The Roads to Baldairn Motte

by Ahimsa Kerp

  Hem stared at his empty hands. His heart beat loud enough to drown out the clamor of the battle, and his gut watered in panic. He spun, searching the ground for a fallen man’s weapon.

  A spear was wedged under the body of a farmer he’d shared a crusted heel of bread with earlier. He tried to wrestle the spear free. An arrow sang out and ripped across his flank. Startled he slipped to the ground, covering his face in blood and muck.

  Hem lay quiet. The throbbing fire of his abdomen kept tune to his breathing. The farmer’s dead eyes stared at him. He worried for Tillon, and for Caulder, and the others from Burn Gate. He’d seen many of them fall, but the rest, like himself, had simply been swept away in the confusion of the day. The North’s line had faltered. He’d heard the cries of distress and had witnessed the enemy surging forth from the wrong direction. But there was nothing more he could do for any of his friends. The Passions blew them about like dander upon the wind.

  At the sight of himself covered in filth and streaked with blood, a chuckle rose from his belly. An heir of the Green People, Cynric had called him, a thrall of the Fairie. Hem’s laughter boomed louder. He was a fell creature indeed. He rubbed some of the filth into his wound to staunch the bleeding and snatched the fallen farmer’s spear.

  With a crazed grin, he reared up and bellowed.

  A press of southern men-at-arms, thundered down the slope toward him. Hem cackled with glee as they came. A trio of spearmen joined him, and then a pair of the Titan Guard. An archer sent a shaft into the lead man-at-arms, and the man tumbled, taking two others with him.

  Hem roared and couched his spear to brace it. The wind seemed at once to kiss him in the face and push him in the back, but he no longer cared.

  TRASK

  A twig snapped below Nat’s foot as he slipped over to the cluster of ferns where their family was hiding. Trask winced. He peeked his head around the tree he leaned against, holding his breath. A pair of the southern foragers tended to a trap on the far side of a clearing. One of them glanced up at the sound, but didn’t seem to spy the boy, and returned to his work.

  Trask measured the distance to the cluster of fern. The sprawl of foliage was large enough for them all to hide within, at least until the foragers were out of sight. They’d spent the night in the trees until cramps and thirst forced them down. Now, with floodwater sloshing in their bellies, they sought refuge in the forest heights again.

  Trask pulled an arrow from the sack at his waist and gripped it in his left hand along with his bow. If discovered, it would be better to drop both and run. He’d be caught for sure, but he might at least manage to lure his pursuers away from the fern—and away from his family.

  The foragers were still intent on their snare. Trask took a slow first step, his eyes darting from the ground to the men and back again.

  A shout rang out from behind him.

  Trask lurched. The man from Gaulang he’d watched days before stood thirty cloth-yards away with a brace of rabbits in one hand and a woodsman’s axe in the other. Trask fumbled with the arrow, his palms slick and his body shaking.

  “Caelindes!” one of the men at the snare shouted. Trask heard a rustle of twigs and pine needles, and the soft groan of leather bending. He whipped his bow around and managed to nock his arrow.

  One of the foragers held a bow sighted upon him. Trask drew and loosed his own without aiming. His shot flew wide, but caused the man to flinch. The forager’s arrow wavered and clattered into the trees.

  Trask groped for another arrow. His fingers were stone. A shaft screamed out of the fern and caught the forager high in the chest. The man dropped his bow and clutched at the wound. He fell wheezing, and then lay still.

  Trask heard a crunch of needles. The second forager crouched behind a moss-covered boulder. The man had tried to sneak around Trask’s flank, but now hesitated.

  Trask drew his string to his ear and felt the arrow’s fletching tickle his cheek. Mercy flashed into his thoughts, but he forced it away. He couldn’t risk the man warning others. He relaxed his shoulders and loosed. His aim was true, and the forager crumpled with a sharp grunt.

  Nat was watching him.

  “The other ran off,” the boy said. The blood in his face had drained, and his eyes were vacant. He held his bow limp in his hands.

  Trask flinched, realizing how futile his efforts had become. He had spared his family from nothing. Swallowing, he steadied his voice. “Fetch your arrow. We’ll hide the bodies in the fern and make for Thrall’s Dale.”

  The boy didn’t move.

  “Hark, now! Go!”

  Nat jumped and did as he was commanded.

  Trask leaned on his bow and listened to the forest, fearing its silence.

  HEM

  Hem thrust his spear into the back of the retreating man-at-arms. The impact jarred his arms and sent a shiver down his spine. His hands were numb, and his legs felt like a millstone that wouldn’t turn no matter how hard he pushed.

  Hem yanked the spear free, and the haft thumped him across the temple. As he stumbled, he put his hands down for balance. His fingers dug into soft flesh. Bodies were strewn across the field. In the center, where the fighting had been the thickest, they lay in mounds five or six deep. A wall of the dead, a barrier sundering the road between Fairnlin and Hairng.

  More than a few of the piled dead wore the glassy eyed stare of the Innocent, so called because they died without wounds. Hem trembled. Thoughts of the earlier crush, when he’d clawed and fought just to breathe, terrified him still. They were a waking dream, the ghosts of those who’d suffocated, flitting about his head like midges after a summer rain.

  The piles of dead cast long shadows as the sun fell into the hills to the west. Hem gagged on the spoiled stench. He willed himself not to look down and swallowed the bile. With a staggering gait, he hurried after the enemy.

  He didn’t know how the day had been decided, or even if it had been at all. He knew only that the southerners before him were routed, dropping their weapons and running from a surge of Marchers and northern spearmen. A few of the Titan Guard had joined the northern rally. Their namesake maces rose and fell like hammers in a smithy, sending droplets of red in a shower across the field.

  At a narrow gully, a handful of the southern men-at-arms tried to rally. Hem bellowed and launched himself at them. His first thrust skidded along the chin of a pock-faced man. His second was beat down by the axe of the man’s companion. A Marcher impaled the second man, allowing Hem to recover.

  A primal roar sounded from the edges of the orchard a hundred paces away. Hem chanced a glance and saw a troop of Marchers streaming from the wood. Their leader held a severed head in one hand.

  Hem’s lips broke into a weak grin, all he could muster with the last of his strength. Victory, it had to be. He let his arms relax.

  A whoosh of air was all he felt before the world went dark. He lay on the ground with his ears ringing and a warm ooze pulsing from his brow.

  TRASK

  Trask and his family huddled within a wolves’ den. The southern foragers, whom they’d feared hunted them, never returned. Trask had spent the night wide-eyed, fearful of every snapping twig and rustle of leaves. Yet it was in the darkness of the early morning that a new, greater danger appeared.

  Roving bands of the routed Fairnlin army trod through the forest. The chaos of the previous day’s battle at Baldairn Motte echoed from a thousand lips, as an unending procession of southern spearmen, archers, and men-at-arms fled in defeat. Trask tried to make sense of the babble. Some spoke of hill giants, and others of treachery; some said the Earl of Gaulang was slain, and others that the Earl of Kiln had struck him down. One captain tried to rally a band of a hundred spearmen. The enemy was still outnumbered, he proclaimed, and the campaign not yet lost. But the spearmen ignored the captain and continued their retreat.

  “How much longer?” asked Bren.

  They hadn’t heard or seen any of the southerners for some time, but Trask knew b
etter. “It’ll be days before the lands are safe,” he said. “Maybe even till the end of summer.”

  For most men. For him, it could be a whole lot longer. While he rejoiced at the North’s apparent victory, the fear of what would become of those like himself, who’d abandoned their lord’s cause, tore at his nerve.

  Gleda clapped his ear softly. “You’ve seen us safe. And not even the Passions could tell you how it’d be if you’d chosen any other path.”

  Trask’s gaze flickered to Nat, who sat sullenly by himself. He shook his head. “The Ordained will look to make an example. But I’d rather meet their punishment than face Hem and the others.”

  “Pish,” said Gleda. “Ordryn sees you’ve done your duty the best you could, and so will those from Burn Gate. The winds will change direction again. They always do.”

  Trask blew out a forceful breath. The pine needles on the floor of the den trembled. Some scattered, and some remained still. When they settled, he couldn’t tell one from the other.

  HEM

  Days after the victory at Baldairn Motte, Hem stalked to the crest of the rise and peered into the glen where Trask’s croft lay. The slope coming off the rise held tufts of grass and purple heather, and a breeze brought the scent of apples from the orchard to the south. The house at the center of the glen gave off no light, and no smoke rose from the hole in its thatch. Hem frowned and touched the dressing that covered his scalp. It’d become a habit of his in the days since the leeches had tended to his wound.

  At his side, Cynric stamped his feet to ward off the chill night air. “Perhaps they fear brigands,” said the skald. Bands of the routed Fairnlin army still roamed the countryside, stealing food and pillaging the more isolated farms, though Hem had heard more tales of such injustice than seen any hint of the enemy. He and the skald had traveled with the young captain, Blackspar, for a time, hunting the southerners, until the captain had received word from his lord to return to Thurmwood keep.

  With a huff, Hem started for the house. He crossed the garden where the ground had been dug up, but the sight only made him lengthen his stride. Reaching the door, he shoved it open.

  A cold breeze blew from over his shoulder and into the darkness. “Trask?”

  Silence hung thick in the air, then Hem heard Trask’s voice call out. “Hem?”

  Hem felt his body relax. “Aye’ya,” he said. “Why are you sitting in the dark? You think I was one of the Fairie?”

  Trask moved out of the shadows to stand before Hem. His eyes flickered to Cynric, then searched the night beyond. Worry painted his face, though he tried to smile. Hem understood his friend’s hesitation. He stepped closer and clapped the crofter on the back.

  “You should’ve seen it, Trask. That captain of Thurmwood told the Ordained who traveled with us to stick Ordryn’s Will up their own arses, that he’d never hand over a man of the North to their cunny ilk again. And he wasn’t alone; many of the lords are saying the same, too.”

  “They smell the change to come,” said Cynric. “Audwin Hairng is now Lord Protector to the king, his son, as well as Lord North. The local lords vie for position in the new court.”

  Hem snorted. “A court in the South. What care of ours is that?”

  Cynric balked, and Hem barked a laugh.

  “Good. Now let’s eat.” Hem clapped Trask again, and this time the crofter relaxed as the shell of fear that had coated him shattered. From the pen, Gleda and the boys emerged. Hem gave Gleda a quick hug and tussled each of the boys’ hair.

  Soon a fire was lit, and the light brought warmth into the house. Gleda worked at a supper of salted beef and cabbage while Nat and Bren eagerly related all that had happened to them.

  Gleda eyed Hem’s wound, but he waved away her concern.

  “Ah, don’t mind it. Lots of lads are much worse off.” He caught Trask’s questioning look and sighed. “Chert Potter’s lost an ear; Harlow and Alon, the crofter, are dead. Orren and Alric, too. But that’s tidings for another day.”

  Trask started at hearing the last bit, but let the matter pass. Instead, he asked, “Caulder and Tillon?”

  “Back in Burn Gate with Bulware’s lad,” said Hem.

  “Is Fairnlin defeated, then?” asked Bren.

  Hem hesitated, then shrugged. “Sturm Galkmeer is dead, as is the Earl of Gaulang. And the Earl of Kiln now kisses the feet of Lord Hairng. But there’s still Baardol to deal with, and no lack of lords in Fairnlin to beget new earls and chancellors. The Histories tell us as much.”

  Next to him, Cynric snorted. “I thought you weren’t listening. Too many histories and not enough wenches.”

  Hem pulled his lips into a half-smile. “I might’ve caught a bit of it.”

  Trask grinned, and Hem warmed to see his friend mirthful. The fury the Passions had visited upon them was for a time forgotten in the simple trading of jests and spinning of tales, with a warm fire before them, and food for their bellies. Hem plopped his feet upon a stool and chortled from deep in his gut. He thought the night not unlike the one spent at Thrall’s Dale, on the road to Baldairn Motte, when the hardships to come had seemed as distant as the stars. And for that, he rejoiced.

  THE CHRONICLES OF CYNRIC

  An excerpt from: The Chronicles of Cynric Audley, Skald of Mason’s Vale

  A HISTORY OF BALDAIRN MOTTE

  While modern man will remember the war between Lord Chancellor Sturm Galkmeer and Lord Audwin Ernmund as The Battle of Baldairn Motte, it was not the first, nor the greatest, battle to be fought there. Indeed, the motte and bailey ruins of Baldairn Motte, which persevere nearly a thousand years after the keep’s demise, stand testament to the power and dominion of the ancient Kingdom of Baelda and the calamitous war that took place to bring the mightiest of kingdoms known to man to its knees.

  The first people known to inhabit the lands surrounding Baldairn Motte were the Green People, the Fairie. By all accounts, they were a peaceful folk, small in stature and content to live a modest life within the confines of the woodland areas now known as the White Hills. But the tribes of Baeldans came, some legends say from the west, others say from the eastern sea itself to land upon the ancient shores of North Port in their slender, single-sail ships. From wherever they arrived, they spread like blight, from the River Ordan to the mountains in the north, from the eastern sea to the desert wastelands far west of Baardol. For a thousand years the Baeldan chieftains fought amongst each other for control of the land, all the while ravishing the villages and lands of the Green People, making slaves of what Green People they captured, and treating their own common folk little better.

  Baer Half-axe rose from the chaos, mightiest of the Baeldan chiefs and their first true king. With his small army, known as Baer’s Fist, he brought all the other chieftains under his dominion. He chose a lone hill in the plains as the site for his capital and thus began the construction of Baldairn Motte, a fortress that took some seventy years to build and was not completed until the rein of Baer Half-axe’s grandson, Baer the Cruel. Under Baer the Cruel’s rule, the common folk were ruled with an iron fist, forced into slavery to work in the fields, quarries and the gemstone mines from whence the Kingdom drew its wealth. And so it went for another three generations, the Baeldan kings gaining more power and the common folk becoming Thralls. Of the Green People, few remained. Some perhaps lived in solitude in the deep places of the forests and others fled to the far north beyond the mountains, but most had been killed and the rest had become enslaved with the Thralls, their bloodlines intermixing.

  According to the folk legends of Thurmwood, it was one of these Thralls of mixed blood who triggered the downfall of Baelda: Jael, the Amber Maiden. Jael was little more than a child when she won the heart of Garen, a Thrall who worked the emerald mines in the White Hills, but she was already well known and well loved in the surrounding villages. By some accounts, she was a gifted medicine woman who helped those in need. By other accounts, she was simply a joyful lass whose innocence and cheer warmed the he
arts of those in her company.

  With time Garen proved his love and loyalty to Jael and the two were betrothed, but poor Garen’s heart was not content. The knowledge that their union was destined to be one of pain and servitude must have swayed young Garen’s heart, for when he came upon a great jewel in the mines, he stole it away to give to Jael rather than turn it over to his lord. It was his gift to her, one he hoped would convince her to run away with him and grant them a new life beyond the borders of the kingdom. Jael would not leave her people, and fear and mistrust grew amongst the villagers. By whispered rumors and betrayal amongst his own kin, Garen’s deed was found out.

  When King Baelhairn learned of the jewel stolen away from his mine, he made an example of Garen and Jael. They were hung from the walls of Baldairn Motte for all to see, and the fist-sized emerald Garen had unearthed was set into a new crown for King Baelhairn to wear. Why this single act sparked rebellion after so many years of dominion is unclear. Some tales suggest Jael cursed the Baeldan King and called upon her people to rise up as the noose was placed over her head.

  Whatever the reason may have been, the Thralls revolted. King Baelhairn was slain and Baldairn Motte was destroyed in the first year of the war, as the Thralls, dressed as Green People, raided the stronghold en masse. The Baeldan lords across the kingdom took up the fight, each intent on staking their own claim to the throne and once again subjugating the common folk. The war dragged on for years, with numerous battles waged at Baldairn Motte to the same result; whichever Baeldan lord placed himself on the throne at Baldairn Motte was slain. Legends grew of the Amber Maiden’s curse, of the Green People emerging from the forests to take their revenge upon the Baeldans. War turned to blight as fields and crofts were left unworked, and The Blight Winter killed more than had died in battle. The Baeldan lords shrank in number and finally turned to the aid of the foreign lords in the south who worshipped the Passions.

  Order was restored. The Kingdom of Baelda was absorbed by the new realm in the south. The common folk returned to their villages and farms and crofts. Of the Baeldan lords, only the Hairng line maintained prominence in ruling the land; Hairng the sole remaining descendants of King Baelhairn, The Last King of Baelda.