I sat with other boys my age, reciting verses from the holy book from memory. Father Nostle was watching us, and I recited the lines properly, because he was a genuinely kind and good man, and one of the few priests I did not hate.

The Church’s policy was to use the rod to punish, thus if one of the other boys had gotten a word wrong, Father Nostle was supposed to slap him sharply across his knuckles with the rod. But Father Nostle hated the rod almost as much as I hated the Church, and he loathed using it. He only carried it when another priest or monk was in the room watching, and we boys always tried our best for him, because we could see how it pained him to hit us. If there was no one watching, and a mistake was made Father Nostle would glance around, making sure there was no one to witness it, and then quietly correct the mistake before continuing on.

He was the only priest I trusted, though I knew that if I shared any secret too profane, he would be plagued by it and eventually it would reach the ears of the bishop, who would have me whipped. So, I kept most of my secrets to myself.

We made it through the passage without error, and Father Nostle praised us for our hard work. He then launched into a discussion about why the Templars must cleanse the land of heathens, with a great many references to the holy book, though I mostly thought of other things, such as Thor, and Odin, and whether I would be welcomed into Odin’s hall where Ragnar waited if I fought for the Christians. Such questions genuinely worried me, for the Christian heaven sounded quite dull, and Odin’s hall sounded quite exciting, with its fighting, drinking, and whoring until Ragnarök.

When Father Nostle was satisfied, he let another man take over. This man wore a mail coat, steel gauntlets, and steel boots. He had a white tunic over his mail, and there was a red cross on it. He spoke little and herded us out into the courtyard. I’d known him for almost four years now, since I was ten and deemed old enough to learn the sword, and I still didn’t know his name. I hated him, but I respected him for he was a great warrior. Not as great, I thought, as Hrolleif, for he fought with more armor and seemed to feel a great deal of regret for his deeds in battle, but a great warrior. We were made to put on vests of wood, with lead plates embedded to imitate armor and so we would get used to the weight of Templar armor. We swung massive swords that required two hands to even lift, and great bursts of strength to swing. I was shorter than most of the other boys, but far from the shortest among my group. My arms were not thick, nor were my shoulders especially broad, but I was fast.

The Templar sword was nearly five feet long, and weighed more than I had when I’d been taken by the Templars. Now, eight years later, it was still too heavy for me to properly wield. The knight who trained us was ruthless and cold, and though his sword was blunt, it was a true Templar sword, and he swung it with all the fury of his God. He broke ribs, arms, legs, and many other bones besides, more than a few of them were my own. I learned quickly, however, and the bruises did not bother me.

We trained with the sword for the entire afternoon, then were made to pray for hours before dinner, and it was always a meager meal of broth with little to no meat. I didn’t understand how they expected us to become warriors if they didn’t feed us meat, but the Templars were a strange folk.

#

I was roused by a rough, frigid hand shaking my shoulder. It was a monk, one whose name I didn’t know. He wore a dull, brownish coat of mail, cheaply made, over a brown woolen robe belted with rough rope. The top of his head was shaved, while unkempt brown hair curled erratically in a ring around his head beneath the shiny bald peak. He wore gloves of leather and mail, and that was why his hand was so cold on my bare skin.

“Gunnolf Asger, you are summoned,” he told me.

I could tell that many of the other boys had been woken, that they lay in their cots pretending to sleep while they eavesdropped on what the monk was saying.

I rose, stretching silently as I glanced around the dorm subtly. My gaze landed on the bundle of fur under my thin sheets. I’d managed to keep the cloak Earl Hrolleif had given me with its wolf pelt all these years, and though it had been much too large for me at the time, it was a much more reasonable size now. On a whim, I wrapped it around my shoulders and silently followed the monk.

I fully expected a beating, I had certainly done something to deserve it, though I would never admit to any of my supposed crimes. We walked through the dark halls of Pod castle, and I admit I was afraid. I’d received many beatings before, for I never submitted to their teachings, but never had I been roused at night to receive such a punishment. I feared that the monks had finally had enough of my insolence, and would be tying me into a sack to be thrown into the ocean, or perhaps they would simply hang me. I was young, and I had been exposed to the Templar religion for most of my life, though it held little appeal to me, and I hoped to go to that place Hrolleif had spoken of, though I could not remember the name, where warriors who died in valiant combat feasted and prepared for the final battle at the end of days. I grew horrified then, when I remembered that one must die with their weapon in hand to go there, and I had no weapon to struggle against my would-be killers with to earn my place among Odin and his warriors.

But they were not taking me to kill me, at least not tonight. I followed the monk to a room with a thick, oak door. It was banded with iron and locked with a heavy lock. He produced a key from within his robe and opened it, letting the lock fall unceremoniously to the floor. The resultant noise rang through the hallways with a crash. I thought for sure it would bring a guard, but no one came.

I followed the monk into the room, and he bowed his head as if in reverence. Two men stood there, with another two boys my age, though I’d never seen them before. They all wore dull mail coats, the men wore the white tunic of Templar Knights, and had their great swords resting in front of them, a long sword buckled to their waist, and a vicious looking maul buckled opposite it. The boys had no helmets, nor gloves, and they had a sword each, belted over ragged looking mail.

“Choose your mail, and your sword,” one of the men ordered.

I knew he must be accomplished within the Templar ranks, for most Templar Knights had taken oaths of silence. “Where are we going?” I asked. I was curious, but I also wanted to know what we would be doing.

“Pick your sword, boy, we’ve waited long enough,” he spat at me.

I had no doubt that this man was disgusted by me, and perhaps by the other boys as well, but he no doubt had been told of my continuous insolence against the church, and he probably had an even greater dislike for me than the other boys. I stared at him for a long second, noting the many scars across his face and his grim, heavy eyes.

I picked up a long, hand and a half sword with a chipped blade and swung it experimentally a few times. It was terrible, likely forged by an apprentice who knew little of true forge-craft, and it was far from the best I could hope for from this small, dilapidated armory. This was not somewhere that knights would get their weapons, it was somewhere they gave arms to those they expected to die.

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They considered me expendable.

But I was young, and proud, and arrogant. I chose the worst sword on the rack, and gave the angry knight a scowl that told him I did it on purpose. Then I glanced at the sorry choice of mail available, and spat on the rusted armor.

#

We left while it was still dark, and though they have many faults, the Templars are some of the best breeders of horses I have ever seen, though they didn’t know it. They only used the stallions with pure white coats for their knights, and any others were considered inferior.

I was given a sorry looking mare, she was mottled gray and black, and she was stubborn and proud. They gave her to me because she was not a war horse, though she had a warrior’s spirit. She bit at any who came near her, especially males of any species, and had to be kept far away from all the other beasts. I have never met a soul prouder than she, and she is my most treasured companion.

The Templars expected the mare, whose sooty coat was considered ugly by everyone but myself, to bite me with her strong jaws. But as I approached her in the darkness of the stables, my nose full of the stench of horse shit and the slaves who tended the unwanted horses, she gazed at me with a calm curiosity. I gave her an apple, fresher than any of the rotten fruit she was allowed from the kitchens, and she took it gently from my hand. I gazed into her massive, brown eyes and felt a tug on my heart.

“Ren,” I whispered the name to her, and she whinnied, throwing her head back. It meant purity in the language of Earl Hrolleif’s people, and I liked the irony in it. I rubbed my hand down her long neck, feeling her heartbeat, and began to adjust the saddle. They had given her no blanket to save her from the rough leather of the saddle, and she still had bruises from the horse master’s misguided attempts to break her spirit.

I pulled my own blanket from my bag, for there were no others nearby, and rubbed her neck comfortingly while I unbuckled the dirty saddle and eventually heaved it off her back. I laid the blanket down, though it was not as soft as it should have been it would save her a great deal of discomfort, and I put the saddle back on. I buckled the straps, ignoring the glares I received from the other boys as I made them wait, though for the first time the knights seemed to look at me with something other than contempt. I made sure the saddle was seated as comfortably as possible and fed her another apple before tying my bag onto the rear of the saddle and pulling myself up into it. I took up the rear as we rode out of the castle, through the heavy gate, and out into the wild, barbarian lands beyond the reach of the Templar religion.

I had not felt such excitement since I was a child, watching waves break into white foam on the bow of Hrolleif’s longship.

#

We rode North and East, camping each night. We made no attempts to hide our presence until we came to a great river, far too wide to swim. It was the Bea river, though I had to guess that much, since the templars would tell me nothing. Our interaction was limited to nightly lessons on sword fighting, which usually ended in bruises for the other two, though I was proud to see that I could at least give the experienced warriors a challenge despite my own inexperience.

We followed the river North for a day and a half, until we reached a nameless bridge, half destroyed, and dismounted to lead the horses across.

Over the few weeks of travelling we had done so far, I’d become quite close with Ren, and I trusted her more than any other member of the party. So, when she grew nervous near the middle of the bridge, I faltered.

“I don’t like this,” I called out. “Something’s wrong.”

“You would turn back because your horse is nervous?” one of the other boys asked, “coward,” he sneered at me.

That was when the bridge rumbled, and four huge fingers wrapped around the low wall of the bridge. The skin was a sickly green color, the nails were long and ragged, and there were splashes of old blood on the fingers. Each finger was as thick as my thigh, and they were quickly joined by another set of four. There was a deafening sound, and a great, green monstrosity pulled itself from the water, resting on the strongest part of the bridge with a hungry grin as it stared at us.

“Will you pay the toll?” it asked.

The templars attacked by way of answering. Their great swords flashed, and the troll screamed in pain and rage.

The other two boys looked lost, terrified. One had soiled his pants.

I swung into Ren’s saddle and kicked her sides with my heels, knowing she would forgive me for it later. The other horses followed Ren off the unsteady bridge, and once they were on solid ground I drew my flimsy sword and charged back onto the bridge on foot.

I screamed. I tried to sound fierce, but it’s more likely that my battle cry was shrill and high. But I distracted the troll long enough with my screaming that one of the templars landed a deep blow in its neck. The troll shrieked in pain and tried to retreat, but I lunged over the side of the bridge, stabbing my sword into the other side of its neck. My weight dragged the edge downward, and I felt the sword strike bone before the blade broke, and I felt into the water below.

The cold was oppressive. I couldn’t breathe even once I’d forced my head above water, but I paddled as strongly as I could for the shore. The roar of pounding water filled my ears, and I felt a dull thud on the back of my head before my vision suddenly went dark.

#

A gentle breeze pushed my hair into my eyes, and I raised a hand to push it aside. Below my feet lay dark wood, worn smooth by time, and a great mast rose from the deck ahead of me. I recognized that I stood upon a ship well enough from my time with Earl Hrolleif, but it was no Viking warship. This ship was longer, wider, and had three masts. But upon the masts there were no sails, instead they rose up to a metal cage which held some sort of fabric. It was stretched taught against the cage, and thick metal ropes were strung from that cage to the masts and to the railings that surrounded the deck. I could see dark swirls beneath the edge of the deck, and above were countless stars. A figure with short hair leaned against the mast in front of me, eyes closed. At first I took her for a young man, for she was rather muscular for a girl, and her dark blonde hair was shorter than any woman I’d seen before. She wore some strange sort of boots, some sort of canvas or leather covered them, reaching up to below her knee with a strap that went under the arch. Her jacket was thick leather, red in color, with buckles on the sleeves and a high collar that was flipped down. It seemed to be lined with some sort of fur, and it made her look even less feminine than anything else.

Yet, despite her somewhat masculine appearance, I was drawn to her. Her cheekbones were high, her chin sharp, but shallow. She wore a small, gentle smile. Her nose was thin and button-like, though it looked to be slightly off center. A scar ran down from above her left ear, following her jaw, to end just short of her chin.

I stared at her, enraptured, and she opened her eyes.

#

I awoke to a dark sky. Stars wheeled overhead, and somewhere above my head I could see the glow of a campfire. Ren leaned her great head down to press her nose against mine as I tried to get my bearings, and I reached up to pat her jaw reassuringly. I sat up and turned myself around. A pair of blue eyes haunted me.

I sat on the shore, encrusted in mud, and Ren stood over me protectively. A short distance away the rest of my party sat around a small fire, cooking some sort of small animal over the flames. I felt joints crack and pop as I forced myself to my feet, and Ren shoved her head against me, though I wasn’t sure if it was affection or annoyance that motivated her. I trudged into the small camp and sat on an empty stump heavily.

“That horse of yours wouldn’t let anyone near you, else we would’ve dragged you out of the mud, at least,” the angry-looking templar said.

“The troll?” I asked.

“Dead,” he answered, “by your hand.”

“I was not the only one to strike a blow,” I pointed out.

“No, but yours was the final blow,” he told me.

I said nothing, staring into the fire. I had no sword now, I was defenseless. Somewhere out there, blue eyes were closed, waiting to open. Waiting for me.