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The twins, Hax and Pax, are two of the more enjoyable characters to write, although they tend toward the amoral and scrupulous. However, even they have their limits when it comes to the job.
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Just a Job
Raucous laughter echoed through the tavern.
“So, what’s the job?” Hax asked, leaning close to be heard over the laughter, song, and general hubbub.
“A quick in and out,” the man sitting across the scarred table replied, the smirk on his lips almost hidden by his mustache. “We hit ‘em at night. They won’t expect it.”
“But what’s the job?” Pax cut in, a dangerous glint in her blue eyes.
“Look, little lady,” the man began, but Hax’s laughter cut him off.
“You’re going to want to walk that back,” the fighter said when he’d regained control of himself. “No one calls Pax ‘little lady’ and lives to tell the tale. Not even you, Harco Deville.”
To emphasize her brother’s point, Pax slammed one of her hatchets into the table, wedging it tight into the aging oak. Heads turned at the sound. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Harco held up his hands in surrender. “Fine, no offense, little…ah, Pax.” He grabbed his tankard and splashed ale on the tabletop, careful not to get any near Pax’s hatchet.
“Right, so here’s us on Fillon,” he drew a circle in ale. A scattering of smaller circles followed, moving outward from Fillon like a bird’s wing. “This is Shaweh,” he said, pointing to one of the smaller circles close to the outer edge of the wing. “We land on the south side and make our way up into the hills. That’s where we’ll find him.”
“Him who?” Pax wanted to know.
Harco frowned. “Calls himself King of the Isles. His real name’s Saris, a tailor if you’ll believe it. Got himself some jumped-up ideas. Convinced the people on the island to rebel against House Faranor.”
Hax snorted. “Faranor’s a dead house. Been extinct for close on a century now. What’s to rebel against?”
Harco fixed him with a glare. “Might be dead and buried, but someone still needs to administer these lands for Rorrick. The emperor put Lord Yaris in charge.”
“And Yaris is worried this little rebellion will cost him some coin,” Pax interrupted. “Maybe even convince some of the other islands to follow his example?”
Harco’s glare was all the answer she needed. “What’s in it for us?”
“Look, my orders are simple: kill Saris and anyone who stands with him. Shaweh’s one of the wealthier islands hereabouts. Pickings should be plentiful.”
“So, we help you get rid of this King of the Sea and in return, we get our pick of the loot?” Hax asked.
Harco nodded. “I want you and your sister to scout the island, check for anything out of the ordinary, and get word back to me. We’ll pick you up on our way in, and you can join the fun.”
“Sounds simple enough.” He glanced at Pax, who nodded her agreement. “We’re in,” he said, extending his hand. Harco shook it with a grin.
“Now that sounds like a reason to celebrate!” he roared. “Barkeep, another round!”
“Let’s get some sleep,” Pax said. “We’ll need to be up early in the morning.”
“As long as he’s paying, I’m drinking,” Hax replied.
Pax smacked him on the back of the head. “It’s your hangover, brother,” she said, ripping her hatchet from the table and stomping out.
***
The sound of Hax retching over the rail carried clearly to the other end of the ship. True, the Oyster wasn’t much of a ship, but Pax still took grim joy in being right.
“Nothing like fresh salt air, right, Hax?” she asked, coming up behind him. “And those waves! Haven’t seen swells like this since that trip up north three years ago.”
Hax was noisily sick again. Pax laughed and clapped him on the back. “One day you’ll learn to listen to me.”
“Go away and let me die,” Hax groaned. Pax did as he asked, a skip in her step as she made her way aft.
Hours later, the twins grounded the Oyster’s longboat on a deserted stretch of black sand beach. Hax stared down the strand, eyes still bleary from last night’s exploits. “Looks damn deserted to me. Harco’s right in choosing this for his landing.”
“Maybe, but let’s decide that after we’ve seen the lay of the land,” Pax shot back. “We’ve got two days before he arrives, and he’ll want a full damn report, don’t doubt it.”
The pair dragged the longboat as far up the beach as they could, then set out to scout the way forward. If Harco’s information was correct, they would crest the slight rise north of the beach and then find a shallow valley that ran toward the center of the island. Their job was to make sure that the route was passable and to identify any potential bottlenecks where Saris’ forces could mount resistance.
“C’mon,” Pax ordered. Hax grumbled but followed his sister. They crossed the beach and climbed the small hill. From the top, they had a better view of their surroundings. Smoke rose above a handful of shacks a mile or so to the east.
“Fishermen, most likely,” Hax said, dismissing them as no threat. To the west, the beach shrank and the hills rose until the waves pounded at the base of sheer cliffs. The land sloped down toward the north before beginning to rise again. A small river cut its way through the rocky soil, creating a narrow valley that rose toward the mountains in the distance.
“Harco’s information bears out so far,” Hax said.
“Let’s hope that the rest does. I’m all for a fight, but I’d rather have numbers on our side,” Pax replied before setting off down the north side of the hill.
The trek would take the better part of a day, so the twins made camp at the mouth of the valley. Hax found a space just large enough for the two of them, side by side, screened by boulders from the road. They lit no fire for fear of being seen, and supper was a cheerless affair of dried fruit and fish. Sunrise found them already on the road.
“You’d think if this King of the Seas was serious, we’d have run into some patrols or a guard station or something,” Hax grumbled.
“It is a little odd, isn’t it?” Pax replied. “I mean, we’ve seen nothing and no one, except those fishing shacks yesterday.”
“I mean, I guess that’s good news for Harco. Maybe he can just walk right into Saris’ lair. No muss and no fuss.”
Both twins laughed at the idea, although their good humor evaporated a moment later. They rounded a bend in the road and found themselves facing what could only be called a fortification. A stout one, at that. An impromptu wall of fallen boulders and smaller stones stretched from one side of the valley to the other. The road ran through a makeshift gate in the center, which was closed tight.
“Well, maybe Saris has some sense after all,” Pax muttered.
“If we’ve got any sense, we’ll get out of sight before they spot us,” Hax said.
“Right, good point.”
Whoever had built the wall had also put in the effort to remove most of the boulders large enough to hide behind, no doubt incorporating them into the wall and creating a safety buffer at the same time. Ultimately, the twins had to retreat around the bend in the valley. While that kept them out of sight of the wall, it also meant that they couldn’t study the fortification to find a way through.
“We wait for nightfall,” Pax said. “We’ve got rope and grapnels in our packs, but I think it’ll be easy enough to scale by hand. I mean, it’s just a big pile of rocks. We can go over the wall with no one the wiser.”
Hax disagreed. “There’s no way of knowing whether that wall’s patrolled or what we’ll find on the other side. Be reasonable! We need to sneak through when the door’s open so we can get a better look around.”
Pax glared at her brother. “You got a way to magically make the gate open? No? I didn’t think so.”
“We could wait until a merchant comes by, then sneak into the back of the wagon.”
“And when they search the wagon? What, we kill the guards? Because that wouldn’t raise the damn hue and cry.”
Hax looked crestfallen. “Well, then… fine. We’ll do it your way.”
“Of course we will,” Pax grinned. “But we need to be fast. Harco said he’d land at sunset on the third day after we reached Shaweh. We’ve already been here a day. Time’s running short. We need to get over the wall, scout the pass, and get back to the beach in a day and a half.”
Hax did some quick mental math. “That’s not a lot of time.”
Pax patted his shoulder. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Pax ignored him in favor of finding a comfortable position to await nightfall. Realizing that the conversation was done, Hax double-checked that his rope and grapnel were accessible, then did the same for his sister before settling in next to her in their hiding place.
The hours dragged by, but they were not without activity. Three times the gate opened. Once, it disgorged three riders, each leading a pack horse. Their clothing marked them as traders out of Louth, away to the north. The second time, the gate creaked open to admit what looked to be a patrol returning from the south. Hax and Pax held very still and prayed to all the gods that the shadows were deep enough to hide them.
“Merciful Mali,” Hax muttered as the gate closed behind the last scout and everything remained calm.
The third time the gate opened was just as dusk was falling. The sun was already behind the mountains, so the sky above was still a pale blue, but shadows stalked the narrow valley. Two more riders appeared, but these were not traders. They wore cloaks over leather armor that looked to have been cobbled together from castoffs. One man rode with a bundle draped across the front of his saddle. The second rider carried two such bundles, the ends dangling below the horse’s belly. All three bundles were wrapped in canvas.
The pair rode a short way down the valley, then took a narrow trail to the east. Hax motioned for his sister to follow. “Let’s see what they’re up to. Might be a blind we need to warn Harco about. Or maybe this is our way through the gate!”
Pax nodded and followed her brother’s lead. They trailed behind the men, careful to keep enough distance between them that they could get off the trail and under cover should they turn around. It turned out that they needn’t have bothered being quite so careful. The soldiers rode with the confidence of men secure in their knowledge that no one and nothing could harm them. Pieces of conversation drifted back to the twins.
“D’you hear about Maenas?” one asked.
“No, what’s the guppy done this time?” the other replied.
“Done got himself knifed, by his brand new father-in-law, at that! Way I heard it, he was using weighted dice.”
“Garn, what a fool. I always said he’d come to a messy end.”
“You never said nothing of the sort,” the first one retorted. “Who was it told the captain that Maenas would make a good addition to the squad? What’d you call him? A fine and upstanding young man.”
“I never!”
Conversation stopped as the men halted their horses and dismounted. The sounds of scuffling came to the twins clearly, along with grunts of effort.
“Here, gimme a hand with my two then I’ll help you with yours.”
“Right, I’ll get the feet.”
There came a muffled but meaty thump, followed by a second. A few moments later, a third.
“Right, best stop gawking and get back. Captain’ll be waiting for confirmation it’s done.”
“You think when Saris beats those bastard imperials, we’ll get promoted? I’d like the captain’s job. And his pay!”
Hax turned to his sister, an eager light in his eyes. “We take ‘em when they come by. We’ll take their horses and cloaks. If the guards aren’t watching close, we can slip through pretending to be them.” The twins quietly slipped into the cover of the trees as the soldiers clattered toward them on their horses.
A single sword stroke took the head off Hax’s opponent before he realized there was a threat. The horse shied, but Hax grabbed the bridle, soothing the beast. He turned to see how Pax fared, only to find her already stripping the body of her opponent. She had dispatched the man, and Hax had not heard a sound.
“What in Azair’s hells do you think they were up to out here?” Hax asked.
“I think they were dumping bodies. Those bundles were missing when they came back.”
“Whose bodies?”
“Let’s go see.”
Their destination turned out to be a short cliff that emptied into a ravine lined with jagged stones. Three bodies lay amongst those stones, naked and mutilated.
“That one’s missing an ear, and that one’s hand is shy a finger,” Hax observed.
“The other one’s missing a thumb.”
“What do you think this is about?”
Pax shrugged, then looked closer at the dead men. “Do they look familiar to you?”
Hax studied the bodies and shook his head. “Should they?”
“I swear this one’s the spitting image of one of those merchants that came down the hill earlier.”
It was Hax’s turn to shrug. “I think you’re seeing things. Let’s go try our luck at the gate before someone realizes these two have been gone too long.”
They remounted the horses and tugged their hoods up over their heads. With any luck, whoever guarded the gate would open up and let them pass without comment. They would soon see. The makeshift gate loomed before them, strips of bark peeling from the unworked logs.
As they approached, the gate opened, revealing a couple of guardsmen in similar mismatching armor to the two they had dispatched. Hax and Pax rode through the gate, heads down, saying nothing. The deepening gloom helped.
“All done, then?” one of the guards asked.
Hax waved and nodded, hoping that would be enough. “Let Taelan know you’ve returned his horses,” the guard said and closed the gate behind them. Breathing a sigh of relief, the twins made their way into the encampment unchallenged, handing the reins of their horses to a boy at the makeshift stables.
“Memorize everything,” Pax hissed at her brother. This was more than Harco had expected, at least from what he’d explained to them before they set off from Fillon. This was no mere rabble. It was an organized military camp. Soldiers, all wearing patchwork armor, lined up at the mess for supper. Tents stood arranged in sets of three, each group with a fire ring in the center. A larger hide pavilion up the hill was probably for the commanders.
“You think this is their main camp?” Hax asked, surprise in his voice.
“No idea, but Harco was pretty nonspecific about where he thought Saris was camped. It could be.”
“Well, that would be nice. They’ll need to go through the gate or get over the walls regardless, so let’s start there.”
The twins ambled toward the eastern side of the wall, intending to walk its length to check for weak points. They saw precious few of those. The wall stood a solid eight or nine feet in height. Initially, Hax thought Harco’s men could just swarm the wall itself since it was wider at the base than at the top.
However, Pax pointed out that while they could certainly clamber over, it would be slow going on foot, and all too easy to find a leg trapped between stones, leaving men open to enemy archers. No, the wall wasn’t particularly skillful in engineering or construction, but it was too much of a hurdle for Harco’s raid. They would need something else. The gate was the only weak point, but it was solid enough that it would take time to breach, even with a ram.
“There’s precious little here that’ll help Harco. Let’s get close to the command tent and see if that tells us anything,” Pax suggested.
The pair had no trouble reaching the command tent, although getting inside seemed to be out of the question. Armed guards at the entrance barred the way and weren’t admitting anyone. Hax gestured for Pax to follow him around the tent with a jerk of his head. “We walk around the tent, maybe we can hear some of what’s going on inside.”
“Or we cut the tent and slip in,” Pax said with a wicked grin.
“Too risky!” Hax hissed, grabbing his sister’s wrist to keep her from slitting the hide. “Just listen for a minute. If we don’t hear anything, then we can talk about slipping in.”
“Fine,” she groused, pulling her arm back.
They had little problem circling around the tent. Attention was lax in their own camp, and with no enemy on the horizon. The only real challenge was keeping quiet while ducking under support ropes and navigating the barrels, crates, and other oddments stacked here and there. A military camp this might be, but both of the twins had seen enough imperial camps to recognize amateur work when they saw it.
The twins were just about to abandon the command tent as a lost cause when a voice from inside caught their attention. “Listen, Saris arrives tomorrow. That’s our only chance.”
“It’s too damn risky,” another voice said. “If he so much as suspects, he’ll turn Hallister on us. That man gives me the collywobbles. Feel like I’m drowning in deep water whenever he catches my eye.”
“Damn magicians,” muttered the first voice. “Doesn’t matter, though. I’m not about to let fear of one man keep me from this.”
“Someone’s coming,” the second voice hissed, and the twins heard no more.
“Sounds like maybe there’s rebellion in the rebels’ camp,” Pax said with a smile. “That’ll make things easier for Harco. If there’s factions here, then there’s a chance one of them will join in when the attack happens.”
“I don’t know that I would…” Hax began but was cut off.
“Who goes there?” a voice demanded. “Show yourselves!” The voice was accompanied by a light. A guard carrying a slitted lantern stood there, one hand on his sword.
“Curse the luck,” Pax grumbled, reaching for a hatchet. The arrival of a second guard forestalled her. One they could probably take quietly. There was little chance they could kill two without one of them raising the hue and cry.
“Damn,” Hax muttered. He grabbed Pax’s shoulder. “We need to go!”
Realizing that he was right, she mercifully did not put up a fight. Instead, both twins sprinted into the night, headed for the wall. If they could get enough of a head start––
“Awake! Awake! Enemies in the camp!” came the cry. Within moments, men were running from their tents and arming themselves.
The twins had only minutes to make their escape. “To the gate?” Hax asked breathlessly.
“No, we’d have to kill the guards and then open the gate. Too much time!”
“Where then?”
Pax glanced around. “Those not protecting the command tent are making for the gate or the wall. We go east, up the side of the valley.”
Then there was no more time for words, only for running. Their breath came in gasps, and their lungs burned. Pax tripped over a guy rope and went sprawling, but she was up and moving again in mere seconds, wiping blood from her nose.
“There, there!” someone shouted. “They’re heading east!”
“Godsdamned it,” Hax growled. “Now they know where we’re going!”
As soon as that sharp-eyed soldier spotted them, it seemed like a dozen more did. Soon, the sounds of pursuit almost drowned out the twins’ labored breathing. “Get them!” someone shouted. “Someone flank them with a bow!” another ordered.
Through it all, Hax and Pax ran pell-mell, dodging tents and fires and wagons. Their only hope lay in reaching the edge of the valley and climbing upward to elude their pursuers. And then they were climbing, pines and firs and aspens mixing with the jumbled stones and boulders. It slowed the twins’ progress, but it was even worse for their pursuers, who had to worry about checking beneath overturned boulders and in the lees of fallen trees where they might escape detection.
“Slow down,” Hax puffed. “I think we might have lost them.”
“No chance of that dunderhead,” Pax retorted. She did slow their pace, however. It was now well and truly dark, and the trees blocked even the wan moonlight. At some point, the direction of the slope had changed.
They were now fleeing downhill, the crest of the valley wall behind them. Then there was no ground beneath their feet, and they found themselves falling. Hard stone caught them, knocking their wind out. Pax lay there trying to get her breath back for a moment. When she was able to, she sat up and took in their surroundings.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
Hax grunted. “Just my damn pride. How’d we miss that cliff?”
“I’d say it was because we were running for our lives through an unfamiliar forest at night.” Then, “Does this look familiar?”
“Can’t say that it does,” her brother answered, rubbing his head.
She got to one knee, then stood. “No, there’s something about it.”
Pale moonlight filtered down, showing that they stood in a narrow gully, bordered by a short cliff to the northwest. The gully ran roughly parallel to the cliff, disappearing around a curve a short distance away.
“This is the same gully where those soldiers dropped the bodies.”
“So what?” Hax asked.
“So, maybe we see where it leads!”
“Why not follow it back to the bodies and then climb back up to the main trail? We can cut south back to the beach from there.”
“You really think they haven’t extended their search behind the wall?”
“Oh, I guess there’s that,” Hax admitted. “Fine, let’s follow this and see where it takes us.”
The ravine was slower going than the valley. The rocks were jumbled, and the twins had to move carefully to keep from twisting an ankle or breaking a leg. So, when Hax put a hand out and touched something cold, clammy, and very flesh-like, he recoiled with a shout, spilling down the rock he was perched on and landing painfully wedged between it and another boulder.
“Shut up! What are you doing?” Pax hissed.
“There’s something up there! I touched it!” Hax tried to draw his sword and extricate himself at the same time, with the result that neither action was successful.
Pax cast around, looking for whatever had alarmed her brother. She spotted it immediately and chuckled.
“What are you laughing about?” Hax asked, finally righting himself and emerging from the crevice.
Pax did not answer but pointed nearby. Hax groaned when he recognized one of the corpses they had so recently studied, but any reply was abruptly cut off when an arrow embedded itself in the corpse.
“Archers!” Hax hissed.
Another arrow glanced off a nearby rock, and a third narrowly missed Pax’s hand. And then arrows clattered around them as the twins climbed over stones, trying to make their escape. The ravine curved back to the west, closer to the cliff, but the cliff itself rose higher, making it more difficult for the archers to aim accurately. Hax and Pax hugged the base of the cliff, but soon they could hear pursuit within the ravine itself.
“Time to go,” Hax said. “Just run. I’ll meet you at the beach!”
Running was virtually impossible between the arrows from above and the rocks all around, but the twins did their best. Soon, the jumble of stones at the bottom of the ravine lessened, as the cliffs rose higher. With more space, they ran faster. “We’re gonna make it––” whatever else Hax was going to say was lost in the burst of breath as an arrow slammed into his left shoulder, spinning him around.
“Hax!” Pax yelled, turning to help.
“No!” Hax roared, stumbling back to his feet. “Run, get to the beach, get the report to Harco. I’ll follow as I can!”
More arrows hissed through the night, and Pax had little choice but to flee. Behind her, Hax floundered on, fighting fatigue, pain, and blood loss.
***
Pax was unsure when the sound of Hax’s footsteps and labored breathing faded away. One moment, they were together, Hax probably a dozen yards behind. The next, she was bursting out of the undergrowth, and the long stretch of roadway led down to the crest of a hill. Beyond that, she could just make out moonlight on the water. She had made it.
Pax turned to help Hax, but he was nowhere to be found. She paused, listening, but heard nothing but night noises.
“Godsdammit,” she muttered. Still, they had been in tighter spots, and Hax was a big boy. He could take care of himself. She would find somewhere to hole up through the coming day. Hax would be there at some point, and they would give their report to Harco, get paid, and get off this godsforsaken rock.
It took her some time to find a likely hiding spot, a shallow cave, a solid half-mile from the beach. Still, it would have to do. She dragged fallen branches and deadwood and piled it all up around the entrance to hide it from prying eyes, then pulled more in behind her as she settled in for the wait. She had little hope that Hax would find her here, but surely he would turn up at the beach once night fell. Worrying about her brother, Pax fell asleep.
***
Pain seared through Hax’s shoulder. He could feel the arrowhead in his body with every step, and the steady seep of hot, sticky blood down his back. He stopped to get his bearings. “Should have been out of the damn woods by this point,” he muttered to himself. Still, there was nothing for it but to press on. Forward was better than backward. “Fewer arrows there,” he laughed.
Eventually, he stumbled out of the woods and into the open. He stood on a long drop leading down to the sea below. At the base of the slope, he could make out a handful of lights. That was good. Lights meant people, and to his exhausted mind, lights ahead meant people who likely weren’t trying to kill him. In a daze, he stumbled across the drop, trying with his failing strength to reach what he hoped was safety. He had gone maybe twenty yards when his legs buckled, dropping him to his knees. Unable to rise again, he crawled forward until he was unable to do even that, and blackness washed across his vision.
The next thing Hax was aware of was something wet and warm moving across his face. Instinctively, he tried to move, but his body would not obey his commands. He tried to cry out, but it was like trying to shout in a dream. Then the blackness behind his eyes welled up once more, and no matter how he fought against it, it dragged him down to nothingness.
He became aware of sound by degrees. He felt like the sound had been there forever. Something about it soothed him in a way he could not place. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to lie there wrapped in warmth, but he had to get back to… back to… Hax sat bolt upright. “Pax!” he yelled.
Two things happened then. First, searing pain erupted along his shoulder. He had forgotten about the arrow wound. Second, the peaceful, soothing sound stopped, and he wanted it to return more than anything he could think of.
Forcing himself to breathe calmly, Hax took stock of his situation. He was sitting on a narrow cot, bandages wrapped around him. His wound throbbed and ached, but someone had dressed it. His clothes were neatly folded on a wooden chair beside the bed, and his sword was propped against it, too. A quick check showed that he was naked as the day he was born under the blanket.
Hax grabbed his trousers hurriedly. A glance around the place was enough to tell him where he was. Nets hanging from the rafters, spare oars stacked against the far wall, and the overpowering smell of fish meant one thing: he was in a fisher’s hut.
The hut’s door opened. “Careful, or you’ll tear the stitches,” a woman said.
Caught off guard, Hax yelped, then froze with one leg in his trousers.
The speaker stood framed in the doorway, daylight streaming in behind her. There was enough light in the hut that he could make out her features: graying auburn hair pulled back in a single long braid, a face lined with laughter and care, and piercing green eyes.
She laughed. “Go ahead and finish dressing if it sets your mind at ease, though you ain’t got nothing a mother ain’t seen too many times to count.”
She turned around and looked outside as Hax gratefully threw on his clothes. Afterward, he sagged back on the bed, energy all but used up. The woman was there then, rough hands cool on his brow.
“I’m Esme,” she said. “My husband, Roderick, he found you lying on the drop, half dead.”
“I’m fine,” he tried to say, but the words would not come. There was a desert in his throat.
“Here.” Esme handed him a battered earthenware cup. He slopped half the contents over himself trying to get the water down his throat, and she laughed. “I’ll get you more,” she said, taking the cup from him and moving across the room to a large barrel.
She hummed as she went about her task, and the sound struck Hax. It was a wordless tune, one mothers have hummed to their babes since time immemorial. Something unnamed but burning welled up in him, and he was grateful to lie back on the cot and let it pass. Esme returned, setting the cup on the chair that had held his clothing. “I’ll fetch Rod,” she said, patting his arm.
She returned several moments later with a tall, weather-beaten man. Hax would have put his age around fifty winters until he smiled. That took years off his appearance, putting him around the same age as Esme. He doffed his leather cap and shook Hax’s hand. “I’m Roderick. Glad to see you’re not quite ready to feed the fish.”
Roderick’s smile was contagious, and Hax could not help but return it. “Name’s Hax. I appreciate all you’ve done for me,” Hax said.
“It wasn’t nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done,” Roderick replied.
Esme came up behind her husband. “We’ve got some fish stew left from last night’s supper and a bit of bread,” she said apologetically.
Hax was going to wave her away, but his stomach rumbled so loudly that she would have none of it. He ate every bite in the cracked wooden bowl they served it to him in and wiped the inside down with half-stale bread.
“That might be the best thing I ever ate,” he said.
Esme beamed at the praise. Roderick took a seat in a nearby chair and produced a pipe and a pouch of pipeweed. Expertly, he tamped it down, then lit it with a piece of tinder from the hearth.
“You’re probably wondering what I was doing out there,” Hax began, but Roderick waved him away, aromatic smoke swirling around him.
“What you were doing to get yourself stuck with an arrow is none of my concern. We look out for one another, is all. Figure treating folks better than they expect works to the good of all, right?”
Hax snapped his mouth shut, realization dawning. Then, “How long after sunrise is it?” he asked, suddenly worried.
“Oh, it’s well after noon at this point. Sunset’s probably an hour away at most. You’ve slept most of the day.”
“Rest is the best healer,” Esme piped in.
Suddenly, there were raucous voices outside the door. Hax unconsciously reached for his sword, only to find that it was not at his side. He had left it leaning against the chair. Roderick put a restraining hand on his arm and gave him an encouraging smile.
Then the door burst open, and a whirlwind of arms and legs tumbled in.
“Here now! We’ve a guest and you’ll not act like wild animals in front of him.” Esme’s tone had an immediate effect. The whirlwind died down, revealing three children, all about a year apart in age, and the eldest no more than ten winters. “This is Ada, Stephan, and Maeve,” she introduced her children with motherly pride. The children managed to stand still long enough to say hello to Hax, and then they were off again.
“Take it back outside. Be back before dark or you’ll miss your supper!” Esme yelled out the door after them. “Really, I don’t know what to do with them,” she said, laughing.
Hax said nothing but chewed his lip in distraction. Roderick gave him a knowing look. “You look done in. Why not get some more rest before supper?” He rose from the chair, but Hax grabbed his hand.
“Wait, there’s something you need to know.”
“What’s wrong?” Roderick asked. Esme came to stand beside her husband, one hand going instinctively to his arm.
Hax shook his head. “Where in the hells to begin?” He thought for a moment. “Take your boat and get out of here. It’s not safe for you or your children. Go, now, before nightfall.”
Roderick tried to laugh it off. “You’ve got Azair’s own sense of humor.”
“This is no joke. Raiders out of Fillon will land at nightfall. Their target is Saris up the hill there, but nowhere is likely safe.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I, we, were supposed to scout for them. My sister and me, I mean.”
“That’s how you got the arrow wound? Saris’ men?”
Hax nodded.
“We’ve got no real truck with Saris here. We’re just simple fisherfolk. We don’t have gold nor jewels, nor anything else that might interest your raiders.”
Hax shook his head. “Won’t matter what you’ve got or not got, they’re raiders. Do you understand what that means? For your wife? Your children?”
Esme’s face went white. “Maybe we should listen to him, Rod. We can warn the others, get out in the bay, and just ride it out.”
Roderick stared at Hax like he had grown a third arm. “Why would you be part of something like that?”
“We just needed to get paid. It’s just a job.”
“My wife? My children? My home? My friends? How are we just a job?” Roderick stabbed a finger at Hax, punctuating each sentence.
“Look, you patched me up, fed me, kept me safe, and I’m grateful. I’m trying to repay you.”
“Get out.”
“You’ll die. You’ll all die! Don’t you understand?”
“Get out!” Roderick roared, grabbing Hax by the tunic and shoving him toward the door.
“You don’t under–– “ Hax sputtered, then stopped to catch the sword that Roderick flung at him.
“Get out of my home!”
Hax backed through the door. Esme slammed it shut behind him. He looked around surreptitiously and found fisherfolk staring at him. Inside, he heard Esme and Roderick’s voices raised in argument.
Unable to take it, he grabbed his sword and sword belt and stomped off toward the drop. He cleared the last of the homes and stopped, propping himself up on his sword. A shadow crossed his vision, and he looked up to find that the sun was already sinking behind the mountains.
Nightfall would come sooner than he would like. Who would protect these people? If he had never met Esme, Roderick, and their children, would he have given a second thought to a fishing village pillaged by raiders? In his heart, he knew he wouldn’t have. It was part of the job.
***
Nightfall came quickly, and Pax crawled out of her cave, breathing a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks to Mali that she had not been spotted. She had awakened in the early afternoon, the sounds of armed men washing away any lingering weariness. They had wandered around out here but managed to miss her little cave. Now it was time to meet Harco. She said another prayer that Hax was safe and would meet her there, too.
It took her several minutes to reach the beach. Once there, she set about building and lighting a signal fire. Chances were good that Harco was out there somewhere in the dark, waiting. She dared not make the fire too big or risk alerting Saris and his men, but it needed to be bright enough that Harco could see it at a distance. When she was satisfied that was the case, she sat back to wait, casting an eye up and down the beach for signs of Hax.
“He should be here by now,” she said to herself. Unable to keep her mind from worrying, she took to pacing on the shingle. What if he were wounded and lying in the forest, helpless? Or dead?
A cry from the sea brought her back to the present. She quickly counted a dozen longships, each with a crew of about forty. Saris’ men would have a serious fight on their hands. The raiders beached their ships, wooden hulls grinding on the shingle.
“Ho!” a voice called out in the night. “Where’s your brother?” Harco leaped from one of the longboats to the shore, saltwater splashing his reinforced leather armor. He carried a massive spear in one hand and wore a short sword on his hip.
“We got separated on the way back. I have all the information you’ll need, but you have to give me a head start to find him before one of your men stumbles over him in the dark and mistakes him for an enemy.”
“Tell me,” Harco said.
Pax explained everything that had happened, detailing the wall and the gate that led to the camp. “Saris is supposed to reach the camp today,” she said.
“Good work!”
“There’s more. You can make it over the wall if you’re willing to let your men bleed, but if you come up the ravine that Hax and I found, you can come at the camp by surprise.” Pax detailed the way to the ravine and how to get up the cliffs. “You’ll find yourself behind the wall and right in the middle of the camp. They’ll never know you’re there until you’re ready to attack.”
“Mordas’ bloody eyes!” Harco exclaimed. “If your information’s accurate, you and your brother have earned a bonus. Find me after and we’ll settle up.”
“About that head start?”
Harco waved her away. “Go on, then. Find Hax and tell him I said the gods themselves couldn’t chart a course that he could follow!” He roared with laughter.
Pax was gone before he even stopped laughing.
***
Hax stood alone in the night, sword at the ready. His shoulder ached something horrible, but it wasn’t bleeding, and that was something. Behind him, in the little ramshackle village, he could hear the fisherfolk arguing. Some wanted to get out on the water in their boats. Others argued for defending their homes. Some suggested just sending the women and children out in the boats until it was pointed out that there were too few men to make much difference against the raiders without the womenfolk.
Hax ignored them all. They had tended his wound, fed him, and introduced him to their children like he was a friend of the family. If they would not take his warning, then he would buy them what time he could. Briefly, he wondered what had come over him. It was just a job.
“It’s not just a godsdamned job,” he snarled to himself.
“What are you talking to yourself now, Haxalanis Roh?” a familiar voice called out of the darkness.
Hax was silent for a moment, half sure it was some trick. Then, “Pax? Is it you?”
“Of course it’s me, you dolt.” She materialized out of the gloom almost right in front of him. “Now, c’mon. Harco’s here. He’ll be sending men all across the island. Those sad little shacks back there are going to burn. You and me need to get to Saris’ camp. It’s time to get paid.”
Hax stared at the sword in his hand, absently running a thumbnail down the edge, feeling every nick and notch. “Time to get paid,” he said softly. “Hells, why not? Mordas’ damn wages,” he said, invoking the Weeper.
Pax reeled back a step. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me? We’ve gotta go, now.”
“You go,” Hax said, staring into the darkness, trying to spot the raiders slinking through the night. “I’m staying.”
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”
“No, I’m seeing clear enough. They saved me, Pax. They pulled out the arrow and bandaged the wound. She fed me godsdamned stew and stale bread. They have three kids and not a pair of silvers to rub between their fingers.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she muttered.
Hax shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m going to do something right for once in my life.”
Movement in the dark caught his eye, and Hax lunged. His thrust struck home, and someone cried out in the night. Another thrust and a body crumpled to the ground.
Pax moved to the fallen man. “It’s one of Harco’s men. You’ve damned us both now.”
Hax said nothing, only stood there. More men approached, laughing, seeing what they took to be allies and easy pickings beyond. Hax was in motion instantly, his hand-and-a-half sword a blur. One man fell before he knew what had happened. A second man had more time and readied his defense, confusion on his face. Pax erased that look with a hatchet.
“What, you think I’m going to let you have all the fun yourself?” she asked at his questioning look.
Hax grinned, encouraged. More men approached, and the twins took them down together.
“What in Azair’s hells are you doing?” a familiar voice shouted.
“Harco. Expected you to be on your way to Saris’ camp,” Hax said, wiping gore from his blade on a fallen soldier’s jerkin.
“I was, but a messenger brought word of trouble here. Mentioned the two of you. I had to see this madness for myself.”
“Well, now you’ve seen. You can get back to what you were doing.”
“You planning on killing all my men?”
Hax shook his head. “We don’t have any real quarrel with them unless they try to get beyond us. The village is under our protection.”
“Is that so?” Anger seethed under Harco’s words.
“It is.”
“Well, seeing as I don’t have the men to deal with both you and Saris, consider the village saved.” He waved a fist in their general direction. “But know this! You’ll never work as hired swords again. I’ll see to that if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll put the word out that you’re turncoats and traitors!” Harco wasted no more breath on them and marched off into the darkness.
Hax and Pax stayed where they were, not quite willing to trust Harco’s word that he would spare the fisherfolk.
“You’ve done it this time,” Pax said. “Harco’s got a long reach. Now we’ll have to get creative.”
“It was just a job,” Hax said with a quiet smile.
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