The Crown of Treason

Chapter 2. Escape (part 1.)

Yserthorns men kept on fighting. Cornered and with their backs against the wall they kept on struggling tooth and nail. Blinding blood splashed in their eyes, bits by pieces their armour was torn from their bodies, wordless cries of death and ruin howled from punctured lungs. They cried for Pathos with the Burning Blood to stand by them. Pathos remained unmovable as if he couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the short-of-breath panic cries of dying pigs. Just a side note, I know Pathos in person, he isn't often moved by cries of this kind. When you're the god of war for long enough this stuff becomes rather routine. This small matter being mentioned, where Pathos wouldn't lift a finger, minstrels would always be ready to lift and pluck their fingers on a lute or a fiddle, singing about this kind of desperate courage.

Ergodix should know. Strumming their stories of a brave final stand, a gleeman could always score a fat purse with such stories at the warm hearths of the bored local landed nobility, their bellies full of meat and nourishment, sweet wine in their cups. Singers with fat bellies who never seen a battlefield up close loved to sing about warriors laden with wound being carried kicking and screaming to the Gloomy Halls by Mortigena with the Iron Fingers to live forever in the Fort of Bliss in the green hearth of the dark underworld.

Ewan detested these death songs. He had never seen a god, not in his world of luxury, nor on the battlefield.

This so-called valour the gleemen like to sing about was nothing but despair. I do not share Falclau's opinion, but I can respect it.

Surrounded and pressed against each other like sheep in a barn, without their pikes, or a battle line, Yserthorn's heroes fought with all they have left. Daggers, knives, pieces of their armour. They fought and fought for their lives, clawing at their foes when they had lost the last of their weapons. Some gods who want this kind of bravery... I have countless of those in my collection. Once every now and then I revive one of those to bring tears to the ladies, but I do know how to pick'em.

In any case, Ewan realised he no longer had a role to play in this slaughter. His lust for battle made way for ice cold sobriety. Careful not to risk life and limb any longer than was necessary, he freed himself from the fighting entanglement.
One after the other Iron Scraper fell to the sword. Adult men screeched like suckling pigs. Their blood splashed the silver-flaunting falcon on the shields of the victorious sergeants.

It was Keryll, master-at-arms, who settled the bout when he ran through the Iron Scraper's commander, punching through his chest plate.

'Impossible,' Ewan thought. 'That was a full steel plate.'

The warrior fell to his knees. A wordless cry hung on his lips. The end one of Yserthorn's career roosters in the Night of Blood and Torches.

A handful of survivors managed to flee into the night, followed on their heels by the house guard of Falclau.

'Let them run!' Ewan shouted. 'The battle is done.'

His men gave up the pursuit.

Ewan's naked hand caressed the mane of his nameless mount, stolen from the Raadhuis, stables of Schildenburg's town hall. The steed panted like a mill horse. Considering the fear of death it had just gone through, it had managed to hold together quite alright. The mount probably never seen bloodshed up close, let alone be part of it. The horse had the building of a steed but the look of a showpiece, a silver-grey skin with black manes and no sign of wounds or scratches, with a hide that looked like it was brushed daily.

Battleweary steeds were rare in Schildenburg's stables. A tested warhorse usually didn't stay long in the Crown Domain.

With long-running campaigns in Borgia and upheaval in the Southern Provinces experienced mounts were priced at a premium.