Casavir wakes up with a gasp and stares into the darkness, struggling to grasp where he is. It is an inn room, soothingly generic and forgettable. He takes a deep breath and wills his shoulders to relax. A ghost of his dream lingers in the room, but its fabric is losing its integrity fast. He recognizes the faint sadness that normally accompanies dreams from his childhood. Before the war, before the plague, before everything.
In the darkness, he is young again. At times, he is visited by the strange thought that all people must be carrying their fifteen-year-old selves in their hearts, and he is not the only one who needs to calculate his age when asked. When he talks to a soldier, or a merchant, or a random stranger in a village he passes, he spares a moment to look into the eyes of those people and search for the shadow of the children they used to be. It is difficult for him to blame people for their deeds. Every single one of them must have had a chain of misfortunes that shaped them.
Casavir rises to his feet and lights the candle in front of the mirror. His reflection stares at him dourly. The man in the mirror is starting to look the way Casavir has felt for a long time. Nothing changed much, but there are subtle changes: his unsmiling expression has worn sharp lines in his face, his profile seems solid, and despite the scarce light he knows there are several silver threads in his hair already. He is thirty-two and he did not notice how his life was gaining speed. A month was worth so much when he was sixteen, and so many events were packed in it easily. A month is nothing now, it is barely enough time to complete a thought or a trip. Three months passed since he fled Neverwinter, the Jewel of the North, and the weeks simply melted off his life.
One of the windowpanes has a crack and the wind is whistling in it. Casavir remembers the winter storm he braved to travel by Callum's summons. From the wind taken, to the wind returned. He might be an excommunicated believer and a deserter in disgrace, but no power can take his mind, his strength, and his experience from him. He is strong and hardened, his expertise with weapons is formidable, he is a small army on his own. He does not have faith in a city or a nation, but he has faith in the people. Lords and ladies speak of national interests and bend the concept in their own favour, but behind this fake idea lie the simple needs: life, safety, prosperity, peace, respect, justice. The state fails to provide them; somebody must.
It was very egotistical of him to think he is unwanted and wallow in self-pity when every single corner of the world is in urgent need of strong hands and kind hearts. This is a terrible world full of death and suffering. Casavir is incredibly lucky in it: literate, well-trained, strong, healthy, free. It is time to stop yearning for things that were never intended for him. It is time to tame his loneliness and live with the beast. It is time to stop being selfish. It is time to fight for those who cannot protect themselves. He is ashamed to think of the days when he was tempted by the heights of the castle and the ground pulled him like a magnet. It is a paladin's destiny to die fighting, and he wants to die well.
Casavir strains his shoulders and smirks at the muscle rippling under his skin – it is the same feeling when one tests a well-balanced sword. A body is a weapon and a vessel, nothing more. His thoughts were so dramatic simply because he was idle.
The Sword Mountains are a savage land between the deadly swamps of Merdelain and the Kryptgarden forest, and it is difficult to judge which of the three is the worst place to build a house. It is a surprise that people have settled in all of them. The southern border of Neverwinter is a veritable frontier: orc tribes that settled in the mountains centuries ago are growing too numerous for the barren land that cannot sustain enough game and fowl for so many hungry bellies. For years, Casavir has heard reports of the atrocities here: orc raids and orc feuds are a terrible mix.
Before the war, this place had manned outposts and well-patrolled routes to Waterdeep in the south and Triboar in the west, and it was a dangerous road even then. Now, with Neverwinter forces withdrawn from all borders and the presence of central power non-existent, every tiny village fends for themselves, and numerous strategic heights and camps are either abandoned or occupied by shallow water scum. The old map Casavir vaguely remembers featured the ancient trail that is now ruined by mudslides and rockfalls, and the paths beyond it were never even scouted. It is a perfect place to be lost to history.
He sells the horse in the last village that may need one. This is a cruel destination for travellers: during the summer months this side of the backbone is dry as a stepmother's heart, and a week's supply of water must be carried, for the water sources are scarce. Poison them – and no humans will survive. Orcs will. There must be underground rivers, and caves are deep here. Higher by the peaks, there are frozen caps and streaks of glaciers and Casavir's observant eye notices the naked rims under them. That means that they change in size from season to season, so there must be mountain streams where they melt. It is not like he has travelled here in search of breathtaking views, but he identifies several peaks that do not look completely impossible. From their tops, he will be able to see more and he needs to complete a skeleton of a map by the time autumn paves the paths with danger.
He spends several months exploring the area. He gave up shaving after two weeks, because it is a waste of precious water. Food is easier: he hunts when he can, and his emergency supply of grain and dried meat runs low much slower than he planned. He sleeps in his armour with his sword in hand: despite his efforts, small bands of orcs sometimes are lucky or unlucky to stumble upon his well-hidden camp by accident. On several occasions, death brushes so close he can feel its cold breath at the back of his neck. It is astonishing that he still feels safer on this lonely crusade than he has felt for years.
He carries his notes in between his breastplate and the leather padding under it so that neither rain nor his own sweat can ruin them. He marks down sure paths and dangerous places where ridges hang over his head ominously. He catalogues every tiny water source he can find, even cracked soil and weak blades of bulbous grasses that can indicate there will be a spring here during the better months. He counts his steps and notes down the distances and the heights. What is more important, he tracks regular routes of orcs and tries to learn their patterns.
It looks like there are at least eight distinct tribes that cross their paths now and then, and half the times their confrontations end up in violence. They do not bury their dead, and Casavir studies the ugly faces, the ornaments on their pelted clothing, the warrior tattoos, and scars. He tries to determine if they are old or young, high or low in the hierarchy, what weapons they wielded in life. He has a vague impression that the orc society is way more complicated than he had thought. They obviously have beliefs, a clan system, castes, initiation ceremonies, some cattle farming and simple crafts like furniture-making or basic construction, even art and magic apprenticeship. Can their violent ways be ever altered?
He can imagine what the generals will say to him if he shows up in Castle Never and suggests teaching orcs to live in comfort in order to make peace with them in the distant future.
He attempts to conquer a trickier peak that will show him the area from the bird's eye view. The elven hunting books that Catherine had him read come to his mind. Breathing creatures with self-awareness were described there with all the indifference of the superior species. All that language showed it clearly – "breed" instead of "family", "use" instead of "meaning", "instinct" instead of "emotion", "attachment" instead of "love". Casavir does not want to be like those cold-hearted ancient elves. Orcs have culture, however primitive, violent, and hostile it is. Orcs have family ties; they are capable of loyalty and grief. Yes, they see kindness as a weakness and peace as a temporary humiliation of the weaker and yes, they kill people and enslave people as a manifestation of prowess. That makes them enemies, not vermin.
Casavir throws a bunch of rope down the rock shelf he has just climbed and tries not to look under his feet when he descends with two ends of it in his hands.
Enemies are different from vermin, because one must observe the rules of honour when fighting, whereas extermination is pitiless. Casavir shifts his weight carefully, trying to rely on the rope as little as possible, and recites the list he has worked out long ago. Do not kill the unarmed, regardless of age and gender. Spare children and old ones. Attack only those who would attack you. Leave a chance for them to lay down their weapons. Spare the wounded. Show mercy.
He plants both his feet on the firm ground and exhales noisily. Sweat is flowing down his neck, and he wipes it awkwardly. This peak will stay unconquered. It was probably a terrible idea from the very beginning.
Casavir pulls one end of the rope and coils it carefully. He takes a look at the sun, too low above the horizon. A hawk laughs in the pastel blue sky adorned with feathered clouds. Why can't they all live in peace.
Once he makes camp in a desolate village on his way back to the inhabited areas. The bones of several houses are standing out like a skeleton of a sea creature thrown ashore, and he can recognize the remnants of a street, blackened planks of burnt down barns, a stone well that, unfortunately, has run dry decades ago. There are several stone foundations overgrown by tall dry grasses, and Casavir knows the village met a violent end when he recognizes a rusty arrow in what must have been a ribcage once. If he is wounded so irreparably that he will become a burden in a fight, he thinks grimly, he will become a gravedigger and travel the world burying those who were left to the elements. He will bury the nameless dead and plant oaks on their graves instead of gravestones, and years later he will look back and see a dense forest cover all of the Sword Coast.
He spends the three winter months in a village called Lindenbrook. These places do not see as much snow as he is used to, but they are subjected to high winds and nasty ice storms. The drop in temperature allows storage of meat in underground larders, so spare cattle is got rid of about this season, and this is also when groups of orcs attempt their raids. Casavir offers his assistance to the village mayor in exchange for a roof over his head. The villagers measure him up approvingly. No weak people live in these places, and they value strength above all things.
Casavir spends little time under the roof he bargained for. He fights and scouts, scouts and fights, and none of the attackers even enter the village that winter. He teaches the locals to fight with more efficiency, indicates the place where a watchtower could make their life safer and makes a map of routes for patrols by the season.
"Stay. You can marry the young Harriet or Lagertha, the widow. We will help you build a good house," the mayor suggests while Casavir is packing his bags. "There is nothing on the roads but death."
Casavir shakes his head and leaves at dawn. If a single person could keep them safe, they will be able to protect themselves without him. This is not the settlement that needs him most.
This year, he tracks small groups of orcs on their way to the villages he chose as his frontier and engages them before they can do much damage. Sword fights are always short; with that much advantage in skill, three or four orcs are no match for him.
He has to be careful not to run into larger gangs, but once he does, and still he is the only one left standing afterwards, surrounded by a dozen corpses and covered in thick blood from head to toe. He wipes his eyes clean, spits and meets the entranced gaze of a young orc in the distance. The… boy is afraid to take a breath of air, to say nothing of making use of the crude short sword in his hands, and Casavir gestures for him to run. The orc fails to understand him, and Casavir, high on the battle spirit, scowls at him and growls menacingly. This language proves to be much more comprehensive. Casavir plops down on the cleaner patch of the ground ungracefully and takes several deep breaths. He coughs some blood from his lungs from the massive blow he suffered when the orcs circled him for a minute. The blood is just as red as that of his enemies.
This is the day he receives that weird nickname which is both a praise in these primal warrior cultures and an offense to his sense of orderly duty. The Katalmach. The one who loses himself in battle. Casavir will learn of it much later. By the time he understands that the scary orcish fairy tales feature himself he will have heard it for many times. At this point, his knowledge of their vocabulary is scarce and picked up from evident clues: "water", "beware", "kill him", "hungry", "stop here", and several vague terms of wide coverage that he guesses to be obscenities.
He makes it a point to learn more. After some skirmishes, there are survivors, and some of them speak a few sentences of Common. Casavir interrogates them, memorizes new phrases, and leaves them tethered. It takes the captives some time to get free, and it is enough advantage for him to disappear without a trace. He wants to keep them on edge. He wants to prevent unorganized, spontaneous violence like 'valour trips' of young orcs to decorate their dwellings with a few souvenir heads, or lazy robberies of daring individuals who do not wait for a raid to be organized by their clan for the simple reason that their share of the plunder will not be worth the trouble.
He covers a lot of distance every single day. If he shows up with any predictable regularity, they are going to figure out the pattern, so he makes erratic attacks, bites at the heels of larger groups, disappears from the steep slopes where they are searching for him thanks to the sturdy ropes and some very peculiar knots. They are common knowledge in the much steeper Crags, but a novelty here. Sometimes he meets travellers who dare a trip to another village, and sometimes he escorts them if he knows there is trouble on their way.
As usual, news is a precious commodity in rural communities, and soon every single soul in the area knows of this mysterious knight who 'keeps watch over the Sword Mountains'. People need so little spark to make a large fire, and he hears dozens of more ridiculous accounts. Obviously, he is either a ghost of an ancient warrior who cannot find peace because orc scum treads upon his grave or a magical guardian summoned by a mad wizard who looks for his long-lost love kidnapped by an orc clan. Indeed. Casavir starts to doubt if any of the recorded epic legends have a sentence of truth in them.
Something sinister flows in the wind that autumn. Casavir can hear dead men scraping underground when he passes by old ruins and neglected cemeteries, so he stops camping in the abandoned villages even if they offer shelter from the biting rains that arrive earlier than usual this year. Orc clans grow restless, too. Two of the smaller clans seem to be moving deeper into the eastern passes together, and Casavir follows them despite the deadly weather. If they cross the mountains, settlements loyal to Triboar may be in danger. However, the two clans do not dare into the snow-capped wilderness, and Casavir decides to return to his familiar trails.
It is later in the autumn than he planned to return, and the storms are too violent even for this perilous season. Heavy clouds drag their swollen bellies into the north. They promise downpours or snow, but mostly pass over like empty threats – loud with thunder and scary with lightning. Nevertheless, some of them must have spilt their guts, for the trail is erased by an untimely mudslide, and Casavir must find his way around it. His supplies are running low, and he is close to the regular routes of the worst clan of all – the name of 'Logram the Eyegouger' does not just sound obnoxious.
Another problem is that there is less and less daylight every day, and today he has hardly covered five leagues. To make things worse, he can see a snowstorm brewing in the sky. Grisly grey clouds surround the mountain ridge.
It is known that there are periods of good luck. Bad luck, however, accumulates drop by drop and waits for a single day to strike in all its black glory. This is one of such days when everything that does not depend on the choice goes wrong and the very fate frowns. First an unsteady stone Casavir tries warily gives in and rolls down, setting numerous stones off balance and leading to a veritable rockslide on this bare northern slope. Then excited voices hoot and whistle in the distance and Casavir realizes they are too many to face. When he runs uphill, arrows fill the air, and though most of them brush against his armour or miss completely, one lucky shot catches him in the vulnerable joint and Casavir can feel piercing pain in his shoulder. He keeps running and hopes he will be able to lose his pursuit in the wooded area in the eastern part of this ridge, but he makes a mistake and choses the wrong path that leads to an empty shelf that breaks off into a narrow canyon. He could not know this, and yet he feels extreme annoyance when he has to stop at its edge and bare his sword. To make maps for twenty months and perish because he took one wrong turn. The gods do have the sense of irony.
The only advantage of this shelf is that it is narrow, and he can meet the attackers one by one. The downside is that should he lose his balance, he is as good as dead. The arrow in his shoulder throbs like hells. Casavir turns to the pursuit and raises his chin stubbornly. If this is his death day, fine. He has been waiting for it.
One of the orcs falls into the canyon spooked by his companions screaming 'The Katalmach!' at the top of their lungs, and it leaves three of them. Two fall quickly, but the third one is smarter: she retreats and keeps yelling without a pause. Casavir knows it means that the large gang he heard is close. Desperate, he looks around and measures the width of the canyon. No human can jump over these twenty or so feet. There is a rock on the other side that he can throw a loop of the rope on, but he cannot judge if it is stable enough to bear his weight. Even with the rope in the right place and the rock steady and sure – his shoulder is injured and pulling himself up from the canyon might be too much. Casavir would never do it in his sane mind.
The screams are joined by a war cry of a good dozen throats, and Casavir is strangely detached as he watches himself fold a loop, throw it, miss the rock, make another one and throw it again. The rope catches and he pulls it tighter. There is no time to get scared, there is only a protesting kick of his instinct in his gut, a dizzying sensation of a fall, and a searing pain as he grabs on the rope with his injured arm and pulls himself up, up, up, to safety.
Casavir is very thankful that he was wearing his shield on his back when another arrow bites into the wood and scrapes his back through it. His ankle aches madly now, too, and it can barely support his weight. He limps up the unknown path until he is completely out of breath, and he can register no sign or sound of pursuit.
Casavir sends a short prayer of gratitude to Tyr. He is lost and wounded, it is getting dark and the sky looks like it is ready to burst, but he gets to live another day by a sheer miracle of the gods. Now it is the choice whether to heal his shoulder wound or his torn ankle. He would prefer the ankle: being able to walk is a primary need now. He clenches his teeth and pulls the arrow out; blood fountains from the wound, and now this one is a priority, so the ankle will have to keep hurting. Let flesh be healed, mighty Tyr, let pain subside.
A gust of wind throws sharp snowflakes into his face, and Casavir attempts to stand up. He hisses with pain and decides to crawl on all fours. He cannot stay in this open space. He needs some cover and a fire. This storm is going to be awful. From his experience, it may last for several days.
