Part 15 (1/2)
”Then we'll get you a real sword, not a wooden one,” said Sunbright The child's s her head, the shaman walked for the stream to swish blood off his blade- -then stopped cold He walked to a dead orc, and flipped it over with a boot toe Slope-skulled and gray, hairy and knobby, the orc was clad in a faded sray with filth and cail, a large red hand with fingers splayed Freshly painted
”Ugly as a rat's rump,” spat Knucklebones, then noticed his face ”What?”
”This sigil,” Sunbright s backApeace and prosperity, pro races We once met a party of orcs who invited us to tea! Their starry- eyed leader raht of hoonderful the world would be once the One King ruled it But when I was hauled before the king I, uh, lost my temper and tried to swipe his head off I only dented his skin He was a lich in disguise, an undead lord with big plans”
”And?” Knucklebones said ”Did you kill hion tore down the wall and crisped hi's crusade would die out, but later Ito his banner They wouldn't believe he was dead And here's an orc with the symbol fresh-painted And they carry steel weapons, and ride ahorse Odd behavior for orcs” The shaman shook his head and squeezed Knucklebones's shoulder ”Good fighting”
The part-elf beat her knuckledusters as if testing the soft,” she complained ”I had to hit him twice”
The war party picked up the steel tools, left the orcs for the wolves and foxes, boosted one another up the sandy bank, and swished through tall grass, the rescued children in theirpast the guards to swiuards who aren't blind this tirinned back, ”Barbarian brats can slide under snakes! But we'll put you on point, Blackblossohter answered
The tribe cheered the rescued and rescuers The war party hooted back Sunbright turned frolory We'll take the dirty work” Scrasea and Crabbranch skin the dead horse It was a brown and white piebald growing a thick winter coat Sunbright plied his belt knife to slice theskull
Knucklebones felt the coarse lad for the meat, but this seems such a waste
You can ride horses, you know I've never done it, but it would make more sense to work these beasts than just chop them up From horseback, you could round up wild cattle and deer, even attack a sea said as he sliced raw liver, offered everyone a piece, and chewed bloodily
”Riding's a soft southern custom, for sissies Barbarians walk We only harness reindeer, and we ain't got none”
”We kayak,” put in Crabbranch ”This hide would reed ”I've been ahorse a few tiutted deer and walked like a duck for days”
”I know it's an art,” Knucklebones insisted, ”and takes tiht up froround, and those men and women rode like centaurs The horses obeyed their every whim Their helmets shone like the sun, and the horses wore blue coats with bells around the hem They're such pretty animals” She sliced the tail intact from the rear of the hide, stroked it absently ”You'd never seen an orc ahorse before Why not a barbarian?”
Strongsea and Crabbranch exchanged glances at this heresy, a break with tradition Sunbright offered, ”We get along fine walking” But inwardly, a ger he'd have to think about
Returning to the war party with ht squeezed Knucklebones and steered for his mother's travois Monkberry sat on their bundle like a round lump, smiled crinkly at her son and his tiny, exotic lover, but winced as she rose ”How o, son?” she asked
The sha, then said, ”I'm not sure The distance is almost double that fro the tundra We've been out, uh, thirty-two days Perhaps another twenty? Why ask,the world over is fine for young folks, but ood to find a rock to sit on”
Sunbright laughed, ”You'll have rocks, e to Northreach to fetch one”
”If we had horses,” Knucklebones cooed, ”we could build a bigger travois and you could ride”
Monkberry shook her head, and stated, ”Barbarians walk It's always been that way I' the harness, now piled with thirty pounds of raw horse et started ”Come on, then The sooner alk, the sooner we arrive I need to find my mother a rock”
The band passed deeper into the prairie, which now began to rise steadily, several feet in every mile They saw no more ancient animals, mammoths or saber-tooths, and twice passed stands of poplar trees Several ties too steep to scale with leather soles The ood news ca water was shot in the back by a crude arrow The Rengarth beat the brush but never found the killer One night three south swords and scraps of ar the food and were iame clumsily butchered, so they paired up for protection
Once, at dawn, a pack of thirty orto stahters screaullies Two hunters were bush- whacked later, with only their heads recovered
”I've never heard of orcs on the prairie, and suddenly they're thick as fleas,” Sunbright es ago, when drought burned the highlands What's got the?” asked Knucklebones ”You saw the red hand on that big war party”
”The king's dead, and not costones under his feet ot them nowhere, and they had to continue at any cost Then one afternoon a hunter pelted through the grass Froichunger hollered, ”To ar, Firstfortune pointed wildly northwest, and gasped, ”I-I've seen it!
F-Frouine Mountain! Red as blood down a black cleft! Two days' walk We're alrabbed Knucklebones and his creaky asped The tribe pushed on till dusk, threw up a hasty caht had little to say, instead listened to notions both fantastic and practical, glad his people had new ideas to share
The next afternoon, the peak of Sanguine Mountain topped the grass Two days later, they saw the wholeto the sky, while a counterpane of green shot with orange and gold and red cloaked their stony feet
In the last mile, someone hollered and streaked forward A child ran after, soon outstripped by two sters ”A tree! First to touch a tree!” A flock of runners broke and ran headlong The stragglers behind cheered the race
The forest spilled froed ar reached the trees, soan This time the runners carried leaves they'd snatched as proof of their triurabbed and kissed and jostled Songs went up, and prayers of thanks
Far at the rear of the wandering train, Sunbright stopped dragging their travois Monkberry caught his wrist on one side, and Knucklebones the other The sht theed, but they've arrived!”
”All the tribe,” Monkberry added ”Every one”
Sunbright was quiet, for this place carried memories It had been here, to the southern slopes of the Barren Mountains, that he'd first retreated when driven from the tribe years back The mountains had proved bitter and barren, but the forest had sustained hihed ”I hope this new soil receives my uprooted people”
The hillside swarmed with barbarians busy as beavers, each with a hundred tasks to do and each happy, for this new land pros
While hunters slipped into the forest,holes to receive them, bent and lashed them with spruce roots, then moved on while wowao, Forestvictory had declared her task as trail chief ended with the trail, so Goodbell was appointed ca on her back and a third swelling her belly, directed the laying out of a with sticks andof fire pits, and other tasks
The tribe had chosen a wide vale with only a slight slope euine Mountain reared above the forest to the north like an orange-black beacon built by Gods The forest itself was edged by green-black spruces whose petticoats brushed the ground Rising behind were bursts of yellow, orange, and red; tall, vase-shaped elraceful birches Sheltered on three sides, sloping to prairie, their ca on a yellow sea, and it was as busy as any seaport
Sunbright left Monkberry and Knucklebones to house construction, and busied hi a stick, he scraped away rass and levered up rocks He rolled thehbors, then scraped off dirt for a seat He whistled as he worked, happy, for they'd finished one odious chore, crossing the plains, and e one Even the air eeter, rich with loarainy dust smell of the prairie
As he fiddled with stones, a tall barbarian named Wreathhonor approached, asked, ”Goodbell asks how deep shall we dig the trenches? How long e stay here?”