by Damien Black
Turning back to the gallows, the King shook his head. ‘Nay Visigard, you spoke like an honourable knight. Unfortunately a King cannot always afford to behave as such – I’ve learned that the hard way.’
Raising the rod he brought it down with a swish.
‘Release!’ cried the herald.
Twelve more men danced on the gallows.
The executions went on. The crowd thickened as more people came to witness the spectacle. They were here to see the main event – Freidheim had decreed that Lord Johan and the other captured barons and marshals would be the last Northlendings to be hanged.
As soldiers marched the barrel-chested jarl to his death, the crowd started baying. At least this execution wouldn’t be so hard to watch – from what Adelko had heard the Jarl of Orack deserved to die as much as any man.
Johan took the podium along with the last of the captive rebels. There were only seven left – besides Johan there were two minor barons, Lord Porvald of Geldangg and Lord Valgaut of Horsen. The rest were marshals who had served the rebel lords, commanding their troops.
Johan’s corpulent face cracked a sneer as the rope went around his neck. If he was scared he showed no sign of it – there would be no weeping from this one.
Nor would there be any contrition, as they soon learned. As a courtesy to their former high status, Freidheim permitted the seven condemned nobles a final word before they met their deaths.
‘You have been found guilty of treason,’ boomed the King, his stentorian voice silencing the raging crowd. ‘You have conspired to murder the people of this realm under the spurious pretext of an unlawful war – have you anything to say before sentence is passed?’
Johan grinned. ‘I have done what any man of noble blood would have in my position,’ he bellowed. ‘For years my people were subjugated, made to pay reparations for a just war against an oppressor! The Kingdom of Thule has a right to exist – a right that has been usurped for generations by the House of Ingwin, and the House of Caarl before that! I am no traitor, nor any man here – we stayed loyal to our true king, Krulheim of Thule!’
A defiant chorus of ‘ayes’ went up as the six other condemned men voiced their approval as one. They were quickly drowned out by the crowd screaming for their blood.
‘Hang ‘em high!’ yelled one.
‘Show them what happens when they kill for a false king!’ cried another.
‘Murderers all – make ‘em swing!’
‘Bastards dishonoured my daughter and slaughtered my sons…’
Lord Visigard was staring anxiously at the King. His face betrayed no emotion as he lifted the rod.
Down it came.
‘Release!’
Seven more men danced. Johan’s bloated corpse swung wildly on the gibbet. For one second Adelko thought the creaking thing might break, but it stayed firm.
A great cheer went up from the crowd.
The King turned to Visigard and nodded. The Royal Marshal gave the signal and soldiers began pulling the corpses off the gibbets, to add to the fly-encrusted mound nearby.
When that was done they started to dismantle the gallows. The crowd began to thin. The Northlending executions were over.
The Northlanders were up next.
‘Doubtless the execution of foreign mercenaries will prove a less alluring spectacle for the good folk of Linden,’ said Horskram grimly. ‘Curious how treasonous killers seem to excite the passions more than merely opportunistic ones.’
Adelko had nothing to say to that. At least this was a fitting place for his mentor’s gallows humour.
The beheadings were done twenty at a time. Sickened as he was, Adelko had enough presence of mind to register surprise when he learned these executions would be performed by knights.
‘There isn’t time to get a trained headsman to perform two hundred executions properly,’ explained Horskram. ‘So its death by the sword for our foreign friends. Only knights have the training to use greatswords – the next best thing to an axe for decapitation.’
Turning to one side Adelko vomited up his breakfast.
‘Don’t trouble yourself over much,’ Horskram deadpanned. ‘I think yon reavers will be honoured to die at the hands of fellow warriors.’
And it was true. To a man, the Northlanders met their deaths stoically, their heads held high before they were lopped from their shoulders. Some cried out before dying – but Adelko knew enough Norric to recognise a pagan prayer when he heard one.
‘They are praying to Tyrnor,’ said Horskram, making the sign and shaking his head disapprovingly. ‘Whom they venerate as a god of war. They are beseeching him to recognise their deaths as dying in battle, so they can be admitted to the Halls of Eternal Fighting and Feasting in Gods-home.’
‘Tyrnor… but that’s the Norric name for Azazel, the archdemon embodying violence!’ exclaimed Adelko, also making the sign. Azazel wasn’t one of the Seven Princes of Perfidy, but he was a greater devil all the same, belonging to the First Tier. To worship such as a god was gross blasphemy, if not outright demonolatry.
His mentor turned to fix him with a steely look. ‘They are pagan idolators, Adelko – what do you expect from such benighted souls?’
Adelko shook his head as he watched the hand-picked swordsmen behead the barbarian reavers. The bloody executions were bad enough – but these men were also condemning their very souls to everlasting torment. The sheer folly of it horrified him more than anything else he had seen today.
He had more prosaic reasons to be concerned by the Norric prayer, however.
‘What’s that last part they keep saying?’ he ventured. ‘Something about “our brothers will avenge us with pine and steel”?’
‘It means just what it says – Hardrada will not forget this. He will build more ships and recruit more men. A new strife is stirring in the world – old treaties are being forgotten, peace breached. This I fear will be but the first foray from the Frozen Wastes.’
Adelko thought for a minute as soldiers seconding the knights gathered up corpses and heads and dragged them over to a second growing pile of flesh. ‘But… this Hardrada lost two thousand men,’ he said presently. ‘How many more can he have?’
‘Admittedly not many for now,’ replied Horskram. ‘He must have staked a lot on backing the winning side – I wouldn’t be surprised if our mysterious friend the Sea Wizard had a hand in putting him up to such a huge gamble. But I’ll warrant that he isn’t the only Ice Thane contemplating a return to war and plunder. The other Northland princes will be stirring too before long.’
Adelko felt a chill descend over him as they dragged the last of the reavers’ corpses off the field. So this was only the beginning. He thought of Braxus and Thraxia’s troubles with its highland clans. His mentor was right – war was brewing across realms. And the sorcerous alliance they were working so hard to uncover might just be behind it all.
As the twin piles of corpses went up in flames he fished in his habit for a rag and placed it to his mouth and nose. Watching greasy smoke rise from the grisly bonfire of roasting flesh, he wondered if such things might not soon become commonplace.
For all his mentor’s misgivings and efforts to the contrary, it looked for all the world as though the sword would have its day.
By noon the clarions were sounding. As Freidheim’s army, now dwindled to just over six thousand men, filed slowly past the stinking hecatomb of burning and rotting corpses, Adelko pressed the rag more tightly to his face.
He was thoroughly relieved when they moved out of sight and smell of it into green fields. Yet even these told a woeful tale, written across the land in burned villages and hanged corpses – victims of Johan’s depredations. A few survivors ran towards the army and begged them for food to replace their scorched crops, but none was forthcoming.
As the sound of their hopeless pleas mingled with the cawing of greedy crows, Adelko found himself wishing he could stop up his ears as well.
CHAPTER XII
&n
bsp; A Forced Detour
They rode hard through the night. At dawn the three of them veered off the main road to snatch a few hours’ sleep against the side of a hillock. With nothing but their thick cloaks for a blanket and mattress, it was miserable sleep, but Hettie supposed they would have to get used to such hardship for a while.
They woke to find the outland mercenary roasting a piglet for a belated breakfast. A curiously fashioned bow and quiver of arrows were placed at his side, along with his falchion. His hood was still drawn over his head, despite the mild spring weather.
‘You both slept longer than I would have liked,’ he said in his strange high accent. ‘I’ve made us something to eat. Better get it down you quick – I’d like to put more distance between us and Merkstaed. I’ve no doubt those fool watchmen will be making their report.’
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes Adhelina raised herself and stumbled over to the fire. She wasn’t inclined to disagree – they had more reasons than their strange bodyguard could know for putting distance between themselves and the town her father owned.
As they bent to their coarse meal Adhelina glanced inquisitively at the foreign stranger.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked between perfunctory mouthfuls of unseasoned meat. ‘I’ve met a fair few foreigners in my time but I don’t recognise your accent.’
The hooded mercenary gave a short laugh that sounded more like a sneer. ‘Nor should you. I hail from a far-off land, where things are more different than you could possibly imagine. Finish your food. We should leave soon.’
Adhelina did not demur. She had one last question though. ‘You speak our language well. How long have you been in Vorstlund?’
‘Less than a year,’ replied the freesword in his sing-song voice. ‘But I learn foreign tongues quickly. I spent many years in service in the Imperial lands to the east – their language shares similarities with yours, I think. So to learn Vorstlending, it was not so difficult.’
Adhelina nodded, doing her best to smile and be affable. ‘I learn languages quickly too,’ she said. ‘I agree with you about the similarities between the Imperial tongue and our own.’
But the freesword said nothing further, and finished his breakfast in silence.
They rode hard for the rest of the day, passing the odd travelling merchant and drover. Close to nightfall they passed an inn, and though Hettie implored her mistress to stop she refused.
Their nameless protector agreed that it was too risky, and so once more they sought refuge in the wilderness, bedding down in a copse of birch trees in some hills overlooking the highway. Their meal was a meagre one – strips of meat from the morning’s kill supplemented by some of the food Hettie had purloined from the castle kitchens, washed down with mouthfuls of water taken from a nearby stream.
The weather was fairly clement, but even so the night-time brought a chill. Their laconic guardian built a small fire to warm them. During their day’s journey he had said little. He never removed his hood, making him seem all the more sinister.
Hettie didn’t trust him one shred, and made sure her mistress knew this several times. Adhelina consoled herself with the thought that at least he had not tried to rob them that morning while they were asleep.
Even so, as she watched the freesword sat crossed-legged before the fire, slowly and methodically sharpening his falchion to a razor edge, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
Just who was this mysterious character – could he really be trusted to get them to Meerborg safely? And even if he could, what then?
That she could sell some of her jewellery and reward him richly for his services, she did not doubt. But the truth was that she carried all her worldly fortune on her – he had only to suspect she was lying, and he could reach out and take everything...
She had seen him fight at Merkstaed using non-lethal force, effortlessly incapacitating three able-bodied men – two of them fighting types, albeit of the lowest kind. The hardened outlander could make light work of them both if he wished.
Thinking these uncomfortable thoughts, Adhelina caught him gazing at her intently. Drawing her cloak more tightly around her, she retired to sleep in the crook of a tree.
The next morning Hettie rose and went to make her water on the edge of the copse. From there she could see the highway, and the flowing waters of the Graufluss beyond it in the pale light. She had just finished and was about to rise when she caught her breath and froze.
Riding along the highway at a quick pace was a small group of knights. They were lightly armoured and mounted on swift coursers – as she peered down at them she caught the flash of weak sunlight on the surcoat of the foremost.
It was too far to be sure, but the colours looked familiar... their wearer had long flame-coloured hair that streamed behind him in a steady breeze...
She caught her breath. Balthor.
The men rode past her, oblivious to her presence above the road, rounded a bend, and were lost to sight. Getting up she scrambled back towards the camp, breathing hard.
She found Adhelina there alone, checking their bags and making ready to leave. The fire had been stamped out. Of the outlander there was no sign.
‘Adhelina!’ she gasped.
Her mistress turned to her, suddenly anxious as she caught the look on Hettie’s face.
‘Hettie? What’s the matter?’ she ventured.
‘I was at toilet on the edge of the copse,’ breathed Hettie frantically. ‘And... I think I saw Sir Balthor, riding with a company of knights! It was hard to be certain at that distance, but I’m fairly sure it was him!’
Her mistress frowned, her face buckling up in consternation.
‘But... how can they have overtaken us?’ she mused aloud. ‘We had at least six hours’ head start on them... unless... Oh no, they must have changed horses yesterday and ridden through the night to catch up with us!’
Hettie’s heart sank as her mistress confirmed her own fearful notion: as a knight of the land Balthor would be able to requisition fresh steeds at will from any inn, castle or homestead he passed.
‘How many did you see?’ demanded Adhelina.
‘Besides him there were three others,’ replied Hettie.
‘Four fresh horses would be easily obtainable by a knight of Balthor’s esteem riding on urgent business of my father,’ said Adhelina dolefully. ‘Oh Hettie, what fools we’ve been! I should have reckoned on this – our pursuers have an advantage that we don’t!’
‘Yes, along with a knight’s stamina,’ added Hettie disconsolately. ‘I’m not sure I’d be up to riding day and night without sleep, even if our poor horses were!’
At that moment they were distracted by the sound of the outlander returning.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Hettie unreasonably. Her nerves were clearly showing.
‘I went to answer nature’s call, just the same as you,’ he replied affably from beneath his hood. ‘Are the ladies ready to depart? We have another good day’s riding before us, but after that I think we should reach Meerborg – ’
‘We aren’t going to Meerborg,’ said Adhelina abruptly. ‘That is to say... we can’t, not by the main road. We need to strike off, that way – ’ She pointed vaguely north. ‘Into the wilderness. We must stay off the road, for the next few days at least.’
If they could have seen his face the mercenary would no doubt have looked surprised. He paused for a few moments, before saying: ‘I see. Something you have seen on the road, I think, discourages you from using it.’
The two damsels glanced at each other, then turned back and nodded as one.
‘We must find another route to Meerborg,’ repeated Adhelina firmly. ‘One less direct. You shall be paid for your extra efforts of course.’
The mercenary paused again. ‘You will at least tell me what it is you have seen that frightens you so,’ he said. ‘For I cannot protect you without knowing what dangers pursue us.’
Adhelina frowned, then said: ‘We are indeed purs
ued – my lady in waiting saw armed men on the road just now.’
‘I see,’ said the freesword neutrally. ‘And how can you be sure that this has anything to do with what happened in Merkstaed? Or is it more to do with the reasons why you needed swift horses in the first place?’
In the wan light of dawn they could not see his eyes, but Hettie felt sure they would have had a cunning glint to them if they were visible.
‘Perhaps a little of both,’ replied Adhelina, doing her best to look expressionless. ‘But if you’ve to have any chance of getting us safely to Meerborg and claiming your reward, you had better do as we say immediately.’
The way was not easy. This part of Dulsinor was mostly hilly and strangled by dense undergrowth, and there were no roads to follow. Several times they had to dismount and lead their horses through precarious ways. It was past noon when they were forced to abandon the idea of striking directly north before veering east to reach the Free City.
‘We cannot do it this way,’ said the outlander firmly after they had stopped at a stream to water their horses and eat a little. ‘We must turn back for the road or seek another direction altogether.’
Adhelina pulled out her map and consulted it.
‘Look,’ she said presently, pointing at it, ‘we can strike east – that should get us out of these dreadful hills! Then we can join up with the east-west road here that leads from the Argael Forest to the Free City and approach it from the west.’
The cowled mercenary peered over Adhelina’s shoulder to study the map. For an instant Hettie was tempted to reach out and pull the hood back – his continual air of mystery was maddening. Recalling the fight at Merkstaed she thought better of it.
‘Yes, I think we could do this,’ he replied at length. ‘It should take us no more than a day to get out of the hills if we head north-west, then we can skirt their edges and journey north-east to catch the eastern road to Meerborg.’