Vigild crouched in a cluster of shrubs, staying low and silent. Before him was a small farmstead belonging to a family loyal to his father. Mostly loyal anyway.
A gang of lowborn griffons, perhaps twenty in number, skulked around the main hall of the settlement. They were unarmed and unarmoured, but covered in dust and sweat from the exertions of their training. Their trainer sat upon a barrel, the son of the tercel who owned the farmstead.
He was a few years older than Vigild, and stronger too. But he was a commoner, and played at war with his pathetic warband. Other hopefuls were always rising within and without the tribe, and now this would-be warlord had gathered his own friends and allies to be his warriors.
The words of the Herald remained in his mind. They were warriors that Vigild needed—and as much as he hated having to train his own host, waiting to poach this warband would be dangerous. He needed to crush this nuisance before it got too strong.
Vigild moved back through the scrub to where his own fighters sat ready. They were the sons of low-born warriors sworn to his father, and had in turn sworn themselves to him on the promise of future glories. Normally he would have avoided fraternizing with them, but the quest for power required certain sacrifices.
None of his dozen or so warriors had proper armour. Scavenged leather vests and padded coats were the norm, and one had tied cutting boards to his chest in an attempt to make a breastplate. Sticks, clubs and claws had to suffice for weapons. They did not want to damage their master’s new recruits.
Vigild took his helmet from the tercel who he had entrusted it to. It was old, with thick iron plates covering everything in a scowling visage. Fearsome spikes protruded from the crown making the helmet itself a useful weapon should the need arise. He placed the close-fitting armour onto his head and pulled the straps tight, feeling significantly braver with the metal mask over his face. He knew he did not have much to fear thanks to his own suit of chainmail, but the nervousness was still there. He had never faced a fight of any size without his brother at his side before.
He turned back towards the hamlet and moved forwards. His tercels followed him without a word, well understanding their master’s plan.
Vigild held up a talon to signal halt as they reached the last line of scrub. He let his talon rest reassuringly upon the pommel of his sword before grasping the wooden waster strapped beneath it.
He drew it with a shout, and all hell broke loose.
He and his warriors broke from cover and charged, yelling and hurling obscenities at their opponents. The gang reeled in confusion at the ambush as Vigild’s warriors struck out with their staves and claws. Their leader stood dumbfounded upon his barrel, unable to react.
They were outnumbered, and time was only on their side for a few moments.
Vigild lashed out with his waster, bludgeoning the first tercel to come up before him upon the head. The second he struck in the kidney with the reverse stroke. One of the gang leaped upon him, attempting to tear at him through his chain. Vigild only saw a flash of the arm of one of his warriors before the ganger was hauled him off and slammed against the ground with a muffled crunch.
His path was clear for a moment, a glance around him confirming that his warriors were holding off their opponents. His lowborn rival was open, vulnerable.
Vigild shouted a challenge and rushed through the gap towards his target, the tercel having found his wits and a woodcutter’s axe in the confusion.
The commoner swung the tool overhead and slammed it down upon Vigilds helm. His vision went dark, and his ears were set ringing by the tremendous impact. He did not remember falling to the ground, but now saw the commoner standing over him, axe raised to smash his helm in.
Vigild took the only option he could see, and thrust his waster up into his opponents groin. The commoner’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks as he dropped the axe in favour of clutching at his tercelhood. He toppled a moment later as Vigild rose, striking hard as he could at his opponent’s ankles and sweeping his legs out from under him.
The commoner had time to emit a strangled squawk before Vigild cracked his beak with the wooden blade of his weapon. He brought his waster down on the tercel again and again, smashing it down upon any part of his body that he exposed in his spasms.
“Mercy! Mercy please!” the commoner screamed, blood running from his cracked beak.
Vigild snarled and raised his waster up over the cowering tercels head. “You yield?”
Whimpering was his only response.
Vigild turned to where the once-brawling warriors stood, taking in the sight of the duel. His tercels had managed to corral their opponents as ordered, and only a few of the gang seemed badly injured.
He spread his wings and snarled. “You serve me now, all of you! Refuse and end up like your dear master here,” he said, punctuating the statement with a kick to the bloodied tercels ribs.
The commoners bowed their heads and muttered pledges of loyalty. Vigild smiled as the beaten tercels fell into line with his own. More than thirty warriors would follow him now, wherever he would lead them. The pathetic specimen at his feet would make a fine servant as well when his bones healed and hide knitted.
A rightfully humiliating fate for one so eager to rise against his betters.
- - -
Vigild’s host marched back into town as a bedraggled mob. The villagers stopped to watch them pass, dried blood and bruises decorating their hides. Vigild walked at the fore with a confident swagger. Behind him, the upstart was half-dragged, half-carried on the shoulders of two of Vigild’s cronies. He scanned the passers-by, smirking to himself as each refused to meet his gaze.
They were afraid of him now. This was good. A warlord needed to frighten his own subjects as much as his enemies if he wanted to stay on top.
The youth’s smirk fell into a frown as he approached his father's hall. There was a crowd gathered outside. Warriors, all wearing their swords. Vigild motioned for his troops to stop and advanced on the group. They parted for him, allowing him into the hall.
His father sat on his throne, moping as he had done for days. Another tercel stood a safe distance away, his posture ready for action and his sword in his hand.
“Go home, Gustave.” Eboric rumbled. “You are not worthy of being chieftain.”
The tercel spat on the floor. “I am not worthy? You have sat on that throne ever since the legion came and done nothing! Are we to follow a chieftain who will not even stand against the equines?!”
There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd outside. They watched carefully. Blood was to be spilled, and all needed to be present to witness the victor.
Vigild walked across the room and leaned back against the wall. Gustave glanced at him, and he returned a self-superior grin. This tercel was going to die. Perhaps a little bloodshed would help to bring his father out of his melancholy.
Gustave glanced back over his shoulder at the assembled warriors, then turned back to Eboric. He put another talon on his sword to try and hide his shaking.
“So be it.” The warrior whispered. He tensed for a moment, then flung himself at Eboric, his sword thrust two-handed for the chieftains heart.
Eboric slapped the sword aside with the back of his talon and rose from his throne, his face contorted into a mask of fury. He swung his other hand up into the tercel’s stomach faster than Vigild could follow. Gustaves eyes went wide and his sword clattered to the ground as his chieftain rammed the other talon home just below his ribcage.
He hefted the Gustave above his head, holding his victim high so that all could see. Then, he began to strain. Muscles rippled beneath his coat as he pulled Gustave in two ways at once, the tercel screaming as the chieftain’s talons tore down his belly until they came to rest upon his pelvis. Gustave’s entrails spilled out, falling over Eboric like grisly finery. Blood ran freely down his arms and stained his coat. But still he pulled.
The chieftain roared and gave one last mighty heave, and simply tore the tercel in two.
He dropped the twitching halves of his rival on the floor and snarled at his warriors. They recoiled, some bowing their heads to both avoid his gaze and his ire.
“I will hear no more of this. I am your chief, and I will treat any who say otherwise as I have treated Gustave.” He growled. “Now get out of my hall, you treacherous scum!”
The warriors turned and retreated as swiftly as they were able, almost falling over each other in their haste. Vigild faked a laugh, but he tasted bile in his mouth.
Vigild stayed quiet as Gustave’s corpse spasmed its last, blood congealing between the flagstones. He glanced up at Eboric, who sat moping on his throne once again. He pushed himself off the wall and walked to the blood-spattered ground before the throne.
“I am leaving for Angenholt, father.”
Eboric stayed silent. As still as if he were a statue.
“Father? Did you hear me?”
“Why?” Eboric rumbled. “Why must you desert me too?”
Vigild was taken aback. “I am going to win us glory, father!” He snapped.
Eboric lurched from his throne, grabbing his son's head between his bloodied talons and holding it up to his eye level.
“Glory?” he hissed. “I have won glory. I have won fear and respect. They are as worthless as a Cirrans’ promise.”
Vigild pulled himself from Eboric’s grasp, stepping back from the larger tercel. “You… You coward! I am going to strike against our enemies and you want me to—”
“Listen to me, damn you!” Eboric roared. “I am trying to save you from the heartache that glory has given me!”
“Father—”
“Enough!” he bellowed.
Eboric dropped back onto his throne. The fire was gone from his eyes again. Cold and empty, vacant and dead. “Just… leave.”
Vigild bared his teeth, venomous words at the tip of his tongue, but he thought better of it. True warriors won glory with their swords and armies, not their quills and words. He turned and stormed out of the longhouse, snatching his sword from beside the door as he went. If his father wished to remain a cowed, broken puppet, then so be it.
He found his warband quickly after. They sensed his bristling anger, and none dared to speak to him.
They had gathered their belongings, as ordered. Parcels of food, bags and waterskins were piled around the street end where they had settled in. The beaten tercels of the usurper’s warband were mixed in amongst those that Vigild had brought to fight, and the lowborn himself was sitting moping and bandaged at the outskirts of the congregation.
“Warriors!” Vigild barked. “We set off for Angenholt at once, by foot until we hit the Dales of the Ironborn. Gather your things and move.”
The collected tercels hurried to do as they were told, grabbing their packs and moving into a rough mob. As they marched off, some stole glances back at the village. A few turned out to watch them go. Family, some beloved hens. They looked afraid.
Vigild turned to the usurper, still sitting broken upon the ground.
“What is your name, lowborn?”
The beaten griffon lifted his head, regarding Vigild with one eye, the other swollen shut by bruising.
“Adal.” He answered.
“On your feet Adal. If we are late to Angenholt, you will suffer.”
The lowborn scoffed. “You want me to follow you? After what happened today?”
Vigild snarled. The whelp still defied him? He lunged forward and hauled the tercel up by the scruff of his neck, drawing a groan from his throat as the motion aggravated his injuries. “You will be my personal servant. Perhaps that will make you learn your place”
The young warlord shoved Adal towards the marching mob. “Go join the others,” he spat.
As the tercel limped off after the cohort, Vigild trailed behind. He dangled the amulet he had been given in a talon, watching the light reflect from its surface. His father was pathetic, his brother stolen and his mother dead. But he was stronger than them. He would be worthy of the glory that war would bring him. But he could not fight Cirra alone.
“Not long now…” he whispered to himself. “We shall see if this Magnus is as divine as they say…”