by C. L. Werner
I looked upon my companion and was once more struck by his imposing figure. He wore brigandine armour about his lean, yet somehow powerful frame. Over the cloth and metal was fixed a breastplate of gromril, that fabulously strong metal whose secret is known only to the dwarfs. Steel vambraces and greaves protected arm and leg, blackened to prevent any betraying shine. Upon the table, the bounty hunter had set his helm of blackened steel, the dark shadow of its empty visor staring up at me with a menacing gaze. Beside it rested a small crossbow, a weapon which I knew my companion would be able to employ in the space of a breath should he have need. I knew that there would be other weapons ready at hand, the array of knives that crossed his breast in a worn leather bandolier, the wicked hatchet that swung from his hip, or even the expertly crafted pistol bolstered across his belly. Two weapons in particular had a certain notoriety attached to them. The first of these was the huge knife with a serrated edge which Brunner had morbidly termed ‘the Headsman’, and it was the last thing many a wounded outlaw had seen in this life.
The other was a long sword, its slender blade crafted long ago in the forges of the Reikland, its golden pommel and hilt fashioned in the shape of a winged dragon. Drakesmalice it was called, and I had seen for myself the skill and ferocity with which the bounty hunter could employ it. The sword itself had some history in the region, until the utter destruction of the line by the Viscount de Chegney it had been the traditional heirloom of the barons of the house of von Drakenburg. Given the unspoken animosity which my collaborator had always displayed toward the viscount, it was somehow fitting that the weapon of that villain’s vanquished enemy should find its way into Brunner’s hands.
I roused myself from my study of the bounty hunter, forgetting once more the deep gashes and dents in his armour and the stories that lay behind each one. I looked into the man’s harsh features, meeting his icy blue eyes.
‘That accounts for your exploits in Miragliano,’ I told him, dipping my pen once more into the ink well. ‘But it has been two seasons since you brought down the Black Prince and I cannot believe that a man such as yourself has been idle for all that time.’
Brunner leaned forward, the legs of his chair rapping against the floor. He set the tankard of mead down upon the table and favoured me with a grim smile.
‘Oh, I have been anything but idle,’ he told me. ‘You need not trouble yourself on that score.’ Again, that unsettling, wolf-like smile came upon his face. ‘You have perhaps heard rumours, stories about trouble in the east?’
The breath caught in my throat. There had indeed been stories in recent weeks, tales of destruction and horror that had spread like wildfire, unsettling the knights of Parravon, making them restless. It was expected that any day the duc would announce some campaign against the source of these troubles, a quest to destroy the beast who ravaged the eastern dukedoms. Indeed, if there was any truth in the rumour, knights all across the kingdom were already riding to test their mettle against this challenge, to prove their bravery and their embodiment of the old virtues.
‘The dragon?’ I gasped. ‘You had something to do with that?’ My mind exploded with a thousand questions, and my hand was unsteady with excitement as I strove to write down the bounty killer’s responses. ‘You have seen it? It is real?’
Brunner nodded his head slightly and his voice fell into a low whisper. ‘It is real,’ he told me. ‘And I have seen it.’
There was a haunted quality to Brunner’s voice that had never before manifested itself in our conversations, the echo of lost tomorrows and vanished yesterdays.
With a final sip from his tankard, Brunner began his account…
Sicho craned his neck about within the ring of coarse rope that encircled it. Was it not bad enough that they were going to hang him, did they have to drag it out as well? The rope was chafing his skin to the point where it was becoming unbearable, an itch that his hands, tied behind his back, couldn’t scratch.
The poacher and sometime bandit looked over to where the warden continued to drone on and on about his crimes, the despicable nature of his soul, and how he was deserving of an end far more terrible than the simple hanging proscribed by the duc’s law. Sicho rolled his eyes, turning his attention to the muddy, manure-strewn square and the ramshackle hovels that passed for the thriving hamlet of Veleon. The crowd that had gathered was much larger than he had anticipated, there were perhaps fifty people in the onlooking mob, far more than a puddle of pig piss like Veleon could support. Most likely the duc had declared a holiday so that the peasants of the neighbouring villages and hamlets might have the opportunity to see his execution. Most considerate of him, considering that Sicho’s death might be the most exciting thing to intrude upon the dull drudgery of their lives for years. Of course, the duc was motivated more from hopes that seeing Sicho swing might throw cold water on the ambitions of any fledgling poachers and bandits among the peasantry.
Better to die quickly than take a slow death like those idiots, Sicho thought to himself. I’ll wager half of them have never even tasted meat, the bandit added as he found a particularly wretched crone gawking at him with a mouth completely devoid of teeth. Sicho twisted about as much as he was able and glared at the bloated figure of the warden. The man was droning on now about an incident Sicho had nearly forgotten involving the theft of a knight’s bones from a village outside Brionne.
‘Can you hurry it up?’ the bandit snarled through his split lip and bruised face. The militia men who had captured him had been quite enthusiastic in their work. The warden rolled up the leather scroll from which he had been reading, slapping it against his meaty palm. ‘At the rate you’re going, we’ll be here half the night.’
The rotund official shook the rolled scroll at the condemned man, taking a menacing step toward the bandit. ‘You might show a bit of contrition for all your filthy crimes, you snivelling cur!’ the warden spat. ‘For you’ll answer to the Lady and the gods for your misdeeds, brigand! When that rope goes tight and the air is strangled out of you, the time for repentance will be past.’ The warden looked past Sicho, locking eyes with the two brawny militia men who held the other end of the rope tied about the outlaw’s neck. Between them stood the old signpost over which the middle section of the rope had been thrown.
‘At least I’m an honest thief!’ Sicho cursed. ‘Tell me, what lets you keep that fat belly of yours full? Not millet and gruel I’d wager.’
The warden bristled under the insult, as much for its truth as the venom with which it was voiced. The fat man’s face darkened until it was nearly the same hue of red as the worn leather tunic that struggled to encase his girth. ‘We’ve been about this long enough, dog!’ he hissed back. The warden looked again to his two men. He lifted the hand that held the scroll. ‘When I lower my hand, pull the rope and send this animal to the gods.’
As the fat man’s hand began to fall, however, there was a sharp snap and the sound of splintering wood. The downward descent of the official’s hand was arrested, the scroll it gripped fixed to the wall behind him, pinned in place by the dull steel of a crossbow bolt. Gasps broke out from the crowd and the warden turned away from a fruitless attempt to free the proclamation. The fat man’s eyes went wide with surprise and apprehension as he saw the figure regarding him from the back of the milling mob of peasants.
The man was an imposing sight, his upper face hidden within the blackened steel of a foreign-style helmet, a suit of weathered brigandine armour enclosing his slim figure, a breastplate of dark metal encasing his chest. It was like looking at some shabby imitation of the knights the warden served, some crude and base mockery of the shining plate and colourful tabards of Bretonnia’s great warriors. Even the horse upon which the man was seated was dark and grim, a far cry from the noble and valiant chargers of the knights.
But the warden saw these things only in passing, his attention fixed upon the strange weapon the warrior held at the ready. The warden had never seen a crossbow, though he had heard such a we
apon described for him by a relative who had once travelled to Couronne. The curious, almost box-like device set upon the weapon puzzled him, he couldn’t imagine how such a weapon might work. The fat man turned his eyes back to the expressionless steel face of the stranger’s helm.
‘I need to have a few words with that man whose neck you are about to stretch,’ the warrior’s cold voice told him.
The colour returned to the warden’s features as he noted the assumed authority in the stranger’s tones.
‘You dare to interrupt an appointed representative of the Duc de Vertain in the execution of his official duties?’ the fat official snarled. He might never have seen a crossbow before, but he had a good idea of how they worked, and this stranger had already fired his missile. He looked over at his militiamen. The two soldiers hastily tied off their end of the rope and began to stride forward, hands resting easily on the hilts of their swords.
The strange weapon gripped in the rider’s hands jerked and the groan of the steel bowstring firing sounded again. The two militiamen froze as a pair of bolts dug into the ground at their feet. The warden looked with horror from his subdued men back to the rider. He staggered back, cowering against the wall as he saw the repeating crossbow swing in his direction.
‘Next time I aim higher,’ the rider told him. ‘But if you’ll oblige me, I’ll have a few words with your prisoner and then be on my way.’
The warden nodded his head slightly, slinking behind the nearest of the dirty, muttering crowd.
The bounty hunter urged his horse forward, pushing his way through the peasants until he looked down upon Sicho.
‘You’re a little late to collect the price on this head,’ the bandit sneered, spitting a blob of phlegm into the dust. Brunner gave the condemned man an icy smile, reaching his gloved hand forward and letting his fingers grip the rope rising behind Sicho’s neck. The brigand rose to his toe tips as Brunner pulled slightly at the noose.
‘I had hoped you might be more cooperative,’ he told Sicho, pulling once more on the rope, enough to make the bandit’s next breath turn into a gasp. ‘Maybe I’ll have them cut you down after you’ve hung a bit. See if that loosens your tongue.’ Brunner released his hold on the rope, leaning back in the saddle of Fiend, his warhorse. ‘If that doesn’t work, we can always try it again. As often as we need.’ The bounty hunter reached beneath one of his vambraces, removing a rolled scrap of leather. ‘They’re going to hang you, Sicho. How many times they hang you, that’s your decision.’
Sicho rotated his head in wide circles, trying to loosen the grip of the noose about his neck. The bandit curled his lip, snarling back at the bounty hunter. Then his eyes fell upon the object held in those gloved hands, and the portrait that had been drawn upon the wanted poster. The hostility drained away, replaced by a peal of laughter.
‘Gobineau!’ the condemned outlaw cried out. ‘You are looking for Gobineau!’ Tears were running down Sicho’s grimy face as he continued to laugh.
Brunner rolled up the poster, stuffing it back into its place beneath his armour. He looked back at the laughing prisoner. ‘You sometimes ran with Gobineau. I want to know where he could be now. When did you last see him?’
Sicho’s face contorted into an ironic smile. ‘When did I see him last?’ he scoffed. ‘He is the reason I am here! Trying to outrun this bloated toad and his half-witted swamp cats! The warden and his men were on our trail after we relieved a horse breeder of a few stallions he didn’t need. Gobineau was worried that they would catch us on the open road, so as we were riding he reached over and slashed my saddle, dumping me into the road. Of course, this idiot,’ Sicho gestured with his chin at the scowling warden, ‘was so happy to catch me, he completely gave up chasing Gobineau.’ The bandit spat into the dust once again. ‘I’ll be waiting for that bastard at the gates of Morr!’
‘Tell me where Gobineau was heading and maybe I can give him your regards,’ Brunner told the prisoner. Sicho’s smile broadened and his features lit up as he contemplated how well his treacherous ally would fare with the notorious bounty hunter on his trail. The thought of such a revenge warmed the condemned man’s doomed soul.
‘We were stealing the horses to outfit a new band Gobineau is gathering together in the hamlet of Perpileon in the realm of Montfort,’ the bandit provided. ‘I am sure, if you were to hurry, you’d catch him there.’
Brunner nodded his head, turning Fiend away. ‘Oh, I’ll catch him,’ the bounty hunter assured Sicho. ‘You’ve troubles enough without worrying about that.’ The bounty hunter walked his horse slowly back through the crowd. He glanced over at the warden as he passed the still subdued official. Brunner touched a finger to the brim of his helm in a clipped and somewhat nonchalant salute. ‘Thank you for your consideration, warden. I won’t be needing anything else from your prisoner. You may see to your duty now.’
There were many trails that wound their way between the pastures and fields of Montfort, skirting the edges of the forests and detouring around the scattered patches of moor and swamp that dotted the realm’s landscape. The largest and most prominent of these were the roads that connected the more important towns and villages to the few cities that rose amid the green farmlands and savage wilds of Bretonnia. Though little more than dirt paths by the standards of more cultured lands such as the Empire and Tilea, the roads of Bretonnia served the same function, moving people and goods from one place to another, nurturing the few tradesmen of the kingdom, assisting the devotions of pious pilgrims and facilitating the wanderlust of the knights out to earn their colours and their name, and those who employed them to darker pursuits.
The road that wound past the holdings of the Marquis de Galfort on its way to the distant Grey Mountains and the fortified city of Parravon was well known to be the haunt of highwaymen and brigands. Bretonnian peasants called it ‘the Widow’s Way’ and did not deign to travel its course, instead detouring through the many game trails and cattle runs that meandered through the wooded hills. Still, there were some few, strangers to the district or aristocrats secure in their own aura of invulnerability, who were foolish enough to tempt fate and travel along the ill-rumoured length of road.
It was for just such foolish prey that three men had concealed themselves within the thick bushes that fronted upon a bend in the course of the Widow’s Way. They were kindred spirits, members of a cruel and lawless breed, their faces as brutal and bestial as the filthy furs they wore about their lean, wolfish frames. The leader among the three openly flaunted his contempt for the rulers of the land and their laws, the torn tabard of a knight of the realm tied about his waist like the loin-wrap of a Southlands primitive.
The tall bandit leader grinned as he saw the small mule-drawn cart plodding toward them upon the road. It had been several weeks since they had eaten the last of their horses. No matter how humble, whatever loot the cart might hold would be most welcome.
Dogvael looked over at his companions, motioning for them to draw their swords. The brigand leader stared at the notched, rusty blade in his hands. It was at times like this that he most missed the reassuring feel of the powerful hand-cannon he had liberated from one of the Viscount de Chegney’s foreign mercenaries. But it was no good brooding on more pleasant times. Now, a bit of mutton would be exotic enough for the bandit’s tastes.
The three men waited until the mule cart was only a few yards away before they exploded from behind the bushes. The man to Dogvael’s left rushed forward and seized the bridle of the animal while the other two bandits menaced the man seated on the cart behind it with their swords.
‘Stand and deliver, scum!’ Dogvael snarled. It was all traditional, of course, like reciting lines in a play. Dogvael had no intention of letting his victim live, no matter how forthcoming he was.
The man seated on the cart drew back in horror, dropping his whip in his fright. Dogvael smiled at the peasant’s cowardice.
‘Bandits!’ the man shuddered. ‘Whatever shall I do?’
Dogvael’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the almost comic extreme of the cart master’s fear, the curled hands clenching at the youthful face. Then he noticed the black leather boots that protruded from the hem of the shabby homespun cloak worn by the driver, boots far too fine for any simple peasant. The bandit drew away in alarm, eyes darting to either side of the road. Even as he did so, the whine of arrows slashing through the air sounded in Dogvael’s ears. The brigand holding the bridle of the mule cried out as a shaft crunched into his breastbone. The stricken man fell to the muddy earth, the agitated mule adding to his misery as its hooves pulped his left knee and shattered both of his arms. A moment later Dogvael’s other minion cried out, hands clutching impotently at the arrow sticking in his belly. The man pitched to the earth and rolled onto his side, body shuddering as it bled out into the mire of the pathway.
Dogvael turned to run, not knowing who had fired upon his men, nor caring to find out. Even as he turned, however, a third arrow flew from the shadows, striking him in the small of the back and spinning him back around so that he once more faced the cart that had lured him and his companions to their doom.
The owner of the cart was leaning forward, soothing the mule with soft words and a reassuring hand. The man looked up from his labour, staring at Dogvael, all trace of fear, real or exaggerated, now absent from the man’s handsome, rakish face. He smiled at the injured bandit, dark eyes twinkling with a roguish mischief, then stood, casting the shabby cloak from his shoulders and displaying a lean, muscular frame encased in a black leather tunic and dark leather breeches. An expensive-looking belt trimmed in fur and edged in gold completed his outfit, save for the slender longsword hanging from said belt.