The Long War 03 - The Red Prince

by A. J. Smith

  ‘Can we use the Black Guard?’ asked Saara, musing.

  ‘Were you asking me or talking to yourself?’ Elihas did not turn to her and again showed that his compliance was not devotion.

  ‘Maybe you need to relax, my sweet.’

  Now the cleric looked at her. His eyes were dark and expressionless. ‘I am sufficiently relaxed.’

  Saara felt her headache return. ‘I need to go to worship. There are many who require their high priestess.’

  Many Karesians had arrived in Weir and an elite group of the richest merchant princes and mobsters had been turned to worship of the Dead God. Even a few Ro noblemen had seen the benefits of following Saara. Her flock was growing each day. Her gospel of deviance and power was seductive to the weak-willed elite.

  ‘Maybe you should accompany me. The One can do without you for a few hours of ecstatic agony.’

  ‘I do not need your god,’ he replied.

  ‘You might enjoy him.’ She licked her lips and gently projected images of exquisite pleasure and pain. Elihas baulked ever so slightly and his mind hardened. Saara had never tried to enchant him and she knew he was too strong to influence casually.

  ‘Go and fuck your flock,’ he said with a sneer, ‘but leave me out of it.’

  She giggled and rubbed her hands together sensually. ‘I have some Ro followers now and our numbers swell, even in other cities. But I will not rush you, mighty cleric.’

  With a twirl of her skirt, Saara the Mistress of Pain left the office and began to prepare for her sermon. More than usual she needed a release and looked forward to an hour or two of beautiful deviance.

  CHAPTER 4

  FALLON OF LEITH IN THE CITY OF SOUTH WARDEN

  THE FIRE HAD burned down to embers and the simple wooden house was growing colder. The residence had been stripped of homely comforts and was being used as a prison by the occupying knights of the Red. The five thousand knights and clerics had quickly subdued the city and made themselves at home in acquired houses and stolen buildings, while the populace were kept under close guard in the ruined chapel of Rowanoco. Maybe five hundred Ranen were still alive. The able-bodied had been divested of their weaponry and put to work.

  Fallon knew the strategies employed by the knights back to front, and the occupation was proceeding to schedule. First, they’d suppress any resistance, being deliberately brutal to discourage disobedience, then they’d establish their defences and, once the city was utterly broken, they’d execute their prisoners and move on.

  Aside from the two bound men standing guard outside the door, Fallon’s only company for a week had been an alcoholic nobleman and a timid cleric of the Brown.

  Vladimir Corkoson, the Lord of Mud and commander of the Darkwald yeomanry, was good company when he was awake and not slurring his words, but the cleric, Brother Lanry, was a little too pious and naive to be a good conversationalist. The cleric had at least attempted to console his two companions regarding their forthcoming execution for betraying the Crown, but his counsel had mostly involved talk of the One.

  Corkoson’s crime had been to try and stop the slaughter of his men as Cardinal Mobius and King Sebastian repeatedly ordered them to assault the city. The Lord of Mud was a good man who cared about his people. Unfortunately, such emotions had no place here and Vladimir had been beaten and chained up for his interference.

  Fallon’s crime had been simpler. He’d merely disagreed with a Purple cleric and stopped a friend from dying. Their crimes were different, but their punishment would be the same – to be hanged from the gates of South Warden in front of the army. Lanry was too insignificant to kill and even Cardinal Mobius was not arrogant enough to execute a humble Brown cleric.

  Fallon had much to ponder, but he was calm and was thinking more clearly than ever. He had maintained his honour when to do so had endangered his life and the One had rewarded him for it. The shade of Brother Torian of Arnon had been a shadowy companion since Fallon had been imprisoned, and the apparition lent him resolve enough to be sure that he wasn’t destined to die at the end of a rope. He was the exemplar of the One and he had faith that his sword would soon be returned to him.

  ‘How long do we have... roughly?’ asked Vladimir, who was no longer asleep.

  It was the dead of night and Fallon stood gazing through narrow slots in the shuttered window.

  ‘How’s your head?’ replied Fallon, thinking that two bottles of strong Ranen mead would have been enough to induce a serious hangover.

  ‘Don’t know yet. The trick is to stay horizontal after waking up. It fools the brain into thinking it’s okay.’

  The Lord of Mud did not look well. His eyes were narrow and the remaining light from the fire was too much for him. ‘Answer the question, old boy,’ he prompted.

  ‘It’s been a week since they cleared the last resistance.’ Fallon tried to focus through the narrow slots and into the darkness of South Warden. ‘I’d say that sunrise this morning is a likely candidate for our execution.’

  ‘Marvellous,’ replied Vladimir. ‘I’m sick of waiting around.’

  The two of them had been exchanging gallows humour for a week now and Fallon had found himself becoming fond of the lesser noble. He was a shrewd man, not given to hysteria, and had slowly begun to accept his fate.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a genius escape plan?’ asked Vladimir, rubbing his eyes.

  Fallon smiled thinly, nodding towards the sleeping form of Brother Lanry. ‘Change clothes with him and hope they don’t notice that you’ve put on weight and lost a few inches in height.’

  Vladimir chuckled, wincing in pain as the laughter caused his head to throb. ‘Don’t make me laugh, it acts against my cunning method of avoiding a hangover.’

  ‘Your own fault, you idiot,’ Fallon responded with a broad smile.

  At least he’d found his sense of humour again. Fallon was beginning to see the inherent comedy in the invasion of the Freelands, the occupation of Ro Hail and South Warden – even the king’s increasing madness.

  ‘Will we be strung up next to each other?’ asked the Lord of Mud, turning over on his bedroll to stare at the wooden ceiling.

  ‘Unlikely,’ replied the former knight. ‘I’m a vow-breaker, you’re just a traitor.’ He smiled again. ‘They’ll stretch you first and then probably make a big deal out of stretching me. There are a lot of men out there who know who I am. They’ll milk it for all they can.’

  ‘Shame,’ muttered Vladimir. ‘It would have been nice to have a friendly face up there next to me.’

  Fallon turned away from the window and perched on the edge of an armchair he’d been using as a bed. ‘Have you ever seen a man hang, my lord?’

  ‘Nope, luckily I have not. I saw a man have his hands cut off once. He’d stolen from a Purple chapel in Du Ban... or something like that. Actually, he might have just been drunk and relieved himself on the steps, I can’t quite remember.’ Vladimir rubbed his eyes again and turned over awkwardly, trying to get comfortable. ‘How long till sunrise?’ he asked.

  ‘An hour or two at the most.’

  ‘So... should I expect to be dead in three or four hours?’

  The Lord of Mud had closed his eyes and screwed up his face. He was rubbing his temples and fidgeting, and occasionally moaning.

  ‘Unless something strange happens before that,’ was Fallon’s cryptic response.

  Vladimir snorted in amusement but said nothing further. The lord of Darkwald was puffing out his cheeks and feeling the full effects of his hangover. He began to turn a funny colour.

  Fallon returned to the window. Bound men were beginning to stir, going about their morning duties. The sun appeared later each day and was a constant reminder that the men of Ro were no longer in Tor Funweir.

  ‘Be ready, exemplar,’ said Torian’s shade.

  Fallon blinked at the sudden pain in his head. ‘Can’t you give me some fucking warning before you appear? Your words still hurt.’

  Vladimir snorted
and told his companion to be quiet. Fallon figured the lord’s state had progressed far enough for him to be not really listening.

  ‘Are you well rested?’ asked the shade.

  ‘No, not especially, I’ve had too much to think about,’ Fallon whispered.

  ‘You will need your wits about you.’ The shade’s voice was as hollow and monotonous as ever.

  Fallon did not have a clue what he was talking about. ‘I always have my wits about me, but if you’re suggesting I run... I think you underestimate the number of people I’d have to kill in order to escape.’

  Individually, he could best any knight, but to hack his way through several dozen was beyond even a swordsman of his skill. And he didn’t have a sword.

  ‘Look out of the window,’ said the shade.

  The knight peered through the slotted shutters. A dusty alleyway ran alongside the house, with a sewer trench parallel to it. The wooden fences that separated the houses in South Warden were solidly constructed and no obvious avenue of escape was in evidence.

  ‘What exactly am I looking for?’

  A moment later a hand appeared from the sewer trench. Fallon had paid little attention to the sunken trough, which would likely be full of blood, dead bodies and effluent. Lime was generally thrown into such places to stop the contents from festering.

  The hand was shivering as it groped tentatively in the darkness for something to hold on to. After a moment, another hand appeared.

  ‘Vladimir,’ said Fallon sharply. ‘Get your arse up and come over here.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m dying,’ murmured the Lord of Mud, filtering his response through a layer of bile.

  ‘Pull yourself together. That genius plan is taking shape.’

  Fallon narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the dark figure slowly emerging from the sewer trough.

  The two guards at the front of the house had their backs to it. Whoever it was, he was moving with impressive stealth and had not been seen by the bound men.

  Vladimir Corkoson rolled on to his front. With considerable exertion, he pulled himself to a sitting position.

  ‘I think I may rob the hangman of his prize,’ he muttered. ‘The mead seems to be doing his work for him.’

  Fallon put a finger to his lips and motioned for the nobleman to join him at the window. He crawled the first few feet, wincing in pain as he did so, before hauling himself uncomfortably to his feet and staggering forward.

  ‘What?’ he asked in a feeble whisper.

  Fallon pointed to the figure crouched next to the deep sewer trench. The man was dripping wet and favouring his right arm, as if his left had recently been wounded. He was staying in shadows, close to the ground, but Fallon could make out distinctly Karesian features.

  ‘I know that man,’ he whispered to Vladimir. ‘His name’s Al-Hasim.’

  The Lord of Mud shook his head wearily. ‘Friend or foe?’

  ‘He was captured in Ro Canarn and we took him north after Lady Bronwyn. I assumed he’d died at Ro Hail with Wraith Company.’ Fallon paused for a moment and turned to look at the snoring form of Brother Lanry. ‘He may not be a friend to us, but he’s certainly a friend to him.’

  The Karesian was obviously wounded, but just as obviously the wounds weren’t life-threatening. He had a vertical cut down the side of his neck, wrapped in a makeshift bandage, and some heavy strapping around the left side of his chest. As he inched closer to the window, his face came out of the shadows.

  ‘He’s coming this way,’ said Vladimir.

  ‘Get back,’ replied Fallon. ‘Tell me if the guards see anything.’

  The Karesian knew what he was doing. He silently crossed the ground and stood next to the window with his back to the wall. Removing the locking bolt from the window was accomplished quickly. He pulled one of the shutters outwards, as wide as he dared, and nimbly squeezed through the gap, turning to sit on the window sill.

  ‘Close the window and stay quiet,’ said Fallon. ‘There are two guards outside.’

  ‘Sir Fallon of Leith, I do believe,’ murmured the Karesian. ‘A prisoner... now there’s an unexpected surprise.’

  ‘Al-Hasim, Prince of the Wastes... still alive,’ he replied.

  ‘I’m not burdened with the Ranen need to fight until death,’ replied the wounded man, taking a seat on the floor with his back to the window. ‘I came here for Lanry, didn’t expect to see you.’

  The old Brown cleric was still asleep, oblivious to their situation. Vladimir was fighting back a need to vomit and staring at the Karesian in confusion.

  ‘Sorry, where are my manners?’ said the nobleman. ‘Lord Vladimir Corkoson at your service.’

  He attempted a bow, but pulled up halfway down and clamped a hand to his mouth. He had turned an unpleasant green colour.

  ‘I’ve seen more noble-looking nobles,’ said the Karesian.

  Vladimir flapped his hands, asking for a moment to compose himself, before sitting down on the floor. ‘Just carry on without me,’ he burped out. ‘Oh, and just so we’re clear... if you’re escaping, I’m going with you.’ The Lord of Mud then clutched his knees and huddled up, closing his eyes and moaning quietly.

  Fallon raised his eyebrows before turning back to the wounded Karesian. ‘How did you survive?’ he asked. ‘Judging by that sword wound on your neck and the one in your chest... what is that, a crossbow bolt? I’d say that you were fighting with Scarlet Company.’

  ‘I was,’ replied Hasim. ‘We lost.’ The man’s face was more serious now, as if he cared more for these men of Ranen than many would guess. ‘A lot of people I liked are dead because of your Red friends.’

  Fallon sympathized. ‘If it helps you see me in a better light, I was locked up for oath-breaking weeks before the first trebuchet was fired.’

  ‘As I remember,’ said Al-Hasim, ‘you and Verellian saved my life in Ro Canarn. That means you get the benefit of the doubt.’

  Fallon nodded. ‘You’ve been out there... in the city?’ he asked.

  ‘For a week or so now,’ replied Hasim. ‘Your knights are nothing if not predictable. They have a habit of ignoring things like sewer trenches.’

  ‘Where are my men?’ interjected Vladimir, leaning back and trying to control himself.

  ‘After the king moved into Long Shadow’s hall, your Cardinal Mobius ordered the yeomanry to picket themselves outside the walls. Only the knights and clerics are in South Warden... and a lot of angry Ranen prisoners.’ Hasim shifted uncomfortably and rubbed his wounded neck.

  ‘You need to get that seen to, it’ll fester,’ said Fallon.

  ‘If it was going to fester and kill me, it would have done so by now. Remember, I’ve been crawling around in shit and piss for days,’ the Karesian replied.

  Fallon turned back to the unlocked window to give himself a chance to think. With knowledge of the troop placements between their makeshift prison and the outer walls, it would be possible to sneak out, although they had no weapons except Al-Hasim’s light scimitar.

  ‘How many of the yeomanry are left?’ asked the Lord of Mud in a quivering voice.

  ‘Not sure. They were wasted pretty badly at the breach.’

  ‘Give me a rough estimate?’ pressed Vladimir.

  Hasim considered it. ‘Maybe six thousand... once the wounded get better or die.’

  Vladimir bit his lip and huddled up again. He had marched north with ten thousand men. To hear that four thousand had died in the breach at South Warden was almost more than he could bear. He sobbed, holding his sweaty hands to his face. The king had thrown away his men, using their bodies to break the lines of South Warden.

  ‘Vladimir,’ said Fallon, ‘cry later. Your men are picketed outside the walls. That means we can get to them without the clerics interfering. Assuming we can get out of the city.’

  ‘We can,’ said Hasim. ‘As long as you don’t mind getting dirty.’

  ‘Wake up the cleric.’ Fallon pointed at Lanry. ‘And at some stage I’ll need a swo
rd.’

  Hasim glanced at the main doorway, beyond which the two bound men had their backs to the closed door. ‘Perhaps you should wake up the cleric and I’ll keep skulking over here.’

  Fallon lightly shook Brother Lanry’s shoulder. The old cleric shuffled uncomfortably and batted away Fallon’s hand. Another shake of his shoulder and the churchman rolled over and opened his eyes.

  ‘What... ?’ he mumbled incoherently.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ stated the tall swordsman. ‘Get up if you want to come with us.’ He turned back to Hasim. ‘Where are Mobius and the king?’

  ‘The senior knights and clerics got very drunk in Long Shadow’s hall last night. They’ll be rather ill right about now.’

  ‘And Tristram?’ continued Fallon.

  ‘He wasn’t with the others... maybe he respects his vows.’ Al-Hasim was clearly knowledgeable about the lax attitude many knights took towards alcohol.

  ‘Good for him,’ said Vladimir, attempting to drag himself to his feet. ‘I wish I had vows to follow.’

  Fallon went back to the window and waited for Brother Lanry to rouse himself. They still had an hour or so until sunrise. Plenty of time to leave South Warden, provided they weren’t interrupted by too many bound men who needed killing.

  ‘Hasim,’ said Lanry with a weak smile, ‘you’re alive... The One be praised.’

  ‘Let’s praise him later,’ replied the Karesian. ‘For now, we need to leave. They’re going to kill you in the morning.’

  ‘Me?’ asked the Brown cleric incredulously.

  Hasim nodded.

  ‘What are you thinking, sir knight? Is it doable?’ he asked Fallon.

  ‘Maybe. But don’t call me that. My name’s Fallon.’

  He peeked through an open sliver in the shutters and could see a clear path to the sewer trench. It ran under wooden walls and houses to the outer palisade. There would be guards stationed by the outer walls, but Fallon thought the escape route a good one, provided Al-Hasim was right and the knights were mostly in the central ground of South Warden.