Fulfilling Duty

When Reiner and Erich returned to the temple garden they found the others gathered around Barrister, whom Ulf had laid out on a stone bench. Gustaf had removed his breastplate and backplate and was kneeling beside him as he loosened the buckles of the blood-soaked jerkin.

"What was it?" asked Franz as he looked up at Reiner.

"A terrible beast has killed all the horses," said Erich. "Fortunately, Lady Roselyn has escaped unharmed with the standard."

"O". Reiner interjected dryly. "Lady Roselyn has killed all the horses with some evil spell so that we cannot follow her, and she has escaped with the banner."

Erich shot him a fierce look.

"Are you out of your mind? Whatever killed the horses has butchered them. Lady Roselyn can't have done that she is an honest priestess."

"Don't be so sure," said Gustaf. "Look at this." He opened Barrister's jerkin to reveal the chest. The men hissed in surprise. A shudder of superstition shook Reiner's body because, although Barrister's breastplate and backplate had not a dent or scratch and his jerkin was intact, on the man's chest was a deep, gangrene-like wound whose rot ate through the skin and seemed to reach to the bone, destroying all his internal organs. It looked as if a barrel of acid had been dumped on him. The wound bubbled with Barrister's every shuddering breath. Franz choked and looked away.

"You can't be suggesting that Lady Roselyn did this," Erich objected as Gustaf began to determine the extent of the injuries. "She barely even touched him. This looks like the work of a... Lich or a..."

"A Necromancer!" interjected Hals with superstitious dread. "The evil reanimators of the dead, capable of destroying all life at a single touch."

"Yes." Erich nodded. "A Necromancer." But next he exclaimed, "No! If you are suggesting..."

Reiner raised an eyebrow looking at Hals.

"That she killed the horses and felled the captain with an unnatural power conferred by dark magic? I would believe that before anything else."

Erich's face was reddening.

"And... if he did, can you hold it against him? Barrister turned on her. You all did it. You had sworn to bring her here, protect her, and return to the baron with her and the banner, and instead, as soon as she found what we came for, you, a motley collection of peasants and gallows fodder, decide you know more about clerical matters than an honest priestess. You doubt her word and then, when Barrister lays his hands on her, you jump to her defense? No. You..."

A liquid gasp brought everyone's attention to Barrister. With a tremendous fit of coughing that showered Gustaf's knees with drops of blood, the captain's eyes widened. He looked at them all without any sign of recognition, then shifted his gaze to his chest. His eyes lost the vague expression.

"Damn that woman. And damn Ulburt too for listening to the..." Reiner knelt down beside him.

"What are you trying to say, Captain?"

Barrister turned glassy eyes toward him. She seemed to look at him from a distant shore.

"The duke... Herlmann. Tell him his brother..." He coughed again spraying Reiner with red drops, then struggled to utter another word. "Tra... tra... tra... treason!" Blood gushed from his mouth like a fountain. His head descended to touch the marble bench, but his eyes did not close.

The men stared at him for a long moment, as if unable to understand what they saw. Pavel and Hals made the sign of the triumvirate, making a gesture of a cross and holding their hands to their hearts. Only Gustaf seemed impassive as he cleaned and put away his knives, like a scribe tidying his desk at the end of the day.

At last, Ulf broke the silence.

"What now?" he asked.

Everyone exchanged wary glances. It was a simple question, but a difficult one to answer.What were they going to do?

More importantly, Reiner wondered, what would he do? What would suit him best?

Which course of action was most likely to ensure that his skin remained intact? Should he return alongside Ulburt? Should he obey Barrister's last order and seek out Ulburt's brother, the duke? Should he try to catch up with Lady Roselyn and stop her? Should he go it alone or stay with his new companions?

"We must do our duty, of course," said Erich. "We must do all we can to catch up with Lady Roselyn and escort her safely back to Baron Ulburt, as we were ordered to do."

"You have lost your reason, knight," replied Hals. "It would finish us in the twinkling of an eye. The captain is dead. She has his precious standard. I would say our work is done and nothing but the hangman's noose awaits us when we return. I propose that we go our separate ways and worry about ourselves."

Among the others there was much shaking of heads and grunts of assent.

"Sounds good to me," declared Gustaf. But Erich was not going to accept it.

"You leave your duty so easily? You swore an oath to see the mission through to the end. You cannot go away and leave it half done."

Hals took off his right glove and showed Erich the mark, still red, on the back of it.

"I took no oath. I submitted to blackmail, that's all. I'm leaving." He turned to look at Pavel. "What do you think, big boy, the Theocracy? I hear tell they pay good pikemen well, they always need more soldiers for the great wall."

"Seems as good a place as any," replied Pavel.

"It's summer in the Republic" commented Giano gloomily.

"They'll never find me in the Empire" muttered Gustaf to himself.

"I have relatives in Transylvania" said Ulf. "Somewhere."

Reiner shook his head as he finally came to a decision. "You're making a mistake, boys. I think we'll do better if we stick together."

"Or, rather, I'll be better off if you all protect me." Reiner thought to himself. The others turned to look at him. Erich smiled with a vain expression.

"You've come to your senses, haven't you, Reiner?"

"This is wild territory." Reiner continued without paying any attention to him. "Everywhere there are barbarians, wild beasts, unnatural things. I don't feel like dealing with that alone. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't last a night. Until we've returned to civilized lands, I think we need each other."

"Makes sense." Hals nodded.

"As for which direction we will go," Reiner continued. "Is another matter. I am inclined to think that Captain Barrister was right in thinking that the banner is contaminated. I think..."

"You have no proof of that." Erich interrupted him. Reiner paid him not the slightest heed.

"Whether Lady Roselyn knew about it before we found it or not, she certainly didn't think twice about using it as soon as she learned of its true nature." He scratched his head. "The important question is what will he do with the baron once she hands him over to her. Will he burn him as any man in his right mind would, or will he allow himself to be persuaded by her to use him to further his ambitions?"

"What makes you think she will take the banner to him?" asked Franz. "She could head straight north and hand it over to some demon-worshipping chieftain."

Reiner shook his head

"That woman is loyal to no one. She worships no one but herself. I saw it in her eyes. She desires power in the domains of men, not in some immortal world. Did you not see Ulburt with her when we began this journey? The way he looked at her. He may command his army with an iron fist, but she commands him with her little finger. Whatever his ambitions may be, you may be sure that they were hers first, and I conjecture that Lady Roselyn's ambition is to be Baron Ulburt's wife, and for Baron Ulburt to become Duke Ulburt Franzen, and that she intends to use the banner to achieve all that."

Ulf furrowed his brow.

"But Ulburt's older brother is already the duke... Ah, ah, I see."

"That is mere conjecture." Erich protested. "You are making assumptions. Even if Lady Roselyn intended to use the banner for some unjust purpose, which I do not for a second suggest is true, you have no proof that Baron Ulburt's intentions are malicious in the least."

"Oh, no?" asked Reiner. "Then answer this: if this banner is so important and he wants to use it in defense of the Kingdom, why didn't Ulburt send a battalion of soldiers and a squad of knights to accompany Lady Roselyn here? Why didn't he send men equipped with magical weapons, instead of a tiny group of convict men?" Reiner smirked. "Because she didn't want anyone to know what she was up to. Because he intends to assassinate us all when we have finished the mission in order to guarantee our silence."

"You speak like a traitor, sir," Erich said.

"But I am right." Replied Reiner, who sighed and rubbed his eyes. "My fear is that if Baron Ulburt and the Lady Roselyn suspect we are alive and we know what they intend to do it will not matter how far we flee or where we hide. They will hunt us down and kill us wherever we go. And with the mark of the X on our hand, we will be much easier to find. We will never be safe."

"We still have Theocracy left." Hals said. "As I said before. And The Republic, and Transylvania. Unlike the Empire or the Kingdom, the X mark means nothing there."

"Yes," nodded Reiner. "That's true, but how long before you get homesick? Before you get homesick for Eastland beer and Bergland sausages? How long, before you long to hear your mother's voice?"

"All that we have already lost," replied Hals bitterly. "We are marked men."

"Perhaps not." Reiner contradicted him. "I can only see one way we can come out of this with our skin intact and perhaps even earn the reward we were promised."

Hearing this, Giano turned his full attention.

"And how?"

Reiner shrugged.

"Obey the captain's last order and warn Duke Herlmann of his brother's intrigue."

At this there was a murmur of approval, but Hals burst out laughing.

"And what makes you think that Duke Herlmann is going to believe the word of a bunch of murderers and deserters any more, for you know that is what they all say about us, than that of his brother and a revered priestess? What if he has us killed, or throws us back into the dungeon?"

The others nodded and looked at Reiner.

"Yes." Sighed the latter. "It is a possibility, and I have no answer for it, but there must be an honorable nobleman in the Kingdom."

"You would know better than us, my lord," Pavel scoffed.

"It is a risk, I grant you, but what choice do we have left? Do you want to spend the rest of your lives in foreign lands? Or leading the life of an outlaw here, hiding your hands and sneaking from place to place with the law of the Realm always sniffing at your heels like a bloodhound? Do you want to never return home? I say Herlmann is the best of a lot of bad alternatives."

"Not to mention that it would be doing the right thing," said Franz.

Reiner smirked, Hals and Pavel burst out laughing, and Giano chuckled.

Hals wiped his eyes.

"Oh, boy, you make us all embarrassed. Reiner looked at his companions."

"So we've decided, shall we go find Herlmann?"

The men responded with a "yes" or a grunt of assent, but Erich, who had remained standing with his arms folded on the periphery of the circle, took the floor.

"No, we haven't decided." He said. "You have a silver tongue, Reiner, but I am not convinced. To do the right thing..." he shot Franz a fierce look "would be to obey the orders Baron Ulburt gave us and conclude the mission. And as senior officer now that Barrister is dead, that is exactly what I am ordering you to do."

Pavel and Hals laughed again, and the rest gave the spearman a fierce mutinous look. Reiner sighed. Everything would be so much better without that parade-parade pisaverde messing things up, but he was the best swordsman of them all, and if Reiner wanted to get back to civilization, he would need to have as many swords with him as possible.

"Kingdom authority doesn't make much sense in a place so far away from Crownheim, capital of the realm. We could kill you here and now and no one would ever know, but if you want to bring up rank, I'm not too sure you'd outrank mine."

"I'm a novice knight!" protested Erich as he stood upright.

"In other words, a Squire." Reiner replied, slurring the word. "Doesn't that mean you shine the boots and pour the beer?"

The men let out a laugh. Erich was reddening.

"I was going to get my commission after the first battle!"

Reiner looked at him with mockingly dumbfounded expression.

"So you haven't bloodied your spear yet? And you want to command us? Boys, my father may not have had the money to buy me a position within an order of knights, but at least I've gone into battle."

Erich mumbled something, but it was a fact he could not answer. Reiner shrugged.

"I would prefer that we had no chief at all. We're all veterans..., most of us, anyway. Why don't we decide by vote? All those who want to go back to the baron, step to the left, and all those who want to go in search of his brother, the duke, and put him on notice, step to the right."

"By vote?" bellowed Erich before anyone could move. "In the army one does not vote. One does what one's commander orders. This is not the imperial dinner." He glared at Reiner fiercely. "If you intend to mock my authority like this, we will decide who has command in the proper manner. We will settle the matter on the field of honor."

And having said this, he took off his left glove and threw it at Reiner's feet.

"I challenge you to a Duel."