Kingmaker

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Hunter’s two-part trap worked perfectly. The first part was a simple pitfall, with razor-sharp stakes at the bottom to cripple anyone who stepped in it. He’d disguised the pit poorly, as if he was in a hurry or just plain incompetent, so that whoever came along would step past the pit and hit the second part, the real trap. That was a sapling, its branches whittled to deadly spikes and then the whole tree bent down and away so that when the trigger was tripped it would whip across the trail. A goblin warrior now dangled from the spiked sapling, dead as could be. It was a big one, as far as goblins went. Alive he had probably stood four and a half feet tall, and his filed-sharp tusks were longer than Hunter’s fingers. His chest and arms carried the scars of dozens of fights, his hair was braided with garish feathers of indigo and scarlet, and he wore a crude silver torque around his throat. He’d carried an ironwood club with a couple of jagged chunks of obsidian set in it to rip gashes in flesh, but the club now lay in a pool of blood under his feet, which hung a hand’s width above the trail.

“Not a bad catch,” Hunter said. He grasped the goblin’s head by its lank green hair and looked into its wide, glassy red eyes. Then he lopped its head off with his ax and tossed it down the trail, back the way it came.

“A big one,” Chekwe agreed. “And fresh.”

It was fresh. Blood still dripped slowly down its chest and legs to drip off its toes into the pool below.

“Suppose its friends are still nearby?” Hunter asked. There were plenty of tracks in the dust of the mountain trail, and by the scuff marks they had left in a hurry when this big fellow got spiked through the sternum.

“Goblins don’t have Quamdamn friends,” Chekwe spat. “But sure, they’re probably nearby. Probably bickering over who the chief is now.”

Hunter wiped his bloody hand on his robe and drank in the view of the valley to his south. The sun was low in the west and threw its beams through a few clouds and cast long shadows where the steep mountains loomed over the jungle, turning the dense green foliage nearly black. Down in the creek bottom to the south he could see a long blaze of open ground, cattle grazing land. There was a farm there, a few miles to the east, out of sight from his vantage point. He’d scouted it a few times. It was a quiet place with a decent herd of cattle and a few goats.

“Maybe we’d better track them down,” Hunter said. “I wouldn’t want them hitting that ranch.”

“I’m all for killing goblins,” Chekwe said. “But I thought we were supposed to stay out of sight. Where there’s a ranch, there’s people.”

“There’s a few,” Hunter nodded. “A couple of hands. Greenies. A brown woman, too.”

“Oh, you’d notice that,” Chekwe giggled. “Ever get close enough on your scouts to get a gander at her papayas?”

“You’re disgusting. She’s probably the owner. Probably a gentlewoman. And probably married.”

“Actually, her husband probably went off to war and got himself killed, and now she yearns to be comforted,” Chekwe giggled again. “Too bad you’re a monk. Although you are the worst Quamdamn monk I’ve ever known.”

“I may be,” Hunter shrugged. “But are we going to go after those goblins or not?”

“Hell yes!” Chekwe replied.

Hunter slid his ax into a ring on his belt and picked up his spear from where he’d set it. Chekwe drew a wide-bladed sword and hefted a bossed shield and then they moved, scrambling down the mountain path, easily following the tracks of the goblins who had recently fled this way. The trail dropped several hundred feet, nearly to the creek, where it forked to run in both directions along the stream. At the fork there was a cluster of goblins, less than a dozen, but making more noise with their shrill chittering than a troop of monkeys. Hunter had no idea what they were saying, but the way they were waving clubs and obsidian daggers at each other made it clear that they were arguing over something.

The raging goblins might have come to blows in a moment and done Hunter’s work for him, but Chekwe wasn’t waiting. He vaulted into the cluster, bowling over half the group with his shield and killing with savage sword-thrusts. Hunter was right behind, using the reach of his spear to skewer goblins who were trying to flee.

The fight, such as it was, was over in the time it might have taken to blink twice. Hunter stood, breathing slightly faster than usual, and looked at the wreckage of the little goblin band. There were eight bodies, all bleeding horribly and dying quickly, most spasming and mewing in agony.

“Well, that was hardly any fun,” Chekwe grumbled. “Though their twitching is satisfying.”

“They’re goblins, but we still shouldn’t let them suffer,” Hunter said. “They do feel pain.”

“Not enough,” Chekwe growled.

Hunter ignored his friend and busied himself with beheading the dying creatures. He tossed the heads to Chekwe, who caught them and stacked them in a little pyramid at the fork in the trail.

“Heh,” he chuckled. “Nothing says ‘Stay off my trail’ like a good stack of goblin heads.”

Hunter eyed the grim pyramid, then looked east up the trail.

“Chekwe,” he called a soft, sharp warning.

“What? Hell.”

Forty or fifty yards away they heard footsteps on the trail, a pair or more of men walking slowly and carefully up the path.

“Into the bushes,” Hunter hissed. He and Chekwe slipped into a rank growth of ferns that rioted around a jumble of boulders.

Twenty yards away a couple of men came around a bend in the trail. It was a pair of greenies, older fellows by the streaks of blue in their dark hair and their weathered faces. They were ranch hands, judging by their rugged work trousers and cotton shirts, and a gnarly and ready pair by the look of their sour faces and their weapons. The one in front held a crossbow, quarrel in the groove and string drawn tight. The other held a cane knife in one hand; the other arm stopped short at the elbow.

The two old men caught sight of the ragged goblin corpses, the blood-spattered earth and foliage all around, and then the pyramid of goblin heads.

“Holy Quam,” the one-armed man breathed.

The crossbowman’s face turned pale green, but he kept his weapon steady, slowly scanning the ground and the brush around the slaughter site.

“This just happened,” he said. “I mean, right now.”

“Who?”

“Someone who likes goblins less than me,” the crossbowman said. “Someone who likes to kill. Someone I don’t want to meet.” He edged backward, and the one-armed man beside him edged back too.

Chekwe looked up at Hunter and mouthed,

“We should kill them.”

“No!” Hunter mouthed back with a single violent shake of his head.

The two old men backed their way around the turn in the trail and then, by the rapid sound of their footfalls, they took to their aged heels and ran.

“Why didn’t we kill them?” Chekwe said out loud.

“Because they’re innocent men!” Hunter cried.

“But they know we’re here!”

“No, they don’t. They know someone killed some goblins, but they don’t know we’re the ones.”

“They’ll tell tales, to someone who’ll tell tales, and before you know it they’ll be telling the tale in Nezpot. This isn’t a big province, Hunter, and if your sister is half as Quamdamn smart as you say, she’ll hear about it and know it’s us.”

Hunter peered down the trail after the retreating ranch hands. He bit the inside of his lip.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

“Oh hell,” Chekwe spat. “You just don’t want to kill people. Fine. Bring your sister down on our heads. I don’t give a damn. But I do know I’m thirsty. I’m going back to camp to drink.”

Chekwe turned without another word and headed back over the mountain. Hunter stood, watching his friend go one way, then turning and looking down the eastward trail after the ranch hands.

It’s not so bad to not want to kill people, he thought. Quam knows there’s been enough of that.

He trailed along after Chekwe, taking his time up the steep path. At the top, he paused again to look back over the ranch in the south valley. Night was falling and the grazing land was folded in shadow. He wondered for a moment about the two men they’d let live, whether they would go to some tavern and tell the tale of the pyramid of fresh goblin heads. Maybe they’d go tonight. Or maybe they weren’t the tavern type. Maybe they were honest and sober men who went to bed early and got up with the sun.

Quam, he prayed, wouldn’t it be nice to have some sober friends. He stood for a while, letting full night fall around him. Stars flashed gold in the sky, and the moon hung like a glinting silver bangle. A zephyr stirred on the mountaintop, cool refreshment he knew he wouldn’t be able to feel down in the jungle-choked valley, and he turned his face into the breeze. He closed his eyes to meditate on Quam, but instead of prayers or paeans coming to mind, all he could think of was glassy bloodshot goblin eyes and spurting black goblin blood. After a few minutes he opened his eyes again. I tried, he prayed. About as hard as I ever do.

Hunter shook himself and turned back toward home. He left the mountaintop clearing and stepped into the jungle and its heavy darkness, its thick canopy blotting out the stars as if Quam himself had thrown a heavy blanket across the sky. He had no trouble finding his way despite the treacherous footing on the mountain path. He let the feel of earth and stone and roots under his bare feet guide him, along with the sound of the stream below, and the noise of ten thousand bugs and frogs taking up their nighttime clatter.

By the time he reached their farm clearing, Chekwe was cooking supper and drinking hard. The smell of stew beans came from a little pot over the fire. The smell of rum came from the drinking horn in Chekwe’s hand. The smell of rum came from Chekwe’s breath and clothes and skin, too. He was watching the flames and stroking the cracked-leather scabbard of a sword he held across his lap. It wasn’t his own sword, it was an ancient thing with a plain hilt: worn hardwood riveted to a full tang of bronze, a brass pommel, and no crossguard.

“We’re supposed to be hiding that thing,” Hunter said crossly, pointing at the sword. “Not taking it out and petting it.”

Chekwe looked up. His silver eyes glinted in the firelight and his deep purple hair gleamed nearly pitch black.

“It’s Kingmaker, the Prince of Swords. Someone ought to use it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

Chekwe ignored him and went on in a sing-song voice. “You say we can’t use it ‘cause your sister has a homing stone that’ll lead her straight to us if we even draw the thing. Fine. Set a couple more traps, like the one that got the goblin. Then draw the sword and bring her right here, on our ground, and kill her. Then we can quit hiding in the Quamdamn jungle and have some good fun. A tavern for me, a brothel for you.”

“No! First of all, we’re not killing Tennea unless we absolutely have to. Second of all, I’m not going to a brothel. When did I ever go to a brothel?”

“Maybe you should.”

“No! Now put that thing away. The more you stare at it and pet it, the more you’re going to want to use it.”

“I already want to use it,” Chekwe pouted. “Besides, wasn’t it one of your own poets that said, ‘The sword unsheathes itself’?”

“Poetry is nonsense set to meter.”

“Maybe your poetry. Ours is lilting and magical! ‘Nanana, bolabo, nanamu’,” he sang, giggling, suddenly childish. His high-pitched drunken voice always struck Hunter as odd. Chekwe was short, even for a greenie, but his scar-ravaged face made him look like he’d be a violent drunk, not a silly one.

“And you call our poetry nonsense?” Hunter sighed and squatted by the fire. “Is this ready?”

Chekwe nodded, then went on about the sword.

“When was the last time someone drew it?”

“Don’t know,” Hunter grunted. He pulled a horn spoon out of his daily pouch. He tried a bite of stew beans. “Hot!” he cried. “Hot as hell!”

“The pot’s been on the fire for hours,” Chekwe said.

“I mean the spices. What the blazes did you put in there?”

“I got some peppers from Quarla last time we were up at her place. I put ‘em all in. I keep forgetting you grew up with butter and cream for every meal. But what do you think Kingmaker does?”

“I dunno,” Hunter mumbled around another mouthful of fiery beans. “Maybe you could use it to cut things? Stab people?”

“No, no. The Prince of Swords has got to have some sort of power. A spell or enchantment or some kind of scary mojo. Why else would anyone keep a bronze sword for three hundred years?”

“All I know is you kiss the pommel when you swear fealty to the emperor, and then you don’t ever want to break your oath. It might be an enchantment. It might just be the oath.”

“So, we stole a bronze sword with no special powers? Unless you count ‘shattering on impact with a steel blade’ as a special power. Hell, we might as well melt it down for belt buckles. Quam’s buttocks.”

“You don’t have to blaspheme,” Hunter said. “I’ve told you a dozen times, it’s not the blade that counts, it’s the symbol. Now, are you going to eat?” He gestured at the stew pot with his spoon.

“No, I’ve got this,” Chekwe raised his drinking horn.

“You’ve been hitting that pretty hard lately,” Hunter said, trying to keep his voice mild.

“It helps me sleep,” Chekwe said. He took a deeper draught of rum to make it clear that he wasn’t laying off.

“If you want to sleep well, you ought to pray instead of getting drunk. Quam gives comfort to those that ask.”

“Is that why you cry out when you have bad dreams?” Chekwe shot back.

“The dreams are getting better,” Hunter claimed.

“I’ll start praying when you’re all the way better,” Chekwe sneered.

“You should at least try,” Hunter said. “It helps me.”

“Heh. You hardly ever meditate.”

“Yes, I do, just not around you.”

“Oh, is that what took you so long up on the mountain after I came back?”

Hunter kept his mouth closed and stared at the fire.

“Huh?” Chekwe prodded. “Is that what you were doing up there? Meditating? Or…or maybe you were staring down at that ranch, trying to decide when you’re going to go meet that woman. That’s why we went after those goblins, isn’t it? You don’t want me to use Kingmaker ‘cause we have to stay hidden, but you can go chasing skirts. Quam’s hairy buttocks.”

Hunter sighed and ignored the blasphemy.

“I’m not chasing skirts,” he said. “We’re going to stay hidden. We’ll scout well to the east. If those two cattle herders tell tales and someone comes up the valley, we can go deeper into the jungle. Or further down the coast. Whichever direction you want.”

Chekwe grunted and sipped his rum. Hunter fell silent and spooned beans methodically into his mouth. It was like eating a scorpion, or one of the horrible plants the locals called cactus. And yet, the peppered beans were good, too. They were, Hunter thought, like so many other things in this strange, sun-scorched southern land. Much of Orzan was beautiful, but if it wasn’t as hot as hell, it was sharp or poisonous or venomous or clawed or tusked or fanged.

Holy Quam, it might be best to not meet that rancher woman, he thought. Then he shook his head and put the unknown woman out of his mind. He had bigger worries, like keeping Chekwe from getting too drunk and doing stupid things. He gulped the last of his beans, burped, and got up to go use the latrine. When he came back Chekwe was still caressing Kingmaker’s scabbard.

“Night, Chekwe,” Hunter said. “Leave the sword in the sheath.”

“You too,” Chekwe leered.

Hunter went into their thatched hut and stripped off his belts in the dark, hanging sword and ax on a peg. He lay down in his hammock and stared into the pitch black above him. He reached out to touch his sword in the dark. It was plain, old iron, but it was trusty and strong and keen. If bounty hunters or soldiers or, Quam forbid, Tennea herself came for him and Kingmaker, plain old iron would have to be enough.

Hunter closed his eyes. Again, he saw broken and bleeding goblins. He pushed away the goblins and reached out for a memory, even a fleeting image, of a woman he’d once had. Ayla. It’s been so long. Most holy Quam, forgive me for asking, but let me dream of Ayla tonight.

Sometimes Quam granted that prayer and let Hunter catch glimpses of her, glimpses that vanished when he opened his eyes. He could remember her body, though, her kisses and whispers in the dark. He knew her skin had been cream-white, warm, fragrant. He knew that unlike Chekwe’s hellish peppers, she had been soft and smooth, like sweet cream and butter. She’d had no tusks, or claws, or fangs. And not even a hint of venom.