Fostering Faust

by Randi Darren

  “I dunno, I find that everyone has a purpose,” Alex said.

  Nannie gave him a crooked grin, then gestured at him to pay attention to the road.

  “—ure about that one, sire, I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Dan shoved a door open in a squat, low, square building.

  “Inside, my lord. Down the steps, and they’re all in there. I’ll watch the door for you and make sure you’re alone. No one should be in there, but you could probably let your guards go first.

  “Here’s the key,” Dan said, holding out a heavy metallic key to him.

  Alex stepped to one side without even needing to be told.

  Carla took his security seriously and would brain him if he tried to do something stupid.

  Or just dress him down in public.

  Again.

  Pulling her mace from the sheath, Carla moved forward into the building. Nannie followed her in, stopping to point a finger at Alex’s chest.

  “Stay here, Master. Or I’ll break your dick off later,” she threatened.

  “Yes, dear.”

  Nannie poked him in the chest and then went inside.

  Dan looked at him curiously, to which Alex shrugged.

  “It’s easier if you don’t piss off the women you share a bed with,” Alex explained.

  Making an “oh” face, Dan nodded.

  “Clear!” Carla shouted from inside.

  Nodding to Dan, Alex went into the building, then straight down the stairs to the cells below.

  There was very little light down there.

  To the point that Alex wasn’t even sure there was anyone in the cells themselves.

  Moving to the first one, he peered inside.

  And saw a dirty, scruffy man inside.

  He was perfect for Alex’s needs.

  Looking around, he found a number of men all in the same state.

  “Alright,” Alex said loudly, getting their attention.

  “I’ve come to make you an offer. One I think you’ll find suitable,” Alex said. He paused to walk down the aisle and make sure everyone was listening.

  “I’m going to free you. All of you, but you need to do something for me.”

  “What’s that, fight for you? Fuck that,” said one man.

  “Nothing so simple. Nothing so easy. In fact, my price is simple, but first… let’s establish what’s going on here.”

  Alex stopped in the middle of the room.

  “You’ve all been sentenced to death. Your execution is to be carried out. I have the power to rescind it. It’s within my rights.

  “But first, I need an oath from you all. Of secrecy, privacy, and that you’ll not betray anything we discuss to anyone else.

  “It’ll be on Leah’s name, as well. For your lives and your souls.

  “If you can’t swear even to that, you might as well just remain silent throughout. I’ll have you hanged at the appointed time, then toss you into a latrine ditch.”

  Everyone started talking at the same time, working to swear to what he’d just told them to, he assumed.

  “I accept your oaths exactly as I stated them to be,” Alex said. He felt seven oaths settle into place.

  That’s done, then.

  “How many are there, Two?” Alex asked quietly.

  “Seven.”

  “Next,” Alex said, raising his voice again. “I’ll have you all swear your souls to Leah as the price for your freedom. Then on top of that, you’ll swear to never murder or rape again. Do that, and I’ll set you free right now.

  “Minus your souls.”

  They all started to either argue with him or swear the oath immediately. Alex couldn’t tell which way any one person was going, but he knew he had a few fish on the hook.

  And with any luck, that’ll appease Leah and fill some of the pillar. Maybe enough to play out this clusterfuck of a war.

  Never again. Never again will I leave home without that pillar overflowing with energy.

  “You,” Alex said, pointing to the man in the closest cell. “Swear your soul to Leah. Then swear on pain of death that you’ll neither murder or rape going forward. Or stay here and receive your punishment as it was intended.”

  The man nodded eagerly.

  “I swear my soul to Leah, swear it all. Swear I’ll not do murder or rape. Honest. I swear it. Let me out?” asked the man.

  Alex smiled darkly.

  And how much of ourselves did we sign away with our own bargain? In the end, I’ll just end up being sent to Leah’s hell, won’t I? It’s not as if I changed anything.

  But… at least for now… I’m alive.

  Stepping to the cell door, Alex opened it and flung it wide.

  Giving the prisoner inside a very similar reprieve to the one Alex himself operated on.

  Short as it may be.

  Chapter 35

  Shaking his head, Alex couldn’t see any other solution. The enemy was well set and had put together a decent line of barriers that gave them what they needed.

  The enemy simply refused to budge. No amount of goading, attacks, or trickery was going to get them to give up.

  Voluntarily, at least.

  On top of that, apparently the enemy’s supplies dwindling faster only served to spurr them on. Ladders upon ladders were being fashioned. Alex couldn’t even imagine where they were getting the wood for it anymore.

  His soldiers in the keep were firing into the enemy ranks constantly, dropping rocks, boiling water and oil, anything.

  While they managed to kill enemies, it failed to get them to do anything other than work faster.

  The attacks didn’t stop the enemy at all. They were entrenched below the walls and wouldn’t be kicked free.

  Like a leech stuck on tight. So deep we’re going to need a cigarette or a match to get it out.

  Alex had only one option, and he didn’t want to employ it.

  Go in and break them off the wall. By massing his soldiers and mounting an assault.

  It’d be the worst possible outcome for his people, as they were still outnumbered almost two to one. There was no way they’d be able to walk out the other side without taking significant losses.

  Losses he really couldn’t afford right now.

  “Sire, I don’t… I can’t see this going any other way at this point,” Dave said quietly. He was only saying what everyone was else thinking, so Alex couldn’t fault the man.

  Looking to his commanders, Alex watched as Dan, Drew, and Max all nodded their heads glumly.

  Looking back towards the walls, Alex wished he had another answer.

  “Alright. I suppose that’s what we do. They’ll probably start putting those ladders up in an hour or two. They haven’t made another one in a while, and they look more like they’re trying to quietly form into climbing squads,” Alex said.

  Looking from one side of the assault to the other, Alex was at least thankful they were only focusing their climb on one half of the keep. At the other half, they were just keeping the soldiers fenced in.

  He just doesn’t have enough troops or time. One could argue spreading himself out would weaken the defenders, but it would also isolate his own soldiers once they made it to the top.

  Damned if you do… damned if you don’t.

  Making his choice, Alex pointed to the far-right flank of the enemy mass. Where their troop distribution narrowed rapidly to a minimal number.

  “Let’s strike the flank, and only the flank. Limit our entry. Either they’ll break from the siege to engage, at which point we can draw back, or they ignore us and we get a better troop-to-troop ratio.

  “If we can clear to the wall, we can start attacking from two fronts. The other half of our force can start sweeping around in the other direction and clean up the skeleton forces they have there to keep our people hemmed in.”

  It was as good a plan as he could come up with.

  “Questions?” Alex asked.

  His commanders shook their heads.
<
br />   “Go, then. Standard deployments and tactics. Cavalry on hit and run, ranged on firing into their masses, mixed foot companies.

  “Keep the conscripts and a little bit of heavy foot to stiffen them up as a reserve to flank if we need them. They’ll be useless in a slug fest anyways and just get killed.”

  With a singular salute, his commanders left on their business.

  “For what it is, Master, I can’t think of how else to do it,” Carla said.

  “Or me. Nasty there is right,” Nannie said. “This is just a shit show, Master.”

  “I can’t exactly disagree,” Alex said. “But it’s the one we made in the end. So this is the price we get to pay. Unfortunately, our front lines will get to take the biggest bite of this shit sandwich.”

  “That’s how it usually goes,” Valeria said. “Though in this ca—”

  Alex, and everyone around him, all looked to the sudden roaring fire that surged up into the sky from a building in the village.

  “What in the hells?” Alex asked.

  The fire jumped to another building and looked like it was rapidly spreading.

  Before anyone even gave the order, Alex watched his soldiers immediately start doing what they could.

  Quite a few went immediately inside to start pulling out citizens. Another chunk worked to do what they could to put out the fire. Making bucket brigades to the local wells spread throughout the streets.

  “I don’t…” Alex shook his head, not even sure what’d just happened.

  Buildings didn’t go up in flame like that without accelerant.

  “Sire!” Dan came riding up to him, his mount throwing up dirt as he came to a sudden stop.

  “Some of the enemy soldiers just put fire to the town; we’re working to beat it back. We’re not sure how bad it’ll be though. They somehow managed to soak a number of buildings in something that burns with just a spark,” Dan explained.

  Alex placed a hand to his head, trying to think through the situation.

  “And we’re using soldiers to put it out,” Alex said.

  “Uh, yes, sire. There isn’t… that is…” Dan said. Then he winced, looking to one side. “I see. Yes. We are.”

  “And if we pull out now, the citizens will hate us and blame us. And if we don’t, we lose the manpower we desperately need for the walls.”

  “Sire!” came a shout. Dave came running up to Alex, panting.

  “Yes, I know. The fire,” Alex said bitterly.

  “No, sire. The ladders are going up!” Dave said.

  Looking up, Alex saw the ladders were indeed being pushed up to the wall now. His soldiers in the keep were knocking them down, hacking at them, or trying to set them on fire as quick as they went up.

  “Damn,” Alex said.

  He had to think quickly and come up with something workable. The less tenable position was losing the fight for the keep.

  “Send up everyone from the camps. Blacksmiths, teamsters, leather workers, prostitutes, I don’t care. Send them up to take the place of our men fighting the fire.

  “At the same time, carry out with the attack. We need to go now, or we lose the window,” Alex said. “Split it in two. Dan, you work the replacements on the bucket brigade, Dave, the wall.”

  Alex flicked his reins and got his horse moving. He needed to get ahead of this and closer to the wall. In a bit, the fire and smoke would probably obscure his ability to see.

  Ranging out west, he raced down the street.

  “Master, what are you doing?” Carla called, keeping abreast of him.

  With a quick look over his shoulder, Alex saw Nannie and Valeria. Riley wisely hadn’t tried to follow.

  “Need to be able to see what’s going on. If we don’t get out past this, it’s all going to be smoke soon enough. East of here is the best place to be right now,” Alex said.

  Guiding his horse along the dirt roads, he stopped only when he was able to turn north past the last fence.

  Out ahead of him, he could see his soldiers already tangling with enemy forces.

  For a brief moment, he watched his soldiers professionally draw back, seeing if they could somehow coax the enemy out from their own defenses.

  But nothing happened, and they charged back into the fray. And the carnage began in earnest.

  It was an ugly, bloody thing. A demon’s affair.

  The enemy had nowhere to go. Surrender wasn’t an option either. Nor did they have the time to wait out Alex’s forces.

  This was the end-all be-all of a last stand.

  His soldiers pushed, fought, and dug out the defenses as they went. Creating holes that quickly filled, only to be ripped open again.

  “I don’t like this, Master,” Nannie said, her voice angry.

  Looking to her, he found her head swiveling to look in every direction.

  “If they had assassins, they would have already used them,” Alex said, looking back to the fight.

  “They did,” Valeria immediately replied. “Coffin got ’em all a while ago. She’s rather adept.

  “The only problem with her is her inability to stop once the killing starts. No prisoners.”

  “See? There ya go, Five. Keep that pretty head of yours moving, but I’d argue this is relatively safe. Or at least as safe as a battlefield can be,” Alex said.

  “Damn muscle head,” Carla muttered under her breath.

  Alex grinned.

  Those two will never see eye to eye, and yet they’re the closest to what they were before being Numbered than anyone else.

  His soldiers were dying.

  Falling in combat.

  He could see them literally slipping away to the ground, only for more of his soldiers to step into the gap and take up the fight.

  As far as Alex could tell, he wasn’t getting it as good as he was giving it. At least he thought it was so.

  To his eyes—and maybe he was just deluding himself—he swore they were killing two or three for every one.

  But that proposition was still a losing one.

  Even if he won, he’d somehow have to hire another entire company of soldiers just to get Ridge up to a decent garrison level.

  And with Duke Gaelis and Duchess Tanulf eying him, he wouldn’t put it past either of them to act on him.

  Winning with too many losses was a pyrrhic victory at its finest.

  He could see Drew’s cavalry slip in on a charge and break right back out.

  They couldn’t get as close as Alex wanted them to. There were too many barriers in the way now.

  So many of their advantages had been limited simply because he’d let the enemy build up there at the foot of the wall.

  Clenching his fist, Alex felt powerless. All he could do was watch.

  “Stop right there,” Carla said loudly.

  Alex glanced to the side just in time to see Nannie drop from her horse. She walked up to a man approaching in peasant garb.

  Drawing her sword, she leapt forward, smashing the length of it into the man’s guts.

  Carla got down off her horse and pulled her long sword free, pointing it at a second man who was heading their way.

  “Stop, or die like the first,” Carla called out.

  The man ignored Carla, seemingly trying to go around her.

  He suddenly lurched back as a throwing knife blossomed in his throat.

  Valeria eased her horse closer to Alex’s, a blade identical to the one in the man’s throat held between her fingers.

  Nannie yanked her blade out of the first person and stabbed them again as they lay on the ground groaning.

  Alex didn’t care. His people knew what to do.

  Turning back to the fight, he watched intently. He could see more of his soldiers streaming in from the village. Apparently freed from firefighting to join the battle.

  His soldiers split into two groups now, one starting to roll out towards the skeleton-crewed sections of the wall.

  The other trying to push further into the mob of enemy
soldiers from two sides.

  “They must have reached the wall,” Alex muttered.

  “Indeed they did, sire,” Dan said, coming up beside him. “And we’ve freed up all the soldiers we can. Everything is moving exactly as you asked it to be.”

  “And we’re losing men by the score,” Alex said, shaking his head.

  “That we are sire, but they’re paid soldiers for the most. They know their business,” Dan said.

  “Doesn’t make it any better. We need them. If you think this is the end of it, you haven’t thought hard enough about the situation,” Alex said.

  A shout suddenly cut off from his left, and Alex looked over quickly.

  Carla was standing over the body of the second person, having just decapitated the man.

  “Who were they?” Alex asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care,” Nannie said, going through the pockets of the one she hadn’t killed. “Nothin’ on them. Got some blades you wouldn’t think on a peasant.”

  “Good work, Two, Five. Thank you,” Alex said, smiling at the two of them.

  The pair of murdering low-lives smiled at him in return. It was clear they still weren’t quite sure what to do with positive reinforcement.

  Turning to Three, he nodded his head to her. “And a masterfully placed throw. You’ll have to show me later where you keep the knives.”

  Valeria gave him a small smile, the blade that had been in her hand already long since gone.

  “It’d be my pleasure,” she purred at him.

  Letting his head swing back to the fight, Alex immediately saw something different.

  The enemy was swarming up the ladders and being kicked back down. There were clearly a few places on the top of the wall that were actually engaged in melee combat.

  But now what looked like an entire section of the enemy forces had broken away. They were speeding towards his forces to stop the flank attack.

  “Dan, get in there and send in the reserves to flank those soldiers. We need to keep them pressed on two sides or we’ll lose even more,” Alex said, pointing to the shifting battle.

  “Yes, sire,” Dan said, snapping his reins and riding back into the village.

  “And send my couriers this way!” Alex called.

  Unable to keep himself still in the saddle, he started to pull on the reins this way and that. Making his horse walk to and fro, as if it were the one that was nervous.