7. Death in the House (Part 1)
(Note: This picks up essentially where JS' last letters/RPs left off, though it was written and sent two weeks later RL time)
Jonn Shintuk and his Udorians marched back toward Nifelheim, their new scouts riding ahead to learn any news, and also to distribute food among the commonfolk. JS' father, the Warleader Jonn, had taught him that new men should be given simple missions that would increase their loyalty, and JS hoped that allowing the new men to be the instrument of their young, foreign lord's magnanimity to their own people would do just that. Indeed, most of their faces had lit up when the bags of grain had been passed around, and they all rode off quickly to do his bidding - most likely back to their own homes and neighborhoods throughout Nifel, but that was just as well.
Most had come riding back smiling, even if some brought word of slow roads. But the last one to return had a face of ash, and when pressed for news, he could only say that the young lord should follow him, and quickly.
JS looked around with some misgivings. Karl-Jagutu, his elder half-brother and self-proclaimed "advisor", had disappeared in the night and could not be found. It was possible that Karl-Jagutu, the wild Abakan swamprunner, the former Khan of Aren who comported himself without an ounce of royal bearing, had run off with some girl of the streets under the influence of the noxious narcotic mixture he called "Tiger's Blood" - a mix of the infamous Arenese Babar elixir, Bloodmoon fruit, Udorian raaha, ikrif, and a lesser-known substance called "mogweed" - a mixture known to send him into bizarre, raving frenzies from which no man could calm him. Was he somewhere sleeping off his ecstasies? Or had he perhaps been led into some trap? Was that the reason for the scout's blood-drained countenance? Was the scout leading JS himself into a similar trap? There was too much he had yet to learn of these northern lands.
Try as he might, JS could get no more news from the Avernian native. "Fine," he said at length, "lead me where you will. My sword and my heart belong to the All-Creator, and upon Him I will rely." This last comment earned some confused looks from the local scouts, but his Udorians nodded in approval. "Lord Uncle," he continued in the Udorian dialect, addressing his Captain, Telos men Fabri, his mother's brother. "I will lead the way, but let your killeen* guard my right flank, and keep your falcon-eyes open."
"By the Will of the All-Creator," Telos replied in the same tongue, "let it be done, my Lord Nephew. Udorians! For the love of your God, your people and land, and your Lord, Jonn Shintuk, son of Jonn, may all their deeds be accepted! Ride with care, for we ride to ill news or ill fortune. Mark the face of this scout, and if he betrays us, take his head first!"
JS shook his head, smiling - he had no need to tell his uncle of his suspicions for the elder Udorian warrior to know them in full. Telos men Fabri was the son of the greatest of the Udorian merchant-princes, JS' grandfather Fabri men Bolkos, who had bound his house to that of the Dodgers of the Dark Isle when he married his daughter Talea to Jonn Dodger, who had been at the time the Lurian Lord of Garuck Udor. That marriage had led to the birth of Jonn Shintuk himself, and Telos had been fighting wars and shadow wars already at that time. Even now, in his fiftieth or so Springtide, his long beard and hair growing grayer year on year, Telos sat straight and strong in his saddle, and was known to be able to shoot a sparrow out of the sky from a thousand yards with a single arrow. He had been ordered to guard his nephew with his life, and had done so since the disappearance of Lord Jonn (the elder), leaving his beloved homeland and travelling to the frozen north out of honor and loyalty. JS was gladder to have him than ever, now that he had come of age and would go a-warring under his own banner.
But even faith in the All-Creator and a Guard-Captain of the caliber of Telos the son of Fabri was not enough to cure the misgivings in JS' heart as he and his Udorian Guard wended their way toward the gates of Nifelheim, following a scout whose face and frame slumped with sorrow and agitation.
*killeen - a curved Udorian saber, used both for mounted and dismounted fighting in close quarters.
