Fenrir fidgeted, hand in his pocket, accidentally poking himself with Merigold’s little makeshift knife. He’d held onto the thing since that night in the Cleanly Hog. He had a sense that it was more than a weapon to the girl. It had the feeling of a talisman, an artifact or a charm of some sort. Fenrir had done a lot he wasn’t particularly proud of, but somehow discarding this little weapon seemed like sacrilege.
“I was a guardsman at the Plateau. Now I am in the service of Lady Escamilla. That’s it,” Fenrir said, somewhat coldly.
“I think there is more to it than that,” said Ferl, eyes shining with interest.
“There certainly is. Coldbreaker, how about you share why you left the guard,” said Pick, high on wine and humor.
The fucker must have known his past, Fenrir realized, either from Escamilla or Emma. It was certainly a well-kept secret otherwise; the nobles were not prone to talking about something that caused as much embarrassment as that night would have. “I would rather not, Pick,” Fenrir growled, eyes alight with pointed anger.
Pick, in his cups and apparently in a crisis of both religion and patriotism, ignored the warning. “I’ll share, then. Fenrir Coldbreaker, the great warrior you see before you, fainted during the Ardian Council. He was the reason why the Council disbanded, in fact. It is said that…”
Tilner found himself on the ground, a heavy-breathing Fenrir looming over him, fists clenched. Tilner shrank away, scrambling backwards and attempting to regain his feet. Fenrir took a deep, shuddering breath.
“You need to learn to hold your wine better, Pick. And your tongue.”
Fenrir, dizzy from the anger and alcohol, tossed down a handful of yets, stepped over Pick, and staggered out of the tavern. He was unaware of whether Ferl and Christoph were laughing at him, but assumed so. Apparently, there was no escaping that part of his past. New career. New name. Pandemonium, he was even in a new city. His goddamn weakness would always be there—a cancerous mole on his back, an infected blister on his foot.
Pick. That Ultner fucker. That shitting little fucker.
Fenrir managed to make it back to his tent outside of town amidst the carnival-like atmosphere that seemed to have overtaken the mercenaries. This was the last decent-sized settlement they would pass, as they’d next be heading overland to catch up with the Army of Brockmore. The shouting and singing and drinking just pissed Fenrir off more as he vomited up the contents of his stomach scant feet from his tent flap.
He thumped his spinning head down on his bedroll and closed his eyes then, attempting sleep, though he knew that his throbbing temples, anger, and regret were conspiring against him.
---
Fenrir hit the ground. Hard. The metallic clang of his helmet on the flagstones reverberated dully through his skull as he attempted to recall where he was and what had happened, gasping and bewildered as he was. His tabard had twisted up over his face, obscuring his view, and his scabbard was hopelessly tangled in his legs. Still foggy, Fenrir managed to straighten his garb and struggle to his knees amidst a storm of angry shouts.
“Assassin!” a grainy voice bellowed. “He murdered a guard!”
The situation was rapidly building toward a state of chaos. Nearby voices combined into a cacophony, with several nobles shouting conflicting orders in imperious tones while others simply screamed and wailed in sheer panic. The din grew even louder as guards rushed inward from the perimeter of the room, herding the unarmored occupants together and leveling their shields in a protective maneuver. It sounded for all the world like a stampede of heavily-armored, braying donkeys bearing down upon the hall. Steel raised in anticipation, the formation of guards turned in unison, facing Fenrir, their eyes scanning the surroundings to locate an attacker.
Fenrir, disoriented from his fall and knocked further off-kilter by several rushing guards during the scramble, finally found his feet. At the heart of the great council chamber stood more than forty fully-armored guardsmen, eyes and weapons trained keenly upon Fenrir, and with almost double that number of nobles clustered tightly behind them. Fenrir, head thumping to the rhythm of his racing heartbeat, shifted his feet at the sight in front of him. Solid, practical pillars; rare, colorful tapestries with a Yetranian motif; and bewildered, frightened faces all returned his stare in the brightly-lit council chamber. The thunder of voices and feet had faded to an uneasy, murmuring quiet. Foggy and still trying to work out exactly what had happened, Fenrir stepped forward toward the safety of the guards, his comrades-in-arms. The guards shifted uneasily in response, bracing themselves behind their shields, swords and spears glinting in the lamplight.
A moment later, a commanding voice broke the tense stillness. “What is happening here?” demanded Duke Henrik Malless, the ruler of Florens. With Duke Samuel Penton the Second recently taken ill and Samuel the Third at his side, Henrik was the highest-ranking, or at least the most assertive, man in the room. From behind the relative safety of the shield wall, he shouted, “Where is the assassin?”
“That guard, there—he was attacked by an assassin!” cried Baron Erlins, gesturing toward Fenrir. The burly, pock-faced baron had his own ornate ceremonial sword drawn in readiness, though the flimsy, curved blade was likely to snap in the unlikely event that it ever saw battle.
The reminder that an assassin might be lurking about caused renewed agitation within the crowd. More of the nobles began to draw swords as they shuffled anxiously behind the guards. Some simply backed up to the tapestry-laden rear wall of the hall, looking uncertain and nervous. Fenrir was more uncertain and nervous than anyone, having not even dared to move from where he’d taken his last step. His chest, face, hands—all felt like they were on fire, though they were slick with sweat.
“Stop! Erlins, you others, stand down. Guardsman, what happened? Where is the man who struck you?” shouted Malless, addressing Fenrir with his questions. His deeply resonant voice, well-honed from years of ordering others about, once again controlled the attention of the crowd and stirred Fenrir toward attention.
“I… your grace… that is, I’m not sure,” stammered Fenrir. His head was almost clear, and his body was starting to cool down. In fact, he was feeling a bit too cold. Between his fall and the cumulative stress of having over a hundred people staring at him, Fenrir had begun to shake beneath his gilded breastplate and decorative tabard, emblazoned with the slavering Wolf of Rostane. His underclothes—linen shirt and wool pants—were soaked through with icy sweat.
“Guardsman, are you hurt? Speak up, man!” commanded Malless.
Fenrir took a few steps in place, rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms. Aside from his weak right knee, which had been paining him for nearly twenty years, he couldn’t identify any particular injuries. The back of his head hurt, of course, from his fall, but he supposed that the nobility wasn’t interested in that small detail.
“Your grace, I do not appear to be injured in any way,” replied Fenrir, starting to feel more himself and falling in to the rehearsed formality he’d acquired from decades of working with the nobility.
“Well, then. What happened to you? Was there an attack?” queried Malless, his bushy eyebrows coming together in consternation.
Fenrir tried to recall. The nobles, the most notable people of Ardia and beyond, had been embroiled in a deep, forceful discussion about some treatise. Though the first Ardian Council in thirty years was supposed to be monumental, Fenrir hadn’t been paying much attention. Retreating to a state of blissful unawareness was one of the primary skills required for being a successful guard. Or at least being a sane one. Next thing he’d known, he had landed on the ground, head aching and ears filled with the sounds of confusion and panic.
“Your grace, I am uncertain…” Fenrir trailed off, his voice echoing hollowly in the great chamber.
“If I might interject, your grace.”
A man of indiscriminate age had stepped forward. He might have been in his mid-thirties like Fenrir, or he might have been a hale fifty. Clad in dull, mar
oon robes uncharacteristic of the bright, garish colors of the majority, the man had dark—nearly black—engaging eyes that appeared to take in everything around him. Some of the less bold nobles eyed him with uncertainty or maybe even distrust, although Fenrir was hardly in the best position to make that judgement.
“By all means, Savant Iolen. You know that this council respects your opinion. At least, some of us do,” added Malless, not exactly under his breath.
“Look at this man.” Iolen spread his hands theatrically as he gestured toward Fenrir. “His skin is mottled, pale and splotched with red. He has obviously perspired through his underclothes, and is shaking either from these sweat-soaked clothes or from the unparalleled power of all of your noble glares.” He drew out the last part ever so slightly, the words carrying just a hint of irony. A handful of nobles grumbled at his tone, and Baron Erlins even took a step forward, that useless sword gripped in his hand.
“It is obvious that there is no assassin in this room. Assuming an assassin could have gotten into a walled city on high alert due to the presence of this very council, he would have had to approach the Plateau without being spotted. Then, he would have to avoid the fine guardsmen and retainers who are currently overcrowding this fortress, enter this room through its only entrance, and strike just this one single guardsman,” said Savant Iolen with a just-so-subtle hint of mockery.
Fenrir nervously shifted his weight from side to side, beginning to understand. He removed his helmet, showing that his short, brown-blond hair was soaking wet, his head showing indents from the tight straps that had held the gear in place. It was a relief to feel the air on his head, cloying though the chamber was. His head clearing, he had reasoned out what had happened, and now he braced himself for the almost inevitable outcome of this international spectacle.
“No, this man was not the target of an incredibly skilled, practically-invisible, world-class assassin. There is a much simpler explanation. It is hotter than Pandemonium in this room, and the man is wearing at least sixty pounds of armor.” Iolen paused, almost as if to give his audience time to draw their own conclusions. He smiled.
“This man simply fainted.”
---
The sounds of the rising mercenary army—tired soldiers grumbling and weary officers shouting orders, creaking wagons being loaded with supplies, and the clanging of iron pans—woke Fenrir from his uncomfortable slumber. The hangover was a commonplace feeling, though he’d been sober long enough that the experience felt worse than he remembered. His skull was being crushed by rocks, and his mouth was full of fetid cotton.
Much how he’d felt that day during the Ardian Council.
He’d simply fainted. Hence had come the proclamation from that Savant Iolen, and who was Fenrir to dispute the learned man? Not that he’d had much of an opportunity; he had been immediately dismissed by Captain de Hosta, the old officer seemingly reluctant to do so and yet having little choice. Fenrir’s sudden unconsciousness, in reality, had made for an intranational incident, the fall heard around the country. The panic and fear raised by his toppling, armored body had caused not only a disruption of the Ardian Council, but also caused one overweight earl to badly sprain his ankle while fleeing, and also brought one of Duke Proan’s daughters—the attractive one, at that—to wet herself quite publicly.
Luckily, the embarrassment of nobles had worked in his favor. Instead of admitting to themselves and others that the alarm had been raised entirely over a fainting guardsman, many had maintained, afterward, that there truly was an assassin in the room that night. Indeed, many had ignored Savant Iolen’s pronouncement and vehemently blamed dark magicks. Even with no evidence, many still maintained that a guardsman had been felled by a pasnes alna, one who’d been aiming to kill the gathered nobility of Ardia. It had been helpful, as the contrary mistruths clouded the factuality of that day, and few knew of Fenrir’s exact fate.
The only positive outcome of the entire situation had been that it caused his father quite a bit of shame.
Afterward, Martis—as a friend, not a physician—had checked Fenrir over. Again and again, in fact, as the physician was nothing if not thorough. Fenrir’s older friend had maintained that he could find no hint of weakness, nothing that would predispose him, a healthy man in his thirties, to suddenly lose consciousness. Fenrir had, after all, spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours standing guard in full armor, and rarely felt anything near syncopic. And yet, somehow, everything had gone black that day.
Fenrir had thought about it nearly every day since. Rage took him if any of the rare people who knew of the episode—aside from good friends, of course—even hinted at his weakness. It had led to more than a couple of tavern fights following his dismissal, as Fenrir had attempted break the teeth of any guardsmen who’d commented about his secret. Soon, he’d been banned from the typical haunts of the Plateau’s house guards and had to drink in less reputable establishments. He was still quick to fight, but the quality was more common—and even desirable—amidst that population. Such fights usually ended with bloodied knuckles, some chipped teeth, and an occasional broken bone. Fenrir had ached to prove himself, to prove he was not weak.
Maybe that was why he’d joined The House… to affirm to the world that he was not fragile or impuissant. That he was not, as a now-broken-faced man had once told him, a cockless, spineless lady of the night.
“Sir? Coldbreaker?” A hesitant voice at the mouth of his flap.
“Yeah. Galen, right?” The disheveled head of a young Rafónese boy had popped into the tent at his response.
“Ajay, sir.” The boy’s voice was tight.
“That’s right. What is it?”
“You asked me to alert you when the wagon train was prepared. We’ll be moving soon, if you want to resume your position in the wagon bed. With that girl.” He touched three fingers to his cheek—likely a ward against evil.
Fenrir felt for Merigold’s own little ward in his pocket, rolling the chill, rusted metal in his fingers. Like Fenrir, this girl was not content to be a victim of circumstance. Fenrir reached into his slept-in boots, pulling out his heptagram. He examined the sharp, multi-pointed star for a long moment, and then removed the symbol from its chain, pocketing the chain with Merigold’s knife and sticking the loose heptagram back in his boot.
“Sir?” Ajay was impatient.
“Aye, I’ll be there. Break down my tent and have it packed with the wagons. And get me some leather, thread, and a strong needle. The saddlery back in town should have it.”
“Sir.” A definite rancor there.
Can’t make everyone happy.
Chapter 31
The Army of Brockmore was on the move.
Six thousand, seven hundred-and-sixty-two men had been pulled from Lady Escamilla’s holdings across the whole of Ardia. Fifteen hundred-and-four of those were mounted cavalry, if that term could be used for men mounted on plow and domestic riding horses. Nine hundred-and-eight were longbowmen, equipped with the signature yellow yew bows of Jecusta. Emma wondered what deal Escamilla had made to secure those bows, as they were never seen outside of the Jecustan military, but she’d somehow had them stockpiled at Brockmore prior to the arrival of her forces. The woman was truly a mystery.
The remainder of Escamilla’s forces were infantry. Each of these footsoldiers was equipped with a short sword, a halberd, and a small shield. How Escamilla had managed a standard arsenal for each infantryman, Emma had no idea. Sadly, she hadn’t been able to work the same magic with their armor. The men were wearing anything from leathers to bronzes and irons. The patchwork nature of the infantry was largely covered by off-white tabards, each emblazoned with the crimson apple that had become Escamilla’s standard years ago. Escamilla claimed that she had never authorized a standard, that her men had simply created it out of love for her, trying to capture the fairytale of her beginnings by going back to that bag of fruit which a young Escamilla had sold for a profit. In fact, when the apple standard had begun app
earing around her first holdings, Escamilla had had to appease the nobility by ‘punishing’ the men responsible. Escamilla, of course, was not a noble lady, and would never make an effort to create a crest like that—it could be seen as an act of treason. However, she’d been unable to root out this standard and keep it from popping up all around the ranks of her men.
Emma, however, knew Escamilla better than many, and also understood that men’s loyalties lay as much, or more, with people as with banners. Escamilla had almost certainly authorized the apple standard and then pantomimed efforts to stomp it out.
And now, a small army of seamstresses were creating apple tabards so that the army could have some unity through their common garb.
Behind Escamilla’s forces marched the two mercenary armies. The Silver Lady’s Fists of Ultner, women all, marched easily in even ranks, silver fists emblazoned on their matching tabards. Six hundred-and-forty of them. Behind them, in looser ranks, came the least disciplined but probably the most battle-hardened force marching toward Florens. The nineteen hundred-and-twenty-one members of Ferl’s Company served as rear-guard, joining the larger army on the road. Fenrir and Tilner had made record time in retrieving this force and, apparently, their task had been made easier by some legal troubles faced by Ferl in Hunesa. Something about some violent murders.
“As of this morning, there are nine thousand, three hundred, and twenty-three soldiers marching to Florens, not including high-ranking officers, the baggage train, or camp followers,” recited Emma, responding to Escamilla’s inquiry. Emma had taken a varied, undefined role that included running messages and conveying orders, as well as keeping track of numbers, unit dispositions, equipment, and supplies in order to provide Escamilla with quick answers, and she was also managing some of Escamilla’s financial affairs, at least as they related to the military. It was almost as if she had been trained for this very role from years of working with the lady, spying and gathering information, and keeping track of a massive amount of material without writing it down.
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