"This man is a traitor and a murderer." Roselyn said pointing at Reiner. "Arrest him at once."
"It is he, and not the honored priestess." Erich interjected. "Who tried to seize the banner for himself? He murdered the brave Captain Barrister and nearly murdered me when I came to Lady Roselyn's aid.
"My lord." Reiner said as he turned to Herlmann. "I beg you, do not believe them. They bear you ill will..."
"Enough!" shouted Herlmann. "All of you." He looked at Erich and Lady Roselyn. "What is this intrusion, what have you to do here?"
Erich gave the military salute.
"My lord, we come on behalf of your brother. He bids you good morning and wishes to inform you that he is about an hour from here with a force of two thousand men. They are well rested and will put themselves at your disposal as soon as they arrive.
The generals greeted these words with shouts of joy, but Herlmann shifted his gaze from Erich to Reiner and back again, his brow furrowed with uncertainty.
"Until a moment ago, I would have welcomed this news, because two thousand men would almost double our army, but now..."
"My lord." Erich said. "You must not believe him. This man is a traitor, a convicted sorcerer accused of a hundred murders by sorcery."
"That is not true, my lord." Reiner contradicted him. "Your own brother admitted that the charges against me were false."
"If that is so." Erich said. "ask him to remove his left glove and explain the mark on his hand."
"Do you bear the mark of the criminal?" asked Herlmann.
Reiner removed his glove and held up his hand for Herlmann to see.
"All of us carry it." He said. "Secretly, Baron Ulburt chose all the men for this mission from among those of us in the dungeon of his castle, further proof that his intentions were somewhat less than clear. He marked us all to make it more difficult for us to defect. Erich Heisenberg is also carrying it."
Erich smiled.
"You condemn yourself by your own mouth, my lord." He removed his chain mail gauntlet and raised his hand. "I bear no mark, as you can see."
Reiner looked at him steadily. The back of Erich's hand was smooth and intact. The scar had disappeared. Reiner thought he saw a cruel smile pass across Roselyn's haughty countenance.
"My lord!" Reiner shouted. "That was part of the deal! Baron Ulburt promised us that he would have a healer remove the mark when we returned with Roselyn and the banner! Erich is as much a criminal as any of us. They were going to hang him for murdering a child."
"He piles lies upon more lies, my lord." Erich said. "He doesn't know when to shut up."
"Neither do you, my lord." Herlmann replied vehemently. "Now be quiet both of you and let me think."
Reiner closed his mouth without giving voice to further protests and watched as Herlmann appraised the two of them with his gaze. Reiner groaned to himself. Although he harbored hope against all odds, he knew he had lost. Erich's last thrust had hit the mark and, even if it hadn't, he looked like a hero through and through; with his shining armor and handsome countenance, his golden beard and noble attitude, he had all the look of a champion of the realm, while Reiner, though he hated to admit it, looked like a villain with his gaunt, unshaven face, his dirty black hair and gambler's mustache, his grimy torn clothes and his rusty old sword. Even freshly bathed and impeccably dressed, he had always had a certain roguish air about him. In his present state, he looked like the worst kind of scoundrel, an alley robber, an inveterate miscreant.
A gentleman suddenly came through the door of the store.
"My lord, the troops of the Norsemen are on the move! They are forming up before the castle!"
"What?" cried a general. "Are they abandoning the protection of the castle? Are they mad?"
"Mad, indeed." Herlmann said as he stood up and wiped his mouth. "But in this there is merit." He advanced to his armor as he snapped his fingers for his valets to begin dressing him. "If they have been informed from the watchtowers of Ulburt's arrival, they may have decided to destroy us before we double our forces." He looked at his generals. "Call your men to arms. I want all units in position within half an hour, today my city will be recaptured."
The generals saluted and left the tent.
The knight who had accompanied Reiner advanced a step.
"My lord, what would you have me do with this one?"
Herlmann looked up at Reiner as if he had already forgotten who he was, and waved a hand.
"Hold him and his companions until the battle is over. Later I will decide what to do with them." He turned to look at Erich and Roselyn. "Return to my brother. Tell him to move forward as fast as possible."
Erich greeted.
"At once, my lord said Roselyn."
As he and Roselyn turned to leave, Erich's eyes met Reiner's. He pursed his lips in a mocking triumphant smile. Reiner tried to answer him with a rude gesture, but the knight grabbed his arm with an iron grip and pulled him out of the tent before he could lift his fingers.
There were no dungeons in the camp, so after feeding them and a hasty surgeon had dressed their wounds, they were left under guard in a non-perishable food store behind the camp kitchen. They could see nothing but the sacks of flour on which they sat and the jars of oil and butter, the dried peas and lentils that were piled around them, but through the thin canvas they heard the shouts and trumpet blasts of captains calling their companies into formation, the dull thumping of cavalry passing by, the trot of infantry marching at a rapid pace to take their position to the quickening roll of regimental drums.
Pavel and Hals fretted at the noise like the old warhorses they were, turning with each new sound, longing to be part of the action. Oskar remained seated and huddled in a corner, trembling. He had asked Reiner about twenty times to give him a sip from Gustaf's flask, forgetting every time Reiner had lost it in the tunnels. In another corner, Giano was cursing and mumbling to himself in his native tongue.
Reiner was too furious to sit down. He paced back and forth among the hemp sacks.
"Damn Herlmann." He growled. "Damn King Karl Lionheart - damn the whole damned kingdom! Here we are, a bunch of villains and miscreants going against our nature and our interest to do them good, not to save them from one great danger but from two, and they thank us? They pile riches at our feet? They give us oranges and ambrosia? No! They heed not our warnings and prepare us again for the scaffold!" He kicked a barrel of pickled vegetables. "Well, I, for one, am done playing the hero. May the dark gods take the royal family, Duke Herlmann and all the other high-born fools. From this moment on I am no longer a citizen of the Kingdom. I will free myself from their frowning devotions and suffocating stoicism. From now on I will be a citizen of the world. Who needs the Kingdom of Lothal when I have The Theocracy, The Republic, The Empire of Kaleth, Transylvania, the Confederation of Cities and even the distant Shenlong High Council, plus all the mysteries of the far east. I will drink up freedom by the sea and ask for more." He turned to his companions with burning eyes. "Who's with me, who wants to be a free man in a place where the mark of the X means nothing?"
The others looked at him from milestone to milestone and blinked.
"That was quite a speech." Hals commented. "Almost as good as the one you gave us about missing home if we left the Kingdom when you wanted us to stay with you."
"What's the real one?" asked Pavel.
Reiner frowned. He had forgotten the other speech.
"Uh... well, both of them. I'm not saying I won't miss my land. I will miss it. Crownheim is where my heart is, but since the Kingdom has turned its back on us, I will turn my back on the Kingdom. And damned if I will be unhappy to do so. I'll go away laughing, and to hell with them all."
Hals smiled.
"I hope you never try to sell me a cow. I bet you'd end up giving us my farm in return."
"Anyway, he's right." Pavel said. "Those shitty nobles have cheated us. We don't owe them any favors. I'm with you."
"You bet." Hals added. "So am I."
"So am I." Franka said.
"Shall we go to the Republic?" Giano smiled. "I'll take you to my place. I can cook for you a feast, how about it?"
"I certainly don't want to stay here." Oskar said. "I think they want to hang us."
"Good boys," said Reiner. "Where shall we go first? We have to get some money before we get too far."
"I vote for Theocracy." Hals said. "They pay good gold to well-disposed pikemen and..." he nodded with a knowledgeable air looking at Reiner. "I hear tell that their gambling halls rival those of the Kingdom."
Reiner smiled wryly.
"Hardly. But...do we agree?"
The others nodded.
"Excellent." Reiner looked around. "Then we must find a way out of this tent." He advanced to the entrance and peered outside. The two guards who were stationed to guard them were standing well away from the opening and craning their necks to try to see the battlefield between the tents that separated them from it. Otherwise, the camp seemed deserted, with the dull fires smoking and the banners fluttering from time to time in a gusty breeze.
He turned to his companions.
"Well, I don't think we'll have much trouble..."
A chilling noise interrupted him. It was the sound of five thousand wild throats roaring in unison a barbaric war cry. The ground shuddered under Reiner's feet, and the muffled detonations of the guns slapped the tent.
"They've charged at us." Franka said. "It has already begun."
Pavel and Hals stood motionless. Giano's eyes went from side to side, anxious. Oskar gave a gasp.
A second roar answered the first and the ground shook again. The sound increased to a continuous rumble punctuated by shouts and trumpet blasts.
Reiner peered through the tent opening again. The two guards had almost disappeared to the other side of the kitchen tent. The posture of their bodies gave away that they were eager to support their comrades, not stay behind the lines.
Reiner turned around.
"Below the back. Our jailers won't pay us the slightest attention." He fell silent as he saw the faces of Pavel and Hals. They were shocked and frowning. "Have you changed your minds so soon?"
The pikemen were tortured by indecision. It was obvious that they hated the idea of abandoning their countrymen to fight alone against the invaders from the north, but at the same time their sense of honor and justice had been wounded.
In the end, Hals shrugged his shoulders.
"After the way they've treated us? May the devils take them. I don't care.
"Nor me." Pavel added, but Reiner could tell he was uncomfortable saying it.
"Then this is the time." Reiner advanced to the back wall of the tent and began moving sacks of flour out of the way. The others joined him. There was little risk of them being discovered. Cannon fire, horse whinnying and the clashing of guns echoed in the air.
Once the sacks were out of the way, they lifted the lower part of the tarpaulin until they pulled up a stake and then crawled through the opening. Reiner came out first and stood guard behind the tent while the others came out after him. They were near the southern edge of the camp, on the pole of the "Y" that formed the valley. The sounds of battle were coming from the north.
"Now." Reiner said. "We'll go back to the way we came and head southwest toward the Republic.
"Wait" interjected Giano as he dragged a sack of flour out of the tent. "We must get ready this time." They had taken out most of the flour and had stuffed the sack with a variety of dry foods. He smiled at them as he slung it over his shoulder and gestured to encompass the nearby stores. "Grocery store open."
Reiner smiled.
"You don't have a very clear idea of the difference between you and me."
He shrugged.
"If they want to, they would carry with them."
Hals and Pavel looked at him with frowns, but joined in the search for weapons, clothing, armor, trunks and cooking utensils. There was almost no one around, only a few of those who usually followed armies and cooks who were easily dodged and, although the soldiers had taken the best weapons with them into battle, they had left all manner of swords and daggers, bows and spears behind them. Reiner found a couple of pistols with powder and bullets in a knight's tent. Oskar found a drawer full of small arms and picked one up, although he found it difficult to carry it with his left arm in a sling. Within half an hour they were almost as well equipped as when Ulburt had set them free.
They gathered at the edge of camp, dressed in the colors of half a dozen companies, weapons slung from belts and scabbards and bulging shoulder pouches.
"Are we ready yet?" asked Reiner.
His companions nodded, although Pavel, Hals and Franka looked a little uncomfortable about carrying accoutrements stolen from their fellow soldiers.
"In that case, let's get going."
They followed the trail that had led them to the camp less than two hours ago. They were still dead tired, but the confinement had given them something resembling rest and at least they were alert.
They had almost reached the village at the southern end of the valley when Oskar pointed to a spot above the burned buildings.
"Look."
Snaking down the hill beyond the village was a column of marching men whose spearheads and helmets glinted in the sunlight. The vanguard of the column had already penetrated the village, but there was no doubt which army they belonged to.
"Ulburt," said Pavel.
"Yes." Reiner nodded. "Come on; let's take cover until they have passed."
They hurried to a half-burned barn on the edge of the village and hid inside. Almost instantly, they heard the clatter of marching feet and the clatter of horses' hooves. They approached the walls and peeped between the scorched boards as the vanguard of the column emerged from the village. The first to appear were Ulburt, Erich and Roselyn, leading a company of over a thousand knights.
Erich rode between the baron and the abbess on a white warhorse protected by a shining cuirass, but though Ulburt was splendid in his dark blue armor and a helmet with a crest of scarlet feathers, and though the company of knights constituted a magnificent spectacle that should have filled the hearts of the men of the Empire with pride, the sight of the blood-red banner that Erich held aloft, wedged in the wedge, overrode any emotion other than absolute terror.
It was impressive and horrible to behold, beating heavily against the pike, less like a thick cloth than a square of flesh cut from a dark ochre-colored giant, and although Reiner could not take his eyes off it, he found it at the same time difficult to look directly at it because it radiated death and dread like a black sun. He immediately felt physically sick and, at the same time, impelled to join the column of men following him. His power was a hundred times greater than when he was in the crypt. Hoisted by a hero marching at the head of an army, he had at last acquired his full fascination. It attracted Reiner like a magnet, and when he turned his eyes away from it to look at his companions, he saw that it affected them in the same way. Pavel and Hals were gripping their spears so tightly that their knuckles were white. Franka and Giano were staring at him and grimacing. Oskar was on his feet and was about to go out into the open.
"Down, stupid." Reiner hissed at him as he tugged on the gunner's jerkin to get him to crouch down again. He was glad to have that distraction. Anything to keep him from looking at the banner again.
"The gods!" exclaimed Franka under her breath. "Look at them. The poor damned souls."
Reluctantly, Reiner looked back through the plank in the wall. The knights had already left the village and were now followed by companies of pikemen, swordsmen and archers. In one sense it was the most ordinary sight in the world: soldiers of the Kingdom on the march. Simple farmers, millers, blacksmiths and merchants wielding weapons in wartime as they had done for centuries. But there was something almost indefinable about them that was repulsive. They marched well enough, almost perfectly, in fact, all in step, with dress neat enough to gladden the heart of a brigade, but in their gait there was something as if slack and limp that reminded Reiner of the gait of sleepwalkers. Their gaze was fixed before them, their jaw slack, their eyes glassy. None of them looked left or right, neither raised their squinted eyes to the sun to determine the time, nor spoke to their companions, nor stretched their backs. Their eyes seemed fixed on the banner that preceded them. They could barely be seen to blink.
"Zombies." Giano said as he made a protective sign.
"The banner has enslaved them." Franka stated with a shudder. Reiner nodded his head.
"There is no longer any doubt about Ulburt's intentions. He comes here not as his brother's savior, but as his murderer." He let out a hissing sigh. "I'm glad we're not going to meet in the vicinity when Herlmann finds himself imprisoned between that hammer and the Barbarian anvil."
The last of the hypnotized soldiers left the village and Reiner slung his satchel over his shoulder and stood up, but the others hesitated, not taking their eyes off the departing column.
"Captain." Hals said uncertainly. "We could just..." His voice trailed off.
"What do you mean?" asked Reiner.
Hals stretched his neck and grimaced. He shifted his feet uncomfortably.
"Captain, I know what I said before. I don't give a damn what happens to Herlmann. I hope he and Ulburt tear each other to pieces, but those boys in camp-"
"And those in the column..." added Franka.
"Yes." Hals continued. "They too, enslaved or not, are our comrades. It is they who will be caught between the hammer and the anvil. It is they who will die by the thousands."
"It is not right to see the men of the Empire fighting one another." Pavel added. "Brother against brother. It is wrong."
"This is not a war meant to protect the lands of the Kingdom." Franka said. "Those men are going to die so Roselyn can be duchess. So that Ulburt can take from his brother what he did not receive at birth."
Reiner swallowed a curse. He didn't like the direction this was taking.
"So you propose that we go and die too? Whose side do you suggest we fight on?"
"I say we do what Captain Barrister was trying to do when he died." Franka said. "Let's destroy the banner."
Pavel and Hals nodded vigorously.
"Maybe then we can get our reward." Giano said.
"But what about freedom?" asked Reiner. "What about Theocracy and Republic and all the rest, what about eating the world?"
"I'm sorry, Captain." Hals said at last.
Reiner grunted and looked longingly down the path out of the valley. On the other side of that hill was the path that led to freedom. He only had to go up that way Ulburt, Herlmann and Roselyn would be nothing but unpleasant memories. What did he care about the fate of a few hundred peasants? It was not he who was leading them to their doom. All he wanted was a quiet life, free of evil banners, power-hungry priestesses and mad barons. All he wanted was to be back in Crownheim or, if he had no choice, in the Republic or Theocracy, ridding fools of their money by day and spending their money with delicious harlots by night.
And yet...
Yet, though he was reluctant to admit it, the banner and the sleepwalking soldiers following it had upset him as well. He had never liked authority. That, more than any frailty of heart, was why he had gone out of his way not to serve in the army. He valued his individuality too much to obey orders without question. He knew too many noble idiots; his beloved father came to mind, not to mention Erich Heisenberg. To think that a lord was always right just because he was a lord. The idea that there was a magical relic capable of taking away one's ability to question an order, that it would completely strip someone of their individuality and turn them into a mindless drone, enslaved by the will of a boss, was something that filled him with indignation.
The banner was an abomination. He could imagine the whole kingdom under its power. A whole nation blindly following the whims of its leader to take over all the neighboring territories until there was no Theocracy or Republic left to flee to, until at last Reiner too would march along with the others like one more sheep happily following, the butcher to the slaughter.
"All right." He said suddenly. "Everybody on your feet. We'll have to make a detour to avoid the column, and then speed back to the camp to beat them there."
Pavel and Hals let out great sighs of relief. Franka smiled. Giano nodded his head. Oskar looked upset but followed the others as they set off across the muddy stubble fields north of the village.