Take the body and give me the rest

by Julius Schenk

  ‘You okay, Boss?’ asked Grimm once more. Behind him stood the others: Goldie, Flint, Stone, Dagosh and the troop of archers and their Captain—Seth needed to find out her name. ‘I’m more than fine, Grimm. How about us? How did we fare in the battle?’

  Dagosh stepped forward with a broad smile. ‘I’d say we did very well. We’ve secured over two hundred prisoner, all guardsmen. A lot of them fled through the open gate with most of the common folk,’ he said.

  ‘How many dead?’ Seth asked as he started to walk out of the Keep. His Northmen stood behind him and Dagosh took a spot at his side. ‘Around fifty dead on their side, mostly in the uniform of Renton’s guard but some not. On our side we’ve got exactly fourteen dead,’ he said.

  ‘Fourteen? Shit, who were they?’ Seth asked.

  ‘All pikemen from the troops that Flint and Stone led against the wall; that’s where it was the fiercest,’ he said.

  ‘Fourteen men to take the place is a pretty good butchers bill; still, I’d rather it were none.’ Seth walked out of the Keep and wasn’t expecting the roar of praise from his new army. They cheered and shouted, banged shields and spears together and were all talking wildly. Seth was proud to see their Captains were still holding them in formation in the courtyard. Indeed, they were in the same exact formation they had been in when they had pledged to follow Seth only three short nights ago.

  The township and the Keep felt deserted, but he knew people must still be hiding in their houses. Her Ladyship was cleaning herself up to talk to the remaining townspeople and the prisoners, but while it was just he and his men, Seth wanted to speak. Seth stepped forward on the Keep stairs and looked at the assembled troops. Armour was dented and dirty, faces stained and tired and shields had scuffs and hung a little lower. Still, it was triumph.

  Keep it simple, the General counselled. Seth raised his sword in the air and shouted, ‘Victory!’

  He then stepped down from the platform of the stairs and, still a good head taller than most of his men, began to walk amongst them. Goldie, Grimm, Flint, Stone and Dagosh followed his lead and, trailing behind, started to shake hands, talk and even embrace some of the troop. Seth looked at the people who made up the Cold Death and saw them as people truly.

  He saw a pikeman with blood from a cut on his arm. ‘Are you okay, soldier?’ Seth asked the man who was at least twenty years his senior.

  But the man answered with respect. ‘I am. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Get this man a bandage and some care and get some food for these men!’ Seth called out. Some of the Keep chamberlains Dagosh had rounded up ran to get it done. Seth walked through, talking to them all, even the wild-haired desert raiders. He laughed and spoke with them in their tongue, surprising them. Indeed, as he walked he spoke to all in a native language: Cravosi, Pellosi, Northern once or twice and the desert language.

  He soon came to his troop of archers. The Captain was a proud woman, Pellosina, tanned skin and lean, with a wicked cut lip. Seth shook her hand. ‘And your name, Captain?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Stellos, sir,’ she answered with a deep bow.

  ‘A fine shot you are, Stellos, and all of you. I thank you and know I wouldn’t have made it through that room if not for you all. He looked at them from face to face. So many young women, from all over the lands, and all looked at him with pride, fighters all, strong and fierce.

  ‘So how many of you saved my life tonight?’ he asked. ‘Raise your hands. You too, Captain Stellos. I see four of you, more like all of you but four of you in that room at least. Thank you for your help,’ he said again. Seth turned to walk away, but one of the archers stepped out of the line and touched his arm with her small hand.

  Seth turned and saw it was the girl he had saved with his broad sword. She was around his age and, even covered in blood and streaked with dirt, she was pretty, long hair in a plaited ponytail, her hair was soft red. Tight leather pants and tunic, her earlobes notched from a slaver’s knife—but Seth barely noticed that.

  ‘Sorry Sir Seth I just wanted to thank you for saving me,’ she said, bowing.

  The troops cheered for him as they had already heard the story of his bravery in the guardroom in breaking down the door, as well as saving the girl.

  Seth laughed loudly and leaned in and kissed her on the both cheeks in the Pellosi fashion. ‘It would be a shame to let someone so beautiful get hurt.’ He said, playing the role of the cheeky Captain. The troop cheered again as they repeated his words, they were still former slave mercenaries after all.

  Food was starting to be brought to the troops by servers, and Seth climbed back up the stairs to the Keep looking to find the Duchess Elizebetha and get this production started.

  ‘Dagosh, take Stellos and her troop, go get those prisoners. Goldie, Grimm, boys can you take the desert men, round up whoever from the township is left? Tell them the Duchess will be speaking to them.’

  Chapter 31

  The sun was finally starting to rise, showing just how empty the Keep had become. On their knees, in row after black uniformed row, were the remains of the Black Rock guards. Around fifty more than the number of Seth’s men—but then, they didn’t have swords, bows or boots. In front of the stairs of the Keep were the people left from the town that was Black Rock. Nothing had been looted, nothing had been burned and no one had been raped. Seth knew it was a good battle, but the feeling he got from these people was little more than hate.

  Elizebetha looked the best he’d seen her since they had met. She still looked like an older woman but someone in her mid-fifties and glowing with health and energy. She hadn’t spoken a word to Seth when he’d come to get her and show her here. She spoke in a loud voice to the gathered people and to the guards on their knees on the cold stones.

  ‘Good people of Black Rock Keep, I’m truly sorry for the night’s events. As you know, my brother Renton has been killed. He planned to hold my seat, rule in my place and murder me. I know you must be shocked by this violence, but it was the only way for me to live.

  ‘These men are not to be feared or hated. They did all that I asked and came here to save me and did so with the least killing they could. Of you guardsmen, I will ask you to honour your allegiance to Black Rock and to myself as its ruler once again,’ she said, placing the silver circlet back on her head.

  The soldiers of the Cold Death cheered and shouted for her because they had been told to by their Captains. The gathered people looked suspiciously like there still might be a massacre before midday.

  A middle-aged woman with a tear-streaked face stepped forward and yelled, ‘My husband was a guard on the wall and they killed him! He was loyal to Black Rock. What am I going to do now?’ She collapsed, crying.

  Elizebetha was stricken and looked on the verge of tears. ‘I’m sorry for all of this. Sir Seth, please come and talk to them now.’

  Seth stepped up to the rising and looking out onto the people. He felt conflicting emotions. He loved his brave and loyal soldiers; he knew a bigger fight was coming, and that these people and prisoners were just going to get in the way of their survival. He had to do something about them.

  ‘Some of you may or may not know who the Duke of Twin Waters is. Twin Waters is to the east of Pellosi, a very rich, fertile and beautiful land. This man is marching with a troop at least one thousand strong to this very Keep.’

  A thrill of fear ran through the people and the guards. He’d told his troops all this as he’d walked amongst them.

  ‘I know this man very well and he’s coming to kill us. His army will be here in just five days. It will be a siege. There won’t be enough food or water, they will launch fire attacks over the walls and they will try to infiltrate us from the inside. So I want you all to leave now. Get out of this town by sundown tonight or my men will walk you out at sword point,’ he said. They looked at him, stunned. Lady Elizebetha had walked back inside the Keep, crying on the shoulder of her lady.

  ‘Start packing now!’ he shouted pointing
his sword at the body of townspeople. ‘Now, you guards. Any of you who stay will do so because you’re loyal to The Duchess and you don’t want to see your home of Black Rock burned to ashes. Anyone of you who wants to leave right now can do so, but this is your only chance. Anyone who stays, I will have a talk with. And I warn you: I’ll know your face if you’re one of Renton’s favourites—and I don’t like them at all,’ he said. ‘Now stand up, all of you who want to leave.’

  Around twenty men stood slowly to their feet.

  ‘It’s not a trick; we’re honourable men as you can clearly see. Take this last chance to get out now,’ he said again. This time another forty men stood. He had reduced them by sixty and probably more once he talked with them all, but it had to be done. He couldn’t have an army when he could only rely on half of them.

  ‘Dagosh, get these men their boots, walk them to their houses and then walk them out the door. Rest of them back in the barracks for a talk,’ he said.

  Seth spent the rest of the day in the barracks, talking to the remaining guardsmen. He could almost gauge them as good men by letting the ideas of Renton surface about them. If Renton had hated them, they were generally good men in Seth’s opinion. If Renton had loved them, then they were out the gate within minutes. He quickly turned the remaining men into an even hundred he could truly trust. They were the loyal one, actual fighters, who would do him proud. He spoke with them, broke them into five groups, and gave them a Captain each. The man he’d seen that first day at the gate—Griffin—was to oversee the entire group. He seemed well respected.

  Seth did the same thing in the Keep itself. Inside the black building in different rooms, kitchen, dungeon, bedrooms, laundry . . . all told, there were many, many staff members that Renton had had no idea about. Lady Elizebetha managed, without talking to Seth or even looking at him, to help him pick out all who were welcome to stay. A handful was shown the gate that day.

  By sunset, Seth was standing by the open gate with his archers and Captains, watching the last of the people leave, all told there were hundreds. It would have broken Elizebetha’s heart, but Seth knew better. Just wait ’til the siege started and these people started to starve. No food would be going to them when it could go to a man with a sword.

  ‘It’s time for a war council,’ said Seth. He could feel all of this coming to him more and more easily.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ asked Dagosh.

  Seth looked at the guardsmen Captain Griffin. He’d served this Keep more than twenty years. ‘Griffin, I’m sure you’ve seen sieges on these very walls. Your thoughts?’ Seth asked him.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Nothing unusual: count all supplies in the Keep, gather and count all the weapons. Start building some siege weapons like scorpions and rock throwers. Seal that gate up tight and block it with stone as it’s the weakest point,’ he said.

  In Seth’s mind were the battles that the General had fought, that he’d researched and read about and everything he’d ever planned on his own, on either side of the wall.

  ‘We do need to block that gate and stop if from working at all. Once they get here, we’ll need lots of guards on the wall to stop night-time attacks and lots of water and strong hearts for all the fire they’ll start throwing. We still have some time, so I’d like to dig a few more lines of trenches and build some pickets in front of the moat. We also need to clear all the surrounding area of stone and tree; we don’t want anything to fill that moat,’ Seth said.

  ‘This sound like it’s going to be such hell,’ said Goldie.

  ‘It will be, and that’s not the worst part. The worst part isn’t our men outnumbered five to one; the worst part is this man is part of the Dark Guild. He’s the top of order, the General, the First Brother,’ Seth said.

  The boys had seen the creatures in that room, and they knew what the Dark Guild was.

  ‘What are you saying?’ ask Dagosh.

  ‘What I’m saying is that this man can summon creatures so vicious that they will rip through our men like a wind through dry leaves and he can do it without ever breaching our wall,’ Seth said.

  ‘I know how to stop that from happening,’ a voice from behind them said.

  They all turned and looked. Lady Elizebetha stood there. She was dressed in ducal clothes but wearing armour and long sword and looking more full of life than ever.

  ‘I can help you stop him, Seth, and I will. But first we need to talk. Meet me tonight in the Keep.’ With that, she turned back towards the Keep.

  Seth was filled with an almost childlike happiness that she was talking to him again. ‘Good, that’s good. Now last things last. I have some addresses from our friend Rosen,’ Seth said, watching Goldie’s eyes light up. ‘You four and some good men are going to them tonight with some shovels. Be back tomorrow as early as you can, and we’ll start by closing this gate for good.’

  Chapter 32

  For the first time since before the room with Seraphina, Seth sat across from Elizebetha and spoke with her. She finally looked him in the eye and spoke directly to him, not treating him like an executioner she couldn’t stand being around. She smiled at him sadly and spoke. ‘I didn’t intend for it to come to this, Seth. I never realized just how this would all turn out.’

  Seth didn’t want to hear about her regret and sadness. In a way, he felt she was too weak for this life. What did she expect it to be like? Living as a noble in this Keep, servants and servers, never getting her hands dirty in labour or war? It was a violent world they lived in; she’d just been shielded from it.

  ‘You said you could help me stop him,’ Seth said in a quiet voice.

  ‘Yes, I can, and to tell you I must finally tell you my story and the story of this place as well. I asked that you come with me all this way and never told you why. In a way, I was scared, too. I see you, Seth, and your embracing the blood and the darkness. I see you going towards the side of the coin that is the Dark Guild. In a way, I’m afraid of what you’ll become,’ she said.

  ‘I’m still just me. I’m doing what needs to be done, but when it’s time to put down the sword, no one will be happier than I,’ he said. It was a lie. He liked the thrill of battle, the command of men and the power of the taking. Still, he was on her side and against her enemies. He was still loyal.

  ‘The only person I’ve ever taken was my father. It was as you told me the desert people did. My whole life he was by my side, teaching me and guiding me. He was a great believer in knowledge and travelled widely, learning from different peoples and ways. He’d told me when he died he would pass it all to me.

  ‘He had only ever taken one person and that was his own father, so he lived a long life but not unnaturally long. As my father was in his old age and growing sickly, he told me of what he planned. He said he would call forth from the dead land his father, who would take his heart blood and, in ending his life, pass all of what he was to me. At first, I was shocked. I loved this man so deeply, but I knew it was what he wanted, for me to continue the line of gatherers.

  ‘So all alone, without even my brother there, we performed the ritual. I saw the rift appear, the curtain, the bridge to the dead land and through it came my grandfather. At first, he was like a monster, starving and wild, black eyes and teeth. But once he had drunk some blood from father’s arm, he slowly turned into a man, white skin to healthy flesh. I said goodbye to my father as he lay there and died with the knife in his heart. For the first and only time, I felt the infusion of memories, power, skills and essence of who he was,’ she told him.

  Seth had sat in silence, listening to her tale. ‘And then what did you do?’

  ‘I was still young, around your age, and filled with passion for what my father had given me. He knew so much about the world and places. He was filled with the life of his own father and grandfather too, the very man who founded the order of gatherers three hundred years earlier. I journeyed to the desert and lived with those people for many, many years. While I was there, I was told the tale you tol
d me of the Dark Guild member who had killed almost an entire tribe of them. But I’d never known why he’d done it, till you found that library.’ she said.

  ‘It worked. He brought her back. They just needed to kill a few hundred people instead of one and most likely keep on killing even now she is returned.’

  ‘The more lives you take, the longer the dead can stay in our world; that is the terrible truth he learnt that day. But I always knew that. I missed my father so much that I thought many times of calling him back, yet I couldn’t sacrifice one life let alone hundreds to bring him back for a time. I started searching more into the roots of the gatherers. About my grandfather. Where did this power come from? How was it possible to bring back the dead? What was this land on the other side? And what was the origin of this?’ In her hand was a large silver coin. She showed it to Seth. It was completely blank except for some kind of holes on one side but the other was covered in runes and images. It looked like waves of a river.

  ‘This is my legacy from my father Seth. This is what they want from me. In his first travels, my great-grandfather found this coin. It was with the desert people of the south. They taught him the lore and showed him their ways with the dead. They gave him this coin, the whole coin, and told him what it was.’

  ‘What do you mean whole coin?’ Seth asked, handing the coin back.

  ‘There is another side to it, when placed together it locks into place.’

  ‘Ok so what is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s part of the price, Seth. It’s the price you pay to the god of the land of the dead to come back across. This is the coin you pay to bring someone back from the dead.’

  ‘The duke has already done that; he just traded his wife for a river of heart blood, no coin required,’ Seth said.

  ‘What kind of a life is that? Killing every day to live? I’m sure even he gets tired of all the blood’

  ‘But with this coin he could bring her back to real life? Or your father?’ Seth said.