Chapter 1313: Crimson water(2)
A pair of sour, dark eyes freckled in deep brown met Blake’s gaze. They were cold and chilly, but a fierce, unbroken bravery burned within them.
Kneeling beneath the proud standard of House Elio, the Lord of Eshad awaited the victor’s grim due. A single line of sweat trailed down his dirt-streaked temple, losing itself in the iron groove of his battered gorget.
"His head! His head! Cut off his fucking head!"
That was all Blake could hear ascending from the chorus of drunken, blood-mad voices rising and falling across the camp. The Sea-King ignored them. He walked the slow, heavy steps up to the captive lord, using the cold, curved blade of his battleaxe to catch the man beneath the chin, forcing his head up until they were gazing directly into one another’s eyes.
The lord’s right eye was already swelling shut, and his nose had been already broken in the melee. A steady trail of dark blood rained down across his lips, staining his teeth a grisly pink as he breathed heavily through his mouth, the red droplets falling off his chin to patter against the grass. To the man’s immense honor, he did not beg, nor did he allow a single shadow of fear to distort his features.
He was a fiercely proud man, a brilliant warrior, and something in the depths of his stare told Blake that this bastard would never deviate from his course once he settled on it.
That was a dangerous trait in a subject.
Blake pressed the bearded blade of his axe closer, dragging it slowly until the sharp iron kissed the flesh of the lord’s neck.
"Mine," Blake whispered in a small voice.
He swiveled the weapon, pointing the bloody steel toward the high, white walls of Eshad, whose ancient stones were currently bathing in the setting sun and the blood of its lost sons.
"Mine," he repeated, louder this time.
Then, he circled the axe in a grand, sweeping arc to encompass the vast, rolling horizon of the land.
"Mine!"
A deafening, savage cheer rang loud through the victorious pirate host, shields clattering against steel. The kneeling lord gave Blake all the regard he would normally afford a common cockroach.
Amused by the defiance, Blake reached into his belt and let the gruesome trophy he had been clutching roll casually down his thigh, letting it bounce off the lord’s knee and drop into the dirt. The Lord of Eshad stared down at the hollowed bone in sudden confusion.
"They tell me that piece of bone was your kin," Blake said, giving the skull of the Lord of Tarvia a small, mocking kick with his boot. "I met his grand host a few leagues north of here. They didn’t fight half as well as you did, my lord. Once the screaming stopped, I had my boys fashion a fine drinking cup out of his head."
The lord’s gaze twisted into absolute disgust. "Animal."
"Oh, there are plenty more where that came from," Blake chuckled, tapping the flat of his axe against his own chin. "Back at my high table in Khairo, I have an entire row filled with them. More than two dozen. They were your fellow lords, your allies, your bitter rivals. It matters little now; all they do is hold my wine.I would have fashioned the sultan’s head a cup too...but well it would be hard to hold wine with all those holes.
I killed most of them with my own blade. I made miserable slaves of their proud children, and common whores of their delicate wives."
He watched with satisfaction as a fresh wave of helpless fury flushed across the lord’s battered face.
"Your vanguard is rotting at the feet of your own city," Blake continued, "Their bodies are left to the vermin and the ravens."
"I should have died among them," the lord spat, his teeth bared.’’That is my only regret dog’’
"But you didn’t. And neither did any of your precious sons. You have three of them, no?Yet I never once sighted them holding your banner alongside you on the field." Blake flashed an ugly smile as he raised his eyes to look back at the distant city. "They are all safely hiding behind those high stone walls, aren’t they?’’ He licked his lips ’’Well tucked away under the bed. Do you think that will save them from big bad monster?"
The lord made no move to answer, his jaw locked tight.
"We will breach them, of course. We will scale them or we will burn them down," Blake reasoned smoothly. "You foolishly wasted the absolute best of your fighting forces outside the gates. We will claw our way inside, and we will take our due. The victor’s due. We will make do with your lovely wife, your cowardly sons, and your virgin daughters."
Finally, a small, terrible hint of raw fear crept into the lord’s brown eyes. He hid it well enough, tightening his posture, but the flinch did not escape the Sea-King.
A bit more....
"The men left in Eshad are every bit as brave as my sons," the lord hissed, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and terror. "They will die well, pirate. They will kill thousands of your men before you ever touch a single stone of my hearth."
"But I have far more men to waste than they have arrows to shoot," Blake countered, leaning in until his breath fanned the lord’s broken nose. "And what happened to the Lord of Tarvia, to the Lord of Gogachere, to the high house of Dubrinorum... it will happen to you and your kin. Your daughters will only ever know a life of forced pleasure in the bunks of my captains, as will your lady wife. Your sons, if they have the dignity to die in battle, shall be eaten by the crows. If they survive, a long, miserable life in heavy chains will properly humble their proud royal blood."
"You..." the lord choked out, lunging against his chains, only for Tonitz to ruthlessly kick him back down.
"You did this to them, my lord," Blake cut him off, his voice like ice. "You wasted your finest forces on a fool’s errand. You could have stayed behind your formidable walls, forced a siege, and let the winter winters starve me out. Instead, you took the noble road. The brave one. The worthy one. You chose glory, and you failed catastrophically. And now, your city shall fall to us."
The Lord of Eshad bowed his head, his chest heaving as the weight of his total ruin finally crushed his shoulders.
Blake watched him savor the despair for a long heartbeat, before a sharp, calculating glint returned to his eyes. He stepped back, lowering his axe to the grass.
"But... not all is lost today,lord of Eshad," Blake said softly, his voice suddenly turning as smooth as oil.
The lord looked up through his one good eye, frowning in deep suspicion.
"The very thing that will cause you to lose everything," Blake whispered, a brilliant, predatory smile stretching across his face. "The very pride and stubborn bravery that brought you to your knees in this dirt... it may yet be the exact thing that saves your house from the fire. And all you have to do is give me a single, simple nod. Such a small price to pay for salvation, is it not?"
The Lord of Eshad stared up at him, his teeth slick with pink foam, his chest heaving under his battered breastplate. "You would ask me to barter for my honor? For what? A few more miserable years of... of.... Servitude? A true man of the sand cannot yield to a dog from the sea. So I do not!"
"Honor is so damn cold, my lord," Blake countered softly, as he leaned in closer. "What is that hollow word compared to the warm, soothing hands of your lady wife? Her soft mouth and her thighs? What is it compared to the sweet, sweeping embrace of your daughter? The swelling pride of watching your sons grow into men? You may yet save every single one of them, brave lord. You will keep your high titles, your city, and your family alive. All you have to do is yield. Say the words. ’I am defeated.’ Three simple ones. Aren’t they so easy to your lips?Do that and you’ll save all of them, your people, your family, yourself..."
For a long, agonizing heartbeat, the only sound in the command tent was the heavy snapping of the standard in the wind. Then, slowly, the fierce, suicidal glare in the lord’s eyes began to flicker. The ice fractured, replaced by a sudden, devastating hollow look.
Blake knew right then that he had won. For how could a dead man’s honor ever hope to fare against the living warmth of love? He didn’t need the old hag to tell him his answer.
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With his brand-new hunting dog firmly on a leash, Blake found himself in a thoroughly magnificent humor as he strode through the bustling thoroughfares of the camp.
He really should have stopped being surprised by now, but absolute victory had been delivered directly to his lap once more, exactly as the old hag had seen in her dancing sparks.
"Wherever your foot sinks into the earth, the path to triumph you shall see."
That was the very last riddle the old witch had croaked at him before his fleet departed the northern shores, and victory after brutal victory had followed her words like clockwork. The proud Tarvian host had been utterly gutted on the open field, Eshad had bent its stiff neck, and the grand Vizar of Victia didn’t even dare muster arms against the Free Men anymore. The north was secure and waiting for his taking.
If Blake desired to eventually sail back north to claim his true crown, he needed to leave these eastern conquered territories stable enough not to collapse into chaos the moment his ships cleared the harbor. Which meant, by necessity, binding actual, highborn Azanian lords to his side with golden chains and blood oaths.
Maybe the old bitch will see something else in her sparks tonight, he wondered, a rare flicker of superstitious hope rising in his chest as he neared his tent.
The crone was growing increasingly demanding of late. Before, she could glimpse his glorious future in the flames with nothing but a handful of dried herbs; now, she claimed she had to spill fresh virgin blood every single time she gazed into the embers.
’’It’s becoming harder’’ She simply said, revealing she did not know the reason either.
Well no matther that, it was of remarkably little consequence to a King. There was a ceaseless supply of captured slaves rolling through the baggage trains who could be thrown into her fires. That was the one commodity the fleet indeed did not lack.
As he approached the entrance, Blake offered a sharp nod to Laughing Mutt, the hulking guard stationed outside the flap. Instead of stepping aside, the massive warrior raised a thick hand to stop his commander, his scarred face twisted as he began aggressively gesticulating with his hands, tracing a wide square in the empty air.
"What, did Luke shit bricks of hemp again?" Blake asked dryly.
The crude joke made Laughing Mutt burst in laughter. Though, without a tongue, the sound came out as little more than a wet, ragged wheeze as the purple stump in his mouth showed behind his yellow teeth. That horrific mutilation was the exact reason Blake had taken the brute into his personal service in the first place. He had shown the tongucless bastard some basic regards and a few skinfuls of fine wine late at night, and in return, he had secured a guard who would never betray his royal secrets to a living soul. Plus, the giant couldn’t even read or write, which provided a double layer of absolute security.
After his silent laughter subsided, Mutt went right back to gesticulating, his thick fingers darting through the air. Blake barked out three different guesses, but all of them turned out wrong.
Finally, Mutt sighed with frustration, pointed a thick finger directly toward the docked fleet, and slapped a flat hand over one of his own eyes to mimic a patch.
Blake’s smile instantly vanished. "A letter came from my brother?"
At long last, the mute giant nodded firmly.
"Is it sitting on my command table?"
Another heavy nod.
Without a greeting Blake shoved past the guard and ripped the tent flap aside, the warm afternoon light flooding into the dim interior of his quarters. He ignored the maps, the half-eaten trenchers of beef, and the gold trinkets scattered across the rugs, his eyes locking instantly onto a small, tightly rolled parchment resting dead in the center of his table. It was sealed with the dark, heavy wax of his brother’s personal ring.
He marched over, snatched up the scroll, and quickly tore it open with his thumb, completely ignoring the fragile edges.
There were no formal greetings, no royal titles, and no diplomatic fluff in it.
Inside, he read only two words. Two words written in his brother’s frantic hand, two words that would nonetheless instantly end this glorious eastern campaign at the absolute clasp of near-total victory.
They know.