King Pinch (6 page)

Sprite-Heels, who watched his old companion as closely as the rest, formed a different opinion, one that he kept to himself. The halfling knew Pinch better than anybody and sometimes he held the conceit that he understood Pinch better than Pinch himself. Sprite was sure he could read the machinations in the old rogue's eyes, could divide them into patterns and stages. First the thief studied a guard, never one close to him, but one who was detached and unaware of the rogue's scrutiny. Sprite knew Pinch was finding the weaknesses, the passions, and the follies that the long ride betrayed in each man: Who gambled and lost poorly; who drank when he thought the captain wasn't looking; who shirked his duties; who betrayed others. All these things became Pinch's catalog of the levers by which he could move the men, elves, and dwarves of their escort.

After six days, the party came to a way-house on the southern road. It wasn't more than a rickety handful of a house and outbuildings enclosed in a palisade of sticks, but it offered protection from the icy sleet that had pelted them all day. The riders were frozen through to their bones. Even Cleedis, who by his station was better equipped than any of them, was chilled to his marrow. The horses were caked with mud and their hooves skittered across the sleet-slicked ground. It had been a painful lurching day in the saddle for everyone. The prospect of an inn, even a barn, right there in front of them, was a thousand times better than another night sleeping on half-frozen mud and pine branches.

A boy splashed through the melting snow, shouting out their arrival, so that by the time the Ankhapurans reached the gate, a band of grooms and farmhands faced them on the other side. The inn's staff was armed with a smattering of spears, scythes, and flails, the weapons of a ragtag militia. The signboard over the closed gate creaked in the wind, announcing that this was "The House of Pity."

"Where you be bound?" shouted one of the lot as he struggled his way to the front.

"We are Lord Cleedis of Ankhapur and his escort," shouted back the captain of the guard, the one Pinch knew was a brute to his men. "Who are you?"

"The landlord's cook," replied the cadaverously thin man who stepped to the front. He wore a greasy apron and carried a heavy cleaver, the uniform and tools of his trade.

"So much for the food," Therin whispered to Sprite.

"Well, open the gate, lackey, and give us a room for the night. My lord is not accustomed to waiting in the mud." The captain was flushed with impatience to be out of the foul weather.

With slow deliberation, the cook peered first into the woods on one side and then on the other, searching the shadows and the darkness for something. Finally he turned back to the captain. "Can you pay?

"Can we pay?" the officer sputtered. "Pay depends on service, lout!"

Now the cook slowly, and again very deliberately, looked over the riders, counting out the number on his fingers. When he'd counted both hands, his face furrowed in concentration until at last he nudged the man next to him with over-broad secrecy. Heated whispers flew until at last the second fellow held up his own hand and the cook continued to count. The captain barely suppressed his rage at this dawdling.

"Twelve!" Pinch yelled out when the count was clearly above three hands.

The cook and groom paused, looked at their hands, looked up, looked back at their hands, and then very slowly and deliberately began the count again.

The captain twisted in his seat to glower at Pinch, and for the first time in nearly a week the rogue beamed a wickedly cheerful smile and stoically endured the icy discomfort.

Behind Pinch a chorus of snickers and snorts struggled not to break into a round of guffaws.

When the pair's count reached three hands, every eye of the cold and wet escort turned on Pinch. The rogue only nodded and smiled.

"Three!" chimed Sprite's high-pitched voice.

The count began again.

The guards edged in closer, this time watching all four vagabonds.

At two hands, Maeve could stand the ludicrousness no longer, and a hysterical cackle burst from her lips. It pealed down the wooded lane.

The count began again.

The captain wheeled his horse back through the mud. "If they say anything -" he paused in midsnarl, realizing he could not carry out a threat against his master's guests. "Well," he finally continued with teeth chattering, "don't let them!"

Now the guards, sensing a pattern, paid particular mind to Therin. The big Gur smiled back at their fixed scowls and pointedly kept his mouth closed. The count passed one hand and he did nothing. Maeve, Sprite, and Pinch waited to see what he would do.

Two hands.

Therin didn't say a word.

Three hands.

The big man beamed in calm silence.

Seventeen…

Eighteen…

Nineteen…

Therin stretched his arms in a broad yawn. The guards reacted with the singing steel of drawn swords. The rude militia splashed back from the palisade fearful of a fight.

The count began again.

Pinch, Sprite, Maeve, and Therin all looked at each other and smiled.

In a night the color of simmered wine, the sway-backed inn breathed vaporous smoke from every crack in its wooden skin. As the men slouch-shouldered their way through the door, Therin drew off the last pair with the tempting rattle of dice. If the guardsmen expected a fair game, they didn't stand a chance; the Gur was a sharper with the barred bones. A quiet corner in the barn and a few hours of work would leave them poorer but probably no wiser.

The chairs inside had all been claimed, the benches overfilled with troopers. The small commons had little space for a squadron of troopers, but the innkeeper still managed to squeeze a few more customers into the space. Unimaginably, one more table was found for the three scoundrels. It barely fit at a corner in the back, which was all to Pinch's liking.

"Sour beer's all that's left," the landlord said, more as defense than apology. The spare man sloshed a kettle of brew onto the table, a stump-footed little creature of tin. Cold scraps and stale bread were the only choices left for dinner.

As they ate, the senior rogue let his eyes wander lest he notice the poor pickings before him. Since he was bored with the study of guardsmen, whose lives offered no imagination, Pinch concentrated on the non-Ankhapurans in the hall, a whole two tables' worth. It was clear from their seating -one table near the door, the other by the fire- that the two groups traveled apart. Those by the door Pinch had seen when he first arrived. The other party could only have arrived while he was stabling his mount.

There was a worth in studying the other guests, after all. If any were wealthy, there was always profit to be had in visiting their rooms before the dawn.

The two men seated near the door were garbed in hard-used traveling clothes, the type favored by old hands at the caravan trade -long riding cloaks waterproofed with sheep fat, warm doublets colored with the dried salts of sweat, and thick-sided boots stuccoed with yellow mud. Practical clothes for practical men with no obvious vanities that would mark them as good coneys to be snared.

The men themselves were as hard as their clothes. The first, who always kept an eye to the door, Pinch dubbed the Ox. He was huge, with a belly that rolled out beneath his doublet and quivered with any shift of his frame. The trembling flesh ill-concealed the, massive muscles of the man, though. Every time he reached for the capon that sat on the table between the two men, his swollen biceps threatened to burst the stitching of his doublet's seams. Though his face was clean shaven, it was nearly obscured by a wild mass of hair that hung in snarls and tangles.

The other man Pinch quickly dubbed the Lance -the Ox and the Lance, they were. The Lance was no more slender than Therin, though his shaved head made him look thinner. What truly distinguished him was that every move was a sharp strike using the minimum of effort for the maximum of gain. The Lance didn't tear at the capon, he dissected the choice meats from it with complacent ease.

It wasn't their dress or their frames that raised a caution in the rogue, though. There was a way about them that only those in the trade, for good or ill, would recognize. The way one always watched the door while the other discretely scanned the room; the way neither let both hands be filled at once; the way they held themselves on their chairs.

"Maeve, Sprite," Pinch whispered as he casually tore at a chunk of bread, "those two, what do you make of them? Hellriders?"

The halfling feigned a stretch as he leaned back to get a better look at them. "In disguise and come this far? Not likely."

Maeve set down her drink. "Hellriders is mean ones, Pinch, but I ain't never heard of them coming after someone on the road."

"Maybe not." The rogue stroked the rim of his mug. "Can you read them, Maeve?"

"Here? With all these people?"

Her leader nodded.

The wizard rolled her eyes in exasperation. "It ain't wise to use powers when you might get caught."

"Maeve, you know you won't. You're too good," Pinch flattered.

The woman harrumphed but was already digging out the material she needed. Pinch and Sprite pulled their chairs close to screen her from the others. The mystic words were a chanted whisper, the gestures minute tracings in the air. An onlooker would have thought her no more than a person distracted by her own inner dreams.

Without really looking at them, Maeve turned her unblinking gaze on the two men. This was riskiest part of the process, Pinch knew. A stranger staring at you the way Maeve did was always cause for a fight. When at last she blinked, Pinch was just as happy no one had noticed.

"You've got them dead on, Pinch. They're in the trade and none too happy tonight." Maeve smiled as she turned back to her dinner. "Got their nerves up, what with a room full of our handsome escorts. Don't know what they make of us, but they've set their eyes to the other company here. Ain't no more but some terrible thoughts I won't say in public."

Sprite sniggered. "Wouldn't have been on you now, would they? Or was you just hoping?"

Brown Maeve swivelled away from the halfling with a snap of her greasy, unwashed hair.

"Heel your dog, Sprite-Heels," Pinch rumbled. "You're none too sweet scented yourself.

"Maeve, pay this ingrate no mind. Those that count know your quality." Pinch put a soothing hand on Maeve's shoulder. "Now, dear Maeve, can you read me the other table?"

Her face a sulky pout, Maeve let her blank gaze wash for a moment toward Pinch, only to be warned off by the fierceness of his glare, shadowed by the curve of his tender smile.

"The other table, Maeve," he directed.

The witch-woman sighed and lolled her gaze where he nodded.

Meanwhile the old rogue studied their target. It was a small table by the fire, where sat a lone traveler, unusual enough in a countryside where few traveled alone. That wasn't the least of it, either, for the traveler was a woman -not unheard of, but just that much more distinguishing. The inn was in the land between lands, an area just beyond the reach of anyone who could claim it, and thus had been laid claim to by highwaymen and beasts of ill renown. The lone traveler who stumbled into this void was prey for any stronger ravager.

Ergo, Pinch reasoned, this lone woman was not weak, but possibly foolish.

"She's saying her words over dinner," Maeve puzzled out.

"Invoking what church? And what's her business?"

The sorceress stared owl-like before giving up with a sigh. "No good, that is, Master Pinch. She's got a most fixed mind. What only I got was an image of her roast chick and the thanks to some faceless power. Kept seeing it as a glowing orb, she did."

"Sound like any you know, Sprite?"

The little halfling's grasp of odd facts was a surprising source of answers. If he knew, it wouldn't be the first time he'd remembered some chestnut of useless lore to their mutual benefit.

This time Sprite-Heels shrugged. "Could be any number of trifling sun gods, let alone the big ones like Mask or the Faceless Ones."

Pinch leaned forward and looked at the woman with false disinterest. "What about that temple we did?" he asked softly.

"Not from what Maeve said. Scared, Pinch? She's probably just some wandering nun, set herself to doing good deeds on the road."

The human rapped his mug against the table in irritation. "She's more than that."

"He's right, you nasty little Sprite," Brown Maeve crowed. "She's tougher than some gentry mort. Got that from her, for certain."

"What more can you do, Maeve?"

Pinch was answered with a resigned slump. "No more, love. Spell's all spent."

Sprite, trying to restore himself to the pair's good graces, offered, "I could pinch her, see what we'd learn."

Her clothes were commonplace, sturdy, dusty, and dull, the mark of one with much sense but little coin. Pinch shook his head. "I'll not be your snap for the strike, halfling. Not worth getting caught. Have you forgot the rules? Never lay your coin on a lean horse or -"

" -your knife to an empty bung," Sprite finished. "I know the old rules. I just thought it would help."

"Ain't you two just the pair. Worried you're being hunted and worried you'll get caught when here we are, out where there ain't nobody and nothing! Not that we ain't got enough worries, what with your Lord Cleedis and all his soldiers, or do you two need to go searching for more?" Maeve snapped her words at them and then punctuated her tirade with a stiff drink. "One night in a decent place to sleep and all you pair do is peer at every stranger and guess which one's going to gut you. I'm telling you -you, Sprite-Heels, and you Master Pinch- to just quit peering under the bed sheets and drink!"

Both men, human and halfling, stared at her in surprise, thrown from their horses by her outburst. They looked at her; they looked at each other. There was nothing they could do but take up their mugs and drink until there was no more.

They drank until Therin reappeared with a purse full of extra coin and tales of how he cogged the dice to assure his wins. They drank some more to Therin's good luck, as if the Lady had any chance of swaying the Gur's dice. They drank until Sprite slid beneath the table and the innkeeper closed them down. Just in case, they took an extra skin upstairs, carrying it with more care than they carried Sprite-Heels, who had all the unconscious dignity of a sack of potatoes.

When the guards roused them before the too-early dawn, the four lurched down the stairs, their heads thick as mustard. They paled at the offering of bread smeared with bacon grease, and hurried themselves outside to gulp the farm-fresh air. It did little good except remind them of how miserable they felt. Trembly weak, they fitted the bits and saddled their mounts and unwillingly seated themselves for the day's ride. Even through all this, even though his eyes never quite focused and his head wouldn't stop throbbing, Pinch noticed last night's guests -Ox, Lance, and woman-were gone already. He wondered if each had gone a different route. The woman didn't matter, since she was not likely to see them again.

When all was ready, the troop, twenty-strong, plodded down the yellow-mud lane, lurching on their fresh mounts, until they overwhelmed the little track. Flanked by old tress that played father to stands of lush brambles, the group set out on the day's ride. Whether it was by word from the commander or just wicked luck, the trail was jolting and steep, rising and falling over gullies and streambeds. Every bounce reminded Pinch of just how miserable he felt.

"Don't you wonder where that priestess went?" Sprite asked with a cheerfulness that matched his name. Of the four, somehow the halfling was the only one unfazed by hangover; it was probably something to do with the runt's liver, most likely that it was a pure sponge. "Which way do you think, Pinch?" he pressed, though he knew full well the others could scarcely focus.

Pinch tried his fiercest glower which, right now, looked more like a pained squint. "What am I -a woodsman? Who knows in this muddy waste? Now shut up before I box you!" The rising tone of his own voice made the rogue flinch.

Snickering, Sprite-Heels whipped the pony he and Maeve shared safely out of the man's reach.

The ride continued, cold, wet, dull, and aching, through the morning and well into the afternoon. At one point, where the trail ran along a cut arched over with leafless elms and dead-gray vines, something coughed beast-like and the winter-dead branches rustled. The troop had to stop while a group of unfortunate soldiers slowly flanked the cut and beat the brush. Nothing came of it, but it delayed them an hour during which no one dared relax.

Perhaps it was that false alarm that caused them to almost blunder into a fight. The captain had given over command to a sergeant while he rode with Lord Cleedis to curry favor. The sergeant, in turn, was too busy with his flunkies to notice that the outriders were no longer so far out and the whole troop had closed into one small bunch. It was a bad way to travel, where one fireball could wipe them all out.

Thus it was that there was no one on point to shout " 'Ware!" when the soldiers slogged around the bend and straight into the midst of a battle. Right where the trail shored the bank of a half-frozen river, a ring of eight mud-splashed men -and then in a flash only seven-awkwardly stalked a single adversary. Armed with bills, hooks, and flails, the seven lunged with the stoop-shouldered awkwardness of peasants. Only one fought with any grace, so much that it took Pinch no time to recognize the Lance. Finding the swordsman, Pinch easily found the Ox.

The troopers were on top of the men before either side even knew it, the lead horseman splitting the ragged battle line from behind. The distance was to the footmen's advantage. A wild shriek tore from the lips of the nearest, and before the rider could throw down his useless lance, the billman swung his great poleaxe at the man. The blade scored the horse's neck, the beast reared and kicked, and ungoverned confusion erupted in the ranks. The closeness of the lane prevented any maneuver. The first man was thrown from his horse, and the panicked beast wheeled to gallop back down the lane. Almost immediately it crashed into the front rank of the troop, too close to part. Two more men and a horse foundered while a bloodthirsty war cry rattled the forest's dead leaves. The peasant bandits, for their dress of motley proclaimed them as such, sprang upon the fallen outrider, broad blades glinting wintry in the sun.