Honor among thieves

Chapter Twenty-One

The day after the gates of Helstrow were sealed, the town moved quickly to a war footing. Wagons full of men streamed toward Helstrow from a hundred villages. Croy and Hew stood on horses near the main gate, watching as each new consignment was checked in and sent to be armed and trained. These were farmers, men-boys-who had never been more than a mile outside their homes. They all had the same goggle-eyed expression as they first took in the colors and chaos of Helstrow. They’d never seen a town before, but even if they had, they couldn’t have been prepared. The outer bailey was packed now from side to side with humanity, every house a billet and every tavern an arsenal. Men in formation marched everywhere through the streets, while serjeants in kettle hats screamed orders at them and beat those who failed to keep in line.

The few dwarves who hadn’t packed up and fled for their own kingdom in the north were working day and night to make weapons and rudimentary armor. They worked side by side with human blacksmiths, and the night rang with hammer blows and was lit by great gusts of sparks shooting out of the chimney of every forge. Fires broke out constantly, but at least there were plenty of men ready to hold buckets of water and sand. The iron flowed, and piece by piece the city was armed-with bill hooks, halberds, axes, and swords. With lances and flails and maces with grotesquely flanged heads. With leather jack, and ring mail, and chain hauberks, and coats of plate.

On the third day Sir Rory rode up to the gates and beat on them with the pommel of Crowsbill to be let in, and another Ancient Blade took the king’s colors. Sir Rory was the oldest of their order, running a little to fat, and he rode with his wife and six children, all on horses behind him. He brought a company of volunteers as well, which the king was happy to receive. Anyone who actually chose to fight for Skrae was automatically commissioned as a serjeant and given the best pick of the weapons.

“They’ll fight to their last breath,” Rory promised as his men marched up toward the keep in a semblance of good order. “Though perhaps not well.”

Croy clasped the old knight’s vambrace and said, “Well met, my friend. Any word of Sir Orne?”

Rory drew his fingers through his thick mustache. “Last I heard, he was up north, hunting some centuries-old sorcerer. I’m sure he’ll hear the call.”

Croy hoped so. Though younger than any of them, Orne had more military experience. After Ulfram V had discharged them all, Orne went north, where there was always fighting to be done. Endless skirmishes with the hill people there had turned the knight into a master strategist-something Helstrow needed more than iron or steel.

“There are only four of us now, I hear, for Bikker’s dead and Acidtongue’s in unknown hands,” Sir Rory said, and made the sign of the Lady on his breast. “They have two of the swords.”

“I’m not so worried about the barbarians holding Dawnbringer and Fangbreaker,” Hew insisted. “They haven’t had our training. They never took our vows. And one of them’s a girl!”

“You saw Morgain, though,” Croy told him.

“She’s a woman. I don’t care how big she is, no woman has the stomach to cut a man from crop to crupper.”

Croy wished he could share the sentiment. He’d met more than a few woman warriors in his time, and they’d been fierce enough. Woman who chose to take up swords had to constantly prove themselves, and it made them more driven and more dangerous than any man. And Morgain seemed altogether too much like her brother, Morget-the strongest and most dangerous fighter Croy had ever known.

“The Lady will sustain us,” he said, more for his own sake than the others.

On the sixth day Balint showed herself in the courtyard before the keep. Croy had managed to avoid her so far, but that evening, as she wheeled a train of ballistae out of the armory cellars, a great cheer went up from the people, and the Ancient Blades had to be on hand to do her honor.

The dwarf rode high on the bolt of one of her great contraptions as it was pushed through the streets, kicking her legs and waving a wrench in the air. The war machines were dragged by conscripts down through the gate into the outer bailey, and then across the Strow bridge, where half the city waited to cheer them on. The king showed himself at a balcony atop the palace while his heralds waved pennons and sounded great trumpets. As Balint came even with the knights on their horses, she gave Croy a long and triumphant look.

“When they see my babies here,” she told him, “the barbarians will turn around and run so fast we’ll send bolts straight up their arseholes.”

“I have no doubt of it, dwarf,” Croy said, his mouth tasting of gall and vinegar. “You have shown yourself a genius at shooting men in the back.”

Balint crowed in joy-she loved a good taunt, whether she was giving it or receiving it-and rode on toward the eastern gate, where she placed the giant crossbows high atop the wall.

On the eighth day the conscripts tried to revolt. A rumor had been going about that only one man in two would be armed with iron when the battle came, and the rest given nothing but shields, their lives to be thrown away blunting the barbarians’ first charge.

“Who told them any of them were going to get shields?” Rory asked, his voice little more than a whisper. From atop the wall of the outer bailey, the Ancient Blades watched the conscripts strive against their serjeants, pushing the shouting officers up against the wall.

“We should be down there imposing order,” Croy said through gritted teeth.

“You heard the king. He has a better way,” Sir Hew told him.

And the king, in fact, did. Making no show of aggression, he appeared before the crowd at the head of a train of mules, each pulling a cart loaded with a giant hogshead of ale. Bungs were thrown open and foaming brown liquor streamed into the streets. The conscripts forgot the serjeants immediately, lest the ale go to waste.

In the morning not many of them felt like renewing their rebellion. It was the quietest morning Croy could remember since the gates were sealed. He was able to walk the wall nearly halfway around the town without hearing a curse or a profanity uttered. Not much work got done either, but at least Helstrow was at peace.

When he reached the northernmost point on the wall, he lingered, and looked out across the rolling farmland toward the distant northern forests. But it wasn’t until the ninth day that Sir Orne finally appeared, standing his horse in a field half a mile away, Bloodquaffer held high over his head. The sword’s edges looked fuzzy in the distance, as if it were glowing with its own light. For hours he stood like that, the horse’s head lowering occasionally to graze on field stubble.

When the sun set Orne lowered the weapon, then slid from his saddle to kneel on the earth. He left the horse behind and crawled the rest of the way on his knees.

It was an act of devotion to the Lady. No one dared rush out to help him or speed his way. It wasn’t until well after midnight that he was brought inside the walls of the fortress.

Croy was there to receive him. As Hew helped the knight to his feet, Croy tried to take Orne’s free hand in hearty embrace-only to be rebuffed after a very short clasping of wrists.

“Do not take offense, I beg you,” Orne told Croy. “It’s for your own sake I am so cold. I do not wish to pass on my curse.”

“Curse?” Hew demanded. “We heard you were chasing a sorcerer up north. Did you get the bastard?”

“I did,” Orne said. He looked as if he would gladly have said no more. Croy and Hew stared at him until he relented. “With his last breath, though, he laughed in my face. And told me how I am to die.”

None of them missed what the knight was not saying. If he was this afraid to come to Helstrow, it could only mean one thing. The sorcerer’s dying prophecy must have told Orne that he would die here, inside the fortress.

Hew looked to Croy with eerie dread in his eyes. Croy shook his head. “You came,” he said, bowing to Orne. “That’s what’s important.”

“I took a vow,” Orne told him. “I took a vow.”

They took him to a bed and posted a guard on his door-not for Orne’s own sake, but to keep away the curious, who heard the knight screaming in his sleep and wished to hear the prophetic words he could not speak while wakeful.

On the tenth day after the gates were sealed, the barbarians arrived.