Tales of Travellers - Peter Edgell (miss read books txt) 📗

Here’s for the cut, you damned...
But he got no further. The table flew away as the big man kicked it towards Rufus, the leader, causing him to stumble. For a few seconds everything seemed to slow. The big man rose and in one smooth motion his sword, almost with a life of its own, sliced through the air between himself and the scar-faced man. The attacker’s sword fell away, bouncing once on the sanded floor. His hand was still attached.

In the long silence that followed, the clarion bells marking the end of the world could have sounded but no-one would have heard them. Then blood fountained from the man’s wrist and he screamed. The room erupted with sound as swords clashed and rang. The attackers shouted and cursed as they converged on the big man. He fought in silence, his sword following his flashing eyes as if they were attached: vision and action. Rufus stepped back a pace, urging his men on. He was no fool. He waited for the big man to be injured or tire before pressing his attack. A second man fell, one shoulder stripped away, his arm left dangling. The big man’s sword shifted a fraction and took a third man in the chest. But here the big man’s skill met luck and lost. The blade got caught up between the bones of the man as he fell dead. In that instant, Rufus took his chance and stepped forward. The point of his sword met the big man’s throat and paused. The other two attackers pressed in, stepping over bodies.
- Wait! shouted Rufus, his voice booming round the room, - Wait for my order!
He grinned at the big man, but only with his lips. His hooded eyes gleamed with pleasure. With the satisfaction of a cat that had finally trapped an evasive mouse.
- Well, well, well, he murmured, - it seems that you’re not invincible after all.

The only sound in the room came from the scar-faced man. He had stumbled back, away from the fight and now lay slumped against the bar desperately clutching the stump of his wrist, trying to stop the blood. It had pooled around him. His face, now drained of colour, seemed to be crumbling in upon itself as he softly, softly, called for his mother. Then he died. A shudder ran through the crowd.

- Let go of your sword, Rufus said to the big man. - Let go carefully and put both hands behind your head.
He pushed his sword forward a little more, forcing the big man’s head back. A line of blood appeared on the man’s throat. The swords from the other two attackers also pressed in, one to the man’s right side, one to his left. Slowly, the big man lifted his hands away and up, until they sat behind his head. Neither Rufus nor himself blinked.
- You will pay for this. O yes, you will pay for this! But not like some warrior, not like some great hero, some protector of barmaids. O no. You will die, up to your knees in your own blood and guts, begging for mercy. Now get down, down on your knees, you filthy...
A voice cut across his.
- I know him! He’s a spy! A Calican spy!
The crowd buzzed and then burst into sound.
- Kill him now!
- Let us have him! We know what to do with spies!
They began to move, to surge forward. Calicans were the most evil creatures under the twin moons. They were wizards. Everyone knew that. Everyone knew that they stole virgins and ate babies. Everyone knew that all evil had Calica at its core. And everyone knew, and feared, their spies. The lowest of all creatures who took information back, readying the way for the invasion. Everyone waited for the dark legions to come. This knowledge had been handed down over generations and the fear had only grown with no actual invasion. Even the word had taken on a meaning of its own. Calica: pure and perfect terror without end.
- Wait! cried Rufus – this is even better than I’d hoped! Tie him up. The whole town can watch and cheer in the morning! In the main square!
- No! No, not him! The one with the bandanna, with the beard! He’s the spy!
There was confusion, utter confusion. It took Rufus a moment to realize that the voice, the man, was accusing him. Him! Rufus! Accusing him of being a spy!
He spoke to his men, ordered them,
- If this scumbag so much as blinks, take him down. Whatever you need to do. Just don’t kill him!
He turned to the crowd and roared,
- Who dares accuse me? Who dares?
The crowd was shuffling, turning, asking each other. The fat man stepped forward.
- I saw you! Two weeks ago. In Cableton. You were in the Rooster tavern, sitting in a corner, talking to some tall man. A man in a grey cloak.
The crowd gasped. Everyone knew that Dezek, the infamous Calican spymaster general, was a tall man who always wore a grey cloak.
- That is a lie! A damned lie!
- No, I saw him hand you a moneybag and... something else... something that glittered even in the darkness where you were sitting.
Whispers filled the air behind the fat man. The Mark of the Stars! The golden Mark of Calica that all its spies carried to identify each one to another.
If murder has a face then Rufus was wearing it. He stepped forward, growling.
- You miserable toad! Before I kill you for these lies, I will cut out your tongue!
The fat man stood his ground.
- Prove it. Prove me wrong. Empty your pockets.
Rufus laughed, brushing off the man’s request.
- I have no need to prove anything. We both know you’re lying. Now you’ll die for it.
But someone else muttered,
- What if he is a spy?
- Yes, said another, - prove it!
The crowd picked up on it and it became almost a chant.
- Prove it! Prove it!
Rufus hesitated, then grinned at the fat man.
- Okay. Hang onto your life for a few seconds more. That’s all you’ll get from this.
As he took a step to the nearest table, one of his friends turned his head slightly to watch. The big man’s hand began to slip, slowly, away from the back of his head, readying itself for a desperate lunge for his sword. But across the room he saw the fat man raise one eyebrow and, almost imperceptibly, shake his head. He seemed to be saying ‘wait...’ The big man paused.
Rufus casually threw the contents of his pockets onto the table. A stained kerchief, a set of skull-dice, a few coins. The crowd gasped, as did Rufus.
- What the...?
Amongst the coins lay a gold circle. Two stars gleamed, almost moving on its side.
- But, blustered Rufus, this isn’t mine! I’ve never seen it before.
Blood suffused his face as he slowly raised his gaze to the fat man’s.
- You put it there! You...
The fat man winked.
But it didn’t matter. Rufus could have protested his innocence all night long and it still wouldn’t have saved him.
- He is a spy! shouted someone.
- He’s a Calican spy!
- Grab him, bring him to the main square. We’ll do what we always do to spies!
The crowd swarmed forward.
- Burn him!
Tables and chairs went flying. Elbows and ribs clashed, dancing with pains that wouldn’t be noticed until the following day.
- Burn him, burn him, burn him, chanted the crowd, their voices rising with the hysteria of fear.
But their blood-lust was short lived. As they lunged for him, forcing his sword away, his two friends glanced at each other. In a flash they realized that if they didn’t act quickly enough, they, too, would be accused. And there would be no trial. Suddenly the big man became totally unimportant. They left him and turned towards their leader’s back. One of them shouted,
- You used us, Rufus, you spied on us!
- You damned traitor! Rot in the bowels of the earth!
The last lights in the room went out as they both plunged their swords in at the same instant.

By the time some form of order had been restored, the fat man and his new friend were at the stables, saddling their horses.
- My turn to thank you, said the big man.
- A good deed done is a good deed returned, laughed the fat man.
- When did you plant the coin? At least, I guess that you did.
The fat man laughed again as the two of them mounted their horses.
- O yes, it was me. Do you remember when I left the table? I couldn’t get out of his way? Well, I could have got out of his way, if I’d really wanted to....
He let the sentence hang.
- But, why did you do it? What made you plant the coin?
- Well, any fool could see what was coming. You could have taken them easily. If your blade hadn’t got stuck, you wouldn’t have needed me and I would have retrieved the coin then. But I always believe in a little backup where luck is involved. Of course, it's easier when people are superstitious. You just point at something, tell them it's the very thing they fear and... magic! ...that's what they see.
There was a brief flash as the fat man spun the coin, its twin stars catching what little light there was.
- It's amazing, the things that fall out of people's pockets. Er...Accidently, of course... And three months ago, when I picked this up in Port Cole, I just knew it was going to come in handy one day.
It was the big man's turn to laugh.

Partly muffled by the rain, the sound of their horses’ hooves echoed softly off the dark brick houses around them.
As they reached the outskirts of the town, the big man said,
- I’m Jupp. What name do you go by?
- O everyone just calls me Fatso. I’m happy enough with that. Saves a lot of awkward questions, if you see what I mean.
Jupp nodded thoughtfully and the conversation ended. The two men rode on, the night cushioning them, enjoying their silence.

The Scar

I.

On some nights you can lay out under the stars and everything is so still that you wonder if time has stopped or maybe you’ve died and whatever comes next is simply waiting for you to move first. For Tomas, it was one of those nights. Only, he could not move. His throat had been cut.

It had been a wonderful evening with the blacksmith’s daughter, Eloise. Her blond country plaits, roly-poly body and milk-coloured skin had danced with his lined and wind-tanned body. One night on the hay inside the small town’s stables, one night of love and she had started talking about marriage and children and, well, how she was a virgin...
- That wasn’t true, thought Tomas, but it had not really mattered to him. He was used to country girls desperate for a husband, desperate enough to lie about their date of birth so that they would not be seen as spinsters, old maids at twenty-three. He smiled and whispered all that she wanted to hear. And he would have been long gone come sunrise had it not been for the innkeeper’s wife.

Nothing could wake Big Bellamy, the innkeeper. Not his wife’s snoring nor the volcano, Mount Two High, erupting. He was famous for this ability for miles around and he treated that fame with an almost shy