by Alex Aguilar
“I’ll be needing your men for a little task… A little errand that’s waiting for me in Vallenghard. We march to the royal city of Val Havyn in the morning and I will need men with skills such as those of the Rogue Brotherhood to carry this out.”
“We’re not interested.”
“I’m afraid I wasn’t asking, captain…”
There was another moment of silence, and this time the captain was far too plagued by the tension to not point it out. “You don’t scare me, Baronkroft…” he said sourly.
The visitor’s lips curved into a subtle grin at the sound of his name, almost as if it pleased his ears to hear it. And then the captain rose to his feet and stood by the entrance of his tent.
“I’m afraid our business is done here,” he said.
Lord Baronkroft nodded, shrugged his shoulders, and stood up. With a sigh, he walked towards the outside, but came to a sudden pensive halt right in front of the captain. “Just for my own curiosity,” he said. “Would a blade to your neck scare you?”
“Try it ‘n’ I’ll slice your hands off…”
“Hmm,” Baronkroft grinned. “I shall take that as a no.”
“Leave… Now.”
Lord Baronkroft took one step towards the outside, before pausing and taking back that step. “One more question… How about a blade to dear old Celia’s neck?”
The captain became instantly petrified. His hands were suddenly sweaty and shivery, and though he was fully armored he felt frail and defenseless.
“Would that scare you, captain?” Baronkroft asked, stepping even closer to the man until their faces were mere inches apart. “Or how about a blade to Celia’s neck while she’s forced to watch her dear old mother Dahrla get dismembered...? Would that scare you, captain?”
The captain could hide it no longer, and though his eyes were fixed on Lord Baronkroft, the concern in them was far too vivid. He could smell the ale in the lord’s breath as he gawked into those black soulless eyes of his. The sight alone was nauseating. He wanted to kill him where he stood, but his dagger was out of his reach. Still, upon hearing the man’s words, the captain couldn’t bring himself to move a single finger or speak a single word without hesitating.
Baronkroft leaned in even further, much to the captain’s discomfort, and spoke in a soft eerie whisper. “Do I have your attention now, you old limp bastard?”
The captain’s throat was dry and hoarse. “You’re full of shit,” he said.
Baronkroft reached into the inside of his coat. “I figured you’d say that,” he said as he pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it at the captain.
It was cold and moist and soft and rough, all at once.
It was a woman’s finger with a copper ring still attached to it.
The captain’s fury got the best of him. He looked back into Baronkroft’s bleak gaze and grabbed hold of his collar, shouting “You murderin’ son of a bitch!”
But Baronkroft’s smile did not fade.
It was then that a towering figure entered the tent and pulled the two men apart, grabbing the captain by the neck and hoisting him two feet into the air.
“Ahh, thank you, my dear Harrok!” Baronkroft said with a wild chuckle as he adjusted the collar of his coat. “Always there when you’re most needed, as usual.”
The captain gasped for air as he looked down at the dreadful image of the Butcher.
“Captain, I’d like to introduce to you my supreme commander and most trusted friend Harrok Mortymer, otherwise known as the Butcher of Haelvaara,” Baronkroft said. “You ought to be thanking him, really. After all, he did just save the lives of your sister and niece. Only the gods know what I would have done, should you have made me bleed. I get rather impatient when people lay their hands on me.”
The captain’s face began to redden and tremble as the Butcher tightened his fist around his neck. Lord Baronkroft took a moment to examine the sight of the vulnerable captain and smiled once more, as if it pleased him.
“Take him outside,” he said to the Butcher. “And tie the old bastard up.”
* * *
It was the evening of the seventh day, which meant a majority of the civilians of Val Havyn were in a tavern somewhere getting one last round of drinking in before the start of another week, during which they would probably be drinking some more.
It was a typical seventh night inside of Nottley’s Tavern.
A drunken peasant woman sat laughing hysterically as she watched her husband stuff his mouth with as many biscuits as he could without vomiting.
A middle-aged man was playing a mandolin and trying hard not to stumble as three inebriated peasants huddled around him, swaying back and forth and singing along to his song.
A boy that couldn’t have been older than eighteen was wiping tables and serving rounds of drinks to ungrateful customers that would consistently scowl at him.
A large blacksmith with a tedious posture and a sorrowful grimace on his face sat at the bar, gulping his ale like water. Of all the customers in the tavern, he was the only one that didn’t scowl when the boy wiped the counter in front of him. In fact, it was one of the few moments in the night during which he actually smiled.
“Hard night, eh?” he asked.
“When isn’t it?” young Cedric replied. “Another ale?”
Thaddeus Rexx nodded and the boy poured him another tankard.
“Anything interestin’ happen this week, lad?”
“Nothing of the sort,” Cedric said. “Well, ‘cept for that old bloke this morning. Which, um… Thank you… for taking care of ‘im, I mean.”
Thaddeus said nodding, but merely raised his tankard and smiled at the boy, before pouring ale down his throat.
“He looked familiar, though, didn’t he?” Cedric said. “His eyes did, at least…”
“He was pissed off his brains, lad. Most men you speak to every day are pissed, that’s all you saw.”
There was the sudden sound of wood breaking and glass shattering.
A fight had broken out near the man with the mandolin.
“Bloody hell…” Cedric scurried towards them.
A small crowd of people gathered around the two men wrestling on the floor next to a broken chair. “Gents, please…” Cedric tried to separate them, which only resulted in swings thrown his way and protests from the eager drunks watching it all.
Cedric stepped back. He wasn’t fond of bruises, and the boy had borne enough in his life. He allowed for the men to grow tired before trying to separate them again. But it was too late. Jasper Nottley’s voice towered over the crowd’s chanting.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?!” he said, tying his trousers up as he stepped out of a room and a flustered woman twenty years younger than him followed behind.
Cedric turned to his warden and tried to calm him. “Sir, I’ve got it handl-”
Mister Nottley swung his palm and slapped the boy across the face without thinking twice. “I’m gone five minutes ‘n’ you can’t help but get clumsy, boy?!”
Thaddeus Rexx leaped from his seat, his hands in a fist at his sides. But he remained in place, watchful that the tavern owner wouldn’t try hitting the lad again. The drunken woman with the biscuit-eating husband scoffed and whispered, “Only five minutes, eh?” just loud enough for Nottley and the girl to overhear.
By then, the tavern had gone almost silent. It caused Nottley a touch of discomfort and so the man adjusted himself, ran his fingers through his hair once and said, “I’ll give a free round to any man that carries these two out of here.”
The same two men that dragged the old drunk that morning rushed to the scene and carried the two wrestling men out of the tavern. Mister Nottley glanced at Cedric angrily one last time. “One of these nights, boy,” he aimed a finger at him. “One of these nights I’m throwing you out on your arse. See who cares for you then.”
And, with that, Nottley walked back into his room and closed the door behind him. The man with the m
andolin began playing his music again and the customers carried on as if nothing had happened. Cedric fought back the tears in his eyes, it was evident from their color and glow. He wiped the table where the two fighting men once sat and began to gather the shattered glass and the pieces of wood that were once a chair.
He paused briefly to place a hand on his left cheek, which was now a deep shade of pink. He sighed and allowed for a single tear to flow; a tear that he wiped within seconds. It was a moment that nobody seemed to notice, or was far too inebriated to care. All except for one man.
As Cedric gathered the wood, another pair of hands joined in.
A pair of rough, callused hands with a dark complexion.
Thaddeus Rexx said nothing. He simply helped the boy clean.
And young Cedric felt something he rarely ever felt.
He felt he had a friend.
* * *
“Listen here, gents… and listen good!” Lord Baronkroft said.
The captain of the Rogue Brotherhood was lying on the dirt, sweating and shivering, with his hands and feet tied to two horses on opposite ends.
The Brotherhood mercenaries were gathered around the scene, half of them at ease and the other half restless with their hands gripping their weapons. They watched in awe as their once honorable captain laid stripped of his armor, a broken man beaten half to death. The half of them that cared for the man were well aware that they were outnumbered, and they all had heard of the name Baronkroft in the past.
And so they had no choice but to stand and watch. They stood in a row at the camp’s entrance, a wave of crimson red contrasting against the brown and green colors of the forest, while on the other side Baronkroft’s army glared forebodingly at them.
“There are but two types of men in this world,” Lord Baronkroft went on, making eye contact with every Brotherhood mercenary in the camp, one by one. “The first man is the one without fear… The man who takes action for a greater good… The man who fights to move forward and takes a thousand lives if necessary to achieve the unachievable.”
The rogues listened attentively to the lord’s every word.
The captain was hardly alive. One of his eyes was black and swollen and smeared in his own blood. His torso throbbed as the horses pulled him, his back pressing against the cold dirt and muck. He turned towards his men, but all of them were fixed on Baronkroft and the expression in their faces was beginning to worry him.
“Today, gentlemen, is the day we find out whether you all are the first man… or the second man… the one who gets slain for getting in the way,” Baronkroft paused briefly and examined the eyes of the raiders. He smiled, satisfied with what he saw. “Gentlemen, what I am offering you is a future truly worth fighting for. A future in which there are no tyrants and no greedy kings or lords. All of us standing side by side as equals, all of us sharing the earth like brothers and sisters… Join me and you will know what it is like to live like gods…”
“Give it up, Baronkroft,” the captain interrupted, spitting out specks of blood with every word. “The brotherhood will never serve you.”
Baronkroft turned his head slowly and menacingly towards the fallen man.
“Pardon me, did you say something, captain?” he asked, approaching him.
The Butcher of Haelvaara gave his men a glance and they, in return, gave the horses a lash. The two horses began to pull, and the captain’s screams echoed throughout the camp as his limbs stretched in opposite directions, pulling his muscles and bones in ways they were not meant to be pulled.
Lord Baronkroft kneeled, slowly and carefully so as to not smear his stainless clothes on the humid dirt. “It’s all right, old man,” he said. “Just let it all out… That’s it… You know, I was a weak and unworthy man just like you once. Until the day I decided not to be.”
“You’re no man… You’re a monster,” the captain spoke through heavy, painful breaths. “You will never have the brotherhood and you will never have me…”
“Oh, captain… you poor, self-centered bastard. Haven’t you figured this out by now?” Baronkroft asked. “I don’t need you. I never did… I need them…”
Baronkroft turned his gaze towards his supreme commander and gave him a simple nod. Harrok the Butcher drew his axe, and with one powerful swing, the captain of the Rogue Brotherhood was no more.
Specks of the captain’s blood stained Baronkroft’s face and yet he welcomed it with a grin. The rogue mercenaries did nothing. There was no time to act. They stood and watched as their captain’s head rolled away into the mud. Some of them had grins on their faces while others couldn’t bear to look at the headless body. Baronkroft rose to his feet and turned to them all, his hands extended out in front of him.
“What say you, gents?” he asked.
The silence lingered for a few moments.
While many of them drew blank stares, unsettled and unsure of what to feel, a great majority couldn’t help but admire the lord’s brute nerve. Any man that wasn’t afraid to behead a company’s captain right in front of said company was a man not to be taunted with; and for men like those of the Brotherhood, Baronkroft certainly seemed like a man potentially worth following.
The first man to step forward was the most unlikely of them all. But Malekai Pahrvus had always been a daring man. With his head held up high and his weapon still sheathed, he stepped confidently towards the lord. “What’s the task?” he asked.
Baronkroft drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped the blood from his face. “Pardon me?”
“The task you speak of,” Malekai said. “In Val Havyn… What is it, exactly?”
Baronkroft didn’t answer immediately. Instead he got closer to the red mercenary, keeping that grin on his face. “You were the captain’s second-in-command, were you not?” he asked. “Tell me, kind sir… What is your name?”
“Malekai,” he replied. “Malekai Pahrvus.” He was a seasoned man of dark complexion, with hazel eyes and long brown dreadlocks decorated with beads. And he had a look of unsatiated hunger in his eyes that was almost as eerie as Baronkroft’s.
“Tell me, Malekai Pahrvus… Will you step forward and lead your men as we march to the royal city of Val Havyn and retrieve the key to our salvation?”
Malekai remained silent for a moment. He turned his eyes from his fallen captain to his comrades in red. They looked at him expectantly, almost as if welcoming his authority. His lips curved slowly into a grin. “Our captain may have been a fair man,” he said. “But we all knew he was weak… Weak all over, both in body and in mind.”
Baronkroft examined the red mercenary. He had a way of reading people in ways no other person could. And when he looked upon Malekai’s eyes, he was more than pleased with what he read. “A rather callous way to speak of the man you so keenly followed,” he said. “Cruel, yet honest.”
“Call me what you wish. This world wasn’t meant for the weak,” Malekai said, before he turned back at his company of red mercenaries one last time. By then, the few of them that were restless had grown calmer and their weapons were sheathed in place. After enough approving gazes, he sighed in anticipation, gave the lord a head nod and said, “The Brotherhood will join you, Lord Baronkroft… But I must warn you, our price is not negotiable.”
“Understood,” Baronkroft said. “I admire a man with a bit of backbone. Should make for a very fine captain.”
The look on Malekai Pahrvus’s face was one of hunger and grit. It was a face the previous captain could never carry. And it was a face that pleased his new company of mercenaries to an extent that was daunting, to say the least.
* * *
The whole mess started in Val Havyn, on the 13th day of spring.
It was a sunny and humid day, and the streets of the royal city were crawling with merchants. It began like any other working day; the market opened at first light, warm scents oozed from every chimney, and more members of the royal guard were patrolling the streets, keeping a watchful eye for thieves and sc
oundrels.
It was nearing midday when the smoke began to rise over the sea of rooves.
Nobody had seen it coming. One moment, the skies were clear and bright, and the next they were tainted by a virulent black cloud. And the curiosity and temptation was far too grand for a reckless young lad like John Huxley.
At this rate, most of our harvest will rot before we sell it, his mother had told him. We must bargain.
John made an unprecedented trip into the royal city’s market that day and he planned to be back in time for supper. But fate had a different plan for him altogether. He would not make it home that night at all. He tied his mule at the stables and climbed off the cart, and he noticed immediately that something wasn’t right. Citizens were running amok, crying devout nonsense and shouting to the city guard for help.
“Pardon me, sir?” John tried to pry.
“Move away, boy!” the man shoved him aside, nearly causing him to lose his balance.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” he tried again.
But it seemed everyone was far too busy panicking to pay him any mind.
What in all hells…
He walked in the opposite direction from everyone else. And it was then that he caught a glimpse of the smoke. There was no time to think; he left his family’s produce in the cart unattended and ran along a very familiar path that led to a very familiar crossroad.
When he made the turn on Dreary Lane, he felt the intense wave of heat against his face. Nottley’s Tavern was engulfed in flames. People were stumbling out of the doors, shrieking with fear and putting out the flames on their clothes, as the walls and roof of the tavern began to fall apart and the fire spread to the nearby dwellings.
John froze where he stood, unsure of whether he should run inside to help or walk away.
And it was then that a boy stumbled to the floor right at his feet, baked goods scattering out of his basket. “Thomlin?!” John grabbed the boy’s arms and lifted him to his feet.
“John!?” the boy wiped his dirty hands on his apron. “The fire’s spreading! We must go!”
“Are there any more people in there?!” John asked worriedly. He stood on the cobblestone road, civilians all around him sprinting away from the flames, when suddenly an old wooden stool broke through the tavern doors. Thomlin hid behind John, but no longer tried to back away as his curiosity was peaked.
