Segemund couldn't help but think of Asbjørn's dream as he knelt there in the blood soaked grass, the rain drumming off of his surcoat and skullcap. Asbjørn had dreamt of a crown, swallowed whole by a great wolf. That's what Asbjørn had talked of, claiming it may mean disaster for the King's Ransom. Segemund had derided the notion that it was some ill omen, claiming it superstitious bollocks as it so often was with Asbjørn and his ruminations.
In this moment, as he watched the good captain be driven to his knees, Segemund felt Asbjørn may have been on the money for once.
Segemund tried to call out, but the arrow jutting out of his side robbed his voice of its power as Ransomers and raiders died all about him. One-eye's head was tossed into the air by a hatchet wielding thug as Hoggart the Weasel and his man stood around captain Bernhard, a crude knife held beneath his jaw. To the sides, Asbjørn was dispatching his foes with great swings of his woodcutter's axe, whilst Adlar kept his spear poised, ready to fend off the foe. Odbart had finished cranking his crossbow and levelled it to aim at their assailants, trying to cover all three foes at once. Segemund caught the resigned nod Bernhard gave him before the captain's gullet was opened.
Segemund shut his eyes for a moment as Asbjørn roared in fury. He knew he had to get the men focused. Asbjørn was a berserker when his passions were aroused, and left himself wide open for counterattack. He would charge forward after Hoggart, who may beat him handily, or have him surrounded and cut down like Bernhard. Adlar would bite off more than he could chew, trying to protect Odbart from two men at once. If they tried to kill Hoggart, they'd die.
They couldn't settle for petty vengeance, much as they'd all like to. Segemund sucked in a breath. Now or never. Now or never.
"Asbjørn! Close up!" Segemund bellowed, pushing himself onto his feet before his sword point dug hard into the earth, leaning on the pommel with both hands as the pain speared through his middle.
Segemund forced himself to lift his gaze to regard the enemy, his teeth grinding together.
"Close up, the lot of you!" Segemund repeated, his eyes on Hoggart. The canny old bandit leader stared back, his smile fading, realising he wasn't facing the scattered remnants of a warband. As soon as he recognised he was in for a fight, he lost all taste for it, as Segemund suspected.
He gestured at hatchet-man and the knife wielder to finish them off before he quit the field. Segemund watched as Asbjørn withdrew to his side, looming behind Adlar's spear tip. Twice, Adlar rebuked the foe, allowing Odbart to hurriedly loose bolts at close range. A bolt slew the hatchet-man, and in desperation his comrade battered Adlar's spear aside, lunging straight into Asbjørn's oncoming swing.
The man died on his feet as the axe-head broke into his ribcage, the dagger digging on Asbjørn's white gambeson but doing little else.
The bodies of their friends lay all around them. It didn't feel like a victory.
Segemund had the three companions set to digging a mass grave whilst he went on ahead to have his wound seen to, telling Adlar to lead the men to Eulenkrug where they would recruit any men they could to shore up their ranks.
"You going to be alright?" Adlar asked, a look of genuine concern on his beetle brows, as the two men heard the distinct sound of metal cutting wet earth.
"I should be. If the worst happens, you'll take the lead, won't you?" Segemund said, already staggering away towards the tree line.
"'Course. See you in Eulenkrug." Adlar called after him before he turned to oversee the work. He was left with the muddy, bloody business of burying the dead.
In the end, the worst did not happen. No second ambush. No direwolves. To Segemund's chagrin, he would live in this pain a little longer.
At least that nauseating smell of death was replaced with that of fresh pine and greenery.
Segemund followed the cobblestone road through Rustling Thicket, a vast wood that resembled a hook from a hilltop view, and surrounded the settlement of Eulenkrug. As he passed the umpteenth line of foreboding, bristling pine trees, he finally saw the long houses and huts, all roofed with thatch, all huddled around the village's centre, pressed in for protection. He could hear a staccato of axe strokes thudding and cracking into pillars of wood beyond the houses, and he saw a pair of hooded hunters carry a deer between them towards the bloody soil outside the butcher's.
As he got closer, a watchful boy dashed into one of the long houses. Half a minute later, Gunther came out, the door of the house clattering on its hinge. He was a strong man with a tied and scraggly beard of grey. He was the trade master of the settlement, and that title – along with the way gold was embroidered into the hem of his black tunic – had made him one of Segemund's favourite people here. His expression became concerned when he saw Segemund approach alone, looking worse for wear.
"Trade master." Segemund inclined his head as much as he could, though the aching throb in his side threatened to send him face first onto the ground.
"You're bleeding red and your skin's white as wool, mercenary." Gunther remarked, gesturing idly to the broken arrow shaft in Segemund's ribs. Before the mercenary captain could retort, Gunther waved him in towards his house, "I have a passable surgeon inside. Come. Let us get your body aright, and after that, you can tell me where Hoggart's head is."
Good, Segemund thought to himself, let me sit down before I fall down.
The three companions, dirty and dishevelled, were not far behind.
"I need a drink." Asbjørn muttered, already starting towards the huts.
"I see no tavern. Let's chat with the locals." Adlar said.
"I'll find a drink." Asbjørn grumbled over his shoulder, his pugnacious face turning to regard Adlar. His eyes glared at him from beneath the red headscarf he wore, before deliberately walking on.
Adlar didn't stop him, watching the big bruiser in the gambeson approach the huts. He wasn't interested in getting on the wrong side of Asbjørn, maudlin prick though he was.
"I'd be fucked off too." Odbart murmured. Adlar glanced his way.
Odbart was fairer, only in so far that his face was plainer than Asbjørn's moody features, his brown hair kept short and parted to the side. His crossbow was slung on the back of his forest-green tunic, a bag of bolts attached to his belt.
"Why's he fucked off, then?" Adlar asked.
There was a split-second where Odbart looked surprised before he shrugged. "Bernhard led us soundly enough, and he was popular. Was a shame to see his throat slit."
Adlar held his gaze for a moment longer before he nodded. "True enough. Think you can find someone desperate enough to leave this place?"
Odbart nodded with a yawn, seeming as tired as Adlar felt. "Yeah, I reckon so. Didn't know you could find dangerous and boring in the same place."
"Aye?" Adlar asked.
The bowman shrugged. "Direwolves like hunting down lumberjacks. No tavern or brothel. Dangerous and boring."
Adlar smiled at that. "Bit of an oxymoron there."
"What'd you call me?!" Odbart snarled so loudly and so fiercely a passing villager jerked away from them.
The two Ransomers laughed and parted ways, with Adlar walking on towards the village's stalls and storage huts, whilst Odbart put his arm around the unfortunate villager who had flinched from him, engaging him in lively conversation about who's who in Eulenkrug.
The majority of the village was so busy hunting or chopping trees, only the destitute and those desperate to leave the place hung around. Made things easy for the mercenaries and their choices for recruitment.
Asbjørn had encountered a promising recruit when he had been rough-housing with the people on the forest's edge. The challenger had been one of the few lumberjacks that had stood up to him. He had even gone to the length of fetching the tool of his trade. Asbjørn's brows rose, a small smile tugging at his brutish features. "Why've you got that axe, boy?" Asbjørn asked.
He had flab about his face framed by curling brown hair, peach fuzz on his upper lip, his body clad in a tunic and leggings. He looked curiously young, a boy not yet a man – from the neck upwards, at least.
The manboy was broad-shouldered, however, and strong, and tall. Taller than Asbjørn himself, as his eyes scanned him.
"I've a mind to take it to you, browbeater." The boy growled at him. The hatred in Leofric's voice astonished Asbjørn, the acidic tone resonating with him.
"Is it a woman?" Asbjørn asked.
"Aye?" The boy said.
"Or a man? I won't judge." Asbjørn said with a shrug.
The boy was incredulous.
"Aye?!" The boy repeated.
"You low down there on the ladder? Do the other woodsmen beat you? What's got you so tense, lad? You've not known me for a minute and you're looking as though you mean to kill me." Asbjørn chuckled.
The boy was quiet for a moment, his fingers clutching the pole of the axe a little tighter.
"I don't like bullies." The boy threw out the clumsy phrase, his voice sullen.
Asbjørn laughed, raising his hands in surrender as the boy took a step forward. Eventually, the laughter subsided. "Ahhh... what's your name, boy?"
"Leofric." The boy supplied the answer reluctantly.
"Leofric… Alright…" Asbjørn smiled, "Do you like hurting people, Leofric?"
The four ransomers reunited, with two more added to their number. Leofric, vouched for by Asbjørn, brooded with them. Odbart had found a man in an apron who claimed some skill with a bow, who went by the name of Ulf. Segemund's eyes were half-lidded as they scrutinised the latter, trying to ignore the dulled ache of his wound's treatment. A red-hot poker had done its work, cauterising the tear in his flesh.
"He's a bowyer," Odbart explained to Segemund, "brought his own bow and everything."
Ulf nodded slowly, his eyes looking past Segemund. The captain followed his gaze, spying a pair of locals who were watching them with interest.
"Friends?" Segemund asked. Ulf had a strong jawline that his trimmed blonde beard emphasised, his hooded eyelids always on the distant locals even as he shook his head.
"No sir." Ulf murmured in the soft, slow Eastscrub accent that permeated the region.
"Why?"
Ulf's gaze turned to Segemund, a tremendous sadness locked behind those hooded eyes. "I sold a bow to a youngin."
Segemund knew he could have pressed him, but he didn't need to. There was no way a story involving a child with a bow in a fletcher's village would end well. "You can fire a bow as well as you can sell one?"
"Aye, sir, I can."
Segemund was sure he could, his keen eye sweeping around the assortment of war-virgins and hard-bitten mercenaries. "Adlar, weapons?"
Adlar nodded, stepping aside to allow Segemund a view to the cart. Long hafts and heavy axe-heads rested on the lip of one of the boxes.
"That's a lot of axes. You realise we're after men, not trees?" Odbart asked.
"They were on the cheap, and look where we are." Adlar replied, lifting his chin to indicate the dense thicket of greenery about them.
"No shields." Odbart muttered. He was used to sending arrows through the crevices of a shield wall, and knew himself how reassuring it was to have a buckler in close quarters.
"So don't get shot." Segemund said, taking up one of the two-handers himself, "These things will ruin Hoggart's vagabonds."
That got a look from the old hands. "Hoggart, still?" Adlar asked.
"The Trade Master is doing us a solid. Paid us in full for killing Hoggart's men, and is willing to pay us the same again if we kill the Weasel himself. We'll be going north to Seestadt to recruit more men and grab some more arms and armour, whilst Gunther hunts the Weasel for us." Segemund spoke loudly and at length as he walked to the front of the cart and pulled himself atop it, seizing the reins of the donkey that drew it.
There were no arguments, but for Asbjørn's grumblings.
The King's Ransom came in the night for him. His sentries had roused the rest of the men, and he had stirred them with promises of loot, women and drink. He had expected the Ransomers to be desperate and easily fended off.
He had been wrong. Hooded revenants swept out of the night, two-handed axes cleaving through shields, hafts and men. Two men had led the charge, two berserkers who clove and stove and beheaded all who fronted them. One was unmistakeably Asbjørn, grimacing as he broke men in two. The other was the tallest man on the battlefield, swinging his axe with practiced ease, as though bloodshed was what he lived for. His men started to shriek about demons in their midst, and by the time he could do anything about it, the demons had found him.
Hoggart dragged himself down the slope with his remaining hand, the mail byrnie clinking and shifting across the wet grass. He tried to keep the sobbing in his throat down, knowing he couldn't be louder than his men screaming and dying all around him, or the meaty impacts of axes splitting men open as though they were rotten timber. He kept his broken arm close, the shield splintered on the hilltop where he'd made his stand.
His fears became real as a shape loomed over him. He saw the headscarf, the pitiless look in his assailant's eyes, the woodcutter's axe slick with gore.
"I have money!" He cried out, shirking back and causing a shooting pain up his arm.
"Don't care." Asbjørn smiled, his teeth like daggers as he lifted the axe up, preparing to describe a terrible, life-ending arc.
Hoggart screamed as he dragged the falchion from under his body, slicing upwards as far as he could reach.
With a thunk, Asbjørn Weaselbane earnt his epithet.
With that, the King's Ransom took to looting the dead. That macabre business and its accompanying aroma of blood and excrement gave Ulf and Leofric pause, whilst Segemund and Adlar set to work with enthusiasm. They relieved the Weasel's men of the few coppers they had, the spears they had held, their boots, belts and knives. Any fingers and necks that did not yield their rings and necklaces easily were severed without ceremony. Ulf's arrows had, against all odds, found one of the wealthier bandits in the face in the pitch-black, leaving his gambeson wholly intact.
Hoggart's byrnie had been hacked to pieces, along with the rest of him, though the falchion now had a place at Segemund's waist. It took Adlar and Segemund both to restrain Asbjørn from mutilating the corpse any further. They'd have second thoughts about that when they had the hideout cleared.
They had been using an abandoned cottage with a caved in roof as their base of operations. In front of it was a garden, surrounded by a perimeter wall as tall as a man's waist. Untended, the weeds and greenery had begun to match the stone wall for height. The corpse of a man – by Ulf's guess, the owner of the house – hung on the outside of the chimney, twisting in the noose about its neck. The cold had preserved him well enough, though his face had turned blue and black. Asbjørn gingerly cut the man down with a swing of his axe, stepping clear of the corpse as Leofric staggered out of the cottage's entrance and heaved his guts into the garden in front.
"Boy?" Segemund asked, holding his axe in one hand by the haft as he went to make past him, the smell of decay rebuffing him.
"You don't want to go in there. The owner's wifeman, what they did to her–" Leofric didn't finish his sentence as his stomach churned, turning to vomit further into the overgrown weeds.
"Yeah," Segemund replied, scarcely surprised, "Adlar, Asbjørn? Turn the place out. Ulf, Leofric, bring the cart closer."
As the men set to, Segemund glanced sidelong at Odbart, who stood back with a hand splayed around the arrow shaft in his shoulder.
"What did I ask you, specifically, to not do?" Segemund asked. He saw the smile appear on the crossbowman's plain face.
"Not to get shot, sir." Odbart said.
"'Not to get shot, sir'." Segemund echoed, eliciting a pained chuckle from the bowman, "It wasn't hard. Wasn't complex. Recall myself saying it and all."
As the captain and his marksman stood back, the company worked. The two veterans were inured to the horrors of war and brigandry, removing the spoils whilst muttering complaints about the smell. Soon enough, the cart was laden with linens, a near depleted cask of beer and various sweet meats.
With that, they walked their treasures back to Eulenkrug.
Segemund and Adlar met Gunther before the sun rose, and he paid them by the guttering candle light by his desk. Segemund did not bother to count them, feeling he could trust the Trade master.
"I have another job for you if you're open to it, mercenary," Gunther went on, "I need a statuette of fertility retrieved."
That made Adlar look up from the coins he was counting, throwing the Trade Master a wide-eyed look. That made Gunther crack a smile.
"Not for me, I'm afraid. There's a man here who wants to begat a child with his wife. This man is the guild master about the village. I think he could be a good friend to have, for you and me." Gunther admitted.
"You're honest about your intentions." Segemund pointed out.
Gunther made a face and a shrug before continuing. "Thieves made off with the hunk of rock, and, though I doubt it has any real power to it, I know it should be returned to its owner. So will you do it? They broke west for Dunkelmark, last my birds heard."
Segemund nodded his head, giving Gunther a tired smile. "Let's talk coin."
The rest of the King's Ransom were awkwardly gathered in the centre of the huts, using the village's firepit to keep warm as Asbjørn went on with his toast, his drinking horn raised high.
"…And to Bernhard, Gods rest 'im. 'is wos, 'is, 'is," Asbjørn managed, "a stalwurt shield in the line."
Asbjørn lurched on his feet, causing Ulf to shuffle down the log he was sitting on.
"What's more, 'e wos more than just a captain to me," Asbjørn slurred as Odbart walked around the circle towards him, "More than just a comrade. 'E wos, 'e wos-"
"He was a brother to you, and to us all," Odbart declared as he wrapped his good arm around Asbjørn's shoulder, drink in hand, "So I think it is indeed right we toast to our fallen captain." Odbart raised his own horn, the two novice mercenaries awkwardly imitating him.
"To Bernhard, One-Eye, Rolf, Tylo, Dytwin and Eberlin! May you give the devil hell!" Odbart exclaimed as Asbjørn slipped the embrace, downing his beer before turning from the gathering. The two rookies echoed the sentiment before draining their own cups. Then Adlar was there, shouting and kicking them to their feet. There would be no time for another drink, for the King's Ransom were on the march again!