Woes and Hose Read online

  Sharp pain stabbed through Dick’s ears and made him dizzy. The saker had just fired, but there was no open air to clear the noise. Men cowered, dazed by the explosion. The Nurflander side of the street was a mash of red.

  As the smoke cleared, Dick saw the Drechknights, finally able to form up and move, cutting through the enemy ranks with unstoppable precision. The defenders were all screaming with joy now. Dick had never seen happier faces.

  I did it. I saved the city.

  Then he looked at the wall gap and he saw more enemy troops pour in. The flood never stopped.

  “Give me a fresh gun,” he grunted.

  CHAPTER 40

  I Have a War to Finish

  “Selfishness comes to us in our best moments; selflessness in our worst.”

  —GARNA, FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER, BEFORE THE FALL OF THE VALEDIAN EMPIRE (EST. 370 YEARS FROM THE END)

  3rd Day of the Month of the Harvest

  Dick stretched his arms and then accepted the freshly loaded arquebus from yet another nameless squire.

  The gatehouse swarmed with enemy troops like ants fighting over a dead cockroach. The gate was open and the Badgers were slowly but steadily pushing the Barvans away. The Drechknights were locked in a brutal, close-quarters battle with the Nurflanders. The enemy was scaling the walls and it had full control of the Sibling Tower.

  Dick searched for choice targets. Every bullet had to count.

  He fired. The Drechknight soldier didn’t even notice the dead warrior that was just about to skewer his ribs.

  Ungrateful, this whole world is, Dick thought. Another life saved, and yet he would go entirely unnoticed in song and praise after this war. For a brief moment, he wished he had Chronicler Ambrogio with him.

  No, I have the city of Ostfort with me. The hundred faces surrounding him would be his voice.

  “We must retake the gatehouse. Give me another gun.”

  “There are none left, sir.”

  Dick sighed. He reached into his vest for a pair of pistols. “After me!”

  They started moving, a silent, determined group of exhausted, filthy, blood-spattered men. Dick wished they would give him a little more space. It was too hot, and he struggled to breathe.

  “Prince Dietrich!”

  Amidst all the noise and killing, the sudden, clear call startled him. Dick veered, pointing his guns toward a small side alley where he thought the voice was coming from. Emerging from the shadow of the narrow passage were two Drechknights and a robed figure of a Sister of Temperance. Dick skipped a beat. For a fleeting moment, he thought this was Eva, and that she had been discovered—that he had been discovered. But no.

  The woman was bent low, cautious, a typical stance of someone not used to gunfire and flying bullets. Dick figured he should probably keep his head down, too.

  Ostfort, witness my sacrifice!

  “Prince Dietrich!” the knight called again. It was one of the men escorting the sister, and they were coming toward him.

  Dick recognized the face. It was Lenz. That man was persistent. And…in the wrong place! Dick frowned, but that just made sweat sting his eyes. “Hold.” He waved his pistols, making his party stop. He felt like he was trying to control a raging torrent of brittle courage behind his back. “Bad news?” Amadea is dead? Amadea is dead!

  “Your Royal Highness, you must come with us! Now.”

  Dick bristled. “What is it? Tell me!”

  The Drenchknight looked rather uncomfortable. That was alarming. “Please.”

  “Tell me!” Dick realized he was yelling.

  “Excellent news, Your Royal Highness,” Lenz panted. “Your wife is with child.”

  The entire battlefield paused to listen.

  A child?

  Now that was something he had not expected to hear today.

  His followers recovered. Murmurs exploded behind him.

  “Silence all! Are you sure?”

  Lenz cleared his throat. “Your Royal Highness, the princess…feels in this hour…she wants you at her side, before it is too late.”

  Dick swallowed. Sweet Saint, has Amadea told anyone about her…and Kief? If anyone found out, it would be a disaster. The siege of Ostfort paled compared to this.

  If Father found out, he would really get angry.

  “Are you sure?” Dick insisted, his voice trembling.

  “Princess Amadea was…adamant. She said Sister Nene checked her, uh, and that it is true.” Lenz squirmed miserably and glanced at his robed escort.

  The ugly sister was holding her veil, as if that would protect her from stray lead. “It is so, Your Royal Highness. Praised be the Saint,” the woman chimed in a low, flat tone. She might as well have reported on a piece of moldy bread.

  But Dick did not doubt the seriousness of her words. This is no crude joke.

  Lenz flexed his gloved hand. “Please, Your Royal Highness. Come with us. We need to take you to safety.”

  Dick was trying to think. Fast. It was hard with the cacophony of killing buzzing in his ears. “Klinger Lenz, the battle isn’t over.”

  “Please! The risk is too great, Your Royal Highness!”

  The risk was indeed great. Did he just become untouchable—or expendable? What did this forsaken child mean now? Dick was suddenly very alert, his fatigue forgotten. “I have a war to finish. I shall see the princess once I’ve defeated the sheep-fuckers.” The noise around was thick and pregnant. The soldiers were waiting for him to say something more, he figured.

  He raised his arms, the throbbing exhaustion turning into icy agony. “I have fathered a child. Praised be the Saint!”

  The crowd hollered with unbridled ecstasy.

  “Lenz, you have your orders. Everyone, after me! Let’s destroy the enemy!” With a surprising lack of self-preservation, he led his small, improvised army into the seething cauldron of death that was the north gate. Men were lost in their own private battles, oblivious to what was happening around them. Dick danced around them. They were unimportant. The Monrich flag had to flutter above the gatehouse. That was his mission.

  Behind him, confused watchmen, boys with swords, old grizzled men with spears, and an odd Drechknight followed, huddled close for protection. The cannon crew came last, pushing their sakers over cobblestones slick with gore.

  Strangely, no one challenged his slow, pained climb. As soon as he stepped onto the walkway, madness exploded around him. Arrows, cannonballs, ragged shots. Screams from a hundred sore throats. Too weak to stand, Dick lost balance and hit the breastwork. Ignoring the numbness in his shoulder, he turned around and looked toward the gatehouse.

  He leveled the pistol at a tattooed tribesman. The man saw him and his mouth opened in a futile gesture of surprise, just as the bullet cut through his teeth and cheeks. Dick pushed himself up and grabbed a second pistol.

  “Charge!”

  He wasn’t quite sure why, but the soldiers obeyed, and they lumbered forward, slowly, persistently, pushing the enemy back and then off the wall, watching men fall down and shatter like figurines, and then the sakers unleashed their terror, firing into the exposed inner side of the wall. Hot shreds of flesh and broken bones splashed Dietrich’s face.

  He blinked blood off his eyelashes and moved onward. In a well-coordinated move, the street cannon blasted the wallwalk ahead of him. Dick wasn’t fond of seeing his city ruined, but he stared with childish satisfaction as the masonry crumbled. The invaders disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  A small knot of Barvans inside the gatehouse suddenly found themselves cut from reinforcements, facing grim opposition. The battle was brutal and quick.

  Dick appraised the situation.

  Gunsmith Robrecht was lying face down in a pool of his blood. Grand Dick rested on the ground by his feet, seemingly untouched. A last surviving tribesman was crawling away, dragging his own guts behind him like a coil of rope.

  Dick stepped on the exposed entrails. The wounded Barvan shrieked. A city watchman hacked him through.

>   There was no time to waste. Dick pointed at the Sibling Tower, which was still teeming with enemy troops. “Turn that gun around. There. Now.”

  The defenders quickly reacted. The gunners put their blades down and rushed to the abandoned stations. With sweat and blood making their grip slippery, they pushed and heaved, leaving red smudge-marks on the bronzework, but soon enough they had a culverin leveled at the tower. An injured matross was loading the barrel; he had an arrow in his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  The Hyevans were attacking again and their shots hit in a dozen places around him. The wall guns answered.

  Dick was too preoccupied to feel scared.

  The culverin fired. The grape rippled the northeast tower and the enemy troops. The sakers followed suit, ripping the tower apart. Dick picked off the stragglers with his pistols.

  The storm subsided.

  The platform was quiet.

  There was not a single living Barvan or Nurflander around him.

  They had retaken the gatehouse!

  The city was singing with defiance and elation.

  “Long live Prince Dietrich!”

  “The savior of Ostfort!”

  “The Saint be praised!”

  Over the smoke of the battlefield, he saw a large army moving to the east. It took the hot blood pounding in his temples and blurring his vision a few moments to subside, and then he realized what he was seeing.

  The Salabians! Crafty fuckers!

  The Saint be praised!

  Horns and bells greeted the reinforcements. Already, the battleground was changing. The enemy was retreating. No, regrouping. They were far too many to admit defeat just yet. But the city attackers would soon find themselves cut off from the main force. The Zwerg hill was in Monrich hands, the gatehouse assault had been repelled, and now the Salabians would bite into their exposed flank and overrun them. The Hyevans were already moving their cannon out of range. But the ferocity of the wall charge remained.

  Dick smiled and reached for the telescoped marvel lying near the dead gunsmith. He barely had any strength left in his arms, and yet, somehow he managed to place it against the torn, pocked battlement. He looked through the lenses. A speck of blood blotted a good portion of the view, but he could still see well enough to aim and kill. He intended to shoot until he dropped from exhaustion.

  Choice targets, Dick reminded himself. Chieftains. Leaders.

  Amadea is pregnant, his mind whispered.

  You are a fast thinker, Dick, sort it out, it added.

  The evening was settling in, the sky a bruised palette of orange and pink. The battle raged on. The Salabian advance stalled. The Hyevans had masterfully positioned their cannon and Baan Bolek couldn’t push through.

  The Badgers were fighting just outside the walls, surrounded by the Barvans. The Drechknights were waging their own war on the Nurflanders to the east. The enemy was refusing to budge.

  We can’t win, Dick realized with sad resignation. It might take another eightday or two, but the tribesmen would eventually overrun Ostfort. Dick had four armies at his side, but the numbers were still in the enemy’s favor.

  I did the best I could, Old Fart. He would seek Crispin and Eva and flee this carnage. Leave Amadea and her bastard creation to the Barvans.

  But not just yet. He would fire Grand Dick until the light faded from the sky. He owed the city that much.

  Oh yes, and one more thing.

  He had unfinished business in Ostfort—and a perfect opportunity to conclude it.

  This time, he brought the aim closer, much closer. There. Kiefer Drechfiesling, fighting alongside Master Udo.

  No one must ever know.

  Dick fired.

  His bastard cousin disappeared underfoot.

  Carefully, Dick reloaded the gun and then aimed away, searching for Barvan chieftains.

  More horns, more bells. His head was ringing with a splitting pain. The world was spinning. He swore he could see Monrich banners to the north. The Griffins, the Wyverns, the Wolves, the Eagles. Four Drechknight corps, moving like black death against the enemy’s rear.

  I’m imagining things.

  But everyone was pointing north, and they had tears in the corners of their eyes.

  “We are saved! We are saved. Praised be the Saint.”

  The Barvans and the Nurflanders were retreating now, hurriedly, deserting their hard-won positions. The wall attack had become a rout. The Hyevans had abandoned their guns and were running west, trying to outrun the odds. Even the Voice of Gramik stood silent at last.

  What is happening?

  And then he understood.

  It was Old Fart coming to save him.

  No!

  No, no, no, no, no!

  It wasn’t fair. Absolutely not. After all of Dick’s hard work and sacrifice, Old Fart was now going to steal his glory. Typical. Old Fart must have planned it from the beginning. Lure the Barvans and Nurflanders by sending his inept son to Ostland. Make them believe they could easily crush him and take over the palatine. Use the pretext of their invasion to launch his own campaign. Conquer their lands while they were busy with the siege. And then, attack them from behind and destroy them. Brilliant. Disgusting. Dick felt like a cheap whore. Used and then ridiculed.

  I hate you, Father.

  By nightfall, the siege had been completely broken. Ostfort had been relieved. In the streets, the people drank ale, every last drop of what they had hidden in their cellars

  And they sang: King Ulaf, King Ulaf.

  Dick did his best to participate. But he found himself dozing in his cup of hot wine, half-dreaming of the Black Desert, the long speech of excuses he had planned for the meeting with his father in the morning, thinking of Eva and Amadea in turns.

  In the end, he fell asleep with the wishful mental image of his sire succumbing to a long-distance shot from Grand Dick. The look of shock on his face, seen through the telescope, was delightful. It was the best night’s sleep Dick had had in a long time.

  CHAPTER 41

  One Thing Bothers Me, Son

  “The day you lose your pride is the day you become man.”

  —CERAMO, A HORSEGA POET, 6TH CENTURY

  4th Day of the Month of the Harvest

  The great, invincible corps of Drechknights moved in perfect unison, the years of arduous training and war experience unmistakable in their gait, in their stance. It was a sight that would make anyone think twice before crossing the Monrich ruler. Alas, most enemies only witnessed the unstoppable combat formation in anger—when it was too late for regrets.

  Facing this huge host was Dietrich, seated on a horse, his crotch sweaty and itching. He didn’t want to be in this stinking field of death, with flies and crows buzzing around his head.

  Well, he wasn’t alone.

  He had the distinguished military commanders of the city’s defenders with him. Reeve Gotelieb, Ritter Heimo, Master Udo, several high-ranking Drechknights and garrison officers, princeling Zbigniew, the useless Captain Taddeo, and surly Lieutenant Nils, all sharing the long moment of anticipation with him—none of the mercenary leaders had dared show up.

  Coming their way was His Eminence King Ulaf, Old Fart.

  Dick glanced at the Voice of Gramik, lying quiet less than twenty steps away. It was a big, impressive thing, and it looked even more massive up close. You could also see details that even the magnification of a Darav telescope wouldn’t really show from a distance. The cannon barrel was chipped and cracked all over, probably from rough transport all the way from the Hyevan city of Horlitz, or maybe from too much use. In a large, wedge-like shape in front of the gun, the grass was scorched shiny gray and dead from the gunpowder, soot, and hot sparks. The wheels were buried deep in the soil and warped from excessive stress. Dick believed the Voice had only had a few final barks left in it before the wall breach anyway.

  Still, it made for a remarkable trophy.

  Someone had mounted the head of a Barvan chieftain on top of
the muzzle, and the dried blood had stained the metal dark brown.

  The corps had stopped their fine-tuned maneuver. Only the king was riding forward, with another mounted figure at his side—it must be Voytech—and a chained prisoner limping behind.

  Dick swallowed.

  He was ready. He had rehearsed everything he needed to say.

  Behind him, Ostfort was a not-so-distant tumult of celebration noises, trumpets, singing, dancing, and urgent preparations for a great banquet, getting ready to welcome the king. The celebration of victory was going to last a whole eightday, and then end in a splendid great summer boar hunt just like back home.

  Old Fart had it all planned.

  Everywhere Dick looked, there was death. Hundreds of Monrich and Salabian soldiers were busy clearing the fields, dragging corpses, man and mule alike, collecting discarded tack and swords, removing broken gun cradles and carts.

  Farther afield, away from the city’s immediate circle of slaughter, the chaos was even greater.

  The fighting was officially over, but the troops were still busy clearing villages, checking roads and the forest, hunting the last survivors of the routed enemy force, and counting their own dead and the coin taken off the dead tribesmen. Supposedly, General Eusebio and Fanzon Alfonso had made up, their differences forgotten, and then made scarce.

  Dick had briefly wondered what he should do with the Gepeni and the Salabians and the Valtese and all the rest of them, but they were no longer his worry now that Old Fart was here.

  My wardenship is over.

  He just had to make sure his damned father was pleased.

  Old Fart had a somber, undecipherable expression on his face. Predictably, Voytech was grinning, wearing that lopsided, derisive, dismissive sneer on his ugly snout. Dick didn’t recognize the disheveled figure dragging their shackled feet behind his father and the Right Man. Whoever that was, they were bloody and filthy.

  The king halted just a short distance away.

  Dick swallowed. He knew what was expected of him. He nudged the horse forward and detached himself from the shield of soldiers. He would have to face Old Fart on his own after all.