About Gareth Blacksmith from Rimbogh
1. THE BOY AMONG THE REEDS
When Elias, the blacksmith of the small village of Rimbogh near the northern Furyondy's border, and his wife Botild found the baby, abandoned as he was alongside the icy mountain stream and hidden among the prolific reeds of the bank, they were overjoyed, for Botild had never begotten a child, and she and her husband thought she was barren.
There was a black metallic pendant attached by a wreath of reeds around the young male's neck which depicted the fearsome head of some snarling... beast. The baby had unusual dark eyes - and brown hair, much like those of Elias and his wife, and the couple thought he would grow to resemble them.
And so he did for the next couple of years. His adoptive parents named him Gareth, after Elias' late father. Elias was a happy man, and Botild was glad she had an infant to look after, though, unbeknownst to her husband, she still regretted that the child did not come from her own womb.
Another one did not fully appreciate the child. Ragnald, the blacksmith's childhood friend, an handsome fair-haired man and a notorious drunkard who had a way with the ladies, never enjoyed being in the presence of the « mutt », as he would « jokingly » call Gareth when Elias was not around - which was frequent because the blacksmith would regularly take to the road to go sell his wares to villages and towns with more wealthy clients than modest Rimbogh. When he was on one of his trips, his trusted friend Ragnald would look after his wife and adoptive son.
Two years after Gareth got his name, another boy came to the blacksmith's house – and this one was from Botild's womb. He was fair-haired and had blue eyes. His parents called him Haukyno.
From this moment on the two boys grew together, and soon they learned to deeply care for one another. Botild fawned upon Haukyno, and would tend to neglect Gareth, who would feel sad and lonely, but did not show it to the only mother he knew and loved. Elias loved his two sons equally and deeply, and he taught them his craft as soon as possible. For reasons of his own, Ragnald did appreciate Haukyno very much.
One day, some traveler brought a terrible news to the blacksmith's house. Elias had been found lying in a trench alongside the road with his neck broken, and his horse nowhere in sight. Clearly, lamented Ragnald, his dear friend had an accident while riding and had lost his life to misfortune. Botild could not cry - maybe she was too stricken by affliction. But after Elias' final departure, and until the day of her own death, she had frequent nightmares during which she pleaded to some imaginary shade to be forgiven.
Gareth and Haukyno cried much as they laid their father in his grave. Gareth was fourteen years old and Haukyno was twelve. Nine months later, their mother had a child, a baby girl called Beatricia. She was fair-haired like Haukyno.
Soon after Beatricia's birth, Ragnald came to inhabit in Elias' house, and he took his former friend's bed too. But he was not the good companion than Botild had hoped for. He was often drunk, he saw other women and he beat Botild with a ferocious and unfailing regularity. He beat Gareth too, with a frightening and gleeful hate, but he never laid a hand on Haukyno, who he adored, nor on Beatricia, whom he ignored.
2. AS A BEAST
After some years, rumors of war began to circulate all over the region – and beyond. The boys did their best to ignore them. They had their lives to live.
Haukyno, now fourteen, was turning into an incredibly talented weaponsmith, while Gareth was merely a common blacksmith – and so he was often taunted by Ragnald on his presumed lack of skills. The man had stopped beating him however, since sometime after his sixteenth birthday, Gareth, now a muscular young lad, had informed the drunkard that he would brain him with his forge hammer should he ever strike against his mother or himself.
But one afternoon, the pervading tension in the blacksmith's house erupted into tangible violence.
There had been a gathering of Rimbogh's village council sooner this day.
Rumors were more somber than ever, and there had been talks of troops assembling at the border with the dreaded Iuz's demesne.
Ragnald had preached for peace, saying that noboby wanted war, not even the thralls of Iuz, while Gareth, speaking for the first time in front of the council, had advised that the village equipped itself with weapons forged by his brother and himself, in case the menace of war became a bleak reality. Ragnald had called him a fool, and a sick bucko lured by dreams of bloody glory. The council had finally been adjourned, with no clear decision taken.
When Ragnald and Gareth came back to the blacksmith's house, they continued their previous argument. And then Gareth said : « Ragnald, you seem to know the minds of Iuz the Old's men so well ! Tell me : when was the last time you spoke with them ?»
Upon hearing that, Ragnald pulled out his hunting knife and sprang on Gareth, who fled out of the house and into the courtyard, where he jumped on a horse to get away from the fair-haired man. Ragnald gave him chase on horseback, before Gareth managed to lose him in the foothills of the peaks surrounding the valley of Bogh, where the village of Rimbogh is located.
Gareth was making his way back to Rimbogh when he heard the unmistakable sound of a sling's pebble whizzing through the air. He felt the sharp pain of his skull cracking ho so slightly, and toppled from his saddle as his world faded to black.
A splash of icy cold water hit Gareth's face. He regained an hazy consciousness. He was lying on the ground while Ragnald was on top of him, straddling his torso with his legs, pinning him to the dirt.
"Well, me lad ! Wakey, wakey !" said Ragnald. "It's time for your last lesson, you f+!@ing mutt !"
Ragnald yank Gareth's head sideways. Gareth saw a curtain of reeds and heard the gentle sound of a stream.
"Hey, look !" spat Ragnald. "You're back where it all began for you, you whoreson mongrel ! And now it's gonna end … Elias should have left you to die here in the stream. You only brought him ill luck, you cocksucking sh-it ! It was you who made me do it !"
Ragnald brandished his hunting knife, which glinted ominously above Gareth. The lad tried desperately to clear his head.
"Pay attention, Gareth !" ordered Ragnald. "I want you to hear the gurgling noise you make when your throat has just been slit ! I bet it's the same sound your mother makes when I f-uck her, just after I slapped her hard !"
"Nn...no !" mumbled Gareth as his helpless humiliation and vain anger made his jaws grind together and brought tears to his eyes.
A flash of steel. A sound of shred metal as Ragnald's knife broke on the snarling beast head pendant hanging around Gareth's neck.
"Iuz's damned spittle !" cried Ragnald incredulously.
Something primal convulsed itself in Gareth's torso, and then an insane howling of rage erupted from his chest to engulf him in a red haze of fury.
...
Gareth woke up again – from what unfathomable depths ? – to the sloppy sound his swollen fists made when they repeatedly hit Ragnald's flaccid face – or what had been his face.
Gareth rose, his limbs trembling, and he distanced himself from the body of his tormentor. Tumbling among the reeds, nearly falling from exhaustion, he managed to climb on Ragnald's horse.
He rode back accross the stream and down the track to his father's house without looking back once, his bruised hand unthinkingly polishing the black pendant hanging from his neck.
3. AS A HERO
