I left Gallia behind, and it receded until it was only a bright spot against a hazy horizon. Then it and the sea beyond were gone, and everything became green, from the canopy overhead to the moss under Bran’s hooves. Only the sky remained a stubborn gray. Rain fell in brief fits from an impenetrable layer of cloud, and the wind blew cold. Autumn was coming to the North, and it would reach me here before long.
For now, though, the forest was emerald green, and the birds sang summer songs in its branches. After the first day out of the city, the stream of caravans in and out of its gates slowed to a trickle. By the time a week had passed, I saw another traveler only once every few days. I sang as well, as I rode, a rowing song of the frost-cold sea, to warn anyone else on the road of my presence and reassure them that I was not a bandit lying in wait for them.
I had grown more comfortable with riding Bran these long months and years. Still, I walked most of the time, giving him an easier journey. He carried most of our provisions—and most of that was food for me, so I wouldn’t have to hunt and gather on the road. Here, far from the eastern steppe at the close of summer, grass grew in abundance and the streams ran clear. Bran needed nothing else. A steppe horse was a magnificent beast. If I ever saw Aysulu again, I had no hope of repaying her for the gift she had given me in Bran.
He was happy to feel the wet earth beneath his feet and leave the harbor behind. I apologized, yet again, for forcing him to travel by boat. I do not think he understood.
My spirits lifted as well, and I forgot my trepidation by the time I had passed another week on the road. The rain was light, and my load not too much to bear, and Bran and I were making excellent time at a pace no faster than a brisk walk. I had at my disposal a crude map, drawn by the very hand of Deinaros the All-knowing and amended in bright red ink by Cricket. The notes in black were meaningless to me, but the images of hilltops and streams were better. I was heading for a place marked by a pair of concentric circles and a curving line of script. By my estimation, I had crossed half the distance contained in my map, and would cross the other half in another two weeks.
It had been such a long time since I left Phyreios. Had I not met Ashoka again so recently, I might have thought that at some point on my journey, I had passed into a world in which Phyreios had never been. This far from the Iron Mountain, no one had heard of the grand Cerean tournament, nor of the fate of the city. No one had seen the Ascended in their power nor witnessed them brought low. No one remembered my role in all of it except for me.
Meeting Ashoka had been like gazing into a mirror—though I would never call myself as divinely blessed with good looks as the erstwhile champion of the Ascended. All my failings and all my doubts reflected back at me from his eyes.
Like him, I had been faithless, searching for someone I could trust in the wide world. Instead of a god, I had found a sorcerer. Ashoka still searched. I did not expect I would see him again when I returned at last to Gallia.
The forest thinned and gave way to rolling hills, gentle as the waves on a calm sea. Here was evidence of the workings of human hands: fields in tilled rows, wooden roofs and stone walls, and far in the distance, a tower that stood like a lone sentry atop the highest hill. At night, light burned in its upper windows. The shapes of men crossing the fields cast long shadows in the evening and early morning.
The circular mark on the map, almost exactly two weeks later, turned out to be the sort of ring-fort that I had once associated with the lands of the South, not knowing, at the time, that there was another world even farther south than this. First, Bran and I crossed a vast field of golden stalks, approaching the high wall of stone in the center. Laborers sprouted from between the rows, looking up as we approached, silent and watchful. They did not raise their scythes against me, but I could already see that I would not be welcome here.
I approached the fort anyway. Around it, the land had been built up in circular plateaus, carved into tiers like a giant’s staircase. A smooth path led from the road to the small gate, barely as tall as I was, set into the wall of stone.
A man stood atop the wall, a spear in one hand and a tall, narrow shield in the other. Though I could not see his face, I knew he saw me.
I called out to him in my mother tongue. “I’ve come here from Gallia, the city by the sea,” I said. “I’ve traveled a month through the forest. May I speak with the master of this fort?”
“What business do you have here?” the watchmen shouted back. He spoke my mother tongue, or something like it, with a soft accent.
“I’m here to retrieve an object for my employer in the city. I mean you no harm, and I come alone.” I held up my hands. “The rest should be discussed in private. May I come in?”
Before me stood a wooden door fitted with iron. Rust stained the ground beneath it. I waited as footsteps struck the ground on the other side and its creaking hinges shuddered to life.
The man on the other side was a little older than I, and not quite as tall; he wore a cloak over one shoulder, clasped with a metal ring. It was the color of old blood, and his tunic was the gray of the low-hanging sky. He was pale, with dark hair cut short around his ears, and a short sword hung at his side.
“I am Ansgard, son of Oeric,” he said. “This fortress and its lands belong to my father, who holds them in the name of King Wulfric. What business do you have here, stranger? You’re not one of the forest folk, or my guards would have felled you where you stand.”
I bowed, though I risked only a slight incline of my head. His guards remained above, and the sound of their bows creaking as they bent did not escape my hearing. “I’ve come here by way of the forest, but I do not dwell there,” I replied. “I have journeyed many miles from the city of Gallia, in search of a weapon that I was told remains somewhere in these lands. I’d be happy to tell you more, if you would let me in out of the weather.”
A confused frown crossed Ansgard’s face. I could only guess that he did not know the name of Gallia, or what weapon I might be referring to, or both, and he did not wish to admit this to me. He had already drawn himself up to his full height, and his eyes darted from my face to my feet, as if comparing the two of us. Another three men, similarly dressed, came up behind him, their hands on their swords.
At last, Ansgard answered, “Of course. We remember the rules of hospitality here, even if others have forgotten it. Give me your name, stranger.”
“I am Eske, son of Ivor, of the Clan of the Bear,” I told him.
This time, Ansgard’s eyes lingered on the tattoos on my forearms, and his nostrils flared. “Where is it that you said you hail from?”
“Gallia, most recently,” I said. “It is a city by the sea. I came by the forest road to the south. But I was born far to the north, beyond the snow-capped mountains, and I’ve spent many years traveling. I’d be happy to tell you a tale or two over a meal, if you’ve one to spare.”
Ansgard gestured to his men. The bowstrings above my head slackened, and arrows returned to their quivers. On the ground, the other men stepped away from the gate. A muddy path led from where I stood to a central building with a thatched roof that hung down to the ground. A short descent of stone steps led from the path to its door. Smoke curled up from a central chimney.
“Come, then,” Ansgard said. “Your horse will be cared for, and you will be treated as a guest, but you must leave your weapons at the door. Though my house is still strong, its strength has been tested at every turn in recent years.”
I thought it a strange thing to say on this particular occasion—what does a solitary traveler in need of hospitality care for the strength of his host’s house? I would have rather heard about the warmth of its fire and the abundance of its cooking pots, or perhaps of the quality of its roof in the rain.
I followed the men in their red-brown cloaks. Inside the wall, a tiny village sat out of sight of the outside world, with the dugout house at its center. Chickens milled around an elevated coop, pecking at the mud, and a pair of dark-eyed cows watched me from behind a leaning wooden fence. I saw two women beside a well, each carrying a bucket, their heads covered with thick woolen shawls. A man carrying a short spear approached the well and waved the women away with an angry gesture, and they gathered their buckets and disappeared behind a building that might have been another house. More armed men took up places beside the path. They did not meet my eyes as I passed them, but I could feel their gaze behind me.
Bran snorted, tossing his head. When a man came to take his lead, he shied away, pressing his side against mine. I put a hand on his nose to reassure him.
“I will come to fetch you soon,” I promised. I did not intend to stay overlong in this place. It was past midday, the sun a pale, distant light shrouded in clouds. I wanted to be out of the wary, distrusting view of these people and well on my way by nightfall. My neck stiffened and my belly clenched as I handed my harpoon to the guard at the longhouse door.
This tension, I must admit, softened as I stepped over the threshold. The central fire chased away the damp, and the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat flooded my senses. If I closed my eyes, I could find myself once again in the hall of my father, where I had not set foot in many years.
I had thought this place to be far from my homeland, and indeed one could not even see the mountains from here while the clouds hung this low, but perhaps the distance wasn’t as great as I had thought.
A long table stood on either side of the fire. I sat where I was directed, on the worn surface of a split log, and Ansgard took his place beside me.
“I told you, Ansgard,” a wavering voice cut through the smoke. “I will see no more of the barbarians’ delegates.”
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the shape of two carved chairs emerged from the gloom, their backs against the earthen wall of the longhouse. One was empty, and the other held a man of perhaps sixty years, with a circlet of gold around his head and a red-brown cloak clasped at his shoulder.
This must have been Oeric, Ansgard’s father and the master of this house. They had the same blunt nose and hair that thinned at the temples.
“Take this man outside and cut off his head,” he said. “You can hang it from the wall as an example to the others.”
Back to Chapter LIII: Departing Once More
Forward to Chapter LV: The Hall of Lord Oeric
Thanks for reading! I am currently working on Chapter 63 and the last or penultimate arc, depending on how you count these things. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
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