Tales of the Far Wanderers

by David Welch

  But what could he do? His men were in the stalk, and if somebody were there, shouting to his people now would alert them and give them time to escape. So he kept on, hoping beyond hope that he wasn’t about to see what he feared he’d see.

  “There’s nobody here!” a voice shouted in the darkness.

  Eynfles flinched at the noise, having been silent for so long. He saw one of his men walk up to the fire and look around. Moments later, the rest appeared, as did he. True enough, there was no campsite. There were no horses, no people, nothing. There was just a fire, a decoy.

  “They’re playing tricks on us,” one of his men grumbled.

  “Yes,” Eynfles replied. “Old tricks. And it’s too dark for us to try and pick up a new trail.”

  “Every minute we stop is a moment they have to get away,” another man grunted.

  “They have to sleep too,” Eynfles replied. “And what good is going on if we’re going in the wrong direction?”

  The man nodded and went silent. Eynfles sighed and poked at the fire with the tip of his sword.

  “Set up camp and a guard. We sleep here and continue the hunt at dawn.”

  ***

  Kamith was on watch when the first dim light of dawn broke through the forest canopy. Crouched behind a tree ten yards from camp, the appearance of the sun sent her moving. She darted through ferns to the small camp.

  No fire had been lit, no tents had been pitched. They slept on the ground with cloaks and coats as coverings. Gunnar remained in full armor, his shield by his side, his right hand gripping his sword even as he slept. Suhngiu was next, between him and Turee. Turee similarly grasped her seax as she slumbered fitfully.

  Kamith shook her lover by the shoulder. He was awake in an instant, years of life as a warrior and a traveler having fine-tuned his nerves.

  “Dawn?” he whispered.

  “Yeah, we should move,” Kamith replied.

  They woke the other two and quickly set about saddling up. In a matter of minutes, they were on horseback, when they heard a rustle in the bushes.

  Kamith’s eyes locked onto the sound, seeing an equine outline behind some brush at a decent distance away. She moved to chase, hoping to shoot the rider before he could return to his party and spread the word, but then she paused. Gunnar had dismounted and removed his longbow. He strung it swiftly.

  “It’s a long shot,” Kamith warned in a whisper. “I can get to him.”

  “We don’t know if he’s alone,” Gunnar replied.

  He nocked an arrow and drew back. The Gethori man, unaware he’d been seen, rode on slowly. He moved leisurely around a wall of brush that grew under a gap in the forest canopy. Then, with agonizing slowness, he came into the clear.

  Gunnar let loose. The man’s head shot up as he heard the arrow release, then it jerked back violently as the arrow hit home. It drove through his chain-mail and deep into him, hurling him from the horse. He died, gurgling on his own blood as he tried to scream.

  Gunnar unstrung the bow and quickly reattached it to his saddle. He leapt up onto his horse, readying his horsebow for later use.

  “They’ll notice he’s missing soon,” Kamith remarked.

  “Yeah,” Gunnar noted. “So you want to start in the lead or hang back and keep an eye out?”

  Kamith took her bow in her left hand. A ring attached on the inside of her left forearm held a dozen arrows, a short distance from the string. She removed one arrow, nocking it, holding both it and the bow in her left hand.

  “I’ll follow,” Kamith replied. “You know how much I like shooting people who want to enslave me.”

  “I do,” Gunnar replied with a smile. He jumped up on Thief. “Just don’t kill them all without letting me in on the fun.”

  Kamith laughed.

  “I promise nothing.”

  ***

  It was noon when they came again.

  Gunnar rode through an open marsh, following a small ridge of dry land eastwards. Small, meandering streams snaked around it in all directions. A half-dozen small pools sat where beavers had thrown up dams. Towering pines and hemlocks surrounded the mile-wide expanse.

  They had made it halfway across when they heard the neighing of a horse.

  Spinning in his saddle, Gunnar scanned the horizon. Kamith had her bow up and ready in an instant. Turee and Suhngiu stopped their mounts and looked on warily.

  “There,” Kamith said coolly, pointing. “Three of them.”

  “Good odds,” Gunnar muttered.

  The three mounted warriors stood atop a large boulder, maybe ten feet above the edge of the marsh. One blew a hard blast on a horn, the sound echoing across the open wetland. No doubt the rest of their party would soon be closing on it.

  “Take Turee and the lordess,” Gunnar said. “Get them across the marsh and find them a place to hide.”

  “You’re going to fight them?” Kamith asked.

  “Delay,” Gunnar replied.

  “I should be with you,” she said. “Three on one—”

  “You can’t circle and ride on ground like this,” Gunnar replied.

  “I do have a sword and shield,” she replied.

  “You also have the ability to fight should I die,” Gunnar said firmly. “Do either of those two?”

  Turee didn’t respond to the statement with her usual teenage stubbornness, thankfully. Kamith clenched her jaw, undecided, then reluctantly nodded her agreement.

  “Don’t worry,” Gunnar assured her. “I have no intention of dying here.”

  She grumbled and spurred her horse on, motioning Turee to follow, trailing the packhorse behind them. They tore through the muddy ground, making for the far side as quickly as possible.

  Gunnar followed at a slower pace, allowing the Gethori to close. The semi-dry ridge they had been riding through the marsh was narrow, surrounded by mud and muck. Not the type of stuff you’d want to bring a horse through.

  But not deep enough to prevent it, either, Gunnar thought. They’d be able to surround and flank him if he stayed here.

  He veered off, driving Thief into the marshland. Water and mud churned as his horse bulled through the swampy ground, sending water bugs and frogs fleeing in every direction. He crossed to the edge of a small pool, stopping near a beaver dam.

  He pulled his horsebow and turned. The raiders were following, struggling slowly through the mud, which was exactly what Gunnar wanted. Moving so slowly, they wouldn’t be able to close fast enough to beat his bowshot.

  He drew and fired, striking the lead rider square in the sternum and knocking him from his horse. The man crashed hard into the swamp, disappearing amongst the swamp grasses. Struggling to his feet, he pulled the arrow from his armor, tearing a few dozen links out with it. As he remounted, his two companions rode on, ignoring their fellow and charging Gunnar.

  Gunnar fired again, aiming lower. His arrow struck the unarmored horse of one of his attackers, cutting deep into one of its shoulders. The wounded animal bucked, flinging the rider clear. Neighing in pain, it dashed away from the scene, jerking and snorting its anger.

  But the man’s partner charged on. Gunnar slid the horsebow back into its leather slot and pulled his sword. He turned and charged, hoping to close the distance quickly. Already, he could see the first man back on his horse and galloping hard for the fight, and the second slogging through on foot.

  Gunnar clashed with the third man, blocking his overhead hack with a quick sweep upwards. The swords sang as they hit, Gunnar’s blow deflecting the blade away as he rode past the man. He instinctively cut back after deflecting the blow, a weak backhand stroke that smacked hard against the man’s armor but failed to break it.

  It did cause the man to lurch forward in his saddle. Gunnar’s horse turned hard right as Gunnar pressed in with his left knee. The change in momentum nearly threw him from the saddle. He pulled up beside the third man, who fought to rebalance himself. Swinging forward with all his strength, plus the momentum of the horse, his sword h
acked into the man’s left side. Mail cleaved and broke, leather rent, and the blade tore into the flesh underneath. The man screamed, wounded but not dead.

  Gunnar pulled the horse around to go for the killing blow, but instead found himself facing the first man. He’d gotten back on the horse and charged in, regardless of the hole in his armor from Gunnar’s bowshot. This one was smarter, and he stabbed at Gunnar quickly, forcing him to parry with his sword. The horses stamped and circled as their riders fought.

  The attacker thrust at his head. Gunnar parried and whirled his sword, catching the man’s blade with his hilt. Then he punched forwards, smashing his hilt, along with the flat of his own blade, into the man’s face. The man stumbled back, his horse pulling him away before Gunnar could stab at him.

  The second man, on foot, drew near their patch of marsh, but something else caught his eye. Something large and brown charged in. Things were too much of a blur for Gunnar to see, at first. Then, he heard a sickening crunch, and an angry bellowing that was neither horse nor human.

  A moose! A gods-damned moose! Disturbed from its feeding by the loud antics of the men, the huge bull had charged the intruders. Predictably, it had gone for the smallest target first: the raider on foot. Wide, scoop-like antlers rammed into the man. The moose tossed his head upwards, lifting the raider effortlessly. Screaming in agony, the man went flying through the air; armor, shield, and all. He splashed down five yards away and lay still.

  The moose spun and snorted, separating Gunnar from the two remaining attackers. The first man, his mouth a mask of blood, pulled back on his frightened horse. The third man, bleeding profusely from his wound, slumped over the neck of his horse, dying. The horse bucked, trying to throw him off and get away from the enraged moose. With a kick of its back legs, it succeeded, hurling the dying man clear. The moose thrust its massive head down, driving the dying man deep into the mud.

  Gunnar only saw this over his shoulder as he rode away. Shouts in the distance told him the rest of the Gethori raiders had reached the marsh. Content with his good fortune for the day, he galloped through three hundred yards of swamp, pushing Thief hard until his hooves reached solid ground. The horse bolted forwards in a burst of speed as it touched hard earth, disappearing into the depths of the towering forest.

  ***

  Eynfles looked down at the corpses.

  “One man did this?” he asked simply.

  His right-hand man, mouth bloodied from battle, shook his head.

  “This one he killed,” he said, pointing to the compatriot the foreigner’s sword had cleaved. “Edelwal was gored by the moose.”

  “Moose,” Eynfles said sarcastically. “Right…”

  “The tracks are right there!” his right-hand man screamed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Eynfles said irritably. “What matters is we’re down to nine, and they’re still alive!”

  He spurred his horse on, moving towards the edge of the forest. Not fifteen minutes ago, his quarry had sprinted into that same forest. Even now, he could feel them riding east, headlong. It burned at him, that thought.

  “We keep moving!” he shouted. His men, all mounted, formed up behind him. “We are still nine warriors against one man and a woman with a bow! We bring these bastards back and gut them in front of our whole village. We show everyone the price of trespass and murder in our sacred home!”

  A roar of agreement went up from the men, less enthusiastic than Eynfles would have hoped. He felt their worry. Whoever they were dealing with was no fair-weather swordsman. Such people didn’t survive three-to-one odds, regardless of whether or not moose were involved. And this woman with a bow… the thought of it unnerved him. For a woman to fight was an offense against the High Spirits’ natural order. And with a bow? The most cowardly of weapons? Despite the disgust, he realized, on a pragmatic level, that she was quite good with it, so he had to approach this as if he were tracking two warriors, not one.

  On top of that, he was running out of time. If the southlanders survived the day, which they probably would, given the time he’d had to take to check the dead and pick up his lieutenant, then they would only be a day’s ride from the lands of the Three Waters heretics. If they reached there, tales would spread through every tavern on the Freshwater Seas, tales of the four southlanders who waltzed through the territory of the Gethori without a scratch. That would make raiding harder; fear lost was hard to regain, and the less fear the outsiders felt, the more likely they were to land an army and go on another rampage. He was old enough to remember the last one. He’d been only six winters into life when the Mancera had landed four thousand warriors. They’d marched through the land, shrugging off all opposition, and had burned every sign of human habitation they could find. He’d gone hungry the next two winters as his people had struggled to rebuild.

  If the soft city-dwellers of the Sea of Kings stopped fearing the Gethori, it could all happen again. Yes, he faced only a small party, but he’d always figured that, if you let the small things go, the big things wouldn’t be far behind. His resolve steeled, he stiffened in his saddle and turned to his men.

  “Forward!” he shouted. “I want them run down by nightfall!”

  ***

  “Go to sleep, Gun, you’ll need your rest,” Kamith chided.

  “Not tired,” Gunnar replied, slipping from their cold camp to stand beside his lover.

  “What’s that have to do with it?” Kamith replied. “Sleep when you’re not tired or fight when you are.”

  “Lecturing me on warfare,” Gunnar chuckled. “You have come a long way.”

  “Would you prefer I was still like Turee? Helpless and swooning over you?” she replied.

  “You never swooned over me,” Gunnar replied. “And Turee has managed to not do that for a few weeks now.”

  “Force a girl to grow up fast and she stops being a girl,” Kamith proclaimed.

  “Such words of wisdom. You should write these down,” Gunnar joked.

  “Don’t know how,” she replied.

  His eyebrow perked up.

  “You don’t know how to write?” he asked. “I could’ve sworn you did.”

  “Women didn’t write amongst the Red Horse. Most of the men didn’t, either. Only the shamans, so they could go on and on about the Gods Above,” she mused.

  “Everybody wrote amongst the Tarn,” Gunnar said. “Not so many amongst the Langal, though.”

  “Unusual,” Kamith replied. “At least, I think it is? Gods know how much of the world we’ve actually seen. For all I know, it could be quite common.”

  “Well, once this is over, I’ll teach you to read and write,” he replied.

  “If we get out of this alive,” she replied.

  “We’ve done fine so far,” Gunnar said. “Be a little optimistic.”

  “You? Encouraging optimism? Hard, cold, realist Gunnar?”

  “Granted,” Gunnar said. “But think about it. We’ve escaped human sacrifice, forced fertility rituals, numerous kings and lords trying to enslave us, sieges, battles, somewhat slutty teenage girls…”

  “Stop that,” Kamith replied, slapping his shoulder. “She’s been practically celibate since Skar’gat. And it’s not like you’re the first man I ever touched.”

  “Fine. But we’ve made it further than we had any right to,” he pointed out.

  “You’re not worried our luck will run out?” she asked.

  “Yes, very much so,” he said. “But I was worried during every other mess we’ve found ourselves in, and here we are.”

  Kamith laughed and muttered, “Wherever ‘here’ is.”

  ***

  Noon was two hours gone when Gunnar heard the first war cry. It was behind him. A patch of meadow, burned clean by fires year before, sloped up a gentle rise. He was nearing its upper edge when the unmistakable cry echoed through the air.

  “Ride hard!” he shouted to Turee. He spared a second to look back, seeing a man charging on horseback, followed by eight others.


  He turned back and rode after Turee, Kamith beside him. They had two hundred yards on their pursuers, but they were at a disadvantage where speed was concerned. Their packhorse was slower than the horses pursuing him, and all the gear on his back didn’t help. Turee, who led the horse with one hand while holding her own reins in the other, would be run down in short order, especially with Suhngiu riding on Majesty with her.

  “Kamith, split and circle around. We draw them off Turee and buy her time,” Gunnar shouted in his native tongue.

  “Okay,” Kamith said, turning to Turee. “Ride, girl! Don’t stop.”

  Turee, not yet fluent in Langal, knew enough to understand. She pushed forwards with Suhngiu, down the back of the rise and into the wood. Kamith rode north as Gunnar rode to the south. They crept back to the edge of the clearing as they went, making sure their enemies saw them.

  The ruse worked. The group split in two, five men coming after Gunnar, four after Kamith. Turee hadn’t been seen.

  Great, Gunnar mused as he ducked back into the forest. Only five!

  He bit back a sardonic laugh, focusing on keeping Thief going as fast as he could. His pursuers fell in behind him, following him south, through the forest.

  He glanced about, looking for an advantage, any advantage. To his left, he saw a large boulder, one of the thousands scattered across the northern lands. An idea struck. Smiling, he banked hard left. Behind him, his pursuers pulled on their reins to follow. One moved to cut him off, galloping for the far side of the rock, planning to be on the other side when Gunnar cut behind it.

  Perfect!

  Gunnar nocked an arrow on his horsebow, flew behind the rock, and fired point-blank at the man. That close, the smaller bow had more than enough punch to break armor. It ripped through the man’s chain-mail, embedding deep in his gut. The man slumped forwards on his horse then fell to the ground as Gunnar rode past. An angry roar went up behind him as the raiders saw their fellow warrior fall. The chase continued.