It was bleak to think the sounds of swords clashing, homes and towers collapsing, was nostalgic. It was bleak, yes. As well as accurate. The soldiers of Sunbury and the mercenaries of the Red Hand must have been excited out in the fray. Hearts racing, minds panicking, nerves jumping. Thinking one wrong move or turn would end their lives. For Myers, however, the chaos was like an old childhood memory.
Maybe this all is a childhood memory, the Prince of Steel thought, eyeing a gold on blue over red banner of a sun. Fittingly enough the banner was ablaze with flames, ready to fall from the tower and land onto the men fighting in the street below. Yes, change the symbols and the names and I’ve been in this city many times.
The city was presently a grueling fight for control of the housing streets between the destroyed main gate and the eerily empty market district. All throughout that stretch where the rubble of stone began and the rows or organized guards ended was the clashing, collapsing, and shouting. Horses ending their charge at some points of defenses and trembling men at others.
Myers could see it all from up top the walls separating the granary and the rest of the city. A plump stone tower sprouting walls in several directions. It was a small wonder, granted the view of the battle just below, that the commander of the city guard had set up his shop here. On the foot of the battle with a superb view of every dying man.
Commander Reed was an aged looking soldier if soldier he still was. He dressed the part with steel armor under a surcoat, motley by cream white and evening green. Well armored, Myers could see as he made his way into the commander’s open quarters. But the hair. Reed looked an awful lot like Thatch. That alone was unsettling to Myers. Reed’s hair was more grown out and tangled than Myers’ old outlaw commander ever allowed. There was a proper mustache to Reed as well and across his face were the wrinkles Thatch had never known.
This is the man, Myers thought when he first laid eyes on Reed. This is the man who I will arm myself against Grissle.
Reed had not noticed Myers when he entered the rounded room. The commander was too preoccupied watching the battle outside from his sliver of a window. The officers directly behind Reed were too busy looking at the map on the table they were clustered around, whatever help that was to the siege outside. That’s no good. I could have strolled in here and cut them down like wheat in a field. As the sight was familiar outside, so too was the scene of the Prince of Steel walking into commands and cutting down lords and soldiers alike. Yet my health would not allow that any longer.
“Who allowed this woman here,” was the first voice to answer Myers’ arrival. It was a pompous voice holding back anger. It belonged to the soldier carrying the wounded archer down from the curved stairs latched to the walls. Wearing no helmet, Myers could see his mud colored hair and the fresh blood sprayed onto his cheek. “A command post is no place for a…” his voice trailed as he saw Myers more closely at the bottom of the stairs.
At last the officers turned to see the Prince of Steel, the grizzly Reed spoke with a gasp, “Gadley’s Ghost.” There came a pause where Myers could feel the hunger for violence rise in the room. “That is no woman.”
The soldier from the stairs lowered his compatriot to the ground and suddenly there were men tending to his aide, “Of course he’s not, my mistake,” the soldier said, sounding angrier. “Perhaps the Beast has dispatched an assassin. The Red Hand, after all.”
There was no moment to waste, Myers knew. “I was given plenty opportunity to cut down your lot when I arrived with your backs turned. No, I am not here for any of you. Though you are correct to think me an assassin.”
“Riddles,” the officer with the blonde beard spat.
“You came from behind the tower,” Reed began.
“Our guards at the stairs,” the officer with bushy sideburns could be heard whispering.
“Your door to the tower is unprotected,” Myers was quick to say. “The only guards I saw were four posts back on the wall. The men licking their wounds and muttering among themselves. They weren’t the most loyal men either. Pointed me directly here when I asked for Commander Reed. I might have heard one mention ‘getting their hands red.’” If Reed was a smart man he would address this.
“Oliver. You go…go with Listman to raise those men and their spirits,” Reed said. “After we figure out who you are and why it is you seek me.”
“He looks sickly,” another officer cried. “He’s come with the specks.”
“No,” Reed answered his man bluntly. “My wife. She had the specks. I know the look and this one is sick with something else.”
“Sick with intention,” Myers said, hoping Reed would understand him better by the look he gave him then.
The commander sought clarity. “And what intention might that be?”
“I’m here to hunt the Beast.” A worried pause with worried looks. “I see us as natural allies. I can kill him after he raises your city and does everything you’ve heard him capable of. Or we can share cause and cut the Red Hand off from your city.” He settled his gaze on the wary Reed. “Make your choice.”
“Help us?” Reed asked. “I’ve no time for this. One more sword won’t make the difference.”
You are more right than you know. Whisk against the Beast did me no good. “I offer a good sword. Better than that I offer you my experience. I’ve been in quite a lot of battles,” Myers said as the sound of an intimate rumble met the tower they were in. “Sounds like they’re ramming the door to this tower.” Myers looked up, eyeing the hay roped to the ceiling, “I suppose that’s meant for your guests?” Myers’ observation of Reed’s trap alarmed the officers. The commander wore a look closer to something impressed. I’ve won him, Myers thought.
“When the Red Hand breach the tower we’ll turn it into a candle for them.”
“Commander,” blurted the soldier who had come from down the stairs.
Reed ignored the outburst. “Give Grissle’s boys a proper Sunbury welcome.”
“Clever,” Myers said sharply, “though you’ve put yourself at considerable risk.” Forget the rogue assassin coming for them. A stray arrow could have undone them with a little bad luck. The Prince of Steel invited himself to the table the officers had surrounded. He found a rough map of Sunbury sprawled out on it. “We’re close to the main gate, I see. This seems like one of the first spots the enemy would come to. I suppose your plan was to let the Red Hand chase you into your midst and then drop the tower above their heads.
“It’s clever, commander. But ineffective. You won’t take many out for the archer you sacrifice to see that those hay bales ignite. I would wager after you duck out of here,” he paused as another ram to the door below shook the tower. “You would go to another nearby location with a similar setup and go on and so forth while your men bleed on the front.”
The officers were astonished. The man on the stairs just looked more angry. Stone faced, Reed answered, “Maybe.” He only has this one trap.
“Hear my words and I will win you this battle.”
“This siege finally breaks out,” the twitchy officer next to him at the table began, “and now you just appear to tell us what to do? How to win? Is this supposed to be some…” the officer looked to the others for support. “Is this some miracle? Some blessing we’ve been handed?” A blessing but from which god you do not wish to know. “Commander, if he-”
“Commander,” the angry soldier left the end of the stairs to approach Reed, “you can’t trust some stranger. We’re being deceived. Distracted.” Another ram from the outside gave pause to everyone’s attention. “Commander…”
“Hew is right,” Reed said to the room. “Time is of the essence. I would be happy to hear good counsel…were you to remove the current dilemma from the lower door to this tower. Look out the window, assassin. I’ve got forty odd problems I need solving before I can change strategies. We lost the barracks toward the main gate. All Red Hand from here to there. Show me how cutting edge that mind is of yours. Clear my door and win me back that barrack. Otherwise…” Otherwise you have no time for me. Otherwise I’m better off dead than wasting your time. So be it.
Myers studied the hay bound ceiling again, considering what use it would be to burn this tower compared to what else he could make of the battle. He returned his sights to Reed when the latest ram echoed out the distinct sound of a wooden door beginning to break. “Give me the quarter of an hour.”
The Prince of Steel was back on the wall, back above the stew of carnage. A pack of Red Hand were ramming the bottom of the tower. Some of their numbers were cooked and steaming, dead on the ground of the narrow opening. A greater number of blooded Sunbury soldiers were littered down the road the Red Hand carved through. A man in a full suit of steel armor was sluggishly pursuing a man in rags, escaping into one of the houses. Straggling Red Hands laughed and vanished behind the house. Beyond that: I can see the barracks built off the main walls. This is a short stretch to cut through.
The wall Myers was on was fit with a dozen of Reed’s men slinging arrows on the swarm below. He saw the empty barrels and pots. The smell of tar telling the story of the burned bodies below. They used up all their pitch. The Red Hand below were split between the men holding the log for ramming and those holding up long and iron shields. Exotic shields, Myers could see, likely from Grissle’s travels. The archers were useless. The door has another minute before Reed botches his own defenses. They’ll spring their trap before the fellow in the steel armor even gets here.
“I hate ranged weapons,” Myers found himself muttering aloud as he took up a bow and arrow from a corpse on the wall. But what choice is there anymore when I can’t cut through a hundred men like I used to?
“Hold it! Who are you?” Cried one of the archers beside Myers, breaking from his futile effort to pierce the iron shield wall below.
Myers slid the arrow through a stain of pitch. He dipped the head in a standby flame and drew the arrow not at the Red Hand but rather the large banner of Sunbury hung on the tower. The banner on the other side of the tower…yes, I was curious what it would look like falling on top of a few Red Hand. Myers let loose the burning arrow and ignited the banner above the oblivious Red Hand. Half a moment later, before the last ram needed to take down the door was delivered, the burning banner of Sunbury set down on the Red Hand.
The archer next to Myers began to scold him for shooting the symbol of their city. He quieted as the Red Hand holding the ram began to cry out from their fiery agony. All the men on the wall held their bows in awe as they saw the Prince of Steel and the work he had wrought on their enemy. A dirty trick, maybe, Myers thought as the humps below the burning banner settled flatly to the ground, but I saw the Runt pull it off before at Belcan. At least Reed can execute his plan this way. Myers’ thoughts went back to the Runt as he spotted three surviving and stunned Red Hand who had not been taken by the banner. Rule of four was it? This I can handle.
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“You should really have more pitch on hand next time,” Myers said to the archers before drawing Whisk and dropping off the wall.
Whisk tilted first to the earth, Myers dropped from the wall, landing on one of the survivors. His sword plunged between the Red Hand’s neck and shoulders while his bones broke the fall for the Prince of Steel. Before the dust was settled, before the other two could react, Myers cut them down in one swing. The assault on the tower was over. The attackers were all dead. Myers felt the need to vomit.
Returned to the ground level, Myers saw the barracks in clear sight. Flying atop the blocky building was the flag of the Red Hand. Filling the road between there and the gate to Reed were the alarmed Red Hand. They were waiting for the tower to open for them. Somehow I doubt Reed’s trap would have gotten any of them. A pity for them I’ve disrupted Reed’s initial plan.
It was years ago the Prince of Steel and the Beast Among Men fought through the damp forest not far from Sunbury. Severed from the rest of Thatch’s gang, the two dashed through the trail, severing arms off the unending numbers of the enemy. Side by side, the two cut down all those who jumped into their path. Cutting through the Red Hand in the street made it feel like Grissle was still at his side now. In a way, Myers realized, he was.
It wasn’t his best work. Rather than splitting the Red Hand in two, Myers opted to give them bleeding deaths. Quick slashes as he ran passed them. Wounds they would not immediately understand would mean their death a moment later. Let them stagger after me, Myers thought, parrying the thrust of the spear before slicing above the man’s hip, I’ll lose them inside the barrack. By then they’ll be-
Myers was stopped mid-thought by the impact of a ball-and-chain to his ribs. He fell against the wall of a house fitted with a broken down door. He was still on his feet despite the pain in his side and the taste of blood in his mouth. Looking over as his vision stabilized, Myers could hardly believe he missed the fully armored grunt swinging the spiked flail.
The man wasn’t Grissle-sized but huge in his own right. Rather than a lion, his helmet bore the shape of a roaring bear. Now how did I miss this fellow, Myers wondered. Suppose I was running faster than I could pay attention.
The bear-helmeted man swung again for Myers. This time the Prince of Steel ducked forward, falling onto his shoulder. As Myers looked up, he saw debris from the wall of the home. As well as the man in the red rags the spiked ball brought down. As that straggler collapsed, Myers rose and ran for the barracks, giving no further attention to his large adversary. “Coward,” rang Grissle’s voice again in his head, “Coward!” Alive, Myers answered.
There was no time to poke the remaining Red Hand in the street up to the barracks. Save for the last two trying to cut Myers off from the front doors. Myers simply responded by sliding through the road and cutting their ankles from their legs.
Once inside the barracks, Myers received strange looks from the looting Red Hand who hadn’t expected his company. They were few in number and so the Prince of Steel had ample time to barge a cabinet against the door leading out to the road. That’s all Reed needed to defend his tower.
It was sloppy work, Myers knew, but the task was accomplished. Where once the guards of Sunbury dined at little square tables between the rows of their bunks were now the bodies of their enemies. Catching his breath for a moment, resisting that pesky urge to vomit, Myers eyed the cabinet he tossed over the door, waiting if anyone else dared to face him. This isn’t like back at the camp. Their numbers were limited in this small corner of the city. They distracted themselves with easy plunder and it cost them their lives.
Upstairs the Prince of Steel found two officers of the Red Hand, raiding their counterpart’s quarters. The bedroom of the absent Sunbury captain was cozy if not cramped with rusty trinkets. The ceiling was lower than comfort allowed and hung with garlic the occupant had been growing.
The bed in the back was nicer than any of the ones down below. Pillows stuffed with feathers rather than hay. In front of the bed was the trunk the two Red Hand were extracting fine silks out of. The floor was creaky as well. That was what tipped the two officers off that Myers had arrived.
“Sneaky bastard,” the first officer said with a grunt, “didn’t even hear you coming up the stairs. Damn near gave me a heart attack.”
The second officer spoke with a more cool and collected voice, “We gave orders for nobody else to come up here. Go bother Paktu if there’s an issue.” His eyes didn’t last long on Myers. His mistake, Myers thought and he readied Whisk for the more gruff of the officers clad in red capes. They don’t even see me as an enemy. Reed and his officers had cause for alarm when I arrived in their tower. These two however. Perhaps they couldn’t fathom the lone bladesman cutting down all their men the floor below. Their mistake.
It was years ago. Back when Myers and Grissle had successfully butchered their way through the Dankrot Forest and returned to Thatch. Myers was alone with Thatch by the campfire. There were others with them. He didn’t remember who. But he remembered the words of his commander.
“You might find yourself with a couple fellas at an inn some day, maybe behind some stables, I don’t know,” Thatch said, scratching his beard, watery eyes reflecting the lines of the fire before him, “could be three, wouldn’t try it with more. One looks away and the other has his eyes on you. The one looking. That’s the one you start with. You start with that one.”
Myers knew back then from just looking at his wet eyes glowing by the flames. He knew Thatch had been to a few inns and behind a few stables. He knew to slice open the man looking before taking the other one while they were confused and uncertain of what had happened behind them.
The gruff officer had enough time to twitch his forehead and gasp out, “Hey, what’s it you,” before the Prince of Steel wedged Whisk from one side of his jaw and out the other. The second officer was quick, Myers had to admit, as he blocked Whisk with his gauntlet by the end of the swing. Now he’s looking, Myers thought with some amusement, throwing Whisk back.
“Bastard,” the officer cursed, “men to me!” None of the men from below came to their officer’s aide. The Prince of Steel knew why but the officer at least had the wit to draw his sword and try Myers with it. They played for a moment before Myers refitted his grip on Whisk and finished the man with a lazy blow through the side. I’ve gotten terrible at this, Myers thought with some worry, knowing the officer may have fallen back but would surely not die.
It was at another campfire, Myers recalled, more of Thatch’s drunken wisdom, “When a rat is cornered, watch for the smile. That’s the death smile.”
It lasted as long as a flash of lightning. The officer bleeding on the ground, looking up at the Prince Steel, a smile when there was no cause for one. Yet the Prince of Steel knew, as Thatch had once explained, that meant there was cause. Myers glanced to his side and that was when the officer cried out, “Get him, Paktu!”
Paktu, the bear, had swung his chain for the Prince of Steel. Somehow Myers blocked the spiked ball of steel but no sooner had he done that was it flung back and thrown his way again. He took another blow, this time to the chest, and found he was now the one on the ground. I can’t get up, Myers thought stupidly. Whisk had fallen by his side. He reached for it, eyes on the swinging flail, barely contained to the confines of the small room.
“Saw your fight with Commander Grissle in his tent,” Paktu growled as the chain swung, each cycle of the chain a dreadful thum in Myers’ ears. “That was my friend you killed when you went yellow and fled from the Commander. He’s promised a chest of gold for the one who comes back with your head. He’ll just have to believe the pulp I bring back was your’s.”
Another time, another fire. Thatch was drinking with some fresh blood. Myers was resting under a dead tree. “Learn from our Prince of Steel over there. Do as he does. Never boast over an enemy.”
Before the flail was cast, before Myers’ head could be made into pulp, the arrow sailed into the back of Paktu’s neck. Through the chink in his armor, below the helmet of the bear, the arrow bit into flesh and the man bent over. He hissed out something sounding like a “fah!” The wayward steel ball broke a beam of wood off the ceiling. Myers watched Paktu step aside and at the door he saw the man named Hew. He still looks angry. But now I understand the face carries a look of determination.
“Slimy snake,” Paktu took the arrow to the back of his neck admirably as he was already readying his chain for Hew. Yet Hew had already set sail another arrow. Though Paktu wore the helmet of a bear, his squealing sounded much like a pig to Myers. As he spun around, Myers spotted the arrow pierced through Paktu’s eye. For a moment there was the blind swinging of the chain, smashing shelves and planks of wood. Then the next, Paktu had broken open the floor and his weight crashed him down to where the dead rested below.
Silence returned to the quarters, save for the ambience of distant swords clashing, houses and towers collapsing. Hew and Myers each remembered there was another officer left alive with him when he suddenly jumped to his feet. The officer ran for the other door but it was clear he didn’t have the muscle Paktu had protecting him beneath his armor. Hew’s arrow struck the officer’s neck and pierced all the way through his throat. The officer managed to fling himself to the stairs but the sound of his body rolling down the steps was all the Myers needed to hear to know he was dead.
Hew lowered his bow and fully entered the wreckage of the quarters. Myers grasped Whisk and used it to support himself back to his feet. Standing back on the boots he had an hour earlier slain a stranger in a pub for.
“This was all your fault,” Hew said, his voice the driest spell in the room now damp with spilled blood.
“I had this under control,” Myers said softly, his eyes on the hole in the floor rather than the man he knew was his savior.
“Are you so sure? My arrows dealt with more than that brute just now. Back on the road to the barracks I followed you along the walls. You were dead three times over back there. Twice when a Red Hand stepped onto your shadow with spear ready. Another on the roof who drew their bow slower than mine. You were reckless but I do not mean just this road. I saw you. Connor saw you, I should say. Reported to me before he…” Hew hushed himself before refinding Myers with conviction in his fiery gaze. “You were the one chased into town on horse, weren’t you?”
“Back in the tower,” Myers said, “you knew?”
“Reed made his decision to give you your chance. He gave the order for me to keep an eye on you. I followed my orders.”
“You didn’t trust me before. Still take me for some rogue assassin?”
“A rogue at the least.” Hew glanced back at the door like there was a window there to see the burning city. Obviously reminded of what was at stake he said, “You’re okay killing Red Hand with reinforcement,” he strode around the hole and passed Myers, “fight better than a woman, that’s true enough for me. With me, rogue. I don’t understand your intentions but hear mine now. There’s a banner that needs removing.”
Before the Prince of Steel had found Commander Reed cornered in his tower, he had spotted the banner of Sunbury hanging ablaze from it. That was at the start of the hour. By the end of it, the crude flag of the Red Hand, bearing their bloody print, was dropped from the retaken barracks. It was a sight of great morale, no doubt. It was a sight saying hear me now to the aged Commander Reed, presently watching from atop his tower.
Hew wasted no time dragging the Sunbury banner from the barrack’s storage and hung it where the Red Hand’s mark formerly taunted the besieged city. Does he love this banner and all it represents, Myers wondered curiously, or was that one of Reed’s orders? That would mean the old commander had some faith to give me after all.
The Prince of Steel noticed the icy look Hew was giving him as he finished tying his knot. “Does something trouble you, Hew?” Myers asked, giving his attention back to the tower holding Reed. He had bought that old commander a few grains of sand from the hourglass by thwarting the siege of the tower door. Perhaps taking back these barracks afforded the defense of Sunbury another hour, assuming the Red Hand cared to carve this corner back into their clutches. Already the green and white cladded defenders were filling the street from the barracks to the tower, ready to die for that hour.
After a pause, Hew blurted, “My trust in you remains thin.” He’ll trust Reed though and Reed will hear my counsel. Myers studied Hew as he rested his foot on the broken ledge of the barracks roof. The tower behind them utterly destroyed and unable to fit enemy archers who would pursue them. At last Myers had the means to turn this miserable battle around. Perhaps not around, but enough so to kill Grissle in some manufactured opportunity. That was all Myers really needed.
Suddenly the Prince of Steel was more fascinated by the icy look Hew was giving him than the swords clashing and homes and towers collapsing around them. An entire battle raging through the outer streets of burning Sunbury and yet the fire behind those icy eyes burned hotter. He knows me already. Too young to have fought me in Thatch’s day. Too alive to have dueled me as well. Perhaps I killed his father or an older brother. I doubt he enjoyed me saying his name a moment ago. Is he waiting now for me to give him mine?
The Prince of Steel gripped Whisk’s hilt. Just in case. “Are you wondering my own name?”
“No,” Hew said. “Reed told us all who you were the moment he laid eyes on you. You’re Gadley’s Ghost. You’re about as good as a ghost’s omen, that's for true.” Yet that look. That tongue has more to say.
“Why don’t you ask me what it is you’re thinking,” the Prince of Steel cut to the point.
“Did you know Grissle?”
“I know that I am going to kill him.”