by Jackson Lear
With a careful glare she stared back at us, reading our eagerness to kill her as clear as day. “You’re too late. I already know who the new king is.”
“Who?”
Saskia shook her head at us, still gasping for breath and unused to not needing to breathe.
Jarmella crept forward with her curved sword pointing at the vampire’s chest. “I’m sorry, Saskia.”
“Like hell you are. You could’ve spared me at the beach and you didn’t. You wanted to use me. I outrank you and you wanted to use me.”
“And you’ve been nothing but trouble.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jarmella took another step forward.
“I will kill you. All of you.”
“You’re not strong enough.”
“I’m still a mage and a better one than you ever were.” An intoxicated grin fell upon Saskia. “Kazdah.” Her grin dropped immediately. She tried to fire off another spell, and another, targeting each of us and all to no effect.
“Magic comes from the other side,” said Jarmella. “Now that you’re mostly there you don’t have the same access to it.”
“Bullshit. Vampires have magic.”
“Did any of them teach you how to use it?”
Saskia hissed, turning quickly as a newfound panic started to sink in. “Jessica says you’ve abandoned her.”
“What does she look like?”
Saskia hesitated, searching for the answer. She turned to me. “I see your weakness.”
“I have many. Who’s the new king?”
“Come and find out. He wants to thank you for uniting his people against a common enemy. You won’t be able to kill him like you killed Draegor.” Saskia jumped, trying to leap completely over Jarmella and escape to safety. Jarmella drove her sword up, catching Saskia’s hip and bringing the creature crashing onto the snow.
We shifted, closing in on Saskia and leaving her with no room to move. She crawled forward, head down until she came face to face with the pointy end of Jarmella’s sword. “Goodbye, Saskia.”
“No! You still need me. I helped you find Berik. You left him behind and I helped you get him back.”
“I know. Thank you.” Jarmella swung. A crimson arc of blood landed on the soft white snow. Ewen had to pull one foot back quickly before his toes were covered in the thick red line. Saskia’s mouth fell open. The last vestige of warmth escaped her, a faint cloud of mist rising from her wound.
Jarmella held her position over Saskia’s body. “I’m sorry.”
I thumped my way back to Torunn and Yahsnon. “We had a deal before. Seven of you broke it.”
“You know why they did,” said Torunn.
“I do. Are the rest of you going to be a problem?”
“You have our weapons.”
“Odalis? Give them their axes and swords back.”
The young cavalryman stared back at me. “I … Are you …”
I kept my attention locked onto Torunn.
Begrudgingly, Odalis held out the collection of weapons to the northerners, allowing them to reclaim their pride and joy. The almost naked Agnarr grunted at me. Even shook his head.
“We’ve worked well together before,” I said. “I would like that to continue. One more day. That’s all we need.”
Torunn nodded. “We want our prisoners.”
“So do we. Listen up! We have two primary objectives: get Loken and the prisoners back and hijack a ship that will take us to Orkust. To do the first one we need to intercept the cavalry before they reach Ice Bridge. Who here can ride a horse at full gallop?”
Odalis and Wilbur – the only two cavalry members remaining – raised their hands.
“You fellas are each going to get yourselves onto one of their horses each with Loken in whatever state he’s in and meet us at the docks. You’ll have two archers with you and quite a few of Agnarr’s people to help rescue their prisoners. Those people are free to leave when they like. The rest of us are going to burn every ship in the harbor except for one. That will be our ride out of here. As soon as we’re in the clear we can actually get some rest. Menrihk? What have you got?”
“I see it, all right,” said Menrihk from up a tree. “Looks like twelve ships at port.” He shifted to face the south. “Some at sea. And we’re going to need to hurry, ‘cause there’s about a hundred riders coming in quickly from the south.”
Stassa called out. “Do they have prisoners?”
“Hard to tell from this distance.”
I looked to Torunn, Yahsnon, Stassa, and the rest of Agnarr’s people. “You help us, we help you.”
“Deal,” said Yahnson.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Torunn and Yahnson were still disgruntled, but the idea of setting fire to Draegor’s fleet warmed their souls a little. I promised them they could blame it on me if everything went tits-up.
I split the forty northerners in half. Those on a mission to rescue their kidnapped loved ones went with Odalis, Wilbur, Ivar, and Magnus to ambush the cavalry. They took our two ramming rods which had proved their worth during the castle breakout. The plan remained largely in Odalis’ hands but the mechanics were fairly simple: use the rods as a tripwire to trip the horses up and knock the riders off, then use the archers to rain hell and fury upon the rest of the cavalry. We were fully aware that it was still a hundred riders against twenty four of our guys, and that they had a vampire or two in the mix, so things weren’t going to end as smoothly as I hoped for.
The rest of us made it to the very edge of the thinning tree line. Half a mile of open air lay between us the great wall of Ice Bridge, a fortress wrapping around the whole town and most of the harbor, built to withstand raiders and vampires alike. Walls and turrets stretched into the water, safeguarding the royal fleet at rest. From our side of the mountain there was only one entrance in sight – a thick gate surrounded by sloping stone walls with wooden spikes lining the top.
We had two ways of reaching a boat: by storming the fortress or plunging ourselves into the freezing water, water that Torunn assured me was significantly colder than the lake thanks to the glaciers feeding Ice Bridge’s renowned river. Oh, and there were spikes in the water. Where? No idea. Wonderful.
A sentry strolled along the fortress walkway, his bow no where in sight. I imagine he’d been on edge for the last five days like us, dealing with our escape, his king being overthrown, the vaults raided, and now a new monarch residing on the throne.
I turned to Berik. “Did you go through there?”
“No, we avoided this place completely. We went ten miles up the river, crossed it, and started up the mountain over there.”
“Dalo?”
“Sir?”
“How’s the leg?”
“I can hobble.”
“You scored one ninety five last year in an archery competition in front of the governor and thousands of spectators.”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you see that guy walking along the wall?”
“I need to be a lot closer than this to hit him.”
“How far?”
“Ideally? Within two hundred yards.”
Leaving us with about six hundred yards to hobble. Jarmella added: “Someone will have to help him walk.”
“Gaynun? Menrihk? What have you got?”
Both were pointing a magical rod at the gate house. “I see one other,” said Gaynun.
“And someone’s talking to someone else. It’s muffled, like behind a door. I can’t make out what they’re saying from here.”
I asked Jarmella: “If that was an imperial fort, how many people would be on guard duty?”
“A fort is different to a permanent wall surrounding a city. A fort would be made up of nearly all soldiers so there would be a lot more on duty or ready within a minute if there was a situation. This place is more likely to have a skeleton crew. The defenses lie in the building, not in the number of guards. A wall of that size would have four or five on duty, maybe
the same down below taking it easy and swapping out every couple of hours.”
Torunn leaned forward. “Ice Bridge has built more defenses over the last couple of years. Defenses against vampires.”
“Even though it’s controlled by vampires?”
Torunn shrugged. “If it defends against vampires it will defend against humans.”
“They now have a cavalry,” said Jarmella. “Which means their enemies might one day have a cavalry as well. Better to prepare for that now than suffer later on.”
I asked: “Did they bring in a lot of mages? Blacksmiths? Carpenters?”
Yahnson certainly nodded. Torunn translated. “Every noble gave their best blacksmith and carpenter to Draegor last year. Some went to Ice Bridge.”
“Did Yahnson go?”
Torunn shrugged with indifference. “Does Draegor know who the best blacksmith is? No. Yahnson sent … how do you say … young blacksmith.”
“Apprentice?”
“Aye.”
“Did the apprentice come back?”
“No. He’s still somewhere out there. Maybe in Brilskeep. Maybe Ice Bridge. Maybe somewhere else.”
“Okay, so we have a wall that’s covered in grime so it’s as slippery as hell. Gaynun? How’s the ground looking surrounding the fort? Freshly dug up?”
“Looks like gravel.” He searched the rest of the land in front of us. “Yeah, gravel all the way around, all the way from the base to about forty feet out.”
“So, it’s noisy as hell and probably covered with enchanted lengths of steel to catapult anyone dumb enough to run towards the wall.”
“Yahnson says gate would have same,” said Torunn. “But moveable.”
“I do see swivel posts twenty feet from the front of the gate,” said Gaynun.
“Are the swivel posts locked?” I asked.
Jarmella rolled her eyes at me.
“All right, of course they’re locked. And you probably need to be on the other side of the wall to open them.”
“Do we need to open them?” asked Adalyn. “I mean, if all we need is a ship then there’s – what – fourteen just over there.”
Jarmella shook her head. “We’d have to swim half a mile through freezing water with no way of getting warm again once we’re on board.”
I said: “And I’d like to stop as many of those boats from being able to chase us.”
“So we either get them to open the gate for us or we do it ourselves,” said Jarmella.
Admittedly, tossing Saskia in there would’ve been quite useful but we were short on vampires and high … okay, not quite high, but higher … ish … on ethics when it came to civilian casualties.
“We don’t have enough mages to break the gate down,” said Jarmella.
“Maybe we sneak in with the cavalry,” said Adalyn.
“Is that before or after Odalis attacks them all and causes a ruckus?”
“I’m just offering a suggestion …”
Jarmella nudged me. “Well? This is your area of expertise.”
“You’ve never even broken into a practice fortress before?”
“No. We’re army. We siege. Mercenaries are the ones who break into places like that for fun, right? So how do we do it?”
Ideally, we would’ve waited until nightfall, but the cavalry were on their way so time was an issue. “Six of us will go in pairs spaced fifty yards apart. One able bodied, the other faking a limp, an injury, or whatever the person in front of them is not doing. Odeh and Dalo in the rear – keep your bow hidden. Jarmella and Torunn in the middle …” I cast my eyes over the concerned yet hopeful faces of the vanguard. Someone was going to be my new squeezer. They just didn’t know it yet. One set of mousey eyes seemed more suitable than the rest. “Adalyn, you’re with me.”
A smile spread from ear to ear.
“Keep it in your pants, Ad,” muttered Jarmella.
“That’s one hundred percent where it is,” beamed Adalyn. She shook the smile away and forced a deep breath. “Wait, I’m in the front?”
“With me.”
“Okay. Front line. With Raike. Why me?”
“You didn’t lose your shit when a vampire came straight at you. In fact, you killed it.”
Adalyn’s smile returned.
“Let’s have that rope.”
“You know there are more vampires in there, right?” said Torunn.
Adalyn’s smile dropped completely. “Sorry, what?”
Eight hundred yards away – no sign of them noticing us. Six hundred yards – still nothing. Four hundred yards, now with me limping and one arm draped over Adalyn’s shoulders – the first head glanced our way. Lifted his bow as a precautionary measure.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you, sir?”
“The shit I’ve been involved with in the past would make your head spin.”
“All right, I’m game. And nervous. More nervous than game, actually. Make my head spin.”
“We have four minutes before everything starts to go horribly wrong. Now might be a good time to prepare yourself.”
“… Why did you say things are about to go horribly wrong?”
“Plans on the fly usually do.” The bowman moved closer to the gate, keeping us in sight at all times.
“I don’t mean to be rude but from what I’ve seen of you your plans are pretty much made only on the fly …”
“You’re going to want to change the topic, Adalyn.”
“Okay, er … you probably don’t know but that thing when I offered to buy you a drink?”
“Thank you, I was flattered.”
“You were supposed to ask me why and then I’d tell you and then you were going to offer to buy me a drink instead.”
“I was?”
“That was the plan. Only you didn’t ask why.”
“All right. Why?”
“See, well it was better back there before … oh shit, there’s a second one.” Sure enough, another bowman poked his head up.
“Keep it together, Adalyn.”
“Okay. It’s my birthday.” She gave me a full-tooth apologetic grin.
I managed to keep a burst of internal swearing at bay but it wasn’t easy considering that we were quickly approaching an enemy fortress and whose watchmen had already seen us. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t want to be presumptive but since Jarmella’s the oldest at twenty …”
“Jarmella’s not the oldest.”
“I thought that’s why she had seniority.”
“Well, I mean … that’s one of them … officially … but er … can you keep a secret?”
“Sure.”
“She’s seventeen.”
“She’s what?”
“Almost eighteen, but yeah. She promised me not to tell anyone but since I’m about to die on my own birthday I thought it was only fair.”
That internal swearing? Now much worse. “You’re sure?”
“About her? Oh yes. We started basic training at the same time. She was a mess. Her parents dumped her into the army and lied about her age. I think her mom told her she was going to stay there until she got her shit sorted out or stopped misbehaving or words to that effect. Now, some fifteen year olds do look younger than they actually are but even though she was as tall as me at the time there was no question that she was twelve. Her parents just kept reassuring the recruitment sergeant that she was a lying brat and old enough to serve. Poor thing clung to me straight away and bawled her eyes out for a week. So yeah. Officially she’s twenty but she’s actually one of the youngest in the whole vanguard. You promise you won’t tell anyone?”
My first instinct was to add it to the list of blackmailable trivia I knew about members of the Imperial Army … and then I remembered that I was no longer a mercenary who made a living from blackmail. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
“Cool.”
Another head popped up. Climbed up onto the wall itself and held onto o
ne of the taller posts, leaning out like she was on the mast of a ship. A creature who had no problem dealing with injuries that humans found life-threatening. Adalyn’s breathing spiked.
“All right, quick story to make your head spin,” I said. “One day we were hired by this old lady – hair growing in tufts out of her ears and nose, skin so wrinkly she might’ve been made of bark. Her brother had just died and was set to have a funeral. She wanted us to be bodyguards for the whole affair because the family had something like five brothers still alive, four sisters, sixty kids between them, and four hundred grandkids. She was convinced that one of them killed her parents. She was also convinced that her own daughter had been swapped for a stranger’s kid when she was an infant by an angry sister because of some petty revenge, only she could never prove it. One great uncle was caught in bed with two different servers on the same day. One wife stormed in naked declaring: ‘There! Are you happy?’ Someone threw paint all over her and shouted: ‘I am now!’ No matter how little we engaged with them they were all desperate to come up to us and reveal every dirty secret they had on everyone else. This lady blackmailed that lady. This guy and that guy used to beat the snot out of each other whenever they could. This wife and that husband were having an affair – swapped spouses – and then had affairs with their former husband and wife. Siblings had bankrupted each other, some had been forced into arranged marriages with foreign servants as a giant fuck you so that they could never be seen in public without suffering a world of shame. We couldn’t believe it. Worse than that: it turned every last one of us in the company into the biggest bag of gossips we had ever met because each story was better than the last. The best bit was right at the end when it came time to bury the dead brother. No one could find him. During all of the commotion someone actually stole his body and ran off with it. We tracked him down to a hospital. He was being used as practice for medical students. When we left we found twenty of the family members in the hospital corridor, all with bruises, broken limbs, broken noses, some throwing up on the floor. One of them was still challenging another to a fight. Apparently his thing was that he would fight naked. Just strip right down while goading the other person into a rumble. Confuses the hell out of people. He did it right in front of us and I can tell you exactly why it worked for him.”