by Jackson Lear
“No, just … skin it, spit it, you know the drill.”
I lifted the goat’s head before they could carry the whole thing away. Noticed a tingle of static energy ripple through the creature’s fur. One of them must’ve stunned the goat from afar to give the other a perfect shot with the bow. Not exactly a waste of magic but an expensive hunt nonetheless.
Our two camps got to work on a pair of enclosed fires, our side by digging a hole and surrounding it with packs, the northerners by stomping on the snow to compact it and building a narrow trench to push the wind in, through, and away from the fire. Jarmella looked on, gave the order to re-set the logs and replicate the northern approach. The troops grumbled. Did it anyway.
An hour later I offered half of a goat steaks to the famished northerners, targeting the six who had aided us in carrying our injured on stretchers. “Thank you for your help.” They shared it around. I waved to an empty space on the ground. “May I?” Was given permission to sit. Waited until the guilt of polishing off three hares between them became an issue. Ithka was elected to apologize to the vanguard for having nothing to bring them as a peace offering.
We sat in silence while they ate, them no doubt wondering what I wanted from them, me waiting to see if any of them were going to press me for southern secrets.
The blacksmith was the first to approach. His foul attitude from Faersrock had faded but was far from gone. He stood still in front of me with his hands by his side, waiting patiently. I waved him to the spot next to me. He sat. Thumped his chest. “Yahnson.”
“Raike.” He nodded to Razoz’s sword. Held one hand out. I gave him a moment to consider the consequences of him trying to use it against me. Before I handed it over I gestured between us. “In Faersrock with Anka you …”
He dipped his head and tried to fumble along with a lot of hand movements, but he didn’t make it ten seconds before becoming flustered. “Torunn!”
Torunn ambled over. “Aye?” He listened. “He’s not apologizing.”
“Good.”
That seemed to surprise them both.
“I was being a dick and you were busy.”
Torunn hesitated before translating. Again they were both surprised. Someone else interjected. “He wants to know why you’re bringing the vampire with you.”
“Because my people need to learn how vampires work. How long it takes to transform, what it looks like, what it sounds like, and how to kill them.”
“They killed one already.”
“I expect they’ll need to kill more before we reach Ice Bridge.”
Nervous looks passed between them.
“She’s a problem,” said Yahnson, through Torunn.
“She will be, yes. But she’ll also be able to see in the dark and hear better than any of us. She’ll know if people are hiding behind trees. She’ll find tracks that we can’t see and she will be able to find a safe path because of how the animals behave in the distance.”
Torunn shook his head. “Why would she help you?”
“Because this will be exciting for her and she will be eager to see what she can do with her new powers.”
That unnerved the northerners. I unsheathed my new sword. Held it out to Yahnson. Kept my grip loose over my blade. Braced myself to both fire off a spell and be hit by one as well. The blacksmith inspected the vampire sword with great care. Muttered with surprise.
I smiled in response. “Yeah. Korla.”
The northerners chuckled. Yahnson returned the sword. Nodded with approval.
“He said it’s lighter than he expected.”
“Is it magical?”
They shook their heads. Shame.
“You know what ‘korla’ means?” asked Torunn.
“Pretty much. You guys say it a lot.”
“Well … aye. Draegor is a korla. Mother of my wife is a korla. Agnarr is sometimes a korla. Sea is definitely a korla.”
“And you never say it to their faces?”
“You can try, but never call mother of your wife a korla in front of your wife. Very bad.”
“Even if she deserves it?”
“If she deserves being called a korla, you deserve punch in face. You might forget punch. She won’t forget you calling her a korla.”
“Got it.”
They settled. Munched on some goat. It was an agony staying still as the hours slipped away from us. We had already lost more time than we could afford and couldn’t waste any more, not if we hoped to ambush Draegor’s cavalry before they reached thousands of their allies. Unfortunately I was burdened with two groups of volunteers who were already at their limit.
Another northerner came over. Buxom. She was missing her bottom two front teeth. Spoke decent Isparian, even with her lisp. “You have wife?”
“No, thank you. You’re very nice, though, but no.”
“Why not? You very handsome man. You should have wife.”
“Maybe one day.”
“Of course one day! Wives are good. Keep you warm inside and out.” She got a few murmurs, the kind of ‘give it a rest.’ She fired back with a quick, ‘fuck you, I’m talking here.’ The pestering started to get too much so with a lengthy, ‘aye aye aye, I’m going,’ she held out one hand. “Stassa.” She pointed to the wilderness beside us. “You want to …?”
I smiled back at her. “Why me?”
“You kill Draegor.”
“He was dead when I found him.”
“Aye, you say that. Your Lady Kasera say that. Torunn say you kill Draegor.”
Torunn shrugged it off. I had to shake my head at Stassa. “Next time.”
Stassa blew out a long, disappointed sigh and retreated back to the other side of the fire, shaking her hips a little more prominently than usual and getting some catcalls as a result. She sat, jostled her breasts and seemed to snap back at the fellas surrounding her, saying: ‘This is as close to them as you will ever get.’ She finished it up with a decent wink back my way.
Yahnson leaned over. Torunn translated. “You do not want a wife where you are from?”
“Finding the right one can be hard.”
“How can you not find a woman? Mine lived across the road. Very easy to find. She said I should marry her so I did. There. Wife.”
“Getting married was really that easy?”
“Well … not first night,” muttered Yahnson.
“First time problems?”
“No, I had done that many times. And with her. But getting married here, your first night … you know.”
“I don’t know, actually.”
Yahnson gestured to Torunn in a ‘you tell him’ move. “The, uh … m-mothers of wife and husband need to be there that night to make sure it’s … uh …” Torunn did the finger in the hole trick. Chuckles rang through the circle of spectators.
“Consummated?”
“Aye. So if you call the mother of your wife a korla it can be a problem because she has seen you … uh … disappointing her daughter.”
“And this happens to everyone?”
“Everyone.”
“Is it lucky then if their mother is dead?”
“No. We find new mother for that night. Or father.”
“Wait, you mean there’s a chance that I’d have to have sex with my new wife in front of her mother or father?”
“Yes. Otherwise you are not married.”
“There are fur rugs over the top of us, right?”
“Of course.”
“So all they’ll really see are our shoulders.”
“And your faces.”
“Oh.”
“And they might be talking to each other while you’re doing it.”
“Right.”
“And you keep going until both of you are not disappointed.”
“With my mother and her mother talking beside me?”
“Yes. So very lucky if their mothers are still alive but not their fathers.”
I needed a deep breath to get the visual out of my head
. “You have interesting customs up here.”
He grinned again. “You have children?”
“No. People who pay protection money have wives and children. People who collect do not.”
It took him a moment to connect everything together. “You are a black market man?”
“Mercenary.”
“Mercenaries can have wives.”
“Of course. And then they pay protection money so that nothing happens to them.”
“No one in your people was married?”
“Some were, and many times. They lived nearby in their own place. They’d come in and complain about their wives and kids and soon all their stories sounded like the stories of merchants and traders and tailors and everyone else.”
“Maybe they’re happy.”
“Maybe.”
Yahnson cocked his head to one side. “You don’t want a family?”
“I’ve heard the complaints.”
“Yes, there are complaints. There’s also lots of laughter.”
“I was a complaint. And I didn’t grow up with laughter.”
“So you will drink, gamble, fight, steal, and kill until you die?”
I shrugged it off. “I’m a simple man.”
“No, that sounds complicated.”
“You left out ‘women.’”
He spread his arms out wide with a big ol’ grin. “Well, of course you’re going to have women! And then you find one you think about more often than you should and hope she thinks about you as well, then you get married and be like everyone else.”
The heat in my veins began to rise. “I’m starting to understand the meaning of ‘korla.’”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good. Use it wisely.”
The conversation fell into a lull. The fire popped. I looked back to Torunn. “Is it true about Draegor’s witch?”
A chill fell among them all. “You saw her.”
“I did. Is she really that scary?”
He grumbled back at me. “She doesn’t sleep. She speaks with dead more than living. She drinks blood and knows who is where and what they say.”
“Sounds like a lot of bullshit. She sleeps. She eats. She shits. She probably plays with herself as well. How come we didn’t hear about her until now?”
Whispers filled the crowd. “Every king has a witch. Every southerner is drunk on wine. Every harvest is worse than last. People saw her in Brilskeep, knew she was witch, but this was first time she proved it.”
“Would she become queen?”
“Don’t know. If she’s smart, yes. But not today.”
“Why not today?”
“We have history here. Terrible king rises, is overthrown, and new king lasts one year because they are weak. They were strong enough to kill last king, not strong enough to stop war among nobles. Soon: new king. Then: another new king. Eventually: new king who is strong enough to scare nobles into not killing him.”
“Why doesn’t the first new king kill the nobles who would betray him?”
“Then he is a tyrant who needs to be betrayed.”
“Then hopefully Agnarr does it right.” I was met with quite a lot of careful stares. “We did come here to help him become the new king. And thank you for being able to help us make that happen.”
“Aye,” muttered Torunn. “Aye.”
I waited to see if anyone was brave enough to follow on. Brave or stupid. Either way. No one spoke. “We should get going.”
No one wanted to but we did start to get a move on, breaking down the fires and smothering the flames with dirt and a fine layer of snow. Unfortunately for us the gentle fire had ruined our night vision and we were at least half an hour away from getting it back fully.
I stumbled back to Jarmella, Menrihk, and Gaynun. No Odalis in sight. “Anything?”
“Something,” muttered Menrihk. “Might be a concern … not quite bad news, just a …”
“Spit it out.”
“Well, when you said we came to help Agnarr become the new king there were a couple of snorts … kinda like chuckling. They didn’t say anything until you were gone.”
“What did they say?”
“‘Idiots. All of them.’”
Gaynun added: “And some of them had a look. A uh … I’m pretty sure they believe that Agnarr doesn’t want to become king.”
I looked to Menrihk with his listening rod. “That’s what I got too. It’s not a definite yes, but right now … yeah.”
“His crew were ambushed, though,” said Jarmella.
“That’s what they said.”
I remember checking the front of the ship to verify their story. “The front of their ship was damaged. They were definitely rammed by another ship.”
Jarmella said: “And the crew were imprisoned. Some were killed. None of them looked like they wanted to be in Brilskeep when we were there. It looked like their plan to get us back to Faersrock had gone horribly wrong.”
“And the rowers were apologizing non-stop when we were getting away,” said Menrihk.
“Even so, they took Agnarr off to who knows where,” said Jarmella. “All of them except for Torunn who – conveniently – has offered to help us reach Ice Bridge.”
“And Agnarr certainly didn’t seem thrilled to see us,” said Gaynun.
“You met with him in the tavern,” said Jarmella. “Did he give any indication at all that he was involved in something suspect?”
“Just a gut feeling,” I said. “One that’s starting to agree with Gaynun and Menrihk.”
Jarmella shook her head. “I can’t tell if we’ve blundered into one trap after another but this whole thing started because we reached out to someone in the north and Agnarr answered.”
“So why did we come all this way to meet a would-be king who doesn’t actually want to become king?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ivar and Magnus bounded back to us, each limping from a dozen blisters and covered in frost from frequent falls. They threw their arms around as many of the vanguard as they could.
“Oh, thank the gods we were following the right tracks,” said Ivar, his lungs practically bursting from the six hour hustle. “We saw your lantern a while back and then nothing. Kinda got us worried.”
“Except for the lack of dead bodies,” gasped Magnus.
“You didn’t see two of them?” asked Jarmella.
Ivar and Magnus recoiled. “Shit, who did we lose?”
“No one. We found a couple of northerners who died a month ago.”
Ivar slapped Magnus across the arm. “I told you they weren’t just taking a piss break.”
“Did anyone follow you?” asked Jarmella.
“No. They all ran away.”
“The fifty cavalry?”
Stassa crept forward. “Any prisoners?”
Magnus shook his head. “No, sorry. We got seven riders.”
“Killed three of them,” said Ivar.
“Injured a couple of the horses as well.”
“Probably not enough to make much of a difference but every little bit counts, right?”
“Right up until they figured out where we were,” said Magnus.
“Any vampires among them?” asked Jarmella.
“One,” said Ivar. “She looked like half of her face had been torn off.”
Odalis muttered: “That was thanks to Loken back in Faersrock. I think she was the one who grabbed him.”
The northerners started to trundle away, continuing on with our unending journey.
“Thank you,” said Jarmella. “You probably saved our lives.”
Mangus stuck his hand out first. Jarmella awkwardly shook it, forgetting that a service of that magnitude deserves at least a handshake. She did the same for Ivar.
“Gaynun? Keep an eye on our rear.”
“Yes sir.”
I kept running through the timing of it all. The fifty cavalry who chased us had sacrificed an hour doubling back, three more hours heading towards the mountain ins
tead of towards Ice Bridge – which wasn’t much of a detour but a detour nonetheless – engaged in a short melee that left some of them dead and others injured, and maybe another three hours to return to the rest of Draegor’s cavalry. Had the other riders waited for them? It was possible. Perhaps half of them were already exhausted and their horses needed a rest. Perhaps they sent their more capable fighters back to force us to change course. Either way they were likely to know that imperial archers were spotted near the mountain pass. If they inspected the area they would know that sixty of us had just taken a short cut to intercept them. A fast rider would return to the rest of the cavalry, and another would head to Ice Bridge as quickly as they could to raise the alarm. There was no way we could get there in time.
Wilbur was pinned to my ass again. “Sir?”
As best as I could tell it was three hours until dawn. No one had slept. Stomachs empty. Limbs numb. Minds foggy. Attention on our surroundings: haphazard at best.
“What is it, Wilbur?”
“Are they going to kill us up here?”
“Who? The vampires or Draegor’s riders?”
“Our … allies.”
“Are allies known for killing imperial soldiers?”
“No, sir. But if they did there’s no one to tell the general how or where we died. This is the perfect situation for them to get away with it.”
“You’re sure? You don’t think Zara’s already on the job of finding out how this whole thing went wrong? Or that a reward of a thousand marks for any information regarding our demise might be tempting enough to someone who watched us die?”
Wilbur stumbled along. Head down. Mind too tired to think of anything optimistic.
“Fine. Let’s say that half of the northerners with us are here because they’re on a rescue mission, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And the other half are planning to kill us. Some of the ones on the rescue mission know what the other half is planning and are calling for patience. Why? Because the most reasonable compromise to their two goals is to use us to help rescue their prisoners. Pit us against Draegor’s cavalry, we whittle down the riders, the riders whittles down us, their people are freed, one half has exactly what they wanted, now the other half get their chance to turn on us. That’s certainly a better plan than turning against us right now, isn’t it? They’ve seen us fight. They know that we broke out of a dungeon without any weapons, into a castle, out of a castle, into another dungeon to free Agnarr’s crew, out of that dungeon, onto a ship, that we made a stand against a cavalry which outnumbered us two hundred to thirty, by picking ourselves up again and charging after the bastards because they took just one of ours prisoner, that two of us engaged fifty of Draegor’s riders and scared them off, and now we’re taking one hell of a short cut that has tired them out more than us. Would you take on anyone with our kind of success rate?”