Bloodaxe

by James Tallett

Now, since single combat wasn’t going to be the order of the day, it meant I had to work my way up from the inside, either in a bandit troupe or a noble’s military. And to do that, I needed more information. Lots more.

  So we left the village and went to get it. Not that travelling around the war-ravaged lands of Rudvic was a treat. Those buffoons who called themselves dukes had pillaged it worse than I ever did. Utter fools, one and all.

  It took us a year to see how everything was going to play out, but Mum’s pretty bright on politics, and I know how to ask questions to get answers, and between the two of us we came up with a best target. Name was Earl Hathdraig, and he was one ugly man. None too bright either. He’d manage to swallow part of Trond in the fighting, but then gotten hit by both dukes at once, and he’d run like a scared little girl.

  He had a lot of soldiers, but they were all tucked up inside his castle, with nobody coming in or out. All I had to do was get in, and get control of the soldiers. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Things never are.

  Mum and I showed up outside his door, or rather his gate, and knocked. Now, given neither of us looked like much of a threat, despite me being fifteen and a good six foot five carrying an axe, they let us inside, where we got questioned by the guards. I played it close to the chest, saying nothing more than that I had a proposal for the noble that would win his earldom the war, but that it had to be announced at table in the great hall.

  As you might imagine, this got me all kinds of funny looks, but the soldiers were so fed up with their ruler they let it slide. In fact, when the feast was called that night, I was sitting between two of the warriors on gate duty, although I think that had more to do with them making sure they could kill me before I did anything too foolish.

  Self-preservation being what it is, I left my axe outside the hall. If I angered the earl enough that he wanted me dead, one axe wasn’t going to make much difference. Plus, I could just grab one from whoever was sitting next to me.

  So, I’m sitting there at table, waiting for a good moment to give my speech, and I get stage fright. Me. The monarch who forged a kingdom by killing nobles, who worked his way up over the corpses of his enemies, and I’ve got stage fright talking to some ugly buffoon who wouldn’t know a military tactic if it was laid out as coloured blocks. Gods I hated being a teenager again. So bloody awkward.

  Well, a little encouragement from Mum got me on my feet, and I gave a rousing speech about how I was the returned King Bloodaxe, and that I would lead his army to victory. I said nothing about the earl himself, although none of the people in the room seemed to notice.

  I got laughed at. I’d been expecting that, but it still stung. So, I shouted a challenge of single combat for the best warrior in the hall.

  Nobody stood. Nobody! I hate to keep harping on about this, but back in my day the whole damn hall would have jumped up to answer the challenge. Now? Not a single damn warrior. Not one! Gods they were soft and scared.

  So I picked on them, mocking each warrior in turn, cursing their mothers, their fathers, calling them cowards, women, accusing them of hiding behind the little crown that rested on the earl’s head. Still nothing.

  I challenged the earl himself. That, at least, got a response. Not the one I’d hoped for, since the earl kept his fat ass glued to the throne he was sitting in, but he at least ordered one of his warriors to stand and fight me, a scrawny, wiry thing called Sithgurd.

  I hate scrawny, wiry soldiers. If they’re good, it means they’re fast, and tricky, and that always causes problems. Still, I’d shouted the challenge. So I called for a clear space between the tables, and got down into my best wrestling stance.

  Sithgurd took a look at the weapons he had, and tossed them aside. Kept his armour though. Man had honour, and brains. I liked that. He’d get promoted if I was in charge.

  We closed cautiously, circling mostly. Then he took a step, faked a punch at my face and jumped at me feet first, trying to tangle them around my lead leg. If done well, it’s a slick trick that can end a fight instantly, since a smart wrestler can grab an ankle and break it right afterwards. Too bad for him I’d seen it before, and dodged sideways, letting him stand.

  Sithgurd looked a little chastened after that. Much better.

  I drove forward, seeking to pin him against the tables. He circled away, but not before I clipped him once or twice. I should have done better. I hadn’t been able to wrestle since I’d been reborn, and you just can’t recover timing that quickly.

  The earl’s champion made a mistake, diving for a waistlock and trying to trip me over backwards. Unfortunately, there’s some things speed and guile can’t overcome, and one of them is trying to tip over a warrior a hundred pounds heavier. I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed until his face turned red and he passed out. Then I let him drop.

  Stunned silence. Then the earl pointed at another man, this one a hulking brute much broader than I was. I never did expect the noble to accept defeat after just one champion. And if I was going to be some kind of warrior king out of legend, I’d have to create a few myths of my own. Might as well start young.

  This time the brute came straight at me. No subtlety here. Given he was well north of three hundred pounds and all of it muscle? Subtlety didn’t exactly matter. He drove me back into one of the tables, nearly unbalancing me, his arms wrapped around my waist. Basic technique. And sloppy.

  I turned at an angle inside his arms, grabbed one wrist with two hands and wrenched it free, torquing the arm as I did. If he was bright, he’d counter it. And he did, sort of. Although kneeing me in the cleft wasn’t the defence I’d been taught in a prior life. However, when done by someone of his size, it is quite effective.

  Still, I held onto his arm and kept twisting. And kneed him right back. Then I told him his shoulder was going to be shredded if he continued fighting. It took a second for that to sink in, then he quit. If he’d had half an ounce of sense he would have quit sooner, but there probably wasn’t too much damage to his arm. Probably.

  I cursed the earl for his cowardice, for wasting champions on me when it was clear I couldn’t be beat. I called out my challenge again, and asked that stupid noble if he was going to give me the soldiers to win the war.

  He sat there on that silly throne of his and hemmed and hawed about military necessities and the preferability of a strong defence over a weak offence. Basically, proving to anyone who knew the slightest bit of strategy that he was a fool. I’d have pointed it out to him, but I was beginning to think the earl was dumber than the big lummox of a champion.

  Finally he gave me fifty soldiers from his two hundred. Made the mistake of not telling me which fifty though. I like it when people overlook the little details. Leaves me all kinds of openings to take advantage of.

  Of course, he’d stayed an earl by having the kind of low cunning that thinks it can do better than people with an actual brain. Which meant I had to stay up all night, in case he’d sent assassins. Which he did. Two of them. One for me and one for my mother.

  Mum had no trouble at all, but then again men always overestimate themselves when it comes to women. Turns out combat’s no difference. Me, well, I’m ashamed to admit I did a crap job. I got blood all over my clothes, the room, everywhere. I was rusty with a knife and the assassin wasn’t, which meant some of that blood was mine. Not too much though. I wasn’t that rusty.

  At breakfast, I dropped those two corpses onto the head table. I’d embellished Mother’s, so it looked like the earl had come after me with both of them. Now, assassination in my day was frowned upon so much that your own warriors would usually kill you if they knew you used one. These ones had a more flexible moral fibre, so they just looked between me and the earl and waited.

  The earl ordered his men to kill me. Which they didn’t. Instead, they sat there. After all, they had the prospect of getting out of this alive with a better leader.

  Earl Hathdraig didn’t get out of life alive. He left quite dead. With an axe wound in his sk
ull. A big one. Look, if I’m going to live up to the name Bloodaxe, I have to make a mess every now and then. This was one of the times it seemed appropriate.

  Now there was the matter of securing this earldom for myself, and, well, that’s a lot harder than deposing the former earl. Killing a single man is easy. Winning the trust and belief of a couple hundred? That’s a bit more difficult. But I’d had experience at this sort of thing, and I did what goes best to the heart of a man – I went raiding.

  I had the men draw lots until I had fifty, out of the hundred that trusted me enough to go raiding. Now, I was taking a risk by leaving the castle, and Mum, without any force of soldiers I could rely on, but sometimes life’s risky. And anyone who tried crap with Mum was in for one hell of a surprise.

  Now, I made sure Sithgurd came with me, as did that great big lummox who’s name I never learned. In fact, I made Sithgurd my second in command on the trip, which won me a few admiring glances. Or at least I’d like to think so.

  We were going after one of the small baronies, a little place tucked into a valley called Brathwait. Not too exciting a place to raid, but it was secluded, and the baron had been chucked out by one of the other earls. Plus, it was the smallest of the noble fiefs that had been born from Trond. All in all, a good warm up target.

  The former baron hadn’t been a fool, and although his keep wasn’t that big, and some of the walls were wood and not stone, he’d tucked it on top of a rise, with a stream running about the base, and lots of nice farm fields all around, so there was no way to sneak up on it. Or at least, no way in the daytime.

  So instead I took the great lummox, whose name was Finehair, for a walk. The two of us wandered up to the castle and asked for entrance, trying to look as innocent and nice as can be. This is pretty damn hard when you’re both six and a half feet tall, but whatever we did managed well enough to get us inside. Which is all I cared about.

  We were asked to peacebond our weapons once inside the castle. It’s a silly tradition, tying ribbons over a sheathe to hold them in place. Any half decent warrior knows how to cut the ribbons in a heartbeat, but if it made them happier to see my nice double-bladed battleaxe in ribbons, then it could stay that way. Finehair had a maul, which somehow didn’t surprise me at all. He only ever thought in terms of brute force.

  We went through the usual pleasantries of “Hello, who are you and what the hell are you doing in my castle?” with some of the guards, which we fobbed off by saying we were from the earl who had taken control of the barony, and had some messages for the steward. But we’d been told not to give him the messages until tomorrow.

  Of course this placed the castle on high alert all night long, with everyone running around wondering what the hell was going on. Unfortunate, but there was no way we could play at being travellers, and if they thought we were raiders from another noble fief, we’d get thrown in the dungeon or killed, depending on which side of the bed the steward had got out of.

  So we waited, Finehair and I, until we heard a whistle in the dark. It sounded like a type of night owl, but it’s not one that lives round here any more. In fact, I’m not too sure if it lives anywhere any more. I’d only ever seen them back when I was king, but I still remembered the sound well enough to teach it to Sithgurd on the march over.

  Sign heard, the two of us wandered over to the gatehouse, peacebonds still on our weapons. Two handed weapons don’t work well inside a cramped room anyway. Not enough room to limber up and swing.

  Pulling daggers from our belts, we made quick work of the guards inside. Just knocking them out, mind you. No killing on this raid unless we had to. Although given there were probably a hundred soldiers here, plus staff and others, we might have to. But, hey, shit happens, right?

  A spin or two of the crank by lummox, and all hell breaks loose. People cursing, shouting, running towards the gatehouse wondering who the hell is opening the gate, bitching at the guards, screaming. All those lovely noisy things people do when they’re under attack and don’t have a clue what’s going on. Music to my ears.

  Sithgurd pops up fast as can be, leading his team of guys into the courtyard at a full run, and right into the keep’s front door, which no one was smart enough to bar when everything went wrong. See, in my castles, standing orders are to bar the front door all night long, regardless of what’s going on outside. Of course, in the castles I design, it’s also on the third floor. With a wooden ramp leading to it that can be knocked away. And covered with burning oil. And arrows. And rocks. But I’m a bit more security conscious.

  Finehair and I decided to club a few soldiers who were being feisty, but most of them had given up without much of a fight. About half belonged to the earl who captured this place, and they’d been a touch pushy, but the rest had been retainers of the old baron, and none too happy about the new ownership. I think the only reason the earl had used them was because there was no way fifty people could have held the wall against any decent attacking force. Needs must, I suppose.

  Much as I had promised plunder to the men with me, I decided to hold off. Pragmatism, mostly. After all, if I pissed off the baron’s soldiers, well, there goes one ally out the window. And in this war, I figured an ally was better than a little extra gold. Although it’s amazing what you can do with gold. Strongest religion in the firmament.

  So, I dug up the baron and plopped him back on his throne. He looked a little worse for wear after being kept down in the dungeons, but a bath and some nice robes and he polished up just fine. Sort of. Hair needed cutting, beard trimming. Minor details. And his men were happy enough to see him back on the throne that it didn’t matter all that much.

  The baron was a bright fellow. He understood what was happening, and that I was his new liege lord. And that he’d be forced to fight sometime soon. He’d be looking to get out of this arrangement any way he could, but for the moment, he was cool with it. Not too often someone waltzes into your castle, frees you, then offers you a weapon and points you at the person who locked you up.

  Yes, you heard me. I decided to take me and my bloody axe straight for the earl in charge. Bit foolish in retrospect. But, hey, impetuousness of youth. Even though I was several hundred years old. So, I gathered up all the baron’s forces, and we made our way straight towards Earl Ethstresson’s lands. He was the big bad bully in these parts, although even he was worried by the duchies. Of course, all he had to do was play them off one another, and he was okay. Been gathering small amounts of power that way for a while, and was the strongest of the three earls. Well, two. Although I suppose I counted as an earl for the moment. I’d be a king soon enough.

  So, we sneak up to Ethstresson’s castle and take a look around. Not too hard, because the man’s a damn fool in at least one way. His castle was in the middle of a bloody forest. Sure, it sat next to a big river they’d diverted into a moat, and the walls were tall and stone, but come on. Who doesn’t clear the sight lines of their archers? A total idiot, that’s who.

  Now, it was clear his guards that even if they couldn’t see too far, they were on high alert. And at night, the moat was covered in small rafts of wood that burned, providing light and making things a little interesting. So no sneaking. Which means brute force. There was no way I could try the walk in the front door trick with Finehair again. His men would have heard from a fleeing soldier by now.

  And there’s the ticket. Out come the Earl’s men, marching straight towards us. Of course, they’re actually going to reclaim Brathwait, but, well, the soldiers who took Brathwait are here, and I thought it impolite to let him march all that distance.

  So when he entered the forest, we charged. From both sides. I let Sithgurd have the east, I took the west, and we performed a basic pincer ambush. Nothing subtle, but the results were fairly spectacular. Huge pitched battle, lots of blood on my axe, on the ground, the trees. Hell, we even found some on animals running around the forest days later. Although that might have been from them eating the corpses.

  Earl
Ethstresson might not have been too bright tactically, but he was a damn good fighter. Took down five of my men before I was able to face him myself. Pity he was on the other side. I could have used him.

  Now, nobody is as good as me. Nobody. He was in his early thirties, all the speed of youth combined with a nice salting of experience. I was in my late teens, still not fully grown, but I had hundreds of years of experience. After all, between the wining and the wenching, I was practising. There isn’t a lot else to do when you’re dead.

  I’d seen every move he threw at me, and I threw back a whole host he’d never seen. So the Earl ended up on the ground, missing most of his face.

  Axes are ugly weapons. They do the whole maiming thing really well.

  Now, once I dispatched the Earl, his men decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Some ran down the trail, some ran back to the keep, and some fell to their knees and surrendered.

  I had them all killed, regardless. People who fought until they were so wounded they dropped, those I had treated, as best we could. I don’t suffer cowards, but brave men? Those I’ll spare.

  After watching what we had done to the Earl’s force, the rest of the keep surrendered easily. Naturally, my first order was for every male in the fortress to get an axe, a sword, a dagger, I didn’t care what, and cut down every tree and dig up every stump for two bowshots around the castle. After that, I told Sithgurd this was his castle and he was in charge, and left him all of my soldiers, aside from a personal bodyguard.

  I also sent the baron back home, and gave him the body of the Earl as a present. I suspected even the baron’s ancestors were going to quake at what happened to that corpse.

  Oh, there was one other thing I brought with me. The Earl’s wife. Obviously a marriage of nobility rather than love, she wasn’t much to look at, but I was sure Mum could turn her into a servant girl. Maybe have her clean the fireplaces. Something nice and demeaning.

  I got home to Earl Hathdraig’s old place in one piece. As you might have expected, I’d renamed it Rudvic, and anything I was adding to it was part of the Greater Kingdom of Rudvic. And I’d had myself declared king, although I hadn’t been foolish enough to send messengers to the remaining dukes, earl, and baron telling them I had declared myself the return of King Bloodaxe. They’d find out sooner if they were smart, or later if they were unlucky.