Roar - A Wardstone Short Story Read online



  ROAR

  A Wardstone Short

  Copyright 2012 Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

  The map of the Mainland Kingdoms can be viewed at www.mrmathias.com

  Loudin Drake’s horse huffed and pawed at the side of the hard packed dirt road he was lingering beside. He was on the Wildermont side of the Leif Greyn River. It was almost Summer’s Day and the festival grounds, two days to the north, were populating quickly. There were scores and scores of travelers coming through Wildermont’s magnificent capital. People from Dakahn, Westland, and Valleya flooded Castlemont on their way to the annual competition and trade event. Loudin didn’t mind. The roads outside of Castlemont were ripe with opportunity all summer long. He didn’t have to try and find a mark, because there was a line of them slowly trundling past. He did have to keep an eye out for a certain Dakaneese Overlord that was undoubtedly going to be coming through to attend the festival, though.

  “Debts unpaid, add up to naught but sleepless nights,” Loudin repeated the saying that one of his ship captains used to spout off to the men.

  It was the truth.

  This was Loudin’s third Summer’s Day Festival in a row. After several years of marching in Seaward, and a few hundred sea voyages, on a score of different ships, he’d tried to make a go as a gambler in the huge port city of O’Dakahn. He was skilled enough to keep from going hungry. And his tattoos, which covered his whole upper torso, including reaching over his bald head to form the sharp beak of a fierce predator bird at his brow, kept most all of the unsavory gamers at a distance. Tattoo covered Seawardsmen weren’t rare, but all of them, to a man, were fit, trained, and willing to fight. He was suited for a gambler’s life, but the crowded city just didn’t agree with his demeanor.

  Even when Loudin won twenty pieces of gold from a merchant in the slave fighting pits, enough to live healthy for half a year, he found he couldn’t stand the crowds and the filth. He’d been squatting at a hidden camp in the Reyhall Forest, just across the river, since the snow melted. He’d been hunting bark skin lizards around the Swell and trading their prized skins in Lokar, and Castlemont, but he’d just been warned that some Westland Lord, or Warden, called Fairchild, had started looking for poachers over there. He wasn’t too concerned about it, but it was one more thing for him to worry about. He didn’t plan on staying in the Reyhall forever, just until after this year’s annual Brawl.

  Loudin always had a knack for picking fighters. After seeing this year’s contestant from Valleya destroy a veteran Blacksword Soldier from Xwarda in an exposition bout last night, he was sure the man would win. They called him the Valleyan Stallion. If he bet on the Valleyan to win the whole competition before it even started, he could get three, four, maybe even five coins to one. He had to get to the festival and make his bet before everyone there heard about the big bastard though. The Valleyan fighter was supposedly staying in Castlemont for another five days, so Loudin wasn’t feeling rushed. He still had to come up with some coins to gamble.

  Loudin figured that they had to keep the huge man away from the festival, lest the other contestants back out. Once the big Valleyan started pounding his way through the preliminary fights, Loudin knew the wagering would all but stop. Brave men would make excuses, or place wagers against themselves and take the beating. It was the way of things. Luckily for Loudin, he saw exactly what he’d hoped to see. Even better, his mark was already being harassed by some ill kept young sword who had the same sort of idea, but not the where withal to pull it off.

  “You’ll be sorry, ya haughty old snoot,” the lad said up to the elderly man and woman riding the bench atop their huge, garishly-painted trade wagon. “There be thieves, bandits, filchers, and worse around here. And that’s just on the road to Summer’s Day. Once you get there, you got the same kind of scavengers from Highwander, and Westland, and Seawa--”

  “That’s enough, lad,” Loudin said as his dagger tip found the young man’s throat. In his other hand he’d gathered up the reins of his horse. They were close enough that Loudin smelled radishes mixed with the steamy fear on the young man’s breath. “I won’t have you talking bad about us Seawardsmen like that. If you’d find a wash tub, people might quit thinking you’re a beggar. Now get along.”

  One look into Loudin’s cold eyes stole any defiance the would-be camp guard had. He turned swiftly, pulling his juggler out of harm’s way, and dashed his mount south down the road.

  “Thank ye, kind sir,” the tinker trader called down. He looked as though he was no more comfortable talking to a trained Seawardsman. “He was a sniffin’ at us all the way in from Low Crossing.”

  “He just wants to make a few coins.” Loudin shrugged, showing a bit of distaste in his expression. He was no gentleman, or lord, nor did he desire to be. He’d learned a long time ago, though, that good clean clothes, and a hot bath every now and then can sometimes get you places. He was hoping to get somewhere now, though in a roundabout way.

  “He may have been a cretin, but he wasn’t wrong about the festival.” Loudin could tell that these people were seasoned traders. They were from Dakahn, he decided, from the cut of their clothes, and the size of their wagon full of goods. They knew the Red Wolf guards patrolled the road, and the festival grounds.

  “Tis’ true,” the trader nodded. “Last year we had a whole crate full of honey jars snatched right out from under our noses. I could ‘ave made two pieces of gold or traded ‘em for thrice that in wares.”

  “’It’s a shame,” Loudin nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’m heading to the festival grounds on the morrow. If you are laying over in Castlemont, maybe we could travel together?”

  “Not that a real fighting man wouldn’t be a welcome companion,” the trader’s woman said, “but can I ask why you would bother?” She was old and wrinkled and had a wavy mop of wind riddled red hair.

  “My employer has entrusted me with a package to deliver, the sort of parcel that makes a man not eager to travel alone.” Loudin looked left, and then right, making sure that none of the passersby was within earshot. “It’s a sack of coins, for a wager he wants me to place for him. His brother knows a few Lords, and they seem to have the fix in on the Brawl. Folks like you, who earn their living, don’t worry me. And again, to be honest, I can tell by the size of that kettle dangling on the back of your rig, that if I camped alongside at the festival, I wouldn’t be eating jerked meat every night.”

  “The fix is in you say?” the trader asked. By the almost desperate hope Loudin heard in the man’s voice, he knew he could set the hook.

  “I’m to get my employer no less than two coins to one when I place the wager. I’m hoping to get three to one, so I can have a share.”

  “We’ll make High Crossing by dark fall, and camp there,” the trader said, with eyes glazed and glittering with the sparkle of promise. “It would be fine if you shared our stew. In fact, I insist.”

  “Oh, no sir,” Loudin answered. “I will catch up to you on the road about midday on the morrow though.”

  The trader’s face suddenly looked stricken. He clearly wanted to ask who the wager was to be placed on. Loudin knew this and added to the man’s distress. “I swore an oath to keep my employer’s wager private, so there is no use asking about it.”

  For an instant the trader’s face darkened, as if he were trying to reason out whether or not he was the butt of some jest. Loudin relieved his concerns like an old friend.

  “Well, even though I can’t tell you, maybe you could watch me. Well... No, I swore not to reveal who the wager is on, so letting you watch me is breaking my word too. I’m no oath breaker.”

  “But if I watched you without you knowing?” the trader grinned. />
  “Bah, Bolly Heath, just have the man place a wager for us,” the woman said as if the both of them were daft. “You’d bet a few coins for us wouldn’t you, sir?”

  Loudin couldn’t believe his luck. Not the good luck he was having with these traders, but the bad luck being carried up the road toward him. If he stayed where he was, he’d probably be killed right there. At the very least, these good folk would want no more of him, not after Overlord Perrywyne reminded him of the sizable debt he still owed. If he could just avoid a conflict right here and now he might be able to make enough to clear his debt with Perrywyne, and settle the rest of what he owed as well.

  He decided that he needed to go, and excused himself, almost rudely. “I’m late, it just slipped my mind,” Loudin feigned worry over displeasing someone as he turned his horse and shook his head. “I just have to tell her it slipped my mind. I’ll catch up to you on the morrow, Bolly Heath, I will.” He heeled his horse a heartbeat too late to avoid being seen by the large, opulently clad lord. Fortunately, one of the eight slaves carrying his divan stumbled, causing the fat slaver to whip his head around before he could recognize Loudin.

  “We’ll be lookin’ for ya,’” the woman called as Bolly urged his horses back underway.

  Loudin gave a wave and hurried to get across the road.