by J. A. Day
“Because I need my power to seem legitimate to the wagon train,” he said as if he was talking to a child.
Sigrun snorted at that. “It’ll never be legitimate, forcing people to vote with swords at their back.”
Hannes waved that away. “No one will believe that, I’ll make sure they won’t. Now I feel I’m just going to have to persuade you to vote for me.”
One of the thugs behind Sigrun, grabbed her shoulders and forced her to sit. Sonja cried out, but soon she had her own thug to contend with. Britta grabbed her by the neck with her arm, and squeezed.
Sonja coughed, and could feel pressure in her head. Britta grabbed hold of her hand, but Sonja pulled it away. She reached her hand towards her ankle, to grab the knife, but Britta pulled her back up.
The room began to swim, becoming fuzzy. She felt weak.
In front of her, Sigrun was having her own jostling match with her thug. Sigrun’s face was contorted in a combination of worry and rage.
Eventually, Sigrun won out and wrestled free from her thug. There was a flash of metal and the thug cried out in pain. The surprise of what happened made Britta lose her grip, which allowed Sonja to breathe properly again. Not wasting the opportunity, she grabbed hold of her knife. She gripped the handle and plunged it into Britta’s thigh, feeling satisfied when Britta stumbled backwards and whimpered in pain.
Both Sigrun and Sonja stood up, bloody knives in their hands. But their victory was short lived, as now they had all Hannes’ goons stepped towards them, sword points straight in their face.
Hannes examined the two of them. “You are surrounded by people who will kill you if necessary. There is nowhere to go, we are at the edge of the wagon train. Now this can all be over, you can go back to your mundane lives for all I care, you just need to sit down and vote me in as Jarl.”
Cold steel brushed Sonja’s neck. She glanced around and saw three men and one woman ready to cut her down. She didn’t feel there was a way out of this without either giving in or dying.
The thought of dying brought her back to that day when she had met Sigrun. Sigrun had saved her from stampeding cows. At that time it had been the sound of thunder and a lightning strike that had caused the stampede. She didn’t have lightning but maybe if she caused her own thunder then the horses might bolt. She had seen some horses be skittish around loud noises.
Feeling like it was her only option to get out of this, she screamed as loud as she could and stamped her foot.
Someone at the front of the wagon shouted. The council wagon began to shudder and move forwards. Every thug glanced in each other’s direction in worry. And then the world tipped over.
Sonja fell backwards in the air. A terrible cold suddenly hit her body. She shivered, and her teeth chattered. Her back hit the ground, hard enough that breath pushed out of her body.
She lay there for a few seconds, the wagon jostling and shaking around her. Sonja soon felt an icy burn at the ends of her fingers and at the corners of her ears. If she didn’t move she would freeze to death.
She pushed herself up. A lot of attackers had been thrown on the floor, including Hannes. She grabbed one of their swords. It was hard keeping a grip because of the pain in her hands, and the constant shaking.
The horses whinnied. The wagon door waved in the cold wind. Sonja could see that the hill with the wagon train got further and further away. They had to get back, otherwise they would all freeze to death. The only question was how.
ONLY THE RAIDERS HAVE SURVIVED THE COLD OUTSIDE A SOL SHARD FOR A LONG TIME, BUT THEY FORCE THE LESSON FROM A YOUNG AGE
‘Can We Survive Outside A Sol Shard?’ by Tasgall Niven
Edven stood on Kveg Plain, watching his cows munch grass. In his hand was an orange rock that sparkled in the sunlight. Ever since receiving the rock from Sigrun - for butchering some of his livestock for the harvest festival - he liked to feel the hard crystalline surface and put it up to the light to see the brilliant glitter. He felt very happy about his trading choice, deciding that he’d probably keep the rock now instead of trading it for something else in town.
Movement caught the corner of his eye. A long and wide wagon trotted up through Kveg Plain. The wagon was made from posh dark wood, and the wheels looked like they had just been serviced. It definitely looked like the type of wagon that some of the important family members would live in, which made Edven curious. What made him more curious was how the wagon drove up to the edge of the Sol Shard’s protection and parked itself there.
Edven had to know why someone had done such a strange thing, so he strode across the Plain to see what was happening. The door of the wagon was slightly ajar. He peered inside.
He saw glimpses of people in leather armor holding swords. In front of them were faces he recognized: Sigrun, Sven Baldur, and Yael Hoademaker. Sven and Yael sat at a table, worried expressions on their faces. Sigrun stood up, with every man and woman in leather armor pointing a sword at her. In her hand was a bloody knife.
Edven had no idea what was happening inside but he had to tell somebody about it. He turned around.
There was a loud scream. Horses whinnied, and hoofs hit the grass. The wagon’s wheels creaked. Edven looked back. He saw the wagon barreling down the hill.
The wagon was now outside the Sol Shards protection. Everyone in that wagon would freeze to death if someone didn’t save them. Edven ran as fast as he could into the wagon train.
***
The back of Sigrun’s head hurt. The wagon around looked fuzzy. She could taste blood in her mouth, and could hear groans of others around her. She was also terribly cold. It was the kind of cold that stabbed right into your clothes and sucked out any warmth you thought you might have. She shivered. If she didn’t get up she would freeze to death.
The wagon rattled and shook. At the front she could hear the constant pound of horses' hooves hit the ground. Glancing over to Sonja, who sported a very worried expression, confirmed her fear. They were moving, and they were moving further and further away from any protection against the deadly cold.
They had another problem. All around the wagon lay armored men and women, and they were slowly getting up. Next to them were their swords. If Sigrun didn’t act fast they would surely grab hold of those swords, and the two of them would be in the same hostage situation they had been in before.
“Get the swords,” she shouted to Sonja.
She bent to grab the sword she had stolen before. The thug on the floor saw what she was doing and grabbed at her leg. She swung the sword at his back. But because she didn’t really want to kill him, and her fingers were shaking from the cold, the sword only scraped against the man’s leather armor. The man grabbed her leg with the other arm and tried to pull her down. She pulled back and managed to get free, but then saw the man was grabbing hold of the sword’s hilt.
Feeling like she had no choice, and apologizing – even though the man was probably willing to kill her – she swung the sword down, chopping the man’s hand off.
The man screamed in pain, and blood spurted out onto the wooden floor. Sigrun looked away, feeling bile in her mouth. She coughed and spat it out. It was one thing to pretend to attack a man in the training yard, it was another thing to see the bloody effect of violence up close. She had never willingly caused pain to anyone before, and she didn’t feel good about doing it.
But there was no time for those feelings, as she saw other thugs slowly push themselves off the floor and look for their swords. She breathed in and out, told herself that this was necessary, and strode towards the thugs.
She swung her sword at the grasping thugs. She slashed the shoulders of a woman, then stepped across and stabbed Thore in the hand. Unfortunately, when she made it to Aina, the woman had stood up and had a sword gripped in her hand.
But clearly the cold was getting to Aina, because she was shivering and shaking. Sigrun slashed her sword to the right. Aina managed to lift her sword up just in time, the clashing of metal ringing in the
air. However Aina’s grip wasn’t strong enough, and her sword went flying out of her hands. Sigrun stepped towards her, ready to take her down, but Aina stepped back into the wall and put her hands up in surrender.
Sigrun stepped back, feeling a little ashamed that she had gotten so involved into the fight that she had been about to murder a defenseless woman. But just to be sure she wasn’t stabbed in the back, she kicked Aina’s sword out of the wagon.
Turning around, she saw that Sonja had been less forgiving than her. All the thugs on Sonja’s side were now on the ground in pools of their own blood. Some of the blood was on Sonja’s flame robe and dripped from her sword.
Sigrun was relieved that Sonja was ok, but a little disturbed that she had killed the thugs so readily. It made sense, Sonja had grown up in the faith which taught their Acolytes the art of killing your opponent, but it was still a shock to see someone that had done it so mercilessly. Sigrun couldn’t deny that it scared her a little, and she thanked Sol that they were on the same side
The wagon was filled with bodies, either dead, in pain, or unconscious. The dead and in pain were mostly Hannes' thugs, and the unconscious were the heads of the families, the Administrator, and Sonja’s friends. But Hannes was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you see him?” Sigrun asked.
“No, he must have gotten out of the door somehow,” Sonja replied.
However, there was no time to see where he had run off to. The wagon still jostled and shook, and the two of them still shivered. They wouldn’t have long to go before they froze to death.
“We need to stop this wagon,” Sigrun said.
Sonja nodded, and they both stepped over bodies on the floor to get to the front of the wagon.
No one sat at the reins, which blew and flapped in the wind. The horses stampeded across the snow, going straight towards the river. Would the horses actually stop when they got to the river's edge, or would they just barrel right into the icy water, freezing everyone inside the wagon?
She took Sonja’s hands, and squeezed it. They both sat down at the reins. The two of them looked at each other with love in their eyes. They nodded, counted to three, and pulled the reins as hard as they could.
The horses reared up, whinnied, and the whole front of the wagon rose up in the air and crashed back down, flinging both Sigrun and Sonja off into the snow.
***
Sonja found herself in a face full of snow. It tasted cold and wet. She pushed herself up, grabbing hold of her sword, and looked around to see where Sigrun had landed. It was not a good spot, some rocks jutted out of the snow.
She ran over to her, hoping that her beloved hadn’t been killed. Sigrun didn’t look good. She was splayed on the rock, unconscious. Her head was bleeding. Sonja gently shook Sigrun, hoping that she would wake up. But she didn’t. For a second Sonja panicked, crying about how she didn’t want Sigrun to die, but then felt breath under Sigrun’s nose.
Sonja calmed down, breathing in deep. Everything would be alright if she was able to get back to the wagon train. But when she turned back towards their wagon her panic rose again.
The wagon had fallen on its side. The horses at the front stamped on the snow, trying to get free of their reins. It would take a team of six burly men to push the wagon back on its wheels.
Sonja felt defeated. She was on her own, she was miles out of the wagon train, she was exhausted from the fight and the panic, and she was freezing. In some way she just wanted to fall down onto the snow, and just sleep. Maybe then she would be able to go to the warm and loving paradise of Sol’s resting place and enjoy its delights.
But she couldn’t allow Sigrun and her friends to die as well. She steeled herself, and looked towards the wagon to see if there was anything she could do. The horses were only tied on by a rope, easily cut by a sword. She wouldn’t be able to save everyone, but she might be able to get as many people as she could on the backs of those horses and ride them out. She had no idea how she would control two horses at once, but she would do her damnedest to try.
Thankfully the horse problem was solved for her, as Roose and Teresa crawled out of the back of the wagon. She rushed over to them and helped them up. The two of them looked a little blurry eyed and hurt, but they were able to stand and respond to her.
“I need you to help me put as many people on horses, and ride out towards the wagon train.”
“What about you?” Roose asked.
“I need to keep whoever we don’t save alive as long as possible, until we are rescued.”
Teresa looked concerned. “You should take our place on the horse.”
Sonja shook her head, her friends were more important than her. Even though she was the Keeper and pushed the path of the faith and kept them together, she would rather live, however briefly, in a world where they were alive than one without. “There’s no time to argue either, we are all freezing to death. So go.”
Roose and Teresa scrambled back into the wagon, while Sonja ran to the front. She carefully stepped towards one horse, putting a hand on its flank to soothe it. Then she walked to the rope and sawed it with her sword.
She ran over to where Sigrun lay, carefully picked her up – she was damn heavy – and put her unconscious body on the back of one of the horses. Sonja then ran to the back of the wagon and helped Roose and Teresa pull Yael Hoademaker’s and Sven Baldur’s unconscious body out, and onto the horses. It looked like there was room for one more, so they went back into the wagon and pull Sigmund’s unconscious body out.
Roose and Teresa jumped on a horse each. They gave one last look to Sonja. She gave them a smile, and told them to ride as fast as possible. Even if this would be her final moments, she was glad to see them go.
The two of them kicked their horses, and rode out into the distance.
Sonja turned, and scrambled back into the wagon. A few unconscious people were starting to stir, but she ignored them. Instead, she went to the table and opened each drawer to see if there was anything useful within. Most of the drawers were filled with papers confirming the details of past laws and past votes, but she did find one drawer which had some orange rock dust and some matches.
The orange rocks were not only an excellent trading resource, but they also burned very easily. Feeling lucky, she took the drawer out and sprinkled the orange dust around the table. But before she put it alight, she needed to get everyone out of the wagon.
She ran on adrenaline, but the cold was still cutting through. Her fingers had become numb, and she was starting to feel a little woozy and sleepy. She staggered sometimes when she tried to drag out a body, and felt an overwhelming feeling of just wanting to give up and lie down.
Sonja refused to do so, shaking her head, and sometimes slapping herself. She dragged each body that wasn’t dead or dying out. Some, like Rita and Hildegard, had woken up enough that they were able to crawl out of the wagon themselves.
She came across Britta’s body, and checked to see if she was alive. She was. Should she save her former friend? Britta had been a part of this attack and had been willing to strangle Sonja to get what she wanted. Sonja could so easily leave her here to die and no one would think she had done it deliberately. Britta would just be another thug that had died in the attack.
But Sonja couldn’t leave her there. The Britta unconscious on the floor might not be the Britta she knew, but they still had a history together. Sonja still felt some kind of bond with her former friend. She grabbed Britta’s body and dragged her out of the snow.
When everyone was out, she lit the match and threw it at the rocks. She crawled away from the ensuing blaze as fast as possible.
The wagon quickly burned. The heat of the fire was a welcome relief from the cold, and Sonja tried to get her and the unconscious bodies as close to the flames as possible. She sat down next to Rita and Hildegard, seeing the flames rise up and the smoke fill the sky.
She had done as much as she could, now the rest was up to the wagon train.
&nbs
p; Sonja didn’t have to wait long. As the wagon in front turned into a blazing bonfire, she heard the pound of hooves and the squeak of wheels. Several wagons rode out towards her group, many wagons were driven by men and women in yellow robes. Her own faithful were here to save them.
She felt joy in her heart as her Priestesses and Priests jumped down, grabbed hold of Yael, Rita, Sven, Britta, and the rest, and dragged them inside. She didn’t need to be dragged, she pushed herself up, and walked into a wagon. Inside was the familiar face of the old farmer with the mustache that had given the faithful his meat.
Sonja was surprised to see him, but grateful that he had a part to play in their rescue. She nodded to him, but as soon as she sat down all the adrenaline that had rushed through her body dissipated. Her head drooped, and her eyes closed.
THE ACT OF UNION WASN’T JUST FOR ME AND SIGRUN, IT WAS FOR THE WHOLE OF THE WAGON TRAIN
‘Scroll of Keeper Sonja’
Sigrun opened her eyes. Her head throbbed, hurting a lot more than any past hangover. However she did feel warm again, and her surroundings, even though they were slightly blurred at the moment, looked a lot like the inside of a wagon.
How had she made it back into the wagon train? All she remembered was flying off the wagon and rocks coming towards her, everything after that had been black.
She sat up, feeling a sharp pain in her head. A hand gripped hers, and she heard a voice say, “You don’t have to get up.”
Sigrun turned, and saw a figure sitting next to her bed. It took awhile for her vision to clear to recognize it was Sonja. Sonja had a mixture of concern and relief in her face, but her eyes had a toughness to them that Sigrun had never seen before.
“What happened?” Sigrun asked.