33. Foresight

“Seers, witches, bone readers and the rest of their ilk are well regarded throughout Tymir. Though most especially outside of the cities of Vendrick and Timilir. Personally, I can hardly see why. Throughout my life I’ve been subjected to all manner of ill sounding and foreboding prophecies, and none have ever occurred.

Perhaps these portents are better intended for the weaker minded.

Even as a young man, I have always known where I was headed. I did not need some decrepit hermit to tell me where to go next.

I once read that greatness is a block of granite that you must break apart and chew one bite at a time. I suspect destiny is much the same. Not to meted out by strange souls who should have otherwise been ostracized and outlawed by their settlements, but to be forged with one’s own feet. Keep walking forward, and you will always find your way.

So says Isleif the Bard without want or need for reverence and repayment.”

“You know, Sam,” Hakon said, “yesterday I was worried out of my mind.”

Both men walked down a shadowed dirt path, towards the dark outline of a hut built beneath Fenkirk’s wall. There were strings hung from the entryway and they were each adorned with bones, which twisted, clattered and rattled in the sighing wind.

Sam shivered at the noise, even as the shafts on his back clonked together in time with his stride. He looked over to the light of writhing bonfires, burning fiercely and wildly in the distance, flames rending through blackness as if they hated the night.

“But this old woman,” Hakon continued, “told me that a dark visitor would come and save me, well not save me, but release me. Set me free.” A smile creased his scarred face. “That’s you, Sam. Can’t be no doubt. I’m not sure how. By looking at you, I’m really not sure how, but I’m certain you’ll get us out of this mess. Unless this woman tells me you won’t, and then—I’m being honest now because we’re friends—you’ll want to reach for a blade quick. Or one of your spears, eh?”

“Because you’ll murder me?”

Hakon laughed, clapping the barkeeper on the back. “Don’t think of it like that, Sam. Think of it like me trying to kill the man who turned up out of nowhere at night with a cart full of mining equipment, even though we’re surrounded by goblins and no other traveler has gotten through. Try to think of it like that. Try to look at it from my point of view, how bloody worrying you’d be if you weren’t here to save me.”

Sam slowed to a stop, gathering his courage. “I’ve had enough of you, Hakon. Pretending some gods-damned woman lives in that shack. Bringing me out here to murder me for whatever mad reasons you’ve cooked up. You want to fight then lets have done with it out here, but I’ve had enough—more than enough of your games.”

“That was a little aggressive.” Hakon stared in confusion. “There is an old woman in there, Sam. You can trust me on that.” He upturned his palms. “I’ll fight you out here if that’s what you want, I’ll oblige you that much. I tell you what, if the Bone Lady says you’re a bad egg, then we’ll come outside and we can do it all by the proper rules. Make a duel of it. That’ll let you use your spears, and I know how fond you are of those.”

Sam stared at the man, coat of mail and blue shirt both blending into black, scarred face at home in the shadows, glistening eyes catching the distant light of wrathful bonfires. “There’s an old woman in that shack?”

Hakon smiled. “Yes! If I wanted to kill you Sam I would have cut your throat when you first came in. Let’s not forget that every other man on my militia wanted you dead. If it wasn’t for me you’d have had been murdered a hundred times over.”

Sam stepped towards the clattering bones.

“You’re a funny man, Sam,” Hakon happily continued. “A little slow though. I’m worried we’ll get told our past instead of our future.”

Sam didn’t answer, Hakon grunted, and both men walked on in silence. The rattling strings grew louder now they approached. Sam could see faint light escaping from under the door, but he kept his hand on his dagger all the same.

“I’ll go first.” Hakon stepped ahead, and smirked back. “Don’t want you to scare her with that face of yours.”

Sam stopped and waited, listened to the rattle as Hakon pushed through the hanging bones. The door creaked, letting more light bleed out into the dark. Sam listened to a murmured conversation, to silence, and Hakon came back a minute after that.

Hakon beckoned him forward. “Come on.”

Sam walked through the bones, shuddered at the cold touch and the odd smell. He held his breath and kept his head low.

The Bone Lady’s hut was no more than a circular room. A large black rug covered most the floor, covered in turn by an eclectic mix of animal skeletons, woven pictures, scraps of paper, tattered books, and a few plates of uneaten food. Dozens of strings of bone dangled and rattled from the roof.

The Bone Lady herself lay wrapped over in grey rags and black blankets.

Sam couldn’t tell where her face was, or whether she lay on her back. He was half convinced it was just a pile of cloth.

Hakon had taken the only seat in the place, an old rocking chair. He sat beside a cabinet, holding his palm over the fat candle that lit the small space. “This is Sam. He’s from Horvorr.” The bones rattled and he frowned at Sam. “She says to close the door behind you.”

Sam glanced back at the open door. He knew no woman spoke. Hakon was a mad man asking advice from an imagined friend.

“Leave it open,” a rasping voice insisted. “And don’t presuppose to speak for—” The Bone Lady hacked wet coughs. “Me.”

Hakon shrugged in indifference. “I wanted Sam to think that I was hearing voices.”

“I fear this one has already been tricked, more times than he would like… more times than he knows.”

Sam thought to ask about his son, stayed by some part of him that recoiled at the notion. He had heard bad news from an amiable stranger in his own tavern. He didn’t want to risk hearing a prophecy in a place that reminded him of death.

The Bone Lady’s pile of rags moved. “Come here, Sam.”

“Hurry it up, Sam,” Hakon said. “I need to be on the walls.”

Sam looked at the rag-covered woman, then to mad-eyed Hakon. “What did I do to deserve this?”

The Bone Lady rasped a laugh. “What have you done to not deserve it?”

Sam stepped over a wooden plate of molding bread. He found space to kneel at the foot of the bed, between stacks of books covered in dusty blankets. He tried not to breathe too deeply, because a smell of decay drafted up from gaps in the Bone Lady’s blanket.

“I see you now,” the Bone Lady purred. “I see you, husband of dark waters. I see you, companion of broken men, old friend of misery… herald of The Interloper.”

Hakon’s eyes narrowed. “I just need to know when he dies.”

A sweeping gust made mad play with the shadows and a foreboding song of the bones.

“He will die in his wife’s arms.”

“Good.” Hakon nodded. “So our Sam has come to save us?”

A stillness settled in the air while the strings twisted in the candlelight.

“No.” The Bone Lady groaned under her blanket. “He is a man that saves only himself. He will be the death of you, Oath Breaker.”

Hakon gritted his teeth. “Is that right?”

Sam watched him from the corner of his eye, saw him grow tense and sit forward in his chair.

“Yes,” the Bone Lady hissed. “Kill him! Kill him now, or he will be the end of you. It must end here! He has been defiled by unnatural forces. He is walking death. Herald of The Interloper!”

Hakon roared off of the rocking chair and Sam rolled back over the moldy bread.

Sam had his dagger up and out, ready to at least try. The Bone Lady let out a weak and haunting scream.

“No!” Hakon yelled, slashing at the blanket, cutting through cloth and flesh. “No. No. No.” He stabbed her with each refusal. “No… No. No. No… No.” He hacked down at black blankets, now ruined and soaked with blood. “You’re wrong!” he shouted, breath ragged. “You’re wrong. Sam doesn’t die. Not again, not anymore. Tell me the truth!” He kicked her ruined body. “Tell me the truth. At least deny you’re lying. At least—” Hakon shook his head. “No? Not even that. Well I’ll leave you to think on it, Bone Lady. I’ll leave you to…” He seemed to notice the blood and the flesh, his own stained blade. “You believe that, Sam?”

Sam stared in shock. He tried to speak and retched.

“She lunged at me,” Hakon explained. “Get up, you soft bastard.” He hauled the barkeeper off the ground and dragged him out of the hut. “It’s like you’ve never seen a murderous old woman before.”

Sam started to gag, and dropped to his knees.

Hakon paced by, shaking his head. “Hurry up with that, Sam. We need to get to the walls.”

***

Sam stood atop the wooden walls of Fenkirk. He had view of the shadowed town twelve feet below. The buildings still standing appeared abandoned, huddled behind fresh ditches and makeshift fences, warmed only by the faint glow of dying pyres.

Hakon paced back and forth, gripping his bloodied sword. He slowed to a stop, and scowled up at the huge cloud-shrouded moon. “Sam.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Sam held his five-foot spear ahead of him. “Yes?”

“Do you think it’s true… what they say about women killers. That they end up in the Lady’s Shadow?”

“I wouldn’t know. Look… I’m not going to tell anyone what happened. I don’t even have anyone to tell. So whatever you’re thinking…”

Hakon frowned. “I’m thinking I’m not going to tell anyone either. Can’t have people knowing an old woman almost got the jump on me… just like that yeti.” He sheathed his sword, and sighed. “We’re just guarding a wall, Sam. Nothing more than that happening here. I know I told you I’d kill you. But when it came to it, I couldn’t. I’m not best pleased that the Bone Lady tried to kill me for not going along with her plan, but there it is. That’s life, Sam. Sometimes a yeti tries to rip your face open, sometimes women get old and crazy and someone needs to put them out their misery, like The Mayor, you understand? Only they decided to let him suffer,” Hakon mentioned. “Well, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Sam stared at the scarred man, feeling sick, almost sorry for him. “I don’t—”

“All you need to know is that it was us or her, Sam. Be glad I saved you.” Hakon’s black eyes trembled with regret. “I won’t not save you again, you understand? Not now I’ve got another chance.” He leaned out over the parapet. “We better watch for goblins, Sam. We better watch for the monsters in the night.”

Sam shifted his spear to one hand. He walked over to the parapet. He made grim study of the goblin bodies, sprawled across the forest floor, skewered and staked in the ditches, some lean and wolfish, others fat and porcine. “They all look different.”

Hakon chuckled. “You not seen goblins before, Sam? I’ve cut all kinds of them open, some with their bat-faces, others with their snouts. Some of ‘em howl and snarl and think they’re wolves. I’ve cut the claws off some, fat fingers off others. Hack through em, hack, hack, hack. It’s like wood. I’m a goblin lumberer. Only you can’t sell bits of dead flesh… unless they’re cows, or sheep.” Hakon’s gaze turned ponderous. “Maybe you can sell dead flesh… or eat it.” He turned to Sam. “Do you think we should go down there and bring some in?”

“No. No, I don’t.”

Hakon shrugged. “It was just a thought.” He sniffed, appearing a little glum now he watched the shadowed forest. “You know I’ve been thinking about what the bone lady said.” He noticed Sam grow tense. “About me, I mean. About setting me free. I just remembered she didn’t say you would set me free, she said that you would set my spirit free.” He scratched at his scarred cheek. “Is it just me, or does that sound like she’s saying I’m going to die?”

“I don’t think it matters,” Sam dismissed. “She said I would die in the arms of a wife I haven’t seen for years.”

“Hm.” Hakon nodded. “Maybe you’ll find yourself a second wife?” He chuckled. “Just do me a favour and don’t get married to the lass before we’re clear of this.”

Sam frowned at the scarred man, not understanding him at all. “I’ll try not to.”

“I’ll get you clear of this, Sam,” Hakon’s promise shook with emotion. “It isn’t like the yeti. Not this time.”

Sam realised the scarred man suffered some sort of delusion. He feared telling him the truth. “I’m not sure who you think I am… but I’m only here by chance. I left my tavern to save my son, and I don’t want to die in this town.”

“You won’t,” Hakon assured, certainty returned. “I’ll hack them off, Sam. The arms. Your whore wife can’t kill you if I cut off her arms.” He scowled into the darkness. “Tell me if you see her coming. I don’t like to be caught unawares.”

A shrill horn pierced through the shadowed forest, drowned by the flutter of a hundred birds taking flight into the darkness.

“What was—”

Hakon raised his hand. “I may have brought this on myself.”

The same note sounded, rising high and rumbling low, as dozens of horns began to toot and blare in a discordant chorus, then roars rolled above the song, through the forest and up to the walls of Fenkirk. Hakon lifted a bronze horn from his own belt, bringing it to his lips. It sounded out with a deep note that seemed to carry for miles and reverberate through the air long after he had stopped blowing.

“Listen, Sam!” Hakon shouted. “You keep your head low. Low, you hear me? Loose some arrows if you want, but don’t stand about looking like some gods-damned scarecrow!” He placed a hand on the man’s slim shoulder. “Me and you, Sam! We’re in this together!”

A squeal and chatter started from the forest as if made by a thousand angry bats; more horns punctuated the din; fearsome roars rolled over all. Shadowed figures crawled all over the forest floor, so many stood together that it was hard to see which limbs belonged to which goblin. They were looking up at Sam, most flailing their arms.

“Get down!” Hakon leapt on him, throwing them both against the wall-walk. Stones sailed overhead or crunched and clattered into nearby wood. “Stay here.” He used the parapet to pull himself up, then tossed the brass horn at Sam. “Blow this!”

Hakon stared down at the goblin host with disinterested eyes. He could hear and feel rocks smashing into the wood below or flying by his face. It didn’t bother him, because he knew he wouldn’t die. He knew that this wasn’t a world where good things happened. Hakon often wondered if he had made himself immortal by turning into such an odd bastard. He sighed amid the hail of projectiles. Here was the place that he finally belonged: madness ahead of him, panic behind him. Men who didn’t deserve to die waking from their beds, scrambling from tables for helmets and shields, pissing their breaches as they ran to the field. They would all pray.

Hakon knew people always prayed to the gods in times of panic, and there was one thing that unified every single prayer: they all went unanswered.

He glanced down at the lean man blowing the horn on the wall walk. He wasn’t sure if it was Sam or it wasn’t Sam. He wasn’t sure if a stranger had come in the night or if a ghost had come out from the cold.

Hakon watched the approach of a hurtling stone, which seemed aimed for his face but veered by his cheek.

Hundreds of goblins were running into the wall below. They made a song of wooden thumps, excited squeaks, grunts of efforts, and screams of pain. They were skewering themselves in the pits, scratching each other, biting each other, trampling each other.

“These logs cut themselves,” Hakon mused aloud, barely heard over the blaring horns, over the shouting and cursing of men.

Hakon raised his gaze further afield. He had overseen the felling of most the trees north of Fenkirk. He had watched the huts and shacks made there burn. He had ordered the gates closed despite the men and women fleeing for safety and calling for help. He had seen their scratch marks on the wood in the morning.

Bloodied nails buried into the grain. He had seen the broken bodies as well.

Hakon was not at all concerned about the horde spilling forth to surround his town. He wasn’t worried by what was, but what wasn’t. He had saved his people by deciding which people were no longer his. He had no more land to cede or people to spare.

The goblins had settled into a happy rhythm of squabbling and throwing stones. They piled about the base of the wall, clawing and leaping at the wood to no avail. Hakon’s gaze shifted to a gargantuan goblin approaching from between two trees. “Great Chief.”

The Great Chief towered over the other goblins, standing twice as wide and four times as tall. It looked almost like an ugly man, a man uglier than Hakon, a man with ungainly limbs and long bones that pressed against green flesh.

A man that stood twice as tall as any other man.

Hakon smiled now the gargantuan goblin hoisted and hurled a spear. He drew his sword, and watched a fast flight that seemed slow to him, purposeful. He swung his blade down when the urge took him. Metal clanged against wood and the spear buried by his foot. Hakon frowned down at the shaft, caressed it as if in disbelief.

Sam’s eyes widened on the spear. “What are you doing?”

Hakon pulled a throwing spear from Sam’s back, then raised the weapon aloft. “I’m proving I’m the better Chief!”

The Great Chief stared up at him, then let out a thunderous roar that stopped stone hail and quieted blaring horns. Silence descended outside of Fenkirk’s wall, while the men inside had finally gathered and were making their ascent up the ladders.

A pair of young boys scurried past Sam, placing a bunch of arrows into the bucket beside him.

“Sam,” Hakon said, breathing deep the still air. “If you had to choose, stars or the moon?”

Sam hesitated. “Moon?”

Hakon shrugged as he took a step back. He readied the spear, lining it with the gargantuan goblin, then launched it at the moon. The men of Fenkirk’s Militia fell to silence, all eyes watching the flight of the spear towards the Great Chief.

The gargantuan goblin stood steadfast, snatched out for the shaft, fingers closing as the spear burst through its skull. The creature toppled.

Hakon laughed, but his mirth lapsed at the militia’s loud cheer. He worried he had made himself a hero. He knew that heroes died all the time.

A goblin horn blared out a shrill note, others followed, and the horde below hurled more stones. Hakon almost considered diving to the wall-walk. He almost flinched at a pair of stones that came close, while the rest went elsewhere, or crunched into the heads of better men. He sighed. “I still can’t be killed.”

Sam scowled up at him. “What did you say?”

“Loose some arrows, Sam! You lazy bastard.” Hakon unslung his own bow, bending down beside the bucket of arrows.

Sam crouched on the opposite side, brows still furrowed. “Aren’t you going to tell the others what to do?”

“I hadn’t considered it.” Hakon shrugged. “You should all fight until you die!” He glanced at the dark figures of men, hunched by the walls, peeking and loosing arrows when they could. “They can’t hear me. What’s your excuse?”

Sam shook his head. He leaned over the parapet, loosing his arrow into a mound of goblins, uncertain which he hit.

“They give up after a while!” Hakon assured.

Goblins writhed at the bottom of the walls, clambering atop one another, growing close enough to see the bewildered smiles on their gaunt faces. Dozens more of their sturdier kin flooded out from the shadowed trees carrying crude ladders.

A trio of massive goblins, twice as wide as the gargantuan goblin, lumbered out from forest as well. The Great Chiefs paused at a distance from the main host, standing as spectators amid the blackened ruins of farmsteads.

Hakon narrowed his dark eyes. “No, wait. We’re dead.”

“Ladders!” sounded out along the wall, words half-drowned by clambering goblins that screeched and scrabbled in an endless cacophony.

Hakon crouched back down. “If you see a ladder, kick it back.”

Sam nodded, drawing his bow. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

Sam leaned over the parapet to loose another arrow. Excited screeching erupted now a ladder thudded into the wood beside his head.

“Look at that, Sam!” Hakon excitedly declared. “New plan, though! Grab the end, and we’ll use it to climb down below! There’ll be goblins digging through by now!”

They took one end of the ladder each, then they hauled it up and across the wall-walk. A pair of surprised goblins still clung to the other end of it, and they hurtled towards Sam and Hakon now the ladder dropped to the town below.

Hakon cut through one’s head then reached over and split the back of the other. “Where’s your spear, Sam?” He shook his head, and ran over to grab the shaft and horn. “Get down the ladder!”

Sam started down the rungs while Hakon blew three sharp notes in short succession. Hakon hewed through a scrawny goblin as it clambered over the wall. He repeated the horn sequence, then followed after Sam.

Fenkirk’s Militia began their descent of the wall-walk, some as quickly as they could, others tossing dead friends before they fled. The men pulled their own ladders down afterwards, leaving the goblins that clambered onto the walls to stand at the top and squeak in confusion.

Sam’s vision shifted as he was dragged to the side.

“Careful,” Hakon warned. A goblin thumped into the mud beside them both. “They like to shove each other off.”

He handed him the spear, then lifted the horn again, blowing four notes. Groups of men along the churned ground went to work lifting ropes that were tied to the wooden supports of the wall-walk.

Hakon waited until dozens of goblins crowded the wall, then blew four sharp notes.

Fenkirk’s Militia heaved in unison to tear the supports from the wall.

Wood crunched and goblins screamed. The dozens above tumbled down in a rain of debris and flesh, crashing into the mud with a great thud and clatter. Hakon blew a single long note and Fenkirk’s Militia charged forward. They roared with shared anger while they hacked through jumbled limbs and misshapen faces.

Sam stumbled after them, disconcerted by the wet crack of bone and flesh. He looked down at a trapped goblin, whining and writhing, and drove his spear between the frightened eyes.

Sam let go of the shaft, bile rising to his throat while goblins thumped into the ground around him, while shadowed men stabbed and slashed at the reaches of his blurry vision.

He knew he wouldn’t live out the night. He had to hope that the prophecy had all been a lie, that he had been sent here to die on the sick whim of a charlatan. He prayed to Muradoon, offering up his soul to safeguard his son’s own.

Sam looked to the night sky in pleading, barely glimpsing the leaping goblin overhead.