His vision slightly blurring with whiskey, Guiromélans steps heavily through the cultivated fields of kaúrnó stalks and pumpkin vines.  This late into High Summer, one crop is nearing harvest time, while another is just getting started.  The stalks of maize rise nearly higher than a man’s head, while the vines beneath coil treacherously across the ground.  Their broad leaves shudder and snap as fat drops of rain fall randomly around him.  Downpours roar in the distance as the Curaco’s Anvils pass across the island.  He listens carefully, but can no longer hear the other marauders.  They’ve either moved off or were found and captured.

Or they have abandoned him completely.

Guiromélans silently curses the name of Mogens, his arrogant inexperience, his mixed lineage, and anything else about the Gock-damned Brack that happens to come to mind.  Drunk as he is, Guiromélans still knows it was foolish to land here.  This weihs is too large, too well defended.

As they sailed past it earlier last night, both sides had ample opportunity to size the other up.  Guiromélans counted the number of buildings—saw its Medianist chapel and took note of the well-traveled roads leading inland—avenues that would serve both for escape as well as rescue.  There definitely appears to be a strong Medianist presence here.  That means musketeers, knights, and possibly even Ravens, in all likelihood, of Muttese or Söderkarl lineage.  The Brackish crew of the Knight’s Torment is hardly prepared for such opposition.

To make matters even worse, Guiromélans has no idea if heretics even reside here.  As far as he’s concerned, with no heresy, there is no reason to assault this Medianist outpost, no reason to threaten loyal Medianist lives.  And yet, Mogens seems determined to assault this weihs.  It was only through Guiromélans’s strongest objections that the pirate agreed to this scouting foray first.

Thus far, Guiromélans’s guidance has led the pirates on several successful raids.  Five villages are now but ash and sorrow—Praggan, Af-vapnan, Saúrgan, Fijands, and Kalds Wató—five cancers of Thunderer poison, punished and silenced for now.  With the potential of other successes in the future, it makes no sense for Mogens to make such a rash assault.  It makes no sense for Mogens to risk alienating him in this way!  Guiromélans crouches in the mud and sighs.  Or does it?  At this very moment, his ship could be setting sail, leaving him to his fate among these Weaning Shores islanders.  Would Mogens do such a thing?  Lure Guiromélans off the ship and then abandon him?  While the Brack may be a strong warrior and a charismatic figure, he—like Forré before him—is a poor leader and if left to his own devices, would prove to be a worse captain.  Without Guiromélans’s experience and guidance, their ship may never have left that first Muttese village.  The crew would have ended up drowned at sea or imprisoned as pirates.  Guiromélans suspects Mogens knows this.  He suspects the crew does as well.  With such a threat to the Quartermaster’s authority, how long will he suffer Guiromélans’s presence?  Is he willing to risk his crew and his ship purely to cement his position as sole leader?

Such are the signs of a true leader perhaps.

Damn, he needs another drink right now.

Guiromélans snorts as he looks up and around him.  Beyond the rain, he can distantly hear the beach and the surf behind him.  Before him, he has nearly 300 yards of farmland to cross.  Beyond that is a stand of trees, and beyond that, the village and its tiny bay.  Roads and spits of forest surround the field and run all the way down to the sea.  Beyond them, he suspects there to be more fields, and then more roads and more forest.

There is no sign of his crewmates, and the fog and clouds glow inwardly from the rays of the Fire Hell as it rises higher into the sky.  It is simply too late in the day for a surprise attack to be successful!  Mogens must have realized that!

Guiromélans stops in his tracks and looks towards the trees.  By this time of the morning, these fields should be filled with ready laborers, despite the rain.

Guiromélans inhales deeply, searching for a scent of the village ahead—but the morning breeze still blows in from the sea—and all he can smell is the ocean and the fecund mud beneath his boots.  These villagers almost certainly spotted the Knight’s Torment as it passed last night.  If they do have Medianist guidance—Raven guidance—they would almost certainly have prepared themselves.  Sentries would be posted at all approaches by sea and land, watching the roads, watching the forest tracks, waiting for the imminent bagaudas raiding parties.  This is why Guiromélans chose to approach via the farmland.  Kaúrnó hides a man nearly a well as would a forest.

Slowly, he turns and begins moving inland, taking an oblique, uneven tack towards the tree line.  It’s a longer route, but he doesn’t hurry.  Thick tendrils of pumpkin vine seem to coil around his legs, making each step deliberate in the treacherous soil.  He cannot fall.  If a fight is coming, he cannot afford to get his hands slick with mud.

The line of trees nears, and in the lulls of the morning breeze, Guiromélans’s nose catches the tang of smoke and sulfur.  His smile turns into a grimace.  Just as he feared.  There are gunmen nearby, in all likelihood, hiding in the darkness of the forest.

Reaching the edge of the field, he sees a dirt road nearly 10 yards wide between it and the trees.  It is a track for transporting crops and workers to and from the village.  It’s wagon wheel ruts are deep from years of use and now filled with rainwater.  Crouching, he inches forward, scanning the trees for movement, sampling the air with his nose and tongue.  The field and trees come alive with the sounds of rain as a Curaco’s Anvil begins passing overhead.  Steadily, the rain increases in intensity.  In a few minutes, it becomes hard to see or hear anything but the deluge.

Guiromélans is waiting for the rain to reach its heaviest when a sudden noise, all too near by, startles him.  With a click, his thumb looses his saber in its sheathe, and he stands ready to draw with a single, killing cut.  Turning, what he sees causes him to gasp with both relief and anger.

The boy, Balen, quickly but not quite quietly makes his way through the kaúrnó stalks.  Guiromélans watches with interest as he alternately runs, crouches, and crawls on all fours through the vegetation—evidently a mode of locomotion that served him well as he struggled in the slums of Cliffs Reach—here in these crops, however, he merely looks comical.  He is covered from head to toe in mud, and his eyes focus on every movement around him with feral intensity.

Whatever fool’s errand has sent him out here, at least he had the common sense to try to stay hidden.  Not many other children of his age would.

Guiromélans waits until he’s close enough to hear and then whispers, “Boy!  Over here!”

Balen freezes as he searches for the source of the call.  Guiromélans waves slowly, and with a sigh of relief, Balen scrambles over to him.  “Cathubodua Guiromélans—”

He gasps in surprise when Guiromélans grabs him by the shirt and jerks him close.  “By the Ice!” he hisses in fury.  “I nearly killed you!  What would you be doing out here?  Why aren’t you on the ship!”

Balen squirms desperately beneath his grip.  “By the Fire, Guiromélans,” he stammers.  “There’s na one else!  Mogens is callin’ them all back!  Yer all alone!  He’s leavin’ yä here!  Caidryn thinks he means tä kill yä or gets yä killed.  I wanted tä warns yä!”

Guiromélans releases his grip and absentmindedly straightens the child’s hair.  “I suspected as much,” he sighs, “but it was foolish to search for me.  Now I have two lives to worry about, instead of one.”

“I can takes care of meself!” Balen protests.

Guiromélans nods as he moves closer to the road, “Of course you can.”

Beneath the downpour of the Anvil, the world turns gray and misty.  Guiromélans can now only barely make out the trees across the muddy track.  Without hesitation, he grabs Balen by the arm and runs across, sliding down the muddy incline on the other side and crashing into the undergrowth.  Aíhvatundi thorns and blood-reeds tear at their clothes and skin as they struggle to their feet.

Almost immediately, he hears the shouts and cries of men all around them.  They must have been waiting in silence throughout the underbrush.  Though they can’t see him, they try to track them by the noises they make.  Rising to his feet, Guiromélans jogs through the trees, dragging the boy with him.  Roughly following the direction of the road, he hopes it eventually will lead him back to the shore and the shelter of his ship.  The pursuing villagers are dark shapes in the trees, running and shouting to each other in an effort to pinpoint his location and close off his escape.

The rain tapers off quickly as the Curaco’s Anvil moves on, and as the visibility improves, so does his pursuers’ eyesight.  Guiromélans slows to a trot and then to a walk when he is faced by a skirmish line of þiudas nearly 20 yards away.  Five strong, they aim matchlock rifles at his chest.  Five more materialize out of the mist behind him.  Their leader grins smugly and waves his narrow dueling sword menacingly.

“Hirjats!” he shouts.

Guiromélans pauses, swaying, and glances down at Balen.  “Boy, lay on the ground and don’t move, no matter what happens.  Understand?”

“What’re yä goin’ tä do?” he asks in a small voice.  “Yer not goin’ tä leave me, uh?”

Guiromélans smiles calmly and shakes his head.  “No.  Now lay down.”

Balen nods mutely as he slowly falls to his hands and knees and then to his stomach.

Guiromélans continues walking towards the Muttese leader but turns back and wags a warning finger at Balen.  “Head too, boy!”

Balen’s head immediately vanishes, only to pop back up shortly after as he watches the knight approach these angry musketeers.

“Þu stop, wáidédja!” the lead villager warns again, pointing his sword at Guiromélans’s breast.  The other Muts around him shuffle their feet nervously and raise their rifles to their shoulders.  The fuses of their matchlocks sputter and smoke miserably in the rain. Guiromélans’s attitude bothers them.  No man should approach 10 guns so calmly.

Guiromélans smiles and glances around the forest.  He needs to deal with this quickly before reinforcements arrive.

He wonders if he’s had too much drink to handle this.  He shrugs to himself.  It’s time to find out, he supposes.

“Þu drop izwar fegyver, izwar haírus!” the villager demands in harsh Low Muttese.  Guiromélans grimaces as his pickled brain struggles to translate the angry words.  Of the tongues spoken in the civilized Seven Kingdoms, Low Muttese is one of his weakest, nearly as bad as his Ulbandi.

He eyes the soggy men facing him.  They are typical þiudas—barefoot, dressed in woolen trousers and jerkins of simple colors, now covered in thick mud and forest humus—and armed with old, but serviceable, matchlocks and short dueling swords.  They are powerfully built, larger than a Brack but not quite a Söderkarl, and each of them sports the distinctive hairstyle of the Muttese þiuda:  side braids, topknot, and shaved skull.  Despite their provincial appearance, their leader struggles to cut a fine figure, and Guiromélans suppresses a smile when he notices the flintlock pistol rakishly tucked muzzle down in his sash.

Guiromélans takes out his Median, checks it briefly, and tucks it back into this cloak.  “I have no quarrel with you, þiudas,” he slurs, hoping his High Muttese will be understood.  “Let me pass, and no harm or trouble will come to you or your weihs.”

The leader sneers and waves his sword.  “Þu drop izwar fegyver!” he spits.  “Þu qiþan uns þarei izwar skip ist!”

Skip?  Guiromélans is partially relieved.  So they don’t know where the Knight’s Torment is yet.  “Frankly, at this moment I’m not sure where the ship is,” he answers ironically, “but I’m sure if you looked to the Sea, it would be a step in the right direction.”  He looks around again at the forest, in particular in the direction where he most expects reinforcements to arrive.  There are none so far.  “You seem to have a nice weihs here—you are all pious men and loyal Medianists—you should be grateful that you do not deserve the attentions of me and my shipmates.”

This seems to anger the villager, and he menaces Guiromélans violently with his sword.  “Láusawaúrdei!  Þu drop izar waffen!  Þaruh!  Þáu weis töten izwar magula!”  His eyes darken.  “We kill izwar son!” he snarls in broken High Muttese.

The threat enrages Guiromélans.  “Do not test my patience, peasant!” he snarls.  “Do not presume to delay my mission any further!  You are good Medianists, but you are only men!  The Will of God guides my hands!  You can yield, or you can be swept aside!”

“Haúrnja!  Þiufs maþa!” the leader shrieks as he scurries behind his line of musketeers.  Shoving the riflemen forward, he commands, “Afdáuthjan sän!  Afdáuthjan sän þaruh!”

Guiromélans doesn’t need to understand Low Muttese to know the meaning of those words.  Casually, he crosses his arms as the þiudas take aim and squeeze their triggers.  All around him, he hears serpentines snapping against priming pans—the sporatic hiss and spit as dampened powder struggles to ignite under weak fuses—and two riflemen vanish coughing in clouds of sulfurous black smoke.  The rest look down at their impotent weapons with surprise.

The leader stares at Guiromélans with horrified shock.  The Raven smiles.  “Never threaten a man in the rain,” he slurs, “if all you're carrying are matchlocks.”

A handful of villagers nearly fall over themselves as they struggle to draw their dueling swords.  Others aren’t so patient.  Wielding their rifles like clubs, they charge Guiromélans, intent on bludgeoning him into the mud.  His hand slips down to his saber’s hilt.  Sidestepping a matchlock’s butt, he draws and beheads the first in a single motion.  Spinning around a second lunge, he drives his blade deep into another villager’s chest.  The þiuda spasms in his death throes, jerking the saber from Guiromélans’s hand.

He curses.  That wouldn’t have happened if he was sober.  Surrendering the blade, he grabs a third þiuda just he swings for his head.  With a duck and a jerk, he allows the attack to carry the Mut over his back and onto the ground.  Drawing the unused sword from the villager’s belt, he drives it into his throat even as he screams for mercy.

With a twist that silences the prone man, Guiromélans rips the blade from his throat just in time to meet his next opponent.  From a crouch, his sword slaps away the villager’s weak thrust, cutting off several of his unprotected fingers in the process.  Even as the Mut stares in surprise at his ruined hand, Guiromélans stabs into his groin, using all of his body weight to plunge the sword deep into the villager’s abdomen as he surges to his feet.

Grabbing the shuddering man by his jerkin, he kicks him bodily into the next three þiudas, throwing their charge into disarray.

Flexing his shoulders and neck, Guiromélans walks to the body of a fallen musketeer.  He points a warning finger back at Balen—the boy’s eyes are saucer-wide as he watches the action—and snaps at him, “I said, stay down, boy!”  Balen’s head vanishes again, only to pop back up seconds later.

Guiromélans places his boot on the dead Mut’s ribs and wrenches his saber free.  Then he turns and waits for his assailants to regroup.

Much more cautious now, two þiudas spread out to encircle him, while the third urges his remaining cowed comrades to join them.  Guiromélans doesn’t wait for them to find their courage.  Without warning, he lunges for the man on his left.  The unprepared villager raises his sword in a weak defense, but the Raven avoids the blade easily, plunging his saber deep into his armpit and then ripping it out.  The man howls in shock and pain as his sword arm falls lifelessly to his side.

Sensing an opportunity, a second villager lunges at Guiromélans’s exposed back, but the Raven doesn’t stop moving.  Grabbing the wounded rifleman by his topknot, he swings him around, and it is his body that accepts the Mut’s blade.  Even as the villager stares into the face of his dieing comrade, the tip of Guiromélans’s sword snakes out and neatly splits his eyes with a single cut.

Kicking away the blinded man, Guiromélans keeps moving, turning his captive musketeer again to meet a third villager’s attack.  Unfortunately, his human shield is weakening from his injuries and merely falls at his feet.

Holding his sword with both fists, the third villager screams with fury and charges.  Stepping back carefully, Guiromélans parries and then parries again.  Retreating over fallen Muttese, he allows the villager to press his attack, until with one clumsy thrust, the þiuda trips over a body and falls to the ground.  Guiromélans waits until he looks up before smashing the handguard of his saber into his face.  Through blood and broken teeth, the Mut roars with outrage, and their dance continues.

When at last he senses his opponent’s fatigue, Guiromélans finally tires of the game.  Ducking under a wild swing, he cuts deep into his forearm and then across his side.  Stepping past the wounded man, he cuts into leg and thigh, chest and stomach.  One final cut severs both hand and head.

The last two musketeers flee, and Guiromélans has to chase after them, cutting them down from behind.  Leaning on his sword, he gasps for breath and clarity.  All that exertion has soured his stomach and threatens to bring on an early hangover.  He cleans and sheathes his sword just in time to turn his head and vomit.  All that good whiskey gone to waste, he mourns, christening the corpses of these two villagers.

Once his stomach is finally settled, he wipes his hands and stares down at the bodies.  How would he have handled this without the whiskey?  What would the old Guiromélans have done?  Sadly, he can’t remember.  With a deep sigh, he shakes his head and picks up their rifles and powder horns.

When he returns to the scene of the battle, he finds the Muttese leader still cowering where he stood when the fight began.  Somewhere nearby, a dieing þiuda gasps for breath with wet coughs.

The lead villager shudders pathetically under Guiromélans’s stare, his dueling sword hanging weakly in his hand.

Guiromélans checks his artifact once again before speaking.  “Tell me, þiuda,” he asks almost soberly, “Know you of any Thunderer heresies in your weihs?  Ü-Né afgudei?  No sword-cults?  Nothing of the Dømme-Horn?”

The þiuda stares at him in shock, his lips trembling.  Suddenly, realization dawns in his eyes.  “Þu are die ritter, die Raven!” he gasps.  “Ó!  Þu gadómjan der afguþs!”

Guiromélans frowns and then begins collecting the other fallen matchlocks.  “Raven?” he wonders.  “I take it news of our travels has spread.”

“Háihs!” the musketeer spits with sudden venom as he leaps to his feet.  “Haúrnja!”

Guiromélans pauses and eyes the man’s sword, still held in his grip.  “You plan to cross my sword with that, fráuja?”

The Mut suddenly pales and backs away, throwing his sword into the mud.

Guiromélans sighs, “No, I thought not.”  The waste, the loss deeply saddens him.  Somewhere amongst the fallen men, the blinded musketeer whimpers and moans in his fear and agony.  Guiromélans goes back to collecting the fallen firearms.

The lead þiuda likewise finds a firearm, suddenly remembering the flintlock tucked into his sash.  With a sneer, he pulls it free.  Guiromélans turns when he hears the hammer lock into firing position.

“Find you at last your courage, fráuja?” he asks calmly.  “Whether you live or die is now in your hands.”

The muzzle of the pistol trembles.  “Haúrnja!” the þiuda cries, “Háihs!”

Guiromélans carefully sets the nine rifles down in a neat pile and faces the þiuda.  “It isn’t loaded anymore, fráuja.”

The Mut sneers as he violently thrusts the pistol forward.  The hammer falls, and the gun discharges in a clap of thunder.  When the smoke clears, Guiromélans is still standing.  “Wái!” the þiuda cries in dismay as he stares down at his spent weapon.

Guiromélans nods.  “An expensive lesson.  Unfortunately, you will not live long enough to learn from it.”

With a gasp, the þiuda throws away the gun and scrambles for his fallen sword.  Guiromélans draws his wheel-lock and fires.  The shot strikes the man in the back of the neck, ripping through his throat and nearly tearing his jaw away.  The villager’s body falls in a river of blood.

Guiromélans’s hand is trembling when he tucks his pistol back into his belt.  It happens so fast, it ends so fast.  That fact never ceases to amaze him.  He stares down at the small pile of matchlock rifles for a long time, listening to the falling rain, the whisper of the forest, and the sighs of dieing men.  Such sounds are all too familiar to him.  How many times has he wandered through spent battlefields—drifting through the smoke like a black angel from the Fire Hell—listening to such cries?  Many, many times.

But how many times have those moans been from Medianist throats?  Once.  Once before today.

“Guþ!” the blinded musketeer screams.  “Guþ hilpan mei!  Ó wái!  Im blinds!  Guþ hilpan mei!”

Tears fall from Guiromélans’s eyes as he looks towards the fallen man.  Pain in his head, nausea in his gut, alcohol muddling his mind, Guiromélans realizes he can’t take any more of it.  His teeth clenched in fury, he scrambles across the mud and fallen men and seizes the stricken villager.  “Guþ?” he roars in his face.  “God won’t help you, narr!  Guþ is far, far away from you!”

This is Mogens’s fault, of course.  This wasteful landing, this betrayal.  There was no heresy here.  There was no reason for these men to die!

“Afdáuthjan mei!” the þiuda pleads, his split eyes two gory masses.  “Gadómjan, ik bidjan þu.  Im blinds.”

Guiromélans stares down at him.  The man’s fists clench desperately at his jacket.  “Please…” he begs in broken High Muttese, “Kill me, lord knight!”

Tears streaming down his face, Guiromélans wastes no time in taking up a fallen dueling sword and ending the villager’s pain.  He lets the body fall back to the ground as sorrow overwhelms him.  Sitting miserably amongst the fallen Muts, Guiromélans sobs drunkenly, covering his face with blood-streaked mud.  “Why, oh Lord!” he wails to the trees.  “Why do you bring me to this place?  Of all the foes in this world, why must you raise up fellow Medianists for me to strike down?”

He lashes out violently in his fury, pummeling the body of the dead man before him.  He hears a rib break within that cooling flesh.  “WHY!” he demands of the storm high above.

“’Cause the boduuses were goin’ tä kill yä!” is the answer he receives.

Guiromélans blinks and looks over at Balen.  With the fight over, the boy has approached and is now cautiously exploring the area.

“What did you say?”

Like Guiromélans, the boy is covered with mud from head to toe, but his eyes and mouth shine brightly when he smiles.  “Yä killed them ‘cause they were tryin’ tä kill yä!  Like yä said, yer followin’ the word of yer God.  They tried tä stop yä, and they got killed.”

Guiromélans shakes his head.  “No, you don’t understand, boy,” he slurs, “These men were Medianists just like me!  Why would God serve them up to the slaughter like this?  IT MAKES NO SENSE!”

Balen shrugs as he tests the weight of a dueling sword.  “Maybe yer God wanted them dead?  Maybe they were bad men?”

Guiromélans blinks and tries to wipe the mud from his eyes.  “Good Medianists but bad men?” he wonders incredulously.

“Yäh!”  Balen takes some practice swings with the sword before letting it drop.

Guiromélans shakes his head as he watches the death writhing of the villagers.  Can that be possible?

He presses his hands against his temples, trying to squeeze out the poison like he would a boil.

Why is it so hard to think?  Things used to be so clear… before.

“Caidryn once told me a story,” Balen chirps happily, as he begins riffling through the dead men’s clothing, pocketing whatever he finds, “’bout this Rix named Avagddu.  See, he was this great cing and owned a big dunum with many men, and he always made his sacrifices tä Johlpa, Howler, and the others.  But yä sees, he loved this other cing’s dona and he was wantin’ her as his own—her name was Maiiæth and the cing’s name was Fflam—that means ‘the flame’ in Brackish, uh?  Sä every time Avagddu went tä war, he always made sure cing Fflam was with him out in front.  Eventually, some boduus shot him dead, yäh?  And then the Rix finally got Maiiæth as his wife!”

Guiromélans stares blankly at the boy.  “And the Rix was finally happy, yäh?” he continues, “and he makes sacrifices tä Johlpa and Gæsum and Bàs tä thank them fer his good luck.  But Johlpa was very angry, because cing Fflam was a loyal man and a faithful worshiper too, and just tä get Maiiæth, Avagddu started a lot of wars that he didn’t need tä.  Sä instead of Johlpa rewardin’ him, He sent Cassibodua, and She snatched the Rix away and sent him down tä Hell.”

Balen beams happily, but when Guiromélans doesn’t respond, the smile fades.  “Yä see?” he insists.  “Yä can pray tä yer gods real good, but if yer nothin’ but a vitchoor, yer gonna gets it anyways!  That’s why Caidryn says Mogens is goin’ tä get his someday, yäh?  Maybe by yä, uh?”

Good Medianists but bad men?  Guiromélans tries to mull the thought over through the whiskey.  Could such a thing be possible?  If so, then he must consider the possibility of the opposite being true:  bad Medianists but good people.  To be condemned by God but live a good life?  Just like his sweet witch of Ymyl Gwland?  Could she have defeated his army without the blessing of God?  Could she have had the blessings of God and yet be a bad Medianist?  Can such a thing be possible?

Guiromélans shakes his head and struggles to his feet.  “That’s nothing but a folktale, a fable, but I understand what you are trying to tell me.”  He sighs deeply, his mind still muddled, but his heart a little more at peace.  “But you must understand that things aren’t quite as simple as a single folktale.  In any conflict, God can take only one side.”

Balen shrugs.  “Yäh?  Then it looks tä me like yer God’s on yer side today!”

“What do you mean by that?” Guiromélans asks sharply.

“Yä sure went rraakk with these afrons!” he exclaims with awe.  “Ten cings against one, and yä kills them all!  I thought yä told me yä knows na magic!  How’d yä save yerself from their guns?”

Guiromélans snorts as he starts collecting their rifles again.  “A simple lesson, but one a man might forget in a pinch:  Their rifles are matchlocks.  Matchlocks don’t work well in the rain.  Water fouls the powder, kills the fuse.  There was no way their guns could have harmed me, not in this weather.”

“But how’d yä know the pistol wasn’t loaded?” Balen demands.

Guiromélans allows himself a small smile.  “Check his sash, boy.”

Balen scrambles to the corpse without hesitation.  In seconds, he produces a dull silver ball.

“You can’t carry a flintlock muzzle down,” Guiromélans explains.  “The ammunition rolls out of the barrel.”

At first, Balen just stares in astonishment, and then quite suddenly, he covers his mouth and laughs with glee.  “’Tis a simple thing, yäh?” he mocks as he holds the bullet before him.  “Ach!  Lookit me!” he sings as he skips around the bodies of the þiuda, feigning a Muttese accent, “Give me a gun, fráuja, but tell me not how tä use it!  Ha!  Ha!”

Guiromélans takes one more look around them.  He is on a mission, doing God’s will.  Right or wrong, it is not his fault God chose these men to die by his hand.  If there is fault to be found, it lays solely upon Mogens’s hands.  With one act, he has become traitor and murderer.  Guiromélans nods.  There shall be reckoning, but according to his will, not the Brack’s.

Gathering up an armload of powder horns and shot cases, Guiromélans motions to Balen.  “Enough.  Come.”

Balen struggles briefly with the hammer of the pistol and then points the spent weapon at Guiromélans.  “Harnja heys!” he shouts, mocking the dead villager’s epithets.  He pulls the trigger, the hammer falls with a loud click, and then he stares at the gun with ludicrous horror.  “Harnja heys!” he moans, staring into the muzzle of the gun.

Guiromélans smiles in spite of himself.  The child’s good humor is infectious, although inappropriate.  Foolish as he can be, the boy’s keen intellect and powers of observation surprise him.  He is still a child, after all, but Guiromélans sees a spark within him, a hint of potential.  The child’s clay is still wet and can yet be molded.  Perhaps it is time to see if the boy is ready for training.  “It’s not ‘harnja heys’,” he corrects as he gently takes the pistol from him.  “He was shouting haúrnja and háihs.  They are Muttese words.”

The boy frowns as Guiromélans begins draping the powder horns around his neck.  Ten in all, they make Balen look as burdened as a beggar on Wedding Day.  “Whatever, boduus,” he sighs as he grudgingly accepts the load.

“First off,” Guiromélans snaps with some heat as he grabs the boy’s chin, “If we are to get along, we must respect each other.  Right?”  He punctuates the question with a sharp jerk.  “Right?”

Balen looks suddenly shocked, frightened, his eyes darting around for avenues of escape.  “Yäh,” he agrees at last.

Guiromélans crouches to stare at him eye-to-eye.  “Then you will no longer call me by that word.  You may use Vavasour, for that is what I was in my homeland.  You may use Raven, for that is what I hope to become again.  You may use Guiromélans, for that is my name.  But you will never call me boduus, understood?”

“Yäh,” Balen sighs weakly, “but I meant nothin’ by it!  I calls every—”

“Guard your tongue, boy,” Guiromélans warns as he rises and stares down at him.  “Learn to respect others, and you’ll learn to respect yourself.  Learn that, and perhaps there are other things I can teach you.”

“Yä?” Balen challenges, “Like what?”

Guiromélans shows him the þiuda’s flintlock pistol.  “Like perhaps how to fire this?  Or ride a horse?  Or fight with swords?”

Guiromélans turns away, leaving the boy wide-eyed with surprise.  Tucking the pistol into his belt next to his wheel-lock, he begins to carefully pick up the rifles.  Balen runs around to help him.  “Yä’ll teach me tä become a knight?” he asks excitedly, “Maybe even a Raven like yä?”

Guiromélans shrugs.  “Perhaps, but there is more to being a knight than just knowing how to fight.  You must become a Medianist, boy, and understand what it means to be such.  And you must believe.  You must believe, oh so very strongly.”  He shakes his head, “These are things I’m not yet sure you can do yet.”

As quickly as they dare, the two make their way away from the scene of the battle.  They follow the road, staying inside the trees for cover.  Guiromélans listens carefully for sounds of pursuit, but he hears none.  All he hears are the sounds of the forest and the growing sighs of the ocean.

“Do yä believe, Raven?” Balen asks at last.

Guiromélans shakes his head.  “I used to.  I still know the Truth—God’s Truth—I simply struggle with making the world I see around me fit with that Truth.  This is my weakness.  This is what prevents me from becoming a Raven again.”

Balen seems to ponder this for some time.  He doesn’t speak again until they are nearing the beach where Guiromélans first landed.  “What were those words that cing was shoutin’ at yä?”

Guiromélans pushes his way through the last of the aíhvatundi brambles.  Holding the gap open for the boy to pass, he surveys the beach around him.  Just paces away, is the bruise in the sand where the Knight’s Torment had beached herself—he can even see the varied paths the landing parties made as they crossed the beach and entered the forest—as well as those of the parties as they returned.  It seems, only Guiromélans didn’t receive the call to return to the ship.

Midway out of the bay, the Knight’s Torment slowly steams towards the open sea.  Guiromélans can easily make out the figures of Mogens, Caidryn, and other members of the crew moving about on deck.

“Och fi!” Balen moans.  “See?  I told yä!  They’re leavin’ us!”

Guiromélans nods as he begins to plant the rifles, muzzles down, into the sand.  “If you hadn’t have jumped ship to warn me, you’d still be with them.”

“Pissy, fuckin’ vitchoors!” Balen spits.  “We’re better off without ‘em!”

“All of them?” Guiromélans asks.  One of the muskets’ fuses still smolders, and he goes about carefully freshening it.

“…I’ll miss Caidryn a bit,” Balen mutters at last.

“Yes, of course,” Guiromélans agrees.  He removes the unfired ball, wadding, and fouled powder from the musket, discarding it all into the forest.  “The words the þiuda was saying were haúrnja and háihs,” he adds, finally answering the boy’s question.  “In the folklore of the old religions in this area—pre-Medianist cults we call the Thunderer Heresies—there are fables foretelling the ending of the world.”  Borrowing a powder horn from Balen, he pops open the top and cautiously reloads the weapon, taking care despite his inebriation to keep the powder away from the burning fuse.  His hands move with practiced efficiency and speed, independent of his mind, belying the difficulty of the task.  “It is said that we will know the end is coming when one of their gods blows the Dømme-Horn, the Horn of Doom.  It’s sound heralds the arrival of demons and demigods and disasters and so forth.  The end of the world.”  Raising the weapon to his shoulder, he checks the pan, lock, and serpentine, wiping away any interfering sand and mud.  “In the Southern Territories, the god who blows the horn was called Tygg.  Here in Mut and the Weaning Shores, he was Haúrnja.”

He glances down at Balen and smiles.  The child watches him with awed fascination.  “Suffice it to say,” he admits, “Haúrnja is not well-liked, and to be called by his name is an insult a fair bit worse than being called a boduus… at least in these parts.”

Guiromélans sighs and sights down the length of the weapon.  The rifle weaves as though aimed by a drunken man.  Guiromélans closes his eyes and wills his body, at last, to obey.  Slowly, mind and body become one.  Once again, he takes aim.

The Knight’s Torment is easily 300 to 350 yards away, a challenging target for a flintlock, much less this old matchlock.  At this distance, he can barely discern Abandinus the Bo’s’n at the helm—and next to him stands Mogens—the two facing the shore, perhaps eager for one last glimpse of the Raven before they abandon him to the Muttese.  Guiromélans isn’t sure if they see him yet, but they will soon enough.  Closer to the prow, Caidryn paces back and forth down the deck, like a caged animal.  He wonders if she yet knows Balen isn’t on board…

“And to call me háihs is to call me ‘half-blind’ or ‘one-eyed’,” he continues, “a reference… ah… perhaps better left unexplained for now.”

Slowly, Guiromélans lets out his breath.  He compensates for the wind and distance, leading the rocking ship only slightly.  He finds Mogens’s chest and aims higher.  Gently he squeezes the trigger.  The weapon explodes with a roar.

On the Knight’s Torment, the oil lamp just above Mogens’s head shatters, showering the Brack with oil and glass.  Had it been night, and the lamp lit, perhaps the fiery rain would have settled things between the men.  As it stands, a bath is Mogens’s only necessary remedy, something perhaps the Brack sorely needed anyway.

Even as Mogens’s outraged roars fill the bay, faces and figures appear at the ship’s rails as the crew rushes to see who their assailant is.  Balen immediately runs into the surf, waving his arms and shouting.  Even at this distance, he can hear Caidryn’s shrieks; evidently, she hadn’t realized her charge wasn’t on board.

Guiromélans leans on the rifle and waits.  “Now we shall see if nine rifles is worth the price of letting a Raven back on board.”