The King's Henchmen: The Henchmen Chronicles - Book 1

by Craig Halloran

  “You’re empty, fool!” Abraham poised to strike.

  Sticks twisted free of her shackles. She slipped two small thumb knives out of her sleeves and jammed the knives into the jugulars of the rogues standing guard beside her. A third rogue wearing a silver hoop in his nose chopped at her head. She ducked, dove for her bandolier, snatched it up, slipped it over her shoulder, and rolled flawlessly to one knee. She freed a dagger from her bandolier and stabbed the same attacker in the gut.

  Kawnee jumped on her back. Sticks tossed the fish woman over her shoulder. Flexor appeared in the corner of her eye and slugged her in the side of the head. Her legs buckled. She saw stars and drew more blades. She squared off with Flexor. His black fingernails extended over a full foot in length.

  She rolled her neck. “Let’s do this, fish man.”

  Flexor chuckled.

  A pair of rogues collapsed on Abraham just as Lord Hawk scuttled out of the way. Black Bane flashed in a right-handed strike. A mustached rogue’s head fell from his shoulders. Abraham blocked a lethal strike, twisted Bane downward, and sank it into his attacker’s heavy shoulder. The rogue let out a painful moan. Blood spat out of his mouth, and he collapsed on the floor.

  Abraham didn’t see Lord Hawk. “Where are you, coward?”

  Sticks parried Flexor’s fingernails with her daggers pumping through the air. Quick as a cat, the myrmidon stabbed with one hand and swiped at her with the other. His length was amazing. In between strikes, she flicked a dagger at his face, but he ducked the missile. She drew another.

  Flexor showed his sharp little teeth to her. “Are you ready to die now?”

  She wiped her sleeve across her mouth. Kawnee was back on her feet and circling her from behind. They not only had her in numbers, but also had a greater advantage in length. She flipped one dagger high into the air. Flexor’s eyes drifted after it. Sticks lunged like a striking cobra. Flexor’s quill-like claws slashed across her face, but the damage was done. She plunged her dagger deep into his heart.

  “Gack!” Flexor gulped for air. “Gack!”

  Kawnee rushed to his side. She caught him as he fell. “No, Flexor, no.”

  “Sticks!” Abraham said. He had Lord Hawk by the collar and was dragging him out from behind the wooden throne. Everyone else in the room was dead. “Are you all right?”

  Her face was bleeding, but she said, “Yeh.”

  “Miscreants! You are not going to escape one way or the other. I have dozens of men outside that door,” Lord Hawk shouted.

  Abraham ripped the gun out of Lord Hawk’s hand and cracked the man in the head with it. He eyed the gun. Smith & Wesson. I’ll be. An old police revolver, maybe. Thirty-eight special. He tucked it into his belt.

  “Ow!” Lord Hawk screeched as his head started to bleed.

  Abraham didn’t see any more bullets on the man. He patted the man down. “Do you have any more bullets?”

  “No. Wait,” Lord Hawk said. “How do you know about that?”

  “I am Ruger Slade. I know things.” He needed to feel out Lord Hawk. There was more to him than met the eye. “Is there another way out of here?”

  “No. Brothers! Brothers! Enter!” Lord Hawk screamed. “You are finished now. Mystical sword or not, you won’t overcome all of them.”

  The double doors burst open.

  “Hahaha! You’re doom—” Lord Hawk lost his voice. “You aren’t my men. Who in Titanuus’s Crotch are you?”

  Horace, Bearclaw, Vern, Apollo, and Cudgel burst inside, coated in fresh blood from head to toe. Gore dripped from their weapons.

  “Captain!” Horace said. “Are you well?”

  “Well enough,” Abraham said.

  “My men, my men,” Lord Hawk said as he craned his neck toward the door. His two brute guards lay in pools of their own blood. “What have you done?”

  “We killed them all,” Bearclaw said.

  “All of them?” Lord Hawk said as the wind went out of his sails. “But there were dozens of them.”

  Vern slung the blood from his long sword and said, “Were dozens. Now, they are food for the scavengers.”

  Lord Hawk buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “They are all dead. All my men are dead.”

  “No, Lord Hawk, I still live,” Kawnee said.

  Lord Hawk lifted his face. “Yes, Kawnee, you know what to do.”

  Kawnee raised her arm and tossed pellets toward the floor.

  “Get out!” Abraham said.

  The chamber filled with inky black smoke. Abraham and the Henchmen blindly made their way out. When the smoke cleared, Lord Hawk and Kawnee were gone. So was the gun.

  64

  Lord Hawk and Kawnee might have gotten away, but the Henchmen got their gear back. The Shell’s fort looked more like a slaughterhouse than a battlefield. Dozens of rogues lay dead on the ground, on the parapet walk, and slumped over the railing of the apartments. None of them survived, that Abraham could see.

  Near the middle of the courtyard, Iris was patching a wound in Prospero’s thigh. A crossbow bolt protruded from it.

  “This will hurt,” she said.

  “I know,” the scruffy-bearded Prospero replied in his gravelly tone.

  Iris ripped it out.

  Prospero grimaced as his eyes watered.

  Iris pinched the wound, and blood seeped through her fingers. She began dressing it with salve from a small jar and clean bandages. “You need to ride in the wagon for a while. My salve takes time to do its work.”

  “I think if you’d kiss it, it would make it much better.” Prospero grinned.

  “Close your eyes and keep dreaming,” Iris said.

  Abraham helped Prospero up to his feet. The older warrior hobbled over to the wagon, and with Abraham’s help, he climbed in.

  Abraham turned around to find Horace on his heels. He leaned back and asked, “Do we have everything?”

  “All of the horses are accounted for, Captain. The company is still searching for Lord Hawk,” Horace replied.

  “Good. But let’s not get preoccupied with it. After seeing this massacre, I don’t think he’ll show his face again anytime soon.” He rummaged through the wagon and found Jake’s backpack. His hand tightened on the straps. Thank the Lord. If I lost this, I might lose myself. He slung it over his shoulder. “Horace, let’s walk.”

  “Aye.”

  Bearclaw, Vern, Apollo, Tark, and Cudgel were moving the dead inside the apartments. Vern had a sneer on his face when Abraham caught his eyes. The swordsman’s flaxen waves of hair were mixed with blood. Abraham stared back until Vern looked away. Looking to the others, he said, “Tell me, how did you take so many? The rogues had the advantage.”

  “We tore through them like a wrecking machine. And we told you, we fight better drunk than sober. This wasn’t the first time we’ve taken a fort like this,” Horace said. He dug the bloody tip of his spear into the ground, coating it with dirt. “And it was a tactic that you created. Well, the old old you, that is.”

  “I hate to ask, but fill me in.”

  “Iris is our mystic. Better for healing than hurting, but she can make lightning in the sky so long as she is near water,” Horace explained as they walked toward the storehouses below the parapets. “The eyes of the crossbowmen behind the parapets fastened on it. Tark and Dominga scaled the walls, gutted two of them, stole their crossbows, and shot the others. It was a well-executed assassination.”

  “I see.”

  Horace spat tobacco juice. “In the meantime, alone I approached the gate and started making a fuss. Hence, the two rogues guarding the portcullis were focused on me. They were laughing at me. Called me fat. That gave Tark and Dominga enough time to scout the fort’s interior while the rest of the Henchmen started scaling the fort’s wall. While they did that, Iris moved the lightning through the sky and above me. With all eyes on it, the Henchmen attacked.

  “Tark and Dominga took the brutes down that guarded your entrance first. We didn’t want whoever was insi
de to know that we were coming. The company worked their way down from top to bottom. Half of them were dead before they knew what hit them.” Horace spat. “The rogues had steel but no armor. And not a one of them was a skilled swordsman. They didn’t have a chance against the likes of us. We did as we always did—we butchered them. They’re thieves. They had it coming.”

  Abraham entered the storehouse entrance. It consisted of a bunch of wooden shelves with barrels and bags of supplies. The storehouses were interconnected by one opening that led to each other.

  “If you see anything we need, take it,” he said absentmindedly.

  He reflected on everything that had occurred. He’d underestimated the abilities of his own men. He should have known better by now. The Henchmen were seasoned fighters, one and all. He just wished he had more memories of their adventures. Then, there was the encounter with Lord Hawk. The man had a gun that looked like a beat cop’s revolver that they didn’t carry anymore. It turned his wheels, that and something else. He’d deflected bullets with his sword—a sword that glowed and sent an adrenaline rush right through him. Holy crap, who am I?

  Sticks flagged them down from inside the walls of the last storage bay. “I found something.” She led them inside the last storage room. A steel door, inches thick, was centered between huge stones that made up a separate wall. Dents had been made from the inside, bulging the door out.

  “I think it’s a dungeon,” she said.

  Horace fanned the air in front of his nose. “It stinks in here. Rotten.”

  “Did you hear anything?” Abraham asked as he ran his hand over the strange bumps on the door.

  Sticks shook her head. She twirled a key ring on her finger and said, “No, but I found this.”

  “Open it.”

  65

  “Don’t you want to knock first?” Sticks said.

  Abraham shrugged and rapped his knuckles on the door. It made a hollow echoing sound.

  Horace awkwardly put his ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything. But I’ll be ready.” He stepped back and lowered his spear. “If something jumps, I’ll get it.”

  Sticks put the key inside the lock and twisted.

  Abraham pulled his sword. A rung was on the door, so he grabbed it and started walking the door backward. He grimaced as he gave it a fierce tug. The door seal started to give. The metal door scraped along the metal frame.

  “I don’t think it’s been used in a while,” he said.

  “Maybe there is treasure in it,” Horace suggested. “It would be a good spot.”

  The door broke the threshold. A mighty stink came out.

  “Eww!” Abraham covered his nose. His eyes watered.

  “Close the door. Close the door. It smells like dead carcasses in there,” Horace said with a souring face. “Ack! Ack!”

  With a dagger in hand, Sticks peered inside. The cell was pitch black. The light from the lanterns hanging on the storeroom walls offered little illumination inside the cell. Sticking her head inside, she said, “I don’t think the Shell stored anything valuable here. Something died. I don’t care to find out what it is.”

  “Agreed,” Abraham said. Flies buzzed out of the dungeon room. “Come on, let’s close it. We need to move on. I don’t want to disturb the dead’s slumber in their tomb. Whatever dead they may be.”

  “Aye, Captain. Let’s not bring any more bad fortune upon ourselves,” Horace said.

  Sticks stepped aside.

  Abraham put his shoulder into the door and pushed it closed. The door groaned on the crust-covered hinges. The door stopped inches from being closed. He pushed against it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Let me help you, Captain,” Horace said. He leaned his spear against the wall and put his shoulder on the door. “Old doors often become askew on the frame if they haven’t been opened in a long time.” The burly man put his weight into it. “Hurk!”

  The door didn’t move.

  “Wait!” Sticks said. “I just heard something move.”

  “What?” Abraham replied. His boots and Horace’s boots slid over the ground. The door was opening by the power of some unknown force. He put his back into it. “Sticks, what do you see?”

  Sticks walked backward, her eyes up and mouth agape.

  Abraham and Horace jumped away from the door.

  A towering shambling figure covered in long strands of gray hair stepped out from underneath the doorway. It looked like an old and malnourished bigfoot.

  “Holy Harry and the Hendersons!” Abraham said.

  Horace grabbed his spear and said, “It’s a troglin!” He charged forward, thrusting his spear at the monster’s side. The troglin snatched the head of the spear in its huge paw. It held the spear fast. It and Horace engaged in a tug of war.

  Abraham closed in, carrying his sword in the wrath guard position. “Get back in your cage, beast!”

  “Nooo,” the troglin said in a very deep and weary voice. “I mean you no harm.”

  “Sure, he doesn’t.” Horace dug his heels into the ground and pulled his spear with all his might. “Turn your back, and he’ll rip your head off and eat it like a melon.” The troglin released the spear. Horace stumbled backward and crashed into the wall.

  The troglin’s head touched the eight-foot-high ceiling. It bent its neck over. It had large eyes and a long apelike face. Moaning, it dropped to a knee, took in a deep breath and said, “Ah, the air smells sweet again.” Its eyes slid over to Abraham. “I can’t stop you from slaying me. I’m too old and weak to fight. It took all I had in me to fight that bald big belly off. But, whoever you are, I give you my thanks for freeing me so I don’t die in my own stink.”

  “Let’s do it then, Captain. Brain him with Black Bane before he eats all of us,” Horace said.

  “I don’t think he’s going to eat us,” Abraham said. Oh my. A talking bigfoot. Now I know this world isn’t real. “Are you?”

  “I am very hungry, and the fat one looks delicious, but no. I would not attack my liberator. I’m grateful,” the troglin said.

  “And smelly,” Sticks said. She appeared smaller than a child beside the beast of a man.

  “I’m sorry. I imagine I do reek, but I’ve become accustomed to it. Lord Hawk fed me then forgot about me.” The weariness in his deep but pleasant voice strengthened. “If I find him, I’m going to squeeze his head until it pops between my fingers. The dirty little liar.”

  “Well, he’s gone, and all of his men are dead.”

  Bearclaw, Vern, Tark, and Cudgel rushed into the room.

  “We heard a scream,” Cudgel said. He set his eyes on the troglin. “Gah!”

  66

  After an hour of strong debating, Abraham got everyone settled down. By a large majority vote, the Henchmen wanted to kill the troglin. For the time being, they chained up the troglin and led him outside, under the stars, where he gazed with appreciative wonder.

  With everyone gathered in the courtyard, Abraham said, “I’ve heard all your opinions, but this isn’t a democracy. The troglin lives. Find some food and feed him.”

  “They eat people,” Dominga said.

  Sitting in the middle of the company, the troglin said, “That’s not entirely true. Have we eaten people? Yes, but we thrive on all creatures in the animal kingdom. The same as you. We just don’t cook it.”

  “If the Captain says feed him, then feed him,” Horace said, looking at the two male Red Tunics. “Go!”

  The Red Tunics scrambled into the stables underneath the apartments. The livestock had started to roam free. Pigs, chickens, and a pair of mules wandered aimlessly, and some came through the portcullis, now open.

  With a torch in hand, Bearclaw said, “We are set to burn the fort from the inside out. All of the dead lie inside, prepared for a consuming burial.”

  “Just make sure all of the livestock is out,” Abraham said.

  The Red Tunics returned with a pair of chickens in their hands. The birds dangled lifelessly, their necks snapped. The
troglin’s tired eyes locked on the chickens, and he licked his lips. The Red Tunics shuffled toward and dropped the chickens at his feet. The troglin’s chains rattled as he scooped one bird up and stuffed it all in his mouth.

  “Ew, feathers and all,” Dominga said.

  As the troglin crunched down his dinner, Abraham turned to Bearclaw and said, “Torch it. Torch it all.” He realized that he needed to exercise more faith in his men. All of them had proved capable, and they hadn’t let him down yet. He hated to burn down a perfectly good building, but it was the right thing to do. The Shell was a bunch of petty thieves who preyed on the weak, extorted them, and hid inside their fort. This time, they’d crossed the wrong people and paid for it dearly.

  The morning sun rose over the ocean. The new day had come. The burning wooden structures crackled and popped. Beams collapsed inside the flames. Black smoke billowed up and was carried out over the sea. On the other side of the portcullis, Prospero and Apollo covered all the ships in oil and burned them. If Lord Hawk returned, he’d have very little left to come back to.

  Abraham looked out toward the jagged mountainous peaks of the Spine as Sticks stood with him. He yawned. “Say goodbye to a good night’s sleep. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a long journey. I hope everybody enjoyed unwinding last night! It sure beat the heck out of a good night’s rest!”

  Sticks rubbed his back. “Someone gets cranky when he doesn’t get his sleep, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s not the sleep. It’s not knowing what’s going to happen next. We haven’t even kissed the toe of the mountain, and we’re already weary. Now we have to navigate those hills.” He shook his head. “At least we have our gear back.”

  The troglin gulped down the bones of his last chicken and said, “Pardon me, eh, Captain, is it?”

  “Yes?”