Most of the drinkers had the look of outlaws, brigands and vagabonds, though some of them might have been desperate merchants fallen on hard times or fleeing debtors. Nor were they all of low birth; many were knights, though few of them displayed their colours or heraldry. Most of these were outcasts and dispossessed nobles, Calard judged; knights who had fled to Mousillon in dishonour rather than face justice. Most were likely murderers, traitors and cowards, and Calard fought to keep the disdain off his face as he moved amongst them.
He bumped into one of these knights as he shouldered his way to the bar. The nobleman was tall, gaunt-featured and dressed in dark colours, and he had his hand on the hilt of his sword. He had a vicious scar across his throat, and his eyes were cold. Calard held the man’s gaze for a moment, before pushing past him and signalling the squint-eyed innkeeper for service. An ogre stood nearby, easily nine feet tall, its brutal face a mess of scars. It had a bored expression on its face, and its arms, as thick as tree trunks, were folded across its massive chest.
‘Keeps the rowdier ones in check,’ said the innkeeper. He wore a heavily stained apron over his obese gut. ‘What are you wanting?’
‘A room,’ said Calard, ‘and feed for my horse.’ He pushed a pair of coins across the bar and they disappeared in the blink of an eye.
‘One of the girls will bring you food and drink,’ said the innkeep, handing over a room key before turning to serve another patron. Calard grabbed the innkeeper by his arm and dragged him back.
‘I’m looking for someone,’ said Calard in low voice. ‘A noble by the name of Merovech.’
The innkeeper pulled his arm away, scowling. ‘You ain't from around here, are you?’ he said.
‘You know him?’ said Calard.
The innkeeper nodded.
‘Them’s his knights back there,’ he said, gesturing through the crowd. ‘Bastards’ll ruin me, drinking me dry and not paying a copper, but what can I do?’
Nodding his thanks, Calard found a secluded table in a dark corner and sat with his back against the wall. A bowl of gristly stew was brought to him along with a goblet of cheap wine, and he had some bread and water sent out to Chlod. He didn’t touch his food, and made only a pretence of drinking his wine, eyes locked on the knights that the innkeeper had identified.
There were six of them, drinking heavily, and their table was piled high with empty dishes and goblets. Calard saw that one of their number was the cold-eyed knight he had bumped into at the bar, though he sat apart from the others, distancing himself from their drunken excesses. These other five were being loud, obnoxious and aggressive, shouting and pounding their goblets on the table as they watched a puppet show under way upon the small stage at the back of the inn.
Creepy-looking marionettes were re-enacting various events from history, and Calard’s attention was drawn to the performance as something caught his eye. He saw a puppet knight dressed in a white tabard, and his eyes narrowed. The puppet’s heraldry was unmistakable: a black fleur-de-lys on a white field. The knight’s face was white, as was his hair, and he wore a crown of rulership upon his head.
‘The duke invited all the nobles in Bretonnia to Mousillon, to celebrate his great victory!’ screeched the voice of the story’s narrator from behind the puppeteers’ screen. ‘The king himself came, and the Duke of Mousillon was proclaimed saviour of Bretonnia!’
A cheer erupted from the watching crowd as puppets representing the dukes of Bretonnia lifted the puppet of Duke Merovech high into the air.
‘However, the king was jealous of our beloved duke’s achievements,’ continued the narrator, ‘and he knew that Duke Merovech would make a far better king than himself. He began plotting our duke’s downfall.’
The crowd booed as the puppet of the king, carved to look like a drunken buffoon, rubbed its hands together in an evil, conspiratorial manner. Calard frowned. He knew this tale, but its telling was unlike any he had heard before: its perspective was skewed, its heroes and villains flipped.
The true tale was from a dark period in the history of Bretonnia, hundreds of years earlier, and it told the story of the last Duke of Mousillon, who was, by all reports, a butcher and murderer, a drinker of blood and an eater of children. However, in the puppet show being performed here, the sadistic duke was portrayed as a living saint, while the king and his loyal dukes were little more than jealous inbreds, conspiring against him.
The crowd cheered as the Duke of Mousillon uncovered the conspiracy against him, and thumped their tables as the puppets of their duke and the king drew swords against one another. The marionettes duelled, the skilled puppeteers making them fight with surprising believability, and the inn resounded to the sound of swords clashing.
Cheers and laughter erupted as the king’s head was lopped from its shoulders, and those in the front row were sprayed with pig’s blood pumped up through the puppet’s severed neck. The marionette of the Duke of Mousillon lifted up a tiny goblet to catch the rain of blood, which it then drank down in one gulp, which was met with further cheers.
The curtain fell, and the narrator continued.
‘The traitor king was dead, but the jealous dukes turned against Mousillon.’
The curtain lifted again, showing the Duke of Mousillon and his knights battling against the other dukes.
‘Led by the treacherous Duke of Lyonesse,’ said the narrator, eliciting derisive hisses from the crowd, ‘they besieged Mousillon. Yet even heavily outnumbered, our lord could not be bested, not with his five trusted lieutenants beside him. Finally, the Duke of Lyonesse resorted to treachery.’
Boos and hisses greeted the appearance of a cloaked and hooded marionette that reared up behind the Duke of Mousillon and stabbed him to death. The deed done, the puppet threw off its disguise, revealing its identity as none other than the Duke of Lyonesse. The lights dimmed and the curtain fell.
The crowd booed loudly, but they hushed as the curtain rose one more time. The stage was unlit and bare but for a puppet reclined in death, wrapped in a shroud.
‘But before he died, our beloved duke swore an oath. He swore that he would return from beyond the grave and seek vengeance! He swore that Mousillon would be returned to its former glory, and that the rest of Bretonnia would pay for its betrayal!’
The death shroud was suddenly whisked away from the puppet-corpse and the figure of the Duke of Mousillon leapt up, a sword held in each hand.
‘Long live Duke Merovech!’ screeched the narrator, and the curtain fell for the last time.
Calard shook his head as the crowd cheered and banged their tables. His gaze settled on the knight that he had bumped into at the bar.
Perhaps sensing someone watching him, the knight looked up, but by the time he did, Calard had already gone.
VI
AN HOUR LATER, the knight made his way up the narrow staircase to his room. He unlocked the door, which opened with a drawn-out creak. It was dark within, and he cursed. He had left a lamp burning low on the table within, but a draught must have blown it out. Leaving the door ajar so that he could see by the light in the hallway, he moved towards the table.
The door clicked shut abruptly, and darkness swallowed him. He spun around on his heel, reaching for his blade. It was half-drawn when the tip of a sword touched his throat, and he froze.
‘Sheathe it,’ said a voice from the darkness. The gaunt-featured knight scowled but did as he was bid. The shutters of a lamp were opened, and the knight squinted against the glare.
‘Sit,’ said Calard. He forced the knight back with the point of his sword, making him sink into a moth-eaten chair. To his credit, the dishonoured knight showed no fear. ‘Put your hands behind your head,’ Calard said. The knight gave Calard a long look.
‘You are making a mistake,’ the knight said, placing his hands casually behind his head. His voice was coarse, little more than a growl. Calard lifted the man’s chin with the point of his blade, exposing a jagged scar that reached across his throat from ear to
ear.
‘Nice scar,’ said Calard.
‘I’m alive,’ growled the knight. ‘The same cannot be said for the whoreson who gave it to me.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Raben,’ said the knight. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘You are going to answer a few questions for me, Raben.’
‘You’re the one with the sword.’
‘You are one of Merovech’s knights?’
‘You already know the answer to that.’
‘Where is he, then?’
‘You honestly don’t know?’ said Raben.
‘If I did, I wouldn’t need you, outcast,’ said Calard.
‘Outcast, is it? Oh that hurts,’ said Raben.
‘Where?’ said Calard. A trickle of blood ran from Raben’s throat.
‘The ducal palace of Mousillon city,’ he said in his gravelly voice. ‘He does proclaim himself to be the long lost ruler of this realm, after all.’
‘The mad duke was killed centuries years ago,’ hissed Calard.
‘Who am I to dispute his claim?’ said Raben. ‘I’m just an outcast.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Is that it?’ said Raben. ‘Are we done?’
Calard lowered his sword, and the dispossessed knight let down his hands. Without warning, Calard slammed the heavy pommel of his sword into the side of Raben’s head. He fell sidewards from his chair and hit the floor, unconscious.
‘We are done,’ said Calard.
CHLOD AWOKE WITH a start, his heart pounding. It took him a moment to remember where he was: the stable of Morr’s Rest. He lay there in the rotting hay, breathing hard. The sound came again – something like a heavy chunk of wood being dropped to the ground.
A shaft of torchlight seeped in from the courtyard outside through a knothole in the wall. Chlod squatted alongside it, squinting through the gap.
At first he saw nothing untoward. The courtyard of the inn was deserted. His eye swept the compound, and at last settled on the gatehouse. He frowned.
The shadows beneath the archway were dark, but even so he could see that the gate was open. The heavy locking bars were on the ground. Sealed, nothing short of a battering ram would be able to breach those gates, but they had been flung wide, an open invitation to the creatures beyond.
For a moment, Chlod half-considered a mad dash across the courtyard to lock the gates, for he knew well the horrors that lurked outside. However, he was no hero, and they would have been too heavy for him alone anyway. He stayed put, rooted in fear, staring at the gate in silent dread.
For long minutes he watched, barely daring to breathe. After what seemed an eternity, he saw a shadow appear, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose.
The dark shape hugged the ground, moving low. It paused at the edge of the torchlight, then edged forwards. Chlod saw a pallid face atop a scrawny, malnourished body. Bones were starkly visible beneath its skin. It sniffed the air like an animal, then hissed over its shoulder. Rising from the ground into a low crouch, the starving peasant padded warily into the courtyard of Morr’s Rest, hands twitching.
A second peasant came through behind the first, a filthy bearded man carrying a rusted plough blade. More followed. Chlod’s heart was hammering loudly in his chest, but he could not tear himself away from his spy-hole.
He froze as one of the peasants came within feet of him, separated only by the thin overlapping planks of the barn wall. This one was a foul creature, barely human at all. It came to a halt and cocked its head to one side, nostrils flaring. Chlod could make out the fine web of blue veins beneath its skin, and could smell its animal stink. It turned and stared straight at him. Chlod’s heart skipped a beat as it saw him. It grinned, exposing stained, jagged teeth.
Chlod fell away from the wall with a gasp, scrambling backwards. He heard footsteps inside the stable, and the horses and ponies began whinnying and kicking in their stalls. His master’s warhorse was trembling, ears flat against its skull.
A scream close by made him jump. It was cut short, ending in the strangled gargle of someone dying.
Chlod’s breathing was coming in frantic gasps, and his hands were shaking. Creeping forwards, he peered around the corner of the stall, looking out towards the entrance to the stables. He saw a handful of hunched peasants making their way up the aisle towards him. Their heads were low and swung from side to side, like dogs seeking a scent. He ducked back into the stall before he was seen.
‘Ranald, protect me,’ he said under his breath, invoking the trickster god of luck, benefactor of thieves, gamblers and ne’er-do-wells the Old World over. He turned around on the spot, undecided as to his best course of action. He considered hiding under the loose straw on the floor, but there wasn’t enough to adequately conceal him, and the peasants would surely sniff him out. He thought about mounting his master’s warhorse and riding free, but he doubted that he would have been able to haul himself up upon its back anyway, let alone ride it. And if he did somehow survive, his master would surely see him hang for sullying the noble beast.
He backed away into the far corner of the stall, edging past the powerful destrier. The horse’s muscles were twitching; it knew that predators approached. The feral peasants would be only yards away now, and Chlod bit his lip, indecision paralysing him.
A shadow appeared in the open stall gate, and the warhorse shuffled uneasily, snorting. Without thinking, Chlod slapped the horse hard on the rump.
‘Yah!’ he shouted, and the warhorse reared, smashing the stall gate to splinters. It leapt forwards, hooves clattering loudly, and Chlod glimpsed several figures throwing themselves aside. The destrier slipped on the cobblestones and half-fell, before righting itself and bolting for the courtyard.
Grabbing his spiked club from his meagre pile of belongings, Chlod dropped to hands and knees and started crawling frantically under the barriers separating the stalls. As he scrabbled through the rotten straw and horse manure, he saw the slapping feet of the feral peasants running up the aisle.
He was almost trampled by an immense draught horse in one stall and barely avoided being kicked by a panicked pony in another. With a deep breath he hurled himself under the last barrier and scrambled to his feet, glancing behind him for signs of pursuit.
He nearly ran headlong into one of the peasants, who was crouched over the body of the stableboy. It was feeding, mouth caked with blood. Chlod could not halt his forward momentum, and bowled into the cannibalistic peasant. His knee cracked it in the face, and Chlod was sent sprawling on the ground at the stable’s entrance.
In a heartbeat he was back on his feet and running. He risked a glance behind him and saw the peasant stagger to its feet. It leapt after him, hair streaming wildly as it bounded along on all fours. More of the cannibalistic inbreds were streaming through the open gates, and Chlod saw right away that he had no chance of escape there. He angled his awkward, limping run towards the inn itself, knowing that his best chance of survival now lay with Calard.
‘Master!’ he screamed as he ran. ‘Master!’
At any moment he expected to be dragged down, but he made it across the courtyard and staggered up onto the inn’s covered stoop, breathing hard. He was just feet from the door when a weight landed on his back, bearing him to the ground. The air exploded from his lungs and he lost his grip on his spiked maul, which clattered out of reach.
He was pinned to the ground, and though he fought like a wild animal, he could not dislodge the hissing peasant. Bony hands grasped his skull, and he felt nails biting deep into his scalp. He screamed wordlessly, neck muscles straining to resist as his head was lifted high, then slammed down with brutal force. White hot pain blossomed. Dazed, Chlod registered his head being lifted again. In moments, his skull would be pulverised, his brain matter splattered across the stoop.
Blinking heavily, unable to focus, he vaguely saw the door to the inn swing open before him. He saw a shadow emerge, and a flash of silver.
Calard took the
peasant’s head off with a double-handed sweep of his broadsword. The headless corpse slumped forwards over Chlod, blood pumping from its neck.
‘Up!’ shouted Calard, grabbing Chlod by back of his flea-ridden tunic and dragging him to his feet. His manservant’s legs were unsteady, unable yet to support his weight, and he flopped back to the ground, struggling to focus. Blood was dripping from his forehead. Swearing, Calard adjusted his grip on his manservant, then hurled him bodily through the door of the inn. He kicked the club through after him, then spun back to face the courtyard as three rabid peasants hurled themselves at him.
He cut the first down with a heavy blow that shattered its ribcage, and sliced the second from groin to sternum with the return sweep. The third leapt on him, scratching and biting, but he threw it off, sending it crashing into the wall of the inn. It dropped to its knees, and before it could recover Calard stepped in close and brought the pommel of his sword down onto its head, killing it instantly.
Seeing dozens of the creatures swarming across the courtyard towards him, Calard stepped back inside the inn and slammed the door shut. He threw his weight against it.
‘Chlod, the locks!’
A heavy impact struck the door, almost dislodging Calard. He gritted his teeth as his heels began sliding across the floor. The door was forced open a fraction, and claw-like hands reached around the edge.
Chlod picked up his spiked cudgel from the floor and bashed at the clutching hands, breaking bones and crushing fingers.
The door slammed shut and Chlod slid first the upper lock home, then the lower one. Breathing hard, Calard stepped away from the door, his sword levelled towards it. It shook violently, but held.
Hammer and Bolter - Issue 1 Page 21
