The Usurper

by James Alderdice

  “I leave this record with you my friend, that in case such information is ever needed again it will be at your fingertips to be put to good use.

  “Until then, farewell.”

  Thirteen nights earlier…

  The Usurper 4. Born Under A Bad Sign

  Their ranks swelled as they left Tallon. Most of the soldiers who had been stationed there gladly joined the banner of Roose. Gathelaus counted some thousand more able bodied men in their army.

  Roose assured him that despite there being at least ten thousand more men in the active army of Forlock, they were spread thinly far away over the nation.

  “The farmers and such will not lift a hand against us,” said Roose. “They despise Forlock’s cruel taxes and lack of civic works as much as any noble.”

  “You sure about that?” asked Gathelaus.

  “Of course, I am sure. Why may I ask?”

  “There,” said Gathelaus, pointing at a burning field on the edge of the horizon. Black smoke billowed into the sky. The blaze had been kindled only shortly before.

  “I can’t see how that should do anything to stop us. It won’t affect the road. We keep marching on,” said Roose.

  Gathelaus said, “If that’s what I think it is, it’s a bad sign. Men are burning farmsteads and food stores to starve the army.”

  “We don’t eat straw Gathelaus.”

  “No, but the horses do and if they are destroying hay here, they will burn or pollute everything between here and Hellainik to make us hunger and lose the will to fight.”

  Roose looked shocked at that revelation. “I have never had to fight against such odds as this. What do we do? Go back a fortify Tallon?”

  “Only if we want to die. How long until Forlock can assemble his armies?”

  Baron Undset answered, “Perhaps three weeks. It would take men from Danelaw at least that long to march at full speed and arrive in Hellainik.”

  Gathelaus shook his head. “If Forlock’s sorcerer knew the plan of treachery, he may have recalled men already. They could be moving faster than you think.”

  Jolly and Thorne rode up to Gathelaus as they too noticed the smoke. “Want us to scout it out?”

  Gathelaus nodded and the two men raced their horses ahead of the column.

  “What can they do?”

  “Eyes and ears,” answered Gathelaus. “If we’re lucky its only a small band of men and they can be dealt with.”

  “And if it is not?”

  “Regardless, we have been pushing the men hard, but we will need to push them even harder and take the capitol as soon as possible to defeat starvation and supplemental enemy troops that are coming to overwhelm us. This is a race.”

  “I take it you have had to deal with life and death races before?” asked Baron Undset.

  “Of course, all of life is a race.”

  Roose looked back at the column of men. “Three fourths of my army is afoot. What do you suggest?”

  “You lead the vanguard of footmen, let me take the cavalry and a few wagons and rush ahead. We will break any initial defenses and prepare the way.”

  “What about if you get to Hellainik first?” asked Baron Undset. “Do you mean to lay siege to the city without Prince Roose commanding there?”

  Gathelaus rubbed at his jaw. “Do you want to win, or do you want the glory?”

  Roose looked from the baron to Gathelaus as if trying to make up his mind.

  “You only want the one,” said Gathelaus. “Glory will get you killed.”

  “You can’t assault the city without me,” said Roose finally. “I must be there to command and try and make Forlock surrender.”

  “Surrender? He is sitting in his palace, with walls fifty feet high. And a garrison to man them, along with his wizard and any other tricks I don’t know about yet. There is no time for gallantry. This is the way of the sword and axe. We must rush in and kill or be killed.”

  “I understand your impatience Gathelaus, but that is not how I will do things. Some courtesies and rules of war must be maintained. We stick together keeping the full strength of the army as one. I don’t think we shall be that much slower. I will make the men march double time if I have too.”

  “It’s fifty miles or more. The men will be exhausted and in no condition to fight,” said the Baron.

  “They’ll be better getting there to fight than being too slow and starving,” said Gathelaus.

  Roose nodded as much to himself as anyone of them. “We march double time and get to Hellainik within three days.

  ***

  They made camp for the night several more miles down the road. Nearly an hour after they had, Jolly and Thorne returned.

  Gathelaus beckoned for them to join him about the command campfire. “Well?” he asked as he handed them a sack of wine.

  The two men looked downcast.

  “What is it?”

  Jolly began, “We caught the men burning the fields and farmsteads.”

  “Disaffected farmers?” asked Roose.

  Thorne shook his head and emptied a sack he had been carrying onto the ground. The firelight caught the gleam in the dead eyes of a Pict.

  “By the gods! A Pictish war party raiding this far south at a time like this?” asked the Baron.

  “No,” said Jolly. “Not a war party, a god-damned army.”

  The Baron stood up, eyes blazing as if he was about to call the men liars. Roose raised a hand, making him sit. Roose asked, “How do you know? How many men did you count?”

  Thorne looked to Jolly and said, “We couldn’t get an accurate count. It was too dark.”

  “Then how do you know it is an army and not just a large war party?”

  “The fires across the Rites river, there’s too many campfires for it be just a war party.”

  “What did you see?” asked Gathelaus.

  “It was just a small raiding party on our side of the river. They have burned the fields and homesteads of anyone along the way.”

  “And the farmers?”

  “All dead near as we could tell.”

  “How many Picts did you see?”

  “Judging by the campfire,” said Thorne, counting off with his fingers and looking at Jolly who did the same. “At least two to three thousand.”

  Roose was stunned. He ran his hands along his head as if he might tear out his hair. “This is impossible. How could they come this year of all years?”

  “They haven’t raided this side of the river in thirty odd years,” said the Baron.

  “Well they did in the far west only eighteen years ago.”

  “That hardly matters,” said the Baron sourly.

  “It mattered to us. I fought them,” said Gathelaus.

  “From the safety of a royal fort, I’ll wager,” snapped the steward.

  Gathelaus snorted. “I slew Toohoo-emmi.”

  The Baron’s face shot up to stare at Gathelaus. Again, he looked as if he might declare the words he had just a heard a lie, but he thought better of it and closed his open mouth.

  “How many did you slay,” Gathelaus asked his men.

  “Fifteen. Another five got to their canoes along the river and escaped to the other side,” said Thorne.

  “My lord,” said the Baron to Roose. “We can take the south road, run along the river and cross downstream in Holbrook. We can still get to Hellainik by that road in four days.”

  Gathelaus chuckled and shook his head saying, “Not with me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If we followed the Baron’s advice. We would be caught between Forlock on one side and an army of Picts on the other. We be trapped. I will not go that way.”

  “You are paid to follow my orders,” said Roose sharply.

  “And you pay for my advice, which will pay for dearly if you ignore it. I will serve but not to the point of stupidity. If we take the south road we are dead, and I will not lead my men into that.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” breathed Roo
se.

  “For one thing, we double the guard tonight. The Picts attack just before dawn half the time.”

  “And the other half?”

  “At dusk. We’re already past that.”

  The Baron snorted. “You’re the one who said it was a race.”

  “It still is. If the Picts delay us more than a few days, Forlock may have his own forces too heavily consolidated in the city. We won’t have enough men or supplies to take it.”

  “But the Picts.”

  “We slay them,” said Gathelaus firmly.

  “I don’t understand how they even came here. There has been no word of their uprising this far south in years,” lamented Roose.

  Gathelaus shrugged. “Who knows what the Picts think they will gain from this. Find a seer somewhere in this army and let’s get some answers then.”

  “A seer?”

  “There must be someone who can read the cosmic signs,” said Gathelaus.

  “I think I know a man,” said Niels, who had been quiet this whole time.

  “The stew-pot seer?” asked Jolly.

  Niels nodded. “Let me fetch him.”

  ***

  Niels came back shortly with a small skinny man. He wore an apron instead of mail and his weapon was a large ladle. “This is Gustal.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “I’m a cook sir.”

  “Niels?” asked Gathelaus.

  “You weren’t paying attention that night you got word to go see the witch,” he said. Roose and the Baron did a double take.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I think he might have a gift,” explained Niels.

  “Gustal. Anything to captain Niels hunch?”

  Gustal took his hat in his hands and said, “Well sir, sometimes when I am looking for something, I have a knack for finding no matter how odd a place it might be hiding in. It works all the time for small things, but I don’t know about anything big.”

  “What is big to you?”

  “Well something really important, I reckon, like an army sir, not sure I can tell you much about a whole army of Picts. I could find a knife you lost or maybe a ring.”

  Gathelaus cocked an eyebrow at Niels.

  Niels said, “I think we should give it a shot. We don’t have anyone else in this army that displays those kinda gifts.”

  Roose stood from his chair. “I want to see what the cook prophet can see. Show us your gifts cook.”

  “It’s Gustal, sir.”

  Roose waved him off.

  “I’ll need my pot.”

  “Fetch it,” said Gathelaus. “And anything else he needs.”

  Gustal stammered, “I might do better with a little wine in me.”

  Gathelaus tossed him the wineskin.

  Gustal drank greedily. “I can’t promise to learn anything useful. I may say somethings, but it may work best if you ask me very specific questions when I am in my trance. That was what the old lady would do when she wanted me to find her things that the brownies had stolen.”

  “Brownies?” mouthed Baron Undset silently in disgust.

  Gathelaus, Roose and the others agreed amongst themselves and discussed key points of inquiry. While Baron Undset shook his head at the bizarre arrangement.

  Niels brought the handful of items that the stew-pot seer had requested. Within moments between multiple sips of wine, Gustal had a soup bubbling over the coals of the command camps fire and he sat beside it on a tiny stool, stirring and staring. He went into a glaze-eyed trance.

  “What do you see?” asked Roose.

  “Fires,” said Gustal absently.

  “What about the fires?” asked Roose. “What do they mean?”

  “They are a trick. Many fires across the river but few men tend them.”

  “Are there more Picts?”

  “Thousands.”

  Gathelaus took Roose by the shoulder and whispered, “Specific questions.”

  Roose nodded and asked Gustal, “Is there a Pictish invasion and, where are they? How many men is it?”

  Gustal stirred the pot and said absently, “Most of the Pictish army is not here yet. Only the swiftest have arrived. They try to conceal their numbers. The greater host is coming down out of the wildlands.”

  “How long until they get here?”

  “Two days hence.”

  Gathelaus whispered to Roose. “We still can’t allow them to get behind us. We should advance, slay their forerunners and set traps for those still coming.”

  Roose waved him off, he was intrigued now with Gustal’s revelations. He asked Gustal, “If we fight them, will we prevail.”

  Gustal paused as if examining the question. “Some men here will die, but those of Vjorn will ultimately triumph.”

  “Hear that? We will win! That’s all I really needed to know. Its not like we need to have a sorcerous watcher.”

  “A sorcerous watcher?” asked Gustal still in his trance.

  “Did you ask him something?” queried Gathelaus.

  “No,” said Roose. “He said something about a sorcerous watcher.”

  Gustal paused stirring as if he were interrupted in his reverie. “Black deeps, something watches me watching!”

  “What is it?” prodded Gathelaus.

  “Like a monstrous ape of shadow,” cried Gustal, as he fell back from the pot cringing in fear.

  The men looked about but saw nothing in the starry night. Torches blazed all about and there were guardsmen on watch in a wide perimeter, yet no one saw anything.

  “Either he is mad or there is dark sorcery afoot,” said Roose. “I need to know which.”

  “We know that Tormund Ghast watches, Guthrum said as much,” reminded Gathelaus.

  “Tormund Ghast is a soothsayer and alchemist but that he has such dark powers I have never seen nor heard of,” argued Roose.

  Gathelaus warned, “Sorcerer’s never speak of the true reach nor limit of their powers.”

  Men flared torches about watching for anything, but there was no apparent source of Gustal’s fears.

  “I need to know if this Gustal sees or but dreams,” insisted Roose. He propped the cowering Gustal back beside the pot and asked, “Tell me Gustal, what do you know of me and my destiny? Do you know when I was born? Do you know of my glory and destiny? Answer but the first yet.”

  “Yes, lord,” stammered Gustal, as he stirred the ladle into the pot and stared.

  The ladle made scraping sounds against the pot as he swirled the soup in clockwise fashion.

  “You are the grandson of a king. But you were born under a bad sign, where death looms in your way,” spoke Gustal in a monotone voice. The fear had left Gustal and none present doubted that he indeed saw something, but was it truth?

  “When will the new king be crowned,” asked the Baron, barely containing his excitement.

  “Month of the Demon, Week of the Rat, Day of the Toad. He will seize the crown from the gory head of the dead king, yet before that he will seize command from a dead would be king.”

  “What does that mean?” barked Roose. “There is no such person.”

  Gathelaus didn’t like the sound of where this was going, he tried to assuage the noble’s ire. “Ask about the Picts, that is the most pressing concern in the moment.”

  “Tell us all about the Picts,” urged Roose. “Why did they come here?”

  Gathelaus urged specific questions, “How many? Who leads them? How can we find him?”

  “A great army of Picts are coming, some four thousand men. Sidrezyul is their great chief. Him will you know by his white hair and crown of red feathers.”

  “How did they come here? Why now?”

  “They were promised many lands by King Forlock’s sorcerer, Tormund Ghast. They have come at great speed, racing down from the wild lands with all their strength and are now spent, but they will recover soon.”

  “At least some good news,” said Gathelaus.

  “How is that good news? Four thousan
d Picts out of the wilds and ready for our blood?” asked the Baron.

  “They are running here as fast as they can, they will be more tired than we are, now is the time to strike.”

  “Are you mad?” asked Baron Undset placing a hand on Gathelaus’s shoulder.

  Gathelaus shrugged him off and glared. “I am here to fight and win, not worry about rules or odds, and I say we must strike swiftly before they are well rested and fortified.”

  “Do you always rush headlong into danger?” asked the Baron.

  “Only when I have too, and the situation demands it unless we all want our heads on the pike of a Pictish war camp.”

  “Our concern is getting to Hellainik and staging a coup. We can worry about the Picts after.”

  “We will never get to Hellainik with them at our backs,” argued Gathelaus. “A Pictish boy can outrun a Vjornishman on his best day. They have no baggage train and no supplies beyond what they personally carry. If they will arrive soon, now is the time to attack.”

  The Baron objected, “We will lose too many men in this conflict and Forlock’s reinforcements will get to Hellainik ahead of us. Then we’ll never win.”

  “We won’t get a better opportunity than now for the die that has already been cast.”

  The Baron now plead with Roose who stood over Gustal’s trancelike shoulder. “We must ignore the Picts for today and fight them once we have the crown.”

  Gathelaus shouted him down, “I will not ignore them and go to Hellainik. It means certain death being caught between two enemy forces.”

  Roose almost didn’t hear them. He leaned in closer and asked Gustal, “How can I win?”

  “You can’t.”

  Twelve years earlier…

  The God From The Pit

  1. Son of Thunder

  Stark white mountains rose jigsaw against an ashen sky. Fog moved wraith-like over the land. The frozen valley was mute but for hooves crunching against the shallow ice-covered snow. The pale horse, its nostrils fuming out like dragon’s breath, stepped careful on the untrustworthy ground. The rider, a dark clad man with exceptionally long hair, brooded in the saddle, listening. So far as he knew, he—Gathelaus, could very well be the first white man in this high mountain valley. He had studied the maps of the famed explorers Bridgeierin, Jedidiah Sax and even daring monks from Sen-Toku who were rumored to have fared this way but this valley was not upon any of the charts that he could remember. If not for the freak blizzard driving him off course, he might not have found it himself.