The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1)

by C. B. Currie

  It was getting darker and the only light came from the attacker’s torches and the brazier behind the barricade. The horseman was barking orders and his fighters were working at the front barricade, but through the boards and in the fading light, Beland could not see what they were doing. Too late he realized, they were tying lengths of rope, tethered to the horses to pull the makeshift walls down. Beland’s archers launched a few ineffective arrows at the horses as they drew away.

  The knight raised his shield and readied his sword and the Northman fell in beside him to face the front just as a section came creaking and tearing away. The brigands paused a moment to be sure the gap was open. It was just wide enough for a man or two and those on foot crowded around the opening. Inside, Beland, Algas and several others stood five abreast. The remainder of the men were readying bows or manning the left side of the barricade, where some of the brigands were still trying to mount an assault over the top.

  The first marauder came rushing through the gap with a scream of rage as the villagers prodded back at him with their forks and swords, seemingly afraid to actually draw blood. Beland’s shield took a blow and he slashed back with his sword, but he was old, tired and still weak from the fever. The man dodged lithely aside and screamed as he was skewered in the side by a thrust from the Northman. He crumpled as Algas withdrew the bloodied blade and the dead man’s limp, twitching bulk partially blocked the opening.

  There was a racket from the right rear now as several men bounded up onto the unguarded barricade and started to haul themselves over.

  ‘Hold the gap!’ Beland shouted and turned his attention to the new threat, hurrying over, followed by one of the men from the left. There were shouts and cries all over, but the organization was pathetic. One of the boys shot an arrow that pushed a man back just as he had begun to swing a leg over the barricade, and Beland lunged at one of the men as he dropped down inside and the knight’s blade caught the man before he could parry with his own shortsword, a deep slash across the back of the thigh that sprayed blood and immediately hobbled him. But another landed a few paces away and started dashing for the bowmen, while the one armed villager between them hopelessly tried to cut him off.

  It was chaos. The villagers were terrified, untrained and fighting vicious men who were accustomed to doing others harm. They could not hold their posts and would not know how to fight even if they could stand firm. It took constant shouts and commands from Beland and the Northman just to keep their focus and they were on the edge of breaking. The farmer who was trying to block the robber who’d gotten inside was putting up a brave effort, parrying with an old hoe he held out at length, but he was being steadily beaten back. The archers could not get a shot because he was blocking their aim. Beland rushed the man from behind and hacked across his back, crushing through the thin boiled leather surcoat he wore and gouging his flesh. The man screamed and fell to his knees. The farmer lunged with a manic cry and began hacking down on the stricken brute.

  To the front, Algas was dragging a wounded farmer aside and shouting at the others. Another local man took over hauling the victim and the Northman returned to the opening where a vicious close-quarter brawl was taking place. There were some bodies on the ground, but Beland could not see how many were his men.

  His men. He had led men in battle but these were hardly what he’d been used to. He was weary, dispirited, and his sword arm hung tiredly at his side. The clash of steel and the cries of battle seemed distant now and even though he was by the brazier, he felt no heat from the flames. He felt little of anything. His breath was short and his head heavy. They were going to die. He had fought across barren deserts and wastes; on rocky, windswept shores far from home, against some of the fiercest warriors in the world and here he was, soon to be cut down by mere brigands in his own shire. The villagers would be robbed, raped, their homes destroyed. Beland would never speak to his son, wherever the boy was. Because he had done the honorable thing and stood a defense, when he should have taken himself as far away as possible.

  A horn blast called him back to his senses.

  The front was scattering and the Northman and the villagers were standing to. In the flickering light he could see the two enemies who’d gotten inside the barricade were dead and there were more bodies near the gap that had been torn out by the horses.

  ‘Riders!’ Someone shouted, and Beland stalked over to where Algas was waiting.

  The brigands were fleeing across the fields and among the houses. One of the two stolen horses wandered aimlessly a few yards away, and beyond it a brace of chargers was pursuing the stragglers. The riders were armed with long swords and dressed in good steel armor, at least a dozen of them.

  ‘Who is it?’ Algas asked.

  ‘It’s too dark , but it must be the local lord, Jandryl Faldon.’

  The head of the riders trotted up to the barricade and dismounted.

  ‘Milord,’ Beland stepped forward and the two shook gloved hands, ‘Beland of the Order. We have met before.’

  The tall knight in mail, surcoat and shining helmet nodded dutifully, looked around and stroked his long moustache. Beland was not sure the man even remembered him.

  He looked Algas up and down. The Northman was blood-spattered, wild, eyed and his sleeve was torn with a crimson gash down his left arm. One of the villagers lay dead and another wounded and groaning in the corner. Four of the marauders lay in bloody pools around the gap in the barricade, splattered with gore.

  Jandryl turned back to him. ‘Quite an evening you’ve had here, Brother Knight.’

  Twenty nine

  The Rushwater ran lazily under the wide stone bridge that crossed to the city walls. Further north the stream was steeper and narrower and ran faster, giving it its name, but here, where it met the wide River Burr, it had slowed to a meandering crawl. Some distance to the south it opened into the river, but that was away in the darkness where Vanis could not see. The walls of Bastion stood high above them, rush lights flickering on the ramparts and a chill silence all about. The large wooden gates were impressive: fifteen or twenty feet high, almost as many feet wide and of thick sturdy oak with small grills in the front at eye level. They were also closed.

  The wagon creaked to a halt and the cloth merchant Gordwyn climbed down and approached the gate. Vanis could see and hear the small grill over the peephole drawn open from the inside. There were muttered words and the merchant returned to the wagon. ‘They want to hear from you.’

  Vanis got down, hitching his brown robe to avoid the hem catching on anything and strode confidently toward the gate. He had grown accustomed to breeches and a shirt these past weeks and the robe felt ungainly. It was also drafty in the cold air. Yet the doors it opened were his due, something the world would never have granted him otherwise. They had been going to send him away to the far ends of the country to languish in some forgotten monastery. Now instead he was wearing their robes and using their symbols to get him a place at the table. His anger was mostly gone and now he regretted that the prior and the others were dead – even Brother Cellim – but he also felt that by donning their cloth and passing as one of them, he was beating them at their own game. He was not bitter at the monks of Havenside, but rather the whole damned order of things. There was a certain pleasure in treading barefoot over the rules and prohibitions he had been drummed with all his life. So he walked with purpose to state his business at the gate.

  ‘Brother Vanis from Fenwall Abbey,’ he announced himself. The town was several shires to the east and suitably far away. It also had a large and ancient monastery that had trained hundreds of monks over the years and he could be any one of them. It was a better lie than the ones he had told before, and was also far enough from the wagon that Gordwyn wouldn’t hear him spin yet another tale, for he thought the merchant was already suspicious enough.

  ‘What business have you in Bastion?’ The guardsman pressed. Vanis felt a little foolish for he had expected the gate to be opened, but realized j
uts being a monk was probably not enough.

  ‘I’ve been sent to Bastion priory to tend to the sick. We have heard in Fenwall.’

  ‘Is the Scourge there too?’

  ‘None yet,’ Vanis said and hoped the guard knew no more news from Fenwall than he did, which was none at all. ‘How many have taken ill here?’

  ‘At least a hundred have died. Many more to come,’ the guard said and stepped back as the crossbar was raised on the other side. Vanis heard the clunking of heavy timber, the scrape of iron and behind him the wagon creaked forward and the horse’s hooves clattered on cobblestone.

  Vanis had always been caught lying when he was a boy, even when other boys had gotten away with the same lies. Once they’d stolen a neighbor’s eggs and he had been the only one who’d been punished. At the monastery he was always the first to be caught skiving from lessons without a good excuse and he supposed that was why brother Cellim had disliked him so. To be fair, he was also always the most like to be doing so. But he was learning that if you walked up to a man, looked him squarely in the eyes and insisted you were right, he was more likely to believe you. Vanis silently congratulated himself on getting better at his craft.

  The gates were pushed outward by two guardsmen and a third, the man from the slit, stood by to wave them through. Vanis climbed back onto the wagon as it entered the city and the gates were closed behind them.

  The first thing he noticed was the smell; sewage, cooking, rotting food, and a pall of something more sinister. Large houses crowded the sides of the street as far as he could see in the darkness, and few windows had lights. At corners and intersections there were braziers where guards sometimes stopped to warn themselves. One watchman they passed told them to hurry up and get indoors as the curfew was starting.

  ‘Will you be going to the priory then, Brother?’ Gordwyn asked. Vanis thought he detected sarcasm but was determined to maintain his ruse. He also realized that his story was a bit thin. He could hardly go to the priory – and he didn’t know where that was yet – knock on the door, and claim to be from Fenwall. He knew of the place but not much else. Somebody in Bastion would surely be more familiar with it.

  ‘Yes,’ Vanis answered, determined to be rid of the merchant who would eventually ask too many questions. For all it pained him that the residents of Havenside must be dead, at least there was nobody left who knew him. He could create his own past and future and that meant choosing his acquaintances carefully. If he could be pointed in the right direction he would simply repair to a tavern or inn and stay his first night there.

  ‘But which way is it?’ He asked. ‘This is my first time in the city.’

  Gordwyn stopped the cart. ‘At the main crossroads is the Great Chapel, straight ahead, you can’t miss it. Turn left one street before then and follow it to the river wall. The priory is right by the wall. Nice gardens, you’ll know it when you see it.’

  ‘Thank you friend,’ Vanis said, hopping down again. He took his satchel and the wrapped sword he’d received from Drelo. ‘May Heaven bless you and yours.’

  ‘And you, Brother,’ Gordwyn said politely, but without conviction, and he urged his wagon on again. Vanis made a hasty holy sign at them for all the good it would do, and waved back at the merchant’s son, then turned on foot and headed for the priory.

  The priory was the worst option of course. Standing in the cold, muddy street looking at its low stone wall and iron gate, he was drawn by the arched windows and the well-kept gardens, frost glowing white under the winter moonlight. It must be warm inside, he thought, and they’d have hot food and good wine. It reminded him of home, though he had been loath to think of Havenside as home since he’d left. But worse than someone at Bastion priory knowing someone from Fenwall, someone might actually know him. Traffic between the city and Havenside was brisk and commonplace. If Havenside had put out notice of a runaway novice after he’d left, someone in bastion would have taken note.

  So he had to find a place away from there and in a town beset by illness, he realized his story at the gate of being a healer was probably good enough for credulous commoners. So he turned back toward the main road, headed to the large open crossroads by the Great Chapel, and looked left and right and behind him. Ahead was the northern gate, faint in the dark, but with lit braziers to mark it. Left, the riverside wall was still fairly close, only a dozen houses away. To the right the road and clustered houses and bare trees stretched into darkness. Behind him and some distance was the eastern gate, the main gates where he had entered. The city was perfectly flat, but the road was uneven and rutted. Puddles froze on the top and he tapped one with a boot, breaking the ice for sport while he thought. He looked to the sky, with a bright half-moon, and stars from end to end. He missed the daytime sky with its high clouds calling him from afar.

  A dog barked somewhere and others answered. Someone coughed loudly behind a nearby window. There was faint talk and laughter coming from the large inn on the corner to his right. A swinging sign was painted with a rooster and the name was written underneath. The Laughing Cockerel. Travelers at the Crossroads Inn had spoken of the Old Cock affectionately, the grandest such establishment in the city. He stepped over a wide puddle and pushed open the door.

  The inn was indeed grand. It had a wide taproom with a counter directly across from the door and many tables in between. There was a large blazing hearth to the right and stairs to the left. The stairs led up to an indoor balcony that ran around the entire taproom, with doors leading off it. He could see another set of stairs leading away to another level. The place looked like it had once been an open courtyard that had been roofed over and made indoors.

  There was nobody playing music and a few people bothered to look at him save noting the monk’s robes he wore. Folk looked solemn, and in such times he understood why. The last few patrons were just finishing their cups it seemed and Vanis remembered the curfew. All that remained were a few of the black-garbed militia he had seen on the road to the city, the same kind who had told him Havenside was gone. They also looked about to leave the inn.

  ‘Curfew soon, Brother,’ one noted sternly as they left.

  ‘Brother Vandred!’ another patron exclaimed. He was an elderly man, grey, bald and bearded neatly but simply dressed. Vanis could not remember his name or his business but he had spoken with the man at the Crossroads Inn and stable a few nights earlier. At least the fellow remembered the false name Vanis had used. He had clearly been drinking a while: as he hugged the novice, Vanis noted he reeked of ale. Then he turned to the bartender, ‘Another cup for the holy brother!’

  The innkeeper, a portly man in a clean apron, looked at the last of the guards leaving.

  ‘As long as nobody is out,’ called the soldier, and closed the door behind him. The innkeeper reached for the tap.

  ‘Now this young monk has the voice of a saint,’ said the old man. ‘Sings the most beautiful hymns and plays well too!’

  Vanis noted the old man’s scarred hands and blackened fingernails and recalled he was a smith or tinker of some sort. A cutler, that was it, and he sold the knives and such he made about several shires with a donkey and a small cart. This had been his last trip of the season, for he lived in Mowbry’s Refuge a half day north. Vanis could still not recall his name.

  It did not matter for he played and sang for the last few patrons, all of whom were staying at the inn, and he got several free drinks and a bed for the night out of it. The cutler was celebrating the end of the season as he always did, by spending his last night on the road at the Old Cock. He usually stayed in simpler establishments when he was on the road, but every year treated himself to a nice bed at the grand inn. Common folk came through but they were merchants, sellswords, traders and others with money, even if only a little. Nobles used it too, but there were none this night.

  By the end of the evening as he retired to a small but tidy room with a comfortable bed – the first he’d slept in for weeks – Vanis realized he had learned some
thing valuable that night. Better than lying for himself all the time, he was learning he could have others validate his story. The folk at the Cockerel had embraced him as the wandering Brother Vandred. He hadn’t needed to spin a tale for the cutler had done it for him. Now wherever they went, the other patrons might remember a young monk with a good singing voice. He had a lute, a wrapped sword, a change of clothes and a few coins and a whole city to fleece. Perhaps he might even take his ruse to the capital or across the sea.

  Yet he didn’t sleep as well as he’d expected, troubled by dreams of Havenside and the monks and priests who must all be dead by now. Waking early he came to the taproom, where the inn’s servants, young boys and girls, were serving breakfast. The food was better than he’d experienced so far on the road as well. There was fresh baked bread, cold cured ham and cooked sausages and bacon. There were eggs, boiled or fried, and reasonably good fruit. However people ate solemnly, sober now after the evening before, and the pall of illness that hung over the city seemed to affect their moods. He heard chapel bells ringing in the distance and patrons looked bleakly at the doors. Even the cutler, who was finishing up to leave, was in much lower spirits than before bed.

  People came and went on business: a baker brought bread, a brewer’s assistant dropped off full barrels and took away empty ones, a beggar was chased away from the door and patrons paid the landlord as they left. Vanis said his goodbyes to the cutler and then approached the landlord with his proposition. The innkeeper had been friendly enough the night before when Vanis had played for him and the guests and his own belly had been full of drink. His plan was to secure another night’s board. But the landlord was not in as generous a mood as he had been and told Vanis times were hard and he would not be needed that night or the next.