The Executioner at the Gate
Sign on with a mercenary company, or head to a city and look for work. He didn't know yet which it would be, but it hardly mattered. He'd be starting flat broke all over again — and somehow, for some reason, his heart was pounding.
Johan realized he had been waiting a very long time for a moment like this. For over a decade he had lived like a dead mouse, holding his breath and waiting only for the day he could leave this cramped little fief behind. He was slipping away under cover of darkness instead of being seen off with any fanfare — but that didn't matter either.
More importantly — do I steal a horse or not?
The Eitz Fief was poor. Even packing off with an expensive set of gear was already pushing it; take a horse on top of that and he'd be crossing a serious line.
Besides, the stable was attached to the annex where the servants slept, right beside the manor. One wrong move and a startled whinny could wake the whole household.
Despite all of that, the horse tempted him.
Owning one made an enormous difference — and not merely because it was faster and more comfortable. A horse was itself a proof of status.
Your face, your skin, your accent, your bearing, your posture, the way you dressed — all of it announced what kind of person you were. However clever a serf might be, however determined, it was hard to imitate a noble; and the reverse held just as true.
If Johan rode a horse, half of the tedious complications in his life would simply evaporate. People would assume he was a knight on sight.
After agonizing over it, he made his decision.
I'm stealing it!
Overreach or not, it wasn't something he could bring himself to give up.
"?"
Johan, who had made up his mind and was opening the storeroom door to leave, froze. He'd heard something.
What was that?
Don't tell me someone inside the manor had woken up. That would make everything vastly more complicated...
It's coming from outside!
A faint sound drifting in from beyond the walls rather than from within the manor. When he caught a hoarse voice breaking into coarse laughter, Johan knew exactly who it was.
Sir Gesen Eitz had come home.
Damn it all. Just my luck...
Swearing under his breath, Johan wedged himself into a corner of the storeroom. One way or another, there was nothing for it now but to wait and pray he wasn't discovered.
"Wake the servants and have them bring something out. I'm starving."
Gesen had grown fat enough that flesh swallowed his muscle, but he was still a threatening knight. A heavy, buried strength radiated from the bulk hidden beneath his armor.
The slave attending at his heels bowed low and sprinted off toward the annex. A knight who had spent his whole life on battlefields, Gesen had a temperament to match — dawdle for even a moment instead of running, and you'd take a slap. And that was on a good day; on a bad one, you'd feel a studded club across your face.
"You've worked hard on your travels, Sir Gesen."
"Count Kisored will be sending word soon. I expect a most favorable answer."
When a few of his men hurried forward with their flattery, Gesen laughed with satisfaction. He knew it was flattery, but it didn't feel bad all the same.
"Count Kisored knows how to pick his men. There's fighting ahead of him as it is — where else would he find a knight like me so easily?"
"Well said, my lord!"
Gesen far preferred roaming from powerful noble to powerful noble, selling his sword, to governing his own tiny, worthless fief. Joining someone else's private war and taking a cut of the spoils was a far better bargain than growing wheat or raising pigs.
This trip had gone well enough. Count Kisored was already contemplating a war with a neighboring lord, and his face had gleamed with interest at the sight of Gesen's strength.
Whether in the Holy Empire or in the Kingdom of Erance to the west, it was the most ordinary thing in the world for lords to cross blades over a handspan of land. Places that didn't were the rare exception. And so knights like Gesen and the mercenaries below him were forever licking their lips.
"You've returned?"
"Aye — my lady!"
Gesen swept Lady Eitz up in his arms with a booming laugh. The thick reek of sweat and road dust rolled off him, but she didn't so much as blink.
"To think my wife would come out to greet me like this. I am a fortunate man."
In truth the party's thunderous arrival had been what woke her, but that detail didn't matter. Lady Eitz answered in her soft, silken voice.
"It's only what's natural. But my lord — we have a guest."
"A guest? Who?"
"Now, don't be startled. None other than Sir Karamap himself."
"Karamap? What in the world is that man doing here?"
Gesen's voice was distinctly sour. He had never had any dealings with Karamap, and had wanted none.
"I will explain the reason myself."
"!"
Perhaps the commotion had woken Karamap too — he came walking out through the front doors on the first floor. He must have been asleep moments before, and yet he was in full battle dress. Swathed head to toe in dwarven plate armor, the only thing visible was his cold face beneath the raised visor.
Without thinking, Gesen's hand drifted to the weapon at his belt. A man who had shattered the skulls of countless enemies could feel it plainly: Karamap had not come here to sightsee.
"What business brings you into my fief?"
"Gesen Eitz. For the crimes of conspiring with heretics to poison His Holy Imperial Majesty and raise a rebellion, you are under arrest."
"...What kind of nonsense is this!"
Gesen's shout was nearly a scream. He had never once heard such a charge. But Karamap's expression didn't change by a hair.
"When did I ever plot such a thing!"
"Offer your excuses to God, not to me."
"I demand a trial! I am a noble of the Holy Empire and master of House Eitz. You cannot decide this on the strength of a few worthless words!"
"Your request is granted. You will go to His Majesty's court and be tried there."
At Karamap's words, Gesen's face flooded with dread. Karamap was the Emperor's own hand — he would never act without certainty behind him. And if this was a trap, then even standing trial at court might offer no escape.
Gesen's mind raced through the powerful nobles he knew. It was time to run to them and beg — offering up even the pillars of his own estate if he had to.
But reality outran his expectations.
The instant his eyes met Karamap's cold gaze, Gesen understood. Karamap had no intention whatsoever of carrying him to any court.
"Ghk—!"
Gesen tore the weapon from his belt and swung it at Karamap. But Karamap's strike was many times faster. Gesen had been a knight, true — just not one who fought with a swift blade. His family's art was built on raw strength.
Amid battlefields swarming with men weaker than himself, that art had let him rampage like an invincible god. But Karamap was a knight many times stronger than Gesen.
Before he could even draw the weapon free, Gesen's head left his shoulders.
Blade-light flashed in the torchlight and blood sprayed wide. The sight was so absurdly unreal that the men standing behind Gesen simply could not process what had happened.
"KYAAAAAGH!"
It was Lady Eitz's scream that dragged them back to reality, ripping through the stillness of the quiet night and echoing in every direction.
Karamap lowered his visor to hide his face and spoke.
"Send the signal."
At the words, Karamap's mercenaries, who had been waiting behind the gate, came running out and began to sound a horn. Following on the heels of that scream, the trumpet's note carried a strange, creeping menace.
"You son of a bitch — how dare you!"
One of Gesen's men charged in a fury, driving his lance off horseback straight at Karamap. Karamap slipped aside almost lazily and raked the man's leg. Between a blade already famous for its edge and Karamap's skill behind it, the armor peeled away as if it were cloth.
With a heavy thud, the man hit the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, he rolled quickly to his feet and squared up — the picture of a seasoned warrior.
None of it saved his life. As Karamap closed the distance, the man jabbed his lance out in desperation. This time Karamap didn't even bother dodging. The point bounced off the armor with a dull clatter, utterly spent.
The moment the man came face to face with the armor he'd only ever heard stories about, despair washed over his features.
"Those mad dwarven bastards...!"
There was no ordinary way to punch through dwarven plate. The best you could hope for was to knock your opponent down and work a sharp point into the joints and gaps of his armor.
But how in God's name was anyone supposed to attempt that against Karamap?
"Just die already!"
A thrust at the face. Karamap closed the distance in a single bound of footwork, caught the lance shaft in one hand and shoved it aside, then swept his longsword across the man's throat with the other. Struck at the vital point, the man clutched his neck and collapsed.
"I surrender! I surrender!"
"Spare us, please!"
Realizing they were no match for Karamap, the remaining men of the party threw down their arms and begged for their lives — valiantly. Karamap swung his sword without so much as a blink.
"W-wa—"
Once, twice. With the unhurried motions of a butcher at the slaughterhouse, Karamap cut Gesen's men down to the last. The mercenaries behind him watched with eyes caught halfway between awe and terror.
"House Eitz has refused arrest and raised arms against me. Accordingly, this fief is subject to suppression."
"Yes, sir!"
He had killed Sir Gesen before the man was ever arrested — but the mercenaries had known exactly why they'd come, and not one of them batted an eye. Yein, who had arrived as Karamap's squire, calmly drew her weapon as well. She didn't fully understand the situation, but a squire follows when the knight commands. That was all.
"Surround the grounds. Leave no one of the bloodline alive."
Half-asleep members of House Eitz would be stumbling about inside the manor right now, baffled by the noise. Karamap's mercenaries drew their weapons and ringed the manor grounds, cutting off any escape before one could be attempted.
Karamap had come here for one reason: to erase House Eitz and deliver a warning to every disloyal noble in the realm.
And House Eitz's crime was a single one: they were an easy target.
Weak enough to be stepped on without effort. Without a single other noble house who might invoke their destruction as a grievance to be litigated. And yet, for all that, a house whose head slithered up to grand lords and meddled in their affairs at every opportunity.
A perfect sacrificial lamb.
"Wh-what is the meaning of this... God is watching! Sir Karamap! What — what is this outrage?!"
Blood-drenched, Lady Eitz screamed her protest. Karamap answered only with a flick of his eyes toward a mercenary. The man raised a crossbow and fired without a word. Lady Eitz dropped with a strangled gasp.
"Make certain she's dead."
"Yes, sir."
Licking his lips, the mercenary finished her off. She was a handsome woman, and on any other day he might have indulged himself — but she'd already earned Karamap's contempt, and pulling a stunt like that now could cost him his actual neck.
"The servants are bolting out of the annex."
"I'll take it. Watch the Eitz household closely. Let a single one slip through, and I will not forgive it."
Karamap turned and walked toward the annex where the servants were housed. The sturdy servants would run faster than these soft-bodied nobles of House Eitz — better to plug that breach himself.