The Captain - Battle Brothers Book 2

~ first 10-pages ~

Chapter 1. A New Page.

“Richter!”

The boy leaned up off the cot. “Yeah?”

“Yeah? That’s how you answer your commander?”

“Sorry sir.”

“Get yer arse out of bed and meet me outside.”

“Yessir.”

“Whole army’s on the march and yer in here farking snoozing.”

“Yessir, sorry sir.”

The lord shook his head and the tent flap closed.

Richter threw his legs off the cot and drove them into a pair of oversized boots and stood up. He double looped an oversized belt to cinch an oversized pair of pants and rolled the sleeves on his oversized shirt. As he hobbled about, he eyed the tent’s shifting flap. With every curling glimpse of the outside, a new soldier could be seen passing by. The army moved on a steady march, an unending rhythm of boots and armor that despite its martial intents and violent ends could lull one to sleep. He sat down on the bed, listening in awe. The plodding boots, thumping in unison, the clinking and clanking of armor and weapons, the snorting of horses, the creak of wagons. All his life, everything he knew was simply what he could see and touch. Now he was in the middle of a great machine, himself a small element spinning with its centripetal forces pulled in from all over the world.

The tent flap flew wide and his commander peered in. “Yer arse has got five seconds.”

“Yessir!”

Richter jumped to his feet and strode outside, his clothes billowing like a sail wrapping the mast of a listless ship, his legs folding the leather of his boots as they tilted ungainly beneath him. Quietly at war with his own clothes, he stood up straight and kept his chin high for here the army marched before the skin of his nose. Like himself, the men had an aura of hurry: one long line as far as the eye could see, but with men still adjusting their helmets or girding weapons to their hips. Some ate on the wing, using cocked elbows for plates as they chewed up half-cooked breakfasts while their spears clattered overhead. If they weren’t eating, they were complaining, though these talks quieted as they neared the lords as if the noblemen were but holy tunnels into which sounds respectfully shrank. To the sides of the marching column stood the commanders on horseback. Nobles in steel plate and mail, their caparisoned mounts representing colors of powerful houses. Beside them hunkered a mob of scribbling scribes for it was surely a day meant to be heard, seen, and remembered in as much detail as could be captured. One even glanced at Richter and studied him as he wrote furiously.

The boy looked elsewhere and his eyes met those of his commander. He immediately looked away again, but the horse was already being turned. It moved with such firmness and authority it seemed as though a statue had come alive, beckoned by its maker, his bidding as rigid and focused as his masonry. Soon, the formidable horse stood over Richter. The boy remained steadfast, though he could feel the commander leaning in his saddle.

“Boy, you got any clothes that fit?”

Richter turned. “I lost them in the swamp, sir. Last scouting.”

“You mean when them other boys didn’t come back?”

Richter swallowed. “Yessir. I was the only survivor.”

“Hmm. Tragic. Now tell us again what you saw out there.”

“More greenskins—”

“Louder boy.”

Richter cleared his throat. “More greenskins than could be counted, sir!”

“Can you count, boy?”

“Yessir. I’ve learning.”

“But there was too many to count for you, eh?”

“Yessir.”

“Louder.”

“Yessir! The greenskins were like an ocean, sir!”

“Like an ocean you say.” Grinning, the commander straightened up. He looked over to the line of other horsed commanders. “Hear that, men? More greenskins than can be counted! A green ocean swells before us! And what are we to do with this ‘green ocean’, men?”

The commanders and soldiers alike shouted back: “Turn it red!”

Richter cleared his throat. “Sir… if I may make a suggestion…”

Hiccupping with dying laughter, the commander slowly turned. “You say something, boy?”

“Yessir.”

“And?”

“The territories west of here are swamps, sir. I noticed most of these men are heavily armored, and that you’re riding horseback.”

“Not just me, but a whole contingent of cavalry that will ride these greenskins flat. You know what contingent means, boy?”

“Do you know that a weighted horse will sink and get stuck in a swamp?”

Richter pursed his lips as soon as the words left them.

The commander sat upright and even his horse pinned its ears.

“Boy.”

“Yessir.”

“I’m going to go into them territories and lay flat these orcs and goblins.”

“Yessir.”

“When I come back, alive and well and full of honor, I surmise that my victorious men shall be in need some entertainment for the evening. Little in this world can match the glee that comes from killing greenskins, but I always try to do well by my men even in the quiet aftermaths.”

“Yessir.”

“And so I think I’m going to strap you to a tree and hide you raw with a whip until the squealing isn’t fun no more. Hells, I think we may even put an apple on your head and have ourselves a shooting contest. Something for the guile bowmen to show off their skills with, understand?”

“Yessir.”

“But!” The commander sat upright. “If you’re right, well, then you got nothing to worry about at all. I guess we’ll all just be somewhere out there stuck in a swamp, dying and wishing we’d done listened to the little grey boy from that shit town this world didn’t want no more.”

“Yessir.”

Smirking, the commander nodded and then turned his horse. Its tail swished in the boy’s face as it left, and the commander resumed his position with the rest of the nobles. They pointed and laughed while Richter stood staring straight ahead, but even in his blurred peripheral he knew they were fashioning him a proper punishment. A peasant should never backtalk to a noble. Highborn. Lowborn. These were the places. These were always the places. No matter how you turn a ladder, the first step starts at the bottom.

Richter watched thousands of men march by. As the tail end of the army started drifting out, the commanders lifted their reins and the horses turned in one smooth motion, the sun gilding their armored stride. His commander glared at him while a few of the other nobles mockingly tipped their helms like he was a princess standing there to see off the region’s finest troop.

When they were all gone, a workmanlike quiet filled the camp as the camp followers moved about to roll up tents and stomp out campfires and empty crockpots. All the while, Richter stood fighting his own clothes, trying to stuff his ill-fitted pants into his equally ill-fitted giant boots.

As he struggled, a shadow fell over him.

He looked up.

A man stood there wearing a black coat and a black hat. He leaned forward with a smile. “Hello there. You are a pathfinder, are you not?”

“The last of them here,” the boy said with a nod. “Name’s Richter.”

“Mhmm. The boy from Dagentear. The one they call the Wight.”

“I don’t really like being called that, but some do it anyway.”

“Some.”

“Yeah, like you.” Richter stood in his boots like they were buckets. He looked up, shirt and pants billowing, appearing as a boy who fell naked through a fat man’s washbin and came out clothed. “What do you want?”

“I heard what your commander said.”

“Yeah, so? He made sure everyone heard.”

The man in black smiled. He said, “I was in those territories near your scouting. The time you went out with a few and came back alone.”

“You saw us?”

“Briefly. I kept quiet, obviously.”

“What in the hells were you doing out there?”

“I was looking for a woman.”

“You find her?”

“Aye.”

“Well good on you getting your piece wet. You looking to celebrate?”

The man in black smiled again, this time looking up and about as though trying to share the smile with others. As he turned, his black coat opened briefly and a line of bandoliered glass vials caught the sun in blinding winks, the cascade of colors a rainbow’s variety.

Richter took a step back. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“No, I wasn’t wanting to be seen. Until now, of course.”

“What do you want?”

The man held his hands out, palms forward. “I mean no harm, boy. I’m leaving this camp today. What you told your commander is true. You’ve no need to fear the whip because soon there will be no one left to hold it.”

“Alright,” Richter said. “And?”

“I think it best that you come with me.”

“Come with you where?”

“To Marsburg.”

“Never been to Marsburg.”

“I surmise a few years ago you’d been nowhere else but Dagentear yet here you are. Do you know what surmise means?”

“Yeah I know what surmise means.” Richter looked down at his boots. He looked at the camp followers slowly trudging about like spirits dragging anchors. He snorted and spat. “Alright. I’ll come with if you got some pay.”

“That I do.”

“You try anything funny on the roads and I’ll kill you dead.”

“Aye.” The man in black nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Yeah,” Richter said. “But if I’m wrong about the greenskins and my commander does indeed return… bounty hunters are liable to come looking for me. They’ll draw me up. They’ll likely even have a reward for me, too.” The boy eyed the man closely. He added: “A big reward at that.”

The man in black moved his hands and out of the crossing of sleeves he produced a small leather bag. He lofted it into the air and when Richter caught it a great jangling sounded that drew a couple prospecting eyes from the camp followers. The boy quickly secreted the crowns in the nook of his elbow.

“More where that came from,” the man said. He looked skyward, judging the sun and where it was and where it would be. He seemed to catalog his findings with a grunt and then looked down. “I’m leaving now. You coming?”

Richter stared into the bag. A pile of golden Landon faces stared back. It was more money than he’d ever seen. He nodded. “Y-yeah… I’ll go with ya.”

“Good. Do you have a weapon?”

“There’s probably a crossbow or two around here somewhere.”

“Do you know how to shoot one?”

Richter shrugged. “I practice now and again.”

The man smiled. “Well then. You go grab your weapon of choice and we shall depart.”

“Wait,” Richter said. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah.” The man leaned as though to tell a secret: “Carsten Corrow.”

Leaning back, Richter said, “Well alright, Carsten. What am I to do in Marsburg, help you look for more of your lady friends?”

Carsten smiled. “Aye, something like that.”

~~~

Something like that.

Richter opened his eyes. Hobbs stood at the end of the bed.

Furrowing his brow, the man said, “I told you to let me rest.”

“You stirred on your own. I’d just been sitting here doing nothing.”

“Don’t have better things to do?”

“Not right this minute, no. Nothing’s all I got.”

Sighing, Richter sat up and swung his legs off the side of his bed.

“You alright?” Hobbs said.

“Give me a moment.”

Richter put his head into his hands. Outside the bunkhouse, the ferry town brimmed with woodworkers sawing trees and the creak of wagons coming and going. Morning birds chirped and fluttered. As the sounds ebbed and flowed, Richter touched his missing ear and, for the first time in a while, there was no pain. Merely scars touching scars.

“You alright?” the boy repeated. “You were talking in your sleep again.”

Taking a great breath, Richter stood up.

Hobbs met him in a hurry, Carsten’s old witch hunting hat in his hands.

“It’s not good to talk in your sleep,” the boy said, speaking as he tipped on his toes. “My father said a man could pass secrets doing that, and he said no matter how it came out, a secret told was a secret lost.”

“This the father who beat you and named you after a dog?” Richter said. He flicked the lid of Carsten’s cap and tussled the boy’s hair. “How about you mind your own business, eh?”

“But can I ask… who were you talking to?”

“If it’s worthwhile, you’ll never have to ask someone what they were dreaming,” Richter said. He nodded. “They’ll just come out and tell you.”

“It was Carsten, wasn’t it?”

The tinge of joviality faded from Richter. “Aye. It was Carsten.”

“What’d he have to say?”

“What do you think?”

The boy held out the guildmaster’s hat. “So it’s still about her, is it?”

Richter did not take the hat. Instead, he patted the boy on the cheek. “My dreams are nothing to concern yourself with, alright?” He walked to a wash basin in the corner and threw water into his face. He said through the splashes: “Nothing to concern yourself with, Hobbs, you hear me?”

“But she’s out there still…” he paused. “You know… Claire.”

As water dripped from his face, Richter glanced toward the bunkhouse’s window. The silhouettes of peasants came and went, but every so often one would stop and point and its shadowed hand would press against its equally shadowed face and whisper, and despite all that dark and silent obscurity, Richter knew what these folks whispered about: the Wight. A rumor running through the town like a rat scratching under the floorboards. And as the black shapes departed, Richter stared at the strange empty light their absence left behind. It seemed to him that even the briefest shadow could forever blemish the light which helped produce it. A chill hidden in all that warmth.

Richter looked down. His reflection stared back from the wash basin. Another Richter. Corrugated. Wobbling. A befogged visage rolling back and forth, beautified by the water’s swirling mystery, and then the water stilled into a mirror and his face could be seen in full, blemished by the water’s unflattering flatness, himself seen in gruesome clarity. Himself as perfect as himself could be mustered. Scarred. Sagging. Unkept.

“So, are you going to tell the company?” Hobbs said. “They should know who you’re after, shouldn’t they?”

Richter turned back. “Boy, did I not say—”

Hobbs stood at the edge of the bed with Carsten’s hat on his head. He ran his little fingers along the brim as if he’d just bought it for himself.

In an instant, Richter crossed the room and swept it from Hobbs’ head. When the boy reached out for it, Richter held it aloft, and when the boy leapt for it, Richter swung it further away and shoved Hobbs back onto the bed.

“What in the hells has gotten into you, Hobbs?”

“She’s out there and, and… and you’re not even talking about it!”

Grumbling, Richter reached into his jacket and pulled out a slip of paper. He unfurled it, showing a black and white drawing of a roguish man. He said, “You see this? It’s the name, face, and price of a brigand by the name of Kantorek, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Dragons.’ He is in these woods and he is very real and I’m going to take his very real head and cut it off in exchange for very real money.”

The boy sighed. He said, “I know how you think. I know what you’re thinking about. And I know that Claire must—”

“Boy,” Richter said, his voice elevating like a teacher’s paddle.

Hobbs stopped. He held his hands up. “Fine. I’ll leave it alone.”

“Good.” Richter rolled up the brigand’s bounty. “Good. Great.”

Sighing, Hobbs ducked past Richter like a wounded rabbit creeping across a naked plain. He went to the corner of the room and picked up his wooden toy sword. It never brought out of him the playfulness Richter had hoped it would. Instead, the boy held it upward and stared at it like he was waiting for it to point him the way to go. He then swung the sword, clapping its tip against the floor and bringing himself to lean on it like a cane.

Hobbs said, “Can I ask you something?”

“If you’re smart about it.”

“I will be.”

“Alright then. Ask away.”

“Just what sort of sellsword company do you think this will be?”

“A nameless one,” Richter said, smirking. “At least for now.”

Hobbs clucked his tongue and shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

Richter walked to the opposite corner of the room. There tilted Adelbrecht’s sword and he took it up and girded it to his hip. “It won’t be like the Free Company,” he said, cinching the leathers. “That I can assure you.”

Annoyed, Hobbs clucked his tongue again. “That’s a gimme answer.”

Richter took his hand off Adelbrecht’s sword and held Carsten’s hat before him, slowly turning it around and around, memories turning with it, slowly and unseen but all too felt.

“You discuss matters that don’t concern you,” Richter said and he put on the hat and went for the door.

“Wait, Richter,” Hobbs said. “I’ve one more question.”

Sighing, Richter’s hand fell from the handle. “What is it?”

The boy slowly crossed the room. “I understand you don’t want to talk about her. I understand you think it’s dangerous to announce to the world that you’re hunting a princess. I very much understand that not everyone will even believe that she’s a witch until they see it with their own eyes.”

“What is your question, boy?”

Hobbs stood before Richter. “If you’re not hunting Claire von Sommerwein, then what is this?”

The boy lifted his wooden sword and its point fell upon Richter’s bandolier, clinking one of its many hexenjäger vials.

Richter looked down and slowly pushed the wooden sword away.

“The company comes first,” he said. “You asked how good the company can be and I’ll say this: it can be made to do what I need it to do. Even if they don’t truly know, they can still be prepared to face whatever might come out of these woods. But, Hobbs, all of that depends on…” Richter paused. He thought of himself in the Battle of Many Names, a small voice lost to the machinery of war and the pride of men which drove it. But now he could change things. Now he could do what was right and proper.

He wasn’t a small voice anymore. Now he was the voice.

“The company depends on what?” Hobbs said.

Richter smiled. “On just how good of a captain I can be.”

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