Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (4 page)

“Aye.” Both Vanx and Darbon nodded in unison.

“But you only get five of your gold coins now, upon agreement,” Vanx said. “The other twenty-five you’ll get tomorrow, just before we exit the north gate.” Vanx patted him on the shoulder.

We wouldn’t want you to vanish
, Vanx said through a simple spell. Then out loud, “We have no guarantees you’ll return for the rest.”

“You’ll have to use this to buy your own personal cold weather gear and any supplies that are exclusive to your…your… your magery,” Darbon added as he laid five gold Parydonian falcons on the scarred bar.

Xavian looked at them. They twinkled and gleamed as they reflected the dancing flames from the great hearth.

He wasn’t a saver. When he had money, he lived high on the boar until he was forced to work again. This was more money than he had ever had at once. Not the five coins before him; he’d earned the standard thirteen gold galleons per haul before, as a ship mage on the big three masters that brought precious firewood, lumber and goods over from Harthgar. To earn at least fifty of the heavier golden falcons at once was an opportunity he might never chance upon again. And if they were successful, the gods only knew how much he’d get for his share of the profit.

Xavian heaved out a sigh and looked at Vanx. Knowing the man had spoken to him through the ethereal with his cantrip made him more certain that what he was about to say would be taken seriously. “I’ll expect every ounce of protection you can provide while I’m casting. And you’ll have to let me rest, protected, and undisturbed, if I exhaust myself.” He reached over and took the coins, and quickly added, “And I’m not a fire pit. Don’t expect me to waste my skills keeping us warm out there, not unless it is absolutely necessary.”

Vanx grinned at that and gave Xavian an approving nod. Just then, a local tailor came bustling through the door, and Vanx excused himself.

Darbon watched Vanx go curiously then called for a round of ale and put his hand on the wizard’s shoulder. His voice was barely above a whisper. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spell that could help me learn to dance in the next few hours, would you?”

Only after Xavian realized that the boy had been serious, and was now blushing furiously, did he stop laughing and shake his head in the negative.

*

“You think he’ll burn us for the five?” Darbon asked Vanx a little later. He was standing before a full dressing mirror trying to work out how to tie the ruffled kerchief round his neck in a way that didn’t make him feel as if he were suffocating.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Vanx answered in an aggravated tone from the other side of the room. Apparently, he was struggling with his own clothes. “To the depths of Nepton’s bowels with this thing,” he cursed and tossed his own frilly necktie across the room. Poops darted off of one of the feather beds after it. A moment later, the dog was growling and shaking it violently.

“Good boy, Poops,” Darbon said, and threw his uncomfortable neck piece in that direction too.

Poops dropped Vanx’s tie and caught Darbon’s from the air, then attacked it with the same mock savagery. All the while, the thumb-sized nub of his tail was sticking up in the air, wiggling excitedly.

“What are those for anyway?” Vanx asked.

“I grew up as a smith’s apprentice, Vanx. How would I know?” Darbon chuckled. “Back in Highlake, my kind of people were lucky to have a clean, roughspun jerkin to pull over us for a festival.”

“Whatever it is, Poops saved us from it, and now we have an excuse to go without them.”

“I think we look better without them anyway.”

“Aye,” Vanx agreed. “Are you ready for this?”

Darbon knew Vanx’s question pertained to far more than just the moment, or even the coming evening. He wasn’t sure if he was ready or not, but he kept thinking back to something Vanx’s full-blooded Zythian friend Zeezle once said. “Sometimes you just have to let go and hope that the fall doesn’t kill you.”

Darbon was about to let go of something inside himself, and he was fairly certain he would survive the fall, but he knew it would be a rough landing, no matter what. Matty’s last words to him, her dying words, had been, “Love somebody, Dar.”

He wasn’t sure he was ready to love somebody else yet, but he was ready to crawl out of the hole in which he’d been. Salma’s cute, chubby-cheeked smile, and her straightforward openness, was a big part of why.

“I hope so,” Darbon finally answered. “At the moment, though, I’m more worried about tripping over my own feet and making an arse of myself out there on the hardwood floor they erected in the square.”

“Just dance beside me, Darby.” Vanx grinned. “You’ll look as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I’ve played a thousand jigs and ballads. I’ve watched ten times as many drunkards and couples dance in the bars and taverns of Parydon, but this will be the first time I’ve tried to dance myself.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.” Darbon gave each of his sleeve cuffs a yank in turn. “At least you’ve got a bit of rhythm about you.”

“You’ll be fine, Dar.” Vanx pulled the door and offered Darbon the opening with an exaggerated flourish. “After you.”

Darbon strolled out with a nervous look on his face, and Vanx had to hurry out to keep Poops from getting loose in the hall. He did stop and turn with the door opened just enough for Darbon to see in.

“Stay here and guard our things, Sir Poopsalot.”

The dog whined sadly.

Darbon saw that Vanx was about to change his mind about bringing Poops to the festival.

“I’ll have Fannie come up and get you after a bit,” Vanx finally said. “She’ll make sure you get a good slab of elk meat for supper.”

Either mollified or angry, Poops gave a short snort then went back to thrashing the frilly neckties on the floor.

*

Any awkwardness Darbon was feeling was quickly washed away by Salma in her beautiful ice-blue gown. The way it fit her generously curved body and highlighted her smoky gray eyes, and the way the tumble of ringlets her hair had been piled into cascaded down around her pink, rosy cheeks, captivated him. Darbon spent the evening lost in her smile. Amazingly, he kept his gaze on her eyes, instead of on the not-so-modest amount of cleavage her gown so cleverly left exposed.

They danced to the lively music and laughed and soon became lost in the wonder of the night. Multicolored orb lights, flittering silver ribbons, and huge bonfires had transformed the normally dirty, snowy, city square into a sparkling fairy world, where even the fog of one’s breath found a way to glow with the myriad colors.

It wasn’t hard for them to feel as if it had all been laid out for them, as if they were the king and queen of some frigid yet spectacular kingdom full of nothing but pastel merriment and lighthearted glee.

Vanx did some squatting, leg-kicking dance, where he flapped his arms like a duck and seemed on the verge of falling over every other move. Everyone thought it was funny. After laughing so hard that they both nearly burst the seams of their fancy attire, Salma finally dragged Darbon off of the huge planked-wood platform.

Darbon followed her like an obedient whelp, lagging only to snatch a pair of tin snifters full of brandy from a passing servant’s platter. Salma let loose of him long enough for him to drop two coppers in the angry woman’s outstretched hand. After they each downed their drink, she took his tin, tossed them both, and yanked him back on their way.

They left the crowded area of the city square and made several turns and twists through the unfamiliar orb-lit streets. Darbon couldn’t believe a place that by daylight seemed so filthy and dank, because every open space was more or less covered by grime-packed snow, could be so completely transformed. A few colored orbs hanging from the lamp poles and upper balconies, and all the glittering silver streamers floating everywhere else, had done the trick, though. It was bewildering, and Darbon suddenly realized that he had no idea where in Orendyn he was. He didn’t grow alarmed, though. Salma knew where they were going, and Darbon had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t be displeased when they got there.

Suddenly, Salma shrieked out and slung Darbon into the darkened opening of some sort of stable house. Before Darbon could react, she tackled him. He felt a soft pile of straw cushion his tumble and momentarily smelled the musky, but not unpleasant, smell of some sort of livestock. Then, Salma was in his face, her lips, her apple blossom scent, and those hungry gray eyes. She began kissing him insistently and murmuring into his ear while fumbling at her bodice to free her breasts.

Darbon was overwhelmed, and he allowed himself to stay that way. Only for one fleeting moment did Matty cross his mind. He didn’t even pause, though, for the image of her that he saw in his mind’s eye was Matty looking down upon them with an approving smile on her face.

After that, Darbon began to return the passion Salma was pouring over him. Ultimately, these new feelings washed away the sorrow and grief. Darbon found that this torrential downpour of hot, sweet emotion could only be described by one word: bliss.

Chapter Five

That white haired witch,
in her icy northern hole
is the reason there’s no warmth,
in the Bitterland Holds.
-- Frosted Soul

It was the third night of the grand saber shrew expedition, and all the members not native to the Bitterlands, or used to the tundra, were learning a completely new definition of the word cold.

The sun had just gone down, taking its warmth with it. The horizon was still afire with color, as if some godly artist had poured all of his oranges, pinks and reds into a smear over a deep blue canvas. Everything else was a blur of grays, lighter grays and white, save for the faces huddled at the fire, which were chapped cherry pink.

“It’s-it’s-it’s so co-cold,” Darbon chattered from a blanket-formed shroud, where he was huddled near the three-legged iron pot that served as the camp’s fire pit. “My-my piss froze on th-the way da-down to the snow and broke into pa-pa-pieces when it ha-hit.”

Chelda snorted out a laugh. “By cycle and berg, boy, its spring. If you want cold, come out here in the heart of winter, when the days are shorter than a four-legged knight’s tail.”

“She’s right, Darbon,” Endell said. He seemed to be quite intelligent and capable out here. At least it appeared that all the liquor he’d drunk over the last few months was working its way out of his system. He still looked the part of a struggling Orendyn drunkard, with matted hair, unkempt clothing, and an unshaven face. His tattered buckskin coat and his worn, elk-hide britches looked to be as thin as silken nightclothes in some places, but he was confident and sure with his decisions. “It’s not even blow’n yet,” he went on. “Some of the winds I seen is full of ice, and it blows so hard it’ll scour your skin like barrel-sand does chain mail.” He gestured to where the Skmoes had erected their sealskin tent at the edge of the fire’s light. “Look at Skog.”

Skog the skog was there struggling with some task or another. His slick bald head, and the balls of his shirtless shoulders, were glazed with sweat. A cloud of steam rose off his body, as if he were on fire.

“It’s not too ca-cold yet, Darbon,” Brody chimed in. “It’ll be cold on the morrow, when we round tha-that ridge and it is no longer a’tween us and the-the wind.”

“I can hardly wait,” Darbon grumbled. Unlike some of these people, he had a warm, soft body he could be curled up against back in Orendyn. How the Skmoes, Chelda, and the tracker could stand it, he couldn’t fathom. Skog the skog didn’t even have a shirt on.

At least Brody and Smythe had the decency to shiver and chatter the way normal humans should. The fact that Vanx hid his discomfort better than he did didn’t fool Darbon. No matter how well Vanx bundled, Darbon could tell his half-Zythian friend wasn’t at ease out here, either.

Poops, though, was like the Skmoes. The dog’s sealskin body vest and soft drawstring paw-boots seemed to keep him plenty warm. He spent the days hopping and leaping through the drifts alongside the sleds, seemingly oblivious to the climate. The dislike of the big, shaggy haulkattens that he displayed on the first day was gone. Maybe they’d come to some sort of animalistic agreement? Darbon couldn’t say, but now the worn-out young dog was nestled amongst the big cats and sleeping soundly.