The Brat's Final Gambit

The council meeting in Havel’s Dock simmered like a soup kettle over a hot fire. Count Eason wanted to drive his forces straight for Pirim Village, but he had to convince too many backwater fools in councils like this one to join with him first. Dosir stood emotionlessly behind the council, just to the right of the idiot Mayor. Securing the man’s support had not been hard, especially after he proved to be as spineless as a night crawler. Finding support among people like that was always easy. Petty little provincial ambitions were easy to inflame. All it took was the right amount of pressure. Bribes usually worked best.

The Mayor raised his hand and called everyone to order, but much of the crowd bristled with anger as the sniveling rube managed to bungle everything he said. When no one paid him any heed, Eason knew it was time to act.

Turning to face the townspeople he drew his sword with a flourish and held it up for everyone to see. Immediately, voices wound down until the last speaker realized something was happening and grew quiet.

Eason used his most eloquent voice on the crowd; all he had to do was articulate his words as grandly as any stage actor. Impression was everything, and these people were easy to impress.

“Twenty years ago I pledged this to our king,” he said, always thrilled by the deep and resonant tone of his own voice. “I vowed my life and blade in defense of the realm and the people of my province. And now the good citizens of the Lake Valleys Province face a dire hour. Help has not come to you, and I could not sit by and listen to stories of the horrors you were facing—so when I received a cry of help from Havel’s Dock, I asked myself how I could remain in Kalavere while you suffered. I asked myself what I could do. Only one answer came to me. I had to come to your aid.”

Eason allowed the crowd a moment to digest his words. He watched, repressing a triumphant smile as many heads nodded to themselves.

“Lord Joachim is a busy man,” he continued on. “And too busy to hunt down this beast roaming the fields and villages between here and Old Flood. Just yesterday, three more unfortunate souls were killed right here in your beautiful town. I know you have heard the claims that I somehow set Lord Joachim up so I could challenge his title from the crown. But to be honest with you, when a Count has been as negligent toward the citizens of his province as Joachim has to you . . . well, I don’t need to set him up. He is doing that himself. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy to befall the Valleys in centuries. But I want you to know that am here. I am here for you. And the soldiers with me will protect you. That is my guarantee and my pledge to you.”

Eason grew silent again, waiting for the objections to begin. If he could not soothe the malcontents with assurances of help, plants in the audience waited to shout the objectors down.”

No one spoke.

He gave the crowd his warmest smile.

Suddenly, a tremendous crash shook the doors of the inn. He jumped involuntarily; the smile disappeared from his face, but he recovered before anyone noticed. His eyes shot forward to the front of the building. Another tremendous crash jarred the doors, and before he had time to wave his men forward, there came an intense groaning from the meeting hall’s entrance, as the wood strained against a tremendous force. Then one last blow boomed and the doors burst open. A phalanx of troops bearing the insignia of a griffon clutching a star moved in, quickly stepping to both sides of the main aisle. The tall, lean figure of Count Joachim, clad in worn leather armor and carrying a thin saber with a gracefully swept hilt waited at the other end. Beside him limped a young man, who held a sack about the size of a pillowcase stuffed with something the size of a large rock. Eason’s eyes immediately focused on Joachim, however. Especially his fully functional blade.

Joachim’s eyes blazed with a hard, fierce anger.

Eason looked around in alarm. His men stood still; not a one of them moved a muscle. The count of Kalavere cringed. Cowards, every one of them.

He realized that if he did not seize the opportunity to appear in control, Joachim was likely to take it from him. A face-to-face confrontation wasn’t supposed to take place until the count of the Lake Valleys was on his knees and bound in shackles. Dosir had assured him that Joachim would concentrate on Old Flood and that Havel’s Dock would be safely his. But lately Eason had wondered at Dosir’s advice and chosen to force things to move ahead of schedule. The Hammer had vehemently argued against the meeting tonight. That was fine. Eason knew Dosir was working like a snake in the grass to undermine him. Once Eason had all of this wrapped up, he would dispose of Dosir. With that thought, he glanced quickly back at the man, and the Hammer bore the slightest of smiles.

Eason’s face reddened and he felt an insane desire to bury the tip of his sword into Dosir’s neck. The treacherous snake had allowed this to happen.

Instead, he straightened his shoulders and met Joachim’s glare.

“It is time for you to leave,” Joachim said in a lethally smooth voice.

Eason raised his hand and motioned the soldiers to remain still. He would see to Joachim now if he had to. Dosir’s vengeful little betrayal would only further his plans, and the Hammer would learn a bitter lesson about double-crossing a count of the realm. Tight spots were nothing new, and he allowed a momentary vision of Dosir’s suffering to flit through his mind before shunting it aside to deal with Joachim. No one did this to him in public. He flashed a look of pure hatred at the Hammer, then relaxed his face and turned to the crowed seated in the room, giving them an apologetic smile. One that said unexpected disruptions were unfortunate but must be accepted for the greater good.

“I suppose disruptive guests must be tolerated,” he said in a lecturing voice. “I’m sure you understand.”

Joachim’s was as quiet as the expectant hush that came just before a storm. Though the Count’s eyes bore holes into Eason’s own, his words were not for Eason.

“Mayor Niemen, as the legally authorized guardian of the Lake Valleys Province and its chief magistrate for the Crown, I charge you with suborning treason, which is an offense punishable by death and the forfeiture of all of your assets, titles, lands, and properties.”

Niemen stood stock still for a moment. Eason noted with disgust that the man looked about ready to soil himself, so he spoke up before the idiot said anything damning in front of hundreds of witnesses.

“This is all perfectly legal, I’m afraid,” he told the mayor reassuringly. “You were within your rights to ask for the assistance of my men.” And then, more loudly so that his voice carried to the back of the large room, “This is as I feared it would be. Mr. Joachim ought to be welcoming us with open arms. After all, my men worked non-stop to clear a way through the dangerous passes to get here.” Eason then lowered his voice, and allowed it to quiver as he pointed at Joachim. “I’m disappointed in you.”

A quiet murmur rose among the citizens of Havel’s Dock.

Joachim stepped closer to Eason, who smiled inwardly. If the man attacked him, his own soldiers outnumbered Joachim’s two to one. He thought for a moment that it might actually serve his purposes to allow the man to hit him.

“I charge you with treason, Encius Eason, and will see you stand trial in Pallodine or we can settle this in a duel among Peers right here,” Joachim said in a voice like a whip. “The choice is yours.” He said this as he drew his cloak aside and rested his hand lightly over the hilt of his blade.

Eason clapped his hands together and laughed. “This is nonsense! What level will you stoop to in order to save yourself in front of these people? I have drawn no blood against you or the people of this province. There is no treason!”

Joachim took a step closer.

“I have two of your dead soldiers—murdered and planted in my presence in order to give the passing appearance of a crime.”

“Your conspiracies outdo you, Count,” Eason mocked. “You see what Mr. Joachim will stoop to, everyone?”

“I have a Hammer who will testify that one of the dead men was likely killed by sorcerous means,” Joachim said, keeping his words under tight control.

Eason shrugged his shoulders. “If some of my messengers have been killed, it was no doubt done under your command—In this, I’m afraid you implicate yourself. If there has been treason, it is yours.”

More murmuring followed. Inwardly he smiled. These townspeople were already his. Joachim couldn’t be so stupid to think he actually had any chance of controlling the situation now.

Yet Joachim took another step toward him.

“You treasonous worm,” he spat. “You have ordered the murders of men and women in Old Flood and Have’s Dock, disguising these acts as trall attacks in order to perpetuate deception and betrayal.”

The Count of Kalavere laughed aloud and clapped his hands together delightedly. “You were responsible for putting down the thing that killed those poor, unfortunate people. They died while you did little to help them.”

Joachim took another step.

More people murmured. Now restlessly. In the back of his mind, a part of Eason shouted that something was amiss, but he had to keep pressing this. Once a ball was ready to roll downhill, all one had to do was push it a little bit so gravity had a chance to take over.

Still, Joachim was drawing close enough to make him uncomfortable. His men should have stepped forward. No doubt they were as wrapped up in the spectacle of Joachim’s pathetic little fall as the rest of the people in the room. Inwardly he laughed. Dosir must be quaking to see how his plan was backfiring.

And yet Joachim took another step forward.

“That was no trall that killed Karin Ledge and the three residents of Havel’s Dock,” Joachim said in a voice like the charge of an oncoming lightning strike. Before Eason managed a retort, Joachim motioned for the boy at his side to move forward. The kid was rather short for the young men of the Lake Valleys, with closely cut brown hair and a sharp face beneath two quick, penetrating eyes. No doubt this was one of the three mystery brats Dosir kept complaining about.

The boy limped up, and he handed the bag to Joachim. “Mr. Maldies, would you kindly explain one unmistakable way you can tell a trall has been responsible for an attack?”

“Gladly sir,” the brat said. “They stink, and the smell lingers when they’ve been in an area.”

Eason positively chortled. “I appreciate that you’ve brought us an expert’s testimony,” he said. “But I hardly think that is proof of anything other than a young man’s overactive imagination.”

Joachim took another step. Without thinking, Eason moved back a step.

“Mr. Maldies, would you kindly drive the point home to the count and everyone else in attendance?”

The scrawny brat looked up at Eason with an unmistakable glint of mischief in his eyes. “Gladly,” he said, and withdrew something dark from the sac. A number of people surrounding the Count and the boy shrank back and gasped. Before Eason had a chance to see what the boy had in his hands, the twerp looked up at him and said, “Catch,” tossing an object in a slow arc toward him.

Eason instinctively reached out and caught the thing. Immediately, the worst smell he had ever experienced struck him with such force that he began to wretch.

Something sticky and wet surrounded his fingers, gumming them up on contact. “What is this?!” he screamed in alarm, dropping the foul thing to the floor and backing up several paces.

“That would be the trall,” the young man said. “My friends and I killed it . . . well, technically I didn’t kill it, but I did shout at it a lot.”

Eason stood there, unbelieving. He kicked the thing and it rolled several feet away, turning face up, revealing a snarling, almost canine face with a human forehead that tapered into an extended maw full of wickedly sharp teeth, two of which resembled a boar’s tusks.

“It can’t be dead,” Eason heard himself say . . . and then stopped, aware he had said too much before his mouth clamped shut.

Cold silence filled the room, and then came the rapid, steady footfall of Joachim, who closed the distance in six long, powerful strides. Eason flung his arms up defensively. He only had a second to wonder why none of his soldiers budged, and then the man was on him.

Joachim grabbed him by the throat. The man’s fingers were like vices around his neck, driving him backward until his back connected with the long council table.

Eason reached up, desperately trying to free himself from Joachim’s grip but the best he managed was to slap at the bastard’s arms as ineffectively as an infant. When the grip around his throat did loosen, Joachim’s knee drove into his stomach and all of the air in his chest exploded outward on one abrupt whoosh. Then Joachim’s hand firmly took ahold of Eason’s head and drove his face into the tabletop with a loud crunch. Lights flashed behind his eyes, and his face went numb as his nose broke with an alarming crunch. Joachim then jerked him backward, sending him sprawling across the floor.

Niam stepped painfully back, away from Joachim. The moment Eason looked down at the trall’s severed head and all but admitted his involvement in recent events, Joachim burst forward in violence. The Count of Kalavere looked up dumbly from the floor while Joachim smoothly drew his sword from its scabbard and pointed it at the prone man.

“Get up and fight me or get out of my province and face me in court,” Joachim said venomously.

Eason’s eyes widened as he clearly realized that a ring of Joachim’s troops had come in through the back door while he was too busy grandstanding to notice. Niam knew that they must have subdued the men guarding the back before entering. The arrogant count looked up at the Wizard’s Hammer accompanying him with the embers of humiliation burning behind his eyes, but the Hammer looked on as unperturbed as a rock in a rainstorm.

“Get this sack of dung out of here!” Joachim ordered one of Eason’s own men. Get him out and get the bloody hell out of my territory before my forces cut you and your men to pieces. Now!”

One of the officers rushed forward to help his fallen lord, but the bleeding count threw the soldier’s arm off of him and screamed, “Get your hands off of me! Get your filthy hands off of me or I’ll have you hanged!”

The soldier’s face whitened and he backed off. Before Eason said anything else, Joachim said loudly to his own captain, “Take the names of each member of Count Eason’s guard. If a one of them ends up missing when he answers for this in Pallodine, I will add more charges against him.”

Loud cries of approval and anger burst forth from the gathered onlookers. Amid shouts and jeers, Niam watched the Wizard’s Hammer named Dosir walk away from the gathering. The beaten count picked himself up, dabbing at the blood pouring from his ruined face. He looked at the door without making eye contact with anyone in the room. Livid red splotches of shame covered his features as he made his unsteady way out of the inn.

Niam let out a loud sigh of relief.

Joachim walked up to him and asked, “Out of curiosity, I thought we agreed you were supposed to hold the trall’s head up so everyone could see it. What on earth possessed you to toss it to the maggot?”

Niam looked up at the Count’s chiseled face. “The thing stank. I thought it would be better off in his hands,” he said innocently.

Joachim smiled thinly. “Yes. I think it was.”