The Smugglers' Journal – Chapter 4

Jakob wasn't sure how far he'd travelled. The journey had been awful; slung over the goatman's shoulder, his face pressed up against its reeking, hairy, sweaty flesh; it surely a miracle that he had not passed out. But now it was even worse.

They had bound him to a pine with thick, knotted ropes. Before him was a great clearing, lit by a bonfire raised before a barren oak that grew in the centre, atop a low mound. Jakob could see faces all around him: of goats and dogs, sheep and cows, beasts and men. They passed in and out of the light, wild bloodshot eyes and frothing lips flickering in the shadows. Here and there a stone weapon glinted like steel in the firelight. The air was filled with their stink; a potent combination of fur, sweat and feces. Above it all was raised the harsh, braying tongue that Jakob could not understand.

One of the creatures stepped forward, silhouetted against the fire. Jakob could not believe its size; it was built more like an ogre than a man, with a ram's head and two horns curling back on themselves. It lifted a two-handed axe up high, the steel head beaming in the firelight. The ram-monster threw back its head and gave a long, bawling call. The other creatures fell silent, focusing their attention on the giant. The creature addressed them in words unnatural to human lips, its audience roaring their approval.

All of a sudden, a huge gout of green fire erupted from the oak behind the campfire. It shot high into the air, illuminating the clearing and, for a brief moment, seeming to twist the tree's cragged bark into a monstrous face. The creature's cried in alarm and drew back, watching the oak nervously. For a moment, nothing in the clearing moved. Then the ram-monster stepped back before the fire and roared something to the assembly. They answered with a great cry, louder than any Jakob had yet heard. The beastmen were stamping their hooves on the ground, drumming on their shields and screaming at the top of their lungs. Jakob felt his legs give way beneath him, but the ropes held him tight to the tree.

The ram-monster gave what sounded like a command, and the host parted, leaving a long aisle between Jakob and the fire. Jakob watched as a smaller beastman shuffled down the aisle towards him. It was at least a head-shorter than its fellows, concealed beneath vast, tattered robes. Only its snout and long, stag horns could be seen, protruding from its voluminous cowl. It was carrying a rough stone amphora, which it proceeded to upend over Jakob's head. It was filled with a warm, sticky liquid mixed with some sort of rotting plant material. It smelled like pig swill….

'Ye gods' Jakob thought 'It's seasoning. They're garnishing me!'

With a triumphant bray, the cowled beastmen smashed the amphora to the ground. The beastmen roared their approval. Jakob was sure he was going to faint. The cowled creature motioned to two nearby beastmen. They started toward Jakob, stone axes raised to cut him loose.

They froze. They could hear the drums.

They were very faint, but audible. Jakob guessed they were many miles away, but he couldn't guess the distance. The beastmen evidently couldn't tell either. They began sniffing the air, ears raised. After a moment, the huge ram-creature bellowed out an order. Jakob heard the drumming of smaller hooves and glanced a number of the smaller creatures moving out of the firelight and into the forest.

The drums continued. They were closer now, and coming from a different, but still uncertain, direction.

The beastmen were openly nervous now. There was a general muttering of voices and a few cries of anger. Jakob saw the ram-creature bending down, presumably to take council with some of its followers. After a minute's 'conversation', for want of a better word, the ram-monster straightened up and began roaring its orders, gesturing to various points round the clearing. This was the signal for a brief period of general uproar as the beastmen moved out of the clearing, streaming off into six distinct 'columns', each heading in a different direction. In a few minutes the clearing was deserted, save for the ram-monster, his cowled minion and six of the biggest, most brutish warriors. They took up positions surrounding the oak (Jakob noticed they did not get too close, obviously for fear of another fire blast), as if guarding it. Jakob wondered if that was what he was to be fed to. Was that their god? Whatever had been happening, he seemed to have been forgotten.

Time dragged on. Everything was still beneath the stars. Once or twice, Jakob felt his head droop onto his shoulder but he quickly shook himself awake. He knew his chances of escape were slim, but he wanted to be ready to take them when they came. But despite his efforts, the exhaustion of the chase and the terror of the night had taken their toll. So it was that Jakob did not notice when the drums stopped. When he saw the first beastman collapse, he took it to be a sleep-starved fantasy.

But the spear protruding from the beastman's chest was no vision. Nor were the angry cries of its comrades. Then something came rushing out of the trees and across the clearing. At first Jakob thought it was another beastman, being black and powerfully built. But as it drew closer to the firelight, Jakob could see, to his mounting disbelief, that it was in fact Yan. He had discarded his white-fur cloak and, stripped to the waist, had plastered his body and face with mud. He had a crude wooden spear in his right hand, and one of the boarding axes in his left.

He cast his spear at the beastman closest to him, but the monster was ready for him and caught it on his shield. Seemingly unfazed, Yan switched his axe to his right hand and hurled it past the first beastman and into the shoulder of the second. The creature squealed in pain and dropped, blood pouring down its arm and torso.

Yan meanwhile had closed with the first beastman, wielding his second axe, which he had now drawn from his belt. He side stepped the creature's wild spear thrust and decapitated it with a swift forehand stroke. Splattered with the creature's lifeblood, Yan shouldered his way past the body and retrieved his other axe from the dying body of the second beastman.

The other beastmen had rounded the oak by now, their leader hanging back to observe and direct. Two closed on Yan at once, while a third went wide to try and circle behind. Deflecting his opponents' incoming blows, Yan circled to the right, trying to keep all the beastmen in view at once. One of them aimed a vicious backhander at Yan's throat. Jakob cried out, sure it would take the Norscan's head off, but Yan ducked at the last moment and struck out at the beastman's leg. The creature screamed and toppled, the limb severed above the knee. Yan blocked a downward stroke by another beastman, kicked out at its stomach. The creature doubled over, Yan's axe buried in its back a moment later. The last two attempted to rush him, but Yan cast his first axe into one face and then, after a moment's frantic wrestling, gutted the other one with the second. Leaving only the ram-monster.

Seeing Yan square up to the leading beastman, Jakob realised he hadn't appreciated how truly colossal the creature was. It was a head taller than the Norscan, and then some. It wielded its steel axe in both hands, swinging it round its body in long, complicated arcs. Yan's boarding axes suddenly looked very poor by comparison.

Evidently thinking on his feet, the Norscan dropped one of the boarding axes and swept up a shield from a body near his feet and banging the edge of his axe against the shield rim. The ram-monster stepped forward, axe whirling forward, and brought it down in an overhead chop. Yan caught the blow on the shield. The wood held, but the shock of impact forced the Norscan down onto one knee.

The ram-monster swung again, this time aiming for a killing blow. Yan rolled with the stroke, past the beastman, flicking a blow towards the creature's leg as he did so. But the awkward angle and the speed of the move prevented him from causing more than a shallow cut. The beastman bellowed in frustration and began hurling wildly inaccurate strokes at the Norscan. Yan rolled aside again and regained his feet.

The two opponents began to circle one another, warily sizing each other up. Jakob could see hatred in the beastman's eyes, a feral rage as old and primitive as the forests. And, perhaps even more terrifyingly, he could see it in Yan's eyes too. Jakob remembered reading something about the Norscan 'berserker rage' back in Altdorf University library. Was this it?

Yan darted forward, obviously trying to catch the beastman off balance. His opponent caught Yan's axe stroke on the haft of his two-handed weapon and twisted it out of his grip. Yan stumbled back, but he had no time to recover. The beastman's next blow split his shield in two and knocked Yan to the ground.

The Norscan's hands scrabbled in all directions. Jakob cried out in fear. The creature stepped forward, poised from the final stroke. Yan's fingers closed on a stone-tipped spear lying on the grass beside him. More by luck than skill, Yan's blind thrust buried itself in the ram-monster's ribs. The beastman howled in pain. Bending down, it bit the spear haft in two.

This was all the distraction that Yan needed. Leaping from the ground onto to his feet in one move, he closed in with the beastman, hands wrapped round its throat. The two fighters collapsed to the ground. For a moment Jakob couldn't see what was happening; there was only a writhing storm of flesh and fur and blood. Then Yan was on his feet, his left shoulder bloody, the beastman's axe in his hands. The ram-monster bounded up after him. Yan smashed the butt of the axe into its mouth, showering the clearing with blood and teeth. The ram-monster stumbled back, howling, its hands clasped over its snout. Yan raised the axe up to shoulder height and, with one long stroke, cut the beastman in half.

In a moment of terrifying clarity, Jakob realised, that of all the terrifying things he had seen that evening, the triumphant Yan was the worst of them. Caked in blood, mud and sweat, his eyes alight with the joy of the kill, he threw back his head roared in triumph. In that moment, he looked more savage than any of the beastman.

Then came the sound of a pair of hooves sprinting away. The beastmen's cowled priest-chef was fleeing across the clearing; its robes hitched up above the knee like some duchess's skirts. Yan plucked his makeshift spear from the beastman's corpse and, with an almost lazy throw, skewered the creature to a tree.

Yan crossed the clearing and cut the ropes binding Jacob to the tree. Jakob toppled forward onto his hands and knees, vomiting as if his life depended on it.

"What wrong with you, southerner?" asked Yan.

"Wha… how… huh?" was all that Jakob could manage to gasp out between upheavals.

"We must go" said Yan "Ydyr not hunt long. Will return soon. Must go, now!"

"Yes… yes… just… give me a minute," Jakob said as the last of his breakfast completed its return journey.

They had just begun to cross the clearing, Yan supporting Jakob with one meaty shoulder, when they heard a faint voice calling from the barren oak:

"Err… friends…a little help please."