by Alex Sapegin
“You tricky Loki’s spawn,” the Norseman laughed out loud. “Targ take you and Loki instead of an anchor. Thanks for the nieces. You’ll raise ‘em as Vikings, for sure. Look out for that Semira—they’ll take her away like you took Brunhilde!” Harald slapped the orc on the shoulder and then suddenly grew quite serious. “Where are you planning to go?”
“To Key Island. King Gil declared Penkur[6] and is giving away land on the western edge of the islands. There’s a nice couple of harbors there. I’m just afraid of one thing—that we’ll get kicked out of there, too, sooner or later.”
Harald cracked his knuckles, stood up from the boulder and walked back and forth, his ax clinking against his shins.
“Three weeks ago I went to Wolf archipelago…,” he began. Tyrnuv gave him his full attention, listening with interest. “Again, instead of cargo, a drekkar full of mages and birds in cages.” Harald stopped and looked at the city at the foot of the hills. The wind made his thick braided beard move. “I just happened to be in the tent when the mages did their sorcery and looked through the eyes of the gulls, and the crystal showed the images. Tyrnuv, you’ve known me a long time. How much bad blood we’ve created together, how many goblets of mead and sweet wine we’ve drunk together, and no one could call me a coward.” The Norseman turned sharply on his heels and looked at the orc. Harald’s pupils dilated and his pudgy cheeks got red. “I’m not afraid to die; I’m afraid I’ll die in vain. You should see Gykhyborg! Hundreds of ships in the harbor and dozens of raids, warehouses, warehouses and warehouses, around the barracks of the guards…. Thousands of warriors and mages practicing. The mages noticed and destroyed the birds within two minutes. He had to move it out of there. We barely escaped. Sveiny Squid went to the bottom of the ocean. The Arians scorched his shell. Tyrnuv, they don’t need islands, they need a lot of land! The Lynx and the Dragons are wasting their time building fortresses. The Arians will level them like waves level sandcastles on the beach. The orcs’ islands aren’t a problem for them. They’ll seize anyone who doesn’t leave while on the march. They’re going to deepen the harbors and build walls on Wolf archipelago. They’ll simply kill off anyone they don’t need. The Arians have turned the island into a transfer base and are getting ready to debark on the shore. We could approach one island, but what’s going on on the rest—only Odin knows.”
“Why are you telling me all this? What’s your point?”
“I’m telling you this because I want you to know: I’m heading south. The Arians have won. Norsemen still dwell on the Eastern Stone, but it’s no longer their land. Perhaps they won’t touch the western territories, but they don’t allow my clan there. The Vikings continue to live singly. And living one by one like that, they’ll be smeared out like butter on bread. Gil and the Rauu were right to worry….”
The sound of a large signaling horn rang out over the Fjord, cutting the Viking’s words short. Above the narrow strait, squeezed in on either side by man-made latticework steles, a luminous arch appeared. A second magical construction lit up on the outskirts of the city. Far below, people began to shout and cry and animals roared. A line of refugees stretched out from the city. The closest ship to the over-water arc raised the anchor, clapped its oars in a friendly gesture, and the vessel disappeared under the arc, only to reappear on one of the Ort’s numerous delta arms. Humans and orcs, going up to the platform of the above-ground teleport, came out near the walls of Miket. Tyrnuv stood up and stretched his legs.
“Let’s go, Harald. We have a lot of work to do. I’ll be the last to leave. Sigurd’ll steer the ‘Killer Whale.’ I think my eldest has earned the right to drive that drekkar.”
Ten hours later, Tyrnuv was standing near the above-ground teleport surrounded by fifty personal warriors. The last vessel had passed under the arc two hours ago, and the mages destroyed the construction. The city, set on fire by the orc warriors, was burning away. Black oily smoke from the houses, covered in peanut oil, rose upwards and, submitting to the wind, spread along the tops of the hills. The strong bang from the magical charges going off brought several rocks down into the waters of the Fjord, blocking the harbor. Tyrnuv waved his hand to his men and went up the wooden bridge to the boat. The homeless and abandoned dogs in the city howled heartrendingly….
Tantre. Southern Rocky Ridge. Thunderstorm Plateau. Rigaud…
“Let’s go to the seventh platform!” shouted the gross-dert[7] of the wing of griffons and landed his beast. Rigaud, as adjutant to His Excellency, followed from behind on Blackie.
From above they could see the stunning view of a huge field with hundreds of griffon pens. Wide canopies were scattered here and there, with a huge tent towering in the center. At the edge of the plateau, dozens of mages and hundreds of skilled workers were mounting the framework for a gargantuan portal arc. His Excellency the gross-dert of the third independent wing of combat griffons, in his “chapel” before the flight had said that command was announcing training for pilots in order to test the general formation flying abilities of the whole crew before the start of major military operations. Rigaud was only now seeing just how major they would be. Hundreds of griffons and humans below, hundreds dissecting the sky, and beside them, riders on nimble dredgers landing on the adjacent area.
Blackie beat its wings faster and ran along the ground. Rigaud twisted his leg and removed the loop of rope that was around it. Unlike many, he didn’t tie himself to the saddle. He used a rope running under the griffon’s belly and around his legs. It was known as the “orcish” way of riding, was considered safer than strapping in, and was a sign of personal mastery of griffon riding. Even if the old veteran his father had hired to teach him sword fighting hadn’t done a good job with that, he had certainly hammered the science of griffon riding into his skill set.
“Rigaud!” the gross-dert cried.
“Ler, yes ler!” Rigaud dashed over to his commander.
“Our tents, numbers thirty to forty: lock the griffons in the stalls and feed them, assign the men to tents and send the quartermasters for some hot grub and rations. Get it done by the time I get back from the brigade headquarters. Dismissed!”
“Yes, ler!” Rigaud saluted, turned around on his heels, and ran to his wing. He had a lot of work to do.
Once he had taken care of the griffons, he divided the men under his command into groups of fifteen and assigned them tents. Then came the quartermasters’ fat mugs, with which it was typically pointless to argue, but today they showed simply fantastic acumen and understanding. The quartermaster by the title of alert-dert, who was just one rank higher than he, scrupulously recorded Rigaud’s request and promised to organize hot grub served in twenty minutes. He got the impression that the One God had given the base soldiers a kick in the pants. He wiped the sweat off his brow with the sleeve of his flight jacket and grinned sadly. Could he have possibly imagined a month ago that he would be a military man? If someone had said this to him, he would have made the “crazy” gesture, twirling his index finger near his temple, and spat three times as the idiot walked away.
Targ take Kerr, that pig he used to call a friend. Stole Frida—one. Started a fight with the elves—two. Turned out to be a dragon—three. The day after the memorable massacre at the shooting range, the Royal Informants who arrived from the capital arrested Rector Etran and half the teachers who participated in the battle were suspended from conducting classes. A game of “chess” began at the school. All the Icicles were asked to leave Orten within eight hours; the “punishers” and mages from the Free Mages’ Guild joined the group. Half the classmates in their study group were detained and placed in a school dungeon—“pending investigation,” as one of the magicians put it.
Coming late to class due to their interrogation by the Royal Informants, Timur and Rigaud looked out the window and saw their classmates in chains. They decided to make a run for it. His friends would have never guessed whose soul the guys in the gray cloaks with black trim were coming for. No one wanted to b
e sent to the dungeon. Perhaps the decision to flee was ill-conceived childishness—they later let everyone go anyway. But at that moment, when the world was turned upside down, and incomprehensible things were going on at the school, running for it seemed like the best option. But not everything turned out fast and smooth. The mages from the Guild complicated the exit process. They had portraits of Timur and Rigaud and compared them to everyone wishing to leave the city.
“I have an idea,” Timur suggested. “We could go join the volunteer corps. None of those petty mongrels can reach us in the army. We could sign a junior contract for two years and be free from sand, dust, and punishing mages.”
“I don’t want to,” Rigaud answered.
“Do you have any suggestions that don’t involve prison slop?” Timur snapped.
Nothing came to mind. Even his other pair of pants was still in the dorm. At the end of Tanning Street, a guard detail appeared, reinforced by a magician. Rigaud grit his teeth, followed Timur, and with a quick step made his way between the passers-by to the nearest volunteer office. He wanted to eat prison slop even less than he wanted to eat army grub.
The clerks sitting in the office weren’t in the least surprised to see new recruits from the nobility. A gray-haired veteran, all covered in scars, the commandant of hired soldiers, after asking the young people the reason that brought them to this institution, grinned with his whole mustache. The experienced campaigner didn’t miss the young men’s glance through the window at the guards outside. You’ve done something, you little dirtbags….
“Fill out these application forms,” he said, handing them some papers. “When you’re done, come back to me immediately. You may address me as ‘ler.’ Understood?”
“Yes.”
“I said ‘ler!’ Yes, ler! Got that?”
“Yes, ler!” Rigaud and Timur barked.
“You’re now in the army of the kingdom of Tantre, so get rid of the degenerate manners. You may as well change your attitude now, or it’s going to be an uphill battle for you. Go, write.”
“Yes, ler!” Rigaud practically screamed. Timur silently sat down at the small desk in the corner of the room.
Ten minutes later, the unwilling new recruits had filled out the forms and went to the commandant’s table. The veteran took their papers and dove into reading, periodically grinning through his mustache and casting quick glances at the former bookworms.
“You’re all-out masters!” he laughed and pressed on the paper rectangles against the tabletop with the palm of his wide hand. “If half of what you put here is true, the royal army should jump for joy to have you, and our enemies should go ahead and stab themselves so as to avoid a slow painful death.” The commandant stood up and walked over to the door to the inner courtyard. “Follow me.”
They hadn’t taken two steps when the heavy oaken door to the courtyard burst open from a strong kick. A tall man in a white dress shirt and leather pants stormed into the room waving a short sword.
“Mert!” the guy yelled at the top of his lungs. Judging by how he acted and held himself, Rigaud suspected he was an officer. And he was right. “Who is it you’re sending my way? These monkeys in the inner courtyard can’t tell their backsides from their latrine! What are you sending me these peasants for? They’ve never even seen a griffon with their own eyes, and if they have, it was from cleaning the dung from the stables! Not only can you not trust them with a sword, I’d be wary of giving these cretins a bludgeon for fear they’d kill themselves with it! What garbage dump are you picking them out of? Crooked shushug half-breeds and trunkless barls! And who’s this?” The commandant deigned to pay attention to Rigaud and Timur, who were hesitating behind him. “Come here!” the officer commanded, grabbing the applications out of the veteran’s hand. “Hmm, well, worthless scum, move it,” he barked at the friends after glancing at the text.
To the soundtrack of the officer’s continuous obscenities, the whole group booked it to the courtyard, covered in thick oak chopping blocks, where a gigantic thug with the stripes of a sergeant on his sleeves was drilling a dozen new recruits who looked like an outright countryside bandit.
“Bill!” the officer called to the sergeant, not stopping his swearing. “Drop those pregnant swamp slugs and get over here.”
“Ler, yes, ler!” the sergeant bolted upright and ran over.
“Do you see these two?” the officer poked Rigaud in the back with the tip of his sword. “Test them on the wooden swords. Start with the fat one. Don’t ‘kill’ him right away. You can have a little fun.”
The merriment didn’t work out, or rather it did, but not in the way the officers were expecting. Timur, released into the circle, getting used to the sergeant’s dueling style, first deliberately held back, and then, as master Berg had taught him, knocked his opponent’s sword from his hand and whacked him on the head with his wooden sword, hard. The sergeant “wavered” for a second and then crashed down on his rear end. Rigaud gave his friend the heads up from behind the commandant’s back. The quiet man had conquered. The unit commander and the officer would never have believed that the “fat one” had just picked up a sword for the first time in his life a few months ago.
“How about that!” the officer cried. The commandant grinned under his mustache. “And can you do that same trick again, with me?”
Timur did not repeat it. The second match was the mirror opposite of the first. A few minutes in, he took a blow to the head, fell on his bottom and began counting stars.
“Slim, get over here!” the officer yelled.
“Ler, my name is Rigaud, ler!”
“I couldn’t care less what your name is. Until you throw me down, I’ll call you worm!” At this, the other new recruits, left unsupervised, snickered in the shadow of the awning. They supposed Rigaud’s chances at slim to none.
Rigaud picked up the wooden training sword Timur had dropped and twirled it around a few times to warm up his wrist. He wasn’t planning on letting that insult slide. He stepped into the circle and immediately went on the offensive. He’d gotten a chance to observe his opponent’s fighting style during Timur’s duel. The haughty officer wasn’t at all expecting the “worm” to immediately corner him and knock his weapon away, then give him a good kick in the buttocks to boot.
“Again!” the fire of competition sparkled in the losing man’s eyes. The defeated soul required revenge. Alright, let’s go again. The second duel was over just as quickly. The officer’s wooden sword went flying in a nice half-circle and hit one of the new recruits standing in the shade. “Impressive! Who taught you?”
“Master Berg the half-orc,” Rigaud answered, who now realized he was in a league above his opponent. The classes with the half-orc had not been for nothing. Rigaud, who dreamed of surpassing Kerr, had accomplished much and could rightfully be proud of himself. Berg had managed to turn the young man into a worthy duelist in just a short time. The daily morning and evening workouts in the school park had taken effect.
“Never heard of him. What else can you do?”
Rigaud and Timur said they were mages in training. Rigaud added that he could fly a griffon.
“I’ll take these two,” the officer said to the commandant. He then immediately addressed his new subordinates: “My name is gross-dert Ron teg Ridon. I’m a commander of the third independent wing of combat griffons, of which you two are now soldiers. Call me ‘ler.’ Is that clear?”
“Yes, ler!”
“Very nice, Rigaud.”
“Yes, ler!” Rigaud stood at attention.
“When we get to the summer camp, you’ll arrange fencing lessons for the entire wing.”
“Yes, ler.”
***
As soon as they got to the camp, Rigaud and Timur were sent straight to the uniform authority and barber. The former gave them a few sets of clothing and boots; the latter turned their noble locks into military brush cuts. The new recruits were assigned to the barracks. A daily drill began.
; Rigaud, who already knew how to ride a griffon, was assigned to a feisty, finicky creature named Blackie for its handsome black fur and feathers. Timur was named a second-in-saddle in a feather of large golden griffons and given his own personal chucker.
Rigaud set out to fulfill the commander’s order. He organized fencing lessons which became mandatory for all the officers of the unit. Teg Ridon himself did not hurry to attend. The former bookworm’s personal mastery and the commander’s advocating for him, as well as the lack of high-born nobles in the unit, saved Rigaud from being challenged to a duel and other unpleasantness. A few of the old guys objected to the young upstart but feared to challenge him.
Rigaud listened to the stable master’s advice and ended up finding a way to manage the naughty beast. Blackie liked going for swims and loved ginger cookies. It was willing to sell its own mother for a bite of the luxury. The new rider took full advantage of his “transportation’s” weak spots. The lazy griffon responded with gratitude and soon yielded great results.
Three weeks went by caught up in daily worries. Without even noticing it, Rigaud slowly became immersed in the army lifestyle. He began to appreciate the discipline and prefer the strict daily schedule, planned out down to the minute. The indefatigable gossip didn’t change his ways here either, and quickly became the center of the group of young riders and officers. The gross-dert noticed his subordinate’s ability to collect tidbits of information and organize people (under the influence of the army, Rigaud’s leadership abilities awoke), attributed to his noble roots and unfinished magical education. He deemed him his adjutant and gave the order to promote him to the rank of roi-dert. Timur, for his success shooting a chucker, received the rank of unit commander.
The coastal lords’ and elvish half-bloods’ revolt did not come as a surprise to anybody. Rigaud read the papers and kept abreast of the situation in the city. He kept his fellow soldiers well informed of everything. One morning, the alarm sounded in the wing and they all headed to the north of the country by portal.