'Answer the question, vermin. I asked you if you understood what I said.'
'Understood, Cap'n,' muttered the ruffian, wiping a bloody drool from the corner of his mouth.
'That's 'General', rat, and don't forget it.' The military man hauled the dangling wretch closer to him, until the two men's noses almost met. His eyes glittered with what Grimm took to be maniacal blood-lust held in check by an adamantine will-or, perhaps, that was just the impression the soldier sought to create.
'My name is Sleafel Quelgrum,' the General hissed, 'although some know me better as 'General Q'. You may have heard that name, but if you haven't, you'd better ask around. Your friends, if you have any real friends, which I doubt, may tell you that I eat my enemies after defeating them. However, that's not true; I'm picky about what I eat.'
His upper lip curled, and his nose wrinkled in an expression of pure disgust as he tossed the raider to the flagstones.
'If you ever cross me or my companions again, I'll leave you in the gutter for your vermin brethren to eat, instead. Now make yourself scarce, ordure.'
The General punctuated his last order with a boot to the unfortunate attacker's rear end as the man scrambled to his feet. With a last yelp, the thug staggered into a side alley.
All Grimm could hear was the soft moaning of a few maimed men. With some satisfaction, he saw the attacker who had foolishly tried to grab Redeemer sitting, quivering, by the side of the road, his eyes vacant. He felt pleased that he had managed to curb his instinct to expend his magical power in a profligate manner, and gratified that he had felled three raiders with a single, swift blow of his staff.
'That was just getting interesting,' Tordun complained, cleaning his red-stained blade on a fallen man's jerkin. 'It's a shame they had no staying power.'
Grimm rolled his eyes. 'So much for not starting any trouble, General.'
'We didn't, Lord Baron; we just finished it. There was no diplomatic way out of that, believe me. Perhaps we'll get a little respect around here from now on.'
Grimm sighed. After this little scuffle, any self-respecting ruffian in Yoren will be lusting for our blood, he thought. Still, perhaps we'll get a little co-operation when we ask for information concerning the Sisters' whereabouts.
'Right! Let's mount up and move on!' the General cried. 'There must be somewhere to stay around here, although I'd sleep with a dagger under my pillow if I were you.'
We've been in Yoren ten minutes, and we've already been in a fight, Grimm thought. That doesn't bode well for the rest of our time here. Oh, well, I can't say I wasn't warned.
Let's just hope we can get some information quickly and move on. I don't want to have to stay here a moment longer than necessary.
Nonetheless, as the wagon rolled past, or over, bodies of the fallen, into the grey centre of the town, he felt a certain satisfaction in the way the team-his team-had performed when threatened. It wouldn't do to take Yoren lightly, but Grimm felt confident that, if this was the strongest resistance the group would face in the town, he and his companions would prevail.
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Chapter 25: Sightseeing
As General Quelgrum drove the wagon into the centre of Yoren, Grimm noted that even the sun had fled into hiding behind gathering clouds, making the dilapidated town seem even more depressing. There was a market square of sorts, but, instead of bright stalls with enthusiastic barkers crying the quality of their wares, the mage saw only a few shabby kiosks with long queues of dowdy folk, their eyes fixed on the ground before them as each waited his or her turn.
'I think it'd be better if we camped out on the plain tonight, General,' Grimm said. 'I'm worried I'll catch something if we stay here.'
'I've stayed in worse billets than this, Lord Baron,' the old soldier replied, and Grimm shot him a quizzical glance, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. 'Well; not too many, I'll have to admit, and not without an army to back me up. Perhaps you're right.
'Still, I wonder what we're going to do with the wagon and our baggage while we wander around town. We're going to have to get out and walk at some point. Even in a place like this, I imagine that secure lodgings can be bought for some price.'
'I could put a magical ward around it, if necessary; a spell proof against any physical incursion,' Grimm suggested.
'And that's a nice, simple spell, is it?'
The General's expression was neutral, but Grimm detected a slight but undeniable note of disbelief in his tone.
The Questor thought back to the climactic battle in Crar, when he and his companions had faced a maniacal horde of mindless attackers driven by the will of the demon, Starmor. Questor Dalquist had raised a small ward against the zombie-like horde, one a fraction of the size of that needed to protect the wagon. The spell drained Dalquist of most of his energy in the space of a few minutes. Grimm knew from his tuition in Spell Theory that the energy required for such a sleight was proportional to the cube of its radius. Dalquist's ward had been maybe six feet in diameter. A spell to protect the vehicle would need to be perhaps three times that size; twenty-seven times the energy would be required.
Still greater additional energy expenditure would be involved in casting the spell at a distance-this time, a square relationship applied. Dalquist had been three feet from the periphery of the spell's effect; to move a mere ten yards from the protected wagon would multiply the energy cost of the spell by a factor of a hundred. His fellow mage had maintained his ward for maybe three minutes; every additional minute would add to the energy cost. Grimm knew he was more powerful than Dalquist, but not thousands of times stronger. Even if Questor Guy agreed to share the workload, the scheme was unfeasible.
Dalquist hid the Eye of Myrrn, the Guild periapt at the heart of that particular Quest, in an extra-dimensional cubby-hole. Once an object was hidden in such a location, only minimal energy was required to keep it there. However, Grimm knew the energy required to create and maintain such a hiding-place was again proportional to the cube of its radius.
The Eye was only four inches across. If I were to scale a similar spell up to twenty feet or so, I'd need two hundred and… two hundred and sixteen thousand times the energy.
After a few moments' cogitation, he shrugged. 'Bad idea, General; please forget I mentioned it.'
'Mentioned what?' The soldier's tone was as good-natured as ever as he steered the horses around a knot of people, who seemed to be queuing for bread and quite oblivious of the approach of the large wagon.
Bringing the vehicle to a halt, Quelgrum called out to the huddled crowd. 'Excuse me! Can you direct us to a lodging-house; preferably a good one, with a secure barn or stables?'
Most of the people ignored the General's cry, but one ragged man looked up. 'Whassit worth t'find out?'
'Two silvers,' Quelgrum offered.
'Gerroff! That won't even buy me a bloody loaf o' bread here! Two gold, an' yer in bizness. I know a good, clean, posh place, wiv stables 'n' ev'ryfing! I'll tell yer fer two gold. Thass me only offer, take it or leave it.'
'One fifty.'
'You deaf, or sumfink? I said two! Ask me again, 'n' it's two fifty, mate.'
Grimm handed the General four gold coins. 'Ask him about Lizaveta's coterie,' he whispered. 'Perhaps we won't need this mythical paradise, after all.'
'All right, two gold,' the General said to the scruffy man. 'Assuming you can guide us to a clean, decent place with secure stables.
'However, if you can tell us about a party of nuns who may have come through here recently, I'll give you four. That seems a pretty good bargain to me.'
The ragged man stared at Quelgrum's open hand and its golden bounty. Wearing a smile that exposed a mouthful of multi-coloured, rotting teeth, he stepped out of the milling crowd and approached the wagon.
