Ships. Only thing worse than horses. A man should use his own two damned feet. Galin’s thoughts were bitter condemnations of the voyage as he hauled gear from the ship’s hold. Luthene had gone ahead to settle up accommodations and Galin was happy to have his feet on solid ground and his arms and back set to honest labor. The voyage was a frustrating one for the warrior, as he could not stand the company of the scholars, poor to a man and long-winded beyond mortal telling, and Luthene seemed to be upset with him in some way. He could not understand why she could possibly be annoyed but he had learned early enough that a woman’s mind was a strange and mysterious thing, impervious to the machinations of a man’s reason. As the ship’s crew, finally finished the laborious process of mooring the ship to the port’s beams, came into the hold, they ushered Galin away, not wanting the land-bound Highlander to make a hash of things in the unloading. Luckily Galin was more content to leave the ship than contest his ability to work twice as hard and twice as long as any Ejgoran, so he slung his shield over his back and took the rest of their gear to one of the porters at the dockside. By then Luthene had arrived, lodgings secured, and they headed off together to a small tavern nestled between larger, more imposing buildings.
He could not for the life of him understand why he was there, aside from Luthene’s insistence that she travel despite her wound barely having begun to heal. He would have preferred to stay with Domnall and the Northmen in Adeluna, waiting for the inevitable summons to one spot or another to put down the unrest that came with a discovery of this sort in the lands of Arri. Instead, he was in a strange port among a strangely friendly, peace-loving people and he felt distinctly out of his element, though it was not a threatening sense. He simply felt that he essentially did not belong and would be glad to see the back of the place once he had rested a night and figured out where in the Maker’s great world Arri was.
Their room was even smaller than the Mermaid and Galin bit back a groan, knowing that it would likely be another night of Luthene’s inexplicable distance. If she was worried about what she had said in her fevered state, he thought little of it. Fevers could be strange things and he would not put much stock in what she said in her condition, even if it intrigued him and made him wonder if there was something more under her polite, proper exterior. He had caught glimpses of it since they had begun to serve together in the Highland company but he could never be sure if they were a pattern or simply moments of high emotion. He shrugged, washing his face and hands to take the worst of the caked salt from sweat and the voyage off him. “Cozy, ain’t it,” he said as he dried his face, nodding at the bed. “I figure I can sleep ‘cross the doorway, half to guard and half to save your dignity.” His thoughts were interrupted by the dinner bell and he followed her down the stairs and took his place across from her.
He smiled at her toast, one that the Northmen liked themselves, and drank deeply. “Aye, though the world would lose its mind if the Maker’d put more than one of me around. Too handsome, they’d say, and too brave and too damned good.” Chuckling, he sipped on his ale while Luthene finished hers and asked about the dark days at the end of the war. They were not the sort of battle that Galin was proud of, not like in the Valley. Instead, it was a dark, sordid episode that put a bloody end to a bloody war. He never spoke about it, not even in the company of the Highlanders, even though some of them knew the truth of those last days. “Something.” He paused. “Aye. I did something, that’s the word for it.” He drained the rest of his pint and waited until it was refilled to continue.
“You know how it all ended, right? After the Valley, you lot gave us a bloody nose and then Randal got involved in that duel, the cowardly shite. Killed a wee woman who couldn’t defend herself from a puppy, let alone a revenge-mad bastard like that. Then while everyone was mourning and scrambling for a plan, he pulled back to the land between the Steppes and the Waste. Tribes there never could stand the south, for reasons I can’t fault ‘em, mind, and he was able to get them over to his side. The Conclave had to march the whole bloody continent to meet him in battle, using a fleet for supplies, taking the coast road up through Mamlak, until they ran smack into the bastard on open ground, and him with some of the best cavalry in the world.
“So for three days and nights, the armies stood to, camped not three miles from each other, waiting for someone to make a move. The gods, remember, were off on their island, quaking in their collective boots. So someone had to make a choice. Domnall, he was elected to command the lads by then, he walked right into the council of war between the great men of the south and told them what to do, and by the Maker, they did it, because they had no better options. A night attack, Domnall told them, and make all the noise in the world doing it. While that began and chaos reigned, his lads, my lads, we would go in like we do in the North, quiet and quick, and cut the head off the snake and take its fangs.
“So there we were, faces painted black with charred cork, black cloaks and no mail to catch the light, crept right to a hill beside their encampment. The sentries there were not the most alert and died for it, and we waited. Just after midnight, the fire arrows started. Tents caught and sleeping men leapt out, already ablaze. It was a nightmare. But that’s the place for men like us, me and the lads. So we moved hard, swords sharp and shields up, and cut through the confused bastards, right to Randal's tent. We left our wounded where they fell, no shield wall, only a blood-mad sprint, and when we got into the tent, he was half dressed in his armor, mace halfway across the tent, and he barely had a chance to curse before we were on him. No one can be sure what blow killed him but we all bloodied our blades in him."
Galin paused, pouring out his pint for the men he left there, then continued his story.
"So we got the mace, of course, then slipped out, and by then, the chaos was bad enough we didn't need to fight. That next morning, each of us took a reward in silver from the Conclave and made off for wherever we would want. So… that's my story." He smiled ruefully and sipped his pint. "Well, you did ask."