Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments (3 page)

‘Guess that was my year’s worth of luck used up,’ Lynx said once he’d checked the cartridges were still packed securely in their individual pouches. The guard didn’t speak as he waited for Lynx to finish, though no doubt he’d done the same. There were some things you didn’t skimp on or rush.

‘Five silver fine, make your mark here.’

Lynx dug his purse out of an inner pocket and hefted it. A little lighter than he remembered but a night of drinking accounted for that. The fine made a considerable dent in what was left but he didn’t argue, just wrote his name in a neat copperplate hand that raised eyebrows. That done he ran his hands over the scabbard and falchion within to check for damage, then buckled it to his waist. It took him a little longer to wrestle his grey jacket over his aching shoulders, though, and by the time he’d succeeded he was groaning in discomfort.

The guard looked him up and down. Black boots, once-white shirt, grey trousers and jacket, black tricorn.

‘Shades of grey, eh? Some sort of mercenary statement, is it?’

Not the one you’re thinking of, friend
, Lynx thought as he shook his head,
just a sign to a brother that I’m wearing the ring
.

‘Just doesn’t show the dust of the road so much.’

‘Aye, mebbe a bit deep for your sort, even if you write like a noblewoman. My advice is you move on smartish,’ the whiskered guard added as Lynx straightened his hat. ‘You’ve caused enough trouble in these parts.’

Lynx nodded. ‘Any suggestions?’ he said as he straightened up, determined to walk out with his head held high. ‘I’m out of a job now.’

‘Aye. I suggest you keep your head down for the rest of the day and leave in the morning, on foot if you have to.’ The guard scowled. ‘If it gets you gone, tip the landlord at the Witchlight when you reimburse him for the chair. Remind him he’ll see the back of you faster if he hears any of his evening trade needs an extra hand.’

Lynx nodded and turned to the door as the bearded young guard, Hach, beckoned him forward and opened it. Sunlight streamed through, a beautiful spring day by the looks of it. Lynx scowled as the throb in his head intensified, screwed up his eyes and followed the man out.

For a two-bit backwater town, Janagrai looked pretty good to Lynx – even through the grey tint of a hangover. He stumbled down the street under Hach’s direction, squinting through the morning sun at the street of houses and shopfronts on either side. Above the sun was the hazy smear of the Skyriver, a vast striated band that encircled the world, barely visible behind a tattered curtain of cloud. Up ahead he saw a large marketplace where a handful of farmers had their wares laid out, while on the corner stood an L-shaped inn that had to be their destination.

Somewhere at the back of one of the shops a pair of dogs began to bark, the noise enough to set off some geese sat around a pond opposite the tavern. Lynx scowled – both at the unwelcome noise and the realisation of what those geese signified.

‘Knights of the Oak, eh?’ he commented to his guide. Lynx nodded towards the squat stone building behind the pond that, while not exactly fortified, wouldn’t be much fun to attack.

As they passed it, Lynx saw the small stone canopy over the door which sheltered the craggy features and jutting tusks of their patron god – Ulfer, Lord of the Earth. A heavy shroud of creeper covered half the building’s flank and a chaotic bloom of wild flowers filled the ground around it, both heavy with the hum of honeybees. Their scent drifted across the street and Lynx filled his lungs.

‘Aye, Janagrai had one of the first waystations around, so they tell me,’ Hach said. ‘Why, you got a problem with one of the Orders?’

‘None of ’em got a problem with me,’ Lynx clarified, ‘but religion and soldiers ain’t a good mix in my opinion.’

‘Thought your lot were in favour of that?’

Lynx grimaced. ‘So Han? Oh yes. Always surprised me that the first Orders didn’t come out o’ the place. Authority of the gods themselves
and
overwhelming military might – bloody wet dream to most o’ the Lan Esk Ren, but they don’t like foreign priests much.’

‘These ones keep to themselves mostly.’ Hach shrugged. ‘The townspeople are glad for ’em. We see a good number of wealthy travellers stop here.’

‘No doubt. But it only takes one bastard to decide his god don’t like how you’re doing things. Then they start to look like professional soldiers who outgun the rest o’ you on top of supplying most o’ the continent’s ammunition.’

‘Something tells me you’re this cheerful even without the hangover,’ Hach said with a snort.

Lynx ducked his head in acknowledgement. ‘Oh aye – Sun’s own Jester, that’s me most of the time. Mercenary work really makes a man happy and welcoming over the years.’

He tried to smile to back up the unlikely claim, but it proved difficult to muster. Quickly Lynx gave up in favour of concentrating on walking in a straight line.

They reached the inn and headed on inside to a relatively bright barroom where a man and woman were bent over a piece of paper on the bar.

‘Morning, Master Efrin,’ Hach called, his smile widening a little as he gave a half-bow to the woman. ‘Mistress Pallow, looking lovely as always.’

Lynx frowned at the room as his eyes readjusted feebly from the brightness of outside. Despite the large open windows it still seemed blessedly cool and dim inside, but the faces ahead of him were a blur to start with.

‘You’ve got some nerve coming back in here,’ the woman snapped at Lynx, who rocked back on his heels. ‘Didn’t you cause enough trouble last night?’

Lynx raised his hand. ‘I’m not here for trouble, but as your fine town’s guardsmen,’ he said, indicating Hach, ‘are more honest than most I’ve met over the years, I can pay for the damage I caused.’ He winced at the effort of thinking and speaking but made himself struggle on. ‘And I need to see the wagon to my employer’s widow. It’s in your stable; I took a room here, right?’

‘You did,’ was the curt response.

‘And I paid ahead? Just need to sleep this off, have some food and see what new work’s going here.’

‘We’ll be looking in on him,’ Hach added. ‘The wagon belongs to Mistress Simbly and we’ll need her to confirm the goods are all there before he’s free of us.’

Mistress Pallow frowned at Lynx, but Hach’s words had dampened her anger. ‘Mistress Simbly? Ornan Simbly is dead?’

‘Bandits,’ Lynx confirmed, hoping his efforts not to be sick would be taken as feelings of sympathy for his late employer.

‘I suppose you have paid ahead of time,’ she said after a moment’s pause. ‘Go on then, it’s the first attic room – top of the stairs. There’ll be fried onions and potatoes for lunch so I won’t need to wake you.’

Lunch came and went in a rather more literal fashion than Lynx was comfortable with, but the handful of hours’ sleep he managed beforehand improved the state of the world dramatically. He was still a scarred, unwanted exile from a country of bastards who’d spent years brutalising their neighbours, but he could at least walk in a straight line without feeling like the floor was going to punch him.

The afternoon passed quietly, the only break to self-indulgent wallowing being when Lynx found himself inspected by a tall and beautiful woman with red-rimmed eyes. She seemed the least likely candidate for Mistress Simbly he’d met in Janagrai, but he managed to conceal his surprise as he struggled up from his seat. Her husband had been an amiable fellow, but on the short side with something of a squint and thinning hair. His wife was of a similar age, it was true, but had she been wearing finer clothing Lynx would have thought her some local duchess.

The formalities were dealt with easily and with little input from Lynx, he was glad to discover. His account had been confirmed by the militia officer, Kelleby, and the goods in the wagon were as Mistress Simbly had expected. Though Lynx had been careful to take his pay before arriving in town, the bereaved merchant added to it in thanks for his honesty – enough to pay for a broken chair at least. She left about her own business soon enough and Lynx found only himself and Mistress Pellow in the common room, an hour or more before the evening trade was likely to begin.

‘So you’re looking for fighting work?’ she called to him from behind the bar.

Lynx looked up. The woman hadn’t exactly warmed to him, but her manner had thawed somewhat in the face of a newcomer who could string a sentence together. In his years of wandering, Lynx had seen that often enough. Villages and towns were so small most wanted news of the outside, but many were just glad to talk to someone new.

He shook his head. ‘Not if I can help it.’

‘We don’t have many merchants looking to take on a stranger as escort,’ she warned, ‘not with the Knights’ outpost in town.’

‘If there’s labouring work, I’ll do that. Can balance books too, if you want it.’

‘You? I’ve not met many mercenaries who can write their own name.’

‘Wasn’t born a soldier,’ Lynx replied. ‘Father was a shopkeeper in a town not much bigger than this. Can’t say it’s a job I’d like for the rest of my life, but I can remember it well enough.’ He grunted and glanced at the long leather sheath beside him that contained his mage-gun. ‘Can’t say there’s any job I’d like for the rest of my life, actually, but I guess it’d be better than the alternative.’

‘From So Han, right?’ she said with a pointed look.

Lynx paused. ‘Aye, once upon a time.’

‘So you served.’

‘We all did, if you were of an age. All swallowed the same shit about the honour of our flag, defence of our people.’

‘My brothers died in the Valleys campaign.’

Lynx ducked his head in acknowledgement. ‘Lot of folk did. Glad I wasn’t there myself.’

‘So where, then?’

‘Mind if we drop this? Ain’t exactly a happy subject for any of us.’

‘The Greensea?’

Despite himself, Lynx felt the memory like a claw inside his gut. ‘For a time,’ he said in a half-whisper.

‘So you’re one of them?’

The condemnation in her voice was enough to make his fists tighten, but Lynx was no stranger to it and he relaxed quick enough.

‘Never one of them,’ he said firmly. ‘There was some real fighting to be done there too, at first anyway. I had no part in what came after.’

‘Easy enough to claim, that.’

He looked her straight in the eye. ‘You want to see the scars on my back, I’ll show you. Ain’t ashamed of what I did in that war, I’ll tell you now. Won’t bloody defend what others did either, but in So Han they don’t whip a man for liking the killing too much.’

That stopped her short at least. This part of the Riven Kingdom hadn’t seen the worst of So Han’s violent spasms of conquest. There wasn’t the hatred ingrained in the very earth that he’d find in the Greensea or the Hand Valleys if he was ever stupid enough to visit them.

So Han was the westernmost of the so-called warrior republics, nestled in the lee of the mountains off which most of the rivers in the area flowed. The Greensea lay to the south of So Han, a prosperous scattering of principalities around the shore of that inland sea, while the Hand Valleys was the long region to the east through which mountain rivers flowed and merged. The victories there had been swift and accomplished – the brutalising of the population seemingly a punishment for not proving enough of a challenge.

‘You clearly learned your trade there well enough,’ Pellow said, a smaller note of antipathy in her voice. Lynx could tell her enthusiasm for it was waning. ‘You still live by the sword and the gun.’

‘Sometimes it ain’t so easy to escape your past,’ Lynx muttered, ‘and yeah, I was good at the fighting. Wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but I’m good at it still. It
was
a war at first, you had men out there looking to kill you and you knew your purpose. Might’ve been the goal was a crock of shit, but I didn’t know that at the time, was just a stupid kid with dreams of glory. Been in a few more since … well, since I came east, but none of ’em you could much call a war. Handful of skirmishes over some small slight – no real cause to fight for or sense of purpose.’

She had no questions after that and Lynx found himself sitting alone, morose and brooding on times past.

Must be ten years since the start of the war
, he realised sourly.
And look at the world now, just a little more broken and miserable than before. So much for the Shonrin and his grand vision. Hope he’s enjoying his life stuck up that miserable bloody mountain.

Lynx groaned and stood, stretching expansively.
One day, mebbe, I’ll go and try to kill him, even if it does mean going back to that place.

Finally deciding he was capable of something real to drink, Lynx shifted his mage-gun and other valuables with him to the bar. He knew what people were looking for in a guard, or anything else Lynx was capable of. Slumped in the back room was hardly the best advertisement, while at the bar he would be in view of all the shopkeepers and traders heading in for the evening.

Sit upright and look big
, Lynx told himself as he found a quiet corner where he could sit at the bar, out of the way but in view for the curious.
Folk want a man who looks dangerous, but ain’t causing trouble or drinking too hard. Not sure I’m capable of either of those right now anyway.

After receiving a stern look his late mother would have been proud of, Lynx found himself nursing a battered tankard of beer while the evening trade filtered in. First the town’s shop boys and apprentices clattered in, then their masters and mistresses once everything was locked away. Towns like this flourished on the travelling routes, Lynx knew, so he was unsurprised when the door opened again and the smell of horses and dust heralded more strangers to town.

He was careful not to stare at those when they arrived, knowing they wouldn’t want to deal with hiring extra guards until they had rooms secured and the weight off their feet. Slowly the room became filled with a gentle babble of noise and the smell of stew. Lynx let it all flow over him, pulling out one of his most treasured possessions from the bag at his feet; a leather-bound book from the heyday of the Riven Kingdom.