He had done exactly as Pael ordered, and sent the bulk of the women and children south to O’Dakahn. Of course, he had handpicked the ones that he fancied, and imprisoned them at a wealthy nobleman’s mansion near the city’s edge. The Duke, or Lord, or Regent, or whatever title the man held, didn’t mind. His head was drawing crows on a pike in the house’s yard. Tonight, very soon in fact, out of sheer boredom, King Glendar was going to start terrorizing King Jarrek and his men from afar. It could be weeks before Pael came back to help him take the castle, and King Glendar figured to weaken their spirit while he waited.
The idea of his tent sitting just outside of the fortress’s outer walls gave him a sort of smug satisfaction. It showed a cocky lack of fear, or respect, for his enemies. Besides that, it made him feel superior. At first it had unnerved him. The idea that a horde of Redwolf soldiers could, at any moment, come storming out of those open gates had been overwhelming. Only after he had toured the area beyond the gates, with the smoldering buildings, body-strewn streets, and the clouds of carrion that attended them, did he realize that he had nothing to fear. He would have moved his pavilion in front of the secondary wall’s main gate, if doing so wouldn’t make it too hard for all those eyes way up in the castle to look down upon it. Where it was now, any who looked out toward the west were forced to see it. Glendar was about to decorate the area around his tent properly, so that all those peering eyes had something substantial to see when they gazed out.
“Out now!” he ordered the two women who were trembling and naked in his bed.
They rose quickly, and began searching for their clothes on the floor. “I said now!” he screamed, and shoved the mother out the tent flaps into the dirt, sniveling and bare-skinned. He gave the daughter a swift boot in the rear as she stopped to grab her mother’s dress. She went sprawling out behind her mother, her arms so full of bundled clothes, that she couldn’t stop herself from smacking into the ground. The mother, shamed and terrified, helped her daughter up. They huddled together right in the middle of the street, until a soldier from a group of Glendar’s attendants came hopping over to lead them back to their prison.
“Roark!” Glendar yelled through the closed flap of the tent.
The biggest, and meanest of the guardsmen turned and stepped into the tent. He quickly averted his eyes, while Glendar pulled his leggings up over his spindly white legs.
“Yes, your majesty?”
The big man had to stoop awkwardly, because the pavilion’s roof pressed down on the sharp horns of the helmet he sported. Glendar found it comical and chuckled.
“From now on Roark, remove your helmet before entering the tent.”
Glendar laughed again as the man fumbled the helm off like a scolded child.
“It’s a rule now. Tell the others.” Glendar voice turned serious, almost sharp. “I don’t want the canvas ripped by those fargin helmets.”
He looked around the room for something, then sighed heavily and continued.
“Send a handful of men over to where Lord Abel is holding the rest of the Wildermont City Guardsmen, and help escort them all here.”
He gestured through the tent wall towards the open gates outside.
“As you command,” Roark nodded. He bowed in his gold chased plate armor, as if the heavy steel weighed nothing on his frame, then spun, and exited the tent.
He froze three paces later, with this helmet held nearly in place over his head. King Glendar was calling out his name. He turned to go back inside, but Glendar stuck his sweaty grinning head out saving him the trouble.
“Have Captain Stimps bring some torches and the chopping block. Oh yeah, pikes, Roark. We’re going to need plenty of pikes.”
Chapter 35
King Glendar had expected a reaction over his gruesome display, but not so soon. The sun had long illuminated the sky, but hadn’t risen up over the mountains that cradled Castlemont quite yet. Glendar’s pavilion was deep in the morning shadow.
Glendar’s evening had been spent laboring. Now he was being ripped from a deep, deep well earned sleep. The kind of sleep a lumberjack might find after a day of felling trees, or a blacksmith, after swinging his hammer all day; or maybe like a young tyrant might earn after a night of piking men’s heads.
“Your majesty!” Roark yelled for the third time. This time, he pulled the silken sheets off of his king, and added a threat. “I’m going to yank you out of bed and carry you out of here! Get up and dress!”
“What is it man?” Glendar growled. “Didn’t last night’s display teach you better manners?”
Glendar held his hand up in front of his eyes to shield them from the brightness of Roark’s lantern. He was naked, save for his small clothes. To Roark, he looked like a bleached wood scarecrow, with a dark mess of a wig on his head.
“They’re riding out to break us!” the big guard said excitedly. “Captain Hinkle’s man said there are at least four thousand of them between horse and footmen. Maybe more!”
Suddenly, King Glendar was fully awake.
“What? Four thousand men?” King Jarrek couldn’t be foolish enough to send out the whole of his forces. Blast!
That’s more men than Glendar had left himself in the city. Panic tore through the young King. He had no idea what to do. He had sent the bulk of his forces through the mountains, just as Pael had instructed him to do. Pael! Where was Pael anyway?