《Assorted Writings》


 Iscariot - 1

    Hitherto the well-trodden fields of blood drenched ground did come the stranger. A tall smudge of a man, all forgettable features and pallid greyness. He wafted immaterial over that churned earth like a winter chill, for so to was his arrival preceded by the icy strangulation of December.


    Raiders had come the month before, men possessed of wicked blades and similar dispositions, their vile crimes reflected in sickle like grins. It was to that bereaved, violated city did the stranger now come.


    He rode through the splintered gates on an emaciated nag. Mangy fur and tattered flesh sloughing from its bones. The guards had stopped him with a glance, a reactionary optical glint of one seeking an excuse for violence. With a response of much the same had they recoiled, for something deep within those yellowed, befouled eyes had reviled them. And they, gagging in their throats as they sat back down, waved him through, opting to forget the gelatinous carcasses which had held them transiently hostage. And so the stranger entered the city, cloak billowing behind him as if the land itself had tried, with a frostbitten gale, to expel this figure of profound wrongness.


    For six days and nights did the man, dressed in rags and bandages, ride his animalistic automaton of bones and skin pulled tight across through the claustrophobic city streets. In all that time he sought no succour, his stomach sat empty, his throat dry, and he gave no ill or kind regard to any who inquired after his queer existence. Nay, from the first day, when he had ridden the rising sun through the gate, right until it had later peered ashamedly over the horizon to gaze at its subjects on the seventh did the man engage in his ceaseless, ponderous crawl.


    And yet when that wincing solar gaze settled centrally into the sky on the sabbath did the man and horse, abruptly, stop. No itch or twitch, no wink or blink. Just the morbid stillness of the grave. The only sign of life shared between the pair being the putrid gouts of acrid breath which spewed from the horse¡¯s scabbed nostrils. If breath the rider also had it was well hidden beneath his voluminous beggar¡¯s garb.


    He stayed there for a long time, undisturbed and unperturbed by the gathering throng of impoverished souls. All craning their necks above one another to catch a glimpse of the stranger whose mystery had so briefly entranced them away from their grief.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    And yet, as the sun, almost as if reluctant, began to enter its death march into unconsciousness did not a soul come forth to slake their curiosity upon the man. As if the pervasive, communal unease of his arrival had calcified their bones into politely distanced statues. None daring to once more approach the stranger with his tired eyes and grim disregard.


    Eventually though, and as is so often the case, human inquisitiveness prevailed over their better sense. The archetype of this phenomenon, a young orphan boy of sticky fingers and a dimpled chin, scuttled tentatively to the hooves of the wicker thin mount and plopped himself down on the stones beside it.


    ¡°Why are you watching the sunset?¡± Asked the boy, bright eyes having tracked the hollow and barely visible gaze of his mounted companion. The pause which followed was heavy with bated breaths and cupped ears as all waited to hear if this most mute stranger would reply.


    The well held consensus was a decided no, for why would he respond now when all before overtures toward this dried out and lanky interloper had been spurned with naught more than curt nods or shakes of the head.


    And yet what followed the innocent tones of the boy¡¯s questioning was not the expected silent stare of bored contempt but instead an exhalation like a crypt¡¯s opening, all sickly sweet and warm breath rushing out from between tight pressed, knife wound like lips. And then, in the silence that followed, and with a voice like an anemoic dream did he speak thusly:


    ¡°I¡¯m not.¡± The boy¡¯s surprise soon turned to elation when he regarded the words coming from those wrinkled lips and cracked tongue. He had been the first to get the stranger to talk, the other¡¯s would hear of this.


    ¡°Yes you are I can see your eyes!¡± He shouted in the cacophonous, stampeding jumble of youth. The man did not respond, he only continued to stare at the bruising light of the sky. The boy squirmed like a stuck pig in the following pause, trying to think of more to say.


    ¡°Then what are you doing?¡± Spoke a nun whilst crossing through no-man¡¯s land¡¯s wide berth. She was attempting to retrieve the small creature now affixing her with furrowed brows at recognition of her approach to wrest his fun from him. The boy scampered under the placid horse as to put it between himself and the oncoming caning which would follow his retrieval. It was an unnecessary gesture however, for the austere woman had frozen in place upon the settling of a tumorous, fatigued gaze upon her from above the playfully smiling child.


    ¡°The second sun.¡± He spoke in a melancholic drawl before turning back to the now navy-blue skyline.


    ¡°The what?¡± Snickered out a cocksure grin from somewhere beneath the fetid mass of decomposing equestrian flesh. The man simply paused and gazed knowingly at the grasping, tendrils of fire which hung desperately to the far off churn of the Atlantic swell, he flinched imperceptibly as each of those hellfire digits were prized from the material world and sent asunder for twelve hours more of a moonlit night. At least normally.


    ¡°You¡¯ll see.¡± Said the man as he contorted a stiff and cracking neck to look behind him. Through the strategically chosen straight shot streets and further off, through the gate and back out to the forested horizon. More so to the sickly green, gangrenous glow which decomposed the starlight tapestry in its ever-encroaching crawl up the sky. It would be a long night.

 Iscariot - 2 - Unfinished

    Her wings are as a pregnant stomach, her canvas skin and feather pulled taught by the westward wind she straddles. Her body is heavy and cumbersome, overburdened with the hopeful eyes and puritanical disposition of the 100 odd souls who cling parasitically to her back.


    Governor John White stands on the prow. He is stark and erect, broad shoulders splitting the blue expanse in twain as if the sky were afraid to mar his aristocratic bearing. Unseen by the expedition he leads the man smiles, a predatory ear to ear type thing as if daring the world to stand before him.


    He throws a glinting, offhanded gaze over his shoulder at the heaving sweating throng of colonial sailors. A man snaps to salute, iron discipline stiffened under the dark, regal eyes. White chuckles to himself, the sound muffled into a dull warbling by the oceanic roar below. In that moment, the light of providence catching the grasping wave points in a dazzling array he feels as if all will be well.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    All is not well in the Roanoke Colony. Thomas Montgomery presses his ear to the roughhewn shell-like palisade which rings his small, huddled and squalid community. It grows like a cancerous leech off the side of this new world, the taint of the old seeping into the very earth and souring once joyous expressions. The man frowns.


    On the other side is the woods, those damned titanic and towering giant limbs of pine which obscure all vision and scuttle plans of agriculture. Governor White had left for England a year ago, in search of supplies with which to feed this unnatural wart of British civilisation.


    Another savage keen cuts through the moonlit din with the barking rebuke of musket fire lashing out close behind. No effect, the woods shelter these demons. The land doesn¡¯t wish to be brought to heel, her sandy earth and endless woods birth from their hellish pits beings of grim visage and dark hearts. These howling wolves wheel about just beyond the reach of the settlement, the monotonous beating of their war drums and the high-pitched whines of heretical flutes washing over the fearful folk of the Roanoke. Thomas leaves for home, to be lulled to sleep by the baying calls for his blood.

 Medieval - 1

    A young man walks at the head of a ragged band of rough looking men, each marching amidst the dull and plodding staccato of their boots against the soggy and verdant forest floor. Somewhere behind him a branch crunches under foot followed swiftly by a hissed out and tired curse, it was the first word that had been spoken by the downcast and downtrodden band today, they had long before fallen into the melancholic and silent harmony of their marching ever forward. They weren¡¯t far off now.


    The boy, (for in truth it was disingenuous to call him anything but) Looked up, feeling the taught cords of the muscles in his neck aching in protest to the erect posture they were forced to assume. Doe eyes peered out from over an aquiline nose to study the impenetrable wall of rising and titanic pines, their cracked and chitinous bark covered trunks stretching up to the sky like the quills of a porcupine, each bristling with needles and swaying slightly in the cold and pregnant morning wind. A storm would hit soon, he just had to get the men home first.


    A huffing advance broke the silence from behind him, turning, he was met with the large and good-natured clasp of a calloused hand resting on his shoulder. He cancelled his investigatory pivot before he laid eyes on the now adjacent figure. He recognised the laboured panting and heavy touch of his late father¡¯s master at arms.


    ¡°You walk to fast for this old man, Karl.¡± Huffed out the stout figure who was struggling to maintain lockstep with the tall youth. He slowed his pace, he owed this man comfort, even if his legs begged him to run his way through this last stretch of faceless wilderness between them and the lives they had left behind.


    ¡°Sorry, Its just...¡± He trailed off, arms waving about before him as if trying to act out the emotions he could not put into words.


    ¡°I know, we all want to get home, but it''s no use pushing the men to exhaustion, they¡¯re as eager as you but it¡¯s hard to hold your wife if you can barely raise your arms.¡± Karl turned around and examined the ravaged troop which he led home, he deflated when he saw the gaunt faces and empty gazes of his companions. They were all a far cry from the plucky and eager group which his father had marched beneath the great gate, their current taught and hard closed mouths hard to reconcile with the joyous and enthusiastic smiles they wore through the downpour of pastel spring flowers which the town¡¯s citizens had reigned down upon them.


    He turned back to the woods in front of him, finding comfort in the nostalgic sounds of life and mindless nature of his current journey, surrendering higher order thoughts and worries to instead focus on picking his way through the crowded undergrowth of ferns and small, scampering animals, showing nothing but a flash of terrified fur before disappearing to either side of the marching men.


    Jorick was right, these men had been put through more than any lord had any right to request, fighting in every hard battle and subsequent rout the Hegemony¡¯s armies had been in. He could see it in their eyes, on the scars they bore and bandages they were swaddled in; he could smell it too in the scent of death which clung to their clothes and hung over them with its foul-smelling pall. No, he had no right to push them harder than he had already.


    The older man caught the pained and lingering look in Karl¡¯s eyes as he scanned the battered men who trailed silently behind them and tightened his grip on his shoulder.


    ¡°There was nothing you could have done; you¡¯ve done far more than anyone expected of you. The men know it, I know it, you¡¯ve gone above and beyond for someone so...¡±


    ¡°Disappointing?¡± Karl cut in and Jorick frowned, the cantankerous cast of his features burning holes in the space before him.


    ¡°Young. For someone so young. You¡¯re 18 Karl, barely of age, you¡¯ve led these men home, you¡¯ve kept them together, that was you. Own your successes, it¡¯s unbecoming not to.¡± Silence fell over the two of them again, strangling any conversation which would have been born in the cradle. Karl hadn¡¯t spoken but they both knew what he would¡¯ve said to that. Sure, he had led the men home, but when they had started their journey they were two thirds of their original number, now they were half. They had been harried and mauled by the pursuing enemy all the way up to the River Tepan. And even then, the pursuit had only stopped because it had become too inconvenient, not because Karl had seen them off. He shouldn¡¯t have assumed command. He was nothing more than the fail son of a great leader, not even a first born at that.


    ¡°It should¡¯ve been me that...¡±


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    ¡°Smoke! The city welcomes us home with warm meals and hot baths boys!¡± A cry from behind cut him and any retort from Jorick off before the argument which had plagued them the whole journey could begin again.


    Karl looked to the tumultuous and grey sky pockmarked by the dark, imposing blanket of the pine canopy and saw that the men were correct, the eddying and swirling clouds of smoke which he had before mistook for the blanketing, miasmic grey of the sky now wafted stark above them, the lilting notes of its scent invigorating the men. Teasing at the warm hearths and good food they had left behind more than a year prior. They had made it back to Martibeliard.


    Karl turned to the men behind him and nearly broke into tears as he saw how the weight of the march melted away from them like the winter snows, the spring of their smiles and bright eyes nearly taking the last of the energy which had brought him here. His job was done, he could see how the men wanted to bolt out of formation, to run through the last vestiges of the wood and break into the cleared ground around the city, to then crumple into the waiting arms of their loved ones. But still they stood, eyes darting between Jorick and him in rapid succession, they were well trained, it was what had kept them together on the march, it was what had kept them alive.


    Jorick turned to Karl with a conspiratorial grin and mischievous fire in his eyes, it was the good-natured look that had before now lived only in his memories and the light smatterings of good dreams he still had, but here it was again alight on the old soldier''s face, ceding the honour of letting loose the men to his young lord and long-time student.


    Karl smiled wide, his slightly crooked teeth on full display and all tremors of the previous argument that had threatened to emerge between him and his old guardian forgotten. He looked to his men; their own feelings echoed on his face and he smiled wider still, a look of pure joy brightening a face which had for so long been missing its warmth.


    ¡°Go, you¡¯ve earned it!¡± He roared to them, his voice cracking slightly with both youth and overwhelming emotion. The stumble went unnoticed as his men repeated his good-natured bellow and charged forward into the trees, running as fast as their tired legs would take them.


    Karl watched with a pained smile as the last of his men, mainly those wounded they had managed to take with them, limped away into the trees. Only Jorick remained with him, standing next the boy who was trying his best to hold back tears.


    ¡°It¡¯s because of you that they made it back.¡± Jorick said, still watching the backs of the slowly disappearing men as they faded away. Karl turned to him, the sad smile returning to twinge his features.


    ¡°We both know that¡¯s a lie. They deserve better... They had better.¡± The smile faltered briefly, and a small group of tears sallied out and ran down his cheeks before he was able to regain a hold on them.


    ¡°You better not be talking about the Tepan again.¡± Anger slipping into his voice as he spoke, he turned slowly to the boy who still just stared painfully into the trees.


    ¡°What else? How do I face them again Jorick? I''m nothing but a damn coward.¡± The older man rounded on him as the words crept their way out form between his lips. Rough hands grasped him violently on both shoulders as Jorick forced the taller, slighter Karl to face him.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you dare do this again! If you were my son I''d slap this madness out of you. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing.¡± He folded the boy into a hug to stop any of the myriad of responses he had used over the course of the march. ¡°We can save the rest of this talk for after, let this be a good day my friend, please, don¡¯t punish yourself anymore.¡± He released the boy from the hug but left his hands and gaze firmly on him, studying to see if his gesture had made any impact.


    Karl met the grey and steely eyes of his companion and made to respond, lips opening to wail and eyes making ready to weep. Before he could however, they were both forced to turn rapidly toward the city, toward where a flock of birds had taken flight in a panicked and frenzied mass, toward the sound of a keening and mournful cry weaving its way toward them through the labyrinthine woods.


    Without a glance or a word spoken between them they both broke into a run with Karl quickly outpacing the older, shorter man. He was blind to the branches that whipped at his face and the thorns which tore at the thick leather of his pants focusing on his breathing and his thoughts. Why, what was happening, were the enemy here?! No, they couldn¡¯t be, he hadn¡¯t slowed the march after they crossed the Tepan and they had had a lead, there was no way they could have been passed, even accounting for their lack of mounts they knew these lands better than any, besides the speed horses provided was negligible this deep into the northern woods.


    Karl shook his head impotently, trying to banish the thoughts from his mind. Yet as he approached the end of the woods and the screams got louder and more frequent so too did the questions. Had they led the enemy here? No, that was the very reason they hadn¡¯t used any of the major paths or trails, just encase the enemy were tracking them. Why then as he approached the city did the smoke begin to turn darker and the scent transform into the mouth-watering smell of cooked meat, he gagged in disgust at his hunger addled mind.


    Karl broke through the trees and fell to his knees, skidding forward slightly on the wet and torn earth. A small way from him he could see the cause of the screaming, several of his men were staring at the city and howling their sorrow, alternating between tearing at their hair or what armour they hadn¡¯t previously thrown out for mobility. Further forward he could see the dark silhouettes of the bulk of his force making their way toward the ruins of the great gate, it¡¯s charred mass of stones and ash visible from even Karl¡¯s distant vantage.


    As for the city itself it was a corpse, a rotting, stinking, feted corpse of something which had once been grand. The walls were shattered and torn asunder as if ploughed into with the fist of an angry god and the fires, oh god the fires, it was as though maggots and flies and all manner of scavenging beasts had torn their way into the flesh of the city and had ravaged the suburban districts, even reaching as far as the ruined and razed keep, the scant remaining evidence of its previous existence being the tattered remnants of the inner walls which ringed the central hill on which it had stood. The only echo of the before imagined welcome being the motley collection of ravaged women and other refugees clad in rags and soot who emerged from amongst the rubble.


    Jorick broke out from the wood a short while later, screaming orders at the wailing men to tell him what was going on, they died in his throat when he saw the ruined city. He stared in silence for a moment before turning to Karl and asking again what was happening, yet now his voice was quiet, demure, lost. Karl didn¡¯t respond, instead he turned to the sky just as the storm which had been brewing broke its banks and spilt down from the heavens, drenching the mourning men. At least It would serve to hide his tears the boy thought.

 Medieval - 2

    A charred hand reached out to him, its facsimile of desperation and fear echoing in booming notes even from beyond the grave. Karl couldn¡¯t move, petrified in the path of the ashen and pointing finger, the emaciated and hooked appendage flaking off, turning to dust in the rain and winds of the storm before him.


    The men had taken to picking through the wreckage looking for... Something, more survivors hopefully, at least that was what seemed to give reckless energy and a nigh religious fervour to their searching, Karl was more pessimistic about their chances. If anymore had survived the assault why had they not come forth with the rest of the weeping, starving throng. Regardless the search had continued through the last few hours of the afternoon and now persisted deep into the night. Their trawl through the poorer, residential areas toward the keep had, in all this time, turned up nothing. No sign of any other survivors amongst the ruins. And no dead enemy bodies either, the host long since having given their own proper rites, whilst leaving the citizens of Martibeliard to rot and fester in the sun and rain. The enemy had torn through the city, butchering all in their path, an unstoppable wave which had struck hard and fast and disappeared much the same. Leaving naught but catastrophe and shattered hopes in their wake.


    Fuck, Karl thought, fists clenching until his knuckles turned white beneath his gloves. Fuck this. He moved past the swirling cloud of the quickly dissolving man, pointedly looking away as he disappeared into the howling wind. Instead of mourning he tore past. He had to see, if the city had been attacked then surely the people would have retreated to the keep. The ruined, ashen, razed keep, he had to see what, if anything, had survived there. The men had been so far reluctant to enter through the stone circle of blackened walls, fearing what lay within. It would be Karl to first break that morbid sanctum.


    He moved up the winding and zig-zagging streets which wove like arteries toward the reinforced and beating stone heart of the city. They had been built this way for defensive purposes, labyrinthine as they were and often bordered with large, overlooking buildings, pockmarked all over with places to hide defenders. They were sure hidden well now, submerged in a torrent of cyclopean, rent stones, the ruined mounds interposed with the occasional grasping limb of the untrained civilians who had taken up arms with whatever they had at hand to defend their homes.


    Karl picked up his pace, hustling his way past stricken men to tired to give a salute, some had wives clinging to their arms, weeping in a mixture of relief in the spouses return and pain that it had arrived in such a disagreeable manner. Fewer still had the skinny, fragile bodies of children hanging onto their legs, too hungry to cry as the parents attempted to force the few stale rations which remained through their chapped lips.


    The vast majority were alone, tearing through the foundations of what had once been their homes, kneeling before the burnt out remains of their families, wondering in silent morbidity to themselves if they had gone nobly into that final end, or if they had begged beneath the wickedly grinning curves of the invaders swords.


    It hadn¡¯t been the Coalition who attacked, that much they had gleaned from what few words the survivors had parsed. No, it had simply been another raid by the mountain clans to the far north, to whom civility and culture were still foreign constructs. They had been tempted from their icy hovels of manure and thatch by the Hegemony¡¯s failed campaign into the southern coalition. Sacking the northern cities now devoid of both fighting men and the promise of a punitive attack, their atavistic avarice fuelling a demonic crusade of slave taking and slaughter which had carved a crimson swathe through the northern forts and forest citadels.


    He rushed his way up the great hill around which the city was built as a crown. His arms periodically swiping away the rain from his eyes as he tried not to stumble on the cobbles now made slick with a slurry of rotten gore and purest rain.


    He passed the bakery in which him and his sister had sat and ate sweet cakes whilst listening to the singing which so often carpeted the main streets, flooded with buskers of all trades as it usually was. Next did he pass the smithies, their great pluming chimneys now still and empty, the roaring and clanging sounds of industry which often resounded within now silent.


    Harlen, one of the smiths whom they had taken with them to make repairs had had a son, the boy had stayed behind as a member of a trade necessary to maintaining the city. He was now nailed to the load bearing column of his fathers store, the handle less arming sword he had presumably grabbed to defend himself having long ago slipped from pallid hands. He would join his father now; the man having caught an arrow to the eye in one of numerous camp raids of the campaign¡¯s initial stages.


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    He passed through countless memories of his childhood, the nostalgic wash he had longed for during his great retreat cut down into the uneasy stillness of death by the scenes of slaughter which now tainted and made dark these once innocent vistas.


    He rounded the crest of the hill, sharp face poking above the scattered stones to be met with the half closed and bent inward inner gate. Shattered remnants of it scattered and waterlogged, their pale slivers of short spear sized splinters carpeting the path up toward it with an air of destruction and wrongness.


    He slowed as he walked the grey stones toward the yawing gate and courtyard beyond. His eyes were downcast, the stones had been cleaned of bodies, devoid of the mess of the city below, and yet in-between them, in the grout, one could see where the blood had seeped through, staining the rock like wine. Even in death the men and women who had defended this last vestige of Martibeliard refused to be taken from it, their lifeblood refusing to abandon the stones that they had been cut down defending.


    In his trance the boy had nearly crashed into the heavy gate, he caught himself and slipped into the gap and through to the barren courtyard, it too being bare but for the maroon spiderwebs which stubbornly lined the floor. Before him were the shattered ruins of his childhood home. The once stout and indomitable towers having crumbled days before, falling into themselves in a cascading waterfall of terrestrial death.


    They would have most likely set fires in the cellars and basements, that or mined them, anything to erode the great foundations, the roots of his people that had long since bored themselves deep into the bosom of the earth. Whatever they had done it had been successful for there was not a tower, keep or room left standing, the once striking feat of engineering thrown down into a heap on the floor and pissed on by filthy dogs who revelled in their own barbarity.


    ¡°I burnt her hair.¡± Karl wheeled as he drew his sword, the pockmarked, chipped and weary blade once more answering the martial call of its master. Framed just beyond the end of its gleaming and now glistening tip was a girl, a willowy thing of tangled hair and tanned skin, the shine of her dark eyes wavering as they passed over both the armed figure and the shattered keep.


    ¡°Siobhan.¡± He said as he slowly lowered the blade, he did not re sheathe it.


    ¡°They killed them here, and I came and burnt their hair and buried the bodies. Does no good to have a curse follow you into the afterlife. No good.¡± She bit her fingernails as she spoke the last few words. Circling him too as she spoke, as if she were a carrion bird and he a corpse.


    ¡°Who?¡± He pivoted along with her, brown eyes following the girl as she picked her way up and down the peaks and valleys of the keep¡¯s rubble.


    ¡°The old, the infirm, the babes, and the men too strong to be held down or not yet broken enough to be otherwise chained. Your mother was old. I burnt her hair... She was kind, does no good to be followed by a curse.¡±


    ¡°You were here?¡±


    ¡°Are you the lord now Karl? I saw your lot waddle out of the woods, and you walked alone.¡± She said after a pause, Karl flinched; his sword lowering further.


    ¡°Were you here?¡± He said eyes down.


    ¡°Aye, I was here, I watched as they were clapped in chains those who had spat witch and thrown stones.¡± She plucked a pebble from the floor and lobbed it lazily toward him, it bounced off his gambeson.


    ¡°And yet you weren¡¯t taken.¡± The sword perked up slightly, the violent glint of its inherent promise rising to the surface of the conversation. A beat passed before them before a sneer stole its way across the girl¡¯s narrow face.


    ¡°You call me traitor?¡± She spat. ¡°A druid is seen when they want to be seen, not before. Besides, we would rather die then betray the men of the woods. Even if they have forgotten themselves.¡± She spat again, to ward of evil spirits. The Hegemony practiced a rigidly enforced cult of atheism, one which, despite the crowns best efforts, had only ever had middling success here in the northern forests. Where if one were to look, truly look, they could still, in those shadowed and hidden places at the edges of the world, find some who practised the old cult of ancestry native to the region. Persecuted yet persistent. A weed in the Hegemony¡¯s garden of secularism.


    A pause passed between them, Karl narrowed his eyes and spat as well, more habit then belief, you did it before you were about to trust someone, something about avoiding bad luck. He sheathed his sword. Siobhan smiled wide and white like the crescent moon and approached the young lord, striding ethereal across the grim expanse between them, as if she were a step removed from the pervasive suffering.


    ¡°Did you see where they went?¡±


    ¡°Aye, north. They¡¯re northerners, where else would they take their spoils.¡± Her smile dropped when she caught a peak at the still downcast eyes and the question barely contained within the mind behind.


    ¡°Was she with them?¡± Very quiet, naught more than a whisper. Another pause passed.


    ¡°Aye.¡± She matched his tone; they both knew the only reason noble women were taken north.


    ¡°How was she?¡±


    ¡°Brave faced, befitting a Lords daughter.¡±


    Karl looked up to the sky and let the remaining downpour wash clean his eyes as he imagined his sister, that grim determination of hers written across her face as she was led off in chains by a leering procession.


    ¡°Are you going after them?¡± Karl didn¡¯t meet her eyes and instead looked back the way he had come, to the shattered gate and the starving army which pawed around in the cold and the dark beneath, lost and alone. He remembered his responsibility, like it or not he was their lord now, their well being was his to assure.


    ¡°Not in winter, not while they¡¯re starving. Do you know where we can find shelter and food?¡± Said Karl as he turned back the girl, the oncoming autumn breeze of icy daggers punctuating his statement.


    ¡°Aye.¡± She said coyly.


    ¡°Will you take us?¡± He half laughed in a melancholic warbling. The girl leant back and sucked at her teeth, thinking.


    ¡°Yes, I think I will.¡± Karl stared at her for a moment in disbelief.


    ¡°A druid is going to help a Hegemon Lord?¡± It hadn¡¯t happened in centuries, not since the sacred groves were burnt and the last forest kings had bent the knee. The girl simply cackled out a full bodied and racking guffaw.


    ¡°Did you not fight in the war Karl, the Hegemony burns, she bleeds her last into the ether! And you¡­¡± She leant forward and sniffed the sceptical boy. ¡°Stink of providence.¡± She smiled wide once again. He had not the energy nor mind to join her. He simply looked back to where his men ambled and realised he would once more have to march them back through the woods. It would be a long few days.