It was like a buzzing in my head I couldn't get rid of...
So I wrote it down.
There was, many years ago, a young man who lived along the Western Coast. He was the fourth son of a fisherman and, thus, had no prospects worth mentioning. He did, however, have one thing: a silver ring, small and plain, that he had dragged from the sea with one of his catches. It was nothing to look at, worn smooth and pitted black from the sea water, but he treasured it dearly.
In the village where he and his family sold their catch, he would often watch the crowd for a particular girl, the daughter of a widow from the Islands to the West. She would bring fresh milk and cheeses to market and he would always do his best to speak to her, but was oftentimes too shy.
On the rare occasions he managed to speak to her, he stammered and stuttered and turned away embarrassed. She was so beautiful that he did not think he was worth her time. Each time he spoke to her, though, she smiled a little more and, the following week, she would set up her stall nearer his in the hopes he would speak to her again.
One day, after many months of this courtship, he resolved to present her with the pitted, silver ring and ask her to be his. He went to her home one day, while his father, brothers and uncles were at sea, to speak with the young woman and her mother.
When he arrived in the valley where the widow's home was, he saw there were a half-dozen small, shaggy horses hobbled near the widow's house, and a huge, bearded man in a bearskin cloak guarding the door with a spear in hand.
The foreign guard - his accent betrayed him as one of the men from Across the Mountains - asked the boy what his business with the widow was and he told the foreigner he was hear to speak with the widow's daughter. The guard laughed and pushed open the door.
Inside were three men, two with spears and heavy fur cloaks, the third was sprawled lazily on a bench, a pile of silver coins and baubles piled high before him. The widow was shaking the man's hand and, faintly, crying could be heard from the other room.
The boy walked in, unafraid of the three armed men, and demanded to know what was happening. The widow turned to him and told him that the unarmed man was a great Lord from Across the Mountains and he had just paid a great sum of silver to take her daughter with him to live as his servant.
The boy was furious and shouted his opposition.
The sobbing in the next room quieted as the heavy leather curtain was pulled back and the girl looked out, her face streaked and stained with tears. The boy stared at the Lord from Across the Mountains and pulled a rusted scaling knife from his belt. The Lord looked at him and laughed as the boy challenged him to a duel for the girl's hand.
The girl rushed into the main room and pulled the boy's hand down, begging him not to fight the Lord from Across the Mountain, but the boy shook his head. He explained to her that he loved her, that he had loved her from the moment he saw her and that, until the moment he died, he would love her and even then, he would love her from the Halls of the Gods.
The Lord laughed at the boy's words and the girl burst into tears again as the fisherboy shouted another challenge to the Lord from Across the Mountain. Again, the Lord laughed.
One of the guards snarled and stepped forward and raised his spear, but the Lord from Across the Mountain raised a hand and ordered the hairy man to stop. He admired the boy's courage and saw that he did indeed love the girl but, he said, he was in dire need of serving women in his hall. He proposed a challenge to the boy; a duel, to be held the next morning, wherein the first warrior to draw blood would take the girl and the silver with him to do as he wished.
The boy accepted in a heartbeat and, although he had no weapons to arm himself with, swore that he would blood the Lord or that he would not rest until he was reunited with the girl.
The Lord smiled and, admiring the boy's courage, bade his guards to give the boy an axe, spear, shield and one of their heavy coats of ring-mail. The boy accepted these gifts graciously and turned to leave the widow's home, saying that he would spend the night in the dale an hours walk west of the hall.
That night, the girl came to see the boy and, in the moonlight, the two made love for the first time. The boy fell asleep soon after, the girl wrapped tightly in his arms, the pitted, tarnished ring on her finger.
The next morning, he awoke, sore, stiff and cold, with the girl nowhere to be found. He walked back to the widow's home and, half way there, stopped to pull the heavy mail over his head and test the heft of the unfamiliar weapons.
There, in the valley where the widow's hall was, stood the Lord from Across the Mountains, his three guards, the widow and her daughter. At the girl's throat hung the ring, looped around a simple length of leather.
The Lord was resplendent in armour finer than the boy had thought could be made by mortal hands and, indeed, so successful had the Lord been in his conquests of the Eastern Lands, some whispered that the gods themselves had a hand in forging the links of his mail and that the tears of the goddesses were the liquid which quenched the blade of his sword.
The Lord called to the boy, bade him come near, and drew a glittering sword. The boy stepped forward, uncomfortable and awkward in the armour, but implacable in his purpose. He held the spear in his right hand and, in his left, the shield. The Lord nodded and, without warning, leapt at the boy.
It was all the youngster could do to swing his shield up and catch the blade along it's rim. The force of the blow drove him to his knees as he thrust blindly with the spear, shouting with triumph as he felt the iron head connect with the Lord's body.
The Lord from Across the Mountain danced back, his hand at his side, and looked where the spear had struck him. The ancient iron head had weathered dozens of battles and slain hundreds of men but here, in the armour of the Lord from Across the Mountain, it had met it's match. The links of the mail were twisted and bent but unbroken.
The boy gaped for a moment and looked at the head of his spear; the point had blunted and, in his rage, he hurled it at the Lord, who stepped aside easily. The boy raised his axe and, screaming with rage, charged.
The Lord beat the boy's frantic strokes aside with contemptuous ease and swung a vicious blow at the boy's shoulder, connecting with such a force that the young man was thrown to the ground, certain he had lost his arm like the God of War had so long ago.
The Lord laughed again and stepped forward to look at the wound he had caused the boy, and quickly leapt away as the fisherboy, uninjured and still unbloodied, swung the shield in a vicious arc. There was a loud cracking sound as the wood and leather rim connected with the Lord's sword arm and the glittering blade fell to the earth from suddenly numb fingers.
The Lord stared dumbly at the grotesquely lumpen form of his broken sword-arm and snarled as he swung a vicious backhanded slap at the boy's face.
The boy was staring at the Lord's mangled arm, waiting to see a trickle of blood, and did not see the heavy gauntlet coming toward his eyes. He looked away at a shout from the girl and felt the thick, iron scales gouge the flesh from his cheek as he fell to the ground, his face sheeted with blood.
The girl screamed as the Lord from Across the Mountain ordered his guards to collect her, the silver and their belongings. He cradled his arm, which by this point was beginning to drip blood to the dry earth, and mounted his horse.
The guard who had been at the widow's door bound the girl's hands and feet, then threw her over the rump of a horse. The four riders mounted and, without a word to the widow, who was staring at the boy that had just lost her not only a hundredweight of silver, but her only daughter. The boy stood shakily and gave chase, but the unfamiliar armour was heavy, awkward and exhausted him before long.
The riders disappeared to the east, over the mountains, and the fisherboy was alone, lost in the Eastern Foothills.
He threw off the chain armour and cast aside his axe and shield, vowing to pursue the Lord from Across the Mountain to his hall and to be reuinited with his love, no matter the cost.
For a month the boy crawled eastward, over frozen fells and through chill valleys, clad only in a simple kirtle and breeches. Was it divine protection or simple luck that brought him, on that first day in the wild, to a buck, half dead with exhaustion? Perhaps the gods have a sense of justice and wished to see a wrong righted. Perhaps they wished more blood and knew that the boy would please that desire.
The buck gave the boy food and a crude, bloody cloak to wear. The snow preserved the meat he took and gave him chill water to awaken to each morning. As the days turned to nights and nights to day, the boy grew harder and the scars on his cheek grew more livid.
On the thirtieth sunrise, the boy staggered into a warm vale, his face aching from infection, his stomach roaring in hunger and his fingers and toes numb from cold.
There in the valley, though, was a hall, surrounded by tough, shaggy horses.
And about that hall milled great, hairy men in shaggy fur cloaks, armed with spears and clad in heavy mail.
There were three men gathered behind the hall, around a mound of earth. One of them was clad in glittering mail and had his right arm, his sword-arm, in a sling. The boy was delighted! There, no more than a bow's shot away, was the Lord from Across the Mountains!
He drew the rusted scaling knife he had threatened the Lord with what seemed a lifetime ago and crept down the valley, silent as a shadow and wary as a stalked deer.
He neared the Lord and could hear one of the men, the one robed in black, muttering the strange language of the priests of the White God. The other man, a guard, leaned heavily on a shovel. The Lord shook his head and must have, from the corner of his eye, caught the reflection of an errant beam of sunlight from the scaling knife's blade, for he looked at the boy and the colour drained from his face.
The boy knew he had been seen and, with the girl's name on his lips as his battle cry, launched himself down the hill, crossing the short distance between the two of them before the Lord could pull a dagger from it's sheath.
The scaling knife plunged into the Lord's throat, blood welling around it and glittering wetly, and the boy left it jutting there as he turned to face the guard.
The shaggy man was stunned and the boy, staggering now, his head fuzzy and cheek aching, tackled the huge man to the ground. The White Priest screamed for help as the boy dragged a dagger out of it's sheath and across the guards throat.
He wheeled to face the other guards, and reeled as his world spun. The pain in his cheek was almost intolerable, but she was nearby, he could feel it, and he shouted to all who could hear - man, god or beast - that would not leave this valley without her.
He looked to the back door of the Lord's hall as it opened and hoped to see her rushing out to him, but instead, a half dozen servants came running out. He looked to his right as two guards approached and felt a sudden pressure at his back. He looked down to see the point of a spear jutting from his chest.
He looked over his shoulder at the guard - the same one who had bound the girl on the day the Lord from Across the Mountains had taken her - as the spear twisted itself out of his body.
The boy fell to his knees, leaning heavily against the mound of freshly turned earth and fell into the hole beside it. In his last moments, he saw her beside him, smiling, and whispered his love for her.
The Priest of the White God had fled at the start of the fisherboy's attack, leaving the three guards to stare dumbly at the open grave where the boy lay, dead, his arms wrapped tight against the body of the girl they had taken from a valley to the west a month ago. A tarnished silver ring stood out against the thick, clotting blood that filled the grave.
There was, many years ago, a young man who lived along the Western Coast. He was the fourth son of a fisherman and, thus, had no prospects worth mentioning. He did, however, have one thing: a silver ring, small and plain, that he had dragged from the sea with one of his catches. It was nothing to look at, worn smooth and pitted black from the sea water, but he treasured it dearly.
In the village where he and his family sold their catch, he would often watch the crowd for a particular girl, the daughter of a widow from the Islands to the West. She would bring fresh milk and cheeses to market and he would always do his best to speak to her, but was oftentimes too shy.
On the rare occasions he managed to speak to her, he stammered and stuttered and turned away embarrassed. She was so beautiful that he did not think he was worth her time. Each time he spoke to her, though, she smiled a little more and, the following week, she would set up her stall nearer his in the hopes he would speak to her again.
One day, after many months of this courtship, he resolved to present her with the pitted, silver ring and ask her to be his. He went to her home one day, while his father, brothers and uncles were at sea, to speak with the young woman and her mother.
When he arrived in the valley where the widow's home was, he saw there were a half-dozen small, shaggy horses hobbled near the widow's house, and a huge, bearded man in a bearskin cloak guarding the door with a spear in hand.
The foreign guard - his accent betrayed him as one of the men from Across the Mountains - asked the boy what his business with the widow was and he told the foreigner he was hear to speak with the widow's daughter. The guard laughed and pushed open the door.
Inside were three men, two with spears and heavy fur cloaks, the third was sprawled lazily on a bench, a pile of silver coins and baubles piled high before him. The widow was shaking the man's hand and, faintly, crying could be heard from the other room.
The boy walked in, unafraid of the three armed men, and demanded to know what was happening. The widow turned to him and told him that the unarmed man was a great Lord from Across the Mountains and he had just paid a great sum of silver to take her daughter with him to live as his servant.
The boy was furious and shouted his opposition.
The sobbing in the next room quieted as the heavy leather curtain was pulled back and the girl looked out, her face streaked and stained with tears. The boy stared at the Lord from Across the Mountains and pulled a rusted scaling knife from his belt. The Lord looked at him and laughed as the boy challenged him to a duel for the girl's hand.
The girl rushed into the main room and pulled the boy's hand down, begging him not to fight the Lord from Across the Mountain, but the boy shook his head. He explained to her that he loved her, that he had loved her from the moment he saw her and that, until the moment he died, he would love her and even then, he would love her from the Halls of the Gods.
The Lord laughed at the boy's words and the girl burst into tears again as the fisherboy shouted another challenge to the Lord from Across the Mountain. Again, the Lord laughed.
One of the guards snarled and stepped forward and raised his spear, but the Lord from Across the Mountain raised a hand and ordered the hairy man to stop. He admired the boy's courage and saw that he did indeed love the girl but, he said, he was in dire need of serving women in his hall. He proposed a challenge to the boy; a duel, to be held the next morning, wherein the first warrior to draw blood would take the girl and the silver with him to do as he wished.
The boy accepted in a heartbeat and, although he had no weapons to arm himself with, swore that he would blood the Lord or that he would not rest until he was reunited with the girl.
The Lord smiled and, admiring the boy's courage, bade his guards to give the boy an axe, spear, shield and one of their heavy coats of ring-mail. The boy accepted these gifts graciously and turned to leave the widow's home, saying that he would spend the night in the dale an hours walk west of the hall.
That night, the girl came to see the boy and, in the moonlight, the two made love for the first time. The boy fell asleep soon after, the girl wrapped tightly in his arms, the pitted, tarnished ring on her finger.
The next morning, he awoke, sore, stiff and cold, with the girl nowhere to be found. He walked back to the widow's home and, half way there, stopped to pull the heavy mail over his head and test the heft of the unfamiliar weapons.
There, in the valley where the widow's hall was, stood the Lord from Across the Mountains, his three guards, the widow and her daughter. At the girl's throat hung the ring, looped around a simple length of leather.
The Lord was resplendent in armour finer than the boy had thought could be made by mortal hands and, indeed, so successful had the Lord been in his conquests of the Eastern Lands, some whispered that the gods themselves had a hand in forging the links of his mail and that the tears of the goddesses were the liquid which quenched the blade of his sword.
The Lord called to the boy, bade him come near, and drew a glittering sword. The boy stepped forward, uncomfortable and awkward in the armour, but implacable in his purpose. He held the spear in his right hand and, in his left, the shield. The Lord nodded and, without warning, leapt at the boy.
It was all the youngster could do to swing his shield up and catch the blade along it's rim. The force of the blow drove him to his knees as he thrust blindly with the spear, shouting with triumph as he felt the iron head connect with the Lord's body.
The Lord from Across the Mountain danced back, his hand at his side, and looked where the spear had struck him. The ancient iron head had weathered dozens of battles and slain hundreds of men but here, in the armour of the Lord from Across the Mountain, it had met it's match. The links of the mail were twisted and bent but unbroken.
The boy gaped for a moment and looked at the head of his spear; the point had blunted and, in his rage, he hurled it at the Lord, who stepped aside easily. The boy raised his axe and, screaming with rage, charged.
The Lord beat the boy's frantic strokes aside with contemptuous ease and swung a vicious blow at the boy's shoulder, connecting with such a force that the young man was thrown to the ground, certain he had lost his arm like the God of War had so long ago.
The Lord laughed again and stepped forward to look at the wound he had caused the boy, and quickly leapt away as the fisherboy, uninjured and still unbloodied, swung the shield in a vicious arc. There was a loud cracking sound as the wood and leather rim connected with the Lord's sword arm and the glittering blade fell to the earth from suddenly numb fingers.
The Lord stared dumbly at the grotesquely lumpen form of his broken sword-arm and snarled as he swung a vicious backhanded slap at the boy's face.
The boy was staring at the Lord's mangled arm, waiting to see a trickle of blood, and did not see the heavy gauntlet coming toward his eyes. He looked away at a shout from the girl and felt the thick, iron scales gouge the flesh from his cheek as he fell to the ground, his face sheeted with blood.
The girl screamed as the Lord from Across the Mountain ordered his guards to collect her, the silver and their belongings. He cradled his arm, which by this point was beginning to drip blood to the dry earth, and mounted his horse.
The guard who had been at the widow's door bound the girl's hands and feet, then threw her over the rump of a horse. The four riders mounted and, without a word to the widow, who was staring at the boy that had just lost her not only a hundredweight of silver, but her only daughter. The boy stood shakily and gave chase, but the unfamiliar armour was heavy, awkward and exhausted him before long.
The riders disappeared to the east, over the mountains, and the fisherboy was alone, lost in the Eastern Foothills.
He threw off the chain armour and cast aside his axe and shield, vowing to pursue the Lord from Across the Mountain to his hall and to be reuinited with his love, no matter the cost.
For a month the boy crawled eastward, over frozen fells and through chill valleys, clad only in a simple kirtle and breeches. Was it divine protection or simple luck that brought him, on that first day in the wild, to a buck, half dead with exhaustion? Perhaps the gods have a sense of justice and wished to see a wrong righted. Perhaps they wished more blood and knew that the boy would please that desire.
The buck gave the boy food and a crude, bloody cloak to wear. The snow preserved the meat he took and gave him chill water to awaken to each morning. As the days turned to nights and nights to day, the boy grew harder and the scars on his cheek grew more livid.
On the thirtieth sunrise, the boy staggered into a warm vale, his face aching from infection, his stomach roaring in hunger and his fingers and toes numb from cold.
There in the valley, though, was a hall, surrounded by tough, shaggy horses.
And about that hall milled great, hairy men in shaggy fur cloaks, armed with spears and clad in heavy mail.
There were three men gathered behind the hall, around a mound of earth. One of them was clad in glittering mail and had his right arm, his sword-arm, in a sling. The boy was delighted! There, no more than a bow's shot away, was the Lord from Across the Mountains!
He drew the rusted scaling knife he had threatened the Lord with what seemed a lifetime ago and crept down the valley, silent as a shadow and wary as a stalked deer.
He neared the Lord and could hear one of the men, the one robed in black, muttering the strange language of the priests of the White God. The other man, a guard, leaned heavily on a shovel. The Lord shook his head and must have, from the corner of his eye, caught the reflection of an errant beam of sunlight from the scaling knife's blade, for he looked at the boy and the colour drained from his face.
The boy knew he had been seen and, with the girl's name on his lips as his battle cry, launched himself down the hill, crossing the short distance between the two of them before the Lord could pull a dagger from it's sheath.
The scaling knife plunged into the Lord's throat, blood welling around it and glittering wetly, and the boy left it jutting there as he turned to face the guard.
The shaggy man was stunned and the boy, staggering now, his head fuzzy and cheek aching, tackled the huge man to the ground. The White Priest screamed for help as the boy dragged a dagger out of it's sheath and across the guards throat.
He wheeled to face the other guards, and reeled as his world spun. The pain in his cheek was almost intolerable, but she was nearby, he could feel it, and he shouted to all who could hear - man, god or beast - that would not leave this valley without her.
He looked to the back door of the Lord's hall as it opened and hoped to see her rushing out to him, but instead, a half dozen servants came running out. He looked to his right as two guards approached and felt a sudden pressure at his back. He looked down to see the point of a spear jutting from his chest.
He looked over his shoulder at the guard - the same one who had bound the girl on the day the Lord from Across the Mountains had taken her - as the spear twisted itself out of his body.
The boy fell to his knees, leaning heavily against the mound of freshly turned earth and fell into the hole beside it. In his last moments, he saw her beside him, smiling, and whispered his love for her.
The Priest of the White God had fled at the start of the fisherboy's attack, leaving the three guards to stare dumbly at the open grave where the boy lay, dead, his arms wrapped tight against the body of the girl they had taken from a valley to the west a month ago. A tarnished silver ring stood out against the thick, clotting blood that filled the grave.