Freedom Pt. 01: Wanderer

He whistled an idiotic tune as he waited. And waited. And...

Plop.

Vex took a step back towards safety. "I... think I'll wait for Cass," she shrugged.

-

Talos stepped carefully into the cavern twenty minutes later, noticing part of the stone underfoot giving way when he put his weight on it. He hurried through it, taking another quick step before hopping down the remaining five feet to the cavern floor. He looked up where he had come from, the light of the Isbryggan morning twelve feet above him.

"'Bout time you showed up," Markus said with a smile. The man was shivering and walking towards them from the interior of the cavern.

"Busy morning," Talos smirked. "Any luck so far?"

Markus shook his head. "Naw. Nothin' but ice in this fuckin' place." The men glanced towards the entrance, meeting Casiama's gaze peering back from the sunlight. She looked towards the cavern floor where Talos stood, then hopped down just next to him with a light step and little fanfare. Markus whistled with incredulosity.

"Morning, Markus. Any luck?" Casiama asked with a hint of irritation, rising from a crouch.

"Yeah. Vex is lookin' for ya further in."

Casiama followed Markus deeper into the dimly-lit cavern towards the large chamber, Talos following a moment later after helping Sigismund down to the cave floor.

Vex nodded towards Casiama, then pointed at the bridge traversing the two sides of the ravine. A pulsating hum was emanating from the amber-colored stone in her hand.

"The farcaster says we're close. Can you check the other side for me?" Vex asked with a pang of embarassment, tilting her head towards the far side of the bridge. A small, dark opening in the rock face was visible on the other side.

"Sure... doesn't look too bad. What am I looking for?"

"You're just looking for a stone that hums with the same frequency as this one, but I'm not sure exactly what it will look like."

"Humming stone. Okay." Casiama took a deep breath, then pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Talos found it adorable.

The elf soon began treading over the icy bridge, a crossing made without looking behind herself or below. Her steps were confident, graceful. Perfect. Casiama did not once change her rate of speed while traversing the thirty-foot bridge, nor did she outstretch an arm. She immediately entered the crevice on the far side once she arrived.

"She makes it look so easy," Silvia said with admiration.

Vex nodded. "Makes you wonder how we ever won the war in the first place," she said nasally, referring to the Imperial-Elven war of three centuries ago.

Talos crossed his arms, replying after a moment. "Well, the Empire did lose the first dozen or so pitched battles."

"Really?" Markus asked. Talos nodded.

"Yep. From what I've read, humanity was on the back foot for nearly a decade. But the Emperor simply refused to be defeated, and rebuilt legion after legion when he lost them. The Empire was only victorious in the end because humans simply breed faster. Elvish females need one or two decades between childbirths, compared to the single year of our women."

"Huh. So all that fuckin' does pay off," Markus replied boorishly.

"That's... yeah, sure Markus. You're doing your part," Talos smirked, rolling his eyes.

"Lets at least hope the elves have forgotten about their early victories," Sigismund said. "Could you imagine the Empire today, in a war of attrition? We would be slaughtered."

"Elves don't forget, Sigi," Talos replied with a frown. "But I'm sure we still have generations before the next major conflict. It'll be long after our time, any way." Long enough for Talos not to pay it any mind.

"I hope you're right, Talos."

"You're forgetting the human sorceresses," Silvia said with a smile."We're far more numerous than the elven ones." Talos chuckled.

"Sure, Sil," Talos replied indignantly, "let me know when two mages agree on something and I'll take them into account."

"Hmph," Silvia rebuked, thrusting the tip of her tongue through her lips.

"He ain't wrong," Markus shrugged.

The farcaster in Vex's hand soon began to vibrate softly, its hum disappearing as it did. She pushed just a touch of magic into the stone, its amber color gradually fading away and transforming instead into a miasma of whispy whites and blues.

Casiama's gentle voice emanated from the glowing farcaster, and echoed through the chamber for all to hear.

"Hellooo. Does this thing work?"

-

"Two! Fetch me another," the man bellowed in the Isbryggan tongue, tossing an empty mug at the naked wench before him. His form towered over the two slaves in front of him, rising to an imposing seven feet. His ice-blue eyes shone with an undeniable ferocity, his long, blonde hair knotted behind his back. The man's muscled body was home to a hundred scars, acquired over just as many battles. His lips curled on one side in perpetual, ruthless glee, the other side being disfigured from a close shave with a hunter's axe when he was a boy.

Kjartan was the second son of the King of Drommande, a far-off island chain to the west of Isbrygga. Having no claim to the Drommandan throne, Kjartan instead grew up knowing his fate would lie elsewhere. He trained relentlessly with his axes, accidentally murdering a child of one of his father's housecarls at the age of ten as they sparred.

Rather than ask for forgiveness, Kjartan laughed. If he'd been a child of any other land than Drommande, he would have been beaten for his actions. Yet in those harsh isles, Kjartan found many more who shared his interest in simple bloodshed. Others who laughed at the unfortunate death of a child in play.

By the age of eighteen, Kjartan had acquired two longboats from his father. He led his first raid that summer, pillaging an Imperial town of their riches and kidnapping twelve supple wenches for his men's interests for the long voyage home.

Kjartan had found the raid intoxicating. He lusted endlessly for the next each time he returned home, until eventually deciding that he did not have to return home at all. He had found a worthy crew for his vessels, second sons of Drommande's finest all. They followed his ruthless commands to the letter, pillaging and raping their way through the rich lands to the east before pillaging more the next day.

At the age of forty, Kjartan had ravaged enough women on his own to sate a thousand men. He gazed at the countless tallies on the wall of his quarters, each simple etching representing another useless wench he had used and thrown aside, broken.

His slave-wench of the week returned with a filled mug of ale, prostrate on her knees. She dared not speak in his presence, but offered the drink to him silently with arms held high, head held low. He took it with a grunt, and smacked the wench across her face with the back of his hand to show thanks.

The door to his cabin swung open. A hardened brute entered the cabin, a scar running deep vertically through his right eye.

"Wanderer!" he greeted Kjartan roughly. Kjartan had always found his nickname appropriate, but wished he had received one a bit more... terrifying. Still, Kjartan had not returned home in a decade, and the name fit him well enough.

"The shore approaches, Wanderer, and there's a small town off of starboard," the man explained in the Isbryggan tongue. "We see no walls. Shall we strike?"

Kjartan grinned, seemingly freezing the very air around him in fear. He nodded to his two wenches, the slaves immediately bounding to the far wall and affixing chains to their steel collars. Kjartan took them in one hand when they were offered a moment later.

"I will see for myself. Come, slaves," Kjartan commanded, tugging at the two thick chains in his hands. They obeyed without question, following in his footsteps on all fours.

Kjartan stepped through the doorway, the deck of his massive flagship coming into view before him. A normal Drommandan longship was a small vessel, really. It would hold a crew of no more than twenty, with most of them rowing long oars to propel them to their next destination. On a regular longboat, there were no cabins; there were no below-decks, either. Its creation was simple, its design purposeful.

Kjartan's flagship, the Mercy, was neither simple nor purposeful. Two banks of oars were situated on either side of the monstrosity, forty slaves on each rowing deck. Between the slaves and belowdecks lay a massive den of debauchery and sin, where his freemen crew would spend their time if they weren't on deck. His personal cabin was at the stern of the vessel, above decks.

While styled as a longboat, Kjartan's flagship was more than ten times the size of one. It would never be capable of navigating a river; its purpose was one of a fortress of terror, a mobile citadel of rape. A standard longboat carried no weaponry but the twenty men aboard it; the Mercy held two mounted ballista on its foredeck, just behind the decomposing body of a freed slave at the bow of the vessel.

Kjartan's eyes scanned over the deck. A naked slave-wench had been tied at the wrists to a large wheel, clearly being punished for some offense or another against his crew. The severed, lifeless heads of a dozen more hung from the sails above him, the only captured souls who had gained their freedom in the past week. The only ones shown mercy.

Six smaller longships had sails unfurled off of port side, seven off of starboard. All sails had the same insignia that the Mercy had; red battle axes crossed over a black background. Kjartan's personal sigil. Each of his slaves bore the same sigil burned on their left cheek, a perpetual signature of whom they belonged to.

His freemen reavers were mostly on the starboard side of the large deck gazing out over the shoreline, laughing in raucous anticipation. Kjartan made his way over, his slave-wenches right on his heels.

"Wanderer," a tall blonde man greeted, equally scarred as he. Kjartan hugged him with one hand, then brought his hand holding the chains forward. Kjartan's reaver spat on one of the slaves on their knees, laughing as the woman remained silent and still. She wasn't sure what the punishment would be for wiping the spit away, and let it remain on her face.

Kjartan, too, laughed at the wench's situation, though he noticed she had seemed to take her treatment appropriately. Silently, just as women were supposed to. He would have rewarded her for her obedience if his crew wasn't watching.

His eyes scanned the coastline. A small town, only containing sixty-some wood longhouses, was nestled just at the shoreline. Small stacks of white smoke rose from the many chimneys, and the ground was still covered in a white snow.

"Sigurd, where the fuck are we?" Kjartan asked. The man shrugged a moment later with a grin.

"It's white. Isbrygga. The Jarldom of Villjord, if I had to guess." The pair shared a silence as Kjartan mulled over the answer, waves crashing endlessly against the boat and the men behind them still shouted to one another.

"Does it matter, Wanderer?" Sigurd added coldly three moments later.

Kjartan shook his head. It honestly did not where he was, as the response would remain the same. He took two steps away from the men, then tilted his head towards Sigurd with a nod.

"Shut up you fucks!" Sigurd demanded of the thirty-some reavers with a raised voice. They did. Kjartan screamed his order a moment later to the cheers of his men.

"Sound the horns! Mercy through blood!"

"Mercy through blood!"