Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (79 page)

“What the blazing hells was
that
about?” he
asked harshly.  Colbey’s eyes never so much as flickered.

Dietrik studied the wall tops.  “You’re bloody lucky
the Homeguard didn’t catch wind of that little stunt.”

“Right!” Marik continued.  “If they had, you’d be
having your hide kicked through those gates right now no matter how great a
fighter you are!  What in all creation were you thinking?”

“Are you reneging on your word?  On your
sworn
word?” Colbey asked in a near whisper.  His devouring gaze still inspired in
Marik the feeling of standing on a quicksand pit.

“About that,” Marik addressed while firmly pushing
away his discomfort.  “What makes you think I’m going to leave the band on your
account?”

“You swore to aid me when the time arose that I needed
you!”

“And you also agreed not to leave me in the dark! 
Have you forgotten that?  ‘I will help you unless I have a strong moral reason
not to’. 
That
was our agreement.  So if you want my help, start
explaining why and what and where!”

Colbey glared at him.  His dangling fist tightened
until the knuckles whitened.  “You refuse to go with me?”

“Go where?  You haven’t told me anything yet, and I’m
not about to quit the band and travel for months without damned good reason!”

They spent the next moments in a contest of wills. 
Dietrik glanced between them as they stared each other down until at last
Colbey, without explanation, whirled to storm away.

Not sure why he did so, except perhaps that his
instincts demanded it, Marik opened his magesight to peer at Colbey.  The
scout’s aura shocked him.  Gone was the mossy green that had always defined the
man.  It had faded to a dull color barely recognizable as its former shade.

But most shocking was the jet black rents streaking
through Colbey’s nimbus.  Marik could not see Colbey’s body through those
parts.  The midnight tears were rips in the etheric plane’s fabric, or great
swaths left behind by a brush dipped in tar.

“Gods above, mate,” Dietrik uttered in a sigh.  “I
don’t know what all he’s been through since he left for Tullainia, but I care
little for what it has done to him.”

“He’s exhausted, that’s all,” Marik explained in an
effort to convince them both.  “I’m sure he arrived home this moment.  Rest and
regular food should put him back to rights.”

“I hope so.  I do not relish being anywhere near him
otherwise.”

*        *        *        *        *

“Don’t grow impertinent with
me
, Colbey,”
Torrance warned the ragged scout across his desk.  “Your favors have already
been called in.”

“I ask you for nothing,” Colbey responded tightly.  “I
am telling you what choice you face.”

“My concerns are for the Crimson Kings as a whole. 
You believe I care enough about any single man within the band to allow them
free rein to the degree you apparently think you command?”

“The quality of the whole is dependant on the quality
of the individuals.  So, yes, I believe you care.  You care that much about
me.  And I know it.”

“I would not care if you were Basill Cerella reborn! 
We may be mercenaries, but no one in this band dictates to me!”

Torrance glared at Colbey, who returned the self-sure
confidence with an unflinching gaze no less haughty.  After a moment, Colbey
announced, “Then I will be off.  Other matters call to me.”

“Hold,” Torrance ordered when Colbey made to leave. 
He paused to consider his next comment’s phrasing, looking for words that would
not admit the truth of Colbey’s assessment.  “You have not yet given me your
reports on the situation in Tullainia.”

“I am free to quit this band whenever I choose to,”
Colbey reminded the commander.  “If you wish me to stay long enough to deliver
my reports, then you know what will convince me to remain.”

“Why are you insistent on this?”

“I have my reasons.”

Torrance shook his head in a negative.  “The band, and
everything that happens within it, are my concerns.  You will explain, or I
will watch you walk out that door.”

Colbey hesitated before answering.  “I have a
particular interest in him.”

“Because of what you two accomplished together at the
Hollister?”

The scout opened his mouth to reply, closed it
quickly, then simply replied, “Yes.”

“So why now?  Why not last winter?”

“From what I have seen,” Colbey said slowly, his words
carefully considered and drawn out, “I will need a capable shieldmate to fight
against them.”

Torrance studied Colbey deeply for long moments.  If a
fighter and loner of Colbey’s stature were admitting this…  “I want you to
report everything you know by nightfall.  Here, in this office, as soon as you
unpack and eat.”

“You agree?”

“Yes.  Go on.”

Colbey nodded.  Before he made it through the door,
Torrance called out, “Colbey.”  When the scout looked back, the commander
added, “This time you had valuable information.  Next time, it will not
matter.”

After the man left without acknowledging Torrance’s
promise, he rang the small bell on his desk.

“Yes, commander?” Wainright asked, entering the
office.

“Send a note to Janus,” Torrance instructed his
secretary while he shuffled through papers on his desk, looking for the latest
estimates on Tullainia’s problems.  “Tell him that Colbey, Second Squad, is
immediately being transferred to Ninth Squad, Fourth Unit.”

*        *        *        *        *

That night, Beld snarled, “Don’t you be second
guessing me!  I had him fat, dumb and happy until that bastard interfered!”  He
pounded his fist on the table.  A harsh gasp followed when pain shot through
his bandaged arm.

“It seems relying on you was an act of foolishness,”
Tallior replied coldly.

Beld scowled.  Veji defended their group.  “Ain’t our
fault!  We ‘bout had them out the gate when that cracker man popped out of the
ground!  Look at what he did to Beld!  Tried to off him!”

“I don’t care about that!  What I care about is the
fifteen men with poisoned arrows I had to pay to wait in those woods!”

“Don’t put yourself in a fit,” Beld shot back.  “They
didn’t do the killing, so you’re covered!”

“As a matter of fact, I am not,” Tallior sneered
back.  “I am not dealing with whatever rabble you may be used to.  Rain or
shine, I still need to pay them, even if they end the day without drawing
strings!  I used the last of my ready coin on your assurance to have them
outside this afternoon!”

“I thought you been saying funding wouldn’t be an
issue.”  Beld wanted to put Tallior on the spot.  His arm hurt like all hells,
and pretty boy wanted to split hairs as if none of his plans had ever hitched
before.  “Your boss was supposed to be a high dealer who wanted him out of the
way.”

Tallior rose, his hands flat on the table.  “You
haven’t the slightest idea how matters like this proceed.  Is the world so
simple to you that you imagine a handful of roughnecks in an alley can simply
throw your man in a sack and lump him up?  Only idiots would fall to that end,
and especially not a mage!  Not the dumbest alive, I’ll warrant!”

“And your fancy archers are so much better?” Beld
sneered.

“Yes,” Tallior returned the sarcastic tone, “they
certainly are.  The best way to kill a mage is from a distance.  We paid high
coin to learn he is an actual mage instead of a different type of user.  We
paid a small fortune for sixteen of these!”  He held up one hand, displaying a
plain silver ring around the smallest finger.

“You some kinda woman to be so proud of your fancies?”
Veji wanted to know.

“Idiots,” Tallior murmured.  “This is a Nolier
creation.  Smuggling them across the border cost more than you fools will ever
see in your lifetimes.  They can hide us from his sight.  He can’t see us if we
wear these!”

The giant mercenaries smirked at each other.  Tallior
could believe whatever nonsense it pleased him to believe, but he was plainly
visible where he leaned on the table across from them.  But if others would pay
so much for these little trinket rings, well then, they might have to keep
close tabs on the men he doled them out to.  After all, once the mage and his
friend were dead, they would not need Tallior or his puffed-up hirelings any
longer.

“You saying that’s what you blew all of your metal
on?” Beld asked.

“Without these, I seriously doubt any plan you concoct
would have the slightest chance of success!”

“Then find a gang of hard boys around here and deal
your Nolier rings out.  Isn’t that hard to pull a bowstring, and you don’t got
to pay them until the job is done.”

“I refuse to take such chances.  I, and my employer,
have not prevailed by settling for second class.”  He cast scorn on them as he
allowed his gaze to travel across Beld and Veji.  “Or lower classes still, for
that matter.”

Veji, though usually with a cooler head than Albin,
lunged across the table.  Tallior lashed out with his club, a blow that would
have split Veji’s head apart but for Beld tugging him back.  The blow glanced
off Veji’s reaching fist with a nasty
crack
.

After planting Veji firmly back in his chair, his eyes
watering in pain as he cradled his fingers, Beld returned his attention to
Tallior.  “You can keep you mouth shut, unless you want real trouble.  You got
to deal with me because you can’t get into the town.  From now on you’ll keep
to yourself unless I ask you a question.”

Tallior opened his mouth for a hot retort.  Beld
raised his eyebrows in a silent dare.  The enforcer hated it, but knew Beld had
put his overlarge finger on the exact problem.  As long as the quarry remained
in Kingshome, they were beyond his personal reach.

“Right,” Beld took control once Tallior returned to
his seat without comment.  “I’m not going to wait a month while
you
wait
for hard metal from your boss.  If you don’t want to go with my plans, then
start suggesting better ideas.  Start telling me about all these smart ways you
got of killing mages.”

*        *        *        *        *

Marik stood alone behind the warehouse mockup in the
Third Training Area.  Rain masked his presence behind a gray curtain of falling
water, which suited his mood perfectly.  In the last two eightdays, everyone he
knew clamored to monopolize every candlemark in his days.  Tollaf prowled like
a hunting wolf in his attempts to sequester Marik in the Tower for magecraft
lessons.  The old man was unmatchable in terms of his incessant and annoying
demands…or so Marik had thought until Colbey’s return.

Colbey’s reassignment alone had stunned him and
Dietrik.  Most of the veteran men in the Ninth welcomed the addition of such an
outstanding fighter, even if few acknowledged it beyond a simple nod or
greeting.  Marik had thought it fortunate as well.  Lately he reconsidered. 
The scout no longer acted like the man he had come to know.

Every day the scout would roughly roll him from his
cot if Churt’s crossbow quarrel had yet to send him scurrying from dreams of
highway bandit ambushes.  Renewed training under this superior swordsman
proceeded worse than before.  Rather than the harshly precise instruction,
Colbey instead beat Marik down without pity.  Several times Marik felt certain
the scout barely pulled the final blow.

Fighting off Colbey’s intense strikes required all the
skill Marik could muster.  Though the scout frightened him at times, though he
pounded him into the mud mercilessly until his body pained him, Marik
nevertheless felt pleased.  Before, Colbey’s superior swordsmanship had left
him absolutely helpless.  His speed and precision had always been on a level
that Marik could scarcely register during their training last winter.

Those same strikes looked slower.  Marik could see the
slashes, even if he still lacked the speed to block them all.  His extensive
practicing had paid off.  His swordsmanship must have increased greatly if he
could manage a better pace against Colbey!  He relished the fact that he had
finally improved to a
true
B Class fighter.

But after two eightdays of relentless beatings, he
decided Colbey pushed too hard.  Eating mud before he had the chance to vary
his attacks taught him nothing new.

Both he and Dietrik had discreetly hoped to get the
scout talking about his time in Tullainia, about what he saw there and whatever
concerns might be clinging to his back.  Regular food helped eliminate the
hollowness about his frame.  His body regained solidity, yet his eyes remained
sunken in deep shadows of their own.  Colbey never offered any words beyond his
demands on Marik.

Whenever Marik succeeded in dodging a session with
him, Colbey would later hover close at hand, his eyes never leaving Marik for
long.  The grim, intense gaze of the those fixated orbs unnerved Marik
greatly.  He and Dietrik speculated endlessly on what had changed the scout so
drastically.