Little War, Part 5: The Big Riddle

It was an hour's ride on horseback outside of Gratham before Lazy brought his horse to a stop. It was so sudden, Finn's horse nearly barreled into his.

 

“Is this the place, uncle?”

 

“Quiet,” he jumped off the horse, which for a muggin is quite a distance, and walked over to a branch stripped of its bark where a hundred horse reins had been tied before. He put a finger to his lips and motioned for Finnean to follow him. There was such secrecy even here in the middle of nowhere, quarter of an hour's ride off any sensible roads.

 

They walked a short ways through the trees in a winding path until they reached a hill made almost entirely out of a singular oversized boulder. The sounds of rushing water could be heard off in the distance, beckoning Finn for a fishing trip. Behind a bush, under a series of branches and next to a precarious pit they came to...a rock. An ordinary rock. But next to the rock was a deep rut of dirt, which meant...

 

“Oh, it's a do-” A door. Finnean finished the thought inside his head.

 

After some effort they pushed it aside and walked into a dark cave, which wasn't as dark as Finn had expected. Above them small windows of light peaked through a roof made of sod and thatch. So it wasn't all one hill-sized boulder after all. Nearly the entire hill was hollow, supported by a number of enormous boulders, dirt walls, and support beams with small walkways. The distant river he'd heard was actually quite near, as it flowed before them from one end of the hollow hill to the other, flanked on either side by a number of pools filled with murky muddy plants. The entire fake cavern was humid and warm with a thick coating of steam. It felt as though he were sailing on a boat in the far south. This cave would be a nice place to visit when winter reared it's head.

 

“Welcome to the Garden, Finn. Every proper Family has one, least here in the Overlands. In Dreichkanat yeh can grow anythin' you want, but sometimes it's bes' to keep it hidden anyways,” Lazenby inspected the pool, dipping his fingers in the water here and there. “Dunno how much you've learned up on 'em but this here's one o' them dwarven rivers. Runs underground and pops up every now and again. Your grandmother's grandfather built this spot for the Thornrose garden. Course, he was a Redrose at the time, but...thas beside the point.”

 

“This is amazing!”

 

“Careful now, don't you fall in!”

 

“Well, yeah I'm not an idiot.”

 

“Ol' Sammy Grass's dad, you don't know 'im, but he fell in an it took him under to who knows where.”

 

“I won't fall in, uncle.”

 

“An' it's not like we could run alongside the river and throw 'im a branch y'understand?”

 

“I'll be careful, uncle.”

 

“An' we couldn' even tell his widow what happened, jus' that he wasn't comin' back. Since it was the Garden an' all. Told 'er he fought off a dozen goblins who was stealin' babes or somethin'.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Y'understand though? 'Lest there are dwarves down there on the other end then he drowned...”

 

“Yes I understand.”

 

“Or he got boiled or bashed his head. His body could be right beyond those rocks an' we'd never know it.”

 

“I get it. I'm nowhere near the river, uncle.”

 

“Good then, good.”

 

Finn's uncle Lazenby had a tendency to ramble to any warm body in earshot, which made the ride up here disturbingly quiet since they were being secretive. It was awkward and Finn felt like he'd done something wrong, but it was just how Lazy was. Talking his head off one minute and silent as a stone the next.

 

Lazy walked over into one of the pools filled with plants. “C'mere, look at this.” The heat of the river grew with every step he took. Lazy stopped over a cluster of waist-high blue cattails which glowed softly in the dim light. “Y'know what this is?”

 

“Uhm...” Finn knew the answer. You can't grow up among Overlanders who fall down and worship trees and rocks without learning an absurd amount of herbal lore. “Dead...woman...death...”

 

“Death Maiden, Finn. Real nice an' potent. Best poison fer' getting the job done right an' quick,” Lazy pulled out two thick leather gloves from his pocket and put them on. “Well, not the bes' poison but I like it. Supremely simple, doesn't go bad fer a long time, an' it don't taste like much so's you can use it however ya like. No pain to it neither. Jus' one o' what we like to call the Sleepin' Poisons.” He pulled out his dagger and snipped one off at the stem. It glowed brighter after being cut. “Doesn't take much, jus' a tiny bite an' yer gone an' snaked. By the way, don't touch nothin' in these pools.” Though his hands were covered by gloves he had enough dexterity to stick the cattail into a tiny bottle and cork it. The cut Death Maiden emanated a bright blue in the darkness before slowly growing dim. “Smatteroffact, I prob'ly shouldn't have tested the water temp'rature with my finger back there, but I done it since I was young and it hadn't hurt me yet.”

 

“Are all of these poisons then?” Finn looked around him. Most of them were mushrooms, others looked like seaweeds drifting lazily in the pools, and others looked like any other plant. He'd sworn he'd seen some of these plants growing alongside the road on the way here. A staircase was built alongside one edge of the cavern and led to the sod roof. “What's up there?”

 

“More plants up there, for the ones what won't grow in the dark. Lest the Frith got eagles what can speak to 'em ain't no one goin' up there to clack us in iron,” Lazy stowed away the gloves and walked carefully over to the river before sticking both his hands in and giving a slight yelp. “Agh! I tell ya, is'not boilin' but it sure is hot. Come over here an' do likewise.”

 

Finn slowly made his way to the edge. Though he'd barely listened to his uncle's earlier mention of Sammy Grass's dad, the closer he got to the river the more carefully he stepped. It was muddy and slick. He was surprised more muggins hadn't been mentioned in Lazy's anecdote.

 

“Get on yer hands 'n knees, s'alright, no point in not being cautious,” Lazy pushed himself back and stood up, wiping his hands on his tunic.

 

The mud was surprisingly cool despite living next to a near-boiling river. “What, uh, what exactly am I doing?”

 

“Gotta make sure th'poison's off. You didn't touch nothin' but yer mum insisted,” most other muggins would've chuckled at that, but Lazy didn't even smirk.

 

“Mother knows about this place?”

 

“She may not be part o' the Family but she's not stupid; she knew we was goin' here.”

 

"Amazing that my mother knows where we're going today but I don't." He barely edged his hands towards the river before they were slick with steaming water. Lazy's earlier notion that 'it wasn't boilin' could be put up for a vote of no confidence. “So, why? Why wash with this water?”

 

“Dunno! S'tradition. Got somethin' to do with them necromans. They always wash stuff in that purewine they make but they use boilin' water if they ain't got it. Come on, carefully now,” Lazy reached for Finn's hand and pulled him onto his back before helping him up. He was now sporting a thick coat of mud. “We got one or two muggins what run this spot an' tend the place. Coupla hunters 'er farmers 'er somethin' live jus' south o' here. They like to use ropes when walkin' near this thing so's they don' fall in.”

 

If it weren't for the fact that Lazenby Thornrose was both his uncle and a trained killer Finn could have found plenty of occasion to slap him. “Why didn't we use the ropes then?!”

 

“Well we didn' need to, cause we was careful! Right? Right. Now come on.” They trudged back towards the entrance and covered it carefully. Aside from their footsteps and the little trench where the boulder was rolled it looked just as it did before. Finn took the time to cover their tracks, which Lazy found entirely unnecessary. “Now, you don't know nothin' bout this place 'cept what I told ya already, so we'll have Tessa or Beldin up here to teach you what's what 'bout this and that. Alright, now stay quiet an' follow me.” Once again as though conversation were a candle he could snuff out, he shut up and expected just as much from Finn. They walked a different path from what they did before until they came to a small grove.

 

Finn just about walked into it before Lazy stopped him and pointed over to the tree on his left. It took him a second to realize that there was a small heap of clothes at the foot of the tree. Inside the clothes was a very decomposed muggin corpse with a bolt through the chest. His uncle then pointed at a tree opposite the long dead muggin which almost perfectly concealed a coiled smallbow suspended by strings. After few seconds he could see a web of tripwires and snares set all about the grove. This entire section of forest was likely covered in traps.

 

“Underfoot Troubles,” whispered Lazy as though that were all the information that Finn needed, which it really was. The troubles with the Underfoot Family happened after he was born but it was too early in his life for him to really grasp the weight of the situation. He remembered there being a lot more shouting in the manse back then. A lot of old faces, which at the time were familiar, disappeared without any explanation. As far as he was concerned when he was young, wartime just meant that everyone was busier than usual, like they were all setting up for a festival that never came. The day of his brother's funeral was probably the moment he realized how terrifyingly real everything actually was.

 

The way back was especially nerve-wracking now that Finn knew that one misstep could lead to a sorry death. He noticed just how paranoid the Thornrose Family was about their Garden. A log trap suspended to their left, a suspiciously placed carpet of dried leaves to his right. Such time and effort to safeguard a few plants. Poison must have been far more important than he thought. The horses stood dumb and unaware of the dozens of traps all around them and were eager to go riding once again. Once they reached a full-trot, Lazy lit the candle of conversation again.

 

“Gotta be careful out there! During troubles, some Families like to find the other's Garden an' switch all the traps around! Bandyfords ain't done it yet, but they tried puttin' the choke on the gardeners one time a while back! We poked 'em fulla holes though! Alright, this way, we're goin' to Dhrrmr-” his voice faded as they neared another river.

 

“What? What was that?”

 

Lazy looked back and shouted, “Durningham!”

 

They rode the horses for a long time, at least two hours before they came to a ramshackle village the maps forgot about called Durningham. It straddled the massive river which flowed to Gratham before cutting through Tannerel and out to the sea. In his learning days, Finn heard that lots of towns and villages (in the Longcoast especially) sprouted up around trading posts and died just as quickly as they appeared when the wind changed. Durningham in this case looked long past dead. It looked, as though it needed an excorcist to put it to rest.

 

The village held a number of dirt-smattered humans, looking mostly afraid but entirely unsurprised at the two. They must've expected them or known who Lazy was at the very least. Lazy didn't look any of them in the eye and trotted respectfully slow but urgently fast so not to seem a nuisance. Finn wasn't even sure what they were doing here. Ever since becoming a member of the Family a new muggin would take him under their wing each day and teach him random bits and bobs about the Business but no one sat him down and explained the bigger picture.

 

No one felt confident enough in him to fill him in on what they were doing the next day. It was always, 'Finn, come with me, we're off to collect tributes' or 'Finn, wake up, we're gonna spy on the Bandyford manse' or 'Fire at the moving target on horseback with your smallbow, and then you can say good morning.' The Family all seemed aware of one another's daily functions and purpose despite the fact that they only seemed to meet one another in two's and three's every other day or so. But maybe he just wasn't meant to be told what was going on. A lot of these muggins' teaching methods amounted to going with the flow until it felt natural.

 

They reached the far outskirts of Durningham when Finn saw the ogre. It was paler than milk with just a tinge of green giving it the image of a giant corpse. The thing looked bored and was entirely too interested in sniffing its fingers. When it saw the two of them riding up it puffed out its chest and stood up to full height. It was tall. Amazingly tall. It was at least a foot or two taller than a human and twice as wide, making it the largest living thing Finn had ever seen outside a storybook. It reached for a massive iron club at its side and bore its blackened teeth.

 

“Hold up! Hold up, it's jus' me!”

 

The ogre looked confused, then embarrassment washed across its face. “Sorry, Mr Lazy. They told me that-”

 

“It'salright, Treg yer jus' doin' yer job,” Lazy dismounted and tossed a small bag at him. The ogre's voice was comically deep and its voice reverberated in Finn's ears.

 

“Woss this?”

 

“Coins, fer yer sorrows. It's from Payla, and it's for everybody, understand?”

 

The ogre seemed to know what that meant. “Ah, okay. How is little Payla?”

 

Lazy chuckled. “Little Payla's a bit exhausted from all the troubles, an' what have you, but she's same as always.”

 

Treg looked over Finn who stared at him with mouth agape, but Treg didn't pay him any mind. “How old is she now? I remember her at Jancer's summer feast after the victory over the Fairfields. She used to smile so much more back in those days...she wore a daisy yellow dress and...”

 

“That was least eighty years ago, Treg. She'd be 'bout eighty-six now.”

 

Finn finally dismounted.

 

The ogre stretched his back. “You southlanders live too little. I expected little Payla at least to outlive me and I've got at least another three hundred winters left. Who's this?”

 

“This'd be Finn. He's new to tha Family.”

 

“That'd make him...” The ogre leaned in close which made Finn instinctively want to cut him with a dagger. The closer it got the uglier it looked.

 

“Breddin's boy. Payla's grandson.”

 

“Breddin's boy, eh?”

 

“Nice to meet you, Mr Treg.”

 

“Mis-ter...” Treg smiled, which was horrible. He tasted the word. It must've tasted like a fine wine to him since he mulled it around in his mouth for a moment. “I like this one. Nice to meet you, Mr Finn. I imagine they got you doin' Handiwork then? Unless you're doing Pocketwork or Axework. Definitely not doin' Shadowwork jus' yet I imagine.”

 

“Yeah, jus' showin' him the ropes fer right now. Teachin' him this an' that an' the other.” Lazy cut in and looked worried. “So Treg, uh...shall we then?”

 

The ogre looked serious all of a sudden, which was better than him smiling. “Right. They're back in the warehouse.”

 

The path to the warehouse by the river wasn't far away at all, nor was it well-hidden. The wet timber was quick to be seen after merely a few foot's walk into the forest. The ogre opened the door for them both as if he were a house servant.

 

A group of men stood in the corner of a room filled with barrels and boxes lit only by a flickering lantern. Lazy made his way towards them but Finn stood back for a moment. Then he realized that he was standing next to an ogre which played the villain in a dozen stories his mother told him since he was a child and ran to keep up with his uncle.

 

They were all human except for two muggins Finn had never met before. The group parted for them, revealing a third muggin, horribly burnt and laying on a sack of potatoes. His right arm had been burned away to nothing but a blackened stump and half of his face was pink with raw-seared flesh.

 

“L...Lazy...”

 

“It's me, Boggy. I'm here. Oh dear.”

 

“Ya, right?” the poor muggin coughed but winced hard when he did so. The burn scars on his face tightened when he did anything but barely rattle a breath and whisper. “Lissen, Lazy...we was attacked...you know that...they got these...they got this hellfire.”

 

“Hellfire? Like magic? Demons?”

 

Boggy was about to shake his head but let out a weak, “no,” instead since it didn't involve his neck muscles. “Like, thick...burnin' oil, only hotter. They sprayed it outta this sack with a...with a hose....” He coughed again and Finn could feel his heart break. “We lost the shipment. The whole thing, I'm so sorry.”

 

“No, don't even worry Boggy,” Lazy nearly teared up but kept a smiling passive face.

 

“Burned the ship...Bandyfords got these...bows. Smallbows, but...but they shoot...” he managed to suppress his phlegm saving him from another coughing fit. Lazy put his hand on Boggy's unburnt shoulder and held his hand. “They shoot quicker than they oughta. I ain't seen nothin' like it, Lazy.”

 

His uncle looked gravely concerned for a moment, but not necessarily about his dying friend. “How many of them were there?”

 

Boggy swallowed something. Finn could tell he'd been chewing on a white-weed, though even that could probably do nothing for this kind of pain. “About...four?”

 

“Four muggins did all that?”

 

“But its worse. It gets worse. We're not the only ones who got caught like this. We think they got your boys up in the Rime and down in Alderow. I'd bet...I'd bet...” he let out a series of small coughs that turned into very big coughs. Lazy let him squeeze his hand hard and patiently waited for him to stop coughing but insisted he not speak any more then he had to. “We got one...in the back room...still alive...no hellfire, but he's got that fast bow though...”

 

“Don't you worry 'bout that, I'll worry 'bout that.”

 

Finn looked at a set of doors just next to them all. Behind that door was a muggin who wanted all of them dead. For a moment, Boggy looked at all the men and muggins surrounding him before relaxing. For a muggin half-burned and nearly dead he seemed fairly relieved. He nodded softly and they all departed except for Finn and Lazy. “You got the...Maiden?”

 

“Yeah, I got it for ya Boggy.”

 

His friend teared up but didn't have the strength to sob. “It's quick then? No pain?”

 

“No pain. Not even a bad taste in yer mouth.”

 

They both smiled in silence for a small while. Finn walked away a short distance but his ears couldn't help but listen.

 

“You believe in the Fool God?”

 

“I believe lots o' things.”

 

“Don't know whas comin' next. Well...I got a riddle ta solve then...could you...”

 

His uncle uncorked the small bottle with the Death Maiden and let the crumpled weed fall onto his friend's hand. Boggy picked it up and stared and wondered at it briefly before sticking the whole thing in his mouth.

 

A minute passed. Then two. He was already dead when Lazy walked back to Finn. “Stay back, hear me?” Finn wasn't quite sure what was coming next. He nodded. “Right then! Treg, get the smallbow from the saddle! I understan' ya got a rat problem!”

 

It wasn't long before Lazy had a smallbow at his wrist, and a shield in his other hand. He was going to take on the muggin in the backroom. Finn ran outside to his own horse and grabbed the smallbow he'd brought himself. By the time he made it back inside the doors to the backroom were already open and Lazy stood inside with the shield over his head.

 

“Right, ya chaff bastard! Quit squealin' like a coney and kill me!” There was only silence. The backroom was larger than the room they were in but stacked to the roof with goods in all manner of crates. Finn stepped forward. “What kind of namby teat-muchin' coward dies like a rat when they can die like a muggin?!”

 

Finn was too afraid to walk forward. The room was pitch-black aside from what little the lantern's light cast in there. He ran over to the lantern to bring it closer.

 

“Finn, stay back!”

 

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! FWIP! FWIP! FWIP! Three bolts struck the dirt as Lazy rolled forward onto his shield. CLACK! THWACK! His own bolt struck a barrel in the darkness and he quickly strafed away from his quarry with the shield up past his head. It would be a few more seconds before either of them could fire again.

 

He jumped behind a crate and removed his smallbow from his wrist holding it loosely by the string. Then he shrugged off his shield and reached for something on his belt.

 

“Let me go! Nobody else has to die today!” The muggin was terrified but tried his best to sound bold. Even in the dim lantern light and from such a distance the amused look on Lazy's face was clearly visible.

 

Lazy's smallbow flew across the room. CLACK! CLACK!

 

The dagger Lazy threw found its way into the muggin's chest before he could fire the third shot. He toppled forward out of the shadows and into the lantern light.

 

“Damn it all! Is he dead?”

 

Lazy scuttled from behind the crate and shuffled the muggin onto his back. “Ragh! Finn! Boys! Get in here!” As one, they all crowded around Lazy and the freshly made corpse. As Lazy started talking Finn made sure to keep the lantern near his face. “You two,” he spoke to no one in particular but the two odd muggins knew he was addressing them, “get out his tongue an' toss him on the horse. Finn, take this...” Lazy handed him the muggin's strange smallbow which he'd already taken from him. It was surprisingly light though it was a bit oddly balanced. “'Less any of you hear from Danadan Redrose or any of the Handimen, you're not to ship anything more along the river. You'll still get yer coin, Treg's got some for ya now, but you're not to go riskin' til we know it's safe. Y'understand?” He was already up on his feet and walking away as they all nodded in agreement. “Treg, Finn, come with me...” Finn had to jog to keep up, but Treg's mighty strides caught up with him in a few seconds. When they were outside Lazy took the ogre aside, which meant the ogre had to get down on his knees to hear the ogre whisper to him.

 

“Coin's a little light...I counted...”

 

“You can count? 'Course it's light, it's a gift. You'll get the whole payment in a few days when Danadan comes by...”

 

“We've been a few coins light for a while, and now you want us to stop shipments all together?”

 

“You done it before, right? It's not the Thornrose's first trouble, right? What's the problem?”

 

Treg seemed to struggle with the words as though he had to look at them all jumbled on a plate and pick out the ones that weren't poisoned. “Some of the boys have a few...different thoughts. We figured you'd close the river, so no one's smugglin' nothin' up or down this way without yer say so, but some of us thought we could start a little...side something...”

 

Much to Finn's shock, Lazy slapped the eight foot gargantuan over his bald fish-belly white head. He was sure the ogre would swallow him whole for that but Treg didn't even seem to notice. To an ogre's thick skull a muggin's hand probably felt like being slapped with a flower. “No! Y'hear? No little side...businesses. We got a system, and if ya start messin' with it the Frith'll have us all clacked in iron!”

 

The ogre showed no emotion to the reaction, not even a look of disappointment. “No offense, Mr Lazy, but it's not really up to you...”

 

Lazy ran his hands through his hair and looked genuinely troubled. “Ugh, fine! But for the sake of all that's merry talk with Danadan before you go about ruinin' everythin'” He turned to get on top of his horse but whipped back around instead. “And jus' so ya understan' Dan'll have to talk to Thaylin, who'll have to talk to Breddin who'll have to talk to Payla so you may be sittin' on your hands for a spell. Jus' don't do nothin' stupid in tha meantime! Finn, get on yer horse!” As Finn stowed the smallbows and climbed the ladder into his saddle the two muggins brought the corpse now bundled and innocent looking and strapped it to the back of Lazy's horse.

 

They galloped away without another word. This time his uncle was silent, not out of secrecy but out of fury. The countryside was a forever stretch of green. Forest canopies, tall marshes drunk on the river's water, endless fields and hills of long grass; it was like looking at the world through a lens of emerald and jade. But even beauty can become monotony, and Finn's thoughts unlaced as he nodded off to sleep.

 

“Oi! Y'alright?”

 

Finn jerked awake. He was still riding his horse which was still moving, though much slower and to the left.

 

“Yeah...yeah I am. Just...long day is all...”

 

Lazy looked at him questioningly. “I reckon hour and three quarters to Gratham, yeh can sneak a nap when we get there!” The corpse bounced in time with the horse's step. The blood from its cut up face and chest barely seeped through the thick cloth that covered it.

 

Talking kept his thoughts on track and his back upright on the horse. “Why the tongue?”

 

“S'cuse me?” he genuinely couldn't hear Finn.

 

“Why the tongue? Why cut it out of him?”

 

With as much non-chalance as one tells another the time of day Lazy spoke loud enough to be heard but didn't shout, “So when the God o' Fools asks him the Big Riddle, he won't be able to answer it!” His uncle snuffed out the candle again and galloped ahead.