Moss Boar Skewer Barbecue Mid-Retreat (1)
In Europa, fences, palisades, and walls were never merely defensive works.
They were the visible symbols that marked the boundary between civilization and the wild.
Step beyond them, even in the shadow of a great city, and danger followed as a matter of course.
A wall’s purpose was simple: to shut out external threats and safeguard the homes and daily lives of those within.
Iona, touring the Felwinter domain with a full escort in tow, knew this as well as the soldiers and knights guarding him, and the attendants and laborers who trailed after them.
"Hooo… Sir Haifon."
"Yes, Elder."
"How many left standing?"
Iceland was a land where barbarism held the upper hand over civilization. From the moment they left Coldon, every man among them had steeled himself for the possibility that something exactly like this might happen.
At Iona’s question, Sir Haifon swung down from his snow runner and lifted the visor of his helmet. Exhausted though he was, he cast a swift eye over the people setting up camp and assigning watch rotations, then snapped the visor shut again.
"Fortunately there are no dead. But if we set the wounded aside… roughly seven-tenths between the seriously and lightly injured."
"Hah."
"The laborers and attendants have taken about the same."
"As good as wiped out."
"Still, no one is critically hurt, so it is not quite annihilation."
For a moment the rosary buried in the thick flesh of Iona’s neck pressed against him with sudden clarity. They had all been prepared for a sudden crisis, yet the knowledge that casualties had still appeared weighed on him as heavily as his own bulk.
Managing the great and small affairs of House Felwinter and of Iceland meant that death and sacrifice were ordinary, almost trivial, occurrences. Luckily no one had actually died. One could truly say the gods had watched over them. Even so, Iona had never grown accustomed to anyone’s death.
"I’m glad they did not have to set out on that final journey too soon."
"We should count ourselves lucky that fortune stacked in our favor."
"Yes. Truly fortunate."
Both Iona and Haifon exhaled long, heavy sighs. Looking back, the whole thing had been heart-stopping.
The attack had come not long after they left the village. The monster pack outnumbered the escort several times over, so knights, soldiers, attendants, and laborers alike had resolved themselves to one purpose only: get Iona out alive. The battle that followed ran exactly as expected—Iona and his escort fighting to break the encirclement while the monsters pressed in from every side. Kill one and two took its place; kill two and four came surging forward in a grinding wheel of combat. Carelessness, frayed nerves, sudden ambushes—wounds accumulated one or two at a time on every soldier and knight. The situation grew so desperate that even Iona had to roll up his sleeves and start swinging his fists.
"Hooo. Still… who would have thought help would arrive right then."
Iona shook his head after drawing one last ragged breath. Haifon, idly toying with the longswords at both hips, nodded readily.
"It was truly a moment blessed by the Three Gods."
He turned to look at the mercenary band sprawled on one side of the camp. Everyone else was still hurrying about their tasks, which made the mercenaries’ idleness a little awkward, yet no one rebuked them. No one mistreats the men who just saved their lives—especially when one of those men is a Sword Master, a rarity even by the rarest standards.
"A mercenary Sword Master. I’ve only ever heard of such a thing; never seen one. Why would a man of that caliber bother with mercenary work?"
"Well, the fact that he came all the way to Iceland makes the reason plain enough, doesn’t it?"
"Hmm. True enough."
Haifon agreed with the tone of someone stating the obvious. Iceland was the last refuge open to fugitives and criminals fleeing the civilized world. The precise reason rarely mattered.
"Even Victor over there has a past that is anything but ordinary."
"Mmm. That man, certainly…"
In truth most skilled outsiders who were not native to Iceland shared that trait. Even among them, though, Victor’s history stood alone. Iona could guarantee it ranked among the five most shocking he had ever encountered—he had, after all, been present as a witness the day the previous Duke of Iceland appointed the Smuggling King Victor as a vassal. To abandon nearly everything he had risked his life to build and come north, Victor must have had extraordinary reasons. Yet no one dug into them.
And now here was a mercenary Sword Master with a past every bit as dubious? One whose skill was at least on the level of a typical kingdom’s knight-commander? The initial claim that he was merely a wandering knight of modest rank was such transparent nonsense that even a dull-witted common troll would have laughed upon seeing the man. Trivial details like that were not even in the same province as reasons to refuse recruiting him. Iceland was forever short of fighting power—of anything, really.
"So how do we persuade him and bring him into service?"
Iona put the question to Haifon at once. He had not the slightest doubt that his lord Alfred would act exactly the same way.
"Well, wouldn’t this be enough?"
Haifon rubbed thumb and forefinger together, offering the impression he had formed so far.
"True to his trade, his love of coin is unmistakable."
"Hmm. If there is no other motive, that means we could win him over with a fief and a title attached."
Rustle-rustle—
Just then the undergrowth shook with a loud, unnatural thrashing. Everyone who had been settling the camp and preparing to rest seized weapons in complete silence and snapped to alert. Tension blanketed the clearing in an instant.
Branches snapped. The thicket parted—and through it stepped a mercenary with a massive moss boar slung across his shoulders.
Gordon, still cosplaying as a (no one believed it for a second) wandering-knight-level sellsword, appeared.
"Hmm? Are you pointing those at me?"
"Oh—Uncle Gordon?"
"What uncle? I’m not even married."
"Once you’ve had your coming-of-age ceremony you’re an uncle. Look at your age. Your age."
People sheepishly lowered their weapons and found somewhere else to look. Quick-witted attendants hurried forward. Gordon, having already drained the blood and removed the offal and told them they need only joint the carcass, promptly handed the giant moss boar over.
"Ought to be enough for everyone here to eat until at least tomorrow morning."
At Iona’s beckoning gesture he strolled over with a light step.
"Hah. You actually brought one back. Gordon."
"Well, I spotted tracks on the way. Wasn’t all that far."
Haifon shook his head with an expression of pure disbelief.
"If simply spotting tracks let a man bag a kill that fast, every hunter in the world would be out of work."
"With this skill and years of mercenary work under my belt, of course."
"How in the world did you take it without bow or spear?"
"I’ve got this, don’t I?"
Gordon tapped his hip as though the answer were self-evident. The longsword rattled inside its scabbard at the impact.
"Aimed for the neck and opened its throat in one throw."
"Hah—throwing a longsword like a dagger. Now that is a Sword Master for you."
"I just learned the trick because it looked cool."
Gordon flatly rejected the admiration. Haifon had never expected a denial, least of all for a reason so absurd; his fluster was visible even through the helmet.
"You mean to say you mastered that technique simply because it looked cool?"
"Yep. Once I had it down, though, it turned out useful in all sorts of ways. Mostly for landing a strike nobody sees coming."
"Well… true enough."
Haifon found himself nodding. After all, who in their right mind would hurl a longsword as if it were a throwing dagger?
While the three of them talked, a sharp, mouth-watering scent drifted past on the breeze. Empty stomachs and parched tongues turned three heads as one.
Oil rendered from the moss boar by fierce heat dripped onto the firewood, sending up thick smoke laced with the rich fragrance of mushrooms.
"Smells like heaven—but those mushrooms didn’t grow on the boar itself, did they?"
"While you were gone the soldiers and attendants scouting the area picked a whole armful."
"Ah. Then we’re fine."
The rising smoke curled once more around the countless skewers loaded with every cut of moss boar. Meat glazed by the hot vapor began an endless cycle of frying and searing as fat rendered out. Oil ran down the sticks, touched the mushrooms threaded alongside, and sizzled downward under the heat.
The sweet sound of melting fat boiling, of meat frying and grilling in oil and flame—that sound alone was enough to snatch the attention of every escort and mercenary who had been idly poking at the discarded moss-boar mushrooms they had trimmed away.
"I wonder whether we ought to be living this high on the hog while we’re still on the run."
Iona muttered the words without ever taking his eyes off the smoke and crackle rising from the many fires. Lighting cooking fires in their present situation was little different from shouting “Come and eat me!” to the monster pack still on their trail. Yet Iona’s heart was far too honest; even while saying the opposite of what he felt, anyone could read the truth on his face.
"Don’t say things you don’t mean, Lord Iona. Right now you’ve got hotter eyes than any mercenary who hasn’t seen a woman in half a year."
"How dare you speak that way to an elder of the faith and the chief seneschal of a ducal house?"
"Did I say anything untrue?"
"You cheeky sellsword. But you brought fresh meat. For the meat’s sake I’ll forgive you."
"I’m truly grateful."
Gordon offered a splendidly formal bow of thanks—with every single rule of etiquette performed completely wrong.
They had been fleeing for three days. Two of those days they had run without rest, night or day. What Iona and the survivors had eaten in that time was painfully simple: hardtack, a little jerky, and water. Unfortunately the first carts and wagons smashed by the monster assault had been the ones carrying supplies; there had been no choice. If anything, Iona thought the attendants, laborers, and soldiers who had still managed to snatch food and essentials out of the chaos deserved real credit.
"Well, those things have stamina but they run slower than a man. We can rest easy until about this time tomorrow."
"That is welcome news."
"And damn if the smell isn’t perfect."
While they eased the ache from exhausted bodies, a few attendants, laborers, and soldiers sprinkled the salt and pepper they had miraculously kept hold of over the skewers. The aroma intensified at once.
The scent of burning firewood and charcoal. Smoke billowing as fat dripped and flared. The fragrance growing richer every time oil from the moss-boar meat seared the mushrooms. And finally the sharp bite of pepper that pricked the very tip of the tongue.
For empty stomachs the wait had been endless and cruel. But every ordeal has an end. The attendants turning the skewers judged them done, piled them high on flat stones washed in advance, and hurried the lot straight to Iona.
Even while praising the attendants and laborers and declaring he would eat well, Iona never once looked away from the skewers resting on the stones. He was not alone. Haifon and Gordon were every bit as ravenous. For days, as already noted, hardtack, jerky, and water had been the entire menu.
"Elder? How long do you mean to just hold that?"
"Hah!? When did I even pick it up?"
"Well, quite a while ago—"
"Truly… nothing but cut pieces, skewered and seasoned with salt and pepper, yet it looks this demonic."
Iona quickly studied every face of the skewers. The skilled attendants had grilled the various cuts of moss boar over open flame until they were a deep, rich brown. Unexpected heat had charred the edges black here and there, but that much could be forgiven for the sake of flavor. From the first piece to the last, every scrap had formed a superb crust. Coarse pepper clung grain by grain to the surface, and over it all hung the intense perfume of wood smoke.
On any ordinary noble table such a simple dish would never even have been mentioned. Yet the old saying holds true—an empty stomach is the finest seasoning—and right now the skewers were a temptation Iona could barely resist.
The gazes fixed on him from either side snapped him back to reality. He seized a skewer that looked as if an entire thick steak had been rammed onto the stick. Not caring that juice and oil plastered his beard, he tore into the meat like a starving beast.
Source
— Steak Skewers —
A picture drawn by ChatGPT.