Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

  “What’re you looking at?” one of them demanded.

  “It speaks,” Gregor said, feigning surprise. “You’re obviously cleverer than you look.”

  “You better watch your mouth, boy,” the tough said.

  “That’s anatomically impossible,” Gregor replied. “See? Eyes here, mouth here.” He pointed at his own face as though talking to a child.

  The thug stood up. He was twice Gregor’s size, a foot taller and possessed thick, muscular arms. He reached for the front of Gregor’s shirt.

  Gregor caught the man’s wrist and held it. The thug struggled, tried to push forwards, then to pull back, but he couldn’t move. Gregor stood up, twisting his hand as he rose, forcing the man out into the open floor of the tavern.

  “Idiot,” he said, and lashed out with a foot. The thug flew across the room, landed on a table, shattering it and scattering patrons, drinks and cups. Gregor turned back. “Anyone else?” he said.

  There was a long pause. The man he’d thrown clambered to his feet, rubbing his twisted arm. It wasn’t broken. Gregor hadn’t wanted to break it. The men at the next table took their seats again, but Gregor didn’t.

  “I’m looking for men,” he said. “The pay is good. The work is dirty. There’ll be a lot of killing.”

  His words were greeted by silent stares. A big man sitting by the bar spat on the ground.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  “I am Lord Whitedale,” Gregor replied. “Soon I will be King of Avilian.”

  The big man grinned. “You talk big for a little man, but that was a good trick you did with Kelso.”

  The man he’d kicked across the room was still rubbing his arm. “That were no trick, Ben,” he said. “This un kicks like a mule.”

  “Ain’t you got no men, being a lord and all?” Ben asked.

  “Not the men I need,” Gregor said. “I need men who’ll obey me no matter what I tell them to do. Men who don’t care about what’s right or wrong. I need killers.”

  “Sounds like you need fools,” Ben said. “How much are you paying?”

  “One gold guinea a day for each man,” Gregor said. It was probably more money than anyone in this village had seen in their lives. Now he had their ears if not their hearts.

  “And what we gotta do for this guinea?” Ben asked.

  “Obey.”

  “Sounds like any man signing up would be letting himself in for a world a trouble,” Ben said.

  “He’d be staying alive,” Gregor said. “And there’s more. You’d be invincible.”

  “There ain’t a man in the world can say that, ‘cept maybe the Wolf.”

  “Come here,” Gregor said.

  Ben levered himself up from his seat. He was even bigger than Kelso – much bigger. He was broad as a door with forearms thicker than Gregor’s thighs. He towered over the boy.

  “Hit me,” Gregor said.

  “You might die,” Ben said, grinning.

  “I won’t.”

  The big man swung at him. It was a blow that should have killed him, but Gregor caught his fist and stopped it. Strength isn’t weight, though, and he slid a couple of feet across the tavern floor. Ben raised his fist and Gregor let go. He didn’t have the weight to stop him.

  “Again,” he said.

  “How’d you do that?” Ben asked. He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Hit me again. This time I’ll let you.”

  Ben looked suspicious, like he thought it was a trick, but he drew his huge fist back and let fly with another roundhouse. Gregor didn’t move, and the blow shattered his jaw, maybe snapped his neck and threw him across the room.

  “Won’t get up from that,” Kelso said.

  Gregor proved him wrong almost at once. He stood, dusted down his clothes and worked his jaw from side to side. The pain had been brief but intense.

  “That’s quite an arm you’ve got, Ben,” he said.

  “That ain’t possible,” Ben said.

  “You saw it,” Gregor said. “And you can be like this, too. Invincible.”

  Now he had them. “You can be like this and have money like you never had,” he said. “But you have to obey me. Kill your mother if I say so, kill your daughter. If you don’t obey, you die.”

  “You want us to kill little girls?” Kelso asked. “Fucking waste. Can’t we fuck them first?”

  These men disgusted him, but Gregor knew he couldn’t be choosy. Good men wouldn’t do the things he wanted done. He’d killed his own father. He’d done it because his father had killed his mother, and now he wanted to kill the man who’d made his father do that. He wanted to kill Wolf Narak. Besides, this wasn’t his choice. He’d made a bargain with the devil, and he intended to keep it.

  “You take my coin, you do what I say. Who’s in?”

  There was a lot of muttering in the tavern, but the giant Ben nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  “You gonna take orders from a boy?” Kelso asked. A lot of the men nodded and looked at Ben.

  “This ain’t no boy,” Ben said. “I heard about his kind. He’s Farheim.”

  That set the muttering off again. A couple of men who’d been sitting with Ben stood up. “We’re in,” one of them said.

  Kelso shook his head. “Guess I am and all,” he said. “Better than sitting round this shit hole robbing folk of coppers.”

  It was twelve in the end. Twelve out of the thirty or so in the tavern. That was good. Gregor had expected less.

  “Wear these,” he said, handing small stone amulets to his volunteers. “They will protect you.”

  The men put them on obediently. Some of them looked like they felt a little foolish doing so, but they obeyed anyway. But that was all he needed. There were the best part of eight hundred people in this village, five taverns, two temples, a smithy. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked up at the ceiling.

  “It is done!” he shouted. “They are chosen!”

  There was a rumble like thunder. That was a nice touch, Gregor thought, a bit of theatre. Everyone in the tavern, with the exception of his twelve men, dropped dead.

  Panic ensued. Several of the men ran for the door, but it wouldn’t open. Ben didn’t move. He stared at Gregor and slowly his face changed. His surprised expression melted into a smile. He went to the bar and poured himself a drink, drained it and poured another.

  “You got real power, boss,” he said.

  Gregor was surprised. He’d always equated size and strength with stupidity, but Ben wasn’t stupid. He’d worked it out, a part of it, anyway.

  “Get them in order, Captain Ben,” Gregor said.

  Ben grinned. “I will, boss,” he said and set about his fellow recruits, cuffing them, pushing them, shouting at them until he had them lined up between the broken furniture and the bodies that littered the tavern.

  “You are safe, for now,” Gregor said. “You’re safe because you’re mine. Understand? You step out of line and…” he looked pointedly at the corpses. “It ends.”

  “When do we see the money?” Kelso asked.

  “Now.” Gregor pulled a purse from his belt and counted out twelve golden guineas. He tossed them onto a table and watched the men scrabble for them. Ben was the last to pick his up. He looked at it and tucked it away in a pocket.

  “And the rest?” he asked.

  He’d expected that. Ben liked the money, but what the big man really wanted was the power, the strength.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He walked out of the tavern into the open sewer that passed for a street. There were bodies here, too, all of them caught in their last act. A whore and her customer twined together in a doorway, a drunkard with a bottle still stuck in his dead mouth. He led them out of the alley onto the village’s main thoroughfare.

  The carnage was more apparent here. Gregor tried not to look at the bodies. An entire village had died here. Women, children, young and old lay scattered in the road. It would have looked
worse in daylight. One house was burning, the flames likely to spread elsewhere, but it hardly mattered. There was a price, he knew, for doing this. These people were dying so that he could be avenged. They were only peasants, but even so it disturbed him to see the young so wantonly dead.

  He stopped by one of the temples, opened the thick wooden door and peered inside. There were no bodies here, but a figure stood next to the altar, tall, silent and hooded.

  “Shall we begin, My Lord?” Gregor asked. The figure didn’t speak – it rarely did in Gregor’s experience – but nodded. He went out into the street again. “Ben, you first.”

  Ben looked eager but cautious. He followed Gregor inside and stopped just past the threshold, staring.

  “My Lord, this is Ben, my chosen Captain,” Gregor said.

  The figure by the altar beckoned and Ben glanced across at Gregor, who nodded. Ben walked forwards. Gregor could see the tension in the big man’s neck and shoulders. He was ready to lash out if he felt threatened, but Gregor knew how futile that would be.

  The figure reached out a pale hand and put it gently on Ben’s chest. That was all Gregor could see. There was no flash of light, no roll of thunder. There should have been. When it had been done to him, he’d felt it, heard it, received it with every sense he possessed.

  Ben staggered back a step, bent over and gasping for air.

  “It is done,” Gregor said. “Go outside and send in the next man.”

  Ben looked at the hooded figure, then at Gregor. “But I want to see…”

  “Go. Now.” Gregor didn’t shout, but there was enough urgency in his voice to drive Ben out. He stumbled out into the street and the next man came in. It was Kelso.

  This is how it begins, Gregor thought. So far it had been just him, but now he had the seeds of an army. What he was doing was wrong. He knew that, but still he moved forward, driven by the singular need to kill Wolf Narak. His world had been torn apart. What did it matter now if everyone else’s was also ripped asunder? What did it matter if hundreds died, as they had here?

  Death was a means and an end. It was a tool and a resolution. Gregor did not care if the world itself died as long as Wolf Narak died with it.

  “Step forwards,” he said. Kelso stepped forwards. The figure by the altar reached out a hand.

  68 Red Hill

  Jerac Fane hadn’t marched north with the men from Great Howe. He had run ahead of them. It still surprised him that he could run like this. His legs seemed tireless. His lungs easily kept pace with his body’s demands. Even a horse couldn’t do this.

  It wasn’t that far. Red Hill was thirty miles north of Great Howe and he had covered the distance in three hours, arriving just after dawn. What he found surprised him.

  Red Hill was visible from miles away. It dominated the landscape. The name had an obvious origin. At some point the walls of the fortress had been reinforced with iron bars, bolts driven through them, through the stone, and secured on the inside. The iron had rusted and the rust had been smeared down the pale stone walls by centuries of rain. From a distance it looked like the castle was bleeding. On the other hand, there was no hill. It squatted in the middle of a lush, green plain dotted with whitewashed farm buildings, barns, and scratched with long, straight tracks.

  His army was camped south of the stronghold, a long line stretching either side of the central concentration, curving around the north side. Wenban had done well. It was a classic siege configuration. But as he came closer it became obvious that the camp was on high alert. Hundreds of men were standing ready, facing the castle on the north side of their position.

  Nobody noticed him until he was among them. He walked through the ranks until he found Wenban. The colonel was standing in the front rank, staring up at the fortress.

  “Colonel?”

  Wenban turned and saw him. His relief was obvious. “Thank the gods you’re here, General,” he said. “We didn’t know what to do.”

  “Why? What happened? Were you attacked?”

  Wrong question. He could see that as soon as he asked it. There was no sign of battle here, just the expectation of trouble.

  “There were noises, General, from inside the walls. It sounded like a fight, but worse. There were screams. It sounded like someone was being tortured…”

  “And?”

  “Women, General. Like someone torturing women. That’s what it sounded like.”

  Fane looked at the fortress. It was quiet now. For his men to hear what they’d heard it must have been loud, unreasonably so. But now he couldn’t see anyone on the walls, which was unusual, given that the place was besieged. Fane pointed to four men. “You come with me,” he said. “We’ll ride. Keep the rest here, Colonel. I’ll signal if I need you.”

  Horses were brought and they covered the quarter mile to the great gates of Red Hill. Fane reined in his mount and looked up. Still no sign of defenders.

  “Hello in the castle!” he shouted. There was no response. He rode a little way along the wall and shouted again with the same result. High above he could see a pair of large birds circling. Eagles? That would mean Jidian, but the Eagle had no axe to grind here. Vultures, then.

  He climbed down from his horse.

  “Keep watch,” he told his men. “If you see anything, any movement at all, shout.”

  He rolled his sleeves while he examined the wall. The odd thing about those iron reinforcements was that they made the climb so much easier. He quickly reached the top and eased between two merlons.

  There was nobody on the parapet, but looking down into the bailey he could see a body lying face down on the ground. He looked under the parapet. Nothing.

  He walked along the wall to the gate and went down the stairs to the guard room. It was empty. He walked out into the bailey, eyeing the high battlements of the keep in case something moved up there. Nothing did. He approached the body.

  It was an ordinary soldier, as far as he could tell. There was no sign that the man had been stabbed, hacked at or shot. He’d fallen, or been thrown, from the top of the keep.

  Fane looked at the keep. From here he could see the door, and it was hanging open. So perhaps he would find the rest of them inside. Whatever had occurred at Red Hill had drawn its defenders into the keep like moths to a flame. He crossed the bailey and went inside.

  Stone stairs led upwards. Fane followed them cautiously. There were places on this flight where openings allowed defenders to shoot down at an attacker, places where hot oil could be poured. But nothing happened. He turned a corner and found the second body.

  This man had died badly. His arm had been severed and a second blow had cut into his body between neck and shoulder, the wound going so far through his torso that it must have shattered his ribs and destroyed his heart – instantly fatal and evidence of great strength.

  Fane drew one of his own blades.

  In the great hall he found carnage. There were so many dead and so badly cut about that it would be a puzzle to count them all. The stone floor was a lake of blood, not yet dry. He edged around it and went up the stairs to what must be the private apartments, knowing and dreading what he would see there.

  If the men in the great hall had died fighting it was evident that those in the rooms above had not been so fortunate. There were perhaps a dozen men here. They had been bound, tortured and executed. The wounds on their bodies were explicit evidence.

  Fane turned over a couple with his boot. He didn’t know the faces, but they were well dressed and about the right age to be the lord of Red Hill and his son. Somewhere there was a wife and two daughters. A staircase led up again, and Fane followed it.

  This was the final room.

  Tables had been dragged here from elsewhere in the castle and the ladies of Red Hill’s ruling family had been stripped and tied to them. Fane could see the wounds, the blood, and it was obvious what had been done to them, but he did not name it, not even to himself. He didn’t want to think men capable of such things, but here was
a bonus. A man, a living man, was sitting at one of the tables, noisily eating soup from a bowl. He looked up and saw Fane, and he smiled. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and stood, picking up a large sword that was leaning against the table.

  “Didn’t bring any friends?” he asked, peering past Fane at the stairway. He sounded disappointed. “Mott, we’ve got a customer!”

  A second man emerged from a doorway to the right, doing up his trousers. He, too, was armed with a heavy weapon. Neither of them looked especially dangerous to Fane, and he’d a lifetime of judging men with swords. He drew his second blade and advanced towards them.

  The man called Mott rushed at him, aiming an artless but powerful stroke at his head. Fane blocked it, but it was even more powerful than he’d expected and he was forced to take a backward step. He responded with a lateral cut at the man’s shoulder, which the man blocked, but Fane’s second blade was busy and plunged into his gut. Fane twisted it and kicked Mott off the point. He smacked into the wall and fell.

  Fane turned to face soup eater.

  “Watch it, Kelso. He’s like us.”

  The man he’d killed was standing up again, rubbing his belly. Farheim. These men were Death Born, and that changed everything.

  “Tell me who your master is,” he demanded.

  Kelso didn’t answer. “You get round behind him, Mott,” he said. Mott did as he was told. Fane wasn’t worried. He’d been trained by Leras and Skal Hebbard. These men were barely literate with a blade. The one called Kelso seemed to be in charge.

  “Just two of you?” Fane said. “Which one of you will answer my questions?”

  Kelso laughed. Fane attacked.

  His opponent was quick and strong, but plainly he was stupid. Fane blocked the first blow and stabbed Kelso in the face. While the man howled with pain and surprise Fane cut his head off with a single stroke.

  “Let’s see you get up from that,” he said. He turned to face Mott, who had barely taken a step forward. “Who’s your master?” he said.

  Mott shook his head, already backing away. “Can’t tell you,” he said.

  “I am Jerac Fane,” Fane told him. “I’ve killed hundreds of men better than you. I’m Farheim, just like you. The difference is, I’m a soldier. I know how to use these.” He crossed his blades so fast they threw off sparks. “You’ll tell me or you’ll know pain the likes of which you’ve never imagined.”