A Servant of Two Masters

It’s the third night out from Scarborough toward Cottis, and despite spending the night under the sloping thatched roof of the huge, outlying; Clark & Sons farmyard barn, the added security of their three new Lord Urdurel guards and the comfort of Cookie’s large, covered wagon, the perpetually angry Fortu has another of his hyper-vivid dreams. Or perhaps, this time, it’s just a nightmare bound to the recent loss/theft of the three Briefadel mercenaries they’d saved months ago, combined with two distorted and disturbing memories…

After mercilessly cutting down the runaway soldier during Spider Murphy’s forest ambush, Fortu suddenly and inexplicably finds himself in a warm, sunlit glade, facing the beautiful Fey goddess; Estrid. They stand, face to face, eye to eye, mouths… lips just inches apart, close enough to kiss, yet her expression reveals a combination of consternation and confusion. 

"You slaughtered that defenceless human! He’d dropped his sword and surrendered. Surrendered! I don't see how a good person could do such a thing?"

Over Estrid’s pale shoulder, Fortu recognises a couple of armoured figures standing silently in the distance. The larger of them is male, beastial and warlike, while the other is feminine, refined but, perversely, also warlike. Of the two though, only the beast-like one is smiling with approval.

Eyes snapping open, Fortu hears those words echoing in his mind. But in truth, she hadn’t said them. She’d never said them. He had. They were his words, said months ago, to the eighth-Elf; Rifkin, when the goddess Estrid had ordered the merciless execution of four of the surrendered Human invaders of her glade.

Why then, had he murdered that unarmed and cowering soldier? What was the difference? What was his defence? Was it somehow morally justifiable when he did it but not when she had? Was it true for the beaten, bound and broken Wizard Moody too?

Glancing around the large, lantern-lit barn and his sleeping teammates, he becomes uncomfortably aware that he’d been far out of sight of the others when he’d caught up to that soldier and they’d never really questioned him on what’d happened. 

Fortu guessed that his teammates had assumed it was just a desperate encounter, man verses man, sword against sword but, for whatever reason, he’d not expanded upon that presumed falsehood or revealed the actual truth.

But what was the truth?

The truth was that soldier had laid in wait, with dozens of his sword-mates and crossbowmen, to ambush and kill him and his companions.

A greater truth was that the outclassed soldier had fled too late and raised his hands, only when cornered.

The absolute truth though, was that he’d butchered a defenceless young man after he’d dropped his sword in terror and unconditionally surrendered.

Wiping away the patina of sweat from his furrowed brow, Fortu silently asks himself the obvious question:

‘Was Estrid right to execute the surrendered men who’d invaded her glade and slaughtered her people, or was he just a hypocrite for doing the exact same thing, not just once now, but twice?!’

Then, the deeper and more profound one:

‘After all his of protestations, all his claims of honour and righteousness, despite his brutal, loveless upbringing; did he actually crave violence? Did he seek it out? Was he, in fact… an evil man?”