The Axe and the Throne (3 page)

Years Ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decker's shame cut him like an axe to the gut. He had not meant to hurt his brother. More than that, he felt sick with the shared ache of Titon's embarrassment. But Decker's regret was not fully empathetic. He had envisioned finally besting his brother at either archery or axes and wooing Red. Instead, he had earned her scorn.

“You big dumb oaf!” she had yelled at him after Titon fled. “Now we are all like to be punished.” She collapsed melodramatically, sobbing as her female retinue surrounded and tried to calm her.

It was his own fault
, thought Decker.
If he had beaten me without such a show, I would not have struck him in anger.
It became easier to shift some of the blame to Titon whose ostentatious performance had humiliated him.
Two lucky shots and this cunt of a whore is impressed?
Their father often spoke ill of the cunts of whores, and though Decker did not know precisely what they were, he was now sure Red was liable to be one.
Titon can have her and her damn firehead.

The image of his brother crawling away with the piss soaked through the ass of his trousers still plagued him, however. How could Titon ever be respected among the other boys now? How could he ever take his father's place as head of the clan?

Their father must have pondered the same questions as he learned of what had occurred.

Decker had mentally prepared himself for the beating, which he'd decided he could withstand with honor. He would not cry out in pain or cringe in fear of the blows; he would seek the void as he was taught, and he would absorb the punishment with only courage, as was expected of a Galatai child being disciplined. But his punishment did not yet come.

Instead, Titon son of Small Gryn took Decker and his brother to the southern side of a nearby mountaintop overlooking a valley of moss-covered stone and scraggy pine. He sat down with them and spoke softly, softly at least for the man that he was.

“Beyond the trees and the clouds and the rocks to the south there are evil men. Men that would like to destroy you and your brother, your father and your mother.”

Decker saw his brother smile at the delivery. To hear a giant, serious man such as their father accidentally stumble into a silly rhyme sounding like the songs of dancing girls was amusing, but the humor was lost to them both when their father noticed that smile as well.

“Listen to me, you mischievous bastard. You will not like what you hear next.” Decker did not think their father had understood the reason for his brother's momentary expression. That he was no longer the sole object of his father's wrath brought Decker no relief. His father glowered at little Titon who looked down and blinked rapidly.

“These men take the noblest of creatures from the forest and chain them to trees.” Titon's voice rumbled through Decker like thunder. “They torture and torment them and turn them against each other. They feed them the flesh of their dead and dying fellow man. They turn them into slaves and demons.”

They'd both heard these stories before and seen the plunder brought back from raids on the Dogmen villages, but neither had ever actually seen a Dogman. Decker knew from the tales that they were usually scrawny men with hair cut crudely short. The Dogmen and their homes reeked like animals as they often allowed their demonic companions to share the same roof—sometimes going so far as to have them sleep beside them in the same bed.

“Have you ever seen a wolf attack a man except to defend their young? Have you ever seen a wolf steal a goat except in the most desperate times? No!” Titon slammed his fist into the earth. “They run in packs and hunt deer as do we. They eat rabbits and berries as do we. They call to each other when lost. They clean each other's wounds. They are as great and noble as Galatai.”

His father's voice softened, but only just. “It is a vile thing those creatures they become when deprived of food and freedom. Snarling demons that hate all men, most of all their tormentor, the one that gives them just enough flesh to survive, just enough flesh to be a slave.”

The three of them sat in silence for a time, his father looking into the mists below the cliffs, his brother still looking down at his hands, clearly hurt.

Their father had never exactly been cruel to either of them, but Decker could not shake the feeling of guilt he had for being the presumed favorite. Seeing his brother so scorned—when he'd done nothing wrong—seemed more than unfair. It would have been kinder to them both, had their father simply beaten Decker as he'd first expected.

“We are like the wolves, and they are like us in many ways,” continued their father. “And like them we fight among ourselves. Not the cowardly biting of the hindquarters of an unsuspecting brother…”

Decker could feel his father's scowl though neither was turned toward the other. He welcomed the weight of it, eager to share in his brother's burden.

“…But a fight to determine who is best fit to lead. Just like wolves, men need leaders.
Strong, powerful
leaders that others will follow without question.”

Their father's emphasis on strong and powerful was yet another blow against Titon. Decker's brother was quick, dexterous, and cunning, but strong and powerful he was not. Decker felt his face contort to a scowl of his own as his anger grew.
This is not right, Father,
he thought.

“There will come a time when the two of you, my wolf pups, will
need
to fight. Yesterday was not the time, nor was that over anything of importance from what I could tell. Some tart of a girl, I'd wager. You will need to fight to determine who will lead our clan, our pack, against the Dogmen. To see them crushed and driven from the land. Certainly no easy task, as they look like men but breed like rabbits. Each time we raid there seems to be more of them, yet always farther south and with less food.”

The thought of succeeding his father ahead of his brother had never crossed Decker's mind. He may have been larger than Titon, but his brother was irksomely smart and better with both bow and axe. Decker rarely got the better of his brother in training, and when he did it never truly felt deserved. This new idea that they would one day fight to determine who would lead turned Decker's stomach. He looked to his brother, but Titon still stared at his hands.

“Each year it grows colder. Each year the frost lasts longer. It used to be that these lands were lush for half the year, but the goats have little to eat now. Some do not agree, but it is known among those wise that we will need to move south in time. We must go to those lands where rabbits and berries are plentiful and cleanse them of Dogmen. We must take the forests of the valleys for our own.”

Decker could not control the fire in his chest, and the single droplet he saw hit his brother's thumb almost drove him to madness.
I will not fight you
, Decker promised in silence.
You are the elder brother. The right to lead is yours.

“To defeat the Wolfsbane and defend the land from southern armies, we will need to unite the clans,” their father went on. “I cannot do as such, for I have made too many enemies among them in my time. But someone must. If we are to survive, someone must. A leader of the pack. A
strong
and
powerful
leader.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallos drew an arrow and fumbled trying to nock it when a massive thud reverberated through the ground, ending the noise of crashing branches. Their group sat petrified in the silence that followed, even the dogs—such a noise was not made by the footfalls of any prey dogs could hunt. Even Tallos, who now knew the sound had to be from something having fallen from the bluff, was gripped with the childish vision of a giant cyclops charging and slamming a mighty fist into the ground, spurring him to run. But if Northmen above were pushing boulders off the edge of the cliff, it was likely in the hopes of prodding them to run so they could be picked off by arrow fire.

“One's gone,” shouted Jegson. Tallos wanted to backhand the boy for being so loud, but it seemed he had come to the correct conclusion before the others. “The fecking Northman's dead!”

Indeed, it appeared there was one less dark shape clinging to the bluff above.

“Keep quiet,” Tallos said between teeth clenched in anger, “and move slowly to where he fell.”

It was a rather small Northman from the looks of him, but Tallos reasoned they came in all sizes. The body was face down, pressed into the ground, bent and smashed in unnatural angles.

“He's dead all right,” said Jegson, quietly but with plenty of mirth. His dogs were the first to the body, sniffing hungrily, snarling and snapping at each other as if competing over the carcass.

Three dogs were two too many
…
perhaps three too many if they were fed the flesh of men.
The accusation was never spoken aloud, but there were some who wondered how Megan's parents kept their dogs from starving during times of famine when even their own household members fell dead from malnourishment. Watching Jegson's dogs so eager to get to the body brought a wave of sickness to Tallos and likely to the others as well.

Tallos glanced at Lia, feeling somewhat guilty that he was looking to see if she shared in the other dogs' excitement. Seeing her first human corpse, however, had had a much different effect on the old girl. She looked distressed, as if she knew something the others did not.

Jegson pulled his dogs back violently, unsheathed his dagger, then plunged it into the Northman's back with a triumphant laugh. Tallos was about to scruff the boy when Lia lunged ahead of him, grabbing Jegson's knife hand by the wrist and shaking back and forth.

“Lia, no,” Tallos shouted, running to grab her before Jegson's dogs, still frozen from the shock of it, realized they could easily take her. Lia had never bitten a person before, but Tallos had no time to contemplate what had driven her to attack an ally.

Lia released the boy as Tallos approached, but her agitation was far from finished. She remained close to Tallos's knees, still bristling, as Jegson's own dogs began to circle them.

“I'm bleeding!” Jegson had an incredulous look that soon turned to outrage. “I'll have your mut—”

He was interrupted by a familiar crashing through the trees above, followed by a heavy thud. The second body fell only paces away from them, hitting the ground legs first and folding back onto itself at the knees and waist. Crumpled like a ragdoll, the cracked head oozed blood onto the soft, green moss below.

The eyes of the body were wide open, yet the mouth or some hole in the skin was making a noise like air leaking from a bellows. Tallos was given to a moment of fear at the thought that this Northman might still be alive and able to harm them, but it was not so. This was another body, but one too small to be a raiding Northman. Tallos thought he recognized the puny man, but the skin on his face was so badly bitten by frost that its gross red and black colors masked the likeness.

Erik fell to his knees and began to heave up his dried meat and berries. He was the first of the men to recognize the bodies were those of John and Jarl, his two eldest sons.