The Death of a Swordsman 4

4

Nothing else happened that night. In the morning Pug arrived with a new wagon hitched to the old team and several heavily muscled men. Varad was careful not to be seated on the coffin when they arrived. In the beg of the wagon were ropes and some timbers, which the men put together with familiarity to hoist the casket. Once it was in the wagon bed they tied it down, and all proceeded out. The men said very little during this time, and looked nervously at the city. The little rat-people had made no appearance since the excitement, and with the lightning bugs gone, there was nothing unusual about the scene. The group exited quickly, and once gone the men were quick to ask for their pay so they could be on their way.

“You owe them a mark each,” Pug informed Varad calmly.

Deciding this was not the time to discuss that, Varad paid them and let them hurry off. Once they were gone he said, “You do realize that's coming out of your pay, don't you?”

“The hell it is,” Pug argued.

“Your carriage failed; you pay to have the job replaced,” Varad replied as calmly and swung himself back into the passenger seat.

“Breaking my carriage wasn't in the contract!” Pug yelled. “Nor was fighting off that lunatic or running through the Narrows!”

“A lone swordsman hires you in the dead of night to carry a casket from Hysterat to Dylath-Leen in secrecy,” Varad replied acidly. “Exactly what did you think was going to happen?”

Pug opened his mouth to argue, but Varad overrode him with quiet words. “Pug, this is going to happen one of two ways. The first gets you paid very well. The second doesn't.” At that Pug paused, shutting his jaw, and Varad continued, “Now don't bullshit me. You're getting paid far too much for one contract for you to honestly be surprised by any of this. Thirty marks for a one way ticket to Dylath-Leen? That's what many people make in a year. You took the contract, and I'm going to pay you. I'm going to pay you extremely well. But you will never make money like this in any other way, so don't get stupid.”

“So it's going to be like that, is it?” Pug said hostilely.

“It doesn't have to be,” Varad assured him. “But stop pulling shit with me. You aren't clever, and I'm extremely angry after spending a night in the Narrows because you didn't keep up your end of the deal. Think about the money and drive, Pug.”

“You hired me because my carriage was the best,” Pug told him, clicked the reigns. The team started walking, and they headed north. “It is, and it was. But the best carriage in the world is going to loose a cargo if some bastard drops a building on it.”

“Then perhaps you should just think of me as having bought your wagon and hired you to drive it. If anything's left over at the end, that's a bonus, and I'll give it to you. But I'll set the damn thing on fire and throw it off a bridge if that's what it takes to get this casket to Dylath-Leen.”

“There aren't any bridges between Asali Al and Dylath-Leen,” Pug said sullenly.

“Then that's one thing you don't have to worry about,” Varad informed him.

“You're a bastard.”

“Why don't you take some of that money I already paid you and suck on it? It'll give you a reason to shut up.”

“Go suck yourself,” Pug retorted. Varad decided the driver just needed to get the last word in, so he said nothing else. That seemed to be the case, and they rode through the rest of the city in silence. Soon they were out and heading north.

North of Asali Al the road skirted the outskirts of the Sargal Forest. Mostly fir trees, the wood looked snow crusted year round from the white needles. Woodcutters made their living on its eaves, and the road served many of their settlements. Great wains of untrimmed timber moved south, always south. In Asali Al the wood was in fashion for construction, while northern Dylath-Leen still stayed to stone. On the west were wide open plains to the distant sea. Some ranchers kept goats, but the land was little used. Once they were far enough north that the expense of carting wood south was prohibitive, settlements became infrequent. A few solitary farms stood alone, but this was not prime land. They were small, and no one came out to see the travelers.

For two days they rode in silence. Pug was unwilling to break the silence he considered himself to have won, and Varad simply did not care. Eventually they ran low on the bag of food Pug kept under the wagon seat, and they had to stop to buy more. This elicited some discussion, but they kept it professional. The road also grew rockier as they went north, and that required more discussion. In several places the road was washed out. Someone would had to get out to clear rocks or debris. Without discussing it, Varad took the job. Pug was an excellent driver, and there was no point in making matters more difficult. Eventually they started talking normally again.

“Is this illegal?” Pug asked in the afternoon of the third day from Asali Al. It was the tenth day of their contract together.

“No,” Varad replied truthfully.

Pug did not look convinced. “Then who's your friend?”

“He wasn't my friend. But he's dead now, so it doesn't matter.”

“Grave robbing is a serious offense,” Pug mentioned.

“He hasn't been buried yet, so there's no grave involved. Anyway, I'm actually trying to get him to his funeral, so I'm grave-helping. Or maybe grave depositing,” Varad added with a slight, under the breath chuckle at his own cleverness.

“So you killed him?” Pug asked calmly, unmoved by the failure at wit.

“Eh?”

“Depositing someone in a grave is what people call 'killing,'” Pug clarified.

“Oh. No, I didn't kill him,” Varad said, then paused on the verge of saying more. “Why all these questions?”

“All things considered, I'm getting pretty curious who exactly is in there.” Pug's words were pointed, and he cocked his head backwards towards their cargo.

“Don't worry about it. Just drive the-” Varad paused. “Is this a carriage or a wagon?”

Pug smiled triumphantly. “This is a wagon,” he explained seriously.

“What's the difference?”

“Quality, mostly. This was the first thing I could find to buy, and it isn't made very well.”

“I thought wagon's carried cargo, and carriages carried people?”

“This is carrying us, and whomever is in the box,” Pug pointed out.

“He's dead, so he's cargo. And you're driving so you don't really count.”

“What about you?” Pug asked.

“I didn't hire you to carry me,” Varad explained. “I hired you to carry this, and I came along to see that it got done.” He drummed his knuckles on the casket disrespectfully, which Pug noted. “Also, I thought carriages were enclosed.”

“They usually are,” Pug agreed. “But they don't have to be.”

“Bah. They're all wagons,” Varad concluded in a pointlessly hostile tone just to irritate the driver.

Now it was Pug's turn to ignore him.

They camped that night by a small church. The preacher provided them with food and drink, and offered them sleeping space in the church. Pug accepted, but Varad declined, mentioning he would like to remain close to the departed.

“He must have been very dear to you,” the priest told him. The he asked, “How are you bearing it now that he's gone?”

Varad did not respond. At first he tried to say something non-committal, but got distracted thinking about the dead man. Instead he wound up stifling malicious laughter that left his chest hurting and throat raw. Fortunately the priest mistook the expression and said something solemn. To evade replying, Varad excused himself and ran outside to shove his fist in his mouth to quiet the sudden spasms of mirth that hit him. Finally he sat on the wagon and laughed till he cried.

That evening three small creatures came sniffling around the casket. As small as the twisted denizens of the Narrows, they moved on all four limbs fluidly, even in situations where walking upright was possible. Varad watched them from the darkness of the stable yard as they crept up and pawed at the casket with small, dirty hands. They had short, stubby fingers and stunted thumbs, resulting in an atavistic degeneration of the hand that reduced it towards being a paw. Coarse hair lay flat around their heads, and merged with their scruffy beards. They slunk around the wagon and casket, before retreating into the pines, away from the road. The swordsman followed them into the Sargal.

It was very quiet in there. The pine-needle coated ground muffled noises, and the wee things moved stealthily to begin with. Yet they did not go far. Less than a hundred yards into the woods they rallied round another figure. This one was tall for a human, and his fingers showed distinct development. The little rat-things squeaked at him with chirps mixed with words. They told him that the coffin sat in a wagon, but they had no idea where the swordsman was. That was enough for Varad.

On the silent carpet of needles he managed to get within a dozen feet of them before they knew he was coming. Then he was in their midst. The rat-things shrieked natively, and words were unnatural to them. In death they only squeaked. Varad never figured out if the human could talk or not, for he died before he opened his mouth. The swordsman cleaned his blade and carried the bodies deeper into the woods, before returning to the churchyard.

“How'd you sleep?” Pug asked the next morning. It was forced conversation, and the driver was making an effort to be polite.

“Like a baby,” Varad replied just as politely. “You?”

“Good. The floor was cold, but the preacher had a pile of blankets for me. It was a little odd sleeping with all those candles lit,” Pug explained.

The preacher emerged then, and asked them if they were to be on their way. “As soon as the sun finishes cresting the horizon,” the driver answered.

“I have fresh bread inside. I'll bring you some, and a blessing to send you on your way.”

Pug accepted gratefully. Varad asked, “Do you know the prayers to the mountain gods?”

“The highland prayers? Aye. Same gods, just different names,” the priest agreed. “If you're from the mountains, I'll send you along with your own blessings, provided you don't mind getting mine too.”

“Too much prayer can't hurt,” Varad accepted, and thanked the old preacher. The easygoing priest soon brought them food and they talked about the road ahead while Pug harnessed the team together. Then they ate and were blessed in the names of Rhys, Morpheus, and Druz. Kindly, the old priest then repeated them for Varad in the names of Vyer, Ag Alchayre, and Duir. The travelers bowed, then thanked him earnestly and went on their way.

“I half expected you to start a fight with your mountain gods,” Pug said when they were several miles up the road.

“He didn't seem to mind,” Varad replied innocently.

“No, but you know how touchy some priests get,” Pug pointed out.

“As he said, same gods, different names.” Varad repeated the priests words with a similarly casual tone.

“Then why'd you care?”

“If I'm going to get the blessings of my gods, they may as well be in the names I've always called them. Besides, the blessing of Rhys is success, while the blessing of Vyer is victory. I'd rather think of kicking my enemies teeth in than just succeeding in my goals.”

“You're always just looking for a fight,” Pug judged. “You should relax, and just worry about succeeding at your job.”

“We got the prayers of Rhys too,” Varad mentioned.

“Which suit me better,” Pug declared. Again Varad got the impression the driver just wanted the last word, and so he gave it to him.

Later that day there was an earthquake. It did little more than spook the horses and shake loose needles off trees. No gaping chasms opened in the roads, and the extent of its effect on them was time lost calming the team. It did give them something to talk about. By now it was clear that Pug liked the sound of his own voice, and he liked to express hostile, definitive opinions about everything. Varad had no inclination to tolerate it if it was anything he cared about, but that was almost exclusively their mission and sword fighting. Realizing that letting Pug go on would make the ride easier, he asked the driver a couple of leading questions to get him going and then sat and stared at the landscape, looking for ambush sites.

Pug had a lot to say. He explained how the earthquake was related to the inherent superiority of the lowland gods to the highland ones. Varad felt piques of irritation, but forced himself to let it pass. In reward Pug quickly lost interest in that and moved immediately into politics. His opinion was that all taxes he had to pay were bad, and that the taxes on everyone else should be used to improve roads he could use. It was hinted that roads should be specifically for his use, but he did not mention that explicitly. The Red Guard were overpaid. This lead immediately to how much Pug was being underpaid, and he made the leap without the slightest recognition of the implications one had on the other.

He kept looking at Varad, expecting to be confronted on these views, but the redcloak was nodding agreeably and staring at a passing hillside that had overwatch on the road. A team of archers up there could have exterminated the team, and possibly the driver and passenger, very easily. They passed without incident, and Varad told Pug the latter was absolutely right about everything. He then asked how to properly care for a wagon team and tack. Pug warmed to the topic instantly, and Varad started worrying about a low gully that ran close to the west side of the road. As his driver expounded on shoeing frequency, the swordsman calculated how much warning he would have from a mounted charge. It was slim enough he suggested they change seats.

He did not tell Pug why, of course, nor did the other ask. But Pug was feeling warmer towards his employer and agreed. The driver went into detail about strap length adjustments, and now the swordsman paid enough attention to get questions for later. Besides, the going was very flat, and there were few good hiding spots.

Four days later they hit the bay.