Act of Will (9 page)

They put me on first watch. I asked what I was supposed to do and Renthrette, her lips curled with the contempt she reserved for me, said, “You watch.”

That was really helpful. So I spent an hour sitting by the dying fire looking around through the night and reflected on the day. I had washed in a bucket of warm water until it was cool and brownish. I had eaten two raw carrots and some stewed mutton and potatoes flavored with the herbs Orgos found hereabouts. Not bad, but not duckling. Though I had presumed that Renthrette would do the cooking, she had left it all to Mithos and Orgos while she repaired a broken wheel spoke on the wagon, just to prove me wrong. The two men worked silently together, used to each other. How long had they been together? Ten years? More, perhaps. Ten years of tents and wagons and bloody snakes and swords. They must be out of their minds.

And I was with them. I had relieved myself in the bushes, drunk from a smelly waterskin in the wagon, and shot my little crossbow over and over until I could hit a tree at twenty paces every other time. I had been reprimanded by Mithos for bringing green wood and for shooting at live trees. I had been vaguely threatened by Garnet and ignored utterly by his good-looking sister. If things didn’t change soon, I was going to make a real pig’s ear out of the rest of my life.

I had watched Renthrette and her brother unpacking their stuff and laying it out. Everything was meticulously arranged: cooking pots stacked together, rope neatly coiled, horse bridles and harnesses untangled and hung up, mail corselet oiled and laid out, sword at the ready in case of emergency. Renthrette had spent much of the evening stitching some clothing, and I had watched her working with the same careful, regulated focus that typified the pair of them. I looked over to where she had bedded down in a small tent and thought about going to wish her good night, but figured she’d probably knife me as soon as I was in range.

The cicadas and crickets in the treetops buzzed and clicked smugly to themselves. Twice I heard an owl somewhere and tried to find it, wandering around the makeshift tents and trail fodder where the horses lay, but it just laughed at me invisibly. I nodded to Orgos, who lay awake inside the back of the wagon on a pile of boxes draped with the materials that had got us out of Cresdon.

“Have you done your watch?” he said, and his voice was low and hoarse.

“Not quite,” I said. “There isn’t much to watch, and if there was, I wouldn’t see it till it had bitten my leg off. Maybe nothing’s hungry. Garnet’s on next but he’s sleeping.”

“Then leave him be. I’ll do it. I can’t sleep anyway.” He sat up and dropped to the ground, stretching and pulling on his ring mail in an irritatingly easy motion. In the darkness he was just a shadow, save when he looked at me and I saw his eyes bright and clear. Taking one of those long swords of his he wandered over to where I had been sitting and said, “Get some sleep, Will. We have a long way to go tomorrow and we’re going to have to move fast, probably off the road. Whether the Empire comes after us or not, we’re in dangerous country and will be for a while. Sleep tight.
Don’t let the mountain lions bite. If they do
. . . well, I guess you bleed to death.”

“Funny,” I said. “Thanks.”

SCENE XI

Of Gorse and Wild Thyme

I
slept under the wagon in a sleeping bag of cotton so thin that I could feel every contour of the hard ground beneath me, and dreamed of the fight in the Cresdon pub when I had met the party. I was back in the chest and the soldier was opening it, seeing me, grinning . . .

And then . . .
something
.

I couldn’t remember it properly, but there had been a strange amber light. . . .

When I woke, my right arm numb and my back aching, I found myself wondering how my life could have been so screwed up in only twenty-four hours. Half an hour later, Mithos told me in a confiding voice that I wasn’t exactly pulling my weight as far as dismantling the camp was concerned. This was true. I started to tell Mithos that I had a bad back, but he just gave me one of those please-don’t-waste-my-time looks of his and tossed me a canvas bag that felt like it had a cow in it.

So I lugged bags and boxes back into the wagon and Mithos watched and prompted me to the thrilling act of high adventure I might try next: washing the breakfast pans. I fed the horses (at arm’s length). I stamped out the fire and buried the ashes. I put more stuff in the wagon. I wasn’t sure I could take all this excitement.

Orgos re-dressed the wound on my leg, which showed no sign of infection and would be gone altogether soon.

“Morning, Will,” said Garnet unexpectedly. “Will you be riding on the wagon again today?”

“I expect so,” I said guardedly. “Why?”

“Would you mind doing me a favor?”

I regarded him steadily and waited.

“It’s not a big job but my hands will be full since I’ll be riding escort. Some of the armor we acquired in Cresdon needs cleaning up.”

Of course: more menial labor for the party’s mentally subnormal help. He handed me a coarse, heavy sack, which clanked against my legs.

“There’s a wire brush, rags, some oil for the rust and the moving parts, and some polish to finish them off. Do you mind?”

I muttered that it was fine, anything to oblige, and so on, and he beamed at me, guessing how much it hurt.

“Thanks, Will,” he said, his green eyes smiling brightly, “I appreciate it.”

He slapped my arm good-humoredly as if to say “welcome aboard” or something similarly nauseating, and strode off to his horse. He was already in his armor, complete with helm, ax, and a leather-covered shield. He looked like an adventurer. I, however, looked like a metal polisher. I climbed onto the wagon and looked at the sack sulkily.

“Got a job?” said an irritatingly cheerful Orgos as he took his place.

“Of sorts,” I muttered.

“It’ll pass the time,” he laughed, flashing his teeth. “You won’t be wrestling cobras all the way to Stavis.”

“Hilarious as ever,” I said.

It was indecently early when we rejoined the road and turned towards the rising sun, with Mithos and Renthrette (who hadn’t spoken to me today) riding ahead and Garnet at the rear. All around us the trees were filled with the bright, twittering songs of warblers and the shrill stutterings of sparrows. Their cheerfulness annoyed me, so I concentrated on my bits of rag and rusty armor, but within another hour the heat had kicked in and they had all shut up.

Yesterday’s journey had seen us leave behind the last of the cultivated land east of Cresdon. As the patches of dry grass were replaced by parched, sand-colored earth or coarse heather and gorse, there was even less to look at. No distant houses, no grazing cattle. Nothing. The air became heavy with the aromas of wild sage, thyme, and sweat. It seemed we were leaving the humidity behind, but the temperature continued to rise. I bent over the rusty greaves and brushed them fiercely as the sweat poured down my neck.

“Drink,” said Orgos, passing me a water bottle. I did so: long gasping swallows almost too earnest for my throat to take. “You have to keep drinking,” he said. “By lunchtime we should have finished this bottle between us. And you should wear a hat, Will. Even a light helmet would keep the sun off.”

I grinned at his concern and went on burnishing the armor in my lap until I could see my hot, bored face in it. I oiled it and spent several minutes trying to decide where you were supposed to wear it. Orgos hummed tunefully to himself. I noticed when he stopped, but I didn’t look up.

“Will,” he said suddenly. “How are your eyes?”

“I can see this scrap metal in my lap pretty well, why?”

“Take a look over to the left there and tell me what you see.”

The very slight urgency in his lazy tone showed through, and I turned sharply to the left.

The wagon and the horses in front were throwing up dust in a thin ribbonlike cloud, but beyond it and the road, five hundred yards or so over in the gorse and heather, were horsemen riding parallel to us.

“Eight of them,” I said. “Empire troops?”

Orgos shook his head.

“Get into the back of the wagon and take the crossbow,” he said carefully, with a quick flash of his eyes into mine. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. Maybe nothing at all, but better to be safe. Go to the back, open the top flap, and make sure Garnet knows they are there. Then get yourself a spear and cover the rear. If you can’t hold it, fasten her up and come back to the front.”

For a moment I just listened; then I clambered through the hatch into the back, my heart thumping. I felt cold, but I had started to sweat. It was becoming clear now; the moment I had climbed up the Eagle’s balcony, I had begun some unbreakable chain of events. Terror was going to follow me about like an overfriendly dog. Or maybe a lion.

The back of the wagon was dark, hot, and bouncing erratically. I threw the bolt on the top flap with an unsteady hand and raised it to the roof, hooking it in place with a wooden peg. The brightness outside hurt my eyes. Garnet was riding close, his helm sparkling and his mouth set. He had unslung his ax from the thong on his saddle and he clasped it in his right hand. It looked huge and cruel against his thin, sinewy arm. He saw me and nodded slightly, his eyes meeting mine for an expressionless moment. I was conscious that we had increased speed and that Garnet’s dappled mare was in a full canter and sweating heavily. Things were slipping out of control again and my bladder seemed to have suddenly filled to bursting point.

Then I heard another horse close to the wagon, and Mithos appeared alongside Garnet. They spoke to each other briefly and he called to me over the noise of wheels and hooves, “All right, Will?”

I nodded, but my eyes were wide. My whole arm trembled as I dragged a short spear from the bundle in the dark interior and returned to my squat by the half-opened tailgate. I wondered if I should have taken an ax or sword but Orgos was right: With this I could lunge through the opening without committing myself.

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement behind the wagon and I glanced up to see Mithos and Garnet reining their horses. In the same instant, wood splintered to my right as the side of the wagon was hit by an arrow. Mithos bent his bow and loosed an arrow. Desperate to know what was going on, I leaned out and saw them coming.

The riders had split up. Three rode to the front; five charged the back. They weren’t Empire. For a second I considered ducking back inside and locking myself in, but the futility of that was obvious even in my rising panic. The front was under attack, so there was no point in fleeing in that direction. I couldn’t get out of the back without getting trampled to death, so I stayed where I was, spear and crossbow in hand, motionless as a cockroach that knows it’s been seen but doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do about it.

The wagon slowed to a halt and the air was torn by the shouts of our adversaries as they came at us. I caught a glimpse of a pinkish male face, red hair blowing back from under his helm and his eyes and mouth distorted by a roar of fury as his horse bore him into us. Garnet shrugged him off with his shield and swung his ax high as the other raised a short and heavy spear.

A man in leather and ring mail, his lance leveled murderously, was bearing down on Mithos in a full charge. Mithos waited and then, with impossible self-control, shot his bow. The arrow sped in a short horizontal path and found the bandit’s shoulder. He shuddered and his horse all but threw him as he struggled to regain control. By the time the next rider had galloped in close, long yellow hair flying behind him, Mithos had dropped the bow and drawn his sword. They met and their steel rang out.

Garnet traded blow and parry with the red-haired man. He held him off but looked around in alarm when another appeared, a heavy spiked mace in one hand. I aimed my crossbow with sweating palms and without a thought in my head. Garnet tried in vain to break from his adversary and face the newcomer as the redhead raised his spear to strike. I squeezed the trigger and the bow kicked.

The bolt struck him squarely between the shoulder blades. I don’t think it went all the way in, but he sort of tipped to one side and fell to the earth. Garnet looked from him to me for a split second and then heaved the bit of his ax at his new adversary. I stared.

Mithos slashed hard from above. As the blond man raised his sword to take the strike, Mithos undercut the parry and plunged the tip of his broadsword through the mail of the bandit’s stomach. The wounded man went still and taut. Blood foamed at his beard and he slumped forward. At this, Garnet’s assailant wheeled his horse and fled. The one Mithos had shot followed, hanging desperately around the neck of his horse, barely able to stay in the saddle. I stumbled towards the front of the wagon, but the enemy horses were charging away before I reached the hatch.

Once I got down I found another body on the road, but its face was unfamiliar. We had survived unscathed.

Suddenly, the enemy horse hooves had faded away and the empty land was utterly silent.

It hit me like a piece of pipe in a pub brawl. I dropped the cross-bow, which I hadn’t even remembered to reload, and found that my arms were shaking uncontrollably. My breath was coming in gasps, and my whole body was seized with shivering. I sank to my knees, fighting for air and a remnant of personal dignity. Neither was forthcoming.

The others gathered round me.

“Get him some water,” said Mithos hurriedly. “Easy, Will, it’s all over. No one’s hurt and you did just fine.”

“Yes, Will,” added Garnet in a deliberately cheerful tone. “That was a nice shot. I think you saved my neck there.”

Mithos and Orgos said nothing and returned their concerned gazes to me.

“Sorry,” I wheezed, “I seem to be coming down with something. It must be the heat. . . .”

“Don’t talk,” said Mithos.

I continued to shudder convulsively. Renthrette pressed a flask of water to my lips and I drank from it, the liquid spilling around my chin as my shaking hands tried to keep it in place. I thrust it away suddenly and took a long breath as if snatched from drowning.

To my further degradation, they laid me on a blanket by the roadside. I could feel the sun beating down but couldn’t convince myself that I wasn’t about to freeze. Mithos emptied a canvas sack and told me to breathe into it. That was the finishing touch, of course. I sat there with a bag on my head like the hunchback in a pub joke and wondered why on earth my body wouldn’t behave itself.

The sack smelled old and fusty but it somehow helped my breathing to steady. Gradually those shallow, wheezing gasps were replaced by deeper breaths that filled my lungs. I felt a weight lift from my chest and, as my temperature rose perceptibly, the shuddering and trembling eased to nothing. Orgos sat in the ditch beside me and put a strong arm about my shoulders. It was all crushingly embarrassing, and I was just considering the idea of keeping the bag in place for the rest of the day when there was a stutter of horse hooves on the road.

The redhead I had shot had dragged himself back onto his horse and kicked it into motion. They watched him go and looked back at me emerging sheepishly from my bag.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” I demanded.

“Why should we?” said Orgos quietly. “What would we do with him? Take him prisoner and lug him all the way to Stavis? Execute him? We would not.”

I caught a flicker of a glance between Garnet and Renthrette and wondered if they were all of the same mind. I was, for some reason, outraged. I clawed for some answer that would satisfy me.

“You could have found out who they were and why they attacked. They were probably working for the Empire,” I insisted, unsure why my voice sounded so unstable.

“The Empire does its own dirty work,” answered Garnet briskly. “They were bandits, no more. They keep watch for small trading caravans from Cresdon and hit them before they enter the Hrof wastes. It is not uncommon. There is no mystery about it. They just thought that attacking a couple of traders and three hired escorts would have been made worth the risk by whatever was in the wagon. It wasn’t. End of story.”

Close to the wagon, two horses strayed aimlessly and their riders lay on the hot road, the dusty stone beneath them stained red. I stared at them again and tried to batter the anger, depression, and exhilaration I felt into some more familiar emotion. The bearded man Mithos had killed lay on his stomach. His helm had slipped off and his long blond hair spilled onto the road like blood. He looked quite young. I turned quickly away.