Tom III

Tom and Onrique were done with walking all this way. There hadn’t been enough horses to get them to have mounts, so aside from the Baron and his Murk, only his knights and a few select personnel had horses they could ride on the journey to Caldhayre. The rest of them would be forced to walk all the kilometres down the Granroade to their destination. Tom’s feet must have been blistered by now, and each footstep was one more irritation to bear.   “Buggar me sideways!” Onry exclaimed as he clenched his side. “How come Gap-tooth gets a horse and we don’t? It’s not like you could fit the two of us on that same horse and take up less space!” Tom couldn’t help but chuckle at that. It was true; the fat twenty-something from the high streets of Elinor didn’t exactly look like soldier material, even if he was notoriously hard to shove down in training. Perhaps that was why the Baron had hand-picked him to be among the recruits for the Turtles, Caldhayre’s armoured division who served to protect lighter units from enemy charges. Units like Tom’s own.   “Well, we do need men like him in all fairness, Onry.” Tom looked at his friend with a shrug. “More arrows in him means less in us.” The bigger lad guffawed at that one. The nearby guardsmen on his white horse didn’t seem to appreciate that so much, and gave the two of them a sharp thwack with the butt of his stick.   “Aah!” the two of them rubbed their heads in unison, as a sharp pain went over.   “Keep it to yourselves, we’re almost there! Unless you want to give Gap-Tooth’s chamberpots a good scrub when we get there!” The thought made Tom cringe inside. He looked at his friend, still clinching his own head and let out a little smile. Now they were almost around the winding hills, and faced the mightiest fortress in all of Evergnon.   The face of Caldhayre stood almost directly between the two hills on each side. The main outer wall stood almost twenty metres tall, made of bricks larger than a carriage, solidly lumped together. On top of it were multiple other buildings only adding to its height, guard towers, a citadel with a round burgundy roof standing over the rest, teaming with guards who seemed like birds in the sky to Tom from here. This must have been able to fit hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand men in it! As he looked, a pair of white Griffins, big as wolves lept out of the top, to the gods-know where.   “Woah,” Tom exclaimed as he saw the artwork etched into the walls in red paint, showing the gods and goddesses of Evergnon in the stories of mythology, and etchings of the Evergno knights, shining silver and gold, fighting off the vicious Jazyart Hordes from the north, firing their infamous bows from horse, murk and centaur-back.   A proud knight of the Baron’s bannermen exclaimed. “I vow to my fair lady to return a dozen Jazyart skulls to her doorstep when I next visit!” His pompous friends cheered. Knightly vows wouldn’t do you much good if one of those gryphons was digging into your carcass, Tom thought. Better earn that right like the rest of us. They seemed certainly eager to fight savages of the steppes, as if it were something to celebrate to kill others who didn’t have the luxury of knightly armour and castle forged steel.   “What’s the big deal with these Jazyart anyway?” Tom asked. “Firing a bow from horse or even a murk looks hard, but they haven’t exactly got our armour! So why are a few bands of raiders such a threat here? With this around?” He waved his hands toward the huge walls ahead.   The same guard who had slapped him with the stick earlier shouted out, “you’ll be finding out soon, wee whelp! This fort and the others have been guarding the realm for over two hundred years, and you better believe there was good reason to build it!” Now Tom turned ahead as the oak doors slowly opened up to welcome the new recruits-and conscripts-to their new service. How long did those here know about him and the others?   Those marching stopped immediately and Tom followed suit. Onrique almost pushed him over with his momentum, but he steadied himself. “Easy there,” he whispered. The doors continued to open through a system of pulleys and levers until fully so. These guards were mainly older men, or men who looked like they had aged beyond their years. Tom looked to his side, and a pale, scarred man no more than forty looked at him with the faintest of sorrow. A ghost in human skin, Tom thought to himself.   The man muttered, “well, younglings, time you become men.” Tom didn’t like the sound of that, and neither did Onrique it seemed. The soldiers went in their positions, and after a whistle, the unit began to move once inside. Tom awkwardly went with them, and couldn’t help but stare at the magnificent work that had gone into Caldhayre. Not just it’s formidable defenses, but craftsmanship. Clearly whoever designed it had been a very pious and superstitious man, for statues of the gods and goddesses came from each corner of the room, with horned demons and rippers cowering at their site. At the top of the seven stories and the spiralling staircases laid a circular mosaic on the ceiling, showing what must have been the creation story of Caldhayre. Much wasn’t filled in yet. History yet to be written. Perhaps he would be on it one day, he wished somewhere deep within him. But that wasn’t likely. When did lowborn get anywhere in Evergnon?   Baron Thaddeus rode ahead on his monstrous three eyed steed, dwarfing even the draft horses pulling a nearby cart. Shining in his silver armour and flamboyant designs , even Caldhayre’s guards were in awe at his sight. All except one man at the centre of the bridge, and one woman looking down from the fourth floor.   “Good day to thee!” The baron exclaimed as his voice echoed through Caldhayre’s halls, as he removed his frog-shaped helmet. “We have a couple of hundred new recruits behind me alongside those who wish to join again!” He waved his hand towards Tom and his many now allies.   The commander ahead was not a pleasant man to look at. Missing an ear and half his pocked nose, he had shoulders like an ox and great big arms, but almost laughably thin legs and feet. He seemed to have a constant scowl on his scarred, rough fade, and his black peppery hair focussed mainly above his ears and a scraggly beard. His voice lacked Thaddeus’ boom and valour, but was common like Tom’s own, and his voice raspy, as if his throat had been clawed at.   “The pleasure is all mine, my lord,” though he smiled not. “We will certainly need all of them after the last fortnight’s news!” He shrugged.   Lord Thaddeus got onto foot from his steed. “I knew the Jazyart are getting bolder over this last spring, but what of the last fortnight?”   The commander leaned forward and spoke too quietly for Tom to hear. The baron put on a facade of bravery to keep his soldiers reassured and in line, but his eyes did not smile with his mouth, and wondered. “He worries, doesn’t he?” He whispered to Onrique. “What happened before?”   He felt another sharp wooden pole at the back of his head. It was that bloody guard again! Tom scowled at him but he had already moved on to a couple of twenty-somethings laughing amongst themselves.   The baron spoke up again, turning to Tom and the other recruits. “Well, you young men should be keeping yourselves awfully busy if Dubeau here has any truth to his word.” He laughed, but Tom suspected that this was hollow. “Only a pickle surely. Now, for all of you, the true fun begins. Eat and sleep well tonight, for your training starts tomorrow!” The portly knight turned round continued discussion with Commander ‘Dubaeu’ in a more hushed tone, possibly to do with whatever happened that fortnight ago.   The columns of recruits went forward to their respective barracks. With Onrique for spears and Tom for crossbows, they glanced at one another and Tom outreached his arm for a handshake.   “Till we meet next frie-“ he didn’t have time to finish before the bigger lad pulled him in for a big embrace. A crushing one. “Uhh, Onry…”   “Damn what they say behind my back! I will just beat them a bit harder!” The two of them laughed. “Fight well, friend.” He let go and said his farewells as Tom went to his line. Training wouldn’t be long now.   The next day, Tom awoke from horrible visions of plague and famine to the loud drill of clashing swords.   “Alright, up you little bastards, no oversleeping on my watch!” Tom did as he could and almost slipped over the sheet that he called a bed, earning a snigger from the others. This guard was overweight and poxy faced, likely a veteran of a number of years. Now he was too old to fight as he once did, he must have been put here to drill. “First things first-no, no, no, Gaptooth! Don’t you even think of going back in!” Tom turned around to see the ugly fat boy trying to go back in, only to stand at attention. “That’s more like it! Now, as I was saying, your first lot of training begins now! You don’t get to break fast until you’ve prayed to each of the Five and sparred at least an hour!”   Tom wasn’t too pious in his life; watching his parents die of plague and the ignorance of his village’s priest never made him feel grateful for the gods of his land. Nevertheless, he mouthed the words as he knelt down at the stone idols. Perhaps some other gods from other lands are real, or even ones we know nothing about, he thought to himself. For saying that out loud would likely earn a beating or two.   In the courtyard, boys and men alike sung choruses of iron and steel. The open dome of the training yard made Caldhayre very different from what Tom had imagined one to look. The smell of sweat and the laboured breathing of fighters also filled the air, and he knew that his would soon be among it.   Well, he thought. Time to pick up the bow.   The crossbow was heavy in his arms. Heavier than he had imagined looking at them. The wood wasn’t quite as smooth either, there were little bumps and even the odd splinter as he carefully slid his finger over its side. He aimed at a target, and pulled the trigger, but it didn’t budge.   “Haha!” Another laughed. “You forgot to load it!” More joined in. Tom sighed and went over to the bolts to load it. “Time to show them,” he said under his breath. He wondered what Onrique was doing in his group now.   He pulled the rope back to allow the bolt into shape. He struggled with his small forearms to get it up, and he felt his biceps strain as he pulled it closer, even with his feet holding the end down. Finally, it slotted in.   He aimed at the board. As he looked at it, listening for wind that might throw him off and considering distance. He heard the others snigger, but he knew better. As an orphan back home, he often threw notes to others thieving for his ‘family’, and not getting caught depended on throwing these and any stolen goods just the right amount. He unleashed the bolt, and nearly fell over from the force. They weren’t guffawing though for some reason. Damn it, he thought as he regained his balance, I’ve made a fool of myself again! He looked up, and he saw why the laughing had stopped.   It was right in the centre.   Even Harelde, the one guard who wasn’t a prick noticed him, and after a brief glance with some of Caldhayre’s own, walked up to the short Tom, towering over him.   “Well, Tom…” he shrugged. “-I guess you’re a natural then!”