Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2)

by M. R. Anthony

  “Nice work,” I told him. Then, I stood up and gave the good news to the men. “Let’s see if we can find somewhere to stay for the night,” I told them. “If anyone asks, I’ll say we’re heading to Blades from Gold, just to keep it simple. Try not to look threatening.” I said this last bit with a laugh. There was nothing we could have done that would have stopped us from looking like trouble.

  Soon, we were in the tavern, clustered around four round tables, each of us clutching a wooden mug of rich, dark ale as if it were the most treasured of our possessions. Nearby, a pile of shields and packs was within easy reach, but not so close that their presence would detract from the pleasure of this break from soldiering. Our arrival had caused something of a stir, but that was nothing new to us. I’d reassured the tavern owner that we were just passing through and would leave first thing in the morning and that any damage his property might suffer tonight would not be our doing. Paying up front was the norm, and a good way to reduce suspicions as to what our intentions might be.

  As Eyeball had said, the place was filled mostly with farmers and other labourer types. They viewed us with a healthy fear, but to my relief, our arrival did not clear the tavern. I had nothing against the owner and did not want to be responsible for him losing out on coin because we’d chased away his customers.

  After we’d spent thirty minutes there, the chatter had returned to a usual level. Unlike most groups of off-duty soldiers, we didn’t become raucous or disruptive. I think we were all too old to be excited by the sounds of our own voices, and we’d seen enough violence that we didn’t crave more by antagonising other people who wanted nothing more than a relaxing drink.

  “This is a bit of all right, eh?” said Finder, to the general agreement of everyone.

  “Is there any food coming, Captain?” asked Beamer. “My stomach isn’t really bothered, but my eyes want to see some and my mouth wants to taste it.”

  “The bar keep tells me he’s got some stew on the go. Got real mutton in it, he assures me, with some bread to go with it – fresh baked this morning and some butter too.”

  “Real mutton?” asked Beamer. “What else was it going to be, then?”

  “What about dog?” asked Waxer. “Or cat? You’ll notice we didn’t see either in the street outside.”

  “I’ve never eaten dog. Or cat for that matter. And I don’t intend starting with it now,” said Scratch.

  “Yeah but you could eat it without ever knowing,” said Leaves. “It’ll taste like mutton once it’s in with all the gravy. Lovely lumps of grey dog flesh. Only you’ll never know.”

  I could see Scratch starting to look worried at the thought of it and I chuckled that he might be so fastidious. We’d all eaten far worse than dog or cat in the past. Now we didn’t really need to eat anything and I told myself that it would be nice to experience the simple feeling of having my mouth water at the smell of food, whatever animal it might have come from.

  We didn’t get to taste the stew. We heard a noise from outside the tavern that I hadn’t expected to hear in this place, so far from anywhere. It was the sound of horses, and with it the sound of carriages. Without going to the window, I knew what these carriages would look like and I could picture the metal bars covering their windows.

  “How the fuck did they get their wagons out here?” I asked, not really looking for an answer. “Keep your heads down for now, men. Until we see what’s happening.”

  The locals were evidently familiar with the new arrivals. They looked petrified, but none dared to venture out onto the street, nor to go back to their homes. I rose and walked over to the bar keep.

  “What are the justiciars doing out here?” I asked him.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “They’re your friends, aren’t they? I thought you’d know what they were doing here.” I’d told him we were coming from Gold and because of that he’d assumed we were Warmont’s men. It was the impression I’d wanted to give – it saved me from having to lie to him when I didn’t have to.

  “When were they last here?” I asked. “And how many?”

  “They brought a hundred, last time,” he said. “Only four months’ past. Took nearly a quarter of our children and some others. Told us the Duke wanted them to work in his keep.”

  I wasn’t sure if he knew what the Duke really wanted them for and didn’t tell him. I reckoned there might be a little over a thousand people living here in this place – it was more like a small town than a village. It was big enough to have worthwhile numbers, but small enough to make for easy pickings. The justiciars could easily ruin somewhere like this, by overharvesting it and killing anyone who spoke dissent.

  The tavern door opened and half a dozen men entered while I stood next to the bar. They wore plumed helmets along with dirt-spattered breastplates and metal leg guards. The had swords at their sides and heavy metal coshes hung from their belts. Trying to be surreptitious, I looked back to the tables my men occupied, to see if our shields were visible from the door, since they’d give us away immediately. There was always a chance that these justiciars didn’t know that we’d changed sides, but I couldn’t gamble on it. To my relief, our shields looked like nothing more than indistinct shapes. The tattoos on my face were another sure sign, but it wasn’t unknown for soldiers to decorate their faces in memory of a lucky escape from death or a magnificent victory they’d been a part of.

  The six men pushed their way to the bar, not caring if they ruffled feathers as they did so. The lead man was squat and with beady eyes that looked too small for his round head.

  “The Duke needs more children for his keep,” said the man. “And we need a place to stay tonight. We rested above your tavern last time we were here.” He didn’t ask it as a question – in his arrogance, he assumed that just by speaking, his wishes would be granted. I despised the justiciars. Everyone did.

  The bar keep swallowed nervously. He didn’t want to look as if he were encouraging a confrontation, but he had little choice. “This gentleman here has the largest of the rooms,” he said. “I don’t have space for another hundred. You could bed down in this room here, if you wished?”

  The justiciar looked at me. He was broad, but so was I and I towered over him. The justiciars had no precedence over the Duke’s army, though a captain of the justiciars could give orders to a rank and file soldier. I was dressed in my armour, and still wore my captain’s markings on my shoulder. I could see that the man was a lieutenant, and therefore had to tread extremely carefully if he thought to address me with anything other than polite formality.

  He stared at me, eventually breaking away his gaze. There was a cruel intelligence behind his eyes. I knew at once that he’d recognized me, but couldn’t be sure if he’d seen the twenty men I was with. He kept up the charade for a few moments.

  “You’re a long way from Blades, Captain,” he said. His men fidgeted at the bar, unsure what to make of things. One of them pointed to the bar keep and demanded a cup of ale. Bolt and Hacker joined them at the bar, as if they waited their turn to be served.

  “The Duke’s armies spend more time away from the capital than in it, Lieutenant,” I responded truthfully.

  “Indeed they do, Captain. I wasn’t aware that we had any operations here though, so far from anywhere.”

  “We don’t. But a man needs to travel to get to where he’s going. What are the justiciars doing in a place like this? Are there no more easy fruits to be plucked close to home?”

  The man smiled thinly. “The Duke prefers to spread the privilege of serving him evenly amongst his people. We of the justiciars must travel far in order to fulfil his wishes.”

  “I’m sure you must,” I replied. “The Duke has slugs under every rock.” I knew that slugs was a commonly-used derogatory term for the justiciars. It wasn’t a term that they liked to hear.

  “We can’t dwell, Captain,” he replied, pretending that he hadn’t heard my insult. “If there is no room to be had here, we will have to take what we
need elsewhere.” He made a signal for his men to leave their ale and turned as if to head for the exit. The movement of his body concealed his hand for a brief moment. I’d seen all the moves before and knew what he was doing. He spun back to face me, with his cosh in his hand. It was dull iron, brutal and unadorned, already raised in the air to strike me. The blow didn’t land – his arm hardly even started its descent before I drove the long-bladed dagger that I’d taken from Leerfar’s severed hand under his chin and into his brain. His eyes went wide and his mouth moved as if to speak words, but no sound emerged. A dribble of blood leaked around the puncture wound as I slid the blade out. It rapidly became a red torrent.

  “You’ll take nothing more from these people, you fucker,” I said in a voice little more than a whisper. I hoped that he heard what I told him, but I was sure he was dead by that point.

  His other five men hadn’t realised exactly what had happened – I assumed they hadn’t known who I was, and their lieutenant hadn’t been able to tell them without giving the game away. They’d seen their officer raise his arm, but the finality of my attack had been hidden from them by the broadness of his body and shoulders. Bolt and Hacker weren’t so blind and they set about the justiciars, using surprise to thrust wide-bladed daggers into the easily-found gaps in the men’s armour. Two of the justiciars slumped over, debilitated but with the crushing agony of their injuries yet to reach their brains. I watched Hacker bring his knee up into the helmeted face of the first man as he fell, and then stab him in the spine for good measure.

  The justiciars were infinitely cruel, but once you stripped away their veneer of power, they soon became little more than snivelling cowards. The men who remained standing were no exception. One of them stammered that their group wasn’t looking for trouble, while the other two held their hands placatingly. At their feet, the one man who remained alive roared out in pain at his wound. Bolt stooped over and silenced him quickly.

  “How many do you have?” I snapped.

  “One hundred and one, sir,” said the first man. That was about the greatest numbers they’d travel in. I’d seen the Duke send out five hundred once, into Graster after it fell, but that had been a long time ago.

  “And what have you stopped here for?” I asked.

  “We’re on our way to Fallow. Captain Jepson said we’d get easy meat here,” said the justiciar. “Said we could do what we wanted to the women. Take a few with us for the journey.” He smiled, a strange rictus expression, as if the talk of rape would get me on his side.

  I wasn’t a cruel man. I didn’t kill where I didn’t need to kill, and I didn’t inflict pain unnecessarily where it wasn’t required. I looked at the three justiciars and knew that I had little choice. I couldn’t let them go, given what we’d done to their fellows and what I intended us to do to the remaining ninety-five of them who would shortly be left.

  I killed the closest. I stuck Leerfar’s dagger through the metal of his breastplate. It made a slight crunching sound as it went through, and then slid cleanly into his heart. I saw a few sparks glimmer along the blade as it punctured the metal. The man died at once and the other two moments after, with Bolt and Hacker doing their best to smother any cries with their palms as they finished the job.

  “Do you know what you’ve just done?” asked the bar keep. “They’ll murder us all now.”

  “There’ll be none of them left to tell the Duke once we’ve finished,” I said. “It would be wise if the people of this town hid whatever mess we leave behind and if any more justiciars come - greet them with steel, rather than letting them walk away with that which is most precious to you.”

  As I said the words I felt an unexpected guilt. It was easy for me to talk of resistance and killing, since those things had been my life for hundreds of years. It was glib to tell this bar keep to kill the next justiciars he saw, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to take the life of a man. I saw in his face that he’d had someone taken the last time the Duke’s men had visited. I saw how it tore him up inside as my harsh words drove home his powerlessness.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him suddenly. “The justiciars are beyond your capabilities. Leave them to us and we’ll see that these ones don’t come back here again.”

  He nodded without speaking, though the pain didn’t leave his face. I could not allow myself to assist with every man’s burden, so I turned my attention to what I needed to do.

  I saw that five of my men had positioned themselves close to the tavern’s doorway, in order that they might take the initiative if any more of the justiciars decided to come inside. The rest had begun to prepare their weapons and shields.

  “Have our packs moved upstairs,” I told the bar keep. There was nothing in them that would be more than an inconvenience to lose and there was little reason to fight with them on our backs if we could avoid it.

  “What’s the situation outside?” I asked Grids. He had his face pressed to the murky glass of the window.

  “They’ve split into groups. There’re twenty-five of them just up the main road, pissing around with their horses and wagons.” The justiciars weren’t cavalry and couldn’t fight in formation from a horse, but they always rode. Grids continued, “The rest of them have buggered off into the streets in groups of what looks like fours and fives.”

  “Just swords?” I asked.

  “One or two crossbows, from what I can see, Captain. Maybe more of them have ranged weapons, but they aren’t in this group.”

  I’d have preferred to use a different exit, rather than the front door which would take us straight onto the main street and in full sight of the justiciars. They’d have plenty of opportunity to raise the alarm, assuming they thought of us as a threat. Unfortunately, there was no choice, since the door we’d entered was the only easy way to get onto the street.

  “Right, men. We’re not going to fuck around. We’re leaving through that front door and then we’re going to run at them with our shields up. Kill the horses or drive them away, I don’t care which, as long as there’s no justiciar riding on their backs as they run. After that, head off in your squads and kill them all.” Whenever we travelled in groups, each man was always assigned a squad in advance, so that we could react quickly without having to coordinate these basic tasks on the run.

  I turned to the villagers who remained in the tavern – it was all men as it usually was. “Stay here until we’ve finished with the twenty-five outside. Then you can do whatever you want. Pray that we can kill them all before they get to your families. The Saviour has come to the Duke’s lands and she will not tolerate this cruelty.”

  With that, we left the tavern. The door only permitted us to leave one-by-one, but we didn’t take it easy and we spilled onto the main street. I saw the justiciars, about thirty yards away from us. They’d brought twenty of their wagons with them – they were meant to hold no more than five or six captives, but I’d seen them filled with as many as twelve. It looked as though some of the horses had already been led away, but there were still a few dozens of them, tethered to the long railings that ran along the street.

  At first, they paid us scant attention, cocky bastards that they were, and it allowed us to get all twenty-one of our number onto the street. With our shields raised and swords in hand, we broke into a sprint. The armour we wore and the weapons we carried were suited to the heaviest of infantry, yet we never became tired bearing it, nor did it slow us much when we ran.

  By the time the justiciars realised their peril, we were only a dozen yards away from them. One man snapped up a crossbow, which he evidently kept loaded. He fired into our midst and I heard the missile clang away from a shield. I saw the metal shaft of the quarrel appear in Weevil’s shoulder – it had taken an unlucky deflection. Weevil left the bolt, protruding through the plate of his shoulder-guard, in order that he not slow in his charge by pausing to rip it free.

  Our opponents scrambled for their swords. I could see the look of alarm and fear on many of their
faces, which made me hate them even more. We crashed into them, our front five using their shields to bundle the justiciars from their feet, before cutting them to pieces with their swords. White sparks flashed as our runed blades smashed through armour and into the flesh beneath.

  This group of justiciars had been spread around, talking and unprepared for the possibility of their death, so it was a one-sided fight. Their horses were trained animals – several shied, but they did not panic, even at the sounds of screaming nearby. I was sure these beasts had heard enough of agony that it was no longer a fear for them, though this would have been the first time that it was their riders making the sounds.

  Two men, furthest from where we’d engaged their group, tried to untether their horses so that they could flee. Had they just run they might have had more chance to escape, but they struggled with the reins, giving Stumble the time to kill one by driving a sword into his back, forcing the man face-down into the mud with the point of a sword sticking out of his chest. Ploster burned the other, using the power of his magic to inflict a painful death by setting the justiciar’s flesh alight. From where I fought, I could hear the crackling of fats as they popped beneath the man’s skin.

  I only had time to kill one man before the combat ended. I preferred to face the people I fought, but this one denied me the chance by throwing his cosh at me and trying to hide behind one of his fellows. I cut at the easiest part of his body and took away his arm. Blood spurted from his shoulder and he whimpered as he tried to escape, with his compatriot already felled by Chant. I put the man out of his misery with a violent downswing of my blade, the force of the strike crumpling him and opening a hideous wound across his back.

  “Any sign of their captain?” I asked in a loud voice.

  “Nothing, Captain,” said one man.