1629, Fire Season, Movement Week, Clayday
Context
Nayale gets sent as a messenger to Rich Post while everyone else is having fun. Session SO5-14.
Events
It was a two hour ride to the point where the group met Ornkarth, and the party talked to the grazelander group not far away from there. It should be possible to get to Rich Post in under half an hour, and indeed Nayale manages that, but barely more. It was faster than running, at least. The palisade and the outer encampment loom. Nayale has the choice of where to go.
Given she’s looking for the military commander, she decides to make for the palisade.
There, she is stopped at the gate by the guards. One of them looks up at her, rolls his eyes, and says, “Sartarite? Wait.” She has met him before, when her tradetalk let her down. He seems to remember too, and he calls inside for someone to approach.
She slides off her mount and waits, reins in hand.
It takes a couple of minutes for a translator to arrive, but wonder of wonders, it is the man who already knows the story of the caravan. She and Oriana reported to him. A Heortling of some kind, he looks at who is there, sighs, and asks, “What? Yes. Talk.”
“My message is for the military commander,” Nayale says, shaking her head.
There’s a sigh, and he looks her up and down. “It’s your pyre,” he says. “The boss likes to know who’s talking and why.”1Nayale has failed Charm. He turns to lead her that way, though. “Think if you can say it in Tradetalk. If not, don’t mess it up. Just let me know what to say and I’ll translate.” The garrison is a big, low-slung building with a couple of higher areas where rooms have been added atop it. He heads straight that way.
As she follows, she explains, “Nothing personal. It’s just there are some things I shouldn’t just blurt at the gate where all can hear.”
In careful Tradetalk, Nayale adds, “I can say it, but help with translation if needed would be good.”
He nods. “It’s not about me, but yes, good.” And then they are at the doors. “And this is urgent right?” he asks as he walks in. He might not truly believe in it.
She nods fervently. “Life and death,” she tells him. She’s a Humakti. Of course it’s about death.
His eyes narrow a bit, but he believes the words. He just does not believe in the person.2Nayale gets a Special+ on Insight.
WIthin the garrison, currently full of people ready to be ready, there is a second doorway, and he taps it with his fist a couple of times, and then walks in after a short pause. Within is a warrior of the middle-age-spread variety. A man who probably wants to be out there, and probably does not want to learn he is no longer young. “Lord, this is Nalaye. She gave the first report.” The translator-warrior speaks in clear trade-talk now, and he gave some kind of signal with his off-hand as he spoke.
Nayale’s eyes narrow at the gesture but waits for the commander’s permission to speak.
The man turns his eyes on her. He looks alert, despite the table that holds a map and some notes, despite the leather-seated chair. “What more have you got?” His tradetalk is also careful, maybe carefully slow, so she can understand it.
“A patrol has found at least one of the creatures. The ones that eat people. Send support to the ravine of Maran Gor, to meet by the cairn to its dawn side,” she says carefully. She is obviously repeating parts of the message verbatim, but adds “please” to the end of it.
The young woman is agitated, anxious, and in a hurry. She’s not hiding it particularly well.
There is a brief moment of consideration. “Why did they send you?” He is pushing back from the table, preparing to get up. “Which patrol?”
After a brief hesitation, she replies, “Sav… Savriz?” She frowns as she struggles with the name. A blush creeps into her cheeks, but she forces herself to move on, describing the patrol area instead.
He gives her a moment to collect herself as he walks around he table, looking over the map there, and then nods. “Savrenz. Why did he sent you?” A slight slip in tradetalk. He might be distracted.
“My commander sent me,” Nayale says. “Berra Humakti, Wyter Priest of Lord Eril Linebreaker.” There’s a hint of pride as she names her heroes.
The map is a piece of wood that has had marks painted on it, and a couple scratched in. “Mm.” Maybe he has heard of her. Maybe he has very heard of Eril. “We’ll deal with that. Will you be going out with my force?” Distrustful, but probably only by habit.
“Yes sir,” Nayale replies promptly. The map is calling to her and she tries to get a better look without being too obvious. “I want to return to my commander as soon as possible, but also, she said… well sir, it’s my duty to report back to the Temple if she is unable to do so herself.” As she says it, her attention slips from the map entirely and she shifts her weight from foot to foot anxiously. Berra might be dying out there, without Nayale to guard her back.
“We’ll keep you alive.” The commander walks from the room, and as he goes he whistles, using two fingers like a shepherd calling an alynx. “Reggil, ‘ere boy!” Surely he can’t have said that.
The translator tells Nayale, “They’ll be off as soon as they can saddle up. Hope you can ride.”
“I’m Narri,” she replies, as if expecting that to mean something to a Grazelander. She’s already headed for the door and her mount. “You coming too?” she throws over her shoulder.
“The big man will send someone who speaks Heortling, or at least good Esrolian.” He stays to watch the map.
The place begins to bustle even as Reggil reaches his commander.
Finding her horse, Nayale swings herself into the saddle with determination. She has no intention of being the reason the cavalry comes too late. Once mounted, she leans forward and begins whispering to the animal.
It takes not long at all for a troop of cavalry to come out. They are lightly armed, and some of them are lightly armoured too, but all of them have good horses. Nayale gets two sorts of glances – those from people who are judging her as a warrior, and those from people who are judging her pick of riding animal.
All will likely be able to tell that she’s young, without much by way of resources, and impatient for them to ride out to back up her commander.
The group sets out at a trot, and the man in charge, a tall blond with a massive helmet crest, gestures Nayale towards him.
She rides up, giving him a questioning look.
“With me, only,” he says, his tradetalk heavily accented. Then he gives a signal and several of the riders speed up, trot to canter to gallop in a few moments. The man in the big yellow crest stays at a trot, and so do half of the riders. Nayale’s horse does exactly as she tells it3Special Ride roll.
Nayale stays put, though she looks after the galloping riders with longing.
“I can ride,” she tells him after a moment of staring.
“The… ahead. To findt. Wait.” He does not sound patient.
Around them the other horses cluster.4Pass Battle: they are riding protectively, as a screen.
“Scouts,” she says. “I understand. But, if it comes to a hard ride or a fight, I can hold my own. I don’t need protecting. Humakti.” She points to her runes.
He jerks a thumb at himself. “Kargzant. Protector. You be live.”
She bristles. “But, I’m training to bodyguard others! And I’m no one special. Not like a Kargzaant,” she argues, trying out the unfamiliar word.
“Sun. Protects.” He steers the group left without doing more than directing his horse. The ring of men around them moves to keep them central. “Sees.”
Nayale develops a look of stubborn determination though she ceases to argue. (( Insight: She is feeling the need to prove herself, but knows that he outranks her and she should shut up. ))
About ten minutes later, they begin to move faster, and then Nayale is in a group moving at speed. They are not going easy on her, and her horse is getting stretched, but is up to the task. As they ride, they talk to each other in a language that she does not know at all. They are suddenly covering the ground very fast indeed, and the man in the crest is ignoring Nayale.
The young Narri keeps her attention on her mount and the landscape. She scans for threats as best she can while surrounded by guards.
The riders and their mounts flow over the ground, and soon they are turning uphill. As they ride through scrub half a dozen more join them. Two patrols of three.
Nayale holds herself low in the saddle, murmuring encouragement to the horse labouring beneath her.
By the time they pull up there already a few scouts waiting in a clearing amongst the scrub. After that, Nayale is put in the middle of the group, and it becomes a string, trotting in the last few hundred meters. There is a cairn up ahead, and as each man reaches it they peel left or right until they almost meet around it. The commander stays on the inside of the circle that forms. Over to the West the ground is rumpled up with rocks poking through rises in the earth. The broken area seems narrow, but stretches out for a while.
As the group peels put into the circle, Nayale attempts to join them.
Whatever the commander calls out, it does not translate into Tradetalk in a way that Nayale can understand.
She follows the rider in front of her, taking up position beside him.
There is an order in Pure Horse Tongue, and then the man next to her gestures her back.
There’s a flash of frustration, but Nayale doesn’t argue. A gentle knee applied just so guides her horse back to the centre.
After that, there is a lot of waiting…
…after which, Nayale spots movement from the broken ground5Scan -10, pass.. It looks like the crest of a rider.
Silently, she points.
There is a grunt of acknowledgement, and the commander speaks a few words. Nobody moves much – they are all too highly trained.
A few minutes later, a rider is clear. It’s one of the original patrol, who barely spares Nayale a look before reporting to his Grazelander commander.
Nayale searches his face for any clues as to what is being said. Good news? Bad? Is Berra’s corpse cooling somewhere up ahead?
The man’s body language is relaxed, maybe even victorious. Of course, he would not necessarily care about foreigners.
It takes a few minutes, and the minutes seem very long, but finally the conversation is over. There is one final order given to the messenger, and he rides over to Nayale. “Great one says you are … release. All alive before.” His tradetalk is not good, but combined with the way he is looking, as if he thinks this is good news, it is intelligible.
“Thank you. Which way are they?”
The man jerks his head, and his horse turns with him. “We go. To leave horse top.”
She calls out to him, unable to stop herself. “Was I a prisoner?”
“Wha?” The man looks puzzled. “Prisoner?”
“Captive. You said released.6Passes Tradetalk“
“No. You is…. you was friend-guest. But you did not like this.” The rider shrugs. “Warrior.”
She nods her understanding. “Thank you. I was confused. I meant no insult.” She bows to him and to his commander from horseback and then begins to ride in the direction she hopes to find her own commander.
It takes a couple of minutes to cover the ground. He rides carefully, not risking his horse, but not dismounting. “My battle-friend die. Your commander… Should queen protect. Oaaah!”
“Humakt gathers the great warriors,” she tells him. “Your… battle-friend sits with the gods.”
“His … he rides with yu-Kargzant. Died in dark, though.” That seems to trouble the man.
“Death brings darkness, but the dead find their way,” she assures him. “If you-Kargzaant is light, then he will find light.”
“Come back, yes. He rises.” The man looks up to the sun, and salutes it.
She considers the implications and decides it might be wise not to pursue lest she find herself in a position where her god and his disagree. Instead, she says, “Lady Berra, my commander, cannot protect a queen. She serves a Hero and Humakt and I serve her.” There’s a quiet note of pride.
He gestures to the right, and lets Nayale go that way. “I know.” Maybe he is jollying her along, but he seems serious.
Taking his words at face value, she beams at him. “Berra will be a Hero too.”
“Look forward, not me. I’m not so pretty.” He makes the same gesture again, which is apparently some kind of instruction.
Duly chastised, she returns to scanning the landscape.
“No. Down… you do not know. Down that path.” Which is clearly visible now that she knows that wiggling fingers mean ‘go that way’.
She sighs again. “There are scouts?” she asks, turning her gaze to the path.
“I take… commander explain. Just ride.”
Another sigh, but she does as she’s told.
The path gets closer to the edge of the cliff, and then there is a rock with a rope tied around it.7Passed Scan. Woven flax, it looks expensive. A lot of people would make do with hide.
Nayale urges her mount closer, so she can get a better look.
Behind her, her companion dismounts. “You go. I stay guard. Keep horse.” He climbs up onto the rock to wave at the distant group from Rich Post.
The rock is next to the cliff, just about, and there is considerable evidence that some people have gone down, and at least one left muddy footprints at the top, meaning they have come up. They are right at the chasm. Steam or smoke drifts up from one end.
“You keep or I keep?”
“I keep. You down. Go down. Commander there.”
Without waiting for further instructions, she swings easily off the horse and passes over her reins. The she goes to investigate the climb.
The rope is unknotted, but dry. The path has earth and rocks, and if she fell, she might even be able to catch herself. Below, in the gorge, a river flows.
It certainly looks safe.
Taking a deep breath, Nayale begins her descent, using the rope to have something to hold on to. She’s not afraid, but she feels that Humakt would be disappointed if she just stupidly fell to her death.
… And then she’s at the bottom. There’s a river in the middle of the gully, and a lot of rocks and rubble on either side. She has landed on damp ground where there are already plenty of footprints.
Nayale looks at the footprints and the landscape, searching for her party. The Grazelander pointed her in this direction. Maybe in the direction of the smoke? She eyes the river with concern before making for the end of the gully.
There, not too far away, where she can see the rope but also see a chunk of the cliff around it, is Berra. She is leaning casually against a rock, not exactly hiding, but certainly not sticking her head up above anything else. She gives Nayale a tiny nod as her eyes move over the area.
Belatedly, Nayale realises that whatever danger was present may not have passed. She looks for a way to reach Berra without exposing herself to arrows or giving away her commander’s position.
There is a way through the rocks, first clinging to the cliff and then cutting left through the strewn rubble of the gorge floor.
The young Humakti rolls her shoulders before reaching for the first hand hold.
Berra gestures Nayale to halt, and comes over that way, making for a slightly different path. “We should be all clear up there, if the reinforcements arrive,” she calls out. “It’s just … well, why bother being in the view of anything if we’re wrong. We didn’t get all of them, but we think the one we missed above has fled.”
Nayale waits for Berra, but uses the time to study her mentor carefully. She searches for evidence of the fight she missed, injuries, or anything else she ought to worry about.
Berra seems unharmed, although on her left leg there seem to be claw marks in the greave. That will take some fixing. It is leather, not bronze, but it is still an impressive feat. “How many we got up top?”
Nayale gives an accounting of the Grazelander reinforcements and a detailed description of the commander.
Berra relaxes a little. “Yeah. We need to keep them bottled up, so we’ll get some people down here, but right now it’s quiet.” She steps back, looks around, and says, “Irillo would know if there was an attack coming. I just don’t … yeah, we’re fine.” She does not step out into the open. “And they don’t have javelins. This way. I’ll show you how it went.”
Nayale follows, close on Berra’s heels. So close that one javelin could take out both of them if thrown with enough force.
Berra says, “Gimme a bit more room, remember?” and slows down rather. Nayale will have to slow down a lot not to bump into her.
Nayale stops, almost stumbling with the suddenness of it. “Sorry,” she mumbles. Her ears are pink and she avoids looking at Berra by scanning the rocks.
“Yeah. Consider why you’re clinging to me.” She steps sideways, waves to someone up on the cliff, and makes a couple of hand signals. “So. We came in like you did, and started moving upstream, because that was the way we couldn’t see. Downstream, the water vanishes again. It comes out of the rocks hot up there.”
“Oh. A hot spring!” Before she can become more distracted, Nayale refocuses. Her eyes follow the route Berra has indicated, searching for signs of their passage.
Berra nods. “There’s a waterfall above and I think maybe the plunge pool’s hotter than the waterfall, but I ain’t spending the time checking.” She passes down a narrow path in the rocks. “Look up and right? You see those scratch marks in the cliff left of the green smear?”
“Mhmmm,” Nayale agrees,
“They have sharp claws, and we were lucky that they seemed to want to drown us. They grabbed rather than just clawing, at first. So, Irillo cast the magic of his god and we knew where there were enemies.” Berra hops up to a rock to look around. “Up left, on the other side, there was two. Up right, just the one. I found a path through and led people.” She says it matter-of-factly, rather than as if that was a great feat. There are plenty of rocks amongst which hiding and creeping would be good.
“What were they?”
“We’re about to get there.” Berra looks left along a path, and then points to a big rock. “There. We haven’t dealt with that one yet.”
A humanoid… bird? No, it just has a beak. There, dead, is a beaked humanoid, taller than Berra or Nayale, with dark skin and sharp claws on hands and feet. It looks like it met a broadsword, and is in two pieces, with one of the long, tough legs mostly severed, and an arm badly cut. The blood is grey-green, brighter where it is still wet on the body.
A certain wrongness indicates this thing is unnatural. The limbs bend strangely even given the relaxation of death.
Nayale stares and shudders. “That … thing is wrong,” she whispers.
Berra nods, a blur at the edge of vision, and then says, “Yeah. They needed to die. But now we get to hand the problem over. The river’ll carry the horror of them away, and we can have the locals burn the bodies. I guess I should talk to this river and make sure it knows, but I’ve never actually been good at talking to them. I will, though.” She moves on, leaving Nayale to follow.
“Talk to the river? How do you do that? Does it know Tradetalk? Or Spirit speech?”
“It probably won’t understand what I mean, but I’ll tell it about the new river and remind it to take Chaos down to the sea.” Berra pauses by the edge of the river. “Kolyey fell in. She’s really cut up about it – she’d have drowned without help, because she couldn’t get her feet under her.” There is a lot of ploughed-up mud here, and evidence of someone having been hauled out, or maybe pulling themselves out. It is difficult to tell.
Berra stays where she is, her little booted prints clear. She weighs little, and wears hobnails. Others must be… Lunar-style shoes. Oriana. Handprints coming out of the water… Kolyey. And Maalira must be the other because Irillo would not kneel on the ground in his robe like that, but Maalira would look after a patient just so.
Kolyey went into the water. Oriana was there first, it seems, and slipped a little while trying to help, but the depth of some of the prints, and how they slip, indicate she was supporting Kolyey’s weight from the bank somehow. Then Maalira must have knelt down, and then Kolyey crawled out of the water.
Later, Kolyey went back in, but this time under control, a little further downstream. She and Berra must have had a talk nearby, for both of those sets of boots are standing or sitting. Berra was on that rock there… and then they parted ways.8Good track roll!
Nayale murmurs all this as she works it out, speaking to herself. There are a lot of details to sort out, but she seems to see it all. Realising that’s she’s been describing the scene, her cheeks go pink. “Sorry. Harmakt would probably laugh at me, making up stories. He’s the one who’s good at this stuff.”
“Yeah, no. You mostly got it. Just that Kolyey got pulled out, I think. But she had her hands pushed under her because Oriana had been holding her up… with a staff? Yeah, that.” Berra nods.
“Why did Kolyey go in? And are there crocodiles?”
“She ran to get to the thing I killed. We’d gone up towards the waterfall and this came down behind us when they saw us fighting, or heard us. We ran back here to deal with it, and she just slipped.” The Wyter Priest hops over a couple of rocks. “There’s a gravelly bit here. Noisier, but you won’t get your boots clagged with mud.”
Nayale follows, skipping lightly across the rocks. “You didn’t answer the second question.”
“Oh, no crocodiles.” Berra shakes her head. “I was worried it was them, but it wasn’t.”
There’s a relieved sigh from the young Narri. “One day, I’ll stop worrying about them. But I think it may be a while yet. Still, I think it’s not as bad as it was. I’m glad you’re alive, Lady Berra. I wasn’t looking forward to reporting to the Boldhome Temple without you.” One thought runs into the next, as Nayale hops from stone to stone. “Or Harmakt. Or… the Hero.”
“Yeah, he’d be pretty pissed off at me for dying, and that would spread.” Berra angles down a path which is hidden by rocks from both cliffs. It already has footprints along it, in the soft grass. “Kolyey’s probably going to be pretty angry with herself. Make sure you don’t rub it in, what happened.”
“The water thing?” Nayale looks confused. “Why would I do that?”
Berra shrugs. “I dunno, but I didn’t know how to say to be nice to her, and actually that would probably make it worse.”
There’s a thoughtful pause. “Nice is awkward,” she agrees. “Uncomfortable.”
“Uhuh. Anyhow. Oriana also ran into danger which was good of her, but be aware of that in future. And Irillo did too, but he can handle it a bit more. If you don’t have any orders from me for anything else, then guard Oriana.”
“Should she receive some basic self-defense training?”
“No. It’ll make her think she should do that again. She needs to learn to be happy letting me be in danger, but she needs to learn that herself. There’s a lot of… wanting to be useful… in there. Can’t spoil it. Wanna keep her alive.”
“I’ll act as her bodyguard unless ordered elsewhere by you,” Nayale agrees. “And watch for her trying to throw herself into trouble.”
Berra pauses for a moment with her foot over a patch of mud, and then jumps it. “Hmmm… You acting as a bodyguard is about as subtle as a Storm Bull in a farting contest. Guard, not bodyguard. If we’re in danger, cover her.”
Nayale looks indignant.
Berra is looking the other way, but maybe reads the silence. She gives Nayale a glance.
“I will do as you wish,” the young Humakti says stiffly.
Berra nods. There is severity in her look, and it seems like she thinks this is a thing Nayale has to learn. On she goes.
- 1Nayale has failed Charm.
- 2Nayale gets a Special+ on Insight.
- 3Special Ride roll
- 4Pass Battle: they are riding protectively, as a screen.
- 5Scan -10, pass.
- 6Passes Tradetalk
- 7Passed Scan.
- 8Good track roll!
