The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (63 page)

The armsman knew what the grey robe meant, but after four pots of grain spirit he wasn’t sure if he could rise to the occasion. Still, a good grope would do until he felt up to it. “What about my reward?”

The master pulled the gold coin from his purse and handed it to the armsman. “For your work here today you deserve more than just that piece of gold. Enjoy what the girl can give you and then come and find me; I think a promotion to squad leader for your initiative is in order.”

The armsman grinned, nodded and dismounted. He didn’t trust the lying bastard but the thought of the girl’s soft flesh beneath him and the chance to lord it in the squad leader’s mess was too much to resist. Slightly unsteadily he went to the back of the low cart with two of the guards beside him. If it hadn’t been for the guards he would never have got the girl off the back of the cart but one took an arm and a leg and he took the other. The second guard drew his sword and held the other woman and her screaming baby and the fat old man back. When they had her on the ground and he was on top of her with his hand around one breast the temple guards left him to it.

It was just as the grey robe expected. The man on the half dead nag was the girl’s lover. As soon as it was clear what was going to happen next he was off his horse and drawing his sword. The only surprise was that he hadn’t reacted sooner. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers and the temple guard next to him released his first bolt taking the man in the shoulder and spinning him around followed by a second bolt which cut into his chest and bowled him over.

The grey robe smiled in satisfaction. That would do for now. Later he would send one of the temple guards back to finish the job when the idiot armsman had taken his reward. He gave the command and within moments the cart had been turned around and was on its way back to the Enclave with its armed escort around it.

Birrit knew that it was better to open your legs and let a man have what he wanted than resist and have your throat cut for your trouble. That, however, was before she had met Jarrul and had learned what it was to be loved by one man. The armsman on top of her was big and very strong but all he had done so far was fondle her breasts and nuzzle her neck. She knew that wouldn’t last and what would come next but she wasn’t going to let that happen. Remembering everything she had learned about being a whore she relaxed completely and waited for him to take his hand from her breast and move it to the laces of his breeches.

The slight shift in weight was all she needed and with as much strength as she could manage, she dragged the knife from the fold in her skirt and plunged it into the man’s side trying to angle it upwards towards his heart. Screaming like a stuck grunter, the armsman rolled off of her dragging the knife from his side and letting bright red blood pump from the deep wound. She knew she had failed to find her mark when she felt the knife scrape against the man’s ribs stopping it killing him instantly. Birrit tried to scramble to her feet and run but she was too slow, the man came up behind her, grabbed her hair forcing her head back and pulled the knife across her throat.

Hot blood ran across his hands, some of it his but mostly hers. He dropped the knife and the dead weight of the girl and staggered back clutching his side. The wound was bad but he didn’t think it was fatal. All he had to do was climb on the horse, which had been left for him, and make it back to the Enclave before he bled to death. They had physics there and even some magic workers who would be able to fix him up in no time.

He stumbled across to where the horse stood cropping grass ignoring the prone body on the ground. Still clutching his wound he took up the reins and was about to mount when something struck him hard in his back knocking all the breath from him. The armsman tried to suck in a lungful of air but nothing happened. Instead blackness closed in from both sides and he crumpled to the ground, blood still running from the wound in his side but not from where the metal bolt was embedded up to its flights in his back.

The temple guard dismounted, flipped the armsman over with his boot and retrieved the gold coin noticing that the man was still breathing. He thought about being merciful and finishing him off but there wasn’t much point, he wasn’t going anywhere with a metal bolt in his lungs. As for the others, they were both dead, the man from the bolt he had fired and the girl with her throat cut, which was a pity, he wouldn’t have minded having a bit of her himself. He gave a shrug and with his orders fulfilled he turned his horse around, remounted and set it to a canter so he could catch up with the grey robe, the cart and the rest of his squad.

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PART FOUR

Vindication

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Resistance

It had been a simple ceremony. Borman sat on the throne in the throne room and what remained of Vinmore’s nobility stood in front of him. There weren’t many left after Vorgret’s purge so an assortment of merchants, traders, vintners and counting house owners had been invited too. As that didn’t fill half the space in the huge hall, the welcoming party, which had greeted him at the gates of Alewinder, had been invited as well. Amongst them were half a dozen innkeepers, two stall holders and a warehouseman.

That just went to show how much Vinmore needed someone on the throne who knew how to be a king and how to keep the people firmly in their place. The rabble, which is what he thought them to be, stood at the back, looking uncomfortable and out of place, but they wouldn’t have to feel like that for long. This would be the one and only time they would be allowed into the palace unless, of course, it was to occupy the cells beneath his feet.

The conquest had been remarkably easy and almost bloodless. All he’d had to do was make a few threats and they had willingly given the country to him. It was even easier than his conquest of Leersland and that had taken no effort at all. Even though the people didn’t need to be cowed he would have preferred a much grander coronation, but the problem was he couldn’t find anyone suitable to place the crown on his head. Normally such an honour would fall to the highest noble of the land, but they were all dead or had fled.

The High Master would have been another option but the rumour was that the renegade black robe had taken Razarin’s place and he didn’t fancy being crowned by someone who, on a whim, might decide to incinerate him and take the crown himself. Malingar, as the highest ranking noble in his army, would have been another alternative, but it didn’t feel right to be crowned by your own Guardcaptain. So in the end he had decided to miss out on a formal crowning ceremony and had placed the crown on his own head, so he could then concentrate on receiving the people’s oaths of loyalty.

Once the formalities were over he turned his attention and his energies to ruling the country, collecting taxes and getting rid of potential trouble makers. Ruling the country was a simple enough task as Vorgret had left most of Alewinder’s administrators in place. Similarly tax collection was easy and he’d made himself popular with the inhabitants by reducing the taxes to something between what was levied by King Steppen and the ridiculous amounts demanded by Vorgret.

Getting rid of those who might oppose him though had turned out to be more difficult than he’d anticipated. Of course he’d disposed of the captains of the palace and city guard and put his own men in place, but the remaining problem had been a tricky one; what to do with the small army of freedom fighters who were encamped in the Northern Forest. They hadn’t caused any problems yet, but it would only be a matter of time before they took it into their heads to challenge him.

The most direct solution would have been to send his army into the forest, find their hiding place and kill them all. However, the forest was noted for its denseness, not to mention the dangerous terrain at its centre, where steep gullies and deep holes in the ground were disguised by thick undergrowth. He’d been told that some of the holes were so big that they could swallow a squad of men without leaving a trace that they had ever been there. If he sent his army in there he could lose half of them, and he couldn’t afford to do that, not with having to leave so many behind in Leersland and Tarbis to keep those kingdoms loyal.

He needed to keep tight control of his conquests if he were going to achieve his great plan. It had come to him in a moment of brilliance, perhaps even sent from the Goddess herself. Vorgret was dead and Essenland had no king, so why shouldn’t he take that throne as well? If he did, he could unite the six kingdoms under one king, himself. Well, not quite the six kingdoms, there was Sandstrone to conquer, but that land of stone and deserts and nomads was worthless. He could take it whenever he wanted.

Being the one king of the civilised kingdoms was the big prize, which was why the rebels were such a damned nuisance. He dare not attempt to chase them out of the woods, but neither could he leave them behind him to cause trouble. There was only one solution; he would have to burn them out. It was a waste of timber, particularly the ancient weiswald trees which were said to be imbued with magic and grew nowhere else in the kingdoms, or even the lands across the ocean for that matter. However, once the fires had cooled he could send the peasants in to replant the area with wine berry vines or orchards which would yield more coin than some old trees ever would.

Borman poured himself another goblet of wine and considered the problem of burning a forest down. Having a pyrocaster to do it for him would be best, but he doubted if the black robe would leave the Enclave to do him such a favour. Failing that he could use funeral oil or even grain spirit. There was bound to be plenty of that in Alewinder. It would only be needed to start the fire; once the flames became hot enough, the trees and the undergrowth would fuel it until there was nothing left to burn. It would be quite a sight watching an entire forest burn but he would have to forego that pleasure. He needed to be well on his way to Vorglave before it was lit, otherwise the smoke would make it a most unpleasant journey.

For once he wasn’t irritated when his thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, and he positively beamed when Malingar entered. He was just the man for the job. “Lord Malingar, a timely interruption. Where is that steward of yours?”

“My Lord,” Malingar bowed, surprised by the king’s unusual concern. “Sharman is feeling unwell so I have told him to rest.”

“That’s a pity. I would have liked his opinion on a matter, but never mind, you will have to do instead. Now tell me, if we were to ride on to Vorglave how many men could we safely take with us?”

Malingar thought about it for a moment. Alewinder wasn’t troublesome, but it was a big city. “To ensure that Vinmore remains loyal and prevent rebellion, I would say no more than seven troops.”

“And how many men do you think it would take to set sufficient fires going to burn down the Northern Forest?”

“My Lord?”

“There are a pack of rebels in the Northern Forest which I will not leave behind me when I move into Essenland, and it would take too many men to drive them out, so unless you can think of a better way, you will take two hundred men and burn the forest down. When you have disposed of those who try to escape you will join me, my army and the thousand men I intend to conscript in Parim.”

“But, My Lord, the forest has stood through a thousand summers! It would be a sacrilege to burn it down.”

Borman shrugged. “They are just trees. Now get the men organised. I want to leave Vinmore within five days in the certain knowledge that Alewinder will still be mine when I return here and make it the capital of my new and much larger kingdom.”

Malingar left with his mind numbed by the enormity of what Borman had ordered him to do. It seemed that there was nothing he wasn’t capable of to achieve his ambitions. He was still stunned when he let himself quietly into Sharman’s rooms, which were no longer in the barracks but close to his own. When he’d left his friend earlier, he’d been in bed looking pale and haggard, but now he sat by the fire with a blanket around him looking a little better. Malingar sat in the chair opposite and tried to ignore the unfocused look in Sharman’s eyes as he told him about Borman’s orders.

“The king won’t be happy until he rules all of the six kingdoms, and he has no care who or what he destroys in the process.”

Sharman nodded, knowing the truth of what Malingar said. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do? He is the king.”

“He is a selfish, uncaring bastard, but he is also greedy. If you could find an alternative means which would remove the rebels but which left the valuable timber unharmed and didn’t cost the lives of his fighting men, would he be satisfied?”

Malingar thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I suppose he would, but I would need more than two hundred men to find the rebels and take them down, nearer five hundred and the casualties would be enormous.”

“I was thinking of just two or three, a half dozen at most.” Malingar raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “I’ve reorganised the squads and taken in some of Alewinder’s lads, the promising ones at least. I got a bunch of them talking about what had happened at Alewinder’s gates and who arranged the peaceful welcome. They were right upset that they didn’t have a chance to fight, and said it was all the fault of the innkeeper at the Soldiers Rest, who persuaded the other good folk of the city to surrender without a fight.

“Being nosey, as I am, I followed it up and found that this innkeeper owns a nice inn in the east of the city. We got talking about this and that and he told me he was worried sick about his only son who was holed up in some woodlands. I said I knew how he felt and before you could count the flagons on his shelf, we were best mates. He got lots of sympathy from a father in the same position, and I got a pocket full of poppy powder for my pain and a sack load of information.”