The Jarl's Son, Chapter 15-2
At the End of His Sword, Part 2
Before we begin, if you’ve been enjoying my work and would like to further support my fiction, essays, and book reviews, the following are the best ways to do so:
Purchase my book, In the Giant’s Shadow. You can find it on Amazon in hardcover ($19.49), paperback ($11.99), and digital ($3.99) formats. This is the method I most recommend as it gets you something tangible in return for your financial support.
You can subscribe to Tales of Calamity and Triumph for either $5 per month or $50 per year. Doing so automatically unlocks digital versions of any and all of my current and future published fiction.
Restacking and sharing work of mine which resonates with you is the easiest (and arguably most effective) way to help.
As always, please don’t feel pressured to do any of these things. Your readership is more than enough for me. Thank you kindly for giving my words your time.
Looking to start from the beginning? Read Chapter 1-1 here.
The trail ran cold faster than anticipated. Marten followed it on horseback for a short while, then dismounted as it led past a dense juniper thicket. Hitching his black spotted mare to one of the trees, he knelt low and once more examined the moist soil. The tracks along the thicket were stomped out and smeared by the long hind feet of at least eight springjacks. Judging from the variances in size and depth, the brigand kidnappers probably startled a family of the long-eared animals as they were feeding on juniper berries and greens. They must have had a burrow nearby, too, else they’d have fled further into the thicket rather than outward, as they had.
How exactly they startled the animals, Marten couldn’t be sure. All he could see were the results of the commotion, a chaotic jumble of human and animal tracks that seemed to go nowhere. Briefly searching northeast along the thicket’s edge, he saw no additional signs of movement. The same was presumably true in the other direction, but as he headed back toward the muddy sign of commotion, something in the thicket caught his eye. There was a gap in the trees just a pace or two up from where the springjacks took to heel. It was narrow, and he saw that many twigs and a couple smaller branches had been snapped off the conifers, but it was plenty wide enough to accommodate a few men marching in a line.
The horse would be more difficult. Assuming it was the sort of large work animal he believed it to be, it wouldn’t enter such a narrow space of its own volition without being coaxed and enticed, an unlikely approach to be taken by a bunch of kidnapping brigands. No, chances were they forced it to enter with tugs on its reins and lashes on its rump. Considering the juniper branches showed breakages at eye level with Marten, and that he spotted hoofprints beneath fallen needles, berries, and twigs, there was no doubt this was the path they’d taken. Keeping low, he carefully followed the narrow path the rogues had taken.
Their route wound through the thicket, following the contours of the hilly moor upon which the juniper grew. Marten’s earlier righteous anger had cooled some, giving way to unease. This place was eerily quiet, the only sounds coming from the gentle rustle of his own steps through the fallen twigs and needles that littered the ground. There was no breeze to jostle the trees, nor were there the sounds of bird calls or scurrying squirrels. It felt wrong, and in his gut, he felt he should ready himself to fight.
Marten closed his fingers around the hilt of his sword. However, just as he began to draw his blade, the silence shattered with a baying cry, and he started. Quickly releasing the breath that caught in his throat, he unsheathed his weapon and continued. It was the pack horse the brigands had captured, its cry echoing out from deeper in the thicket. Judging from the volume of its frightful whinny, it wasn’t far from where he was.
Resuming his trek with sword in hand, Marten soon realized just how close he’d come to the brigand camp. The path through the thicket rounded a bend that led to a tall escarpment overlooking a rocky glade. There he saw the horse, a sturdy working beast with fur as dark as that southern caffé he’d recalled that morning. The animal reared and roared as two of the rogues stood before it and yanked at its reins, fighting with it for control. A third approached with a large switch, barking something about beating the willful creature into submission.
He couldn’t see anyone else yet, but he could see their camp. The steep slope of the escarpment was roughly three times his own height, allowing him easy viewing of their quarters and spoils. A crude wooden chest full of clothing and utensils sat beside a smaller and sturdier looking chest full of cooking supplies. These were both positioned next to the largest of the six tents set up amongst the boulders and large stones near the middle of the glade. It was here that he noticed the fourth brigand, visible behind one of the rocks. He was inspecting the contents of two small sacks, one of them in hand, the other lying in a limp bulge by his feet. Even with the heavy overcast still lingering in the sky, Marten recognized the glint of hacksilver as the brigand rummaged through the small bag.
He still couldn’t see the final two kidnappers, nor could he see the girl. Most likely they were in that larger tent, which certainly belonged to their leader. He realized that he couldn’t hear the girl, either, which he hoped meant that their leader hadn’t yet attempted to force himself on her, rather than being indicative of her death. Fortunately, Marten also realized that he’d spotted the biggest threat amongst these adversaries. The man inspecting the hacksilver in those two sacks was their archer. A lanky southerner, Bertosian by his curly hair and olive skin, he picked up his yew bow as he rose and entered the large tent.
The three dealing with the horse were all Stenisian. The two on the reins had short cropped blonde hair. From the similarity of their hard faces, they were likely related. The third was dark haired, with the sides of his head shaved to the skin and his hair bound up in a long braid that reached the middle of his back. Currently, that braid was draped over the round shield he had slung over his back, something Marten regretted not bringing with him when he returned home a few days ago. A broadsword also hung at that man’s waist, while one of the blonde men wore a bearded hand axe on his waist. The other blonde appeared to be unarmed, and all three seemed to be unarmored.
Marten observed the camp for a long moment. The horse was baying louder than before. Stomping and rearing, it thrashed its head this way and that, yanking at the reins held by the pair of blonde bandits. Meanwhile, the shield-bearing braided man started lashing at the animal’s flank with a juniper switch, hoping to use pain to frighten it into submission. The animal proved a willful beast, though, and started to buck and kick, forcing the trio to step back.
All the while, Marten kept the bulk of his attention on the tent, watching for any signs of movement. He saw none, and quickly formulated a plan.
Following the bend between the juniper trees, a moderately sloped path had been roughly carved along the curving contour of the escarpment to Marten’s left. This path reached the level of the glade approximately fifteen paces away from the three rogues dealing with the horse, while the tents in the center of the glade were some forty or more away from that. With the focus of that trio squarely on either the terrified horse or one another, and with their backs facing him, Marten was offered an easy opportunity to dispatch one of them, provided he moved quickly.
And he did move quickly, and with decisiveness as well, though not entirely without caution. Between its stomping and snorting, its baying and bucking, the horse made enough of a cacophonous racket to mask the sounds of his footfalls on that slope of rock and rain-softened dirt. The blonde men had grabbed its reins again, trying to force the animal in the direction of a crude hitch Marten hadn’t noticed earlier. However, the shield-bearer hadn’t moved from the spot he took when the beast started bucking.
Marten couldn’t have asked for a better turn of events. As he approached, he drew a crossguard dirk from his belt to use alongside his sword. While not ideal, the slender weapon would afford him some additional means of defense against his enemies in close quarters. What’s more, the long dagger would allow him to dispatch the shield-bearer quickly, either by plunging it into the dastard’s throat from behind, or into his gut alongside Marten’s sword should he turn around.
Turn around he did, though not in the direction Marten expected, nor for the reason he would have guessed. Expecting that he might be spotted, he’d devised a handful of ways to quickly dispatch the shield-bearer. As the most well protected member of their outfit, at least so far as he could see, killing him on ambush wouldn’t only save Marten the trouble of fighting him directly, but would also afford the opportunity to take that shield for himself. However, just before he got within striking distance of the shield-bearer, a feminine from the large tent wail joined the horse’s cacophony.
All eyes, including Marten’s own, turned to face that tent. Bursting through the front flap, a young blonde woman slipped and stumbled along the damp grass and smacked chest first into one of the rocks. A large red mark marred her right cheek, and blood ran from a gash above that same eye. Weeping, trembling, she glanced back in abject horror as the leader of the bandits emerged from the tent. Tall, shaven-headed, and broad shouldered, his skin was so pale that it verged on the color of white ash, and Marten briefly wondered if he were a hobgoblin, with his crooked nose and scarred face.
The Bertosian archer emerged soon after, as did the sixth man, who was also pale, and also an archer. So, there were two after all. Those words came strangely calm to Marten’s mind, even though his grip upon his blades tightened until his knuckles were white. He needed to move, to act presently, lest he be noticed and shot, or run through. Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off that waifish blonde girl. She scrambled desperately to flee her captors, only for the ash-skinned leader to grab her by the hair and strike her full in the mouth with his closed fist.
Red spilled from her lips as she sobbed, and red filled the whole of Marten’s vision. Unable to resist the surge of fury in his veins, he loosed a frenzied cry and charged the shield-bearer. The brown-haired dastard’s eyes went wide, then bugged as he reached for his sword only to find Marten’s was plunged into his gut, while the dirk punched through his throat.
Crying out in shock, the blonde men dropped the horse’s reins and were nearly bowled over as the beast went running. The unarmed man hurried toward the tents, while the one with the bearded axe drew his weapon and rushed Marten as he let the shield-bearer’s bloody corpse drop into the wet grass. With his weapon held high for a downward chop, the brigand made it easy for Marten to catch the axe’s curving head on his sword. Locked against the sword’s crossguard, the brigand was unable to pull it away. Unarmored as he was, his plain jute tunic offered no protection against Marten’s dirk as he plunged it twice into his gut, and once into his chest. He died with a strangled gasp.
As the blonde man’s body slumped against him, Marten turned so that the corpse would block the arrows of the archers. His decision was timely. The body jerked as one arrow embedded itself into its back. The second arrow missed the corpse by a hair’s length and sliced a shallow cut into Marten’s sword arm.
“Flank, fools!” cried the booming, gravel voice of the ash-skinned leader. “Flank and kill that man!”
The thump of another arrow struck the corpse. Peeking past, Marten saw that it was loosed by the pale archer. The Bertosian was on the move, dashing around the stones and boulders in their camp. He was fleet of foot, but not as much as Marten. If he dropped the dead man and broke for the Bertosian, he could probably intercept. Alas, the thud of a third arrow said otherwise. The pale archer shot too quickly, each thumping arrow a promise that if he let that dead man go, he’d be taking those shots himself.
Damnation, he needed to get his hands on that shield! Glancing back, he saw that the shield-bearer had fallen on his side. He’d have to cut the sling strap to release it from his shoulders, but if he could do that he’d be better able to protect himself.
Keeping firm hold of the dirk embedded in the dead man’s chest, Marten sank down and tried to slip his sword under the strap. It worked. Pulling up and back, he sliced through the thin band of worn leather. The shield, stood on its side, leaned away from its dead owner’s body and flopped onto the ground. As it did, Marten saw movement in his periphery. The other blond man, face red with rage, was charging at him with a spear. Marten was ready to throw the body off himself and grab the shield, but he felt the impact of another arrow in the corpse. Then came another, loosed by the Bertosian as he moved to his flanking position.
Marten was pinned. He’d soon be flanked by the bowmen, and with the blonde spearman charging him, he had no means of fully defending himself. The chain hauberk he wore beneath his tunic would help to protect him against the spear, but not against their arrows. Those would punch straight through the links in his mail. He had to take a risk, lest he die kneeling beneath the body of a dead man.
The charging spearman was his best bet. Not only was the man closer, but Marten could tell from his reckless gait that he was every bit as inexperienced as his brother, the man whose body now shielded him. Marten was sure that indignity, alongside the axe-wielder’s slaying, was what drove the other man to red-faced frenzy. That made him dangerous, yes, but also clumsy. Marten could use that to his advantage, favorably leveraging his experience to force an opening.
The archers were another question, one for which he didn’t have an answer. He was sure to be shot at least once, and that might well be all they needed. A well strung bow launched arrows with force enough to break bones, and these arrows sank deep. He felt their power in the way they impacted the corpse he used as his shield. One or two well placed shots, and he was doomed.
Yet there remained a factor in play which Marten, who was so entrenched in the moment, failed to consider. A factor of fortune and chance which, in this case, played to his favor. It came in the form of an ally’s arrival. An ally whom Marten had earlier called upon, though in the midst of his search and subsequent battle, he’d quite forgotten.
Appearing as a great black mass against the lingering gray of the overcast sky, the lupine form of Varro leapt out from amongst the juniper. With a feral growl and a gnash of fangs, the Wolfmother’s companion entered the fray.
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:
And thus, the brave guardsman decides to infiltrate the brigand camp.
Through all this, I'm curious as to where Gauir is?