Drawn Blades (10 page)

S
ometimes,
the only answer to the absurdity of life is laughter. Which was not, I think, the reaction the bandit chief was expecting.

The first sign that we were in for a bit of a diversion from the day’s original plan was the tree downed across the road. It was well placed, coming at a curve in the road with steep slopes on both sides. A major foothill forced the road up into a long bend that rode high along its shoulder, so the fallen tree wasn’t visible from either direction until you were practically on top of it. Add in thick forest on the slopes to make leaving the road doubly difficult, and the fact that the trunk was neatly parallel to the ground at waist height, making it impossible to take a horse either under or over, and you had to admire the thought that had gone into engineering the thing.

The handsome bandit chieftain sauntering out of the greenery on the far side of the fallen tree with a cocked crossbow in one hand and a short sword in the other really was the crowning touch. It was such a classic moment that I simply couldn’t help pointing and laughing.

I’ll say this for the fellow: he was smarter than the average city thug. He demonstrated that fact by waiting politely for me to stop laughing rather than doing anything I would have been forced to make him regret. He didn’t even raise the crossbow.

“Would you mind letting me in on the joke?” he asked once I’d finally lapsed into a smiling silence. “Because, from where I’m standing, you don’t have much to laugh about.”

That very nearly set me off again, but I managed to keep it to a grin this time. “I’m laughing at you, sir.”

He glowered a little bit at that, but again he didn’t do anything rash. “That doesn’t seem terribly wise.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I will admit to impolite, but as to unwise, well, you’ll have to judge that for yourself. I presume that at some point here in the near future you are going to tell us that you have dozens of followers in the trees around us, and that they all have crossbows pointed our way.”

He nodded, and the glower faded a bit. “It had crossed my mind, yes. Mostly because it’s true.”

“And then you were going to tell us to get off our horses and hand over all of our valuables?”

“Yes, that was the plan. I take it you’re going to suggest it’s a bad one?”

“Terrible.”

Faran rolled her eyes at me. “You’re far too sentimental, Aral. We ought to just kill them all and get this over with.”

The bandit chief glanced from Faran to me and back to Faran again. He had begun to sweat. “Mages?”

“That, too,” I replied.

“Too?” He looked me over more carefully now. “The girl called you Aral.”

“She did.”

“That’s a foreign name.”

I nodded. “Varyan.”

“Would you happen to have a family name to go with it?”

“Not that anyone remembers.”

The bandit bent and carefully set his crossbow on the ground. “Two swords, all in gray silk, accompanied by a girl wearing two hilts and gray as well. I think I might be able to put a second name to you if I tried.”

“Now would be an excellent time for trying,” I said.

He swallowed visibly. “Would you be the Kingslayer?”

I smiled.

“I was afraid that might be the way of it,” he said. “I’m going to propose a bargain, and I’d really appreciate it if you said yes.”

I opened my hands. “Propose away.”

“It goes like this. My mob comes down here and gets this tree out of the way. Then we all march down the road a mile or so to the bridge over the Loudwater River.” He gestured back over his shoulder. “Then we all toss our weapons in the water and head for someplace far away.”

“What do I have to do?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. Not a single thing. In fact, not doing anything would be the whole of your end of the deal, especially not doing anything involving blood and killing. How does that sound?”

“I think you might need to find a new sort of employment as well.”

“We’d be happy to swear an oath on it.”

I nodded and Triss spoke into my mind.
You’re not really contemplating letting them go, are you?

Actually, I am.

They’ve certainly killed travelers here in the past.
He sounded more curious than indignant.
Lately you’ve been talking a lot about walking the path of justice again. How does this fit into that?

I’ve no doubt they have a good bit of blood on their hands. But back in Tien when I was playing the shadow jack we dealt with people who’d done murder and worse all the time. But we never killed anyone who wasn’t actively trying to harm us. Namara didn’t make us what we are so that we could do the watch’s job for it, Triss. She wanted us to handle the big injustices, the things the law couldn’t touch. Kings, generals, high priests. This man . . . Well, as long as he follows through on his part of the bargain, I don’t see that he’s really our problem.

Fair enough.

I raised my eyes to meet the bandit chief’s again. He’d done a lot more sweating in the silence while Triss and I conferred, and his skin looked about ten shades lighter than it had when he first asked his question.

I nodded at him. “That sounds fair to me. Do it.”

“Thank you, kindly, Kingslayer.” He bent down then and cut the string of his crossbow with his sword before putting the blade away.

There were a score of bandits that came down onto the road, about half of them women.

Faran leaned over as they started to march down the road ahead of us. “You know there are at least a half dozen still in the trees back there, right?”

“I do, but it’s not worth the effort to go after them. Most of this bunch would feel obliged to fall in with their friends, and then we’d have to kill the lot of them.”

“And?” Faran looked baffled.

“I can’t speak for the goddess, but somehow I don’t think she’d want us to choose that much blood over giving them a chance.”

I waved a hand to indicate the group in front of us. “Some of these are certainly rotten to the core, but most of them probably fell into banditry when the farm failed, or the landlord foreclosed on the shop, or their parents died. It seems to me that it wasn’t all that long ago that a certain young woman of my acquaintance had to make her own way in the world after her side lost a religious war.”

Faran’s eyes went very thoughtful at that, and she lapsed into a long silence.

That was well done,
sent Triss.
And so is this.
I felt a shadowy pressure across my chest as he indicated the group of bandits walking in front of us.
You’re right, by the way. I think this is what the goddess would want us to do.

Thank you, Triss. That means a lot.

I felt a wave of love flow along the link that bound us and then a silent chuckle.
I was going to say that you are becoming more and more the man that you once were, but then I realized that I was wrong. You are better than that.

How so?

The Aral who killed Ashvik would probably have let these bandits live, but he would have done it for the wrong reason.

Oh?

He would have done it out of sentimentality. Faran is right about you there—you’re prone to a softness that is unusual for a Blade. Or, you were before the fight at the abbey two summers ago, at any rate. But that’s not what’s happening here.

No?
I was fascinated. Like Faran, and Jax for that matter, Triss had always been somewhat confused by my choices where it came to sparing my enemies.

No. You have changed. You killed your first king for Justice the goddess. You killed your second for justice the ideal. You are letting these men and women live for the same reason, and not merely because you prefer not to kill when you don’t have to. You have grown. But the sun is high and I must retreat into the deeps of your shadow now. Wake me if you need me.

A little while later as we sat watching the bandits throw their weapons into the river, Faran leaned over to me again. “What will they do now?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Why?”

“Look at them. Their clothes are ragged and worn. Thieving hasn’t provided them with a very good living. Without their weapons, they’re going to have a hard time of it.”

Faran sounded genuinely concerned and I turned to give her my full attention. “That’s true.”

“I think we should give them some money.”

I raised an eyebrow. Compassion, from Faran? Very interesting.

She clenched her jaw and gave me a hard look. “What you said about the fall of the temple and how I had to make my own way afterward? It made me think.
We’re
robbing
them
now.”

“You were ready to kill the lot of them not an hour ago.”

She shrugged. “That’s different,” she said, her tone blithe. “If we’d killed them they wouldn’t have any need of anything. Now they will.”

“You sound like you’d still be willing to kill them.”

“Of course.” I blinked, but before I could say anything she continued. “It would no longer be my first choice—I think you’re right in your reasons for not killing them—but willing? Certainly, why wouldn’t I be? And what’s that got to do with giving them money now? We’re the ones who have turned them out of their current life. Don’t you think we ought to give them a decent chance of starting a fresh one? I’ve plenty of coin, and I can always get more.”

I was still trying to think of some reasonable answer to that when the bandit chief came toward us slowly. When I looked up at him he went to his knees and put his forehead on the ground in the formal bow of a peasant greeting his lord.

“I’m no noble,” I growled—the very thought made my bones itch. “You don’t need to kowtow to me.” Then, when he stayed down, “Oh, stand up already. What do you want?”

“To thank you for letting us live,” he said. “And to ask if you would share our noon meal before we all move on. It would honor us.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. “Though I’m a bit surprised about the offer of lunch.”

“You are the Kingslayer. If I have children someday, I would like to tell them that I once ate a meal with you.”

“Why?”

He began to unbutton his tunic. “Let me show you something.”

“All right.”

When the last button opened, he stripped the garment off and turned around. “Ashvik gave me these in his final year on the throne.” His back was a lattice of deep whip scars. “Not personally, of course, but it was his orders that put me in the hands of the office of agony. I was a soldier once, a sergeant, but I got on the wrong side of my lieutenant during Ashvik’s last war. He gave a stupid command, one that would have gotten a lot of my men killed.”

He slipped his tunic back on. “I didn’t contradict him, but I took a different path than he’d ordered. In a better army, I’d have gotten a medal. In Ashvik’s, I got sent to the torturers. And not just me. They took my wife, too, as a
lesson
to my men. She died. I would have, too, but Ashvik beat me to it. When you killed him, Thauvik took over. He was a soldier once himself, a ranker. He pardoned all the soldiers in Ashvik’s prisons and offered us our places back.”

“I killed Thauvik, too.”

The bandit shrugged. “Eh, he might have let me off my chains, but it was you who gave him the chance, and he was near as bad as his brother by the end. Never been gladder than the last couple of years that I turned his offer down and came out here instead. I’ve had enough of kings, and I’d very much like the chance to break bread with the last of the Blades.”

“What’s for lunch?”

He smiled. “Rice, fish, fruit. It’s humble fare.”

“It sounds fine to me. What’s your name?”

“They call me Chiu. Thank you. What you did for Tien . . . well, a lot of my mob could tell you similar stories. Maybe not so dramatic, and maybe not as can be linked so directly to this king or that one, but it all flows from the top. When the top is rotten . . .”

Which is how we ended up lunching beside a fire with a bandit chief and drinking tea—they’d put away the wine when I told them I didn’t drink. The food was good, and the company rough but friendly. Despite what we’d done to them, they really did seem honored by the chance to share a meal with Faran and me. Triss woke up briefly when we dismounted, but with the sun still high and a fire so close by he soon went back to sleep. When we finished, the bandits started gathering up their things and smothered the fire, sending up a slender ribbon of pale smoke. It was time to get back onto the road.

Chiu bowed deeply as I stood up. “Again, I thank you. This day could have gone a lot worse for my mob if you were a less forgiving man.”

I bowed back. “Just see that you find a new line of work, and I’ll count our bargain fulfilled, Chiu, though, I think my apprentice had a thought about altering the deal.”

Chiu had a better measure of us now, and he didn’t actually blanch, but I could see him tense as his eyes flicked to Faran. “Oh. What did you have in mind, Madame Blade?”

She smiled. “Something I think you’ll need if you’re really going to keep up your end of things.” She crossed to our pack horse and reached deep into one of the bags hanging across his shoulders. “Here.” She pulled out a fat purse and tossed it across to him. “It’s hard to walk a straight path when you can’t afford to eat. I’ve been there. I know.”