Sons Of The Father - Chapter Two

         Despite the warm, enthusiastic lapping against his stubbly face, Gregor slowly awoke with the dread of the condemned to the gallows. His faithful hound, Scout, may have been eager to greet the day but he himself was not. After all, today was Danendag. A day for the penitent and less-than-repentant to crawl on bleeding knees to Chapel and endure another excruciating soliloquy from the Avira Libra, courtesy of Father Dominic. After which they would usually empty their coin into bottomless collection plate, confess their failings and transgressions, then go forth to sin freely the other six days of the week.

         One had to hand it to the clergy – they had devised the perfect cycle of guilt, penitence, sin and more guilt. Although he was as much believer as any of the other townsfolk, Gregor had yet to embrace the teachings of the Asimos with the same zealotry and piety as his father. Then again, he still had – he hoped – a lot of life ahead of him and hopefully a lot of fornication with girls before he would accept his own mortality and spend his days with his hands clasped in prayer.

         “Easy, boy! I'm awake!” Gregor gently scratched behind Scout's ear as he braced himself upright with his other arm. “You like that, don't you?” Scout wagged his long tail vigorously. Like his other friend, Scout's ancestry was a curious pastiche. While he had the bearing and pointed ears of a Kutzenhond, his short, rough brown coat was like that of any Lothari Shepard. To the casual observer, Scout was a curious-looking mutt. To Gregor, he was just Scout. His most faithful, loyal friend, pedigrees be damned.

         Three years ago Gregor had found Scout in an orchard near Agrigord's farm, a puppy trying to feed from the corpse of his dead mother. His brother lay close by, already having succumbed to starvation as the crows picked his innards clean. Scooping the small, malnourished puppy in his arms, Gregor kept him sheltered in an abandoned shack by the old mill. When his father eventually cottoned onto his son's frequent unexplained disappearances and the mysterious vanishing of food from their larder, Gregor pleaded hard and managed – with some effort – to persuade the old man of the utility of having a dog around the house. In exchange for keeping the rats out of the pantry and the crows away from the graveyard, Scout enjoyed a roof over his head and a belly full of off-cuts.

         “Boy, you'd better be up!” Kruegar growled from the next room. Vary rarely did the old man call his son by his given name. It was always 'boy', or occasionally 'son', if he were in a good mood. Gregor scowled as he drew back the patchwork blanket and faced the brisk cold of the morning. His mattress was little more than a large, rectangular sack stuffed with hay, but as his father took delight in reminding him, it was a damn sight better than what he'd had growing up in the orphanage. Scout took advantage of the free space on the bed while Gregor hastily stood up and pulled on his trousers. He picked a crumpled shirt from the floor and after giving it a cursory sniff, decided it was clean enough for Church. Of the two shirts he owned, it was the only one that didn't smell of pig excrement.

         “Morning, Father.” Gregor shambled through the door, running a dirty hand through his short, scruffy hair. It had been over a week since he'd had a wash in the old tub and his hair was starting to feel a little greasy.

         “Morning, boy.” Kruegar paused and took a slow sip of his tea from the dirty clay mug. “I was worried I was going to have to come get you up there.” Nobody could ever say that the years had been kind to Kruegar Wilgard. A deep scar ran from his left forehead to his right chin, straight through one of his pale blue eyes and across his cracked lips. An even deeper scowl was chiseled permanently across his face. His skin was rough and leathery and what little grey hair he had hung in shambles down his neck. He looked every part the gravedigger. His labour-intensive occupation notwithstanding, he was a withered, broken husk of a man.

         “Here I am, up and awake.” Gregor informed the old man, taking a seat at the small oak table. “What's for breakfast?”

         “Whatever you bloody feel like getting.” Kruegar spat. “Teapot's just boiled over and you know where the pantry is.”

         “You're a ray of sunshine today!” Gregor snapped back. He retrieved a small hunk of mouldy bread and an apple from the cupboard and proceeded to pour himself a mug full of lukewarm tea. “Who are we burying today?” Kruegar scowled as he strained to keep his temper in check, clutching the copper Septi symbol that hung from his neck as he silently offered a prayer. Of all the foes Kruegar had faced – and there had been many – his own temper was the most formidable and destructive. Only by accepting the will of the Asimos and the teachings of the Avira Libra had he been able to keep it in check.

         “Saints be buggered, boy!” the old man growled, carefully measuring his rage. “I know what you done last night! The whole town knows what you done last night! You may have the rest of 'em fooled, but I know it was you! And I know it was that greasy, half-Voch friend of yours that...”

         The mug landed squarely on the stone floor a hair's breadth from Kruegar's feet, exploding lukewarm tea and clay shards in every direction. “You watch your tongue, old man.” Gregor could take a lot of his father's bile and bitterness, but such a grievous slur against his friend would not go unchallenged. In the old tongue, 'voch' was akin to 'vermin'. Specifically, a parasite that bleeds dry its living host before moving to the next. The most heinous slur one could utter against one of Rhi'man descent. Sensing the hostility in the air, Scout slipped unnoticed outside through the door.

         “Forgive me, son.” Kruegar pleaded. Very rarely did his son talk back and he knew he had stepped over the mark. He'd have one more thing to confess to Father Dominic this morning. “Saints forgive me, I am but a bitter, hateful old man. Your mother – may Kaedwyn watch over her – would not want me talking to her son in such a way.” Gregor relaxed his shoulders as a small tear welled up in the corner of his eye. His mother. There was so much he wish he knew about her and whether he liked it or not, his father was his last link to her.

         “I am sorry too, father.” Gregor reconciled with his father has he took a mouthful of stale bread. “But please do not talk about Vaughan like that. Besides Scout, he's the only friend I've got and he's been damn good to me.”

         “I promise I will not. You have to forgive me, boy. I forget what it is to have friends. I envy you.” Kruegar downed the last of his tea with a hearty, remorseful gulp. Friends. He'd buried too many to count but for him, one was too many.

         “You won't tell anybody about... you know?”

         “That business with the pig? Don't be ridiculous, boy!” Kruegar grunted. It was as close to a laugh as a tortured soul like him could get. “I may be a pious man, but I'll tell you what... I never liked that Stefan boy much either. Too big for his boots by half. Little gobshite gets what he deserves! Don't get me started on his old man!” Gregor breathed a sigh of relief. “Come now. Finish your breakfast and lets both of us head to Church. Father Dominic will worry if we're not in the front pew to hear his sermon.”

-----/-----/-----

         “Have at you, Gregor!” Vaughan's thrust was casually brushed aside by a forceful parry. After enduring another dreary, spirit-crushing discourse in the freezing cold stone chapel, the two friends had enjoyed a hearty lunch of bread and beef stew prepared by Vaughan's doting mother. A leisurely afternoon of stick-fencing by the nearby stream would be the perfect way to enjoy what little sunshine filtered through the thick, murky clouds. When the weather turned sour – as they knew it would – they would head to the tavern for a pint of cider and the giddy thrill of feigning surprised shock as Matthais relayed the aftermath of Stumpy's drunken rampage.

         With both hands firmly gripping his stick, Gregor swung downward and across. His blow audibly tore the cold air asunder but hit little else but dead space as Vaughan sprung backwards, his long black pony-tail whipping around his neck. Damn you, Vaughan. Gregor mused to himself. If only you'd stop moving around so much.

         “Got you!” As dexterously as he'd dodged the blow, Vaughan darted forward with a thunderously quick riposte of his own, penetrating Gregor's guard and prodding him squarely in the chest with the flattened end of his stick. “This is too easy! Do you know what your problem is, Gregor?”

         “No.” With scowl – more of irritation than vengeance – across his face, Gregor unleashed a brutish, double-fisted overhead chop. Narrowly avoiding the felling blow, Vaughan sidestepped to his right. Gregor's stick hit the damp grass with an audible thump, displacing small fragments of earth and grass. “But I dare say you'll tell me.”

         “You're dead again!” Vaughan mockingly tapped his stick against Gregor's ribcage just beneath his armpit, leaving a smear of mud on his shirt. Knowing when to cut his losses, Gregor dropped his stick and held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Your problem, my dear friend,” Vaughan explained, “is that you lack finesse and focus.”

         “What in the seven hells do you mean... I lack focus?” A poke in the ribs with a pretty-boy sword is one thing, Gregor thought to himself, but if this stick were an axe, I'd have split your skull and hacked you to pieces.

         “Think of it the same way you would a woman.” Vaughan elaborated, mindlessly twisting the strands of his pony-tail. “You wouldn't just plow ahead with brute force, roughly mount her and split her in half until she cries the seven names of Asimos, would you?”

         “Yes, Vaughan.” Gregor laughed. “Yes I would. Isn't that how it's done?”

         “Oh, Gregor, Gregor, Gregor...” Vaughan chided. “I have so much to teach you. Rough pummeling is all fine and good if you're having it off with that gargantuan fist of yours, but if you've got your eye on Ingrid, you're going to need a little more sophistication than that.”

         Ingrid. How did he know? Besides Scout, he'd never said a word to anyone. It was pointless. Even if she deigned to notice his existence, what could somebody like him ever offer her apart from a future as a gravedigger's wife? Gregor's face flushed red with embarrassment.

         “Oh yeah?” As deftly as he had with the stick, Vaughan had struck a nerve and Gregor went on the defensive. “What makes you the expert? If rumours are anything to go by, you have a pecker shaped like a question mark. And you finish far too quickly!” Whatever had really transpired between Vaughan and Mina in the mill at last year's Soulharvest Banquet, it was hard for any of the young folk to keep a straight face for a week after. Occasionally they would still mock him with a crooked-finger hand gesture, but Vaughan had long since stopped caring what other folk thought of him.

         “That bitch!” Vaughan snapped. “I wrote a song for her and everything! But in all seriousn...”

         “YOU!!” Like the baying of murderous wolves on a winter's night, Stefan's voice carved through the stillness of the air and cried out for blood. Gregor and Vaughan lept to their feet as their nemesis bore down and set his piercing green eyes upon them. Sporting a black eye and a murderous expression, Stefan was flanked by his brainless lackeys, brothers Berk and Dedrich. Thick-headed and brutish as their bully of a father was, the brothers deferred to the older, more charismatic Stefan, following him like faithful lap-dogs.

         Under his command, the three of them ran roughshod over the other young folk with few – if any – repercussions. There was even a rumour that the brothers had beaten and raped a young girl from a traveling caravan a few months back. They had taken turns pinning her down, violating her, clamping her mouth as she tried to scream for help and punching her bloody and faceless, or so the story went. Of course, nothing was ever reported to the Sheriff, so no justice was ever served. The caravan disgracefully faded into the horizon and the brothers went around town crowing about their 'conquest'. Whether or not the rumours were true, now was not the time to be asking questions.

         Gregor stood firm with his arms folded, thrusting his chin out aggressively. Courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, however, was not Vaughan's strong suite. His heroics were of the mind (and occasionally of the tongue) and while he did his best to mimic Gregor's stance, he was genuinely afraid for his life. “I see your father found out about your little practical joke?” Gregor taunted, staring conspicuously at Stefan's black eye. What he would have given to be a fly on the wall when Matthais delivered the news to his father.

         Don't make it worse, you idiot! A million thoughts raced through Vaughan's mind in the span of a heartbeat. I swear on the sacred name of all the Saints – Kaedwyn, Gildar, Haemal, Tharis, Ostar, Rabdar and Skaelar – that if I make it out of this alive, I will go straight back to Chapel and confess everything to Father Dominic!

         “You've gone and done it this time, Wilgard.” Stefan spat as he stood close enough to Gregor to feel his breath. “It's going to be a tragedy for your father to have to bury you, what with having to bury your whore of a mother and all!” Now he'd gone and done it. As sure as the sunset, Gregor was compelled to respond with violence and it would not end well for anybody. Least of all Vaughan, who took stock of the situation and realised he hadn't a hope of taking on one of these overgrown brutes, let alone all three of them.