Chp 3: Easy Come, Easy Go: Jax (Patreon)

The raid should have gone well. I'd paid all the right people to make certain of it. A few coins to a certain broke guard and a couple of farms had been left unpatrolled on a particular day. A farmer who had stayed home from market day getting in a lucky hit with a scythe would have been within expectations. I’d padded my gang with new faces to compensate for just that. Nothing went to expectation.

It had been going well, no farmers or even dogs to contend with. A nice peaceful day of ransacking homesteads for whatever took our fancy. That had lasted for a few hours after sunup and I’d been in such a good mood that I hadn’t burned anything. I didn’t often pass on that. I found the way the flames consumed a house pleasing.

With a head full of how to spend my spoils I was hardly paying attention by noon when disaster arrived. A yellow-painted wagon was lumbering along pulled by oxen flying the King’s banner. Seeing it, I swore viciously. My lovely day was buggered in the ass by a tax collector and the elite guards protecting him. I hesitated a moment then, trying to see whose banner flew beside the Kings as an official escort.

If it had been the Mayor’s men I’d have settled for the loot in hand and been off without much fuss. Maybe a parting shot from my bow as a fuck you for not keeping the deal. Had it been the local Baron I’d have hurried off, not wanting to deal with the trouble of well-trained troops. They were a headache, but as long as my band made haste we’d be fine.

It was then that a bit of a breeze kicked up and caused the limp twisted banner of the escort to right itself. A red fist clutching crossed arrows that were breaking was revealed and I felt my stomach drop. The sigil of house Savex, Earl of the province, glared at me.

“Ditch everything!” I shouted, cutting loose a heavy bag of random silver cutlery and candlesticks from my saddle. I was off faster than an arrow from my bow, not bothering to worry if my band would heed me. Taking the breath to give them a warning was courtesy enough in my book. It took them a minute to realize the danger, but they were as quick once they did and caught up to me in half an hour.

“Jax! Where are we going?” Someone demanded. Probably one of the new idiots. They were always full of useless questions.

“A hideout,” Philip, a veteran of the group shouted back. He was one of my best men. Not for strength of arms or intelligence, but because he was always there to scream at anyone who questioned me. His faithful belligerence gave me time to wrack my brain in silence for just such a thing.

On another day we’d have gone to one of my usual hiding spots but with the Earls men in pursuit none of them were safe. Earl Savex was known for two things; fairness and brutality, and not in equal measure. Rapists lost the pleasure of pissing standing up, petty thieves lost a hand, arsonists were burned, and so forth. The trouble being that men of a criminal disposition might be any mixture of two or more.

Another authority would likely split the difference and just give a single sentence for the worst of the crimes. Savex was an exacting fellow in that regard. All punishments would be rendered. Some claiming he even went so far as to resurrect the condemned if they qualified for more than one death sentence. Facing such a man, you didn’t have friends. Even the most hardened of my normal associates would roll over like a puppy and whine for mercy. Not for want of hardness or hatred for the ruling class, but out of self-preservation.

Heading generally in the direction of the mountains we rode into the night. Our only stop to feed and water the horses. We’d gained a running lead and had to keep it but couldn’t risk losing any of them. There would be no replacing even one as we rode deeper into the wilds. Fortunately, I always planned ahead. Once the horses were seen to, I called for a cold camp.

“Won’t do to fall off your horses, lads,” I chided when they all balked at the idea of sleep. To help them along I passed round a waterskin I’d filled with cheap brandy. It took them a while but soon enough they bedded down.

The new ones anyway, my trusted fellows stayed up as “first watch”. They counted three in total, Philip, Durst, and Tip. We’d been together since our boyhood days. Mugging sailors and whoring in Callem Bay until we decided to become professionals.

They knew what I was about in calling for a watch rather than handing out assignments. Giving the horses several hours to rest we passed the time with a game of cards. When the horses were ready, and the new men were fast asleep the moon was starting to climb. It gave us just enough light to work by. Even the lightest sleeper lay like a stone. A touch of sleep draught in the brandy I had passed around sending even the most nervous of them off to sweet dreams.

Slitting their throats was the work of a few minutes. Each of us took an extra horse and laid a dead man across the saddle of those we didn’t need. We let those loose to go their own way. The remaining bodies were cast into the river, Tip pushing them out to the center, so they’d be swept along. With luck, they’d be carried past our pursuers before morning and go unnoticed.

Once the horses were ready, we sent them off into the woods, heading toward the mountains. Tamed creatures would not willingly go that way, so we were certain not to wander into the loose horses. We kept to hard earth and old paths that were less likely to show signs of our passage. I hoped the trick would cause our pursuers to be put off our trail or split their force to search for us. Anything that might give us a fighting chance of escape I would gladly do.

The second day we paused only to change our horses. I was uncertain if we were still followed and unwilling to chance it. It was near noon before the terrain began to change. Coming out of the thinning woods, into grasslands that grew patchy, we found ourselves looking at a narrow belt of coral pink.

Unfamiliar with the area I expected foothills and forest leading up to the mountains. Instead, I was met by sand. Beyond the sand were spires and bands of stone that formed countless paths and made a mournful sound in the wind.

“Looks haunted,” Tip mused as we took a break to water the horses at a shallow stream. It might be the last water we saw for a while and we filled every canteen we could. Hills rose up above the strange stones and the mountains towered above those. They felt impossibly distant but I considered that favorable.

“Better than getting burnt and brought back to hang. Or the reverse,” Durst offered and Tip nodded. Neither of them bothered saying anything about what direction we would go. That was mine to decide and they would follow. I had been the leader since I knocked out Tip’s front tooth with an iron rod in a bit of savagery. My cunning and thoughtfulness winning me the crown of leader rather than my strength.

There were only a few hours of sunlight left when we reached the great stones. They had looked reddish from a distance, but close up they were orange and pink in varying bands with a crystalline glitter to them. Like sea glass, they felt soft despite being stone. Pleasant to touch when I caressed one out of curiosity. I’d never seen anything like it before. Wonder came over me as I noticed how it glowed, light passing through its thinnest parts.

Growing up along the coast and reeving the midlands I had little understanding of what I was seeing. The tunnels and gorges we rode down twisted and turned strangely, branching in what seemed an endless maze.

We spent a day lost, our water ebbing with every mouthful. I resolved myself to kill Durst once my canteen was at a third. I had a spare, but it would be better to take his. Tip and Philip would continue on with me, better supplied. Durst had a habit of panicking when things got sticky.

Looking around I wondered if I could find a snake to put in his bedroll or something fairly painlessly lethal. He was one of the few people I would have spared the thought for. I didn't count anyone dear, but he was as close as anyone could be to me. They all were and I knew Tip and Philip would appreciate the gesture. None of us were sentimental but death was a thing best given gently to a friend.

They were likely running a similar calculation in their own minds. Of when they’d kill me or someone else to gain more water or for getting them into the situation. On another day I might have resented the idea, for the moment I just sighed. If things went wrong, we’d all be dead one way or another soon enough.

Since there hadn't been many options and they knew the care I put into our work they didn't mutiny. A thing I was thankful for as the trail twisted around on itself. No matter which way we went we ended up oriented toward the mountains eventually, but it was still daunting. Getting lost in a waterless hell of stone would be a shit way to die. One bad enough that I thought it might come down to us killing each other as mercy rather than to survive.

We drank lightly and kept our pace at a walk, sleeping a night in a small cave. My canteen was at the halfway point when we finally left the maze late the following day. There was no transition. One moment we were fearing we were hopelessly lost, the next riding out under the pale sunset into a sandy valley. I shared a look with Tip and Philip, only Durst who was in the lead left out. It left me wondering which of us would have gotten him first despite my resolve.

The Valley was a narrow thing born in the hills above that sloped down sharply. It wouldn’t have been usable to cross them, but we didn’t care. All that mattered was the river running through the heart of it. Thick with cane plants it ran clear and true to form a small lake.

I’d never felt such relief to just see water. Growing up surrounded by the sea, I'd taken it for granted, and I swore to myself I never would again. Taking the horses to the lake we let them drink freely and feed on the grass that grew along its border.

There were no trees of any kind around the lake, just grass and reeds. It wouldn’t be enough to hide in if the Earl’s men caught up to us. A thought I found luxurious after trying to decide how bad things would have to get before I killed myself. Or asked Tip to do the honors.

He'd never begrudged me for the tooth but I'd noticed how he'd fallen in the regard of the whores of Callum. They valued good teeth and I'd sent him tumbling from the cock of the walk to above average. That was the sort of debt a man ought to keep in mind and I knew he liked killing. It would have been fitting to let him end me.

“I think I see a house,” Tip announced suddenly, pointing toward a house like a shadow in the fading light. It was dark when we arrived, and less a house and more an old stable. Why exactly was there a stable standing and nothing else? I didn’t care, it was slightly defensible and gave us somewhere to sleep that wasn’t out in the open.

When we made our way in we lit a small lantern. Stables, it turned out, wasn't the right sort of building though there was a stall. It was more like a small warehouse that backed up to an old mine. We barred all of the entrances and tied bells to them. Even if the Earl employed someone who knew how to sneak in they'd likely miss that trick.

Disinterested in all things stone we didn't bother with the mine. Instead, we found some old but fairly clean hay and settled in for some sleep.