by George Hatt
“So, I am sure, does Lord Torune,” Grantham said. Now that he was safely behind Brynn’s walls, he felt safe using the title “lord” rather than “governor,” a title none recognized within the dominions. “We must be circumspect as we raise money and mobilize for the coming war.”
Drucilla raised her eyebrows. “You are uncharacteristically bellicose, Grantham. Do you actually advise in favor of war for once?”
“No, my lady,” he said. “But you are correct. War indeed is coming. Duchess Betina all but told me so. But the fact remains that we are resolved to peace this year, and we will find ourselves cut off from the Imperial roads and shunned by the guilds if Mergova suspects we are mobilizing for war. Relfast, of course, labors under the same restrictions.”
“Yes,” Drucilla said. “But we have a source of income that Relfast does not. I shan’t bother to check the tax ledgers to confirm this, but I am certain that the heathen tribes are far in arrears. Take what you need from the treasury to put the best mercenary companies you can find on retainer. They shall guard our borders with Relfast while you and Bishop Tarnez collect the clans’ back taxes—with penalties and interest, of course. I have already instructed your fellow dukes to quietly lay in provisions and to ensure their vassals are ready to muster when the time comes to march.”
Bishop Tarnez affected look of concern. “You seem ill at ease with Lady Drucilla’s instructions, Duke Grantham.”
“The clans will not pay willingly,” Grantham said. “At best, we risk losing good knights and Templars fighting the barbarians in their wooded highlands. At worst, we invite counterattacks all along the western marches.”
The bishop smiled. “Aye, we shall loose good men in the heathen woods. But there will be no counterattacks. While the secular knights are collecting what is due for the Brynn coffers, we Templars will be evangelizing to the heathen, leading them from their warlike, benighted ways and into the glorious light of Mahurin.”
“And if they do not accept your evangelizing?” Grantham asked, barely concealing his incredulity.
“Then they shall meet their false gods in the darkness of oblivion,” the bishop said. “And their treasure shall be forfeit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Grantham
“It is said that you are a timid rabbit at the planning table, but a ravenous wolf in battle,” Bishop Tarnez said to Duke Grantham as they rode at the head of their combined force, a column more than 200 lances strong. The hot winds of summer now replaced the cool breezes of the springtime—it had taken that long to summon the men and organize them into a cohesive force.
More than 500 men rode behind the duke and the bishop. Each lance consisted of a knight or a Templar, his squire, and sometimes another man-at-arms. Pennons fluttered above the column when the breeze mercifully picked up, and the brutal sun shone on polished armor and gleaming weapons. Behind the column of horsemen labored scores of wagons, some laden with supplies for the expedition and others empty in anticipation of the barbarians’ tribute.
“Only a prince of the Temple would dare utter such words to a man of my station,” Grantham said wearily.
“I do not say such things, Duke,” the bishop said. “I only report to you what others say beyond your earshot. And I think it is a compliment, back-handed though it is.”
Grantham decided to take the bait and turned to look at the bishop. “Oh?”
“You are cautious, Grantham,” Tarnez said matter-of-factly. “You do not waste lives and treasure needlessly. By staying out of petty feuds and reckless adventures over the years, you have built up stores of goodwill among the nobility of Brynn. When you do go afield, it is with loyal peers in whom you inspire deeds of valor. That has earned you the admiration of even your bitterest enemies from Relfast and Hastrus. In short, you are deservedly the right hand of Lady Drucilla.”
Grantham looked ahead at the rolling hills. They grew higher and darkly wooded in the distance. “Were I truly Lady Drucilla’s right hand, I would have been given the opportunity to develop this plan, not merely implement it.”
“Speak truth, my friend,” the bishop said. “You would never have nursed this plan to maturity, but rather buried it like a stillborn calf. You believe such folly is beneath a mind like yours. I understand your trepidation.”
“I understand the plan as well as you, bishop,” Grantham said. “And a good part of me agrees with you and Lady Drucilla. If all goes as we intend, we shall come back with enough livestock and coin to pay for a campaign against Relfast, and will have egged on a nice little uprising that will give us cover to mobilize our forces.”
“Indeed,” the bishop smiled. “My Templars will quell any rebellion that flares up and guard your western flank while your nobles rush east to meet your enemies from Relfast. But you harbor doubts that the warriors of Mahurin will be able to protect their parishioners from the faithless savages, with their beer-frothed beards and their round shields.”
“Every time we provoke the Caeldrynn, we prod a sleeping bear that could rise up and maul the whole Empire, not just Brynn,” Grantham said. “If the heathen were ever to unite against us…”
“They won’t,” Tarnez said. “The Caeldrynn are more fractious than even we are, and their savage minds are driven by dark superstitions and petty bickering. But that will end when they come into the light of Mahurin and see the power of the One True God. Imagine it, Grantham! The heathen becoming our brothers in Mahurin as, clan by clan, they see their false gods wither before the power of the Sovereign One and accept true religion. You shall bear witness to great wonders very soon, Duke Grantham. We are destined to usher in a new eon for our faith.”
They rode in silence for several yards; the bishop’s tone disturbed Grantham mightily. He sounds, I swear to Mahurin, like he truly believes this nonsense, Grantham thought. “We go to collect back taxes. Nothing more.”
“You shall collect the taxes,” Bishop Tarnez said. “The Sons of Mahurin go to harvest souls for the day of salvation. As it is written in the Letters of Reform, ‘We must render unto the Emperor what is the Emperor’s, and unto Mahurin…’”
Grantham’s voice lowered menacingly. “We risk starting one war with the barbarians to pay for another war with our neighboring dominion. We do not have time for eschatological fever dreams out here.”
“Faith in Mahurin will bring us victory,” the bishop replied serenely.
Four days later, Grantham and the bishop led half their riders into the largest heathen village in the border reaches. It sat in the shadow of wooded hills surrounded on three sides by a patchwork of tilled fields and earthen mounds topped with eery crowns of standing stones. They were met by a surly chieftain who identified it as the “hearth hold” for Clan Bloodmoon. The bishop did not attempt to hide his contempt for the heathens, and even Grantham silently wondered what kind of people would willingly call themselves by such a savage name.
Grantham and the bishop had brought several empty wagons with them to the village. The rest were laagered a mile away and defended by the other half of the Templars and knights. Grantham’s instructions to the sullen headman were simple when they stopped at the outskirts of the village: fill the wagons.
The pale-skinned, red-haired man to whom Grantham spoke stroked his long beard and eyed the mounted warriors. The chieftain wore a light blue linen tunic and wore an ornately hilted sword at his belt. He nodded and stepped behind several of his men, all armed with shields and spears, and spoke softly with a white-robed woman holding a staff. The accents and diction were so uncouth that Grantham could not understand them.
The duke noticed more of the men in the village began skulking about. Some had helms, spears and shields and appeared to be the village watchmen. Others were shirtless or wore light tunics in the growing heat of the summer. Grantham thought he saw the hilt of a sword disappear under the tunic of a man passing between two of the squat, thatch-roofed houses in the village.
The chieftain stepped from behind h
is shield men and approached Grantham. He stayed far enough away from the mounted nobleman so he could meet Grantham’s eyes without craning his neck. “We can offer you no taxes, for we do not recognize you as a chieftain of the Caeldrynn,” he said. “But I will give you gifts from my household and those of my thanes as a sign of friendship and peace. I have spoken.”
The chieftain turned, muttered some orders, and presently men and women were bringing fat cattle, kegs of ale, grain, leather, bolts of cloth, and small chests of silver coins toward the wagons.
Grantham looked at the fine goods and smiled at the chieftain. “This indeed will buy our friendship.”
“But it will not buy salvation,” the bishop said quietly.
Before Grantham could ask what Tarnez meant, cries of anger and panic erupted from the far side of the village. The Templars Grantham thought were at the laager charged into the village, cutting down men and women alike.
“You ass! They were to guard the wagons!” Grantham shouted at the bishop, drawing his sword.
“Bear witness to the power of Mahurin!” Tarnez bellowed, spurring his mount. The Templars that had accompanied them to the village charged with him toward the chieftain and his shield men, running the heathen down and dispatching them with swords and horsemen’s axes.
Arrows suddenly flew into men and horses from all directions even as smoke began to rise from thatched roofs in several places. Grantham swore red oaths consigning the Templars to the Thirteen Hells. He led his 70 men-at-arms in sorties against the heathen warriors who were suddenly everywhere, some armed in helms and mail hauberks, attacking from between houses and barns. The heathen fought in small groups with blood-curdling war cries, throwing spears then charging with swords and axes high over their round shields.
The duke’s trusty warhorse knocked one of the savage warriors down, and Grantham chopped into his compatriot’s shoulder with a swift downward stroke with his longsword, a fine weapon he had inherited from his father. Another warrior took Grantham’s steel squarely in his bare head. Scattered and futile as the weakening resistance was, Grantham still carefully aimed his strokes where his enemies had no armor and maneuvered his charger to avoid injuring the precious animal.
In half an hour, the slaughter was over. The bodies of women and children lay scattered among their husbands and fathers. A few bands of survivors fled through the fields into the wooded hills, but the Templars were too few to give chase and cut all of them down.
Grantham found Bishop Tarnez overseeing his Templars rounding up the wounded survivors. The white-robed woman was on her knees and bloodied, bound and held before the bishop by one of the Templars. Tarnez held the tip of his gory sword to her throat.
“Duke Grantham, witness the power of the one true god,” the bishop said. “Tell the duke what you just told me, woman.”
Tears washed clean lines in the blood and grime on the woman’s face. “Mahurin is the only true god,” she said pitifully.
“Those were the words that will save your soul. Now what will you say to save the lost souls behind you?” the bishop asked.
“There is treasure under the cairns. Gold, precious stones, weapons of our ancestors—more than you can carry away. Have mercy on what remains of my people, and I will show you where to dig and find the tunnels.” She began to sob. “Please! Have mercy! Have mercy.”
The bishop wiped his sword clean on the woman’s robe and resheathed it. “Very well. I shall spare one of your number for every chest we fill with gold. I regret deeply that we only have time to pray over the treasure to rid it of its pagan magic, but not enough to break down the demonic stones on your hills.” He turned to Grantham. “Alas, we do what we can with the time Mahurin gives us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paardrac
Paardrac and his shield bearers Hredvars, Skadhi and Grim watched the column of hollow-eyed women, children and a few men in the pitiful caravan file through the gate of the Krak. Their wagons and ponies were borrowed from other clans who had sheltered them during their sojourn across the Stone Kingdom Mountains to the Helmsguards’ fortress. The few score survivors were all that remained of Clan Bloodmoon.
Banton of Clan Riverstar led four other druids who had come to the Krak in blessing the survivors with incense, water and salt. Banton touched the most haggard of the survivors on the head and gently kissed their eyelids.
Grim looked upon the remnants of his clan in silence, tears streaking down his face and into his beard. He sniffled, looked down at his feet then tilted his head back and filled the keep with a reverberating howl of anguish.
One of the men in the caravan looked up and recognized the scion of his clan. He strode toward Paardrac and his followers, then sank to his knees before Grim. Sobs racked his body, and he took the hem of Grim’s tunic in his fingers.
“Your father, your mother, your brother—all are slain,” he sobbed. “I was hunting when the castle dwellers laid our clan low. Oh, would that I had perished defending them!”
Grim pulled the man to his feet and gave him a bear hug. Both men were sobbing. “We may yet die in battle, avenging those we have lost. The stones and the trees will drink the castle dwellers’ blood, Kjartan, and we shall not end the slaughter until our bodies are broken by the axe! On the sacred stones I…”
“Careful, friend,” Hredvars said, taking the shaven sides of Grim’s head between his hands and looking him in the eyes. “We are sworn to protect the Helm until a high king is named.”
“And I am bound to avenge my blood!” Grim shot back.
Paardrac gripped the hilt of his sword in his left hand and clenched and released his right hand—the hand that no longer gripped a druid’s staff. Tales of the castle dwellers’ savage attacks had arrived with the increasing numbers of warriors and druids rallying to the Krak even before the refugees came. Only the clans bordering the hinterlands of Brynn had come under attack thus far, but accounts of the castle dwellers’ ferocity had spread as far away as the rocky northern shores of Clan Sea Scorpion. The sons of dogs were not coming to collect false taxes or even exact tribute from the chieftains—they were massacring villages and spoiling ancestral burial mounds. And all accounts Paardrac had heard, whether from near clans or far, agreed on one detail: the men setting fire to the villages and putting children to the sword did so under the banners of the golden sun of Mahurin.
Paardrac’s following had grown from scores to nearly a thousand, and those not busily shoring up the defenses of the Krak were building a village on the downhill slope below the weathered Haughrav fortress. The first to come were enchanted by the mystique of the legendary Kingshelm and yearned for a return of glory days ushered in by a high king. But the new arrivals were calling for vengeance against the castle dwellers, or escaping the ruin the attackers brought to the villages.
And if the kor-toth were to be trusted, the Chaos Moon approaches and will menace us all—Caeldrynn and Castle Dweller alike, Paardrac thought.
“Hredvars,” he said and turned to his shield bearer. “I am going to seek nwyventh in the company of the stones and the trees. Lead the Helmsguard until I return.”
“But you are no longer a druid, Paardrac,” Skadhi said. “You are a war chief.”
“War chiefs especially must think clearly and seek guidance from the gods,” he said. “I think best when I am alone in the woods.”
Paardrac carried a week’s worth of food with him into the rugged, forested mountains beyond the Krak. He traveled only a day before he found a suitable place to approach the gods. It was a level clearing atop a spur from which the war chief could look down upon the uninhabited lowlands stretching far into the distance east of the Krak. To the west, the Stone Kingdom Mountains rose to snow-capped heights where sky, stone and water met the fiery sun that clear evening.
Paardrac gathered fist-sized stones as the sunlight diminished and arranged them into two concentric rings on the ground. The inner ring was a yard across, the outer three yards acros
s with a gap in the east and piles of larger stones in the north, south and west points. Once the circle was built to his satisfaction, Paardrac took three small earthen bowls and a matching oil lamp from his satchel and filled one with water from his wooden canteen, another with salt he carried in a small pouch, and lit a small bundle of dried, aromatic herbs in the third. Finally, he lit the oil lamp and placed the elemental tools at the cardinal points of the inner circle—incense in the east, lamp in the south, water in the west and salt in the north.
The chieftain then left the circle, cleared his mind with a series of deep breaths, and re-entered through the gap in the east. He circumambulated the inner ring from the east to the south, west, north, and back to the east before taking his place in the northern edge of the circle. He then picked up the bowl of burning herbs and said, “Let this circle be purified with the power of air. May the powers and spirits who inhabit it favor what I do,” and walked the circle carrying the smoking bowl until he returned to his place facing south. He repeated the ritual with the lamp, water and salt, then placed all but a day’s worth of the food in the middle circle as an offering and sat in his place, letting the darkening sky be the roof of his hand-built temple.
As far as sacrifices go, the food offering was meager to the point of being an insult—but Paardrac had precious little of it to spare. He sat in the circle that night and through the next two days praying and fasting, taking none of the food lying within his reach and drinking only enough water to stave off dehydration. Any fool can toss an expensive sword into a bog and think he is impressing the gods, Paardrac had told Barryn more than once. Real sacrifices are made within one’s self.
