Written by Gordis, Elfhild and Angmar.
It was the dark pre-dawn hour, when a low, tortured moan roused Kvigr from an uneasy sleep. Sitting up, he noticed Uffi on the other side of the campfire. The man groaned and moaned pitifully in his sleep. Kvigr approached Uffi and tried to give him some water. The wounded man was unconscious, but drank greedily. Kvigr covered Uffi against the night cold with his own cloak, but there was little else he could do, so he sat nearby looking at the fire.
His thoughts took an unusually dark turn. He was thinking of Uffi, and the time when they served together at Rammas Formen. Uffi was a rough, unruly man, but an experienced soldier. Now he was dying.
Kvigr shriveled. Where would Uffi go, when dead? Would his soul live in eternal bliss beyond the Circles of the World, on the White Mountain, feasting with the Gods and the bright Avalai? Would the Mighty Manvur, the Father of Gods, and Yavaya the Fertile, the Goddess of Life, welcome him? Would Tulkar the Strong admit him at the table where brave Men drink and feast with beautiful Avalai maidens for all eternity?
Or would his soul be cast down to Hell, the place of eternal darkness and cold, where naked and shriveled souls wander, lost forever, until the God of the Underworld, the Dark Njamo, the one with wolf's head and burning eyes, devours them?
Kvigr did not know the answer. He silently vowed to make an offering to Tulkar for protection of Uffi's sinful soul. Manvur was too high for such simple gifts as Kvigr was able to offer. All the soldiers and most other men prayed to Tulkar, or to Orri the Hunter, while women traditionally brought gifts to Yavaya, whose wooden statues could be found in every village. Yavaya's fat breasts and hips were always covered with flowers, strings of beads and bright ribbons.
Thinking of Yavaya, Kvigr suddenly became aware of a woman's figure near the biggest campfire in front of Broggha's longhouse. Surprised, he approached, remaining in shadows outside the ring of light, and watched. The woman was busy preparing an early breakfast. She filled a kettle with water from a barrel and put it on a makeshift hearth to boil. Kvigr noticed that she was quite tall and had tousled dark hair. "A Tark wench?" he thought.
Then the woman turned and Kvigr almost cried out. It was the beautiful Lady Aewen herself, the haughty daughter of the Count of Pennmorva! Accompanied by a suite of guards and ladies in waiting, she used to ride sometimes through his poor village, earning admiring and reverent glances from the peasants, awestruck by her rich clothes and kingly demeanor.
Now her dress was a wreck, her hair unbound and dirty. Kvigr noticed a dark bruise on her chin, and the swollen lower lip. His heart filled with pity, he crawled nearer and softly called to her, "My Lady Aewen..."
The woman turned sharply, trying to make out his form in the darkness. Then, after a brief glance at the still dark and silent longhouse, she left the circle of light and approached.
Kviggr continued, trying to sound reassuring "My lady, I am Kvigr, son of Ulfr, the blacksmith, from your father's village of Penn. I don't think you remember me, but, please, tell me what has happened? Are my folk still alive?"
It was as though the shame clutched Aewen's body and she longed to sink into the earth, to hide under a rock somewhere. This young man, one of the hillmen marauders, knew of her when she was once the daughter of a Count, for he was of her village! Oh, the disgrace into which she had fallen, once a noblewoman, now the mistress of a barbarian!
Her voice low, Aewen began to speak. "Your mother was still alive last I knew, but your father, while hunting, was fallen on by orcs and slain. Then sometime later, the village was attacked by orcs, with many of the men slain, the young women carried off, the old women and most of the children left to survive as best they could. Then a few days later, Broggha came and proclaimed to the survivors that he would put the village under his protection if those remaining elders and leaders would swear fealty to him and pay him the required tributes.
"Then that night he came to my father's keep and saw me. He demanded that my father turn me over as a thrall or he would kill everyone in the keep. My father argued and the two struggled, but one blow from Broggha's mighty fist left him unconscious upon the floor, near death. Father later died the next day when his heart stopped; brought on, we thought, by his old age and the injury he had sustained. One of his chieftains was put in charge of our property and the rest of my family was thrown out of the keep to live as best they could. My ladies-in-waiting were given over to his men. I had no sisters and my brothers were little more than children. I do not know where they are now."
Hearing of the grim fate of his folk and of the death of his old father, Kvigr hung his head, trying to hold back stinging tears.
Aewen looked about nervously. "Now I must attend to the cooking, for someone is always watching me."
Aewen turned to leave, but Kvigr stopped her. He put his hand on her shoulder and stood on tiptoe whispering hotly in her ear.
"I will not serve these brigands. I am leaving today for good. I have a horse, we've had three for five men, but now, with Gunni gone and Uffi as good as dead, one is rightfully mine. It is but a poor nag, but it can carry you. Your father has always been kind to us poor folk, so I will help you run away. Meet me in an hour - I will be waiting for you behind this oak yonder" - he indicated a huge oak-tree within the perimeter of the camp, its base hidden by thick undergrowth.
Aewen shook her head sadly. "I can get to the tree, I think, but they will never let us out of the camp. There are sentries everywhere..."
"I will give you men's clothes and a cloak. They will not know you," Kvigr said with more confidence than he actually felt. "They won't be suspicious in daylight."
---
After the conversation with the Northern nobleman, Griss felt elated as he walked back to the lean-to that he shared with Heggr. Going to his cache of weapons in the makeshift dwelling, Griss selected a dagger. Heggr woke up and grumbled sleepily before he rolled over on his side and went back to sleep. Shaking him roughly by the shoulder, Griss growled harshly, "We have a little mission to attend to today, so arm yourself well."
"What is it, Griss? Does the Jarl have something he wants us to do?"
"No," Griss smiled, "someone much more powerful than the Jarl has a task for me, and you are going to help me."
Yawning and shaking his head, Heggr sat up on his fur bed. "All right, what are we supposed to do?" he grumbled.
Griss drew his finger across his own throat from left to right.
"Oh," Heggr managed a nasty smile, even though he was half asleep. "Who are we supposed to kill?"
"Kvigr."
"Ohh, Kvigr - that arrogant pup that Algeirr keeps around." Heggr rubbed his hand through his long, unkept beard. "That youth will not be any problem, and the way my teeth are hurting this morning, I need something to take my mind off them. A killing would do nicely to distract me. How are we going to do it, if you don't mind my asking?"
"We're going to follow him, and when he is far out in the forest, away from anyone, we will slit his throat and dump his body into the Morva. No one will ever know anything, and if he is ever found, his death can always be blamed on the orcs. Sleep a while longer, Heggr. I'm going back out to keep an eye on him."
"Whatever you say, Griss," Heggr concurred and then settled back in his furs.
Griss left the low, slant-roof lean-to and walked out into the gathering daylight. "There that little rat is, talking to Aewen. Broggha is not going to like this when I tell him, and I don't think he will be a bit displeased when we get rid of the little cur."
Griss walked to a tree and leaned his back up against it, lounging nonchalantly as he cleaned his fingernails with the point of his knife. The North men were leaving that morning; their servants had already disassembled the black tent and packed it on the baggage wagon. Griss noticed that the Jarl was talking to the nobleman and smiling broadly.
The nobleman slowly turned his head in Griss' direction and nodded. Griss suddenly felt charged with more confidence than he ever knew in his life. He felt that he was ready to tackle a whole army. He basked in that feeling as the riders mounted their horses and then watched, awe-struck, as they rode away.
"I can do anything," Griss thought. "Anything!"
---
After saying his farewells to the departing Angmarians, Broggha turned back to the longhouse, when, not far from the fire, he suddenly spotted Aewen talking with a man. The Jarl's grin turned into an expression of livid anger.
"Get away from her and keep away!" the Jarl snarled. "Or I'll break your neck with my bare hands!"
Kvigr was startled. He jumped back and disappeared in the thick bushes. Aewen flinched when she heard the words and looked to the ground.
Curling his forefinger to her, Broggha ordered gruffly, "Go into the long house, wench! Looks like you need to learn a few more lessons!"
"Yes, Jarl," she replied with resignation as she followed him to the building.
From his hiding place, Kvigr watched with helpless anger how Broggha led the poor lady Aewen away. He bit his lip stubbornly... "I will help her, or die trying," he thought angrily.
In an hour, he and Griss should go join Algeirr. He thought of borrowing Meldun's clothes, and make Aewen pass for one of his comrades, leaving the camp with them. The sentries would hardly check all the company, if Griss were with them. But would Griss agree to help? Kvigr doubted it.
---
Though her tortured body ached, Aewen kept it painfully immobile as she lay beside the Jarl. The brute was asleep at last, the intensity of his loud snoring almost making the bed rumble. She barely dared to breathe, for the sound might bring him to fearful wakefulness, which would rouse his temper once again and rekindle the savage urgings of his brutal heart. When Broggha had dragged her back into the house, he had slapped her face repeatedly, adding more bruises to her already battered flesh. Taking his great, hairy-knuckled hands, he clasped her about the shoulders and shook her, making her head flop up and down, which brought breath-stealing pains stabbing betwixt her shoulders. And then he had - well, what he did every night. This time, though, he was especially rough, for this was punishment for her talking to Kvigr. Oh, the man was cruel, heartless!
Agonizing moments passed, with the only sounds her quiet breathing and the Jarl's snoring. Her mind ruminated upon the words of Kvigr.
"I will not serve these brigands. I am leaving today for good. I have a horse, we've had three for five men, but now, with Gunni gone and Uffi as good as dead, one is rightfully mine. It is but a poor nag, but it can carry you. Your father had always been kind to us poor folk, so I will help you run away. Meet me in an hour - I will be waiting for you behind this oak yonder."
Could it be done? Could she really escape? What about Maleneth? It would be a miracle if Aewen could successfully flee with Kvigr; to bring Maleneth along as well would make it almost impossible. But perhaps if Aewen managed to escape, Maleneth would take heart and find a way to take flight from the hill-men. If one could do it, then so could another...
Slowly, as not to wake the slumbering Jarl, Aewen slid from the bed. After quietly wetting a rag, she washed herself and then dressed. Sneaking over to one of the narrow windows of the longhouse, she peered out into the early morning darkness. The sun had not yet risen, but she was soon to do so, and the sky was just starting to lighten in the east. Aewen felt emboldened when she saw no one about.
Very quietly, she opened the door and just as quietly shut it behind her. Slipping through the still morning as silent as a cat, Aewen made her way to the oak tree and darted behind the undergrowth which grew about it so as to shield herself from the view of any in the camp.
---
Uncertain what to do, Kvigr returned to the fire to see that Uffi was not breathing anymore. He lay white and still, his mouth wide open, and the slow autumn flies were crawling over his face. Kvigr sank to the ground thinking furiously. Now someone had to carry the body out of the camp to bury it. No one would protest, if he volunteered to do the job. And then, once out of sight behind this oak, he would hide the body in the bushes, and tie Aewen face-down on the nag's back instead. Kvigr grinned. This plan should work.
Having made his decision, Kvigr shook the sleeping Meldun and sent him to fetch Hrani, the shaman. Soon a small group of bleary-eyed, sleepy men assembled around the body. Hearing that Uffi had no weapons to bury with him, Hrani went to his shed and brought a rusty old knife which he placed in Uffi's right hand.
"The wretch will need something on his way to Njamo," the old shaman grumbled.
The others looked at him uneasily, the whites of their eyes showing, and their hands making an old protective sign, to ward off evil spirits. It was really bad luck to die like that, in sickness, not in battle, like a man should.
In a cracked, old voice, the shaman intoned an incantation to Tulkar for protection of Uffi's soul. Then he put some grains into his left hand: no one was going to spare food to bury with the wretched newcomer, much less a horse or a woman. Kvigr added a copper coin that he placed in Uffi's mouth.
"Now, who is going to bury him, lads?" Hrani asked.
"I will," Kvigr replied over a lump in his throat. He hoped the others had not noticed his nervousness.
As he hoped, nobody objected. Meldun halfheartedly proposed to help him, but Kvigr declined.
"I will do it myself. Just fetch me a spade somewhere," he said. "I will tie him onto the nag and carry him away, and then I will dig a grave." One of the men led Meldun to a shed where tools were kept. Soon they returned with a spade.
"Where do you bury them?" Kvigr asked and looked around the stirring camp, his heart beating furiously. But his luck held.
"Over there, behind that hillock," replied Hrani, spitting, and pointed roughly in the same direction where the old oak stood. "But make sure you get away from the camp at least for a quarter of a mile. We want no ghosts here. I will tell the sentries to let you through the outposts."
Kviggr's heart leaped. Soon, aided by Hrani, he got Uffi's body draped face-down over the horse's back, arms and legs dangling. He put Uffi's cloak on top of him and fixed all with a rope. Kvigr made sure to tie the rope quite loosely, to be able to untie it with one pull.
The group around the fire had all dissipated but for Hrani, who stood indifferently nearby, chewing something. As soon as Kvigr was ready, the shaman started walking in front of the nag, showing him the way.
In a minute or two, they were behind the oak, hidden from view by the thick undergrowth surrounding the tree. Seeing that Hrani's back was turned to him, Kvigr pulled the end of the rope and gave Uffi's shoulder a push. The body slid from horseback and collapsed into the thick heather. Hearing the commotion, Hrani turned and cursed Kvigr.
"Don't you know how to tie a knot, you stupid suckling? Now fix the mess yourself, and I will go ahead and warn the sentries. Just tell them your name, and they will let you pass."
Hrani's squat figure disappeared behind the trees. Kvigr proceeded to carry Uffi to the base of the oak: lying there, the body was entirely hidden by bushes even from attentive eyes. Kvigr retrieved the rusty knife from Uffi's right hand and put it in his pocket. Then he lifted the old cloak that covered the body and called softly.
"Lady Aewen, are you here?"