Swiss Arms 174 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 174

-VB-

Hans

1310 (right after a dagger broke on his skin)

My eyes opened and I looked down.

There was a soldier standing over me with a dagger in his hand, looking down at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

I didn’t waste any time.

I lashed out and grabbed his wrist. 

He jerked but even that jerking was too slow to pull himself away from me. My hands wrapped around his wrist and broke it without even trying. 

“A-!”

And my other hand snapped out and palmed his lips. This time, I was slightly more awake and alert enough to hold myself back.

So instead of breaking all of his teeth, I just bruised his lips. 

Then I pivoted.

I jumped out while keeping my hands in place and pushed him back down.

Even as I flipped both of us around, my eyes swept across the room and didn’t see anyone else. 

I smashed him down onto the bed and the would-be assassin laid there, stunned and nauseated by the sudden movements. 

“I will give you one chance to tell me who you are working for,” I said quietly without a hint of alertness. “Otherwise, I will ensure you experience a lot of pain. If you understand, then nod once.”

He quickly nodded, even in his slightly stunned state. 

“Scream and you die. Nod if you understand.”

He nodded even more quickly. 

I pulled my hand away from his mouth and he looked up at me with terror. 

I frowned. 

The man I had just taken down was too young to be a man. A teenager? 

“Who do you work for? Who set you up to do this?” I demanded quietly like the rumbling forewarning an avalanche. 

“I-It was t-t-t-the baron-!” he almost shrieked out. 

I hummed. “And you can swear your life on this? That it was the baron who put you up to this? Otherwise, you are causing more problems than you can handle, and though God may be merciful, you must know that your fellow men aren’t.”

“I-I swear to Christ and the Spirit! T-t-the baron had you all poisoned and sent me to kill you!” 

I froze. 

Poisoned? 

“Poison…?” I asked, dragging the word out as my eyes narrowed. 

But he was bumbling now. 

“Stay,” I ordered him as I let go of him.

I glanced and saw that my sword was still here. 

I grabbed it and turned to leave. 

I noticed that it was raining. 

---

Elio

A knight

He took a deep breath in and let out a sigh as he waited for the assassin to finish the job. 

Even though it irked his sensibilities to be part of this scheme, he knew that war and revenge was anything but honorable and clean. Sometimes, one must undertake measures that were neither to ensure victory. 

What was the difference between trickery on the battlefield and off the battlefield between known foes? There were none. 

And even if the peasant count did not know that he had made an enemy of his baron, that was his problem, not the baron’s. 

Still, Elio had been promised the quality armor and weapons the count had worn to partake in this, and he’ll be satisfied with that. 

Creaakkk…

The creak of the guest room’s wooden hinge opening pulled him out of his thoughts. 

So it was done. The assassin wouldn’t make that kind of a mistake with noise if the job wasn’t complete. 

Elio pushed himself off the wall and turned to look.

And froze. 

Standing in front of him was not the short assassin but the tall count. 

Who was definitely alive and looking down at him furiously.

“Armored and armed,” the count rumbled out. 

Elio’s spine shivered. 

“So all of this was premeditated.”

Shit-!

He pulled his shortsword out and struck.

The count didn’t move.

Elio’s steel shortsword struck and bled the count.

… But that’s it. 

His sword stopped just after striking the count’s sides, not the ribs but the fleshy sides of the stomach. But instead of gutting the count, the sword stopped and drew a single line of blood. 

“And immediately striking out. All of you are guilty.”

Then the count moved. 

And everything spun.

“Wha…?” he uttered out for a moment but he didn’t have the air to finish the word. Everything spun and then he hit the ground and tumbled. 

But as he tumbled, he saw his body standing in front of the count. 

Oh. 

Oh God.

He’d been beheaded. 

Before any more thoughts could process, everything began to dim and darken.

And the peasant count pushed his still standing body aside as he walked deeper into the manor. 

---

Matteo

A man-at-arms

There was a thunk upstairs around the corner. 

Matteo and John, two men-at-arms serving under Elio the Knight, one of three knights under the baron’s vassalage, looked up. 

“The assassin must be done,” John muttered as he got up from the stairs and walked up. Matteo followed up after him. 

They had been told that they would need to help him with moving the giant count -.

John turned around the corner and -.

His body flew backward into the stone wall and wetly cracked and thudded against the stone wall. 

Matteo froze.

Lightning flashed. 

And he saw John’s body spasming while being held up to the stone wall by a single shortsword that had stabbed cleanly through his chest. 

John pulled his trembling arms up and tried to pull at the sword but as the lights dimmed back down, so too did his arms. 

And a monster came around the corner. 

It was the peasant count. He was so tall and wide because of his muscles that he nearly covered the entire height and width of the staircase entrance. 

Lightning flashed again. 

And Matteo saw the once dim silhouette turn into a stark outline in his sight, but the front half of the count remained dark and featureless.

Except the eyes.

Those eyes glowed a baleful blue. 

Then the count’s arm blurred.

Matteo screamed as he tried to strike forward with his shortspear. 

Something cut the shaft of the spear and struck him in the head. 

His head snapped back, and he only saw the wooden ceiling of the staircase before he flew down, struck the stairs, tumbled, and crashed down to the corridor below. 

He saw feet and heard screams. Then someone getting cut down.

But he didn’t experience much after.

All was dark.

---

Karl von Bruneck

Baron of Bruneck

Everything was going wrong. 

Screams rang out from the north wing of his manor where he had sent his soldiers to finish off the giant count, and his city burned outside. 

Why was this happening?! 

“No no no no please -!” 

The loud begging snapped his head toward the doors of his dining hall. 

Then he heard a crunch.

A deep, continuous crunch of something being broken many times over and the gurgling screams of a poor fellow.

He trembled in his boots, even though he was surrounded by two of his knights and ten men-at-arms. 

Then the doors flung open as something kicked it open. The doors crashed against the walls while something heavy came flying into the room and smacked into Jacob’s body. He hurled and fell back with the object. 

Lightning flashed. 

And Karl looked and saw Emmanuel’s broken body, one of his loyal house guards. 

All of the legs and arms were at wrong angles. His spine was bent in two different places. And his head. 

Oh God, his head!

There was no skull left!

He’d only seen something like that in an accident the city had a year ago. A young boy was crushed underneath a cow. 

Emmanuel’s head looked like that little boy’s head after they pulled the cow off of the body’s still warm body. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His eyes and face snapped back up toward the dark windowless corridor and saw nothing. 

And then a boot. 

A bloody foot. 

And then a leg and a different foot. 

Lightning flashed once again.

Blood.

Blood dripping. Blood left behind as footprints. 

Blood reflecting the lights of the torch held by his soldiers and the heavenly lights of the lightning in two different colors. 

And standing under the doorway was Count Hans von Fluelaberg. He only wore a plain shirt and pants. 

No armor. 

Just a very bloody thing he called his sword and a pair of very bloody fists. 

Karl met the count’s calm, almost blank stare. 

“Baron,” Hans greeted him as if he was just out on a night walk. “It seems that there are issues we must discuss.”

“N-No, how are you alive?!” Karl nearly shrieked. 

“You mean why am I not dead from the poison?” Hans asked. “Your assassin made that very clear. As did your knight.”

“Kill him!” one of his knights shouted and most of the men-at-arms charged forward with their swords and shortspears. 

The count leisurely let them come before taking an almost lazy sweep with his monstrous sword. 

Anyone who didn’t duck got cut.

Karl froze, staring at six men all dead from being bisected at their chest or waist through their armor, gambeson, and body, and their bodies spattered and thumped forward. 

Someone screamed. It wasn’t him. 

Hans tilted his head as if he just witnessed a mess someone had to clean up.

Exasperated.

Yes, that was the word. 

The count looked exasperated.

The count then straightened. 

And rushed forward. 

His knights had no chance. 

One moment he was there by the doorway. 

In the next moment, he was standing in front of Samuel.

There was a thunk as the slightly crouching count’s right arm blurred and his fist struck fully armored Samuel.

Something cracked and crackled, and it wasn’t the count’s fist. 

Samuel stumbled back, standing for a second on trembling legs before he fell backward. 

This time, Karl screamed when he saw that Samuel no longer had a face.

‘Oh. So that’s how he got blood all over his hands,’ a hysterical part of his mind laughed mentally. 

His other knight stumbled in his charge. 

The count was merciless. 

His other hand and arm - his left arm and hand - blurred with the sword still in that left hand’s grasp.

Rocks cracked. Steel squealed. Something wet splattered. And then the wood floor splintered. Then two splattering thumps on the ground. 

Karl stood there, not understanding what happened despite the fact that he had watched it happen.

The man’s arm had blurred along with the sword.

The stone ceiling got gutted. His other knight fell apart after having his entire body cut in half from top of his head to the crotch. And then the sword cut into his wooden floor. 

Then the count turned to him.

Slowly. 

Casually. 

Lazily.

As if everything he had done was normal and not impossible. 

Karl’s legs lost their strength and he fell onto his ass. 

He scrambled back on trembling arms and hands, blood splattering and spittling as he moved. 

“Wait, please, wait…! Mercy! I’m … I’m worth money! Please …!” 

“Why don’t you start by telling me why you had me poisoned?” the count said quietly as Karl’s surviving men-at-arms dropped their weapons and fled out of the room. 

“O-Orders from my liege!” Karl shouted out as quickly as possible. 

“... Orders?”

“Y-Yes! From Prince-Bishop of Brixen! A-A-A rider from the Habsburgs came through! Said he had offers from the dukes to the prince-bishop!” he stuttered out. “T-Then I-I got … o-orders. To do… a-a-all of t-this…!” 

The count stared down at him.

Then -.

Ah.

… Karl pissed himself. 

“Do you have … evidence?” the count asked. 

Karl gulped. He wasn’t supposed to say it. He was supposed to take the credit for it by declaring that the count had broken the peace of his home -.

“W-Why-?”

The count meaningfully raised his sword. 

“I DO, I DO!” Karl shrieked as his back struck the wall behind him. 

“Good. Go get it. You will be my witness when I go to Brixen. You better not run.”

Karl whimpered as the count turned around and left. 

Only when the count’s thumping footsteps disappeared as he left the manor entirely did Karl allow himself to collapse into a shivering pile.

He was so very fucking fucked. 

-VB-

A/N: sorry to all Karls. This Karl doesn’t measure up to y’all.