The reavers hadn’t been kind to the Loheim.
Yorrin led each scouting mission as they rode out from Northwatch, and each time what he found was harsher than the time before.
The forest between Northwatch and Kriegany was called the Stropwood by the locals, who insisted that it was haunted. Yorrin had little interest in testing their claims. Haunted or not, the Stropwood was vast and it was dense. It would be far too easy to get lost in there, and add to the forest’s legend.
Mercenary heroes saved Northwatch from the Kriegars and Svards only to vanish without a trace into the Stropwood, Yorrin could almost hear the campfire tale. No thanks.
He insisted instead that Steelshod confine their scouting to the forest’s edge. There they found some scattered signs of habitation—tiny hamlets, hunting cabins, and the like. Nearly all of them were abandoned, and many of them showed obvious signs of Svardic raiding. Burnt out structures, dried blood, corpses picked over by scavengers.
Aside from the Stropwood and the hills around Northwatch, much of the Loheim was flat and wet. Some farms were untouched, especially to the south, but many more also bore the marks of the reavers. The coast was worst of all: three out of every four fishing villages had been burnt out by the Svardic fleet.
They saw some signs of the enemy on one excursion, in the area west of Northwatch. The flat, marshy ground between the Stropwood and the coast was settled more sparsely than the land further south, and they found an abandoned campsite that Cara insisted had held a score of large, armed men. They pursued the trail for a few hours north before it went cold, but far as Cara could tell whoever’s trail they were on was fleeing away from Caedia and back towards Kriegany.
That was good enough for Yorrin. They made it back to Northwatch by nightfall.
By the time Steelshod’s circuits were done and Cox’s men ready to take over scouting, Northwatch had swelled by nearly fifty folk. Mostly farmers and fishers that had been hiding out amidst the razed lands. Lord Cox put spears in their hands and set about drilling them all in basic maneuver. Yorrin noticed Perrin rise before dawn the next morning and went out in the yard with them. He stood amongst the common folk, giving them simple pointers. It mostly looked like he was helping them with their footing and grip.
That’s good, Yorrin thought. Footing and grip is where everything starts.
The thought gave him a moment of pause. Those are Olivenco’s words in my head, he realized. Not so long ago I would have scoffed at the idea that something so simple could be so important, but he was right, wasn’t he? What else was he right about?
“A blade left unused will turn to rust.”
The aphorism came to mind instantly. It was something Olivenco had said once or twice, when Yorrin was growing skeptical of their early lessons. Practice, practice, practice, Yorrin told himself. He was definitely right about that, too.
Yorrin donned his swordbelt and jogged out into the yard to join them.
“Gunnar,” Yorrin called out after supper. The entire company was settled around a couple of tables in the Lord’s hall. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for that quick thinking, the day we took Northwatch. Getting me into the holmgang, I mean.”
The tall Svard smiled, and ran a hand through his beard. He shrugged. “I was not the first to think of such things, in truth. Even Áki said as much to me. When Taerbjornsen began forcing the many jarls of Svarden to follow him, some of the jarls tried much the same. It didn’t work as well for them as it did for us, though.”
Yorrin frowned. Wait, how did I not catch that sooner? “Hold on a second,” he said. “This Taerbjornsen fellow, you’re saying he’s a bersark as well?”
Gunnar’s brow furrowed. “Ja,” he said. “Of course. This wasn’t known to you?”
“Not to me,” Aleksandr said. “We have heard he is a large man, and a mighty warrior.”
“Both true,” Gunnar agreed. “But… understatements. Like saying Aleksandr is just, or Robin is lazy.”
“Pardon?” Robin said from where he lounged. His feet were up on the table, but when everyone’s eyes shifted to him Yorrin frowned. He gave a single curt nod to Cam, who sat beside Robin. Cam rammed his elbow into Robin’s side, and Robin begrudgingly shifted his legs off the table.
Gunnar smiled “The Taerbjornsen is not just a bersark. He wears the skin of a frost bear.”
“You say that as if it is something we should recognize,” Leon said. “Is one bear not much the same as another?”
“No,” Aleksandr answered before Gunnar could. “Definitely not. What your people call frost bear, Gunnar—huge bears in the northernmost frozen land and sea, da? White fur?”
Gunnar nodded. “Ice bears, ja. Bigger than the biggest brown bear.”
“Does that matter?” asked Alejandra. “Impressive to look at maybe, but… so what?”
Gunnar said the bersark fights with the bear’s spirit. Yorrin frowned at the thought.
“Ja, it matters a great deal,” Gunnar said. “The bersarks draw great strength from the bearskins. That is why they are so large.”
“They’re not all that big, are they?” asked Nathan. “That man was just a giant.”
“I have only seen a few of them, and never so close,” Gunnar said. “But I believe they are, ja. The clans of the savage north do not venerate Vlar, god of the deep, the way Svards do. Most of them follow a lesser god, a demon god, called Taer. Taer roams the earth, taking the forms of animals, and he values the hunt above all.”
“You could have told us all of this a bit sooner,” Yorrin complained.
Gunnar accepted the criticism without objection. He simply nodded. “I should have,” he agreed. “I—I saw the Taerbjornsen and some of his bersarks from afar. When Taerbjornsen killed my jarl in holmgang, and when his huskarls refused to kneel and fought anyway. But I did not face them myself. I was taken captive by Svards, not bersarks. I think… I did not entirely believe my own eyes, or the stories. But they are true. The ritual that bersarks do to bind themselves to Taer and to their bearskin… it is real, and it is powerful.”
“Heathen black magic,” Yorrin said. Not hard to believe after everything we saw in the Underpass, and at Yerevan. “Profane, but that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. What else have you heard about it, then? Anything?”
“It’s alright if they seem outlandish stories,” Perrin added. “Better we hear them, just in case.”
The table resounded with agreement, and all eyes fell on Gunnar even more intently than they had been before.
Gunnar frowned. “The stories say that a bersark must go on a holy hunt to seek Taer’s blessing. He must find and slay a bear by himself. The braver the hunt, the cleaner the kill, the more potent the connection. A ragged bearskin holds less magic than a perfectly intact one. Then they work their profane—good word, Yorrin—magic. Give honor to Taer, and take his blessing.
“They connect themselves to the bearskin, and the spirit of the bear. They draw strength from it. Grow stronger and bigger each day after, until they are practically bears themselves. They have the strength and ferocity and rage of a bear, but they keep the mind of a man. A dangerous combination.” Gunnar took a sip from his cup.
“And Taerbjornsen is bound to an even bigger and meaner kind of bear?” Yorrin said.
“Ja. White fur. He is bigger, I think. Or he looked so, from afar.” Gunnar frowned. “The stories say he slew a frost bear without weapons at all. He strangled the life from it, they claim. I’m not sure I believe that. The northern clans have all sorts of prophecy and myth, and they believe the Taerbjornsen is one of these come to life.”
Nobody spoke for a few moments. That is concerning, Yorrin admitted. If only inside his own head.
Robin was the first one to break the silence.
“So, how do they fuck?” he asked.
Gunnar just stared at him, blinking.
“I mean, are their cocks giant too? I’ve known a few whores that said they preferred men big, if you catch my meaning—”
“Everyone catches your meaning, Robin,” Leon said. “You must work on your innuendo, oui? Très grossier.”
“Well, I’m just saying. There’s big and then there’s giant. Unless… d’you suppose their cocks don’t really grow as much as the rest of them?” Robin giggled. “Just picture it, a regular sized member on that huge fellow Aleksandr and Yorrin butchered the other day. Oh, God, I hope that’s true! It’s—”
“That’s enough, Robin,” Yorrin said. He allowed himself a smirk at the absurdity, but he held back his laughter. Many members of the company felt no such compulsion, and their chuckling was infectious.
Yorrin glanced at Robin and saw a smug look in the former bandit’s face. That was subtly done, Robin, he thought begrudgingly. I couldn’t have done a better job taking the piss out of Taerbjornsen’s legend myself.
The somber mood that had threatened after Gunnar’s story was fully dissolved, and the rest of the night passed without returning to the Svard’s concerning tales about what, exactly, they were up against.
I’m less worried about Taerbjornsen, Yorrin thought. A huge man and a mighty warrior can still be cut down with enough swords. But if they have a small army of those bersarks, Caedia could be in real trouble. Man-to-man, I can’t see a Caedian knight standing up against a bersark. Not even from the saddle.
Yorrin found Gunnar after the meal was done and Steelshod had begun dispersing for the night.
“Gunnar.”
“Yorrin,” Gunnar gave him a nod.
“Taerbjornsen’s bersarks. Do you know how many he has?”
Gunnar shook his head. “No,” he said. “They come only from the northern clans. And even there, they are champions. Not every northern fighter is a bersark.”
“So it could just be a few dozen?”
Gunnar frowned. “Ah. No, I—no. When the Taerbjornsen came down into Svarden, he was already at the front of a horde. Thousands of fighters. Hundreds of bersarks, to be sure.”
Hundreds. Yorrin swallowed. “Ah,” he said. “Good.”
“Good?” Gunnar asked.
“Sure. I was afraid this was going to be too easy. Fighting that bersark was the first real challenge your kinsmen have given us.” Yorrin smiled, confident that his fear was tightly contained at the pit of his stomach.
Gunnar smiled back. “Ah. Ja. We will have many chances to prove our valor to Vlar in the days ahead.”
“Vlar can eat shit,” Yorrin said. “But aside from that, I’m with you.”
Gunnar laughed. “You are an odd man, Yorrin,” he said.
Yorrin shrugged. “You’re not the first to say so.”
“You have a true warrior’s spirit,” Gunnar decided. “Brave as any bersark.”
He walked off without waiting for a reply. That was good, because Yorrin had no reply to give.
You might be the first to say that, though.
It was another two days before Aleksandr was finished with the portcullis. It took quite a few men to mount the piece in place, but they got it done. With that out of the way Steelshod’s work at Northwatch was well and truly finished. Cox, for all he’d seemed an entitled prat when he first arrived, thanked them all profusely. Aleksandr most of all. They stayed one more night in the keep, with plans to strike out for Arcadia at first light.
A few of Cox’s scouts returned from their own circuit late that night. The commotion out in the yard woke Yorrin, or roused him from the restless half-sleep that accounted for much of his nights. It was odd for scouts to come in so late—it meant that whatever they’d found had been too urgent or dangerous for them to stop and sleep on the road.
Yorrin pulled on some clothes. By the time he went to wake Aleksandr, he found Aleksandr already dressed as well.
“Something wrong?” Aleksandr asked.
“Not sure yet. Find out?” Yorrin replied.
Aleksandr nodded, and they stepped out into the yard together.
Cox and a few of his knights were gathered near the base of the tower, speaking with the scouts. When Cox saw Yorrin and Aleksandr he waved them over.
“Sir Kerensky!” Cox said. “Aleksandr! Good. You may want to hear this. You planned to head back the way you came, yes? The coastal roads?”
“Da,” Aleksandr said. “Why? Trouble?”
“Yes, but not on the coastal roads,” Cox said. He nudged the lead scout. “Tell Sir Kerensky what you told me.”
“It’s the southern road, sir,” the scout said. His eyes were bloodshot and circled with exhaustion, but he looked alright aside from that. No visible wounds, anyway. “We heard from folk fleeing north—there’s trouble along the Ironblood.”
The road south of us meets the Ironblood at Torva, Yorrin realized. Damn. I knew Lord Fattenbrass wasn’t cut out for a war like this.
“What sort of trouble?” Yorrin asked. “Torva?”
The scout nodded. “Yes sir,” he said.
“You are saying Torva has fallen?” Aleksandr asked. His tone was flat, but Yorrin knew him well enough to know it was grim, not emotionless.
“Maybe by now,” the scout said. “But no. The way we heard it, Torva is besieged by a sizable host.”
“Besieged?” Yorrin said. “Then there’s still hope. We could all ride south, relieve them.”
“I can’t,” Cox said. He grimaced. “I—much as it pains me to say, I truly can’t. My charge is Northwatch. I must hold it.”
“Perhaps we can find more men elsewhere,” Aleksandr said.
“Not likely,” said Cox. “The only other keeps of note in the Loheim are Wigglesworth and Volkung, and both of them are key war leaders. They have long since ridden out to join Marshal’s host, and their keeps will have small enough garrisons that they won’t dare ride out any more than I will.”
Aleksandr frowned, scratching his beard thoughtfully.
“If you’re willing, Aleksandr, I think you should head south,” Cox said. “We can’t help Torva directly, but we can get information. It will slow you down, but if you ride south and scout the forces at Torva you may be the first men to get that information on to Marshal. See if you can get a good accounting of them. Then cut west along the river. There’s a ford you may be able to cross, if the water is low, otherwise you can make it all the way back to Salton Cross Ferry.”
Aleksandr nodded. “Da,” he said. “We can do this.”
“You’ll lose a few days, at best,” Cox said. “Maybe more. I—you don’t answer to me. I just think it would—”
“Davrien,” Aleksandr said “Is fine. It is a good plan. We shall do this. Thank you.”
Cox sighed, relief etched across his features. “I’m the one that owes you thanks. Truly.”
Aleksandr shrugged off the pleasantry. “Yorrin, come. We must plan before we sleep,” he said. He gave Cox a nod in farewell and turned away.
“Yorrin,” Aleksandr said once they were walking alone. “How do you like Cox’s plan?”
I don’t. “It’s alright,” Yorrin said hesitantly.
“Yorrin.”
Right. Can’t get anything past him. Yorrin smiled. “It’s too small, sir. Scout them? Get their numbers, then run away? We can do more than that.”
“Da. I was thinking this as well. What do you think we should do?”
“Camp out in the woods north of Torva. We can harass them. Kill their foragers and scouts. Maybe Prudence and I can even sneak through under cover of darkness and make direct contact with the defenders. Get inside Torva, find out how Fortinbrass and Cleaver are doing.”
Aleksandr clapped a hand on Yorrin’s shoulder. “Good,” he said. “We agree. We go south, to Torva. Not just to get their numbers, but to help. We fight in Torva’s defense.”
Yorrin nodded. “And we don’t leave until the siege is over.”