County Thorion
Eastshadow
٤١ Gerstesykli: ١٣ Days after the Red Storm at Westsong
Gordan ran a hand across the empty space where his hair had been fully five years before. About two-thirds of the way back along his bald pate, he reached the fringe of flyaway blond that remained. He combed through it with ungentle fingers before bringing his hand back down to rest on the lip of the parapet’s wooden wall.
This whole thing was ridiculous. After having survived at Westsong, the idea that life would change for all of them had been an easy wine to get drunk upon. He supposed the prediction hadn’t been untrue, strictly speaking, but the reality fell far short of his initial expectations and heady dreams.
That Barnic had received Eastshadow had been a surprise, certainly, but nobody questioned that he had earned a prize of such magnitude.
The truth was they had each earned such a place. Apart from Alnik and Jaron, most of them had received a holding of their own. It was only the boys from Knell’s Stone that had been forced to stay banded together for some machination he himself did not yet understand.
Gordan (Sir Gordan, he reminded himself—and not with undue pride) should not be stood at a guard’s perch along the tall wall-walk of Sir Barnic’s new holding. He should, by his own reckoning at least, be currently in his own chambers, within his own manor house on his newly granted lands. At this very moment, he should be thrusting deeply into some peasant girl, glad for the safety and security brought by being his mistress. Failing that, he should be asleep, dreaming of the noble daughters of the court, one or another of whom he could now reasonably expect to marry.
Barnic had asked him and the others to take up shifts on night-watch, two per night. He’d wanted them to show solidarity—that they took the safety of the villagers seriously. Gordan had agreed, as had the others, but he was sure they’d all done so as grudgingly as he had. The work was long, dull, and trivial.
The horrors of Westsong wouldn’t reach this far east, surely. Even if such a thing did come to pass, they knew the signs to look for. They knew how to best the monsters that brought such misery to bear.
Eastshadow is important, I suppose. No, he amended, suppose isn’t the right word. Admit… Admit is the right word. He admitted to himself that Eastshadow was a place of import. It did deserve more than one knight living within its pristine palisades and well-ordered thoroughfares. Especially given what was going on to the North, or rather what they presumed was going on to the North, the idea that Eastshadow had but one lord protector did leave it vulnerable.
“But dammit all,” he murmured to himself. “There should be a hard limit on how long we’re meant to stay here, shouldn’t there?”
“Sir Gordan?”
This was one of the guards he was in charge of on this shift. Damned if he could remember his name. Of course, he was likely having trouble recalling it chiefly because he didn’t think his name much mattered.
“Nothing. Thinking out loud. Trying to figure out exactly what we’re supposed to be looking for.”
The guard made a grunt of acceptance, nodding his head but saying no more.
That was fine by Gordan. There was enough conversation going on in his own head.
What was he doing? Was he really laying contumely on the people whom he not long ago counted himself numbered among? He’d been an armsman. He’d been Sir Valad’s armsman. Even now, the thought of his liege lord dead caused his eyes to begin welling up, his fists to clench, and his jaw to set. He mastered these things with only mild effort, but he still had to make an actual, conscious effort to claim control over his wounded heart and mind.
Valad had been a friend, a mentor, and something of a father to the boys. The boys? None of them had been boys for years. Gordan, himself, was twenty-eight now. This made him two years older than Barnic, three years older than Jastar, and one year younger than Raegus and Aethan. He was, he realized, and not for the first time, the middle child, so he’d been stuck accepting Barnic’s will.
What would you have told me, Valad? It only took him a moment to work that puzzle out, and when he did, he snorted lightly, allowing a wry smirk to lift the left side of his mouth. You would’ve told me to pay more attention to the guards beneath my command, and at the very least, to learn their damned names.
The voice of that good old man came back to him now, replacing the inner voice of his own mind. It made his smile broaden.
If you have no respect for them, how can you expect them to show any respect to you? Fear? Perhaps, but that will only hold while you’re there to enforce it. Fear and intimidation, much like intelligences, decay rapidly, away from their sources. If you want them to respect you when you aren’t around, as well as when you’re in their presence, you must respect the men you command.
He sighed, ignoring the quirked look of curiosity the guard threw at him from the corner of his eye. Didn’t you ever get bored with being right, Valad? With a shake of his head, he found that he had an answer for that, too. No, of course not—just with the rest of us being wrong.
With another soft snort at his own expense, Sir Gordan refocused on the task at hand, resolving to go on better than he’d begun.
Eastshadow stood as the settlement closest to the county’s northern edge. The river, some three leagues and a bit more to the north, created a natural barrier, marking their practical borders—those which they could control and maintain. While the Thorion Throne officially claimed ownership over an additional seven leagues beyond the river, no enforcement or patrol roamed so far.
Because Her Ladyship’s coach and coterie—her ramble and retinue—claim dominion over that patch. Nobody really wanted to try their hand at wrestling it away from death’s own bride.
The Shivering Song even now, thinking about the horror she represented, was enough to send a chill up his spine. For centuries—since time first told, or so they said, the area north of the river had been the stuff of cradle tales for indolent children, dares for idiot youths, and boasts for intoxicated fools. It was green and wonderful, lush and wild, save the bleak marshland that slowly fed the river as it ran westward. The lands were ruled from the only construction north of the river for days of travel.
The Shivering Song reigned over a court of Hamara Fe—dusk fae: terrible and unending monsters of wicked, deadly repute.
Her Ladyship would ride within her courtly carriage, the Coach Devour. It was said to be drawn by eight magnificent stallions, their death wounds on display, ghostly blood, and viscera trailing behind, dripping off of them in the moonlight. That light pervaded, somehow—whether the sky was blank and grey or bright and clear.
Her soldiery came with her. They escorted the Coach Devour, ensuring that the lonely lady could tour the countryside, lamenting in peace, looking for some lost love, singing for her sundered kin.
It had long since been said—was sworn to by many of the county’s older residents—that on nights of the new, half, or full moon, all and sundry were to beware the mist and stay indoors. Were mortal man, woman, or child to be found out upon the road, in field, or near fen, the bright lady and her outriders would find the unlucky soul, take them into the Coach Devour, lull them to sleep, and carry them back across the river to the Hamara Fe lands beyond.
Never would such an unfortunate be seen again unless it were as one of the Shivering Song’s coterie of soldiers, on the lookout for the next prize found wandering the world when all the air grew cold.
He’d marveled at the men of this place … and the women, indeed, even the children, once upon a dreaming day. That they could live in the very shadow of the Shivering Song and work and toil—that they had the fearlessness to carve out normal-seeming lives with her so very close at hand—had always filled him with a quiet awe.
That, however, was before he’d arrived here with his brothers-in-arms—before he’d survived Westsong.
Now that he was here, Eastshadow seemed more or less a place like any other. The village was more structured than most, but that had been due to Sir Cedric’s well-ordered mind, and he was now gone.
Gordan paced along the parapet, trying to gauge the hour. It was frustratingly early yet. He looked at his fellows, stood along the wall, and was annoyed to see an utter lack of fatigue and discontent.
His first thought was that these men would never be worthy of knighthood. They were too content with their lot in life. The thought made him smile. A moment later, his face fell. He bowed his head in silent recrimination.
That was unworthy. They act with diligence. I act in pride at my station—a station I was granted due to extraordinary events, not my extraordinary self.
He fetched a sigh and turned to look out over the village, or township, or whatever one called such a place.
Eastshadow was a collection of palisades. Each section held its own small silo for grain, its own small herd of livestock—cows and sheep, mostly, turned out most nights, and its own well. It gave the impression of a military camp that had been taken over by the descendants of its original soldiers. A lovely tale, but the truth was far less romantic.
It was common knowledge that Sir Cedric’s father had been killed and his holdings raided by a pack of bandits and sell-swords. Cedric had been expected to give chase, to make vows to hunt them to Skolf’s own seam. Instead, he set about borrowing the Throne’s craftsmen and paying nearby manors for timber and iron.
The result was a single, long lane bordered on either side and at one end by these wooden fortifications.
If anyone should breach one such palisade, they would be sealed into that area and either filled with arrows or burned alive along with that section of the township.
One man’s practicality is another man’s romance, I suppose.
He’d been out here under a mostly moonless sky for the best part of two hours. They hadn’t seen anything more interesting than a vixen leading her children through the tall grasses southeast of town.
The sound had stiffened his spine with a quickness, to be sure. He’d heard the rustling and immediately thought back to Westsong. He saw the movement in the grass and began trembling with fear, drawing in breath to shout alarm before one of the guardsmen—the one who’d spoken a moment ago, he was sure of it—pointed out the vixen.
Falxes fall, Gordan, have your nerves really been shot full of that many holes or stretched to that much incredulity? The appearance of a vixen and her cubs running through the grass at night sets your teeth itching, chills down your spine, and a need to feel your sword in your hand? It’s all just … wrong!
His world had been turned upside down, and he had no idea how to right it. Giving Eastshadow to Barnic made sense. That, he admitted once more, was true enough. Barnic was their leader, had been the senior squire, was more levelheaded, and consistently outclassed them all in terms of skill at arms on a near-constant basis. Of course, he would get the earliest harvest. That made sense, bitter as it was to choke down, and Gordan had done his best not to begrudge it.
Won’t be long before you and the others are given your due. You can rely on that, and you know it. So why are you seething about the state of things?
“Sir Gordan?” This was the same guardsman, but he was speaking quietly as if trying to maintain confidentiality.
Gordan looked at him, raising his eyebrows by way of both acknowledgement and question.
“Movement from the south and east… mainly the east.” There was a softness to the man’s voice as if he were uncertain of what he was saying … or perhaps of his permission to say it.
“What of it? Probably just another fox.”
“Nay, sir.” The guard sounded ominous, somehow.
“What do you mean, no? How can you possibly tell? And if not a fox, what?” Gordan hoped he sounded more annoyed than afraid, given he wasn’t certain which one of those two currently held chief position in his mind or heart. Something in the guard’s tone and body language chilled him, though he couldn’t place what.
“Sniff the air. Tell me what ee’smell, sir.”
Gordan complied with this strange request. He drew first a shallow, then a deeper draft of sweet night air. That had been his intent, at any rate. The scent which assaulted his nose was anything but sweet. There was a smell like carrion and rot. It was distant enough not to make his gorge rise, but not by much. He could smell it, and smelling it made his skin crawl as if he’d been touching its source.
“Storms be swift!” This ancient farmers’ stave escaped him in a sighing rush. He was too stunned and sickened to be afraid and too afraid to be authoritative. “What in hells is it? What vile thing could—would choose to be heralded by such a stench?”
“Goblins, sir,” the guard’s voice was hollow, though it sounded steady enough. “Goblins, or I’m the countess’s long-lost heir. That stench comes out of the mountains this time of year, although ’ey rarely move this close to town. Every now and again, ’ey’ll get ’ungry enough no’ to fear if we kill one or two of ’em, but that’s all.”
Then why the hells do you sound and seem so damned worried?
A moment later and Gordan answered his own question.
“How much movement did you see? Can you pinpoint and quietly pass the word to any archers we have on the wall?” Gordan’s voice was steadier than he felt it had any business being. His lips were numb, and he was sure he’d broken out in a cold sweat.
“Aye, mi’lord. I make eight. A thing to note, though.” The guard did his best to deliver this next sentence with as plain and unemotional a tone as he could muster. “’Ey usually travel in triads.” This meant that the eight separate movements spotted in the tall grasses might mean as many as a score or more goblins waiting to pounce.
Gordan nodded, made a dismissive gesture with the altogether numb fingers of his left hand, and watched with some small satisfaction as the guard moved off as instructed. With slow deliberation, he passed the word.