by Tony Daniel
A huge creaking sound filled the air. Then the crackle of splintering.
For a moment all eyes in the square were turned away from them. They must be on the Olden Oak.
“Let’s go,” Rainer said, pulling Grer along with him.
They walked quickly across the street from the base of the buttress to the cathedral wall that formed the belltower. Grer tried not to show his limp. For a moment, Rainer got a glimpse of the square. Soldiers everywhere. But they were still looking away.
The upper branches of the Olden Oak fell into view, crashing into the flagstones of the square. There were only green buds, no leaves yet. The bare branches clattered against one another. Then he and Grer were hidden behind the back of the cathedral staircase.
Curse them. The oak had fallen. But he was here, and had a job to do.
An overwhelming urge hit Rainer. He pulled down his trousers in the front.
“What are you doing?” Grer asked him.
“I’ve got to take a piss.”
“Against the cathedral?”
“It’ll be okay with your divine beings, I think,” Rainer said.
Rainer did his business quickly. Then he pulled up his pants, tied the waist string, and buckled his belt.
“Ready,” he said.
He squeezed behind the shrub. It was too close to the wall. This might be a problem. There was no way Grer would be able to hide behind it.
Grer would have to figure that out.
Rainer jumped up to get a grip on the wall…and fell off.
“Don’t worry. Getting started is always the hardest part,” he mumbled.
He tried again. He didn’t leap so high this time. His feet found a crack, and the fingers of his left hand slid into enough of a crevice between stones to gain a hold.
I know how to do this.
He turned his knuckle bone to jam his finger into the crack. He moved his feet up. He twisted his finger again to release the jam and pull it out. He reached for another hold.
Rainer worked his way upward. He had to go fast, but he had to be careful. But this was not a sheer-faced cliff. It was a lot like climbing up and down the tower wall to his bedchamber. He could do that in the dark.
Soon he’d covered twenty hands or more.
This put him above the protruding cathedral stairs. He could see the soldiers in the square. Which meant if they looked up they could see him.
Don’t look up. Keep filling your buckets and talking. Nothing to see here.
Upward he climbed.
Chapter Forty-Four:
The Killers
Wulf held the bear short sword in front of himself. He looked for a spot to thrust in past a shield and cut into flesh and bone. For what seemed like a long time he just stood there. His own soldiers were beside him. The enemy was in front of him. And he couldn’t do a thing.
There was a solid wall of three shields in front of him. The soldiers beside him—he thought one was a bear and the other a wolf man—were hacking and poking at the shields with halberds. These splintered the wood but weren’t having any other effect. They kept the Sandhaveners out of the reach of Wulf’s sword.
Suddenly the fighters on either side pushed away. The Sandhaven shield wall parted.
Wulf charged through.
He took only a few steps. He found himself face-to-face with a man about his own height and size.
The other wore a helmet and a hauberk with a sleeveless tabard over it. On it was the gray goose on a russet field, the badge of a regular soldier. The man had a sword raised to strike. He chopped the sword down straight from a raised position and Wulf instinctively raised his buckler to stop it. He’d practiced this a thousand times in the castle yard.
And he knew an easy countermove.
With a backhand motion, he brought the edge of the buckler toward the face of the Sandhavener. The man turned away in time to take it on the side of his helmet. He staggered back from the impact. Even while Wulf was moving his buckler he felt the wise woman’s catgut stitches on his left arm breaking. The wound opened enough to make him grit his teeth at the sharp pain. He couldn’t think about that now.
Wulf stepped into his own buckler blow and got inside the man’s sword swing.
Another situation he knew from practice.
If your opponent didn’t have room to pull back for a thrust, it didn’t matter how sharp his sword was, he couldn’t hit you with it.
For a moment, Wulf and the man stared at each other. Sweat was dripping down the man’s face. He blinked to clear it from his eyes. He opened them up again, very wide.
He’s terrified, Wulf thought.
Of me.
Wulf had already pulled back his sword above his left shoulder as he moved in. With a grunt, he arched it down into the man’s neck. The blade sank in where the neck met the collarbone, just above the mail. Even in the din of the battle, Wulf heard the skin and muscles part with a meaty squelch.
He didn’t wait. He twisted and pulled the sword away. He took another swing at the man’s exposed legs. He was wearing leather wrappings on his calves, but no greaves. Wulf’s sword sliced in below the left knee in his calf muscle. It cut through the wrapping, and the blood swelled from under the leather.
The man collapsed. After he hit the ground, he had enough room to bring his sword up. He attempted a weak thrust at Wulf. Wulf knocked the sword aside with his gauntleted left hand. He pointed his own sword down and plunged it into the man’s chest.
Because he hadn’t drawn back, the tip didn’t penetrate the mail. It didn’t matter. With his weight on the sword, Wulf held the man down. A gush of blood pumped from the wound in the man’s neck. Wulf had hit the artery. The man shuddered, bled out, and died. The look of wide-eyed terror was still on his face when the light went out of his eyes.
“Aaaar!”
Wulf looked up to a see a huge Sandhavener barreling toward him. The man had a spear in his hands held at waist height. Wulf raised his buckler, knowing the little shield would be useless against that much momentum. There was no way to get his sword up in time.
But the two fights going on to either side of Wulf crunched back together. He was pushed back behind the bear man and the wolf man. The man with the spear turned his charge. He looked for another target and pushed his spear past the soldier the wolf man was fighting and into wolf man’s gut. Wulf watch in horror as it came out the wolf man’s back.
The wolf man gave out a howl of pain and stumbled to a knee. His opponent was thrown off balance and stumbled forward. Wulf was about to move to attack him but was shoved away again. Men moved in to take the fallen wolf man’s place. Soon Wulf couldn’t see the wolf man, the Sandhavener, or the spearman anymore.
He was behind the front line, and took a moment to catch his breath.
I killed a man, Wulf thought.
A frightened man who didn’t have much training, yes.
But he was trying to kill me.
And I killed him instead.
He’d killed three men now. That was a lot for a potential librarian. Maybe even for an apprentice ranger.
“Killing is joy,” said a voice in his ear. “Now you know.”
Nagel, who had been missing in the woods, had found him and landed without his being aware of it.
Others were shoving up behind him. He bounced down the front line, moving mostly to his left. Here and there he saw a place to get a sword thrust through, and he did it.
The second time, he connected with flesh. But he was instantly knocked back. If it hadn’t been for the scar on Wulf’s hand, he’d have lost his grip on the sword.
He bounced farther, looking for a place to strike. Then he came to what seemed like the end of the battle line. He stumbled into the clear.
Here was something Koterbaum had taught him about. A flanking move.
Could he work his way around the side of the line and attack? He looked for an exposed Sandhavener. He was so intent on finding his man, he almost didn’t hear the shou
t.
“Get down, get down, you cursed fool!”
Wulf spun around. A group of fox men were about a dozen paces away. It wasn’t a clump; it was an organized group. There were two straight lines of about twenty. What were they doing? Then Wulf saw the wooden and metal weapons in the hands of the front line.
Crossbows.
The flanking attack had begun. He was standing in front of it.
Wulf dove for the ground.
Grer tried to stand casually by the cathedral wall. He did not let himself look up. He figured he’d know if Rainer fell. Rainer would crash into the street below and break into a thousand pieces. If that was what you did. More likely he’d just turn to pulp inside.
Grer tried to think of other things. Ulla. The two swords he’d been working on before the invasion. He’d planned to give them to Wulf and Rainer as presents before they took rooms at the university next year.
Ulla.
It had been a bright day, but the sky had gotten cloudy. Rain was on the way. Another thing to worry about.
Suddenly a soldier rounded the staircase and came walking down the street toward Grer. Grer panicked for a moment. Then he remembered what Rainer had done here. He turned to the wall, jacked down his pants with a thumb and pretended to be taking a piss.
“Cold hell, man,” the soldier said as he passed Grer. He stopped walking. “It’s a cathedral. Show some respect.”
Grer sighed, hitched up his pants, and turned around.
“When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,” he said with a shrug.
The soldier considered. “I guess.” He started to walk away when something seemed to occur to him. “Supposed to be a cathouse around here somewhere. Next to their own cursed cathedral, believe it or not. You know where I can find the place? It’s called the Red Door.”
Had he seen any red doors on the way here? If he had he couldn’t remember. Where would a cathouse be, anyway? The only ones he’d heard of were on the waterfront.
“Nah,” Grer said. “But they got plenty down by the river.”
“Yeah, I know about those, but so does everybody else in the stinking camp. There’s lines, even for the ugly girls.”
“Sorry about that.”
The soldier rubbed his chin, looked around. “Well, there’s got to be a few red doors around here. Think I’ll knock on every one of them until I find what I’m looking for. Even if it ain’t a cathouse, if you know what I mean.” He winked and walked away, finally turning down a side street. His footsteps faded.
Grer realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it slowly escape through his lips in a sigh.
“Hey you!” A hard tap on his shoulder. “You!”
Grer turned to face another soldier. This one looked much rougher than the one before. His face was pockmarked. There was a scar running from an eye across his nose to his lip.
Grer didn’t take time to think. He lunged forward and head-butted the man. The soldier staggered back, but Grer grabbed his tabard and pulled the man toward himself. He butted him and again and again, each time pulling him back.
Each time the man looked like he was going to make a sound, Grer head-butted him again.
After the fifth time, Grer raised his hands up and put them on either side of the man’s head. He twisted. Hard.
Many years of pounding with a heavy hammer and lifting glowing steel with tongs went into the twist. There was some resistance, and then the man’s neck popped. The soldier slumped to the ground.
Grer felt numb. He noticed something.
Those are fine boots he’s wearing. They look just right for me, too.
His own toes were crumpled up inside Rainer’s too-small hobnails.
Grer quickly tugged the boots off the dead man. He kicked Rainer’s off and pulled the others on. As he’d suspected, they were just the right size. Supple.
Good boots.
Now what was he going to do with the body?
He reached down and grabbed the man by the tabard and pulled him up. The man probably had a dead weight of fifteen stone, but Grer raised him easily. He held the man with one arm below the other’s limp arm. He let the body slump against his. That was it. He could appear to be helping a drunken buddy.
Right. That wasn’t going to fool anybody. The soldier’s head hung at a very unnatural angle, for one thing.
He looked around, but all he could see was the line of shrubbery next to the wall. As Rainer had found out, there was not room enough to slide the body between the branches or stash it next to the cathedral.
Grer looked with worry at the back of the cathedral stairs. There were no more soldiers coming…but he did see something. There, near the bottom of the back wall.
A grate?
He threw the body over his shoulder and walked toward it. Yes. It was an iron grating set in the cobblestones. He looked down into it. There was a long drop. It led into the drainage system under Allfather Square.
He set the man down and took hold of the grate. Yanked. Nothing.
It was firmly set. He tried again. The grate didn’t budge.
Grer stood back, then slapped a hand to his forehead.
Blood and bones! What am I thinking? I have tools.
He trotted back to get a pry bar from his bag. He worked it in between the grate and the cobblestones around it, using the leverage to push the grate back and forth. It moved. It loosened. He grabbed hold of it and pulled again. This time the grate came up.
The drain hole wasn’t very wide, but it would do.
He picked up the dead man by his two bare ankles. Straining, but not pushed to the limit, Grer dangled him headfirst over the drain opening. Grer worked the body through the opening. The shoulders were a bit tricky. After that it was easy. When the dead man was in to his knees, Grer dropped him.
In an eyeblink, there was a splash below. Grer wasted no time. He put away his pry bar and replaced the grate on the drain hole.
He walked back over to the cathedral wall and dared a glance up.
Rainer was a speck, far, far above.
The sky was even darker. A wind had whipped up. It blew against the shrubs, and they scratched against the sandstone of the cathedral walls.
“Storm’s coming,” Grer said to himself. “Hurry up, Rainer Stope.”
Chapter Forty-Five:
The Fox
A swarm of bolts shot over Wulf’s head. They thudded into the sides of the Sandhaveners he’d been about to try to cut down with a sword. The bolts were a lot more effective than he would have been. Their bodkin heads easily penetrated armor, even plate. A whole line of men seemed to shudder. They fell down in a staggered way, some clutching at the bolt in their side or arm or leg, and some slumping instantly, already dead.
Then the crossbowmen started to reload. The shortbow archers stepped forward. They sent another deadly cloud of arrows over Wulf’s head and into the Sandhaveners. These archers reached behind them to where they’d poked arrows into the ground headfirst, plucked one out, and shot again. They’d gotten off eight arrows before the fox crossbowmen were ready again. They stepped between the archers and fired their quarrels.
Wulf rolled out of their way. He stood up and looked wildly around, trying to find a way to get back in the fight, but a voice growled beside him. This time it wasn’t Nagel.
“Stupid man, what the cold hell are you doing?”
It was Smallwolf.
“You’ve bloodied your sword, boy,” Smallwolf yelled in his ear. “Now let the Tier do their job.”
The fox-man archers swarmed around them. Smallwolf whistled loudly. He cupped his hands around his muzzle and shouted, “He’s over here!”
The bear-man guards came bustling up. They’d found their escaped charge. Two stationed themselves on either side of him.
The other bear men moved between Wulf and the fighting and raised shields—just in time. A flight of arrows came over the front line from Sandhavener archers. They were returning fire. The arrows thwacked
into their shields, some poking through. In front of them, several of the arrows caught fox men. Some fell with shafts coming out of their fur. Some screamed and tried to moved forward before they stumbled and died.
Keeping their shields up, the bear men slowly walked Wulf backward. He tried to resist, but they forced Wulf to go with them.
They walked down a small depression. Bodies lay all about. Some looked untouched. Some had their insides hanging out, and crows were beginning to feast. Most of the dead had not thoughtfully fallen on their fronts. They were facing up or on their sides with all the gore exposed and looks of agony on their faces.
Flies buzzed. Wulf looked down to see a group of them gathered around the open, glassy eye of a dead Sandhavener. Were the flies drinking the liquid of his tears?
Then the eye blinked.
Wulf realized with a shudder that the man was not dead, but only terribly wounded. One of the bear-man guards also noticed, and called for a pair of buffalo-man stretcher-bearers to come and take up the man and let him die in the shade.
They came out of the body-filled depression and walked up a small rise. It was about three hundred paces from the edge of the woods. This was where Keiler had located his watch station. Tier came running or galloping in with reports. Keiler was busy sending out orders.
The sun was fully up in the sky. The clouds in the south looked threatening. A storm was coming.
Wulf stood and watched Keiler for a while. His vision was foggy and he realized he was incredibly thirsty. He’d seen carts to their south. These had big kegs of water tied to them. Runners were carrying canteens back and forth from the fight.
“To lose a battle because of thirst is about the stupidest mistake you can make,” Koterbaum had once said.
Wulf told his bear guards he was going to get a drink and would be back soon. The leader grunted assent but detailed two bear men to accompany Wulf. The rest of them were intent on watching the progress of the battle, since the hillock gave them a view of the left side of the battle line.
Wulf walked off the hillock toward the water carts. They were a hundred paces away, near a small stand of three cedar trees. The trees had grown up around a big rock that was too large to move, so the farmer had ploughed around it. Two lines of flattened clover marked the path the wagons had taken from the woods.
