Grim Company 02 - Sword Of The North (56 page)

Krazka finally turned, the white cloak he wore dancing wildly in the strong wind. The King held a strange device in his hand. It looked like a brass tube, tapering somewhat along its length. There was a thick layer of glass at the wide end. The King must have noticed Sir Meredith’s puzzled expression, for he tapped the strange gadget and smiled a humourless smile.

‘You ain’t never seen my looking tube before, sir knight? Here.’ Krazka tossed the device at Sir Meredith, who after a heart-stopping moment in which he almost fumbled the tube to the snow managed to catch it in his gauntlets.

He stared at it for a moment, examining the bronze casing. Then he raised his visor and brought the tube up to his face. He squinted through the glass but saw only a blur. ‘It’s broken.’

‘The other end,’ Krazka said patiently. Bagha grinned at his error, a blatant expression of ridicule that had Sir Meredith itching to knock the brute’s oversized teeth out of his mouth. He turned the device around and brought the narrow end up to his eye.

The world seemed to grow fivefold. The row of pines on the hill over the river loomed large enough for him to make out individual trees. He turned slowly, staring out over Heartstone in wonder. Even at this distance, he could make out the faces of the townsfolk. It was as if someone had granted him the vision of a hawk. He scanned the buildings until he found the Great Lodge, then directed his gaze to the pinnacle. He spotted what he was looking for on the roof. A wicker cage housed a naked and filthy prisoner. Sir Meredith could make out the lacerations on the young man’s body, the fresh shit that had been smeared into his wounds.

‘This has to be some kind of magic,’ Sir Meredith exclaimed, lowering the looking tube and turning it over in his hands. Bagha guffawed at that, and the knight’s good humour drained away like piss down a latrine. ‘Mock me again and I swear to you, brute, I shall break this over your ugly head!’ he roared.

The King’s lone eye narrowed on him. ‘That’s one of a kind. You damage it and I won’t be happy, sir knight. Wulgreth found it in the same place he found this.’ Krazka reached down to his belt and patted the handle of the long-barrelled projectile weapon with which he’d put a hole in the Shaman. The strange artefact still made Sir Meredith nervous. It struck him as perverse that such devastating power could be housed in so small a form.

‘To answer your question,’ Wulgreth said softly, ‘it is not magic. The hidden grotto I discovered while lost in the North Reaching contained all manner of strange objects. Long before men walked these mountains, another race dwelled here. In that cave were paintings of a forgotten people. They were tall and white-skinned, with eyes like obsidian. And they built weapons that could humble the gods.’

Sir Meredith listened with gritted teeth, hating Wulgreth and the foul perversions he knew sickened the man’s mind. The bastard struck him as too smart by half and there was something about his eyes, always bloodshot and
hungry
, that bothered the knight, that offended his honour.

‘There’s something I want you to see,’ Krazka grated. He gestured at the looking tube. ‘Twist the end. It changes the distance. Set it as far as it’ll go and take a gander due south.’

Sir Meredith did as the King commanded. Shranree looked uneasy, which was a strange sight indeed in a woman who had proven so hard to shock in the bedroom. He rotated the end of the tube until it clicked and would go no further, and then he peered through it. This time he couldn’t suppress a gasp. He could see for miles, the excellent vantage the hill provided offering him a breathtaking view of the King’s Reaching.

There was something odd about the horizon. A dark cloud of grey was visible beyond the white sheets of snow, and it took him a moment to realize that it was smoke. Too much smoke to come from any single village. No, it had to be the work of a great many men. An army, less than a day’s march away.

He heard a clicking noise on the hill behind him. He lowered the looking tube and turned – only to stare down the barrel of the King’s deadly weapon.

Krazka’s disfigured face twisted into a scowl. ‘Some stupid fucker decided to go and murder a bunch of Greenmen and their wives and children. You might not have heard but they call me the Butcher of Beregund down there. I weren’t a popular man as it was. Turns out even I’m less popular since half my Kingsmen went on a murdering spree.’

‘The Green Reaching has responded by revoking its neutrality,’ Wulgreth said in his smooth voice. ‘It has declared for the Shaman.’

Sir Meredith swallowed hard in the silence that followed. Could it be that he’d miscalculated? The Greenmen were supposed to come crawling back to Krazka, begging for his mercy after they’d been brought to heel. The stratagem had always worked for the Rag King back in the old days.

The King pointed his weapon at Red Rayne, the other man to have accompanied Sir Meredith on their ill-fated quest and returned to tell the tale. That dog-faced bastard Ryder had apparently not made it out of the Greenwild.

‘I thought about sending your heads to Southhaven as a peace offering,’ the King mused. ‘But I reckon we’re beyond salvaging the situation. Their army’s already camped out in my own Reaching, ready to attack as soon as they’ve marshalled their forces. I got that cocksucker Carn Bloodfist to the west, Mace to the north, and now Brandwyn the Younger to the south. All I need is the Shaman miraculously recovering and the Sword of the North showing his face and this little clusterfuck will be complete. Lucky for us the Herald’s on its way back soon. We just need to hold out for a while longer.’

Sir Meredith breathed a small sigh of relief, thinking the conversation was returning to calmer waters. His respite proved short-lived as Krazka swung the weapon back towards him.

‘I want to know which of you is responsible for ignoring my orders. I can tolerate murderers and sadists and even a shit-for-brains like Bagha here. But if there’s one thing I ain’t gonna stand for, it’s an independent thinker. You never get anything done with men like that at your back. We all know Ryder weren’t no leader. It was one of you two that fucked up.’

Red Rayne pointed a trembling finger at Sir Meredith, the mangled digit next to the ruin of his ring finger. It wasn’t clear if he was shaking from fear or the
jhaeld
in his system. ‘It was his idea. The iron man. He said they was your orders.’

Krazka shifted the barrel back towards Sir Meredith. ‘That right, sir knight?’

Sir Meredith’s heart was racing now. Sweat beaded his brow; he could feel it soaking his under-tunic beneath his mail. He couldn’t take his eyes off the lethal weapon pointed at his face. ‘He’s lying,’ he replied, though he heard a slight tremor in his voice and inwardly cursed. He was a
knight
. He wouldn’t show weakness in the face of this savage!

‘I implored that witless cur to focus on the quest in hand!’ Meredith snapped, recovering himself somewhat. ‘The fireplant resin coursing through his feeble brain turned him into a rabid dog. He raped and murdered his way through so many poor families that Ryder and I lost count. The delay his reprehensible actions cost us allowed the foundlings to escape to the Greenwild.’

‘You weasel-tongued bastard!’ Rayne roared. His hands shot to the scimitars at his sides a moment before he realized he could no longer use his right hand, his stronger hand. ‘That’s bullshit and you know it!’

Sir Meredith reached for his own sabre then. ‘I will not be called a liar by a reprobate such as you!’ he barked. He knew Rayne didn’t stand a chance, not with his mutilated hand. The man’s days as a worthwhile member of the Six were past, if indeed they had ever been present. ‘Let a contest of steel reveal the truth of your deception!’

The King shook his head. ‘There’ll be no duelling. That’d hardly be fair on old ninefingers there. No, we’re gonna take a vote. Like civilized men.’

‘A vote?’ Meredith said uncomfortably.

Krazka raised an eyebrow. ‘You know, it don’t hurt to address your king with a bit of respect. Seeing as I pay you handsomely and all.’

‘You pay me what I deserve,’ Sir Meredith replied, the words tumbling out of him before he’d given them proper consideration. He stared at the weapon the King carried and swallowed hard.

The King’s eye flashed in anger, but he smiled and turned to Bagha. ‘What d’you reckon, bearface? Who’s to blame for bringing the goat-fuckers to my doorstep?’

Bagha scratched his head.‘Huh. I think the iron’s man guilty.’

What you think is worth less than a goat’s shit
, Sir Meredith wanted to bark, but he managed to keep the words inside this time.

The King leered at Sir Meredith, who was suddenly reminded of dark nights long ago. His knightly courage began to waver as the memories flooded back. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘
No.
’

‘What’s that? You say something?’ The King shook the barrel at him, and the sudden movement made Sir Meredith jump.

I’m a knight
, he thought desperately.
Knights fear no one.

‘Wulgreth,’ the King said abruptly. ‘What’s your opinion?’

Sir Meredith could see that the Northman knew the truth. He could read it in his bloodshot eyes and the smirk on his face. But when Wulgreth answered it wasn’t the response the knight had been dreading. ‘I believe Red Rayne is guilty, my king.’

Krazka nodded. ‘That’s one vote each. What about you, Foehammer?’

Orgrim Foehammer shook his head. The former chieftain of the East Reaching looked like a broken man. As if everything he had ever believed in had unravelled right before his eyes. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Now, don’t be a spoilsport. You get a vote here the same as everyone else.’

The big Easterman crossed his meaty arms and spat. ‘I got no say in any of this. I shouldn’t be here. I should be back at Eastmeet, back with my people. Fighting to keep the Fangs safe. Fighting to turn back the demons you permitted to invade our land.’

‘Don’t make this all about you, Foehammer. I got more than one bullet for this weapon, if you catch my drift. Give me a name.’

Orgrim’s shoulders sagged. ‘Him,’ he whispered, nodding at Sir Meredith.

‘Shranree?’ the King asked.

The sorceress cleared her throat. ‘My king, Red Rayne is clearly unbalanced. His fireplant addiction makes him a liability and his loss of fighting skill means he is no longer fit to guard you. Sir Meredith is without question the better man.’

‘Bullshit!’ Rayne roared again. His face had turned as red as his epithet, the
jhaeld
in his blood pushing him to the brink of a berserker rage.

Krazka’s eye narrowed and he stared off into the blizzard as if deep in thought. ‘That’s two votes each. Looks like I get to cast the deciding vote.’ There was a terrible pause before the King’s weapon swung back to Sir Meredith. ‘Think that metal armour will protect you, sir knight?’

Meredith felt a warm trickle beneath his cuisses and he realized he had pissed himself. He squeezed his eyes shut, waited for the end.

The blast sent him crashing to the ground in an armoured heap. He lay flattened for a moment, his ears ringing from the thunderous noise, too shocked to move. Then he rolled over and groaned. He reached out to push himself up and felt something soft and spongy beneath his gauntlets. He opened his eyes.

The grey, snaking mess of Rayne’s brains were splattered all over the snow. The man’s body was crumpled nearby, dark matter hanging out of the shattered remnants of his skull. There was blood everywhere.

A shadow loomed over him. It was Krazka, the barrel of the terrible weapon he clutched smoking gently in his hand. ‘You may be the better man,’ he drawled, ‘but if you ever pull a stunt like that again, it’ll be your corpse lying headless on the snow. We understand each other, sir knight?’

‘Yes,’ Sir Meredith managed.

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes…
my king.
’

He drove his sword home again and again. Krazka’s face filled his world as he thrust, gasping with effort, sweat pouring down his face. ‘Die,’ he rasped. ‘Die, you bloody savage.’

The King tried to scream but no sound emerged. Sir Meredith smiled and thrust harder, revelling in his mastery, relishing the restoration of the natural order of things. He was a knight. Knights did not cower before barbarians.

He felt a sudden sting on his face. He snapped out of his reverie to see Shranree’s nails clawing at his cheeks, her body writhing beneath him. His hands were wrapped around her throat, choking her as agreed, but he’d got carried away in his fantasy and now she was turning red, no longer able to breathe. He relaxed his grip and turned away from the woman, rolling onto his back to stare up at the wooden ceiling while she coughed and spluttered on the bed beside him.

‘You almost strangled me,’ she gasped, rubbing at her neck. ‘A few seconds more and the King would be searching for another Kingsman. You are a good fuck, but you are not worth dying for.’

As if to reinforce the threat in her words, Shranree’s hand glowed briefly. A moment later the red marks around her neck faded. Sir Meredith stared at his rapidly wilting manhood and wanted to scream. How many more times was he going to be emasculated this day?

As his desire slipped away, Meredith was glad for the robe Shranree pulled on to cover her fleshy figure. He barely found her attractive at the best of times, and in truth was still confused as to why he had agreed to meet with her at all. After his humiliation earlier that day company had been the last thing on his mind. He ought to be preparing himself for the war to come, not lying here ploughing this shapeless sack of flesh.

Shranree’s heavy cheeks were still flushed from the ferocity of their lovemaking. He flinched as she placed a hand on his forearm. ‘The King was not jesting earlier,’ she said quietly. ‘If you go against his will again, he will kill you.’

Sir Meredith felt his teeth grinding together. ‘The King is insane,’ he replied bitterly. ‘A madman. In Carhein the city’s physicians would lock him in an asylum and throw away the key.’