Book 5 - With Mercy Toward None by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page B

understanding and offering restitution. But the Lord was not with him. Every envoy perished en route.
     
     

Chapter Five:
    WAR CLOUDS
    B
    
    ragi reached High Crag after a four month journey through refugee camps scattered across the Lesser Kingdoms. The castle was an ancient, draughty stone pile perched atop a windy, sea-battered headland jutting from the coast north of Dunno Scuttari. He looked up the long slope to the gates, recalling the misery he had endured during recruit training, and almost turned back. Only his concern for his brother drew him onward.
    He explained his circumstances to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper told him to report to the sergeant of the guard. The sergeant sent him to a lieutenant, who passed him on to a captain, who told him to spend the night in barracks because he could expect to tell his story a dozen more times before anyone decided what to do with him. He was listed missing in action, presumed killed. His death bonus had been paid to his brother. The bonus would have to be repaid.
    "I don't care about all that," Bragi said. "I just want to get back to my brother and my company. Where are they?"
    "Sanguinet's Company? Down near Hellin Daimiel. Simballawein is negotiating for reinforcements for the Guild garrison there. There's talk that El Murid plans a holy war. Wants to resurrect the Empire."
    "Why can't I just catch up?"
    "As soon as you've gone the route here."
    He remained stuck at High Crag for three months.
    Haaken stared. "I don't believe it. Where the hell did you come from?" He was a burly youth even bigger than his foster brother. He approached Bragi warily, circled him. "It's you. It's really you. Damn it. Oh, damnit. After all the heartaches I went through."
    Someone hollered back among the tents. "You lying son of a bitch!" A soldier charged onto the drill field. "I'll crap! It is him. What the hell are you doing here, Bragi?" He was a tall, lean, tan, ginger-haired youth named Reskird Kildragon, Haaken's friend and the only other Trolledyngjan in the company.
    Haaken threw an arm around Bragi. "It's really you. I'll be damned. We were sure you were dead."
    "Why the hell didn't you keep riding somewhere?" Kildragon demanded. "Haaken, how are we going to pay back that death bounty?"
    Bragi laughed. "Hasn't changed a bit, has he?" he asked Haaken.
    "Too damned stupid. Can't
beat
sense into him. Tell the guys, Reskird."
    "Yeah." Kildragon winked at Ragnarson.
    "So talk," Haaken said. "How did you get out of Al Rhemish? Where have you been? Maybe you
should
have gone somewhere else. We're probably headed down to Simballawein. The Disciple is up to something. We'll probably be in the thick of it. Well? Can't you say anything?"
    Grinning, Bragi replied, "Maybe. If you'd shut up long enough. You realize you've said more in the last five minutes than you usually say in a year?"
    The rest of Ragnarson's squadmates appeared, ambling out nonchalantly, as if only mildly curious. "Oh-oh," Haaken said. "Here comes Lieutenant Trubacik."
    "Lieutenant?"
    "Been lots of promotions. Sanguinet is a captain now."
    Bragi sucked spittle between his teeth, nervous.
    "You're late, Ragnarson," Trubacik snapped. "You were due on guard duty ten months ago." He chuckled at his own wit. "Captain wants to see you."
    A messenger came in on a lathered horse. Sanguinet ordered the camp gates closed and the troops into company formation. "Gentlemen, it's begun," he announced. "We're headed for Simballawein. General Hawkwind will join us there."
    Five hell-days on the road, marching forty or fifty miles each day. Then a messenger overtook them with word that a regiment of Invincibles had butted heads with Hawkwind and gotten the short end. Only a handful had escaped.
    The walls of Simballawein hove into view. "It's as big as Itaskia," Ragnarson muttered to Haaken.
    "Bigger, I think." Cheering crowds waited outside the gates. "Think we'd won the war already. Hell, a city ain't nothing but a box trap."
    "Gloom,