Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 3 - The Unwilling Warlord

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THE UNWILLING WARLORD
by LAWRENCE WATT-EVANS (1989)
[VERSION 1.1 (Oct 08 03). If you find and correct errors in the text, please
update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.]
CHAPTER 1
The dice rolled, smacked against the baseboard, then bounced back and
skittered to a stop. One showed five pips, and the other two each showed six,
clearly visible even in the flickering light of the tavern alcove.
The paunchy farmer in the greasy gray tunic stared at the dice for a
moment, then snapped his head up and glared suspiciously at his opponent. He
demanded, "Are you sure you're not cheating?" His breath carried the warm,
thick aroma of stale wine.
The thin young man, who wore a patched but clean tunic of worn blue
velvet, looked up from raking in the stakes with a carefully contrived
expression of hurt on his face. His dark brown eyes were wide with innocent
dismay.
"Me?" he said. "Me, cheating? Abran, old friend, how can you suggest such
a thing?"
He pushed the coins to one side, then smiled and said, "Still my throw?"
Abran nodded. "Make your throw, and I'll decide my wager."
The youth hesitated, but the rules did allow a losing bettor to see the
next roll before wagering again. If Abran did decide to bet, though, it would
be at two-to-one instead of even money.
That probably meant the game was over.
He shrugged, picked up the bits of bone again, and rolled them, watching
with satisfaction as the first stopped with six black specks showing, the
second seemed to balance on one corner before dropping to show another six,
and the last bounced, rebounded from the wall, spun in mid-air, and came down
with five spots on the top face.
Abran stared, then turned his head and spat on the grimy floor in
disgust. "Seventeen again?" he growled, turning back. "Sterren, if that's
really your name," he said, in a more natural tone, "I don't know what you're
doing -- maybe you're just honestly lucky, or maybe you're a magician, but
however you do it, you've won enough of my money. I give up. I'm leaving and I
hope I never see you again."
He stood, joints creaking.
An hour earlier the purse on his belt had been bulging with the proceeds
of a good harvest; now it clinked dismally, only a few coins remaining, as he
walked stiffly away.
Sterren watched him go without comment and dropped the coins of the final
wager into the purse on his own belt, which had acquired much of the bulge now
missing from Abran's.
When the farmer was out of sight he allowed himself to smile broadly. It
had been an exceptionally successful evening. The poor old fool had stuck it
out longer than any opponent in years.
And of course, where two could be seen having a game, others would sit in
for a round or two. A dozen besides poor Abran had contributed to Sterren's
winnings.
For perhaps the thousandth time in his career as a tavern gambler,
Sterren wondered whether he had been cheating. He honestly did not know. He
knew he certainly was not guilty of anything so common as using weighted dice
or muttering spells under his breath, but there were magicks that needed no
incantations, and he had been apprenticed to a warlock once -- even if it had
only been for three days before the warlock threw him out, calling him a
hopeless incompetent. His master had tried to give him the ability to tap into
the source of warlockry's power, and it hadn't seemed to work -- but maybe it
had, just a little bit, without either his master or himself realizing it.
Warlockry was the art of moving things by magically enhanced willpower,
moving them without touching them, and it was quite obvious that a warlock
would have no trouble at all cheating at dice. It wouldn't take much warlockry
to affect something as small as dice, and it was said only warlockry could
detect warlockry, so the wizards and sorcerers Sterren had encountered would
never have known it was there.
Might it be that he controlled the dice without knowing it, using an
uncontrolled trace of warlockry, simply by wishing?
It might be, he decided, but it might also be that he was just lucky.
After all, he didn't win all the time. Perhaps one of the gods happened to
favor him, or it might be that he had been born under a fortunate star --
though except for his luck with dice, he wasn't particularly blessed.
He stood, tucked the dice in his pouch, and brushed off the knees of his
worn velvet breeches. The night was still young, or at worst middle-aged;
perhaps, he thought, he might find another sucker.
He looked around the dimly lit tavern's main room, but saw no promising
prospects. Most of the room's handful of rather sodden inhabitants were
regulars who knew better than to play against him. The really easy marks, the
backcountry farmers, would all be asleep or outside the city walls by this
hour of the night; he had no real chance of finding one roaming the streets.
Other serious gamers would be settled in somewhere, most likely on Games
Street, in Camptown on the far side of the city, where Sterren never ventured
-- there were far too many guardsmen that close to the camp. Guardsmen were
bad business -- suspicious and able to act on their suspicions.
A few potential opponents might be over in nearby Westgate or down in the
New Merchants' Quarter, which were familiar territories, or in the waterfront
districts of Shiphaven and Spicetown, which he generally avoided; but to find
anyone he would have to start the dreary trek from tavern to tavern once
again.
Or of course, he could just sit and wait in the hope that some latecomer
would walk in the door.
He was not enthusiastic about either option. Maybe, he thought, he could
just take the rest of the night off; it depended upon how much he had taken in
so far. He decided to count his money and see how he stood. If he had cleared
enough to pay the innkeeper's fee for not interfering, the past month's rent
for his room, and his long-overdue bar tab, he could afford to rest.
He drew the heavy gray curtain across the front of his little alcove for
privacy, then poured the contents of his purse on the blackened planks of the
floor.
Ten minutes later he was studying a copper bit, trying to decide whether
it had been clipped or not, when he heard a disturbance of some sort in the
front of the tavern. It was probably nothing to do with him, he told himself;
but, just in case, he swept his money back into the purse. The clipped coin --
if it was clipped -- didn't really matter; even without it he had done better
than he had realized and had enough to pay his bills with a little left over.
Only a very little bit left over, unfortunately -- not quite enough for a
decent meal. He would be starting with a clean slate, though.
The disturbance was continuing; loud voices were audible and not all of
them were speaking Ethsharitic. He decided that the situation deserved
investigation and he peered cautiously around the end of the curtain.
A very odd group was arguing with the innkeeper. There were four of them,
none of whom Sterren recalled having seen before. Two were huge, hulking men
clad in heavy steel-studded leather tunics and blood-red kilts of barbarous
cut, with unadorned steel helmets on their black-haired heads and swords
hanging from broad leather belts -- obviously foreigners, to be dressed so
tackily, and probably soldiers of some kind, but certainly not in the city
guard. The kilts might possibly have been city issue -- though if so, some
clothier had swindled the overlord's officers -- but the helmets and tunics
and belts were all wrong. Both of the men were tanned a dark brown, which
implied that they were from some more southerly clime -- somewhere in the
Small Kingdoms, no doubt.
A third man was short and stocky, brown haired and lightly tanned, clad
in the simple bleached cotton tunic and blue woolen kilt of a sailor, with
nothing to mark him as either foreign or local; it was he who was doing most
of the shouting. One of his hands was clamped onto the front of the
innkeeper's tunic. The other was raised in a gesture that was apparently
magical, since a thin trail of pink sparks dripped from his raised forefinger.
The group's final member was a woman, tall and aristocratic, clad in a
gown of fine green velvet embroidered in gold. Her black hair was trimmed and
curled in a style that had gone out of favor years ago, and that, added to the
shoddy workmanship of the embroidery and her dusky complexion, marked her as
just as much of a foreign barbarian as the two soldiers.
"Where is he?" The sailor's final bellow reached Sterren's ears quite
plainly. The innkeeper's reply did not, but the finger pointing toward the
curtained alcove -- toward Sterren -- was unmistakable.
That was a shock. It was obvious that the foursome meant no good for
whomever they sought, and it appeared they sought him. He did not recognize
any of them, but it was possible that he had won money from one or all of them
in the past, or perhaps they were relatives of some poor fool he had fleeced,
come to avenge the family honor.
He tried to remember if he had won anything from any barbarians lately;
usually he avoided them, since they were reputed to have violent tempers, and
the World was full of gullible farmers. He did not recall playing against any
barbarians since Festival, and surely nobody would begrudge anything short of
violence that had happened during Festival!
Perhaps they were hired, then. In any case, Sterren did not care to meet
them.
He ducked back behind the curtain and looked about, considering
possibilities.
There weren't very many.
The alcove was absolutely simple, composed of three gray stone walls and
the curtain, the plank floor with betting lines chalked on it, and a beamed
wooden ceiling, black with years of smoke, that undoubtedly served as a floor
for an upstairs room. There were no doors, no windows, and no way he could
slip out. No hiding places were possible, since three wooden chairs were the
only furniture. Smoky oil lamps perched on high shelves at either end provided
what light there was, as well as the fishy aroma that combined with stale ale
in the tavern's distinctive stench.
No help was to be had in here, that was plain, nor could he hope to rally
the tavern's other patrons to his aid; he was not popular there. Gamblers who
usually win are rarely well-liked -- especially when they play for stakes so
low that they can't afford to be lavish with their winnings.
Sterren realized he would have to rely on his wits -- and those wits were
good enough that he knew he would rather not have to rely on them.
They were, however, all he had, and he had no time to waste. He flung
back one end of the curtain and pointed at the door to the street, shouting,
"There he goes! There he goes! You can still catch him if you hurry!"
Only two of the foursome paid any heed at all, and even those two treated
it only as a minor distraction, giving the door only quick glances. The two
immense soldiers did not appear to have heard him. Instead, upon seeing him,
they turned and marched heavily toward him, moving with a slow relentless
tread that reminded Sterren of the tide coming in at the docks.
The other two, the sailor and the foreign noblewoman, followed the
soldiers; the sailor flicked his forefinger, and the trail of sparks vanished.
Sterren did not bother ducking back behind the curtain; he stood and
waited.
It had been a feeble ruse, but the best he could manage on such short
notice. As often as not, similar tricks had been effective in the past; it had
certainly been worth trying.
Since it had failed, he supposed he would have to face whatever these
people wanted to do with him. He hoped it wasn't anything too unpleasant. If
they had been sent by one of his creditors he could even pay -- if they gave
him a chance before breaking his arm, or maybe his head. Even if someone
demanded interest, there was no one person he owed more than he now had.
The quartet stopped a few feet away; one of the soldiers stepped forward
and pulled aside the curtain, revealing the empty alcove.
The sailor looked at the bare walls, then at Sterren. "That was a stupid
stunt," he said in a conversational tone. His Ethsharitic had a trace of a
Shiphaven twang, but was clear enough. "Are you Sterren, son of Kelder?"
Cautiously, Sterren replied, "I might know a fellow by that name." He
noticed the tavern's few remaining patrons watching and, one by one, slipping
out the door.
The spokesman exchanged a few words with the velvet-clad woman in some
foreign language, which Sterren thought might be the Trader's Tongue heard on
the docks; the woman then spoke a brief phrase to the soldiers, and Sterren
found his arms clamped in the grasp of the two large barbarians, one on either
side. He could smell their sweat very clearly.
It was not a pleasant smell.
"Are you Sterren, son of Kelder, son of Kelder, or are you not?" the
sailor demanded once again.
"Why?" Sterren's voice was unsteady, but he looked the sailor in the eye
without blinking.
The sailor paused, almost smiling, to admire the courage it took to ask
that question. Then he again demanded, "Are you?"
Sterren glanced sideways at the unmoving mass of soldier gripping his
right arm, obviously not in the mood for civilized discourse or casual banter,
and admitted, "My name is Sterren of Ethshar, and my father was called Kelder
the Younger."
"Good," the sailor said. He turned and spoke two words to the woman.
She replied with a long speech. The sailor listened carefully, then
turned back to Sterren and said, "You're probably the one they want, but Lady
Kalira would like me to ask you some questions and make sure."
Sterren shrugged as best he could with his arms immobilized, his nerve
returning somewhat. "Ask away. I have nothing to hide," he said.
It must be a family affair, he decided, or his identity wouldn't be a
matter for such concern. He might talk his way out yet, he thought.
"Are you the eldest son of your father?"
That was not a question he had expected. Could these people have some
arcane scruples about killing a man's first heir? Or, on the other hand, did
they consider the eldest of a family to be responsible for the actions of his
kin? The latter possibility didn't matter much, since Sterren had no living
kin -- at least, not in any reasonable degree of consanguinity.
Hesitantly, he replied, "Yes."
"You have a different name from your father."
"So what? Plenty of eldest sons do -- repeating names is a stupid custom.
My father let his mother name me, said there were too damn many Kelders around
already."
"Your father was the eldest son of his mother?" This made no sense to
Sterren at all. "Yes," he said, puzzled.
"Your father is dead?"
"Dead these sixteen years. He ran afoul of--"
"Never mind that; it's enough we have your word that he's dead."
"My word? I was a boy of three, scarcely a good witness even had I been
there, which I was not. But I was told he was dead and I never saw him again."
This line of questioning was beginning to bother him. Were these people come
to avenge some wrong his father had committed? He knew nothing about the old
man save that he had been a merchant -- and, of course, the lurid story of his
death at the hands of a crazed enchanter had been told time and time again.
It would be grossly unfair, in Sterren's opinion, for his own death to
result from some ancestral misdemeanor, rather than from one of his own
offenses or failings; he hoped he could convince these people of that.
It occurred to him that perhaps this sailor with his pink sparks was that
very same crazed enchanter, but that idea made no sense, and he discarded it.
It was far more likely that the pink sparks were part of some shop-bought
spell.
In fact, they might well be all there was to the spell, a little
something to impress the ladies, or anybody else, for that matter.
"His mother, your grandmother -- who was she?" the sailor asked.
His grandmother? Sterren was even more baffled than before. He had been
seven when she died and he remembered her mostly as a friendly, wrinkled face
and a warm voice telling impossible tales. His grandfather, who had raised him
after all the others were dead, had missed her terribly and had spoken of her
often, explaining how he had brought her back from a tiny little kingdom on
the very edge of the world, talking about how she got along so well with
everyone so long as she got her way.
"Her name was Tanissa the Stubborn, I think; she came from the Small
Kingdoms somewhere." As did these four, he realized, or at least three of
them. The questions suddenly began to make sense. She must have stolen
something, or committed some heinous offense, and they had finally tracked her
down.
It had certainly taken them long enough. Surely they wouldn't carry their
revenge to the third generation! "She's dead," he added helpfully.
"Was she ever called Tanissa of Semma?"
"I don't know; I never heard her called that."
There was another exchange in the familiar but incomprehensible language,
including his grandmother's name as well as his own. By the end of it the
woman seemed excited and was smiling.
The smile didn't look vindictive, but that was very little comfort;
whatever crime his grandmother had committed must have been half a century
ago, and this woman could scarcely have been born then. She wasn't exactly
young, but she didn't look that old -- and she didn't look young enough to be
using a youth spell. She must have been sent on the hunt by someone else;
perhaps her father or mother was the wronged party. In that case she'd be glad
to have the job done, but would have no reason for personal dislike.
A glance to either side showed the two soldiers as impassive as ever, and
he wondered whether they understood what was going on any better than he did.
The interpreter, as the sailor apparently was, turned back to Sterren and
asked, "Do you have any family?"
"No." He didn't think it was worth trying to lie.
"No wife?"
Sterren shook his head.
"What about your mother?"
"She died bearing me." Perhaps, he thought, they would take pity on him
because he was an orphan.
"Since you're the eldest, there could scarcely be brothers or sisters if
she died bearing you. What about old Kelder, your grandfather?"
It occurred to Sterren, a bit belatedly, that he was removing the
possibility of spreading the blame or getting off on grounds of family
support; but it was too late already, and he continued to tell the truth. "He
died three years ago. He was an old man."
"Uncles? Aunts? Cousins?"
"None."
"Your other grandparents?"
"Dead before I was born, from drinking bad water."
"Good!" the sailor said with a smile. "Then you should be able to leave
immediately!"
"What?" Sterren exclaimed. "Leave where? I'm not going anywhere!" He made
no attempt to hide his surprise and indignation.
"Why not?" the sailor demanded. "You're not still an apprentice, are
you?"
"What if I am? Where are you taking me? Who are you?" His remaining
assurance faded a little more; they wouldn't dare kill him here in the tavern,
probably not anywhere in Ethshar, but if they managed to remove him from the
city they could do anything they pleased. There was no law outside the walls
-- or at least Sterren knew of none.
"I'm just an interpreter..." the sailor began.
"What were those sparks?" Sterren interrupted.
The sailor waved the question away. "Nothing; I bought them on Wizard
Street to help find you. Really, I'm just an interpreter. I'm not the one
looking for you."
"Then who are these others, and what do they want with me?"
"The Lady Kalira is taking you to Semma," the sailor replied.
"The hell she is!" Sterren said. "I'm not leaving the city!" He was close
to panic; visions of death by slow torture flickered through his mind.
The sailor sighed. "I'm afraid you are, whether you like it or not."
"Why?" Sterren asked, letting a trace of panic into his voice in hopes of
inducing pity. "What do these people want with me?"
The man shrugged. "Don't ask me. They hired me in Akalla to get them to
Ethshar and find you, so I got them to Ethshar and found you. It's none of my
business what they want you for."
"It's my business, though!" Sterren pointed out. He tried to struggle;
the soldiers gave no sign they had even noticed. He subsided and demanded,
"You can ask, at least, can't you?"
"I can ask Lady Kalira," the sailor admitted. "Those two don't speak
Trader's Tongue, and for all I know they're the ones who want you." He seemed
appallingly disinterested.
"Ask her!" Sterren shrieked.
The sailor turned and said something.
The tall woman did not answer him, but stepped forward and spoke directly
to Sterren, saying very slowly and distinctly, "O'n Sterren, Enne Karnai
t'Semma."
"What the hell does that mean?" Sterren asked. He was about to say
something further when he realized that the two barbarians had released his
arms. He looked up at them and saw that their huge flat faces were broken into
broad grins. One stuck out an immense paw and shook Sterren's hand vigorously,
clasping it hard enough to sting. Utterly confused, Sterren asked the sailor,
"What did she say?"
"Don't ask me; that was Semmat, not Trader's Tongue. I don't speak
Semmat."
Lady Kalira saw Sterren's continued incomprehension and said, "Od'na ya
Semma!" When he still looked blank, she said, "Et'sharitic is bad." Her
pronunciation was horrendous.
Sterren stared for a moment, then turned to the sailor and demanded, "Is
she telling me my native tongue isn't fit for her to speak? Is this some sort
of barbarian ritual thing?" He was even more thoroughly confused than before.
"No, no, no," the sailor said, "she's just saying she can't speak it very
well. I don't think she knows more than a dozen words, to be honest, and I
taught her half of those on the way here."
The Semman aristocrat apparently gave up on direct communication with her
captive and gave the interpreter a long message to relay. He interrupted her
twice, requesting clarifications -- at least that was what Sterren judged to
be happening, since each interruption was followed by a careful repetition of
an earlier phrase.
Finally, the sailor turned to Sterren and explained, "She says she was
sent by her king, Phenvel the Third, to find the heir of your grandmother's
brother, the Eighth Warlord, who died four months ago. She consulted a
magician -- I'm not clear on what sort -- and that led her to you. She is to
bring you back to Semma to receive your title and inheritance and to fulfill
your hereditary duties as the new warlord -- you're Enne Karnai, the Ninth
Warlord."
"That's silly," Sterren replied. He relaxed somewhat. If the story were
true, then his worries about vengeance were groundless, and he saw no reason
for the woman to bother lying.
"That's what she said," the sailor replied with a shrug.
"What if I won't go?" he asked. While it might be nice to have an
inheritance waiting for him, that bit about 'hereditary duties' didn't sound
good, and he wanted nothing to do with wars or warlords. Wars were dangerous.
Besides, who would want to live among barbarians? Particularly among
barbarians who apparently didn't speak Ethsharitic.
The idea was ludicrous.
The interpreter relayed his question, and Lady Kalira's face fell. She
spoke an authoritative sentence; the sailor hesitantly translated it as,
"Failure to perform one's duty to one's country is treason, and treason is
punishable by immediate summary execution."
"Execution?" The inheritance suddenly sounded much more attractive.
Lady Kalira said something in Semmat; the smiles vanished from the faces
of the soldiers, and each dropped a hand to his sword hilt.
"But it's not my country!" Sterren protested. "I was born and raised here
in Ethshar, of Ethsharitic parents!" He looked from the sailor to Lady Kalira
and back.
The sailor shrugged, a gesture that was getting on Sterren's nerves. Lady
Kalira said, in halting Ethsharitic, "You, the heir."
Sterren looked despairingly at the two soldiers; he could see no chance
at all that he could outrun or outfight either of them, let alone both. The
one on the left slid a few inches of his blade from its scabbard, in warning.
"Hai! No bloodshed in here! Take him outside first!" The innkeeper's
voice was worried.
No one paid any attention to his outburst -- save that, Sterren hoped he
would call the city guard.
Hoping for the city guard was a new experience for him.
Even if they were summoned, though, they could not possibly arrive in
time to do him any good. He had no way out. Struggling to smile, Sterren
managed a ghastly parody of a grin as he said, "I guess I'll be going to
Semma, then."
Lady Kalira smiled smugly.
CHAPTER 2
Sterren stared at the decaying, sun-bleached town of Akalla of the
Diamond in dismay. It lived up to his worst imaginings of what the barbaric
Small Kingdoms would be like.
He had been given very little warning of what to expect. His captors had
spirited him out of the tavern, paused at his room on Bargain Street only long
enough to gather up his few belongings, and then taken him, protesting
vigorously, onto their chartered ship.
He had looked desperately for an opportunity to escape, but none had
presented itself. At the last minute he had dived off the dock, only to be
fished ignominiously out of the mud and dragged aboard.
After that, he had given up any thoughts of escape for a time. Where
could he escape to from a ship? He wasn't that strong a swimmer. Instead, he
had cooperated as best he could, biding his time.
His captors had separated him from the interpreter and made it plain that
they expected him to learn their barbaric tongue, Semmat, they called it. He
had swallowed his revulsion at the thought of speaking anything but proper
Ethsharitic and had done his best to oblige. After all, if he couldn't
understand what was being said around him, he would have little chance of
learning anything useful.
His language lessons had not covered very much when the ship docked in
Akalla of the Diamond, just ten days after leaving Ethshar of the Spices. The
weather had been hot and clear, and fairly calm, which is why it took ten days
just to cross the Gulf of the East and sail the South Coast. One of the two
immense Semman soldiers, the one who called himself Alder d'Yoon, told Sterren
in a mixture of baby Semmat and sign language that the voyage in the other
direction had taken only four days because the ship had been driven before a
storm much of the way, a very expensive storm, conjured up for that very
purpose, if Sterren understood him correctly.
Alder guessed the total distance between the two ports at less than a
hundred leagues, a figure that surprised Sterren considerably. He had always
thought of the Small Kingdoms as being a very long way off, on the far side of
the ocean, and a hundred leagues across a mere gulf didn't seem that far.
Of course, Sterren was not absolutely certain that he had understood
Alder correctly. He knew he had the numbers straight, because he had learned
them from counting fingers, but he wasn't completely sure of the Semmat terms
for "day" and "league." He wished that he could check with the interpreter,
but Lady Kalira, or rather, Aia Kalira, in Semmat, had expressly forbidden the
man to talk to him in any language, and she was paying enough that the sailor
would not take any chance of losing his job.
Several members of the crew spoke Ethsharitic, but Lady Kalira had paid
each of them to not speak it to Sterren except in emergencies. He was to
communicate in Semmat or not at all.
Too often, it was not at all, leaving him unsure of much of his limited
vocabulary.
Whatever the exact distances, there could be no doubt that on the
afternoon of the tenth day their ship put into port at Akalla, in the shadow
of the grim pile of guano-whitened stone the Semmans called Akalla Karnak.
Sterren thought that karnak probably meant castle, but again he was not quite
sure. He had never seen a castle before, and the forbidding fortification at
Akalla did not encourage him to seek out others.
He had gathered that Semma lay somewhere inland, and that Akalla of the
Diamond was the nearest seaport to it. He was not yet clear on whether Akalla
was a separate country, a conquered province, or a district within the kingdom
of Semma. The truth was that he didn't much care, since it did not seem
relevant to any plans to escape back to Ethshar.
And Akalla looked like a place that very few people cared about. It
consisted of three or four streets lined with small shops and houses, all
huddled onto a narrow stretch of beach in the castle's shadow, between two
jagged stretches of broken cliffs.
The buildings of the town were built of some sort of yellowish blocks
that looked more like brick than stone, but were far larger than any bricks
Sterren was familiar with. The joints all seemed to be covered with faded
greenery, brown mosses or gray lichen or half-dead ivy climbing the walls. The
roofs were of turf, with thin, scorched brown grass on top. He saw very few
windows. Flies buzzed in clouds above the streets, and the few people who were
visible on those streets seemed to be curled up asleep, completely covered by
dirty white robes. The whole place smelled of dry rot.
Sterren was not at all impressed by the town.
The castle was far more impressive, but it, too, was streaked with dying
plant life and seemed lifeless, almost abandoned.
As Sterren watched the sailors tying up to the dock, he asked the soldier
beside him, not Alder, but the other one, Alder's comrade Dogal d'Gra, how far
it was to Semma.
Rather, he tried to ask that, but his limited knowledge of Semmat forced
him to say instead, "How many leagues is Semma?" That assumed that he was
using the correct word for leagues and hadn't screwed up the grammar
somewhere.
What he had thought was a simple question plunged his guard into deep
concentration; the Semman muttered to himself, saying in Semmat, "Akalla,
maybe one; Skaia, four or five; Ophkar, hmm."
Finally, after considerable calculation, he arrived at an answer.
"Twelve, thirteen, maybe fourteen leagues."
Sterren knew the numbers up to twenty beyond any question, and a good
many beyond with reasonable confidence, but to be sure he held up his ten
fingers and said, "And two, three more?"
Dogal nodded. "Yeah."
Horrified, Sterren stared back out at the port. Thirteen leagues? The
entire city of Ethshar was little more than a league from corner to corner,
yet he had never managed to explore it all. It took a good hour just to walk
from Westgate to the Arena, more, if traffic was heavy. They would have to
walk all night to reach Semma!
In the event, as he later learned, they would not walk at all, and
certainly not at night. Instead, when the ship was secured at bow and stern
and the gangplank in place, he found himself escorted not out onto the highway
to Semma, but to a small inn near the docks, small by Sterren's standards,
that is, since it was, except for the castle, the largest structure in town.
The interpreter, to Sterren's consternation, stayed behind on the ship;
he had fulfilled his contract and would not be accompanying them further.
Upon learning this, Sterren suddenly wished he had tried even harder
during his language lessons. Now if an emergency arose he would have to rely
on his limited command of Semmat, rather than finding an interpreter. He felt
more cut off than ever.
Once inside the inn, out of the hot sun and into the cool shade, Sterren
looked around, and his opinion of Akalla went up a notch. The inn was laid out
well enough, with several cozy alcoves holding tables and one wall lined with
barrels. A stairway at either side led up to a balcony, and the rooms for
travelers opened off that. A good many customers were present, eating and
drinking and filling the place with a pleasant hum of conversation, while
harried but smiling barmaids hurried hither and yon.
Most of the customers wore the thin white robes Sterren had seen on the
street, but here they were thrown back to reveal gaily colored tunics and
kilts beneath.
Lady Kalira ignored the bustle and headed directly for the innkeeper, who
stood leaning against one of the barrels. She took two rooms for her party,
one for herself, and one for Sterren, Alder, and Dogal.
Sterren glanced around and decided that even though it was a pleasant
enough inn, he did not really want to be there, not with Alder and Dogal
watching him constantly, and with, he presumed, nobody around who spoke
Ethsharitic.
Since he had no choice, however, he resolved to make the best of it.
While Dogal took the party's baggage up to their rooms and Lady Kalira settled
with the innkeeper on the exact amount of the party's advance payment, Sterren
attempted to strike up a conversation with a winsome barmaid, using his very
best Semmat.
She stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled, said something in a
language he had never heard before, and hurried away.
He stared after her in shock.
"What was..." he began in Ethsharitic, and then caught himself and
switched to Semmat. "What was that?" he asked Alder.
"What?" the soldier asked in reply.
"What the... the... what she said."
Alder shrugged. "I don't know," he said, "She was speaking Akallan."
"Akallan? Another language?"
"Sure," Alder said, unperturbed.
Sterren stared about wildly, listening to first one conversation, then
another. Lady Kalira and the innkeeper were speaking Trader's Tongue, he
realized. A couple at a nearby table was whispering in some strange and
sibilant speech that didn't sound like Trader's Tongue, Akallan, or Semmat,
and which certainly wasn't Ethsharitic. Other voices were speaking any number
of dialects.
"Gods," Sterren said, "How does anybody ever talk to anyone here?"
Alder asked, "What?"
Sterren realized he'd spoken Ethsharitic again; he wasn't sure whether he
wanted to weep or scream. He did know he wanted a drink. He sat down heavily
in the nearest chair and resorted to a language understood everywhere; he
waved a finger in the air in the general direction of the barmaid and threw a
coin on the table.
That worked, and the barmaid smiled at him as she placed a full tankard
before him. He began to feel more cheerful.
After all, he reminded himself, he was in a port. Naturally, there would
be a variety of travelers, speaking a variety of tongues. "In Semma," he said
to Alder, "all speak one language?" He knew, as he said it, that his phrasing
was awkward, but it was the best he could do.
"Sure," Alder said, settling down at Sterren's table. "Everyone in Semma
speaks Semmat. Just about, anyway; I guess there might be some foreigners now
and then who don't."
Sterren struggled to follow his guard's speech. He had been resigned to
learning Semmat, but now he was becoming really eager to learn. Whatever the
ignominy of being forced to use a barbarian tongue, it was nothing compared to
the isolation and inconvenience of not being able to speak with those about
him.
And it looked as if he was, indeed, going to be stuck in Semma for the
foreseeable future, if he didn't get away very, very soon. Thirteen leagues
inland! There was simply no way he would be able to slip away and cover that
distance without being caught and dragged back, not if the Semmans had any
sort of magic available, as they surely did.
If he was going to escape, he would have to do so tonight, here in
Akalla, and stow away aboard a ship bound for Ethshar.
And how could he do that when he couldn't find three people in Akalla who
spoke the same language as each other, let alone anything that he, himself,
understood? How could he learn which ship was bound whither, and when?
Even if he once got aboard a ship, how could he earn his way home, when
he couldn't even understand orders, or argue about the rules of a friendly
game? No, it was hopeless. He was doomed to go to Semma, a country that his
grandmother had been only too glad to flee, even at the loss of her noble
status. Being thus doomed, all he could do was make the best of it. He would
have to find some way to fit in.
He might even have to actually be a proper warlord. First though, he
needed to know the language. "Alder," he said, "I want to learn Semmat better.
Alder gulped beer, then nodded. "Sure," he said. "What do you want to
know?"
[MISSING PAGES???]
The road had vanished, but they seemed confident of the route, so he did
not question it. For one thing, he was far too busy trying to minimize the
bruising of his backside to worry about where he was going, or why. He put
aside all worries about wars and warlords and life among the barbarians,
concentrating solely on matters closer to hand, and closer still to his seat.
By the time the party stopped by a tiny stream for a midday rest and
refreshment, out of sight of even Akalla Karnak's highest tower, Sterren's
throat ached from dryness, his hands ached from clutching the reins, his feet
ached from being jammed into the stirrups, his back ached from trying to keep
him upright, and worst of all, his rump ached from the constant abrasive
collisions with his saddle. He did not descend gracefully, but simply fell off
his mount onto a tuft of prairie grass.
Alder and Dogal politely pretended not to notice, but Lady Kalira was
less kind.
"You haven't ridden before, have you?" she demanded without preamble.
Sterren took a moment to mentally translate this into Ethsharitic. "No,"
he admitted. He was too thirsty, weary, and battered to think of any sarcastic
摘要：

THEUNWILLINGWARLORDbyLAWRENCEWATT-EVANS(1989)[VERSION1.1(Oct0803).Ifyoufindandcorrecterrorsinthetext,pleaseupdatetheversionnumberby0.1andredistribute.]CHAPTER1Thedicerolled,smackedagainstthebaseboard,thenbouncedbackandskitteredtoastop.Oneshowedfivepips,andtheothertwoeachshowedsix,clearlyvisibleeveni...

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