27. [Uicha] Trickshot (Patreon)

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Uicha de Orak, a young man of no renown or loyalty, a sight for sore eyes

Trick Longblossom, a man of no renown, village of Ambergran, heading in the opposite direction

Sara Free, Paladin of the 10th Renown, The Ministry of Sulk, doesn’t mind buying a few drinks

30 Hazean, 61 AW

The Briarbridge Tavern, in the grasslands outside Cruxton

240 days until the next Granting

“I don't suppose you would remember me,” the man with the crossbow said. “Every time I came by, you made it a point to hide behind your mother's skirts.”

Uicha squinted at the man in the stable's entryway. Dirty blonde hair peeked out from beneath his wide-brimmed hat, a scruffy beard splashed across slightly gaunt cheeks. The man had the sturdy frame of a farmhand, although his shoulders drooped like he'd recently lost some muscle mass, while a small paunch poked over his belt. As he stepped forward, Uicha saw the swaying wheat stalk on his neck—the symbol for Ambergran. 

Surprisingly, a name did pop into Uicha’s head. He remembered his father shouting it with laughter as the two got drunk together on the porch, keeping Uicha awake with their noise. 

“Trick, right?” Uicha said “Trick Longblossom?”

The man guffawed with delight, swung his crossbow across his back, and closed on Uicha with enough speed to startle the horses. He squeezed Uicha into a hug that left the boy's face pressed into Trick's musty armpit. 

“The damnedest thing to find you here,” Trick said. “The damnedest thing! By the gods, you're practically a grown man!”

Trick held Uicha out at arm's length, shaking him as if to confirm this wasn't a hallucination. His gaze certainly registered the blank space on Uicha neck, but he didn't seem bothered by it. 

“The Orak! Son of the Orak! Unbelievable!” Trick said. “I was planning to ride on but now I've got to spend another night eating the innkeeper’s seasoning-averse cooking. How's your bastard old man?”

Uicha's bewildered expression darkened. “He…”

“All right. Not yet. I see my answer by your face.” Trick released him and half-turned away. “A moment more to enjoy this happy coincidence, and then we can get on with it. The bad news I'm sure is coming.”

Trick slung his arm across Uicha's shoulders. Surprisingly, Uicha didn't mind the closeness. There was something about Trick Longblossom that reminded him of days gone by—days that Uicha was shocked to find he suddenly missed. 

“Come on, I'll help you get those horses settled,” Trick said. “We can pretend we're on our way to visit the ones who have gone ahead.”

***

Uicha's parents were dead, taken by the pink pox last year before the Granting. As far as Uicha knew, the entirety of the Longblossom family—Trick’s brother, his brother’s wife, and their two children—had been disintegrated during the annihilation. Uicha laid these facts out haltingly, his throat feeling tight. The last of the Longblossoms took the news with a stoicism that suggested he'd been expecting it. 

“Longblossoms have always been unlucky,” Trick said, as if that settled things. Then, he tossed back his sixth shot of whiskey, one each for his brother, sister-in-law, and nieces, plus two more for Uicha's parents. 

They sat in the Briarbridge's main dining room. Plates of venison, potatoes, and spinach had been pushed aside, reduced mostly to gristle and stems. With dinner done, they could really get into the drinking, which Trick made clear he excelled at. Uicha didn't bother trying to match him shot-for-shot and instead sipped tentatively at a beer. Sara, however, freshly bathed but wearing a hooded cloak to somewhat obscure her beauty, felt the need to answer Trick's every drink. Maybe the whiskey was a form of penance for her. A rosy flush had risen to her cheeks as the evening wore on. 

Noting another round down the hatch, the innkeeper sent his boy over to refill their glasses. Sara caught the young man's eye—easy since he was already staring. 

“All on my tab,” she reminded him. 

“You don't have to do that, umbo,” Trick said. 

Sara blinked as he used the form of address typically reserved for members of the Ministry.

“The least I can do,” she said. “Really.”

“There’s supposed to be a fiddler,” the innkeeper’s boy blurted out, as if desperate to get Sara’s attention back. “I don’t know where he’s got off to. It’s not usually this quiet.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Trick said with a smirk.

“That’s quite alright,” Sara replied politely. “Good conversation is enough for me.”

As the boy stumbled away memorizing the contours of Sara’s smile, Trick turned his attention back to Uicha. “Your father, now there was a man who knew good conversation. I used to say he was the only interesting man in Ambergran. The stories he could tell. Your old man had some yarns.”

Uicha scraped at a smudge of food on the tabletop with his thumbnail. ”He didn't tell me many.”

Trick patted his shoulder. “I still remember some, if you ever want to hear.” He leaned back and whistled. “Place won't be the same without him. Going to be a lonely time for your pal Trick.”

“You're going back to Ambergran?” Uicha exclaimed, looking up. 

“Shit, never thought I'd see the day, either,” Trick said. He made a nonchalant gesture toward Uicha's neck. “I always thought I'd be like you. But I could never shake off the Ink. Damn place must have its roots in me deep.”

“You shouldn't go,” Uicha said. Dire forces had converged on him in Ambergran, and unreasonable fear found its way into his words. “The Orvesians are still there…”

“I know it,” Trick said. “I'm going back to volunteer. Like your friend here.”

Sara nodded with an immediate understanding, but it took Uicha a moment to figure out what Trick meant. 

“You want to be a champion?”

“Want is a bit strong,” Trick said with a snort. “But someone has to do it, right? I was always a decent shot with a bow. That's why they nicknamed me Trickshot.”

“If you do return to Ambergran, I'd ask that you don't mention you saw the two of us,” Sara said. 

Trick glanced at Uicha. He hadn’t pressed at all why Uicha and Sara were traveling together and apparently wouldn’t. “I only talk loose to the ones I like, umbo, and most of them are dead.”

“My thanks,” Sara said. “And if you do take the Ink and we see each other again on Armistice, it will be as allies.”

“Well, that settles it for me,” Trick said with a grin.

“It shouldn’t,” Uicha muttered. He found himself deeply disturbed by the thought of Trick Longblossom, a man who he barely knew, going off to that island to die at the hands of Battar Crodd or Ahmed Roh. “Where are you coming from, anyway? Why can’t you just go back there?”

Trick made a soft laugh. “I’ve been in Noyega. Me and a couple others from the village went to make our fortunes at the casinos. That was three years back. Farming life never really ignited my passion, see? We were layabouts. I let my brother run our family's farm. I wasn't shaped for that kind of work.” He snapped his fingers. “You know, your dad offered me a job before I skipped town.”

“He did?”

“I told him I wouldn't seem so amusing when it was his coin I leeched off. Maybe I should've taken him up on it. Cleaned up my act, soaked up life with my nieces…”

Trick’s eyes went far away for a moment. Sara clicked her glass against his and Trick picked it up automatically, downing the whiskey. The innkeeper sent his boy over again. 

“I was sitting in Noyega's debtors’ prison on Wish Day, far from a fortune,” Trick said, exhaling through his nose. “The two men I'd set out with were locked up with me. One had his Ink change to the Noyegan dice. The other was still an Ambergranny, like me. We watched him turn to dirt sitting there between us.”

Uicha pushed a hand through his shock of hair. He’d never thought about how far Battar Crodd's wish must have extended. A resident of Ambergran sitting miles and miles away, with no idea what was coming, his life simply stopped.  

“Unlucky for both your friends,” Sara said somberly. 

“Better in a prison than a pile of dirt,” Uicha said. 

Trick and Sara exchanged a glance. “Probably you're right, Uicha,” Trick said. “But Noyega don't go easy on their debtors. They bleed them. Literally, I mean. And it don't get better once they get their Ink onto you.”

Uicha studied the man anew, reexamining the saggy skinniness in his shoulders, the hollows of his cheeks. “How did you escape?”

Trick chuckled. “I paid my debt.” He cleared his throat like he might cough, but didn't. “Paid more than I owed, I think.”

“The current High Minister of Sulk was once a Noyegan debtor,” Sara said. “The imprisonment is a practice he'd like to see stamped out.”

“Well, I'd like to be there when he does the stamping,” Trick replied. 

As Sara and Trick discussed Denavon Brunner, the Quill of the Ministry, Uicha's gaze drifted to the tavern’s other occupied table. There sat the contingent from Magelab, the ones who owned the impressive horse Uicha had encountered in the stable. There were three of them, too. The mage was a far cry from the frightening presence of Ahmed Roh. Uicha guessed he was in his twenties, his face smooth and round like a baby; the magic had not yet begun to eat away at him like it had Roh. He wasn't drinking, but sat completely engrossed in a pair of fat tomes, copying notes from one to the other. His minders, old enough to be the mage's parents but clearly not, were guzzling beers and playing an endless game of cards. Instead of the tome tattoo of the Magelab, these other two had a flickering candle tattooed upon their necks. 

“The mage's name is Erhan Teta,” Trick said quietly, catching the direction of Uicha's gaze. “Nice enough fellow, had dinner with him last night.”

“I saw his horse in the stable,” Uicha said. 

“Magnificent beast, no?” Trick said. “That's what he's out here studying. Horses. The effects of rune-work upon them. He told me all about it, but I can't say I was a good listener. You want me to make an introduction?”

The young mage had already politely nodded to Uicha, and that seemed like enough interaction for Uicha’s tastes. He did not want to garner further attention from a mage, no matter how harmless he appeared. For all Uicha knew, there could've been some kind of mental connection between the magic users. He made a point of leaning his chin on his fist in such a way that the blank space on his throat was hidden. 

“No, that's okay,” Uicha replied quickly. 

Trick shrugged. “Thought you might be interested in getting a tome or a candle for yourself.” At Uicha's puzzled look, Trick continued. “For your new Ink.”

“I don't even know who the candles are,” Uicha said. 

“They’re the ones with no aptitude for magic,” Sara said. Uicha detected a surprising disdain in her voice. “They live across the lake from the Magelab. In the last age, they kept tabs on the mages. Kept them in line. But now, they’re glorified servants.”

“Don’t worry, you wouldn’t be a candle,” Trick told Uicha. “As I remember it, your mother had a bit of talent with all that. They say the disposition is passed down.”

Uicha’s mouth hung open. “What?”

“Illusions, wasn’t it?” Trick said with a wave of his hand. “She didn’t much care for it, I don’t think. Loved that sword of hers, more. But your father used to brag how she could’ve gained entry to the Magelab if he hadn’t come along and seduced her.” He slapped the table. “The Orak! Fuck, I miss him.”

“Two pirates, one with a talent for magic,” Sara said, studying Uicha. “What were your parents doing in Ambergran?”

She didn’t mean anything by the question, but Uicha still felt the blood drain from his face. What were his parents doing in Ambergran? They were pretending to be a couple of dull retirees while hiding the ashes of a dead archmage on behalf of a second archmage who was very much alive and a real gods damned asshole.

“I’m sorry, Uicha,” Sara said, misinterpreting the distraught face he made. “I didn’t mean to dredge anything up.”

“It’s not that,” Uicha said. “They—“

He was about to tell them how his parents had left him with more questions than answers, when something heavy thumped on the roof above. Everyone in the tavern jolted and went still, looking up. Whatever had landed on the roof now slid heavily across it, knocking loose shingling on its way. Then, a second smacking sound, wet and crunchy and nearer—the thing had fallen off the roof and dropped to the ground outside the front door.

Sara was the first to her feet. “Innkeeper?”

“No idea,” the man replied.

Sara went to the door. The others followed.

Outside, on the doorstep, they found a man’s body. His limbs were twisted from the falls—first onto the roof, and then off it—but it seemed more likely to be the deep claw grooves in the man’s neck that had killed him.

“Did he… fall out of the sky like that?” the mage Erhan Teta asked, peering up into the clear night.

“Stand back, sir,” one of his candles replied.

The innkeeper’s boy looked like he might throw up. “That’s Pete. The fiddler.”

Trick leaned close to Uicha. “Your paladin, she stowed her sword behind the bar with my crossbow, right?”

Uicha nodded dumbly, blinking at the grim scene beyond the door. Trick went to retrieve the weapons.

“You didn’t mention dangerous wildlife when we paid for our rooms, innkeeper,” Sara said.

“Because we don’t have any,” the innkeeper replied.

Across the road, within the stable, the horses had begun to shriek. Erhan Teta made a squeaky cry and lunged for the door, but his candles held him back.

Uicha’s eyes were drawn to the roof of the stable. He made a noise in his throat and pointed, the others following his gesture. They all saw the beast then, backlit by the moon. The thing moved on all fours with a stout body like a pig and a pointed head that terminated in a formidable beak. Great bat’s wings unfurled from its back. The creature’s flesh looked like hard-packed clay mottled with specks of mud and rock.

“Gargoyle,” Sara said.

As they watched, a second creature loped out through the ajar doors of the stable, a severed horse’s leg held in its jaws.

And, for the first time in weeks, Uicha heard the voice of Kayenna Vezz.

My children, she whispered.