Honor among thieves

Chapter Forty-Nine

The bandit camp proved a sorry affair. Two dozen men holed up in a gorge, their weapons piled in a heap by a fire pit. Broken bottles and gnawed bones littered the main entrance to the defile, a midden that would foul the only route of escape. High mossy walls of rock stood over the camp, making the screams of the captive women echo and resound.

The leader of the bandits was a big man with the soot-stained face of a former blacksmith. He had a bad scar under one eye that looked especially bright under the grime. He wore a leather vest over his tunic that was studded with iron rivets. Perhaps he thought of this as armor.

His men debauched themselves around the fire, too drunk to notice anything but their sport. They had stolen two women from a nearby village-after slaughtering the elderly menfolk-and brought them here for purposes Croy could guess at but didn’t wish to. The bandits had tied together the women’s braids in a complicated knot so they were bound together. It seemed to amuse the bandits to watch the women struggle and pull at each other.

Kneeling atop the rock wall behind the camp, Croy lifted one hand, two fingers outstretched. With his other hand he pointed at the leader of the bandits. Then he dropped both hands.

Nothing happened.

Croy closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. His soldiers had not been properly trained. There had been no time. They probably weren’t even watching for his signal. It occurred to him that the men he now led were little better than the bandits they were about to ambush.

He had not been given much choice while recruiting his company. His little band of deserters, Gavin and his men, had been the first and among the best organized. Most of the others he’d found, soldiers in the farmland around Helstrow, had been alone or working with a single partner, and they were near death from starvation or exposure. A little salt pork had been enough to buy their loyalty.

Croy stood up slowly, careful not to let his knees creak. He turned around and looked for the pair of archers-his entire missile corps-who he had stationed in the branches of a tree that leaned out over the gorge. The two men were chatting quietly, their bows not even strung.

Given six months and the proper equipment, he was certain he could turn these men into an effective fighting force. Lacking either of those things, he had to fall back on the last refuge of desperate serjeants everywhere-bullying his men into a pale semblance of proper order. He pulled Ghostcutter from its scabbard and hacked at the tree trunk. The branches shook and a few twigs fell from the upper boughs.

The archers grabbed tight to the tree and stared down at him as if he was mad. Croy stared back up at them in such a way to confirm that impression. Then he slowly repeated his hand signals.

One of the archers nodded and strung his bow. The other, wanting to be helpful, handed his fellow an arrow from his own quiver.

Croy turned to look back down into the gorge. The leader of the bandits was urinating into the narrow creek that ran through the defile. The arrow took him in the neck, passing through his voice box before it hit the stone wall behind the dead man and clattered noisily to the ground.

Croy’s original order had been to put the arrow between the leader’s feet, as a warning. He supposed he shouldn’t be overly angry with this result.

The leader slumped forward into the water without making a sound. One of his followers, a gap-toothed bandit in a potter’s smock, pointed and laughed. Maybe he thought his chief had passed out from strong drink. It was a dark night, and visibility would be limited away from the fire. Perhaps the bandit couldn’t see the blood gushing from either side of the leader’s neck. Or maybe he could and still thought it was funny.

Croy called out, “Seize them!” At the trash-strewn opening to the gorge, his ten biggest men came rushing in with weapons bared. They roared like he’d taught them, a horrifying noise that sent some of the bandits sprawling in terror.

A few of the bandits had the presence of mind to make a dash for their own weapons. Before they could get there, Croy slid down a rope and met them with the point of Ghostcutter.

They surrendered on the spot, kneeling before the Ancient Blade. Their eyes could not have been wider, and their teeth chattered in their heads, even though the fire did a passable job of dispelling the night’s chill.

“I am the king’s man, and you have broken the king’s peace,” Croy told them. He sent one of his men to untie the women from each other. “In less chaotic times I would march you all to the nearest manor and have you tried for what you did today in the village. You would all be found wanting and you would all hang.”

One of the bandits vomited down the front of his own shirt. His eyes never stopped watching Croy.

“Right now, however, we are at war. There are rogues and cutthroats worse even than your sorry selves out there. I aim to drive them out of Skrae. To that end, I need your help. If you’re with me, come forth and kiss the sword.”

Their greasy lips defiled Ghostcutter’s blade. Croy’s conscience cringed at what he was doing. But it didn’t matter. A sword could be cleaned with water, or sand, or by wiping it on a cloth. A kingdom could be cleansed only by the blood of its brave sons-and for now, this lot would have to do.