 |
"They be a timid sort,
aye?", split the darkness in the aftermath of the
intense Landrothi raid as Fyrclian unstrung and recased
her bow, absent-mindedly soothing the steeds and beasts
of burden clustered near her at the rear of Saemund's
armored wagon. |
 |
For his part Saemund
walked the camp ground that had all to quickly become a
battlefield, calmly administering harsh mercy to the
fallen Landrothi cavalrymen left behind. "Timid, aye.", he said with a grunt as his
bloody falchion rose and fell a final time, delivering a
hapless Landrothi to walk the cycle of rebirth yet
again. "Perhaps he will be born Machtig in his next life",
thought Saemund. |
 |
"You see timidness, I
see swiftness. They strike like the wind that blows
across these plains, and just as quickly are away again.
I have fought beside them 'ere this. Aye, and led them
even. We were lucky, tis true; twas but a
border patrol. They sought to slow us and then course
the plains to a stronghold and come upon us again later
in greater numbers.", spoke Kurtzen with
conviction in his voice, but also with pain. |
 |
Dismissing the spirits
of air that held him aloft, the fearsome Kjar settled to
the ground and strode over to prod at the scattered logs
of the camp fire, trying to restore it to warmth. "An
incomptetant lot if you ask me; they sought to injure
the horses and managed only to prick yon Thegn, and to cut a hole in my good robe, more's the pity.
Although these spears of theirs have the makings of good
walking sticks in them..." |
|
|
Kurtzen halfheartedly
cleaned the rune encrusted axe he bore, though it seemed
to need it not, and made his way to the ragged fire
bestirred by the Zauberer where he took a clumsy knee.
He sank into the earth a good half an inch, and left a
trail of deep footprints behind him, though it was
hidden by the night. "Pricked me
true and well Zauberer; Fyrclian, be a good lass and pull this spear
free from my shoulder? Now that the battle lust is fleeing me it does
begin to...itch. It is somewhat uncomfortable should
the truth be known." |
|
|
Seeing to the wounds of
injured horses, Fyrclian looked up and across to the
fireside, suprised at the grim
Raevoring's request. "Och, I'll do no such thing! I have
not the way of mending man flesh, only the care of
horses. Best Saemund do it; his hand's are startling
deft with such things. Ere three moons back he did save
me own sword-struck cousin, and even the Hoher Skalding
did think the wound mortal." |
|
|
"Saemund then, and
quickly if you please; I feel the strength of the
Zauberer's magic leave me and I am weary of a sudden.
I'd have done with this spear and it of me.", and it was
clear to all three of his companions that his voice was
increasingly strained. |
|
|
"Aye, I'll see to your
wound for you were valiant. But next we face warriors on
charging steeds, you should be less eager to dare them
to ride you down. My grandsire would tell you no less,
and he has fought these Undari on many an occassion.",
the towering Wundvolding rumbled, but cleaning his slivery falchion on a cloak of the
fallen he moved to his wagon, where he traded his now-shiny sword and glorious
Varic shield for a medium sized hinged iron box. |
| Moving with
his usual implacable efficiency, seeming to stride like
a glacier slides across rock in an inexorable course,
Saemund walked to the fire with the box under his left
arm. Reaching the fire side and Kurtzen's side both, his
right hand moved with startling quickness and
irresistable strength, snaking out to snatch the spear
jutting from high in Kurtzen's chest and jerking it free
with a single abrupt tug. |
| With a cry
of pain stifled to a mere manly grunt Kurtzen sank from
his kneel to a relieved squat, head down and jaw
clenched as a spurt of blood oozed from his wound.
Unrelenting, Saemund bid him apply pressure with a linen
rag pulled from his hinged box, and quickly undid
Kurtzen's armor with a quick efficiency only an armorsmith could attain. |
| The armor
negligently but neatly stacked with an unconscious
professinalism, Saemund then set the box aground after
removing a long curved needle and spool of thread, and a
metal flask the size of his palm. He set the needle and
thread atop the box and unscrewed the top of the flask. |
|
|
"Gird yourself well,
for this will seem to burn as a well stoked forge
fire.", he admonished Kurtzen before grabbing the back
of his neck in a firm grip and positioning him just so.
With a grunt and a chin thrust the taciturn Wundvolding
made it clear he wanted the rag held aside and then let
a mere three drops from the flask dribble upon Kurtzen's
diamond shaped wound. |
| Taken
unawares despite the warning, Kurtzen writhed a little
and growled low in his throat as a hissing sizzle was evoked from the
wound and white foam boiled around its edges. Saemund
unconcernedly recapped the flask and set to the mean
task of threading the needle by camplight. |
|
|
"Eh? What's this
then?", muttered Kjar, distracted from his usual
contemplation of the fire by the possibility of some
kind of magic new to him, and he reached out to poke at the
flask with his walking stick from his perch cattycorner
to Saemund's triage. |
|
|
"I'd not touch it did I
value my walking stick, old man.", grumbled Saemund as
he neatly eye'd the needle after a few tries and tied the string firm.
With a disgruntled harump Kjar withdrew his probe, but
his eyes lingered on the flask nonetheless. |
|
|
Her ministrations
complete Fyrclian recovered a couple of horses left
behind by the fleeing cavalry and picketed them with their own
steeds. That done, Fyrclian wandered over to the fire to watch
Saemund ply his needle skills. "Perhaps I should
learn this skill from Saemund; it might come in handy
someday", she mused to herself. |
|
|
"Strewth! I thought
the flask
to hold mere wysgi, which is a pain I know well, but what is that brew that burns like
acid?", Kurtzen managed once the pain faded. |
|
|
"Acid.", answered
Saemund placidly. |
|
|
Startled, "Och? Saemund
jests? This is turning out to be an unusual eve in
truth." |
|
|
Gazing at Fyrclian with
an eyebrow aquirked, "Jest? No. Tis acid, even as I said." |
|
|
Quite agog at Saemund's
declaration, Kurtzen could only ask, "What say you? I've
travled the lands of the Zha'iirians some and tis said
they use acid as a fearsome weapon. I've seen a piece of
metal that had been warped and ruined as if melted by a
rain storm, and I've seen men with scars unlike any
others they claimed were acid spoor. Aye, that brew
burned briefly, but even now it subsides." |
|
|
"Aye. Just as not all
men are as strong as others, and not all fires are as
hot as others, not all acids burn as strong or as
hot...old man, should you not leave off you'll regret
it!" |
|
|
"All right, all right.
Don't get your cod piece in a twist, I just wanted to
look at it." |
|
|
"Best you sit the other
side of the fire and put the flask from your mind." |
|
|
"How came by you this
acid, Saemund? Never have I heard of such a thing!" |
| Eyeing the
wound as best he could by fire light, Saemund grunted
and using the other side of the rag previously employed
to staunch the wound to scrub away the foamy residue
left by his concoction, he turned his efforts to deftly
closing the wound in neat, quick stitches with his
needle and thread. |
|
|
"My people learned it
of the Bragwyr Var long ago, along with a few other
acids we use to etch and hone metal. We make them from
special salts we find in our mines, mostly. Distilled properly
this sort of acid helps to clean wounds and some other things as well.
It is precious rare, and was a fine gift from my father
along with the other contents of my chiurgy." |
|
|
"Well, tis lucky for me
your father be so thoughtful.", said Kurtzen, somewhat
distracted by the disconcerting feeling of the needle
and thread pulling the edges of the spear spoor closed.
|
|
|
"Aye, tis.", Saemund
said with his customary unyeildingness, but seeming to
relax a little he added a rare personal detail, " My
father has ever been a proponent of chiurgy after he
lost his arm in a challenge. His blood did run hot with
a fever then and it was only the ministrations of a
chiurge that saved him. He bade my grandsire to include
such skills in my training and thus I did spend every
sixthday since I was five summers old learning from first the very same chiurge that saved my sire, and
later his successor when he passed." |
|
|
"Och, I don't even
recall truly what I was doing when I was five summers!" |
|
|
"Hrmph. Playing with
horse dung and being a general nuisance I imagine, boy." |
|
|
"I never played with
horse dung, you irritating old codger!" |
|
|
"Hah, but you're
conceding the point on being a general nuisance, I see."
|
|
|
"You're impossible!" |
|
|
"Well enough then,
Saemund. I thank your father for the insistence and the
kit, your grandsire for ensuring your schooling, and you
for your administrations.", Kurtzen said grandly in
an attempt to return to his usual hale demeanor,
pulling his tunic about himself again and sorting
through his be-holed armor. |
|
|
"Tis nothing. The wound
is light and will heal well should the stitches hold. I
will look upon it in the morning when the light is
improved to be sure.", and so saying Saemund carefully
poured a thimble full of the acid into the flask's cap,
used that to soak a clean corner of the rag, scrubbed
the needle thoroughly with it, tossed the rag onto
the fire, and carefully repacked his kit. |
|
|
"Morning will not come
soon enough for as you know the Undari are like owls,
and are most active at night when right thinking folk
are abed. We may not have seen the last of our little
yellow friends for this eve. We should stand our
customary watch but we must be doubly vigilant, and though most nights I'd stand any part of it
I'd beg a favor to stand the last watch tonight." |
|
|
"Aye; my Shutze
instructors taught us the power of a mounted raid by
cover of darkness. It is dangerous for us to do it for
risk of laming a horse on some unseen hazard, but for
the Undari it must surely be a simple task. Stand a watch we shall indeed, for if
we are not vigilant we could be sorely endangered by
a sudden attack." |
|
|
"You both speak sense.
As ever I'll stand the first or last watch, for it does
take a little while to remove and don my battle gear and
I'd not do it more than needful. As Kurtzen wishes the
last, I'll take the first tonight, which leaves the
second to you Fyrclian." |
|
|
"Och, I can never get
back to sleep again after a middle watch. But you speak
truly; your clanging and grunting to don that metal skin
is just as likely to wake me should you take the middle
watch." |
|
|
"Did I mention yet
today how glad I am to not be a Thegn? Ill be dozing in
the fire, so should anything go terribly wrong just
throw some wood in on me.", and with that Kjar crawled into
the smoldering fire and made himself comfortable. |
|
|
"I think I'll never get
used to that.", Fyrclian said with a slight shiver. |
|
|
"Well, with that
settled, perhaps we should move the bodies away from our
camp lest they draw unwanted predators in the night." |
|
|
"Aye, I'll handle it
during my stint. You two make your bed rolls and retire,
and I'll see that it is done. And for twelve silben I'll
mend that hole in your armor in the morning...." |
 |
Neferhenmhat Imeru,
quiet as always lest he inspire his unstable captors to
torture or slay him, observed all of the evenings
travails discretely from his humble bed roll beneath the
wagon, manacled to the axle with a short length of
chain. He had seen his giantish captors fight several
times before, but not yet a squad of his own beloved
cavalry in full gallop. |
|
When the insane blonde one had
rushed a rider and sent the horse
sprawling into another cavalry rider,
and both to the ground his jaw was left
agape, and despair, his constant
companion and only friend for almost
sixty days, snuggled yet closer to his
bosom. And to see the ugly old one with
the power to grow as tall as a mountain
and still more unnatural things fly
overhead and command the very winds
against the attacking Landrothi was even
worse. The traitor, Kurtzen, slew as
well with a magical axe, and even the
girl sent arrows flying unerringly at
Imeru's countrymen. |
|
He had entertained a few moments
of hope when he saw no less than four
Landrothi bear down on the mad blonde
Saymond whose chains decorated Imeru's
wrists and ankles, but it was stifled in
mere moments as the lumbering monster
slew three of them with a single sweep
of his massive sword, cutting them fully
in twain as if they were naught but
stalks of wheat felled by a scythe. And
the traitor took a spear in the chest,
but with the hardiness typical of his
overgrown kind he did not fall but
instead continued to do battle seemingly
unhindered. |
|
What should have been a simple lightning
raid, a baraqu (BAH-RAH-KU), was
turned into a panicked rout in less than
twenty heartbeats. |
|
It was all very disheartening. |
|
|
"Why do they keep me
alive, these monsters that slay so easily? Surely not
just to teach the blonde one our tongue, for the traitor
speaks it well enough? He kills anything that stands
before him, yet spares those that surrender. Even his
own kind think him mad.", pondered Imeru. |
|
In the depths of his heart despair
whispered, "Your fate is in the hands of
a mad man.", and only his Undari
perseverance to survive kept the
unlucky horseman from succumbing to it. |
