A Daemon-Horn Blade Ch. 08

The Boar-Men had come four nights ago, the survivors said, in small dugout canoes from downstream, almost certainly from their large war-camp on Dead Tree Island. They did not strike with any particular surprise, and indeed many of the attackers were killed, before a breech was made in the timber wall of their protective palisade. Once the breech in their defenses was made, their few guardsmen traded their own lives, dearly, before they were overrun, giving just enough time for many of the women, elderly, and the children to escape out a hidden emergency tunnel, to the relative safety of a nearby hill, where they had some crude defenses and a bit of saved stored food in readiness.

This had been a raid for food, not for plunder, and a good many townsfolk had been wounded or seized, and then bound as captives and taken back away to their small boats. Some of the human dead had been taken, as well, until their boats were fully laden, and then the raiders returned back down-river to their base, where, undoubtedly, they were enjoying their ghastly feast. The Boar-Men ate any food they could find, but they took especial delight in consuming human flesh, occasionally raw but often roasted in accordance with ancient ritual over a spit, preferably keeping the skewered human alive over the roasting fires, for as long as possible, while tender slivers of cooked flesh were trimmed from the still alive and screaming victim.

Understandably horrified at the certain fate of their missing loved ones, the survivors demanded that something be done. As the ranking noble in these parts, it was, immediately, to the Lady Ayleth that their pleas now fell. To her credit, the Lady listened to their tears and entreaties, and promised that something would be done... and soon. Then, with a slightly cruel smile at Rowan, she made her decree.

"As my Champion, Rowan of Swanford is fortunately here at my side, eager to offer his assistance; I command him to your service, to, and at once, go forth to rescue those unfortunate captives, and restore those that yet remain to your side! As the daughter and heir of your august Duke, I do, so forth, order that this be rescue be done!"

The townsfolk cheered loudly, with great cheerful enthusiasm, but Rowan's heart was alternately relieved and yet disheartened. He could now return to that accursed island and have his vengeance, but it was beyond any hopes of optimism that he could ever hope to return alive from this risky undertaking. Did she sense his desire for revenge, or did she just now decide that this was an apt way to avenge herself, and get rid of an uppity peasant who didn't know his place, who had dared to speak treason, however true, to the daughter of a Duke?

Rowan didn't particularly care anymore; soon all of his incessant fears and doubts would be gone, one way or another, and it was quite true that he wouldn't entirely regret his own swift journey to meet Cedany, once again, together in the Shadowlands. Soon, once again, she would be at his side, and he found himself increasingly eager to start this mission of suicidal vengeance, anticipating that blessed moment of reunion.

Turning to return to the river, where several of the abandoned dugout canoes from the raid still remained, their original rowers now in whatever dark terrible underworld the slain Eorfleode might yearn for in their afterlife, Rowan felt at once the long strong fingers of the gléaman grab his arm.

"Don't be more of a fool than you can help. Although the young and brave are prone to fits of stupidity, at least try and think, before you run off to fight! You won't make this trip alone, and if you fight as much with your head as with your balls, both parts of you might live long enough to laugh about this foolish mission, in the years to come. I shall be with you, and Boyle is, even now, grabbing his weapons to come, as well. Plus, I would be surprised if our widowed, and suicidally reckless, first mate doesn't wish to join his own beloved's journey to the Shadowlands, and he might even be of some considerable usefulness, before his spirit leaves us. If we're lucky, another sword or two just might come along as well, so we shan't have to row off to certain death and glory, quite all alone."

The wise Foole was quite correct. A few minutes later, two long carved war-canoes paddled off down river with a revenge party of six grim faced men. The Lady, as expected, had commanded that her guardsmen were to remain in the ruined town with her, not the least reason was because two of them had, rather surprisingly, volunteered to accompany Rowan's rescue party. With a twinkle in her eye and a wave of her handkerchief, she bid her small group of heroes and her champion adieu, altogether quite certain that this would be the last she would ever see of them.

"Go, ye heroes, go to glory,

Though ye die in combat gory,

Ye shall live in song and story,

Go to immortality!"

The gléaman began to softly sing, as much to himself as to the lads that paddled with him in their canoe.

"Catchy song!" Boyle laughed. "And quite appropriate; one of your better ones in fact."

"Hardly." The Foole laughed, as they began to hasten the paddling of their oars. "Besides, it's not one of mine... but that won't stop me from singing it before a better class of audience and collecting the coin from their laughter. In any case, a little laughter is good before meeting certain death, since it is better to meet ones fate, in something other than a highly nervous state!"

The war-canoes sped swiftly down the river, and the gléaman lightened their hearts and eased their woes with merry song all through the night, for as long as it was safe to do so.

***********

Oddly, despite the fact that she had laughed quite merrily as the tiny craft with the pitifully few rescuers inside sped quickly out of sight, the Lady Ayleth's nascent conscience poked at her, unceasingly, all night long, once again denying her any sleep or even comfort. By the first light of morning, she was already joining the survivors standing along the dock watching the river, waiting with increased fear and worry for her brave warriors to return. Her head was positively certain that they were already dead, or else captive and praying for a swift death, but, oddly, her heart was increasingly convinced that some way, somehow they would return... even if in defeat.

Somehow, she believed that her champion yet lived, and he would return to her to complete and fulfill his earlier vows to her, to restore her former beauty... a vow she had quite suddenly, and rather carelessly forgotten, in her rather impulsive desire to avenge a private slight. At least the tall and strong young smith had kept his grievances with her private, and had never spoken of his ill-uttered words, or hardly any in fact, while in public to the others. Also, she admitted that she would miss his broad shouldered cheerful friend, Boyle. Although he was also rather too free of speech towards his betters, his smile was infectious and she would miss their daily chats about everything and yet nothing, full of mirth and very little of anything of merit.

**********

When evening fell on the empty river later that night, her heroes were still absent. No one was yet admitting defeat, but everyone's hopes were clearly swiftly failing. As the last light of sunset faded on the river, the stern and merciless Lady Ayleth fell to her knees on the muddy riverbank, as a hard rain started to pour, and she let her first ever honest tears of despair flow freely down her face, and she wept into her hands.

This was the first time that she could ever remember crying, since she had been a young girl. Now, for the first time in her life, she had finally done something that she had truly and heartily regretted. Never before had she shown remorse or regret, for her bullying and cruel teasing of childhood playmates, and then, later, her maiden attendants. She had watched her ladies die, nearly every single one of them... horribly, but she had privately rejoiced that she had lived, despite her disfigurement. Now, she knew that she deserved those terrible scars, for just as the lad Rowan had said, she festered - both inside and out... and now her champion and fellow heroes had died pointlessly, because of a stupid impulsive and careless action intended to soothe her stupid vanity.

When her tears could no longer flow, she collapsed right there along the riverside, and slept with her clothes soaked from the rain, as it poured down all night long, leaving her in a bed of mud; her dreams dark and terrible, as death and destruction crossed every step of her path, to her increasing dismay and horror.

********************

Her guardsmen did not attend her that long, rainy, and very restless night; her three men-at-arms, Slaryle, Kelven, & Fenenin lay a short distance away down the river from the burned town, with their throats newly cut from ear-to-ear, their life blood now joining the others who had recently died, and slowly trickling with the nighttime rain to mingle with the blood and tears of countless others into the river.

Now several miles away, and riding hard through the rain on their horses, heading south-east, down the shore of the Elm River, Rothale, formerly a Lieutenant of the Duke's Guard, rode with his wounded companion and former Sergeant, Worrel, far away from the ruins of the town. Rothale's saddlebags still contained the Duke's travel money in hard coin, given into his care. Right after he and his partner in treason Worrel had slit the unsuspecting sleeping throats of their own guardsmen, he had also snatched up the Lady Ayleth's personal coin purse, as well, which she had left in her small cabin on board The Lady Ellyn.

He had almost been caught by one of the women crew, Brenga he thought her name was, while he was searching the Captain's cabin and desk for any additional, hidden stashes of coins. There he did find another small purse of ready cash, and decided it was time to complete his escape, before the girl's body was found. He had no regrets, whatsoever, about leaving yet another soul murdered, so that he could make off with enough of a fortune to live quite well for a year or two, in some distant foreign city. Her misfortune was his gain, and this wasn't the first time he had killed a few innocents in order to seize a small fortune. Someday he might need to do the same yet all over again, also undoubtedly to someone else's greater misfortune.

A short time later, during their flight, when Worrel's arrow wounds pained him too much to ride any further, without taking a rest, the greedy Rothale decided to ease his passage into the Shadowlands, and by surprise, ran his sword into his old friends side. The evil former Lieutenant had planned to kill his companion later on anyway, to avoid having to share any of the loot, but he had hoped that the Sergeant could have been of some slightly greater use to him. As Worrel crumpled over into the tall grass, Rothale stopped only long enough, to bend over enough, to cut his old mate's purse as well, and to grab the now rider-less reigns of his former companions horse. He would need to ride fast and hard, changing horses often enough to keep them both fresh and reasonably rested. It was unlikely that the 'heroes' would ever be returning. They were already probably in some Boar-Man's feasting kettle, and the Lady would soon be taken in a following raid to join them. Still, he wanted to put a much distance between himself and potential danger as possible.

That a great number of people had either just died, or soon were about to die to enable Rothale to steal a small fortune, didn't bother his thrice-damned soul in the slightest. Unlike the Lady Ayleth, when he did finally collapse from the need to sleep, several days and a good many leagues away from his crimes, his dreams were pleasant and happy ones; of nice shiny large silver and gold coins counted in heaps, and of the soft willing flesh that he would rent, with but a small coin of it, at the first whorehouse he next passed.

Unluckily for the former Lieutenant and Ducal bodyguard, and murderous thief, Rothale met an equally amoral and enterprising young lady a few weeks later, in a mining town on the lower slopes of the Twin Peaks Mountains in central Broadmore, where his name and infamy was quite unknown. A seasoned whore named Vorenia, aptly named for the rapacity of her greed, eased his own passage into the Shadowlands by poisoning his flagon of wine one evening. He had been a rather sadistic lover, which she didn't entirely object to, but her discovery of his wealth, stashed away in his saddlebags, insufficiently well hidden in the inn stables, instantly sealed his fate.

She in turn, met a different, but appropriate, fate, that well befitted a poisoner and murderess many-times-over, but that's an entirely different story.