Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 5 - A Wizard in Chaos

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A Wizard In ChaosA Wizard In Chaos
The Fifth Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard
By Christopher Stasheff
ISBN: 0-812-54928-7
CHAPTER 1
The roar of battle filled Cort's ears, deafening him. He couldn't even hear the
bellow as the enemy soldier swung his broadsword. He only saw the man's mouth
gaping.
Cort caught the blow on his shield. It jarred his arm all the way to the
shoulder, but he couldn't hear the blade ring. He pivoted and stabbed crosswise
at the foeman's sword arm. The man rolled back, catching Cort's blade on his
own, but was too slow trying to return the stroke. Cort let his blade's rebound
help him in swinging up, over, and down at the man's shoulder. The soldier's
mouth widened in an unheard scream as he fell away.
Even in the thick of battle, Cort felt elation that he hadn't had to kill the
man. He stood in the forefront of his men on guard, waiting for another enemy
boot soldier to fill the place of the one who had fallen-but surprisingly, no
one came. Instead, three of the enemy turned and ran from the unceasing blows of
Cort's own soldiers. He stood a moment, staring in disbelief. Then a grin of
triumph split his face, and a yell of victory from all his platoon split the
air. The raw energy of it seemed to strike the enemy in the back and push them
on; they ran, then ran faster as Cort's men redoubled their yelling.
Young Aulin leaped forward to chase, howling like a madman.
"Stop him!" Cort cried, and Sergeant Otto leaped after Aulin, two soldiers
following him. They caught the boy and sent him spinning back into line. Thanks
be, Cort thought. It was the third rule of battle every new recruit had to
learn: Never chase a routed enemy. Too many of them had been known to turn and
fight when you had come too far from the safety of your own lines.
Watching the enemy run, Cort could only think that it was no surprise. They'd
been raw farm boys, probably pressed into service by their boss on a week's
notice, when he'd found out the Boss of Zutaine had hired the Blue Company to
march against him. They hadn't stood a chance against seasoned professionals. It
was a wonder they had lasted half an hour!
"We're not just going to let them run, are we, lieutenant?" his master sergeant
growled.
"Of course not, Sergeant Otto," Cort replied, "but we wait for the captain's
signal."
A bugle rang out, its clear high note piercing the shouting. The Blue Company
responded with a massed cheer and started forward.
"Advance!" Cort told the master sergeant, and the man turned to bawl the order
to the platoon. They marched forward, picking their way over and through the
bodies of the fallen. Cort knew the sight would trouble him horribly when the
battle lust had faded, but for now, his heart sang high with the knowledge that
boot after boot had attacked him and fallen, but he still walked!
They came to the top of the rise, and- Cort saw the bullies in the distance,
spurring their way past their own soldiers, knocking them aside in their haste
to escape. Their bouncers followed hard on their heels, also mounted-but far
ahead, the Blue Company's reserves came charging down from the pine forest where
the captain had hidden them. They had carefully worked their way around the
hills and behind the enemy's lines. Now they proved their worth, surrounding the
bullies, catching the reins of their rearing warhorses and pulling their heads
down, then hauling their masters off their backs. More troopers cut off the
bouncers and unhorsed them, too. They let the boots go, running past the Blue
Company on either sidecommon soldiers brought no ransom. Now and then, a boot
slowed as if realizing he should defend his masters, but half a dozen Blue
Company pikemen turned, bellowing, to change his mind, and the boot ran on in
the midst of his fellows.
"No ransoms for us this time," the master sergeant grumbled.
"You weren't thinking of hiding a bouncer away to ransom on your own, were you?"
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Cort asked with a grin.
"No, of course not, lieutenant!" Sergeant Otto said quickly. "You know me better
than that!" Actually, Cort knew the man well enough to be sure that was exactly
what Otto would have done if he'd had the chance, and never mind that ,a lowly
noncom couldn't hold a man of higher rank prisoner. The bouncers' armor alone
would have been worth a year's pay for the master sergeant, though the noncom
probably would have kept the horseman's sword. "Share and share alike," he
reminded Sergeant Otto. "Whoever captures the bullies and bouncers the Blue
Company ransoms, we all share equally." They almost never caught a boss, of
course.
"I know that!" Sergeant Otto said, then realized Cort had been saying it for the
benefit of the three new men who had survived the battle. "After all, the
reserves may have caught them, but we're the ones who fought the battle and
drove the bullies and their bouncers into the reserves' arms!"
He took a cue well, Cort thought. "We'll have our turn at being reserves,
sergeant. Let's just hope that we don't have to charge the enemy to turn the
battle when our time comes."
"I'll hope indeed," Otto said with a grin. "There's a farm I'd like to buy,
lieutenant, but it's back home in the Domain of Evenstern, not here on a
battlefield!"
The recruits behind him forced an uneasy laugh. They were still marching, but
the enemy boots had fled into the pine forest themselves, and the Blue Company
held the field.
"There he goes!" Otto pointed at the top of a bald hill, where a horseman,
silhouetted against the sky, had turned his horse and ridden down out of sight
in the midst of his bodyguards.
Cort nodded. "So the Boss of Wicksley loses the day-and we lose the boss."
Otto shrugged. "Didn't think we'd catch him, did you, lieutenant? Bosses always
make sure they'll be safe, no matter who loses."
"He might be caught yet," Cort disagreed, "if he tries to rally what's left of
his men."
"More likely he'll ride home to his castle and bar his gates against the Boss of
Zutaine." Otto was as tactful as old noncoms have to be, when they're trying to
educate brash young officers-not that Cort was new to the trade anymore, having
survived a dozen battles. He was a veteran now, so Otto paid him respect as well
as tact. "Of course, if Zutaine besieges him, we won't be in on it."
"No, the boss will just use his household troops," Cort agreed. "Can't have a
mercenary captain taking Wicksley Castle away from him, can he?" He was very
much aware of the new soldiers behind him listening wide-eyed, soaking up every
bit of knowledge of soldiering that they could. "A captain does become a boss
now and then, but the bosses don't want to let it happen any more often than
they can help."
"Suits me." Otto made a face. "I hate siege duty. Give me a clean death in
battle, say 1, not a lingering one from disease or petty quarreling." He was
still aware of the learning going on behind him.
The bugle blew again, and Cort quickly said, "Halt," before Sergeant Otto could
turn and bawl it to the troopers.
It never occurred to Cort to wonder why foot soldiers were called "boots" if
they fought for a boss, but "troopers" or "soldiers" in a mercenary army, or why
their horsemen and junior officers were called "cavalry" and "lieutenants"
instead of "bouncers." It was just the way it was, just the way it had always
been, just as the men who commanded the mercenary armies were "captains," not
"bullies," and the men who ruled a whole district with its dozen or so bullies
were called "bosses."
It did occur to him to wonder which of the bodies on the ground were alive, and
which dead. "Winnow the bodies, men! Cart the live ones to the surgeons, and
bury the dead."
"Why bury them if they're not Blue Company troopers, lieutenant?" one of the new
men asked, frowning.
"Because their bodies will rot and spread disease through all of us! Plant them
and let them make next year's crops rich, men! And remember the songs your
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village sage taught you. Sing them while you lower their bodies down and cover
them up. We don't want their ghosts walking, any more than their diseases, or
the Fair Folk summoning them forth to be mindless slaves!"
The raw soldiers blanched, and turned to start hunting.
"It'll keep them from having the shakes for a little while, at least," Cort told
his master sergeant. "Yes, but the weakness will be worse when it hits, for
having seen so many dead bodies in a single day," Otto predicted. "At least they
should lose their stomachs pretty early on, so we'll have an excuse to send them
off to rest."
Cort remembered his first battle and shuddered. "I suppose they have to go.
through it all, don't they?"
"If they want to stay in this trade, they do," Otto returned. "Of course, after
today, all three of them may decide to resign and take their chances with their
boss's draft."
"I wouldn't blame them for a second," Cort said grimly.
"Then again, today they've seen how the boots were driven on in front of the
bouncers, to take the worst blows and the highest death count," Otto observed.
"And seen how you and I led our men and took our chances right along with them,"
Cort said. "I wouldn't blame them for quitting, sergeant, but their chances for
living will be a lot better with us."
Otto nodded. "You've lived almost four years since you joined up, sir, and I've
lived nearly ten. We've both seen comrades fall all around us, but nowhere
nearly so many as if we'd stayed home and fought for our bullies. No, all in
all, I'd rather be a sergeant than a brute."
Cort knew that "brute" was only the bosses' name for a noncom, but he
appreciated the double meaning anyway.
"But you, sir, you've seen how the bouncers may be wounded and captured, but
seldom killed." Otto looked up at his young master with a glint in his eye.
"Your chances for long life are better with a bully instead of a captain, at
least until you start your own company. Why stay?"
"Because I'd rather have a quick grave than a long prison term while I waited
for my bully to save up the ransom money," Cort answered shortly.
That wasn't it, of course, and by Otto's approving nod, he knew the sergeant
knew it. It was simply that Cort couldn't have brought himself to have driven
plowboys before him to their deathsand Otto knew that, too.
He turned away, wrenching his mind away from his embarrassing lack of hardness.
"You take half the men and search our ground to the east, sergeant; while I take
the rest to the west."
"Yes, sir! Ho! Squads one and two! With me! Squads three and four! Follow the
lieutenant!" Cort started off, back toward the knoll where the Blue Company's
flag stood, eyes on the ground now. Even from this distance, he could see the
occasional plain rough-woven tunic of a serf who hadn't been a soldier. His
mouth tightened in a grimace; he tasted bile. There were always a few plowboys
who didn't move fast enough and were ground to mincemeat between the two armies.
There were always a few serf women whom the soldiers found right after the
battle, when blood lust and plain lust were both high, and those women were
ground up in a different way, before an officer or bouncer could stop it-if he
wanted to stop it. It was tragic, but there was no help for it; it happened so
often that it was just part of war.
Over the horizon from Cort, in a pasture screened on two sides by woods and on
the third by a mountain, the great golden ship came spinning down to the ground,
light as a ballerina, in the middle of a pasture. It was so noiseless that even
the cows sleeping nearby didn't look up.
The ramp extended, sliding down from the ship to the ground. Gar led the mare
down its slope, Dirk following with the stallion. They had caught and tamed the
two horses in a wilderness a thousand miles away, but had only been gentling the
beasts for two weeks. They were still half-wild, but Gar was a projective
telepath, so the mare went quietly under his spell. The stallion jerked his head
against the bridle, though, rolling his eyes.
"Spare a thought for my mount!" Dirk called. Gar glanced back, and the stallion
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quieted. They came down onto firm ground, and both horses seemed to relax,
though their flanks still quivered. "Not bad for their first spaceship ride,"
Dirk said. "Did you have to keep them hypnotized the whole way?"
"Probably not," Gar said, "but it was only a fifteen-minute hop, so I kept them
in trances just to be on the safe side." He raised his voice a little. "Back to
orbit, Herkimer. Stay tuned."
"I will await your communications, Magnus," said the resonant voice of the
ship's computer. It called its owner by his birth-name, not the nickname he had
won on his travels. "Good luck."
The ramp drew back in, and the huge disk rose silently, spinning away into the
night, until it was only one more star among many.
"How far to the nearest castle?" Dirk said. "About a dozen miles, but there was
a battle going on there this afternoon, and the troops seemed to be celebrating
as we were coming in for a landing," Gar answered. "We might do better to head
for the nearest town."
"Let's hear it for city lights." Dirk mounted.
So did Gar. They rode off side by side toward the dim track that Herkimer's
night-sight program had shown them.
"How about this," Dirk suggested. "We ride together until we're sure the way is
reasonably safe, then split up to spy out the lay of the land and what's on it."
"My instincts are against it," Gar said, frowning. "There're too many evils that
can happen to one of us alone."
"Yes, especially on a planet like this, founded by a group. of very idealistic,
quasi-religious anarchists. I guess they managed to stay peaceful, living under
colony domes, long enough to Terraform the continent."
Gar nodded. "Then, when the land was ready for the seeds of Terran plants, they
opted for the primitive life, going out to farm and live in small villages of
prefab huts, with no government higher than a village meeting." He sighed. "How
could they possibly have thought it could last?"
"They figured they could all just imitate the saintly lives of their sages,"
Dirk reminded him, "and that would keep them from hurting one another or
offending one another-or so say the historical notes in the databank. Voila! No
need for government!"
"Not exactly hardheaded realists, then."
Dirk nodded. "I'll bet they were determined not to depend on hightech
agriculture or sophisticated birth-control techniques."
"But they did depend on human nature being considerably more virtuous than it
is," Gar said darkly.
"So they fell back into a medieval standard of living."
"They were probably idealistic enough not to mind the hardships," Gar sighed. "I
wonder what went wrong?"
"What went wrong?" Dirk asked. "Just look at those pictures we took from orbit!
Castles on the hilltops with people in satins and furs walking the courtyards,
packs of men in armor on horseback, and people in rags plowing the fields! What
do you think went wrong?"
"Well, yes, that much is obvious," Gar admitted, "but I'd like to know the
details. They do seem to have strayed into some form of government."
"Only locally," Dirk said grimly. "How many battles did we spot from orbit? A
dozen?"
"Seventeen," Gar admitted. "None of them very big, though."
"Tell that to the men who died in them! And if we just happened in on a day when
seventeen battles were in progress, what are the odds that it was an ordinary
day?"
"Fairly good," Gar agreed, "though coincidences do happen . . ."
"But not very often. Look at it this way-their ancestors got what they wanted:
no government. They just didn't expect it to result in open season for robbers."
"Oh, come now. Isn't that going at it a bit strong, calling the local
aristocracy robbers?"
"How do you suppose they got those castles? And how can they be aristocracy if
there's no king or queen to grant them their titles?"
"Why, they appointed themselves, of course," Gar said mildly. "That's what my
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ancestors did."
"But forgot to appoint a king," Dirk reminded him, "so there's no one to keep
them from chewing each other up every year or three, and the common people with
them." He shook his head. "No matter how you slice it, there's too much trouble
for the two of us to ferret out together-it'd take six months! If we're apart,
we can cover twice as much territory and find twice as many problems-or twice as
many solutions. Who knows? Maybe we just came down during a dynastic quarrel,
and all we have to do is help the right side win."
"Assuming we can define `right,' under these circumstances," Gar said dryly.
"Whichever candidate will be best for the people."
"Easy to say, not so easy to see. Besides, you don't really believe the
situation is that simple:"
"No, I don't," Dirk sighed. "The peasants are in too much misery to have been
oppressed by war for only a year or two. But it could be we're near the end of
the local version of the Hundred Years' War."
"Even five could do it," Gar said grimly. "My friend, if I say it's too
dangerous to split up, and I'm the one with the psi powers, then it's really
dangerous."
"It was pretty dangerous where I grew up," Dirk pointed out, "especially since,
if I'd been caught, I wouldn't have been only a runaway churl-I'd also have been
guilty of treason. But I survived, and I hadn't even met you."
Gar rode in silence, his face stony.
Dirk recognized the reaction to a telling point. "Besides, I'm the one who
doesn't have a virtual ESP arsenal, so if I'm suggesting we split up, I've got
to be fairly sure I'll be safe."
"Not necessarily; I know your dedication," Gar countered. "Still, I'm your
friend, not your master. If you want to go, I have no business trying to stop
you."
Dirk looked up sharply, wondering if he detected hurt, especially since his big
friend's face was still stony. "Don't worry, old son," he said gently. "We can
stay in touch with these new toys Herkimer made us." He touched the thick iron
brooch that held his cloak. Underneath the enamel, it was an integrated circuit
with a minuscule audio pickup; the whole surface acted as a loudspeaker. "Of
course, we don't want the peasants getting frightened by talking brooches, so if
I need you, I'll chirp like a cricket."
"Yes, well, I hope I won't be in the middle of a battle when you call," Gar said
with irony. "Let's plan on comparing notes every evening, shall we? That's a
good time to go off by one's self for a few minutes."
"Or to shut the door," Dirk agreed. "Let's state the question we're trying to
answer clearly and briefly, then-that always helps when you're trying to find
clues to the solution."
"A good idea." Gar was coming out of his melancholy. "We need to resolve whether
or not this constant warfare is good for the people as a whole."
"It can't possibly be," Dirk grunted, "but I suppose there's a chance that
there's a government under it that would be good for the people, if we could
ever get rid of whoever's causing the fighting."
"Or stop the governments themselves from fighting," Gar agreed. "After all, it's
not the first planet we've seen that had constant warfare."
"No, but there's a certain vividness to this one that suggests a high degree of
dedication," Dirk said with a shudder.
"Try to keep an open mind," Gar urged. "The fighting might be a ritualized
political process, with an equally ritualized way of avoiding killing or maiming
people, like the Terran Native Americans' custom of counting coup."
"I'll try to keep it in mind," Dirk sighed, "but I doubt it highly."
"I know what you mean. We've never seen a planet where there was so much
fighting going on at one time."
"Could be their busy season," Dirk suggested without much hope. "What if we
decide this constant warfare isn't just a freak outbreak, though, and can't
possibly be good for the people?".
"Then we have to seriously consider the possibility that it must be stopped, and
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that the governments that cause it, or the lack of governments, need replacing."
"And if they do," said Dirk, "how do we go about replacing them?"
"One question at a time, my friend," Gar said, smiling. "We'll deal with that
one if we come to it." His concentration on the plight of the people had let him
ignore the mare; she tossed her head and reared. Gar turned to her, pulling down
on the bridle, sending a soothing thought. She came back to all fours, calming
considerably.
"Gentling does go faster with your special gifts," Dirk admitted. "You don't
suppose they could work on the local lords, do you?"
"Probably," Gar said, "but it would be totally unethical-unless they were so
cruel that virtually any method of stopping them, and saving their peasants,
would be morally acceptable."
"And if things got that bad, we might as well just lob in a small bomb." Dirk
sighed. "Would have been nice if we could have done it the quick way."
"Imposed attitudes seldom last, anyway," Gar told him.
The Boss of Zutaine didn't want to pay off the Blue Company once the battle was
done, of course, but he knew he might need them again, and what was worse, he
knew he could look down from his battlements to see them camped all around the
foot of the hill on which his castle stood, hungover and staggering with
headaches, but nonetheless in a perfect position to besiege him. If they did, he
knew the siege wouldn't last long. He wasn't fool enough to think that his
twenty-three armored bruisers and their ragtag collections of plowboys would
stand a chance against a thousand hardened professionals. So he paid-eight times
eight times eight gold marks, and an extra eight into the bargain as a token of
the boss's goodwill. Two lieutenants counted the pieces out on a checkerboard,
stacking the coins four high on each square, then sweeping them into a sack and
stacking the next set.
Cort watched, feeling only awe, not greed. There was a certain beauty to the
metal as it flashed in the sunlight. He didn't believe the alchemists who
claimed it was the purest metal in the universetoo much blood was spilled for
it-but it was pretty. Five hundred twelve pieces of gold, each worth twenty
silver coins! Eight pieces of silver for each trooper, ten for each lieutenant,
one hundred forty for the captain, and two thousand plus eight extra for the
Company treasury! But they had fought long and hard for that money, and the pay
of those who had died wouldn't be shared out among the living-it would go to the
families they had left behind, though it wouldn't last long and couldn't
possibly make up for the loss.
So the boss and the captain parted with mutual expressions of gratitude and
respect, both knowing that the Blue Company might be hired to fight against
Zutaine within the year, and Captain Devers turned his troops to march away.
"Two thousand for the company!" grumbled a soldier who had just survived his
first battle. "That's a funny way of saying `for the captain!"'
"Don't let your tongue wag to make a fool of you," Cort told him. "That treasury
makes sure we won't starve if there's no work."
"Aye," said the sergeant, "and it's out of that hoard that Captain Devers sends
a silver coin every other month, to each of the families of his troopers who
have died."
The young fool stared. "I've never heard of a mercenary captain doing that!"
"They don't," the sergeant growled. "Devers does. That's why I stay with his
Blue Company." The captain paid the lieutenants, and each of them paid their
men. Then they marched off on leave, each platoon bent on visiting a different
village-the whole company together would have destroyed any town-each roaring to
begin celebrating, eager to infest the inns, make the brewers and harlots rich,
pester the decent women, and pick fights with the civilian men.
Cort had other plans, though. He had dropped a hint in each sergeant's ear, and
each sergeant had mentioned the town of Bozzeratle as his men were discussing
possible destinations-so it wasn't quite by accident that Cort's platoon was
marching toward the town in which his fiancee lived.
CHAPTER 2
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Gar rode out of the forest onto the road, and the merchant shouted, "Bandits!"
The spear he used for a staff snapped down, leveled at Gar's stomach. One of his
drivers plucked an arrow from his quiver and nocked it in one smooth motion
while the other drivers swung their bows around from their backs and strung
them.
"Peace, peace!" Gar held up his hands. "I'm no bandit! My name is Gar Pike, and
I'm a mercenary looking for honest work!"
"What did you say?" The merchant frowned. "Oh--'honest work.' I can scarcely
understand you, your accent's so thick."
He wouldn't have understood Gar at all, a week before. The local dialect had
drifted so far from Galactic Standard that Gar had taken quite a while puzzling
out the vowel shifts, wandering through markets and sitting in taverns
listening, then trying a halting imitation of their words. Now he could at least
be understood.
The spear and bow held steady, and the rest of the drivers nocked arrows and
drew.
"A soldier for hire?" The merchant frowned with suspicion. He was lean and tall,
as these people went, looking hard enough to be a bandit himself, though his
tunic and leggins were of broadcloth instead of homespun, with a sleeveless,
knee-length robe over them. His colors were all brown and green, the better to
blend into the forest around him. "How can we be sure you're honest, not some
bandit sent to strike from inside while your mates attack? What proof can you
give?"
"No proof at all," Gar said cheerfully, "except for this letter." He had tucked
the rolled parchment into the collar of his tunic, where they could see it
easily; now he drew it out slowly and tossed it to the merchant. The man caught
it and unrolled it, frowning as he studied it.
Gar studied him in return. He'd been surprised to see anything resembling a
merchant in such a war-torn country, but he couldn't think what else a commoner
with a string of mules loaded with huge packs might be, especially since he was
dressed a bit better than his helpers. A merchant had to look prosperous, after
all, or no one would have confidence in the goods he sold. With the warlords
constantly battling each other, trade should have been very risky indeed-a
merchant could never know when a band of. soldiers would descend on him to
confiscate his gods. He guessed that this man, and the few others like him, must
have become very good at finding out where the battles were, and planning routes
that kept them far from the skirmishes.
"I can scarcely make out these words," the merchant complained.
"It comes from very far away," Gar explained. It did-about fifty light-years.
"They don't speak the language the way you do here."
"Hardly the same language at all," the merchant grumbled.
One more strike against the possibility of any sort of law or order on this
planet. A strong government would have tried to keep things from changing too
much, and words would take on new forms very slowly if at all. The fact that
Galactic Standard had evolved into a local dialect whose speakers could scarcely
understand its parent language meant there wasn't anything to put the brakes on
the headlong rush into confusion.
"Never heard of this Paolo Braccalese,". the merchant grumbled.
"As I say, he's very far away," Gar told him. "But he speaks well of you." The
merchant rolled up the parchment with sudden decision and thrust it back at Gar.
"And we can surely use someone of your size. All right, you're hired. I'm Ralke,
and I'm your master now-but if you betray as, you'll be looking for some new
guts." So Gar joined the caravan-and that afternoon, the bandits attacked.
They burst from the roadside trees howling like banshees, pikes up to skewer the
drivers. Mules bawled and balked, and Gar barely had time to draw his sword. The
driver-archer shouted even as he drew and loosed; then the next arrow was on his
bowstring, and the other drivers had strung their bows, but the bandits were in
among them, stabbing and swinging. One driver screamed as he fell from his mule.
"At them, lads! They don't want your goods, they want your lives!" Ralke shouted
as he parried a stabbing pike, then chopped off its head.
"Only goods!" one bandit shouted. "Throw down your weapons and we'll spare you!
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We only want the goods to sell!" Then he snarled and swung the headless spear
shaft at the merchant's head.
Gar turned a pike with his shield and thrust into the bandit's shoulder,
roaring. The man fell back, and Gar turned, spurring his horse, riding back
along the line of mules, chopping pikeheads and slashing at soldiers, bellowing
bloody murder. The bandits fell back from the terrible giant long enough for the
drivers to launch a flight of arrows. Several of the bandits fell, howling and
clutching at shafts. Their mates shouted in rage and charged the drivers again,
screaming, "Die, scum!"
The drivers dropped their bows and yanked short swords from the scabbards on
their saddles. Another driver fell howling, a pike gash pumping blood, but Gar
turned and chopped through the shaft, then struck the bandit on his steel cap.
The blow rang, the man fell-and suddenly, the bandits were turning, running,
leaping, disappearing back into the trees.
"Nock arrows!" Ralke shouted. "They might come again!"
"We'd better see to the wounded." Gar started to dismount.
But Ralke shouted, "No! Let the drivers do the bandaging! You stay on guard!
Johann!"
"Aye?" said one of the driver-archers.
"Tie up those soldiers. Karl! Watch the fallen ones and make sure none of them
swings on Johann!"
Karl nodded and moved over to the prisoners, hard-faced.
Gar hesitated, then swung back into the saddle again, glancing at the trees,
then at the half-dozen bandits who lay groaning and writhing on the
ground-except for two who lay very still. He was amazed how well-equipped they
were, each wearing a hardened leather breastplate and a steel cap.
Then he realized that they were all dressed alike.
"Master Ralke!" he cried. "They aren't common bandits-they're soldiers!"
"Yes, out of work and on furlough," Ralke said grimly. "But soldiers will be
ashamed of being beaten off by a train of traders, so they're all the more
likely to come back than common bandits would be. I was wise to invest in your
services, Gar Pike. If it hadn't been for you roaring like an ogre and slashing
like a windmill, they would have slain us all!"
"Would they really?" Gar turned to him with a troubled frown.
"I've seen it happen," Ralke answered, and two of his drivers nodded.
"I only escaped by pretending to be dead," one said.
"I ran," the other told him, "I was lucky. I looked back and saw the rest of my
caravan being slaughtered."
"Haven't been guarding merchants long, have you?" Ralke asked, frowning up at
him.
"Not in this land, no," Gar said carefully. "The bandits in Talipon weren't
quite so thorough."
"Well, common bandits aren't, either," Ralke said. "They just want the goods,
and if we gave them up without a fight, they might even leave us without a
blow."
"But what would. we have to sell at the next town, then?" one of the drivers
asked. "And with nothing to sell, what would we eat?"
"I didn't work and save for ten years until I could buy my first cargo, just to
make some bandit richer," Ralke huffed.
The drivers all nodded, and Gar guessed they were hoping to do the same. "But
soldiers are different?"
"Of course. They don't dare let us live, you see," Ralke told him. "If their
captain found out about it, he'd flog them within an inch of their lives."
Gar stared. "You mean they weren't acting on their captain's orders?"
" 'Course not," Ralke huffed, and a driver explained, "We're too small for a
captain to notice, but his soldiers might try to pick up some easy money."
"We just have to make sure it's not easy," another driver said grimly.
"There's truth in that," Ralke said. "We don't even have to be able to beat
them, just wound them badly, be able to kill even one of them. They face death
on the battlefield every few weekswhy take a chance on it with a merchant
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caravan?"
"So they only attacked us because they thought we were .weaker than they were,"
Gar inferred. "That they did, and I would have thought the mere sight of you
would have turned them away," Ralke said.
Gar shook his head. "Professionals always know they can beat an amateur hands
down. They just didn't know that I'd been in an army, too."
"They didn't know that we'd faced bandits five times before, either," one of the
drivers said grimly.
"Unpleasant surprises all around," Gar agreed. "For your own merit, give us some
healing!" one of the bandit soldiers cried.
Ralke glanced again at his own wounded men. "They're almost done bandaging their
fellows. They'll get to you in a minute. There's none of you so badly hurt that
you can't wait a little." Actually, one of them had been, but Gar had been doing
a little telekinetic first aid, pinching off an artery until he could make its
severed wall grow back together. "What will you do with them, Master Ralke?"
"Leave them tied up," Ralke said simply. "But we'll leave a note for their
captain, too, explaining that they were trying to rob merchants."
"No!" a fallen soldier cried. "He'll flog us soggy, you know he will!"
"Be glad you'll live," Ralke said grimly.
"Will he really?" Gar asked. "Flog them, I mean."
"The captain? He will, and all their squadron with them-so as soon as we're
gone, they'll come out of the trees to help their fellows and destroy the note."
Ralke shrugged. "No matter. Sooner or later, one of them will grow angry with
the others and tell the captain for revenge."
The fallen mercenary spat at him. It fell short. "I hope you cast a spear better
than that," Ralke countered. Then he explained to Gar, "Most of the mercenary
companies have very strict rules about looting the people who might hire them
next time-and you never know what town a merchant's from, so most of the
captains are careful to leave us alone. Their soldiers, though, think that's
foolish."
"Done, Master Ralke." Johann came up to him, wiping blood off his hands. "That
will hold them till their mates get them to the company surgeon. I'd love to
hear the story they're going to tell him as to how they came by those wounds!"
"It'll be a champion fable for sure," Ralke agreed. "Too bad none of them can
write well enough to copy it for us to read later. Enough time spent on them,
lads. Lash our own men to their saddles and be off!"
They moved on, even the three wounded drivers riding. None of the wounds was
terribly severe, though one would have been without Gar's invisible help. Two
men wore slings, but only needed one hand to ride and encourage the mules.
As soon as they were out of sight of the fallen mercenaries, Gar said, "You know
that none of those soldiers will really tell the captain, of course."
"I know, but I have to let them think I believe they will, or they'll call in
some of their comrades to track us down," Ralke said. "I recognized their
colors, though. They're the Badger Company. Their captain is probably a good
customer at the taverns at Therngee Town, just over those hills." He pointed at
the range ahead. "When we stop there to trade, I'll leave him a note telling
what his men have done and describing the one with the long scar on his cheek.
That will probably be enough for him to recognize, and if he knows one, he'll
know their whole squadron." He shook his head. "Few enough of us merchants
survive, what with bandits and wild beasts and bosses who decide to take our
goods without paying us. We don't need the hazards of the professional soldiers,
too."
"I'm surprised to see so much greed here, Master Ralke," Gar said. "In my
far-off land, no one uses money, or tries to take anyone else's goods."
"Oh, don't they, now! And how do they pay their taxes?"
"There aren't any." Gar tried to describe the original settlement on this
planet. "There aren't any bosses to demand them. There aren't any cities,
either, only villages, and the people get together in the evenings to discuss
their problems, and work out any disputes."
Ralke barked laughter, short, sharp, and sarcastic. "That must be a golden land
indeed! The old tales tell us that our ancestors lived like that, hundreds of
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years ago-but there are always greedy people being born, and people who are
better at fighting than anyone else and see no reason why they should sweat
digging and hoeing in the fields when they can just take what they want from
people who're weaker."
"That's how the bullies began, eh?"
"Bullies indeed! But they found out quickly enough that some bullies were
stronger than others, and could beat them all one by one if they didn't do as
they were told-bigger thugs who put together armies of bullies, each of whom had
his own band of bruisers, and that's how the bosses came to be."
Gar nodded; folklore confirmed his guess. "And the merchants?"
Again the bark of laughter. "Mercenaries came first, but taxes came before any.
I told you that the bullies took what they wanted instead of working to raise
crops, weave cloth, or build houses. Well, the bosses made the bullies gather
the food and cloth for them, and the bullies, not to be outdone, appointed their
best bruisers to collect the goods, and not just enough for the bosses, of
course, but for themselves, too..."
"And the bruisers decided to take a little extra for themselves."
"Most surely. The upshot of it was that they took everything but the bare
necessities the common people needed to keep them alive. They took their
jewelry, too, the necklaces and bracelets of amber and shells that the people
had made for themselves-and when they brought them back to the boss, he
recognized some of the beads as being of gold."
"And all the old tales told how much gold was worth," Gar interpreted.
Ralke nodded. "Children's tales, and stories from old books. The boss told the
people of that village that they could keep half of their next year's crops, if
they gave him more gold beads instead. He gave each of his bruisers a few gold
beads as part of their pay, and they gave them to their boots. The boots took
them back to the village and traded them for food and drink-and trade and money
were both born."
Reborn, rather. Gar was more sure than ever that philosophy could never triumph
over human nature. "And gold gave rise to mercenaries?"
"Well, it gave the bosses a way to pay soldiers without keeping them as part of
their household forever. For that, there are some who say that mercenaries
invented money, or were the cause of that invention, at least-and they may be
right."
"Don't the old tales tell?" Gar asked.
Ralke shrugged. "The tales say that Langobard, the first captain, was one of the
few left alive when two bosses fought over his people's village and chewed it up
in the fighting. Langobard gathered the few others who lived and took to the
greenwood. I don't know if they were the first bandits, but they've certainly
become the most famous! In the next few years, others whose villages had been
burned came to join him, as well as those who disobeyed the bosses, turning on
their tax collectors and killing them. His band became the largest and richest
in the forest, preying off the tax collectors and, later, the parties of
bruisers sent to kill them. At last the Boss of Tungri, who claimed the forest,
came himself with all his army to slay the bandits, and Langobard knew his day
was done, unless he could invent a scheme to delay the boss."
"I take it he was very inventive."
"Oh, most surely! He sent a band to raid the borders of the boss's neighbor, the
Bully of Staucheim, and the bully called on his master, the Boss of Dolgobran,
who called up all his -bullies and their men and marched off against Tungri."
"But Tungri didn't know about it, being deep in the woods chasing Langobard."
"He found out quickly enough. The messenger reached him the next morning, as his
army was breaking camp among the trees. Tungri cursed and turned his men to ride
home-but as they came to a meadow, they found Langobard and his men drawn up
awaiting them under a white flag. Langobard told the boss that he and his men
were tired of living like wild animals and offered their services to him in
exchange for new clothes and a year's food, so that they would no longer need to
rob tax collectors. I'm sure the taste was sour in Tungri's mouth, but he needed
to ride against Dolgobran without delay, and didn't dare lose men in a fight
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