Legends Never Die: Next Steps (ch. 10) (Patreon)

“Hnngh…” I groaned, hearing the faint sound of screaming not too far off in the distance. As if someone was being muffled by a bite. My upper body felt incredibly sore, as if I had pulled every single muscle in my arms, shoulders, and back. I was used to the feeling of pushing myself a little too hard, but I had truly overdone it this time. I doubt I would be able to raise my arms above my head for a week. No- wait, I had Fast Healer. So, a few days.

Shifting my head made me open my eyes to find that they were completely covered in dried blood. I had to peel myself off of the bed I had fallen face-first into -- a bed that wasn’t mine. I had just  dove into the first one that I could find at the camp and passed out. Another groan escaped me when I pushed myself into a sitting position, my head hanging low so that clumps of hair fell into my face, proving that even my hair had soaked through with other people’s blood.

I spared a glance down at my hands, idly noting that some paste had been applied to the nicks and cuts on them. My injuries had been treated while I was asleep. A few cuts, a few scrapes, and it was only now that I noticed I had taken a cut to the calf during the battle. All of which were treated and bandaged. In my sleep, since I didn’t recall it happening.

How many people did I kill during that battle? How many people’s blood was I absolutely drenched in? It felt like a lot. More than a dozen. Maybe… two or three. Maybe even four. I doubt it was a hundred, though. That seemed a bit much. Still, I killed a lot of people. And I had been rewarded for it.

Prowess had reached another milestone. Unsurprisingly given the battle. Killing men gave far more experience than sparring with my brothers, and I’ve killed a number of men at this point. I had the leftover of Shatter Defense, but there were two new choices: Projectile Prediction and Auto Action. Both choices were… interesting.

Projectile Prediction allowed me to see the exact destination and path of an object, meaning an arrow or javelin or whatever. Both my own, and even better, things that were flying my way. Auto Action, however, was interesting -- It was almost… inhuman in nature. It would save certain actions that I made and when the prompt for them to happen, they would be done without any conscious thought from me. If a slash happened at my neck, I could save a block that would catch the blow. More than that, I could go a step beyond and make it a counter and kill the man. And if he blocked, I could save another move to respond depending on what he did.

Fighting, in theory, would become… automatic… It wouldn’t need me to think about it at all. It was a true gift from the gods and I could see how powerful it would make me. Yet, all the same, I didn’t want to take it. How could I? What honor was there in a fight when the enemy could never hope to touch me? When there was no effort nor thought on my part, how could I earn my victories? That was not glory. Nor honor. That was… I don’t even know what it was.

No. No, this was a test by the gods to see if I would mindlessly choose power over honoring them as I should. A test I would not fail.

So, I chose Projectile Prediction. It seemed like it would shore up my most glaring weakness to missile weapons, while making my aim better. Maybe I should look into getting a bow. I loved my sling, but as powerful as it was, I could only ever get a few shots off with it before I was forced into a melee. With the right bow, enough distance, I could kill a dozen men before they even came near me.

“You’re awake,” I heard a voice say, making me look over at an unfamiliar man looking at me with caution. I had no clue who he was.

“...Did I steal your bed? Sorry,” I said, standing up with a low groan while the man let out a small disbelieving chuckle as he continued to look at me. “I was tired and it was either it or the mud,” I said, looking at him. He eyed me with a sense of guarded awe. Perhaps awe was the wrong word for it, but that look he was given me was the same kind that was given to Jarl Horrik or King Sigfred. Respect.

“I bet, Wolf-Kissed,” he remarked, clearly amused. “Your pet priest has been looked after. He was spared execution,” he said, making me frown and the dried blood on my face cracked with the expression. He seemed to pick up on it because he explained, “Your Jarl decided that it was too soon to take thralls of the defeated, and keeping them prisoner would be too costly. Most of the defenders were executed.”

There was a beat of silence as I processed that. I had largely checked out towards the tail end of the battle, but by the time I had helped break into that room, there had been surrenders. We had taken the walls too quickly, and with the opening of the gate, the defenders saw that they had no hope. They surrendered. Meaning hundreds of prisoners had been executed.

It seemed like a harsh measure, but I also didn’t know what else could be done about the prisoners. As bad of a taste as it left in my mouth, I couldn’t offer any solutions, so I had no right to criticize the decision. All I could do was hope that those that had been executed had died well to impress their God.

I nodded, “When do we march on Eresburg?” I asked him, earning a small nod.

“I was sent to wake you. We begin the march soon,” he informed me. “Jarl Horrik and King Sigfred wished for you to join them,” he added, starting to leave before he paused, as if realizing that I was completely covered in blood. “I can tell them that you will join them once you are clean?” He offered, earning a thankful nod.

“Thank you,” I said and promptly marched off in the direction I knew the river would be in. The river was a slow moving one that moved inland, the water murky and flanked by banks. I chose the cleaner option and waded into the river and used my nails to start scratching off the dried blood. The only remotely clean parts of me was my back from the shield protecting me, and my pants. Even my feet had been covered in blood.

Dunking my head in the murky water, I furiously scratched at my scalp to clean myself off. I spent a good ten minutes bathing in the cold water, then another ten cleaning my fingernails. I was pruny when I finally exited the river to be greeted by my father, who had shown up at some point. He offered a new pair of clean clothes but said nothing until I was dressed.

“Secure a foothold on the walls, or open the gate,” Father said once I was dressed, looking down at me with an unreadable expression. “You do know what or means, right? It means one or the other,” he told me, his blue eyes searching my face.

“It just kinda happened?” I defended myself with a small shrug. “Once I was on the walls, I saw how many of them there were and they were pushing to close the foothold. Jarl Horrik said he wanted to minimize losses, so…” I trailed off when my Father sighed loudly.

“Siegfried, I love you. You make me so damn proud, but I want to wring your little neck sometimes,” he admitted to me, bringing me into a hug. Giving me some pretty mixed messages there. “I don’t know what drives you, son. You’ve always been doing your best to outdo yourself… but while our day to die is written by fate, you don’t need to rush towards it with such reckless abandon.”

I guess that’s what it would look like to others. I stepped back, breaking the hug. “I don’t intend to die anytime soon. I just did all that I could,” I told him. Jarl Horrik was right about doing what we could to minimize losses. From what I heard, assaults on fortresses were bloody and long affairs. Me doing all that I could saved lives and time that we could use against the Franks.

Changing the entire tide of the war was beyond me. I could only do so much. Taking part in that battle broadened my perception in a way. As much as I had done, in the end, I had been a very small part of the battle. The number of men I killed was practically meaningless. My greatest act that had the most impact on the battle was opening the gates so that more of our men could fight. That had won us the battle.

Being a great warrior wasn’t enough to win. Being in the right place at the right time to take the right action won battles. Being a great warrior just made being there at the right place and time easier. However, the right action could only reveal itself with time or strategy. I increased my Prowess, but it was my understanding of what tactics were that had changed the most.

Father searched my face a moment longer before offering a slow nod, “I heard you, son.”

“Are the others okay?” I asked him as we began to walk back to camp. Through the trees, I saw people breaking down the camp. Though, from the looks of it, some were taking up residence in the fortress -- I guess to make sure no one else took it while we moved on.

“Aye, they’re just sore that you’ve outshone them. Your name is all everyone’s been talking about all night,” Father said, earning a glance from me.

“Night?” I echoed, nearly tripping on a root. I was glad the others were okay, but that last bit was really surprising.

Father let out a small laugh, “You’ve been out for half a day and a night, lad.” He informed me, dashing my initial assumption that it had only been a few hours. “We waited to give Widukind a head start, and for our messenger to catch up with him. We have a half days march to catch up. Either he’ll be dead, his plan worked, or we have to assault another fortress.” He said with a dismissive shrug, not caring one way or the other.

I had half a day to recuperate. I felt a bit better already once the muscles had loosened up a bit, though I was still incredibly sore. Though, I still straightened up when I saw Jarl Horrik and King Sigfred speaking to each other in low tones. I also spotted the man that I… had taken, kidnapped, and enslaved. Huh. I know people said you just did things when your blood was up, but I had kidnapped and enslaved someone. A priest of the Christian religion. On accident. Sorta.

The priest's eyes dropped to the ground, clutching the heavy silver and jeweled cross in his hands like it was a lifeline. His lips moved in a prayer that sounded foreign, even more so than Frankish. Did he know another language? If he did, then that was another reason to not free him yet. Not only would it mean his death, but it was two languages for the price of one.

"Wolf-Kissed! I thought we might have to carry you in battle," King Sigfred greeted me and I saw the briefest of sour looks pass over Jarl Horrik's face as he too turned to look at me. His son Thorfin rode next to him, looking at me with some interest but he said nothing.

I offered a slight smile, not really sure the proper protocol for dealing with a king. No one told me because no one thought I would ever actually meet one. So, I just kept doing what I had been doing, "I might have slept through it," I told him, earning warm chuckles.

"Your priest and spoils have been kept safe -- though what you need a pet priest for is beyond me," Jarl Horrik remarked, giving the priest that muttered a prayer a dirty look. "I've also given you a chest that contains your well-earned reward -- my share of the loot taken from the fortress." He told me, giving me a smile that I had a hard time deciphering. There was a tension in the air that seemed to materialize from nothing.

It had always been there between the two. I hadn't seen much of it and it was clear that the dislike between them extended beyond just politics. They didn't like each other, period. Or, at the very least, Jarl Horrik actively disliked the Dane king. However, now it was being extended to me as well. That much was proven when King Sigfred spoke up.

"Your prizes will be kept in the baggage train, but I learned you lack something. It is beneath such a fine warrior to walk on the ground with the rest of the men," he said, and with a gesture, a man that was leading a horse walked forward on cue. The horse was a hardy build, chestnut in coat with a light-colored mane. On his back were furs and pelts that acted as a cushion for long rides.

Ah. I think I see where the tension was coming from.

I nodded to King Sigfred, "Thank you for the fine gift. Does he have a name?" I asked while Jarl Horrik looked so impassive it was pretty easy to see he was incredibly pissed off. The king was giving me gifts. Horses were a declaration of wealth. Argo, my workhorse, marked me out as someone with money even when I didn't really have any. But there was a huge distance between an old workhorse and a warhorse. The latter was only ridden by Thegns, Jarls, and Kings. I was none of the above.

I petted the beast, getting him used to me as he looked at me with intelligent eyes. King Sigfred shook his head, "No. Consider it my gift. With your efforts, we took the fortress almost too quickly." He said as I hopped up on the horse. It was a bit awkward. The pelts were belted down, while the horse shifted his weight once I was on, but a second later I was seated and gazing down at everyone else. I met eyes with Father, who took the time to give me a very pointed look.

He didn't need to say anything. The look said it all.

To watch my mouth and make no promises.

Jarl Horrik nodded, "Aye. We expected to spend at least a week here. Never mind taking it on the first assault. The men said you fought like Thor himself,” he remarked, an odd note in his words. He was clearly buttering me up, as if to remind me who I owed my gratitude to, but there was almost a quiet unease to him as we began to march forward with Jarl Horrik and King Sigfred leading the way. His son openly wore a sour look as if he had bitten into something bitter before wiping the expression off his face when he saw I noticed. I used the chance to look to the priest, who looked up at me with fear in his eyes, and gestured for him to follow.

“An exaggeration,” I said, quickly getting used to riding. I loosely grabbed the horse’s mane to steer, but for the most part I let… Epona lead himself. Father walked along with us, and behind us were the Hirds for both men, a grand total of about sixty men marching along a dirt road that was rapidly turning to mud.

“Humble,” King Sigfred remarked. “But do not be so quick to dismiss praise. Especially when it comes from a king,” he added, not looking back at me. “I’m told that it is not the first time you’ve proven yourself in battle. An attack on a farm repelled single handily, salvaging a near failed raid… and seizing the walls of a fortress for an army. That, Wolf-Kissed, is a pattern.” And the king was looking into me.

I really didn’t know what to do in the situation. I wish I had trained up Diplomacy more, or even Intrigue. Something to make me feel like I wasn’t about to stick my entire foot in my mouth every time I spoke. I should have taken Silver Tongue when I had the chance.

“A pattern we hope continues,” Jarl Horrik said, sparing me a glance. “The shield that my daughter gave you saw hard use. The planks have been replaced, and the buss restored. It will be ready for the next battle.” And he was bringing that up now to remind us that I was engaged to his daughter. I said us, because that reminder was directed every bit as much at me as it was King Sigfred.

“Thank you, Jarl Horrik,” I said, thanking him in the same tone as I did when I got the horse as I settled in for a very long and very awkward trip.

…

Eventually, as the hours ticked by, things settled into an uncomfortable silence. Giving me time to speak to the priest, who marched along side us with increasing difficulty. The march we were on wasn’t a long one, but walking eight hours was a task for the overweight man. He never lost his death grip on the cross either, which certainly didn’t help him. “What is your name?” I asked him in Germanic, making him look up at me.

“Otto, my lord,” Otto introduced himself, a slight quiver in his voice.

“Not a lord,” I quickly corrected, making him swallow thickly.

He looked away from me, “What shall become of me?” He asked, and it was a fair question. I would want to know that too.

“As of right now, you are my slave,” I told him bluntly, not sparing his feelings. He clutched the cross tightly until his knuckles were white. “You will teach me Frankish. And I also heard you muttering something -- was that Frankish?” I asked him, earning a hesitant shake of his head.

He swallowed thickly, “It was a prayer, my lord. To God. It was, in, ah…, Latin, my lord,” he explained, stumbling a bit when I frowned at him. He was a skittish thing, I noticed.

But he said something that caught my attention, “Your god is dead. How can he hear your prayers?” I asked him, gesturing to my cross he carried. Nails through his hands and feet might not kill him, but the wound between his ribs would have pierced his heart. That was a fatal wound.

Otto opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, licked his lips nervously before he finally found his words after a lengthy pause. “This is Jesus Christ, the son of God and our savior. He died for our sins -- so we may be forgiven for our failures and misdeeds so long as we repent for them and praise his name.” He explained slowly, cautiously even.

“Oh, that makes more sense,” I admitted. There was a story there, but it made much more sense that they weren’t worshiping a dead god. “So, he is not your god?”

“No, he is,” Otto corrected, and things made a lot less sense. “He… ah… there is the father, the son, and the holy spirit -- all are God. Jesus was the son of God, yet he was God.” He explained in a rather clumsy way, and I hoped that it was his fear that jumbled the explanation because I was growing more confused by the second. “It makes more sense if you accept God is all-powerful. He can be himself, and not himself.”

I frowned, “No one is all-powerful. Even Odin must bend to the whims of fate,” I argued. What a confusing religion. “If he was all-powerful, then we would have been repelled on your walls. You would have won the battle, and we would not have this baffling conversation.”

Otto actually smiled at that, gaining some confidence, “God works in mysterious ways and all is in accordance with his plan. The defeat we suffered stings, this is true. And many were lost and suffered. But, I believe it is because your defeat was not meant to be on the walls. It is further inland -- at the hands of the Great King Charlemagne.” He spoke, puffing out his chest.

Thorfin slowed down, “What is he saying?” He asked me, nodding to the priest.

“That Charlemagne will defeat us,” I answered, earning a scoff from Thorfin. I shared his indignation, though I was less vocal about it. The priest spoke of things that he didn’t understand. If we were to be defeated, then it was fate for us to be. That, and the will of the gods. Not his God. Then I nodded at Otto, “Why are you so certain that he will defeat us?”

“God wills it,” was Otto’s quick response.

“And if our gods will for us to succeed?” I questioned, “We have a mighty army of many thousands.”

Otto appeared almost indignant, his fear quickly forgotten now that he found his pride. “As does King Charlemagne! He possesses many tens of thousands of soldiers, all ready to carry out God’s will,” he told me, and my lips thinned at that. Something that wasn’t unnoticed by him, nor Thorfin. “Do you realize your folly now? Repent and find God in your heart, and I’m certain you will find mercy. If not, then you will be welcomed into Heaven.”

I looked away from him, speaking to Thorfin, “He says that the Frankish King Charlemagne commands several tens of thousands of men.” I said, making Throfin frown deeply.

“He speaks lies,” Jarl Horrik dismissed without looking back at us. “The Frankish had no more than five thousand warriors when they conquered Saxony. That is the extent of their might. He is exaggerating to drip poisonous doubts into your ears. Don’t listen to him.” He sounded confident about that, which I could admit soothed the worst of my worries.

Thorfin nodded, looking happy, “And when we free Saxony, we’ll be able to meet them in numbers. Even if the Saxons are soft as little girls,” he remarked, earning a chuckle from Jarl Horrik. I didn’t think it would be as simple as that, though.

Regardless, I was given something to think about. For now, though, I had more immediate concerns.

“Whether we lose or not, you will teach me Frankish and Latin,” I told Otto. “Should your god prevail, then you will be freed and I will be dead. Should my gods prevail, then upon teaching me what you know of the languages… and your religion, you will be freed.” I said, making Otto’s eyebrows climb high when he heard that. I don’t think he expected freedom to come from anything other than a chop of an axe.

“You wish to convert?” He asked me, hope clear in his tone.

“I just wish to learn,” I added to a visibly disappointed Otto before he looked oddly determined. I could practically see it become his personal mission to show me the light of heaven, and I wouldn’t stop him. It would make him eager to teach me. And I wanted to learn. My faith in the gods was certain -- I saw proof of it every day with my daily ritual at least. There would be no chance of me converting, and knowledge was knowledge. Even All-Father Odin learned from the Jotun, his enemies. “Tell me the fables, the stories, and the morals behind them.”

I should have expected him to thrust out the cross before saying an unfamiliar word, “Jesus.” He said, repeating the word in Frankish. He pointed to the cross, saying the word in Frankish, then Latin. I repeated them, Polyglot sorting the two out in my head.

Over the march, Otto would point at things and give them a name in Frankish and Latin, and slowly my understanding of the language expanded. Jesus, cross, clothes, horse, dirt, mud, grass, trees, and so on and so on. He taught basic sentences -- ‘Jesus, our Lord and Savior, died for our sins,’ and ‘burn in hell heathen’ to start with. The speed in which I was picking it up made him more enthusiastic. It helped the time pass by, at least.

However, it came to an abrupt end when the sun was at its highest. A scout came sprinting towards King Sigfred and Jarl Horrik, shouting, “The Franks have left their fortress! They march on the Saxons! The Saxons are pinned at the riverbank!”

“The plan worked!” King Sigfred shouted, urging his horse forward and nearly knocked over the scout that delivered the news. “Onward! To battle!” He shouted and Otto looked at me fearfully, not understanding what was going on. I didn’t have time to explain to him because I found myself caught up in the surge of men that started to press forward.

The formation of the army rapidly changed as we continued to march forward with renewed enthusiasm. Before, we were a rough column with myself at the front, but despite the still dense forest we were surrounded by, we became a line. Otto fell back to the baggage train, along with the rest of the thralls, while I found myself marching at the head of the army. It took us some time to arrive, even with our increased pace. But, through the trees, I caught a glimpse of a clearing.

And men.

The Frankish army had their back towards us as they lined up. Fast Counter took a long few seconds to count them all up at six hundred men. Their line was primarily made of shields and spears, but I saw a thin line of archers standing before the spear wall as they rained arrows down on King Widukind’s army, who weathered the arrows with the hopes that we would arrive soon.

“Stay with us, Siegfried,” Jarl Horrik said as a horn blew to announce our arrival and for the army to step forward through the treeline. I saw the Frankish army shit itself the moment the horn rang out, the commander of the army whipping around and his expression one of absolute shock. “And watch. Battle is a very different thing when you aren’t in the thick of it. So, sit and watch.” ‘And learn’ went unsaid as our line formed up.

Unarmored men stood at the front of the frontline. They carried spears meant for throwing, shields and axes. Behind them, a solid wall of overlapped shields, almost preventing them from turning back and rejoining the safety of the shield wall. The archers at the back began to fire their shots at the Frankish army that started to shift to account for the new threat.

It was King Widukind that gave the order for the battle to start. The moment when the Frankish line was most disrupted, his force charged forward from their position. They sprinted across the clearing, slamming into the Frankish army and I saw the army of men bend in response. The line didn’t just melt like I thought it would. The Saxons didn’t carve a line either. They were like two objects slamming into each other and the Franks proved the softer of the two.

The Norse army surged forward, the troops at the front hit the half-formed spear wall to greater effect. I saw men being cut down, if not picked off by Frank archers. The rest of the army arrived a few seconds after, catching the Franks in the rear and they were completely enveloped.

Echoes of shouts and screams reached our ears as we watched the battle from afar. The lines of the battle shifted like sand -- the Franks would push out one way and were pushed back in another. I saw spears break, axes rise and fall. It was absolutely nothing like I thought it would be like. There were no individual battles. Not really. The clear lines of Franks, Norsemen and Saxons were never lost, they just shifted one way when pressed or another when they pressed.

I looked for signs of something that would end the battle early, like opening the gates had at the fortress. A maneuver of some kind that would make the enemy realize that the battle had been lost. It was a lot harder to find than when we were attacking a fortress, especially when I didn't really know what I was looking for. If I was in the battle, would it be enough to break through their line? If I killed their commander, who I saw barking orders once or twice, fighting with his men?

How did one decisively win a battle? The answer wasn't clear, no matter how much I watched.

It also lasted for a lot longer than I thought it would. I watched the battle closely, trying to pick out people like King Widukind, or my Father or brothers, but it was just a sea of people as far as I could tell. I thought that when the Franks saw that they were completely surrounded, they would break -- either surrender or make a push out at a focused point. Instead, I sat on the horse for a solid two hours before the commander of the Frank army tore off his cloak and began to wave it back and forth from atop of a horse, a gesture of surrender.

Horns were blown on the Saxon and Norse sides as the fighting just seemed to slowly stop over the course of a long minute. The Franks began tossing down their weapons, though plenty still kept them at the ready in case the fighting continued. And just like that, the battle was over.

“It’s different,” I agreed, breaking hours of silence. It was so very different. Battles lasted hours. There was a give and take to it. The solidness of the line was important. As was having several lines because I watched as the Franks shifted out their front line when their men began to tire. Our side didn't do that.

If the Franks hadn't surrendered, then the battle could have gone on for another two hours. If not longer.

King Sigfred nodded, “It is. What would you have done differently?” He asked me, his tone blunt as he looked at me. For a moment, I floundered, not really knowing. An actual pitched battle was so different than what I imagined that I’m not sure if my ideas had any merit. But, after that moment, I found my voice.

“Leave them with a way to escape?” I said, though it came out more as a question. “There’s no creature in the world that will fight harder than a cornered rat. But, give it a way to escape, and it will always flee.” I said, earning a thoughtful noise from Jarl Horrik.

“Then we would have let them regroup,” he pointed out, but not if we pursued. I didn’t respond to that -- my experience playing Hnefatafl had done nothing to prepare me for this. I might have a milestone in tactics, yet this battle proved just how little I actually knew. It had completely changed how I looked at actual warfare.

I was thankful for the opportunity.

However, that thankfulness slowly turned into regret when I watched the wounded being dragged away. Because of my Father’s size and his hair, I was able to pick him out at last… and it was then that I noticed that he was carrying someone with an expression of despair on his face.

I knew right then that I had just lost another brother.