by David Estes
And all the while the city’s top lord grew wealthier.
Rose watched as the ships made landfall, despite a barrage of flaming arrows soaring in flocks to repel them. Western soldiers splashed into the water, cut down by more arrows and other projectiles sent plowing into them by northern catapults.
Rose held her breath, wondering whether the enemy would gain enough ground for her subterfuge to be discovered.
They did, clambering over the rocky shoreline and breaking across the snow-dusted incline that led all the way to the city, still several miles away. The first to meet them was the infantry, of course, charging with a war cry, which, even distant, sent chills up Rose’s spine.
Steel met steel. Men fought. Men died.
All while Lord Blackstone watched from a safe distance, clad in armor he believed was a hundredfold superior to that of the men doing the actual fighting.
Rose tried not to look at him, waiting for the moment when the west’s usual tactics were implemented. The fighting grew in intensity, the northern infantry slowly pushed back under the onslaught. However, unlike the past few battles, not nearly as many lay dead on the field.
“They are fighting well,” one of the generals said. Drummond, clad in shining armor.
“Why aren’t they dying?” Lord Blackstone said. Rose wondered if he’d forgotten she was here, speaking openly. Or perhaps she was of such little consequence he didn’t care if she heard the truth anymore.
Rose felt his eyes on her, cold, calculating. “Smith? Do you have an answer?”
She did, but she wouldn’t speak it. She was still waiting for the westerners to employ their usual tactics. Instead, she delayed the truth with another lie. “I reinforced their armor with the composite you now wear,” she said. “They are nearly as well-protected as you.” Better, in fact. Much better.
Finally, she turned to meet Lord Blackstone’s gaze, just so she could witness his face turning red with anger and disbelief. “You did what?” he growled.
“Never fear,” she said smugly. “You will win this battle and live to fight another day.” Not likely. The ‘live’ and ‘fight’ and ‘another day’ parts, that is.
“You will suffer for this,” the lord spat, but she was already turning away, sensing a change in the battle. The westerners had formed a staunch barrier, at least a dozen lines thick. Distance archers took up position, aiming over the heads of those clashing at the front. “You and all you care about.”
“Good,” Rose said. “Thankfully I don’t care about anyone but myself. Now you should probably duck.”
As she said the last, she knew it was too late because she’d already seen the arrows take flight, was already diving for the ground herself. And the lord and his two generals, who hadn’t even bothered to carry shields because of how secure they felt in the quality of their armor, were too shocked to do anything but stand, blinking in the sunlight.
The arrows fell amongst the nobles and generals like rain. One pierced General Drummond’s shoddy helmet, stopping only after it had entered his skull. His eyes went blank and he was dead before he hit the ground. Another three arrows sheared through General Wheeler’s armor like it was constructed of paper and twigs—which wasn’t far from the truth. Blood spouted like hot water erupting from a geyser. He cried out, a watery gurgle. Dozens of other nobles were hit too, dropping like flies while the lowest of their rank—the infantry—survived.
It might’ve been fate, or a cruel karma, but as Rose hunkered beneath her own shield, she watched as every arrow missed Lord Blackstone, who had still not taken cover, watching as those he trusted most were devastated and bloodied.
But then, just as his confused eyes swiveled around to meet Rose’s stare, a final arrow hit, piercing his left breastplate, entering through the exact spot where she had etched the symbol. The exact spot, beneath which his black, evil heart was beating.
Until it wasn’t.
His eyes rolled back and he fell to his knees, his mouth gaping as if he was trying to say something.
But he would give no further commands. Make no more threats. Not in this life, anyway.
He clutched at her ankles, but there was no strength left in his hands. She moved away, feeling nothing but a sense of justice.
May you rot in frozen hell, Rose thought, and then, when she was certain it was safe, she slid out from under the shield and ran. Lord Blackstone had three sons, and, once the truth of her actions was learned, she knew they would search every nook and cranny in the city to find her. No, Rose Smith could no longer exist.
Two months later
Walburg wasn’t such a bad place. The citizens were honest people who worked hard and desired little but health and happiness and food on the table. Under a false name, Rose Smith—now Fay Da—would stay as long as she could, though she suspected one day she would be forced to leave. Rumors and speculation regarding the events that had transpired during a battle near Blackstone were still swirling in most pubs and taverns—like the one she sat in now—and it was said the streams were alive with conflicting information. The only truth was that seventy-five nobles, including Lord Blackstone himself, had died during the battle, which, surprisingly, the north had won, taking few other casualties. The fewest casualties had been amongst the light infantry, which usually took the heaviest toll.
As a result, Blackstone leadership was thrust into chaos, a power struggle that had caused King Gäric himself to attend the city to sort things out.
“I heard the Dread King plans to move the capital to Blackstone and assume power there himself,” one man said.
“Well I heard the king was murdered by Lord Blackstone’s three sons, who then fought each other to the death.”
“Well I heard…”
Opinions continued to swirl like snowflakes, though little of it was likely true.
Rose—Fay—only listened to the idle talk, waiting for a time when her old name was mentioned, along with the declaration of a reward for her capture. She remembered when she’d first arrived in this city. She was exhausted and starving and cold and nearly penniless, but she’d managed to procure a room for the night and a warm meal. Staring into a smudged mirror in her room, she’d used the blunt knife provided with her meal to shear away her long black hair until it was short enough that she almost resembled a boy. As she watched her hair fall away, it had almost felt like she herself was fading away—at least, the old her. The person she saw staring back at her was someone new, without a past, without a history, without baggage or memories or sadness or loss or the blood of hundreds on her hands.
That word: fade. That word.
It had felt right. Real. Faaaayduh. Faaaay-duh.
Fay Da.
Yes, that is who I am now. I am Fay Da. And I am a blacksmith.
She shook her head and the memory vanished.
Though she felt relatively safe, at least for now, she was also bored. It wasn’t that she didn’t have plenty of work—Walburg was as desperate for blacksmith’s as any other city—it was the type of work she now did. She’d gone from designing armor and weapons for the most powerful lord in the north besides the king himself, to constructing farm equipment and tools as basic as hoes and shovels.
It pays for my food and my shelter and my clothing, she thought, trying not to be greedy. And this jug of mead, she added, taking another sip, relishing the warmth in her chest as the strong, amber liquid slid down her throat.
And yet she wanted more.
That’s when she realized the loud talk in the tavern had moved on to another subject.
Apparently, a tourney was coming, an annual event that seemed to breathe life into the cold, stalwart city. “Seventeen knights are competing this year,” one man said. “Two more than last year.”
“It’ll be the biggest tournament yet,” another said.
“Even Sir Darius is competing.”
“Sir Darius,” a woman said, pretending to faint, earning herself a round of raucous laughter.
“I won’t bet against him, that’s for sure!”
And on and on, but Fay wasn’t really listening anymore. She was thinking. Perhaps she couldn’t design weaponry and armor for war anymore. No. But she could design it for competition.
Almost two years later
Fay owned her own smithy in Walburg now. Over the months, her fame had grown. It had all started with that first tournament. While sneaking around the tournament grounds she’d heard one of the knight’s, Sir Draconius, berating the blacksmith who travelled with him. In the end, the knight had fired his man and she had pounced.
The knight had won the tournament using her armor and a longsword of her own design, but had then refused her future services because he couldn’t “have a woman smith” in his employ.
But that hadn’t mattered, because Fay had regained something far more important than another master. She’d earned her reputation back.
Now she was her own master, serving various competitors in the tourneys that came through Walburg, which were now more frequent, occurring three to four times a year. She didn’t discriminate either. She was as likely to outfit a commoner as she was a knight, and her only goal was to give them as good a chance to win as she could.
Most of her customers came back for more weapons and armor, like the hot steel she was currently pounding into shape with a heavy hammer.
Like the massive spiked ball hanging on the wall nearby. She paused in her hammering to gaze at the weapon, as she often did. Attached to the spiked ball was a long chain that ran down to a fine handle, delicately designed with contours that would fit into a strong grip. She’d been working on it for months, finetuning every aspect of it until it was perfect. There was only one problem: it was too large for most—or any—men to wield.
The Morningstar, she thought, sighing. That was the name she had given the weapon, because when it shone in the light it was like stepping from home in the morning and staring up at the sky only to find the brightest star fighting off the sunlight to showcase its desperate beauty.
The sound of approaching footsteps drew her away from the weapon and she resumed her hammering until the door opened. One of her best customers entered, a man who sponsored competitors, a man she grudgingly considered a friend, even if he was something of a snake, driven by lust for coin more than a desire to help those he sponsored.
This man, Bart was his name, stood just inside the door, a half smile creasing his lips. Though small in stature and on the wrong end of age fifty, the sponsor was far from frail, his arms thick and his shoulders broad. He had the kind of face only a mother could love, with a crooked nose that had been broken too many times, the surrounding area pocked with scars and imperfections.
Lagging slightly behind him was a mammoth of a man, half again as tall as Bart and hulking with hidden muscles. But that wasn’t all that was hidden. His face was wrapped in a thick scarf, only his eyes visible, staring out darkly and somewhat bewildered.
Even without being able to see his expression, Fay thought there was something contradictory about him. An innocence wrapped in danger. She pretended not to stare.
“Fay,” Bart said. “Meet Choose.”
As she slid the hot steel into a cool bath, steam hissing up and curling toward the rafters, Fay’s eyes darted once to the Morningstar before returning to the large man.
Yes, she thought, feeling for the first time since she ran away from Blackstone that she had a destiny. And the Morningstar did too.
Postlude 3: Helmuth Gäric
The Northern Kingdom, Castle Hill- Circa 493
The wizened old man named Jorg was young Helmuth’s favorite storyteller in the castle. Though Jorg’s gnarled hands shook when he waved them—something Helmuth’s younger brothers, Wolfric and Griswold, liked to mock and mimic—Helmuth thought it only added to the suspense and darkness of his stories.
And for him, the darker the better.
Helmuth loved the stories of bloody battles in faraway lands, of unlikely heroes, of the defeat and taming of dragons.
And right now, the story Jorg was telling was Helmuth’s kind of story. He ignored his brothers’ tittering and whispers as he leaned forward, elbows on withered knees. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his sister, Zelda, who was his youngest sibling at only age six, leaning forward too. Though her disposition was sullen and she was prone to frequent outbursts and rants, she was by far his favorite of his siblings. For one thing, she never mocked him for his inability to walk without crutches, or how his legs were too thin and weak, or that he would probably never be able to wield a sword the way his brothers could.
But all that was forgotten as the storyteller continued to spin his yarn, the firelight dancing across his wrinkled face.
“The Lesser have been hunted for generations by the Crimeans, but they are like cockroaches. You kill one and ten more seem to spring up from the very ground. They are a disparate, migratory species, each tribe fighting for dominance of the others. It is even said they eat their own dead.”
Each word made Helmuth’s heart hammer harder. Cannibals! he thought. “Why are they called the Lesser?” he asked. Wolfric sniggered and whispered something to Griswold. Griswold pushed him and Wolfric shoved him back. Helmuth ignored their comradery, for he would never be a part of it. They had two good legs each and he had none, which seemed to separate their worlds like walls divided two rooms. And there was no door between them. Not even a window.
The storyteller showed his yellow teeth. “The name was coined by one of the Crimean kings, Marcus Streit the Second. Most think it is because they are like humans, but believed to be of lesser intelligence. Perhaps we evolved from them. Perhaps not. No one knows.”
“What do they look like?”
The man’s eyes twinkled, which, Helmuth knew, meant he was about to say something intended to be shocking.
“There is not much difference between the males and females, though the females are larger, their claws sharper, their fangs longer.”
At that, Wolfric and Griswold finally ceased their whispering. Wolfric said, “You mean to tell us the females are more powerful than the males?” There was incredulity in his tone.
Zelda, for her part, seemed excited by the prospect, though her way of showing it was to simply bare her white teeth in something akin to a smile.
Jorg nodded heavily. “An expert swordsman might survive an encounter with a male, but when facing a female…” He shook his head and made a cutting motion with his finger across his throat.
“Bollocks,” Wolfric said. “I would cut the beasts to ribbons and not break a sweat.” Though he was only eleven years old, Helmuth’s middle brother had the confidence of a king. He was his father’s son through and through.
“Believe what you will,” was Jorg’s response, one he’d used many times in the face of Wolfric’s skepticism. “The Lesser are hairless, their backs ridged and humped. They walk stooped, their long arms nearly reaching the ground. Though they enjoy killing with their claws and fangs, they also fashion weapons from the bones of their victims.”
“You think this is going to scare us, old man, but it’s not,” Wolfric cut in. “I’ve never heard of these Lesser barbarians. If they truly existed, the Crimeans would’ve wiped them off the face of the earth by now.”
Jorg, as usual, was the image of composure. Though baited often, he never rose to it, something Helmuth secretly enjoyed, if only because of how much he knew it irritated Wolfric. He held back a smile, interested to hear the storyteller’s response.
“You don’t think they’ve tried?” There was a hint of mocking in the man’s voice, and Helmuth almost gasped. Wolfic glared at him, but Jorg didn’t react, just continued speaking in his rich, practiced voice. “The Crimeans have gone to war against the Lesser more than a dozen times over the centuries. Every time they’ve lost.”
“Ha! The Crimeans couldn’t even defeat us. We drove them back twice. They are not the world powers they once were. When I am king, I w
ill extend our lands to Crimea, and I will exterminate the Lesser like the rodents they are.”
Helmuth felt his cheeks warm. Wolfric often spoke of the kingdom passing to him, though that was impossible so long as Helmuth was alive. By birthright, he would be king, not Wolfric. He knew he should stand up for himself, should speak in his own defense, but his voice always failed him in these situations.
Zelda’s, however, did not. “You be king? We’d be better off with an ice bear sitting the throne.”
“Take it back.”
“I will not. And Helmuth is older. He will be king. Not. You.”
Wolfric stood, his chest heaving, his hands fisted at his sides. He looked ready to hit his younger sister.
Zelda, of course, didn’t know the meaning of fear, and she merely stuck out her jaw as if daring him to do just that.
Jorg, using a tactic he’d employed to diffuse tensions amongst the siblings before, continued speaking as if nothing had changed. “The barbarians do not fight like our armies. They have no rules of combat. No leaders. Each tribe is its own organism, and the attacks come not in organized lines but in waves.” Though Wolfric’s eyes continued shooting arrows at Zelda, he sat. Zelda giggled. “They live in the mountains, the Northern Fangs, hiding in caves and burrows. They fear nothing. Some say they number in the thousands, some say tens of thousands, but no one really knows for they cannot be counted. But if they ever manage to unify…” The old man trailed away, the look in his eyes growing distant.
“What?” Helmuth said, intrigued, unable to hold back the question.
“Frozen gods help us all.”
Wolfric snorted. “You believe this rot? C’mon Gris, I tire of old men who try to scare children with their nonsense. We are practically men grown, and we no longer must keep the company of girls and cripples.” He stood and departed.