Astyrian Chapter I

Astyrian
Astyrian woke in his chambers, the smell of the burned charcoal and pine in the fireplace permeated the room, along with the smell of cinnamon Aline put in her hair the night before. She laid beside him, softly breathing in deep sleep. He pulled off the covers and stood, walking naked to the open windows. Leaning out he sucked in his breath smelling the cool fresh air of midmorning. The smell of pines and dirt from the castle yard mingled with horse dung clung in the air.
He looked past the Motte and Bailey walls and saw his father’s warden Gaheris Amaris ride through the keep’s gate hard. He dismounted, shouting for the men to muster. Astyrian yelled from his perch. "Gaheris! What is it?"
The blonde, leather clad warrior looked to the window, his eyes serious. "Bandits. Destroyed a farmstead on our borders and burned it down. Amos Rorick’s place. They killed the men and took the young ones with them. It was bad." He said with sharpness in his voice like an unsheathed knife.
Astyrian turned and ran to his wardrobe, throwing the door aside he began to don his armor. Aline woke at the sound of the commotion, and sat up. The coverlet fell exposing her tear-shaped breasts. She pulled the coverlet back up to cover herself.
"Rorick’s farmstead has been burned?" She thought of the man’s wife Dorne, they had been friends as children. "Dorne, is she?"
"I’m not sure, help me don my armor. I’ll find out soon enough." Aline threw on her cotton shift and helped Astyrian buckle on his splint mail and studded leather. The armor smelled of oil, sweat and boiled leather. She liked the smell; it was aggressive.
"Dress, I’ll be in the great hall." He said grabbing the snarling visage of his great helm, he tucked the boar like helm under his arm and slung his shield across his back. He donned his bastard sword and ran for the stairs; his brother Ilmorien almost crashed into him in the hall. Astyrian slapped him playfully as he ran in front of him down the steps.
"Don’t fall you buffoon."
Ilmorien was his youngest brother, only sixteen. A boy he might have been, but he was ready for his first battle and was hoping his father would give him the chance. The two brothers met their father in the great hall. He was calmly listening to Gaheris tell about the dark deed. His father perched on his great chair, still a strong man in his fifties, the man was a vision of a warrior. Barrel chested, tall and of thick shoulders and a sharp cut jaw. His father’s hair was still stark jet black and cut short, a leather temple crown rested on his forehead, adorned with black iron- squared spikes. Coal gray eyes rested under heavy, sullen brows.
All this made him a formidable looking man, although his left leg was gone from the knee down his father was anything but a cripple. He had fashioned a mahogany stump, decorated with carvings of his various battles and deeds. This was his prized possession. A Dire Boar had taken his leg when he returned home from the war, he joked that the beast did this to him to keep him on his lands and it had done so. He had taken the black dire boar as his family symbol when he was knighted and bore it on a red shield symbolizing the blood that both he and the boar had shed in that great battle.
Gaheris stood and explained the situation to his liege. His other brother Corsabrin and a dozen sworn swords from the fyrd stood listening.
"I came upon the scene this morning, along the outer wards. I smelled it from the forest before I got there. The steading was burned the night before. The cattle and oxen taken, the sheep were gutted, and laid to waste in the fields. Rorick was nailed to the barn door and his body set to fire. His son was pierced with arrows as he ran from the scene. Dorne…she, she was violated and cut from belly to neck and tied to wooden stakes in the ground. I think they preformed some strange ritual. There were markings in the dirt, done in blood. Witchcraft." Gaheris said the last with disgust. "They took the children with them. The little ones." The ranger’s hands shook with rage. The fyrdmen were silent. Aline came down the stairs at that and began to sob on the stairs. Astyrian went to her and hugged her.
Astyrian's father, Leyhir stared at the man, his eyes misted with tears. His wife grabbed his hand with her own. He held his hands to his eyes and rubbed them, hiding them for a few moments.
Finally he spoke. "Rorick was a good man, and deserved better. These devils will pay dearly for their treachery and heresy. Call the fyrd, and bring me my armor." Ilmorien stood forward.
"Father," he said kneeling. "May I have the honor of serving as your arms man?"
His father stood. He slapped his son on the shoulder as Gaheris sounded the war horn, mustering the fyrdmen from their manor houses.
"If it is my day to die today then I would have all of my sons follow me in battle, so I can tell the heroes in the feast halls of the dead how brave my sons fought on this day." He gripped his lance and raised it to the air. His men drew their swords and saluted the sky.
"May the gods see our victory!" They shouted.
Aline waited in the courtyard as Astyrian saddled his horse for battle. She began crying, her head on his shoulder. The warrior turned, uncomfortable. He mounted, looking at her with his slate gray eyes. He put a hand on her chin and lifted it, kissing her gently. The Fyrdmen were spurring their horses out the gates of the keep. Gaheris reined in next to him and waited, his horse screaming in anxiousness to be off. It could smell battle in the air.
"I’ll be all right, Aline," he said. She looked up, and gave him a pendant of St. Michel – Patron of warriors and bane of evil.
"Take it, and my love. May god keep you safe," she said, tying a red scarf on his sword arm.
"You’re my heart," he said. Gaheris spurred his horse. Astyrian followed. All that was left was dust flowing in the wind and hope in the hearts of the fyrdwomen.
His father had saved Aline and her father; a man named Quinnlincon a priest of the Erudite Order from bandits years earlier. Her and her father had since settled here in the fyrd, her father becoming the local sage, his vast store of books made his fathers library a font of learning and scholarly studies for the territory. Aline had grown up beautiful and caring. She was an excellent healer, learning medicine from her father, who had studied as a physician in the east before the chaos of the war. Growing up side by side the two had grown to love each other.
The men kept the dire mood as they took the road to the northeast. They kept a vigil eye out for brigands and other foul creatures as the road began to near the forest. Soon they reached the smoldering ruins of the farmhouse. The stench of blood and fire permeated the air.
The men of the fyrd saw the horror of the scene when they reached the farmstead. His father gave stern orders for the men to bury the dead. The sight of Dorne splayed out on the ground set his father in a dire mood. Astyrian noticed her blood had been used in some ritual of witchcraft, and arcane symbols etched in her naked flesh. Gaheris spit.
"Devil worship: Someone was using necromancy," the freeholder cursed. His gray eyes scanned the trees and spurred his horse. His close cropped blonde hair was damp with sweat.
"This is where their trails split up," Gaheris said, circling his horse.
"Five followed this course. Fifteen the other, taking the livestock with them," the ranger said.
Astyrian’s father looked at him, his cold eyes measuring his eldest son.
"Astyrian, take Gaheris, Corsabrin and Urre. I’m sure you four can handle the five. Call the war horn when you’re finished. We will meet up after."
Astyrian nodded. He looked to his brother Ilmorien and nodded. "God be with you, justice guide us." He spurred his horse.
"Justice guide us." Ilmorien repeated.
Corsabrin grinned at his younger brother and tapped him across the helmet with the flat of his sword, causing his helm to ring like an iron pot.
"Don’t lose your head," he said to his brother with a wry grin. Unlike his other brothers Corsabrin had long dirty-blonde hair and brown eyes like his mother.
"And don’t soil your breeches in your first battle like I did, Its embarrassing," he said donning his great helm with a quick motion. He spurred his horse laughing with Urre and Gaheris.
"Smart ass!" Ilmorien muttered. He was nervous, but he was confident in his ability. He watched his brothers leave, and hoped he would see them again. Storm clouds were looming on the horizon; black and gray like a shadow on the far mountains to the east. It felt like rain, he could feel the mist in the air.
The men in Astyrian’s group sent Gaheris ahead to track the brigands. Urre was an old war dog, his father’s best knight and oldest friend. He was as big as a bear with the scar over his right eye – which left him blind in it – from the stroke of an axe. His head was bald above the temples. What hair he did have below was stark white, worn long to the top of his back. The knight’s face was covered in a thin veil of gray stubble; his scarred lip showed a missing tooth when he smiled. He sat there leaning over his saddle, waiting for Gaheris. Soon the ranger returned.
"They are at the inn up ahead. Looks like they wanted some rest from their rape and murder," the ranger said. Astyrian and his men rode the short distance to the Inn and dismounted at the edge of the clearing.
Astyrian turned to those that were with him, saying, "Urre, and Corsabrin enter through the back. Gaheris and I will take the front. Try to get one prisoner, we need to find out where they’re shacking up. There may be more of them hiding in some lair. The men nodded and moved off, crouching as they ran. Steel weapons glimmering in the sun.
Gaheris stalked to the rogue’s horses and untied them, spurring them into a run. He listened to the door. The door creaked as it opened and one egg-eyed bandit looked out from behind it, with a short sword drawn. Gaheris kicked the door with his foot, slamming it into the man’s nose. The bandit grabbed his face in shock and momentary blindness as blood flowed freely through his fingers. Gaheris grabbed the man by the collar and dragged a Kukri knife across the man’s throat where the armor was scarce. It cut like linen on a razor and the man fell gurgling in his own blood. Gaheris drew his other curved kurki and strode into the hall of the inn. Astyrian followed with his bastard sword ready. The inn’s main room was a mess.
The barkeep – a man both of them had known for years – lay sprawled across the floor, gutted like a hog. His white dead eyes open, as he lay in a pool of his own blood. The screams from the apartments above gave notice to where the other brigands were.
The thief behind the bar spotted them, and drew his long axe. Astyrian grabbed a chair and flung it at the man. The brigand shrugged it off and charged, with his axe high. As Astyrian sidestepped, the axe missed him and his sword flashed cutting the man’s lower leg just below the back of the knee – deep into ligaments and tendons. The man screamed, Astyrian moved fluidly and grabbed the back of the man’s cloak pulling him to the floor with a solid tug. He kicked the man across the jaw as he landed and heard a pop – after which the man just laid there unconscious.
Corsabrin and Urre stormed in the room from the back and heard the screaming upstairs. They rushed up and soon sounds of the slaughter followed. One of the brigands ran down the stairs naked armed with his dagger. Gaheris let his dagger fly and it hit the man in the thigh, he screamed and fell backwards. Crawling across the floor. Gaheris stomped on the man’s back, and began pummeling him with his fists until the man was unconscious. Urre and Corsabrin returned from upstairs, their swords bloody their faces grim.
"Gaheris take the men outside, tie them to the nearest tree. Corsabrin help him."
"My pleasure." His brother said. "The girl is upstairs. She is safe, but bloody." Astyrian nodded. Urre closed the innkeeper’s eyes. Gaheris retrieved his knives and began dragging the bodies out. Astyrian walked up the stairs, through the hallway he saw the innkeeper’s wife – dead at the end of the hallway – dagger wounds in her chest. Her lifeless eyes gazed at the ceiling, as her daughter embraced her. The young girl was crying hysterically.
"She tried to stop them and they killed her," she mumbled. The girl’s dress was in shreds. She was covered in blood from her assailant’s wounds. He was dead on the bed in the far room, his head hung by a thread of jugular across the border of the bed. A fountain of blood had made the walls red from the man’s traumatic death.
"Little one are there any others?" he asked. "Any family?"
The girl cried, while saying, "My brother Caris…he…he ran off when the men attacked father."
Astyrian kneeled. Brushing the girl’s curls away from her face. "I am Astyrian, Lord Xeres son. Let us bury your parents. Find your brother and take you to our household where you will be protected until time that we find someplace for you to stay."
She looked at him, and nodded as he took her hand helping her stand. She looked once more at her mother and began crying. He escorted her out of the house. Covered her face from her father and moved out toward the woods. Gaheris and Urre had strung the men up against a tree.
"We will take care of these murderers. Find your brother," he said.
She moved off, into the wood. Gaheris slapped the men slowly until they were awake and groggy. The one Astyrian kicked had a broken jaw. He would be useless, so he was the one Astyrian would make an example of. He waited until they were coherent. Corsabrin and Gaheris began making a pyre for the dead.
Astyrian drew a knife – cleaning the end of his fingernails with it. The brigands looked at him with disdain. "Our lord will avenge us!" the bandit sneered.
"Who would that lord be?" Astyrian asked. "Where does this great killer of women and children live?"
The man spat. "You will never find him! He is the shadow on the wind, the lurker in the dark. He is powerful!"
"Well, this I can promise you. I have two ways of disposing of you. One you can rot in a dungeon in my father’s keep and have some hope of escape. Or I can bury you to the neck in the earth and pour honey on your faces. I’m sure the coyotes and bears in the area would love the taste of honey on a man’s face. So much in fact that they would rip the flesh off of it after they were done and eat the man alive."
The brigand looked at Astyrian, but he did speak.
"Nothing to say? Well then I have bad news. My friend over there is a freeholder. They have fought for their ground from scrayling goblins and ogres, trolls and all other manner of evil. They bow and kneel to no one. And their strange natural magic comes from the earth itself. They have ways of making someone talk my murderous friend." He turned and called the ranger over.
Gaheris walked forward, silent.
"Get the information we need. Whatever the cost," Astyrian said. Gaheris drew his knife in a quick flurry and went to work on the broken jawed murderer. Astyrian walked off. The screams of the brigands followed him through the woods.
The girl was under a copse of trees in the forest with her brother. He looked to be about seven, with gangly brown hair and gaps in his teeth. His sister heard the screams and her brother began to cry.
"What are your names?" Astyrian asked.
"Brianna, and Bron." She replied.
"Bron, those are the screams of the men who did this to your family. Don’t cry for them little man. They are having justice served to them right now." The boy stopped crying. Astyrian kneeled.
"What do you say about being my page?" He asked the young boy. The boy looked up at him. His face was ragged from tears. He was silent but that seemed to spark his interest.
"Well we’ll see about that when you’re a little more calm. You and your sister will stay with us until we find someplace for you. That is the least we can do," he said.
After an hour Urre approached them and informed Astyrian that the pyres were ready. Gaheris stalked toward them his leathers slick with blood. His face a mask of red.
The children cringed when he came toward them. Gaheris wiped blood from his face and sheathed his knife.
"They are being led by someone named Grim, one schooled in the black arts. He is allied with a Brigand Noble named Brant. They say Grim changes forms and call the power of nature to strike a man dead."
"How fare our prisoners?" Astyrian asked.
"Finished," he said, spitting. "Let’s meet with your father. I know this man Brant. He is cruel and can be very sadistic when it interests him. I heard he had a reputation in the legions and was rumored to kill prisoners when they did not give up information during torture."
Brianna looked at Gaheris, she thought he had eyes like a wolf.
"I think I remember father talking about him," Astyrian said.
"Do you children have anything you would like to get before we leave?" Astyrian asked. The boy nodded and ran to the family’s barn. He retrieved a wooden puppet carved like a knight.
"Da gave that to him when we went to the fair in Sturnheim. It’s his favorite toy." The girl said.
"What about you?" Urre asked.
"I don’t want to go back in there," Brianna said sadly.
After they said their prayers over their parent’s pyre they lit it. As it started to consume the bodies, Urre helped Brianna onto his horse and they all moved out to meet with Astyrian’s father.
Gaheris blew the horn, and they heard the retort of their father’s party some distance ahead. They spurred their horses in that direction.
The sounds of thunder crashed in the distance, like a slow tumble of rocks from the east.
As Astyrian’s group reached the others, they found his father’s men were fresh from battle. Many had wounds, and from the look of it many were missing. He saw the crowd gathered under his father’s standard. Dead men littered the ground from both parties. Their pale, emotionless faces pooled water from the light drizzle in the air. Dead cattle and horses sprawled across the ground. Astyrian recognized his father’s horse. It was torn apart. He looked toward the crowd, and a feeling of dread entered his heart when he saw his father’s standard among the men.
He spurred his horse towards them and dismounted hastily. Corsabrin did the same. The men were silent; some with tears in their eyes. Many had gone to fight with their father during the wars, and had known him well. Ilmorien cradled his father in his arms, weeping softly. His father’s body was still with death, as a spear jutted from his chest. Another hole in the center of his chest – the size of a fist – blackened and charred.
Astyrian kneeled next to his brother. Corsabrin stood still, suppressing his rage.
Ilmorien spoke through tears, "We came upon the enemy resting on this field. Father hoped to gain surprise, so we charged. We fought well until a sorcerer appeared from the far wood dressed in a black cloak of raven feathers. He unleashed powerful magic and called lightning from the sky upon us. The men went into panic, but father charged his horse. Father had been wounded by the spear, but he kept his charge. As he reached the wizard he engaged the man’s bodyguard – killing two. Then lightning struck his chest and he fell from his horse." He stopped suddenly racked with pain from his own wounds, then he continued.
"The men of the fyrd were enraged and we charged them. The sorcerer ran to the cover of the trees and seemed to disappear into shadow. We fought the remainder of his men but we failed to get him before he disappeared. Oh, we failed him," Ilmorien cursed.
"You didn’t fail him brother. Father wanted to die in this way. Life as a cripple didn’t suit him in his old age. He died protecting the fyrd, and he died, as a lord should in the protection of his people. He has given the greatest sacrifice a lord could. Don’t cry for him."
Corsabrin yelled the family battle cry, "Courage unto death!" The men of the fyrd immediately followed suit, raising their weapons in unison.
Gaheris walked forward, kneeling next to Ilmorien. The ranger studied the boy’s wounds. "My lord you need healing you’ve lost much blood. "
Astyrian finally noticed his brother’s wounds. Two broken arrows had punched through his brother’s armor in the upper back and chest.
Astyrian pointed to two of the fyrd men, and they stepped forward nodding. He gave them a command, "Take my brother, father and the children back to the fyrd with the other wounded who cannot follow. The rest, follow me. We’ll hunt this creature of darkness."
Ilmorien looked at his brother with a pale _expression.
"I know you want to go little brother. But those wounds might fester. You’ve had your glory today. Besides someone needs to escort these little ones to the fyrd. Can I trust you with command?"
Ilmorien knew his brother was trying to save him face, and he silently nodded. He was racked with pain and could barely move. The burning start of a fever had begun. Astyrian mounted his brother into the saddle and tied his legs to the saddle so he wouldn’t fall off his horse.
"Godspeed brother," Astyrian said, clasping his brother’s hand.
"Godspeed," Ilmorien replied. The escorts spurred their horses, and the two children and Ilmorien followed – riding off in the muddy weather.
Astyrian saddled up with his men, and made way toward the northern lands of Brant keep.