39. Fallen Brother

“Two days in, and we have met with disaster. The well-loved sons of The Mayor of Fenkirk have been savaged by a rogue yeti. I have never seen an animal attack a man with such blind purpose. Sam the Storyteller is dead. Hakon the Hero lived up to his name by butchering the beast, even after it had clawed through his face.

He has not long to live, so I have sent a party to bring both brothers back home. Despite their assurances, I do not expect those who go to take the boys will ever return. I could see in their eyes the fear that this expedition is cursed. I can see that fear in every man with us. I wonder if they see it in me.”

“Sam?” Hakon asked. “Sam!”

Sam murmured on the ground, opening his eyes to a blinding blue sky. He squinted, and gagged at the smell of spilled filth and rotting meat. He reached out for a handhold, but caught hold of slippery flesh instead.

Hakon frowned down in distaste, making his scars appear all the worse. “You’ve just put your hands in a man’s innards, Sam.” He offered his hand. “Here, I’ll help—” He jerked it back. “The other hand, Sam. I’ll help you up by your clean hand.”

Sam groaned on the floor. He managed a drunken effort at holding out his other hand.

“Careful now,” Hakon said, pulling him up. “You fell down in the thick of it. There you were one second poking goblins with your spear, and then the next you were gone. And then the wall was gone… and well, I wanted to save you, Sam, I did, but then I decided it was better to save myself and come back for you later. Spare you the Lady’s Shadow at the least.”

Sam swayed where he stood. “Where am I?”

Hakon scrutinised Sam, paying no mind to the wreckage of the wall behind him, broken open to the corpse-littered forest beyond. Goblins still squirmed and screeched around them, broken in the ditches or skewered on stakes. The sun baked the churned ground, heating up festering flesh and lending a new stink of death to Fenkirk.

“You’re not wounded, Sam,” Hakon said, almost as a warning. He jabbed a finger between Sam’s eyebrows. “Look at me, Sam. I don’t abide weakness in my militia. Not even in you. So—” He slapped him hard across the cheek. “Snap yourself out of it. And follow me.”

Sam blinked down at the ground, his head lolling. He only kept standing by Hakon’s grip on his shoulder. He started to notice the mutilated man by his feet, ripped open at the belly, his innards chewed. He looked farther afield, but he could see no mud, only a layer of dead goblins, misshapen and broken, missing limbs. “There’s so many dead.”

Hakon barked laughter. “I lost thirty men, Sam. And we killed what? A few hundred? That’s not many. That’s nowhere close to what we need. I lost my gods-damned wall, Sam. I made another, sure, but it’s not so good as the old one, is it? And now I’ve had to give half my town away.” He grumbled quietly to himself. “It doesn’t matter, Sam. Come on.” He dragged him along, glaring back whenever the lanky man slipped or tripped on a corpse.

Ahead of them was the rest of Fenkirk, most of it hidden behind a makeshift wall of hammered boards and upturned carts. The barrier stretched from one end of the log wall to the other, bolstered by lines of ditches, fences, and stakes. The dirt gleamed in places as if swords and spears had been buried into the earth.

Sam saw how few buildings the town had left. A sprawl of obstacles, a few tall buildings, and a scattering of homes. “It’s all gone.”

“What did you expect, Sam?” Hakon snapped. “That I’ll leave homes standing for goblins when their owners are long dead?” He shook his head. “I don’t accommodate ghosts. It wasn’t even my idea, you know. The Mayor wanted it done after what happened to Horvorr’s Guard on the Snake Basin Path. He’d been talking to the Bone Lady you see, and she’d made him awful frightened. The uproar, Sam. The uproar of it when we started forcing people out their houses.”

“Hakon!” a blond lad called. He stood waiting in the wide gap at the middle of the makeshift wall. He looked no older than fourteen years, but had a grimy sword at his belt, and a battered shield on his back. “The villagers are getting restless. They want to talk, or see what’s happened, or leave the workshop.”

“Boy.” Hakon dipped his head in greeting. “Tell them that I’ll—”

A shrill horn sounded in the distance.

Hakon let him Sam go, but he caught his balance. “Did you hear that?”

The sound rang out again, soon joined by other horns. Sam thought it a much quieter chorus now they were away from the old wall.

Hakon let out a long sigh, his scarred face lax, his dark eyes truly miserable. “Boy,” he said to the blond lad. “Tell them I’ll talk to them this evening. But keep a guard and let no one out… and do pass word we need to mount another defense.”

The boy ran off down the churned road towards Atli’s workshop, which was the widest structure of those left standing.

“Sam.” Hakon placed a hand on his shoulder, and smiled. “I need to sort some things. Run along that side of the wall, and look for the old man that looks like a Trapper. Tell him I want flames if a demon comes in. You understand?”

Sam nodded.

“Then why aren’t you running?”

Sam ran along the makeshift wall, noticing then that it had been comprised of any houses that stood along the intended line. Those houses were missing a back wall, which gave view of the men that kept watch on the battleground from open shutters.

Young men and old men. Men with different cuts of hair and beard, men who had shaved all clear to avoid being dragged or grappled. The remnant militia sharpened weapons, spoke nervously, or prayed, not to Brikorhaan for glory in battle or an honourable victory, but to Muradoon instead, begging that the One-eyed God would spare them the Lady’s Shadow.

Sam slowed to a stop at the end of Fenkirk’s log wall, not having seen any man that stood out as a trapper. They all wore the same stained blue shirts, muddied coats of mail, and padded wool. Most appeared filthy and exhausted.

“You,” said a wary voice from above. “You got a reason to be standing about?”

Sam looked up to the remnant wall-walk, seeing a pair of fur boots. He stepped back, getting view of the old man above him.

The man wore a tight-fitting jerkin, brown-colored and trimmed with fur. He had a bow on his back, five small blades at his belt, and a knotted string around his neck, adorned with teeth and a bone-carved idol of Laykia the Huntress.

“Are you the trapper?” Sam asked.

“Did Hakon send you?” the old man asked and Sam nodded. “Then I’m the man you’re looking for. What did he say?”

“He said he wants flames… if a demon comes in.”

“Speak up!” the Trapper shouted, his own strained voice struggling with the growing din of squeals and horns.

“He wants flames!” Sam repeated. “If a demon comes in!”

The Trapper barked laughter. “I know that! Tell him I ain’t stupid!” He lifted the bone-carved idol to his lips. “Wish me luck, Goddess of The Hunt.”

“What?” Sam asked, but the man had turned, so he ran back the way he had come while boys hurried past him handing out arrows as they had before, though there seemed to be a lot fewer to go around.

“Weapons!” Hakon’s harsh voice roared in the distance. “If you want something to throw!” He stood at the head of a cart, piled with axes, spears, swords, and daggers. The leather-capped man from the armoury stood beside him. Hakon started shouting at the man, who gathered up weapons in his arms and ran over to hand them out to the broken houses. “Sam!” Hakon smiled now he approached. “What did the Trapper say?”

Sam watched the gap in the mismatched fence as goblins poured in through the old, broken wall. “He said he already knew.”

“He knew?” Hakon’s frown made his scarred face ugly and vicious. “Then why did you bother running down there to tell him?”

Sam glanced at him but remained silent.

“Never mind,” Hakon dismissed. “You’re with me, Sam.” He drummed his fingers on his own shaved head. “We’re all dead, I think. All dead. Ah well, what can you do about that? Nothing, really. But I think we should fight all the same. If something’s going to hack you to pieces you might as well join in on the fun.” He smirked in good humour. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Sam found himself saying, his lips curling into a fatalistic smile.

***

Sam clutched at a spear, treading purposely forward.

Smoke choked the maddened night and the air stank of cooked flesh. He had fought alone in a town lit by distant fires, spared not even the kindness of silence. Horns had been blown for all the hours passed, ringing in his aching ears, rising with each wave of goblins that charged through the broken walls of Fenkirk.

Sam had witnessed an enthusiasm that he could he only describe as childlike. The goblins would be happy, excited, until someone hacked off a limb, until they broke a bone, or stepped onto the jutting blade of a buried sword. Then they became like scared children, wanting nothing more than for the stakes to change, wanting nothing more than to flee and be healed.

He had seen that in the light of day though, when the makeshift wall still held unbroken. Goblins had since clogged the ditches, brought down the stakes with mass alone. They had clambered over the crates and carts in such a number that Hakon sent half the men to guard the workshop. Sam wasn’t sure that the goblins would even go there. He morbidly wondered if the night now hid a town full of goblins cowering in corners, whimpering and wounded.

Sam slowed to a stop now he drew in sight of the weapon cart. Goblins covered the ground around it, bodies stretching back towards the gap in the makeshift wall as if a wave ran out of water.

A goblin clambered onto the cart beside him. Sam lurched forward and skewered it as it landed. He tried to kick the body off but the shaft snapped. He opened his mouth to curse, but he was thrown back. His head thumped into the mud. He glimpsed a rounded face before claws raked at his cheeks. He lashed out and stabbed the broken shaft into flesh. The porcine goblin choked, groping at a bleeding neck.

Sam forced the weight off. He struggled to his feet. He reached for the knife at his belt, only to find it wasn’t there, then made an effort to sprint to the weapons cart, which made a slung spear slap his back. He slowed to a stop near a small goblin chewing on a dead man. Sam kicked it in the head, feeling a weak skull crack underfoot.

He considered the discordance of his compassion in thought and cruelty in practice.

“Get in here!” a gruff shout broke his disturbed reverie. Sam turned to see a handful of haggard men guarding a broken home. Three with battered shields, two with bloodied spears. They looked at him if they thought he was as mad as they seemed hopeless. “Come on,” the oldest urged. “You’re going to die out there.”

Sam glanced at the surrounding roads, where goblins scrambled forward into the abandoned town. “I need to fight.”

“Longer you live, longer you can fight.”

“I’m supposed to find Hakon.”

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“Come on in, then.” The youngest laughed, his tired face caked with blood. “You can see him through the shutters.”

The arrayed militia men parted when the barkeeper stepped forward. He crossed into the broken home to find two more men sat within: one that beaded with sweat, his arm so twisted and chewed that it would need to be hacked off; another that slumped in stillness, a bloodied shirt stuck to his gut, both arms slack at his sides.

The floorboards were coated with dark blood that hadn’t spared the walls.

Fires raged beyond the square frame of the window. They writhed in straight lines that divided the battlefield where ditches had once done the same. Sam realised that the smell of burnt meat was rising from goblin corpses. Dozens of living figures scampered and ran along dirt that was layered in their dead kin.

“I don’t see him,” Sam’s didn’t hear his own voice. “I don’t see Hakon!”

The old man turned him by the shoulder. “He’s there.”

Sam squinted and realised that one of the figures was a man covered in black blood. “How do you know it’s him?”

“How do I know?” the old man asked in disbelief. “Who else would it be?”

“He’s been shouting his brother’s name,” a calmer voice offered.

“I saw him lead a mad charge with some other men,” the old man muttered. “He just happens to be the only one still standing.”

Sam pressed his palms onto the sticky window frame. “We need to go and help him.”

“We don’t need to do anything.”

“We go out there,” the young man said, “then we’ll just end up dead. He’s fine because all of the goblins that pass by are too terrified to fight him.”

Sam watched in silence. He wasn’t afraid, but he didn’t want to get in the scarred man’s way. Hakon stalked like a dark monster amid the raging flames. He kept a brisk step with two glistening daggers in grip, carving into necks and thighs as smaller figures struggled to get away from him.

A larger goblin tried to stand and fight, but the man weaved and slashed until the goblin crumpled under the blades.

Hakon went on like that, on and on, until he was sliding and stumbling on uneven footing.

Sam was mesmerized by the play of light and the senseless slaughter. He startled when a goblin clambered through the window.

The old man skewered its skull. “I knew that was going to happen,” he snapped. “If you want to stay here, then guard the window. Or go back and wander the town. But I won’t have you taking up space like a gormless fool. Do you—”

A strangled roar ripped through the night air, bringing the horns to silence.

Hakon paused amid the killing field now a gargantuan creature approached, stride made odd by bowed legs.

Sam struggled to reconcile the size of the goblin. He wasn’t sure if he could even name it that. It wasn’t broad or bulky, only green flesh and thick muscle stretched over a hunched frame that would tower over any man.

Hakon appeared as a child in its shadow. He laughed, and clashed his daggers.

“I am Magaruk, Great Chief of the East!” the gargantuan goblin declared in a primal voice that Sam was surprised to understand. “You ended my brother the night before last, and I have come to revenge him. Do you accept my challenge?”

Hakon searched the burning fields around him, where goblins of all appearance watched in silence. “Of course!”

Sam was both fearful for the scarred man, and supremely glad the ravaged town had turned quiet. He let out a slow sigh and clambered through the window.

“They’re in a duel, you can’t—” A furious roar cut through the old man’s voice.

Sam glimpsed blades gleaming amid piled corpses and blood-soaked footing. He had to slow his stride while Hakon and Magaruk closed in the distance.

Hakon dived under a twin sweep of elongated arms. He crossed under the goblin’s bowed legs, dived clear before heels snapped together.

Despite the firelight, Sam struggled to keep track of the scarred man as he weaved around and sliced at the goblin’s long legs.

Magaruk kicked and thumped at the ground. He snarled in pain, lashing out, then tried to crouch. Hakon appeared behind and started to shred into green thighs with both daggers. He was slower to move when the goblin lurched. Sam thought that he had managed to side-step the blow but he was dragged up with the goblin’s huge fist instead. Magaruk paused mid-swing, leaving the scarred man hanging from both daggers.

Hakon wrenched a blade free, falling now the goblin tried for a grab. The goblin was still crouched when Hakon rolled between its bony legs.

Magaruk staggered back, and started to run in earnest. Hakon gave chase, drawing another dagger from his belt, brandishing both blades while he sprinted without caution across the corpses. The goblin turned to face the scarred man, and roared as ruined legs collapsed. It now seemed to watch his approach with resignation.

Hakon’s eyes were wide, dancing with fire, teeth gleaming.

He leapt towards the green chest.

Magaruk snatched the scarred man out of the air, gripping him from hip to shoulder. “You fight like a coward.”

Hakon smiled in silence before the goblin squeezed.

Magaruk watched the manling writhe with delight.

Sam charged forth with abandon, shoving his spear into a green armpit. He felt the blade tear through soft flesh then catch on bone. A horrid grating shook the shaft as he forced it higher, until it burst through a muscular shoulder. He shoved the spear further and it punctured the neck. He tried to twist and the shaft snapped.

The gargantuan goblin knelt frozen for a moment, then toppled back with ground shaking impact.

“Hakon?” Sam shouted. “Are—”

Shrill horns sounded out with a baleful tune amid a din of sorrowed screeching. Dozens of goblins scattered into a flight across dying ditch fires. A deeper horn resounded from behind the makeshift wall and the men of Fenkirk, those that had life left to fight, marched forward to slay stragglers and search for survivors.

“Sam.” Hakon’s laugh was pained. “Sam?”

“I’m here,” Sam barely recognised his own hoarse voice. “Can you stand?”

“I’m dead,” Hakon spoke the words without hesitation. “Are you… dead?”

Sam knelt beside the fallen man. “Not yet.”

Hakon’s scars were sheathed in goblin blood. He was a man made black by the slaughter. He managed a strained smile that seemed at odd contrast with his grim appearance. “I’m glad.”

Sam tried not to notice how the man’s broken arms had been crushed into his chest. “I’ll find someone who can help.”

“No.” Hakon struggled to shake his head. “I don’t—” He winced. “I won’t die like a fish… won’t die like The Mayor. I can live too long through this.” He wheezed laughter. “Saved me too soon and too late, that’s what you did. So now you need to set me free.” Tears welled in his troubled eyes. “Set me free and then that means you’ll find a new wife. Happy endings for us both.”

Sam shook his head. Grief welled up inside. “I can’t.”

“You were always the soft one.” Hakon pawed for his wrist. “Please… Sam. Put it my hand, then to my neck. I’m suffering. I didn’t think I’d suffer like this.”

Sam placed the dagger into the man’s bloodied palm, then tightened the grip. He helped him bring the blade to his neck. He watched with muted horror as Hakon tried to cut into his own throat with failing strength. Sam gripped the shaking hand. He forced the knife in. He dragged the blade across.

Hakon grinned. “I s—” He coughed blood. “Saved.” He frowned, gaze drifting skyward, where black smoke swirled with carmine light. “Sam?”

***

The Blackwood Bardcircle had been commissioned and built at request of The Mayor. He had asked, or demanded, the help of the lumbering and woodworking companies of Fenkirk. The Mayor had oft been quoted in a belief that the structure would elevate the prosperous lumbering town. Though few are clear on whether he did so for reasons of pride, as a favour to Jarl Thrand, or simply to slight Chief Gudmund of Horvorr. A less likely, but more common story, was that the theater had been meant as a great trap for the ill-fortuned Isleif the Disgraced.

Performers rarely visited the place, so it was vacant more often than not. Now though, a dozen torches burned in sconces along the curved walls. The remnants of Fenkirk’s Militia had taken up seats among the half-ring of tiered benches that faced the stage, which remained unfurnished save for a shadowed throne at the back.

There was no man in the place that looked in good spirits; moods ranged from melancholy to madness.

Sam sat almost on his own, far back on the left benches of the theater, with one spear slung on his back. He was one of several men scattered in a sea of empty seats. All the others were in two groups, one of over two dozen guards near the stage, another of ten archers that had gathered around the old man who Hakon named the Trapper.

Sam seemed a part of the Trapper’s group, by accident, because he had taken his seat before they arrived.

“And so we’ll take a vote,” Thorold’s rough voice echoed. He stood atop the stage with Galdi beside him.

Sam didn’t recognise the two men he had met him at Fenkirk’s gate. He did see the leather-capped man sat on his own between the Trapper’s group and those at the front. Sam was, in his own way, more waiting to wake than living.

“I will stand, with Galdi to back me,” Thorold declared, his cheeks grimy, his hair stiffened with blood. “For my part, I swear to be a better man than Hakon was. To have his courage without his madness. To treat you all like men instead of dogs.”

“You got something against dogs?” the Trapper snapped.

Those at the front and on the stage seemed wary of the question. They glanced back at the gloomy corner, which was the only part of the theater not touched by torchlight or the sun shafts stealing through walls, roof, and shutters.

“As I was saying,” Thorold continued. “If any man wants to stand, then he can stand. But he will need another to back him.” He made a slow search the hall, replied by sniffling and coughing, by one man snoring loudly in the back. “So would it be fair to say that I’m the only man standing?”

“What do you plan to do?” Sam shouted, realizing he had risen. “Why are we wasting our time when our walls are unguarded?”

“What what would we do instead?” Thorold asked. “Stand waiting for another attack?”

“The goblins have fled,” Galdi added. He brushed ginger hair from his eyes and squinted into the darkness. “Who is it that speaks?”

“What do you plan to do?” the Trapper echoed. “Answer the man if you so wish to stand.”

“We will take what gear we can,” Thorold answered. “Any man that has family should bring them. We will start a march while the goblins are in disarray. We will move while they’re distracted… and leave those who can’t keep up behind. Gods willing, they’ll serve their purpose when the goblins descend.”

“As food?” the Trapper asked. “Is that their purpose?”

Thorold’s tired gaze hardened. “They will make it look like Fenkirk still has life left, and that none of us have fled. At the least, they will seem like easier prey than a group of fighting men on foot.”

“You’re all idiots.” Sam laughed in sadness. “Hakon was right.”

“Hakon is dead,” Thorold declared. “He was a murderer, and a mad man. And he is dead.”

“Better to be mad than cowardly,” the Trapper muttered.

Thorold scowled up at the shadowed benches. “What was that, you old hermit?”

“I said,” the Trapper pitched his hoarse voice for storytelling, “that I watched this man here, Sam, kill a Great Chief with his own two hands. I said I saw this man make himself a hero, and I’ll tell you all now that Hakon made me swear to him that I would put Sam in charge should he fall on the field. And now here you all are, and here I am with my loyal men. And I’ve told you what I’ve been told… and now I’m asking you to vote for the only man that has any right to stand. And that man is Sam.”

“Sam?” Thorold snarled. “The coward that came—”

“You’re calling me a coward?” Sam shouted, nauseous with his nerves. He strode down the steps between benches and crossed into the candlelight. “When you’re the one wanting to run? Wanting to feed old men, children, and women to goblins? If it’s a matter of courage then why do we need to bother standing? Why don’t you and me just fight to see who leads?”

The Trapper sat silent in the darkness, taken aback by the stranger’s eagerness. He pushed up from his seat, lifted his bow from his back, and his men did the same as they followed after him.

Sam stepped onto the stage, taking the thrusting spear from his back. “Well?”

“A fight?” Thorold heard the ease with which the lanky man made the challenge, and he could see the deadened look in his eyes. He was either facing a man who had no hopes for his life, or a man that was sure of his victory. “You want to stand, we’ll take it to a vote. If you want a slaughter, I’ll give you a slaughter.”

Sam bared his teeth. “I’ll stand.”

“Then you need someone to back you,” Thorold said, turning to face the benches. “Any man here want to stand behind a man that looks as mad as this? Any man here wants another Hakon? Wants to stay in this town until we’re all starved, or we’re all dead. Until the madness takes every last one of us?”

The Trapper crossed into the torchlight with his archers behind him. “I’ll back him, as will all my men.”

Sam realised what he had started when men drew bows and reached for swords.

He charged.

Thorold tried to leap forward but the spear skewered the militia man mid-flight, sending him and the barkeep tumbling off of the stage as the shaft snapped.

Sam pushed to his feet, brandishing the ragged length of wood. He swept his wild gaze to each filthy face of the wary militia.

“Weapons away!” the Trapper ordered. “We’ll take the vote, and we’ll all abide it. If you all want to run then you can all run. But there’s nothing waiting for you outside these walls beyond a cold winter full of death.”

“Weapons away?” Galdi shouted from the stage. “He murdered Thorold!”

“He did,” the Trapper agreed. “And I’m sure whoever wins can decide what we’ll be doing about that.”

Sam could only watch as the votes were called and his fate was decided. Though the truth was, whether life or death waited, he no longer cared.