The Warrior Returns - Anteros 04 Page 5

  All the volunteers were trained as sailors by my brother's most worthy captains and as soldiers by myself. Later I became so busy, I'd been forced to turn this duty over to a retired Guardswoman, a steely-muscled sergeant with a game leg and an educated nose for laggards. Some got even more specialized training, such as handling caravan animals and desert fighting.

  When I left on the mission, most of these men and women were engaged in other Antero affairs. I didn't have a great variety of people to choose from. But I was well-satisfied with the men who volunteered, and my only regret was there were no women available.

  Among my men was a set of twins, Talu and Talay. They were blond, handsome lads so identical in looks, manner, and speech, it was useless to attempt to tell them apart. Therefore we called them both Talutalay. Or Talut for short. They'd trained for an elite Guards force, but in the army's age-old, small-minded manner, they were refused permission to serve together. They left when their first term ended, and I'd snapped them up before they'd reached the first tavern to drink away their woes.

  Another member of the crew worth mentioning was the cook. He was exceedingly tall and remained thin as a spar no matter how much or richly he ate or drank. He had a long neck and a small head, and was bald of pate and chin. He had a nervous habit of licking his lips, a quick dartlike motion of his tongue. He was a cheery sort, an extraordinary cook, and he could hurl a spear an amazing distance, using his long, lean body like a throwing stick. He was the son of a fishing family who'd caught the adventure bug.

  I forget his name, but that's because we all called him Lizard, which is how he introduced himself and was certainly the animal he most resembled. If you can imagine, that is, a lizard as friendly as an innkeep's pup.

  I hadn't told the men the specifics of our mission before we left, saying only that it was dangerous. Although I'd admitted the pay was triple and the bonuses among the most handsome ever, I'd downplayed that part and emphasized the danger. I didn't want need or greed to color anyone's decision.

  Just before we reached the Pillars of Te-Date I called them all together to explain what'd happened and what our purpose was.

  Carale, the only one who'd been with me on the last expedition, breathed a sigh when I was done.

  "I figgered that's what was up, me lady," he said. His normally dour expression had actually brightened, if you call a storm reduced to mere heavy showers a brightening. "Those poor blighters at the outposts'11 be right glad t' see us. I know I'd be."

  The others nodded in vigorous agreement. A side benefit of the mission, both Amalric and I had agreed, would be to show our employees that the Anteros were behind them no matter how far away from home our business took them.

  "I want to stress," I said, 'that we must be careful what we say whenever we go ashore. I don't want this fellow to get his wind up."

  "Why, he's nothin' but pig dung, Lady Antero," Donarius said. "Won't take us long to nail his hide to a shed. I 'spect we'll be home in time t' tap the first barrel of spring." He smacked his lips. "I likes me brew a bit green, Lady Antero."

  "Like your women, eh, Donarius?" I joked. It was well known that the big first mate went weak-kneed at the sight of any tavern slut who could still lay honest claim to a girlish giggle.

  Everyone laughed appreciatively, perhaps a little louder than the mild humor warranted. I wanted them to become used to my ways. It had been easier when I was a soldier in uniform, wearing my captain's badge: most men would soon forget my sex and accept me as a warrior who was easily their equal on the battlefield or in the tavern yard. But nowadays I was an Evocator, addressed as Lady Antero this and my lady that, until I feared they'd snatch themselves bald from so much forelock tugging.

  The laughter sparked a few more jokes at the first mate's expense. He blushed like an overlarge boy, and I raised a hand to bring it to a halt when I thought his good humor might soon dissolve into anger.

  I returned to the subject of the false Ice Bear King.

  "I don't know if this pirate is just a thief with an imagination," I said, "or if he's a real menace. For all I know, he could be nothing more than a lucky rogue who was shrewd enough to trap that demon into working for him. And when I killed the demon I wiped out what little magical armament he had."

  "I fear worse'n that, me lady," Carale said, his expression sour. "It's a well-known fact that where ye'11 find one demon ye'11 find another."

  This was untrue. I'd encountered single demons before— such as Lord Elam, who'd nearly made a feast of me and my companions. But it was senseless to argue with tavern myths and I let it go. Besides, I preferred Carale's wariness to his first mate's overconfidence.

  "That's an excellent point, Captain," I said. "I think it'd be safer if we assumed this fellow is the Ice Bear King incarnate. That he's got a whole stable of demons at his command and that his pirates are as fierce as any we've ever encountered. We can't get into trouble with that attitude. Which we certainly can if we underestimate him.

  "Also, any self-respecting pirate keeps paid spies at the major ports to sniff out likely victims. We should assume he's at least doing that."

  "You needn't worry about loose tongues, Lady Antero," Donarius said. He glowered at the men, his chest and shoulders swelling like a bullfrog's. Putting on his most intimidating display—and maybe getting back at those who'd teased him. "We'll keep our lips clamped tight, won't we, lads?"

  All were quick to murmur agreement.

  "Actually," I said, "I want you to talk. As a matter of fact, the more you babble, the better it'll be."

  They all looked confused. Before long that confusion gave way to conspiratorial smiles.

  "I propose we look like easy prey," I said. "We'll waggle our soft merchant fannies around a port or two and we'll soon draw him out."

  Carale made a sour face. 'To what purpose, if ye don't mind me askin', me lady?" he said. "Ain't but one ship here and eleven of us, countin' yourself. I can't make me mind big enough to figger the odds against a whole pirate fleet, sorcery or no. I know ye too well t' think ye'd be proposin' to fight it out toe-t'-toe, as it were. But..."

  "But what other choice will we have," I finished for him, "if we let him know where to find us?"

  Carale nodded. "Somethin' like that, me lady."

  "I intend for us to lie," I said. Carale immediately looked relieved. "We'll say we're scouting business prospects and it's rare gems I'm looking for in particular. Which will make us a rich prize, indeed. And then we'll simply say we're going southeast—but we'll go southwest instead. To the trading outposts."

  This drew broad smiles. Most people like to think of themselves as potential masters of deceit if only given the chance. This is why they are such easy targets of truly cunning men and women. The thieves play on it, and their victims trip over their own artifice.

  The story I'd concocted, however, was so simple that any of the men could carry it off during the brief stops I planned.

  If all went well, the men would return home vastly pleased with themselves. And they'd have fat purses and broad boasts to boot.

  OUR FIRST STOP was Pisidia, the great trading center that sits just inside the Pillars of Te-Date and commands the entrance to the Straits of Madacar.

  Pisidia was well-named. You could smell it many leagues before you arrived.

  I first saw the Pillars of Te-Date on a pearly morn, the seas hissing gently between the great stone columns that reached so high it was easy to imagine they held up the vault of the sky. I knew that just through those columns was Pisidia, whose wide natural harbor made it a crossroads for all trade with the south. But that first view had been spoiled long before, when the stench of Pisidia's huge tanning vats crept in on the night winds.

  It was that smell I'd had in mind when I made the counterattack on the pirates—an odor so foul that only sorcery could worsen it.

  After the smell, the second thing you noticed about Pisidia was that it always seemed cloaked by massive swirling dark clouds. And the third
was the low buzz that seemed to permeate the air, as if the clouds were alive.

  To my disgust, I learned they actually were. The clouds were composed of huge swarms of flies that hover over the city as if it were a giant, sticky-faced child who'd gotten into her mother's jar of prized jam.

  Pisidia was a raw town built of undressed logs from the thick pine forests that covered the mountains that framed it. It was roughly divided into four parts. There was the harbor area, around which were the docks, warehouses, and tall rickety tenements that housed most of the city's workforce. Those buildings leaned crazily over roadways so narrow that it was always dark at street level. To the left were the tanneries— columnlike log buildings where kettles the size of farm carts boiled and frothed and fumed all day and all night. In the yards surrounding each vat building were the places where raw hides were worked and the finished hides graded and bundled for shipment. To the right, on a gently rising palisade covered with gardens, were the plush homes and villas of the people who made their fortunes on all those smelly hides.

  They were a pretentious lot with the bad taste of the newly rich, and I found their high and mighty ways amusing, since when the wind shifted, the air over all those gaudy, multicolored homes and landscaped flower gardens became as foul as what the common people breathe. But they didn't notice it. For to live amid such an awful smell was to become as accustomed to it as if the air were sweet as lily fields.

  A lovely maid from one of those families once became enamored with me. She made certain that we "accidentally" encountered one another in the garden of the family home. And there she sat amid posies of stunning color in her most revealing costume. She was as dewy-eyed and willing a maid as I've ever encountered, giving me a large goblet of wine and bidding me to sit beside her, saying her family was off to the market that day and we were alone—other than the servants, of course.

  Then she'd coyly offered me a flower whose delicate pink and white petals formed a most arousing shape. She blushed, but the blush became a coy giggle as she gave it to me, letting her robe fall open at the shoulder so I could get a peek at her plump milkmaid's breasts.

  We flirted for a while, but the day warmed quicker than my passions, awakening all those flies from wherever they go to escape the cool of the night Thick clouds of them took to the air, along with the tannery smells.

  My love-to-be must've been shocked when my nose wrinkled at the odor. And she was probably wounded most grievously when she closed her eyes and puckered her lips for a kiss and I'd turned away at the sight of several flies alighting unnoticed at the corners of that tender mouth.

  All I could think of were the heaps of maggots the Pisidians use to clean the rotted meat from the raw hides, which was the reason for all the flies that cloak the city. A fly's larvae is a wondrous creature, I suppose. Healers prize them as well as hide workers. Those ugly little wrigglers devour foul flesh and keep wounds free of infection. And I'll admit the gods should be praised rather than mocked for creating such things.

  Still, the image of a maggot is not likely to stir romantic notions. All I could think of were great ugly piles of them squirming on some poor dead animal's skin. My stomach roiled and I quickly got up, made some feeble excuse or another... and fled.

  Incidents like that tend to make one's life more chaste than a healthy woman would prefer. It might be good for the character, but it makes for many sleepless nights summing up regrets.

  Once you get past the smell and rough manners of the Pisidians, however, you realize they are a sturdy lot more honorable than most and they have an independent frontier spirit. Their forebears were savage cattle herders who'd turned their skills at hide curing into a fortune. Anyone, no matter how poor the family, could become a person of means in Pisidia.

  The port city was also the ideal starting point for my mission.

  Once we'd docked, I left two men to guard our ship and set the others loose with a few extra coins in their purses to visit the taverns, spread our gem-hunters' tale, and gather what intelligence they could.

  As for me, I planned to visit the Oracle of Pisidia.

  It was not so well known then. The grand temple that sits on a windswept hill outside the city was in the early stages of construction. It was to be the only building made of stone for many leagues, and the shiploads of hides it took to finance the undertaking were said to be as numerous as the stars on a bright night. Thanks to the charity and guilt of Pisidia's newly rich families, the temple has become one of the most famous of its kind—dedicated to Te-Date. Supplicants from all over the southern regions visit there, heaping much gold into the temple's coffers to ask a boon or to get a glimpse of their fate.

  When I visited that day, the temple was little more than a litter of rubble that workmen were beginning to mortar into the shape commanded by the architect's drawings.

  It was late afternoon and only a few stonemasons were about I pushed past a crew of burly men to the sprawling log edifice that housed the original temple and quarters for the Mother Oracle and her priestesses.

  There were only five supplicants waiting their turn inside. Three were young women with swollen bellies—there, no doubt, to ask the Oracle some question regarding their unborn children. The other two were old and infirm. A young priestess attended them, taking each in turn to a black altar stone in the center of the temple. This is the Oracle Stone of Pisidia, a disappointment to many who see it for the first time. They expect some grand, gleaming ebony monolith, no doubt, instead of something so plain as a dark stone about the size of a large cartwheel. -

  A handsome, middle-aged woman—regal in the yellow, wide-sleeved robe and bejeweled tiara that marked her as the Mother Oracle—tended the faithful. As each approached she listened to their whispered request, nodded, or conferred further if it was necessary to get them to rephrase the question so it could be answered nay or yea.

  A price was arrived at—based, I knew, on what the person could afford—and while the young priestess collected the money, the Mother Oracle prepared herself for the casting. When all was ready, the supplicant was handed a flat metal plate painted black on one side, white on the other.

  I watched as a pregnant woman, not long out of her childhood herself, gripped the plate and stood trembling as she waited for what would happen next.

  The Mother Oracle sprinkled magical herbs on the stone. It glowed into life and the dried herbs caught fire. Pale pink smoke with a pleasing odor whooshed up. The priestess waved a cupped hand slowly through the smoke, wafting it over the young woman several times, mumbling a swift prayer. Then she signaled and the young lady breathed deeply, braced herself, and tossed the plate as high as she could.

  Her nervousness showed, for the plate nearly knocked against the ceiling timbers. Then it tumbled down—spinning slowly—and clattered to the floor. I saw the Mother Oracle bury a smile as the young woman saw the white side staring up at her and clapped her hands and squealed with delight. The almost smile shifted into an imperious frown as if she were displeased with such a display in a holy place. The girl stuttered an apology, whirled and fled. She was grinning hugely, however, when she went past me, and I could see she was eager to tell the good news to her family and friends.

  When my turn came, I was the last in the chamber. The litde priestess bustled over to me, still full of youthful energy after many hours of tending the faithful.

  "Come this way, please," she said. "Mother Daciar awaits."

  The priestess was a pretty thing, with snapping black eyes and a coy smile. I'd caught her furtive looks of appreciation and knew she was intrigued.

  I must admit I made a rather dashing figure that day. I was wearing a knee-length, dark blue tunic with matching tights. The sleeves were cut at the shoulder, displaying a fine silver shirt with billowy arms. A wide belt cinched my waist—an ornate dagger sheathed on one side, an empty sword scabbard on the other. I'd left that weapon with the bored guard outside the temple. High, tight-fitting boots encased my legs, which I'm
vain enough to believe are long and shapely enough to wear such things. Setting the whole outfit off was my finest traveling cape, one side casually tossed back at the shoulder and held in place by a golden pin bearing the symbol of the House of Antero. I knew I looked every inch an adventurous young merchant, with adjustments and decorations here and there as befitted my sex, who relished the road and was open to new friends and experiences.

  Before the priestess came to fetch me, I'd seen her adjust her robes to better show off her figure and poke her hair into place so a dark wave swept over a seductive eye.

  It was good for my soul to see such a thing, and I couldn't help but give her a wink when she'd finished reciting her piece bidding me to come greet Mother Daciar.

  When she saw my wink she blushed prettily and cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle a surprised giggle.

  "I hope the Mother Oracle is patient with me," I said, low. "For one look at you and my question went right out of my mind."

  The priestess wrinkled her nose in pretended displeasure. 'Tsk. Such behavior, my lady. Remember where you are!"

  I bowed and murmured an apology, which she pretended to ignore.

  She laid a light hand on my arm and led the way as stiffly and properly as she could. But just as we reached the Oracle Stone she gave my arm a quick parting squeeze full of promise.

  Mother Daciar's back was still to me when I stepped up. Before she turned to tend to the last supplicant of a long trying day, I saw her rub a weary knot in her shoulder. And I heard her sigh before she said:

  "The Lord Te-Date greets thee, wayfarer. If thy cause be true, thy thoughts pure, He may bless thee this day with an answer to what troubles thee."

  Quickly, before she raised her eyes, I answered, "Ask Him if you can close up shop early, Daciar, so I can buy you a drink."

  She jumped, shocked. Then she saw me and her mouth gaped open in surprise. It snapped shut and her mouth wreathed into a wide smile of delight

  "By the red-arsed fires of the Hells," she growled in a low smoky voice, "if it isn't Rali Antero." She shot a guilty look at the stone, grimaced, then shrugged. "Sorry, O Great Lord Te-Date," she said. Then, to me, "Oh, well. I know He's heard worse."