The Merchant Adventurer Read online

  Clearly, this man would be no help. Relan dashed past him and turned the corner. In front of him was a long alley. Sabriella was nowhere to be seen. What sorcery was this? Relan ran faster, trusting in his belief that if a Hero was pure of heart, he would prevail in the end.

  In defense of this naiveté, Relan had spent many of his formative years listening to the wandering minstrels who came to the village longhouse to coax a meal out of the flint-hearted farmers with Tales of Valor. He knew them all by heart. And in not a single one of them had the Hero ever stopped to check the doors he ran past.

  Relan ran on and on, running out of patience before he ran out of breath. He trotted to a halt and spun around, glaring at the blameless buildings of old Robrecht Town as if they had personally wronged him. But, in the end, he was left with the ugly fact: they had gotten away with the Love of his young Life.

  Cursing his luck and the perfidious sorcery with which Sabriella had been snatched away from him, he returned to where he had lost her. The wretched man was still sobbing in the middle of the street.

  When he heard Relan’s sandals, the man looked up and said, “She is my sister. Oh, cruel Gods, it is all my fault.” He dropped his head, and his long, stringy hair fell across his face. Sobs shook his shoulders.

  Relan picked the man up and set him on his feet. The wretch weighed almost nothing. “Who?” he asked. “Where?”

  “It’s all my fault,” the man repeated. His large dark eyes seemed like haunted pits sunk into his pale skin. “The dice. I lost too much money at dice. And they have come for her.”

  Relan said, “I can rescue her!”

  “You? You have money?”

  “No, I have no money. But I have courage.”

  “Courage?” he said, gazing into a hopeless middle distance. “They won’t take courage. I owe them money. Do you have money? Can you get money? I meant to get money at dice. But…” and here the pitiful sobbing took over once again.

  “I can rescue her! If you would but tell me where they have taken her.”

  “No, they would kill her before they would let you have her. No, money is the only way. It is the only way to do anything in this world,” the man with hopeless eyes said.

  “Look at me. Look at me!” Relan commanded. “I will return your sister to you. This I vow. Now tell me, where they have taken her?”

  “You?” said the man with a laugh bereft of hope. “You don’t even have a sword.”

  The man’s pitiful wails seemed to follow Relan through the streets as he went in search of a sword.

  16

  Of course, a sword was hard to find. Relan had tried to beg or borrow one for two days before he worked up the nerve to go and talk to Boltac. He had gone to the market again, looking for work as a laborer. He had begged for change from rich passersby. But nothing had worked. Sabriella’s brother, a poor wretch named Stavro, lived in a shack built against the outside of the south wall. Every time he saw Relan, he wailed and cried. He told and retold his sad tale, claiming that it was all his own fault, but he would not do anything about it. He lacked the courage, he said. He lacked the strength, he said. All he had was Love for his sister and hatred for himself.

  He was worthless, except for the information that Relan managed to extract from him. The men who had taken Sabriella worked for a thug named Hogarth, who controlled gambling in Robrecht. They had taken her to a hold in the south, a pile of dark stones on the river Swift known as the Tower of Forgetting. There they would keep her for a week. Then the rapes would start. The week after that, they would cut fingers off. Relan did not think to ask how this creature, Stavro, could describe such tortures in detail without breaking down into tears.

  Relan, of course, vowed that he would rescue his lady (with all Faithfulness and Heroism) but the how of it had been impossible until he had saved the Merchant Boltac. Now that he was armed, free, and left to his own devices, the question became: what should he do? His lady had been kidnapped and wanted rescuing. He could think of no saga, song, or lay in which the Hero had left his lady in peril to embark on a larger, more important quest.

  But, in a moment of unusually clear thinking, it seemed to Relan that the needs of the city should come before the needs of one heartbroken Hero. Shouldn’t they? Robrecht must be avenged, and the threat of these Orcs and that flying Evil Wizard had to be dealt with. Clearly, that was a selfless Hero’s first duty. Wasn’t it?

  So it was that, lost deep in the shallows of his limited philosophy, Relan bumped into a wheelbarrow with a corpse in it. He muttered half an apology before he recognized the man pushing the barrow. “Stavro! You have survived the assault. I am so glad.” Relan heard a sharp intake of breath. A decidedly feminine intake of breath. He looked up to see a teary-eyed Sabriella on the other side of the wheelbarrow.

  “Sabriella, you have been rescued!”

  “Why, I uh, yes, Relow! I, uh, have been…” She looked from side to side, unsure of what she should say in this situation. Relan’s smile faded when he realized that the man standing behind her was none other than the man in black with the knife who had carried her away from him in the first place.

  “My lady,” Relan said, “I thank the Gods that you have been returned to me unharmed, but I am confused by…”

  “Oh, I just bet you are,” one of the men in black quipped.

  “Silence, varlet, or I will stave in your head,” Relan said, because it seemed like the kind of thing a Hero should say in this situation.

  “Let’s steal his boots!” said the man in black, because it was the kind of thing a Thief should say in this situation. Relan answered by drawing his sword.

  “Oh ho, ho. Look who’s a man at arms now!” exclaimed the man in black, as he drew his wickedly curved dagger. “You’d best grease that up so it will hurt less when I take it away from you and stick it up your…”

  “Whack!” said the man in black’s skull as the pommel of Relan’s sword came down on it.

  “Please don’t hurt me!” cried Stavro. “Haven’t I been through enough?”

  “You?” shrieked Sabriella, “What about me? How could you forsake your own sister, so recently rescued from ruffians of, uh, ill-intent!”

  “Sister. You’re not my sister! I swear, they forced me to do it. Please don’t hurt me. Oh, Shirley, you sure know how to pick ‘em. I thought he was just a country bumpkin. Did you see how fast he moved?”

  “Wait,” said Relan, feeling that he should have some part to play in all of this, “You know the men who kidnapped you?”

  Stavro said, “Ah, there it is. You can take the bumpkin out of the country, but you can’t take the–OH MY GODS, I take it back, please don’t kill me.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone… here,” said Relan, “What happened to him in the ‘barrow?”

  “Torn apart, by those things,” said Sabriella, “those Hork-Hork things. He died trying to protect me.”

  “Protect you!?!” cried Stavro. “We ran and you locked him out. I still remember him clawing at the door and screaming. Don’t look at me that way, Shirl. This grift is blown, this town is done for, let’s just bury Herveaux here and get on down the road.”

  “Shirley? Your name is Shirley?”

  “Well, I see you two have a lot to talk about,” said Stavro, “I’ll just wheel poor Herv out the east gate, and when Thorvin wakes up you can catch up with–”

  “NO!” Relan and Sabriella/Shirley shouted.

  “Those things are coming back, you know,” Stavro said ruefully. “It’s not safe.”

  “I go to root out the source of this Evil,” said Relan, not taking his wide eyes from Shirley.

  “Then you’re an idiot, kid,” said Stavro.

  “No, he’s brave,” said Shirley, not taking her eyes off of him.

  “But I see it is not the only Evil that plagues Robrecht Town. Treacherous woman. I… I… Loved you.”

  “I know you did,” said Shirley, not without kindness. “That’s my gift. As for the re
st,” she shrugged, “don’t blame me. It’s the world that’s treacherous; I’m just trying to keep up. Besides, a girl’s gotta make a living, hasn’t she? And I don’t have a big, strong man like you to protect me.” As she said this, she edged closer to Relan, unafraid of the naked blade in his hand. She pushed the flat of it gently out of the way with her fingertips.

  “We were trying to take whatever money you could scrape together. I’m not proud of that.” She ducked her head bashfully, then threw her hair back to reveal an expanse of perfect, pale throat that drew Relan downward into her dangerously plunging neckline. “But the feeling was real, you know.” Then, like the sun breaking through the clouds after a storm, her pouty frown was replaced with a dazzling smile.

  “Come with us!” she said. “We could journey the land together. Make money, have Adventures, share love–we could have it all. And with you I can finally ditch these losers.”

  “Right here,” said Stavro, grunting as he struggled to push the unconscious Thorvin on top of the corpse already in the wheelbarrow.

  Relan almost believed it. Shirley almost got away with it. But whether the Gods were looking out for Relan or Shirley’s luck had run out, didn’t matter. Relan caught a flash of morning sunlight as it glinted off the thin-bladed dagger Shirley was concealing along her wrist. It wasn’t stout enough to chop off a limb, but it was thin enough to slip between chain mail rings, just far enough to tickle his heart and kill him.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Relan asked. And then he did it right. He didn’t give her time to explain. He didn’t give her time to stab him. He hit the beautiful creature in her beautiful face with his fist. Then he looked down in horror at what he had done. A Hero never, ever hit a lady.

  Relan ran away in shame.

  When he heard the punch, Stavro had just finished getting Thorvin into the wheelbarrow. When Stavro turned and saw Shirley unconscious on the ground, he said, “Aw, come on!” He was already sick of this day.

  As Relan ran north, he thought he might have just learned some kind of lesson. The confusion, the pain in his heart, the feeling of being totally inadequate to the moment–yes, that’s what it always felt like when he’d learned a lesson before. But it wouldn’t be until years later that he would be sure.

  17

  After Relan left the city, he followed wolf tracks north for the better part of the day. He ran to the point of exhaustion, trying to put the shame of hitting Sabriella, Shirley–whatever such a woman should be called–behind him. At the time, he had been certain that she was going to stab him. But now, he had doubts. Maybe she had just been scared. Relan knew he was scared, deep down, in that part of him that wasn’t fit to be a Hero. But even if she had tried to kill him, a real Hero would have found a way to deal with it without hitting her.

  All in all, Adventure wasn’t turning out like he had expected, that was for sure. It wasn’t excitement or Glory. More than anything, it was sore feet. The fine new boots that had looked so good in Boltac’s store had started to gnaw at him as soon as he made it into the woods.

  • • •

  As the day wore on, Relan’s self-criticism grew sharper, and his pace grew slower. Now he was spending more time resting than limping. Finally, he gave up on the boots, pulled them off, and tossed them in the heavy sack he alternately carried and dragged behind him. Even with feet blistered raw, it hurt less to walk barefoot.

  And why not? He had gone barefoot in warm weather ever since he was a boy. The only boots he had ever known were animal hides wrapped around his legs with leather strips to protect him from the deep mountain snow. And today was good weather. A fine day, except for the memory of the sack of Robrecht haunting him. It was bad enough to see the burned-out husks and buildings, the common folk nursing their wounded and wrapping their dead in shrouds. But the memory of how that thing had felt dying on the other end of his sword was worse.

  He had wanted a sword so badly. But now that he had one, it hung heavy on his hip, pulling him around to the left. After the day’s walking, he could feel a pain in his left knee and hip. Every time his hand brushed the cold steel of the hilt he shuddered.

  But he had saved a man’s life! And the thing he had killed hadn’t even been human. Then why did he still feel awful when he remembered how the Orc’s rattling last breath had felt transmitted through the hilt of the sword? Didn’t saving Boltac make him a Hero? Is this the way that Heroes were supposed to feel?

  Relan wanted to give up. He had made little or no progress, other than punching a woman. But he kept going. If there was one thing he thought he knew about this business of Heroism, it was that Heroes didn’t give up. Even when things got hard. No, Heroes pressed on. Saw it through to the bitter end. And sometimes, yes, even died Heroic deaths. But, was he a Hero? Or was he the other kind of man? The ones they didn’t write songs about. The ones who took their boots off.

  Relan hung his head and concentrated on putting one bare, calloused foot in front of the other. He didn’t raise his head for a long time. Not even when he heard the rattle of a carriage and the heavy footfalls of draft horses on the road behind him. He just set his jaw and walked on, prepared to walk off the edge of the earth if that’s what it took.

  “Climb on, idiot,” said a familiar voice.

  Relan turned to see the Merchant, fat and happy, holding the reins of the Duke’s Carriage.

  “What? How?”

  “Not only am I smart enough not to pick a shitty pair of boots. I’m also smart enough not to walk when I can ride.”

  “Unlike you, I am not running away.”

  “Sweetheart, you are clearly not running anywhere. At best, you’re limping,” said Boltac

  “I mean, I go to face this dread foe who has so wounded our fair city. I mean not to flee, but to revenge this wrong.”

  “That’s a lotta big fancy words. You want to be the big Hero? Save the girl, win the Kingdom, all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s where I’m going.”

  “You?” asked Relan, in danger of developing a healthy skepticism in light of recent events.

  “I do have to warn you, you’re probably not going to make it through this thing alive.”

  “Me? But I’m young and strong. You’re old and fat. You’re the one who’s going to be killed first.”

  “En-henh. I’ll give you odds on that. Out of the two of us, who looks more dangerous? Seriously, you got a crossbow, which one of us you gonna shoot first?”

  Relan let the question sink in.

  “You are young and strong and scary looking. They’ll definitely shoot you first. Me, I’m non-threatening.”

  Relan still didn’t climb onto the carriage. “What changed your mind? Isn’t this what you pay taxes for?”

  The smile dropped from Boltac’s face. “The Duke ran away. Took his guards with him.”

  Relan’s mouth dropped open. “Can he do that?”

  “Age and treachery kid. That’s his play, and it’s a good one. For him at least. So it’s just us. Ain’t nobody else. Which is good, because what we are going to do is very dangerous and very stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid. You’re going to rescue the lady, the Love of your Life!” said Relan.

  “Something like that. I mean, I eeeeeeeh… like having her around, and I’m going to get her back, but ‘rescue’ is maybe too strong a word to, uh…”

  “Stout Merchant, from down here it looks like you are blushing.”

  “Oh, uh, it’s just the heat. The sunshine, you see. I’m not used to it on account of I’m in my shop all the time,” said Boltac, mopping at his face with his sleeve.

  As Boltac covered his emotion, Relan climbed aboard the coach and sat beside Boltac. “True Love. It is a noble cause. I will lend you my sword, stout Merchant.”

  “You mean you’re gonna lend me MY sword!”

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” Relan muttered. Boltac hitched the reins, and the heavy draft horses lurched th
e carriage into motion.

  “Ahh, I know kid,” said Boltac. “You got a good heart, but you’re kind of an idiot. No offense. I mean, think about this. What is in this for you?”

  “Well, I’ll get to make a name for myself. Be somebody. Maybe get a girl of my own.”

  “You know we’re going to get killed, right? You are definitely going to get killed. And it’s not even your girl.”

  Relan smiled. “Not if you brought any more of those healing potions. I mean that was amazing. I’ve never seen anything like that. I didn’t even know–”

  “Kid, I didn’t bring any more potions. Not like that.”

  “Well, why not?”

  “Because that was the only one I had. Magic, real Magic, is very expensive. And it’s tricky. If a plan depends on Magic, it’s probably not gonna work.”

  “But it was the most amazing, stupendous, unbelievable thing I have ever…”

  “This is what I’m saying. It was Magic. But the downside is I’m probably growing an extra liver. Or a lung in the middle of my stomach.”

  “It worked out. You’re alive.”

  “Yeah, so far it worked out, but next time, ennnh?” Boltac tipped his palm from side to side. “With Magic, there’s always a catch. That’s how they get you.”

  “So what did you bring?” Relan asked, looking at the bags on top of the coach.

  “A little of this, a little of that, and a shitload of coin.”

  “Why money?”

  “Why money? WHY MONEY?! Are you serious?”

  “There’s not going to be anything to buy.”

  “Are you kidding? There’s gonna be all kinds of things to buy. Not least of which, the woman I want to get back.”

  “Wait, I thought this was a Daring Rescue!”

  “No, it’s just a rescue. If possible, I’d like to keep the ‘daring’ to a minimum.”

  “But how am I supposed to make a name for myself?”

  “Easy. You lie.”

  “Lie? A true Hero would never do that.”

  “Okay, how many Heroes do you know kid?”