Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree - 9

With Bycross less than a day away, Fern abandoned revising her letters to Viv in favor of working them out aloud. She was nearly out of parchment anyway. Zyll was a willing—or at least captive—audience. Whether she was fascinated or confused by the whole affair was beyond Fern’s ability to determine.

The hazferou sat between them, clucking and cocking its head in every direction. It had reclaimed its space on the buckboard, but no blood had as yet been shed, and she decided not to tempt fate by trying to alter this state of affairs.

Astryx didn’t comment on the one-sided conversation between goblin and rattkin, no matter how much the bookseller swore during the recitation. Still, Fern got the impression she was listening with half an ear.

Ha, she thought, with grim amusement.

“Maybe I should spend more time thinking about how to make it up to her?” said Fern, chin in paw. She arched a brow at Zyll. “Who wants to listen to somebody flog themselves, right? I’m here because I made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. So, focusing on minimizing the damage is what a responsible adult would do, yeah?”

Zyll stared back, neither nodding nor shaking her head. Or blinking.

The goblin slid her bound hands into a maroon pocket, withdrawing a spoon. It didn’t look particularly clean. She slowly licked it, and then inserted the end into her mouth and closed her lips over it, sucking deliberately and never breaking eye contact.

“Um. Anyway.” Fern cleared her throat, looking upward and appealing to an invisible Viv. “Look, I panicked. Everything was just too much, and I got maudlin and tipsy, then fell asleep in a wagon and woke up a day outside of town. Pretty fucking—I mean, pretty ridiculous, right? I’m sorry it took me so long to make my way back, but you wouldn’t believe who I . . . okay, no, that’s too much to start with.”

Zyll hiked both brows up, still sucking on the spoon.

The cart jostled its way through an arcing turn, and Fern grabbed the edge of the buckboard with both paws while the hazferou fluffed and squawked in annoyance. They’d begun a slow descent toward Bycross, and the cart track noodled its way between humps of green hillside. Somewhere a brook gurgled, and three or four tendrils of smoke spiraled skyward in the distance.

Fern tried again, gesturing beseechingly. “I just want to fix this. So. How are things? Er. Whatever happened, whatever fell apart or cost you or made your life hells, I want to do something about it. I know I probably don’t feel trustworthy to you right now, but I swear, it’ll never happen again.”

She stared down from Viv’s lofty perspective at the humble rattkin before her. Coincidentally, this view coincided with one of Bucket’s hindquarters. Deepening her voice, and already shaking her head, she replied, “‘Fern, do you think I’m an idiot? You knew whose wagon that was. You knew what you were doing. You left everyone here to clean up your mess, and take care of your pet, and you know what? We did all that, and it turns out we don’t need you for this, and apparently, you didn’t need us, either, so—’ Oh, gods, this is fucking ridiculous.” She sagged and put her face in her paws.

Astryx’s voice distracted her from her pity soliloquy. “If you want my advice, you’re making this very complicated,” she called, turning around to jog backward, which was honestly pretty impressive. “Simple is better. The guilty dog barks loudest.”

“The what?”

“The quick cut is best. In and out before anyone can feel it.”

“I want to apologize, not stab her. Have you spent a thousand years collecting these weird sayings?”

Astryx shrugged. “It seems a waste to agonize over something you’ve already run away from.”

“I’m not agonizing, I’m planning . Those are two different things, I . . . Hang on a minute.”

The elf must have seen something in Fern’s expression that troubled her. “What?”

Fern raised a claw and pointed down the road. “I think somebody is waiting for us.”

“Why would you think that?” Astryx replied suspiciously, already turning to face forward again.

Then her hand was at the pommel of her sword before Fern could even blink.

He stood before a wooden footbridge that crossed the slow-moving stream Fern had heard in the distance. The hills heaped up sharply on either side, casting shadows nearly to the bridge. The cool breath of the brook carried the smell of grass and dew to Fern’s nose.

The waiting tapenti’s coppery scales gleamed in the sun. The hood at his neck flared wide, the delicate pink of a conch’s heart. His snakelike eyes glittered, half hidden in the shadow of a black, flat-brimmed hat. A red leather vest snugged tight over an otherwise bare chest, and red pantaloons were tucked into knee-high black boots, their tops folded down. A pair of magestones dangled from his leather belt like enormous silver teardrops, and he held a long, slim dagger out and to the side in his left hand, the right open and ready by his waist.

He used his free hand to adjust the brim of his hat and smiled, his tongue flickering out to taste the air. “Hail, wanderer.” His accented voice caressed the vowels in the manner of his kind.

Astryx’s stance managed to seem relaxed, despite the fingertips touching the hilt at her shoulder. “Hail,” she replied patiently. “It appears you think you have some business with me.”

“Oh, shit, ” breathed Fern, leaning forward despite herself.

“I do.” The tapenti gestured at Zyll with his dagger, which looked somewhat anemic when compared to the impressive length of Astryx’s blade. “A simple exchange. Her, for safe passage onward.”

Fern blinked at Zyll, who was also leaning forward with great interest, her bound hands clasped between her knees in the folds of her ridiculous coat. “How high is the bounty on you, anyway?”

The highwayman’s smile slipped for a moment into a confused frown. The point of his dagger dropped a handspan. “Is . . . is that a hazferou ?”

Beside Fern, the devil bird made a very un-chicken-like hacking sound deep in its throat and ejected a handful of bones from its beak.

Astryx ignored them both. “I decline.” In a sure, swift motion, she drew her blade and held it ready and slightly across her body. Her arms bunched and corded with lean strength.

“Ah, at last,” sighed a voice that Fern thought she recognized. “Thank you, my lady.”

A very fussy voice.

She realized with a start that it was coming from the sword.

The sword in question continued, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this one’s, er, magely inclinations. Silver stones such as his are common as clay, of course. A favorite of hedge wizards, I believe.” She could almost picture the blade fidgeting with long, silver mustaches. “Which reminds me of an amusing anecdote involving—”

“I’m aware, Nigel,” replied the elf, in the resignedly affectionate tones of the long-married.

“Ah, an Elder Blade,” murmured the tapenti, his reptilian eyes going wide. “Astonishing.”

Fern was certainly astonished. She’d read any number of stories featuring the fabled talking swords forged of mooncraft and the souls of fallen warriors. She hadn’t been aware that Astryx wielded one—much less one that sounded like the Territory’s least interesting professor—which seemed like a huge oversight as far as the history books went.

And speaking of histories and legends, she couldn’t hold her peace any longer about this one. She cupped her paws to her mouth and hollered, “Excuse me, do you have any idea who this is ? I think you’re out of your depth here.”

“But of course,” the tapenti called back politely, without pause. “She is Astryx One-Ear, Blademistress, Oathmaiden, the Silver Hawk, the Endless Blade. I am not so foolish as all of that . Still,” he gestured in a general way at the cart, horse, and the passengers therein, “she has clearly fallen on lean times.”

“I personally saw her dismember two dozen fish monsters, so I don’t know, maybe you’re a little foolish?” replied Fern.

Astryx looked over her shoulder at the rattkin and squinted.

The tapenti chuckled good-naturedly. “I warrant I am a greater student of her legends than any other you might chance to meet. I do not spring from ambush, nor do I come unprepared.”

The Elder Blade in Astryx’s hands pompously cleared its nonexistent throat. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.”

“Astryx, Warden of the West, since there can be no accord without action, I, Chak the Pathless, challenge you for custody of the criminal, Zyll.”

A thrill shivered up Fern’s spine, and the daring tales recounted in Scarred by Purpose crowded to the front of her mind.

They seemed a lot less far-fetched all of a sudden.

“To death or disarm?” replied Astryx. She might have been asking how he liked his eggs.

Chak doffed his black hat and held it before him. “I would never knowingly deprive the Territory of your greatness.”

“That’s nice. You’re very polite,” replied the Oathmaiden. “It would’ve been a shame to have to kill you.”