Venom
12-02-2010, 04:03 PM
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Under the Blade
Chapter I
The goat jumped uphill again and bleated anew - laughed at me. I groaned. It was the same game every evening. For the last ten minutes I was hunting the cheeky, brown and black animal across the upper feedlot to take it in the stable. The sun was already behind the mountain range, causing the snowy peaks to glow in dying red. Night was already settling over the village and valley, and the first torches were ignited.
I started a new attempt and managed to grab Ogi's horns, only to be pulled from my feet.
"Katharina!"
Mother was calling me from our house's backdoor at the foot of the feedlot. I stood up from the cool grass and wiped my hands on my apron.
"Katharina!"
"Yeees, what is it?!"
Ogi bleated again, imitating me.
"Get your sister! I need her to help me in the kitchen."
"But I have to catch Ogi...!"
My mother's voice returned with a slight trace of testiness.
"Would you please do what I've asked you for..."
I rolled my eyes and turned to the skirts of the wood, taking a very deep breath.
"Nette!"
But I knew that my mother had something else in mind. Shouting Annette's name she could herself thanks to the many opportunities my little sister gave her for this.
I sighed and trudged towards the trees towering into the darkened sky.
Behind me the gloat bleated triumphantly.
I expected to find my sister near the edge of the forest. She always averred to seek Ogi there, but I knew that this was nonsense. Every evening, when it was my turn, I found the goat only somewhere on our feedlot or near the rattly wooden watchtower. That tower marked the Northern boundary of my village and was the last structure built by human hands on this side of the mountains.
"Nette!"
The rustling of the treetops was the only answer reaching me.
I decided to cross the feedlot and ask old Mikal whether he had seen Nette. I couldn't remember a night when Mikal wasn't sitting on his tower. From there, armed with a huge rusted sword, he guarded our village and the road that led into it. I jumped over the small beck next to the pasture and landed on the overgrown road. Actually it was more like a path. In Northern direction it ran through the wood, up to the parts where only conifers could prosper and where I never had been. From there, it gathered more and more height until finally reaching the Védajah pass.
"Mikal!" I shouted towards the watchtower's canopied platform. I couldn't make out any movement, and wasn't surprised about it. Often the old man gazed at the Northern peaks for hours, his grey eyes lost in the distance. Something in these mountains possessed him all his life.
Coming up to the weathered ladder, I called again.
"Mikal, did you see my-"
I froze. Twenty feet above me Mikal's head was sticking out between the bear skin windbreak. And despite the decreasing light I was able to recognise the object that had felled him. The old man's neck was pierced by an arrow.
"Mikal...!" I uttered.
A strange power held me motionless. It wasn't fear or dread that paralysed me - it was disbelieve. How should I be able to believe? There was no room in my world for an arrow spiking the old man's neck, no understanding of black drops of blood dripping off its pointed tip. But since one drop after another was splashing down on the ground before my feet, my world became stuck.
"Mikal...?"
This time, I received an answer. It escaped the first line of trees, winged the thirty paces towards me - and was no spoken word. Through the underwood the rattle of weapons and amours was coming for me. I stumbled back, my mind still overburdened.
It was the sight of the huge, black charger that threw me finally back into reality. The ironclad horse appeared from the forest in a pall of leaves, its hooves battering the path. This animal came straight from hell, as did its rider.
Smoked armour over a pitch black robe gave him an apocalyptical appearence, and the bastard sword in his hand gleamed in the sky's bloody colour.
He was followed by more knights, and at both sides of the path foot soldiers stormed out of the wood. Before fear could reach them, my feet started to run towards the village. Through the thin soles of my shoes I felt the stones and bumps while the war cries of an ancient enemy echoed from the rock faces. A tearing pain ripped through the left leg as I sprained my foot. I hit the ground and slid sideways, bruising myself at the sharp stones.
Cold wetness soaked my dress when I landed face down in the beck. To my left, horses thundered towards the settlement. To my right, soldiers surged onward across the feedlot. I didn't dare look up, nor did I dare leave the protection of the ditch. Fighting not to hear the screams and cries resounding from the houses, I just lay and wished away the terrible noises of metal against metal, sword agaist flesh.
Screams turned to shrieks, just to collapse into silence in the next moment - only the water was gurgling around me and the blood pounding in my temples. The sounds of the combat had already been horrible, and this silence was too much to endure, for it meant that the dark warriors had finished their bloody work.
The battle had been uneven and short. Since the Great War that had taken away my father and so many others, our community was running low on weapon-trained men. The few left had not been a match for the invaders.
I crawled through the shallow water to a large stone. Holding my breath, I pried over its edge. The night had reached the valley floor, but the torches at the village square spent enough light to reveal a loathsome sight. All males older than fourteen or fifteen lay slaughtered in their blood. I recognised Kilian and Markus in their own blood - none of the boys had ever touched a sword!
Under loud bawling the soldiers ripped the women out of the houses in which they had vainly sought refuge. They rounded them up near the well, beating and kicking their captives haply. My heart froze when I saw my mother among the frightened villagers. I cried out in mute horror. The guttural sound formed in my throat had little human in it - it was a primitive utterance of deepest misery. I pressed my face against the stone, grinding my forehead on the raw surface. Hot blood ran into my eyes, but still the pain in my flesh could not defeat the agony in my mind. What demon could pour such anguish over us?! The woman who had given life to me and my... - Oh, God! Nette! No!
I couldn't make her out on the village square. If she had been playing in the woods, she might had been able to hide. Or she had fallen into the hands of these monsters before they had attacked -- before they had messed around with taking captives...
I sank back behind my stone, gave myself to the impassive water. This was just too much to bear! From one moment to another my whole world had been smashed, my friends killed, my family captivated or even worse. What more could I do than hide behind a moss-grown stone?
A voice used to give orders sliced my desperate thoughts.
"I have seen another one beside the path over there -- you, you and you... move out!"
There was no doubt for whom they were locking. Fresh panic brought me to my hands and knees, and I followed the water towards the wood, away from the village. I could hear the soldiers on the path. Oh my god -- they were so close!
I tried to crawl faster, but it seemed that I could not move one inch forwards.
"Look what we have here...!"
Behind me the water splashed as one of the men jumped into the beck. I struggled onto my weak feet and made a run for it.
~^~
The soldiers' vulgar cursing echoed through the forest. They weren't three anymore. By now, some dozen were trailing me. There was little hope to escape them. I didn't even know how I had managed to outrun my first three persecutors. My memories were a blurry mixture of fear, screams and exhaustion. Roots had reached for my ankles, branches had flayed my face as I had zigzagged through between the trees like a wounded fox. Somehow I found the beck again, my only guide in the darkness. It had separated from the path, and I followed it to the Three Oaks, where it flowed into the river. With burning lungs I leant against an age-old tree and watched the black stream. Starlight was dancing on its waves, taunting me. The river Saum was too broad and too fast to be crossed by swimming. Its water came form glaciers, and even on midsummer days it was cold. And even if I made it -- the other side was not well-disposed to human beings...
The cursing approached, dry wood broke under heavy boots, and the lights of torches were flickering between trunks. I restarted my aimless escape and trudged downstream, but after a quarter mile I stopped again. Torches further down the river burnt through the night. The soldiers had surrounded me. Valuable time went by as I searched a place to hide. There existed none, but at least I recognised where I was. And I remembered what lay behind the next river bend.
~^~
The bridge across the Saum was rough and solid, made of oak on stone piers. For the next thirty miles, it was the only bridge that hadn't been destroyed in or after the Great War. Since that time, the river marked the borderline between the Human Kingdoms and the tribal area of the Garstlings.
I had never seen a Garstling from close up. Sometimes they scurried along the other side of the river, prowling through the brushwood. It was said that little children who dare cross the bridge were caught by these creatures and ended up in the cooking pot. I had told this tale to Nette myself -- Oh, Nette!
The wooden planks groaned under my feet. The closer I got to the bridge's other end, the more unsure my steps became. I had absolutely no knowledge about the tribal area. How could I reach human settlements from there, how find help? And how much truth lay in that silly pot-tale? Then the pictures came back, my mother and the others at the village square, the dead Kilian and Markus, the dead Mikal. These terrible memories gave me the final push, and soon I stood at the other bank, on unholy ground. The air was the same, the trees looked the same, but everything appeared so strangely unknown. At least one thing I learnt about Garstlings almost immediately: they moved much more quietly through woods than humans. I didn't even remember the pain from the hit against my head that sent me into unconsciousness.
~^~
I awoke in darkness. It took me some moments to realise that this darkness wasn't made by night. A bag had been put over my aching head. It was made of jute and smelled of wet soil. Furthermore, a piece of wood was lodged between my teeth and fastened with a leather strap. I uttered some noises, half asking, half pleading, but only got myself more discomfort as the primitive gag worked the corners of my mouth. No one answered. I was alone in what seemed to be a hut. I was sitting with my back against some kind of
pole or pillar, my wrists bound behind it. At least the ground was covered with fur, and a fire was sending its warmth from somewhere to me -- coldness and wetness had taken their toll on me too long.
I nearly broke my fingers, but wasn't able to loosen my bonds; I tried to wriggle the bag off, but it was tied under my chin. Resigning, I leant back and forced myself to rest. Only hell knew what was in store for me, so I needed my strength.
They didn't give me more than half an hour. Someone approached me, freed my wrist and hoisted me up unceremoniously. Fear stiffened my muscles, and I obeyed his firm grip around my upper arm. The creature didn't bother re-tying my hands. Garstlings were taller and stronger than humans, so he handled my hundred and twenty pound with ease.
My gaoler dragged me out into the chill air and into another building. Murmur from many throats welcomed me, then a guttural voice bellowed an order. The Garstling holding me forced me to my knees and untied the bag. I viciously shook my head to get rid of the jute more quickly. My eyes came free, and I gasped around my gag.
I was kneeling almost in the middle of the circular building. The fuliginous light of torches let shadows dance across wolf's heads and ritual weapons on the walls. Runes and magical symbols covered the massive beams which carried the ceiling. And in this unreal scenery, a dozen Garstlings were looking at me. They were no pleasing sight for the human eye, raw and unfinished, like all creatures from the dawn of the world. Their grotesque features, protruding chins and hooked noses looked almost carved in the shivery illumination.
The one next to me freed me of the wooden bit. I worked my aching jaws and wiped strings of saliva off my chin.
"Watza name?"
It was the guttural voice again. I quickly glanced at the speaker, then lowered my eyes. The bulky Garstling with a boar skull on his head was the only one sitting. His chair stood on a wooden pedestal, and it was obvious even to me that he was the one in charge.
I needed some moments to understand his crude words.
"Katharina...Thana." Only my mother called me Katharina.
"Thou schalt not kroß thae britge, Thana..."
"There where men chasing me-"
"We know about them. The Scorching Army." That was the Garstling next to me, and to my relief he spoke the human language far better than his chieftain.
"Then you know what they did to my village?"
"Yes. At least some of us." He stepped in front of me and raised his voice, speaking to all now. Obviously, he owned some authority.
"We had expected their arrival. Our shaman had read it in the viscera of a white boar. Since two days the Védajah pass is free of snow -- the last barrier has fallen."
An aged and venerable Garstling shaman next to the chieftain nodded his bearded head. Murmur rose again, then several members of the council spoke loudly in human language:
"Skandrik is right! Beyond the Védajah no good is residing!" a voice shouted from the left.
"Mankind is Mankind's enemy ever since -- we know that for long! Why bother?" one asked.
"Because sooner or later the Scorching Army will cross the river -- as soon as it has dealt with Mankind down the valley..." a very old Garstling general answered.
" 'Dealt with' ?!" After going through the last night, his phrase enraged me beyond the bounds of my fear. I jumped to my feet and dashed some steps forwards before Skandrik grabbed my shoulders. "They had slaughtered and enslaved my people! They are keeping my mother imprisoned! My little sister was probably killed by their hands!"
The chieftain wasn't particularly impressed nor displeased by my outburst. He signalled Skandrik to let go of me and uttered a nasal sound. The council fell into silence.
"Do you know the narrations from the time before the Age of Swords, little Thana?"
He spoke slowly, and I managed to get most of his words.
"This land had been given to my people by the Great Old Ones -- all of this land. The Eight Tribes settled in this valley, in the next, and in every valley down to the sea. This world was a peaceful world. But then, Mankind came to this land, and for twenty-three winters the snow turned red. You call it the Great War, a war to 'free' this land of Garstling domination. Mankind brought this plague, and now it comes for Mankind. This is your people's fate -- feel the curse of your race..."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Humans and Garstlings had been acrimonious foes, but how could the chieftain tell me something about the fate of my race with that imminent danger right in front of his jagged nose?!
"They will deal with your people just like they did with mine!" I yelled at him.
"Watch your tongue, or it will be the bit again!" Skandrik hissed.
I fell silent, but not because of Skandrik's threat. I just didn't know what to say else. Here I was standing, a lost girl asking the creatures for help her own father had fought. As if to console me, my last memory of him appeared. His armour was gleaming in the late summer sun before he left to die in the battle. A proud soldier of Ulmhort.
"The Garrison of Ulmhort!" I said louder than intended.
Indignant hecklings filled the hall. The old Garstling general spoke to me, and odium distorted his weathered face.
"Girl, do you know what you say? The Grey City has brought suffering and death to our people! Its walls made of stone, these tombs of the living, are the shelter of ill."
"But there are the headquarters of the Order of the Kingdom's Knights! At least five hundred horsemen are based there, ready to oppose the Scorching Army. We just have to call them!"
"And once they are here, your noble knights make another raid against our folks!"
"What this girl saw," Skandrik made an exaggerated gesture in my direction, "was just a van. The main baggage will follow in a few days -- and then you can call it a raid!"
Encouraged by his soccour, I made another attempt:
"Please, I can't let my family down! Ulmhort is a two-day's march away. There is help -- for all of us! But someone has to escort me through the forest. I can't make it on my own."
My words seemed to have divergent effects. Some councillors considered my request, others reminded of the waywardness in all humans.
Eventually, the general uttered a scornful noise.
"Do you really think a Garstling can enter Ulmhort? Do you think the captain of the garrison will listen to a maidservant? Foolish wench!"
Instead of responding to him, I grabbed what was left of my bravery and addressed the chieftain directly.
"You saw what the evil in Mankind had done to your people. Please, don't let innocents among my race suffer the same fate, too!"
I was definitely not entitled to direct the word at the tribe's leader unasked -- after all, I was still their captive. So the silence following had an almost cutting intensity. Either the Garstlings were impressed of my doggedness, or I was about to be hung upside down with my innards dangling out.
"We have to consult the ghosts of our ancestors whether we send a delegation to the big city of Mankind," the chieftain declared. "But this is not meant for human eyes..."
Skandrik's gnarled hands seized my shoulders once more, and I morosely expected to be gagged and bagged again. But he just turned me around on the spot and shoved me out of the building, into a drizzling morning.
Maybe I would keep my innards...
~^~
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