A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
A tired wind blew through the village. It whipped around his ears and scattered grains of sand haphazard. The setting sun cast a long glow over the world.
Nemo crouched to the ground outside the inn, arms on his knees, and stared at the specks of sand flitting about the remains of foot prints. Firm outlines remained from the heavy soldiering boots of the bandits alongside two patches of churned earth surrounded by the flat, dry, crusted dirt baked by the sun.
Inspecting the patch of churned earth he noticed the pointed front of the boots of the man holding the girl. Not pointed, he cocked his head and followed the shape with his finger. The end of the point deeper than the rest of the footprint. Like a talon. Nemo remembered boots worn by some soldiers that had a metal cap over the toes that curled into a spike. Whether it was for setting into the ground or stabbing an opponents feet, Nemo didn’t know. But he followed the print back to the main road, to the village square.
The taloned boots drove deeper into the ground, the scuffs of dirt disappearing. He carried her. Nemo glanced ahead, the main road was paved into and out of Forgiskill.
‘If it were those lanterns,’ he muttered to himself as he left the town. Heading back the way to Ramascus.
A few minutes walk out of Forgiskill and Nemo had lost the trail. Strong winds left there mark along the landscape. The steppe turning desert dry as cinder covered in the waves of dunes and tracks of wind. No matter how deep those spikes pricked it wouldn’t be visible minutes afterward let alone hours.
Nemo stood in the middle of the path lined by stones. He turned in circles of ever increasing width searching for unnatural patterns, odd patches of dampness, disturbed flora, or dead fauna.
The steady line of the horizon stretched all around him disturbed only by the outline of Forgiskill or the rare tree braving the drought affecting the land. The town behind him, he squinted at a bush a distance to the left off the road. Branches out of place waving in the wind.
He steadily approached the dried carcass of the once green plant. Careful to inspect each step he made for signs of disturbance. Only the tracks of the wind looked up at him, like the waves of the sea coursing over the sand and soil.
As he neared, he sighted the broken branch on the ground, shielded from the wind by the slim trunk of the bush. The inner of the branch a bright cream of still living matter. More branches were snapped and clinging on by the tough outer bark. Swaying in the breeze, daring to break with each passing breath.
Kicked, maybe? He remembered the kidnapped had their hands tied but their legs free. If the girl was carried did the boy summon the courage? He crouched near the bush, the broken branch in hand, prodding at the soil. He scratched aimlessly at the ground. The damp earth accepting his marks willingly.
Wet? Why is it wet? He looked wider noticing the darker patches of dirt. He had thought it to be soil but it seemed to be wet sand instead. He followed the patch of damp sand away from the bush. Deeper into the wilderness a thin trail of dampness fast evaporating in the late afternoon sun. He pressed his finger into the wet sand. Flecks of sand clung to his finger. He sniffed. Urine.
He stood up and walked into the direction of his damp compass. Aware he was headed the same direction as the Republic of Thesus camp. Though it was dozens of miles away and he would never reach it on foot it seemed bizarre bandits would camp anywhere near one full of soldiers.
Nemo guessed the reason as he walked. Too close for the Thesusian’s to notice, doubtful. Far into the wilderness that the Thesusian’s didn’t care, possibly. In league with the Thesusian’s, a new low even for the Republic. It didn’t matter. The bounty would be large even if Mayor Tura didn’t know it yet. Nemo counted the potential gold coins, the dinar, in his mind of numerous raids. Maybe he wouldn’t charge Tura, or anyone else, and take a cut of the bandits loot instead. That was equivalent to paying he thought.
He glanced back to check his direction but the bush was far in the distance. A mere blot on the horizon soon to be lost in the shadow of Forgiskill. He chose a point on the horizon, a hiccup in the landscape, a hill or dune of sand. As long as he headed towards that point he would remain on the straight path. Or at least not walk in circles if the stories he had heard were correct.
Tales of travellers knowing shortcuts and becoming lost in the steppes for days only to end up back where they began. Wasting supplies and time walking in a wide arc. Nemo was skeptical, how hard was it to keep the sun on your left, right, ahead, or behind, and shift as the day progresses or pick something on the horizon to head towards? The more he thought about it the more he questioned those tales, though he never let his eye wander too far from the hill in the distance.
The deeper he walked into the steppe the worse the ground became. What was once cracked soil with a thin layer of sand in places was swathes of sand lasting for quarter miles or more. His boots sank into the fine sand, his feet rubbed against the inside, the sand grating away at both. Then, for no obvious reason, the sand would subside into the hard earth of the steppe. Maybe this was all green at some point? He thought. Like the farmland at the walls of Ramascus. It would make travelling easier. And farming too. He sighed at this imagined land of green plants and plenty of water, he struggled to picture it stretching on and on without being interrupted by steppe, desert or crags.
Further north, near his home of Beargarth, the landscape was not so barren. Copse were rare but visible from his home and from the road connecting it to the city of Tanussi. Often hiding spots for his bounties. Some had been cleared in the centre to form a clearing in a grove a central tree left as a focal point of prayer. Erupting from a belief that the pockets of trees where were the gods had walked long ago.
Such groves where useful for cover, spying on camps, and staying out of sight. In a landscape of nothing but the odd dead plant and hill Nemo wondered how he would approach a camp of at least six. I will have to wait till nightfall, or at least dusk, and then… crawl? He did not relish the thought. Open to attack and slow moving made for a great combination for archery practice. Even at dusk, or after, those with exceptional skill could still hit their target.
And when he reached the camp, if there was one, what to do next? Attack? Survey? Guess that depends on who and what is there. Nemo regretted his decision to go it alone but three was too loud and obvious. Even three versus six would be a struggle and it could be more than six.
Nemo carried on. The questions were a result of wandering. Fear of danger, of change, of being alone. Just see what happens, he told himself.
He wandered towards the hillock in the distance for what felt like hours. The sun made its course across the sky in smaller than usual gradients. Nemo glanced towards the sun, and shielding his eyes, thought, not even an hour.
And yet almost an hour had gone by without any sign of those he tracked. No other wet patches of ground, though it would be quick to dry in the open steppe, no discarded clothing, no fire pits, no animal remains. Nemo fretted that he had lost his way and became one of those people who wanders in a circle unable to focus on a distant point. But only for a moment. He had tracked a person through The Wastes, this unnamed steppe and desert would pose little bother.
The bandits would need water this far from the road. They will have camped as far out as necessary. He swigged from the water skin that hung from his belt. The leather bulged. He had time to continue. He would turn back when he had half left.
He wondered how many prisoners the bandits had taken. How many had already been sold into slavery. How many would be starving and begging for water. Till a third, he told himself. Night travel is easier for water.
The hill he had chosen as his focal point now appeared as the dune it was. Blown into existence by chance. Soon this might all be desert, he thought. Easy to imagine than it all green and well watered.
Before the dune stood a white barked tree. Alone. Leafless. Roots raising up out of the drying ground, twisted and gnarled. Old hands losing their grip. Its shadow stretched twice the height of the tree. Branches clawed at the sky and earth with equal ferocity. He approached the tree for the succour of shade, as narrow as it was.
He palmed his forehead and wiped the residue on the white bark turning it umber for a moment. The heat of the setting sun baked the stretches of steppe and desert still. Nemo pulled off his jacket and sat at the base of the tree to cool off.
He sighed and watched the shadow of the tree curl further into the distance as the sun sank in the sky. Lolling his head back against the trunk of the tree he saw the branches above sway. The white, brittle, bones of the tree a relic of days gone of this land between Ramascus and Tanussi.
As he stared through the cross hatch of branches to the blue sky above. He noticed a leaf rippling. No, not a leaf. Cloth, fabric, of some kind. He pushed himself to his feet. The sand and grit of the steppe crunching under foot. He stretched up to the branch but could not reach the cloth. It didn’t matter, he knew.
Yet…
Nemo circled the tree and found a lower branch and, pulling himself up, began to climb. The dead or dying branch creaked under his weight. Glancing over the landscape from his new found vantage he climbed higher. Reaching for a branch with his right hand as his left coiled around the trunk. His knees balancing on the edge of a sturdy arm.
He grasped the branch and struggled to his feet. He bent and wobbled to maintain balance and stepped onto a higher branch as close to the trunk as he could manage. The branch swayed and bent towards the earth.
Looking down to the ground he gripped the trunk of the tree tighter. Only five or so foot in the air yet he surveyed the changed landscape from the vantage. Two specks stood atop the second peak of hill. A peak he could not see before. He struggled around the tree to the next branch. The cloth caught by hopeful buds and the claws of broken branches. He tore the white cloth from the branch and focussed on the two people in the distance. One hand around the trunk he leaned and squinted towards the strangers.
The left figure was dressed in black from head to toe, bow in hand, a fur around their neck. The bandit from before? Next to her was a person standing with the formality of a soldier, spear in hand, tip covered in a cloth bag the end in the ground. A cloak hung from their shoulders in the blue and white of the Republic. Nemo watched as the two conversed.
So they are in league, he thought feeling his foot slip on the smooth white bark. He reached out with right hand, dropping the strip of cloth, and grabbed a branch. He strained his back feeling the muscles quiver as he balanced and attempted to pull himself back to standing. His boot slipped on the branch as he tried to push upwards. Huffing with the strain he chose to push off hoping the momentum would send him backwards, or at least to a more amicable angle.
He flashed a glance to the duo on the hill, still standing and talking. He looked down to the ground now far further away than he thought. He felt his foot slip and crashed against a branch. His arm curled over it. Pain shuddered through his body. He found footing and took a moment to catch his breath and right himself.
Feeling the blood rush from his head he caught his breath and saw the two figures exchange something. The Thesusian soldier passed something in one hand to the bandit. Nemo was sure it was a coin purse, but that was a pessimistic guess. Nemo dropped into a crouch and lowered himself to a lower branch. From there he hoped the three or four foot to the ground, landing with bent knees he remained low and fetched his jacket, eager to be after the bandit.
He ran. The sky turning a dark blue as night claimed day and soon the land. The crescent of the moon shone bright at the far reaches of the horizon. Nemo had lost sight of the two passed the first dune. The sands deep and rolling as he crawled his way up to the low peak.
He crouched down and went prone as he reached the ridge. He peered over the edge to see the two figures departing. The soldier walked along the ridge of the second dune, towards the setting sun, towards the army camp. The bandit headed down the far side of the hill of sand, out of Nemo’s view.
He crawled to the top of the dune’s ridge. The sand rolling around him as he moved. He peered over the ridge and watched the Theusian soldier march away. He wondered if he could follow the bandit without being spotted by the soldier. Probably, he thought if he was quiet but even the slightest intrigue from the soldier would mean he was spotted.
He waited and watched. A black clad woman wandering the steppe would remain visible for miles. Better to stay out of range of that bow too, Nemo thought. A warrior carrying a bow instead of having it strung over their back was saying something. Nemo did not want to find out what.
He lay in the sand with the heat of the late afternoon sun on his right side. Still and silent he watched the soldier return to camp. As he checked the eastern end of the dune a flash of something crossed his vision. A long pale mottled brown thing about the length of his arm. He spun his head back and saw the tail of some steppe animal. Its body short and stout, its tail long, the hind legs large and its front paws folded close to its body. Standing and watching with black marble eyes the creature sniffed with a twitch of its snout and a flick of a long feathered ear. It turned to stare Nemo direct in the eyes, paused, and dashed off into the distance disappearing into some burrow or hiding hole.
The spear wielding soldier diminished into the distance. The steel cross guard peeking out of the cotton bag used to protect the blade from unnecessary wear. The cross repelled the setting sun with midday lustre. At this distance even if he did see Nemo he was unable to do anything about it save shout into the steppe. And that could attract unwanted attention. For as empty as the steppe seemed the aggressive burrowing animals of the day and the nocturnal ones of the night were everywhere.
The base of the sun melted onto the horizon in a pool of orange and purple. Nemo groaned and stood up. Sand poured off his front catching in clumps around the buttons of his jacket and on the wrong side of his belt. He loosened his belt and the hissing of sand continued. As he refastened his belt sand grated around his wrists inside his jacket. Glad I live further north, he thought stretching out his sleeve to allow wayward sand to escape.
He ran down the dune, giving in to the will of the sand, and used the momentum to crest the next ridge. He scrambled to the top on all fours to save himself slipping down. He gazed into the distance and, about the size of his thumb, was a woman. Dressed all in black wandering over flat steppe. He slid down the next ridge sideways. One foot sideways behind the other.
The ground petered out to course, solid, arid land. Nemo thought the ground looked like hundreds of crisscrossing canyons if he could fly. How close am I to The Wastes? He wondered. There were no water sources in The Wastes, not until the slither of desert and steppe that stretched the length of The Black Wall of Dohanlu, over two hundred miles east.
The black clad woman never turned to look behind. Nemo thought she had lost the use of her neck so certain he was a person in the open steppe would be suspicious of their surrounding. He had checked the progress of the soldier from Thesus numerous times and paused and dropped to a crouch at the sound of a bird or the scratch of some critter. These bandits must have lived out here for some time, Nemo thought.
On the far horizon, the hazy edge of the world, appeared the faint outline of something neither sand dune or tree. The bandit altered her course and Nemo did not. Not yet at least. The pitched tents of a camp grew from the ground. The light glow of a daring fire shone. The camp stood three quarters of an hour or less away, Nemo guessed.
He ceased following his bandit guide and waited for full dark. When the camp’s fires would guide and conceal his approach.
The sun slid into death. Its once splendid form darkening and disappearing for another turn of the spheres. The brightest of the stars shone through the azure sky insulting the sun’s legacy.
As soon as the last slither of sun bled onto the horizon and vanished Nemo looked to the bandit camp. The fire glowed. Flickering flame revealed the peaks of tent canopies. Nemo began his approach knowing the world would be in darkness by the time he arrived.
Nemo approached the camp. He crouched through the darkness careful to clear any dried twigs and pebbles from his path. The camp fires flickered sixty foot in the distance. Their eerie all seeing light casting long shadows into the night. Nemo circled a step out of reach of the eyes of fire.
The men and women of the bandit camp laughed, danced, and shouted as the night began. Meat roasted on spits and skins of wine were shared. Fires, food, and drink. From where? Nemo thought. The food and drink was easy to come by local villagers but not indefinite into the future. The fire wood, tents, and spits where another thing all together. Even more peculiar given the landscape. Too ordered. Too military… Nemo continued his circle of the camp.
He rounded the camp always stepping to his right. He snuck behind a lone tree and surveyed what he could. The dark violet of early night was fading into the deep black. Nemo was not worried, he knew the star sign to follow back to Forgiskill. The Page. He watched the woman he had followed back meander around the camp dolling out coins from a purse.
Two fires meant anywhere between two and twenty people. Though only three tents were erected and the second fire seemed far back into the camp. He followed its tendrils of light out passed one tent to the wheel of a wagon.
He sat behind the tree and watched the woman with the inked face make her way closer to the wagons. The men and women she gifted, or paid, secreted the coins away from the prying eyes of their comrades. Or supposed comrades.
The camp was not patrolled and where Nemo expected torches he found the dark. These bandits had never been attacked, didn’t even feel the need to pretend to worry, for there were no threats.
Bandits paid by the invaders… To what ends, he wondered. The whys were not for him. The light of the fire flickered over the wagon wheel and the cart above. She neared the wagon. Her eyes focussing on something in the darkness. The rattle of bars screeched out.
‘Awwwh, no. Not for you,’ she said in response to the noise. Her accent that of Dohanlu.
She turned to the meat dripping with fat on the spit. Nemo smelt the cooking beef and felt his stomach ache.
‘Ohh,’ she laughed, ‘also not for you,’ she shook her head with a tut and a pout. She backed away from the wagon with a wicked scythe of a grin.
Rattling metal bars rang again and the groans of the starved.
Nemo thought whatever was caged in the darkness to be some hungry beast. Starved to tune its hunting sense. Only the hungry animal hunts, a well fed beast would be useless. But what is it hunting?What are they hunting? He thought leaving the secluded shadow of the dead tree to survey the rest of the camp. If it where a beast it would smell him and growl, or worse. But without knowing how would Forgiskill prepare? He risked the beast, hoping the bandits would be distracted by food and imagined seclusion.
He had decided the town should defend itself. The two soldiers and him couldn’t charge into the drylands and steppe to attack the camp. The camp had to come to the town. That gave the village a week to prepare. And to prepare they needed information. Accurate information. Numbers, animals, weapons. Some starved and raging animal was a dour problem more gut wrenching than a four on one fight. Nemo swallowed the thought and prowled his circle of the camp again. Plan once you know, he thought to himself, reining in the images of a savage beast all claws and teeth tearing through townspeople, the soldiers, himself… and Vispa.
The longer he stared into the darkness of the desert, The Wastes just beyond, his vision became fuzzier. He turned and out of the darkness protruded the iron bars of a cage, purple and flickering with grit, and whatever hid inside remained in the depths of shadow.
He rounded the wagon cage, its tow bar laying in the dirt away from the camp, an empty torch stand signing the camp perimeter. He stepped over the tow bar. The flicker of camp fire drew the outline of that held within the cage wagon. Bars of black and intermittent flickers of orange. Tents on either side and one at the end around the two fires.
‘They need to eat Liangshi. No good to us or anyone else if they can’t even lift a log,’ the gravelled voice from earlier in the day said.
‘They aren’t having any of my portion,’ Liangshi rebuked.
Others grumbled support and said the same.
‘Then feed them the grain and hay. I’m sure the horses won’t mind,’ he said.
Horses? Nemo hadn’t seen any horses. Or any livestock for that matter. How where they moving this wagon?
‘Usan won’t be back for days yet, he won’t even notice the horse feed gone,’ another piped.
Liangshi grumbled and tossed a metal plate onto the fire’s stone markers. She stood up and stepped in the way of the light. She made her way towards Nemo. She bent over nearer the wagon and something churned and crunched. Then she stood and continued with a bucket in her hand.
‘Here you go,’ she said.
Nemo watched as she lifted the bucket towards the bars of the cage. Her outline pure black as the fire flickered behind her.
The shadows shifted and stirred and from them appeared numerous heads and arms. What beast is this? Nemo panicked, his breath stuck. Until the long thin curled shape of fingers cupping the air obstructed the fire. People!? It’s the captives, he realised.
Liangshi lifted the bucket of millet and threw it into the cage covering the plank floor in food and the people too. The heads dropped and Nemo heard each of them scuttle in their cage picking at the planks of the floor. Their finger nails tapping the wood picking for single grains and seeds at a time. Liangshi watched in silence her expression lost to darkness.
Nemo crouched in the darkness behind the wagon hearing the tapping of broken nails and calloused finger tips. He heard the bucket hit the sack of feed and pushed himself up to the bars. Liangshi fetched her plate from the fire stones. A pair of blue pupils lost in a sea of white stared back at him. A girl not much older than a child watched him her teeth grinding at a millet seed. Skin dirtied by sand and soil and what wasn’t covered was welt red and blistering. The girl opened her mouth to eat another seed. She turned portrait to the light and wedged the seed between top and bottom front teeth, an oozing gap where her tongue should be.
Nemo dropped behind the wagon, swallowing his horror. He blinked the image into the night unable to shift the young face with no tongue out of his mind. No wonder the captives groan instead of speak. Are mute slaves preferred to talking ones in the Republic? I am over staying my welcome, Nemo thought.
He had found what he needed to. Now it was time for the town to prepare as best they could. Where would we even start? Nemo slinked off into the velvet dark, rounding the camp from wagon to tree and following the constellation of the Page. He wondered what the Chief Observer of Ramascus made of these stars. Nemo was never one to put his faith in the night sky like those who lived far south of him but maybe the Page had begun to convince him otherwise.
The night had reached its peak. The stars shone wild in the sky and the wind creaked over the earth. Beasts groaned in the far distance and the air itself became an adversary. Nemo crept over the barren landscape avoiding the great dangers. His jacket and sand scarf battled the air for him. Though neither would hold forever against the bitter cold of a desert night.
Lanterns shimmered close at hand. Nemo felt warm simply seeing the faint orange glow from street lanterns and people’s windows. He could already smell the faint sourness of ale and the homely scent of baked bread. Just a few steps more… he told himself.
The cobbles of the road scattered together as he neared the town. The gaps between filling with sand first and later concrete to set the road. The flat, straight, road underfoot calmed Nemo. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs.
The town rose around him. The sandstone and granite bricks rolling up from the ground like mountains. The crags of the granite imitating the landscapes they had been sheered from. Shadows danced in the nooks and crannies of the buildings. The orange glow was few and far between but the inn was shining as bright as day.
Lanterns hung either side of the stairs up to the door. Lanterns hung on the corners of the building, lighting the gangway that encircled the inn. Voices parried each other as he approached the steps. People moved across the windows waving their arms and shouting at one another.
Nemo shook his head and leapt up the steps. His footfall silenced the people inside. Barging the door open with his lower arm he was confronted by a myriad of faces he didn’t recognise and a couple he did.
The first, Vispa.
Her face twisted into a scowl and her fists balled tight Vispa strode towards him and hit him on the chest. Nemo grabbed her arm before the second whack drummed.
‘I thought you had left,’ she hid her face in her hands.
‘It had crossed my mind,’ Nemo muttered hoping only she had heard.
Before Vispa had a chance to respond the crowd of people flocked closer. Nemo glimpsed across the faces of the people of Forgiskill. Many told the same tale, heavy lines marked the skin and dark circles pulled at their eyes. Yet behind the glaze of sleepless nights and permanent worry stared a hunger for answers.
‘What did you find?’ ‘Who did you see?’ ‘Where are they?’ ‘Did you find my husband?’ ‘What about my daughter?’ ‘Did you find a wood carving?’ The grey haired men and the smooth skinned women jostled closer.
The questions rained over Vispa’s head as she pressed herself into him. She hid her eyes behind her hands but she quaked with sobbing. Nemo embraced her with one arm and held the other out to the people of Forgiskill.
‘Stop. Where are Tura, Pasinah, and Isvat?’
‘I’m here,’ Tura pushed his way through the encirclement. ‘The other two are sitting over in the corner,’ he pointed to the two ex-soldiers, sitting in the same place as before.
Isvat’s hand waved over the shoulder of the villagers standing in Nemo’s way.
‘Right, we will talk. Tura, get the rest to go home,’ Nemo said.
‘But what about our questions?’ A villager barked.
Nemo sighed, ‘I don’t know what your missing look like, but there were people caged at their camp. Which,’ cutting off another loud mouth in the midst of asking the same question again, ‘was many hours away. And laden with stolen things,’ a few eyes opened overly wide, ‘and bandits,’ the same faces drooped.
‘Go home you lot. He has returned and is tired,’ Tura announced.
‘But we want to know too.’
‘You will. Another meeting, tomorrow afternoon, and you can ask your questions then,’ Tura promised holding the door open and waving people out.
Nemo stepped out of the way taking Vispa with him. She had stopped crying but remained in his embrace.
The crowd began to filter out the inn, town hall, home of Tura and back to their own hovels.
‘Well I am not leaving until I get an answer,’ one man said his arms crossed and his feet planted on the floor.
Tura groaned, ‘Vish, you will. Tomorrow,’ he motioned the man towards the door.
‘No. Now.’
Tura groaned again.
Nemo signalled for Tura to wait, ‘Okay, what is your question?’ He said hoping it would be simple.
‘Did you find a wood carving of three people working. It was very important to me and made by my father, a skilled carver and boat maker from the coast. He died many years ago…’
Vish was about to descend into a long winded tale Nemo sensed and said, ‘No, I didn’t. But it was dark when I arrived at their camp. But I am sure it is there with the rest of the stolen items.’
Vish paused, his mouth mid-word, and unfurled his arms. ‘Oh, well in that case would you be willing to go and find it for me in the day time?’
Nemo frowned, ‘There were ten of them, at least. Let’s plan on how to deal with them before talk of fetching any lost property.’
‘So, any ideas?’ Vish asked with a straight face.
Nemo was unsure he heard the man correctly. Isvat sniggered behind the man.
‘That is what is about to be discussed,’ Tura said waving Vish towards the door once more. ‘Good night,’ he added.
Vish moved towards the door flummoxed. ‘Well I hope you have a plan, good night,’ he said.
Nemo watched the man leave expecting him to turn around with another question or a stubborn word to leach his energy further. Neither came as Tura closed the door behind Vish.
‘So, let’s hear it then,’ Pasinah said.
‘Sure, but first I need a drink,’ Nemo said.
Vispa pulled away from him. She said nothing and refused to look any higher than her own toes. She slinked away to the back of the room and upstairs.
‘What was that all about?’ Nemo asked as Tura returned with a large cup of ale.
‘No idea. She didn’t say much all night just moped around. She asked if you’d left a few times and asked about the next city on the road,’ Isvat said. The young man drained his cup and filled it from a flagon on the table between him and Pasinah.
Nemo murmured his confusion as he gulped down ale. He still was unclear as to why Vispa was travelling with him. Or why he carried a letter that she could have delivered if she had been leaving anyway. The tale that Vispa was untrusted by the Resistance seemed suspect. Nemo finished his first cup of ale before even sitting down. Vispa could wait.
‘Right,’ Nemo sank into a cushion and reached for the flagon, ‘the bandit camp is many miles south east of the town. There are at least ten of them. They have prisoners. They are receiving food and coin from somewhere and I saw a Thesusian soldier handing one of them, that inked woman from before, a purse full of money,’ Nemo sipped his second cup.
Tura brought two more flagons to the table and a board of bread, oil, and other choice morsels. ‘So, what do you think?’
Nemo leaned away from the other three, ‘Well. First is the matter of pay,’ he rose his hands to deter the bubbling anger appearing on each of their faces, ‘I don’t want anything from you or the town.’
Isvat and Pasinah both turned attention to the food.
Tura chewed his lip, ‘Then what do you want?’
‘Any thing I so choose from the goods found at the camp and on the bandits,’ Nemo said tearing at a flatbread.
Tura cocked his head to the side and hummed, ‘But that is going to be our possessions, our money, our heirlooms. What right do you have to that?’
‘I am not risking my neck for nothing. And I didn’t see many men capable of swinging a sword in here before. Mainly old farmers and young women, and not the sort like Vispa,’ he pointed upstairs.
‘I agree,’ Isvat declared with a mouthful of bread and olives.
Oh good they aren’t working for free either, Nemo smiled as he wrapped a fig in bread.
‘So you do want something from us. Just not right now,’ Tura folded his arms.
‘Pretty much,’ Nemo said through the flesh of a fig.
Tura folded his arms and held his upper arms hard. He turned away from the three of them and chewed his lip groaning and humming as he did so. Shifting on his cushion he whispered numbers to himself between biting his lip and humming.
‘So, what did you see out there then? Or is what you said before everything?’ Isvat turned to Nemo. Cup in one hand and elbow resting on the table. Behind the thin lips was a smile hidden in his eyes.
‘Pretty much. The prisoners were held in cage wagons but I saw no horses,’ Nemo thought back, ‘But I did hear one of them talking about a man. Oh, what was his name?’ He looked from ceiling to table to floor. ‘Usan,’ Nemo declared pointing to Isvat.
‘Usan?’ Tura interjected turning back into the group. His numbers paused.
‘Pretty sure that was the name.’
‘Usan… Usan…’ Tura repeated again and again.
‘Who is he?’ Nemo peered around the three faces. None giving an answer.
Tura unfolded his arms and frowned. He drew himself up and said, ‘He was a man of Forgiskill. The Free Cities wouldn’t take him into their army on account of his age. A year too young, they said, had to grow up a bit first. He passed his naming age, when a person of the town chooses an adult name for themselves,’ Tura explained. ‘Then the bandits came and he was amongst the first to be taken. He wouldn’t join them… he couldn’t,’ Tura turned away again staring at the corner of the table between him and Pasinah.
‘How long ago was that?’
‘Months,’ Tura murmured.
‘Months and you are wondering why he joined them? The prisoners I saw had had their tongues removed, Tura, were caged like animals and you sit there expecting charity and doing nothing to help,’ Nemo felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He was perched up on his knees looking down on Tura, the so-called Mayor.
‘We tried. We did. The first time. And the second. But those who tried were killed and the rest lost the stomach for it. We have nothing to pay you with and anything of value has been taken or sold off by now,’ Tura picked a splinter on the table.
‘I’m not going to run off with everything the bandits stole. Just something I can use or sell to support me and mine for a few weeks. That’s it. I don’t want your history, your heirlooms, or your money. At least not much,’ Nemo lowered himself to his cushion, softening his voice as he went.
‘Fine,’ Tura said. Short, clipped, as if he had never said it at all. He stared into Nemo’s eyes, ‘Alright. If that is what it will take for you to help, so be it. Just get our people back,’ Tura said, his eyes moist.
‘Right then,’ Nemo began, he leaned forward. Isvat to his left. As he leaned he caught a needle of light from the dark staircase. He snapped his neck to the left and peered round Isvat. A lithe leg and boot vanished up the abyss of a staircase.
‘What is it?’ Pasinah peered over.
‘Nothing, just a trick of the light,’ Nemo said. Why is Vispa listening in? She doesn’t need to spy. ‘Anyway, this is what I saw.’
Nemo recanted the full tale of tracking, spotting, and searching for the benefit of Isvat and Pasinah, hoping either of them would notice or suggest ideas as he went. They didn’t. Both content to drink their cups and listen.
Nemo finished recanting what he had seen and his ale soon after. He picked up the flagon. Empty. He rocked it side to side. No sound of ale sloshing inside. He placed it down.
‘So, it’s at least ten versus three. I’ve had worse,’ Pasinah said his voice thick and calcified.
‘We should assume they all know what they are doing. This isn’t recruits on a battlefield, they are hardened warriors. Without discipline, sure, but not without skill,’ Nemo warned.
‘True enough,’ Pasinah stared into his cup swilled the remainder around and drank.
Tura yawned, ‘So what is the plan?’
Nemo closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, ‘I don’t know yet but I do know I am going to bed.’ With that he raised himself from his cushion. The room tilted.
‘Hold on,’ Isvat said, ‘You aren’t going to suggest anything?’
‘Not right now,’ Nemo shrugged, ‘No need. Tura said the bandits come by once a week. So we have a week to plan. No need to rush,’ he placed his empty cup on the bar. He burped into his palm.
‘But what if they come tomorrow instead?’ Tura panicked.
‘They won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They just got paid. They’ll be in Ramascus eating and whoring most likely,’ Nemo said. ‘I’m going to bed, good night,’ he said turning his back on the trio.
The three spoke in low tones as he left. Tura and Isvat eager to plan. Pasinah wanting another cup of ale.
Nemo dragged himself up the stairs bathed in blackness. Steeper than he remembered he pulled on the handrail. His mind spun in the darkness. As he rounded the banister there was only the soft cream light of the stars and moon to guide him. The windows hummed with a celestial note as the sky shimmered above.
The corridor twisted in his vision and he stepped over himself. The window frame caught him by the shoulder. His head too heavy. Arms slow to respond. He ran a hand through his hair and pushed himself up by the thin slats of wood between panes of glass. Moonlight rippled over his knuckles.
Nemo fell against the wall beside his room door, left ajar. He helped himself in and unbuttoned his jacket and shirt. His fingers not his own, too large and the buttons too small. He flung both to the floor.
The room was cast in shadow. The window above covered by drapes. Eyelids heavy he reached the foot of his bed and fell. The bed caught him with a strained groan. Nemo exhaled. His feet hung off the end of the bed, boots still worn. The blanket was lost. No matter.
A worm wriggled next to him and the cover beneath him moved and pinched at his skin. He lent on his elbow for a moment and pulled the cloth from beneath him. A form shifted next to him.
‘Night… Vispa,’ he remembered as he collapsed onto the bed.
She grumbled.
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