Gisla

10th Day of Harvest,

766 Karloman’s Peace

A few hours after sunset, when the sky had turned dark and many of the campfires in the valley below had gone out, the Reubkes made their move. Ekkehard and Florentin stayed back with bows while Gerwald, Audomar and Dreux took the lead.

Auriana was left alone upon the hill.

In the orange and yellow glow of torchlight, three lookouts waited on the edge of the camp.

One was laid low by Florentin, who killed him with an arrow. The second died from a spear thrust through the abdomen, the blade bursting free of the shadows that surrounded the man. Audomar’s aim was impeccable, and the man died making nothing more than a gurgling noise. The third, holding the group's torch, would have panicked and screamed, had his neck not been snapped by the might of Gerwald’s arms. He had snuck up behind the man as his fellows died, grabbing him in a chokehold, dragging him to the floor until he heard the crunch of bone and the man’s head twisted unnaturally.

As Ekkehard and his brother snuck through the camp, they stuck to the shadows, avoiding the spattering of campfires that were still lit here and there. A few of the hill people remained around them, drinking and making merry with one another, while the rest of the camp slept.

All peoples had their night crawlers, Ekkehard mused.

The muffled murmurings of the late drinkers were drowned out by the quaint hushing of the stream. It was almost pleasant. More importantly, it would mask much of the noise of their intrusion and Ekkehard thanked Lady Summer for their good fortune.

The sound contrasted with the scent of the place, which was vile. An overwhelming scent of body odour, human waste, and rotting meat permeated the entire of the camp.

Each time the group past a tent, Audomar, Dreux, and Gerwald would enter while Florentin and Ekkehard would stand guard. When the three returned from within, their daggers would be drawn, a slick wetness shimmering on them in the moonlight.

While waiting outside one tent, a shadow flickered at the entrance to another. Florentin quickly drew his bow and took aim. Ekkehard swiftly pulled his brother’s bow upward as he loosed his arrow.

They both held their breath as the missile flew through the darkness, overshooting the shadow. The shadow noticed neither the arrow, nor the archers, and walked away from the brothers and headed to the far side of the camp.

'What did you do that for?' Florentin whispered viciously when the hill person was gone. Ekkehard didn't answer, he simply nudged his brother and pointed toward the shadow.

As the shadow passed the low light of one of the campfires, Florentin was able to see what Ekkehard already spotted.

The shadow was short, skinny, just a child.

Florentin looked at Ekkehard coolly. 'Fine,' is all he said.

They checked several tents until finally, they came to a large semi-structure in the centre of the camp. Animal skins had been raised by thick tree branches and makeshift walls of twigs and junk formed a dome-like structure. Before its entrance, several hillmen were sat around a campfire, each clearly drunk, laughing as they told one incoherent story after the other.

Audomar, Gerwald and Dreux waited in the shadows beyond the firelight until Ekkehard and Florentin caught up.

'What’s wrong?' Ekkehard asked,

'We need to search these bigger places,' Audomar answered.

Ekkehard nodded and looked to the hillmen waiting by the fire. ‘What about them?’ he asked.

'They look pretty sotted to me,' Dreux said, 'if we are quick, I don’t think they will even notice us.'

Ekkehard had no objection.

Florentin fired another arrow through the darkness, just outside the vision of the hill men. It whizzed past one of them who began to look around in confusion.

'What was that?' he asked, slurring his words.

'What the fuck did you do that for?' Ekkehard whispered angrily at Florentin.

'Distraction,' he responded.

The man who spoke was joined by two others as they stumbled into the darkness beyond the brothers, searching half-heartedly for the arrow they did not know was there.

'Go,' Ekkehard ordered, and all five made for the entrance of the half-structure.

Ekkehard was first in. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he came face to face with the confused expression of a man staring at him.

Both the man and Ekkehard reacted with panic, but Ekkehard was faster.

As they grappled, Ekkehard drove his dagger up through the man’s throat and into the roof of his mouth. He was forced to hold the man’s gaze as he died.

Ekkehard supported the dead man’s weight as he slowly lay him upon the ground.

Looking around the tent, Ekkehard saw no other guards were on watch, but many bodies lay across the floor. Many of them were bound. Their limbs tied together with rope, or their bodies wrapped to the structure's supports.

Audomar had been right; the prisoners were kept in the larger buildings.

Ekkehard went to check on the nearest captive but shaking him had no effect. As he checked more prisoners, he discovered they were all either unconscious or delirious.

There was a constant hum of quiet groaning from the tent's inhabitants and the overpowering smell of human waste and rotting flesh was overpowering.

‘Gisla,’ Ekkehard called out in a hushed voice, ‘Gisla, are you here?’ but there was no response.

He would have to check each captive. All had suffered serious injuries, with burn marks and scars covering their bodies. Many were even missing entire limbs while others were simply dead.

Ekkehard tried not to panic. He pushed away imagined images of his sisters broken body from his mind. She will be fine he told himself. He didn’t believe it.

‘Master Ekkehard?’ a croaky and strained voice called out to him from the back of the tent, ‘is that you?’

Ekkehard spun on the spot searching for the voice.

‘Yes, it is me,’ he responded, ‘Is that you, Liaueld?’ Ekkehard quizzed the darkness, ‘Where are you?’

‘Over here, sir,’ the weak and strained voice of the Reubkes' household servant called back.

Ekkehard struggled to see Liaueld in the dark. She was sitting near the back of the tent. Ekkehard had to step carefully over several other captives and dead bodies to reach her. When he did, it was still difficult to make out her features, but he could tell she was in a bad way.

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‘Liaueld,’ Ekkehard whispered calmly to her, kneeling just in front of her and trying to make eye contact. She seemed as disorientated and delirious as the other captives. ‘We have been looking for you all for days; are you okay? Is Gisla here? Is our sister with you?’

‘Master Ekkehard, where are you?’ the woman tried to respond, her agony stricken voice shaking as she did. She began to sob in quiet little moans, ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes, Liaueld, it is me. But Gisla?’ Ekkehard questioned the broken woman, ‘Is she here in this tent? Or in another. Have they moved her to another camp? Where can I find her, Liaueld? Hurry and tell me.’

His brothers joined him in gathering around the woman.

‘Oh, master Ekkehard, I am so sorry,’ the woman cried back.

‘Don't apologise,’ Ekkehard replied, hushing her, ‘none of this is your fault, just tell me where she is. Please, Liaueld, we must find her and quickly.’

‘She is dead, sir,’ Liaueld spoke the words and Ekkehard went silent. His body turned cold.

‘They took her days ago,’ the woman explained.

Talking was clearly painful for her. ‘They take someone every day. They took Leger the day we arrived. We never saw him again. Then they took Gisla. I think they,’ her sentence trailed off.

‘I am so sorry.’ Liaueld’s words became a hysterical mess of sobbing. She awkwardly reached out with one hand and gripped Ekkehard’s ankle.

‘I am so sorry,’ she sobbed once more.

Gerwald shook his head unwilling to accept the news.

‘You are mistaken,’ Gerwald challenged the woman, ‘my sister is alive, and I will find her, now where did you last see her?’

‘No young master,’ the woman cried out in a wail.

‘Gisla is dead, the poor girl, they killed her and they, and they,’ the woman couldn’t bring herself to say it, ‘oh master Ekkehard she is dead, I am so sorry.’

‘No!’ Gerwald shouted at the woman and reached to grab her by the shoulders and pulled her off the floor. As he got her to her feet, she immediately tumbled back to the ground in a heap.

Gerwald scrambled back, startled.

She was missing her right leg.

Ekkehard saw for the first time the true condition the woman was in. Her leg had been cut off at the knee, her hair had been torn out in multiple places, she was covered in bruises and scars, and her eyes were blinded, with deep scars running across them.

Ekkehard didn’t really know Liaueld, in fact, he had never really known any of the farmhands, but he remembered that she had been quite beautiful.

Now she looked like a horror from a bad dream.

‘Liaueld,’ Ekkehard spoke to her softly once again, ‘what has happened to you?’

‘Please don’t ask that kind sir!’ she wailed back at him, ‘oh, please don’t ask that, don’t make me tell, don’t make me!’

Others in the tent began to groan and cry around her. Whatever these people had been through, it had traumatised them all.

Florentin pushed his way past Ekkehard and Gerwald

‘What happened to my sister,’ he asked the woman calmly. When Liaueld didn't answer, however, Florentin barked at her. ‘Tell me now!’ he shouted.

Liaueld wailed in response and Ekkehard tried to shush them both.

‘Leave her be,’ Ekkehard said, urging Florentin back from the woman.

‘No,’ he hissed, ‘I would know our sister’s fate.’

‘They beat us, master; they rape and torture us!’ the woman screamed. ‘And when they are done with us, they eat us! They ate my leg! They ate your sister!’

Liaueld curled herself into a ball on the floor of the tent and began to howl, beg and plead with the darkness.

Something caught in Ekkehard’s throat, and his muscles went weak. He knew there was little chance they would find his sister alive, but to learn of this fate was more than he was prepared for. How could these people, these dirty people, be so vile as to have eaten his sister.

The thought made him sick.

He stepped away from Liaueld and turned his gaze to the tragedy of those that surrounded him. He couldn’t bear to look upon any of the captives. He saw in their faces Gisla.

His despair was interrupted by the sound of choking.

Ekkehard spun back and saw Florentin had opened the woman’s throat with his dagger.

‘What are you doing?’ Ekkehard exclaimed in shock.

‘Being merciful,’ he answered.

Ekkehard went to stop his brother, but then he noticed the absence of Gerwald and Audomar. Both had left the tent.

Ekkehard rushed after them, Dreux and Florentin following behind.

When Ekkehard reemerged into the camp beyond, Audomar and Gerwald had already begun their slaughter. Two hill men lay dead around the campfire; the rest, taken completely by surprise, were being cut down by his brothers.

Their cries of agony resounded, and the camp began to stir in response.

‘Stop!’ Ekkehard called to his brothers, ‘we must go. Now!’

His pleading fell on deaf ears.

Gerwald marched across the campground and drove his short sword into the belly of another hillmen.

Ekkehard saw a shadow emerging from a tent beside his brother. Gerwald had not seen it. He rushed to his brother's aid drawing his own short sword as he went.

Ekkehard drove the blade into the chest of the groggy and disoriented man, who screamed in shock at the attack. He batted the man back who’s corpse fell into the darkness of the tent.

New sounds began to emerge from within. Its other inhabitants were woken.

‘Gerwald, stop this!’ Ekkehard shouted after his brother.

Gerwald ignored him, hunting for another kill.

Ekkehard watched as Gerwald cut down a hill woman, and then a young lad, and then an old man. Ekkehard was powerless to halt his brother’s wrath.

Its not that he wanted to save the hill people. These savages deserved what was coming to them. The part of Ekkehard that had empathy for them was dead now, and he wished death upon the whole stinking lot of them. No, he didn’t want to save the hill peoples, but he did want to save his brothers, and if they didn’t flee now, soon the whole tribe would be on them.

The whole camp was waking.

Ekkehard didn’t know what to do.

Then, Florentin acted.

Rushing from the tent, Florentin ran toward the campfire. He gathered some of the hill tribe’s torches and thrust them into the fire until they ignited. With flaming sticks in hand, Florentin rushed to one tent and then the other, setting them ablaze. When a third tent was alight, he threw one torch into the distance, setting a fourth tent on fire and then threw the other at a fifth on the other side of the camp.

Soon, half the camp was in flames.

A chaotic symphony of panic erupted as the fires spread.

Men and women rushed this way and that, gathering buckets and rushing toward the stream. Others gathered belongings, trying to save what they could.

Some of the hillmen had even started to blame one another for the fire, and brawls broke out. The confusion hid the presence of Ekkehard and his brothers in part, but the Reubkes continued to encounter and murder small groups of the tribe.

Ekkehard spotted Audomar through the chaos as he drove the tip of his spear through the back of a panicked hillman. Ekkehard rushed over to him, grabbing him by the shoulder.

‘Audomar, we need to leave,’ he shouted to his brother.

‘No!’ Audomar screamed back, ‘I will kill every last one of them.’

Audomar shoved Ekkehard away and stormed into the fiery night to find another victim.

Then Ekkehard heard something he had not expected.

It was Dreux. He was shouting. He was shouting a name.

‘Gisla!’ he shouted, ‘Gisla!’

Ekkehard turned to look at the man. He was pointing into the distance of the camp. Ekkehard followed his indication.

There, outside one of the now-burning tents, a hill woman, dirty, clothes ragged, hair wild and tangled, struggled to restrain a young girl of familiar visage.

Gisla was alive.

‘Audomar!’ Ekkehard shouted, ‘Audomar, she is alive. Over here!’

Ekkehard ran toward his struggling sister.

A hillman interceded.

Ekkehard did not hesitate to cut him down, a spray of red fluid spurting from the diagonal slash across his chest. As he neared his sister and the woman, he could hear what they were saying.

‘Come, pretty girl, come,’ the woman was saying, tugging at Gisla’s arm as she tried to escape. ‘With me, you will be safe with me.’

‘Let me go!’ Gisla shouted back.

Then she saw Ekkehard. ‘Ekkehard!’ she shouted, ‘Ekkehard, brother!’

Before Ekkehard reached his sister, however, several more hillmen barred his way, rushing toward him, weapons brandished. Ekkehard was not alone, however, as Audomar, Gerwald, Florentin, and Dreux had all come at the sound of their sister’s call.

One of the hillmen, a broad and strong-looking man, stood at the head of their group. He brandished his thrusting spear and hissed at Ekkehard and his brothers.

‘Die, you dog!’ Ekkehard heard Audomar shout as he prepared to rush the man. Ekkehard grabbed his brother by the arm and pulled him back.

‘Wait!’ Ekkehard shouted. ‘Stop this!’

Ekkehard pushed Audomar behind him and put himself between his brothers and the hill people.

‘This doesn’t need to go any further,’ he said to them.

A tense silence followed and Ekkehard was relieved to see that the hill people were listening. He had seconds and so he spoke without thought, bringing every ounce of reason he could conceive of to talk the hill people down.

‘Look around you,’ Ekkehard said, ‘your home is in flames. More than a dozen of your people are already dead. A dozen more have died fighting us over the last few days. Fight us now, and more of you die.’

The leader of the savages looked around as Ekkehard spoke. The cragged face of the man was bestial, like a wild boar about to charge. Yet, he did not.

‘That isn’t what we want,’ Ekkehard continued. ‘We are not here for you. We’re not here for your people. We just want our sister. Give her to us and we go. We leave.’

Ekkehard could see the man was understanding him.

‘No more of your people die,’ Ekkehard concluded.

The leader of the hill people looked around. He looked back at the men that supported him and to the woman who held Gisla captive. He examined Ekkehard and his companions once more.

Then, he marched over to the woman and grabbed Gisla by the arm, wrenching her from her captor.

‘No, she is mine,’ the woman shouted.

The leader snarled at the woman in response, and she shrank away.

He pushed Gisla toward the Reubkes and released her. She ran into Ekkehard’s arms, his brothers standing guard as he embraced her. Ekkehard and his brothers slowly backed out of the camp.

Then, as soon as they could, they fled, their sister saved.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ Gisla said to them over and over as they ran into the night.