Dawning Hills

7th Day of Harvest,

766 Karloman’s Peace

Something jerked him awake.

His heart raced, and a keen alertness championed his senses as he spun on his waker, drawing his sword as he went. He readied the blade at a stabbing angle and grabbed a man by his collar.

Seconds before he drove the point of his sword into the man’s chest, he stopped.

Staring back at him, wide-eyed and terrified, was the farmhand Dreux.

Ekkehard could clearly see the man’s marred and dirty features in the pale light of a dawning day.

‘Sun's rising, sir,’ he said.

Ekkehard’s jaw was clenched so tightly that he wasn’t yet capable of speech. His nostrils flared with heavy breathing as his senses slowly roused themselves, and he remembered more clearly the events of the night before.

He put down his blade, released Dreux, and pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes, rubbing away sleep and trying to push back the headache behind them. When he uncovered his eyes, he saw blinking white and black flashes of photopsia impede his vision. The little black dots danced over Dreux’s face until at last they faded.

‘Sorry,’ Ekkehard apologised to the farmhand, ‘rough night.’

‘For us all, sir,’ Dreux replied, holding out a hand. Ekkehard grasped it, and Dreux pulled him up to his feet.

Ekkehard spotted Auriana, Gerwald and Florentin sat together a half dozen metres from him. Each of them looked ragged, their skin paler and large dark circles formed beneath their eyes.

Ekkehard walked over to them and asked in a raspy morning voice, ‘Did none of you get any sleep?’

Gerwald shook his head on behalf of the group.

‘Just Dreux and you two managed it,’ Florentin explained.

Ekkehard looked back over his shoulder and saw Dreux rousing Audomar, who slept against the trunk of the tree, with his arms wrapped around the haft of his hrapan spear. The elder Reubke woke as badly as he did, startled and looking for a weapon before his senses came to him.

Audomar got to his feet and began to brush himself off when he saw Ekkehard and the others looking at him. The elder brother stood tall and strained his back as he began to march over to the group.

‘Who will he be today,’ Ekkehard wondered to himself. Audomar had been broken the night before, Ekkehard was sure of it, and he wondered whether a few hours rest was enough for his brother to have recovered his bravado or not.

Before his brother reached the little gathering, Ekkehard turned his attention to his wife.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.

Auriana sat solemnly, a blank expression upon her weary face.

She did not reply.

She just stared into the distance.

Ekkehard would have repeated his question, but before he could, Audomar reached them and gave his first commands.

‘Let's not waste any time,’ Audomar instructed the group as he marched past them and headed towards the last night’s battleground.

In the daylight, it was much easier to see the aftermath of the battle.

Over a dozen bodies lay scattered here and there where the various skirmishes between the groups had happened. Examining the dead, they confirmed that only Otbert and Bavo had been killed the night before. Clear signs of drag marks could be seen in the mud and the grass; their missing companions taken after all.

For the first time, Ekkehard was able to see their attackers clearly.

The dead raiders he inspected were filthy, unwashed and gamey-looking. Their skin was bleached from sun exposure and many of them had malnourished frames. Most were unkempt, with long knotted hair and matted beards, dirt and blood clumped together within it.

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Few had any signs of armour or proper equipment, having fought with ugly and poorly crafted axes. The metal of the weapons was bulky, ridged and dull.

They stank as well.

Not just of decaying bodies but also of the overpowering scent of uncivilised men. All shit, piss and sweat. Their scent assaulted and offended the nostrils.

Ekkehard took a moment to look on the faces of all their dead attackers, offering a silent prayer for each. The last of them was cleaner-faced than the others, with smooth cheeks. Just a boy, probably no older than Corbus had been. Whoever the child was, he had been killed by a lance through the heart, that was clear.

Ekkehard looked up to Audomar, who stood impatiently on the edge of the battlefield.

He wondered if his brother knew.

‘Spring take you,’ Ekkehard whispered to the child, looking back at the corpse, ‘and may you seed his garden, and live forever within it.’

Then, Dreux approached him, with an unwarranted look of optimism.

‘Looks like they didn’t take much,’ Dreux claimed.

‘Just my sister, you mean,’ Ekkehard shot back.

Dreux pulled a face in response. He didn’t address the comment, clearly having regretted his foolish statement.

‘We still have most of our supplies, doesn’t look like they could find much of it in the dark and the chaos. You still have most of your coin as well,’ Dreux explained.

Ekkehard didn’t reply and turned his attention back to the dead boy at his feet.

‘It’s more than we can carry, mind you,’ Dreux continued, as if he needed to fill the silence, ‘you sirs are going to have to decide what you want to keep.’

Ekkehard remained silent.

‘Young’un that one,’ Dreux said and Ekkehard turned to face the man again.

Something about the casual tone with which he spoke made Ekkehard’s jaw clench and his fists ball.

‘Shame,’ Dreux added, ‘when the kids get caught up in this stuff I mean.’

‘What of it?’ Ekkehard spat. Before Dreux could answer, Ekkehard marched past the man, and headed to speak with Florentin.

‘What do you think?’ he asked his brother.

Florentin inhaled and examined the field one last time before summarising his theory.

‘Well,’ he answered, ‘they attacked from all sides and fled in different directions, so they definitely knew exactly where we were. A smaller group than I imagined; I think we must have killed over half of them.’

‘Not enough.’

‘True, but a good sign, nonetheless. The interesting thing is this,’ he said, leading Ekkehard over to a set of tracks in the mud, ‘all the drag marks are headed eastward. Those that ran, all ran in different directions, but those that caught someone headed east.’

‘You think their tribe is to the east?’ Ekkehard asked.

‘Or their camp,’ Florentin clarified, ‘I mean, maybe it’s not, but if you’ve got to carry a struggling person off with you, are you going to go the roundabout way?’

‘No,’ Ekkehard answered, ‘No, I am not.’ Ekkehard turned his gaze from the tracks back to Audomar, who still lingered away from the rest of their group. ‘What are his thoughts on the matter?’

‘If he has any,’ Florentin replied, ‘he hasn’t shared them with me.’

‘Or me,’ Ekkehard stated. He turned and faced Florentin again, ‘East then,’ he said.

‘East,’ Florentin confirmed.

The two informed the rest of the party of their conclusions and, after they gathered and broke down their supplies, they hunted eastward. It took only half an hour for them to find a small camp nestled at the foot of a hill. Little more than a pair of campfires, discarded animal carcasses and leftover furs that had once been bedding, Florentin concluded that it had once hosted almost two dozen men.

‘We got a lot of them then,’ Gerwald said as they counted.

‘They still have the numbers,’ Audomar retorted with a snort of derision.

Ekkehard shot Audomar a disapproving look. He understood that Audomar was struggling, but he needn’t take it out on others.

‘What now then?’ Dreux asked, meekly intervening.

‘Tracks are clear,’ Florentin stated, pointing to the thick collection of footprints leading away from the camp. ‘Looks like they only set off a few hours ago, wherever they were headed, it’s that way.’

Ekkehard nodded his assent, as did Audomar, and the group set off in pursuit of the hillmen.

They lost and re-found the trail on a few occasions over the next few hours, but by midday, the tracks led them to discover a narrow cave opening nestled in the side of a large hill. They took cover behind some rocks a short distance away and spied on their target.

‘Plan?’ Dreux asked.

‘Not much choice, really,’ Florentin responded. ‘It’s a cave, one way in, one way out.’

‘So, we go in, kill them all, and get our sister back,’ Gerwald said in a vengeful tone.

'Don't assume it will be that easy,' Ekkehard challenged Gerwald. 'We have no idea how many more of them are in there.'

'Ekkehard is right,' Florentin added, 'we should wait a while.'

'No,' Audomar interjected.

'No?' Florentin mimicked their elder brother, shocked.

'No,' Audomar repeated. 'They have Gisla. We go in now. I don't care how many there are.'

'Agreed,' said Gerwald, drawing his sword, suddenly energised.

‘What the hells was Audomar doing,’ Ekkehard thought to himself. They had no idea what they were up against, and there were only five of them, not counting Auriana. What was she going to do while they were busy throwing themselves into the wolf’s den? Ekkehard wanted to find their sister just as much as anyone else, but not at the cost of losing more people. Audomar should understand that, after all, he made that very same decision at Danzig. Why was he now so reckless?

‘I’m not sure,’ Ekkehard began to protest, but Audomar was having none of it. The elder Reubke simply began his march toward the cave entrance. The youngest Reubke brother followed suit.

Ekkehard looked to Florentin, who shrugged back at him. 'I guess we are going in then,' Florentin said, and followed their two brothers.

Ekkehard was about to protest further, but sighed and accepted the facts before him.

He turned to Dreux. The man wasn't family and had already been dragged through enough by him and his brothers. 'Stay here with Auriana,’ Ekkehard instructed the man, ‘keep her safe,' he charged him.

'You sure?' Dreux responded. 'Don't you need all the sword-arms you can get in there?'

'It won't make a difference, one way or the other. Whatever happens, though, make sure my wife gets out of here alive,' Ekkehard said.

He turned to look at his wife. She was about to say something, but he put his arm around her head and pulled her toward him before she could speak. He kissed her on the forehead, hugged her, and then turned to follow his brothers toward the cave entrance.