The Wrath of Heroes (A Requiem for Heroes Book 2)

by David Benem

  “And yet they’ve fled the front?” grunted Arleigh Lay, slouched in the shadows beneath the thatched eaves of the farmhouse. “Why? To stand aside and watch Rune burn?”

  “Think of it, Arleigh,” Brugan said. “These lads left the front but not the war. I’ve heard nothing of large numbers returning home, just word of soldiers leaving the ranks and heading west along the Silverflow. If they’d a mind to leave the fighting they’d have broken up and wandered home long ago. Sounds to me as though they’re willing to fight for Rune. Just not so long as Fane’s in command.”

  Lannick eased closer, through the men ringing the crowd’s edge. Old soldiers looked to him sidelong as he passed, some faces that’d once been friendly but were no longer. Suspicious gazes greeted him, along with a few possessing outright derision. A sharp elbow jarred him.

  “So what makes you think they’ll follow us?” Cudgen said.

  Brugan smirked. “There are certain to be some veterans among them. Soldiers who respect experience, and soldiers who’ve heard of Captain Lannick there.”

  Cudgen snorted. “Let’s hope they haven’t heard anything about the last decade,” he muttered.

  A smattering of snickers sounded and Lannick felt blood color his cheeks. Self-doubt shook him but he pressed on, shifting his crooked jaw. He knew the challenges ahead of him—ahead of them all—were weighty enough without him feeling as though he were wilting within.

  “That’s a wet mess there along the Silverflow,” said Hanner Hale. “If the deserters are encamped there then they’re starved or sick or worse by now. Perhaps they haven’t moved from there because they can’t.”

  Brugan raised a thick hand. “Rumor is they’re ready and being supplied from somewhere.”

  “From someone,” blurted Ulder Prane, his freckled face aglow beneath his red shock of hair. His skinny frame swelled as he looked about the company. “My brother’s a smuggler. For years he and I ran boats along the Silverflow and he keeps after it still. He hears a fair bit of gossip in his trade, and told me a few weeks back that Thane Vandyl’s sending them provisions from his hold of Rellic.”

  Lannick paused as old memories nearly forgotten crept into his head. Thane Vandyl?

  Brugan’s brow knotted. “I’d not heard that.”

  “He swears it’s so,” said Ulder.

  Lannick’s head swirled, spinning through a mire of memory muddied by old mistakes. He’d met the thane, once. They’d been seated beside each other at a banquet in the Bastion’s great hall. Vandyl—a serious, stubborn man—had expressed his admiration for Lannick’s actions in the battle that decided the war, and whispered outrage over Fane’s blunders that nearly lost it. He’d confided his opinion that Lannick rightly deserved to command Rune’s armies rather than the general.

  Will he remember that? It was so very long ago…

  He shook his head.

  Or was it?

  “If these soldiers deserted the front,” squealed Cudgen, “aren’t you worried General Fane will send a column of men to drag them back? I’m with you, Brugan, but my head tells me some of this doesn’t make sense. The thanes are calling for conscriptions when there are thousands of trained soldiers just sitting there that close to the front? Are we sure we want to risk joining those lads?”

  A number of men murmured agreement, mostly those whose faces held the most doubt when looking upon Lannick.

  “Besides,” Cudgen continued, “Fane’s a vicious bastard. Worst there is. You remember how he enjoyed making examples of men. Why’s he not dragging those lads back to the front by their ears then forcing them to be first to fall on Arranese swords?”

  Lannick’s hand fell to his Coda and his thoughts turned again to that certainty he’d settled upon. That certainty that General Fane meant to lose this war.

  His heart flooded with purpose and he pushed his way through a barrier of heavy forms.

  Brugan was nodding. “Just as you said, Hanner, it’s a wet mess along that river. Perhaps Fane doesn’t want to risk sending soldiers away on some slog through the marshes. Perhaps—”

  “I’ll tell you why!” Lannick shouted, moving to stand beside Brugan at the group’s center. “Fane doesn’t march on those deserters because he doesn’t need them. Because he doesn’t want them.”

  Arleigh Lay chuckled. “You been drinking again?” His wry smile shone from the shadows.

  Lannick stared him down. “He doesn’t need those men because he intends to lose this war.”

  The men quieted, confusion drawn on faces striated with scars and wrinkles.

  Arleigh smacked his knee with his one remaining hand. “He has been drinking again! I told you lads!”

  The laughter rose again and the sound of it fired Lannick’s anger. “Shut your mouth, Arleigh,” he growled.

  “Or what, Captain? You’ll burp up your last drink on me?”

  The laughter grew louder.

  Lannick looked hard at him. Fear and doubt chewed his innards but he’d not let it show. Not to these men, not now. “Or I’ll toss your ass off this hilltop right now.”

  “C’mon, lads!” said Brugan.

  Arleigh’s face twisted in a nasty smirk and he sauntered from the shadows of the farmhouse’s eaves. His fingers moved just beneath the neck of his black jerkin to where his knife likely rested. “Will you, now?”

  The men nearest Arleigh cleared away and he took a few swaggering steps forward. He came within arm’s reach of Lannick and glared up at him with danger in his eyes. He slid the handle of his dagger from his jerkin and grinned.

  “Easy, lads!” Brugan said with a forced laugh. “Fane’s the enemy, not each other! We here are brothers!”

  “Brothers?” Arleigh huffed. “I fought the same war he fought, yet he ended up with an honorary title while I rotted in a prison cell. Is that any way to treat a brother? What do you think, Cudgen? Or you, Ulder? Or any of you others who were there with me, taking our lashes? I was in there a whole fucking year after our captain received a special pardon from the High King himself!”

  Brugan lifted his hands upward. “We know, Arleigh. You needn’t remind any of us. We all—”

  “We all what?” Arleigh snapped. “They locked our good captain in there, too? Funny. I don’t recall seeing him in the brig, but I do recall hearing he spent his days shitting himself in tavern after tavern.”

  “My wife and children were murdered, Arleigh,” Lannick said, trembling inside. “That was my punishment.”

  “My son was killed! The Tallorrath put the torch to my farmhouse, with him barred inside. Was my loss any less than yours?”

  “No, it wasn’t. But at least you had a measure of vengeance against his killers, spilling as much Tallorrathian blood as any man. My family’s killer remains very much alive.” His voice strengthened. “Since murdering my family he’s been lauded with every manner of glory. He’s lived lavishly on hoards we plundered. He’s danced at the Bastion with the most beautiful women in the whole of Rune, all while having his ass licked by Rune’s thanes. He’s ascended to great power and now commands Rune’s armies, sending young soldiers to their deaths. All this achieved atop a heap of atrocities committed upon the lot of us.”

  Arleigh’s scowl did not waver. “No one’s here on account of what happened to you, Lannick. We were all wronged by Fane, and every last one of us wants to stick a knife through that bastard’s throat. You’ve no right to lay claim to vengeance alone.”

  Brugan moved to stand beside Lannick, placing a hand on his shoulder but addressing the whole group. “This lad’s suffered as much as any, and more than most. I’ve witnessed it myself. Have any of us made all the right choices? I know I’ve not—would’ve married if I had. We all have regrets, things we could’ve done different. Most of those bad choices we can’t make right, not ever. But this one we can. All the captain’s asking for is a second chance with us, so we can all right that wrong of years ago.”

  Lannick nodded. “And I’ve no right to ask more from
you,” he said, voice low. “Any of you. I’m ashamed of what I allowed myself to become, and ashamed we didn’t right those old wrongs long before now. I know you doubt me, and you’ve reason to.” His voice trailed and his gaze fell from theirs.

  “Go on, lad,” said Brugan.

  Lannick’s hand felt the outline of his Coda and he looked to the men once more. “I just beg you listen to what I say here, for everything depends on it.” He paused, letting silence take hold. “All of Fane’s evil deeds are nothing when weighed against what he has planned. He is a madman, lusting for power. But he doesn’t seek the power of this world. He seeks the dark power of old, power over death and darkness. And to gain that power he’s allied himself with Rune’s gravest enemy, the Necrists. They seek—”

  “Aw, c’mon!” blurted Cudgen Ashworn. “Fairy tales, now?”

  A number of the men laughed, Arleigh loudest of all.

  “He speaks truth!” scolded Brugan. “Like any of you, I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts or demons or other such silliness. But back in Ironmoor, just a few days ago, I saw these things. Two things, and they commanded the shadows. What’s more—”

  Cudgen spat. “A good many of us have left our families to join this endeavor. We risk our lives. We know that already. No need to try and spook us with falsehoods.”

  Brugan took a heavy stride toward Cudgen, his good nature giving way to menace. “What’s more,” he growled, “is that they were covered in the faces of Lannick’s dead wife and son. These were not natural things, Cudgen.”

  Lannick nodded. “These things are what await your families with blood rites and perversions. They are what your families will face if we fail. I assure you, there is something dark and powerful afoot in all this.”

  Cudgen fell silent, though his brow curled with skepticism. Many others wore similar expressions.

  “These things are real, Cudgen,” Lannick said. “You must prepare yourselves to confront worse than warring soldiers. Fane may have surrounded himself with far fouler allies.”

  “You ask us to believe a good many things,” Arleigh Lay said, his scowl undiminished. “The very worst may be that you’re fit to lead the lot of us to war once more. The way I see things, you’re not fit to lead us anywhere but a tavern. You’re bound to fail us again, Lannick, and when you do it could cost us our lives. Rune has no king anymore, so why should we? I say let a man prove his worth. Nothing that happened at Pryam’s Bay should count for us here.”

  Many heads bobbed in agreement.

  “Well enough,” said Lannick. “But I promise I’ll not fail you. I know you don’t have much faith in me now, but I swear to every one of you I’ll die before I let you down. I fight for vengeance. We fight for vengeance. We fight for vengeance and we fight for far more. We will not—must not—lose.” He looked to each man in turn, challenging the doubt still lingering on their faces. “Fane will die. I swear it.”

  Lannick sat in Kevlin’s stone farmhouse, studying the map on the table before him. Firelight thrown from the hearth played across the yellowed parchment, lighting all but the deepest furrows of the map’s folds, and shadows shifted across the faces of the three old soldiers seated about him.

  Lannick placed a finger on what he reckoned was the general location of Kevlin’s farm then traced it south. Across the sketch of rolling hills, past occasional hamlets, then at last to black line of the Silverflow. Somewhere along its banks, west of Riverweave, stood what Lannick guessed was his best hope of winning this thing. An encampment of soldiers who’d fled Fane’s madness, deserters who risked execution for treason rather than serve the general.

  Thousands, Brugan had said. Thousands massed and ready.

  An army.

  Brugan sat across from him. “We’re not far from the hold of Thane Vandyl. Two days’ ride, maybe, and the deserters’ camp is but a few days beyond that. It’d not be out of our way.”

  Lannick’s brow curled. “You really think he might be supplying the deserters?”

  “Ulder says so,” Brugan said, “and he’s always been a reliable sort. What’s more, folk say Vandyl holds the kingdom’s old traditions most sacred, and there were rumors of a rift with Chamberlain Alamis after High King Deragol’s troubles began.”

  Lannick nodded. “He seemed no friend to General Fane after Pryam’s Bay. Perhaps he’s an ally in waiting… We could pay him a visit on our way to the encampment. If he lends his support that will send a powerful message.”

  “Aye,” Brugan said. “Sounds to me it’d be well worth the effort, Captain.”

  Cudgen shifted in his creaky chair beside Brugan, the firelight making his narrow face seem skeletal. “Is it? You think a thane will open his gates for the like of us? For the likes of the renowned drunkard Lannick deVeers? Ha!”

  Brugan straightened and stared at Cudgen. “Mind your tongue, Cudgen. I for one know what Lannick is. What he can be and what he can accomplish.”

  Cudgen huffed and began tapping a thin finger on the table.

  “Hmm,” rolled Kevlin’s gravelly voice as the man scratched his heavy chin. He seemed nearly as imposing as he’d been with his broadsword a decade before, his now-balding head like a polished stone. “Cudgen might be right. It’s risky asking a thane for help. He might send us in chains to Ironmoor. Maybe worse.”

  Brugan shook his head. “If what Ulder said is true—and I trust Ulder—then Thane Vandyl’s not standing on the general’s side of things. Besides, Vandyl’s the sort to honor a Protector of Ironmoor. He’ll remember Lannick.”

  “He will,” said Lannick.

  Cudgen snorted. “And you think that’s a good thing? You were branded a traitor after the war.”

  “And pardoned by the High King himself,” said Brugan sternly, folding meaty arms across his broad chest.

  “We’ll call on him,” said Lannick firmly, holding Cudgen’s gaze. “We’ll see if we can learn where he’s placed his loyalties. Just a small group so we don’t seem a threat or a burden. After that, we’ll rejoin the others and together make our way to the deserters’ camp. Hopefully with the thane’s endorsement.”

  Brugan nodded in agreement, and after a moment Cudgen’s sneer faded.

  For a time they were quiet, the only sounds the fire’s crackle and the din of the old soldiers outside. A number had taken up a song, drunken voices lilting off-key.

  On wagons borne they be

  Free at last of misery

  Their pain forgot

  Their vict’ry not

  On wagons borne they be!

  Lannick frowned, not fancying an old tune about carrying the dead from the battlefield. They’d be seeing all too much of that in the coming months.

  Kevlin cleared his throat behind a square fist. “What you said before,” he said. “That thing about Fane meaning to lose. If that’s true, why’s he not been yanked from command already?”

  “Because he’s a deceitful snake,” Brugan said, the firelight drawing odd shadows upon his lumpy face. “Fane has spent years courting favor, years forging loyalties in the highest circles. Chamberlain Alamis has thrown his support behind the general, and he’s the very man who’s managed to slip his skinny ass onto the throne. Meanwhile the thanes bicker amongst themselves over their own merits to the crown. Between those political disagreements and Alamis’s position the general will have a long leash.”

  “That’s why we must prevail,” said Lannick, “and quickly. If Fane can hold out long enough then Rune will be lost. We have to remove him before he’s had time to make real whatever plan he has in his sick head.”

  Cudgen grunted. “Any word on where he is? That general was always a cowardly sort. My guess is he’s nowhere near the fighting.”

  Brugan planted a thick finger on the square marking Riverweave. “Agreed, and that’s why he’s likely there. Riverweave. Somewhere secure, deep in the sprawl of the city and far from the front. Fane always wanted to stay safe until he thought the battle was nearly done. Likely he’s som
ewhere real comfortable, and with a fast ship at the ready.”

  Lannick looked to the map’s dark lines marking Rune’s great rivers—the Silverflow and the Drimrill—as they tumbled toward the Sullen Sea. Toward Riverweave.

  Toward Fane.

  Cudgen leaned near the map. “So we mean to drag those deserters to Riverweave? You think they’ll follow the likes of us? The likes of Lannick?”

  Lannick looked to him for a moment then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what they think of me. As long as they remain willing to take up their swords for Rune and rally against the general, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge. As long as they can get us within reach of Fane they’ll be serving our purpose.”

  Kevlin tilted his head, the hairless peak of it catching the yellow glow of the fire. “Right-thinking folk respect experience. I’d guess they’ll give you a listen, Captain.”

  “Let’s say we get these deserters to march on Riverweave,” said Cudgen as he scratched at his neatly-trimmed beard. “What then? We attack Rune’s army? Wouldn’t we be doing Fane’s work for him?”

  Lannick looked again to the map, to Riverweave sitting at the convergence of the Silverflow and Drimrill and sprawled upon the shore of the Sullen Sea. “No. If I have my say, we’ll approach Riverweave from the north.” He moved his finger along the line of the river, then round to the north of the city. “With any luck we can pass ourselves off as reinforcements from one of the columns in Ironmoor. If that doesn’t work, the city’s northern gates are likely to have the weakest defenses and the fewest soldiers. Once we’re in the city we’ll hunt down Fane. We’ll kill him and every last one of his Scarlet Swords. Then, hopefully, this war will be free of his treachery, and we can keep the Arranese from advancing to Ironmoor.”

  Cudgen snorted. “So that’s your plan. Sounds to me like an awful lot of hoping.”