King of Foxes (35 page)

I’m a mercenary captain.” He took down the banner of Count Holmalee and threw it on the fire. “I need an army, so here’s your choice. You can leave now and take your chances on getting back home again. You know what it’s _______________

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like on the road, so you have an idea of the risks. Or you can stay with us. You’ll be free soldiers, but you’ll obey me. You’ll get an equal share in any plunder, and you’ll get paid when we don’t fight.” He looked at a particularly beautiful young girl with black eyes and raven tresses who stepped to the front. “You women; there will be no camp followers in my army. No whores. Anyone who’s with us fights. That includes women. If you don’t know how to fight, we’ll teach you. Now, you have until dawn to decide. Stay and fight, or leave on your own and take your chances.”

He turned and went back to the fire to find out what else there was worth eating. He settled down with a block of hard cheese and some bread. Visniya had found a wine-skin and Tal took a deep drink before passing it on. With a mouth full of food, he said, “After we eat, let’s get rid of those bodies.”

Quint sat down next to him. “One thing.”

“What?”

“You may not have the best fighters around, but damn me if you don’t have the prettiest army I’ve ever seen.”

Tal laughed.

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SEVENTEEN

MERCENARIES

The guard stared.

As strange a band of mercenaries as he had ever seen was approaching the gate of Karesh’kaar. Tal had taken the arms and armor from the six dead guards and passed it among the thirty slaves. Some wore only a helm or a breastplate with just a dagger at their belt, while others carried a sword and wore no armor, but they all had something that made them look like soldiers. Every morning before breaking camp, Tal had had his men instruct the former slaves as to the rudiments of fighting. Some learned slowly, but they grew in confidence by the day.

The sergeant of the guard at the gate studied them as the two wagons and thirty-five mercenaries rolled through the gate. They wore an assortment of ragged clothing: some wore boots, while others wore only san-dals, and the women wore shifts instead of tunics and _______________

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trousers—which hardly made them unique in the guard’s experience—but what was strangest was most of them were young and looked like pleasure slaves. Even odder was the leader, a one-armed man who looked as if he hadn’t had a bath in months.

The guard questioned Tal briefly, then waved them into the city. Tal organized them in a small market square.

“Sell everything you can,” he instructed Quint. The wagons contained mostly foodstuffs, but also an assortment of cookware and a small box of trade items. “I’ll have gold for us in a day or two, but we need a place to stay for the night. Find the cheapest nearby inn where these children won’t get raped, have their throats cut, or get enslaved again, then send word to me where you are.”

“Where are you going to be?” asked Quint.

“At a different inn, the Anvil and Tong.”

“Why don’t we go there?”

“I have my reasons. Find somewhere nearby, then send word.” As Tal walked away, he looked over his shoulder and added, “Oh, and have Masterson stand behind you when you dicker price for the horses and wagons. It should help.”

Quint nodded with a laugh and turned to oversee his charges.

Tal asked several times for directions and at last spotted an old, faded sign displaying a pair of tongs holding an anvil. He entered and saw that the inn was empty. For this time of the day he had expected one or two customers, but he was just as happy for the privacy. He went to the bar and waited. A moment later a young woman came out, and said, “Can I get you something?”

“I need to send a message,” said Tal.

The girl looked surprised. “Sir? I don’t take your meaning?”

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“Then get someone who does,” he said quietly. “I need to send a message to the Squire of Forest Deep.”

The girl nodded and left. In a few minutes, she returned with another woman, slightly older, behind her.

The woman looked at him for a minute, then said,

“Mayami said something about a message, sir?”

“I need to send a message to the Squire of Forest Deep.”

The second woman turned to the girl and said, “I’ll take care of this. Go to the kitchen and wait there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the girl was gone, the woman said, “Do you have the message?”

“No. Give me something to write on and I’ll pen one, or you can just tell Magnus or Nakor or Robert to use their arts and get here as soon as they can, tomorrow if possible, though tonight would be even better.”

The woman studied Tal’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

Tal laughed. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I know I’m different from what you remember: I’m down to skin and bone, look like hell, smell like a week-dead cat, and I’ve lost an arm, but you spent too many nights in my bed not to recognize me, Lela.”

Her eyes widened, and she said, “Talon?”

With tears threatening to well up and run down his face, Tal said, “It’s good to see an old friend, my love.

Please, I need you to get word to Sorcerer’s Isle as quickly as you can, then if you don’t mind, I would love a mug of ale.”

She stared at him, then put her hand on his. “I’ll take care of both.”

She left him alone for only a few moments, then came back with a large pewter jack of ale. He drank it half _______________

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empty in one gulp, then put it down. “Last I saw of you was waiting tables at the Admiral Trask in Krondor, when Caleb and I came through.”

“They move us around,” said the girl Tal had known as Lela. “It doesn’t do to have people become too familiar with a face. Here I’m called Maryanna, Talon.”

“And I’m known as Tal. I saw Alysandra in Opardum,”

said Tal.

“It’s better if I don’t know about that.”

Tal sighed. “I know. What you don’t know, you can’t betray.”

He finished his drink and suddenly felt the hair on his arms and neck stand up.

Magic.

He turned and from the back room a familiar figure emerged. A skinny man with a shoulder bag at his side entered the room.

Nakor looked at Tal and said, “Got yourself in some kind of mess, I hear. What do you need?”

Tal smiled. “Gold, lots of it.”

“Gold I can get. What else?”

“Weapons, horses, whatever else I need to build an army.”

“Sounds interesting.” He turned to Maryanna. “Give me an ale and get him another.” He motioned for Tal to sit, and they occupied a table. “What else?”

“Clothing and supplies I can buy locally, but if you can, I’d like you to find a man up in Latagore named John Creed, and see if he can recruit for me and bring mercenaries south.”

“So, what are you going to do with this army when you have it?”

“I plan on sacking Opardum.”

Nakor grinned and took a swig of ale. “That sounds like fun. Others have tried it, but you might get lucky.”

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“I will if you and your friends will help.”

“What do you need from us, besides the gold, of course?”

“I need someone to keep Leso Varen out of the way.”

Nakor shrugged. “I’ll have to talk to the others about that.”

Tal told Nakor everything that had happened to him since his last visit from Magnus. He detailed his murder of Princess Svetlana and his failed attempt on Duke Rodoski.

He told him of Amafi’s betrayal and Kaspar’s decision to sacrifice Tal.

Nakor shook his head. “One thing I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Kaspar is nobody’s fool, yet many of these things you’ve talked about are . . . mad. He’s alienated every potential ally, and he’s ensured that he will probably never get another opportunity to get at any member of Roldem’s royal family. Even though no one can prove anything, they know. Even if he’s there on a state visit and everyone’s standing around with those painful smiles”—

Nakor grimaced with his teeth clenched to demonstrate—“they’re going to watch him every minute. No one will trust him ever again. What is he up to?”

“I have no idea,” said Tal. “I just thought it was a mater of Kaspar’s vanity.”

“Kaspar’s arrogant,” said Nakor, “but he’s not vain.

He’s earned his reputation as dangerous.” He was silent for a minute. “Whatever we think he’s doing, we can almost be certain he’s doing something else. If you’re cheating a man at cards, you draw his attention to the one place you don’t mind him watching carefully, so you can do what you wish where you wish to do it.”

“That almost makes sense.”

Nakor grinned. “Kaspar is blundering about trying to _______________

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kill people because that’s what he wants us to watch. So, where does he not want us to look?”

Tal shook his head. “He’s got agents running around everywhere, Nakor. He’s got them trying to kill people.

He looks as if he doesn’t care if he starts a war. The only place I’ve seen where he doesn’t want anyone looking around is that part of the citadel where Leso Varen resides.”

Nakor nodded. “Then that’s where we will have to look, my friend.”

“Well, you’ll have to do something about the wizard.

I’ve been in his quarters twice, and neither time left me confident that I can walk in there and engage in him in polite conversation, let alone a duel. I suspect he’d reduce me to smoking ash or turn me into a toad or something else before I got within a sword’s thrust of him.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Nakor. “He’s a very powerful magician, but sometimes such men are vulnerable to very simple things. I will have to see what we can do about him.”

Tal knew he would have to discuss it with Pug, Miranda, and the other senior members of the Conclave. “I understand. But I think Kaspar may be involved in some very black arts.”

“Oh, we know he is. That message you sent was extremely useful. It confirmed some things we already suspected.” Nakor sat back. “Leso Varen is a very bad man, and he’s trying some particularly evil magic these days.

Pug will tell you about him if you live long enough to see him again. But they have crossed paths before, and Varen opposes everything Pug and the Conclave stand for.”

“Am I working for you again?”

“In a manner of speaking, you always were. But yes, you are, especially if we start giving you gold, my friend.”

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Tal nodded. “Understood, but I mean to have Kaspar’s head on a pike, Nakor.”

Nakor stood. “I’d better get back. Anything else?”

With a wry smile, Tal held out his right arm, showing the stump. “Can you fix this?”

Nakor shook his head. “No.” Then he smiled. “But I know someone who can.” He walked back to the door to the kitchen and said, “Be here tomorrow at the same time.

I’ll have your gold and some answers for you.”

He left Tal alone again with Maryanna. She came over with a pitcher of ale and refilled his jack. “You look like you could use a bath.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Or a couple of them.”

“Do you have any old clothing?” Tal asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “Wait here, and I’ll have Mayami heat some water, and you can bathe in my room.” She moved toward the kitchen. “You stay here and I’ll send her to get you when the bath is hot. Want something to eat?”

“Whatever you have.”

She returned in a few minutes with a plate of fruit, cheese, and some bread. Tal had eaten most of it by the time the girl returned to lead him to the tub.

As he settled back in the hot water, the door opened and Maryanna entered. She held out a small jar.

“Thought you might like this.” She poured a bit of the liquid on her hand and started rubbing his back. He caught the scent of lilacs.

There came a knock at the door and Mayami entered, saying, “There’s a man here, sir. He said to tell you your men are bedding down at the Green Wagon Wheel.”

Tal thanked her and she closed the door. Maryanna said, “You’re all skin and bones. What happened to you?”

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“A bit more than three years in prison, where Duke Kaspar had them cut off my right arm, and a couple of months hiking overland from Olasko to here. Other than that, not much.”

She laughed. “You still have that sense of humor, don’t you?”

“What sense of humor?” He looked over his shoulder.

“I don’t remember being particularly funny when we were at Kendrick’s.”

“Oh, you were funny,” said the girl once known as Lela. “You just weren’t
intentionally
funny.”

He turned and grabbed her, pulling her into the small tub with him. She shrieked and laughed as he got her dress soaked. “Talon!”

“It’s Tal,” he said, then kissed her passionately.

She returned the kiss, then pushed away a little.

“Three years in prison?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh, you poor dear,” she cooed as she started to unfasten her blouse.

__

Tal wanted to scratch his right arm in the worst way. True to his word, a few days after first meeting with Tal, Nakor had taken him to see a priest on an island somewhere. All Tal knew was that one moment he was standing with him in the Anvil and Tong, and the next they were on a beach in front of an ancient temple at the dead of night. Nakor spoke to the priest waiting there in a language Tal had never heard before and the priest had nodded, then examined Tal’s wounded arm.

Tal got the gist of it even though he didn’t understand a word. This priest owed Nakor a favor, and Nakor sweet-

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ened the deal with a pouch of gold. Tal was made to lie on a table surrounded by candles in a room hung with tapestries bearing arcane designs. Tal had no idea which god or goddess this temple venerated, because there was not a single familiar icon or image anywhere.