Chapter 9

My short hunting trip was successful and I was about to decide if I should smoke the two deer by myself or should I take them to Ake to add something to my credit. It turned out that the decision was made for me, as a group of riders approached my home from the direction of the village. It took one quick look to verify that the riders were Guardians, and I could think of only one reason why they would come to see me.

I left those deer hanging next to my smokehouse when I turned to face the newcomers and noticed that this party of Guardians was a small one, consisting of a Captain, a Sergeant and two rank-and-file men. I poured some water from the bucket to my hands and washed them quickly while the Captain and the Sergeant moved forward.

“Captain, Sergeant - I guess you are looking for me.”

“Are you ... are you Mr. Stian Elder?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m sorry, I expected someone older. After all, we were supposed to meet an experienced tracker and hunter.”

At that point I remembered that I had never mentioned my age in that letter I sent to the Guardians. Since my age hadn’t been a problem with the Guardians before, I hadn’t really thought about it myself. Besides, I had been on my own for more than two years now.

The Sergeant interposed. “Cap, I’d say that at least half of that can be confirmed by looking at those two deer.”

The Sergeant was older than the Captain, and the sound of his voice was almost amused. I shrugged.

“I got lucky. However, it seems that I’ll deliver these two to our merchant to handle. Not a big deal, since I had considered it as an option.”

“You would have smoked those two all by yourself?”

It seems that the Captain still had some issues with my age.

“Captain, I’ve been living on my own for two years now. My father taught me to track and hunt - and to take care of the game afterwards.”

“So, you have been living here alone for two years?”

“No, I’ve been living here starting this spring. I lost my childhood home because I abandoned it once I joined the hunt, last year.”

There was much more edge in my voice than I had planned, and suddenly all the anger I had hidden surfaced again. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Saga. I didn’t want to think about Saga.

“But you have a nice small house here now, right?”

“Yes, and I paid for all the repairs I couldn’t do myself with one of my Bonds.”

“So, what do you want? Revenge?”

Yes! I wanted to shout that out. I wanted revenge.

“No, not really revenge - but justice. My old home villagers gave away my childhood home while I was helping your fellow Guardians. Afterwards, they refused to accept the Bonds I had been given, even though we had all that in a written agreement.”

“Too bad we don’t have the agreement with us now.”

I could tell that the Captain didn’t fully believe me - if at all.

“There is no need for that, since I have my copy. It has the official seal and several signatures. Look, Sir - I assume that you visited the village before coming to my place?”

“Yes, that’s what we did.”

“Wouldn’t you mind taking those two deer to our village merchant and maybe trading them for something we can eat on the way to my old village?”

“Not at all, son. However, there is no need for you to feed us.”

“Captain, you came all the way up here because of me. Besides, if our local merchant. Ake makes a good deal here, he’ll be more than happy to make some better deals later. While you go there, I’ll take care of my horse, change my clothes and collect some things for the journey. I’ll also pick up my copy of the agreement.”

When we met again, the Captain wanted to see the signed document. In a way, I was a bit disappointed, but my rational part couldn’t really blame him, since my story wasn’t that easy to believe. He carefully examined the paper and the seal. The look on his face didn’t change until he read the signatures. Then he just passed the sheet to his Sergeant and waited. Once the Sergeant reached the end of the paper, the older man turned to look at me.

“So, you know Rafal. I guess you have no idea how he got punished.”

“What! I thought that they should be heroes, now. How can they punish him?”

Only then did I notice the grin in his weather-beaten face.

“Oh, since the relationships between officers and us lower ranks are frowned upon they made him a Lieutenant - while his wife ranks as a Captain. I think that’s a very cruel punishment.”

“You are his friend?”

“I was there at their wedding.”

“Well, I’m happy for Cajsa and Raf.”

Then the Captain took the agreement from the Sergeant, gave it back to me and watched when I stored it with one of the Bonds I had with me.

“Stian, I’m not going to lie to you. When we came to your house I had planned to talk you out of this.”

He took a deep breath.

“Look, you have a nice house, you seem to make a decent living... - but now when I know what you have been through... - well, with our fellow Guardians, I want to go there and find out what was their excuse.”

“Thank you, that’s all I ask.”

“Of course I also want to know if someone can really be that stupid that they want us to stop protecting them. By the way, have you considered moving back there?”

That forced me think for a moment, but only for a moment.

“No, I’d probably never do that. Not even if my old house was much bigger and nicer than the current one. I couldn’t stand to see those people almost every day...”

Since the trip to my old home would be almost a one-day ride at a brisk pace, we decided to postpone our departure so that we’d be able to leave early in the morning. That would also give their horses some rest. I could have slept at my home, but I decided to stay with the Guardians, who were shown to one of the barns. I almost regretted that I hadn’t been able to sleep in my new, comfortable bed that many times, but on the other hand, these guys had done the trip to this place at the end of the world because I had sent my letter.

I made sure to serve some nice roasted meat to our party and our horses would be taken care of. Ake didn’t complain at all, which made me think about the profit he made while doing business with me. I decided not to care. After all, he was honest and friendly with me.

“So, you guys killed the beast, right?”

I had guessed that the question would come, but I hadn’t suspected that they would start with that. I could feel four pairs of eyes following me when I took a sip of drink and used the last of my bread to clean the last of the sauce from my plate. After that, I turned to the Captain who had asked me that question.

“I don’t think of it as a beast, but as a victim, just like the party chasing it. Yes, we killed it, but not without losses as you probably know.”

“What do you mean by being victims?”

“Just what I said. Most likely the creature didn’t want to come to our world, and the party sent to chase it hadn’t done anything that bad to deserve a death sentence.”

“But they killed it, didn’t they?”

I was not sure if he was fishing or not, but the whole point was that I wasn’t really willing to talk about the whole thing.

“The creature would have killed us if it hadn’t been killed. Look, if the others didn’t give you any more information, there probably was a very good reason for it.”

The captain didn’t say anything more but just concentrated on finishing his own meal. I almost sighed in relief.

“I heard from Rafal that you also helped us with some Trolls. Or, more precisely, you and the others from that party did the job the local Guardians were supposed to be doing.”

“I heard that they were called off so that they could get new instructions, so it wasn’t actually their fault. But yes, I helped to track them.”

“There aren’t too many Guardians who are able to track Trolls and able to slay them.”

I snorted.

“We were in hiding and didn’t leave them much of a chance. The main objective was to save the other sister.”

“You killed two of those five Trolls if I heard correctly.”

“And I still see nightmares about it!”

I couldn’t help it. I snapped as it was just too much. I didn’t see nightmares about those killings every night, but once a week I probably woke up sweating just when I had witnessed how my arrow missed the troll and hit Astrid instead. Or then I was just too slow. Or something else. I barely noticed how the Sergeant cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry, Stian. The little I heard about you from Rafal was all good. However, you were so causal after killing those two deer that we started to wonder...”

I shook my head before replying.

“My father taught me how to track and hunt. That’s what I can do. That’s how I make my living. Of course I could use those Bonds, but eventually they’d run out and what would I do then? No, I need to learn how to make my living, even without them. Besides, no girl would marry a man without a profession, here.”

I took another sip of the beer given to us before continuing.

“I try my best to be selective while I’m hunting. I try to hunt those animals that are the least beneficial to the herd. I do admit that the last few times, I hunted a bit more than I would have needed to myself or for my living, but I made sure not to hunt too close to my new home village. Also, all the extra meat benefited the other people at the village. Nobody really wants to slaughter their animals during the summer while they are still growing.”

Okay, the meat I gave away also gave me some leeway while trading with Ake, since he took care of the delivery, but still, I did most of the work. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but the truth was that their assumptions really hurt me. I had been the one who had helped the group of Guardians. I was the one who had been betrayed - and this group was afraid that I was the actual monster, here. When I thought about it. though, I couldn’t really blame them. I had been sixteen years old when I had killed those two Trolls, and just filled seventeen when we challenged the alien creature. I had no idea what Rafal had told his fellow Sergeant - but being an honest man, I wondered if he really had been able or willing to downplay my part.

Luckily the group of men seemed to notice my discomfort, and that particular subject was dropped from the conversation. For the rest of the evening we - or mostly the Guardians - talked about things that had happened during their missions. One of the most interesting ones was the tale of one lost husband who was found months later in another village - with a new, very pregnant wife. The Guardians had only seen the first hour of the happy reunion; but even that had been enough to add several words to their vocabulary, since neither of the women had been happy.

My mood remained somewhat somber the following morning, and things didn’t get any better when we approached my old home village. It’s hard to think positive thoughts when you get close to people who abandoned you and stole everything you owned from you. However, I did my best to socialize with the Guardians, while I also gave them a rundown about the persons we might be seeing at the village. A brief ‘who-is-who’ about the elders and leaders of my old home. After a short consideration I added one more name.

“When I think about it a bit more, there probably is also Hemming Berg, who is the largest cattle breeder in the area - and also the father of my former fiancée.”

There, now also that was out.

“Found someone else while you were away, I guess?”

“Yes, the son of the village leader.”

“You don’t like to hear this Stian, but maybe it was a good thing that it happened when it happened. It would only hurt a whole lot more if it had happened later.”

That was the Sergeant. The tone of his voice made it clear that he knew what he was talking about.

“I’ve been through it twice. First was when I was young and wet behind my ears, like those two youngsters there.” he said, pointing a thumb at the two younger men riding behind us.

“When I came back early from my mission, I found out that my fiancée wasn’t used to sleeping alone. Luckily for me, he was too big and mean for me to kill, so all that I got out of it was two black eyes and a night in a cell - and I got the better part of it. He ended up marrying her since she turned out pregnant - and the baby probably wasn’t even his!”

“The second time was much later, and I had been married for two years when a mission got nasty, and our return was delayed for three months. Once I finally got home I found another man living there with my wife. It was his bad luck that he tried to kill me with a knife while I carried a sword. He was good enough with that knife to hit me once, but that was not good enough against a sword. Not only that, there were three other Guardians who witnessed that he attacked me.”

“What about your wife?”

He was silent for a while, and a smile formed to the corner of his face.

“We are still married. For two months I brought other women to our bed and made her watch...”

“Sergeant, maybe you shouldn’t be talking like this to a young man...”

“Captain, Sir - I can confirm you that I don’t feel offended. Even if I have no intention to get back with my former fiancée, ever.”

“Well son, once you see your wife eating out what you just delivered to another woman’s pussy...”

“Sergeant.”

“With one other woman living there I’ll at least know what she does while I’m away.”

“Sergeant!”

Okay, that was nasty and crude, but I just had to laugh. I didn’t laugh so much at the story the Sergeant shared with us but at the tone the Captain and the Sergeant used in their interplay. It was clear that they were used to being together, and this whole discussion was done for my benefit. I turned to the Captain.

“Captain, Sir - how about you, are you married?”

The Sergeant was the one who snorted.

“Married? Him? That will happen in a day when the priests allow a man to have three wives or more. He has ‘friends’ in about every town on the other side of the mountains.”

“Hey, I’m wearing an officer’s uniform. Some women can’t resist it.”

Well, because of that continuing dispute I wasn’t thinking about the people of my former home when we rode to the village. At least, not very much.

I stayed in the back when the Captain introduced himself to Torvald Horn and told him that he’d like to see the council of the village as he was there on official business.

“There is no council in our village. There is no need.”

“Interesting. I have always assumed that according to the kingdom laws there should be a council in every village.”

“We have no official council, but I can call in the elders. You can meet them in a day or two.”

I was about to protest that, but there was no need, since the Captain looked at him and smiled sweetly.

“I guess that I didn’t make myself clear. In case you don’t know the ranks, I’m a Guardian Captain, and I’m here on official business.”

“But most people from the council are farmers. They can’t...”

“Mr. Horn. I may be a boy from a town but I’m quite aware what kind of things should be happening this time of the year. I’m quite sure that they can meet us for an hour or two at dinnertime or maybe a bit earlier. Besides, didn’t you just mention that there is no council? Or is there something else you need to tell me?”