Jack Frost: King of Thieves

CHAPTER XXVII: Fifty Dying Breaths

Sir Pitch walked quietly through the camp, stepping past smouldering cooking fires and small tents and sleeping men bundled in woollen blankets. Sinuous clouds of silver grey smoke drifted among the trees of the forest like wraiths. At the edge of the encampment, horses stomped and snorted, their breath steaming in the cold night air.

In one hand, Pitch carried a leather sack filled with wine that sloshed invitingly within. In the other, he held a lantern that appeared haloed in the fine mist.

They had come a good distance from Abita; as far as they needed to, though, of course, his men didn't know this. He knew that Drago and the others were nearby, that they were watching already, waiting.

Pitch approached the two sentries standing at the edge of the camp. They were young men; both of them looked cold and tired. They did their best to stand at attention as he approached, but they shifted from foot to foot, trying to keep warm.

"Sir," one of the men said as Pitch drew near.

He handed the man the sack of wine and smiled disarmingly. "Turn in for an hour," he said. "It's nearly dawn. I will keep the watch."

The two guards looked at the wine and then at their commander, gratitude written on their faces. They nodded their thanks and headed back into the centre of the camp, eager to be off their feet and to warm themselves with a bit of drink.

Pitch watched them go until they were out of sight. Then he continued deeper into the forest, away from the camp. After a time, he could no longer hear his men; the only sounds that reached him were the call of a distant owl and a wolf's howl. But he knew he wasn't alone. He halted, held up the lantern and covered its light, uncovered it, covered it again so that it flashed in the darkness. Lowering it again, he waited. It didn't take long.

Two hundred of them rode toward him, their armour and their horses dark so that they emerged from the forest shadows as if conjured by magic. Their mounts moved in near silence, their swords and pikes were tied down or wrapped in cloth so that they didn't rattle and clink. The hooves of their horses, he saw, had been covered in sacking. Like creatures of the night, they came forward and then halted before Pitch, regarding him with cool indifference. These were hard men, soldiers he would be pleased to command and call his own. They were capable and efficient. One needed only to look at them, to witness their approach, to understand this.

Thinking of the fifty men he had left at his camp, Pitch remembered what King Gaston had said to him back in Alsace-Lorraine. The Southern Isles under your friend Hans is a country with no fighting spirit. I can take Abita with an army of cooks.

The soldiers Hans had given him were useless— poorly trained, lazy, undisciplined. And these Alsace-Lorraine before him were hardly cooks.

Drago rode forward, separating himself from his force. Dismounting, he stood before Pitch and shook his hand. He was somewhat taller than Pitch, with dark hair and a matching beard, and he carried himself with the confidence of a commander who had led his men to victory time and again. He would make a formidable ally.

"Comment allez vous, mon ami?" he asked. How are you, my friend?

"They have drunk well," Pitch told him. "They sleep well, and they await you."

Drago nodded once and turned back to his men. He spoke his orders quietly and in Alsace-Lorraine, and the men in front passed the commands back along their lines, one man whispering to the next. They dismounted a soft murmur of leather and cloth and began to untie their weapons.

When they were ready, Pitch led them back toward the camp where his men slumbered, their bellies filled with wine, their weapons lying uselessly by their sides. Drago's men moved with such stealth that Pitch glanced back over his shoulder repeatedly to make sure they were still with him. They always were.

Reaching the edge of the encampment, he and Drago halted and waved fifty of the Alsace-Lorraine soldiers past them. Their swords in hand, the men spread through the camp, stepping over and around the sleeping Islsh. A few of the horses grew restless, but none of Pitch's men stirred. Within a few moments, fifty Alsace-Lorraine Legionnaires stood over fifty sleeping Southern Isles soldiers, their swords held over the men so that the tips hovered above their chests and necks and backs. The Alsace-Lorraine men kept their eyes fixed on Pitch, waiting for his command.

Pitch raised his hand, thumb pointed down and made a swift downward gesture.

As one, the legionnaires stabbed downward, the whisper of steel blending with soft grunts and the sudden exhalation of fifty dying breaths.

It occurred to Godfrey that he had never seen so many men killed so quietly. A formidable ally indeed.

He had followed from the beach, keeping at a safe distance, watching as the Alsace-Lorraine army wended its way through the Southern Isles countryside and into the forests outside of Abita. He had kept to the shadows as they crept through this wood, waited with them for the signal that summoned them toward the Southern Isles camp, and listened as Sir Pitch, the new king's most trusted man, greeted the Alsace-Lorraine commander as a friend.

And now, his fists clenched, his stomach knotting itself like wet rope, he had watched, helpless, horrified, as they slaughtered fifty Southern Isles soldiers in their sleep. He wanted to fight them, he wanted to run them through until his sword was stained crimson and dripped blood on the forest floor. Most of all, he wanted to squeeze the life out of the traitor Pitch with his bare hands.

Instead, he slipped away, making not a sound, and returned to where he had tethered his horse. The pigeon box was still tied behind his saddle. He had another message to send back to Abita.