A Wizard in Chaos

CHAPTER 2

Gar rode out of the forest onto the road, and the merchant shouted, “Bandits!” The spear he used for a staff snapped down, leveled at Gar’s stomach. One of his drivers plucked an arrow from his quiver and nocked it in one smooth motion while the other drivers swung their bows around from their backs and strung them.

“Peace, peace!” Gar held up his hands. “I’m no bandit! My name is Gar Pike, and I’m a mercenary looking for honest work!”

“What did you say?” The merchant frowned. “Oh—‘honest work.’ I can scarcely understand you, your accent’s so thick.”

He wouldn’t have understood Gar at all, a week before. The local dialect had drifted so far from Galactic Standard that Gar had taken quite a while puzzling out the vowel shifts, wandering through markets and sitting in taverns listening, then trying a halting imitation of their words. Now he could at least be understood.

The spear and bow held steady, and the rest of the drivers nocked arrows and drew.

“A soldier for hire?” The merchant frowned with suspicion. He was lean and tall, as these people went, looking hard enough to be a bandit himself, though his tunic and leggins were of broadcloth instead of homespun, with a sleeveless, knee-length robe over them. His colors were all brown and green, the better to blend into the forest around him. “How can we be sure you’re honest, not some bandit sent to strike from inside while your mates attack? What proof can you give?”

“No proof at all,” Gar said cheerfully, “except for this letter.” He had tucked the rolled parchment into the collar of his tunic, where they could see it easily; now he drew it out slowly and tossed it to the merchant. The man caught it and unrolled it, frowning as he studied it.

Gar studied him in return. He’d been surprised to see anything resembling a merchant in such a war-torn country, but he couldn’t think what else a commoner with a string of mules loaded with huge packs might be, especially since he was dressed a bit better than his helpers. A merchant had to look prosperous, after all, or no one would have confidence in the goods he sold. With the warlords constantly battling each other, trade should have been very risky indeed—a merchant could never know when a band of soldiers would descend on him to confiscate his gods. He guessed that this man, and the few others like him, must have become very good at finding out where the battles were, and planning routes that kept them far from the skirmishes.

“I can scarcely make out these words,” the merchant complained.

“It comes from very far away,” Gar explained. It did—about fifty light-years. “They don’t speak the language the way you do here.”

“Hardly the same language at all,” the merchant grumbled.

One more strike against the possibility of any sort of law or order on this planet. A strong government would have tried to keep things from changing too much, and words would take on new forms very slowly if at all. The fact that Galactic Standard had evolved into a local dialect whose speakers could scarcely understand its parent language meant there wasn’t anything to put the brakes on the headlong rush into confusion.

“Never heard of this Paolo Braccalese,” the merchant grumbled.

“As I say, he’s very far away,” Gar told him. “But he speaks well of you.” The merchant rolled up the parchment with sudden decision and thrust it back at Gar. “And we can surely use someone of your size. All right, you’re hired. I’m Ralke, and I’m your master now—but if you betray us, you’ll be looking for some new guts.” So Gar joined the caravan—and that afternoon, the bandits attacked.

They burst from the roadside trees howling like banshees, pikes up to skewer the drivers. Mules bawled and balked, and Gar barely had time to draw his sword. The driver-archer shouted even as he drew and loosed; then the next arrow was on his bowstring, and the other drivers had strung their bows, but the bandits were in among them, stabbing and swinging. One driver screamed as he fell from his mule.

“At them, lads! They don’t want your goods, they want your lives!” Ralke shouted as he parried a stabbing pike, then chopped off its head.

“Only goods!” one bandit shouted. “Throw down your weapons and we’ll spare you! We only want the goods to sell!” Then he snarled and swung the headless spear shaft at the merchant’s head.

Gar turned a pike with his shield and thrust into the bandit’s shoulder, roaring. The man fell back, and Gar turned, spurring his horse, riding back along the line of mules, chopping pikeheads and slashing at soldiers, bellowing bloody murder. The bandits fell back from the terrible giant long enough for the drivers to launch a flight of arrows. Several of the bandits fell, howling and clutching at shafts. Their mates shouted in rage and charged the drivers again, screaming, “Die, scum!”

The drivers dropped their bows and yanked short swords from the scabbards on their saddles. Another driver fell howling, a pike gash pumping blood, but Gar turned and chopped through the shaft, then struck the bandit on his steel cap. The blow rang, the man fell—and suddenly, the bandits were turning, running, leaping, disappearing back into the trees.

“Nock arrows!” Ralke shouted. “They might come again!”

“We’d better see to the wounded.” Gar started to dismount.

But Ralke shouted, “No! Let the drivers do the bandaging! You stay on guard! Johann!”

“Aye?” said one of the driver-archers.

“Tie up those soldiers. Karl! Watch the fallen ones and make sure none of them swings on Johann!”

Karl nodded and moved over to the prisoners, hard-faced.

Gar hesitated, then swung back into the saddle again, glancing at the trees, then at the half-dozen bandits who lay groaning and writhing on the ground—except for two who lay very still. He was amazed how well-equipped they were, each wearing a hardened leather breastplate and a steel cap.

Then he realized that they were all dressed alike.

“Master Ralke!” he cried. “They aren’t common bandits—they’re soldiers!”

“Yes, out of work and on furlough,” Ralke said grimly. “But soldiers will be ashamed of being beaten off by a train of traders, so they’re all the more likely to come back than common bandits would be. I was wise to invest in your services, Gar Pike. If it hadn’t been for you roaring like an ogre and slashing like a windmill, they would have slain us all!”

“Would they really?” Gar turned to him with a troubled frown.

“I’ve seen it happen,” Ralke answered, and two of his drivers nodded.

“I only escaped by pretending to be dead,” one said.

“I ran,” the other told him, “I was lucky. I looked back and saw the rest of my caravan being slaughtered.”

“Haven’t been guarding merchants long, have you?” Ralke asked, frowning up at him.

“Not in this land, no,” Gar said carefully. “The bandits in Talipon weren’t quite so thorough.”

“Well, common bandits aren’t, either,” Ralke said. “They just want the goods, and if we gave them up without a fight, they might even leave us without a blow.”

“But what would we have to sell at the next town, then?” one of the drivers asked. “And with nothing to sell, what would we eat?”

“I didn’t work and save for ten years until I could buy my first cargo, just to make some bandit richer,” Ralke huffed.

The drivers all nodded, and Gar guessed they were hoping to do the same. “But soldiers are different?”

“Of course. They don’t dare let us live, you see,” Ralke told him. “If their captain found out about it, he’d flog them within an inch of their lives.”

Gar stared. “You mean they weren’t acting on their captain’s orders?”

“ ‘Course not,” Ralke huffed, and a driver explained, “We’re too small for a captain to notice, but his soldiers might try to pick up some easy money.”

“We just have to make sure it’s not easy,” another driver said grimly.

“There’s truth in that,” Ralke said. “We don’t even have to be able to beat them, just wound them badly, be able to kill even one of them. They face death on the battlefield every few weeks—why take a chance on it with a merchant caravan?”

“So they only attacked us because they thought we were weaker than they were,” Gar inferred. “That they did, and I would have thought the mere sight of you would have turned them away,” Ralke said.

Gar shook his head. “Professionals always know they can beat an amateur hands down. They just didn’t know that I’d been in an army, too.”

“They didn’t know that we’d faced bandits five times before, either,” one of the drivers said grimly.

“Unpleasant surprises all around,” Gar agreed. “For your own merit, give us some healing!” one of the bandit soldiers cried.

Ralke glanced again at his own wounded men. “They’re almost done bandaging their fellows. They’ll get to you in a minute. There’s none of you so badly hurt that you can’t wait a little.” Actually, one of them had been, but Gar had been doing a little telekinetic first aid, pinching off an artery until he could make its severed wall grow back together. “What will you do with them, Master Ralke?”

“Leave them tied up,” Ralke said simply. “But we’ll leave a note for their captain, too, explaining that they were trying to rob merchants.”

“No!” a fallen soldier cried. “He’ll flog us soggy, you know he will!”

“Be glad you’ll live,” Ralke said grimly.

“Will he really?” Gar asked. “Flog them, I mean.”

“The captain? He will, and all their squadron with them—so as soon as we’re gone, they’ll come out of the trees to help their fellows and destroy the note.” Ralke shrugged. “No matter. Sooner or later, one of them will grow angry with the others and tell the captain for revenge.”

The fallen mercenary spat at him. It fell short. “I hope you cast a spear better than that,” Ralke countered. Then he explained to Gar, “Most of the mercenary companies have very strict rules about looting the people who might hire them next time—and you never know what town a merchant’s from, so most of the captains are careful to leave us alone. Their soldiers, though, think that’s foolish.”

“Done, Master Ralke.” Johann came up to him, wiping blood off his hands. “That will hold them till their mates get them to the company surgeon. I’d love to hear the story they’re going to tell him as to how they came by those wounds!”

“It’ll be a champion fable for sure,” Ralke agreed. “Too bad none of them can write well enough to copy it for us to read later. Enough time spent on them, lads. Lash our own men to their saddles and be off!”

They moved on, even the three wounded drivers riding. None of the wounds was terribly severe, though one would have been without Gar’s invisible help. Two men wore slings, but only needed one hand to ride and encourage the mules.

As soon as they were out of sight of the fallen mercenaries, Gar said, “You know that none of those soldiers will really tell the captain, of course.”

“I know, but I have to let them think I believe they will, or they’ll call in some of their comrades to track us down,” Ralke said. “I recognized their colors, though. They’re the Badger Company. Their captain is probably a good customer at the taverns at Therngee Town, just over those hills.” He pointed at the range ahead. “When we stop there to trade, I’ll leave him a note telling what his men have done and describing the one with the long scar on his cheek. That will probably be enough for him to recognize, and if he knows one, he’ll know their whole squadron.” He shook his head. “Few enough of us merchants survive, what with bandits and wild beasts and bosses who decide to take our goods without paying us. We don’t need the hazards of the professional soldiers, too.”

“I’m surprised to see so much greed here, Master Ralke,” Gar said. “In my far-off land, no one uses money, or tries to take anyone else’s goods.”

“Oh, don’t they, now! And how do they pay their taxes?”

“There aren’t any.” Gar tried to describe the original settlement on this planet. “There aren’t any bosses to demand them. There aren’t any cities, either, only villages, and the people get together in the evenings to discuss their problems, and work out any disputes.”

Ralke barked laughter, short, sharp, and sarcastic. “That must be a golden land indeed! The old tales tell us that our ancestors lived like that, hundreds of years ago—but there are always greedy people being born, and people who are better at fighting than anyone else and see no reason why they should sweat digging and hoeing in the fields when they can just take what they want from people who’re weaker.”

“That’s how the bullies began, eh?”

“Bullies indeed! But they found out quickly enough that some bullies were stronger than others, and could beat them all one by one if they didn’t do as they were told—bigger thugs who put together armies of bullies, each of whom had his own band of bruisers, and that’s how the bosses came to be.”

Gar nodded; folklore confirmed his guess. “And the merchants?”

Again the bark of laughter. “Mercenaries came first, but taxes came before any. I told you that the bullies took what they wanted instead of working to raise crops, weave cloth, or build houses. Well, the bosses made the bullies gather the food and cloth for them, and the bullies, not to be outdone, appointed their best bruisers to collect the goods, and not just enough for the bosses, of course, but for themselves, too…”

“And the bruisers decided to take a little extra for themselves.”

“Most surely. The upshot of it was that they took everything but the bare necessities the common people needed to keep them alive. They took their jewelry, too, the necklaces and bracelets of amber and shells that the people had made for themselves—and when they brought them back to the boss, he recognized some of the beads as being of gold.”

“And all the old tales told how much gold was worth,” Gar interpreted.

Ralke nodded. “Children’s tales, and stories from old books. The boss told the people of that village that they could keep half of their next year’s crops, if they gave him more gold beads instead. He gave each of his bruisers a few gold beads as part of their pay, and they gave them to their boots. The boots took them back to the village and traded them for food and drink—and trade and money were both born.”

Reborn, rather. Gar was more sure than ever that philosophy could never triumph over human nature. “And gold gave rise to mercenaries?”

“Well, it gave the bosses a way to pay soldiers without keeping them as part of their household forever. For that, there are some who say that mercenaries invented money, or were the cause of that invention, at least—and they may be right.”

“Don’t the old tales tell?” Gar asked.

Ralke shrugged. “The tales say that Langobard, the first captain, was one of the few left alive when two bosses fought over his people’s village and chewed it up in the fighting. Langobard gathered the few others who lived and took to the greenwood. I don’t know if they were the first bandits, but they’ve certainly become the most famous! In the next few years, others whose villages had been burned came to join him, as well as those who disobeyed the bosses, turning on their tax collectors and killing them. His band became the largest and richest in the forest, preying off the tax collectors and, later, the parties of bruisers sent to kill them. At last the Boss of Tungri, who claimed the forest, came himself with all his army to slay the bandits, and Langobard knew his day was done, unless he could invent a scheme to delay the boss.”

“I take it he was very inventive.”

“Oh, most surely! He sent a band to raid the borders of the boss’s neighbor, the Bully of Staucheim, and the bully called on his master, the Boss of Dolgobran, who called up all his bullies and their men and marched off against Tungri.”

“But Tungri didn’t know about it, being deep in the woods chasing Langobard.”

“He found out quickly enough. The messenger reached him the next morning, as his army was breaking camp among the trees. Tungri cursed and turned his men to ride home—but as they came to a meadow, they found Langobard and his men drawn up awaiting them under a white flag. Langobard told the boss that he and his men were tired of living like wild animals and offered their services to him in exchange for new clothes and a year’s food, so that they would no longer need to rob tax collectors. I’m sure the taste was sour in Tungri’s mouth, but he needed to ride against Dolgobran without delay, and didn’t dare lose men in a fight with Langobard.”

“Plus, having Langobard’s troops on his side couldn’t hurt,” Gar observed.

“Indeed not! He struck his deal with Langobard and marched against Dolgobran forthwith. They won the day, and Tungri paid Langobard out of Dolgobran’s granaries. Thus were the mercenaries born.”

“Did Tungri ever learn why Dolgobran marched against him?”

“Of course, but he never learned where the raiders had come from.” Ralke chuckled. “The common folk did; but the bosses never heard the tale till Langobard, Dolgobran, and Tungri were long in their graves. By that time, there were so many bands of mercenaries, and the bosses needed their services so badly, that there was no taking revenge, and no point in it, either.”

“A shrewd man, this Langobard,” Gar observed. Ralke nodded. “He lived out his life till old age took him in his bed, and which of us can ask for more?”

Well, there were a great many people on a great many worlds in the galaxy who could ask for more, such as happiness, full bellies, and a few little luxuries. Gar took it as a measure of this land’s desperation, that the people’s highest dream was simply to survive. “You must be asking for more than being allowed to live until you die, Master Ralke, or you wouldn’t risk your life carrying goods from one town to another.”

“The hope of making a better life for his wife and children makes a man do foolish things.” But Ralke grinned. “Besides, I like the thrill of it, and the chance that I’ll be paid better than a soldier in the end.”

“I’m not sure many troopers think of their work as thrilling,” Gar said dryly. “Still, you could have become some sort of craftsman—let’s say a silversmith. Even the bosses must have to pay a man well if there aren’t very many who can do the work.”

“Ah, but for that, you have to have a talent for crafting things well.” Ralke held up wide hands with short, thick fingers. “I have no gift in working with silver, or with wood or clay for that matter—but I do seem to have a knack for striking a good bargain.”

“And for fighting?” Gar asked.

“That, too, yes. My father was a mercenary, though he never stayed in one place long enough to marry. I, at least, can come home to a wife at the end of each trading journey.”

If you live, Gar thought, but didn’t say so. Ralke was silent for a minute, too, and Gar had a notion the words ran through the other man’s mind, as well. He didn’t try to read his thoughts, though—there wasn’t reason enough.

Cort’s men began to grumble as they passed town after town in their march to liberty. Sergeant Otto finally said, “All the other platoons have already stopped, lieutenant, and it’s almost sunset. Why are we still going?”

“For the same reason we kept marching last month, and the month before,” Cort told him. “Why did only the Sky and Indigo platoons stop at the first village?”

“Why,” said the master sergeant, “because there weren’t enough inns and whores there for more than…” His voice ran out as his face turned thoughtful. “Well, it’s true that Bozzeratle Town is fresher—the landlord at the inn gladder to see us, and the whores, too. They aren’t as jaded, either.”

“The farther away the village, the more welcome we are,” Cort told him. “Still, there are limits to that welcome. Remind the men to watch their manners.”

“Be sure that I will,” Sergeant Otto said grimly, then called back to his staff sergeants, “Bozzeratle Town! Tell ‘em not to go throwing their weight around! We want to be welcome next month, too!”

The men answered with a shout of joy. An hour later, they marched into Bozzeratle and burst into the inn.

Cort stayed long enough to drink a flagon, and to make sure his sergeants were staying vigilant and not drinking too much. The soldiers were drinking too much, of course—that was half the reason why they’d come. But they were jovial and, if not actually polite, at least not offering harm to anyone, particularly the serving wenches, though they joked with them and praised their charms. Drunk or sober, they all knew the captain’s rule: If the wench offered herself, all well and good to accept, but if she didn’t, no soldier of the Blue Company could even ask. That didn’t mean that none of them would, of course, but it did mean that the sergeant would be there to stop him before he frightened anyone. The better companies were very strict as to how their soldiers treated civilians—you never knew which town, or even village, might scrape up the money to hire you next month.

Satisfied that all was as much under control as it could be, Cort went out the door, walking quickly in, the gathering darkness, back to the town’s central street, then left into a lane that was just as broad, and boasted tall houses with wide lawns. Lamps on top of poles burned here and there, giving the street a dim light, far more than the rest of the village had. Every house had a lamp burning by the door, too. This was where the more prosperous citizens lived, the ones who had become vital to the bosses’ security or comfort in one way or another—retired officers, a merchant or two, and the local doctor.

Cort hurried up the flagstone walk of the third house on the right and thumped the knocker. After a few moments, a face appeared at the door, stared in surprise, then opened it. “Lieutenant Cort!” said the aging man with the candelabra in his hand. “What a surprise!”

He didn’t look pleased—nervous, in fact—but Cort didn’t notice that in his hurry. “The captain never tells us ahead of time when we’ll have liberty,” he said, by way of apology. “Good to see you again, Barley. Are your master and mistress in—and Miss Violet?”

“The master and mistress, of course! This way, if you will, lieutenant. They’re in the sitting room.” Barley turned away, and Cort followed him eagerly. He had been dreaming of Violet every night, and whenever there was a free moment during the day. It had been a month since he had seen her. Her raven ringlets, her warm brown eyes, her full red lips curved in a coquettish smile—his heart skipped a beat at the mere thought of her, and soon he would see her!