Visions of Glory
by Ralph Benton
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 1
“Bromin, time to wake up. Come, my little broom, help me sweep the cobwebs from the sky.” He didn’t want to wake up, even if his mother said so. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. It was so warm and cozy under the blankets. “Bromin, come dance with me. You can stand on my feet.”
He opened his eyes, and her warm, round face smiled down at him. She brushed a flop of hair from his forehead. He knew he had to dance, but wasn’t it raining? The sound of rushing water filled his ears.
His mother drew back, angry, so angry that her mouse-brown hair turned bright red, and her eyes burned yellow and fierce. “You’ll dance when I say it’s time to dance!” she snarled, eager and terrifying. She reached under the bed and brought out a meat hook, gleaming silver and sharp. She shoved the point into his elbow.
The sight of the bloody hook sticking out of his arm stifled his scream. She pushed a second hook into his other arm, and two more into his legs. Now he saw thick cables tied to the hook eyes ascending into the darkness above him. The cables tightened, and his limbs jerked. Her laughter became the sound of rushing water.
“Jarl Bromin.”
He snapped awake. One of Captain Shirvold’s soldiers stood outside his round pavillion, demanding his attentions. “Jarl Bromin, you must come at once.” He spoke loudly, to be heard over the river sounds.
The water’s lullaby had soothed him to sleep last night, after four days on the road. So easy to sleep—
“Jarl Bromin!” the voice insisted.
“Yes, yes, I’m awake. I was dreaming, a strange dream, I was—”
“Jarl Bromin, you must come at once.” The man pushed through the flap, unsure if his jarl was ready for what lay beyond the canvas. It was Ox, a walking boulder of a man. “Captain Shirvold wants you immediately. Two of the night’s watch are missing.”
Two missing? Bromin’s stomach lurched. He was still on the friendly side of the river! In his mind, the skeptical look on Earl Predearion’s face as he granted Bromin this charge bloomed like a thistle in the garden. Had he lost men before battle was joined? A current of fear and desperation started from his belly, but he forced it down. Strength, he must show strength.
The soldier stood away from the cot. Bromin tossed back the blankets, in a way he hoped looked manly and without care. Great commanders lost men routinely. He was sure he had heard that.
“Stay while I dress.” The barest hint of dawn’s light showed through the tent flap. The young jarl looked back at his cot and woolen blankets. He knew they would still be warm if he crawled back under them. He shook that thought aside. In a week he would be back in Turyl.
A month after that, he would be wed to Princess Neera, the earl’s daughter. “Do this thing for me,” the earl had told him, “and I will make her yours.” He remembered the hungry look she gave him at those words, as she peered from behind her father’s chair. He wanted to see that look again.
But first, he had to get dressed.
“Has your captain told you why we’re here?” He made conversation while he changed into his day clothes. His father had told him that a good captain should be able to talk with his men. Ox remained silent while Bromin looked for his sheepskin vest.
“Our earl has wisely decided that the sacred sanctuary of the prophetess must be recovered from the hateful spirit that has befouled the temple for these last thirty years.”
Bromin wondered if he should don his mailcoat. Would Shirvold be wearing his? That was an easy answer, the old campaigner never took it off. Bromin decided not to, to appear uncaring for his safety, but strapped on his sword belt.
“Again shall Turyl be a way station for the pilgrims who once traveled this very road. And our earl has laid this solemn task upon me. And thus, upon you does the earl also depend.”
Ox remained silent.
Bromin gulped a mouthful of ale to sharpen himself and stepped into the bracing cool air of the new day. The sight of a cluster of men around Shirvold brought him up short. A jarl should always be the first to know, he heard his father say. Bromin’s fingers sought the jarlstone around his neck before he jerked his hand away. The childish grasp for assurance happened a dozen times a day. By the gods, he thought, I’ve been awake for only three minutes.
“Captain Shirvold,” he called as he strode forward, “a report, please.” There, that sounded good.
Shirvold turned to him. Tall, with rich black and silver hair, and great drooping mustaches that hung past his chin. Bromin stroked his own patchy beard at the sight of the captain. At least both of his hands worked. Shirvold kept his crippled hand tucked behind his cloak. He still wore the longsword from his youth, even if he couldn’t wield it. Bromin had heard that a barbarian had slashed his arm decades ago. It was a shame, but the older man’s counsel and leadership meant more than an extra sword in any fight.
As long as they didn’t need an extra sword.
“The last two men of the night watch, my jarl. Laefman and Koskva, both missing. I have men searching this side of the river. I didn’t want to cross the ford until you gave the order.”
Good. At least his commands on that point were clear. “Where were the men stationed?”
“Laefman was here, at the ford. Koskva watched the road behind us.”
That made sense. From Turyl, the company had taken the Old Road east. Yesterday they turned north onto the Way of the Seer, and another two hours’ march brought them to the Milk River. The river marked the border between the soft grasslands and orchards of Bromin’s youth and the thickly forested mountains to the north. Here he had ordered camp made. Had he cracked his head on the lintel even as he stepped out of his own home?
“What of the men they relieved?”
It was a good question, and Shirvold gave a nod of respect. “Jarl, neither man reports anything odd during their watch. They woke Laefman and Koskva, who groused but were in otherwise in good spirits, as you might expect. They then slept soundly until the alarm was raised moments ago by Ox, taking an early piss.”
Bromin felt a bloody claw itching at his mind. They were supposed to be safe. “Continue the search, the men in pairs,” he said. “This smacks of witchery. Fetch the wielder and bring her to my tent.”
“Agreed. Two good men don’t vanish without a mark or sound.” Shirvold strode off.
The older man’s support was a balm to Bromin. While this quest was his charge, and its success or failure would fall upon him alone, he needed all the help he could get.
The sight of his gaily decorated tent made him scowl. Embroidered dragons swirled in red, gold, and green against virgin white canvas. A frivolous thing, a dollhouse fit for a girl playing at princess. Not for men performing deeds worthy of song. He snapped back the flap and entered.
To lose men before they crossed the river! At the earl’s banquet, he had boasted of the deeds to come and scoffed at the proffered two dozen men of bow, sword, and axe. Now the number seemed terribly inadequate. Were the missing men bowmen or swordsmen? He bit his lip. Should he have asked Shirvold, or should he know his men better? Should he ask now, or was it too late? His mind started to spin as it did when he faced himself.
“Jarl Bromin,” Shirvold called from outside the tent.
No. He would not allow himself to look anything other than the young master, on the first of many quests.
“Come.”
The captain entered, followed by Therabine, the pledged sorceress of Turyl. Bromin had never liked her looks, and she looked worse today than yesterday. She was old, older even than Shirvold, and in Bromin’s eyes her powers had washed to the sea many years before. She wore her hair in thick, twisted ropes, laced with beads, strips of colored cloth, and any number of bangles. No doubt she was infested with fleas, a fact not refuted by his failure to see one making the jump to freedom. Probably trapped in that tangled mat.
“Jarl Bromin,” she said, in her husky voice. Too much wine, he knew. Her eyes, normally the color of a dusty autumn sky, were almost obliterated by her irises. Too much softflower, he knew that as well. Sadly she was what he had, for a witch is not fought with steel alone. But he would push this weak old woman.
“Therabine, I’m missing two men.” He caught himself as he opened his mouth to ask Shirvold what arms they wielded. The knowing smile that crossed her face at his thoughts irked him further. “Do you feel anything? Know anything?”
She looked around the tent and took a stool without asking leave. Bromin stiffened, then let the slight pass. If he chastised her, he would look like someone who needed to yell to maintain his authority. If he didn’t, he was someone to whom no respect was given. She gave that irritating little smile again.
Not yet sunrise. He forced his hand away from the jarlstone.
“Do I feel anything? Yes, I feel old and cold and sore from too many days on the road. I haven’t been on a campaign since young Shirvold and I fought the Predorates at the Alvais River. Isn’t that right, Quick Sword?”
Shirvold snorted and grinned down at her. “Hold your tongue, or I shall withhold mine.” She cackled with laughter.
Bromin knew of their trysts, but still blushed at such crude wordplay. But Quick Sword, he would have to remember that, that was funny.
“Now, do I know anything? Yes, I do. You would not listen to me the night the earl conferred this errand. His daughter panted at the thought of your wedding night, while you drank unwatered wine and demanded the bard sing another song of glory.” She scratched under her shirt. “But you will listen now. Let me tell you why the mighty province of Turyl so quickly abandoned the oracle of the mountain.” She reached into a pouch and pulled out a withered purple flower.
He had listened to her insults, but this was too much. “Therabine, we have no time for your indulgences! On the mountain your wits shall be tested to the fullest.”
Ignoring him, she plucked the bud from the heart of the flower and placed it under her tongue. Her eyes closed and the flower dropped to the rug like rubbish in the street. She had gone too far! As he rose from his chair, Shirvold caught his eye and shook his head. Bromin clenched his jaw and told himself that a prince must tolerate the old and eccentric.
She exhaled a slow breath that smelled of sour wine. “Do you remember,” she began, “some thirty years ago, at the feast of the summer star?”
Bromin threw up his hands. Of course he didn’t remember; he hadn’t been born. This old hag was useless! Then he saw that she wasn’t speaking to her jarl, but to her old friend and lover. Bromin felt like a puppy between two grizzled hounds.
Shirvold smiled and handed her a wineskin.
Therabine drank and continued. “A flock of pilgrims gathered in Turyl, as they used to do, then traveled onward to the oracle. A common enough sight as the moon approached her fullness. A fortnight later, barely half of them stumbled through our gates, mad with fear, gabbling of serpents and poisonous smokes on the mountain. Their shepherd told bizarre tales of trees that ate the unwary.”
Shirvold grew serious. “The late earl sent a company of dragoons to investigate.” The memory stirred something dark inside of him. “I had good friends in that company.”
“He had to try.” All these years later, Therabine’s voice still held a hopeless desperation. The sound of the river filled the tent. “We didn’t know how bad it was. Two days after the dragoons departed, the chamberlain found the oracle at the dung gate, fast asleep, with bloody feet. He quickly bundled her into the moon tower before anyone noticed.”
“She was such a pretty little thing,” Shirvold added.
Bromin gulped his ale. He liked this story less and less. “What did she say when she woke up?” This was no tale of heroic deeds. There would be no dashing hero.
“She never woke up,” Therabine said. “Well, until the end.” She twisted one matted braid and stared into her memories. “I can still see her, curled up on the bed.” She drank. Bromin wondered if she drank more to forget than for pleasure. “At first no one dared to wake her but, as the hours passed, it seemed strange that she did not stir. The earl’s mother touched her shoulder, then shook her, but she didn’t waken.”
Outside the tent, men shouted to each other as they searched.
“Then it got worse.”
She drained her wine. Bromin watched the twists of pain and sadness in her face.
“As soon as the sun sank behind the hills, the poor girl began thrashing, moaning and screaming, as if menaced by demons we could not see. Nothing could wake her from her terrors. She drenched the sheets with sweat. All night, her screams echoed through the tower.”
“That was her?” Bromin asked. “We were told it was a mountain shepherd being put to the question.”
“We had to tell some kind of a story. The noise was frightful.” The sorceress now gazed steadily at Bromin, her eyes clear of any wine haze.
“Every night, her terrors grew worse. The priests left the chamber white-faced and trembling. One leech suggested bleeding, while another with a wheezy voice insisted that a poultice of powdered unicorn horn and wasp venom be applied. Nothing worked. Finally, as the sixth dawn broke since we had found her, her eyes opened. We gathered around the bed. Her little body was wasted, nothing but bones and sinew, a shriveled husk of herself, ‘Can you not hear her laughing?’ she whispered. Then she died.”
Therabine wiped away a tear. Telling the tale seemed to have aged her ten years.
“And the dragoons?” Bromin asked, as he pushed down deep and far away the laughter of his own dream.
“None returned,” Shirvold said.
“Why did you not send another troop?” Bromin demanded.
“Have you heard nothing of the story?” Therabine snapped, baffled by his witless belligerence.
Shirvold stirred. “We must find them. On the march yesterday, Koskva told me he had finally bedded the tanner’s daughter, much to their mutual delight.” He shook his head. “I’ll not lose good men to such evil.”
Therabine looked up at him with a sad affection.
They looked to the tent flap at the sound of running feet. “Jarl Bromin, Captain Shirvold, come quickly! At the ford, we found one, I think.”
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Copyright © 2021 by Ralph Benton
