01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  With steady caution, she released the handle and let the door sink back into its frame. She studied its metal hinges. The metalwork was primitive, and twisted wire took the place of pins. If the hinges were better made, they’d be easier to circumvent; she could simply take her knife and slowly pry the pins loose. But she couldn’t do that to these ones—she’d need to think of another way in.

  She rose and made her way steadily way back to the stairs, where Franziskus anxiously waited. On her return trip, the boards let out only a pair of bad creaks, and each time, more shouts echoed from inside Toby’s lair.

  “They know we’re here,” Franziskus said, voice hushed.

  “They know someone’s here,” Angelika corrected. She sat on a step. “But will they come out to investigate?”

  Franziskus sat beside her. “What is the purpose of a well-defended lair, if you obligingly poke your head out every time someone knocks at the door?”

  “No, they’re not stupid. Well, Henty is stupid. But the others aren’t.”

  They watched the door. It remained stubbornly still.

  Angelika turned and walked up the steps. She headed out of the clearing into the surrounding woods, and stooped to gather armfuls of brown, dead weeds.

  Franziskus stuck by her side. “Ah—you mean to smoke them out.”

  “That’s the drawback of a wooden fortress, isn’t it?”

  He ducked to help her collect the kindling. “If we set their redoubt on fire, they’ll flee, sure enough. But will they bring Lukas out with them?”

  “Probably not. So we’ll have to finish them off fast, then go in to pull him from the flames.” She’d found as much tinder as she could carry, so she walked back to the hole to pile it up.

  Franziskus dumped his armful of weeds and wrinkled his nose at the closed trap door. “I don’t fancy our odds, taking on those three again. We only beat them the last time by a narrow margin—and that was only because they failed to coordinate their attacks.”

  “I’m not claiming this is a good plan,” she said, “but it is the only one I can think of.” She ventured back into the woods for more dry brush.

  They accumulated two more armfuls. They twisted the weeds together, to make them easier to throw, and tossed them out onto the platform. Most landed near the trap door, though some fell wide of the mark. Franziskus set to work with his tinder box. They’d kept a few bundles in reserve; he set one alight. He lobbed it at the pile of weeds. It hit, but bounced, rolling to a stop several feet away. It burned out, without igniting the wood around it, leaving only a black smudge on the planking. He lit another and handed it to Angelika. She threw it right onto the kindling. A gust blew, that fed the fire. The flame made an appreciative whoomp noise and consumed the weeds. Under his breath, Franziskus egged it on, begging it to spread to the wood. It did. Grey smoke curled around the weeds and charring planks. It seeped down through the cracks between boards. A chorus of angry yells bubbled up Angelika and Franziskus dashed up the steps and stood on the edge. The trap door flipped open, banging on the deck behind it. A halfling leapt out. It was neither Toby nor Henty.

  It was a woman, her complexion darker than any halfling Angelika had seen. Her heart-shaped face was wrenched up into a snarl. Long, twisted curls of glossy dark hair flew out behind her as she bounded across the platform, shrieking a war cry and swinging a hatchet. Rows of copper rings pierced her ears and lower lip. She wore a shirt of mail, and she had to adjust the sleeve so that it would not droop over her free hand. A bronze buckle, so old that it had taken on a brilliant green patina, clung to her elbow, a rusty spike jutting from its centre.

  Next to emerge from the trap door, now wreathed in a ball of smoke, was a long-faced halfling with a steel helmet poised crookedly on top of his rectangular head. He wore no other armour, just a woollen tunic and hide leggings; his naked toes splayed wide across the burning boards as he charged toward the steps. In each fist, he carried a long, curved blade; he scraped them together to produce a sound that set Angelika’s teeth on edge.

  Then a third halfling came from the smoke. He’d left his head unprotected; grey hair feathered at his temples, beneath a thicker mop of reddish locks. His features were lined and bulldoggish. He wore only leggings; the muscles of his chest sagged, his gut jiggled above his waistline, but his arms bulged tight and ropy. In his right hand, he carried a kite shield, nearly two-thirds his height. On his left he wore a long, leather glove, which extended past his forearm; small spikes ran along his knuckles and from wrist to elbow.

  Then a fourth halfling pulled herself up through the doorway, lithe and fair-haired, her porcelain skin ruined by smallpox scars. She held a rapier and a dagger. A fifth appeared at her heels: bald, old, unshaven, with a wily, eager look about him and a club of burly oak in his gnarled right fist.

  That was the last of them. No Toby, no Henty, no Elennath. No Lukas, borne forth as a hostage, a knife’s-edge at his jugular. Angelika and Franziskus stepped back, and checked each other’s faces for signs of surprise. She said something to the halflings about this all being a mistake, but they kept coming.

  The halfling with the long black curls reached the stone stairway first. Angelika kicked her in the throat, knocking her onto her backside. As she fell, the rim of her buckle caught Angelika’s leg, and pulled her forward. Angelika fought for balance on the lip of the sinkhole, then tumbled onto the smoke-shrouded platform. The scimitar-wielder dived in at her, but she hopped up like a frog to evade his twin blows. She bounced into Spike-Glove, who smashed her in the face with his shield and then followed up with a punch to the head with his reinforced fist. Franziskus pushed off from the sinkhole rim to land on him, and tear him off Angelika. Franziskus pressed the flat of his elven sword to the man’s gullet, choking him. The poxy one jabbed at him with her own slim sword, poking a hole through the fabric of his tunic. He rolled, and her next blow speared in at Spike-Glove, who deflected it with his shield.

  “Hand over Lukas!” Franziskus shouted, at both of them. This halted them for a moment, and they exchanged puzzled looks. Then, in tandem, they feinted at Franziskus.

  Curly-Locks swooped her hatchet at Angelika, who scooted backwards. Hatchet hit flooring. Wood splinters flew. Curly-Locks lunged, punching forward with her buckle-spike. Angelika danced back and around, seizing her shield-shoulder and spinning her. Curly-Locks tripped, falling into the smoke, but regained her feet before Angelika could find advantage. They crouched, each waiting for an opening.

  “You’re on fire,” Angelika told her.

  “No I’m not,” she said.

  “Suit yourself.” Curly-Locks looked down to see orange fire eating at the fabric of her leggings. Her eyes bulged. She rolled to a part of the platform untouched by flames.

  Poxy and Spike-Glove flanked Franziskus. Spike-Glove punched him in the stomach. He doubled over, shambling into the smoke. He choked, unable to breathe. Spike-Glove came through the cloud at him, squinting, mouth clamped shut. With his elf-sword’s razor tip, Franziskus speared the halfling’s upper arm, so that he was forced to drop his kite shield. Franziskus stooped to grab it and brought its sharp bottom edge down on his opponent’s neck. The gloved halfling hit the platform, face first, and lay there moaning.

  Angelika ran to the foot of the stairs. Scimitar and Baldy jostled shoulders, each vying to be the first to engage her. Baldy grinned savagely and let Scimitar step up. Scimitar grated his curved blades together. Angelika backed off. She tried to angle around him.

  “I’ve fought some crazy-stupid people in my day,” he drawled, “but you takes the prize. Only the two of you, and you attacks a stronghold not knowing who you’ll shake loose to fight you.”

  The poxy one, waving her sword-hand to dispel the smoke before her face, stepped through the cloud, saw Franziskus, and slashed at him. He skipped out of the arc of her blow, then used his height advantage to tear open the front of her tunic. He grimaced when the flap of cloth fell open; he’d cut her more deeply than he’d int
ended: from cleavage to clavicle.

  He backed up. “We’ve no desire to wound you,” he told the poxy halfling. “Just let us get Lukas, and all will be—”

  Her rapier cut at his legs. He jumped away. Their crossed blades rang. From the corner of his eye, Franziskus saw that Spike-Glove had passed out, and that high flames were about to roast him. Half crouching, Franziskus forked a path to his fallen foe. He grabbed hold of the halfling’s legs and pulled him free of the fire. He felt a push on his hips, and then he toppled on his side: Poxy had kicked him over. He scrambled on the boards. She brought another blow raining down on him, and as he parried it, sparks flew from his elven blade.

  “Why did you save him?” she demanded. She sliced at him; he rolled.

  He crawled over to her. “No one need die here. You’ve fought well; Toby cannot blame you.”

  Angelika seized Scimitar’s dropped weapon and swooped it at him. With a sideways blow of his remaining blade, he knocked it from her hand. Pain radiated through her fingers and up into her arm. He brought the curved sword bearing down on her.

  A crash came from behind him. He pivoted his head to see what it was. The boards at the centre of the platform had been claimed by fire, and were collapsing into the hideout.

  She punched him in the ear. He sank to the boards.

  “Toby?” the poxy halfling shrieked at Franziskus. “You serve Toby? Wretches! We’ll fry your gizzards!” She lurched at Franziskus, then slumped, her features twisted in agony. Her face wound up in his lap. Blood soaked her tunic down to the waist.

  Angelika heard footfalls behind her and dropped down. Curly-Locks tripped over her and sailed, sprawling onto the boards. The spike of her buckle became stuck between two planks. She fought to jerk it free, but gave up, and hurled a third hatchet at Angelika. Angelika ducked, but the handle of the spinning weapon still hit her on the temple. She blacked out.

  Baldy bounded down the steps to run at Franziskus, dodging to skirt the yawning, growing hole in the middle of the planking. About ten feet from Franziskus, he slowed himself. Opening his mouth, he revealed nearly toothless gums. Strands of saliva ran from the top layer to the bottom.

  Pox/s eyes fluttered open. She called to Baldy: Toby sent them!

  “Goatfield?” Baldy’s knuckles tightened around the grip of his club. “Tell us where the back-stabbing pig is, and just maybe you’ll earn yourself the mercy of a quick death!”

  “We don’t know where he is! We came here—” Franziskus thought fast, “to kill him!”

  Baldy stretched his left arm out and up to bunch Franziskus’ collar into a wad and shake him. Franziskus chose not to resist, allowing the halfling to pull him down to his eye level.

  “You lie!” Baldy shouted.

  “You misunderstand! We came here looking for him!”

  Curly-Locks dragged Angelika’s unconscious body over, and roughly tossed her onto the platform, beside Franziskus. It bounced slightly as she landed. Another plank had burned up and teetered into a hole. Franziskus gave it a long and meaningful look, hoping that one of them, at least, would realise how little time they had before the whole thing collapsed entirely. Baldy, however, was only interested in shaking him.

  “You make no sense!” he said, sprinkling the young Stirlander’s face with rancid spittle.

  “Toby’s our sworn enemy! He holds a friend of ours prisoner!” Franziskus aimed yet another look at the flaming boards. “We came to get our friend, and deal Goatfield the swift justice he deserves!”

  Baldy butted Franziskus in the gut. Franziskus doubled over, glad that the hard-skulled halfling wasn’t tall enough to head-butt him. Black smoke wreathed them. He felt a pinching grip on his elbow, and followed it. The halflings led him off the platform and stumbling up the steps.

  He coughed and fell on the meadow floor, rolling onto his side and bringing his knees up to his chin. The prickly stalk of a yellow wildflower spiked his cheek. He heard a body fall beside him, and opened his eyes to see that it was Angelika. She breathed shallowly. Someone yanked his hands behind his back and tightly tied them. He watched as Curly-Locks bound Angelika, too.

  Then the halflings left them alone for a while. Franziskus reckoned it was about ten or fifteen minutes. He heard them muttering but they were too far away to pick out any words. He wriggled over to see that they stood on the lip of their hole, watching the rest of their home burn up. Quietly, Franziskus took Sigmar’s name in vain.

  The halflings strode back over. The terrible slash he’d given Poxy had been crudely bound, with fabric torn from her trouser-legs. Any clean bandages they might have had would now be smouldering in the wreckage below. Baldy reached over and wrenched Franziskus up by the hair, into a sitting position. Franziskus made an effort not to cry out. Curly-Locks pulled Angelika up, too.

  “Tell us your names,” she demanded.

  Angelika still couldn’t focus. Franziskus answered for her: “I am Franziskus of Stirland. This is Angelika Fleischer. As I was saying—”

  Baldy clamped stubby fingers around the front of Franziskus’ windpipe. “Speak only when spoken to, Ladder-Legs.”

  Curly-Locks nodded and Baldy let go of him. When he’d finished gasping, Franziskus turned to face the dark-haired woman, who was clearly the one in charge.

  “I am Lela Mossrock, unfairly exiled from the Moot—as were each and every one of us.” She swept her hand to indicate her fellows. “You say you came here for Toby Goatfield?” She spat the name as if it were the filthiest of obscenities.

  “We were told we could find him here. Have you seen him?”

  Now it was her turn to grab his throat. She barely had to stoop. “If I had, he’d be lying beside you, my hatchet sunk deep in his brain!”

  Franziskus jerked his mouth, to show her he couldn’t speak with the fingers jammed into his windpipe. She let go. He coughed. “Evidently we’ve been deceived, no doubt by common foes. Have you done anything to offend the so-called Prince Davio, of the Castello del Dimenticato?”

  She stepped back from him, cocking her head. “I have heard of him; that is all.” She looked at the others. “Do any of this fool’s babblings make sense to you?”

  They served up a variety of blank looks. Scimitar shrugged. “Arthie and me went down there for rotgut, last autumn, but we didn’t do nothing to cause no one to send no murderers our way.”

  “But Goatfield knows of this place,” Franziskus said.

  “Knows of it?” Curly-Locks’ eyes were liquid hate. “He tricked us into building it for him, doing nary a lick of work himself! It was here he stole my virtue, which I had carefully hoarded as the most precious of things—meant only for he who would wed me, fair and true!” One of her hatchets had reappeared in her hand; it quivered beside her head.

  “And Henty Redpot? You know of him, too?”

  “Henty?” Scimitar exclaimed. “When I sees him, I’ll thumb his eyes from their sockets—grind them to paste!”

  “Only if you’re the first to get to ’im,” growled Baldy.

  Franziskus could not imagine them successfully overcoming the crazed and muscle-bound Henty, even if they worked in tandem. He decided, however, that this was an insight best left unshared. Instead he said: “So from what you know of this Toby, he sounds like quite the master of treachery?”

  “He’s not half as smart as he thinks,” Curly-Locks said.

  “But let’s say he wanted to throw someone off his trail. He knows exactly where this place is, well enough to give directions to another party, yes?”

  “Of course. Didn’t you hear me?”

  “This is what happened. We fell victim to his trickery. He had someone come to us, someone who made herself seem friendly to our cause; she sent us here, thinking it was him and Henty down in that fort, holding captive a young fellow we’re honour-bound to rescue.”

  “Honour? It’s honour made you destroy our home?”

  “No, it was treachery—Toby’s treachery. He did this to you. We were but his
pawns.”

  “His dupes, more like.”

  Franziskus paused for another little cough. “I wish I could argue with you, but you are right. It was my fault. I am the one who believed this person, who turned out to be in league with your enemy.”

  Angelika now seemed ready to speak.

  Franziskus kept going, to cut her off: “It was I who convinced my friend to come here, and I who dealt the worst wound to any of you.” Poxy responded to this observation with a nod of grievance. “If you wish to avenge the wrongs done to you,” Franziskus continued, “take me, but let my friend go. The fault is mine, and I must bear the punishment alone.”

  “Or better yet,” Angelika broke in, “come with us, and help us hunt the rat down once and for all! He’s the one you really want.”

  Curly-Locks took another look at the greying plume of smoke rising from their fortress. “You speak glibly and smooth-tongued.”

  “You don’t have much reason to trust us, I’ll grant you that,” Angelika said. “But picture it: the look on his face when all of us show up together, to exact our reckoning on him. All of his worst enemies, gathered together by his own too-clever plan. Wouldn’t that look be worth almost anything to you?”

  Curly-Locks pursed her lips thoughtfully. “It’s a tempting picture you paint.”

  “They lie!” Poxy cried. “He paid them to come here. He swore he’d get us, didn’t he, when we threw him and Henty out? He swore he’d bring our hard work crashing down around our ears, and look there, he’s done it—just as he said!”

  Curly-Locks folded her arms. “What Reecie says makes sense.”

  “I agree, it’s the sort of thing Goatfield might try,” Angelika said. “But in this case, it happens he didn’t. If you believe one thing I say, believe this: I wouldn’t let him pour water on me if I were on fire.”

  “It’s a trick Toby taught them.” The poxy one winced and clutched at her chest wound. “First they’re supposed to burn us out, then lead us into an ambush. That’s why Toby and Henty ain’t here themselves. They’re waiting for us in the trees along the road, maybe even with that pervert elf of theirs.”