“I always loved the story of the Brisangamen,” Myrne murmured, touching the necklace at her throat.
“I will do none of them,” Wolf said. But already, as he sat back and placed his long fingers on his knees, his voice had grown more musical, his northern accent turned into something else, something older. “I will sing of the hero of the North, King Beo, the last lord to rule all of the Hale together. After him his descendants became the kings of North Hale and Hale, and in his time he chose to rule little at all, for he was a great hero and chose to be the champion to kings rather than a king himself. Beo the Great, Beo Wulfstan, who some have come to call Beowulf.
When the sun was sunken, he set out to visit
The lofty hall-building, how the Daynes had used it
For beds and benches when the banquet was over.
Then he found there reposing many a noble
Asleep after supper; sorrow the heroes,
Misery knew not. The monster of evil
Greedy and cruel tarried but little,
He drags off thirty of them, and devours them
Fell and frantic, and forced from their slumbers
Thirty of thanemen; thence he departed
Leaping and laughing, his lair to return to,
With surfeit of slaughter sallying homeward.
In the dusk of the dawning, as the day was just breaking,
Was Rangel’s prowess revealed to the warriors:
A cry of agony goes up, when Rangel’s horrible deed is fully realized.
Then, his meal-taking finished, a moan was uplifted,
Morning-cry mighty. The man-ruler famous,
The long-worthy atheling, sat very woful,
Suffered great sorrow, sighed for his liegemen,
When they had seen the track of the hateful pursuer,
The spirit accursèd: too crushing that sorrow,
The monster returns the next night.
Too loathsome and lasting. Not longer he tarried,
But one night after continued his slaughter
Shameless and shocking, shrinking but little
From malice and murder; they mastered him fully.
He was easy to find then who otherwhere looked for
A pleasanter place of repose in the lodges,
A bed in the bowers.
And so he sang of the hero born across the sea in the Northern Lands where their ancestors had come from near a thousand years ago, where their cousins, the fierce warriors of Dayne, still dwelt. In those days, and the days were not long ago, there was much traveling across the whale road, that is, the great sea, on the sea steeds, that is, the long ships. There was little difference between the Skraelings of Dayne, Northmark and Svae, and the Ayl and Hale who came from those lands. Aylland was no more, but Beo had come from there, and his great deeds were performed across the Cold Sea. He fought the great monster naked as birth, for the monster was naked himself, and it would have been a foul thing to not fight him as an equal. And in the end, when Rangel’s five sisters came, he bested them as well, though it was said he lay with the last and produced a line of heroes.
“But all that is young grows old, and all that is strong must weaken, all that prevails,” Wolf sang, “must fail.”
This was a truth at the back of the minds of the Ayl. The older tales of the ancient gods, long put away and replaced by the Grey and the White Monks said this. The old tales were of a world where the gods who fought against the chaos from which they were born, in the end had to submit to it.
“Beo grew old, and in the very protecting of his people was doomed to fall.”
He hosted at a great hall which was now the stone castle of Grethal in North Hale, a feast for all of his mighty warriors, and one of their slaves escaped and happened upon a treasure hoard. He took from it, to provide for himself, one gold chalice, and so awoke the dragon who guarded it. Thus the seeds of the people’s suffering was in the suffering of one thrall who sought to be free from careless masters. The drake awoke, roaring into the sky like a comet:
Then heard I that Wihstan’s son very quickly,
These words being uttered, heeded his liegelord
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Wounded and war-sick, went in his armor,
His well-woven ring-mail, ’neath the roof of the barrow.
Then the trusty retainer treasure-gems many
The dragon’s den.
Victorious saw, when the seat he came near to,
Gold-treasure sparkling spread on the bottom,
Wonder on the wall, and the worm-creature’s cavern,
The ancient dawn-flier’s, vessels a-standing,
In his old age, the hero who had always fought alone, fought alone again, this time because he was abandoned by the men who should have been there for him. He fought the dragon and won, but the people lost because he died, and they who had relied upon their protector now had no one, and so, in far across the sea, those people were consumed by their neighbors and now are no more. Meanwhile those who escaped came to Hale, to remember the tale, the tale that moved through all the lands of the Sendics.
The folk of the Ayl got him then ready
A pile on the earth strong for the burning,
Behung with helmets, hero-knights’ targets,
And bright-shining burnies, as he begged
they should have them;
Then wailing war-heroes their world-famous chieftain,
Their liegelord beloved, laid in the middle.
The funeral-flame.
Soldiers began then to make on the barrow
The largest of dead-fires: dark o’er the vapor
The smoke-cloud ascended, the sad-roaring fire,
Mingled with weeping, the wind-roar subsided
Till the building of bone it had broken to pieces,
Hot in the heart. Heavy in spirit
They mood-sad lamented the men-leader’s ruin;
And mournful measures the much-grieving widow
Only the sound of crackling fire could be heard, and the falling of a leaf when Wolf went quiet and they all sat before you.
“I didn’t know you had such music in your, brother,” Anson began, and Wolf was about to reply when, instead, he said, touching his sword, “what’s that?”
No sooner had he spoken and Myrne turned around, then out of the bushes jumped men on every side. There was no time to assess them, but Imogen shouted as her wrists were grabbed and penned behind her. Derek felt a rush of power, his muscles trained to pleasure were equally trained to war and his arms shrugged off assailants as his fist met their faces. He leapt to Conn who had knocked a man in the head with his staff while Quinton windmilled on his bad leg and gritted as he kicked too men over.
Myrne felt hands on her throat, and then heard a death gurgle as Wolf’s sword went over her head and through the shoulder into the heart of whoever held her. As the assailant fell, almost dragging her down, and she freed herself, Ohean stood in the midst of them, and reciting a word, limbs from the trees above fell, a branch swung against another brigand, hitting him on the head. Anson’s sword had gone through two, and Thano and Pol stood behind him.
“Nafat,” Thano cried, spitting into another one’s eyes, and he dodged away, screaming and when Myrne heard it, she said the same thing, turning to spit in the face of a man who tried to come behind her.
Ohean pronounced another word, but he seemed to be standing in the midst of them doing nothing, almost unaffected. However, when he spoke, the brigands became more clumsily, or fell to the ground, or seemed to stumble into a tree that was not there before, in his red mantle, the handsome mage seemed calm, serene, but suddenly he called out, “Anson!”
Out of the woods had come another brigand, and while Wolf struck one with his dagger and another with his sword, the second escaped, coming against tall Anson. His sword was about to come up into Anson’s belly when Ohean pronounced a word and the sword faltered and the man died. He was the last of the men, and now Myrne saw there was a feathered arrow in his back.
“What in the…?” she began.
“Feet!” Wolf cried, still at attention. “Halt! Who comes!”
“Peace,” a voice called out from the night.
At once they all stood still, but maybe it was because Ohean was still. Out of the trees came four men and one woman. Myrne noticed she was about the same age as herself. The men were Ayl but for one White Monk, and led by a handsome fellow abour Wolf’s size. They seemed to be, by the firelight of the night, in brownish green the color of the woods, and the girl was Royan, as red brown as Ohean. Indeed, she was was running to Ohean, when a last brigand came out of the wood and, quick as anything, she ttook out a knife and plunged it into him.
As he fell in the middle of the clearing, the girl with the long black hair embraced Ohean, calling him, ‘Cousin!” and while the rest of the companions looked at this new party, the handsome man—he was undoubtable handsome—who led them, doffed his feathered cap like a young lord and said, “Peace be to all you, I am Michael Flynn, and these are my woods Or, if not my woods, then certainly the woods I keep in safety.”
