Broken Honour

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  “I’m not going to argue.”

  The two men lapsed into a hostile silence. They were lying side-by-side on a piece of flat roof that lay within a nest of chimneys. The object of their contention remained wrapped in the sack they had used to prevent any glimmer of sunlight semaphoring off its barrel. It was a beautiful piece of work, which was part of the problem. The walnut stock was polished to a liquid sheen, and the hexagonal perfection of its barrel was engraved with patterns. It was so light, too. Barely heavier than a halberd.

  “It was like this when we were kids,” one brother told the other. “You never would share.”

  “Look, there’s only one gun and that swill bucket of an aristo gave it to me. I’m taking the shot.”

  Below them the company was being drawn up. It was later than usual, and the remains of last night’s feasting still littered the cobbles. The target bobbed amongst the men, his mop of red hair blinking in and out of view, but the assassins knew that they didn’t need to worry about that. When the formation was drawn up, and when he was standing out in front just as clear and perfectly presented as a target in a shooting range, then they would take him.

  That, at least, they could agree upon.

  “If you let me take the shot,” one told the other, “I’ll give you the gun.”

  “It’s my gun already.”

  “No it isn’t. It was for both of us.”

  “Shut up, will you? Look, they’re starting to get into their positions. Who’s that?”

  His brother, suspecting that this was another attempt to change the subject, glanced down and saw the knight who had entered the yard. His armour was probably worth more than the militia’s entire arsenal. The knight nodded towards the company’s commander and walked over to him.

  “This is ridiculous,” the brother without the gun said as the target appeared, darting forwards to greet the newcomer. “You’ll never hit from this…”

  But his brother had had enough. Even as the figures milled about in front of him he found himself squeezing the trigger. He kept the barrel tracking his target as the hammer clicked down into the flash of blackpowder in the pan and, with a sudden jolt, the gun roared.

  For the first time in his life, Dolf understood what it must be like to have a family. His comrades, rowdy and villainous as they were, had shown him more affection in the past few days than he’d known in his entire life. It helped that he had emerged as the hero of the battle, but even before that he had felt a sense of belonging.

  It came in the huddled warmth packed in amongst others on the cobblestones of the yard, in the jokes and the laughter, in the food they shared, and the discomfort and the fear. Most of all, it came in the form of the pride that was beginning to bind them all together. They were, after all, the Gentleman’s Free Company of Hergig.

  That was why the choice Erikson was now offering him was so hard.

  “Here comes Schleismann now,” the captain said as the knight, splendid in his armour, clanked into the square beneath the curious gaze of the assembled company. “As I said before, it’s up to you. I don’t want to lose you, but I won’t stop you either. The choice is yours.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Dolf. He noticed that Schleismann was wearing a fur cape over his armour and wondered vaguely how much it cost. Not that it would matter to a knight like Schleismann. A knight. Imagine being the squire to such a warrior.

  “Captain,” Schleismann said, nodding to Erikson. “So, have you put my proposal to young Dolf here?”

  “I have indeed,” Erikson said. “Although perhaps you’d like to make it yourself.”

  “Very well.” The knight looked down into the youngster’s face. “I need a squire. A lad I can trust. A lad who won’t run away when the going gets tough. You did a damn fine job yesterday, and I think you’d fit the bill. Well, what do you say?”

  Dolf opened his mouth to say yes, but before he uttered the word he looked past the knight to the ragged bunch of men behind him. There was Gunter, as stern in his decency as any man he had met before. There was Porter, who had recently started a fight by claiming that he spat into the stew to improve the flavour. Then there were the others. Men who had slapped him on the back, men who had told him jokes, and shared their food, and complained if he beat the drum too fast even as they picked up their step to keep time.

  “No thank you, sir,” he said.

  “What?” Erikson and Schleismann spoke in unison.

  “I’m happy with the company here, sir,” Dolf told him. “And I’m a good drummer.”

  The nearest of the men laughed, and as they told the men behind them what was happening a delighted murmur spread through the ranks. Another man laughed, and Sergeant Alter barked them back into silence.

  “I’m sure they are all fine men,” Schleismann lied, “but—”

  They were his last words. As he spoke there was a clang and he fell forwards even as the gunshot echoed around the yard. The knight collapsed to his knees with a clink of metal. A gout of blood vomited out of his mouth and he fell onto his face.

  In the centre of his back plate, a neat hole had been punched through the steel. The blood that had splashed out was already slowing as his heart stopped pumping.

  Erikson looked up to where the shot had come from and saw it. Saw the movement amongst the chimney stacks as the assassins emerged from their hide. For a second the two murderers seemed to be fighting over the gun. Then one of them saw Erikson’s hawk-like gaze fixed upon them and they turned and fled.

  “Corporal Gunter!” he cried. “Sergeant Alter! See those men? You take the streets on the left, and you those on the right. We have to capture them.”

  “What about my lot?” Porter asked and Erikson, who was already sprinting towards the balcony and the rooftops, called back over his shoulder.

  “Follow me.”

  They did. For a moment the men in the yard milled about, as confused as any pack of hounds before a hunt, but within seconds the three prongs of the chase were moving.

  Erikson sprinted up to the balcony, bounced one foot off the end wall and twisted to get a grip on the guttering. Before it could break he vaulted onto the sliding tiles of the roof and raced up to the ridge.

  The cluster of chimneys from where the shot had been fired rose up from the next block of buildings. With a quick prayer of thanks to the architects who had made Hergig such a nest of overhanging gables he leapt down onto one and then sprang across the gap above the street.

  He landed easily on the balls of his feet, drew his dagger and clenched it between his teeth. Only then did he scramble up to the chimney stack. Once there he flashed his head over the edge before pulling it back out of shot. The assassins seemed to have gone, and he fought back a sudden urge to let them go.

  Behind him there was a dull clump as another man landed on the roof, and he was soon joined by a third.

  “Where’d they go, captain?” Porter asked as he climbed up the roof.

  Erikson roused himself.

  “Not sure yet. Follow me.”

  As soon as he was amongst the chimneys he saw the evidence of the murderers’ long vigil. Empty clay pots lay around amongst the crushed birds’ nests, and half a loaf had been left beside a couple of apples.

  Erikson looked frantically around over the wasteland of baked clay tiles and mouldering thatch. Here and there towers rose up like islands amongst the crumbling heights and in the distance, like the shores of some far-off continent, the broken-toothed line of the city’s battlements provided a horizon.

  “Do we get to keep the loot if we catch them?”

  Erikson looked down into Porter’s pinched features.

  “Yes,” he decided. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Then follow me,” Porter told him with a wink. For a moment it looked as though he was about to throw himself off the roof, but then he turned and Erikson saw the rope that he had picked up. It led down into the street below, a perfectly planned escape route. Erikson stood back as Brandt follow
ed his comrade down the rope. It looked dangerously thin in the hams of his fists as he swung over the edge and abseiled down.

  Erikson was about to follow them when Dolf appeared beside him.

  “Shall we stay up, sir? See if we can spot them from up here?”

  “Yes,” Erikson decided so rapidly that it might have been his intention all along. “Think you can make it to the next roof?”

  Dolf leapt almost from a standing start, skinny arms flailing as he flew over the gap between the buildings and landed on all fours on the next roof. Erikson followed him, scrambled up to the ridge, and squinted down into the city below.

  The streets were crowded, but after last night’s celebrations not as crowded as they might have been. He briefly saw Gunter’s section ploughing through one of the side streets below, and was pleased to see the corporal sending his men off in different directions even as they spilled through the streets.

  Not that they were likely to do much good. The assassins had been too far away to be easily recognisable, and they had fled before most of the men had seen them. Now that they had escaped the company’s first rush all they had to do was to split up, abandon the gun and vanish into the crowd.

  “Look!” Dolf cried, pointing to the street below. Erikson looked, and could hardly believe his luck. The two killers were almost directly below him. They were behind a mountain of barrels which were stacked outside the brewery opposite. They were fighting over the gun, pulling at it like dogs over a bone and cursing so loud that he could hear them even from the rooftop.

  As he watched, one elbowed the other, an expert blow to the temple that sent his opponent reeling, and clasped the gun to his chest. He looked up, a grin of triumph on his face, and in that moment his and Erikson’s eyes met.

  He grabbed his companion by the shoulder, dragged him to his feet and ran.

  “Wait.” Erikson snatched at Dolf’s shoulders as he bunched his leg to jump. “I’ll follow. You direct the others. Understand?”

  “Yes, captain,” Dolf said, and even as Erikson hurtled through the air and then rode the timber avalanche of the mountain of barrels that collapsed beneath him, it occurred to him to be grateful not to be losing the youngster. Especially as Schleismann had paid for the transfer up front.

  He hit the cobbles hard enough to knock that happy thought from his head, and sprang out of the way as the barrels thundered past him. The brewers’ angry voices followed him as he sprinted along the street.

  He skidded around the corner and his teeth were bared in a hungry snarl as he saw that he was closing on his quarry. The man with the gun was still dragging his companion along behind him, and Erikson assumed that the man was still dazed from the elbow he’d received to the forehead.

  “Stop!” he called ahead of him, his voice ragged as he panted with the effort of the chase. “Stop, thief!”

  The warning was a mistake. Had the fleeing men been small and unarmed the civic-spirited citizens of Hergig may well have done their duty and kicked out their legs. But two fully grown men armed with a blackpowder weapon and motivated by a gallows desperation were a completely different matter. The street cleared before them as people hurried out of their way.

  Erikson cursed as they opened up their lead and jinked around another corner. He charged after them, refusing to contemplate the possibility of an ambush, and as he spun around into the street down which they had fled he slowed to a halt.

  The way ahead was blocked by Sergeant Alter and a dozen of his men. Their various weapons gleamed dully in the shadow of the street, and they were advancing in a line. The two assassins turned and saw Erikson, who had drawn his sword and drifted to a halt.

  “It’s all over, lads,” he told them, trying to sound kindly even as he shifted his sword into an underhand grip. The two men looked at him, and for the first time he noticed that, beneath the wiry desperation, they were identical.

  Alter’s men hit them like a moving wall, and for a moment they were lost between swirling bodies and stamping boots.

  “Don’t kill them,” Erikson said, rushing up and pushing his way through the melee. “We need them alive. Alive I said!”

  As Erikson and Alter rescued the assassins from the beating they were being given, nobody saw Porter sidle up and steal the gun, just as nobody noticed him make off with it. Only Brandt followed him as he scuttled off, already thinking of the best place to sell it.

  * * *

  Deep beneath the baron’s palace lay the provost marshal’s subterranean empire of cellars and store rooms and dungeons. In the midst of this catacomb was his office, a bolt-hole which nature had carved out of living stone.

  Steckler was sitting in this lair now, drinking steadily from the pot of wine that rested on the table beside him. After another exhausting day he was as slumped as a bag of laundry, and his eyes were blank as he stared into the flames of the fire that lit his office.

  It was late, and now that the screaming from the interrogation chambers had finally petered out the crackle of the fire was the only sound in the room. He watched the flames, mesmerised after the horror and exhaustion of the night. There were times when the duties of the provost marshal weighed heavily, and of all the duties the one he had just completed was heaviest of all.

  A knock on the door roused him, and he reached for the small steel crossbow he kept behind his chair.

  “Come in,” he said, pulling the slide back to arm the weapon. When he saw who it was he relaxed.

  “Ganamedes.” He nodded towards the old man. “Take a seat. Wine?”

  “Yes,” Ganamedes said. “That would be a good idea.”

  Steckler poured another goblet and handed it to Ganamedes. They clinked their goblets together and drank.

  “There is something I want to talk about,” said Ganamedes as he stared into the fire. The flame sparkled in the dark hollows of his eyes, and glistened in the tears that were seeping down the runnels of his wizened features.

  “Yes.” Steckler, too exhausted to notice the old man’s distress, nodded. “Yes, I thought you’d be curious. It wasn’t Schleismann they were after at all. It was somebody else.”

  “What?” Ganamedes, who had been concentrating purely on the terrible plunge he was about to take, looked at the provost marshal.

  “It’s the truth, I’m sure of it,” Steckler told him, and had to suppress a shudder. “We’ve been working on them ever since they came in. Schleismann just got in the way. They were aiming at somebody else, although they died before they could tell us who.”

  At any other time Steckler might have seen the confusion that tumbled across Ganamedes’ face. Not now, though. Now he was too dulled by the memories of what he had had to do. The slicing. The burning. The wideness of a terrified eye, glistening with the orange reflection of the glowing poker. And then the pop and the hiss of boiling jelly.

  He finished his wine in a single gulp then poured some more. For the first time in his life he felt the need to, if not apologise, then at least to explain.

  “This is war, after all,” he told Ganamedes, “and they could have been working for the enemy. Killing our heroes to demoralise our people.”

  Ganamedes nodded vaguely.

  “Still, it is a hellish business. It is incredible how much pain one can inflict on an individual. Incredible how much pain an individual can feel. We were at it for hours and hours. And hours.”

  The provost marshal shuddered again, and Ganamedes, remembering the two assassins that had been brought in, understood.

  “You’ve been with the torturers,” he said.

  Steckler nodded sorrowfully.

  “Yes,” he said. “And the man responsible for inflicting this night on me… well, Ganamedes, if I find him he will pay.”

  He looked at Ganamedes and Ganamedes felt the resolve which had brought him here evaporate like steam beneath a torturer’s iron. He couldn’t confess to what he knew. He couldn’t bear to have done to him what had been done to the others.

&nb
sp; Am I really so weak, he wondered as he drained his goblet and got to his feet.

  “You did a hard job well,” he told Steckler and let himself out of the room.

  As Steckler drank himself into an uneasy sleep, Ganamedes paced the halls with an insomniac energy and, not for the first time, contemplated suicide.

  Chapter Eight

  In the dark fastness of the forest, Gulkroth stood in the midst of his lieutenants. From the most ox-shouldered of monstrosities to the wiriest little humanoid runt, the beasts that were gathered here were the most vicious examples of their various herds. That was how they had come to lead them.

  Even so, they cringed as their lord’s gaze swept over them, the infernal fires that lit it bright in the darkness. For many of them the instinct to submit to a stronger beast was something which they had not felt for long, long years. Some tried to resist the instinct, but none succeeded. When they looked into the burning void of their lord’s gaze they could feel their own souls beginning to melt like wax in a furnace, and even after they lowered their heads the terror echoed within their skulls.

  If Gulkroth had been a lesser creature there would have been a mutiny, of that he had no doubt. Those within striking distance grovelled, but in the aftermath of the battle a dangerous musk of frustration and defiance still greased the air. Blood that should have been spilt had not been. The herds needed a killing to release the pent-up tension that snapped amongst them like lightning.

  “I called you here to explain,” Gulkroth told them, and they shifted restlessly. Only the weak explained. From the darkness in the back ranks eyes glittered as they dared to look directly at their lord before quickly glancing away.

  Gulkroth bared his fangs in a grimace of pleasure.

  Let them watch.

  “We are the truth of the world,” he continued. “We bring death and birth and death again. It has always been thus, and soon we will make the truth permanent. We will wipe the stain of humanity from the world.”