang to snap it open.
Suddenly, without any warning but a slight clench of the jaw, Lear moved his injured left arm, the pain bringing tears to his eyes and snatched the distracted with the razor Lorian’s bleeding hand right at the wrist.
“What?” He protested and tried to free it from Lear’s steely grip. “Let me go!” The man tried one more time and when Lear didn’t budge he reached with his left arm. Brought it forward intending to twist the bounty hunter’s arm and break the grip.
Whoosh.
The razor went.
The sound of digits hitting the ground between them.
Two.
“ARGLGH!” The Lorian yelped in mind-numbing agony pulling his maimed hand back, spraying blood everywhere. Lear closed the razor, let go of the twisting this way and that man’s hand and shoved a cloth in it to use on the wound. Then he inserted the razor in its leather sheath hang at his waist and got the woman’s leather bolt quiver out of his satchel.
“Curse you!” The Lorian snapped gawking at the blood painting the cloth rapidly, between shudders, teeth rattling and his face distorted as the pain rooted at the base of his head.
“You have ten minutes of coherence. Maybe less. Speak fast and I’ll help you staunch the bleeding.”
“Fuck… you. Fucking deranged creep!”
“Let’s hear a name first. Work from there,” Lear counseled him and glanced at the waking up Eleonora. The woman let out a moan of pain, a hand reaching for her hurting bloody jaw, eyes flickering from Edge working on her wound to Lear and the shivering Lorian.
“It’s me… Oras have you. Damn it… Laudus. I need to stop the bleeding!” He grunted through clenched teeth glaring at Lear with hatred.
“The Bank ordered King Jeremy killed?” Lear asked calmly and when Laudus hesitated, he shoved one of Eleonora’s bolts into his right knee.
Darn thing sank in completely.
Lear needed to go and fetch his pliers to pull it out.
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“That’s… all I know…” A shuddering and sniffling, blind from the one eye, mostly fingerless and crippled Laudus griped some time later, while Lear used a thick burning stick to cauterize Regia’s former Master of Silence wounds and keep him alive for a little bit longer. “Please…” he begged when Lear raised the stick, since he feared the bounty hunter might burn his other eye off.
“A written order?” Lear repeated thoughtfully staring at a freaked out Eleonora who had watched the whole thing. “What do you think Roland?”
“A signature can be forged.” Edge replied a sour expression on his face.
“Why would Lord Doris order his kin assassinated?” Lear asked again looking at the miserable face of Marc Laudus. “What did Paros mean with the whole plan fell apart and the bank had to step in?”
“This had nothing… to do… I don’t know. I wasn’t there!” Laudus growled, his eye leaking fluids down his dirty face.
“What was the plan?” Lear asked and caught Eleonora looking at Laudus.
Is this fool still covering up for someone?
Why?
“Anything else in her satchel?” Lear asked Edge.
“A lock pick, couple of vials.”
“What kind?”
Edge reached in a pocket of his long coat, found then and tossed him one. Lear caught it with his good hand as he could barely move the left. Round bottom and the size of his thumb. Tiny cork keeping its contents tightly sealed.
“Don’t open it,” Eleonora hissed.
“Is it poison?”
“It’s a healing potion,” she replied with another glance at Laudus.
“What does it do?” Lear asked remembering Horgith’s ‘drug’.
“Helps the body recover. I could use one right now.”
“You grow body parts?” Lear queried and shook the vial to check at the strange liquid.
“No you don’t.”
“Where did you find it?”
Eleonora grimaced and touched her bleeding wound. “I didn’t. The Bank has the recipe for years.”
“That’s a real healing potion? Like in the stories?” Edge asked curious.
“Gods. You people,” Eleonora griped feeling her broken teeth with her tongue. “Backwards plebes. You don’t need magic to make it.”
Lear shook his head. Then unsheathed his sword and walked towards the recoiling Laudus.
“Sir Turner brought the missive!” A panicked Laudus yelled spittle flying out of his bloody mouth using his elbows to crawl away from him as his legs were both crippled.
Lear placed the tip of the longsword on his chest and pinned him down, then stooped over the ogling Laudus ominously. “Last chance.”
“You… are going to kill me anyway,” Laudus hissed pursing his mouth tightly.
Wow. An actual fanatic.
To what? Lord? King? Country?
God?
Could it be?
“That’s right,” Lear retorted brusquely and shoved the sword into his chest cavity with so much force the tip burst out of his back and hit the ground. The fatally wounded Laudus quailed, blood coming out of his mouth and Lear moved the heavy blade back and forth widening the wound, bones breaking, internal organs getting mauled or slashed to pieces until with a protracted rattle the Lorian stopped moving. Lear then put a boot on the drenched in gore torso and extracted the blade slowly not to damage the edge further.
He turned around, walked to his saddlebag, switching hands en route and used a clean cloth he dug out to wipe it clean from the blood. Lear knew the weapon was due for a good oiling and sharpening, but he didn’t have time for that now.
The bounty hunter stared at the pale Eleonora.
“You won’t kill me,” she whispered.
True.
“Captain,” Edge said warningly since he knew when Lear had gone over to the deep end. “We gain nothing from this.”
Also a plea not to go ahead.
“Are you going to tell me why the bank got involved? What or whom are they protecting?”
“The word will get out,” Eleonora warned him. “Manuela will have your flesh boiled off of your bones if you hurt me.”
Such a lovely person. Yer lover.
Bet your father would be proud.
“You think I fear her? Or them?” Lear grunted. “Federico’s wayward, murderous brats?”
“Captain,” Edge murmured.
“You fear the old man. Everyone does. He’ll kill all you care about. Wipe them off the face of this realm. Unless you let me go.”
Hah.
Wow.
“You actually believe Mclean cares about what happens to you? Or if his daughter loses a lover? If its family that will make him come after us, then killing Fausto sealed our fate. He better hurry because we’re getting long in the tooth.”
Eleonora stared at the grim-faced Edge.
Lear sheathed his sword and reached for the razor again. The woman’s eyes opened up and she tried with a deep groan to get up but Edge put a hand on her shoulder to push her back down.
“Just tell him lass,” he pleaded with her sadly. “Save yerself the pain.”
She shook her head right and left, a series of expressions distorting her face.
“I want that healing potion,” Eleonora hissed finally. Lear tossed her the vial and she caught it on her chest. With a grimace she uncorked it and poured its contents down her throat. Edge glanced towards him pleadingly again but Lear was beyond listening.
To deal with monsters, you need to become a monster yourself.
And forget about redemption.
Because monsters… eh. The real evil cretins of this realm feel nothing about anyone but themselves. They’ll wallow in their riches and in their vices. Break every law and hurt myriads of people to get what they desire. Plunge a whole nation into war or two for profit, destroy a family for a night of pleasure or murder dozens of innocent souls just to avoid punishing one guilty sick fuck.
“The world you know,” Eleonora D’Orsi started after pursing her hurting mouth, pretty eyes watering at the taste of the concoction and giving out a light glow. “Is about to change dramatically. There are people that can see the opportunity for profit opening up. A huge route that it is empty now but won’t be for long. More than one. Ever west and to the far south. A huge undertaking. The race has already started and the Bank would have been the first to enjoy these untold riches of the new world. An Epoch of exploration and high seas trade is coming. Beyond the shores of Jelin. Some enlightened individuals got on board with that a decade ago whilst others failed to see it. Stuck in their ways. To tales nobody ever bothered to verify. Pride, stupidity and backwards thinking. So measures had to be taken when some parts of this vital operation were threatened.”
“The King wouldn’t do the Bank’s bidding?” Lear asked her hoarsely.
“The Bank can adapt Lear Hik,” Eleonora retorted. “It’s a living thing because its people can look beyond the mundane and deal with problems with a clear head. Beyond the narrow confines of nations and countries. Safe in its warm embrace. I told you the realm might be different on the morrow.”
Warm embrace? Nothing colder than a Mclean & Merck building.
Lear had to give it to old Mclean. He was good at brainwashing those working for him.
Make them believe in his bullshit.
“You didn’t answer the query.”
“I did. The Bank can deal with problems with a clear head but some useful people can’t.”
Lear closed his eyes thinking of Eikenport.
“You lost the port. Mclean wanted that port. Why?”
“A gate of sorts to the new world, since we lost the race for a closer one for now.”
“What was the plan B?”
“This was plan C. Just in case we were to lose control of the situation,” Eleonora replied and put her hand down to stand up.
“Cediorum is too far away,” Lear murmured slowly seeing the bigger picture. A soulless, balefully dull, numbers oriented, profit driven directive. “You needed Regia because Antoon was lost in an endless war. I assume the first choice was a port in Wetull. A, B, C. When that went tits up, Regia became the closest thing since nobody can trust the Old Crow not to screw them on a deal.”
Eleonora nodded. “We’ll have to talk with Lucius now. But to have a better understanding, a couple of the previous mistakes needed to be corrected. The right people surviving the… ordeal, so we can move on.”
“A couple you say. So not only this king,” Lear murmured shaking his head in disbelief.
The whole plan fell apart and the bank had to step in, Paros had told him.
To protect its investment. As clinical as that.
“The one afore him,” Eleonora whispered what he’d already figured out.
“Who had Alistair and Jeremy killed?” Lear grunted and Eleonora blinked her pretty eyes, glanced at the brutalized corpse of Marc Laudus and told him.
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“So you see now,” a relaxed Eleonora finished. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s beyond your reach. A matter of political will. Whether you reach Regia or you don’t. It won’t matter. Lucius shall decide based on what’s in his interest. What he needs sorely, we have already. Justice is a vague concept mister Hik easily cast aside for profit.”
In your world. Most of the other.
She could be right here.
“It is,” Lear agreed and stared in Edge’s gloomy face.
“I will talk with Manuela. Cover up your involvement here,” Eleonora assured him. “We’ll say Laudus resisted and ambushed us. I’ll take some heat but the job is done. It’s over.”
“Jack escaped,” Lear told her.
She gave a shrug, a hand pressing at her wound. “The moment he makes contact, I’ll know. I’ll make certain he won’t talk ever. Do you another favor. We’ll call it even then.”
Another bloody favor.
Ah, lass you’re too far gone.
“I cared about your father,” Lear started pursing his mouth at the end of it. Eleonora raised a blond eyebrow. “Told me to make sure his kids got out. I guess they didn’t. Reckon, I’ll take the blame for that. I sort of looked the other way. It’s on me so I’ll fix it. Didn’t think it would be that bad.”
“Bad?” She furrowed her brows. “What are you saying mister Hik?”
“You know very well,” Lear retorted gruffly. Isn’t this your motto mister Hik? She had taunted him because somebody read her a report. Told her a story between drinks or after a good fuck. She killed a bunch of people, travelled the world and played at being an assassin. A good plan seemingly until ye get clubbed in the face and ye have to pick up yer teeth from the ground. Eleonora stared at his hand resting on the pommel of his longsword alarmed. She took a step back, moving better than she did ten minutes earlier. Magic medicine, Lear mused, grey head moving slightly in a nod and then stilled his eyes on her comely face to better remember it, especially with the swelling on her jaw retreating now and back to its former unblemished state. Just don’t fuck this up old bones, a briefly saddened Lear wished and Edge, who had snuck up behind the woman, this time didn’t.
And delivered a beheading fit for the arena.
Eleonora didn’t feel a thing and when her golden head hit the ground with a red mist raining over the scorched ground, a look of surprise haunted her wide open eyes. A grim-faced Lear stooped and picked the severed head from its long ponytail to drain it off the blood quickly.
Edge who looked sick and like he’d aged another ten years stared at him with that look Lear knew that eventually would go away.
That’s the job.
This is what these creatures deserve.
No mercy.
And that goes for me as well.
Lear set his jaw, glanced at the body of Laudus that needed fixing as well. The head kept as proof they had closed the chapter. This job done for the most part. After the next part is over, you’ll need to move to the next one, his mind reminded him. Two kids slain. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
It was about time Lear started choosing which missions to take.
Yeah.
“Bring the bag,” he ordered curtly and Edge moved like an automaton towards their horses to get it.
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> “Praise be Uher’s light. See, there he is again!” Lan cried pointing a finger at the small creature, staring at him behind a bush, a baby’s large head with large droopy ears, wild hair and bizarre turquoise eyes unnerving the young priest.
>
> “Don yer coat?” The creature asked with a toothy smile and Lan furrowed his brows not understanding the strange accent and weirdly constructed familiar tongue.
>
> “DonKot?” Brother Taft chanced.
>
> DonKot nodded and stepped out from behind the bush. He wasn’t taller than a toddler. A toddler with hairy naked legs and bare feet tip-tapping as he approached and grabbed the priest’s robes with a small hand. Lan blinked unsure. DonKot pulled at the hem of his robes again then sighed.
>
> “Want you what? Um?”
>
> “What I want?” Lan asked and DonKot nodded with his head, small hand playing with the large cock hanging under his short tunic shamelessly.
>
> “Water? Food?” The priest croaked hopefully and DonKot pointed a small finger to the north. Then with a big naughty grin he asked again.
>
> “Don yer coat?”
>
> And seeing the skinny priests couldn’t understand him, he puffed out his cheeks, lips flapping and all, then signed for them to follow after him.
>
> And they did.
>
>
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/
& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/