The Tale of Jakob of Bloodwood
Ragnar is the lord of a hamlet in Scotland known as Riverwood. He is a firm man who is stubborn to a fault. He wishes to make a trade deal with another lord, Christof, from another hamlet known as Stonehill. He sends his son with an escort to discuss the trade deal with Christof, and he is hopeful that the son will complete the task so he can be proud of him; pride is a very strong feeling for Ragnar. Jakob, Ragnar’s son, is eager to go on this journey since he is confined to the area around Riverwood quiet often. Ragnar keeps having Jakob come back to the court to complete his duties alongside him. Jakob sets off on his way with an escort to the Stonehill, with a seemingly harmless joke in mind.
When Jakob’s party almost reaches Stonehill, he tells his escort that he wishes to pretend to be another member from the lord’s court. The escort is weary about the decision but ends up not putting up a fuss since they serve under him. Jakob successfully enters Stonehill with his façade, all the way to the lord’s court. Christof and Jakob start to negotiate the trade deal which, to nobody’s surprise, quickly soured. However, to everyone’s surprise, it continued to sour for longer and longer. Once Jakob had enough, he left Stonehill in a fury without another word to any of its denizens.
Jakob was worried about what he was going to tell his father about the incident, but he couldn’t think clearly on his way home. Jakob’s party encountered something that nobody could have expected: four drunken horsemen. These intoxicated horsemen were very cocky, which sent the already angry Jakob into a full outrage. Jakob and his party soon slaughtered the horsemen. Every one of those horsemen that Jakob could see in front of him were dead, no movement, no screams. What Jakob didn’t see was the fifth horseman off to the side of the path. He was petrified at the sight of his comrades being brought to their doom right before his eyes. Jakob told his escort to not tell lord Ragnar about this altercation. As soon as Jakob mentioned Ragnar’s name, the fifth horseman woke up from his daze. He waited for the murderers to leave, then he left back to his home, Stonehill.
Christof, who was still mad at the blundered trade agreement, paced around his court about what to do. As soon as one of his advisers opened their mouth to suggest something, the fifth horseman burst through the door and told his lord about the whole incident. Christof enters an uncontrollable rage. Christof turned the whole courtroom into a wreck, cursing Ragnar the whole time. He never expected Ragnar to do such a thing over a trade deal turned bad. Without hesitation, Christof sent an army to destroy Riverwood.
Jakob arrived in Riverwood a while ago, instantly retreating into his room. One of the escorts told the lord about the incident that happened in Stonehill, but not of the one in the woods. Ragnar had a very sensible response of sending Jakob out of the hamlet with a couple friends to calm down while Ragnar thought of a way to fix relations with Christof. Morning came and Ragnar woke up to an army at his doorstep about to raid his hamlet. They smoothly entered the premises and killed everyone. Ragnar was told by one of the guards right before his death that he should not have killed a royal family member.
Jakob and his friends returned later that day to find that Riverwood was in ruins. This sent them into a fury. They desperately searched the whole castle to find survivors but to their dismay found none. However they found a standard of Stonehill planted in the middle for Riverwood’s market place. Drunk with fury, the party set out on their way to Stonehill as quickly as possible. They were so determined to make it there fast, that they didn’t even use the path was commonly used. This party went straight into the woods, on they way to their destination.
The party stumbled upon a bandit camp, where they got captured by bandits. The bandit leader, Ryab was brought out before them, to whom Jakob explained that he was the son of Ragnar, a powerful lord. He promised to have each of the bandits would become extremely wealthy if they helped him raid Stonehill. Since the bandits were out in the woods, they did not hear about the whole altercation between Riverwood and Stonehill. Ryab agreed to help Jakob in exchange for wealth. Jakob with an army then headed for Stonehill.
The bandits easily raided Stonehill. They did it with joy, making Jakob feel uneasy about their methods. He urged Ryab to make the bandits stop their madness, but Ryab declined Jakob’s request. Now the bandits started getting extremely comfortable with their raid and decided to murder everyone and have their way with anyone who wasn’t murdered. Jakob couldn’t stand the sight of what he had brought upon this land. The worst part about this to Jakob was that all of the bandits told anyone they didn’t slaughter that Jakob of Riverwood was their leader. All of those who escaped the bandits rampage went to other lords’ domains to tell all their horrendous story. They told everyone of the horrible Jakob of Riverwood, sending this name through many channels. Years later, Jakob was killed a vengeful person from Stonehill (expand upon this…talk about how he thought his death was ironic considering he did what he did due to vengeance), but his name lived on and evolved. All the bloodshed Jakob had caused, influenced the many citizens to adopt the idea that his name was truly Jakob of Bloodwood.