A Wizard In Chaos Read online

  Gar felt a chill down his back. "Then we'd better find ourselves a campsite we can defend easily, where they won't have much chance of sneaking up on us."

  "Where, on a flat and featureless plain?" Ralke demanded.

  "The plain is our friend," Gar told him. "There's nowhere to hide, no cover to help them sneak up on us. But atop that hill would be even better." He pointed.

  "On top of a Hollow Hill? Are you mad?" Ralke cried. "But I forget-you're a foreigner. Don't you have them at home?"

  "Not like that one, no." Gar said, bemused. "How do you know it's hollow?"

  "Because it's a dome! Those are the hills the Fair Folk choose for their palaces!"

  "Fair Folk? What are they?"

  "Bad luck just to talk about! Not even a boss dares bring their displeasure down upon him! Armies never fight in the shadow of their hills, for fear the Fair Folk will be angry and come out to slay them all with their magic!"

  It did sound something like the Wee Folk of Gar's home planet-but it. also sounded useful. "Then let's camp on its slopes, if the mercenaries are afraid to attack us there."

  "Oh, wise indeed," Ralke said, with withering scorn. "We'll be safe from the bandits, sure enough-but the Fair Folk will come out and kidnap us all! I think perhaps I had better choose our campsite, soldier!"

  "If you will," Gar sighed. "I'd suggest right out in the middle of the plain, though, and as close to the hill as is safe. After all, if we're afraid of the Fair Folk, maybe the soldiers will be even, more so." Superstition, he reflected, had its uses.

  Cort was almost to the tavern alley when he heard the call for help-the scream, rather; a young woman's scream, high, piercing, and terrified. His anger instantly transmuted into savage joyaction was the tonic his wounded heart needed. Cort ran toward the cry, kicking garbage out of the way as he went. He skidded around a corner and saw three of his own soldiers laughing and dancing about a young civilian and his lady. She clung to his arm, effectively barring him from drawing his sword, but he flourished his torch valiantly, thrusting it at any soldier who came too close. The troopers laughed and jeered at him.

  "Come, pretty boy! Draw your tin sword, so we can chop it off!"

  "Chop off the hand with it," a second soldier said, and guffawed.

  "No need to get hurt," the third soldier advised. "Just walk on home and leave her to us. We'll be her escort." He leaped in, hand reaching for the girl.

  "Get away from her!" the young man shouted, thrusting with. the torch. The soldier laughed, stepped aside, and plucked the torch from his fingers. His mates howled with glee and stepped in, fists pumping. The young man fought valiantly with his single arm for about fifteen seconds before a haymaker caught him on the side of the head. He slumped to the ground.

  "Tenn-hut!" Cort barked, and the three troopers came to attention out of sheer reflex. One had the good sense to hold the torch up anyway.

  "You mangy scum!" Cort prowled about them, though all his instincts screamed to join them in their sport, not stop them. After all, it was a civilian man who had stolen his sweetheart, and a civilian woman who had hurt him. But he was an officer, and had his duties to his captain. "What in blazes do you think you're doing? What's the captain's one rule about civilians?"

  "Leave 'em alone, sir," one of the soldiers said through stiff lips.

  "Too right, leave them alone!"

  "Unless they swings first, lieutenant," one of the other men objected.

  "First, and often, and show no sign of stopping! Don't even try to tell me this lad was attacking you, trooper! Or were you afraid his lady might beat you to a pulp?"

  The trooper reddened, but held his brace.

  "You lousy excuses for human beings!" Cort raged. He couldn't yell at Violet, after all, but he could damn well yell at his own men-especially since they deserved it. "You scrapings from the trash barrel! You slime off the bottom of a boat! Fifty women willing to go with you for a coin, and you have to pick on a maiden!"

  "There was a long line, lieutenant," one of the men offered.

  "What, were you afraid you'd be too drunk by the time your turn came? Well, it's going to be a hell of a lot longer wait now, trooper-a month or more!"

  One of them, a newbie, opened his mouth to protest, but Cort bellowed, "And if you don't, look sharp, you'll spend that month in the guardhouse! Now apologize to this lady! And her escort! Of course, I don't expect you know how to be polite, so I'll show you!" He turned to the young woman, who was kneeling with her escort's head in her lap, sobbing.

  The tears left Cort at a loss, so he did the only thing he could. Doffing his cap, he said, "My deepest apologies, young lady. My troopers are a bunch of ruffians who ought to be kept in a cage. I humbly ask your pardon for their misbehavior."

  The young man blinked, gave his head a shake, then stared up at Cort in alarm.

  "They won't trouble you again, sir," Cort assured him. "My most humble apologies. I can only say that they were drunk and didn't really know what they were doing."

  "But we do!"

  Cort spun about and saw six hard faces lit by another torch. Three of them carried quarterstaves, three carried naked swords. They wore no uniforms, and with a sinking heart, Cort realized what they were-an amateur citizens' patrol, cobbled together as soon as they'd heard the soldiers had come to town.

  "Our fellow townsman down with his lady cowering by him, four soldiers standing over themoh, we know what they were doing, all right! Beat their heads in, men!"

  The citizens shouted and started forward. The woman screamed.

  "Guard!" Cort shouted, and his three troopers spun about, pulling out the only weapons they had: their daggers. Cort's sword and dagger hissed out of their sheaths, and the citizens hesitated; even outnumbered and underarmed, the professional soldiers were frightening.

  Then the citizen leader snarled and started forward.

  "Protect yourselves!" Cort shouted.

  Daggers whipped up; the professionals caught the slashing swords on their knives, then slammed punches to the stomachs. Two of the citizens folded, but the staff-men waded in over them, and the third swordsman swung at Cort.

  "Truce!" he shouted, even as he caught the man's blade on his own. "I've called them off! Truce!"

  The swordsman grinned, and Cort realized the man thought he had the soldiers on the run. "Footpad!" the civilian shouted, and swung again.

  Cort parried with his own blade, suddenly afraid of these amateurs, even more afraid of the captain's rage if he found they'd slain even one civilian, but most afraid of all that he might have to tell his hard-boiled fighting men to let themselves go.

  "Put down your swords, and we'll sheathe our daggers!" he cried. "We don't want to hurt you!"

  "Don't want us to hurt you, you mean!" the swordsman called back, and thrust at him. Cort whirled aside, struck the blade down with his own, then kicked the man in the belly. He folded, but the girl's escort had recovered, and leaped for Cort with his own sword out, shouting, "Bastard!"

  Cort just barely caught the blade on his dagger, then lifted his sword to parry, ready to thrust if he had to, the command to unleash his human hounds on the tip of his tongue.

  But a quarterstaff struck downward, knocking both blades aside, and a strongly accented voice rang in Cort's ears, crying, "Put up your weapons! Soldiers and townsfolk both! Put up your weapons, or I'll break them all, and you into the bargain!"

  Whoever he was, he was already behind Cort. The officer spun and saw that quarterstaff whirling, then lashing out to crack against one of. the civilian's staves and leaping back into its whirl. Another civilian reached up his staff with a shout; the stranger struck it out of his hands. The third townsman dropped his staff, holding his hands high.

  "Stand!" Cort roared, and the three soldiers froze.

  The civilian swordsman thrust at the stranger, who leaped aside, his staff whirling. It cracked down on the blade near the hilt, and the sword flew clattering along the street. Its owner yelped wit
h pain and nursed his hand.

  One of the soldiers started for the sword. He barely leaned toward it before Cort snapped, "Hold!" and the man froze, tilting to the side.

  Cort turned to the young woman's escort.

  "Sheathe your sword, and I will, too. If we don't, that madman will break both our blades."

  "Oh, you'd better believe it!" the stranger assured them.

  Watching them warily, the escort sheathed his weapon slowly. Cort matched him movement for movement, then turned to the stranger, making sure he could still see the escort out of the corner of his eye.

  One look at the stranger, even by guttering torchlight, and Cort knew why he'd been able to fight them all to a standstill. The staff was sheathed with a foot of iron on its tips, which made it both harder and heavier-and when something like that spun so fast as to be a blur, as the stranger had done, it was equal to a sword indeed. "I've never seen your style of fighting before," he said.

  The man smiled, showing a lot of teeth. "Want to see it again?"

  Cort shuddered, more at his look than at the thought of the danger. "Thank you, no. Who are you, anyway?"

  "Dirk Dulaine, at your service." The stranger turned to the civilians. "I'm from out of town, in case you hadn't noticed."

  "From far away, by your accent." The leader glowered, still nursing his hand.

  "Far away indeed," Dirk agreed, "so I don't particularly care about you or these soldiers-but I don't like seeing a young woman in danger, either. If you'll all put up your weapons and let her go home with her escort now, I won't need to swing again."

  "We could make mincemeat of him," one of the soldiers blustered.

  "Be still, you fool!" his mate snapped, and the man fell silent, glancing at the other soldiers in surprise and fright.

  "Let the young couple walk out of sight, and we'll go," the citizen growled.

  "Officer, bid your men step aside," the stranger advised.

  "Back, two steps!" Cort barked, and his men retreated. Cort bowed. "Gentleman, lady-again, my apologies."

  "Taken, with thanks." The escort finally remembered his manners, then led his lady out of the torchlight, still gasping in little, sobbing breaths. They passed down the alley, and the two groups stood stiffly, watching each other warily.

  "Out of sight, I said," the stranger reminded them.

  The couple reached the end of the lane and turned into the alley that led to the main street. Dirk stepped back, lowering his staff. "Okay. You guys can kill each other now, for all I care." The civilian leader darted to pick up his sword.

  CHAPTER 4

  The swordsman reached for the hilt and shouted with pain. "Here, let me see." Dirk went over to him and felt the civilian's hand with his left. The man yelped, and Dirk growled, "I was being gentle, damn it! Don't worry, it'll heal. I just sprained your wrist for you, that's all. You!" he called to one of the soldiers. "Stick his sword in his scabbard for him!"

  The trooper glanced at Cort' who nodded, realizing what a stroke of diplomacy it was. The trooper didn't-he eyed both the civilian and Dirk's staff with great wariness as he picked up the sword. The other civilians tensed as he did, but when he slid the blade into its scabbard and stepped back, they relaxed a little.

  "That's very nice," the stranger said with sarcasm. "Back to your own lines, thank you." Again, the soldier glanced at Cort; again, Cort nodded, and the soldier stepped back beside his comrades.

  "Now!" Dirk slammed one end of his staff against the cobbles and leaned on it. Soldiers and civilians both tensed, leaning in, ready to jump, realizing that it would take the stranger time to lift that staff again, and if they were quick enough ...

  Dirk favored the soldiers with a wolfish grin, then flashed it at the civilians. Both sides leaned back with a grumble of disappointment-the stranger was ready for just such an attack, even inviting it.

  "That's better." Dirk leaned on his staff so completely that it was a virtual insult. "Okaysomebody want to tell me what this was all about?"

  The soldiers glanced at one another uncertainly, and Cort gave them the tiniest shake of his headif any of them were to speak, it would be him.

  The civilian's leader said, "We heard a woman scream, so we came running. We saw one of our own men on the ground with his lady beside him, cowering before four soldiers. Oh, we knew what was happening, all right!"

  "Meaning you 'assumed the worst," Dirk corrected. He turned to the soldiers. "Were they right?"

  "My men were drunk and a bit overeager," Cort admitted, "but by the time these ... gentlemen . ... came, I had heard the scream myself, come at the run, and already shouted my men back. I had the situation in hand."

  The civilians muttered at that, and their leader frowned, suddenly doubting his own righteousness.

  "You were so eager to protect your own that you almost started a bloodbath when the crisis was over," Dirk told them. He raised a palm to forestall the civilians' protests. "Oh, you were right to worry, sure enough, but when you saw an officer, you should at least have asked before you started swinging. I'll gladly admit that when soldiers are out on liberty, civilians should travel in packs, but you were a little too late this time, and a little too eager." He turned back to Cort. "Though truth to tell, I'd say your men were spoiling for a fight, too."

  "They'll be spoiled enough, you maybe sure," Cort said, with a glare at his men. They paled a little, and stiffened to attention again.

  "Not as much as they might have been," Dirk reminded him. "The young couple are safe, after all, though the young man will have a few bruises." The civilians all started talking at once.

  "Of course, the soldiers have a few lumps, too," Dirk told them, with a glare that shut them up, "and since both sides seem to have pounded each other equally..." (his voice shifted to a parody of politeness) ". . . might I ask that all of you back off ?"

  The civilians jumped, and even Cort felt the impulse to hop at the whiplash of the words.

  The civilians' leader frowned. "Who're you to go telling us what to do?"

  "The man with the staff," Dirk said with a grin, "who knows how to use it better than any of you." Cort and the civilian leader eyed each other with suspicion, but Cort said, "No harm done, after all, or at least, nothing that will last."

  "And other civilians might be in danger, while you stand here chattering," Dirk pointed out.

  The civilians frowned at that, and their leader said, "Well ... as long as all is under control here..."

  "It is," Cort said. "I assure you of that."

  "So do I," Dirk told them.

  "We'll be about our rounds, then," the civilian leader said. "Keep your men leashed, now!"

  "I will." Cort reined in his temper.

  The civilians turned away, muttering to each other, and went out of the alley.

  Cort relaxed with a sigh. "I could almost wish we'd taught those arrogant townsmen a lesson-but I have to thank you for making peace, stranger."

  The soldiers grumbled with disappointment. "Yes, I know, I wanted a brawl, too," Cort sympathized. Then his voice hardened. "What the hell did you think you were doing, jumping a civilian and his girl? Were you so overcharged that you couldn't wait your turn with the professionals? Or did you think you might nod off before you got to the head of the line? What're you using for brains-porridge? Why, you fly-infested, drinksodden, stumbling, stuffed bearskins! Put your heads together, and maybe you can realize how much trouble this town could make for you if you had so much as touched that woman! If the captain hears about this, he'll flog you so raw that you'll be wanting new backs even more than new brains!"

  "He-he won't, will he, sir?" one of the troopers asked in a shaky voice. "Hear about it, I mean." Cort took a deep breath for another blast, then sank under a tidal wave of sympathy. He knew how the men felt tonight, knew exactly how they felt. "No, I won't tell him-and you'd better hope for-all you're worth that the civilians don't! But if I catch one of you lousy apes so much as looking cross-eyed at a townsman even on
e more time, I'll turn you into dogmeat!"

  The soldiers snapped to attention again.

  "Get back to the inn, now," Cort ordered, "and lock yourselves in your room! Dis-miss!"

  The soldiers relaxed and turned away grumbling-but they moved quickly. When they were out of the alley, Cort turned to Dirk. "You took a bad chance there, stranger."

  "Not really," Dirk told him. "The civilians were putting on a brave show, but they'd already had enough of fighting with professionals. You and your men might have been enjoying the brawl, but I knew you wanted to end it quickly, so all I had to do was give you both an excuse."

  In spite of himself, Cort grinned. "A face-saver, eh?"

  "Call it a chance to retire with -dignity," Dirk temporized.

  "But why take the chance?" Cort asked. "It was none of your affair, and you might have been beaten senseless."

  "Not much risk of that." Dirk flashed him the toothy grin again. "Besides, I've been out of work a while, and I was getting rusty. I needed a little dust-up."

  "So did I," Cort said grimly. "I was disappointed not to have it, but I'm glad the captain won't have a major brawl to find out about." Then he gave Dirk a keen glance. "Mercenary, eh? And your band lost so badly it was scattered?"

  "Something of the sort," Dirk agreed. "That, and being a free lance by nature. I don't like to stay too long with any one band."

  "Don't like to stay peaceful too long, either, by the look of you," Cort said. Then a sudden, huge, soul-weariness engulfed him. "The hell with it all! Come on back to the inn, stranger, so I can thank you properly with a flagon of brandy."

  The stranger raised an eyebrow. "More to it than a run-in with a bunch of overgrown delinquents, eh? Sure, I'll be glad to drink your brandy. Maybe you can give me a point or two about the locals. Seems to be a lot I don't know about who, what, where, and why."

  "Yes, by your accent, you would be from far away, wouldn't you?" Cort asked. "Still, brandy's the same in any language, friend-or at least, the taste is."

  "True enough. Drink first, talk later." Dirk fell in beside the lieutenant as they started walking. "Of course, if we're going to the inn you sent your men back to, you can just happen to be keeping an eye on them."