Legends of Belariath

Lyann

The Tale of Oldtower Bridge

It was just back luck that the goddamned bridge wouldn't fall down when Brugal horde was just miles away from there. Lord Tengil and his retainers were a bit worried knowing that if they didn’t manage to tear down that old bridge the barbarians would be able to cross the furious waters of the Rush, and this would mean being killed by the barbarians or being executed by the emperor for their inability to follow orders. As a matter of fact lord Tengil was pondering what was better, had his head planted on a barbarian spike on the very walls of his own tower or have his head planted on a spike on the very walls of the emperor’s prison tower, he decided quickly that the wisest course of action would be to face the emperor wrath rather than the barbarian’s, Brugal, yes, known as “the Brutal”, was also know for the savage way he treated prisoners.

Tengil watched how his men tried ineffectually to break down the bridge, it was frustrating. Hammers and chisels broke and the bridge stones still looked unscathed. “This must be a thing of sorcery,” he thought and the it dawned on him that this was the answer: sorcery. “Bring here Simar “the Foolish” he ordered his squire. As the boy rode to Towertown, just a mile to the east, Tengil ordered his retainers to stop battering the bridge and have a rest, should battle come they will need it, a rested man can flee faster than a tired one. Hours later Eriv, his squire returned with Simar “the Foolish”, the man was complaining about upstart nobles that think that they can order around commons as if their were their slaves and Tengil had to wait until he had finished (or tired of) his complains to brief him about the situation.

“Look, Brugal “the Brutal”’s barbarians are arriving from the north, the army that our beloved emperor sent was cut down to pieces near the Neurin Forest. All that stand between us and destruction are a hundred of my men an a few local militias...” Tengil made a silence to let the words sink in.

“Yes, you fools are in deep shit!” Simar didn’t need theatrical silences.

“So you are Simar,” said Tengil trying hard to look commanding.

“Ah, you fools don’t know that I’m a sorcerer. I have a magical gate at my home that will take me hundreds of miles to the south while you fools are being slaughtered here”, laughed Simar.

Tengil had to restrain himself of pointing Simar that he had a hundred men right there that, at his word, would cut the sorcerer down to pieces making very difficult for him to return home and reach that bloody magical gate. “Simar...I know that you are a loyal subject of our beloved emperor, and the emperor knows how to pay his loyal subjects for their loyalty...”.

Simar nodded smiling sweetly. “And how could I serve our great and beloved emperor?”.

Relieved to listen a sentence without “fool” inside Tengil explained Simar the troubles they were having with the bridge. “...if we can bring down the bridge the barbarians will be able to cross,” he finished.

Simar took his time as he inspected the place. It made sense, in this place the Rush had cut its way through deep gorges, Oldtower bridge, arching over a hundred feet tall cliffs was the only available crossing in fifty miles. If Tengil managed to destroy the bridge Brugal’s horde would be forced to move east or west across a rugged forest something that would take time even for a fast moving barbarians.

“And you fools can’t bring down the bridge, can you? Easy to explain this....have you fools ever asked yourselves how could they build this bridge in the old days?”.

“Sorcery?” asked Tengil already suspecting the answer.

“Of course,” said Simar. “Pure and easy sorcery for a hard work...they tried once and again but the bridge always fell, too much distance to span. Finally they made a powerful enchantment so it would stand still for ages and so it has”.

Tengil that was pacing back and forth as Simar told him that tale. “Can this enchantment be undone?” asked the noble.

“Only a fool will think that someone so powerful as me can’t undo this spell,” said Simar as he scratched the moss out of one of the stones of the bridge uncovering a rune inscription. “This runes tell the way to bring down the bridge, the problem was that you fools even ignored that they existed at all!”.

“All right Simar, if you can undo the enchantment, please, do it now...we are running out of time.” Tengil was struggling with his desire to cut Simar’s throat and the unavoidable necessity of that damned sorcerer, he decided to endure being called “fool” for a little while, at least until the bridge was destroyed.

Simar did seem really amused by Tengil urgings. “Foolish! You have no idea of what real magic is. To break this spell we need certain ingredients...all of them but one I can fetch from my home at Towertown, but the missing ingredient you will have to provide me of”.

“What’s this missing ingredient?” asked Tengil with a sense of dread building inside him.

“The fact that I’m surrounded by fools is proved everyday. You live here and you call yourself Lord of Oldtower, in your coat of arms there is a tower and a bridge,” said Simar pointing rather disrespectfully at Tengil’s chest were his coat of arms was embroiled, “yet you have forgotten the real history of this place, sad, oh yes, sad!”.

Tengil looked around at the few men-at-arms that stood with him, soon everybody would know the tale of how Simar made a fool of the Lord of Oldtown, yet he decided that protecting his own people and abiding the emperor’s orders was well worth the pain of having to stand such a rude sorcerer. He was a noble that still knew the true meaning of nobility and he was not about to forget this because of his pride.

“Simar, I don’t know that tale nor my loyal retainers do, would you be so kind to enlighten us in such matter?”

“My lord...with all respects....I know the tale...” his squire voice sounded really scared of having to correct him. Tengil turned to Eriv smiling.

“Don’t worry boy, I won’t be angry because you know something, say better I should be angry if you forgot something, go on, tell us the story”.

“My lord, the old lord that built this bridge had to sacrifice his maiden daughter to seal the enchantment with her blood, it’s a scary tale that the old women of the Tower tell the children when they are naughty”.

“Which means I wasn’t naughty when I was a boy,” said Tengil and his men laughed. “Good,” he thought but then the implications of what Eriv has said dawned on him, he had a little daughter, “oh gods, not Minlein, please”.

“Your squire seems a bit less foolish than the rest of your retainers lord Tengil,” said Simar alienating any good feeling that those men would have for him which was good because this way maybe they wouldn’t spread the tale of how Simar had insulted Tengil.

“You need the virgin daughter of the lord?” asked Tengil already fearing the worst.

“Nah, you fools better not to try to understand magic, leave it to sorcerers. Any virgin girl would have sufficed, but good old lord Auroin Bridger decided to sacrifice her own daughter because he was the lord and he didn’t want to make his smallfolk suffer having to choose which girl was to be sacrificed”.

“A noble decision,” pointed Tengil aware of the fact that soon her would be pressed to take a similar one.

This time Simar didn’t call anybody a fool, “As you say my lord, but there are those who think that Auroin sacrificed her own daughter so this bridge would be his. Nobody could deny his claim as long the blood of one of his family had bind its stones. Things would have been different had he chosen from a peasant girl of course”.

“Then we need a virgin girl, no matter from where she comes,” pointed Tengil. He didn’t know if he should feel any better. The Bridgers had been extinguished in a war centuries ago, Willsens, Forkweels and Blackrivers, his own house, had succeeded them in the Old Tower. He had no blood of those ancient lords in his veins but he was a noble, should he act like Auroin even for more altruistic reasons? Was he supposed to sacrifice her own daughter to spare the commons of having to choose from one of them? The usual thing in cases like this was to let fortune decide, but what was then nobility? A noble was supposed to put himself between the enemy and those he was sworn to protect and this affected his family. His sons and his daughter lived in the Tower, well feed and tended by servants, there should be a compensation for this, a dire one.

Simar’s voice awakened him of such thoughts. “Ah, fools, I told you that trying to understand magic was useless for non-initiates. We don’t need a virgin girl, what we need is to reverse the spell, so we need a non virgin girl or woman!”.

Tengil felt as if a great weight was pulled out of his shoulders.

“Are you telling me that any woman that’s not a virgin will suffice?”. Being a widower he had nothing to fear about his family.

“Yes!” Answered Simar “The Foolish”.

“All right then sorcerer, go to your home at the town and bring what you need for breaking that spell, this men here will escort you, make sure that nobody knows about what’s to happen. I’ll provide you this last ingredient”.

Lord Tengil called his most able lieutenant, her name was Alenia, she was a noble born knight that had entered Tengil’s household guard not a year ago and had proved herself to be competent and loyal. Alenia listened Tengil’s explanation and bowed.

“What are the orders, my Lord? I’m ready to sacrifice my life is with this I can bring down this bridge and protect your smallfolk”.

Tengil was impressed with that girl’s loyalty and took note of her willingness to sacrifice herself in case that things took and ugly bearing. “Thank you Alenia, but this is not required of you, I plan not to sacrifice any of my people if I can...no I’m here to protect them, so listen to me because I have decided something...as it happens there are many refugees that are already crossing this bridge...”.

Later that day as evening was falling Lyann arrived at the bridge. She was happy to see the bridge already standing because this meant that she could cross the Rush and keep going south, remaining in the north side of the Rush was no longer safe with Brugal boys coming. She hurried as she reached to northern part of the bridge, a small palisade protected the access and a bunch of men-at-arms and militia guarded it. “Hope they bring down this bridge soon, this guard doesn’t seem very strong,” she thought. Fate loves irony it seems.

“Hi guards, how many time do you thing that this fort will stand against the barbarians?”, she asked innocently.

One of the guards, a Tengil’s man at arms smiled and said: “twenty minutes”.

This surprised Lyann, such a weak defence couldn’t surely hold that much. “Why twenty minutes?”, she asked.

“When the barbarians see the palisade they will be laughing for nineteen minutes, after this they will destroy it in just one minute,” answered the guard as his comrades echoed him with laughs.

“At least spirits are high,” she thought as she began to cross the narrow stone bridge and little did she know that she was the reason of such high spirits. Anyway, she would have had to suspect something when she saw that somebody had painted a pentagram on the middle of the bridge, just in its highest place. The fact that somebody had taken the trouble to bring there candles and braziers was also very strange.

“Hello girl,” said to her a young woman clad in plate armour that seemed in command of a small detachment of warriors guarding those strange paintings on the floor of the bridge.

“Hello, miss”, answered Lyann.

“My name is Alenia, lieutenant to Lord Tengil Blackriver, maybe you can help us, girl. We in need of a blood sacrifice to break a powerful spell that holds this bridge standing. It’s a difficult situation because if we don’t find the right victim to perform the sacrifice we won’t be able to destroy the bridge and the barbarians will cross. Are you a virgin perchance?”

“Noooo!” answered Lyann as fast as she could.

“Perfect,” said Alenia with a big smile and the guards grabbed Lyann. There was very little she could do as those guys took her and tied her arms and legs. Someone suggested that they could rape her since she was not supposed to be virgin “just to be in the safe side” and make sure she wasn’t, but Alenia cut short this suggestion pointing something that involved the impaling of the offender. She said that that poor girl would have enough being sacrificed and everybody should be grateful to her, even though Lyann didn’t feel any more gratified for this.

“Leave me, you bastards! I’m an innocent and virginal girl, I was lying!” She cried to no avail. They took her to a tent in the south side of the Rush and there, Alenia, her aide Elsya and two other women took off Lyann’s leggings and underclothes and held her while an old woman inspected her and pronounced her maidenhood already taken and fitted to be sacrificed for the welfare of the empire. Then they let her dress again and chained her hands and feet so she wouldn’t flee.

“I’m really sorry,” said Alenia, “but you have to understand that we couldn’t just kill some woman of our town”.

“So you decided to take the first woman that crossed the bridge, just my luck it was me...” Said Lyann really scared.

“You are right girl,” nodded Alenia.

“My name is Lyann, at least you will write it down in my grave...”

“We’ll raise a statue of you sweetie,” giggled Elsya, a redhead with a curious sense of humour, but Lyann didn’t manage to get the joke.

Outside of the tent Lord Tengil was having a great disappointment while he learned a new lesson about magic and was called, once more, a fool in front of an even larger number of his retainers. He had already made his mind about the fact that Simar was not to survive this event and had talked with Alenia about it. His lieutenant had said something about Elsya being good at something that at the end did look like an accident and now Tengil withstood the insults of the “Foolish” with a sardonic smile. Holding power had its regards after all.

“You fools don’t know that there is a right time for each spell. The spell that keeps this bridge standing was cast centuries ago at the right moment that the lasts sunlight died...you will have to wait for the dawn to uncast it!” said Simar.

Many of the retainers that were listening to this turned their heads north and watched the columns of smoke that rose in the forest at the other side of the river, maybe they wouldn’t have enough time till the barbarians arrived. Lord Tengil knew that he had to think quick.

“All right, we have to deter they advance, slow them no matter how. I’ll ride with fifty men to attack the barbarians while the rest of you hold this bridge at all cost until Simar uncasts the spell!”

“My lord,” said one of his retainers, “mayhaps you think that we are the Emperor’s Dragoons and we can be sacrificed at your whim. This raid north is suicidal!”

Tengil stared him with cold eyes. “Alenia, have this man executed right now,” his voice was calm and as cold as were his eyes and the man who had spoken went pale, then everybody noticed Alenia who stood at the tent side and had her sword unsheathed.

“Is there any other craven traitor among you?” asked Tengil still keeping her voice low and cold and the only sound that could be heard was the whistle of Alenia’s sword as she cut that man’s throat with a single thrust. “We will ride now in force, fifty of us in full armour, we will be hunters tonight and we will hunt barbarians!”, and the only sound that answered Tengil came from that man’s efforts to call for help as he drowned in his own blood. “They are spread in many small bands if we can struck some of them they will pull back to rejoin their main horde, and we will win time, but if we let them advance those small bands will join to attack the bridge before dawn...this cannot happen!” Tengil could see now resolution in his retainers. “If any of you lose your courage, just think in the people of Towertown, just think in that girl, the one that’s going to give us her life so we can live, are you going to fail?”

“Nooooo!” cried more than a hundred voices.

“Mylord, we should talk,” said then Alenia.

The most veterans knew what Alenia was to say privately to Lord Tengil. That he was to stay back and she should be the one who let the raid north. Some green warriors said that Tengil will show to everybody that he was no less craven than the man he had had executed if she allowed Alenia lead the raid and stood back here at the bridge. This was contested by the most veteran warriors, Tengil would prove to be a good leader if he stood behind, renouncing at the easy glory of the raid to be in the most important place, the bridge, the only place that was going to matter after all.

After a short talk with Alenia Tengil returned and informed his warriors that Alenia was to lead the raid.

Lyann could barely do anything more but to stay inside the tent, chained as she was. Her mind raced frantically trying to find a way to escape her tragical fate. She had listened carefully to what was being said outside about the sacrifice at dawn and the barbarians coming, she would have to hurry if she wanted to live another day. She was alone inside the tent, which was good, but she was chained and this wasn’t that good, and she was certain that there were at least four guards around the tent and that was real bad. While she was trying to come up with a plan she listened the noise of plate armour and hooves of Alenia’s warband and one of her guards making some statement that “This Alenia will end either killed or raped and enslaved by those barbarians, I don’t know what I would like the most”.

“Both things”, pointed one of his comrades.

After Alenia’s band had left things went quiet. Lyann assumed that the rest of Tengil’s men were on the north side of the river strengthening the defences. This assumption was confirmed when the man who had made that statement about Alenia’s possible fates suggested his friends to have a taste of that elven cute girl they were guarding. “Maybe is the last fuck of our lives,” he added and the others laughed.

Lyann shivered feeling a coldness inside her. “Great, they will rape me and then sacrifice me...”, but the warriors laughs were cut by a younger voice, it was Eriv, lord Tengil’s squire. “Don’t you dare to touch the girl!”.

The warriors cursed and called him names but none of them dared to enter the tent. Later the old woman that had inspected her returned with a bit of bread and a bowl of milk.

“How are you girl?” she asked.

Lyann looked at her warily and the answered the only thing that came to her mind.

“How would you feel knowing that they are going to sacrifice you at dawn?”

“Last time they tried, girl, I felt a bit bored if I have to tell you the truth...” said the old woman with a smile.

“You...last time, they have tried to sacrifice you more than once?” Lyann was certainly confused.

The old woman laughed. “Oh yes, but not Lord Tengil and his loyal men”, she added in low voice, “I’m a witch, you know, and witches here have strange ways, but this is a long story...”

“Can you help me?” asked Lyann in a whisper.

“If I help you, you will need to help yourself, and you will owe me a favour”

Lyann nodded heartily clinging to this last hope of survival.

“Mmmm...it would seem that they didn’t lock your chains properly,” pointed the old woman.

Being awake in the middle of the night is a painfully boring experience. There are so many tales in which the guards fall sleep and pay for it that we should have to assume that this is a reminder for upcoming generations of guards, the kind of moral that warns red hooded girls about striking a conversation with werewolves in the middle of a forest. Those four guards that stood around Lyann’s tent began to feel really tired, one by one they decided that sitting on the grass wouldn’t do any harm, one by one they reached the seemingly wise conclusion that closing their eyes for a moment would help them to clear their mind. Sleep struck them each one in turn and Lyann wove this spell slowly and carefully knowing that unleashing it too quick wouldn’t do any good, if any of them did fall asleep before they felt tired and sat they would wake up at once when they hit the ground. She also wasn’t that powerful to try to put all them to sleep at the same time, she had to be patient.

“All right, four guards sleeping, she thought after two long hours of spell weaving. But when she was about to take off her chains and leave she heard someone entering the tent.

“Hehe...those three stupid did fall asleep, and that little shit of a squire too, now it’s you and me girl,” whispered a ragged voice.

The squire, she had forgotten that they were five and not four had put the squire to sleep and had neglected this last guard! And the worse was that she could not cry for help because if she did all her spellwork would be good for nothing. She needed one more spell but she was tired, she needed time.

“Don’t try to ask for help or I’ll kill you,” and then she saw that the man had a knife in his hand, “I don’t care if we need a goddamned non-virgin...the town is plenty of them.”

“They...they will know you have done it... they will kill you....” whispered Lyann as the man stood in front of her.

That seemed to stop him. This one maybe a sleepless one but clearly wasn’t the most clever, Lyann thought. He seemed to be pondering something and then turned and headed for the tents entrance. “Oh, no”, she thought, what if he awaked his friends, just to have somebody to talk with, her chances would be lower than none.

“Wait,” she whispered and she stop at once. “They will kill me when dawn comes...I...I will like to...” she paused for a few seconds, “to lay with somebody, do it one last time...”

The man smiled in the darkness. “Of course, girl, it will be a pleasure,” he knelt in front of her and began to undo her pants and her shirt. She felt terribly scared as his hands fondled her breasts and moved down her belly to caress her sex though her body did seem to react on her own will to that rude handling.

“You are already wet, girl, you seem to be a real slut,” whispered the man and Lyann blushed in the darkness. The man pressed a finger inside her sex and she couldn’t help but to gasp which was followed by the intrusion of two more fingers and a rough rubbing of her inside. She breathed hard and closed her eyes as the man parted her thighs and pulled down his own pants to free his rigid sex. She found herself grateful for first time that someone was going so quick with her.

He entered her with no tenderness, just wanting to please himself, she had to bite her lower lip to prevent herself of whimpering. He grabbed her breasts and played with them and after just five thrusts in her he cummed. The most disappointing sex she had had ever but surely the most important. She did cast the sleep spell at point blank whispering the words at his ear as he relaxed on her and the effects were immediate, in few seconds the man was snoring loudly.

Lyann rolled the guard carefully and dressed herself. She had to restrain her urge of washing for later, now she had to escape, but she did fell to another urge: revenge. She chained the guard making sure that this time the chains were locked and put a rag inside the guards mouth to prevent him from calling for help, then she cast a lurk spell on herself and left the tent.

Night was warm around her when she walked under her cloak of shadows, her head ached because she had had to cast many spells that night, she was tired and she wanted to wash herself. She stared into the darkness, north it was the river and beyond it the dark forest where the barbarians and Alenia’s warband would be fighting a savage battle. In-between the dark shore on the north of the Rush and the farmlands of the south the bridge stood, impossibly long and thin. At the north side of the bridge it was a flurry of activity as Tengil’s men piled wood and dry leaves against the inner side of the palisade but Lyann’s thoughts were more centered in the south she began to walk heading in that direction. She avoided the road and kept moving crossfields until, two hours later, she found a stream of clear water. She followed the stream a bit more and when she found a place deep enough she undressed and steeped into the water. She sat so the water covered her up to her neck and proceeded to wash herself. It had been a long day and she was exhausted but she was also happy that there was no way they could catch her and bring her back before dawn. “They will have to take another woman,” and she felt some pity for the poor woman who would be taken from her home to be brought to the bridge for the sacrifice. On the other hand a failure to bring any woman in time for Simar’s ritual and a barbarian invasion was not to be ruled out. In the last week she had been running in the wake of the barbarian’s march and she had heard many tales from other refugees of the what Brugal did to his prisoners. The defeated soldiers of the emperor’s army had been crucified or impaled and many non fighting population had been enslaved, she would have to hurry now that the dense forest had turned to open fields, a place where would be harder to find hiding places.

She felt a shiver run through her body and she knew that it was time to leave, there was no time to wash her clothes to erase body smell. She climbed out of the water and began to dress herself, it was then when a strange feeling washed over her. She stood for a moment and tried to clear her mind, there was something wrong and she didn’t know what. She heard the sound of a waterfall, a sound that she had heard before when she was prisoner at the bridge, there was a beautiful waterfall in the southern side of the river where a stream decanted its water into the Rush. The dreary feeling that she had been listening to this sound all the time since she escaped, something that was impossible because she had been walking for more than two hours and she should be very far away, unless...

Panic began to feel her inner self, maybe she had been walking in circles never leaving the bridge place but, how could it be? She had oriented herself by the stars and she had had the feeling that she was going south, yes, the feeling, always the feeling. She realised that there was something that could explain what was happening to her: somebody had done to her the same thing that she had done to those guards, she had been bewitched. Somebody had cast a spell on her that had confused her mind and had made her walks in circles while she believed that was heading south, and this one could only be Simar!

He stood by the shadows of a great pine a cruel smiles on his face, the hunter and the prey.

“A good try girl, but don’t be so foolish to think you can defeat Simar. I belong to the inner circle of the Dragon Branch, your feeble powers are nothing against me, now you will come back with me to the bridge where your fate awaits you”.

Her heart sank in the greatest desperation she had ever known.

It was painful to know that she had been all the time no less than half a mile away from the bridge. When she arrived there Tengil and many of his retainers were already waiting, one of them, in fact was waiting while hanging from the branch of a tree, his face purple and his life finished. It was the one that had entered inside the tent and she didn’t feel any pity for him. The rest of the guards and Tengil’s squire were there too, but they didn’t seem to have been considered guilty of her evasion, possibly Tengil already knew that she had done it using magic.

She knew that dawn was approaching its light ready to arrive from the east over the mountains, she had run out of time, she would be sacrificed.

“You fools are lucky I was here,” Simar said as they approached Tengil, “or this girl would have fled and now we wouldn’t have anybody to sacrifice”.

“Dawn’s coming, are your ready to perform the ritual?” asked Tengil looking calm.

“Of course I am, your foolish knight girl and the men you sent have not returned, they will be caught in the wrong side of the river, hehe, maybe your knight girl will end up raped and enslaved by those barbarians after all”. Simar did seem quite amused by this thought.

“Alenia is back!” cried one of the guards from the palisade on the northern side of the Rush and Tengil smiled as he looked at Simar. A column of armoured riders crossed the bridge and arrived where they stood, Alenia and her aide were at their head.

“My lord, we have killed more than a hundred barbarians at the cost of six dead and eight wounded. We have caught them with their pants down, but now they are coming in force, we have to bring down this damned bridge!” said Alenia.

“Perfect, order the men on the palisade to pull back, prepare the ballistae and the fire arrows and take the elf girl to the middle of the bridge”, ordered Tengil.

“Wait my lord,” said then Alenia who had not unhorsed yet, “I bring you also a solution to our moral dilemma with the elf girl”.

Tengil and Simar looked surprised at her words.

“A solution to our dilemma?”, asked Tengil.

As all answer Alenia nodded to one of her men and a horse was brought forward, bent over the saddle there was a barbarian woman, her wrists and feet tied up.

“I see”, said Tengil with a wide smile, “suppose this woman is not a maid”.

Alenia grinned at this.

“She is not, my lord, we checked just to be sure though”.

The barbarian woman had been striped and showed the marks of having been raped, she stared at them with cold blue eyes showing rage and contempt.

“Alenia, you have done well, congratulations. Free the sylvan girl and take the barbarian to the bridge, and be quick at this!” said Tengil.

As his men hurried to follow his orders Tengil turned to Lyann and said:

“I’m sorry about all this, you can leave if you want”

Lyann thought that his excuses were a bit out of place but she decided not to say nothing about it, instead she pointed something quite obvious for her.

“My lord, leaving wouldn’t do me any good, the barbarians are already on the other side...”

“Damn, fire arrows now!” ordered Tengil to the men at the two ballistae as he noticed the barbarians coming out of the forest.

Two fire arrows arched their path across the river and struck the dry wood that had been piled there. It must have been coated with some flammable liquid because in just a few second the palisade was burning like hell. How long this would deter the barbarians advance it was a mystery that Tengil didn’t want to know too soon. They took the barbarian woman up to the middle of the bridge and left her chained before pulling back. Then Simar walked to the place where the barbarian woman had been chained.

“Keep back, you fools, this is something that goes beyond your poor capabilities,” Simar said and someone began to laugh, it was the old woman who had helped Lyann to escape, she was there near Tengil and did seem to find everything quite amusing.

Simar paid no attention to the old woman and stood by the woman. There he began to sing a ritual song in and ancient language that nobody understood even though nobody feel really bad for it because people is used to not understanding magicians and sorcerers. In fact there are those who think that the whole “magical and arcane language thing” was just a set up to impress ignorants, those who think this consider that magicians talk backwards or invent what they say just to make it sound “cool”. This could be one of the reasons why nobody got impressed by Simar’s ritual. The old woman should be the less impressed of them since her laughing fit seemed to have reached a hysterical level and Tengil was looking uncomfortably at her.

“Who is that old woman,” Lyann asked Tengil’s squire who happened to be at her side.

“Mowen, an old servant woman in Lord Tengil’s tower, she knows a lot of tales,” answered the boy.

If Simar didn’t look that impressive the barbarians, climbing a wall of fire in the other side of the river, did. While Simar was busy at his chanting Brugal’s barbarians were proving why they had defeated the emperor’s army, many of them were climbing the palisade no matter the fire and the heat, most of them died in the most horrible way but one managed to do it and began to cross the bridge. It was a huge man, covered in heavy furs and leather, he held a greatsword in one hand and a whip in the other and his cloak was on fire yet he didn’t feel it because he was in a berserker rage and protected by some amulets of natural magic. Simar felt very tired.

The wizard finished his ritual and slit the barbarian woman’s throat letting the blood spill on the bridgestones and as the woman was dying he bellowed at the huge barbarian.

“You can not pass, I serve the order of the Dragon Branch!”. And the she struck the bridge with his staff. Nothing happened.

Mowen fell on her knees unable to stand because of her own hilarity but the rest of those who were standing on the south side of the river didn’t find this so amusing.

“Errr...well....yes, you cannot pass, yes....” muttered Simar as the huge barbarian, latter it was know that his name was Balrun, approached him grinning evilly.

“Are you sure they call him foolish because he calls everybody a fool?” Alenia asked Lord Tengil.

“Maybe there is another reason...” answered Tengil looking warily at Mowen.

Simar “the Foolish” had a bad feeling when Balrun waved the greatsword at him, he quickly raised his hand and cast a protection spell which triggered the barbarian’s action. Balrun threw the huge greatsword at Simar the invisible protective wall broke at the force of the impact but managed to reduce the damage. Simar just got his belly opened rather than being cut in two.

As is blood spilled on the stones of the bridge Simar finally understood why that old crone was laughing so much. He raised his staff and struck the bridge with it casting again that breaking spell as he cried once more.

“You can not pass!”

This time the bridge broke and both Simar and Balrun fell into the waters of the Rush. Simar’s last words were: “escape fools!”, but nobody was certain to whom he was saying this.

Later it was known that Simar had made a mistake with his spell. The reverse of the enchantment was to sacrifice a non virgin man, his own blood was what did break the spell that held the bridge. Only Mowen, the old woman, had known this but she had kept this knowledge to herself, Tengil decided to burn her at the stake not for witchcraft but for treachery to the empire. She died laughing and everybody agreed that she was nuts.

The barbarians managed to cross the Rush many miles west of Oldtower from there they marched south and the war kept going.

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