The Nature of Heroes

Jak Owinsson stood upon the edge of the forest looking down on the military encampment below. He had finally made it. After two days of travel, he had found the camp of the Battlehawks; the most respected mercenary company in all of Kendar. He would finally be able to join the war and leave his boring farm life behind.

In his sixteen years of life, he had always dreamed of becoming a hero like the ones from the stories. So far, it had been an uninspiring beginning. On his two days of walking from Harnan Vale, he had encountered no bandits, no damsels in distress, not even so much as a wagon stuck in the road to start Jak on his way to herodom. But, then again, he supposed not every story had to begin with epic action and auspicious signs. At the very least he had left Harnan Vale and Erryl Crick far behind.

Not that there was anything wrong with either place, Jak supposed. It was all fine for men like his father, simple men with simple goals in simple lives. Men who wanted nothing more out of life than a farm and a family. Well, anyone who wanted such a life was welcome to it, but Jak meant to be something more. Something special.

All his life, Jak had been the biggest strongest boy in Erryl Crick, maybe even all of Harnan Vale. He routinely beat the other boys in wrestling and sparring with sticks. Even if they were not much in the way of competition, he had still shown himself to be worth more than a simple back country life. He could feel it in himself, something great waiting to come out. He knew deep down he was meant to be like one of the great stories. Maybe even as great as Cedric the Charmer himself.

And true, in all likelihood, he would not marry a princess or some high lady, but it would certainly still be better than what waited for him in Erryl Crick. His mother had her heart set on him marrying Ethel Cooper from Tares Hill, farther up the valley. Now, Ethel was nice enough, but she was gangly as a stick figure and had hair like straw. Jak had had enough of straw for his lifetime. Plus, her teeth were crooked. No, he knew he could do better; especially once he made a name for the bards to sing.

Jak started down the hillside toward the camp. Green and white tents sat in rigid, precise lines in the fields around the hilltop that sat across from the fords of the river Wendle. A palisade surrounded the larger tents on top of the hill. Likely, that was where the officers of the company had set their command. Earthen works and a long ditch protected the rest of the camp. Open spaces were visible between sections of tents where men could gather and practice the arts of war. Jak could not wait to join them there and prove himself. He joined the line of men that stood out from the entrance to the camp; a slim bridge of earth over the ditch that led to a small breach in the earthen works. The whole point of the camp’s position here was that this was the only place to cross the Wendle for almost twenty miles in either direction.

Jak stood there for what seemed like forever. Finally, he found himself standing before a small desk of oak, behind which sat a large man with a bored expression, writing in a large ledger. When Jak reached the front of the line, the large man barely glanced up before asking for his name and his credentials. Jak tried to be bold when he spoke but found he was stammering out something about Erryl Crick and this being his first time joining a military company. The man simply gestured told the open field to his left and muttered about presenting himself to the sergeant there.

Jak walked over, a little in awe of what was going on around him. This was a real military camp. These men were soldiers, hard men who fought for glory and loyalty and their own place in the stories.

He reached the field and his awe died quickly. There must be some mistake, the men, no boys, he saw around him were not the stuff of stories. They flailed around with wooden swords and blunt spears. They barely landed blows and the ones they did land were soft and almost listless.

This was not where Jak belonged.

After asking around a bit, Jak found the sergeant, a man called Baric. He presented himself to the man and tried to sound confident about it. He was dismissed almost immediately and told to join a group that had an odd number of trainees.

Jak joined the group he had been told to join and waited with the others. None of them seemed interested in talking. Half seemed too nervous to look anywhere but their feet; the other half stared around haughtily, as if everyone else were scum under their boots. Jak hoped he did not seem like either sort. In the stories, the heroes were always confident, but no aloof. Courteous, but not shy nor meek. He stood with his shoulders back and his hands tucked into his belt, doing his best to affect an air of confident placidity.

A man soon approached them. He was a tall, lean man, with a pointed black goatee and bored looking eyes. The man was named Sint. Jak was not sure if that was his first name or his last, but it seemed to suit him somehow. He spent as little time as he could explaining the exercises they were to perform, where to find their practice weapons, and how long they were to keep at it (until they were told to stop, as it turns out). After that he simply stalked off, his mouth twisting as if finally done with some unappealing chore.

When Sint was gone, one of the other boys finally spoke, “You all know who that was, right?” He looked around expectantly at the rest of them.

“Who?” Jak asked when no one else seemed likely to do it.

“Sour Sint,” the other boy replied, staring back at Jak as though he expected the name to scare him. When Jak made no motion of recognition, the boy added, “He took four knights prisoner by himself at the battle of the Kriltop. Didn’t even ransom them, just executed them after the fighting was done.” He looked around with a leer on his face as if looking for a reaction to pounce on.

Two of the nervous looking boys paled at the mention of the act, and the first boy’s leer grew. He looked as if he was going to say something new, but another boy spoke up. This boy was almost as tall as Jak, though much heavier and not with muscle.

“Enough,” he said in a voice that was too high for such a large boy. “We had better get started or we’ll have the sergeant to worry about.”

After that, they went to one of the equipment wagons that ringed the field, donned their practice gear, and began to run through the drills. When the sergeant finally called an end to training for the day, Jak hated how relieved he was to find his assigned tent and sleep the night away.

The next week followed much the same pattern. A morning meal of hard bread and harder meat. Hours of training followed by another meal of hard bread and harder meat. More training followed until sundown, when they were allowed another meal of slightly softer bread and slightly better meat.

Jak learned more about his training mates over the course of the week. The first boy, whose name was Tef, turned out to not be as bad as he had seemed. Tef liked to talk, mostly of how his father had been a soldier and his destiny was to continue the family business of war. The fat boy, Mully, was nice enough and extremely focused on training. He worked as hard as anyone and after a week, he had lost a noticeable slice off his belly. One of the nervous boys was named Loring. He also had a father who had been a soldier, but unlike Tef, his father had hated war and raised his son to find another line of work. Unfortunately, Loring was not good at any of the trades he had tried, and finally, he had given in and joined the Battlehawks.

After a week of training, all across the training field the wild swings and soft taps had turned into, if not precise, certainly more accurate jabs and hacks. Even the more reticent of the fighters was putting weight and effort into each swing. Jak still considered himself above most of these trainees, but he was no longer certain he was the best of them. Tef was a tenacious fighter and he would often leave bruises bone deep, whether he struck armor or not. Mully, despite being large and slow, was a patient fighter who waited for the right opportunity to land a heavy-handed blow that make a man’s head ring for days. Even Loring proved himself capable of at least competency, though a lot of that had to do with the strategy of fighting that they were learning.

Jak had always thought of fighting as one man against another, a battle being made up of hundreds of these little fights. But what they were learning was different. They fought in pairs against pairs, each trainee paired with a shield mate. One would bear a large shield called a wall shield, while the other used a spear or sword from behind. The shield bearer would defend and the spearman would attack, when presented with an opportunity. The jabs and hacks they were taught were crude, if incredibly effective and easy to execute. It was not the picture of gracious sword fighting he had always pictured from the stories.

On the seventh day, Sergeant Baric began walking between groups of trainees, speaking to several of each trainees, and then moving on. When he reached Jak’s group, he watched them drill for a few minutes before pointing to Jak, Mully, Tef and Loring and motioning them aside.

“You four,” he began as soon as they were close enough to him, “are ready, or at least as ready as you’re like to be. Report to Spear Company Four before dinner.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode off to the next group.

Jak hardly listened as the other boys began to talk excitedly as they walked off the training ground. This was it, the time for Jak to begin his real story. His own legend was beginning now.

They reported to their new commanding officer, a Lieutenant named Alric, He was a man of average height, average build and above average age. His face was craggy with wrinkles, the lower half covered by a hoary thatch of a beard.

The food here was better than the fare during training, and for once the boys were happy for more. After his second plate, Tef tapped Jak on the shoulder, jittery excitement lighting up his face.

“Come on,” he whispered, eagerly. “You’ve got to see this.”

Jak looked at Mully and Loring, wondering why Tef had singled him out. Loring was tucking into his third serving of dinner and Mully was half asleep over his mug of ale. Shrugging, Jak got up and followed Tef. They strode past the section where their company camped and toward the center of camp. They approached a campfire with a smaller circle sitting around it, but a large crowd standing around them. Jak wondered if there was some kind of fight or contest going on, but when he got closer he was even more surprised.

“Galen Greenspear!” Tef whispered again in his ear. Not that Jak needed to be told who this man was. Galen was seated across the fire from where they stood. He was a tall, well-built man, with long dark hair, flowing to his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven and his eyes glowed with merriment and confidence. This man was on of the most celebrated heroes of the last ten years. Jak had not even known that he was riding with the Battlehawks. Next to him sat a dark-skinned man with a shaved head and two sword hilts sticking up over his shoulders. There was only one man in Kendar with that shade of skin; this had to be Toren Dal. The stories said Dal had the fastest sword in all the Southern Sands.

Jak mentioned this quietly to Tef, who nodded quickly and pointed to the man on the other side of Galen. “Lowen the Loser!” Jak noticed the lion engraved on the man’s breastplate and knew Tef was right. Lowen was one of the most renowned knights in the land. Once he had been called Lowen the Lion, but his penchant for choosing the wrong side in any battle had overshadowed his own personal prowess.

Galen was in the middle of telling a tale when they arrived. As he approached the end, Jak realized it was the tale of Killian Kingkiller. A fine story about one of the best knights of the last half-century who had killed the current king, Crestor’s, father, who had been a terrible despot. Of course, the story left out how that act of heroism had sparked the current war of succession between Crestor and his brother, Polac. A minor detail anyway.

Galen had just finished the tale with the usual line of “Killian, a true hero!” when another voice spoke up from the near side of the fire.

“A fine hero, and dead before thirty, like all those other heroes.” Everyone turned their attention to the man, most of them sneering at his comment. It turned out the speaker was their own company Lieutenant, Alric. Galen did not seem at all put out by the interruption, however.

“Ah, Alric,” he said almost condescendingly, “always the same stance on these tales. Always knocking brave men for their great deeds.” He smiled around at the onlookers, as if indulging them in a shared joke.

“Its not the deeds I knock, it’s the foolhardy ways they spend their lives in the doing of those deeds that I take issue with.” Alric spoke well for such a ragged looking man. “All I mean is a little prudence would have served those men better than their eagerness to earn their place in history. I have no objection to bravery when it is called for, but foolishness will always earn my scorn.”

Galen’s smile slipped a bit at that. He seemed close to saying something biting in return, but instead, he smiled again. “Bravery when it is called for you say? And what would you know of bravery, Alric?” He looked around at the crowd again. “Alric here,” he gestured to the bearded man, “had run from more fights than any man here!” The crowd burst into laughter at that, as Alric’s face turned red.

“If I’ve run from so many fights its ‘cause I’ve lived long enough to see so many.” Alric said it simply, not as a retort, but a mere statement of fact. But Galen seized on the admission.

“He does not even deny that he runs when the battle turns against him!” Galen trumpeted, smiling broadly, though the smile no longer seemed so nice. If he expected Alric to back down, he was to be disappointed.

“Aye, I’ve run,” Alric said, “when the battles were hopeless. All those heroes you love, they fought past the point of sense, past the point when the battle was unwinnable. All for a place in the songs.” He glared around the fire daring a man to call him wrong. “But I’ve also stood when the fight was hard. I held the line with Toric the Elder and Younger Toric after him. I held it with Honig himself, before he was Headless.” Some men around the fire were nodding along now, seeing the sense in what he said. Jak found it hard to disagree but he also had a hard time believing any of those heroes he had worshipped his whole life were fools.

“Yes, you held the line,” admitted Galen, standing now to look down on Alric. “And here you are, still in the line, while all those better men went on to glory and now their names are sung across the land.”

“Aye,” said Alric, standing himself, though he still had to look up to meet Galen’s eyes. “They went on. To glory and an early grave. Personally, I’d rather be late to mine.” He stared at Galen for a beat before stalking off into the night.

Once Alric was gone, Galen and his entourage moved away as well and the onlookers were left to seek their beds. Jak and Tef went back to their own tent, neither saying a word. Jak was surprised by the pensive look on Tef’s face. He’d never considered Tef to much of a thinker. They hit their cots heavily, Mully and Loring already snoring away, and fell quickly into sleep.

The dawn came fast, and the trumpet call to arms came soon after. Jak and his tent mates donned their new armor, given to them the day before, and hurried to join the ranks as they assemble along the field between the ditch and the fords of the Wendle.

The ranks of Spear Company Four found themselves along the eastern edge of the ford. The enemy ranks were already marching toward the ford on the other side of the river. There were at least several thousand. The Battlehawks fielded almost two thousand foot and another five hundred cavalries. The cavalry would not be needed unless the shieldwall failed to hold the ford. This was unlikely. It was plain to Jak that they held the better ground. They were uphill and out of the water. The enemy would have to fight uphill in muddy ground after making their way across the unsteady footing of the ford.

The battle started faster than Jak had expected. The enemy simply came on despite the unfavorable field. Jak was several lines back of the front line. It would be some time after the first clash before his line was called forward to relieve the men in front of them. The sun was rising on their right as the two front lines met. Tef was several men down the line, Mully was directly to his right, with Loring on his left as his shield mate. It was difficult to see what was happening over the head high shields of the ranks in front of his.

Time seemed to pass strangely, one minute he was standing, almost bored, and the next his rank was being called forward. The horn sound for the rotation of men came loud across the morning air and they were thrust into the front line. The fighting was almost to the water line now. The ground was all churned mud now and the enemy were right there in front of him. He relied on his training, trusting his shield mate, waiting for his openings before stabbing out with his spear. The first time it came back red he almost retched. But he reminded himself this was war, fought down his gorge and willed his stomach to stillness.

Before Jak knew it, the horn call sounded and his turn was done for now. He rotated out and allowed himself to breathe. It was hard, trying to keep his spear out of his line of sight so he would not see the gore and blood on it. His turn came again and again as morning turned into afternoon. It was not the glorious warfare he had anticipated; it was more like butchery than anything else.

Suddenly, another horn call rang out, but it was not the Battlehawks horns. It came from the east. Orders rang out for the ranks to turn east, but Jak, in his inexperience, was caught between staying to face the enemy and turning with the others. Tef was suddenly beside him turning him east. Over the rise, a long line of heavy cavalry rode down on the invested infantry of the Battlehawks.

Chaos reigned. The infantry ranks shattered. Jak found himself standing amidst the thundering horses and dying men, wondering how he had ever wanted any of this. A man standing next to him was spitted on a spear by a passing horseman, at an angle that pierced the ground and left him propped him up like a blood-covered scarecrow, his eyes goggling at the three feet of spear haft sticking out of his stomach, the light slowly leaving them.

Jak ran.

He headed for the forest to the west. The forest that would hide him as he fled toward home. He could not fight it any longer. All he wanted was to go home. He dodged horses and men, occasionally swinging his spear or throwing up his shield to protect himself; but mostly he ran.

The thundering sound of hoofbeats sounded behind Jak, seeming to follow him no matter how he zigged and zagged. At last, he turned and threw up his shield, hoping to catch the oncoming blow.

But the blow never came. The horseman flashed past him and was gone; no spear in his hand. Jak looked lowered his shield to see Alric standing in front of him, a spearpoint standing out of his chest.

“R-run, boy. Run” Alrics rasped out before falling to his knees, dead eyes still staring at Jak. If it were not for the chaos and death around him, Jak would have kept staring at Alric’s dead body, but he took the dead man’s words to heart and turned to run again.

As he ran, he saw other horrible sights. Mully dead from several gaping wounds. Loring pierced with arrows. Tef trampled into the mud; hoofprints littered his back. He saw Galen atop his horse surrounded by pikemen who eventually pulled him down and he was lost in the mud and blood. Toren Dal fighting several men at once with great skill, until a spear thrust through the knee hobbled him. He was dead seconds later. Lowen the Loser lay in the mud with blood pouring from beneath his helm. A glance over his shoulder showed the command tents on the hill being abandoned and a group of several hundred horsemen fleeing to the south.

Against all odds, Jak reached the edge of the woods, the exact spot he had been standing on when he first looked down on the camp. With a last look he turned and fled deeper into the trees. As he ran, he thought about what Alric had said about heroes, coming to the conclusion that there were Heroes and heroes. Galen was a Hero. He died young and the songs would sing of his deeds. But were those deeds any greater than Alric’s? Alric had saved his life. He was a hero. No songs would sing of that.

But Jak would always remember.

The only thing left to ponder, was what would Jak do now?

He would go home. Go home and become a farmer and live a simple life. Maybe even marry Ethel Cooper. After all, she wasn’t bad looking. Sure, she was skinny, but strong too. He’d seen her hauling water enough time to know, hadn’t he? Her hair was like straw but in the sun light it glinted like gold, didn’t it? And her teeth weren’t crooked exactly. Not even, but still charming in their way.

Yes, he would go home and live a simple, safe life.