Recompense and Coin

The Third Anecdote of The Samyuzot.

The Samyuzot is a loosely-connected set of stories following the life of a cursed warrior, cast off by his people and sent to wander in exile.

This is the third anecdote in the collection.

Every story in the series is stand-alone. There’s no need to catch up and new readers won’t be lost.

However, if you prefer… 

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A man lived alone in western Eithelion. A great many other things lived in that country, but there was only one man. Only one man was foolish enough to remain, for those other things were not kind. Nor were they easily killed.

The man had wandered into these hills years before, mostly ignorant of what awaited him. Knowledge would not have stopped him though; he did not regard death as wholly undesirable.

But like the other creatures against whom he fought for food, this man would not die easily—even when he wanted to. Death opened its soft arms for him again and again. Every time he refused. Something deeper drove him: obligation, duty to the curse laid upon him, and a grim devotion to his recompense. Years passed without a living soul ever speaking his name, and he himself was not keen for that name to be known.

He wore his shame tight around his skin. It sank into his bones. And he lived alone in Eithelion.

In those hills he had made something that resembled a home. He hunted. He foraged. He grew accustomed to the trees and hills and the snows of that country. He learned the game trails and the elk paths and how to see troll-sign in the flights of the birds. A few times a year he would load his horse with pelts and trek long days out of those ghostly vales and into more populated areas; but the Maretonians there in the west had strange customs and a strange language, and soon the hunter would return to his solitude.

Until the day he saw the soul-eater.

✹ ✹ ✹

It was nearly winter, and nearly dusk. He was skinning a wild shorthorn. Great clouds of steam rose like incense from the half-unwrapped carcass to bathe the hunter in its heat. The man tossed his head in the swirling tendrils to warm it, for he wore his head bald and uncovered, even in the pervading cold. And it was while his head swung up and down, back and forth, that he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

He flinched away from the thing even before he knew what it was. Without choosing, the hunter was squeezing his hands over his own eyes—an unfamiliar sort of panic began to flood his mind. He began to curl up on the ground. He tried to look around but something resisted him, and he found it difficult to do so.

That’s when the man remembered the old stories.

Dread-shades could immobilize with a look and shake the hearts of the bravest hero. He opened his eyes and turned them straight at the thing he had cowered from.

The creature was ephemeral; the edges of its form bent and shifted in a way that sent a pain through the hunter’s eyes and made him sway. The dread-shade had not yet formed its own body: it was a ghostly head floating in a half-visible mist that gave the impression of talons. It had matted hair, eyeless sockets, and a jaw that hung open to an impossible depth whence the hunter could hear a faint intake of breath. The shade was siphoning his will and stoking his despair.

In time, he knew, it could grow its own body from his hopelessness. It could, if left to feed, embody itself and kill him.

He found he did not care.

The hunter looked down. He saw the steaming, skinless flesh of the shorthorn. His eyes traced the white lines of fat and sinew between the red curves of muscle. Blood was still wet on the inside of the skin. He smelled the entrails in their pile nearby.

He heard that soft hiss from the soul-eater. He looked again and saw in the shade’s unholy eyes every crime of his past, every man he had killed, and the wails of the aggrieved who were left behind in his own wake.

Death opened its arms again and beckoned the man to come.

For nearly an hour the dread-shade fed on his despair. And although death appeared as a welcome reprieve, this murderer who had fled to the brutal hills of Eithelion feared what lay beyond death even more fervently than he feared his lingering life.

He got up. Backed away. Turned. And left.

✹ ✹ ✹

Farild sat up in the dark when a figure passed through the curtain-door. One of his men. Noise from the inn’s hall filled the so-called room that had been set aside for the mercenary captain.

“What is it, Irner?” asked Farild.

“I found someone, sir, like you said.”

Farild’s brow pinched. “Is that a joke?”

“No, sir!” Irner chuckled. “I found someone to do it.”

“I think you found a swindler. You didn’t pay him, did you?”

“No. ‘Course not. Not yet. But he’s on his way out there.”

“Then he’s drunk.”

“No, sir! Well, maybe he’d had a few drinks, but I swear that man was more sober’an me. Funny accent, though.”

“He’s some idiot slurring his words, Irner.”

“No, sir. Just an outlander. Some hunter from Eithelion.”

“A hunter,” Farild blinked in the dark. “From Eithelion.”

It was Irner’s turn to blink a few times. His mouth hung open. “Alright. Maybe he is an idiot.”

“A liar, more likely,” the captain shook his head. “But you say he’s going now?”

“Yessir.” Irner took on a more conciliatory tone: “I know you were half-joking sir, but I got talking to the man and, well, I thought if he does it, great. If not…”

“No harm done,” Farild nodded.

“Well, no harm to us, sir.”

“As I said: no harm done.”

✹ ✹ ✹

The three bandits who watched the road east of the town of Verváns were not particularly surprised to see a lone traveler making his way towards the town on that cold day. It was a bit unusual that the man rode a horse and even more unusual that he led two packmules laden with pelts and antlers. Normally, only farmers from the outer homesteads made this journey alone. Never on horseback, and never if they could avoid it.

Still, the bandits had been happy to mark the man’s coming. A hunter would surely return to his lodge in the hills bearing things more valuable than animal skins.

They were a bit surprised, however, that this bald hunter didn’t even pass the night in the town. They saw him again, and watched from their hiding place in a wood a quarter-mile uphill. The traveler’s mules were unburdened now, which meant his purse would be all the heavier. He made his way back towards the dying light of the sun beyond the hills. He hunched over in his saddle, wrapped in a huge cloak against the wind. Only his bald head was uncovered. He was bearded. He looked old. No one else was in sight.

The three bandits drew their blades and rode out from the tree line. They spread out, one cutting off the traveler’s path and another his escape. They saw the rider stop along the track.

This was to be expected: their victims often froze when they noticed brigands coming at them. The attackers did not change their course. The thunder of hooves filled their ears.

The lead-rope holding the mules dropped to the ground. The rider sprang his horse forward, clearly trying to flee. This too the bandits expected, which was why their leader had gone forward to block the way.

The bandits, however, did not expect to see the old rider throw back his cloak to reveal a drawn bow—a wicked, sinuous thing—nor did they expect the loosed arrow to find its mark with such alacrity.

The lead bandit fell from his saddle without a sound. He was dead before his weight hit the grass.

The second bandit yelled a curse and yanked at his reins. His horse slowed to a stop—best to let this huntsman flee back to the west and be gone. At least they could grab his packmules.

But the hunter turned his horse, and his attackers couldn’t believe how quickly his mount pivoted.

Another arrow took flight. The second bandit turned away, but the arrow took him in the side. He flinched and his elbow came down on the shaft which now stuck out between his ribs. The thing snapped, its iron head mangling his insides.

Even as the villain twisted to try to get out of his saddle, the next arrow caught him in the chest. He cursed again, and was dead in the dirt a moment later.

The third and final bandit was already fleeing. But he was the youngest of the crew, so he’d been given the nag. And that old horse had already run a quarter-of-a-mile at full sprint. It could not outpace the red stallion which pursued it. Now its rider was flying with his back fully turned towards the man who a moment ago seemed frail and helpless.

There was a shriek from the nag, it faltered under its rider, missed a step. The bandit nearly fell over the saddle. Then the rear of the mount simply collapsed. The bandit threw himself off.

He scrambled up to his feet. There were three arrows sticking out of his horse’s hindquarters. The beast was braying in pain and terror on the ground.

The hunter flew up to him, one hand on his bow and the other nocking an arrow. The stallion, even without the hands of his rider guiding him, stopped just shy of the bandit. The young brigand could see now that this hunter was not nearly as old as he looked.

The bandit cowered to the ground.

✹ ✹ ✹

Three horses now. One rider. Two mules. One prisoner, bound at the wrists, struggling to keep up in the darkness. All seven creatures ambled in train towards Verváns.

“Please!” the prisoner shouted from the back of the line, where his bonds were fixed in several places to the mules and horses ahead of him. “Don’t bring me to Verváns! They’ll hang me! I’m as good as dead!”

“Be quiet,” said the hunter.

“I told you I am sorry about before! Please! Don’t let me hang!”

“No. I told you: get quiet!”

The train plodded along in darkness.

“Where are you from?” the prisoner threw the question forward. “You have a strange accent.”

But the hunter did not reply.

“I saw that bow of yours,” ventured the prisoner. “Are you a plainsman? One of those Wagoners? We don’t get many of you in these parts…”

Still, no reply.

“What’s your name, then?”

Now the rider stopped. He wheeled his horse around to face his hostage. The moonglow was visible on the man’s head. His breath misted about his beard. When the rider spoke, the prisoner thought he could hear sadness in his words:

“I am samyuzot.”

“Sema… what?” The prisoner tried to force his mouth around the shape of the foreign word.

“No. You don’t understand. You ask. I must tell you. I’ve been named samyuzot. I am samyuzot.”

“Your name is… Simeot.”

“No! I… agh.” The hunter sighed, tossed a hand in the air, turned his horse away. The train of horses and men moved toward Verváns again.

“Simeot,” the prisoner tried again, “don’t let them kill me. I don’t want to die.”

“You are murderer. You are thief. They want me to find you. They’ll pay me.”

“I never killed anyone! Not me! It was the others. And what about you? You turn me over to them, and I’ll be dead. You’re the one killing me. And taking these horses. After you killed those two back there. What’s that make you, then?”

The samyuzot retreated back into his silence.

“I saw you with that bow of yours. No one gets that good by hunting deer in the woods! You didn’t even blink at shooting us before, neither. You’ve killed before, haven’t you?”

No reply.

“Murderer and thief… What’s that make you?”

The seven walkers trudged onward.

✹ ✹ ✹

When dawn came to the market square of Verváns, the traders found a man already waiting to barter with them. Oddly, it was the same man who’d been there the day before peddling pelts and mushrooms and other hunter-goods. Now he was looking to sell two horses, their tack, some clothes, and a few other things that the merchants chose to keep to themselves. There were dangerous folk outside the walls, and there were mercenaries brought into town not long ago; if a man suddenly came into possession of things which yesterday were not his own, then what of it?

It was not the business of merchants to ask too many questions.

The man took bullion in return, mostly. He also traded for new clothes, a huge improvement from the weather-worn garb he’d come in with.

Most memorable of all: the man took his brand new cloak—a beautiful thing of gray wool—and tore off its hood using his knife. He threw the severed hood into the mud. In full view of the marketplace he mounted his horse and stood proud in the saddle. He looked like a man renewed. Except of course for his head, which was still balded and scarred, and his beard which was scraggly and unshaven. And also, if one looked closely, for the tight look of anxiety that wrapped around the man’s eyes, and the clench in his jaw. Such tension hadn’t been there the day before.

But it was not their business, and they asked no questions.

✹ ✹ ✹

The hunter returned to the inn where he had met the mercenaries the day before. He walked into the open meeting-room. Most of the twenty or so men were still sleeping, some under blankets and the drunken ones merely under tables. The town of Verváns had precious little accommodation for thugs such as these, no matter what the mayor had hired them to do.

The hunter noticed that the man that had hired him was drinking at a table in the far corner of the room. He made his way over. Behind that man was a threadbare curtain in a doorway, blocking off one of the few real rooms of the inn.

As he came nearby, the hunter could hear what sounded like a fight on the other side of that curtain. A fight, but without shouting. There was grunting, and shuffling of feet. Then the sound of a blow landing on flesh. Then another. And another.

“There’s the man himself,” said Irner as the hunter sat across from him. “And in expensive new raiment, I see. I’m impressed with your work! I really am. Didn’t think any man could walk alone on that road and live to tell the tale, much less bring one of the bastards back. It’s well done. It’s well done. Say, what do they call you, anyway?”

“I am samyuzot.”

“That’s…” Irner shook his head, and the hunter sighed.

“Simeot.”

“Ah. Well, Simeot, we can’t pay you.”

“What do you say? You cannot pay?” The hunter’s broken, stilted pronunciation of Londian did nothing to hide his outrage. “We had an agreement! I brought you a man. They attacked me. I brought you a man.”

“No. That wasn’t it. We didn’t want the kid, we wanted the location of their hideout. And little snot-nose won’t give it up.” Irner nodded to the curtain. They heard another sound like a butcher’s hammer hitting meat.

“You told me: go out and lure them. You said they only attack people who are alone. I made risks. The man, I brought him! You must pay me!”

“His friends will attack again, unless we find them all. He’s no good to us unless we can get the information.”

“You are a liar!”

As he said this, the curtain behind Irner flew back to reveal the tall form of captain Farild. He had light hair, and wore mail. Beyond him, the young bandit from the road was propped up on a stool. He was recognizable only from his clothes and hair, his face was so bruised, his nose so crooked, his eyes and mouth so swollen. Two more men where inside the tiny room and both had blood on the knuckles of their leather gauntlets.

“Captain,” said Irner, “this is Simeot, the man who brought him in.”

Farild locked eyes with Simeot. Without breaking his gaze, the captain stepped out of the little room and leaned back against the wall. “Well met, Simeot,” the man’s voice was calm and sweet and completely at odds with the intensity of his gaze. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“As I was saying,” Irner had become grave in the presence of his captain, “we’re not paying you because we needed the location, not the man. Now I’m going to ask you to apologize for that little ‘liar’ comment. And if that doesn’t suit you…”

One of the thugs in the room slammed a fist into the bandit’s stomach. Red mucus spat out of the young criminal’s mouth. He began to cough and gag.

Simeot stared at the mess of the boy’s face as he gagged and spat out a spurt of blood. Then he looked at Farild and saw the leader’s glare was still fixed upon him. Simeot looked into Farild’s eyes; in that callous gaze was a man much like himself.

He did not like what he saw.

“You should let him go,” said Simeot.

“Say that again?” Irner asked.

“I said let him go,” Simeot repeated.

“Why?”

“Yes,” Farild spoke up. “Tell us why.”

Simeot met the captain’s gaze once more. “Because then he will tell you what you want to know. He does not want to die, but here in Verváns, he will die. On the rope. You have nothing to offer. He has nothing to lose. So he is being a hero for his friends. But if you offer to let him go, not turn him over to the guards… maybe he will tell you. So. Let him live.”

Both mercenaries gave the suggestion some thought.

“That could work,” said Irner. “What do you think, captain?”

Farild looked Simeot up and down. “Wait over there.” He threw a thumb to the far wall, then disappeared behind the curtain.

✹ ✹ ✹

An hour later, the hunter was slumped in the corner, on the floor, with his chin on his chest and his breath coming in scratchy snores.

Something bumped his leg. Simeot started, then looked up through bleary eyes at a looming shadow.

“It worked,” said the captain. “He told us how to find their cave.”

“Alright,” Simeot snorted. “Pay me now.”

“I want you to come with us.”

“What?”

“I need someone like you,” said Farild.

Simeot shook his head, then folded his hands as if to resettle back to sleep. Farild squatted down beside him. Their faces were a hand’s length apart. The hunter could smell the captain’s breath, stale bread and ale.

“I know you,” said the captain. “I know what you are. I know your kind. That kid told us all about what you did: two men dead in as many seconds. I sent men to check, too. They found those bodies out on the road. You took everything from them, didn’t you? Left them naked out on the road.

“More than all that: I see it in your eyes. You don’t get into this business by accident, my friend, and I’ve been in it a long time. Whatever brought you here to this edge of this Word-blasted world, it was nothing good. Wherever you’re from: Mareton, Pagazia, the Plains, or—hells!—even Ato. I don’t care. I know you, and I know what you are. You’re a killer. It’s what you do. You kill, Simeot. And you’re good at it, too. And you like it. I can see it in you.

“There’s no use denying it. You’re a man of blood, Simeot. Just like the rest of us.”

Farild put his hand into Simeot’s and left six coins in the hunter’s palm. “This,” he said, “is your payment for those two bodies you left on the road. And for the one you brought back. And this,” the captain pulled out a coin purse and placed it on the floor. It jingled as it came to a rest. “This is six month’s pay for a capable man in my company. We’ll be heading into those woods in a few hours. And we’ll find that rat-hole where these bastards are hiding, and we’ll sweep in, kill them, and then this job is done. Then we’ll be out of this rat-piss town and onto the next one. But it’ll be a good fight, and more pay. Like I said: I need someone like you.”

The hunter looked at the captain through bloodshot eyes. When his breath finally came out, it was almost a groan. But there were no words in it.

“Think about it.” Farild clapped him on the shoulder, then stood up to leave. As he turned away, the hunter croaked out a question:

“Did you let him go?”

A look of confusion passed across the captain’s face. “The boy?”

“Yes.”

“Of course not. The guards came. He’ll hang at noon.” Then Farild walked away.

Simeot sat there, alone.

His eyes went to the purse, and he watched it for a long while. It lurked there as the company began to mill about in the mid-morning light. They readied themselves. But Simeot stared, unblinking.

Many things passed through his mind—memories most of all. They came unbidden. Memories of home, of family long gone, of broken oaths and the tribe that sent him away. The wailing grief of his once-beloved woman, the look of disdain in his grandfather’s eyes, the mother he once had and the goodbyes he never said. Then all at once he saw visions and heard sounds more terrible: the faces of those he had killed, the cries of the battle-wounded under his horse, the dying eyes of a murdered groom, the pale corpse of a youth by a riverside, the look of shock on a bandit’s face as he clutched at an arrow in his throat, the twisting horror of a man shot through the ribs, the swollen face of an condemned highwayman.

Each image, each death, led to the next. Led him here.

He thought of the life that awaited him back in Eithelion. He remembered the dread-shade.

His hand passed over his scalp. It rubbed back and forth. It extended towards the coin-purse.

Simeot took it. He liked the weight of it.

The samyuzot stood up and went to fetch his bow.

✹ ✹ ✹

Thank you for reading. Want more of The Samyuzot? 

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← Or read the first story: The First Death of Segitars Arpadi

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