Bargain Read online

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”

  “Of course he didn’t mean to!” Elise interrupted. She punctuated the statement with a flail of her arms in frustration. “That would imply he has some capacity to plan! The ability to consider consequences for his actions! The ability to see beyond the walls around him and consider how his actions affect other people!” Elise paused her diatribe and took a deep breath. “He just doesn’t consider how his crazy schemes affect us.”

  That was something Athala could agree with. Ermolt was driven by his desire to become a hero—to be seen as a figure the common folk could look up to. And a lot of the time that meant that he did things without thinking them through. Like, for example, invoking the wrath of the Overseers.

  “There is an upshot to this, though,” Athala said finally. “We came into town and immediately started asking a lot of questions about the Temple. They might have been curious about us. But now, if they see us fighting the Overseers, the Temple might stop paying such close attention!” Elise huffed and Athala tugged at the hem of the Conscript's tabard. “No, really! This could be a good thing for us!”

  Elise shook her head and turned the corner at the next street. They were passing through the end of the Harbor District, and heading into the Overseers territory. “It doesn’t matter if we can’t deal with the Overseers. Our quest may end here all because of that selfish barbarian.”

  “Then what is our plan? What are we going to do to ensure we walk out of this alive?” Athala shot back.

  Elise had no response but to go back to grinding her teeth.

  They passed a few blocks in silence, though Athala imagined she could hear the sound of Elise’s jaw creaking under the pressure. In all likeliness, it was the sound of some boat on the docks creaking with the sway of the ocean.

  Up ahead, the Overseer’s Keep loomed. It was the tallest building built on the highest point of the bluff that backed up to the ocean. It seemed to be illuminated by hundreds of oil lamps, although Athala was sure that was a trick of the eye. There seemed the be very little in the form of guards, and Athala imagined the Overseers were used to being left unmolested by the various elements of the city. These were people who knew they were the alpha, and they feared nothing.

  About two blocks from the keep’s outer wall, Elise stopped in the middle of the street. Athala stopped as well, looking at her friend with confusion. The Conscript looked up at the looming keep with apprehension. “Athala,” Elise said at last and she shifted her weight quickly from foot to foot. The chainmail jingled with the motion. “I want to be very clear about something: if we are going to survive this, we are going to do what we have to do.” Elise smirked at her own awkward explanation. “What I mean to say is that the Overseers are going to try to stop us. From saving our friend. And that’s probably going to mean we’ll have to fight.”

  Athala nodded, slowly, unsure of where Elise was going with all this.

  “I can see your confusion clear as day. I just want this to be clear, so you know what we’re getting into. People are going to try and stop us, and we’re going to need to fight them,” Elise said carefully. “And without Ermolt to back us up, we might not be able to hold back. We’re going to have to hurt people—people who might have families who depend on them. Or children to look after.”

  “Oh. Right.” Athala nodded, though she pressed her lips into a line. Parents, like Ingmar.

  “We aren’t going to have a choice,” Elise said, nodding. Athala briefly wondered if this talk was for the Conscript's own benefit. “We have to save Ermolt. There’s too much depending on us for our quest to end here.”

  “Right,” Athala agreed, even as her stomach twisted. “We can’t leave Ermolt in danger. We have to do this.” She looked down at her feet for a moment and then squared her shoulders. Her head came up and she met Elise’s gaze.

  Elise gripped her shoulder firmly for a moment. The Conscript’s eyes were full of sorrow, but also pride. Athala knew her own face was a mirror of just the first emotion. She tried to smile at her friend, but the motion felt weak and muted and so she returned quickly to frowning. Elise only nodded in understanding.

  They started walking again. The Keep awaited.

  Athala tried to force herself to feel more confident than she really did. Elise had her anger to fuel her confidence, but Athala only had regret. Regret and queasiness.

  She thought once more of Ingmar and his daughter, Ketterlin. After they’d returned home with Meodryt’s spell, Athala had tried to find the girl. She’d honestly thought Ketterlin wouldn’t have existed. That she would have been a story Ingmar made up to tug at Athala’s heartstrings and make her more willing to speak about the binding spell.

  But the girl was real. Or had been.

  By the time Athala had been able to sneak away from the overprotective Elise to track down the torturous merchant’s home, the girl was gone. It hadn’t looked like there had been a struggle, and so Athala assumed a friend of the family took her into custody.

  Athala didn’t doubt that Ingmar was a monster that had deserved everything that happened to him. She knew in her heart of hearts it was true. But did his daughter deserve to be without him? Did her unhappiness excuse Ingmar’s actions? Athala didn’t think so, but it still made her feel guilty.

  And if any Overseers fell tonight in Elise and Athala’s attack on their Keep, was it justified since they were the first aggressors? Elise would have told her they had made their bed and would now be forced to lie in it. But Athala’s skin crawled at the thought of looming death—either for herself or others.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elise kept expecting someone to shout for them to stop. They walked through the archway of the Keep gate with no resistance and got nearly to the main door before someone even noticed them. Where the Temple had been a swarm of guards and patrols, the Overseer’s Keep had only a token guard at the main doors to the squat stone structure.

  The location was definitely a place of power, and Elise wondered what it had been before the Overseers moved in. It was at the top of a stony hill that overlooked the harbor. While there were walls separating the Keep from the rest of the Overseer’s District, the rocky sides of the hill were bare, with grass going right up to the edge of the bluff.

  The keep was impressive by any standards. Well, besides those who were accustomed to the grand architecture that went into the Temples to the Gods. The main building was a two-story stone structure with a wood-and-stone ramp that led up to a main gate. It was large enough for a two-horse cart to comfortably pass through, although there were no tracks to suggest carts ever made it this far. The corners of the buildings had tall guard towers. They were unlit, even this late in the day, and they appeared unmanned.

  A strange choice indeed. The Overseers seemed completely unconcerned of the potential of an attack from the Temple of Teis. Were the Conscripts and guards so inept, or did the High Priest just not see the Overseers as a real threat? But then why the increased security at the Temple?

  Something wasn’t right, and that made Elise worry.

  As Elise and Athala approached the last few fen, Elise noticed the heavy portcullis over the gate was half-open. Only two men stood guard, one on either side of the main gate. They were leaning against the stone exterior of the building, talking quietly. The men looked bored. Elise shook her head. It was almost unbelievable. There had to be more to this story. Why didn’t the Overseers fear retribution in the same way the Temple feared onslaught attacks?

  The guards looked up as Elise and Athala stepped onto the wood surface of the ramp, the creaking of the old material causing enough noise to draw the attention of even this distracted pair. Elise nodded to Athala and the wizard stepped in just behind her.

  “Hail!” Elise said before they even had a chance to cry out in question. “A moment, please!” She approached with a smile, her hands held at her hips, open and just slightly off to the side. It was a placating stance, but one that left her weapo
n nearby. “We’re from out of town, and we were hoping to catch a friend of ours. He said he would be here?”

  The guards moved slightly to block Elise as she came farther up the ramp, in case she were to try and bolt past them. Ultimately, they seemed more confused than aggressive. “Who are you looking for, then?”

  “Otto,” Elise said without hesitation. “Otto Mustermann. He was going to greet us as we came into town, but we arrived a day early so we thought we would try and surprise him.”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” one of the guards said. He looked positively bored. “There’s no Mustermann here.”

  “Yeah,” chimed in the other, settling back into his position against the wall. “No one here by the name of Otto, either.” He made a shooing gesture. “Now clear out.”

  “How rude!” Elise planted her fists on her hips. She opened her mouth as if about to launch into a lecture, but when she shifted her weight, her mace was in her hand. She brought the weapon up and smashed it into the chin of one of the guards. The blow wasn’t hard, as her stance was not proper for a real strike, but the hard metal head of the weapon still made contact with an unprotected jaw. The guard tipped over backwards, landing hard on his back.

  “Attack!” the other guard shouted meekly to no one in particular. He tried to step back from Elise, to draw in a breath to let out a proper yell.

  He was just too slow.

  Elise slammed her weapon into his chest. The leather lamellar armor he wore protected him from the harsh flanges of her mace, but the impact knocked the wind from him before he could shape it into a sound. He made a noise like a whining sigh before he collapsed, coughing and gasping to try and get his breath back. Elise stepped forward and kicked him in the head, the boiled leather cowl doing little to protect him from her booted foot. He stilled, his breathing still ragged and pained, but alive.

  “To arms!” the other guard yelled, his words a little garbled by his injured jaw. He clutched the bottom half of his face with a pained expression. He didn’t even try to stand. “To arms! Attackers at the gate!”

  From behind Elise Athala ran forward to the downed guard and kicked at his face. She didn’t hit anything but it caused him to roll over with a whimper and curl up protectively. But his work had already been done. Three more men ran out of the Keep to investigate, drawing single-edged short swords as soon as they saw the guards on the ground.

  Elise paused, waiting for Ermolt’s battle cry. It was only a momentary hesitation, but one that filled her with anger upon realizing why she waited.

  Athala didn’t hesitate though. She snapped out a few quick words of power, her hands weaving arcane gestures. Since absorbing the spell in Khule, she had been working hard to implement the principles at work in the divine magic into her own spellcasting to empower it. Elise knew that Athala had not yet had a chance to use her enhanced magic.

  Her Hesitance spell hit the first attacker like a physical blow, and Elise winced as he went almost entirely limp mid-step, falling flat on his face. Elise let out a low whistle. The spell typically only unfocused and confused its target. Now, apparently, ‘Hesitance’ was a misnomer for the spell, though ‘Fall on Face’ didn’t have quite the same elegance.

  Elise stepped forward and intercepted the other two as they charged in. She swept her mace out at the leg of the nearest one. The Overseer barely managed to avoid the swing with an awkward hop, but it still unbalanced him, giving her the chance to move into the other guard’s path. She lowered her shoulder and body slammed him, sending him stumbling away. The man smashed into the wall with his own momentum, a wordless cry escaping his lips.

  The guard she had only unbalanced whirled on her, slashing out with his sword. His attack forced Elise to back off before she could set her stance. He advanced on her as she backed away, slashing wildly at the air. It was almost as if he didn’t know how to attack an opponent one on one. Elise set her feet and parried a blow. She drove him back with a heavy swing of her mace. The swing of the weapon almost caught his ribs as he danced back.

  To her right, Athala had fetched a short sword, likely from the belt of the downed guard at her feet. She was holding the weapon in front of her with both hands, even though the blade was barely over a fen long. It would have been cute, if Elise weren’t quite so busy.

  The guard Elise had sent crashing into the wall raised his own sword and charged Athala. The wizard yelped and threw the sword at him in a panic. Elise stopped for a moment, amused. The man was so surprised by the sudden sword vaulting through the air that he stopped in his tracks and stared. At the last moment he tried to bring his open weapon up in an attempted parry, but the blade of the short sword slid across the knuckles of his hand, and his own weapon fell from his grip.

  Elise returned her focus to her own opponent. She whirled her mace deftly to ward off the Overseer’s approaching blade before driving her weapon into the man’s shoulder. His armor absorbed enough of the impact that it was not a bone-crushing blow, but it still made him cry out and flinch away, opening him up for a follow-up swing that landed across his ribs.

  The Overseer dropped to one knee, clutching his ribs with a groan. He raised his sword and parried the next swing of her mace, but the impact still knocked him over to the ground. Elise lashed out with a booted foot, knocking the sword from his hand. She raised her mace for a final blow, but the guard Athala had hit with her Hesitance spell had finally recovered, and was charging Elise, forcing her away from his comrade with wild slashes of his blade.

  She parried or dodged his attacks easily. His stance was wrong, his attacks had no power behind them, and it was almost like he was in a panic. If the sword were a broom he’d look like he were shooing rats. Elise let him tire himself out. It let her keep an eye on Athala and also reserve some of her own strength.

  The wizard was dealing with the guard she had disarmed. She hurled herself at the man and lashed out with her fists as soon as he was within reach.

  Her blows were almost entirely ineffectual, almost in a comical way. Elise tried not to laugh. Athala should have known better—the guard was wearing boiled leather armor and the wizard was entirely untrained in hand-to-hand combat. But it seemed that he was still reeling from the surprise of her attack with the thrown sword. Even though Athala’s hands glanced off his armor, the man looked terrified. He grabbed one wrist out of the air, but her other hand caught him in the jaw.

  Athala tried to tear free of his grip, but he held fast, raising his own fist to strike her. The wizard immediately panicked. Elise wasn’t sure why, but she guessed it might have had something to do with the sight of a man raising his hand to her. Athala drove her knee into his groin as hard as she could. He yelped. Instead of punching her, he shoved her away. Athala stumbled back and fell to the ground with a grunt.

  Elise turned her attention back to her foe. Even though his attacks were frenzied, his weapon was lighter and faster than her bulky mace. Repeatedly she had to give ground to avoid feeling the quick slashes on her face. Elise waited for an opening, and took advantage of the focus by ducking under a swipe instead of parrying. She swept out with her mace and caught the inside of her attacker’s knee. His greaves protected the joint from damage, but he ended up in an awkward, splayed stance from the blow. Elise straightened and brought her mace around in a vicious backhand that caught the side of the man’s boiled leather cowl. The Overseer crumpled to the ground under the impact.

  Elise turned and rushed to Athala’s aid just as the guard recovered from the strike to his groin. She brought her leg up and drove her foot into the man’s hip. Her momentum was transferred into him hard enough to send him reeling over the edge of the ramp that led up to the Keep’s gate. He windmilled wildly and tumbled to the ground, landing hard enough on his back to knock the wind from him. His cowl protected his head from the worst of the impact, but he still lay still, staring up at the sky, stunned by the fall.

  “What’s all this racket!?” bellowed an angry voice. A man round
ed the corner of the gate. He was larger than the others, well-muscled as a warrior instead of lithe as a thief. He wore the same boiled leather scale and cowl as the others, but instead of a short sword, he wielded a two-handed flail appropriately-sized for his build. At the sight of the two women standing amid a bunch of downed guards, he began to swing his weapon, the head of the flail gaining momentum as he moved forward. “Away with you!” he yelled, as if scolding a pair of stray dogs.

  Elise readied herself, even though she was unsure how to take on the tall man with the large weapon. But Athala had other plans. The wizard quickly barked out a spell and sent an orb of flame at the obvious target. His weapon came around to catch the projectile, but the strike only split it apart.

  Fire was everywhere at once.

  The flame blast rained down on the man with a force and fury that Elise had never seen from Athala’s spells before. Usually the wizard’s fire was an annoyance that could set a small blaze. This was an inferno. The individual bits of fire were like burning shrapnel that coated the man from head to toe.

  He shrieked and threw himself to the ground as the flames caught his leather armor. Gauntleted hands started to swat at it ineffectually and his screams grew in pitch and intensity as the flames spread rather than abated.

  The man became a torch in the night.

  His screams of agony melted much like his armor.

  Athala and Elise stared at one another for a moment. No words passed between them, but it was obvious to Elise they were thinking the same thing—how? Was this because of Meodryt’s spell?

  “I-I didn’t—” Athala began, but Elise shook her head. She grabbed the wizard’s wrist and yanked her along. The guard she had downed, but not knocked out, started to scramble, but he was moving towards the burning man, not to block the two women as they charged through the open gate.