Accidental War Mage

The following excerpt is taken from the first chapter of Ragnar Rimhamar, Gentleman Adventurer.

I will never forget the day that I met Mikolai Stepanovich, so it is there I shall begin my story.

He was taller than most; and in proportion to his height slenderer than most as well. Where another man of his status and seniority might have allowed himself the comforts that fill a man’s midsection to rounding, Mikolai’s waist could be seen as narrower than his hips. Lest you mistake me, his figure was not feminine; this was not a case of womanly hips on a man. Mikolai’s hourglass was the hourglass of a wolf, asymmetric and gaunt.

This was my first surprise; we had been captured by what we thought was the army of the Golden Empire, and I had been led to expect that its officers were usually shaped like bears, shaggy and round. The guards had spoken of him in hushed tones, and so I thought he would be some giant bear of a man, so big that putting him in a customized suit of steam knight armor was the only option.

Instead, the dog sitting next to him looked like it weighed more than half of what he did. It was a large dog, but still, I am not speaking of a man of great bulk. It felt a little irregular to be left alone in the room with the enemy commander, his dog, and a tiny slip of a woman who must have been his mistress.

After my introduction, he stopped to have a little conversation with his companion. Not the woman, the dog – he asked the dog if it thought I was lying. Pluck me bald if the dog didn’t seem to think it was having a conversation with him, too.

Then I got my third surprise: He spoke my native tongue, or nearly spoke it. His dialect and accent were unusual; not so much foreign as archaic, like the ancient dvergr who visited my family when I was eleven. Not quite Danish, not quite Swedish, but something similar to both.

“Let me and thee speak unpolished truth,” he said. “Lives lie on the table, coins unspent.” To demonstrate exactly what he thought of coins left unspent on the table, he flicked a silver coin across the room. It chimed when it hit the floor, an indication of its purity, but he didn’t seem to much care. Just sat there, waiting for me to tell him the truth.

I spilled out my real name and rank in a spurt of nervous energy, then tried to explain why I might lie to him. In particular, I told him that I was worried about the real captain’s fate as a prisoner. Maybe not the best excuse for what was really a routine bit of obfuscation. Ragnar, I thought to myself after blurting that out, now you’ve practically accused his country of routinely violating the conventions of civilized war, you’re in for it now.

He didn’t seem to care about the accusation. “I am sure thy father’s elder brother’s second son doth appreciate such concerns of thine,” he said, “Though I fear the question of disposal pleads over more than officers.” He paused, meaningfully. “Despite mine concern, I seek to hire. Wherefore our situation, betwixt thou and the amethyst unfathered, contractual obligations lie dead and buried.”

Mikolai’s precise knowledge of the exact relationship between the captain and myself was my fourth surprise. If he knew that much about us, he didn’t need to ask for my real name; it was just a test of my honesty. My surprise explains how long it took me to notice he had suggested very obliquely that he was willing to kill all the prisoners.

His threat and his profanely creative metaphor that I could only guess was meant to refer to the nobles bankrolling the effort to restore the prince to Wallachia underscored the gravity of the situation; I felt like I was being interviewed by a mountain king, not some apprentice wizard on his first field mission.

That was how the intelligence officer had described Mikolai; as a novice with no known history, attached for some unknown reason to the Butcher of Belz for practical training. A negligible threat; a mere accessory to the presence of the better-known imperial officer, and easy prey in his absence.

His troops, as I mentioned had a very different opinion; they held him in the sort of esteem reserved for things both great and terrible. Fear and respect ran in alternating currents, and they spoke of him in whispers more often than aloud.

Those same feelings, fear and respect, were running through my own breast as he offered the knife and bowl to me. “The silver of Sweden lies separate from the vein of coal I seek,” he said. “Thou needs not forswear thine silver in the taking of mine; slice thy thumb and write oath with it.”

“What if I don’t want to sign your contract?” I asked, ice running through my veins.

“Thou hast the choice,” he said.

“What will happen if I choose to decline your offer?” I pressed. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes flickered. I looked back around the room and saw the coin on the floor. He had already told me everything, and he was not going to waste any further words while he waited. The choice was mine; as much as I had one.

"If you have lied to me about your interests,” I told him, “or if you cheat me and my men of just compensation, I will have your blood in trade for mine.” I snatched the knife, swiftly slashed my thumb, and signed fiercely.1

1 The discerning reader may note that there are a number of differences between Mikolai’s version and Ragnar’s version of the signing of the contract between them. Some of these differences may be due to translation, but I am unable to reconcile some of the discrepancies. I leave it to the reader to do so.