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The Godspeaker — Episode 1
In Roman territory
Three people appeared on a green hilltop. One of them was short and heavy. After some walk, he looked back to notice a person exiting a far down forest in a hooded, long-sleeved garment. “How is this young stupid here? This has your finger on it Ládheris! Don’t you dare offend my smarts,” the short faced man yelled looking up at a gigantic man beside him on the hill.
“I will not deny it then. I asked him to come, we will need him yet,” the enormous man said, his long blonde hair waving in the wind.
“Oh, Gods be damned! Why bring a dumb child to this kind of trip, and more, behind my back. Me, your right-hand man. Didn’t we do enough harm by leaving the entire tribe behind without their leader?” the short man said. His eyes showed some tiredness. With all that happened to him in the last seasons, he aged and gained a lot of weight. His skin looked ten winters older than his actual age.
“See, my fair friend, this boy will be so useful in our endeavor it took days for you to notice him. At least give him a chance,” Ládheris said looking down at him.
“May the Gods give you nightmares tonight for your trickery. But only tonight, because in a few days we will reach that Roman filth of a fortress and you must be in one piece then. Ask this Roman scum how long till we get there,” the short man said his nose pointing to the third man who was silent so far.
Ládheris looked down at the silent man and spoke in a foreign language. The fragile frame answered pointing and moving his finger to the terrain ahead. His voice showed an air of experience and assuredness, he knew what he was talking about.
“He said we are some days away from there still, but the worst part is behind us,” the tall man said and gazed the mountaintops now behind them, “crossing these sleeping giants, even during summer, is never an easy task.”
The three stopped by the shadow of a big tree and waited for the fourth to catch up with them.
“Come Haffan, drink some water. Good thing you are with us now. We will need your unique skills soon,” Ládheris said with a canteen made of rough animal skin on his hand.
The young man approached like an obedient dog to his master. His round face and slim build gave him a childish look. He took the water. “Thank you, sir,” was all he said.
“Let’s pause and eat here. The Roman told me there is a small settlement before we reach the Dux’s lands,” Ládheris said.
“What’s Dux?” Haffan asked.
“It’s how they call the chieftain of the fortress we are about to go,” Ládheris answered.
Haffan nodded.
“We shouldn’t be wasting time, Ládheris. Remember our tribe is without its chieftain and its shaman. If anyone decides to seize the opportunity, there will be no place to return to,” the short man said his hands adjusting the sturdy clothes pressing his stomach, “those skins look tighter each day. Gods, how you’ve made me fat…”
“Patience, my fair Édegorn, I trust my shield-maiden. She will bring the tribe in one piece while we go and get that thing our Gods demand.”
“I don’t remember being so stressed in my entire life. I pray The Wolf speeds our journey and The Flower blesses us with luck,” Édegorn said with the animal skins still uncomfortable in his belly.
Ládheris and Haffan listened to his whining with some pieces of bread in their mouths. The Roman stayed silent by the shadow as if nothing was said. Ládheris hands the others a piece of food each. They eat in silence.
“So much passed, but nothing was accomplished yet,” Ládheris thought to himself.
***
It was dusk when they noticed the settlement the Roman had mentioned. It was below them, where the hills ended and the terrain became a flat and long valley. After the place, a small river bordered the last wooden houses with a simple bridge to cross to the other side.
They took a cautious approach to woods nearby where they could get a good view of what was going down. On the main road, a group of Roman soldiers talked to some commoners. The sounds meant nothing to them, but by the gestures, those Romans weren’t welcome there.
Ládheris talked something with the Roman.
“He says there are some Goths like us living here, we could risk and blend,” the big man told Édegorn in a low volume.
“You and the Roman could, you can speak their language. But me and Haffan, too risky,” Édegorn said.
More soldiers joined the discussion. They were 5 now, and things started to get louder.
“I have an idea,” Ládheris said and called Haffan to a private talk. After he finished, the boy nodded and vanished from sight.
“What by the Seven devils you asked the child to do? Have you lost your mind, you fool?” Édegorn said.
“The boy must prove his worth to you, fair Édegorn, so you stop complaining about everything I do. Soon, you will see what I see in him. His brains are down to a fault, but the boy is a diamond in the rough. Someday, there will be songs about his prowess.”
“Let’s hope they are not songs for the dead,” Édegorn sighed.
“They won’t. Now cheer up, get the Roman and find a better place to hide. If my plan works, we will need to move fast.”
Against his better judgment, Édegorn took the Roman by the arm and moved deeper into the woods. They were about the same height, but the Goth was sturdier. He could drag the slim man without effort if needed be. Confused, the Roman followed his lead.
They listened as the steps got louder and louder. A few people were running closer. In the darkness, Édegorn could only see Ládheris among the trees ahead drawing a massive ax with only one hand. A known bird-like whistle echoed from Ládheris mouth. Seconds after, Haffan stormed into the woods, a lot of steps behind him. After another whistle, he hid behind a tree near Ládheris.
The five soldiers ran inside the woods, but all they found was silence. They stop, but there was no time to pick a torch. They realize that as Ládheris’s ax decapitates the last man to enter. A headless body kneels before them. Before they can understand what happened, Haffan stabs another one in the back. The stabbed man falls to the ground with a prolonged scream as the blood soaks the ground.
The remaining three stare petrified to the giant. Ládheris readies the ax once more and pierces it through a Roman armor breaking the wearer’s shoulder. Haffan vanishes once more in the darkness. The remaining two finally get back to reality. They begin to unsheathe their swords, but Édegorn steps out of his hideout and grabs one of them first. The guard realizes the blade near his neck and drops his sword. The other, a little older than the rest, kneels and shouts something in Latin while raising his hands.
“Quick Haffan, see if anyone else is coming,” Ládheris said.
“May I ask what did you have in mind bringing them here like that?!” Édegorn said and the man he grabbed makes a grimace at the loud words in his ear. He tried to cover them but a blade running deeper into his throat makes him give up.
“I can oblige you, yes,” Ládheris comes closer and rests the blade of his ax on the older man’s armor, “answer me, why have we left the tribe?”
“To find the Godspeaker,” Édegorn answered unamused.
“Yes, that thing our Gods told you to take from the Romans in the fortress, but why?”
“Because it will allow us to communicate with them directly,” Édegorn said.
“And what we gain in all that?”
“We can talk to the Gods, by the Seven Devils and the deep Abyss, your questioning angers me. We talk to the Gods so they bless us. Then, we can smash our foes like ants and stop all this Catholic nonsense they are spreading to our kin,” Édegorn said like someone asked the same question for the umpteenth time.
“What did we just do then, my fair friend?”
“Almost die with your recklessness.”
“I only see Romans dead around us,” Ládheris continues, “Romans, Édegorn, no Goth got killed here. Only this filthy scum of Romans we so despise. We killed one roman and incapacitated another two without the Gods’ intervention. I guess they won’t mind it if we make their jobs easier by killing some enemies.”
“Sir, Ládheris, sir, no one followed them,” Haffan said behind the giant’s back, “but many are looking here with curiosity.”
Ládheris moves surprised by the voice and says, “you can be silent Haffan, too silent, sometimes. Go back and stand guard.”
Haffan obeys.
Ládheris uses the interruption to start asking questions to the old Roman soldier.
“They are not from the Fortress, they came to collect from the farmers,” Ládheris translates to Édegorn.
“Let’s strip them of their gold and worthy possessions and move on, the night is upon us,” Édegorn said with a tired voice.
They take what they find useful and offer their Gods Roman sacrifices.
***
Ládheris and Haffan had blood all over them. Not the kind of thing that goes away easily when you are wearing leather and skins.
“Where are you going?” Édegorn asked Ládheris.
“There,” he answered with the index pointing to the only visible place in that darkness.
“You can’t be serious, you’re going to the settlement? With blood all over? Are you planning to slaughter them as well?”
“If they are Romans and carry guns and try something funny near me, I don’t see a reason not to,” Ládheris said in a neutral tone.
“You are dead serious, aren’t you? But don’t you think for a moment that the boy will go with you to the grave. He stays.”
“Sure.”
Ládheris picks his gear, accommodates the ax and tells the Roman to follow him. They leave the woods towards the settlement.
“We follow in the shadows, Haffan,” Édegorn orders the young one, “we walked too much to let our chieftain die in a small village. Come, don’t leave the woods.”
The Goth and the Roman enter the village’s dirty unpaved road. Torches in every house light the perimeter. By the time they cross the entrance, the mob who waited for the return of the soldiers had vanished. A scent of animal manure gets mixed with the smell of food in the houses near them, ebbing and flowing by the wind’s will. Ládheris walks in defiance taking slow steps on purpose. As one person and then another passed him, he relaxed. No one gave a bent bronze piece of attention to his muddy barbaric presence. A disapproving look or two at his smell, but nothing more.
“Where can I find a place to rest here fine man?” Ládheris asked in Latin.
“There’s a barn near the end of town,” the man said without hiding his sarcasm.
“Are you offering me to use your own home fine man?”
The man froze at the answer. He didn’t notice anything besides a barbarian asking a polite, yet dumb question. With the counter-punch of the last phrase, he sees the size of the ax the giant carried and red stains on it with blurred tones of blood, metal and reflected torches. It took all his courage to raise his head and look that monster in the eye.
“O-of– course, sure, it’s yours” he said.
“I appreciate the hospitality, fine sir, but the barn will do. If–” Ládheris makes a dramatic pause, “there is a place a tired traveler can clean himself.”
Relieved from the shock the man pointed to the sole tavern in town. “It’s not much, but it’s what we have. You can tell the keeper I recommended you,” the villager said trying a smile.
“No, I won’t,” Ládheris said.
The man choked, “sorry?”
“I will tell no one anything,” the Goth paused, “because you will accompany us there and say it yourself. After being so rude to two tired travelers, it’s the least you can do to atone for your acts. Don’t you agree, Ildus?”
“Yes,” the Roman said only now being noticed by the trembling local.
“Come on, don’t keep us waiting,” Ládheris said to the rude villager.
They followed him inside an inferior house where loud noises and laughs escaped.
***
“Come Haffan, looks like they entered a tavern. Nothing good can come from a place full of Roman drunkards and a Roman hater,” Édegorn said.
The two left the forest and jumped the small wooden fence marking the village’s perimeter. With silence and caution, they passed other houses until they were at the tavern’s backdoor. The smell of food fill their hungry noses. It was the kitchen. They went around to find a window and reestablish visual contact with their leader.
Inside the place, dirty everywhere with many drunk despite the sun had set only an hour before. Others looked at the newcomers with a veiled disgust as they faced the other way. At the counter, a man with a big belly and a black mustache dried a glass and talked to the villager accompanying them without much interest. After some talk, the four went to the second floor where the rooms were.
“I guess they are safe now. We can go back to the woods, Haffan,” Édegorn said.
As Édegorn turned, a door banged open inside the tavern. “They are dead! Someone killed them,” a young man’s voice shouted.
“Who is dead? What are you talking about?” a voice asked.
“The men, the–the men in armor. The ones who ran to catch a thief uphill.”
“The debt collectors of the Emperor?” another one asked.
“Oh no! What will the Dux do to us now? We are doomed!” a third voice cried followed by a general turmoil. Some people left to spread the word.
“Now they need us,” Édegorn thought, “Haffan, let’s go around. You must climb their window and warn them!”
The two ran to the back. Édegorn lifted Haffan to a windowsill in a room next to where Ládheris and Ildus were, just above the kitchen. Haffan stabilized himself and jumped to the next sill. He misses one arm but holds with the other. Meanwhile, Édegorn places a board blocking the back door.
The voices downstairs suddenly get louder.
A head outside the window talks in a foreign language, frightening the four people inside, “Ládheris, sir. We go! Ládheris, sir. Now!” Haffans head appear inside the room.
“What happened Haffan?” Ládheris asks getting closer to the window in a hurry.
“They found out we killed the Romans. Come, come.”
“Ildus, jump.” Ládheris ordered.
At the same time, loud punches hit the door behind them.
“What? No, wai–” Ildus starts, but Ládheris grabs him and jumps outside.
Haffan was already down there. The four go to the right towards the river’s bridge on the edge of the village. People try to open the back door while some heads appear off the window they jumped.
A Roman head yells and points at them.
The four run for their lives, Haffan with a comfortable margin ahead of them. They cross the bridge while a mob gathers to chase them. Haffan looks back and notices his advantage. He turns and grabs a knife he took from one of the soldiers back in the woods. He arches back to get momentum and throws it at the mass hunting them.
It hits someone’s throat. The angry rabble watches the agonizing man reaching for the knife. The goal that united them vanishes, in its place, only terror. People start to scream and the mob runs back to the village. The dying man left behind don’t cross a single mind until they are safely guarded inside their walls.
—
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