We found ourselves hiding in a cold, wet cart full of hay. The hay poked our eyes and our throats but the three of us persevered. As we stayed in the cart I got used to the poking and became more concerned at the cold. Fleur was shivering and if she couldn’t stop moving then we might be discovered. If only it hadn’t rained during the night the cart wouldn’t have been such an ordeal.

We’d had to stay with Karsten’s family during the night. No soldiers had knocked on his door, but I’d stayed up through the night just in case. At least that was what I told Fleur and Godke. In reality there was no way I could sleep. I had lost too much in one day and I couldn’t handle it, at least not well enough to rest.

Unfortunately, I regretted my missed sleep by the time dawn came and Karsten directed us to his hay cart. He knew as I did that the Cologne city guards would not keep the gate closed during the day, even with two fugitives on the loose, because the townsfolk needed to visit the lands outside of the walls to conduct their daily business. However, they would question comers and goers and when Karsten’s draught horse stopped our cart’s motion I realised that we had reached this checkpoint.

Godke had given Karsten several gold coins from his own pocket even though he had not asked for any. Godke had insisted and I knew that it was not only out of thanks, but also to incentivise Karsten’s loyalty. I could not hear what he was saying to the city guard, only that they were talking, but I guessed that he’d succeeded as I felt the wagon jolt into motion once more.

That was when the horror began. The draught horse pulled us only a few metres so that we were nearer to the gatehouse before stopping again and I realised that something was wrong.

A few seconds later something sharp and metallic plunged into the hay beside me. My eyes widened as they focused on what appeared to be the tip of a guardsman’s pike.

The soldiers were stabbing into the hay in case Karsten was smuggling us out of the city. Of course he was, but I figured that the soldiers would expect us to leave after the first or second stab so we just had to wait it out and hope that none of us became impaled.

The pike was pulled out of the hay and plunged back in again, and this time it struck close to Fleur. I looked into her eyes and saw the terror in them, and when the pike was pulled out I took advantage of the hay-fall that it caused to cover the movement of my hand as I sent it to Fleur to grasp hers.

The third time that the pike stabbed the hay I felt Fleur convulse and though I saw that the pike-head was not bloody she opened her mouth to scream. Her muteness prevented our discovery and instead she attempted to pull her arms into her body protectively. Knowing that such a big movement would likely give us away I tightened my grip on her hand and I saw that Godke had grabbed her other wrist and was doing the same.

The fourth time that the soldiers plunged their pike into the hay was the last and a few seconds later we were moving again. Fleur was squeezing my arm so hard that I thought I might lose circulation to my digits, but a few minutes later we were out of sight of the city and Karsten pulled the hay from the cart to let us out.

‘You are free,’ he said.

I clambered out of the cart and Godke followed suit. We left Fleur in the cart for want of a table or desk and Karsten asked what was wrong with her.

‘I don’t know,’ I said but it was clear that something was the matter because she was crying. Her eyes were bloodshot like I’d never seen them before and I became panicked.

‘What’s wrong Fleur!?’ I asked her worriedly and Godke had to place a hand on my shoulder to calm me.

Eventually Fleur regained enough self-control to open her eyes and lock hers with mine so that I could not look away. She was clearly restraining pain but there was another intensity there, an intensity of loss like I had felt the previous night for Gunnar and Thies.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Then she did the worst thing imaginable.

Fleur lifted her blouse and put her hand over her belly.

‘No…’ I breathed as I realised what had happened. Not for the first time in recent hours tears filled my eyes and Godke looked at me in confusion. He hadn’t understood what Fleur was trying to tell me. But I had.

The pikes that the town guardsmen carried were wooden with a metal head. The head was two-sided, like the blade of a sword. When the soldiers had thrust the pike into the hay they had rapidly swished it around in all directions. Fleur had been struck by the flat of the pike with enough force to harm our child and now we were losing it.

‘They hit my child,’ I managed to stammer. Though I wasn’t exactly clear, Godke and Karsten took my meaning and a sad look of understanding dawned upon their faces.

Sorrow overwhelmed me. Whereas yesterday I had managed to stay calm until the immediate crisis had been averted today I fell apart. I had enjoyed no rest since arriving in Cologne and I was already emotionally exhausted from the twin losses of Gunnar and Thies. Now I was faced with the knowledge that Fleur and I had lost the child I had only been aware of for three days but had been so happy to know that I would be having.

I fell on my arse and my pants were soon soaked in mud. I did not care. I could only deal with one thing at a time, and though I wanted to be there for Fleur I was lost. Everything I had held back for so long came flooding from the back of my mind to the front. It displaced all thoughts of the moment, all thoughts of reality.

I suddenly had flashes of Bielefeld, of Prague. I thought of my father, killed by Godke, and of the burgher Martin, who I’d tortured to death. I thought of Hurland and of Jacob, I thought of Gunnar and of Thies, and then I thought of my son and my daughter; for both could have been until today.

Until this.

And that was when I made the decision that defined who I was as a man. The decision that defined who I was as a lover, and as a loving friend.

I drew Joyeuse. I took to my feet and locked my jaw. I was crying, but I did not feel the tears cross my cheeks. Fleur looked at me and I looked back, my usually tempered steel withering before her sorrow.

I turned away from her, from my Fleur, and I faced Cologne with rage in my heart and a sword in my hand.

And I began to walk back towards the city.

Godke saw what I was doing and left Fleur to stop me.

‘Karl!’ he shouted to me but I did not turn to face him. I knew that if I died, Godke and Fleur would have no one left but I cared little.

I was rage incarnate and I marched into view of the Cologne city walls. A few guardsmen shouted and a few seconds later bullets hit the ground a few metres in front of me, but even in my barely-controllable state I knew the range of the arquebus carried by the soldiers. I was out of their reach.

Godke stood a few feet behind me. He shouted no more, and he was concealed from the view of the city walls due to the treeline, and I knew he was covering my back.

I raised my sword above my head and shouted to the guardsmen on the walls.

‘Jaromil you coward! You bring other men to fulfil your own blood-debt!’

I carried on like that for several minutes until several horsemen appeared under the gatehouse. One of them was Jaromil.

‘Jaromil you coward!’ I repeated. ‘Come out and face me like a man! Let us end this!’

Godke, suddenly aware of my intentions, spoke to me. ‘It should be me,’ he said. ‘I am as responsible for Bohdan’s death as I am for your father’s.’

I ignored him. Jaromil’s feud was with the entire warband, though that was just Godke and me now. Not only that, but I had an oath requiring me to do the job myself. Even more importantly, I had let Jaromil kill Thies and probably Gunnar by failing to end the threat he posed when I had faced him in single combat in Leer and he had bested me. If I was ever to regain my honour and respect myself as a man once more, I had to do this myself.

‘Fight me in a duel! Pit your sword against mine a second time and meet your end, Bohemian scum!’ I shouted to him.

To my surprise, Jaromil began to dismount from his horse. He was wearing the heavy plate armour of a cuirassier and I saw him remove it and draw a sword before leaving the safety of the city walls and approaching me. It wasn’t that I didn’t think that he would accept; it was that I hadn’t really thought any further forward than that. Though there had been a possibility of his refusal: the Church frowned upon such duels, and several kingdoms had made them illegal.

That was how I came to duel Jaromil. My own anger at his murder of my friends and my unborn child led me to, perhaps foolishly, return to the city mere minutes after my escape from its cold stone walls.

And challenge Jaromil to a battle that he had all but won in Leer.