另类小说人亚洲小说

Chapter 14

Rainy Day

Oh yes, it rained. Raising a tent with improvised stakes in the pouring rain? Not fun.

That may sound wrong, coming from a being more at home in the water than the land. Imagine tiny hammers, pounding away at you, smacking you in the eye, obscuring your ears.

Imagine trying to adapt from pitch darkness one instant to a flash of lightning the next.

There were a variety of optical adaptions, none of which I could afford.

.....

The raiding party returned, already wet and miserable. I was cuffed for letting the fire burn out, mocked for not lighting a fire in the largest tent, and cuffed again for creating smoke by lighting it.

I was tasked with wiping weapons clean, both of blood and water. I had yet to figure out how to clean the inside of scabbards (you use a fake sword made of stiff cloth or fibers), so I set those upside down to drain.

“This,” declared Hermetocrita, “is not progressing fast enough. We need allies.”

Yneridd shrugged. “A month, you said. We have relatives and allies we can call in a month.”

Hermetocrita nudged some wet wood closer to the fire to dry. “No, we need allies willing to enter the tunnels of that dung heap the goblins call a lair.”

Myraenac sighed. “We’ll never get the Greywood elves to mobilize, not that fast.”

“They wouldn’t do well in those tunnels, either.” Added Zinzelle.

“Humans?” asked Ptholometa.

“Seacrest is near enough.” Said Zinzelle.

“Ugh. Humans always want gold.” Said Hermetocrita. “Try getting one of the tyrants to give up a bangle or two. I’d rather kill the whole horde with a spear. Less chance of dying or getting bitten.”

A small chuckle migrated around the tent.

Ptolemon, resting in the corner, spoke up. “Aren’t there domugs – those dog things – in Greywood, as well?”

Yneridd snorted. “You’d send those midgets into a goblin burrow? Even without kobolds, I don’t like their odds.”

“Maybe the goblins have learned their lesson, and will leave the clans alone?” Myraenac sounded more hopeful than convinced.

“If only they could learn.” Complained Ptholometa.

Hermocrita spat. “No, if their numbers keep growing at normal goblin rates, the land they have won’t sustain that nest for long. Fungal crops only make up for so much of that. My guess is that nest is needing to send out a few colonies.”

“Probably has been for a while.” Confirmed Yneridd. “IF we could ambush those groups as they leave the main nest, we should be able to prevent that.”

“Hold up.” Myraenac scratched in the dirt with his spear-tip. “If this is the nest, and this is the coast, and we presume the kobolds are holed up somewhere in the badlands here... They know not to try expanding to land claimed by the tribes, and they know not to come toward our new woodland over here.”

Yneridd began scratching in the dirt as well. “The easiest land for them to expand to is here, the outlying farms of Seacrest. Once the goblins attack those, the humans will just be eager to strike back. We let Clan Skyhoof inform the humans of the location, and then the goblins motivate them. The goblins solve our own problems for us.”

“That seems like the sort of thing that could backfire easily.” Argued Zinzelle. “I mean, humans do breed the fastest of the civilized races, but Seacrest is just what, sixty humans total?”

“Eighty now, I reckon.” Said Ptolemon. “Humans don’t breed like goblins do, but they breed fast enough. And that means they should have eight adventurer types.”

Hermocrita wandered to the door, opened the tent flap, and spat a wad of phlegm out into the rain.

“Ptholometa, how fast do you think Thonia can crank out healing potions? The plainstrider mix or the woodsman’s, whichever she can make more of?”

“A potion a day. Two, if she’s lucky. She’ll need someone to gather the herbs for her.”

“You know humans – if we provide the healing potions, do you think that might tip the balance, get the humans working on this nest without further bribes?”

Ptholometa shook her mane. “Unlikely. Humans favor all the sins, but Greed and Lust are likely still in the lead. At least in Seacrest. We may need to go all the way to Narrow Valley,” she gestured with her spear, “somewhere out in the rain that way.”

But then, the rabbit stew was ready.

#

As the slave, I pretty much got the leftovers of everything. My stew was more broth, and had no chunk of meat, even if the potatoes had absorbed much of the flavor.

I may sound vindictive about that; at the time, I was. I had been used to a life of easy foraging and plentiful food. Anyone could have told you that couldn’t have lasted, whether there were centaurs around or not.

But, the backup plan had been decided, and set in motion. Ptolemon and his mates would return to the woods with me. Myraenac and his mates would circle around the nest to the human fishing village of Seacrest.

The dour looks of the sentries brightened on seeing our group, and soured again as the news was relayed. This expression change also happened at the village, and I assumed again in the Tent of Tyrants.

I wasn’t present for that last one. Enough timber had been harvested for the longhouse, and I was conscripted into that effort.

It unlocked the Construction cultivation technique, which was tied to multiple Science classes. I even gained multiple XP per day, which came to one, after divisor.

Around the fires, the community at large was told only that there were more goblins than expected, and that humans were going to be sent into the goblin nest to clean it out. This led to an overwhelming request from the children for stories of heroes who had helped the Centaur peoples.

The tale was told of the First Four. Four is a holy number to centaur, both as the number of their fingers and the number of their legs. Four is also the number of seasons, and the number of years before adding an extra day. I could go on, but just know it is a number at the heart of good things in Centaur culture.

I expected the heroes of Bow and Spear, named Oriestes and Lana, respectively. I was not expecting the hero of the Scroll, Kirion, nor the hero of the Staff, Kerche.

Oriestes and Lana improved centaur hunting and warfare, while Kirion taught them language, religion, and the basic life sciences. Kerche taught them the ways of Nature magic, of harvest and herb and lifesong.

As the tale goes, the First Four were wandering through Clan lands. Normally, humans caught in the areas claimed by the Clans were killed. But Kerche, Lana, and Kirion had enchanting singing voices (Oriestes may have been tone deaf, for he only sang the one note), and the Centaur were enthralled.

They followed the singing band, and did not attack. They did this for half a day, and then one of their women sang back. The Four tailored their song to match. And, on the third day, the language of Achean translated by the Scroll, Kirion began speaking to them.

The four had been summoned to deal with the threat of the centaur, and were distraught to hear that the centaur saw themselves as the defenders against increasing human encroachment on their ancestral lands.

A treaty was negotiated; the humans would pay tribute, in exchange for access to centaur lands. They would kill nothing they did not eat or use, plant no crops, and camp for no more than a single night. In time, trusted humans were allowed to establish a colony among the centaurs of the river delta.

They were allowed farms and gardens, in exchange for a fifth of the produce. If this seems steep to you, please realize that human lands frequently taxed at two or three fifths of the produce.

The river peoples and the clans lived in harmony; when invaded, they fought together, the human spearfolk forming a phalanx of shield and spear, an anvil on which enemy armies were immobilized. The Sagittarii were the hammer, wheeling around the enemy and striking them until they broke.

And this peace lasted for generations, until other humans coveted the wealth of the river peoples. And they came, the Itinari, in vast numbers. Seeing these numbers, the spearfolk of the Grot abandoned the field of battle. Without their anvil, great numbers of the Sagittarii were lost, so many that they could not support the cities of the river people.

Each force separated from the other, each lost to the combined forces that were the Itinari. And thus the Itinari walked into the cities, and subjugated the Grots, and to preserve their lives, the centaurs abandoned the cities to return to their nomadic lifestyle.

And those centaurs wandered the different lands, and formed different tribes, and had adventures that were uniquely theirs.

But those are stories for other nights.

#

It was two days later that the wives of Myraenac (and the male himself) returned to the clanhold. I was busy learning the difference between daub and mud, and how to apply it to the log walls of the longhouse, which were already three tree-trunks high.

This first longhouse wasn’t treated with linseed oil or otherwise varnished; wood apparently needed to dry in the sun and wind for a year or two before it could be used in serious construction. Winter was on the way, and this temporary longhouse would have to serve until a longer-lasting one could be built.

Three stone fireplaces were also under construction, but I was only allowed to stir the mortar to keep it from setting before it was used.

The humans had been warned of the goblins, but were already aware. Small groups of goblins had been driven away from the northern farms, and were regarded as a nuisance rather than a true threat.

Yneridd was not thrilled with the state of their protective adventurers. “Good enough as scouts and wardens,” she declared, “and not shy on the hunting and trapping skills, but there’s only one I’d actually call a ranger, and another who wants to be one but hasn’t the terrain lore.”

Hermetocrita was not pleased with this news. “What of warriors? Surely at least some of them fish with spears?”

Yneridd shook her mane. “Nets, all of them. They are single-day fishers, not a deep-sea fisher among the lot of them.”

“A champion? A constable, at least?”

“They talk out most of their differences. Their alcohol is weak and watery, and they’ve too little to steal from each other. Their smithy is long abandoned; they trade their fish for the metal goods they need.”

“With whom? Are narrow valley merchants braving the Uruk lands?”

Yneridd fretted at the tangles in her mane with her hands. “Actually, the folk of Seacrest claim the Uruk trade fairly with them, have since the time of their fathers.”

Hermetocrita had some choice words about Seacrest, their fathers, and their mothers. Few words I hadn’t heard before, but she arranged them into new and descriptive patterns.

“Uruk are an offshoot of Orcs!” she exclaimed. “Goblinoids! They are a barbarian race for a reason.” She snorted, and stamped, and then seemed sorrowful. “There was once a day when even the scattered colonies of human were worthy of respect.”

Tsamatta, one of the clan chieftainesses, joined the conversation. “Seacrest sounds as though it is degenerating into people of the mud. It is sad, but they may not have long left among us.”

“Tsamatta,” said Hermetocrita, “we should send an envoy to Narrow Valley, or at least to Clan Skyhoof.”

“Yneridd, you have birth sisters in Clan Skyhoof, do you not?”

Yneridd beamed. “I do indeed, Tsamatta. It would be a shame if I did not visit them. I think Cleotemma has a brother in that tribe as well.”

Tsamatta bowed. “Family is strength. We must maintain family.”

“Of course we must. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

Tsamatta hand-waved her approval.

#