A Daemon-Horn Blade Ch. 01

Tonight Gorge was remaining largely silent and mostly just listened to the others instead of being in the center of the debate, as was his normal wont. The conversation, which was becoming quite loud, degraded into a heated argument between the head trading factor, Frigrast, and the headsman Vainard. Just to rub salt into the growing wounds, the beady-eyed and always suppliant village priest, Father Lankfred, took every opportunity to side with the pompous headman.

If there was a single most disliked person in the village by nearly everyone, it was the priest. Father Lankfred was in his early middle years of life and the reality that he was likely to remain a small village priest for the remainder of his years ate away at him like a cancer. He burned with desire to somehow make a name for himself so that he could become a bishop or a prelate in a bigger town or city. Or perhaps even a Vicar General, one of the holiest and most devout who travel the world to root out sin. There was so much sin everywhere he looked; even right here in this village. No matter how much wickedness he exposed to the light of truth, the village elders never did anything about it, and even his ally the headsman seemed to hold little sway over the sinful habits of his flock. Why they even respected and still worshiped the forbidden Banished Gods, the ones that his divine master had driven from this world, like the Infernals! Someday, he swore, the village would be purified -- even if he had to burn it down to the ground himself in order to save it!

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"It has to be dangers on the road!" Frigrast insisted, pounding his fist onto the table hard enough that most of the blackjacks of ale bounced and nearly fell over. "There has been no rain in weeks, so the road couldn't have been washed away. It has to be either bandits... or else something worse. The Duke should have paved this road with stone years ago! It would have sped up the wagons, and made them much less vulnerable to either mischief or poor weather. Also, why is there no cavalry available to patrol the roads regularly, or even to escort the wagons? Sure it would cost some extra gold and bags of silver in taxes to maintain it, but wouldn't it be worth it, to all of us?"

"Try not to be more frightened of things in the dark than you normally are tradesman! The trade road is sound and secure and will remain so!" Vainard insisted, also pounding the table a few times, for good measure as his anger grew. 'Stupid greedy traders!' he thought to himself; always wanting the Duke to spend good coin so that the merchants could grow richer. Why doesn't anyone else show any sense or backbone, he wondered. The more sensible masters, like Gorge, lifted up their blackjacks from the wooden table, before another outburst of fury could spill them all over the table.

"And you, Headman, try not to have your head any further up the good Duke's ass than is necessary! The coastal road between Haldyne and Swanford is our single, most vulnerable lifeline of trade. We've tried flatboats in the past, but the river in-between is a little too swift and much too shallow, not to mention all of the ever-changing and dangerous sandbars at the river gap past the Haldyne docks. Every single bit of trade both east and west must pass up and down that lonely road, with the forests being not even a full bows-shot distance away. That's another issue! The Duke's foresters are supposed to keep the tree line safely back from the roadway, but this has not been done since the days of the old Duke. Surely there is some petition that was signed and agreed to, which we can bring before the Duke to gently remind him of his duties."

"The Duchy, as everyone knows, is a poor one and the good Duke doesn't have the coins to frivolously spend on non-essential duties. He himself should be arriving here in but a few days, and he will certainly examine the situation for himself and take measured and appropriate actions. It should be more than enough that he fully maintains the soldiers and guardsmen for the northern forts and our local watchtowers. These alone are more than sufficient to keep us safely from unpleasant advances of the night-creatures. The Goblins and other legendary creatures of the northern mountains are far too craven to intrude themselves onto the Duke's lands."

"The Púcel, it is admitted, are but a small threat here, south of the river. They are a craven lot and hunt rarely, if ever, by day and are an unlikely menace to a fast moving and well-armed caravan, especially in bright summer daylight. They are more thieves than soldiers and are rarely a threat even to small homesteads. That is one threat that we can fairly safely discount. If it is not mundane banditry, then it is of the Boar-Men that I must speak, but they are far from the legendary or imaginary danger you believe them to be. River traders, of late, have made frequent mention of unusual activity along the river, especially on the northern bank. Soldiers have reported that scouts have been finding unusual large tracks that were not made by men, and in great numbers... and some scouts do not return to report at all."

"Twaddle and utter nonsense!" The sharp-faced priest of Yfelde Soð, the God of Justice loudly interrupted; his voice snapped with disgust and outrage. "The Eorfleode are but creatures of legend, destroyed utterly, over a hundred years ago, when the false Gods were banished, and my Divine Lord assumed the sole responsibility for the protection of our race and people. They are but old wives tales, empty shadows from history, that are suitable only for frightening foolish old women and young children. Which are you, O faithless factor?"

"Once again, O simple parish priest, you let the zeal of your heart overcome your limited senses. It is indeed foolish to speak of things about which you have absolutely no direct knowledge. Large and inhuman creatures are roaming freely in our northern forests... and, perhaps now, even in our eastern and southern ones as well. These unwelcome events are the avowed statements of many our loyal and skilled scouts and veteran guardsmen, and I would not lightly gainsay their expert evaluation of our present security."

'Utter nonsense!" The headsman agreed, nodding with concurrence at the views of his friend, the priest.

"I swear that the reports of the scouts are true! I have seen them and heard my Captain comment upon them. He is most unsettled." A soldier from the castle then said, rising from his seat in the taproom and offering his sword hand raised in truth-oath.

"I, too, will swear that the Boar-Men, or some new evil much like them, have returned in number to the north." Another guardsman stationed at the village watchtowers sternly stated, also making a hand oath-sign. "My friend, the veteran scout Gilias, is stationed at the main northern River Guard Tower and he has made many reports of strange incursions into our lands, by many unusual creatures. I would swear any oath that his reports are, indeed, true."

The meeting, from then on, descended into loud angry chaos and the two factions argued loudly. Tankards of wine and blackjacks of good ale were indeed spilled, and blows might even have been struck if a messenger from the southern guard tower had not suddenly entered the tavern.

"The caravan has arrived!" He loudly shouted inside the doorway. "It was sorely set-upon by bandits, and there are some injuries, but it has now safely arrived! His Grace the Duke is in attendance with them as well!"

That announcement finished the debate, at least for now and nearly everyone hurriedly left the tavern to wait for the ducal carriage to pass. Rowan, Boyle, and Bryce took this opportunity to hurriedly finish their roasted chickens and their ale. Their coins were too hard earned to waste anything from a dinner eaten away from home.

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"Do you think that the Duke will actually ever pave that road? It would make it much safer." Boyle asked of Bryce, who, as a trusted young veteran guard, heard most of the castle gossip.

"Not a chance in seven hells!" He replied. "The Duke is as cheap and penny pinching as they come. I don't know what he spends the money on back in Tellismere, but bandits or not, not an extra farthing will go to cut back a single tree or lay down any stones on that lonely road."

"Not good." Boyle muttered, and he was in fact quite right.

"This is going to badly hurt the river trade." Rowan pondered. "Certainly cargos can sail out of Crystal Lake either west to the sea at Tellismere, or down the Bekingham River, much further south to the coast at Evesham where the river meets the Great Western Sea, but that adds many days of travel, for even simple cargos. Also, we depend upon the ores that sail west from the hills of Everdun, and the bales of wool and linen cloth, produced in the Lloan Valley. They, in turn, depend upon the finished goods from our cities and towns, and many require the surplus food from our villages."

"So if Boar-Men are indeed crossing over the river, or amassing in great numbers to do so..." Bryce mused.

"Then river trade is, or will soon be, cut off, and the Duchy must rise up to war for the first time since our grandfather's days, or perhaps even theirs." Rowan answered with a frown. Tellismere had been a quiet and peaceful land for as long as anyone could remember, largely because it had little in the way of raw materials, other than lumber, that anyone else would possibly covet. Their southern neighbors Broadmore and Drakland were often quite constantly at war, seemingly every couple of years or so, but their longstanding hatred of each other never boiled over onto Tellismere's borders, except at sea.

"Not good at all." Boyle muttered, again quite correctly.

In peacetime, there were enough volunteers for military service to avoid the need for conscription. In addition, minor lawbreakers in the larger cities were often given the option for a term of military service, instead of a sentence to hard labor. But if war was likely, conscription would indeed swiftly follow. The recruiting drum and their eager sergeants would gather every available young lad and man who could be spared, from every town and village in the Duchy. In fact, once the news of war and conscription was announced, some of the young men would be eager to voluntarily enlist at the earliest moment, hopeful of an early advance promotion to brevet-guardsman, and to gain seniority before the flocks of newly conscripted recruits arrived. For a lad without other economic opportunities, a military life, even here on the frontier, had many advantages, and not everyone who heard the tidings of war would be saddened.