Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  Jarnsaxa regarded the blood-red wine prepared in the goblets with a bland smile. Tonight they wouldn’t be drinking. Last night they all drank like there was no tomorrow. She circled her finger along the goblet’s edge and thought about that night. She could still feel the touch of the handsome stranger on her back and hips. She could even remember the smell of the man, the scent of oils and strong herbs when they came out of the bath together, mixed with his own body odour.

  He had come into her life out of nowhere, like he had been following her for a while and watching her. He was so strong all over his body and had an air about him that felt like a dire wolf had come back, like something that was thought not to exist anymore. She hadn’t called for him. He didn’t make claims to say who he was and had barely spoken a word to her. Maybe this was for the better. To her, he simply had no name. It let her imagination only become more wild and intense that this man without a name maybe could be the lost king she was looking for. Who else could it be? Who else could she fall for, when she never felt like this before? He had intruded upon her tent like it was his right to take a place beside her, not impressed by her status or beauty. She would have killed any lesser man for trying that alone.

  She had drawn her sicklesword against the intruder and held it against his bulging neck. He let the blade cut him without saying a word, just staring into her eyes, till she recognized her failure and sobbed, somehow apologizing. Then he had her under his spell and could do everything he wanted to. It felt like it was supposed to happen, and all she had to do was just stand back and watch. She didn’t object when he pulled the blade away and took her hand to lead her to the bath. Her heart was pounding the whole time she shared the hot tub with him, his mysterious demeanor not helping the racing thoughts in her mind. Who was this stranger? She was washing a man who didn’t ask for anything and just took everything he wanted. Even though she commanded hundreds of women and men and possessed the might and fortune of a noblewoman, she felt the deep desire to please this man and kneel before him. He had only smiled and walked away without saying a word, small drops of steam still covering his skin.

  “Not today”, he had said. “Not before the battle.”

  JARNSAXA WAS SO BEMUSED that she only heard the rise of voices outside after some seconds. She left the table and strode over the red carpet, down the steps to the door. She spread her hands high against both panels and pushed the tall door open.

  The army was assembled. War machines hurled burning spears and rocks against the city. Several buildings were on fire and left a smoldering cloud against the night sky. Tomorrow they would go there, when Tancred gave the command. But how long till their service would be seen as fulfilled?

  She lifted her chin when she saw the king approaching – the man that impregnated his sister, and would probably try various attempts to make Jarnsaxa his next wife for some time. The crown of Treveria sparkled on his head, which was draped in a mail hood and left from the hairline to the chin only an oval face visible. It was still enough to infect her with his charisma. As much as the people loathed him, they liked him when he showed up on their side. For most it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to talk to him and see his charismatic side. He was one of them, walking through the cheering crowd, shaking hands and sharing hugs, like an icon and a good friend at once. And he had one quality that set him apart and made you really believe he was your best friend. He knew the names. He knew the names of his lowest vassals and even the names in Jarnsaxa’s warband. And he made things possible. If anyone asked him for a favor, he would get it. There were no hindrances for Tancred. Everything was possible, if you had the courage to say it to his face.

  But when he made demands, you didn’t object.

  KING TANCRED REACHED THE LAST STEP and spread his arms with a broad grin.

  “Lady Jarnsaxa!” He closed her in his arms, kissing her cheeks left and right. “What a beautiful night!”

  “King Tancred,” she said, bowing her head slightly against her will. “I’m looking forward to riding to war with you.”

  “War?” Tancred laughed. “You must have misunderstood something. We are not going to war, my dear. Godfrey’s and my skills aren’t even close. This is going to be a one-sided pounding, and I am the one swinging the hammer!”

  He turned to the crowd and signaled them to cheer up, like a comedian delivering his punch line. They found it hilarious.

  Jarnsaxa studied Tancred from the side to get through that façade of immense confidence. She wasn’t sure if this was an act. If it was, it was a damn good one. He seemed invigorated by the masses, and it reflected back on them. He waved and let himself celebrate.

  With his voice lowered but retaining his cheerful expression, he spoke to Jarnsaxa.

  “When was the last time we saw us, darling?”

  Jarnsaxa was caught wrong-footed. “I guess it was on the fields bordering Alvaeon. The compliance campaign against the Thanes of Cimbra. We were there at the capitulation of the rebel leaders. It was a warm spring day last year, with the crops still fresh and green. On a big field, in tents like these. Maybe even with the very same tents. I feel like we always take everything with us. Our home, our friends, our relationships. There’s nothing to return to, we just travel with everything in our grasp and hope nothing slips away from us as we fight or run, always on to the next endeavor. But over time, it eventually does.”

  “How right you are about that, Jarnsaxa,” Tancred said. “The Thanes of Cimbra, yes. There’s always someone conspiring; it’s a repetitious circle. It’s the burden of the crown. Aspiring followers are, well, aspiring: always seeing weaknesses in the way you lead, thinking they can do better when they’re on their own. Like Godfrey now. He thought he could forego the regulations of the kingdom and forge his own domain. His duties as a protector made him arrogant. He thought he was the only one standing here with his last bastion, while the land around him deteriorated. A refuge for men flocking back to him from the untamed wild. He forgot his boundaries in a delusion of grandeur. If someone gains too much might and grows too strong, he eventually succumbs to it. Me included. What is the life of a leader like? It’s tough, I would say.”

  Jarnsaxa nodded.

  “Above all, there’s always uncertainty,” Tancred continued. “You are King of Treveria, in armistice with Kaeiwiel, peace with Alvaeon, war with Volhenia, alliance with the barbarians. Except maybe the peace with Alvaeon is a farce, because maybe they are bound in blood for three generations with Volhenia, with whom you started a war because of your spy network telling you they were arming for an attack on you.

  Maybe the spies were right, maybe they were wrong. Maybe Volhenia was arming up to help you break the deadlock against Kaeiwiel. Or maybe your spy network gave you wrong information because it is controlled by the suspiciously peaceful Alvaeon. Do you divert all your resources to the war against Volhenia, or do you leave a garrison at home to safeguard you from Alvaeon? Then your force is cut in half, and your campaign is going to proceed slowly. But maybe the garrison you left behind can defend Nevgorod in your absence. Maybe they are wiped out, and you lose the city and half of your force. Maybe their commander decides to occupy Nevgorod and turns it against you. Maybe all goes according to plan, and you win on both ends, claiming lands, resources and ransom. Maybe it doesn’t, and you lose everything. Your heirs are hunted or kept prisoners in their own home. Or you gain evidence that your right hand is betraying you, withholding tithes and troop strength. Maybe he is planning a revolt. Maybe he was bribed by Volhenia. Or Alvaeon. Or Kaeiwiel. Or some Vacomani warlord. Or another player farther away than all those. Or a new power. Or he is trying to protect his people from something he is more afraid of than the wrath of his king. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But this doesn’t mean you can wait until everything gets clear. It just means you have to decide and stick to it, with all your determination behind it. It’s like gambling, all in. For good or for bad.” He cleared his throat. “But let’s get back to the topic of when we me
t. The very first time. I was with Lady Aethelglyth, back then, a cousin’s niece from Kaeiwiel. This must have been shortly after the founding of your warband. You had sparkling eyes, and you were fresh in the business and ready to prove yourself to you and your father. I knew Orn well before that, a great man. Even on your first day fresh out of Miridhall you knew more than many others about leading an army. That’s how I got observant of you.”

  Jarnsaxa knew that was thanks to other traits, but decided to play the game nonetheless with a much more comfortable topic.

  “I learned a lot from him,” she said. “I’d been with him since I was a child and never wanted to do anything else. I witnessed, in those days, that an army can move mountains. And I always learned. Never stopped. My job is to solve problems. My warband is here if the worst comes to the worst. The Vacomani fire-brigade.”

  “I like the sound of it,” Tancred said.

  “I have to ask you something,” Jarnsaxa said. “How can you remember the names of all these soldiers?”

  “This has a story,” the king replied. “But I’m going to tell you, so that you understand. I was once in a campaign—I don’t recall anymore which one of the many it was—this was after the great war against Alvaeon and Kaeiwiel. Just as a boy, at my grandfather’s side, like you on that day with your father. I too observed and learned. Now, his brother was there, regent of Treveria at that time. He had fought the great war along with every boy, man, aged, girl, woman able to hold a shield and spear beside him. One day on that small campaign, we met some veterans. Technically, everyone was a veteran. But I mean those that you saw it in. Every war has its own preferred way of maiming its participants. As you know, the great war was mostly a siege war, which brings its own kind of injuries with it. The tarfaces were commonly known, distorted till the end of their lives. As a boy, I found those to be the most shocking, and it burned into my memories. Those who had lost their hands or legs still stood proud and served as best they could, with a mentality that nothing could really kill them. But the tarfaces… they weren’t able to look proud, even if they felt that way, which I highly doubt. They were as if they had already been killed, like… like zombies. They had served and given their lives for my granduncle. Of course, they knew him all by name, after all, he was the king. He didn’t know their names back and never asked. But my grandfather knew them. Either he remembered them from fighting with them in the past, or he asked them, but he made sure he knew them. It just felt like the least he could do for them, treat them like the persons they were. You can guess who they followed more, the king, or his advisor, my grandfather.”

  “Your grandfather.”

  “Right,” Tancred said, taking a breath to change the subject. “Have your scouts returned from the city?”

  “They were killed,” Jarnsaxa said.

  “Then we will go in blind,” Tancred replied, as if it wouldn’t matter. “Did you know their names?”

  “I do now,” Jarnsaxa said, looking at him. “But another group made it out of the city. I sent them in after our scouts didn’t report back. At first I thought they’d deserted. Or maybe they really were about to. They got themselves involved in matters that didn’t belong to the warband. I hired a sorceress, Kyra Celeste, who I guess you have heard of, and four others to bring them back.”

  “I know the sorceress. I paid for her services before. Untrained and temperamentful, like a rough diamond.”

  “That is her,” Jarnsaxa said with a forced smile.

  “Are they here?” the king asked.

  Jarnsaxa pointed to a man in the first row of the gathering. His skin looked unhealthy, but Tancred liked men who were able to hold their drink. King Tancred took a step towards him, looking at the wolf’s head-shaped talisman around the man’s neck.

  “You are a shire reeve?,” he asked.

  “Sir,” the man said, bowing his head. “I once was.”

  “And you were in Skybridge recently?”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  “How is it there?” Tancred asked.

  “Beautiful at this time of the year.”

  “That’s what I heard,” the king said. “It’s been a long time since anyone of my men has been there. I, for myself, was last there when Godfrey invited me to the funeral of his wife. The whole city was grieving. She was too young to die. Maybe he drifted down a dark path and never recovered after that. Either way, he is going to meet her soon. Listen, I need someone to stay at my side who knows some of the places there when we push into the heart of the city. I will confront Godfrey one on one in his hall, like in the old days, and pierce him to his throne, sparing us a long drawn-out war of attrition.”

  The man took a few heartbeats, his eyes staring at the boots of the monarch.

  “I favour that school of thought,” he said.

  When the king demanded something, no one objected. No one questioned his decisions or tried to pick an argument. Everyone simply obeyed – even if some needed to follow another agenda in order to simply stay alive.

  “I can’t wait to bring you there,” the man said. “It’s always better to take a life in order to protect many.”

  “Good,” Tancred said. “I’m not asking you to take one. Just to protect one. Mine. But how many lives are you willing to take in order to save one?”

  “I guess there is no number. Just as many as it takes.”

  Tancred beckoned the man to look up. Before he went to enter the hall, he turned again, curious.

  “What is your name?” he asked casually.

  The answer came hoarse and dry. “Dryston. Dryston of Decia.”

  DRYSTON ROAMED THROUGH THE ENCAMPMENT. The priests and monks held speeches, while the nobles forged their plans inside the hall with Tancred and Jarnsaxa. But not many were listening. Most were already covered in war plate, drilling weapon skills or simply using them for meditation. Rations and equipment were distributed and checked nervously every few minutes: ropes, flint-stones, lamp oil, first aid kits, salt meat, water. The sound of grinding whetstones could be heard from every other tent. Bets were made on who would reach the city walls first, or who would draw first blood. Transfers and last payments to the cartel were arranged to buy safer positions for the battle and doom others in worse. Promises were made and oaths sworn on watching each other’s back across different platoons.

  Barknar held a list with first wave candidates and handed it to Jackal Shroudreaper. Menja’s whole group was on it, including Joric.

  SKADI WAS SITTING CROSS-LEGGED in front of Cormack and the berserkers, who were about to accept the brute into their elite circle for taking revenge on Haddock’s goons for the deaths of their brothers, Gorm War-Anvil and Sifnar Red-Shoal. Kristen and Yasemin were to her left and right, on their knees, resting on their heels.

  There was something about Cormack that intrigued Skadi—his martial prowess that let him accept dangers head on and radiated calmness to anyone walking behind in his shadow.

  “Becoming a berserker is not to do with fear of pain,” Kristen told her. “It’s the ultimate acknowledgement of your own death. It’s to go down and take as many with you as you can.”

  Skadi swallowed. It sounded heroic in this moment, but ultimately, she knew even now that she was going to lose Cormack someday.

  They handed her the dried fly agaric to chew on and then gave some to Cormack. It was considered a lucky charm to have the Raven’s Bread prepared by a woman, all the more by the Valkyrie. Cormack swallowed the pulp like Hakon and Skarin beside him. His muscles trembled and twitched, his otherwise dull amber eyes took on a wild glow. The men’s agitation rose until they fell into a trance and began singing in low monotone voices. Their chanting became louder and fiercer, till they worked themselves into frenzy. Hakon and Skarin beat the huge war-drums behind them in ear-shattering fashion, while shouting incomprehensible words. The three Vacomani went into a manic fury, in which they turned the tent into a place of total chaos. Then, as if struck dead, Cormack collapsed exhausted
ly into Skadi’s arms.

  The weight of the brute instantly exhausted her muscles and frame. Everything on him was so big and heavy. He was heating up from the inside and always hot when she touched him, hotter than anyone else she knew. He had warmed her and made the cold go away at night for her numerous times. Now, for the first time, it was him lying in her arms and falling asleep, like a soft giant. She wondered how someone so big could look so calm and become a violent mountain in the next moment. His tremendous ribcage sank and elevated with every breath, lifting her head with it as she laid her cheek on his body and ran a hand over his hair, smiling. His heart pounded, slowing down from the rush of the drug.

  When Skadi touched his head, he was already in a deep sleep. Hakon and Skarin folded in a similar way, falling into the embrace of Yasemin and Kristen Rain. Tomorrow, the berserkers would preserve their urine in flasks to drink from and bring back their frenzy when it was needed the most.

  Skadi stepped outside.

  Colorful phenomena danced over the night sky of fire and northern lights.

  It was hard to find sleep the night before battle. But eventually all did.