by Will Molinar
“Next time, my lord?”
Castellan looked up and felt confused by the silly question. Wasn’t it obvious? “There is always a next time. This does not end today. We fight on, for the greater good, always for the greater good.”
A higher power listened even though the voices were quieter now. They whispered in his ear. He bowed his head and prayed for a return to the clarity he had worked so hard to achieve. There might’ve came an answer.
* * * * *
This didn’t look good. Not one single bit.
Muldor recognized Jerrod and his men coming for them up the street. He could sense them coming based on how the crowd acted. They were even more afraid than before. Dripping real fear, fear of something they knew. It was a familiar feeling of dread that rippled through the rioters.
The Guild man turned to Josiah, and the captain of the Royal Guard listened well. “None of these people are professional soldiers. None of them possess the skill of you and your men. Show them the difference.”
Josiah gave a grim smile and barked an order to his men. The stalwart soldiers faced the new threat. Most of the earlier mercenaries them backed off, glad to have a respite against the well trained royal guard. Some of the crowd had gotten back into things again, and most of the arena fighters took pressure off their flanks.
The mercenaries who backed off jawed at them, calling them “fancy daddies” which to them they appeared. They were worse than pirate scum. Dressed like tavern brawlers, dirty and unkempt, Castellan could really pick them. With so many hired, Muldor supposed the man had to take what was available.
But they put the clamp to the Royal Guard that was heading towards Jerrod’s men, soon to put a hard vise around their main strike force. The police had their hands full as well, fighting off another section of mercs. Muldor saw the tall form of Cubbins yelling at men to fight harder and stay tight. They kept their formation and beat back the mercenaries. They looked confused. The police had been allies just hours before.
An idea struck Muldor, a simple solution brought on by the encroaching situation. The mercs had confidence with the incoming toughs, and the crowd was not reliable. They had to move forward faster, to punch through the weakest section and hope to break their morale. It was a tactic he had learned from one of his instructors as a young boy in school.
The Guild man ordered the entirety of their combined forces under his command, and together they charged straight at them. They forgot the mercenaries that tried to batter their way to their sides. They had enough to deal with for the arena fighters were now working better together, fighting as a coherent team. Muldor counted some thirty or forty of them battling together. Pushing straight up the street had pushed off many individual battles to the side streets.
The Royal Guard recognized the dire situation for what it was and pulled out their halberds with such skill and ferocity that their opponents backed off. Muldor and his group moved closer to their clash with Jerrod. The toughs were little more than street thugs, fighting with short swords and wearing no armor. When they hit The Royal Guard, armored with plate mail and the finest weapons money could buy, several died in the initial heave.
Jerrod yelled behind them, calling them maggots and cowards, and their line held strong. The brute waded forward, and Muldor thought how wonderful it would be to take the man down. Their fight would end there and then. But it wasn’t possible at the moment, for Jerrod was too protected by his thugs.
Everything changed so fast, Muldor found it difficult to keep track. They had shoved forward and made progress, but now immersed with enemies on all sides. The mercenaries closed in fast. Jerrod and the toughs were savage, good solid fighters with the devil himself shouting at them to kill and maim.
The Royal Guard fought well, and few of them fell, but there were so many enemies, it became troublesome to stay in line and stalwart. Muldor swung his mace, but few of the enemy engaged him in the swirling melee. Their backs were exposed now that they were so far forward from the previous battle line, and they fought on all sides.
Muldor thought of an ordered retreat, but the side streets would do them no good. They couldn’t maintain order in the narrow confines of an alley, and if they tried it, they would fall into a disorganized mass much like the arena fighters had. The Guard wasn’t built for that.
It’s finished. Castellan would rule the city and doom would come to the common people. They’d done all they could. Muldor found himself at the front of the melee, fighting for his life as the mercenaries and toughs counter attacked and brought the brunt of their fierce viciousness. They were young and strong and arrogant, pushing people around on the streets at Jerrod’s behest. Now they took out their masculine aggression on what they considered foppish, arrogant royal guardsmen.
Every man there was seized with the pent up anger from the previous week’s tension. All the frustration boiled over into violence and death. They all wanted to kill each other, and within seconds even the Royal Guards hacked away with wild abandon. The Guild man and his were finished, but they were hurting them bad in the process.
Someone came out from the group of toughs and slugged Muldor so fast he couldn’t understand what had happened. He swung his mace and whoever had struck him fell back. Their line faltered. Mercs and toughs jumped in and broke up the front line. Soon disaster would befall them. The fight became mob against mob.
Muldor shook his head and saw his attacker with clarity. It was Marko, whom he knew by sight and reputation, a stocky man with a square jaw and thick arms. Muldor brought his mace back up, but the man’s speed was shocking. Marko snapped his gauntlet over and knocked the weapon from Muldor’s grip with one sharp strike. He then went low and wrapped his arms around the Guild man’s waist in a tight bear hug.
His strength was astonishing. Muldor managed to get one arm in between Marko’s grip. Prying him off his body was akin to pulling chains off a hitching post. There was no give. Marko was too low on his body to head butt, so Muldor raised a meaty forearm and brought his elbow crashing to the top of his head.
Three more strikes, and the grip loosened, but Muldor’s breath was going too. He couldn’t breathe well enough under normal circumstances in such a grip but after the physical exertion of the battle air was a precious commodity. He reached down and got one hand under Marko’s chin and squeezed his throat, but Marko turned his head away. There was no solid purchase to be had.
It wouldn’t work. Muldor stabbed his right eye instead, plying his thumb so the brute loosened his gripe and faltered. Marko was out of position and knew it. Before Muldor could recover to take advantage, the tough switched his feet around and grabbed Muldor’s waist in a reserve twist. Like a wrestling move, he tried to hoist him up in the air.
Muldor was no novice when it came to such moves, but with the press of bodies around them, there was no way to get himself set, so up they went. The world spun. They landed hard, Muldor flat on his back. The air blasted out of his lungs, and the back of his head struck the street with a thud. Muldor rolled with it, his mind spinning in confusion and pain. Marko followed up behind Muldor and on landed on his back, his strong hands on his neck.
‘This is how it will end for me,’ Muldor thought in those brief moments. ‘Dead in the dirt, bleeding and forgotten.’
The light dimmed.
* * * * *
A shocking reverberation, like a giant’s hammer striking a huge anvil, shook the building and brought Castellan out of his self-imposed reveries. He noticed people were shouting at him. People around him panicked about something.
“The cannon! They’ve reached us! My lord! My lord…?”
“They’ll come up the shipping yard,” someone said at the western most window. “They have our range. I see three ships, perhaps….”
The rest of what he said drowned by the next wave of shots that struck near their building. Papers rattled. The ceiling cracked, and bits of dust and chipped masonry filtered down on their heads. Floors heaved.
&nb
sp; “My lord, we must get you out of here. It is not safe.” Someone tugged at his elbow, but the Guild Master ignored them. “We have to go now!”
Castellan pulled his arm away and pushed the man. “No! Leave me. This is what I deserve, the fate I have made for myself. I have sinned, done wrong to my fellow man and thus am doomed.”
They begged and pleaded with him. He wouldn’t listen. His head felt heavy and dull like a rusted iron ball stuck in the ground. He was a forgotten trophy of war, much as the ones being shot at him would be in decades to come, lost and unloved. The crystal necklace rested inert and still on his chest.
At last they left him alone when the ceiling came down in pieces. They scrambled for their pitiful lives. Castellan deserved nothing better.
* * * * *
Zandor and his crew hung back from the fighting. They watched the glittering heave of oranges and reds from the firing cannon as well as bright yellows from the lights sprouting throughout the embattled city as night settled in. The landing shots reverberated all along the waterways, and he felt each one in his chest thudding like a seizing heart.
The men around him had no idea the armada was capable of this level of destruction. They carried much powder in their hulls. They didn’t realize the capabilities of what men could do to each other. But it was all well known to Zandor.
“Helluva night, eh?”
Zandor took a deep breath and thought of a dozen different answers for Kurgi. The provocateur kept his mouth shut and only spat over the side of the boat.
It was all too much. It seemed like nothing more than overkill. They had the docks under control. Even now more troops marched out of the bottom decks and made life miserable for the dock workers not smart enough to run away. Parts of the boardwalk burned, a sobering companion to the five sunken vessels. Two of them belonged to Janisberg, still lumbering to a watery grave. The upperparts smoked and burned with flames rippling along broken masts and jutting bows. When the fire reached the sea, it sputtered out like the lives taken in the assault.
“How long we stayin’, Zee?”
Zandor stared and licked his lips. “Oh, I dunno.” He cleared his throat. “Think I’ve seen enough. Let’s head on home, lads.”
They turned their ship around and left Murder Haven to its fate.
* * * * *
Gritty unyielding stone crumbled under his hands. One was slick with his own blood, the other scuffed by the sudden contact. It felt solid, but Muldor didn’t understand how he had gotten into the position. The Guild man gulped in a huge breath of air. His throat felt raw and bent, but a weight lifted from his shoulders.
Someone shouted. It was no longer the sound of fighting that rose and fell all around the streets but one of surprise and consternation. There had been a battle all around him. A frenetic push into the streets, right at the heart of the problem, the mercenaries came to take over their town. There was blood, broken bones, and death. Rage and pain.
Muldor sputtered out blood. At least one tooth was broken. It felt like more; his knee ached, and the back of his head throbbed. He sat up and blinked. The men fighting near him were quiet. It was eerie, almost unnatural, for everyone was clam, even reverent. They appeared to be in awe of something.
Muldor pondered why he still lived. A large group of people, men, women, and even some children mixed among them. All held candles or torches, and they marched towards them down the largest street in the neighborhood near city hall. Muldor stayed on his knees, watching in wonder as the bloodlust drained out of the frenzied fighters. All of them stared and stunned from the figure leading the group of citizens.
The Arc Lector, the most powerful and respected holy man within a hundred miles, stood tall and straight. He strolled down the avenue, a look of serene benevolence and concern on his careworn features. Morlin spoke out loud, not shouting, though it sounded as if he did. Rather, it was that his voice was amplified.
“Good people of Sea Haven. Put down your arms. They are no longer needed. They serve no further purpose this day. It is now time for peace. Lay down your arms. Bedevil your neighbor no longer with violence and bloodshed. Lay down your arms. Be at peace.”
Shocking though it was, everyone around him listened to the Arc Lector. Swords and shields, staffs and clubs, all clattered to the ground. The men who only moments ago killed each other stood in stunned silence beneath the Arc Lector.
Muldor had no explanation.
He got to his feet and felt the immediate urge to drop back down to his knees, not from any physical weakness, but rather from some unseen hand. An odd manifestation, smooth yet possessed a harsh underlying tone that commanded respect and capitulation.
“Gentlemen and ladies, brothers and sisters, to one and all, think of your home, your families. Here today we have wrought great tragedies against one another. Our town is torn asunder by strife and conflict of the most extreme. Do not give in to bloodlust any further. End this foolishness.”
The combatants and the crowd no longer involved in the battle, peeled away from the Arc Lector like the water before the prow of a ship.
Muldor and the men near him were breathless and sweaty, blooded and bruised. They gawked at the holy man and his contingents. His parish included several lower priests and attendants that surrounded him as the group came right before Muldor.
Morlin looked at him for a few moments, his face stern but patient. “Muldor. Your presence here troubles me. I know of another that shares a great portion of the blame for today’s events. You know of whom I speak.”
Muldor felt a sense of hope, at least it seemed so at first. But it was something greater; hope seemed too pedestrian a term to use. It was something much deeper. Salvation.
Muldor stood straighter and made a slight bow. “I do indeed, your Grace. The Guild must be held accountable for its actions. All of us.”
“And you are a chief member of that particular organization.”
“I am a citizen of this city. I will do my duty.”
The Arc Lector smiled as if that was the answer he was looking for. “Very good, Master Muldor, very good.” He looked around at the crowd . He had everyone’s attention. “Come with me. We must save this city from itself.”
Muldor nodded, whatever resistance or bluff he might have stored in his gut dissipated like so much smoke.
They had not far to march.
* * * * *
Shocking though it may have been, the desk was still intact. Even with all the other destruction hanging in the room, the lone piece of furniture remained uninvolved from the rest of the dust and debris.
Castellan sat behind it, hands palmed on the top like a school child. His teachers told him that good posture gave one success in life, that it meant good strength and good grades.
The bombing had stopped several minutes ago. No doubt they had made landfall on the shipping yards and even now disgorged the invading force of armored men, and were coming this way to the seat of government in Sea Haven, to broker a deal for surrender.
How pitiful their defense had been, how pathetic the attempt to take control of this foolish city, how worthless his attempt at helping them better their lives. Were they so misguided that they couldn’t understand what he had tried to do? The Guild Master decided they were. They were ignorant, foolish slugs who didn’t know any better.
He would have to teach them all the error of their lifestyles, their choices in life, how they had made many mistakes. They could rebuild the docks. The Guild was still the most powerful entity in the city, and with his leadership they could build a fleet of war ships no nation on the continent could face.
They would bolster their military forces on land as well. When a new regent was in place, Castellan could control him as Cassius and Lord Damour. It was simple to control men of politics. They would have an army to rival any in history, so strong it would make these unprofessional mercenaries look like silly children fighting in the dirt.
Castellan wouldn’t make the same mistakes. H
e should never have hired men from outside.
Perhaps it wasn’t too late as it was. Sea Haven could make a plea to the king. A plan formed in Castellan’s mind. He twisted at what he could do, what would work best. A surge of energy, something that had been missing for some time, seized his body, and he sprang to his feet. It wasn’t over yet.
The stairs were treacherous, suffering an unstable gift of cannon fire, rupturing the frame of the building in places. Castellan took the steps three at a time, feeling light and smooth. His armor was off, and his red cloak flapped behind him, his sword forgotten.
He almost reached the bottom floor but stopped short. A familiar chanting came through the window near the front door. A sudden weakness gripped his knees as he gaped in wonder. All the previous momentum left him in a flash, like air escaping a chest wound.
“No, no… it isn’t too late. I can save this.”
Castellan stared. The myriad of persons outside were visible through the grit on the window. The crystal necklace twinkled like a wind chime and seemed to drive deep into his chest like a splinter. The Guild Master caught his breath as the Arc Lector called to him from the street. Castellan was compelled to go outside.
The open arms of his parish, his people, waited for him. Castellan found his throat restricted, tightened like a steel vice. He locked gazes with the Arc Lector and saw stern compassion in his eyes. The older man opened his arms and beckoned him forwards.
“Come,” Arc Lector Morlin said. “All will be forgiven in time. But now the tally must be given.”
Castellan stumbled forward. Tears welled in his eyes, and he dove into the Arc Lector’s embrace. The old man patted his back while Castellan wept.