另类小说人亚洲小说

Chapter 34

Fist and Hand

Melchidore set a brutal pace; or maybe it was a normal pace and I just wasn’t physically fit enough to keep up. The sun, which had seemed so nurturing inside the shrine, seemed brutal and unforgiving.

Worse, bandaging myself appeared to not be among my skills. The linen wraps came loose, exposing my skin to the elements.

“Gaedron, bind the shield bearer’s wounds.” She eventually said.

He was not gentle, or seemingly careful, and the bindings felt too tight. But they did not come loose, and kept out the wind-blown dust.

.....

“Thank you.” I said.

“Piss off. You shouldn’t be out here, wounds like that. Slowing us all down.”

“No damning of your soul to hell.” Melchidore said. “He must like you.”

“I guess.”

And then we were on the march, limited only by my fatigue meter.

Whatever our pace, we were faster than carts, because six members of the Black Fist were atop a hill that second day.

“Oscar, with me. The rest of you, on your toes.”

On your toes meant a variety of sitting and squatting postures, but with weapons loosed in scabbards, bowstrings ready to be strung, and eyes always on their commander.

I kept one eye open for as long as I could, and then swapped to the other.

“On feet!” yelled Kore, and everyone stood to attention. Weapons were drawn, arrows nocked to taut bowstrings, and shields were locked.

“Shield bearer, right side of formation. Go shield Kore.”

On the hill, one of the Uruk had drawn a knife, and was circling around behind Oscar.

Kore had obviously taken offense. “Archers, mark! Draw! Loose!” Twelve arrows arced overhead.

“Half pace forward!” Well, my legs were shorter, it was a decent clip for me.

“Please don’t hit me with that shield.” Kore said.

I had a two-handed grip on it, and put more concern on keeping it out of his way.

“Halt! Nock! Draw! Loose! Forward!”

The first set of arrows landed between the Uruk and Oscar. Both looked shocked.

“Dig in! Archers, nock only!” The front two ranks took a knee, the shields on the ground, but set to overlap.

Melchidore and the most ornate Black Fist were yelling at each other, both waving their arms expressively.

The orc who had incensed our troops had moved back to where the second volley of arrows landed nowhere near him. He spat in our direction, but rejoined his fellows.

After a few minutes more of animated discussion, Melchidore threw a bag to the feet of the Uruk, spat to the side, and turned away.

He howled, and fumed, and stomped, and said some very unkind words. He watched us as we departed, and made no effort to pick up whatever token she had left.

Once we were out of sight, she called the formation to halt. “Kore, that was a bit aggressive for standing by.”

“Seemed to me the Black Fist was preparing for their own round of aggressive negotiations.”

Melchidore shrugged. “Uruk have reckless teenagers, eager to prove themselves. Today that works in our favor.” To the unit, “Back to pace, men! Let’s be well beyond their border by dusk.”

We made camp atop a hill, supplementing our rations with a pair of rabbits the archers had taken. It wasn’t much, divided among the twenty of us, even adding in what we had foraged.

#

I was still only managing one in nine to twelve of the exercises of my fellow soldiers that morning. It seemed they were even more vigorous during the sparring.

Melchidore and Oscar discussed over a paper map, and we struck out slightly to the right of our orientation the day prior.

Kore sent me an invite to his party that morning. “We may run into difficulties today. I need to know where you are.”

I accepted; there was no reason not to.

Despite the aches and pains, and the warning that my left ankle was at risk of a sprain (it was more than a risk by the end of the day), my heart was full of hope. I was only down three health points, and the end of my tongue had split into two forks.

There were fiery edges to patches of skin, especially areas where they were close to touching, but my talons had begun falling out, the new improved claws pushing their way forth from inside my fingers. I dared not scratch, not until I had the measure of my new Might.

Even the sun had relented, hiding behind increasingly dark clouds.

We reached the Uruk village shortly after the sun began descending from the sky. The clouds had merged into a dark line on the horizon, lit by flashes of lightning.

“Remember, we are here only for information, not a fight.” Melchiodore said.

“Someone’s told the Uruk that, also?”

A variety of chuckles and laughter answered that.

It wasn’t a small village, roughly sixty buildings made from woven hide on frames of mixed wood and bone.

The core buildings were surrounded by a picket fence, with a zone of penned pigs and sheep, surrounded by another fence. We stopped by a gate in one of these outer fences.

“Oscar and I will go, wait here for us.” Melchidore told us.

“Tarps out! Ready for rain tortoise!” Kore instructed.

The rain tortoise was when an entire group of soldiers would overlap the rain tarps for their tents, and huddle beneath. It wasn’t water tight, but it served well enough in all but the harshest of storms.

I lacked both a tarp and the height to assist with the roof, but I was able to tend to the sides, placing rocks so that people didn’t need to use their feet to hold the walls in place.

“Well,” asked Kore, “Who knows a good story?”

#

It was Kanyae who knew a good story, about Sitra, the Beaded Hero. She came from the Upper Nile empire on a foreign earth, and was summoned by the Numidian empire (along with the Axe and Mask, who don’t matter to this story) . When they had conquered the Eternal Pharaoh, and dispatched the leaders of his mummified army, she found herself unable to return to her world.

She decided to set about exploring this one, pushing back the borders of Numidian maps, encouraging trade and diplomacy, and of course worship of her god Montu.

Montu was the falcon headed god of war and male fertility, and he granted Sitra both many powers and many children (through mortal men, not from his own loins – although there are rumors). In exchange, she spread his faith among the non-Numidian peoples, greatly increasing his power.

But eventually, Sitra and her children, and even her children’s children died, some of old age, but most of them in warfare to either protect or expand the faith.

The mask of Montu got stained in blood, (yeah, I didn’t understand this part at first, either) and to protect the rest of his faith from the stain of blood magic, he created Montu the Bloody, to reign over his corrupted temples. From the bloody hands of their savage god, the new temples became known as the Scarlet Hand.

They wandered far from the founding precepts of Sitra, but always, they remained loyal to Montu. As they displaced other gods, their loyalty gave way to fanaticism.

And though there were times they were cast down, or forced to move to other regions, wherever the far flung colonies of Numidia persisted in other lands, there too, the Scarlet Hand took root and prospered.

And when came the Dragon of Wands, and he had dispatched all twelve of the Legendary heroes, and cast their weapons to the twelve corners of Athal, his giant followers made use of such blood cults. And while much of humanity suffered, the Scarlet Hand thrived.

And when the War of Dragons shook the world to its foundations, even then, in remote corners of the world, one could find ruined temples of the cult. Others survived because their temples were hidden, far from the realms of other men.

And locally, there was even a blood temple in the lands of the Uruk. A temple which is said not only to have accepted, but to have interbred with their orcish neighbors. A temple which only recently had begun to plague the southlands, offering their spears and shields to any who could offer them blood for their vile rituals.

“And does the story say, exactly, where this temple is located?” Kore asked. “I mean, that is what we’re out here to do? Get some of our own back?”

Kanyae shrugged. “Orcish lands. Black Fist, I’d guess. Maybe God Hand tribe, but I doubt it’s that far.”

“God Hand.” Muttered one of the archers. He turned his head and spit.

“We’ll go where we must, to do what we must.” Kore shook loose a pocket of water that was building in the tarps. “This is a fight of their creation, and we mean to finish it.”

The rain slowed as men and women affirmed their oaths, and wet tarps were spread out to receive the drying light of the sun.

#

Melchidore returned not long afterward, Oscar in her wake.

“Gather those tarps. We’ve got at least a few hours left today, and I mean to see what can be seen.” She pointed at a distant range of rising hills. “In the valleys of those southern hills, that is where our quarry hides.”

“I thought we were supposed to have a guide.” Kore said.

“In their words, a human matter for humans only. They’ll not stop us, but nor will they help.” Oscar replied.

And so, soggy tarps were folded and placed into or beneath backpacks, and we trudged off through the mud.

Clover and cattails were in bloom, and were near enough a river bank that we didn’t get our full day’s marching in. The clover made tea, and the cattails made a salad from their leaves and baked starches from their buds. Because we had taken an hour to forage, there were servings for all, and the stalks were just my bonus for being willing to eat such foliage.

“These patches of bald skin look sickly, bruised or such.” Gaedron told me.

“They’ll be hidden by the scales, when they come back in.” I said.

He turned his head and spit. “I’d not be making any pact to heal myself, if it meant putting up with flesh the likes of this.”

.....

“The pact, as you call it is with my mother, not some horrid hell-lord.”

“Thought your mother was some sort of giant sea monster.”

I shrugged. “She’s my mother.”

He muttered while rubbing the iron rim of his shield. “You turn on us, on the guild, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”

“I plan to earn my way free of the guild.”

He snorted. “Best of luck with that.”

“Thanks.”

He turned his head and spit.

There were, somehow, leftover cattails for breakfast. We gathered what we could, forded the river, and continued our journey. The rain had returned, and there was much slipping and cursing, but before night, we crested a hill, and took in the glory that was Bloodborne.

It wasn’t as large as Narrow Valley, but it hosted more than 1200 souls, from the count of buildings. The town walls were high, made of mortared brick and stone, and crested with troops.

“Everyone mark this location in your system maps.” Melchidore said. “At least one of us needs to get back to the guild with this information.”

Camp was cold that night, and the last of our guild provisions consumed. There was no jovial banter, no stories or jokes or singing.

We pulled double guard shifts that night, but nothing more aggressive than a tortoise came near us.

For purposes of speed, we forewent morning training and began a forced march back toward Narrow Valley, and home.

But not all of us would live to see the guildhall again.

#