He wanted to look away, but couldn’t.  Not with everyone watching.

​

This was not the first corpse Oulen of Casteltide had ever seen.  He was no innocent youth.  However, having to add one more to the tally made him feel old and tired.  It was one more body to add to the funeral pyre in his mind that was already far too large.

​

Decades ago, the youthful King of Ivonwell used to tell his guests that each scar upon Oulen’s face represented a battle.  Yes, he had seen a lot of fighting, but one battle fought for each scar?  Not possible for a dozen men’s lifetimes, let alone his own battered one.  He didn’t have the heart to correct the boy that none of them had been earned in that way, however.  The boy would grow to a man and learn the truth eventually.

Still, it would have been impressive if it were true.  On the surface, it was difficult to tell where one scar ended and where another began as it webbed over his thin lips and hooked nose.  The scars didn’t stop at his face, either.  The pale lines extended beneath his silvery hairline, and even more were hidden by the deep brown of his tunic and pants, and forced him to walk with a stiff, limping gait.  While only a few scars were won in actual combat, it was in the other darker places in his life where he collected the vast majority of these wicked remembrances.  Oh yes, he earned every one of them.  Oulen of Casteltide was a survivor, and only the foolish would overlook that.

​

Oulen was a King’s Man now, a royal troubleshooter, and no longer a man-at-arms.   He didn’t encounter as much death in his current profession, but it was still there, and still gruesome.  And as of late, he’d run into more of it than he’d like.

​

“Sir, who was he?”  The trembling question was called from over Oulen’s shoulder.

​

Oulen shrugged.  The dead man’s identity would be difficult to determine as he had been mutilated.  Gazing at the remains of the victim’s face, all Oulen could see were black holes where his mouth, nose and eyes used to be.  His torturers had been thorough, as even his eyelids appeared to be torn out.

​

From the victim's neck down to his upper chest, the handiwork was similar to his face, gouged and covered with gore.  The remainder of his body, however, had been blackened and charred by fire.  Sadly, Oulen could not tell which torture had been applied first, the blade or the bonfire.

​

Perhaps he was the first to die, Oulen mused.  If so, this man would have been spared the sight of the ruin of his village.  It would have been a small mercy.  All that remained of the village of Uldrin was black smoke and smoldering fire against a chilly gray skyline.  A lingering mist hovered about the village’s outskirts, casting a dreadful pallor over what could have been a bright Spring morning.

​

Another question was pitched towards him, and this time it held an impatient whine.  “Does it matter who he was?  Can we go home now?”

​

Upon hearing this, Oulen stiffened.  A hot rage grew within him and he whirled around.  Behind him stood a half-dozen young men mantled in dark blue and red, gazing uncomfortably about the razed village.  They were Knights of the Order of the Iron Tree, and the village of Uldrin had been in their Order’s protectorate.

Oulen’s glower pierced the small group of Knights. Their fair hair was short and well coiffed, and their uniforms impeccably turned out.  To Oulen, however, they were a bunch of useless peacocks.  In his day, these youths would have been studying for their third Memory ceremony instead of being sent to follow an old King’s Man to investigate a column of smoke on the horizon.  Primarch Fervian, that old bastard, unwilling to openly defy Oulen’s request for men, instead sent six of the most useless dandies in his Order.

The boys were unnervered by the pile of bodies casually thrown into the pit at the edge of the village.  The mutilated corpse, however, terrified them.  Again, Oulen silently cursed Fervian.  The intended insult to the King’s Man was an actual injury to his Order’s boys.

​

Still, it doesn’t excuse their lack of character.  Glaring into the group, Oulen rasped, “Who asked that?”

All of the young Knights looked away uncomfortably, searching for any spot on the distant horizon that wasn’t filled with horror.  All except one who met his gaze with a curled lip.  Oulen glared at him.  What was his name?  He’d seen so many of these youths in the last few days.

​

Barely into manhood, the brash young man had a narrow face and uneven red fuzz upon his cheeks.  By the young man’s lop-sided stance and the affected manner that his sword rested low at his hip, he fancied himself as something of a duelist.  “Me,” the boy replied in challenge.

​

“Yeah, I figured so,” replied Oulen grimly. “Let me answer your question, Merjarin of Riverhide… is it?  Yes.  Let me answer your question with one in return.  Were you required to give Oaths when you were Knighted?”

​

For a moment, the mulish young Knight frowned.  He hadn’t expected that question.  “Well… yes…”

“Good.  Things haven’t changed that much, I see.  Recite them for me.”

​

“What?  Now?”

​

“Yes.  You memorized them, didn’t you?”

​

“Well… yeah, I mean… yes!”

​

Oulen sniffed. “Then say them.”

​

“My Brothers be my witness.  We promise to… to… honor the Laws of our Order, to protect our Brothers, our honor… our land…”

​

Oulen’s voice leapt at the stumbling Knight, “You are mangling it.  Did you forget?  Let me remind you…”

​

        My Brothers Bear Witness,

        I pledge with my Life and Dignity,

        To shield with my body,

        To subdue with my sword,

        To sustain with my reason,

        These Lands and the Laws of our Order,

        And in Death be recorded by All Memory,

        To the Honor of our Ancestors.

​

Oulen watched them fidget, “Each of our orders have their own minor differences of course… does not Iron Tree add in a line about the Pride of your Primarch?  Regardless…” His gaze paused upon each one of them in turn.  “To sustain with my reason, These Lands and Laws of our Order.”

​

The old King’s Man’s eyes flashed across the young group, “Uldrin was your land, gentlemen.  It was granted by the King of Ivonwell to the Order of Iron Tree.  Men, women… families were entrusted to your care and you failed them.  You should have been here.  You swore to protect these people.”  Oulen hands rose, encompassing the blackened stone and smoldering thatch of the village’s simple structures, “This tragedy and your neglect are part of the living Memory.  This will not be forgotten.”

​

The Knights paled in shame as they listened and Oulen didn’t blame them.  The failure of Iron Tree was monumental.  “This is the third village this season that I’ve seen like this.  I have traveled up and down our border, searching for signs of who might be responsible for such atrocities, but I’ve always taken solace in the fact that the villages I found earlier were remote… poorly defended.  None of them had an Order to protect them.  Until today.”

​

Oulen glared at Sir Merjarin, “Your Primarch Fervian knew what I’d find.  He’d heard the rumors, and he reacted with the instincts of a coward… sending striplings when men who understood their oaths were needed.”

​

Sir Merjarin flushed and his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, “The Primarch is no coward.  Take that back, Oathless.”  His comrades stared at him as if he were crazy.

​

Oulen bared his teeth, “Oathless.  Merjarin, you wave that taunt about as if you know what it means.  But, I shall instruct you, for you are incorrect.  I have taken my Oaths, even though my personal Order no longer assembles.”  He took a menacing step towards the young Knights, who as a group backed away.  “And if I need to reintroduce myself, my name is Oulen of Casteltide… and yes, I am a King’s Man, a position your Primarch sneers at in disdain for secretly he sneers at the King.  Likely he’s told you that you don’t have to listen to me, that my position on Iron Tree land is only a formality, and I do not need to be taken seriously.”

He only had to watch Merjarin’s eyes widen to know he was right.  “Fine then, gentlemen.  You may choose to ignore a man of the King,” Oulen tilted his head towards Merjarin’s blade. “But ultimately the title you should most worry about at this very moment is the one that seems to be forgotten as of late… that I am a Swordmaster of Ivonwell."  Casually, his cloak drew aside revealing the worn leather upon the hilt of a long blade.  "So, if I were you, I would take your hand away from your weapon.”

​

Merjarin swallowed as Oulen advanced upon him, until soon, the limping old man and the youth stood face to face.  The young man let his hand fall to his side.

​

Seeing Merjarin relent, Oulen did so as well and straightened.  “Wise move, lad.  Now, to your second question, the answer is No.  We cannot go home yet.  There is much to do.  You and your friends have a lot of graves to dig.”

​

“D-dig?”  By Merjarin’s shocked expression, the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind.  Who he thought would take care of the duty, Oulen didn’t know.

​

“Yes… since you couldn’t protect them, the least you can do is Remember them properly.  All of you, get the shovels from the mules and get to work.  We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

​

Wordlessly, the young Knights turned about and trudged back towards the horses and mules.  Oulen watched them go.  They should be used to this sort of drudgery.  It was the sort of thing that would have been required of them as they rose through the ranks to Knighthood.  Perhaps they had forgotten.

Oulen, however, hadn’t.  Shaking his head, he returned to stand over the mutilated man, ignored during the argument.  This one was different.  This one wasn’t dumped in the pit like the others.  This one received special attention.

​

Stiffly, Oulen knelt next to the victim, thankful that he wore plain travel clothes rather than a uniform as he sank into the mud.  The knees of his tall boots slid uncomfortably in the muck that surrounded him.

​

With the body burned from the feet to his chest, there was little that Oulen could glean from the victim’s clothes, but for the remains of a bizarre fur vest that had adhered to the skin of his shoulders.  Touching the coarse fur, Oulen frowned.  It had a grainy, oily quality to it and was of no animal that Oulen recognized.  Nor did it appear to be of Ivonwellian construction.  Carefully, Oulen pulled it from the man’s shoulders.

As he did so, Oulen noticed something odd about the vest’s back.  Unlike the front, it had been shred to ribbons. Frowning, Oulen set the torn vest down and gingerly turned the body onto its side.  That too, like his face, had been mutilated, but instead of being gouged and disfigured the skin had been flayed from the body.

​

Oulen wrinkled his nose and lay the body back down.  There had to be something else to identify this man.  His eyes ranged back up to the face, searching.  And then he saw it.

​

Frowning, Oulen leaned forward to gaze at the bloody head.  The torturers had done everything they could to make this man unrecognizable.  They had even scalped him.  Oulen grimaced.  But they had missed one thing: His eyebrows.

​

Reaching forward, Oulen rubbed dark blood from the short, bristly brow with his thumb.  The thick hair beneath remained black as night, and as coarse as wood bark.  Quite unlike the fine blond of the youths that accompanied him, or even his own silver.

​

Picking the torn fur vest back up, Oulen hissed softly into the dead man’s face.  He did not know the man’s precise identity, however something important had been revealed to him.  “You sir,” he rasped to the body, “Are no Ivonwellian.”