The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  Harlin rose, panting, the injury on his side aching again, his forearm throbbing from the mauling. His eyes fell on where Berro cowered, slumped against a wall, his hand pressed to his cheek to stem the bleeding. Harlin’s lip curled and the man visibly trembled as he pulled the dagger free of the wolfhound’s skull. He stepped towards him.

  To his left, Snag awoke with a slobbery growl, its jaw broken where it had taken Harlin’s elbow, and snapped bloodily at his leg. A heavy kick flipped the creature onto its back, and he drove the point of the blade down through its neck, yanking it free as the hound died noisily.

  He rose to his feet again and turned to face Berro, pointing at him with the knife, dripping with the blood of his kill. ‘I warned you, Berro,’ he uttered breathlessly, ‘I am in no mood to be trifled with.’ He took another step towards him, bloody knife still raised before him, pointed straight at Berro’s chest. ‘If you had listened, and given me what I wanted, your two pups would still live and you would be minus a scar. Now, give me what is mine, Berro, I am tired of this game.’

  That was a lie. He had the thrill of the fight coursing through him. A dark place in his mind hoped that Berro would resist further, try something stupid, something foolhardy, so he could ram that blade straight between his eyes. But Berro had been beaten, his trembling hand fumbled under the neck of his tunic, producing a stubby key on a silver chain. Harlin snatched it from him, the thin chain snapping, sending slender links tinkling across the floor.

  Harlin crouched and brandished the knife before Berro's face. ‘No, no,’ he protested as the blade came close, trying to shuffle away.

  Harlin wiped the blood off the blade on Berro’s shoulder, who froze on the spot. ‘If you move again, Berro,’ Harlin spoke softly, ‘I will kill you, and slowly. Now sit still and do not disturb me.’

  He went to where the coffers lay. Three strong boxes of oak bound with ornate brass work, finely-etched locks adorning their rounded lids. As he opened one the gleam of silver from within astounded him, shining like pure moonlight. Bright coins, running as deep as his elbow, stamped with the grim image of King Aenwald, filled it to the brim. A fortune lay in this one chest alone, and, opening the others, they all contained the same. It seemed excessive, absurd almost, to see such a vast amount of money right in plain view. Had Arnulf been stockpiling coin? Harlin knew he was well-paid by the Dogs’ contractors, but running the company was not cheap. What would Arnulf have done with such coin – what had he been planning? Harlin had suspected perhaps he had been struggling financially, having taken such a lousy and risky contract as the one for Thegnmere. Yet clearly the man was far from it… what did it mean?

  Harlin shook his head. It mattered not. Whatever Arnulf’s plans had been for this money they had not reached fruition, and never would. Only practicality prevented him taking a whole chest instead of the three months’ worth of pay he took for both of them, scooping handfuls of coins into their coin purses till they were fit to burst.

  There was a knock at the door, quiet, timid almost. ‘Master Berro?’ a gentle female voice called through the timbers. ‘Is everything all right, master Berro?’

  Both Harlin and Berro looked to each other. Harlin tucked the long knife safely in his belt and pressed a finger to his lips. He paced quickly over to the window looking out over the back of the inn, throwing the key to the coffers back to the wounded paymaster.

  He opened the window and climbed out, crouching on the frame and then dropping into the filthy, refuse filled alleyway behind the inn with a painful jarring of his ankles, breaking into a jog straight away, heading round to the side of the building with some caution. The street was mostly clear, and no one looked twice at him as he emerged. Untying both his and Anselm’s horses from where they were lashed, he mounted up swiftly and headed away down the road at a casual pace, a triumphant grin on his face and his purse clinking merrily.

  When the night came it found him abed with Aedri again, breathing heavy atop her, her body still shuddering deliciously beneath him, smooth legs wrapped tightly about his waist. He moved from her gently, collapsing beside her, taking the moment to appreciate her nakedness while she caught her breath.

  A thin sheen of sweat covered Aedri’s skin, making it glow golden in the candlelight and Harlin’s eyes lingered on her, following every curve of her body, from her shapely legs to her breasts, sat pert atop her chest, heaving as she breathed deeply. She caught him looking at her and she smiled, reaching for his hand to entwine her fingers with his.

  He wondered for a moment then if he should tell her what awaited Farrifax. Tell her to flee, maybe. Warn her at least. She was… pleasant. For a whore. More than pleasant-looking. She seemed kind, foolishly so. She had spent hours the previous night listening to him talk, asking him questions of his homeland, delighting in his answers, sharing tales of her own upbringing in some distant southern town. There had been genuine interest there, more than a whore should show, more than most would ask when seeking to pass the time between the catching of breath and resumption of rutting. It was odd, and not entirely unpleasant, he found, to have a girl interested in him beyond his coin.

  It would be right to warn her, it would be fair. The girl was stupid he decided, and surprisingly naïve for a whore, to be so infatuated with a man like him. But all the same, it would be cruel to deny her a chance at life. He knew though, what she would ask, if he told her. Take me with you.

  He couldn’t. For now, having these moments of pleasure with her meant more than almost anything else to him. Almost anything.

  So he lay silently besides her, smiling as she straddled him again and ran her nails hungrily down his chest to his stomach.

  When you cannot discard something it will become a weight upon you the longer you bear it. There could be no burdens, no dead weights, not between here and Luah Fáil, least of all a woman who saw too much in him too quickly.

  He soon swallowed his guilt and let it lie forgotten, as Aedri’s lips kissed down his stomach by slow inches, her breath warm as it met his groin.

  Harlin visited Anselm the next day to drop off his share of the money he had taken from Berro. He left Ethelwynn’s as covertly as he could, slipping quietly from between the doors, hoping any who saw would take him to be a customer who merely wished to be discrete about his shameful practices. He kept his hood drawn up as he rode to Gethelin’s with Anselm’s horse in tow. He wasn’t sure if Berro would have reported the incident to the town watch or not. If he had they certainly weren’t making an effort to look for him, the few spearmen he passed by that showed Lord Callen’s colours not even so much as glancing at him. It couldn’t have been that he was difficult to spot, not while he bore such a distinctive shield on his back or scar on his face. Maybe they simply didn’t care, or were too thinly stretched with Lord Callen taking most of them north to die. Either way, he entered the healer’s residence without issue.

  Anselm seemed a bit more colourful today, as Harlin watched him walk about his room grumbling and grunting, his breathing still laboured, whatever Gethelin was giving him seemed to be helping, even after only a couple of days. Harlin nodded to himself, satisfied.

  ‘Something to lift your spirits,’ he said, dropping Anselm’s share of the money on his bed. Anselm looked at it, puzzled. ‘I paid a visit to that fuckwit Berro,’ Harlin said, and explained what he had done the previous day. Anselm broke into crackling, coughing laughter, doubling over with pain.

  ‘Never liked that block-headed prick!’ he howled. ‘Used to find any old reason to dock my pay! The lads would be lining up to buy you a drink!’

  Harlin retired early that night after checking up on Anselm, losing himself in the soft embrace of Aedri’s flesh. He savoured every moment, every sight, every groan. It would be a long time before he could have anything remotely like this again, even if it was paid for.

  She surprised him that night before they slept, by placing a handful of silver coins in his hand as he lay back exhausted. ‘My fee Ethelwynn
’s been taking off you,’ she explained, giggling, as he looked at the coins in his palm.

  ‘You stole this from her?’ he said, not sure what to think. Aedri pressed a finger to her lips to shush him, shaking with silent laughter, eyes alight with mischief.

  ‘She won’t miss it,’ she tittered. ‘She makes a fortune off of Lord Callen’s knights alone, not to mention the men of his household. They’re lechers, the whole lot of them, they’re in here most days they can escape from their wives.’

  A thief as well as a whore. She was a girl of layers, whatever their morality might have been as you stripped them back one by one. An interesting girl, despite whatever else could be said of her particular set of skills.

  Personally, Harlin found it made her quite appealing, to him at least. Thinking, though, upon the amount of other men’s cocks that might have been in her that day alone before his, however… not so much.

  Ethelwynn was not likely one to leave her coin lying in plain view, stealing it would have taken some thought and consideration. He wondered why the girl didn’t make a living out of such things rather than a living beneath the sweating, flabby bodies of pampered nobility. Less risk, perhaps. It did nothing to ease the guilt that still nipped at him, regardless.

  Harlin grunted, thrusting the money back at her. ‘You need it more than I.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stubborn,’ she sighed, pushing his hand away with a frown, ‘as though I could take money from you of all people. It’s bad enough you pay her to stay in this place every night. You can make it up to me, sometime.’

  Aedri curled up beneath his arm with a yawn and was soon asleep, though Harlin lay awake for some time after. He watched the moon wax in a pallid blur through the window, uncertain of what to feel, knowing only that something cold inside laughed at his weakness.

  The morning came they were due to leave Farrifax. Harlin left Aedri with a promise to return once again that night, the lie coming all too easily as she gave him a sly parting kiss when Ethelwynn wasn’t looking.

  It was dull today, the sun swallowed by gurning grey clouds that hung like a miserable blanket. He made his way quietly back toward Gethelin’s after collecting Anselm’s horse from the stable he’d lodged it with. The roads were unusually busy this morning, Harlin noticed, nudging people out of his way with the toe of his boot. Locals murmured and swarmed in their dozens, hundreds, even, he saw, approaching one of the town’s major crossroads. A great buzz of noise hung over the streets and a steady stream of bodies moved and fought to get ahead of one another.

  It wasn’t long before Harlin was forced to dismount with a muttered assortment of profanity and lead the horses by hand. The animals were anxious around so many people, whickering as Harlin pulled them through the crowd, shouldering the local peasantry out of the way.

  Despite his constant shoving, pushing and the protesting horses he led, Harlin found that he had no choice but to follow the crowds heading along the northern road, the long way round to Gethelin’s. He shoved another local out of his way violently, frustrated, the man’s cursing lost in seconds through the noise of the crowd. The road would take him by the northern gate he and Anselm had arrived through the other day. Hopefully Serjeant Falland wasn’t back on duty yet. That was something else he’d rather not have to face the consequences for right now if he could avoid it.

  ‘They’re dead!’ a woman somewhere ahead in the crowd shrieked as Harlin drew near the gate, setting the multitudes to unsettled yammering, yelling and panicking, squabbling with one another as they surged forward.

  Dead? What were they all talking about?

  He saw a moment later as the crowd led him past tall townhouses and taverns that blocked out the sky.

  The gate stood shut and barred, a line of guardsmen stood with their shields raised to hold back the crowd from the gatehouse, shoving peasants back into the squawking rabble with spears flashing threateningly overhead.

  Above them in a rough line along the town wall stood more than a dozen spears, each with a head skewered at the end, dead features drawn stiff and grotesque. Flies buzzed about them in greedy clouds, as a young knight in plate armour screamed in frustration as guardsmen vainly tried to dislodge the spears driven into the wooden walkways.

  Lord Callen’s face loomed at the centre. Eyes white, mouth open, tongue lolling between corpse-grey lips. The squawking of the crowd became a roar as word travelled of their lord’s fate. Lord Callen’s head was flanked by those of his sons, and either side of them was a grisly display of dead nobility that Harlin recognised a few of – the lords of the north.

  The knight atop the wall turned to face the crowd, face flushed pink beneath a stupid-looking mess of blonde hair. ‘Return to your homes!’ he called, sounding flustered and uncertain. ‘The gates are sealed and none may leave or enter! Disperse! Disperse!’

  Shit.

  The wall of guardsmen began to force back the masses into the town with spear and shield, trampling those who refused to move. Harlin yanked the horses away, barging past wailing locals. Reaching a road with space enough to ride, Harlin mounted up, kicking the beast into a canter and away from the gate towards the longer road back to Gethelin’s around the edge of town.

  Shit, he thought, shit, shit, shit!

  Nothing worse could have befallen him. How had Garrmunt come south so quickly? Had there been no word of his forces approaching the town? No sightings? This was bad. Beyond bad. Abysmal. Catastrophic. He needed to think, think quickly, but his mind raced in blind panic.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Not now, not today, why, why, why?

  He burst through Gethelin’s front door, startling the healer who sat behind a desk in the far corner, the tea in his hand redecorating the wall behind him. Ignoring the man’s outrage he stomped upstairs, slamming open the door to Anselm’s room. Anselm jumped almost as high from his bed as Gethelin had from his desk.

  ‘Harlin!’ he spat, wincing with pain. ‘Nearly gave me –’

  ‘Get your things, we’re leaving.’

  Anselm looked at him dumbly. He’d been taking that spice stuff again for his pain, his eyes held that vacant look that betrayed it. Harlin growled under his breath in frustration. The stuff made men torpid and imbecilic.

  ‘Right now?’ Anselm asked slowly.

  ‘Right now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain on the way,’ Harlin sighed, ‘just grab your things and pay that worm downstairs whatever you owe, we’ve lingered too long here.’

  A look of understanding dawned slowly in Anselm’s spice-clouded eyes. ‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered, lurching from his bed and reaching for his clothes.

  He looked markedly better, Harlin thought, watching Anselm dress and helping him gather his few possessions. Some colour had returned to Anselm’s face, but he was still clearly struggling to breathe at times, especially when active. Gethelin had done an impressive job in such a short space of time, despite being an insufferable little arsehole. Still, Harlin frowned whenever Anselm grunted in pain, hoping it wouldn’t hinder their escape.

  Looking outside, Harlin saw the town streets were filled with movement and pulsing with noise. Word had travelled fast of the spectacle at the northern gate, the people were panicking. He could hear screaming, weeping women, fearful men. Prayers were offered in the street to their foul gods, people beseeching them for mercy on their knees, hands clasped desperately.

  Harlin shook his head. It was a cowardly, repugnant sight. He bade Anselm to hurry, turning away from the window.

  Downstairs, Anselm shoved a handful of silver at Gethelin, snatching a satchel of healing poultices and a fat cake of esterman spice from his hands. The two of them departed without a farewell, ignoring his idle threats and overblown insults to both their parentage and generosity.

  They mounted up outside Gethelin’s, heading towards the western gate, the healer’s curses following their departure as they went. Anselm kept pace with Harlin admirably, despite the perma
nent pained look he wore as they went.

  The wall tops were still a mess of activity. Guardsmen ran to and fro, serjeants were shouting orders and threats in equal measure. Harlin heard more than once the distinctive click of a crossbow string being cocked fully as the town’s remaining defenders prepared themselves. Somehow, Harlin didn’t hold much hope for them. Nor did Anselm, as he explained to him what he’d seen atop the northern gatehouse.

  They found the western gate shut, barred and well-manned. ‘Away from the gate!’ a serjeant barked down at them from the gatehouse, pointing toward them with his spear. ‘The town is to remain sealed until we are given the all-clear! Return home!’

  ‘How does thirty in silver sound,’ Harlin called up to him, ‘for you to open the gate for only a moment? We have somewhere we must be, urgently.’

  ‘Return home,’ the answer came.

  ‘Fifty, then!’

  A crossbow bolt thwacked into the ground near his horse’s hoof, making the creature rear and snort angrily.

  ‘Return home,’ the serjeant called again, turning away.

  ‘Fuck.’ Harlin punched the pommel of his saddle as he and Anselm veered away, his horse neighing and shuffling in annoyance.

  ‘Let’s try the southern gate,’ said Anselm, ‘all’s not lost yet.’

  The southern gate was barred and equally well-manned, the guards atop the gatehouse eyeing Harlin and Anselm threateningly as they approached. Crossbowmen began notching quarrels to cocked weapons, all the warning Harlin needed. They wouldn’t be bribing their way out of Farrifax. No chance of them fighting their way out either with the gates so well-defended. They’d be feathered like chickens the moment they drew steel.

  ‘Trapped,’ Harlin snarled as they turned away, riding back up the southern road towards the town centre. ‘We should not have lingered so long, we should never have even come here. ’

  ‘Four days, Harlin,’ Anselm snapped back at him. ‘What else could we do? We needed to rest. I needed to heal. Calm yourself.’ Anselm rode round in front of him. ‘We’ll wait till nightfall,’ he said, lowering his voice and leaning stiffly towards Harlin, a spasm of pain travelling across his features. ‘We’ll scout out the guard situation. If need be we’ll climb over the walls and leave the mounts behind, we can get new ones on the road.’