JP Koenig
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Chapter 9 - Out in the Cold (Part 1)
🕑 Added 2025-03-17 18:56:48 +0000 UTC“No one should expect anything from Archmages. They are too powerful to be ruled, too easily distracted to rule. At best they are an unreliable weapon that can be pointed in the general direction of your enemies in the hopes that they do some damage. A wise ruler should rather placate them with shiny toys and pray they stay in their ivory towers.”
- On Royalty and Magic, Volume I
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The town of Buverik’s impressive walls loomed ahead of her as Aina trudged back to town with her hunting party. They were spiked wooden palisades built atop a low stone foundation, just short enough to see the longhouses behind them. The spikes were intimidating, and the towers that stood at regular intervals only added to the oppressive feeling. She could see the shiny breastplates of the militia in the towers that flanked the gate. It was far larger than anything she’d ever seen in her small village, and it was amazing to her that anyone could build something so big. More and more often it felt overwhelming and a little claustrophobic.
The main gates were closed, as was normal these days, but the postern gate was still open. Aina patted the brace of rabbits tied to her belt, and made sure her tunic covered the hilts of her twin seaxes, long daggers tied crossways across her lower back. The seaxes were simple but brutal blades, thick on one side of the blade, but sharp on the other which gave them a remarkable amount of cutting power for their size. With her tattered cloak covering them, and a bow over her shoulder, she was sure the guards wouldn’t notice them, as they nearly crossed the line from dagger into weapon. She didn’t need to give the guards any more reasons to hassle her.
“Stop there,” said a bored guard as they approached.
“Baldur’s balls, Galti, I’m freezing. A blizzard is blowing in and I want a roof over my head,” grumbled Hjorvarth, the oldest of the hunters.
“Listen, the Jarl’s dead and the sheriff is saying the family got killed by bandits. We’re supposed to check everyone.”
“For what? The Jarl’s golden drinking horn?” Most of the hunters and a few of the guards chuckled. They’d all known each other for their entire lives. The decrees of a law speaker wasn’t going to change that.
Two of the guards waved a few of the hunters through, leaving only Aina and Hjorvarth who’d argued with the guards. Aina stepped forward, but a massive arm came down in front of her and shoved her back. Her slender frame was too slight to compete with the massive man, so she stumbled back and nearly lost her balance.
“Not so fast, boy,” said Galti. “You gotta pay to get into town.”
“No fee,” signed Aina resignedly, her hand movements obviously alien to the guard.
“He ain’t got no pennies, same as last time, and the time before,” grumbled Hjorvarth, interpreting Aina’s sign language for the gate guard.
“He’s got two rabbits, ain’t he?” retorted Galti.
“No. This is not mine. I have to feed my mother, you thief.”
“She said it’s for her mother,” Hjorvarth selectively translated. He gave Aina a warning look that she shrugged off.
“Listen, you’re a stranger here. If you want in, you gotta pay,” he said, with a mulish expression on his face. Most nights, Galti would settle for a little harassment before letting it go, but others he would get bullheaded. This night it was the horns, it seemed.
Aina held up one finger.
“Both,” said the guard.
With a shake of the head, she held up one finger again, then offered the smaller of the two rabbits.
“Move it, Galti. I don’t know why yer so hard on the kid, but yer being a pain in my ass.”
“Fine,” said the guard, as he snatched the larger rabbit that Aina had been trying to keep for herself. This left only the small one. Aina stomped away with a dejected expression on her face.
“He’ll come around eventually,” said Hjorvarth, who’d been waved through right after Aina without issue.
“He’s a bully and a fool.” signed Aina angrily.
“Yes, but he’s a fool that’s between the hunting grounds and safety. Best try and make nice with him.”
“I’ll try,” she lied, before waving farewell. She let the fake dejection fall off her face the moment her back was turned. The bitterness had been real enough, but Aina was far too clever than to let some dumb gate guard get the better of her.
She walked through town, ignored by everyone and ignoring them in turn. Aina hated the entire town. Every last person in it was either rude, mean or condescending, and it’s not like she even wanted to be there in the first place. She longed to be back in the village with her mother, but Ingollsfell was no longer safe. They’d fled from kobold raiders, carrying what little valuables they’d had and come to Beruvik seeking the safety of stout walls.
At first, it looked as though they might be forced to sleep in an alley, resigned to selling off their possessions as more well-off refugees came in and drove up prices for food. But Aina’s mother Dalla caught the eye of Bors, a local merchant, and accepted a respectable morning-gift to become his concubine.
Bors’ compound came into view. Bors wasn’t very powerful, and was no warrior to need a grand longhouse. His home was large enough to have a poor-man’s beam across it, to keep poor travelers from entering the private parts of the residence, and was finely furnished as was befitting a successful merchant. Behind it was Aina’s goal, however, for she was unwelcome in the main house. She passed a cook shed, and set the rabbit down on the counter. From under her cloak, she pulled another rabbit, by far the largest of the three she’d caught, and placed it next to the small one.
The celtic thrall in charge of cooking for the house, Samuel, scowled at her but said nothing. The iron circle clasped loosely around his neck clearly put him well below Aina’s standing, low as it was, so she passed him by unmolested. Aina had no trouble returning the disdain, and her petty vengeance for his hostility was to ignore him. He wasn’t worth the effort.
To her bad luck, Bors came outside then, and saw the rabbits.
“Two measly rabbits? That’s the best you can do, ‘oh great hunter’? Boy, you’d best start earning your place around here.”
“Yes, I’ll work harder,” she signed, careful to keep her eyes downcast. Unlike the brutish gate guard, if she angered Bors, her mother would be affected.
“You always say that, but you always come back empty handed.”
“Not empty. Two rabbits. Food for two or three meals.”
“You mean it might add a tiny amount of meat to two meals, and I have to bring in the rest of the bread and mead. I swear, boy, you are truly useless. You and all the other country bumpkins come running into our town and demand food like you’re worth even a crust of bread. In my youth I would have…”
“Ain, is that you?” came Dalla’s voice from the pit house between the cook shed and the barn. Once it had been Samuel’s place, a simple roof set over a pit in the ground, but now it housed Dalla and Aina. This relegated the thrall to the barn, and earned them his undying anger. Aina could feel the thrall seething with resentment beside him, but he was every bit as powerless as she was.
Bors stopped his tirade as soon as Dalla appeared, a rictus of a grin appearing on his face. “Dalla, darling!”
“Bors, my sweet! I thought I heard your commanding voice,” she said as she linked arms with him and gently led him towards the main house. “I was hoping I could come by this evening, and hear tales of your last trade journey. We could sneak away after your wife falls asleep, and I’ll make sure all your troubles are properly soothed…”
Aina shuddered to hear the suggestive tones of her mother’s voice, and walked to the pit house while Bors was distracted. She slipped inside to find the bed she shared with her mother was made up neatly, and the hard clay floor swept and tidy. A small hearth stood at the far corner, large enough to heat the room and cook on but small enough to not need much firewood. A lone pot stood in the fire, the flames well stoked and ready.
The pot was filled with warm water, so Aina set to work on her dinner. While Dalla was welcome to eat at the main house, Bors was stingy with food for Aina. Coupled with the cooking thrall’s hatred, Aina had little choice but to find alternatives. A few wild onions came from one pocket, while a lucky find of potatoes another. From a cupboard under the bed Aina pulled out a wrinkly old parsnip and some smoked rabbit meat. All of this went into the pot to cook.
As her meal cooked, Aina nibbled on a dried crust of bread while she began skinning her last bit of find from her three days in the woods - a single, plump squirrel. When the fire died down, she’d hang it in the chimney to smoke, replacing the tiny cache of meat she’d just put in the pot. With any luck, her mother would come back with a basket full of food. For that, Aina would just have to ignore the smell of sex and Bors’ sweat upon her.
Aina ate her meager meal swiftly, wary of any intrusion that might rob her of her scant ration of food. Then, with the patience learned from many long hunts, she examined the yard through a barely cracked door. The thrall was gone, probably in the barn, and the doors to the main house were closed up. The one shuttered window glowed warmly, and simple, cheery music and laughter could be heard from within. She slipped out to the jacks, where she was able to clean herself from a communal bucket of well water and rough lye soap. By the time she got back, her mother was seated on the bed. The basket of food Aina had expected was there, but lighter than usual. Her mother looked apologetic.
“I’m sorry, he wasn’t as generous tonight as usual. I’ll try again tomorrow.” Dalla looked as though she was waiting for Aina’s recriminations.
Instead, Aina pulled Dalla into a hug and held her mother close. She tucked the basket away in the hidden place under the blankets, and tugged her mother under the covers where they could stay warm. There were no hard thoughts or harsh words, not now, when they had to be a team. Sensing that Aina wasn’t angry, her mother pulled Aina into a cuddle, just as she’d done since Aina was a small child.
This maternal love soothed Aina for the first time in days. Aina had one person who loved her, at least. The human contact and unconditional love were everything to Aina, and it made all the tribulations of daily life worth it. She often wondered if her mother felt the same. Was having a mute daughter who was pretending to be a boy so they didn’t starve to death enough for her? Aina secretly feared it wasn’t. So when her mother sobbed quietly, she knew that even if she could speak, no words would be enough. Instead Aina just kept hugging her and pretended to be asleep.
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It was two days later before Aina was able to talk with Hjorvarth again. His Sky Forging gave him a passive Weather Sense, which warned that a major storm was coming. The conversation was brief, but Aina managed to secure a spot in the last big hunt of the season before true winter set in. They’d head out after the storm blew past and hunt down a few deer in the deep wood. It was at least a week long journey, and Aina had finally proven herself enough, it seemed. Her Forging was very welcome amongst the hunters, and they were willing to give her a proper place instead of just letting her share their hunt camp. In exchange for her help, she was able to get an equal share of meat, to be given to her after they made it through the gates. She left Hjorvarth with a grudging respect for the old man. He wasn’t exactly friendly - he was still a close-minded local, after all - but he was at least fair to her.
When Aina returned back to the pit house, her mother was oddly still asleep. She shook Dalla’s shoulder, and only got a grumble. She shook her again.
“I don’t feel so good,” groaned Dalla, her eyes barely open. Aina reached down and felt her brow. Her mother was feverish and sweaty.
“Drink water. I’ll get a doctor,” signed Aina.
“We can’t afford a doctor,” said Dalla as she accepted a horn of water from Aina.
“I’ll ask Bors.”
“Leave him alone,” said Dalla. “I’ll sleep and feel better in the morning.”
For the rest of the day, Aina fretted over her mother. She fed her a thin broth at dinner, and made sure she drank water. There was little else she could do.
The next morning, Dalla was delirious with fever. “No doctor” was about all Aina could make out. Aina continued her ministrations, wiping her mother’s brow with a wet cloth and forcing her to sip some soup. On the morning of the third day, Aina could take it no more.
She banged on the front door of the main house, and a surprised thrall let her inside. Careful not to pass the poor-man’s beam, Aina paced back and forth until Bors appeared.
“You have a lot of nerve, boy, showing up in my house. Where’s your mother?”
“Very sick. Needs doctor. You help?” Aina signed slowly, using the simplest and easiest of signs so that the merchant could understand.
“You want my help? That’s rich.”
“Not me. Mother.” signed Aina, clenching her jaws and trying to rein in her impatience. She couldn’t make Bors angry. Not now, not when her mother’s life was in the balance. “Please. I beg you.”
“Hmm, well you’re being properly polite, at least, and I do quite like your mother. I’ll get the witch to come by and look at her.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Aina signed.
“Yes, yes, now get out of my house.”
True to his word, the wisewoman came by to look at Dalla that evening.
“You’ve been doing the right thing…. boy…” she smirked, but the gravity of the situation sapped her humor quickly. “I gave her a draught that might help, but a plague has come into town. There are a dozen just like her. She only has a fair chance of making it. Keep your vigil and pray to your gods, for she is halfway to Hel’s domain even now.”
Aina had never trusted in the gods before, but she would do no less than her best. She alternated between caring for her mother and praying to whatever deity she could think of. Finally, around midnight, she collapsed beside her mother and slept.
When she woke the next morning, Dalla was cold beside her. She’d drawn her last breath while Aina was passed out from exhaustion, leaving Aina completely alone in the world. Bereft and completely heartbroken, she sobbed silently against her mother’s torso.
After some time, Aina screwed up her willpower and took care of her mother. She wrapped her carefully in her cloak, taking only her necklace as a memento. The animal tooth jewelry was carved into the shape of a hammer and hung from a leather thong. Aina wrapped it around her wrist, tying it like a bracelet. She left her mother wrapped up for the pyre.
Once more she found herself in the main house, only this time her head hung low as Bors approached. She looked up only when he spoke, and simply signed, “Mother died.”
To his credit, however little she wanted to give him, Bors sat down in sudden shock and grief. The mean bastard had cared for Dalla, however stingy and cruel he was to Aina. He’d taken them in because of his attraction to Dalla, which was better than freezing in an alleyway. Aina watched as emotions played across his face, before his expression steeled.
“Get out of my house and off my property. You’re not welcome here, and if you come back, I’ll get the town guard.”
Aina shook her head emphatically. “Five days. Funeral. For mother. YOUR lover.”
Bors looked ready to argue, but then realized how it would look to toss out his concubine’s son even before she was placed on a pyre and with her soul yet to journey to the gods. Everyone knew that Hel frowned mightily on those who interfered with funerary rituals.
“Fine. Five days, but then you get out.”
“I’m taking her morning-gift.” Aina knew an argument would start from this, but the morning-gift Dalla had earned by becoming a concubine was all that Aina could use to find a new place to live. She could sell the pig, and trade the nice clothes for a place to sleep for the winter. In the spring, she could leave the town forever, raiders be damned. She was done with this horrible place.
“What? I’m not giving you her morning-gift.”
“Not asking. Mine. My mother’s property is now mine.” Aina was frustrated, but it was hers by rights. The morning-gift was not Bors’ property, it was Dalla’s. Now it was hers.
“Listen, you scrawny bastard, I’ve had just about enough out of you. I’ll put up with you for the next five days, but I’ll be damned by Hel herself before I let you take that morning-gift,” raged Bors, now towering angrily over Aina.
“THIEF.”
“How dare you!” Bors lost all control of his temper then, and lunged for her.
When Aina was a scant ten years old, the gods had gifted her. She was the first in her village to be granted a Forging, and the youngest by far. Some of the villagers thought she’d been blessed on account of her muteness, but most thought it was just another sign of how strange she was. The Motion Forging had appeared on her forearm regardless of what the villagers thought, and had gifted Aina with a natural grace and speed that any grown adult would have admired. In the years since then, this natural grace had deepened and improved to be downright supernatural. Aina relied heavily on this natural agility to help her move silently and hunt, but it wasn’t her true gift. It was her second Forging that the gods had blessed her with just before the raiders appeared that truly made her welcome amongst the traditionally xenophobic hunters.
Aina ducked backwards in a move that would have left most people falling flat on their backs. Just as she was about to lose the fight to gravity and Bors’ raging fist was directly overhead where her torso had been a fraction of a second before, Aina reached up with both hands and grabbed on. With a lithe twist, she kicked off the ground while simultaneously yanking on Bors’ arm, which vaulted her around him and feet first into the air.
This had the effect of sending Bors toppling forward, so that when Aina’s movement vaulted her upward, she gracefully flew over top of him in a slithering motion that defied logic. While still in mid-air, she tumbled in a smooth flip to land directly on Bors’ shoulders just as he caught his balance.
Before he could react, Aina had a leg lock around his neck. She whipped a seax from her belt and held its sharp blade tight to his neck.
Bors froze, then slowly held his hands out as he reined in his temper. “I may have been a bit hasty. My apologies. I’ll leave you to your five days of mourning. But then you’d better get out quick.”
Sighing silently, Aina pulled the dagger back and popped Bors on the crown of the head with the pommel before putting the edge back to his neck.
“Ow! That hurts, you ass!”
Aina squeezed her legs.
“Fine! Fine. Take the cursed morning-gift. You’re making me rue the day I ever met you.”
With a graceful roll, Aina tumbled off of Bors’ shoulders and across the floor so there was five feet of distance between them. Bors spun with the hope of catching her before she could get away, but she was already out of reach with a blade in hand, and he was no true warrior.
Deliberately, Aina pulled up her right sleeve, then her left. The Forging symbol of Motion was on one arm, and the Forging symbol of Earth was on the other.
“You’re at the Second Forging?! How -” spluttered Bors, just now realizing who he had so completely alienated. People at the Second Forging were well respected and almost always found positions of influence as adults. One in ten may have a Forging, but only one in a hundred of Forged received a second one. They were the elites of any town or village, doubly blessed by the gods themselves. If she stuck around the town for the next few years, Bors had made a potentially powerful enemy.
“Morning-gift today. Five days, I leave.” Aina made the universal, two-fingered “I’m watching you” motion, pointing to her eyes then his. Then both Forging symbols glowed softly and Aina faded completely out of sight right in front of him. Her <Stealth> ability masked her so completely that Bors spun around trying to find her even as she slipped out the open front door.
