Chieftain Lands

Britain Around 3000BC

         Sometimes they saw him as a playful young boy, or an tired old man, or as somewhere in between, flirting and gently teasing the young lasses. But they always knew who he was, for he helped those in need, whether they wanted help or not. He was the magical King of the Grey Mountains. This story is not about him. It is about the only person who became as close as a friend this kind spirit would have . . .  ever.
         This morning, as a man in his early forties, he walked beside the high chieftain of a group of tribes scattered around Grey Mountains, he carried a long bow in one hand and a handful of arrows in the other. He was dressed in wolf hair leggings only, just like the chieftain, his bearded face sombre and low hanging. They seemed like brothers, so alike they were to each other.
         “It was a good battle,” he said as he carefully stepped over corpses strewn about a small farm patch of what appeared to be trodden shoots of wheat. There were many signs of the fight here, swords, spears and other tools of killing and maiming.
         “Hmmm...” The chieftain replied, lost in thought of the last three days – the worst of his whole life. He carried nothing in his hands, and would occasionally fold his arms.
         “Sometimes things just need to be done.”
         “I don't know why this way,” the chieftain scowled as he passed a pair of bodies embraced in a bitter struggle to death. They were both young men, both had short stabbing spears buried in each other's abdomens,  hate filled grimaces frozen on their faces well past the final moments of their lives.
         A common pathway lead them past where the former homes once stood. There was thick fog mixed with a sharp smell of burned hay and other material around them. It appeared that people were moving dead bodies from the sounds of things, and doing what they could for life to return to normal.
         “I've known you since birth,” the King changed the subject quickly as they both realised a dark puddle in front of them was actually blood.
         “My earliest memory involves a story told about how you helped our people when they went into the mountains to forage for wood.”
         “If you call it help. For me, it's something else. I can either show them the safe and quick path, and have gratitude or ignore them entirely. What the people want to do is their own choice. I can never force them in the slightest bit.”
         “No you can't . . . that's right.”
         Suddenly they both laughed like crazy people in the middle of a happy feast, a temporary lapse of the dark events around them. “I played with you as a young boy so many times before realising that you were the magical King of the Grey Mountains.”
         “You were always a little bit different from the others.”
         “I hope in a good way!”
         “For me, yes. Only you turned up at the mountain filled with happiness over something like the birth of a foal or a marriage.”
         “Oh that. I feel sometimes talking with you is the same as my conscience. How I ever became the chieftain of my people is one other thing. I am used to dealing with the problems of other people and having their disputes sorted out. There was a space for a leader here for a long time, and I guess I filled it as that strange one with the deep voice who will listen to everyone. What I really miss is those simple younger days when you and I would look for deer tracks and you would listen to my theories of what the deer was doing from the fresh track marks and corrected me.”
          “You read the tracks really well. Your stories about them were always right, almost to precision.”
         The chieftain nodded. He hung his head, and folded his arms in a shiver as a cool breeze rushed past them. A deep sadness overcame him and he cast his eyes downwards feeling a need to withdraw some where else to another time.
         “Are you thinking of her?” The King reached in offering his close body for support and comfort.
         “My deceased wife is always in my thoughts.” He sighed heavily and hugged himself. “But I live for my daughter too. My granddaughter. And you too. You have always been one from whom I drew always strength. Perhaps I have been luckier than most.”
          They returned from reminiscing the past to the present when they heard an uncontrollable whimper of a small child, perhaps still trying to forget the terror of earlier.
         “You did really well. I am well impressed with you and your people.” The King expected no reply, he understood people enough to give them enough time for their grief to pass fully.
         They passed a squatting young couple working together to try to get a fire going with flint. Something was going to be cooked in the broken pottery they had scavenged from around. The King slyly eyed the woman, but she made no contact with him, even if she knew who he was. Her husband raised a hand slowly in acknowledgement but went back to his business.
         The King of the Grey Mountains divine and powerful as he was, was still a common enough yet uncertain force they dealt with as they would like the wind, rain or sun. It wasn't often often he made his way into a village. If there was suffering this morning, he never saw it. He was always sombre in expression, it always seemed that nothing would faze him.
         They reached the centre of the village. A few dozen people, of all ages and sexes were sitting, lying and caring for each other as they could. This was where the wounded found their way. A medicine man walked about and gave instructions as he only could, for he carried no supplies. He carried only a smooth wooden staff, the symbol of his status, for anything else he owned was lost the battle.
         “Joel,” he greeted the chieftain, and nodded to the King. “This fog better clear soon, it's not good for my chest.” In a bad time like this, the last thing he wanted was more complain, even from himself.
         “How goes it Uta?” Joel gestured at the people, who seemed ignorant of his presence. His attention caught a dozen fresh faces and he frowned. They were the enemy, at least until the night before. At least one was helping by wrapping a bandage around someone's arm.
         Uta gave an apologetic smile and swung the staff against the fog with it. A younger man emerged from there, he also carried a long bow, his quiver empty. His shoulder were slumped, there was a dejected air about him. Another former enemy.
         He raised a hand and introduced himself, at the same time appraised the King of the Grey    Mountain and his bow. “Leroy.”
         “I'm Joel,” the chieftain curtly said and by way of explanation. “He got the bow from one of your fallen friends.” They didn't know anything about the King of the Grey Mountain.
         There was no animosity now. Sometime in the early morning, all fighting had ceased, and the parties agreed to a truce without words. No one knew when, where or how it started, but suddenly they were helping each other. There was too much exhaustion, too many killings, and lost hope for things to continue as they were.
         “We need to agree on some things,” Leroy said. He wasn't the leader of the attackers prior to the raid, but with numbers dwindling, more and more of his people had started to look to him for guidance.
         “And learn some more about each other,” Joel nodded. He could never forgive them for what they did, for the needless lives lost and the destruction that followed. But now, if they worked together, at least something could be salvaged.
         The meeting was going be held here, between the four, although the King and the medicine man were there just as observers.
         “How many people do you have here?” Joel wanted to get this business done as soon as possible. Bitter bile rose in his throat and he suppressed it by pursing his lips tightly.
         “Less than a hundred.” It was the truth – there was nothing to be gained by deception any more.
         “Do you speak for all them?”
         “Only those who I know of. There are many who hid out in the bush – the cowards we called them. But now perhaps they are the brave ones.”
         “If another party of your people came. . .”
         “Then so be it,” Leroy answered. He couldn't explain any further in regards to this.
         Joel studied him. Leroy was very young, his bare chested skin showed many bruises and the odd cut from the battle to prove that he had been in the midst of heavy fighting.
         “What I mean is, what stance will you take?”
         Leroy took a deep breath. He needed time for the next step, but it had to be done. From the fog, another three of his friends emerged, one riding on the shoulder of the other, to meet the medicine man for some injury or another. When they saw the meeting, they dropped to the ground a short distance away and patiently waited for their turn. He nodded to them, for this diversion was enough time for him to formulate his idea into words.
         “We don't want to go back.” A simple statement, but it seemed to be expected for Joel did not show any surprise on his face.
         “And why is that?”
         “There is too much...suffering and hardships there. All us warriors are treated lower than slaves by the priests. We are just here to bring the slates from the mountains for the priests to build their own worshipping...”
         “These mountains are sacred to us!” Joel growled angrily, as the King of the Stone Mountain straightened his back, for even he could not hide his fury.
         “Hear me out . . .”
         “What more can we do to prevent your people from taking the Mountain apart bit by bit? You tread off the paths, scare the deer, leave gaping holes. . .”
         “We do, for that is what we are . . . we were told or ordered by the priests. No one can stand up to them, for they hold too much power and knowledge.”
         “If they come again. . . will you stand aside and watch or help us?”
         “There is nothing more over there! This is what I want you to know!” Leroy released his temper loud enough for everyone to cease what they were doing and look at him.
         Joel was about to retort when he felt the Kings hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other and then Joel tried to calm himself. They were both angry, and this would get them nowhere.
         It was Uta who came to the rescue. In his healer's soft voice he asked, “What Joel wants to know is, are you on our side or not? Will you fight for us against your own people, if it came to that?”
          “If it came to that... I know not. But I want you to know, that for now, you are safe from my people at least. All our fighters, the men and women are all dead. Of what is left, we wish to stay here. There is no one else to threaten you, or your mountain of stone.”
         Joel nodded. They had made a lot of progress, more than he expected from this meeting. Above all, he had some assurance for peaceful times ahead.  “You all are welcome to stay here. Live your lives with us. I must ask again though, do you speak for all your people?”
         Leroy shrugged his shoulders. “They listened when I talked. A few will definitely want to return home, they have their families there, despite the oppression of the priests. Maybe they can be persuaded to bring their families here. I don't know. But it is better here for them.”
         Joel nodded. He turned to the King indicating he needed to move on. It was up to the King to walk beside him some more or do what he fancied.
         “There's something else I need to have in the open.” Leroy blurted out, his hair, eyebrows and fur trousers were catching the fine particles of fog as was everyone else's, and left a thin white coat He had already seen that the King bore none of this, but his mind refused to believe the supernatural before him. Where he came from, there was none of these, except for legends and what the priests would have them believe.
         Joel eyed him warily.
         “The mountain . . . I cannot promise that it will be safe from those who want to take from it.”
         “And why is that?” Joel asked, even if he knew the answer.
         “The slate stones are too valued. Perhaps in a few years some more people will come again, already they are prized far and wide . . .”
         “And in a few years we will see to that.” Joel growled his reply. He noted that the King looked uncomfortable as he said that, and wondered why. “We are not the savages you are, if you had left us be, we would have been content at just this. I'll talk to you afterwards.” And this time the King frowned.

         They strode towards the mountain. It didn't take long to find a small path through the woods that few used. Leroy lead the way, pushing small branches in his way aside, that moved with their magic accordance to let the King pass unhindered.
         “What do you think of that young man?” The King broke the silence after a while.
         “He is a good speaker, he has courage to hold nothing back.”
         “Is he good?”
         “How do you mean?”
         “Can he be trusted?”
         “In our tribe . . . yes. I think he spoke from the heart. But what choice do we have? Our number is diminished after that fight, we need people to help us get back to what we were. It should not have happened this way. But they came into our land, to take what is ours. And if they come again, we will do the same, no matter what the cost.”
         “They will bring new ways . . .”          
         “They will also learn ours.”
         They stomped through the track, the sound of a stream somewhere close made soothing peals. The King reached out from behind and placed his powerful arm on Joel's shoulder, completely stopping him in mid-stride. When Joel turned around with a expletive on the tip of his tongue, he felt the cold sweat washing down his body before he realised the King had transformed himself into a stag headed man. His eyes were large and dark, the young buck antlers sweeping out.
         “I need to see my granddaughter,” he finally croaked out, the beauty in front of him was so mesmerizing.
         “I can't stay here any longer,” the King said almost in a sad tone. His feet seemed not to touch the ground.
         This was another shock to Joel. Words left him as another cold fear rushed through his body. “Huh?”
         “New people, new ways. Already I am being replaced as my home, the mountain is being cut into pieces in the minds of the new people.”
         “You can't do that! You can't do that now, after all we have done for you!”
         “You did not fight for the King of the Grey Mountain, you fought and sacrificed your lives for the Grey Mountain.”
         Joel realised that he was right. But he had to argue some more. The King was as entwined in the lives of the people here as anything else, like the air they breathed. “I will make it my duty to protect the mountain!”
         “And cost the lives of everyone here? Already you have lost your one child - your son and his wife, all you have left is one granddaughter to carry your bloodline. Is it worth it?”
         He didn't have time to grieve for his lost family, too many things that seemed more of a greater and serious nature had happened. Perhaps it was just as well, maybe he would have gone mad and thrown his own body into the fighting. He had enough sense in him to realise that for his tribe, he was worth more alive than dead.
         “I thought not. . .” The King threw his head up and chuckled. “But I am not greedy. There are other places, other adventures for me, too, out there. Before your people came here, there was just me and the animals that inhabited here.”
         Joel hung his head low, savouring every moment. Little did he know, there was more to come.
         “I would assume the body of a stag, and other stags rushed to challenge me. But I would flee and vanish to a patch of green grass which they hadn't known about. Helping them in small ways gave me happiness. Thus I ruled. Then your people came, and I had to change some more. I loved them as I heard the singing from my home in the mountain, and the joy they brought. But sadness always follows soon after, as it does now. I have to move on. It is for myself that I have to leave.”
         The fog was lifting. The sun had found a way to send it's warm rays to remove the thick coat of drew on the trees and bushes about. Already the sound of water dripping from leaves made a few birds call out to each other.
         “There is one thing I have to grant you,” the King placed his arm on Joel in a comforting manner.
         “And what is that? You have done enough for us already. Our people always had the assurance that there was someone they could count on in the mountain. What more do I need?”
         “A choice.” The King didn't meet his eyes and looked elsewhere. It seemed there was a dark matter he didn't want to divulge just yet. He turned around and tried to put some distance between them.
         “How do you mean?” Joel moved forward just in case the King decided to vanish with the fog.
         “As you know, for me, I can be many in places at once. And in many different times too, oh...don't give me that look!”
         Joel's face had almost twisted in confusion, for he was being explained something he just didn't want to know. This Kings powers was something that scared him. He still managed to smile, his worry temporarily forgotten.
         “You have seen me as a child, as an old man, as one of your age many times. Sometimes together in my various forms...”
         “As have many here. We have a saying, “Search for the King of the Grey Mountain, and you find him on the Grey Mountain”. Many of us do take the time to pay you a visit, and drop a wave or something. We know also not to leave gifts for you, for they mean nothing to you.”
         “Well, for your peace of mind, I will stay here for another two hundred years.”
         “Two hundred years?” Joel's jaw dropped. “But why tell me now?”
         “Because the choice I give you, it will matter on how you decide.”
         “So what is the choice?”
         The King grinned cunningly and waved his hand out to catch a ray of sunlight in the precise moment it emerged from the clouds, in a dramatic show of power.
         “I must tell you something before you decide.”
         “And that is . . . ?”
         “The child, the old man, and my other guises are what I choose to show myself as. I am never changing, always the watcher, always the adviser, but I can never force anyone to do something for me. It is perhaps my curse, to be always the man in the distance. I can't make a friend with anyone, I can't eat and dance and sing and be merry. That is what I am. And when I leave this place, I will take memories only. But you could also say that I have already gone, for I know already through my magical abilities the day I turn my back for good from this place, and begin to wander the lands for other things to do.”
         Joel shook his head. He needed to be with his granddaughter. After the death of his son, she had been taken to a safe place to wait out the battle. She was all he had left, and his heart hurt not to be with her. His body twitched to be with her urgently.
         “My magic has unexpectedly given me a vision.” The King carried one, he knew exactly why Joel wanted to be away. “You are needed elsewhere, another time, another place.”
         Joel frowned. He knew what was coming. “Let me see my granddaughter first.”
         “If you see her now, you lose your choice!”
         “But what could be more important? Everything I have, I did for my tribe. You know that I carry the burden of their deaths in my heart. . .”
         The King waved his finger and Joel felt his legs hanging. He looked down in a startle and saw he was floating about a foot from the ground. At the same instant his body also wore the halo of rainbow colours just like the King's.
         It was in the next blink of eye he saw himself and the King floating above a girl dressed in filthy rags and lying on what appeared a pile of tattered blankets. There were bits of broken furniture of a kind that Joel had never seen before, but he did make out the thick and dirty mattress on the floor. She was shivering time to time, the smell of vomit thick in the damp air. They were in an old room, it was raining outside and occasionally a sharp gust of wind would bring in a spray of cold water. It seemed like the season was autumn, perhaps just after midday. 
         “Focus on the girl only,” The King said after a while.
         “Who is she?”
         “Your last bloodline, many thousands of years from your time.”
         “I must help her.”
         The girl choked and coughed in the unconscious state she was in. A large amount of reddish foam from her lungs violently spewed from her mouth and nose, and formed a small pool by her face. She resumed breathing when her head jolted back in a spasm.
         Joel reached out, but seemed powerless to touch anything here.
         “Your choice . . . go back now and be happy. Or be here. I don't know what you will do here, my vision cannot tell me what you can do here. But I do know, if you choose to be here, you will die here.”
         “I have to help her.”
         “Your granddaughter?”
         “I can't leave this woman before me like this if she is of my blood. Even if she isn't, I can't leave. At least here, I have some control, some choice about how this can end. I don't know what I will do, but I can try.”
         “Do you need time to be certain?”
         Joel narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaws. “If I go back, I have misery and the task of rebuilding to do. I have to find out if what Leroy said about his tribe's lack of ability to fight our people holds. Above all, I have to convince my people that we need to vigilant about future attacks long after my deaths. I need to be away from there. I have to sacrifice watching my granddaughter grow up – precious moments with her. But here . . . here is something I cannot sacrifice. I must consider everything. My heart says I belong here, to help her.”
         The King closed his eyes. “Yes, the choice has been made, I cannot see you in the past any more. It appears that Leroy has taken over the leadership of the tribe after your mysterious disappearance. With some hardships that follow, they do settle well as farmers and traders.”
         Joel's feet touched the ground. Everything was different, the air had a sharp smell he couldn't describe, the nearest he could come to was burnt hair. He knelt and tried to pick the girl up but the King stopped him.
         “Let her lie for now, she is in shock, but recovering so far. Rest is the best for her.”
         The girl wore smooth clothes with fine stitching, but a sick odour reeked from them. It seemed as if they were rotting around her, with dark spots of fungi of some sort.
         “Let me tell you a few things,” The King threw his palm up to stop Joel from talking. He walked around the room, casually inspecting the broken furniture. “Listen first. Things will not make sense now, but soon I will give you enough magic to live here like a normal person of this place. And yes, I will also be around you time to time to help as I can. The year is 2013. She is a drug addict. She has been like this for many days.”