Chapter 7 The Barn Armory
The Barn Armory
During his twenty years as the Dark Lord of Ruthven?, Morfran had spent many days doing what he fondly called “housekeeping.”
Just like an experienced, matronly woman who was preparing for the arrival of her extended family for the thanksgiving holiday, with which came the tasks of packing fresh straw into old mattresses, washing and drying bedsheets and tablecloths, and cooking a five-course meal including braised duck, gorgonzola-stuffed mushrooms, and cheesecake studded with little golden raisins, Morfran had prepared for the conquering of lands with that same astute attention to detail.
Three hundred soldiers needed new uniforms?
He’d hit up all the local blacksmiths and collect a team of seamstresses to craft the finest, toughest stuff.
They needed weapons? He’d place fast-express orders for top-of-the-line swords that’d arrive with plenty of time for his men to practice with them before battle.
They needed fresh meals while on the road?
He’d send out his special foraging team whose only purpose was to find fresh food from nearby farms. And lastly, if they needed a boost in morale before taking over a city, he’d go about the ranks and chat with every man, either patting them on the back in a manly way, butting foreheads with them in a manly way, or giving them a pep talk should he find one in tears at the prospect of being skewered by his enemies—in a manly way, of course.
He knew precisely what an army needed to win, and so when Brim dragged him to the dwelling’s barn to show him their war stock, he at first felt awe, and then petulant begrudging.
“Well?” Brim pressed for the fourth time. “Are the weapons any good for what we have to face, or not?”
Morfran remained very still as he stared at the massive stock of crates stacked like blocks against the barn walls.
Several had been opened by Brim’s men, their tops thrust open like coffin lids.
Inside the crates were long, two-handed poles mounted with axes and topped with pikes.
Beside them were spear-like weapons nestled in beds of straw.
Beyond that were many, many more unopened crates.
Halberds. Pikes. The very ones he’d ordered that’d been lost in transit along the southeast coast last year. This was where they’d ended up? His men had said it’d been the murderous warlords from the eastern isles who’d swiped them.
They’d lied to him? And what was more, the weapons had ended up in these dirty peasants’ hands?
I think I hate everyone.
Morfran quelled back his desire to scream, counted to fifteen, looked stoically at Brim, who appeared to be eagerly awaiting his reply, and nodded nonchalantly. “They’ll have to do, I suppose.”
Brim seemed at once to read right through him. He grinned, sly. “You know that’s not all we’ve collected, right?”
“You mean that’s not all you’ve stolen,” he replied sourly.
Gueldefore of the Beautiful Butt Chin appeared beside them. His blue cloak fluttered majestically behind him, even though there wasn’t any breeze and they were inside. Morfran eyed it in disbelief as the man laughed. “That’s exceedingly rich, coming from a general who served that despicable devil.”
Brim ignored Gueldefore’s comment. “There are at least four hundred weapons here. Halberds and pikes as we’ve shown you, but there are war hammers, claymores, maces, and longbows in our stock, too. Oh, and we did find a crossbow with stishovite bolts—”
Morfran couldn’t help but perk up. “A crossbow, you say?”
Brim gestured towards a lone crate sitting atop a hay bale. Morfran limped towards it—he was still bruised and bloody from last night’s torture, as Brim had whisked him from the hut immediately after Morfran told them who he was.
The crossbow was the crossbow: built of yew from the Forests of Gent, steel from the Timorian Forges, and the Linen of Lindell.
Intricately carved designs swirled over the fine wood in patterns of woodland forests and foxes wielding war hammers.
He’d had it commissioned last year, a birthday present to himself. He reached out to touch it.
A hand knocked his away. “Don’t lay a finger upon it,” Gueldefore snapped. He stood beside Morfran, and Morfran got the sense of just how large the man was. Not large like Brim, who had the frame of a great bear, but tall and majestic, like a stag.
“That is a spoil of war,” Gueldefore said. “I led the charge in which we stole that devil’s shipment. I claimed the crossbow.”
And I’ll claim your head—
No, no. No more of that. No matter how much he wanted to.
Morfran withdrew his hand and said coldly, “A dozen apologies.” He purposefully spoke only to Brim.
“You may have a decent stockpile of weapons now, but bear in mind that Lord Morfran’s army is four times grander than yours, even if you have your women fight.
And they’ve trained since the cradle to be effective soldiers. It won’t be that easy—”
An eruption of noise and an earth-shaking vibration behind him robbed the boast from his mouth.
He spun at once, gaping in wide-eyed shock at the billowing cloud of fire.
Only when it died down, and he went closer to the edge of the barn doors to peer out into the grove of trees, did he utter the sentence.
“You lot have explosives, too?” That was preposterous.
No one had explosives except his army. They were outlawed “because they were dangerous,” he’d decreed, but really, he just didn’t want these things in any of his citizens’ hands.
Rebellions were much more serious if both sides could simply explode their enemies.
Brim stopped beside him, scrutinizing what appeared to be a crew of goggly-eyed men testing powder kegs in the middle of a clearing some three hundred feet away. “Yes,” he admitted, stroking his black beard. “The blast radius is supposed to be larger, but our chemists are working on that.”
“Chemists,” Morfran stated blankly.
“Oh yes.” Brim grinned, leaning against the barn door with his arms crossed. “We have chemists. We also have engineers and spies and ex–Ruthven soldiers who abandoned their posts once they saw reason.”
Morfran stiffened. The man was pointedly trying to agitate him. “They’re filth is what they are, for betraying their lord and abandoning their duties.”
“And you aren’t?”
Morfran glared at Brim as that same mischievous sparkle returned to his eyes. Morfran tipped his nose at him. “I didn’t join a bloody rebellion,” he said. “I bought a farm, which in no way harms Lord Morfran and his rule.”
Brim was still smiling. “Well, now you can say you are directly harming him. As our battle strategist, you’ll be squeezed dry of everything you know about tactics they use and how we will counter them, as well as any personal weaknesses of generals we can exploit later down the road.
You’ll be instrumental in bringing down Lord Morfran. ”
Morfran scowled. It’s not me you ought to be worried about.
It was Ravana. Whenever the two of them stumbled upon a colony of ants littering the cobblestone walkways leading to their lake house, she always took pleasure in taking a crystal vase full of lemonade and drowning the ants with a mere tip of her hand.
She would do the same to these forest folk.
Only these ants were armed with powerful weapons and explosives. Just what would happen now?
“But don’t forget.” Brim kicked away from the door, his casual grin and the spark in his eye vanishing like the sun being doused by storm clouds.
“We are not just some podunk peasants living off boot leather and berries out here. We may not come from cities and wear fancy clothes, but we know when a person’s intentions are true.
” He drew closer, his face fierce. Morfran found himself feeling as though a mountain were about to stomp on him.
“And if we get any inkling that you’re trying to deceive us, my men will finish what they started and you’ll go to your grave a blind man. ”
Morfran just blinked.
Brim rolled his eyes and added, “And I’ll finish what I started with your goat.”
Beni. He really was threatening to hold a goat hostage.
The worst part of it was that it worked, as Morfran went from mild alarm to deep, fretful panic.
“Fine,” he snapped. “But I’m a bit rusty with battle prowess, and you may find that I don’t have as much pizzazz in me as I used to.
I retired to become a goat farmer, for gods’ sakes. ”
“Welcome to un-retirement, then.” He slapped Morfran on the back, hard.
Morfran winced.
After seeing the barn armory, Morfran was “politely” guided by Gueldefore up into the trees, onto the skywalk, and towards the little hut shaped like a witch’s hat, which belonged to the crusty old fellow Morfran previously met who everyone called “Grandfather Tortoise.”
“Is he as stupid as his nickname?” Morfran asked broodily. He was in a bad mood, and everything sounded stupid to him. He imagined a cutesy origin story of a grandchild calling the old man Tortoise and immediately wanted to cast insults. “Grandfather Turtle?”
“It’s Tortoise. And that’s his birth name, you buffoon.” Gueldefore pushed him forward on the skywalk. The bridge swayed with each of Morfran’s steps, which he took gingerly, as his ribs were aching quite painfully now, and his left eye was swollen to the point that he could hardly see out of it.
“What idiot parent names their son after an amphibian?”
“Reptile,” he replied. “Tortoises are reptiles. Gods, and you supposedly once led a portion of Morfran’s army? I’m of the mind to shove you over the edge right now.”
Morfran had half a mind to jump and take Knight Butt Chin with him.
Luckily, they reached the more solidly built platform upon which the hut sat, and Morfran was greeted by a warm spiced scent coming from the open pelt flap. Before Gueldefore could shove him again, Morfran took a step inside.