Death to the Grand Guild

11

The Hunt

Harwin wasn’t in a hurry to awaken. As far as he was concerned, he was a hostage again as if he were back in Faust.

It wasn’t the same treatment that Captain Sykes had put upon them, threatening extreme harm to keep their mouths shut. Their punishment was being treated to large amounts of food the next morning, a much easier imprisonment.

Harwin was watching Osmond dive into rashers of bacon, then engulfing a heavy bread, squishy rolls of sour milk and flour that were an amazing discovery. He and his mates had gobbled every morsel provided, devouring fruit jellies, fried eggs, and plums. Even Edmund was making a pig out of himself.

I’ll just live my days on this fur if they let me,” Osmond said with a spattering of loose crumbs in his beard.

“What do these people do?” Julius asked.

“Nothing at the moment, until the dogs are dead,” Edmund had commented after finishing his meal. “Normally they’d harvest. The fields are bursting.”

His brother is right while Harwin watched him explain a communion style of life. They harvest yields to balance the good years with the scarce ones. Each of them had to put his share into the village granaries. They kept what they grew and trades with their neighbour what they lacked. The smith, the tailor, the cobbler, and the miller trade their crafts for the farmer’s yield.

“It is a simple life,” Edmund adds. “Once these dogs are eliminated, their lives will continue.”

“They are giving us plenty of their labour as we sit here,” Julius said, pulling his point, lost in thought.

“You’re starting to see things now, friend?” Harwin said with a smirk. “You now perceive you owe them for their hospitality. That is the only coin they have.”

“We haven’t seen this Mero since they put us in here. I am tired of waiting. You know if we wander out these doors, they will either come out in a rush to guilt us into returning or run from us like cowards.”

“Should we go find this Etric?” Julius asked.

“Who do we ask? They have us surrounded by people who don’t know our language. It’s on purpose,” Harwin said, annoyed. “We only know three people who can understand us and they are doing their best to stay away.”

“Let’s stand out in the square. Surely they will send someone,” Edmund suggested to them, and it made sense.

They decided to barge out as the woman who kept them hostage with indulgence tried to protest with finger-pointing and gestures. She was barking out in her foreign tongue but gave way with nothing more than fussing as they walked out the door. The square was busy as others gathered to look at them, but they weren’t the only curiosity.

Harwin could see four lads in wooden stocks, bent over with their heads looking at the ground. They must have been thieves, he thought. Who knows with these queer people? They only wore tunics. He could see their bare arses bent over, and one had relieved himself and was soiled from cheek to ankle.

“That’s a new addition, didn’t notice them last night,” Osmond said in a snort. “They even have a guy looking after them on that stool.”

“They have them in Hayston,” Harwin commented. “They are nicer here though. The lads back home loved to throw pebbles at prisoners, poke them in the arse with a long stick to mock them.”

“If they had those in Breeston, the man on the stool would have to be armed to keep the buggerer’s away,” Julius said, pulling his beard in disgust. “We are out here, so we wait until someone comes to get us?”

“What else can we do?” Edmund asked. “They have kept us away from any news.”

“Maybe they have a reason. Next, we will be killing dogs for them,” Harwin remarked to get under his brother’s skin.

“I get it, but I still feel if we help end this problem, then the faster we can leave.”

“I’m with Edmund,” Julius replied in encouragement.

“That’s Leland, you fool. I’m not doing a bloody thing until someone tells us a few things,” Osmond grumbled aloud.

“Finally, one of you has a few wits,” Harwin said.

They stood there, resembling scarecrows, unamused as the commoners pointed at them. They noticed a few with looks of wonder, mixed with many looks of discomfort, fixated on them for over an hour until Pietro had come running in a rush.

“You not be here. Scaring everyone. Please go back,” he said.

“Where is Mero?” Edmund asked.

“Out for dogs.”

“Where is the man we talked to last night? Where is Etric?” his brother demanded.

“He busy. You need go back.” Pietro wore a good scowl on his face, but a scowl was all he could use against them.

“You think he will keep looking meanly at us forever?” Osmond asked, laughing in a boom.

“Until we get hungry and go back where we came,” Harwin said, laughing back.

The four were in a stalemate with the old Loreto elder. He frowned at them until the impasse ended with Mero returning in a buckboard driven by Two Billys.

“I see you’re bored to death,” he laughed. “I shot these this morning, so that is three less that can bother them,” the forager boasted while pointing to the dead wolfhounds in the back.

“How long is this going to take?” Harwin asked. “We hired you first, remember?”

“You did, but this is a great problem, friend Argyle,” Mero sternly said. “If we left now, then we’d be the hunted. This pack hunts in a proficient way. It could have been me dead back there.”

“Did you know of this, Mero? Did they send an envoy for you to come here?” Edmund asked. “This wait has raised our suspicions.”

“It’s just a coincidence we fell into. I am sorry, Leland,” Mero said, trying to soothe his brother’s inquiry. Two Billys just sat there and smiled, saying nothing but nodding to everything Mero had said.

“If I help you, then will it speed things up?” Edmund volunteered again.

“I can’t ask this from you. Why don’t you wait a few days until I thin the herd enough for Etric to be at peace?” The forager shook his head no, with Two Billys copying him as reinforcement.

“They paying you?” Harwin asked.

Mero had a look of hurt, feeling his honour slighted as Two Billys felt slighted as well. “I am a friend to these people,” he said in a form of regal standing, his chin lifted, and Harwin knew he was lying while looking over at his stupid brother, who was buying his ruse.

“Let us help you,” Edmund was pleading.

“No,” Harwin said.

“Let’s get this farce over with,” Osmond barked out in frustration.

Harwin became aggravated. Their protests just accomplished nothing except another meal — a huge meal at that, of roasted lamb, mashed up potatoes, with mushrooms and gravy from the drippings.

It was as fine a meal a lord could ask for, even better, which made him so angry. His objection was a night of stuffing his face as a guilty rube.

After filling their bellies they went in the wagon as Two Billys led them out to the edge of the fields that afternoon. Mero had been out while they dined trying to find tracks, he said, as Harwin had his arms crossed in protest.

“We came upon a small set over there.” He pointed along a rolling hill with a crop of trees. “That is where I killed those from earlier.

“I found another field they love to walk upon, seeing multiple tracks well worn. I think we should wait there for a while.”

“You are a tracker as well?” Harwin asked, trying to goad the forager.

“I have experience,” Mero answered in an annoyed tone. “I get the impression you’re suspicious of me, friend Argyle.”

“I notice you have many talents for a man of your age. You are young and appear to have mastered many skills that take a lifetime to learn.”

“Brother, why are you trying to insult him?” Edmund said, protesting. “Since my brother has rudely brought it up, it is a valid question.”

Mero gave a long look at his brother, then smiled like a weasel, he thought. “I shouldn’t lie, but I harbour a suspicion that you two are trying to hoax me as well. You are lords, I am convinced of that. Tell me your names, then I will tell you what I did before I came here.”

“I am Edmund Parsons. That is my brother, Harwin.”

“Edmund, you shouldn’t indulge such information,” Julius said while pulling on his arm.

“It is an honour to finally meet you. My name is what I have told you. I was a scout and bowman in Lord Gerold Rothwell’s army in Stone Nook. Have you heard of his lands?” Mero asked.

Edmund nodded his head, but Harwin hadn’t a clue.

“This uncle of yours, where is he?” Harwin asked. “Or is that a lie?”

“He exists, that’s for sure. We had a falling out. He is in a village outside Lonoke now.”

“How did he find out about the hedge?” Edmund asked, not sure he believed him.

“We caught an envoy and made him tell us with a blade to his throat. My uncle is a ruthless man. That is my conflict with him. We came here out of disrespect,” Mero declared in remorse.

“I was naïve about the whole thing, but as you see, I am trying to return decency to these docile people. I know it’s hard to believe.”

“Edmund, maybe we should put this quarrel away. We will help him and he will take us from here, am I right, Mero?” Julius asked, trying to ease the surrounding tempers.

“Why yes, you’ll be honoured by these kind folks. Etric himself mentioned that if the dogs are eliminated, then he will consent to my foraging for the rest of my days, but he has demanded that I end my uncle’s trespassing at once.”

“So you’re going to slit your uncle’s throat?” Osmond’s words weren’t much of a help, but they made Mero laugh oddly.

“I mean to dissuade him; I am not a violent man. You guys must have suffered a dire experience to think such queer things,” he said, looking wounded.

“Etric will take your efforts to aid him in kind favour, but this isn’t necessary, my friends. This is an arrangement between us. I’m not sure if you would be a help or a hindrance.”

Harwin shook his head. His slight was perfect, he thought, and it worked as Osmond and Julius became offended and demanded they help. This Mero should work for my uncle. This devious man could lie with the best of them. Harwin thought to himself.

They parked the wagon away from the planned spot as Mero instructed them to climb a nearby thicket of trees and wait.

Harwin had the horrible task of pushing Osmond’s chubby arse up onto a sturdy limb next to one Edmund and Mero had chosen, nesting in an old oak that provided a thick crop of autumn leaves to remain hidden.

He could see Two Billys in his wagon from the limbs they were perched at as he was opening a common lock box along the back of his buckboard that held tools, ropes, and bridles.

“They’ve been roving like soldiers. I have not seen such diligence,” Mero said. “These dogs are smart, but more than any I have encountered. They’re looking for a lone man to sneak up on, that is why I have Two Billys sitting in his wagon.”

“He is bait?” Julius asked, astonished.

“He is sitting in that box. He can close himself within it as I shoot the dogs. That’s how I got those this morning. He will be unharmed there.”

They waited and waited, thinking that Mero had guessed wrong until evening approached. Then they heard a howl, then many more, as the dogs arrived from a thicket of trees many yards away. There were six of them and it was uncanny, patrolling with caution as they paced then stopped and sniffed the air, not out of caution, it looked, but for blood.

The lead dog howled, looking their way as they appeared to pick up Two Billy’s scent, maybe them as well, running in a trot, then in the haste of bloodlust as Mero had his bow notched.

Edmund did the same and waited, and when the dogs closed in, they both shot, downing one each, as the others jumped over them, never slowing. The bows were deadly, he noticed. The one Edmund had was as lethal as Mero’s.

The two notched again and felled another two as the last dogs stiffened and sniffed the air, howling in an unnerving wail, then running toward them with reckless malice.

Harwin was astonished at their aggression. He had never seen real wolves act in such a fever, snarling in ruthless determination before they were shot dead in an effortless way.

“Fine shooting, Leland — well, Edmund, that is. That bow you have is beyond a normal Lonoke bow. You must let me look under those wraps and examine it. You truly are a remarkable shot.”

“I am surprised. I haven’t had the pleasure of shooting it yet. It pulled back with ease and such power, too. I don’t—”

“Hey, you two, quit pulling on each other’s wanker and listen,” Osmond interrupted in a nervous curse.

“A wagon!” Julius said.

Harwin first looked for Two Billys, but he was still cooped up in his protective lockbox, holding the clasp shut from the inside. He could hear another wagon and it was coming along the path where the dogs were killed.

“Get the blazes out of here,” Mero shouted out.

The small Loreton man driving it was under a floppy hat. He was too preoccupied to see what was ahead of him until a deafening round of howls cowered him, as fear was stricken into the lot of them.

The howls were echoing around the fields and Harwin could see wolfhounds heading their way in a wave, coming out of the faraway thickets.

Large packs of reddish, long hair flowing as they ran, and it looked beautiful to Harwin from a distance. He was perplexed at how they came in such a manner, ferocious and determined. A mysterious bond the dogs shared, and he could only muster questions of how and why.

“Have you seen anything like this, Mero?” he asked him.

The forager was in shock. “That man is as good as dead down there.”

“Get out, you fool, you need to climb up this tree,” Osmond boomed out.

The man stood frozen as he could see the mass of frantic hounds coming his way. He jumped off his wagon, found a thicket of shrubs nearby, and crawled inside them.

“That idiot, we got to help him,” Julius shouted out.

“We help him, then we are dead, brother,” Osmond shouted back.

Mero fired a shaft into the lead dog as Edmund dropped one from behind it. Harwin felt helpless about what to do. The pair of archers let another shaft fly and he felt the coward by watching his unavoidable death.

The forager let another one fly, then his brother. He could see the doomed man’s feet trying to inch farther in the thick hedge, cursing the man a fool for running for cover in a place so useless.

More arrows flew in as more hounds dropped. Harwin must have counted over twenty of them, and then he lost count. Glancing at his mates, who was frozen with fear, seeing them shake and hanging onto the limb tight.

If the pair knew a prayer, they’d say it now, he thought as Mero and Edmund kept firing arrows at the crazed hounds while they circled the tree below.

Harwin tried to look for the fool in the wagon, but what he saw were savage hounds digging under the place where he was hiding. Three hounds were on the buckboard that brought them, snarling and clawing at Two Billys, while he must have been lying in soiled linens, holding the hasp of his lockbox closed. Mero shot at them as Edmund followed his lead, killing the snarling hounds as their shafts buried up to the fletch into their necks.

The dogs were leaping as high as they could. They were beyond rabid as bark flew off the tree below them as the dogs flew themselves into the trunk, unaware of the damage it was inflicting upon them.

The limbs shook as Mero steadied himself and let another shaft fly. Harwin held tight onto Julius as Osmond was catatonic at the hounds’ ferocity.

A deep howl came from where the dogs were digging for the man in the wagon. Harwin held onto a stout limb, confused as the other dogs stopped trying to come at them.

The dogs howled in unison and the sound was deafening. Mero shot another, then Edmund followed, and the killings didn’t make the howls stop. They let another shaft fly and Harwin knew they’d be out of shafts soon.

What would they do then? Harwin was thinking. Would they stay treed as araccoon, or could fortune rear its head and the dogs would disperse? His thoughts didn’t linger long, as the snap of a limb mortified him.

Then he gasped in terror while watching poor Osmond fall into the howling dogs below, knowing he had to risk death if he had any hopes of saving him.

Epilogue:

They removed the hood from his head as they were in attendance at the Chamberlain’s parlour in the Guildhouse on Old Street.

Drew Vickards the steward of Breeston sat in his ornate chair with Arlo Withers beside him, the captain was peering at the man as he was beaten before they arrived, gagged with a linen with a look of dread of what was to become of him.

Arlo had known of him, a grifter that sold tonics, ointments, and suaves that helped some and cheated others.

The ward boss from the Butcher’s Wail, Arch Cummings stood beside him, it was him who caught him. This was the man who was spreading the “mist” in the outer wards he boasted.

“I found heaps of it in chests,” Arch says as Madge, the woman who ran the Widow’s ward and Moose Meyer over Tanner’s square had come to support him.

“He needs to die.” Moose adds while holding his dirk as Arlo told him to sit. Thad Griffin arrived shortly after as the group waited until no one else arrived.

“I guess this is all.” Thad Griffin spat as the meeting asked for all Ward Bosses.

“The boss in Jack Dobbins is dead, the handers got ’em,” Madge says as the two didn’t like one another. A squat woman, thick among the shoulders, and wearing a scowl of contempt for being there.

“It doesn’t matter, he’s a hander too, said it when I put the boys upon him,” Arch mentions pointing to the bound prisoner, grinning proudly as Arlo looked at him in disgust.

Ward Bosses were appointed to manage the wards and alert the constables of any riff-raff that needed watching. These lot had bought their places with bribes and were never accountable for their own crimes as the post gave them the privilege to abuse their fellow commoners.

Only Madge was decent in Arlo’s eyes, helping the women learn something and the “mist” had no roots yet in her ward. The rest, if Arlo had his way, they would hang. The lot was just ex-mercenaries who did anything for coin, and that included murder.

Arlo was concerned if Lucius Vanderlay was a fall guy. The Guild wanted the “who” that was making this evil that was plaguing the wards. This was the man they claim to have done it and that Drew Vickards was to accept it.

The “mist” had claimed over six hundred people since he started counting, Arlo figured it began in the early summer but word to him was late. His constable presence in the outer wards was sparse as all manpower was requested within the main walls.

He wasn’t in a good mood, many of his constables had quit, and when he checked upon the Parson lad, they had disappeared. The last he heard they were on a cog off to Billingsley.

He then got a parchment from a sacked constable there about an altercation involving them, and the captain was bribed into taking the lads to Lonoke. One was blind with multiple dead, he sent a parchment south to Bitters dreading his return as he was supposed to keep an eye on them.

“Well, where will we put the body since he’s a hander?” Moose asks, “Don’t want his corpse in my ward, maybe Jack Dobbins, since it lacks any authority to avenge upon.”

“How did you know to search his lockboxes?” Drew Vickards asked.

“We knocked them off, many ratted him out so we did what you wouldn’t, Vickards. Go have a look and he had heaps of it.”

“Yes, we heard that already,” Thad says annoyed. “There is one problem then.”

“Yeah, what of it?” Arch growls out, a large man, nearly bald, who ran his ward out of intimidation. “I know we need the judge to approve the opening of locks, but this has to be done now.”

“We have laws!” Drew Vickards screamed, quieting the man as he sat. “You could have detained him, brought the boxes and maybe we could have persuaded the judge!”

Arlo could only wince, the judge lived upstairs. The Old Guildhouse served as quarters for city officials. His quarters, the smallest in the old manse, were not far from the Chamberlains.

The structure provided comfort to all appointed men like himself, and company from the Triad nobles such as Argyle Parsons and Topher Copeland, the mayor of Lonoke.

The large foyer still served the Guild as Harland Childers sold pins to extort people who tried to earn a living. The upstairs was reserved for their harlots or concubines when they needed a rendezvous from their wives.

Arlo was sipping on a mead, wishing he was not a party to these matters as the ward bosses bickered over what needed to be done with Vanderlay’s corpse.

“We can’t do it legally,” Arlo says, shaking his head. “And I don’t trust anyone here, the outer wards are crawling with handers, and after all these weeks of nothing, you bring us Lucius Vanderlay beaten to a pulp. We arrest him and witnesses will show up in droves to testify for him.”

The ward bosses cursed him as his accusations angered them, calling him a craven as they demanded the prisoner be killed and put on display to show strength. “If witnesses show up, arrest them too because they will be Yella Handers as well,” Madge says with a scowl.

“We can’t arrest anyone on suspicion, and we can’t take him to the courts because, without a writ from the judge, they will release him because you illegally opened his locks,” Drew says calming them.

“I am with Arlo, I am unsure of who is loyal and who is not, if he is put away, maybe he will be killed and we get no confessions. I would like some names to question.”

“He is a hander, but he has said nothing. I just know the handers deal in this poison”. Arch blurts out.

Arlo just looks away, up to this moment nobody knows who is bringing in the “mist”, but all three outer ward bosses had witnesses and something had to be done.

“He can’t go to the courts, Wilders doesn’t budge on locks being opened without his approval.” Vickards repeats, offering a solution. “We whisk him away on a wagon in the morning to the salt mines. If he has names he will get privileges, especially if he gives whoever is funding this, if not he shrivels up swinging a pick.”

“The bloody Guild is funding it!” Moose blurts out enraged, “They are going to kill us because the city is too crowded, they took away the jobs and want us gone.”

“I have no complaints, let him slowly die in the salt mines. A fitting end to what he released upon us.” Thad Griffin adds as Madge relents, approving the miserable sentence that is enough for Vickards to move forward.

“I should have killed him, should have figured you all would turn craven,” Arch shouts as Moose tries to comfort him, and adds that they do need names.

“If he begins giving up details then we can kill them, we don’t need approval next time.”

“Watch your tone, the both of you, or you could be sent alongside him.” Drew Vickards warns as he directs Arlo on what to do.

Arlo nodded, knowing that this was far from finished, and he dreaded every day until whatever end this secret coup took them.