Grimdark Magazine Issue #9
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Grimdark Magazine Issue #9
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780994521477 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grimdark Magazine |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2016 |
| Series: | Grimdark Magazine |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 1 |
| File size: | 489 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Grimdark Magazine Issue #9
By Rob J. Hayes, Peter Orullian, Durand Welsh, John Hornor Jacobs, Filip Wiltgren, Teresa Frohock, Tim Waggoner, Adrian Collins
Grimdark Magazine
Copyright © 2017 Grimdark MagazineAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9945214-7-7
CHAPTER 1
A Length of Cherrywood
Peter Orullian
A Length of Cherrywood was originally published in Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries and Rogues from Ragnarok Publications.
Jastail J'Vache crouched behind a thick patch of scrub oak and watched the woman washing clothes in the river. She hummed a tune as she worked, alone, unaware of him or his highwaymen hiding in a rough circle around her. Beyond the thinning trees stood a wagon, a hundred paces away. Too far for anyone be of immediate aid. Jastail put a hand in his pocket, running his fingers over grooves in a short length of cherrywood. A reminder. Then, quite casually, he stood, revealing himself. 'Greetings, my lady.'
The woman's head snapped up. Her eyes wide.
'I've alarmed you.' Jastail began to skirt the low brush, moving toward her. 'My apologies. It's something of a hazard in my line of work, I'm afraid.'
Insensibly, the woman gathered in the wet clothes and got to her feet. Jastail offered a wan smile at that. Such value for clothes belonged to the exceptionally poor. She began to back away from him, in the direction of her wagon.
'Come, don't fret yourself. This needn't go hard between us.' He stepped into the shallow river, crossing directly toward her.
Just as she turned to run, he raised a hand and his men stepped from their concealments. The woman skidded to a stop, fell, and dropped the wet clothes.
Jastail reached the other side of the river as she scrambled to her feet and turned to face him.
'There, much better.' He put on a smile of reassuring approval. 'I think we have an understanding.'
The woman glanced down at the clothes between them. He followed her gaze. The clothes ... belonged to children.
Lawry, his newest man, laughed. 'A neat prize. The lady and her loinfruits, besides.' He nodded in the direction of the wagon.
Panic entered her eyes, and she shook her head. 'No. No! Marcus! Highwaymen!'
The alarm echoed through the woods around them. And a moment later the sound of hurried feet came pounding through the brush.
'Oh, my lady.' Jastail sighed. 'If you'd only had a bit of patience. Now we've a hero to deal with. Let's hope he's sensible.'
Jastail maneuvered around her, putting himself between the woman and her would-be rescuer. He drew his sword, holding it at an unthreatening angle. This Marcus came into view, and caught sight of the woman surrounded by Jastail's men.
The man held a smith hammer and a shoeing knife — he'd probably been tending his horse — and slowed as he surveyed the odds.
Good, at least he can do math. 'Let me explain what you're seeing,' Jastail began, planting his sword's tip in the dirt and leaning on it. 'Your lady here was washing clothes in the river. Not usually a dangerous task, I'll admit. But today, it's bad fortune for you that we are here.' He gestured with his other hand at his men.
'You won't be taking her.' Marcus flipped his knife into a backhand grip — a pit fighter's grip.
Why couldn't I, just once, meet a man who sews or bakes?
Jastail bent and lifted a pair of trousers from the pile of wet clothes. 'And who's going to watch the owner of these while you fight for your woman's honour?' Worry crossed the man's face, and he cast a glance back toward the wagon.
'Dead gods,' said Lawry, 'let's get on with it.'
Jastail's new man — first time on the road — started off to gather the little ones.
'Hold there,' Jastail ordered, then fixed his attention back on the woman. 'I need your help,' he said with endless patience. 'Marcus here is about to do an honourable thing. He wants to protect you from us. Perfectly understandable. In his place, I'd want to do the same. Love makes fools of us all. It blinds us to our real chances. It blinds us to the harm our heroism might do to others.' He shook the wet trousers in emphasis.
'You want me to tell Marcus to let you take me.' The woman's voice came with the monotone of the beaten. 'You want me to tell him not to fight. Then you'll leave my family alone.'
'Jastail?' It was Lawry, incredulous at the suggestion being made.
'I don't take more than I need,' Jastail replied, and dropped the pants. 'And remember we have a specialty.' Women — "wombs" — who can breed. The little ones were both boys. He knew it by the clothes at his feet.
'The hell with that,' Lawry exclaimed. 'There's thirty full marks a head sitting back there. Easy pickings. If you won't take them, I will.'
'Excuse me,' Jastail said, raising a finger to the woman as he slid past her toward his new man.
He gestured for Lawry to join him in a short walk away from the others. Twenty paces removed from the rest, he turned to face the man. 'It's your first time on the roads.'
'I don't see what that has to do —' Jastail put his knife into the man's stomach with a short powerful stab, and yanked up, severing several internal organs. Lawry's eyes widened in surprise and pain before he dropped into the brush. Jastail wiped his blade clean on the man's shirt. Men who argue don't ever stop arguing. And they don't obey. With such men, he'd learned long ago to cut quick. Saved lots of pain later on.
Still, he paused long enough to offer over the body a line from one of the dark poets he'd learned to appreciate as a boy. 'Each of us is walking earth, upright dust, consuming breath in ignorance.'
Black verse. Like a good cool wine.
Jastail nodded a goodbye, and returned to the others, wearing his casual smile.
'Now,' he said, taking a deep breath, 'what will it be, Marcus? Can we be done with threats and heroism today? I'd really like to be on my way.'
Marcus looked at the woman. 'Jaryn?'
She returned a tortured gaze. Tortured, Jastail knew from experience, for her loved one. Not for herself. She'd already weighed the stakes and folded her cards.
Then Marcus shifted his gaze to Jastail. 'If you take her, I'll follow. And I'll bring help.'
'Of course you will.' Jastail nodded to the fact with good humour. 'And you'd have time to get your little ones someplace safe, so you can make an unencumbered rescue attempt. Quite practical.'
In all the time Jastail had lain this type of ambush, only one man had ever successfully reclaimed the woman Jastail had taken. Good odds. And he didn't mind the game of it when a husband had wit and skill.
Marcus lowered his knife and hammer.
Jastail smiled apologetically — a touch of theatre on his part. Then he put his hand on the woman's arm and began leading her northward. Their horses weren't far.
Marcus stood still as Nichols, Jastail's most seasoned man, passed by him. Then the would-be hero brought his shoeing knife up in a swift motion and plunged it into Nichol's kidney. A pit fighter's move. Debilitating. And lethal. Nichols cried out and fell.
Medi, one of Nichols' good friends, lunged at Marcus, blade and dagger slicing through the air.
Marcus shuffled back, avoiding the blades. He then closed fast, dropped low, and brought his hammer around hard on the side of Medi's left knee. The bones crunched as Medi's leg bent at an impossible angle and he fell. Marcus pounced, driving his hammer down on the man's throat, silencing his cries of pain.
Jastail pulled the woman away, clearing the area for the fight. He has real skill. Jastail nodded with approval, and smiled with eagerness.
The rest of his band formed a circle, caging Marcus in. But the man seemed unconcerned, keeping a fighter's crouch, and turning constantly to meet every eye. When he came last to Jastail, he showed a cold, reasoning expression.
'You won't harm her. She's your prize.' Good wit. 'And you're content with just the woman, which means you're a womb trader. You don't care for trafficking brats.' Damn, but I like this fellow. 'And I've a bit more skill than changing a horseshoe. I'll take my chances here, since I don't like them once she's gone.'
A gambler, too. Jastail's must have looked like he was beaming to his fellows, since he never could have imagined so good a contest coming on a minor highway in the south of So'Dell.
Jastail raised his sword. 'You and I, then. For the lady's honour.'
Marcus flipped the hammer up, spinning it twice, and caught it again. He nodded.
The two began to circle, each feinting several times. Finally, Marcus stepped in with a clever combination of stab and swing. Jastail didn't fall for the dagger strike, anticipating the hammer from the other side. Good way to get an arm broken.
When the hammer came around, he wind-milled his sword and cut Marcus' upper arm deep. Blood soaked the man's sleeve with a spreading crimson.
Jastail hoped it wouldn't be so easy, and switched hands with this sword, shuffling his feet to a right-handed stance. His weaker side.
Marcus adjusted his grip on his knife, taking a standard hold. And did something surprising. Instead of circling in, he took half a step back and threw the dagger with a quick, flip of his wrist.
Jastail had no time to evade the attack. The knife sank into the meat of his upper chest. If he hadn't been ducking, it might have struck his heart or lung. He stumbled backward, as Marcus leapt forward, bringing his hammer down in a vicious arc.
Jastail spun, just escaping the blow, and brought his sword around with his momentum, forcing Marcus off-balance. As the two faced each other again, Jastail pulled the knife from his body and smiled. He loved to be surprised. And he loved to surprise others. He slowly tossed the knife back to Marcus handle first. The man caught the weapon and stared back in confusion.
'Again,' Jastail said, and started forward.
Marcus crouched, looking more a pit fighter than before. Jastail rushed, feigning a sweeping overhand stroke, then lowered his sword fast and came in under Marcus' guard. The move put the man off-balance, and Jastail kicked him to the ground.
Before Marcus could roll, Jastail had his blade at the man's throat. A simple stab and the man would die.
'No, da!'
Jastail looked up and saw two faces peering through the brush at the edge of the trees. But it wasn't mercy that kept him from killing their father.
'Let go your weapons,' Jastail ordered.
Marcus looked at him a long time. Pride and defeat battled in the man's face. But not worry. Jastail wanted to meet more men like this. Marcus finally obeyed, and Jastail kicked the knife and hammer away.
'Thank you for the contest,' Jastail said, bowing slightly. 'A pleasant surprise. It hardly changes things for you, as it turns out. But you should feel good about your effort. And, of course, you can still come looking for us once you see to your little ones.' Jastail bent, and quite earnestly confided in the man, 'We're heading north and east to the river. I hope you'll take your chances again.'
Sparing no concern, and ignoring his fallen men, Jastail left Marcus there. He paused only to take an article of clothing from the woman's wash — a child's sock. Then he gathered her with a gentle hand and led her from her wet clothes and family.
* * *
The riverboat rang with laughter and the sounds of dice and odds-makers calling numbers. Tobacco smoke lazed in the air, thick and sweet. Beneath it the sharp tang of brandy — the drink of choice — rose from countless cups and goblets. Serving men went shirtless, and could be bedded for a full realm mark. Serving women wore a bodice so thin they might as well not have bothered, and could be had at the same price. Gamblers' hands roamed to the delicate parts of servers and other gamblers as liberally as the drinks flowed. In the far corner of the riverboat's third deck, Jastail took a seat at the table of the boat's proprietor, Gynedo.
Back in this corner, behind a low wall, the din eased a bit. Gynedo smiled as he shuffled a set of plackards, and stared at Jastail from beneath a broad-rimmed hat.
'You think you're ready for this game, my young friend? You understand the rules?' Gynedo set the packards aside and prepared himself a long-stem pipe.
Jastail nodded.
'We're not betting on coin value, you understand,' Jastail explained again.
It was a new game, something the gambling boss had conceived recently when money stakes ceased to hold his interest. That suited Jastail fine. More than fine.
Gynedo, struck his pipe alight, and eyed their third player — a raven-haired woman of perhaps twenty-five, whose smile suggested carnal appetites that involved instruments. She wore a black hat from which cascaded a thin curtain of black netting. The net-holes were wide, making her easy enough to see, but the black mesh gave her an air of menace and deceit. Lovely.
'Not even slave-stock,' Gynedo said. 'I have more men and women for the blocks than I can trade as it is. And that's messy, besides.'
Jastail took a long drink of his brandy. 'Wagers for this game are about the emotional loss of a person. Suffering, you might say.' He grinned at the thought.
'And we bet a token of that suffering for each round we wish to stay in the game,' the woman finished. She turned to Jastail. 'Since Gynedo hasn't the manners to introduce us, I'm Fleur.'
'Jastail,' he replied. 'Pleasure.'
She held out her hand as a noble might, expecting a kiss on her knuckles. Jastail took her hand and made a slight bow.
'Just so,' Gynedo confirmed. 'I'm still working out a system to place emotional value on the items. For now, we'll take it by instinct and agreement at the table.' He smiled around the stem of his pipe. 'Three rounds, I think. Escalating value. Game will be Suits.'
Suits was a simple three plack draw. Placks of the same suit could be added together to get a total point value. All cards were kept face down, and turned one at a time, in turn. Very little strategy, but a serviceable game given their purpose and wagers tonight.
Gynedo dealt out three placks to each of them.
Jastail turned first. A hawk with eight feathers showing. He then gently pushed a folded piece of parchment into the centre of the table.
'And what do we have here?' Gynedo asked, a glimmer in his eyes.
'A letter,' Jastail explained. 'Written by a man awaiting execution for a crime ... that I committed.'
There were false gasps from his table-mates.
'I orchestrated a bit of misdirection, and got him pegged for it.' Jastail waved a dismissive hand. 'Somehow, I was taken for his friend, and given the letter to deliver to his wife.'
'What does it say?' Fleur asked, leaning in with anticipation.
Jastail looked at the letter, smiled. 'It's filled with regret. Apology for petty wrongs. Declarations of love.' He paused, considering. 'It carries the sad realizations of all the things this man will never see or do again. He wanted to say all this to his wife, but they wouldn't let her visit him. The letter is all they'd allow.'
Gynedo offered a low chuckle. 'You should have saved this for a later round,' he observed. 'You realize, of course, that this token isn't just the suffering of the man. You've also prevented his wife from hearing his last, dearest thoughts and declarations of love. Your bet is double.' He patted the table in appreciation and acceptance of the wager.
'You're a lovely bastard,' Fleur declared. Her hand snaked beneath the table to cup his manhood. Jastail nodded thanks and gently put her hand back in her own lap. He knew the art of carnal distraction in a game of chance.
'My turn, then,' Fleur said, turning her plack — a grey jay with twelve feathers up. She removed an emerald ring from her gloved left hand and placed it in the centre of the table.
'There's a story behind this, I'm assuming,' Gynedo said with good humour, 'since I couldn't give a tinker's damn for a ring.'
'Well, of course.' Fleur cleared her throat dramatically, her face reminding Jastail of a young girl receiving her first kiss. 'One of my former husbands ran a shipping trade. Profitable. Very profitable. Despite pirates and storms, we turned coin as though we minted it ourselves. A Soren Sea squall took one of our larger ships down. As an act of compassion, my husband not only made good on the lost freight with his customers, but gave to me 100 full realm marks for each crewman who died. I was to take that money to the spouses and families of those lost. "You have decorum," he said to me. I bowed gravely to the compliment, and went into the city and bought myself with that money this ring. It's lovely, don't you think?'
She smiled wickedly at Jastail and Gynedo.
'Suffering by omission,' Gynedo mumbled, seeming to sort through the value. He was still refining his new game. 'Those left behind had no breadwinner and no compassion money from their loved one's employer. I say it's good.' He looked up and tapped the table again.
Fleur sat back, looking pleased with herself.
Gynedo turned his plack — a pine sparrow with three feathers. He reached into this pocket and produced a single, thin plug. He examined it a moment, as if he might not like to part with it. Then he solemnly placed it with the other tokens, making a show of it by doing so painfully slow.
Gynedo sat back. 'Men and women stroll on to my boat every day,' he began. 'They come in two stripes. One has bags full of coin. And if this type leaves empty-handed, it means nothing to him. The other sort boards my boat with desperation in his heart. He hopes for a bit of luck. He hopes to turn a meagre stake into meat and rent money, because not doing so means people who depend on him will go without.'
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Grimdark Magazine Issue #9 by Rob J. Hayes, Peter Orullian, Durand Welsh, John Hornor Jacobs, Filip Wiltgren, Teresa Frohock, Tim Waggoner, Adrian Collins. Copyright © 2017 Grimdark Magazine. Excerpted by permission of Grimdark Magazine.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
From the Editor By Adrian Collins,A Length of Cherrywood by Peter Orullian,
How Thomas Covenant Changed Fantasy Article by Durand Welsh,
The Law of the Harvest By Tim Waggoner,
Review: Foreign Devils Author: John Hornor Jacobs Review by Malrubius,
The Bed of the Crimson King By Filip Wiltgren,
An Interview with John Hornor Jacobs Tom Smith,
Naked the Night Sings By Teresa Frohock,
An Interview with Tim Waggoner Tom Smith,
Pre-Emptive Revenge by Rob J. Hayes,