The Jarl's Son, Chapter 12-1
The Vanishing, Part 1
“She’s gone!”
Jarl Ostock was seated in his throne, surrounded by his advisors. Little time had passed since Marten and Gaiur left on their search for the menace called Red Bear. On that same day, he had word sent to the rangers and huntsmen that lived both in and near the borders of his holdings. All who could be spared were to search for this fur clad reaver and his warband. Goodly stipends were promised to any who partook in the search, with an even more sizable reward to be given to whomever managed to find this menace.
The Jarl expected the search would be a long one. His holdings were vast, stretching many leagues to the north and south, and a great many more to the east. On a strong horse, a rider could reach the eastern border from Halvfjord within as few as four days, where a wagon pulled by a plow horse or an aurochs could take anywhere from a tenday to a fortnight. Add to that the width and breadth of nearby Ostock Forest, the rough hills and low valleys along the northern edge, and the Red Marshes in the southeast, and all who took up this task would quickly find themselves facing potential months of searching.
What he did not expect was for Marten to burst through his doors after being gone a mere two days.
“Marten?” he uttered in disbelief. Rising from his seat as Marten approached, he pushed past the advisors as they started to clear a path. The Jarl started when he beheld the Wolfmother’s great beast following behind his son, and his council shrank back as the beast approached.
“She’s gone,” Marten repeated. “She’s been taken.”
The Jarl furrowed his brow and turned his steely gaze at Varro. “The Wolfmother has left?” he asked.
“Not left,” Marten huffed. He’d hurried to get back to Halvfjord. Now that he’d had this moment to stop and rest he’d finally noticed the shortness of his breath. “Taken. She was taken by Red Bear.”
Behind the Jarl, his advisors murmured anxiously. Marten’s father silenced them with a clap of his hands. “Let my son speak,” he demanded. “Now, tell me what happened. What makes you so certain that reaver took her?”
Marten took a moment to catch his breath before speaking. Once he had, he licked his dry lips and began. “On our first night, after we made camp in the forest, she told me that she saw Red Bear atop his steed. They were just standing in the road, barely moving.”
“You mean you saw him that close to the city?!”
Jarl Ostock’s eyes were wide with astonishment. Marten could see the muscles in his father’s neck tense at the news, but they eased somewhat when he shook his head. “No, I didn’t see him,” he continued. “Gaiur told me of him after she’d spotted him. Varro’s growling startled my mare, so I was distracted with calming her before then. By the time I looked, there was nothing there.”
“So he fled before you could spot him,” the Jarl said with a sigh.
Again, Marten shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Father,” he said in a grave tone. “I mean there was nothing there, no sign of his presence at all. Nothing so much as a hoofprint or a puff of dust.”
Rather than the look of ill ease similar to that which Marten wore when recounting what had happened, Jarl Ostock’s expression became stony and uncertain. Before continuing any further, he dismissed Marten to the back rooms. Marten protested at first, anxious to share what he knew and begin the mission he’d set for himself, but a stern look from his father cowed him. He retreated into the back of the house, pacing the hall outside of his own room until the Jarl joined him. Immediately, he resumed his entreaty.
“Father, I know how this sounds, but I-”
With a firm stare and a quick raising of his hand, the Jarl halted Marten’s words in their tracks. Then, once he shut the door behind him, his shoulders slumped and he let out a long and heavy sigh.
“I understand that you’ve become taken with her, my son,” Jarl Ostock said as he turned to face Marten. “I also understand that we’ve been made to witness strange happenings of late. Your brother’s illness truly was the stuff of monsters, and I will always hold the Wolfmother in deepest gratitude and high regard not just for saving Erik’s life, but slaying that serpent fiend which infested him. We have been made party to things which I can only describe as the foulest of lunacies, yet even in the face of this what you’re telling me sounds like madness.”
His tone was not unsympathetic, nor was his mein. Even so, Marten bristled at his father’s words. To so swiftly dismiss what he was saying as madness in the face of all they’d seen felt like the maddest choice of them all. Marten was not some hot-headed warrior, though. He was the son of a Jarl, a leader of men, and so he controlled his emotions and composed himself.
“I, too, understand how mad this sounds, Father. Shamefully, I thought similarly when Gaiur told me what she saw.” A damned fool, that’s what he saw himself as. Glancing away from his father, Marten frowned and sucked at his teeth. “Yet the next morning I awoke to much the same. Gaiur was gone, and there was no trace of her. Not a footprint, not a hair, not a drop of blood or even a scent.”
Jarl Ostock narrowed his eyes. “If she vanished on the first morning, then what have you been doing these last two days?”
This time, Marten’s composure failed to hold. Feeling like he was once more a boy being accused of doing wrong, he threw up his arms in frustration and paced to the far side of the hall.
“What do you think I’ve been doing, Father?” he barked. “I’ve been looking for her! I even tried to have Varro track her, yet even that failed because there was no scent to find!”
Standing now at the end of the hall, Marten leaned against the frame of the window and gazed out over Halvfjord’s cliffs. The clouds from the recent storms still lingered, and it appeared that yet more rain would fall come the night. That would only make this impossible trail all the more difficult to find, and his heart despaired at that.
“I can’t abandon her, Father,” he finally said. “I won’t abandon her. Not to that monstrous heathen, nor anyone else. We need to find her, to organize a party to help in the search for her.”
Jarl Ostock’s aging but firm hands clasped Marten’s shoulders from behind. Gently, he squeezed them, then he let one hand fall away while the other patted at Marten’s back.
“I appreciate your feelings, Marten, but we cannot halt our search for the reaver and his warband to find a lone itinerant woman, no matter what sort of debt we might owe her,” he stated flatly. “Our first responsibility outside of family is to the people of our reach. They look to us to guide and protect them, and we failed in that while we fretted over Erik’s health.”
Marten’s brow rested against his forearm, which itself lay pressed against the window’s upper sill. As his father spoke, his fist clenched tight enough that he could hear the skin of his own palm creak beneath the pressure of his fingertips. He seethed at his father’s words. Brooded on them as the hand at his back fell away. While reason told him his father’s words made sense, it made little difference in that moment. He couldn’t stand to hear her spoken of in such a dismissive manner.
Slamming his fist against the windowsill he barked, “No!” Then he rounded to face his father directly.
“I won’t accept it,” he said. “Whether I have your help or not, I’m going to find her.”
“Marten, you have no idea where she is, you just told me so,” the Jarl exclaimed. “What hope could you possibly have of finding her when not even her great wolven companion can pick up her trail?”
“I don’t care about that,” Marten growled. “I won’t leave her behind.”
“Damn it all, Marten, listen to me!” the Jarl snapped. “I know why you’re doing this, I’m not some blind old fool! I recognize your feelings for that woman, and I know your desire to keep her safe.” He paused, and the stern in his expression gave way to sadness. “I know it very well, because I felt the same way about trying to save your mother from the clutch of death.”
“Oh yes,” Marten sneered. “Mother’s death. The one you put the blame on me for.”
“Yes!” said the Jarl, his voice quavering, his eyes starting to water. “A decision which was among my gravest errors, and which I’ve tried to atone for many times over! Even so, can you not see why I bring it up to you now? Can you not see that in the same way my grief blinded me to your needs as a boy, that this desire of yours to rescue her at any cost blinds you to what needs doing now?”
Anger roiled inside of Marten. For the reminder of his mother. For being denied the chance to find and save a remarkable woman. He’d only just begun to truly know Gaiur, but even if this had been their first day together he still would’ve gone to the very ends of existence and into whatever lay beyond if that’s what it took to see her safe. Something about that thought, or perhaps it was his father’s words, struck him. These were the ravings of a boy, thoughtless and false in their courage. He wouldn’t do Gaiur any favors by marching out into the world to search blindly for her. What’s more, he’d be doing his people a disservice by making himself derelict in his duties. Yet he couldn’t simply let this lie, either. He needed an answer, a solution. He needed to find some way to pick up her trail.
Shoulders sagging as his surge of fury left him, Marten took in a deep breath and finally replied to the Jarl with a nod. “You’re right, Father, but I can’t simply let this go,” he said. “I aim to find her, to see her made safe from the Red Bear or whoever else it is that stole her away.”
The Jarl nodded. “I understand, but what makes you so certain this was the Red Bear’s doing?” he asked.
Marten resumed his explanation, telling the Jarl once more about what Gaiur said she saw two nights ago, and the completeness of her disappearance that following morning. Then he told of how unsettled she was that night. Dark thoughts weighed on her mind, but she wouldn’t share them. Instead, she insisted that she’d dealt with such things before, and that he should sleep. That she would take the first watch for him and once the midnight hour had passed, she would wake him so they could change places.
“She did not wake you,” the Jarl stated.
“No, she didn’t. I slept through to the morning, and that’s when we saw she’d vanished,” Marten said.
“And yesterday morning is when you began your search, which you carried into today before hurrying back here.”
Marten nodded. “In the hope I might gather others to help me search, yes.”
Jarl Ostock had his arms crossed over his chest. He opened his mouth, ready to continue speaking. From the look on his face, he was once again preparing to deny Marten’s request. However, their conversation was interrupted by the creaking of a nearby door. Looking back down the hall, they saw Erik emerge clumsily from his room, rubbing his eyes with the back of his arm.
“Erik, you should be resting,” the Jarl said as he scooped the boy up.
Erik muttered something they couldn’t understand, then said, “I heard yelling about Wolfmother. Did she get taken by the bad bear man?”
“Oh no, she’s fine,” Jarl Ostock hummed. “She just had to leave for a while, but she forgot to tell us where to find her so we’re trying to figure that out. Now, you should be resting.”
Erik sighed and slumped in his father’s arms. “I’m not tired, though,” he whined.
“Of course you’re not!” Marten chimed, doing his very best to sound jolly and proud. “Can’t you see, Father? He’s getting stronger by the day. Now let’s see… I’ll bet you want to play, don’t you?”
Beaming, Erik gave a vigorous nod. “I want to fight with swords again!” he said, swinging his right arm about as if it held a blade.
Father and brother alike both laughed, then Jarl Ostock set his young son down and clapped a hand against his back. “Alright then, we’ll play swords soon,” he said. “Now let me finish speaking with your brother, then I’ll dismiss the council and come get you.”
A melancholy look, the long face of disappointment so distinct to children, came across Erik’s youthful features. His bright blue eyes glanced between his father and his brother. “I wanted Marten to practice with us,” he grumbled, hanging his head in disappointment.
“I’d like to, Erik, I would,” Marten said. As he crouched in front of his brother, he gave him a little pat on the cheek. “I have to find the bad bear man first. Our people need my help. Do you understand?”
Smiling, Erik nodded. “You have to save them like you’re going to save Wolfmother!” he said excitedly. “And then we can all fight with swords!”
The boy was far too young to understand the pain his words lanced into Marten’s heart. All the same, Marten didn’t let his emotions get the best of him this time. Holding that pain at bay even as he acknowledged it, he laughed and told his young brother just how right he was. Then their father ushered the boy back into his room. Erik wasn’t happy about that. His face grew long again, and he hung his head and gave a dramatic sigh.
“Okay, I’ll wait,” he grumbled as he started back down the short three-step flight leading into his room. “I wish Wolfmother’s fox was still here, then he could tell me more stories.”
The Jarl shut the door behind his young son. As the latch clicked into place, an idea clicked in Marten’s mind. An idea that he hadn’t once stopped to consider, and given to him by an eight year old boy, of all things!
Gaiur’s fox. That strangely speaking animal of hers was capable of incredible feats. If Marten could find him, then perhaps he could help Marten find Gaiur. Where to start looking, though? Erik mentioned that he wished the fox was still around. Did that mean he’d been visiting the boy in the days since he’d been saved, or had he been away since their work with the shadow adder was finished? It would certainly be convenient if he was still hanging around, but Marten doubted that would be the case. Still, it would be worth asking his brother just to be sure.
Yet if his answer was no, what then? Where was he to look for such a strange creature? Marten couldn’t even remember the little animal’s name. Gaiur had said it at some point during the ritual. Randall? Roland? Rondo? Something of that sort…
“Renald?” he muttered to himself, almost feeling the name on his tongue.
The Jarl turned over to him. “What was that?”
“It’s nothing. I was just thinking about something Erik said is all.”
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.
My first novella, In the Giant’s Shadow, is available for purchase! Lured to the sleepy farming community of Jötungatt by a mysterious white raven, Gaiur the Valdunite soon finds herself caught in a strange conspiracy of ritual murder and very real nightmares.
Purchase it in hardback, paperback, or digital on Amazon now:
