Chapter 4: Chapter 4

“It ain’t right, but it’s correct,” grumbled Sir Wilhert. The man, a veteran Lancer of a dozen years, was the most senior of the Lancers surviving in the camp. The previous one, Sir Utger of Don Dover, had succumbed to his wounds in the late afternoon, his chest caved in by a godsteel warhammer that had punched through his aging breastplate.

Sir Wilhert was bent over near the campfire, squinting to read the thinly scratched writing in the firelight. He, along with the other Free Lancers, had been gobsmacked by the story of my dismissal. When I came to him for his thoughts he’d immediately taken to studying both my contract and his own, and now he leaned up and held mine out for me to take. “It’s the worst kind of shite, but he’s technically following the contract.”

I wanted to crumple the contract in my fist, but I couldn’t. It belonged in my wallet of marque, the proof that I was a guilded Free Lancer and free to carry godsteel arms and armor across the Kingdoms, to be turned in at a guild office whenever I had the opportunity to update my records and pay my dues. “So I have no recourse?” I asked the man.

Wilhert frowned and shrugged. “Could be the guild doesn’t take kindly to wordplay, or maybe they decide to stick it on you instead. Seems like a bunch of crap over one Lancer worth of coin for the trouble it could bring on Vicelli.”

I again considered throwing the contract into the fire. Then throwing the Baron in with it.

The problem wasn't all the other Lancers - their contracts were completed, and they were only waiting for pay to be distributed. The coin was in camp, or arriving in the night if the Baron was smart. They’d get their coin whether the Baron was alive or dead at this point. No, the problem were the sellswords. There were still easily a hundred or more of the mercenaries standing, plus however many dozens more wounded. Sellswords had no guild, no rules but coin for steel, and the old right of pillage. If I killed their cash cow they weren’t likely to listen about grudges and honour.

“I guess we’ll see,” I sighed, standing from Wilhert’s fire.

“Don’t worry yourself too much, Jon. It’s not good for you,” Eric the Blue said. He was Wilhert’s man-at-arms, a slight and wiry fellow with the broad head and golden hair of the Lakelands in the far east beyond the borders of the Free Kingdoms. He rode into battle without armour, instead painting his body with a bright blue paint he claimed summoned the attention of one of the Lost Gods. He wasn’t sure which one and I was dubious about the claims considering the number of scars he sported criss crossing his body, but he was still alive after eight years of campaigning so it was tough to argue with the dubious results. “Something will turn for you, yeah? It is not so hard to find work.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” I said, grunting my displeasure. I had gotten out of my armour, and carried only my sword and rondel with me as most men did in camp, but I was still feeling the weight of battle on my limbs and back. Standing from the fire aggravated muscles across my body. “He’s basically said I fled the field. What would you do if someone said that of you?”

“I would kill the man,” Eric said with a shrug. “But I am not you. I could leave this life at any time, fetch the hoard I have collected, and return to my people with a saga all of my own. You can not do this.”

“Exactly my problem,” I said. I nodded to Wilhert and Eric. “I’ll sleep on it, if nothing else.”

“Revenge is best poured into a cup very hot, or very cold, Jon of Bloodbraid,” Eric called after me. “This is a good thing to remember.”

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I made my way through the camp, nodding to the grim and pitying faces I passed. Each of them, Lancer and man-at-arms and archer, even the footmen, knew of my predicament and it was a shame hanging around my neck.

The tents of my troupe were loud with noise as I approached. Gresham, his chest bare except for a heavy bandage wrapping his abdomen and hips, was sitting up and leaning his elbows back on a log as he barked a laugh and then winced at the hurt it caused him. He was joined by Olivar Puttmellow, a veteran man-at-arms who had joined our fire several times in the last week, and another I recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Olivar had the luck of the Lost Gods - he’d served alongside Gresham in a dozen battles, and every time his Lancer had gotten injured or slain. Now he only served with Lancers he didn’t particularly like, and did his best not to start, to better ease his transition to another when they inevitably died in some gruesome way.

Shilling Grain, one of my archers and Farthing’s younger brother, stood from his place on the opposite side of the fire from Gresham and his guests. The lad spread his arms wide, a grin on his face. “I see you, hoss. We’ve got good news!”

Giddy, who had been sitting next to the lad, had a smile on her lips and shook her head at the eagerness of Shilling. Likely the drunken boy had been whispering sweet nothings in her ear again, a passtime I had yet to decide if I should do something about or not. She never seemed put out by the activity, but hadn’t yet given in to it either. I felt protective of the girl, not that she was mine in that way - I hadn’t grown up with siblings, so I wondered if what I felt was something like seeing her as a sister.

“Better than my own, then,” I said, stopping at my tent to file away the contract in my wallet before turning to the fire. “Sir Wilhert confirmed it - we’re not going to get paid, and there’s nothing we can do on the ‘morrow to change it.”

“Fuck that Baron fuck,” Gresham said, attempting to rise but being pulled back to his ass by Olivar. “He wouldn’t try this shite if he knew who he was messing with proper.”

“He knows exactly who he’s messing with, Cutter,” the man I didn’t know said. “Word spread quickly - the Baron’s feeling right uppity after his victory. Word is he’s docking the pay of the sellswords who got wounded and pulled themselves from the field, and he’s keeping the others happy with an extra silver shilling.”

“That rat fuck,” Gresham mumbled.

“We ain’t completely out of luck though, hoss,” Shilling said. Then he hefted a satchel and shook it, the clinking of metal and coins jumbling inside.

“Shilling,” I said. “What the fuck did you do?”

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