Crusade by James Lowder Page B

hefted his cart again, and set off toward the docks.
    “Sure flights! Only the best from Razor John!”
    The fletcher had walked but twenty yards or so, calling out his wares, when a stout man signaled him to stop. The man’s sunburned face was almost hidden by the fur cloak he wore over his earth-brown tunic. The fletcher immediately assumed him to be an itinerant mercenary from the grimy, unkempt state of his dress.
    “What’ll it be today, good sir?” John asked as he unrolled the cloth on the top of his cart. A dozen different types of arrows and crossbow bolts lay on display.
    The man glanced at the weapons, then looked to the fletcher. “I heard you call ‘Razor John.’ Is there anyone else in the market who uses that name?”
    John rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. “Not that I know of, though I’d wager there are other fletchers in Suzail who go by the name of John.”
    The fur-clad man nodded. “No, my good man. If you are the Razor John, then you’re the only fletcher I seek.” He picked up a silver-tipped longbow arrow and turned it over in his hands. Sunlight glinted off the finely honed arrowhead.
    “You’ve got a good eye,” John noted casually, studying the customer. “That type of arrow is one of my specialties.”
    “You make the arrowheads, too?”
    “Aye. I’ve been trained as an arrowsmith as well as a fletcher.”
    The man looked at John suspiciously. “Do you pay dues in the Fletchers’ Guild and the Arrowsmiths’ Guild?”
    John shrugged his left arm toward the customer. “Of course,” he said, slapping his hand over two patches tied around his arm. The small leather circles had the symbols of the Fletchers’ and Arrowsmiths’ Guilds stamped into them. “Licenses are up to date, as well.”
    An odd smile crossed the man’s face. “A guildsman. Good. I’ll take two hundred of your silver-tipped arrows, then.”
    John raised one eyebrow in surprise. He was accustomed to selling such quantities of arrows, but only to ships’ stewards, the royal guard, or the city watch. “My apologies, good sir, but I don’t have that many on hand.” John rolled the cloth display aside and opened his cart. He removed four batches of ten arrows each.
    “I don’t need them right now,” the customer said. “I’ll be in the market to pick up the rest in—” John held up one finger. “A tenday, it is.”
    They discussed how and where John was to deliver the arrows. The terms were simple enough, and the fur-clad man paid the fletcher thirty pieces of silver as a down payment. John was pleased with the sale, for it seemed to indicate that his reputation as a craftsman was spreading. Still, he wondered why the man wanted so many arrows.
    “Outfitting a mercenary company?” John asked as he pocketed the silver coins. “The king is going to be hiring well-outfitted sell-swords for the crusade against the barbarian invaders in Thesk.”
    The man’s sunburned face paled noticeably. “You’d sell arrows to someone supporting Azoun’s foolish plan?” he asked, his lips curling into an almost feral snarl. “I’m tempted to cancel my order, even if you are a guildsman!” Not taking his eyes off John, he slipped his hand into his purse and removed a small leather badge similar to the ones the fletcher wore—this one, though, bore an open, jagged-toothed bear trap stamped into it.
    John stared at the badge. The man wasn’t a mercenary; he was a trapper. The opposition the Trappers’ Guild was fomenting against the king was rumor throughout Suzail, but the trappers had yet to brave any truly public statement of their opinion about the proposed crusade. Suddenly, the fletcher realized that the grimy trapper might be needing the arrows for just such a statement.
    “I may be a guildsman, but I’m also a good subject of the king,” John said gruffly. He dug the silver coins out of his pocket and dropped them into the dirt. “I’ll not be selling weapons to malcontents for them to use