Tales of the Old World

by Marc Gascoigne

  A red glow above the trees as the Blackhearts and the bandits approached the castle gave evidence that battle had already been joined. The noise came next. The clash of steel on steel, the cries of men and the screams of horses. When they reached the fields, Manfred’s bonfires illuminated a grim scene. The massed cultists—one couldn’t call them an army—attacked the ruined castle from all sides, undisciplined but bloodthirsty. They had bridged the moat with tree-trunks, and pressed Groff’s meagre forces and Manfred’s few knights fiercely at every gap in the walls.

  Hals gaped when he saw them. “The madmen! What’re they about?”

  Franka giggled.

  Reiner grimaced. “Some things are better covered by darkness.”

  The cultists, despite the cold of the spring night, were naked, their only covering swirls of purple and red, which looked more like smeared fruit and blood than paint. But, though naked, they were armed. Men and women, young and old, wielded swords and spears and clubs and bows, and though many seemed unlearned in their use, there were so many of them, and they were so frenzied in their unholy ecstasy that even alone they might have carried the day. Unfortunately they were not alone.

  Leading them were troops of a different calibre altogether. Fighting at the wall were immense warriors in black and purple armour, while, further out, purple-clad bowmen cut down defenders with impossible accuracy. “Northmens,” whispered Giano.

  “We fought that sort at Brozny,” said Pavel, shuddering. “Their swords had spikes in the hilts which pierce their own hands as they fight.”

  Hals nodded. “Pain was like drink to them. They loved it.”

  “Well,” said Reiner. “There ain’t enough of them to take the castle without their followers. If we can drive them off we’ll at least give Groff a fighting chance.”

  Loche, the bandit leader, smiled. “You leave that to me.”

  Loche brought his men to the wood’s edge and spread them out.

  “You’ll never hit them from here,” said Reiner, priming his handgun.

  “No,” said the bandit. “Groff’s cut the woods back two bow shots for that very reason. We’ll have to come up to the first hedgerow.”

  He signalled his men forward and they and the Blackhearts advanced at a jog. Fortunately the cultists, expecting no reinforcements, had posted no rear guard. The bandits reached the hedgerow with no alarm raised. “Ready boys?” asked Loche.

  The bandits put arrows to strings and flexed their bows. Franka did as well. Reiner and Giano raised their handguns. Hals and Pavel, pikemen with no skill with a bow, stood by with second guns, ready to reload while Reiner and Giano fired.

  “Fire.”

  With a thrum like a hundred guitars, the bandits loosed their shafts. Reiner’s and Giano’s guns cracked like snare drums. The arrows disappeared into the night, but reappeared as if by magic in the bare flesh of the cultists, who screamed and fell by the score.

  It took the madmen a moment to understand their plight, and by then, more feathered shafts were cutting them down. A wave of panic overcame them and they ran in all directions, dropping their weapons. Reiner wondered that men so frenzied that they stormed a castle naked would lose courage under fire, but facing an enemy you can see is very different from invisible death speeding from the night.

  “Don’t waste arrows on the runners, boys,” said Loche. “Let’s circle and…”

  But suddenly it was the bandits who were falling and screaming as feathered death whistled among them. Worse, even those only scratched were falling and writhing in agony, clawing at their wounds as if they were on fire.

  Reiner looked at the arrows. They were the same that had riddled the coach on their flight from the ambush.

  “The purple archers,” growled Loche, as his men pressed into the hedgerow. “Concentrate yer fire, boys.”

  Reiner sited along his gun barrel as the bandits nocked fresh arrows, but something behind the purple archers caught his eye. Below the north wall, a handful of Northmen, their black armour flashing red in the light of the bonfires, crossed the moat on a plank and crept toward the postern gate. There were no troops to stop them. Most of the fighting was on the far side of the castle. If this little force could somehow break down the iron-bound door…

  Reiner checked as the postern gate swung suddenly open. What treachery was this? Reiner squinted, trying to identify the shadowed figure who let the warriors into the castle. It was impossible. He cursed. The Blackhearts looked around.

  Reiner pointed. “Our efforts may be for naught. Someone lets the Northers in by the back gate.”

  Loche looked up. “Hey?” He peered forward.

  “We’ll have to stop them,” said Franka. “Unless we wish to die in this cursed wood.”

  Reiner glared at the girl. She was right, but the last thing he wanted to do was hunt through dark corridors after Northern marauders. He’d faced their like before, and nearly died of it. “It’ll take more than the five of us to bring those monsters down. Loche, we…”

  “Not to worry,” said the big man. “I ran from them once. And won my coward’s brand for it. I’ll not run again. Murgen, Aeloff, pick ten men and come with me.”

  “Ten and five.” Hals swallowed, nervous. “I hope it is enough.”

  Reiner and Loche and their men entered the open postern gate and peered into the empty kitchen garden. Sounds of the battle echoed around the bulk of the keep, but it was quiet here.

  “Where are they?” whispered Pavel.

  “Shhh!” hissed Giano, cupping his ear.

  They held their breath. From over the garden wall they heard a closing door.

  The party started cautiously forward, but Franka slipped quickly ahead. “I’ll keep ’em in sight,” she said.

  “Frank… Franz! Wait!” called Reiner, but the girl had already slipped into the garden.

  “Come on,” growled Reiner.

  As they entered the kitchen they saw Franka waving them towards the cellar stairs. They followed, and caught up with her at the door to the dungeon.

  “What are they doing down here?” asked Reiner.

  “Forcing a cell door,” replied Franka.

  “Ah. Udo.”

  The sound of steel biting into wood echoed down the narrow hall. Lantern light flickered from a door at the end. Franka started ahead. Reiner stopped her and went forward himself. She gave him a dirty look.

  Reiner peered into a low-ceilinged guard room with stout oak doors on each wall. The Northmen had just broken the lock of one and were swinging it open. Udo stepped out and embraced the smallest warrior, who Reiner suddenly realized was the sorceress, dressed in black armour of barbaric splendour. Her six companions wore black and purple as well, and disturbingly, though they were as fiercely bearded as any Northman, were as rouged and painted as Marienberg streetwalkers. Udo’s manservant, Stier, stood with them, holding a lantern. It was he, Reiner realized, who had let them in.

  After receiving Udo’s enthusiastic kiss, the sorceress stepped back. “It is time, beloved, to seize your destiny. Are you ready?”

  The boy nodded, unable to look away from her eyes. “I am ready.”

  The beauty removed a jewelled broach from her cloak. The pin was covered in black crust. “Then take this and go to your father. A mere scratch and he will fall. When Manfred and his knights turn to assist him, prick as many of them as you can. We will be nearby, ready to protect you from any survivors.”

  Udo hesitated, looking at the broach. “Will it be… painful?”

  “Worry not, my sweet,” said the witch, caressing his cheek. “Your father will not suffer. In fact he will die of an excess of pleasure.”

  She turned towards the door with Udo. Her men fell in around her. Reiner backed down the corridor to the waiting bandits.

  “Bows out,” he hissed. “Pin ’em inside the room.”

  He and Giano shouldered their guns as the others raised bows. Two warriors filled the door, eclipsing the room behind them with their b
ulk.

  “Fire!”

  The warriors bellowed as the barrage battered them. Most of the arrows glanced off the ebony armour, but a few hit more, and Reiner and Giano’s shot smashed through brains and bone. The Northmen fell. Behind them, Udo stared at an arrow sticking from his arm.

  “I… I am… hit!”

  The sorceress snatched him back into the room as one of her warriors leapt forward, sword drawn, and the last three backed up, protecting her.

  “Fire!”

  Reiner dropped his handgun and fired his pistol as the bandits’ bowstrings thrummed in his ears. The massive warrior took the ball and a thicket of arrows full on. He kept coming, eyes blazing with ecstatic fury.

  “Fire!”

  But the Northman was on them before they could reload. Pavel and Hals shouldered Reiner and Giano aside and jammed their spears into the warrior’s chest just as he reached their line. The force of his charge drove them skidding back, but at last he stopped, blood erupting from his painted mouth as he fell.

  “Die hard, don’t they?” said Loche.

  “Aye,” agreed Hals.

  A noise returned their attention to the guard room. The bandits flexed their bows again. Reiner aimed his pistol, but no berserk warriors spewed forth. Instead, stepping into the hall was the sorceress, arms raised… and naked.

  “Hold,” she said. “I would parlay.”

  Reiner and the Blackhearts and the bandits stared, open-mouthed, as she paced forward, her ripe curves swaying with every step. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed woman, would you?”

  Reiner began forming a joke about the woman being better armed than most armies, but it died in his throat as a delicious scent reached his nose. It wafted from her like musk: vanilla and jasmine, and drifted into his brain like fog.

  He tried to tell the others to shoot her before she ensorcelled them all, but found himself unable to speak or raise his gun. The others seemed similarly affected.

  The sorceress continued forward, smiling sweetly. “In fact, you would kill any man who tried to harm me, wouldn’t you? You would defend me to the death.”

  She stopped in front of them. Reiner fought to free his mind, but her beauty was all-consuming. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. He would do anything for her—die for her, if she would only take him into her arms. He heard bows and guns clatter to the floor as they fell from slack hands.

  “You, boy,” she said, pointing at Franka. “Your captain raised his gun to me. Will you protect me? Will you cut his throat?”

  Franka nodded and wove towards him, drawing her dagger, glassy-eyed. Reiner raised his chin obligingly. It was true. He had tried to kill the sorceress. He deserved to die.

  Franka raised her dagger.

  The sorceress licked her lips. “Of course you will,” she said. “No man can resist me.”

  But suddenly Franka spun and stabbed her in the throat. The witch stared, more shocked at Franka’s disobedience than at the dagger in her neck.

  Franka smirked. “Fortunately, I am no man.”

  The woman fell, blood pouring down over her alabaster breasts. The spell was broken. Reiner shook his head. The others did the same, cursing and groaning.

  “No! Beloved!”

  Reiner looked up. Udo was racing at them, sword above his head. “Murderers!” he cried. “Savages!”

  Behind him came the three remaining Northmen.

  Reiner fired but missed. The bandits were still picking up their dropped weapons and got off only a few shots. Reiner drew frantically, and met Udo sword on sword as Pavel and Hals thrust their spears at the Northmen and the bandits rushed to back them up.

  “Foul defiler!” shrieked Udo. “To kill such a gentle—”

  Reiner ran him through. The boy curled in on himself and fell. Reiner felt strangely guilty.

  Around him, the Blackhearts and the bandits were beating on the Northmen with all their might, but the corridor was too narrow and too crowded to make a good swing, and the warriors’ armour was too strong. The men could hardly dent it.

  The warriors, on the other hand, swung mailed fists and axes held high on the haft. Reiner saw Pavel reeling back from a fist to the shoulder. An axe sheared off a bandit’s arm at the elbow.

  “Fall back!” shouted Reiner.

  The Blackhearts and the bandits ran up the stairs, leaving their dead and wounded behind, the Northmen hot on their heels. A bandit went down, his skull crushed as he turned to flee.

  As they burst out of the castle into the yard, Reiner was momentarily afraid that they had run into more Northmen. The garden was full of men in blood-caked armour. But then he recognized Manfred and Groff in the chaos. The knights raised a shout as the Northmen roared out of the kitchen, and a fierce battle erupted as the two sides slammed together.

  Reiner was happy to observe from the sidelines, as were the bandits and the Blackhearts, who sucked in deep breaths and mopped at their wounds.

  After it became certain that the knights would be victorious, Hals turned to Franka and gave her a curious look.

  “What meant ye,” he asked, “when y’said ‘fortunately you wasn’t a man’?”

  “What?” said Franka. Reiner swallowed nervously. The girl was turning bright red. “I… er, I, well, I merely meant that I am but a boy.”

  Hals scowled. “When I was your age, laddie, I was twice as likely to fall for a woman’s wiles.”

  But before he could pursue the question further, the last of the Northmen fell and Manfred was striding their way, glaring.

  “Hetsau, what is the meaning of this?”

  “My lord,” said Reiner as he thought how to answer. “We are most glad…”

  “Never mind that, villain. I…”

  Behind the count, Groff suddenly raised a cry. All turned. Servants were carrying Udo’s body into the garden. Groff hurried forward and took the boy in his arms. “Who has done this?” he cried. “Who has slain my son?”

  Manfred glared at Reiner. “Hetsau?”

  “My lord, you wound me,” said Reiner. He crossed to Groff. “Lord Groff, the sorceress came to free your son so he might assassinate you, but he refused. They slew him for it.”

  Groff looked at him with grateful eyes. “He resisted then?”

  “Yes, my lord. I only regret we were not able to stop them.”

  Manfred gave Reiner a cool look. “Regrettable indeed. And who are these gentlemen with you, who were yet not enough to save Lord Groff’s son?”

  Reiner swallowed. “My lord, this is Captain Loche, leader of the noble woodsmen who helped you hold the castle this night.”

  Loche touched his forelock to Manfred. “M’lord.”

  “A leader of bandits, you mean,” said Manfred, ignoring Loche. “Who you recruited against my orders.”

  “I thought your lordship might be pleased to find yourself alive at the outcome.”

  “I am never pleased to be disobeyed.” He turned to the captain of his retinue. “Strieger, arrest these outlaws, and all who have remained on the field.”

  “What?” said Loche, surprised.

  “But, my lord,” cried Reiner as the knights began to surround the surviving bandits. “They have saved your life. You must admit that. You would be dead if not for their help.”

  “That may be,” said Manfred, “but certainly they aided us not out of any loyalty to the Empire, but only to save their own skins. They are still outlaws. They must still hang.”

  “Hang? My lord!” Reiner was sweating now. “My lord, it took all my gifts to convince these men to come to your aid. I promised them that you would be grateful—that you might even reward them for their service.”

  Manfred raised an eyebrow. “Ah. Then they have no one to blame for their fate but you, who promised things it was beyond your power to grant.” He motioned to Strieger. “Take them. In these troubled times the laws of the Empire must be firmly upheld.”

  As the knights took the bandits in tow, Loche shot a look at Reiner that pierce
d him to his soul. “Dirty liar,” he rasped. “I hope y’rot.” He spat on Reiner’s boots. The knights jerked him forward and marched the bandits out of the garden.

  Reiner hung his head, more ashamed than he’d ever been. He felt like a trained rat who had led his wild brethren into a trap. He wanted to tear Manfred’s throat out, but—more shame—he was too much of a coward. He valued his life too much.

  Franka put a hand on his arm. It didn’t help.

  The next morning the Blackhearts were locked back into their coach and Manfred and his knights continued south to Altdorf. As they rode from Groff’s castle Reiner and the others peered back through the slotted windows. Hanging from the battlements were scores of bandits and cultists, mixed together as if the hangmen had made no distinction between them—rotting fruit hanging from a stone tree.

  Reiner’s heart clenched when he saw Loche’s massive body swaying among them. He closed his eyes, then sank back in his seat. “And that, my lads,” he sighed, “is fair warning of how Lord Valdenheim will deal with us when he no longer finds us useful.”

  Pavel nodded. “The swine.”

  Giano shook his head. “We dead soldiers, hey?”

  “There must be a way out,” said Franka.

  “But how?” asked Hals.

  And so the endless conversation began again, all the way to Altdorf.

  FAITH

  Robert Earl

  “What about this one?” Claude the retainer asked with poorly disguised irritation, holding up the bloody prize.

  “As I’ve already told you,” his master replied sharply, “that is not good enough. I want something… more.”

  Claude shrugged and dropped the blood-spattered head back into the dust. The orc’s rictus grin leered up at him insolently, but he resisted the urge to give it a kick. Knights had funny ideas about things like that. But then, knights had funny ideas about a lot of things.

  With a grunt of disgust Claude turned his back on the grisly trophy and stalked off to collect the evening’s firewood. As he reached the tree-line he heard the sibilant hiss of whetstone against steel. It was the first of the evening’s hundred sweeps, the ritual that kept the knight’s sword sharper than any tooth or fang in this wilderness.