The Witness pulled the hammer back from the splintered and beaten gate of the fort of Lord Famm. It did not come easily, having lodged firmly in its steel-reinforced oaken panels, but he pulled it out and peered into the hole that he had created. He saw men with swords, some half-dressed in armor and mail, shouting and running about in confusion. He saw the panic, the fear among the defenders, and then he saw one of them peer back at him. The peerer's eye was blue and curious. The Witness stepped back in surprise.
In an instant he swung the hammer back at the gate, and blasted another hole in the splintering barrier. The armed men of the village, who gathered all around him on the slope below the grey fort and whose own weapons included clubs, torches, scythes, and their own small knives, cheered once again. They cheered every blow. Finally the gate broke open. Parts of it fell to the left and parts fell to the right, and the remains that hung from the huge iron hinges were no barrier at all. All around The Witness a roar went up from the men, and he himself led the charge into the inner yard of the fort. This dusty enclosure, where chickens and pigs often wandered about, was surrounded by the grey walls and inner buildings of the fort. There was the horse stall, the barracks, the well, and the more ornate house of the Lord Famm, which was no less dusty than the rest of the fort.
The Witness pushed aside the first of the dismounted horsemen who attacked him as he entered the inner yard of the fort. The man, who wore a steel helmet and a dark tunic, had been waiting beside the gate with his sword ready, but he had not struck quickly enough. Perhaps the sight of the giant was too much for him, perhaps he had seen the hammer's short work in the village and knew that his own death was imminent. The Witness pushed him down with a great sweep of the hand, while holding the hammer in the other hand, and his poorly armed villagers engaged Lord Famm's mercenaries. Famm's men were skilled with swords and axes, and the villagers of Scoms were not fighters. The first to fall was an older man whose youngest son had fled to the mountains and whose daughters had nine children between them. The Witness saw him lunge at a swordsman with a large club for his weapon, only to be sidestepped and cut down. Next came one of Famm's men: his sword was wrested away from him and the villagers hacked wildly at him as he tried to shield himself. It seemed to the Witness that Famm's men might beat the villagers: they fought with more skill, with better weapons, and at least equal bravery.
That would have been the old story. The villagers would have been driven off even if they had somehow come to the fort (which they would not have done) and somehow broken through the gate (which they certainly would not have done). The few mercenaries hired by Lord Famm would have been sufficient to fight off the attack and drive the land-toilers back to the village. Then, when word had been sent south to the neighboring lords (whose own land-toilers were very much like the land-toilers of Scoms) a coordinated attack would have spelled the final defeat of the land-toilers. Then would begin the trials and retribution, the hangings, the return to the old balance of things, and the obscuring of memory. The children would be told by survivors in the village of how the foolish men who rose up were killed, how the village was burned, how the Lord Famm walked the cowed mass in his bright armor and blue flesh, and how the words of the priests extolled the virtues of obedience, honor, and subservience to the rightful way of things. That was all how things would have happened, and that is what the priest would have said, except that he had been turned into a giant, and he had led the charge on the fort, and he had seen the truth. He saw the visions even now.
The Witness pushed one swordsman down, and as that man stood up the Witness buried the hammer in his chest. The blow that flung him backward again, into the wall, and left him crumpled at its foot. A villager crept up to the still man, slipped the unused sword from his hand, and offered it to The Witness, who did not want it. He would have said so, but he could not think of the words. He just shook his head and held up the hammer, which was dark with blood. Then he looked out across the inner yard of the fort, and he saw that the dozen swordsmen were indeed holding his villagers at bay, and that the nearest of the fort's inner buildings was already on fire -- it looked to be the barracks -- and he saw that the day was clear and the air was light and the hammer seemed alive in his hand.
He sickened at the sight of the dead and the wounded, the hacked limbs, the bloodied faces, the brains that leaked from the head of a man whose family still waited in the village, the guts that spilled from another pale villager who lay still alive and weeping at the feet of one of Famm's swordsmen. He saw the blood on his own hammer, and these sights combined to fill his throat with what seemed a choking sensation, a need to cough up the bile of death and horror. But as it traveled up his throat and took shape, as it became a cry, he let himself become lost. He staggered, and a roar poured out him ragged and soaring, capturing all who heard it. All the men in the fort turned to look at him, and he held up the hammer high, for all to see, and he wound up the cry with a sense of power that seemed to flow from him like a river. Like the mighty Prava, life-giving and unstoppable.
The Witness leaped at the nearest of Famm's swordsmen, who had felled three of the villagers himself, and he seized the man by the arm in which he held his bloody sword. This he snapped with little effort. The Witness then smashed his head in with the hammer. He then flung the body up into the air and his own strength astonished him. He had no fear now, and leaped to the foot of the steps that ran up to the parapet. Here he brained another swordsman who faltered before him, and this one too he flung into the air like a clump of dirt. He shouted in triumph, exultant, his hammer held up high overhead, and his men came alive. They fought like demons now. Famm's confused men now tried to run. They came down in a swarm of knives and clubs, their own stolen swords, and angry grasping hands.
A sharp pain exploded in the Witness's back. He reached around to feel the shaft of an arrow protruding from him. He turned around on the steps and saw that up on the parapet, hiding at the very end and notching another arrow into his bow, was a young man whose hair was long and blonde, and who tried to hide himself behind a wooden plank. The Witness called out to him. "Boy! Come here. Give me the bow!"
The archer aimed straight at the Witness. He pulled the arrow back hard against the string and the bow bent to his strength.
The Witness climbed the steps. The hammer shimmered in his hand, the pain in his back burned.
"Put it down boy," The Witness said. "Do not die today. Not like this. You can join us! Be one of us! The Wood needs you! Let the land breathe you in, let it be your blood and your soul! Do like I have done!"
The boy loosed the arrow. It buried itself in The Witness's chest, and The Witness nearly fell backward with surprise and shock. The boy's nervousness became a mad laughter, and he clambered up onto the dirty grey wall, away from the Witness, who looked down at the arrow and leaned back against the wall. His men, who had been watching from the yard, now streamed up the steps toward where he stood. They had killed Famm's men, and the barracks building was in flames, and the horses in the stable were rioting with fear. The dead were twenty or more, and their blood leaked into the soil.
The boy danced along the top of the wall, but he saw immediately that the parapet on the other side of the gate had already fallen to the angry villagers, who started to jeer him. They stepped up onto the wall themselves, with swords, and down below waited others, who picked up rocks and threw them at the boy. His terror quickly became overwhelming. He ran back along the wall toward the Witness, then stopped and looked behind him, where two villagers with clubs now trailed precariously a few steps behind. Rocks flew past him from below, then hit him. Once, glancingly, then a second one solidly. He threw up his arms, crying out, and a foot slipped out from under him. He toppled backward off the wall, shrieking as he went. The villagers came after him, and the Witness did not see how they killed him. His cries ended quickly, and a cheer went up from below.
The Witness's strength seemed an endless reservoir. He put his hand on the arrow shaft, which protruded from his chest below his neck, and he began to slowly twist it back and forth. The pain rose and fell with his twists, but he bore it silently. He felt a sharp jab, then a another, and he winced as he pulled the arrow whole from his body. Blood poured from the wound, but he did not care. He snapped the arrow in half and threw it down. His men cheered again, and he descended the steps from the parapet. Waving his hammer over his head, he ran to the main house, and his men followed with their torches and their new swords. They stormed into the house, into the long dark corridors of the ancient place, and they ripped the furnishings from the rooms, the tapestries from the cold stone walls, and smashed everything that was peaceful and decorative.
Then shouts came from the courtyard. Come Witness, they cried. Look what we have done!
* * *
The villagers had captured Famm and his family in the courtyard as they tried to flee. The wagon had come speeding from a hidden place within the fort, and one man (who now stood proudly aside) had leapt into it and attacked the driver, who was Lord Famm himself. They had overturned the wagon only after the capture, in a show of enthusiasm. A dozen men excitedly recounted the story to The Witness.
Lady Famm held her children close to her, all crying and fearful beside the overturned wagon. Her long white hair tressed carefully, her blue face rigid as she begged for their lives. Villagers worked to cut the horses free. The Lord Famm himself lay dying in the dirt, clutching at his guts. His blue face bruised and beaten. Villagers lurked near him. Ready to finish him off.
"What are you, giant?" Famm asked. "Why have you come here? Why have you chosen me?"
"I was a priest, Famm. You remember. I was your priest. Then I went into the forest and the spirits found me. They showed me the truth, the past, what is real and remains so. I saw it! I have been made holy, and turned into a warrior to free Thane."
Famm studied him coldly.
"No, Tare, you have not been made holy. You have fallen under the sway of the demon. You are deranged, and the heretics of the village follow you as they would any giant. There is a God you know. The demon might cloud out God's light briefly, but it cannot make God cease to be."
The Witness did not intervene as the villagers killed him. He ordered that the family be held in safety. They might make good hostages, he thought.
* * *
The wailing of the villagers did not cease. When the fires in the village were finally put out and the dead collected, they wept. They cleaned the wounds of those who survived the battle, and they wept still for the dead. The Witness's heart was with them, but he could not share their sorrow. All those who died would join the Wood, and all the pain in the world would be erased for them. But for the living, the sons and daughters who stood in tears beside their mothers' knees, the women whose lives were cast forever into the dust, the parents whose sons now lay lifeless among the heroes, there could be no erasure. They looked to the Witness for hope on this black day, and he offered them the vision. He told them of the visions, the transformation, the call of the Wood, and his own faith.
"There are no more Masters!" He told them. "Free people do not have masters! There are only Devils! And I will not rest until they are gone! In this hour we must consign our friends to memory, to the Wheel, to the spirits of the forest, and we must take solace in those things. The Old Belief came down to us from the beginning of time. We can feel the power of the Wood growing again, restoring again! We must spread the word now. We must go to the villages, to the farms, to the castles of the traitor lords! We must go with fire and sword! Drive the Devils and their slaves out of the land! Destroy the false church that calls itself True! Freedom! Faith! I promise! Who will follow?"
They cheered him there, at the foot of Famm's hill. The manor house burned behind him. The people of Scoms cheered their leader, the giant, and they saw the future with him. He held his hammer high.
