Last Argument Of Kings Read Online Free PDF Page A

roundabout method and been bloodily repulsed, the Union army had finally entered the inner fortress by its open front gate.
    A soldier was bent over near that archway now, being noisily sick onto the stained flagstones. West passed him with some foreboding, the sound of his clicking boot heels echoing around the long tunnel, and emerged into the wide courtyard at the centre of the fortress. It was a regular hexagon, echoing the shape of the inner and outer walls, all part of the perfectly symmetrical design. West doubted that the architects would have approved, however, of the state in which the Northmen had left the place.
    A long wooden building at one side of the yard, perhaps a stables, had caught fire in the attack and was now reduced to a mass of charred beams, the embers still glowing. Those clearing away the mess had too much work outside the walls, and the ground was still scattered with fallen weapons and tangled corpses. The Union dead had been stretched out in rows near one corner and covered up with blankets. The Northmen lay in every attitude, on their faces or on their backs, curled up or stretched out where they fell. Beneath the bodies the stone flags were deeply scored, and not just with the random damage of a three-month siege. A great circle had been chiselled from the rock, and other circles within it, strange marks and symbols laid out in an intricate design. West did not care for its look in the least. Worse still, he was becoming aware of a repulsive stench to the place, more pungent even than the tang of burned wood.
    'What ever is that smell?' muttered Jalenhorm, putting one hand over his mouth.
    A sergeant nearby overheard him. 'Seems that our Northern friends chose to decorate the place.' He pointed up above their heads, and West followed the gauntleted finger with his eyes.
    They were so decayed that it took him a moment to realise he was looking at the remains of men. They had been nailed, spread-eagled, to the inside walls of each of the towers, high above the lean-to buildings round the courtyard. Rotting offal hung down from their bellies, crawling with flies. Cut with the Bloody Cross, as the Northmen would say. Tattered shreds of brightly-coloured Union uniforms were still vaguely visible, fluttering in the breeze among the masses of putrefying flesh.
    Clearly they had been hanging there some time. Since before the siege began, certainly. Perhaps since the fortress first fell to the Northmen. Corpses of the original defenders, nailed there, rotting, for all those months. Three appeared to be without their heads. The companion pieces, perhaps, to those three gifts that had been sent to Marshal Burr all that time ago. West found himself wondering, pointlessly, whether any of them had been alive when they were nailed up. Spit rushed into his mouth, the sound of flies buzzing seeming suddenly, sickeningly loud.
    Jalenhorm had gone pale as a ghost. He did not say anything. He did not have to. 'What happened here?' muttered West through his gritted teeth, as much to himself as anything.
    'Well, sir, we think they were hoping to get help.' The sergeant grinned at him, clearly possessed of a very strong stomach. 'Help from some unfriendly gods, we've been guessing. Seems that no one was listening down below though, eh?'
    West frowned at the ragged markings on the ground. 'Get rid of them! Tear up the flags and replace them if you have to.' His eyes strayed to the decaying cadavers above, and he felt his stomach give a painful squeeze. 'And offer a ten-mark bounty to the man with guts enough to climb up there and cut those corpses down.'
    'Ten marks, sir? Bring me over that ladder!'
    West turned and strode out through the open gates of the fortress of Dunbrec, holding his breath and hoping like hell that he never had occasion to visit the place again. He knew that he would be back, though. If only in his dreams.
     
    Briefings with Poulder and Kroy were more than enough to sicken the healthiest of