The following excerpt is from a rather long chapter I wrote for Kingdom Rules when it was in its infancy. I removed this chapter from the final version and adapted it into a short story for later publication. I’m releasing it in several parts as part of a blog series.
Mind you, it’s not a polished version—I will make changes and edits before formal release. I’m also thinking about some different ways to offer it on the website somehow. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted along the way.
Without further adieus, I present Isgaut Monster III.
Isi picked what he guessed was the fastest pony and pointed it toward Edelina’s farm. Isi paid Ansell a small amount of coinage to keep him informed of any men entering the tavern looking for him. It was not much, and he knew Ansell would turn on him for more coinage, which he did. However, he gave Isi a head start as he promised he would.
Ansell spent more time talking to Skeggi, Osvald, and Hakon than necessary. The confrontation was of his own doing, saving his own ass first, but allowing Isi enough time to steal a horse and go. He hoped Isi would leave town and not toward Edelina’s, where he might steal whatever his dirty hands could grab. Despite losing her husband, she survived his death by brewing the best ale in the area, making her an admired member of the community. Edelina had risen above the shit storm and didn’t need the Isi’s of the world in her life.
Isi gambled there was time, at least a few more days, even a day would have been enough, but it was not to be. The gig was up when his tormentor from Iziadrock entered his life once more through the door of the Iron Spear.
Bursting through the door of Edelina’s cruck house, Isi went straight to where the coinage was. He jumped up the stairs and into the loft only to find the bearskin rug pulled off the straw mattress, and the hole holding the jar of coins—gold and silver, was empty.
“What are you looking for, Askel,” said Edelina from below the loft, “or is that really your name?”
“Edelina,” said Isi, “I was looking for you.”
“More like looking for the jar. There was coinage missing from the jar. I don’t suppose you know what happened to it?”
“I can explain. I borrowed the coinage to invest in a local fishing expedition. They said it would double in value based on their haul, but they needed just a few more coins. The money coming back would have helped you. It was a gift from me to say thank you.”
“You lying bastard. Your mother was a whore, and they hung your father, a small-dicked thief. The same will happen to you.”
Isi lept down from the loft, causing Edelina to take a step back. Not thinking about what might come next, she brought no weapon. Even a shovel would have worked, but the three she owned were outside. Isi was not a large man, but he was still bigger than Edelina and an experienced fighter.
“Where is the jar, Edelina? Give me the contents and you’ll live.”
“I gave it to the farm across the way to hold.”
“You are a lying whore. Give me the jar, or I’ll hurt you.”
“It’s not here.”
Isi closed the gap and trapped Edelina against the wall. Her smell only further enraged Isi, reminding him of all the times he bedded the woman, holding his breath, often almost vomiting.
“You odorous woman. You owe me all that coinage for the times I struggled to make you squeal like the pig you are. I had to think about other lovers while I endured the time I spent in your bed.”
Edelina was 12 years old again, and the tears began running down her cheeks. Soon she was sobbing and almost incoherent, inciting the rage in Isi like a spark sets a forest on fire. He had never dealt with a woman such as Edelina, not of much coinage, nor much beauty as well, and Isi raised his right hand and sent a strong backhand to her face, almost knocking the big-hipped woman to the floor.
“In the name of Vihesis, where’s the coinage?”
“Please, no, don’t hurt me. I don’t have it.”
Edelina covered her face with her arms as best she could, but Isi balled up his left fist and buried it into her ribs, cracking one. The blow caused her to double over and fall to the ground in sections. Legs, torso, and head all finding their way to the hard ground covered in straw. Isi began screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Where is it? I know you have it here somewhere. Tell me where you hid the jar, or I will continue to beat you until you can’t move anymore.”
“I told you,” screamed Edelina amidst the sobs, “I don’t have it here.”
The seasons spent out in the cold, the near misses, husbands chasing him naked across the countryside, swords and knives in his face, lack of food and clothing, whoring his own body just to eat, and on and on it went down the halls of his memory. Each door in the hallway opened to one more awful memory after another. Edelina never stood a chance at surviving the beating still to come.
“You are a pig in need of butchering. Now, where the fuck is it?”
“I don’t have it here,” sobbed Edelina, barely above a whisper.
Isi went berserk. He kneeled next to Edelina and strangled her with his hands. As he choked her, he began banging her head off the hard dirt floor, and the straw provided little protection against her brain being scrambled in her head like eggs in a skillet.
“Where—is—it?” Isi was bouncing Edelina’s head off the floor in between words. Blood puddled behind her head and a small amount trickled from her mouth down her chin. At last, her body went limp. In the split second, when the brain knows what has happened before the rest of the body, Isi realized he had killed Edelina.
Isi jumped back from the body as if being near it meant catching a deadly disease. After the adrenaline stopped rushing through his veins, he violently vomited the contents of his stomach onto the ground next to the body, sick at what he had done.
“What in the god’s names have I done?” mumbled Isi, too shocked to understand the nature of what he had done, but rationalizing it all the same. “I did not mean to kill the woman. I was only trying to scare her.”
Instinctively, Isi turned to what he knew best, getting out of tough situations fast. He found a torch outside, lit it and walked around the house, igniting the thatch roof on fire as he circled around to the door. Inside again, he threw the torch down, and the dry straw covering the floor was ablaze in no time, as were the curved oak beams.
The stolen horse was where he left it, and Isi thought his luck was changing. Hopping on the stolen courser, he put his boot into its ribs and followed the road out of the village, heading west. Before he could get the horse into a full gallop, he pulled up on the reins. There were voices. Three angry voices. His accusers from Iziadrock were fast approaching the house and screaming invective as they came.
Flames engulfed Edelina’s house, visible to all as the afternoon gave way to a darker evening. Isi took one look back at the blazing house, lighting up the early night sky, before putting his boot in the courser’s side. He was leaving behind Edelina’s dead body, her coinage and three angry men, short one horse, which Isi was using as his own.
No stranger to tight escapes, Isi put his head close to the horse’s neck and fled as fast as the courser would carry him. Five miles later, the horse and its rider stopped at a fork in the road near the edge of Ashul. One went due northwest, out of Flace and into the hard-cold lands of the Barbarians and their villages. Unless you were a trader with the Barbarian villagers, meeting these fierce and untrusting warriors on their land was as good as a death sentence. That was after torture and unspeakable abuse. The heaven’s forbid if you were a woman.
The other went west, ultimately leaving Ashul and finding its way to the various ports and harbors on the coastline of the Pusag Sea. There, amongst the comings and goings, a man could hide for extended periods of time before having to move on, beginning the cycle of running anew.
Isi climbed down off the stolen horse and slapped it on the ass, sending it on the road heading north and west to the Barbarians. There was no way he was going to outrun his pursuers for long. Isi’s pursuers knew their horses well, but Isi possessed limited skills in horse chases. Not to mention the three were more than a bit motivated to track him down and end his miserable life.
There was one last option for the longtime thief and first-time killer. Walk straight off the main road and enter a grassy valley with paths and minor roads and make his way to the towns along the Pusag sea. The downside was lack of food and water, something Isi was not unfamiliar with either. There were always other travelers who might show him a kindness or others he could steal from in the dark.
Isi covered over his footprints, hoping Skeggi, Throst, and Hakon would follow the hoof prints northwest, since there were none of his own in the soft dirt. The walking path was winding, working its way around a few hills, which put him on the outskirts of Ashul, west of its harbor. The route followed the cliffs from there until they gave way to flat grassland and a series of smaller ports and harbors, none as big as the one in Ashul, but good sized.
“Let’s get on with it,” said Isi into the cool air.