Chapter Sixteen Guthnyr
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Guthnyr
“And that makes a thousand.” Sygurn’s voice mingled weariness and satisfaction as he added the sword blade to the rack alongside the others awaiting Aleida’s touch.
“All in the space of six weeks. And that’s not counting the arrowheads, daggers, and axes.
This may be a nest of cut-throats but you can’t fault these folk for idleness. ”
Guthnyr replied with a distracted nod, preoccupied by Aleida, slump shouldered with fatigue, making her way along a row of spearpoints. Yesterday he had appealed to her to rest, but found he had no counter to her argument. Do you imagine Ruhlin knows any rest?
Turning his gaze to the forges, he saw ample evidence to confirm Sygurn’s judgement.
At Torfyn’s urging, the people of the Wehrtrova had responded with both enthusiasm and industry to the call for rebellion.
It transpired that the settlement had been built atop a village once clustered about the entrance to a mine.
Unlike Tahrim Kyrn, its shafts had been dug not in expectation of gold but for the purpose of mining iron ore.
A century ago, an outbreak of typhus had wiped out the miners and no Aerling or Tuhlvyr had considered the expense of rebuilding worthwhile.
A legacy of those days came in the form of a vast cavern carved into the base of the canyon wall.
It offered a ready-made space for the large forges they would need to craft weapons enough for an army.
Fissures in the stone ensured the smoke was funnelled out and a deep well provided the copious water required for quenching both the blades and the thirst of the industrious workforce.
Although the promised rewards of gold and land explained much of their energised response to Torfyn’s exhortations, Guthnyr’s time among these people had convinced him that the prospect of freedom also played its part.
This was especially true of those who didn’t hail from the Wehrtrova.
Torfyn had been quick to spread the word to the other Travka settlements, often taking Deyna and Guthnyr along to add their voice to his.
To his surprise, Guthnyr found these folk more responsive to his words than to either the local outlaw chief or a former Tuhlvyr.
If anything, Deyna and her uncle aroused more suspicion than agreement.
Yet the words of a blue-faced foreigner seemed to capture the hearts of many.
He found that the more beggared and desperate the audience, the more willing they were to throw in their lot with what was being termed the Tielvik’s menda.
He had enough knowledge of Nihlvarian custom by now to know that Tielvik was mostly spoken as an insult, equivalent to “savage” in Alberic, or “barbarian” in Ishtan.
To these people, however, it seemed to have become a perverse token of honour.
Guthnyr had taken on the role of marshalling them into something that resembled a fighting force, though it proved a slow and troublesome task.
In this lawless region of outcasts, disputes were habitually settled with blows, and sometimes blades.
Many of the outlying settlements also nurtured feuds and grievances with their neighbours.
It all made for a fractious encampment requiring constant supervision, and occasional forceful intervention from the man they called the Tielvik.
Yet, for all their discord and bickering, when it came to learning the ways of battle, these would-be rebels displayed a unity of commitment.
Getting them to form a shield wall with the required speed had been a difficult task, but Guthnyr reckoned it would stand well enough when the time came.
“Do we have enough?”
The question came from Torfyn, striding towards Guthnyr from the glowing depths of the cavern.
The outlaw leader’s son followed behind, that perennial, aggravating smile on his lips.
Halvor’s thick leather apron was dark with soot and scorch marks, his bare arms shiny with sweat as he hefted a freshly fashioned blade.
This one differed from those on the rack in featuring some form of decoration along the blood channel.
In fact, it greatly resembled Kohrvayl, though Guthnyr reckoned it an inch or two longer.
“We’ve over twelve hundred pledged to our cause so far,” Guthnyr told Torfyn. “With more trickling in by the day. Another week and we should be able to arm them all and any who join us on the march south.”
“That’s your plan?” Halvor asked. “Simply head south towards the Citadel in the expectation you’ll defeat the host the Vortigurn sends to crush you?”
His caustic observations typically earned a swift rebuke from his father, but not today. Instead, Torfyn regarded Guthnyr in hard-eyed expectation of an answer.
“Where else would we go?” Aleida said, coming to Guthnyr’s side.
The toll of her recent exertions showed in her voice and face, though her gaze had an implacable quality Guthnyr had come to know well in recent weeks.
She had set herself to the toil of transforming the products of the forges into kelvehr weapons with unwavering dedication and took a dim view of any openly expressed doubts.
“There are more Travka to the east,” Halvor said. “A string of settlements runs all the way to the coast. Enough to double the size of our host.”
“Gathering so many will cost us months.” Aleida shook her head. “Time I am not willing to waste.”
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you’re a guest in my father’s home,” Halvor growled, face darkening.
“And perhaps you’ve forgotten that without me all this—” Aleida jerked her head at the racked weapons “—is just so much useless pig iron. Like that.” She flicked a hand at the sword blade in Halvor’s grasp.
“I sense a flaw in the metal that can’t be rectified by my touch.
One blow from another blade and it’ll shatter.
You’ll need to melt it down and reforge it. ”
The smith bridled, Guthnyr taking some small pleasure in the complete absence of his smile. “This is as fine a blade as I’ve ever crafted…” Halvor began.
“Enough,” Torfyn snapped, Halvor caging his burgeoning diatribe behind clenched teeth. “One more week then,” Torfyn said, affording Guthnyr a terse nod. “Best hope your menda can march in a straight line, Blue-face.”
“Life beyond the law teaches you who you can trust,” Sygurn said, watching father and son fade back into the smoke and clamour of the cavern. “And who you can’t.”
“The boy is troubling,” Guthnyr agreed.
“Not him. His father. The boy’s a braggart and a fool, to be sure, but he talks too much for a treacherous soul. It’s the ones who say little you have to watch.” Sygurn turned to Aleida, a grin on his lips. “Was there truly a flaw in that blade?”
Aleida shrugged, going to a nearby row of barrels filled with newly fashioned arrowheads. “How should I know?”
Guthnyr’s menda were encamped upon a stretch of comparatively flat ground forming a ledge upon the slope a hundred yards below the Wehrtrova.
The Travka invariably clustered in their clans, preferring to keep a distance from their oft-despised neighbours.
It didn’t prevent the regular eruption of stone throwing and outright brawls.
Returning to the camp come twilight, Guthnyr was greeted by the sight of two groups squaring up for another confrontation.
Mobs of about forty men and women apiece, they congregated to either side of the muddy track running through the centre of the encampment.
The air was thick with all manner of obscene insults and he saw several of the most vocal clutching rocks.
Scanning the array of reddened, angry faces, Guthnyr was tempted to turn around and head back to the Wehrtrova, where at least a man could sup ale in peace.
But as ever, Felnir’s example guided him.
Some quarrels could be left to burn themselves out, others had to be snuffed lest the discord spread.
The trick was knowing one from the other.
“What’s this about?” Guthnyr said, unable to keep the weariness from his tone as he came to a halt betwixt the two sides.
All present had seen ample evidence of the Tielvik’s temper by now and quietened immediately, most retreating several paces, save for one who lingered at the track’s edge.
A tall, thin woman with reddish-brown hair and blood leaking from her nose, she sniffed as she pointed an accusing finger at a figure among the opposing clan.
“That bitch dere stole my cook pot!” she said in a nasal twang. “And I want id back.”
Guthnyr’s gaze slid to a stocky woman clutching an iron vessel to her breast. She also had a livid bruise on her cheek. “Found it lying in the mud with no fecker using it,” she said, hugging the pot closer.
The tall woman began to protest, but fell silent at Guthnyr’s glare. “Well, it looks like she wants to use it now,” he said, extending a hand to the pot thief. Pouting in sullen reluctance, she came forward and handed him the pot.
“Lower Vale feckers will watch you starve and steal the marrow from your bones,” she muttered.
“You West Vale goat shaggers know all about stealing—” The tall woman’s riposte ended when Guthnyr thrust the pot into her hands, hard enough to make her stagger.
“We’re rising with the dawn tomorrow,” Guthnyr said, raising his voice to address them all.
“I think it’s time you lot did some proper marching.
Ten miles into the vale and back again will do you good.
” He cast a hard glower across them, daring any to speak in protest. None did.
“So you’d all best get some rest, hadn’t you?
” he added, waiting until they had dispersed back to their shelters.