Company

A piece of a whole. It is a small part of a great backdrop I'm working on, but since I write in bits and pieces, this is all I really have so far.

   The armored company rode past both plain and glen, o'er to the rugged highlands that marked the border into the West. They rode by small strands of dark trees, young yews and poplars, where the great stags of the country chewed and watched fastidiously. The terrain was much different from the forested and wind swept plains of the East; this place was hard and unforgiving, with no path or easy footing amongst the rugged hills, the stones or rocky outcroppings. Also unlike the East, the West was widely uncivilized and uninhabited, lacking the cities and towns of the East. There were no great kingdoms here, as there were elsewhere, at least, not anymore. Occasionally the ruins of a fortress or tower rises out of the stones, weather worn and made irregular by centuries of wind and rain.
   "Captain," Prince Norvar called to the captain, Sylder, the leader of the regiment. "You are certain that these.... Westmen will greet us with diplomacy? They have aligned themselves with Athedil and his hosts, and we ride into their lands, armed and armored, with an army of our own. They have every reason to attack us on sight."
   "And every reason not to, my prince. We will have the advantage, if only in number, with most of their own drawn elsewhere by war. They will see this."
   "And this will make them listen? They have attacked greater numbers before."
   "Aye," Sylder nodded atop his brown mare. "They will have to, for the sake of us all."
   Norvar scowled. "Please, captain, you sound like my father, with cryptic words and double-meanings. With so many of them gone, either pulled afield or dead, to whom will we make our appeal to?" He added mockingly. "Their king?"
   "One of their chieftains. One who has held power over the land and the people since the time of your father's father. I believe - as does the king - that he will listen to reason. The Westmen, my lord, if not anything else, are most loyal to their land and kin. I believe," Sylder smiled crookedly. "That paying their blood to fuel an elf's ambition has dissatisfied them, especially when Athedil has shown himself to be unconcerned with the West or its people."
   The prince drew silent, scowling, following the veteran's lead. He knitted his brows in thought. While he trusted the captain, and his father, he doubted that the plan would work. The West has always been painted as savage and ignorant, widely ignored as a proper country or territory by the East, separate from the politics and power of the East and Southern kingdoms. Fair Carania, included, counted the West as simple backwater, with no culture or people or history to lay claim to. It has always been an expanse on the map, a buffer between borders. He had always wondered why the East did not push to claim such open, available territory, with aims to colonize and expand westward. Out here he finally saw; the terrain was difficult and the West was in closer proximity to the dreaded North, with its blasted Storm Lands. The dark line of clouds ever-present on the horizon served as a reminder of that.
   "You are knowledgeable of this place and the people, captain," Norvar broke the silence as they passed by regular hills that broke the plain. "My father was right to send you, then. Tell me, these hills are much too regular to be hills of natural occurrence."
   "Aye, my lord. They are not hills," Sylder glanced at the mounds in question, swollen bumps of earth. "These are called barrows. The Westmen do not utilize the necropolis or the graveyard or the tomb as we do in the East. Instead, they dig and they dig and create these mounds, where they place the bodies of the dead and possessions inside. They believe that we are of this earth and so, in death, we should give back to the earth."
   "That is hardly fair," chided the prince. "A king could be buried in the same barrow as a thief or criminal."
   "No. Westerners have no kings, nor criminals."
   "I doubt that."
   "It is true. The chieftain is their leader, but who can truly govern a people who roam so wide and free? How do you steal from a society where everyone contributes to the people, to the family first and to the self last? Do not mistake me, my lord, for there are those who have dishonored themselves with cowardice. The shamed ones are usually left where they fell, or were dispatched by brother-blades for their cowardice, or brought to the fens, in the basin lowlands further West."
   "The point for that being?"
   "To the Westmen, strength, pride, courage and duty to one's people, land, and family are of utmost importance. To betray any of those pillars of belief is to be condemned, forgotten, shamed. And so they are cursed to live out that betrayal, that shame, and are dragged to the fens and placed in the shallows there, there in ancient places, laying beneath a shroud of dew and fog. There, my lord, in the fens further West, Westmen sleep lightly."
   Norvar tried, in vain, to imagine the scene described to him. He pictured the marshland and swampy area sure enough, but the captain's words were cryptic and it bored him. Nevertheless, he remained silent as they rode onwards. Some of the men behind them remarked on the stones they passed, tall stones, inlaid with swirling or knotted patterns, or marked with symbols and characters that Norvar had never seen before. The letters were sharp and unwelcoming.
   "It says: 'Vet braskagg eun,' which translates in the Old Tongue roughly as "West Berserkerland" - their land, more or less." Sylder translated. The words were harsh and strong on the tongue.
   Norvar nodded absentmindedly. He wondered what the men of the West would look like, for the tales always had it that they were savages and barbarians, trafficking with witches and demons and cannibals, squatting in a wretched land beset by monsters. Of course, he realized, that those tales also had it that the East bore cities of gold, women especially beautiful, and that everyone lived as a king. Tales, he decided, deviated sharply from the truth.
   Besides, he could not help but notice the beauty of the West. The lonely expanse of it, the emptiness, the solitude it offered or the wild flowers or rock formations. They were all beautiful and Norvar couldn't help but pity the land, for many were ignorant of its nature, wrapped up in myth or arrogance or both.
   "Captain," Norvar said. "Have these Westmen always lived here? We are taught that men have always lived to the East and that elves came from the Southwest, in the forests by the sea."
   "It would seem that way, my prince, for the Westmen were here since for ever. It is true that the elves come from the Southwest, in lands now forgotten or sunk beneath the waves, but they were mostly from the South, far from any kingdom of men. Always have the Westmen wandered the plains, for they are apart of this land and it is apart of them, with the land and its power flowing in their very veins. So connected are they to the earth, that they carve unto themselves patterns - like the stones - and ink themselves, to appear as stone-beings or rock-men. They thrive of the land and its bounty and the animals, and so give back by hunting only for need, by using every part of their kill by returning their dead to the earth. They worship the sun, the sky, the earth, and the moon, and the earth's animals; ox, stag, wolf, fox, snake and, above all, eagle.
   They refused to part this land many years ago, when the East pushed through and attacked them, before the return of Athedil or his Hounds or armies. We set fire to their plains and to their camps. They refused to leave when we captured their chieftains and executed them, demanding their surrender. They did not stop until we were fought back, to a standstill, until they did stop."
   "Why did they stop?" questioned the younger man as they crested another hill.
   Sylder pointed. On the horizon, far away, black clouds roiled. Thin spider legs of lightning cracked down, nearly invisible due to distance. "A portent heralding doom, or destruction, from the North. Lightning and thunder, and terrible rains. Winds that carried with them strange feelings and scents, of magic and decay and madness. And so they retreated."
    "What was it?"
    Sylder looked down into the plain below, eyes far off and distant.
    "Athedil."
   The captain was silent for the rest of the march. As the daylight died, Norvar and the company came upon signs of habitation: long dead fire pits, tracks, totems that were stuck fast in the ground. Under the light of the moon did they finally come upon the camp they so sought. Norvar gazed with awe. He had expected a tent, or two, not a full camp of several tents and a large yurt located towards the rear. A great fire pit burned, with flames that reached, like orange and red fingers, upwards to the sky, where any and all could cook or warm themselves or sit and sing. Two great totems that depicted an eagle-headed man and a great stag stood watch in the darkness, giant and imposing.
   "By the gods," Norvar whispered. "This isn't a camp. It is damn near a city!"
   Sylder's reply was a broad smile as he turned about.
   "Halt!" he called to his men. "You will stay here and maintain a respectable distance while the lord prince and I go below. Be ready to ride or attack at a moment's notice, understood? Lieutenant Avvin! You will be in charge here 'til I return, clear?"
   "Clear."
   Sylder turned. "After you, my lord."
   The pair broke away from their men, bound for the camp below, where several men with long hammers that bore wicked spikes waited for them.