The Long War 01 - The Black Guard

by A. J. Smith

  ‘I hope you stay alive, Karesian,’ Bronwyn said, placing his scimitar and kris blade on the floor next to him. She didn’t look back, and heard no response as she moved quickly along the tunnel.

  * * *

  Al-Hasim, Prince of the Wastes, was hurt. He’d been hurt before, but rarely in a situation where getting healed would be such an endeavour. He’d watched Bronwyn disappear into the darkness and, no matter what he’d led her to believe, he thought it unlikely that she’d escape the city. The Karesian witch, Ameira the Lady of Spiders, was probably using her dark magic to track the young woman even now and would find her within the hour.

  He’d done his best to help her, nearly dying as a result, but he owed her twin brother much and considered him a friend. Hasim wasn’t sure if he had any sisters himself, but trusted that Brom would have done the same if their situations were reversed. As he lay bleeding against the wooden wall, it occurred to him that dying in a secret passage in a backwater city of Tor Funweir was a deeply undignified way to meet Jaa, though he smiled at the thought of having bested five Red knights with only a couple of cuts to show for it. Their fabled skill was all very well on the battlefield, but they lacked the cunning of those who have lived by their wits since childhood.

  Desperation was a great motivator and Hasim had been a desperate man for much of his life. His greatest regret, as he sat in a pool of his own blood, was that he hadn’t had the presence of mind to say something witty to the Red knight before he’d punctured his groin. Hasim prided himself on doing things with a certain elegance, but he had needed to shelve this trait temporarily in order to stay alive.

  ‘Right, you son of a whore, get your arse up and let’s see how long we can stay alive,’ he said to himself, tensing his arms against the wall and edging slowly up into a standing position.

  The pain was tremendous and every slight movement was accompanied with a flood of grimaces, winces and grunts of exertion. Hasim had long ago come to terms with pain and had trained himself not to cry out, but he was still bleeding and felt weak. Looking down at where he’d been sitting, he saw a disconcerting amount of blood.

  Removing his sword belt, he buckled it tightly round his leg to stop the bleeding. The pain was masked by light-headedness and his deep-rooted survival instinct. He stumbled for several steps and fell against the wall as he struggled to take any weight on his leg. Edging along, he came to rest next to the door that Bronwyn had closed. He held his kris blade in his teeth, but silently lamented the fact that his scimitar would have to stay where it was, as it was too cumbersome to carry in his current state.

  He steadied himself and gripped the edge of the door, pulling it slowly inwards. The tunnel was dark now and the moonlight outside provided only minimal illumination. He could hear the crackle of fire as he ducked under the low door frame to peer out into the street, but could not see the flames. He would be lucky not to run into any of the companies of knights currently in the city.

  As Bronwyn had discovered, the street was empty. The knights were busy and the remaining people of Canarn, those who had not fought, would be barricaded in their homes or huddled in Brother Lanry’s church.

  Hasim found his bearings quickly, identifying the Street of Steel, the tower of the World Raven and a tavern owned by a man of the name of Fulton. He had two allies in the city, men who would probably still be hidden, but looking for them now would be nearly impossible. He knew the Brown chapel would have been left alone and would be a safe place to heal his wounds, but it lay close to the inner keep and would certainly be guarded. As he inched along the wall, he left a smear of blood along the stone.

  The street was unlit and as he reached its end he crouched into the shadows as best he could and looked out at the crossroads. A fenced oak tree sat in the middle, the only sign of greenery in view. Resting next to the tree was an untended wooden cart containing half a dozen dead men of Canarn. Hasim scanned a line of low stone buildings, dark-fronted, with all their windows and doors locked tightly shut. If people were alive within, they were sitting in the dark.

  Ro Canarn had been a lively coastal city, full of activity and rarely quiet. Hasim had spent many happy nights here, drinking and laughing with Magnus before Duke Hector had made his fatal mistake and tried to break away from the king of Tor Funweir. He had been in the city in secret when the warning horn had sounded from the southern battlements and the Red battle fleet had appeared. And now, four days later, the city was like a tomb, deathly quiet and safe only for the knights of the Red and their allies.

  Hasim had not known about the fleet, but he had known about the Karesian enchantress. She’d entered the city quietly a few weeks before the battle and had sent word to Ro Tiris of the duke’s plans. Hasim had not known this when he heard the warning horn, but only when he’d seen her and Rillion in a passionate embrace after the battle. She had enchanted Rillion in the same way her sister had enchanted the king, and now it seemed they had got what they wanted – the attention of Algenon Teardrop.

  Magnus’s elder brother had paid Hasim a substantial amount of gold to find the witch, but his plans had been interrupted by the arrival of the Red battle fleet. Exactly why the Ranen warlord and the Karesian witch hated each other was not so clear, but Hasim had overheard several conversations since the battle that made him certain that Rillion was keeping Magnus alive because the enchantress wanted to send a message to Algenon.

  Hasim had briefly considered trying to kill her, but thought better of it. The Seven Sisters were supposedly impossible to strike with weapons. He’d seen men from his homeland try to cut them with swords, shoot them with bows, even throw rocks at them, and all attempts had missed. Jaa gave his power sparingly, but had gifted the Sisters the ability to avoid death, even if they didn’t know it was coming. Al-Hasim had heard stories of men hiding on rooftops and behind buildings, remaining silent as they struck. The blows still missed and, without exception, the men had died shortly afterwards.

  The only time one had successfully been killed was when an old friend of Hasim’s, a Kirin scoundrel called Rham Jas Rami, had shot one in the forehead with his longbow. To this day neither Hasim nor Rham Jas knew how he’d managed it.

  There was much Hasim didn’t know, though he had to confess that knowledge was currently of secondary importance. Whatever games were afoot, Hasim had been thrust into them unwillingly, and he allowed himself a pained laugh at his predicament.

  He reached the corner of the line of buildings and took several deep breaths. The untended cart was his best option, though the Red knight it belonged to would not be far away. He had to cross the street to reach it and there was nothing to lean on.

  He steeled himself, feeling nauseous and weak, and tried his best to stand unaided. He baulked at the pain and fell back against the corner of the last building. He briefly considered hopping across the open ground to keep the weight off his leg, but thought that a foolish idea and tried to stand again. This time he swayed, but did not fall, and began to hobble forwards.

  Hearing the sound of clanking metal to his left, Hasim stopped and fell forwards, staying as low to the ground as he could. The Karesian was in the middle of the street but there were few lights in the city and he thought a quick glance would not reveal his presence.

  The sound came from a knight of the Red, bearing a flaming torch and inspecting a fallen wooden building on the far side of the fenced oak tree. Hasim crawled forward, keeping his leg straight and trying not to aggravate his wounds any further. The knight had his back to him as he placed the torch on the floor and leant forward into the wooden rubble.

  Hasim pulled himself forwards, arm over arm, using his remaining strength to reach the cart. The smell was bad and he guessed the dead men had been lying untended for several days. Most were missing body parts, and from the size and severity of their wounds Hasim guessed they had been caused by catapult stones and splintered wood rather than longswords.

  Placing his kris blade inside his tunic, Hasim hauled hi
mself up on to the flat wooden base of the cart. He lay across the back of a headless corpse, letting his arms go limp as he played the part of a dead man. He tried to slow his laboured breathing as he wriggled into the pile of dead men of Canarn.

  Within moments he was fighting to retain consciousness, his vision blurring now he had ceased to move and his head swimming from loss of blood.

  He woke sharply as the armoured knight of the Red hefted the wooden cart into motion. He had been unconscious only a few seconds, but was as near death as he had ever been. His only hope was that the knight would unwittingly take him somewhere he could get help. The cart moved slowly, rocking from side to side as the wheels ran roughly over uneven cobblestones. Hasim allowed his head to move, giving him a view of the city past the distended and bloodied arm lying in front of him.

  He could see plumes of smoke from the town square, closer now, and he could sense the heat from the fires. There was an area of rubble around the square where the wooden shops and stalls had been torn down. The only structures left between him and the keep were made of stone.

  He could see squads of Red knights and mercenaries tending the fires and chained corrals of the few people they’d taken alive. Men, women and children – from the look of them, none of them had been combatants and all had been stripped to their undergarments. The mercenaries jeered at them, brandishing the arms, legs and heads of the dead as trophies.

  A call of ‘was this your brother?’ from one of them caused a woman to break into tears.

  The knights tending the fires were unconcerned at this behaviour and several of them joined in as the prisoners were tormented. A few of the mercenaries were eyeing up the younger women captives, arguing loudly about who would get to rape whom. These were the bastards who followed Sir Hallam Pevain, and Hasim thought them the lowest form of scum.

  Several knights, whom Hasim took to be commanders, were standing on the lowered drawbridge that led up to the keep. They had disapproving looks on their faces as they surveyed the scene below. Many of the Red knights in the square were men bound to the church from birth, rather than true fighting men, and their behaviour did not impress their leaders.

  Hasim saw a man in leather armour, caught in the act of raping a young woman, have his throat slit by a knight lieutenant of the Red. Another, who had smashed out the teeth of an older captive, had his face slammed against the cobbles and his hand crushed by an armoured foot.

  ‘Let no man take his payment in blood and flesh,’ shouted a senior knight from the drawbridge.

  Hasim had seen much pain and death in his life; he’d been a mercenary, a brigand and even a thief, but the treatment shown to the people of Canarn appeared vile even to him. The senior knights were displaying a little honour by trying to stop it, but to Hasim’s mind it was enough to condemn all of them.

  The cart was pulled across the edge of the square and Hasim saw crossbowmen moving along the battlements of the inner keep. They were spreading out and emerging on to the city walls and he worried that they would patrol the northern battlements and see Bronwyn as she made for the plains. She was a good rider, but a crossbow bolt flew faster than a horse could run and they’d surely capture her.

  Hasim breathed heavily and spat out rancid blood. He couldn’t help Bronwyn, but thinking about her safety had quickened his heart and driven away the pain of his wounds. For a brief moment, he thought clearly. The cart was moving past the huge walls of the inner keep and he could see down to the cell windows a few feet above the cobbles. The walls were hollow and wide, and the keep held three levels of dungeons below ground level. Each barred window was at the bottom of a shallow trough, down which food could be thrown from the city. It was the way prisoners had been fed by the Ranen lords who held the keep long ago.

  Hasim blinked; the light from nearby fires and the stench of death made the air shimmer, but he saw a line of cell windows through the haze. In some the occupants were standing defiantly, still wearing the remnants of their armour. Others appeared to be empty or to contain the dead or dying. Hasim had a chance; if he could locate the cell that contained Father Magnus, he knew that the Ranen would be able to summon the voice of Rowanoco to heal his wounds.

  The cart was pulled away from the main square; the Red knight was going to the southern corner of the city to collect more of the dead. Hasim wriggled backwards and positioned himself at the edge of the cart. No one was paying any attention and he tensed his body to roll on to the cobbles. He estimated that he’d hit the ground on the opposite side to the town square and, if he moved quickly and stayed low to the ground, he had a chance of staying hidden.

  He held his breath and rolled off the cart, biting his lip as he fell to stop himself screaming in pain. The cart continued to move, the Red knight pulling it unaware that one of his dead bodies had shown itself to be alive. Hasim began to crawl weakly towards the dungeons. He could not feel his wounded leg, and most of his body had gone numb. He was cold and knew he’d soon be dead.

  At the base of the wall, he crawled into the shadows and pulled himself into one of the feeding troughs. He rolled several feet and came to rest next to a small barred window. Within the cell was a man of the duke’s guard, battered and stripped of his armour. Hasim recognized him as Haake, a sergeant of the keep.

  ‘Sergeant Haake…’ he whispered through his pain.

  The duke’s man started with surprise and turned to look at the bloody face at his cell window. ‘Who’re you?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I’m a friend of Father Magnus, called Hasim… I bought you a mug of Ranen wheat beer on the duke’s birthday.’

  ‘I remember… You’re wounded, sir,’ Haake said with concern.

  ‘Indeed, I do appear to be. Sergeant, I’m leaking blood all over the place and need to find the priest. Is Magnus on this level?’ he asked.

  Haake came to stand next to the window and inspected the wounded Karesian. ‘Aye, lad, he’s down the end of the corridor. They brought him back maybe ten minutes ago. He was unconscious and didn’t look in a good way himself.’

  Hasim winced in pain and narrowly avoided losing consciousness again. ‘Which way to his cell?’ he asked.

  Sergeant Haake placed a hand on his chest and pointed to the left with his index finger. ‘Be careful, Hasim, the gaoler is a fucking pig,’ he warned.

  ‘Songs will be sung, Haake, they will be sung loud and they will be sung often,’ he said in thanks.

  The duke’s man nodded. ‘Brytag go with you, brother,’ he said, turning from the window.

  Hasim looked along the line of windows to the left and began to move. He could only edge along the bottom of the stone troughs using the window bars as a ladder to pull him along. There were six or seven windows and Hasim felt light-headed as he passed the third one along. The cell contained a mortally wounded man, bleeding his last on the dusty stone floor. The next window gave on to an empty cell. Hasim felt himself beginning to lose consciousness and lunged forwards as far as possible. He doubted he’d be able to move again and hoped Magnus was within reach.

  Hasim’s head had just landed in front of the last cell window and, although he was fading, he could still make out the enormous lump lying in the middle of the small cell below.

  Father Magnus was face down and clearly wounded. A crossbow bolt was protruding from his right leg. Hasim had not seen exactly what had happened in the great hall earlier in the evening, but he hoped his friend was okay.

  ‘Get up, you Ranen fathead… I’m more wounded than you.’ He choked the words out.

  Magnus turned with a terrifying scowl on his face accompanying a deep red bruise where he’d been struck across the temple. He blinked a few times and moved into a crouched position.

  ‘Hasim?’ he asked in his heavy Ranen accent.

  ‘Yup, think so… just about… I’m… dead,’ his friend replied.

  Magnus looked out of the cell door and, seeing no sign of the gaoler, stood and moved to the window. Hasim smiled at the sight of
his old friend, but that was all he could do before he slouched against the bars and lost consciousness.

  * * *

  Magnus tried to remain as quiet as he could while he reached through the bars to investigate Hasim’s wounds. The Karesian was cut badly across his left thigh and, although he’d stopped much of the bleeding with his belt, the wound was ugly-looking. The cut on his lower back was of more concern and it was still bleeding. Magnus knew Hasim was strong and wouldn’t give his life away easily, but the Ranen was nonetheless impressed that his friend was still alive.

  The Ranen priest closed his eyes and attempted to calm his mind. He had never called on the battle rage and the voice of Rowanoco in the same day, and he knew he needed to be at peace for the healing to work.

  Hasim was an old friend, from the days when Magnus had journeyed with Brom and, although he’d not known that the Karesian was in the city, his presence made sense. The last he had heard, Hasim was in Fjorlan, sampling the local wheat beer and telling Ranen women outrageous lies about his heritage.

  Hasim had got on well with Algenon, Magnus’s elder brother and thain of Fredericksand, and Magnus knew Hasim would be the ideal person for his brother to send south. Magnus did not concern himself with Hasim’s mission. He was a simple man, not given to worrying about things beyond his control, and currently he needed to focus on summoning the voice of his god.

  With a hand placed through the bars, he lifted the remains of Hasim’s tunic and touched the wound on his back. ‘Rowanoco, the earth shakes at your passing, let it be healed by your voice.’

  His hand remained on the wound, but the voice did not come. ‘Rowanoco, hear me now. I am your child, your servant, your hand and your will. This man is my friend and I would see him live. Talk to him now, let him receive your voice and be a man again.’ The words he spoke caused tears to appear in his eyes as he let himself feel pain, anguish and regret at the recent treatment meted out to those he held dear. Rowanoco would lend him his power only if his priest was truly in need, and Magnus knew this meant he needed to soften his iron will and let his emotions flow through him.