Chapter 37 - Interlude III: The Siege

Taliesin and Jarl Gunther left the wall swiftly after the gnolls scattered, before the Sheriff’s men and militia allies realized that they had the Jarl severely outnumbered and no common foe uniting them outside the walls at the moment. It was just as well, for word of their hostage rescue was spreading swiftly. Taliesin had no doubts that the Sheriff would find some way to rage at the young Jarl about leaving the city during the battle for the raid, and somehow try to turn their victory to his advantage. That would be hard for him to do if they weren’t there, and the memory of the tornado was fresh in everyone’s mind.

Instead, they returned to the warehouse. Taliesin was quickly accosted by his own people.

“Stormlord! Stormlord!” they cried out as he entered.

“Milord! Ye scatter’t the enemy like chaff in the wind,” crowed Billy-goat Bjorn.

“If all it takes was a scrap of wind to knock the enemy down a notch or two, we’ll have them cleared out in no time!” shouted another soldier.

“Calm, calm,” said Taliesin with a sly smile, pleased to see the morale boost. “Let’s make sure our new friends are well taken care of, shall we?”

In truth, that was already in motion. Bowls of bread soaked in so much broth that it was nearly disintegrating were passed around, and in some cases, spoonfed, to each of the rescued prisoners. A few of the hardier ones who’d managed to scrape together a bit more food or had a bit more youth or strength to begin with were helping the weaker ones. The boy, Arnulf, was helping a tiny girl, his sister, who had barely made it halfway through her bowl before falling asleep in the warm blankets she’d been wrapped up in.

Taliesin walked from group to group and took the time to talk to each of the rescuees. He offered a kind word here, a few words of comfort or comradery, or sometimes just a gentle pat on the shoulder and a listening ear. They had been through hell in that camp, and most of them were still in shock. A few looked so badly shaken they might never truly recover from the experience.

But this was why he worked so hard. His own people had been ravaged by monsters, and many had died for he lacked the strength to protect them. In this world, he would change that.

The Jarl rejoined them in the warehouse, having had his own duties to see to, and soon the worst injuries were being healed. To the newcomers’ surprise, Taliesin worked as an assistant to him during this, with his own weak healing spell for minor injuries being used most heavily under the Jarl’s direction, while the Jarl himself handled far fewer cases, focusing his efforts on those most in need.

The gnoll guard was watching. Arnulf couldn’t escape. He was trapped in the cage in the camp, and the cage kept getting smaller. If he could escape, he could get to the Stormlord, and he and his sister would be rescued. More guards arrived. He was surrounded! Then they all turned and looked directly at him in his hiding spot.

“Found you, human!” they shouted as they tore away the blanket he was hiding under.

With a gasp, Arnulf jerked awake and sat up in a cold sweat. He was safe, in donated clothes, patched a bit but clean, laying on fresh straw pallet and soft blankets. His sister was asleep beside him. The barn they were in was behind the Jarl’s grand house, and was crowded with the Stormlord’s people. Most of his fellows were put in another building on the property, but they’d managed to squeeze some of them in here - the youngest of them mostly.

As he sat there in the pre-dawn light shaking off the nightmare, Arnulf looked around. The Stormlord’s people had worked hard to convert this barn into proper winter quarters. Each of the old horse stalls had been converted into rooms, with sleeping lofts and storage spaces above them to use every bit of usable space. Crates and barrels were piled somewhat haphazardly near the door, from where they’d been shoved to make room in the middle for Arnulf and the other former prisoners. A hearth stood at the far end, kept tidy with a low fire and with cook pots on hooks nearby. Several barrels were set up with boards across them to make a work surface, but only a few bowls and utensils sat on it at this hour. Skeins of onions, garlic and herbs hung within easy reach but away from pests.

As he watched, one of the old grandmothers tottered out from one of the stalls-turned-rooms. She was well bundled against the chill in the air, but blew on her gnarled hands anyway. When she spotted Arnulf was awake and sitting up, she motioned him over with a kind smile.

“Be a dear, would you, and stoke that fire? We need a good blaze.”

Arnulf did as he was bid, much as he’d done for his old grandmother. She’d died several years before the gnolls had arrived to ruin everything. He gathered wood from a nearby pile and added it into the hearth, and before long the low flames caught the fresh fuel and the fire roared to life.

The grandmother wasn’t idle. With a skill born of a lifetime of hard work, she had put a large bowl of rough-ground barley, oats and flaxseed, water and a white liquid from a jar, and stirred it all together.

“What’s in the jar, grandmother? Is that cream?” asked Arnulf.

“Buttermilk,” she said. “Helps bind the bread all together and give it a good flavor.”

She took a chunk of the dough and flattened it out until it was about as thick as two fingers, and tossed it in the bottom of one of the cook pots hanging over the fire, then covered it with a lid. Almost immediately, the smell of frying bread began to fill the air.

Arnulf sat quietly on a nearby crate, just watching as the grandmother shaped more bread loaves of the simple peasant bread he’d eaten all his life. Two matronly women soon joined the grandmother, one of them admonishing her for not waking them to help, but the grandmother brushed off their complaints. With two younger hands to help, several of the largest cook pots were soon filled with chopped root vegetables and even a few bits of dried meat, which made Arnulf’s mouth water. Barley and oats were dumped in the pot as well, and soon the day’s stews were set to cooking.

The food they made was rustic. Grandmother’s bread was rough and filling, but would hold up for days on end in a rucksack. The stews were a catch-all of whatever they could lay hands on to feed everyone in the long winter months. It was peasant life at its core - you made the best you could with what you had on hand, and you tried to make it last as long as you could. But you didn’t make it just for yourself, you made it for your family and friends, clanmates and neighbors, all parts pulling together so everyone could thrive. Or in bad times, just survive.

All of it felt right. They were just like his own people. In a way, they were his people, just from a different village or a different region. Without a complaint, they had clothed and fed him and his, and Arnulf was deeply touched. The Stormlord had fostered a community and a way of life that Arnulf loved.

The gnolls had stolen that from him. They had raided his home, tormented and slain his kith and kin, burned his village, and enslaved him and the survivors to be sacrificed to their foul olympic gods. Now that he had a chance for his sister to be safe, his few remaining friends and family had some security…

Something ignited deep in Arnulf’s heart, something fierce. He would learn to fight. He would learn to win, and slaughter the gnolls, the yeti, and any monsters like them. Arnulf had a vision of standing alongside the Stormlord. Lord Taliesin only had the coward Runolf to back him, and that was an intolerable thought.

As more helpers moved into the kitchens and chunks of bread began to be handed out to the waking peasants, Arnulf accepted a piece for him and his sister. Once he saw to it that she was being looked after, he slipped away.

He didn’t know much. Arnulf didn’t know how to fight, yet, but he’d learn. He had to find the other young men, and maybe young women, if they wished to be shield maidens, who had escaped from the gnolls. In the distance, he heard the horns calling the warriors to the walls for battle. This wasn’t his war, not yet. But this was his calling from the gods.

It was time to raise a warband.

--------

“He destroyed their camp.”

“Yes, he did, milord Sheriff,” said Gundovald, all manner of pretense gone from his demeanor as he watched Hallfred stalk back and forth before him.

“He summoned a massive wind storm, err, twisting…”

“Tornado,” supplied the fat magus.

“...tornado that wailed like the damned in the pits of niflheim, and destroyed their camp.”

“He did, indeed, sir.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I cannot.”

“The Obsidian Enclave cannot do that.”

“Not to my knowledge, unless the High Council has some group rituals that I don’t know about.”

“Group… it would take a group of Obsidian mages to replicate that spell?” fumed the Sheriff. “And you had me insult that man and try to kill him in my own home?”

Gundovald wisely did not point out that it was the Sheriff’s plan to forcefully recruit or kill the archmage in the first place. With Hallfred so angry, it would only take a single wrong word to be on the receiving end of the would-be jarl’s Forging. He had no desire to learn what <Shatter> felt like first-hand before dying slowly on the floor like the old militia captain had.

The sheriff resumed his pacing.

“We’re out of time. They don’t know what we’ve planned?”

“They don’t know a thing.”

--------

“So we know everything they’ve got planned?” asked Jarl Gunther.

Taliesin turned to Aina who shrugged and gave a half nod. “As best we can. Aina can only be in one place at a time, and we’ve got no real spies amidst their ranks. We’ve had no time to develop ties.”

“But they don’t know we know?”

“They don’t know a thing,” said Brant, the Jarl’s majordomo. “They’re still acting just as they have for the last few days.”

Jarl Gunther breathed a small sigh of relief. “At least we have that going for us. They have us slightly outnumbered, although with casualties, that doesn’t count as much as it did a few days ago.”

“”It’s a winnable battle, milord,” said Brant.

“A battle that relies very heavily on you, Stormlord,” said the Jarl. “And on how fast the gnolls regroup.”

Taliesin gave a tight smile. “Well, it’s not like I’ve gotten much sleep the last few nights anyway. What’s one more night?”

The night was crisp and cold, lit only by a harvest moon. The harsh white light lit the snowy ground so brightly that a night attack was impossible even if the gnolls were gathered and ready. As it was, the gnolls were scattered in all directions, in the woods and fields spread far and wide as they licked their wounds and tried to make sense of the madness that destroyed their camp.

A thousand yards beyond the ruins of the old camp, the gnoll shamans gathered. Not one failed to find his way back, each using their own mystic ties to the world to return and find their brethren. A makeshift altar was erected out of branches and a smooth fieldstone, the holy symbols drawn and rites observed in silence.

As midnight approached, the gnoll shamans dragged a bound sacrifice forward and flung it onto the altar. The victim struggled briefly before one of the gnolls smacked it on the muzzle.

“Silence, Herrrretic! You should rrrrejoice that even in failurrrre, you may serve the gods one last time with yourrrr death.”

The bound gnoll on the altar struggled against its ropes with renewed vigor, the hatred in its eyes palpable. The shaman at its head smirked down at his newly deposed rival, and plucked the bone necklace from the gnoll’s neck. The regalia was the symbol of the office of the grand shaman, and this act symbolized the transition of power from one ruler to the next.

The former grand shaman could only watch helplessly as the divine magic in the bone necklace recognized its new master, and the signs of divine favor graced the new grand shaman. Magic strength flowed into the grand shaman’s body, and new cunning sparked behind its eyes.

Without any real ceremony, the new grand shaman took up a knife and slashed open the throat of the old with a gutteral cry. “Forrr the gods!”

Much like countless offerings the gnoll had offered throughout its life, the deposed shaman struggled helplessly for the scant few moments it took for its lifeblood to spill out as an offering to the gods, and exactly how the previous grand shaman had died, and the one before him, in a cycle going back to before any here were alive. That the rejoicing new grand shaman failed to notice the cyclical fate of all his predecessors was a cold comfort to the gnoll as it thrashed into a painful death.

Finally, the new grand shaman gestured, and the body was cast off the altar. In a last act of spite, the new grand shaman pulled aside his crude robes and urinated on the corpse of his dead rival, before turning back to the other shamans.

“Now that the fool is gone, let’s cast aside his failed strrrrategy and burrrn this town forrr Borrreas, God of the Norrrth Wind!”