A few minutes earlier

Sven Zarnhelm stood guard by the entrance to the slave pens alongside his friend and comrade, Felix Eisenkopf who, Spring Mother bless him, still thought his given name was a compliment.

While the rest of the clan feasted and drank on the other side of the causeway, they had pulled the short straw and landed guard duty, standing watch on the narrow dirt path outside the native’s slave pen. He glanced nervously out over the water. The clan had thrown the causeway down quickly after the scouts had reported the Calandorians and natives had joined forces, and it showed in its construction. It was barely three meters across, no barriers to keep the drakes out, and was barely higher than the river. He felt exposed, and tried not to think about what might be watching him from the water, waiting for him to stray too close.

Sven snuck a quick look at his pouty friend, seeking reassurance from the presence of another, but Felix caught his eye and pointedly turned away. The guard duty had put a dampener on their spirits, to say the least, and they had spent most of the night bickering. A tense silence had descended on them when it finally petered out about half an hour ago.

Felix was the first to break it.

“I told you to pick the other hand.”

“By the Ice Father, will you shut up about it?” Sven snapped, whirling on his friend.

“I’m just saying! If you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t have drawn the short straw.”

“Well, last time I did listen to you, we ended up on guard duty then as well.”

“Exactly! So, it being a fifty-fifty chance, since I got it wrong last time, I would have been guaranteed to get it right this time!”

Sven rolled his eyes at his friend. Anyone who didn’t know Felix might assume that was an attempt at a joke, but Sven knew him better than that. Again, Felix’s last name wasn’t a compliment.

“That is not how chance works, idiot.”

“Yes it is! I got that Light Mage we caught last year to teach me, see? It took a while, but in the end, he told me I’d figured it all out!”

“He told you that to shut you up because he was sick of trying to get the concept through your thick skull!”

“You’re just jealous,” Felix grumbled. “You hate that I’m right.”

“That is not even close to true,” Sven replied, turning away from his friend.

Silence descended once more, Sven stewing, but knowing he couldn’t stay angry at Felix for long. Being angry at the moron was like trying to stay angry with a puppy. After a while he turned to apologise, though he still maintained the guard duty wasn’t his fault, but stopped when he found Felix staring intently at the black water off the causeway. Sven followed his gaze and spotted the barest ripple reflecting the bright moonlight.

“Felix, get behind me.”

“You’re not my mother!”

“No, but your actual mother will gut me like a fish if I let a swamp drake eat you. Behind me, now!”

Felix protested under his breath, but did as he was told while Sven hefted his axe. It was unlikely the drake would come out of the water to attack them, but it was better safe than sorry in this place. Harold had learned that the hard way the other day when he thought to kill and eat that little mammal. It had looked harmless, like an oversized, chubby rodent. The look on his face when the thing knocked him off his feet and burrowed through his gut had been horrifying. Sven could still hear the screaming when he closed his eyes.

Fucking wombats.

Sure enough, a pair of beady lizard eyes broke the water’s surface, staring straight at him. Sven held his breath as slowly, it exposed more of itself. The top of its head, followed by its armoured snout full of giant conical teeth, then its dark, knobbly back rose, dripping, from the swamp. Sven’s eyebrows knitted together as it kept rising, as though a rope was tied around its belly, pulling it up and out of the water, before it abruptly rolled onto its back.

“What’s it doing?” Felix asked from behind, but Sven ignored him, peering closer at the drake’s exposed belly. It had been opened from throat to pelvis, its guts spilling out through the jagged wound.

It was dead.

“Be on your guard,” Sven growled, hearing Felix stamp the butt of his spear into the dirt as a challenge. As they brandished their weapons, the water rippled again, and something else rose from the surface.

At first it was just a dark dome in the moonlight, followed by a pair of blazing white eyes set in a black, demonic face. The rest of the monster’s body followed. It was the height of a man, attired in armour that bore a close resemblance to the Calandorians who had been stalking them. In fact, the closer Sven looked, the more he was convinced it actually was just a man. Albeit one who was covered in mud and shit, and who had just passed through the waters of the Marduk swamp without being torn apart and devoured by a swamp drake.

Sven cast a quick glance back at the dead drake, then looked back to the marine in front of them.

The resolve in his eyes.

The set of his shoulders.

The drake guts still clinging to his sword’s crossguard.

“Felix?”

“Yes, Sven?”

“Throw down you spear.”

The marine looked between them both and nodded.

“Excellent decision, Sven.”

*

Erskine watched as the two reavers retreated into the slave pens with instructions to release the prisoners and prepare them for rescue. They had wisely opted not to fight when he had surfaced with the drake’s body. Not that he wasn’t ready to give them a thrashing. After being dragged through the dirty water and grappling with the giant lizard, he was in a rather foul mood and keen to let off some steam. But they had surrendered, and he was no murderer.

He wandered over and picked up the shorter one’s axe, turning it over and inspecting it. It resembled a bearded woodsman’s axe; quality workmanship, unornamented and solid. It was an excellent weapon for a warrior. He was surprised a Skjar would abandon such a weapon and surrender, to be honest.

Guess I cut an intimidating figure.

He allowed himself a small smile at the thought as a commotion broke out behind him inside the fort. The attack had started. He turned and hefted the axe in his off-hand, his naval officer’s sword gripped firmly in his right. After a minute or two the gate burst open and a dozen Hauskarls burst through, led by their lord, a giant standing a head taller than the others and clad in ornate plate.

They thundered through the gate, then slowed to a trot as they noticed Erskine blocking their path. One of them spotted the drake’s corpse and whispered in the lord’s ear. The lord nodded, his eyes fixed on the axe in Erskine’s hand.

“You killed that drake?”

“Aye,” Erskine replied.

“And the men guarding the pens?”

“They’re alive. Consider them prisoners.”

The lord snorted and shook his head. “Cowards. Their lives are forfeit, but you? You interest me. Throw down your weapons, I’ll guarantee your life. I may even let you swear fealty to me, if you impress me enough.”

Now it was Erskine’s turn to snort. “I’m guessing you’re heading this way because the drunks you call warriors are being slaughtered wholesale by my men. Why on Terrus’s green earth would I surrender?”

“Because they are in there,” the lord replied, jerking a thumb back at the fort. “And you are out here, trapped, with us.”

“Trapped? No friend, I’m right where I want to be.”

Erskine twirled his weapons and charged. The Skjar who had first seen the drake rushed ahead to meet him, no doubt seeking glory in the eyes of his lord, and Erskine met the swing of his sword with his own. The man was large and strong, as most Skjar were, and the strike was powerful and true, but it still didn’t save him as Erskine swung his axe into the man’s leg, severing it at the knee. He screamed as he collapsed and Erskine deftly sidestepped around him, launching at the next hapless fool. He overwhelmed and slaughtered two more before the rest of the reavers recovered from the initial ferocity of his assault and leapt to meet him.

They probably expected him to retreat under their counterattack, but they sorely underestimated him. He was a Calandorian naval officer, commander of some of the finest fighters in the world, and the only way to ensure a marine’s respect was to be as dangerous as he was.

Erskine fought back, digging the axe into the neck of a reaver and spinning, hurling the dying man into the path of his comrades. One of them went down, while the other managed to stumble out of the way. Erskine ran him through while he was off balance then stomped on the neck of the other, and it snapped with a sharp crack. The surviving Hauskarls crowded the causeway, trying to reach him, but it was barely wide enough for two men side by side. The lord shouted something in their native tongue and one of the reavers leapt into the water, trying to wade around Erskine, but before he could regain the causeway he abruptly disappeared under the water’s surface. The men fighting on the causeway froze, the Skjar glancing about uneasily, and as the ripples where the reaver had gone under slowly petered out Erskine risked a glance at the waters around them.

Behind him, near the pens, the body of the drake he’d killed bobbed once, before it too disappeared in a spray of water. He turned in a slow circle and realised they were surrounded. There was nothing overt, the drakes were far too proficient hunters for that, but he still found the signs everywhere he looked. A slight ripple in the water here, a few bubbles coming to the surface there. The battle had drawn quite a crowd.

He turned back to the Skjar. They were still watching the water, eyes wide and fearful as they clustered close to the centre of the causeway. Only the lord was unmoved, matching Erskine’s gaze with one of unbridled fury.

“You were saying something about being trapped, Jarl?”

“I will carve that smartarse tongue from your head, Calandorian.”

The lord turned to his men and uttered something sharp, the men nodding and retreating down the causeway. Erskine didn’t need a translation, even before the lord levelled his sword at him and challenged him to personal combat.

The Jarl had been humiliated, over half his bodyguard cut down by one man while the rest of his raiding clan was being slaughtered in the fort behind them. He had even stooped so low as to try escape with hostages, and even that had failed. He had no recourse left but to demand a duel, even if it meant his death. Of course, he could always surrender, but that wasn’t the Skjar way.

Erskine nodded and gave his formal reply. Not that he had much choice, he was stuck on the causeway with him, but it was important to respect honour and traditions, even in the midst of a battle in the middle of a puddle of monstrous lizards.

Satisfied, the Jarl hefted his blade and charged, Erskine sprinting to meet him. The reaver swung his sword in an overhead strike as they crashed together, and Erskine met it with his own, catching it at an angle and redirecting it to the side. But even the glancing blow was enough to send shocks up his arm, and Erskine swore as it first went tingly, then numb. He sidestepped past the lord’s flank and swung his axe in a flat chop, but the big man was surprisingly fast and quick stepped out of the way.

They backed away, regarding each other warily, each in the position occupied by the other a moment before. Erskine’s mind ran through strategies as he eyed his opponent. The Skjar was far stronger, that much was painfully evident, but he was quick too, and Erskine wasn’t sure he could outmanoeuvre him on a regular battlefield, much less the narrow space they fought over now.

Time to test his technical skills, then.

Erskine darted forward, telegraphing an overhead axe blow before flicking his sword out in a rapier thrust, hoping to catch the reaver off guard. It was flicked aside by a close parry and the reaver stepped in, swinging a mailed fist at Erskine’s head. He ducked to the side, the fist sailing past his ear, and dropped to a knee, letting the momentum put force behind the axe as he swung it at the lord’s legs, but missed in turn as the reaver back stepped, flicking his own blade out and scoring a shallow cut along Erskine’s crown. It wasn’t deep, but it stung fiercely as Erskine retreated a couple of paces, feeling the blood starting to trickle down his scalp towards his face. Within seconds there was a narrow stream running directly into his eye.

The Jarl was stronger, just as fast and apparently just as proficient in duelling, and Erskine started to wonder if the duel might have been a mistake after all. In the crush of bodies, the lord wouldn’t have been able to manoeuvre, and Erskine could have used the less talented Karls as obstacles like he had earlier. In a one-on-one fight, it appeared that the Jarl held the advantage.

Bollocks.

He charged in again, but the blood stung in his eyes, and he struggled to gauge the range between them with his vision obscured. Further, his body had started to fatigue, the battle with the drake in the water and the Karl bodyguard was catching up to him as the adrenaline started to wear off.

His attack turned into a slow retreat, back towards the fort and the baying Karls who had sensed the shift in the battle. Erskine fought with a desperation he had never felt before. Even so, he could see the writing become clear on the wall as his arms grew heavy and his movements slow and sloppy. Sure enough, the Jarl found an opening, scoring a deep gash along Erskine’s forearm, followed quickly by a thrust into his thigh that dropped Erskine to a knee. The Karls roared and the lord took the moment to raise his arms in victory, basking in the adulation of his men as Erskine crouched in the dirt, his blood flowing freely and his limbs refusing his commands.

He was defeated.

It won’t be a bad death, he thought to himself. It had taken a drake, a dozen Hauskarls and a Jarl to bring him down, and most of them were dead. All in all, it was a good toll for a warrior. He had done his name and his country proud, and at the end of the day, isn’t that all a warrior could hope for?

He looked up at the man who had defeated him, the giant in ornate plate, but movement at the other end of the causeway caught his eye. Past the grandstanding Jarl, down by the slave pens, a small grubby face peered at him. It was an Aluwai child, his dark face pale with fear as his mother clutched him protectively to her leg.

And Erskine remembered he wasn’t a warrior.

The man he fought was a warrior, fighting for glory and wealth and the thrill of battle. Erskine was a soldier, fighting for king and country and those who couldn’t fight themselves. Resolve welled in his chest and with it a newfound strength. It wasn’t much, barely enough to bring him to his feet, but it would be enough.

He didn’t waste his breath on a war cry or curse, he had neither the time nor inclination for last words, he simply lurched at the lord, wrapping his arms around the man’s waist and driving forward with every ounce of strength he had. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have achieved anything beyond maybe bemuse the huge reaver, but the Jarl was distracted and exposed, and he folded neatly in half at the waist as Erskine carried them both over the edge of the causeway and into the water. The Skjar thrashed, trying to find his feet and break free but Erskine had learned a thing or two from the drake and kept twisting his body, kicking off the riverbed and keeping the reaver disoriented and unbalanced. He just needed to keep them both in the water long enough for a drake to find them. With the Jarl dead, the Karls wouldn’t be able to resist the company, and the Aluwai tribespeople would be saved.

His own death was a small price to pay.

But despite the speed with which a drake had found the Karl earlier, no armoured reptiles seemed forthcoming and Erskine felt his surge of strength slowly start to fade away. He tried to kick off the ground again, but his boot glanced off an algae covered rock and he scrambled as his grip started to slip. The Jarl must have felt it and twisted his own body around, wrapping Erskine in a bear hug that felt like it would break his ribs. Erskine struggled, but his arms were pinned now, and he could do nothing as the outline of the reaver’s horned helmet swam into view through the murky water. The reaver smashed it into Erskine’s nose and he felt it break, his blood flowing freely from his nostrils to be snatched away by the current. Through the pain and the stars in his vision, Erskine smiled. The Jarl had just fucked up.

As they kept struggling, Erskine and the Jarl locked eyes in the gloom, the reaver’s eyes just as full of rage as when Erskine had first noticed them. Then they bobbed in the water, the Jarl tugged by something hidden in the dark, and the rage was momentarily replaced by fear before he was suddenly snatched away completely.

Erskine tumbled through the vortex created by the Jarl’s sudden departure, and waited patiently for his turn. He had no strength left now, his cuts throbbed along with his nose, and his lungs burned for oxygen with an intensity he had never felt before. If he had a mind, he may have made a play for the surface, but rolling in the water had stripped him of all awareness of which was up and what was down, and besides, he wasn’t sure his limbs could carry him back to fresh air anyway.

And then a terrific force smashed into his chest, forcing him through the water. He felt like a twig caught in white water as whatever had him surged to the surface and he found himself gazing at the night sky as he arced through the air. He landed on the causeway with a hard thump and rolled onto his side, alternately coughing up dirty water and sucking down lungful’s of air, before his body decided to the Pit with it all, and he noisily expelled the contents of his stomach. Feeling sick, sore, and bewildered, he sat up and looked back to the water. A swamp drake’s head poked out, just a couple of feet from where he sat. From the proportions of its snout, the beast must have been seven meters long or more, and Erskine held his breath, waiting for it to leap out of the water and snatch him. But instead, it just hissed, and sank back into the river. Erskine was reflecting on how odd that was when the clatter of metal on metal behind him drew his attention. He awkwardly turned where he was to find the surviving Karls throwing down their weapons and staring at him expectantly.

“I suppose I accept your surrender, chaps,” Erskine said, climbing to his feet and swaying slightly. “Though, if I might ask, why?”

One of the Karls stepped forward, uncertainty and fear plain in his posture. “I don’t know what god is watching your back, Calandorian. But if he can make even the swamp give you back, I have no interest in earning his ire.”

Erskine gave a curt nod. It made sense, or at least made more sense than being rescued by a seven metre drake. He told them to join the other two who had surrendered and prepare the tribe for rescue. As they dutifully set to their task he looked around, realising he had lost his weapons in the struggle with the Jarl, but oddly enough he found the Jarl’s sword by the edge of the causeway. He retrieved it, along with an axe from one of the dead, and resumed his watch over the pens.

*

A few days later saw Erskine on the bridge of his ship as the green shores of Marduk receded behind him, still feeling very much the worse for wear. After the successful retrieval of the tribe and the villagers, the Aluwai had insisted on suitably garrulous revelry. He had tried to politely decline the numerous offers of beer, but Levi in particular had been insistent, and he eventually found himself thoroughly plastered. At the time, it had conveniently numbed the aches and pains in his body, but now they were back with force and accompanied by a severe dehydration that no amount of water seemed to fix. His memories of the days were patchy, but he believed there may have been several marriage proposals from both the Calandorian villagers and the Aluwai, and he may or may not now be an official member of the tribe.

Erskine smiled. All in all, it had been an excellent outcome.

He turned his head as he heard Groth climb up beside him.

“How’re you pulling up, sir?” the sergeant major asked with a sly grin.

“About as well as can be expected. My body is broken in so many ways, and my mouth feels like I’ve been chewing saw dust.”

Groth laughed. “Welcome to being a marine, sir.”

Erskine joined in the laughter before they settled into a companionable silence, enjoying the sea breeze in their faces. Eventually Groth cleared his throat.

“The marines are practically worshipping you, you know?”

Erskine didn’t turn his head, the better to hide the flush in his cheeks.

“I’ve overheard some comments to that effect. Can’t say I understand it, though. We all just did our jobs.”

“Sir, you were dragged through the swamp by a drake, which you killed, before you clambered ashore, killed seven Hauskarls and a Jarl by yourself, and were then rescued by another drake.”

Erskine turned to face Groth. “It was an irregular mission, to be sure.”

“Bloody oath. You should, by rights, be dead.”

Erskine snorted and shook his head. Groth didn’t mince words, but he was right.

“My lucky day, I guess.”

“Luck? Or divine intervention?”

Erskine had been stewing on that very question himself since the battle. He had encountered three drakes during his time in Marduk. The first two had done their damnedest to eat him, but the third had inexplicably rescued him. He had never heard nor read of any examples of a swamp drake demonstrating altruism towards another species. Pit, outside of mating they attacked each other on sight more often than not. And yet here he was.

His mind wandered back to something Levi had said to him after the battle, but it was a struggle to recall the memory thanks to the alcohol. In his mind’s eye there were two Levi’s and everything else blurred into a riot of clashing colours.

I swear, I’m never drinking again, he thought. But even so, some words came back to him.

“It seems my prayers were answered after all.”

It sounded implausible, that the spirit of the tribe had empowered and protected him as he protected them, but was it really more implausible than the alternative? That he, bloody and half dead, had held his ground against a dozen elite reavers before being rescued by the largest swamp drake anyone had seen in recent memory?

“Maybe the Aluwai did more to protect their own than we realised.”