Take the body and give me the rest

by Julius Schenk

  Seth stepped up to Dagosh’s place and let them look at him. Doubtless, he looked very young, but strong and a man to lead. He spoke with a strong confident voice as though he’d done it hundreds of times before—indeed, he had, though with a different body.

  ‘I have friend, a dear friend you might know by the title Elizebetha, Duchess of Black Rock. I, with my men, brought her back home to Black Rock to help her regain her seat there.’ Some of them clapped at this. ‘I have an enemy. I have a deadly enemy in the form of her brother Lord Renton.’ He could hear hissing and some name calling. He liked a vocal soldier. ‘He intends to kill her and intends to hold the seat of Black Rock for himself.’

  ‘We’re not going to let him. Tomorrow I’ll be marching with my men and hopefully with the Cold Death at my back and we’re going to Black Rock to cast him out.’ They were banging spear on shields and shouting now. ‘Then we will hold the Keep for the Duchess and the world will know of our greatness!’

  Dagosh stepped up again. ‘If you agree to this commission, let me know in the usual way.’

  A hundred a fifty voices started to shouted over and over again into the darkness, the voices of men and women of many different nations: ‘Cold Death! Cold Death! Cold Death!’

  Dagosh leaned over to Seth with a smile ‘that means yes’

  Chapter 28

  Seth sat inside of the yellow painted building of the Happy Merchant, but the sign was very misleading, as Rosen sat heavily at his table, a mix of shock and fright on his face.

  ‘One hundred and fifty men, Seth? This isn’t for guarding caravans. And how did you pay for them all? It must have cost a king’s ransom,’ he said.

  Goldie, who was sitting nearby, laughed. ‘More like a duke’s ransom!’

  Rosen narrowed his eyes. ‘Has this got something to do with Black Rock and you becoming a knight and everything?’

  ‘Look, Rosen it doesn’t matter. All that matters is were off on a short training march and I need to buy around thirty horses from you and a few wagons for supplies and the like.’

  Rosen looked sullen. ‘How much?’

  They had pooled all the money he’d paid them for the trip, what they hadn’t spent. ‘I have twenty gold coins.’

  ‘You know that’s not nearly enough to buy thirty horses and five wagons, with supplies included as well, if I’m not mistaken.’ Seth hated that he lived a country where horses cost vastly more than men.

  ‘You’re not; we’ll need supplies for the horses as well’

  ‘Will your “training march” be in the direction of Black Rock?’ Rosen asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Seth.

  ‘And what will you do when you get there?’

  ‘We’ll turn around and come back,’ Seth said.

  ‘Okay, I’ll rent you the horses, wagons and sell you the supplies, but I’m coming as well. I trust you, Seth, but I can’t have someone stealing those animals. I need them for my return trip,’ he said.

  Seth reached out and shook his pudgy hand. ‘Of course. It will be a pleasure to have you along.’

  Dagosh had ridden that morning to the hall of the city watch and let them know in a friendly way that he would be marching with one hundred and fifty soldiers through the city. True, they could have gone around the city, but Seth didn’t intend to lose half a day making a large loop around it just to make the city guard feel better.

  Seth rode at the head next to Dagosh, Rosen and his men behind him. Each one had been given custody of a group of men, with Rosen insisting he get the horsemen so he knew his animals would be well treated. Not that he knew anything of fighting from horseback. Seth was surprised to see him actually riding on a single horse. The poor thing was struggling under his weight and they hadn’t left the city yet.

  The troop marched silently through the city. They stopped trade and made everyone hold their breath in anticipation. The sight of one hundred and fifty well-armed and trained, former slave, mercenaries all marching through a city that had built its wealth on slavery was a good reason for concern. Seth knew the General had led larger and less well-behaved levies and was happy with the soldiers. They marched along with a look of pride on most faces, with the occasional one sneering at a trader or spitting at a slaver if they passed one. Still, they were focused.

  The armour of the men glittered and shone in the sunlight and reflected on the spear tips. Seth consulted with different city guards as they marked the group’s slow progress through the city. It was a thin deception of a training march. Most people in the city thought they were seeing the men who would soon be laying siege to any passing caravan or wagon train.

  As the troop marched its way out through the large city gates and started up the road towards Black Rock, the city drew a collective breath, put daggers away and started to dig up the gold they had buried in their yards.

  That night as the troops of the Cold Death set up their first roadside camp, set guards and built some simple pickets and trenches. Lord Renton stormed into the banquet room of the Keep where his sister sat eating a quiet repast at the large table. She looked at up his red and furious face as he paced over to her.

  ‘Interesting news I have here, sister,’ he said, waving a tiny rolled-up letter, the type ravens carry. ‘That Northern bastard you knighted is now marching back here at the head of an ex-slave army of two hundred men!’

  She burst out laughing, a surge of hopefulness filling her. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked.

  Lord Renton slapped her face hard with his open palm, bringing tears into her eyes. It was like a youth slapping his grandmother. She was shocked.

  ‘Forget how I know that. The fact is he’s coming here. But you’ll be dead, dead, dead by the time he does!’ he said, screaming in her face.

  ‘You can’t kill me yet. One, I have too many guards loyal to me. They might stand by as you continue to rule, but if you kill me they will fight back and you know it. Two, you can’t kill me until he gets here. He wants to take what I have, not just kill me.’

  ‘You know so much, sister. Well, he is coming, and your Northern friend and his little army are going to get caught between a wall of swords and an army five times bigger than them from behind. Then he’ll take what you have and I will finally rule this place and become Second Brother.’

  ‘He’ll kill you too,’ she said firmly.

  ‘No, he won’t. You know everything I do and so very much more.’

  Chapter 29

  The troop of the Cold Death was marching at a fine pace. Stephan the General was extremely impressed with this force. It actually filled Seth with even more confidence. Sure, they were going to face a standing army of double their size, but they would make it work.

  Night had fallen for the second time since they left Pellotina, and the army was only an hour’s quick march from the Black Rock Keep. The soldiers had dug trenches, set guards, kept fires low, kept aware, but Seth knew that his enemies wouldn’t be leaving the safety of the walls to come down and battle him in the field. At best, he had to scout the woods for spies and people reporting their position. It was clear that Lord Renton was aware of the attack; scouts had reported back many more guards at the gate and walls, lanterns lit all along the moat and a sense of wariness you could almost taste.

  The night before, Seth had had a strong feeling of someone coming. He almost felt Elizebetha’s hand in it. He knew without a doubt that someone was coming from the east of Pellosi and he was bringing an army five times the size of Seth’s to crush them against the walls. Getting past the walls was the easy part, he’d said; now it was his turn to see if he could actually deliver.

  The moon was high in the sky and he picked his path easily through the field at the roadside. It was a sparse country. He stood in the sand, next to a small outcrop of trees and brought his dagger from the sheath on his left side. Rolling up his sleeve, he brought the silver blade this time along the inside of his arm, cutting a short but painful cut that quickly started to run and drip with da
rk blood.

  Seth started to murmur to himself, then sing. It was a song he knew well, though his lips had never sung it before. Not like the chant of his own for the Wolvern, but something different. It was a song of longing and human loss. In the dark night, Seth couldn’t see any thickening of the air, but he felt a faint crackle and saw a silver line where the rift opened in the air. With his will and thoughts focused. He pulled through the creature that he sought.

  He looked so very different to when Seth had first seen him. Pitch black eyes, sharp teeth, pale skin and the smell of rot and death, very much the picture of what it was: a sea Captain drowned with a few Pellosi arrows in his back. Seth held his blood dripping arm in front of him and spoke softly. ‘Hallo, Captain. It’s me, Seth. Do you remember?’

  The Captain had clumsily taken Seth’s arm in his teeth and started to suck, bite and lick the blood welling up, gold tooth gleaming. Seth did his best not to cry out in pain as its teeth sank deeper. ‘It’s me, Seth, do you remember? The Young Master who wanted a ride of The Fleet?’ he asked again.

  Slowly, as the creature drank, he saw the eyes start to cloud white and then brown human eyes appeared, his skin started to take a weathered tan and the rancid smell of rot started to depart, locking eyes with him while still drinking and biting. ‘Can you stop?’ Seth asked, starting to feel faint. It stopped.

  It let go of his arm gently and stepping back actually took a breath. ‘Do you remember me?’ Seth asked.

  The Captain looked at him clearly. He appeared just as he had on the dock a few long months ago when he had directed Seth to The Opulent and to safety.

  ‘I think so, lad,’ he said clearly. ‘You wanted a trip on The Fleet, but we were full up on Northern landsmen. Could have used a few more fighters, it turns out.’ It would have been years to him; Seth had forgotten.

  ‘That’s right. How are you?’ he asked.

  He started laughing. ‘I’m dead, lad. Those Pellosi bastards killed me and a better part of my men.’

  Seth felt such a wave of a pity for the gold-toothed Captain, who still looked like a smuggler in the night. ‘I’m sorry you met your end.’

  ‘Never mind that, now. At least I died at sea. Where am I now?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re in Pellosi, and I need your help,’ Seth said.

  ‘I always liked Northmen. I’ll help you; just tell me what needs doing.’

  ‘We’re at Black Rock Keep. I want to get in and the gate’s shut,’ he said.

  ‘You and who else is going in?’ he asked.

  ‘Me and my army,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s all very interesting, I’m sure. Fine, I’ll help you, if it means killing some Pellosi. What do I need to do?’

  ‘I’ll summon you just like now but inside the gate, and you’ll open it up for me and the boys.’

  ‘What boys?’

  ‘Flint, Stone, Goldie and Grimm.’

  The Captain smiled truly this time and laughed. ‘Ha ha, my Northmen! Glad to hear they made it out of that mess and truly. Now I’ll help you for sure. When you’re ready, you call me. I’ll kill some Pellosi bastards and open up the gate for you.’

  Seth pulled a thin and well-made long sword with a silver handle from behind his back and, along with the scabbard, placed it in the Captain’s hand. ‘Here you go.’

  He looked at him and it strangely. ‘A sword?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, it’s easier than using your teeth. I’ll call you. It will be a long time for you,’ he said.

  ‘All I have is time.’ Swinging the sword back and forth, the Captain walked back into the rift, which closed behind him.

  The fire crackled and burned low. The camp was quiet with readiness. Seth strode in from the darkness and, seeing Dagosh, Rosen and the boys around the campfire, he smiled in the firelight.

  ‘Dagosh, get the troops ready; tonight is the night,’ he said.

  Dagosh got to his feet quickly. They had banned all spirits and wine and not brought any with them. They had planned for a quick attack but even so the speed of this was surprising. Dagosh spoke. ‘Of course I can have them ready within the hour and we’ll be at the gate well before the sun even thinks about rising. But Seth, what are we going to do when we get there?’ he asked.

  Seth spoke to them all. ‘The gate will be opened for us.’

  Rosen gasped. ‘You’ve got a man on the inside? You never said you had a man inside!’

  ‘Good one, Boss,’ said Grimm.

  ‘Something like that. But that gate will be swinging in the breeze. When we hit, most of them will be asleep. I know this is a battle, but I want the killing to be a few as possible. A lot of these are good men. We’ve met some. They will join our side once we get rid of Lord Renton.’

  ‘I’ll ready the men,’ said Dagosh, turning to go.

  ‘I’ll leave with the boys now, you follow behind us when you’re ready. Send out one scout when you’re within a sprint of the gate, and I’ll get that gate down,’ Seth said. He motioned to Grimm, Goldie, Stone and Flint, and had turned to walk into the darkness when Rosen took his arm. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  Seth just laughed. ‘You’d better hold back now, friend. It’s about to get bloody.’

  Just the five Northmen again now. They walked quietly up the road from the campsite, swords sheathed but bows drawn with arrows loosely held in position. Ripped pieces of canvas were tied around their feet to cut down the crunch of stones and all weapons were tied tightly to their bodies to cut down the sound of metal on metal. Surprise was their major weapon. Seth knew that coming in while everyone was asleep was the only way to prevent this turning into a slaughter.

  They could see the Keep and made their way slowly towards it. There were no scout patrols yet, but, as they had heard, lanterns lit the moat, the gate was up and four guards stood on outside at the gate’s base.

  ‘Sorry boys, I will have to get as close as that.’ He gestured to where the guards were now standing in the bright lantern light, hopefully not being watched by the guards in the turrets and towers. The Northmen were crouched in the wooded darkness twenty strides back from the main entrance. If they spoke too loudly, the guards would hear them. They waited now. After a short while, Seth heard a very short and soft whistle. He knew one of the scouts, and thus the force, was somewhere very close by. He whistled back softly. ‘Okay, boys, show me how good you are at this archery, then.’

  All four of them stood as quietly and quickly as they could from the wooded protection. They still stood in the darkness but looked down the roadway to the guards at the main gate. Arrows to strings, they pulled back all within moments of one another and let them fly. Seth was already running up the roadway as the first arrow hit, then the next and the next and the last. All of them found the left eye of the guard they were aimed at. The guards dropped to the stone roadway much more loudly that Seth would have liked, with a clatter of steel on stone.

  Seth reached the bodies and the area across from the moat where the bridge would descend to. A good distance to the other side of that gate, but he tried to imagine what it looked like. Luckily, he’d seen it with his own eyes just a short few days ago and imagined the small guard shack, the wheel and counter weights. Singing the song in his mind only and thinking of the Captain of The Fleet again, he imagined the rift, imagined him coming through. Then there was silence. He had no way of knowing if it had worked. As he crouched in the lamplight next to the fallen guards, he expected a cry to be raised at any time. All he heard was a scrap of metal on stone from the gate and then a slight cracking as the gate started to lower over the moat. It had worked. The Captain had done it.

  Seth looked back into the darkness and could see his army making its way slowly and quietly up the roadway as the gate descended at a painfully slow pace. Dagosh had briefed each Captain and his Northmen had already taken spots with one of the troops to make sure all went well. The archers were the first up the road, standing in the dark, waiting for Seth to lea
d them. They had changed their own long bows to short cross bows for what was going to be close quarters fighting. Dagosh appeared with his first troop of pikeman and gave a short whistle from the dark. They were ready and only a very short run into the Keep.

  The gate was now fully down, and Seth looked to see the Captain finishing the last turns of the large wooden wheel. There were four guards on the inside of the gate, all dead. His sword was thrust out from one’s chest as he lay there, sticking into the air. The Captain turned from the wheel, gave Seth a mock salute, plucking his sword from the dead man and disappeared into the rift. Seth quickly ran back into the darkness, finding his archers, Dagosh and his men.

  ‘Let’s get this done,’ Seth said. ‘Archers with me,’ he said, drawing his broadsword to give them some armed cover. They suddenly heard a loud yelling and screaming from all the way up the line of his men in the dark: a horse, the rider holding a flaming torch came screaming. It was Rosen. His horse flew past Seth and was soon halfway across the bridge with him screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Traitors at the gate, men to arms, Black Rock to arms!’

  Seth just shook his head and started running across the bridge. So much for surprise, he thought. He could hear the feet of the army running across the bridge behind him. He shouted out loud and the others carried his cry: ‘Elizebetha, Elizebetha, Elizebetha!’

  Leading an army of mercenaries was different from leading a ducal army. Before they had made the attack, Dagosh had taken Seth aside and got him to speak to the different troops. He told them exactly what he wanted them to do, how to act and finally about revenge. A lot of these former slaves had a reason to hate Lord Renton and also hate his guards and even the people of the city. Former cruel owners and slavers were to be found amongst the people here. He’d told them that he need them to focus on the battle, but once they had won it he would be glad to hear any case against the people left and would want to know which of the guardsmen left were to be trusted.