Warlord Slayer

by Nicholas Everritt

  “We’re done here.” Mark called to the farmer and his children. “You can come out now.”

  Gabor aimed his loaded crossbow at Mark. “We’re going nowhere, you madman.”

  Mark locked his cold eyes on him. “That sounds like a bad idea. The Visgoti will come back to reclaim the body of their warlord. And when they do they’ll demolish this place and slaughter every man, woman and beast they find. Oh, and pointing a crossbow at me…That’s a bad idea old man. If you’re going to shoot me, you better pray you hit, and you better pray I stay hit.”

  “You monster!” relented Gabor, lowering the crossbow. “You’ve damned us all! This place is our livelihood, where are we to go?”

  “Tirigast.” said Mark, retrieving his axe from a man’s skull.

  “That shit-hole? No chance! They haven’t taken people in for three years! The doors are barred!”

  “Tell them Mark sent you.” he grunted. “By killing this warlord, I may have earned myself a little leverage.”

  Gabor put his head in his hands. “You hold my daughter hostage. You leave her at the mercy of a gang of rapist wildmen. You leave Visgoti bodies littering my farm, and a warlord’s mutilated corpse hanging from my window. You turf me out of house and home, torment my children, ruin my livelihood. And now you tell me we have to make the perilous journey to Tirigast, a frozen shit-stained fortress that’s about as homely as a barrow, and beg to be allowed entry, with every possibility that we’ll be turned away and forced to live as vagrants. Is there any other injustice you’d like to subject us to, warrior, just while you’re here?”

  Mark snorted back some snot and spat it out. “I’m going to need to take one of your horses.”

  Chapter Two: Tirigast

  Mark hung from the ceiling of one of Tirigast’s many dungeons. He was strung up by his wrists, bound in chains, his feet barely touching the cold stone floor. He was naked, half-starved, bruised and beaten. The dungeon was cold, dank and silent, save for the sound of the rain outside and the guards’ footsteps. A slither of moonlight pierced through the cell’s tiny window. The rest of the dungeon was darkness.

  The lock clanged and the door swung open. Five guards stormed in. One of them threw a bucket of freezing water over Mark, snapping him out of his dazed stupor, and he gasped for breath as the cold bit.

  Mark began gorging himself on the plate of mutton that had been plonked on the table in front of him. He spared little effort in wondering why he had been released before guzzling the meat and downing cupfuls of water.

  After a few mouthfuls he had the wherewithal to scan his surroundings. He was in the feasting hall, sat at one of the vast banqueting tables. There was nobody else sat down to eat. There had been precious little cause for banquets in Tirigast in recent years.

  The hall was dingy. Torches flickered on the walls, only just illuminating the dozen armed guards who milled about nervously. They were only too familiar with the man they were guarding and what he is capable of. They wore chain hauberks, iron helmets and padded tunics, with swords at their sides and spears in their hands.

  Pacing around where Mark was eating was a man he knew well. It was Kilbane, one of Darloth’s toughest thegns and the King’s right-hand man. His hair was long and brown. His beard was full and bushy. His features were thick and brutish, his eyes dark and scowling, his lips full and scarred. He wore heavy gauntlets and brigandine armour. Middle age was well in motion, and he had a paunch, but he looked fearsome enough, and he knew well how to use the poleaxe at his side.

  While Mark ate and drank feverishly, staving off a month’s worth of hunger, Kilbane gave his lecture as he pacing around him menacingly. His voice was gruff, but he was an eloquent man, and there was a rustic lyricism to his voice.

  “Eat up, Mark. Build up your strength. You’ll need it where you’re going.”

  “The other thegns wanted you dead. They wanted you hung, drawn and quartered, or fed to the dogs, or any number of things, executions usually reserved only for treasonous traitors. These punishments would be just. Because you did commit treason. And you are a traitor.”

  “But I counselled against such a rash course of action. Let me tell you how I put it to them. If your dog bites your hand, the very hand which feeds it, you could kill that dog. You would be well within your rights to. But a smarter ploy is to whip that dog, to starve it, to beat it. Then when you know you’ve got a mad, crazy dog on your hands, you invite the other thegns over for a spot of dog fighting. Then your dog eats the other dogs. You see?”

  He slammed his iron fist onto the table, and Mark met his fiery glare for the first time. His voice became a threatening growl. “That’s what you are now, Mark. You’re my mad dog. And I’m going to set you loose to eat all the other mad dogs alive.”

  Kilbane put his arms behind his back and continued to pace around and deliver his sermon. “A lot’s changed in the three years you’ve been gone, and none of it for the better. Our army was defeated by the Calvii at Hyalmarch. They were led by Warlord Tiroginus himself. He’s a wily old bastard, let me tell you, and he beat us good and proper. Spurred on by his victory, Tiroginus set about building an alliance. Remarkably, three of the strongest tribes in Lotheria have warlords who are neither bloodthirsty warmongers nor complete buffoons. A rare occurrence indeed. These three warlords, Brogan of the Visgoti, Aelarix of the Albrantes, and Tiroginus of the Calvii, have enough brains between them to keep this fragile alliance intact.”

  “With their forces united against us we cannot risk raising the army of Darloth. If they were to defeat us again, with the numbers our enemies have amassed against us, we could be wiped out. So we hide here, within the walls of Tirigast, mightiest of castles, seat of the King. We sit here holding our dicks while the Visgoti, Albrantes and Calvii lay waste to our farms and villages.”

  “We have little enough food to last us through the winter. We’ve already closed our gates to outsiders. Peasants, refuges – they are turned away. We cannot take them. And now we in the castle face the prospect of starvation.”

  “You’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with you. You’re a treacherous cunt, Mark, but I’ve got to hand it to you, you know how to kill warlords. Your work as King’s Champion was exemplary. I never knew there were so many way to cut apart an upstart savage.”

  “So that’s what I want you to do, Mark. Kill warlords. Kill Brogan, Aelarix and Tiroginus. Perhaps then, with this done, the other thegns will see fit to bring you back into the fold. Perhaps then your transgressions, your errors in judgement, can be forgiven, if not forgotten.”

  Kilbane grinned as Mark stopped eating and looked up at him. “Now I know what you’re thinking. As King’s Champion, you would march right up to the enemy warlord and challenge them to a duel. When they accept, you kill them. One on one, all out in the open, and it’s done. Easy. But what about these three? You can’t just walk up to them in their tribal homelands, safe within their hillforts, surrounded by their armies and their bodyguards, and challenge them to a fight to the death.”

  “Well, Mark, you’re just going to have to use some cunning. You’re going to have to prove you’re more than just a brute with an axe. The other thegns, they laughed when I told them my plans for you. They think you’ll just march up to one of these warlords and try to fight your way through their entire entourage. They think you’re stupid. And I agree with them. You are stupid. But what I see, and they don’t, is cunning.”

  “Ever since you were brought to Tirigast as a baby, left there at the gates, abandoned by your parents…From the first time I looked into those cold blue eyes I knew we had a killer on our hands. And you didn’t disappoint me. We raised you to be a killer, and what a killer you became. The finest in all of Darloth. But I always saw cunning too.”

  “You’re like one of those rogue winter wolves who’s been shunned by the rest of the pack. You ask this feral wolf who the King of Darloth is, he won’t know. Ask him the rituals you can use to improve potency i
n the bedroom, he’ll give no reply except for a feral growl. But you ask him to survive on his own in the wilderness, away from the warmth and safety of the pack? This cunning son of a bitch will find a way. It’ll be ruthless. And it’ll be bloody. He’ll sneak into the pack’s cave while they’re sleeping. And then he eats their babies.”

  “So what do you say, Mark? Are you going to use that cunning of yours to earn some redemption?”

  Mark had had his fill. He gulped down his last mouthful, wiped his mouth, and nodded.

  “Good.” grunted Kilbane. “If you want my advice, boy, you’ll use this as an opportunity. A chance, slim though it may be, to earn redemption, or an honourable death at least. You won’t run off and abandon your people again.”

  “Your soul is already damned. If you can’t redeem yourself then you’ll spend the afterlife in eternal darkness, being gnawed at by rats and bitten by snakes. But if you betray your people once again, I dare not imagine what fate our wise ancestors will have in store for you.”

  Kilbane couldn’t help but smirk as he made one final stipulation. “Oh, and before I forget, Warlord Maedoc is our ally. You are not to approach him.”

  Mark’s eyes thinned as he heard the name. Kilbane grinned.

  “Unpalatable I know, to ally ourselves with the most ruthless butcher in all of Lotheria, but given the circumstances our Kingdom finds itself in our options have become rather limited. He’s the only warlord in Lotheria with the manpower to stand up to the alliance. If it wasn’t for Maedoc and his Morrowfow keeping our enemies honest, then shit, Darloth would be in flames already.”

  “Now I know you have a little…History with the man. But he is an ally of Darloth, and as much as it sickens me to say it, he benefits from royal protection. So you will not go anywhere near him. Do I make myself clear, boy?”

  Mark recognised that his options were fairly limited. So he nodded.

  “Good.” grinned Kilbane, slapping him on the back. “Let bygones be bygones, eh? Speaking of which, since you’ll be leaving, and your chances of returning alive are tremendously slim, how about an audience with the King, eh?”

  Mark’s eyes shot over to him. Kilbane laughed.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, lad. He’s next exactly as you might remember him.”

  Mark’s heart pounded as he was led through the catacombs and stairways of Tirigast, up and up towards the highest level. He was burning with guilt, flushed with shame as he was led into the throne room. He was to be reunited with the king he had sworn to protect. The king he had abandoned.

  The throne room was big, dark and cavernous, adorned with trophy shields collected from Darloth’s many barbarian enemies. The only souls in the place were the King’s Huscarls, picked from Darloth’s greatest warriors to defend Tirigast until their dying day. Since Tirigast had never been attacked, these crusty old warriors hadn’t lifted their axes in anger for decades, and it showed. Their beards were long, grey and wild. They were haggard and uninterested. Some slept leaning on their tall axes.

  The throne itself, made from roughly-hewn stone, sat empty. There sat the crown of Darloth, an iron battle-helm adorned with a bronze crown, thought there was a big, visible dent in the forehead.

  “The King is in his chamber. Come.” said Kilbane, gesturing for the squadron of guards accompanying them to wait there in the throne room. He led Mark to a doorway. The King’s bedroom was inside.

  Mark’s ears flushed hot as he stood in front of the door. His shaking hand hesitated at the handle. He didn’t have the courage to open it. So Kilbane pushed in front of him and dragged him in.

  It was tremendously cold in there. An icy, chill wind blew in through the open window, which looked out over the spectacular ice-capped Mount Staggheim. There was the King’s bed, his furniture, his clothes…And his chair, turned away from the door, looking out of the window towards the mountain.

  “Come.” grunted Kilbane, brusquely, dragging Mark towards the chair. “Don’t be shy, boy, he won’t even know you’re here.”

  Then Mark set eyes upon the King, the man he had pledged his life to as a younger man. In the three years since Mark had last seen him he had grown terribly old. He was thin and bony and wore only a white nightgown. His hair and beard, once full and black, were now thinning and grey. His features, though as stony-stern as ever, were wrinkled. His hooked nose and dark, glaring eyes were familiar. What was unfamiliar was the mighty dent on the front of his head. He stared out towards the mountain, never averting his gaze or even registering their presence. His white-knuckled hands clutched at the arms of his chair. His lips were cracked and dry, his mouth locked in a terrible scowl.

  Mark knelt down beside him. Tears fell from his eyes as he looked upon the ghost of the fierce, vibrant man he had once known, the man he had loved not just as a ruler, but also as a surrogate father.

  Kilbane spoke. “It happened at the battle of Hyalmarch. Tiroginus’ champion challenged him to a duel. You know what King Tiberix is like. He accepted of course, though we tried to stop him, tried to convince him to pick a champion to fight in his place. Well he didn’t. And he lost. Tiroginus’ champion did that to him.” he said of the wound. “He hasn’t spoken a word since. Barely eats. Rarely sleeps. He just keeps on staring at the mountain. I always say to the other thegns,” he said with a sombre chuckle, “that it looks like Mount Staggheim has challenged him to a staring contest, and he’s just too damn stubborn to back down.”

  Kilbane sighed as he put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “This is your doing, Mark. You should have been there to protect him. You should have been there to duel Tiroginus’ champion in his stead. But you weren’t. You abandoned him, and this is the result.”

  “Now come, boy. There’s no time to lose. No more time for remorse and self-pity. Redemption beckons.”

  Mark thought about holding the King’s hand for a moment, but he dare not. He was unworthy. So he just put a hand on the King’s chair briefly, and then was taken away by Kilbane.

  Tirigast’s portcullis slammed down. Mark was shut out, and he knew he could not return, forgiven and redeemed, until he had taken the heads of three of Lotheria’s most dangerous warlords.

  His body still ached from a month’s beating and captivity. He carried only his weapons and armour with him. It would be a long and gruelling quest.

  He took one last look back at the mighty castle, a gigantic citadel of towers and buttresses which none had ever dared to attack. It had once stood as a symbol of Darloth’s supremacy over the barbarians. Now it threatened to be its mausoleum, with a braindead King and impotent nobility holed up inside.

  Mark turned back, and he saw Darloth. It was a land of muddy fields, frozen mountains and icy forests. There, peasants fended off hunger and marauding barbarians, with Darloth’s army lying dormant and unable to protect them. Beyond that was Lotheria, where the many barbarian tribes vied for supremacy. It was here, most likely, that he would find his prey.

  Chapter Three: Warlord Aelarix

  The clash of steel rang out over Skarmjal, the impressive mountainside hold of the Albrantes and the most heavily fortified hillfort in all of Lotheria. The fort looked out over the frosty peaks of the Hindengaust Range, which cut through Lotheria like a spine, all the way to Mount Staggheim in Darloth. It was usually foggy, but on a clear day like today you could stand on the sturdy wooden walls and see the mountains stretching out for miles, and watch as falcons swooped among the snowy peaks and the trees lower down. All of this was backed by a huge, blue, cloudless sky.

  Inside the fort there were thatch huts, clean and well maintained, with coniferous trees dotted about the place. Women went about their chores, sewing, cooking, keeping an eye on their children and fetching water. When not out hunting, the men would practice their swordplay in the courtyard overlooked by Skarmshall, the Warlord’s great hall. It was a large and impressive structure which stood at the highest point of Skarmjal. Stone steps led down to the courtyard below.

  The Albr
antes were known for their ironwork, and in battle they wore heavy chain hauberks and iron helmets, a far cry from the animal pelts and war paint of other tribes. They were sometimes mocked as cowards for wearing so much armour, but the protection told in battle, and their swords were rightly feared.

  A group of Albrante shield-bearers were training in the courtyard, their longswords clanging and whacking against their round wooden shields. They shuffled about engaging in mock duels as their drillmasters whipped them into shape. It was all fairly good humoured. No poor showing went without ribbing, and no embarrassing slip-up went without raucous laughter.

  One of the shield-bearers stopped fighting momentarily as something caught his eye.

  “What’s wrong Gregor? Had enough of getting your arse kicked for one day?” said his opposite number.

  “No, look. It’s Fuckface! He’s back!” he grinned. He called over a couple of his mates as Fuckface approached.

  He was a perilously thin old man wearing rags with a wrinkled, hugely expressive face. His big feet were bare and as rough as leather. He had little hair, and what little he had protruded from warts on his face. He waddled over to them with a silly walk and a ridiculous expression on his face, held out a big palm and bowed so low his bulbous nose almost touched the floor.

  A small crowd had gathered, laughing at the weird old fool.

  “Back again so soon, Fuckface? And you want my bronze? Well I can’t just give it to you.” said Gregor. He knew Fuckface couldn’t understand him, as he was known to be a Darlothian hermit who lived in the mountains and didn’t speak the language of the Lotherian tribes. “But if you were to do something for me then maybe I could pay you for the service.”