Chivalry

by Gavin G. Smith

  Despite their training the horses were still panicking because of the fire and Thornto’s unnatural presence. Thornto rolled out of the way as a pair of hooves slammed into the mud where he’d been lying moments before. He was aware of a dull ache in his shoulder as he clambered back onto his feet and swung his halberd at the third man-at-arms. The pick blade caught the man in the face, just under his open helm. Thornto tried to pull the man out of his saddle but the pick blade just tore open his face and ripped out a chunk of his skull. The rider hung out of his saddle, his helm landing in the mud.

  Thornto recognised the fourth soldier: Jonathan the Bastard. Jonathan, very sensibly, slid off his horse. He even managed to grab his shield as he did so. He kept the panicking mount between himself and Thornto to give him time to draw his sword. Then he came at Thornto. Thornto backed away quickly. He swung the axe blade of the halberd in a mighty two handed swing. Jonathan raised his shield to block it. At the last moment Thornto swept forward. The axe blade caught the edge of the shield. Thornto yanked it towards him, Jonathan turned with the momentum. His back was vulnerable but Thornto wasn’t quick enough to take advantage. Jonathan lashed out with his sword as he spun but it was a wild blow, with no power. Thornto parried with the iron-studded haft of his halberd. He rammed the haft forward, like a quarterstaff. Jonathan managed to get his shield in the way but the blow knocked him off balance. Thornto slammed the halberd’s butt spike down through Jonathan’s foot. The man-at-arms howled in pain and staggered back. Thornto booted the other man’s shield, knocking him over. Reversing the halberd, Thornto rammed the long top spike though Jonathan’s sword arm. There was more screaming. He stepped back and swung the axe blade in a long slow arc at Jonathan’s head, the terrified man-at-arms dragged his shield over his face, but the blow was a feint and, changing position at the last moment, the blade came down between Jonathan’s legs in an explosion of mail and blood.

  “Lie there and bleed to death!” Thornto spat and then left him there on the road as he turned towards the carriage.

  He was close to one of the front horses in the team. It shied away from him and then a crossbow bolt appeared in its head and it collapsed in the harness, further disquieting the other three horses. Thornto saw the Crimson Companies soldier who sat next to the carriage’s driver frantically trying to reload his crossbow. Thornto strode towards him. Too late the soldier dropped his crossbow and grabbed for his mace. Thornto let his halberd fall and grabbed the soldier, dragging him off the carriage. The soldier lost his grip on the mace. Thornto retrieved it and used it to beat the man’s skull in.

  Straightening up, his face and coat flecked with bits of brain, flesh and bone, Thornto saw Cross fighting one of the men-at-arms. Both her short swords were drawn as he hacked at her with a broadsword. She would dodge or parry his blows with one blade, the other licking out at him, but not with enough force to penetrate his mail. The man-at-arms was becoming more and more frustrated, swinging with more fury and vigour than skill. He aimed a powerful blow at her head. She dropped to one knee. The broadsword flew over its intended target, leaving him off balance. He practically walked onto one of her blades as she rammed it up through his stomach and into his chest. She pushed his body to one side and then all that could be heard was the sound of distressed horseflesh, the crackle of flames, and the cries of the dying.

  The terrified driver finally managed to calm the three remaining horses. The carriage was no longer being dragged about. Cross joined Thornto as he opened the door to the vehicle, dripping mace in hand. The girl was out first; she shot past Thornto, making for the forest, crying out as Cross dropped one of her swords and caught her.

  The boy came next, slashing at Thornto with a sword that he might one day grow into. The blade cut leather but only scraped across his hauberk. Thornto snatched the sword away from the boy and threw him down into the mud, He rested a boot on the struggling child.

  The mother screamed and stabbed at Thornto with a dagger. He cuffed her hard, knocking her back into the carriage whilst her son screamed and thrashed at his feet.

  “You have no idea how my husband will make you suffer for this!” Lady Imelda Duranton, the Countess of Shoffington told him. Thornto leaned into the carriage and her eyes widened as she recognised him. “What has become of you?” She was clearly frightened but doing a good job of hiding it.

  “I am as your husband made me, lady,” he told her, grinning. Rust Mouth had been telling the truth. With Prince Sieber setting up court in Maranges, Lady Imelda had been keen to show enthusiasm, to court favour, to be seen as both fearless and in favour of expansion of the Iron Island’s territories. Against her husband’s wishes she had decided to travel to the Harlanian city.

  Thornto kicked the door to the abandoned woodsman’s hut open and threw Lady Duranton in. Her hands were bound and she glared at him with undisguised hatred. A distressed looking Gritcham looked up from where he was sitting by the table. Cross followed them, dragging the children by the ends of the rope she’d used to bind their hands. The girl was still crying. She screamed when she saw Gritcham, making the ghoul jump. The boy’s face was every inch the mask of hatred that his mother’s was.

  “What do you hope to achieve by this?” Lady Duranton demanded.

  “You husband’s suffering,” Thornto answered.

  “And here I told him you were a weakling, a fop,” she said, laughing.

  “If you try and escape I will drive spikes through your feet,” Thornto explained. “Do you believe me?”

  She studied his face.

  “You’ll never be him. You’re not half the man he is.”

  He grabbed the ropes that bound her hand and yanked her to her knees. He was aware of Cross tensing in his periphery.

  “Do you want to see your children eaten in front of your eyes?” he demanded.

  She spat in his face.

  He made to slap her.

  “Thornto!” Gritcham cried.

  Thornto’s head snapped up to look at the ghoul. The creature looked terrified but he was shaking his head.

  “You are wrong my lady,” Thornto said more quietly, drawing one of his daggers. “I am not a man at all.”

  Thornto had avoided his own reflection since he’d been brought back. The wanted posters came as a shock. The Church were offering a reward for his capture or his head, though more for his capture. He’d killed a Hierophant. They would want him to suffer for a long time, regardless of the Hierophant’s crimes. Examples had to be made less everyone thought it was all right to kill holy men. The posters had been printed, as the Church controlled the few precious printing presses. Their multitude meant that they were harder to avoid than his reflection. The picture may have been crude but Thornto could still recognise himself in the features of the slack-faced monster that stared out at him from the parchment nailed to the tree. Later he had caught a glimpse of himself in a pool of still water in the forest. The black thread of his sewn up scars stood out against his snow-white flesh. Death had aged him, considerably. He looked like the ghost of his father’s evil twin.

  He had stayed in the treeline to the south of the city where he could see the now much-reduced Iron Island army’s camp. He had watched a steady procession of soldiers and retainers make their way out of Maranges on foot, horseback and in wagons, as the Crimson Companies moved out of the citadel and back to the camp.

  Thornto had watched a party of Crimson Company horseman ride out from the camp along the Coastal Road, presumably to look for the now overdue Countess. He’d watched as a column of horse followed by infantry and a very long baggage train had advanced down the Tivok Road and into Maranges, winding its way up the hill to the keep. The vanguard flew the banner of Prince Sieber, as he and his forces replaced the Crimson Companies in garrisoning the city.

  Finally Thornto saw the horsemen who had gone to look for the countess return. Thornto suspected that Lord Philippe would be angry that they’d all returned rather than some, or at least most of them,
searching for the Countess, but that really wasn’t his problem. Now was the time, before the Red Earl sent woodsmen out to find his family and their captors. Thornto knew that despite the few rudimentary precautions Cross had taken against them being tracked, an experienced woodsman would have no problems finding the countess and the children.

  Thornto left the treeline and made his way down onto the plain that surrounded Maranges, heading for the Crimson Companies’ camp.

  Weapons had been drawn but the sentries let Thornto into the camp, despite the two-holstered firelocks with their matches burning. This was, after all, what all the men of the Crimson Companies wanted: Thornto in their power.

  The sea of tents fluttering in the autumn wind surrounded a large open muddy area used for mustering the troops. Thornto had passed pits dug in the earth containing chained wild dogs taken from the ruins of the old world. He heard sobbing coming from some of the tents, presumably captives brought from the city. Both were examples of what passed for entertainment amongst the Crimson Companies. What would have been less entertaining for the men were the seven rudely constructed gibbets. Their victims hung from them, fat crows picking at their sparse remaining flesh. Each of the hanged men had a sign around their stretched necks: ‘Deserters’. Thornto smiled. The Red Earl treated the rank and file of the Crimson Companies well, rewarding them for their victories with whatever dark pleasures their twisted souls wanted. Morale was normally very high and desertion was not much of a problem. Thornto hoped that his campaign of terror against the Crimson Companies had prompted these desertions. It made sense. To the simple superstitious peasant folk who made up the bulk of the Iron Island army he was a thing from Hell, and who knew? Maybe they were right.

  As the men of the Crimson Companies saw him they stopped what they were doing, grabbed weapons and moved to surround him. They didn’t get too close, however, parting at his approach as he made his way towards the largest tent in the camp, the command tent, where he knew he’d find the Red Earl.

  Thornto had wondered if he’d scream and rage, attack the earl in a frenzy when he saw him again. He did none of those things. Despite the Red Earl emerging from the tent with the same swagger he’d always had, despite being surrounded by the men of the Crimson Companies, Thornto understood who had the power here.

  The only signs of how troubled Lord Philippe was were the bags under his bloodshot eyes, though he looked thinner, maybe even smaller than Thornto remembered. Faecal, the fool, and a mud-spattered man-at-arms flanked the earl. Thornto guessed the man-at-arms was the commander of the search party sent out to look for the countess. As Thornto leaned on his halberd he noticed the Chirurgeon in the crowd as well.

  The Red Earl took a sip from a jewelled goblet he was holding and chuckled.

  “Look at you,” he said, shaking his head. “What have you done to yourself?” Thornto said nothing. He knew this wasn’t for his benefit. “Is this really what you’ve been frightened of? This sad wretch!” There was muttering from amongst the men. The earl pointed at Thornto. “Sergeant Black found this coward weeping in his own night soil!”

  “He did for Rust Mouth!” someone yelled from the crowd.

  Thornto saw the Red Earl crane his neck as he tried to catch sight of the speaker.

  “He’s not Sir Thornto!” Someone else screamed. “Faecal sent him to hell! And Old Forky sent him back with a demon sewed up inside his dead flesh!”

  Thornto allowed himself a rictus grin upon hearing this, and heard the disquiet ripple through the ranks. The Ponce’s rumourmongers had done their job well.

  “He’s been sent here from hell to punish us for our sins!” Someone else shouted. “Sins committed in your name!”

  “Who said that? Who fucking said that?” There were flecks of spittle in the air as the earl screamed.

  Thornto could understand why the earl was so upset. Soldiers needed to fear and obey the Light but pious soldiers, soldiers who actually followed the scriptures, were of no use to anyone. This was particularly the case in the Crimson Companies, where atrocity was their main weapon.

  The earl’s head swivelled back to stare at Thornto. The mask of hatred and fury that Thornto saw there looked like a hot reflection of his own emotions.

  “Let me put my armour on and we can settle this once and for all,” the earl spat, but Thornto was already shaking his head with mock sadness.

  “It won’t help you,” he said. “I’ll just come back.”

  “Horse shit!” the earl screamed. “I’ll burn your body! Burn out your little helpers!”

  Thornto shrugged.

  “It’s been tried, but do what you must,” he told the earl, and then looked around at the assembled men of the Crimson Companies. He recognised the grim, fixed expressions on their faces. Most of them would happily tear him to pieces but he saw fear as well. “You all know your sins,” he began quietly. “But it is an easy thing to avoid death at my hands. Simply renounce your service to the earl, take off your surcoat and leave.”

  Nobody moved.

  A smile broke across the earl’s face. Thornto mirrored that smile and stepped forward. Weapons were drawn, levelled, but the earl held up his hand and stayed his men’s action, standing his ground. Thornto handed the earl something. It was wrapped in a lady’s favour. The earl did not unwrap it but he must have known what it was. His face was ashen.

  “The earl treats you well because he takes pleasure from your crimes and gains status from the victories your atrocities bring. But never forget he has nothing but contempt for you, that your lives are meaningless to him!” Thornto told the assembled men. A ripple of murmurs spread out through the crowd. He heard Faecal’s soft giggle but noticed that the fool had moved back into the crowd surrounding the earl.

  “That is a lie!” the earl spat and then raising his voice, “He seeks to turn you against me!”

  “He’s doing a good job!” an anonymous voice shouted from the crowd.

  “I understand loyalty! I reward loyalty! You are the best treated soldiers in the whole army!” the earl screamed.

  Thornto just pointed at the hanged deserters.

  “They were deserters! They were as disloyal and treacherous as you!” the earl shouted to more murmurs from the crowd.

  “I have hunted your men like vermin and fed them to my ghoul,” Thornto told him, “I put a black powder charge up Rust Mouth’s arse and blew his legs off. He was a long time in the dying. I am here, in your power, and yet still you do not order your men to attack.”

  Thornto saw the earl squeeze the item Thornto had handed him. He knew that Lord Philippe dare not explain why he would not act. If his men knew that he was powerless in this, that he could not protect his own family. That would only serve to further weaken his position.

  “Let me make it easy for you,” Thornto said.

  He struck like lightning, like a snake, ramming the muddy spike at the base of his halberd through the face of one of the soldiers who stood too close to him. He wrenched the weapon out of the man’s ruined face, his broken mouth, and stepped back. Hard-faced men with weapons in their hands moved forward as the dead man collapsed to the ground.

  “Stop! Stop!” the earl screamed. His men hesitated.

  This was a gamble. It relied on the soldiers either being too frightened of him or still loyal enough to the earl that they didn’t just tear him apart.

  “I can kill with impunity,” Thornto told them. “And yet still you serve him.” There was more grumbling from the assembled men. A few of them shuffled forward again, with the apparent attention of attacking him. He just looked at them. It seemed they didn’t feel they had enough of an advantage, and did nothing.

  “No?” Thornto asked.

  “Please...” the earl started. It sounded pathetic to Thornto’s ears.

  “Perhaps one of your master’s most trusted confidants?”

  Thornto took a few steps forwards. Nearby soldiers backed quickly out of his way. He drew one of the firelocks; fortun
ately the match was still burning. Too late the Chirurgeon saw what was happening and turned to run, trying to push his way into the crowd, but the press of gathered men was too much. The double explosion of the pistol firing cut off his curiously high-pitched scream. The ball took the Chirurgeon in the back and he collapsed to the ground. Thornto stalked through his own pistol smoke, the other firelock in hand now. Soldiers scrambled out of his way, a look of superstitious dread on their faces. He was looking for Faecal but the fool was nowhere to be found. Thornto swung around to face the earl. Lord Philippe had dropped his goblet and drawn his sword.

  “Let’s talk,” Thornto said, and gestured towards the command tent. The earl looked sick but nodded. “Your betters go to discuss your fate!” Thornto shouted, and then made for the tent.

  Many members of the Crimson Company stayed but a significant number removed their surcoats, the red dog rampant on a black field trampled into the mud as they walked away.

  The cavernous interior of the command tent was empty except for Thornto and Lord Philippe. The red earl slumped down into an ornately carved high backed chair. The bloody item wrapped in the lady’s favour, his wife’s favour, on the table in front of him.

  “Open it,” Thornto commanded.

  The earl shook his head.

  Thornto did it for him. The severed finger, complete with signet ring, rolled out of the silk favour. Thornto hadn’t been sure what reaction to expect from the ‘Red Earl’ but he was still surprised when Lord Philippe broke down into tears. That was when he knew he’d won. It was funny that he didn’t feel all that different. Perhaps when the punishment had been served.

  “Please...” the earl begged.

  It was strange, Thornto decided. He knew the Red Earl as monster but somehow this monster still had room in his shrivelled black heart to love his family.