The Nine
Terry Cloutier
Dedication
This novel is for my wife, with love, always.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.
Copyright © Terry Cloutier 2019
The Nine - List of Characters
• Alwin of Corwick: Hadrack’s father, a peasant farmer and town elder.
• Lord Hadrack: the Wolf of Corwick Castle
• Renfry: Brother of Hadrack
• Lallo: Brother of Hadrack
• Jeanna: Sister of Hadrack
• King Jorquin of Ganderland: Ruler of Ganderland and Southern Ganderland
• Carwin: Peasant. Son of Garin
• Klasper: Peasant. Father to Carwin
• Hestan of Corwick: Peasant farmer and town elder
• Son Fadrian: Priest
• Daughter Elias: Priestess
• Jinian: Peasant farmer. Son of Hestan
• Garen: Peasant farmer. Son of Hestan
• Gilbin: Reeve of Corwick
• Quant Ranes: Leader of the nine
• Hape: One of the nine
• Calen: One of the nine
• Jayner of Corwick: Peasant farmer
• Widow Meade: Peasant
• Gerber the Smith: Peasant
• Meanda: Peasant
• Little Jinny: Infant daughter of Meanda
• Carspen Tuft: Slave dealer
• Hielda: Carspen Tuft’s wife
• Jebido: Soldier
• Klotter: Slave
• Twent: Slave
• Quarrymaster: Commander of Tannet’s Find
• Fanch Evenon: Soldier
• Listern Wes: Slave
• Baine: Pickpocket, slave, Hadrack’s friend
• Hervi Desh ( Heavy Beard): One of the nine
• Segar: Head in Tannet’s Find
• Wigo Jedin: Slave
• Folclind: Slave
• Uhin Eby: Slave
• Einhard: Leader of the Piths. The Sword of the King
• Eriz: Pith
• Ania: Pith
• Alesia: Pith. Wife of Einhard
• Orixe and Priam: Piths
• Megy: Quarrymaster’s wife
• Urdin: Pith Pathfinder
• Tato: Pith
• Rand Lassan: Gate Commander
• Prince Tyro: Heir to the throne of Ganderland
• Dolan: Soldier
• Son Oriell: Priest
• Searl Merk (Crooked Nose): One of the nine
• Betania: Nursemaid
Prologue
I was eight years old the first time that I killed a man. I am old now, bent and broken, but it was not always so. I think of that simple, innocent young boy from so many years ago and I shake my head, remembering. It hardly seems possible that such a fresh-faced boy as he, and the withered husk of a man sitting here now, could possibly be one and the same. Sometimes, while lying in my bed at night unable to sleep, I’m almost fooled into thinking that what had happened had just been a dream, or perhaps had even been told to me by another. But then I picture that first bastard, his rat-ugly face as clear to me now as it had been on the day that I’d killed him, and I know that it had been no dream. I have killed many men in almost every way imaginable since that first whore-son. With long sword and battle axe, spear and knife, lance and the great halberd, men have died by my hand. I killed them with my short sword, the powerful war-hammer and mace, or sometimes, when naught else was available, I killed them with my bare hands. Once, I even killed a man with a practice wooden sword, and, truth be told, I gloried in it all. I don’t care if you judge me harshly for what I am telling you. I’m not writing these words looking for absolution from anyone. Try living my life first; then you can speak to me of judgment.
I was born to a poor, peasant family, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, I know now without any doubt that I was never meant to be a farmer. I was destined to become a warrior, this much has been proven, and even now, with my hands shaking from age as I put my thoughts to paper, I can feel my blood pumping faster in my veins at the memory of the smells and sounds of battle. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to be young again, with the wind in my hair, a trusty shield on my arm and the solid grip of a sword in my hand. Recently, my six-year-old grandson caught me off guard when he asked me how many men I’d killed in my life. I’d never actually given it any thought before. I told him truthfully that I would guess hundreds, surprising even myself with the number. He’d seemed quite impressed and I tried to explain to him that it’s no small thing to kill a man. That though their body and soul might be gone to the next world, the memory of them is always with you here on this one and that is the price you must accept for taking a man’s life. Truth be told, he did not seem to understand, and I chose not to tell him that lately the dead seem to delight in taunting me when I try to sleep. My grandson does not need to hear that the dead know I’m close to joining them, and, I daresay, are clearly looking forward to it. I console myself with the thought that most of the men that I killed deserved to die, or at least I like to believe so, though I’d wager they might not agree with my take on things. I sent them into the arms of Mother Above or Father Below, and that’s just as it should be, as I know they would gladly have done the same to me if their sword arm had been stronger or their feet quicker.
The past, is just that, the past. It cannot be undone, but even so, I know that some of the choices that I made over the years has caused great suffering and pain to those who least deserved it. For this, I will always feel guilty. I was young and headstrong, and not content to leave things alone, as most young men tend to be. Because of this, I became what I am. But in my youth I didn’t understand that the choices I made would eventually come with a cost. Now that I’m old I realize the price I must pay for my actions is guilt and regret. One thing I know without a doubt, however, is that there is no guilt or regret in my heart for killing that first man. No shame. No remorse. No, not for that bastard. My only regret, I suppose, is I did not kill him sooner. He’s the one that started it all. He’s the one that changed my life forever and set me on this path. As I’ve grown older and frailer, a shadow of what I had been, I sometimes reflect on what would have become of me, had that bastard not done what he did.
I was the son of a peasant, Alwin of Corwick, a farmer and town elder. My mother had died giving birth to my younger brother, Renfry, who, as fate would have it, survived long enough to see his mother buried, only to be dragged off by wolves a few months later. My elder brother, Lallo, was killed in the Border War and my sister, Jeanna, whom I worshipped, was left caring for my father and I, taking on the unenviable task of running the farm while we worked the fields from first light to sundown. Other than the occasional raid from the heathen Piths to the south, things were peaceful in our village. Life was hard, true, but no harder than anywhere else I imagine. We were poor, but reasonably happy. As happy as peasants can be. That all changed when King Jorquin of Ganderland decided he would add our lands to his own. The conflict became known as the Border War, but in fairness, it was hardly a war. More like a slaughter, I would say. Our king was a stubborn old fool and despite being counselled against it, he arrogantly rode out to meet the forces of King Jorquin in the fields north of Halhaven. There his standard fell, as did he and many good men along with him. Just like that, we had been conquered. Our lands became known as Southern Ganderland, which in itself meant nothing to us at first. We were peasants after all. But soon the implications
of our new king’s rule became apparent. We had always paid a tax to our vassal lord, the Lord of Corwick, but he had fallen in battle, as had his heir, and now there was a new Lord Corwick, and soon to be new taxes. I remember my father shrugging his great shoulders when rumours first reached us of the new taxation coming. “A tax by this lord or a tax by the one before,” he had said to me. “It hardly matters. That’s just the way of things.”
I confess at eight that I didn’t understand any of what was happening. I had lost an older brother to war, which pained me greatly, but life is harsh for a peasant and death common, as our family knew all too well. Fiefdoms, vassals, taxes, new kings and new lords, for all of this I cared not at all. I was young and all I wanted to do was hunt and fish and wrestle with the other boys from the surrounding farms. What did I care about a new lord or some king far away to the north? It had nothing to do with me, or so I naively thought. That would change. My name is Lord Hadrack, the Wolf of Corwick Castle, and this is my story.
Chapter 1: The Nine
My father was a big man, well over six-feet tall, and he had arms rippled and hardened by years of heavy labor. Each arm seemed to me like a great tree trunk, hard, unrelenting and unstoppable. On many occasions I would watch as he’d strip down to his waist and grab his great axe and chop firewood behind the sty. With uncanny precision the double-bladed axe, a gift from the first Lord Corwick himself no less, would cleave the wood in half effortlessly, or so it seemed to me anyway. We burned oak or white maple mostly, and the hard wood was no match for the combined power of axe and man. Now, I know you must be asking yourself at this point, how could a mere peasant such as my father possess such a weapon? Corwick is a poor town and no one had an axe like my father’s with its intricately carved handle. Most had crude stone axes or well-worn iron ones. But my father was not always a farmer. Once upon a time, before I was born, my father was a soldier and was a man to be reckoned with. He rarely spoke of it. Of what he had been and now what he had become. He was a dashing, handsome man with long brown hair tied back and deep brown eyes. To me he looked like a giant with his great arms and shoulders and he was everything a man should be. Except for the leg. I don’t know how it happened, but the misshapen, crushed and almost useless leg my father dragged behind him clearly must have occurred in battle. My father never spoke of it, though. Nor would he speak of the great axe or how a lord had come to give it to him. The few things I learned of him from the before time, as my mother liked to call it, I learned from her.
My mother, ah, what a fine woman she was. It pains me, even after all these years to think of her. I remember she was beautiful, strong and stubborn, and when it came to decisions around the farm, she was never afraid to voice an opinion. My father was a hard man. A man used to getting his way in all things, except when it came to her. He loved her completely and utterly and could never say no to her. When she died, I remember seeing some of the light fade from his eyes, never to return. I see all the faces of my family in my mind as I write, and though it was all so long ago, I grieve for them still. I have avenged them as I promised The Mother and The Father that I would, but still that knowledge does little to appease the pain in my heart. The only thing that makes the pain bearable these days is that soon I know I will see them all again. I long for that day more and more, but I also know that seeing them remains in the future, and I am here to speak of the past.
The day my life changed forever began with a crisp north wind and a weak sun just rising above the Two-Heads Hills behind our house to the east. It was early March, and as such, plowing the fields had begun in earnest. The village was poor and so we only had one ox to share between the seven farms that surrounded the village of Corwick. My father and the other elders had pleaded more than once with Lord Corwick for another ox, but their words had fallen upon deaf ears. “There is no money,” he would just say, waving them away. So today we were off to plow Hestan of Corwick’s fields, ours having finally been finished the day before.
“You’re looking bright and eager this morning,” my father said to me as I entered the main room. Our house was what was called a wattle and daub house, basically a wood-framed building filled with woven twigs and straw, with the outer layer covered in mud, which when dry created a hard wall. The house was larger than most, perhaps another perk for my father from the before time. I never asked. We actually had two sleeping chambers as well as the main living quarters. Something no one else in Corwick had.
“I was hoping to meet Carwin over by the stream for a bit this morning,” I mumbled, knowing even as I said it that it wasn’t going to happen.
“I thought you and Carwin were enemies this week,” my sister said with a grin as she placed a hot bowl of pottage before my father. Pottage was a basic stew Jeanna made from peas, beans and onions from the garden. My sister was almost fifteen and already strikingly beautiful. Like me, she’d inherited my mother’s dark black hair and light blue, almost grey eyes. Her hair, though rarely seen beneath her wimple, which was a long cloth made of hemp or linen wrapped around her head, I knew was long and luxurious. She was dressed in a drab, sleeveless wool tunic over a wool shift. Her feet were bare and a pair of small brooches that were once my mother’s sat perched, one to each shoulder. The brooch on her left shoulder depicted the bright and cheerful yellow Blazing Sun, the sign of Mother Above. The one on her right shoulder showed the dark black Rock of Life, the sign of Father Below. I wore a similar combined pendant called a Pair Stone around my neck that had belonged to my older brother and which had thankfully been returned to us after his death. The Pair Stone was one of my few possessions and I cherished the polished circular stone that swirled with equal parts yellow and black colors in homage to The First Pair.
I grinned at my sister. “Carwin just needed a good thumping to come to his senses. I decided I would do the thumping.”
“I told you already what I thought about fighting,” my father said with a frown. He was dressed in an ill-made tunic, as Jeanna was still learning the art of sewing, and well-worn trousers. On his feet he wore heavy boots which had been repaired many, many times. I suspected they came from his soldiering days, but he never said. He indicated the hard oak bench beside him. “Sit. Eat. We have a long day before us.”
I sat down and nodded my thanks to Jeanna as she placed a steaming bowl on the table in front of me. “I know, father,” I said before I lifted the rough wooden bowl to my lips and cautiously slurped a mouthful of stew. I thought for a moment as I chewed, trying to put into words how I felt. “I try not to fight,” I finally said, “but then something happens and I can’t stop myself.” I realized it wasn’t much. Wasn’t even close to an explanation of the heat, the white-hot rage that sometimes brims out of me. How could I possibly explain something that I didn’t even understand myself?
“Something happens, eh,” my father grunted. He glanced at my sister briefly, then back to me. “I saw Fitch yesterday,” he said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He gave me a hard look. “It would appear that something happened to him too.”
“But he was-”
My father held up one large, calloused hand, cutting me off. “I don’t care, Hadrack.” He shifted on the bench, wincing as his bad leg moved reluctantly. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You must learn to control yourself. You’re big and strong. I dare say bigger and stronger than I was at your age. But just because you’re bigger and stronger than someone else does not give you the right to beat them senseless. You must always think first. That’s why The Mother and The Father gave you a brain. You only resort to using your fists if all else fails.”
I thought about that for a moment and then said, “Did you feel that way when you fought in the army?”
My father’s face tightened and he looked away. “What I did or did not do long ago has no bearing on the here and now. You are my son and I am your father. You will abide by my word and will stop fighting or I will tan your hide. Am I
clear?”
I wet my lips and nodded. “Very clear,” I said, looking away so that he couldn’t see the doubt that I knew lay clearly across my face. At least he hadn’t made me swear to Mother Above or Father Below on it. My father took oaths to The First Pair very seriously and I knew that would have been one promise I probably couldn’t keep. Fighting might be wrong, at least in my father’s eyes, but it certainly was fun!
“Good!” my father said. “This afternoon you will take time away from the fields and go to the Holy House and confess your sins to Son Fadrian or Daughter Elias and ask their forgiveness for what you have done.” He hesitated with his bowl almost to his lips and scowled at me. “Do you understand me, Hadrack?”
“I do, father,” I said, groaning silently to myself, knowing that I’d probably get stuck with Son Fadrian. The priest was incredibly old and looked like a toad to me with his wrinkled and pock-marked flesh and his breath smelled like rotten fish. Daughter Elias was young and pretty and I liked her a lot and always preferred confessing to her. But the last three times I’d gone, I’d had to confess to Son Fadrian. I’m pretty sure the old priest was starting to wonder about me.
We finished eating in silence and when we were done my father and I headed out, leaving Jeanna to do whatever girls do back at the farm. I make light of it, but truth be told, without Jeanna I don’t know what father and I would have done. She was always the first awake and the last to bed and never once complained at the heap of chores that needed doing every day just to keep the farm running smoothly. We crossed our yard and headed for the western path that led to Hestan’s farm and I turned back to glance over my shoulder at our house. Jeanna was standing in the yard watching us with one hand holding her wimple against the steady breeze while the other hand held a basket perched easily on her hip. Around her chickens were already congregating and I shaded my eyes from the sun just breaking over the roof of our house. I waved to her, grinning when she waved enthusiastically back.
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