The Mercenary Code

by Emmet Moss

  Nodding in reply and realizing the impact his departure was having on the long-time employee of the family, Alessan addressed his sister.

  “You know you can’t go off into the world and forget who you are or where you came from, Ally,” she said, hugging him close.

  “I won’t,” he replied, his voice strained by the effort of the goodbye.

  “I made you something, a reminder of the people who care for you in this backwater town.” Kayla reached into the pocket of her apron and retrieved a beautifully crafted bracelet of wooden beads intertwined with a supple cord.

  Alessan accepted the token with gratitude. He turned the bracelet over and caught his breath when he saw the images engraved on the back: his sister’s musical note, his mother’s heart, and Varis’ clenched fist. And yet the fourth symbol, his father’s axe, made his heart flutter. Smiling at Kayla, he held her tightly one last time.

  “Father would be proud of you, Ally,” she whispered, tears rolling down her round cheeks.

  And finally he stood before Shani Oakleaf, the mother who had so desperately wanted her son to remain safe in her home, protected by her strength and love. Her eyes were moist as she pulled him fiercely to her chest.

  “You can still back out, Alessan,” she said.

  “You know I need to do this, mother. I need to see what lies out in the world for me. Briar has never fully accepted me. They decided I lacked the strength to be respected,” he answered.

  “They know nothing,” Shani whispered as she let him go, tears falling freely between them.

  “Maybe they do know nothing, but one day I’ll return and I’ll prove it, I’ll show them their mistake,” he said with conviction.

  “Don’t do this for spite and revenge, lad,” Varis interrupted, his hand resting lightly on the young man’s shoulder. “Do it for yourself.”

  “I will,” Alessan answered, and after turning one last time to embrace his mother, he headed out the doorway of the inn he had known as his home for his entire life.

  Limping painfully in the deep snow, he forced his tired and aching body to move quickly. Catching up to one of the wagons, he accepted a proffered arm of help and climbed aboard. Leaning out and around the corner of the cart, he waved enthusiastically at his mother and sister. Fighting back another wave of emotion, Alessan Oakleaf turned around. He faced forward with a determined gaze, looking out at the snow covered fields that surrounded the small town.

  Briar was now a part of his past.

  The Wilds are infested with a sickness that sends my stomach into revolt. There is no order, no sense of sanity in this untamed land. It is such a waste to watch the savages we call goblins, the only inhabitants of this place, miss the opportunity that lies so clearly before them. The warring clans of this barbaric race disgust me.

  —Baron Ely Stone ‘The Uncharted Lands’

  Chapter XIV

  The Wilds, Northern Wilderness

  Leoric D’Athgaran wanted to die.

  The words reverberated in his weary mind for the third time that morning. He struggled to maintain some semblance of reason even as he forced his beaten and nearly naked body to continue moving. Leoric raised his head and stared at his captors with an unwaveringly spiteful glare. At his feet, the emaciated form of a young woman lay on the ground, shielded for the moment by his own haggard frame.

  For his arrogance, the thick end of a staff cracked across his already swollen face. Staggering under the force of the blow, Leoric rubbed his jaw and spat blood from his mouth. The woman had recovered enough to grasp his outstretched arm and struggle back to her feet, her thin pale face looking graciously into his eyes. With a dull, throbbing pain now radiating from chin to temple, he responded to her with as much of a comforting look as was possible under the circumstances. Truthfully, Leoric wanted to die and be done with it. It would be so easy…

  Although he had long since lost track of the passing days, Leoric judged by the bitterly cold air and increased snowfall that nearly a month had passed. It was hard enough to keep track of his own muddled thoughts, let alone focus on the passing of each day. Only the never ending torment of this accursed journey warranted any consideration. It had become almost unbearable, and no amount of training had prepared him for this kind of struggle.

  His body ached from minor wounds obtained in battle, and his stomach growled due to the measly portions of food they had been allotted. Most of his welts and bruises were received defending some of the helpless prisoners. Sleep was a luxury he could barely remember; a fantastical dream of a past he had once lived. His left eye was swollen shut going on two days, and his left wrist was contorted in an odd position. The fact that he could still use the hand was the only good news he could relate since his capture.

  Shuffling his feet, he watched the men and women lagging near the rear of the line. Leoric prayed they would reach their destination before it was too late. The line, regardless of his efforts, continued to grow shorter.

  When he had regained consciousness after the battle, Leoric found himself bound tightly and thrown into a tent with a dozen of the men from Darkenedge. Those first moments were filled with denial, and thoughts of a heroic escape were already swirling in the minds of those assembled. It was agonizing to now realize how distant such an escape had really been.

  By the end of that first day, two men were dead and the rest of the group was stripped bare except for their boots and filthy loincloths. Had it been high summer, he was certain they would have left the area in bare feet. With a blatant disregard for the weather, they were given nothing else to protect their exposed skin. Although the temperature was strangely tepid for such a northern expanse of Kal Maran, still the prisoners suffered. By the end of the first week, most sported frostbitten patches of skin that were blackened and numb.

  The nights were terrible for all. Huddled together with a few dozen unwashed bodies, Leoric could only wonder why fate had decreed such a punishment. Modesty had been thrown aside weeks earlier, and the scantily-clad group used each other’s warmth to pass the night. Everyone had trouble sleeping, and most nights were spent tossing and turning uncomfortably. Yet still did they trudge onward.

  Catching the eye of his friend Angvald, the Kaleenian met his stare with a look of steady conviction. The big man was bringing up the rear, hoping that his presence and great strength would lend confidence to the weakened stragglers. Tragically, some could not be saved. Noticing a small waif-like woman only a few steps in front of Angvald, Leoric read the brutal truth lurking in his friend’s eyes. Elanor would be the next to fall.

  At the outset they had numbered thirty-two; now, only eight remained. The price of exhaustion, starvation, and infection was all the same. Death shadowed each and every one of the survivors, harassing them and mocking their weak attempts at avoiding the inevitable. It lurked not only in the darkness of the forest, but also in the depressed emptiness of their minds.

  Angvald and Leoric stood as two of only four remaining soldiers. A young recruit named Drake and the veteran Halas completed the small group of fighters. Drake limped painfully near the rear of the line, his leg stinging from a recent beating. He displayed courage and resilience to the others, but the haunted look in his eyes betrayed his actions. He was near collapse, so near in fact, that Leoric moved to his side in order to lend him comfort.

  Halas, on the other hand, was battered almost beyond recognition. Leoric had counted himself as one of the rebellious souls who still carried themselves with whatever small amount of dignity he could sustain, but Halas sought death with glee. He was downright hostile to his captors; inviting every beating with a smile, every flogging with laughter. The man refused to give in to his goblin captors. It was only a matter of time before his body was so broken that he had been left for dead somewhere in the uncharted Wilds.

  The other prisoners were peasants who had been living simple and
comfortable lives before the goblins raided their settlement north of the border fort. This goblin activity was far more calculated than the men of Darkenedge had anticipated. The hardy northern folk continued to fight bravely for their lives in captivity.

  Elanor and Shale were two farm women who struggled to keep up the brutal pace set by their captors. Shale was the young woman Leoric had protected as she lay exhausted in the cold snow. Stephen and Merias were the final two country folk; men of uncommon stock who spoke little, and yet trudged forward resolutely in the face of such malice.

  Leoric worried about the older peasant’s state of mind. Stephen had taken to mumbling in his sleep; seemingly caught in the memories of a better time. He held conversations with the night sky; his eyes shut fast against the current surroundings. Stephen spoke as if his wife and children were present; he even spoke aloud to his dead mother. Each day it seemed to take the man longer to break the fugue that clouded his thoughts. He would not last much longer if the situation worsened.

  Leoric often wondered if the goblins were playing some vile joke on the prisoners; walking them in circles and laughing at their pain. Trying hard to disregard this idea, the borderman pushed onward.

  Later that day, with weary and frozen muscles, Leoric stumbled in the deep snow. Falling to his knees brought a welcome respite for his tired legs. Overcome with relief, he closed his eyes and let the weak sunshine of the afternoon wash over him. He could hear birds singing in the trees and the gentle rushing of water of a nearby stream. The sound of swishing branches swaying in the light breeze comforted him. So peaceful… so quiet…

  “By Olaf of the Hunt, you are not going to die on me now!” swore Angvald as a pair of thick arms wrapped themselves around Leoric’s upper body. Unable to combat the enormous strength that his friend still possessed, Leoric snapped opened his eyes.

  “Don’t give me that look you fool!” the big man spoke harshly. “I need you, and so do the others.”

  Pausing to look at the rest of their sorry column, he was surprised to see the rest of the prisoners helplessly watching the exchange. They wore sad looks that struck him with a profound grief. Nodding grimly at Angvald, a pair of goblin savages approaching with staves ready to be used, Leoric steadied himself and stood to his feet.

  Dying would be too easy, he thought.

  By morning, only seven remained.

  Elanor had died in her sleep, bundled between Merias and Shale. Seeing the body lying on the cold ground, her eyes vacant and staring at what only the gods knew, Leoric feared that eventually they would all perish. Staring at the frozen corpse, he wondered how long they would last. If they all fell… would anyone care that they were gone?

  An intense beam of sunlight cleared the edge of the clouds and pierced the tall trees bordering the small clearing. The bright white snow shimmered like a sea of diamonds. Watching the sun rise and noticing the peaceful expression on Elanor’s face, Leoric was struck by a lingering memory.

  Alanna D’Athgaran died on a warm summer’s morning. The sweet scent of lilacs covered the smell of death in the bedchamber. The curtains were drawn, but from an open window drifted the clear outdoor sounds of that beautiful day. He could still remember the cheerful chirps of the bluebirds, the chatter of the large red squirrels, and the subdued hush of the wind.

  Swathed in many blankets, Alanna lay peacefully on the bed. The fever had worsened during the night, and yet for this brief moment, her face was serene, her breathing deep and unlaboured. The night had been hard on her tired body, and the chills remained. She was a tall woman with eyes of clear blue and hair the colour of desert sand. She was everything most lovers dreamt of, and she could have chosen any man to be her husband.

  Somehow she had seen something special in the face of a bumbling farmer who shied away from the town gatherings and fairs she so loved. She was graceful and elegant; a woman with a noble beauty that far outshone the other ladies of the town. Never arrogant, Alanna held Leoric’s heart in her hand from the moment he laid eyes upon her. He had lost count of the number of times he begged the gods on high to allow him to endure her suffering. He wanted so much to take away the poison that had defiled her, and grant her the peace that she so deserved. Take me instead, he had prayed…

  She was brave when faced with her mortality. Even in those last few hours with the fever raging, she made attempts to smile and assuage his fear and sadness. He was amazed by her indomitable will throughout her lengthy battle. The clerics had given her days to live, and yet here she lay, albeit fragile and weak, almost three months later.

  For all he tried to do, Leoric could not stop the inevitable. In the early hours of that final day, she smiled and held him close. Alanna whispered one last time in his ear as he cradled her body gently in his arms.

  “Watch over our baby, dear heart. Maya will need your strength. Promise me you’ll keep her safe. And my love… know that every time you look at her, a piece of me smiles back.”

  They were her final words; and the only promise she had ever asked of him, lay broken for almost three years.

  Sadly, Elanor’s body had been left behind. No hymns were sung to appease the gods for her wandering spirit; no holy man spoke a prayer in her honour. As the others had been discarded by the merciless creatures, so too, was she.

  Days later, they came to a vast river. The roar of a mighty waterfall could be heard to the south. Struggling to remember the partially charted maps he had examined of the Wilds, Leoric could not recall ever seeing a river this large on any of the old parchments. He knew now that he was in a land where for centuries no man had travelled.

  Standing on the riverbank, he imagined himself diving silently into the cold inviting water. Enjoying a moment of peace, he sat down on a large rock overlooking the waterway. He cleared his mind of the boiling hatred and overwhelming despair that had threatened to engulf him over those past few days.

  Turning to watch the goblins, he was struck by their paradoxical nature. They were beastly, and yet displayed a degree of civility that leaders of the Iron Shield had so often dismissed. Their clothing was more than simple animal skins, and their terrible battle trophies built from bones showed a high degree of craftsmanship. Under their pelts they wore simple homespun breeches and tunics. Leoric had met the savages many times before and had never seen them dressed in such garb. He could do little to shake the notion that there was something sinister afoot with the tribes in the Wilds. The new cooperation was cause for concern, and here he felt as though he were seeing a different breed of the enemy.

  The creatures laughed and joked together, much like the men of Darkenedge did each and every day. It appeared as though they were comrades and not the greedy isolationists Leoric had once believed. He continued to watch his captors closely, hoping to glean some small advantage that could be exploited. He had clearly assessed their strength and discipline, and found few weaknesses. Their brutality was extreme, and their hatred of humankind drove them. Would he and the others have treated the goblins differently had the roles been reversed? He preferred not to pass judgment on his fellow man, but he doubted there would be much sympathy for the enemy.

  “They’re in a good mood today, Leoric,” said Angvald in his deep baritone. Raising an eyebrow in response to his friend’s comment, Leoric’s eyes widened when he saw what was being offered. Two bright red apples glistened in the man’s hand. “It’s not every day that we eat something other than stale trail bread.”

  “Thank you,” Leoric answered graciously. “It’s a blessing made all the better because it was unexpected.”

  “Aye, you have the right of it. In my land this would serve as a small reminder that, regardless of our dire predicament, things could still be worse,” the Kaleenian replied.

  “How so, Angvald, how so?” Leoric countered.

  “We could be dead,” he replied solemnly. “Our bodies left untended in the wilderness. Abandone
d without hope of ever having the rites of passage evoked. Abandoned into the afterlife with no guide to reach the halls of our forefathers.”

  “I am not a spiritual man, friend. You know that,” Leoric replied wistfully. “I sometimes believe that those gone before us may have found peace, while we must endure.”

  “My people believe that death chooses you at your birth. All that is left for you is to walk your own path. Whatever your choices in life, that path will eventually lead to death’s predetermined door.”

  “And do you believe this as well, Angvald?”

  “I would stake my life on my beliefs. Would you?”

  “I lost my faith a long time ago,” Leoric muttered quietly. “I trust only in my own will to survive.”

  “Every man can lose his way. To some it is but a test. Perhaps you need time to find yours,” his friend replied. Then, with a thoughtful expression creasing his tanned face, Angvald took a large bite of his apple.

  The two men leaned against the outcropping for a long while, enjoying a rare break from their ordeal. Leoric was thankful for the silence after their conversation. He was not yet ready to speak about the past and what had brought him such pain and suffering. The same thing that had broken a set of beliefs he had once believed in so strongly and followed so devoutly.

  A light fog was beginning to settle over the water, and Leoric’s attention was again directed towards the riverbank. The pause in travel, it appeared, was never intended. Their captors awaited something from the opposite shore. Angvald was the first to spy a small dark shape moving slowly over the choppy waters.

  With trepidation, Leoric watched as a wooden ferry built from rough timber logs and bound with strong twine approached. As the craft drifted closer, the unmistakable shape of more goblin guards, most of them hard at work steering the raft through the fast current, materialized from out of the fog.