Jared's Song

Jared was not happy as he trudged through the snow, which was, fortunately, quite thin up on these high meadows. Thin or not, after a day’s walking, his thick suede boots were still soaked and cold. His trews were thick wool and his shirt softer wool; his jerkin a sheep’s skin with the oiled wool turned inwards. He was a tall man, not a young man, his beard an iron grey that he kept shorn close, and his hair, now lank with grease hung around his collar. He’d started the day wearing his dark red woollen cloak, but had since taken it off and wrapped it around the bundle that he now carried across the back of his shoulders, his muscular scarred arms raised to hold it in position as he walked. The trouble with these high meadows was that there were few homesteads up there, and so few places to renew his dwindling food supplies, or warm stables to nest in. The sky was a clear bright green and held the promise of spring, and the great rearing mountains now finally lay behind him. The late winter’s sun was starting to set when he eventually found a dip in the land that would make a campsite. And he gratefully eased his bundle down, to stand and flex his shoulders, before scrabbling around, picking up deadwood for a fire. He’d be the first to admit he was no scout, and had always had great difficulty in starting fires and cooking. He squatted cursing and swearing, as he struck stone to steel, managing yet again to skin a knuckle and, at one point, to lose hold of the cursed stone and spend a frantic few minutes hunting in the dead leaves for it. Finally he nursed the tiny spark and was rewarded with the first wisps of sweet smelling smoke. When he looked in his pack for the remains of yesterday’s rabbit, he found it had bled onto his last remaining shirt, and so was happy to incinerate it in the arcane sacrifice known as cooking, and rammed a thin stick through it. He sat on half a log he’d dragged to his fire for that purpose, warming his hands and was just relaxing when he heard the clop of the hoofs approaching him. He sighed, shoulders drooping. “Ho, stranger! What brings you to these parts?” Jared looked up seeing two horsemen still mounted at the edge of the trees. “Oh, pastures new.” He said, casually. He’d already seen the style of their baldrics, and so knew more about them than they thought he did which both eased and worried him. “By chance, have you seen any armed men upon your journey, my friend?” One asked him. Jared automatically distrusted being called ‘friend’ by anyone he did not know. “None but you, my lords.” He said. He turned his meat as they conferred, his brown eyes trying to see where the third man was hidden. “May we warm ourselves at your fire, my good man? Then we’ll be on our way.” One called to him. Of course he couldn’t refuse, so he stood up, moving a step back to bow, “You honour me, my lords.” He said, in what he hoped was a servile way. They dismounted, tying their horses to a bush and striding forwards, pulling off their leather and mail gloves. They stood facing him, hands stretched out to his fire. He casually backed off a little and they split, coming around the fire either side towards him, drawing their single-hand swords in a whisper of steel and grinning at him. He swore and within two steps was at his pack, seeing a black-shafted bolt strike it as he grasped the hilt of his sword, turning to slide it free of the scabbard. Still turning in a full circle, and getting his other hand to the long grip, he smacked the slim sword hard away from him from the man on the left, turning still to swing again in a circle, allowing his two-handed sword to rise high, its weight pulling him around. The man cried out, desperately arching back as the tip of Jared’s sword carved through the mail links of his chest. Jared ducked and jumped over the falling man, feeling the crossbow bolt hiss over his shoulder. Cursing, the second man jumped over the fire, his sword raised for a downward swing, only to be impaled upon the tip of Jared’s sword as it swept upwards, catching the man just beneath his ribs, and his mail burst apart. Jared almost fell over as that man fell backwards onto the fire, desperately jerking his larger sword out as he heard the crossbowman emerge from the bushes behind him. He turned, swinging the large sword to his right, and letting it go as he fell with a searing sting in his right thigh. He watched, as if in slow motion as his sword, turning sideways in circles flew true, to strike the crossbowman high in the chest. The man, his mouth open in a cry of shock, flew back, to be pinned to a large tree behind him, and twitch before hanging like a doll. Jared knelt in the snow awkwardly; his right leg stretched out sideways and straight, now decorated with a tuft of black feathers midway up the thigh. He breathed in short harsh breaths, still staring wide-eyed at the impaled man, his hands shaking from the now un-needed adrenalin flowing through his body. Slowly he closed his eyes, and his head hung down as his shoulders drooped, and he fell onto his left hip with a grunt. He felt sick, but swallowed the saliva in his mouth and kept it down. Now his hands trembled as he explored the shaft in his leg, and found it had missed the bone. He managed to push himself up onto his feet, to limp a bit, turning around. He swore, and rolled the body off the cinders of the fire. Hearing a noise, he spun around in a crouch, and saw a child dressed in homespun staring at him from the edge of the trees. Jared relaxed and stood his empty hands loose at his sides. “Go home.” He said. There was a brief movement, and the child disappeared.