Bearsarkr's Ride part 2

A almost direct sequel to the first part. There is an alternate version written from Rauda's point of view somewhere, but I cannot remember where. Wouldst the Redjay kindly link in comment when she reads this?
Intellectual property of myself. Jared G. Juckiewicz
Warnings, Violence, Blood, Torture, Shockingly NOT Alcohol, but some innuendo.


(Note. Recent Events are leading to Retconning most of the Accidental Vikingr tales set AFTER Outremer. This falls amongst those. Furthermore, to move more into keeping with the setting, certain character names are being changed. Sir Jared shall be referred to as Jehan, and Sir Javier [Where he appears] as Iuliano. Sorry...)




Had anyone been in a position to see into that sheltered glade in sherwood on that day, well. First, odds are they'd have been dead. Of the three people in the glade, the older of the two men was an accomplished woodsman, and if anything the woman present was more than his match. Not that she was paying excessively much attention to her surroundings. Her hair was matted and caked with dirt and sweat and blood, as were the red feathers tied into it. Her face too was caked with mud, almost thick enough to mask the tatoos of blue woad that marked it. In her hand however, she held a broadsword that was almost completely clean. Standing across from her in a makeshift ring was a young man, some half her age. He was as muddied as her, and he too held a broadsword. There was a distinct difference in attitude between the two. Whilst the woman seemed unconcerned, the boy facing her looked worried. All afternoon the two of them had fought, and he had yet to land a more than superficial blow. She on the other hand, had managed to knock him unconcious repeatedly. He thought that they wanted him to stay alive, amongst other things they had had plenty of chances to kill him so far, but every time he woke, he was handed back his blade, and shoved back into the ring.
To be fair, the older man, lounging around in his undertunic and watching, did keep yelling instructions at him, ways to fight better, so perhaps it was some form of training. If so, it was none he'd signed up for, or even wanted. He'd gone into the courier business to avoid combat, relying on fast legs and faster horses to keep him out of trouble. As he squared up for the next match, the old man spoke. 'Redjay, enough. The boy has mettle, and his form's not too bad. He can learn the rest on the road.' The woman lowered her sword and nodded agreement, but the boy did not relax quite yet. The old man spoke again, seeing this. 'You have my word you'll not come to harm by my hand. I suspect milady here will give you the same oath if you ask her to. We couldn't take you with us without knowing your mettle, and it would be black murder to ask you to follow us without knowing how to use your steel. But, enough of that. Dinner. When and What?'
The woman looked at him, with an irritated glint in her eyes. 'If you had thought to do something, rather than lying around watching, we might have had some ready. As it is, it looks to be travelling food.' Over a meal of cold pasties out of the travellers saddlebags, and some jerky and fruit supplied by the lady, they discussed plans. It turned out that the older man had once been a famous outlaw who went by the title of the Bearsark, or simply the Bear. The woman was the outlaw who had baited him away from serving in a city guard, the lady Rauda, who some called the Redjay. It had come as a bit of a surprise to the courier, Robert, when he had learned that he had been working for two of the most famous outlaws in recent history. It had also come as a bit of a shock to realise that this being discovered would likely cost him his head. Unfortuneately he could see no way out of his predicament bar going along with them.
So they discussed why the Redjay had sent for the Bear. It seemed that unrest was spreading through the english lands. Brigandry was on the rise, and the King and his nobles either would not, or perhaps could not, do anything about it. And whilst the Redjay and the Bear were outlaws, and had been, in their day, thiefs and reavers and vikings, they were honourable folk. And bored of their everyday lives. Whilst the Redjay had spent the past few years living wild in sherwood, and the Bear had spent a similar length of time living in a little village in scotland, they both longed for the thrill and joy of their old lives. So, if those who were bound to mantain order in the land would not do so, they would. And this was a goal that Robert was willing to support. As soon as all that was decided, it was all down to details. It was decided, that as the worst of the brigands were along the southern coast, they would head south. There was a village some half days ride that direction where they would stop for provisions, and see about learning the lay of the land. For whilst the Redjay and the Bear were still outlaws, and officialy still had a price on their heads, it had been so long since they had been active in Norman lands that only professional bounty hunters would recognize them.
The only fly in the ointment was that the Redjay did not have a horse. On the other hand, there are any number of estates on the boundaries of sherwood... In the dead of night, whilst the courier was asleep, the two outlaws crept off. Armed only with staves, they came to one of the lesser estates. The staves saw to the guards, and the horses were well-trained. Come the morning, the only proof that they had been there was a fine riding palfrey, fairly undistinguishable, missing, along with some unmarked tack. And each of the guards sported bruises and goose-eggs from well placed staff blows. Come dawn, the trio was riding south. And after almost a half days ride, they could see a dark smudge and distant glow on the horizon.
Robert wasn't sure what it was, but the other two did. They had seen it often enough, had been the cause often enough. They rode closer, until it was clear that the source of the glow was just over the next rise. As the two outlaws dismounted, a sharp order convinced Robert do likewise. The horses were picketed, and the three crept forward. As they reached the top of the rise, they saw the source of the glow. The village they had planned on provisioning at had been fired. The barns were little more than charred frames, and almost all of the houses were simple walls of blackened stone, the thatched roofs and anything inside burned completely away. Bodies could be seen lying in the square and some of the gardens, and women and children, their faces marred with tears and soot, could be seen wandering aimlessly. There were few men visible, and hardly a one of them was between fifteen and fifty. No young and pretty women could be seen at all.
The Redjay glanced at her longtime companion. 'Norsemen?' she whispered, and he whispered back. 'Doubt it. too far inland, too much destruction. And they left the church. Had it been true Norse they'd have fired it too.' He slid the axe none had seen him draw back into his belt and stood up. 'I think we've found our first brigands. Robert, bring the horses.' And on that, they headed into the ruins of the village. As they reached the outskirts, the outlaws began to examine the scene, leaving Robert to deal with the villagers when they were noticed. Whilst the Redjay examined what tracks could be found, the Bear looked at the bodies.
If you know what you be looking at, you can tell what caused a wound, and he had been fighting long enough that he knew what to look for. It was about what he expected. He found several arrow-wounds, the arrows clearly removed by the brigands after the fray. It made sense. Good arrow-heads could be expensive, and good arrows were hard to come by without an experienced fletcher. The rest of the wounds seemed to be mostly from axe or club, again, much as he expected. Unexpected however were the sword wounds. In most places swords were hideously expensive, and only knights and nobles routinely carried them. He and the Redjay only had theirs from his time amongst the guard and the events that ended that career, and their time amongst the Norse, where every man is expected to be well-armed.
As for the Redjay, she had been living by her wits for most of her life. Tracking was as natural for her as breathing, and she swiftly gathered a count. There had been about a score and a half of the brigands on foot, and one on horse. Again, surprisingly, the horse wore warshoes, which had been well-fitted, all things normally beyond the common brigand. It was but from his time in the Varangian guard that the Bear had been able to afford his, and the Redjay hadn't even tried. To make things even better, the bandits had left a clear trail. They had no fear, it seemed, no fear at all.
Meanwhilst, the village headman had approached Robert to ask his business. Forced to improvise, he started with the truth. 'My name is Robert.' After that he began to embellish. gesturing at the Bear, even now examining another corpse, 'My companions are Bernard Weftwork' (An alias Bear had been using to the north.) and then gesturing at the Redjay, currently kneeling and tasting the earth, 'and the lady will go by Red.' Simple and to the point, and he hadn't been expecting his companions to abandon him to the diplomatic tasks. He hadn't known them overly long. Diplomacy and tact, not their strong points. Craziness, a lack of concern for personal safety, and sheer berserk bloodthirsty viciousness, marginally more so. However, getting in stride, he began to elaborate. 'We're bandit hunters. It looks like you've had a problem with some of late.' By this point the surviving villagers had began to crowd round him.
Their agreements and complaints made his head spin, all cried out at once. He had great difficulty making things out of the hubbub. Killed my Man or my Husband, or a relation of some description was common. Took my wife or daughter or sister or niece was also common. Burnt barns and houses was obvious, but that didn't stop it being added to the clamour. Finally it grew too much even for his normally calm demeanour. 'All Right!' he yelled, 'We'll go after them, see what we can do. If we can recover anything, you'll have it.' Hearing this, the Redjay glanced up. 'Except some supplies. We need to make a living somehow.' Bear on the other hand, simply finished his examination of the corpses, and strode over to his horse. Most of his weapons he'd left in his packs, figuring he'd be fine with no more than an Axe and a knife for travelling. Now he belted his sword to his waist as well. 'The bodies are not long dead. they can't have been on the road more than an hour or so.' he said coldly.
He pointed out a few peasants who had died with steel in their hands, some even with blood coating the sickles and pitchforks still gripped in dead hands. 'They have wounded so they should be moving slow.' The Redjay laughed. 'The trail they left, I'll have no problem following. We should catch them by dusk'. This caught Robert by surprise. 'Dusk? We're mounted, and they're not. Surely we'll catch them sooner.' Redjay and the Bear both opened their mouths to reply, but the headman beat them to it. He was an old man, bent and stooped, but it was clear from what he was saying that he hadn't always been a peasant farmer. 'Can't track from horseback, son, not without hounds. You'll go on foot, and you'll go quick and quiet. They won't see you till your upon them.' Even as the old man said this, Bear was rubbing his maille and face with soot and ash and mud to keep it from shining, whilst Red the same thing. As they finished, and gestured at Robert to do the same, Bear drew some leather cords from his saddlebags, and lashed the legs of his hauberk tight to his legs to stop it jingling.
By the time Robert was suitably grimed, Bear was standing where the bandits trail left the circle of ruined buildings, sword, axe, and knife at his belt, and the great two-handed axe held loosely in his right hand. As he waited on his companions, he pawed the earth and shook his head, giving the impression of his name-sake. They set off, moving with the long, swinging stride that eats up the miles, a stride learned when crossing nigh on half a continent by foot. It only took a few miles for Robert to pick it up, and he found when he had that keeping pace became so much easier. His education continued, the two pointing out some of the more subtle signs, the threads caught on bush and twig, moisture pooling in a heelprint, the direction of bent and broken branches, all the things that told how long ago, and how quickly, and in what direction a quarry had gone past. It seemed to him that everything told his companions something, and to be fair, it was mostly true.
From what he was told, they were making good time, although it slowed when they came to a set of hills. 'tis harder to track in rocky ground, and the trail almost died a few times. Each time though, they found a sign. And this was good for their quarry was cunning. The trail was not straight, cutting from side to side, and in places looping back. There were places where the bandits had come across streams and followed them for a ways, walking in the bed to throw off pursuit, but even there, something had always shown them the way. As twilight began to set in, them having found their way into a forest by this point, they began to hear the sounds of a body of men and women. There was the sound of bawdy singing, and as the three of them drew nearer, the sound of sobbing and the crackling of a fire.
There, in a clearing, walled in by woven bramble bushes, they could see their quarry. The Score and a half was an accurate enough estimate, and there was a horse picketed at a trough. Whilst some were clearly wounded, bloodstained rags wrapped around legs or arms, none of the injuries looked to be serious. Half a dozen pretty young woman sat tied to stakes set in the ground, and they were the source of the weeping. The leader of the group was obvious, clad as he was in armour as good as, and slightly more modern than, that of the Bear. There was but one obvious way inside the ring of brambles, although there were a few places where a determined man, lightly loaded, could perhaps leap them, and a few stout limbs hung out over the obstacle. A brief reconnaissance and they had the information they needed to plan their assault.
They fell back for a spell, Stopping at a little brook not more than a mile from the bandit camp. There they ate, and drank, and the Bear cleaned his armour and his face. In the process, they hammered out a plan, and on the way back, Robert and the Redjay vanished into the trees. The Bear on the other hand, approached the gap in the bramble wall in plain sight. None noticed him until after he was standing in the opening, and had he willed it, he could have been amongst them before any could react. However, in his approach he had seen a few things that caused him to adjust his stance. Whilst they had been plotting their assault, several of the bandits had opted to have what they termed fun. As he had strode openly towards their camp, he had seen the condition of the women they had taken from the village, and now his blood was boiling. Clean death in combat was too good for such filth in his mind, and so, he changed the plan.
Gripping his greataxe in a guard position he thrust his head forward and roared, his head turning this way and that as he did, looking for all the world like the beast the Redjay had long ago named him for. Bandits glanced up, and the first of them came to their feet and rushed him. He countered by continuing to roar incoherently, and running straight for them, the Axe swinging back, and then around, the momentum cleaving the first of his foes, and spinning him neatly out of the way of the knife that would have spitted him. Even as he did, the first red-feathered arrows began to whizz out of the trees, with a noise like angry hornets. Knowing he could not take the odds he'd attracted, the Bear began to dance back, exactly as planned, whilst wrapped in the Bears heavy woolen cloak, and wielding a dirk, Robert crawled and cut, and dug his way through the bottom of the brambles, next to where the women were again staked.
The Bears assault had worked as expected, and even though he wasn't bothering to strike at the moment, concentrating entirely on defense, he had the attention of every bandit there bar those few with bows. They were peering up into the green forest canopy, praying they spotted the source of those lethal arrows, before said source found them. Sadly it was not to be, not that mattered particularly much to the archer who broke her drop. A quick downward thrust with her sword and he was down. By this point, Robert had a tunnel through the brambles, and he began to cut bonds, sending the women out through his passage and into the forest.
As soon as the Redjay began attacking from inside the ring, the Bear went back on the offensive. He used his axe like a quaterstaff, the haft cracking skulls and kneecaps and elbows, dropping as many bandits crippled or unconcious as the blade left dead. The Redjay had no such compunctions, and as soon as the last of the women was loose, neither did Robert. They fought side by side, supporting each other, and they were in far better position, seeing as they had managed to lift shields off the dead. The Bear twirled and spun, his blade seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once, but it wasn't possible for it to be enough. He took blow after blow, but most of them were stopped by his armour, and as for those that didn't, well he had been well named. He was never happier than when he had a blade in his hand and enough foes that something had to land on him. He was already bleeding from a score of cuts, nothing major, but already half their foes were down, some half a dozen with red-feathered arrows in them.
The fight, and his need to move with it had shifted him back round inside the circle, and he disengaged and sprinted to stand beside his comrades. They readied for the expected rush, but it never came. Instead, the bandit leader stepped forward, and drew a line in the dirt with his blade. He then discarded all his weapons bar his sword behind the line, and stepped forward. After a moment, the Bear too, drew a line in the earth. Having done this, he loosed his sword belt and dropped it on the ground, and released his axe, letting it fall back. He then unslung his shield from his back and stepped forward. As he did, the Redjay handed her sword to Robert, and picked up the Bears axe, Sympathy. There were few he trusted to wield that Axe, and she was one, perhaps the only one. They watched in silence, Robert and the bandits incredulous, the Redjay smirking slightly. She'd seen him do this before.
The two fighters bowed slightly, no reason not to be civil, even when one wishes ones foe dead, and the Bandit tapped his blade against the Bears shield boss. As soons as he had, the Bear rushed in, sliding the sword along the outside of his shield, and punching the bandit in the side of the head. The bandit staggered, shoving himself off the shield with his free hand to get some space. Having done so, he put both hands on his hilt, and spun the sword two handed at the Bear. It didn't land, for even as he began to swing, the Bear lept at him, throwing all his steel-clad weight behind his heavy oaken kite. The Bandit leader landed on the ground, the wind knocked out of him, and as the Bear pummeled him unconcious with his fist, the Redjay and Robert rushed the rest of the bandits. They head each gutted one when the Bear joined him, the bandit leaders sword clutched in his hand. 'My Sympathy!' he yelled petulantly, but his grin belied his tone.
It was all too much. Faced with three warriors who had already dropped nigh on a score for not more than superficial wounds, they broke and ran. The Bear didn't even try to pursue. He dropped his kite and his sword, and picked up a bandit bow and a quiver. The Redjay picked up her longbow from where it had fallen when she vaulted out the trees, and they both began to loose as swiftly as they could. Robert meanwhile, called to the Women to return, that it was safe, and as they weren't blind, they did. Safer by far to be with those who had hunted the bandits, than in the woods where those bandits were even now going to ground.
Within moments, there was not a bandit in sight that wasn't dead or unconcious, and whilst Robert attempted to tend to the womens injuries, not that there were many, bar bruises, the other two examined the corpses. They were deep in whispered debate when Robert finished his ministrations and approached them. they finished just as he reached them, and he heard Rauda come out with 'Fine. You can do that One. 'Tis true he deserves it. The rest to tell the tale though.' but she looked less than cheery. For once though, the Bear didn't care. He went round the clearing, and the dozen bandits who were simply unconcious he dragged over by the trough. They were bound hand and foot with rope found in the tents alongside the far end of the clearing from the 'gate' and then doused awake with water from the trough.
Robert was provided torches from the bandits supplies, and was sent to begin leading the women back to the village, with as much of the stolen food and drink as could be loaded on the horse. As soon as all the bandits were awake, and some took longer to wake than others, he strode over. He had removed his helm, and his bloodstained face and armour, and his grin gave him a distinctly feral look. His long red hair, and his height marked him as having norse blood, and now he looked nothing less than a bloodthirsty viking raider. He uttered one word. 'Why.' and before he got an answer, he grabbed the bandit leader and dragged him forward. His bonds were cut and he was ordered to remove his armour. He was then shoved to his knees and then onto his belly in the dirt, the Bear speaking the whole time. 'A Man does not kill without need or cause. A Man does not encourage others to do so. A Man knows honour and acts with it. You are no Man.' As he finished these words, Rauda handed him his knife, and she spoke. 'You sure about this Jehan?' She asked him, and his reply was to slit the mans tunic from bottom to top.
He continued to speak as he pulled the tunic wide, bearing the mans back. 'You were in command. The main fault is yours. Thus you shall be punished harshest.' And then the knife slid in, at the base of his neck, not deep enough to sever the spine, just enough to scrape against it. Jehan drew the knife down along the spine, for perhaps a foot and a half down. He then cut along the top and the bottom of the gash, and peeled the two flaps of muscle wide. As the bandit leader screamed in pain, Jehan continued to speak, his voice dry and loud enough to be heard above the screams. 'The Norse practice this punishment. It's called the Blood-Eagling. Wodin was fond of it. It's reserved for traitors and men without honour. Those for whom a swift death is too easy.' Rauda handed him his axe as he lay down the knife, Robert looking decidedly queasy, as were the other bandits. Most of the women were retching by this point, but Jehan didn't care or even notice. Holding Sympathy just below the head, he laced the fingers of his left hand through the exposed ribs, striking just hard enough to crack them but not hard enough to go through. A fews and he had pried up the left hand side, the ribs cracked and spread to the side, looking like the pinions of an Eagle. As he did the same on the other side of the spine, he described the procedure in the same dry clinical tone. As soon as the ribs were out of the way, he pulled out a fleshy sac, the lung, from each side of the spine, and draped it over the back.
As he finished this, he stared at the remaining bandits, who were white with terror. 'Relax', he told them. 'Only he will die like that', he said. 'The rest of you will even survive, to tell this tale.' And then he proceeded to see to his blades and armour, cleaning them and polishing them whilst the once proud bandit leader screamed his way to the grave. As soon as the screaming stopped, he began to untie the bandits one by one. Each one he had give oath to settle down and live a life within the law. And as soon as they all were loose, Rauda told them. 'This is the fate the Redjay and the Bear will dish out on those who prey on the helpless.' Between that, and the terror of their leaders execution, they fled instantly, and the rumours began to spread swiftly. The Redjay and The Bear have returned, and any who cross them will face death by their hands. Most of the goods the villagers had lost were returned, but things were tight enough that little could be spared for their saviours, who departed almost immediately.