Honor among thieves

Chapter Twenty-Six

The king of Skrae spluttered in rage. Croy didn’t blame him.

“Thralls,” Ulfram finally managed to spit out. “You want thousands of my subject reduced to thralldom. To slavery.”

Morg shrugged. “I need people to teach us how to plant, and how to tend crops.”

“We know already how to reap,” Hurlind the scold said, still rubbing his jaw.

“Anyway,” Morg went on, “thralldom’s not that bad. Our laws say a thrall has the same rights as a chieftain, and he can even buy his freedom if he works hard for twenty years or so. You have villeinage here in Skrae, yes? Tell me something-if a reeve beats a villein for some offense, what happens to the villein if he fights back?”

Ulfram glanced back at his knights as if expecting them to explain to him why he was being questioned on the finer points of the feudal system. “He’d be placed under arrest, of course, and tried for assault. Most likely he’d be hanged, as an example to others.”

“I thought so. Yes,” Morg said, nodding. “I’d much rather be a thrall. If a thrall’s master beats him too severely, and he breaks his master’s neck, most of us would cheer.”

“We do love a good avenging,” Hurlind affirmed.

Morg smiled. “I imagine more than a few of your villeins would prefer thralldom if they had the choice.”

“They don’t,” Ulfram pronounced. “The people of Skrae will never be sold as slaves. Only the Lady can assign a man to his station-that lies outside my power. So the answer is no. I will not grant you that land, nor give you my subjects in tribute. If that means war, then so be it.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Morg stretched his arms over his head and arched his back. “Well, I gave it my best shot.”

Ulfram sneered at the barbarian. “Did you really expect me to take what you offered, or was this just another naked ruse to justify mass slaughter?”

“Actually,” Morg told him, “it was mostly a play for time. It takes a while for the berserkers to get good and hot.” He turned and looked toward the fire pits, where the wild dancers gyrated at a frenzied pitch. He threw them a simple hand signal, and they all stopped on the instant, freezing in place.

One by one the red-painted men started trembling. Even from a distance Croy could see how they shook. Their teeth chattered in their heads and their eyes waxed red with blood. It looked like they were suffering from some kind of mass apoplectic fit.

“Your majesty,” Sir Hew said, his voice taut as a bowstring.

“I told you not to speak,” Ulfram snarled at the knight.

The berserkers picked up axes and shields from where they lay on the grass. Their faces were as red now as the paint across their mouths. One of them started gnawing on the wooden rim of his shield as if he would take a bite out of it.

“Forgive me, liege,” Sir Hew said, “but get on your damned horse right now!”

The king was not blind. He jumped up into his saddle. Yet before he turned the horse back toward Helstrow, he glowered down at Morg. “You dare to sully the sacred rite of parley,” he said. “No violence offered, no treachery brooked!”

Morg laughed. “That’s your custom, not ours. Ours is to cheat every way we can. We win a lot more battles our way.”

Sir Hew dashed forward and kicked at the haunches of the king’s horse. Croy didn’t need further provocation to wheel his rounsey about and get it moving.

“Guard me,” the king shouted. “On me, all of you!”

The Ancient Blades moved swiftly to box him in, even as the berserkers started to howl and chase them on foot. They ran far faster than any man should, their axes waving high over their heads, their shields bashing forward at thin air.

“The gate! Open the gate!” Sir Rory called. Up ahead Croy could see soldiers desperately trying to get the gate open before their king reached it.

“The ballistae!” Croy shouted. Up on the battlements above the gate, the giant crossbows were slowly cranked to tension. “Shoot over our heads-do it now!”

The horses thundered toward the gate, throwing up great clods of earth as their hooves pounded at the soil. The gate was still a hundred yards away.

The berserkers were gaining on them. And behind the running men, ten thousand barbarians were rising to their feet, their weapons already in their hands.

A ballista fired with a twang like the world’s longest lute string snapping in the middle of a chord, and an iron bolt six feet long flashed over the top of Croy’s great helm. It passed through one berserker, leaving a hole in his chest big enough to put a fist through. It impaled the man behind him, too, before plowing deep into the earth without a sound.

The first berserker died before he hit the ground, his axe slashing again and again at the yellow grass. The second berserker, the one who had been impaled, took longer about it. Incredibly, as Croy watched over his shoulder, he saw the berserker try to pull himself forward, attempting to drag himself off the ballista bolt that transfixed him.

Step by excruciating step the berserker forced himself forward. There was no pain written on his face at all. Had he made himself totally insensate with his wild dancing? The berserker took another step-and pulled himself free. The ballista bolt thrummed as it came clear from his back.

The berserker laughed-and then died, as blood erupted like a fountain from his wound.

Behind him fifty more of them were still coming.

“The gate! Open the gate!” the king screamed, and Croy looked forward to see that the gate was in fact open-but the portcullis behind it was still lowered.