by J. P. Ashman
It was time to answer the humans’ noise and missiles with some surprises of his own; some of the humans’ own. It was time for the wrinkled and ragged necromancer and his young coven to release the toys they’d gathered within the town, breaking the siege once and for all.
It was time to release Beresford’s dead.
Chapter 65 – A bloody smile
Sears walked up to the fire, rubbing his hands. It was far from a cold night, but the darkness held a chill a good fire could warm away. ‘Lads,’ he greeted, crouching and holding his large hands out to the writhing flames and glowing logs.
A grinning face appeared next to his, glancing at him sidelong. ‘Ye see it?’ the man asked Sears. The flames danced their light across the soldier’s plate arms and legs and riveted maille, and Sears couldn’t help but appreciate the excellent craftsmanship of the tiny rivets through flattened links, not to mention the expensive, blued plate. The maille alone was better than any Sears wore, and that was saying something considering his had come from Stowold’s armoury. The man’s hauberk was well kept, too. Oiled, the sheen of it putting Sears’ road dusted hauberk to shame, whilst the spaulders and rerebrace, couter and vambrace were etched with lines of what looked like Samorlian scripture. The leg pieces were decorated in similar script, but Sears looked up to the grinning face and smiled back before his gawking got him into trouble. He cursed himself for not taking note of the man’s surcoat. Was he one of Adlestrop’s, or his father Beresford’s? Or someone else’s? It was a dark livery, with no obvious devices, but the fire’s light wasn’t enough to notice whether the surcoat was black or a dark blue, or green, like Sears’ gambeson. Sears shrugged inwardly, supposing it didn’t matter.
‘The cannon?’ Sears asked, grasping at the fortuitous opportunity that had presented itself.
The man laughed. ‘Aye, man, the bloody cannon.’
‘Samorl knows I heard the thing.’ Sears laughed. He grinned inwardly at using Samorl’s name to the apparently religious… knight? He was certainly equipped as one.
Nodding, the knight – for Sears had decided it so – leaned in to Sears, who tensed. ‘I saw it fire,’ the knight said, before pulling away.
Sears frowned, slapped at a biting midge the fire’s smoke failed to deter, and turned on the man. ‘Bollocks!’ The knight likely had seen the cannon fire, but Sears knew that to prod a boastful man to offer up information you first had to call him a liar.
‘No lie,’ the knight said, frowning back. ‘I saw the engineers fire the thing. Saw it smash a chunk from the wall the big trebuchet they’re building would struggle to do.’
Sears sniffed and nodded. ‘I heard it was good, but not that good.’ He slapped at another midge and cursed whilst doing so.
‘Well, take it from me, friend, it’s better than you heard.’
‘I suppose dwarven shit usually is though, eh?’ Sears bated the hook.
The knight frowned, turned his head for a second and looked straight back at Sears. ‘It isn’t dwarven, man. Rell Adlestrop had it made! That talk is across camp. That there cannon smashing the wall every half-day is man-made, my friend. Man. Made.’ He said the latter slowly, accentuating the words as he locked Sears with an intensive stare, so as to strike home the incredible point of it.
This is easier than I thought. Sears learned more in that one sentence than any of them had since their arrival. It was then that Sears saw the skin on the man’s belt. ‘Wine?’ he asked, nodding to the container. Sears wasn’t a wine man, but to sidle further into the knight’s trust, he thought it a good plan. The knight grinned and unhooked the skin, before offering Sears a pull.
‘Don’t mind if I do, friend.’ Sears grinned and obliged the knight. Sirretan red, like that shit in Stowold’s keep… He frowned. Who is this man? Blued plate and good riveted maille, Sirretan red in a skin on a fine, plated belt… yet talks common and crouches by a fire surrounded by the rank and file? Narrowing his blurring eyes, Sears returned the knight’s wine, went to ask a question, slurred his words and collapsed into darkness.
‘I’ve another, Sire.’
Biviano scowled at the man dragging him along. His scowl turned into a grimace as he saw Sears’ unmoving form by the fire. Biviano groaned aloud as he saw two more men being lead in, iron manacles about their wrists like the ones he wore himself. Jay Strawn and Pelse gave Biviano withering looks of their own. Well, this went well, Biviano thought. I wonder how Big Dom and Bolly are getting—
‘Unhand me, I’m a bloody knight, you fools!’
Biviano sighed and looked from Bollingham to the man standing on the far side of the fire, wearing nothing but boots, black hose and white braes, his chest bare. The man’s belt held a glittering, gold-hilted dagger. No sword or pouch. He looked like he’d been dragged from his bed. A man stepped out of the tent beside him dressed in shining blued plate and maille. The impressively armoured man walked straight to the fire and emptied out what looked to be a skin of wine. The fire hissed. Biviano frowned at the black, heraldry-free surcoat the knight wore. He looked about their captors in general. Those of them wearing armour wore decent armour, far more plate than was normal this side of The Marches, unless you were a high lord, rich knight, or bodyguard to some Earl or the like. And all of them wear black, Biviano thought, his suspicion rising. It wasn’t the livery of any lord Biviano knew to be present on the field. He grunted. They’re much like us.
‘And you are?’ Bollingham said to the half-dressed man, who was too casual to be anything but their captain, despite the richly armoured knight stood over Sears’ prone form.
‘I am who I am,’ Captain said, flashing a smile at Bollingham. ‘And you are?’
Sir Bollingham’s face hardened. ‘Detained without accusation.’
Good one, Bolly. Biviano was unable to hide his amusement at that.
‘And your joker?’ Captain lifted his chin to Biviano. His accent was odd, like Sirretan, but not.
‘A nobody,’ Bollingham said flatly.
Biviano frowned.
Captain laughed. ‘It is like that, is it? Very well, I shall state a plain fact and we can go on from there. None of you wear colours—’
‘Nor do you or yours.’ Jay Strawn spat into the fire, producing a hiss.
Captain nodded and smiled. ‘Hence my suspicions, for I know my role and why I do not wear any colours, bar the black I choose for my men and I. It does force me to wonder why you and your men wear nought but green though? No badge, insignia or heraldic device. Not even a chevron or bend upon your green field. It is strange or it is simply what I suspect it is, unless you are pathfinders of the King. But I think not.’
‘You wish to know who our lord is?’ Biviano asked in clarification, trying to take control of the situation away from his stupid companions.
‘Is this an Eatrian Parliament?’ Captain said, anger flecking his tone. ‘That you can all talk at once and discuss your situation? Or is your knight here,’ he indicated Bollingham, ‘in charge of your small band?’
‘He is our lord and the captain of this company. We’re mercenaries,’ Biviano said, before Bollingham could speak.
‘And I am Rell Adlestrop himself,’ Captain lied. His men laughed. ‘You are here to spy. That bit is simple truth. I know fellow sell-swords when I see them and you are not they. What is also simple truth is that you are here to spy on my employer’s cannon. But to what ends, I ask you? To take plans perhaps? And for whom? I do not yet know, but I will. Oh, by the gods below, gentlemen, I will know. For I am paid well to know such things.’ Captain turned and strode into the darkness between tents.
‘He means torture,’ the man stood behind Biviano said, his accent Altolnan, local even. Biviano could hear the glee in the man’s words.
‘We gathered that,’ Biviano said, as Pelse started muttering to himself in a panic, Jay Strawn cursing along similar lines.
‘We’re fucked,’ Bollingham blurted, fear stretching his face and draining the colour.
; ‘No…’ Biviano grinned. ‘…the half-dressed bastard captain is, I promise you that!’ He said the latter louder, to the mercenaries surrounding them.
As Bollingham frowned and the man behind Biviano punched him on a shoulder that was near on used to it, a shout went up from the direction of Beresford’s gatehouse. And as confusion set in and horns and drums sounded, the half-dressed captain who’d disappeared between the tents staggered back out, a red, gushing line stretching literally from ear-to-ear across his throat. He collapsed face first into the fire, scattering logs and sparks. Black clad men cursed whilst others shouted warnings in a mixture of accents and languages. And from the darkness strode Big Dom, a wicked grin spreading across his face and a bloody razor in his ham of a fist.
Biviano saw their captors look at that razor as one. He saw them scatter, the richly armoured knight the first of them. Grunting a laugh at the irony of it all, Biviano was about to call for Big Dom to find the keys to the manacles when he saw the real reason for their captors’ swift departure. He saw the new threat lurching, jerking and staggering towards them like the turfing out of a tavern in the wee hours of the morning. But these men and women weren’t drunk, he saw in horror, they were dead.
No order was given by Sir Bollingham, or Biviano. It wasn’t needed. Big Dom heaved an unconscious Sears onto his back with a groan, after glancing behind him and cursing, and the lot of them ran the same way their captors had, manacled to a man apart from Big Dom, and running for their lives as the dead of Beresford made chase.
Chapter 66 – Tables turned
Biviano dragged in cold, woodsmoke tainted air, chest heaving as he did so. His throat hurt and he was dying for a drink. Dying. He shuddered at the thought of what he’d be doing after death if he fell in such a place. Steel rang on steel and thwacked against leather and flesh and bone all over the camp. More horns sounded and booted feet hammered the ground, charging to and fro down the paths between tents. Screams punctuated it all, guttural, terrified, in denial and more, every kind of scream and every kind of moan and groan, dead, dying and curled up hiding.
‘Clear!’ Big Dom led them across a wide path where the grass was flattened from too many boots and hooves. Dogs barked, oxen lowed and horses whinnied; one screamed, too close.
‘They’re in with the horses,’ a boy shouted, his words twisted through sobbing fear. He ran past the group, telling them the news as if they needed to know, but not stopping. He disappeared behind a white tent.
‘With me!’ a man shouted from somewhere in the general direction of the horses.
Another man screamed, although it could have been a woman for the pitch of it.
Biviano thought he heard the sound of crossbows twanging, but no shouts or cries of pain followed. He didn’t suppose the dead would cry out though. What hell is this? he thought, before following Big Dom down another line of tents. They came out onto an opening, a large camp fire in the centre. A man staggered about, ablaze, silent as he tripped on a rope and fell into the offending tent. The canvas went up in the time it took the burning corpse to climb to its feet and stagger towards the group.
‘I hate this, I hate this, I hate this…’ Pelse continued through broken teeth, shaking his manacles and giving the burning corpse a wide birth as Big Dom waded in, the spear he’d found punching through the burning face and propelling the corpse to the ground, all with an unconscious Sears over one shoulder.
‘Keep moving!’ Biviano shook his manacles down the gradual slope, away from the large, fire- and moon-lit walls behind them.
The group ran on, Big Dom leading and the best armoured – Bollingham – bringing up the rear.
‘In here.’ Big Dom plunged into a large galley tent, the colours of its stripes lost in the darkness. As they entered, shoving in around tables and benches, the sound of several armoured men passed by outside. There came shouted orders and what seemed to be an organised assault on some named position of the camp that Bollingham’s men didn’t recognise.
‘They’re overcoming the shock of it all and re-taking the camp.’ Biviano said to Bollingham.
Bollingham nodded. ‘Aye and when they do…’ He left it at that, let the implications sink in.
‘We need to move again,’ Biviano said. ‘Get out whilst we can.’
‘Back into the night with those things?’ Pelse whined more than said, eyes wide.
Biviano shoved Pelse hard. ‘Yes, ye soft sod, it’s practically day with all the fires and the moon, now come on.’
Pelse scowled but nodded and followed. Biviano led this time, despite his bound hands. Leaving the tent, he ran headlong into the very man who’d manacled him. They collided together and hit the ground hard. The man let out a high-pitched shriek, his terror dribbling down his leg.
‘Get him off!’ Biviano shouted. He scrambled up when the weigh left him, turned and saw Sears, standing, snarling and holding the mercenary in an arm lock. The man yelped and pleaded to be released, wide eyes searching the darkness between tents.
Sears’ eyes glowed like the many fires about them and the man paled, pleaded and struggled all the more.
Biviano grinned at Sears, then looked back at his previous captor. ‘How quickly roles reverse, eh, ye shit?’
‘Shut up, Biv, he’s what we’ve needed,’ Bollingham said, satisfied with it all. ‘Now run!’
They did as Sir Bollingham bade them, prisoner yanked along with Sears, and quickly, for a group of corpses approached at speed.
Chapter 67 – On the run
Seven armoured but unarmed – apart from one razor – men ran down the moon-lit road, maille rustling and five manacles jingling. The seventh’s hands were bound with a belt, a gag about his mouth. They were followed by one staggering corpse of a man, lower jaw missing, swollen tongue lolling. The corpse might have been faster, might have been able to catch the trailing prisoner of Sir Bollingham’s small company, if not for the kick to the knee it’d received from Sears a quarter mile back.
‘This is getting old fast.’ Biviano stumbled in the dark and nearly fell behind the rest. Sears’ strong grip on his painful shoulder hauled him up and on. After the grunt of it all, Biviano said, ‘Someone should go… finish the thing. We can’t keep running… with all this clobber on.’
‘Be my guest,’ Jay Strawn said, from the front, his run as uneven as the corpse at their rear, his breathing as ragged as everyone else’s.
‘Easier said than done… with no weapons.’ Pelse’s red-rimmed eyes remained as wide as they’d been at their capture, face as white as the corpse’s; his heavy breathing born of fear as well as exertion, Biviano knew, for he felt the same.
Jay Strawn spat as he ran. ‘I’d do it… if that shit of a mercenary’s bastard mates… hadn’t taken my weapons. I loved that fucking basilard… Bastards!’ He shouted the latter back at the terrified, stumbling man who Sears dragged along. Jay had gone on about his stolen basilard more than anything since they’d escaped the camp.
‘I know you would, Jay, but—’
‘For ’morl’s sake,’ Big Dom cut in on Biviano whilst halting. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
The running company slowed to a halt, turned and gaped as Big Dom casually walked back to the running corpse, hooked it around the neck with one thick arm, spun it and proceeded to saw through its neck at great speed with his razor, all whilst snarling and shrugging off the clawing of its broken-nailed fingers and the slobbering of its thrashing tongue.
Sears winced, Biviano grunted a laugh, Jaw Strawn jogged on a little further and Pelse threw up, spattering Sir Bollingham’s maille sabatons, causing the knight to curse and shove Pelse over. The prisoner gagged behind his… gag, at the sight and sound and smell of it all.
As the headless corpse fell to the ground, Big Dom raised the head and grinned, before throwing it into the bushes at the side of the road. ‘Done,’ he said, dropping to one knee and cleaning his blade on the corpse’s clothes. ‘I’ve never slit a throat without blood spurting before.’
Their prisoner fainted.
Sears spat. ‘Great, now we’re to carry him.’
Biviano’s eyes widened as he took in the big man. ‘Says you, ye ginger get. Poor Big Dom had to carry you—
‘Piss off, Sears!’ Biviano attempted to twist away from the pain of the punch he’d received to his shoulder. Sears grinned.
‘I’m not carrying that prick.’ Big Dom pointed his cleaned razor to the unconscious mercenary. He strode past the lot of them, except Jay, who was a way ahead down the road and, by the sounds of it, muttering about his beloved basilard.
Sears sighed and turned to see everyone walking away, except Pelse, who proceeded to wipe sick from his mouth with the unconscious man’s sleeve. At least when he looked up to Sears, Pelse had the decency to shrug an apology before standing and hurrying after the others, panting as he went.
All Biviano did was grin and wink before quick-stepping away. ‘We should have grabbed weapons on our way out of camp,’ he said, to the groans of all as Jay began his rant once more.
A little way on down the road and Sears grunted from behind Biviano, who tensed instinctively. Nothing struck him so he glanced back. Sears carried their prisoner as Big Dom had carried him, and was grunting with the exertion of it.
‘We were busy running from the dead,’ Bollingham said to Biviano, ‘otherwise I’d have chosen horses over weapons.’
‘Good point,’ Biviano conceded, putting some distance between his shoulder and Sears’ fist. Despite the armoured man Sears carried – they’d not had time to strip his armour, after all – Biviano knew the big oaf could still deliver a blow if Sears felt Biviano deserved one. ‘We’ve a long old walk back to Wesson.’
