The Old Man
Year 1378 (Present day)
Gray held out his hand. A portly middle-aged woman reached up from the snow and grabbed it. With a quick jerk, he lifted her to her feet. It was a common occurrence during training, and the excuses of the cold and the ice had worn on his temper. Training men in the primes of their lives who wished to be soldiers was sufficiently difficult. It took time regardless of how disciplined the cadets were, as truly shaping people for battle so that they would not cower or die instantly was a long process. Attempting to convert a motley crew of vastly differing abilities, age, and form into a fighting force was appearing to be an effort in futility. Morale had been questionable to begin, and the bruises, cuts, scrapes, and gashes, all endured in the bitter cold, were taking a toll on the villagers.
“You can’t overextend your arms. You’re losing your balance,” Gray told her.
“The snow’s too deep here,” she said between labored breaths.
“These are the conditions we will be fighting in,” he said. “Don’t hold your weapon point down. The ground is frozen solid.”
Gray scanned the group in front of him. Nine other pairs were dueling, but the exertion of the day’s work had left their arms limp, barely able to hold their weapons upright. He was cycling through these villagers for individual training while Jaroslav and another man were supervising archery practice.
The other man was one of the villagers who claimed he had military service, but was the lone one Gray had come to believe. His name was Wervich and he looked to be in his early forties. Of his past, Gray knew nothing other than that he had served as a professional soldier and had come to the village three years ago, making him one of the newest arrivals. Privacy was well-respected in the village, for which Gray was thankful.
Wervich was an excellent marksman and had become an invaluable asset. Beside his skill, he had a patience that made him a great teacher. The villagers who had some experience with bows had gotten better, and the ones with little to no experience were now passably good. That would be critical, as Gray’s plan increasingly depended on missile fire with every passing day of hand-to-hand combat training.
“One last round,” Gray said to the woman. “Remember, your goal is to deflect my attacks. Even if I give you an opening, consider it a feint.”
The less skilled a fighter, the more likely they were to go for blood. Gray had been attempting to instill defensive-minded tactics into the villagers, especially those who were less physically capable. The idea was to stall for time until the attackers could be torn apart by arrows. Or until I reach them.
With the knowledge that the Imperial Defenders now possessed regarding the village’s defense, Gray assumed they would arrive well armored and equipped with shields. He had therefore kept his two-handed sword on his back and was wielding a bastard sword with a wooden shield, that being the only type available. Chorel the blacksmith had asked after shields, but Gray had insisted that spears were more novice-friendly.
Gray did not hold back in practice. In matters of life and death, concerns over appearing arrogant or flashy were unimportant, not that he had ever worried about those in the past. He simply fought in the style he thought the Imperial Defenders were most likely to employ based on his experience against them and the knowledge they now possessed.
He held his shield up and circled around the woman, looking for an opening. She matched him at every step. Believing that the Imperial Defenders would, quite correctly, believe they were vastly superior in skill to the majority of the villagers, he did not wait long until he made a move. He made a thrust with his sword which the woman attempted to deflect. At the last moment, he lifted his blade above her spear, knocked it aside with his shield, and stepped to within inches of her. In a real battle, she would be dead and she knew it as much as he did.
Another one for archery.
He had had some hope for the woman as she had muscular arms, but her reflexes and her feet were simply too slow. Not wanting to insult her and further her demoralization, he would have her called for archery practice tomorrow and this would be the last time she trained with him. It had been nearly four weeks since Harold had been taken. Gray did not believe they had much more time. He had been whittling the list of melee fighters down to only those who could stay alive long enough to be useful. Everyone else was to be equipped with a bow and placed near a window or on a roof when the time came.
Gray motioned toward the others, and the woman slowly walked over to tell them it was time to eat and rest for the night.
He trudged through the field of knee-high snow toward the archery butts and the four dozen or so people arrayed in front of them. The sun had gone down more rapidly than he had realized and there was very little light left. While it might be wise to get some practice firing in the dark, the temperature dropped even quicker than the sun and risks of injury increased without light.
The wind was howling and the top layer of snow cut into his face with every gust. He did not want to be here, but what ate away inside of him was not his own physical discomfort, it was the fraying of the ties that bound the village. After the simple-minded girl Olisha ran away, suspicions were being cast from neighbor upon neighbor. Makani and Trounen had attempted to keep the peace, but Makani had lost the trust of most of the villagers, and Trounen’s adamant defense of her had had the opposite of its intended effect. Tensions were high and people were worn out.
None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me. That was what gnawed his gut so badly that he had lost his appetite. And behind it all, lived another even more painful reality that no one else knew about; the possibility that this delay would prove deadly for the only person in his life that he would even dare to consider family.
It took Gray some time in the diminished light to find Jaroslav and Wervich. He had considered giving them some sort of identifier so that the others could find them in the heat of battle, but decided it gave more potential benefit to the enemy than to the villagers. Everyone wore a mismatch of different fur coats, thick padded boots, and whatever trousers they had made or scrounged up. They all wore hats as well, and these were even more varied in appearance, but in the darkness, it was difficult to discern color from more than a few feet away. If the Imperial Defenders attacked at night without their uniforms on, the chance of confusion was great.
His two unofficial officers huddled near him, a few steps aside from the others, all of whom had ceased their training and waited for the order to halt for the night.
“That’s all for today,” Gray told them. “We’ll meet at the tavern and go over adjustments to positions and roles. We need to finalize that this night.”
He did not need to say why. Jaroslav and Wervich nodded and began to holler the order. Jaroslav had attempted to salute Gray the first few days of training, but when the old man never acknowledged the effort, he had eventually received the message. Now Gray was wondering if it had been a mistake not to make the operation more formal. As it was, respect and subordination were given as a choice and not as an obligation. Would that have made a difference in terms of efficacy? He was too tired to give it much thought.
The villagers slinked across the field with Jaroslav and Wervich in the lead. He stood for a moment to see if some semblance of a line took form, but it did not. He had not tried to turn them into soldiers. He only wanted to prepare them to repel an attack. But there was a part of him that kept looking for more order, out of a sense that it would give him and the others a greater feeling of security. He was not a leader and that was abundantly clear to all now.
A scream of terror from up ahead. Then more screams. The villagers at the end of the line stood frozen in place. Gray threw down the bastard sword and shield he was holding, unslung his two-handed blade, and rushed forward. The new boots that Makani had made for him provided him with better footing than what the other villagers possessed and he ran past them swiftly, bounding forward with great strides. Near the middle of the procession, villagers began to flee in all directions, screaming. Most had thrown down their weapons in their panic.
The fleeing men and women had cleared a space around a dead body, and on both sides of it, Gray saw two giant white felines. Frostfangs, each one tall enough for its head to be eye-to-eye with Gray. They were not looking his way, however. Both of the animals were focused on another individual holding a two-handed sword.
Jaroslav.
Without stopping his forward momentum, Gray closed the gap between him and the frostfang closest to Jaroslav. The beast turned before he could reach it, but Gray’s blade was already in the air, arcing down and cutting straight through an outreached leg. The animal retreated a step, but Gray did not relent. He stepped to the side of its mangled leg and slashed sideways across its rib cage. Falling back into the snow, the animal could not defend itself as Gray thrust his sword into its neck.
The other frostfang leaped at him and Gray had to roll to the side, behind the corpse of the first feline. He came up quickly and held his blade straight out from his midsection, as the still living beast began to circle him. Jaroslav stood in place across from him, his sword limp in his arms. Gray put out one hand to signal the boy to stay where he was.
The giant feline continued its path, Gray keeping it directly in front of him, but moving his body as little as possible. The animal easily weighed seven times more than he did, and even with his new boots, had an advantage in footing, balance, and speed. But it had no experience facing off against a trained soldier with a two-handed sword that was nearly five feet in length.
Gray stared at the animal while he began to feign a weakness in his right leg. With every step he took, he dragged the leg slightly, hoping the animal would pick up on the evident disability. The circling continued until Gray felt confident his ruse had been swallowed. He began slowly moving backwards, still dragging his right foot until the beast leaped at him, left paw in the lead toward his right side. Gray jumped to his left and sliced his blade down through the animal’s right leg. It turned and lashed out with its mouth, but Gray was quicker with his blade, moving it back up until it lodged into the frostfang’s jaw. He pulled his sword out and chopped down into the animal’s skull, killing it instantly.
He steadied his breathing and looked passed the three corpses at his feet to Jaroslav. Night had fallen now and Gray was unable to make out the expression on the lad’s face. The boy he had made his second in command simply stood where he was, looking over at him.
He wiped his sword across the fur of one of the beasts, sheathed the blade and walked over to Jaroslav. Other villagers were returning to the scene, some mumbling quietly, but most silent.
“I should not have kept us out past sundown,” Gray said.
Jaroslav looked away without giving a reply.
A man walked slowly into Gray’s line of sight, his back straight and rigid. Gray recognized him as the husband who had been attempting to save his wife from the defense force the other night in the tavern. He stood close enough that Gray could see tears running down his face. “My wife is dead. Her blood is on your hands, old man.” With that, he threw down the spear he had been holding.
Gray did not question where the man had been when his wife was attacked. It did not matter. The woman’s death was his fault and that man would not be the only one to see the truth of that. The defense of the village had already cost one life. Gray’s failures were mounting.
He went straight to his room when he arrived at the inn. Alone in the darkness, he sat on his bed without removing his coat or boots. A new plan was forming in his mind. He would defend the village alone. This was his battle after all. In reality, the people of this village had more freedom than most people in the world. Perhaps if he fell, they could make a bargain with the Imperial Defenders. For a brief moment, he even considered giving himself to them, but there was someone who needed him to continue on his journey. The question did hang over him though- was the world better off without him? It was not the first time he had chewed on that doubt.
A knock at the door. Gray wondered what firestorm he would face now. Would the villagers simply tell him to leave and peacefully face whatever consequences the Imperial Defenders forced upon them?
“Gray. It’s Makani,” a voice said from behind the door.
He opened the door and saw she was alone. He moved aside so that she could enter, then closed the door and locked it again.
“I heard what happened to Vina,” she said.
“We were out too late.”
“You blame yourself.”
“I do.”
“But you killed the two frostfangs. You saved many other lives.”
“You know how I will respond to that,” he said, sitting down on the bed again.
He felt ancient. The sword on his back was as an anvil, weighing down his old frame. He did not much feel like fighting to stay upright.
“They’re meeting now, without me or Trounen. Gray, they have not listened to a word I’ve said since Olisha ran away. People are talking about leaving and finding a new home.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “I certainly no longer wish to stay. When I moved here, I thought I had found a refuge away from the evils of civilization. But there is no running from that. Wherever people are gathered, fingers will be pointed and animosity will take hold. It is only a matter of time.”
He could not argue with that, even if he had cared to.
“The lesson is that you cannot run from your problems,” Gray said.
“Then you will stay? No matter what?”
“If they ask me to leave, I will.”
“You will run from your problems?”
“My problems are my own. The trouble is that I have brought down pain and sorrow unto others. Innocent people who were fine before I arrived.”
“The village was not fine before you arrived, Gray. Each year, the emperor demands more taxes from us. The Imperial Defenders take whatever they want when they visit. Whoever they want.”
He looked up at her now and saw that she was crying. His hatred of himself washed away then and he stood up to embrace her. For the briefest of instants, he thought she would flinch and move away. Instead, he found her in his arms, holding on tight and weeping openly. He now had another person he needed to protect. But he did not mind. It was an obligation he welcomed.