It was a surly company that made the eaves of the Wald, surly and exhausted. The trials of the journey had been numerous and trying, and their pace had slowed to a crawl turning three days ride into a week. Their once bright harness was showing the signs of rust from the damp air of the woods, and their fine jupons and surcoats were torn by the brambles they’d been forced to move through on several occasions. It wasn’t just confined to the men of the company either, horse tails drooped, and heads were low as the sun greeted them all on the road out.

The physical exhaustion was not the worst of it however, when they were finally clear of the trees and the wagons circled to allow the men some respite and their young Captain stayed in a wagon bed in full harness eyes fixed on the trees that stood like great dark sentinels behind them. The worst was the emotional and mental strain of having been on high alert with fear and adrenaline racing through your veins for a week straight. Despite the precautions of the officers, another three archers had been taken and killed horrifically, their brutalized corpses left in the path of the next day’s march as a warning to the Arturians who came on behalf of the Emperor. Two destriers had been killed as well to the chagrin of the knight and man at arms who were thrown from their saddles.

A warhorse is an expensive corpse and could be financial ruin for a man at arms who lost one, but Sir Edward was determined not to lose the company he had already wagered his fortune on, and with gritted teeth he promised the men new steeds and had them mount their riding horses. Fortunately for the young captain, the grisly brutality had the opposite effect than was perhaps intended, on his men. Instead of fear and shock as they had felt after the first, the remaining bodies merely stoked their anger, and every night saw more than one man coming to the captain to ask to be included in the hunting party that stayed behind. It was, as Sir Guillaume put it, a perfect example of less being more, if their foe had simply shown that he could kill them at will and they’d never be able to see him coming, then the fear would have grown like a rot in old wood, but instead he had tormented and humiliated their friends and mess mates, and that made men angry, now they wanted revenge.

Edward shook hands with Sir Thomas as he named the six lances that would accompany him to Sir Clement’s camp, “Get the food to them, I’m sure they all look like half starved scarecrows at this point,” he offered his young marshal with a chuckle, “If he has any men to spare we could use them back here to help us root this monster out,” Thomas nodded in earnest.

“I’ll be back as quickly as I can to help,” Sir Thomas swore before he mounted once more and got the wagons rolling. Six lances had been deemed ample protection for the supply caravan and Sir Thomas had even offered to halve those numbers to reinforce his captain’s men for the hunt, but Guillaume and Edward agreed that to do so was unwise, the main army needed their rations and wine, and so Edward turned back into the eaves of the dark woods with only his twenty-four remaining lances, and short four archers. His harness chafed at his hips and wore on his shoulders, his neck ached from the weight of his helm and his right hand itched to grip the comforting hilt of his sword as he turned Bohemund to the road, a fistful of reins the only solace he could take.

The company’s guide was a Vallarese man named Antonio Bembo, and he had been a fish merchant before the war, he told them the man they were hunting had been a simple brigand or robber baron before the war had arrived at Lucca’s walls. With the city’s capitulation he had been flooded with new recruits who rankled at the council’s surrender, and with lightly guarded supply convoys coming through their hunting grounds the band had grown rich. Sir Edward had hunted bandits when he had been a page in Bordeaux at his grandfather’s court, but he had never seen one as sadistic as the man messire Bembo called, La Sindone, the Shroud. It was a name that Ser Guillaume derided as peasant foolishness, this man was just a man, and likely mad, they would string him up in a strong tree and commend his soul to the worthies for judgement.

The company had their first success in the early hours of their return to the woods. No longer focused on simply surviving the dark undergrowth and filled with a bloodlust that could only be slaked by revenge, the archers under Sir Gerald took to the scrub like a wolf pack on the hunt. They caught a foraging party, and it was the first indication to Edward that the men they hunted were not professionals. Once their wagons had cleared the trees, the brigands had simply ceased watching them and begun waiting for the next caravan to come. The foraging party had been taken easily, and three of the five had died with clothyard shafts of ash through their unarmoured bodies before they’d even known they were under attack, the last two had been taken alive and were brought to Sir Edward.

Each was an example of the meanest serf Edward could imagine. While well fed, no doubt feasted on the spoils of their successful raids, each man stank to high heaven, unwashed in months with matted hair that crawled with lice. Their mouths were offensive at ten feet and rotten teeth were visible in black gums that oozed puss, the knight curled his lip in distaste as he looked at the loathsome creatures. Any sympathy he might have felt for their condition was tempered by the knowledge that even if they had not been the ones to torture his men, they had assuredly watched or been party to it.

Sir Edward drew his rondel dagger and let the steel spike rest along his thigh as he glared down at his two captives, “now, which of you two…men, will lead me to your camp?” The young knight’s heart was stone and his eyes like chips of ice as he watched the craven men kneel before his horse.

“Your lordship, we’ll both take you, just have mercy,” they each begged in turn. Each man swore they were prisoners first, then spat that he was an invader, and claimed to have been led astray by their mates. It was a marvellously confused performance of insincerity and it served only to stoke the fires of Edward’s barely contained rage further. Without a word the young knight dropped his dagger point first between the two cringing mongrels and backed Bohemund two steps.

“I only need one of you, and in my mercy I will allow you to make the choice,” he sneered at them. The words had barely left his mouth before they both dived for the dagger. Ser Guillaume turned his head from the spectacle as they scrabbled for the blade, no skill or training evident. They were in every respect, lesser men, and the fight was not long lived as one unleashed a clumsy fist that caught the other in the ear, with the distraction provided, he was able to close his hand on the dagger and drive it into his compatriot’s chest. The wounded bandit screamed in agony and fear, swinging his own fist to catch his opponent in the jaw, but despite the fear and adrenaline, the wound was mortal, and it robbed his blow of any strength.

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“That was more mercy than you showed my archers,” Edward spat at the man who knelt holding his hurt jaw, he nodded to one of the archers to retrieve his dagger, with the blade cleaned fastidiously on a cloth, he allowed the victor to stew in his fear for a moment longer, “take this rat and shave him, once he has a halter around his neck, he will take us to his captain, whereupon we will deliver the Emperor’s justice to these foul monsters,” the broken man didn’t fight the hands that seized him and dragged him to the rear of their column where his head was shaved and his clothes burned, the archers were not gentle and their tender mercies were even less existent than their captain’s had been as they bound their guide with coarse rope around his wrists and neck, and gave the lead to Sir Gerald.

Sir Edward looked to Gerald, “Master of the Hunt, let’s find this fox in his den.”

  The new guide was unerring in his course, leading the men of Edward’s company deep into the tangled briars of the wald. He claimed they would find the Shroud Keep in the exact centre of the woods, a notion which made the knights scoff, there were no records of their being a keep anywhere in the forest and the likelihood of such a defensible position being left abandoned was laughable to say the least.

The broken man, Carlo or so he said his name was, was adamant on this one point. The keep was old, ancient even, a remnant of a time when the entire continent had been ruled by petty warlords and little kings, before the coming of the Worthies and the founding of the Empire. As he spoke, Edward began to question his own convictions, he had explored several such keeps in the lands around Bordeaux as a boy, and they were remarkable in their construction, old grey stone covered in moss and mouldering on the landscape like broken teeth in a peasant’s mouth. Some held dark secrets while others were simply ruins, or so scholars said. It was claimed that the first familiars had been found in such ruins before the island of the Norglanders had been discovered.

Gerald’s prickers took two more foraging parties on their travels before the company encountered its first opposition. A raiding party that consisted of four men at arms and a dozen lesser men charged through the trees and into the company’s flank, having seen the archers and mistaking them for the whole of the hunter’s force, but the Shroud’s men had caught a tiger by the tail, and Edward’s knights fell on them like hungry predators. The captain himself engaged the attack sword in hand and felled the first man at arms to come under his blade with a straight cut that blew through the man’s unprepared garde. No man was spared, bar two who ran at the first sight of the company and made it through the scrub before the archers could loose a shaft. Those who threw down their weapons were strung up from trees with signs around their necks that read, thief.

It was a vengeful and frustrated Edward that first came upon the sight of the Keep’s stone walls. Their guide had been correct, and their foe had a formidable position. The walls were not high, but a man still could not climb them without the assistance of a ladder. Moss and lichen clung to the grey stones and men stood on the ramparts and pissed onto the ground outside their protected hovel. A new roof could be seen over the central fastness, but the rotted planks of the towers had fallen in long ago.

Any hope of surprise was gone the moment they came upon the walls and their guide, so quiet along their route tried to make his escape. He screamed an alarm and tried to break Sir Gerald’s grip on his halter, the Master of the Hunt was no raw boy who would be taken by surprise and his fist was like iron as he drew back on the rope. The escape had failed, but Carlo had made their job that much harder with his attempt, men lined the walls against them and more than one called an obscenity at the company.

“Pull back, we don’t know if he has archers on those walls,” Edward cautioned his men, “get me a parley with this man.” The order ran along the line and an archer produced a linen shirt that could almost be considered white and in minutes it was stitched to a spear pole and waved at the battlements.

  Edward was not a small man, even at sixteen he overtopped most men by a head, and even mounted on Bohemund, he had to raise his head to meet the glare of the Shroud. The man was huge and his armour was as dark as the arms Edward wore on his own shield, not for the first time since the gate had opened to accept sir Edward’s parley, he thought that the term monster had been an apt description. His lantern jaw jutted forward and his nose was turned up and pug like, but his eyes belied a malicious almost animal cunning and intelligence as he stared down the young knight.

“It’s customary to bow to a king,” the Shroud spat as they faced each other a horse length apart. Edward passed his bascinet to his squire and swept the blonde fringe from his eyes in a show of nonchalance he hoped would cover his nerves at facing down a man who made Sir Bjorn look small.

“I was unaware of any king in these lands,” Edward assayed with what he was sure was his most confident tone, “especially as these lands belong to the Emperor,” he finished, meeting the big man’s eye.

“I am the King!” The man’s eyes were wide and his rage evident as spittle flecked his lips, “King of the Wald, by right of conquest,” Edward’s head tilted to the side to glance at the rotten walls of the keep.

“You’re a bandit who found a ruin, that’s not conquest, what is your name king of nothing?” Edward felt his spirit returning as he beheld the rage and simpleness of the man.

“I am the King!” He roared again, “King Andreas of the Wald!” For one so large the voice was curiously high pitched, and as his rage grew the ugly mottling of pink and milk white skin that dominated his features stood out more as blood rushed to his face.

“Well Andreas, you have two options, you can fight me here and now, if you kill me, my men will leave, or you can take refuge in your crumbling walls and I will take this ruin from you, and then I will hang every last one of you like the bandits you are,” Sir Edward was not sure where the words had come from, though he had often heard tell of winged words, words that came from the worthies to their chosen instruments. Ser Guillaume looked in horror as his Captain made the declaration and watched as the giant’s rage turned to a sadistic smile.

“I won’t kill you, you will be made one of my toys, as your archers were before you little man,” the manic glee that lit the feral eyes of Andreas the Shroud was truly terrifying to behold, but Edward’s word was iron and his back remained unbowed, “we will fight,” said the giant.