01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “That disappointed you, I’m sure.”

  “They left the battlefield too clean for my tastes, if that’s what you mean. I followed them north, keeping a few hours behind them. Then I heard the clanging of swords. In accordance with my usual caution, I stayed well back of the fray. I merely assumed they’d found a new party of orcs to fight. It wasn’t until a troop of motley battlers came out from the trees, wiping their swords clean, that I realised they’d been fighting other men. Even then, it never occurred to me they were Prince Davio’s irregulars—I’d taken them for common bandits.”

  “A fact you chose not to mention to Benno and Gelfrat.”

  “To avoid awkward questions. Like: were any of their men still in the midst of dying when I secured their valuables.”

  “And were they?”

  “The important point is this: late in the skirmish, I saw several of the Averland side get up and run for the hills. Three of them had been playing dead. And one had something glinting on his boots, as he ran.”

  “The second set of gold buckles.”

  “Which would make him the other officer they seek.”

  “And this is why you ran?”

  “If it’s him they truly want, and we can find traces of his passing, then we can go back and demand a higher price for what we know.”

  Franziskus sat down, flourished his cloak around him, and crossed his arms. “Once more I’ve made myself a party to dishonour.”

  Angelika smacked her hands together, then wiped the sweat from her hair. “What harm have I done them? I took them to Claus’ body, as I’d promised, then departed before they even had the chance to pay me. To me, that sounds like the height of generosity.”

  “But you left merely in hopes of extorting greater sums in future.”

  She set off to the north. “You speak in hypotheticals. Who knows? It’s unlikely, after so many weeks, but we might even find him in one piece. What would be wrong with that?”

  “Now you’re speaking rhetorically.”

  “This is the way,” she said, eyes on the trail ahead. “They fled as we did, running up that terraced incline, there—see?—and into these woods. And there’s only one way to head from here.” Angelika proceeded slowly, scanning the forest floor, in case she might spot a button on the ground or a tuft of yellow fabric still stuck to a jabbing branch. A finch, his throat adorned in bright red feathers, landed nearby and warbled, showing them the way. After a few minutes, they spotted an upward path, which would lead them higher up into the mountains. It presented them with a choice of routes. “So, you’re a skinny young Imperial officer,” mused Angelika, “and you’ve fled into the mountains alongside a couple of soldiers. Do you stay down here in the foothills, or do you keep going up?”

  “If I know the men chasing me are out for blood vengeance, I’ll take the toughest, most discouraging path.”

  “Then up we go.”

  The trail terminated at the bottom of an incline made of loose, fist-sized rocks. At the top, Angelika could see a lush stand of tall weeds. She and Franziskus crawled to it like crabs, using their arms and feet to haul themselves up. Every so often, one of them would hit a patch of looser stones, and slide down with them, losing dozens of paces each time. Angelika got to the weeds first, and reached out to grab at their roots.

  A thick, stout-fingered hand reached out for her, wrapping itself around her wrist. Its owner pulled her up. Her legs dangled wildly beneath her. Her rescuer was a halfling. With his free hand, he smashed her in the face.

  Suspended by one arm, Angelika could not move back to evade the halfling’s second blow. It hit her right on the bridge of her nose, just as the first one had. Her vision blurred. She stopped flailing her legs and instead jabbed them in front of her, trying to find something solid to plant them against. A rock sailed in from behind her; Franziskus had thrown it. The halfling ducked, and Angelika wrenched herself free, dropping down onto the loose rocks. She landed on her knees and slid, skidding down the incline past Franziskus, who now had his rapier out. He charged up the slope, but his efforts just loosened more rock, so he remained in one place, showering stones out behind his skiddering boots. Angelika’s assailant appeared at the plateau’s edge, brandishing a fat-headed cudgel of lacquered wood. It was the same halfling who’d assaulted her back at the Castello. He opened his mouth and yowled at Franziskus, who stooped to lob another stone at him. The halfling popped back, disappearing from view.

  Franziskus turned to check on Angelika; who’d regained her footing. “Do we run?”

  Angelika crouched to scoop up a rock. “We need to chat with him,” she said.

  The halfling stuck his head up past the weeds. She chucked her stone. It hit with a satisfying thud. The halfling cried out. He yelled obscenities in the halfling tongue—the only words of the language Angelika could recognise—and hurled himself over the ledge onto the rocks. They sprayed out at his point of impact. He shot past Franziskus, who tagged him with his rapier tip, drawing a tiny gash along the back of his weapon-hand. Then he launched himself at Angelika. She moved aside from his bullish charge, but he reached out on the way past and seized a handful of her hair in his fist. He dived, using his momentum to pull her down. She landed on her shoulder blades and elbows. She rolled onto his back and clawed at his leather helmet, hurling it aside. It hit the rocks and bounced to the bottom of the slope. She grabbed onto his ears.

  “Not that trick again, girlie,” he grunted, and pushed himself up, knocking her off. He turned to smash her with his cudgel, but she’d already twisted out of the way. He clambered up. A stone hit him in the gut: Franziskus again. The halfling ducked down to claim a rock of his own, but Franziskus got him in the temple with a second lob. He barked like an animal and ran at Franziskus, who had dropped his rapier, to pick up stones. Franziskus hurled two rocks at the halfling in the course of his charge, but both fell short. The halfling swung his cudgel wide, and Franziskus ducked to miss the blow. This left his throat exposed, so the halfling wrapped his hand around it. Franziskus’ eyes bugged out.

  Angelika leapt on the halfling, a six-pound rock clutched in both hands. She smashed it repeatedly onto the back of the halfling’s bony head. After the third blow, the halfling’s knees buckled. After the fourth, he released his grip on Franziskus’ throat. Between the fifth and sixth, he sank down onto the rocks, face up. His eyes fluttered shut. Moments later, they reopened.

  “You should not be conscious,” Angelika said. She raised the rock above his head, ready to crush his windpipe. The halfling weakly waved his hands. “I give in,” he said.

  “Resilient bugger, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Mother Goatfield didn’t raise no weaklings, girlie,” the halfling croaked, spitting foamy drool.

  “Your name is Goatfield?”

  “Toby Goatfield, not that it matters to you. The name of interest here is Lukas von Kopf.”

  “Lukas von Kopf?”

  “Don’t play like you don’t know it.” He paused for a fit of choking. “That’s who the Averlanders brought you here to find. And we think you know where he is. He’s alive, isn’t he?”

  “So you came to get your head half caved-in as part of an ingenious ploy to wheedle information from us?”

  He sat up. She put a foot on his chest, pushing him back down. He looked at it like he might bite her toes. “You can arouse me into fits of tumescence all day long, girlie, if that’s what you want, but maybe you’d prefer silver instead.”

  Franziskus leaned forward to grab at Goatfield’s greasy jacket. “Speak respectfully to the lady, you rancid heap of gutter trash!”

  Goatfield wheezed. “You’re pretty, too, boy, though you’re not my type.” A satyr’s grin bloomed on his wide and battered face. Franziskus lurched up, disgust contorting his features.

  “Who do you work for?” demanded Angelika.

  The halfling added teeth to his smile. “It’s a secret, but if you lean in and let me smell you, I might just let it sli
p.”

  She kicked him in the groin. He doubled up, knees to chin, and made agonised noises. She waited a while, then kicked him in the behind. “Ow! Enough torture, girlie! I work for Davio Maurizzi!” He opened an eye, looking up to the top of the slope. Together, Angelika and Franziskus took a step back.

  “Do you have confederates up there?” she asked.

  “What would make you think that?”

  She said to Franziskus: “He has confederates up there.” She bent down to grab a handful of the halfling’s ear and squeezed it like a rag. Tears dripped from the sides of Goatfield’s eyes. “And if we took you to this Lukas, you’d just bash his brains in, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, no, girlie! If I don’t bring him in breathing, I don’t get paid!”

  “And what does Prince Davio want with him?”

  “As you know, the boy’s father has been holding a grudge against Maurizzi, and has been killing his mercenaries. I suppose the prince reckons a hostage might change old Jurgen’s tune. Your enemy’s last surviving legitimate heir—that’s a fine catch on any day of the week.”

  “So you know Claus is dead?”

  “We sifted through his bones, hours before you arrived. That makes Lukas the prize. He’s worth more to us than whatever those cheese-paring Averlanders have offered you.”

  “How much?”

  “If you turn him over to us, we’ll double their price.”

  “That would be four hundred crowns.”

  “A steep figure, but I’m sure the prince is good for it.” He propped himself up on his elbows.

  “Why have you persisted in attacking me, then, if you had all this money to persuade me with?”

  He coughed, without covering his mouth. “I respect no one until I’ve tested them in combat. A habit taught to me by my beautiful mother.”

  “A reckless policy.”

  “I’ll not have you insulting my mother!”

  Angelika sighed and let him rise. “Take us to your friends, then we can work out the details of the exchange.”

  Goatfield grinned and smacked his lips. He pointed up at the plateau. “They’re waiting up there for us. You’re lucky, my little sweetmeat: for some reason, they failed to come to my aid, even while you so cruelly mishandled me.”

  “Perhaps they do not respect us until we test you in combat.”

  They tramped laboriously up the incline, cascading more rocks down behind them. They stopped at the top, when they reached the weedy ledge, and turned to look at each other.

  “After you,” Angelika told Toby.

  “No, girlie—after you.”

  Neither moved.

  Franziskus strained up, clutching onto the tallest and sturdiest-seeming of the weeds with both hands. He grunted and lurched; Angelika grabbed his legs and pushed on them, sliding back. The halfling stepped in to brace her. Franziskus dragged his torso through the weeds and kicked himself free of Angelika’s arms. Then he kneeled to take Angelika by the elbows and haul her up. Goatfield moved to grab her legs, but she muttered and kicked at his head. With Franziskus pulling on her, she wriggled up, face-first into the maze of plants. He drew her to her feet.

  They were now standing on a green, boulder-strewn alpine meadow, that seemed to be squeezed by two outcroppings of mountain rock that narrowed toward them. The flatland rose gently for about three hundred yards, terminating in a dense wood of tall pines.

  Two figures, who had been sitting opposite one another on the outcroppings, strode easily towards them. On the left, nearest Angelika, came an elf. Pink, unblemished skin covered his angular face. His eyes were the colour of new grass.

  As he walked, his shoulder-length straw-coloured hair floated out behind him. The elf was clad in a long sheepskin coat, worn over a linen shirt. His hide trousers ended in ermine ruffs; his thin shoes were made of the same material, and laced with rawhide. He smiled at Angelika. In his left hand he held a gleaming sword, five feet long and little more than an inch wide, its blade incised with runes.

  Bounding at Franziskus was a second halfling, apparently bald under a cap of iron, which was adorned with a six-inch spike on its crown, and a ring of smaller jabbers which curved up like boar’s tusks along its rim. His right eyebrow was black, his left was white; they met in the middle and made war with one another. A wispy moustache, of grey and red hairs intermixed, sprawled across his upper lip, then drooped down on each side, hanging past his jaw. He’d threaded the ends through a series of metal beads, each moulded in the shape of a moaning head. His frame was even broader than Toby Goatfield’s; his tight shirt of mail links highlighted the blocky muscles of his chest and arms. He wore mail on his legs, too, but his feet were bare. They had red and densely tufted hair on the top of them; the soles were hardened by least an inch of callus all around. He held a double-bladed war axe, its head more than two feet wide. He curled his lips, revealing inflamed gums in full retreat from a set of crooked, oblong teeth.

  Toby, who was still stuck halfway up the ledge, interrupted his struggles to introduce his companions. “This is Elennath,” he said, meaning the elf, “and my boon companion, Henty Redpot. Better do as they say.”

  Angelika danced back to kick Toby in the face. Screaming various blasphemies, he fell from view, accompanied by the sound of sliding rock.

  The elf said something about Angelika surrendering.

  Angelika pulled her knife and ran for the trees, shouting for Franziskus to do the same.

  Henty lifted his axe above his head and charged at Franziskus. Franziskus dived sideways to miss Henty’s blow, and landed hard on his ribs. He rolled out of the path of another. Henty pressed his woody foot down on Franziskus’ ankle and brought his axe cleaving down. Franziskus twisted out of the way. The axe sunk deep into loamy soil. Henty yanked at it. Franziskus used his chance to get to his feet and run. Henty roared.

  Elennath, meanwhile, pursued Angelika nimbly. He leapt over boulders, his hair flowing behind him. Clasping his hands together around the hilt of his sword, he dived at Angelika’s back. His swordpoint caught only air, but he landed on Angelika’s legs, bringing her down. Her chin struck a rock. Her knife hit the ground and bounced. He’d lost hold of his weapon too now, so he crawled onto her back, to reach out for her knife. She elbowed him in the eye and managed to flip over onto her back.

  Franziskus ran for the pines. Henty chased him. Blindly, Angelika patted grass, searching for her knife. Elennath grabbed her wrist and twisted it. He seized her knife and drew it back to strike at her throat.

  Franziskus, fleeing Henty, saw this. He changed direction, curving toward Angelika, Henty at his heels.

  Angelika’s weaker hand found a thick branch. She swung it, deflecting Elennath’s stab. The blade grazed her hip, slicing a hole in her tunic.

  Belatedly, Franziskus drew his sword. He flourished it, swiping it through the air in the classic intimidation pattern he’d been taught by his duelling master. Henty’s eyes followed its progress until Franziskus had the manoeuvre halfway completed. Then he swiped with his axe in a backhand, bending Franziskus’ rapier in half and sending it thudding into the weeds.

  The weeds by the ledge shook. Toby’s head and arms appeared. Angelika’s eyes widened. Elennath looked back. Angelika leapt into the air, knife outstretched, and brought it down. Its tip cut left to right across the surface of Elennath’s face, leaving a red diagonal line that stretched from his hairline, over the bridge of his sublime and narrow nose, all the way to his jawbone. His hand went to his face. Angelika ducked down, grabbed a rock, and lobbed it at Toby. A thud. Toby disappeared, yowling.

  Henty punched Franziskus in the chest, making him reel. Henty punched him in the mouth then leaned in and recovered his axe. Franziskus ran for the trees.

  Angelika saw him and broke for the trees, too.

  Franziskus was the first to get there. He scrambled up the side of a pine. Angelika reached the woods. She turned to hack at Elennath, whose coat and shirt were now spackled with his blood. H
e easily skipped around her blows.

  Henty rushed in, axe raised. Angelika skidded, filling the air with brown pine needles, and tripped the massive halfling. Henty flipped nose-first into the trunk of Franziskus’ tree. Elennath sliced his curving blade in at the prone Angelika. “My face!” he shrieked. A dazed Henty fell back onto Angelika’s side. Elennath’s dagger-point slammed into the mail shirt protecting Henty’s ribs. Henty groaned. Angelika groaned. Elennath raised the dagger for another strike, then saw that its point had snapped off.

  Franziskus jumped from the tree, kicking Elennath in the temple and knocking the elf down, before landing on him. He twisted Elennath’s elven hair in his fist, then smacked its owner’s face into a tree trunk until he went limp.

  He turned and saw that Angelika and Henty had both disengaged, and were on their hands and knees, trembling and puffing. Henty’s spiked helm had fallen off his head, revealing a sparse coating of coarse red fuzz. Angelika shot a steadying hand out to grip a tree trunk, and forced herself to her feet. Henty moaned and did the same, teetering in place. Franziskus weaved up behind him. Henty angled himself in Franziskus’ direction but could only gape at him with open-mouthed resignation. Franziskus seized one of his shoulders. Stumbling, Angelika grabbed the other. She placed a hand on the back of Henty’s fuzzy head. Together, they smashed his face into the nearest pine tree, twice. His eyes rolled up and his legs went slack. He had only reached his knees when all signs of consciousness abandoned him.

  Franziskus put a finger to the halfling’s neck; a vigorous pulse still coursed through him. Angelika checked the elf—he too was alive.

  The elf had a heavy pack on his back. She hauled it off him and forced its rusty buckles open. Inside was a small crossbow. She handed it to Franziskus. “Do you know how to work one of these?”

  Absently, he slipped a bolt in place, stuck his foot in the stirrup, and cranked on the crannequin. “Passably. My friends and I toyed with such a bow, one summer, out of childish curiosity.” The world was wavering before him still; he wiggled the furrows of his forehead.