One Moo'r Plow

BBook 2: Chapter 55: Culmination.

A pale shadow hidden in the crowd. An agent of the enemy fleeing the scene as screams arose behind me. My brain saw all the pieces and fit them together as I whirled and burst after the man, humans knocked aside by my bulk.

Either a spy, or an assassin. With the reactions of the townsfolk, I expected the latter. Down the streets of Hullbretch I tore, faster than any human could move. On the trail of this interloper. Sight was the only source with which I could track him. Scent, he lacked. Strange, I thought when that crossed my mind. I remembered being able to smell his emotions from the few times I had met him. Sounds was of no use, drowned out by the roar of noise from the square behind me.

And so I fell back on my weakest sense. I followed the flicker of movement before me as it bolted straight towards the walls. At full momentum, I rushed after the knight as he came to a dead end. Before victory could even rise in my veins, he leapt upwards, grabbed onto a ledge and swung himself over the roof of the house that closed out this street.

I preferred to smash in the door, clip my horns on the doorframe and tear it down, then continue without so much as a stumble. I bulldozed right through someone’s home, put my shoulder down and smashed through the wooden wall in lieu of finding another door.

Wooden wreckage shrieking around me, I burst from the wall and nearly grabbed Tollish as he descended. My hand just missed his leg as he hopped in midair and dashed ahead. Bellow of frustration let out, I continued my charge right after him. The man gained speed now, his movement accelerated with every leap forward. Down another empty street with me in hot pursuit.

He finally stopped for a split second to gather strength and leap the wall itself. As his feet left the ground, I pounced. A roar came from my throat and tore through the air, the reaction immediate. Cloven Crash seized up the body of any that could hear it, and he was not excluded. The human’s frame visibility froze in mid-air, his arc of momentum unable to clear the high wall. His face and upper body smashed into the wooden ramparts and halted all dreams of leaping over.

Instead, he was dragged back down to the stone road below, body still locked up.

He did not crash face-down as I would have hoped. The man did not resist or break the skill that held his form hostage. Instead, I could feel him slip its grasp and land upright. Back to a wall with the form of a charging minotaur headed right at him.

My eyes, poor as they were, saw the bow raised at me. Arrows flashed across the space and struck into my body. Pierced right through Ironhide. Not one or two, but an entire storm of them. Enough to jolt me mid-stride both on impact and realization. Stunned by dozens of arrows piercing everywhere, I halted and stumbled.

Just enough for the man to whirl and climb the sheer wooden wall like a spider. His form had already cleared the top in the time it took me to shake off the stupor, bellow in rage and charge after him.

Cragsmasher’s Hammer shattered the wall before me with a single swipe of my hammer and I emerged through the wreckage.

Now, there was only open plains ahead of me. Nowhere for the assassin to hide. The fields around Hullbretch were bare from an early harvest, brown and without cover.

Alone in a field with the charging bull and no cover. I think we both knew how this would go.

Still, the man bounded away as I picked up speed and followed his trail. He headed now for the forests that covered the Redtip’s base. An easy place to lose me amongst the dense foliage.

I needed to ensure he did not make it.

Cloven Crash halted his progress, forced him to take precious seconds to slip its grasp. Only to be hit again. And again. My well of Skills ran deep, and I was not at all reluctant to use them. Arrows came for me as the man twisted in mid-air, defying physics to continuously snipe me. They joined the plethora already embedded in my skin, yet the pain did little to slow me.

Sheer-focused determination drowned out all else.

He would not escape with his life.

I had enough of my enemies securing victories over me and mine. Thrown overhand, the axe shot across the distance, bolstered by its enchantments and managed to clip the man. A small cut underneath the arm instead of striking center mass as he slipped away.

Now he left blood in his wake. And that smelled distinctly of human.

I left the weapon where it lay and continued my charge, closing the distance with liberal use of my stuns. The fields of Hullbretch were left torn in my wake, my every step gouging out the earth. Across these lands and towards the forest my prey leapt, barely keeping ahead of me. Single-minded determination drowned out all pain as I yanked arrows from my skin lest their weight slow me even the slightest.

I too left a trail of blood, and more joined it.

He reached the forest’s beginnings, groves of trees and brush amongst the wild, tall grass. Scent was what I followed now. The trail of his blood that the knight could not staunch. He bled, and I followed in his wake.

The arrows had stopped, at least.

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And so had he. I found the man in a clearing, clutching his arm. There had been no small nick, I realized. The limb hung half-cut and useless, muscle and bone snipped away. I was amazed that he had made it this far with a limb effectively gone.

The pale knight leaned back against a tree as I approached, his face upturned.

“Gods’ damnit, minotaur.” He grunted in pain. “Why did you have to be there? Should have died at the fort. Damn fools couldn’t put you down.”

“Who is your master?” I demanded, though I had no allusions as to what leverage I held over a dying man. “What have you done?”

“You’ll not get that from me, calf.” He laughed, blood between his teeth. There was mirth in his smile as he sat dying.

I squatted before the man and looked him dead in the eye.

“You wish to die here? Alone, far from home, used up and thrown away by whoever sent you?”

“I am not a pawn.” He snarled. “My work here will change all that you know. I die knowing I served loyally for all my days, and that my blade was buried well.”

“You wish for death, rather than be questioned.” I smiled without humor. “That too I can deny of you.”

There was a flash, a gleam of silver as the knife came round and the man cut his own throat. A smile on his face, Ser Tollish spat blood at me and gazed at me with two crimson smiles. With a sigh, I seized his throat in one, blood spilling from my grasp. Two fingers locked onto either side of his jaw as I forced his head backward and mouth open.

The other uncorked the flask of healing milk at my side. White liquid mixed with blood as I poured the mixture right into his throat and forced him to swallow. The knife I ripped from his grasp and tossed aside. Whether he wanted to or not, he would live this day. There was information within him that I wanted. Needed, even.

He tried again, of course. But his persistence was no match for mine. I methodically stripped the man of his weapons and tools, broke one ankle and then knocked him unconscious. Firmly grasped and slung over my shoulder, I rounded up all his possessions into a bag and carried it and him back to Hullbretch.

The baron was dead.

This stopped me in my tracks, and dread beat through my heart. The guards at the gate stood shocked, their gazes empty as they relayed this knowledge to me. The assassin had pierced his throat with a venomous arrow and slipped away. They accepted my story that the man on my shoulder was petty thief brought in to the sheriff and let me through once more.

The town was in grief, in an uproar over the killing of Londor Ironmoor. Their lord slain right before their eyes. And I had not been there to stop it.

So much was swayed with his death, I realized. Valencia had seized the body and marched his retinue back to Castle Ironmoor. Some rope acquired for my wakening prisoner, I too followed in their wake.

My mind raced the entire way there, poring over all the possible futures. Ironmoor was what held back all the chaos and warfare that should have followed the dungeon. With him dead, the vultures would come now.

And I had chosen to side with him over them. These people had long memories, and they would not soon forget that. Already they had moved against me. I had no doubt that Tollish was the sniper that had been harassing my farm, had ambushed the baron’s soldiers previously. I knew a glimmer of his motives, but the truth needed to be fully extracted from him.

I needed Valencia to work her brutal craft once more.

The gates of Castle Ironmoor were shut tight, and my entry denied. Only after several calls did they open, and an armed force escorted me inside. Soldiers milled about, anger and anticipation in their scents.

A captain came and escorted me even as guards dragged Tollish away, every limb shackled and mouth forced open so that he couldn’t so much as bite his own tongue. There was hell to pay, and he would have every pound of flesh carved from him.

A cruel fate, but such was an assassin’s reward. The fortress was mobilized for war, I realized. Not for defense.

I soon learned why. And relief filled me when I learned why.

Londor Ironmoor sat slumped in his great chair, wife at his side. Soldiers milled about, maps strewn across the massive dining table. They looked up as I entered, but had been for-warned to my presence. Valencia gave a curt nod and went back to her maps, issuing orders to those around her.

“Garek.” The human grunted, voice deep. A patch covered his throat, I saw.

“You live.” I stated. “How?”

“You aren’t the only one with protection against death.” The baron coughed and waved away help from his worried wife. “I’ve necromancers in my employ for good reason. This is far from the first assassin that has sunk a weapon into me.”

“Your subjects think you dead.” I remarked, relief that he was not hidden from my face.

“And so will my enemies, once the word spreads. Then they will come like crows to feast on the carrion. And I will bring the hammer down to remind them who the Lord of these lands is.”

A ruthless, pragmatic man. He had not answered my question on the methods of his survival, but a man needed his secrets.

“My men tell me you brought the assassin.” He remarked. If the knowledge that the man who had tried to kill him was close swayed his emotions any, it did not show.

“He ran, and I ran him down. A knight in the employ of a mutual friend, the Lady Ramsey-Pratt.”

“The snake rears her head. Finally.” He growled. “Valencia, if you could. See to him. I want every small scrap of knowledge wrung from his body.”

The dreadknight straightened, and a change came over her face.

“I cannot. Not in the way you think.”

The baron sat silent for a moment, his frown growing even deeper.

“The demon in me has been excised, Londor. Its presence is gone, and so are the gifts that came with its burden. I can no longer see the hearts of men and what thoughts lurk within.”

“I came here today to tell you this, and to retire my service to your house.”

“You swore to serve until your dying breath when I pulled you from the ruins of Castle Elrath, spared you from Heithos’s clerics.”

The hall stood quiet as Valencia replied.

“And I have. But my death has come and gone, and I have released myself from that oath. You were not the only one to die these past few days. I will do this one last thing for you, Londor. And then I am no longer in your service. I have given you a lifetime of leal service, and now I ask for your blessing as I walk away.”