The Journal of Morwyn mac Tíre
<- Hunting the Hunters | Desert Fires ->
Brolko was trouble like all towns are. Too many people in one place and the world curdles.
Took the woman – Gryffa – to a healer, but did not get a chance to find flower for wife’s grave. Raised voices, even more raised than most, in the town. Large orcish man on a snake-horse steed. Pretty creature, beautiful fangs, chained by a saddle and burdened by his bulk. He was shouting at an orc-blooded old man with sheriff badge, extorting fees from him and the town. Felt my teeth lengthen at the reek of his oily pride and stinking cruelty.
Hatsuko-enzidh spoke. Complemented the pretty mirskazisu with shining scales. Demanded explanation, sought discussion. Strange, she could not understand the orc’s intentions. Cormund, the orc, refused her words, insulted the sheriff and enzidh. Others emerged from the shadows. Cormund’s pack, wiry and stinking of confidence and youth.
Battle began with the grass-wind blade. Swift and brutal. The sheriff was struck down by the snake-horse that rampaged and struck all around. Leera-ninna evaded its venom to rain her falcon-arrows down on foes. Hatsuko-enzidh duelled blade to spell on rooftops with Cormund and two knife-fighters. Lishan-azah played fox to bandits and scattered them with divine dread. Charlotte-zaazi fought precise and keen, nimble and merciful. Vivian-bhakhiir stalked the fringes and made prey of would-be ambushers. And I fell into the Rage.
So many sounds and hurts in quick succession. It rose within me with fury I have not felt in a season, but I gripped it in my claws and never slipped beyond the wasu-im. My howl wrenched consciousness from some of the prey. Another tried to stab me. Succeeded in stabbing me, though I felt nothing at the time. I saw enzidh stumble for a moment in her duel and I lashed out. Claws of deathfrost moonlight tore the air and bled Cormund, scattering him into sand and ash and the stench of curdled starlight.
His pack shattered and fled. Some were caught and ensnared. Others escaped. My Rage was spent with Cormund and I remember little. There was a knife in my side, bleeding stopped when it came out. Enzidh and Ninna found the mirskazisu, saved her. Very kind of them. Poor thing was beaten, mistreated, afraid. Selesnya is her name. A pretty name for a pretty creature. She wanted to be free, to hunt prairie dogs and not be fed on rats.
Charlotte-zaazi called Cormund a warlock, with magic taken from the Old Ones. He may not be dead, stolen back by his master to safety or punishment. Agyamut-ka – Old Ones – another sign of intrusion from beyond the moons. A bad wind, or the reason for the skeins and the grass-wind sword dreams? Time will tell. I will listen to it.
The taken bandits talked. Youths seeking freedom from the chains of this nowhere town. Respectable dream, poorly achieved. These were some of the missing people, disappearing piecemeal over years, caught in Cormund’s pack. None had his power, taken from a secret place in the caves they lair in. With a secret god he did not share with them. Another intruder to be hunted?
They will find guidance by helping the town they hurt, and give the sheriff a purpose and a pack of his own. Deputies in service until a better path found. Its a chain but they made it themselves. And one found herself, though was denser than a wyvern’s egg. That pain in her eyes felt familiar, like the face in my old dreams. It does not matter. She will become herself and her friend. Her companion? Something more? She will help her on her new path.
Tomorrow we hunt the small god and its shadows. Tonight I will sleep. I hope I do not dream.
3 Pingbacks