Weyland rode inside the waggon for the first three days, hiding from himself as much as the people in the countryside that had been savaged by the beast. Aodhan allowed this, making his way south and east, stopping and making camp finally under the skirts of immense mountains. They were at a crossroads, the road they had been traveling winding towards the mountains, the other passing directly from the north to the south.
“Come out for breakfast,” Aodhan said, opening the back of the waggon and letting light and fresh air in. Weyland squinted in the light, and slowly emerged. The mountains were higher than anything Weyland had ever seen, and he stood simply looking at them for a long moment.
“What am I to do now?” he asked the empty air, not expecting an answer..
“I’ll wait with you for a bit while that unfolds.”
“I’ve lost everything…” Weyland fingered the hem of the shirt Aodhan had given to him.
“Feeling sorry for yourself, then?” Aodhan handed him a bowl of beans and salt pork.
“What? No, but I’ve failed so many people, and hurt so many more. I don’t know what became of Gilda, or Avril, or Hervor, or Br -” he shuddered, and deliberately continued. “I don’t know the fate of Girgus, or Patricius and I’ve lost everything I’ve ever crafted.”
Aodhan scoffed, impatient, though his eyes were kind. “Not everything. Shut up and eat. Consider what you hold close to your heart, plain as day.”
Startled, Weyland touched his neck. The thong was there, and the ring with the red gem, like a drop of blood.
The sunset against the mountains was glorious, painting them with gold and pink and lavender. Weyland sat on a log and watched the mountains, holding the ring tightly. He tried not to think at all, feeling time rushing around him as the light faded.
He may have slept, as the stars rose above him serenely. The moon was a bare sliver in the sky, rising just before dawn’s fingers made a black silhouette of the mountains. As the light of the sky strengthened, he stood, turning and looking in wonder as the path and fields behind them on the road were touched by sunlight first, and it swept towards him, the shadow of mountains slowly diminished by the rising day.
He saw movement on the road to the north, a tiny group of travelers, banners fluttering in the wind.
Aodhan the tinker emerged from the woods to the west, a small forest in comparison to the towering trees of - Weyland shied away from the thought, shivering. The tinker was carrying a pair of rabbits and leading a goat on a narrow leash. Squinting at the group coming from the south, he grinned. “Ah, good. He certainly took his sweet time about it.” He handed the end of the leash to Weyland. “Here, go find a pot and milk this sweet girl, she must be miserable.”
Weyland obeyed wordlessly, a dread building as the group came closer, now a cluster of horses, the gleam of armor on some, blue and yellow barding on others, and a white banner flying a scarlet cross above. He drank milk and ate beans from the night before, the thought of eating rabbit revolting even after it was spitted and roasted. Aodhan mixed something into the remaining milk, and as the day progressed and the travelers grew near, it curdled, becoming a watery cheese.
Opening the sides of the waggon to display his wares, Aodhan took a horse’s bridle down off of a hook, handing it to Weyland. “You’ll likely need this, if only for appearances.” He didn't explain further, setting round stones around their campfire and hanging a finely crafted pot over the fire.
The travelers finally arrived, a young family traveling in the company of a group of armed monks and a man on a horse that was sometimes a light boned palfrey, and others a tall black mare. The husband was good to his wife and children, though not terribly warm. His wife was a lovely woman, her red hair brilliant in the afternoon light, and when she sang to her youngest child, Weyland was struck by the beauty of her voice, even in a language he did not recognize. The man on the black horse was last in the convoy, a familiar figure quite striking with his white hair and olive skin in contrast with the dark horse. Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān rode casually, looking about the world around the convoy with endless curiosity while he told a hair-raising tale to the party. Gamboling around the feet of the horse were two sleek black hounds, brown markings on muzzle and feet, and a third brindle hound perched, facing away, on the saddle bags behind the white haired man.
“- hung the arm of the creature over the door as a warning to all other creatures who would threaten the king of the Hart Hall.”
Flashes of darkness and blood flooded Weyland’s mind, the memory of fire and the bellows of the Night Stalker as the ropes seared its skin and a warrior struck its arm off. Looking at the strangers listening rapt to the bard’s story, the innocent faces of the children and their parents flashed red with spattered blood, limbs torn asunder. Weyland sat down heavily next to the waggon and put his head between his knees, trembling. A warm muzzle thrust itself under his arm, seeking his face with a cold nose and warm velvet tongue. He pushed it away, rubbing his face, and the dog became more insistent, climbing into his lap and pressing a large paw on his shoulder, demanding his attention. Before it knocked him to his back, he looked up, irritated and alarmed, into the warm brown gaze of Avril.
The next day, Weland woke to find that the waggon with its immense ox and the unremarkable tinker had moved on, the family and the monks had traveled on as well. Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān sat next to the fire, lightly strumming quietly on a small boxy instrument. The black mare grazed, head down, pretending not to watch Weyland with one liquid black eye. Avril and the two other hounds lay comfortably, draped over Weyland’s legs and body, heads up and ears alert.
“Very good, I was hoping you’d wake before noon,” the bard’s teeth were very white against his dark skin. His accent was less pronounced than it had been the first time Weyland had seen him, but his eyes were still as inquisitive.
“I slept through Aodhan’s departure,” Weyland said, firmly pushing heavy dog bodies off of his.
“Yes, and that deserves its very own song.” The bard’s fingers lightly strummed the instrument.
Weyland bitterly laughed. “I’ve been hoping for a very long time to avoid being the thing you sung about, and it’s sleeping through the noise of a waggon leaving that was my final downfall,” he marveled.
“Oh, hardly. I’ve been singing about Volund and Bodulfr slaying the Ravager, and then Weyland the Smith more clever than an evil king, and the savage beast who killed thousands with slavering toothy jaws - your life has made my own work significantly more memorable and interesting.” The bard’s eyes looked towards the far horizon, contemplating.
Weyland fought bile rising in his throat. “Thousands?” Avril whined, leaning against him, and the black mare casually wandered closer, shoving her face next to his shoulder and leaving grass stains on his tunic.
“Indeed. When the vile king of Nireke killed his daughter and was slain by a great lion-like monster the size of a horse, along with all of his courtiers, only his son and heir remained of the entire family. I found a travel sack, along with a cudgel and woodsman’s axe, in the only corner of that great hall unsoaked in blood - even my finest tunic was impossibly stained.” He looked mournful for a moment, whether about the tunic or the carnage Weyland couldn’t tell. Standing stiffly, the bard opened one of the saddlebags on the ground next to the mare’s saddle. “Regardless, my friend, I think these things have found their rightful owner, as Mistress Avril has finally found her companion again.”
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With wonder, Weyland opened the saddlebag. Inside, he found a blacksmith’s hammer, a harp, the whetstone and horn cup, food hamper. As he reached in again, pulling out the objects he found, there quickly seemed far more things than the bag should be able to hold. He pulled out the pruning knife, the hatchet, the harp, a leather pouch of jewelsmith’s tools, a leather wrapped cudgel made from the arm bone of a monster, a longsword with a red-stoned hilt, and a bright-tipped blackwood spear worthy of a gold-haired warrior queen.
He pulled from his shirt the graceful ring he’d crafted at Aodhan’s direction long ago for his unknown lady love, and he thought of a maiden with clear gray eyes and black hair that snared the shadows. Pulling it out, he turned it in the light, and the scrap of fabric fell to pieces.
The bard handed him a fine silvery chain that had no clasp, a circle without beginning nor end. “This will hold it safe for her. I’ve used it for many years in my travels, and it always smoothed the way.” Weyland looped the ring into it with a cow hitch knot, and slipped the chain over his head. It fell against his chest, and he dropped it down the front of his shirt, where it lay against the warmth of his chest. The scattered horror of his nightmares faded with the brightening morning, and he found himself to be hungry.
Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān proved to be a talented cook; the beans and grain he fed to Weyland from the pot on the campfire were flavored with foreign spices that sang in Weyland’s soul and warmed his belly. Gratefully, Weyland noted that the thick porridge was meatless; he didn’t think he could face meat again in the light of this day.
Weyland reassembled the saddle bag’s contents, leaving out the hatchet and pruning knife. He found a stiff bristled curry comb in one of the other bags, and the black mare ambled over again to be brushed. He worked carefully, smoothing her coat, removing burrs and tangles from her fine mane and tail, picking out her hooves.
A particularly stubborn stone was lodged in the groove of the frog in her left rear foot, and he ran his fingers over it, feeling the painful heat of the sole. She nickered as he probed, and suddenly the hoof seemed bigger, the cannon and fetlock on his apron much heavier. The stone fell out of her hoof and into his palm and he dropped the foot, shocked. The light-boned palfrey the bard had ridden was a larger, heavier destrier now. She tossed her midnight head and pranced, sidling towards him to rub her head on his chest.
He laughed, a strange feeling from the bottom of his chest to the stiffness of his cheeks as he smiled. “Aren’t you clever,” he chided her. He showed her the rock that had been lodged in her foot. “I know you didn’t need me to remove this, why did you let it stay there?” She bowed her head, lipping his knee. He pocketed the stone.
“She wanted to be brushed and fussed over,” the bard said, tossing him a withered apple. The mare snuffled Weyland’s palm with velvet lips as she took it from him. “I suspect I’ll be walking again when we part ways.” The strange foreign man laughed and set about sorting out the mare’s bags, separating his belongings into a leather pack.
Weyland looked around, suddenly struck by the rolling hills to the south and the high mountains to the east, the only other person in sight was a strange little bard from a far off land. A quiet descended on his mind as the mare leaned into his shoulder, and he stroked her dark face. Avril rolled in the grass nearby, her sons asleep in the late morning sunlight. “Where shall I go?” he mused aloud.
The bard answered him. “Perhaps you stay here for a moment, and enjoy being between what was and what comes next. Wandering isn’t such a bad life - the stories one hears and sees! Did you know that the son of the king of Nireke wields a sword like none other? That he’s become a great dragon slayer?”
Weyland closed his eyes for a moment, the image flashing like a vision in his mind, Girgus on an immense roan stallion, fire and rage reflected in its eyes as the young knight lowered his lance in the charge. The thundering hooves, ground shaking impact and the scream of horse and beast, the sword Weyland had crafted for him flashing bright, the spray of acid blood and wet thud as the head fell. A young woman, chained to a rock, freed by the knight and carried away on the stallion. The head of the dragon hung from the saddle by her knee.
The voice of the bard continued. “Indeed, he won the hand of Sabra in marriage after killing the beast that had been slaughtering her father’s sheep. Now he teaches his own sons, and they live in the blue manor of Sabra’s family.”
“What are their names? The names of my grandsons?” Weyland opened his eyes and saw the triumph in the eyes of Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān. “Egil and Poitr are the sons of Girgus and Sabra, thought to be grandsons of the king of Nireke and actually the grandsons of Weyland the Smith.”
“And do you ever hear stories of the mother of Girgus?” Weyland shuddered.
“Ah, that one is a bad one. Child of Myrddin the Sage, a sorceress twisted by her own greed and hate. She calls herself the Grandmother, now, and fancies herself the most powerful witch in all the lands.”
“Is there another, then, who is actually the most powerful? Have you heard tales of other witches?” Perhaps Gilda yet lived, perhaps Weyland wasn’t entirely alone.
“There is one, but she has not yet come to the fullness of her power. We watch that one closely.”
“We? What do you mean? Are there others like you, Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān?” Weyland tensed.
“Only the ones who sing the songs and tell the tales. Rest easy, Weyland the Smith. I must be off, and you must wait yet another day.” The bard shouldered his pack, and one of Avril’s sons trotted after him without a glance back. Weyland thought the pups were all stocky northern hounds, but he blinked and it was a graceful desert sighthound looking up at the bard and licking his hand as they strode out to the southern rolling hills.
Weyland tended the fire, brushed the mare and played with Avril and her two remaining pups. Sometimes, he held the stone from the mare’s hoof in his hand, thinking of mountains and high places. Other times, he took the graceful ring from beneath his shirt, and thought warmly of the girl in the woods. Avril took him on a walk through the woods, and he found a piece of gnarled wood, vaguely suggesting the shape of a bird, or a horse’s head. He brought it back to his small camp at the crossroad, and considered it in the evening light, setting it next to his pack when he rolled himself in a blanket given to him by Aodhan the tinker and slept with his head against Avril’s flank.
In his dreams, the stars unfurled over their heads, a banner sewn by the hands of golden haired women with black eyes, a one eye’d farmer smoking pungent herbs in a long pipe. An eagle with a wingspan like a barn door circled above them in the darkness, and in the glimmer of Weyland’s campfire the farmer turned to look at him.
A raven cawed at daybreak, scattering Weyland’s dreams with its glossy black wings. Startled, Weyland sat up, his hand on the handle of the woodsman’s ax. Avril sat with him, her rump set solidly against his hip as she kept watch in the other direction.
He heard them before he saw them, voices like rocks falling down a mountain, laughter like falling trees as they bantered. He saw them far down the road, and wondered if he was still dreaming. As they drew nearer, they were tall, a grown man and a youth who may have been his brother. They came from the opposite direction as the family and their companions, walking across the plain towards the mountains.
As they approached, he thought them to be tall. As the morning shadows grew shorter, the men grew taller, and still they approached. At midmorning, they finally arrived at the crossroads, and he realized they were not simply tall, but giants easily as massive as the Ravager that haunted some of his darker dreams. Avril’s pups ran to them, barking joyfully, leaping up to lick hands. The older giant bent to gently stroke the black and grey ears, the younger looked up the path and met Weyland’s eyes … and smiled. There was peace in the smile, and hope. His brother stood and grinned at Weyland.
“Hullo, friend,” he rumbled. “I’m Cormoran the Stonemason, and my brother’s a carpenter. Are you the blacksmith? We were told we’d meet one along the way. See, there’s a villiage that needs strong builders, and my brother fancies that he wants to live in a tower up the mountain.” The giant’s accent was strong, but Weyland understood him clearly, a tingle at the back of his neck as the huge man’s words coalesced.
The younger giant laughed like a small avalanche. “I’m Grahme, don’t let him fool you. He wants to build a stout house for a woman he’s met only in passing two days ago, that she might be called to a house built from the memory of her voice and laughter. He’s right, though, If you’re a smith, you should come with us.”
Weyland fingered the stone in his pocket and stood, sliding the gnarled wood into his pack and kicking dirt over the embers of his fire. “Aye, I’m a blacksmith, and a woodsman. Let’s see your village.”