Wanderers' Rest

The Eighth Anecdote of The Samyuzot.

I’m Eric, and this is Falden’s Forge. This post is the eighth and penultimate installment of my high fantasy adventure serial, The Samyuzot, which follows the life of a cursed warrior wandering in exile.

Every story in the series is stand-alone. There’s no need to catch up and new readers won’t be lost.

However, if you prefer… 

← you can click here to start at the beginning…

← or click here to see all of The Samyuzot…

… or you can just keep reading down below. 

✹ ✹ ✹

“ The story is already being told, friend. Would you not rather it be an honest story? ”

✹ ✹ ✹

A man hunted alone in eastern Maretonia. Other hunters took deer and grouse and poached in the lords’ forests, but this man was something stiffer.

For years, he hunted game that others would not pursue, far off the well-traveled roads and in the deep shadows of wood and dale.

Rumor of this man was scarce at first. Only a few folk had seen him. But they could recollect it well, for the man was frightening to behold and not easily forgotten; bald, grizzled, stout, scowling, stone-faced.

The tales multiplied. Eventually, each hamlet had its legend, told by someone who knew someone who had truly been there, when the hunter appeared in the country, took his prey, and departed.

Who could believe them? But one thing remained in common, the thing which made the man’s fame: this man hunted things which killed more often than they died. Wolves, scaedlings, ogres, and even shriekwings.

Most men could serve against brigands when the cry went up, but it was rare to meet someone who could face the shadow-born and not flinch.

With each passing year, more stories emerged, more witnesses to the outlander who fought in the darkest corners of these remote counties. Somewhere out there, this man must have had a home, or did he have only his saddle?

He never lingered. He gave his name to no one else. He had strange customs and a stranger language. But his spectre was known by all, and they knew him when they saw him: the bald one, the black-horsed rider, the wandering Plainswalker.

✹ ✹ ✹

Into that same country wandered a very different sort of man indeed: city-born, well-spoken, richly-dressed. He tramped over the roads in bright colors and a jovial spirit. Larucen was his name.

He followed the highways and lingered at the inns, as was his habit when traveling.

Yet this time something else drove him onwards, further from home—or at least from his most recent residence near the seaside palace in Mareton. He sang in the common rooms and fiddled his miniature lute and found pretties with which to pass the nights.

This time, it was not enough. This time, it was boring.

Wanderlust had become restlessness, and it was so fierce that no place could give even a moment’s respite.

Yes, Larucen was both bored and anxious. Even if he had had sufficient exposure to these emotions, and even if he held sufficient knowledge of his own soul to diagnose these maladies, Larucen never would have admitted to either. If someone had asked, he would have extolled the joys, pleasures, and freedoms of his rambling lifestyle. It would not have been a lie, for he believed it. This is what he chose. What he wanted.

Still, his nameless ache drove him further and further from Mareton. Towards the eastern hills. Into rougher country. Aimless.

He heard rumors of the Plainswalker. He followed them. They led him off the highways and eventually to a village, the name of which he never learned.

✹ ✹ ✹

There were several signs that things were amiss in the village, even before Larucen reached it.

The first sign was the noise that emanated from its hilltop. Banging, hollering, shouting. A celebration? A fight? A cattle slaughter? There was no one on this empty road to ask.

The second omen was the black spots which covered a wide patch of the road. Blood, from the look of it, too dark to be fresh but too wet to be old. Larucen wondered what could have shed it. Again, his mind went to the doomed existence of cattle.

Then he saw the third grave oddity: deep grooves in the muddy road, tracking from the largest of the puddles and away towards the village. Something was dragged. Something large.

All was revealed in the village, which was in a state of frenzied celebration, with all one hundred of its denizens carousing in the open street. Dusk was still a ways off, but drink was flowing and drums were beating loudly in a poor imitation of constructed music. At the center of the public space was the object of their celebration and ridicule: the corpse of a monster.

They celebrated its death. Chanting. Shouting. Laughing. Wailing.

Larucen could only stare. The monster was every shade of grey at once, at least four times the size of a man, with arms and legs like columns of ruined stone. Its face was larger than Larucen’s chest; its eyes—all four of them—were blacker than night; its whole hide was covered with wiry fur, which was in places sharply barbed like the quills of a porcupine. Larucen counted three arrow shafts still protruding from the beast’s shoulders, with even more patches of blood at different places. The throat was slit.

Having dragged the corpse into their town, some of the villagers were now hitting the thing with hoes, clubs, and rocks. They shouted curses and imprecations. None were more vigorous in their abuse of the thing than one woman, who screamed out of a tear-stained face as she slammed the monster’s paw with a hammer, two-hands around the tool, again and again, as shrieks and sobs wracked her chest in equal measure.

“What is it?” Larucen asked through the noise.

“A troll, ye daft!” said a voice.

“What is she doing?” the traveler nodded towards the shrieking woman.

“It killed her husband and her son and three of their sheep.”

✹ ✹ ✹

“Are you the man who killed that troll?” asked Larucen from the edge of the firelight.

The ranger stood tall and alert. His responding glare was strong enough to make Larucen wonder if an arrow was soon to follow. The wrinkles around his eyes only intensified the look. A voice like gravel came through a beard: “I told Albin that I didn’t want to be followed.”

“I know not this Albin, good sir,” Larucen flashed a smile, “but I inquired in the village, and someone pointed me this way.”

“What do you want?”

“Only to meet you, Plainswalker.” Larucen held the smile, but felt his expression begin to melt under his host’s unrelenting stare. He opted for flattery. “I am Larucen, poet and minstrel. I’ve traveled far, and let me tell you: not many men can take down a mountain troll. But you, sir! You have done exactly that! I find the story immensely intriguing. I would know more.”

“Intriguing,” the plainsman repeated. “Fine. Sit down.”

Larucen came in closer to the campfire; it had led him through the dark to this man, and now it could be his warmth. A rich, red saddle was on the ground near the fire, with several horses nearby. The largest of these was a slick black shadow. A warhorse. Beyond the ring of horses, there was only darkness.

Two men settled into this little world. The one sat atop his saddle, removed a rag from the bags, and resumed wiping some of the dried blood from his fingers. The other sat on the grass, unshouldered his satchel and his lute, and watched.

✹ ✹ ✹

“So,” said the gruff ranger when his hands were finally clean enough. “You must have work for me?”

“Work for you?”

“You’re not the first to come find me,” replied the old warrior. “There’s always work enough for a man like me. I don’t have trouble finding it on my own. But you came here for a reason. Tell me. Why should I go where you need me and not where I please? What’s the job?”

“Ah, a job. No… or perhaps. It is only one job. And it will be much easier than your usual fare, if that troll is anything to judge by.”

“Tell me.”

“I want to write a song, and I need your help.”

“A song.”

“Your song. Let me tell your story.”

“No.”

Larucen took a deep breath. He tried again: “Your trade is your muscle. Mine is my voice. I have done well with this trade, too, though I say it myself. My voice has taken me from my home in Caravonne, through Vien and Spaletta, over the Bundanne and all through Maretonia. I’ve sung in grand halls for kings and the loveliest ladies of the realm. And in my many travels, I have of late begun to hear a story of a Wandering Plainswalker. I wish now to elevate that story from peasant rumor to a grander romance. So I have found you. At long last. And I would hear your story.”

“I’m not fit to be in any stories.”

“You do yourself a disservice, good man.”

“If you’ve done so well for yourself, then you don’t need my help.”

“The story is already being told, friend,” Larucen said in his soothingest tones. “Would you not rather it be an honest story? The unvarnished truth? Or would you have me spin yarns of falsehood and flattery?

“So I have a proposal,” he went on, “a wager. You tell me what I want to know, and I’ll make some verses about you this very night. If I fail to make you smile with my song, I’ll give you this.” He fished from his bag a piece of precious cargo: a long-necked bottle, sealed with red wax, its round body half-covered in woven straw.

The ranger’s stare transferred off Larucen at last, lingering instead on the bottle. “Wine?”

“Arlemóntine Sipsomme.”

“So… wine?”

“What, no!” the visitor covered his shock by sliding into a laugh. “No, good sir, no. This is liquor. Or a liqueur, if you please. Some of the finest in Maretonia, and you’ll not find its like on this side of the King’s Lake.”

The ranger nodded, and in reply dipped a hand into his saddlebags, pulled out a purse, and then from the purse a coin. A gold coin. “I’m not sure how much that costs. But if you can make me smile with a song tonight, I’ll give you this.”

“That’s hardly necessary. Even for this, a guldwat—.”

“A wager is a wager. Let me make it.”

“Very well. But you must answer my questions. And you must do so honestly.”

“I’ll agree to that.”

They placed bottle and coin beside the fire, and shook hands.

✹ ✹ ✹

“What is your name?” began the bard.

“Ask me something else.”

“You are a plainsman, yes?”

“Ask me something else.”

“What are those markings on your saddle?”

“Ask me something else.”

“Words Above, man! I don’t think you understand what it means to answer my questions honestly!” Larucen brought his smile as wide as it could go, but he could feel that his eyes were betraying his annoyance.

The plainsman smacked his lips. “I cannot give you my name. I am samyuzot.”

“Is that not your name?”

“No. It is what I am. Samyuzot. It means I am no longer a plainsman. Not truly. I was born there, and I am from there. But I cannot go onto the Plains any longer. Not if I want to live very long… It is not my home, though it once was. But I am not a highlander like you—an outlander, in your words. I am not anything else besides a plainsman, but I am not a plainsman either. They cast me out with nothing but my horse.”

“You are an exile? You have no other name?”

“Yes. And yes. Or no? I don’t understand questions like that in your tongue. I cannot speak my name. I am no longer who I was.”

Larucen tried to make sense of this. “And what of the markings?”

“That is a prayer. In my own language. But I do not know the words.”

“You cannot read?”

“Not that nor any other script. It would have been written by a priestess.”

“If they exiled you with nothing, how did you come by a plainsman’s saddle?”

“I killed one of their warriors. Took it.”

“Is that why you were exiled?”

“No. It was no crime. It was battle. They were trying to kill us. We killed some of his. Then I killed him. I took his saddle after. Not much of a story.”

“For such a saddle, it must been a mighty warrior you felled!”

The plainsman only shrugged. “Maybe. It was nighttime…”

“This is a ritual of your people? The stealing of saddles?”

“By rights it should have gone to his woman. But a good saddle is hard to come by.”

“And this is not why you were banished?”

“Correct.”

The bard nodded to the black stallion. “At least your people gave you a good horse.”

“Not that one. A better one. This one is… ask another question.”

✹ ✹ ✹

“So then,” Larucen summed up. “You were exiled from your people, but you were obviously a warrior, and so you became a sellsword. You plied your trade, and now you take silver to fight the battles for men who cannot fight themselves.”

“I did for a time, yes.”

“Excellent! Tell me: what of your adventures as a hired blade? What of your brothers-in-arms? Did you fight in any of the great battles?”

A horse stamped a hoof into the grass. The samyuzot snorted. “You have never seen a battle, have you?”

“Grisly business, to be sure, but also a chance for glory and renown, is it not? But fine, fine. I know your type. You don’t call yourself a hero, but you say that of others. A soldier’s humility. Tell me of your fellows, then. Tell me of your glorious comrades.”

“I served under a captain named Farild. One of his ‘hundred.’ We fought together for many years. This purse here,” the ranger held up the purse he had produced earlier, “was the first one he gave me. That coin there was in it, back then. Years and years ago. He gave it to me because I gave him two bandit-corpses, and a third bandit still breathing.”

“Ah, a ransom! Did you make much from it?”

“No. Farild put an end to that man, he did. He laughed as the boy swung from the gibbet.

“Then there was the time he ordered us to fire the barns of a village right before winter. Then in the next village we put everything to the torch. Some of the houses with the villagers still inside. One man lost his nerve and soon, with Farild, he lost his throat too.

“Then of course there was the time in Buric March we abandoned our mission to forge ahead—we hoped for loot and booty—and then got ambushed by a bunch of scaedlings. I took an arrow in the gut that day but then… well, I survived, but not everyone else did.”

Larucen was silent. The fire crackled and popped a few times.

“So which is it?” asked the old ranger. “Which story of heroism do you want from me? You said you wanted truth? There it is. You’re searching for a lie.”

Larucen thought how to respond. This man before him obviously resented his former captain. Perhaps he could sidestep the subject. “So no battles?”

“Oh, we fought in a few. But do you know what happens in battles?”

“I—”

“Men die. Jovin. Arnand. Irner. Farild, too. Dead. All in a day. I know. I was the only one left to pick over their bodies. There was nothing glorious in it. Just corpses bloating in the sun. Bring that to your ladies! Bring that to your perfumed halls! If you write this song of yours, be sure to include their names.”

✹ ✹ ✹

“I see now why you work alone.” Many minutes after the plainsman’s outburst, these words from the bard floated over the fire, the flames of which the plainsman had tended, let die, then resurrected. “I mean no offense by that, I assure you,” said Larucen. “Only that there is no longer enough to tempt you towards another soldier-company. Let us forget the sell-sword work then. You were a warrior, and now… you kill trolls.”

“And goblins. And wolves.”

“Yes, monsters aplenty. Steady work, you said. Does it pay better?”

“Oh,” the samyuzot furrowed his brow. “Albin didn’t pay me. I don’t want coin.”

“You don’t want coin?!” Larucen’s laugh was entirely genuine. “Then why do this?”

The ranger only looked at the fire. Larucen followed his gaze and found himself equally mesmerized by the flashing undersides of the little logs. They went from black to orange, oscillating for a time, then becoming white, and falling away into the ash.

“When you were in the village, did you see the widow?”

“I did,” replied Larucen.

“You think I should have demanded from her coin? For what? To buy good Arlemóntine liquor?!”

Larucen needed to dodge this. “How long did you work for this Farild?”

“Ten years. Maybe twelve years. Skies above. I can’t believe it was so long. At the time I thought… Agh. I don’t know what I thought…”

“If you don’t want coin,” Larucen wondered aloud, “why did you keep that purse all this time?”

✹ ✹ ✹

The fire diminished. The ranger stirred it again. He walked into the darkness and came back with more sticks and a dead, overlong log as thick as Larucen’s arm. These the samyuzot placed in the fire, with the log sitting across.

This man would keep the fire going? Larucen took it as a sign to have hope for his song. “Do you fight against men anymore?”

“Not often. There have been some brigands in these parts since I’ve come here. But not many.”

“Perhaps because they know of the vengeful plainsman, who protects widows and orphans.”

This only earned a long stare. Not a glare, exactly. There was no animosity. But the look in the man’s eyes gave neither recognition nor pleasure towards Larucen’s words.

“Are you a knight, Plainswalker? Like the heroes of old? Some people call aloud for such fights and such fighters. Perhaps you have heard that call. Perhaps, this is you answering that call. Are you here to rid the world of the evildoers and bring in an era of light and peace?”

“Evildoers.” A question without the tone of one.

“And evil creatures. These things you kill: they are evil. Ridding the world of evil is good. It is necessary work, is it not?”

“You want a story about evil creatures? I’ll give you one. Once there was a young boy tending his flock with his two siblings. A ghost appeared on the horizon.”

“A ghost? If this is not a story about yourself, I’m not sure I am interested.”

“This is a true story,” said the plainsman. “But not a ghost then. I don’t know the best word for this. It had a body.”

“Oh, a dread-shade? You believe in those?”

“No, a dread-shade I know. I’ve seen one. But this is not a dread-shade.”

“You’ve seen a dread-shade? I can hardly count it, but I mispeak: tell me that story! Where was it? Did you slay it?”

“There is no story. I was in the hills to the east. I learned the name for that place recently: Eithelion. Yes. Those hills. I saw one. I ran. That is that story.”

“Eithelion is not far from here…”

“I don’t care. Are you listening?” The plainsman was growing frustrated.

Larucen told him that he was, indeed, listening, and apologized.

“Good. Now. A young boy was tending his flock with his two siblings when—I will say ‘a dread-shade’ even though it wasn’t—appeared. This boy wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to kill the beast. Like you said: he wanted to do the necessary thing and destroy the evildoer. For this creature had done true evil, and carried that evil with it towards the flock. But the boy’s sister, who was older, begged him not to. She stopped him from doing that.

“For three days the shade haunted that family and that flock, until the monster forced a conflict, and the boy had to act. He tried to kill the evil. Because he had to, do you understand? But instead, the monster broke him. It broke his body, then stole his knife from his broken hand, and then it killed him. With his own knife. His sister saw it happen. And so did their younger brother, a tiny boy.

“And that was the end of him.”

The bard across the fire took the smoky air deep into his lungs. A deep understanding came with this breath. “So it is about revenge.”

“Revenge?”

“You hunt these monsters now because, long ago, one of them killed your brother.”

“What? No! You think I was the younger boy?”

“The way you told the story, it seemed so. That is how I would have done it, as a storyteller.”

“You tell stories in a stupid way then. Highlander nonsense. The meaning of my story should be clear to you already.”

“Is it a fable? Some old tale, common among your folk? No? Fine, then. Make it plain to me. Explain.”

“I killed the boy.”

“What?” Larucen exhaled, his understanding gone.

“It was me! Not a shade, not a ghost. But a monster of a different kind. Me. This belonged to him,” the plainsman drew a knife from his belt. It was short, and the blade had been worn thin by years of sharpening. The handle was simple wood, with marks burned into it. “This came from a boy who wanted to destroy evil, and it destroyed him first.”

“Those markings…?”

“His name. I think.”

The log across the fire split into two. Larucen saw his companion was lost in thought, so he leaned forward and brought the halves from either side into the flames.

“Why keep the knife, plainsman?” he asked.

“I must shave.”

“You wear a beard.”

“My head.” Here the samyuzot brushed a hand over his baldness. “It is the mark of my exile. And I keep to that law. I wanted… this was the first knife I ever used for it. The only knife.”

“This is why you were exiled, yes? For killing the boy?”

The other man shook his head. “Not him. A different killing. Over a woman.

“Oh, a woman. A dangerous love. Was there romance there? Tell me her name.”

“Her name was Koyotuil. I will say no more of it.”

“But—.”

“No more. Please. No more of that.”

There was a plea in those words, not anger. Larucen decided not to press. He wasn’t sure what else to say, but some new movement in his heart bade him speak: “Whatever the reason, ridding these lands of dark creatures is a worthy thing. You fight the shadow. That is good.”

“If I do, it is only because they fail to kill me. If I fight long enough, they will. My knees will break, or my eyes will cloud. One day, it will happen. Just as when I was a soldier; I waited for my day to die and it never came. Only for everyone else. Now there is no one else. Only me. Only me and this parade of scaedlings and shriekwings and someday they won’t fail. If I am here fighting them at all, it’s only because no man’s spear had a swift enough point for me. Better back then than now. I’ve had the wounds. I’ve come close enough. I’ve had the arrow hit me, but if only there had been another and another after it! If only—no.

“No,” the plainsman interrupted himself. “No. I survived. I survive still.”

✹ ✹ ✹

The campfire was dying now. This time, the host did not seem willing to find more fuel. His eyes had not left the ground since his speech. He stared towards the ground, but without seeing it. Not seeing anything.

That new movement in Larucen’s heart found in his mind a name: pity.

“There is much to live for,” he said. “You can be merry again. Your life may be much improved if you quit this rocky country and move into one of the cities. There is strong drink, like that bottle there. And music to sample. I will play you a reel if you like. There is food in the towns that you don’t have to kill. And women. By the Words, man, your melancholy would soon be remedied with a good woman on your lap. Come with me. In the morning. We will abandon this route to folly and your ruin, we’ll make our way to Ravenel. I will show you a pleasant time of it. We will eat, and laugh, and you will fight no longer, struggle no more. With my voice and your shoulders, we’ll have the ladies crowding around us every evening. They’ll like the look of a foreign fellow! I’d bet my lute on it. How does that sound?”

The other man sniffed, ran a hand through his beard, sniffed again. “It is not for me. I am samyzuot.” This came out as a whisper.

“So you cannot be happy? You cannot drink with me, or court a wench?”

“I am cursed by the gods. Drink I can, and drink I have. But the rest… it is not for me to taste.”

“Is that all this is? Your gods?”

The stare that replied sent a shiver down Larucen’s spine. A face like flint and eyes that were… not cold, but dark, with a fire behind them. There was something in this man, thought Larucen, that he would never see again in the confines of his metropolitan life, save perhaps in a dark alley by the docks.

The samyuzot stood. That was all he did, and he did it slowly. He unfolded himself and his face rose away from the dying coals and Larucen looked up into the gloom of the man’s presence. He saw only the shape of his form, a darkness that blocked the stars in the sky.

Larucen remembered that he was alone—very alone—in rough country and far from any man’s earshot. He felt small.

He thought of running. But he thought also of the troll’s body and the many things that lurked in the night.

“If you fight these monsters,” he asked, trying not to squeak, “can you earn your gods’ forgiveness?”

“No.”

“Surely, if you are a righteous man…”

The samyuzot bent. His back craned out until he was eye to eye with the simpering bard, and the half-light of the coals drew a dark shadow above his nose, and the lines about his face stood sharp as letters carved in stone. “You don’t understand it. There is no hope for me. There is nothing to be done. There is no way back. No earning heaven. The gods do not forgive. They Look Down. And they do not forget. If I abandon this path, it will only be worse for me. I will die when I die, and that may be soon, but I will not hasten it too swiftly. Other bald-heads might do that, but not me. They are cowards. And they do not accept what they are. I may be worthy of hate, but I will not be afraid of what I am.

“But even if the gods themselves came down from the stars and spoke to me, they could not unmake what I am, because they do not change. I am samyuzot. That is what they have made me. That is what I am made out of. All of me. Samyuzot.”

This speech exhausted him. He leaned back and then slumped to the ground. He head hit his saddle bag, so that now the plainsman was propped oddly as if unconscious. As if something had struck him down. There was pain on his face.

Larucen, meanwhile, was shivering. He thought long in that moment.

He decided that the village was not too far. He could find it again.

He rose.

“Take the coin,” said the plainsman. “Let me be rid of it.”

“A wager is a wager,” mumbled the bard, taking his satchel back onto his shoulder. “I did not earn it. I admit defeat. There’s no hope here of a worthy story. You’ve wasted my time. I’m done with you.”

He left the coin and bottle beside the fire and began to walk away, fearing to say more. But then Larucen beheld the pitiable state of the man splayed out on the grass, and the apathy with which he regarded the bottle and coin in the fading light.

“Actually, no.” The bard stamped back to the fireside, stooped, took up the guldwat coin. “I’m taking this. I don’t care about some wager. You broke our pact. You were not honest.”

“How have I lied?”

“You said other exiles like you kill themselves. That may be true enough, how could I know? But not you! Oh no, not you. I would ask you why, but I don’t think you even know. You say you want no stories yet you spin falsehoods all the while. You lie about your hope. You lie. If you truly had no hope, you’d have killed yourself already!”

Larucen spun away and walked off.

The samyuzot sat up and watched him go. He listened as the man’s footfalls dissipated in the night. The last of the firelight glimmered in the glass of the liquor bottle.

“Even the gods cannot change what I am!” he shouted into the darkness, but then heard Larucen’s mocking voice echoing back:

“Then you should find different gods!”

✹ ✹ ✹

Thank you for reading. Want more of The Samyuzot? 

Keep reading: The Second Death of the Samyuzot, Part I →

← Read the previous story: The Bonds of the Exiled

← Or read the first story: The First Death of Segitars Arpadi.

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