The rough terrain between the easily noticeable peak of Wyvern Tor and the town of Conyberry used to be the frontier between two ancient rival empires, Illefarn and Netheril. It was featured in many chronicles. Casavir is both awed and disappointed to see its current state. These northern hills can be a symbol of wilderness at its worst: countless hills, crags, and rocky ridges crisscross in unimaginable ways, as if some legendary giants were breaking random chunks off the mountains and throwing them without pattern or purpose. There are a few roads winding through the hills; Casavir has seen better goat paths. Here and there he notices remnants of ruins: a ditch too straight to be natural here, a buried corner of a foundation there, a large rock with drill marks in the ravine. There must be miles of old mines underground, and all are infested with hostile inhabitants ranging from orcs and goblins to ghouls and giant spiders.
It is easy to pass orcs and goblins unnoticed, but spiders are born predators. Their shell is like seamless armour: his sword is almost useless. They also plan their ambushes like professional thieves – unbelievably logical for a mindless species. Casavir suffers several exhausting attacks before he realizes he should switch to his hammer and crack their shells. Sharp spurs on their legs leave long painful lacerations, too many to heal on his own. Casavir wraps linen cloths around the shallow wounds where they have cut through his leathers and decides he will need a full metal plate. He tries to get rid of the image of canned meat that his garrison used to buy from Mirabar. That night he sleeps in a crevice high above the path with one eye open. He must smell like dinner to anyone whose appetite cares for blood.
The two strong orc clans – the Bonegnashers and the Eyegougers – have obviously settled in the area this winter. Their presence is marked by occasional half-eaten corpses in the lairs of the spiders. It is suspicious that the clans seem to keep reluctant neutrality. Orcs are not known for cooperation, and yet Casavir witnesses two large parties cross their paths, exchange words and be on their way without any violence. Apparently Yaomig and Logram reached some sort of grudging understanding, and this is bad news. Casavir burns with the need to get to the human settlements faster. They need to be warned.
He is running out of water but charging through to Old Owl Well is not an option. All the orcs he watches from his top hill route are carrying barrels and pulling carts. They are storing water, and their supply is clearly drawn from the ancient Netherise well – the only watering hole for leagues this time of the year. Casavir cuts down his rations and thinks of the nameless Hero of Neverwinter. If he were here, he would summon some ice, and they would melt it over the fire, though he would banter for hours on mundane use of magic. Casavir smiles and lets his loneliness drive his looming thirst away. It was nice to have a friend for a while.
He makes it to a small village southeast of Conyberry. There are maybe fifty houses in it, and of course one of them has an extra room where the farmers gather for a drink. The elderly hostess does not blink an eye when he asks for a jug of water and drains it in large gulps. She pours more water and shoves the jug into his hands.
"Go into the back and sleep, boy." She shoos him in with all the quiet power of many children's mother. "I will make stew by the time everyone returns from the pastures, and you can pay your keep in news. We do not see many new faces around."
The farmers listen grimly to his account of the two clans that descended from the mountains into the hills. Casavir estimates the numbers of the orcs to be about eight hundred, and the farmers stir anxiously while the elderly hostess sets plates of hot stew in front of all the assembled. Casavir can easily identify her children in the crowd – twins, a brother and a sister, twenty-five years old or so, both tanned, strong, tall and wide-shouldered. He tells them that the southern orcs drove the smaller local clans away from Old Owl Well and are storing water. It is only a matter of time before they start foraging for food and discover the villages they can raid.
"What do we do then?" It is the twin sister, Katriona, who pronounces everybody's question. It rings in the heavy silence over the tables.
"We arm up," Casavir circles the room with a confident gaze, chaining the individuals into a unity. "And meet them with steel."
There are three villages close to the hills, and these villages become his frontline. All of them must be trained to fight. There are fourteen settlements scattered between these three and Conyberry; they become his rear. All of them must be warned. Out of the three frontline villages, two are defendable, but the third one has a very unfortunate location. Casavir walks around it deep in thought and takes in the rolling hills that obstruct the view from the village and display it in all vulnerability.
He counts the chimneys. This village should be abandoned. If they face a raiding party of any considerable size, this place will be a slaughter. Houses can be erected again, cattle breeds, fields are sown every spring, but a life extinguished is a life lost forever. This is a hard idea to sell, and the villagers do not take to it kindly. In their eyes, he is a panic monger. Casavir convinces, explains, threatens, pleads, but all is in vain. They will not move until they see the orcs descending the hills. It will be too late by then.
The village where he set foot first has a much grimmer kind of folk. They are reluctant to leave, for their houses store generations of memories. They have been attacked before and they do remember. The twins, for instance, were growing with a crude portrait in place of a father, and they keep his sword and his dagger as their shared relics. Casavir trains them and trains with them and considers one of them for his sergeant.
Katriona seems to be the more capable of the two, but Casavir does not understand her fully. Oliver is less versatile and focused, and yet he is simple and direct. It is so easy for his face to blur with the faces of all those nice village boys Casavir has known and his former friendships extend to Oliver inadvertently before he knows it. Katriona does not exude the same nonchalance: her words are often loaded with meanings Casavir fails to comprehend.
These two are the first to answer his call. Casavir notices a shadow run across their mother's face: she knows what he knows. They can be taken from her forever so easily. A dozen more farmers follow their lead right away, and Casavir knows these followers solidify the twins' fate. If you have led other people into danger, you cannot back out of it yourself.
The farmers in the third village have the same mood. They will fight first and leave when the last candle of hope goes out. Casavir can respect that emotion. He rides between these villages every other day, a whirlpool of action. He has the farmers dig trenches that will win them several kills. He sharpens logs into stakes and ties them together into simple obstacles that will win them an extra round of arrows and will make their opponents slow down before the attack. He trains everyone who volunteers to fight against heavy and strong but not very agile or particularly skilled opponents. He calls for every scrap of old armour or weapon to find its use, and when one of the widows gives him the plate armour of her late father-in-law, he accepts it with quiet gratitude: the longer he stands, the less orcs will pass him. The well-worn armour has a deep dent in the left side. Casavir hammers it flat in the backyard of the inn house and thinks of the spear that must have smashed that man's ribs.
In these dark times, two orc clans can provide twice as many warriors for one raiding party. With the necessary preparations, Casavir's improvised militia can fend off any number under forty; forty to sixty will be an undertaking with dear casualties, and if a large host arrives, their immediate priority is survival, not defending the property. The fighters will stand their ground as long as they can; the other villagers must be ready to flee.
Of course, these farmers live at a slower speed, different from his own agitated rush. Their determination lasts for now, but most of the families get tired of the constant nervous apprehension. They let their children run into the hills to play, they… live. Casavir is at war. He has no property, no family, no land. It makes everyone his family and all land his land. He feeds their sense of urgency best as he can. He sleeps little and rests less. His small force of forty must turn the easy paths into a maze of obstacles.
He knows they have two months if they are lucky. Orcs always raid during the harvest or right after it.
In six weeks, it starts.
Orcs swarm down the hills in numbers that exceed their worst expectations. It looks like nobody stayed behind – by the time they reach the first outpost, Casavir has dispatched two messengers to the other two villages with the command to flee. This is no ordinary raid; this is an invasion, and they are a handful of brave lunatics against the tide of enemies.
Casavir knows exactly what he is doing. He is losing the battle with the full awareness that they must slow down the attack at any cost and take on as many orcs as they can. Every single thing they have prepared serves its purpose. The trenches, the stakes, the wooden ladders, the stones hauled uphill and kept in place by a few bars, the paths narrowed by fallen trees, the oiled stacks of hay that they set on fire as they fall back to block the way for several more minutes. The militia retreat and lose a person now and then – the orcs advance and leave several corpses behind with every step. Every line of defense is broken, and Casavir's people retreat to the next one; they fight and lose again and retreat farther.
Casavir counts steps until that narrow place he leads them to – a treacherous scry, a goat path along the backbone of the hill where one person walks with care and balance is everything. He commands his soldiers to follow the fleeing villagers, and though he notices Katriona's brow furrow deeply, he nods for her to move and turns back to watch the orcs who are climbing the hill. The presence of fate clutches its claws around his heart and Casavir's head swims with a heady excitement. They cannot reach him other than one by one. He is vulnerable to arrows, but orc bows are lax and the plate armour will protect him for some time. He will fall when he is exhausted, and mighty gods, did he not train all his life for this.
At this moment, Casavir feels that it is Neverwinter behind him, not some meagre villages on a hard, infertile soil. His blood sings in his veins. He bares his sword and waits for the orcs to approach.
"You will stop here or lose your lives," He calls out to them in their tongue, and they stand whispering, thrown off. "I am the Katalmach and I tell you: get back to your settlements and your families will see you again."
The orcs fall silent when a tall warrior shakes his head. He is wearing a necklace of bear claws, and Casavir remembers what it might signify. Ferocity. Experience. Strength.
"Katalmach." The leader acknowledges him with something too close to delight. "I will eat your heart tonight."
In ten minutes, all the seven orcs are dead. Thank Tyr sword fights are short, for his sword is growing heavier by the minute, and he can feel all his muscles burn with the strain. He does not even think about switching to his heavy hammer, his arm is already shaking. Casavir breathes and stares down the path, where fresh enemies hesitate to climb the hill. He can stay here and take more lives, buy some more time. He can follow his militia. They have been fighting and running all day. He is tired. If he stays here, he stays here.
Casavir is tempted. The scry is not the worst place to die, and this life is heavy on his shoulders. To die means to stop caring. To break free. To lay down the burdens and banners for the living to take.
It looks like there are not many living eager to pick up the banner, and Casavir turns around and runs. He can feel the presence of his death draw back reluctantly.
They lose, predictably. The two well-armed villages resist the invasion, flee in time, make the orcs pay a dear price for the paltry supplies they forage. The third village is a massacre – only a few families heeded the warning, and the rest perished. These were not kind deaths. These were brutal, and Casavir adds them to his ever growing mental cemetery.
It was not his fault they did not heed his warning. Or maybe he could have been more convincing, charismatic, and charming. Like those courtly knights who have the common folk eat out of their hand. They would have fared better than he did.
Both the survivors and the dead are a warning to the far settlements. This year the orcs did not expect the resistance. Next year they will scavenge farther and farther.
With the villages gone, they are now on their own in the wilderness, and the days are growing shorter.
The bitter disappointment of loss and defeat pulls Casavir to the ground. He was fighting with impossible chances; it could have been much worse and at least they did not let the enemy bite quite as much as they wanted. He repeats these things to himself, but loss and disappointment are still loss and disappointment. He feels inadequate for the task, but orcs never disappear in thin air, and he resorts to his pet method: hating himself quietly and moving from task to task with the unhealthy focus of a sick man.
Katriona notices something is odd and attempts to corner him several times. Casavir is good at deflecting her questions without outright lies. There is a dangerous glint in her eyes when she stares him down across the campfire, and Casavir does his best to ignore it. They have a guerilla war to plan, and his emotional state is of no relevance.
"You are walking into your grave. Straight confident steps, wind in all sails, no looking back." She tells him once. They share the first watch because she volunteered. Casavir did not want her to accompany him.
"Tyr will bring me to my grave at the due time." He replies without any expression. Katriona huffs and lets the matter rest. She stands up and walks away, to the trees that surround the small clearing.
She is wearing his sword now, for Ollie has their father's. It is good that Casavir carried two weapons on him. They are on their own, and no castle forges arms for them.
He counts his standing fighters. Twenty is not much. Twenty is a lot. Orcs are a superstitious folk. The Katalmach and his people cannot stop the invasion, but they can unnerve the invaders, bite at their heels, make them question leaving their camps, keep them reluctant to take risks. Casavir stares at the fire and strokes the cold metal of his hammer. A mean-spirited smirk curls his lips. He can take all the risks he wants and that is going to be his advantage.
They are always on the move. They attack out of the blue and disappear like ghosts. They ambush small raiding parties and track messengers and scouts. Sometimes they crawl close to an orc camp, kill the lookouts and melt into the shadows.
Casavir recollects his old thoughts about orcs living in peace with humans when he cleans pieces of brain and bone off his hammer. He wonders when exactly he lost himself in this quest for vengeance and started to live up to this crazy nickname. The Katalmach. He rolls his tired shoulders and can feel the bruising on his back send a wave of dull pain. If he were younger, he would take off his armour and assess the injury. Now he does not care that much, and it is bitterly cold, and fussing about all these links and clasps and ties is exhausting.
Slow, frozen thoughts flow in his mind as he lies down and waits for sleep to come. The flame throws fairytale shadows on the windbreaker canvas. They dance and swirl and never stop. The nights will grow even colder. They will be building bigger campfires soon, with several logs held between four thick sticks. Just like those forest bandits he saw in the Crags. Just like outlaws and criminals. Or adventurers, or travelling monks, he reminds himself.
"You could sleep in my tent." Katriona offers faintly when they share another watch in a few days. "I would not mind. Ollie would not mind."
"I do not think it is a good idea." Casavir ignores the pang of interest her offer wakes in him. It is so cold in the hills and he had never felt lonelier, but this is not fair to her.
He stirs the large log in the flames. It is too raw and will not burn properly. Casavir steals a glance at Katriona and thinks that she is that kind of person who cannot have things in halves. Her fate is divided by a clear line of her choice: she is either a fierce warrior who fights with abandon or a mother of five with just as much abandon. Never both, never in balance.
He tries to imagine himself as a farmer, an owner of a home, a loving husband, a father. He cannot. Childbirth is pain and, too often, death. How can a husband who loves his wife ever ask her to bear children?
It is not just warmth Katriona is offering. She is attracted by the first man in her life who shaves and pronounces full vowels. He must keep his polite distance.
An almost snowless winter arrives and leaves, and their small group grows larger with all the misplaced farmers who find no land to plough with such dangerous neighbours.
They camp in secluded places mostly, but now and then there are more wounded than one, and Casavir feels that ever-present pressure of his past choice: if only he had chosen the path of a cleric. For too many times they must dispatch several people to carry the wounded to the faraway villages. Every man and woman they lose is his fault.
Every time a death happens, Casavir mourns for weeks. He mourns by rising earlier to train and smash stones into shards, he mourns by taking more risks, he mourns by taking more inconvenient middle watches because he deserves some sort of punishment. He chants the dead names and prays: in tune with his steps on the way, in tune with his breath when he lies in the cold bedroll and stares at the stars, in tune with his heavy blows.
His body is like a thin shroud of flesh that drags after his soul. His soul burns so bright that Casavir has an illusion that his body will fall off his shoulders if he wishes.
One of the nights it is Ollie. Ollie's stomach is a mess. Life is leaving him faster than Casavir prays. He keeps repeating the holy words, but they fall on the ground like dead birds – empty and sad. The prayer is a shell of itself. Casavir finally gives up and closes his eyes for a moment, too tired and ashamed to face Ollie's sister, Ollie's uncle, Ollie's friends. Worthless. Incompetent. My fault.
Katriona is screaming with her sisterly grief, and all Casavir is thinking of is that he did not have the right to ask these people to sacrifice their lives. His determination pressures them into following him through all these dangers.
In just the same way, Logram's ambition to rule this region colours this land red with the blood of his clan. The leaders are always to blame. The leaders, the generals must fight against each other, not their armies. Casavir wonders what would happen if he showed up at the ancient mines where Logram resides – they know it now that they cut down so many strings of his messages reaching out of that place – and challenged the famed warrior to single combat.
He would be swarmed and killed, that is what would happen. It would not have saved Oliver or his twin sister who will become his sergeant like she deserved from the very beginning.
"Do you want to return to your mother now?" He asks carefully, in a soft voice.
Katriona wipes her tears off her red swollen face and hunches her shoulders stubbornly.
Of course, she desires to stay.
Every spring, snow in the Sword Mountains melts, and for two months water is a free commodity in this dry area. The orc clans retreat from Old Owl Well to hunt in the hills during the season of abundance, and a small host of the Graycloaks from Neverwinter arrives and occupies the ancient well. Their commander sends out messengers to all the local villages. Katriona and several men travel to pick up some supplies from Idsworth and deliver the two copies of maps Casavir made to the priest and the mayor of Conyberry. They return with a message for the Katalmach – join the forces, defend Old Owl Well, hurry.
Casavir considers the opportunity. He tells his people finally that if they want to join the Graycloaks, they should. He tells them honestly how his relationship with Neverwinter armies might be ruined, but they do not need to partake of his disgrace. They will be able to do a lot of good there. Collective efforts are more effective, as a rule.
All of them decide to stay. Casavir is touched and frustrated at the same time: their loyalty is misplaced. He is not his own master, and Tyr may dispose of him at any moment. He realizes that Katriona can lead them now. She would probably do better without him – his authority and experience are a heavy weight in any discussion. He does not make the best decisions; he has had years to learn it. Without him, she will be a leader. In his shadow, she will be stuck as his sergeant.
Perhaps this tiredness is a sign that he is ready to sacrifice himself for a good cause, like his old books and chapterhouse sermons implied. Perhaps paladins should die young because they lose themselves in battle if they linger too long. Perhaps, taking down the orc clan leader who unites the tribes is a worthy cause to take this final risk. If Logram dies and his guard kills the paladin right after that, it would be worth the price. Would it not?
Casavir can find no place since that idea took root in his mind. Logram is the key. He is the whip that lashes at his warriors and drives them into the hills to raid and kill and burn. This orc leader is so much stronger than the others before him that his authority is indisputable, and traditional discord within the tribes is muted by his voice, overwhelmed by the fear he instills. To kill him means to rid the hills of this plague. To kill him means to throw the orcs back into their domestic disagreements. To kill him means both to save the lives of the people and to spare the lives of the orcs they fight. Casavir is tired of killing and planning to kill more.
To kill Logram is an impossible task. Casavir's small force is effective, but they are still peasants. If he leads them into the old mines, they will fall there. A group of thirty is noticeable. If he could leave alone, would he have a chance to enter the caves and pass them mostly unnoticed? Should he leave alone? Would he? Does he dare?
Casavir lets these thoughts tear him apart for several more days before he reasons to make the final decision tomorrow – once and for good. If in the morning he thinks it is a good idea, he will stop doubting and leave. If in the morning the courage seems a mad hope to him, he must stop clutching at it. He prays to Tyr and the Triad to guide him before he spreads his bedroll by the campfire.
That night, he dreams of another life. Similar dreams occurred to him before; rare and precious, they carried him into a routine of a different person and lasted days, weeks, years. These dreams never really abandon him because they are too detailed, too real to trust his own life.
This time, he grows up as a farmer's son on the edge of the forest near Conyberry; he plays, he works, he wins in good honest competitions, he falls in and out of love repeatedly, fooled by every smile like a moth is fooled by a torch. He reaches his adulthood and gets drunk, and then rumours of the southern destruction reach his native village, and all the men arm up to meet the orc raid party that travels in their direction. He hears conversations about the hidden force that can appear out of nowhere to assist them, and hope raises its head in his heavy heart. He holds his newly forged spear – a knife and a stick, really – a little straighter as they set up their carts and wagons into barricades at the main road.
The procession of orcs is not what they expected. Casavir stirs uneasily in his sleep, and the young farmer – himself – grows upset and then frightened. The orcs are not in a hurry. They are victorious, triumphant even; they whoop and whistle. They also carry something heavy with them, and the farmers watch them intently as the orcs approach, set up their load and fall back.
It is a plank nailed to another plank in the form of a 'T', and there is a human-shaped piece of meat on it. The young farmer boy mistakes it for a sheep's carcass for a moment, but he knows he is wrong immediately – it is a human body, a man beaten and skinned and rotting already. Bones protrude through the inflamed flesh; a mess of muscle and torn skin is black with in-life bruising. One of the orcs raises his fist to the sky and shouts.
"Here is the new banner of Logram the Eyegouger. This is your Katalmach."
The young farmer falls to his knees and heaves.
Casavir wakes up and cannot slip back into his own skin for a while. Well, if the gods wanted to give him advice, that would be it. He resolves to keep from going to the Eyegougers' lair on his own.
It was a day like many others, but many years later Casavir will remember the moment when they tracked several dozen orcs setting an ambush. He did not have the time to take a close look who their target was – some travellers, armed but very disadvantaged. It was a chain of decisions too rapid to notice the details.
They follow the orcs into the narrow valley, the orcs turn back, the usual nightmare begins: block, step forward, hit with all the force. Casavir blocks and steps forward and lands his hammer on the unlucky enemies methodically. There are too many, but he has seen worse odds and lived.
Some of the orcs do manage to land a hit, and once a spear pierces his side between the armour links briefly. Casavir turns to face the opponent, but Katriona has already cut him down, and he sends her a grateful nod. There is no time to pause and look at the wound.
He feels blood slowly soaking his shirt under the armour. It is a strange feeling, heat in the center and cold seeping all around it. There are more orcs coming at him, and Casavir slows down carefully, swings his hammer with less flourish, strains his left side more. The right leg of his breeches is getting wet too, the cold in his side blooms larger, and he tries to breathe lighter, with his chest. Of course, he ends up winded, but his tunic now sticks to his skin unpleasantly, and if he is lucky the coagulated blood will seal the wound until he has the time to take care of it.
A magical fire roars, and Casavir looks around slowly to find the last orcs dead on the ground, their corpses smoldering. He turns to see the adventurers – two women, an elf, a dwarf, and a gnome – approach and suddenly forgets his name, his wound, everything.
The fate hooks Casavir under his ribs and pulls him forward. This mismatched band, his blood pounds in his ears like ravens' forlorn cries and words form in his mind on their own, this ridiculous company is what will bring down the gods' will upon you. His death travels with them. His sword belongs with them.
Casavir is stunned and his tongue is thick when they exchange the usual words – names, information, offers of help. One of the women has horns on her head, but Casavir ignores this fact. He stares at the leader, the sorceress, at her singed leather gloves, at her simple clothes, at her sweat-soaked hair – and he sees a silver light encompassing her, hears the fate in her voice, senses that she is destined to fight a great evil and you must be with her. He did not expect this feeling. He did not expect that what he has believed to be his life would turn out to be a mere preparation for a bigger journey and a much more important quest.
Casavir hears himself say that he will accompany them to Logram's lair. He registers Katriona's objection vaguely, but the fog in his head clears only when the sorceress gives him a concerned look and says something in an urgent, insistent tone.
"I beg your pardon?" He blinks at her hand pointing at his feet.
"I said: tomorrow. You are bleeding." Ingrid repeats patiently, her voice soft like a feather in the wind. "There is blood dripping down your hip, sir."
