Famfrit's Jewel - Chapter 1
Devastation
To think such a focus of power lay in a sleepy village lost in the greatwood. Marazoth was beside himself with delight at the thought yet other, darker thoughts paraded the edge of his mind. The chickens pecked and roamed where they wanted, the children ran about with no shoes clinging to skirts of mothers and elder sisters while most of the men were off hunting, fishing, or working with their hands. How had Famfrit’s Jewel remained here for, well, ever? The question was of no import now. Soon true power would be his. Many of the crystals of power Marazoth had gathered were little more than sellmage trinkets, useful in their way but far too limited for a serious sorcerer. Yet here, in a quaint cluster of cottages far away from anywhere of significance was Famfrit’s Jewel set upon an altar in a shrine at the centre of the village. Marazoth only had to reach beyond himself to feel the Blessing of Life emanating from the god’s gift, a little further and he would have it, his plan one step closer to fruition.
Around the village were two hundred of his best sword and spearmen, their job simple; take the crystal and slay the inhabitants. His scouts had reported eighty villagers at most, thirty of them men grown and most hunters with some skill with a bow and dirk. The rest women, children, and babes. Two hundred was overkill but ensured there were no deaths or injuries, dying to a poxy villager would ruin morale. No one would miss the village, no one would know or care. A shame but a necessary one, Marazoth could not allow someone to live and seek revenge, he’d made that mistake before.
A gentle snow began to fall, the evergreen trees that pierced the sky full of life and splendour eternal. Marazoth clicked his fingers, the sound amplified around the village with a simple charm. His men, clad in black leather and black furs, emerged and the slaughter began.
Five Hours Earlier…
Dagnar knelt behind a gooseberry bush as his prey cautiously bent down to lap water from the stream. The does’ eyes were ever watchful, flitting from bush to tree, to bush again, searching for predators for the greatwood was full of them. Bears, wolves, man, and larger beasts often only seen in the dead of winter. Dagnar slid an arrow from his quiver as slow and silent as he could. The does’ ear twitched, she startled to standing and looked ready to pounce but an arrow pierced her throat. The stream ran red from where she fell, dead. Dagnar held his breath, and his arrow, as two men all in black clambered down the low bluff on the other side of the stream. They wore arming swords and round shields, their arrow fletchings feather rather than leaf or bark. Neither spoke, the taller, bulkier soldier, for that much was plain, carried the doe over his shoulders while the shorter, wirier one, led the way back from whence they came. The men were quiet, far quieter than their cladding suggested, and soon there was no sight of them at all. Dagnar sipped air and remained behind the gooseberry bush for a half hour or more. Owls hooted, squirrels scampered, and the midges began buzzing in the moist air over the stream. Dagnar returned his arrow to the quiver, slipped his bow over his shoulder, and ran back to Kol.
‘There’s black clad soldiers in the greatwood,’ Dagnar panted to two of the four elders, the glow of Famfrit’s Jewel granting him a soothing warmth that healed his minor aches, strains, and wounds.
‘Soldiers come and go,’ Elder Bar said, sucking teeth he no longer had. His hands were rough from a life working stone. He still helped out his sons every now and then with cutting and setting, though with each passing year the eighty-eight year old became slower and thinner.
‘How far did you go?’ One Eye asked, Dagnar wasn’t sure he had a proper name anymore. The elder would tell the children he lost the eye in battle, raiding a nearby village for plunder and women but really he was fishing and a fellow fisher slung a hook without checking behind and caught the old man’s eye, plucked it right out. The thought of it made Dagnar shiver.
‘Lok’s Stream, up past the Barrows,’ Dagnar felt the sweat on his back turn cold as the winter chill set in. His father, Ragnar, had once been an elder of the village, not that he spent much time in the glow of Famfrit’s Jewel, instead preferring to hunt and trap until the Blessing of Life ceased its miracle upon his flesh.
‘Why so far? The deer close by are just as good.’
‘The snows are thickening, better to hunt further away first then closer when we’re helmed in by winter’s might,’ Dagnar said. The cuts on his hands had healed and the ache in his calf had withered to an itch.
The toothless elder nodded in agreement. He sat crosslegged on a wicker mat before the altar, Famfrit’s Jewel gently shining above him. ‘Soldiers come and go,’ he repeated. The words were no comfort to Dagnar, the last time he’d spotted soldiers in the woods, when he was just a boy exploring too far away from home, a huge swathe of the greatwood had burned. The smoke was as dense as coal, he learned smoke could kill till that day.
One Eye scratched a scab on his leg, ‘If you see them again tell us, if not.’ He shrugged, ‘Better to ignore them. Soldiers bring trouble, always.’
Dagnar heeded the elder’s advice and returned to his cottage. Yet, as the low winter sun dazzled through the tree branches and the children were called inside for supper, he could shake the feeling that something horrible was about to happen. The cry of his son, not yet old enough to be named, captured his attention as he crossed the threshold. A stew bubbled on the stove while Krina, his wife, nursed the babe. A squirrel skin was set for curing on the sideboard. Dried rosemary hung from the mantle above the fire with the bottom half of keg for bathing to one side. Krina smiled as he set about washing and the couple talked about their day.
One Eye lay strewn on the ground outside the shrine, his brains dashed against the stone doorframe. The elder would have been one hundred come the new year, when the snows melted. Dagnar remembered his father hundredth celebration, a whole week of feasting and frivolity. Every few years a villager reached one hundred, thanks to the Blessing of Life radiating from Famfrit’s Jewel. His own father had gone out to hunt in the morning as if it were any other day and returned with a deer across his shoulders to the village drunk in his honour. Dagnar knelt at One Eye’s side, his upper arms still corded with muscle, yet for all the god’s favour it did little outnumbered three-to-one.
Fires raged through the village, leaping from home to home and up into the trees, a sky of flame roared overhead. Everywhere Dagnar looked there were bodies, gutted, beheaded, twisted, and broken. The ice that hadn’t yet melted was carmine, the mud rusted through. There was no sign of Krina or their son, they’d fled the cottage when the snap was heard, no one knew what it was but it felt ominous and then the black clad soldiers appeared. The women, children, and the very old were to flee into the forest, up to Bracon Point and through the valley, following the river, to Jareel’s Outpost.
If only he’d gone with them, if only he’d not fell at the first swing a sword. Dagnar was lucky to be alive, he knew, and he thanked Famfrit and his ancestors for his life, though his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, all the way back to the beginning of time would be embarrassed that he was knocked out before even landing a hit. But that was the way of battle and it had been many generations since his people were raiders and pirates, though the people of Kol all learned the sword, bow, and axe from a young age as their mothers and fathers had before them.
Bodies lay in the mud, over fences, against walls, all bloodied and broken, none were black clad invaders, many were women. Twenty corpses were clustered near the chicken coop, a valiant last stand by the men of Kol. Was it valiant if none of the enemy had perished? He wondered if they had been, at least, injured for a great deal of blood had been spilt, surely it wasn’t all his brethren's?
Within the shrine with its eight stone pews, smokey braziers, and white stone altar, there was more death. A woman was curled in a corner, three children clinging to her, all had their throats cut. Dagnar closed the vacant eyes of each and prayed Krina and their boy were safe, yet he did not feel his prayer reach Famfrit, nor could he feel the warmth of the Jewel. He spun around, the crystal was gone. He panicked and fled outside for air but found only acrid smoke and the heat of a furnace, Kol was swiftly being reduced to ash. He fled home for his knives, bow, arrows, and furs. Fire licked the thatch of his roof and inside was thick with smoke. He grabbed his tools and set off for Bracon Point.
His furs stank of smoke and pain crawled up his throat. Bruising spread along his ribs and torso while swelling covered his left eye, he didn’t remember the hits that had knocked him out nor why his throat had been left uncut. Perhaps his assailants forgot or thought he was already dead, either way he was thankful to be alive even if only grief was all that remained to him. At least someone would remember Kol, for a little while.
Dagnar reached the height of Bracon Point, three massive firs clustered around a moss ridden circular slab of stone, its engravings long lost to time. There had been no tracks or traces of people but that was the point of passing through the river, he told himself. The river had frozen save for a sluggish trickle down the middle, not enough to hide a child’s tracks, let alone an adults. He searched the ground for a sign. A few steps beyond the stone was a lone footprint cracking the snow to reveal the moist earth below, he grasped the thread of hope and continued on to Jareel’s Outpost.
The smell of smoke hung in the air, warm and earthy. He couldn’t see the source but faint clouds of grey drifted from the direction of Kol. He hoped the fire would cease at the village’s edge though he knew it wouldn’t. Each step towards Jareel’s Outpost made him more husk-like, great slabs of fat sluiced off him to leave a hard core of sinewed meat and tough bone. Sentiment lay twenty yards back, joy ten yards back, kindness five yards back, despair fell away, sorrow followed, soon all that remained was cold rage and calm thoughts of revenge. He knew the truth of Jareel’s Outpost long before he reached it but he carried on anyway. It was strange, that singular emotion. Calm and calculated, a focus to channel himself into. Perhaps eternal grief was not his future but instead revenge.
The Outpost was perched upon the steepest slope of the valley, a precarious and unused lookout that saw little but trees. He’d always wondered why it was how it was, who had built it, what it was meant to watch over. None of that mattered now, the questions fell away like his joy. The door clapped against its lock in the breeze. There were soft scuff marks in the snow, a wide angle before the door suggesting recent use. He unsheathed his dirk and opened the door. Blades of light cascaded through rotten holes in the roof. Six bodies lay in their own blood, throats cut, Krina was among them, his baby boy too.
Dagnar closed the door gently and sheathed his long knife. He’d bury them, all of them, but not yet. Not yet. First he had to track down those responsible and enact his revenge.
Thank you for reading, your support keeps me writing.
A powerful start! Looking forward to reading more about Famfrit’s Jewel and who the guys are who took it!