The last of the three mailed couriers finished his grim report with a bow, kneeling before his sovereign king in silence once more. With only the slightest hint of panic, his less-experienced comrades shot off quick bows of their own and dropped to the ground with a metallic clank.
Heruwulfaz chewed absently on his lip, the familiar responsibilities and anxieties of kingship cascading through his head like a stormy sea. This latest batch of dispatches, it seemed, was no different than any other he had heard before. As the preeminent political and social force in the Northlands, the Sweboz Confederacy was the predictable target for plots and machinations amongst the lesser tribes. Its borders and world-wealth were the largest, true, but what good did that do for them when it served only to attract aggression and jealousy from its neighbors? The tribes and peoples of the Northlands had become stuck – stagnant. Their existence was a cyclical tale of subsistence and violence with no ending, no climax, and no payoff. What was needed was a great change; one powerful, collective
push to set the people of the Northlands moving
forward again. Which reminded him…
“I thank you three for your words,” Heruwulfaz announced, abruptly grounding himself back into the mundane concerns of the present. “I hope you will make full use of my hospitality before you return to your lords; for now,” he added with a curt bow of his own, “I bid you farewell.”
The three messengers shuffled noisily out of the hall, mumbling and grumbling to themselves before they were even out of earshot. Heruwulfaz turned expectantly toward his door slave, whose rigid stance put the wall boards behind him to shame. “What is the hold-up with my guests?” the king demanded suspiciously.
“They have gone to the assembly-grounds, my lord. They await you there.”
Heruwulfaz bore into his emotionless servant with an incredulous glare. “Did I not specifically say they were to meet me in this hall?” He gestured vaguely towards the table behind him. “I even prepared-“
“A delegate of the Thing intercepted their party, my lord.” The giant knot in the man’s throat betrayed his fear. “They told them you would be meeting them along with the rest of the Assembly.” He opened his mouth again as if to apologize, but then quickly shut it without a sound.
At first it seemed the king might endure the news with only slight incident; his eyes began to blink at a dizzying pace, his hands slowly clenched themselves into bleached fists at his sides. His jaw began to twitch a little, and then a little more until suddenly, as if some invisible threshold had been broken, he threw both arms to the sky and unleashed a roar that would have made all the warriors of the Northlands mewl in terror.
The helpless servants in the room adopted what was known as the “play dead” tactic; their backs flatly against the walls, turning their eyes towards the ground, or the ceiling; anywhere that could avoid tempting the wrath of the king. On this particular occasion, it was no use.
“Those dirt-sucking, overprivileged she-men have overstepped their bounds one too many times!” Heruwulfaz whipped around in a huff, seizing his slave by the shoulders and shaking him like a reed. “Is there
anything else you haven’t told me!?”
The servant threw up his palms and cringed, his brains thoroughly addled. “I – no, my lord! If you leave now you’ll probably reach the assembly-grounds before they do!”
Heruwulfaz pushed the helpless man aside, already making for the doorway in rapid strides. Brisk blasts of spring air were already whipping in from the village, their raw touch further inflaming Heruwulfaz’s passions. Muttered curses poured from his mouth in a cascading tide of rage; those unfortunate servants who had come to investigate the disturbance quickly jumped and scattered again as their king angrily muscled his way out of the hall, his web of profanities hanging in his wake.
***
The necessary political relationship between Heruwulfaz and the Thing was laced with mistrust and bitterness; the inevitable backlash of two indomitable wills colliding together. The various factional leaders of the Thing, although constantly at one another’s throats, could at least find some common ground in that they found the new king of the Sweboz to be egotistical, petulant, and uncompromising. Heruwulfaz, for his part, made no secret of labeling the entire assembly as a corrupt and self-serving bastion of reaction and stagnation. This anachronistic body of freedmen, in Heruwulfaz’s mind, was a needless leashed placed on the powers of the king, preventing him from doing the work that was required of him. He coped with their existence, barely, and resorted to either going over their heads or behind their backs whenever the laws would allow. Evidently, the Thing was not afraid to reciprocate the treatment.
The bards and songwriters would often tell of how the Thing used to leap to its feet and cheer with admiration when King Swartagaizaz returned home from campaign. They described how each councilman would take their turn praising him, humbly lowering their faces to the dirt as they requested the privilege of his noble presence at their tables and in their homes.
On
this day however, when his son Heruwulfaz strode into the clearing, he was met only with a cold, stony silence. A hundred leering eyes glared at him from every direction; the spring winds hissed with the sound of hushed, malicious whispers. A few amongst their number were bold enough to flaunt their disdain with loud belches and yawns. Heruwulfaz embraced their disrespect as a warrior embraces the challenge of his opponents, carrying himself as imperiously and regally as he possibly could. He stood expectantly in the center of the field for a moment, slowly trailing his gaze in an arc across the councilmen. Finally he shrugged and crossed his arms. “So,” he began with an air of forced nonchalance. “Where are the honored dignitaries I was told to expect here?” Instinctively, he turned his query towards the greybearded man sitting directly in front of him. The two sized each other up with the familiar wrote combativeness of time-honored rivals.
By ancient law, the Thing has no vested leader; the fiercely independent spirit of the Germanic peoples is corrosive to the idea of even a simple speaker or chairman. As is the way of all things, however, the ideal eventually yields to realism and pragmatism. Erilaz, a noted orator and nobleman of the Samanonz tribe, was the master of the largest single political faction in the Thing, which inevitably meant that it was he who dictated the ebb and flow of their decision making. Under his long stewardship, the Thing of the Sweboz Confederacy had become the most powerful free assembly out of any of the Northland tribes. Heruwulfaz was fooling himself if he thought Erilaz would easily give it up.
“They should be here in just a minute,” the venerable statesman wheezed as he willed his brittle legs to stand. “My slave managed to catch up with them as they came up the road. It’s funny,” he said with a hollow laugh, “they were seemingly under the impression that you planned to speak to them in private.” He cracked his knuckles and grinned, the poisonous taste of calculated malice dripping from his words. “Naturally I was quick to correct the misunderstanding; the laws are very clear, after all. ‘The Thing must be party to negotiations with other tribes’.”
Heruwulfaz scowled and stepped forward until he practically engulfed the old man in his towering presence. Erilaz didn’t budge; if anything the act only increased his defiance. “I know the laws,” the king rumbled through gritted teeth. “But seeing as how we’re on the subject, perhaps I ought to remind
you of what the laws say about disloyalty to your king?” As if this had somehow been too subtle, Heruwulfaz dropped his hand ominously towards his dagger.
Whatever loud retort Erilaz had planned was drowned out by a sudden discordant uproar at the edge of the clearing. All heads present turned in stupefaction and bemusement as the noble chiefs of the Northlands poured into the assembly grounds in an amorphous parade of sound and color. Each individual lord and king was literally surrounded by an overflowing entourage of heralds, notararies, and loyal thanes; all loudly chatting amongst themselves and paying lip-service to their employer. It was a particularly amusing sight.
Heruwulfaz and the rest of the Sweboz patiently stood and stifled their laughter as the guests and their retinues slowly tried to assemble themselves into a semblance of order. The king silently tried to asses and identify each individual delegation as the demarcations between them began to form. Some of these lords he knew he had seen before; on trips beyond Sweboz lands, or during councils of truce with his father. Others, he noted, were altogether new faces, from the lands along the river Rin to the west. Heruwulfaz never did receive much instruction in the lay of the Northlands, but from his approximation, it seemed that all the chiefs from east to west had answered his summons.
Good, he thought with a private smirk.
Then perhaps I can succeed after all.
The din and clamor at last died down, leaving the entire clearing smothered in a hushed, anxious silence. Erilaz strode forward towards the group of arrivals, pointedly knocking his shoulder against Heruwulfaz’s as he passed him by. “The free assembly of the Thing of the Sweboz recognizes your arrival, honored lords.” He bowed and threw his palm forward in supplication. “We ask that you identify yourselves, so that we may do you the honor of addressing you by your names.”
Once invoked, the ancient rituals rolled along like clockwork, each actor playing his part with practiced perfection. One by one the honorable kings and chiefs stepped forward to proudly proclaim their names: Harkilaz of the Rugoz, Theudanaz of the Kimbroz, Ulfilaz of the Scandzaz, and on and on. When the last of the great lords had given his name, Erilaz called for the horn of convocation to be sounded.
The stage belonged to Heruwulfaz now, and he was intent that this window for change not be squandered. The free peoples of the Sweboz, and indeed all of the Northlands, surrounded him on all sides, waiting anxiously to hear what he had to say. Beads of sweat began to trickle down the sides of his forehead; he could feel his heart pounding painfully against his ribs. A painful lump suddenly seemed to build in his throat, cutting off the words he wanted to say. All the times he had imagined himself giving this speech he had imagined it being easy, like talking to a friend, or one of his brothers. Now, in the moment of action, he felt his confidence sliding into helplessness.
He took a deep breath and began to speak, only to find that his voice caught in his throat and stuttered out as a high pitched squeak. A general snicker passed through the crowd as they delighted in the misfortunate on their onerous king. Trembling a little, Heruwulfaz cleared his throat and tried again.
“Mighty kings of the Northlands; honorable freedmen of the Thing. In the name of my house and of the great tribes of the Sweboz I bid you welcome here, and I thank you all for coming. Many of you have traveled a long and arduous distance to be present here today; and, being that you are all great and worthy men, I know that you time is not be lightly spent. Nor do I believe that you proud and mighty lords, having already built great legacies for yourselves and your people, are inclined to waste much time on the tall rhetoric and flowery words of one as young and unproven as myself. I shall therefore speak quickly and frankly, as an honorable warrior ought to do.
The Northlands are not always kind to us, brothers. Here, surrounded by the vast forests and rugged mountains of our forefathers, the will of the Gods is fickle and unforgiving. The heavy spring downpours flood our meager fields and turn them into choking swamps; in the dead of winter our warriors and womenfolk brace themselves against storm after howling storm as if cruel nature seeks to scour what little we have wrought from the earth. It is a brutal and fragile life that we live, brothers, but against all the trials and tribulations of the Gods we endure. We endure because we are strong; because the bitterness and agony of our lives
makes us strong! Every one of us in a man forged of iron, his soul wrought in the blazing fires of hardship unending. Even as the lightening-bolts crash in the heavens, and the roar of thunder is heard from Hel to high Habukoz we continue to grow stronger!
And yet…we have lost our way, brothers; for this fiery forge in which we are crafted ought to bind us firmly together, like the links on the armor of a mighty warlord – yet it does not. Our shared torment at the hands of the Gods ought to make us like blood-brothers; inseparable kin beneath the same host…but it does not. Instead we forsake the bonds that hold us together and turn on each other, like starving animals fighting over rotten scraps of food! Two warriors who bathe in the icy waters of the same river later turn upon each other, wildly stabbing their spears as if the other were not a fellow brother of the Northlands by some wretched sprite!
Brothers, the time for change is at hand; I know you can feel it as I do, whispering upon the spring winds with ethereal promises for the future! Since the time when man first walked the earth we Northlanders have fought amongst ourselves, fighting and killing and looting – where does it end!? How long will we be content to simply let things be as they will be; content to let these great windows of opportunity slip through our grasp and off into the forgotten annals of history!? Let us make something of this moment – let us
move forward. Let us put our hearts forward to the task, so that when the time of man is gone and past they will
still sing our names and remember what we few men were able to accomplish together!”
Heruwulfaz’s speech had been delivered perfectly; his audience had been totally and helplessly hooked by his words. They followed the tone of the speech like puppets, nodding in affirmation and shaking their heads in disgust as the situation warranted. The look on Erilaz’s face told the whole story by itself, slowly twisting from smug arrogance to bewilderment, before finally settling on a look of smoldering disdain.
As soon as the opportunity presented itself, the elderly politician sprang to his feet and motioned for attention. “I never realized Swartigaizaz’s eldest had such a silver tongue,” he hissed with a humorless smile. “And apparently quite the mind for philosophy too, though what a good Northlander can do with philosophy I haven’t the slightest idea…”
The jubilant mood in the clearing instantly became solemn again. Erilaz smirked, seemingly enjoying the change in atmosphere. “You make some very interesting points,” he began, pacing back and forth with maddening poise. “But I fear your argument lacks…teeth – and sense. You place a great deal of emphasis on our common brotherhood, and the forces that make us into the strong men that we are. But, surely, our iron strength of character must be attributed to
all the forces in our lives – not merely some of them.” He stopped his pacing; his back turned away from the king. “If our people have warred for thousands of years, then surely it is our
warring that has helped to make us strong?” he demanded with a theatrical raise of the eyebrow.
“Our children and women-folk are also strong, even though they have never tasted combat. The only thing our warring dos is make us weaker than we truly are.”
“
Weaker?” Erilaz parroted with genuine surprise. “How on earth do you figure?”
The king opened his mouth to reply, but to his frustration to words came to him. He paused for a second before trying again, leaving his jaw hanging foolishly for a few seconds before it clamped shut without a sound. Human speech, it seemed, could not do justice to the importance of what he wanted to illustrate. He cast frenzied looks around the field, as if what he wanted to say was hiding and simply needed to be uncovered.
“You there!” he bellowed, pointing an accusatory figure towards one of the warriors in the crowd. The assembled onlookers obediently turned their heads towards this new actor.
“M-me, your lordship!?” The man touched a clammy hand to his chest, looking as if he might faint.
Heruwulfaz nodded and beckoned with his outstretched finger. “You’re a
skutjonez, are you not? Give me your quiver,” he demanded, not bothering to wait for an answer.
The terrified soldier complied, practically sprinting the distance between himself and his king. Heruwulfaz took the leather satchel in his hands, giving it an appraising squint as he quickly turned it over in his hands. What he wanted from it was anybody’s guess. The crowd watched the spectacle with desperate curiosity.
With a swift swipe of the hand Heruwulfaz drew one of the arrows, holding it triumphantly over his head like a war-trophy. The crowd stared at it in silent awe. “A single arrow,” Heruwulfaz explained, leaving it to hang in the air for a moment. Then, out of nowhere he grabbed either end with his hands and cleanly broke it in half against his knee, tossing the pieces to the ground with theatrical distaste.
Heruwulfaz may as well have just cut out a man’s heart for the reaction he got. The whole crowd sat riveted in astonishment, looking from the arrow to the king and back again. Erilaz’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he was about to comment when the king suddenly reached his hand into the quiver again.
“Two arrows,” he proclaimed. Again he took them in his hands and, with only a small amount of exertion, snapped them in half. The four pieces clattered to the dirt at his feet. Without waiting for the crowd’s reaction Heruwulfaz took three arrows and, with some light grunting, broke them too.
Nobody dared to make a sound; few even had the courage to blink. All eyes were locked on Heruwulfaz, wondering what malady of the mind could have possibly possessed him. The king took in their stares and smirked.
“Ten arrows,” he said ominously, holding the bundle over his head like a boulder. Faint murmurs ran up and down the astonished crowd. Heruwulfaz took a gigantic breath and squared his weight as he bent over the arrows. For a split second he seemed to relax; then with a sudden jolt he wrapped his hands around the edges and pulled as hard as hew could. His whole body began to tremble with the exertion; the veins in his face and arms seemed to bulge until the stunned onlookers were sure they’d explode. He snorted and huffed like a winded boar, pouring every fiber into breaking the arrows.
Finally, almost involuntarily, he relaxed, hoisting the bundle over his head once more as a triumphant grin stretched across his flushed face. “A single arrow or two is easily broken,” he panted. “But many arrows, bound together, are unbreakable – not because any one is better than the other, but because they work
together to reinforce the whole.”
He placed the arrows respectfully back into the satchel. “This is what the Northlands can be. A mighty bundle of arrows, each as strong and deadly as the last; and together, our combined might can deliver death unto our enemies.”
***
The great bards of lore would later record that the kings of the Northlands were so deeply moved by Heruwulfaz’s rhetoric that they all agreed to swear their everlasting fealty to him on the spot. A flock of millions of white doves soared through the skies overhead, and dignitaries from the farthest corners of the world came to pay homage to the new great king of all the tribes.
The reality was not nearly as uplifting. It is true the chiefs and kings were deeply impressed by Heruwulfaz’s speech, and they did not simply brush the young sovereign’s arguments away as he had feared they might. Yet as far as they were concerned, Heruwulfaz was simply filled with idealism and optimism born of youthful ignorance. They felt certain that, in time, he would become disillusioned with his own grand vision for a united Germania. Even disregarding this, there was no way that a well-established ruler or men would abdicate his office, especially not to one as inexperienced as Heruwulfaz. These realities considered, the honorable guests promised to think on what had been said, and then quietly departed Swebotraustasamnoz for home.
Before their departure, Heruwulfaz was approached by the chief of the Rugoz, a short, stocky man known as Harkilaz.
Harkilaz was even younger than Heruwulfaz, and in all matters could be considered completely unremarkable. So it was a great surprise to all when the chieftain attempted to
intimidate Heruwulfaz, demanding that the Sweboz surrender their hunting rights on the west bank of the river that they shared as a border. As if this were not enough, he stooped to insulting the king for his meekness and lack of repute, insisting that the dream of a united Northlands could never come to pass. It was not long before he was driven from the hall, with the additional warning that he never return
But Heruwulfaz saw in this a brilliant opportunity to demonstrate a point; for although he dreamed of a united kingdom of tribes, he was not afraid to carve this dominion out of blood and iron. The Rugoz had made a dishonest craft of terrorizing the Sweboz; their raids had turned the entire west bank of the Oder into a desolate wasteland.
If Heruwulfaz wanted to convince the tribes of his vision for the future, he would need to prove that he was up to the task; and what else did a good Northlander respect more than a well-earned victory?
Sons of the Wolf and the Bear (Sweboz)
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