Until Then

Stryn stopped at a bend near the river, where churning white water tumbled between sheets of ice. He was a long way from the road, a long way from his party. His warriors waited for him back at the camp, passing the time with drinking games and bawdy tales thundered over a long table.

He no longer had anything to fear from a river, but his warriors did not have the same luxury. Most of them also lacked the respect due to spirits who lived in the wild country, and he forbade them from trampling about alone. It was Stryn who scouted ahead in every region, and only one other.

Griet, a soft-spoken warrior from the caverns, sometimes made a second trip out to make the party's offerings. She was the last one old enough to respect what most of the warriors called ‘the old ways.’ To Griet and Stryn, ‘the old ways' were simply common sense.

The proper reverence for spirits was lost to the new generation. Stryn wasn’t sure how much time had passed that these traditions had fallen away, but it didn’t seem like much. And yet, Griet was not yet thirty when she joined his ranks. As he passed her on his way out of the encampment earlier that morning, he could not avoid the sight of her hands, trembling and frail.

The passage of time bothered him. He often forgot it was not the same for him as it was for most mortals. He had been delighted to meet Kazimierz, a man from the far reaches of the plains, who claimed time meant little to him as well. Many were the times they spent reminiscing on events few breathing had been alive to witness. In no time at all, they became fast friends, parted only by matters of great urgency.

It was with a heavy heart Stryn had left his soft-spoken company to fight a raid on the Western border.

That had been… how long ago was it? It felt like months, but the youngest warriors he picked up on this outing were full adults now.

Kazimierz, a man of peace, had promised to take care of the quieter affairs in the capitol while Stryn defended Isulfr's borders. The times being what they were, there was always some new threat cropping up when he turned to head home.

His mother’s reign hadn’t been nearly so busy. He had dreaded having to take her seat on the throne, where she spent most of her time tending to menial problems and complaining that her adventures were over.

Her last words to him before she retired to the Long Dinner were, “Finally, I may get to see something interesting happen.”

His rule had started out much the same. Then Yún swept an attack over one side of the map, and Aglia struck the other. Small Northern countries like Deuxcornes requested help subduing Dalachite forces, and one by one, they fed the larger countries around them.

Eventually, Deuxcornes dissolved – annexed into Stryn’s empire. Now, it was just a name on a mountain in High Western Isulfr. And Dalach was nothing like it used to be. The last time he saw the great country on a map, it was whittled to the size of a snakeskin. He had to stop and ask one of his recruits what it was.

Stryn seated himself on a boulder and studied the wavering pictures at the river's edge. His reflection was deceptive. It told him he was only in his thirties, but he understood what Griet meant when she said she was getting too old.

The sound of metal cutting into stone clipped through a tall group of pines close to the bank. None of the songbirds singing near the campground had ventured out here, but when he gazed up, their nests straddled the upper boughs in great numbers. The clanging had scared them away.

With a growl, Stryn slid his weight over the slick boulder. The slim body of a fish darted past him as his boots splashed ankle deep in the riverbank. It would have made a good meal, but the balance of this quiet corner was already too disturbed for hunting.

Around the bend, he found an unfathomably tall youth of about twenty years severing the top half of a tombstone with an axe. The axe was all but destroyed, but the stranger was only getting started. With his face riled and streaked with sweat, he raised his foot to kick the rest of the tombstone out of the ground.

Stryn stayed where he was, interested but unamused by the stranger's antics. “Did you grow up among dogs? It’s a terrible crime to desecrate a grave.”

The stranger stopped and turned around with curious anger glinting in his wide grey eyes. Dressed mostly in poorly-tended furs, he had a single dark brown braid woven in the regional style of young men, light skin, and the surprising handsomeness of a boar. “The three here were terrible criminals,” he said. His voice was as harsh as his face, and he spoke a dialect Stryn hadn’t heard in a while. It was a mix of Isulfrite and the seldom-heard tongue of Deuxcornes.

It was obvious already that the stranger had a chip on his shoulder, but now Stryn had a few clues as to why. He remained a good several feet away. “Who were they?” he asked, with a light gesture to the grave. “You can expect their ghosts to come after you.”

The stranger turned back to the broken tombstone with a disgruntled smile. The grave marker was as thick as a pine tree. “They’re nobody, now.”

“And who are you?”

The young stranger didn’t bother to turn around or answer. “Who are you?” he asked instead.

Stryn crossed his arms. “You don’t know who I am?”

“Obviously not,” said the young stranger.

Stryn narrowed his eyes. “I rule this country.”

“Ah?” The stranger’s interest rose, and he turned to face Stryn just part of the way. His rebellion was calculated and deliberate. “You do a shit job at it.”

“I don’t object to criticism, but I don’t like your mouth. You must be after an early death to walk the earth as you do.” Stryn approached him at length, meaning to duel some sense into him.

The idea of battling a fabled emperor fired an immediate delight into the stranger. His small teeth flashed in an impatient grin, and he raised what remained of the axe to fight.

Something about his manner changed Stryn’s mind about engaging him. A prophetic spirit had once told Stryn that he would one day meet a warrior whose tenacity matched his own. He remembered thinking this person sounded like a troublesome foe.

There was no fear on this young stranger's face. He must have spent hours hacking away at the bandits' tombstone, but he wasn’t tired. Something burned in him, not the passion of a greenhorn, but an ageless and incurable rage. It was the type of malice that would go on existing long after his body was gone.

It would be irresponsible to let this soul continue wandering the region unsupervised. Stryn relaxed his shoulders and started heading back to camp, hoping the stranger would follow him.

“Who are you to walk away from a fight?” shouted the stranger, splashing through the shallows. “You think you own everyone in this land? You take no interest in it!”

Stryn paused.

A few days later:

The young warrior tested several axes hanging from the requisition wall. Each weapon had a flaw that made him grimace and cast it aside. One had a handle too short for his hand. Another didn’t make a satisfying sound when he swung it through the air. He let it drop near his shoes and gestured to its shining head lying in the dirt.

He turned to Stryn and growled under his breath. “None of these are right.” He threw a frustrated gesture to the wall. “The handles don’t fit in my hand, and the ones that do have thin metal.”

Stryn crossed his arms. “What, did your family run a smithy?”

“No. A butchery.”

What Stryn knew about butchers rose from their many arguments with the camp's gamekeepers and cooks. He didn’t know their tools offhand. “And you used your axe for that?”

The warrior crinkled the top of his nose. “No.”

Stryn was well read in most areas, and he didn’t care for appearing foolish. He raised his chin and felt his nostrils flare. “Educate me, then. I have time to listen. How did you come to use that beaten up weapon?”

“I learned wilderness skills from a trapper who did business with us. The old woman gave me an axe to chop wood.”

That was all the youth was willing to say. He was an obstinate creature, but Stryn could piece together a background from the sparing account. If the butchers did frequent business with a trapper, they must have been country people, and not very well off.

It was unlikely a butcher, no matter how provincial, would ever wander about the way this man did. He dressed like a hunter with no interest in trading, and he behaved like a godless, out of work mercenary.

Stryn regarded him with increasing interest. A surname, if he had one, would reveal more about his history. “I haven’t asked yet. What are you called?”

Dark circles underneath the young warrior’s eyes seemed to deepen as he shifted his gaze to Stryn. He answered in his raspy voice, his mouth a hard line. “Lugovalos.”

Stryn stared at the young man. He could say nothing for a moment. “I assume you know who that name truly belongs to,” he said, still staggered. “Lugovalos was a warrior of greater fame than anyone alive today.”

‘Lugovalos’ didn’t so much as blink. “Yes. That’s why I chose it.”

“You chose it?” Stryn pushed more outrage into each word. “You desecrate triple graves, you insult your emperor, and you steal the name of a man whose image is woven in the stars. How much ill-favor do you mean to draw upon your brutish head before you’re finished?”

Lugovalos curled his lip in a sneer. “Your customs are not my customs. And you are just an invader. Deuxcornes has no emperor.”

Stryn narrowed his eyes. “And these things you’ve done are considered lucky in Old Deuxcornes?”

“No.” Lugovalos grinned with a rebel's defiance. He tucked his thumb into the side of his studded belt. “We only believe in perseverance.”

Well, that explained the rampant foolishness. But Stryn was not dissuaded. He remembered the spirit he once spoke to in the Ice Forest. Lugovalos was mentioned in that conversation, there was no mistake. He was a valuable ally, or he would be, given the opportunity and time.

Stryn watched Lugovalos return to his critique of the weapons in stock, displeased with every specimen he saw. The pile of discarded axes grew until Stryn had had enough of watching valuable weapons clatter in the dirt.

“Stop that and come with me.” Stryn frowned and wrested the last axe from Lugovalos before he threw it to the ground. “You can have one made for you by the smith.”

For the first time, Lugovalos had nothing brazen to say. He frowned, but his mouth hung open just enough to reveal a hint of his bottom row of teeth.

Stryn was wise to him. “You may have it when you’ve proven yourself trustworthy. That requires a level of respect you’ve buried deep within yourself since you crawled away from your family’s butchery. Until then, your new axe will stay with me.”

Lugovalos didn’t contest this, but he did not look pleased. “You think I can’t meet your standards?”

Stryn snorted. “If I believed you incapable of something that simple, I wouldn’t waste the resource. You took the name of a champion. Try not to disappoint them.”

Stryn led Lugovalos to the back corner of the camp and introduced the more experienced of the weaponsmiths. He played nonchalant when the smith blanched upon learning the young warrior’s name.

“An interesting youth, isn’t he?” asked Stryn. “If he gives you trouble, send for me.”

The smith gave a sideways glance to Lugovalos. “Interesting is quite a word.”

Stryn left them in the smithy, feeling Lugovalos' cold eyes watching him as he turned the corner.