The Highwaymen of Bregan Dor

The Highwaymen of Bregan Dor

Aranthir VI

Night in the forested hills was a quiet, solitary experience. In the blackened shell of a watchtower sat a solitary wanderer. He was a of both human and elven blood, with short hair of dark brown and green eyes that glittered with the flames of his small campfire. Seated on a fallen stone, he idly stirred his small cauldron and listened to the wind in his pointed elven ears. Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted and far in distance came a wolf's howl. But Aranthir of Ildranon was not worried. Wolves feared fire, even ones grown as bold as those of Bregan Dor.

A populous and formerly prosperous river valley just fifty miles northwest of the king's city, the region was home to many of the kingdom's wealthiest families, which made it an attractive place for a mercenary such as Aranthir to seek work, at least in normal times.

Aranthir added a pinch of herbs to his little cauldron and impassively regarded the tower around him. its walls were blackened by smoke but spared the king's cannons. Whatever defenders had fled without a fight. Upon arriving as the sun fell, he had searched the tower ruins for food and supplies, but found nothing but rats. Still, the tower was sturdy enough to make a good place to sleep for the night, for it at least shut out the wind that howled through the hills. In the morning he would descend into the valley.

Outside, he heard his horse snort and whinny. Then came the scraping of its hooves in the dirt as it tried to escape the tether. Aranthir set aside his spoon and reached for a dagger sheathed in his boot. With his other hand he drew his longsword as he slowly moved toward the empty doorway of the watchtower. His horse continued to snort and scratch at the dirt until it suddenly stopped. Aranthir slowly and quietly opened the flashpan of his pistol, ready to fire.

There came the sound of someone shuffling in the dirt road. Aranthir cast a spell of protection about himself and peered around the stone doorway.

In the road crouched a robed and cloaked figure, two bony, four-fingered hands clutching a tall, gnarled staff. The figure was short and hunched, its hooded head pointed down. Aranthir stole a look at his horse, who was sleeping silently at its tether.

"Greetings, fellow traveler," Aranthir called. He stepped around the doorway enough to show his body and swordhand but kept his dagger hidden. The figure in the road slowly turned its face toward him. Its face was inscrutable in the darkness, hiding from even Aranthir's keen elven eyes. Two dim yellow eyes with cat's eye pupils stared back at him. Aranthir felt his skin crawl under its gaze.

"Hello to you, Aranthir of Ildranon," the creature rasped. Its voice sounded to Aranthir like the shuffling of ancient scrolls in a long-deserted library. Using its staff like a boatsman's punt, the creature hopped and shuffled a step closer to him. "What good fortune to meet you here."

"Have we met?" Aranthir asked. His eyes searched the woods around them for any other surprises.

"Many times," rasped the creature. "Might I share your fire?"

Aranthir thought it unwise to refuse. "As you wish." He waved to the interior of the hut and stepped back to allow the creature entrance. It approached with a strange sideways shuffle, its staff planted occasionally to allow it some stability.

Aranthir watched the creature with suspicious curiosity. He had never before seen such a creature, and its all-covering cloak made it hard to discern many features of it. The only skin it showed was on its hands and forearms, which were bony and withered, with a pale gray skin like that of a corpse. It hobbled to the doorway and paused. The hooded head lowered and the creature shook its shoulders like a dog coming in out of the rain before it stepped across the threshold.

Inside, it seated itself across the fire from Aranthir and laid the staff across its lap. Though the creature now stood barely more than an arm's length away, the face beneath its hood was completely shrouded in darkness.

"A warm fire on a cold night," it rasped. Aranthir said nothing, observing suspiciously with his weapons in hand. The lowered its face toward the fire, its shrouded face drinking the light and remaining frustratingly hidden by shadows.

"What brings you to my fire?" Aranthir asked after a pause. The creature did not immediately answer and instead stared into the campfire.

"I seek a gift," it replied after a long pause. "A gift of a ring."

Presently, a third eye flicked open in the creature's hood, roving independently from the other two as if it belonged to another creature entirely. Aranthir's grip tightened on his dagger.

"I see you wear a fine ring there," the creature rasped. It pointed to Aranthir's gloved hand, underneath which he did in fact wear a masterfully wrought silver ring set with a brilliantly cut sapphire. But the ring was fully hidden beneath the glove.

"You have the second sight," said Aranthir cautiously. Such sorcerers were never to be taken lightly, especially when encountered in circumstances as strange as these. The creature shrugged in response.

"In the valley below us, there is a man with a ring. He wears it always, but I have need of it."

"You want me to steal his ring from him? Why? For what purpose?"

"Steal it from him? No. I merely require it. It is a gold ring, set with three rubies in the mouths of dragons. Bring it to me at the ruined vineyard along the east road before the sign of the Hunter fades."

"You have not answered my questions. I am not a thief for hire. Who are you?"

"I do not ask you to steal anything. Merely to keep your eyes," its three eyes flickered as one, then locked onto him all together, "open." Aranthir still could not see a face, but he had the distinct sensation that it was smiling it him.

"You must at least tell me your name if I am to work with you?"

The creature was still and silent, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and the wind whistling through cracks in the tower's stone. Then it sighed. "I suppose you may call me Verinusa. If you must have a name."

Verinusa, Aranthir thought. An old elven word for merchant. But more than that, he knew. The word was an archaic one. He would have to look it up in a library sometime. If only so many had not just been burnt.

"Very well, Verinusa," replied Aranthir at length. "There are eight days left in the sign of the Hunter. What if I cannot bring you this ring before then."

"I do not plan for things that are not eventualities," replied the strange creature. "I have read the runes and I know things. Our meeting is merely to bring about such an eventuality. I thank you for the fire and the meal." Aranthir looked into his cauldron and saw that the oats and roots he had been boiling for dinner were still there. The thought of what this creature considered a meal set him even further on edge.

"I take my leave," the creature said in a voice that was suddenly silky smooth. It planted its staff in the dirt and levered itself to its feet. Then, shuffling sideways in its hunched posture, it passed through the door and out into the night.

Aranthir shook himself and went to the door to look after it. But when he looked out into the night, there was nothing there. Sword and dagger still at ready, Aranthir pulled his cloak tighter around him. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled again.

The following morning, down the hills from the ruined watchtower, a brightly painted coach bounced down a wooded road. On the front seat it carried a driver and a guard with a loaded blunderbuss. Two pages clung to handholds on the rear. And in the coach cabin rode Count Ilan Kasmarta, his steward Ailfein, and his daughter Laila. The two men had their heads buried in papers, and a bored Laila busied herself by looking out the window at the woods they rode through. Spring was nearly begun, and the winter thaw had receded early. In the woods beyond the road, Laila could see birds flitting from branch to branch, searching for the first flowers of spring. She brushed her long, honey-colored hair with an ivory handled brush as she tried to lose herself in the idyllic woods.

It made for happier thoughts than her father and his steward.

"Can we raise more money from the horse ranches?" Father asked, but Ailfein shook his head.

"The new tax has no one looking to buy, and if we stop collecting the tax, the king's men will notice. And won't you need those horses next year?"

"What about grain sales?"

"All our neighbors had strong harvests last year. The price of grain has fallen so low it's causing problems for the king."

"Not enough problems. His treasury is still full enough for another campaign. Damn it all..."

"And moving money around is difficult with these highwaymen running rampant."

Father sighed and looked out the window. They usually traveled with guards, but the financial ravages of war had left her father short of money and good men. Today they had chosen to travel fast instead of safe.

Still, Laila thought it might be romantic to meet the highwaymen. She often went incognito among the peasants near the castle, and they spoke of the highwaymen in glowing terms only. They were not the rapacious plunderers of her father's words, but instead were dashing, gentlemanly rogues who lived a life of adventure, always in keeping to their code of morals.

Yet Father was looking for mercenaries to exterminate them anyway.

"The sooner we can arrange the marriage, the better," Ailfein said quietly. Father gave him a significant look, but Laila heard them all the same.

"I don't want to marry the Viscountess' son. He is a boor, and stupid with his money."

"Then it is most fortunate for him that he has so much of it," Ailfein muttered.

"If his mother were not such a miserly coward, we could have kept our men afield long enough to force the king to a more lenient settlement," Father agreed. "But do not continue these protests, dear Laila. The marriage has been arranged and it will go forward."

"It is not official until the priests have approved it," she replied hotly. Father was in one of his moods again, but Laila had inherited his stubborn streak and could not back down from a fight.

"The priests will see it soon enough." Father did not look up from his papers. "We must keep everything between ourselves to avoid the king's spies. But once Lord Kaster returns from his mission to Calinad, you will marry him, and we will have his money on our side."

"I won't," declared Laila. "I'll marry someone else. I'll find a priest and have them do the rites, and ---"

"Laila!" Father snapped, at last looking up from his papers. He fixed her with a cold stare. "This is about more than your happiness. Our coalition against King Petarr requires sacrifices on all our parts. For without sacrifices, he will win, and obliterate our natural rights. The boy is a tyrant. He must be brought to heel, or replaced with his brother, or else everything we have is under threat. Do you understand?"

"Your natural rights... are not worth marriage to such a profligate fop of a man," Laila fumed. Her face was growing hot, even though the coach windows were down and a breeze blew through the forest.

"Foolish woman," Father growled. "You would doom your whole family to be paupers just to marry a pretty face."

"Sire," Ailfein broke in, "The Viscountess is still insisting on a dowry, and I fear we cannot meet her demands."

"Why should I bring a dowry?" Laila demanded. "He's the one with the money. Will I have to pay for the privilege of shackling myself to Lord Kaster?"

"The Viscountess will come around." Father was ignoring her, and that only made her fume the harder. "She will see that unity against the tyrant is more important than her dowry. We must have our soldiers, and she's the only one of us with any money left."

"Which speaks as much to her family's fortune as it does to how little she was involved in the first campaign," Laila spat. The Viscountess was perhaps the most contemptible lord or lady in the entire kingdom, and certainly the worst of her father's increasingly useless allies. "Why should I marry into a family that is likely to abandon you when things get difficult? Were you not six months ago cursing her absence at the Zanni Fords?"

"That is why we need the marriage," Father responded with even greater exasperation. The Viscountess would not dishonor a marriage alliance."

"I don't believe you. And I won't do it."

"You don't have to believe me. You will marry him and it will be proven to you. It must be proven to you. To us all."

Laila turned away and looked out the window. "I'll run away," she said quietly.

"Yes, dear," Father responded absently. The conversation lapsed after that, with Father and Ailfein returning to their papers as they desperately searched for any way to wring more money out of his estates. Meanwhile, Laila turned to thoughts of a life of adventure, far away from the viscountess' dreary castles and her obnoxious idiot of a son. She thought of the minstrels' tales and riding freely through the woods like a vagabond. Sleeping under the stars and the tree branches, never in the same place twice.

It all seemed so wonderful when compared to the life she had ahead of her.

From behind them came the sudden sound of hoofbeats. Laila heard the pages shout and the driver crack his whip. The coach jerked forward, the horses running at a gallop.

"What is it?" cried Ailfein.

"Highwaymen!" came the reply. Laila froze. Father reached for his sword. Their coach hurtled round a bend, then came to a sudden halt. Laila was thrown from her seat and landed in Ailfein's lap. The steward helped her up with an apologetic shrug. Hooves sounded outside the coach and Laila turned to the window to see a handsome man in a fine white coat ride up to the window.

"Terribly sorry about all that," the man said in a courtly accent. "We've made a bit of a mess of you all, haven't we?" Father was clutching his sword's hilt, but the man in white made no move toward his own. "Come now, good sir. Put your blade away. There's no profit for you in fighting us. Why don't you step out where you can see us?"

Laila and her father exchanged looks. With a resigned shrug, Father opened the door and Laila stepped out into the forest road.

Ahead of her, a tree had been felled across the path and behind it stood five men with bows. Behind the coach were five more men on horseback. All were well-dressed, well-groomed men in white coats and broad-brimmed black hats. Some of them even wore mustaches in the fashion that had been in vogue at court until the clean-shaven Petarr had cast everything into turmoil. Far from the gruff, menacing bandits of Father's nightly gripes, the highwaymen were all smiles. Just like the minstrels at the Red Griffon said, she thought.

"There now," said the leader as Father and Ailfein stepped into the road behind Laila. "We just wanted to stop your coach to retrieve some of our property you were carrying."

"And what might that be?" Father asked with narrowed eyes. His sword hung in its scabbard, but his eyes were nearly weapon enough.

"There appears to be a chest of silver on the back of your coach that bears my mark." The bandit pointed to a chest stowed between the pages' mounts and the body of the coach.

"I don't see your mark on it," Father replied.

"Aye, the red feather is my mark, sir," replied the leader.

"And you see a red feather on that chest, do you?" Father asked. In answer, one of the mounted highwaymen produced a bow and loosed from it a red-fletched arrow. It streaked between the pages, who both yelped in surprise, and stuck quivering into the oaken chest.

"As you can plainly see, that is mine," the leader said with a laugh. "Sirrahs, do be kind enough to hand it over, why don't you?" the pages reluctantly dismounted and unstrapped the chest from its place. The mounted highwaymen converged on them, pried open the chest and filed their saddlebags with pouches of silver.

"Listen here, you little shit," Father snapped. He stepped closer to the leader and pointed an accusatory finger at them, "You can enjoy this little lapse in order now, but it won't be long now before I've got you all up on scaffolds! I'll root you out and salt the fields you came from!"

The leader replied with an easy laugh.

"I think you've got enough enemies already, my lord. I'm doing you a favor. What would His Majesty think if he found all this money in your possession? Why he might think you were raising funds for an army, and did he not promise severe retribution on any lord who defied his authority again?"

"Don't think to threaten me, whelp. The king is but a boy. He won the first bout, but we are the land's most ancient nobility. He cannot hope to hold a crown when he denies us our natural rights and strips away our ancestral homes. Once he is dealt with," Father stabbed at the man's thigh with his finger, "It will be the end of your little game."

The leader was unmoved, but his attention was caught by something else. "I say, that's a fine ring you've got there. I think it used to be mine."

Father retracted his hand and looked down at the ring. It was a beautiful gold ring fitted with three gold dragon heads that each carried a ruby in their mouths.

"This ring? This was my father's ring, and his father's before him. You've no more claim to my ring than my daughter."

"That may be, but red is my color." Another red-fletched arrow streak past and stuck in the dirt at Father's feet. The leader held out his hand. His face a mask of fury, Father pulled the ring from his finger and thrust it into the outstretched hand. "All in a day's work!" the highwayman laughed as he slipped the ring onto his finger. He held it up to catch the sunlight streaming through the trees.

Father retreated to the coach, his face turning red with nearly apoplectic rage, and leaned in close to Laila. "You see why you must marry Lord Kaster? This is the kind of anarchy that Petarr's reign will unleash on us. Anarchy!"

"You care nothing for order," Laila accused, "This is just about your pride. You will sell me to anyone if it gets you back your ring and your pride."

Laila could see right away that she had struck home. Father's face turned an even darker shade of red. His hand lashed out and struck her across the face. She staggered and fell against the side of the coach, clutching her burning face. Tears welling up in her eyes, she looked up at her father, wounded.

"Sire!" Ailfein gasped. The highwaymen shifted uncomfortably, and their leader spurred his horse forward.

"Good sir, that is no way to treat a lady," the highwaymen called down from his saddle. Two of his fellows rode up to his side, hands on their sabers.

"Might we extend a helping hand?" the taller of the two asked. He was blonde and handsome, perhaps two years older than Laila herself, and his steel blue eyes soothed her burning face.

"You might," Laila said, extending her free hand. She stepped past her father to the handsome highwayman's side. "I find myself in need of rescue, sirrahs. Is there a gentleman among you?"

"Laila," Father warned, "don't you do anything foolish."

She turned back to him. "I told you I would run away." To the highwaymen she said, "A gentleman? Have you any?"

"Aye, I would be happy to rescue you, my lady," the blonde one said. "Captain?" he looked to the leader, who tilted his head from side to side.

"I don't see why not. You've a pretty face, and it would be nice to have some new blood around the camp."

"Laila!" Father roared in fury, accompanied by a scandalized "my lady!" from Ailfein. But Laila paid them little mind. Thrusting one foot into the handsome blonde man's stirrup, she swung herself up into his lap and threw an arm around his neck.