Chapter 3

"My name is Olan, son of Olthan of the Clan Arthu, Senior Scout to the army of Acquila. I have taken no Consort-Oath and I have no kin within these lands to vouch for me, nor have I an Oath-Sharer who can speak to the truth of my words, but speak them I shall, and upon my honor may these words weave a true and full accord of my actions."

This might sound a bit formal for an Oath announcement, but this really is very necessary as a minimum starting measure between two enemies who cannot really trust the words of each other. This provides at least a starting foundation for discussions. As I mentioned earlier, our two people share much more in common than we have differences. Both of our cultures, especially among the warrior classes, are addicted to the utterance of fierce and mighty Oaths; Oaths that are invariably given unwisely at improper times and often under the consumption of far too much strong drink. Such behavior often led to warfare between clans in the old days before the division of the kingdoms and the coming of the Hundrao-gearrim. Great and terrible bloodfeuds used to be common, I've heard it said by many Tale-Weavers while at banquet in great halls, but nowadays with this terrible war to fight there is considerably less enthusiasm for inter-Clan adventures.

The Gods used to most severely punish Oath-Breakers in terrible and horrific ways. They're gone from us now, but old habits die hard — most people would rather lose a hand rather than break an Oath, even with an Oath-Forgiveness from a priest. It makes life very complicated sometimes.

The Truth-Oath established, I began to tell my story.

"One day during the start of the thaw season about three years ago, with the snow mush rapidly turning to mud on the ground inside the river delta near Neuport, my mentor, the venerable Venatari was leading a scout training expedition for three young pups that were so wet behind the collar that they didn't understand yet why it was still sometimes snowing in what should have been early-summer. This was just a simple tracking exercise where I was playing the "enemy scout," and they were learning their first baby steps in how to track. The area was supposedly 'safe', with no signs of the enemy having been noted for several leagues. We made the mistake of assuming that there was little or no danger for these youngsters and my mentor and I had relaxed our guard much more than was safe. None of us realized that at least two Helden scouts were also in that part of the marsh. Those scouts were a veteran named Wulfric and a younger, less experienced scout — yourself.

"Wulfric's first arrow stuck and killed my mentor 'Old Venial' instantly but your first shot was not quite a killing blow to one of the young lads. It hit him low in the side of the back, but it didn't matter. Your next pair of arrows killed the remained two youngsters and you charged in to cut the poor wounded lads throat. His name was Dio by the way. He had been the last surviving son out of five in his family; all had died within a few months of being drafted into this war. He was a quiet good natured lad who tried hard to learn and please his teachers — he reminded me of myself when I was a new recruit. With a little more experience, he would have had the skills and the will to have survived. His death was a great personal loss for me.

"Neither you nor Wulfric had seen me, as I was nearly right behind you well hidden under the marsh grass. If you had not had your back to me I would I shot you first. Instead, I tried a risky shot to hit Wulfric, but I had a poor angle and he heard the flight of the arrow in time to dodge just enough to receive only a wounding shot to the shoulder. You did the smartest thing you could do in the circumstances — you ran for the cover of some nearby swamp trees and probably stayed put, as I didn't see you again. In fact, at no point did I ever get a clear look at your face.

"For the next four hours Wulfric and I played a deadly duel of skill and wits, playing hide and seek in the swamps. He was a very clever hunter; perhaps the most skilled that I had ever faced, but I had given him a good wound and at length trapped him. Capturing him alive was most challenging as he was certain my blood was still burning with anger and I desired vengeance for the death of my mentor and my young pupils, but I made the Oath of Protection to a captive to vouchsafe his safety while in my custody upon my honor, and he bound himself to me.

"He was a witty, most likeable man and we enjoyed over an hour in each others company on our way back toward our main encampment, not too far away. I treated his wound with care, which was certainly not life threatening nor probably disabling. He spoke much of you and as you were still likely to be loose in the swamps he offered to me his most treasured possession to give to you, should I locate you. It was a small gold amulet of the Matron Goddess that you yourself had given him a year earlier as your token of love. It had been in your mother's family for some generations and was believed to have been Ylfen made, possibly even magical. I vowed that I would try and find you and return this but you had apparently escaped quickly from the swamp and returned to your own base.

"Just a few minutes from the perimeter of our camp, where Wulfric would have been in safe hands and probably soon released either for ransom or as part of a prisoner exchange back into your hands, we fell into the hands of the most utter misfortune." As I believe I mentioned earlier, we common soldiers of either army hold little personal animosity towards our opponents. Hatred just burns valuable mental energy better saved for the harsh conditions of our current survival anyway. Prisoner taking was common with no bias held being against the captive, who were generally swiftly exchanged for another equal status captive or else usually soon made free by the payment of a moderate ransom. It would be highly unusual for any captive on either side to remain held for longer than a moon cycle. I continued my story.

"Just a few minutes from safety, we encountered a group of three young Warlocks accompanied by their Master. They 'demanded' I hand over Wulfric to them but I refused, even under heated threats. I did not like their looks or their manner at all, and I strongly suspected that they were planning some unspeakable act of evil magic, with Wulfric as an unwilling participant. I do not know what evil they wanted to conjure with the sacrifice of an enemy but I had sworn an Oath to protect and defend him while he was in my care. In fact, I could think of no circumstance or any situation where I would ever consider leaving any captive, Oath-given or not, under the control of any wizard. My mistrust of them was already deep.

"At length we reached a complete impasse; the Master himself now threatened my destruction if I would not obey and release my prisoner to him. To resist him was suicidal I knew, but I refused anyway. There was nothing else I could do to preserve my honor and my Oath.

"I saw him gather power and I dive towards Wulfric to knock him down out of the danger, but I didn't quite make it. The Master's enormous bolt of hellfire struck me on my left side as I was diving in front of Wulfric intending to defend him with my body if necessary. That glancing bolt knocked me out of position and the three next bolts from his apprentices burned Wulfric to a cinder.

"I believe to this day, that because I upheld my Oath to protect Wulfric to the end, his amulet — your gift, protected my life that day. Indeed, his amulet was being held in my left hand as I stood before the Warlocks and defied them, perhaps parrying some of the hellfire. My sudden dive to protect Wulfric certainly helped too, as I doubt that I could have survived that powerful hellfire had it struck me full on.

"I had only one chance for escape myself, with nearly half of my body still on fire I dived beneath the next set of hellfire bolts that they cast at me and threw myself into the swamp. I swam underwater as long as I could until I felt I might be able to have a moment of safety. I don't think they even tried to look for my body and I could hear their discussion amongst themselves stating that they certainly believed me to be dead, as no one had ever survived the flame of the Master before. Again, I thank your amulet and the blessings of the Matron Goddess who must have protected me.

"I was without my bow, as I had dropped everything of consequence in my haste to attempt to protect Wulfric, so I could not immediately take my just revenge on the Warlocks. I did have my belt knife and hoped to pick off one or two of them before they reached the safety of our regimental camp, but they retreated in much haste and reached safety before I could get into position. They left the region very soon thereafter, taking with them my chances to be avenged upon them. In truth, I know neither their names nor their families and since that fateful day I have never again laid my eyes upon them. But I have marked them for vengeance, and someday Wulfric shall receive justice for his unlawful slaying and will receive blood payment for my wounds and violated Protection-Oath.

"As Wulfric was foully murdered before he could be exchanged or ransomed, I was left in possession of your amulet — but I had no means of restoring it to you. I heard rumors of a slightly built woman scout of exceptional skill but despite my occasional searches for you, our paths have never since crossed, until now.

"This is my story and I swear by this amulet, before the Goddess and yourself, upon my Truth-Oath that this story is complete and true, omitting nothing and desiring only that truth itself shall be its end reward. Here in accordance with my vow, is Wulfric's amulet and my debt to him is partially discharged. Still remaining is my Oath that someday I shall avenge his murder by others while under my protection.

My story was fully told — the truth given. Whether she accepted it or not was now most uncertain. Now was the calm just before the full might of a storm.

She accepted the item in shock and it was clear from her eyes that this was indeed her old love-gift. She was speechless, which was good, because now I was completely out of things to say. I took another look outside at the snow storm and didn't like at all what I saw. Leaving now would be beyond foolhardy and probably suicidal. I decided to stay — at least I'd die a little warmer here in the cave if it came down to blows.

I couldn't read her face at all. It was hard, but very focused. Her eyes watered, but they didn't quite tear up. My best guess was that she was now extremely conflicted, and wasn't quite sure what to do about it. She didn't seem to want to kill me, immediately anyway, so I guess that was better than what I had expected but she certainly wasn't ready to welcome me into her arms and say "Well, that was most unfortunate!"

I was also very tired, having been up most of the night. In fact I now felt an extreme weariness come over me. My recent considerable lack of sleep, the morning woodcutting exercise and my story seemed to take quite a toll on me also. I had never told anyone any of the circumstances of Wulfric's death and how I had received my terrible burns, and I realized that carrying the weight of that secret burden had been far heavier than I had ever realized.

Neither of us looked at the other, and we remained in dead silence for quite some time. My story had definitely bothered her. She eventually turned away from me, and curled up into her bedroll. She seemed to think quietly for a very long time, before at last returning to a light healing sleep.

Getting some sleep of my own was harder to come by. I was so tired and worn from only sleeping a few hours at a time that I was getting more than a little bit brain-addled.

I awoke suddenly in the late afternoon to find something hard and cold poking into my back. I was certain it was a weapon and felt for sure that I was about to feel cold steel passing between my ribs into my panicking heart. The cold touch soon warmed, it was just one of her nipples pressing into my back, with the rest of her body soon joining it.

"I was cold and so were you. Go back to sleep, I'm not going to kill you today. There is always tomorrow." Good enough for me. I was just tired enough that I was nearly willing to just let her finish me if that had been on her mind. I went right back to sleep but I could almost swear that I think I felt her hand caressing my hair just as I was drifting off. When I briefly awoke sometime during the night, her head was pressed tightly against my shoulder and her arm was wrapped tight around my stomach. Her amulet was still tightly clinched in her hand.

Now I was really confused — did she want to kill me or kiss me? Somehow I dropped back off to sleep without giving it another second's thought.

I woke up alone and cold with a bit of a startle probably just a little before sundown, but realizing that nothing seemed to be particularly amiss at the moment. I could hear Elessa cussing up a rousing chorus even using a great number of words I had never heard before. Due to her teeth chattering I couldn't understand more than a word or so in three but in this particular instance, I surmised that my honored and nakedly freezing bed mate had bestirred herself for the first time in a few days and had gone to give herself a snow bath before the dangers of darkness fell. Her bladder undoubtedly was much in need of release as well. She was now regretting this bitterly, and was exercising the full extent of her soldier's vocabulary. Now that I was listening more closely, a certain phrase did tend to repeat itself.

"Damnit, I about froze my tits off" she said a few minutes later after she nearly ran back towards our bedroll and flung herself as tight against me as she could manage. Any previous lingering feelings of warm I had once felt were now quite gone, and I began to shiver with her until she started to finally warm up a tad. I wisely kept silent my thought that she didn't really have all that much extra boobage to risk losing, and that it would indeed be a tragic shame if anything had happened to either of those perfect succulent nipples.

"Once I was warm, but sleepy but now I am quite wide awake, but cold." I muttered to her. "I suppose you would prefer also that I now get up and snow myself clean also before something comes along and decides it wants to eat us, freeze us even more to death or takes a preference for sucking out our souls and or noisily crunching our bones?"

I received a shivering "Uh huh". Some times it just doesn't pay to make any wiseass remarks to the woman you are currently sleeping with.

I went outside into the ranging snowstorm and did a roll or two in the snow and rubbed a snow ball or two everyplace that I guessed that a woman could conceivably complain about a man stinking. Actually I didn't even have to do that very much as the wind was blowing hard driving the snow nearly sideways and it didn't take much effort of my part to be scoured raw, but probably clean. It wasn't even remotely enjoyable and I conducted a lengthy swear session of my own. I swear I thought my cock and balls were going to break off and fall into the snow.