WARNING:
Like everything in the Van Der Boot series, this is a work in progress.
Then one day his town is visited by an envoy of the king. War is coming. All able-bodied men must join the fight, protect the country. His wife begs him not to go. There are younger men, men without families. Let them risk their lives. He is needed at home.
Torn, he seeks advice from the village mystic…
“Do I have a choice?” Ansgar asked the old woman.
“Everyone has a choice,” she said, closing her eyes.
Ansgar looked over his shoulder toward the jagged mouth of the cave and the purpling sky beyond. It would be dark soon. Freja and the children would be expecting him. He turned to face the white-haired, withered creature sitting across from him on the dirt floor. “But what is the right thing to do?” he asked.
“I cannot answer that,” she said, leaning forward to once again consider the configuration of small, polished bones tossed on the sheepskin before her. “I can only tell you that if you choose to stay,” she stretched out a gnarled fist to indicate one of the bones, “you will live a long life.”
“Long?”
“Yes.” Her trembling hand continued to hover above the bones as she spoke. “You will know the cycle of many moons, reap the bounty of many harvests, witness many births and mourn many deaths. You will hold in your arms the child of the child of the child you hold now. And one evening, far from this night, you will climb into your wedding bed, kiss your wife, close your eyes, and never open them again.”
“And,” said Ansgar, “if I choose to go?”
“If you go,” said the old woman, “if you take the warrior’s path, your time in this world will be brief. You will never again see your wife and children, never plow another field or gather another crop.”
“Never?”
“Never,” she repeated, sitting back and nearly disappearing into the folds of animal furs draped about her, “but your spear and your blade will harvest many lives.” The milky surface of the woman’s eyes remained fixed on Ansgar as she spoke. “Kingdoms will rise or fall at the edge of your sword. All the treasures of this world will be yours for the taking, all the pleasures of the flesh yours to command. You will be a living god, Ansgar of Holgur, and when your time comes, as it must come soon, your image will appear in the constellations, your story told for countless generations, and your name will never be forgotten.”
Ansgar stood on the bow of the fast-moving ship, the floor rising and falling beneath him, the wind in his hair, and the salt-spray of the sea on his face. Behind him, the rolling hills and jagged mountains of his home were all but gone, a grey smudge on the horizon.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that none of this belonged to him, this borrowed existence, this other man’s body. Even so, he missed them. The jasmine-honeyed scent of his wife’s skin, the doe-eyed faces of his children, and the sound of their laughter were already beginning to fade like a distant memory.
Ansgar of Holgur was going to war.
He saw them coming.
Shoulder to shoulder they marched, their shields held together and overlapping like massive scales on a metal-clad beast, one thousand legs strong and just as many points and blades for arms. It moved toward him, this dragon of men, down off the bluffs and onto the beach, an undulation of flesh and steel.
Ansgar peered from behind his own shield, felt the heat of bodies pressing against him on all sides. He was slick with blood and sweat, they all were, and reeking of fear. Smoke from the burning ships bit at his eyes and the rising tide struck coldly at his ankles as it rolled up from behind and pulled at his heels.
His wife. Ansgar had hardly considered her for weeks, but now she would not leave his thoughts. The silk of her raven hair, the way she would sit on her side of the bed and brush it slowly, patiently, from crown to waist before finally turning to him.
Terror and regret overtook him, like clinching fists, one at his chest, the other, his bowels. And then he saw it, all of it, just before it happened, because he was already dead.
With a deafening crash, the wall of soldiers would be upon them. Ansgar would thrust desperately, blindly, forward with his blade. The man beside him would fall, his shield with him. An enemy lance would stab through, penetrate the exposed flesh beneath Ansgar’s raised arm, slide between his ribs, and pierce his heart.
Ansgar blinked, the enemy was still seconds away. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop the future he had glimpsed, but still, he felt he had a choice.
Then, everything happened just as he had seen it. Shields collided, his comrade fell, his side was now exposed. Only this time he rushed to meet it. With all his strength, he heaved forward to embrace the javelin’s point.
It slid past him, impaling the man behind.
Ansgar’s sudden surge had pushed him ahead of his phalanx, separated him from his unit. His shield was wedged between the enemy’s shields. His arm pinned. His entire body exposed. Now, every blade had a killing stroke.
But he was already dead. He had nothing else to lose.
Ansgar heaved forward, tossing men aside with his shield. Thrusting, slashing, hacking his way among them. Warriors fell back in fear and confusion as he wedged himself between their shields, splitting their forces in two. There was a rallying cry from behind and what remained of Ansgar’s own army advanced through the gap he had created.
Still, he did not hesitate. His sword and shield came alive in his arms, and every part of him, head, shoulder, elbow, knee, had become a weapon. Men scattered before him. The scales of the great metal-beast shed in disarray.
Above him on the hillside flew the enemy banner, a bird of golden fire on a black background. This was now his goal. Ansgar began to sprint up the sandy embankment. No one stood between him and the warriors circling their commander above. Javelins flew toward him, swift as black starlings on the wind. He saw their marks, knew if they will embed themselves in the sand, impale his calf, or pierce his throat, and he dodged and weaved among them without a scratch.
Ansgar felt an army gathering behind him and knew without turning that it was his own.
He was almost on them when the giant appeared. He was as tall as two men and as wide as three, wielding a tree trunk as a club. His handlers slackened the chains attached to the iron collar around his neck and cracked their whips. The giant rushed for him, just as Ansgar saw all…
The giant would swing his club just as Ansgar leapt. The force would be enough to split a ship in two, but he would miss and Ansgar would be on him before he had time to swing again. In one swift, descending stroke, the tip of Ansgar’s blade would enter just above the giant’s collarbone, alongside his throat, and pierce downward into his heart.
The giant swung, Ansgar leapt, but then he saw another choice.
Inches from the back of the giant’s neck, Ansgar stabbed downward and through the first link of chain, severing the collar from around his throat. That he had broken the enslaving spell along with it, Ansgar could only hope. The choice though, had already cost him. He tumbled onto the sand just short of the giant’s black-robed handlers, giving the two warlocks time to strike.
The thong of one whip wrapped itself around his neck, the other coiled about the wrist of his sword arm. With his free hand Ansgar gripped the cable at his throat and rushed his attackers. But they were swift, moving in opposite directions, suspending him between them, a constant stream of chants and snatches of song flowing from their mouths. The leather seemed to pulse and writhe against Ansgar’s skin, aided by magic no doubt, it burrowed into his flesh, binding his wrist and crushing his windpipe. They needed only to keep him there a moment longer and the approaching banner guards would finish him.
A great swoosh of wind passed overhead and one of the warlocks disappeared, his whip fallen limp in the sand. His sword arm free, Ansgar pulled the remaining wizard to him, but before he could meet Ansgar’s sword he was flattened by the giant’s club in a spray of blood and gore.
The banner guard turned and ran. Ansgar followed, the giant at his side, his army at his back.
That night, Ansgar sat beneath the stars, the ocean waves a roaring lullaby in the distance, and his campfire’s dancing flames to keep the chill at bay. Beside him sat his new friend, Barrock Oakfist, Giant of the North.
Ansgar had been given a large tent, room enough for twenty men, and servants to cook for and attend him. The King was well pleased, still, he did not invite Ansgar to his counsel. Just as well. Ansgar kept counsel of his own.
“How great is their army?” he asked.
The giant was slow to answer. His eyes surveyed the battlefield and the great cords of his neck twisted like braided rope as he turned to scan the beach and the makeshift pens assembled there. “You have dispatched or captured the greater part of it,” he said, his voice like distant thunder as his gaze finally returned to the campfire. This sluggishness was only an illusion, Ansgar knew, like thunder at rest in the depth of a dark cloud. He had seen this giant strike.
“How long can they defend the city?”
“I am not the only giant,” he said. “There are more of my kind enslaved within. In the morning, when you and your men attempt to breach the walls there will be no arrows, spears, or burning oil to greet you. We, the giants will rain mountains on you from above, stones as large as Thesurus bulls, taken from the walls of their own dismantled towers. And when all are dead, we the giants will be made to collect and rebuild their city for them with mortar mixed of your flesh and bone.”
“How? How is it possible to enslave so mighty a people?”
His sigh was like the breaking tide. “We were deceived, though through our own folly and greed. We came here willingly, accepted their gold, drank their draughts, and woke to discover our bodies were no longer our own, only our thoughts, and what good are thoughts when not even sleep, or the emptying of one’s bowels, or the freedom of death is within one’s will to choose.”
“How is it that you were the only one of your kind on the beach?”
“I was merely a token of power, my master’s favorite dog. Your defeat was assumed. The wizards are loath to expose themselves so. They will remain safe behind their walls.”
“Their magic must be strong,” said Ansgar. “What is its source?”
“This I do not know, but much have I seen. Their king himself is a priest of dark magic, the others, mere conduits of his will.”
“Then we will not attack the city. We will attack this king.”
His gaze lifted from the fire and settled on Ansgar. “I do not understand.”
“You and I, Barrock Oakfist, and no others. Tonight.”