You are right. Afterall what can people do if he dosen't comply? Try and kill him? Good luck with that.
Legends Never Die (Ahistorical/CKIII Gamer)
- Thread starter Ideas-Guy
- Start date
You are right. Afterall what can people do if he dosen't comply? Try and kill him? Good luck with that.
- Location
- oslo
Sure I was just trying to point out that it would be a bit weird for jill to claim Siegfried to be blessed by Thor rather then Odin
She claimed tgat Siegfried descended from Thor, not that he was blessed by him.
Mostly becasue of the super strenght and red hair.
- Pronouns
- He/him
I am waiting for the inevitable time Astrid *does* start with sieg to find out about him. She has said so much about how he will have to earn it if he wants to marry her, and how all types have come for her hand. But Seig I'm pretty sure doesn't care about *her* at all beyond his obligations. He is only marrying her because his mom lined it up to get an army. She is literally being used as a token of alliance, while puffing herself up with her own pride. I have a feeling it will throw her off and piss her off, when he doesn't make any attempt to impress her at all, and then annoy her even more when she is impressed anyway when he really does go to battle and " cut a path slaying a hundred men with every swing". But most likely that's not the path the story will go and she will get buffed up by his new power to be able to stay alive on the battlefield and be the shield maiden she envisions herself as
All the other guys were also after her for her family, the only differences between them and him is that he had more to offer and he's someone that won't BS her
What You're Looking For
- Location
- USA
Before we could set sail, we did have a number of things to deal with. Most pressing among them were the various leaders within my army who were less than pleased that their positions were under threat. I had expected as much, and Thorkell prepared me for their anger and fear. However, it was an important step to turn my mercenary band into a proper army.
For that reason, we held a competition on the beach and took votes. Warriors and archers proved their skill -- a number of butts were set up, testing the aim of my archers while melees were set up to test the might of the fighters. The votes measured the popularity and trust that some of my warriors inspired, providing me with a short list of potential leaders. However, unknown to them, there was an additional quality that I was looking for, known only to me.
True Sight marking them.
As far as I could tell, in my experimentation with the sight of the gods -- red meant that someone was an enemy. Gray marked them as neutral, even if they happened to be on my side. Blue meant that they were an ally or friend -- that they were loyal. What gold meant proved to be elusive for the most part, but gold seemed to be what I was looking for. It marked them as important.
My family was gold until recently. Now they were blue, even Halfdan, who had been marked with gold since our reunion in Saxony. They were still important to me, but what changed was the fact that I had found them. We were together again.
Now, as I sat with little Arne in my lap, looking out at my warriors, I saw a number of them were marked with gold. Some of which had been blue prior, and others had been gray. What changed was what I was looking for -- leaders.
"Are you sure you have to go raiding? Looked like your ships were about to capsize when you sailed in," Solvieg questioned as she braided my hair -- a long, thick braid that went down the middle while smaller braids were woven into it. She was struggling to pull one of them out of Arne's hands, who was fascinated with my red hair. As if he didn't have any of his own.
Arne was big. Well, for a child of a year and some months. Despite the loss of his parents, he seemed joyous, and absolutely determined to cause mischief. He squirmed in my lap because he wanted to go down to the beach where the rest of the warriors were fighting.
"It's not about wealth. It is for the experience -- I have little experience leading men in pitched battle," I admitted. In ambushes? In a siege? I had plenty of practice, but with the battle lines drawn and two equal forces smashing into one another? I had fought in those battles, but I hadn't led them. Tactics was what I was lacking. What King Widukind did never would have occurred to me -- to obscure five thousand men in ten thousand. To use time and positioning. The way he used the enemy's perception and expectations against them was simply beyond me.
I was a great warrior. Not the greatest, but one of them. Now I needed to be a great leader. I needed to use what I learned in Francia.
"And conquering half of Norway is just a happy coincidence?" She wondered, finally managing to pry the lock of hair from Arne's grip, something that infuriated him based on how his expression pinched. To prevent any tears, I offered another lock of hair and Solvieg sighed, knowing that she'd have to fight for it too.
"Norway isn't any of my concern. If Jarl Hoffer wants it when I'm done, he can have it," I dismissed, seeing a warrior outlined in gold win another bout. He seemed well liked by a number of warriors, based on the amount of cheering. However, I didn't recognize him as one of the faces I memorized who were marked as blue before. Meaning that he had been gray.
It had been some time, yet I hadn't used the greatest reward that I had received from the war -- Grant Blessing. I was paralyzed with indecision, torn on what I should do with it. Part of me wanted to spend all of my prestige on my family. Making them greater and stronger, or whatever kind of blessing they would receive. If only to protect them while I wasn't here. However, if I were to use it on little Arne right now, what would be the result?
Would he be made stronger? Smarter? The blessing was determined by character, but he was a baby. What character could he have? Would he gain nothing from the blessing? Or would he discover he has an immense potential in something as he grew… but having talent didn't mean it would be realized.
Another part of me thought that I should only use it on those in my army. On the ones I would be taking with me into battle to improve their prowess. I had four thousand prestige, meaning that I could bless eight people. Would it be wiser to spend it all on someone I knew? That I trusted? Thorkell was the only one that came to mind.
There were too many choices and I was deathly afraid of making a mistake. However, I sensed that it was past time to make that decision. I saw as much when my eye caught Astrid. Or, rather, the warrior that was fighting amongst my men, but she wore a helm to hide her face and her hair was tucked underneath. I only noticed her because she was marked with gold.
She was a fine fighter. The rule was that you had to stop fighting if you lost three bouts, and thus far, she had only lost one despite fighting in a dozen. Those with many victories sought each other, all trying to prove that they were the greatest warrior -- she had done very well. Though, I had to question if she was marked in gold because she was my future wife or because she had the potential of a leader. There was simply so much to consider.
Astrid won another bout, the blade of her axe pressed against the throat of a man laying on the sand. After extracting another yield, she offered a hand and helped pull him up.
"I suppose mother will be pleased that we're marrying into the family of the king of Norway," Solvieg remarked, pulling the lock of hair from Arne's grasp and finishing the braid. "And speaking of marriage…" she trailed off when Astrid began to approach, ignoring a handful of fighters that offered challenges. I knew what was coming, so I passed Arne over to Solvieg. "Fighting already, and you're not even wed yet," she teased.
"Everyone in the army can be challenged?" Astrid said, lowering her voice to be mistaken for a man.
"Aye," I confirmed, offering a nod and picking up my axe. That got a smirk from her.
"Then consider yourself challenged, Wolf-Kissed," Astrid said, that cocky smirk falling off of her face when the warriors that overheard the challenge began to descend into uncontrolled laughter. Many threw back their heads, clutched their bellies, and doubled over from the force of the laughter. However, she didn't let that deter her, gripping the axe she wielded with white knuckles. Mother was right -- she was rather stubborn.
I glanced at Thorkell, who nodded before bringing everyone's attention back to the fights. "I accept your challenge," I told her, walking to one of the squares that were drawn in the sand. Standing across from my future wife, I realized that I was in for a great deal of teasing when Astrid took a swing at my head when the match started. I could practically hear it now.
Astrid was fast, I thought as I leaned out of the way of the strike, then sidestepped the second swing, then the back swing to that one. Mother said that she had spent a few years training to become a shieldmaiden, but that either undersold the time she spent learning or marked her as a fast learner. However, she wasn't as fast as Astolfo.
She was strong too, I discovered when I blocked a blow. She just wasn't as strong as Roland.
Her endurance was good -- sixteen bouts was exhausting, but her strength was starting to flag. She didn't have the staying power of Rinaldo.
Astrid was a fine warrior. An excellent shieldmaiden. Tales about her would be sung far and wide if she was given half the chance. But…
I stepped inside of her guard, the first offensive move I made since the fight began and she took a panicked swing at me with the rim of her shield. Ducking low, I hooked my axe around her ankle as she tried to take a step back, and pulled her legs out from underneath her. Astrid grunted when her back hit the sand, her helmet tumbling off, revealing her face that was twisted with a scowl. I could see the disappointment clear on her face. "You aren't weak, Astrid," I said, surprising her with my lack of surprise.
With the bout over, I glanced over at Thorkell, who was coaching the men or breaking up a fight that got too heated.
It was long past time to bestow a blessing, and I knew exactly who I should choose first.
…
"Are you sure?" Thorkell asked me after I pulled him aside, just before we set sail. Astrid hadn't been seen since her defeat, and Jarl Hoffer had professed his apologies that she was stubbornly refusing to see us off. Which is why I had the time to explain the offer to Thorkell -- I explained it was a blessing that King Charlemagne used to create the Paladins. That I had genuinely no idea what would happen if he accepted the blessing. He had listened in silence, and only when I was done did he ask the one question that I hadn't anticipated.
"... I'm sure," I confirmed after a moment of thought. Thorkell was my second in command. That had always been the case. I had relied on his wisdom, experience, and connections more than once. He was well respected by everyone in the army, especially those that had escaped with him back in Frankfurt. Above all else, I trusted him. I trusted him not just with my life, but the lives of my family.
"If you're sure, then I'm not going to refuse. But… Siegfried -- there are reasons why people are thinking that you're a god. At this point, it'd probably be easier to not argue that," Thorkell remarked, scratching at the scar over his eye. "I figured you were special early on, but something like this… it sounds divine. It's far beyond the favor of the gods."
I wasn't entirely sure I disagreed with him. "I don't know what I am, but I'm not a god. I can't be, when I am what I am because of their favor."
To that, Thorkell offered a small shrug. "You would know better than I would. So, how does this work?" He asked me and.. I… didn't really know. It hadn't come with instructions.
I really didn't want to look foolish now. I would die of embarrassment. So, I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder and invoked the blessing. I felt something flowing out of me, almost as if it was blood. Thorkell's expression pinched for a moment, telling me that he felt it too. I kept an eye on my prestige, watching as five hundred drained away from it.
Granting bestowed:
Tactics: Of One Mind
During battle, the bearer will always know the intentions of the user. Likewise, the user will know the intentions of the bearer.
The description was a little vague, and it wasn't what I expected, to be completely honest. It sounded useful, though. I had figured it would be a Prowess blessing of some kind, similar to the Paladins. Or, perhaps, it was the same -- I thought of Rinaldo and the wounds I delivered him. One should have killed him, but not only had he survived two, but he continued to fight with them. Was that resilience the result of a blessing?
"How do you feel?" I asked Thorkell to see him staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching them.
He paused, almost as if he didn't know how to answer. "Stronger?" He tried, sounding uncertain. "It feels… weird," he decided. "Are you sure it worked?"
I frowned and wondered if I should imbue another blessing, but I paused before I could begin. The cost had… doubled, I realized. The five hundred prestige had become a thousand for another blessing. A cost that I could pay, but instinct told me that I shouldn't. "It worked," I confirmed, withdrawing my hand. "I'm not sure if you're physically stronger like the Paladins are, but the blessing will help us coordinate in battle."
"Sounds useful," Thorkell remarked, rolling a shoulder and giving it a curious look. It was as if he was refamiliarizing himself with his body. Did the blessing bestow other benefits that hadn't been mentioned? With Arda, she had suddenly been able to pull that bow that even I couldn't. Astolfo said that there was a clear distinction between pre-blessing and post-blessing. "I suppose that we'll have a chance to try it out?" He still sounded distracted as he cracked his neck, his brow furrowing.
"Aye, we will. For now, though, let's keep it a secret. I don't know how the men would react," I instructed, and Thorkell nodded in agreement. I didn't want the men expecting a blessing in addition to increased pay.
Thorkell was still adjusting when we loaded up the ship and we said our brief farewells. It was hardly going to war -- it was hardly a few hours of sailing and I expected the battle to be quick. Mother hugged me farewell, as did my sisters. Haldur and Halfdan would be joining me, however. I was excited as we loaded up the ship and started to set sail, looking off to the mainland of Norway -- to the Jotunheim mountains. Where I suspected the first part of the riddle hinted at.
There was a great deal of fanfare as we set off, our sails unfurling to catch the strong wind at our backs and the current leading us to shore. An hour of sailing was cut down to a mere thirty minutes before we started to land on the shore, pulling the ships up and unloading the cargo that we would be taking with us. And it was then that we discovered why Astrid hadn't seen us off.
"Wolf-Kissed! Your wife is here!" One of my warriors called out with evident joy in his voice, causing me to look over as I coordinated with Jarl Hoffer. He brought fifty warriors whereas I brought all thousand of my men. Some would be left guarding the ships, but the rest would be raiding. For a moment, the words didn't register until Jarl Hoffer dragged a hand over his face.
"That girl!" He groaned as Astrid entered view, her expression best described as self-satisfied. I was rather used to seeing the expression on Morrigan, after all.
"She hid in a barrel, Wolf-Kissed," the warrior informed me, and I could hear the smile in his voice. I'm glad someone found this funny because I certainly didn't. I turned my gaze to Astrid, who thrust out her chin with defiance when our eyes met. A silent challenge in them. Jarl Hoffer strode forward, his expression one of thunderous wrath. To that, however, Astrid did seem a great deal more apologetic.
"It wasn't a food barrel, was it?" I asked, earning a shake of the head from the warrior. That was good, at least. Food wouldn't be as plentiful as it had been in Francia. I looked at our surroundings, finding sharp cliffs and dense forests. Unlike the hills of Francia, the hills were stony and rough with little patches of thin grass growing here or there. I knew most of the food we would find would come from the sea.
"Are you going to send me for a swim, then? I'm a warrior. Not a little girl that needs to hide behind her mother's skirts," Astrid challenged her father, meeting his gaze. And, for a moment, I thought that Jarl Hoffer might take a hand to her. He raised one up, but Astrid held his gaze until he gently placed it on the side of her head.
"This isn't training, my girl. Soon you shall be more than just my daughter and a shieldmaiden. You'll be a wife to one of the most important men in the land. Later, you will become a mother. Take greater care of your life," He told her softly and Astrid seemed chastised. Far more than she would have if he did take a hand to her.
"I'm sorry, father. I just… wanted to prove myself," Astrid offered as an explanation. Whatever Jarl Hoffer might have said in response, I paid no mind to it. We were betrothed, but until we were wed I had no true say over whether she should be sent back or not. That was her father's decision. Instead, I focused on other matters while they sorted that out.
Halfdan stood next to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder, "I've been asking around. Jarl Hadwin can summon up an army of about two hundred warriors, and that's scraping the bottom of the barrel," he informed me and nearly made me miss a step. That…
"That's it?" I questioned, surprised by how few a jarl could summon. Two hundred men. That was-
Halfdan shoved my head halfheartedly, "That's a large army here, Sieg. This isn't Francia. Or Saxony, for that matter. This land doesn't have a king. Half of the Jarls here would struggle to muster up more than fifty men," he reminded me, making me consider that for a moment. If that were true, then we had vastly overprepared. "Horrik was an unusually powerful Jarl. It's why he was rivals with a king."
I reached up to make sure that he hadn't ruined the braid that Solvieg made while I frowned to myself. I hadn't expected that. Halfdan was right -- I had expected to fight armies of thousands in this land.
"That might change how we go about raiding," I decided, the camp and fortifications being made around our ships. Already, I could see a fierce competition in my men as they tried to prove themselves as leaders. The ones that were marked in gold stood out amongst the others, some already looking to them for guidance. I already had the idea of testing out the leadership by breaking my army up into smaller groups, but it seems it might be necessary to have anything less than an overwhelming advantage in numbers. "Thorkell and I will divide the army up in two halves -- five hundred men each."
Halfdan nodded, expecting that much. "Haldur hasn't said it, but he expects to have a command." He informed me in a low voice and to that, my lips thinned.
"Unless he intends to continue to fight in my army, he will be disappointed," I answered bluntly. Haldur was the head of the family. The fact that we were half brothers meant nothing to me. Halfdan was more of a brother to me than Haldur ever was.
"I figured as much," Halfdan admitted. "I thought you could use the heads up before he starts tossing demands around as the head of the family." With that, he patted me on the back before venturing over to Haldur, who stood with a number of men. Halfdan whispered my answer into his ear and Haldur immediately glanced over at me, his eyes narrowed into a glare. I paid him no mind as we went about organizing the army. It was a good hour before everything was done -- the fortifications made, the ships unloaded with the food that we would take.
Astrid ended up joining her father's hird, which was attached to my five hundred men. Seeing as I was around Jarl Hoffer most of the trek inland, we were around each other a great deal, but she made no effort to speak to me. Though, I didn't think it had anything to do with her loss. She just didn't want to remind everyone that she was here because she was my betrothed. She wanted to earn respect as a warrior, not as a woman.
I let her make the attempt. Jarl Hadwin lived at the base of the Jotunheim mountains, which I saw in the distance as we cleared the initial cliffs. They were a massive mountain range of snow capped peaks, and somewhere laid… something. The first part of the riddle. As we marched, I took note of the terrain -- Norway was a harsh land, I quickly realized. The ground was rough with stone and infertile, the hills steep and tall.
Perhaps, it was for that reason I found myself so disappointed when we arrived in the shadow of the Throat of the World. Jarl Hadwin's capital was a meager thing. More of a large village than a town, but completely reliant on the natural terrain to act as a defense. In some places, there was a rough palisade, of which I saw a handful of men guarding it. The gate was more of a fence.
It was a very far cry from what I saw in Francia. It was almost bitterly disappointing as I approached the settlement with Jarl Hoffer, who wore a smug expression as we neared.
"Hold! Hold there!" A man with dark gray hair greeted them from behind the fence, his expression grim as he locked eyes with Jarl Hoffer, who grew more pleased at the man's evident displeasure. "Jarl Hoffer. Who did you have to suck to acquire such an army?"
Jarl Hoffer was so happy to see a rival humiliated that he barely noticed the insult. "I made friends rather than enemies, Jarl Hadwin. Meet Siegfried Erikson. Though,you might better know him as Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed." To that, Jarl Hadwin's eyes widened dramatically and the handful of men that were with him shared a troubled look. I noticed that they were all greybeards. Their best days were long behind them.
"Wolf-Kissed. Your reputation precedes you," Jarl Hadwin nodded at me. "I had heard you lead a great army, but I will admit I never expected to find it at my doorstep." I counted twenty men. All of them old and feeble. The town itself… It was quiet. Too quiet. Either everyone was holding their breath within the village, or…
"Greetings, Jarl Hadwin. I see that you prepared a warm welcome for us," I remarked, making his expression tighten. "I don't disapprove. You'd be a fool to fight us with our numbers, and you don't strike me as a fool." I told him, knowing that the village was empty. I searched the mountainside with True Sight, spotting a hint of red. "I ask of you -- what orders did you give?"
Jarl Hadwin worked his jaw for a moment before definitely lifting his chin. "If you come in peace, then they shall descend the mountain. Should you not… then they will depart to my grandson's lands, and with their combined might, you shall know defeat." It sounded like bluster, I decided. I didn't even need Tell Spotter to know that he was lying. He didn't believe that much.
"Good," I nodded, which seemed to make him uneasy. "If you would agree to it, I will spare your life here," I told him, and Jarl Hoffer looked like he bit into something sour. "in exchange for you to travel Norway to it's many Jarls and give them this message -- I have no need for your riches or treasures. What I desire from them is battle. It is my recommendation that you join forces against me, for your defeat is certain if you do not."
Jarl Hadwin seemed poleaxed, "You're mad." He breathed the words, scarcely believing a word that I said.
"No. I merely need a whetstone for my army," I told him before blinking. "My apologies," I inclined my head to him, realizing how rude the words came across.
Jarl Hadwin licked his lips, seemingly considering the offer for but a moment. However, he shook his head, "I'm an old man, Wolf-Kissed. Old men don't bend so easily. I have protected this land since before you were but an itch in your father's balls, and I would be damned before I abandon it in my final hours," he declared before he yanked out the sword at his hip. I took no notice of it until now, but the moment I saw it, I could hardly take my eyes off of it.
The hilt was made out of steel and gold, the guard being two flat bars. The grip itself was big enough for a single hand, the pommel was shaped like a claw, only it was missing something. The blade itself drew my attention -- not because of the quality of it, but rather the clear reforging of it. The base of the blade was a dark gray, almost black kind of metal that I had never seen before, whereas the rest of the blade was steel.
Just as I spotted the blade, the sun dipped behind the Jotunheim mountains, casting a long shadow over us.
I found it.
"So be it."
...
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For that reason, we held a competition on the beach and took votes. Warriors and archers proved their skill -- a number of butts were set up, testing the aim of my archers while melees were set up to test the might of the fighters. The votes measured the popularity and trust that some of my warriors inspired, providing me with a short list of potential leaders. However, unknown to them, there was an additional quality that I was looking for, known only to me.
True Sight marking them.
As far as I could tell, in my experimentation with the sight of the gods -- red meant that someone was an enemy. Gray marked them as neutral, even if they happened to be on my side. Blue meant that they were an ally or friend -- that they were loyal. What gold meant proved to be elusive for the most part, but gold seemed to be what I was looking for. It marked them as important.
My family was gold until recently. Now they were blue, even Halfdan, who had been marked with gold since our reunion in Saxony. They were still important to me, but what changed was the fact that I had found them. We were together again.
Now, as I sat with little Arne in my lap, looking out at my warriors, I saw a number of them were marked with gold. Some of which had been blue prior, and others had been gray. What changed was what I was looking for -- leaders.
"Are you sure you have to go raiding? Looked like your ships were about to capsize when you sailed in," Solvieg questioned as she braided my hair -- a long, thick braid that went down the middle while smaller braids were woven into it. She was struggling to pull one of them out of Arne's hands, who was fascinated with my red hair. As if he didn't have any of his own.
Arne was big. Well, for a child of a year and some months. Despite the loss of his parents, he seemed joyous, and absolutely determined to cause mischief. He squirmed in my lap because he wanted to go down to the beach where the rest of the warriors were fighting.
"It's not about wealth. It is for the experience -- I have little experience leading men in pitched battle," I admitted. In ambushes? In a siege? I had plenty of practice, but with the battle lines drawn and two equal forces smashing into one another? I had fought in those battles, but I hadn't led them. Tactics was what I was lacking. What King Widukind did never would have occurred to me -- to obscure five thousand men in ten thousand. To use time and positioning. The way he used the enemy's perception and expectations against them was simply beyond me.
I was a great warrior. Not the greatest, but one of them. Now I needed to be a great leader. I needed to use what I learned in Francia.
"And conquering half of Norway is just a happy coincidence?" She wondered, finally managing to pry the lock of hair from Arne's grip, something that infuriated him based on how his expression pinched. To prevent any tears, I offered another lock of hair and Solvieg sighed, knowing that she'd have to fight for it too.
"Norway isn't any of my concern. If Jarl Hoffer wants it when I'm done, he can have it," I dismissed, seeing a warrior outlined in gold win another bout. He seemed well liked by a number of warriors, based on the amount of cheering. However, I didn't recognize him as one of the faces I memorized who were marked as blue before. Meaning that he had been gray.
It had been some time, yet I hadn't used the greatest reward that I had received from the war -- Grant Blessing. I was paralyzed with indecision, torn on what I should do with it. Part of me wanted to spend all of my prestige on my family. Making them greater and stronger, or whatever kind of blessing they would receive. If only to protect them while I wasn't here. However, if I were to use it on little Arne right now, what would be the result?
Would he be made stronger? Smarter? The blessing was determined by character, but he was a baby. What character could he have? Would he gain nothing from the blessing? Or would he discover he has an immense potential in something as he grew… but having talent didn't mean it would be realized.
Another part of me thought that I should only use it on those in my army. On the ones I would be taking with me into battle to improve their prowess. I had four thousand prestige, meaning that I could bless eight people. Would it be wiser to spend it all on someone I knew? That I trusted? Thorkell was the only one that came to mind.
There were too many choices and I was deathly afraid of making a mistake. However, I sensed that it was past time to make that decision. I saw as much when my eye caught Astrid. Or, rather, the warrior that was fighting amongst my men, but she wore a helm to hide her face and her hair was tucked underneath. I only noticed her because she was marked with gold.
She was a fine fighter. The rule was that you had to stop fighting if you lost three bouts, and thus far, she had only lost one despite fighting in a dozen. Those with many victories sought each other, all trying to prove that they were the greatest warrior -- she had done very well. Though, I had to question if she was marked in gold because she was my future wife or because she had the potential of a leader. There was simply so much to consider.
Astrid won another bout, the blade of her axe pressed against the throat of a man laying on the sand. After extracting another yield, she offered a hand and helped pull him up.
"I suppose mother will be pleased that we're marrying into the family of the king of Norway," Solvieg remarked, pulling the lock of hair from Arne's grasp and finishing the braid. "And speaking of marriage…" she trailed off when Astrid began to approach, ignoring a handful of fighters that offered challenges. I knew what was coming, so I passed Arne over to Solvieg. "Fighting already, and you're not even wed yet," she teased.
"Everyone in the army can be challenged?" Astrid said, lowering her voice to be mistaken for a man.
"Aye," I confirmed, offering a nod and picking up my axe. That got a smirk from her.
"Then consider yourself challenged, Wolf-Kissed," Astrid said, that cocky smirk falling off of her face when the warriors that overheard the challenge began to descend into uncontrolled laughter. Many threw back their heads, clutched their bellies, and doubled over from the force of the laughter. However, she didn't let that deter her, gripping the axe she wielded with white knuckles. Mother was right -- she was rather stubborn.
I glanced at Thorkell, who nodded before bringing everyone's attention back to the fights. "I accept your challenge," I told her, walking to one of the squares that were drawn in the sand. Standing across from my future wife, I realized that I was in for a great deal of teasing when Astrid took a swing at my head when the match started. I could practically hear it now.
Astrid was fast, I thought as I leaned out of the way of the strike, then sidestepped the second swing, then the back swing to that one. Mother said that she had spent a few years training to become a shieldmaiden, but that either undersold the time she spent learning or marked her as a fast learner. However, she wasn't as fast as Astolfo.
She was strong too, I discovered when I blocked a blow. She just wasn't as strong as Roland.
Her endurance was good -- sixteen bouts was exhausting, but her strength was starting to flag. She didn't have the staying power of Rinaldo.
Astrid was a fine warrior. An excellent shieldmaiden. Tales about her would be sung far and wide if she was given half the chance. But…
I stepped inside of her guard, the first offensive move I made since the fight began and she took a panicked swing at me with the rim of her shield. Ducking low, I hooked my axe around her ankle as she tried to take a step back, and pulled her legs out from underneath her. Astrid grunted when her back hit the sand, her helmet tumbling off, revealing her face that was twisted with a scowl. I could see the disappointment clear on her face. "You aren't weak, Astrid," I said, surprising her with my lack of surprise.
With the bout over, I glanced over at Thorkell, who was coaching the men or breaking up a fight that got too heated.
It was long past time to bestow a blessing, and I knew exactly who I should choose first.
…
"Are you sure?" Thorkell asked me after I pulled him aside, just before we set sail. Astrid hadn't been seen since her defeat, and Jarl Hoffer had professed his apologies that she was stubbornly refusing to see us off. Which is why I had the time to explain the offer to Thorkell -- I explained it was a blessing that King Charlemagne used to create the Paladins. That I had genuinely no idea what would happen if he accepted the blessing. He had listened in silence, and only when I was done did he ask the one question that I hadn't anticipated.
"... I'm sure," I confirmed after a moment of thought. Thorkell was my second in command. That had always been the case. I had relied on his wisdom, experience, and connections more than once. He was well respected by everyone in the army, especially those that had escaped with him back in Frankfurt. Above all else, I trusted him. I trusted him not just with my life, but the lives of my family.
"If you're sure, then I'm not going to refuse. But… Siegfried -- there are reasons why people are thinking that you're a god. At this point, it'd probably be easier to not argue that," Thorkell remarked, scratching at the scar over his eye. "I figured you were special early on, but something like this… it sounds divine. It's far beyond the favor of the gods."
I wasn't entirely sure I disagreed with him. "I don't know what I am, but I'm not a god. I can't be, when I am what I am because of their favor."
To that, Thorkell offered a small shrug. "You would know better than I would. So, how does this work?" He asked me and.. I… didn't really know. It hadn't come with instructions.
I really didn't want to look foolish now. I would die of embarrassment. So, I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder and invoked the blessing. I felt something flowing out of me, almost as if it was blood. Thorkell's expression pinched for a moment, telling me that he felt it too. I kept an eye on my prestige, watching as five hundred drained away from it.
Granting bestowed:
Tactics: Of One Mind
During battle, the bearer will always know the intentions of the user. Likewise, the user will know the intentions of the bearer.
The description was a little vague, and it wasn't what I expected, to be completely honest. It sounded useful, though. I had figured it would be a Prowess blessing of some kind, similar to the Paladins. Or, perhaps, it was the same -- I thought of Rinaldo and the wounds I delivered him. One should have killed him, but not only had he survived two, but he continued to fight with them. Was that resilience the result of a blessing?
"How do you feel?" I asked Thorkell to see him staring at his hands, clenching and unclenching them.
He paused, almost as if he didn't know how to answer. "Stronger?" He tried, sounding uncertain. "It feels… weird," he decided. "Are you sure it worked?"
I frowned and wondered if I should imbue another blessing, but I paused before I could begin. The cost had… doubled, I realized. The five hundred prestige had become a thousand for another blessing. A cost that I could pay, but instinct told me that I shouldn't. "It worked," I confirmed, withdrawing my hand. "I'm not sure if you're physically stronger like the Paladins are, but the blessing will help us coordinate in battle."
"Sounds useful," Thorkell remarked, rolling a shoulder and giving it a curious look. It was as if he was refamiliarizing himself with his body. Did the blessing bestow other benefits that hadn't been mentioned? With Arda, she had suddenly been able to pull that bow that even I couldn't. Astolfo said that there was a clear distinction between pre-blessing and post-blessing. "I suppose that we'll have a chance to try it out?" He still sounded distracted as he cracked his neck, his brow furrowing.
"Aye, we will. For now, though, let's keep it a secret. I don't know how the men would react," I instructed, and Thorkell nodded in agreement. I didn't want the men expecting a blessing in addition to increased pay.
Thorkell was still adjusting when we loaded up the ship and we said our brief farewells. It was hardly going to war -- it was hardly a few hours of sailing and I expected the battle to be quick. Mother hugged me farewell, as did my sisters. Haldur and Halfdan would be joining me, however. I was excited as we loaded up the ship and started to set sail, looking off to the mainland of Norway -- to the Jotunheim mountains. Where I suspected the first part of the riddle hinted at.
There was a great deal of fanfare as we set off, our sails unfurling to catch the strong wind at our backs and the current leading us to shore. An hour of sailing was cut down to a mere thirty minutes before we started to land on the shore, pulling the ships up and unloading the cargo that we would be taking with us. And it was then that we discovered why Astrid hadn't seen us off.
"Wolf-Kissed! Your wife is here!" One of my warriors called out with evident joy in his voice, causing me to look over as I coordinated with Jarl Hoffer. He brought fifty warriors whereas I brought all thousand of my men. Some would be left guarding the ships, but the rest would be raiding. For a moment, the words didn't register until Jarl Hoffer dragged a hand over his face.
"That girl!" He groaned as Astrid entered view, her expression best described as self-satisfied. I was rather used to seeing the expression on Morrigan, after all.
"She hid in a barrel, Wolf-Kissed," the warrior informed me, and I could hear the smile in his voice. I'm glad someone found this funny because I certainly didn't. I turned my gaze to Astrid, who thrust out her chin with defiance when our eyes met. A silent challenge in them. Jarl Hoffer strode forward, his expression one of thunderous wrath. To that, however, Astrid did seem a great deal more apologetic.
"It wasn't a food barrel, was it?" I asked, earning a shake of the head from the warrior. That was good, at least. Food wouldn't be as plentiful as it had been in Francia. I looked at our surroundings, finding sharp cliffs and dense forests. Unlike the hills of Francia, the hills were stony and rough with little patches of thin grass growing here or there. I knew most of the food we would find would come from the sea.
"Are you going to send me for a swim, then? I'm a warrior. Not a little girl that needs to hide behind her mother's skirts," Astrid challenged her father, meeting his gaze. And, for a moment, I thought that Jarl Hoffer might take a hand to her. He raised one up, but Astrid held his gaze until he gently placed it on the side of her head.
"This isn't training, my girl. Soon you shall be more than just my daughter and a shieldmaiden. You'll be a wife to one of the most important men in the land. Later, you will become a mother. Take greater care of your life," He told her softly and Astrid seemed chastised. Far more than she would have if he did take a hand to her.
"I'm sorry, father. I just… wanted to prove myself," Astrid offered as an explanation. Whatever Jarl Hoffer might have said in response, I paid no mind to it. We were betrothed, but until we were wed I had no true say over whether she should be sent back or not. That was her father's decision. Instead, I focused on other matters while they sorted that out.
Halfdan stood next to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder, "I've been asking around. Jarl Hadwin can summon up an army of about two hundred warriors, and that's scraping the bottom of the barrel," he informed me and nearly made me miss a step. That…
"That's it?" I questioned, surprised by how few a jarl could summon. Two hundred men. That was-
Halfdan shoved my head halfheartedly, "That's a large army here, Sieg. This isn't Francia. Or Saxony, for that matter. This land doesn't have a king. Half of the Jarls here would struggle to muster up more than fifty men," he reminded me, making me consider that for a moment. If that were true, then we had vastly overprepared. "Horrik was an unusually powerful Jarl. It's why he was rivals with a king."
I reached up to make sure that he hadn't ruined the braid that Solvieg made while I frowned to myself. I hadn't expected that. Halfdan was right -- I had expected to fight armies of thousands in this land.
"That might change how we go about raiding," I decided, the camp and fortifications being made around our ships. Already, I could see a fierce competition in my men as they tried to prove themselves as leaders. The ones that were marked in gold stood out amongst the others, some already looking to them for guidance. I already had the idea of testing out the leadership by breaking my army up into smaller groups, but it seems it might be necessary to have anything less than an overwhelming advantage in numbers. "Thorkell and I will divide the army up in two halves -- five hundred men each."
Halfdan nodded, expecting that much. "Haldur hasn't said it, but he expects to have a command." He informed me in a low voice and to that, my lips thinned.
"Unless he intends to continue to fight in my army, he will be disappointed," I answered bluntly. Haldur was the head of the family. The fact that we were half brothers meant nothing to me. Halfdan was more of a brother to me than Haldur ever was.
"I figured as much," Halfdan admitted. "I thought you could use the heads up before he starts tossing demands around as the head of the family." With that, he patted me on the back before venturing over to Haldur, who stood with a number of men. Halfdan whispered my answer into his ear and Haldur immediately glanced over at me, his eyes narrowed into a glare. I paid him no mind as we went about organizing the army. It was a good hour before everything was done -- the fortifications made, the ships unloaded with the food that we would take.
Astrid ended up joining her father's hird, which was attached to my five hundred men. Seeing as I was around Jarl Hoffer most of the trek inland, we were around each other a great deal, but she made no effort to speak to me. Though, I didn't think it had anything to do with her loss. She just didn't want to remind everyone that she was here because she was my betrothed. She wanted to earn respect as a warrior, not as a woman.
I let her make the attempt. Jarl Hadwin lived at the base of the Jotunheim mountains, which I saw in the distance as we cleared the initial cliffs. They were a massive mountain range of snow capped peaks, and somewhere laid… something. The first part of the riddle. As we marched, I took note of the terrain -- Norway was a harsh land, I quickly realized. The ground was rough with stone and infertile, the hills steep and tall.
Perhaps, it was for that reason I found myself so disappointed when we arrived in the shadow of the Throat of the World. Jarl Hadwin's capital was a meager thing. More of a large village than a town, but completely reliant on the natural terrain to act as a defense. In some places, there was a rough palisade, of which I saw a handful of men guarding it. The gate was more of a fence.
It was a very far cry from what I saw in Francia. It was almost bitterly disappointing as I approached the settlement with Jarl Hoffer, who wore a smug expression as we neared.
"Hold! Hold there!" A man with dark gray hair greeted them from behind the fence, his expression grim as he locked eyes with Jarl Hoffer, who grew more pleased at the man's evident displeasure. "Jarl Hoffer. Who did you have to suck to acquire such an army?"
Jarl Hoffer was so happy to see a rival humiliated that he barely noticed the insult. "I made friends rather than enemies, Jarl Hadwin. Meet Siegfried Erikson. Though,you might better know him as Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed." To that, Jarl Hadwin's eyes widened dramatically and the handful of men that were with him shared a troubled look. I noticed that they were all greybeards. Their best days were long behind them.
"Wolf-Kissed. Your reputation precedes you," Jarl Hadwin nodded at me. "I had heard you lead a great army, but I will admit I never expected to find it at my doorstep." I counted twenty men. All of them old and feeble. The town itself… It was quiet. Too quiet. Either everyone was holding their breath within the village, or…
"Greetings, Jarl Hadwin. I see that you prepared a warm welcome for us," I remarked, making his expression tighten. "I don't disapprove. You'd be a fool to fight us with our numbers, and you don't strike me as a fool." I told him, knowing that the village was empty. I searched the mountainside with True Sight, spotting a hint of red. "I ask of you -- what orders did you give?"
Jarl Hadwin worked his jaw for a moment before definitely lifting his chin. "If you come in peace, then they shall descend the mountain. Should you not… then they will depart to my grandson's lands, and with their combined might, you shall know defeat." It sounded like bluster, I decided. I didn't even need Tell Spotter to know that he was lying. He didn't believe that much.
"Good," I nodded, which seemed to make him uneasy. "If you would agree to it, I will spare your life here," I told him, and Jarl Hoffer looked like he bit into something sour. "in exchange for you to travel Norway to it's many Jarls and give them this message -- I have no need for your riches or treasures. What I desire from them is battle. It is my recommendation that you join forces against me, for your defeat is certain if you do not."
Jarl Hadwin seemed poleaxed, "You're mad." He breathed the words, scarcely believing a word that I said.
"No. I merely need a whetstone for my army," I told him before blinking. "My apologies," I inclined my head to him, realizing how rude the words came across.
Jarl Hadwin licked his lips, seemingly considering the offer for but a moment. However, he shook his head, "I'm an old man, Wolf-Kissed. Old men don't bend so easily. I have protected this land since before you were but an itch in your father's balls, and I would be damned before I abandon it in my final hours," he declared before he yanked out the sword at his hip. I took no notice of it until now, but the moment I saw it, I could hardly take my eyes off of it.
The hilt was made out of steel and gold, the guard being two flat bars. The grip itself was big enough for a single hand, the pommel was shaped like a claw, only it was missing something. The blade itself drew my attention -- not because of the quality of it, but rather the clear reforging of it. The base of the blade was a dark gray, almost black kind of metal that I had never seen before, whereas the rest of the blade was steel.
Just as I spotted the blade, the sun dipped behind the Jotunheim mountains, casting a long shadow over us.
I found it.
"So be it."
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Neko-tama
[Verified Cat] [Verified Writer]
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Found what?
The legendary weapon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Or part of it, at least.
Really should be called Siegfried the Bold
Its okay, he dosen't want to conquer your lands. He just wants to use your armies as a warm up before he goes to fight a real war.
Damn, Siegfried really must appear either a madman or a demigod to everyone araound him.
Last edited:
Vows
- Location
- USA
Quest: Path to the Crown
Quest Objective: Defeat 20/25 Jarls of Norway.
Additional Objective: Fight five Jarl armies at once.
Quest Reward: ⅔ of clue for Legendary Item.
Additional Reward: 250 Prestige.
"This is madness," Jarl Hoffer remarked to me as we stood on the field that would mark the completion of the quest along with the additional objective. The terrain was a poor one. A lesson I had taken from King Widukind -- sometimes there was wisdom in giving up a minor advantage to secure a greater one. In this case, it was to ensure that there was a battle at all. My men were at the base of a sloped hill that was covered by a sparse forest, the rocky soil preventing much in the way of vegetation from growing. "You invite disaster, Wolf-Kissed."
I could see why he believed that. It had taken careful cultivation over the course of two months for this day. Upon the defeat of Jarl Haldwin and receiving the quest, I broke my company up into five hundred man bands, then two hundred and fifty. Then bands of a hundred. They raided throughout Norway, all of them driving the kingdom to a single conclusion -- that I was a threat great enough to unite against.
More than ten Jarls sat on top of the hill -- far more than what I needed to complete the quests, but just enough to meet my personal requirements. Two thousand men. It took ten Jarls to scrounge up such a number. Most had an army of less than a hundred, and there were a few rare Jarls that had more than two. With careful consideration, I forced them into an alliance. Some, I raised to the point of fury, others I drove together. All to create an army. A great army as far as the Norse people were concerned.
Small. I had had no idea how small and desolate the lands of my people were until I saw the wider world. King Charlemagne's host could have swept across this land to conquer it with near ease. His greatest foes would be the land and hunger. Perhaps the cold too.
"No. This is why I came to Norway in the first place," I told him, urging my horse forward. The men across from me shouted their warcries, trying to intimidate us. I saw a number of Jarls seated or standing behind their men. This would give me the experience that I needed -- how to shape and fight a pitched battle. I turned to my men, seeing hungry and confident faces. I had lost some men over the months, but they had been replaced with more Norsemen.
A handful of them stood out. The future leaders of my army -- Thorkell stood tall and proud, a large Dane axe in his hands. He wore a full ringmail set of armor that was stitched into a gambeson that ended at his knees. My first rough attempts to recreate the armor I had seen on the Paladins lined one of his arms, the plated metal gleaming in the early morning light. Another was Authun, who easily took command of my scouts despite his young age thanks to his skull with a bow.
Olek was the one that rose to prominence amongst the leaders of the infantry. A man with a square face with a long scar from the bridge of his nose, across his cheekbone, and clipping his ear. Dark brown hair with bright green eyes. He was a rather dower man, I noticed. He treated everything with the same amount of severity, no matter how minor, and it was for that reason he had seen the greatest success even if he wasn't the most popular man.
Both he and Thorkell led around four hundred footmen, leaving Authun to lead the fifty archers I had. The last fifty rode with me -- the most promising of my warriors, even if they didn't have any leadership capabilities. Together, we made a mighty army. We were no longer a large mercenary band. The barriers between us had been eliminated over the course of a mere two months.
However, it wasn't my army that I spoke to. "I am Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed!" I announced to the army up the hill. "Take heart warriors, for you face me! The Valkyries are surely looking upon this field, and they shall witness your bravery for standing against me! Today, you shall prove your worth and tonight, you shall sup with the gods!" I told them and I heard Thorkell chuckling.
"Most don't give the speech to the enemy," Thorkell remarked and I offered him a grin.
"Our enemies need the motivation, do they not? Or is victory uncertain?!" I shouted out to my men, earning a thunderous war cry in response. Reaching down to the sword at my belt, I pulled it from its sheath -- the blade that I had taken from Jarl Haldwin's corpse. The blade felt perfect in my hands, like it belonged there. "They wish to die gloriously! Let us assist them!" I shouted, and Thorkell was the one that led the charge. It was the effect of Of One Mind.
Authun began to let loose arrows, firing up on the slingers that pelted our men with stones from a sling. He let loose in the form of a volley and nearly fifty men dropped to the ground with an arrow in their chests, eyes, or throat. It protected the men as they clashed against the shieldwall at the top of the hill. Thorkell could sense my plan. There were no words spoken, but I knew his intentions as well as I knew my own. For that reason, my control over Olek's half of the army felt so clumsy. Likewise, he could sense my own plan which is why his men began to back up a half step, bending the formation and allowing the enemy to push forward.
They exposed their flank to our archers. They began to fall, feathered, but more importantly, they exposed themselves to me.
I galloped forward with fifty warriors, all armed with Dane axes, and up the hill we climbed until we smashed into the flank. I lashed out with my sword, catching men in the throat with swipes and thrusts. The warriors behind me sat comfortable in their saddles, swinging their axes thanks to the Frankish gift. The stirrups. It had taken some getting used to, but they proved to give far greater control over a horse and kept the rider in the seat during a charge.
As we fought, I caught a glimpse of Astrid -- she rode with my companions. The ones that forged their chainmail ahead of any other, who earned the right. Her axe flashed left and right, striking down with less force than some of my men, but her blade always found purchase in soft flesh, making arcs of blood spray out. There was a savage snarl on her face as she fought ferociously. There had been some to say she earned her place due to favoritism as my promised bride.
Those whispers quieted down rather quickly when they saw her fight in battle. And those that didn't found them swallowing them along with a few teeth at her own hand.
It was a mere fifty riders, but the effects were devastating to the wing of the army. Already, some of it was starting to buckle, but they held their courage. My words inspired them to fight when they might have otherwise run. They knew the Valkyries would be watching this field and they were eager to prove their worthiness.
After my charge, I heard Thorkell shout out and his half of the warband stopped backing up. Then they pushed to secure my riders, and to take advantage of the disruption in the shield wall. Our men poured through the gaps, the right wing of the army starting to fracture while the left still held strong. Thorkell himself led the breakthrough. It wasn't dramatic or overt, not like it had been with Astolfo, much less Roland, but Thorkell was undeniably stronger than he had been.
It clued me in on how the blessings worked for King Charlemagne. Rinaldo likely had some kind of endurance blessing -- it would explain how he continued to fight despite his grievous injuries. Astolfo likely had something related to spears, as Arda had something related to bows. The blessing gave a base increase in prowess, to make them deadlier, as far as I could tell. Which either meant that the gift the Paladins received optimized them for battle… or that they had received multiple blessings.
The left wing was still holding itself in place, trying to overwhelm my flank, but as we began to push the right back, their positioning changed. Especially when my archers flanked around, searching for a good angle to fire up on the enemy. I gave them freedom of movement, but it was a dangerous thing. Worth it, but dangerous.
After two months of smaller battles, I had developed some favored tactics. I favored them because they worked.
We were outnumbered two to one, but the army was already starting to fracture. Divisions within the army made themselves apparent when one of the Jarls decided he wished to escape with his men, or perhaps he plotted the betrayal before the battle had even started. It mattered not. More than that, as the right wing broke under myself and Thorkell, letting us sweep around, the warriors sensed that their defeat was near. Some decided to fight to the bitter end, and as a result, they were left behind as the army began to disintegrate without a formal retreat being sounded.
The battle was a short one. Barely lasting more than an hour, but by the end of it, my warriors stood victorious. A hundred and twenty men died, a mere fraction of the total army, and when they regrouped, they would realize that. The slaughter always seemed so much greater in the midst of battle.
"Hammer and anvil. Works like a charm every time," Thorkell mused, his face splattered with blood while the men began to loot the dead. Not for wealth but for iron. Slowly, my army was being armored like Thorkell. It would take time. Enough so that I needed to consider the fact that I needed to bring more than just warriors with me -- I needed blacksmiths too. "Don't fancy riding them down?"
Quest Complete!
Quest: Path to the Crown
Quest Objective: Defeat 30/25 Jarls of Norway.
Additional Objective: Fight five Jarl armies at once.
Quest Reward: The sword of the father and her father's father.
Additional Reward: 250 Prestige.
"No need. Let them regroup and spread word. We still have four months in Norway, after all," I remarked, seeing Olek approaching with Jarl Hoffer and Astrid. Her face was splattered with blood, and her axe was dripping with it, but there was a satisfied smile on her face. She basked in combat and savored her victories.
Olek greeted me with a nod, his expression cold as stone. "We have fifteen wounded. One lost a hand," he informed me, his tone gruff and flat. "But none shall die."
"Good," I said, seeing a handful of people treating their injuries. The one that lost the hand was absolutely beside himself. It was another thing that I had to consider. It was a thought that I had back in Francia, when I was raiding, but it hadn't been the time to act on it -- but in addition to blacksmiths, I needed healers. People to stitch up my men after a battle. It could be the difference between life and death.
"I can't imagine what it was like in Francia," Jarl Hoffer said, looking out at the fallen. The wounded enemies were either sent in their way or given the mercy of a blade. "This was a great battle and it was over so quickly."
This was no great battle.
"Hopefully, there will be greater battles," I replied before looking at him. "I believe it is time we returned. Ostara is upon us," I pointed out. The wedding is upon us, I didn't say as I looked at Astrid, who met my gaze evenly. Her expression didn't betray what she thought of our upcoming wedding -- neither revulsion nor joy. I had nothing else to go on considering that she had gone out of her way to avoid me. To be treated as another warrior, according to her father.
Jarl Hoffer eagerly nodded, "Aye. We have gained much this season, but now it is time to honor the gods and bind our families."
And so it would be so.
…
We sailed back rich with plunder, most of which would be going to Jarl Hoffer as part of the bride price. Some of the Jarls that we defeated, in particular the ones around the coast, had chosen to swear fealty to Jarl Hoffer, and they would attend the wedding as well. The other Jarls in attendance were Jarls risen by his own hand, chosen from his allies and family.
I found myself being looked over by Mother and my sisters. While I had been busy fighting, they had stitched a fine set of clothing for my marriage with the help of Jill. It was a little difficult to tell, but she did seem more comfortable with my family now. The clothing itself was colored red and gold -- a finely stitched tunic with a gold embroidered raven with running black wolves in the hemline. A black wolf pelt would be draped over my shoulders while my trousers were colored the same as charcoal and my boots a dark brown.
While I was being dressed, my hair was pulled into a single braid and, against my wishes, Mother took a knife to my cheeks to get rid of my thin beard. Mother searched my face for a long minute after I was done being dressed, cupping my face in her hands. "You're a man, Siegfried. You've been one since the attack on the farm, but tonight, you'll be seen as a man."
I was getting married. It seemed a little late to be having that thought, but it rang out in my head when I heard the celebrations were already beginning. Music filtered down to my tent, as my men were celebrating just as much.
"I understand," I told her, giving a small nod. Mother smiled, pleased that I did, before letting go of me.
"Your father should be here to see you through this. And we can't visit your ancestors' grave for their sword," Mother spoke of the traditions for marriage. I should be being prepared by my father and married brothers. I should be in Denmark, taking the blade that would be buried with my father. "Those traditions are meant to represent the boy dying and the man being born -- you've been a man for a long time now. This is merely making it official."
I nodded in response, bracing myself when she took a step back and gave me a final look. I must have passed her inspection because she nodded.
The next thing I knew, I was being led out of my camp with the men roaring for me. The wedding would take place outside of the town, further inland and I saw the path had been marked with wildflowers. They led us to a grove that had been prepared -- if I had to guess, the Hoffer family had been preparing for this wedding since I arrived, because it was no small amount of work in preparing the area. There were clear areas for our families, and the honored guests, then everyone else that would bear witness. In the hills around the grove were footholds for everyone to look down upon us, probably enough for everyone in the town and my army.
There was a runestone erected in the grove -- the story of the Hoffer clan engraved upon it, based on the look of it. Before it was a woman with a painted face and more flowers woven into her hair. I took my place next to her, Halfdan patting me on the back hard enough that it was like he was trying to leave a bruise.
Astrid came not long after me, much to the cheer of the gathering crowd. She was escorted by her sisters and shieldmaidens -- each carrying a shield and a sword. Astrid herself… she looked beautiful. There wasn't really any other word to describe her. Or, rather, the word itself was meant to describe her. She wore a white stitched dress marked with red, her kansan was gone and replaced with a crown of flowers and antlers. Her hair was down…
Girls. When did girls stop being weird and start being… confusing?
In her hands, however, was something that caught my interest. A blade, a dark steel blade that was reforged at the base of the blade. Almost exactly where the blade ended for my battle sword.
The sword of her father, and her father's father.
I wasn't surprised to see it here. I guessed as much as when I got the hint for the Legendary item. What that item was, I still wasn't entirely certain but I was starting to form a guess. It also helped that out of the corner of my eye, I could read the saga -- The first Hoffer found a broken blade in the underwater lair of a terrible beast, the hilt nowhere to be found, so he grabbed the blade with his bare hands before plunging it into the monster, whose magical hide had turned normal blades away like a stone.
Astrid came to a stop in front of me, her expression guarded as the marriage ceremony began. To be honest, it felt like it passed by in a blur -- the seer bade us to transfer the swords. I gave her the first one I had won during the war, while she gave me the dark blade. It was a long one, I noted. A full hand longer than the sword I gave her. The music played and people cheered as the ceremony progressed.
"Do you, Siegfried, wish to wed Astrid before the eyes of the gods?" The seer asked, and I took a breath.
I didn't know. "I do," I spoke the words, duty bound to say them. Then the question was posed to Astrid, whose gaze didn't waver from mine.
"I do," she spoke the words, and I genuinely had no clue if she meant them. In response, there was a great big cheer that came from the audience before our hands were tied together and a knot was made. I glanced down at it for a moment, seeing the soft strip of cloth and understanding what it meant.
I had just got married. What a weird thing.
Before I could really register that, Halfdan broke off into a dead sprint. At first, I flinched in alarm, my hand tightening on the blade that I now held, only to see him sprinting back to the town. He wasn't alone -- Hoffer the Heir was quick to join the race, and I realized that they were racing to see who would serve who for the feast. Both Astrid and I were pushed to follow after them, the slip of cloth that bound our hands together falling away as the crowd went to celebrate.
As luck would have it, it was Halfdan that won the race. A good thing too, since my clan was far smaller than the Hoffers. Jarl Hoffer was joyous as we entered the longhouse to see a lavish feast was prepared. The scent of roasted meats and vegetables greeted me, and I was shocked that the tables didn't collapse underneath the mountain of food.
Jarl Hoffer was happier still when Astrid grabbed my hand, and started pulling me to the back room. That got more than a few uproarious cheers, "I suppose there's no need for the bedding ceremony!" I heard someone shout, and I fought off a frown. The bedding ceremony where others would stand witness to ensure that the marriage was consummated. It sounded… uncomfortable, even if I understood the purpose behind it.
"Sorry," Astrid began, closing the door behind her, bringing us to the room where we would… She set the sword I gave her against the door as a brace. "I didn't fancy a bunch of scraggy men watching us fuck and I figured we should have a moment of privacy."
That made sense, I suppose. I probably should have a conversation with my wife, shouldn't I? At least one. "You didn't seem very interested in a conversation," I remarked, watching her take off her crown of flowers.
"You're hard to talk to," came Astrid's blunt reply as she leveled a look at me, or rather, at the sword still in my hand. I took the point and set the blade aside, even if I did want to test it's edge. "You really have no idea how you appear to people. My father… Jarl Sven and my father were bitter enemies. The story goes back all the way to my great grandfather's day -- I don't think anyone knows what caused the rivalry, but for more than a century our families were bitter enemies."
… "Who is Jarl Sven?" I questioned, feeling a little lost as I searched my memory for the Jarl.
"Who was Jarl Sven," Astrid corrected, running a hand through her blonde hair. "He was one of the jarls you defeated in that great battle. We had been raiding each other for years. I lost brothers to his kin. He's dead now, his army scattered… and you didn't even bother learning his name. Because he's small pickings for you. I see it. You could conquer Norway, but you won't because it'd be too much of a pain in the arse for you."
I scratched at my shaven cheek, not entirely certain how to respond. "I don't intend to diminish your family. Or rob them of a blood debt," I tried, but apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because she shook her head.
"It's not about you trying to diminish us. It's what you are. For my father… becoming King of Norway was a far-off dream. It always had been. Now, all of a sudden, it's not. The crown is close enough to touch for you, but you won't take it because you don't want it. And that's… intimidating," Astrid admitted, her lips thinning as she regarded me.
"I don't want to scare you," I told her quietly.
"You don't. You just… you didn't try to speak to me, you know," Astrid pointed out, sounding embarrassed with a bit of red coloring her cheeks. "Didn't even try to sneak around the chaperone."
I paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to word it. "I understand that this is a political match and because of who I am, I understand that… refusal can be… difficult," I told her, and I saw an expression of surprise flicker across her face. "I didn't want to put you in a position where you didn't feel like you could say no to me. Or that you thought your father would want you to say yes."
That seemed to take the wind out of her sails, "Oh. I thought you didn't like me," she admitted. "I would understand why. I did insult you."
"My honor isn't so fragile that words can hurt it," I told her, looking at my… wife. I didn't dislike her, but I wasn't entirely certain if I liked her either, and that was simply because I didn't really know her. It felt like we were strangers, yet we were husband and wife. I knew that going in, but now that the deed was done, I had to admit, it was a little strange. "Do you dislike me?"
Astrid thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I don't. I… didn't want to be married because I feared what it would mean for me. That my husband would demand that I stay home and weave or have a babe every year. You haven't done that. I'm not sure if I'll make a very good wife," Astrid admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, "I'm stubborn. I'm not particularly lady like. I like fighting and that's what I'm good at. But I think… I can be happy with you, Wolf-Kissed."
This wasn't so bad. "Siegfried," I corrected, inclining my head at her. "I won't stop you from fighting. If only because I know you'd do it anyway." To that, I got a smirk from Astrid. "I think we can be happy. Will be happy. At the end of summer, I will be setting sail for Miklagard, and I don't know how long I will be there. But, when I return, I will conquer Denmark and become its king. I'll need people that I can trust… and I hope to count you among them," I offered.
It wasn't love. It wasn't even really friendship. It was more of a partnership with the hopes that more would grow from it.
Astrid paused, considering me for a moment, before her head dipped into a nod before her hands slowly reached up to the laces in front of her dress. "I can live with that," Astrid decided, "And I think that it's time we started. Before anyone with their ear pressed to the door gets any ideas," she said, and…
Oh… Wow.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Quest Objective: Defeat 20/25 Jarls of Norway.
Additional Objective: Fight five Jarl armies at once.
Quest Reward: ⅔ of clue for Legendary Item.
Additional Reward: 250 Prestige.
"This is madness," Jarl Hoffer remarked to me as we stood on the field that would mark the completion of the quest along with the additional objective. The terrain was a poor one. A lesson I had taken from King Widukind -- sometimes there was wisdom in giving up a minor advantage to secure a greater one. In this case, it was to ensure that there was a battle at all. My men were at the base of a sloped hill that was covered by a sparse forest, the rocky soil preventing much in the way of vegetation from growing. "You invite disaster, Wolf-Kissed."
I could see why he believed that. It had taken careful cultivation over the course of two months for this day. Upon the defeat of Jarl Haldwin and receiving the quest, I broke my company up into five hundred man bands, then two hundred and fifty. Then bands of a hundred. They raided throughout Norway, all of them driving the kingdom to a single conclusion -- that I was a threat great enough to unite against.
More than ten Jarls sat on top of the hill -- far more than what I needed to complete the quests, but just enough to meet my personal requirements. Two thousand men. It took ten Jarls to scrounge up such a number. Most had an army of less than a hundred, and there were a few rare Jarls that had more than two. With careful consideration, I forced them into an alliance. Some, I raised to the point of fury, others I drove together. All to create an army. A great army as far as the Norse people were concerned.
Small. I had had no idea how small and desolate the lands of my people were until I saw the wider world. King Charlemagne's host could have swept across this land to conquer it with near ease. His greatest foes would be the land and hunger. Perhaps the cold too.
"No. This is why I came to Norway in the first place," I told him, urging my horse forward. The men across from me shouted their warcries, trying to intimidate us. I saw a number of Jarls seated or standing behind their men. This would give me the experience that I needed -- how to shape and fight a pitched battle. I turned to my men, seeing hungry and confident faces. I had lost some men over the months, but they had been replaced with more Norsemen.
A handful of them stood out. The future leaders of my army -- Thorkell stood tall and proud, a large Dane axe in his hands. He wore a full ringmail set of armor that was stitched into a gambeson that ended at his knees. My first rough attempts to recreate the armor I had seen on the Paladins lined one of his arms, the plated metal gleaming in the early morning light. Another was Authun, who easily took command of my scouts despite his young age thanks to his skull with a bow.
Olek was the one that rose to prominence amongst the leaders of the infantry. A man with a square face with a long scar from the bridge of his nose, across his cheekbone, and clipping his ear. Dark brown hair with bright green eyes. He was a rather dower man, I noticed. He treated everything with the same amount of severity, no matter how minor, and it was for that reason he had seen the greatest success even if he wasn't the most popular man.
Both he and Thorkell led around four hundred footmen, leaving Authun to lead the fifty archers I had. The last fifty rode with me -- the most promising of my warriors, even if they didn't have any leadership capabilities. Together, we made a mighty army. We were no longer a large mercenary band. The barriers between us had been eliminated over the course of a mere two months.
However, it wasn't my army that I spoke to. "I am Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed!" I announced to the army up the hill. "Take heart warriors, for you face me! The Valkyries are surely looking upon this field, and they shall witness your bravery for standing against me! Today, you shall prove your worth and tonight, you shall sup with the gods!" I told them and I heard Thorkell chuckling.
"Most don't give the speech to the enemy," Thorkell remarked and I offered him a grin.
"Our enemies need the motivation, do they not? Or is victory uncertain?!" I shouted out to my men, earning a thunderous war cry in response. Reaching down to the sword at my belt, I pulled it from its sheath -- the blade that I had taken from Jarl Haldwin's corpse. The blade felt perfect in my hands, like it belonged there. "They wish to die gloriously! Let us assist them!" I shouted, and Thorkell was the one that led the charge. It was the effect of Of One Mind.
Authun began to let loose arrows, firing up on the slingers that pelted our men with stones from a sling. He let loose in the form of a volley and nearly fifty men dropped to the ground with an arrow in their chests, eyes, or throat. It protected the men as they clashed against the shieldwall at the top of the hill. Thorkell could sense my plan. There were no words spoken, but I knew his intentions as well as I knew my own. For that reason, my control over Olek's half of the army felt so clumsy. Likewise, he could sense my own plan which is why his men began to back up a half step, bending the formation and allowing the enemy to push forward.
They exposed their flank to our archers. They began to fall, feathered, but more importantly, they exposed themselves to me.
I galloped forward with fifty warriors, all armed with Dane axes, and up the hill we climbed until we smashed into the flank. I lashed out with my sword, catching men in the throat with swipes and thrusts. The warriors behind me sat comfortable in their saddles, swinging their axes thanks to the Frankish gift. The stirrups. It had taken some getting used to, but they proved to give far greater control over a horse and kept the rider in the seat during a charge.
As we fought, I caught a glimpse of Astrid -- she rode with my companions. The ones that forged their chainmail ahead of any other, who earned the right. Her axe flashed left and right, striking down with less force than some of my men, but her blade always found purchase in soft flesh, making arcs of blood spray out. There was a savage snarl on her face as she fought ferociously. There had been some to say she earned her place due to favoritism as my promised bride.
Those whispers quieted down rather quickly when they saw her fight in battle. And those that didn't found them swallowing them along with a few teeth at her own hand.
It was a mere fifty riders, but the effects were devastating to the wing of the army. Already, some of it was starting to buckle, but they held their courage. My words inspired them to fight when they might have otherwise run. They knew the Valkyries would be watching this field and they were eager to prove their worthiness.
After my charge, I heard Thorkell shout out and his half of the warband stopped backing up. Then they pushed to secure my riders, and to take advantage of the disruption in the shield wall. Our men poured through the gaps, the right wing of the army starting to fracture while the left still held strong. Thorkell himself led the breakthrough. It wasn't dramatic or overt, not like it had been with Astolfo, much less Roland, but Thorkell was undeniably stronger than he had been.
It clued me in on how the blessings worked for King Charlemagne. Rinaldo likely had some kind of endurance blessing -- it would explain how he continued to fight despite his grievous injuries. Astolfo likely had something related to spears, as Arda had something related to bows. The blessing gave a base increase in prowess, to make them deadlier, as far as I could tell. Which either meant that the gift the Paladins received optimized them for battle… or that they had received multiple blessings.
The left wing was still holding itself in place, trying to overwhelm my flank, but as we began to push the right back, their positioning changed. Especially when my archers flanked around, searching for a good angle to fire up on the enemy. I gave them freedom of movement, but it was a dangerous thing. Worth it, but dangerous.
After two months of smaller battles, I had developed some favored tactics. I favored them because they worked.
We were outnumbered two to one, but the army was already starting to fracture. Divisions within the army made themselves apparent when one of the Jarls decided he wished to escape with his men, or perhaps he plotted the betrayal before the battle had even started. It mattered not. More than that, as the right wing broke under myself and Thorkell, letting us sweep around, the warriors sensed that their defeat was near. Some decided to fight to the bitter end, and as a result, they were left behind as the army began to disintegrate without a formal retreat being sounded.
The battle was a short one. Barely lasting more than an hour, but by the end of it, my warriors stood victorious. A hundred and twenty men died, a mere fraction of the total army, and when they regrouped, they would realize that. The slaughter always seemed so much greater in the midst of battle.
"Hammer and anvil. Works like a charm every time," Thorkell mused, his face splattered with blood while the men began to loot the dead. Not for wealth but for iron. Slowly, my army was being armored like Thorkell. It would take time. Enough so that I needed to consider the fact that I needed to bring more than just warriors with me -- I needed blacksmiths too. "Don't fancy riding them down?"
Quest Complete!
Quest: Path to the Crown
Quest Objective: Defeat 30/25 Jarls of Norway.
Additional Objective: Fight five Jarl armies at once.
Quest Reward: The sword of the father and her father's father.
Additional Reward: 250 Prestige.
"No need. Let them regroup and spread word. We still have four months in Norway, after all," I remarked, seeing Olek approaching with Jarl Hoffer and Astrid. Her face was splattered with blood, and her axe was dripping with it, but there was a satisfied smile on her face. She basked in combat and savored her victories.
Olek greeted me with a nod, his expression cold as stone. "We have fifteen wounded. One lost a hand," he informed me, his tone gruff and flat. "But none shall die."
"Good," I said, seeing a handful of people treating their injuries. The one that lost the hand was absolutely beside himself. It was another thing that I had to consider. It was a thought that I had back in Francia, when I was raiding, but it hadn't been the time to act on it -- but in addition to blacksmiths, I needed healers. People to stitch up my men after a battle. It could be the difference between life and death.
"I can't imagine what it was like in Francia," Jarl Hoffer said, looking out at the fallen. The wounded enemies were either sent in their way or given the mercy of a blade. "This was a great battle and it was over so quickly."
This was no great battle.
"Hopefully, there will be greater battles," I replied before looking at him. "I believe it is time we returned. Ostara is upon us," I pointed out. The wedding is upon us, I didn't say as I looked at Astrid, who met my gaze evenly. Her expression didn't betray what she thought of our upcoming wedding -- neither revulsion nor joy. I had nothing else to go on considering that she had gone out of her way to avoid me. To be treated as another warrior, according to her father.
Jarl Hoffer eagerly nodded, "Aye. We have gained much this season, but now it is time to honor the gods and bind our families."
And so it would be so.
…
We sailed back rich with plunder, most of which would be going to Jarl Hoffer as part of the bride price. Some of the Jarls that we defeated, in particular the ones around the coast, had chosen to swear fealty to Jarl Hoffer, and they would attend the wedding as well. The other Jarls in attendance were Jarls risen by his own hand, chosen from his allies and family.
I found myself being looked over by Mother and my sisters. While I had been busy fighting, they had stitched a fine set of clothing for my marriage with the help of Jill. It was a little difficult to tell, but she did seem more comfortable with my family now. The clothing itself was colored red and gold -- a finely stitched tunic with a gold embroidered raven with running black wolves in the hemline. A black wolf pelt would be draped over my shoulders while my trousers were colored the same as charcoal and my boots a dark brown.
While I was being dressed, my hair was pulled into a single braid and, against my wishes, Mother took a knife to my cheeks to get rid of my thin beard. Mother searched my face for a long minute after I was done being dressed, cupping my face in her hands. "You're a man, Siegfried. You've been one since the attack on the farm, but tonight, you'll be seen as a man."
I was getting married. It seemed a little late to be having that thought, but it rang out in my head when I heard the celebrations were already beginning. Music filtered down to my tent, as my men were celebrating just as much.
"I understand," I told her, giving a small nod. Mother smiled, pleased that I did, before letting go of me.
"Your father should be here to see you through this. And we can't visit your ancestors' grave for their sword," Mother spoke of the traditions for marriage. I should be being prepared by my father and married brothers. I should be in Denmark, taking the blade that would be buried with my father. "Those traditions are meant to represent the boy dying and the man being born -- you've been a man for a long time now. This is merely making it official."
I nodded in response, bracing myself when she took a step back and gave me a final look. I must have passed her inspection because she nodded.
The next thing I knew, I was being led out of my camp with the men roaring for me. The wedding would take place outside of the town, further inland and I saw the path had been marked with wildflowers. They led us to a grove that had been prepared -- if I had to guess, the Hoffer family had been preparing for this wedding since I arrived, because it was no small amount of work in preparing the area. There were clear areas for our families, and the honored guests, then everyone else that would bear witness. In the hills around the grove were footholds for everyone to look down upon us, probably enough for everyone in the town and my army.
There was a runestone erected in the grove -- the story of the Hoffer clan engraved upon it, based on the look of it. Before it was a woman with a painted face and more flowers woven into her hair. I took my place next to her, Halfdan patting me on the back hard enough that it was like he was trying to leave a bruise.
Astrid came not long after me, much to the cheer of the gathering crowd. She was escorted by her sisters and shieldmaidens -- each carrying a shield and a sword. Astrid herself… she looked beautiful. There wasn't really any other word to describe her. Or, rather, the word itself was meant to describe her. She wore a white stitched dress marked with red, her kansan was gone and replaced with a crown of flowers and antlers. Her hair was down…
Girls. When did girls stop being weird and start being… confusing?
In her hands, however, was something that caught my interest. A blade, a dark steel blade that was reforged at the base of the blade. Almost exactly where the blade ended for my battle sword.
The sword of her father, and her father's father.
I wasn't surprised to see it here. I guessed as much as when I got the hint for the Legendary item. What that item was, I still wasn't entirely certain but I was starting to form a guess. It also helped that out of the corner of my eye, I could read the saga -- The first Hoffer found a broken blade in the underwater lair of a terrible beast, the hilt nowhere to be found, so he grabbed the blade with his bare hands before plunging it into the monster, whose magical hide had turned normal blades away like a stone.
Astrid came to a stop in front of me, her expression guarded as the marriage ceremony began. To be honest, it felt like it passed by in a blur -- the seer bade us to transfer the swords. I gave her the first one I had won during the war, while she gave me the dark blade. It was a long one, I noted. A full hand longer than the sword I gave her. The music played and people cheered as the ceremony progressed.
"Do you, Siegfried, wish to wed Astrid before the eyes of the gods?" The seer asked, and I took a breath.
I didn't know. "I do," I spoke the words, duty bound to say them. Then the question was posed to Astrid, whose gaze didn't waver from mine.
"I do," she spoke the words, and I genuinely had no clue if she meant them. In response, there was a great big cheer that came from the audience before our hands were tied together and a knot was made. I glanced down at it for a moment, seeing the soft strip of cloth and understanding what it meant.
I had just got married. What a weird thing.
Before I could really register that, Halfdan broke off into a dead sprint. At first, I flinched in alarm, my hand tightening on the blade that I now held, only to see him sprinting back to the town. He wasn't alone -- Hoffer the Heir was quick to join the race, and I realized that they were racing to see who would serve who for the feast. Both Astrid and I were pushed to follow after them, the slip of cloth that bound our hands together falling away as the crowd went to celebrate.
As luck would have it, it was Halfdan that won the race. A good thing too, since my clan was far smaller than the Hoffers. Jarl Hoffer was joyous as we entered the longhouse to see a lavish feast was prepared. The scent of roasted meats and vegetables greeted me, and I was shocked that the tables didn't collapse underneath the mountain of food.
Jarl Hoffer was happier still when Astrid grabbed my hand, and started pulling me to the back room. That got more than a few uproarious cheers, "I suppose there's no need for the bedding ceremony!" I heard someone shout, and I fought off a frown. The bedding ceremony where others would stand witness to ensure that the marriage was consummated. It sounded… uncomfortable, even if I understood the purpose behind it.
"Sorry," Astrid began, closing the door behind her, bringing us to the room where we would… She set the sword I gave her against the door as a brace. "I didn't fancy a bunch of scraggy men watching us fuck and I figured we should have a moment of privacy."
That made sense, I suppose. I probably should have a conversation with my wife, shouldn't I? At least one. "You didn't seem very interested in a conversation," I remarked, watching her take off her crown of flowers.
"You're hard to talk to," came Astrid's blunt reply as she leveled a look at me, or rather, at the sword still in my hand. I took the point and set the blade aside, even if I did want to test it's edge. "You really have no idea how you appear to people. My father… Jarl Sven and my father were bitter enemies. The story goes back all the way to my great grandfather's day -- I don't think anyone knows what caused the rivalry, but for more than a century our families were bitter enemies."
… "Who is Jarl Sven?" I questioned, feeling a little lost as I searched my memory for the Jarl.
"Who was Jarl Sven," Astrid corrected, running a hand through her blonde hair. "He was one of the jarls you defeated in that great battle. We had been raiding each other for years. I lost brothers to his kin. He's dead now, his army scattered… and you didn't even bother learning his name. Because he's small pickings for you. I see it. You could conquer Norway, but you won't because it'd be too much of a pain in the arse for you."
I scratched at my shaven cheek, not entirely certain how to respond. "I don't intend to diminish your family. Or rob them of a blood debt," I tried, but apparently, that was the wrong thing to say because she shook her head.
"It's not about you trying to diminish us. It's what you are. For my father… becoming King of Norway was a far-off dream. It always had been. Now, all of a sudden, it's not. The crown is close enough to touch for you, but you won't take it because you don't want it. And that's… intimidating," Astrid admitted, her lips thinning as she regarded me.
"I don't want to scare you," I told her quietly.
"You don't. You just… you didn't try to speak to me, you know," Astrid pointed out, sounding embarrassed with a bit of red coloring her cheeks. "Didn't even try to sneak around the chaperone."
I paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to word it. "I understand that this is a political match and because of who I am, I understand that… refusal can be… difficult," I told her, and I saw an expression of surprise flicker across her face. "I didn't want to put you in a position where you didn't feel like you could say no to me. Or that you thought your father would want you to say yes."
That seemed to take the wind out of her sails, "Oh. I thought you didn't like me," she admitted. "I would understand why. I did insult you."
"My honor isn't so fragile that words can hurt it," I told her, looking at my… wife. I didn't dislike her, but I wasn't entirely certain if I liked her either, and that was simply because I didn't really know her. It felt like we were strangers, yet we were husband and wife. I knew that going in, but now that the deed was done, I had to admit, it was a little strange. "Do you dislike me?"
Astrid thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "No, I don't. I… didn't want to be married because I feared what it would mean for me. That my husband would demand that I stay home and weave or have a babe every year. You haven't done that. I'm not sure if I'll make a very good wife," Astrid admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, "I'm stubborn. I'm not particularly lady like. I like fighting and that's what I'm good at. But I think… I can be happy with you, Wolf-Kissed."
This wasn't so bad. "Siegfried," I corrected, inclining my head at her. "I won't stop you from fighting. If only because I know you'd do it anyway." To that, I got a smirk from Astrid. "I think we can be happy. Will be happy. At the end of summer, I will be setting sail for Miklagard, and I don't know how long I will be there. But, when I return, I will conquer Denmark and become its king. I'll need people that I can trust… and I hope to count you among them," I offered.
It wasn't love. It wasn't even really friendship. It was more of a partnership with the hopes that more would grow from it.
Astrid paused, considering me for a moment, before her head dipped into a nod before her hands slowly reached up to the laces in front of her dress. "I can live with that," Astrid decided, "And I think that it's time we started. Before anyone with their ear pressed to the door gets any ideas," she said, and…
Oh… Wow.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
I mostly enjoyed Astrid and her introduction. But i think she is kinda underdeveloped as a character and i would have preferred more focus on Jill and Morrigan instead of introducing another love interest.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Two weeks without any posts after a fairly regular every Wednesday schedule... What's going on, @Ideas-Guy ?
Chapter 46 is a NSFW post which isn't allowed on SV. You can find it on Ffnet though
And Chapter 47? That should have been out yesterday.
The author recently announced on Patreon that he'd be taking a week off for his birthday. He's back now, but it's worth noting that Chapter 46 is NSFW, which is understandable if you recall the cliffhanger from the previous chapter. So he's prohibited from posting it here, but he has posted it on the other forum website. Meanwhile, Chapter 47 has been available on his Patreon for some time now.
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I have already checked out Chapter 46.
So Chapter 47 will come out there next week then?
If nothing else occupies the author's attention, you can expect it by next week.
Family Ties
- Location
- USA
Armor Smithing -- Basic
Creation and manufacturing of third tier armor: chainmail, riveted chainmail, scale-mail.
Weapon Smithing -- Basic
Creation and manufacturing of basic weapons: swords, axes, daggers, war hammers, and spears.
That was a choice that I had faced more than two months ago. It came to me when I was making another attempt at the plate mail that I had seen the Paladins wearing, though my own attempts were shoddy and malformed in comparison. It was a poor choice, it had seemed at the time -- Blacksmithing gave me a rudimentary understanding of how to make chainmail and weapons already. Even if it didn't, it wasn't like I couldn't learn by watching others, or guessing how the metal was shaped by looking at a sword.
Armor Smithing had been my choice, simply because I had never heard of riveted mail before. That, and I had hoped the gods would enlighten me on how to make the tedious and time-consuming work of making armor for my men go faster. And, for the very first time, I think I sincerely regretted my choice of a gift to take from the gods.
"It's stronger," Lavon, a blacksmith that found himself under my employ, told me. He held up a hauberk of riveted mail, pulling at it. Chainmail was strong to protect from the bite of an axe, but it was a simple thing to take apart with your hands. All you needed to do was pull and the links would bend. The small opening that each ring had would widen until the rings interconnected with it could slip through. With riveted mail, that wasn't the case. As the name implied, each ring had a small rivet that secured them, making it far more difficult to take apart. "Lighter too."
"It's a month's labor," I said, a frown in my voice. The gods had answered my prayers for less work with a version of chainmail that was even more tedious and time-consuming to create, but it was undeniably worth it. Lavon grunted -- he was an older man that had been the blacksmith for the town for more than three decades. His dark beard had spots of gray in it, his face bearing wrinkles, but the man was solidly built with a barreled chest and thick arms.
"Aye," Lavon agreed, handing the riveted mail back to me. As he said, the armor was lighter. Half as light, and that alone was a massive advantage to regular chainmail. Because the rings were closed, the steel wire that was used to make them could be thinner. A full set of chainmail would weigh around fifty to sixty pounds -- the riveted mail in my hands felt half as light. Something that was hugely useful in battle because it wouldn't sap the strength of my warriors as quickly.
It was just better. In every way. The only downside was the labor that went into it.
The wire was made first, coiled around a stick that was twisted to create the bend, and when the spool of wire was done, the wire was cut to create the links. Those links were then pounded to create a flat bit of space where the two ends overlapped. A small hole would be hammered into that space before the links were interwoven -- four links in one, so each link would have four others within the gap of the link -- before each link was then closed by a bit of metal being put through the hole that was made, which was then crimpt. A lot of work but the issue was with scale.
That process had to be repeated thousands of times. Tens of thousands.
The one that rested in my hands? It contained fifty thousand links. I worked on it for eight hours a day for a month -- nothing but tedious boredom, and looking at it, I'm not entirely sure that it was worth it. I had prioritized protection so the links were smaller than normal chainmail, which would protect better against arrows or a dagger, but not so small as to impact mobility. The first month was spent playing around with the creation -- learning how to make it, how to work with it, and finding the easiest ways to create it. The second month was spent working on the hauberk.
The first week, I did nothing but make and cut the rings. For days on end, I hammered the links to make the rivet. For over a week, I wove the mail, and the rest of the time was spent crimping the rivets.
"It's worth it," Lavon said after a moment, looking at me. "That there is armor fit for a king. Keep putting it over a gambeson, and it'll turn away most blades. Might break a bone or leave some bruising, but that's better than dying. Easier to treat, too. I'd say that your idea for putting scales over the gaps is too much, though. Not worth the added weight for what protection it would offer," Lavon said, looking at the gambeson hanging off a rack. It was tailor-made for Thorkell -- like the riveted mail, it fell down past his thighs and from it, studded leather that fell just above his ankles.
It would be my warriors' armor. It had been Olek's idea -- a uniform, he called it. He claimed that it was the sign of a professional soldier rather than just rabble.
"If you were to sell it, how much would you try for?" I asked him, setting the mail over the gambeson.
"No regular warrior would be able to afford it. A jarl or king might balk at the cost too," Lavon stated. "Twenty times over what I'd sell chainmail of the same length for." As he said, it was prohibitively expensive. Chainmail alone was already too costly for most warriors to buy.
I grunted, unsurprised by the estimate. "And if you were going to outfit a thousand men? What would you need?" I asked him, and to that, Lavon stroked his beard in thought. We had the steel to make it -- my warriors had been busy and eager in Norway. It was just a question of how many hands we would need to work to get the job done.
"Ten smiths, and about… twenty unskilled hands," Lavon decided, nodding to himself. That was both more and less than what I expected. "It'd take us the better part of three or four months to get it done, even still. The unskilled hands will do the crimping and weaving while we'll make the wire, links, hammering, and oversee the weaving. Many hands make for light work."
Thirty people dedicated to making armor. "And to maintain it?" I asked, frowning at the project.
"Three smiths and ten apprentices," Lavon said, seemingly already knowing the answer. That was more manageable, but still a higher number than I would like.
In the four months I had been in Norway, something had been made increasingly clear to me -- an army of a thousand men was not like a warband of five hundred. They needed more. They needed smiths to maintain their arms and armor. They needed healers to treat their injuries. They needed people to organize what went where and manage how much food was eaten. All to ensure that my army could function properly. However, I found that what was needed was essentially a villages worth of people.
Thirty healers. Fifty thralls for manual labor and service. Ten tailors. Now thirty crafters. More than a hundred followers.
"We'll be sailing to Milklagard in two months," I told him, and suddenly six months didn't feel like enough time. "Make the rings first. The weaving and crimping can be done during the journey," I told him, earning a nod. We wouldn't need to do all thousand men at once, which was a saving grace, but the downside was the fact that we would be picking up a great many men in Saxony. At least five hundred along with fifty ships.
"Best get started then," Lavon said, leaving my camp to start barking orders at the men that he had assembled.
With that taken care of, I looked down at the project that I was currently working on -- the blade that I had received during my marriage. Which was still a weird thought, even two months after. The blade was a blackened steel that I hadn't managed to recreate in an attempt to bond the broken blade together. I couldn't fix the blade because I couldn't get the forge hot enough.
Which left me using lesser steel to fuse the two ends together, then sheathing the weakness. The result was workable, but unappealing -- the top half of the blade was blackened steel while the bottom half was regular steel. Still, it functioned. For now. It also made one thing apparent -- how much I had neglected the domains of the gods that weren't related to war.
My focus for now was Crafting, in the hopes I could get something that would let me reforge the sword properly. It was metal. Steel, I was fairly certain, but when steel was red hot, the sword barely had a dull glow to it.
"It could be seen as pretty rude reforging my family's sword like that," Astrid announced her presence while I was sharpening the steel sheath. I glanced over to see that she was in riding leathers, and the sight stirred something within me. She reached out, taking a lock of my hair that was falling in my face, and started to braid it. I had a half dozen of the smaller braids scattered about.
"I got permission," I told her, having got it from Jarl Hoffer. "He's glad to see the blade in one piece." There wasn't much evidence of it, but there was a decent chance that the feud between the Hoffer clan began over the sword. There was no way to be certain, though -- the beginning of the feud began more than ten generations ago.
As Astrid finished with the half-braid, I finished sharpening the sword. It felt right in my hand. The blade was a bit heavier than normal, even more so with the repairs, but that suited me just fine.
"Off to war again?" She asked me, taking a step back, a sly smirk on her face.
To that, I shook my head, "Best not. At least, not as I was," I admitted, sliding the sword into its sheath at my hip. "I don't think your father would be thankful for it." That wasn't to say my army was idle. I could hear the sounds of their training echoing out. Curious to see it, I started to walk away from the forge with Astrid next to me. My wife. Still an odd thought.
"You could conquer half of Norway in two months. You practically already have," she pointed out, and I knew she was asking because she wanted to go out in the field again.
"Only if I stayed," I refuted. "We broke the Jarls along the coast, and they now answer to your father. He has the ships and men to enforce his will upon them. But, when I leave, I'll be taking my men with me and they'll start to get ideas." A half dozen Jarls now answered to Jarl Hoffer and, together, they could have raised an army to match ours. However, Jarl Hoffer had the Jarls killed and their families either taken hostage or exiled, with men loyal to him taking up the jarlship. The people within the lands would have to contend with winter before they could even think of rebelling.
As we approached a ledge overlooking the sandy beach that my army fought itself on, I mused on how I had killed and recruited enough from the previous Jarls that their military broke. They couldn't muster the men to rebel, at least, not without outside help. Over the course of four months, I had lost around a hundred men in battle or to wounds. But I recruited about six hundred, bringing my total army up to a thousand and five hundred.
"If you stayed," Astrid agreed, watching as two hundred men -- a hundred on each side -- clashed on the beach. They bashed their shields against one another, the commanders on each side baying for their warriors to break through. I saw the ones on the left were getting creative, letting their line bend backward to create a U shape while peeling men off of the line to wrap around and envelop the opposing side. It nearly worked, but the line was too thin, and the opposing side broke through.
Thorkell cheered while Olek started ripping into the commander that lost. It was an interesting disparity, I thought, looking down at my warriors. Thorkell was beloved by the men -- he laughed with them, drank with them, sang with them. They loved him. Olek, however, was feared as much as Thorkell was loved. Success was expected from him and failure was harshly punished. It worked, too, I had to admit. There was a reason that Olek rose up in the army -- he was a fine fighter, and he won.
As for me? I inspired. When men fought beside me, they thought that victory was inevitable and that by fighting with me, they shared in that glory. Between the three of us, I think we had a very solid command structure. It was still growing, of course, with men of talent being noted. Men that one day, I could very well grant a blessing to.
"This city. Miklagard. I wish to see it," Astrid announced.
I wasn't surprised. "I'll be gone for years," I said, thinking that I would gone for at least three. It depended on what I found. When I returned, I would be eighteen or nineteen -- a man. Not a young man, but a man in body and deed. Now, what did surprise me was Astrid laying a hand on my chest, bringing my attention to her to see that she was fluttering her eyelashes at me. "... Are you trying to seduce me?"
Her eyes narrowed, "Trying?" She questioned, sounding affronted.
"You should stay here," I told her and her eyes narrowed more until they were little more than slits. "It sounds like a fine adventure, I'll admit, but I don't know what I expect to find there. If I'm fighting, then I've likely done something wrong." The point of sailing to the greatest city in the world was to learn. Not to fight.
"You're taking Jill and Morrigan, but not your wife." It wasn't a question. It was a statement that told me a slap was in my immediate future depending on how I answered.
"Jill should stay with you," I replied with a small shrug. "She was dragged into the war in Saxony because we had nowhere to return to. Now, we do. This could be her home, if she wished it. As for Morrigan… I'd say that she should stay too, but I doubt that she would or that it would be safe for her." Witches were seen as a necessary evil by most -- useful, but other. Respected, yet shunned. Morrigan was respected when by my side, but if I left her, I had little doubt that she would be shunned to live outside of the village, even by the men I left behind to protect my family.
Astrid frowned, "I'm not a weak willed woman that you can leave behind to pray for your safe return. I'm going to Miklagard. Even if I have to swim," Astrid told me, her tone testy before she walked off before I could make a retort. That, I was coming to learn, was a common tactic with her. Morrigan would bludgeon with arguments, but Astrid would deliver a point and ignore every single counterargument that anyone could make by plugging her ears. I would be lying if I said it wasn't annoying.
Swallowing a sigh, I saw another two hundred men were barreling towards each other while the losers of the first battle were forced to exercise by running along the beach while carrying heavy stones. This time Olek won the battle by deliberately opening his line in certain locations so that the reserves could take out the men that trickled through. A dangerous tactic, but that was why we were testing them against ourselves rather than the enemy.
The army was coming together rather well, I decided. There was still a long road ahead, but already, they fought as a single force rather than a hundred individuals. When we weren't creating and testing new formations, we would practice the ones that we had previously approved of. Currently, we were using shouts from the commanders, but I knew that we would have to change that -- We would be picking up Germanic soldiers soon, after all. And it wouldn't do to warn the enemy of what we were about to do.
Taking a seat on a stone, I took out a bit of wood and a whittling knife from a pouch. It wouldn't do to stand idly by, I decided, continuing to carve out a toy warrior for Arne. It was going much better than my previous attempts at whittling. Not to mention, the men would train harder underneath my watchful eye, hoping to impress me.
As I watched another round begin, I heard footsteps. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw it was Mother. "Siegfried, I thought I might find you here," Mother greeted me warmly. "I saw Astrid marching by." Ah. "Don't fret, my son. Your father and I fought all the time. Arguments happen and nothing is broken so long as nothing is said that cannot be taken back. Talk to her tonight. After," she tacked on, and my cheeks warmed at that. Astrid… well… she was as fond of fucking as she was of fighting, it would seem.
"Is there something that you needed of me?" I asked, hoping to change the subject and, to that, Mother's light smile started to fall and an intense expression replaced it.
"You'll be leaving soon," She stated and I paused before nodding. There was still time, but I had accomplished most of what I intended to during this stay.
"I'm leaving two hundred men behind," I reassured her as she approached, standing next to me. "Loyal men. Loyal enough that they're willing to miss the opportunity to sail to Miklagard." I wanted to leave more, but I couldn't -- two hundred men was a large influx for a town like this. Especially with winter around the corner. "They'll protect you."
Mother did seem reassured by that. "Under whose command?" She asked me, making my face pinch.
"Haldur is expecting to lead them," I muttered, shaving away pieces of the wood to give it shape. What Lays Within was a surprisingly useful gift when it came to projects like this. "Halfdan won't challenge him on it." I knew. I checked. Despite my misgivings, Haldur was the head of the family now, even if Halfdan was older than either of us. All because we didn't share a mother. What did it matter? Halfdan was a finer brother to me, he was older, and he would be a better leader.
Despite that, Halfdan didn't want to overstep.
"Halfdan will be getting married in a moon turn," Mother reminded, taking a seat next to me. "Because he is your brother, and a respected warrior, he will find men willing to fight for him. Haldur as well." I nodded, knowing that much already. There were a number of people that had approached wanting to join my army for glory or gold. When I left, I imagined they would turn to my brothers. "Split the hairs -- a hundred men under Haldur and a hundred under Halfdan."
That would anger Haldur, but it was a good compromise, I decided, nodding in agreement. Looking at Mother, I saw that something was weighing on her. She wasn't here to wish me farewell. I suppose that was fine -- I also had something I needed to do. "Mother, hold out your hand," I told her, making her blink before I reached out to hold it. Then I began to infuse a blessing upon her.
True Face
Intrigue -- A smile can hide a scowl no longer. When dealing with others, when they try to hide how they truly feel, a second face shall be revealed of their true feelings.
Mother blinked as the blessing took hold and I was surprised to see that it was an Intrigue one. I wouldn't have suspected that, but it did cause some relief. Spies and traitors would be much easier to spot with such a blessing. I had already decided that Mother would receive a blessing -- the remaining blessings, however, I was less than certain of. She looked down at her hand, feeling it too. I wasn't sure what expression that I expected, but it wasn't for her to frown. "I always knew you were special, Siegfried. Even when you were a baby -- I knew the gods spoke to you like they did no other."
She reached out and placed a hand on mine, "Haldur was jealous of you. He always has been. You were a gift from the gods, Siegfried -- after Haldur, I thought I could bear no more children." I hadn't known that, but I wasn't sure why she was telling me this. "You were special. Right from the very beginning. Your brother… well, he wasn't keen on having a younger brother in the first place. He felt like you replaced him."
"Mother-" I stated, but she shook her head, asking for no interruptions.
"He was always rough with you. Too rough. You all laughed it off, but I saw the bitterness that fueled those punches and kicks. It got worse when you started winning. And when you won that farm… it all came to a head. You weren't there when Haldur set out on his own. You didn't hear the things that he said. I did." She squeezed down on my hand, her intense gaze burning a hole through mine. "He wants to outshine you. To prove that he's better -- that he was chosen by the gods as well. But he wasn't… and he can't hope to match you. Your brother will live and die in your shadow, Siegfried."
My throat closed up. She was right. I knew that she was right… but what could I do about it?
"Halfdan can accept that. Haldur can't and he never will. He will always try to match you, my son, and he will grow more and more bitter with every failure," she continued in a soft voice, speaking of the future as if she could see the threads of fate. "He will abuse whatever power he has over you and he will hate you for any resistance you show."
"I can talk to Haldur," I whispered, my gut clenching. "I can make him understand. I… I could share the glory with him." I didn't want my brother to hate me. I knew that we didn't get along, but I would never claim to say that I hated him. We were the last of our family -- we couldn't hate each other.
"Siegfried. You aren't a boy any longer. Don't cling to dreams and face the truth," Mother rebuked with an edge of sorrow in her voice. I blanched at the words, finding no comfort when she squeezed my hand reassuringly. "I tell you this because I love you. I love Haldur as well -- he was born from me, just as you were. But we cannot afford to be blind. Our enemies are too great and too numerous."
"What would you have me do, then?" I snapped, going to pull my hand from her grapes, but she held on tightly.
"Kill him."
Every single thought in my head came to a screeching halt and I went still. I struggled to process the words, gaping at Mother, who held my gaze evenly as if she hadn't just said what she just said. "You-"
"It is the smart thing to do. You will take your place as head of our family. You already have the power, even if Haldur possesses the title -- something he resents you for already. Kill him and be done with it." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As in I actually couldn't believe it. I looked at my mother in horror, barely recognizing who she was in that moment because she had no shame.
"No," I bit the word out. "I'm not going to murder my brother." I spat, ripping my hand away from her grip. I saw the action hurt her, her lips thinning.
"... I can't make you do it, so I won't try to, Siegfried," she replied in a low voice. "But know this -- he will betray you. It may not be now. It may be years or even decades from now, but he will betray you. It will be at a moment when your footing is most perilous and you have the most to lose -- he will betray you."
I clenched my jaw, "He's family."
Mother's eyes softened, giving me the saddest smile I had ever seen. "Oh, my child… you can't be betrayed by your enemies."
To that… to that, I had nothing I could say.
...
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Creation and manufacturing of third tier armor: chainmail, riveted chainmail, scale-mail.
Weapon Smithing -- Basic
Creation and manufacturing of basic weapons: swords, axes, daggers, war hammers, and spears.
That was a choice that I had faced more than two months ago. It came to me when I was making another attempt at the plate mail that I had seen the Paladins wearing, though my own attempts were shoddy and malformed in comparison. It was a poor choice, it had seemed at the time -- Blacksmithing gave me a rudimentary understanding of how to make chainmail and weapons already. Even if it didn't, it wasn't like I couldn't learn by watching others, or guessing how the metal was shaped by looking at a sword.
Armor Smithing had been my choice, simply because I had never heard of riveted mail before. That, and I had hoped the gods would enlighten me on how to make the tedious and time-consuming work of making armor for my men go faster. And, for the very first time, I think I sincerely regretted my choice of a gift to take from the gods.
"It's stronger," Lavon, a blacksmith that found himself under my employ, told me. He held up a hauberk of riveted mail, pulling at it. Chainmail was strong to protect from the bite of an axe, but it was a simple thing to take apart with your hands. All you needed to do was pull and the links would bend. The small opening that each ring had would widen until the rings interconnected with it could slip through. With riveted mail, that wasn't the case. As the name implied, each ring had a small rivet that secured them, making it far more difficult to take apart. "Lighter too."
"It's a month's labor," I said, a frown in my voice. The gods had answered my prayers for less work with a version of chainmail that was even more tedious and time-consuming to create, but it was undeniably worth it. Lavon grunted -- he was an older man that had been the blacksmith for the town for more than three decades. His dark beard had spots of gray in it, his face bearing wrinkles, but the man was solidly built with a barreled chest and thick arms.
"Aye," Lavon agreed, handing the riveted mail back to me. As he said, the armor was lighter. Half as light, and that alone was a massive advantage to regular chainmail. Because the rings were closed, the steel wire that was used to make them could be thinner. A full set of chainmail would weigh around fifty to sixty pounds -- the riveted mail in my hands felt half as light. Something that was hugely useful in battle because it wouldn't sap the strength of my warriors as quickly.
It was just better. In every way. The only downside was the labor that went into it.
The wire was made first, coiled around a stick that was twisted to create the bend, and when the spool of wire was done, the wire was cut to create the links. Those links were then pounded to create a flat bit of space where the two ends overlapped. A small hole would be hammered into that space before the links were interwoven -- four links in one, so each link would have four others within the gap of the link -- before each link was then closed by a bit of metal being put through the hole that was made, which was then crimpt. A lot of work but the issue was with scale.
That process had to be repeated thousands of times. Tens of thousands.
The one that rested in my hands? It contained fifty thousand links. I worked on it for eight hours a day for a month -- nothing but tedious boredom, and looking at it, I'm not entirely sure that it was worth it. I had prioritized protection so the links were smaller than normal chainmail, which would protect better against arrows or a dagger, but not so small as to impact mobility. The first month was spent playing around with the creation -- learning how to make it, how to work with it, and finding the easiest ways to create it. The second month was spent working on the hauberk.
The first week, I did nothing but make and cut the rings. For days on end, I hammered the links to make the rivet. For over a week, I wove the mail, and the rest of the time was spent crimping the rivets.
"It's worth it," Lavon said after a moment, looking at me. "That there is armor fit for a king. Keep putting it over a gambeson, and it'll turn away most blades. Might break a bone or leave some bruising, but that's better than dying. Easier to treat, too. I'd say that your idea for putting scales over the gaps is too much, though. Not worth the added weight for what protection it would offer," Lavon said, looking at the gambeson hanging off a rack. It was tailor-made for Thorkell -- like the riveted mail, it fell down past his thighs and from it, studded leather that fell just above his ankles.
It would be my warriors' armor. It had been Olek's idea -- a uniform, he called it. He claimed that it was the sign of a professional soldier rather than just rabble.
"If you were to sell it, how much would you try for?" I asked him, setting the mail over the gambeson.
"No regular warrior would be able to afford it. A jarl or king might balk at the cost too," Lavon stated. "Twenty times over what I'd sell chainmail of the same length for." As he said, it was prohibitively expensive. Chainmail alone was already too costly for most warriors to buy.
I grunted, unsurprised by the estimate. "And if you were going to outfit a thousand men? What would you need?" I asked him, and to that, Lavon stroked his beard in thought. We had the steel to make it -- my warriors had been busy and eager in Norway. It was just a question of how many hands we would need to work to get the job done.
"Ten smiths, and about… twenty unskilled hands," Lavon decided, nodding to himself. That was both more and less than what I expected. "It'd take us the better part of three or four months to get it done, even still. The unskilled hands will do the crimping and weaving while we'll make the wire, links, hammering, and oversee the weaving. Many hands make for light work."
Thirty people dedicated to making armor. "And to maintain it?" I asked, frowning at the project.
"Three smiths and ten apprentices," Lavon said, seemingly already knowing the answer. That was more manageable, but still a higher number than I would like.
In the four months I had been in Norway, something had been made increasingly clear to me -- an army of a thousand men was not like a warband of five hundred. They needed more. They needed smiths to maintain their arms and armor. They needed healers to treat their injuries. They needed people to organize what went where and manage how much food was eaten. All to ensure that my army could function properly. However, I found that what was needed was essentially a villages worth of people.
Thirty healers. Fifty thralls for manual labor and service. Ten tailors. Now thirty crafters. More than a hundred followers.
"We'll be sailing to Milklagard in two months," I told him, and suddenly six months didn't feel like enough time. "Make the rings first. The weaving and crimping can be done during the journey," I told him, earning a nod. We wouldn't need to do all thousand men at once, which was a saving grace, but the downside was the fact that we would be picking up a great many men in Saxony. At least five hundred along with fifty ships.
"Best get started then," Lavon said, leaving my camp to start barking orders at the men that he had assembled.
With that taken care of, I looked down at the project that I was currently working on -- the blade that I had received during my marriage. Which was still a weird thought, even two months after. The blade was a blackened steel that I hadn't managed to recreate in an attempt to bond the broken blade together. I couldn't fix the blade because I couldn't get the forge hot enough.
Which left me using lesser steel to fuse the two ends together, then sheathing the weakness. The result was workable, but unappealing -- the top half of the blade was blackened steel while the bottom half was regular steel. Still, it functioned. For now. It also made one thing apparent -- how much I had neglected the domains of the gods that weren't related to war.
My focus for now was Crafting, in the hopes I could get something that would let me reforge the sword properly. It was metal. Steel, I was fairly certain, but when steel was red hot, the sword barely had a dull glow to it.
"It could be seen as pretty rude reforging my family's sword like that," Astrid announced her presence while I was sharpening the steel sheath. I glanced over to see that she was in riding leathers, and the sight stirred something within me. She reached out, taking a lock of my hair that was falling in my face, and started to braid it. I had a half dozen of the smaller braids scattered about.
"I got permission," I told her, having got it from Jarl Hoffer. "He's glad to see the blade in one piece." There wasn't much evidence of it, but there was a decent chance that the feud between the Hoffer clan began over the sword. There was no way to be certain, though -- the beginning of the feud began more than ten generations ago.
As Astrid finished with the half-braid, I finished sharpening the sword. It felt right in my hand. The blade was a bit heavier than normal, even more so with the repairs, but that suited me just fine.
"Off to war again?" She asked me, taking a step back, a sly smirk on her face.
To that, I shook my head, "Best not. At least, not as I was," I admitted, sliding the sword into its sheath at my hip. "I don't think your father would be thankful for it." That wasn't to say my army was idle. I could hear the sounds of their training echoing out. Curious to see it, I started to walk away from the forge with Astrid next to me. My wife. Still an odd thought.
"You could conquer half of Norway in two months. You practically already have," she pointed out, and I knew she was asking because she wanted to go out in the field again.
"Only if I stayed," I refuted. "We broke the Jarls along the coast, and they now answer to your father. He has the ships and men to enforce his will upon them. But, when I leave, I'll be taking my men with me and they'll start to get ideas." A half dozen Jarls now answered to Jarl Hoffer and, together, they could have raised an army to match ours. However, Jarl Hoffer had the Jarls killed and their families either taken hostage or exiled, with men loyal to him taking up the jarlship. The people within the lands would have to contend with winter before they could even think of rebelling.
As we approached a ledge overlooking the sandy beach that my army fought itself on, I mused on how I had killed and recruited enough from the previous Jarls that their military broke. They couldn't muster the men to rebel, at least, not without outside help. Over the course of four months, I had lost around a hundred men in battle or to wounds. But I recruited about six hundred, bringing my total army up to a thousand and five hundred.
"If you stayed," Astrid agreed, watching as two hundred men -- a hundred on each side -- clashed on the beach. They bashed their shields against one another, the commanders on each side baying for their warriors to break through. I saw the ones on the left were getting creative, letting their line bend backward to create a U shape while peeling men off of the line to wrap around and envelop the opposing side. It nearly worked, but the line was too thin, and the opposing side broke through.
Thorkell cheered while Olek started ripping into the commander that lost. It was an interesting disparity, I thought, looking down at my warriors. Thorkell was beloved by the men -- he laughed with them, drank with them, sang with them. They loved him. Olek, however, was feared as much as Thorkell was loved. Success was expected from him and failure was harshly punished. It worked, too, I had to admit. There was a reason that Olek rose up in the army -- he was a fine fighter, and he won.
As for me? I inspired. When men fought beside me, they thought that victory was inevitable and that by fighting with me, they shared in that glory. Between the three of us, I think we had a very solid command structure. It was still growing, of course, with men of talent being noted. Men that one day, I could very well grant a blessing to.
"This city. Miklagard. I wish to see it," Astrid announced.
I wasn't surprised. "I'll be gone for years," I said, thinking that I would gone for at least three. It depended on what I found. When I returned, I would be eighteen or nineteen -- a man. Not a young man, but a man in body and deed. Now, what did surprise me was Astrid laying a hand on my chest, bringing my attention to her to see that she was fluttering her eyelashes at me. "... Are you trying to seduce me?"
Her eyes narrowed, "Trying?" She questioned, sounding affronted.
"You should stay here," I told her and her eyes narrowed more until they were little more than slits. "It sounds like a fine adventure, I'll admit, but I don't know what I expect to find there. If I'm fighting, then I've likely done something wrong." The point of sailing to the greatest city in the world was to learn. Not to fight.
"You're taking Jill and Morrigan, but not your wife." It wasn't a question. It was a statement that told me a slap was in my immediate future depending on how I answered.
"Jill should stay with you," I replied with a small shrug. "She was dragged into the war in Saxony because we had nowhere to return to. Now, we do. This could be her home, if she wished it. As for Morrigan… I'd say that she should stay too, but I doubt that she would or that it would be safe for her." Witches were seen as a necessary evil by most -- useful, but other. Respected, yet shunned. Morrigan was respected when by my side, but if I left her, I had little doubt that she would be shunned to live outside of the village, even by the men I left behind to protect my family.
Astrid frowned, "I'm not a weak willed woman that you can leave behind to pray for your safe return. I'm going to Miklagard. Even if I have to swim," Astrid told me, her tone testy before she walked off before I could make a retort. That, I was coming to learn, was a common tactic with her. Morrigan would bludgeon with arguments, but Astrid would deliver a point and ignore every single counterargument that anyone could make by plugging her ears. I would be lying if I said it wasn't annoying.
Swallowing a sigh, I saw another two hundred men were barreling towards each other while the losers of the first battle were forced to exercise by running along the beach while carrying heavy stones. This time Olek won the battle by deliberately opening his line in certain locations so that the reserves could take out the men that trickled through. A dangerous tactic, but that was why we were testing them against ourselves rather than the enemy.
The army was coming together rather well, I decided. There was still a long road ahead, but already, they fought as a single force rather than a hundred individuals. When we weren't creating and testing new formations, we would practice the ones that we had previously approved of. Currently, we were using shouts from the commanders, but I knew that we would have to change that -- We would be picking up Germanic soldiers soon, after all. And it wouldn't do to warn the enemy of what we were about to do.
Taking a seat on a stone, I took out a bit of wood and a whittling knife from a pouch. It wouldn't do to stand idly by, I decided, continuing to carve out a toy warrior for Arne. It was going much better than my previous attempts at whittling. Not to mention, the men would train harder underneath my watchful eye, hoping to impress me.
As I watched another round begin, I heard footsteps. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw it was Mother. "Siegfried, I thought I might find you here," Mother greeted me warmly. "I saw Astrid marching by." Ah. "Don't fret, my son. Your father and I fought all the time. Arguments happen and nothing is broken so long as nothing is said that cannot be taken back. Talk to her tonight. After," she tacked on, and my cheeks warmed at that. Astrid… well… she was as fond of fucking as she was of fighting, it would seem.
"Is there something that you needed of me?" I asked, hoping to change the subject and, to that, Mother's light smile started to fall and an intense expression replaced it.
"You'll be leaving soon," She stated and I paused before nodding. There was still time, but I had accomplished most of what I intended to during this stay.
"I'm leaving two hundred men behind," I reassured her as she approached, standing next to me. "Loyal men. Loyal enough that they're willing to miss the opportunity to sail to Miklagard." I wanted to leave more, but I couldn't -- two hundred men was a large influx for a town like this. Especially with winter around the corner. "They'll protect you."
Mother did seem reassured by that. "Under whose command?" She asked me, making my face pinch.
"Haldur is expecting to lead them," I muttered, shaving away pieces of the wood to give it shape. What Lays Within was a surprisingly useful gift when it came to projects like this. "Halfdan won't challenge him on it." I knew. I checked. Despite my misgivings, Haldur was the head of the family now, even if Halfdan was older than either of us. All because we didn't share a mother. What did it matter? Halfdan was a finer brother to me, he was older, and he would be a better leader.
Despite that, Halfdan didn't want to overstep.
"Halfdan will be getting married in a moon turn," Mother reminded, taking a seat next to me. "Because he is your brother, and a respected warrior, he will find men willing to fight for him. Haldur as well." I nodded, knowing that much already. There were a number of people that had approached wanting to join my army for glory or gold. When I left, I imagined they would turn to my brothers. "Split the hairs -- a hundred men under Haldur and a hundred under Halfdan."
That would anger Haldur, but it was a good compromise, I decided, nodding in agreement. Looking at Mother, I saw that something was weighing on her. She wasn't here to wish me farewell. I suppose that was fine -- I also had something I needed to do. "Mother, hold out your hand," I told her, making her blink before I reached out to hold it. Then I began to infuse a blessing upon her.
True Face
Intrigue -- A smile can hide a scowl no longer. When dealing with others, when they try to hide how they truly feel, a second face shall be revealed of their true feelings.
Mother blinked as the blessing took hold and I was surprised to see that it was an Intrigue one. I wouldn't have suspected that, but it did cause some relief. Spies and traitors would be much easier to spot with such a blessing. I had already decided that Mother would receive a blessing -- the remaining blessings, however, I was less than certain of. She looked down at her hand, feeling it too. I wasn't sure what expression that I expected, but it wasn't for her to frown. "I always knew you were special, Siegfried. Even when you were a baby -- I knew the gods spoke to you like they did no other."
She reached out and placed a hand on mine, "Haldur was jealous of you. He always has been. You were a gift from the gods, Siegfried -- after Haldur, I thought I could bear no more children." I hadn't known that, but I wasn't sure why she was telling me this. "You were special. Right from the very beginning. Your brother… well, he wasn't keen on having a younger brother in the first place. He felt like you replaced him."
"Mother-" I stated, but she shook her head, asking for no interruptions.
"He was always rough with you. Too rough. You all laughed it off, but I saw the bitterness that fueled those punches and kicks. It got worse when you started winning. And when you won that farm… it all came to a head. You weren't there when Haldur set out on his own. You didn't hear the things that he said. I did." She squeezed down on my hand, her intense gaze burning a hole through mine. "He wants to outshine you. To prove that he's better -- that he was chosen by the gods as well. But he wasn't… and he can't hope to match you. Your brother will live and die in your shadow, Siegfried."
My throat closed up. She was right. I knew that she was right… but what could I do about it?
"Halfdan can accept that. Haldur can't and he never will. He will always try to match you, my son, and he will grow more and more bitter with every failure," she continued in a soft voice, speaking of the future as if she could see the threads of fate. "He will abuse whatever power he has over you and he will hate you for any resistance you show."
"I can talk to Haldur," I whispered, my gut clenching. "I can make him understand. I… I could share the glory with him." I didn't want my brother to hate me. I knew that we didn't get along, but I would never claim to say that I hated him. We were the last of our family -- we couldn't hate each other.
"Siegfried. You aren't a boy any longer. Don't cling to dreams and face the truth," Mother rebuked with an edge of sorrow in her voice. I blanched at the words, finding no comfort when she squeezed my hand reassuringly. "I tell you this because I love you. I love Haldur as well -- he was born from me, just as you were. But we cannot afford to be blind. Our enemies are too great and too numerous."
"What would you have me do, then?" I snapped, going to pull my hand from her grapes, but she held on tightly.
"Kill him."
Every single thought in my head came to a screeching halt and I went still. I struggled to process the words, gaping at Mother, who held my gaze evenly as if she hadn't just said what she just said. "You-"
"It is the smart thing to do. You will take your place as head of our family. You already have the power, even if Haldur possesses the title -- something he resents you for already. Kill him and be done with it." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. As in I actually couldn't believe it. I looked at my mother in horror, barely recognizing who she was in that moment because she had no shame.
"No," I bit the word out. "I'm not going to murder my brother." I spat, ripping my hand away from her grip. I saw the action hurt her, her lips thinning.
"... I can't make you do it, so I won't try to, Siegfried," she replied in a low voice. "But know this -- he will betray you. It may not be now. It may be years or even decades from now, but he will betray you. It will be at a moment when your footing is most perilous and you have the most to lose -- he will betray you."
I clenched my jaw, "He's family."
Mother's eyes softened, giving me the saddest smile I had ever seen. "Oh, my child… you can't be betrayed by your enemies."
To that… to that, I had nothing I could say.
...
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To be fair, distance is also an option. Space to live his own life might mellow Haldur out.
The bitterness could still easily grow, but it's also possible he could ignore it with less difficulty and get absorbed in his own business.
Given the structure of the story it probably won't work, but it's viable enough that I can see being willing to try it.
The bitterness could still easily grow, but it's also possible he could ignore it with less difficulty and get absorbed in his own business.
Given the structure of the story it probably won't work, but it's viable enough that I can see being willing to try it.
Maybe giving her a blessing was a mistake. If she can claim to love somebody one moment, and then start planning his murder few seconds later, she is clearly untrustwothy.
That type of psycho should't be given supernatural powers.
That type of psycho should't be given supernatural powers.