"Oh?" said Sir Kellumvor.
Squire Phillip was shaking his head and smiling.
"Yes, my lord," answered Ivanos. "It was decreed by the graciousness of Sir Wilmath and his knights who just arrived."
"Decreed? I never decreed such folly recruitment practices! What shall you do to persuade my confidence?"
Ivanos's face sank. "I've nothing, my lord. I can only give you my sword on the battlefield and my loyalty as a brother knight if I am found worthy."
"What about your warhorse?" Sir Kellumvor pointed a lobstered armor finger at Velvet passively grazing where Ivanos had dismounted her.
"Velvet? Would I not need her to aid the horsemen in the fight?"
"You've named your horse?" said the knight laughing. "That's interesting. But, you see, my mare is going lame and soon to be put down. Useless to me in battle. Yours looks strong even after your day of riding. She should serve me well and you should be honored to hand her over as a sign of good faith."
Ivanos looked over at Velvet and held his gaze for a long pause. She had been his only steady companion for many years now, but he also understood the lack of emotion a knight had towards horses. They were to be used and exchanged at the end of their usefulness. He remembered a time when he would have ridden a horse to death for the sake of the war if necessary. Being a wandering mercenary had changed his view of many things, but he knew in the service of a King, sacrifices had to be made. Velvet was indeed in good health and probably would be fine, but who was to say she would not meet her demise with Ivanos by the hand of a trog? Ivanos strolled over to Velvet, rubbed her neck and scratched her cheek. "Come on, girl."
He grabbed her reins and walked her over to Sir Kellumvor. "Please, take care of her. That horse and I have ridden through many storms, crossed many rivers and camped many cold lonely nights together."
Sir Kellumvor flared his nostrils. He puckered his lips and made two kiss sounds before he said flatly, "So sad." He motioned to the squire. "Get this animal cleaned and properly shooed up. I will ride her out to the battle tomorrow."
Ivanos removed his saddlebags from Velvet and his bedroll before he turned and walked away to find Sir Haggis.
* * * *
The next morning Ivanos awoke and suited up in his armor. He stood tying his gauntlet while noticing just how old and worn his armor had become. Wearing it as often and as religiously as he had, even on many days when he had no rational course for donning it other than the chance encounter with robbers and thieves. He had simply become blind to its condition. Patches of rust had begun to rim the edges. A crack in the cuirass crept across his abdomen. Another crack that had begun a tiny split in a savage dent left by a brute with a maul that had worked its way to nearly splitting his left pauldron in two. He had hammered out the dent but had never gotten the crack repaired. He sighed and put up his chin. He would make the best of it. Knights were provided with armor by the King. He had kept his longsword in pristine condition at the very least. Things would get better. He could soon barter with Sir Kellumvor or trade to get Velvet back. Surely after his swearing-in, he would be provided with another horse.
He heard the horns blow across the war camp signaling the army to move out and head for Nodet. Ivanos strapped on his longsword, grabbed his helmet and ran out from a war tent he shared with Sir Haggis and his squire through the night. He met up with Sir Haggis mounting his horse. "So how far is it to Nodet?" Ivanos asked.
"Less than an hour at best," Sir Haggis said. He kept his horse at a slow pace to allow Ivanos to keep up on foot. The entire army was moving northwest into the forest tree line at a casual pace. "Never been to Nodet then?"
"Nah, I know it's on the shores of the Rusted Sea and I've been to the most southern shores, but never far enough north to visit Nodet."
"Well, it's not far from the south shores," said Sir Haggis. "Not a large city, mostly fishermen and farmers. They provide a good amount of provisions for Red Wolf. Many people in the Kingdom depend on its trade. The trogs have sacked the city and most of the citizens have evacuated. We lost a crucial battle when the trogs banked their longships the first day. I wasn't in the fight yet, but many knights spoke of a witch who summoned a swarm of poisonous spiders on the knights that downed many. It was said to be a terrifying display. I'm not even sure it's true, but by the looks on their faces when they tell it, I know they saw something happening to their men, and half of their ranks never came back. We shall see today I expect, the bodies on the field. Or maybe a witch!" Sir Haggis laughed. "I admit I'm a bit curious. Most witches never amount to anything but tricksters I've encountered, or delusional lunatics. Not saying I don't believe in magic or the supernatural but. . . It's just hard to imagine the scale of something that dramatic."
Ivanos grew tired of carrying his helmet and put it on his head and flipped up the visor. "Indeed. Stories are always exaggerated."
"Of course," said Sir Haggis.
They kept a steady walking speed for the next several minutes before the army halted to wait for the scouts to go forward and investigate the position of the trogs plundering Nodet. The trogs were certain to move south towards Red Wolf Keep at some point. Aside from a small band of Nodet city guards, the evacuating citizens had long since moved off-road to the scattered small villages in the areas near the keep.
Ivanos caught sight of Sir Kellumvor riding Velvet. She was giving him a rough time of it, swishing her tail and stopping and shaking her head frequently.
18
VENDRONIA
"There's blood everywhere in the room, but where is the Crone Mother?" It was a trog commander Yurka's voice, firm and deep for a woman. "It's in her bed and there are tracks everywhere! Look! It's dried here and there."
"This is a terrible omen for the trog," said Borlin, his voice gritty, the second commander who had stayed in one of the rooms down the hall.
Vendronia took a deep breath and turned to climb through the open window. She met face to face with Borlin which startled her up close, as it always had because one side of his mouth hung down permanently into a gaping frown where he'd poorly hemmed his own wound when he was a young warrior. He never shaved his mustache and had let it grow out down past his chest and braided it to hide his disfigurement, but it hardly covered it. As Vendronia jerked back in surprise, Borlin raised his double-bladed long ax to swing at her.
Vendronia forced a smile, her lips trembling. "I'm here! Don't worry, I banished the beast!"
Borlin's brow lifted. "Crone mother?"
"Yes. This is indeed a dark omen. Our Varl and his Fist have been slain by a monstrous wolf in the night the size of which I'd never seen. The Witch-God didn't allow me to intervene in time to save them, but I fought with the beast as he tried to devour me in my sleep. The Witch God protected me from its claws and teeth. I invoked a hex to frighten him and as he fled out the window, I chased him and used my magic to send him into the Well of Demons." She averted her eyes to the floor and moved towards the door.
Borlin and Yurka both stood watching her with puzzled faces.
"How is it the window is not broken?" asked Yurka. Yurka kept her head shaved to display a tattoo of a pattern of thorns that ran from her silver eyebrows all the way over her head and down her back. She carried what the trog dubbed a wideblade, a short sword with a wide, rectangular blade like a butcher cleaver. She loved to chop pieces off her enemies in battle, especially men. She wore a shoulder belt of dried-out penises she had kept as trophies over the years. She rarely showed emotion on her face and Vendronia hadn't seen anxiety on the woman's face like she did now.
Borlin narrowed his eyes at Yurka in disapproval. He went to the window and pulled it closed. "The Crone Mother probably sleeps with it open, Yurka. Do you question the Crone Mother on this?"
Yurka sighed. "I don't question the wisdom of the Crone, but what she says is curiously unusual and hard to see. The trogs will want to know why the Varl and his Fist were mutilated in their beds. They'll want to know how or why a
n animal would tear out their eyes, throats, and innards and not take meat from their bones. In all my killings of men, I've never seen such goring."
"It's a curse to question the wisdom of the Crone," said Borlin. "We'll mourn Varl Torvul and Adon his Fist, and we'll make their funeral tonight. The Crone Mother will advise us what we should do next."
Vendronia swallowed. She felt needles all over her body. She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes to find a calm in this storm of madness. She'd finally been accepted by Varl Torvul only to have the honor snatched from her grasps by her own hands, though she could not explain how or why. To survive, she'd need to seize this moment and own her claim to the title of Crone Mother. She opened her eyes, looked upward and gave the two trogs a penetrating glare. "The Witch God has spoken to me and given me wisdom. Tonight, we will make a funeral pyre for Varl Torvul and Adon. As we put their bodies to the flames you, Borlin, will be anointed as Varl of the trog, and you will be his Fist Yurka."
Yurka's eyes widened.
"The Crone mother has spoken," said Borlin. "Yurka and I will clean their bodies and prepare the pyre before the trog army is informed. I can't speak of myself as Varl before the Crone Mother anoints me."
"They'll want to know why we're building a pyre when we should be chasing down the cucks who fled and raiding their castle?" said Yurka. "What do we say?"
Vendronia said, "You'll tell them nothing, and that all will be told by the Crone Mother when the pyre is finished, and she comes down to speak."
Borlin and Yurka nodded and left to prepare the bodies of Torvul and Adon and clean the room.
Vendronia stayed behind. She shut the door and went to her wash basin to clean the caked blood from her body. She cried. She screamed into her pillow many times and tore it to shreds before she finally fell asleep from exhaustion.
* * * *
When Vendronia awoke, she heard the trogs singing the ancient trog songs out in the streets of Nodet. The pyre had been made, and they awaited the Crone Mother for the ceremony. She grabbed her ritual pack along with her vudjinn magic tomes and went downstairs to meet the trogs outside.
The song they sang rumbled the windows in the inn, and their stamping feet shook the floorboards beneath her feet. Clearly, the entire trog army of about two thousand men and women had gathered around the pyre made for Varl Torvul and Adon the Fist. When Vendronia stepped out into Nodet Square, the sight gave her goose flesh. The pyre stood over twenty feet high and had been constructed by Borlin, Yurka and several trogs they had recruited to help them. They'd used pieces of the local shops nearby and planks from the vendor carts. The bodies had been wrapped in white linen cloths and laid on the top of the crude triangular skeleton with a layer of various flowers scattered over them Vendronia remembered seeing in a few of the vendors' carts when they'd walked into the city. Also, on top of the wrapped bodies, someone had placed each of their weapons; Torvul's body with his war hammer and Adon's with his sword.
Vendronia nudged her way through the crowd, which got easier as trogs parted the way for her once they saw it was the bloodskin witch. Though they respected her now due to her display of power in war the previous day, the respect was partially one of fear. No one had seen any Crone Mother or witch capable of such a scale of power.
She made it to the pyre and found Yurka and Borlin adding the last small branches and sacks of wood shavings for tinder inside the gaps at the bottom.
"It's finished, Crone Mother," Yurka shouted close to Vendronia's ear over the roar of song.
Borlin crossed his arms.
Vendronia thought she saw him narrowing his eyes at her just as she looked away. Her hands shook. Her bowels watered. They know! They know! They'll all know it was me! I killed Torvul! I killed Adon! I murdered them both in their sleep! Calm. She needed to calm herself before she blurted out the truth, and they gored her right here and threw her onto the pyre. Or would they? She remembered stories told of a trog warrior murdering the Varl and succeeding in his place due to his display of strength. It could go either way, depending on the popularity of the Varl, but Torvul had been a celebrated Varl, raiding often and sharing the spoils with the whole of the trog people. The safest bet for her was to celebrate his life and show respect and honor his death here and now, though he had been cruel to her for most of her life. She knew the trog adored him and his father.
She climbed up the ladder they had made to hoist the bodies up and stood on top of the pyre to address the crowd of trogs. She raised her arms signaling silence. The song diminished soon enough, then Vendronia shouted, her voice booming off the cobblestones of the town square and the faces of the shops and structures within, "We stand together to honor our fallen Varl and his Fist! They have fought and served the trog in many great glorious conquests!"
The trogs roared with approval, shaking their axes, swords and hammers together with shields and knives over their heads, crackling like a wave of thunder.
"They showed us bravery and we become brave! They showed us strength, and so we fight to be stronger!"
This time the army bellowed, "Oaagg Tu!! Oaagg Tu!!" It was a cry of approval and a display of the strength they felt as a group. Sometimes they shouted this to invoke fear when charging into a town to raid.
"Let the Gods of Making caress them as their ashes float into the sky and spread their energies back into the heavens whence they came so that their spirits may be reunited with Ozum the Shaper of the World, Grod the First Conquerer, Yomen the Champion of Champions, and Edithak the Maiden of Fire and Water!"
"Oaagg Tu!! Oaagg Tu!!" the crowd proclaimed.
Vendronia pulled her dagger from her belt and made a cut into her hand and displayed it for them all as it dripped with blood. Many in the rows of trog closest to her moved back a couple steps. "I Crone Mother of the trog anoint Borlin as the new Varl of the people!" She shook her hand over Borlin's head dotting his hair and face with her blood.
The torg army cheered and then shouted again, "Oaagg Tu!! Oaagg Tu!!"
"I also anoint Yurka as Fist of Varl Borlin!" Vendronia shook flecks of blood over Yurka, spotting her tattooed head and her face with red.
Another cheer and another shout from the trogs.
With that, Yurka handed Vendronia a flaming torch. Vendronia took it and climbed down the ladder and pushed it into the tender and watched as the fire roiled upward into a menacing blaze.
The torgs began to sing the song of the ceremony for the dead:
Berivay tuta! Berivay suta!(Oh glorious brother! Oh, glorious sister!)
Dim mak ko variytu! (Great wounds make your sight dim!)
Cal jun non flect dara doon! (Shall you no more feel the skin of lovers)
En bret sass ti gorta! (Or taste the sweetness of victory!)
Cal jun non ralee um bade rey! (Shall you no more hold your sons and daughters!)
Cal jun non row hext tarta dor lan! (Shall you no more bear the sorrows of this dirt land!)
Fek ut e crut si vestro ko geni cucks! (Take with you all the might of every blow to your enemies)
Un glorin ti bestu vorpa rind trog toro uns zo ekk! (And give it to the next warrior that is born!)
The funeral lasted well into the night and the trogs drank, ate, and copulated with fanaticism. Vendronia went back up into her room and ate a small bit of the yage root before she stopped and cried herself to sleep again, though fully feeling the effects of the root. This time she dreamed.
She ran with the pack once again. They followed her through the field that stretched out behind Nodet divided by the road from Red Wolf Keep. She took the wolves down the road, and after running just a short time, she caught the scent of campfires and human sweat on the breeze. She ran and ran following the scent into the trees and soon she had taken the pack far away from the road. She stopped at a clearing where hundreds of gray tents were set up in rows with Red Wolf insignia flags waving in the night. The pack began to growl behind her. She howled and then yelped at them, telling them to wait
where they were. She would sneak into the war camp silently and investigate. She smelled something familiar in the air, like the last time she'd tried to summon the watcher but instead met with the King of Scion. It smelled much like the air after a lightning strike, and it gave her a sense of discomfort. Hiding within the darkest shadows of the night, she followed the smell as it grew stronger until it led her to a tent near the center of the camp. Night watch guards took no notice of her.
She poked her head through the tent flap and followed her nose to one of the men who was sleeping. As soon as she neared him, his eyes flashed open and glowed white. Then, without moving his body, he said to her, "Remember my face!" He sat up from his bedroll. He was dressed only in a dirty white tunic. "Prepare for me!" The man laid back down and returned to sleep instantly as if he were completely unaware of his actions.
Vendronia left the tent and slipped through the shadows, meeting up with the pack at the edge of the war camp. She ran with them back through the trees until her vision began to close into darkness.
* * * *
She awoke.
She dressed in her skins, grabbed her things and made her way out into the hall. Yurka and Borlin had already left their rooms.
Vendronia went downstairs. She heard a commotion outside, shouts and screams. The voices of Yurka and Borlin.
Vendronia ran out into the square. The smell of the smoldering pyre and the faint stench of burned flesh lingered in the air. In the very heart of the square, a gathered group of trog that included Yurka and Borlin huddled around two battered and bloodied men strapped down to chairs. Borlin and Yurka were interrogating them. Disheveled armor lay strewn about in pieces on the cobblestones of the square. There was clothing tossed about as well, and amongst them, two Red Wolf over-cloaks. She moved her way between the towering trogs and gasped when she saw the men up close. They shivered in their chair prisons, completely naked, their faces swollen and grotesquely deformed from beatings taken to the face. A bright red drizzle of blood and spittle glistened on their jaws and streamed down their chests, matting their chest-hair. She hardly thought the men could see. Swelling had closed their eyes to thin slits.
The Vanguards of Scion Page 11