Hero Cast Trilogy Omnibus

by Adam Carter

  “I don’t get nervous,” Crenshaw told him. “What could be simpler than this? The three of us attack the castle, we slaughter whoever we meet, and fight our way to the baroness.”

  “At least I’m in good company,” Valok said. “The two of you have done this before.”

  Asperathes snickered, although it was a hollow sound filled with fear.

  “Why is he laughing?” Valok asked as they joined the crowd of people moving towards the castle. There were two guards at the end of the lowered drawbridge, standing sentinel against the farmers and other peasants entering. Already the three of them had drawn attention, for there were fingers being pointed, people backing away, even some cheers and boos.

  “He’s just terrified,” Crenshaw said.

  “Why is he terrified?” Valok asked.

  “Because we haven’t done this before.”

  “You … But you have. That’s why we’ve been chasing you for ten years. You, Asperathes and Moya attacked this castle, killed so many guards, and escaped with your lives.”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you mean nope?”

  “That wasn’t us,” Crenshaw said, carefully eyeing the crowd parting to give them room. “That was three other guys who just looked a bit like us. Well, not in all cases, actually. The wizard who attacked couldn’t have been Moya: it was a man.”

  “A man?”

  “In fact, you fit the bill better than Karina Moya.”

  Valok paled, which had not been Crenshaw’s intent. He did not like the man, for personal reasons, but he needed him as confident as possible during the attack.

  “A fine time to come clean,” Asperathes said.

  “Come clean?” Valok asked. “I … What’s going on?”

  “We were in the baroness’s dungeon,” Crenshaw said in a bored tone. “We’d been there twenty years. A faerie named Kastra got telepathic wind of three saviours making an attack on the castle. We got out of our cell and used the chaos of their attack to escape. Then we just sort of pretended to be them.”

  “But why?”

  Crenshaw shrugged. “You know, I really don’t know.”

  Valok did not stop walking, but he was so pale he looked like a wraith. “We have no experience in this,” he said quietly. “We’re all going to die because the two of you wanted to play hero.”

  That single word caused a stir within Crenshaw. It was one of the only things which could break his shell. “I don’t believe in heroes, Valok; and those three were nothing but monsters. They killed Kastra, they killed everyone. All they wanted was glory, and we took even that much from them.”

  “Then why have we been chasing you all this time?”

  “Because we were the faces on the wanted posters. Even if we explained who we were, even if Wren believed us, we would still be confessing to being escaped convicts, so we wouldn’t have been much better off.”

  “You know,” Asperathes said airily, just to lighten the mood, “sometimes I wonder what had happened to those three. They’re likely dead by now, slain by their own lust for greatness. Maybe they picked a fight with a volcano, or perhaps they swam an ocean just to defy the sharks. I suppose they could have just attacked another castle and got themselves killed that way.” He paused. “Or they could have done what you did, Crenshaw, and descended into the bottle.”

  “Asp, I don’t think you’re helping Valok any.”

  During their long time together, Asperathes had fought hard to keep Crenshaw alive and sane, and neither of them was ever sure it had been worth it. Asperathes kept alive the image of them as heroes so that the people of the baroness’s land would give them food and shelter, but far too many had died for them now and it was time to end it.

  “We have to contact Wren,” Valok said. “If we can get this news to her, we could call off the attack and …”

  “It’s not news,” Crenshaw said. “And the attack goes on. Oh look, the soldiers have noticed us.”

  No one was entering the castle now, for there was so much confusion about how everyone was supposed to act. Crenshaw noticed that even amongst the happiest of onlookers there were looks of fear. To be able to say they were there when the heroes returned was one thing, but to be killed during the ensuing battle would be quite another.

  One of the sentries drew his sword but Crenshaw shook his head. “I wouldn’t. Run along; tell your mistress we’re back. And this time we mean to finish what we began.”

  The sentry scurried off, thankful to have a reason to be away from the main gates. The remaining guard stepped onto the path before them, blocking their way. He was young, no more than nineteen or twenty, and was shivering. Crenshaw would have felt sorry for him, but he was beyond feeling sorry for people these days.

  Drawing his sword, Crenshaw took a step forward.

  Instantly something snaked out before him: a beam of light which engulfed the frightened youth and deposited him in the muddy gulley the drawbridge spanned.

  “We don’t intend to cause needless death,” Valok informed the crowd in an imperial voice which carried. “In fact, if the baroness would agree to talk with us, we would very much prefer to discuss the matter openly.”

  They certainly would not prefer to discuss the matter openly, Crenshaw thought, but did not contradict his colleague. With the entryway open to them there was now nothing stopping them marching in, and Crenshaw could not see there would be much talk happening after that.

  Striding through the barbican, Crenshaw saw the courtyard spread out before him. There were thousands of people as far as the eye could see, all going about their daily business. Stalls were set up, selling wares, children ran playing in the street, while soldiers patrolled or else gossiped with women beating rugs or carrying baskets of dirty laundry. As people laid eyes on the three intruders, conversations stopped, eyes turned, fingers pointed. Most in the courtyard were still unaware these three even existed, but the farther Crenshaw and his band walked, the more attention they were attracting. Even the soldiers who had noticed them were wary of approaching. It had been eleven years since the castle had been attacked in this fashion, and over that time the actions of those aggressors had become legendary.

  A soldier, young and confident, strode towards them, his pike lowered like a charging lance. “Stop,” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

  Crenshaw stopped walking and looked the young man square in the eyes. He did not attack, did not speak, simply looked. The youth quailed, although did not draw back. It was in that moment that Crenshaw realised one terrible thing; they may have been taking on the roles of the group who had assailed the castle so long ago, but that was all they were doing. When this was pushed to a full-scale assault, Crenshaw and his people would not stand a chance.

  The youth must have sensed something in Crenshaw’s eyes, because he backed off a step, terrified. Crenshaw watched him go, frozen and unable to move his feet, unable to speak. The young solider took this as bravado and turned, stumbling over his own feet as he tried to get away.

  A murmur ran through the crowd at the soldier’s passing. Other soldiers were moving into position, but none of them were advancing. Crenshaw fervently wished they were all as scared, all as fooled, but he recognised the manoeuvre from his own days as a soldier. These troops were moving into position and were awaiting further orders. There was someone behind all of this, someone organising these soldiers, and the farther Crenshaw and his band moved into the courtyard, the deeper they were striding into the trap.

  He looked to Valok, whose confidence had never been too great. The sorcerer seemed to sense something in his gaze and looked even more worried. He wanted to leave, wanted to find Wren and think up a new plan. Valok did not need to say any of this for Crenshaw to know it was what he was thinking, but they could not leave. Not now. If they fled the castle after so brazenly walking in, they would be admitting they were frauds, and then they would never get to where they needed to be.

  Moya.

  For Crenshaw, thi
s entire thing had been about Karina Moya. If he could but talk to her, if he could hear her own side of things, he might be able to put his heart to rest. First his wife had abandoned him, then Karina. All he needed from her was a reason.

  It was in search of that reason that Crenshaw would not back down.

  He held his gaze upon Valok, who understood. Raising his hands, Valok intoned a language long dead to spoken use other than by people of his ilk. His voice was deep, his words crisp. People backed away, although were too stupid to flee. Crenshaw did not want to slaughter the civilians who lived and worked here, but if they were too idiotic to get out of the way a few of them might have to get a little burned before the others got the message.

  The ground began to tremble, the skies rumbled with an approaching storm, and people backed away further, pushing against one another but still making no move to flee. Some of the soldiers were losing their nerve, but Crenshaw could see more of them appearing in the courtyard, and even caught sight of a couple of officers. If Valok waited a minute longer he could take out a good portion of their opposition and send the rest fleeing.

  A tremendous wind churned around the courtyard, small cyclones of rubbish whirling into corners. It built to such a degree that even Crenshaw was having difficulty standing, although the soldiers were faring far worse, with some of them falling into their comrades or flat onto their faces. The sky continued to darken and Crenshaw felt the air grow moist. Whatever Valok intended to do, he knew it was going to be devastating.

  “It’s been years since we were last here,” Crenshaw announced to the gathering. “Now we’re back, and we’ve come for the baroness.”

  With those words, the sky was set ablaze with balls of lightning and thunder cracked the air so fiercely that even Crenshaw winced. Something struck his armour, then another. The ground was being spattered with huge drops of rain, as though the gods were hurling compressed rivers from the heavens.

  Then, with an explosion more violent than anything an army of soldiers could have managed, the clouds burst, slamming hard, dark rain into the entire courtyard.

  Bodies flailed everywhere – it did not matter whether they were farmer or soldier, male or female, old or young; everyone was battered by the downpour. About Crenshaw and his small band was a patch of dryness, a circle surrounding them into which only a handful of raindrops were falling. It was a feat of the most colossal magic that Crenshaw had ever seen, and as he watched the floundering, falling people about him he knew he was witnessing the unrestrained power of a battlefield sorcerer.

  It was a full five minutes before Valok lowered his arms. His breathing was ragged, his brow was soaked with sweat, and he looked unstable on his feet. Asperathes offered him support and the sorcerer was too exhausted to refuse.

  “Go,” Valok said quietly. “Go, before they recover.”

  Looking all about, Crenshaw could see everyone was soaked through; many had fallen, others had fled. Everyone left moved sluggishly, their concentration on their own predicament rather than the three intruders. No one looked happy.

  “They’re all alive,” Crenshaw realised.

  “I’m not going to slaughter people for this,” Valok reminded him. “You don’t save your people by murdering them, Crenshaw. And they are my people, remember that.”

  Valok was somewhere in his sixties, so was Crenshaw’s elder by ten or so years. Crenshaw wondered what he would himself have been like had he not suffered his injury and been forced to leave the army. Would he still be a soldier? Would he have risen through the ranks to now be as subservient to the baroness as were Wren and her regiment?

  It was a question which no longer mattered.

  Together, the three of them strode across the courtyard. Sodden and cold, they met with little resistance. Fear was a frightening thing, which was an odd thought to have but certainly a true one. Crenshaw had spent all these years on the run, knowing he was loved by the people and despised by the baroness. He had imagined her cursing him, even while he was revelling in the glory offered by those who were hiding him. He had never once stopped to consider that people might be afraid of him.

  He did not know how he felt about that.

  As they approached the keep, Crenshaw saw soldiers pouring into the courtyard from every doorway. They were lining into formation, readying weapons and looking much more organised than the rabble Valok had washed out.

  “This is it,” Asperathes said. “What I was hoping we could avoid.”

  “After all these years, Asp, you should have known this was something we could never get away from.”

  “Then we’re going to die.”

  “Until I talk with Karina, I don’t intend to die. Valok, we’re going to need your magic.”

  The sorcerer could see the odds arrayed before him, but stood on his own two feet and straightened his back. His captain was relying on him and Valok was too good a man to let them down.

  “Well then,” Asperathes said jovially, “let’s go get ourselves killed, shall we?”

  Raising his sword, Crenshaw gave a shout; and charged.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They had already lost Mannin, but there were soldiers running towards the courtyard, so that meant Crenshaw and the others had begun their distraction. There were times when Captain Wren questioned the sense in what they were doing. The baroness was her mistress, and this felt very much like insubordination. However, sometimes the best way to heal a wound was with salt, and Wren never shirked from her duty.

  “Stop having second thoughts,” Canlin chided her.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You were, I could tell.”

  Two soldiers hastened past them down the corridor. She waited for them to pass before she answered. “We’ve been together too long, Arno.”

  “I’d never say it was too long, Captain.”

  “Did you ever think we’d be doing anything like this? All that time we spent chasing Crenshaw, Asperathes and Moya, and it turns out one of them’s already in the castle.”

  “It does sound ludicrous, but it’s how things are.”

  Ludicrous was not the word. When she had been given the assignment to hunt the three fugitives, Wren had conducted as much research as she could. It was Moya of whom she could find very little and, after confronting her about it, it seemed what she had found may not have been true, either. Moya was more powerful than anyone, even her companions, seemed to have realised. She had used Crenshaw to her own ends and had eventually abandoned him. What she had been doing in those intervening years, none could say, but Wren could imagine she was building her power.

  Not long ago, they had discovered Moya had returned to the castle and was now working with the baroness. Already disillusioned with her mission, Wren had requested an audience with the baroness, and had been denied. She had then gone through the correct channels, speaking with her direct superiors. That too had failed. Wren had then gone directly to the baroness’s closest advisers and had been astonished at their reaction. All of them gave the same answer: that the baroness was no longer taking their counsel, that the only person she would listen to was Moya.

  That was when Wren had gone back to Crenshaw. She had been willing to argue his case with the baroness, but now she had a much deeper problem: the baroness, it seemed, was under the control of Karina Moya.

  Crenshaw had immediately offered to help solve the matter, and Wren knew it was because he wanted to speak with Moya again. To side with an outlaw meant becoming an outlaw, but Wren had not hesitated. To save the life, the soul, of her mistress, Wren was prepared to do anything.

  Whether the baroness would see it that way was another matter, but that was not something a patriot considered.

  “Security around the baroness should have increased the instant Crenshaw was spotted,” Wren said, “but with Moya in charge that may not be the case. Soldiers won’t mean much to Moya, so she may have sent every last one out to the fight.”

  “You’re speculating again, Captain. Y
ou’ve been doing a lot of that since we learnt Moya was with the baroness.”

  He was right: Sergeant Canlin was right about a lot of things these days. Wren was worried, her training had never covered anything remotely like this, and it was not as though she could even turn to a superior officer for help. Being in the army was being a part of a large family. There were the bullies, the supporters, the surety that you were going into battle with brothers and sisters. As with any real family, there was always someone to talk to, but cut-off as Wren was from all of that she had only Canlin, Valok and Mannin. She had never realised how much she had loved the army until she had lost it.

  At least she knew Canlin would never leave her.

  The corridors were relatively clear as the two soldiers hastened on. They did not run, for they did not want to draw attention to themselves, but Wren knew the quickest route to take. They came upon a white-robed priest heading in the opposite direction. He was clutching a small box to his chest which likely contained his treasures. Even the clergy, it seemed, had already given the castle up for lost.

  Climbing a final stairwell, Wren came to a stop. There were now only two corridors between them and the baroness, which meant this level would be laden with magical traps. Staring ahead at the dark corridor, Wren could see where it turned to the left at the far end, down which would be found the door to the baroness’s chambers.

  “No,” Canlin told her bluntly.

  “No what?”

  “No, we’re not going to risk it. The plan was we all meet here. All of us. There are traps down here and we need Valok to spring them for us.”

  “Maybe Moya’s too sure of herself to have laid traps.”

  “Even if we got through, we’d have to fight her. You think the two of us could take her alone?”

  It was a good point, but Wren did not like being held back. To have come all this way, only to stand around waiting for other people to give her permission to proceed was not the way Wren’s mind worked. She was itching to go on, but Canlin was right.