Promise at the Edge of Ruin

Lothar sat by his father's bedside, watching the strongest man he had ever known lay helpless and dying. On the other side sat his mother, Karga, who gently stroked her husband's forehead. The room was quiet, the only sound being Baldomar's labored breathing.

The news was not good. The healers did not believe he would last beyond a few weeks, maybe more maybe less, and there was nothing that could be done. Neither magic nor medicine seemed to have any effect. All that was left was to simply await the inevitable. And so they sat, in silent vigil, with Lothar fighting back the storm that raged within him.

"There must be something we can do, something I can do," he whispered.

Karga looked to her little boy who would always be little no matter how much he grew. She smiled as warmly as she could, though the wetness of her eyes betrayed the deluge that threatened to break at any moment.

"Be strong," she said. "For him, for us. The folk will need you to be the rock amidst the waves."

"I am not so sure the folk need me as much as you believe." He looked down at his hands, regarded the fair, lightly bronzed flesh. A constant reminder of who he was and who he always will be. "Some of them think I am the one who brings the waves."

"Leadership means coming to terms that you will not be loved by all Lothar," she advised with her soothing matronly voice. "There will always be those who speak against you. Always, no matter your deeds, no matter your charm, no matter your blood. Think of the gods and how people speak against them. Or the Monad who made us all—mortal and immortal—there are those who spite even him."

She reached for him, her warm palm a resting place for his cheek. She brushed her thumb along his malar, as she continued her reassurance.

"Did the Monad suddenly stop all creation because there are those who hate him? Do the gods forsake us all when we speak ill of them? Did your father turn his back and refuse the mantle when folk took exception to his commands?"

"No," she said, shaking her head gently. "And neither should you run from your mantle Lothar. I have watched you become the man you are now. A warrior and a leader. A man who has overcome so much and yet asked for so little. I thank the gods and the ancestors every moment I look upon your face that they brought you into my life and filled it with such joy and pride."

She took his face in both hands, "Your father dreamed of uniting our kind under one banner. To bring our race out of the darkness of discord and into the light of unity. So that we may stand strong against those who would either subjugate or destroy us. And there are many now who aim do so. Promise me Lothar, promise me over the breath of your father who still lives that you will see that dream come true. Let me hear it. Let him hear it."

Lothar took her hands in his, "I promise."

***

The alehouse was alive with the rumble of voices and the scent of spilled mead, its timbered walls bearing silent witness to generations of orcs carousing and feasting. Light from flickering sconces danced across the faces of patrons in phases of laughter or contemplation. The jubilation, present despite the ill-health of the chief and the tensions between the factions of the Witan, was conjured by a tradewagon that had come home to Leoham. Rare spices, fine cloth, good food, exotic trinkets, and merchants, happy to be among kin again with purses full of gold, all ingredients for an elixir to make one forget their troubles for the night.

Cragath, Osric and Brithun, seated at a table stained and marked by years of use, were drinking quietly when Cragath overheard one of the merchants mentioning something that piqued his interest.

"Kinsman," Cragath hailed the merchant one table over. "Come drink with us and tell us of these hermits you saw."

"Of course kinsman!" the joyous merchant accepted, stumbling over and plopping down in one of the chairs. "They were  queer things."

"Where did you see them?" Cragath asked.

The merchant gulped back a spot of drink, swallowing hard before answering. "Three...No! Four days ride from here I'd say. They were queer things."

Osric and Brithun looked at Cragath, unsure why he was entertaining such a drunken conversation about something seemingly irrelevant to what they had been talking about earlier: the health of Baldomar and how they would support Lothar at the Witan. Cragath winked and gestured with his hand for them to be at ease as he continued to needle the merchant.

"So you said," Cragath laughed, gesturing for a wench for more flagons. "What was so queer about them kinsman?"

Without warning the orc stood up, lifted his tunic to reveal a hideous scar that covered much of his torso.

"See that?" he asked, hiccupping as he did. "Fucing Otso, ripped the guts out of me. So it did."

Brithun scoffed, "You're telling fibs kinsman."

"I am not!" the merchant snapped, practically shoving the scar into Brithun's face. "Does that look like I'm telling drit-tales kinsman?"

Osric interceded while Brithun gently pushed the drunk orc away.

"You'd be a dead man walking then. Never mind your guts being ripped out the Otso have poison in their claws and fangs for which there is no cure."

Osric was not wrong. Otso were ferocious bear-like creatures that were native to Sohira, especially among the Taroan Highlands, where they hunted Monarch Goats as well as other things. They were also known for attacking hunting parties and tradewagons, claiming more than a few lives each time before being driven off, if they were driven off.

"I would agree," the merchant nodded then burped. "I was ready to meet my ancestors when out of nowhere these two goblins: a crone and a maid come throwing some drit that scared the thing off."

The merchant leaned over to rip ass then continued.

"Next thing I know, they're muttering some nonsense over me, waving their hands around. There was this warm light and suddenly my guts are back in. The poison is gone and it's like nothing fucing happened."

"They healed you?" asked Brithun, now very much interested.

"Right as rain."

"What did they look like?" inquired Cragath.

"Oh the crone was horrid," the merchant gestured. "Wild gray hair, yellow-black eyes, more wrinkles than a raisin. Now the maid..."

The merchant grinned, raising his hands in unison and tracing a curvaceous figure in the air as he brought them down.

"...she had a body built for bedchambers if you catch my meaning ha ha ha!"

He paused mid laugh, burping wetly in such a way that Cragath, Osric and Brithun all leaned away slightly to avoid the spew that might come. He regained his composure and continued the description.

"She had short, black hair. Pretty face, black-green eyes she had. Gods those tits. And that ass!"

Osric, annoyed, steered the conversation away from the rabbit hole that was fast approaching.

"What did they do after they healed you? Did you get their names?"

The merchant answered the first part, "I thanked them. The crone asked if I would jump her bones but she slapped me in the cock when I said I'd rather lay with her friend."

Osric rolled his eyes as he awaited the answer for the second part. The merchant scratched at his chin.

"I think the crone's name was Allala, Tallala, Lal-."

"Atalla," one of the other merchants, still seated in the table next to theirs, answered the question.

"That's it," the drunk snapped his fingers. "And the other one was named Rascha, couldn't forget her name."

Cragath, Osric and Brithun thanked the man and he returned to his fellows, carrying one of the flagons Cragath had bought him. When he was gone the three orcs leaned in to speak to one another.

"We should tell Lothar," said Cragath tapping at the table with his index finger for emphasis. "Maybe these goblins have the means to heal Baldomar."

"You think that drunk was telling the truth?" Brithun asked.

"He didn't get a scar like that from anything I'd ever seen," Osric mused. "The fact that the other merchant knew her name means that he didn't hallucinate them at least."

"Let's go then," Cragath said, getting up from the table. "If there is any chance of bringing Baldomar back from the brink, we have to take it."

***

It was a throbbing, aching pain combined with the sensation that his skull would split apart at any moment. That was what Eumer was feeling as he languished on the long-chair in the hearth room of his home. He was accompanied by his son, Rodolf, as well as some of his supporters, Allowin, Vaelor and Caerth. All thegns save Rodolf, who had not yet attained the mantle beyond huscarl.

"That could have gone better," Allowin began, his measured voice cutting through the crackle of the fire as he tapped his index finger on his bicep, a rhythmic gesture betraying his irritation while leaning against the rough stone wall on the western end of the room, three feet or so from where Eumer lay. "If you were minting to cast some antagonism against yourself then congratulations."

"I said nothing but the truth of it," Eumer groaned. "That is all."

Allowin sighed, "Slighting Lothar is one thing, but speaking ill of Karga was another. She is loved among the folk."

"Loved or not, a wise headman would have set her aside."

Caerth, who had been seated in the chair opposite of Eumer, uncrossed his legs with predatory grace, rising up to face Allowin squarely. The high ponytail that held his black hair aloft swayed with the movement, catching firelight that made the stark darkness of his hair gleam. His eyes, deeply verdant, narrowed as they beheld Allowin.

"The folk know this," he continued. "And with Baldomar on the brink, we need your sense of shirecraft more than ever to secure the consent of the Witan for our cause."

Allowin huffed through his nose before pushing off the wall and pacing to the center of the room.

"We say and do nothing for now, save expressing our support for our headman," he explained. "We must not bear the look of a vulture eyeing his next meal. When Baldomar does pass, only then we will shore up our approval amongst the folk. But I would recommend we take great care in our efforts to undermine Lothar. Press too hard and we could cause war, which for the sake of our folk cannot happen. We also need to reign in talk of killing him amongst our fellows, to preserve an avenue of retreat for both him and us. Stand too firm on his fate this early and again, we push war."

"Why the cloak and dagger?" Rodolf asked, his cobalt eyes alight. "Challenge Lothar to a trial and be done with it. I could fell him with one blow! What would those who support Lothar say if he is slain in righteous combat?"

Behind the youth, a low rumbling chuckle permeated through his bones. Vaelor, a giant of an orc who was built like an ox, reached his mighty mitt down and rustled Rodolf's raven hair.

"You have fire young one but you are dumb with youth," he guffawed, the waves of his auburn hair bobbing with the heaving of his mighty chest. "Lothar is a great warrior and he would be the one slaying you."

"He has a point though Vaelor," Caerth interjected thoughtfully. "It would be a clean way to eliminate him."

"It would also make it clean for Lothar," Allowin reminded. "If he won he would win the leadership of the clan."

Caerth grinned, his eyes betraying a hint of evil mischief.

"Then we make it about something else."

Vaelor raised an eyebrow, "Lothar is used to slight, and the shamans wouldn't allow fights to the death over petty things like that. Those are solved over fists not blades."

"I'm talking about Karga," Caerth clarified, in a low, menacing voice.

Allowin wrinkled his nose in disgust, "You're not suggesting..." he began, then trailed off unable to conjure the words.

Caerth's grin widened, "He would have to answer it. There is no possible way he could not. Picture it: his mother wailing to him that she had been defiled! What orc, what man, would allow such a thing to be left unanswered? But he would have no proof. Only the word of his mother, not enough to convict the one she names, not on that alone. And so what other means could he have to seek justice other than through a wager of battle?"

"That," Caerth culminated. "Would have to be decided by blades. Lothar either dies, defending his mother's honor or he prevails. The former outcome solves our problem regarding the uncertainty of the Witan. The latter keeps the leadership question out of the equation."

Silence, awful silence descended upon the room like a miasma that choked the words out of everyone present. The crackling of the hearth suddenly seemed too loud, too intrusive in the suffocating quiet. All could condemn the morality but none could argue the cold logic of Caerth's plan. The suggestion hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity. Allowin's face had paled to an almost sickly shade, his lips parting slightly as if to speak but finding no words adequate to express his horror. Rodolf's eyes, once burning with youthful zeal, now flickered with uncertainty, as if the true weight of realpolitik had pressed firmly on his shoulders. Vaelor made no attempt to hide his disgust, his grey eyes burning into Caerth who stood smug and assured. Finally Eumer broke the silence.

"You would volunteer for this?" he asked, peeking out from beneath the cloth he held to his face.

Allowin, Rodolf and Vaelor slowly turned to regard Eumer with utter disbelief. Caerth, however, smiled gleefully.

"Oh yes, my headman..." he answered.

"It would be my pleasure..."