Chad dipped his chin. “Yes, sir. That’s how it looked to me.”
Whenever there was a siege, there was always plenty of time for just sitting around. Then again, it was often punctuated by minutes of sheer terror when a general decided to storm a castle to keep them all awake. A good general didn’t like his men to get too comfortable. It was odd that the commanding officer would allow his men time to play cards.
“May be we can get a few archers into those woods and pick them off one by one.” O’Brian turned to Barnaby. “We got anyone good with a knife?”
Barnaby nodded. “There’s Noodle. I think he loves his blade more than his mother. Digger is almost as good.”
“Good! Send them with orders to be careful, slit some throats. I don’t want them foot-soldiers getting too comfortable. We need to give them something to worry about. We need to make them fear the dark.”
The lad smiled in agreement.
“What about the cliffs? Can we get up there?”
“Not without being seen, sir. There’s only one road and it is steep and narrow. I don’t think it’s possible to sneak up thatta way. Might be able to get there from the back side, but that’s a big mountain. I could lead them, but it would take us two full days.”
Barnaby looked at the map. “Well, we’d even the odds with them then… What do you think we should do?” he asked O’Brian.
O’Brian rubbed his chin and paced the room. “If we could be getting our lads in without being notice, maybe we could surprise them.”
“And ifin we don’t?”
“Men die if we don’t,” O’Brian said. “Before I make any decisions, I think I’m going to make a little trip into the castle and check things out with me brother.”
Barnaby looked at him like he was daft.
O’Brian grinned widely and shrugged. “My brother has a back door.”
“Back door?” Barnaby asked.
O’Brian nodded. “Goes under the mountain. Rumor was that it was dug by the dwarfs themselves under the third king.”
“I’ll be damned!” Barnaby whistled. “Any credence?”
“Oh, the tunnel is there. The story about the dwarfs… Halla, I don’t rightly know. You ever seen a dwarf? I haven’t, and I’ve traveled the realms a plenty!”
O’Brian looked at the map. “We must be missing something here. Killoroy wouldn’t attack my brother with only a few-hundred troops. There must be more out there, lurking in the shadows. Well, boy—are ye sure ye didn’t see anything else?”
“No, sir! I checked real good. If they’re out there hiding, they would have to be far down one of them valleys or underground! I didn’t see any signs.”
Both Barnaby and O’Brian looked at Chad. Stranger things had happened in battle.
“Just the same,” he said, talking to the lad. “I’d feel better if you went back out there and had another walk around. I want you to go at least a half-hours ride in each direction. Any more than that is too far to respond to a call to battle.”
“If they’re out there, I’ll find them.” The lad nodded and saluted, “Is there anything else, sir?
O’Brian looked him dead in the eye, “No heroics! Don’t you go and get yerself kilt! I’d be much obliged ifin ye didn’t force me to have that talk with yer mom.”
The lad’s mood brightened and he smiled. “Yes sir! I’ll remember.”
Chad turned and exited the tent. He walked toward where the cook was preparing victuals, his stomach growled. The cook collected the juice running off the cow that was rotating on a spit. He mixed it with some milk and flour, making a thick gravy for the taters.
He would go back out and look like the lord asked, but he didn’t expect to find much. He knew his job and was damned good at it. If soldiers were hiding, he didn’t know where they would be. He stepped up to where the cook was making dinner. He grabbed a plate and filled it with a thick slab of cow, cut straight from the spit. He heaped on a couple potatoes and grabbed a roll. The cook gave him a deep scowl, but brightened when he saw that he was a scout. Scouts got treated differently in the army.
Chad stepped upslope and sat on the cold grass, eating his meal. He would do as the lord asked. That was his job.
O’Brian sat around the campfire later that evening with his friend Barnaby. “I’m thinking of making the trip into my brother’s castle tonight.”
“You think that’s wise?”
O’Brian shrugged. “I don’t know of a better way to get his side of the story. I’d like to hear what the warder had to say.”
“True, I suppose. I heard Rule is a good man. Honest.”
“It’s the code…”
“Not many like him anymore.”
“True…”
The two men sat quietly, contemplating what they had been told by Chad.
“You think Chad missed something?”
O’Brian placed his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead. “Not like a Bittenmeyer to miss anything. I just feel like there is more going on here than what we can see.”
He pounded his fist into his hand. “Maybe my brother knows something, and maybe he don’t. Either way, I’ll be better off than not knowing. Besides, you can take care of the logistics while I’m gone.”
Barnaby pulled out his tobacco pouch and pushed some of the loose leaf into his pipe. “I’m glad you trust me with the army. I’ll do my best not to get them killed.”
O’Brian threw another large log on the fire and stirred the coals. “You do that, Barnaby. Now, as I was saying earlier. Something here doesn’t feel right.”
Barnaby reached down and pulled out a burning branch, nodded and lit his pipe. “I know what you mean. This doesn’t seem like a siege to me. More like a trap.”
“You get that feeling too?”
“I do. Every siege I’ve ever been party to had three things in common; an all-out assault on a castle, more foot-soldiers, and a leader. The thing I noticed about the story the lad told was that there was no command tent.”
“Hear, hear! There was always one other thing I remember about sieges.”
“I’m listening…”
O’Brian turned his head and stared into the eyes of his friend. “There was always a damn good reason, and it was always the last option.”
“Kings need reason?” Barnaby said, with more than a little bitterness in his voice.
“Careful…” O’Brian said. “I’m a king…remember?”
Barnaby grunted and kicked at the fire causing sparks to shoot into the sky. “But a might fair one…”
“Yer thinking back on your father, ain’t ye?”
“Yes. It was a king that slaughtered him on a trumped up charge of infidelity with the queen. My father never touched the queen. She lied.”
“I know.”
“Yet you did nothing?”
“What could I do, start a war that would kill thousands and threaten the realms?”
“You could have done something.” Barnaby said, taking out his flask and draining it.
“I heard the king died. He fell over his own balcony while taking a piss, drunk as a skunk!”
Barnaby looked at O’Brian and saw the smile.
“You’ve known all these years?”
The king shrugged.
Barnaby laughed and the king joined him.
“I wish I could have seen the expression on his face.”
“They say he screamed like a baby as he fell. He must have had plenty of time to pray forgiveness for his sins...not that the gods gave a damn.”
O’Brian scowled. “No tower is high enough for a man like that.”
Barnaby grunted and sat down on a log.
“I still say this siege seems phony.”
“No king would ever leave a siege to his Hand to orchestrate on his behalf.” Barnaby shook his pipe at the king. “He would make damn sure that all of his advisors would be there on the battlefield with orders..”
“I agree,” O’Brian said, “Although I trus
t you to conduct one on my behalf.”
Barnaby accepted the complement. O’Brian was more of a brother to him than a king. They had a deep history.
“If we make that assumption, what does that tell us?”
Barnaby shrugged and blew a big puff of blue smoke up into the sky. “I don’t know. It makes no sense to me.”
For a while, they just sat, warming themselves by the fire. The flames licked at the sky and the smell of pine filled the air. Barnaby knocked the lug out of his pipe and repacked it. O’Brian stood up and warmed the back of his legs. It was cold now that the sun had set. This land was damp, and the dampness bothered his leg. He had taken a deep gash by a sword when he was younger. It had never really healed right. When the weather was cold and damp, it throbbed like the dickens. Barnaby caught sight of the expression on O’Brian’s face.
“Are you hurting?”
O’Brian nodded. “It’s my battle wound from River’s Run. I took that blade to my thigh…”
“I never knew.”
“I never bragged.”
Barnaby grinned. “That doesn’t seem like you.”
“What? Not bragging?”
Barnaby scoffed, “No, I expected that part. Being stupid enough to leave yer leg exposed.”
“I was young then…and stupid. I thought myself to be invincible.”
Barnaby coughed. “We all thought we were invincible when we were young.”
O’Brian rubbed his leg and flexed it at the knee.
Barnaby nodded. He had wounds that bothered him too, but he was ten years younger than the king. He knew that he too would suffer as he grew old. He didn’t relish the thought. Maybe, after the battle, he would take up the king’s offer for some land and a wench or two. He had been the Hand long enough.
“When are you planning on going?”
“I figured I’d leave for the castle when the white moon sets.” O’Brian looked up at the moon. “It’s too bright. I prefer the dull orange of the Ocht’or.”
“Taking anyone with you?”
“Three guards, no more. We’d just make too much noise and draw attention. A small party is easier to hide.”
“Hmm. Can’t talk you out of this?” Barnaby asked.
O’Brian shook his head, removed a small flask and threw it back before passing it to Barnaby. Barnaby smiled, tilted his head back and let the golden liquid burn down the back of his throat.
“Gods, that be good!”
“Did you see the expression on O’Rork’s face when he got his first taste?”
The men laughed, recalling the way his eyes fluttered and how he choked, trying to breathe.
It was just after midnight when O’Brian located the boulder that hid the entrance to the castle. It was hidden in a boulder field in a narrow ravine behind the mountain not more than an hour’s ride from where they were camped.
The trip had been uneventful. O’Brian pushed on the boulder and inched it away from the wall, taking care not to leave any telltale marks. He entered the tunnel and crawled on his hands and knees in the dark, too afraid of being seen to light a torch.
The tunnel changed direction several times before he reached the end and felt the heavy iron door that blocked his passage. He pulled the chain that dangled from his neck free from his shirt and found the key he kept there for safety. He felt his way across the door searching for the key hole. He placed the key into the hole and turned it, hearing the tumblers fall into place. The door cracked open and after he pushed it hard with his shoulder he and his three men crawled into the tunnel that led to the castle.
O’Brian crawled into the tunnel and pulled the door shut, locking it. “Follow me,” he said, stuffing his key back into his shirt.
They crawled through the passage and eventually entered the castle in the dungeon. O’Brian grunted loudly as he tried to stand.
“I’m getting too old for this…” he bemoaned.
The dungeon was mostly empty. The cells sat open and the stalls filled with fresh hay. A thin man with sunken eyes watched as they made their way across the room. His hands were bound by manacles and his hair, stringy and down to his ass. There were a few others, but for such a large castle, one could consider it to be empty.
By the time he got the others out into the room, he was met by over a dozen men with swords.
“Don’t move,” one of the guards said, pointing his sword into O’Brian’s face.
O’Brian put his hands up and stepped forward into the light of the torch. The guards eyes went wide. “I...I’m sorry m’lord. We weren’t expecting you…like this.”
The guard lowered his eyes and sheathed his weapon. “Welcome back to castle Jonovan. M’lord will be glad to see ye, given the circumstances.”
“Take me to me brother,” he demanded. “I’m on a tight schedule.”
O’Brian had dismissed the men and his brother’s guards had taken them down to the larder for a late night snack. He smiled to himself. Knowing his brother, there would be wenches there. His men would have their fill, if there was such a thing.
They sat in the atrium in front of the fire and talked.
“So, that’s the gist of it,” Marcus said, clapping his brother on his back. He had told him everything he could remember.
“I never would have figured Killoroy to break the trust,” O’Brian said, tilting back his head and draining his glass of fine red wine..
“Me neither,” Marcus said, draining his mug of mead. “It lasted what? A five hundred years?”
“Closer to seven…”
Marcus snapped his fingers and a comely bar maiden rushed up to fill his cup. He reached behind and grabbed her ass under her dress causing her to squeal and laugh. O’Brian looked her over.
“I see ye haven’t changed one bit!” O’Brian said, forcing a laugh.
“I’ll take that as a complement,” Marcus roared, amused with himself.
“So, what do you want me and the boys ta do?”
“How many men you got?”
“Five hundred, give or take.”
Marcus raised his mug. “You brought them all? I feel honored…”
“Ye said ye needed our help. It sounded serious.”
“It is serious.” Marcus raised a brow. “I’m thinking you can raise a bit of a fuss out there. So far, their army has been hiding like kids playing hide-n-seek. Chase them out, give my men something to shoot at.”
“And this dragon I keep hearing about, is it real?”
Marcus’s face turned series. “I’m afraid it is. I thought I had eaten some bad mushrooms first time I saw it. It’s damned big, bigger than I expected, and fast as lightning.”
O’Brian stared expressionless.
“I thought I was having visions?” Marcus explained.
“Oh,” O’Brian grumbled.
“Anyway, it doesn’t get too close and the stone walls, tile roof and iron covered shutters keeps the damage to a minimum. The thing makes a halla of a racket though. Scares the halla out of the people.”
O’Brian looked up through the atrium and saw that the moon had dropped out of sight. “It’s getting late. Anything else I need to know before I leave?”
Marcus shook his head, “Only thing I haven’t told ye is that our brother is on the way.”
O’Brian’s face lit up. “Igneous?”
“Who else?” Marcus grinned. “Better pity the soldiers in that field when he gets here with the gang…”
O’Brian smiled for the first time that evening. “When do you think he’ll get here?”
“Pigeons say day after tomorrow, maybe the day after that. He has a long way to ride from out east. He has to circle the Wild, and the channel is tough to cross this time of year, ice is breaking up.”
O’Brian knew what he said was true. Overlund was fifteen days north of Five Peaks and a good ten days west. It bordered the Spires. The Isles were just as far north, but were surrounded by ocean.
“A couple weeks ago, we could have left the
boats home and walked across.”
“Bad winter?”
“The worst in decades, bitter cold. Snowed for a solid two mōnaðs.”
Marcus’s mouth popped open in surprise. “Sixty-eight days? Straight?”
“Aye, longer ta boot, and the ocean was a solid sheet from us to the shores of Shanty.”
“Halla! How’d ye survive.”
“Women, fur, scotch…” O’Brian drained his mug and motioned for more. “We caught one of the white bears. It fed the town for a couple weeks. Gamey it was…”
“Ye be wanting to stay the night?” his brother asked.
O’Brian shook his head. “I’d love to, but I need to get back to my men.”
“I know how it is,” Marcus echoed.
“Do you think that the darkness is coming like those that foretold it?”
“Who knows these things?”
“Witches, seers…”
“I say we live for tomorrow, and let the future happen.”
O’Brian lifted his mug, “The future…”
Marcus raised his. “May we live to see it.”
They looked at each other and drank deeply.
“Ya know what the strangest thing was about this winter?”
Marcus shook his head.
“The wind never stopped blowing. Not one day. Each and every one of those days the wind blew hard from the north east. A man could barely stand up straight in it. And the clouds, dark as night. Even the lights never showed.”
“The shimmering sky lights?”
O’Brian nodded, motioning with his hand. “Every year they float and swim across the sky. The greens…yellows, purples and reds shine from the cold month through the spring thaw. They’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. This year, we saw no lights.”
“That be a bad omen.”
O’Brian nodded. “The worlds coming apart at the seams, and we have an invitation to watch.”
“You should send a rider out to Overlund to meet Igneous. He needs to know what he’s riding in to…”
O’Brian nodded. “I’ll send one as soon as I get back to camp.”
“Who knows, maybe he’ll change his mind and ride back home.”
O’Brian snorted loudly. “This is Igneous were talking about.”
Marcus grinned. “He’d ride straight into halla if he thought a good fight was to be had.”
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 03 - Darkhalla Page 57