Regicidal Storms and Hanged Men

“I can’t see my hand in front of my face.” Danielle Longbow was yelling, unsure if anyone could hear her over the gale force wind throwing snow at them all by the bucket.

            “WHAT?” Lupita Smith’s voice yelled through the swirling sting of icicles.

            “WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO LEONOR AS FAST AS WE CAN.” Fabian’s booming voice drew them all to him. “WE SHOULD JUST LEAVE THE TENT.”

            “Agreed.” The growling voice told them that Badru was in his wolf form which fared better against the deadly cold.

            Someone grabbed Danielle and pulled her close, she saw Fabian’s gauntleted hand. Lupita shuffled into view by her side. With no better way to stay together the three held hands. Leaving their tent behind they walked with everything else, slipping and stumbling in drifts of fresh powder.

            “Crossing the river anywhere but the bridge at Serpent’s Crook would be a bad idea.” Miss Longbow knew the river better than any of them. Lupita relayed the message to Fabian, who told Badru.

            When they came to the edge of the Fisher’s Gasp Loch, they followed it due west until they stumbled over the ruins of Serpent’s Crook village.

            The ground rose away from the river, towards the tower which had loomed over the village for a hundred years or more. In the blizzard the tower was nothing more than a shadow in the west. Danielle knew if the shadow was there, then the bridge was close.

            Then she fell, or rather slid. Having been grateful for the solid planks of a ruined floor beneath her feet, she felt both snap away from their frame. Backwards down the slope she went. She saw nothing. Waving her arms around kept her upright as she slid until the two planks met stone foundation.

            Such is the cruelty of physics that when the accidental skis stopped, Danielle kept going. Arse first over the stone, onto her back and over sideways into another drift.

            Spitting snow, she stood and brushed herself off.

            Looking like a snowman, she marched back up the hill, following the twin trails her skis had left.

            “Are you alright?” Lupita asked.

            “Just embarrassed. Come on, we must be near the bridge.”

            “Never saw you as a skier,” said Fabian as he came into view.

            “Don’t mention it, I insist.”

            Like the blind leading the blind, they found the bridge beneath Serpent’s Crook Tower. The road back to Leonor took them past the ruins of Capital’s Call.

            Two hours later they were at the southern gate of Leonor, shouting to the guards on the wall to open. In the end Fabian smacked the heavy gate with the pommel of his sword. All in the hope of grabbing the attention of whoever was freezing their backside off trying to defend the city from invaders they would never see coming.

            Unwilling to open the gate for outsiders they could neither see or hear, the guards lowered down a leatherbound book and charcoal, in a bucket, with the question, ‘who goes there?’ Written on the first empty page.

            Fabian wrote their names under the question and tied his shield to the rope.

            Finally, they were allowed back inside.

            “Sorry Sir Castel, we couldn’t risk letting in outsiders. Princess Fionnghal was murdered last night. Princess Elspeth is injured, near to death.”

            “By who?” Fabian’s voice was an uncontrolled bark that made everyone jump.

            “No one knows, Sir Castel. That’s the problem. The city is on lockdown. No one in or out. Strict curfew at night. The attacker was never caught.”

            “By the gods! We must see the queen. We have information for her.”

            “Then you must head to the castle but be warned; the queen is in a vengeful rage for the loss of her daughter. Princess Fionnghal’s bodyguard was thrown from a window. Fed to the trees.” The guard’s face was fearful. Danielle guessed he was contemplating the chaos if the royal line was broken.

            “Come on.” Sir Fabian strode from the shelter beneath the gate, back into the blizzard that had swallowed Leonor City.

            “HALT. WHO GOES THERE?” The roar of a shadowy knight in the snow halted them what they thought was halfway to the castle.

            “Sir Castel, back from Sliabh with information for the queen about the assassins.”

            “Surrender your weapons,” said a guard who was familiar to Miss Longbow.

            “You smell familiar,” said Badru to the soldier. Danielle realised the man asking for their weapons was Lady Guinevere’s man at arms, though she had never learned his name. He was a chunky man, as muscled as she but not as tall. From the snowy blur by his side stood a woman she didn’t know at all.

            “We need to see the queen.” Fabian did not move a muscle.

            “Then you must disarm, on her orders.”

            “Very well.” Sir Castel turned to his friends. “Hand over your weapons to them. As he looked at Danielle and Lupita, his face was a mask of supressed panic. He seemed to be thinking through the options. If Badru had smelled the scent of that man on the chest of gold that paid for the first attack on the queen and Lady Guinevere, then he was probably involved in the murder of the princess.

            Badru gave the suspect his sword, Danielle handed over hers, then Lupita and Fabian.

            “Lead the way please,” said Sir Castel.

            “Follow me.”

Following a grey shadow in the biting cold swirl of snow was hard enough. Knowing the man was probably already plotting your death made her heart race faster than it had in battle. They couldn’t attack the men. There was no way to know if the woman was involved but she would certainly defend the traitor if the travelling quartet attacked.

            They waited at the gate to the inner bailey of the castle. Their guide twitched his head as he made eye contact with the guard at the portcullis. The man nodded as he raised the giant metal barrier with pointed ends to each vertical steel beam.

            What if it comes down on our heads? Danielle thought. The man working the portcullis is definitely one of the traitor’s conspiracy.

            Time slowed as she walked beneath the hanging metal spikes.

            Just paranoid.

            No.

            The man holding the wheel that pulled on the chains let go.

            She pushed Lupita forwards, into the inner bailey as the grating fell.

            The metal clang echoed off walls no one could see.

            Pulling Lupita back behind her, she raised her shield as the gate guard lunged forwards with his sword raised. He was using the familiar attack any survivor of imperial sieges had practiced endlessly. Her father’s heater shield saved her life for the umpteenth time as the point of the sword hit the steel face.

            “Danielle!” Lupita was yelling but the sound was being whipped away by the wind.

            She turned, her lover was a fading shadow in the blizzard, locked in combat with someone far bigger than she.

            Turning back again, she felt the ringing blow of a sword smacking her helmet. Her head knocked sideways. As she was off balance the blade withdrew and stabbed towards the eye holes in her helmet. Her gloved hand turned the blow away, cutting her leather glove and leaving a streak of red on the sword.

            “Fuck.” She instinctively closed the hand into a fist, though it stung all the same. “Traitor!” She yelled at the man.

            His eyes glittered with malicious indifference. “Rich traitor.” He smiled.

            She knocked him flat with a blow from her shield. Swords were good, but she’d spent years watching her father fight shield first.

            When her attacker was down, she held the shield with both hands and slammed it down on his helmet. If he was dead, tough.

            Taking the traitor’s sword, she waded into the snow.

            “LUPITA?”

            She tripped on a body in the snow, falling over the woman who had carried their swords. Danielle switched back to her own.

            “LUPITA. WHERE ARE YOU?”

            “I’M HERE!”

            Trying to follow the sound, she found the traitor Badru had recognised.

Fabian had his sword raised and bloody. He was holding Lupita’s hand. Far from jealous, Danielle was glad he’d been by her girlfriend’s side. Miss Smith was a witch, not a warrior. Not that Miss Longbow dared to say it.

            “Where’s Badru?” Fabian asked.

            “He was caught on the other side of the portcullis when it came down.”

            “His nose is the best way for us to identify traitors.”

            “Let’s get him. He might be in danger.”

            They backtracked and found their new friend bloody and looking through the bars of the inner bailey’s mighty portcullis.

            “I had to bite a man.” The perfumer/loup garou waved a hand at the blood on his chin and chest. “He ran off. I have his scent now though. But we must see the queen.”

            When they retraced their steps towards the keep, they found that the man who Fabian had attacked was gone.

            “Let the dog go. Our wolf has his scent.” Fabian kept his sword up.

At the keep, they were let in when Sir Castel was seen through the slit in the door.

            “We have urgent news for the queen. Where is she?” The knight’s tone left no room for hesitation. The woman told them she was with her family at the top of the tower, for the keep was one giant cuboid of granite reaching for the sky.

            Up and up they went, challenged at every door by paranoid guards.

            “Who goes there? State your name and business.”

            “I am Sir Fabian Castel. I have returned from Sliabh with news for the queen’s ears.”

            “Wait there.”

            “Where else would we wait?” Danielle asked. She was grateful that she had her sword and could see as far as the walls again but still the killers were out in Leonor somewhere. Worse yet, they might be within the castle itself.

The oak door creaked as it opened. The royal guard numbered four knights and five curaduile avatars.

            The tree people were an astonishing sight no matter how many times Danielle saw them. They stood perfectly still in a semicircle around Queen Malin, Princess Elspeth and Lady Guinevere.

            Danielle knew the queen’s bodyguards, Sir Calum Noble and Jura Ironwill. She had heard of Sir Douglas Armstrong, Princess Elspeth’s bodyguard. Sir Brodie Gordon had come in fourth place at the October sword fighting tournament, behind the now dead Sir Nathair, Fabian and Mister Ironwill.

            “What news do you have for me?” Queen Malin was sour. The bags under her eyes could hold grain enough to feed all of Leonor. She seemed to have aged years since Danielle had last seen her. If not for Princess Elspeth lying pale as death in the bed at the back of the room, Miss Longbow might have thought the queen at greatest risk of death from decrepitude.

            Lady Guinevere held the princess’ hand tenderly in her own as she looked at the quartet of adventurers.

            “I have a sketch of a man who took a thousand coins of Crann gold to pay for your death my queen.” Fabian reached into his tabard and pulled out the sketch made by a gifted barman in Carraig, home city to the assassins of the Church of Red Knives.

            Instead of advancing, the knight let a humanoid tree creature take the sketch to the queen. She looked at the drawing with fiery hatred in her eyes.

            “You’re too late. This man died with his blade in my daughter’s heart.”

            Fabian’s defeated sigh was heard by everyone in the room as he sank to his knees.

            “My deepest apologies your highness. If I had only returned sooner.”

            “Yessss. If only.” The queen held her daughter’s other hand and caught the eyes of Lady Guinevere. “Is this all you found. We know the money was stolen.”

            “Not all my queen. We were attacked outside the castle by a man Badru recognised by scent, and his accomplices.”

            “Are they dead?” Queen Malin’s eyes were needles into Fabian’s.

            “They escaped your highness. We needed to-”

            “Hunt them down and bring me their heads!” The furious monarch stood as she yelled, more fearsome for the wrinkles her curse had bestowed. Sir Armstrong, go with them. Take a handful of soldiers and make sure none of the traitors survive the day.”

            “At once your majesty.” Sir Armstrong bowed as low as his years would allow. Danielle heard his knees crackle as he rose.

Douglas Armstrong gathered three soldiers from the dorms of the keep and had them follow Badru’s nose into Leonor City where the storm engulfed them all once more.

            Clang.

            “Argh. Traitors!” Sir Armstrong’s roar was barely diminished by the winds. “Get after them.”

            “What’s going on?” Lupita asked.

            “Two thugs just attacked us and ran off into the snow.” The old knight was on his back and the soldier next to him was unconscious.

            “They went that way.” The man pointed at a tangent to their path.

            “We’ll never catch them.” Fabian looked where Sir Armstrong was pointing.

            “I can’t smell them.”

            “What good are you then?” Sir Douglas growled, grumbling to his feet with animated groans. “They went that way I tell you. I mean to go after them.”

            “The scent leads this way.” Badru, pointed the way they had been going.

            “Then perhaps I will meet you when I have killed those traitorous scoundrels. I’m following them. Help this man, will you?” He gestured to the unconscious soldier. “Come with me.” He nodded to the other soldier who had come with them.

            “Happy hunting.” Sir Castel nodded his head.

            “It always is.” The old knight nodded and hobbled off into the snow with a woman in a green tabard following right behind him.

            Badru’s eyes narrowed as Douglas Armstrong disappeared.

The traitor’s trail led them on a long zig zag through the empty streets of Leonor for more than an hour. Eventually they came to a house in the blacksmith’s district, Lupita’s former home.

            Inside the open door stood Sir Armstrong over a body. The face of the man from the inner bailey stared up with blank eyes. The man who had opened the portcullis lay dead beside him.

            Badru made loud sniffing sounds as he entered the house.

            “I can smell them all.” He pushed further into the house and opened a door. “By the seven gods!” He turned around and vomited.

            Danielle looked through the doorway and saw three men hanging from the rafters of the house. Blank eyes stared at her. The bodies turned slowly in the breeze.

            “Those three and the one here carried the gold to Sliabh,” said Badru, still making gagging sounds.

            “So, all of the traitors are dead?” Sir Armstrong asked.

            The loup garou looked at the old knight.

            Danielle knew what that look meant.