by J. P. Ashman
Pelse nodded and licked his lips, wincing as he did so. ‘Aye, and all the while we’ll be walking manacled on the King’s road with a man bound and gagged over one of our party’s shoulders.’
Silence followed, from the group at least, for the night offered many sounds: a barn owl in the near distance, some rustling in bushes that raised hairs on necks and painted pictures of dead men and women and children in Biviano’s mind. They walked on a while without talking, the only sound from the group being their boots on the ground and the odd curse or huff or sigh.
‘Did ye hear ’em get back into Beresford?’ Biviano asked of them all, sick of the awkwardness the silence allowed.
‘The horns and cheers?’
Biviano nodded, then voiced his agreement to Sir Bollingham.
‘Aye,’ Bollingham said. ‘I reckon the goblins didn’t get the gates shut quickly enough after… after releasing the town’s dead.’
‘My thinking too.’ Biviano sped up a little to walk alongside Sir Bollingham. ‘Ye think they took the town back by now?’
Sir Bollingham nodded. ‘Reckon so, Biv, aye. Reckon as soon as the horns sounded and the cheer went up, horses and men clattered through those gates. I reckon that was when the far side sent their own across the bridge, against the barricades. I reckon Beresford is ours once more, Biv.’
Biviano looked to his friend. ‘Ours, or the Beresford’s?’ Sir Bollingham frowned, so Biviano went on. ‘We were sent against the Beresfords, Bolly. Or against the younger, Rell. A lot has happened around here so far this year and a lot more is going to happen, methinks. Sears had the right of it when he said we were with the Beresfords with regards to goblins, but if the town is Earl Beresford’s once more, in full, I’m for thinking it’s us and them now.’
Sir Bollingham nodded solemnly at that.
Biviano sighed. ‘And I’m not sure ours and theirs and sides of this and that are as clear as these nobles make out. There’s been baronial wars in the past and—’
‘Hold on, Biv.’ Sir Bollingham grabbed Biviano’s nearest manacled wrist as they walked along, Bollingham’s own manacles rattling in the process. ‘Just because our liege lord wants to know what another is up to, doesn’t mean baronial war.’
Shaking his friend off, Biviano shrugged. ‘I know, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t either. One uses cannon, which none of them are supposed to have to start with, and another sends spies, us, against him. There’s a fair amount of betrayal and suspicion and shit going on here, Bolly. Ye not think? And the only thing keeping it all together is King Barrison. The way I see it anyway.’
Sir Bollingham filled his cheeks and let out a long breath. He shrugged too, his spaulders creaking. ‘Let’s get this mercenary bastard back to Stowold and see what our next orders are, eh?’
Biviano looked sideways, caught Sir Bollingham’s eye. ‘And you’re happy to do that, are you? Whatever those orders may be?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was short and sharp, as was the look Biviano received. ‘It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s for an Earl now, not a captain of the City Guard is all.’
Biviano sighed. ‘I do like him,’ Biviano admitted. ‘He’s done a lot for Sears and me.’ He laughed. ‘He bloody well knighted you, mate, and offered me the same.’
‘Aye and Rell shitting Adlestrop and his father have done nought but…’ Sir Bollingham jingled his manacles. ‘…clamped these on us and threatened us with torture by men who don’t even wear their colours.’
As oppose to us… Biviano looked down at his plain green tabard and back to their prisoner’s black, the man bouncing with Sears’ loping steps. ‘Aye, fills me full of reassurance.’
Sir Bollingham said nothing as they strode on, nor did Biviano, feet aching, clammy body sweating under too much padding for the lengthy run they’d endured, and iron bound wrists chafing.
Everything was so much simpler when it was Sears and me.
‘I’ve had a thought,’ Sears said.
I take that back, Biviano thought. ‘Go on, big guy.’
‘Pelse had a point earlier,’ Sears went on, glancing to the man he mentioned.
‘About?’ Sir Bollingham said.
‘Walking the roads in this state, with Rell Adlestrop wronged by us, as he’d see it.’
There was quiet for a while.
‘We’re going to trek through fields and woods and shit, aren’t we?’ Pelse asked.
‘It’ll take us an age,’ Jay Strawn complained, followed by a string of curses.
‘But it’ll save us our necks,’ Biviano said and, to his surprise, Sir Bollingham agreed and gave the order to leave the road.
‘Wish I’d never fucking spoke,’ Pelse muttered as they hit the fields.
‘You can always start that now,’ Sears said, and Biviano barked a laugh as the group headed into the night.
***
Core fell back through Beresford’s streets, his guards sticking close, a mix of fear and glee in their maniacal eyes and grins. Oh how he hated his kin sometimes. Were there any goblins of intellect left in Brisance?
‘With me,’ he shouted, turning a corner and running as best as his heart, lungs and legs would allow, silver cane clacking alongside him as he ran. The humans had surprised him by forcing their way into Beresford as he’d tried to sally forth with his toys. That had been two days ago. Two. Already! With the sound of horns and shouts and hooves pounding the earth in the hours and days that followed. But he’d survived and evaded thus far, every street the humans took cost them dearly.
Core’s fingers flexed as he stumbled along, his eyes twitching, runny nose wrinkling and gut churning; with discerning effort, a pile of corpses he past clambered, crawled and stood, to head in the direction Core ran from. Some of his dozen or so guards yelped and some squealed with excitement as the staggering corpses accelerated into loping runs, their moans joining the multitude of horrific sounds accompanying the murky dawn.
Core ran on and found his escape; unfortunate it was, for his guards, that they were not included in his survival plan.
Their guttural, terrified and agony-filled screams, from the impact of needle-tipped bodkin arrows, crossbow bolts and ash-shafted spears; polearms and whatever else spitted them or hacked into them, bore Core away on a raft of floating corpses: rotten arms paddling, legs kicking and goblin necromancer smirking as he floated down river, Beresford burning once more.
‘So long, my fair kin,’ Core said, watching from the misty waters as the last of the goblins fell to human steel.
Oh, how he loved war.
Chapter 68 – Bedraggled homecoming
Errolas, Amis and Salliss had all agreed with Correia. Correia wasn’t sure whether it was through actual agreement, because of her rank as King’s Spymaster, or, more than likely, because she’d been in a foul mood when approaching them in Lord Temn’s food hall. Regardless the reason, the four of them, made five by one of Royce’s Reds who’d been ordered with them by Temn, rode and flew from Landon Hill as soon as they were able. Provisions had been prepared, as had the beasts, and so it was that over the coming days, Correia was guided north by a sour faced knight of Hud’s company. Salliss clung to Correia’s back, the hippogriff the best mount to proceed with two riders. Or so Hud’s knight had said, near on spat. They flew and they rode, camped and sought hostel in farm houses and little known hamlets where heads turned, mouths gaped, fingers pointed and Correia spoke to cooks, often bringing away hastily written recipes. She’d been asked, many times and by varying members of the group, about Fal and the others, about her plans and about the cooks and their recipes. Each time she snarled or frowned and shrugged, depending on her mood. None of those times did she answer. None of those times did she feel she could. Each conversation about such subjects ended before they’d begun and, eventually, her companions stopped asking. More to pain Correia was the increasingly haunted look on Errolas’ face as he wondered about his friends; on Salliss’ face as she wondered about her fa
mily and friends and Queen, and nation. All of their faces set grim, brief flares of mirth around hearths not enough to break the tension or melancholy of the group. War was coming. No, war was upon them and they were heading away, not towards it. That might not have been too bad if they hadn’t left those they cared for behind, Hud’s man included.
‘There she is,’ Errolas called across the wind, pointing with a slender finger.
Correia squinted against distance and cold both, against moisture and the bluster that faced them each day they took to the sky. Only one had been spent fully on the ground, riding. A day full of rain and heavy black clouds. Correia acknowledged her luck that more days hadn’t been like that in Altoln, despite the summer.
‘Wesson?’ Correia shouted back to the pegasus-riding elf. She still couldn’t get over his shorn hair. It made him look different, which mirrored how everything felt to her.
‘Wesson,’ Errolas confirmed.
Heart and stomach leapt as Correia gave the order to descend. Hud’s man led them down, spiralling as they had many times. She wasn’t used to the beast she rode, Salliss at her back, but her confidence had risen, if not her skill. The powerful animal followed the others as the ground swirled, trees and patchwork fields rising to meet them, the walls of her home city growing on the horizon, far less smoke rising in comparison to Correia’s last return to Wesson. They were to ride, not fly, through the gates. She hadn’t come this far to have a windlass bolt punch her or any of the others from the saddle. Wesson was a different place after the plague and Correia had no idea how much had changed since she’d last been there. Much, I expect. And not for the better. She sighed and clenched her teeth and tensed as the equine-raptor touched down, a tad more gracefully than the pegasi she noted. And on they rode, Correia taking the lead towards the southern gates of Wesson and its palace. Her home.
***
‘This better be good.’ Stowold reined his palfrey in before a bedraggled group being held at Wesson’s Eastern Gate. ‘I’m not accustomed to being summoned by a gatehouse captain, especially after I appointed the blasted man but a week ago. And especially not when it’s bloody well raining.’ He rocked back when he took in the men held at the gate. ‘You look like shit, the lot of you.’
A sodden, filthy and exhausted Sir Bollingham cleared his throat and held up his blood-crusted manacles. ‘Begging your pardon, milord, but that new captain you appointed wouldn’t let us pass, despite me being a knight and all, and despite three days roughing it, off the roads.’
Stowold’s eyes drifted to the black clad stranger stood and held by Big Dom, belted wrists and gagged mouth drawing more attention by the surrounding guardsmen than the other men’s manacles. Stowold sighed and rubbed at his wet face. ‘Very well,’ he said, turning his horse on the spot. ‘Have them escorted to my estate, Captain.’ He didn’t even bother to ask why they were manacled and why they had been off the roads. He had enough on his plate as it was.
The fresh-faced captain nodded eagerly and bowed, but said nothing.
‘But, milord?’
‘Save it, Biviano. Save it until you’re dry and cleaned up and fed and free of irons and the shit of the road… and vomit,’ Stowold said, sniffing the air. ‘Always with the vomit.’
Sir Bollingham made to speak and Stowold rode off, ignoring the shaking of manacles and the curses and the confused questions and protests that started at his back. He rode off and he grinned, despite the pin pricks of rain on his face. They had answers, his men, or rather it looked like they had someone who had answers. All he need do now was ride home, take the bath he’d been intending to take and await their return and report – which would be lengthy, no doubt.
Then we can work out what that little prick Rell Adlestrop is up to, Stowold thought, beaming as he rode. Beaming, that was, until he realised his unheralded spies had called for him in person, at the main gates. Beaming, that was, until he realised none of them had been in the company of a single horse, never mind the twelve he’d let them ride out with, five of which had been destriers. Not the best destriers, but expensive all the same.
Bagnall Stowold swore at length and drove spurs into his palfrey’s flanks, scattering the folk in his path and riding recklessly all the way back to his estate.
Chapter 69 – Assassin
‘Can’t believe the bastard made us walk.’ Pelse forced the words through tight lips as a servant scrubbed at his filthy face, another at his back.
‘I guess after the time we took marching from Beresford—’
‘And after losing more of his horses,’ Sears interrupted Biviano.
‘—Stowold thought nothing of letting us walk through the city,’ Biviano finished, nodding and wincing his acknowledgement to Sears’ words as a servant worked at removing a fat tick from his grubby ankle.
Jay Strawn merely sighed with satisfaction and leered at Big Dom’s servant whilst an older woman brushed at his black fingernails.
‘I’ve never seen so much hot water in my life,’ Sir Bollingham said, eyes wide at the large, sunken bath he sat at one end of. Steam rose from the now mucky waters, as servants bent and scrubbed and tended each of them.
‘And you a knight.’ Biviano grinned over at Sir Bollingham, who raised two fingers, but grinned back all the same.
‘I could get used to this,’ Big Dom rumbled in his bass tone. The girl massaging his nicked and scarred scalp tittered.
Jay Strawn frowned. ‘Why’d he get the pretty one and I get—’ He took a slap from the old dear who’d been brushing his nails. She spat in the water, between his legs, and stormed off to the accompaniment of much laughter, and a curse from Jay.
‘Is this what Stowold has regular like?’ Pelse asked, face cleaner than it had ever been.
Biviano nodded, then cursed with pain and relief as the tick was finally removed. ‘Reckon so, Pelse,’ he said, studying the little beastie he’d taken from the girl as she proceeded to wash him with a gusto he reckoned a stable boy would use on a filthy pack horse.
‘I could get used to this too,’ Sears said.
The rest of them agreed, none of them continuing with any word of what Stowold might say once they reported their findings. Nor did they mention the mercenary who’d been taken to a cell by Sir Bryant and two wicked looking men. Biviano was glad no one mentioned that, for the thought of it sparked memories of Ellis Frane and the bowels of the Samorlian Cathedral. He was equally glad no one mentioned it for Sears’ and, in turn, all their sakes.
If what I think might happen to that man, bastard or not, reaches Sears… Biviano shuddered and pushed the memories of red eyes and red flames away. He pushed them away and laid back, enjoying the luxury he and his friends were receiving… Likely before Stowold’s verbal roasting of us all. Again he shuddered at the thought and again he pushed it from his mind, one last painful thought slipping through. If only we’d retrieved the bloody horses.
***
Rain swept in off the sea as Correia and her group moved through the tall gatehouse and into the palace’s outer bailey. The sky had darkened through cloud and dusk shortly after their landing and she’d grunted a laugh at that. It was summer in Altoln and yet in rolled the rain as if to greet her with mockery. Mounted men-at-arms of the palace escorted her party to stables, although she’d insisted it wasn’t necessary. The answer the gate captain had given her struck a chill through her no rising wind or sudden downpour could best. They’d hardly stabled their winged mounts, passing reins to gawking stable hands, before bells rang throughout the palace. Bells and shouts, horns and barks – officers’ orders and dogs alike.
Correia felt what little colour remained drain from her face. She hesitated, but for a heartbeat, her companions looking about in confusion. She ran, travel and emotional fatigue forgotten. She drew swords and charged full tilt across an already rain-slick courtyard, footsteps on her heels, shouts and questions and warnings ignored. One word ran through her mind: Assassin. One face: King Barrison. Father.
Soldiers massed and soldiers moved. Bells tolled and crossbows were loaded. Knights ran from towers, squires and pages carrying shields and swords and hastily arming them as they went. Figures ran across ramparts, sheets of rain blurring their outlines, hampering their views of the ground below. Correia passed men shouting for her and her companions to stop. None dared question her when she snapped who she was. Some followed, caught up in the speed of it all, the confusion and excitement.
‘Where’s Barrison?’ Correia yelled as she rounded the base of a drum tower, familiar armour and hardened face meeting her.
‘In his receiving chamber.’ Sergeant Grannit lead Correia and her companions without question.
‘How many?’ Correia asked between breaths as they filtered through a guard-crowded doorway. Her companions received confused and suspicious glances, glares even, but none challenged, not with Sergeant Grannit and Lady Burr at their head.
‘We don’t know,’ Grannit admitted. He slowed to give an order to two men before speeding up again. ‘Gate guards found dead—’
‘Which gate?’ Correia saw soldiers searching servants, faces awash with fear or determination or both.
‘Kings Avenue trade,’ Grannit replied, clanking up a twisting staircase, his breaths now as heavy as Correia’s as they ascended. She could hear the others at her back, following quickly, wordlessly. She didn’t know how many had tagged along. Didn’t care.
‘Hold!’ shouted a baritone voice as the group left the stairs and neared a corner. Grannit slowed, but didn’t stop.
‘It’s Grannit,’ he said, now at a fast walk, hand on sheathed sword. ‘I’ve Lady Burr with me,’ he added, stopping before rounding the corner.
‘Who else?’
‘Her companions, now—’
‘Come, slowly.’
Grannit looked to Correia and nodded. She nodded back. Grannit held arms wide and rounded the corner, Correia sheathing her swords and doing the same. She didn’t have to look behind her to know Errolas and any others would match them.
