NaNoWriMo: GoTo
The country was opening out from the endless marshes her employers called home, in lockstep with the way the rocks of the foothills lifted away from the sea-plain. The trees weren't different, yet, but there was a visible line on the slopes of the looming crags ahead, where vivid summer-green changed to the cooler, bluer shades that were so common at home, both new and old. Aimue's fellow mercenary commander shivered whenever she thought no one was looking, being one of a people her Brotherhood's translator said lived south of even the green-choked swamp of smothering misery they'd already crossed.
Fortunately, with their employer's handfast troops already offloaded from the transport ships that had finally grounded on the bottom of this narrow river, there wasn't much for the tattooed woman to do. Aimue's own followers were already ashore, laughing and joking, staining their furs and leathers with dropped flecks of facepaint as they readied for battle. The swamp-men's leaders flowed around the group, keeping their distance like wolves watching a campfire, while the underlings simply gathered in clumps and waited leaning on their shabby spears.
It was good that they didn't try to approach; the broken blankness in their eyes was chilling.
Despite being far more decent than the last couple of weeks had been, it was still a warm day, with the sun high and the moon a long narrow crescent of gold across a quarter of the sky. Simply standing out of the shade was enough to make her sweat, and the rich men's horses were panting, long pink tongues lolling out of drooping faces and dribbling slobber over everything that held still long enough, even the ones that were still soaked from splashing out of the river to claw their way up the green bank where the host was massing.
The boats rocked in the current, sails stowed, held in place by lines run ashore. Most were high and fat as a waterfowl, painted in loud shades or left the pale grey of seasoned wood, but here and there a long narrow crocodile-shape lay close to the water, sides pierced by hundreds of oars and crammed full of the crews who would guard the expedition's supplies while it deployed.
She took a moment to double-check her own gear, yet again. Heavy boots of stiff leather, with much-scored steel caps over the toes and heavy hobnails in their soles - those had belonged to her father. The plainest of the three pairs of trousers she'd brought, their soft tan deerhide leather much patched in the same crude stitches that had originally shaped them - but if her work was ugly, it was also sturdy, and that'd be more important than fetching looks. Soft sheepfur unders, a gift from sister Owkeuv, who'd hoped - correctly, the busybody - that if she made them comfortable enough then Aimue wouldn't care that they were cut for mancatching rather than warmth. A heavy buff tabard of layered soft leather, stitched together in triangles nine layers thick and perfectly fitted to her frame, sleeveless for tradition and quick reaction and, in this hot place, the cooling comfort of open air. Long strips of still more soft leather, woven tightly around the palms of her hands for grip, pale hide stained dark by the sweat of practice.
Finally the mantle of her Fallen One, symbol and source of her priesthood, dark claws and stained fangs strung together with bright gold and amber at neck and shoulders, anchoring the still-pelted likeness worked into her helm and capelet.
Her own war-paint was already on, a palmprint across the mouth with thumb on one cheekbone on one side and fingers splayed from eyebrow to jaw on the other, so she simply turned to pick up her weapon and join her men.
It wasn't lying propped where she'd set it down, but held in the ship's captain's hands, offered grip-first. Despite the five-stone weight, the only obvious sign of stress was the way the muscles and tendons of her arms stood out beneath sun-bronzed skin and tattoo-stained sucker scars - but then, Aimue had already known that any of these sailors was as strong as any Sworn man.
"Thank you," she said, with the coughing monotone of their paymaster's language still awkward on her tongue. "Need something?" Which was probably wrong, of course, but should get the idea - that she was wondering why the sailor had come over - across anyway.
"Welcome," the captain answered - in the language of the Departed. Her brow was furrowed over sunset-pink eyes as she concentrated on getting the sounds right. "Saying... be careful. Job is potato."
...Potato? "Is root?"
The captain stopped, and blinked, then swore by the private parts of... a spirit? An explictly female being, anyway... and shook her head with a flash of earrings in sunlight, then pulled off the band that held her hair back and tucked the dark strands out of the way with the same hand. "No," she said, then another word Aimue didn't know - and expanded on it when the priestess could only give her a helpless look in return. "It's a part of... of a fight for rank between great lords. This is big, and we're small. Easy t' get-" something "-like a bug."
"Politics," the priestess guessed in her own language, emphasizing the flat tone in the first syllable and the falling one in the second.
"Loud," answered... her name was something in ordinary words... Watch Fisher? White Whaler? Something to do with fish, anyway... then made a face and corrected herself. "Yes. Watch out."
"I will," Ah! that was it. She smiled. "Thank you, Witch Fisher."
"Good luck," the sailor told her, then turned away to answer a call from one of her own men.
Aimue waved a blessing at her back anyway, then turned and gauged the distance over the rail to the bank - close enough, and only a little up. Three quick steps of run-up and she landed easily on the living green grass of the riverside. Witch Fisher's galley could have pulled up on the landing easily, of course, but that space was full of dedicated transports unloading more human beings than she'd ever seen in one place at one time before. The few Departed mercenaries who'd been crammed into the small spare corners of the force's already cramped galleys could get to shore on their own easily enough, even those whose rites of passage had gone more ordinarily.
As a Priest of Bear, Aimue was in theory the senior and leader of the Departed who had followed the Deltan's banner, but she was ten years younger than the chief of the Hawk Brothers, and him the youngest of the five men who'd gathered together for a quick huddle in a proper language before the enterprise moved out.
One, who was Boar at this place and time, glowered at her, eyes beady and narrow over silver-bristled jowls and inlaid regailia. He was of the northern lineage, originally, and his pride rankled taking orders from a female nearly as much as it did from a child barely into her courses. His Sworn, a lean, gristly man, who'd already bristled his hair up in Boar's crimson warpaint, took the Spirit's will regarding her more seriously, at times uncomfortably so.
Wolf, whose drab features went oddly with their green striping, seemed slow and colorless here in waiting - but she had seen the man fight, when his Fallen One came alive at the hunt. Hawk, tall and lean and handsome, with his golden paint and feather-woven hair, could have made any young girl's heart flutter in her chest like a dove, but she would...
...rot, who was she kidding. The man was gorgeous.
Fortunately, he was too old for her and knew it, only flirting enough for the sake of his 'honor as a man' rather than outright destroying her composure.
Her Sworn nodded as she joined the group. "Bear," he said, "all is ready for the blessing."
Three years since meeting her Fallen One had polished already-familiar rituals into a perfect dance, as Hawk and Wolf brought the sacrifice forward and held it in place under the waiting black glass knives in her either hand as the entreaties and blessings were spoken and respoken, the chant echoed back by the basso rumble of the warriors standing witness before she brought the stroke home.
The first blade's keen edge fit neatly between the sheep's vertebra, shearing through the spine and easily free to the second cut across the blood vessels of the throat - a good omen, that the creature didn't squeal or claw, and better one that the entire thing was done by the same blade, without breaking or shattering. Her Fallen's strength made the killing easy, of course - if need be she could have torn its head free in her hands - but gauging the angle and the force right to keep the brittle rock intact were beyond difficult even for priests many decades her senior.
Boar caught the sacrifice's blood in a bowl, then bent the body over backwards to bear its furred chest and belly. She opened the stomach in a single grip-deep stroke up towards the ribcage, then paused just short of the breastbone before the second cut in and down, opening the diaphragm. The unused second knife was laid carefully in the bowl of blood as the Boar Sworn took it away to be shared among the first ranks of unblooded oathtaken, and with that hand she reached into the warmth of it and closed her fingers about the heart.
When she pulled it free and held it up, all could see how it still beat. "As we partake of this your strength, you who ran well and long, so we run in our turn at the sides of the greater spirits of this world, and ready the strength you nurture within us for their glory - in battle!"
The iron tang of blood and the priest's portion filled her mouth as the men cheered.
Am-oo and Ohk-ev - Departed is a tonal language, and the second vowel in any given syllable (including 'W', for this purpose) indicates which of the seven (Rising, falling, high-low-high or 'dip', low-high-low or 'lift', or steady low, medium, or high) tones that should be used for that syllable.
Already I can tell that this bit will need editing; for one thing I'm unsure if Aimue's narration should stay linked to visual cues rather than olfactory, and for another I'd forgotten the planned sacrifice when I did her self-description, so there's a few details there that don't fit with the needs of that - the facepaint and hand-wraps, specifically.
Fortunately, with their employer's handfast troops already offloaded from the transport ships that had finally grounded on the bottom of this narrow river, there wasn't much for the tattooed woman to do. Aimue's own followers were already ashore, laughing and joking, staining their furs and leathers with dropped flecks of facepaint as they readied for battle. The swamp-men's leaders flowed around the group, keeping their distance like wolves watching a campfire, while the underlings simply gathered in clumps and waited leaning on their shabby spears.
It was good that they didn't try to approach; the broken blankness in their eyes was chilling.
Despite being far more decent than the last couple of weeks had been, it was still a warm day, with the sun high and the moon a long narrow crescent of gold across a quarter of the sky. Simply standing out of the shade was enough to make her sweat, and the rich men's horses were panting, long pink tongues lolling out of drooping faces and dribbling slobber over everything that held still long enough, even the ones that were still soaked from splashing out of the river to claw their way up the green bank where the host was massing.
The boats rocked in the current, sails stowed, held in place by lines run ashore. Most were high and fat as a waterfowl, painted in loud shades or left the pale grey of seasoned wood, but here and there a long narrow crocodile-shape lay close to the water, sides pierced by hundreds of oars and crammed full of the crews who would guard the expedition's supplies while it deployed.
She took a moment to double-check her own gear, yet again. Heavy boots of stiff leather, with much-scored steel caps over the toes and heavy hobnails in their soles - those had belonged to her father. The plainest of the three pairs of trousers she'd brought, their soft tan deerhide leather much patched in the same crude stitches that had originally shaped them - but if her work was ugly, it was also sturdy, and that'd be more important than fetching looks. Soft sheepfur unders, a gift from sister Owkeuv, who'd hoped - correctly, the busybody - that if she made them comfortable enough then Aimue wouldn't care that they were cut for mancatching rather than warmth. A heavy buff tabard of layered soft leather, stitched together in triangles nine layers thick and perfectly fitted to her frame, sleeveless for tradition and quick reaction and, in this hot place, the cooling comfort of open air. Long strips of still more soft leather, woven tightly around the palms of her hands for grip, pale hide stained dark by the sweat of practice.
Finally the mantle of her Fallen One, symbol and source of her priesthood, dark claws and stained fangs strung together with bright gold and amber at neck and shoulders, anchoring the still-pelted likeness worked into her helm and capelet.
Her own war-paint was already on, a palmprint across the mouth with thumb on one cheekbone on one side and fingers splayed from eyebrow to jaw on the other, so she simply turned to pick up her weapon and join her men.
It wasn't lying propped where she'd set it down, but held in the ship's captain's hands, offered grip-first. Despite the five-stone weight, the only obvious sign of stress was the way the muscles and tendons of her arms stood out beneath sun-bronzed skin and tattoo-stained sucker scars - but then, Aimue had already known that any of these sailors was as strong as any Sworn man.
"Thank you," she said, with the coughing monotone of their paymaster's language still awkward on her tongue. "Need something?" Which was probably wrong, of course, but should get the idea - that she was wondering why the sailor had come over - across anyway.
"Welcome," the captain answered - in the language of the Departed. Her brow was furrowed over sunset-pink eyes as she concentrated on getting the sounds right. "Saying... be careful. Job is potato."
...Potato? "Is root?"
The captain stopped, and blinked, then swore by the private parts of... a spirit? An explictly female being, anyway... and shook her head with a flash of earrings in sunlight, then pulled off the band that held her hair back and tucked the dark strands out of the way with the same hand. "No," she said, then another word Aimue didn't know - and expanded on it when the priestess could only give her a helpless look in return. "It's a part of... of a fight for rank between great lords. This is big, and we're small. Easy t' get-" something "-like a bug."
"Politics," the priestess guessed in her own language, emphasizing the flat tone in the first syllable and the falling one in the second.
"Loud," answered... her name was something in ordinary words... Watch Fisher? White Whaler? Something to do with fish, anyway... then made a face and corrected herself. "Yes. Watch out."
"I will," Ah! that was it. She smiled. "Thank you, Witch Fisher."
"Good luck," the sailor told her, then turned away to answer a call from one of her own men.
Aimue waved a blessing at her back anyway, then turned and gauged the distance over the rail to the bank - close enough, and only a little up. Three quick steps of run-up and she landed easily on the living green grass of the riverside. Witch Fisher's galley could have pulled up on the landing easily, of course, but that space was full of dedicated transports unloading more human beings than she'd ever seen in one place at one time before. The few Departed mercenaries who'd been crammed into the small spare corners of the force's already cramped galleys could get to shore on their own easily enough, even those whose rites of passage had gone more ordinarily.
As a Priest of Bear, Aimue was in theory the senior and leader of the Departed who had followed the Deltan's banner, but she was ten years younger than the chief of the Hawk Brothers, and him the youngest of the five men who'd gathered together for a quick huddle in a proper language before the enterprise moved out.
One, who was Boar at this place and time, glowered at her, eyes beady and narrow over silver-bristled jowls and inlaid regailia. He was of the northern lineage, originally, and his pride rankled taking orders from a female nearly as much as it did from a child barely into her courses. His Sworn, a lean, gristly man, who'd already bristled his hair up in Boar's crimson warpaint, took the Spirit's will regarding her more seriously, at times uncomfortably so.
Wolf, whose drab features went oddly with their green striping, seemed slow and colorless here in waiting - but she had seen the man fight, when his Fallen One came alive at the hunt. Hawk, tall and lean and handsome, with his golden paint and feather-woven hair, could have made any young girl's heart flutter in her chest like a dove, but she would...
...rot, who was she kidding. The man was gorgeous.
Fortunately, he was too old for her and knew it, only flirting enough for the sake of his 'honor as a man' rather than outright destroying her composure.
Her Sworn nodded as she joined the group. "Bear," he said, "all is ready for the blessing."
Three years since meeting her Fallen One had polished already-familiar rituals into a perfect dance, as Hawk and Wolf brought the sacrifice forward and held it in place under the waiting black glass knives in her either hand as the entreaties and blessings were spoken and respoken, the chant echoed back by the basso rumble of the warriors standing witness before she brought the stroke home.
The first blade's keen edge fit neatly between the sheep's vertebra, shearing through the spine and easily free to the second cut across the blood vessels of the throat - a good omen, that the creature didn't squeal or claw, and better one that the entire thing was done by the same blade, without breaking or shattering. Her Fallen's strength made the killing easy, of course - if need be she could have torn its head free in her hands - but gauging the angle and the force right to keep the brittle rock intact were beyond difficult even for priests many decades her senior.
Boar caught the sacrifice's blood in a bowl, then bent the body over backwards to bear its furred chest and belly. She opened the stomach in a single grip-deep stroke up towards the ribcage, then paused just short of the breastbone before the second cut in and down, opening the diaphragm. The unused second knife was laid carefully in the bowl of blood as the Boar Sworn took it away to be shared among the first ranks of unblooded oathtaken, and with that hand she reached into the warmth of it and closed her fingers about the heart.
When she pulled it free and held it up, all could see how it still beat. "As we partake of this your strength, you who ran well and long, so we run in our turn at the sides of the greater spirits of this world, and ready the strength you nurture within us for their glory - in battle!"
The iron tang of blood and the priest's portion filled her mouth as the men cheered.
Am-oo and Ohk-ev - Departed is a tonal language, and the second vowel in any given syllable (including 'W', for this purpose) indicates which of the seven (Rising, falling, high-low-high or 'dip', low-high-low or 'lift', or steady low, medium, or high) tones that should be used for that syllable.
Already I can tell that this bit will need editing; for one thing I'm unsure if Aimue's narration should stay linked to visual cues rather than olfactory, and for another I'd forgotten the planned sacrifice when I did her self-description, so there's a few details there that don't fit with the needs of that - the facepaint and hand-wraps, specifically.