50. Leaders

“I once heard it said that Grettir and Gudmund were two halves of the same man. Perhaps then it is both tragic and fitting that they should become widowed in the same way.

Gudmund never truly recovered from death of Hilda, but he still had his boys and daughter to raise. I fear that not even Grettir has the strength to accept that he has lost his wife for the sake a stillborn babe.”

Gudmund sat at the same booth in Horvorr’s Barracks, watching the shaggy oxen through the open shutters. The beasts had begun to grow restless and ornery with the smaller rations given. Moans and lows carried on the morning wind.

He turned back to the table. Arfast was taking a long suck on his bone pipe. Odi sat rigid beside him. Gudmund saw them as brothers, in age if not in appearance. Though Arfast’s years seemed to have tempered a steadfast determination, while Odi looked more like he had suffered a loss of patience.

“Gudmund.” Arfast set his pipe on the worn table. “You ready to begin?”

“Where’s Anna?” Gudmund asked. She suspected he had unleashed the goblins.

“She’s outside the Ritual House with Ralf,” Arfast said. “They’re shooting targets, teaching women how to use bows… like you said she should.”

Gudmund’s eyes narrowed. “Either of you have any news?”

Odi grumbled. “We’ve had three dozen more men join us.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Arfast asked.

“To anyone else?” Odi shook his head. “No. But to me, knowing that there’s no sight of goblins to actually be had, I’d say so. How long will it be till people start to think Gudmund made the whole thing up to keep charge of the town?”

Arfast smiled. “So he plucked those goblins out of his imagination?”

“We plucked them out of Brolli’s—”

Gudmund raised his hand to silence him. “Any other news?”

Arfast nodded, his mirth fading. “Eirik’s home got ransacked, so he’ll be staying at the Ritual House from now on.”

“Makes me wonder what I ever did to inspire such hate,” Gudmund mused.

Odi shrugged. “Might be that you killed a lot of folk in your hall.”

“Either way,” Gudmund dismissed. “I think we should get to work.”

Arfast puffed his pipe, blowing smoke out the window. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want work crews put together.” Gudmund pulled a worn map from his pocket, and unrolled it onto the table. “We’re here.” He pointed near the main gate. “I want the main road dug out, so that the only way through the gate is through the oxen pen.”

Odi shook his head. “There’s no gear for digging.”

“There’s plenty.” Gudmund smiled. “I have three storehouses full of equipment for mining and breaking land. I bought it back before I ran short on coin and optimism.”

“And when we’re done digging this great hole,” Odi said, “then what?”

“Then I want you to fill it full of stakes. I want every building with two floors to be stocked with arrows and bows, and I want the stairs destroyed and replaced with ladders.” Gudmund scratched at his fiery beard. “I want the main crossroads to be dug out, as well as all the side-roads, so that if the goblins break the main gate they’re only left with a clear path to my hall… or Brolli’s place. And I want the courtyard around that to be dug out and staked.”

“Are you sure this isn’t going too far?” Arfast asked.

“No,” Gudmund spoke with surety. “I want the back of the oxen pen reinforced, with carts and crates, so that the way from the main gate to the Ritual House can be held by men and by bows. And I want the only clear path from the Ritual House to any place else to be to the south gate… in case folk have to flee.”

“You really think people are going to let you dig up this town?” Odi asked.

“Arrest anyone that doesn’t,” Gudmund answered. “As well as any man that’s out after dark who isn’t a member of Horvorr’s Guard.” He drank from his mug. “Once you’ve dug out the main gate, I want you to go to the Lake, and make a barrier to cut off any goblins that land on the embankments. It should be low enough to use a bow and high enough stop any goblins coming into Brolli’s place from the back way.” He sniffed, and cleared his throat. “I want all the space between the fisher huts to be replaced by stakes or blocked by boats, and I want the road outside of Grettir’s house to be completely dug up, his yard included, so that the only safe way into the town from the Lake is through his ground floor.”

Odi frowned. “Cut off two-thirds of the town, and close most the roads?”

Gudmund nodded. “Whether by ditches or blockades… or any other way you can.” He glanced at the hoary, pipe-smoking man. “Arfast, if you could tell Anna that I’ll want half her archers to hold the Ritual House and the rest to hold the lake.”

“Gudmund,” Odi said, “you’re talking as if we’re under siege. And as far as I know the only thing surrounding this town is barren ground.”

“I can get it done.” Arfast set down his pipe. “The main road and the crossroads at the least. I doubt anyone’s going to mind if we ruin Brolli’s courtyard, either. As far as the rest goes, I’ll try for it. But the fishermen, along with everyone else, won’t be too happy with us digging around their homes.” His gaze turned severe. “You ought to consider that if we do this, and no goblins show, then you’re going to look like a fool.”

“Worse than a fool,” Odi added.

“And then we’ll be back to folk trying to kill you,” Arfast added.

Gudmund met the words with a resigned smile. “I didn’t even want to live this long. But, since I have, and since we’ll all be slow in dying when goblins break our gates—and we’ve nothing to greet them with beyond open streets—we should probably stop straining our necks and wasting our time by trying to watch our own backs. The Great Chiefs are coming,” he promised. “I intend to be ready for them.”

***

Ragrak the Strong had been abandoned. He no longer had a brother.

Ragalak had been slain by a golem made of green metal, that same creature who had brought havoc upon Ragrak’s diminishing clans. He now knew the word grief in entirety, but he had become as kin to anger. He had been betrayed. He stood to suffer. The Eastern Clans marched off and convinced him of this simple task, convinced Ragalak, that they would need do no more than sit here and harass the manling town of wood and mud.

Ragrak studied the lean goblins with him. They had grown wary of his outbursts, of his murderous rages, yet still they sat around him and the fire. If only they possessed any semblance of true wisdom. But they did not. He was surrounded by goblins and still utterly alone. He had none to call friend. None to call brother.

He could not stand against the onslaught that befell while Sun was high. The hunters came, with arrows and fire, to kill goblins as they slept, to scare them, to harass them. To turn them into meat that they didn’t even eat. So Ragrak sat, with his clan, watching a fire that was unneeded for Sun was full in the sky.

Ragrak the Strong was waiting for the manling hunters to come. He sat at the limits of the forest, for he had been forced that far back, and watched for movement. He listened for screams and violence while most of his clans slept despite their fears.

They did not seem to understand that they were pursued, that flight from one conflict did not mean that conflict would not still seek them.

Ragrak had grown so desperate that he had tried to take the manling town. He had tried to hide where they had hid for so long. But the manling known as the Spearslayer was worse than the hunters. He was spoken of as an animal, as were all his clan. They had been faced with a fate of destruction and consumption yet failed to yield. Now they were as any wounded animal. Snarling. Vicious. Cruel. Spiteful.

Ragrak did not make the same mistake as Mabaruk and Muburak. He would never sacrifice himself to bolster the Spearslayer’s honour.

“Ragrak?”

Ragrak looked down at the savage face of the skinny goblin. “Yes?”

“When do we sleep?”

“You can sleep as you wish. I will remain awake.”

“For all time?” asked the goblin opposite the fire.

“For as long as is needed.”

“Do that, then?”

“Do as you wish.”

“Sleep…?”

“Or wake?” another asked.

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“Sleep.” Ragrak sighed in anger, rising to his feet. He towered over the circle of fearful goblins. “You should all sleep.” He stepped over the fire, over the goblins before they scrambled clear. Sleeping goblins were sprawled across the grassy forest floor, nestled under the shadows of trees or hidden among bushes.

A diminutive runt stood scratching moss from a trunk, suckling on the bark and on his claws. He scampered away at the loud sound of Ragrak’s footfalls.

He was reminded by the sight of Lazarus. He now understood that his brother was right. They had made a mistake in following the Moonbear. Ragrak and Ragalak might both still live had they joined the Eastern Clans. Ragrak might not be so alone.

Metal flashed in the reaches of his vision. Sickness roiled up inside of Ragrak when he realised what was happening. The forest was alive with manlings and blades. The hunters were stalking through the trees, opening the throats of sleeping goblins.

“Manlings!” Ragrak roared. “Wake! Fight! Gather—” An arrow thudded into his shoulder. Four manlings in fur ran at him, weapons readied as they shouted for glory.

“It is too late,” he realised, smashing his heel into a capped head.

The manling crumpled underfoot. He kicked another off into a tree trunk, grabbed a third, biting off the head as he stomped on the forth. He tossed the headless body towards the bushes, knocking over another pair.

Ragrak stood ready but the others did not come. He could see a wave of manlings rushing through the trees to his left and right, out of reach, cleaving through goblins that now screamed or made desperate efforts to fight back.

But there was too much disorder, too much fear. The clans of Ragrak were about to be hacked, slashed, and left to rot. Still, he had to try to fight.

“Follow me!” Ragrak declared, running out of the trees. “Gather on me! Gather on Ragrak! Horns! Stones!” He took in a deep breath while dozens of goblins gathered around him, hauling stones at grass, trunks, and bushes. He glimpsed the green metal of the golem that had so harassed him, of the huge black-haired giant that had slaughtered his people. He did not expect to see or sense the Son of Jorund, but he charged out from the trees with the rest of the manlings all the same. “Hold ground!”

Then began the roaring and cheering of manlings that ran forth to bring death, met by the fearful growling and squealing of goblins that were about to lose all courage.

Stones were thrown. A hail of arrows sailed down in answer, thudded into the grass, into green flesh, some bursting through heads. Goblins died by the score and the fur-clad manlings drew close enough to see their grim faces.

Ragrak the Strong stepped forward then staggered back. A spear protruded from his chest, prominent amid a dozen arrow shafts. He grabbed two of his own goblins, using them as shields, then hurled them into the manlings. “I challenge you, Golem!”

He ran over the manling fighters, rushing for the creature of green metal.

Fire tore through his leg and he landed not on his foot but on a raw stub.

Agony ripped through Ragrak now he tumbled onto one knee, the world shifting, the manlings seeming to grow taller and more fearsome as they drew in on him. Ragrak struck out at the black-haired giant, knocking him off of his feet.

The son of Jorund ran under him.

Ragrak felt cold pain now two long knives were shoved up into his hips. Desperate sickness dizzied him. He heard the distant torrent of his own blood.

***

Gunnar and Engli stood outside the collapsed walls of Fenkirk.

The smashed remnants lay scattered around, barely discernible against a town that reeked of death, decay, and suffering. Hundreds of dead, man and goblin alike, lay sprawled ahead, blending together in a humped rug of dried blood and muddied flesh.

The settlement itself stood father back, huddled at the end of the once circular wall.

A killing ground of crisscrossed ditches, stakes, and the broken dead separated the breach from another sprawling defense, which had been made of carts, houses, and crates. It had been destroyed in a dozen places, corpses lay half-way through windows or atop crates and upturned carts. Engli thought there might have been an intended entryway at the middle, but it was blocked by a heaped pile of rotting goblins.

“I think they’re all dead,” Gunnar said. “Do I smell as bad as this?” He gleamed with a coating of black blood. He had barely bothered to wipe his face.

“Not as bad.” Engli brushed a hand down his grimy breastplate. “But there’s no harm in searching for survivors.”

“What are you two waiting for?” Abi rasped, striding up behind them. He wore the same feather cloak, now spattered with blood. “Gods above.” He blinked, mouth agape now he studied the ruined town. “They’ve made a damn mess of this.”

He shrugged, and stepped forward, taking little care whether he trod on a broken skull, wet mud, or swollen flesh.

Engli followed after him, managing to walk between corpses. Gunnar entered as well, removing his blood-soaked cap to cover his nose. Dizzied and sickened by the smells, Engli had to do the same and breathed into his conical helmet.

“Stop,” Gunnar warned, grabbed his shoulder. “There’s blades buried in the mud.” He urged him back, then lead him forward.

The straight path that Engli had hoped to follow turned into a winding route back and forth along the field, seemingly watched by every aimless gaze of the dead.

Gunnar murmured in surprise, staring down at the ground. “Mabaruk or Muburak.”

Engli craned his neck to see the decaying body of a gargantuan goblin, skewered through the chest and neck by a spear.

They had an easier time reaching the wall from there. Gunnar led them towards a modest house, and they clambered through the shutters and into a room that stank of old blood. The walls, shutters, and floors were a dark shade of red.

“Dagny always said that I should visit Fenkirk,” Gunnar mentioned, one hand resting on a dagger. He craned his neck beyond the broken wall of the home. “I had no idea it would be so grim. Goes to show women like odd things.”

“It was different… before.”

Gunnar’s smile was wry. “Do you think so?”

They turned onto a churned street, which was covered in less goblins than the rest of the town, and there were no ditches or buried blades in sight.

They walked past the piled goblins bodies and towards a third blockade, which had been erected between a large workshop and the circular bardhouse. Engli could only see four structures still standing, all the other wood had been hammered into two mismatched walls that bridged the structures and fenced off a corner.

Abi was shouting up at the bardhouse, hands sweeping out of his feather cloak.

The voices that answered held no warmth. Engli noticed fighters standing with spears behind gaps in the wall. Archers watched from the upper floors of the bardhouse and the roof of the workshop. The faces he saw, man and women both, were haunted and gaunt. “I want to speak with the Trapper!”

“Stay where you are, and we’ll go and fetch him. Do not try to cross the fence!”

“Or what?” Abi snapped. “You’ll murder the folk who came here to help you?”

Engli came to stand beside the old man. “Leave them be.”

Abi scowled. “Leave—”

“Drop your weapons!” a woman declared. “Or we will, as you say, murder you folk.”

Abi scoffed in answer. Engli and Gunnar set their blades on the ground.

A cart, rattling with weapons, was wheeled out to leave a gap between the workshop and bardhouse. The three men turned towards it as folk in dirty clothes, more women than men, marched out with grim visages and worn spears. “We mean no harm,” Engli assured. “I only wish to speak to whoever is in charge here.” He had never seen a group of folk that he both pitied and feared at the same time. They watched with disbelief as if they weren’t sure of their good fortune, or thought that this was some kind of complicated treachery. “We’ve dropped our weapons.”

“That old bastard hasn’t,” snapped a man as old as Abi. He wore a brown fur-trimmed jerkin. He had a bow on his back, three small blades at his belt, and wore a necklace adorned with teeth and a bone idol of Laykia the Huntress.

“I don’t own any blades,” Abi rasped. “Too ancient for that.”

The old man grinned. “I’ll take you on your word, then. And I’ll take you two to see the Spearslayer.”

“Aren’t you in charge here?” Abi asked.

He shook his head. “Too ancient for that as well.”

Engli had the feeling that the men knew each other, which didn’t put him at ease, but the women urged them forward with spears so he had little choice other than to enter the remnants of Fenkirk.

He felt no better when he saw they were taking him to a small hut at the back, which had been strung times over in bones that now rattled with menace in the foul breeze.

“Promising,” Gunnar murmured.

“Take them in,” the old man ordered, walking off with feather-cloaked Abi. “I’ll deal with this bastard.”

Engli and Gunnar slowed at the bone-hung doorway. The women surrounded them on all sides, gazes close to amused.

“Go on in,” the lead woman ordered. “Both of you.”

Gunnar smiled. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Engli shivered as he strode through the cold bones, causing them to rattle on all sides. He slowed to a stop and Gunnar walked into his back. They both stumbled forward into a circular room that only housed a bedroll and rocking chair.

The seated man appeared half-starved, black hair muddied, cheeks smeared with blood, eyes both numbed and wild. “Have we been freed?” he asked almost tonelessly. “Is it over…?”

“No. We were only able to break…” Engli trailed off. He scrutinised the man’s lean face. “The Western Clans have moved to conquer Horvorr. We slew those that stayed behind.” He paused. “Have we met before?”

The man sighed. “Mind my manners, but I really don’t care if we have.”

Gunnar chuckled. “And here I thought people from Fenkirk were meant to be friendly.”

“There’s your mistake, then.” The man shrugged. “I’m from Horvorr.”

Engli frowned. “Sam?”

The tired man mirrored his expression. “I suppose we have met, then. Wait… Engli?”

“You look different.”

Sam nodded. “I feel half dead. Where’d you get that armour?”

“We were led into the mountains by the Sage—”

“Say no more.” Sam’s smile bordered on manic. “I completely understand.”

“Right… well, I came to look for survivors,” Engli explained. “We’ve a place a couple days North for those who can’t fight. But I was hoping—”

Sam sighed, rubbing at his face with both hands. “I’ll be heading to Horvorr. I’d guess most those outside will go with me. If you’ve a place where we can camp away from this smell, then I’d be grateful.”

“I thought you might be heading for Timilir. To save your son.”

“Yes.” Sam’s gaze drifted, lapsing to desperation. “I had thought about that. But I’ve got family in Horvorr as well. And I’m not ready to give the region up. Too many men, women, and children are already dead.”

Gunnar smiled. “Where’s the harm in adding more to the pile?”

“It’s like they say,” Sam answered with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, “if somethings going to hack you to pieces you might as well join in on the fun.”

“Who says that, exactly?”

“Heroes.” Sam shrugged. “Monsters.”

Engli worried the barkeeper had turned mad. “Are you sure you’re alright, Sam?”

“I never claimed to be.” Sam struggled up from his chair. “But I’m ready and more than willing to fight. Win or lose, I need to see the end of this godsdamned war.”