Death After Death

Over the next few days, Simon turned his dejected farmers into something closer to fighting men. Their abilities were entirely inferior to the fighting force he’d built to fight the centaurs, but so too was his opponent, which was good because Simon needed the practice.

“We don’t want to fight; we just want our land back” was a popular refrain, but Simon ignored it after the first ten times. He’d run out of patience for explaining why no one was going to do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do.

“If you want to leave, that’s your right,” he would answer dismissively if he even answered at all.

No one left, though he attributed that more to fear and cowardice than men who wanted to fight for what was theirs, at least at first. Most of them knew how to use bows, though, and a couple of the farmers were even halfway decent at fletching new arrows, which was the skill that really came in handy because, after a few encounters on open ground, he steadily went the way of Robinhood.

He didn’t fight with a bow, of course. He stuck to his sword practice whenever he could, but once the hornets' nest was riled up, small patrols were darting here and there in an effort to protect the Lord of the land from his own mistakes.

Simon used each of these as an opportunity for his men to practice their ambush techniques. If a dozen men could all loose at once, there was no reason they couldn’t take out half that number, whether they were on horse or foot. Still, try as they might, they disappointed him on that front.

“It’s okay,” Simon assured them after survivors would ride free and escape or once he’d finished cutting down the last of the wounded. “Rebellion 101 is just taking a little longer than we thought it would.”

In the end, though, Simon decided that his chosen side quest was probably hopeless. That didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying it, of course. Once they’d started fighting back, they were widely regarded as heroes by the other local villagers. Simon’s little band of merry men even started to get a few new recruits in time.

They didn’t know just how poorly their local heroes were doing in most engagements, of course, but they didn’t have to. Simon certainly didn’t tell anyone. He just drank his beer and did his part to spread the legend of Ennis the Bold, which is what they’d taken to calling the imagined leader of the little rebellion. Simon absolutely refused to let the man give credit to anyone else.

“You’re the symbol,” he’d insisted, “These people will need a leader, especially once the Viscount is gone.”

“You’ve seen us in the thick of it,” the old farmer said with a laugh. “The wicked little man is going nowhere.”

“Oh, he’s going, and soon,” Simon promised. “I have places to be, but I’ll stay here until you’re out from under the thumb of tyranny. Whatever happens then is on you.”

With every disappointing engagement, they whittled down the Lord’s men, and with every battle, Simon shook a little more of the rust off. After a month of fighting skirmishes and tending to the wounded, he actually felt like he was getting to where he needed to be, or at least he was back on the road there.

Just because all of his men lived didn’t mean that all of his enemies died. Even after they stopped escaping, there were survivors that they didn’t just murder outright. Instead, Simon interrogated them and let those who cooperated best go with the terrible messages for their liege.

Those interrogations told him that this couldn’t last too much longer anyway. The Viscount had started with less than fifty good men, and they’d already cut down half of them. The man’s patrols had even started to thin out as he cowered in his hall and waited for the farmer’s rebellion to come for him.

“It’s not even a proper fortress,” Simon said with a sigh as he looked at it for the first time. “It’s just a big house.”

“The Viscount said that Bracken Hall is impenetrable,” one man volunteered.

“I’ve seen few buildings more penitrable in my time,” Simon said with a laugh.

“Well, even if someone were to take it, he could fall back to that tower there and wait it out,” another man said, pointing. “The walls are stone and stout. A few archers could hold off an army until it lost interest.”

“That’s closer to true,” Simon agreed as he studied the thing that he’d first thought was a watchtower. He could probably implode it with a single word of earth or ruin, but that was hardly a conventional siege tactic.

The longer he studied it, the more he decided that he had a better way. They didn’t move on the manor the following morning, though. Instead, they played with the man for a few more nights to try to deplete his guards that much further. Then, once they had an appropriate prisoner, Simon finally revealed the endgame to everyone else.

. . .

On the night that Simon rode to Bracken hall, he rode with one hooded man in tow, who he swore up and down was the leader of the fearsome resistance, Ennis himself. It wasn’t Ennis, of course; it was just a captured guard with a passing resemblance, but the men at the door didn’t need to know that. Simon had bound him well and swore, “I’ve come for my reward and will not be cheated out of it. I will only deliver this man to the Viscount himself!”

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The guards at the door tried to dissuade him, and once, he almost had to draw his blade, but eventually, he was allowed to proceed and present his prisoner, though they forced him to disarm first. 𐍂ÄɴổBЁᶊ

Simon took his time as they went inside. The man’s home might not have been a grand castle, but it was certainly well-appointed, and the smells of dinner drifted down to him, even from the entryway. He took his time appreciating the finely made furniture and the trophies and weapons of ages past. He saw nothing obviously magical, but now that he had a better eye for such things, he vowed to make a second pass through on his way out the door and see if there were any upgrades.

In the main hall, he found what he’d expected, a small family around a large table, completely outnumbered by their own guards. The size of the man at the head of the table made it clear to Simon that he wasn’t a fighter, but some part of him still hoped for a good duel.

“Do these people ever realize that once they need so many guards, they’ve already lost?” Simon asked the guard who was escorting them in, but his only response was to look at Simon strangely.

“State your name and your business, and present yourself to the Lord Bracken,” the guard demanded loudly, stopping just inside the door and far from the table.

Simon responded by yanking on the leash and pulling his prisoner forward into the room where everyone could see him clearly. “Who I am is unimportant,” Simon said. “Just as this man is. Not in the sense that all of us are unimportant, of course, but just in the sense that he’s not the person leading your little tax rebellion. For better or worse, that man is the Viscount himself. You could kill my prisoner right now, and it would solve nothing.”

“Nothing? What nonsense is it that you’re saying?” the Viscount demanded as he stood, visibly annoyed. “Did you bring me the leader of this rabble or not? Either he dies, or you do, but both of you aren’t leaving this room alive.”

“Kill him you like,” Simon answered, as he stepped forward and stole a bite of bread off the nearest guest’s plate, “But hospitality laws being what they are, I don’t think you should casually threaten those that you’ve invited into your home and allowed to dine at your table. The Gods take a dim view of those sorts of people.”

The man looked even more incensed as he strode over to Simon and drew his sword. The other guards drew their weapons as well but backed off a bit to leave their weaselly-looking master room to work.

The man thrust his sword right through the prisoner without even looking at his face. “This is what happens to those who oppose me,” he said with a sneer as he looked at Simon, but Simon didn’t even flinch.

Instead, he removed the man’s hood and shrugged. “Killing your own guards probably isn’t the smartest move, either. You keep it up, and soon, no one will be loyal to you at all.”

The noble looked completely unconcerned, but Simon could see the recognition and the revulsion on the faces of all the other armed men as his false Ennis fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. It was one thing to understand that you were poorly paid and disposable. It was another to see it.

“Why would you bring one of my…” the noble asked in confusion before a spark of recognition crossed his face.“You’re one of them!”

“I am,” Simon agreed, elbowing the man in the face as the noble tried to pull his blade free from the dying man before taking it for himself. The blow was light, but it still sent the blustering bully sprawling. “And right now, your home is surrounded by dozens of rebels. There’s no escape for anyone here!”

It was a lie, of course, but it was a useful one, and the armed guards looked to each other uncertainly. A moment ago, they’d all been about to rush Simon. Now, they were less sure. When Lord Bracken bolted from Simon like a coward, that uncertainty only grew.

“Oh, come on,” Simon sighed. “I come into your place of power looking for a good fight, and you do this? Even Varten would fight me, and he’s the worst person I’ve ever met!”

For a moment, Simon allowed himself to hope that the Viscount was running to get a new weapon. However, when he seemed content to cower behind the two closest guards, Simon just shook his head in disbelief.

“Are you two going to defend him? Or do you just want to walk away?” Simon asked, trying to be sporting.

The first man glanced back at the noble and said, ”He’s my Lord, and you’re just mercenary scum. Who do you think I’m siding with.” The second man wasn’t nearly so bold and just nodded in agreement with the first.

Simon shrugged again, then took both of them out in seconds. He used a vicious, showy thrust to get them off balance, and then he used the half-hearted feint of the quiet man to shield himself from the more serious attack of the first man. These two weren’t used to fighting together, which was fortunate because they would never do it again.

Simon’s second slash caught the bolder guard just above his breastplate at the base of his throat. Then, once he was bleeding instead of breathing, Simon batted the blade of the other man aside and ended him quickly with a thrust under the armpit. Before the second guard had even joined the first, the Viscount stopped cowering and started running once more.

This time he’d learned that no one in this room was going to save him at least, and he was running for it, but that suited Simon fine. It was part of his plan.

A couple of the guards looked like they might want to slow him down, but Simon said, “You can fight me and die just like your friends, or you can wait here and surrender once the Viscount is taken care of. Maybe take care of his family and make sure no accidents happen.”

He regarded them a moment longer, then set off at a jog after the waddling Viscount. He almost caught up with him just outside the back door when the man slipped and fell. Simon laughed at that and taunted. “Stop making this so easy! Just put up a fight. Something. Anything!”

Muddied and bloodied, the Viscount reached the door seconds before Simon and slammed it shut in his face. Simon didn’t gnash his teeth or threaten to break it down, though. He didn’t even use a word of force to shatter it. Instead, he smiled.

He did that because Ennis and his own private army were already in that drum tower waiting for the man. Now, they could hash things out for themselves, or they could just kill the man and take their vengeance that way. Though Simon thought it likely that they would choose the former rather than the latter, he left that decision entirely to them.

So, instead, he went back to the man’s main hall to have a little dinner and explain what was about to happen to Lord Bracken’s family. Once that was done, he’d pick out a better sword, take a quick swing by the kitchen for some decent food to take with him, and then he’d go to the stables to pick out a horse. He’d fought against injustice for weeks, but that was the only reward he needed. He had places to be, after all.

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