1629, Fire Season, Movement Week, Clayday
Context
Kolyey has nearly drowned, recovering only with the help of others, and arriving without her sword to a battle that is newly over. Session SO5.14.
Events
As Kolyey comes through the waterfall, she sees many things all at once: a bright light emanating from the wall of the cave; the dead body of one of the grazelanders, his scale armour punctured and his chest collapsed; many dead foes; a relieved-looking Irillo and a sorceror who is staring at the glowing wall…
… and a commander who says, “Good, Kolyey. Go get your sword back. Stay alert.” Berra points back out of the cave, back through the waterfall.
Kolyey’s still soaking wet and the special kind of angry that comes from being thoroughly embarrassed. She just salutes Berra, replies,”Yes, Commander,” and goes back to look for her sword.
Berra comes back out five minutes later, having presumably dealt with a few things in the cave. She helps the grazelanders haul out what might be some eggs of some disgusting creature or another through the waterfall and onto dry land, and then slithers up onto the bank to come down towards Kolyey.
Kolyey may have found something. If anything, she is wetter.
It takes a few minutes to see what is already partially covered in silt, but the sword is there, and Berra offers Kolyey a hand out of the water. The short warrior is silent for a moment.
“Thank you,” Kolyey says to Berra. “I am so embarrassed. I obviously need to work on my balance.”
“The Temple can help with that.” Berra does not add ‘for money’. “You’d’ve been dead but for Oriana and me.” Beat-pause. “Still, dying running into battle counts as doing your best. Next time, don’t fall over.”
Kolyey nods. As she slowly digests owing Oriana a life boon, Kolyey looks like she is sucking on a lemon. “Thank you for saving my life, Commander.”
There’s a shrug. “S’fine, you’re an asset. She stopped you from sinking. So. You got any flints on you? Ever done flint knapping?”
Kolyey checks her pockets and belt pouches. The search eventually finds a wet flint and completely useless tinder. She hands over the flint. “I have never done flint knapping.”
Berra nods. “Right. Then I need to teach you. This is too small, though. It’s a thing I learned about in Prax.” She pulls her belt knife, and shows the wavering obsidian blade. “You don’t have to be good at it. You just gotta understand why it’s important.”
Kolyey admires the obsidian knife, then draws her dagger. “Will this do?”
“Nah. This is a secret of Death.” Berra looks around. “I need a rounded rock. Something that’s been in the water, maybe. Point out any you see.” She is looking on the bank, not in the river.
Kolyey checks the banks, but fails to find a good rock.
Berra walks back and forth a little, and then picks up a roundish hand-sized rock. “Good enough,” she says. “This bit that sticks out is what I’m going to use. See this knife?” It is black, smooth, and glassy.
Kolyey nods, watching carefully.
“It’s made of troll flint. It’s black and dark. It’s the Darkness Rune, and Death came out of it.”
Kolyey nods, paying attention.
“Every part of it is Death. Every single bit. It’s just about the shaping.” Berra sits down on a rock, and sighs. “I don’t have my pad with me, but you’ll want something to keep from getting bruised or cut.” She just braces the knife on her thigh, tensing the muscles. “I’ll show you this, but you’ll have to find your own flints to practice with.”
“Okay.” Kolyey sits down on a nearby rock and settles down.
Berra holds the knife flat over her thigh and taps it with the rock. A bit of it comes off, leaving the knife with a chunk out of the end. “Eh. Too big. But never mind. You see this?” She hands over the flake. “Tell me about it.” It is a sharp-edged, dark piece of rock.
“It is still Death,” Kolyey says after some thought. “It’s dark and sharp. It’s just smaller.”
Berra nods, and her smile is proud. “Yeah. Even if I try to make my knife blunt, I’m going to end up with sharp edges on the bits I break off. Maybe Death is just a bit of Darkness that got broken off. Who knows?” She takes off another chunk from the other side of the knife, and winces. “Damnit. I’ll have to remake this. I got better tools up in my saddle.”
“Want me to go get them?”
“Not right now. We know we didn’t get a couple of the enemy. Irillo knows they are not right here, but they might be close. I can do it with this, I just need to concentrate a bit. The thing to understand is it’s all Death. Every angle of it. Every way you cut it.”
Kolyey’s obviously thinking hard about that.
Berra takes a little time to shape the end slightly. “I’ll end up with a shorter knife here. But once I’ve shaped it roughly with a rock, I shape it more with a stick. Y’see the one by your foot? Solid wood. Just shape the end round and smooth for me, please?”
Kolyey nods, picks up the stick and gets to work on it. Eventually the end will be round and smooth.
Berra waits patiently, having put aside the smaller flakes she has knocked off. “You can use these for arrowheads, which is also Death,” she says, handing them over as she reaches for the stick.
“I will take your word for it,” Kolyey says as she hands over the stick. “I have never made arrows before.”
“The best thing to use for this is a horn that you’ve smoothed down. From as close to the skull as possible, so it’s solid.” She taps at the end of the knife now, not always knocking a bit away. “If you’re not forbidden to use them, then make some yourself, so you know how. Your weapons will respect your enemies more, which is good. If you are forbidden, make at least one that’s good, and then destroy it.”
“I will have to learn how. Perhaps after a temple helps me with my balance.”
“It’s a good thing to practice even when you travel. Look out for Ernalda’s flints1That is, flints. The other stuff is obsidian.. They’re usually lighter than troll ones, and don’t reflect the same, but they’re also good.” Berra flips the stick in her hand. “Ugh. Sharpen this end so it’s a bit like a tine? Like the end of an antler?” She hands it back. “You might be able to persuade the Temple to train you as thanks for what we did, but if not, I know our Temple does that. Humakt wants warriors who are swift to answer the call to duty.”
Kolyey goes back to work on the stick, trying to sharpen the end. “If I need to pay, I would rather pay our Temple. Where are we going from here?”
“Well, I’m going back towards the Regiment, which is up in Lunar Tarsh right now. You’re welcome to come, but I can’t force you to. I mean, I’ve been commanding you, but… that’s personal. We’ve kept Irillo alive. We’ve done our thing, and I need to go face that I walked away from it.”
“You had cause,” Kolyey points out. “In any case I will go with you, unless someone found some undead that need to be destroyed.”
Berra takes back the stick from Kolyey. “The other end of an antler’s a lot better for this, or a bit of copper in the end of a stout bit of wood. And you want a stick to hit it with as well, but I’ll use the rock to show you.” She fits the stick under her left thigh, so that it hangs over empty air, and with her right hand holds the knife next to it so that the end just overlaps the tip of the blade. “This lets you use a big hammer but strike a small blow.”
Kolyey nods, wincing a bit.
Berra taps on the stick with the rock in her left hand, bracing the stone knife with her right hand along it. Now she moves the knife, tapping and shaping, and the wooden tapper stays in position, always hitting in the same place.
Kolyey watches, trying to learn the technique.
“This is kinda tricky to get, but just keep practicing.” Berra finally drops the hand rock and just has the stick and the obsidian knife, now shorter but still formed into a knife. “Nearly there. Some people say that Eurmal could make copies of Death because of this secret, that all of the substance of Death is Darkness, or was until it was formed. You can make any shape out of it, if it’s got edges. Even barbs on arrowheads. Even maces. They’re all Death.”
Kolyey thinks for a while about this. Eventually she asks,”Is that why Arkat went to the trolls? To better understand Death?”
“Um? Oh, him. I dunno if he even existed, or if he’s just a story. I guess he could be both. But I don’t know. S’probably a good question. Tell me if you find out?”
“I will, although I think I will need to ask him and the stories say he went to Humakt’s Hall long ago.”
“Uh, yeah. I dunno if you can even worship him. But you’re right that Truth only comes from the source. Maybe Lhankor Mhy would know as well.”
“Maybe I will ask a library about this, some day.”
Berra nods. “Kay. Now one more thing, which is just to use this… yeah, this small end, although it should be smaller.” Now Berra puts the stick in her right hand, and has the knife on her left thigh once more. She does not hit, but holds the knife still with her left hand and presses the edge with the dard wood, taking off the tiniest of flakes. “I was told that if you work flint, and just flint, you die young. In New Pavis. There were Praxian Humakti.”
“That’s interesting. Did they say why someone who only worked flint would die young?”
“Well, they get Death into them. They walk with it constantly.” Berra shrugs. “But he was talking about people that have mines and sell it, not the people who just do what we do. Maybe if you’re initiated to Humakt you don’t.”
“Maybe. Perhaps Humakt objects to people who don’t serve Him dealing in Death wholesale.”
“Could be. If I ever see that guy again, I’ll tell him. See what he says.” Berra looks at her work on the knife and then turns it over. “You gotta get both sides, and it’s different if you turn as you go along, or if you go along and then back. Along and back is easier, as long as you don’t need it to be really pretty for some reason.”
Kolyey studies the knife and the stick. “Death usually doesn’t need to be pretty, but it’s a shame about your knife.”
“Nah. It’s still Death. And I’ll make another one soon. I broke the last one, to cut a thing when it needed to be a new face of Death in the world. I had to hit it against the floor then, and make another. And this one got used to keep the medal you sacrificed separated from the world. The shape of it don’t matter much, but it’s good when it’s long enough to be usable, and if it ever gets loose in the sheath, I put it into arrowhead stock.”
The sharp, glassy surface has a couple of concavities at the end, on the top side. The edges are as sharp as ever they were.
Kolyey silently considers this. She peers at the obsidian knife, but keeps clear of the edges.
Berra looks at it once more time, then reverses it and hands it over, hilt first. “Don’t give these knives to people outside the cult, unless there’s a mythic reason to. If Humakt would do it. And even then, consider what you are giving, and why.”
Kolyey takes the knife reverently and nods violently. She sheathes it in something or other. Before she forgets again, she takes her broadsword out of the water. She will dry and oil it later.
“S’mine,” Berra says with amusement. “Because I made it. You need to learn to understand it by making your own. I can’t do it for you. Start with just shaping the edges of those big flakes I gave you. Decide which way the arrowhead should be, and just chip away what ain’t it. Form a weapon out of Death. Maybe one day, it’ll be in your hands and your thoughts.”
“I’ll do that,” Kolyey promises.
Berra reaches for her knife back. “If you find you’ve got bits that are too small, you can split wood and put the sharp parts in, with a bit of glue inside. Either pointing forward, or as barbs. WInd around them with sinew and more glue, if you have to. It’s all Death. And don’t dispose of it just by throwing it away. Give it to a river to soften, or tell the Earth where you drop it that it’s not meant to harm her.”
Kolyey returns the knife. “Assuming that I find a trustworthy archer, could I give the arrows to her?”
Berra blinks, and considers. “Yes. Death in other forms is still Death, but it’s in the form of a dagger, sword, or knife that we guard it most. Um. Yeah. Because we keep it in its original form, we just try to ensure it’s used well in the outside world. Don’t make a club out of it unless you’ve considered very hard.”
“Of course. I would only give the arrows to a Humakti anyway.”
“Then yes. They would understand it. You can also make spearheads. Mine are bronze, because I don’t make much, but I could. And if you find white stones that do the same, the White Ladies apparently like scalpels, but white’s really rare. I know people do, but that’s just what I was told, and I’ve never seen any.”
Kolyey contemplates white obsidian for a moment. “I will try to remember that if I ever see such a thing. I might make a lance head of this. Is it durable enough for that?”
“Yeah, kinda. It’s really sharp, but shatters easily. You’d probably want to have it like big arrow-heads, with slices. It’ll break on bronze or even if it’s hit wrong. You want to slice, not stab, anything with armour. Easier to use it in Prax where there isn’t so much metal.”
Kolyey nods. “Darn, no lance heads. I will need to find an archer who deserves these.”
Berra nods, and gets to her feet, brushing off dust onto the ground and muttering to Ernalda as it falls. After a moment she adds, “An’ if Maran Gor wants it, she can have it,” in honour of the goddess whose magic created this cleft in the earth. “Right. I gotta go check what’s up with the dead, and maybe move them into the sun. You start drying your things out, and keep an eye for any more of the creatures that escaped. We’ll be seeing reinforcements soon.”
Kolyey salutes. She starts making a fire.
- 1That is, flints. The other stuff is obsidian.
