The Sellsword (3 page)

Inside the Monkey’s Ear, which was quite spacious for a gnome but cramped for the taller folk, a smah gathering
of ne’er-do-wells, scoundrels, and rogues was clustered about a long table. At the table, a broad-shouldered old salt with a missing eye was taking names and writing them in a ledger, occasionally arguing with one of the miscreants and thumbing over his shoulder.

Behind the seated man, three of Pentar’s Seaguard stood with arms folded, cutlasses hanging from their belts, giving troublemakers a watchful glower. The Seaguard, once a dependable organization of maritime peacekeepers, were nowadays paid off by criminals and mobsters and had become little more than enforcers. The three in the bar could have been brothers and probably were. Pentar was a town filled with siblings who shared work, especially dangerous work.

Theo casually walked up to the table and looked about for a place to stand in line. As he turned his head from left to right, he swung the enormous poleaxe about, as if he’d forgotten he had it with him. Cries of outrage and yelps of pain ensued, and a space quickly cleared around him. The recruiter at the table glared in his direction with his one good eye.

“We don’t hire on kender,” he barked, looking Theodenes up and down.

Theo was short, yes, and had the same build as a kender, possibly. But nobody could mistake a gnome for a kender. Would a kender have his shock of white hair? Or his proud and sizable nose? Was any kender known for such brilliant blue cobalt eyes, or a most excellent mustache and goatee?

“I am a gnome,” announced Theo indignantly. “I am nothing like a kender. Indeed, I am offended by such an association! Why, even in my beardless youth, I could not have been mistaken for a kender. Kender are all burglars and thieves and scallywags. I, if you please,
am Theodenes, a gnome and a master of locks, portals, gates, fasteners, sundry latches—”

“We don’t hire on gnomes,” interrupted the recruiter.

“Well now, I don’t believe that was the purpose of my visit.”

The recruiter snapped his fingers and pointed at Theo. Immediately, the Seaguard thugs behind him leaped forward with their cutlasses flashing.

Theo took a step to the right and swung the poleaxe up and over his head. The first Seaguard thug sailed over the recruiter’s desk and into the path of the swinging blade, falling to the beer-stained floor of the tavern with a cry. His severed right hand, cutlass still firmly in its grasp, kept on going, tumbling over and over and into the shocked crowd.

The second Seaguard brute narrowly avoided the poleaxe, grunting with surprise. Theo looked up at him, one bushy white eyebrow arched, and brought the pole-axe around again. As he did so, he twisted and tugged with a one-two-three on the haft of the poleaxe. A series of rapid clicks sounded; the axe head collapsed in on itself and formed a wicked spear point. It lanced right through the upper thigh of the Seaguard.

The gnome leaped over the pole of his trapped weapon to escape the third Seaguard thug’s cutlass. He grabbed the polearm, tugged it free, and looked directly into the eyes of that cutlass’s owner. Another twist of the haft, and the spear head became a wickedly curved hook. The bushy eyebrows narrowed.

“What are you waiting for!” shouted the recruiter, who was standing, sweating. “He’s half your size!”

The last Seaguard formed a scowl and feinted forward with his blade, hoping to at least goad the gnome into reckless action. Theo responded by sweeping the hooked
polearm in a wide arc, scraping the floor, and catching his opponent around the ankles. The Seaguard toppled like a fallen vallenwood.

The recruiter blinked in astonishment. The gnome’s weapon—a poleaxe once again—was at his trembling throat.

“As I was saying. I, if you please, am Theodenes, a gnome and a master of locks, portals, gates, fasteners, sundry latches …”

He inclined his head to one side, in the direction of the three maimed thugs lying with a great deal of cleared space around them, the other scoundrels and rogues backing away and keeping their distance.

“… and other obstacles.”

V
anderjack stood in a dry, comfortable room looking up at an empty spot on the wall above a fireplace.

The baron, who had introduced himself on the three-hour carriage ride to his manor house as Lord Gilbert Glayward, had left the sellsword in the cozy room to dry off. Vanderjack quickly determined that there was more expensive artwork in that one room than he had ever seen in his life. There were portraits of long-dead aristocrats, quaint scenes of rural Solamnia, and random pieces of sculpture depicting kingfishers and crowns and roses. A handful of odd-looking Nordmaaran tribal statues, such as cats and apes, provided contrast.

Some of the art was missing, however. Vanderjack wondered if Lord Glayward had been selling it off. There were few nobles in this day and age whose family coffers were still full. Glayward’s manor house was nice, but judging by the occasional dusty mantel or picture frame in there, he’d have a hard time impressing any of the muckety-mucks in far Palanthas.

The sellsword wasn’t sure what he thought of the
Knights of Solamnia, or Solamnia in general. During his time with them, as one of their auxiliary, he’d had to endure their Oath and their Measure and their rigid fraternal behavior. It was said that in the past three hundred years, their reputation had grown from bad to worse; accused by the common folk for bringing about or failing to prevent the Cataclysm, the Knights had been chased out of their ancestral estates and forced into the role of expatriate nobility on the island of Sancrist. There, alongside the gnomes of Mount Nevermind, the Knights had spent three centuries obsessing over what had happened and wallowing in their own guilt while the rest of the world dragged itself out of famine and despair.

All of that made them extremely difficult to get along with. Even worse, when their glory was restored by one knight’s sacrifice at the High Clerist’s Tower, most of Solamnia expected that knight’s brothers to be as brave, noble, and courageous as he was. Far from it. Vanderjack had run into a handful of valorous men in plate armor while he was in the pay of the High Council of Knights, but most of them kept away from the front and let mercenaries such as he make the charge.

“Magnificent,” said the Cavalier.

The Sword Chorus floated about Vanderjack, voicing their own impressions of the baron’s wealth.

“Clearly a man of refined tastes,” said the Balladeer.

“Keep your hands to yourself!” warned the Aristocrat.

“Contemplate this life of austere devotion to Solamnia,” added the Philosopher.

The others all joined in. Vanderjack half listened, ignoring most of the commentary, which was evidently about how he could be living a more productive life in
any number of professions that would offer more useful employment. When Lord Glayward returned, the sell-sword removed his hand from Lifecleaver’s hilt, and the ghosts vanished once more.

“I see you’re admiring the art,” the baron said.

“I’m not really a good judge of it.” Vanderjack smiled. “But I can tell you’ve got roots in Solamnia. How did you end up here in Nordmaar?”

Lord Glayward dismissed a servant, who had delivered a plate of meats, cheeses, and other things arrayed around a tureen of soup. He helped himself, and indicated for Vanderjack to do the same. Vanderjack shook his head.

“My family is all Solamnic nobility.” The baron shrugged. “But of course, after the Cataclysm, when the commoners blamed them for bringing about the anger of the gods, or not doing enough to stop it, they were among the many that left it all behind them.”

“I see. And your family made it all the way here.”

The baron nodded. “Nordmaar was very welcoming to displaced nobles like my great-grandfather. The natives aspired to be more like the Solamnics. Or so the legends say. Before the Cataclysm, none of this land was above the water, you know! So it was all here for the taking.”

“I’m sure that’s what the Red Dragonarmy said ten years ago too.” Vanderjack grinned.

The baron flinched but managed a conciliatory smile.

Vanderjack quickly changed the subject. “So, Lord Glayward. You said you had a job offer?”

“Oh yes! I’ll have my aide bring the paperwork. Do excuse me for a moment.” The baron crossed back to the big oak doors, and called through them. Moments later, a woman stepped into the room with a stack of papers.

The new arrival was the ugliest woman Vanderjack had ever seen. Her reddish-brown hair was chopped off at the jawline and had no shape to it; it was as though she’d gone at it with a dull knife. Her eyes seemed spaced too far apart, her nose was enormous, and her mismatched ears stuck out. Her limbs were slightly crooked, and even when she stood up as straight as possible, she had no womanly figure to speak of.

The baron noticed Vanderjack staring and coughed. “May I introduce my aide, Gredchen?”

The woman bowed curtly. “An honor.”

Vanderjack said, “If you say so.”

“Gredchen, Vanderjack here saved my life on the road to Pentar this afternoon. It was quite a stroke of luck, as I am in the market for somebody with his talents.”

Gredchen studied Vanderjack the way she would a crack in the woodwork or a dent in the good silver. “Indeed, my lord.”

Conscious of her disapproval, Vanderjack decided to continue his discussion with the baron instead. “I can’t give you any references. I’m not with anybody at the moment, and I don’t have any of this new Shinarite protocol, but I’m familiar with most forms of contract.”

The baron relieved Gredchen of her paperwork and began sorting it at a table by the fireplace. The woman arranged writing implements and ink but continued to study Vanderjack. Vanderjack decided not to worry about that since people stared at him on a daily basis.

“I have in mind a short-term arrangement,” the baron said. “Short term because I can’t afford to wait. You see, there’s something I want you to retrieve for me.”

The sellsword frowned. “That’s not usually what I do.”

Vanderjack had carried out a search-and-retrieval job once before, for the elves in Southern Ergoth. Complete disaster. He didn’t like to think about it, and there was only one other person who knew about the details and he was safely tucked away in Mount Nevermind. If you’d call that safe.

“But it’s a matter of great import. And I believe I can offer you substantial compensation.”

Vanderjack crossed his arms. “Such as?”

The baron said a figure. Vanderjack coughed. He hadn’t been paid that much in twenty years. Gredchen looked equally astonished.

“My lord, how …” she began.

“Never mind the amount! Gredchen, the red wolves are at my door. You know as well as I do what the stakes are.”

Vanderjack leaned forward and lifted an eyebrow. “You may know the stakes, but I don’t. Are you going to get around to telling me what this is about?”

“I need to you to go into occupied territory,” the baron said, lifting a sheet of paper covered in cursive writing. “Just inside the Sahket Jungle, near North Keep. Castle Glayward in fact.”

Vanderjack’s eyebrows arched even further. “Your castle?”

“Before the invasion, yes.”

“You want me to go to your castle in Red Wing-occupied Nordmaar. Did you leave something valuable there?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the baron said. “I want you to rescue my daughter.”

Vanderjack looked up at the ceiling. “Ackal’s Teeth,” he said.

The baron and his ugly aide stood there for a while,
watching the sellsword expectantly. Vanderjack rubbed his face and groaned. Women were usually nothing but bother.

“All right. Where do you want me to sign?”

It was raining heavily in Wulfgar, Nordmaar’s City of the Plains. Water ran in curtains from rooftops and turned the famous horse arena into a lake. The distant Khalkist Mountains blocked out the setting sun, but the heat of the earlier day gave strength to the humid air.

This is what passes for summer here, thought the Red Dragon highmaster. She stood on one of the balconies of the Palace of the Khan, looking down upon the city from an impressive height, taking in the steamy view while sipping from a tall glass of chilled wine. Highmaster Rivven Cairn was blonde and half-elf, the latter evident in her upswept ears and arched eyebrows. That alone would have been enough to make her stand out in Wulfgar. The highmaster wasn’t content with that, however; she was never seen without her garish red and black armor and the curving elven sword worn on her back.