The War-Dance of Yon Had

The drums were beating. 

The harvest festival was in full swing, and Yon was at the center of it, dancing on the old wooden stage with his friends. The lad smiled at Marten, twirling a laughing Willa across the varnished planks. Family in all but blood. He loved them, as he loved the golden wheat fields and proud cabins and wild woods of his home. Tilltop was his very heart. 

Old Henrik teased him about it often, but Yon didn’t care. 
“You haven’t even seen a two-horse town to lay this dump against.” 
“True, you’re the only horse’s ass around here.”
They smiled, and returned to their lutes.

The planting was hard, the threshing was hard, the milling was hard, but the place was special. And today’s festival was even more special than usual, because there was a guest. 

Trade Counselor Maloren was a member of House Dimir itself, the first to set foot in Tilltop since its founding, and so it was no question that he be given the place of honor. He smiled benignly upon the traditional celebration, seated with poise on the alderman’s chair. Yon noticed he ate very little, and in fact looked slightly pale even in the warmth of the bonfire. He excused himself along with his guard, reserved and polite, but Yon only had a moment to worry about the impression Tilltop was making on the noble before he was whisked away to the Duels. 

The exhibition ran until everyone had a turn or the mead ran out. Usually the latter. And this year he would no longer be relegated with the strummers, but be part of the main event. Henrik had, after much pleading, been training Yon for months. He needed the practice. Caul Halverson was a year older, a hand taller, and a stone heavier. In life they didn’t have much to say to each other. They would misunderstand each other, stumbling through awkward conversations, getting in each other’s way. But combat was its own language, and Yon fancied they were both quite fluent. They fought in the Circle every year, and Yon bore the scars which told of his losses. But he was the only one who had come close, and this year would be his. He grinned broadly, feeling the pleasant thrum he always did when he strapped on his armor, his younger cousin Kaz helping him don. It was strange for a lad who was mostly a farmer, but he felt naked without it. His father’s shield, his mother’s sword. There was a whisper he heard every time he passed by the mantle where they hung, on the way to some chore or another for Henrik. That whisper grew to a pleasant hum as his hand closed around the hilt. The crowd parted before him and he stood across the stage from his rival, matching smiles. They were strangers, as much as two people from Tilltop could be, but in the Circle they knew each other. They understood. 

The hum grew louder still as Yon drew his blade, and as he swung it seemed to sing. Satisfied with the balance, he began to circle, Caul matching his movements in a languid dance. Yon believed that much of the fight was decided before blades were crossed. They studied each other, staring long and hard, before Caul’s sword flashed out and slammed into Yon’s ribs. He wheezed as he was knocked flat, all his breath driven out of his lungs. Perhaps the moments after blades crossed were also decisive. He flopped onto his front and scrambled up, readying his blade. A Circle match in exhibition lasted until one side forfeited. This fight wasn’t over until he said so. 

Caul was already swinging at Yon’s face, evidently wanting to keep him on the backfoot. Yon stepped in, taking the strike on his padded shoulder instead and slamming into Caul’s chest. Tackling him felt like tackling an oak, with similar results. Caul shoved him back, giving better than he got, and Yon only just found his footing in time to parry a thrust aimed at his stomach. He warmed to the task now, ignoring his bruises, beginning to catch Caul’s sword on his shield, and making probing jabs at his ankles. The older boy batted his sword aside and surged forward, Yon’s shield barely blocking a teeth-breaking blow. He leapt back, jabbing to stave off Caul’s ox-like approach. He had always been implacable, but had gotten much, much faster since last year. 

The crowd’s cheers erased both sharp pains and dull aches, and joined the blood pounding in his ears. Yon grinned, and immediately lunged forward. Swords clashed, each clang like a sweet bell ringing. Yon bashed his shield into Caul’s, and again, and again, no less rhythmic or forceful than the festival drums. Yon believed that bigger men were unaccustomed to smaller men showing aggression, and he would use this to unbalance his opponent. Caul frowned, the broad face showing a vague consternation, before his sword flicked past Yon’s guard, smashing his wrist with the flat of the blade. His family blade fell to the ground. He wanted more than anything to howl in pain, to clutch his twitching wrist, but Caul was moving again. 

Yon launched himself to the side in desperation, only managing enough strength to twist around Caul’s blade, his head hung low as he fumbled for the sword. Past the stinging sweat, he glimpsed a frayed leather strap holding an iron rondel to Halverson’s knee. He gave in to his exhaustion for just a moment, bringing his sword and all his weight down on that strap. The small iron piece hit the boards with a clunk, and one savage kick later Yon was beside it, his mother’s sword lost again. His entire body aching, Yon allowed himself one bloody smile, and punched Caul in the side of the knee with all his remaining strength. With an ox-like bellow the larger boy joined him in the dust, and Yon was on him, shield in his hands, smashing at his rival like a madman, focused only on keeping Halverson on the ground. Each blow resounded in the boy, jolting through his arms, like a beating drum in his heart. He had the measure of him now, that exquisite knowledge only the fight could bring. Caul’s strength finally seemed to be diminishing; Yon was certain that one more blow would tell the tale-

“Guards! Guards! To arms! The granary!”

Trade Counselor Maloren’s shriek cut right through the music within and the crowd without, and the shield froze in midair, before a single glance between the boys had them rushing, falling over themselves, stumbling like drunkards, holding each other up from all their bruises, heading behind the others to the plume of smoke in the direction of the town’s lifeline. 

________________

The work of a year went up in smoke. And to salt the wound, Yosef and Dashiell were dead, stabbed from behind. Yon had never seen bodies so mangled, yet their faces looked oddly peaceful. Doubtless he would feel the same, dying to protect his people. He picked up their weapons reverently, still slightly out-of-breath from the duel. They were untouched, and anyway, Tilltop would need the arms. 

________________

“It was Vernwood. My guards saw the cowards slinking away into the night, torches lit, blades glistening with the blood of our countrymen! And now the winter will be coming. Oh, to live in such treacherous times!”

The trade counselor had looked wan, but now he was alarmingly pale, feverish and sweaty in the torchlight as he shrieked at Tilltop from the stage. 

“We must assemble! Our work must be avenged! Dimir! Dimir!” 

The town began to chant almost as one, no voice louder than Yon’s. “Yosef! Dashiell!” And the ringing beat of their cries seemed to follow the boy through the next weeks, hounding him as he became a man seemingly overnight in the arms and armor provided by House Dimir. Despite their grave purpose, he couldn’t help but smile when he looked at himself and his comrades. 

Willa notched a groove in her shield to fit her spear as Marten botched sharpening his sword, seeming to completely reverse Henrik’s instructions. Even young Kaz, his first buckler matching his first chin whisker – both in rough shape. Naturally, he wouldn’t be leading the charge any time soon. His job was to hold the pitch and arrows. Caul stood by the door, his armor meticulously checked, hammer over his shoulder. His worn axe fully sharpened, Henrik started to daub mud on his armor with a tired look in his eye. 

Yon thought him foolish. They were to be gone long before Verminwood could see them, and in any case, he wanted them to know who it was. That the little people couldn’t be trampled underfoot just like that. They marched east. 

________________

A war is like a dance. First the offer. A shy smile, a lingering look, an offered hand. One or two dead. Then the giddy walk, half stride and half bounce, onto the dance floor. A burned longhouse. An embrace, and the first furtive steps to the beat. Engagements in the field, the first sight of fresh blood. A full understanding of the rhythm now, and suddenly the new song seems familiar. The Vernwood cows, pigs, horses slaughtered. One step moves seamlessly into the next, foot following foot in sync or in a column. Then suddenly it grows, moving with the tempo. Charred schoolhouses, poisoned wells, torn families. But there can only be so much. The song must reach its screeching, crashing crescendo.

A grinning, ravenous form. His armor daubed with mud and blood in equal measure. Yon Had, serving the people of Tilltop, incandescent in his joy at fighting the vermin that had dared to threaten his town. Henrik’s face grew more lined. Kaz’ grew more worried. Caul’s face grew more grave. Yon’s only turned all the more eagerly to face battle. 

________________

It was six months in. Vernwood was surrounded by more ruins than hamlets, and expeditions went out nearly daily. Marten had been sent east, but also south, north, and even west. Scouting parties, ordered by Trade Counselor Maloren. Twisting treks into the hills, ostensibly searching for bands of raiders. Henrik thought that all of Tilltop could search those hills and find nothing, but Yon couldn’t care less. He had begun camping outside of the town, to practice alone and to be ready in case any of the Verminwood rats tried to sneak in again. Caul saw him most in those days, bringing food and sparring. He was the only one who could challenge him these days – Henrik and Marten both had the broken bones to prove it. Every time Yon led a raid they left a trail of corpses, lamentably not all Vernwood. It just fueled the man, adding notches to his father’s shield, adding a bright sheen to his mother’s sword, brilliant from use. In the brief moments he considered his future, he gazed with both eyes wide at an eternal path to glory. It seemed he would never cease to burn. Until one night.

They were going for a church. A store of goods and weapons disguised as a church, anyway. Maloren’s daring infiltrators had confirmed that the only belief this sanctuary was meant to inspire was a belief in Tilltop that Verminwood served any power but themselves. Well, Yon believed that truth was a scouring flame, and Vernwood was about to become very truthful indeed. He loaded up an extra sack of pitch on his little cousin, pretending to listen to some blathering about burning a church. Kaz was a boy still, having torched half a village but still not seeing the light. The only thing that came from Verminwood was underhanded filth, night raids on the helpless. Henrik still had that cough, and his limp was worse. He talked often of retirement, of selling his meagre belongings and moving to Splinterpost. Couldn’t he see that this dance was almost over? Yon was certain that without this stockpile, Vernwood wouldn’t be able to continue. Then they could all relax, enjoying a harvest festival on the captured riches of their enemies. The rest could, at any rate. He had been brought into Trade Counselor Maloren’s inner circle, helping to plan raids, and he was certain that the counselor would take him along once he was finally able to return to House Dimir proper. The thought made him beam, and he looked at his counterpart, tilting his head toward the others. 

“They just don’t understand, do they, Caul?”
The big man looked at him a moment, and shrugged.
“I’m not sure I understand you either, Yon.”

The grass was dry underfoot as they slowly made their way by moonlight. Yon was quiet as a shadow, and Caul was deliberate in making every footfall silent, but Marten’s nervous steps were as loud as horns to his ears. He even thought he heard Willa saying prayers under her breath. Willa, who had more blood on her hands than any of them after that business at the pass! Ridiculous. He scoffed as the silhouettes of the town inched closer, and bared his teeth, nearly slavering as the beating in his heart tattooed a rhythm to march to. He loosened his blade in the scabbard- 

Kaz made a very strange noise. Suddenly the fields were a mass of wriggling, running shapes, screams in the darkness until everything was bathed in an incandescent light. Somehow the pitch had been ignited, and there was a shriek to pierce Yon’s ears for every night he had left. He swung wildly, the wails grating on his mind like high-strung violins, bringing down mass after mass in the flailing torchlight, his fear fueling his anger. He saw Caul laying about with his hammer, taking on three assailants at once. He saw Marten and Willa, clustered together, attempting to stave off a group as they edged toward the fields. And he saw Henrik.

The old man had always been reluctant to pick up arms, even to train his ward. Even to defend his home. He always said that some deaths come quick and some slow, but that none were so gruesome as a death in war. But now he raised his axe. Watching him flash past a guard and slash a second, third, fourth – it set the drumbeat of Yon’s heart to an even tempo. In the instant that is a lifetime in combat, he thought that he had never truly understood how calming Henrik had been. How much he had relied on the old man. And, seeing him hemmed in, he knew he would never get that chance. Henrik batted one spear aside and leaned past a second, but his leg betrayed him where his arms had not, and he stumbled for a moment. He never got another. The spears rose and fell, and Yon let loose a scream to match Kaz’, but it seemed like he would not outlive his mentor. 

The first strike he parried, dodging a second but caught in the side by a third. His father’s shield suddenly seemed much heavier, and he dropped it to compensate. His sword remained in place, though, in a guard taught to him by Henrik. He smiled, dazed at the thought of him. Then a red gash cut through his world, and he was stabbing and slashing wantonly, blood running down his face and into his mouth. He tried to wipe his face, and cried out at the jolt of pain running from his fingers into his right eye. Yon spat blood at his foes, and charged before his world went dark.

Time passed.

A thrum ran throughout his body. His fingers twitched in… rhythm? Rhythm. He heard… music. That seemed familiar, drawing him out of the inky black where his mind had been. He had been a musician, once. He had played… and he had danced. The thought of movement brought a sharp pain all over his body, and he gasped audibly, almost wishing to lie back, to let his fatigue take him just to stop the hurt. The blood pounded in his ears, though, and it gave him the sensation of drums. Drums of pain and drums of plenty. Drums in times gone past. The song of war drums mixed with the music of the harvest festival, and for a second light came into the darkness where his eye had been. He rose, and continued on.