Throng of Heretics Read online

  D then left, and ten minutes later a grubby boy with three roses in hand appeared at Annette’s table in the lounge.

  Shortly after she’d returned to her room D called on her. This was exactly what Annette had been waiting for, and she was ready to launch into a tirade, but the second their eyes met her throat tightened and her brain began to seethe, yet at the same time she felt like her heart was in the grip of an icy hand.

  “He left happy,” the Hunter told her.

  Even then, all she could say in reply was, “Oh, really?”

  The Hunter added, “Get your stuff together. We’re heading out.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly. Wasn’t this young man the same person who’d sent her into that ordeal?

  Suddenly, she snapped. “You’re supposed to be watching out for me, aren’t you? Yet you barely let me get any sleep at all, and you set me up on a date with a filthy urchin. Oh, that was the worst time!”

  “Still, it was pretty long,” said D. “Thirty minutes. So he went away happy. Looks like you’ll remember it as long as you live.”

  Annette looked to the heavens. That kid—the person in charge of the lounge and others working there had popped their eyes and held their nose around the grimy boy—what was there about him to remember as long as she lived?!

  “That’s a joke to make my blood run cold, D. On the bright side, it’s over and done. I never want to see that kid again. And if he comes looking for a second date—”

  “There won’t be a second time. The enemy’s less than three miles from town. Get your stuff ready.”

  A terrible tension and shaking came over Annette.

  Beyond the window, the world was gently shaded blue.

  “The hawk came back, then?”

  D nodded. Then he told her, “And it died.”

  Annette thought even his tone seemed tinged with blue.

  Traveling Companions

  chapter 3

  1

  Though Annette rubbed her still-sleepy eyes and made a great show of saying how tired she was, the dashing young man in black would hear none of it.

  “You’ve got ten minutes to get ready. I’ll be waiting outside,” was all he told her before making a prompt exit.

  “How about treating me like a human being, you lousy employee?!” she snarled, hurling her pillow at the door D had left through a good minute after he’d gone.

  At any rate, she’d gathered her things and indignantly left the hotel when she was greeted by a chilling sight. D was over by the post the horses were hitched to—and she’d be damned if it wasn’t that malodorous kid he was talking to!

  On spying the stunned Annette, Pikk flushed crimson. He then stood bolt upright, and, scariest of all, showed her a white grin.

  It seemed as if enraged blood had risen to infuse each and every hair on her head. Hustling over, Annette said, “What are you two whispering about? D, you don’t seriously intend to let this kid—”

  D looked at her face, rather cute but trembling with rage, and said coolly, “Seems he’d like to go with us.”

  The blood her anger had heated cooled. Or rather, it froze.

  “That’s right!” the boy exclaimed, dealing the coup de grace with a jubilant face. “This town’s plumb run dry of hospitality. Hire me. It’s gonna be a long haul, right? I’ll find drinking water, hunt wild boar, or do anything! My rate’s a dala a day. A good man at an affordable price.”

  “That’s the gist of it,” D said.

  Annette scrutinized the faces of the two of them. Apparently they were serious. Could they be plotting to annoy her so much she’d turn neurotic, then force her family to pay a king’s ransom in medical costs? Annette had such a strong aversion to the boy—Pikk—that this sort of wild idea could gain purchase in her head. For starters, he still stank!

  “Not on your life!” Her brain was still seething with anger and loathing, and it was probably on account of that she spoke. “No way on earth are we taking that filthy brat along. And if you’re hell-bent on having him go, D, I’ll dismiss you right here!”

  “Seems like an overreaction,” a hoarse voice murmured with amusement somewhere.

  “And that’s the way it is,” D told Pikk.

  For a minute the boy sniffled a bit, but then he stood up straight, tucked one hand in his armpit, and started whispering about something.

  “Could be,” said D.

  At that point, the boy started whispering again.

  “Hmm, good point,” the hoarse voice then conceded.

  This called to Annette’s mind visions of a great-great-grandfather nodding his head sagely, and she stomped her feet, saying, “Stop your secret plotting!”

  She shouted that so loudly, stunned pedestrians stopped in their tracks.

  “Just as I thought,” Pikk said, nodding gravely.

  “Uh-huh,” the hoarse voice added.

  The boy’s dark face grinned at Annette and D, and he said, “I see. Okay, I give up. Still—”

  When he’d said that much, from down the street there were shouts of “There he is!” and shrill cries as a bunch of rough-looking guys dashed in that direction, bulling their way through the pedestrians and forcing wagons to come to a sudden stop. Each face was angry and wore the look of a huntsman who’d finally cornered his prey—or worse, they were deeply stained with the air of a carnivore.

  For a moment Pikk looked perfectly ready to run, but one glance at Annette and he quickly stopped.

  “The kid puts on a brave front,” the hoarse voice said with admiration. “Just so he can look good in front of a girl. He’s a man, all right.”

  Saying nothing, D gazed at the boy.

  Glancing once more at Annette, Pikk then quickly strode out into the middle of the street.

  “Taking care that we don’t get mixed up in this? Considerate little cuss.”

  There were six men. Rough faces, bull necks, arms and legs as thick as logs—and though they looked dimwitted, their bodies and faces seemed the result of a steady diet of hard physical labor and abuse.

  “The bouncers from Animal House, eh? Well, I’ll be damned. Not much of a match for the great Pikk, but I’ll give you a go!”

  Raising both arms easily, the boy made short, quick movements with his feet. Footwork. He had a remarkable boxing stance. As for how good he actually was—not one of the angry men showed any signs of stepping forward.

  In terms of size, they were literally adults against a child. The fight would probably come to an anticlimax as soon as they grabbed him by the arm.

  “Well, why don’t you come at me?” Pikk jeered, looking up at his foes. “Big lunks like you. Well, you won’t take me on one-on-one, will you? That’s ’cause you know full well what happened to your friends. But that girl used to give me candy, and after her time was up you kept her there under a phony contract. When she tried to run out, you ganged up on her and burned half her face off. After she went and killed herself, I avenged her. He was the one who pressed the hot iron against the girl’s face. So I put the hurting on the old man and his cronies. You wanna follow in his footsteps? You’re wastes of skin for even taking money from a shithole like that. Guess it’s only fair you get the same treatment!”

  Not surprisingly, after the preteen had rattled on that far, every speck of hesitation was blown to the wind, and one of the men looked over at D. Shrieking, Annette hid behind his black back.

  “And you, stay the hell outta . . .” he began menacingly, but the thuggish demeanor fell to pieces and the man was forced to avert his gaze.

  “So it’s one against six, maybe one against five and a half. A thousand dalas on the kid,” said the hoarse voice.

  Some people in this world had nothing better to do than sit on the bench by the hotel entrance watching people come and go, and one such idle individual replied, “I’ll wager a thousand on the six.”

  From the crowd that’d formed at some point there came further cries from men and women of “Me, too,” and “I�
�ll take some of that action.”

  “Okay, now, money. Let’s see your money,”

  As soon as the left hand reached out and extended its palm, those who’d spoken out thronged around—and when the crowd parted, the black-gloved hand gripped a thick wad of bills.

  “Act your age,” D said in a low, reproving tone, but he was wasting his breath.

  “What, it’s just a little diversion, all in good fun. Me and three of the townsfolk are the only ones betting on the kid. The other fifteen all have their money on the six. Travelers who don’t know the situation, I guess. Heh heh, this’ll be easy money!”

  Not even waiting for D’s next remark, the hoarse voice called out, “Okay, go get ’em!”

  Three of the men suddenly charged at the kid, one from either side of him and one from the rear, making for a rather odd fight. The boy would be crushed by the giants before he could do anything. That’s what everyone was thinking, but at that instant an impossible scene came to pass. Who should be crawling on the ground clutching their solar plexus, or knee, or crotch, but the giants?! Slumping forward out of necessity, the men’s bodies were exquisitely arranged so that each supported the others. The boy who appeared from beneath them to take a bizarre stance was greeted with cries of surprise from the crowd—and applause.

  “The squirt knows some martial arts, eh?” the hoarse voice murmured. The tone carried something more than admiration. “And strange ones at that . . .”

  The voice was drowned out by the buzz of the crowd. Three foes remained—and all of them were armed. One had a longsword, one a spiked club, and one an iron whip. Normally in a situation like this those a safe distance away would deride this as underhanded, but to the contrary, the crowd grew quiet because they all knew these men were truly out for blood, and the spectators were in awe of the skill of the boy that’d driven his opponents to this extreme.

  “Now things are getting interesting,” said the hoarse voice. “These three are old hands at the rough stuff—so, who would you bet on?”

  Miraculously, there was actually an answer. “The boy.”

  What happened next took so little time it was a snapshot of action faster than the average person could follow, though D saw it all quite clearly. First the spiked club swung at Pikk. The club itself was oak. But it bent like rubber. That little trick was to mess with the defenses of an opponent who was expecting a normal club.

  However, the boy deftly and quickly ducked below the curious blow. He didn’t flee, but rather slammed into his opponent’s chest. His palm made a light strike to his foe’s solar plexus, and the man’s sculpted abdominal muscles gave way like they were made of cake. As he collapsed, his body was still angled forward as when he’d swung his club, and the boy grabbed his foe’s crotch with his other hand, turned to the right with unbelievable speed, and hurled the man at the one holding the iron whip.

  Naturally the boy intended for them to collide, but the man with the iron whip didn’t hesitate to bring his weapon down on his compatriot. A snap! of struck flesh reverberated like a gunshot, and the man with the club was slammed against the ground.

  Apparently the boy had had a different aim. Still poised as he’d been when he’d thrown the man, he bounded off to his left—right next to the guy with the longsword. Surprised by an attack contrary to his expectations, the man with the longsword still managed to make a horizontal swipe with his blade as he moved to the right. The boy had more than sufficient time to duck his head just low enough to escape the slash. However, the sword blade ignored the law of inertia, stopping dead in midair, then dropping toward the boy’s head with less than a hundredth of a second’s pause. The longsword’s deadly blade, however, slashed only air.

  A thousandth of a second sufficed for the boy’s movements. Faster than the sword could make another slash, the boy’s foot shot up past the man’s chest like a splash from a raging river, sending him toppling back with a shattered jaw. Though his body reeled, the man didn’t drop on the spot. A black snake wound around him, as if he were only in the way, and flung him back a good thirty feet. It should be noted that such a distance was well in excess of the iron whip’s length, and this was a feat of ungodly skill.

  “Oh, so that’s how you use that iron whip, is it? It’s a special alloy. He went and left the worst for last.”

  “I reckon so,” the young man standing beside D said in agreement. He was mistaken. Shaking his tightly clenched fist, he said, “That whip fella goes by the name of Henshaw, and he’s started trouble before with me and my friends. Just watch him. Right there. There’s just no way of telling which way his whip’s gonna come at you.”

  A stout forearm was thrust out in front of D, and the flesh on the underside of it had been split like a pomegranate from the wrist to the elbow.

  II

  The man—Henshaw—had seen through the boy’s techniques. There was no room for horsing around. He meant to finish this.

  With a flick of his wrist, the two-foot-long whip stretched out to ten feet. Usually it whistled through the wind to strike his opponents before they could blink, whether coming down from on high, skimming across the ground at their feet, or arcing in from either side as he saw fit. It was impossible for his opponents to follow the tip of his whip.

  Henshaw chose a killing blow. He raised his whip to strike. That venomous serpent of steel was hidden from the boy’s field of view. The whip flew through the air with a searing howl, aiming obliquely for the base of the boy’s neck, but he dashed in the same direction to dodge it. Instead of striking the ground, the whip reared in midair like a serpent, taking aim once more at the boy’s neck.

  The boy stopped in his tracks.

  Looks like he’s given up, Henshaw thought.

  His whip definitely wrapped around the boy’s neck. However, a tremendous force pitched Henshaw forward. As he jammed on the brakes, his eyes caught sight of the boy standing right in front of him with the whip gripped in his right hand.

  When the hell did he manage that?!

  The instant that thought flashed through his mind his field of view was filled by the palm of a hand, Henshaw felt the shock of his nose being broken all the way to his brain, and he passed out on the spot.

  The victor of the six-on-one fight was greeted by cheers and unadulterated applause.

  “Okay—pay up now! Oh, thank you kindly. Hey, where do you think you’re going? You’re not getting away! Go on, pay up. Gambling’s a sport for gentlemen. Wait, damn you! Come back here!”

  Men who buttoned their lips and tried to dissolve into the crowd were caught by the scruff of the neck by D’s left hand, and when they turned to snarl an insult, one look at D’s face instantly turned them to putty, so that they dropped coins or wads of bills five or ten times their actual wager into his black-gloved hand.

  “Heh heh, money, money, money!” the left hand cackled, clutching a wad of bills when a little hand was casually extended.

  “What?”

  “What nothing. Those are my winnings, ain’t they? Fork ’em over,” the boy Pikk said intimidatingly. His chest was rising and falling like mad and he barely had enough breath to speak, probably due to the feat of super-speedy movement he’d just executed.

  “What are you talking about? This is what we—I mean, what I made gambling. Not so much as a thin—”

  The left hand stretched forward.

  “Take it,” said a steely voice.

  “Wh-what are you saying? That’s my—”

  “That’s what the kid earned through his hard labor.”

  D’s eye was trained on Pikk’s other hand. The boy must’ve torn off one of his sleeves, because a piece of cloth the same color as his shirt was wrapped around the hand, though blood was soaking through it. A result of grabbing the whip.

  “So, this is where that voice like death warmed over comes from?”

  Having finally taken notice, Pikk glared at the left hand.

  “I don’t know why, but it looks like you’ve got you
rself a cranky parasite. Is it really okay for me to take this money?”

  “It’s yours.”

  “I guess it is. In that case, I won’t be shy about accepting it!”

  The boy was in the process of stuffing the money into the pocket of his cotton trousers when a burly voice said to him, “I’ll take that.”

  “Sheriff?!”

  Resembling a bloated wineskin, the corpulent giant of a man had a gleaming gold star on his chest and a double-barreled shotgun tucked under one arm as he waddled over. Apparently the trip over from his office, wherever that was, had been a taxing endeavor, and without even bothering to mop the cascade of sweat from his face, he grabbed the wad of cash from Pikk’s pocket and tucked it into one on the chest of his shirt.

  “Aw, you can’t do that, Sheriff. I earned that fair and square.”

  “I realize that. And these here are damages, fair and square,” he said.

  Running his eyes over the sheaf of papers he was handed, the boy let his gaze linger on a few of them.

  “What are all these? The butcher, baker, grocer, saloon, cobbler, and a mess of others—these are all bills?!”

  “You betcha. It’s a tally of everything you’ve swiped up till now. And you’re getting a bargain at that. Now, get out of town real quick-like.”

  “Why?”

  First the lawman nodded, then he pointed to the six unconscious men and ordered a few of the reluctant-looking townsfolk who were still standing around, “Get ’em to the hospital.” On top of that, he barked at the rest to move along before lowering his voice and continuing, “The owner of Animal House has connections to all the right people in these parts. In two, maybe three days’ time, some fine-tuned killers and warriors will be here looking for your head. A little while ago I saw twenty or thirty messenger hawks taking wing from the roof of Animal House. Probably at the bidding of the owner’s wife.”

  “I ain’t running! I’ll stand and face ’em like a man,” the boy said, his chest puffed with anything but false bravado.

  Pulling a dour face, the sheriff said, “That’s all well and good for you, but I can’t have anybody else getting caught up in this. If anybody dies on account of you, either directly or indirectly, you’ll be getting a hell of a lot more than a week in the hot box!”