by Adam Carter
“Don’t expect you to. So, Crenshaw, any trust issues you want to get off your oh-so-manly and naked chest?”
“No. I’m good.”
“Then, my friends, it looks as though from this moment on we’re heroes.” Asperathes held out his hand, palm facing down. He waited several moments before glancing at the others. “Come on, this is how to seal a pact with dramatic effect.”
Moya made a show of sighing and slapped her hand down upon his. Crenshaw followed suit, and they formed a circle of allies which no one could break.
Things were only going to get better from now on. He could feel it in his gut.
“Although,” Asperathes said, just to ruin the mood, “I did warn you against kissing her.”
HERO CAST
Book 2
THE HEROIC VILLAINS
CHAPTER ONE
“Ma’am, they’re not giving us anything.”
Serita Wren listened to her sergeant’s report and tried not to allow her exasperation to show through. This was the seventh time this month she had arrived only hours too late to catch her quarry. It was getting to the point that she was becoming a laughingstock back at the castle, and if Wren intended to progress any further she needed this capture under her belt.
“Single out three of the smug ones,” she said, not liking the order herself but knowing she would have to do something drastic if she was going to catch her prey.
“Ma’am?” her sergeant asked in confusion.
“Everywhere we go, Sergeant, they’re protected by the people. We need to take that support away from them. Without the people, they’re nothing.”
The sergeant nodded and moved off eagerly to obey orders. Sergeant Arno Canlin was a good enough man, but he was also a heavy-set brute of a man who wore black armour with far too many spikes. He carried as many large weapons as he could and had a massive battleaxe on his back. There were many who believed the axe was just for show, but Wren had seen him wield the thing in battle and even she was repulsed by the results it produced.
Wren did not see herself as similar to Canlin in any way. She was in her mid-forties now, her short dark hair showing signs of grey. She kept herself physically fit and prided herself on the belief that she could defeat in hand-to-hand combat anyone in her regiment, Canlin included. Her armour was as black as Canlin’s, although without the spikes, with a black cloak inlaid with red lining draped down her back. Serita Wren had been a captain in the service of Baroness Thade for far too many years now and was beginning to despise it. Ten years earlier she had been on the verge of promotion, but had ruined all such chances while collecting weapons for the castle. She had encountered three people who were accused of attacking the baroness’s castle and they had managed to talk her out of their guilt. Then they had attacked her regiment and fled in what Wren could only describe as a foamy bubble, floating away on the wind.
The baroness had not received the report well, especially when it turned out the castle really had been attacked and most of her soldiers killed. Wren had been placed in charge of apprehending those three – termed heroes by the populace – and had spent the past decade searching for them.
Promotion continued to elude her, but if she could only find her prey she had no doubt the baroness would reward her royally.
“All set,” Canlin said, rejoining her. “Please tell me you’re going to torture them.”
Wren did not bother to answer him but trotted her horse forward, regarding the villagers standing brazen but frightened. They had come to a village, only a small settlement, and her soldiers actually outnumbered the population. Looking out across the faces, Wren realised just how tired she was of it all.
“Jobek Crenshaw,” she said loudly. “Karina Moya. Asperathes. Those are the three we want. They were here not long ago but they’ve moved on. Tell us where they went, what provisions you gave them, anything else that might be of use in their capture. If you refuse, the fate of those three will be visited on these three.” She indicated the people Canlin had drawn to one side. One was a man in his early-thirties, another a woman slightly younger. She was horrified to see the final member of the chosen group was a girl of perhaps thirteen. Wren looked at Canlin, who grinned back. The man was a savage.
It was, however, too late for Wren to back out of her threat now.
A low rumble passed through the crowd as they conversed, but Wren could see in their eyes that they weren’t about to give up their heroes. Wren looked to her prisoners and wished someone would say something.
Canlin laughed greedily and took a step towards the prisoners. He grabbed hold of the woman’s arm, but the young girl kicked him in the shin. It did him no harm and he released the woman and struck the girl hard across the face. The crunch of his black gauntlets against her face was sickening and even Wren winced as the girl fell. Canlin approached her with murder in his eyes, but Wren had never been one to allow Canlin to indulge in his horrible pleasures. Killing people was what soldiers sometimes did in order to keep the peace, but Canlin killed people because he was psychotic.
“I’ll repeat my demands,” Wren said, her words making Canlin stop. “No further harm shall befall any of these prisoners if you give me what I want. Otherwise, my sergeant’s fists will be the least of these people’s worries.”
The crowd muttered again, although none seemed about to break. One man shouted something derogatory about Wren’s parentage, a woman shouted something about the captain’s nocturnal habits, but Wren was above rising to name-calling.
“Crenshaw and his people,” Wren said, “can’t be worth the lives of your families. Surely whatever they’ve done for you, whatever good they’ve achieved, it was to protect your families. If these …” She hesitated, hating to use the word which was being bandied around so much lately. “If these heroes want so much to save your lives, give them up to us and really let them save you. You have my word that if you give them to me, no harm at all will come to your village.”
“Do what you what,” the captive man said defiantly. “You have no idea what heroes are, do you? That’s the saddest part about all of this.”
Canlin desperately wanted to kick the man to the ground, but Wren approached him instead. She moved slowly, all the while looking into the man’s eyes and trying to work out why he was willing to die for no reason. Death was eternal and the only things worse than death were torture and watching your loved ones die. Even if these so-called heroes had helped the village somehow, how could it be worth dying for?
“Why?” was all she asked. “Why are you so ready to die?”
“Hope.”
“Hope?”
“The baroness is a tyrant,” the man spat. “So long as those three are alive, so long as they’re free to do what they need to, there’s hope for the baroness being torn from her throne and tossed in the gutter where she belongs.”
Canlin restrained himself no longer and kicked the man in the back of the legs, forcing him to his knees, before striking him so savagely upon the back of the head Wren could hear a tooth crack. Wren herself was paying little mind to what was going on, however, for she was thinking through what the villager had told her. Hope. It was such a foolish notion, such a ridiculous thing to die for. Even if the baroness could be killed by three people, it wasn’t as though any of them were actively doing anything about her. For the past ten years all they had done was wander around the lands causing trouble. Their guerrilla tactics and cowardly blows had been enough to make the people fall in love with them, and Wren had just about had enough.
“You’re a fool,” she told the man. “And I’m sorry your heroes have brought this upon you. Sergeant Canlin, set the stakes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The villagers lost some of their defiance, and even the man and woman about to be executed paled, while the girl began to sob. Wren did not know their names, did not want to know their names. She would already have their faces on her conscience for the rest of her life, there was no need to be remi
nded of them whenever she heard anyone with a similar name.
Sergeant Canlin gave the commands to bring in the stakes and the soldiers went to work slowly, for Canlin was a brute and wanted to eke out as much torment as possible from his victims. Wren could have sped up the process, although the longer the villagers had to consider their position, the likelier they were to relent.
After an eternity the stakes were set up. There were three stuck into the ground: giant wooden poles fifteen feet tall and a full foot wide. They were affixed solidly into the ground, about the base of which were piled a seemingly haphazard array of faggots which were actually of scientific emplacement. Canlin delighted so much in torment he had conducted studies and knew how to mould flame as a sculptor does clay.
The villagers watched in silence as the faggots were slowly drenched in flammable oils, the wood slivers greedily soaking up the thick liquid.
Still no one surrendered any useful information.
Wren motioned and the three prisoners were seized and dragged to the stakes. They were thrust against them, their hands bound behind their backs about the poles. It was only now that they struggled, and Wren could see their hearts pounding, sweat drenching their bodies even before the intense heat had been applied.
Canlin lit several torches and handed them to his soldiers, who surrounded the three victims. He approached Wren with a burning brand and she took it without thinking. The wood was strangely cold in her hand, as though it was a splinter from a coffin, the crackling flames burning its head and flushing her face with heat.
She took one final look about the gathered crowd. “This is your final chance,” she said. “Your heroes have forced this, for your heroes should be burning here in place of your families.” She paused as her gaze continued to roam. “A final chance to save the people you love.”
Silence.
She looked to Canlin and did not even have to nod, for he was already directing the soldiers. With a single command, torches were plunged into the oiled faggots about the feet of the male prisoner. He screamed, the oil catching so quickly from so many torches that Wren knew the fire would lick his flesh from his bones long before the smoke could have got to him. In this Canlin was a master, and it was something of which he would have been oddly proud.
The nameless woman on the pyre beside him began to shriek, although her words were unintelligible. They were certainly not a confession and that was all Wren was interested in. The wails turned to pleading, to repentance, but there was no useful information along with it so it was nothing Wren could work with. Finally the woman’s energy was spent and she sagged against her restraints, mumbling tearful prayers to whatever gods she worshipped. If that was how she reacted to watching someone else burn, Wren shuddered to think what she would be like when her own turn came.
Wren noticed Canlin was waiting impatiently and she nodded her head almost imperceptibly. It was enough for the sergeant, who gave the order for the woman to be burned as well.
The woman’s screams drowned out the crackling of the pyre beside her. By this point her male colleague had already succumbed to the pain and was unconscious, but Wren had the impression this woman would last much longer. Through the sheer joy reflected by the firelight in Canlin’s face, the sergeant clearly thought this as well.
Two minutes later the woman was still screaming, her body having become a writhing mass of living flame. The wind shifted and Wren caught the stench of burning flesh. Her stomach churned at the miasma, but vomiting before all the villagers and soldiers would have done nothing for her situation.
Canlin took a step towards the final victim, torch in hand, ecstasy in his face. Wren followed his gaze to the girl tied to the stake. She was shaking, her eyes were flowing with tears, but not a sound escaped her lips. Wren could not remember much of when she had herself been that age, but had she committed any crimes she could not believe she would have deserved to be burned alive for them. In fact, Wren could think of no viable reason a girl who was barely a teenager would deserve to be burned alive.
Taking a step between the girl and her executioner, she said, “It’s all right, Sergeant, I have this one.”
For a moment Canlin looked annoyed, but then his smile returned and he performed a slight bow. “So long as the girl burns, Captain.”
Wren had nothing to say to that and turned to face the child on the pyre. In the background, the fires from the other two victims were burning violently, hungrily lapping the air and attempting to consume anything which might stray into its path. The man was now dead, of that Wren had no doubt, and even the woman had ceased screaming. Wren moved so close to the pyre that she was barely arm’s length from the girl.
“Tell us,” Wren whispered, trying not to let her voice tremble. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“No one’s making you do anything,” the girl said. Wren could see she had all but collapsed in her bonds, for her legs were bent at an angle which told the captain the girl’s body was giving up, that the rope was all that kept her upright. Above the smell of the oil, Wren’s nose told her the girl had at some point lost control of her bowels.
“I’ll kill you,” Wren said, “if I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“You’re too young to understand duty, girl. Image is everything. You’re a teenager, you should understand that.”
“I’m twelve,” she said with hard eyes, “and my name is Lorraine.”
Wren winced; that was information she had not wanted. Canlin was right: she should have just burned the girl and been done with it. There were only so many final chances Wren could give someone before everything fell apart. For the sake of her own sanity, she should have understood the meaning of the word final.
“Please,” Lorraine said. “Please, Captain.”
“Look in the direction the heroes took and I’ll let you live.”
Lorraine’s lip quivered, blood flowed from where she had bitten it through, and she lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Wren said and dropped her torch.
The girl screamed as Wren stepped back, the oil catching immediately, the flames shooting across the faggots and instantly catching her legs where Canlin had clearly poured some of the oil. Her flesh blistered, bubbled and burst and bile rose in Wren’s throat. An instant later the flames caught the ends of Lorraine’s hair and her beautiful locks incinerated like a grass tree in a bushfire.
Lorraine screamed: a terrible sound like nothing Wren had ever before heard. She screamed as the fire tore through her clothes, stabbing into the soft flesh beneath, the heat so intense it was boiling her internal organs. Her legs were a mass of blazing horror as the fire established a base from which to devour the rest of her. Wren wanted to tear her eyes away, but she had caused the torment and had no right to look anywhere else.
As the fire reached the girl’s young, pleading face, Wren felt her heart break.
“That’ll teach them,” Canlin said, laughing: always laughing. “No one messes with the baroness.”
Wren was moving before she even realised what she was doing. She tore her cloak from her shoulders and thrust it over the girl, heedless of the flames licking at her boots and armour. Wrapping the cloak about the girl, Wren tore at the rope, the flames snapping at her hands as they attempted to keep hold of their meal. The single knot came undone in her hands and Wren threw herself backwards, arms clasping the girl beneath her cloak. Together they stumbled out of the pyre, kicking faggots in every direction. The fire sent tendrils of flame at them, withdrawing with a hiss when it realised it had lost its prey.
There was a commotion amongst the villagers now, and even some of the soldiers were murmuring. Canlin looked livid, but Wren did not care. Her heart was pounding, her skin was cooking beneath her metal armour, but it was nothing compared with what had happened to Lorraine. Taking the girl in her arms, the cloak still draped about her, Wren called out a name.
“Valok!”
A man worked
his way through the crowd. He was in his sixties, with a thin white beard, and dressed in armour as black as the other soldiers. Even though he carried a knife, Valok was not a soldier. The baroness insisted all her regiments had a wizard attached to them, and Valok was Wren’s. Over the years she had come to rely on him and while he was sometimes a crotchety old soul, he was seldom a beast.
“Do what you can for her,” Wren said, handing the girl over. As Valok took her, the cloak fell away and Wren could see the red blisters covering the poor girl’s body. She was still conscious, but her eyes were unfocused and she looked half dead.
“It might have been a mercy to have let her die,” Valok said.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Valok took the girl away from the pyres to tend to his work. At last Wren could feel where her own body had been burned, but a part of her insisted she deserved it.
She caught Canlin’s eye and he did not look pleased.
But she was still his commanding officer so he turned to the crowd and made an announcement. “Today you have witnessed the justice wrought by the baroness’s soldiers, and you’re lucky enough to have also seen something of her mercy. Remember it, because it doesn’t come often.”
He signalled for the army to move, for there was nothing left for them in the village. Wren said nothing, made no eye contact with anyone – soldier or villager alike. It took the soldiers almost half an hour to pack up all their equipment and begin their march, by which time both victims of the pyres had ceased making any noise at all.
Wren approached Valok. The girl was unconscious and lay on her back on the hard ground. Some of her blisters had faded, but there was hardly any of her body which had not been affected in some way by the blaze. Her hair remained in clumps, and even that was falling onto the ground beside her.
“I’ve done all I can,” Valok said. “My spells should retard the damage and even begin to repair it in some small part, but this girl will be heavily scarred for the rest of her life. And that’s just the physical aspect. Mentally she may never recover.”