The First War

Art by Dean Spencer

Barrin burst from the raging rapids that had battered him pitilessly from one squall to the next, gasping for precious breath. Muscles borne of tireless work and ceaseless training powered him to the bank, where he dragged himself crawling out of the rapids, then further up a slope, to a point where he could finally fall, face buried in the mud and the silt.

He sighed, satisfied. Once again, he emerged from battle undefeated.

Not all enemies carried swords and spears. Not all enemies wet their small clothes at the sight of the beast he had become. Some enemies were the rocks and the trees, and the beasts of fur and claw... but all enemies were nothing but a victory to be claimed in Barrin’s eyes. He had triumphed against the falls, beaten back the rage and fury of the river, yet a greater enemy stilk stalked him.

As he ever had, he raised himself up, ignoring the pain, defying the blood cascading from the wounds down his muscled stomach and ribs. He placed one foot before the other, refusing even to sway. He could walk, therefore he was not dead. He breathed, therefore he yet lived. He had hands, therefore he could fight. When eventually he perished at the hands of an enemy, he would ride a chariot to the Halls of Shtuur, where he would feast and drink and fight once again until he had defeated all his enemies once more, earning his right to stand before Shtuur, to challenge the god of battle himself, destroy him and take his seat.

But not yet.

Not today.

Today, Barrin lived. Today, he would slay the beast that had almost claimed his life. He would break it with his bare hands, if he had to; rend the flesh from the beast’s throat, if necessary.

Reaching the treeline, he scavenged the roots and thorns he required. Falling back against the bole of a great, ancient oak, he chewed upon the root until it became a paste and spread the paste upon his wounds, rubbing the thorns into the flesh to bring the edges of the wound tight together.

Only then, did he look up to the sound of the beast’s roar, four hundred yards distant, on the side of the river.

Barrin returned to the shore, unbothered by his injury. Downriver, the rapids eased. The beast could cross there and then the chase would begin anew, but Barrin had distance now. Distance he would need if he stood a chance of completing the task upon his broad shoulders. Were it any other day, any other land, it would be he, not the beast giving chase. He would relish the hunt, proudly wear the beast’s skin as his own. But he had a charge to fulfil, and the war awaited him.

He had rested enough. Bare chested, only his fur loincloth protecting his nethers, and no weapon, his sword lost to the unforgiving roil of the river, Barrin began to run upriver. Back to where he had left the supposedly precious treasure that he had taken responsibility to protect. Were it not for that distraction, the beast would never have caught him unawares, but he felt no bitterness. It was a job, and the war depended upon him returning with his charge.

Branches whipped against his face, the thorns holding for the moment, but haste demanded he neglect his wounds. His fur covered boots sank into the dirt and the mulch, leaving behind his scent, but his blood would permeate the air more. He had little time to care about stealth, for the beast boasted ungainly speed..

The rise proved no more of a detriment than the forest, the scree and stone chippings loosening beneath his determined feet, tumbling back down to the forest floor below. At the lip of the slope, Barrin took his bearings, controlled his breathing. He sniffed the air, listened to the calls and the scurrying of birds and animals before turning East and setting his powerful legs to a run once more.

The beast had driven him further from his charge than he thought and Barrin had to run some distance before he reached the tight copse of trees, trunks almost intertwined with each other. There was a clearing in the center, where he found his charge. Pitiful. Barron squeezed through the gap, lifting the boy’s head by the hair to see if he still breathed. He gasped and lulled; he had fallen asleep! Almost with contempt, Barrin released the boy’s hair and he slumped back to the dirt.

“You came back for me?” The boy seemed younger than Barrin, though he was several years older. “I thought you would flee. Or you were dead.”

“I do not flee.” Rummaging through the contents of the boy’s pack, Barrin withdrew a shirt, ripping it into several strips, and tied one to his arm to bind his wounds. “I came back because if you die, your fool of a father would collapse in grief and the war would end.”

The boy shuffled to a seated position, checking the cut in his leg and hissing as his fingers touched it. A scratch, nothing more, but the boy acted as though he had lost the limb in its entirety; struggling not to move it, gingerly pulling away the material of his fine hose. Barrin gripped the leg, turning it to the light dappling through the canopy, ignoring the boy’s pained yelp. With the remains of the equally fine shirt, he wrapped a bandage around it, tying it closed with a sharp tug that almost had the boy howling and his eyes filling with tears.

“Careful, you oaf!” The boy made an ineffectual attempt to slap Barrin’s hand away, but Barrin caught him by the wrist, extracting another yelp before thrusting it away. “What of the others? My guards?”

“Dead.” Barrin returned to the bag of supplies, tossing away possessions that had no place on the field of battle. He found an eating knife, testing the blade and scowling before tucking it in the back of his loin cloth. “Have you any weapons? A dagger, mayhap?”

“I have my sword.” The boy twisted and turned back holding the handle as though he held a goblet. “How did my guards perish so quickly? They are, were, the finest soldiers of my father’s army.”

“They were weak. As your father is weak.” Barrin grabbed the sword, curling a bitter corner of his mouth at it. It looked pretty, if nothing else. “As you are weak and your army is weak. This? This is a toy. A trinket. When you return to your father, take up a proper blade, or return to the playroom and play at soldiers with your pets.”

The sword, as pathetic as it was, was better than nothing. He gripped the boy’s collar and began to drag him toward the thin gap out of the copse, but the boy struggled against Barrin’s grasp.

“If my father is so weak, if his army is so weak, why do you fight for him?” He showed the defiance of nobility. Jaw set forward, nose lifted in disgust.

“Because the enemy is strong.” The boy could never understand. Were Barrin to sit him down and explain the glory of war, the boy would never understand.

To Barrin, war was all. War was a lover, a family, the reason to breathe. From the day he could walk, Father had trained him. From the moment he could hold a sword, Father had fought him. In the light of candles, Father had forced him to read the greatest treatises on war, the histories of great battles, the techniques of warcraft. Barrin had lived war before he had ever seen a battlefield. On that first day he stood across from armed and armored men and women, the war chants rang in his ears and the stench of released bladders and bowels assaulted his nostrils; he knew he had come home. How could he explain that to a coddled child?

“Night will come all too fast, boy. We must move, for the beast hunts even now.” He had heard the roar once again. “You will do as I say, go where I tell you. You will not question me. You will not debate my commands. Understand?”

“Boy? I am eighteen Summers! I am Prince! Do not dare…” The backhanded slap caught him by surprise and the prince stumbled back, clutching his face in shock. “My… my father will… my…”

“Do you understand?” With cold eyes Barrin stared down at the prince until the boy dropped his own gaze. “If you wish to live to see your father, you will do as I say. And, when we return, you can tell him how I struck you and I shall show your enemies what a real warrior can do. So, I ask again, do you understand?”

“I…” The strike had reddened the boy’s face, even more so than the embarrassment. “…yes.”

“Good. Then we move.” Barrin peered out through the gap then gripped the front of the boy’s doublet.

Outside the copse, Barrin took a moment. They should, by rights, head straight North, directly toward the flat farm lands now ravaged by battle, but the going was not appealing. A rough landscape, filled with small hills that would soon tire them both if they had to summit each one to reach the encampment. South took them too far in the wrong direction, though traversal would prove easier.

To the West lay the wretched river. Leaving only the Easterly ravines and crevices. Such was child’s play, save for the great bulk of the beast stalking them. Barrin needed a better weapon, otherwise he would stand and fight, and return the princeling at his leisure. For now, they had to keep moving and hope to find other scouting parties of the army.

They would fare no better than the boy’s guards, of course, but at least Barrin could loot the dead for good steel.

The beast roared. Barrin looked back and scowled. It should not have caught them so swiftly, nor be so dogged. This was no ordinary bear. Regardless, they had to move and Barrin almost tossed the prince before him, gripping the near-useless sword and keeping an eye out for any advantage he could find.

He would not die this day. Neither of them would.

* * *

The terrain proved unfamiliar to him, though he had studied the local maps. He always studied maps, but they could never truly illustrate the individuality of each landscape. Even maps with incredible detail, lovingly constructed by the hands of those who intimately knew the area could not hope to illuminate the subtle characteristics that each track exhibited. The idiosyncrasies of sharp turns, depths of crevices, changes wrought by weather, the passing of time nor the hands of people who never seemed to allow nature to do what it did better than any human could imagine.

An illustrated stand of trees was a stand of trees, with no chance of conveying the beauty of boughs reaching out as though gathering each other into a familial embrace. The caves marked upon the paper could not express the depth of those channels that bore deep underground, where they may lead, what secrets they held within their deepest recesses, their furthest reaches. A cliff, marked upon the landscape could stand a mere ten feet in height, or fifty.

Barrin had to navigate the area afresh, testing his way with each footfall and listening, sensing the beast behind them, growing closer, closer. So close that he could almost smell the grime-coated fur, taste its fetid breath passing across his lips as the beast reared up above him. But it had not arrived yet. Though, it would soon catch them;, this bear never seemed to rest as living things should. Never deviated from its course. Never grew weary of the chase to choose an easier prey.

“I must rest, White-Hair.” The prince stumbled against the face of the ravine, hopping to halt and rubbing a hand down his thigh. “My injury …”

“Is nothing. It only haunts you because you allow it. Stand. Stand and fight the pain.” Barrin tore the prince from the wall and pressed him onward. “Pain only hurts if you allow it to. Defeat the pain as you would an enemy.”

“It’s alright for you! Look at you!” He held his leg stiff, hobbling, when it was only the thigh damaged, and waved toward Barrin’s practically naked body. “You have scars upon scars. You’re probably used to the pain. I mean, my gods! Look at what you’ve done to yourself.”

Barrin did. He glanced down at the network of scars that cross-crossed his chest, his arms, stomach, thighs. If he could see his own back he knew it would match the front, but he could not. He knew what he looked like, in all areas but his face. That had seen few blemishes from fighting, though he had his nose broken many times. They were his story. His history and he found pride in every one. Had a tale to tell for every stitch. Not the kind of tales told by Skaalds in the comfort of a tavern, but to men and women of war, huddling before campfires the night before a battle.

“Pain is only your body’s way of giving up. Deny it.” Another push and the prince stumbled onward. “And walk properly. Your knee is uninjured. Do not stiffen it.”

The series of ravines had become little more than a maze now and still Barrin had found no better weapon. The rocks were too large or too small, what little timber was soft and rotten. He would find something, though. Anything could be used to kill, given the right circumstances.

Daylight had already started to wane, made all the worse by the shadows cast by the height of the sheer walls to either side. Pockets of pitch darkness now studded the area, but at least they passed through passages too thin to allow a bear entry. But above, on the ridge? Above, a bear could stalk them with ease. Barrin had avoided ascending the ridge, the boy prince’s leg would not have fared well jumping across the gaps.

“Why do you say that my father is weak? He is a great warrior. Loved by his people. He led the army in the battle of Srakash to a great victory. The bards still sing of it back home.” He lifted his chin with pride as he spoke, but he at least now walked, though still favouring his other leg. “Loved by his people as he loves them..”

“Aye. I have heard of the battle, and that seems to be the truth of it. He rose up a levy of ten thousand warriors to face three times as many. The battle lasted a night and a day and victory came at a great cost, but it was a victory, nonetheless. How many of the ten thousand returned to celebrate, I ask?” Barrin could see the flicker in the boy’s eyes, the slight droop of his shoulders. “Aye. A bare thousand. Nine thousand dead and no doubt your father ever wondered why. That is why he is weak. Because he cannot face that again, so he bats at the enemy like a mongoose bats at a snake, hoping to find victory upon an easier path, a safer path. He has no heart for it anymore. No thirst for blood.”

“Is it wrong to wish to preserve the lives of his warriors?” The boy stopped again, regaining his defiance in protecting his father’s reputation. “If the war can be won by…”

“The war is already lost! Unless…” Barrin raised a finger before curling into a fist and holding it before the prince's face. “…unless he fights! Wars are not won by words. That comes later, when you have smashed the enemy. Wars are won by blood and death. Rage and bile!”

“And you would know, no doubt, mercenary.” The princeling sneered the word as though it were an insult, but Barrin cared nothing for it. “How many wars have you taken coin to fight. Many, I should say. You… how old are you?”

As though he had seen Barrin for the first time, the prince stepped closer, tilting to see Barrin’s face in better light, but Barrin stepped back, deeper into a shadow. His age not, nor how many wars he had fought, how many warriors he had killed. All that mattered was the battle before them. This war. Always this war, then the next, and the next.

“I am sixteen Winters. This is my first war.” He tensed at the snort of a laugh from the prince.

“Impossible. I know of no man as tall as you. No man with a body like… this.” He waved at Barrin’s sculpted muscles, his face changing to one of pity as he looked at the damage upon Barrin’s skin. His voice became a whisper. “The scars. Many are years old.”

The princeling raised a hand, hovering above Barrin’s chest. Barrin prepared to step back again, but then the hand retreated and the pity only grew more profound. What could Barrin say? That the majority of those scars he had gained from his father? That every broken bone came from the incessant training over years of his childhood. What need had he for pity? For reviving memories of those days in the snow crusted wastes of the Yaavik mountains? He had survived. He had proven himself victorious against his first and greatest enemy. Pity had no place for the pitiless.

“Keep moving.” He lifted his head as the roar of the beast echoed through the gunnels and runs of the ravines, as though the sound itself sought to feast upon them. “The enemy nears.”

They could not continue for much longer without finding somewhere to rest for the night. The bear drew closer, but Barrin still believed it could not follow them into the tight confines of the ravines. In the dwindling light, his thoughts turned to defence, searching the branching paths for one that even he could find difficulty passing through. One where the lips of the cliff faces almost touched above.

It would leave them vulnerable come the morning, but better that than offer themselves up to a frenzied attack during the blind of night. Pushing the prince along with greater urgency, Barrin considered what he had said about the boy’s father. He had spoken truly about the tales he had heard. The man was a beloved king and loved his people, dragged into a war he had not pursued. But that mattered not when need to take up arms arose once more. When the drums of war beat to summon the loyal and the faithful to defend their lands. Whether he wanted it or not, war had come to the land again. Either the king found a heart for battle, or there would be no kingdom.

“In here.” He pulled the prince to a halt and angled him to a break in the wall he had spied. “If we’re lucky, little prince, we may yet survive this night. Mayhap you will even ascend the throne some day and be a better king than your father.”

The passage proved even tighter than Barrin had thought it and he felt the stone scrape against his skin, tearing open wounds once again, renewing the scent of fresh blood, but that was something to consider later. They could not fight in the dark, nor could they navigate the ravines.

He looked up, disappointed to see a greater gap above than he would have preferred. Large enough for Barrin to pass through, down to the ground here, but a bear should catch its great shoulders between the outcroppings, snapping its saliva filled jaws at prey it could not reach. Had Barrin more time, better knowledge of the terrain, half-decent steel, he could have stood a better chance of surviving the night. For now, cowering in the dark would have to do.

At the rear of the gap, another crack looked out to yet another ravine, but nothing could come that way. Barrin couldn’t even fit his fist in the gap at its widest. They would find themselves as safe here as anywhere. They had little room to lay, but enough space if they did not stretch out. Or, rather, the boy could. He waved at the prince, pointing to the ground. Then he gathered dirt and dust from the cavern floor and daubbed where he had smeared his blood against the wall. It would not fool the beast for long, if at all, but it didn’t hurt to try.

“I never will, you know.” The prince had slumped to the ground, lifting aside his torn hose once again to look at the cut on his leg. He looked up as Barrin neared. “Ascend to the throne! Not if my father has a say in it. As good a man as he is, some of my… choices offend him greatly. He would rather my brother become heir. He, at least, is a ‘real’ man in my father’s eyes.”

The darkness had drawn in almost completely now, especially in this thin gap of a sanctuary, and Barrin could not see the prince’s face as he spoke. He could not gauge what those words meant, but he knew well the disappointment of a father. It had taken Barrin running his father through with his own sword before Barrin ever saw a flicker of pride in him. He couldn’t imagine what would cause a king to reject his first son. Nor did he care to ask.

“Sleep.” Barrin settled down, but he would not close his own eyes. “We may die before morning and your father will not have the burden of making a choice. If we are lucky, we may even die fighting.”

* * *

After some moments of listening to the bear’s call, Barrin did close his eyes, practising the low method of sleep Father had taught him. He had lost too much blood. The paste and thorns bindings, now refastened, would not last forever. He could gain a meager rest and remain fully aware of the dangers creeping ever closer, as though the bear wished to tease out the terror it inflicted. The boy prince, older than he, but only in years, snorted in his sleep, favouring his uninjured side. Barrin’s eyes snapped open, only to see the prince curled at the side of him. He still did not understand the danger. Could not appreciate the nearness of death, but Barrin felt it in every bone. So long as he died fighting, Barrin did not fear death in the least. When it came, blood washing the ground at his feet, he would embrace it. It was the Yaaviki way. He knew nothing else.

Before closing his eyes once more, his senses on constant alert, he peered up to the gap above, looking for the stars, or the clouds, only to see darkness and he moved in an instant. Grabbing the boy, dragging him along the rough floor of the ravine, he tossed him toward the entrance whether he had awoken or not, the sword, that useless sword, already in his hand as something dropped from above, landing in the shadows and the deep black of the night.

“What …?”

“Get out! Go!” Barrin did not even look toward the prince, bracing his feet and holding the sword at the ready.

The boy did not ask any more questions. Barrin heard the scratching of clothing against stone as he scrambled through the thin gap, but Barrin had other matters on his mind than the prince's escape.

The thing, for he could only describe it as a thing now, began to rear up in the shadows, a more substantial darkness framing shining eyes that were not those of a bear. At least, no bear that Barrin had ever encountered.

The beast was too large to squeeze into the cavern, and yet it continued to rise up before him, guttural growling rumbling in the confined space which almost sounded like taunting laughter. Barrin’s travels had taken him far from the wastes of his homeland, he had seen much, fought more, but he had never seen the likes of this.

Something swiped out from the shadows and Barrin danced back, his spine catching upon the stone and the rock, scraping away his skin. The sword, raised and already moving, caught upon something, but that something batted it away with such force that the blade shattered against the wall, the pieces falling to the ground in glittering shards, tinkling like the brass cymbals of a crotale.

Leaping forward, using the wall at his back to launch himself, Barrin roared his defiance, turning the broken sword as he moved, gripping it with both hands as he brought it down upon the shadowy beast, and, to his great satisfaction, the remains of the blade bit into flesh, which could not deny the tapered edge of a broken sword. It bit deep and the beast roared in pain and frustration as Barrin pulled free the sword shard.

Before the beast could react, Barrin dived toward the opening, forcing his way back through and out to the maze of ravines beyond, where that fool of a prince still stood, calm and firm on his feet. The boy had that, at least.

“Is it dead?” Hands gripped Barrin, lifting him from the last, grasping clutches of the crevice. “Did you kill it?”

“Unlikely.” The light of the Moon chanced down upon them and Barrin looked to the broken sword. “But it bleeds. It bleeds!”

Within the hole, the beast thrashed and howled in rage, scrabbling a paw, into the gap, reaching for them, but not near close enough. Not to catch them, nor for Barrin to strike, and Barrin shoved the prince ahead of him. The chase had begun anew and Barrin doubted the natural prison would hold this beast. A creature that he surmised could transform itself, to grow or diminish at will.

Barrin had never encountered such a creature. It was a mystery of the Northern lands. Some magical foe. Barrin’s father had spat at the thought of magic. Of sorcerers and their deals with demonkind for power, sacrificing the sanctity of their bodies for precious magical power. Father despised magic and wizards and their books, their strange languages, the symbols and sigils they wrote in the air. Barrin had encountered such powers in his travels. More rare than the most precious stones, it seemed, he could only imagine magic that had shaped this creature.

They ran. Through the confusion of the twisting, cavernous ravines, they turned into dead ends, tracked back to find another way, no time to take their bearings. The boy grew weary; the ran too fast, too hard, his breathing came in gulps and gasps. Barrin knew that the prince had fast become a burden. Yet Barrin had taken his charge. He had chosen to return to the boy and carry him home.

If the king lost his son, regardless of what Barrin thought of the man, it would break him. Break a man that had already broken in pyrrhic victory, years before. Barrin could not allow that, for the war had to continue. The war had to go on. Victory or defeat, Barrin did not care, but it had to draw out to its natural end, fighting defiantly. Not abandoned due to grief. Nor surrendered through loss. Losing a war in such a way is obscene.

The ravine opened up, wider and too expansive. Advantage lay in the tight spaces against this creature, where it would have to divest itself of the majority of its bulk to fight.

Here, he found a tree, torn from its roots in some long past storm, the flood carrying it down here to lay, forlorn and lost at the bottom of the series of crevices. Barrin allowed himself a pause, touching the bare branches, tugging at them. Good, solid wood, but no time to fashion a spear. The beast had escaped the hole. He heard it close behind pouncing and leaping across the gaps, their scent clogging its nostrils as it chased them.

“We are to die, are we not?” The boy had collapsed against the wall, sweat glistening and dripping from his face, hand reaching down to his injury. “I… if I am to die, I must…”

“We will not die here.” Cutting off the prince, Barrin inspected their surroundings.

It was a lie, but a boy without hope would not run. Barrin needed him to run. To keep moving. At least until he had fought through the fog of mystery, understood their foe. He needed to think this through, but they had no time and the boy would only slow down even more if he thought it hopeless.

“No!” The prince said, showing some fire at last. “I need to say this! If I am to die, I need you to know you have my gratitude. You had no reason to return for me, no matter what you say. I thank you. And… and to say that, despite the scars and the temperament, you are quite… beautiful, in your own way.”

The boy’s reached to touch Barrin’s face and Barrin allowed it. He didn’t know why. In this desperate moment, where every pause, every delay could prove fatal, he allowed the boy to touch him. Few had ever said such a thing to him before, and it had always confused him. Affection. Gratitude. He scowled, turning away to spy a gap in the wall he had missed before and as though it had waited for him to see it, the beast roared once again.

“It plays with us, but I do not play.” Gripping the prince’s arm, he pulled the boy from his rest and moved on once more. He glanced back at the tree. “I am not finished yet.”

The gap opened into yet another length of crevasse, but, this time, the ground widened once more, sloping upward. A long stretch of ravine that tapered away into the darkness ahead and Barrin suspected they had neared the end of labyrinthine twists of this part of the landscape. The problem lay in what came after.

He could move freely out in the open, but, then again, so could the creature, and, out there upon open land, the creature could bring down its full strength upon him. In short stretches, it could outrun them but, if Barrin’s suspicions were proven true, the beast could transform itself to sustain a sprint. He spat to the side as they moved, echoing his despised father’s thoughts on all things magical.

Give him a sword and an enemy of worth and Barrin would delight in the battle. Give him an army to face and he would glory in the slaughter. But give a creature that can change its aspect, change shape at a whim, and it burned against Barrin’s rage. Fight as a man or a bear, or don’t fight at all! Shtuur pox the damned creature!

And still it stalked them, knowing its hunt for Barrin would soon come to an end.

He could not allow it. The creature had his and the boy’s scent, but Barrin had the beast marked, too. He knew he could beat it, he only needed the method. The sword, still in his hand, had little worth but to prick the creature’s hide. He needed something else and his thoughts turned even as they ran.

The boy stumbled, falling from Barrin’s hand, tumbling back some distance along the slope. He had reached his limit, even Barrin could acknowledge that. The open spaces of the land ahead would bring about a swift death and all of this would come to naught. Yet, as Barrin returned to lift the princeling to his feet once more, he saw yet another crack in the wall of the ravine.

Despite the urgency of their pursuit, Barrin thrust his head inside, for only his head could fit, and looked at the space beyond. Small. No gap above that even a rat could force itself through. Tight, but deep enough that a reaching arm could not tear claws into flesh. This was his chance. His final chance to prove himself superior to this creature. And, at his feet, the exhausted prince watched on in confusion. Barrin made the decision then and crouched beside the boy.

“What are you doing?” The boy tried to bat Barrin’s hands away, but he stood little chance of that. “We must…”

Barrin ripped the hole in the hose wider, taking the eating knife from his back, slicing away the rag of the shirt, revealing the boy’s wound and drove his fingers into the wound, widening it, causing the blood to flow once more. The blood trickled over Barrin’s fingers, spots dripping onto the floor of the ravine and the prince screamed in pain, head tilting back. As the prince continued to howl, blood dripping from his leg, Barrin lifted him without ceremony and forced the boy through the gap, the stone tearing at the skin on his face.

“You sit there. You sit back there and you do not move.” Through the thin gap, he saw the look of betrayal on the prince’s face. “And when the beast comes for you, you can scream all you wish.”

He turned away, heading back into the ravines, ignoring the calls, the shouts, the prince’s foul curses. Barrin could not carry his dead weight any longer. It was either this, or the beast took them both, and Barrin had no intention of becoming supper for anything.

The ravines were safer. For him, at least.

* * *

Bear or something else entirely, it still hunted. It still sought prey. It still hungered for blood. In addition to the thrill of the chase it had so obviously enjoyed, it wished to feast and Barrin had given it the imperative to seek out that feast with the letting of the prince’s blood.

While he ran the other way.

There was no honour in it. No courage. He did not stand before the prince and give of his own life to save someone most would consider his better, more deserving to live. Barrin did not believe anyone deserved to live. Life was something that required effort and determination to withstand the trials the world posed. Be that man, or woman, beast or natural circumstance. Life required conflict to sustain itself and Barrin knew conflict. The prince did not.

The prince would cower and wilt, he would beg and plead for his life rather than take it, live it, grip it tight until the very last breath and then fight to breathe one more time. Barrin had learned that lesson very early on. His father beat the lesson into him until it ingrained within his very soul.

Despite his own exhaustion, every fall of his boots upon the unyielding stone of the chasms before him, every beat of his heart, he still ran back through the ravines. Seen once and committed to his memory, he knew exactly where to go and not even the scream of fear that echoed about him, dwindling and muffling in the tight spaces could turn his head back to the boy he had left alone to face a monster. Either the boy had listened to his cautions, or he had not, either way, it had gained Barrin time.

There! A tree, not yet rotted nor broken down by age, preserved on the steppe where little grew, few animals prowled, no foresters could use for it. But Barrin could.

It took but a moment to locate the best branches. The straightest. The strongest. They snapped free from the trunk as Barrin hauled at them, carrying the best to the side and using the remains of the boy’s sword to hack and cut away at the ends, then tossing the broken blade aside, its use at an end. One long branch, as straight as he could find. Two smaller, that he placed into the waistband of his loincloth.

Then, with newly made spears at hand, he raced back to the place where they had rested. The only place he knew where the walls loomed close enough to climb down. It was not such an easy task, bracing his feet against either side, carrying the long stick in one hand and clambering up to the gap above. Soon the creature would tire of the prince and then it would take no time at all for the beast to find Barrin.

At the top, he tossed the makeshift spear out, followed by the shorter branches. He thought he had misjudged it from below as his great, muscular chest caught against the rough edge of the stone, but he adjusted, easing his way through to emerge atop the flat tops of the ravine. The light of the Moon gave only a meagre sight of the treacherous footings ahead, but he trusted himself and his instincts. Alone, he could make it.

Even up here, he heard the prince’s panicked shouts, but Barrin felt no guilt in leaving the boy, nor of not telling him the plan. A boy like that, pampered and coddled his entire life may well have spoken out of turn, perhaps even puffed up his chest and vainly boasted. Or not. In truth, Barrin hardly knew the boy and he had surprised him more than once, not least in his unexpected resilience.

Collecting the spears, he skipped across the gaps like a mountain goat, catching his footing when needed, heading back the way he came. He had a battle awaiting him and it fed him. The very thought of it nourished him, gave him strength and purpose.

And there it was, the greater gap of the pass that led out to the land beyond, wider than any of the others. Too wide to leap across, but that was not Barrin’s intent. Without missing a beat, he pressed himself forward even faster, planted his foot against the very edge and launched himself out, over the gap, gripping the makeshift spear between both hands, white hair billowing out behind him, and fell, silently, upon the back of the creature that had hounded them.

The beast howled as the tip of the branch buried itself deep into its back, but not near deep enough to kill. The beast thrashed and bucked, rising to its full height and roaring, slaver dripping from its maw. Barrin clung to the bear as long as he could, but even he could not withstand the frantic movements of the creature as it smashed itself against a wall, snapping off the spear but leaving much still buried within its flesh.

Barrin landed upon his feet, gathered his senses and reached for the two shorter branches, taking one in each hand, and readied to meet the beast in far better circumstances than before. No longer held in the confines of the tight space, nor carrying a sword barely worthy of the name, he faced the creature as it turned toward him.

Another roar and an immense clawed paw scythed out toward Barrin, but Barrin had been raised for this before he could even walk. One stick pierced the beast’s arm, withdrawing from its wound and allowing Barrin to drift away to the side, where he drove the second stick deep into the thigh of its rear leg. Impossibly, the creature seemed to grow even as Barrin fought, but size meant nothing in this battle. Neither rage, nor spittle, nor claws the length of Barrin’s forearm could save the creature now.

A wayward strike caught Barrin a glancing blow, but it sent him tumbling backward to crash against the opposite wall and the creature bore down upon him like a malignant storm, all black and filling Barrin’s vision, but a mere fall could not best the young man from Yaavik. He waited, acted the broken man, and, as the creature aimed to end Barrin’s life with horrifying jaws wide, Barrin struck, thrusting upward with the short stick with all the strength and might that he could muster.

The jaws snapped closed a fraction of an inch from Barrin’s face, almost human eyes glaring down at him, saliva dribbling from the corners of its mouth. The saliva turned to blood and the full weight of the creature fell upon Barrin. The beast’s stench alone could have killed a man from twenty paces, but it was the weight that held Barrin down.

“White-Hair! White-Hair!” The prince yelled. A fool after all. He had left his place of safety. “Gods! You must live. You must!”

The boy’s face appeared over the shoulder of the creature and he grimaced at the stench himself, yet still, surprisingly, gripped the creature’s fur, trying to drag it from atop Barrin’s body. With a grunt, Barrin braced his legs, kicking himself backward, out from the creature’s body and hauled himself up to his feet.

“I live.” He heaved in several deep breaths, glaring down at his vanquished foe and gave the creature a nod. It had fought well, but Barrin had fought better. “Come. Your father awaits.”

Neither of them looked back at the creature that had stalked them. They had no need to look at it again.

* * *

Campfires burned in all directions, a great heaving mass of people readying for a very different kind of battle. The camp stretched out before them as they approached the stockade and Barrin saw sentries rushing out to greet them, shouts for reinforcements bringing others running. Spears and swords in hands. Archers with bows.

One of the leading warriors recognised the prince and immediately fell to fawning, practically prostrating themselves before him, while Barrin recalled the honoured prince nearly wetting himself with terror. No. That was unfair to him. The prince had done little of consequence, of course, but he had faced the danger head on. That was worthy of Barrin’s respect, for a princeling.

The calls soon brought others rushing to the edge of the camp. Soldiers sloughed to the side, bowing heads in respect as the grand, old, weary king strode to greet a son he had thought lost. He hesitated as the boy—nay—the young man, limped toward him, hesitant himself, but then opened his arms, gathering the prince to him.

“My son.” The words, meant only for the prince, reached Barrin’s ears, but he had already turned away.

“Father, you must reward this man, he…” Now Barrin could hardly hear what the prince said. “Where did he go? He was…”

The encampment shrouded Barrin as he walked away, back to his tent at the furthest end of the long lines of men and women of war, of the cooks and the farriers, the fletchers and the smiths, all the followers and people that made a warcamp what it was. Barrin was but one among the many. There only to tend his wounds and ready himself for the coming battle.

He lived to fight, not for praise or thanks. He had survived another day, had vanquished another foe, but tomorrow? Tomorrow would bring another battle, another foe, and another... for Barrin lived for war and nothing else.

Always war.