The Jarl's Son, Chapter 10-1
Smoke Billows to the East, Part 1
“You’re leaving?” Marten asked, making no effort to hide his surprise or displeasure.
Gaiur answered him with a nod. After speaking with Ida, she returned straight to the Jarl’s home and started gathering her things from Marten’s room. He chanced to step in on her as she was in the midst of changing into her traveling garb. The blue and white strap dress she’d borrowed, as well as the underclothes that came with it, lay in a haphazard pile at her feet. She’d already donned her trousers, and her fur-lined boots stood next to the corner of his bed, but he did manage to get an eyeful of her bare chest as she pulled her tunic over her head. The sight of her half naked form wasn’t enough to distract him from his dismay, however.
“But why?” he asked flatly, “And where?”
“East,” she replied as she laced up the front of her tunic before donning her chainmail shirt. As she pulled her long and wild hair free of the shirt’s weighty confines, Marten pressed his first question again.
Gaiur gave him a rueful look. She understood his feelings, for she shared them. She had no desire to go, but she knew it was what she must do. Though the young mother could only give limited details, Gaiur’s discussion with Ida had been illuminating for her. The description she gave of the Red Bear’s attack on her village was an almost identical mirror to the razing she’d witnessed in her nightmares. Pondering this in the minutes after she left, Gaiur recalled a forgotten detail she’d seen while searching for the birch saplings through Hunin’s eyes: a solitary plume of black smoke billowing in the distance. More importantly, she recalled the sense of unease and the powerful urge to investigate that came to her when she first noticed it. At the moment, she didn’t feel as if she could afford to do so. Now she felt as if she must.
Sitting on the side of his bed, she explained all of this to Marten as she pulled on her boots. He listened to her words with a mixture of displeasure and concern. When she finished, he asked, “How far was this smoke you saw?”
Gaiur shrugged. “Past the eastern edge of Ostock Forest, but beyond that I’m not sure.”
“Before or beyond the Red Marshes?” he asked.
Knitting her brow into a slight frown, she stared blankly at the heaped dress on the floor as she tried to remember. Farmland and rocky rolling hills stretched out from the eastern edge of Ostock Forest. The Red Marshes lay further afield, off a great distance to the southeast.
“Before,” she murmured. Then she nodded to herself, looked up at Marten, and stated with confidence, “It was before the marshes.”
“That means the fire happened within my father’s holdings,” he stated firmly. “We’ll have to speak with him about this. He’ll want to know what you saw. It may be the answer to why so many people have fled here.”
Gaiur’s expression darkened. The fire alone wasn’t the answer, that much she knew, but she was hesitant to tell Marten about the Red Bear or what she heard from Ida. Part of it was a desire to avoid causing renewed panic among the people who’d been forced out of their homes. Telling the Jarl of this would likely mean he’d send his warriors to investigate and it wouldn’t take long for the reason why to get out, assuming he didn’t just announce it outright. Another part of it was to spare Marten’s family further strife. After all, Erik had only just recovered from his long ordeal with the shadow adder.
Mostly, though, it was a selfish desire to keep Marten out of harm’s way. Gaiur had an opportunity to witness some of his prowess the afternoon prior, as he wrestled his way through a score of his fellow Halvfjorders. As both the eldest son of Jarl Ostock and the captain of Halvfjord’s city guard, he’d be required to have attained a greater level of combat skill than most. What’s more, he showed no small amount of courage when she and Renald drew the monstrous shadow adder from its hiding place inside his younger brother’s body.
Yet even so, the hunting of monsters and apparitions was not his domain. For as mighty as he may be in battle against other men, spirits and fiends were of a different sort entirely, and Gaiur was sure the Red Bear consorted with precisely that kind of monster. She had no wish to see Marten be butchered the way those people in her nightmare were. Handling this alone would be better.
For his part, Marten must’ve recognized at least a glimmer of Gaiur’s intent through her expression. He locked eyes with her, his face stony and brow furrowed. “You’re not planning to tell him, are you?”
Gaiur looked away, busying herself with strapping her belt and pulling on her gloves.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he continued, his volume rising as frustration took hold. “You think you can sneak away to do this on your own, to go and find whatever monster you think it is that drove those people out.”
She started to protest, but Marten would have none of it. He chastised her harshly for thinking he’d let her sneak off like that. It was the sort of thing that should’ve made her angry, that would’ve had her barking right back at him just a couple days ago, like she had when first caught him feeding Varro without her around. Yet that instinct never manifested here. Instead she kept quiet, watching him with stern but tired eyes. She had no wish to leave so soon. They’d only just started to know each other, and her yearning for his company did indeed clash with her desire to see him safe.
It was as she tried to voice those thoughts that he spoke the words she dreaded most in that moment: “Then I’m coming with you.”
Now her frustration boiled over. Running a hand along the side of her head, she grabbed a tight fistful of her thick blue-black hair, then let her hand fall away with a growling huff. “No you won’t!” she stated firmly. “This is beyond you, Marten. I have to do it on my own.”
“Don’t patronize me, woman!” he barked back. “I’m not some milksop or southern princeling. I’m a Jarl’s son, taught to fight since I was a boy. I’ve fought in campaigns, led men in battle, and taken lives. You’ve seen the scars that prove it!”
Gaiur, to the frustrated amazement of both of them, had no response. Marten was right. It was true that shadowy things which she tended to deal with were beyond the capabilities of most, even when speaking of seasoned warriors like him. However, the Red Bear wasn’t like most of those creatures. By all appearances he was a man. A brutally savage and ruthless man, but a man nonetheless. Besides, even if it turned out that his mortal appearance belied something more, as Gaiur believed it very well might, that likely wasn’t true of his reavers. Perhaps there was more merit to having him along than she’d first considered?
Crossing her arms below her breasts, Gaiur gave an exasperated sigh and started to pace. After a couple short moments of this, she turned to face him again, her lips curled into a pouty sneer that somehow reflected frustration, acceptance, and relief all at once.
“What do you suggest then?” she blurted.
“We speak to my father, gather some men, and try to find whoever razed the homes of our people,” he answered.
Gaiur’s sneer grew fiercer, and she shook her head. “Those people are terrified of the men who took their homes,” she said. “If they hear another farmstead has been razed, they’ll panic.”
Marten agreed that such a panic would be unwelcome. They’d be hard pressed to stop rumors from spreading if they suddenly marched a column of men out the gates, too. Gaiur then asked him if they had any reliable trackers or huntsmen, people who could swiftly traverse and survey the land in small parties. He nodded. It turned out that Jarl Ostock kept a handful of such men in his direct employ, as well as paying fairly generous stipends to those huntsmen and rangers who preferred to keep to the far flung reaches of his domain.
“Ours is one of the broader reaches,” Marten said. “Wealthier, too. The farmland is good thanks to the rivers and the winters milder than more northerly holdings. The trouble is this makes us a target for bandits and raiders. Father took to paying these men for that reason. They give us early warning of their movements, or tell us when they’ve found a hideout, and we swiftly gather people to destroy them.”
“Why haven’t they been able to do the same with those reavers, then?” Gaiur wondered.
“Perhaps they have,” he said. “It’s only been a few days since you and those people arrived, so…”
Marten’s words trailed off, and Gaiur watched him close as he paused to think. “No, that wouldn’t be possible,” he continued. “Rangers moving alone or in pairs would easily outpace a band of refugees, and their message would move faster still if sent by bird. It would have reached us well before you arrived.”
“Even with the city closed off?” Gaiur asked.
Marten nodded. “I receive the messages myself most of the time. If one was sent, I’d have heard of it.”
“Unless the messengers were killed,” Gaiur retorted.
A dark mien fell across Marten’s handsome features upon hearing Gaiur’s words. The weight of realization pressed upon them both, the understanding that these recent months of isolation had likely caused far more harm to the people in Jarl Ostock’s domain than any of them truly understood. Swiftly he paced to a short cabinet in the far corner of his room. Its old bronze hinge creaked when he opened it, and when stood back up he held a bulging, clinking sack in his hand.
“I want you to take this,” he said, dropping the heavy sack of hacksilver into Gaiur’s outstretched hand. She tied it to her belt as he continued speaking. “After you’ve spoken with my father, use it to trade for whatever supplies we’ll need from the markets.”
Surprised by his request, Gaiur gawped at him. “You wish me to speak to the Jarl about this?” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” he stated brusquely. “ I need to gather our trackers and you clearly know more about what’s going on here than you’ve been willing to tell. You certainly know more about what’s happened than I do, at least.”
She couldn’t deny that, but she still wasn’t sure it was a good idea to tell Jarl Ostock too much. They didn’t even know where or who the Red Bear was, or why he seemed so intent on razing the Jarl’s holdings. Doubt must’ve shown on her face, because Marten placed a firm hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“Whatever secrets about this that you’ve kept from me, you must tell my father everything you know,” he insisted. “Where I’ve gone, what we’re doing, what we face. All of it. Hold nothing back.”
Gaiur sucked her tongue and screwed up her nose. She still wasn’t sure that this was a good idea, but she agreed all the same. Relieved, Marten thanked her, then left to tend to his own part in things.
She followed after Marten, turning toward the Jarl when she spotted him with two of his advisors in the main hall. Jarl Ostock noticed them, too, and flagged them both down to join whatever conversation he was having. However, as Marten hurried his way out the front entrance without so much as acknowledging his father, the older man glanced perplexed between Gaiur and the closing door.
“Where is he off to in such a hurry?” the Jarl asked.
“I need to speak with you about something,” Gaiur replied, evading his question entirely.
The Jarl, to her surprise, reacted to her urgent tone rather warmly. “Fortuitous timing, then! There was something I wanted to talk with you about as well.” He motioned to the two other men present, then started to say something about how he wished to have her share something with the three of them. However, he stopped dead and his smile faded when she clasped his wrist mid-motion.
“I must speak to you alone,” she emphasized.
Glancing to his advisors, Jarl Ostock nodded and waved them off. Both men shared his earlier perplexed expression, but they assented to his order with a nod and headed into one of the back rooms.
“I hope you have a good reason for this,” the Jarl said firmly.
“I do,” Gaiur answered.
She then proceeded to explain the situation to him in full, starting with the plume of smoke she spotted when searching for the birch saplings she needed to harvest for Erik’s purification ritual. When he asked her why she didn’t mention this before, she spoke honestly, and said that she’d forgotten it. In the wake of her battle with the elk spirit in the grove, as well as the dramas and dangers of the ritual, the smoke simply slipped her mind. Jarl Ostock was understanding of this. Much and more had happened the last few days, but the further Gaiur went on, the more dour his countenance became.
“Voice of Luthmor,” he breathed, slumping into his throne as he, too, started to realize the weight of the situation. “You’re certain that girl’s village was razed? They weren’t just chased out by bandits?”
The girl he referred to was Ida. “I’m sure,” Gaiur answered. “The men who attacked them weren’t mere bandits, but reavers. I don’t know why they seek to raze these settlements, but they’ve been merciless in their actions. Not even the animals were left alive.”
“If that’s so, then how did those people escape?” he asked.
It was a fair question that Gaiur admittedly didn’t know the answer to. However, Gaiur didn’t reply. Instead she waited before speaking further, for as he spoke the prior question, Jarl Ostock’s face twisted into an expression of grim concern, as if he just realized something more. Indeed, her suspicions were confirmed when he looked back up at her with narrowed eyes.
“How do you know all of this?”
Gaiur took in a deep breath. “I witnessed it in my dreams,” she told him, and then proceeded to explain the recurring nightmare that’d plagued her for weeks on end.
Thank you for reading.
The Jarl’s Son sees Gaiur the Valdunite return to embark on a new adventure and acts as the follow-up to my dark fantasy mystery tale, In the Giant’s Shadow. The previous story isn’t required reading to understand and enjoy this tale, but doing so will enhance the experience.