The Long War 03 - The Red Prince (12 page)

‘Not sure. They were wasted pretty badly at the breach.’

‘Give me a rough estimate?’ pressed Vladimir.

Hasim considered it. ‘Maybe six thousand... once the wounded get better or die.’

Vladimir bit his lip and huddled up again. He had marched north with ten thousand men. To hear that four thousand had died in the breach at South Warden was almost more than he could bear. He sobbed, holding his sweaty hands to his face. The king had thrown away his men, using their bodies to break the lines of South Warden.

‘Vladimir,’ said Fallon, ‘cry later. Your men are picketed outside the walls. That means we can get to them without the clerics interfering. Assuming we can get out of the city.’

‘We can,’ said Hasim. ‘As long as you don’t mind getting dirty.’

‘Wake up the cleric.’ Fallon pointed at Lanry. ‘And at some stage I’ll need a sword.’

Hasim glanced at the main doorway, beyond which the two bound men had their backs to the closed door. ‘Perhaps you should wake up the cleric and I’ll keep skulking over here.’

Fallon lightly shook Brother Lanry’s shoulder. The old cleric shuffled uncomfortably and batted away Fallon’s hand. Another shake of his shoulder and the churchman rolled over and opened his eyes.

‘What... ?’ he mumbled incoherently.

‘We’re leaving,’ stated the tall swordsman. ‘Get up if you want to come with us.’ He turned back to Hasim. ‘Where are Mobius and the king?’

‘The senior knights and clerics got very drunk in Long Shadow’s hall last night. They’ll be rather ill right about now.’

‘And Tristram?’ continued Fallon.

‘He wasn’t with the others... maybe he respects his vows.’ Al-Hasim was clearly knowledgeable about the lax attitude many knights took towards alcohol.

‘Good for him,’ said Vladimir, attempting to drag himself to his feet. ‘I wish I had vows to follow.’

Fallon went back to the window and waited for Brother Lanry to rouse himself. They still had an hour or so until sunrise. Plenty of time to leave South Warden, provided they weren’t interrupted by too many bound men who needed killing.

‘Hasim,’ said Lanry with a weak smile, ‘you’re alive... The One be praised.’

‘Let’s praise him later,’ replied the Karesian. ‘For now, we need to leave. They’re going to kill you in the morning.’

‘Me?’ asked the Brown cleric incredulously.

Hasim nodded.

‘What are you thinking, sir knight? Is it doable?’ he asked Fallon.

‘Maybe. But don’t call me that. My name’s Fallon.’

He peeked through an open sliver in the shutters and could see a clear path to the sewer trench. It ran under wooden walls and houses to the outer palisade. There would be guards stationed by the outer walls, but Fallon thought the escape route a good one, provided Al-Hasim was right and the knights were mostly in the central ground of South Warden.

‘Any of the Ranen captains still alive?’ asked Fallon.

‘Horrock got his stomach opened by a Purple bastard, but he’s still alive. I didn’t see what happened to his axe-master, Flame Tooth. Everyone else is locked up or being put to work.’

‘My Lord Corkoson,’ Fallon said to the Lord of Mud, ‘can I trust you to look after Brother Lanry?’

‘Only if he looks after me in return,’ he replied, without humour.

‘I can look after myself,’ mumbled the Brown cleric, rubbing sleep from his eyes and blinking rapidly to try and wake up. ‘Just point me in the direction of safety and I’ll follow you youngsters and be as quiet as a mouse.’

‘Let’s move then, shall we?’ said Fallon, beginning to climb out of the waist-high window.

His boots made little sound as he landed on the muddy ground outside. Hasim followed and the two men hugged the wooden wall, helping their less mobile companions to clamber out of the building. Both Lanry and Vladimir needed help. The Brown cleric in particular had to be told to be quiet several times before he made it into the alleyway.

‘Extricating myself from imprisonment via a window is not a part of my usual clerical duties,’ said Lanry as Hasim helped him to stand upright next to the outer wall.

‘Just stay behind Vladimir,’ replied Fallon in a dismissive whisper.

Al-Hasim tiptoed across to the sewer trench, keeping his eyes on the front of the house. As long as they were quiet, the two bound men on guard would have little reason to investigate, and Lanry’s lack of stealth told Fallon that the guards were not the most observant of men.

Hasim waved Fallon across. With light footsteps, the exemplar of the One approached his escape route.

Hasim pointed down to a ledge that ran along the side of the trench. ‘That’ll keep your feet out of the shit at the bottom... just don’t fall off the ledge.’

The ledge was narrow but far enough underground for Fallon to remain unobserved. He doubted how quickly they’d be able to move with Lanry in tow, but it was a clear route to the western stockade of South Warden.

They climbed down slowly, helping Lanry and Vladimir to get a good footing on the stone ledge. They were no more than three feet from the sewage that ran along the bottom of the trench and the Lord of Mud began to retch again as he took in the rancid smell.

‘I’m hung-over and expected to escape through a river of shit... lovely.’

‘It’s probably Ro shit,’ joked Al-Hasim, ‘if that makes you feel any better.’

‘Strangely, it doesn’t.’ The Lord of Mud had a hand across his mouth and had now turned a pasty-white colour.

‘I must say,’ said Lanry, ‘the smell is not making it easy to balance.’

Hasim had extended an arm across Lanry’s chest to keep him braced against the stone wall of the trench and the Brown cleric looked to be in no immediate danger of falling in.

Within ten minutes, they’d passed underneath two walls and several buildings. The sewage trenches of South Warden were well designed and of more solid construction than many of the buildings. Also, something in the nature of the Red knights meant that they were not inclined to check such places, as if it would be beneath them. It was an ideal, if disgusting, escape route.

The sun was not yet visible when Fallon first heard the sound of talking from above. ‘Men up ahead,’ he whispered behind him. ‘Probably guarding the outside wall.’

‘Point me towards danger, sir knight,’ panted the Brown cleric. ‘I’ll assist in any way I can.’

‘Just stay quiet,’ responded Fallon. ‘Hasim, give me your blade.’

The Karesian didn’t hesitate. He swiftly removed his scimitar and offered the handle. It was lighter than Fallon was used to and the blade was top-heavy, but it would be enough to defeat bound men.

Chancing a look above the lip of the trench, Fallon saw four men standing round a small cook fire. Just beyond them was a hole in the outer stockade, probably caused by the initial bombardment. No other men were nearby and the four guards were well away from the centre of town. They were chatting boisterously about wine and women, with little care for the campaign of which they were a part.

‘Four men,’ he whispered to Al-Hasim.

‘Can you handle them?’ asked the Karesian.

The exemplar narrowed his eyes. ‘Another four guards might make it a fair fight,’ he said, barely thinking how arrogant it sounded.

He vaulted out of the sewer trench and landed in a crouch on the gravelly surface above.

The men made no movement and were too engrossed in their banter to notice the armed man who had appeared no more than a few feet from them. Each wore a red tabard over chain mail and carried a longsword.

He kept low to the ground, holding the Karesian blade in front of his chest as he stepped towards the fire. He whistled sharply to alert the guards and then thrust forward into the nearest man’s ribs.

‘Who the fuck...?’ spluttered a bound man, fumbling to release his sword.

Fallon stood upright and looked down at three terrified faces. He kicked the dead man off his scimitar and stepped forward, answering a clumsy thrust with a fluid parry, running the man through.

Two of the guards were dead and the other two barely had a chance to stand before they were expertly killed, too. One had his chest opened as he tried to lunge, the other was kicked in the groin and decapitated before he could utter a word of alarm.

Fallon paused and surveyed the dead bodies. There was no sound or movement and all four had died cleanly.

‘Smooth,’ said Al-Hasim, poking his head up.

‘Get them out of the trench,’ he said, kneeling down and picking up a fallen longsword.

The Karesian smirked and disappeared below. There was grumbling from Lanry and moaning from Vladimir. It took a few minutes and by the time they were all standing by the stockade the horizon had a slight blue tinge to it. Fallon wanted to be out of the city and with the Darkwald yeomanry before the day watch began.

‘Who’s in command out there?’ he asked Vladimir, as the four of them skulked by the stockade of South Warden.

‘Dimitri, I’d imagine,’ replied the Lord of Mud. ‘He didn’t want to come here in the first place. Good man, though... loyal, honest.’

‘What is he, a wine-maker?’ asked Al-Hasim with a smile.

Vladimir made a show of mock offence. ‘Not just any wine-maker. I’ll have you know that Major Dimitri Savostin makes a sparkling white that would have you weeping, my good fellow.’

‘Major? In charge of six thousand men? Don’t you have a general?’ asked Fallon.

‘My father established the chain of command. I think he may have been drunk.’ He frowned. ‘Thank the One I never touch the stuff, hey?’

‘Yeah, you’re a model of purity, my friend,’ replied Fallon. ‘Shall we move?’

Al-Hasim poked his head out of the breach in the outer wall and looked upwards. ‘Will they have sentries up there?’ he asked.

‘Possibly, but they’ll be looking down into the town and not out on to the plains,’ responded Fallon. ‘And it’s still dark. Even if they do see us, they’ll likely assume we’re yeomen who sneaked out of camp for the night.’

He sheathed his new longsword and took the lead, crouching down to squeeze through a low gap in the stockade. Al-Hasim was a step behind, holding his scimitar low to the ground as if expecting trouble. Vladimir was next, hating every moment of his escape, and bringing up the rear was Brother Lanry of Canarn.

The ground beyond the wall was muddy and Fallon’s boots made an unpleasant squelching sound as he crept away from the wall. The others followed and within a few minutes they were trotting across open ground and into the darkness. In the distance, a good way from the city and lit up by a hundred fires, was the encampment currently occupied by the Darkwald yeomanry. Formerly, it had been the king’s camp, until the clerics and knights moved into the Ranen settlement, with Fallon as their prisoner.

They heard no words of alarm from behind them and the small group remained invisible in the dark morning that enveloped the Plains of Scarlet.

Fallon began to smile as the camp fires ahead of them grew closer. Then he stopped suddenly. The others did the same and they stood wordlessly looking at two dozen large wooden stakes standing in an orderly line in front of them. The stakes had been obscured by the darkness and the group had virtually run into them.

The wooden pillars were dug well into the ground and each stake had a bloodied figure tied to it. There were a few signs of movement and Fallon narrowed his eyes to bring them into focus. They were knights.

‘Hasim,’ he whispered, ‘what do you know about these men?’

The Karesian stepped next to Fallon and squinted. ‘I think they were strung up when one of them challenged a Purple cleric to a duel.’ He glanced at Vladimir. ‘It was the man commanding the yeomanry... the Purple fucker that opened up Horrock’s belly. Didn’t seem like he wanted to fight, so Mobius declared them traitors and... there you go.’ He gestured at the twenty or so figures staked out in front of them.

‘Brother Jakan,’ said Fallon. ‘That Purple fucker is called Brother Jakan.’

He was silent for a moment as the faces in front of him grew clearer. Tied to a stake several feet off the muddy ground and wearing the barest of bloody rags was Sir Theron of Haran, Fallon’s former adjutant. He turned sharply, and Al-Hasim saw his alarm as the other figures revealed themselves to be the rest of Fallon’s unit.

‘He strung them up for supporting me and showing... honour.’ Fallon whispered, and turned to see Vladimir looking up at the bloodied figures.

‘I say, isn’t that Lieutenant Theron?’ spluttered the Lord of Mud.

He ignored him. ‘Lanry, what is their condition?’

The Brown cleric was hesitant, but after a little encouragement he stood next to Fallon and studied Theron’s injuries. The knight lieutenant was shivering and his face and chest bore deep whip marks, but he was alive. Lanry turned to the other men and made a swift but practised assessment of their condition.

‘Well, I’d estimate that a few won’t survive... a few are dead already. Sorry, Sir Fallon.’ He pointed at Theron. ‘This one is still breathing.’

‘We have to cut them down,’ stated Fallon.

‘Um, I grant you I’m not a military man,’ replied Lanry, ‘but is that wise... given the daylight?’

‘Just cut them down,’ repeated the exemplar. ‘Hasim, Vladimir, cut their bonds.’

Neither man argued and both swiftly went about the unpleasant business of releasing the battered knights. They had been displayed like common criminals, but Fallon tried not to let his anger show. Lanry merely looked at him with pursed lips. The old cleric probably understood as well as Fallon that the justice of the Purple could be brutal.

‘They were your men?’ asked the cleric.

‘Indeed.’

‘Perhaps we should hasten to the camp over yonder and get some assistance. They will need to be treated properly or we may make their wounds worse.’ Whatever else he might be, Lanry was a skilled healer and Fallon was thankful for his counsel.

‘Very well,’ replied the exemplar.

His blood boiled, his mind raced, but he stayed outwardly calm.

Within a few minutes Al-Hasim had cut down most of the men. Vladimir was slower and had obeyed Fallon out of politeness more than actual desire to help. After a token effort, the Lord of Mud had returned and sat down on the grass.