Mark of Chaos Read Online Free Page A

under an awning, sheltering from the drizzling rain. He was smoking a pipe, blue-grey smoke wafting out into the cold evening air.
    Stefan, stomping towards the tent in the rain, frowned at his sergeant. 'You'll get yourself hanged speaking of the count like that.'
    'Pah, none of the boys round hear would speak out against me. Would you lads?' snarled Albrecht, turning towards the group of Ostermark soldiers playing dice behind him. They muttered under their breaths. 'Course they wouldn't. They know I'd make their lives much more painful if they did. Besides, it was their arses out there on the line with no reinforcements coming as well as yours and mine.'
    'Aye, it was. I don't know if the reinforcements were sent or not. The old count's mind is going. Maybe they were sent, but he recalled them. Who knows? But there isn't a damn thing anybody can do about it.'
    'His mind's been going for years. He's too old by far. I reckon it's the wasting sickness what's done it - been fighting that since childhood. Weak bloodline. That's what you get when you have nobles marrying nobles for generations. That family's a bit too closely related, if you know what I mean.'
    'We lost too many good men out there, needlessly, but what can be done? Call him a liar? Call him an inbred old fool whose mind is going? I'd be strung up before the words left my lips! You know as well as I that his damn courtiers would love to see me swing.'
    'Well, it seemed like a bloody suicide mission to me.'
    'Why would the old man want me dead after all these years? He could have got rid of me whenever he wanted. I owe him my life, Albrecht.'
    'Maybe. He certainly doesn't pass up an opportunity to remind you of it.'
    'Well, if the order was recalled, or never sent, it could have been someone else. That Tilean whoreson Andros for one. As trustworthy as a snake, that one.'
    'Or Johann. Was that skinny runt there?'
    'Aye he was, spoiling for a fight. More than usual,' Stefan said.
    'He may be a decent duellist, but that wouldn't count for nought on a real battlefield,' stated Albrecht. 'It wouldn't have helped him in the mountain pass, neither, if he had been there. He would have been one of the dead being picked over by the crows as we speak, Morr save them. Would have done Ostermark a blessing, too.'
    'Aye, you are probably right, but he is the count's flesh and blood, and we are but soldiers.' said Stefan, shrugging. 'I am dead tired. I'm heading to bed.'
    'Rest well, captain.' said Albrecht, patting the younger man on the shoulder. He watched his captain stalk off, and blew a smoke ring into the air.
    'That right, sergeant? You really think we were sent out there to die?' asked a young soldier, looking up from his game.
    'Don't rightly know, lad. It's politics. Still, the captain's a canny devil. He'd be a hard man to catch off guard, and not a man I'd like as an enemy.' replied Albrecht, thoughtfully, 'although, it's definitely possible, the count being without child and all. The captain's a rival to any who would claim the throne when Morr takes the count.'
    'A rival? How's that, sergeant?'
    'His grandfather was the elector. Therefore, if there was no clear heir, he could make a claim. Not that he ever would.'
    'Truly? I thought that was just a story! So those scars on his face - they were put there to mark his grandfather's shame?'
    'Aye, burnt into him as a babe. Heartless fiend, a man who could hold a white-hot iron to the face of a newborn.'
    'Don't that mean that the captain's cursed, sergeant?' asked the young soldier. 'That he's got the taint?' The soldiers he was playing with froze, halting their game. Albrecht turned to stare at him, his eyes narrowing.
    'The captain's a better man than any here. There ain't no taint in him, and I'll personally cut the throat of any man who suggests there is.' snarled the sergeant. 'You're new with our regiment, ain't you?' The young soldier nodded, eyes wide.
    'The captain has saved the life of every man here with his