“And ya got two women!” shouted another fellow who was missing a few teeth.
“That one’s a lad,” Kai said with a nod toward Wesson, whose face was flushed. “You prob’ly don’t wanna be challengin’ his friend there.” With a nod toward Yserria, he said, “That one’s a lass, though, and I’d wager she’ll lay any one of you out.”
The men laughed and a few stepped closer to get a better look at the tall, red-headed beauty. She set her stance and patted her sword hilt. Her distaste for the men was obvious by her determined expression. She lifted her chin in defiance and spoke in Leréshi. “Presh tuar duevinua.”
Rezkin snorted and remarked, “Duarvashkatin conjuhotu.”
Yserria looked at him with surprise and grinned.
The black-haired mercenary hawked a glob of phlegm at Rezkin’s feet. “A Leréshi, then? The lassies don’t often carry the swords, but I’ll not be messin’ with one who does. Which of you has she claimed?”
“He’s dead,” said Kai.
“That’s fitting,” the man muttered. Seemingly satisfied, he waved back toward his men. “Kingdom pays more fer large companies. If yer as good as you say, you’d be best signin’ with us. We’ll all get more at the end.”
Kai grinned again. “Aye, but the fewer of us is at the end, the more we all get?”
The man scowled furiously. “We don’t stand fer traitors.”
“Maybe not, but ain’t none of us is really one of you, eh? You get a bigger contract fer the extra swords and then stab us in the back.”
The mercenary leader said, “He that wears the crescent be the crescent.”
The other mercenaries nodded and barked their agreement.
“Seems a better deal,” replied Kai. “Mayhap we’ll march together. See if we can come to an agreement.”
The man grunted. “We’ll get yer measure.” Then, he turned and waved his hand in the air as he began barking orders to his men.
The mercenaries set their camp on the opposite side of the road. They had little in the way of comforts, but they made due with their wagons and battered gear. About an hour after sundown, Rezkin stumbled into their camp carrying a jug of ale he had snagged from their supplies. His arm was slung over Wesson’s shoulders, and Wesson looked as if he would crawl into a hole and die.
“What do you want?” said one mercenary whose hair had thinned by half, the remaining strands hanging past his shoulders. “No one invited you to our camp, and ain’t no one gonna be givin’ you their drink. You get back to yer side of the road afore we make sure you can’t come back.”
“See?” Rezkin said in Gendishen as he slammed the jug into Wesson’s chest. Then he thrust it back into the air with a slosh. “I tol’ ya they’d be interested in a story.”
“I really don’t think they are,” Wesson muttered in the same tongue.
The black-haired leader rounded the fire. “I know yer kind—saw you earlier, lazin’ about with your pretty boy while the others worked. You prob’ly think you should get the same take as us is workin’ hard, don’t ya?”
Rezkin laughed and pushed Wesson to the ground. Wesson scowled up at him, his frustration genuine. Then, he ducked his head and played the part of the cowed young man with no choice but submission. He was ashamed to admit that it was not so far from the truth. He had never tried his power against Rezkin and wondered if it would be as ineffectual as the power wielded by the other mages. Rezkin tumbled gracelessly to the ground beside him, nearly losing the contents of the jug in the process.
“They don’t want me doin’ none of that. I gotta stay rested, ya see? In case any of you decide to make trouble.”
The men burst into laughter, but the leader was having none of it. “You had best be able to put your sword where yer mouth is.”
Rezkin laughed boisterously, slapping his knee. “If I did that, I’d not be talkin’ no more, would I?”
“We’d all be better off,” said the mercenary leader. He turned to Wesson. “And you? What good are you? Yer too puny to lift a blade, and I doubt you got a scar on ya.”
Wesson was saved from answering when Rezkin jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “He polishes my weapons.”
The men snickered and groaned as Wesson’s face heated. He decided that whenever they were away from the mercenaries, he was going to give Rezkin a piece of his mind—even if it killed him.
Turning back to Rezkin, the leader said, “What’s this story yer talkin’ ’bout?”
“First, Boss, what be yer name?” said Rezkin as if the alcohol were taking its full effect. Even Wesson was inclined to wonder if he had truly been drinking.
“The name’s Orin, commander of the White Crescents.”
Rezkin said, “Commander, eh? Army man? What kinda name is White Crescents? Don’t sound like no merc comp’ny to me. Blood Moon, maybe, or Black Eclipse, but White Crescents?”
Orin kicked Rezkin in the side and then grabbed his chest plate. With a hard yank, the mercenary leader lifted Rezkin toward his face. He then leaned over them both, and Wesson could smell the man’s putrid breath as he said, “On the night of an eclipse, the white crescent is the last vestige of light ya see before all goes dark, and it’s the first ya see if yer lucky to see the light again. It’s what they calls a metaphor. It’s fer battle, fer life.”
Rezkin stared at the mercenary for entirely too long and then burst into laughter. He shoved the man back with surprising force. “How poetic. Now let’s get to the story.”
Orin waved off the men who had jumped to defend their leader, or perhaps just his pride. “What story is it yer tellin’?”
“What?” said Rezkin, blinking up at the man as if he couldn’t see through the ale drowning his mind. “No. Can’t say as I’ve got no stories worth tellin’. I’s wantin’ to hear yers. Why are half yer men injured and one looks to be makin’ a deal with the Maker? The way I sees it, y'all must’ve been the victors, seein’ as how yer still alive. I ain’t heard about no battles, though.”
With a wave toward his men and a grumble, Orin sat down on a saddle draped across a mound of grass. He pulled a knob of crass root from a pouch at his waist, gnawed on the stalk a moment, and then shoved the whole thing into his cheek before answering.
“Weren’t no battle of men. Was the drauglics—come down from the mountains, I suppose.”
“Drauglics?” barked Rezkin. “I ain’t buyin’ it. We ain’t nowhere near the mountains, and ain’t no one ever seen one on the plains.”
“Can’t say as I blame ya,” said Orin. “I wouldn’t neither but for the rumors. You must’ve heard ‘em. Been goin’ round for months. Drauglic sightings, peasants in the outlands disappearin’. Some say they been findin’ pieces of people—eaten they say—slaughtered. I didn’t believe none of it myself—least not ’till we was attacked. A day and a half ago to the north. We was huntin’ fer game not far from the trade route when they just appeared outta nowhere. We counted about twenty bodies at the end but don’t know how many done run off. Took us by surprise, nasty suckers. Before the attack, our company was forty-two with as many horses.”
“So they was after the horses,” Rezkin said.
Orin motioned for one of his men to chuck another log onto the fire and said, “I don’t think they cared if they got man or horse, only the horses didn’t have swords.”
“And the drauglics? What’d they have?”
“Crude weapons and farm tools, mostly—a few swords and knives they prob’ly took off their victims.”
“Drauglics carry weapons?” said Wesson “I thought they were small, primitive creatures.”
“So he can speak,” said Orin with a chuckle, but his humor faded quickly. “These weren’t small things. They was nearly as big as a man … well, a small man, maybe. They wield weapons, but I hear they ain’t smart enough to forge metal. They make their weapons from sticks and stones, and some of ’em got wood or leather armor. The better stuff is what they find or steal. They looked kinda like men from a distance, but they was lizards—got purple and orange scales over parts of their flesh.”