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Story of Harek

It was near the end of summer in the year of 1200 after our Lord's Birth, when I traveled with Dikaios, a fellow magi from our Isle Covenant, to the eastern coast of The Isle of Man to trade some herbs and other small requisites for our covenant. I had taken Brennan, my manservant with me and it was indeed a fine weather to travel. We had decided to travel on foot, since neither one of us was a much of a horseman. We had spent few days to get to Douglas and after the trading we strated our trip back to Calf.

After the soaring hot and dry summers of the Levant, I have grown to enjoy these more humid and pleasant summermonths here in North. Dikaios was more in a hurry to return than I was, so it was decided that he took the boat from Churchtown while I preferred to travel to Port Erin with Brennan. I found it pleasant and soothing to have these few days off from the interesting, but still routine-like work in my laboratory. The chance to discuss things with Brennan also steered my decision, when we departed from Dikaios.

I chose to spend a night in Churchtown to hear news and observe the common folk in their everyday tasks. Brennan was, as always, reclusive and in sour mood. I ignored his brooding over the beer pint and set my eyes on the people of Churchtown's Inn.

It was nearly impossible to not to notice Nerienda there, though I did not know her name then. She sat alone in the corner, heavily obscured by robes and listened the same man that I did. To be sincere, I don't think there was anyone in the bar who did not pay attention to Thorbrand's stories that night. Bard they say he is, but he reminds me more of a giant. This norseblooded one-eyed hulking man sat in the center of the common room and told tales of Valhalla and norse heroes. His booming voice was captive and soon I found myself enthralled by his tale. Even Brennan seemed to like this sort of entertainment, but then for some reason he suddenly almost turned white as he had seen a ghost and left the room. At that time, I didn't understand his reasons to act like that, so I decided, again, to ignore his sudden mood swings.

I stayed and listened the whole tale. It was familiar to me from the Inn of our Isle, but never had I heard it being told in such an enchanting way. After the story, Throbrand the Bard was brought mead and beer from the thankful listeners, but I managed to talk to him for awhile. He was traveling with this young pale woman, Nerienda, whom I noticed to be one of our Order. This island, like the rest of the Tribunal, has many of these lone wizards, mages and magas, who don't share a room in any covenant, but instead choose to live by them selves. There is even a gaelic name for the members of the order, but due to my long years away from here, I can't anymore recall it.

I offered a place for both of them on our Island, after hearing that Nerienda was looking for shelter. I thought also of our covenfolk, and decided to invite Thorbrand also to pay a visit, for he would surely bring entertainment and even perhaps education in spoken form to our mundane workers. Besides Father Laurentius' excellent sermons, there is little for these people to celebrate admist their harvest and work.

Both of them accepted my offer and I was pleased that Lord had directed me to them, for they both seemed to be in need of a shelter or home of some sort. After a short conversation with Nerienda in latin, she explained to me that she was, and I was not suprised, a member of house Ex Miscellania and preferred the art of Creation above others. None the less, she seemed to be quite a typical example of an "hedge wizard", even though I know that that is not a correct term. She is reclusive and prefers her own company, but for now she chose to travel in Thorbrand's company. After these short discussions with them, I returned to my table to eat the rest of my meal and to ponder few of the unanswered questions that I had encoutered in my recent year dedicated to studying the art of Rego.

I was again interrupted from my thoughts, but this time the Lord's guidance was more visible. A priest from a nearby celtic church's parish approached me and asked my help. I was dressed in the livery of a Templar Footman and the cross on my chest was clearly seen by him. He was in distress, for his parish's herd of sheep were stolen last morning. Among the sheep, he told me, were also a few of more valuable animals, the famous six-horned rams, whom were very valuable to the parish.

I promised the priest to look in to the matter. My own skills were limited concerning this problem but Brennan was a skilled hunter and tracker, and I hoped that perhaps he might be of assistance. Throbrand and Nerienda overheard tthis conversation that I had with the priest, and Thorbrand offered their help. They were, anyway, heading to the Calf with me, and one day's delay was not much of a matter to them. I accepted their help thankfully, knowing that four pair of eyes, or three pairs and one single eye in this case, see always more than just two.

Quickly afterwards I bid them good night and took my place in the common room where Brennan was already sleeping. I had made agreements with the priest to meet him at his small church at the morning's light, so sleep was welcome and soon I slept soundly.

Next morning I traveled with Brennan, Thorbrand and Nerienda to the church to meet the priest. He told us very sincerily all that he know of the theft and I sent Brennan to find tracks that the thieves might have left. He found marks of horse's hooves, but the tracks led us nowhere, for they had been walked over too many times. The priest did though tell that he saw the robberers, or at least caught a glimpse of them. One of them had a huge and handsome black steed and the priest was sure that the man was Harek Ogmundsson, a norse landowner near Peel. I understood that the priest had already had some troubles eith the norse ruling class earlier, so perhaps the norse were not the most unlikely suspect.

Thorbrand knew Ogmundsson, for his family, the Erikssons, were engaged in a bloodfeud with Ogmundsson's house. Their relations were not very warm and I think that the bard already wanted to rattle swords with Harek's men. Not having a better lead, we decided to head to Harek's house and ask him a few questions, questions that perhaps I and Nerienda could make questions that couldn't be lied to.

We took to Peel on foot, Thorbrand amusing and entertaining us with his stories. I asked him quite a many questions concerning the norse beliefs, their customs and gods and he gave me many good aswers. Nerienda and Brennan chose to walk behind us, both almost sulking. After arriving to Peel we asked a few questions, and combining the results of our inquiry with Thorbrand's information, we soon learned the whereabout of Harek Ogmundsson's house. It resided only a few hour's walk east of Peel, so we started the trek back east as soon as we could, not wishing to miss the remaining daylight.

Harek's house was not big, but there were a few buildings near it and a small stone fence bordering it. We approached the place straight, so that all there would know that we came on with honest business. Harek's underlings spotted us and hailed a some sort of warning in norse to the others. Few more men came on armed with pitchforks and blacksmith's hammers and took a pose to remind us that we were trespassing on their lands. I hailed a greeting in gaelic but the men did not answer. Then they recognised Thorbrand.

That led immediately to a heated and shouted conversation between Thorbrand and Harek's men. The accusations were engaged mostly in norse, so I couldn't follow it, but Brennan did translate bits of it to me, and I understood that there was bad blood between these two families. Since none of the participants could be reasoned with, I casted a spell and made Harek's first in charge to rise slowly in to air. When Harek's men discovered that they were meddled by one of the magi, they calmed down very quickly.

That gave us a possibility to investigate Harek's farm and the nearby lands. Harek himself, being a proud and a pagan landowner was not very pleased with this. Still, he understood that bloodshed could be avoided and in any case, his men were not much of a challenge to two magi and a gargantuan norseman. Brennan discovered tracks, but they did not give out any hint to the location of the stolen sheep, nor were they any good as evidence that Harek was behind all this. We also searched Harek's stable and found his famous black steed, but neither did that led us anywhere.

I foolishly then doubted the good priest's word and presumed that we were following the wrong lead. I apologized from smugly smiling Harek and decided that all of us should return to Peel. I blame myself for this, since it later led to the death of Harek's men and caused much more trouble than I could presume.

We set our foot back to trail leading to Peel and this time Nerienda and Brennan were not the only ones who were on foul temper. I had a nagging thought that perhaps we had missed something, but I couldn't figure out what. We arranged beds from the common room of the inn in Peel and ordered ourselves some mead and stew. Before setting to bed, Brennan had waited for an quiet occasion to tell me the following: he could see shapes around Thorbrand. Not always, but most of time. He was quite scared and didn't like what he saw. He told me that there were two figures following Thorbrand, a young woman dressed like a norse warrior and an old, deformed man. I had noticed Thorbrand talking to himself earlier, but I had thought that it was a result of a head injury in a combat perhaps years ago, because I had seen men like that in Levant. A strong blow to the head can change a man for good, but I had never suspected that all that bellowing and conversation was part of his communication with these follower-spirits. Since I was unable to do anything to the matter, my skills in Mentem were not enough, I tried to console Brennan and told him to try to sleep. Since those spirits hadn't hurt us earlier, I couldn't see why they would do that now. Brennan seemed to calm down and we all set to bed.

The incident that happened during the next night was blurry and very fast. Suddenly, I awoke to a dark inn room, with Brennan already grasping for his bow, Thorbrand standing next to his bed and wrestling with another man and two more men charging in to the room. I reached for my greatsword and cast a spell that created the flames around it's edge. Nerienda was quickcasting another spell, and one of the nightly invaders' axe suddenly attacked it's carrier. The poor man fell on floor screaming, his hand chopped off. I ran one of the men through with my sword and Thorbrand quickly defeated his attacker. In few confusing moments we had been attacked by at least four norsemen, of which only one survived through the short bloodshed and even his hand had been cut off. All of use were unharmed save for few scratches, so I kneeled next to the wounded norseman and cast Chirurgeon's Healing Touch on him, making him more silent and unaware of his pain.

Thorbrand was furious, but we managed to interrogate the poor man a bit, making him reveal that Harek Ogmundsson was behind the attack. The men were his underlings, and this fellow confessed that Harek had ordered them to murder us in our sleep. All of us were furious of this treachery, since we hadn't even touched his men last day and I was now sure that Harek didn't tell us all he knew of the sheep. Ordering the man to run to Harek and tell him to prepare to answer some more questions, I decided to have our gear packed and to head straight to Harek's house. Thorbrand was not very pleased with this, since he thought it was a very early morning, night still, and didn't want to miss his night's rest. Bickering and kicking the small rocks on the road he still decided to follow us and so the four of us soon were on our way to Harek's farm.

Arriving there in the middle of the night caused a confusion among the norse. They still understood that there was no chance for them unless they could surprise us, and now we were prepared. After a few hard knocks on Harek's head-of-an-oaf he started to talk. He had been ordered by the norse High Priest, Thorbrand Finsson his name, to steal the sheep and to deliver them to a sacred grove near Tynwald Hill. The returning of the norse hero called Cormac was near, and the High Priest needed the rams for the summoning ritual. Having done all this, he knew no further details of the sheeps fate. Swearing to repay his treachery as soon as we could, I understood that we were in a haste to get there before something would happen to the six-horned rams, who were valuable also in a magical way.

It was still dark when we emerged from Harek's house and in a hurry started to Tynwald Hill. Throbrand, being a norse too, knew the place we we're heading, so we followed him and I prayed silently that we would be there on time. Only few hills away from our destination we heard a thumping sound from ahead of us, like a thunder but not so loud. Being wary for an ambush, we slowed our pace and tread onward more cautiously. Suddenly the origin of the sound was in plain sight, for at least a 16 feet tall giant emerged from behind the next hill, holding a huge sword in his hand and glaring at us with murder in his eyes.

Before we could take a defensive stance, the beast (being a cliff giant, so I was told by Brennan later) clapped his hands together and created a wave of earth that rolled down the slope at us. I was in Thorbrands side, the two of us advancing in front, and we were able to jump over the wave retaining our balance, but Brennan fell down and hurt himself. Nerienda avoided the wave, with magic or without I can't say, for she was a dozen paces behind us and I couldn't see her. I charged the giant with Thorbrand next to me, striking it with our greatsword and mace. The giant roared, and tried flung his sword at us, but Nerienda started to heat the blade and the giant soon dropped the white-hot weapon. This was more of a relief to Thorbrand, for I had already protected myself with the spell Enchantment To Block The Assault Of Iron. We attacked the giant again, both of us injuring it when Nerienda casted again, this time making a brilliant flash in front of the giant's face and blinding it.

The beast turned and tried to fled, but a quick casting of many Pilums Of Fire hit their target and the giant fell down. Surely the Lord was on our side, for he had guided my hand and helped us all, for none of us were injured except Brennan, who was after a short examination only hurt lightly. I gathered with Nerienda the Vis from the giant's body, pleased that it contained much of precious Corpus Vis, which we don't have much in the Covenant and which is very highly needed by our mages. Sensing that we were near, we almost jogged the rest of the trip.

Topping the next hill, we saw that we were late. All the sheep, including the rams were slaughtered and used for the summoning. Near the grove a deep pit had been dug out from the inside, from the earth itself and this was propably the origin of the giant. Only one figure remained on site, he too already marching away. We hailed to that man, and he turned to us and identified himelf as Cormac. Being too far away, we couldn't stop him, but Thorbrand changed a few words with him, calling him a coward and telling him that he never could have gone to Valhalla, for no one wishes to return from there back on earth again. In shorter words, Thorbrand tried to agitate this Cormac, but his words did not have an effect on him. Before disappearing to the woods, Cormac shouted at us, threatening us and telling that when he would return, Thorbrand Eriksson was among the first to die.

I was disappointed and worried, for this Cormac seemed very familiar to me. I knew him for his looks, for there had been a statue in our Covenant that resembled him too much for it to be a mere coincident. The statue disappeared after being investigated by The Disgrace.

We returned to Harek's house, burst through his front door and dragged him from bed to meet our accusations. I cursed the man, casting a spell on him making him unable to coherent speech for a month and the demanded a pay for the priest's sheep. Harek nor his men had none to give. Not wanting to shed any more blood, for already too many strikes had been cast and lives lost because of this, I ordered Harek's men to avoid the priest and not go near his paris ever again. Leaving the farm in morning's early light, we headed back to Douglas.

Before traveling to Port Erin we took a side turn and visited the priest, for I intended to give him money for the stolen sheep. I knew it was not my task to pay for them, but I had been given money by the Covenant and the priest needed it more that I did. So I paid a generous sum for the missing animals to which the priest offered his many thanks. He promised not to use money on anything else than for the new herd, but before our departure, he showed us a small cove by the ocean, where he had fished and found one of the Isle of Man's magical fish, whose jawbone could be used to make enchanted small items. Nerienda and I quickly came to conclusion that from this same pond, raw Vis could be gathered for the covenant annualy.

We took a boat from Port Erin to the Calf, and I showed the new-comers around. I learned that Bernard, Caligula, Nathair and their comapanion's and custos had left few days ago on a white boat to south, not leaving a word of their destinaition. So we set to wait for them and an opportunity to introduce Nerienda to the Council.

As written down by Absolon ex Flambeau of the Covenant of Insula Maledictus in september 1200 AD

Post Scriptum. This is being marked down on the year of 1202 Anno Domini. I have heard that Harek later joined to Erlend Ragnarsson's men, a group of norse mercenaries. He was killed by Peadar from the Calf in a small inn in Scotland. Harek's wife got ill because of this perhaps, but there was also a more sinister power behind her insanity, for I presume that Maighread, maga gone insane, used her to pay back to the norsemen who didn't heed to her call. Among Harek's men were many of these. The troubles with the norse haven't ceased. Thorbrand Finsson is, as I have been told, a sworen enemy of our Covenant and his men have tried to attack us since many times. Of Cormac, no word except rumour with bad tidings have emerged.

I know that our actions and use of violence in Harek's house have fueled these events, nor are we totally guilty for all this. The bad blood between christian people and norse pagans has it's roots in the history. What comes of this strife, is to be seen.

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