I am writing in the damp and the dark of this place called a swamp. But let me not get ahead of myself; there is much to record.
After the misadventure, so many days ago, that led to the death of Stuckey, our little family of friends actually had some time to take a breath. As we sought information as to the whereabouts of the oracle or witch called Iris, we tried to establish some order, however transitory or imaginary, to our lives here in Grelsh.
For my part, having secured space at the White Widow Inn, I was able to join in the commercial enterprises at the Trades Meet, a market held at the nearby crossroads. I gathered some nice reeds from a nearby stream and from the Big River; not as good as the mianzi of home, but serviceable enough after drying. I was able to once again make baskets; the space that Mariah had let me as a workshop was more than sufficient for the task, and it appears my skills have not left me. I have built a relationship, perhaps the beginnings of friendship, with Tarrow, a competent trapper who prepares meats and hides for sale, and Vanya, a smith, and through their offices secured a small stall at Trades Meet. I have staked a claim (I believe that is the term) on some land not far from the Widow's and began building a rudimentary cabin for myself; without skills, it will take a while, but I may have a home for myself and C'hallah someday.
The rest of my fellow outlanders joined me in residence at the the Widow - I believe the memories of Stuckey may haunt some of them - so our daily contact continued undiminished.
I was able to persuade my new associates to let a stall to Urik on the edges of the meet; the Trades Meet merchants are not all citizens of Grelsh, and are less particular about who joins in. Urik offers healing services for donations only - on the condition that the procedures are as painful as they are ameliorative. Nonetheless, he gets a steady trade. He offers tattooing as well, and has marked several residents, including some of the would-be rogues who earlier molested us and whom we chastised.
AppleRabbit, who seems to have developed a surprising fondness for Urik, joins him in the stall and ministers to animals much as he does to people, only without a specific pain requirement. Like the witch doctor, she accepts only gifts in payment, and has amassed quite a collection of trinkets and artifacts, which seem to please her capricious nature immensely.
Zinna has been spending her days with members of the Stealer's Guild. I do not think she is pursuing the goals of The Nackle; in fact, sometimes I think - no, I know - that she has forgotten that scheme in which we are involved. The Guild is just a familiar place for her, and it gives her contentment to be with others of her "trade" and know her role and use her skills. I persuaded Vanya to barter with her and remove the Pillar symbols from the swords we acquired from the hobgoblins; they are of very good quality and Zinna is very pleased to be wielding them. She is also learning to swim.
We do not see much of Rorick; he spends much time at the library. He tried to turn his scholarship to profit by entering the scroll-scribing business, but met with failure in a weak market. I think this added to his already ill-humor after the loss of Stuckey and he has kept much to himself.
As I look back over this entry in the dim light filtering through the trees (so many trees!), I see that I write as if all this had become the normal course for our lives; indeed, it was so, but for a brief week or two. Of course, like all good things, it came to an end. As usual, it was the Lady Pasha who ended our idyll, but before that, there was a prelude. This was just yesterday.
Zinna, AppleRabbit, and Rorick (out in broad daylight for a change), were at the mouth of the Big River; Zinna was practicing swimming while the others were seeking a local fish whose intestines provided ingredients to make dyes useful in tattooing. Apparently, our little gnome was spectacularly unsuccessful in attempting to persuade one large specimen to come into her net by speaking to it, but a local youth, who was spearfishing nearby, impaled the creature easily and added it to his catch. One thing led to another (as it always does when AppleRabbit is involved): she bartered with the youth, oranges for fish guts, and engaged him in further conversation, finding that he was a farmboy and something of a local prodigy with the spear, having won some sort of contest against other townsmen. Further, he seemed to have some wanderlust and a taste for "adventuring."
It was then that Urik and I arrived to fetch our companions for dinner, just in time to hear AppleRabbit proffer membership in our little band to the youth. I could see in his eyes a battle between desire and apprehension; a chance for a more exciting life than farming weighed against the strangeness of joining a company of non-humans. I attempted to advise him to run back to the shelter of his mother's arms and the comfort of his plow, but the allure proved too great and it was agreed he would not only join us for dinner at the Widow's but accompany us on our trip to find Iris.
He seems about the same age as Stuckey.
Dinner was splendid, as usual; the youth, Eckbert by name, seemed as awed by the offerings of the table as Zinna had been at first; but as she has become an expert-level trencherman, so I expect Eckbert to quickly grow accustomed to spices and lemons and goat cheese in the same way. It is the nature of the young to adapt.
In what is becoming a habit (or recurring nightmare), our meal was interrupted by the beautiful and peremptory Lady Pasha. She took our measure and began without preamble, as usual, except to note the presence of Eckbert, with whose prowess she was familiar, and to approve his inclusion in the group. The boy's amazement was palpable.
Pasha told us that an unguarded caravan - a "piggie" in the local parlance, relying on the protection of strangers - had been taken on the south road. This action had been observed at a distance (but not interfered with) by another caravan, which had sent a messenger back to Grelsh to report the news. Since we planned to be heading south to find Iris, she wanted us to take on, as an additional task, any opportunistic punitive action against bandits that we could. Since we are taking the caliph's shekel, as it were, we could not but accede to this request. We decided to begin our journey south forthwith, and so finished dinner and made an early evening. Eckbert went back to his farm, planning to return to the White Widow and set out with us first thing in the morning.
True to his word, Eckbert returned at dawn, eager as a puppy to leave Grelsh and explore. I arranged affairs at Trades Meet with Tarrow as the party collected itself, and after breakfast we set out on the south road, which eventually arrives at Crespin. (I hoped we would not be walking all the way there!) There was a noticeable lack of traffic on the usually well-travelled road; I took this as a bad omen.
We journeyed throughout the day, camped once at a wayspot, and continued again the second day. Sometime after luncheon on that day, Zinna and I spied smoke, perhaps a campfire, coming from the woods off to the east of the road. Zinna, AppleRabbit, and Rorick made for the spot through the woods, while Urik, Eckbert, and I continued on the road to find a cleared access. When we converged on the spot, we found clear signs of banditry. The smoldering remains of an empty wagon was the source of the smoke we had seen; attached to the wreckage was the mutilated remains of a horse, which had been cruelly killed, but there were no humanoid bodies. We found the tracks of small feet leading away, along with clear indications that cargo had been dragged from the clearing and into the swamp forest, but the most puzzling of all were the signs that a rider had come from the north, circled the scene, and then headed back to Grelsh. It seemed unlikely that this was the messenger from the other caravan; the approach made no sense and the report given in town had not included the details of the scene.
That was a mystery to be solved another time; we forged ahead into the swamp, following the tracks easily. The landscape was bizarre to my eyes: standing water everywhere, except for narrow trails of high ground; mud and muck and moss encrusting everything; thick growths of weird grasses and low hanging trees. AppleRabbit seemed to gain energy from the place and clearly felt right at home; the others seemed a bit awkward and ill-at-ease; for our parts, C'hallah and I were miserable - but why should we have expected otherwise?
We proceeded forward, and at a certain point we came upon a sort of clearing near a river where the trees thinned out a bit and pools of muddy water dotted the area; some sort of animal-made den or warren, much like a dam, spanned the river directly in front of us. Perhaps recalling the riverside ambush that followed the murder of Stuckey, Rorick took out a scroll and prepared to read a protective spell. It turned out that act, instead of safeguarding him, nearly led to his doom, for a soon as he unrolled the paper, a volley of arrows came from the foliage and the battle was on!
We were beset upon by goblins - the vicious little creatures seemed to lurk in the branches of every tree near us. Rorick immediately fell under the hail of missiles as we engaged. Zinna and C'hallah leapt into the trees to my left to engage the creatures there face to face, joined by Rorick's bird; Eckbert moved in to join them, reaching high into the trees with his spear. Apple raced to aid Rorick, and Urik moved toward the trees on my right, nicking himself with a sharp fingernail and casting spell-laded blood toward our foes - a grim sight, indeed. I peppered our enemies with arrows, but the foliage made attacks difficult and the struggle was tremendous.
We pressed against the onslaught like camels fighting through a haboob. Rorick arose after AppleRabbit's attentions and joined the advance with his heavy crossbow. It was a good thing, too, as another small wave of goblins crested the dam and joined the assault from afar. Apple enchanted the ground around them and they became entangled in roots and leaves that seemed to come alive and grasp at them; this slowed their advance and left them with only ranged attacks as their option.
The battle thus broke into two fronts: close combat with the goblins in the trees peppering us like demented monkeys, and exchanges of missile volleys with the far-off creatures. More slowly than it should have taken, we turned the tide, eliminating the nearer creatures and, after AppleRabbit removed her enchantment, closing on the remaining adversaries and cutting them down.
One creature attempted to flee; Zinna and C'hallah chased him across the dam over the river. He was felled by one of Urik's spells as he reached the far side and the ape easily retrieved him, but Zinna lost her footing on the wet branches and mud and fell into the river. While this chase was happening, AppleRabbit, seemingly overcome with emotion, was keening and moaning and acting like a person possessed: the insult these creatures had done to her swamp was more than she could bear and an ancient enmity seemed to be taking hold of her, turning her energy ferocious.
Even as the battle wound down, everything seemed to be happening at once: Zinna was swept under the dam; we heard whimpering from inside the structure; the goblin awoke from the enchantment and we tried to gain useful intelligence from him; Eckbert and Rorick attempted to find Zinna and make entry into the dam. Then two things happened:
∆ Zinna burst through the top of the dam from the inside, apparently having gained entrance from underwater.
∆ AppleRabbit leapt upon the goblin, hurling vicious threats into his face and finally head-butting him in her rage; as he fought back, Urik and I easily dispatched him.
Inside the dam, we found several juvenile goblins; the foul creatures hissed and spat at us as we moved through the stinking innards of the enclosed space. We found trade goods, apparently those taken from the "piggie" wagon; the were all befouled and beyond salvage for any civilized use. I'm not sure light-fingered Zinna even found anything worth taking for her personal gain.
Disgusted and dispirited, we watched as AppleRabbit performed some kind of cleansing ritual on the young monsters. We dragged the other corpses into the dam and dumped them into the nest, finding on the apparent leader a stolen ring that Rorick said had some magick; AppleRabbit took it as partial restitution for the despoliation of her beloved swamp.
Then with fire from Rorick's fingers we burned the place.
It was a gruesome task, but none raised an objection as the foul roost burned to below the waterline. I have fought zombies in the jangwa who made my flesh crawl with dread; these goblins were of a like kind, in my mind. I wonder how Eckbert feels about "adventuring" now.
...
I was about to return to the group in our camp, but two other thoughts have occurred to me:
∆ Who was the rider who investigated the scene of the attack?
∆ Where are the bodies of caravan personnel?
Dispatching the goblin might have been hasty: we have more questions than answers.
Nevertheless, we have flown the flag of Grelsh and showed that caravans cannot be attacked with impunity. I guess we are heroes.
No comments:
Post a Comment