Dinah did what she could for Chopscotch, but she doesn't have a spell for head injuries, so that wasn't very much, and we all ate a bit and had some kathia. Luckily, most of our rations were in Chopscotch's pack, so Bloodthistle at least didn't make off with those. All in all, we got a much earlier start than we did when we set out. If we'd all ( Read more... )

I was shaken awake by Aenak shortly before dawn. There was a lot of tension in the air; Troft was standing with his sword and shield ready some yards away, and next to him Dinah was crouching over Chopscotch, who was moaning softly on the ground. I couldn't see Bloodthistle anywhere, so I assumed she was patrolling further away from the camp, ( Read more... )

The cyarr's bounty was strange. Strange for something a bunch of monsters should've chosen to steal, at any rate. There was the corpse of Tagriff's mate, which Dinah made me carry back to his village for him (I didn't really want to wander straight into a village of monsters carrying a dead one, but she sent me, anyway, and after Bloodthistle ( Read more... )

Whoever supplied the cyarr with metal weapons must have been very confident or very foolish ( Read more... )

There are two possibilities. Either the cyarr Tagriff blames the banditry on are really terrible thieves, who don't really know the first thing about what is actually valuable, as they've been leaving some things with merchants all along, and Tagriff says his village has bee in a piece of amber that buzzes its wings now and then, that they'll give ( Read more... )

I was woken up - before dawn, indeed - by Chopscotch calling out and nocking an arrow, pointing his bow towards the bushes ( Read more... )

We've spent most of the day walking, now, with no sign of whatever or whoever robbed those merchants. Of course, not all of them were ambushed; some simply had the culprit sneak into their camp and make off with their wares in the night. Chopscotch, Dinah and Aenak (mostly the Rassimel, and mostly Aenak, since Dinah doesn't really have much ( Read more... )

Bloodthistle is a sturdy Herethroy woman, styled after a stag beetle. Most of her carapace is dark brown, with reddish stripes disappearing under leather armor dyed a shade darker than what I'd normally call blood red. And, of course, she has stark scarlet slashes of color across her face, which I still suspect are paint rather than natural ( Read more... )

Aenak's Cani friend, named Troft, is a bit gruff, and apparently (though it wasn't he that told Dinah this, but Chopscotch that let it slip in confidence) has a pretty influential immediate family, even if he's pretty quiet about it for a Cani (not that he was terribly talkative at all). He looks a lot like a shaggy-curly red-brown labrador, dented ( Read more... )

Aenak's Orren friend is a fairly typical Orren, physically, with dark chestnut fur bleached in irregular blotches (no, really, it is bleached; he told Dinah so), by the name of Chopscotch. He's bustling with energy, like most Orren, but he's a lot more efficient about it than, say, Glows-Like-A-Firefly. Every so often, once we came a little ways ( Read more... )