It was hours before anything was explained to Tilda.
She and Captain Block had only stared as Dugan announced the dwarf’s identity to the Trellane guards at the bridge, who in turn had looked deeply befuddled. It was not until the Captain drew back his hood and let his braid hang forward over his shoulder that the guards whispered between themselves before one led the three travelers across the bridge and to the cluster of buildings around the flagpole. The guard took Block and Dugan into the barracks to speak with someone of more authority, while Tilda was left outside with the horses. Some men leading a pair of ox-drawn wagons from the docks down the road toward the town eyed her curiously and one whistled, but Tilda ignored them.
After only a few minutes another guard left the barracks, hurried to the adjoining stable for a horse, and galloped down the road toward Trellaneville. A few minutes more and Block and Dugan emerged with an officer of some kind, who bowed politely to the Captain. Block had reversed his Guild cloak so that the satiny green lining flashed in the sun, but his face was set in a scowl and his brow was so furrowed it nearly shaded his dark eyes. While he and Tilda had not exactly been traveling through the Empire incognito, announcing real names and House affiliations to all and sundry was not something Guilders did when they were abroad.
Four more guards trooped out of the barracks and their officer gave them a quick inspection while Block and Dugan crossed the square to where Tilda waited. They started speaking to each other quietly when they were halfway across, and Dugan kept talking as he boosted the dwarf up onto the pony.
“No, you don’t need to make up anything. Just tell the baron your business is only with the King, and he will send us on our way. I’ve thought this through, Cap’n. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Block growled, his eyes fairly burning into Dugan’s skull. “That is a laugh.”
“Yes, I can see you are amused.”
With Block in his saddle, Dugan nodded at the Trellane men, who marched over. Tilda climbed up on her own horse and Dugan led the two animals onto the road and toward the town. The four guards walked around them in a square formation, which Tilda hoped was meant as some sort of honor guard.
It was not far to the town, which was surrounded by a tall wall with towers and battlements of gray stone surely quarried from the nearby mountains. The portage road passed flush against the wall on one side, with warehouses and inns lining the other. Only about half of them seemed to be doing business at this time of year. The group was passed through an open gate onto the streets of the town after a few words were exchanged between the escorts and the gate guards. The latter drew to attention and saluted Captain Block as the Miilarkian Guilder rode by, his back straight and face frozen in a deep frown. Tilda returned the salutes, as it seemed like somebody should.
Inside the wall, Trellaneville was revealed as an old settlement of obvious affluence. The other villages and small towns Tilda had seen in Orstaf were not unpleasant but they had all shared a certain haphazard look, with low, circular houses usually made out of mud-brick. Most were rather randomly arranged, as though houses had been built on spots where the Orstavians’ ancestors had once erected hide tents in a time when they still lived as roving tribes of Kantan horsemen.
Trellaneville however was a town of ruler-straight streets and stone houses, many with paned glass in the windows of multiple floors. The roofs were all sharply peaked, making Tilda think it must snow heavily here in winter, and each house had narrow side and front yards divided from both their neighbors and the streets by stout wooden fences. The businesses that Tilda saw near the gate were housed in longer single-story buildings, also of stone. Judging by the hanging signs most specialized either in local produce or in finished goods imported from beyond Orstaf.
The group did not linger to window-shop for the escorts led them swiftly through the streets, barking at pedestrians to clear the way. The townspeople did not look any more Orstavian than did their surroundings to Tilda’s eyes. They wore a higher class of dresses, breeches, jackets, and coats that looked tailored rather than homespun, and the material was far more colorful than the practical wear of the steppe. The men mostly had mustaches but not full beards, and the women wore their hair down rather then up in bushkas. Several people stopped and looked curiously at the Islanders for a few moments, but then they were back on their way as if they had little time to gawk.
The group soon reached a modest hill near the center of town upon which another stone wall enclosed a high keep with many towers. The place looked very old, though different colored stones and the brightness of the mortar between them showed where there had been multiple refurbishments. The group was passed through another open gate into the courtyard of the keep, with the inner walls ringed by stables and outbuildings. A great wooden door giving into the citadel proper was open, and two men stood in the doorway.
The fellow on the right looked like a knight despite wearing no armor. He was a big man of middling years dressed simply in cloak and tunic but with tall riding boots and the hilt of a great sword visible over his shoulder. His hair was cut short but he had the long, brown beard of a native Orstavian, and his face was weathered by years out on the steppe, leaving his eyes in a permanent squint. His companion, judging by the shining boots, creased trousers, silk doublet and matching smart jacket, not to mention the silver chain of chunky links hanging from his neck, was none other than the Baron, Mediwether de Trellane. He was of an age with the knight, or perhaps a bit older as he had more gray at the temples of his dark hair. He wore a mustache waxed to points that Tilda supposed was intended to give him a dashing look, though to her it looked a bit silly.
The Captain halted his horse in the middle of the courtyard so Tilda stopped hers as well. Dugan moved quickly to help Block dismount before Tilda was out of her own saddle, then the two of them stayed with the horses while Block strode on to the nobles. Bows were exchanged, and the baron spoke the phrase, “ Bol Aloha,” the traditional greeting of the Trade Tongue.
The dwarf returned the greeting and introduced himself simply as Captain Block of Miilark. Trellane gave his own name and title, and introduced his companion as Sir Yeveny Procost of the Roaring Boar Order, which made Tilda raise an eyebrow until she realized he had not said Roaring Bore. Procost was the Imperial liaison to Trellane’s household guards, and the Baron emphasized Imperial as he said it, though as yet Tilda was unclear why. She did however notice that the knight seemed less interested in the barony’s exotic visitor from the Islands than he was in frowning at Dugan.
Eventually Block and the nobles entered the keep by the great doors, while Tilda and Dugan were first taken to the stables by servants wearing less militant versions of the griffin insignia on their clean tunics. Luggage was unloaded, the horses were seen to, and after a few servants ran off to talk to others, Tilda, Dugan, and all the bags were taken into the keep via a side door, up into a tower where three open rooms waited, and deposited in what were to be their quarters. Tilda had all the baggage placed for now in her own room, as the chamber was large and comfortably furnished. A pair of double doors paned with glass gave onto a balcony.
Dugan was given a room directly across the hall from Tilda. Before she could call him over and demand to know exactly what was going on a series of servants arrived, first bearing wash basins, then thankfully lunch which turned out to be an excellent stew of thinly-sliced potatoes, carrots and some sort of onion, with diced chunks of two kinds of poultry. Chicken and something that was not chicken, but was still good. The empty bowls were taken away shortly thereafter, and after another ten minutes had gone by without more servants appearing, Tilda finally whistled sharply across the hall. Dugan appeared in his doorway, still wearing his hat indoors over his cropped hair, and Tilda motioned him over. He came, but held up a finger before she could speak. He looked around at the walls hung with tapestries, then opened the balcony doors and stepped outside. Tilda joined him and he shut the doors behind her.
“I always assume someone is spying on me whenever I am in a castle,” he said.
“When have you ever been in a castle?” Tilda asked crossly, and Dugan nodded that she had a point.
“What is going on here?” Tilda finally asked after hours of waiting.
Dugan sighed, turned to the south, and pointed beyond the front range of the Girding Mountains. The whole view from the balcony was actually quite lovely, though Tilda was in no mood to enjoy it.
“You see the tall, yellowish peak?” Dugan asked. “With the high faces too sharp for snow to cling on them?”
“What am I, blind?” Tilda asked.
“That is Yagnorak. There used to be a dwarf city inside, but that has been in ruins for centuries. However, it is well known in this part of the country that the Trellane family has been keeping open a secret passage beneath the mountain for generations. A secret passage that leads through to Daul.”
Tilda stared at him. “There is known to be a secret passage?”
Dugan sighed. “That is exactly what your Master said.”
“Captain Block is not my Master,” Tilda said, surprising herself with her own vehemence. It did not help that Dugan smirked at her.
“Right. Anyway, your Captain is now telling the Baron that the House of Deskata has business with the King of Daul, and that he needs to get to the kingdom right away. The fact that he comes knowing about the passage will convince Trellane that he is legit, for who else but the King would have told a Miilarkian about it? Trellane gives us a guide, or whatever, and off we go through the tunnels, arriving in Daul that much closer to our boy, the Centurion.”
Dugan held his hands out from his sides and looked very proud of himself and his scheme. Tilda kept staring at him.
“That is the worst plan I have ever heard. Just awful.”
Dugan lowered his hands. “Block said that, too,” he muttered. Tilda was not finished.
“Seriously. You are starting with at least three premises that would all have to be true for the plan to work, and you don’t know that any of them are. First, there might not even be a secret passage. Second…”
“Matilda, stop. I know it is risky, but the fact is we do not have another option. If there was a better way, don’t you think I would take it? Think about it. Neither Trellane nor any other Codian noble is seriously going to cross a Miilarkian. If something goes wrong here the worst that happens to the two of you is maybe you have to wait a bit longer to kill John Deskata. But I get hung. For desertion and treason and whatever else they want to charge. I’ll thank you not to think I would stick my neck in a noose on a whim. I am not stupid, either.”
Tilda blinked, mostly because of what Dugan had said about she and Block killing John Deskata. It struck her now that of course that was what Dugan would assume, for he had recognized the Miilarkian Guilders for what they were, and Guilders had a certain reputation abroad. In any tavern in any port town on the four continents washed by the Interminable Ocean, whispered stories could be heard about some terrible thing the Guilders had done to someone who had crossed a Miilarkian. Yet somehow, it had always happened in the next town up the coast.
Tilda could have told Dugan that he was wrong, and that these two Guilders were not here to assassinate anyone. She could have told him that their mission was more important than he could fathom, more important than his life, or Captain Block’s, or certainly her own. But there was no reason for Dugan to know any of that, and even if there had been, it was not Tilda’s place to tell him.
She stayed quiet, and Dugan took her silence as acquiescence. He let out a breath, and looked down from the balcony on the surrounding keep and courtyard.
“You saw that knight Procost give me the stink-eye?” he asked. Tilda raised an eyebrow.
“I did, but I did not know it was called the stink-eye.”
Dugan smirked. “Works though, right? That is an Imperial Knight, swearing allegiance to the Code rather than to any one Codian noble. He may be serving here but he is not a servant of the Trellanes, and I doubt he is privy to the family secrets. I hope your Captain is speaking wisely.”
“Captain Block does not speak otherwise,” Tilda said, and Dugan gave her a look.
“Sure he does, Tilda. Everybody gets worried, or angry, and they say things they don’t mean.”
“Not Captain Block.”
Dugan took a last look down on the town, and toward the great yellow mountain looming among the Girdings. He turned to go back to his own room, but said one more thing before opening the balcony doors.
“Well, then he is just wrong.”
Tilda watched Dugan leave, exiting her room for the hall to his own. She stayed out on the balcony for a while.
*
There was still no sign of Captain Block at nightfall, though Tilda and Dugan were brought another meal, this one of pork loins roasted with nuts and then glazed. Tilda agreed with Dugan’s assessment shouted across the hall that while the Dauls had not won a war in centuries, they still knew how to cook a pig.
Tilda occupied the evening hours by oiling blades, and then she cleaned all three of the ackserpi guns Block had brought along from Miilark. There was still no sign of the old dwarf, and the anxious waiting made Tilda tired. She lay down on top of the bed covers in her room, still in trousers and sweater but with her boots off, and despite everything running through her mind she soon drifted off to sleep.
Footsteps on the stairs woke her with the night sky still dark outside, and Tilda was against the wall beside her door with a dagger held behind her back by the time someone knocked. The Captain’s voice growled her name. She opened the door and found Block swaying on his feet, one eye open and one screwed shut, face waxy and a very long day’s worth of dark gray stubble on his cheeks.
“We’re leaving,” Block said, wincing in the low lantern light from the hall. “Get the bags.”
Servants, also looking groggy but at least sober, appeared on the stairs while Block lurched over to pound on Dugan’s door. Tilda dispersed the baggage among them, keeping the long, flat ackserpi case and the Captain’s kitbag for herself. Dugan came over in time to hoist the bedrolls along with his own saddlebags. Everyone followed the Captain down from the tower and back out into the courtyard. Block muttered at the eastern sky, faintly touched now with light over the courtyard wall, and weaved toward a six-horse coach waiting by the open gate. Tilda took a few rapid steps to draw even with him.
“What about our horses?” she asked.
“Sold ’em to the baron,” Block said with a slur. “Would have given them as a gift, but Trell…Trellane wanted to bargain with a Miilarkian.” The Captain chuckled and shook some coins together in a pocket.
Dugan had padded up on the dwarf’s other shoulder. “Have you been drinking this whole time?”
“A’course not. We stopped to eat once.”
Block drifted on under half-sail but Tilda had stopped and stood looking over at the dark stables. Dugan halted beside her and waited for the servants to pass.
“They’ll be fine here,” he said. “Better than fine. Hinterland Codians love their horses. Daulmen even more so.”
Tilda blinked at him and thought of the white warhorse by the tree, washed and bandaged as well as could be managed in the circumstances. Even by a man in a great hurry to be on his way.
“Thank you,” Tilda said. Dugan nodded and turned to go, but hitched a step as she added, “You are a kind man.”
Dugan looked back at Tilda and blinked, a strange expression on his face. She hurried past him and helped Captain Block lurch into the coach from a stool, while the servants secured the baggage in the boot.
The trip back through town was short, and though the driver up top was the only person to accompany them, Block answered none of the questions Tilda and Dugan tried to ask him. The dwarf rode far back in his cushioned seat, eyes closed and mouth open, swearing quietly whenever the coach bumped or jostled.
There was just enough daylight to see mist on the mountain slopes as the coach passed through an open gate in the south town wall without challenge, crossed the portage road, and swung around behind a dark inn that looked to be closed for the season. The driver parked behind a stable in a yard surrounded by a corral fence, and hopped down to help Tilda and Dugan unload. Captain Block took only his kitbag, leaving Tilda and Dugan to split all the baggage they had carried on two horses. Both bent under saddlebags, bedrolls, knapsacks and duffels. The dwarf hardly waited for them before opening a back gate and starting across a dewy meadow to the south, moving on a more-or-less straight line for a homely cottage under pine trees, beyond which the foothills immediately began to rise.
Tilda looked past the hills and up toward the mountains, which from her present position looked like an impenetrable wall. The narrow light of dawn threw sharp black shadows across their stony faces from every crag and overhang, and the forests on their lower slopes were mantled with mist off the river. Whatever form Dugan’s “secret passage” took, she hoped that it went through, and not over.
Block’s stride quickened as he moved around the derelict cottage, and a moment later Tilda lifted her head despite her bowed shoulders. She sniffed the air.
“Nine Gods,” she said. “Is that coffee? Not tea, I mean, but real, black coffee?”
“Doonish,” Dugan said from behind her. She glanced back and he grinned. “What, you think the Road Legions march on love of the Emperor alone? Why do you think we conquered Doon in the first place? Beans, my dear, not just a Channel port.”
Around the back of the cottage a camp was set in a semi-circle amphitheatre of pines. A half-dozen scruffy-looking fellows lazed about in dark leather armor, mostly around a fire pit with frying pans set out on stones. An old smoke-blackened carafe hung on a chain, wafting out the enticing aroma.
“Captain Block,” one of the figures called as he arose, and smoothly gave a bow. He had a light sword on his hip but wore no armor, only heavy clothing, polished boots, and a rich cloak. Though he was a good deal younger than the Baron Trellane whom Tilda had briefly seen yesterday, his face was similar enough that he must have been a near relative. Block squinted at him.
“Banner, was it?”
Banner de Trellane grinned. “Kind of you to remember, sir, for I left the table early to see to your arrangements. Though from what I gather, I could have returned at any point. Had the revelries not so recently concluded, I am sure my Uncle would be here to see you off himself. But I am afraid that as it stands I am the only male member of my family who finds himself ambulatory this morning.”
“Is that coffee?” Block growled.
“Ah, yes. While knowing your intent to leave us with unseemly haste, I yet took the liberty of having a small repast prepared. Enjoy it, if you please, for you’ll not get quite the same for the next several days.”
“Not to naysay your Lordliness, but we manage a’right on the Underway.”
Tilda did not see who spoke until a little man stepped out from behind Banner Trellane. She gave a start, thinking for a moment that she was looking at only the second dwarf that she had ever seen in her life.
But this was no dwarf. While only slightly shorter than the Captain, the figure now grinning at the new arrivals seemed significantly smaller, for in chest and limb he was nearer the proportions of a human than to those of the rough-hewn Mountain Folk. Whereas the Captain was heavy-featured and bronzed by the Island sun, the newcomer had a pallid complexion and an imperishably grizzled look, with a sandy beard roughly trimmed, and wide-open saucers for eyes colored a strange, almost amber hue. His nose was pronounced and nearly bulbous, tending toward a lighter pink shade than the rest of his face. He wore leather armor as did the other men present, though his was under something in the species of a great coat, all unfastened, which would hardly have reached Tilda’s knees but hung right to the small man’s ankles. He wore a metal-studded cap at a jaunty perch high above a wide forehead, revealing that he was mostly bald. His smile seemed half the size of his head, and he flashed it constantly. He was a Gnome, Tilda knew immediately, though she had never seen his like before. For once, though, tales and stories were proving true.
Banner Trellane introduced the gnome as Sergeant Fitzyear Coalmounderan (“Just Fitz, as you please!”), and from that moment on, no one else could slide a word into the conversation edgewise.
Baggage was dropped, fried eggs were heaped onto crisp toast, and wooden cups were filled with sugared coffee. The three new arrivals sat down by the fire, Fitz flittering about them all the while. Before her first few bites and sips Tilda had learned that Fitz’s people hailed from out Ostia way, her hair was ever so pretty now wasn’t it, sure a Dwarf had not trod the Underway in an Elf’s Age, and a dozen other things of greater or lesser importance. Captain Block scowled at the gnome’s prattle and his lowered eyes refused to follow the capering figure, coat swishing around quick feet, but Tilda decided that she liked Fitz very much.
Fitz was in the process of introducing the five men constituting his squadron, or as he phrased it, “Me lovely, stout boyos,” when one of them leaped to his feet and cried, “Hold!” Cups and toast hit the ground as all present turned to find a figure at the edge of the cabin. Booted feet apart, long cloak thrown back from a steel breast plate shining dully in the shadows, and the great brush of a dense brown beard. Procost. The pommel of the large sword sheathed across his back was visible beside a pointed felt hat, and the Knight of the Roaring Boar Order’s dark eyes glowered, directly at Dugan.
Fitz and his men looked around at each other. Tilda looked to her Captain, who was darting his narrow eyes from the knight to the baron’s nephew, as though he suspected a trap or a ruse. Banner Trellane’s surprise certainly seemed genuine to Tilda as the young nobleman rose and sputtered.
“Sir, Sir Procost? What brings, what, what are you doing here?”
Only Dugan did not seem surprised. He had begun to drift backwards after standing and turned innocuously away, but he stopped as he realized the knight’s attention was riveted on him. Fastened as with a heated ingot. The two men’s eyes met and Tilda, standing close to Dugan, heard him sigh.
“Young Master Trellane,” Procost finally said, eyes never moving to the man he addressed. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“What, what…? What?”
“I am conducting rounds in accordance with my position here as Imperial military liaison. I really need not explain beyond that.”
“I…” Banner Trellane took a deep breath. “I understood that my Uncle had an errand for you. Out in some village…”
“It is done,“ Procost said. “Though I decided to ride back early rather than stay over the night.”
Block’s eyes were only slits, and Tilda could tell he was grinding his teeth by the thrust of his fuzzy chin. He had marked Procost’s look at Dugan and clearly did not like what it boded any more than did Tilda. It reminded her of the deadly attention shining in the cold eyes of a Miilarkian jungle adder, the kind that were brought aboard ships in port to clear them of rats.
“Sir Knight,” Block barked, moving forward and advancing on Procost until the man finally looked down at the dwarf.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Block barked. “You know who I am, and that I am here with the permission of your liege.”
“My liege is the Emperor of All Lands Under the Code,” Procost said quietly.
“Well, good on him! Now if you don’t mind, we were just enjoying a spot of breakfast ’neath the charming loom of the mountains. Do you have some sort of problem with that?”
“Of course not.”
“Good!” Block said. “Then unless you’ve come for the coffee, why do you not go on about your way like the good soldier, hmm? My time here is not long, and I’ll thank you to take up no more of it by skulking about in the briars, giving good people a start!”
Procost met the dwarf’s eyes, but Tilda in no way felt Dugan relax next to her.
“Gentleman of the Islands,” the knight said formally. “Nothing could have been further from my intention than to trouble you in the least. All of us here, in the Empire, appreciate the valued service of your great fleets and merchants, and none would have desire to pain you in any way. If my presence has offended, sir, I sincerely apologize. And if you wish me gone, then I go post haste.”
The knight stepped back and bowed deeply to Block, who blinked as though thinking that had been far too easy. The knight straightened and saluted Banner Trellane as a Codian nobleman, removing his felt hat to do so.
Trellane returned the courtesy, as did Fitz and his men. Only Dugan stood unmoving, his head covered by his silly, musty, fur hat. Tilda moved her right hand slowly under her half cloak toward the dagger at the small of her back.
“Commoner,” Procost growled.
“He is with me, knight!” Block shouted.
“He is no Miilarkian.”
Trellane and the others had begun to look at Dugan as if noticing him for the first time. For his part, Dugan only met the knight’s gaze. His demeanor was at peace, and there was no retreat in it.
Block was still shouting.
“It matters not if he be a Miilarkian born, or a Cobra Bay barmaid! He is in my employ, and I am an Islander in good standing in my House…”
“Uncover, foot soldier!” Procost boomed, and instantly Dugan did, tearing the sorry hat from his head and tossing it aside, revealing his close-shorn black hair.
No one said anything for a goodly long time. When Procost finally broke the silence, there was a smile in his voice that did not show on his face.
“You are out of uniform, legionnaire.”
“I am at that.”
“Show me your shoulder.”
“Sir Procost!” Block bawled, now standing directly in front of the knight. The dwarf held one hand up in warding but his other was somewhere under his cloak. Tilda had a fairly good idea what that meant. She also had a finger on either side of a slim dagger pommel, just enough to slip it from its sheath and cast it underhand.
The knight ignored the dwarf. He had eyes only for Dugan, and no more semblance of politeness.
“Show me your insignia, dog! I would know from whence it is you run.”
“Does it matter?” Dugan asked, so quietly Tilda was surprised Procost heard him as the two were still separated by the length of the cottage. But the knight plainly did.
“It does, for if you are a deserter from some local force than you are under arrest.” The knight’s teeth appeared as a white line within his beard. “But if you are renegade from the damnable 34 ^, the burners of the Round Hall at Trabon, then before these witnesses you will meet justice here and now.”
At the mention of the 34 ^ and the Round Hall, everyone but Tilda and Block stared at Dugan. The renegade gave a slight smile.
“That is the Fighting Three-Four to you, tin can.”
Procost’s teeth bared wider and his nostrils flared as he drew his great, strong-bladed broadsword over his shoulder and held it forward with both hands on the long hilt. He began to speak some formal words of challenge, but Dugan rolled his eyes and shook the blanket he still wore as a wrap off his shoulders. He fetched his Legion short sword from under his tunic.
“Nine Gods, spare me the dither!” he called, holding his sword almost absently in his left hand while swinging his right arm to loosen the shoulder. “Will no nobleman ever just die without a lot of pointless talk first?”
“Dugan, sheath your weapon!” Block ordered, giving Tilda one meaningful glance. She edged closer and just a step in front of the renegade. Across the way, Procost’s face was turning crimson.
“Not bloody likely,” Dugan sneered at Block, then he put his sword in his right hand and beckoned at Procost with the blade. The knight shouted.
“Then blood it is!”
Suddenly both men were moving. Fast.
Before Block’s hamstringing dagger was out from under his cloak the knight lunged forward like a bounding charger, one high knee slamming into Block’s head and spinning the dwarf to the ground. Dugan grabbed Tilda’s arm behind her back through her cloak, kicked out one of her feet and shoved her hard to the side. She blundered two hopping steps and failed to fully brace herself with one arm against the back of the cottage. Her forehead hit the wall with a fat, wooden smack.
Tilda’s knees wobbled and she slid to them, then rolled to a crouch and whipped free her throwing dagger as she turned around. She was just in time to see the beginning and end of Dugan and Procost’s very short duel.
The men barreled at each other with their swords held high, both shouting in the manner all Codian soldiers are taught. The cooling campfire was closer to Dugan as they began their charges and at the last moment the renegade veered toward it. He kicked the coffeepot off its braces and sent the carafe bouncing into the running knight’s path.
The top popped as the pot hit the ground and the last hot dregs splashed up onto Procost’s boots. It was hardly enough to slow the big man but the surprise of it made him pull up short. Dugan darted forward and ducked inside the long reach of the great broadsword. That was enough.
The knight was trained to fight mainly on horseback, fully armored and swinging heavy weapons in wide, devastating arcs. Legionnaires fought in a clinch, only their eyes peeking over the rims of tower shields while their fat, ugly swords poked hungrily around the sides, feeling for anything soft and yielding.
The point of Dugan’s sword sparked against Procost’s breastplate. Dugan raised one hand to catch the knight’s arms over his head, then he reversed his own grip with a twist of wrist. The two men strained and the short sword slid down plate mail until it bit. Dugan leaned in with all his weight on his blade, driving it deep into the knight’s thigh through his groin.
Tilda did not bother to throw her dagger, and neither did Block who was back on his feet with a blade of his own in his hand. Procost screamed and fell to the ground, broadsword falling uselessly into the grass at his side, clutching himself. Dugan fell on top of him but quickly pushed off and wrenched his sword free, eliciting more screams. He backed away a step with his blade, hands, trousers, everything now a charnel swath of wetly-shining gore. All around men stood slack-jawed and staring. Banner Trellane lost his legs and fell to all fours. The young nobleman regurgitated coffee and eggs while still unable to take his eyes of the man, a man he knew, lying butchered like a hog.
Dugan knelt and said, “Knight,” until Procost’s wild eyes focused on him.
“You are ruined,” Dugan said quietly. “It is a mortal wound.”
Breaths ending in sobbing gasps issued from the huge, helpless man.
“End it,” he said through clenched teeth.
Dugan stood, cast away his filthy short sword, and took up the knight’s. Procost squirmed uncontrollably and Dugan had to put a foot on his breast plate to pin him still. Dugan raised the blade, Procost shouted that it was the sword of his father, and Dugan brought it down on his head.
Most of the others closed their eyes or looked away, but not Tilda. She sat with her back to the cottage and crossed her arms over her knees, one hand still holding her unused dagger. Dugan left the knight’s sword where it was and slowly bent to pick up his own. All eyes followed him as he walked back to where he had dropped his blanket. He reached for it, and only then seemed to notice his red hands. The only sound was the dying fire, and the dry wheezing of Banner Trellane.
Dugan looked up at Tilda. Sir Procost’s blood was spattered across his face.
“That,” he said, “is the sort of kind man that I am.”