A gray light slipped into Saria's room to announce that morning had arrived. Hours ago. Her room was conveniently located in the direction in which the sun set, so that she could often spend days sleeping and going about her business throughout the evening and night. She wasn't particularly big on breakfast foods; she could live with a couple slices of bread and some kind of protein in her bag to go off for the day with a good book, or if she were lucky enough to happen upon a new one, a book of magic. She'd spend the day reading and trying to practice a little bit of it, but had so far only learned a few spells due to the lack of magic-based material at her disposal. 

That was better, she thought, than nothing. Her family was a simple type, farm people, in a village full of even more farm people. Everyone traded their produce to the neighboring villages for anything additional they might need that they couldn't craft. Everyone in the village seemed to be either crafty, handy, or sturdy. All things Saria was not. She was not frail, but she was not built to be farming and living off the land. She had heard of the cities and magical prowess of the other continent, and oftentimes wished she had been born there. Perhaps that was why Saria had decided to try to study magic, in secret, because she knew she would never truly last here. She would never survive in a farming culture. Eventually she would have to leave and venture out on her own, and if she had no one to go with her she would need to at least protect herself and have some sort of skill to bring. Being literate, while uncommon in her village, she did not think would be something incredibly useful outside of the Northlands. 

This afternoon in particular was a slow start for her. She had slept in quite late, past noon, and had slowly meandered through her home on her way to leave for the day. Her parents would have been gone since the sun rose, so there was no fear of them reprimanding her for her laziness. Before she left, she grabbed some slices of bread and cheese and wrapped them up in a cheesecloth, tucked it into one of the deeper pockets of her bag, and grabbed her newest magic book to bring along with her. Within the groups of traders that came through the Highlands, Saria could always manage to find someone to sell her some new book. It was one thing that made the place bearable, the travelers and traders who brought new things and new ideas through so often. But imagine, a place where people all around are from places all around the world! To live in a place like that, full of culture and knowledge, it must be so wonderful. She smiled to herself at the idea of a future in a different place, and opened the front door to leave. One day, I'll be out of this village. Shutting the front door behind her, she strode off toward the village centre to see if there were any fantastic visitors or travelers coming through the village today. 

"Pull, pull you sons of bitches!"

The shipmaster leaned hard on the steering oar, taking the Wind Dancer toward the soft sand of the beach.  The war galley bucked against the waves but then, with one more hard pull of the oars, the keel began to scrape against the shingle and slowly the galley came to rest in the shallow coastal water.  After tying the steering oar in place, the shipmaster went below the steering platform and emerged in a coat of mail, the links polished so they shone in the first rays of the dawn.  "Today, we show these soft men the truth of our ways.  Their thane refused to give justice to ours at the council, so now we will take it ourselves.  The village will show these men the cost of defiance!"

The men at the oars roared their acclaim and reached under the rowing benches dragging out swords and shields, axes and spears.  These were true men of the North, not those who were growing weak with complacency.  Each rower was a warrior, born to the sword and shield as their birthright.  Many lands could raise larger armies than the Men of the North, calling up farmers and tailors, tradesmen and merchants to stand in the line of battle.  But the Northmen were warriors, sword-born, and when they fought, it was with a savage love of slaughter, for nothing mattered so much in the North as silver and reputation.  Kill a great man in a fight and you are the greater for it, and can boast of that to friends and enemies alike.  War, raiding, it was all the same - a chance for plunder and glory.  One man among the rowers were glad to have been chosen for the voyage.  Aelle, son of Cerdic, a member of one of the nothernmost clans in the Highlands, had grown tired of the ceaseless border skirmishing in his own lands, knowing that a man would never make a name for himself in midnight skulking over borders for a handful of sheep.  So instead, he traveled south a week's time and joined one of the ships that prowled from the northern ports, raiding all along the coast of Canelux. 

Among the crew, there were few who could stand against Aelle in sparring, and his time on the oars have given him a powerful, explosive strength.  What many forgot was that he had a cunning intellect and a burning desire to command his own crews, to be a lord in his own right, with swords at his command and silver his to mete out.  So even as he served in the crew, he made it his business to prepare for that day.  He did not drink and whore away all his coin after a successful voyage and he never fought drunk.  Many of the men, when they knew they would be facing the butcher's yard of a shield wall battle, would drink to gather the courage to slam against the mass of men, shields, and blades that was prepared to grind them into dust.  The trouble was, courage or not, a man could not fight with speed or precision while reeling with mead, and so Aelle had made himself a reputation as a breaker of walls when he cut them down in their stupor.  That sort of name, a reputation as a fearless warrior, they were worth his weight in silver, and today, he hoped to add to that growing reputation.

He strapped his shield onto his left arm and followed his war lord Cwynr over the side of the ship into the low, taking his place at the shipmaster's right.  As they splashed up the shingle onto the rolling dunes of the beach, Aelle tapped the edge of his shield against Cwynr's forming the first part of a shield wall.  By standing to the right of his lord, Aelle's shield protected his lord's sword side when the battle was joined, as his sheild-brother to the right would protect Aelle's.  The crew, forty-eight men in all, formed two ranks on the beach, just beyond the surf, waiting to see if their landing was opposed.  When no beacons were lit and no men of the vill lined the low hill beyond the beach, the shipmaster bellowed for them to advance.  The wall dissolved and the men picked their way up the sandy slope toward the road cut through the hills that led to a village a few minute's march beyond, if the trader they had stopped a week before was to be believed.  "Cwynr, I will go ahead, scout the road, make sure we are not marching into a trap, lord.  Will you lend me two men?"  Aelle spoke with the confidence of a man assured of his own abilities, speaking with the seasoned warlord with the familiarity of an equal. 

The shipmaster looked over at him, squinting as the sun's rays reflected off the sea and into his eyes. Aelle had the makings of a war chief, the older man thought, even if he could be an insufferable bastard when he thought he was right.  Taller than most of the crew by nearly a head, he had a face that men trusted, even though his grey eyes spoke of a calm, detached coldness that Cwynr saw when he fought.  It was not the battle madness that many men felt, but a cold, calculated killing, favoring an efficient stroke over showy tricks that many champions favored to give the bards lines for their poems.  And despite his familiarity, a trait that would have seen most other men gutted and left on the sand, the shipmaster trusted his man.  "Go, take Aidan and Sigurd and don't do anything stupid."  He waved the younger man away and shook his head, remembering fondly the days when he was the eager young warrior looking to make his name.

The three set out ahead of the ragged band of Northern raiders, cresting the low coastal hill from which they could see the town.  It was not a terribly large village, Aelle thought, but the cattle looked healthy and the fields seemed well tended.  There would be wealth here, not enough to make them kings but enough to call the voyage a success.  The land for a mile in every direction was clear and the families of the village were only just starting to stir from their beds to finish the work of the harvest.  The barns must have been full to bursting, Aelle thought with a smile, and soon they would be either emptied or burned.  When the rest of the band caught up, Cwynr smiled, taking in the sight himself.  A village, ripe for plunder, and all the men already scattering to their fields.  The Maker could not be more kind.  Drawing his sword, the shipmaster  pointed at the village and bellowed a war cry to Deantoir before breaking into a run toward the first houses.

A rush of Northmen was a terrifying thing to witness.  They took to battle as they would a lover, with a passion unseen in Canelux.  Howling curses and prayers to their warrior god, the crew of the Wind Dancer hurtled toward the village.  Some men, already heading toward their fields or byres stood to try and protect their homes but they had forsaken the ways of the sword to be farmers and herders and they were cut down where they stood.  One, screaming defiance, lunged at Aelle with boar spear but the Northman simply laughed as he knocked it aside with the haft of his axe then rammed the boss of his iron-rimmed shield into the man's face.  The man staggered back, his face a mass of blood, spitting blood and teeth into the grass before Aelle's axe struck down savagely, half severing his head at the neck.  Kicking the blade free of the body, the young warrior turned and saw a horse milling in a paddock on the dead man's farm.  By now the village had begun to sound the alarm and men were streaming back to the market square at the center of the village, and Cwynr was bellowing for the men to form a shield wall to face them.  Aelle heard the shouts but, in a rare moment of defiance, ran to the paddock and climbed over the split logs.

The horse shied away, unnerved by the scent of blood and the sounds and sights of the slaughter around it.  Approaching from the side, Aelle patted it slowly, trying to calm it long enough to haul himself onto its back.  The horse bucked a moment, more used to a harness than a rider, but calmed again under Aelle's touch.  Urging the horse forward with his knees, he leaned down and hacked apart the rope that secured the paddock's gate, then galloped toward the village as the shield wall began to close with the mass of men in the market square.  Cwynr's men did not check their advance as they trotted toward the makeshift block of scythes and mattocks.  Instead, they screamed their curses and threw themselves against the farmers, axes rising and falling, spears thrusting, and quickly the  outnumbered Northmen saw their enemy melt away in terror.  It was not a sudden thing, but within what felt like seconds, the men of the village had turned and fled, trying to make it to their homes to hide their families from the wrath of the raiders.

It was then, in that swirling maelstrom of blood and death, that Aelle saw her, a slight young woman with long blonde hair.  Without hesitating, he urged the horse forward, slashing down with his axe to take the hand of a man that tried to pull him from the horse.  As he neared her, he clamped his legs tight, letting his axe fall as he leaned and grabbed her around the waist.  In one movement, he hauled her from the ground onto the horse's back in front of him.  Even before the shock wore off, she had begun to squirm and kick, but he rapped the iron-bound rim of his shield into her head and she slumped, motionless in front of him.  Guiding his stolen horse back toward where the shield wall was finishing butchering the survivors, Aelle shouted to the shipmaster.  "Cwynr, you must forgive me, but as you can see, I had a good reason."  Laughing, he slid off the horse's back and he stooped to haul the unconscious woman over his shoulder.  "The horse, lord, is yours.  The girl, though, I will be keeping her.  Now has anyone got some rope?"  The men laughed and one threw him the belt from one of the corpses littering the square.  With practiced ease borne of the sailor's trade, he lashed her hands together and threaded the pliable leather around a hitching post, tying it tight.  "Now, brothers, let's see what these fine people have chosen to share so kindly with us, eh?!"  And with another roar, the Northmen surged forward to loot and kill, already spattered in gore, like demons of the Abyss.  Drawing his long fighting knife, Aelle howled with them as they turned the once-peaceful village into a living hell.

The day was certainly not going how she had planned, to say the least. By the time she realized what was going on, it was too late. She tried to run once she saw the attacks starting in the fields, but she had gotten disoriented by the madness and chaos, and in her panic stood still long enough to be preyed upon. And then it was over so quickly. She had tried to fight and scream, but as quickly as it had all started, everything went black. 

When Saria finally came to, it was with a throbbing headache and a cough. Burning? Something's… burning? She opened her eyes and gasped. The village was slowly being burnt to the ground. The farthest houses were piles of sparking embers and the fires were being set closer and closer. The stockpile had been emptied and the supplies and goods were all being piled up and stolen. Death was rampant in the air and on the ground. It mixed with the smoke and ash and made breathing nearly impossible. Saria coughed and tried to cover her mouth, but found her hands bound. She screamed as she looked down and saw a very recognizable belt as what held her in place. It was one of her friend's, she knew that, and it disturbed her so much that she let out a small fire ball in her fretting and panic. The fire jumped through her fingers and around her hands and caught the leather, searing it and charring it until part of it snapped. Shocked, Saria started to back away from where she stood, and surveyed what was going on around her. The raiders were plundering and looting the village, but none of them seemed to be looking in her direction. Most likely they figured no one in this town had any knowledge of magic, and that would be where they were wrong. While she didn't really know what she was doing with it, she had enough magic to burn a belt. And right now, that was saying something.

Saria nodded to herself as she rubbed her newly-bare wrists and decided she would run, as fast as she could as far as she could. She was light and swift, she could make it maybe to the tree line and disappear for a few days, and take refuge in a nearby village. She did know some people nearby, surely in a few days' time the news of the village's demise would have spread and she could find a place to stay for a bit. She spun on her heels and aimed to run with all of her might, only to smack headfirst into what must have been a brick wall. She hit the ground and rubbed her forehead, mumbling to herself about the even newer headache, when she opened her eyes and realized what she had just hit–or rather–who. Saria looked up at him for a moment, then instantly tucked her knees to her chest and buried her head, whimpering. This was not good, this was not a situation she could talk hers way out of. Her mind was a slideshow of burning buildings and the bodies of her friends and family. 

She started to shake. This was a band of murderous, pillaging raiders who were here to destroy the village and plunder all of the loot they could. "Please," she pleaded, "Please don't kill me… I didn't do anything… I don't want to die… Please…" 

A raid by the Northmen was a terrifying thing to behold and on that day, the village learned the terrible beauty of war. The men had tried to defend the vill as best they could in the town center but a mass of farmers with scythes and pitchforks was no match for the armored terrors that charged them behind an unwavering line of limewood shields. Aelle almost wished that they had stayed in their homes and surrendered rather than fight, as they could have been sold in the markets to the south, but he had to give them a measure of respect for standing against the odds they faced. There was some courage left in them, even though they had grown soft over generations in the more fertile land of the southern Highlands. Aelle wondered what would have happened in his people’s god had made their land rolling, fertile hills and forests stuffed with game. Would they have still become the warriors that could sweep over the horizon and carry death to any part of the continent? Hacking his axe down into the spine of a wounded man, he laughed to himself. “And if I cow had scales and fins, it would be a fish,” he said to himself as he wrenched the heavy bearded axe head free, repeating an oft-used line of his grandfather’s whenever Aelle came to him with questions about the world, and why it was as it was. What did it matter, if he could be a shield-man, carrying off plunder and filling the Otherworld with men who would serve him in the Maker’s hall? That was the life he had chosen and in which he had come to excel. That was all that counted.

When all the men who had stood in the square were hunted down and butchered, the true work of the raid began. Businesses were ransacked, their strongboxes hauled away and piled near the bloody market square, guarded by the handful of men who had taken wounds in the fight. Aelle kicked open the door to mill, looking like a creature of nightmares, spattered with blood and grinning at the family cowered in the corner. The mother protectively pulled her children closer and Aelle shook his head. “Coin,” he said, harshly. “Where did your husband hide his hoard. And don’t tell me he had little. There’s never been a miller yet that didn’t make a good living fixing his weights and taking what he could from the farmers.” The woman pointed with a shaking finger toward the corner of the living quarters attached to the mill. Propping his shield against the timber wall, Aelle used the head of his axe to scratch at the tight-packed earth of the floor until he found a small leather sack of coins. “Now stay silent, yeah,” he growled, leaving them alive rather than adding to the butchery. There was a chance another man would happen across them, but Aelle had done what he could. There was no sense in killing those that could not fight except to send a message and the smouldering ruins of the farmsteads and town would do that well enough without dead children. He was a hard man, but even he had his limits.

Tossing the heavy leather sack up in the air, he walked through the village, watching the men begin to use the blacksmith’s forge to light torches and begin to set the thatched roofs of the village on fire. It had been a wet week and the fires smoked inky black, but slowly the flames licked the dry rushes deeper into the roofs and the conflagration spread. It was a smell that was like no other, a village on fire from a raid. The soot and smoke of the flames, the iron tang of drying blood, and the shit and piss that accompanied the terror of facing down a shield wall all mixed in the heavy, damp sea air. Smiling, he picked it was across the bloodied market square toward the girl he had captured. There were fewer bodies now littering the square, he noted, and then smelled the bodies beginning to take flame just outside the square as men hauled more corpses to the pile. The girl, he noticed, was awake and less than pleased with her condition, and had somehow managed to free herself of her ties. He suppressed a laugh as she stood and turned, running into his chest. She hit the ground like she had be poleaxed and he bent down to hear her whimpering concerns.

“Oh, we won’t be killing you,” he said with a soft laugh. “You are mine now and I see no sense in killing pretty things for sport. Instead, you will be coming home with us, back North, and after that, the Maker only knows. Now, what is your name? I am Aelle, Aelle ap Culwch. You will remember to call me lord, won’t you? I would not want to have to take a belt to you for forgetting your place. Now, on your feet. There is work to be done.” He hauled her up by the neck of her dress and pointed to the remaining bodies. “Anything of worth, strip them of it and pile it with the rest. And don’t any daft ideas about trying to make a break for freedom. I chose not to beat you bloody but every other man here would beat you and rape you senseless to make their point.” He let the words sink in as he leaned against the hitching post where she had been tied, still weighing the pouch of silver in his hand. The miller had to have been a cheat, he thought with a wry smile, or the cheapest bastard on the continent. “And when you’re finished, come to the tavern and find me. If you are not there in an hour, I will no longer be offering you my protection and the men will use you for sport and leave you with your throat slit by dawn. Don’t make me regret giving you a chance, girl.” With that, he strode off to the tavern across the way, taking a seat at the door so he could watch his newest plunder at her work, drinking heavily from a blackjack of ale, letting the rush of the battle bleed away with every sip.

What? I'm… property? Saria was perplexed and confused, while still caught up in her tears. Her village crumbled around her as she sobbed until she was yanked up and off the ground, and she flailed as she was set down on her feet. It became very clear to her that she was not going to outrun a man who could lift her up with one hand, nor was her petty fireball spell going to do much good against him.  Saria nodded and noted that she was to call this man, Aelle, by his own title, but she could not give her own name. She was to shaken to speak, and aside from the fact that she did not want him to know her name, she would not have been able to manage more words. Did it matter, now, if she was going to be carted away as a slave? Or worse? Her insides trembled at the thought of what might become of her. The only silver lining was that he said she would not be killed. I am not so sure that I want to live if I will be living the life of a slave… She did not know these people, nor anything about them. She knew not where they came from or what they came for, but knew only that now she was being taken as this brute's captive, back to wherever they came from. Perhaps I should have begged for death.

Aelle had given her instructions and gone off to the tavern, but Saria could only stand and observe the apocalyptic disaster around her. How could she be expected to even touch the corpses of her fellow villagers? She knew all of these people, even if she didn't consider them her friend, she knew them all. The majority of them were now dead; people she had played with in the streets as a child, people she had been around her whole life, now laying bloodied in the streets as soot and ash billowed up into the air, dancing on the tops of the flames that yearned to consume everything. The invaders were piling the bodies to burn, save for the ones  that the fires had already found. Saria trembled as a new wave of tears flooded her eyes; she started to collapse from the inside out until Aelle's words echoed back through her mind. As shaken and stirred as she was, there was no chance that she wanted to risk her hide at the hands of an entire raiding party, given that it would be a cruel and drawn-out kind of torture finally ending in death . She dried the tears from her eyes and tried to distance herself from the dead that she knew well. She carefully picked her way through rubble toward an unrecognizable body. There was no face to accompany it, but that was why Saria had come to this one first. She couldn't recognize a body without a face, or at least she would not try to. It was one of the more wealthy of the people in the village, for sure, as he had hidden a coinpurse of some measure under a richly-decorated vest, as if it were actually unseen. Perhaps the busy pattern distracted people from looking long enough to see it. She thought, for a moment, of actually bringing the bundle of coin to the  pile of looted goods that these men were amassing, but then thought better of it. Saria was nothing if not clever when she needed to be, and she recalled watching the man toy with a pouch of silver he had looted himself. After making sure none of the raiders were paying direct attention, Saria tucked the purse into the bosom of her dress, hoping it would go unnoticed until she could bring it to Aelle. Surely if she could present this as some sort of peace-offering he would recognize the gesture. Part of her was disgusted by how quickly she had accepted that she must listen to him, while the other part was grateful that she had realized she could not win this battle. There was no chance for her to run, not now with the horde of invaders so closeby. She was sure, too, that she was being observed, if not watched.

She thought for a fleeting moment of keeping the coin and hiding it for her own use, but what use would that be? And, how hidden could it possibly remain? If she were to be taken away, taken back to wherever these raiders had come from, she couldn't possibly think that she could make it all the way there without being searched or caught carrying it. It was at that same moment that she thought of that she also remembered something else, about something she had been carrying. Her eyes bulged. The book! My book of magic!  Frantically, she started off toward where she had been earlier, waving away the smoke that churned around her face and tried to envelope her. The heat of the burning lumber and pitch was almost unbearable, but she would not let that book go. It had too much knowledge and information in it, it had been like her own friend, and she would find it. Near her home, the houses were disheveled and falling, some having no structure or integrity at all having collapsed into heaps of smoking ash. She neared the end of the street and turned around, sullen and concerned. She did not see her bag, which would have her book tucked away inside it. In fact, she could hardly see anything through the smog. 

Saria sighed and started back towards whence she came. The smoke thickened for a moment before it started to clear, and out of the corner of her eye she spied a piece of cloth that was familiar to her. Under a fallen support beam, the strap of her satchel was exposed. She trotted over quickly and pushed through the dirt and rubble, grasping a side of her bag and yanking it loose from the beam. Apparently her book must have been holding together the rest of the building, as when she pulled the bag free the building started to crumble and collapsed, sending up embers and dust into the air. Saria's throat burned as she inhaled the smoke and she coughed again, examining the shredded remains of her bag. There was no saving it, but her book was safe. She unlocked the latch and the bag slipped off of the book. It was not anything special, a dark havana brown leather hardbound book, no name or significant markings, but that generalized appearance almost made it more special to Saria. She clutched it to her chest and walked back to the tavern where Aelle had told her to find him. Hopefully she had spent enough time looking for her book that he would be convinced she had tried to do what he had told her, and if not, she also figured the coins she had hidden in her dress would help the situation, no matter what he thought about her insubordination.  Still holding her book tightly, she pushed open the tavern door and stepped unknowingly inside to a sight the likes of which she had never seen before. 

Aelle sat outside the tavern while his new girl went through the square and, as he drank, he took time to consider the day. The raid had been a stunning success and the town was wealthier than he had first thought. And now he had a new thrall, and a pretty one at that. He had not decided what to do with her yet and as he drank, he ruminated on it. She seemed too slight for heavy work tilling the fields of his small steading so she would either have to work in his hall or be sold, he thought. She was pretty enough to fetch a good price in the markets in the North and even more if he brought her south. He was still deciding as she returned, still looking timid and unable to hold his gaze. “So, have you done as I asked, girl?” She looked up at him and took a hand from the book she clutched to her chest long enough to hand him a purse of coins. He laughed and ruffled her hair, pouring the coins into the purse he had taken from the miller. “You are a clever girl. I may not sell you to the slavers down the coast after all, even if you would fetch a fine price with such a lovely face. No, I think I may just keep you. Though I need to call you something aside from girl. How well do you remember the language of the Old Ones from the North? I know your people here came from the same stock, but farming life distanced you from our ways.” When she did not reply and looked at him with worry in her eyes, he shook his head and smiled. “You have much to learn, girl,” he said, “much to learn about the story of your people. And from now on, girl, you will be called Seren. In the Old One’s tongue, it means a star, and bright as you are, it seems to fit. But remember,” he said harshly, “stars may shine brightly, but they can also fall. Remember your place, Seren, and you will remain fixed in the night sky.”

He pushed open the tavern’s door and led her in, his face already smiling as he saw the main room of the building full of life. The Northmen were fearsome in a fight but after the battle madness faded, they were full of laughter and celebration as ale flowed freely. The fire blazed bright in the hearth, sending fine tendrils of smoke up through the roof and the men in the room were already well drunk. They had pulled the doors from some of the outbuildings they had set ablaze and used them as tables, propped up on barrels of salted fish. The taverner had been killed in the fray in the square but his wife and daughters had been spared the swords of the Northmen and they frantically prepared a feast for their captors. Ale and mead flowed freely and great plates of bread, cheese, and salted beef sat on the makeshift tables at the center of the room. Aelle pulled the girl, Seren, he reminded himself, behind him as he pushed his way toward Cywnr’s place at the table. “Aelle, you bastard,” the shipmaster roared and patted a seat on the great bench alongside him. “You are a rare sight, you whoreson, finding the best of the plunder before the blood had a chance to cool. What price for her, do you think?”

Aelle sat heavily on the bench and pulled Seren onto his lap with a grin. “Oh, a fine price, more than you have in your hoard, you old goat,” he quipped back at the shipmaster, putting an arm around the terrified girl’s waist while he drank. “I will be keeping her, I think. Someone will have to clean the blood off these,” he said, nodding toward his weapons, “and I am too damned lazy to do it myself. And anyway, I plan on being senseless drunk in a few hours after I drink your ancient hide under this table.” The war chief laughed and punched Aelle in the arm, looking Seren over again with a sigh.

“You always had an eye for a good hoard,” he said grudgingly and raised his tankard. “To the Northmen!”

The whole hall erupted as the men echoed the toast, slamming their flagons and drinking horns together in a sloshing, foaming mess of ale. Aelle drank deeply and called for more ale to be brought, and a cup for Seren. One of the taverner’s daughters left a pitcher and a cup in front of him and Aelle poured some ale for the girl. “Drink, eat! Today you are a thrall, but a thrall of Northmen. So you should celebrate!” He pushed the cup into her hands and drank more himself before piling food onto a trencher in front of them. “You’ll need your strength, girl, so don’t forgo food now,” he said softly as he pushed the plate closer to her. And so the day sank into night, with songs and poems drunkenly echoing in the hall, the men slurring as they recounted the deeds of great warriors past and present. Aelle joined them, slamming his tankard on the table with the rhythm, laughing so much he nearly cried. As the fires in the village smoldered into ash, the crew began to heave themselves from their benches to return to the boat. “Seren, go gather my things. We leave in the hour.”

Aelle staggered to his feet and out of the tavern hall to piss into the pit dug at the end of the long yard. Ahead of him, the village was a smoking ruin and he saw a long line of men making their way back to the boat. Cywnr had gone ahead with the least drunk of the crew to get the plunder aboard and one by one, the men dragged themselves out of the tavern and to the boat. Lacing his trousers, Aelle walked back to the hall and saw Seren had gathered his things in a pile. “Good, well done girl,” he said and picked his axe up and slung his shield on it. “Take the armor and walk next to me. Can’t have you wandering off in the dark.” So the pair walked, down the coast road and back to the sandy shingle where the long, high prowed ship was beached. The tide was starting to ebb and the current would take the ship back out to sea. Aelle tossed his shield and axe aboard then, much to her evident displeasure, Seren was tossed aboard as well. “Take care with the cargo,” he laughed as he hauled himself aboard and found his rowing bench. “Come by me,” he called to Seren as he hung his shield over the side of the ship. Aelle tossed the girl a cloak from under his bench against the night chill and then took up his oar. A few strong pulls and the ship caught the current and Cynwr pointed the prow north. “Ship oars, boys,” he called and the men pulled the heavy ash blades from the water and stored them in the hold, letting the current and wind do their work for them. “Seren, have you ever been out to sea? There is nothing like it,” Aelle said with an infectious smile. “And I must know, girl, what is in that book you have kept so close?"

As planned, Aelle seemed to be more than pleased when she produced the coinpurse. She sighed inside, slightly relieved. He reassigned her a new name, which she noted with serious distaste, one that was almost humorously close to her own name. Her pride kicked and reeled inside. That is not my name. My name is Saria and I am from the Highlands and this is not me. None of this is me. I do not choose this new path and I do not want it, and anything that happens to me from hereon out is not me. It is me surviving in this forced new chapter of my life. And I do not like it one bit. All of this Saria thought to herself as she was being practically dragged along behind Aelle over to his leader, who looked Saria over as if she were a piece of meat. It was then that Saria realized exactly what kind of trouble she might be in here. These were truly the kind of people who traded off slaves and workers as if they were cattle and flock, and she would put money on the idea that they most likely did not respect a ‘slave’ and their natural rights. Her insides twisted as she started to think of the terrible kinds of things that must happen to people taken captive by these men, and just as she got to coming up with different kinds of methodical torture practices, something even worse happened to her in reality.

Aelle pulled her onto his lap, trapping her there with an arm about as thick as her body, possibly moreso. Every bit of matter and energy inside her wanted to scream and kick and bite but she knew there would be no use, so she sat instead trembling and practically frozen, still clutching her precious spellbook as if it were her life. Unbeknownst to her or anyone around her, the book shared in her uncomfortable feelings, and the front cover glowed its name for the first time since she had had it. Brightly now, dimming towards the end of the night before finally disappearing again. She still did not even know the title of it, it was just a bunch of spells scrawled down in other languages that didn’t even seem human to begin with. The only things she had been able to decipher were the things written phonetically, and even speaking them seemed more than foreign. It was definitely a non-humanoid type of magic, she was sure, but she made sure to keep the book hidden enough in the past that no one ever even asked what it was that she was lingering over for so long.

As food was pushed around, Saria could not think to eat one bite. She had just seen a merciless slaughter of her people. She was exhausted. And at that thought, Aelle addressed the fact that she would indeed need her strength. Her already-stirred pride jumped at the thought, and reluctantly she took a bit of bread to crumble and break into pieces to eat, slowly. She could not eat fast given the fact that she was wracked with nausea and worry, but at least bread would give her some sort of sustenance without making her stomach sick. That’s right, my Lord, she thought spitefully, I will need my strength, because you are not going to break me. I will be strong. I will survive whatever you people try to throw at me. With that, she tore off a slightly larger piece of the bread and gritted it between her teeth as Aelle joined his people in reveling over their triumphant havoc-wreaking. I will find a way to survive this.

After the celebrating, or mourning in Saria’s case, was over, the raiders began to return to the ship, and Aelle commanded Saria to pack up his things and prepare to go. She sighed as he went off, set her book down on a seat and started trying to pile things up, finding much to her dismay that this was much harder a task than she thought, for these things were all terribly heavy. She somehow finished the task before he came back, and he instructed her to carry the armor back to the ship with him. She grimaced, knowing that the armor was the heaviest of the things, but did what she was told out of the fear of what would become of her had she disobeyed. He could probably break her neck with his gaze. She followed him out of her burning home and towards the ship, towards uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

Getting on the ship was not exactly her idea of getting on a ship, seeing as she was thrown. She took her place as he commanded, next to him, and did not listen to anything else he said until he addressed her book. She sighed, holding it out away from her chest. “It’s my spellbook.”

With her words, the cover lit up again. A single word, scrawled in a terrible handwriting, diagonally across the page in a strange light as white as the stars. It faded out in less than a few seconds, returning the book to it’s normal blank look. Her eyes went wide. It had never done anything like that before. What… what had just happened? She was so confused, she opened it and a puff of smoke billowed out, forcing her to cough as she had been all night.

“That’s… that’s so strange… it has never done anything quite like that before… I wonder if it is upset with… “ She stopped herself before she said anything risky, “…me.”

“A spellbook, you say? Are you a mage, little Seren? Why did you not call down fire from the heavens to smite us, then? Where were the golems of the earth and monsters of the sea that could have stopped our raid, eh? Should I kill you now, sacrifice you to the spirits of the deep, and stay safe from your magicks?” Aelle laughed and pulled his cloak tighter around him against the stinging spray of the waves against the ship’s bow. He loved being at sea. There was a freedom to it, a freedom that even a horse and the plains of Bohar could not match. Water, as far as the eye could see, and, with a good crew and a steady hand on the steering oar, endless possibilities. It was the ultimate freedom and yet the ultimate surrender, for the sea could be as cruel as any woman, squalling without warning and taking ships to her bosom in a flash. But such was the price of great freedom. He was about to speak of the sea to Seren, to tell her about the history of her own people that she likely had forgotten, when he saw the light erupt from her book.

His hand was instantly on his fighting knife and he spat to avert the evil of the book’s magic. The Northmen, and all the Highlanders, were suspicious of magic at the best of time and downright hostile at the worst. And when a book’s leather began to glow like a star with strange symbols he could not recognize, Aelle tended toward the downright hostile side. He pulled the long-bladed knife out and pointed it squarely are Seren. “Maker protect us, what the hell is that? Your book, it’s…” She was sputtering with fear herself, so Aelle relaxed a fraction. At least she was not trying to do him harm, though the idea of a book of spells with a mind of its own was terrifying in its own right. He watched as it billowed smoke and then, for a moment, was calm. There was a use to this, a way he may be able to profit, and instead of gutting her and throwing her corpse and the book over the side, he sheathed his blade and hissed for her to come closer. “You will tell no one about your book or your abilities, do you understand me? I am not about to have the crew in a panic and reveal that I may have someone of power. One word, one spark of magic, and I will see your head hanging from the masthead. Once we reach my steading, though, you will be allowed to practice and learn. Do I make myself clear?”

The night passed uneventfully after that, with Aelle dozing at his bench and Seren beside him. The morning came with a blood red sky, and old wives would say that it meant that the Maker had seen the blood spilled over night. For sailors, though, it was a warning that bad squalls could be on the horizon, so Cwynr ordered them to dip their oars and speed the ship’s passage back to a safer harbor. Singing a rower’s song, Aelle pulled with the beat, and the ship seemed to glide over the waves rather than sail through them. “Listen well Seren,” he said as they rowed and the songs were chanted around them, “for these are the songs you will come to know as well as your own heart. Stories of the Maker and his companions, of great warriors and battle lords. Listen and remember, for I will expect you to know them. You are of the North now.” With that, he returned his focus to the task at hand, straining at his oar and chanting out the chorus as Cwynr stamped on the steering platform and called the verses.

The ship made a quick voyage, helped by friendly winds and helpful tides, and as the sun began to set, Aelle could make out the port they called home. “Dunholm,” he said, and pointed past the bow at the small trading port that hugged the coast in the north. “Cwnyr and I serve the lord there, and he will be expecting his share of our plunder. Once we reach the docks, we will leave the lord’s share with his reeve and you and I will return to my steading this night.” A few more minutes of oar work and the sleek warship slipped into the harbor and was secured to the dock. Cwynr hopped off onto the stone quay and caught the lord’s reeve in a bear hug. “We have taken much this day, Colm, silver and some slaves. The lord will be pleased.” Laughing, the men climbed back aboard, the reeve ready with his tally sticks, carving notches into them to show the quantities of plunder in the ship’s wide hold.

“You will all be wealthy men,” he said, mentally taking the half owed to their lord from the proceeds out, “with probably a thousand crescents a man, in goods or coin. Your lord thanks you.” The men roared in approval, clapping each other on the back with wide grins. A thousand silver crescents was a small fortune, but Aelle knew he would need far more if he wanted to command a ship of his own with swords sworn to him. Seren, he thought, might be a way to secure that future, and he smiled at the thought.

“Gather my things,” he said to her as he helped tossing the captured treasure from the hold to men waiting on the dock. The lord’s share was quickly taken by the reeve under guard to the great hall and the rest was portioned out among the crew. “Thank you, lord,” Aelle said when he took his share from Cwynr, which amounted to some coins, a large silver plate, and odds and ends of jewelry. One of the pieces, a well-wrought necklace made to look like leaves, caught his eye and, on a whim, he gave it to Seren. “Things are not so bad in the North,” he said with a smile and a wink before taking his axe and shield for the journey to his steading. As they walked, Aelle told her of the port of Dunholm, where the thane ruled, and about the land and the history her people to the south had all but forgotten. “These are the hills and valleys where the Maker himself walked,” he explained, gesturing around them to the gentle hills bathed in the dying light of the sun. “This is the land he shaped with his own hand and our people are the ones he made to be his own. You are an heir to that as well. Never forget it.”

His hall was not so grand as the thane’s or Cwnyr’s but it was a sturdy one, surrounded by an oak palisade. The thatch of the roof would need changing before the winter, he noted, and soon it would be time to slaughter the livestock that would not last the winter and move the others to warmer pastures. “This is your home now, Seren. For this last quarter hour we have walked through my lands, and they stretch another half hour’s walk from the hall. Here is where you will stay and serve, and, if you serve me well, your life will be an easy one. I am not a harsh master, but I am a fair one. Cross me and I will make you wish you were never born.” He hammered on the door of the hall and was answered by the excited barking of his large wolfhound from beyond. Aethelstan, a long-suffering steward he had hired from the thane, dragged back the bolts and opened the door for Aelle. “Now go in and put my things in the far chamber. In the morning, you will wash and mend them after you have eaten. Then we will discuss your book. Now go, and when you have done that, you will join me here in the hall. Aethelstan, ale and food. It has been a long journey. And Aethelstan? Add what Seren leaves in my chamber to the hoard. It was a good raid.” Smiling, he sat in his carved chair with its snarling motif of hunting hounds, scratching the ears of his own hound who sat with his head on Aelle’s lap. One day, the Northman thought, he would have a great hall, one greater than Dunholm’s thane. But for that day, his own modest hall was palace enough.

Clearly she was not the only one taken aback by the book’s actions, she noted from Aelle’s poor reaction to the light. She remembered now that the people of the Highlands as well as the North were not generally a magicky-type, as she knew but often overlooked since she herself were attempting–and apparently succeeding–at learning magic. Aelle made it very clear that if she wre to let on to the rest of these people that she would most likely be killed and the book destroyed. Neither option sounded terribly good to her at this point, though earlier she would have welcomed death. As far as she could tell, though, she was still breathing and able to move freely to an extent, and she supposed that would be better than a fate she might suffer at the hands of a more hostile or barbaric fellow. She sighed and moved closer to him as he suggested, smothering the book out of sight beneath the skirt of her dress.

Saria was not stupid, and definitely was not going to put herself in any position where Aelle would have a reason to punish her. Anytime he said she needed to learn something, she paid it it’s due attention and did her best to listen and learn it. Something as simple as song would not be her undoing, nor would history or folklore. Luckily there was not much of that, as the trip took about a single day to make. After the ship docked and the men did whatever they were doing, something to do with the loot and hoard of things they had taken from her village, she was ordered to gather up Aelle’s things. Getting off the boat was more than she could ask for; while all these warrior-types seemed to enjoy it, rolling waves and a rocking vessel were not exactly her cup of tea. She followed Aelle to collect his share of the loot, and to her surprise he handed her a necklace from his allotted treasures and took his tools of war. She nodded and thanked him wearily, not sure whether she had ever had any jewelry in her life. She didn’t recognize it as a piece anyone she knew would have worn, and she wondered whose it may have been. Surely they were dead, now. Out of fear more than anything she hastily put it on, fearing what kind of reprimanding there would be for a slave refusing a gift. Probably death. Probably anything you do wrong ends in death. I should try to avoid doing things wrong. I would prefer to live.

It may have been the longest walk of Saria’s entire life, for which she stayed relatively silent save for the necessary responses to ensure she was listening. He spoke mainly about the history of the North and the Maker and fields and… Saria’s mind started to wander around that point. Would she be trapped in his home for her whole life? Surely not, even if for decades he would pass of old age before her. And… if he didn’t take her book from her and burn it, which she feared may happen, maybe she could learn enough magic and gain enough power that way that she could set herself free. The thought was more than entertaining, it was inspiring. The book meant more now. It was not just a friend for her to try to understand, it was to be a savior and mentor for her. She decided in her head that from that moment on, anytime she wasn’t trapped under the tyranny of work she would spend trying to decipher the book. What did worry her about that was trying to understand the strange language, but she had faith that she could. Somehow she would find a way to figure it out, she was sure of it.

Aelle banging on the door of the hall brought her back to the present, a loud dog barked inside and she lit up for a moment. She could not dislike a dog. He instructed her to go to the far chamber and leave his things there, to be added to ‘the hoard’ by the servant whom had opened the door for them. Saria nodded, and continued forth through the unfamiliar hall. Had better get real familiar with this place, since it is where I’ll be living now. As she walked she noted things, such as any place that looked like a good nook or cranny to crawl into and hide in the case of emergency, or something to hide under. Survival was the new name of the game. Keep this ‘Lord Aelle’ happy and keep the knife far from her throat. Keep the book somewhere hidden after he drinks enough to forget about it, too. Somewhere it won’t be found unless someone knows it is where it is and wants to find it. She would most likely have to find this hiding place in the dead of night when not even the mice stirred.

She found the farthest chamber faster than she had expected, and brought in the things without bothering to look around. She did not want to know this room, for fear that she may already end up spending unwanted time in it. Leaving the things there she returned to the hall where Aelle had remained. Halls were strange, she thought, very different from her hovel-type home in the village. She laid her book down at the table. Though normally she would have stood silently, this time she instead decided to speak before being addressed; she’d spent the past day only answering after being spoken to and she was not one for that. Even if she was a slave she would still maintain herself as she was, though she would simply alter her ways to fall into line of what she should do. The first two words were the hardest, forming a pit in her stomach as they left her mouth. “Lord Aelle, I’ve brought your things to the far chamber as you requested. Would you like anything else from me?” Perhaps, she hoped, that will be all and he will send me off to some secluded room where I can lay with my book and read and be alone.

"Yes, yes.  Sit with me," he said, and gestured to a chair at the trestle table.  Aelle stood up a moment and his hound shifted with a whine.  "But first you have to meet Cadarn."  He waved her over so the wolfhound could smell her and become accustomed to the new member of the household.  "He is a fine dog," Aelle said, scratching its head again as the shagged dog sniffed Seren suspiciously  "A good hunter and he guards this hall in the night.  He will be part of your duties, seeing that he is fed and cared for.  Now, here," he pulled out his knife and cut a piece of beef from a cold joint that Aethelstan had put on the table, "give this to him and be careful.  He is a bit over eager."  As Seren fed the dog, Aelle smiled and sat again, patting Cadarn's back.  "Now come, sit, and eat.  You barely ate last night and you seemed ill inclined to at sea, so you must be starving."

In truth, for all his terror in battle, Aelle was a good man by his own reckoning.  He was fair and generous, brave and honest and that was mattered for a warrior and leader of men.  And he had ambition.  Most men would be content with his life, a small hall, enough land to support him in comfort, a place on a ship that brought wealth, and now a lovely young girl to round it all out.  But Aelle wanted to be a true lord and that would take time.  But now he had a mage, something most others in the North could never claim, and it seemed as though the Maker was favoring him.

"Now Seren," he said, tearing a loaf in half and piling his plate with beef, "you must listen well now.  You are back in the home of your people, and I'll bet they did not tell you much of our history.  Because we are the same, you and I, both of us and all those around here until the mountains recede into the rainforest."  When she confirmed that she had learned very little about the real history of the Highlands, he chuckled and filled her cup.  "Now listen well, little star, for you have a lot to learn.

"Your people in that village were once like us, raiders and fighters to a man, making kingdoms quake in fear as far south as Adeluna.  The Highlands, as the mapmakers would call it, it is all the same.  You would not know it, to see the sort of sad, quivering men that are now living in south.  They abandoned our ways and I have even heard that some have begun to abandon our god.  Is that true?"

Aelle sipped his ale as he listened to her reply, pursing his lips as he considered it.  There was so much she would have to learn.  He leaned back so he would prop his feet on the table while Cadarn padded around to demand attention from Seren.  "Well, that's the shame of it," he continued.  "They are abandoning the god that made this land in favor of mages with delusions.  You remember I said he shaped the lands and walked them?  That is the god of your forefathers, before they stayed planted in the soil, decaying like an old tree.  Deantoir, that's the Maker's name, and he created the world from the stuff of the stars in the heavens, setting people here and there and when it was finished, and he saw all he created, he stepped from the clouds to the earth.  And of all the places he could have gone, all the people he could have lived among, he chose the men of the North, the Highland men.  Because you see, he is a warrior, Deantoir, and our people are meant for war.  We embrace it like men do their lovers and it binds us together as a people.

"You will learn to live like one of us, Seren, and in time, you will be truly one of us.  In these lands, you are a thrall, but unlike the south, you are still more free than most.  If another man strikes you, you have redress with the lord and you can work when I have no need of you for coin of your own.  I, as the lord, will provide for you, clothing, shelter, and food.  That is the duty of a lord to those that serve him, and you will be safe in my hall."  He drank more, considering her a moment.  She was slender but a real beauty and his mind wandered a moment.  He had not taken a woman since his last, a proud, striking woman from Dunholm, died of a fever in the winter.  Maybe it was time to change that.  Aelle smirked a little and drank more, letting that thought roll about in his head while he spoke to Seren.

"Now, tell me about that book of yours, now that there are no prying eyes and straining ears from the ship.  Does it have power?  And more importantly, do you?"