The Shade's Oath

Winter was deep on the day Garm Rotfuss died.

He and his friend, Turpin Klagich, picked their way through the wooded swamps, checking the snares they had laid a few days ago. Snow drifted down from the branches of the trees, and when the bitter north wind blew, the air looked the way it had then — like a wall of white before their eyes. Snow crunched around the two Mar's boots as they walked, black cloaks clutched tight around their bodies.

"Heliotosis has a cruel sense of humor," Turpin grumbled. He was taller than Garm by a few inches and not yet thirty, but his brow was already furrowed from frowning almost constantly. "Not a flurry for three weeks, but we take two days to check the snares, and the north wind brings us a blizzard."

Garm pulled the cords holding the pair of skinned rabbits higher onto his shoulder. It was more than they had caught the last time. Garm guessed it might have to do with the bait being just barely visible above the snow, and snow always made rabbits a bit more desperate for food. He and Turpin wore thick, fur gloves and kept their hoods up around their faces to block out most of the cold. "Come now, Turpin. At least the cold keeps the meat from spoiling before Andris can cure it."

"It can be as cold as it likes when I'm by a peat fire. When I'm checking traps, all I ask is clear skies. I can't see anything under a foot of snow, including the traps."

Garm sighed. "At least we're likely to see their tracks, first, Turpin." No rabbit snare was strong enough to cut through their thick leather boots, but Garm knew Turpin wasn't talking about the snares they had set. In truth, snares were not the least of their worries out here. The two had brought javelins and spears, but not for hunting.

"Not if they're in the trees and not before they see us." Turpin let out a plume of steam and fingered his spear.

Garm couldn't argue with him there. Black cloaks afforded no concealment on fresh snow, and they were only a few miles away from the perimeter of a kobold tribe's territory. There was nothing to be done. Their trips out here were, after all, a kind of patrolling of their hunting territory. If the kobolds thought they could encroach upon Mar lands with impunity, they might expand their perimeter defenses to slowly push back the frontier until the Mar could no longer support themselves on the land.

"We're almost to the last of the traps, Turpin."

The two walked in silence. Garm felt as though eyes were upon him, so he casually readied a javelin.

"You feel it, too?" Turpin asked, also exchanging spear for javelin. If an attack came, the enemy would not be within thrusting range.

Garm nodded slightly and quickly placed his back close to Turpin's. The trappers stepped quickly, rotating so they could take in the everything around them. Garm felt his heart pounding in his ears, fear settling in his stomach.

Maybe they were imagining things. Living this close to kobold territory made men paranoid. No one wanted to venture anywhere close to the enemy's perimeter, but every man had to do it. If the kobolds advanced, claiming Mar territory, the Mar would not know it until the Drakes built a wall of traps at the front gate.

A branch dumped its load of snow a few yards away from them. Turpin cocked his arm back reflexively to fling his javelin. He hesitated as a hawk took wing from the tree.

There was no shame in fear. Fear kept you alive, but you had to make the kobold scouts afraid, too.

After a few tense minutes, they both relaxed. There was nothing out of place in the trees or on the ground. As Mar frontiersmen, they knew that did not mean there was no danger, but if they let that paralyze them, the kobolds had won.

Garm pointed with his javelin. "The snare is by that tree."

They both considered this for a moment, examining every point of cover from which an attack might come. Sighing almost in unison, they trudged on.

Turpin halted suddenly and pointed at several indentations in the snow not far from where they had set their snare. Garm squinted. The tracks were too small to be a Mar's.

"Trap?" Turpin whispered.

"Yeah."

The two men backed slowly away, eyes straining for signs of kobold scouts.

The sun slid out from behind the clouds, transforming the snow into a wall of dazzling light. Garm reflexively raised his hand to shield his eyes. To his right, Turpin cursed.

Garm dropped to his knees instantly, lifting his cloak up by the hem. Two small objects struck the cloth and fell to the ground. Garm knew without looking they were blowgun darts.

Three, at least, he thought, and probably four or more.

Garm abandoned his fallen javelin and was on his feet in seconds, hauling Turpin to his feet and into a dead sprint to the nearest tree large enough to provide cover. Garm picked a jagged path to throw off the scout's aim, and a dart flew past them as they ran.

At least four, then.

He hauled Turpin behind a suitably large tree. His friend's face was contorted in pain, and sweat dotted his brow. Garm knew what he would find when he examined Turpin's chest. The body of a small dart stuck out just right of the breastbone. Garm knew the wouldn't wasn't deep. It probably barely penetrated the leather utility vest or Turpin's shirt, but the poison would finish him.

Garm said a soft prayer and released Turpin, who slid silently into the snow.

He stood up, readying another javelin, and quickly considered his options. The thought of attacking never crossed his mind. The kobolds had the advantage of range, and he hadn't even seen where they were hiding.

I could make a run for town.

The kobolds weren't foolish enough to follow him there. He could hear the hoots of the kobolds as they came closer, knowing their enemies were on the run.

Snow fell on Garm's shoulder.

He tried to dive away from the tree, fully aware of what must be above him, but his foot slipped and he fell face-first in the snow, instead.

He rolled.

Maybe it wasn't quite ready to fire.

Something sharp jabbed into his thigh as he rolled.

There was a hiss above him, and then a smoking kobold body fell next to him, the rictus on its face a testament to the swiftness and painfulness of its death. The cries of the kobolds had abruptly stopped.

Garm quickly reached for the pain in his thigh, knowing it was already too late. He drew a fragment of stone where he had expected a wooden dart.

"Thank you, Marrish," he breathed.

A clean-shaven Mar dressed in green stepped out from behind a nearby tree and walked toward him.

"Thank you. You saved my life."

The man's face did not change. "No I did not. You died today, trapper, as did your neighbor — ambushed by kobolds who used your own rabbit snare as bait."

Seven more Mar dressed in tattered black cloaks walked past Garm's tree from the direction of the kobold perimeter. One of them carried Garm's skinned rabbits, swinging them merrily. He and his companions certainly looked like they could use them more than Garm.

Garm looked at them and then back to the wizard in green. "You're welcome to the rabbits. It's the least I can do. My town is a few miles from here. I have some soup."

The wizard smiled as if at a child. "Perhaps you did not hear me the first time, trapper. What was your name?"

Garm fingered the place where the stone had stabbed him to make sure he wasn't bleeding heavily enough to hallucinate. "My name is Garm Rotfuss."

The wizard waved a finger at him. "When you were alive, your name was Garm Rotfuss. Now that you are dead, you have no name — or will not in a generation or two."

Garm clenched his hands into fists. His friend had just died, and this young wizard was trying to convince him he was dead? It didn't make any sense and Garm told him so.

The wizard offered him a hand to help him to his feet. "Everyone is confused, at first, and they are often angry when I take them but not their companions. Come, we will make soup of your rabbits, dead trapper."

"Are you Domin?" Garm asked, not accepting his hand.

The wizard laughed. "Not at all, not at all! I am Weard Berjer Niktot. I don't come to lead you into the underworld, dead one. I have come to steal you from it and set your shade against the Drakes, if you will but serve me faithfully for eight years."

Garm glanced at the other mundanes in search of some help, but the other Mar seemed more interested in the rabbits than in him. "And if I do not?"

Berjer withdrew his hand and scowled. "Then I will leave you to Domin, dead one, and wish you luck in the afterlife."

Garm tensed. "Is that a threat, Weard Niktot?"

Berjer grinned again. "Please, call me Berjer. We're all boon companions, here."

Garm gritted his teeth. "Will you kill me if I refuse to serve you, Berjer?"

Berjer's face melted into an expression of deep sadness. "I have told you. You are already dead. I am offering your shade a chance to walk Marrishland as one of my servants and fight the armies of Dinah and Domin." He held out his hand. "It is tiring work, as any in my band will tell you, so I will understand if you choose the easier afterlife."

Garm grasped Berjer's hand, and the wizard smiled broadly. Instead of allowing the wizard to pull him up, Garm tugged hard, dragging Berjer into the snow with him. His knife was out and against the green's throat in seconds.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you!" Garm hissed.

Berjer did not resist. "We are both Mar. If you spill my blood, it will be in defiance of the gods' will." He raised both his hands away from his body in a gesture of helplessness. "Second, it is by my power alone that you can leave this place alive. By Vangard's Rules of Governance, your life belongs to me, now. Third, by serving me, you serve all Mar by destroying their ancient enemies."

Garm knew he most certainly would have been dead without Berjer's intervention. While few magocrats ever invoked it, Vangard's Rules gave a wizard power over any Mar he preserved from death.

He loosened his hold. "I am sorry, Weard Niktot. This has been a day of unpleasant surprises."

The wizard freed himself and stood up. "Please, call me Berjer. We are all guardians, here. Will you swear to the Oathbinder to serve me faithfully for eight years?"

Garm wondered absently whether death at the hands of a wizard would be less horrible than whatever fate awaited him as his servant. He raised his right hand. "By the Oathbinder, I swear to serve you until eight years have passed or until you or death release me."

Berjer offered his hand. "Then rise, dead trapper, as a shade among the living. No more are you Garm Rotfuss. Until you serve me no longer, you will be Garm Niktot, for the Drakes slew you a short while ago, but as a shade, you shall live again to avenge yourself and all slain Mar upon them. Their homes will burn as yours have burned. They will grieve their kin as you have grieved yours. They will suffer for what they have made the Mar suffer."

"Of course, Berjer. For now, we should bring Turpin back to his wife for a proper funeral. My family and neighbors will be happy to welcome a wizard and his band among them."

Berjer grew sad, again. "I am afraid that will not be possible, Garm. We march north as soon as we have eaten."

"You mean to cremate him here, so close to the perimeter?"

"No. We will leave him to the scavengers as the kobolds would have left him."

"What? Why?"

"We are shades among the living. Let the living mourn the dead."

"You ask that I do not even perform the sad duty of a friend for Turpin's wife?"

"They will mourn you, too, Garm, for you are also dead. You no longer have a place among the living."

"You speak nonsense."

"You are insolent to one you have sworn to obey. No more questions. Come, reinforcements will be arriving soon. Five we can defeat, but fifty is beyond the power of eight shades."

The wizard and his companions hustled north and west away from the perimeter. Garm thought of fleeing for his home but dismissed it quickly. The Oathbinder punished those who broke their word, and those that the Oathbinder did not, the magocrats did.

Garm ran after Berjer and his fellow shades.

Copyright 2005-2006 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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