The Crimson Campaign

A light caught Taniel’s eye, just in the corner of his vision. He crouched a little farther down and watched the keep for several moments. There. He saw a light moving in a high-arched window.

Goutlit saw it too. He scooted back, pressing himself up against the big oak behind him. Taniel grabbed a handful of Goutlit’s jacket to keep him from moving farther.

“Where’s Kresimir’s room?” Taniel asked.

“There,” Goutlit’s voice came out dry and raspy. He lifted a finger. “That tower there, just above the light.”

A sudden whine cut through the night. It was a low keening that rose sharply into a wail. A low thump accompanied it, and then a human scream that grew louder and louder until Taniel was sure that a banshee was going to come out of the tree above them.

Just as quickly as it began, the sound was over. Distantly, from the keep, he heard a sound like crashing furniture.

“What the pit?”

“Kresimir,” Goutlit said, his voice barely a whisper. “Every night.” Goutlit turned to stare at Taniel. “Every night he’s looking for the eye behind the flintlock.”

Taniel shivered involuntarily.

“Every morning they find bodies,” Goutlit said. “Usually just a few, but sometimes as many as a dozen. Prielight Guards, servants. Kresimir’s concubines. Some of them are strangled while others have been burned through by sorcery.”

“Shut up,” Taniel said. His skin was beginning to crawl. He set his musket against the tree and watched while the light in the keep moved farther and farther away from Kresimir’s tower.

“You can’t kill him,” Goutlit said.

“What?” Taniel snapped.

“That stuff about Kresimir’s bedsheets. Do you think I’m a fool? You’re going to try to finish the job you started on South Pike, aren’t you?”

Taniel remained silent. There was fear in Goutlit’s voice.

Goutlit went on, “He can’t be killed. About twenty have tried so far. Assassins from your own army. From the Church, and even one of Ipille’s — though Kresimir doesn’t know that.”

The Church had tried to have Kresimir killed? Even while their Prielights guarded him? Now, that was interesting. There must be a division within the Kresim Church.

“No one’s gotten close enough, I’d imagine,” Taniel said.

“Oh, they have.” Goutlit swallowed hard. “I saw one assassin with my own eyes. A woman. She tried to open his throat. Her knife bent on his skin.”

Taniel remembered shooting at Julene once, in her cave-lion form. The bullet had simply skimmed off her skin like a smooth stone off of water. And now Taniel was trying to steal from the god who’d managed to nail her to a beam.

“Not enough force.”

“He was hit by a cannonball, walking the front. It shattered on him! Killed half a nearby gun crew and a colonel.”

Goutlit had begun to talk louder. His voice was high-pitched, and he breathed heavily. His whole body began to tremble. Taniel shook him by the front of his jacket. It didn’t seem to help.

Taniel realized he had a problem. He would need to scale the walls of the keep. Easy enough by himself, but impossible for Goutlit.

The simplest thing would be to just kill the man. He was an enemy, after all. A Kez. Their field marshal.

Taniel lay a hand on his knife. Goutlit didn’t seem to notice. A quick stroke, silent as can be. It wouldn’t be the first man Taniel had killed, nor the last.

Then again, this was butchery. Goutlit was his prisoner.

“Take off your clothes,” Taniel said.

Goutlit seemed to snap out of whatever fear had been racing through his mind. “I beg your pardon?”

“Clothes. Off.”

“I refuse.”

“This is me saving your life,” Taniel said. “I can either tie you up, to be found in the morning, or I can kill you. Tell me now, but decide quickly.”

Taniel thought for a moment that Goutlit would cry out. Was this the indignity to break him? Goutlit watched Taniel in silence and then removed his jacket.

“You can keep your underclothes on,” Taniel said, “but make it quick.” When the field marshal had stripped to his underwear, Taniel motioned with his knife at the tree. “Climb.”

Goutlit’s eyes widened. “I can’t possibly…”

Taniel grabbed Goutlit by the back of his neck and shoved him at the trunk of the giant oak. Goutlit scrambled up to the lowest branch awkwardly. Taniel gathered Goutlit’s clothes and followed him up.

“Keep going.”

Goutlit was about thirty feet in the air before he clutched a thick branch and absolutely refused to climb farther. His eyes rolled wildly, and Taniel could hear his teeth chatter.

“I won’t go higher. Kill me now.”

“This will do.” Taniel fastened Goutlit to the tree branch tightly, using Goutlit’s own belt and pants as restraints. “It’s not comfortable, but you’ll live.”

Taniel stuffed one of Goutlit’s socks into the field marshal’s mouth.

He ignored Goutlit’s squeals of protest and began to descend. By the time he reached the ground, he couldn’t even hear the man, and once he’d taken a few dozen steps, Goutlit was all but forgotten.