Thrain - Part 9

Chapter 3: Cruel Symmetry

Apr 05, 2025

Weary and with great weight, he trudged through Iskraheim, though there was little on his back. Slung over his left shoulder, all his possessions fit neatly in a sack and the strap barely bit into his furs. In his right hand, a larger well-worn bag fashioned from Ooskein skin made sounds of metal and leather.

He was the first in many, many years to enter Heimhär with less than he had before he became Thar. Most did not need to demolish their childhood home to stave off starvation.

Outside the home of Iskaldir who Erik Remembered, Ethel comforted his grieving widow, and held her as each beam they took down raised her cries. Njalor closed his eyes and pressed his lips tightly together. His forearm flared, but it was not the weight of the bag. While she had not been told the reason they needed her home, it spoke of desperation to break it down only a day after her husband’s death.

Passing by two larger buildings, he recalled younger days when the snow, which piled many feet into the air, would make for forts and hideouts. He and the others would play conquest and dig holes to try and collapse those who made their forts higher up. Several kids ran around now, their innocence not wholly ruined to hear of the Urheim’s defeat. They knew not what it meant. But one boy did not play. He stared at Njalor, and he wondered why he had been spared, and not the boy’s father.

It felt useless even now, trading. He felt the taste of the word in his mouth, and shook himself to discard the feeling. If they would not trade, then there would be nothing he could think to do, and under him the Urheim would begin to starve before spring could fully save them.

Ahead, shuffling back and forth with a skin in hand, a barbarian deep within his drink ambled unsteadily forwards at first not seeing him. Had he fought? One near fall and he saw fresh cuts on the bicep, from a large axe. The man noticed him, and stopped. His face turned sour, and hard angry light entered his eyes. This could go poorly. He set his bags to the side.

“Sklal’s light,” Njalor said uneasily.

The man spat. “Sköll take you. This is all your fault. Treating with the Skogrull.”

“Who did you lose?”

Rage welled up in the man’s face, but broke as quickly as it came and tears followed. “Ah, aye. Ufjelln…” He raised his hand to accuse Njalor but his eyes now looked elsewhere.

“Ufjelln, my brother.” He tripped forward, and Njalor steadied him. “It’s not good, is it? Hunters don’t return with meat. Never seen you take a house.”

He could not reply. And what would he say? Tell him there was nothing he could do but rely on the whim of Haelstra?

“Bring back Sklal’s blessing Thar…I remember days…” He continued on, swaying across the street and mourning in his way for the brother he lost, and the city that had long been losing.

Njalor let his own tear fall, and looked up at the sky for answers. The northern sky was a vast beauty of blue and white, reached for by the Shards; majestic jutting peaks that crowned the top of the world. They touched it at times, hoarding whisps about their tips like claws raking through mist.

And one, taller, black, and bent. Sklal’s Judgement, for there it was said he had thrust upon it the great evil of the earth, Byaggt, and forever cursed that peak to stand in darkness. He shuddered and looked away. There was no answer there, at least not one worth considering.

Arriving at Heimhär, he stowed his belongings and gained his leathers and axe. Erik waited within the hall by the fire where their plan had first started. He clasped his forearm.

“Lord the Thar, I follow.”

“Häd Erik, I listen.” He grinned. “Now I understand some of Herriken’s flouting of our sacred rites. It would grow tiresome to have you address me like that always. What have we taken for the trade?”

“Some five Pines of wood, I think. Will it be enough?”

“We will see. Their walls are battered, they could certainly use it.”

“Battered by us. And they will use it to keep us out.”

He shrugged. “If they will give us food, then there will be no need to get over the wall.”

Herriken and Fyellukiskrin entered, dark Pine shavings in their furs, stark against the white and invisible in the black.

“Lord the Thar!”

“Häds.” He waved his hand, dismissing any further ceremony. “I ask that you all go with me. Should they suggest strange deals, we will need to decide then what we say.”

They nodded.

“And we bring some men besides,” Fyellukiskrin growled, “A show of strength, a warning.”

A rather empty one, Njalor knew. “Too many and I doubt they will let us near.”

“Three then,” Herriken said. “Sklal will bless seven.”

Fyellukiskrin did not look pleased with so few, but accepted the wisdom.

“Three,” Njalor agreed. He looked at them, and being decided they left the hall and attended to the cart.

It felt as if there should be more to something like this. Urheim had, so far as he knew, never once been friendly with Haelstra. To do so now could tell them they were weak. If Haelstra attacked, there would be no need to worry about food.

There was little choice though. He glanced at the peak once more.

“Njalor…” Erik spoke, an edge underneath as he traced Njalor’s gaze.

He shook his head. “No, do not worry. I look, I do not consider.” Turning back to the cart, he began fitting the bit to goats who would pull the cart.

Their group drew stares and hushed whispers as they went through Iskraheim. Most, he could see, did not understand what the purpose of their cart and the Thar traveling out could be, but a few with suspicion and glares seemed to understand their aim. They shut doors before he passed, and did not drop their heads when he looked. He doubted it would improve their opinion if they knew it was this, or starve.

The goats were not well suited for the piles of snow that lay in the forest as they went to the border. They refused to let him push, but they in shifts would push the cart from behind, for the Ice Pine weighed far more than any other wood on Aath. Onward they went, until finally the trees began to disperse, and the wall on the Helstran border rose in front.

Njalor withdrew a white flag, and moved to stand in front of the cart as it rolled on. Holding it high, he could see the guards in their bright armor begin to move about the wall. Archers focused intently on their group, but Herricken nodded. They had for now seen fit to honor the flag, for they would have begun to shoot if not.

When he had come close enough to shout, but not so close as to risk annihilation should they choose to change their minds, he shouted up at them. They responded, in the same speech but with odd words, and strange ways of saying the other words. They butchered the language like they did Sklal’s power.

As they called back and forth, a small glimmer of hope lit within him. Some need, it seemed, had arisen south, and they desired the Ice Pine greatly. Without too much more discussion, the men sheathed their swords, the archers put away their bows, and he and the others were invited in. The Haelstran gate opened for the northern barbarians, freely.

As they rolled the cart in, he noted only fifteen men that manned this gate and tower along the wall. He knew that many patrolled the great length of wall, however, and Herriken attested to as many as one hundred others that could muster behind the walls. It was in this number he hoped to find stores of grain and goods that could be traded for.

The commander came down to greet them, and Njalor held Fyellukiskrin back from violence when the man failed to honor tribal customs. He would not know them, of course, but Fyellukiskrin did not find that excuse acceptable.

The commander enjoyed his chatter, however. He at once agreed to trade, but said “details” needed to be sorted, and they were welcome to come view their stores and barter as they wished. That Njalor was Thar seemed to be most interesting to him. He couldn’t place exactly what he disliked about the man, but something did not sit well within him.

He noted a mage within the central tower as they followed the ever-talking but slowly walking Haelstran. A brief flash of something within the tower too, a bit… Looking back at the wall and taking count again, he noted that now there was some twenty-odd men, when before he’d surely thought it was fewer. Then he looked at the gate.

Sklal forbid, it could not be. By all the mountains in Sköll, he begged. The gate began to close.”

“Erik.”

The flame-haired man turned, and the commander abruptly quieted.

Then the tower doors opened, men with swords and armor rushed out, the archers drew their bows and the gates slammed shut.

Next