The Jarl was paying attention now, turning a judgmental gaze to Ferez. His eyes travelled from the mage’s feet up to his head, lingering on his chest and arms.
“I know you hate me, Ingrid. But this is a weak attempt to rile me up. Betrothed? To him? He’s an Emrinthian! And more than that, he’s a runt!”
Ferez scowled and crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his biceps and subtly pushing the muscles out with his fingers.
“I can turn armies into ash with the flick of a wrist, Jarl. I am no runt,” Ferez said with a hard edge to his voice. The Jarl ignored him, turning back to Ingrid and throwing his hands up in exasperation.
“And he’s a mage! How much more shame can you possibly bring on the clan?” he cried. Ingrid’s mother, meanwhile, was also looking him up and down, with a twinkle in her eye that made the mage blush and fidget.
“Oh, I don’t know, dear husband. He’s awfully… exotic.”
“Don’t even think about it, mother,” Ingrid warned. “And you never had the right to dictate who I will marry. Not then, not now.”
The Jarl looked at his daughter with a pained expression that quickly gave way to a hard glare. “You are right, I suppose. Is that why you’ve come? To rub an old man’s face in it one last time before he dies?”
Ingrid nodded. “That, and to demand a dowry, as is my future husband’s right.”
The Jarl waved a dismissive hand at Ferez. “Name your price, foreigner. Though my daughter may be shamefully dismissive of our customs, I hold to the traditions of my forefathers. What will it be? Gold? Slaves? A herd of caribou?”
“The family’s heirloom dagger,” Ferez said, head held high and a challenge in his voice. The Jarl froze, his eyes staring intently into space. Then, almost imperceptibly at first, he started to shake as his face turned a deep purple, contorting in a manner Ferez wouldn’t have thought possible before seeing it himself.
“You would take the most precious weapon my clan has, passed down from father to son for generations? You, a scrawny foreigner who’s infected my daughter with southern weakness?”
Southern weakness? Ferez briefly wondered before answering. “I would. Will you deny my claim?”
The mother’s eyes were positively dancing with excitement now as the Jarl looked like he was about to explode. Eventually, he closed his eyes, taking deep breaths as the colour of his face slowly returned to normal. “I will honour your claim,” he hissed. “Though this occasion is not yours to usurp. We will discuss the dowry and marriage after the wedding.”
Ingrid nodded once to her father, shook her head at her mother, then left the platform, striding towards the doors as Ferez fell in behind her.
“I’d say that went well,” he said cheerfully as they left, the hall silent behind them.
*
That night, as they were lying in bed, Ferez decided to broach the question of what exactly had happened, both in the minute he had been out of the hall, and more broadly, what had transpired between Ingrid and her father. He was feeling unusually brave. Tonight was one of those rare occasions Ingrid decided to cuddle. The feeling of her head resting on his chest buoyed him, her smell rising from fly away strands tickling his nostrils; sweat and wood smoke and something sweet but indecipherable. It always made him feel at ease, restoring some of the confidence, bordering on arrogance, he had tempered in the last few years.
“Love… what happened?”
She stirred in his arms. She must have been dozing already.
“When you left the hall?”
“Yes, that, and… in general.”
She shrugged without turning to look at him, her breathing still steady and deep as she drifted back off to sleep.
“That’s hardly an answer, my love.”
With a resigned sigh, she pushed up onto an elbow, staring at Ferez. It was a warning, made all the more pronounced by her icy blue irises and the vibrant blue woad tattooed into her skin. But Ferez didn’t budge, returning her glare with a steady gaze.
“Alright, you win,” she said, finally. “My father decided to unbury the hatchet. He brought up the reason he kicked me out.”
“Which was?”
Ingrid blew a tuft of fringe that had fallen over her eyes and twisted her mouth in a sad smile. “He tried to marry me off.” She chuckled at Ferez’s stunned silence and continued. “It’s not common among Skjar citizenry, but the more powerful halls often arrange marriages between their heirs to cement alliances or consolidate power with the larger clans. Our clan was in a bad way, politically. My brother had run off to be a smuggler after a slaving raid went bad, and I was discovered to be a mage- “
“Mages aren’t accepted here?”
Ingrid gave an emphatic shake of her gorgeous head. “Not at all. The only thing that counts up here is honour and the strength of your axe arm. Mages are viewed as weak, civilised folk from the lands to the south. Prey, in other words.”
“So, he tried to marry you off to recoup his losses?” Ferez said, the pieces clicking into place.
“Yes. My mother, to her credit, opposed the idea. She argued that she and my father had married for… well, if not love, at least lust, and I should be given the same chance.” She paused, and a shiver shot through her lithe frame. “Honestly, growing up you could hear them from the other side of the hall. It was traumatic. But, the Jarls word is absolute. No one could do anything. Except me.”
“You could refuse?”
“It was my right. He could not compel me to marry against my will, but when I broke with our traditions and defied him, he cast me out, as was his right.”
“Ingrid, that’s horrible.”
“Aye, it was. After a few months, his heart calmed, and he sent messengers to bring me back, even sent a letter with one of them that was as close to an apology I’ve ever heard uttered from his lips. But by that point, a Talent scout had found me and brought me to The Six, and I’d gotten a taste for freedom and warmer climes. I told the messengers in no uncertain terms to fuck off, even killed one that got a bit handsy. The next messenger gave me a letter that told me I was to never darken father’s hall ever again. Until I received this invite.”
“Maybe he wants to make amends?”
She scoffed. “He tried. Even offered me the chance to assume my rightful place as his heir, should I marry someone suitable of my choice. I… may have reacted poorly.”
“And then you announced you were already engaged, and to a southern mage, no less,” Ferez said, realising what had sparked the argument in the hall.
She gave him a cheeky smile. “Father was pissed, even before he knew it was you specifically. Mother was over the moon. The various families decided it was appropriate to brawl out the disagreement for them.”
“This is a fine mess,” Ferez sighed. “I was actually hoping this might be civil, in the end. Regardless of whether you wanted to reconnect with your father, I hoped I might at least make a favourable impression before we’re wed.”
Ingrid glanced away and quickly laid back down on his chest. “Too late for that now, I suppose. He thinks you’ve made me soft.”
Ferez didn’t even bother to hide his chuckle. “You? Soft? Now there’s a quality joke.” He sighed, raising a hand to stroke his beloved’s hair.
She sighed at his touch and shrugged again. “What can I say? We Skjar have deeply entrenched biases when it comes to southerners and mages. You could be seven feet tall and wrestle bears for fun, and he’d still view you as a corrupting influence.”
“So, no point me wrangling that ice pig as a show of force then?” he asked, planting a soft kiss on top of her head.
Ingrid chuckled. “Not really, but it’d be hilarious to see. I doubt the pig would even know you were trying to ‘wrangle’ it.”
Ferez gave a half-hearted harrumph. “Hurtful. So, how long are we stuck here for? When’s the wedding?”
“The groom’s entourage will be here in a day or two. There’ll be a day of feasting and drinking, and the wedding that night. Ordinarily they’d depart for the groom’s hall come morning, but since he’s being named heir, they’ll all stay here instead. The afterparty could go for weeks, but we’ll slip out as soon as we have the dagger.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“And then we’ll find Fahroul,” Ferez said, his arms tightening around Ingrid. He would make that bastard pay for harming the future mother of his children. The thought made him angry, and he stayed awake, staring at the darkened ceiling long after Ingrid’s hacking snores filled the room.
*
Sure enough, the groom’s entourage arrived with the morning light two days later. They numbered as many as the residents of the Jarl’s hall, bedecked in fine wedding regalia, which for Skjar meant unusually nice fur cloaks over their battle ensemble. Half were half pissed already.
The Jarl stood outside his hall, decked out in his finest, in order to welcome them. After an inane exchange of pleasantries, they all went inside.
“That’s it?” Ferez asked Ingrid as Leo picked at his teeth beside them.
“Two clans congregating is always a bit of a tense affair. Once everyone’s in and settled, it’ll get rowdy. Trust me.”
“Excellent!” Leo piped up. “Tell me, what is the Skjar’s stance on meaningless anonymous sex with attractive foreign men?”
“Quite liberal, actually. But no one’ll be interested in your bulbous arse, and if my attractive foreign man gets any ideas, I’ll geld him.”
Right, Ferez. Best behaviour. He gulped as Leo sulked and wandered into the hall. Ingrid turned to follow him, paused to nervously scratch at her arm, then seized Ferez by the hand and dragged him along with her.
It was a very sweet gesture. He smiled, even though she couldn’t see it.
Once inside, as ‘family’, they were seated at the Jarl’s table, set up overnight on the platform that previously housed his throne. Ferez, Ingrid, her mother, and the cousin to be married off sat to the patriarch’s left, while the groom, his father and a pair of Hauskarls sat on his right. Conversation was stilted and awkward as everyone did their best to drown their sobriety in liquor, and Ferez glared at Leo as he swanned about the room, free from the constraints of decorum. His face was already ruddy from the strong mead.
He seemed to be doing surprisingly well for himself, more than a few young maids taking him up on offers to dance and casting wistful stares in his direction when he inevitably moved on. He’d pick his favourite and come back to her soon, but in the interim, he was having too much fun to stay still for long.
“So, how’s the weather been?” Ferez asked brightly.
Gods… is that really the best you can do?
The Jarl stared at him for a moment, then promptly turned around, engaging the other side of the table in conversation.
“Harald, it has been some time since we met,” he said to the groom’s father.
“Aye, that it has Jarl Steinhaut. Last time we saw each other, you fractured my skull and left me for dead on the battlefield.”
Ferez’s eyes widened as he hastily drained his horn of mead to dull the pain of awkward dinner topics.
“You threw your lot in with the wrong clan, Harald. Be grateful I was drunk or I might have noticed you still drew breath,” the Jarl replied, a dangerous growl in his tone. “But that’s why we are here today, is it not? Reforge the bonds between our clans, and usher in a new age of prosperity for us all!”
The Jarl raised his horn in toast, but before Harald or the groom could respond, a commotion from the floor drew everyone’s attention.
“Oi! Bastard! Get your hands off my daughter!”
Ferez’s eyes shot up and he saw Leo surrounded by a gang of angry Skjar. He was looking around wide eyed, but the girl in his arms tittered drunkenly and didn’t seem to notice.
For fucks’ sake, Leo.
Ferez groaned and went to stand, but Ingrid grabbed his arm. He looked at her, confused. Surely, she would want this diffused before someone got hurt? Even if it was even betting as to whether it would be Leo or someone else. She wasn’t looking at Leo, though. She was staring at the double doors at the end of the hall. Her eye twitched, and her lips pulled back from bared teeth.
Heeding her warning, he quested out with his senses. And then he felt it. A presence building as it approached the hall.
Fahroul had found them.
Leo felt it too, spinning to face the doors as he told the already enraged father to stuff a cock in it, which went over about as well as one would expect. The man grabbed Leo by the collar and made to shake him, before a shard of golden ice pierced his forearm a scant second later. He recoiled, screaming bloody murder, as Leo wagged a finger at him. More mead coloured projectiles formed around his head.
“Not now, friend. Bigger fish to fry first.”
His tone was light, but the look on his face was uncharacteristically sober.
The doors were thrown open, and Fahroul stalked in, followed by a posse of heavily armed Hauskarls. The room went deathly silent until the groom’s father abruptly shot to his feet, a horn of mead raised above his head.
“Greetings, friends! So glad you finally made it!”
The Jarl turned to Harald, his eyes black with rage. “What is the meaning of this? Who are those men? This is a sacred celebration.”
“Aye, it was meant to be,” Harald spat back. “I was so proud my boy had been chosen to take up the mantle of Jarl Steinhaut. Made sense, really, especially after the failures of your own children.” He kept talking as the Jarl’s grip around the drinking horn tightened so much the bone cracked. “But still, very proud. So, imagine my surprise,” he said, stressing the word and projecting his voice over the crowd, “when a foreigner came to me and informed me that the actual heir had been invited back. As I’m sure you could imagine, the sweet mead coursing through my veins turned sour when I realised what this was; a trap! To see my clan slaughtered while our guard was lowered!”
“What the Pit are you on about, Harald? There is no plot!”
Harald laughed, the drink adding authentic humour to what was probably intended to be sinister. “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. See, I hatched a plot of my own. I knew it was a fool’s errand to do battle in your own hall when you had three mages on your side, so I decided I would level the playing field. I have it on good authority that my mage is stronger than all three of yours put together! What do you say to that, eh? Jarl Steinhaut?”
The Jarl closed his eyes and delicately placed the shattered horn on the table. He sighed, and rubbed his temples. “I guess the wedding’s off then.”
Everything happened at once. The room erupted into chaos as Harald’s clansmen and women fell on the Jarl’s, and the ‘groom’ drew a long-bladed knife, plunging it into Steinhaut’s side.
“Help my father!” Ingrid commanded as she leapt the table, not noticing her father’s wound as she flew at Fahroul.
Leo spotted Ingrid streaking overhead and hurried after her. “I’m coming, Ingrid!” he shouted, before the father from before smashed a barstool over his head. Leo went down under a sea of angry Skjar as the rest of the family jumped on the water mage.
Alright, first thing first; save the Jarl. Ferez turned to find the Jarl on his feet, towering over the young groom. The man was trying to pull his knife free, but the Jarl had one hand wrapped around the hilt. With the other, he grasped the groom’s head and slammed it into the table with such force that the skull buckled. The kid was killed instantly. The father, sputtering in rage, produced an axe from under his cloak and leapt at the Jarl, his Hauskarls close behind. Ferez darted past the fathers and intercepted the Karls. He blasted the first man in the chest, propelling him off the platform as his clothes burst into flame, and slid under a wild swing from the second. He snatched a knife off the table and rammed it into the Karl’s unarmoured calf, the warrior dropping with a shriek. Now he was at a more manageable height, Ferez grasped either side of his head and summoned flame, the warrior’s screams quickly disappearing as his head melted away under the intense heat. Unfortunately, part of said head stuck to Ferez’s hands, and he gagged as he tried to shake off the mess. He looked up as the gunk finally came away. The Jarl had both hands on Harald’s head, one on his crown, the other on his chin. He jerked his hands, snapping the smaller man’s neck.
As Harald crumpled to the floor, Ferez and Steinhaut locked eyes. Ferez gave him an impressed smile and an incline of the head. The Jarl smiled back and produced a knife from within his cloak. Ferez’s heart beat harder in his chest. It was forged from a single piece of ore, the sharpened blade the same brassy colour as the hilt.
It was the heirloom!
“Thank you, Jarl. With that I can deal with the…” He trailed off as the giant stalked towards him with an evil grin on his face.
“You’re the reason Ingrid won’t come back,” Steinhaut said, eyes alight with frenzy. “If I kill you, there’ll be nothing to hold her back, nothing to stop my true heir returning to salvage this mess.”
“Sir, I would really rather not kill my fiancé’s father, regardless of your… issues.”
The Jarl barked a laugh. “You think you can? I’ve killed your kind before. You can’t touch me as long as I have this knife.”
If the Jarl was going to force the issue, Ferez wouldn’t waste time on diplomacy. Especially not after he was called a runt. “Have it your way, then.”
Steinhaut lunged at him and Ferez back peddled, ducking and weaving away from the blade. The giant was big, and armed, but Ferez was quicker and no stranger to combat. He waited for a thrust and twisted his body, the knife shooting past him as he threw his weight behind a devastating right hook that connected square with the Jarl’s jaw.
The big man’s head barely moved as Ferez withdrew, cursing and cradling his fist. He looked from his hand to the giant’s laughing eyes.
“Val’s ti- “
His blasphemy was cut short as the Jarl booted him in the chest, launching him to the edge of the platform. He lay there a second, groaning and trying to regain his breath as his opponent stalked towards him.
“On your feet, mage. I’ll not kill someone flopping about on the ground.”
Ferez glared up at the man. “Mistake is yours to make, I guess.”
With an effort he clambered to his feet, feeling his lungs re-inflate and the shock of the blow wear off. His ribs were bruised at a minimum, but not broken. He could still fight like this.
And fight he would!
He rushed at the Skjar, lobbing balls of flame at his face. Not true Flash Bombs, these were just a nuisance to draw the knife out of the way. As planned, Steinhaut raised the weapon, absorbing the magic as he laughed.
You won’t be laughing for long.
While he was distracted, Ferez delivered a sweep kick to the inside of his knee. No matter how big or muscular a man is, the knee joint is always a weak spot. The Jarl’s leg gave out as Ferez threw his weight behind an elbow, the bone crunching against the spongy cartilage that was Steinhaut’s nose. It broke, and blood sprayed into the air as his head snapped back, a yelp of pain coming from the big man. Seizing the opportunity, Ferez snatched his wrist, flipped over his back and dragged him to the ground.
Face down on the floor, he was helpless as the angry mage pulled the arm straight and twisted until it popped out of the socket with a crack. The knife fell to the ground with a clatter, and Ferez retrieved it.
Hefting the comforting weight of the dagger in his hand, Ferez looked up from the writhing Jarl to see Ingrid’s mother brandishing an axe. Blase the ice pig was behind her, regarding him with a hungry glare, held back only by her hand on its snout. The mother’s eyes were hard, but they still held a trace of the twinkle from before.
“Fair is fair. He tried to kill you. But if you intend to finish him, I’ll do my darndest to stop you.”
Ferez was… hesitant to kill Ingrid’s father, but he outright refused to fight her mother. And he was not excited at the prospect of fighting a Skjar Ice Pig at close quarters, either. He nodded, turned, and strode past the table to the edge of the platform, surveying the battle before him.
The clans still fought tooth and nail, but as concerned as they were with each other, they were more concerned with staying out of the way of the mages in their midst. Fahroul and Ingrid were unleashing destruction on a similar scale to the mountain pass, and the hall was holding up about as well as could be expected. Most of the floor, walls and ceiling were missing, and a few broken bodies caught in the destruction were scattered about the arena. But Ingrid looked, miraculously, unharmed. He turned his eyes, looking for Leo. Even with the knife, it would take all of them to bring Fahroul down.
He found Leo in the middle of a circle, blood seeping from a gash somewhere in his hairline, a wild look on his face. He was surrounded by blades of crystallised Mead and the body parts of his attackers. Before Ferez could catch his attention, he fumbled at his shirt and produced Windshear’s whistle.
“Leo! Noooooo!” Ferez called, locking eyes with his companion a moment too late. A screech tore out of the forest, followed by the sound of beating wings, as Blase leapt off the platform with a roar.