Yoko stayed in the woods, well off from the trail where any passing loggers might find her. She had her knife, which she assured him she well knew the use of, the supplies they had scavenged from his kills and his stern direction to stay out of trouble. She had primly told him she was neither a child nor an idiot and not to treat her like one. He had arched a brow at her imperious lift of the nose and the rigid set of her back and drove down the urge to press her against the soft earth and tell her exactly what he did think of her. She more than likely would have had something to say about that as well, so he merely inclined his head at her, and swept her a exaggerated bow.
He walked down the trail towards Thraxtown. Yoko had complained that if he were going to inconspicuously take a look about a rough and tumble logger town, then he might not want to stand out like a lord in a pig pen. He had stared at her in blank incomprehension. How could he help but stand out? It was not everyday that some rat infested lumber camp was graced by the presence of so great a wizard, well so usually great a wizard, if one wanted to get technical. Subterfuge had never been a practice of his. He thrived on attention. He could not imagine NOT making an entrance.
"But then they'll be wary of you, or scared or contemptuous ---" She had argued.
"Contemptuous? What do you mean contemptuous?"
She had taken a breath for patience, which annoyed him, as if he inspired a shortness of it. "Like those poor butchered men --"
"Rapists."
"Whatever -- on the trail back there. Of course they didn't think they were better than you --"
"I should hardly think so."
"--But they were able to recognize the class difference and that usually puts people off. You can't stroll into town and let everybody know how great and wonderful you are and not expect them to distance themselves. You won't find out anything useful that way."
"What do you suggest?" He had asked, warily.
"Well for one -- that hair."
Both brows went up. "What, prey tell, is wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing. I love your hair. But -- its sort of not everyday guy hair. Its sort of -- decadent." She thought about that word for a moment, decided she liked it and went on. "You attract attention."
He stared at her levelly. He could accept that explanation. One was aware of one's attributes. He waited for her to justify the wasted time in bringing it up.
"We've got to do something about your hair and you're not really dressed like a man that belongs in a logging town ---"
Hence, after argument and distaste on his part, he approached the thick lumber barricade around Thraxtown wearing a flannel shirt from the pilfered pack of a logger, his hair in a braid down his back and an abhorrent knit hat on his head. He despised the hat. He had argued vehemently with Yoko about the nasty thing. She had yanked his hair, (she had been braiding it at the time) and told him in no uncertain terms that it was an important part of the disguise.
The gates were open. A wide wagon pulled by two large and bored looking mules lumbered out as Schneider was going in. The mules were in no mind to give way to a single man on foot and he had to scramble back to avoid being trod under hooves and wheel. His boots squelched in thick mud at the side of the road. He glared at wagon and mud, as if both had contrived the day long to practice this indignity upon him.
The town inside the barricade had been put up hastily. There were canvas tents and shoddily constructed wooden buildings. The streets were mud, churned ankle deep by heavy wagons and the passage of hundreds of feet. A rustic, crude town of lumber men and their followers. The crippled that hawked for charity at the road side, the camp whores, who were as used and unappealing a lot as Schneider had ever seen. The herb women and hedge witches in tents that boasted healing salves and wards for snakes and spiders and poison ivies. Pouches that could drive away rats and cure crabs and any other sexual disease picked up from the dirty whores who serviced these men. He doubted the latter much worked. There were some things more stubborn than simple magic could deal with. The preachings of the Prophet had not reached here, to drive away the witches. These rugged men, who worked in the wilderness and suffered from it, more than welcomed the plain cures the hedge witches offered. Religion be damned when it came to chasing the wood rattlers away from where a man worked.
Schneider stopped under the awning of one such tent, drawn to the hint of magic in the many pouches the old woman hawked. A true witch, he thought. Not a powerful one, if she was reduced to following this camp, but not a woman without arcane knowledge. The withered old hag behind the plank counter eyed him gleefully, a potential customer in her domain.
"What is it today, for such a handsome, handsome boy as yourself?"
He cast his eyes over her charms and pouches, wondering if she could even imagine how old he was.
"None of your wares today, grandmother. Just a bit of information."
"Information, huh? That's rarer than magic in these parts. What will you pay?"
He leaned on the counter, fixing her with his gaze. "Make it a professional courtesy. One --- practitioner of the arts to another."
She stared back, searching his face. "Do I know you?" She asked warily.
He shrugged. "Maybe."
"I seem to recall seeing you before." She shivered, not able to grasp the memory she sought. "What information, then, fellow artist?"
"How long have they been cutting at this wood? How long has this town been here?"
"Oh, for almost a year now, the lord Thrax has worked on this great forest. The town has moved three times."
"Thrax? He's lord here? He owns the lumber operation?"
"He does. The greatest lumber baron in the known world, he is and proud of it."
"Really? So one might consider him the ultimate power here?"
"Oh, most assuredly."
"Where might I find him?"
"His house is the biggest in town. You can't miss it. But he plays Pirates and Kings every night at the Busty Whore."
When he lifted an inquisitive brow at her, she cackled and gestured out the tent and to the north. "Tavern down the street."
"Thank you for the help, grandmother. Perhaps I'll send some business your way."
She sniffed at the improbability of that as he walked away.
In the middle of daylight, the logging town was conspicuously shy of men, the loggers out deforesting the Great Wood. He walked about the town, getting a feel for the lay of it. Simple really, A main street lined with wood buildings that housed general store, tavern, lumber offices, with tents in-between where pimps offered tired whores and physicians made their offices amidst the mud and squalor. A man screamed inside a tent that boasted the sign of a dentist. At the end of this street was a large, well constructed log house, with a fence about it to keep passer bys from churning the yard to mud like they had the rest of the town. There were stables to the east where work horse and mule were housed, and to the north, beyond the lumber baron's house were a sea of tents that belonged to the loggers themselves. Hundreds and hundreds of them. A small army of men to discourage from razing Glyncara's wood. If Glyncara had lived up to her claim and removed the wards, it would have been simple. A Venom spell, multiplied, would have melted the whole expanse of tents and loggers within them. But far be it from a woman, and being of unnatural origin only made it worse, to ever take the simple route. No, make as much of a job of it as possible. Put him to as much trouble as one possibly could. Make him wear the damned cap.
He seethed over the cap for a few streets, glaring at passerby, who dared to stare at his passage. Came to the western side of the town where the barricade drove right into the shores of the river and where a lumber yard had been set up. A fair number of men worked at positioning the cut trees into broad groups of flotsam in the water, before they were set loose to drift downriver.
He tired of touring the dreary little town and made his way to the tavern the hedge witch had promised Thrax to attend. There were only a few customers, the men still hard at work, and the lone barmaid pounced on him with single minded, rabid attention. If she had been even vaguely pretty he would have passed time entertaining himself by flirting with her. As things were, he nursed watered down, poor quality ale and attempted to drive the wench away with an imperious disregard only kings and very powerful wizards could achieve, but it was lost on her. One suspected the cap and the logger's shirt worked against a really good air of regal contempt. She kept reminding him that she usually would go in the back for a romp for a copper coin, but since he was so clean, she would consider doing it for less. He would glare at her frostily until she went away, only to be back in short order to bother him with something else. There had been a time when only beautiful women had thrown themselves at his feet.
Eventually, when the shadows grew long outside, the loggers began drifting into the tavern, tired and sweaty from a long day's work. With them came a tremendous buzz of raucous laughter and coarse conversation. He sat a small round table in a back corner of the tavern, and even though the place became full to overflowing with patrons, no one intruded upon his little island of privacy, warned by the dangerous look in his eyes. They watched him, though. A stranger in the midst of a crew that knew and worked together. Eventually a trio of truly untalented musicians struck up a tune. The loggers, well into their cups, stomped along with the melody, many of the men taking up their work mates as dancing partners and tromping with an abominable lack of grace about the floor. The whole of the tavern thought it uproariously funning when one ungainly couple crashed into a table, spilling ale over themselves and its occupants. Schneider watched the whole thing with growing scorn and thought no one in their right mind would terribly mind if he did send the whole town up in flames.
Eventually the lumber baron Thrax made his appearance. He arrived with several burly men guarding him,( every powerful man needed bodyguards to show the extent of his power) and a passingly pretty, if not plump young woman on his arm. Thrax himself had logger written all over him. Granted, he was a logger who had removed himself from the woods, attempted to clothe himself in somewhat fashionable garb and wear his hair in the style of a gentleman, but as the saying went -- you could take the man out of the woods . . . .
Thrax stomped into the tavern, swelling visibly as every eye in the room fixed on him. A man who thrived on notability. Who had worked hard to achieve it, even in the midst of this dismal, rustic little town. A man who thought he was someone of consequence.
He and his entourage moved through the crowd to a table that cleared quickly for him. Chairs were pushed forward to accommodate he and his, the woman sidling up close to him, her hands sliding under the table to no doubt entertain him there. A game board was brought out along with a bottle of wine that no doubt never touched lips other than his. Everyone else got common ale. He sat the game pieces on the board and called for comers. A thick bellied logger took the seat opposite him and they began a game of Pirates and Kings. Schneider remembered another name for the game, but like everything else of old, it had disappeared into the ages. Same game basically, same goal, similar rules. Just a difference in the labeling of characters.
Thrax beat the first comer in short order and a new challenger approached. After a while the interest in the game wavered and other than a core group of loggers either unusually intelligent for their class, or particularly willing to brown nose their lord, men turned back to their conversations, their drinks and their clumsy attempts at dance.
Another opponent beat and Schneider rose and gradually eased his way through the crowd into the circle of observers. Thrax fancied himself a master of the game. That was clear from the superior smile on his lips as he watched his opponent make inevitably bad moves. His King always took the Pirate.
"Who's next? Who's next to give me a run for my money?" he called after vanquishing the latest foe.
Schneider stepped forward. "Are there wagers involved?"
Thrax looked him up and down, frowned. "A day's pay either gained or lost, if you've confidence enough to bet. But I don't recognize you as a man on my payroll."
"No." Schneider agreed and slipped into the chair. "What shall we bet then?"
"Are you looking for work?"
Schneider shrugged. "The right work."
Thrax laughed. The men around him did. "Lumber's the only work here abouts."
"Then I suppose that will have to do. A day's pay without the work, then when I win."
"When you win?" Thrax guffawed, genuinely amused. "All right and ten days work without pay, if you don't. Since you have so much confidence in yourself."
"I'm the Pirate, then?"
"I'm always the King."
The game began. A knight moved here and took a picaroon. A privateer took a holy priest. The royal advisor cornered the Pirate's Lady and a simple buccaneer crept up from the side and took the King when Thrax's attention to focused on his siege of the Lady and the Pirate had never moved from his secure vantage at the rear.
There was silence. Thrax stared at the board, as though searching for some sign that Schneider had cheated.
"Gawdess," Thrax's lady exclaimed, breaking the uncertain silence. "He took you in seven moves and only lost one of his men to boot."
Thrax turned a seething glare her way, then stanched it, not wanting to seem the sore looser. He could not quite force a smile when he turned back to Schneider.
"Well, you've got a days pay and no work to show for it. Will you be wanting real work after that?"
"I don't know. I suppose that depends on whether we play another game."
Thrax's frown deepened. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He seemed torn between taking this as a terrible insult or letting it go. Finally a slight grin touched his lips and he called for another bottle of wine.
"Fair enough, stranger. The next game I'll pay more heed too. A man let's his guard down playing with simpletons."
No one seemed particularly offended by that claim. The barmaid poured Schneider a glass of Thrax's private wine. It was of poor vintage and barely better than the ale.
"What's your name, stranger?" Thrax asked.
"Darshe." He answered.
"Logger by trade?"
"Many trades."
"Where did you learn the ways of Pirates and Kings?"
"Oh, here and there. I've been around."
"Well then," Thrax swallowed the remainder of his wine and slammed the cup down with gusto. "Another game, then."
The snow was beginning to fill the passes through the Great Northern Range. The tracks of the monster led over the ridge and down into the valleys on the southern side of the mountains. It had not long passed that way, for barely a day's worth of snow obscured the trail. Any normal riders would have found passage after it troublesome, what with snow past their horses noses filling the narrow passages through the mountains. But, Kall-Su was not hailed as the Ice Lord for merely the domain he ruled. Snow was blasted from their paths, or walls of ice raised to dam the thunderous tumble of avalanche. They crossed from one side of the range to the other and descended to the snowbound forests of evergreen that covered the slopes.
The thing they followed was huge. The way it passed was littered with split trees and gouged earth. Sometimes it grazed on greenery. They could tell by the stripped growth from high up on the trees. If preferred meat, but was slow in catching the antelope that populated the forests. Human prey was slower and easier to take. They had passed one village on the northern slopes of the Great Northern Range that the thing had passed through. If there were survivors they had fled deep into the forests. Kall and left two men there to see if any returned, and to burn what was left of the remains, which was not much. No reason to let other, smaller scavengers ravage the villagers, who had been oathbound to him.
If it and others of its kind, (they had no true name for it yet) had not learned the ease of hunting human prey, they might have coexisted with it. He would have been content to let it roam the high passes unmolested. He had no particular love for the hunt. He always, deep down, sympathized with the prey, though he hid the weakness vehemently from outside eyes.
They followed the winding trail down the side of the mountain, plowed through snow deep into the evening until darkness made Kall-Su summon a witch light to reveal their path. He despaired stopping when the trail was so fresh. Recent sap oozed from the broken trunks of pines.
There was a great rustling of limbs before them. A guttural sound interspersed with a crunching, grinding of bone or teeth. Kiro drew his sword. His men did. The war horses pricked their ears in expectation, great hooves stomping in the snow. They rode forward and in a great clearing a beast crouched. Blood spattered the snow around it and in it's great jaws, held by two long clawed forearms was the carcass of one of the giant mountain bears. The bear was small in the monster's grip. Its shoulders were the height of four men end to end, tapering down to a ridged spine that ended at a long, thick tail that thrashed in the snow like a cat's. There was nothing feline about it. Its back legs were long and jointed like a wolfs, save that the feet were long and broad and wickedly clawed, four claws to the front and one prehensile one projecting from the rear for the tearing of prey. Its snout was long and filled with bristling teeth and two great horns protruded from the bones above its small black eyes. A most fearsome beast, and a most irritated one at the intrusion upon its feeding. It cried out, a rumbling screech that echoed up the slope. The knights did, brandishing their spears and swords, eager to be at the thing, eager to engage in the kill as much as they had been the hunt.
The beast dropped the bear and whirled, lashing out with its tail. A horse went off its feet, screaming. The man on its back tumbled and came up with sword still in hand. A spear stuck in the thing's hide. It seemed not to notice. It lunged at men and horses, testing their strength and their speed. Kall kept his horse in check, wondering as always at the sheer insensibility of men to engage in hopeless battles. He had seen so many go to their deaths in battles that seemed impossible to win. And yet they went. Out of honor. Out of misplaced loyalty. Out of courage that held more a grip on them than common sense.
Well, perhaps these men today, did not go blindly into a fray that they knew they had no hope of winning. They were well aware that their lord rode among them. They were well aware of his capabilities. Kiro got knocked from his horse by the sweep on one clawed arm, armor was torn and blood drawn. Kall had watched enough.
He mouthed the words to a spell. Felt his horse dance nervously under him, the animal well aware of when the arcane was in the air. He summoned a mid-level ice spirit to do his bidding. Set it to a specific spell task and sent it on its way. The ground under the beast's feet began to crystallize. Ice began to creep up the monster's legs, entrapping them in a white, faceted prison. It screamed its rage; its fear as the ice reached it's upper body. The knights stood back, well away from the edges of the spell. Kall thought he had it. With a great, frenzied cry the thing convulsed, tensing all its mighty muscles and ice cracked. It shattered, spraying outwards and pelting his knights. The thing launched upwards, desperate to escape the icy fingers the ground sent up at it. Twenty feet it bounded up, and came crashing down in an ungainly fashion some four feet from Kall's suddenly terrified horse. The war horse screamed and scrambled to distance itself from the monster. The thing pounced ready to tear to pieces the closest human attacker. Kall cried out the quickest spell he could think of and ice spears radiated out from his outstretched hand and pierced the monster's neck, shoulders and lower jaw. It staggered, frothing blood, in deathly pain and mad now.
"Kuth Sath Xan, do my bidding now by the covenant made with blood and ice." He cried out the incantation of a nasty, nasty little offensive spell, wanting the thing dead now. It made a step towards him, then arched backwards, mouth open in soundless shock. Its internal origins would be freezing right about now. The blood stopping in its veins. The flesh turning cold and rigid as its body turned to ice from the inner core outwards. It took maybe eight second from the time the spell began for the monster to topple over, frozen in position and very, very dead.
He dismounted. Took a moment to calm the frightened horse; the horse meant a great deal to him, then handed the reins to one of his men and walked though the trampled, blood spattered snow to see how badly Kiro was hurt. A rent in leather armor and thick padding that seeped blood from a gash in the ribs below. A bruise to the side of his captain's face that was red and blistered with blood. Kall did not ask the obvious thought that surfaced in his mind, which was, If I was here, foolish man, why go to all the trouble to attack the thing with swords and spears? He knew the answer, of course. Honor and all that.
He placed fingers over the wound and whispered a healing spell. Surprisingly enough, to work a simple healing took more concentration than a powerful and destructive ice spell. One had to be careful when one was working to restore a thing rather than destroy it. A great healer, which he was not, invested a lifetime's worth of study into his trade.
Another of his men had a dislocated shoulder, which was set back into place by mundane means. They had lost a horse. His men discussed the taking of trophy horns, if not head. Kall left them to that grisly talk, having no interest in such a prize. More concerned about two injured men and one horse short and snow beginning to fall from the sky. He might convince it to hold back a day more, but it would only make the storm harsher by far when eventually it did let loose. Better not to tamper with the weather during the winter. It was fickle enough without his help.
There was a trading outpost further down the mountain, he thought. Not far if the map he visualized in his head were anything close to the truth of their position. They might get another mount there and a day or two's rest for his wounded. His men would revel in the tales of the killing of the beast. The mountain men who always frequented such outposts would likely tromp up the mountain to see the frozen corpse. Yet one more fable to grace the highlands.
Yes, down the mountain to the trading post. Further south than he had been in almost year.