by Joseph Malik
He adjusted his swordbelt around the coat of plates, slipped a large spiked warhammer into its frog beside a Ka-Bar, and strapped the gran espée de guerre around his waist, the handle jutting nearly to his collarbone. The baseball-glove smell of his coat of plates was comforting. And empowering.
Most of the soldiers who wandered past, whether stumbling out or drifting in, gave them a long look. It had been a long time since they’d seen knights in full armor, and Jarrod’s armor clearly identified him as being from out of town.
“I don’t think your sword is big enough,” Javal joked. Javal wore an ornate suit of cuir bouilli over his mail, dyed black and mossy green and articulated like a full field harness with the order’s coat of arms inlaid in silver on his chest.
Jarrod needled him back. “I’ll need it if they’re wearing as much armor as you are.”
He was well familiar with the physics involved in Javal’s armor, even if Javal wasn’t; cuir bouilli was medieval plastic. Left in hot water, the tannin aggregates in the leather create a resin, effectively a polymer, that cools to the hardness of oak.
Jarrod’s own bazubands and shovel-knee greaves were made from the same process, only glued and riveted over high-density polyethylene for extra protection. He’d done backyard destructive testing on cuir bouilli with axes and swords. Cuir bouilli over riveted mail and an arming jacket was astonishingly effective.
The articulations in Javal’s armor further proved to Jarrod that the only reason these guys didn’t have full-body steel harnesses was the lack of blast furnaces to produce large plates of slag-free steel. If an armorer could work out the angles and joints to articulate a suit like Javal was wearing—which obviously he could—then the only thing stopping the same armorer from knocking together a rig of full-blown Maximillian plate armor was a lack of materials.
It also occurred to Jarrod that if they could build articulated armor, then they had to have been fighting in armor for a very, very long time, here. Articulated cuir bouilli like Javal’s had been mentioned by Chaucer in the Fourteenth Century, which put it a good five hundred years ahead of their metallurgy and two thousand years ahead of the advent of riveted mail. Probably more than that, since on Earth everyone seemed to figure things out a lot faster than these guys did.
They were on the cusp of a major arms advancement. They just didn’t see it yet.
If you could import sheets of ten-gauge mild steel to this planet, you could buy and sell the Hillwhites.
He pushed the thought aside.
Jarrod knew, the moment that they arrived at the main gate to the keep, that things weren’t quite right. He’d had time to get used to the cheery nature with which Gateskeepers and Falconsrealmers greeted guests, and he was fairly sure that this time they weren’t welcome.
This was a small castle, really just a well-placed tower with an attached manor and some walls. At sight of the sagging tower, Jarrod muttered, “Hey, look at that. It’s my television career.”
“What?” said Javal.
“Nothing,” said Jarrod, and they rode directly up to the front door.
Javal grabbed the sergeant of the guard, a knight of the Order of the Swan named Orvyn, and steered him inside. Jarrod followed at Javal’s behest.
“We’re here to see the duke,” said Javal.
“No one sees the duke,” said the sergeant.
“That’s not what I hear,” said Javal. “I heard he had visitors. Very recently. We need to discuss a few things with him.”
“Sir, if I let you up there, he’ll kill me as soon as you leave,” Orvyn said.
“Talk,” suggested Javal.
“Gladly. They’ve been gone five days,” said Orvyn. He looked to Jarrod, who said nothing, his visor still closed.
“Gone?” said Javal. “We heard their mounts are still here.”
“All their mounts. And their armor,” the sergeant admitted. “We don’t know where they went. We figured maybe they’d left for High River.”
“No one from this keep comes to High River,” said Javal. “Least of all, should I add, Duke Edwin.”
“Well, the duke has been a little busy.”
“He gets that way,” said Javal. “Or so we hear.”
“Got himself a little trophy up there. An elf. Says his boys caught her at one of the mines near the Stronghold.”
“That’s an act of war,” Javal told Jarrod.
“Only if he gets caught,” said Orvyn.
Javal shook his head and swore silently. “We’ll have a word with the man,” he said to Orvyn. “Anything out of the ordinary around here?” he asked. “Besides that?”
“Commander Gar of House Fletcher was here the night they vanished. He was meeting with the duke.”
“Interesting that he wouldn’t drop by the royal seat to pay his respects, being a half day’s ride away.”
“He didn’t ride. A wizard gated him here.”
Javal looked impressed. “That’s some big magic.”
“Indeed,” said Orvyn.” I didn’t know he had a wizard that strong out there.”
Javal turned to Jarrod. “Gar is a well-known, and very well-fed, commander from the southern borderlands. He runs a small, for-hire outfit,” Javal’s voice trailed off. “Son of a toothless whore.”
“Let me guess,” said Jarrod. “They hire themselves in on scutage for border lords.”
Javal swore quietly. “Among other things.” He spoke to the sergeant. “Anyone you have here, on scutage, they come talk to us.”
“That’s every damned soldier in this place,” said the sergeant.
“Every soldier?”
“Except me, sir. And the two knights of your order, the two we’re missing.”
“How many total?”
“Seven, plus me. Now five plus me. Look, I can’t let you up there. They’ll kill me once you leave.”
“Jarrod?” asked Javal.
“Sorry about this,” Jarrod said. A moment later, with the sergeant on his shoulder blades and one foot up near his ear, Jarrod said, “I overpowered you, right?”
“I’d say,” the sergeant groaned. “Damn.”
“Just stay there and pretend you’re unconscious,” Jarrod suggested.
“Will do,” the sergeant groaned. “Have fun.”
“You’ve got to show me that,” Javal said, as they double-timed up the stairs.
“I did,” said Jarrod.
“Not that one.”
The manor house was only two floors, and the grand entrance to the tower was a large stone arch, unguarded. “Through there.”
“Right.”
A winding staircase with doors every so often. “Any idea which one of these?”
“The top.”
“Why am I in this much armor?” Jarrod griped, three floors later.
“Because getting out of here might be harder than getting in.”
They stopped at a massive door at the end of the stairwell. Javal slammed his fist against it three times. “Duke Edwin! Open this door!”
“They’re coming,” said Jarrod, listening behind.
Javal had his ear against the door. “They’re not the only ones.” He knocked again. “Duke Edwin!”
Jarrod stepped forward and drove his heel against the door right above the handle. The echo rocked the entire tower.
He was reaching back to do it again when the door opened.
Edwin was tall, dark-haired, and had the same narrow eyes as Albar, but a broader jaw and a calmer demeanor.
He was also, Jarrod couldn’t help but notice, stark naked. And exceptionally endowed.
“Sir Javal,” said Edwin. “To what do I owe the privilege? And who let you in here?”
“We cold-cocked your sergeant,” Javal admitted. “He was being uncooperative.”
“Good for him,” said Edwin. “Who’s this?”
“My sergeant,” Javal said. “We heard you have an elf in there. Is
that true?”
“You boys want a turn?” asked Edwin. “I’m almost done.”
Jarrod hit him with a steel-shod left to the liver like a cannonball and swatted him in the head with his palm as he doubled. Javal shoved Jarrod back.
“That was foolish,” Edwin growled, straightening and coughing. “I’ll have your hand for that.”
“Try it,” said Javal. “We’re here on orders of the king. Come against us, you come against him.”
“Your order needs to mind its own business,” Edwin spat.
“Sir Aidan and Sir Rohn are my business. You, committing an act of war with your prick, is my business.”
Five soldiers were now behind them on the stairs, armed to the eyeballs in mail and helmets. Two had spears. Three had axes.
Edwin spoke to the soldiers on the stairs. “Gentlemen? Show the captain, and his sergeant, here, the way out.”
At the front door, Jarrod and Javal found themselves facing the five soldiers, who had begun to break up and form a semicircle.
Jarrod raised a palm for them to be patient, and took a moment on the last stair to lock his visor, seat his mouthguard, and snug up his gloves. Then he cleared the gran espée de guerre from its scabbard in a sweeping and grandiose movement that focused attention on the alarming scale of the sword. He raised it in both hands and everyone backed up.
Javal slapped his visor shut, his sword and dagger practically leaped into his hands, and it began.
Jarrod caught a speartip with the end of the big sword, rode it down in a coulé, and took off most of the soldier’s hand right through his glove. Jarrod shoved him down with a heel on his thigh, then spun and drove the balance of the blade into another’s helmet with both hands. The soldier went over and lay in the mud with his legs kicking, his helm split and creased as if he’d been hit with a crowbar.
Another stepped back, swearing, fending with his spear but clearly not wanting to engage.
The last came at Jarrod swinging his axe from over his shoulder, and Jarrod drove his elbow into the haft and the axe banged against his shoulder flare and skipped off the heavy Damascus steel. Jarrod trapped the arm, twisted, and hip-threw him into the mud, dented the spectacles on his helm with a heel-stomp, then toed the axe up and kicked it a few yards away.
Jarrod turned and faced the last, who fell to his knees and threw his spear away. “Please don’t kill me, sire.”
“Fine,” said Jarrod. “Tend to him,” he motioned to the knight with the bashed-in helm, whose legs had ceased spasming.
“I think he’s dead, sire.”
“Well, check, damn you!” Jarrod snapped. At that point, the soldier he’d face-stomped plowed him over from behind.
Jarrod’s vision cleared to see that the guy had a sword, one of the local heavy bastards, and it was coming down, two-handed, as he was getting up. He slipped left and the impact on his shoulder was terrific; his back wrenched and his hand went numb.
The soldier fell back, holding the handle of his sword and nothing else.
Jarrod wiggled his fingers, stood, and stepped forward, brandishing the greatsword.
In the Gateskeep language, telling someone “you’re fucked,” is not pejorative. They do, however, have a colorful idiom that loosely translates to ass in the air and waiting. Jarrod used it here to illustrate the soldier’s situation for him.
Javal, done dispatching his opponent, moved in from Jarrod’s three-o’clock. “Give up, sir,” he suggested.
The soldier drew a slender knife from his belt.
“Don’t do that,” Jarrod begged. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“I wish I felt the same,” the soldier said, and tackled him. A moment later he was face down in the mud, with Jarrod kneeling on his back and drowning him.
Javal stepped on his hand, removed the knife from his grip, and ordered Jarrod to get up. Jarrod did, and stomped on the soldier’s crotch.
Sergeant Orvyn stood at the doorway. “You gentlemen about done?”
“Come here, sergeant,” Jarrod knelt by the fighter whose hand he’d injured, and pulled off the man’s glove—not much more than a welder’s glove—as the man held his arm at the wrist, weeping. The big sword had done its job; the hand had been severed across the distal transverse arch and pumped blood into the mud.
“Hold him,” Jarrod ordered. “Hold his arms.” He unbuckled his blowout kit from his swordbelt and slipped a tourniquet over the hand above the wrist. “This is going to hurt,” he told the soldier, “but it’ll save your life. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t fight me.” He twisted the windlass until the man screamed. The sergeant held him from behind, with his good arm up in a hammer lock.
“Jarrod!” shouted Javal.
The bleeding slowed to a trickle almost immediately. Jarrod tore open a packet of Quik-Clot gauze and stuffed it into the wound. The man screamed even louder as the caustic induced, and then passed out.
Jarrod packed the wound with Quik-Clot and Javal watched, eyes wide, as the bleeding stopped almost immediately.
“This material cauterizes when it reacts with blood,” Jarrod explained, securing it with duct tape around the hand. “He lost the hand but he’s not going to die. You got a good healer?” he asked the sergeant, who nodded.
Jarrod picked up his sword from the mud. “Go get him. I need to talk to him. You,” he said to the soldier who’d surrendered, “Fetch some rags and some grease. You can clean my sword.”
Javal, Jarrod, and Orvyn went through the apartment that the two missing knights had shared. Their armor trunk, though it felt full, was locked.
“And you’re sure there’s no way we can go back in there to get her?” asked Jarrod, for the third time.
“And then what?” asked Javal. “Beat down his door, steal her, and then what? Tell me the next part of that, and I’ll consider it. What happens two iterations later? Three?”
“Get her . . . I don’t know. Somewhere safe. Home. Out of there.”
“Here are your next three iterations,” said Javal, “Based on the fact that he’s a duke.
“One: he’d consider it theft. So, two: you’ll hang. Then, three: he’ll send out every soldier in this town to recapture her, because if she gets back to the Stronghold and tells the Faerie what he did to her, we’ll be at war with them until the next Cataclysm. So, no. She stays. Our mission is here,” he thumped the armor trunk.
“I’m taking possession of this,” Javal told Orvyn. “We’ll get it open and return whatever’s inside to their families. It’s the least we can do.”
A knock at the door, and an older man asked for Jarrod. He was Hul, the duke’s sorcerer and healer. “I wanted to thank you,” he said.
Jarrod bowed. He’d explained to Hul about releasing the tourniquet slowly, and then loosening the Quik-Clot by soaking with salt water.
“Did it work?” Jarrod asked.
“You saved his life,” Hul said, handing Jarrod back his tourniquet. “Would it be an imposition on your magic if I borrowed that technique?”
“By all means, you should,” Jarrod said.
While Javal and Orvyn went through the room, Jarrod showed Hul how to fashion a tourniquet with a windlass, how to apply it above the wound and never on a joint.
Hul thanked Jarrod, bowed, and showed himself out. Javal asked to see the tourniquet. Jarrod showed him how it worked.
“In my homeland,” Jarrod said, “every soldier carries one of these. Some carry two. They train to put it on in the heat of battle, and once this became standard procedure in our army, our casualties halved immediately. There’s no reason to ever lose a man because of bleeding from an extremity. Hell, our best soldiers have been known to put this on and keep fighting.”
“So you killed one,” Javal said, “Then you granted mercy to the second, spared the third, and healed the fourth. Do you not remember the conversation that we had?”
&n
bsp; Jarrod looked him in the eye for a long moment. “Killing’s not always the answer.”
Javal rifled through the dead knights’ trunk. “In this case,” he said, “you killed just enough people to make your point and stop the fight. That’s better, I guess.”
Jarrod shrugged. “I’m pacing myself.”
Javal shook his head, chuckling. “That was some amazing fighting. That sword of yours is really something.”
“Thanks. So, what did you learn while I was off being a wimp?”
Javal clapped him on the shoulder. “While you were talking with Hul, I got some intelligence out of Sergeant Orvyn. There’s been an assassination at the Gavrian Parliament. Their Lord High Inquisitor, Lord Marghan, is dead.”
“Inquisitor?” asked Jarrod. “Could there possibly be a more evil-sounding name for anyone?”
“He’s the head of their intelligence network. Or was,” Javal corrected. Jarrod was staring at the outside of the trunk. “We have our own, of course,” said Javal. “You haven’t met Lord Gristavius?”
Jarrod was staring closely at the outside of the trunk.
“‘Lord High Inquisitor Gristavius?’” Jarrod repeated. He looked inside again. “No,” he said. “And sweet Jesus, I’m okay with that.”
The trunk held the detritus of a military man’s life: socks, a dagger, spare boots, various clothes, and some letters. He opened up the letters and skimmed through one, then another. He still didn't read the Gateskeep language well, but he grasped enough words to tell that they were letters between one of the knights and his mother. News from home. Hope you enjoyed the socks.
Jarrod stuck his arm inside the trunk again, then measured it against the outside. “So,” he said, “someone has to replace the spymaster. Someone Gavria will trust with all their secrets. Any idea who that will be?”
