Weregamers: The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky

The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky

by Bryan Hitchcock

Narrated by Renz

I have never been a lucky person.

Well, maybe once. I was lucky when the Soboré marauders rode into my village on a thunderstorm of horses and slew anyone who offered resistance. No woman of any age was safe from their insatiable lust for blood and flesh. They were preparing my people for life as tradable commodities. I survived without sharing the awful fate of my older sister, Ahnna. But, for years I had to hide my sex, my platinum hair and my unusual emerald eyes with charms my gnuanna taught me because I had the gift. It is unfortunate that the caring nature of most women is seen as weakness by men who prey upon the weak. Thus, the same charms I learned as a child help me avoid predators now. So you see, it really has more to do with magick than luck.

But when has it not?

That however is another story. It merely demonstrates why I was so distrustful when the Innkeep at the Rusty Road said he had information I could use. I just could not be lucky enough to find a clue in the very first inn I reach in Anorian civilization.

After leaving the last Ahvrani outpost, I had traveled overland for the better part of a week on my way to Old Milltown, an ancient Anorian settlement where I chose to begin my search for vengeance. After a dozen years of faithful study and service to the Ahvrani masters who rescued me from the slavers, I needed to do a little soul searching before I could complete my studies. I found that I could never reach the fullest levels of detachment and omniscient sight because of my aching need to make the Soboré and their Bloodlash Cult leaders pay for taking my parents away. So here I was in Old Milltown showing a Soboré pendant to Davir, the innkeep.

"Sure, I knows some of them guys," he said as he slid the pendant back to me. "They hang out on the pier at a warehouse by the Rivertide bar. They works at the docks moving logs and other collectibles through the mill, if’n you knows what I mean?" He pocketed the silver Crescent I had given him to jog his memory.

I knew what he meant. My left eye twitched.

"Not very talkative, are ya? Do you need a room? How about a beer? Somethin ta eat, maybe?"

I did not like the ease with which Davir parted with such dangerous information. I decided to keep him close by. "I just need a room, thank you."

"All right then. Just give me a minute."

I nodded and turned to examine the tavern. For the most part, the place was empty. It was a shack with enough light leaking through cracks in the walls and ceilings for patrons to see their cards without the fire from the hearth in the center of the room. A crooked old man sat at the fire tending an awful smelling stew. There was a professional gambler running a dice game at a nearby table. I didn’t need a charm to show me his aura of vast cities, callousness and greed. I knew he was a pro, because he had been looking me over like a wolf would a lamb since I had entered. This wasn’t his neck of the woods so I figured he was on the run.

The game was operating itself, at this point, so the gambler decided to make his move. As he approached, I noticed the hand crafted scabbard and jewel encrusted dagger at his hip. He wore a plain brown travelling cloak over a sky blue tunic and black breeches with knee high black boots. He had a long handsome face with a dark goatee and mustache and shining blue eyes.

The real reason for his success, though, was a winning smile. He used it as he addressed me like a master fencer saluting a new opponent. "Well met, my good fellow. I’m Prather Lentin from Falavesti City."

It worked. I smiled and looked away. The worst part of masquerading as a man is feigning indifference to dazzling smiles.

"Honestly, I was bored with visiting the cousin’s farm, you know. Thought I’d have a bit of a game. Care to join me?" As he spoke, we shook hands in the Anorian style, but he held mine gently, like he would a ladies.

"I don’t think so." This guy figured me out way too easily. In spite of my short, messily cropped hair, closely wrapped torso and masculinely cut clothes it seemed some men could sense a girl. Probably my bad acting. It made me nervous.

Prather Lentin leaned into me, setting his drink on the bar. "Or maybe you’d like to join me later?"

I turned back to see if the innkeep was ready with my room yet. He was just coming down the stairs. I dared glance at Prather only to see that smile still there.

I had not planned on hurting anyone for being attractive or even forward, so I chose flight. "Excuse me, sir," I said in my best man voice. I sidestepped away from the bar, grabbed my pack and walked towards Davir. He scowled and led me up the stairs. I looked back to see Prather storming from the inn. This worried me because he did not seem like a sensitive soul.

"Well this will be two crescents, another if you’d like breakfast, and another if you...." Davir was droning as he led me into my tiny quarters.

I looked around and felt fortunate that this side of the building was in better repair. I placed my pack on the bed and reached for my coin purse. It was empty accept for a note from Prather Lentin. I let out a groan of anger as I realized I would never catch him now. Not only had he taken all of my silver, but he had also stolen my Soboré pendant, which was the only physical link to the slavers who killed my family.

"Now don’t tell me you ain’t got any money," Davir whined. "I got bills to pay here."

Six night sleeping in the fields was quite enough, thank you. Fortunately I had a few small gems cached in another pouch. "Worry not, Davir." I went for the gems in my pack and handed the smallest one to Davir. "My key?"

"Oh, yes. Well here ya are then." Davir eyed the tiny ruby for a moment and his greed flared around him. He pocketed the gem and gave me a predatory grin as he fished a key off a jangling ring of identical metal cylinders. I stared at it incredulously.

"Don’t worry," he said. "I’m right downstairs if you have any problems and there ain’t anybody else stayin ¬ere to steal your stuff. Ok?"

"I am so relieved." I ushered him away.

"Happy hunting there, mate." He shut the door, chuckling .

I fastened the simple latch behind him and went back to the bed. Unpacking was pointless, so pulling out the note from Prather, my own ceremonial knife and a stick of incense, I prepared myself for the evening’s investigation.

***

I knew Old Milltown had been a good choice . A lot of traffic passed through this town. A lot of slaves. Unfortunately, the docks at the river’s edge were a fog of suffering to my scrying efforts. I would have to get a better look on foot. The town itself was hardly bustling. Winter was near but no one was preparing and there was no market. It looked as if many of the homes and shops were empty. Their closed shutters reminded me of the eyes of heaped corpses in tiny villages.

As I approached the docks, my senses led me to a warehouse next to the Rivertide bar. The warehouse turned out to be a black market slave bazaar where local farmers could pay a pittance for the castaway slaves of the bigger cities. The aura of pain and death surrounding it was enough to make me wish I could run home and cry. But that was not the plan. I was not sure what the plan was, at this point, but running back to the woods was not part of it. There were slaves inside suffering while I debated. I could feel them and every one who had stepped on this dock like a cold tread on my spine. At the moment, there were few river craft at the docks and it looked like the whole yard was on skeleton crew. Bully for me. I walked right into the warehouse.

It was just big enough for a several round tables and their accompanying stools. There were three fellows playing cards at a table by a stage, which occupied most of one wall. Half a dozen torches in tall metal stands shed light on the gruesome remainders of the auctions the dismal shanty had seen. A woman, beaten and glassy eyed hung by her wrists from a bolt above the stage. Her toes barely touched the filthy platform. Anger and grief hit me in equal measure. It had been a long time since I had seen this brand of atrocity first hand, and I stood for a moment, trying to regain my composure.

A bald headed thug approached from a stool beside the door. He held a bottle of liquor in one hand. The other rested easily on the hilt of a long curved blade on his belt. He was taller than me by at least two heads, but I am used to being picked on by people bigger than I am. Almost everyone is. "I think you should be statin’ your name and bidness here before you come ramblin on into tha works, don’t you?"

A man with a quiver on his back slammed his cards on the table, shouting. "I won the whore. I won the whore." That was it. Baldy was still looking down at me with a smirk that just invited trouble. I stared back at him, unable to hide the anger in my eyes.

"Easy enough," I said . "I have come here to free the people you have kidnapped and torture the lot of you until you tell me everything you know about the Soboré Bloodlash cult."

The room was quiet and I knew we had gained the attention of his friends. He grinned from ear to ear. "Well ain’t that cute. I think we’re gonna have some fun with you laddie. Throw you in the hole with the rest, eh? Or maybe do ya like a lassie? Yer pretty nuff for it."

As he reached for me I held up my hand and squeezed my fingers into a fist. Baldy folded to the floor, gasping and clutching at his damaged manhhood . A quarrel careened away as my shield aura deflected it away from my heart. Two of them rushed me.

Using my long grey cloak to confuse their assault, I faked left and slid away to the right. The field used the force of their own attacks to send them sliding past me as I ducked away and began to skirt the tables. They moved in again, hurling the tables aside to make room for their heavy blades.

"Iriblis aguanta!" With a gesture I snapped off a rite bring one of them down with a crushed wind pipe. But I was nervous and the spell misfired without even inducing a cough. Two well used blades swung down. The weapons were repelled but the force of the blows drove me to my knees amongst the overturned chairs and tables. I scrambled to get away while my attackers recovered their balance.

One mercenary, a gratuitously scarred man with two handed cleaver, was tracking me as I moved. The other was yelling to the crossbowman to get another shot off. "I can’t get a clear shot. Get him out in the open," he called back from his cover around the corner of the stage.

The cleaver was too scary. I closed my eyes for a moment and focused. With a sharp hand clap I called the power forward. A table lifted from the ground and hurtled top first towards the cleaver guy. One advantage of magick is that people tend to spend their last second widening their eyes in disbelief instead of getting out of the way. It worked, and cleaver man was napping against the far wall.

In the meantime, the one shouting out directions had moved in for another blow. I was still recovering from using the table so I could only hope the weapon shield would hold. His aim was perfect. A thrust instead of a slash and even though the spell sent the blade wide of an immediate kill, it made a hand length gash in my stomach. Not a death blow, but it was bloody. Furthermore, it was the first time since I was a child that anyone had hurt me bad enough to draw blood. It made me very angry.

However, I was also doubled over in pain. Tears welled up in my eyes. My concentration was shot. The director reached down, grabbed me by my short platinum hair and pulled me up to my feet, his blade held right to my neck. "Here’s a target for you, Gomag!"

The crossbow twanged. I heard a thick wet impact and I turned to smile at the director. My protective sorceries had deflected the quarrel right into his upper abdomen. He gurgled and died as I dove behind a table.

Just when I smiled and thought that my luck might be changing, I heard the twang of the crossbow again and brilliant fiery pain exploded in my left shoulder. The table had interfered with the spells field, actually allowing the quarrel close enough to do harm. I let out a quite unmanly cry of agony and looked down to see the bolt’s point peeking through my shoulder, dripping blood. Sweat ran down my face in rivers as I sang a small chant to lessen the pain. White hot rays of pain enveloped me as I scooted forward to remove the offending projectile. I turned on my hands and knees, tears streaming from my eyes. I could barely see but I needed to act quickly.

Gomag was coming for me. "Ha! You are almost done for." He had reached the table and was side stepping to bring me into view, the bow lifted to his eye. "Here let me end your misery.

With my face twisted away in anticipation of the quarrel ripping through my head, I raised a hand less than an inch from the waiting bolt. "Incana revundus."Gomag fired. The bolt exploded on impact with the field at my palm . The thick string snapped and sliced through Gomag’s face. He staggered back, screaming and clutching at his ruined eyes.

About this time, Baldy was crawling to the front door. I intercepted him. He was damaged enough that it was easy to get the truth out of him. There were half a dozen slaves in the tiny hold beneath the platform, and I learned the names of more than a dozen slavers and their ships. But no sign of the the Bloodlash cult or the Soboré marauders. I had been set up. Now I was really angry.

I set the captives free and told them of safe places outside the town. The woman in chains was a courtesan from Falavesti City named Yolara. She thought I was her hero so she helped bandage me up while she told me about a double crossing scaliwag named Prather Lentin who had taken her on a "country vacation" only to blackjack her and sell her into slavery to pay off gambling debts. She had the courtesy not to ask why my torso was already wrapped up tight underneath my tunic.

I said, "It just does not pay to be a sucker for a handsome smile does it?"

She looked at me, touched my face and kissed me!

"You just take care of yourself, Renz." She sighed. She turned and offered over her shoulder as she left the warehouse, "Come and see me when you get to Falavesti City. We’ll paint the town."

***

"You should not have underestimated me, Davir. But unfortunately, you learned that a bit too late, eh?"

I was talking with the very disgruntled soul of Davir the innkeep. It was sitting on the bed beside his body. The reason the two were separated was probably the nine inch dagger stuck in the corpse’s chest. It was my first out and out murder, but I did not really feel bad about it. After all he tried to get me killed and almost succeeded. Not to mention the Soboré pendant I found in his coffers or the Bloodlash tatoo on his chest. Davir was the local Bloodlash contact but he would not talk and unfortunately neither would his spirit. It just glared at me with baleful, accusatory eyes.

Maybe my next stop would be more informative, although I should clearly be more careful about picking fights. I guess I was lucky to be alive. Or maybe it was just the magick.

In any case, I moved along shortly into the dark countryside. I left the note from Prather Lentin beside Davir’s corpse:

Mystery,
Please accept my apology for this unfortunate loss. I have only taken what was yours to ensure that you will meet me two days from now, the third night of the gibbous moon, at Heathron field. Here by moonlight we can discuss the matter further.

Prather

I just like to see everybody get what they deserve.