#henjak

stormrunner

The night is falling, the storm is closing in, and in the darkness around them rise shouts and crashes and the occasional flicker of a torch. The rain pours down, soaking through clothing and pooling in the makeshift embankments the crew are digging in frantic desperation. The noise and the torches draw closer. The invading force will be on them soon. They're out of time. "Jesper!" Hal calls. The lookout breaks away from his work stacking thorny brush and scrambles up the muddy slope to where Hal stands. There's been no time for care, and the brambles have left his arms bloody. Hal makes a note to ask Edvin to check over the barricade workers. Later. If they survive. "What is it, Hal?" There are no jokes in Jesper's voice now. The situation is too dire for that. "We can't hold out long," says Hal, and Jesper nods assent. This is a skirmishing brigade, not an invasion force, but whether they number a hundred or a thousand matters little when all they're facing is ten. The Herons can slow their advance, though. The hunter's road winds through a deep, narrow chasm just here, and the crew is dug in at its narrowest point, barring the way. If they can buy some time… "I need you to warn Hallasholm," says Hal. "What?" Jesper shakes his head. "I won't leave. Send… send Stefan." His voice cracks raw. "Please." Hal knows that if it had been Stefan he'd asked, he would be begging him to send Jesper. Please. "You're faster than Stefan." "Stig's better over distances than me," tries Jesper. He glances to the embankment, where Stefan is still piling thorns. His hands are bleeding too. "Hal. Please. Don't send me away." "I need Stig in the shield wall," says Hal, hardening his heart. "Follow the hunter's road and bring reinforcements. We need you, Jes." "Five miles," says Jesper, shucking his swordbelt and sheepskin vest, and Hal half-expects a complaint. His nerves are drawn cord-tight, and he thinks he might just slap his friend if he tries anything like that. But all Jesper says is, "I'll be back before you know it." He tries a smile, but it's tight and lopsided and shatters as he says, "Hal?' Hal cocks his head. "You'll be here when I get back. Promise. You'll all be here." He glances to Stefan again. "Promise me, Hal." Hal opens his mouth, not sure what he can say. It's not in him to make promises he can't keep. But Jesper is already running, slight figure vanishing into the rain and shadows.

Jesper runs hard, step after step after step, rocky path jarring up through his legs. The walls of the gorge cut high above him, dark against the night sky. He can't keep this pace up forever, but his crew is back there and he'll be damned if he's going to slow down. Jesper's been running to get away all his life. He won't break now that he's running for the lives of his friends. A stitch knots hard in his side. He pushes harder. The gorge ends, sharply, without warning, and the gale hits him like a blow. Jesper staggers sideways, almost loses his footing, pushes on. Thunder roars like army, like a ship's drum, like the crowd that lined the footrace course. Through the driving rain, he can almost see Henjak's rangy figure vanishing ahead, Tursgud's bulk looming at his side. The road slows, twisting and curving through sloping woods. Jesper leaves the track and pounds across the sodden ground, cutting through the bends and turns. His feet skid on mud and leaves. One boot catches a tree root and he goes down hard, rolling in the dirt, all the air driven out of him. His head slams against a stone and he thinks he can hear Tursgud laughing, just as he had years ago when Jesper tumbled over the finish line bare seconds too late. But Tursgud is dead, and Henjak now, too, spitted on a sword in western Arrida, and Jesper has no time for imagination. He scrambles back up and keeps going, blood and rain in his eyes. Step after step after step.

He doesn't know how long he's been running, how far he's come. Not far enough. He is nothing but breath and thunder and aching bones, and he runs. Behind him he thinks he hears cries, carried on the wind, and the clashing noise of battle. Stupid. No sound could get over the howl of the gale. There are other voices in the storm, or maybe in his head, and other Jespers running, on cobbles and grass and sand and stone.

Stop, thief!

Is that Anye's boy?

Blast second! He can still win!

I'll break your fingers, you little—

Get him!

A whirlpool of shouts, of pounding feet and exhaustion and terror, and none of that was ever as important as this. Because it's not his life he's running for. He's soaked through to the skin. His arms don't feel like they'll ever be warm again, but his chest burns. The world shatters white. Lighting spears the sky to a tree not twenty metres away, and the roar of thunder splits the air. Jesper pitches forward in the sudden clamour, all bearings gone, falling through solid sound until he crumples into a ditch. The urge to lie there and never move again is almost overwhelming, but he can almost see the figure of Henjak vanishing into the rain, and he can't let Hal down. He staggers to his feet and follows. Tursgud is laughing again behind his eyes. Too fucking slow, gutter bastard, he says, looking down at a sprawled body in front of the cheering brotherbands. Jesper can't let him be right.

Step after step after step and every bone feels loose, every muscle choked with sand. Jesper's breath tastes of iron. Tursgud is running alongside him now, sixteen and easy, lit by the bright sunshine of a Hallasholm spring. You'll never make it, he says as Jesper stumbles, catches himself on both palms, pushes onwards. "You're dead," he gasps into the teeth of the wind. Tursgud just gives a shark's grin and draws ahead, just as he did all those years ago, fading into the shadow. If Jesper is going mad, there's no time for that either.

The ground begins to rise, sloping upwards under his staggering feet, and Jesper almost sobs. He falls again, gets up with torn hands and bloody knees, fighting the winds and his own failing strength and Henjak's pity, Tursgud's scorn. Step. Step. And he crests the hill.

There, glittering through the dark and lashing rain, are the lights of Hallasholm. Still maybe half a mile yet, but this desperate journey has an end in sight. The lamps burn steady on the walls, and as Jesper pulls in a burning, shuddering breath, the wind turns.

And backs.

The wind streams down towards Hallasholm and Jesper sprints with it, long downhill strides with the gale at his back. He runs in the wings of the storm. He's almost to the wall. A shadow flickers beside him. Dark eyes, shark smile, bulky boxer's shoulders, slowly dropping behind as Jesper runs. And then Tursgud is gone.

The gate stands a little ajar. On this wild night the guard on duty has probably sloped off to the keep, hiding from the rain. Jesper slips through and pounds down the silent streets, the occasional flash of lamps through a shutter adding to the there-and-gone moonlight. He cuts into one of the worse neighbourhoods — familiar territory. There's more light in the windows here, and as Jesper passes the gaping mouth of an alley a man stumbles out, reeling and stinking of ale, groping fingers clutching at Jesper's shirt. Jesper drops a shoulder and catches him in the chest, sends him sprawling. By the time the man has clambered back to his feet he is already gone. One last turn, and the moonlight spatters through the clouds and over the wide, cobbled street leading to the Oberjarl's hall. In the flickering silver glow, Jesper thinks he sees a shape, lanky limbs and smiling golden face.

Henjak raises a fist in salute and steps aside to let him pass.

****