‘Devious’ Dirk Curd

Death, Debts & Devious Dirk

Part I

-Devious fuckin’ Dirk-

There are three things

ye don’t want to face outside the circle.

One brings misery ye can overcome,

but two o’ them shall kill you dead same as inside.

Death, Debts and Devious Dirk

Common Northern Saying

Circa 180-199 NC

Ah, damnation, Dirk thought, thinking back.

Old Lord Bart Crull stared at him trying to hide his mistrust. His fancy dressed son Sir Reggy gave him the evil eye, but Dirk had gotten enough such looks thrown his way to not let this one faze him. Not from the likes of Sir Reggy anyway.

“So where’s the girl?” Lord Bart asked sitting back on his chair. “I have Northmen crossing the Montfoot lad,” He told him, as if Dirk would care. “The fort is burning and my people are dying in the mud. Where’s the fucking girl?”

“I cross over to Vanzon Lands,” Dirk repeated his fingers bothering him. Not the ones he still had, the ones he was missing. A darn curious thing. “You get the girl. Not the other way around.”

“I’m speaking with Lord Vanzon. Every man he has on my lands, is at my disposal!”

“Name’s Curd,” Dirk replied, not batting an eyelash. “Not every man.”

“Bah! I’ll have men out searching around the camp. I’ll find her Curd.”

“Maybe ye will,” Dirk replied and stretched his arms, his back bothering him as well. “Maybe ye don’t. I reckon ‘Gangly’ will attack in the meantime. Maybe he wins, maybe he loses. Who knows, if ye’ll even need her on the morrow?”

Lord Bart stared at him with hatred. “I don’t control the Mudriver Bridge.”

“Can ye get me there?”

“What about the girl? Why in all hells do ye care?”

Dirk sighed and reaching grabbed a cup Sir Reggy was drinking from and gulped down its contents. Burped loudly at the end of it.

Twice.

“So, that was a fine wine,” He commented to the furious knight, all metal plate and black skin.

“We get you to Mudriver, then what?” Lord Bart hissed.

“I cross, head for the stone bridge. I give the girl to Lord Vanzon’s men. I assume he’s gathering his forces at Ludriver Castle.”

“Lord Vanzon, has given assurances. Here’s the scroll Curd,” He showed him a wet piece of paper.

“Who’s leading his men?” Dirk asked not bothering with the scroll.

“Dier, his second son. I guess first in line now, if the rumors are true.”

“What rumors?”

“Aart is dead,” Bart said simply. “But you know that.”

“It had slipped me mind,” Dirk admitted, then clearing his throat added. “I’m ready, if ye are milords.”

Although it hadn't, the memories still vivid.

“Don’t do it lassie,” Dirk had told Seia. “Ye die, the merchant bleeds out.”

“I died when Post breathed his last,” Seia told him getting that long knife out. A nasty thing if it got you in a soft spot. “I stall you enough, I take you wit me Dirk,” She spat all venom and built up sorrow. Seia needed years and another man to get it out of her system, but life being what it is, she got Dirk instead whilst he’d no time to spare.

“Yer lord ain’t getting out of the circle,” He told her and reached for his axe. “It is what it is.”

“A man won’t best Lord Alden,” Seia snarled all teeth and burned skin. “And all beasts are dead Dirk. You ain’t getting the girls.”

Dirk eyed Canutia that had stepped out of the carriage hearing his horse galloping up the ridge. Read the fear in her eyes. A horse can carry only two grown people.

At the most.

“Run lass,” Dirk growled to save her, just as Seia came at him searching for vengeance and finding her death.

Zofia opened her eyes and looked around confused. The snow up to their necks at places. The cold devastating if it caught you in the open. It still snowed at times. The moment it stopped, they were dead, Dirk thought and stared at the mountain trail between the frost-covered trees.

Stag’s Doab was at the end of it and even more cold. Mayhap even Northmen, the likes that would want to put steel through Dirk’s guts. Live long enough with people hating you and you don’t mind it that much.

Most of the times.

“What did you do?” Zofia asked, her head bandaged and her eyes hazy. “Where are the others?”

“The knight won the battle, then decided to duke it out with Feral Benton in the circle,” Dirk gave her the abbreviated version. “Don’t know much after that.”

“What about the girls?”

“Didn’t make it I reckon.”

“You’ve taken me from the camp,” Zofia hissed and tried to get up. She failed and went back down on her arse. She glared at the small fire keeping them alive. “Did you kill them?”

Dirk grimaced, not likening her assuming the worst. Then again, she wasn’t that far out.

“Most were already dead,” He admitted, seeing no reason to sugarcoat it. “Seia wanted to take her chances.”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Zofia blasted him, veins popping on her neck and her eyes turning bloodshot. She almost fainted, but fury kept her upright. “VILE MURDEROUS SCUM!”

“There’s wolves about. Right starving I reckon,” Dirk cautioned her and she just stood there glaring at him while breathing heavy. “Yer voice carries.”

“The fire’s out,” Zofia complained later in the day. Not that same day. “We need more wood Curd.”

“Ain’t much around not frozen stiff,” He rustled fixing the heavy branches around their rock to protect them from the air blowing down the passage. “Let’s hope the wind stops.”

“You got to find more!” Zofia snapped, her teeth rattling. She was pale as death, but at least the nasty swelling had retreated at the top of her head. The woman looked half-dead, which was an improvement. Dirk stared at the gloomy night, the light minimal and the icy snowed upon ground sparkling at spots.

“If I go out there, I might not make it.”

“I rather die alone than wit the likes of you!”

“Nah, ye don’t,” Dirk grunted and got up, his body protesting. Knees crackling as if they’d turned to ice.

“What was the plan?” Zofia hissed, shivering all over. Dirk was going to need some of that blanket, but the woman seemed unwilling to share.

“Take you to Vanzon,” He replied, crooking his mouth. His skin bleeding where he’d lost part of his beard earlier. It fell right off his face. “Get myself some land.”

“For what? Built a cabin? Are ye fuckin’ kidding me?”

Dirk had never owed a cabin, or anything with a roof on it.

“A house, near Hardwood Forest.”

“Where’s that?”

“At the border wit Midlanor. Virgin land, amidst the mountains. Rich game.”

“There’s game all over the North, Curd. You killed Seia for this?”

“Seia chosen to go out her own way,” Dirk grunted. “We’re here because yer Lord wanted to take you to Fetya. Lots of people want me dead there.”

“You could have left.”

“I did,” Dirk explained and wiped the blood from his face. “Needed a bargaining chip, folk don’t like me that much in these parts as well.”

“We’re going to die out here. Fuck you Curd,” Zofia decided. “The hells are ye standing there like an idiot?”

“I’m going to search for branches,” Dirk told her. “Was looking for something to give me the courage to step outside.”

“I hope ye die screaming, there’s yer something,” Zofia wished him, her teeth rattling so much, she had to put her hands on her jaw to stop it.

Dirk decided this was as much backing as he’d get.

The Direwolf found him before he got the broken branch back. It came out of the shadows, black-grey fur and gleaming yellow eyes. Almost killed him outright out of pure fright. Dirk jerked away, gnarly teeth missing his face and the memory of losing his fingers returning to give him all the courage he was looking for earlier.

He swung with the branch, got something solid and the frozen wood snapped, but his boots slipped and he went down. Dirk grunted, then groaned and yelped in the same breath as the large predator closed his teeth on a vambrace. The right one, not that it mattered.

A fang almost pierced through the iron plate. Actually it did, just didn’t have enough force left to pierce skin. Dirk pulled to free his arm, the Direwolf growled not letting him and they both danced around each other, the cold forgotten for a moment.

Dirk reached with his free hand to get his axe from his back, the cunning animal saw him and let go of his arm, or tried to that fang keeping them joined. The Direwolf snarled, eyeing him with pure hatred, Dirk snarled back and got his axed out.

He downed it with brute force aiming for that big furry head, missed and almost chopped his own arm off, when the Direwolf jerked away leaving a broken bloody fang still stuck on his vambrace.

Dirk twirled around, boots skirting on ice and caught the retreating predator on the right side, splitting two of its ribs and opening a chasm half a meter wide. The Direwolf cried and jumped away, gore and guts pouring out of its body. Burning hot blood that melted the ice under an exhausted Dirk’s crumpling knees.

Zofia’s glare when he returned empty handed hurt him the most.

“The fuck were ye dilly-dallying out there? I can’t feel my feet!” She blasted him when he collapsed next to her and stared silently at the fire going out.

They made it across the bridge, Dirk pulling Zofia by the arm, the woman exhausted but thankfully not sick. The night even darker and the glow of fires on the other side of the forest speaking of a great camp and many warriors. This might be too big for Lord Bart to handle, Dirk thought and stopped to catch his breath the moment they were across.

“My brothers are beyond the other branch,” Zofia murmured, her hair a mess of knots and dirt. Still as beautiful a wench as Dirk had ever seen. “I could talk to them.”

“Aart went crazy in Ludr,” Dirk explained, his throat hurting. He kept opening and closing his fingers to avoid them going dead. Zofia had lost a toe three weeks back. It up and died after turning a nasty black and he had to cut it off. She could walk, but it hurt her on every step and it was the same even when she didn’t move. But that wasn’t their biggest problem. “People died. Lots of them. Women, children, old men.”

“Gods curse ye to the five hells Curd,” Zofia rustled, as much in despair as in anger. “You’ll be the death of me.”

“I did what I had to do to get out,” Dirk grunted. “Easy to speak of decency, when yer not in danger. People change their tune if ye put their feet in the blasted fire.”

“I wish I’d died back in the pass,” Zofia murmured, looking away. “Anything close to ye turns to shite.”

Dirk crooked his mouth and made to answer but heard people approaching and stopped. Lots of clinkin’ and jinglin’ along wit the sound of heavy boots. Since no one carried silverware in the mid of the night with a battle just about to start, Dirk guessed they had weapons on them.

And they weren’t out here hunting.

“Stay in the trees,” Dirk warned Zofia and she lowered herself keeping the blanket over her shoulders. Dirk wished they still had the horse, but when it came down to choose whether to eat his foot, or Zofia’s, they both had agreed the horse had to go.

He rose up slowly and pushed the collar of the chainmail aside, away from a rash he had on his neck that bothered him. Dirk had already two months on the road wearing that thing and the oiled parts had turned to rust. The group approaching, two men and a woman, all Issirs mixed-breeds like him. The tall man with the long yellowish hair and the heavy set woman without any, both had plate cuirasses worn under their longcoats. The third a shorter muscular man with one black, one brown eye and short cut hair hidden under a conned helm, wore a long chainmail shirt alike Dirk.

The cuirasses had a squid engraved on them.

A big one. The type the smiths made over in Krakenhall.

These weren’t regulars though.

Ah, Dirk thought, then gathered whatever he had in his mouth and spat it down. The moons sending enough light over them, to see those approaching him more clear.

A gift and a blasted curse, all packaged in the same box of shite.

“Ayup,” Kaiser ‘Mire’ Dukes said, looking at him carefully and stopped four meters away. “Told ye lads, this ain’t a Northman.”

“What are ye doing here Dukes?” Dirk asked the leader of the Dukes Warband. They called him ‘Mire’ on account of the people he’d send in the mud. Not all were warriors, not that Kaiser Dukes gave two craps about that.

“Hah,” Kaiser said curling his lip upwards. “When I first heard ye made it out, I didn’t believe it,” He shook his head right and left impressed, left hand on the pommel of his warhammer. “Friends, this ugly bastard is Dirk Curd.”

The woman whistled.

“Remember ye taller Curd,” ‘Heavy’ Judie Karl taunted. “And wit more fingers.”

“Ye were barefooted then,” Dirk taunted her back. “Or on yer knees. Apologies Judie, the details have slipped me mind.”

“This young lad, is Rud ‘Grail’ Crypt,” Kaiser Dukes introduced the third man, with the two handed sword. “He’s with the Lord’s army.”

“Are ye the headsman’s son?” Dirk chanced.

“His brother,” Rud rustled.

Dirk had feared it was him. Another named warrior.

He grimaced, teeth grinding trying to figure out how to handle this and Zofia mistaking their bander for friendliness came out from behind the trees by the riverbank and approached them.

“Well then,” Kaiser said, spotting her first. “Who you have there Dirk?”

“Found myself a wench in Kas,” Dirk replied without looking back and heard Zofia’s hiss, thankfully kept short.

Not that it mattered in the end.

This was a dance.

The kind you come out of either injured, or dead.

“Devious fuckin’ Dirk,” Kaiser snorted, shaking his conned head right and left. “Ye know I don’t believe a word comin’ out of yer mouth right?”

“I didn’t know it,” Dirk admitted, mocking him. “Now that ye told me, I realized… I don’t give a fuck Dukes.”

“They say ye can’t be killed,” Dukes said warningly. “Never much believed it,” He wiped his face with a gloved hand setting his helm proper. “Is that Zofia of Ludr? The Lord wants her brought to him Dirk. So let’s cut this bullshit and get this over wit. Are ye gonna give her up?”

Dirk cracked his neck left once and then right. Felt the mud under his boots all frozen, as he got his axe out without replying.

“For fuck’s sake,” Kaiser snarled. “Are ye serious?”

“What do you think?” Dirk asked and made a step forward.