Weapon of Flesh (5 page)

“That’s where you’re wrong, old man,” the burly man said, shifting his aim from the Master to the boy.  “I own this road, and you’ll pay up, or I’ll put a quarrel in your young son’s eye.”

“Very well, you brigand!” the Master snapped, reaching to his belt and plucking out a bulging pouch.  “This is all the real money we have.  The rest is just goods, things we’d planned on selling.  Take the money and go, but leave us the goods to barter in town for something to eat this winter.”  He tossed the jingling pouch at the leader, forcing him to lower his weapon to catch it.  The others relaxed visibly as their leader laughed and hung his crossbow over the saddlebow.  He loosened the strings and drew the bag open, but instead of coins pouring out, a skeletal hand much too large for the bag to hold lunged from the dark interior.

“Kill them all, boy,” the Master said in a whisper as the long, clawed fingers plunged into the man’s throat.  As the bandit fell from the saddle, screaming through the blood flooding his throat, the boy blurred into action.

He leapt into the air, tossing up the stone that was clenched between his feet and catching it as he spun.  Before his feet hit the ground, he sent the stone whistling at the nearest bowman, scattering bits of skull and brains among the bandits.  A crossbow cracked, but the boy had already calculated the bolt’s trajectory and intercepted the shaft in flight.  Spinning again, he flung the heavy crossbow bolt into the eye of the next bowman, and then bounded past their dying leader, his foot snapping the bow of another before his fist smashed the astonished man’s throat.

A bow twanged, the hornbow from the sound, but the Master had erected a shield of shimmering energy, and the arrow glanced off.  The boy snatched a dagger from the man choking at his feet, and flung it into the chest of the bandit who had not yet fired his weapon.  As he turned to the other crossbowman, he saw that the man had dropped his weapon and drawn a long saber.  The bandit’s sturdy mount bore down on the boy, the curved sword cocked back to take his head.  The boy simply ducked under the blow, grabbed the saddle and swung up behind his attacker.  His hands grasped the man’s head and twisted sharply.  Hoofbeats rang in his ears as he stared into the man’s dying eyes and thrust him out of the saddle.  The woman was fleeing.

He was untrained in horsemanship, so chasing her was out of the question.  He hopped out of the saddle beside the dead man, pulled a bolt from his quiver, and retrieved the discarded crossbow.  There was a crank for cocking the thing, but the boy simply placed the stock against his chest and pulled the string back until it clicked.  He placed the quarrel in the notch, took aim, adjusted for windage and fired at his fleeing foe.

She toppled from the saddle, the bolt lodged squarely between her shoulder blades.

“Well done!”  He turned to the Master’s voice, but stopped in shocked surprise.

“Mast --”

He leapt, but it was too late.

Another crossbow cracked, and the thick shaft plunged through the back of the Master’s neck before the boy’s fingers could intercept it.  The last bandit, who had been hiding behind them in the trees, spurred his mount into the deep forest.  The boy wrenched the heavy bolt free and considered his chances of knocking the fleeing bandit from the saddle; they were miniscule, so he dropped the bloody shaft and surveyed the scene.

Seven bandits lay dead, their mounts scattered, some still running.  The Master lay slumped over his knees in the seat of the wagon.  One bandit had escaped.

He had failed.

“Master,” he said, doubting that he would receive an answer.  The bolt had severed the spine.  The Master was dead.

The boy’s head cocked to the side as his eyes took in the details that his mind was ill-prepared to handle.  He had seen death.  But this was the
Master
. 

The boy stood on the wagon for some time, wondering what he should do.  He had failed to do as he had been instructed, which troubled him.  But the Master was dead, which made him feel strange.  There would be no repercussions for his failure, but there would also be no instruction from the Master as to what to do next.  Should he dispose of the bodies, as he’d seen the servants do?  He didn’t know how.  Should he stay here?  He doubted that anything would change if he did.  The Master would stay dead, and he would be no closer to his destiny.

“Destiny,” he muttered, wondering why he said the word aloud.  He looked down the road in the direction that they had been traveling.  The dead brigand still lay there; her mount had returned and was nosing the corpse.

Midday arrived, so the boy ate an apple and a piece of jerky from the cart’s stores, thinking only that this had been his instructions at midday the previous two days, so he should do the same today.  When the shreds of core and stem dropped from his fingers, he had made a decision.

“Destiny,” he said clearly, dropping from the wagon to the road.

How far?

There was only one way to find out.

What is my destiny?

The answer was the same.

For the first time in his life, the boy initiated an act of his own volition: He placed one foot in front of the other in the direction that he knew his destiny lay.  He then repeated that act, then again, until he was walking.  He did not look back, did not regret and did not mourn the loss of the only man he’d ever known.  Such things were not part of his makeup.  There was only a burning curiosity about his destiny, what it was and where it lay?  And would he know it when he found it?

He walked away from the wagon without taking a single thing with him.  The two sturdy draft horses stood in their traces, the wagon sat there, full of their supplies and equipment, the Master still slumped dead in the seat.

He had been trained to kill, not to survive.

The boy walked through the rest of the afternoon, his pace somewhat faster than the plodding gait of the Master’s wagon.  When darkness began to descend, he slowed, thinking for the first time about food.

His steps faltered, the weight of his very first decision crashing down like a stumbling block.  There would be no stew tonight.  The Master had made the stew, and the Master was dead.  He looked back in the direction of the wagon.  There was food in the wagon, he knew, and he could be there easily before dawn.  He would miss dinner, but he might yet have breakfast.

His head turned the other direction; his destiny lay somewhere down this road.  How far could it be?  He was hungry, but not starving, and at this particular time his curiosity burned more urgently than the empty pit of his stomach.  He estimated how far he could travel without food, but the information gained him little.  He did not know how far he had to go, or even how much road there was.  Surely it couldn’t go on forever.

He walked on.

The night descended, and his eyes took on the faint glow of the magic, illuminating the road for him to see.  His mind mulled over the decisions he had made, wondering how he could have improved them as his feet trod on, tirelessly eating up the miles between him and his goal.

 Chapter
IV

W
hen darkness began to descend the following day, hunger started to vie with his curiosity much more urgently.  Thirst was less of a problem.  Water from any of the roadside puddles quenched his thirst adequately, but hunger, he found, was a type of pain to which he was not immune.  It was a frustrating dilemma.  He tried eating some of the grass and leaves growing beside his path, but they tasted foul and offered him little energy.  He saw many a squirrel and bird, and knew he could knock one out of a tree easily with a stone, but he also knew the meat had to be cooked before he could eat it.  He knew nothing about cooking except that it required fire, and he knew nothing about building a fire.

His pace slowed to a more conservative gait; he was not truly tired, not yet, but he had decided that he wanted to find his destiny before starvation found him.  This was the pace that traded miles for energy at the most economic rate.

As the night deepened, a sound that did not blend into the usual night-time noises of the forest pricked his ears, snapping his attention into focus.  The sound had come from far ahead, beyond a low hill where a faint glow could be seen against the darkening sky.  He heard another sound, metal against crockery and the lilt of a woman’s voice.  He moved forward warily, remembering the Master’s words about the dangers of the lands off the plateau.

He topped a small rise and moved into the forest for better concealment; then crept through the undergrowth for a better view of what lay beyond the hill.  The tidy little collection of buildings that would barely merit the description of “village” did not look very threatening, but he had learned from his instructors that appearances could deceive.  He moved forward cautiously, his steps disturbing not a leaf nor making a sound.

Unfortunately, the road passed directly through the little village.  There were nine small buildings made of wood and one made of stone on its lower half, which was the only one to boast a second floor.  They were not built for defense and did not look at all formidable.  When the woods gave way to pasture, and stone fences girded the road, the boy was forced to either walk in the open or take a wide detour that would cost him unknown miles and hours.

He made a decision—he was getting good at making decisions, this being his third—and stepped into the open.  He paused, listened, deemed it safe enough and strode cautiously down the road.  His intention was to simply walk through the little town, but even before he reached the first building, a tidy little house with a pen of milling swine and a white painted porch, he smelled food.

It was not so easy to make out through the pungent odor of the swine yard, but he definitely smelled freshly baked bread, roasted potatoes and brazed pork.  His mouth began to water and his stomach growled loudly.  He cinched his cloth belt more tightly around his slim middle, trying to stifle the sound.  He did not want to be betrayed by the noise; it might provoke some kind of attack from the people who lived here.

He was hearing many noises now: clinks and clatters of metal, pottery and glass, the dull thud of metal biting into wood, the murmur of voices, and the occasional higher pitch of laughter.  He walked on, his gaze flickering among the faint movements behind windows, the shifting light of candles and lanterns; even the flitter of a silent flying owl gliding overhead caught his eye.  The bird settled to a perch on the gable of the tallest building, its head swiveling to scan the twilight road.

The tall building was set back from the road further than the others, its front yard lined with hitching posts.  A large turning yard and a tidy stable were framed by split-rail fences to the left of the main building.  He could see someone in the stable pitching hay into the stalls, and quickened his pace.  When his steps brought him to where the wind carried the scents of the inn’s kitchen across his path, his mind virtually exploded with the fabulous aromas of cooking meats, baking breads and pastries, stewed and spiced vegetables and the pungent scent of ale.