Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  “It’s okay, Kyra,” Dryston’s whispered voice told her.

  “No, you don’t understand,” she said. “I just realized something. I have to see my sweetheart!”

  “What?”

  “I have to rush to Connor and warn him. He has to get out of there. King Tancred will draw resources from around the land to help him with his warfare.”

  Dryston let her loose and gently slide away from him.

  “You’re telling me this now?”

  “I haven’t thought about it before.” Her eyes met with his.

  Kyra shrugged.

  “Take care,” she said.

  They embraced briefly, and she kissed him on the cheek, a brief moment of warmth before their ways parted into the cold world.

  JORIC WAS WALKING UP and down his area for the umpteenth time in the last hour. Night watch was one of the most dreaded duties in peace times. It totally confused the day-night rhythm of his body. He was tired, fed up and craving his bed. Worse was that he couldn’t spend the nights hanging out with his buddies drinking mead or even vodka. Sure, a little bit was still in his flask, but he had to tone it down in order to attract no attention from the watch overseer.

  Every now and then he took a sip against the cold. The liquor ran down his throat like hot soup, spreading in his stomach. It was getting colder each night. His breath hung in the air. He made his rounds on the trampled grass, which was covered with frost. It wasn’t long till the first snow would fall and, he could imagine the endless footprints he would leave in a night full of meaningless circling.

  “Joric,” a voice said from behind him.

  He startled and gripped his spear tighter. Joric held his breath in order to hide the smell of alcohol. He then slowly turned around, as casual as he could pretend. He knew the man standing behind him. It was no one of the watch, but that didn’t make it better. Not in this case.

  Joric cleared his throat, which was dry from the hours of silence, cold air, and spirit.

  “Barknar,” he said hoarsely. “What are you doing here?”

  “Joining you for a walk,” Barknar answered.

  It wouldn’t be pleasant. That bastard, Joric thought. He had a hunch why he was here.

  “I heard some customers in the warband are dissatisfied with their supplies,” Barknar said.

  Joric faked a shrug. “They should talk to the supply master.”

  Barknar made a face. “Don’t play the fool, stupid. I’m talking about their supply of drugs.”

  Joric swallowed. He licked his chapped lips before answering carefully. You didn’t want to anger Barknar and the likes of him. “I was short on time, a really unhappy coincidence happened, and I was compelled to take over the night shifts. Now there is no time to reach the buyers at night, as usual.”

  Barknar shook his head more and more while Joric kept on talking.

  “I don’t want to hear anything about it,” Barknar said. The excuses were clearly annoying him. “You got roped into this on your own fault. I only care about our customers getting their goods. I don’t care how you do it, but you have to make time if you’re lagging behind. Leave your post for a couple of hours, get that stuff to the buyers. They already paid for it, you know.” Barknar got much closer to Joric than was comfortable and laid his arm around his shoulder. “Otherwise there might be another unhappy coincidence taking place.”

  “Like what?” Joric said. He regretted asking as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “We can make things happen, Joric,” Barknar whispered into his ear. “Soon, the fighting will start. All kinds of bad can happen in the mayhem. Can you picture yourself standing in the first row of the very first wave that clashes against the defenses of the enemy? That is to say, if you even make it that far. We can make things happen,” he repeated. “There is always a place left in the first row for friends of ours that let us down.”

  SENDEL VARON NOTICED the watchman strayed from his duty route sometime in the night. He had recognized a shift in the watchman’s body language once the second man left him only after exchanging a few words. Following their conversation, the watchman was not himself anymore. He had raised the frequency of grabbing his flask, which Sendel knew was filled with prohibited spirit, and looked around more, notably in the direction of the camp he was protecting, and not as often to the wood from which Sendel was observing him.

  Sendel knew the watchman’s name by now, through a combination of reading the lips of his comrades and a moment of especially fair wind during the conversation with the last man, who had obviously not been from the watch. And this was only after a few hours of observation. A few more, and Sendel would know more about him than his own comrades. But it wouldn’t come to that, Sendel thought, and, in any case, he had no desire to get to know his victim closer.

  After watching a person for this long, you began to feel for him and feel what it was like being him. It was one of the most dangerous things for the mental state of an agent. It was the reason agents had to be drawn back from the field after they took out a sentry they were observing that long. Sendel had to act fast. But that night was different.

  It was the last night before the army would set out. There was movement everywhere in the camp. It would definitely help him in getting closer to his objective. And then there was also movement in the sentry patterns.

  The watchman, Joric, left his post. Sendel read from his body language that he wouldn’t come back any time soon. He abandoned it for another matter. It must have been something of great importance, if he were to risk the severe punishment associated with this kind of behavior. But it was of no interest to Sendel.

  A window of opportunity had opened, and he didn’t hesitate to slip through it. He rose from the edge of the wood, letting himself be seen. His nonhuman eyes were obscured by a leather hood. He was out alone. Sendel slid his hand down the harness that was tied up over his whole body. A dust satchel, fire retardant, a compass rose were stored there. Tonight, only light equipment would have to do. He stopped at the slick fabric of his stranglers and pulled out the gloves like a doctor preparing for a surgical operation. He was the scalpel in the night. His heart rate and anticipation rose.

  He sprinted over the field between him and the encampment. He felt stiff muscles in his legs on the first steps, but they loosened as he limbered up. It was a good feeling to be on the move again. There was no equipment on his back slowing him down, no heavy armor or weapon encumbering his lithe frame, except the blackened blade of his knife strapped to the leg guard on his shin.

  His vision blurred through the wind and coldness. He saw the palisade wall of the camp approaching fast. His boots crunched over the frosty ground. They were the loudest sounds he was making. The distance he covered was not enough to make him pant. He kept his breathing down. The soft throb of his heart was something only he could hear, isolated in his hooded form. His pointy ears were covered to trade hearing against a smaller chance of being recognized as what he was.

  Sendel Varon slowed at the small side entrance Joric had left unprotected and touched the palisade. A short breathing exercise allowed his body to take on a normal state and return his pulse to only a fraction over his resting heart rate. Of course, the agitation and fear of entering a bustling army camp full of mortal enemies could not be blanked out entirely.

  Focus, relax, he said to himself before slipping through the barricade. Think about what is at stake.

  SENDEL VARON FOLLOWED JORIC casually for some time before breaking off. There were humans everywhere. He could smell their sweat, the reek of pungent alcohol and the befogging stench of clouds of swamp-weed. It made his eyes water and burn. Everything was different here, but on a sublime level, like the finely different ferric tang near the infirmary resulting from different blood composition or a different pheromone scent.

  He reached the artillery corps quarters, where loaders were busy transferring the war machines out of the camp. No one objected him setting his hand on moving the disass
embled wooden constructs. They passed the ammunition dump. Projectiles were lugged in vast amounts or carried on the shoulders of several men. Swine fat and oil and pitch made from petroleum or plants were heated in big pots which both would be used as thermal weapons.

  Sendel Varon let go of the heavy war machine. With heat-proof gloves, he pushed one of the pots and knocked it over, spilling its contents on the ground, under the artillery piece and over the shoes of its crew. Before the loaders noticed the mess he had made, he took a torch out of the nearest mounting and let it fall onto the soaked ground.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BURN

  EVEN BEFORE THE FIRST STROKES fell or the first arrows rained from the sky, people were dying. You only had to gather enough people in one place for a certain amount of time and statistically accidents were going to happen. The fire claimed five members of the war host, eager young crewmen too young to be warriors. A blow to morale. Lictor Freya learned later that they were four boys and a girl. By the time she came to the accident site, drawn to it by the heart-tearing cries and the glaring blaze, the difference was hardly reconizable. Eventually, they all died the same way: by the hand of Gilbert Belrand.

  Freya saw the individuals wrapped in licking flames, their bodies wreathed in pain and simply stopped. Around her, people were doing the same, staring helpless and in shock, completely unable to help.

  Belrand arrived at a jog, followed by a random group of archers. He had drawn his scimitar and wanted to intervene, or cut the burning victims down, Freya realized. But the ground had caught fire around them and made it impossible to reach them.

  Belrand held up a protecting hand as the fire flipped in his direction. He cursed. Freya felt the dry air and heat against her face. Other objects were set aflame beside the artillery piece that had turned into a bonfire.

  “Water!” she shouted to the bystanders. “As fast as you can!”

  The five figures that were consumed by the fire moved like grotesque dancers. Besides the mind-numbing pain they must have been experiencing, she still thought that they would notice she was going to help them.

  “Archers!” Belrand said to the bow-women behind him. They looked at him wide-eyed. He was no direct superior to them, but the royal heraldry and determination to undertake something convinced them to obey. “Shoot the poor bastards!”

  The bow-women quickly complied. Arrows zipped past Freya and Belrand and hit the burning targets with distinctive thuds. It made Freya avert her gaze. She fought the urge to throw up.

  “Another volley!” Belrand yelled before the archers poured another wave of projectiles into the writhing bodies.

  At last, the screams became silent.

  Something touched Freya on her shoulder. She looked Belrand in the eyes.

  “I don’t believe this was an accident,” he said. “I’ve seen something exactly like this before! This is Kolanthel-work!”

  Kolanthel? Terrorists. Freya looked around. Some people were arriving now with water and trying to extinguish the fire. But it was a thermal weapon made for war. Their attempts were only a drop in the ocean.

  “We have to hunt down the assailant,” Belrand said.

  She nodded.

  They separated in opposite directions. Freya shoved herself through the shocked crowd. She could see no one running, but this could also mean that the assassin was trying to blend in with his surroundings. Terrified faces were staring at her.

  FREYA BEGAN TO SHAKE her opposites out of their rigor. Some wailed.

  “Did you see anything?” she asked. “Anyone you didn’t know?”

  They remembered. Someone remembered, yes. One of the carriers had seen a lithe figure in light clothes and hooded.

  “Which way did he go?” Freya asked.

  The one who had seen the assassin didn’t know. But another one could give her the information after listening to the description of the stranger. South. Maybe the south side exit.

  She ran off without losing any time. Belrand was still in the crowd, investigating witnesses.

  “Belrand!” she shouted, already on the move. “I have a trace! Follow me!”

  Belrand turned to the female archer-squad. He beckoned them over.

  “Bows, on me! Arrows ready!”

  They broke into a run.

  THE GRAY HOODED FIGURE turned slowly. It was trained to show no emotions, but the figure instantly realized that Freya was on him. Freya stared into the shadowed face from across the crowd. It revealed eyes that were too cold to be human. The assassin ran, pulling and knocking over bystanders in his path. The tail of his chaperon danced on his slender back when he spurted towards the palisade. Freya and Belrand followed him immediately.

  Like a bitter prediction coming true, Freya saw the hunted escape through the south side entrance. There was nothing she could do to stop him. He should run into the spear of a sentry guarding the gateway eventually, but this was her hoping that the watchmen wouldn’t be caught wrong-footed and acted fast.

  The assassin slipped through the palisade into the hoarfrost field. There was no guard awaiting him, no spear-tip piercing into his flesh to bring him down. There was only the black embrace of night, and he took it thankfully.

  Freya and Belrand arrived outside the barricade seconds later, panting hard. They both stopped, their will to pursue broken by the gap the assassin had put between him and his pursuers. The figure was moving so damn fast, it had already reached the edge of the forest.

  Belrand pointed the tip of his blade towards the assailant before leaning on the scimitar.

  “Bring him down,” he gasped.

  The bow-women lined up and drew their weapons back, calculating distance, including wind, aiming for movement against the dark background of the tree-line.

  Freya had lost sight of their target by now. Deceptive after-images tricked her mind. They were firing almost blindly, she knew. But they fired nonetheless. Five arrows followed the assassin into the forest faster than he could run – one for each victim perished in the inferno. There were thuds of chipped bark and splintering wood, and twigs snapped under the assassin’s soles.

  BELRAND SPAT ON THE GROUND and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Find me those responsible!” he demanded from Freya. “Who should have been on that post?”

  “The night watch organizes itself independently, so I don’t know whose post it was,” she said. “I will muster tonight’s group at once.”

  Freya knew what this was about. With the culprit slipped through his grasp, Belrand wanted to find someone to blame.

  “It is possible that the Kolanthel got into the camp the same way he escaped,” he said. “Maybe he knew the south side exit was unguarded when he staged his flight. Something to think about.”

  Belrand waited outside the palisade for her return, out of sight of the whole camp. She noticed he hadn’t sheathed his sword yet.

  UNDER THE PALE MOONSHINE, Belrand staged a field trial. The ten members of the night watch group, Joric among them, were lined up by Freya for disciplinary action. Their heads hung low, and they avoided looking Belrand directly in the eye.

  “Whose post was the south side entrance?” Belrand asked again, pacing with arms crossed behind his back and looking into their faces. “Last chance.”

  The group members kept silent. Even Freya thought that they as a warband should stick together against any outsider. Kin before kingdom. Blood was thicker than ink.

  Belrand grunted. “All right. Summary punishment, then.”

  He bent down to the ground and pulled out a clump of grass.

  “Draw,” he said to each one of them.

  Vanik ended up with the shortest straw. He was a man past his prime, a veteran who had stayed with the war host even though his service had ended. He hadn’t abandoned his comrades in favor of a more comfortable retirement. Men like Vanik were exempted from peacetime duties as an honor to their deeds. Night watch was one of those duties.

  His wrinkles s
howed up beside his eyes as he shrugged. Bad luck.

  “What is your name, trooper?” Belrand asked him.

  He looked up from the drawn straw. “Vanik.”

  Belrand nodded and turned his back on him.

  “Trooper Vanik,” he said in a raised voice. “You have failed your warlord, your comrades and your king in allowing a Kolanthel to carry out a heinous act of terrorism. You shall therefore be branded a traitor and treated as if the five young women and men died by your own hand.”

  “What?” Freya burst out. “He is excluded from guard duty!”

  “There is no exclusion from summary punishment, lictor,” Belrand said.

  A female squad member named Menja stirred and took a step out of the line.

  “But we were all performing our duty,” Menja protested.

  Freya watched the south side entrance. Barknar had approached and was observing them, his torso leant against the palisade, arms crossed in front of his chest.

  Belrand averted his gaze from Vanik again and left them behind with another grunt.

  “Punch him to death,” he commanded.

  The group didn’t obey.

  Belrand had drawn his scimitar and was waiting. His patience was apparently growing thin. Freya could literally feel Vanik’s eyes staring through the back of his head.

  Joric looked over to Barknar, unsure of what to do. The man nodded reassuringly.

  It gave him reason to be the first to throw a punch at the veteran.

  FREYA FELT HER JAW TIGHTEN. She wanted to grab Belrand by the collar, but the king’s ambassador caught her hand in midair.

  “Discipline, lictor,” he hissed. “You among all should understand this.”

  Her glare pierced Belrand’s face.

  VANIK WAS LOSING HIS TEETH. Blood bubbled out of his mouth and soaked his beard. His group, his friends, were forming a half-circle around him. Two were pinning him at the shoulders on each side. The rest were swinging punches in consecutive order. Some had tears in their eyes, others were simply aghast at what they were doing. Vanik didn’t feel the pain, he was numb and hoping that they would get tired at some point. But he was the one getting more and more tired.