by C. L. Werner
‘Aldo,’ he said, his voice flat, almost petulant. ‘The keep is proving most tedious this evening.’ The rider let a sigh whisper from his chest. He began to idly turn his hat about. ‘I was wondering if I might borrow one of these creatures.’
‘My lord baron,’ the Tilean replied, nervousness entering his voice. ‘Do you think that wise? I… I mean there… there is still much work to do… to bring in the harvest. And you have already, ah, entertained twice this week.’
‘Aldo, I was wondering if I might borrow one of these creatures,’ the rider repeated as though the Tilean had never spoken. The mercenary swallowed loudly, bowing even lower before the rider.
‘Of course, lord baron,’ he said. A thin smile slithered across the rider’s face. He turned his gaze to the cowering labourers. The eyes of each man stared up, though not one dared to raise his head.
The rider replaced the blue cap, smoothing it into place, and began to wag his finger playfully from one peasant to another. At last, the finger stopped and settled upon one of the younger peasants.
‘Yes, I think you will do,’ his deep voice stated. The peasant looked up, fear warring with hate for command of his dirty, scarred features. Hate won and before the rider could move, a blob of spittle landed squarely on his boot. Aldo and the two mounted bodyguards moved forward. The scar-faced Tilean brought a booted foot crashing against the knee of the defiant peasant, forcing him to kneel. The grey-headed peasant looked up, a look of horror and anguish twisting his tired face.
‘My lord baron, I beg you!’ the man implored. ‘He is only a boy!’ The rider favoured both men with a withering stare. The other three peasants turned their eyes back to the ground, as if to distance themselves from the events. The rider nodded and his two mounted guards dropped down from their horses and caught both of the older man’s brawny arms.
‘You know,’ the rider said, training his angry gaze upon the old man, ‘I do believe that you are right. You will provide much better sport than that vermin.’ The rider turned his gaze to Aldo. ‘Gut him,’ the rider snapped. The old man shrieked, straining against the two armoured mercenaries holding him. The overseer brought a dagger from his belt and raked it across the belly of his captive, finally letting the dying man pitch forward into a pool of his own blood.
‘Emil!’ screamed the old man, watching as his son twitched in the dirt. He looked once more at the rider. ‘Bastard!’ he roared. The guard gripping his left arm kicked him in the stomach, forcing the wind from his lungs. The old man bent double, gasping for air. The rider raised his hand when the other guard prepared to deliver another kick.
‘Now, now,’ the rider reprimanded. ‘If you break him, he won’t be any good to me. Take him to the keep.’ The rider did not wait to see his guards remove the gasping man, but turned his eyes once more to Aldo.
‘This mess,’ the rider said indicating both the ox cart as well as the corpse lying in the street. ‘Have it cleaned up right away.’ He cast a wrathful look at the three remaining peasants. ‘And see that this lazy rabble attends to it.’
‘My lord baron,’ the Tilean spoke. ‘Five men could not repair the cart, how will three manage it?’
The rider smiled, wheeling his horse about, to face the animal towards his timber keep. ‘Just tell them that if they don’t, they will be joining the old man. That should give them an extra burst of vigour.’ Chuckling at his own jest, the rider galloped back towards the timber fort.
An hour later, Albrecht Yorck, self-styled Baron of Yorckweg, sat down in the padded seat resting atop a small awning-clothed viewing stand. It overlooked a small, timber-walled arena beside the tyrant’s timber-walled fortress. The Imperial renegade had taken many years to secure his small holding in that lawless region known as the Border Princes. He had fought long and hard against man and beast, orc and goblin, even the wilds themselves to make his township survive. He had little to show for his efforts, but Yorck was determined to enjoy what small pleasures he could wring from what fruits his labours had provided.
This tyrant of Yorckweg looked at the frail peasant girl at his side, whose eyes stared at the timber floor of his viewing stand. He gestured with his hand and the girl quickly filled a horn cup with dark Tilean wine. He gestured again and the woman slunk to her former posture. Yorck let the fluid sit in his mouth a moment before letting the warm taste slide down his throat. It was as if, with every glass, he could taste the terror of the peasants who created it. It was a taste that was much to his liking.
He had known terror, once, and it was that memory that made the fear of others pleasing to him. He knew that he was now the source of fear, that he was the dread sovereign who held the life and death of hundreds in his hands. He understood now what pleasure fear must have given his former noble masters; it was the power to destroy a life with a simple word.
The tyrant leaned forward as the old peasant man from the road was shoved through the log door at the far end of the arena. The portal closed at once behind him. The old man stared about him, with horror in his eyes, then he looked up at the viewing stand. Yorck smiled down at him, the cold, humourless smile he had seen real barons and counts make into an art form.
Again, memory struck Yorck. He could remember his last moments before such a paragon of nobility. It had been in the throne room of the Viscount Augustine de Chegney, following the successful completion of the viscount’s brief campaign of expansion into the Empire. Yorck’s role had been instrumental in the campaign, but it was a thankless role, and the viscount had no intention of honouring their arrangement. There would be no elevation of Yorck, no rise for the spy and turncoat to a position befitting a gentleman. No, the viscount had shrewdly decided that a man who could betray a good master would betray a wicked one just as easily. Yorck could remember the Bretonnian lord’s laughter as he pleaded for his life. But it was not Yorck’s words that stayed his hand, rather it was the look of hate from the man he betrayed that saved his life. The hate between the viscount and his prisoner was deep and it would stoke the fires of rage in the prisoner’s heart if the viscount let him go, and so it had been done.
Yorck stroked the dragon-hilted sword at his side and the cruel smile spread across his face. ‘If you beg for mercy,’ he called down, ‘I may spare your life.’
The fear in the old man’s eyes was at once replaced by hate. The man spat at the distant figure of the tyrant, the spittle falling far short of its target. Yorck shook his head.
‘Come now,’ he goaded, reaching into the small wooden bowl at his side, and removing a handful of small stones. ‘You must have something to say.’ The tyrant threw a rock at the peasant, stinging his arm. He repeated the attack, but the peasant refused to beg, or cry out as the small missiles struck his body. His hateful glare remained focused on his tormentor.
‘Insolent,’ the tyrant declared with a disgusted tone. He dropped the few remaining stones back into the bowl. He reached for a rope that hung from the wooden awning that screened the viewing stand. ‘Go join your son, you filthy cur,’ Yorck snarled, pulling the rope.
A section of the arena wall below the viewing stand rose upwards and two massive creatures slunk forward from the darkness. They were dogs—monstrous war hounds from faraway Norsca. Each of the canine giants was nearly four foot at the shoulder and twice as long. Their pelts were brindle, sporting a brown field with darker black patches and stripes. The hides were drawn close about their lean bodies and were marked by bare grey patches of scarring where the lash had done its work. The skin was tight over the ribs and the heaving of each animal’s chest was quite visible as they loped into view. The massive, wide jaws dropped wide, letting thick tongues loll forward as streams of drool dangled from their jowls. The two animals began to pace towards the peasant in an eerie silence: the tyrant had long ago had their vocal cords severed.
The peasant looked away from the dogs as they advanced upon him, and trained one last, wrathful glare at the chuckling Yorck. Then, the hounds fell upon him, pulling
him down to the earth. Yorck snapped his fingers as screams rose from the arena floor. Averting her eyes from the gory spectacle below, the serving girl refilled her masters cup.
Elsewhere in Yorckweg, shabby figures carefully made their way through the shadow-lined streets of the village to an old disused barn. It was a structure Yorck had given his peasants long ago to hold surplus crops; a surplus that never materialised no matter how large the harvest. By ones and twos, the silent figures made their way to the darkened meeting place. A few, hearing the sounds of screaming from the fort, turned back, retreating to the mock safety of their hovels. But many more heard the cries and strode even more purposefully toward the barn.
There was no light inside, for the eyes of Yorck’s guards were everywhere, yet each person managed to find a place, leaning against a wall or sitting upon the floor. Several crawled onto the roof, to act as sentries should one of the mercenaries stray too near the meeting place.
In low, fearful whispers, the men began to speak. It was not so much a debate—it had already been decided what must be done. But it was no easy thing to act. The baron was ruthless and cruel when given little cause. If they should fail to oppose him they would bring even greater misery upon their heads. Yet, who among them did not cringe in terror every waking moment, fearful of the sadistic whim of their master that could see them spirited off to his torture chambers, and thence to the arena and the bellies of his dogs? Fear reaches a point where it can grow no greater, and it ceases to be bearable. The peasants of Yorckweg had reached such a point.
The small stash of coins was removed from its hiding place in the barn. Gathered over five years, stolen and hidden from Albrecht Yorck and his soldiers, the tiny hoard represented the last hope of the villagers. A quick debate was held, a swift conclusion decided upon and a young boy, one who might not be missed, was selected to bear the coins away, to the neighbouring settlement of Brezano and hire a warrior—a professional killer—to rid Yorckweg of its merciless tyrant.
The decision reached, the men stole once more from the barn, in ones and twos, disappearing into the night. The chosen youth, a lad named Jurgen, stood for a moment with his father, then set off, carefully making his way toward the perimeter wall and one of the small holes burrowed beneath the timber palisade. His father watched him go, proud of his boy, but fearful that the entire endeavour might be for nothing.
Another pair of eyes also watched Jurgen depart. Geier was an old man; a crippling blow from Yorck’s soldiers had made him more wretched and poor than his fellows, a beggar among beggars. It shamed Geier to live off the charity of those who had nothing to give. And that shame steeled the man’s maimed shreds of pride. Carefully he stole his way towards the baron’s timber fort. Yorck might pay well to know what had occurred at the meeting, well enough that Geier would not have to beg—well enough that the cripple might feel like a man once again. There was no real hope that the boy would actually find anyone, and this way, at least one of the people of Yorckweg would prosper from their desperate scheme.
The young peasant made his way through the massive stone walls, staring in open-mouthed marvel at the large iron-bound gates either side of the wall. A sentry, wearing ringmail and a scarlet tabard, began to make his way toward the boy, but noting his shabby dress and dirty countenance decided that there was little chance of collecting either duty or bribe from the wretch. He hastened back to the shade beside the gate.
As a town, Brezano was much larger than Yorckweg, and Jurgen was amazed at the activity in the streets. Carts and beasts of burden lumbered along the way, carrying sacks of meal, bolts of cloth, casks of wine and other goods he could not even begin to recognise. There were soldiers rubbing shoulders with wool-garbed shepherds, who manoeuvred their flocks with the aid of small yapping dogs. He saw vendors standing beside wooden buildings selling chickens and other fowl to every man that looked to have coin in their pocket.
As he slunk along the press of people, he saw a pair of diminutive figures wearing dark, sombre armour and carrying wide-bladed axes upon their shoulders emerge from a large twin-storeyed building. The peasant had heard of dwarfs before, in folk-tales, but never before had he laid eyes upon one. He stared openly at the two as they lumbered through the throng. Turning around, he looked at the building the two dwarfs had emerged from and decided to investigate.
Jurgen peered into the darkened interior, marvelling at the fact that the building had a wooden floor. He stood in the doorway, gazing across the rows of tables, and narrow benches. The room was the largest he had ever seen—larger even than the barn in which he and his confederates had met, and it was filled with a noisy crowd of people. Raucous laughter and calls for more ale, beer and mead rose from every table. Jurgen smiled to see such merriment, a thing he had never experienced in Yorckweg. But the smile was banished in an instant when a massive, barrel-chested man appeared before him.
The man looked at Jurgen from beneath thick bushy eyebrows and at once laid a paw-like hand on his shoulder. Before the boy could react, the bouncer spun him around and booted him through the door with a savage kick.
‘No beggars,’ the bouncer snarled. ‘If you can’t pay, you can’t come in.’ The huge man turned on his heel and stalked back into the tavern.
Jurgen watched as the bouncer’s broad back disappeared into the gloom of the building. Without thinking, he reached into his pocket, pulling out the coins he had been given. But it was too late: the bouncer had already gone. Jurgen hastened to return the coins to his tunic and rose to his feet, wiping the dust of the street from his clothes.
‘You don’t want to drink there anyway,’ a slender man said from beside Jurgen. The boy jumped in surprise. The man beside him was tall, a full head taller than the boy, but lean. His clothes were much patched and a slim dagger graced his leather belt. The man’s skin was swarthy, darker than most Tileans’, and his hair was a mass of oily black curls. His mouth was screwed into a wide smile that displayed a set of blackened teeth. ‘I can take you to a place where they don’t put half so much water in their beer.’ The man laid his hand on Jurgen’s shoulder and led him away from the crowded street.
‘Thank you,’ muttered Jurgen. ‘But I am looking for someone.’ The Tilean’s face brightened and a look of surprise entered his eyes.
‘Oh? Perhaps I have seen him?’ the man said, gently nudging the peasant boy around the corner of a small brick building. ‘Or is it a her you’re looking for?’ The Tilean’s beady eye snapped shut in a knowing wink.
‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Jurgen responded. ‘Actually, I am not sure exactly who I am looking for.’
The Tilean stared back at Jurgen, the smile withering on his face. ‘Well, I know who I have been looking for,’ the man hissed, drawing the dagger from his belt. ‘I’ll have that silver you are carrying.’
Jurgen gasped, looking from the threatening thief, to the confining walls of the alley the man had guided him into. Seeing no avenue of escape, Jurgen put a protective hand on the pocket that contained the coins. ‘You can’t,’ he almost screamed.
‘None of that,’ the Tilean snarled. ‘If you make a noise, I’ll have to cut you. More trouble for both of us.’
He took a step forward. Then the dagger slipped from his fingers. The thief’s eyes grew wide, staring at Jurgen without seeing him. A bloody bubble burst from the man’s mouth and he slumped into the dirt, toppling on top of his discarded dagger.
A man appeared behind the fallen body, wiping blood from the knife he had stuck in the thief’s back. The newcomer wore a suit of brigandine armour, a breastplate of dark gromril covering his chest. A steel sallet helm of blackened metal covered the upper portion of his head and face. The man finished cleaning his knife, then replaced the blade in a leather belt across his chest.
The bounty hunter did not spare a glance at Jurgen but instead knelt beside the body of the man he had killed. He pulled an even larger knife from the belt around his waist—a massive blade with a serrated, saw-lik
e edge. ‘This time you will stay caught,’ an icy voice said from beneath the blackened helm.
Jurgen looked away as the bounty hunter brought the edge of his blade against the neck of the dead man. In only a few minutes, the bounty killer had cleaned his knife and returned it to his belt. He produced a sack and dropped the Tilean’s head into it, twisting the end closed. The armoured figure then stood and turned, heading out of the alley.
‘Wait!’ Jurgen cried out, hurrying after the withdrawing figure. Brunner turned his steel-clad head, to stare at the peasant from the slit-like visor. The boy slunk away from the terrible gaze, his limbs trembling.
The bounty hunter turned again and began to stalk from the alleyway. Jurgen bit down on his fear of the intimidating figure and hurried forward. The armoured head twisted around slowly, the cold eyes narrowing on the boy.
‘Th… Thank you,’ Jurgen managed to force the words from his mouth. The look in the icy eyes remained the same and more words stumbled their way from the boy’s lips. ‘For saving me from… from that…’ The boy cast a look at the headless corpse lying in the alley, its blood draining away into the dirt.
‘Don’t thank me,’ the cold, flat voice of the killer rasped. ‘If that maggot hadn’t had a price on his head, he could have cut your heart out and offered it to the Blood God and it would have been none of my affair.’ Brunner turned away again, slinging the sack over his shoulder.
‘You killed that man for money?’ Jurgen gasped, horrified and excited by his harsh emotionless words. ‘You’re an assassin?’ he added in a slight whisper.
‘I’m no assassin,’ Brunner snapped, a cold fire in his voice. He rounded on the boy, glaring down at him. ‘I’m a bounty hunter, and there is a difference, though a moron peasant looking to get his throat slit in a back alley wouldn’t be able to understand it.’ Again, Brunner headed toward the street. Jurgen hesitated a moment, then followed the bounty hunter.
