55. The Lesser Evil

“When I was a much younger man, I feared goblins. When I grew older, I despised them. I’d heard tales of wandering bands that ate up children and grandmothers. That marauded through the Eastland Plains burning crops or stalked through Midderlands Forest to slay hunters and foragers.

During the Midderlands Wars, I crossed paths with many Chiefs who were better spoken than some men I had met. I had always hoped that I might meet Gahr’rul and speak with him too. As surely, given all he had accomplished in Gudmund’s war, he was a goblin with the sharpest of minds.

Now Gahr’rul is dead. Were he a Jarl, they would call it assassination. Instead, it is a victory. I know in my heart, of course, that if he were to have lived then the war would have been lost. I suspect that Gahr’rul even considered his odds favourable in the duel he offered to Gudmund, Grettir and Brolli.

But when I see the hatred with which grown men hack apart defenseless goblins, I begin to wonder which outcome was truly the lesser evil. Throughout my life, I have always seen myself in the lead role. Center stage. But now I oft fear that I have become one of the villains instead.

Was this truly the hard fought war drama of deposed Jarl, Gudmund son of Geirulf?

Or was it the bitter tragedy of the great goblin unifier, Gahr’rul the Chief of Chiefs?”

Hjorvarth sat on a stone rise, his legs overhanging the edge.

He looked down at the twin plateaus that flanked the main road into the mountains north of Horvorr. He saw the town as a circular shadow on the barren horizon, next to the silvery disc of Horvorr’s Great Lake.

Hjorvarth had been unable to sleep because of his worries, which were many, some small and some severe; some in harmony, others at ends. He had tried to tell folk that he had not slaughtered the goblins outside of the cave, to dissuade Bjorn from telling tall tales of how he had slain the Great Chief Ragadin. He told the villagers that he was no hero, not even close, that he wanted to go to Horvorr, but that didn’t mean they had to accompany him, and in no way was he guaranteed a victory or backed by Brikorhaan.

He was still glad to have over fifty fighters. Over a hundred if he counted the old folk and the women. But he didn’t want them to throw their lives away in the false belief that they would be safe because he was blessed. As he studied the barren plain, he wasn’t sure that their help would even be needed.

There was no smoke, no great hosts, no signs of war. Only the few flames of men walking the walls of Horvorr.

Hjorvarth wondered if the Sage had tricked them again, whether they had stumbled into a passing clan of a hundred and thought it a gathered army of a thousand. Perhaps the goblin named Dalpho wasn’t truly as big as he appeared, or maybe it was some trick of the night. Engli might have walked straight to Fenkirk without incident, and bought himself a meal and some ale at a tavern. Maybe he would bring word of Sam back to Horvorr. Hjorvarth would come home to hear tales of how they had gone with the Sage on the quest, only to be rewarded with some fanciful weapons.

“Do you mind if I sit?” Bjorn asked in a tired tone. A chill silence had such a hold on the night that all words spoken seemed weighty and reverberative.

He sat on the ledge beside Hjorvarth. They appeared close to brothers under the moonlight. Their well groomed hair and handsome beards seemed of a colour. They watched the night with the same serious set and hard lines to their stoic faces. Bjorn sat taller and Hjorvarth was bulkier, but they shared a stolid bearing.

Bjorn grew more melancholy as time passed, while Hjorvarth appeared all the more determined. They heard growls and screeches, so distantly as to seem little more than imagined. Hjorvarth glanced sidelong at the mountaineer. “You should go to sleep.”

Bjorn laughed, and smiled wryly. “Have you ever considered that you are often offering…” He paused, thinking he had misspoke his last words. “That you are often giving sound advice, but rarely following it yourself?”

Hjorvarth offered no answer. He raked at his thick beard.

“I have tried to sleep.” Bjorn rubbed at his own beard. “But my mind is too busy with warring thoughts, so I decided to look upon the upon the plain before it is covered in corpses of man and goblin alike.”

Hjorvarth shrugged. “Man and monster might have been a better phrasing.”

Bjorn sighed in disappointment. “They are not monsters, Hjorvarth. Gudmund of Horvorr is the monster.”

“I’ve no sense of humour, but Gudmund is often a man of questionable acts.”

“It was no joke,” Bjorn assured. “Do you even know why all of this is happening?”

Hjorvarth furrowed his thick brows. “Because it is simply the way of things…? Men of the gods fights creatures of the Lady, and they wish to kill us because that is her will. That is how it is, and how it always will be. Until the day that Brikorhaan breaks through in the Final Battle.”

Bjorn laughed a sad laugh. He turned back to look out on the barren plain of Horvorr. “Do you see the ground ahead of us? No trees. No life. Would you believe that before Gudmund of the Low Lands arrived in Southwestern Tymir this was all thick forest? That tens of thousands of goblins lived in these lands, and offered no true threat to Timilir, or to the old men and women that are the true ancestors of The Landing? That they paid no mind, and caused no harm, to the many folk who lived hunter’s lives in the forests that once stood in place of Fenkirk?”

“If my humour is bad, then my belief of things I cannot touch or feel is worse than that.”

Bjorn met the sentiment with a curious glance. “Yet you believe in the gods?”

“I do.”

Bjorn heard the warning in his voice. “All I mean to say, is that Southwestern Tymir was a more peaceful, and livelier place before Gudmund of the Low Lands came with his men, and carved a bloody path through all the clans.”

“That was well done then,” Hjorvarth said. “There should be no safe place for the Lady’s creatures to breed in great number. They are few now, and look at all the damage they have done. All they have burned. All those they have murdered for no reason at all.”

Bjorn shook his head. “Do you even know how Gudmund won his war?”

“I know only that it was a war of many battles.”

“Then let me tell you,” Bjorn offered. “Before Gudmund arrived, Southwestern Tymir was ruled by over a hundred Great Chiefs, some greater than others. Most prominent of those were the warriors Gahr’rul, Ragadin, Dalpho, and the shamans Braguk Moonbear and Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver. After Gudmund arrived those that were Great Chiefs in name only, came to serve under those most prominent. Gahr’rul was the Great Chief of Horvorr, and his land neighbored Dalpho, so those two made a mutual agreement to protect one another should Gudmund and his men break through.”

“Ragadin had claim to all the land from the Snake Basin Path to the Eastern Pass,” Bjorn went on, “and he was the first Great Chief to go to battle against Gudmund and his men. He was the first Great Chief to bloody Gudmund, and had begun to cause such losses that the other Great Chiefs thought the men would never make it further into the region. Then an outlawed hero named Grettir fled from Vendrick after eloping with the daughter of the Jarl he served.”

Hjorvarth frowned, but remained silent.

“Grettir offered his help to Gudmund,” Bjorn continued. “Which wouldn’t have done much, but at the same time Gudmund received funding from folk he had never met in Timilir, and then a man named Brolli, whose own debts were cleared, arrived offering to join his brother’s army.”

“Where did you hear the mentions towards coin?” Hjorvarth asked.

“Edda told that part of the story,” Bjorn explained. “She also made mention that she believed a man by name of Isleif the Bard was the one who found Brolli, paid his debts, and brought him to Gudmund. That the coin Gudmund received was sent by Isleif, who at the time, and still is, outlawed from Timilir. Though back then it was because he had done much as Grettir had… and eloped with the daughter of the late Jarl of Timilir. Sibbe the Snow Maiden.”

Hjorvarth regarded him with severity. “My mother was not a Jarl’s daughter. And my father… well, I have never heard mention that Brolli or Isleif had known each other before they met in Gudmund’s army. That and besides you’re starting to sound like Astrid with all this talk of what Edda told you.”

Bjorn smiled. “Edda told me this while she was still living. Your father was a favorite of hers when it came to telling stories.”

Hjorvarth shook his head. “There are no stories about my father… beyond those of his trip.”

Bjorn waited for him to admit his joke. “Your father is a well known man in most the other regions. Perhaps you haven’t heard them here because he doesn’t speak of himself?” He shook his head. “It is of no consequence. What I meant to say is that once Gudmund, Grettir, and Brolli were together, with new funding, they were able to carve through Ragadin’s territory, and to force Mubrogg out of the land near where Fenkirk now stands. Ragadin had no goblins left in his own clan, but had managed to survive the battles, so he joined Gahr’rul. Mubrogg did much the same, and even Dalpho decided to accept Gahr’rul as the Chief of Chiefs.”

“And how does any of this make Gudmund a monster?”

“I’ll get to that,” Bjorn assured. “It came to a point where all the Great Chiefs, even Braguk Moonbear accepted Gahr’rul as Chief. And Gahr’rul began to crush Gudmund’s army, even with Grettir and Brolli’s best efforts. The goblins pushed them all the way back to Timilir, and had gathered in so great a number that Jarl Thrand grew afraid of them. He gave more coin and more men to Gudmund, and they began to fight their way back into Southwestern Tymir. It came down to both armies being gathered in The Blackwood, and both sides expected the war to end there.

“Only the night before the battle,” Bjorn added, “Gahr’rul and Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver were butchered in their sleep. Ragadin and Dalpho both accused Braguk Moonbear of the killings, which divided the gathered armies into three disorganised sides. Braguk fled before battle was ever joined, as did Dalpho. Ragadin slew dozens of men on the battlefield, but the goblins were slaughtered by the thousand. The truth of it was that Gudmund, Grettir, and Brolli butchered Gahr’rul in his sleep, that Braguk Moonbear killed Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver to settle an old score.”

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“So you would rather he waste men’s lives on the field?”

“There was no honour in it,” Bjorn argued. “Gahr’rul offered to fight Chief to Chief to end the entire war. He offered to fight the Young Wolf, the Black Heart, and the One Swing one against three.”

“By your own account they accepted the offer. Gahr’rul happened to be sleeping.” Hjorvarth laughed at his own joke, then offered a more somber stare. “I see your meaning. But you act as if Gudmund did this to a man. When by all imagining this Gahr’rul must have been some kind of unnatural thing to be able to handle three great fighters at the same time.”

“Dalpho realised what had happened.” Bjorn’s proud face was weighed with disappointment. “He and all his clan ripped up the trees that surrounded Horvorr, and hid behind the walls. When Gudmund reached them he called out, and offered them safe passage if they opened the gates. He swore it, and those inside knew him as the Young Wolf who was a respected and fearsome fighter, so they submitted despite the protests of Dalpho. And then Gudmund ordered the slaughter of the hundreds of goblins living in the town. Most who had no notion of how to even fight, or had any want to make war. He butchered them for no reason at all.”

Hjorvarth upturned his heavy palms. “They were goblins.”

“So all goblins have to die?” Bjorn scowled at the shadowed man. “Then why didn’t you kill those that offered to have you as their Chief? Why didn’t you kill all those that stood waiting for your permission to leave, instead of waving them away? Are you any less an unnatural thing to them as Gahr’rul seems to you? Yet you would hack them to pieces with no care for their harmlessness or fear.”

Hjorvarth shook his head in frustration. “You are the one who told these people they should fight for me. If you have such a love of goblins, why would you even help me? If you think me such a heartless bastard, why did you back me? Because I will not turn from this, Bjorn. Whatever Gudmund did to bring about this reckoning, he won’t be the one who suffers for it. My father is in that town, along with hundreds of other people who have no urging to go to war with goblins either. Who didn’t ask for this, or want this, but came simply to make some life for themselves.”

Hjorvarth bit down on his anger, and let the uncomfortable silence settle.

“There are two hosts here,” Bjorn spoke quietly. “The Western Clans are led by Dalpho, and I believe Braguk Moonbear has gathered those of the East. I came here to ask that we fight against those who serve Braguk… because if we lose then I would rather Dalpho inherited these lands than a cruel heathen like Braguk Moonbear.”

Hjorvarth stared down at the moonlit plain. “I see no goblins at all.”

“That means that they are gathered. It means they’re readying for an attack.”

“I am only of a mind to charge whatever goblin stands closest, and stands to fight.” Hjorvarth swung his legs above the ledge, and struggled up to his feet. “If you can point me to one of importance, then I’ll do my best to kill it. Beyond that, I can promise nothing. And I would not have you at my side if you’re going to shy away from putting an end to goblins… whether they had any choice in their charge or not. Perhaps you should return to your sisters and settle your own debts.”

“No need. I will meet them both in Fenkirk when all this is done. But I do wonder what you mean to do with those of Stonefell and Ilmkleif?”

“By your own word, those mad fools are hiding in their village. They are of no consequence lest they stand in our way.”

Bjorn sighed. “And if in this world there were no monsters or men ever opposing you?”

“Such a world does not exist,” Hjorvarth dismissed. “But if it did, it would have no need for men like me. I was not born with an axe in my hand, Bjorn. I did not spend my early years praying for war and wishing to spill blood. I threw balls of snow at young girls and raced my friends across the ice. I lived a simple life.”

Bjorn had risen. “What changed?”

“The ice broke beneath my feet. My mother died trying to save me. My father stole her body and embarked on a journey to find a mythical hall in the hope that he might be able to revive her. The men with him all died and he returned alone, his health and mind failing. And I fought because I was no good at anything else.”

“Yet you say all this without emotion.”

“I speak plain truths plainly. I leave shifting tones to actors and charlatans. I leave falsities to false people.”

“It is a shame, then, that peaceful worlds have no place for people like you.”

Hjorvarth gave no answer to that as he departed, resigned to the fight ahead, fully expecting to lose his life with the rising of the sun.

***

Lazarus stared at the glowing embers of his brazier, his hunched shadow stretching back into crimson darkness.

Dalpho sat across from him, still stuck by the snapped shafts of so many arrows. He appeared a malevolent thing in the light, his beady eyes glistening and malicious. “I let him get the better of me. I let the Young Wolf bay in my ears, and nip at my heels, and then I ran.” He sighed a sigh that rocked the shadowed air. “How many lives will be lost because of my failing?”

The grimy hourglass lay silent on the small table, all the sand ran down to obscurity.

“You say that,” Lazarus spoke in a whisper, “as if Gudmund of Horvorr was a man that ever held to his word. He had no mind to ever fight us. He wanted to play his trick, and he played it. At least, if Balluk is to be trusted, the One Swing and the Black Heart are dead.” He shook his skullish head. “Still… what cost have we paid for our victory? Aligning ourselves with goblins that would sell their honour to mankind. And how these three triplets ever managed the deal I’ve no clue. How they manage not to kill each other as each second passed is a mystery. Unless Braguk Moonbear is the true leader of that clan, and he merely uses those as I use…”

Dalpho stared down at his diminutive leader. “Me?”

“Yes,” Lazarus admitted. “As I use all of you… though you are my greatest ally. Without you, I am nothing.”

“And before you I was content to live out my life in shame. You owe me nothing. I consider it an honour to serve, and a blessing to have been able to. Would that Gahr’rul could know he was revenged, that Ragadin could know he did not die for nothing.”

“But he has,” Lazarus whispered in regret. He glanced up from the glowing embers. “Our new allies are no less our enemy than the Young Wolf. Had Braguk Moonbear not murdered Mubrogg then Gahr’rul would not have been killed. Our people would never have been broken at The Blackwood. And consider as well that he is a heathen. He may well win his victory here, against Gudmund, against myself. And he may well name himself not Chief of Chiefs, but simply King.”

Dalpho grunted in refusal. “He would have to kill us first.”

“And with a clan that numbers thrice ours, how hard will that be?” Lazarus asked. “Were it you, against him, in a fair fight, I would not doubt you. But he has others. How many do you think he truly lost against Fenkirk? As many as he would have us believe? That the likes of Krakann Bonesipper, and the twins Mabaruk and Muburak found their ends at the axes of lumberers? Lazoor the Black will be in here and gone and leave no more trace than the smoke of my brazier. And do you think Balluk will hold to his renewed loyalty? After already having abandoned us once?”

“So we hold back in the battle,” Dalpho suggested. “We wait while the Eastern Clans lose their Great Chiefs so that when the battle is done we are not outnumbered. If need be, I will challenge them myself. Those three brothers are no threat to me on their own.”

“Hold back?” Lazarus hissed. “No. I will not hold back. I am going into Horvorr with the rafts, and I will seek out Gudmund the Wolf and give him the end that he deserves. I will not allow another to take him. Braguk Moonbear had his chance, and even you did.” He scraped flesh from his own cheek. “I was not ready to fight when he came for us before, but I will have my revenge now. I will right his wrong, and I will avenge Gahr’rul, and I will restore faith in The Small King.”

Dalpho’s beady eyes narrowed. “You would rush in and risk your life on the rafts?”

“How could I even call it battle if I meant not to risk my life?”

“What good would your death bring us?” Dalpho demanded.

“None at all,” Lazarus answered. “It is a selfish act, and one I will not turn from. If I die to a stray arrow, or drown in that lake it is of no consequence to me. The Young Wolf is mine. So I will skin him. Or I will die in the attempt.”

***

Lazarus crouched against his cavern wall, slanted eyes alight with the golden glow of the roaring brazier. He had piled up all his gathered wood to burn, hoping never to have need of this place again. He would leave his brazier, and even his hourglass.

He had loved them both just a month ago, but now they only served to remind him of a lifetime in bitter exile. Lazarus had turned the glass once more, and listened to the subtle hiss beneath the raucous pops of the fire.

He had always loved the sound of the sand, but now it hinted at menace. Each turn felt more and more like grim deception.

Smoke plumed from the brazier now a dread wind swept in, choking the air and blackening the cavern.

Braguk Moonbear nestled his fur-cloaked shoulders under the rocky mouth, too tight to squeeze any further. “Forgive me for the dramatics,” he grumbled, waving his bony hand through the darkness. “I was stuck in the foot, and it has left me cumbersome.”

Flames crawled up glowing tinder and the golden fire sprang back to life.

Lazarus had not risen from his crouch. “What do you want, shaman?”

“So many things. Why am I here? To make the real treaty. I had you speak with my three-headed bull, but now you’ll speak to he who holds the reins.”

“Ah.” Lazarus smiled behind his brazier. “I see you take quickly to phrases of men. Have you considered that you are no more a bull yourself, tied and throttled by a looming pink hand?”

“Stand up, and speak up, Lazarus,” Braguk grumbled. “I would not deny you your wittery.”

“It matters not,” Lazarus assured more loudly. He pushed up to his clawed feet, bathed by firelight that made his green skin glisten gold. “What terms? And be careful with them, because I am not above siding with the Young Wolf over one such as you.”

Braguk chuckled. “Yet you so readily judged me for my dealings.”

“I would take no man as my Chief,” Lazarus hissed. “I would simply aim to kill you while the men of Horvorr did the same.”

“As to the terms, it is only a slight amendment.” Braguk bared his grimy teeth. “I will give you all the lands north of Horvorr, but right to the town itself will be won by the goblin that kills the current Chief.”

Lazarus scowled. “Why?”

“Because I have already told my clan that is how it will be.” Braguk Moonbear’s green eyes turned ponderous. “I like this war not at all, Lazarus. I want an end to it, a quick end… whether you make it, or one of them, it matters not to me. I had it in mind that I would take Horvorr from you, take it all from you, with no thought to what I had promised… but then I began to realise that I have fewer and fewer Great Chiefs. And perhaps it would not be a loss, but a benefit, to have you as an ally… to have you as a true ally.” Braguk grinned. “So that is the offer I am making. A chance to win my allegiance. And also… would you mind cutting this spearhead from my hand? My fingers are all too clumsy to get at it.”

Lazarus gazed at the flames for a long while before ambling over.

Braguk Moonbear laid both his huge hands flat on the cavern floor. He stared down in anticipation, green eyes gleaming at either side of his crooked nose, his uneven lips showing six grimy teeth.

Lazarus stepped onto his hand without fear, appearing as a child, more so as he crouched down to get a better look at the wound. “I will abide by your game.” He started to cut at the dark green flesh, paying no mind to the prodigious goblin’s wincing. “As to being allies, I could think of nothing that would sicken me more. It is bad enough that I must help you to break Horvorr. Bad enough that I must tolerate the presence of a huge fur-cloaked grotesquerie in my cavern. Look at his ugly face, and listen to his coward words. But you and I will never again be allied.”

Braguk Moonbear scowled down now Lazarus prised the blade out along with a chunk of flesh. “I could crush you now.”

“Perhaps you could.” Lazarus sneered up at him. “Perhaps I would leap clean off your hand, be up your knee and at your crotch before you ever had the chance to work some magic, or crush me. It matters not to me, shaman.” He began to work his hind claws into the huge hand. “I know what I am. And I know what you are. You have not the courage to take the risk. You make careful decisions in the darkness, and rely on brutes to do your work for you. You beg for scraps at the table of men.”

Braguk slammed his hand into the cavern roof, smashing the blade back into his palm.

Lazarus laughed a disappointed laugh while he walked back to his brazier. “I would wish you luck reaching the Young Wolf first, but I know you have no mind or courage to risk yourself on the field.”

“You will regret this,” Braguk grumbled. “When you are the scraps at my table.”

Lazarus shook his head in answer, and crouched back by the cavern wall. He waited for the sun to rise, for the fire to consume itself, for the sand to run out.