The Age of Heroes Read online

  “Just a moment more of that.”

  “It’s always just a moment more. A minute more. A day more. Can’t you dwarves ever just be done with something?”

  “We’re done with that statue over there, sir.”

  Rawk looked. Another statue, not far away, that had been polished very recently. There was a crow on top, having trouble gripping as it tore at a piece of bread.

  “And we’re done with the uneven cobbles by the fountain. An old lady tripped on them yesterday and gashed her knee.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There’s always more work to be done and never enough people to do it.”

  “Unless you’re a Hero.”

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Never mind. Just finish the work and leave me in peace.”

  “We never stopped, sir, we never stopped.”

  And he was right. After his initial greeting, the dwarf had started to scrub again and hadn’t let up since, as if making up for the five seconds he had wasted. The others had not even slowed.

  Rawk was about to move on when a shadow fell across his position.

  “Good morning, Rawk.”

  “Waydin. Are you following me?”

  “That would be stupid. You know my face too well.”

  “I was just thinking that myself.”

  “We have other people for that.” Waydin smiled but Rawk looked around, wondering.

  “Are you sure nobody is following you?”

  “I have a cover story.”

  “Out with it then.”

  “Weaver’s sending Hawk Squad into the Old Forest to look for more of your trolls.”

  “Hawk squad?” He was taking it seriously then. “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Do I get paid for this spying?”

  “I’ll organize something for you.”

  “Thanks. Also, I’ve been sent to let you know that today’s lunch is at the Mermaid’s Tail.”

  “Really? Today?” And, even worse, it was a sailors’ tavern. Even the steak would taste like fish.

  “Codename Besh. He’s a sailor that came in on one of those ships today.”

  “Of course he is. So, wait a minute, you’re getting paid to walk down here by me and by Weaver? Good work if you can get it.”

  “You didn’t recruit me as your spy because I’m stupid.”

  Rawk grunted and watched as Waydin walked away. They weren’t going to find any more of the trolls. The book was pretty clear; they wouldn’t stand near each other long enough to all get through a portal. “That’s no reason to let Hawk Squad take all the glory.” He flexed his arm, wincing at the pain.

  But before he even worried about trolls, he had to make it through lunch.

  -O-

  The Mermaid’s Tail was a squalid little place right on the edge of the river. How it continued to occupy such prime real estate was beyond Rawk. And why Weaver would want to go anywhere near it was even more mystifying.

  Rawk was early. He stood in the door for a moment, taking in the stench, and decided he would wait out on the porch. He sat down and the bare-footed old man on the next stool gave a small nod of greeting. Then the two of them sat in companionable silence for a while.

  “You don’t ‘member me, do you?”

  Rawk turned to look. “Should I?”

  The old man took his pipe out of his mouth and tapped it on his hand before examining the bowl. “Up to Falangoon, about twe’ny fie years ago. You were after a sky-drake and—”

  “And you got it before me. Of course I remember. How could I forget?” Rawk sat back and leaned against the wall. “Pick Karden.”

  The old man smiled. “Tha’s me. Tha’s me all right.”

  “I didn’t know you lived down this way.”

  “Been here about fie years now.”

  Rawk wondered if ‘here’ meant on the porch of the Mermaid’s Tail. “How long you been out of the business?”

  “How long? You kidding? Quit not long a’er we met. Was too ol’ even then, I reckon.”

  Rawk grunted. “How come, all of a sudden, everyone’s telling me I should retire?”

  Pick looked at him. “Ne’er said nothing.”

  “Maybe not, but you suggested it. How old are you?”

  “Now?” He grunted and pulled on his long white beard. “Reckon I seen sisty-fie summers.”

  Sixty-five? He was ten years older than Rawk but he looked ancient. “So you were too old at forty?”

  Pick shrugged. “You and me is diff’rent people. And times is different. It ain’t like it used to be.”

  It was Rawk’s turn to grunt. “So you’re saying if there were any real monsters left to fight I would’ve quit years ago?” He wondered if that was the case. If he had to go out fighting harien trolls every week would he do it? Or would he be sunning his toes on the porch of some seedy tavern, waiting to tell a tale or two?

  Pick pointed down the street. “Well, was nice ca’ching up.”

  Three ‘sailors’ were making their way towards the tavern. The outer two men of the little group walked like soldiers. The man in the middle walked like someone who’d once heard a description of how sailors walked and had then decided to try walking like the saltiest sailor who’d ever walked.

  Rawk sighed and shook his head. “It certainly isn’t like it used to be.”

  Pick laughed.

  “Besh,” Rawk called as Weaver got a bit closer. He rose to his feet and waved. “Never thought I’d see you around these parts. Not after last time.”

  Weaver looked stunned.

  “Did you visit the whore again or think better of it?” Rawk didn’t normally go in for the whole undercover thing at all, doing only what was necessary, but it was worth it this time just to see the look on the prince’s face.

  “Ahhh, Rawk.” He straightened his cap. Rawk could see him thinking furiously. “No, I haven’t seen her. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her I was here.” He was so flustered he didn’t even think to use his terrible accent until half way through the sentence.

  Rawk smiled some more. “Can I buy you and your friends a drink?”

  “Of course you can. You can buy us lunch as well.”

  “Come on then.”

  Rawk paused in the doorway, hand on the hilt of his sword, silhouetted against the noon light. He pretended to look for a seat, but in reality he was blinking away tears as the fumes washed over him again. He coughed and stumbled inside, assuming Weaver would have organized a vacant table down the back somewhere. The taproom wasn’t all that large but half the city seemed to be crammed in there. Rawk squeezed between the tables. He knocked off a man’s klemper hat with his elbow and couldn’t retrieve it because he couldn’t find enough room to bend down. He apologized as he continued deeper into the madness.

  There was a small island of calm down the back of the room. One table guarded by two hard eyed men who probably hadn’t ever set foot on a ship in their lives. When they saw Rawk they downed the last of their drinks and rose to their feet and moved to stand nearby as if giving up the table was all very reasonable.

  Rawk gave them a nod and sat himself down. Weaver joined him a moment later as his two companions took up positions on the other side.

  “You couldn’t find somewhere quieter, Besh?” Rawk asked as he sat down.

  “I like it.”

  “Really?” Rawk doubted the owner of the Mermaid’s Tail liked the place very much. “What’s that smell?”

  “All right, I’ve never been here. I picked it at random.”

  “It’s a bloody sailors’ tavern, Besh.”

  “How was I to know?”

  “It’s called the Mermaid’s Tail and it’s right beside the wharves.”

  “Well, yes. Obviously. But there are sailors’ taverns and there are sailors’ taverns.”

  “Well, next time don’t pick either of them; I don’t care how many ships have come in. Farmers are nice sensible people and there always lots of them around K
atamood. Even merchants, for Path’s sake.”

  “All right. Enough. So what are you going to eat?”

  Rawk sighed. “I’ll just have some fish.”

  “What sort?”

  “Cooked, preferably. They all taste the same to me.”

  Weaver shook his head, but raised his hand to get the attention of a server. That was never going to work, so after a moment he called one of his minders and sent the man to find food.

  Rawk sat back while he waited.

  “I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day,” Weaver said.

  “Which one?”

  “About going back to the old days. I thought I could take a vacation.”

  “You want to take a vacation?” Rawk raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes. The two of us could get on a ship and go somewhere I won’t be recognized. We could go somewhere far from here and find some exots to kill.”

  Rawk laughed before he realized Weaver was serious. “You’re kidding. First of all, it would probably take us a week to get far enough to be guaranteed to find anything to kill. And even then, it might take us a week to find anything. Then a week to get back, if you haven’t gone and done something like lose your arm.”

  “So?”

  “So you want to leave Katamood for three weeks, minimum? You want to put some flunky in charge while there are trolls and fire sprites and wolden wolves all over the place?”

  Weaver rubbed the tip of a finger on the greasy table-top. “That wasn’t a wolden wolf.”

  Rawk sighed. “And your bloody canal is almost done.”

  “But think of the stories we could tell, Rawk. Battling ferocious beasts. Camping out under the stars. Just the two of us and a camp fire.”

  “And mosquitoes. And leeches. The thing about the old times is that they are always good. We joke about sleeping under trees and stealing eggs and whatever else as if we would do it all again if it meant having the battles and the camaraderie again.”

  “And the sex.”

  “But we don’t mention the sleeping in mud and standing in chicken shit in our tales, except as a bit of comic relief, because the public doesn’t want to know about it. And I don’t either, Weaver.”

  “But—”

  Rawk held up a hand. “Everyone keeps telling me I should grow up, even old Pick out on the porch, but I already have. This is a grown up version of a Hero. I don’t need to sleep in barns, so why would I? I can sit in Katamood, kill some rats and fire sprites and the occasional, actually-dangerous thing if I have to. The rest of the time I can complain that there is nothing for a Hero to do.”

  “You don’t really want that.”

  “It’s the best of both worlds. And the public love it.”

  “But... The good old days.”

  Rawk grabbed his plate of fish from the serving woman and thumped it down on the table. He hurt his arm. “There are no good old days, Weaver. There are just the days that have gone before.” He pulled out his knife and fork and ate his fish in silence. It was disgusting.

  Five minutes later, Weaver still sulked, poking at his food and sighing loudly for anyone who wanted to listen.

  Rawk sighed too.

  “Do you ever regret it?”

  “What?

  “The whole ‘Prince’ thing.”

  “Of course. My days on the road with you were the best of my life. I never wanted to give that up.”

  “Then why did you?”

  Weaver threw down his fork. “By the time we were twenty years old you were already on your way to being a great. I was good, better than just about anyone left these days, but if I stayed with you I was always going to be your side-kick. I was going to be incidental to the story, no matter what the truth was.” He shrugged. “And even if I struck out on my own, I was always going to be compared to you.”

  “So you became a prince?”

  “I wanted to be your equal, and I could never do that as a Hero.” He spread his hands. “As a prince though...”

  “Lucky there was a city that needed saving then.”

  “Exactly. If I hadn’t come along Katamood would be nothing more than a squalid pirate haven by now.”

  “Now it’s a lovely pirate haven.”

  “Are you calling me a pirate?”

  “You certainly take a lot of money from the owners of ships. And I imagine you’ll be trying to take even more soon.”

  Weaver smiled and gave a small bow from his seat.

  “You are a better pirate than I could ever be,” Rawk said. “And speaking of money, did you ever pay me back?”

  “For what?”

  “I loaned you the money for those mercenaries.”

  “Of course I paid you back.”

  “You’d better hope so. The interest would just about send you broke.”

  Weaver smiled some more. “Not even close. In fact, you may want to go find something to kill so you can start to catch up.”

  “Says the man who rigged the game in his favor.”

  “I do what I can.”

  -O-

  Rawk wandered along the river with no thought as to where he was or where he was going. After the stench of the Mermaid’s Tail the stench of the waterfront came as a welcome relief. He wasn’t feeling well—he blamed lunch—so at least there was a breeze, even if it smelled of mud and mold.

  Across to the south of the river, ships were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder and men, women and dwarves were working frantically to transfer cargo. Everything on the docks seemed to happen at a breakneck pace. Rawk could remember when that had excited him, the sounds and sights and smells of a dozen lands. Now it just left him exhausted. Or perhaps that was lunch as well.

  This side of the river also had ships, but not as many and their cargoes were the sort that nobles would not find offensive. Silk from the south. Iron from the north. Haketain from even further north. Much of it would be transferred to wagons and portaged across to Westport so it could be loaded onto more ships and taken further still. But Weaver would collect his taxes and all would be right with the world. Except now there was the canal and dwarves and...

  Well, there were going to be dwarves one way or the other. They were the ones who did a lot of the work on the wharves. And Rawk supposed he didn’t mind. As long as he didn’t have to do it. A life lugging cargo from ships to wagons and wagons to warehouses was the very thing he had run away from when he was fifteen years old. He wondered where he would be if he’d stayed, working beside his father. His knee and back and arm would still be aching, just for different reasons. He wouldn’t have half as many interesting stories to tell, but perhaps he would have somebody he wanted to tell them to.

  Most importantly, he’d probably know where his father was.

  Rawk sat on a wooden post that had once been used to tie up ships and was now nothing more than a salt encrusted, iron-banded decoration. He closed his eyes and breathed.

  When he was younger he’d returned home every couple of months. His mother had died when he was barely walking and his father had simply disappeared between one visit and the next. One neighbor said he had died. Another said he had moved away south with a woman from Falangoon. Rawk had looked for him, but the world was a big place. Yardi had always been there.

  He sat for a while longer, wondering if he should have made a bigger effort to find out what had happened. His father had been a rough, awkward man, but he had done his best, and Rawk supposed that he hadn’t turned out too bad.

  “Rawk!”

  Rawk opened his eyes and looked around. A man dashed down the street towards him, waving his arms as he dodged through the crowd.

  “Rawk.”

  Rawk sighed. “Yes? What is it?” Someone he didn’t know talking to him as if they were old friends.

  “You must come.” The man stopped close by, heaving in air. He held up a hand as if stopping Rawk from filling the void in the conversation. “There’s a...” He put his hands on his knees as he tried to breathe. “Th
ere’s a demon.”

  “A demon?”

  The stranger nodded.

  “Then surely you need a priest, not a Hero.”

  The man ignored the statement. “It isn’t far.”

  “Then why can’t you breathe?”

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  “Did you try the barracks?”

  “But you don’t go there.”

  “Soldiers do.”

  The man gave him a strange look.

  Rawk looked around. People were watching. People were always watching. But a demon? He swallowed. “Oh, all right then. Hurry up.”

  As he followed the man, Rawk tried to think. He had Kult with him but there were probably a dozen other things that would have been handy. Like a priest, if it really was a demon.

  Further to the east and three blocks back from the river, at the end of a little dead end street, there was a wide, squat house that was shouldering aside the taller buildings around it like a dwarf among elves. A crowd had gathered at a safe distance and were talking quietly as they listened to the wild, gut twisting screech of... something. As Rawk approached a tall gangly man broke away from the others and rushed over.

  “Thank Path you’re here, Rawk.”

  “It’s your house?”

  The man nodded and sucked on the place his front teeth should have been.

  “And you saw this demon?”

  He nodded. “I think so. Maybe. It’s in the roof. I heard a noise up there and stuck my head up through the access panel.”

  “And you saw it?”

  He nodded. “Yes. It darted away into the shadows and started with the wailing.”

  “Right. And you thought it would be a good idea to get me?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to send for a priest but young Lasten said you were the man to talk to.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Are you going in?”

  Rawk looked up at the building. The whole place was in shadow. One of the dormer windows was open a crack. “Why have you got windows in the roof if there are no stairs to get up there?”

  The man shrugged. “I didn’t build the house. Maybe they were going to extend.”

  “Right.” Everyone was watching him. Of course they were. Could they see how fast his heart was beating? Could they see the sweat? He wiped his hand on his trousers. “Path. Where’s the access panel?”