take care of the matter, providing that the two would help him get Flatchet safely to their bivouac nearby.
They assisted, of course, and in a short time had managed to get the now-comatose captain a few hundred paces to the field nearby where a collection of tents and hastily constructed shacks made up the recruiters’ encampment area. From what was here, Gord surmised that the strength of the group already exceeded six hundred. Several pennons flapped idly in the breeze-it was too dark to identify them, but their presence did indicate that whole companies had been recruited. Perhaps they really did intend to attack Redspan….
Taw stopped before a hut, indicating that this was headquarters. After some fumbling, he opened the door while Gord and Gellor held up the unconscious Flatchet. A quick scraping of flint sent a shower of sparks onto tinder, and from the tiny flame a candle was lighted.
“Bring him in, and you can tell me what kind of deal you’ve worked out,” called Taw.
“You bet,” said Gellor. It was pitch black outside the door, but Gord sensed his companion’s wink as they dragged their charge into the structure.
There were only two rooms, the bigger being first. It was cluttered with a long table, several chairs and stools, and a bench along the right wall. Taw led them through a crooked doorway and started another candle to illuminate the narrow chamber at the rear. Here they carried the seemingly dead Flatchet, only his faint breathing and the reek of stale beer indicating he was not in fact gone from this world. Without ado, they flopped him atop the cot in the room. Gord glanced around quickly, noting a large armoire, a campaign chest, a commode, and a cloak hanging from a peg near the door.
“The strain must be getting to him,” remarked Taw, looking down at his captain.
“What?” said Gord.
Taw expanded on his remark. “Never seen Flatchet get so drunk that he’s passed out on the job…. But then again, I’ve never seen him try anything this big.”
“That’s for sure,” nodded Gellor. “Getting an army together to kick Palish ass out of Redspan is one hell of a big undertaking-especially when nobody is allowed to know what they’re being hired for.”
Taw appeared thunderstruck at Gellor’s casual mention of the real purpose of the strangers’ mission in Stoink. Gord broke in and spoke reassuringly, getting the conversation back on the right track.
“Let’s get us signed up and that advance taken care of, okay, Taw?” he suggested. “I’ll need all the time I can get to add another seventy men to my Grey Beggars, and Gellor here has his work cut out, too. Shit, we’d like to field three hundred for Flatchet, and maybe we can do that if we ever get started….”
But Taw was not easily distracted from his concern. “So he told you everything?” the lieutenant asked.
“Of course!” Gord piped up immediately. “We’re in this too, as Flatchet saw when we agreed to join with everything we’ve got. When he told us what was really going on, we upped the number. Hell, man, I’m sending one of my boys to see if he can locate Steel Jack’s band!”
“Steel Jack?”
“Come on, Taw! You must have heard of him. He runs a bunch of brigands out of Nutherwood. Why, last I heard he had three hundred horse with a warlock to back him up!”
Taw looked impressed at that. Gathering his resolve, he went to the campaign chest, unlocked it, and took out a ledger volume and a small brass box. Holding these, he beckoned the other two to follow him back into the main room. Gord shut the door on the sleeping Flatchet as he departed.
After flipping the book open, Taw got a quill and an inkpot from the brass box. He had each man inscribe his name and his pledge of men in turn. Then, closing the register, he said, “Come back in the morning, and Flatchet will settle the payments you’re to get.”
“Gimme the book!” Gellor demanded.
“What for?”
“The deal was for here and now. You’re not living up to it, so I’m crossing out my name. Tell that drunken stewpot in the morning that he’s out my boys-and he has you to thank!”
“Hey, Gellor, don’t be hasty,” chimed in Gord. “Why don’t we just cut the number of men we pledge in half and stay in? Nobody can bitch about that, right?”
Taw, looking pale, hastily added, “Sure, Gellor, don’t be in a hurry to lose out on a nice bit of change-and lots more loot soon! Listen to your pal.”
Gord and Gellor argued heatedly for a couple of minutes, and to Taw’s distress, Gord began to come around to the one-eyed man’s way of thinking. Seeing real trouble looming, Taw broke in just before he thought Gord was about to also demand removal of his own name and pledge of men.
“Flatchet said you two were going to be captains?”
“Lieutenants at first,” answered Gord, “but when we offered to bring in two companies, he said we would be captains at five luckies per, plus a bounty based on the totals of our pledges, so we could have faith in you guys. Then he kicked in an advance to help us recruit.”
“I haven’t got that kind of cash now, fellows, honest. Tomorrow-”
“Too late,” Gellor broke in. “We’re out of this.”
Gord and Gellor made to leave, but just then the second of Flatchet’s lieutenants entered with a couple of recruits. With the arrival of his comrade, Taw saw a way out of this fix, and told them to wait just a second. He pulled the other lieutenant, Swutch, into the bedchamber and closed the door. The two new recruits, tough and mean-looking, glared at Gord and his one-eyed companion. The looks they got in return caused the pair to gaze elsewhere until Taw and Swutch reentered the main room a couple of minutes later. Swutch quickly signed up the two cutthroats and hustled them out, barring the door on the inside as they left.
“You’d better be right,” Swutch said ominously to Taw as the pair moved aside the heavy table, grabbed a plank, and heaved. A trapdoor, cleverly hidden, opened to reveal a cellar below.
Taw descended the steep stairway. Swutch motioned for Gord and Gellor to follow, and he came last, closing the trapdoor behind him. Taw’s candle shed only a faint illumination, but he soon had another pair of thick tallow candles flaming, so that Gord was able to see the place clearly.
They were in an earthen cellar, fairly deep, with ledges built along the walls. It was originally a place for storage of roots and the like, now used as a repository for something far more valuable. Somehow Flatchet and his associates had managed to get a great iron trunk into this place. Gord was reminded of Theobald’s strongbox-only this chest was at least ten times that size. Empty, it would weigh several hundred pounds, he guessed.
Taw stood in front of the chest, shielding what he was doing, but in a moment he had completed his secret manipulations. There was a grating noise as he turned the key, and then he called Swutch to help him with the lid. The pair lifted the slab of metal so that it rested at an angle against the dirt wall behind. Inside were more electrum, silver, and copper coins than Gord had seen in his life.
“Let’s see,” murmured Taw. “Each of you gets five luckies, and commons totaling three hundred, plus…”
Swutch turned back toward the recruits, just in time to get out a warning to his partner: “Look out!”
Gord attacked Swutch even as he spoke, his dagger glinting darkly in the pale light. Gellor, meanwhile, sprang forward to engage Taw, who pulled a heavy-bladed knife from his belt the moment his partner shouted the warning. The combat was noisy and protracted, but little if any of the sound would reach any listener above.
Gord wounded his opponent several times, taking only a small cut in return. Swutch wasn’t nearly as skilled at dagger work as the young thief. The lieutenant feinted a move toward the stair, leaped the other way, and struck out at one of the heavy candles, which went out. Gord understood his desire. In darkness, Gord’s skill and acrobatic movements would be negated. The fight would become blind groping, striking at sounds. Swutch made another feint, hoping to drive Gord away so that he could extinguish the other candle. As he reversed himself toward the taper, Gord moved squarely into his path, and Swutch fell back, wounded again by the keen point of Gord’s long dirk.
“Take it all!” Swutch cried. “Kill Taw if you have to, but let me go! I’ll never be seen again-honest!” But even as the bandit lieutenant begged for his life, he hurled his blade. Gord sidestepped quickly, and the dagger, which had been headed for his throat, caught him in the shoulder instead. With Gord momentarily disabled, Swutch lunged for the stairs. He leaped to the fourth step, rushed upward, and strained to heave open the trapdoor. Two daggers struck him in rapid succession as he did so. The first was Gord’s, the second Swutch’s own-withdrawn from where it had stuck in Gord’s left shoulder. That blow finished the would-be escapee, who slumped lifeless at the top of the stairway.
As he turned, Gord saw Gellor avoid a knife swipe and then lunge forward to strike Taw a tremendous blow to the temple with the pommel of his dagger. The bandit fell heavily. Gellor added a couple of blows with the blade
