Five Bloody Heads (The Hounds of the North Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Free Book Offer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  Free Book Offer

  FIVE BLOODY HEADS

  Peter Fugazzotto

  Copyright © 2015 Peter Fugazzotto

  All rights reserved.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  DROPLETS OF BLOOD sparkled in the stubble of Spear Spyrchylde’s beard.

  “I’ve had enough of your lies!” Spear screamed.

  He grabbed the farmer by the wrist, all tendon and bone, a man who swung a hoe rather than an axe, and jerked him from the outstretched hands of his family. Behind them, the untamed lands of the border – the swampy earth, the black pines, the distant peaks – lay cloaked in the heavy morning mist.

  The farmer, his lip split from Spear’s fist, stumbled towards his wagon before regaining his feet. The knees of his threadbare trousers were sticky with the brown mud of the road. Blood stained his tunic. The middle-aged man was a Northman too, but unlike Spear he wore no sword on his belt, only a knife. Good for cutting brush and twine but useless for a fight. This farmer represented the new beaten-down North that Spear despised. Nothing like the old days.

  Spear kicked the smaller man’s feet from beneath him, and as soon as the farmer hit the ground, Spear leveled the tip of his sword in front of the his eyes.

  “Tell me where it is.”

  The man, the ends of his pale beard and braids coated in mud, touched the blade with his fingertips futilely trying to push the sharp metal aside. The edges of his eyes were weathered with wrinkles. Behind him, the donkey that pulled the wagon brayed as if impatient with all this. “I’m…I’m a clan brother,” said the farmer. “You…You and I…oh please, we’re cut from the same cloth. N-Northmen. Why…Why are you d-doing this?”

  “Is that not obvious?” Spear swept his sword back towards the road where his seven armed men and women hurled sacks from the wagon, shook out the blankets and furs, and herded the three children and wife towards the side of the road. “I want coin! So where is it?”

  “We are s-simple pilgrims. P-Poor farmers. Please…we have left our worldly possessions behind to take to the road. To see She Who Has Risen.”

  Spear touched the tip of his blade to the man’s throat. Even his beard was weak. Sparse, thin, unbraided. Had this man ever earned the scars of his clan? How easy it would be to plunge cold metal through that soft flesh. “I’m no fool,” hissed Spear. “Pilgrims still need coin. You need food and lodging.”

  “She will see to our needs. We carry all the food we require. Grain, meat, salt. We have no need for coin on this journey.”

  “You lie!” Spear cocked his sword at his shoulder and made as if to swing at the farmer. The man flinched too easily. “Others have trespassed into my fields and we have taken their coin. Payment. I know the witch demands offerings. A price to soothe your souls and fill your heads with promises of a future that erases the past. She wants coin. And so do I. So where’s the coin?”

  The farmer’s wife huddled her children to her skirts. She took one step towards Spear and wagged a finger. “We were warned about men like you, robbers along the road. Northmen who have turned against their own. Outlaws infesting the borderlands.”

  Her voice screeched like stone against metal. It was all Spear could do not to charge over and cuff her across the mouth. Instead, he glowered at the farmer.

  “Think I won’t get it out of you?” Before the farmer could answer, Spear swatted the flat of his blade against the man’s cheek. The pilgrim’s skin split, the pale flesh opening before a sudden sheeting of blood.

  The family screamed. Even the donkey let loose a strangled cry. All but the girl, a waif, her wrists thin like the bones of birds. She was dressed in furs and woolen cloth, leather sandals exposing her grimy feet, and not a single copper bracelet or silver necklace adorning her. Her hair, unlike that of the others, was dark like a crow. The girl did not scream. Instead, she stared at Spear with narrowed eyes. He could see that she had the cold heart of a Northerner of old and would plunge a dagger in his breast given the opportunity. He almost wished that she would.

  Spear charged over to the cowering family.

  “Where’s the coin!” Spear screamed into the face of the farmer’s trembling boy. “I’ll kill your father.”

  Spear could imagine the terror that the boy felt. Moments before, their simple family had been rolling along on their cart, led in a silly children’s song by their ruddy-cheeked mother. Their father, weak bearded, had strolled alongside the gangly donkey, a freshly cut switch in his hand, a blade of grass bobbing between his lips. The road they followed was a nearly straight, muddy furrow through a wide valley of green. They walked the path of pilgrims from the clan lands of the North crossing through the borderlands to reach the savior, a witch of all things, in the lands to the east. Spear could imagine the wondrous lies that had filled their ears. Nothing could drag the North out of its wretchedness.

  Spear and his bandits shattered their peace. They had burst out of the shadows of the forest, their heavy feet tearing up clods of earth, eight men and women bent in a sprint, faces painted in woad and vitrum, iron-headed spears and weathered shields raised as they charged through the morning mists. Only the donkey had attempted to run but the weight of the wagon held him in place.

  Now the worst of the bandits – scarred and towering – had blooded their father.

  Spear was large even for a Northman, wide of chest behind a pilfered Dhurman leather vest, his thighs bulging beneath dark, stained woolen trousers. Where the other bandits grew their beards long and braided, Spear kept his head and face shorn to a ragged stubble that highlighted the thick old scars that cut across cheek and lip. Beneath his brooding brow, pale eyes reflected a lifetime of murder.

  Spear bellowed again.

 
The front of the boy’s trousers stained suddenly. The swaddled babe left by itself near the foot of the wagon wailed even louder, small pink fists thrashing in the air. The dark-haired girl’s eyes only narrowed further.

  Spear strode over to where Longbeard kept the wife occupied; she swatted at his callused hands each time he tried to reach beneath her skirts. Growling a curse, Spear elbowed his man aside and caught the farmer’s wife by the throat. Her red-rimmed eyes widened in horror. “You’ll watch her die. But before that…”

  The farmer tried to pull himself out of the muck. “We have nothing. Have mercy.”

  “Where’s my coin?”

  “P-Please,” said the farmer.

  “Clear the back of the cart,” Spear said to his crew as he drove the woman backwards on her toes. Longbeard, with his well-combed and oiled beard, tracked close to Spear, his breath heavy and rank at his ear. The young Northman was always the first to lay his hands on the women. Spear shoved him away.

  “In…in the swaddle.” The farmer showed his palms. “The c-coin is in the swaddle. Let her go.”

  Spear tossed the woman to the ground and he angled his head at Seana, holding that damned painted shield. She did not move. She stood apart from the press of bandits, her lips tight, as if she wanted nothing to do with what they were. It was the same look she had been giving Spear for the last several weeks, the same look when she backed out of his embraces and laid down her bedroll far from his. Spear choked back a grunt.

  “Kiara,” he said to other female bandit in the crew and the flame-haired woman bent to the babe. Her fingers alternated between unwrapping the swaddle and tickling the child’s plump neck. Then her hand was free, a small leather bag dangling. She tossed it to her chief.

  Spear tore open the bag and dumped its contents into his palm. A dozen bronze pieces and a handful of coppers. All stamped with the face of the Dhurman Emperor, the man whose armies conquered the North. Spear’s stomach dropped. Barely enough to buy a new pair of boots and a single chicken. The coins were greasy, smudged with grime.

  “That’s it? You risk the life of your family for a handful of dirty coins? Where’s the rest? Where’s your offering to the witch? Where you hiding it?”

  The farmer dragged himself through the mud until his hands found Spear’s worn boots. His blood dripped steadily on the cracked leather. “That’s all we have. Mercy on us. Mercy on a clan brother. Leave us be.”

  “We’ve gotta get something out of this,” said Longbeard, his oiled beard shining. “Give us something!” He grabbed the mother and began pushing her towards the back of the cart.

  The other bandits waited for Spear’s word, fists around swords and spears, eyes to their leader. But he had nothing for them.

  Spear kicked the farmer’s grasping hands away and chased after him with sharp kicks in his ribs until he curled into a ball. The mother broke free of Longbeard and ran to her husband’s side but, before she could reach him, Spear backhanded her. The blow sent her sprawling.

  Suddenly, Longbeard stood apart from the others, wide legged, the swaddling babe held over head in two hands. “Give us the coin or I’ll dash your baby to the ground!”

  The little thing screamed, fists pounding at the dark sky. The mother crawled along the ground, weeping. Her dress trailed in the mud.

  “I’ll do it! I will!”

  “Put the babe down, you idiot,” demanded Spear. He pushed his sword into Longbeard’s vest, the tip beginning to pierce the old cracked leather.

  “They lie.”

  “Hiding a few more grubby coins? You’d kill a babe over that?” He pressed the blade further. Blood dripped down the leather

  “Whose side are you on?” screamed Longbeard.

  “I’ve killed men for less.”

  Longbeard bared his teeth and took a step back before lowering the babe to the ground.

  Kiara quickly took the babe into her arms and retreated from the circle of bandits.

  “So now what?” said Longbeard.

  They stared at him: the family, sneering Longbeard, Seana with tears in her eyes, the others with their swords and spears at the ready. The words stuck unformed behind Spear’s lips, and the unspoken gathered and boiled, rising into searing heat in his head.

  Then the donkey started in: braying, thumping its hooves into the mud, making an unbearable racket as if it were laughing. Laughing.

  Spear’s fury boiled out. He clutched his sword in both hands and swung the blade in an upward arc. It cut through the donkey’s throat. Rather than falling to its knees, the donkey tottered, still braying its bubbling laughter. It lifted its head to the heavens. Blood sprayed. Spear would end its misery. He lifted his sword overhead. Before he could drop the blade, however, the beast toppled.

  Gore dripped from Spear’s hands and face, and it was not a cleansing blood; it was coppery, sticky, too warm. His breath raced: a low growl seeped from between his lips.

  Even the dark-haired girl trembled now.

  Spear finally found his words. He refused to look at any of the others, followers or prey, all frozen with fear but stared past them to where the edges of the world disintegrated into the mists. “Sons of bitches! Was it worth it? Was it? All this blood? Just for a handful of dirty coins?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  SQUATTING AT THE edge of the trees, Cruhund wanted to spit the blood out of his mouth. But he did not dare; not with Big Haran perched behind him, like a wolf at his heels.

  Cruhund focused on the activity at the bottom of the grassy slope. Through the morning mist, the Dhurman soldiers milled about their camp: breaking down tents, scrubbing pots, adjusting the tack on their horses. Cruhund and his two dozen mercenaries had kept to the cover of the trees without the warmth of a fire for the entire night, waiting for the moment when the mists were the thickest.

  Cruhund swallowed the bloody saliva.

  His goddamned rotten teeth and bleeding gums. Big Haran saw it as weakness and if there was anything Cruhund needed to do, it was to not show weakness.

  In his fists, he clutched a two-handed sword, a looted blade he called the Spine Cleaver. A weapon that had tasted the blood of his own men, those who had questioned him or moved too slowly. But more importantly a blade that filled their palms with bronze and silver coins and delivered on the promises of the upstart warlord.

  Spines would be cleaved. The Dhurman patrol would be lost forever in the border lands, bodies sunk in the bogs, no one ever knowing what happened to them.

  Cruhund turned to his crew – grizzled, veterans still wearing their Dhurman leathers, bearded Northmen – and raised a fist. “Shove steel down their throats. Make them regret the Emperor exiling his best soldiers. Save the horses and the warlock. I need him.”

  “To fix his teeth,” Fjyrn whispered. His cousin Big Haran shot him a dark look.

  Cruhund would deal with his insubordination later. Right now, he needed to spill blood.

  “Silent as wolves on the hunt,” said Cruhund. With those words, the big Northman slipped out of the trees and down the slope.

  The ground, mucky from the near constant rain of the lingering winter, yielded beneath his feet. Tall grasses licked wetly across his thighs, soaking through the cracks in his leather boots and wool trousers. Despite his admonition for silence, his men’s heavy breathing and panting gathered behind him, signs of the effort of their mad lope to cover the ground between the forest wall and the camp in the meadow below.

  They were equally matched in numbers, Cruhund’s crew and the Dhurman patrol, but he believed the murderous intent of his men would carry the morning. Especially with the prize of the horses hanging before them. The horses would swell their bloodlust. Aside from the promise of the horses, Cruhund had only made his decision to attack the patrol when he saw that a warlock rode among them, a warlock who by all rights should be able to sing a cure. Cruhund would drag the white-robed fiend back to the keep. If his song did not heal Yriel, his head would stare out from the walls.

>   Cruhund was less than a dozen yards away when one of the Dhurmans glanced up from scraping a cast iron pot and gave a cry of warning. The big Northman responded with a ululating howl and his men echoed and whooped behind him, swords banging their shields as they covered the last few strides.

  Cruhund was the first to break into the camp and his sword Spine Cleaver was the first to taste Dhurman blood. The Dhurman had tossed the pot aside and even had time to draw his sword. With Spine Cleaver held in both hands, Cruhund swatted away the Dhurman’s raised sword as if the man were a child. With the blade cleared, Cruhund reversed the arc of his swing and cut a clean line across the olive-skinned man’s throat. The curled ends of his wiry beard vanished into the mist.

  Then the Dhurmans swarmed and the Northern mercenaries burst into the camp. Swords sparked where they hit. Wooden shields screamed as they were split. Warm blood sprayed across Cruhund’s face. The smell of shit and piss rose.

  He dodged and swung and stumbled and slashed. The shouts and grunts of those around him faded to a buzz and all he could hear was the hollow rasp of his own breath. The blood from his rotten teeth and swollen gums seeped out of the edge of his mouth, stringing into his pale beard.

  Cruhund knocked swords out of hands, dented helms into temples, and scattered fingers to the muddy trampled soil. One of the tents had caught fire and white smoke twisted skyward. Black shapes danced in the grasses just beyond the fighting, crows that had appeared out of nowhere, their black feathers glistening with the heavy morning mists.

  Then out of the chaos, a single Dhurman soldier separated from the others. Unlike his companions, he wore a chest plate of shiny copper scales. In his thick arms he leveled a spear, the tip narrowing to a piercing point. This one had seen battle before. His scars were a testament to a man who ventured to the edge of the death and had come back stronger. The spearman came for Cruhund.

  Cruhund’s size alone deterred most. He towered, a head taller than even Big Haran. His meaty hands crushed bones and could palm a man’s head. Beneath a heavy brow his eyes sunk into his skull, an icy blue trapped in shadow. Both his long pale hair that hung in a braid beneath his battered iron helmet and his stained dark wool pants gave way his Northern clan heritage. Across his wide chest, he wore a battered black leather chest piece of Dhurman origin. The outline of a wolf had been roughly stitched in.