by Alcuin Fromm
in Issue 117, October 2021
The final drop of liquid fell into the reservoir of a water clock, setting in motion a series of mechanical movements which culminated with the bright chime of a small bell. Nodd’s eyes popped open. Consciousness seemed to crush in around him from all sides. Shivering, he pulled his arms and legs together more tightly under his winter skins and closed his eyes, hoping to somehow shut out bleak reality.
Nodd was awake and would stay awake because of that water clock. It might have been a miracle of the smith’s masterful ingenuity, but for Nodd, it was a curse. If given the opportunity, the young squire, just short of his nineteenth birthday, would sleep in long after sunrise, but the water clock forced him to wake up long before it. He sighed and would have seen a cloud of vapor billow from his mouth if his small room in the Squire’s Barracks had not been pitch black in the pre-dawn darkness of a frigid, winter morning.
He pulled the skins over his head and his breath warmed the air around his face. His nose began to feel a tiny bit less frozen. It was not so bad under the skins, thought Nodd. And with every passing second, his lumpy, straw mattress became more and more comfortable, while the prospect of getting up and abandoning his haven of warmth became more and more daunting.
Why did he have to get up? Life would continue just as it always had whether he was in bed or not. What was so important that the smith had to invent an infernal contraption, the sole purpose of which was to rip him out of sleep before the sun rose, before even the blasted roosters got up?
He knew the answer to his own question. Seven months ago, the Squire Master had tasked Nodd with ringing the Watchtower Bell in the center of town. And the only way to ensure that the Bell rang at the precise break of dawn was for him to drag himself to that Watchtower before the break of dawn, every morning, like a prisoner going to the gallows. But unlike a prisoner, Nodd did not make his death march once and for all, but every day, again and again in endless repetition.
The question remained lodged in Nodd’s sleepy mind. Why did he have to get up? His conscience promptly responded that the safety of hundreds of people relied on the ringing of the Bell. The forest surrounding the town of Sinille and its Garrison had once been swarming with Skogs, deadly, man-sized insects that always attacked just after the break of dawn. The Garrison and town leaders had learned their lesson after a number of tragic deaths and had identified the consistent behavioral patterns of the Skogs. A Watchtower had been built for guards to sound an alarm when the beasts were approaching. Over time, the Skog attacks had become routine exercises in warding off the things. Later, the Watchtower guards had been replaced by the Watchtower Bell, which, if rung shortly before dawn, had allowed the citizenry to prepare for any potential attacks. Eventually, the attacks themselves had become less and less frequent. Then they had stopped altogether. Some believed the Skogs had migrated out of the region, while others thought they were still there, only having become conditioned over the years to avoid approaching Sinille or the Garrison where they were inevitably killed.
Nodd sighed again. And all that, he thought, was over thirty years ago. Thirty years! Not one, single Skog attack in over thirty years, and yet, for some reason, the daily ringing of the Bell had never been stopped. And for the past seven months, he was the one that had to get up every morning and ring the Bell, that useless Bell.
A thought took form in his head. It was distant and shapeless at first, like the wispy tendrils of fog reaching out of the forest. Then it began to take on almost concrete form, becoming a lump of energy in Nodd’s chest. It was so simple and yet so revolutionary. He could just stay in bed. He could simply ignore the Bell entirely and just go back to sleep. Who would fault him? The Garrison Commander? He had a thousand other more important things to worry about. The Squire Master? All he cared about was whether the squires polished their tunic buttons for inspection. Then another person came to Nodd’s mind, Ærenne.
His heart fluttered with youthful sentimentality. What would Ærenne, his beautiful betrothed, think? That gave him pause. The daughter of a Garrison officer, she was principled and disciplined. More than once she had chided him for being late or dressing sloppily or using foul language. In fact, the more he considered it, the more he realized that she chided him very often.
Well, maybe too often, thought Nodd. What say does she have in the matter? No one asked her to make sure he got up and ring the stupid Bell. She had her own tasks and Nodd would be the last person in the Empire to tell her how to stitch or weave or milk the cow. If they were going to be wed, he had to lay down certain ground rules now, before it was too late. First, she had better not tell him how to do his job. Second, it’s none of her business if he uses foul language with his friends. And third, he can sleep in as long as he wants and she can just deal with it.
He laughed at himself for the thought. In reality, whenever she chided him, she could barely do so with a straight face. It was a game they played. He would even do things intentionally to annoy her, just so he could banter with her and pretend to argue. Nodd was hopelessly smitten with the young woman, and he believed in his heart that she felt the same way for him. He could no more get angry at Ærenne than he could get angry at his own father or mother. Then Nodd thought of his father and his mother.
His father, a stone and iron craftsman, would be livid if he discovered that his own son had skipped his duty, staying in bed like a drunkard. Nodd could almost hear the man’s voice in his head. Is that what I taught you about work? He imagined his father pacing back and forth in his workshop, yelling alternately at the ground and at the roof, listing all the other traditions and customs that had to be maintained to preserve order and safety in their dangerous frontier town. He would then lose track of his thoughts, wander off onto a disjointed diatribe against the atrocities of the Guildsmen, then finally calm down and send Nodd on his way with a stern expression that would fail to mask the man’s generous, yielding nature.
His mother, on the other hand, would not be angry but disappointed. She would smile and gently reprove him, but the smile would have none of the joy and warmth that it usually had. If Nodd’s father always tried to hide his emotions, his mother always tried to have them on display. But she could never be dishonest. Nodd would be able to read the true message her mother would be sending with a smile that only moved her lips but not her eyes. She would be saying that he had failed her, and the family, and himself.
Nodd sighed a third time. His mind was made up. He threw off the winter skins, swung out his legs, and stepped barefoot onto the freezing, stone ground. He gasped at the shock. Trying to dress quickly in the dark, he knocked repeatedly against the few pieces of furniture in his tiny room and launched a curse word with every painful blow. As he blindly pulled on his boots, Nodd smiled to himself, imagining how Ærenne would react if she could hear him. He paused for dramatic effect, then blurted out one final oath, just for her.
Though his room had been cold, the air outside the Squire’s Barracks was even colder. A light breeze was sufficient to cut through his cloak as if it were not even there. To the north, Nodd saw the distant line of torch-fires along the Garrison wall, like red stars in the black night sky. The sight reminded him that the whole point of being a Squire was to become a soldier one day and then an Imperial Knight. Turning to the south, he began walking briskly towards the center of town and the Watchtower. He wove his way through the cobbled streets, moving from torch to torch along the familiar route until he reached his destination.
The original, hastily-built Watchtower had been replaced with the sturdy, wooden construction that had stood in the center of the town for more than two decades. Crisscrossing, wooden pylons and support beams formed an interwoven mesh that rose to a height of twenty men. It was wider at the base than at the top, which gave the structure a vaguely pyramidal shape. At the apex was a square, roofed platform, in the center of which hung the massive Bell, and next to it, the equally massive, suspended hammer to ring it.
Nodd slapped his hands together a few times to return feeling to them and began climbing the ladder to the platform. The wooden rungs creaked and cracked under his weight, having been made rigid and brittle by the cold air. Once he reached the top, Nodd went to the northern edge of the platform and looked out on the Garrison, outlined by its torches.
He was barely able to make out the rough contours of the walls from the firelight, and only their edges, at that. The texture of the stone façade was not visible. Nodd scurried over to the east side of the platform, every motion renewing his painful awareness of the cold. He saw no horizon, but only impenetrable darkness. He hunched forward on the railing and sighed.
After what seemed like hours, but was, in fact, less than fifteen minutes, Nodd saw what he was waiting for. A tiny, hazy arc of illumination crested the Eastern horizon. All his childish musings and fantasies disappeared and he swelled with a sense of duty and purpose. The sun was starting to rise.
He strode to the bell and, after reciting the short prayer to the Creator, heaved back the massive hammer with all his strength and slammed it as hard as he could against the Bell. The entire Watchtower rattled from the vibrations as the deep, sonorous clang shot out in all directions. Taking a deep breath he pulled back on the hammer and repeated the action, sweat beads popping out along his forehead despite the cold air. The second peal responded to the returning echoes of the first. With a mighty summons of strength, he rang the Bell a third time, then lost his balance on the slick platform floor. He collapsed to the ground and panted from the effort.
Nodd felt satisfied. Had he actually considered not coming up to ring the Bell? His foolish whining and complaining made him feel almost as if he had been traitorous. Nodd stood and walked over to the eastern wall. The sun still hid behind the serrated line of trees that formed the horizon, but its warm, rosy light was growing by the minute. He found it beautiful. It seemed to be a reward for his fidelity.
The Watchtower Bell rang.
Ærenne’s eyes popped open. She stretched her arms lazily and yawned loudly. The night had passed restfully and the new day would be full of activity. She lingered for a few moments, sleepily thinking of nothing in particular, but quickly became aware that something was different about the morning. She focused her hearing and perceived distant voices shouting outside. She shivered. A steady, cold breeze from the left drew her attention and she looked in the direction of the window. All she could see were the two red eyes. Then she heard a high-pitched shriek like the bowls of the Underworld being ripped open. Without thinking, she twisted violently to her right and threw herself onto the ground. A split second later, the Skog landed on the bed, scrapping and clawing at the empty mattress.
“Father!” she screamed.
The thing turned towards her. She hurried onto her knees and crouched, facing the red eyes. The beast pivoted, growling lowly. Then it sprang. She dove to her right and tucked her head down, rolling in a somersault and back onto her hands and knees. Ærenne scrambled around as she heard the beast’s claws scrape the stone floor where she had just been. The Skog turned and began stalking towards her. This time it would not jump, but simply corner its prey. Ærenne swept her hands around her, feeling blindly for anything she could use to defend herself as she shuffled backwards, away from the creature. Her hands found nothing. The red eyes approached, claws clacking with each slow step. The Skog was almost upon her.
The Watchtower Bell rang.
A flood of torchlight burst through the door along with Ærenne’s father, sword in hand. The Skog twisted around at the sounds and whipped a clawed arm across its triangular, insectoid head to shield its eyes from the torchlight. In that instant of disorientation, the man leapt forward and jabbed with his sword, using his own body weight and momentum to crack the Skog’s exoskeleton with his blade and drive it deep into the beast’s thorax. It reeled back, screaming. Ærenne stood and darted around the monster to avoid having it collapse on her. The Skog fell backwards onto the stone floor, twitched and convulsed for a moment, then ceased moving. The air reeked with a fetid stench.
Ærenne’s father rushed to her side, embraced her, then pulled her away from the dead Skog. It was the first one anyone had seen in over thirty years. She shivered from cold and disgust as she stared at the thing.
The Watchtower Bell rang.
©October 2021, Alcuin Fromm
Alcuin Fromm is making his first appearance in publication and in Swords & Sorcery Magazine.