Santa by way of GRRMartin

I’m away on a road trip this week! But before I left, the writers group I’m part of decided to have fun by writing short stories for illustrations in an artist’s subforum.

I picked an illustration of Santa Claus in plate armor with a huge sword. The text read “House Claus, Ours is the List.”

Thus, a gritty Santa was born! The story is just under 1,000 words. Enjoy!

Ours is the List



The north was at war.

The north was always at war. Children were born into it, men and women died in it, and the gods took great amusement in it all. Nikolas squatted in the ruins of another little town off the road, another casualty of war, burned to nothing but stone and ruin. What little sunlight remained glinted off a few silver coins strewn about in the ash, forgotten.

“Bring me the book,” he called back to the men on the road, puffing white breaths as they hauled their packs off their saddles and stomped the mud off their boots. “And get back on your horses. We take our dinner in the saddle tonight.”

“My lord,” Rolf said and groaned as he settled down onto his haunches by Nikolas, dropping the old leather book into a snow drift. He cuffed at his nose, red and running in the cold. “The men need a night at least to rest. The horses, too, or else they won’t even be good for eating, let alone riding. Surely you can give us at least one night.”

“How long ago did you swear your oath to me, Rolf?” Nikolas bit the finger of his glove and pulled the garment off, fishing with his other hand for the crock of ink and the quill stashed in his cloak.

“A year ago now, lord, but—”

“And how long did you pledge to be my tracker?” He didn’t look up as he opened the crock and dipped his pen in it. The old book creaked when he opened it, the pages so thin with wear, filled with names. So many names. More bad than good, of late. “Well?”

“Oaths are made for life, I know that. I just—”

“So you do.” Nikolas smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he did. He clasped Rolf on the shoulder with such a force that the narrow man nearly fell, frowning. “Then you go back there and you tell the men to saddle up again. I have a sense these men haven’t gotten far, and I’ll need your eyes if we’re to find them in the dark.”

“Aye, lord,” Rolf said and grumbled a good bit more, but he stood and shook out his cloak, the gold thread of the antler sigil on the back bright even in the dark. “Though it seems these days we do more killing than giving. There was a time we traveled through good, wholesome land and littered the ground with coin instead of blood. Good, hard coin that would fill a lad’s stomach with bread for a year. Now we’re little more than mercenaries.”

“There will be a time again, I’m sure. Through all of this darkness, somewhere.” Nikolas looked away, squinting as he came upon the newest page in the book. The names all blurred together, now; he was getting old. So old. But there was still so much to do. He set the tip of his quill in the crock and wrote a name: Ioan of house Frost. While the ink dried, he thought on Rolf’s words: little more than mercenaries. Squinting through the fading light, he looked at his nine men, the only men left who hadn’t died or left to pledge to some other lord who wouldn’t ride them so hard.

Nine good, strong men, and he owed them more than they got. Better food than the sheep’s milk and hard little sweet breads they ate to keep their strength up; better songs than the sound of steel breaking bones. More to live for than the next king they’d kill to try to establish some kind of peace in a country beyond broken.

And then he sighed, dusted the snow off his cloak, and stood.

“We ride,” he said, and crammed the book back down into his saddle pack. It was a long road north, he knew, and it was paved with blood and bones. They went on in silence for a time, snow shaking down from the clouds as they chewed on old stale bread.

“Ioan is this way, Nikolas,” Rolf appeared at his shoulder in the dark, dropping back from where he’d been up ahead tracking. “Where the road forks. To the east lies Dondeion and to the right Ioan and his band of brutes.”

“Lord,” Donnar called as he trotted his horse up the road. “Will it ever end?”

It was an old question; a good question. One he wondered often.

Nikolas pulled open his satchel and looked down at his book, its spine crinkled. He put his hand over the hilt of his sword, Frost-Breath, and took a deep breath. “Perhaps, my friends,” he said, and turned to look east to Dondeion, where hearth fires were lighting little windows and the smell of warm, fresh bread drifted on the air. “We should spend at least one night reveling in the light.”

“Truly, lord?” cried Vixen, who stood up in his saddle at the news.

“Ioan, miserable bastard that he is, will keep another day at least.” Nikolas dropped his hand away from his sword; that, too, would keep another day. He fingered the coins in the pouch on his belt. “Let’s see if we can find a bit of ale, and make merry for the night. Take out the harps, bring out your gold. Let the people here look upon us and feel joy and safety for this night at least.”

“Aye!” they cried, and on they raced down the hill with Rolf at their head. Nikolas hung back and watched, and laughed, and if he cried from the hardness of his life, his task, no one was there to see it.

That night, at least, they would be at peace.

They would add a few more names to the list, but these would be good names. Names to cherish.