To Captain a Cause
Wiljon crashed bodily into the canyon wall, his cloak splashing an instant later all around him. The edges of his vision seemed to skip and then pulse. Somehow smashing against the rockface hurt more than the backswing from the Tarkrip brawler. He grunted as he nearly crumpled and shot a look upwards. The light was beginning to wane in the thin band of sky that roofed the canyon of Nan Wathren. And it was darkening faster still as the giant orc came for him. He feigned stupor a moment longer and then rolled aside as the orc's fingers darted for his neck. Instead of throttling Wiljon it barked its filthy nails into the stone.
He finished his evasion only a pace away but found himself in no position to counter attack yet. Instead he kept his crouch and sidled fast away from the Tarkrip's next swing of the club. To say that his battle into Nan Wathren wasn't going as planned would be an understatement. From the start he had encountered wilder, more dangerous orcs than the riff raff they sent out to raid settlements. And now his fighting had alerted nearly the whole of the sprawling encampment which had been thrown together in a narrow valley that went he knew not how far.
Again the orc brought its weapon down towards his head. This time, though, he did not evade. Instead he caught the hardened wooden club at the hilt of his sword and shifted not only the blade but also his own weight. The overbearing orc lurched forward, its weapon sliding down the length of Wiljon's blade and harmlessly into the ground. The brawler was ill-prepared when the quillion of Wiljon's greatsword stabbed through its fatty throat and then tore free. The orc was already dead, but he didn't hesitate to kick it away from him leaving it no opportunity to make any last gestures of hatred toward mankind.
He had no time left. The others were nearly upon him. He whispered or perhaps only imagined he whispered a thanks to the light that he had not taken either of his companions into this trap.
- - -
When he was younger, much younger he would say, but that would be splitting hairs to an elf, Wiljon had known freedoms the likes of which other children in Combe, Staddle and Archet could only dream. His father had died in some war beyond the Misty Mountains and his mother doted on her boy but still mourned the loss of the man who had gone even before they could be wed. She did not seek out a new gentlemen to father Wiljon. And as a result her boy never learned a proper profession.
Instead, Wiljon learned adventure and games and mischief. He was not a troublemaker, to be sure. He was generally well liked because his gammer had seen to it that he learned his letters, his numbers and manners, manners, manners. And the other children loved him because he always knew the best places to hide from work, had the best ideas for what they could be doing instead of their chores, and always stood up for any of them against any bully. If ever he thought of it, he did not regret luring friends into the woods or far away from their responsibilities. He was selfish in that way. Friendships demanded sport. And, again, he was young and knew nothing of what comes of shirking one's duties.
Once, more than ten years ago, he had experienced a similar flash of attention to duty. He had convinced several of his friends, all children of close age to himself, that there was sunken treasure in the pond near Sprigley's farm south of Archet. And if there wasn't then at least there were frogs and pollywogs to catch. All was right with the world as he led them through the vale. In those days there had been no guards standing watch at gates between Archet and Combe. In that year no one believed they needed such.
At the pond they might have found treasure but they found plenty of hopping frogs first and even a grass snake. They gathered like goats to a feed trough at each new discovery. Penny Grasshill found tracks in the mud that looked like they might be from a bear. Wiljon, himself, found a cluster of slimy frog eggs. Shane Picken chased the grass snake into the reed thicket where they all clustered and hoped for a glimpse of a rare and surely wonderful pet to keep. And then the boar.
Wiljon heard it first. A frantic beating of the ground. He looked up, concerned in spite of the merry time they were having. The wild pig was furious. That was Wiljon's first notion, but later he would recall that the skin was pockmarked and the eyes were leaking a viscous pus. The bristlehide made its warcry, a sound the children had heard about from hunters in the town but had, themselves never witnessed, much less been the object of the boar's ire.
"Scatter!" Wiljon roared. "Run for home!" And with that he charged at the thing even as it charged at him. What he intended had nothing whatsoever to do with valor and glory. His only thought was that these friends were hear in this boar's path because of him. His first self-appointed charge was their safety and thus his charge was to threaten the diseased beast, to force it to see only him. That accomplished he dodged to his right and ran for his own life.
The ploy worked to his initial elation and shortly thereafter to his dread. The sickly boar had strength to match his own and more. And it was fixed on him to the end. He achieved the road, though he knew not which and ran and ran. When it seemed he was safe he halted, half-bent, trying to catch his breath. Then the bristlehide would come crashing through a fence or up out of some gully and he would have to flee further. It was like some game for the creature and Wiljon was not meant to enjoy it.
When he despaired of ever not having the boar charging after him he spied the gates of Archet and saw watchmen beckoning him and shouting. With his last strength spent he half-ran to them and they to him. And the boar came at his heels. The seasoned men did for the beast in the end and Wiljon was unharmed, though a great deal more wary.
- - -
The revolting Tarkrip, more goblin than orc, leapt at him from its downhill charge, behind it two brawlers were loping, in their strange sideways gait. Wiljon sidestepped the first and then looked for his escape. The whole situation was already a route, but could easily turn into a lament. As the goblin recovered its footing he jumped down the side of a steep embankment, first sliding and then falling again to a small ledge. Even the creatures in the lows under him were aware of him now. But he paid them no mind as he leapt towards another crag and roughly slid down into the bottom-most of the canyon. Something in his ankle made sharp protest upon his landing, but he paid it little more heed than the swarming monsters as he fled through the canyon.
The course was difficult and full of enraged orcs and goblins. Most he took by surprise in his passing and, limping though he was, outran them. But the real threat lay ahead. By now the gates at the pass that led him into this treacherous hole and the remains of its guards must have been discovered. And he would have a fight rather than a flight to win through them. He was not disappointed, when in sight of the fortifications he saw two orcish archers and render inspecting the corpses he had left there on his last visit.
Their heads shot up at the cries and bellows of his pursuers and they spied him straightaways. There was a great deal of growling and challenging him with spittle strewn, rotting teeth as he came at them in his beleaguered uphill charge with a twisted foot. But their noise was nothing beside his own shout as he raised his bloodied sword. The two archers shuddered, arrows unloosed upon their strings. The leader of them looked from one to the other, wondering at their failure to attack. Then Wiljon was upon him. In this he faired much better and the render slumped to the ground, bleeding out its life onto the rocks. The archers broke free their stupor but only after Wiljon had passed them by and though arrows and curses flew at him he put steady rock between them and his back.
He paused only a moment as he reached the first of two bridges leading out of the gorge and over another. They were still coming, of course, but now he was in the last open sunlight of the day and no shadow now lay across his heart. Yes, he had failed to complete his duties within Nan Wathren, but the entire clan had failed to kill him. To the light of the sun he gave a silent prayer of thanks and levered himself into the final run across the bridges and down the slopes.
It is no shame to flee from a battle that cannot be won. No more than it is a shame that you must parry at times rather than strike. He thought of his companions, younger than him by a few years. He had spared them almost certain death in that hole by not bringing them with him. But they were hardly his childhood friends. They wore swords and rallied to his cause. They knew pains as they fought by his side and that pained him. But they chose that life, just as he chose his. Just as hundreds of others chose their own lives of danger and heroism.
As Trestlebridge finally appeared in the distance he whisper not a prayer to the sun above but a promise. He would find others in which the light shone true. He would bring them to Nan Wathren.
