The Children of Stron – part 194

table of contents – (spoilers)

read part 193

When Choke was able to go back outside to his men, Knuckle and his heavy-lifting squad were just unloading the second crate from the unit’s mule cart in front of the stables. The crate was obviously very heavy. Both crates were about a meter-and-a-half on their long side, a half-a-meter wide, and forty centimeters tall.

To his credit, Knuckle was using the opportunity to show off and was handling one side of the crate by himself, with Corporal Osgar and another man on the other side.

“Ston’s cock! What the fuck did they send us?” Knuckle said as they dropped the crate next to its mate.

“Sergeant!” Choke shouted with heat as he came up behind Knuckle. “Curse if you must, but such blasphemy is unacceptable! You know better!”

Knuckle startled and gave Choke a puzzled look before snapping to attention.

“I’m sorry, sir. Won’t happen again, sir,” he said.

“See that it doesn’t!”

“I will, sir,” Knuckle said, looking at Choke with honest concern.

Avoiding his eye, Choke turned his attention to the men:

“You there: get a prybar from the tool shed.”

Choke and the men stood in awkward silence while the soldier ran the errand. The spectacle of the mystery crates had attracted a small crowd of villagers, some of them the very teamsters that had been on the caravan hauling them. There was a good deal of speculation as to their contents, although the wagers being made were not monetary.

“Sir. What was supposed to be in these?” Knuckle asked Choke.

“Building materials was all Sergeant Neil said,” Choke answered, still avoiding his eye.

“For building what? A fuckin iron golem?”

Choke managed a short exhalation within the vicinity of an amused snort. “I can’t even imagine.”

Knuckle moved in close to Choke’s side and leaned down towards him, giving him a gentle bump with his shoulder.

“You okay, man? Ye seem off, suddenly,” Knuckle whispered.

Choke sighed. “I’m not okay, Knuckle. Not at all. We’ll get into it later. Hopefully, Pinch and Peep will be back soon.”

“Yeah, they’re taking their sweet time with it, huh? At least we know they aint out there fuckin,” Knuckle chuckled.

“That hadn’t occurred to me.”

When the prybar was delivered, Knuckle stepped forward to take it, obviously eager to do some violence, if even just to defenseless crates.

“Alright, let’s crack these bitches open and see what’s inside!” he exclaimed happily.

Choke flinched and turned away, as the turn of phrase brought to mind what Shane had said of the boy that Dugnut had killed in delivering his message.

As Knuckle got to work on the first crate, it immediately became obvious that it was not as defenseless at all that. Both crates seem to have been custom made, and were extremely sturdy. Their oak boards were thick and expertly joined. Oddly, though, the top was not a lid. It was as sturdy and load-bearing as any other side of the crate. As Knuckle attacked with his prybar, he found that thick, strong nails had been hammered into every place that could possibly house them.

“What the fuck! Who the fuck! Why! Motherfucker!” Knuckle bellowed as the crate doggedly resisted his every angle of attack.

Everyone around had leaned in to watch Knuckle work, but they now eased back as his fury rose.

“Oh, right! Yeah! Guys were saying these seemed to be overbuilt a bit,” Sergeant Neil proclaimed cheerfully as he and his squad arrived from the north gate.

Sergeant Neil and his men stopped in front of Choke and saluted.

“Sergeant Neil reporting, sir. I have finished my survey of the ongoing work on the defenses. Everything looks fine to me, sir!”

Thank you, Sergeant. At ease, men. We are just attempting to open these crates, as you can see,” Choke said.

With Sergeant Neils arrival, the teamsters who had been hovering around the periphery took the opportunity to come in closer, obviously being more familiar and comfortable with the Spitzer soldiers. They soon mingled in, prompting even more animated speculation and commentary.

“Fuck! Motherfuck! How the fuck! That’s fuckin it!” Knuckle screamed in rage. He stomped away from the crate, scattering the onlookers in his way, and flung the prybar at the stable. It bounced off the wall, taking a good chuck of cobb with it.

“Get more tools!” Knuckle bellowed at his men. “Sledgehammer! Maul! Big axes! Big iron bar! Now!”

Corporal Osgar and the three men on the delivery crew ran to do as ordered. Everyone else around the crates came in for a closer look as Knuckle paced around cursing. All Knuckle had managed with his prybar efforts was some cosmetic damage to some of the crate’s boards. The cuts of the joinery were so precise, and it was all nailed down so tightly, he had found no purchase from which to begin. Indeed, all the most critical nails seemed to have been hammered in past flush, probably with an awl and hammer.

“Special delivery from Sergeant-Major Orel, this, I think, sir,” Sergeant Neil said to Choke as his men chuckled. “Whoever built this deserves a flogging. Or a medal. And I wouldn’t get my hopes up about what’s inside.”

“Yes, it seems that way. I’m sure you’re right. Still we must see what has been sent.”

With proper tools and strong, determined men on them, it did not take much longer to smash through the crates. Still, it took an impressive amount of force and damage to destroy them.

As the first crate began to come apart, Sergeant Neil’s pessimism about its contents was born out. However, for Knuckle and his crew, it was no longer about the contents; it was a battle against the crates themselves. Once both were completely demolished, Sergeant-Major Orel’s special delivery was on full display.

“Yeah. Fuckin called it,” Knuckle said.

It was iron, and none of it useful. It looked to be every last bit of scrap iron that could be scraped out of every corner of Spitzer fort. Clumps of nails and bits of chain rusted together; heaps of broken horseshoes; furnace slag; and discarded bits of weapons and armor, including puddles of broken mail rings fused in rust.

“Building materials. Check!” Sergeant Neil exclaimed.

Everyone had a good laugh at this. Even Knuckle, who first scowled at Neil, broke down into a good belly-laugh.

“Sergeant-Major Orel, ye say, huh?” Knuckle said to Sergeant Neil.

“Who else? I am sure he did none of the labor himself, but this is very much his style.”

“Clever fuck. Special delivery. Okay. No doubt,” Knuckle chuckled. He raised up the long iron bar he had used to pry apart the crates. With the bar over his head in both hands held wide, Knuckle twisted this way and that in a good stretch. He had a far-away, evil gleam in his eye. He dropped the bar across his shoulders, resting his wrists on it in a crucifix pose, and looked to Sergeant Neil with a look of pure malice:

“Yeah. Well, Sergeant, maybe ye can deliver a special message to Orel from me. Tell him that this little gag wasn’t shit for me and my boys to get through, once we got our blood up. What it took his boys a full day to do, we pulled apart in five minutes. And that I don’t give a shit about that extra stripe on his shoulder. One of these days I’m gonna take him apart like these crates, and I won’t need to break a sweat doing it. You tell him that.”

“I think I won’t do that, to be honest, Sergeant. But I’ll spread it around so that it gets into his ear.”

“Sure. Whatever,” Knuckle hawked and spat towards the twin heaps of smashed lumber and rubbish iron. He then looked to Choke: “What do we do about this shit now, Lieutenant?”

“Assign a cleanup crew. Men that have not worked yet today. Salvage whatever wood they can. That which can’t be used otherwise, we can use as firewood. We can retrieve the nails after it’s burned. The iron… I don’t know. Perhaps the blacksmith can use it. I’ll go check with him on that. After that, I’ll need a private word with you,” Choke answered, finally meeting Knuckle’s eye as he finished.

“Yeah, for sure, man,” Knuckle said, giving him a sloppy salute.

Once the errands were finished, it was Knuckle and Choke sitting down together in the dining room. Knuckle had opted to have his ration of ale for the day. Uncharacteristically, Choke decided to join him in that.

“You okay man?” Knuckle asked, once they had settled in. “Ye look fuckin rough, man. What’s the matter? Did that woman yar fuckin dump ye, or something?”

“What?”

“That big bitch of Peep’s that’s been wrangling the stuttering dipshits for her. The one we’ve been training with. Biggun. But not fat, I guess. Just tall and thick.”

“Her name is Mariola!” Choke snapped.

“Okay. Whatever. She is tall for ye, man. Was that what it was? Was she tired of ye making her feel like the man? Cause, if that’s it, she’s not too tall for me. And, I guess, her being thick like that is okay, too. Osgar’s been saying, right?” Knuckle broke into a fit of giggling and had to take a moment before continuing: “Osgar’s been saying that a good thick gall, even a fat one, is a lot of fun. He said: ‘I like to get ahold of it!’ Epic! He also said that the fat ones, and I know that one of yars aint fat like that, but still, he said that the fat ones are usually better at working with their mouths, on account of always wanting to shove something in there anyways. Aint that fuckin hilarious? And ye know what, I think he’s right. Because—”

“Knuckle, please!” Choke shouted.

“What?”

“It’s not about Mariola! And please don’t talk about her like that!”

“Like what? Look man, if yar in LT mode right now and yar telling me to shut up so’s ye can order me about what’s what, then fine. But if we’re sitting down here as friends, which is what I thought this was, then what the fuck, man? So, okay, she’s with ye still. Ye got feelings going on with her. Got it. Good for you, man. Now, I will say that I thought Peep told us that we can’t go near her followers like that, but I guess for you she made the exception, huh?” Knuckle laughed.

“No it’s not like that. Well, maybe— I don’t know. Okay, fine, I’ll have this conversation with you,” Choke said, pausing to take a large sip of his ale.

“Fuck yes, man!” Knuckle grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Ye’ve been getting up inside her plenty, haven’t ye! We all knew it. She really went for ye, man. And Osgar was saying she must be a hell of a ride, because he can always tell when a woman—”

“No! Shut up, please! I don’t want to hear about what Corporal Osgar has to say about it, Knuckle. Please!”

“Oh, right. My bad. Yeah, feelings, and all. So what’s up, then, man? Is she pregnant? Ye wanna get married? I mean; I guess. If ye marry her, ye can move her in here, right? But she’s fuckin ye already anyways, and ye can only marry one, so ye probably wanna hold off. But, she seems to have her shit together,” Knuckle said cheerfully.

“Ahm. Yes, I guess that’s right. She does. And, yes, I do have feelings for her. We seem to have them for each other. I’m sorry if I was short before, Knuckle. I just was not thinking about her at all, and you surprised me with it. And you had no way to know how I feel about her.”

“Fuckin A, man! Good for you! Yar making more coin than any of us, and yar getting yar pussy for free, now. Must be nice! But, I get that’s how this shit works. I’m happy for ye, man.”

“Thank you, Knuckle. I suppose.”

“Man, ye know, Mannis was right. Remember he said that if we got with the Church and had a regular situation, women would throw themselves at us? Well, I know we aint with the Church, exactly, but that’s how it went. This Mary-whatever came at ye like a wolf on a rabbit, man! And I know I’ve been paying for it, but maybe that’s changing. I dunno. But remember what else Mannis said: he said the key was to take advantage of the women coming after yar situation, but not to get tangled up with them. And yar getting tangled, aren’t ye.”

“I think I am, yes.”

“Is she pregnant?”

“It’s only been a few days, Knuckle. If she was, we wouldn’t know it,” Choke said, frowning at him in concern.

“Really? Ye mean they don’t bloat up overnight like bread?” Knuckle asked, holding a deadpan look for a long moment before breaking into laughter. “Nah, yar right. Dumb question. But while we’re on it, how long does it take for women to, ye know, swell up? How long do they keep the baby in, anyways?”

“I… I don’t really know, actually,” Choke paused, realizing that, having been raised in a cloister, he really had no idea. “Horses are almost a year. Cows nine months. Pigs are about three months.”

“Well, ladies are bigger than pigs and smaller than cows. Most of them, anyways,” Knuckle laughed. “So… about six months? Is it like holding a shit in? Like do they have to bear down on holding them in? And when does it start showing?”

Choke closed his eyes and started laughing.

“What?” Knuckle asked. “Seriously, man! We need to know this shit!”

“Why?”

“Because we’re fuckin now, is why! And if ye can’t see if they’ve got a baby in them before ye plow them, then how do ye know ye aint gonna mash the baby up? Or, shake it loose so’s it pops out on yar dick like some kinda baby goblin, or something.”

“That is… horrifying. I don’t know, Knuckle. I don’t think that is how it works.”

“Well if yar fuckin this one on the regular, ye’d best find out.”

“It’s not a worry for us. She— no, never mind. Thank you for the advice, Knuckle. I will try to figure it out,” Choke said.

“Well, if ye do, let me know about it. Because I just been fuckin hoors, and they seem to sort that shit out on their end. But now it might be an issue. Osgar’s told me that ye gotta pull out. Don’t cum inside them, right? But, I mean, that don’t always work, he says.”

“I… okay… good,” Choke lapsed into silence and sat for a moment staring off into space.

Knuckle drained his ale and sat smiling like a proud child at Choke.

Something from their exchange bubbled up into a proper notion for Choke. He sat up in alarm.

“Wait a minute, Knuckle. What do you mean babies might be an issue for you? What’s— Oh, no! Knuckle, please tell me you don’t mean Shasta.”

Knuckle’s face cracked into a wide grin and he snorted.

“Knuckle. Please do not have sex with Shasta!” Choke exclaimed in alarm as he realized that was exactly what was on Knuckle’s mind.

“Okay, look, man, I hear ye. I do. She’s a fuckin pig. And an evil-hearted one, to boot. But, I mean, it’s right there for the taking. How am I supposed to not?”

“Knuckle! You hate her!”

“Well, yeah. I mean, I aint talking about being with her, or anything. Or even being nice to her. Just pump and dump, is what Osgar calls it. It don’t mean nothing.”

“Knuckle. Please listen to me. I understand that I don’t have a right to tell you what to do in this regard. But it would be such a bad idea, for you and everything we are doing here, for you to get involved with that woman. Think of all the complications.”

“Yeah, well, I am. That’s why I brought up the baby thing. So we’re on the same page there, man,” Knuckle said, obviously amused by Choke’s agitation.

“Are you fucking with me, man? She is the mother of Barrelmender’s children! She is the property manager for the parish. She is a selfish and manipulative person. All of that is reason enough to stay clear of her. And then, yes, there is the further concern of impregnating a person like that.”

Knuckle nodded reasonably. “Okay. I hear ye, Choke. What yar saying is: just let her suck me off again, and if I do wind up fuckin her, ye know, just because I get caught and can’t stop it, if that happens, don’t finish up inside her guts,” Knuckle said with a cheeky grin.

In his horror, it took Choke a long moment to catch Knuckle’s look. Once he had, Knuckle started laughing and slapped the table.

“Oh, you prick!” Choke said before he, too, started chuckling, even despite himself. “Has this all been a windup? You prick!”

“Ha! Don’t be so serious all the time, man! Lighten up! I aint that fuckin dumb. I know I can’t fuck her. But, I’m just saying, man, if she comes at me again like that, I dunno that I can stop her from sucking my cock. Ye know, I aint that guy, man. Sorry.”

“Okay, now. What do you mean, ‘again,’ Knuckle? Please, stop joking. This is another joke, right? What are you talking about?”

“Well, no. She sucked me off today. Fuckin slut,” Knuckle said happily.

“What? How?”

“Well, first she got her tits out and just put them in my hands. Then she went down on her knees and—”

“No! That’s not what I meant! I mean, when? You’ve been on duty all day! How did the two of you manage it?” Choke almost shouted.

“Alright, now, don’t get angry, okay? It was after lunch. She came to the north gate and had them ring the bell, right? I went there to talk to her, remember?”

“What? Then?”

“No. Fuck man, it takes longer than that! Or maybe not for you just yet. Anyways, she went to talk to ye, and then she came back out and found me with the boys working on fixing the wall.”

“You mean to tell me that between her leaving here with me, and me coming out to assign you to collect the delivery, she managed to… to do that to you? While you were supervising the work crew?”

“Yeah!” Knuckle said happily.

“Where? What? How?”

“Man, are you getting a stutter? Like I told ye!”

“You were on duty supervising the repair of the palisade! You left your post?” Choke yelled.

Knuckle smartened up with a scowl as he saw where this was going.

“No, sir! I stayed on my post, sir! It aint like I left them alone,” he said, meeting Choke’s glare with a hard look of his own.

“So, what? This happened in front of the men?”

“Pretty much. Look, Choke, she was in my face getting all frisky. Osgar said something about her being a cruel bitch to tease me like that without any intention of following through. She came back on him that she had every intention. Then she shoved me back around the side of the wall. There was a bit of a corner there, right? Then she did her thing.”

“Knuckle,” Choke groaned, massaging his face.

“What? I was right there. Osgar was with the men, too. They weren’t gonna run off.”

“You need to be better than this, Knuckle. You are their sergeant. You need to be their leader.”

“Yeah, no doubt! They thought it was great! How is this any different than you banging Peep’s boss dipshit?”

“Don’t bring her into this! You were on duty, Knuckle! Don’t you understand the distinction?” Choke said.

Knuckle sighed deeply and let his head roll back in frustration. “Okay, yeah. I get it. I’m sorry. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Thank you. And I’m going to forget you told me anything about it. Just do better, Knuckle. Seriously. Please.”

“Yeah, fine. So, is that all?”

“What? No! I didn’t ask you here to talk about my sex life. Or to hear about yours. So, I need you to listen properly. Okay?” Choke took a deep breath to steady himself.

“Yeah, sure, man. What’s up.”

“Shane brought terrible news from Callic.”

“Who?”

“Shane. He came from Callic today. Oh shit, wait. I suppose you were out the north gate all afternoon. You didn’t see him arrive,” Choke said, scratching his scalp in frustration.

“Who? Who the fuck is Shane from Callic?” asked Knuckle, genuinely confused.

“Don’t you remember? The two brothers guarding the Callic side of the Tanglefoot. Shane and his brother Earl.”

“Oh, shit! Right! Is he the tree fucker?” Knuckle laughed.

“No! Although, I suppose you mean Earl. And he didn’t do that. He—”

“Oh, right!” Knuckle interrupted. “Yeah, he’s the one that helped the death knight try to fuck the log. The one with the poke hole! Ha! Yeah, that was fuckin classic. So Shane aint that one?”

“No, that’s Earl. Shane is his brother, who used to campaign as a hunter and scout for the former Baron.”

“Oh, shit!” Knuckle slapped the table. “Yeah, that’s who that was! When we were coming back with that first crate, we saw this hunter-looking old fuck coming out the gate. I thought he looked familiar.”

“Yes, that’s him. Shane is his name. Anyways, Shane brought us terrible news from Callic. It’s about the Ungers. You do remember who they are, don’t you?” Choke asked.

Knuckle’s face contorted in thought for a second before he lit up again:

“Yeah. The family there by the tower with the bows. Pinch fucked that one guy’s wife.”

Choke blinked slowly at this, but chose to push on:

“Yes, that’s them. Well, they were attacked by bandits. The two adult women and the eldest boy, Dagg, were taken away. The rest were violated and killed. Except for Munn, who burned down his workshop with himself inside. And… there’s more.”

Choke pulled the leather note from where he had tucked it inside his belt. He handed it to Knuckle, who took his time reading it with a deep frown.

“That was left on one of the boy victims. Apparently, he had been grievously assaulted to death.

“Shit. Dugnut, huh? What a fuckin dumbass! That aint how ye spell ‘from,’ is it? And he even got his own name wrong, didn’t he?”

“It’s all poorly spelled. I don’t think that’s the most important thing here, Knuckle.”

“Yeah, right. It’s just, he always was a fuckin dumbass. Like, even worse than me. But, yeah, this is bad. But, sorry, what are we supposed to do about it? We can’t go after him, right?”

“No, we can’t. But, I expect that Sneed is behind this. Remember, we talked about this after we had that run-in with Sneed in Bristlenook?”

“Right! Yeah. So, Sneed is gonna use Dugnut as bait in a trap against us, is what yar thinking. I hear that. We just gotta work that to our advantage, somehow. Right?”

“Yes, that right, Knuckle.”

“But we still get to kill Dugnut, right?” Knuckle asked calmly.

“Yes, I hope so. We just have to be very careful about it.”

“Good. Yeah. Just tell me what to do, man! I’m on it.”

“Alright. Thank you, Knuckle. I’m… I don’t know. I’m sorry, it just seems you are taking this very well. You don’t find this news upsetting? I’m sorry, I know it’s not my business how you react. But, I’m just having a very hard time with this myself. How are you able to be so calm about it?” Choke asked, his tone more earnest than judgmental.

Knuckle shrugged. “I dunno. It aint like it’s not a big deal. I wanna kill him, for sure. But, we already knew that’s what he was out there doing to folk, right? Peep told us all about his rep out there. So, now he did it to some more folk that we’ve met. But it aint like we’re that close to them, right? We only hung out with them a couple days. So, what’s the difference, really? He’s gotta die. That’s the bottom line. Getting all fucked up about it aint gonna help us get it done. Just the opposite, really. We can’t get all hot-headed about it. Right?”

“Yes, that is right, Knuckle. We have to, I have to, put emotion out of this. Thank you. Okay, then, once Peep and Pinch are back, we’ll sit down with them and give them Shane’s news. But, before that, while we have the chance here: is there anything you’d like to talk about with me now?” Choke asked.

Knuckle thought for a second and shook his head. “Nah. We’re cool, man. Thanks for looking the other way on that Shasta BJ. I get what yar saying there. I’ll do my best.”

The two stood up from the table. Knuckle came around to Choke and grabbed him up in a warm hug.

“Settle down, my man. Ye can’t control every fuckin thing in this world. One thing at a time, right? We’ll get it done,” Knuckle said.

“Thank you, Knuckle. Thank you,” Choke said, fighting back tears, realizing he had needed that hug more than he ever could have thought.

“Right. Go get yar dick sucked. It’ll make ye feel better!” Knuckle laughed.