Knud sat in a cell with his back against the wall and Maeve’s head resting in his lap as she slept. He played with her wild hair and kept hammering it in his head: I’m a married man now.

She was beautiful, there was no denying that. Smooth skin, fair features, shapely body. But she was also crazy and a junkie. And now they were locked together. Forever. How would she raise their sons if something were to happen to Knud? Or what if she didn’t bear him any sons?

Of course, none of that mattered if they were to be hanged. What if she was already pregnant and they were executed? Knud would’ve conceived a child he’d never even know about.

Perhaps some things were worth fighting again for.

The door outside their cell opened. Parchment man walked in, wearing the same fancy red clothes with the tight pants.

“I’ve had a talk with the good Baron O’cuana,” Parchment man said. “He accepts your terms.”

Knud laid Maeve’s head on the ground gently as he stood up. She didn’t wake. It was a drug fuelled sleep from whatever she’d snorted, so waking her would take more than that.

“What terms?” Knud asked.

“You will fight a champion of the Baron’s choosing, namely Sir Barten of Pentspane, for your freedom as well as that of your wife and the boy which was to-be executed earlier today,” Parchment man said. “The Baron has added one more condition, however. Should you win, all three of you are exiled from the Baron’s realm. You are not to return unless called upon.”

“When you say fight, do you mean, like,” Knud rubbed the tattooed top of his shaven head. “Like for real? With weapons and blood and all that?”

“Should you lose you are to be executed, so as far as Sir Barten is concerned anything goes,” Parchment man said. “You, however, should keep it to a friendly duel and avoid crippling or murdering your opponent at all cost.”

“Uh,” Knud began. “That don’t seem much fair.”

Parchment man flashed a small, uninterested smile. “The fight starts in five hours,” he said. “You’ll be collected a half hour prior. Please, make use of your rest.”

With that, Parchment man turned on his heel and left Knud with his sleeping wife.

“Five hours,” Knud muttered to himself. “Don’t kill or cripple him.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. As he did, the image of the dumb fucking goat returned. Staring at him. Chewing on something. Then lost in the shade.

“Gods fuck it!” Knud shouted.

Maeve didn’t stir.

Knud dropped on the floor beside her. “Forest Guide my ass,” he said. “That leaf was some toxic, brain fucking thing, I swear.”

Knud watched as Maeve’s chest expanded and contracted with each breath, peaceful as if her life didn’t depend on a fixed fight. Knud reached for her satchel and dug out the pipe and the tinderbox. He took some dry herb from the top of her clothing and sniffed it. The smell was sweet and a bit stingy, so Knud reckoned it was exactly what he needed right now and stuffed it in the pipe, then lit it and took a long drag.

The smoke burned like coals in his lungs. The sensation lingered for uncomfortably long even after he exhaled it. It didn’t get his head dizzy nor did it relax him, but it had a weird, stingy aftertaste in his mouth which he didn’t quite enjoy, but kind of did. He dragged again, this time puffing the smoke in Maeve’s face to see if she would react. Her nose wrinkled a bit, but that was it.

Knud rubbed his eyes as they started tearing from whatever he was smoking.

“Fuck me,” he said before sucking in another lungful. “A few silvers and a pussy.” He shook his head. “Never thought after everything up north that’s what’ll get me killed.”

###

The hours rolled by. Some lad brought food for Knud and Maeve, who’d woken up by then, as well as a waterskin. Nothing fancy — just porridge — but more than Knud expected anyway. Why feed a fighter before battle if you want him to lose?

But, as Maeve pointed out, if you want him dead why let him fight in the first place? She didn’t appear even one bit worried, but then, the whole thing was her idea.

An old but lively man flanked by two burly lads wearing leather armor and handling a sword escorted Knud and Maeve through the jail and into the dark of the night outside once the time came.

“Sir Barten is fearsome, you know,” the old man told Knud on the way.

The lads, which Knud assumed were jail guards, walked in front and behind them, with the old man who was presumably the warden walking beside Knud.

“I guess that’s why they call him Sir and of Pentspane,” Knud said. “Nobody cares a shit otherwise.”

The old man laughed. He missed most of his teeth, but had all of his bushy, cloud-like hair and some beard on his chin. He somehow managed to appear old and frail with all the wrinkles and saggy skin, but at the same time robust and even potentially dangerous with his posture and easy step.

“And what do they call you, big man?” the old man asked.

“Knud.”

“Merely Knud?”

“Knud Ironhand,” Maeve said from behind them. “Head of the Jarls, first atop the walls of Ulspaan, victor of seven duels, survivor of the Lichstan massacre, and Champion of Ulf.”

Knud growled to himself. He rathered keep the details of his past life to himself. He was no longer that man.

“Ah,” the old man said. “You’re quite the notable person where you come from then?”

“Quite,” Knud said.

“Well, I for one, hope you come out victorious,” the old man said. “Are you good with swords?”

“Swords are fine weapons.”

“In Sir Barten’s hand a sword is much more, big fella.” The old man patted Knud on the shoulder. “We’ve arrived.”

In front of Knud was a dirt circle amid the green grass, reminiscent in a tame way to the duelling circles he’d fought in back in his homeland. Some old wounds ached at the memories. There weren’t any shield bearers around the circle, but a bit further were at least ten guards with loaded crossbows and sheathed swords. A bit further still was a stand of some sort with a fancy looking chair, in which sat a man in his thirties with pitch black hair and curly moustache, under which his mouth had formed a straight, disinterested line. Off to his side was the familiar sight of Parchment man. That was the Baron in the chair then, with his lackey close by.

On the other side of the circle, illuminated by torchlight, was a man in a gambeson also in his thirties, though a bit further in than the Baron if Knud was any judge. His curly hair was slicked back and his bushy moustache was kept in check with an unnecessary amount of wax. Sir Barten, if the sword whose hilt he rested his hand on was anything to go by. He was speaking with a much younger, fancy looking blonde haired lady in a green dress, whose weak smile suggested she wasn’t enjoying the conversation very much, which either didn’t bother Sir Barten or he didn’t notice it.

The old warden unlocked Knud’s cuffs and offered him a sword.

“Do well and I’ll toss in a good word for you,” the warden said with a warm, almost fatherly smile.

Knud’s eyes shifted between the warden, the sword, Sir Barten and the guards with loaded crossbows.

“Any chance we can,” Knud said. “Talk this out instead?”

The warden laughed, then wrapped Knud’s much bigger hands around the hilt of the sword. “Do as you northerners do,” he said.

Maeve, hands still chained, stepped closer to whisper in Knud’s ear: “The wolves always prowl in our shadow. Listen for the howl of winter.”

Knud cranked his neck to look at her sideways. “If we survive this we should have a talk about this Champion of Ulf thing.”

“We will,” she said.

“Come on in then,” Sir Barten called from the center of the circle. He’d finished his conversation with the lady and walked in. “Let’s get this charade over with. Dinner awaits me.”

“Right.” Knud tightened his grip on the sword and joined Sir Barten at the center of the circle. “Anything I should know before we start? Rules or something?”

“You should know,” Sir Barten said with more than a bit of hatred. “That I do not appreciate your meddling in my business and thus I shall give you no quarter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Knud said. “I just wanted to help the boy who was to be executed.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Sir Barten snorted at that.

“Ready,” the warden called. “Begin!”

Sir Barten held true to his word and did not waste a second. He lunged at Knud with a measured thrust, which Knud’s hand deflected on its own. Old habits do die hard, it seemed. His body moved on old instincts, hammered into him over long years. He dodged and weaved, slashing at Sir Barten’s gambeson and narrowly avoiding deep slashes himself. The skin-deep wounds ruined Knud’s shirt, however, but not only.

He felt it.

A pinch in his soul. An ember. A surge of energy and the desire to give into the fight. To slash and stab and maul and rip and tear.

Sir Barten lunged for another attack, but his footing faltered, taken aback by the prowess of the big northerner. Knud’s face twisted in a mad grin. He swashed away Sir Barten’s sword hand and thrust his own sword at the knight’s gut.

The strike dug deep enough into the gambeson to leave a small wound. It wasn’t enough to even slow down Sir Barten, but that didn’t matter. Knud was within arm’s reach now and the knight was in no position to use his sword for anything other than weak flailing at Knud’s back.

I don’t mind, Knud thought. Scratch my back. He let go of his sword and wrapped his hands around the knight’s throat, then squeezed. Sir Barten’s eyes popped out in an instant. His reddening, coughing face was a beautiful sight.

The melodic voice of Maeve sang Sir Barten’s dirge. Lucky bastard. Many more died with much less solace. Knud was faintly aware of people speaking in the distance. He couldn’t make out what Maeve’s song was either.

None of that mattered. This was a moment for him and Sir Barten to share.

Pain stabbed at his side. In his struggles Sir Barten had found a way to create enough distance to be able to pull his sword back and take a stab at Knud. Knud coughed blood in the knight’s face. Then laughed. Wicked, mad laughter. He slammed his forehead in Sir Barten’s face to stop his fiddling with the sword. The knight’s head flopped to the side, bleeding and red. His body went limp.

Like a bolt from the blue, Maeve’s voice went harsh and loud. It hit Knud like a cold wave.

And he let go of Sir Barten. The knight’s body flopped to the ground like a doll.

“Ah, fuck,” Knud cried as the pain from the stab rushed in.

He doubled down. Fell on his ass as he clutched at the wound, sword still sticking out. The world cleared then, and he saw the crossbowmen had closed to a few steps from him, weapons raised and waiting for... something?

Maeve wasn’t singing anymore. Did she bring him back?

“Well?” Parchment man demanded.

Knud’s eyes focused at the stand in the near distance. Parchment man had taken a step forward and the Baron was on his feet, both of them shocked.

One of the guards dropped his crossbow to check on Sir Barten. “He’s alive,” the guard called.

The old warden placed a hand on one of the crossbowmen who’d encircled Knud. The lad made way for the old man to step inside.

“The victor is Knud Ironhand,” the warden said nonchalantly, then shooed the crossbowmen away. “Make some space now, would you?”

There was a moment of confusion as to what they should do. A few of the men glanced at where Parchment man and the Baron were, and eventually lowered their weapons and stepped back.

“And don’t stand like that,” the warden said. “Go get a doctor to check on Sir Barten and a nurse to tend to our victor’s wound.” He clapped his hands. “Chop chop.”

The guards scattered. Some of them ran off, the rest backed to their usual positions. Sir Barten’s lady, Knud noticed, was gone. Whatever their relationship was, Knud guessed she wasn’t very happy about it. But then, such was life. He looked at his own wife, who stood where they’d left her, chained and silent. She smirked.

Did she do it? Knud wondered again. That’s not possible. He’d never before been able to reign in his primal urges in the heat of battle. It was the same him as before, he recognized the monster, but it stayed its hand this time.

They really ought to have a talk about it, but right now Knud’s main problem was the agonizing pain at his side. He pulled the blade out with a groan and held the wound as best he could.

“Fucking shit,” he cried out.

The nurse couldn’t come soon enough.

The warden knelt beside Knud, looked him in the eye and whispered: “There’s the easy part. Now do as you’re told and we can have some fun.”

“What?” Knud said.

“Master Wolten,” Parchment man said as he approached them. “I trust all is well?”

“He’ll live,” the warden said with a slick looking smile which only Knud could see. He then stood and faced Parchment man. “I leave the rest to you.”

With that the warden retreated somewhere beyond Knud’s field of view, while Parchment man offered Knud a rolled parchment.

“Sign this,” he said.

“Now?” Knud asked. “I’m all bloodied and hurting.”

“Now.”

“Can you read it to me?” Knud asked.

Parchment man raised an eyebrow. “You can’t read?”

“I don’t want to leave blood on such a fine paper,” Knud said. “But, yeah, I also can’t read your language.” He’d probably be embarrassed if he wasn’t hurting so much.

Parchment man cleared his throat as he unrolled the parchment and read out loud:

“By decree of his majesty the good Baron O’cuana blah blah blah, Knud, his witch, and the heretic boy are exiled never to return, blah blah blah, you know that part. Here’s something new, you three take it upon yourselves to, in return for generously being allowed to keep your lives, eliminate a notorious bandit leader by the name of Cojung, who’s been terrorizing the good Baron’s southern border in the past few months.”

“That wasn’t part of our arrangement,” Knud said.

Parchment man produced a quill from his satchel and grinned slyly as he fell on one knee beside Knud. “It is now.” He pressed the quill at Knud’s hand where blood from his wound poured out and offered it to the northerner. “Sign.”

“With my blood?”

“As good as any ink,” Parchment man said. “Sign.”

Knud eyed the crossbowmen again. He took the quill. “Can’t you gather some men and rout the bandits?” he asked as he signed the bottom of the paper. “Why do you need me?”

Parchment man took back his quill, looked over the contract and nodded. “You’ve just proven more capable than Sir Barten,” he said. “And we rather keep our knights close, as befits their position of protectors.”

Slick bastards. So many of them down south.

“Where’s the nurse?” Knud asked. “This shit hurts like a bitch.”

Parchment man blew on the paper where Knud signed it, then rolled it and stuffed it in his satchel. “In due time, I’m sure,” he said. “You are to leave on the morrow. Some of the Baron’s men will escort you outside the city. You are to then leave his land post haste.”

Knud grunted. What a scam. “Fine,” he said. “Just get the damned nurse already.”

###

The nurse came shortly after. She cleaned the wound, stitched him up and bandaged him right there in the dirt. It took enough time for Knud to see the doctor and a bunch of the guards taking away Sir Barten’s unconscious but breathing body. He’d survived, presumably, since nobody did anything to punish Knud.

The rest of the night Knud spent chained to a bed, as the nurse insisted he needed a proper bed so he can rest over the night. Saved him some jail cell time, but not Maeve. Knud couldn’t have his talk with her since they were separated, but truth be told, he didn’t mind. The wound hurt too fucking much, he might not even have been able to sleep if not for the booze the same nurse snuck in for him.

A fine person, that woman. Knud thanked her in the morning and let the guards escort him out of town, where he was met by his wife, the boy from the gibbet, and the five guards who’d escorted them. Said guards unlocked the trio’s cuffs, collected them, and together with the five other guards escorting Knud turned and re-entered the city.

Knud eyed the boy. This was the first time he’d seen his face, and truth be told, it wasn’t anything spectacular. Just a young man, about seventeen or so, with short brown hair, a clean face unable to grow a beard yet, and brown eyes. He had some brawn to him, at least, but not much. Less than a boy his age should, by Knud’s reckoning, but more than he’d seen on most southerners.

Knud nodded at the boy to ease his mind a bit. The boy all but trembled with how unnerved he was by the situation. “I’m Knud,” the big man said. “What’s your name, boy?”

The boy took a deep breath to steady himself, straightened up, and said: “My name is Finnegan and I did nothing wrong,” he announced. “I saved those people.”

“That’s alright,” Knud said. “I don’t judge. I don’t even know what you were sentenced for, I kind of blanked out when they read that part.”

“They say heresy,” Finnegan said. “They don’t know anything. I helped people!”

“Do you want to... talk about it?”

Finnegan grunted. Scratched his head. “I don’t know. What’s there to say? Armed robbery in the poor part of town, I intervened, and everything was fine.”

“That don’t quite sound like heresy to me.”

“Eh...” Finnegan started. “It was an armed robbery. I took a few hits. Then... there were no wounds.”

Knud’s brows furrowed. “How do you mean?”

“Well, there they were, gaping and bleeding, and then there they were not,” Finnegan said. “The priests deemed it was no work of the Nine. Something else, they said, thus heresy.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know!” Finnegan snapped. “That’s the thing, I have no idea how it happened or why or who did it. It just happened. And I almost died for it.”

Knud wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he looked at Maeve. She held no expression to her, said nothing, gestured nothing. She simply looked back at him.

Fucking hell.

Knud placed a hand on Finnegan’s shoulder. “It’s alright, lad,” he said. “Where I come from, we don’t care about the Nine. You are among friends.”

Finnegan bit his lips as he looked Knud in the eyes. “Thanks,” he said eventually. “I have to ask though. Why did you save me?”

Knud looked at Maeve again. This time she took the initiative.

“A will beyond our own demanded it,” she said.

Oh fuck, Knud thought. She’s making it worse.

“Listen,” he said. “I took some drugs, I got a vision, and... I had to save a goat. Or was a goat. But we thought... shit, I’m also making it worse.”

Finnegan’s eyes moved between Knud and Maeve, confused.

“It was no accident,” Maeve said. “That you can trust.”

Finnegan’s brows inched closer. “I guess...”

He wasn’t convinced, clearly, but they did save him, and he was exiled, same as them. As good a reason as any to stick together, in Knud’s mind.

“Let’s get going,” Knud ushered them away from the city. “Don’t want to make it seem like we’re skipping on exile. Them crossbows pack some punch. There’s nothing for us here anyway.”

“Where are we going?” Finnegan asked.

“Away from here,” Knud said. “We have some bandit leader to hunt. I signed a contract.”

“Yeah,” Finnegan said. “Bandits are bad. Evil people.”

“Maeve,” Knud said. “What happened during the fight? What’s that Ulf thing?”

“Tonight,” she said. “At sundown.”

“What?”

“I’ll show you.”

Knud swallowed hard. “Show? Can’t you just tell me?”

“I can tell you anything,” she said. “But what you see, what you feel — you understand.”

“Alright. Fair. Fair.”

Knud rubbed the top of his head. How the fuck did all of this happen? I was just a sailor.

Meanwhile, a few meters from the trio, unbeknownst to any of them, a figure lurked in the trees. Watching. Following.