Valor and Violence

Erwell felt a little bad about Grin’s untimely demise.

And the fact he never bothered to get the bloke’s name before he carked it. Especially after his instructions proved incredibly accurate.

After Oliver took a minute to ‘have a chat’ with the barman, muttering something about insurance when Erwell questioned him, they had stocked up on provisions and gone straight into the mountains, finding the foreigners without issue. And yet, despite telling nothing but the truth, Grin had still omitted some pretty significant details.

Like the fact the camp was, in fact, a huge stone castle built into the side of a mountain.

A giant amphitheatre had been carved out of the rock, the fortification rising underneath the expansive ceiling. It explained how Waldmer’s wing had failed to detect it on their infrequent fly bys of the area. From his vantage point, Erwell couldn’t tell how far into the mountain the structure went, but he suspected it extended deep. Maybe even all the way through.

“That bloody mage,” Oliver cursed under his breath, wriggling back down the rock slab they were using as a lookout. They had set up a discrete camp on top of the ravine opposite the castle. It provided good observation, and getting there was such a pain in the arse they doubted enemy security patrols would bother venturing up. They had been roughing it here for a week, trying to gauge opportunities for the royal force to exploit when they arrived. So far, they had seen Politis’ court mage arrive in an extravagant carriage, a few drunken bandits having pissing contests off the wall, and fuck all else.

Aside from an intense storm a couple of days prior that had almost washed them away. That had been a sight to behold. Regrettably, it had put Oliver in a particularly foul mood, which had in turn led Erwell to become steadily more inclined to throttle the man to death and finish the mission by himself.

All in all, it had been a painful and unproductive stake out of a castle that looked nigh impregnable. The solid timber doors were the only obvious weak point, but the entire structure had been designed with that in mind. The overall shape of the wall was a concave v, the defenders able to line the crenelated fortifications with archers and siege weapons to slaughter an assaulting force as they tried to reach the gate.

Scaling may have been an option, though it would be a costly one. The enemy’s elite forces, the duelists and knights, could hold the narrow walkways for a long time while inflicting horrendous casualties. Breaking the walls would be possible, but only with heavy siege weapons that would need to be constructed in location, and if the mage was inside, he could repair the damage as quickly as they inflicted it.

There was no easy way to do this.

“It’s impossible. We need an army five times the size of what’s coming to have a hope,” Oliver said.

But just because it wasn’t easy didn’t make it impossible.

Erwell sighed and shuffled down next to the spymaster, reaching into his pack and pulling out a bag of jerky. “We can do it. We just have to set the conditions.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

Erwell chewed thoughtfully as he mulled it over. “Our end goal is to get past the walls. Once we can open up the battlefield, the greater numbers of the royal army will carry the day. The problem is in getting there. First, we need to kill the mage.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“You sound unconvinced.”

“Of course I’m bloody unconvinced! He’s a mage!”

“He’s no battlemage, though. He worked for the Six Cities’ council before Politis hired him, for fuck’s sake.”

“He can mould and shape solid stone like a bowl of mashed potatoes. He can launch stone shard projectiles like they were weightless!”

“Can’t do any of that if I sever his head first.”

Oliver stopped whining for a moment to stare at Erwell. “You know, Captain. I really envy you military types.”

Erwell stared back, waiting. After a few seconds of awkward eye contact, he crawled up the rock slab, returning to his observation post and inspecting the gate through his eyeglass.

“Hey!” Oliver called after him. “You’re supposed to ask why!”

“So you can make a snide comment about unfounded confidence? Or were you going the route of ‘too stupid to feel fear’?”

The spymaster’s petulant silence answered the question.

“As I thought. I’ve little time for your whinging, Spymaster, and even less patience. Now stow your gear and get ready to move,” he said, as the fortress gates groaned open.

“Why?”

Erwell snapped the eyeglass shut. “Because the rat is finally coming out of his hole.”

*

Erwell darted through the scrub, moving low and fast, his spear gripped tightly in his hand. He was stalking the carriage as it rumbled down the rough road towards the lowlands and Stonegrove beyond.

Alone, he reflected with a scowl. Oliver had declined to come, stating that he was ‘there to gather information, not engage in open combat’. The lazy prick.

A contingent of four very bored duelists wandered alongside the carriage. It wasn’t anywhere near a proper security escort, but they were watching over a mage. They probably figured their job was little more than pointing the ratty-looking bastard at the trouble and letting him sort it out. Great idea in theory, but there was a critical flaw in their plan.

It assumed they would see him coming.

The carriage rattled to a halt as it came around a bend in the road, finding a solid tree fallen across it. Erwell couldn’t take credit for it. No, that honour went to the storm that had almost carried him and the spymaster off the cliff earlier, but he was damn sure going to make use of it.

As the mage hurled instructions from inside his carriage and the duelists advanced on the tree with rope in hand, Erwell crept closer, his muscles rippling with predatory intent. The plan was simple; first, he would ambush the Risim fighters once they had dragged the log into the scrub beside the road. Then he would rush the carriage, rip the door off, and punch the mage full of holes before he could use his magic. Hardly elegant, but it had the distinct benefit of being simple.

Time to murder a mage.

*

Ten minutes later Erwell was sitting behind a dense bush, flicking clods of grit at a tree. A few meters away, the mercenaries were swearing; at the tree, each other, and at the gods themselves. Every few seconds, he heard the tree shift a few more centimetres before grinding to a halt, followed by a fresh round of cursing.

It was embarrassing really, but he supposed it made sense. After all, the duelists were all fairly small men, selected for their slight frames and trained to use superior speed and technique over brute force in combat. Didn’t help a whit when shifting a large chunk of toppled timber, though.

But they got there in the end, their success accompanied by a loud crash as they got the log off the road and into the scrub. Erwell stood, doing a quick series of stretches to get the blood flowing back into his extremities, then stalked after the duelists.

The poor bastards were red faced and swearing, still trying to catch their breath in the dense vegetation when Erwell fell upon them, sword in one hand, spear in the other. He cut the first two down while their backs were turned. The third managed to halfway draw his rapier before Erwell cleaved his skull. The fourth, to his credit, was quick enough to duck the blade whistling towards his neck, but then he made the mistake of attacking Erwell instead of running for help. With rapier in hand and a snarl on his lips, he charged the Calandorian.

Who promptly hurled his spear through the duelist’s chest.

Erwell retrieved it without ceremony from the fool’s corpse and sprinted back through the trees to the road. There was no sense bothering with stealth now, ending the carriage driver with a spear throw as his feet beat a frenetic rhythm against the packed dirt road. There was scrambling inside the carriage as he leapt onto the step and ripped the door open, sword poised to strike.

He threw himself backwards off the coach as the razor-sharp tip of a rapier surged out of the gloomy interior towards his face. Fortunately, the ground graciously broke his fall. And maybe a few ribs. He groaned as he sat up, tenderly exploring the painful spots with his fingers. Nothing broken, but some nasty bruises.

He looked up to find Dalian looming over him, a smug grin curling under his ridiculous facial hair.

“Why, hello again, Captain Erwell,” he said as he stepped from the coach. Behind him, a distinctly rodential face poked cautiously out to survey the surrounds.

“Dalion! What is the meaning of this?” the mage squeaked. Despite the gravity of the situation, Erwell’s face contorted as he suppressed a chuckle. He had never heard the man speak before, but he hadn’t expected his voice to match his physical appearance so perfectly. From Dalion’s suddenly constipated expression, the mercenary had noticed and was trying not to laugh himself. With visible effort, he wrangled his facial features back under control and motioned for Erwell to stand.

“Sorry, Signor Phillip, but this was a trap with you as the bait.”

“What?” Erwell and Phillip cried at the same time.

“Oh, come now. Captain, did you honestly think we didn’t know you were watching us?”

“How?” Erwell croaked.

“Let’s see,” Dalian replied, holding up a hand and ticking points off on his fingers. “My man, Jimmy, failed to bring your little group back on time. Then the team sent to retrieve drink disappeared too. And finally, my people report a royal army on the march towards the province borders. The Crown wouldn’t make such a drastic move unless their advance party had discovered our plans. Or our location, at least. Put it all together, Pit, jot the key events down on a map and draw a line through them, and there’s a very convenient arrow from Stonegrove to our fortress in the hills. It didn’t take a genius to figure out you had found us.”

“I see. You knew I was watching, but you needed something to draw me out. Something that would give the army an advantage when they arrived,” Erwell said, cursing himself for being such a fool.

“Indeed. And here we are, with a truly juicy target; the mage returning to the capital with a bare bones escort.”

“Alright, I’m keeping up so far,” Phillip interrupted. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

Erwell and Dalion both turned to face the mage as the duelist replied. “Because you’re a coward, Phillip.”

The mage opened his mouth and raised a finger as though to protest, but then snapped it shut and nodded. “Fair point. Need my help here?”

“I want to say no, I can handle the marine by myself. But that would be hubris. Please, observe our duel, and intervene should I be in danger.”

Phillip grunted and climbed out of the carriage, twisting to work out some kink or another as he glared at Erwell.

“He doesn’t look like much. I thought you duelists were supposed to be unbeatable one on one?”

“We are, but I’ve fought this man before and he is unusually talented. I would not turn down a little insurance.”

“Whatever. Just keep him away from me. The second he gets close, I’m out of here.”

Erwell ignored the inane chatter, his eyes darting around to take in the soon to be battlefield. The road was flat and in fairly good repair for such an out of the way track. It was lined by dense vegetation, wide shrubby bushes filling the space between tall, thin trees and saplings. In the centre of it all sat the carriage, the horses stamping nervously as they smelt the driver’s blood dripping from his seat.

Alright, this can work.

He would make for the front of the carriage, retrieve his spear, and use that to kill the mage from afar. Then he would engage Dalion, soldier to soldier, run him through, and return to his observation post until the army arrived. He risked a glance back at his opponents; they had devolved into a full-blown argument about Phillip fleeing the fight and seemingly forgotten about him.

Perfect.

Erwell took off at a sprint, beelining for the front of the carriage as Dalion gave a startled cry. The Calandorian was past him in a blink, nothing between himself and his spear. He jumped, hands outstretched to grab the lip of the driver’s seat, when a terrific force uppercut him in the chin. His teeth cracked as they slammed together, while his body thudded into something solid. He crumpled to the ground, fighting to retain consciousness as his rattled brain struggled to piece together what happened. As he slowly came around, he heard Dalion screaming a stream of obscenities in a mix of Tok Risim and Common.

“Ignorante! Stupid bastard! Che cazzo stai facendo!”

“No idea what you’re saying,” Phillip replied. “But I’m sensing that you’re upset and probably swearing at me, which is odd because I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘why thank you so much, Phillip, for stopping him from… uh, doing whatever it was he was doing.’”

“I told you to intervene if my life was in danger! Not because he moved!” Dalion replied, stressing the end of the sentence with air quotes. Erwell groaned and sat, finding a two meter high wall of smooth rock between him and the carriage seat.

Ah… of course. Earth mage.

“My dear Captain, are you badly hurt?” Dalion called as Erwell rubbed his bruised face.

“Not terribly, I don’t believe,” Erwell replied, climbing to his feet and taking stock of his body’s responsiveness. It was sluggish, like he was a half dozen pints in. “Although I confess to having some issues with coordination at the moment.”

Dalion threw his hands in the air and glared at Phillip. “Do you see what you’ve done now?”

“Made it easier for you to kill him?”

“Exactly! You’ve completely compromised the duel!”

“Does that mean you’re going to ask for a rain check?” Erwell asked dryly.

Dalion looked at him with a sad smile. “I’m afraid not, mio amico. It would be most dishonest to accept my employer’s coin while letting the single most dangerous man to his plans live.”

“Your employer? Politis?”

“What? Oh, because I’m on his retinue, of course. My employment is not so… simple.”

Erwell narrowed his eyes. That was either an outright lie, in which case the duelist was wise enough not to provide incriminating evidence on the off chance Erwell escaped, or Erwell was missing key information. Again. By the Pantheon, he hated doing his own intelligence gathering. It was much easier to just pick up a mission briefing and go kill enemies of the state.

“I see. This complicates things,” Erwell said.

“How so?”

“Instead of killing you, I’ll need to capture and interrogate you. Bothersome, but oh well.”

Erwell spun and jumped, grabbing the top of the wall and flipping himself over. He tottered a bit as he found his feet, the sudden movement making the world spin, but he managed save himself from toppling off the carriage by hooking an arm around his spear. He steadied himself, ripped it from the driver’s body, and turned. He swayed slightly as he took a bead on his foe, but at this range it shouldn’t matter. He hurled the spear at Phillip. This close, the mage barely had time to react as the missile surged through the air towards him, plunging right…

Into.

His.

Foot.

“Bollocks,” Erwell said as Phillip screamed and fell on his arse, blood bubbling up around the shaft. He squirmed, his screams peaking in intensity as the movement rubbed the inside of his wound against the coarse wood.

“Oh, uh… Sorry about that,” Erwell called down to the stricken man as Dalion pissed himself laughing.

“I think you missed,” he gasped in between fits. “Or are you seeking to interrogate him as well?”

“No, no, I missed. I was aiming for his chest.”

“That blow to the chin rattled you, huh?”

“Seems so.”

“Well, I guess we really won’t have the rematch I had hoped for. But this is a pleasant consolation. Seeing Phillip squirm in the dirt like a grub gladdens my heart in ways I find difficult to describe.”

“You aren’t exactly friendly with each other, are you?”

“Absolutely not. I despise men of his character, beholden only to coin and pleasures of the flesh. If we didn’t need a mage with questionable morals, I think I may have killed him before now.”

“Want me to take care of that for you?”

Dalion sighed, his laughter dying away. “I wish. But again, I have obligations to my employer.”

Phillip had become progressively quieter while they spoke, until he finally shut up completely. Erwell glanced over and saw the mage was still, his eyes closed and face deathly pale.

“It seems I may have killed him, anyway.”

Dalion followed his gaze, his lips curling into a smirk. “Oh, don’t worry about that. He passes out at the sight of blood. Specifically, his own. He was felled by a nosebleed just last week, actually. I think the pain of his injury was the only thing that kept him awake this long.”

“In that case, consider me relieved. Glad I haven’t jeopardised your relationship with your boss.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. Now, with him out of the way, shall we resume our contest?”

“You don’t seem too concerned about your lack of insurance.”

Dalion tapped the base of the spear, setting it wobbling. “I doubt that will be an issue.”

Erwell grimaced. The duelist had a point. With how wide the throw had been, even at such a close distance, it seemed Erwell’s head knock was more severe than he originally thought. It was extremely unlikely he could defeat the mercenary in his current state.

“Sorry about this, Dalion. But I’m afraid I’ll need to delay our duel a little longer.”

“And how do you envisage that?” the Ris man asked with a frown.

“Like… this!” Erwell shouted as he spun and seized the carriage reins in his hands, cracking them with a loud “gee-up!”

The horses didn’t move. One of them turned around to glare at him, releasing an annoyed snort in his direction.

“I swear that should have worked,” Erwell said, returning the horse’s glare as Dalion approached, laughing the whole way. He rested an affectionate hand on the beast’s flank as he looked up at Erwell. “These horses respond to the whip for movement commands. The reins are only used for steering,” he explained.

“I see,” Erwell replied, searching for, and spotting, the whip on the ground a couple of metres from the carriage. It must have slipped from the driver’s hands when he died.

“I guess I won’t be delaying our duel then.”

“It seems not. Are you going to come down and fight? Or am I supposed to climb up th-”

A three-legged stool cartwheeled through the air and slammed into the side of Dalion’s head, dropping the duelist like a sack of the proverbial. Erwell blinked, stunned by the sudden development, and turned dumb eyes to the figure breaking from the tree line towards him.

“I think this is a good time to retreat, Captain,” Oliver said as he reached the carriage, offering a hand to help Erwell down.

What the Pit is he doing here? And why did he wait until now to intervene?

Erwell bit off his questions and complaints as he clambered over the wall, dropping to the ground as he ignored the offered hand.

“Actually, I believe this is the time to press the advantage. Bind the mage’s hands. I’ll deal with Dalion,” he said, moving towards the duelist.

“Bind him? With what! I brought a stool, not a rope!”

“I assumed you brought your pack? You didn’t?”

“No!”

Erwell stopped and massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“You followed me to the ambush, where I intended to kill or capture a mage adept. And the only thing you brought… was a stool?”

“I wasn’t planning on getting involved. I brought the stool so I could watch things unfold in relative comfort. And besides, it isn’t the only thing I brought,” Oliver protested.

“What else did you bring?”

“A bottle of wine. I left it back in the bushes, though.”

Erwell shook his head and advanced on the duelist stirring feebly in the dirt. “Then kill him. He’s essential to their plans, somehow. We can’t let him leave.”

“What am I supposed to do, beat him to death with the chair?”

Erwell gave the spymaster a look that said everything he needed to.

“Cael’s cock, you’re a scary bastard, Captain. Alright I- actually, I think I might pass.”

“And why is that?” Erwell asked, briefly entertaining the fantasy of murdering the spymaster and pinning it on the duelist. A block of stone the size of his head hurtled past his ear and clocked a horse, answering the question.

“Because he’s awake,” Oliver said.

Erwell threw himself to the side as another rock flew by. He rolled to his feet and turned, charging the mage. Oliver was right. Phillip was indeed awake, but he looked very much the worse for wear. His face was still ashen, and the line of his thin lips suggested he was fighting the urge to vomit. If Erwell was quick enough, he could end the immobilised mage.

He heard a muffled thudding to his side as he ran, though, and glanced to the side, finding Dalion on his feet and lurch-sprinting to intercept. Erwell skidded to a halt and parried a rapier thrust, returning with a wild haymaker that somehow connected and knocked the duelist down. The merc’s eyes rolled back in his head as he fell, and Erwell grinned. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

Erwell was still grinning in victory when another stone projectile slammed into his chest, knocking him to the ground. He wheezed as he scrambled back to his feet, the rumbling of earth loud in his ears as Phillip prepared a finishing blow.

Between the physical trauma inflicted on him in the last few minutes, and his rattled brain, he was slow. Far too slow to escape what was coming. He looked up, locking eyes with a sickly, grinning Phillip as the final second of Erwell’s life ran down.

And then the stool came flying back into the picture, this time slamming into Phillip’s nose, blood spraying everywhere with a sickening crunch.

“Alright, mate. I’m putting my foot down,” Oliver said as he grabbed Erwell under the arms and hauled him to his feet. “We’re calling this one a draw and getting the fuck out of here.”

As much as Erwell was tempted to argue, his tongue felt so swollen as to fill his mouth, and after a few abortive attempts at arguing, he scowled and nodded.

“Good! Keep up,” Oliver said, cheerful, as he let go and sprinted into the bushes. Erwell nearly toppled over as his support unexpectedly disappeared.

“Gods, he’s a prick,” he muttered as he tottered after the spymaster.