Vol.7, Ch.3, P.2
With the battle won, I quickly cleaned the soot-steel and began to set off. Though Vilmar lay dead alongside his vanquished varlets, there likely lurked more of their lot yet in this college, and I was loath to test my luck again against so great a number. Only, I found myself quitting unaccompanied. Halting, I turned; and there was Björn having budged not a bit. He stood inspecting all his person, from helm to heel and gambeson to gauntlet, making certain that no rivet slacked, nor silver plate hung out of place. At the last, he straightened his straps and braced his belt.
“…”
But as I watched him on some whim, he soon looked back. And then his brows bent, and his moustache bristled, as though to say, You had better do the same, you buffoon.
“Ah… right,” I uttered, and got to reviewing my own gear. Speaking of, Björn ever did at least tighten his belt after a battle, whether at the coppice or back in that bookhouse. And all I’d ever done was wipe the red off the black. “Bugger me,” as Sig would say.
At any rate, there were no glaring holes or tears to be found on my overcoat, nor aught that might snag hand or feet in the heat of a fight. And just to be sure, I unsheathed my sword and searched it. But nay; not one notch. Good old wolfsteel. Truly wondrous how well it can hold up.
“…Everything looks all right,” I concluded, after two, three minutes of fussing—an eternity compared to the old captain, admittedly, who’d taken not one. And he hadn’t been sloppy about it, either. In fact, so deftly had he done that it was plain he’d practised hundreds, if not thousands of times before, whether by routine or the real thing.
In my defence, I do inspect and service my stuff after a hard day’s battle. Though the idea of doing so after each fight had never really crossed my mind, I should confess. There might be something to learn here. After all, it takes just an anthole to bring a whole bank down, come storm and flood.
Indeed, one forgets the fundaments at great peril, especially upon the battlefield. How careless of me, that I should consider it fully only now, the commander to many braves though I was.
“…”
Careless? Nay… perhaps “lonesome” is more the word. Thinking back, there hadn’t been anyone to teach me these sorts of things. No, not anyone at all.
“And your wounds?” enquired Björn, lowly and rather demandingly. But he was right to do so, the body being as much a piece of gear as any.
“None taken,” I answered, and then looked to the corpses strewn about. “Their blades and bludgeons were many, but I managed.”
Miraculously enough. It’d been no fewer than twenty that wanted me dead. Björn, however, only frowned further. “So I see,” he said, “but I meant more your flank.”
Ah, of course: the old panging companion below my right rib. Now that Björn brought it up, I felt it gnawing away at my nerves again. But this was strange. How had the Praetorian perceived it? Under shirt and cloak, the wound ought be well-concealed. And with it cauterised shut, it shouldn’t be bleeding, either. Perhaps I’d been nursing it as I fought? Instinctively, that is? Strange, indeed. None of the foes here had seemed to heed it, but I suppose his many summers’d served only to sharpen this captain’s eyes.
“Well, it wails, for sure,” I admitted, “but it’s scarce a hindrance. Or did it seem otherwise to you?”
Björn shook his head. “Nay. If you may bear it and battle yet, then fine by me.”
“I haven’t been hiding it, if you must know,” I remarked rather asudden, and quite excusingly, truth be told. We weren’t on tenderest of terms, certainly, but for the time being, Björn and I were partners-in-crime, as it were, and so I ought’ve apprised him well beforehand as to any wounds I bore. Rather late to realise it now, yes, but better late than never.
“I do,” Björn growled back. “I’m neither some currier of favours, if you must know.”
Bloody roundabout way of putting it. Björn, in other words, was neither trying to earn my trust, let alone going out of his way to do so. Verily, that virulence of his was plain now as ever, if there’s any doubt about that. And so long as he kept that conduct, I was hardly beholden to report to him of every scratch and scuff. Such I guessed to be his insinuation, at the least.
Still, though he’d surely meant but to air the obvious, I could but feel some faint consideration in his words; that behind his visage so severe, there smouldered an ember of worry.
“I appreciate your concern,” I said to him.
Björn scoffed. “I have none to speak of,” he retorted. But then he fell silent, and perhaps even into some deep thought; for after a moment or two, he looked straight at me again, and said, “You have fought alone for long… haven’t you, lad?”
Alone and for long… indeed, I have done. No wonder I hadn’t thought to disclose my wound. I’d got used to it: to clamming up, to bearing such hurts in silence—because again for the longest time, no one had been around for me to share them with. Things were different now, of course. But five years in the Order—five years of being scorned as some gutter-born alga—were soot-stains none too swift to wash away.
“Perhaps that explains your strength.”
“…”
I hardly needed him to tell me that. Because I knew it. I’d lived it.
No matter how many times I’d been beaten black and blue—or laid low to lick the dirt, or made to squirm as crowds all around sneered and taunted on—I never once unhanded the hilt; I never once forsook the sword. And in large part, that’d made me strong.
All those days of derision and desolation—indeed, none of them had been for naught. That I could attest. With the whole of my soul, I could. And so I needed not be told of it by another, when daily my scars already did.
But on the other hand, now that I was told, and acknowledged, no less, I could but feel… conflicted, or fraught, or otherwise whelmed in a way I could not describe. What did Björn, this master soldier, see in me, I wonder? Through his winters-worn eyes? Through his wisdom that twice of mine could not match?
“Maybe so…” was all I could muster to answer. And as silence began to brim once more, my thoughts turned to the old captain himself. “Well, what about you?” I asked him in turn. “Your hands must be howling right about now.”
Howling with hurt after having handled the black hilt. The pain of it had been enough to send Vilmar reeling and screaming. Yet here was Björn, abiding the burns beneath his gauntlets, and with nary a twitch to his moustache, at that.
“Never you mind,” he growled. “Not every codger needs looking-after.” And just like that, he was back to his gruff and grumbling self. Somehow, that relieved me. The old man, however, had scarce started towards the doorway yonder when he pointed to the nearest window at the west. “But lo! lad,” he said.
The both of us went to look. The window, being large, and this storey being the highest here besides, commanded a wide prospect of the land beyond Merkulov’s walls. And through it—
“…How now.”
—we beheld plumes of dust purling in the cotton-white distance. Nay, no whim of the winds that was, but rather hoofbeats breaking the earth. There was little doubt between us: horseriders were racing hither from the west—a host of them, it well-seemed. What their number precisely was, I could not reckon from so far away, but these men-at-arms must’ve counted at least a cohort strong.
“Friendlies, you think?” I asked Björn.
“Nay,” he groaned. “Too timely.”
I had to agree. Not without much preparation could such numbers set off so soon. That is, preparation and anticipation. So it was, then, that these were the “reinforcements” our foes here had so boasted about.
Needless to say, this was an unhappy turn. Though this grand college ought be diminished in enemies by a good deal, the same could not be said for the rest of Merkulov. But now to add atop that an entire cohort? “Unhappy” is lightly put.
At this point, one would think to escape at the soonest, and I should concur. Press our luck, storm the gates, and fight our way to freedom, why not? But that’s just the rub: some amongst us could not fight. The princess, our officials… the risk was too great. And that’s to forget the jaunt back to our respective camps. No doubt we’d be hunted the entire way, and by what but hundreds of cavalry. Nay; that we must avoid at all costs.
“Best we hurry, then,” I said. “You yet have your princess to find, and I my jarl.”
Two leaders stuck in a snare, with prides of lions on their scents—this was indeed no time to dawdle. But even as I broke briskly towards the doorway, Björn lingered at the window.
“Leash yourself, lad,” he said. “Find them though we ought, this host of hellions won’t sit idle as we go about it.”
“True,” I said, stopping and turning, “—but neither shall the Himmel.”
Were that cohort to enter Merkulov, then our days were as good as numbered. Something had to be done. Luckily, there was hope; hope that the Himmel had already stirred, and were now on their way to handle things without, whilst we held out within.
“Will their speed suffice, I wonder,” said Björn.
“Not normally, nay,” I answered. “But speed being the priority, they would send first their very swiftest, if just to buy time.”
Signs of an explosion atop the place of parley; signs of an evil conspiracy at play. Such exigency ought not’ve escaped the Himmel’s attention, at the least. Being encamped at the south, they had got the better view of the steeple tower, and so surely must’ve mustered and dispatched hither a small but mobile force. A similar feat had been done once before for Balasthea last year, where, informed late, I and my fastest friends and braves had bolted ahead of the main host, to answer at the soonest a covert assault upon the fort.
“Buy time?” said Björn. “Have your ‘swiftest’ even the strength for it?”
“Fair point…”
The captain was most correct. A squad against a cohort beggars tactical sense. As a rule when armies vie, it’s the difference in numbers that first decides the day. One needs not boast a decorated military career to see this. We the Himmel, however, were quite competent when it came to the march. It was therefore not a squad that was coming to our succour, but a quick-footed company, I reckoned. And in that company was one who beggared sense in another way. What’s more, he wouldn’t be alone in that regard this time around. Suffice it to say, help was on the way; help worth hoping for.
“—But, I can vouch for their valour,” I assured the captain. “They may find a way, I think.”
Björn quietly scoffed. “They had better.”
Though it be “may” and “think” that I said, “will” and “warrant” matched more my meaning. And as if having perceived this, Björn did not debate the matter further. Albeit his expression remained as craggy as ever.
“Time to move, then lad,” he said. “We quit this place and search south-eastwards—and there, hope that we ourselves be not too late.”
“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
With that, we left the death-filled forum in earnest. And though I’d made little of my wound earlier, it was, in fact, throbbing terribly. But no time to rest now. The enemy was on the march. And with motives and conspiracy so plaguing this parley for peace, things were all too uncertain. What was certain, however, was that we must fight back—
—lest everything be lost.
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Notes
Alga
(Language: Latin; plural: algae) A “thing of small worth”. Descended from the Proto-Indo-European alg- or alǵ-, meaning “dirty”, “slimy”, “frog”, or “duckweed”. In Soot-Steeped Knight, it is also an epithet for chimney sweepers who would often be covered in soot.
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