Orl Ejjar hadn't been lying when he'd said the furs of Hammar would ease Bard's aches. They did more than that. They fooled him into thinking the world was a nice place, a warm place where a man could rest his head without fearing that he might not wake in the morning.

He had been given an impressive chamber in one of the towers. The black rock of the exterior made way for paler, smoother stone that reflected the candle light well. Bear heads adorned the walls, rugs protected bare feet from the coldness of the floor. A small window gave a view of the north of Hammar, though it wasn't high enough for Bard to see over the city's outer-walls. It was a simple enough space, and yet it gave Bard everything he would ever ask for and more.

Would that I could enjoy it for what it is. But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't. The sun would rise the next day to mark the fourth day of Orl Ejjar's tourney. The finals of the archery would take place, then the latter stages of the joust. On the fifth day would be the final tilt, then the Lover's Climb, and that would be that. The Gallowmen would die, or Erikk would die. No, I must judge him first.

And that was what concerned him the most. His body yearned for the chance to rest but his mind instructed it was a luxury he could not afford. To sleep was to waste a night when he had precious few moments that could be spared.

It was the presence of half a plan that gave him semblance of peace of mind. He needed to discern Erikk's guilt, or innocence, and he needed to set things in motion if the Mountainman did deserve to meet the Elders. He had the thread that connected everything before him, he just couldn't see all of its strands yet; couldn't work out how one flowed into another and culminated in Brother Sorrow wiping a name from their lists.

The vials felt light in his fingers. He uncorked the essence of rasproot and took caution to drip two drops only into his tankard of ale. Then he uncorked the extract of glumweed and did the same. Two drops; enough to take the edge from this hammering head of mine.

Bard no longer felt sick, but weakness sought to lull him into a state of vulnerability. He took a long pull of ale and found the concoction to be tasteless in spite of the two new ingredients. They will help, Oyvin said so.

Bard propped himself up in the bed and waited for the castle to go to sleep. He needed things that way, if any and all of the ideas were to work. He supped his ale and he prayed. He prayed to Mortus for the strength to stay awake long enough. He prayed to Willow to have mercy on his foolhardy soul.

#

He didn't know how long he had waited. When the castle was quiet at last, when Orl Ejjar had drank enough to put him beyond pouring another horn, the moon was a dull thing, its prominence beginning to fade as the very first notion of dawn became apparent.

Bard waited by his door, crutch under his right arm and a certain numbness to him overall. Oyvin's vials had done whatever it was they were supposed to do, he was sure. He didn't quite like how they blunted his senses, but he no longer felt pain. His hand grasped ruefully to his back but found no axe there. Bard always felt more assured with his axe, even if he didn't have the strength to swing the thing.

Nothing stirred in the stairwell beyond, so the latch was hefted and he hobbled out of his chamber. His blundering descent through the tower made him realise just how defenseless he was, each step a battle against a mind reasoning that nothing good came of cripples creeping about castles.

He moved past the guardsmen at the foot of the tower without pause. They were sitting in a room of their own, a small enclave with two wooden chairs and nothing else. One of them was sleeping, the other more interested in sucking a splinter from his thumb than asking questions of the man he did not see.

The tower opened out to a small courtyard, one barely lit by the lone torch burning away in its sconce on the wall. He could hear light snoring coming from the structure across from him. Bard knew little and less about castles, but he knew enough to know they kept hounds in large packs.

He crossed the courtyard and let himself into the keep itself before any of the beasts stirred. Orel had told that Erikk now had his chambers below the keep, near the dungeons, so he decided to walk until he was either confronted or found what he was looking for. He didn't fear the former too much. Lord Eran was, after all, a genuine guest of Orl Ejjar's and therefore permitted to wander the castle. Any guard with a brain between his ears would think it odd for Bard, injured as he was, to be doing anything other than surrendering himself to furs. There comes a point where protocol outweighs common sense, however, and Bard knew that point to be where a lowly guardsman risks challenging a noble of Green Country.

With that thought to staunch his doubts, he hobbled on. Through passageways and past big doors that led to places Bard would probably never see. The Hammar keep was a spacious thing, its corridors wide and arching, filled not with suits of armour, but glorious paintings depicting famous battles of old. Bard recognised a few of them from the stories he'd collected. He saw the First Coming, when the Elder Folk passed through the Cold Spires with Obliviant, the settler of Oblivia. He recognised also the Battle for the Blue; Vikaar, brother to the last laerd of the giants, being vanquished by Geron the Giant Slayer, at the spot that would later become Giants Fort. And Volto the Vanquisher, first emperor of Oblivia, the man who brought the combined might of Green Country and Sand Country into Scavania and bent the Mountainfolk to his will.

The guardsmen were few. Those he did encounter regarded him only with a quick nod of the head and a 'my lord,' to avoid the possibility of a rebuke. They were stocky men, all of them, trusted with axe and spear and well equipped with furs for long and lonely nights standing in cold corridors. Bard reckoned them to be disinterested in the main, though. They'd grown accustomed to the impregnable walls of Hammar; the sprawling city and its crenelated parapets, murder holes and oaken doors. Give them an enemy at the gates and they could rally enough strength to fight off fifty-thousand men. Give them one cripple and the illusion of grandeur, walking before their very eyes, and they were helpless as suckling babes.

As always, Bard gave his mind the freedom to roam as he walked. It quickly pursued questions regarding Orel. Where her chambers might be in the keep? What she might be thinking about as she lay alone in her chambers? How she would regard Bard if she knew him for who he truly was? If she knew me for Ulworth?

In another life he might have actually been a young, hopeful lordling, failing miserably at the joust and winning the hearts of Hammar because of it. A dream. Only a dream. Tonight was not for dreaming, tonight was for working.

#

Bard knew he'd found what he was looking for the moment he turned into the passageway. It was wider than many of the rest and ended twenty-yards away with a large tunnel carved into the rock. The tunnel disappeared downward from view, a guardsman stationed, broad axe in hand, before it did.

Emphasizing the use of his crutch, Bard sweated and toiled through the passageway, sketching a look of worry onto his face.

The guardsman saw him coming early on. Even so, he waited until Bard was close before shouting, 'Who passes there?'

Bard composed himself. 'It is I, Lord Eran of Oakhold. I am a guest of Orl Ejjar.'

'Forgive me, Lord Eran, it's late. Are you for the kitchens? They're-'

'I'm for you!' Bard said, mustering as much panic to his words as he could.

'My lord?'

'Three hounds have found themselves loose from the kennels. They're shouting down the keep as we speak. Listen!'

There came no sound, of course, but that didn't stop the guard from craning his neck. He looked back to Bard after a short time. 'My lord, the hounds are the kennel-master's duty.'

'Do you see the kennel-master?'

'No, but he'll come when he hears them out.'

'And what if somebody else comes first? I saw Orl Ejjar's eldest daughter, Egrid, walking on my way here. What if it's her who finds the beasts? You'd wish that on a widow?'

'No, my lord. Only, my station is above the dungeons. I have responsibilities.'

'If your responsibilities range as far as protecting the inhabitants of this castle then you have a responsibility to ensure that those hounds don't harm anyone with their new lust for freedom.'

The guard looked back at Bard, hesitant to commit too far.

'Where I'm from a guard listens to a lord when a command is ushered. I would do it myself, only Sir Claudo's left me able as the day I was born. You go and wait with them, make sure they don't do any biting before the kennel-master comes. I'll go and tell the ladies to stay in their rooms.'

'Elders, where are the others? There are fifty guards in this keep!'

'Good idea, fetch as many men as you can. Those hounds have murder in their eyes.'

The guard bounced on his feet and bit his lip. 'Orl Ejjar ain't gonna be happy if they wake him. He never likes it when he's roused before his time.'

'All the more reason to ensure the hounds are kept quiet. Dungeons are dungeons. The men inside are still behind heavy doors with bolts and locks and chains. They're not going anywhere.' Bard turned and set off down the adjacent passageway. He walked until he heard the guard make his decision. The sound of boots running on stone told him it was safe to turn.

Bard covered the distance with as much speed as the crutch would allow. Then he descended down into the dark of the dungeons.

#

Bard had never liked dungeons. He had spent a week in those of Nordholm, viciously cold and cramped, all the while assuming he would be let out only to face the block or the noose. As it was, when he had been unchained, he had instead faced Fara Mordova, Brother Sorrow and the realisation of being Deathsworn. A small part of him wondered what was worse.

The Hammer dungeons weren't as large as Nordholm's, but they carried the smells of damp and fear just the same. Bard took the steps with caution, aware that he was entering Erikk's territory now, armed only with a crutch and a distinct lack of mobility.

Where the stairs ended he found a long corridor, vaguely lit by sulking candles that looked as though they'd be well gone before dawn. Carved into the walls every few paces were oaken doors, so thick that Bard doubted he would have heard the prisoners behind them even if they were vocalising their complaints. He took the first one for the gaolor's own quarters, since it was the only one without a grate for the passing of food and such. Fearing the gaolor might wake, he ensured the crutch crept, as he did, along the passageway's length.

At the very end the walls turned and became stairs once more, stairs that went down deeper into Hammar than even the dungeons dared to. Bard cursed, looked back along the passageway and put his legs to work.

He had covered a good many steps before he heard the cries. They were faint, at first, coming to him through walls cut into bedrock. All the same, they were unmistakable to someone as acquainted with anguish as Bard. As he ventured further into the darkness the noises distinguished themselves into two separate forms. Then, by the time he'd reached the bottommost passageway, they told of an exchange of words quickly shading to violence.

An oaken door, strengthened by bands of black iron, barred the way after twenty-yards or so, the sides lined with enclaves housing larger-than-life stone sculptures of various Mountainmen of the ages. Bard proceeded cautiously, pausing before the door and willing himself to have the courage to stay and listen.

It was a feminine voice he heard first, one shrill with alarm. 'Please, lord, please no!'

'Lord? I ain't no Greenman bastard!'

Erikk. His voice was a thunder that pained the ears, mouth shaping words boomed from a cavernous chest.

There came a sudden slap, its ferocity enough to force a wince from Bard on the other side of the door.

'Please, lord, I've a husband, and kids!'

Again a slap, this one prompting the sound of a body hitting a stone floor. Wild screaming ensued.

'I told you, I ain't no lord! You'll shut your yelping or you'll die just the same as the last one.'

The protests came in the form of sullen whimpers, the woman too afraid to risk anything more.

Bard's every hair stood to attention, his stomach becoming a boiling cauldron of thumping energy. The Burned Priests hadn't told him what Erikk was accused of, they never did. It was his job, along with the other Gallowmen, to discern guilt or innocence for themselves based on what they saw with the time they were given. With Hoffvar Jatteson, the executioner for King Magni, and the last name to be struck from their list, they'd waited three months to judge him adequately.

With Erikk, Bard didn't need three months. He didn't have three months, of course - he didn't have three days - but he knew all the same. As he listened to the grunting and the sobbing from beyond the door, to the heavy breathing and the snivelling, the thrusts and the recoils, he swore death on Erikk. He could feel his teeth gritting to the point where he feared they might crack, though he didn't make a sound.

Every shred of Bard's being yearned to break down the door and take his axe to Erikk's huge head. He didn't have his axe, however, and Erikk was far too large for Bard to beat him to death with hands alone, even when he was well. Besides, the Burned Priests had asked for him whole and whole was how they would get him. That before the untouchable son became Orl Erikk and was free to do what he wished, without reprimand, for the rest of his days.

Bard closed his eyes, muttered a prayer to the Elders for the girl, and turned to leave. As he did so a flash of pain attacked his arm and his crutch fell without warning. Bard had to grab the wall to stop himself from following it. He was helpless to prevent it clattering horribly on the floor.

By the time it rattled to a halt Erikk had stopped making noises. Bard toed the crutch close enough to grab it and shifted through the passageway with his own heart hammering in his ears.

He got as far as the third pair of statues, darting behind one as the door screamed open on its hinges.

Erikk roared and the sound took an age to die in the passageway. Bard shimmied as close as he could to the wall and waited as the footfalls approached him slowly.

One step. Two step. Three step ... Ten and he'll see me. If that happened, Bard resolved to go for Erikk's eyes and try and put one out before he was killed. He was broke, hurt and all kinds of scared, but he would never go down without a fight.

Six steps later and he could feel Erikk standing the other side of the statue. Bard had thought him big previously, both seeing him from afar and at the dinner table. This was different though. He was a bear of a man, thicker than Tall Toyne in every way and closer in height than Bard had seen men come in near-on five winters.

I won't put out any eye. He'll crush me before I move an inch.

For a minute there was nothing but the sound of Erikk exhaling. Bard waited, and waited, and waited, for him to take the next step, but he never did. Instead the footfalls receded, Bard loosed a breath, and the oak door slammed shut.

#

The rushing of blood didn't stop until Bard got to the safety of his room. He had hurried back as best his injuries would allow, all the while sure he would hear Erikk's battle-cry go up behind him.

His heart began to slow once the door was closed and he was in the chamber he had been afforded by Orl Ejjar. The furs instantly invited him to collapse into a long and much-needed sleep, though he was forced to deny them. Awkwardly pacing the room was all Bard could do; he didn't trust himself to accept the bed's embrace.

Weasel. I need Weasel tomorrow. And Tall Toyne, and Taaj, and Bodkin. All of them. I need all of them to be ready when I am. First, though, Weasel. Send for Weasel and tell him-

A stern knock at the door stole the words from his mind. He considered ignoring it, but then realised that if it were Erikk the man would surely let himself in anyway.

'Yes?' he called.

There came no answer, only the repetition of knuckles on wood.

On his way to the door he picked up one of the brass candle holders. It was weighted, heavy and, frankly, better than nothing. A fool I am to have left my dirk in the tent.

He raised the brass with his right hand and struggled the door open with his left. The candle holder was ultimately useless; he dropped it when he saw who was on the other side anyway. 

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