01 - Honour of the Grave

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  Lukas made a vaguely affirmative noise.

  “So tell me what you think of all this.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Gelfrat dropped him on his head. “Is that your problem, you knock-kneed fop? That you think you’re somehow alone in that?” He seized Lukas by the heels and lifted him up. “Eh? Or do you think you’re too high-born to answer questions from the lowly likes of me?” He dangled Lukas, upside down, over the battlement, at least a hundred feet between him and the ground.

  “I’m sorry!” Lukas cried.

  “I won’t disagree with you there. Sorry you are, for certain.” He let go of one leg, then grabbed it again.

  “Just get it over with,” Lukas said.

  “Oh, that must be that blue blood of yours, making you think you can still command me.” With Lukas’ ankles caught securely in his fists, he snapped the boy’s body as he would a crab leg. Lukas’ face hit the side of the tower. Gelfrat dangled him up and down. Lukas sobbed.

  Angelika got up, reminding herself that what she felt now was nothing compared to the pain she’d suffered back in the pit. Franziskus saw her, and struggled up, too. They advanced slowly on Gelfrat. Angelika went to pick up an abandoned long sword.

  Gelfrat saw them from the corner of his eye. “You’re not stupid. You know he dies if you jump me now. It’s too late for him already. I suggest you run, like the curs you are.”

  “Lukas had no part in this rescue attempt,” Angelika said, hands up, slowly advancing on him. “He didn’t ask us to come. He’s done nothing to warrant this.”

  “He violated the oath of our company,” said Gelfrat, banging him once again into the tower wall. “While he breathes, my honour is stained with filth. As is my father’s honour, and that of all my comrades.” He shook his captive like he was a sifter full of floor. “Isn’t that right, Lukas?”

  “Yes,” Lukas said.

  “Gelfrat,” said Angelika. “You may have hated your brother, but he was right in one thing: it will cost Jurgen more than he knows if Lukas is killed, either by his own hand, or by any who serve him. The entire bloodline will pay the price, if you don’t pull him up and leave him be. Or do you want to inherit nothing?”

  “You talk of politics,” Gelfrat said. He blew droplets of blood from his lip. “My father and I, we speak the language of honour.”

  “Honour is for some other world, my brother. Not this one.” Benno stood at the top of the steps. He trudged up onto the tower deck. He glistened with blood. It coated his face and matted his hair. He dragged his sabre in his hand; it made a rhythmic bumping noise as it moved from one stone tile to the next. The fingers of Benno’s right hand had all been broken, and jutted out at various wrong angles. He limped. His left eye was swollen shut; his right was a mere slit. Blood dripped from both of his arms, and flowed down the length of his blade. He left a trail of it as he stumbled forwards. Angelika could not tell where the blood was coming from. It would have to be from several places.

  Gelfrat tightened his grip on Lukas’ left ankle, then his right. He turned his head sideways, to see Benno. “I killed you already,” he said, annoyed. “You’ve Chaos blood in you, haven’t you?”

  Benno smiled; a mixture of blood and saliva beaded on the yellow enamel of his teeth. “Idiot.” A laugh, or maybe just a cough, escaped his lips. “Those callused hands of yours never could find a pulse, Gelfrat.”

  “I’ll drop him over and then complete my task with you,” Gelfrat threatened.

  Angelika signalled to Franziskus. While Gelfrat concerned himself with Benno, she stole along the battlement, to the big man’s right. Franziskus, scratching idly at his cheekbone, edged over on its other side, to the left of him.

  “You keep saying you’ll drop him, yet you haven’t. You know what that says to me, half-brother?”

  “What?”

  “That a part of even your dim brain knows not to do this. Is it pride that prevents you from backing down?”

  Angelika tried to catch Benno’s eye, to shake her head in warning. He was taking the wrong tack by antagonising the big man. Yet he’d captured Gelfrat’s attention, in a way she had not. She decided to keep her mind on a single objective: getting closer to Gelfrat, before he noticed her.

  “I’ll let you explain that remark,” Gelfrat said, “because your arrogance always gives me a right fat laugh.”

  “It took me some time to get up those stairs,” Benno said. He’d dragged himself within fifteen feet of his brother. He halted. “I’ve had time to hear you talk. A moment ago, you were happily killing me. Now you’re blaming this poor thing for forcing you into it. Care to reflect on the contradiction?”

  Gelfrat gave Lukas another smack into the wall. Lukas cried out—something about taking mercy on him.

  “Could it be that you hate and envy whoever you happen to be looking at, at any given moment?”

  “Go choke yourself.”

  “How much time have you devoted to wondering which of us is the better man? Always justifying yourself. Never being satisfied with the answers you dream up. You despise me, Gelfrat, but I feel pity for you.”

  Gelfrat opened his left hand. But with his right, he drew scrawny Lukas higher, so that his face, upside-down, made ruddy by blood rushing to his head, could be seen between two merlons. “I’ll drop him. You know I’ll drop him.”

  Benno raised his sabre, his head lolling to one side. “Yes, you’re right; you must.”

  Gelfrat saw how close Angelika and Franziskus were to him. He whipped his head from side to side, showing them he knew. They edged back. “This is trickery. I’ll drop him, and then where will your beloved politics be?”

  “Here’s a new story. Tell me if you like it,” Benno said. Now that he was nearer, Angelika could see at least one source of blood: a wide fold of exposed muscle below his neck, from which red fluid slowly pulsed. He continued, heedless of the life leaking out of him: “Tonight, sadly, the lost son who was so recently reunited with his illustrious father was cruelly slain. Thrown off a tower, by his jealous half-brother, Gelfrat. Gelfrat was then himself slain by another of the Kopf sons, Benno, who suffered grievously in the battle. But survived. When he recovers from his wounds, brave Benno will surely be legitimised. Elevated to the place of True Son, to take Claus’ position as field commander. So throw the boy off, you fat, swaggering chunk of gutter spew, and let’s have at it.”

  Gelfrat gave Lukas one dangle, brushing him against the parapet, then opened his hands. Angelika leapt for the falling boy as Gelfrat turned to draw his weapon. She grabbed Lukas by the belt, her left hand finding purchase mere moments after the right. The force of the sudden weight drove her into the battlement, the edge caught her in the stomach, and knocked the air from her lungs. Her legs flew up. Before she could flip over the battlement to fall alongside Lukas, Franziskus seized her belt. His feet were braced against the battlement. In concert, Angelika and Franziskus groaned. Lukas dangled down into empty air. His dead bulk tore at Angelika’s fingers. She gritted her teeth and shifted. She felt Franziskus tighten his hold on her, hugging her, pulling downwards, lending her the solidity of his weight. The strain moved from her hands to her shoulders. The bones of her arms fought to remain in their sockets.

  Thick red tears squeezed themselves from Benno’s damaged eye.

  Gelfrat rumbled out a laugh. “You’re not exactly fit to take me on,” he said.

  “Fit enough,” Benno choked. “You’re poisoned.”

  “What?”

  “The blades I gave them.” He meant Angelika and Franziskus. “Poisoned, all. And I saw both of them hit you.”

  “No!”

  Angelika willed strength into her arms. Her bones were made of iron, she told herself. She pulled. She got Lukas pulled up a foot. Her muscles juddered with the effort. She couldn’t maintain it. She let him lower slightly, so she wouldn’t entirely lose her grip on him. She asked herself if it was possible to switch positions with Franziskus, letting him do the li
fting. But no, a switch could never work. She had no choice but to keep on, and succeed.

  “Yes,” Benno said to Gelfrat. “Even now, black bile consumes your blood.”

  Angelika called softly down to Lukas, instructing him to place his hands on the tower wall. Push against them. Do anything he could to support his own weight.

  “The poison courses through your veins and arteries. It burns like acid. It’s hot like fire.”

  She tried again to pull Lukas up; this time, she had his assistance. He walked his hands up the wall. She got him up a decent foot.

  “Already it slows your reflexes, distorts your vision. Soon it will travel to your heart, pool there, and cook it like a steak. Until then, all I need do is avoid your weakened, ill-aimed blows.”

  Gelfrat wailed and dived at Benno with a swinging sword.

  Benno easily sidestepped the reckless charge, bringing his sabre down on Gelfrat’s neck as he surged his way by. An artery opened. Blood spouted out, pulsing, jetting. Gelfrat pivoted back to face Benno. He clapped his left hand to his neck. The hand diverted the flow into three tighter streams of shooting gore.

  “You bastard,” he said.

  “The same, and proud,” said Benno, both eyes closed, a leg giving way beneath him. On bended knee, he looked like a supplicant. “And you?”

  Angelika got Lukas far enough up, and well enough braced, so that it was safe for Franziskus to let go of her. He stood up and grabbed onto the boy. They both pulled him up and over the battlements. He landed on top of them; they crawled out, disentangling themselves. He sank into a sitting position, panting.

  Gelfrat wobbled over to a lantern pole and steadied himself against it. Benno fell over.

  “You poisoned me, you two!” Gelfrat shouted, at Angelika and Franziskus.

  “He lied. There was no poison,” Angelika told him.

  “No?” He slid down the pole.

  “No.” She could say it with authority. If you wanted to go sorting through piles of dead soldiers, you had to be able to sniff out the various types of blade venom. If the blades had really been coated in poison, she would have known the instant he handed them over. In truth, no poison that did any good on a blade was half as swift or lethal as Benno had said. He’d given a good speech, though. She’d have believed it, if she hadn’t known better.

  “He tricked me,” Gelfrat said. “Into…” He convulsed and went slack.

  Benno wasn’t moving, either. When she’d recovered her strength sufficiently, Angelika got up and examined him. He was gone, too.

  Bells rang. Angelika looked to the opposite tower. There were men stationed there, too. They were the ones sounding the alarm.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “How long have they been ringing?” Angelika asked, referring to the alarm bells.

  “I don’t know,” Franziskus said.

  “A long time,” Lukas said.

  Angelika muttered a choice epithet. “Then get up and run, curse your hide!”

  Lukas placed his palms on the floor and tried to push himself up. He collapsed, sobbing, dryly. Franziskus put an arm on his elbow and pulled him. Angelika wanted to kick the pathetic creature, but knew that wouldn’t accomplish the desired end. Her desire to help the boy was always stronger when she did not have to suffer his direct presence.

  With Franziskus’ help, she jerked Lukas to his feet. She tugged on his arm, wrenching it, to make him run. He dropped like a sack of flour, throwing his arms around her ankles.

  “Please, please, I can’t… Just leave me be.”

  She crouched beside him. She could hear footsteps and exclamations from the square below. “Find the strength, Lukas, or you’re dead.”

  “Talk to my father. Convince him. You’re persuasive.”

  “This will be his excuse to execute you. If you truly want to die, tell us now, so we can escape without you.”

  He sank lower, laying his face on the floor. “Do that. Save yourselves.”

  Then she did kick him, before hauling him up. With a child’s reluctance, he let her bring him to his feet. She slapped him. He bristled, gathering up his slim, porcelain fist. She smiled inwardly.

  “You’re right,” she said, “You’re not worth it. You’re just what they all say you are.”

  “Stop caring about me!” he shouted, and bolted for the steps. They followed, catching up with him long before they reached the street. Angelika stayed behind him, fighting her natural urge to run, swatting him lightly between the shoulder blades whenever his pace flagged. They quickly covered the short flight of wooden steps, and made short work of the tower staircase. They ran past the cell, where they detected no trace of Nino or Renald. Angelika skipped a step so as not to slip on a pool of blood. She did not bother to guess who it belonged to.

  They left the tower and hit the second stone staircase, which would take them from the top of the town wall to the cobbled square below. Soldiers had gathered. Armed townsfolk swarmed among them; they were, Angelika realised, angling for the reward on her head. There were perhaps two of them for every soldier.

  She seized Lukas by the collar and pulled him away from the steps. The crowd boiled towards them. She turned to run along the wall, to the staircase on the other side. Franziskus initially missed the change in direction but finally reversed course and caught up speedily. He had his rapier out. Men were already rushing up the other stairway, but there were fewer of them. Igniting gunpowder crackled and flashed down in the square. Angelika flinched. As far as she could tell, the bullet hadn’t come anywhere near them.

  A man in mendicant’s robes was the first to reach them as they rushed down the steps. Angelika pulled his hood over his face, spun him around, and tripped him, sending him crashing into the rush of pursuers behind him. They fell like dominoes, forming a great heap of flattened bodies on the stairs. With Lukas’ hand tightly in hers, Angelika kept to the stairwell’s extreme outward edge: it was clear of fallen men. A punch grazed her chin, but it was the feeblest hit she’d suffered all evening, and it did not slow her. Behind her, she heard the clash of steel on steel. Eyes fixed resolutely ahead, she concluded that Franziskus had found some blows to parry. She did not break stride to check. She and Lukas had reached the bottom. A soldier rushed at her with ready rapier-point. She sidestepped, letting him crash into one of his mates, who’d been positioning himself to leap on Lukas’ back.

  “You fools!” she shouted. “This is Jurgen’s son!” Only the men nearest her heard this, but it gave them pause long enough for her to elbow her way through them. Franziskus, pressed past bladesmen, and leapt backwards from the stairs, landing cat-like in front of the gate. He stopped for an instant to marvel at the brilliance of his ten-foot-drop, then he dashed for the gate, which was closing. Angelika and Lukas were hard on his heels.

  Angelika heard loosened chains spinning through a pulley. She pulled Lukas back and shouted to Franziskus. He jumped her way just as the gate’s inner portcullis, a mass of spikes and wrought iron, rattled down, its arrow-shaped teeth falling flush into slots in the cobblestones. Lukas gaped; it would have split them down the middle.

  A rock lobbed in at them; it hit Franziskus on the thigh. He exclaimed more in offence than pain. Lukas bent, straightened, and hurled the stone back into the mob. Angelika felt a pang of admiration—maybe there was hope for the boy, after all.

  The soldiers and townsfolk had gathered in a rough crescent-shape, as they slowly crept up on the cornered fugitives. With the chase at a close, they were suddenly hesitant. It was the nature of a mob, Angelika reckoned; now no one wanted to be the first to act. Those who took the initiative would be rewarded by Angelika’s dagger and Franziskus’ sword. Only after their sacrifice would a second wave attempt to overwhelm them. Angelika steeled herself to seize their moment of hesitation. Holding up her hands, she took a step forward.

  “You don’t recognise him, because his head is shaven, but this is the von Kopf boy, delivered just this morning to your leader,” she said. H
er words yielded a satisfying harvest of turned heads and questioning murmurs. “Your master is the object of a plot by his enemies. Stand back, lest you make yourselves unwitting accomplices.”

  The men didn’t stand back exactly, but at least they remained at bay. She hoped the lie that was about to come out of her mouth would contain at least the vague appearance of plausibility. “The plot is by some of Jurgen’s jealous bastard sons. They wanted Lukas gone, so they could take his place. They switched him for a condemned man, thinking he’d be hanged before anyone knew the difference. You can see how they cut his locks, to further the deception!” She hoped for a chorus of affirmative replies, but got only puzzled looks. She was no orator. She felt ridiculous, using this rousing language.

  “There’s a reward out for you!” someone shouted.

  “Also part of the plot—because we knew…”

  A portly, puffy-faced man in a sergeant’s uniform parted the crowd and spoke in a basso voice. Then we’ll take the three of you to Jurgen, and let him work it out.”

  Angelika attempted to look pleased by this announcement. It was preferable to being beaten to death on the spot, and might lead to a better chance for escape, later. She set the last of Benno’s daggers on the stonework, and kicked it over to the sergeant. Franziskus placed his rapier down, hilt pointing politely outwards.

  The sergeant shouted orders, and soldiers hemmed them in. Each of them was flanked by a pair of men, who seized them by the shoulders. The crowd, disappointed by the anticlimax of their peaceful capture, refused to separate to let them through. The sergeant removed his glove to clout at the faces of unyielding civilians. Particularly recalcitrant onlookers received sharp kicks to the shins. Eventually the soldiers threaded them through the crowd’s other side. Flanked by lantern-bearing regulars, the sergeant led the way to a carriage across the square. He left the prisoners and their guards to stand fifty paces away, and marched up to speak with its coachman.