Guardians Of The Flame - Legacy Part 29

He stooped to check the contents of the next two knapsacks. Yes, the fifty cylinders of foot-long steel tubing, each containing a hefty charge of guncotton, were still intact, each bomb in a tightly sealed tube of pig intestine for waterproofinga"like a steel sausage. They looked fine, as did the blasting caps in their separate bag.

A role of fusing and a firekit completed his sapper's bag.

It finally hit him: He was scared as all h.e.l.l, but he was looking forward to this.

The young Karl Cullinane, the one who had vomited in horror after killing those men outside of Lundeyll, was gone. Slaughter had become second nature to him; he'd missed it since the war had ended.

His only regrets involved the people he was leaving behind. It had been too long.

And what does that make me?

He didn't care, he decided, as he stretched out on the too-soft surface of the raft and willed himself to sleep.

He was never sure how many hours later the raft beached itself on the Melawei sh.o.r.e; until the harsh grinding of sand underneath the craft woke him, he had been sleeping. Sleeping soundly, for the first time since he'd left Biemestren.

As it pushed itself ash.o.r.e, the half-solid raft, woven by faerie out of mist, light, and air, suddenly became mist, light, and air; with a deep sigh it vanished underneath him, leaving him lying upon the wet sand, only half awake.

Even sleepy, warrior's reflexes took over. In an instant, he had scooped up his gear and dashed for the treeline, his ears straining for the sound of a cry or gunshot.

But there was nothing. Only the lapping of waves on the sand, the whisper of wind through the trees, and a distant mocking call of a crow.

Nothing.

He peered out onto the beach. It was empty.

There was no sign of habitation; he was between villages, or beyond the Mel range of settlement.

The first was more likely, he decided.

Dawn was still some time away; the sky was barely beginning to brighten in the east.

He couldn't tell where he was, but a bit of exploring would see to that. The first thing was to find a place to cache what gear he wouldn't need for a quiet stalk, and the second was to hide out for the day.

Night was the time to stalk.

He slipped the thong of his amulet over his head. For now, he would hole up in the woods, but he would have to find a more permanent place eventually.

Where to hide?

Of course! There was only one place, and he had been a fool for not thinking of it sooner.

"Now you see me, now you don't," he whispered, "but I'll see you."

He cursed himself silently for talking aloud. a.s.shole. It wasn't time for gestures; it was time to get to work.

He took a piece of hard cheese from his knapsack and wolfed it, then washed it down with a quick swallow of water from his canteen.

His smile was that of a stalking tiger.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:.

"Ta Havath, Jason"

But patience, cousin, and shuffle the cards, till our hand is a stronger one.

a"Sir Walter Scott.

Slaver rifle slung over one shoulder, Jason Cullinane walked along the beach in the early-morning light, following Hervian, the leader of the five-man squad. As far as he could see, the sand, beaten down by last night's rain, was unmarked save for their own footprints and the deep hoofprints of the two horses that had been ridden out to relieve the distant watch at dawn.

"Just as well," Hervian said. "I don't see no sign of 'em. We'll have a good hunt-down for later. Maybe get your wick dipped for you, boy, if you can earn it," he said with a genial, gap-toothed smile. "For a good bowman, you make a sorry gunner, Taren."

Pelius, a lanky, spade-bearded fellow, chuckled at that. "True, true. I don't think you're going to enjoy much of those Mel girls. Then again, if you need it, you could try the cook, although meat that old is too tough and stringy for me."

The villagers had long since scattered; undoubtedly they were back in the hills someplace, waiting until the slavers left.

Ahrmin had made no attempt to sneak up on Eriksen village; he had merely sailed the s.h.i.+ps along the coast, letting the Mel run and hide. This wasn't a slaving raid, after all; the purpose was to set up to capture or kill him, not procure hard-to-train Mel as slaves. A confrontation might have necessitated using some of their hard-purchased magical defenses against Clan Eriksen's wizardsa"the only magical facilities the slavers had with them, as no guild wizard had been willing to risk going up against the possible combination of Karl Cullinane and Arta Myrdhyn's sword.

It was easiest to chase the Mel away, although Ahrmin and the first party had managed to seize a dozen or so; the men had been killed when they proved too intractable for immediate taming, the seven women had been impressed into service in a hut that was used as a bordello by the slavers, a treat to be withheld for poor performance of duty.

Jason had chosen to be a dreadful shot with the slaver rifle; while he couldn't do anything about the screams at night, at least he didn't have to partic.i.p.ate.

He was more than vaguely sickened by his inaction. But what was he supposed to do? Take on more than a hundred men all by himself?

It wasn't fair. It was already too great a demand of an already overexacting universe that he kill Ahrmin to prove himself and save his father from getting killed; adding the additional requirement that he rescue some Mel he didn't even know or kill off two companies of slavers was just ridiculous.

He wouldn't do it; he didn't feel obligated to try. Not really.

Several bowshots offsh.o.r.e, Scourge bobbed lazily in the waves. Flail was somewhere over the horizon, waiting to locate Karl Cullinane's s.h.i.+p if he came that way, or to prevent its escape if it managed to slip into Melaweia"a.s.suming he could find someone foolish enough to grant him pa.s.sage to Melawei. The scuttleb.u.t.t was that he'd try the overland route; if so, there was going to be at least another tenday until he stepped into Ahrmin's trap. Ahrmin had announced yesterday that Karl Cullinane was definitely on his way toward here, and that everyone ought to keep alert for him.

Plenty of time, Jason thought.

All he needed was a chance. Just let him get close to Ahrmin with either a loaded gun or bow, and he'd finish that problem.

The chance hadn't come, yet. On the trip out, Jason and Doria had been on the Scourge, while Ahrmin had traveled ahead on the Flail, a faster, less-broad-beamed sloop, the same s.h.i.+p now lying off the coast to the west, waiting to drop off a horseman on sh.o.r.e to report that Karl had been spotted, or receive a signal from sh.o.r.e to reinforce the Pandathaway forces in Eriksen village.

I'll get him, Father, he thought.

The timing would have to be right. He'd have to find the opportunity sometime before his father arrived, and it would have to allow for an opportunity to get Doria out. Jason felt responsible for her, and was more than a little aware that she felt responsible for him. His woodsmans.h.i.+p was good; given a knife and bow, Jason could feed the both of them off the land on the trip overland.

"Deep thoughts, eh, lad?" Vikat said. The well-muscled blond fellow was only a year or so older than Jason, but, as a junior journeyman of the Slavers' Guild, he outranked all the rest in the squad, save only Hervian, the senior journeyman slaver. "Taren, Taren, whether you're going to join the guild or no, you're going to have to learn to concentrate on the task at hand."

Hervian chuckled again. "Fine one to talk, guild brother. I remember when you gelded that Salke for Lord Lund." He gave Jason a friendly nudge. "His hand was shaking so hard that instead of just cutting off the b.u.g.g.e.r's b.a.l.l.s, he sliced all the way througha""

"Shut your festering gob, guild brother," Vikat hissed. "Will you mock me in front of outsiders?"

Hervian gestured an obviously insincere apology, and fell silent, only to furrow his brow. "We haven't walked so far that we've neared the watch post, have we?"

Jason followed his gaze. The hoofmarks, instead of hugging the waterline, led up across forty meters or so of sand toward the treeline.

One of the mercenaries started to break into a trot.

"Carefully, now." Unslinging his rifle, Hervian stopped him with a gesture. "Slow and steady, now, we'll take it slow and steady. Check your loads, all."

The five men crept toward the treeline, Jason taking up a position a bit to the right and front, separating himself from others, just in case. They found the horses. .h.i.tched, a short way into the woods. The two animals, stripped of saddle and all gear except for an improvised rope halter, were idly chewing on some ferns around the base of an old oak.

"Look, over there," Jason said.

Off in the distance, Jason thought he could make out a shape, but it wasn't him.

Hervian pushed past him. "No."

Faces pale, almost yellow in death, both slavers hung upside down by one heel from an overhanging branch, their arms outstretched toward the ground as though raised. Each man had been neatly slitted under the chin, unmarked save for that.

Flies buzzed around their wounds, and around the clotted blood marking the sands beneath them.

"Cut them down, Taren," Hervian said, his voice quavering. "Cut them down."

Jason swarmed up the tree, then steadied himself on a limb, drawing and reaching out his bowie, neatly slicing through first one rope, then another, the riflemen below easing the bodies to the ground.

Jason dropped lightly to the trail as Vikat s.n.a.t.c.hed at a piece of parchment that had been tied to a nearby tree.

The young slaver's hands trembled as he read; wordless, he handed it to Hervian, who read it and handed it to Jason.

In steady Erendra script, the brown letters said, "I understand that you want to see me, Ahrmin. I wait for you."

It was unsigned.

Despite his rising gorge, Jason almost smiled. The dead slavers were all the signature that Father needed.

"Karl Cullinane," Hervian said. "He's here sooner than expected. Are you enough of a horseman to bring the news back to camp, Taren? For Master Ahrmin's eyes only, on my authority as a journeyman guildsman, understood?"

"Understood."

Doria was busy at work next to the big stewpot on the lee side of camp when Jason rode up.

In a strange sort of way, the hag illusion was starting to wear a bit thin. It wasn't that pieces of Doria were poking through, or anything like that. On the contrary, her illusion of Enna, the old, ragged, overweight cook, was too unchanging: Enna's wrinkled skin didn't redden or darken under the sun, her spa.r.s.e, dirty gray hair neither grew longer nor lighter, the ragged sack she wore as a dress didn't become more ragged or fall apart.

He didn't like it. There wasn't time to talk to her, though; he had to report to Ahrmin.

"Cook!" he shouted out imperiously as he dismounted and tossed her the reins. "You will take care of the horse." As he pa.s.sed the reins, their fingers touched momentarily; it was as though invisible sparks pa.s.sed between them.

Her eyes didn't widen, but she nodded slightly, then shook her head. "Patience, boy, patience," she whispered. "There's nothing we can do to help him. Not yet."

"We cana""

"We can wait. If we were to leave food out for him, he'd be sure that it's poisoned. Just watch and wait, and make sure when you're on night guard that he can't sneak up on you without seeing you first, understood?"

She was right. Jason would have to find some opportunity to shoot Ahrmin before Karl was captured, but that opportunity was not now.

It would have to be watched for, waited for.

She raised her voice. "Since when is it my task to feed and water the horses? Prepare them for the stew-pot, perhaps, buta""

"Enough," he said, addressing both her and two guards in front of the long lodge that Ahrmin had appropriated for himself. "I have news for Master Ahrmin, for him and him alone," he said, stripping off his weapons and pouch, removing only the parchment note that had been found on the bodies. "I must see him now."

Ahrmin was seated on a high-backed chair in the dark of the lodge, his face cast into shadow. He seemed to like the darkness, rarely venturing out into daylight, sleeping most of the day, sometimes walking the sands at night, his two huge bodyguards never far from his side.

They were there now. It wasn't that Jason was distrusted, but Ahrmin was cautious as a matter of policy; he never saw anyone alone.

There were two other men in the room, both short-bearded, dark-haired: Chutfale and Chuzet. Brothers from Lundeyll, they were renowned as a tracker-hunter team. Chutfale was said to be able to follow anyone, anywhere; Chuzet was by far the best crossbowman that Jason had ever seen.

"So," Ahrmin said, his voice distant. "He is here. I'd thought as much."

He lifted his hand, examining a gla.s.s sphere filled with a slimy yellow liquid. In it a dismembered finger floated, aimlessly. "But he is again protected. From this. But not from you, not from me."

Hefting the now-useless sphere in the palm of his hand, Ahrmin turned to the brothers. "Find him. Bring him to me; alive if you can, dead if you must. Take what help you need. But find him." Ahrmin turned to Jason. "You may go."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:.

The Butcher.

Ek som tyme it is craft to seme fle

Fro thyng whych in effect men hunte faste.