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The BloodVaine EpicChapter 13: A Forestman's Past
As Bjarn ascended the stairs he met Kellenwyn.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“I have interrogated the knight who was found on our lands. This is who he claims to be and how he got here.”
Kellenwyn withdrew a piece of parchment and handed it to Bjarn to read. Bjarn read it quickly and asked, “What do you think?”
“I believe he is telling the truth, sir, extraordinary as it seems.”
“Hmm...yes...I think you are right. Well, I’ll just go see him then…”
Kellenwyn left Bjarn and the Forestmen leader entered the infirmary alone. Bjarn approached the reclining Sir Dractor and spoke.
“Sir Dractor, I am Lord Bjarn, Leader of the League of Forestmen.”
Bjarn extended a hand and Sir Dractor took it.
“I take it you are here to issue my sentence.” asked Sir Dractor.
“I have reviewed your interview with my sub-ordinate Kellenwyn. I am inclined to believe your story, and though Forestmen are loath to let strangers wander about their lands unpunished, I will not press charges. However, there is the matter of the slaughtering of an elk. As I suppose you did not know, the elk is a sacred creature to the Forestmen, and the killing of a creature warrants death. Ignorance of the rules is no excuse, but you were in a state of confusion and disorientation, so I will lighten your sentence. You will be confined to our cells for three years for crimes against the Forestmen...unless we might be able to come to another agreement.”
Bjarn did an about turn and left, leave Sir Dractor to brood over his predicament.
Bjarn continued up to his chambers expecting to find himself alone, but instead he was confronted by Graygon.
“I have been waiting for you...we need to talk.”
“What about, my friend?” asked Bjarn as he poured wine for both of them.
“You.” answered Graygon, “You have not been yourself ever since you became Lord Bjarn...what is wrong?”
“The pangs of leadership…” stated Bjarn simply, “For all my life, I was a Forestman to one degree or another. Now, I am not just a Forestman, but the Leader of the Forestmen. That is a big change, and I am a slow adjuster to change.”
“It hasn’t helped, I guess, to have everything blow up right when you are crowned…” mused Graygon.
Bjarn nodded his head slowly. “First Barbod returns with Bulls and Falcons at his back...then the Lone Ranger appears out of nowhere and kills some of my men...Barbod and the Lone Ranger leave, but then Radjar Kath is possessed and kills more Forestmen...then the trial...and the horrific battle in the Druid Chamber...then some person called Logan is found at my doorstep half dead...then Sir Dractor slaughters an elk and attack some Forestmen…”
Bjarn clinched his fists so hard the glass he was holding shattered.
“And then Green Fox returns.” whispered Graygon.
Bjarn nodded.
“Tell me...why do you hate him so? He claims he took only you hat and some coins…”
Bjarn snarled, “He took more than that away from me!”
Graygon waited. After some time...Bjarn explained.
“Long ago...before I had been excommunicated from the League by Isaac, Green Fox and I were the best of friends. I am a few years older than him, but we were thick a thieves, always playing pranks on the other Forestmen children and stealing things like knives and hats. When I was 21 and Green Fox 18, we both...er...were madly...ah...smitten with the same girl...J’anrya…”
Bjarn stuttered and turned red. Graygon fought the urge the grin, and succeeded, barely.
“J’anrya was the granddaughter of Sportimer Smyth and Miss Scarlet...and she was the image of her grandmother. She was tall, freckled and with hair red as Royals wine. Green Fox and I both...uh...courted her...and...well…”
Bjarn’s face turned to stone.
“I think...but I am not sure...J’anrya...well...liked me better...but...her father, who by the way was nothing like his legendary father Sportimer, persuaded her to....marry Green Fox…”
Bjarn stopped, then continued, rage filling his voice.
“I confronted Green Fox later and...well...beat the megabloks out of him…”
Bjarn was now apologetic.
“I never bashed a person like that before and since...I nearly killed him.…”
Pause.
“After I was done with him...he left with J’anrya...I think she sided with him more when he told her I had bashed his face in...in a childish sort of revenge, he stole a trivial amount of my money and my hat…”
Pause.
“Later, when I had been excommunicated from the League, I learned that Green Fox had stolen from the Forestmen and had been excommunicated as well. I tried to track him down, but by the time I traced him to the Wolfpack he had been excommunicated from them as well. That was when I met Willem.”
Graygon nodded. He had been just been a lad when the Wolf’s Eye, a valuable ruby, had almost been stolen from the Wolfpack by Green Fox.
“After stay many months with the Wolfpack, I wandered Dametreos until I met Barbod and Reno six months ago…”
Bjarn sagged, then stood and embraced the surprised Graygon. “Thank you for listening, my friend,”
Graygon patted Bjarn on the back firmly. “Not at all, my friend, not at all…”
“Worth more...than the Tyco hat…”
The words swam in his dazed head. The money had been reported as stolen, and the jailer turned to Green Fox first, and got the money back. And beat his face with the wooden stool. Then suddenly, it clicked.
“That’s why Bjarn hates me... he has all right to... I loved the Wolf’s Eye...I had to try again to get it...but why...I sealed her fate as well…”
He fell asleep and dreamt.
He was clean-shaven, wearing clean clothes and holding his pitchfork. He stood in a neat cornfield and was smiling. A woman in a long, white dress stood at the door of a neat little cottage. She was a vision of beauty. The man ran up to her and pulled a great ruby from his shirt. It looked like an eye.
“I got it, darling! I got it!”
“Oh. Finally now you can concentrate on our little farm.”
“Yes, dear. That’d be nice.”
Now it was night. The man and the woman slept in wooden beds he had made himself. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door.
“OPEN UP! THIS IS THE WOLFPACK! YOU HAVE STOLEN SOMETHING OF OURS!”
Twenty men bearing the Wolfpack emblem burst inside, and began ransacking and looting. The younger Green Fox went downstairs and confronted the men.
“What do you want? I’m finished with you lot.”
One of them simply knocked him unconscious and dragged him outside.
As he regained consciousness, he got up and saw his house and his field in flames. The woman, screaming, was dragged into a cart with barred windows and a Wolfpack soldier ran past carrying the ruby. As the Wolfpack departed, his dream ended.
Green Fox woke up and screamed.
“J’ANRYA!!!”
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