God Wars Box Set Edition: A Dark Fantasy Trilogy Page 9

  “I take it your feet are bothering you again,” Harlo said.

  “Bothering me? Bothering me?” Ludwig glared down at those unhappy members and gave a tug on the reins to urge his arvids to a faster pace. “They are the death of me. They are afflicted with pustules and sores which threaten to cast me into Athos’s realm with every step I take. My ankles twist and turn and snap. My calves are contorted knots that grow larger with each step. I’m surprised my skin hasn’t split apart to spill my flesh upon the ground so these cursed beasts can tread upon it to soften their path on the mountain trails.” He groaned. “Gods, we’ve still twelve hours of travel before nightfall.”

  Ludwig cast a look of despite at the arvids following him along the narrow trail. They were huge pack beasts, half again the size of a horse. Arvids loved to travel long distances if they were allowed to proceed at their own pace. Unfortunately, neither one of his pair thought the proper pace was the one chosen by the caravan’s lead beast. His animals traveled at half the speed of every other arvid, except for those times when their stomachs rumbled, and they decided to stop entirely to grab a couple hundred mouthfuls of prickleweed. Worst of all, they loved attempting to go around the wrong side of one of the many trees abutting the steep trail.

  Of course, a certain inconsistency of pace wasn’t their only bad habit. Ludwig’s left hand beast, Perciad, had broken free the night before. She searched him out and tried to force her way into his bedroll. The other one, Lacking, liked to alleviate her daily boredom by stomping on his right foot, and only on his right foot. Ludwig had spent the last hour walking with a deliberately staggered and mincing step to throw her timing off. His foot hurt. He was positive it possessed a few dozen broken bones. On the other hand his other foot hurt almost as much, and it had not been stepped on at all, so maybe Harlo was right when he said arvid hooves seldom broke bones in feet encased by sturdy boots.

  Lacking lovingly tried to slop her wet tongue across his face. Cursing, Ludwig jerked his head away, but the tip of her tongue still slid across his nose. Cursing again, he used his already sodden sleeve to wipe at Lacking’s slobber. His nose stung. Lacking was far too affectionate for a beast possessing acidic saliva.

  Harlo laughed gently. “She loves you, lad. It seems you make new conquests everywhere you go.”

  Ludwig glared at the self-declared priest and wished he had drawn Harlo’s complacent animals instead of his two. Not only were Harlo’s arvids well behaved, they seemed to delight in making the man’s life easier. Ludwig cursed the luck that had put him in this position. He was definitely not meant to be a caravan drover. He didn’t like the endless miles of walking over hills and mountains. He hated the wind and the heat. He absolutely loathed the rancid smell of arvid and the stench of his own unwashed body.

  “I’m not cut out for this,” he complained. “I’m for the city and the nights. I like the feel of damp night air against my skin when my hand is shaking a dice cup. I enjoy stumbling home in the early hours to have my servants open the door and lead me to my soft bed.” Raising his head, he stared proudly at Harlo. “I’m aristocrat born. It’s in my blood. This trailing, it’s beneath my station.”

  “You’re aristocrat born,” Harlo agreed. “You are also poor born since your father had no more sense about gambling than you do. My father warned him against his ways the same as I warned you. Neither of you listened any better than the other, and now look at the two of you. He’s ten years in the grave and your lover’s father has dumped you here. The dowry you gained from marrying the world’s most temperamental woman disappeared when she left, and you are now the lowest paid laborer in the caravan.”

  “Because of you,” Ludwig accused.

  Harlo shrugged. “Wencheck was going to cut your head off until I pointed out just how humiliated you would be if he made you a drover.”

  “It is humiliating,” Ludwig complained. “I’m an aristocrat, not a crusty lowborn caretaker of vermin carriers.” He grimaced as loose bones grated inside his right foot. “The gods know I’ve fallen as low as I care to fall.”

  Laughing again, Harlo flashed an amused smile, but his voice carried a touch of irritation. “I enjoy being a lowborn caretaker, but I’ll admit the only way you can fall further is to become a priest of Nedross. Then you’d have the task of seeing to the spiritual needs of your fellows as well as being a drover. At least this way you don’t have to be woken by a bunch of smelly men who want to talk to you at all hours of the night.”

  Cursing one more time, Ludwig stumbled over a clod of dirt. If anything, his mood grew blacker still. “I don’t know why Charle and Jorge bother you.” Jorge and Charle’s urgent whispers to Harlo had woken him frequently as well these last nights. Those two gave too much weight to Harlo’s assumed authority as the priest of a made-up god. “For a priest of a god of hope, you’ve not done much good for me over the years. If you’d done your job properly, I’d be waking up right about now. Meliandra would be standing beside the bed with her robe lying on the floor, and Cook would be starting my breakfast.”

  “I’ve done my job very well,” Harlo protested. “Didn’t you want to get rid of Gertunda? Have you any doubts she’s divorced you by now?” Clapping his hands together, he did a quick shuffle step before grabbing for the dropped reins of his dutiful charges. “Huhzaa! Your hopes have been fulfilled! Thanks be to Nedross!”

  “I only wanted to be rid of the harridan. I never wanted to be destitute and exiled from my home.”

  “Haven’t I always told you to be careful what you wish for? Isn’t this another example of you not listening to me?”

  Ludwig ignored his friend’s mocking question. Perciad chose that moment to stop for a bite of prickleweed. The resulting jerk on Ludwig’s arm threatened to dislocate his shoulder.

  “May you be cast into pits of boiling oil,” he muttered. “May you die a hundred thousand deaths, and may each death be more horrible than the last.” He swatted Perciad alongside her head. “Move it or I’ll have your lips for tonight’s dinner.”

  “Smooth it out, Ludwig,” Garland called. “Smooth it out or you’ll be answering to me.”

  “Best be careful with him,” Harlo warned. “Our caravan master is hard on slackers and brigands.”

  “Then he’ll have an easy trip of it, for none of us are allowed to slack, and the brigands are too afraid of my blade to risk its ire.”

  Grinning, Harlo shook his head. “My friend, you spend so much time with your head up your ass a brigand armed with a pointy stick would be safe from you. You really aren’t very good with a blade.”

  “I’ve always been good enough to beat you. You’ve a sound defense, but nothing more.”

  Harlo’s grin grew. “I’ll admit I used to let you win.” He sobered. “Just remember, Garland sees laziness whenever he’s in a bad mood, and he’s always in a bad mood.”

  Ludwig groaned. The last thing he wanted was to be assigned extra duties just because he had charge of the most obnoxious animals in the caravan. He took a moment to glare at each of his beasts.

  “You will behave,” he warned them, “or I’ll carve slices off your flanks for my dinner. I’ll suck the eyes from your heads and spit them into the fire. Do you hear me? Do you?”

  Lacking’s tongue rolled loosely from its mouth. Drool dribbled onto the ground. Perciad mooed and farted.

  Harlo laughed gently. “I promise,” he said between chuckles, “Nedross will be kind to you. You’ve fallen so far pure chance has no choice but to grant some of your wishes. I’ll have a talk with the old fellow.”

  “When you talk to him, tell him I need two new feet.”

  * * * *

  “Ah, gentle sirs and ladies, if you thought the last display was magic beyond your comprehension, then these next wonders shall astound you beyond your wildest dreams,” Califrey announced.

  “Ain’t no ladies here thet I kin see,” Ludwig’s neighbor observed. “Far as thet goes, thar ain’t a one of us what fit the gentle si
r part neither.”

  Ludwig scowled. “You may well think not, Yezman,” he said, being careful to speak with trained haughtiness, “but you are wrong. I am more than enough gentleman for you.”

  “Get on with ya,” Yezman scoffed. “Ya been spreading yer claptrap since ya joined up. I don’t believe it now no more’n I did then.”

  A flash of light interrupted Ludwig’s reply. Colors of blue, white, and red swirled in a chaotic cloud above the magician's head. Waving his hands gently in small spirals, Califrey used delicate movements of his fingertips to direct the spinning lights.

  Ludwig sucked down a fast gulp of cheap ale. The brew tasted sour, but that was expected. He grimaced while the ale churned unhappily in his stomach. As a gentleman, he hated ale by right of breeding. In fact, he hated everything about the life he now lived.

  With his scowl growing deeper, he turned his head and spat out the brew, but the foul taste would not leave his mouth. He frowned. A man had to drink to live. Ludwig just wished his drink was halfway decent wine instead of this swill.

  Up on the makeshift stage, Califrey jerked his hands apart, and the colors separated with them. Separating into triangles, the colors shifted into tumbling spheres rolling through the night air. Califrey’s hands hesitated, trembled, and the lights blurred into a brown blob, fell to the ground, and disappeared.

  Ludwig snickered.

  “Be kind,” Harlo admonished.

  “He does nothing but manipulate a cheap amulet,” Ludwig replied. “The man is no more a mage than I am.”

  “He might be a lousy mage,” Harlo agreed, “but he’s an excellent entertainer, and he’s needed. We’re a gloomy, dour lot, us drovers. There isn’t much cheer in our lives when we’re trailing. For that matter, few of us are happy when we’re not trailing. Every man here has a tale of heartache or misfortune. Problem is you spend so much time wallowing in your own story you fail to see the open books around you.”

  He gestured toward one of the laughing audience. “Jorge there, he left the graves of his three children behind him. They died because of a fire he was too lazy to bank properly. Charle killed a man, and he’s afraid if he stops moving the man’s family will catch up to him. Garland, our own wagon master, has his story. He was a brigand before he turned twenty. He did his share of rape and murder, and then he went home to find his own sister had been raped and killed by some of his fellow brigands. It took him five years, but every one of his former friends died by his hand. He started caravanning and worked his way up to where he is now, but he’s still hell on brigands. Won’t forgive a one of them.”

  Ludwig thought of his other neighbor. “What about Yezman?” he whispered so the other man would not hear.

  “You best leave him alone. Too many of his mates have been found with knives in their backs.”

  Yezman must have been bored because he chose this moment to jab Ludwig in his ribs. Turning his head to deliver a well-deserved glare, Ludwig saw the other man giving him an evil grin.

  “Think ya can do better than our Califrey? Ya got one of them amulets, don’t ya?

  Scowl fading, Ludwig fingered the leather cord hanging about his neck. “I have one.”

  Eyes glinting amusement, Yezman rose to his feet.

  “The Gent,” Yezman called out to the drovers, “thinks he kin do magic better’n our Califrey. I think we ought ta make him prove it.”

  Affronted by them expecting him to perform like a common entertainer, Ludwig stood regally, tilted his nose, and placed his most practiced sneer upon his lips. He met Yezman’s challenging stare and used his most contemptuously superior tone. “I don’t do public performances. It is beneath my station.” He set his hand on his sword hilt.

  “Lad,” Harlo sighed, “You’re an idiot.”

  * * * *

  “Oh Gods, I ask only that you make his bowels run like water. May rocks inhabit his shoes so they pierce his feet with his every step. I ask for the earth to be blessed by the lack of his children, and I beg you to grow his behind so large it gathers nettles from the ground when he walks.”

  Ludwig stuck his hand into the leather sack. After pulling it out, he looked with distaste at the pale pig fat coating his fingers. Turning his head, he saw erected tents speckled across the slight slope. Men walked among those tents. Others tended to arvids staked out amid the small trees and thick brush surrounding them. He envied those men because they did not have their hands stuck in pig fat. Wiggling grease coated fingers, he scowled at the sensation. “I hate this.”

  “A man should never try to pull a sword on a fellow who’s near his mates,” Harlo observed. “Which one are you cursing?”

  “It was a general-purpose curse. Garland gave me this job, but Yezman started the fight.” Ludwig ran his hands over the harness lines, working fat into the leather. It was just his luck to have so many arvids in this caravan. Their sensitive skin demanded their harness had to be cleaned and greased every few days. Looking at the pile of work he still had to do, Ludwig thanked the Seven Gods and Two Garland had not visited any of the other nearby caravans. It was a sure bet one of them would have been more than willing to throw some of their harness in Ludwig’s direction.

  “Relax a little,” Harlo admonished. “Forget who you were and remember what you are.”

  “What I am is gentry,” Ludwig said firmly. “I’m sure His Lordship will have forgotten my small lapse with his daughter’s virtue by the time we return.”

  “Only because sweet Meliandra will have shared her virtue with a half dozen others by then. Hope springs eternal, lad. Mayhap Gertunda forgot to divorce you. That will allow you to get your hands back on her dowry.”

  Ludwig shuddered. “May the blessed gods see she doesnot forget. The memory of her face is enough to give a man nightmares. Divorced or not, I will reclaim my just share of her dowry once Lord Wencheck sees fit to release me from this duty. See you, Harlo, if I am not dressed in robe and slippers by this time next year.”

  “I’ll speak to Nedross on the matter,” Harlo promised. “After all, I’m his priest, and he is the god of hope.”

  “The god of hope for causes eternally lost,” Ludwig corrected. “I was there when you invented him. We were ten at the time.”

  “Why so we were,” Harlo agreed. “I’d forgotten.” He looked at Ludwig reflectively. “We have a long history, you and I.”

  “You were never a good servant.”

  “But I was always a good friend.”

  Ludwig thought the statement over for a moment. “Usually,” he admitted, “but not always. You left my service.”

  “You forgot to pay me,” Harlo reminded him, “and I have an extreme fondness for money. Still, I did come back in time to ensure your head stayed attached to your neck by talking his Lordship into giving you this job.”

  Ludwig dipped his hand back into the sack of pig fat, scooped some of it up with his fingers, and pulled his hand free. After a few moments studying the pale glistening, oily fat, he looked toward Harlo.

  “That,” Ludwig said, “was no favor.”

  * * * *

  In the dark hours of the night Ludwig dreamed of Meliandra’s pale form, body dressed only in moonlight, leaning over him. She stroked the long fingers of one hand down her body, pausing momentarily at strategically interesting areas, and then leaned lower until her face lay against his chest. Hair gently framing her face, she wiggled lower until her lips kissed his belly and moved lower still. Her eyes, wild with promise, fastened hungrily on his. Smiling seductively, she opened her mouth wide, wider still— and then she screamed.

  Ludwig woke to discover hers was only one scream among many. A man’s form leaned over him.

  “Hurry,” Charle whispered in his right ear.

  “Whaa?”

  “Brigands,” Harlo snapped. “Hurry, your beasts are loaded.”

  Grumbling, Ludwig drew on his shoes, crawled out of his shared tent, and rose. Multihued lightning flashed, flared, and flamed in the sky.
>
  “Califrey?” he asked.

  “Is one of them. We must go!”

  Ludwig tried to hurry. He stumbled as he was jerked erect by Charle‘s tug on his arm. After straightening his clothes and fastening his sword belt around his waist, he barked his knuckles on a tree while pulling his belt tighter. “May your roots wither and die,” he cursed. “May the worms burrow into you, and may your wood turn soft and rot.”

  “No time for that,” Charle snapped.

  The colored lightning stopped. The screams quieted, fading one by one until only two voices remained. Nighttime winds carried the clang of crashing swords. Men began yelling anew. Feeling confused, Ludwig stumbled after Charle.

  Before long they reached a group of already loaded arvids. Jorge handed Ludwig the reins to Perciad and Lacking. Mewing affectionately, Lacking stamped on Ludwig’s foot. Perciad stuck a tongue in his ear.

  “Can’t I take a different pair,” Ludwig protested. “These two will be no loss.” He brushed irritably at his ear, wiping saliva away as best he could.

  “They know you,” Harlo explained, “and they carry the amber.” He looked to Charle. “Hurry it up.” Grabbing the reins of his two beasts, he jogged into the dark.

  “I never signed on for this,” Ludwig muttered while tugging on his arvid’s reins. “Move it or I’ll cut your pizzors off and use them as whips.”

  Running footsteps sounded behind him. Shooting a look over his shoulder, Ludwig released a bitter laugh when he saw Yezman’s dark figure emerge from the trees. Dropping the reins, he turned and drew his thin sword.

  “I should have known you’d be involved in this,” he told the man.

  “Ludwig,” Jorge warned, “you don’t want to make Harlo mad.”

  With an imperious wave, Ludwig silenced the drover. “We’ll leave in just a few moments.”

  “Yer going nowhere, gent,” Yezman growled. “Drop the sword.” He studied Ludwig’s thin blade with contempt as he raised his thick chopper.

  “I have a better idea,” Ludwig said and lunged.