Norchester studied his old friend for a long while. “Taming this county will be difficult work,” he said finally, “and will take its toll. Bells, winning it has already taken its toll.”
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Dirty Work
It was pissing rain in the dilapidated town of Guilford, sheets of water coming down on bowed walls and makeshift windows, splashing mud from the churned-up ground so there seemed to be an even coat of runny brown on everything up to a man's hip. The sun might have set an hour ago, but it was impossible to tell with the grey and black storm clouds that canopied the river valley. A few yellow, oily lamps were posted outside the stables, the rectory, and the tavern; their meager light was all there was until the lightning would light up the entire little town, and then whoever was caught out in the downpour would be blinking away the flash, the light from the yellow lamps forgotten.
Down the village's main road, such as it was, came two figures, moving slowly. One stumbled ahead, the reins of a horse tangled in his limp fingers, his broad shoulders bowed as deep as the leaning walls around him. Slung over the horse and tipping side to side with its stride, the second figure could barely be said to be riding. It was more the horse's ability than anything else that keep the rider in the saddle and stretched out along its neck. The horse, in fact, beneath the muck that coated everything but its mane, cut the strangest figure: it was a destrier, a war horse, huge and strong and incredibly out of place in the forgotten little town of Guilford. But then, so were the colors the two figures wore, barely visible under their own patina of mud and blood: black and silver livery, bearing a raven crowing at the sky.
Just beyond the lamplight, hidden in the dark alleys between buildings, came the two figures' pursuers, such as they were. Hard-eyed villagers with rough hands and rough-spun clothes, hugging hammers and pitchforks in their trembling arms. They glanced sidelong at each other, then back to their quarry, the tang of uncertain excitement hanging in the air. One spine short of a mob.
The two figures made their slow progress through the mud, reaching and then passing the lamp hanging outside the tavern, which also offered rooms but could hardly be called an inn. Were they lost? Too proud to take shelter in Guilford? Too exhausted to recognize shelter when they saw it?
As if in answer, the figure atop the horse chose that moment to teeter to the left, then slipped off the horse altogether and landed limp-limbed in the mud with a dull plop.
The villagers needed no further prompting, and surged forward shouting. Their giddy hearts pounding, their pitchforks and hammers waving above their heads, they dashed forward with all the speed they could muster, descending on the pair behind the horse.
The first two rounded the horse's hindquarters and found the broad-shouldered man's swordpoints already in their throats. They fell without a cry. The next three, lagging behind their quicker compatriots, stumbled over their twisting bodies. Two fell on the man's swords; the third managed a startled squawk before a flicker of steel flashed from the woman kneeling on the ground, and his legs seemed to go out from under him.
The remaining handful staggered to a stop where they were, eyes wide and chests heaving, watching the tangle of bodies beneath the horse in disbelief. The broad-shouldered man strode out from behind the destrier, a sword glinting yellow in each hand. The limp, the bowed shoulders, the stagger were all gone, replaced with the cold stare of a professional soldier. The villages broke and ran.
"Sophia!" the swordsman shouted, pelting after the stream of his would-be attackers.
The woman peered out from under the horse and then thrust her hands into the mud at her knees, chanting well-rehearsed lines. The muck beneath her hands churned and thrashed, then rippled out toward the fleeing villagers. The grey-brown wave snatched at the feet of the first few, then, gaining mass and momentum, plowed into the next and threw them against the wall of the stables. The swordsman cut down the stumblers seemingly without a thought.
Sophia then turned to the man gasping on the ground beside her. She slapped him, spattering mud across his face, then grabbed his chin and turned him to face her. "Where is Camwright?" she demanded. He blubbered, and she slapped him again, repeating her question and glancing back towards the swordsman.
"Deh- deh- deh-" the villager tried to tell her, but she dug her fingers into the man's face.
"Don't try and feed me lies, worm," she hissed. "Camwright is as dead as you are. Will soon be, but isn't yet. Tell me where he is." She flashed another worried look at the swordsman, who was slitting the throats of the last dazed villagers flung against the wall.
"I doh- doh-"
She returned her attention to the man and pressed his face into the sticky mud, his nose and mouth down, one ear up. She held him there for a moment. "It will be very unfortunate for you if you don't know. Death can come very slowly and very painfully."
"What are you doing?" came the swordsman's voice over her shoulder.
"Gathering information, Sir Sedgwin," she responded without looking up, and then bent to the man's ear and hissed, "Now you tell us, quickly and plainly, where your village mews is. Understand?"
The man nodded into the mud, and when she jerked his head out again, he gasped and stammered, "The rectory, the rectory. The mews is in the rectory, but Camwright—"
"Never you mind about Camwright," Sophia cut him off.
"Camwright is dead," the swordsman, Sedgwin, told the villager flatly. "As you will be. You've attacked the baron's men. That's treason, and we can't let traitors live. You understand." Sophia shifted to the side and stood as the swordsman flicked his blade through the villager's throat. "Dirty work," he muttered once the man was dead.
Sophia rinsed her hands in the run-off from a thinly-thatched roof. "But necessary. This cult—"
"This cult needs to be stopped, certainly," Sedgwin agreed, "but there's no need for torturing the poor souls. He would have given up the mews for a lot less, Sophia."
"Perhaps. I'm not used to this sort of work."
"That's funny, because you seem to take to it with enthusiasm." He returned to the horse, patting its flank and making sure the beast had not been harmed.
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