Lieutenant Britus drew his sword, pointing it towards the rabble. Lord Jonys cowered, looked side to side with fear, his hand pressed over his wound.
Captain Gharland stood perfectly calm.
“You killed my brother! You let him die!” the man with the dagger spat, directly in Gharland’s face. The crowd roared. They wanted answers for their sacrifice.
“Why should we be out ‘ere fightin’ someone else’s’ war?”
“You will pay!”
The man who had the dagger was the iratest of them all. His greasy hair hung over his face in thick strands. The two guards holding his arms behind his back could barely keep him under control as they struggled to free the weapon from his hands.
Tomas peered over to the fat lord who had taken the rock to the face. He began pointing his finger at the protesters. “How dare you! I will have your head for this!”
Gharland gestured him back and marched up to the rest of the rabble with a fierce gait, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Lieutenant Britus followed.
“Have you no respect?” Gharland barked. “Have you no discipline? I saved your lives, you ignorant fools. Were it not for me we’d all be corpses in that field, food for carrion.”
The crowd shouted back uproariously.
“Liar!”
“You used us as bait!”
The man who had lost his brother growled like an angry bear. “You son of a bitch. We were pawns in your little game!” The crowd roared in support. By now it seemed more soldiers than not were standing up to their superiors.
Dozens had gathered around, forming a circle. Guards from across the war camp raced over to try and keep the peace.
Tomas had never seen anything like it- so many levies and low-ranking soldiers, barking and spitting at their superiors like it was nothing. He was perplexed.
“Your king sent us to defend our lands. You are next to worthless, the lot of you,” Gharland hollered. “The one time in your lives where you are summoned to do your duty, and this is how you act? Let us not forget that without our stand today, those Akurai bastards would be burning down your homes, raping your wives and daughters, enslaving your sons, and stealing all of your possessions.” Gharland’s voice was strong; it carried out over the masses despite the uproar against him.
“We were bait. We served nothing more than to bring your glory!” the greasy-haired man yelled. He spat in Gharland’s face, a miscoloured globule of saliva landing on his cheek.
In an instant, the atmosphere of the camp shifted.
With a sudden swing of his sword, Gharland had removed the head of the greasy-haired man. A geyser of arterial blood cascaded into the air.
The crowd went silent as the decapitated man fell to the ground like a pile of rocks, his head rolling away.
“Anyone else care to disrespect me?” Gharland hollered, wiping his face.
The anger in the crowd died down. They were stunned by what they had just seen and how fast it had happened. Even Lord Jonys had taken a step back in shock.
“Everyone, get back to your tents right away, lest you suffer the same fate as this gutless traitor. Guards,” Gharland gestured at the rabble that his loyal soldiers and the king’s guards had already restrained, “have these men hanged at once for treason.”
There was a roar of fear as the rebel levies began pleading with Gharland and their captors.
“No, it wasn’t us!”
“Please, I have children at home!”
“We did nothing! Wait!”
Gharland strode away with his commanders and the king’s representative in tow as the guards shoved the begging conscripts towards the edge of the woods surrounding the war camp. Lieutenant Britus directed his guards to help restrain the rabble.
Tomas looked on in horror, but he said nothing. What could I do? I would be hanged as well. Best keep my head down.
The guards threw nooses around the branches of a huge oak tree, tying them around the necks of the struggling traitors.
Their resistance was fruitless. Their hands were bound behind their backs.
The men weren’t even dropped.
The guards simply pulled the ropes taut from one end with the conscripts’ necks on the other. They were pulled into the air by the rope, their free-hanging feet flailing.
Before long, a dozen men were hanging by the branches of the looming oak tree. The wood groaned from their weight.
Tomas couldn’t keep his eyes away. He had never seen a man hanged before. It looked far worse than what he imagined.
Minutes passed. Some of the traitors shook and writhed. Others had their swollen tongues sticking out of their mouths and blood-saturated eyes. Tomas could smell shit- one of them had defecated in his trousers.
Tomas took a deep breath and focused back on the fire before him, trying to swap those horrific images with something else.
The dancing flames, the bright coals, the rising smoke.
All the while, he could feel dead eyes gouging into his head. From those hanging, or the spirits who were said to walk these lands, Tomas was unsure.
Chapter 4 – Homecoming
Katryna and her riding companions arrived at the city walls just as the sun sank beneath the horizon out to sea. The sandy orange walls reached high over her head, built with ancient sandstone from the very cliffs of Ravenrock many hundreds of years ago, if Katryna remembered her studies correctly.
The gates were open, to allow movement in and out of the city as night arrived. Several guards stood at the gatehouse, long spears in hand. Their wooden shields had red and white painted metal decorations with the spiralling pattern of flowers and vines of the House Bower sigil. The steel armour of the
