Five Bloody Heads (The Hounds of the North Book 3)

by Peter Fugazzotto

  A line of crows hopped on the turrets atop the tower.

  Behind Spear, mercenaries clambered up the ladders. A few pulled themselves onto the catwalk, swords and spears in hand. Outside the keep’s walls, his crew sprinted up the slope, moving between boulders, closer to the gates than he had imagined. He needed to get the gates open for them.

  Clutching his sword with both hands, he crept into the gatehouse.

  A single brazier, orange coals glowing, hung by the door. Immediately, a cold washed over Spear, like the penetrating chill one feels when descending into a forgotten tunnel.

  Gradually his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The walls glistened. Arrow slits cut through the stone walls allowed thin shafts of light to slice across the dark room. The floor’s weathered boards groaned with each step. He smelled metal and oil.

  In the middle of the room, a ladder disappeared above. Beyond the ladder, two lengths of thick, glistening iron chain dropped from the ceiling down through a hole in the floor.

  A foot scuffed above.

  “Hiding like a snake?” asked Spear.

  Longbeard laughed, his voice echoing. “Not hiding. Just waiting.”

  “Like a coward.”

  “Come to the roof. I want the heavens to witness your death, old man. Let the crows gorge themselves on your sour flesh.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” said Spear. He stared up the ladder. The room above was filled with light.

  “You betrayed us, Spear. We should have taken the gems. Wouldn’t be where we are now. Would’ve been back at Grymr’s Hold, drinking mead, counting coins, laughing and pretending we were friends.”

  “There was more to it,” said Spear as he took one step up the ladder. “The girl.”

  “You never cared until she was dead.”

  “Not true.” Spear paused halfway up the ladder, listening for a creak in the boards that might give away Longbeard’s position.

  “You only cared about the gems.”

  “Would you have followed me if not for the promise of coin?” He continued to climb.

  “You were leading us into a slow death. Don’t pretend some grand nobility now.”

  “What they did to Little Boy. We had to answer that.”

  “Your fault. How hard is it to steal from a little girl? We already robbed her family. What difference?”

  “We could have become more than common thieves.” Spear hesitated and then, gathering in a crouch, sprung upwards and into the next room.

  It was empty but for barrels and sacks. Light flooded the room from arrow slits on all sides. A ladder led to through the ceiling and into open sky.

  “Those gems,” said Longbeard hidden somewhere above. “As if they could erase all the years and give you back what you lost. You fucked up a long time ago. I only wanted my fair share. What you promised but were never planning on giving.”

  “I was going to make us strong. All of us, together.”

  “You were chasing smoke. Nothing would come together. Even now, you don’t care about anything but regaining what you lost. Well, it’s all gone, old man. Just like that girl. And now it’s time for you to go join her. Fucking Hound.”

  Whispers filled the room below. Spear bent to a knee and stared through the opening. Men, helmeted and hidden behind a wall of wooden shields, crowded the doorway. Their gazes found him and as a group they leapt back.

  Spear could not have them coming up after him. They were timid now but soon would gather the courage to rush him. He was hopelessly outnumbered. He grabbed the top of the ladder with both hands and pulled. It scraped against the planks, screeching, almost too heavy for him to lift but after a hard pull, he was able to balance it on the wood and drag it over the edge and into the room.

  There was no way for the men to climb up after him. They would figure out a way to get to him eventually. But he had bought himself enough time to deal with Longbeard.

  Spear faced the opening above. One more damned ladder to climb. Longbeard waited for him. Spear wished he had his shield or his spear, both left behind to scale the wall. With only his sword, Longbeard and his axe would have the upper hand. He wondered if Longbeard crouched by the opening with his axe poised on his shoulder waiting for Spear’s head to emerge. He would not put it past the coward.

  He climbed the ladder slowly, pausing at each rung to listen for feet scraping against the wooden roof. But he heard nothing except the hiss of the wind through the distant trees. When he was nearly at the top, he waited, the sound of his own breath filling his ears.

  “Waiting for me to become an old man too?” asked Longbeard. His voice was not close. He did not perch at the opening.

  “Don’t want my head cut from my shoulders the moment I come out.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Spear laughed. The sun touched his palms near the top of the ladder. It warmed his skin. The sky was bright blue, a mark of bright color, the sky endless without horizons to contain it. Spear took several quick breaths and then raced up the ladder.

  Longbeard sat along the wall between two crenellations, legs crossed, his arm propped up on his standing axe. He looked bored. Next to him were two iron levers and a large metal gear: the mechanism to open the gates.

  “You didn’t trust me, did you?” asked Longbeard. He stood and stretched his arms wide, fingers opening and closing.

  “Of course not. I don’t expect you to keep your word.”

  “Not all men are like you, old man. Let’s do this so I can be free of you.” Longbeard bent his head left then right, cracking his neck, before shaking it out. He picked up his axe with both hands bringing it to sit on his right shoulder and smiled as he slowly approached.

  Spear held his sword in front of him and angled to the left. This was the game: Longbeard’s bigger two-handed axe against Spear’s smaller sword.

  And the only way for Spear to survive was to be quicker than Longbeard. One hard, well-aimed blow of the axe would end everything.

  Spear was quicker at first, dodging left, retreating towards the right just as Longbeard swung.

  The two began a broken dance, the younger man trying to contain the older one by cutting off the angles, and Spear squeezing out before the space closed in. But it was a losing battle for the man retreating. He was tiring and the walls of the tower and the hole in the floor hemmed them in.

  Longbeard controlled the distance. While Spear was not getting hit, he could not close the gap to land his own strike. Each time they turned and pivoted and leaped, the edge of Longbeard’s blade hissed more closely.

  Spear was trying to bait Longbeard towards the opening in the floor, when his foot slipped. Even as Spear recovered, in the time of less than a few heart beats, Longbeard was on him; his axe crashed down so hard on Spear’s upraised sword that he bit his own tongue. The blow rang all the way through his arms, from the palms of his hands to his shoulder sockets. His hands suddenly went numb but somehow he held onto his sword.

  Longbeard reversed his swing at Spear’s head, who barely met the blow with his sword. Even so, the force of the strike sent Spear’s sword bouncing off his helmet, the side of his own blade smashing into his cheek.

  Spear stumbled backwards, recovered his feet beneath him and darted to his left. Longbeard’s axe missed his face by a finger’s width.

  Another swing was deflected and then bounced off Spear’s shoulder. Longbeard was strong. His blows were not particularly skillful but he was relentless and full of youthful power. While he gained vigor and fury with each swing, Spear’s energy sapped out of his arms with each shuddering blow.

  Only Spear’s footwork saved him. Time after time, he re-established a safe distance. But that would not last. He legs ached. His feet had slipped out once already. Sweat poured from his brow, the burning drops nearly blinding him.

  Spear blocked another backhand blow and skittered back against the crenellations of the tower. Through the gap, the chalky white stones of the scree sloped whirled and the fore
st stretched and shrunk. He spun away just as Longbeard’s axe sparked off the low wall where Spear’s head had been only a moment before.

  The crows circled, filling the sky with their cawing laughter. Far to the west, an immense wall of dark clouds rose; preceding them, a sudden wind lifted the tattered curtains on the balcony of the keep. A figure entwined in those curtains.

  Spear could barely lift his sword to defend himself. His sword vibrated so hard with each block he thought that it would fly from his hands. It was only a matter of time now. It was all Spear could do to not have his guard breached by the relentless blows.

  Then, acrid smoke reached his nostrils.

  Past the arc of Longbeard’s relentless axe, black smoke streamed through the hole in the floor of the gate tower. Orange and blue flames licked at the edge of wood, not yet catching, but soon it would and the tower would be engulfed. The mercenaries below must have overturned the braziers. They did not care if Longbeard was up here too. They wanted to burn them both to death.

  Longbeard charged at Spear as if chopping wood, blow after blow, the ringing of metal like a hammer on an anvil. It was in that rhythm that Spear saw his salvation. He changed his block into a strike on the half beat, his dented and chipped blade slicing the inside of Longbeard’s wrist to sever the tendons. With that hand, he could no longer hold the handle of his axe. But even as Spear struck his sword finally tore from his hands.

  In the moment of hesitation that followed, Spear bulled forward, driving his forehead into Longbeard’s jaw. Blood burst from his split lip. As Longbeard stumbled backwards, Spear stomped the inside of his knee and the man collapsed with a sickening crunch. Spear turned an elbow across his cheek.

  Then he grabbed Longbeard’s wrist and pinned his axe to the floor. But Longbeard was too strong. Bloodied and stunned, he slowly bent his arm. Spear would not be able to hold on. The axe lifted towards Spear’s head. Releasing one hand, he drew his dagger and plunged it into Longbeard’s armpit. Blood streamed.

  Spear rolled away, hands scratching at the floor trying to recover his sword. Longbeard came after him, dragging along the ground, his axe scraping a trough in his own blood. He lifted his hand and then coughed. Then his eyes rolled back as death claimed him.

  Spear lay on the ground, his breath trembling in his throat, hands shaking. Flames licked through cracks in the floor and heat seared his cheek and palms.

  He crawled to the iron chain, grabbed it with both hands and pulled. At first, it did not move but then slowly it did, the chains clinking; as he pulled, it gained speed, the sound of the hard metal ringing replaced by the screaming of the gate as it scraped open.

  Spear wanted to look over the edge of the wall to see his crew stream in, with swords raised, mouths wide in a rallying cry, coming to rescue him.

  But there was not time. The flames had burst through the floor and dark smoke swirled. The heat was almost too much for him.

  So he ran to the gap in the crenellations and jumped over the wall to where he prayed the stable roof was below. It was. The moment of flight was short and disorienting. The entire keep tilted. He hit the stable roof hard and it splintered, exploding on impact, and as he slammed into the ground, he was swallowed into darkness.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CRUHUND CROUCHED IN the shadows of his room, his back pressed against the ancient cold stone, and watched the fluttering white curtains that opened to the balcony. He had seen her in the folds of cloth. But now they hung slack. She was dead. She could not have come after him, unless...

  “I hear them down there,” said Yriel. She lay in her bed, a mound beneath heavy blankets and furs, so insubstantial that she looked to have decomposed into the mattress. She pointed a waxy finger to the balcony. “Go end this now. If you do not paint this keep with blood, they will not follow you. Go down there with Spine Cleaver and kill him.”

  The growing wind lifted the curtains. Beyond the balcony, well past the forest and great plains, dark clouds piled in from the west. The moment of sun and warmth would succumb once more to the relentless maw of the clinging winter. The curtains swirled, taking the shape of the girl again, and then as quickly as she appeared, she vanished.

  “Why are you just standing there?” said Yriel. “Go! Now!”

  “I can’t. She’s out there.”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s out there?”

  “The girl, the girl I dropped, she’s coming for me.”

  Yriel laughed. “Not likely, and you know that as well as I do.”

  “She is in the curtains. Right now. There!”

  Yriel propped herself up on her elbows. Her face glistened with sweat. “It’s nothing. Just the wind.”

  “But she is here! I saw her earlier. In the corridor.” He remembered pausing in the hall, one hand touching an icy wall. He had stood in that gap of darkness between the pools of light cast by torches. He had heard something. A scraping, as if a heavy object were being dragged. He had called out to Griope but no answer came.

  He had just brought his breath under control when he saw a shape at the far reach of distant torch light. Her face was sheeted in blood; one eye was swollen shut. She held a bloody head in one hand. She was half-dressed in sodden rags, her bony knees a pale white. She opened her mouth to speak and darkness tumbled out, so fast that the torches flickered and went out. He had run back to his room and slammed the bolt home.

  He had thought himself safe. Let her rot out there. But then he had turned and saw her in the curtains, and he knew he could not escape.

  “You are mad,” said Yriel. “All these years and this is what breaks you.”

  “She was holding my head. Five heads, Spear said. I am the fifth one!”

  “Get a hold of yourself. She’s dead! I saw her fall. She can’t do anything to you. It’s all in your mind!”

  “Maybe not her. But Spear. He is her sword. He comes for me! I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. His footsteps in the hall!” He wheeled about and pressed his palms against the ancient wood of the door.

  “You need to go down there and defend the keep. Kill Spear! You kill Spear and all this will end! You kill him and we are safe. The girl will fade from your memory. You need to lead the men. If you do not, they will come for you. You know that. Already they grumble. Griope is the worst of the lot. Are you willing to risk everything you have won?”

  “Have I won anything?” He pressed his fingers into his mouth. “By the gods, I just want to tear every single tooth out. Stop the rot.” Tears came down his cheek and rolled into his beard. He pulled his hand away, blood and saliva stretching between his fingers.

  “What madness?” said Yriel.

  “Let’s you and I go now. We can still escape.” He slinked away from the wall, one eye to the curtain, and kneeled at the side of her bed. He wanted to take her hand in his but he saw his own hand covered in blood and could not touch her.

  She pulled away, clutching the sheet high by her neck. “Run, if you want, but I’m staying here. All that we have been through and you are ready to give it up?”

  “She comes for me.”

  “She is dead!”

  “Spear! He comes for me! She has sent him after me. He will be the one that will take my head.”

  “If you keep this up, he will take everything. Not because he can but because you will let him.”

  “The coin, the keep, none of this matters, not if darkness comes. Better to leave it all behind. Let the payment be the one that lets me walk beneath the stars and the sun. Better to run than to face a certain death. Nothing to be gained by that. I can always win back more coin.”

  “You are good as dead, Cruhund. Can’t you see that?”

  She had retreated even further across the bed. In his mind, she was the one who was dead. Her days were slipping away and she refused to leave. Holding on to something that meant nothing. What was more precious than life? Swords could be swung again. Coins hoarded. A castle taken. But a life lost could not be ret
urned.

  Cruhund pushed himself to standing. He lifted his face to the smell of smoke. Men screamed in the courtyard below. He needed to see what was happening.

  He drew his dagger, holding it in his fist, protecting his chest, and hurried to the balcony doors. As he crossed that threshold, the wind howled and the curtain grabbed at him, the white fabric slipping over his exposed skin, the cloth seeking to wrap his limbs. But he was faster, striking with his knife, shredding the thin fabric and finally tearing a huge section of it from the rod and hurling it over the balcony rail. It fell fast and hard, as if filled with rocks. He had expected it to billow. Instead, it hit the ground with the sound of bones cracking.

  He scanned the keep. Crows swarmed above his walls. More crows than he had ever seen. More than three dozen tearing across the sky.

  Below the balcony, men lay dead on the catwalk. Blood stained those walls. The tower was engulfed in flames and black smoke twisted to the sky. But worse, the gates were open and the men that should have been defending the keep were running towards the great hall, a flight of arrows pursuing them.

  How was this possible? He stared into the distances. He could almost see the grasses flattening and the trees bending beneath the ungodly wind that presaged the coming storm. Half the world was consumed by a dark wall of approaching clouds.

  He turned from the balcony and ran to Yriel. She was gone, the only sign of her having been there, a tangle of sweat-stained sheets.

  He spun to look for her, but the only thing he saw was his own reflection in a small round mirror hung on the wall opposite and the only part of him reflected was his head, floating, no longer part of his body.

  Cruhund screamed and ran from the room and towards the tunnels.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO