by David Welch
She was working on a linen tunic when the knock came. Kamith had bought a bolt of the dark-blue cloth in the city and had spent most of the day cutting and sewing. She put the work down and walked to the door of the chamber. Opening it, she found herself face to face with Khireg.
“Prince?” she said, surprised. “What can I do for you?”
Khireg’s eyes darted from side to side furtively. Three yards away, in the corridors, a soldier stood. He would not look directly at them, but Kamith could tell he was paying attention.
“I came to invite you to Turee’s nuptials,” Khireg said, flicking his eyes over towards the guard.
A wave of fear and uncertainty ran through Kamith. Turee getting married? What the hell had she been up to?
Khireg whispered something. She wasn’t quite sure she heard right. The words had almost sounded Langal.
“I’m sorry?” she said.
“Turee will be wedding the king,” Khireg said in Trade Tongue, then, in atrocious Langal, he added, “King me take, you to kidnap. Man gone.”
Her mind wheeled through the words. From the way Khireg spoke them, it was clear he had no idea what they meant, so Turee must have spoken them to him. The grammar and syntax sounded about right, given her knowledge of the language. The king was making Turee marry him, and using her as a hostage to force the girl into it. And Gunnar was missing.
A cold dread ran through her. ‘Man gone’. What exactly did Turee mean? Had Gunnar been kicked out of the palace? Imprisoned? Was he dead? Her fists clenched at the thought, tears forming in her eyes.
“Remain here,” Khireg said in Trade Tongue, and then he winked. A half-smile crossed his face. The young man had something planned.
Did she trust him? Did she have a choice? Even with Gunnar’s training, she couldn’t fight off the entire palace guard. Khireg’s caution in being overheard suggested he had something specific up his sleeve.
“I would be honored to stay for the king’s wedding,” Kamith replied. “Please send a servant to gather me when the time comes. I will remain here.”
Khireg nodded his understanding.
“I shall. Be well, Madame Kamith,” he said, and he bowed.
“You as well, Prince,” she replied.
Khireg walked off, and she closed the door. She slid the heavy iron latch into place. All thoughts of the dress vanished. Instead, she went to her packs and armed herself for battle.
***
Gwenahl, Captain of the gate guard, slouched lazily against the edge of the wooden hoarding. The hoardings surrounded the wall, built to extend over the edge and allow them to fend off attackers, but no such invasion came today. The captain had long doubted if anybody ever would. To get to the citadel wall meant getting through the city wall, which hadn’t been done for two hundred years. Even when the Skar’gat lost battles, their enemies, the Jarte to the north and the Lavnas to the east, usually just tore up the countryside without trying to besiege Byhsta itself.
All these thoughts led to his surprise when two dozen armed men, clad in crimson tunics, rolled a cart up towards the citadel doors. They’d tied a log to the top of the cart with ropes, making a primitive battering ram.
“Long live the Red Prince. Long live Elhouan!” one bellowed.
The others cheered in support. People in the street looked on in shock, not sure what to make of it. Then, the shock wore off and about half of the people started cheering, crowding around the ram and the men pushing it.
Ten of the Red Prince’s followers produced bows.
“To arms!” shouted Gwenahl as arrows began clattering against the wooden ramparts of the hoarding and the thick stone of the palace wall. “The pretender is back!”
The dozen men on the citadel gates rushed up to the walls, some moving to the towers flanking the gates themselves. Each had a bow and moved to fire. Below, Elhouan’s men ducked into nearby buildings, firing through the windows. The crowd remained, roaring their approval of the Red Prince’s defiance.
“Death to the usurper! Death to Whenoc!” screamed one.
“Hang the liar from the towers!” screamed another.
“Your king rapes pigs for fun!” shouted a third.
Gwenahl growled and looked to his men.
“Fire at will.”
***
The northern slopes of the Byhsta hill were home to a royal orchard. Apple and pear trees ran in rows to the valley floor. Between them ran ninety men, their chain-mail covered in black cloaks to prevent it from shining in the dim moonlight.
Gunnar ran near the front, beside Elhouan and the men carrying the ram. They approached a square tower, which protruded a few feet from the wall. A lantern hung in the top of the tower, illuminating a figure: a guard. The man hadn’t detected them. He stood lazily, reading one of the fiction pamphlets so popular in the kingdom.
Elhouan motioned them to hold for a moment, and then waved them on. They darted beneath the nearest trees, placing their bodies in the shadows of the trees to hide their forms. Gunnar’s hand flexed tentatively on the unfamiliar grip of the shield they’d given him. It was made of thick oak covered in linen, but it lacked the heavy metal boss of his normal shield. That made it less effective as a weapon in its own right, but he could make do.
A faint roar went up from the south, muffled by the walls and sheer space between them and the distraction force. In the tower, the guard straightened up, looking for the source of the noise.
“Come on,” Elhouan whispered. “Go see what it is.”
The guard pulled his sword but made no move to leave.
“Come on,” Elhouan prayed.
Finally, the guard left, running down the allure towards the distant noise. The tower was empty. No soldiers were in sight on the wall.
“Move!” the prince commanded in Trade Tongue, then he ran up to the wall, feeling for the spot. After a moment, he found it, and he waved his men in. A dozen warriors picked up the heavy log and ran forwards. A command went up in Skar’gat, and they heaved back as one, then rammed the log forwards.
It struck with a dull thud, but the muffled sound belied the amount of damage done. Several inches of plaster had been torn away where the log had struck, and cracks radiated upwards, stopping only when they reached the normal stone of the wall.
“Again!” commanded the prince.
The log struck three more times. The plaster crumbled away in large chunks, revealing a small passage just big enough for a man to make his way through. They funneled in, Gunnar right behind the prince. Five steps in, a spiral staircase spun up through the tower, towards the top of the wall.
They filed up the stairs. Elhouan and Gunnar moved to the right, towards the palace, stopping just outside the tower. The Red Prince counted off the first thirty men and sent them towards the gate, to seize it and keep reinforcements from coming. The rest clustered with Elhouan on the wall, a few feet away from the tower and its candle-lantern, taking advantage of the darkness.
“You’ll never get that ram up the staircase,” Gunnar said. “It’s too narrow.”
“Then pray to your gods and mine that the doors are open,” Elhouan said.
He took off at a fast jog towards the palace. Set flush against the northern wall, it rose several stories above them. Illuminated rooms loomed overhead, out of which any person could stare and see sixty dark figures scurrying about. But they didn’t. Gunnar praised their decadence. Why look out the window when you have love slaves fulfilling your every whim?
They came to the door. Elhouan and Gunnar went first. A bretèche hung over the door, but nobody was in it. Why would there be? They expected no trouble.
Elhouan reached for the latch, but he paused. They heard footsteps below. A half-dozen men ran across the bailey, palace guards en route to the gate to help the soldiers there. The prince let out a relieved breath as he saw them go, then he pulled the latch. For a moment, breaths were held in anticipation. The whole mission could be ruined by this one detail. But then the latch rose, and the door
opened.
They filed into a small entry chamber, surrounded on all sides by arrowslits. No defenders waited, and the next door opened easily enough. The hallway beyond was empty. Candles flickered in wall sconces, casting their glow about.
“I’m not familiar with this part of the palace,” Gunnar said.
“We’re two floors above the audience hall,” Elhouan informed him, “These are guest quarters for visiting nobles. You were staying one floor down.”
They trotted down the hall, weapons out and ready. Nobody stopped them, or even noticed them, until they came to the center of the palace. There, another hall bisected it. Standing to one side was a startled guard. He had a sword in his hand, but he seemed unable to move.
“The Red Prince!” he finally screamed, seconds before Elhouan’s blade ripped through his heart.
Footsteps padded down the stone floors as people ducked out of their rooms to see what was happening. They cried in fear as they spotted sixty armed men.
“Ignore the royals,” cried Elhouan. “Kill the soldiers! Find Whenoc! Take the palace!”
***
The next knock came. She’d been sitting, armed and armored, for nearly four hours. Kamith hoped Khireg was at the door, but she took no chances. She approached with her sword drawn, her buckler shield out in front of her.
“Who’s there?” she shouted.
“A friend,” replied Khireg’s voice.
She maintained her guard. For all she knew, he was at the end of a sword, his every plan and scheme discovered. She pushed up at the latch with her shield, opening the door but not pulling it back. Instead, she retreated two steps and took a fighting stance.
Khireg pushed the door open. Dressed in chain-mail and a crimson surcoat, he held a large shield and a straight blade. Behind him stood a half-dozen slaves, or former slaves, she now saw, as they were all armored and had blades in their hands. Behind them, a guard lay dead, his body hacked into a red ruin.
“My brother is storming the palace,” Khireg said with a smile. “We thought you might want to take part.”
Kamith laughed, and then she shrieked a battle cry.
“Alright then,” laughed Khireg. “Let’s go!”
***
They’d gotten down the stairs when they met resistance. A handful of guards rushed them. Elhouan had dispatched thirty men to clear the upper levels and led the other thirty downwards.
They stood one floor above the king’s audience chamber, on the floor where Gunnar had been staying. It was similar in design to the next floor up, and they stood in the center of the cross-shaped hallways. The soldiers rushed at them from the southern hall, where Gunnar’s room and belongings lay.
“Ready?” asked Elhouan.
Gunnar didn’t reply; he just ran forwards. Men followed behind him. He picked out a palace guard near the center, one who had his sword up and ready to hack down. The man did just that, bringing his blade down at Gunnar’s head. Gunnar flicked up his shield to deflect the blow and, without stopping, stabbed forward with his sword. The momentum of the sprint drove the sword through the guard’s chain-mail, skewering guts as it ran him through.
Gunnar used his shield to knock the guard off his sword and turned to look for another victim, but none remained. Elhouan’s men had closed around him, taking down the five other guards with incredible speed. None of their own lay on the stone floor of the corridor, though one man had a wounded arm where a sword had managed to break his chain-mail.
“Impressive,” Gunnar commented, catching his breath.
“Most served in my father’s armies,” Elhouan explained. “They left rather than serve Whenoc.”
The troops moved back to the center of the building. Gunnar split off, dashing to his room. He opened it, praying to the gods that Kamith was there, safe and unharmed.
Instead, it was empty. So was Turee’s room. He went to his packs, dropping the shield he’d been given and picking up his own. He also grabbed his brigandine coat. As he pulled it on, he noticed that Kamith’s chain-mail was gone. Either she had gone down fighting, or they had just taken her belongings after they’d taken her. Neither option comforted him.
He reemerged, pulling his helmet on and strapping it. Elhouan and the others waited in the center of the room.
“It’s gonna get bloody next floor down,” Elhouan said.
“Won’t be my blood,” Gunnar replied.
He felt his fury growing and fought to control it. His mind kept flashing images of what the king could be doing to Kamith. As they walked the northern corridor to the staircase, he struggled to push the ugly images aside. If he was to get them out of here, he needed to focus on fighting and only on fighting. You let your attention drift in battle and you ended up dead, cut down in the split second your mind was elsewhere.
They reached the stairs, forming up into rows of four, and charged down quickly. At the base, a pair of soldiers ran by. The clash of steel filled their ears, the sound of combat elsewhere. Gunnar instantly knew it was Khireg, no doubt part of Elhouan’s plan: have Khireg start a fight to draw the soldiers to him, and then have Elhouan’s force attack from behind. Gunnar felt a surge of respect for the man. He had no idea what type of person the Red Prince was, but the man clearly had a mind for tactics.
They charged down after the soldiers. They were in a small corridor behind the throne room. The doors to the vast chamber had been thrown open to let guards in, so Elhouan’s men streamed in unimpeded.
Khireg’s knot of men had formed a perimeter on the west side of the room, behind the lines of columns that portioned off the audience hall. Two dozen soldiers had surrounded them and were pressing in, only to be beaten back by frantic slashes and blows. Gunnar spotted Kamith alongside the young prince, her sword red with blood. Whenoc remained on his throne, behind a half-dozen soldiers, laughing at it all.
“Young fool, Khireg! Did you really think you could win? That the Skar’gat would accept a bastard on the throne?” he cackled.
“They got one already!” Elhouan roared, storming into the room.
Whenoc’s eyes grew wide with terror. Elhouan’s men charged into the room and ran for the soldiers surrounding Khireg. The surprised palace guards spun, seeing a force of equal size streaming for them. Gunnar led them, leaving Elhouan and a half-dozen men to take down Whenoc.
Gunnar roared his anger as he charged, thrusting his heavy shield into the lighter shield of a palace guard. The man’s shield cracked from the blow. Gunnar lashed out with his sword, tearing through the man’s helmet and into his skull.
He pressed forwards, stabbing in a relentless pattern, hitting wood and metal and flesh with each thrust. His shield flashed again and again, its bulk slamming into guards’ faces, driving them back. They went down slowly but surely.
Two men away from Khireg’s bunch, a tall guard with an axe launched himself at Gunnar, bringing his weapon down with a hard swing. Gunnar, hemmed in by friend and foe, barely managed to bring his shield up. The axe struck the metal edge, biting through the steel and into the wood. The force of the blow drove him to a knee, and his enemy roared, expecting triumph. But Gunnar simply kept stabbing forwards, even on one knee. His blade tore through the chain-mail protecting the axeman’s thigh, severing muscle and artery. Blood squirted from the wound and the axeman fell back, where his skull was split by Kamith’s sword.
The guards disintegrated, fleeing, but they quickly regrouped, rallying around the sound of a door being flung open. From the main entrance to the throne room came a dozen more guards, each with a sword and a shield. They charged forwards, trying to catch Elhouan’s men from behind.
Gunnar quickly evaluated his force. Eight of the Red Prince’s men lay dead, killed in the battle, which meant he had around twenty. To his left, the king and two soldiers broke free of Elhouan’s attack, scrambling for the newcomers.
If they reached them, they could reach the door and disappear into the main palace. Gunnar was about to order some men to break th
rough and secure the door when Khireg and his band darted forwards. He and two others tried to move around the newcomers, Kamith holding back. She sprinted to Gunnar’s side and kissed the bloody side of his helmet.
“Knew you’d come,” she said.
“Knew you’d be fighting,” he replied.
Elhouan and his people charged up, reforming with his men. As he did, Khireg crashed into the side of the new enemy force, his men barreling in, hoping sheer momentum would break through the greater numbers and bring them to the door. It didn’t. Swords clashed again, and the trio were thrown back. One of the armed slaves slumped to the ground, run through.
Elhouan roared, and his force surged. The newcomers had formed a half-hearted shield wall, but it crumbled beneath the weight of the charge. Gunnar slashed upwards as he collided with the enemy, his blade catching a leg, sweeping up under protective chain-mail and into a hamstring. The man went down, crippled, struggling to get up. Kamith thrust her sword into his neck. She caterwauled behind him and then moved to keep up, following Gunnar as he barreled forward, throwing his weight behind his shield. He crashed into another guard, flinging his sword high to block the man’s attack. The guard stumbled but stayed up, only to be stabbed by another of the Red Prince’s men.
The enemy broke, fleeing, Whenoc ten steps ahead of them. They ran from the audience hall, towards the stairs. Another half-dozen guards awaited them.
Elhouan sprinted to catch the king, Gunnar and Kamith right behind him, but another figure came in faster: Khireg. The young prince threw himself towards the king, who dashed down the stairs to safety. The king’s guards met Khireg’s charge. They fought back furiously, backing the young man towards the far wall, hacking at him from all sides. Blades crashed down on shield and armor alike, and one flashed true, piercing the young man’s side.
“Khireg!” screamed Elhouan, all thoughts of the king forgotten. He ran forwards, his men barely able to keep up with him. The guards turned, overwhelmed by the new crush. The Red Prince swung hard at a stunned guard, his blow ripping through the man’s neck, nearly decapitating him.