01 - The Price of Talent (43 page)

“Just batted your eyes?” I said. “And you suspect me of taking advantage of other people.”

“Weren’t we going to argue on the road?” She said testily. “Besides, it worked and I didn’t have to knock anyone out.”

“So where’s the stuff?” I asked.

“Out back, in one of the smaller carts,” she said. “But I brought our disguises in here so we could change.”

              She then reached behind one of the bales of hay and pulled out a bag. Inside there were a couple of decent wool hooded cloaks, some nicer pants, shirts and vests that could at least pass as merchant’s clothing.

“Did you grab any guard’s clothes?” I asked. “Yeah, they’re in the cart. Sorry I couldn’t grab any armor though, that would have looked suspicious. But we have guard shirts, pants and cloaks there so that we can pass as visiting guards once we get to Nordshire and Caer Nord.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Now if you could give me a little privacy here, I’ll change in one of these stalls.”

“Yeah, I should probably change too,” she said. “I’ll be in the next one down. Be quick, we need to get out of here before anyone gets too suspicious of why no one has captured you yet. Now, no peeking!”

              And with that she grabbed the smaller set of clothes for herself and headed into one of the unused stalls next to the one I was still sharing with the Merchant’s horse. Not knowing what else to do, I just changed where I was standing hoping the horse would not take offense and try to bite me.

              After I finished, I felt like someone was watching me. I took a look around my stall but didn’t see anyone but the horse. Then I noticed a knot hole in the wood separating Meredith’s cell from mine. Right in the knot hole was Meredith’s eye.

“Hah! I knew you’d try to take a peek!” She said. “Fortunately, I changed faster than you! Pervert!”

              I was a little taken aback by this, but then, she didn’t sound mad at me, so I didn’t pay it much mind. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it was before I thought to question how long she’d been watching me before she accused me of peeking.

              Once we were changed, we met outside the horse stalls.

“So, how are we going to tackle hitching the horses to the cart?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” replied Meredith. “You were the farmer.”

“I see…” I said. “So, I guess I’m walking a horse out to the carriage and hitching it up?”

“Well, I’m coming too,” said Meredith indignantly. “It’s just I’ve never hitched a horse to a cart before.”

“Well, come with me and I’ll show you,” I said. “It’s not that hard, really.”

              And with that I grabbed the horse I had changed next to. I did this partly because it had been so docile while I changed, which was a good personality trait in a pack animal, but also to spite that pompous ass merchant earlier.

              Walking the horse outside was easy. The entryway was still a confusion of merchants and towns’ folk coming and going. I walked the horse, with Meredith following behind, back to where the carts were parked.

“Which one of these is ours again?” I asked.

“The small one in the back there,” she said.

              Sure enough, in the back, there was a one horse cart with a few bundles already stowed in it. Seeing it, and knowing it had to be the one she meant, I walked the horse over to it. Despite this being an unfamiliar cart, and me being an unfamiliar driver, the horse was happy enough to allow me to hitch it to the cart. Meredith, on the other hand, seemed bored with the whole scene. After half a minute she went around to the back of the cart to check the supplies she had procured, or purloined, to make sure everything was there, leaving me alone at the front of the cart.

“Going somewhere Tyr?” I heard a male voice from behind me say.

              I turned around to see a group of three inquisitor initiates. One was standing a yard in front of me, the other two had just emerged from behind other carts.

“I knew when you didn’t appear with the others you must have different plans,” said the first initiate.

              I didn’t recognize any of these three, but that wasn’t saying much. As I was shunned by the initiates, I did not spend any time socializing with them. So I only interacted with any of them at practice. And even there, most kept their distance unless they had to fight with me for a drill.

“I think you have me confused with someone else,” I said, trying to maintain my merchant’s disguise.

“You can’t hide from me, I’ve seen you strutting around here far too often,” said the first initiate.

“Yeah, strutting around like you were cock of the walk,” said a second.

“You may be plain, but you are recognizable,” said a third voice, this one female.

              Having a chance to eyeball the group, I got a better impression of them. The first initiate was a man in his late teens or early twenties with sandy blond hair, and a middling build. The second was an average looking brown haired boy who seemed content to stand in the shadow of this first initiate. The third was a woman in her late teens with mousy brown hair, a skeptical expression on her face, and was still casually leaning against the cart she had been hiding behind. They were also all armed. The girl with a truncheon, the brown haired kid with a bolas and the blond initiate with a man-catcher.

“Again, I think you have me confused with someone else,” I said.

“Like hell we do!” Said the first initiate. “Let’s get him!”

              And with that, the three of them attacked me. The initiate with the bolas started spinning the balls above his head to get ready to throw, the girl stopped leaning against the cart and readied her truncheon. The leader of the pack took a two handed grip on the shaft of the man-catcher and started to walk forward.

              Not knowing what else to do, I immediately summoned my sword into my hand and started drawing in magic. My sword appeared in my hand immediately, and magical energies filled me at a good clip, it being midafternoon on a sunny and mild December day. As this was happening, I positioned myself so the cart was to my back and the blond initiate with the man-catcher was between me and the kid with the bolas. I had no intention of giving him a clear throwing angle.

              The kid with the man catcher came straight on, fainted high with a thrust like he was trying to hook me around the neck or chest, then tried to swipe around under my guard to trip me up. Seeing this I easily side stepped and parried the attack. Unfortunately, this put me in line with the female coming at me with her truncheon. The first initiate stepped back and she swung at my head, which I parried. Seeing me parry, the initiate with the man-catcher tried again to trip me with the hooked end. This I side stepped the other direction, this time putting him between me and the girl with the truncheon.

              Now, with enough power drawn, I let loose a blast of telekinetic force, which sent both the initiates attacking me stumbling. I then quickly stepped back and prepared a blast of electricity for the initiate with the bolas who had not yet entered the fray. But when I looked to where he had been, I almost missed a step.

              There he was, but instead of preparing to throw the bolas at me, he was face down in the dirt, and his legs were tied up with his own bolas. So either he was colossally incompetent with that bolas or Meredith had snuck around and used her knockout spell on him. Good to know that she could use that outside of a hospital setting.

              This did leave me with two initiates left to deal with though. Both of whom had just regained their footing. Not wanting to let them get the initiative again, I pointed my sword at the guy with the man catcher and released a burst of electricity to stun him. Unfortunately, he guessed what I was about to do, dropped the man-catcher, and rolled out of the way. My blast hit his weapon right on the metal head and sent it flying under an adjacent carriage.

              When he got to his feet however, I was on him. Not waiting for him to regain his weapon, I rushed him head on. He was not expecting this and flinched for just long enough for me to fake a thrust with my sword, which he ducked. This was an unfortunate choice as the purpose of my fake thrust was to distract him from the knee I was aiming at his chest. But, since he ducked, it hit him square in the face, knocking him out cold.

              With him out of the way and the bolas user knocked out, I spun to face what I assumed would be an imminent attack from the girl with the truncheon, only to find myself alone in the space between carts we had been fighting in. I looked around, and saw a pair of boots, presumably attached to the girl, sliding under a cart. Just as I was wondering what was going on, Meredith came around the other side.

“Well, are you going to help me hide these idiots or not?” She asked.

“The girl with the club?” I asked her, still a little surprised.

“I just dragged her unconscious body under that cart,” said Meredith. “Now you stuff the big blond guy under another cart and I’ll see what I can do with bolas boy.”

“You knocked them both out?” I asked, still a little slow on the uptake.

“Well obviously, Tyr.” She said practically rolling her eyes at me. “Who else was going to knock them out? Fortunately, they were so interested in you that they didn’t notice me sneaking around behind the carts.”

“Excellent! Unfortunately, I think my use of magic may well tip off more initiates so we need to move quickly,” I said.

“Well, duh,” said Meredith.

              So with that, I pushed the blond initiate under the nearest cart while Meredith rolled the initiate tied up with his own bolas under another cart. I then jogged back to our cart and finished hitching the horse. When this was done, I stuffed my sword under the clothes and provisions that Meredith had supplied and climbed into the driver’s seat. Meredith was not far behind me, either. She climbed up next to me, then leaned back into the cart section and grabbed a bunch of cloth.

“I have some traveling cloaks for us,” she said. “I think we should put them on and pull the hood up to obscure our faces as we head to the gate, it should help hide our age and make us less identifiable.”

“Sure, it can’t hurt right?” I said.

              The cloaks were a decent weathered wool. With the hood up, it also shielded my eyes from the sun a little, which was nice. I then snapped the reins, and the horse pulled us into a walk. I guided us around the other carts, out around the stable and headed towards the main gate.

              As we were coming around and entering the causeway heading towards the front gate, I looked around the green to see if any groups of initiates were coming our way. Fortunately, none were, but I was worried how long we had before more showed up after having felt my bursts of magic. Fortunately, now that we were on the main causeway road to the front gate, we had entered the general hustle and bustle of people coming and going from the castle. That should obscure us from any prying eyes heading towards the stables.

              The line of people coming into the castle that day, despite being midafternoon, far exceeded the number of people leaving. This meant that the guards at the front gate were occupied with the people entering the gate and were not paying much attention to those leaving. Still, I had quite a few nervous moments as we passed beneath the first portcullis of the gate as one of the guards gave us a hard look before motioning us on out.

              Surprisingly though, we had no troubles leaving. The road from Caer Sud headed down the hill crossing back and forth in a series of switchbacks before reaching level ground. Once there, the outskirts of the city of Sudchester began. To my eyes at the time it seemed like quite a large city, being much larger than Forsburg had been. But the truth was, it was just a minor city in the Holy Empire, serving essentially as housing for castle workers and a market where they could procure sundries. It also had various church offices designed to act as the government’s mouthpiece in the city. Still, as I headed into it, I had to force myself not to stare at the buildings, people and general hubbub that was likely fairly standard for a town this size in midafternoon. The sheer quantity of people wandering about was foreign to me.