The Jarl's Son, Chapter 15-1
At the End of His Sword, Part 1
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Looking to start from the beginning? Read Chapter 1-1 here.
Dark, muddy water sloshed as Marten’s mare trotted through the murky puddle. After nearly five straight days of heavy rain, the normally hard-packed roads out of Halvfjord had been devastated. Many were reduced to sticky, slippery mud pits, the sort that threatened to trap a man by sucking in around his boots. Yet more had been flooded, leaving vast and filthy puddles that reminded Marten of the bitter brown drink the southerners seemed to enjoy. What did they call it? Caffé? He couldn’t recall exactly, but it was something of that sort.
He’d tried it many years ago, when a Bertosian trading galley made port just outside Halvfjord. The traders had come with all sorts of popular Bertosian goods. Fragrant herbs, bright yellow lemons and grapefruits of pink and orange, sweet fortified wines, spices from the Far South, and of course, that dark brown caffé. Sale and exchange alike were sought by those traders. Their hope was to line their purses with southern coinage, currencies which rarely saw use outside of Stenise’s larger cities, and fill their hull with Stenisian goods; ales, meads, savory Stenisian herbs, and hardy northern wheat, mostly.
As a show of good faith, the Bertosian captain, his first mate, and a representative from the trading company that owned the ship were invited to Jarl Ostock’s home to exchange samples of each party’s finest goods. Marten joined his father in this, as did the Jarl’s housecarls. In all there were ten men present who enjoyed tall horns of mead, cups of rich red wine, and a taste of that hot, bitter caffé mixed with local honey and sweet cream. While the southerners’ love for the stuff was as a drunkard’s love for mead, Marten had little taste for the mud colored drink.
Funny, then, how the cold of the morning left him curious to try it again. He doubted the taste would be any more to his liking, but at the very least the hot drink would help keep the bone-deep bite of the damp chill at bay. Ah, but a mulled mead, now there was a way to stave off the cold! A tall flagon of steaming mead, freshly spiced cinnamon, juniper, and ginger? The mere thought was enough to make Marten’s mouth water. Why, a pint of that would be nothing short of a blessing from mighty Luthmor himself!
His mare whinnied, coming to a sudden halt as she recoiled from the muddy quagmire she’d stepped into. Marten had been leading her down the shallow slope of a squat knoll, following the road. Birch and oak trees lined the path of once-hard-packed dirt on either side. Unlike the road which passed through the thick of Ostock Forest, the trees here were more widely spaced, with lush green grasses and other foliage growing between them. Alas, this portion of the road had been reduced to yet another mudhole, and a deep one at that, considering how deep his mare’s hoof sank before she pulled back.
“Don’t worry, we’ll go around,” he said softly, patting at the side of her neck as she grumbled.
The mare had been irate all morning. She complained with groans and snorts anytime they neared a new puddle or trotted into the mud. The morning chill hadn’t helped in that, nor had Varro’s presence. At least with that latter problem solved itself. After about an hour on the road, Varro began wandering off into the surrounding wilds. At first Marten would call him back, summoning him with a whistle or a call of, “Come, Varro!”
After a while, Marten decided to let the huge wolf be, content to simply check if he was near by whistling and listening for his reply. He loosed that whistle now, and a few moments later came Varro’s howling response. Good, he was still near. Satisfied, Marten gently tugged his mare’s reins and led her off the road.
Even in the morning’s gray haze, the dewy grass glistened as they passed by. Despite the lingering cloudy gloom, the vibrancy of the grasses made for a pleasant sight, as did the rest of the neighboring flora. Now that those heavy rains had passed, the plants were lush and bright. The green leaves of the trees were even greener, which made those that yellowed as summer moved into autumn stand out all the more sharply. Mountain wildflowers bloomed strong, painting small stretches of the surrounding hills with flecks of blue, pink, yellow, and purple. Yet not all was green and lovely. In some places the water had drowned the flowers and grasses, or flows of mud had uprooted and crushed them. Such was expected after heavy storms, just as with the mudholes and puddles scattered all across the roads.
Marten rode over the hilly moor some time. Not far from the knoll where he’d turned off the road, a lengthy stretch of the same road wound through a shallow cleft between the hills. Already one of the more difficult portions to traverse due to how rocky it was, Marten spotted from a ways off that it had flooded during the four day storm, leaving it nigh impassable.
It was just as well. Marten had made dozens of trips to Tårnkryss over the years. Following the road wasn’t necessary for him to find his way, though it usually made the journey easier. Days like today reminded him why he learned how to correctly pick his path through the trees and shrubs. While hardly the fastest route, it was a considerably better option than wading his already unhappy mare through the murky, chest-deep water filling the cleft. Thus he opted to continue over the hills, keeping close enough to the road to spot if the conditions improved by the time he passed the cleft. He’d be roughly halfway to Tårnkryss by then, and if the road was passable again, he could quicken his pace and make up for lost time.
Another hour passed, and the late morning sun had finally chased the dawn mists away. Pale gray clouds remained in the skies above, but gaps formed in them as they rolled by, allowing the sun’s rays to shine down in bright columns. One of these columns passed over Marten and his mare. Tugging her reins, Marten stopped and took the opportunity to bask in the brief moment of warmth. When it passed, he tapped his heels into his mare’s flank to resume her canter, then whistled for Varro again.
“He’s getting a little far,” Marten murmured when the response came late. He considered calling for Varro to rejoin his side, but an agitated grunt from the mare stole his attention.
She’d stopped again, and nervously stamped her front hooves into the wet grass. Marten immediately scanned his surroundings. This change in his mare’s behavior wasn’t due to discomfort or a finicky mood like it was back on the road. Something was frightening her, and it was close.
Off to his right, movement by a nearby oak. Something was rustling through the grass. A snake forced out of its burrow by the rain, perhaps? Only one way to know for sure.
Dismounting, Marten drew his sword and approached cautiously. The steel blade glinted in the passing light of the sun, then dimmed again as the gap in the clouds high above closed. The same happened in the rustling grasses as the shaft of light shone through the water that remained beaded on the blades. Then, as Marten neared the tree, he found his answer.
Three crows took to the wing with a noisy flutter. Perching in the branches of an adjacent birch, they stared down at Marten as he watched them. They’d been feeding on something, a fresh carcass. He could see the fresh blood glistening on their black feathers. Keeping his sword drawn just in case, he stepped around to the other side of the tree, ignoring the crows as they began to squawk at him.
A man lie face down in the grass, dead. Young by the looks of him, at least where the crows hadn’t pecked away at his face, he wore a green woolen tunic and tan breeches. He was also strangely barefooted, and not for very long, either. Despite the dampness all around them, his feet showed no signs of the wrinkled swelling that happens when one’s skin stays wet for too long. Fresh blood stained his clothes, spilled from a trio of arrows embedded into his back and two puncture wounds through his left flank. Shot, then stabbed twice with a sword, and recently, too. His blood was tacky and still slightly warm.
He hadn’t died right away. Small mounds of mud had gathered up along his legs, feet, and hands, and there was a bloody trail in the wet dirt behind him. A trail which came up from the edge of the cleft, where Marten saw a wagon partly sunken in the murky water, its remaining contents floating listlessly around it.
“Looks like he tried to force his way through and got stuck,” Marten mused as he further examined the scene. The wagon’s back-left wheel had broken, its splintered pieces floating the articles of clothing and waterlogged sacks that had once lay in the wagon’s rear.
Kneeling, Marten inspected the surrounding area. “Harness cut, horse taken, driver killed by brigands.”
He turned back toward the body and continued examining the ground nearby. There were tracks. One set was from the horse, a large work beast whose hooves sank deep into the soft soil. Six were the firm soled boots of men, but it was the seventh set among those which made him frown. Glancing over his shoulder at the clothing afloat in the floodwater, Marten saw a plain white dress among them. This man had been traveling with a woman; his wife, or possibly a sister. She was barefooted, too, and attempted to flee before the brigands caught up with her. Judging by how her tracks changed, they caught her, clubbed her unconscious, then dragged her over to the horse before making their way north.
Marten stood, and looked east down the road, in the direction of Tårnkryss. It wouldn’t be much longer until he reached the place where the cleft opened, and the road would probably be clearer. He needed to get there soon, to resupply and figure out his sleeping arrangements for the night. If he couldn’t rent a cot in the trading post, he’d need time to find a suitable place to make camp so he could attempt to meet with Renald again. What’s more, if he pursued these men he’d be one against six, walking into a location they knew and he didn’t. Not a great prospect when at least one of them was equipped with a bow.
There were many good and pragmatic reasons why Marten shouldn’t pursue these men, and he listened to none of them. Sheathing his sword, he mounted his black-spotted cream mare, then led her north, following the trail the murdering kidnappers left in the muddy grass of the moor. Whistling once more for Varro as he rode, he took note of how look it took the greatwolf to respond, then whistled again, and then a third time when Varro answered with a second howl. With any luck, he’d understand Marten’s intent and return to his side.
What was it that spurred Marten to take this risk? For what reason did he throw pragmatism aside and divert from his eastward course? Duty wasn’t enough to explain it. After all, he was the captain of Halvfjord’s city guard, and more than that, the first born son of Jarl Ostock. His authority was such that a single command was all he needed to muster a unit of fighting men from Tårnkryss to stand at his side. Yet he chose not to, instead turning away to ride north entirely on his own. Why, then, would a man of Marten’s skill and knowledge abandon such sense?
The answer lay with the images that came to his mind. Gaiur, returning bruised and injured from her sojourn into Ostock Forest, only to proudly stand and strike down the foul shadow serpent that long threatened his young brother’s life that very same night. He remembered the talk they had the night prior, where she admitted the tragedy of the son she lost, and how he and Marten’s brother shared the name Erik. He remembered the lightness he saw in her when they laid together, a burden removed from her shoulders.
And he remembered the dream she had, that horrible nightmare which he witnessed for himself just last night. The blood, and the carnage. The burning of the houses, bright orange and hot, giving off acrid smoke. The screams and choked cries of the dying. The weeping of the women, that sole survivor, the pregnant mother, most of all. The fear in her eyes when she noticed him, something which should have been impossible according to Renald. The blood on her body. The tracks of tears upon her cheeks. The stink and the metallic tang of the cold, bloody mud she threw at him.
Sense told him that he should go to Tårnkryss and recruit those men, but sense was drowned in seething rage. Across these past three months, he’d seen what the carnage of wicked men wrought. The displacement of lives by that foul Red Bear. The butchery he enacted. Distrust and fear spread amongst the people. The near death of his young brother. The disappearance of a woman he’d come to love. Now he’d come upon a scene of murder, theft, and kidnapping. A young man’s life, ruthlessly cut short. His lady companion, taken away to be used by his murderers.
Nay, he would not abide this. These men sought carnage, and they would find it. Marten would bring it to them, at the end of his sword.
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:
Yeah, those brigands need to be down.
Going after them might not be the smart thing, but it is the right thing.