The Earth-stepper's Bargain: A Short Story Read online

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  Roland Ironhand’s impressive, impenetrable fortress stood on a craggy rise at the center of Bavennoth. It had been Roland’s grandfather who had elevated the settlement from a fly-bitten cattle trading post to the preeminent center of commerce and culture that it had become, although Roland himself tended to take much of the credit. No one ever argued with him: he hadn’t earned his surname because he tolerated dissent.

  He hadn’t made the most welcoming father-in-law during Cal’s brief marriage to his only daughter, either. Cal had fallen breathlessly in love with Geilya the instant he had laid eyes on her golden, pale-eyed grace, despite the livid scar that slashed across her face, one of many relicts of her long, cruel captivity by her father’s sworn enemies.

  Cal had done everything Ironhand had ever asked, in order to win Geilya’s hand. Roland wanted revenge for his daughter’s kidnapping, so Cal found the Rhaveren to help get it for him. Roland wanted gold: Cal won him twice as much Geilya’s bride price – her price even before the ruinous attack that claimed the bright spark of her spirit. His persistence had piqued her interest, and she had accepted his addresses without coercion, but her father had demanded even more. Cal had given it freely. Eventually, Roland had relented, as much to make his daughter happy as to rid him of the shame of her circumstances.

  She had loved him back, in her own way. “Aedstold”, she would call him: “earth-stepper”, the man who tried to bridge two worlds. It was a reference to an antiquated song she liked, and often sang repeatedly to herself, staring out the window for hours. A sad tale, of course, of an exiled wife lamenting her husband: a warrior cursed to roam the land without her, desiring greatness but unable to leave the memories of his old life and broken love behind him, even after the gods had given him a great reward by commanding him to lead the armies of the heavens.

  He had used the name sometimes, to please her, but had stopped when it had started to describe him just a little too well after her passing. The song still haunted him, floating through his dreams. He caught himself humming it sometimes if he wasn’t careful. It made him think of how he would watch her, in silent, worried adoration, and bring her tea in the chipped blue mug she never wanted to replace. On good days, she would ask him to sit with her, and take his hand with her slender fingers, anchoring them together though she still wandered far away in her melancholy musings.

  But she had never learned to stop flinching when he touched her, and had never allowed him to come to her bed – not after what they had done to her. He hadn’t minded. He had thought there was time, and that his steady patience and soft words would draw her back into the light someday. He had been wrong. He would never regret anything as much as being away from the house that morning, and not hiding the knives well enough that day.

  Cal had worked himself into a sour mood as he and Hew climbed the steep steps up to the hillfort. Roland wanted his blade? He would get it one way or the other if the old man crossed him, Cal thought darkly as he glanced up at the watchful guards on the parapet. They would make sure of it. He shook his head slightly as he tried to push away the thought. There was no “they”. It would not do to have it edging into his head again. He wasn’t going to allow it.

  “Just relax,” Hew whispered to him as they waited for the gate to open. “You’re as jittery as a whore at confession.”

  “I think I probably have more sins.”

  “He wants you, remember? You earned that sword, and it’s yours to use as you will. He can’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

  Cal nodded. It was true. He was the one who had found the Rhaveren, in the high mountains where even the bravest rarely went. The icy peaks were deadly enough to claim Honlard the Bull, the greatest warrior of the last age. Honlard had been searching for the Wyrdworm, but he had never found the serpent’s fabled lair. Everyone had thought it was a fool’s errand: Cal had thought the same himself, and even told Hew he wasn’t allowed to accompany him, but the thought of her cool, sad smile had driven him on.

  He had indeed come upon the man’s remains, his boots pointed skyward in a nearly inaccessible crevice beneath an abandoned goblin hole, his frozen skeleton missing an arm that was still wedged between two boulders, thirty feet above him. It had been an inglorious end to a celebrated career, but the Rhaveren had never been kind to its masters. Those who sought to use its enchantments for their own greed or glory tended to meet a grisly but fitting demise. It was a fate he wished to avoid, but the Rhaveren had always had a scheming mind, and it had its own ideas about what to do with him after being saved from capture by the goblin tribes.

  They had almost gotten it back, when the hideous creatures had him surrounded in a dead end pass. But the blade had sung its song to him, and he had listened, letting the sweet music deep into his soul as the sword lusted after the blood he spilled to satisfy it, deepening the pact between object and owner. There was a bargain to be struck: Cal would take it out of the mountains, and the sword would get him Geilya and revenge.

  It had become a part of him, as he accepted its promises, nestling itself securely into his thoughts like a traitorous angel. In exchange, it had rewarded him with great renown, wealth, and fear, if not respect. He had never quite been the same, after that, but it had made sure that he never wanted to be.

  His anger, righteous or otherwise, became his trigger: hard to control, magnified and focused by the sword’s innate love of chaos and battle. He was proud of himself for not succumbing to its darker intimations, however, and he knew he was lucky to have Hew, who knew him better than anyone, to help him master it when his own strength was not enough. Roland Ironhand would value the man that he had become, the victories he had won and the lives he had saved, even if he had let the most precious one slip through his fingers.

  “I was expecting you two weeks ago,” Roland said as they stood before his throne. He was getting to be an old man, Cal noticed, his black hair going gray in wiry patches, but his eyes were as sharp as ever, still filled with unspecified discontent.

  “Your messenger only arrived on the island two weeks ago, my lord,” he replied calmly. “I came as soon as possible.” He wasn’t going to stand for any of that nonsense, and he wasn’t going to let the chieftain nettle him.

  “Well, I needed you weeks ago. Baldulf has my flag.”

  “That’s what you want? That stupid game? Forget it. You don’t need me for that.”

  “Ashrad is with him,” Roland added, and Cal froze. He heard Hew mutter a curse behind him.

  “Where?” he asked flatly.

  “Sivor Forest. At the old ghost castle.”

  “How many?”

  “Only a hundred. I’ve got fifty men to send with you. You’ll go?”

  “Consider it done,” Cal nodded, and walked out.