A face I knew since childhood emerged from the manor’s tall red doors, my younger brother Yorbrand, together with one of my father’s two servants, Eliette the matron of the manor, and two young men whose names I could not place.
He came to me, nearly as tall as I was now, clean shaven, with long brown hair, and a narrower face than mine, both which took after our mother more than our father’s thick bones and pale hair. He was wearing the blue tunic of a soldier in training, though I could see that he had not yet given up those fancy type of boots from Goldwater he had taken a liking to since before I left.
“Brother!” he said, his voice suddenly taking me back years.
“Yorbrand, look at you!” We could not help ourselves and embraced just as we did as children. “Nineteen now, are you? You practically look a king.”
“No, brother it is you who the people look to as a hero. Oh but what is this, looks like you’ve found yourself a princess of some sort? With prizes like these we should all go to war more often.” He looked to Bellabel, who even with her traveler’s cloak looked a beauty.
“War is not all prizes my brother,” I said, patting his shoulder as we made our way into the house. “And this is Bellabel, she…” I looked between her and my brother, “was also an imperial captive. She helped me escape. We helped one another actually.”
“Is that so?” Yorbrand said, genuinely confused.
“You see there was much treachery, and I was not released as promised. We had to fight our way out. Many men fell… even Eric.”
“Eric, he’s…?”
“It hurts me to tell you of it. You knew him much better than I.”
“I knew him… like a brother.”
“Then it is two now you’ve lost,” I said, remembering Gannon. “Let neither of us lose another.” He only nodded, suddenly silent and grave. “But where is father? He should hear these things.”
“He should be back soon enough. He’s with Jarl Bardawulf, attending to some matters. We didn’t expect you to arrive for another four or five days.”
“We... had to make haste.” I made my way through the entrance and stopped at the statue of Fenris. He had been sculpted as a great wolf, nearly life size, and held fiery lightning in his fangs as a hound might hold a fetching stick. His poise was fierce, and he wore armor on his shoulders, which I always found strange. I gazed upon it now, differently than I ever had growing up, though I had passed by it a thousand times.
“Your house’s god,” Bellabel said as she beheld it, and subtly bowed her head in reverence.
“Aye, I suppose so.” I nodded to Fenris, feeling it was the least I could do.
“Rothan,” the matron Eliette called to me. “We began preparing a great meal for you as soon as we received word of your coming. In the meantime we have a meal of fruit, cheese, and bread while you wait for the meat to cook.”
The custom of fruits and cheese, hot baths, firestones, all had been growing before I left. In some ways, the Empire was conquering us without warfare. But food was food to a growling stomach. “That sounds a godsend, Eliette. Thank you.” Eliette was something of a second mother to me, her hair now turning from gray to white, looking like snowfall on her green dress embroidered with a vined pattern.
Eliette nodded. She stared for a moment toward Bellabel. “Do you speak our tongue, my lady?”
“Yes, I speak the common tongue.” Bellabel nodded politely.
“She’s a Sarathean, not an Orc,” I said with a laugh.
“Forgive me, Master Rothan. I meant no discourtesy.”
“I know, Eliette. Gods, I was only japing.”
Bellabel and I ate some fresh fruit and cheese in the dining room after taking our baths in which firestones were dropped into.
“Your home is very comfortable,” my Sarathean concubine said, “as if your family are wealthy merchants.”
“My father is no merchant. He is more of a military man. But I guess sometimes they are one and the same in some ways. He is not nearly as wealthy as the Jarl, or a few other men in the Jarldom, the entire Kingdom even more so.”
“Still, the god of wealth smiles on your family.”
Suddenly I heard horns blowing, horns I had known for a long time. “Father,” I said as I stood, motioning for Bellabel to join me. “Bellabel, my father is here.”
I stepped to the front door, and watched as five men on horseback came up the rising path to the manor. There at the head of them, was my father, clad in boiled leather, a blue wool tunic and battleworn gauntlets. His beard fell over his chest, heavy with the snow of age, and split in two as it fell, was braided in places. His face was hardened with a lifetime of battle, a paunch began to grow at his belly, but was still eclipsed by the wide muscular build of his frame. He pulled his horse up beside me.
“Who is this stranger?” he said to me, and drew a sword from its scabbard. His horse reared, and turned.
“Rothan!” Bellabel said in concern.
“Truly I do not recognize him.” He threw the sword at me. I stepped aside and let it pierce the ground. It twanged as it swayed, impaled on the ground.
My fingers wrapped around the pommel, and drew it as I would from a sheath. He looked at me for a long moment, and I at him. He was Gustaff the Hammer, the very spirit of Wolf Rein, the man I learned all things from.
“A sword in your hand. There. I see my son again.”
He dismounted. I handed his sword to him and he sheathed it. We stared at one another, and I took in the scars on his face, the two creases on his brow that made it look like he was always scowling.
“I have returned, Father. It has been a terrible five years, an even worse journey here, but I have returned.” I approached my father. “I am glad to see you.”
His hair was kicking in the wind. He nodded. In this at least, he let the chiseled edge of the Hammer soften for just a moment as he embraced me. When I looked into his eyes, it was as if looking into a mirror.
7
I sat with my father, at our ancestral manor on Red Hill. There was a railed balcony outside his quarters, where we could sit and see the town spread down before us then rise back again to Stone Mantle, Jarl Bardawulf’s sprawling castle. We sat on leather chairs, holding goblets of mead after our meal. We had not discussed details of my leaving Kenessos, as there had been others at the meal—Yorbrand and his companions, Bellabel—and it seemed unwise to speak such things in company. Instead we had spoken of the comings and goings in town, the many languages, weapons, foods, sites I came across when living in Kenessos.
“Now tell me,” my father said, stroking his beard with one hand, clasping his goblet with the other, “what is it truly that happened that night when you say you faced a monster?”
My eyes roamed as I looked for words. “I faced a monster, father, then I became one.”
“Come, don’t speak in riddles.”
“Pelleo, he made me face a great Orc—but not an Orc at all truly, an ogre rather, from the Gongolian marshes he said.”
“That was not part of my agreement with him. We sent ravens to and from, and had arranged it all. You were to be free with one more combat, an ordinary one. He is known to honor contracts if nothing else.”
I felt my stomach churn as I knew that it was better for him to hear it from me than from One Eye or anyone else. “You see… he promised me… something valuable, very valuable if I slayed the creature.”
He set his goblet down. “What could he have promised you? I’ve never known you to have such a lust for gold or jewels. I can hardly get you to thirst for conquering lands either.”
“You see… it was for...”
“Get on with it!” He growled. “Do you think me a simple fool? It was for that Sarathean wench that you risked your life for, wasn’t it? A woman. And you risked everything we have been building.”
We both rose, nearly simultaneously. I felt my blood race as we shouted. “Should I had left her there to be a whore, against her will? Have you not taught
me honor? Why should I have backed down from facing the creature? Have you not taught me to fear no combat, against man or beast, against the gods themselves if need be?”
“Yes, I have taught you such. But only when combat is absolutely necessary. And if not necessary, then at least a combat that you can actually win!”
“I had a plan to slay the creature! I would have slain it, had Pelleo not betrayed me.” I took a few paces away from the fire, and this seemed to calm me some. “I know not why he betrayed me, but I’m sure he gained more. Perhaps he struck some deal with his rival ringmaster, a man named Ribedeux. The creature was gaining him favor in the city, enough to rival Pelleo. That’s why he wanted his creature out of the way—that’s what he told me. But it seems in the end, he bought the creature for himself, I imagine. And perhaps if the crowd witnessed the new champion killing the old one, it would make the creature that much more popular. Perhaps Pelleo realized there was more gold to be made this way, than for me to slay the creature and then leave.”
“What happened then, in the combat itself? Pelleo could not openly kill you before the crowd.”
“They did it openly, and yet secretly. First they poisoned me, had sword-wielding witches from Partha strike me with poisoned blades. I could barely stand or think after that. When I was about to face the creature itself, I called for my weapons, but all I was given was a rusty sword. A brittle thing that could not have pierced a cake, much less armor. I had no chance against the beast.”
“And then?”
“I was… slain, as was Eric.”
“Yes, I heard the news. Eric slain. The Jarl will truly have my head for this. But you, you have not a scratch on you.”
“I… father, what use is it to tell you. You will not believe me.”
“I will be the judge of what I believe and not. Go on.”
“I felt the peace of death, and then I was in a forest path, and… Fenris appeared. I felt the bite of his fangs. Then I woke and I was... different… I was not only healed, but I was a beast, with fangs and claws, with fur covering all my flesh. With this beast’s strength, I fought my way out of the city, with One Eye’s help, and with Bellabel’s.” I was unsure what to say regarding Bellabel’s connection with fire. She had confided in me, saved my life, and while I trusted my father in all, I knew not whether it was wise to speak of it. “I became a wolfblood, like the old legends speak. What should I do, father? What will become of me? This beast, is it a curse?”
He stared into the fire between us, flexing the muscles of his jaw. “I have wondered that for years.”
I felt my lips part in confusion. “Father? What do you mean, you have wondered that…” He lifted his hand before me, grimaced. Veins writhed all along his weathered hand, and as his fingers trembled, I saw claws emerge from them. “You too???” I muttered in disbelief.
“It is in our blood.”
“How could you not tell me of such a thing?”
“The same reason you would not have told anyone had you not changed in such a… public way. It is shocking, scandalous, and more importantly, dangerous to speak of such things without caution. Jarl Bardawulf suspects me of all manner of treason, I did not want to add that my children carry the blood of the first Skaldean kings to his reasons for suspicion. And regardless, I did not know if you possessed the gift, if you were a true Fenrir. Why speak of such a wild, dangerous claim when it is not certain?”
“But you said it is in our blood. I always thought to have wolfblood was a saying only.”
“Yes, for most it is. Many carry wolfblood in their veins and are no different than ordinary men and women. It lays stillborn in them. No one, not even themselves, knows them to be anything more than strong, powerful men with perhaps an extraordinary liking for meat.”
“Then… Gannon? Was he like me as well? Is Yorbrand?”
He his large fingers stroked his beard. “Gannon was strong, but never had true fury in battle. He was much more an intelligent, industrious craftsman, not a Fenrir born with that god’s fury in his heart. Would have made a fine smith, my poor middle child. You had not only great strength and prowess in battle, but that savage air about you, but you never manifested any of the Fenrir marks, the marks of the transformation. I believed perhaps that the blood had weakened too much over the generations. ”
Silence hung on the balcony as I contemplated this strange new family secret. “Why does our family possess such a thing? Where does it come from? Are there others?”
“Yes, though it is difficult to know who carries the true blood, and who carries it but is only dormant. You see, the gift of Fenris manifests to varying degrees. In myself, fur begins covering my body, but it does not cover it entirely. Fangs and claws grow, but my face does not change its form. And so I am what is known in legend as a Minor Fenrir. It is still a great gift, to have such strength. But by your dream, Fenris singled you out, exalted you as a son, and so you are a True Fenrir, as legends tell. When the beast possesses you, it is a wolf’s head which sits atop your shoulders is it not?”
“...Yes. My face becomes a muzzle... pointed ears, a silver mane.”
“Yes. A true Fenrir. Your strength, your power will be greater than mine, if it is not already.”
“What will happen, father? What are the limits of my power? Can I be used… as a weapon that we might have our revenge on the Empire? For Gannon… for Eric… for thousands more. Perhaps this is Fenris’ intention, the way to slake our thirst for vengeance.”
He stood now, and paced. “Don’t be such a pup, Rothan. It is true that with this gift you are dangerous to the Empire. But you alone cannot face its legions. Even you have seen, you still bleed. And there are problems all throughout Skald. Have you not heard of the Orc raids to the North and East?”
“I heard tell of it. Saw some fleeing the raids on the way here. What happened to our peace with them?”
“I do not know. No one knows. They maintained the peace for decades. If they truly wanted to raid and plunder the North, they could have done so while we were at war with the empire. They would have swept over us like a tide then, while we were embroiled in the war.”
“I will use my new strength to battle the Orcs then. Give me the order and I’ll set off on the morrow. I’ll join King Albrecht’s forces and fight in the vanguard.”
“No, you don’t understand. You are not just a powerful warrior, not just another northern berserker. You are a leader of men, chosen by Fenris himself. You must rally men of Wolf Rein all around you and in time rally all of Skald’s strength. Legend tells that it was Fenris and the moon goddess Leilor who took human form and bore the first kings of Skald. That you are a Fenrir is a sign that their blood runs true in you. Skald will need to be united, to bring the Orcs to heel once more, and to one day face the Empire and win Skald’s complete freedom once more. So Rothan, you must become a symbol, you must raise armies of Skaldeans to fight, with you at their head. And you must begin by rising to lead all of Wolf Rein.”
“...Lead all of Wolf Rein? But the Jarl leads Wolf Rein, that is his place. How would I come to lead Wolf Rein when it is his family’s right?”
He pierced me with his stare. “That is simple. You will marry the Jarl’s daughter.”
I remembered then, One Eye saying something about an arranged marriage for me. “One Eye spoke of a marriage, but I never imagined—father, you speak madness! Siv is a Jarl’s daughter! The Jarl suspects you of treason already—I heard he had a Goldwater noble slain for even asking his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“It is true that Jarl Bardawulf is losing much of his reason, Rothan. But this is not only an infirmity that affects him, it affects all the people of Wolf Rein. He has taken property, lands, mines, cattle, taken them all away from their rightful owners and given them to those who curry favor with him. He has forced nobles to give their sons and daughters, some as young as ten, in marriage to noble families in other jarldoms—all to forge alliances advantageous to him. With only a daugh
ter for an heir, he suspects others of usurping him at every turn. He keeps me here in Wolf Rein, and does not send me to do battle with the Orc invaders, fearing that I’ll gain too much glory, that I’ll convince men to follow my rule instead of his. And it is true that at his whim, he could have us imprisoned, exiled, or worse. But in a few days there will be a Moot, Rothan, to celebrate the true end to the war with the Empire, the War of the Cold Crown, to celebrate the final captive returning home. The customs of Moots are old beyond counting, and are above even the Jarl’s authority to question, for they call on the laws of the gods.”
“What will we accomplish then... through this Moot?”
“You will win the contests of strength easily.” My father stood now, arms behind his back as he paced. He spoke, almost to himself, as if these were thoughts he had spent much time with. “You will swear an Oath that you will slay the Orc warlord yourself. Doing so, men from all over Wolf Rein will rally around you. Even men from other jarldoms will flock to you. From all of Skald, they’ll come. You are already a renowned warrior, and a formidable commander. I’ll finish your training in leading armies, and you’ll be worth 5,000 men on the field with your mind for strategy alone. You can lead a piercing attack, draw the Orc warlord out to combat. The greenskins are not like Imperial generals who lay a league behind the front line, commanding from the safety of a warmed tent. The Orc warlord will come face you to show the horde his strength. You need not destroy the entire horde then, only its leader. You see, an Orc horde is like a body: cut off its head and the rest will fall away lifeless. Losing their leader, they will lose all courage. Accomplishing this feat of glory, Jarl Bardawulf will have no way to deny you his daughter’s hand as it would be part of a sacred Boast. And you will have him promise this to you at the Moot, before all his people, where he cannot deny it.”
“I understand why I should want to slay the Orc warlord, father, but why should I want to marry Siv? What does that have to do with Jarl Bardawulf slowly losing his mind?”
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