Vol.4, Ch.4, P.4
“So, what’s the plan?” asked Frieda as we strode onwards.
“At the moment: rendezvous. I’m come with company—a swordhand by the name of Sig,” I answered her. “And speak of the devil…”
Far down the dim corridor, at an intersection of halls, loomed a scene glad as it was gruesome: a sanguine smattering of manor guards, strewn low and limp amongst tousled and shattered furnishings. And standing tall over them: a fearsome figure, bearing over-shoulder a blood-shining blade.
“Rolf,” he greeted, looking to us as we arrived. “Wot’s kept ya?” But with a glance to my side, he smirked. “Ah.”
“Sig,” I said. “This is Frieda, the requestress herself.”
“Pleasure, Sig,” Frieda nodded to him.
“All right,” was his curt courtesy. Turning back to me, Sig then stole a glimpse of the nick at my shoulder. His smirk increased. “Found a bit o’ fun, aye?”
“You could say. Crossed an old face from my Order days,” I explained myself. “‘Sheila,’ dame and conjurer of the 5th—she waylaid me with a knight-squad from the 3rd. I had them dealt with, though the woman herself slipped loose.”
A snort. “Sloppy-like, ain’t ya.”
“…I was,” I conceded.
Sig shrugged. “Hmph. Well, not like I fared ‘ny better,” he said wryly. “The lord—’e’s shog’d ’fore I could finish ’im meself.”
“Sig…” I groaned. Losing sight of our prized prey—who’s the “sloppy” one again?
“Aye, small matter,” he grunted back. “The scum’s scuttled that-a-way, an’ ain’t one step o’ stairs down there to save ’im—the rat’s bag’d, ’e is.” His bloody blade then pointed down another corridor. It was indeed a dead-end, and empty, at that; whatever sentry that once watched it now laid lifeless at Sig’s feet, I reckoned. “But there’s the rub: lo—doors galore,” he noted with knitted brows. “One fox—an’ fifteen bloody ’oles to search. Bugger.”
“An’ I might know just the hole,” Frieda revealed, peering down the passage with intent. “Ina, Carola—they be kept ’hind lock an’ key far down there. If the lord’s ’nywhere, I wager ’e be shiv’rin’ in ’is boots with our lasses.”
All the better. Two—three birds with one stone it was. “Right,” I nodded. “Frieda, if you will—nay, a moment.” Approaching the nearest corpse, I stamped on its wrist and wrested a sword free from its cold fingers. “Might come in handy, this.”
“Maybe,” smiled Frieda, taking the offered blade and then briskly leading us onwards.
Find Tallien, and find with him our two captives—more and more this seemed likely. Cornered fox as he was, his options numbered few, and I much doubted even a lord of his stature would be above holding hostages at bladepoint, all in some bid to buy time for his men’s arrival. Not that Tallien himself ought know what value the damsels had to Rolf the rebel. No; this was simply his last stand, such that he would baulk not even the bloodying of innocent women if it could wash his hands free of this foul affair.
A hostage situation… and how best to break it. Such I mulled upon as we hurried along. But soon enough, we found ourselves afore another set of double doors, large and looming.
I looked to Frieda. “This it?” I whispered.
“Ought be,” she answered.
To which Sig and I lined up aface the doors. Frieda took her post behind us, readying her sword. Nods were shared. Sig and I lifted our boots.
—Bang!
Doors crashing open, Frieda flew in from betwixt us, ready to cross blades with any hostile inside. Only, there was none within that candle-lit chamber—save for one. And seemingly at the sight of him, Frieda stayed herself.
“You!” snarled a voice inside. “Dare disturb me even now, you nithing!? Bah! Discourteous cullions, one after the other!”
“F-Frieda…” whimpered another, one I’d last heard moons ago. There afore a dishevelled bed she stood: Ina, rigid and restrained from behind by a wrathful Tallen, whose sword edge scintillated against the girl’s neck. Off to a near corner was Carola, knees ashiver, her face ruefully pale and perspiring.
“Hmph. A confederate of yours, that crook?” Tallien interrogated Ina, growling down her ear. “I knew it—oh! I knew it: the Concern conspires… No nearer, brigand!”
Frieda halted again and clucked her tongue, having thought to attack. But to her sides then appeared Sig and I, and to the livid lord I said: “Birds of a feather, flocking together to pillage and plunder; such becomes brigandry, as it does you and your noble lot, Bartt Brigand-lord.”
Widely did flash the eyes of the cornered viscount, whilst the girl in his grasp stood startled. “Is it… is it truly you!?” Ina gasped.
“Ser Rolf…!” Carola echoed as she cupped her mouth in awe.
“Faugh! That noisome smell…!” Tallien hissed. “Rolf Buckmann!!”
Fury fumed from the former mareschal’s every pore. His knuckles quaked and clenched till white. Eyes, red and wroth, shot their deathly stare unto mine.
And then, it all cracked.
“Mhm…! Mhah hahahah!” so resounded his hyaena-like laughter. “Oh, the filth on that face of yours! All this time, and still you steep yourself in soot! Hah! A godless alga, through and through! Yes, come to unchoke my chimneys again, have you!? Rolf Scum-scrubber!”
“…”
“Oh, indeed! Wheresoever he wanders, howsoever he lives—Rolf Buckmann! A woeful waste of flesh and breath! Small wonder you were given no Grace! Why House and Heaven have cast you so!”
“…”
“And now you dare darken my door!? Hoh! What? ‘Hate’, was it? That has so spurred you to my palace? What trifling farce! What foul folly! A cur-pup, yipping for vengeance! Thinking to glare and growl at so mighty a master! Fie! The shame of you!”
“…”
“What matter, mongrel? Lost your words? Well, fret not! For a swift doom is yours to savour very, very soon! When the thews of the 3rd come thundering down upon you!”
…The 3rd?
Pitiful, indeed, the hound howling for his perished pack.
Here was I, curious as to what words this retired mareschal might’ve had for his former subordinate. After all, having walked my own way and forged many a new bond, I fancied myself at least a mite more matured from last we met. Yet all that my lent ears could reap from his ramblings was a bothersome ringing.
“’Nother one o’ your ‘friends’, this lord?”
My face cocked at Frieda’s question. “‘Friend’…?” I flatly echoed. “More a fast-forgotten face.”
But there I wondered: what of Sig? The viscounty once served his cradle, to be sure, and long had he hated its line of lords. Perhaps finally could the former mercenary give this prince a piece of his mind?
A glance at him, however, betrayed that very expectation: Sig stood not even at the ready. No; he but looked on, shaking his head, squinting in dissatisfaction. It would seem all his spite had sputtered to a wisp. I couldn’t blame him, to be frank. A long-loathed mark, making his escape, only to be found again—frothing and frantic upon the corner of his last stand. Indeed, not even I saw much worth in felling such a head.
Only, the deed needed doing. And she who shouldered it stepped forth.
“Then you’ll not mind if I get ’andy with this?” asked Frieda, twirling her hilt. After giving her a nod, I watched her fair and fatal figure, thinly sheathed in a sheet of white, begin its silent approach unto the lost lord, in whose gaping eyes glinted the dull light of her borrowed blade.
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