(Leif Blackstone)
While following the river down and experiencing stomach cramps, my nose eventually sniffs out a little village. Weird, my nose never used to be that sensitive. A quarter of a mile away, it detects a food aroma.
When I eventually enter the village for the first time. It is entirely made up of wooden huts. They have a little vegetable garden on the right side of the settlement, and the river passes directly by the left side. They have little wooden stakes planted in the ground all around the village. It must be to keep predators out. I do not see any landlines or antennas. They must be the kind of individuals who live off the grid. There aren't any guards at the entrance, so I stroll in and go to the larger-looking house. Perhaps a mayor or someone lives here. There is no door, so I walk in and observe various locals, young and old, gathered around a fire with a large black pot simmering over it. They are all gazing greedily at the pot. They all are of white skin with barely any clothing on. Most of the kids and men don’t even have clothes on their top half, and all appear a little dirty. It's like I stumbled into a movie that takes place in olden times.
“Hello, does anyone speak English here?”
Thirty pairs of eyes look over to me.
An elderly man gets up and walks with a cane over to me.
"You look like hell, stranger." Wow, I understood him in whatever language he was using. At the very least, one-armed helped me. So I guess I need to stop calling him one-arm, but he never really did give me his name.
“Hi, yes, can you help me?” The old man simply stares. Dang, he's not understanding what I am saying. My hand points towards the bowl of soup, and I rub my stomach.
“If you wait a bit it will be done soon, please come and stand near the fire.” The village elder replies.
Everyone continues to talk about their day and how tall I am until the soup appears to be boiling. The chief elder grabs a bowl, dips his hand in, and serves me a generous portion of it. No spoons, I suppose. While looking at the soup, I realized it was more of a broth than a soup.
“Why does he get the first bowl?” I hear one of the little boys say.
“Probably so he doesn't eat any kids. Do you see how tall he is?” One of the girls asks.
Pulling the bowl to my mouth, I gulp the broth down. It could be the finest thing I've tasted since I had pickles. Do small villages like this carry pickles? My stomach still rumbles as I stare at my empty bowl. The others continue to take turns getting their own soup. The village chief is still looking at his people. Then it hits me. This is most likely his bowl. My cheeks flush scarlet, and I feel deeply embarrassed.
“Here's your bowl back.”
He smiles and tries to push it back towards me.
“Nope. Nope. That's your bowl. You take it.”
He still won't take it, so I lay his bowl down next to the soup and go wait at the back of the room. While watching the people laugh and enjoy the soup among each other, I began to miss Mark and Wade. When I come home, the first thing I'll do is visit their gravestones. Thinking of them, I should ask the village chief if he knows where a phone is so I can contact my brother. Looking around, I notice there aren't that many men around. While in a daze wondering why there isn’t many around, a young kid is leaning against the wall with me. He's copying my moves exactly of how I'm leaning and observing. He looks to be close to thirteen or fourteen with long, shaggy, unwashed hair. His clothes are better than mine. While listening to the people, I have picked up most of their words. This is a very useful skill.
"Where are all the non-girls in this village, young one?" Using what I had learnt, that was the most I could get out in his language.
He gets a shocked look and then glances at me. “You speak our language, giant.”
Well, telling him that I picked it up while sitting down waiting for a bowl of soup would not go over well.
“A little, young one.”
“I’m not young; I have seen fifteen seasons. My name is Bardulf because I was born on the night of a wolf howl.” At fifteen, he appears somewhat undersized.
Okay, “Now about the question I asked the first time Bardulf, and my name is Leif.”
He scrunches up his nose like he's trying to remember. Then a lightbulb goes off in his head.
“Some bandits slaughtered the majority. What's left is what you see here. A man named Novac was at the head of a group of around fourteen robbers that rode in. There was a battle, and everyone had actual swords. Many people were slaughtered.”
"Wait, all these people were beaten by fourteen men." recognizing that their initial population was nearing forty, possibly fifty.
“We managed to kill two of them,” he says defensively.
“The only person with combat experience is the village elder. The other men were farmers, and none of them had ever used a weapon. Although we are capable people, we were nothing to the bandits.” He gazes up at me. "Leif, how strong are you? Because the day following the next full moon is when those bandits will return.
Do I really want to get involved? My heart goes out to these people, but I have never held a weapon. Wait, that's not exactly true, is it?
“Well, young Bardulf, it did not go so well my first time holding a sword. As I remember that time, I trace the scar on my stomach.
“I did drive off a wolf, though. He was really big, almost bigger than you.”
“Really, he says with stars in his eyes.”
“It didn’t go as well as I would have liked it, to be honest. Really it was just a lucky swing that scared him off.”
"Well, a big guy like you can probably fend off some bandits."
“We won't have enough food for winter if they return, Leif, please.”
Out of the pit and into the fire. (literally) Man, I really cannot catch a break. How did I find myself in the plot of
During my brief pause to answer the boy, the chief makes his way over.
“So you do speak our language, young giant.”
Why am I being referred to as a giant by everyone? Although I am tall, I am not the tallest. There were many folks in my hometown who were at least close to my height. They must not see many people in this village.
“Enough to get by, elder.”
“So has little Bardulf told you of our troubles?”
Bardulf rolls his eyes, “I'm not little.” I can see that this is a battle he fights every time the question of his height comes into play.
"A bit." Can you describe your situation in more detail, please? Have you got any guns? He gives me a questioning look. Probably they don't call them guns; dang, I forgot.
My trigger finger is squeezed back and forth as I make an aiming motion. After a few moments of observing my movements, he nods, indicating that he understands what I'm saying.
Then he immediately shakes his head. “No, we are too poor to have crossbows.”
Wasn’t what I was talking about, but if he doesn't have the money to have that, then there is no way they have guns.
I have another idea. “Is there military or police that we can call?”
“The only military in the area are the Romans, and we dare not call them; they would be worse than the bandits.”
I’m missing something here. Then it's like a hundred little clues that I have deliberately overlooked because my brain would not let me process what was happening. The idea is almost too ludicrous to even think. It's so nonsensical, I almost dare not think it.
While looking at the ancient village elder, I ask the question that I will remember for the rest of my life. “What year is it?”
“What’s a year?” Asks Bardulf.
There has to be an easier way to translate this. “Who is the ruler of this area?”
“Everyone knows Rome rules this area. Once you cross the Rhine to the East, its Germanic lands.” Replies the Elder.
“So who is the ruler of Rome? Does it have a pope or a king?
He looks at me weirdly, like I should already know.
“Tiberius Claudius Nero is the current emperor of Rome.
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"Julius Caesar was replaced by Emperor Augustus, who in turn was replaced by Nero."
Julius Caesar I have heard of. Almost everyone on Earth knows who he was. He put Rome on the map and made the Roman Empire into a fighting force. All I remember about Augustus is that he and Mark Anthony killed the killers of Caesar, and he became the first emperor. I know nothing about Tiberius. History was never my strong suit. My eyes look into the eyes of the old man and the young one; I can tell they are not lying to me.
“Sorry, I need some time to think.” All other problems go to the very back of my mind.
The elder lays a big, brown-looking sack of grain bag next to me that's empty.
“Put that on; it will keep you warm during the night air.”
My hand grabs the sack, and I walk outside. A sense of grief creeps into my heart as I gaze around the village. Will I never again see my brother or niece? Will I be unable to tell Mark's wife what happened to him? As my feet lead me to the river, I splash water in my face to cover up the tears that were starting to well up in my eyes. The remainder of the day is spent in a bitter mentality. My shadow and I don’t move from our spot in the river until Bardulf plops down near me.
“The village elder said if you would like to stay with us, you are more than welcome.”
Nodding my head is all the willpower I am able to do.
Grabbing my arm, he drags me along. A young kid leading a tall man, it's almost comical. I follow him to a little cottage close to what I now know to be the meeting room. He hands me a bundle that seemingly contains two blankets and a straw sack pillow. He points to the one side where there is a straw pile neatly folded down. While looking at it, then the blanket. Maybe I took too long or something, because Bardulf grabs one of my blankets and lays it down on the straw and points towards it. This is just too unreal. I'm sleeping on a straw mattress with my straw pillow. After my head hits the pillow, I close my eyes.
Sleep eludes me. My mind keeps on going over the events of the last couple of days. Why do bad things keep happening to me? It's a never-ending cycle in my mind. Mark, Wade, my brother and his family, my sister, my father, my mother, the one-armed man—it just keeps going over and over. What could I have done differently? The what-ifs are killing me. Then I remember the Dark Knight and the Roman who slashed me. The Roman who hurt me is, for some reason, permanently etched in my memory. He appears to be there in front of me in my imagination. After a while, I hear the other two chatting.
“Elder, is he alright?”
“If I had to guess, I would say that he has been delaying his grief until now because his family passed away recently. His face suggests that he has lost something.”
“Do you think he will help us fight off the bandits?
“Time is the only cure for loss. Give him a day or two. Take him hunting in the wilds tomorrow with your sling. Give him a couple of days, and we will bring it up again. Now get some sleep; we have a hard day of work ahead.”
“Okay, elder.”
Their snores come sooner than I thought. Lying there getting nowhere in my head, I decide to step outside and head down to the river. The air is very brisk, and it's a nice night to walk under the moon. My brain will not shut up, so I head into the river. It's nice and cool against my skin. I lay down and rest my head on a rock and look up at the stars. The water is going very slow where I'm at, so I am not moving from my spot. If the water had been strong, I may have let it carry me carelessly down the river. My life is in complete chaos.
“Mark, how do I fix this?” I say out loud to the stars. At some point, my eyes simply continue to gaze at the sky while my brain simply shuts off. All night long, I keep my eyes open to watch the sun rise over the neighboring mountain. The water sloshes around me as a pair of feet appear nearby.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes… No… Maybe…”
“Well, those are your options.”
“Tell me, Bardulf, what do you do when you don't know what to do?”
“What do you mean you don't know what to do? There's always something to do. We have to get food. Someone needs water pulled up to wash something. The wheat needs to be picked. You can even sneak off and go find some blackberry patches.” The last part he whispers to me like it's a secret.
“Do you have plans for us today, young Bardulf?”
He smiles and shows me his slingshot.
“Do you know how to use one?”
“I can honestly say I have never used one.”
He sticks his hand out to me and helps me out of the water.
“Come on, it's going to be great.”
For the day, he takes me bird and squirrel hunting. Instead of any birds, he gets three squirrels. I’m just fortunate enough that the rock doesn’t come back and smack me in the face.
He tells me that one winter, a terrible sickness outbreak killed his parents when he was a young kid. The village elder took him in after the same outbreak took his wife. That winter, they lost half the community, and they said it was a devastating one.
We spot another squirrel hanging onto a tree. He tries to give me another try, and I pass it back to him.
“The village elder was a great warrior in his time. He fought the Romans back with his tribe and tried to stop them from taking over. Sadly, he lost most of his clansmen and wandered around until he founded this village in the mountains. The Romans don't know that it is back here, but the drawback is that we have no one to come help us when bandits show up. We had a group of bandits come when I was little, and we managed to drive them off, but this new group is really nasty. Novac is a really wicked person. I've heard that he and his troops are from Sarmatia, which is in the far east.”
“Never heard of it.”
“He boasted about it while stealing all of our food.” He tears up a little. He wipes them off on his sleeve without saying anything, and I don't bring it up either.
“Please, please help us. With your size, I bet they will bolt at the sight of you.”
It's hard to tell whether he really means that or if he is just joking.
“We have very little food and no money to give you, but if you can help, I will consider it a life debt.“
While looking into his eyes, I can see he is serious. “What's a life debt?”
“It's where I have to serve you for the remainder of my life.”
“That's really not necessary, Bardulf, so what kind of weapons do we have?” I change the subject really fast.
“The village elder has two swords he has saved from his warrioring days.” We have a couple of slingshots that kids my age have, but I am the best shot in the village. We have three shovels and one mattock.”
“What's a mattock?” I ask the kid.
He flashes his eyes at me like he knows something I don't.
“It's a pickaxe for digging into the ground. But the blade goes side to side instead of up and down.”
I give him a nod like I am able to see it in my head.
“How long until they come back again?”
“The day after the next full moon.”
“Which is when?”
“Nine more moons.”
“So how many men do they have left?”
“Twelve warriors total; we managed to take two out.”
“Any horses?”
“Only one that Novac was riding on.”
With our catch, we returned to the village. Bardulf says he will have another pot for the town to eat if I return in a short while. I go down to my river place and settle down on my butt once more since I have nothing else to do. Although I have no idea how to halt a group of angry bandits, my heart wants to help these people. I'm a big guy, but that's all. I was not trained in any form of combat. Mark and Wade would know what to do. Heck, even Rex would probably bulldoze through these bandits and not even break a sweat. I'm so consumed with my thoughts that I don't notice someone standing near me. When a sword is thrown down and lodges in the earth next to me. It's the village elder. Instead of his walking stick, he holds a sword in his hand. He points to the other side of one of the fences.
“Okay, but don't expect much.”
We walk past the fence, and he observes how I am holding the blade. He walks me through four or five moves after demonstrating how to hold a proper one. He no longer uses a walking stick and is not stooped over. A glimmer of memory appears in his eyes as he recalls his time as a warrior. Every time I get a swing right, he smiles. We're not sparring. He spends the entire evening practicing my forms and repeatedly demonstrating how to wield the sword. My back is soaked with sweat. He simply keeps fixing my form whenever it is disrupted. The sun is about to set. Bardulf approaches and brings me another soup bowl. What time did he arrive? Whoa, I missed dinner and lunch. I was so engrossed in my forms that I failed to notice.
“Oh my gosh, I am starving; I could eat a whole cow.”
“I do not think a person is capable of eating a whole cow by themselves.” Says Bardulf in a deadpan tone.
The laughter erupts from me. I spill a little of my soup. That causes me to go into even more hysterics, so I pass my soup over to Bardulf as I lay cackling on the ground.
“Has he caught some form of madness hysteria?” Bardulf asks.
The chief just sips on his soup with a smile. “No kid, that's not it.”
(Old Village Chief)
I wasn't always just called the old village chief. My people were mighty warriors from Gaul. The Romans quaked at our swords. One day while the warriors were away, a Roman cavalry came through and decimated our village. My wife was left to perish as my only son was butchered. That night and the following, I fervently prayed to the gods. They decided to give her life. My warrioring days were over after that. Rome was always there, even as we moved from village to village. We discovered a location that the Romans had never visited behind some mountains with barely a trail leading to it. We made a village where all the others who were tired of Roman tax came. We were happy; I got old and had a good life. The village became our children since we never had any more. Until a terrible winter also stole my wife and other villagers away from us. The following day, we had a fire and collected the corpses, and little Bardulf continued to weep over his parents. My arms picked him up before I knew what I was doing. He was mine after that. He was the same age as my son was when I lost him. We became a family.
Then he arrived. "Novac." He was a nasty snake. He killed the on-duty guard after entering through our mountain way. He killed anybody who stood in his way. Before the first scream, I was whacked over the head by one of his thugs. The aftermath was terrible, but the majority of the women don't talk about it. Fortunately, Bardulf was hunting out of the village at the time. He claimed to have observed from the woods as they marched out of town carrying sacks full of our food. They told Garon that they would be back after two cycles of full moons on the following day. To have our stuff already in bags for them, and they would leave the rest of the village alone. The people are looking to me to offer them hope or bravery as the time draws nearer, but I have neither. Garon, who will be our future leader after I die, has never experienced combat. He is a gentle soul who aspires to be a farmer and lacks the martial spirit. I attempted to teach Garon the way of the sword. It was a failure. I was able to tell after a day. Bardulf has taken in some of my ways; however, the sword is not for him.
Even I was starting to lose hope. Then a giant of a boy walked in dressed in muddy rags. He looks very young, but after talking with him for some time, you can tell he has been taught to read. He and Bardulf became thick as thieves. There's a deep sadness to him. He has lost something precious. My wife made me promise to bury my swords and never touch them again, but I think she would forgive me for breaking it. After digging them up, from under a rock I had hid them under, I glance at my hands. They look so old. What happened to the mighty warrior that would laugh in the face of death? Well, let's see if he can be taught.
We go through the forms that my father taught me. We practice most of the day without resting. He has a real thirst for this. My old bones feel younger than they have in a long while. The look in his eyes keeps telling me to teach him more. We go through the training again and again. Day in and day out. We do not have time to do this the easy way, so we start sparring with our swords.
He only takes breaks now to have Bardulf show him about the village and where the bandits will be coming from. He’s giving me more of a break than him. His size lends him immense strength. He still has a lot to learn, though. When we halt for the night's training, he is covered in welts and wounds. We really don’t have much in the way of medicine here. There's a herb that Barfulf gets for us to rub on our scrapes.
“So, giant, have you killed your first kill?”
“No, I have never killed anyone.” Surprising with a guy that size, but it would make this situation a lot easier.
“That's okay; we will get you your first.” I give him my best wolfy grin.
He just gives me a concerned nod, which I ignore. Life is hard. Best he learns early.
“Okay, eat your food, and we are getting back to it.”
I'm not sure if he realizes it, but his stamina is not ordinary. He could train all day if I let him. After we sleep at night, his wounds are already healed the next day, with no marks on him. If I hadn't seen him bleed, I'd think he was a spirit.
One day after a particularly grueling day of training, I see him cooling off in his normal spot at the river. He's throwing rocks like a little kid until he jumps up with a smile.
“Eureka!!!”
