A Magic Broken Read Free

yokel fresh off the farm.
    The building that housed the mercenaries guild was neither so large nor so lavish. The sword, shield, and coin that advertised its location to its mostly illiterate membership was a low-ceilinged structure attached to what appeared to be a tavern on one side and a brothel on the other.
    A slatternly girl wearing one shoe was slumped against a wall less than ten feet from the entrance. As he entered, Nicolas couldn’t tell if she were dead or merely passed out, and judging by the quality of the men he discovered inside, he suspected she would find customers either way. An uglier, more ill-favored group of men he’d seldom seen gathered in one place before. But he quelled that unhelpful thought and did his best to look slightly uncertain as he bobbed his head at the fat, one-armed guard standing near the doorway.
    “I need… that is, I want to join the Guild,” he told the grossly overweight man.
    The guard snorted, swallowed, and glanced at a thin-faced old man sitting at the end of one of the benches nearby. “Talk t’him. Him’s th’ reg’ster.”
    The thin-faced man glanced up indifferently at first, but when he took in the quality of Nicolas’s tunic, he cleared his throat and addressed him politely. He was missing his left leg below the knee, Nicolas noted.
    “What can I do for ye, sir? Are ye looking for some good fighting men to fill yez command? Pay no mind to these scum. I can find ye good mountain fighters, men with twenty years experience warrin’ upon the borders, p’raps even a city ranger if ye don’t mind a man with considerable experience. Course by which I mean he’s got less gray hair than white.”
    Nicolas smiled thinly. “I fear I’m not an employer. I’m looking for work myself. I am called Nicolas du Mere, and I want to join your Guild.”
    The registrar didn’t bother to hide his disappointment, but he looked Nicolas up and down with a speculative eye. “Ye’ve commanded men, I should say. In Savondir, I takes it.”
    “Precisely. I once had the honor to command two hundred horse, sir.”
    “Don’t ye call me sir. I’m just Old Sammy. Two hunnert? A high-and-mighty captain of cavalry, is ye? What did ye do, man, seduce yer lord’s wife?”
    “No, I was always true to my lord. My misfortune is that my erstwhile lord happened to be the Duc de Montrove.”
    The other man was silent for a moment, then he frowned and nodded. “So, I suppose ye can fight, then, if ye got yeself outer that mess withouts getting yer neck stretched. D’ye have a command with ye? I expect we’ll be seeing more of yern sort soon.”
    “That’s unlikely, sir. Or rather, Sammy.” It was, in fact, not so much unlikely as impossible, Nicolas knew. None of the knights hung from the city’s remaining walls would follow in his footsteps. “Only fifteen of us broke through the lines. We sallied out the gate when their mages broke our walls. The others went east, to the Seats. I thought I’d try my luck south instead.”
    “Didn’t want to stick with yer men?” Old Sammy didn’t appear to like what he was hearing. “Or mebbe they didn’t wanter stick with ye?”
    Nicolas shook his head. “They weren’t my men, as it happens. More importantly, they say the Red Prince is a right vindictive bastard, and it’s harder to track one man than fifteen. I thought it would be safer south, where there is little love for him or his father.”
    “Ah, it’s a careful one ye are, then. Good. I likes me a careful man. They stays alive, they do. Well, if ye’ve got the silver, we’ll take ye. Two silvers today if ye got it, or ye can pay three on installment if ye don’t. Five pennies from every week on a job, even if ye find it yeself.”
    “Five pennies! That’s half a day’s wage!” Nicolas did his best to sound outraged. “Even if I find the hire myself?”
    Old Sammy rubbed at his chin and shrugged. “Ye’ll pay it if’n ye ever want to work agin in these parts. And