by Unknown
She had ordered Char to stop at five hundred feet. She would signal when she wanted to move higher... She took a journal and started to compose the signal. So intent was she that she failed to spot the light. It was only when she finished her composition and looked again that , with a shout of joy she spotted the glow. It stopped, paused, and then repeated. Looking at her charts she decoded the message and laughed” Hallo you” That was Rachel. A famous day and Rachel can’t resist being cheeky. Her first signal was” Aerial One. Test One. Confirm.” Suitably chastened Rachel sent back” Aerial Two Test One. Confirmed” And so it began.
The bow was meant for firing from horseback, it would pierce the strongest armour. If he stayed here he would freeze. Or fall asleep and they would find him come morning. Either way he would be dead. He could leave but he needed the horses, and their food. The others would come back Whatever he was going to do had to be done now. Two men, one armed, one not. The guard was drunk, swaying from side to side, looking up at the big light. The other was twisting a barrel.. They would have little night vision. He stood outside the light and fitted an arrow.
The big one grunted, stumbled and fell. The other stared at his mate and looked around. An arrow hit him in the side. He raised his hand to touch it and slumped over the barrel. The scout came in, an arrow fitted. Whirling at a movement he relaxed…. Tumbleweed skittering by, caught in a rising breeze… A knife drawn across their throats, he crossed to the big tent. Food and lots of paper. He found saddle bags and started to fill them.
Apart for her initial levity Rachel had been flawless. The balloon tipped as she finished forcing her to reset the lamp. A wind was getting up. She considered a series with the wind blowing but she was tired.. Taking her mirror she flashed a signal to be pulled back down. She waited for a response; none came. With the fire gone low it was hard to see. She had the telescope on board but it was too heavy to point down. The wind rose pushing the balloon lower. On the ground the fire burst into life throwing light across the camp.. One was leaning on the barrel. Another was on the ground. Her stomach rolled, bile filling her throat. In a few minutes the air inside the balloon would be cool enough to descend. The balloon had a valve to vent air for a fast descent. If she could land outside the light she could hide in the dark until Harald came back .Rachel had told her he was on his way. She pulled the cord that opened the valve and the balloon dropped so fast, for a moment she thought it might crash..
The basket hit at an angle, throwing her out. Commanding her shaken body to move she got to her feet to catch a figure emerging from the tent. It stood, watching. She sprinted from the camp to the safety of the hills He waited, an arrow fitted while she ran into the night. Raising the bow as she topped the skyline he let fly. Something struck beneath her ribs, knocking her down. There was something wrong with her legs. She could hear roaring, like a distant waterfall . Walking up the hill he knelt at her side. Starlight gleamed in her eyes, blood pouring from the corner of her mouth. Sharon reached and caught his tunic.” Beware, the enemy is here”
“I know” he said and waited while she died.
The Burden of Friendship
Some of the delegates had frostbite. A few had minor wounds, one serious from a skirmish with renegades. Aladan sent out hunters but they had fled. Sara came from the hospital when she finished work. At the kitchens she filled two baskets; roast chicken, vegetable pie, potato cakes, fresh bread and two bottles of ale for Bekter. Thinking of his taste for the Elvish drink, she added three more. She included a pouch of tobacco. Hawkmoon’s basket had the same with wine instead of ale and no tobacco. Crossing the bridge she kept on until she stood outside his door. Bekter opened at her first knock.
“My Lady”
Sara unpacked the basket while Bekter set the table.. The big man set to with a will and Sara let him eat. A man with a full belly would respond better to questioning… He opened a bottle of ale offered her some. She declined; he filled a tankard for himself.
“What is it you want to know about him? She stared at Bekter. This had not begun as she would have wished. Anyone who took Bekter for a fool would make a poor choice. “I want to go with him. He doesn’t want me. I asked him last night. He said no. “She rose to leave. Bekter reached out and placed his hand on her arm. Taking her by the arm he seated her by the hearth” I’ve been married long enough to know a few things. When it comes to women men are fools. He loves you, have no doubt about that.”
Sara leaned forward, her face a storm of emotion “Has he said this?”
“He has said nothing. He has been with many women over the years but except for one he has never been like he is with you. I don’t know if it is Elfhome or you but he has found healing, and not of the body alone” Bekter paused.
Sara drew her wrap about her shoulders. “There are times when we are so close. There is great love in him. I can see the man in him before he became what he is. He never speaks of the past. You must tell me.” She leaned across the table.” It would be a betrayal to anyone else...”
Bekter was silent looking out the small window of the cottage, eyes vacant with memory.
“We took a contract to take a wagon train to Harad. They had been having trouble with rapparees and mercenaries. The rapparees were harmless; give them some money and they would be on their way. The mercenaries were the scum of the earth. Her name was Diane. She was driving the lead wagon with eight oxen and for a slip of a girl she could handle a team as good as the best of them. Men tended to avoid her on account of her brother. His name was Fenrir, a red haired giant with a temper and fists like shovels. . The first time he saw her, his face went vacant. He couldn’t stop looking at her. I started laughing. Then she saw him. She was about to give him a tongue lashing, instead she turned her back on him.
She was a pretty girl. Not beautiful like you. But she had a way about her. A big rumbly laugh, strange to hear from a girl that size. She had long hair, with a saucy sway to the hips. The best thing about her was her smile. It was like the sun coming out after rain. Hawkmoon stood there gazing after her and a fist crashed into his jaw. No one saw Fenrir come along The giant stood over Hawkmoon” Bekter pointed a finger “ You, stay away from my sister or I’ll kill you by gum, yeah” He said in a thick Outlander accent.. Hawkmoon made to rise and Fenrir raised that club of a fist. His sister returned when she heard the commotion. She shouted at her brother.
”At least you can let the man get to his feet” Fenrir glared at her but backed away. Hawkmoon had a sheath of knives strapped to his chest. When they saw him reach for it they thought he was going for a blade. Instead he threw it to me.
It wasn’t pretty. Fenrir was a bear. Nothing that hit him seemed to make the slightest impression. The giant was strong but he was untrained. That saved Hawkmoon. They pummelled each other for an hour. Finally neither had the strength to lift his arms and a draw was declared. They shook hands. That evening Hawkmoon went to their fire and asked Fenrir for leave to court his sister. She was over with friends at another wagon. They drank together for the evening
A week later we were passing the woods outside Harad when six riders came up. They asked to see the escorts so we came to talk. They demanded money. Fenrir being Fenrir lost his temper and one of them fired a crossbow. He took it on the shoulder. They were expecting us to see we were outnumbered and ride out unmolested. There were two groups of three. The big one with two parallel scars seemed to be the leader. Hawkmoon had a double crossbow; a lovely piece. Few can talk and fight at the same time so they weren’t expecting it when Hawkmoon shot the one beside him in the gut, turned the crossbow and shot the other I was concentrating on the other three . One of them pulled a skinning knife so I put him down. I was reloading as the other pointed a spear and went to throw it. A small hatchet lodged in his forehead. Right through the skullcap. The other put his hands in the air and when I looked across the one with the scars was doing the same.. Something told me that we would be seeing this one again so I raised the crossbow and took
aim. A girl shouted at me to stop. It was Diane. She was tending to her brother” Bekter shook his head” I should have killed him.”
His face became introspective. “Hawkmoon bought a farm outside town. He was full of plans. Settle down. Breed horses. Tell the truth, he was never much of a farmer… Did it to please Diane…. Someone would start talking about a war somewhere, a border skirmish, chasing a few brigands; he wanted to know all about it. It got to the point where he spent more of his time in my place than he did on the farm. He did his best but he was restless. Still they were content and it was complete when their first child came. A little girl, Shula, like my wife… I never saw him as happy.
Diane got him to go back to escorting the wagon trains. She understood him. He had no shortage of offers. I was happy to pay a man to run the tavern so off we went into the wild... We took on the longer trips, the dangerous ones that no one would touch. We did some bodyguarding for merchants and guard work on the mines. He was not as keen on that. It meant being in one place and taking orders. The money was good. Fenrir bought the farm next to Hawkmoon’s and kept an eye on his sister. They had another child the following year. I was living with one of the girls who came to work for me. She was talking about having a baby and I was easy about it.
The town expanded when they found gold in the hills. It meant money and lots of trouble. I bought an old warehouse close to Tent Town; near the brothels. We barely opened the doors and it was making more in a night than the other place did in a week. There were fights, usually about women or gambling but mainly about drink. The trouble never got to the killing stage like it did in some of the other joints. I had some good lads who could mix it up without losing their tempers. Besides that I had a mallet inside the bar.
One night a wild crowd came in. They were guards from the mine and widely detested. I had one of my boys keep an eye on them.. They came to the bar , pushing the other miners away. It would have kicked off right then but the serving girls got them tables and free drink. To provoke the situation they started shouting for women. I explained that we didn’t run whores but they were welcome to go across the street. It was then I saw one of them looking at me. He was dressed different, but there was no mistaking the scars. There was no point in acting as if I didn’t know him so I gave him a drink and told him to get out after he finished it. The rest of them went quiet waiting to see what would happen. My boys came down from upstairs with pickaxe handles. Some of the miners they pushed around stood up at the back. Then there was Fenrir who was worth a crowd on his own. The one with the scars finished his drink and turned around. I could see that he was making a decision. There was no fear in him. He looked at me and nodded. Then he walked out.
I got word to Hawkmoon to stay at the farm until I sorted it. I made it my business to find out about him. His name was Tancred Jain, a mercenary from the South. He had worked as an executioner in Cormalin. There were bounties out on him from Tarissa to the Western Cape. He used to work with a brother and an uncle until they were killed a few years back.
After that I had people watching me all the time. They started following everyone in the Tavern, even the pot boy. They caught him and took him to a shed near the river and beat him. They were after Hawkmoon, where he lived. They knew me, where I was. They wanted Hawkmoon.
We did a lot of work for the mine. Since they opened we had taken their consignments to a spot on the Challon. We never lost a load. I went to the owners and told them about Jain and what I wanted. When they refused to fire him I said we would no longer be available due to previous commitments. Those who were any good would be similarly unavailable. I had Jain blacklisted all over town. They were gone within a week. The ones we sent to follow them tracked them south for a week.
Just before mid winter Hawkmoon brought Diane and the children to town. It was their first time off the farm in months. My woman took Diane shopping while the girls played with the kids. They were leaving when a clerk from the mine came with a note for Hawkmoon. They had a convoy stopped on the road two days from the city. Mainly supplies lumber and tools for the mine but there were families belonging to a supervisor and an engineer. Some unsavoury types were hanging about, demanding bribes. Could we go down and sort it?
Fenrir took everyone home and we went south with spare horses. We found later that the clerk who wrote the letter was a nephew of Jain’s. It had all the right signatures. No one could be blamed except the clerk and he was never seen again. There was nothing in the forest. We wore out the horses on the ride back. We cut through the woods to miss the town.
We got the smell of burning before the last rise. The house and the outbuildings were ruins, still smouldering. Hawkmoon gave out a half cry, half scream. I never heard that sound out of him. He flogged the spare horse into a downhill gallop... My horse was wind broken, Hawkmoons’ fell at the gate . He sprinted for the house without weapons. I shouted at him to stop but he was beyond that”. Bekter stopped. Rising from the table he opened a cabinet. There was a decanter of plum brandy, a gift from the King. He poured a glass and sat by the hearth. Time passed. The birds outside sang their songs The river raced by , swollen with melted snow. Bekter poked his boot in the ashes and sipped at the brandy. Sara came and sat opposite. Reaching to the shelf she took his pipe and tamped it full. She passed it to him... Leaning forward she her hand on his knee. Bekter had taken to wearing Corduroy breeches.
“Bekter,I am not an innocent sheltered in world where evil cannot come.. Evil is here also.”
Bekter struck a match from the grate;it fizzled before it reached the bowl of the pipe.. Sara reached over and took it from him. He shook his head. “Leave it darling. Smoking is meant for happy tales”
He sat back in the great chair, gazing up at an embroidered scene of the harbour at Seareach. He had been there of a time and the artist had captured it well. “We had seen it a thousand times. We had seen the savagery of men but never like this. I let him run to the house because I saw something over by the barn. It was Fenrir. They had nailed him to the door. He died hard that was plain from the tracks ... I counted seven…. seven men. .A man with no training... A big axe lay in the dust nearby, the handle broken. It took five bolts, one in his neck, two in his chest, two in his back. He had no armour, not a jot and it took seven of them. I knelt at his side to say a prayer. “
Bekter looked at his scarred hands, rubbing them as if they were unclean. His eyes welled, tears streaking his honest face.“I heard a rustle of wings behind me. It was a black crow, an old one. It was standing on a rail by the horse pen looking at something.. I picked a rock and threw it. The crow flew off but not far . I went over and spotted a bundle. It was Shula. Diane must have sent her to the shed to hide. I played hide and seek with her sometimes when I came to visit. Almost always I found her in the shed.
It was the hate of it, the vindictiveness…
I found the remains of the boy in the ashes of the barn. It was impossible to know if they had thrown him into the flames or did he try to hide … Not that it mattered. I went inside the toolshed, what was left of it and found a sheet of leather.. There were strips of rawhide and an awl. My hope was I could get it done before Hawkmoon came out It took me long enough but he hadn’t shown. I approached the house knowing what I would find or so I thought.”
Bekter wiped his face and stood. The fire was quenched. Outside the wind moaned bringing cold air around the house.. Scraping ash to one side he laid kindling. As it sprang to life he added dry sticks, then small blocks of wood followed by larger. Finally he covered it with split logs. The room warmed in minutes. He tidied the table. He went to eat the last of the chicken but put it to one side. Sara let him be. The tale would be told in its own time. Her feeling was that Bekter had never spoken of this.. He sat at the table. The chair creaked under his weight..
“I found them in the bedroom. He was sitting at the bottom of the bed. It was a mass of blood. I have seen war in all its horror. I have seen the evil men do. This was different She was spl
it from Sternum to Pubis. I should have said. Diane was carrying their third child. It was gone .Ripped from her. It was impossible to know if anything else had been done to her but what could have been worse? I stood by him. The air was freezing. The day was humid but inside the house it was colder than a tomb. His breath was steaming. So was mine. I could see ice forming on the walls. The blood was solid gobs.
Hawkmoon was muttering. I thought he wanted me to do something so I bent to listen. He was whispering in some weird language; over and over. I took his arm and lifted him to his feet. I expected him to lash out and I was prepared for it. But he came with me like a child. Still muttering that odd language. I led him out into the sunlight. He closed his eyes from the glare as if he had passed an age in darkness. Maybe he had. Some of the horses had come back. I was anxious that he would see what I had wrapped in leather so I brought him over to the well and sat him with his back turned. I took the bodies inside and placed them by their mother. There was a drum of whale oil in the shed. I soaked the house in it. It was blazing as I saddled two horses and we rode out. I put a rope on the bridle of his horse.Hawkmoon just sat there..
I put him in a room over the tavern. All I wanted was get a party of hunters and go after them but he was up in the room muttering. If I left him and took out on my own and he recovered he would be enraged. If he didn’t recover and they came into town while I was out there would be no one to protect him. I told the town guard about it and they took some men out. The next day they were back telling everyone that the trail had gone cold. More like they didn’t have the bottle for it…
After a while he stopped with the crazy talk and sat quiet. Weeks went by. He stayed in his room. Winter came and went. One morning I took his breakfast up to find he was gone. After daybreak the ostler had given him a horse with two spares. I was annoyed but not surprised. A late fall of snow made him easy to track. I caught up to him two days later on the Great North Road. He told me what he would do and how he would do it. If I hadn’t the stomach for it I could turn back now. I told him we were wasting time.