CHAPTER FIFTEEN:  THE WHOLE TRUTH

Live such that you need never fear the truth. Abide by this one rule, and you shall be incorruptible.
-Marius Profundus, 'Reflections'

The clouds were parting by the time Thea got to the church yard, but the earth was still a wet, muddy mess. All around Rouentz, the ground was littered with bodies - a hundred or so out beyond the palisade, the victims of Thea's and Cano's wrath, and another seventy or so inside the town. Of these, luckily, only fifteen were townsfolk. The other fifty-some being militia and mercenaries, many of them skewered with arrows, a dozen or so hacked to death by the townsfolk's often-improvised weapons, and another ten burnt to crispy chars in the churchyard. It didn't take much imagination to guess at who was responsible for that.

"What happened here?" Thea asked.

Matthias shrugged. "I did. I... I was pretty furious. And this, apparently, is one of those things I can do. When they started to get through, they came right for the church yard. I'm not sure if they knew there was a refuge here or just saw us guarding it, but whoever made it through the commons came here, and I was none too happy about it. The first one was an accident - I grabbed the man and lifted him up, and my hands turned to fire as he burned. And then, after that, I was just tossing fiery death out. The poor bastards didn't stand a chance."

Thea hugged him, pulling his head down to her bosom and running her fingers through his hair. Little embers flicked off the spent-coal gray of his dreadlock tips, but to Thea he never felt anything more than pleasantly warm. She could feel him trembling beneath her, but he relaxed to her touch.

"They had their chance when they decided to attack townsfolk who had done them no wrong - did they deserve to die?" Thea shrugged. "Maybe not, but they should have expected they might... I hope Maddie and Svilga are safe?" She already knew the answer, though. If he'd had the slightest doubt, Matthias would have plumbed the depths of the underearth looking for them. 

"They came out a minute before you arrived. I told them it was still dangerous, but I'm pretty sure they're out there stealing trinkets off of corpses." 

Meanwhile, Cano sprinted up the church stairwell to the ruined belfry and started frantically going through the rubble, tossing sizable chunks of timber and stone to the ground below. Heath approached from the ground and called up that he appreciated the sentiment, but had been more startled than actually injured. After the first lightning strike on the belfry, he'd rolled down the stairs and only earned a few bumps and bruises for his efforts. 

Larian was already at Heath's side, a poultice in her hand and nuzzling into his chin. Cano leapt down from the belfry ruin, thumping against the ground and rushing over to Heath's other side, kissing him full on the lips and then drawing both of the other two into a great big hug. And, moments later, the three of them were kissing and giggling and feeling one another up. 

Matthias rolled his eyes. "Kids." 

The invasion force had retreated in the aftermath of Quill's demise, routed by their leader's death, along with the death of nearly every soldier within fifty yards of him. They'd fled down the trade road and probably into the woods, from which they might make their way back to Nortsair (if they knew the way). Twenty-two of that retreating group had done an about-face and wandered back down the trade road that evening, a ragtag troop waving the white flag. They felt certain that Lord Myrdon would execute them after their unsuccessful campaign and liked their chances with the townsfolk they'd just wronged more than they did with Bestel Myrdon. Larian ordered them penned in the secure area at the base of the barely-begun keep, but there were too many of them to keep there for long. 

"What do we even do with them?" Thea asked. 

Larian shrugged. The two of them were at Swill Bill's, and Larian had just come down from 'seeing to Cano's burns' - which, if Thea was to judge from the thumping and groaning, must have involved some full-body medicine. "We could hold them somewhere. We could try them... I know that some of the villagers are crying out for blood..." 

"We can't let the loudest and angriest people dictate justice - they cannot have blood," Thea stated. "But still, the men have to be punished for their transgression." 

"There's a lot that needs to be done," Matthias said, having overheard their conversation. "There's more to punishment than jail, flogging, and time in the stocks." 

Thea nodded. "We'll sentence them to hard labor - food and shelter and forgiveness in exchange for building up what they helped damage, along with the tower and whatever new defenses we need. Whoever doesn't like that can spend a week or two in the stocks, and then we'll run them out of town." 

Rouentz only had a pair of stocks, usually reserved for drunken brawlers and people who beat their spouses or children... but they didn't even need those two. Every single one of the surrendering soldiers acquiesced to hard labor. To hear them tell it, they'd already been doing hard labor for Bestel Myrdon and were happy to be doing it for somebody who wasn't completely blasé about killing people and who didn't expect them to slave away for their entire, probably-short lives, at his beck. By the next morning, the prisoners were working away at the palisade and well on their way to repairing the thing - again. Thea was starting to suspect their defenses were cursed. The work gang had no weapons, were supervised and in the open, and would stay under lock at night, at least until they'd earned some trust.

Thea looked out among the working men, vaguely recalling the dream she'd had the night before. As always, her memory was perfect to the every detail... but it had been such a strange dream that she couldn't make sense of it. She'd been on a foamy beach, or perhaps underwater, with billowing algae wrapping around her limbs like tendrils, their long leaves blocking her vision. Then a pair of Jenny O' Fens had parted the vegetation like a curtain, and beyond them was Astrilla, sitting cross-legged in a giant clamshell as if in meditation. She cracked open an eye and spoke:

"Speak clear to youth, ere old ways ruin us all;
truth's anchored act shall stop the city's fall."

"Lay off the liquor before bedtime, I say," Cano remarked upon hearing about the dream.

"I have no idea, either," Larian said. "But it'd be naïve at this point to assume it meant nothing."

"Well chime in anytime if you've got any incisive insight beyond 'lay off the drink'," Thea said. 

The palisade had been completed around midday, and then the laborers took a break and then trudged over to the belfry, which would take substantially more time to repair. Thea watched the ex-militia hauling rocks in by the cartload while she discussed Rouentz's defenses with Larian and Cano. After Thea and Larian had attended to patients in the morning, the three of them had climbed to the roof of the carpentry house, as it was the highest structure in town still standing - the great hall had burned down and the belfry struck with two blasts of Lysander Quill's lightning. Thea still had uneasy feelings about being at the carpentry house... the cause of which she'd discussed with Matthias but nobody else. But she kept herself together and kept her mind focused on Rouentz's defenses and their multi-stage plan for making those defenses solid and workable. 

Cano pointed to a modest hill within the 100-yard clearing about the town. "We'll eventually want to encompass that hill into our perimeter," he said. "It's a good defensive position for a tower and close enough to right above the tunnels that we can dig down and add it as an access point once we've got the area secure." 

"Maybe in a few years' time," Thea agreed. "For now, we need to work on what we can do in the next few weeks, if we even have that long." 

"Weeks seems optimistic," Larian agreed. 

They would need to build walls eventually, too - stone walls with towers and a great big keep. But for now, their plan was to shore up the earthworks, build defenses and amenities into the tunnels, and to build more and better siege bows to skewer foes from afar. Larian also wanted to venture into the lower tunnels to see how big they were... and especially to gauge the mushroom situation. 

"There could be dozens of fungal varieties not seen for hundreds of years. Just think of all the salves and medicines I could make with access to those," she said, adding: "and poisons, obviously." 

Thea was looking forward to going down there with her for a little casual exploration, not to mention a few more hours of apothecarial training at Larian's side. She even found an outfit for the occasion, navy blue and sleek with rugged but form-fitting pants that, miraculously, didn't turn to a skirt within a few hours of her donning them. Instead, the material became softer and more flexible while retaining its strength, and the little denim satchel she found developed complex silvery sigils along its surface, looking like a proper apothecary's sack. The outfit was perfect. She was disappointed, then, that she got called away on more urgent matters while Larian and Heath ventured into the sub-tunnels without her. 

Larian had said that 'weeks' seemed optimistic, and she'd been right - though, presumably, she hadn't foreseen invaders riding up five minutes after their meeting. Thea was in her little room at the tavern considering how to accessorize her subterranean exploration outfit when the church bell, excavated from the ruins of the belfry and hung from an oak post just that morning, started chiming. Thea rushed to the nearest window and craned her head as far out and to the left as she could safely lean to spot the palisade. The bell was still ringing and, out near the eastern entrance, the gate guard was gesticulating wildly. 

"For the love of Astrilla," Thea sighed, and she dashed upstairs to change into her armor. 

+++++ 

The commotion at the gate had been caused by two Soenmen, riders from a much larger host. A few short minutes after their arrival, Theo Cooper (who’d been called 'Smart Theo' or 'Young Theo' until recently) came galloping along on his father's horse, shouting that they'd spotted a huge host of Soenmen in the hills beyond their homestead. And, realizing that the two mounted men at the gate were from that very host, the three of them milled around awkwardly, with Theo Cooper no doubt wondering whether he was about to be murdered at the town's entrance by scouts from the group of marauders he'd just fled. As it turned out, the Soenmen didn't have murder on their minds... not yet. 

There were only two men, scarcely a threat, so Matthias had the guards let them in. They were Soenmen runners - not the elite Runed Men who comprised the gentry of the warrior caste, but hard and seasoned soldiers nonetheless, their weather-worn faces a shade darker than their blond beards. They didn't seem overly concerned with being inside the gates in enemy territory, nor with encountering Matthias, a north-man tall enough that he banged his head against doorways with some regularity. 

"Welcome to Rouentz," Matthias said. "How can I help the Soenmen?" 

"You are Bestel Myrdon?" the man was already reaching for his axe. 

"I'm not," Matthias said. "My name is Matthias Mendic, and I'm no friend of his - and neither am I a friend of yours if your hand gets one inch closer to that axe."

The scout didn't seem amused, but he did draw his hand away from the weapon. His Aurilic was accented but fluent: "My lord, Rorik, son of Rurik Koenig, demands the surrender of Bestel Myrdon and the release of the Battle-Maiden Thea Thrice-Blessed. If we've not returned in an hour's time, Rorik's great host will storm your town, burn it to the ground, burn each homestead we encounter, kill whoever displeases him, and take the rest as thralls." 

Thea approached them, clad in her armor, the blue and navy scales of her reinforced blouse glittering like the waters of a glacial lake. "I am Thea Thrice-Blessed," she stated in perfect Soetic. "We fought Myrdon's lieutenant off and liberated this village - but, I'm sorry to say, Lord Myrdon is campaigning against the north-men many leagues away, so he'll not be surrendering today. I, too, would like to see his head tarred and on a pike, but it will have to wait. We'll ride out to Rorik now and speak with him before he gets antsy and starts razing perfectly serviceable farms." 

"Milady, I do not think..." the scout said. 

"Then let me do the thinking," Thea interrupted. She clucked with her tongue and Blotto trotted out from the stables and over to her, the brown filly eyeing the Soenmen warily. Thea mounted her and waited for Matthias to fetch his own horse. "Now... are you two going to show me the way or do I have to guess?" 

The scouts shared an uneasy glance and then led them past, following after them without any more debate. The four of them rode out the eastern gate - Thea, Matthias, and the two scouts, watched by half the townsfolk... very worried townsfolk who'd been through far too much of late and who might, it seemed, have more to make it through, and soon. They trotted at a decent pace to make it past the Cooper farm well before the hour, lest Rorik make good on his threat. It was perhaps five miles in total between Rouentz proper and the outermost edge of the Coopers' homestead, right along the southeast extent of the farms as they turned into hardscrabble hills and gentle valleys with their shrubs and wild orchards. 

Even from the far edge of the Graves farm before that, Thea could see smoke, and she was worried that the Soenmen were already on the rampage and torching everything in their way. But she soon saw that the smoke was more distant, from a hundred or more camping fires out among the hills – the fires of Rorik's very respectable army. They'd encamped along Lake Charnel, which was fed by the Charnel River, where Theo had nearly drowned as a young boy. The Soenmen had occupied one of the temporary settlements far past capacity, and had apparently stayed there the night before - there were dozens of tents, even more fires trailing ash-gray smoke into the sky, and several dozen horses grazing along the hillside. 

"That's quite an army," Matthias said. 

"Rorik is very eager to avenge his father," one of the scouts said. 

"And very eager to have you back, milady," said the other. 

Thea said nothing - she was thinking hard about how to diffuse the situation. It wasn't at all obvious - as well as the town had done against Lysander Quill and his three hundred fifty or so men, Rorik's army was several-fold larger and likely better-trained. And they were sure to have at least a few Runed Men - enough to give Cano and Heath all they could handle while the rest of the town's defenses were massively overpowered and overrun. Rouentz simply wasn't ready for an assault of this scale and might never be… so Thea had to make sure it didn't come to that. 

"I'm very eager to see Rorik again," she said eventually. She and Matthias shared a glance - it wasn't hard to guess what the koenig's son wanted from her. The same thing that Igna Battle-Blessed had wanted, even if Rorik had been a lot more genteel about it. 

The men at the site watched as they passed through the encampment to Rorik's tent, looking up from their meals, from their sharpening wheels, or from their various other battle preparations. Some of them were busy applying woad-blue runes to their skin - these didn't have the power of rune tattoos, but probably helped with mental preparation. Others were gathering bundles of torches and dipping them in the mixture of kerosene and sapper's oil the marauders liked for burning buildings to the ground. They must have had thousands of torches, enough for each man to carry a few. That meant they were deadly serious about reducing Rouentz to ashes. 

Finally, they approached Rorik's command within the greater encampment - the largest building in the small settlement, the size of a one-family farmhouse and fashioned from rough-hewn logs. Two banners featured prominently, large and billowing in the breeze: the jagged rune of Soenim - the blood god, the god of war, who lives beneath the mountain; and the ogre's fist crushing a skull, the symbol of Rurik Koenig's house. The blue and purple vapors of sorcerer's rituals wisped out from the house's little brick chimney. And the guards at the door, both of them Runed Men close to Matthias's height and slightly broader, were as still as statues. They said nothing as four of them approached, simply opening the door and giving Thea a bit more scrutiny than she was comfortable with - they reminded her of Igna's men.

When she and Matthias entered Rorik's command, he was consulting with the sorcerer, Erik Wyrlock – a shortish man, red-haired and with eyes nearly as green as Heath's. His beard was shorter than most Soenmen's, with runes scarred into his face and where no hair grew. Rorik stood a full head taller than the sorcerer, gangly with youth but his expression gravely serious, poring over a map while Erik cast runes across various parts.

"My runes tell me something hides here, my lord," Wyrlock said, pointing a stubby finger toward what must have been the ancient tunnel entrance, or close to it.

"Good - we'll station some men there, and some scouts. If it's a trap, we'll root it out, and if it's farmer's treasure?" He shrugged his lanky shoulders. "Better than no treasure at all."

"My lord, it would seem we have visitors..."

Rorik looked up to them and gaped in surprise. "Thea!" He cried out, and he rushed over to them, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. "I was sure they'd have killed you, or else sold you off to one of their evil little lords!" He pulled back and looked into her eyes, his smile so hopeful and genuine that Thea hated herself for having to disappoint him. "H- how did you escape?"

Thea shrugged out of his embrace and wandered over to the map. Erik Wyrlock snatched his runes from the table, eyeing her uncertainly. She'd gotten a good look at the bones, but had no idea how to interpret them.

"We defeated Bestel Myrdon's lieutenant and liberated the village, but the beastly man himself is campaigning far to the north. When your scouts rode in with your ultimatum, I thought to ply you with a bitter present."

Rorik stood behind her, on the verge of touching Thea, but reluctant to do so. "What sweeter present could there be than Thea Thrice-Blessed returned to us?"

"I'm glad you're sweet on me," she said, "because I'm about to offer you a present that all lords want, that few seldom get, and that those lucky few are deeply distraught for receiving."

"The truth," Rorik nodded. He was a clever boy. "Fine, let's have this bitter truth, then."

"Just the two of us," Thea said, glancing toward the sorcerer. 

Erik Wyrlock traced a finger along the scars of his cheek. "As the young lord's advisor and an expert in these parts, I must insist on offering my interpretation."

"I'm afraid he's right - I would be a fool to listen to hard truths without measured advice and a second opinion." Rorik was sensible enough - maybe even sensible enough to learn the truth.

"Then I stay, too," Matthias said – his Soetic was heavily-accented but decent.

Thea sat in one of Rorik's wicker chairs and gestured for him to do likewise. Rorik visibly considered refusing to but decided against such petulance. He sat across from her, his joy at her return suddenly replaced by nervous reservation. He was a lean man, only a year or two grown with a the sparse beard of a young man and a mere smattering of runic tattoos. He was young, but the look on his face suggested he was long used to speaking on important matters.

"Bestel Myrdon is a monster of a man. He's tried to kill me several times over – but he hasn't yet wronged you, Lord Rorik," Thea said.

Rorik laughed. "How can you say that? He..."

Thea held up her hand – it was an audaciously impertinent gesture, but she wasn't playing a very pertinent part at the moment. "Wait, Rorik, son of Rurik Koenig, and I'll tell you."

Matthias shot her an alarmed look. "Thea, you can't..."

"Rorik deserves to know the truth – and it's the only way we'll ever be able to rest easy. Otherwise, we'll chase after lies with worse lies. So here it is, Rorik: Bestel Myrdon didn't kill Igna Battle-Blessed, and nor did any of his men. No man at all killed Igna: I did."

Rorik laughed again – a mocking laugh. "You expect me to believe that all ten stone of you killed the Battle-Blessed? Even if you could have done such a thing – which you couldn't - why would you have?"

Thea took a deep breath and promised herself she wouldn't cry. "Because he raped me. When he took Rouentz, I tried to stop him because it's my village. I am not Soenmen: I was born here. I nearly drowned in the Charnel River just north of here when I was a child, less than a mile from where we sit now. And, yes, I speak like a Soenwoman and I can act and dress and fight like a Soenwoman, but I am not a Soenwoman. I bear neither you nor any south-man any ill will, except insofar as you would wrong us... and then I'll kill any man who would conquer my people, no matter how many runes he's tattooed with."

"Do you know what you're saying?" Rorik said. Suddenly, he didn't seem to be in a laughing mood.

Thea nodded. "It gets worse. I killed Igna and his men, and I could do so because I've been imbued with certain talents by Astrilla. I suppose you could say she's my patron goddess."

"There is no Astrilla," Erik Wyrlock stated. "Strange pagan demons and nothing more - this woman speaks witchcraft of the wickedest variety."

"Less wicked than sacrificing the unwilling to a god whose bloodlust cannot be slaked, Lord Wyrlock?" Thea said. "And, on that note, after I killed Igna and his men when he raped me, my friends and I went to Purgistok to rescue my other friend – the man with the golden armor, whom you'll no doubt remember. And, in the confusion, your father was stabbed in the legs by... whom exactly?"

"Accounts vary," Rorik said coolly. "Some said they were children... and I didn't believe that for a moment. Now, though, that seems plausible. Your nieces?"

"Matthias isn't really my brother, but they're his daughters. When he was lit ablaze, the girls thought their father had been killed and lost their senses. But we were all whisked away before they could kill Rurik."

"He might yet die," Erik Wyrlock said. "Ubba's medicine is as potent as his magic, but the great king's blood has gone to poison... I suspect it to be Soenim's wrath for allowing this travesty to happen. And yet your friend remains unburnt..."

"It was not my day to go to Soenim," Matthias said with a smirk.

"Enough!" Rorik snapped. He stood so abruptly that it knocked the chair over, and he looked down at Thea, tears brimming in his eyes. "Why are you telling me this? To mock me? To nettle me before the inevitable and your city is razed to a smoking cinder? Do you think I won't do it?"

"I think you can destroy Rouentz. My friends will fight you, and you might lose a hundred men. Maybe twice or three times that. But you'll win, and my people will be killed or enthralled before you. And then you'll burn a town of five hundred farmers and craftsmen and another few hundred homesteaders because… why? Because you're angry at me? If you want blood, then have mine, for I will admit to my crimes. And if you want an ally – and I'm sure you need them, young lord – I can offer you much more than a lifetime of blood sacrifices to Soenim can ever accomplish."

"Blasphemy!" Erik Wyrlock shouted. He stormed over to Thea and swung to slap her upside the face. But Matthias caught his wrist mere inches from Thea's cheek.

"Did they not teach you manners in sorcerer's school?" Matthias said in his accented Soetic. "It is improper to hit women. Not so hot to hit anybody, really."

Thea heard the hiss of boiling flesh and Erik screamed, pulling away from Matthias's grip. The bigger man's handprint was emblazoned upon his wrist as a deep red burn. "These are witches, my lord, and must be killed."

"Witches are to be tried, aren't they?" Rorik stated. The sorcerer didn't disagree. "Thea Thrice-Blessed and Matu Yronfist, I hereby charge you as witch and warlock... pass the trial, and I may not burn Rouentz village down and kill every last man, woman, and child in the place. Fail the trial... well, fail and you're a witch. What will it be."

Thea had been nearly certain that Astrilla had urged her to be honest with Rorik in her dream. The goddess had said: Speak clear to youth, ere old ways ruin us all, which surely must have meant to speak plainly and honestly to Rorik. And yet now the young lord was enraged and convinced that she was a witch... and that was probably a lethal combination. And yet, what could she do? It was either that or allow Rorik's army to advance on Rouentz with its thousand-plus men and their thousands of torches.

"I accept the trial," she said.

+++++

Thea had hoped that the trial would be a straightforward and fair dialectic. That she and Matthias might be questioned and otherwise examined and, not being witches, would be found to be innocent. The trial was straightforward... but fair? Not so much.

They were led by Rorik's Runed Men to the lapping shore of Lake Charnel while Erik Wyrlock donned his ceremonial attire. Matthias might have fought off his escort... Thea might have even fought off hers. The Runed Men were immensely powerful, but Thea and Matthias each had a few tricks at their beck. But then what? They might escape, and then Rorik's army would march on Rouentz and kill or enslave everybody. So they waited by the shore in the warm afternoon breeze, and dragonflies flitted about as if absolutely nothing was wrong - which, to them, Thea supposed, there wasn't. And as they waited, the Soenmen warriors gathered around them, eager to take in the spectacle. Thea increasingly questioned her decision to tell Rorik the truth. 

A minute later, Erik Wyrlock emerged from Rorik's cabin, dressed in ratty dark robes rattling with rune bones. He'd applied deep blue woad to his face, around his eyes and along the scars that dug patterned channels into his beard. He scowled at the two of them and marched out with Rorik right behind. The sorcerer hauled a clanking canvass sack over his shoulder, led them to a raft, and had two acolytes push them out into the lake. They coasted out perhaps fifteen yards before the raft eased to a stop and Erik addressed all those assembled:

"These two foreign-born are accused of witchcraft, of conspiring to kill Igna Jarl, the Battle Blessed, of desecrating Purgistok, of conspiring in the assassination attempt on Rurik Koenig, the Ogre-Fisted, and of blasphemy against great Soenim! I, Erik Wyrlock, appointed of Soenim by Venerated Ubba, name you, Thea and Matthias of Rouentz, as witches. What say you?"

"I have nothing to apologize for," Matthias said.

Thea cleared her throat and made eye contact with Rorik. "I am not foreign born, and I am no witch. I grew up bathing naked in these waters, and the bones of my ancestors lie in the cairns of these hills. Whatever talents I possess, they are granted by the gods and not by witchcraft or any dark conspiracies. And all I have done, I have done in honor - for friends and for freedom, and to stop the corrupt, the cruel, the warmongers. I do not fear judgment."

"Easily said," the sorcerer boomed. "But words are nothing. I hereby call upon Thielsklas to judge you. If you be a witch, he will not have you, and no matter how heavily you are weighted you will float. If you be guilty but not a witch, he will take you to Shivlheim where you will soak in the frigid dark forever in penance for your crimes, and if you be innocent? Then rejoice, for Valkiyr will carry you to Sturmborg, to feast with the great warriors." He turned to his acolytes and stated: "Commit them to these waters."

They clamped iron weights around Thea's ankles and pushed her into the cool water. She didn't float, of course - her shackles had to weigh at least two stone. And, as she sank into the waters of the lake, she thought: I'm about to die... but at least I'm not a witch!