Tales of a Horse Thief, Cycle 2 Part 9c
It turned out the village had a number of wounded, a couple of them were still in pretty rough shape despite Asta having done everything she could for them. Loden’s arm had been bandaged and Asta had promised to heal the wound after she had seen to the village. However, it was near dawn before she had finished tending the villagers, she had been drained and was presently asleep in the loft of the mill.
The miller’s wife and most of her family had been able to fend off the slaver’s interests. Some of her closest neighbours had also made it to the mill before the door had been shut and barred. All of them had lost kin, most of the men had been killed defending the village and a fair number of the women as well. Still, the survivors estimated that over three score of their people had been carried off by the Tannicans, mostly women and youth. They had also lost most of their livestock.
Presently he and the young woman who had shot him were sitting near the pond keeping an eye on the youngest children. Loden puffed on his pipe, Narra worked at salvaging some of her arrows. The children played and did other children things, Loden kept an eye on them, concerned they might wander down to the water.
Narra had apologized for shooting him, once they had sorted out that Asta really was a Priestess of Mercy. Though he had been surprised she had hit him, between the heavy coat and the Eldra clothing the arrow had not punctured too deeply. He had told her not to worry about it, he had survived far worse. Now, apparently, they were friends.
Narra asked, “Are you boning the priestess?”
“What? No. That’s not something you should really ask.”
“Why not? In my situation, a girl has to consider her options.”
Loden scowled, “Options for what?”
“Babies.”
“No!”
“You prefer men?”
Loden sighed and shook his head, “No.”
She knotted off the thread she had used to secure the flights on the arrow, then set it among the pile of that had been slowly growing through the morning. She jumped up and mussed up her hair, pulled her fingers through it a couple of times, then drew it together and flipped it into a tight bun. She smiled at him and profiled herself to better show her womanly curves, “Then what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing. You look fine.”
“Well, my name day was three days past.” She made a gesture encompassing the village, “In case you haven’t noticed we’re shy on men and in need of making babies. I’m sure if you stayed we could have our choice of land.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
She scowled at him, nostrils flaring slightly, “So, you just follow the priestess around? What are you? Her obedient dog?”
“Oh gods. No, we’re friends.”
“Friends? Are you a follower of the Goddess of Mercy?”
“Ah, no. Er, maybe. Yes. I promised to serve the Goddess. Alright! So now I’m some sort of paladin, or so some people say, and I’ve no idea why I’m not heading east, away from the war.” He was flustered. He snatched his pipe and spat to the side. The handful of children had stopped playing and they all looked at him with serious expressions.
She smirked and sat back down, picked up the next arrow and inspected it carefully. “Do you think we should go east?”
“The slavers usually move through an area a season or two ahead of the armies. When the spring comes I’d expect the Tannican armies, likely heading to Brisken or GreensBridge.”
“I thought everyone went to Swampdon to fight the Tannicans. Did they lose?”
“Not that I’ve heard. That’s where Asta and I are going.”
“So they have a lot of armies then?”
“Yes.”
“Well… What are we going to do? We’ll be hard pressed to survive the winter as things are now.”
“Gather your people and go to Brisken. When the spring comes, go east. Find some isolated village somewhere, get yourself a good man and remake your lives.”
“We’ve oldsters and young ones. Crossing the plateau this time of year will kill most of them. We’d be lucky if any of us made it.”
“Is there a walled town nearby?”
“The closest one is a couple eight-days southwest of here, Brodoon. There’s also Kern’s Hold, with a walled village, which is closer, but we don’t get along too well with them.”
“Have you had many folks from there passing through?”
“Just the merchant Caladoss Fren and his people, heading back from his yearly trip to Swampdon. Otherwise, I don’t think we’ve seen anyone from down that way since early summer. Which is unusual. We never see the folks from up around Kern, not unless they’re raiding us.”
Loden sighed, thumbed some tobacco into his pipe, lit it with a quick-strike and puffed until it was burning evenly. She watched him perform this little ritual, fascinated by his quick-strikes. He blew out a series of small smoke rings, which floated off, slowly expanding as they passed over the children. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. I’ll talk to Asta later. No doubt she’s already thought this through.”
“So, she’s the smart one?”
“Between the two of us? I think so.”
He kept an eye on the children as Narra made or repaired more arrows. The morning passed and they were all called over to the mill for the midday meal. Asta joined them, looking sleepy headed. She sat with Loden and Narra, eating silently.
When she had finished, Loden asked her, “If you have some time could we talk?”
“Yup, right after I check on my patients.”
It turned out that one of the oldsters wanted Loden’s help with the saw. He was the father in law of the miller’s wife, once the miller himself. The mill had two arms, either of which could be positioned at the wheel. One was for the grinding stone of the main part of the mill, the other for the saw, which was adjoined to the original mill, something he and his son had built nearly two decades ago.
“Thing is, unless we’ve had plenty of rain there’s not enough force to cut any of the bigger logs. We have to do that in the spring usually, sometimes the autumn rains are heavy enough.”
“Could you not just increase the flow?”
“Oh, we did. Doubled the size of the mill pond. Thing is, if we did make it any bigger we’d be flooding out most of our neighbours.”
Loden did not know what to say to that.
The old man kept talking, “Well them gods-blasted slavers were messing around with things in here. Dobbs used to do our metal working. You do metal work? No, too bad. Anyway, the fucking Tannican was rooting around in here, have to check to see if anything’s busted. Bastards might have even tried jamming it up. Who knows. Here. Hold this.”
It took much of the afternoon before the old man had finished his inspection and proclaimed the saw and it’s driving components to be sound. Throughout, he often brought up Narra, presenting her in the best light he could, often with the assumption that Loden and she were in fact to be hand fasted. It was more than a little annoying, but mostly Loden found the man’s efforts to be rather heartbreaking.
When they were done, Loden excused himself and sought out Asta. He found her down by the river, she was taking a bath, “Can we talk?”
She smiled up at him, “We could do more than that. Why don’t you come in?”
He sat by her pile of clothing, “I’m not in the mood. We need to talk about what we are going to do about these people.”
“Well, I was thinking I’d need a couple more days with they two lads who were in the worst shape. They’re better now, but I’d rather take the time to be sure.”
“And after that?”
“After that? I assumed we would be heading onward.”
“Okay, sure. But what about these folks?”
“I’m not sure there’s going to be too much more that we can do for them.”
“They seem to think otherwise. More to the point, if we leave them here, they will die. If not through the winter, then in the spring, when the Tannicans march through.”
“Ah. Good point. Let me think about it for a while.” She sank back into the water and slowly drifted away with the current.
Asta returned a while later, gingerly picking her way along the stony bank. Loden noticed she had more muscles than the last time he had seen her in this state. He stood, picked up her robe and passed it to her, “Any bright ideas?”
“Nothing good. Best I can think of is to take them with us when we head out. Though I think we’d end up wintering elsewhere, other than Swampdon.”
He sighed, “So far, that is about what I’ve come up with. Do you know of any decent sized towns in the area?”
“One of the maps I saw showed a place called Bistle or Bissel, or both, it wasn’t clear. I think it’s north of here, and a bit out of our way at this point. I’m not sure what’s to the northwest, though it’s a safe bet there are other villages, maybe even a town or two.”
“Um. Yeah… Well, let’s talk to the locals and see what they can tell us.”
“I’m surprised by how much this matters to you. Have you had a vision from the Goddess?”
“Ha. No. I’ve been having odd dreams fairly regularly, but nothing that seems like it would be guidance from the Goddess. How do you know if a dream is a… sending?”
“Well, the dreams I’ve had tend to be pretty intense, more vivid than my usual dreams. And, if I’ve had a sending from the Goddess, I usually awake with an acute sense of purpose or urgency.”
“Ah, well, I think I might have felt a bit of that when we were still in GreensBridge.”
“But not since?”
“No.”
“Hmm…” She sat down beside him.
“What do the paladins usually do?”
“That’s a good question. There were no paladins in the order until recently. Kelifa did not mention much about her gifts, other than it took her a long time before she realized she had been called by the Goddess.”
“How did she know?”
“Persistent dreams.”
“Well, that doesn’t really help me much, nor the locals.”
“We could ask the Goddess for guidance.”
“How?”
“Well, you have to open yourself to her will and beseech her for wisdom.”
“Okay, let’s try that.”
She gave him an odd look, shrugged, then said, “Alright. Do you still have the symbol that Lavmor gave you?”
“I do.” He fished it out of his pouch, “What do I do with it?”
“Hang on to it, I’ll pray to the Goddess for guidance.”
Loden gave a nod. Asta took hold of her own symbol, which she wore around her neck, a simple double spiral of silver, suspended from a leather thong. Then she closed her eyes and raised her other hand above her head, “Great Goddess of Mercy. We, your humble servants seek your guidance. We ask for your wisdom with how to best help these people, who are in need of your mercy.”
After a few moments Loden asked, “That’s it?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I don’t think it worked.”
Asta chuckled, “I’d suggest thinking on the issue for the rest of the day. Talk to the locals. They likely know of a place somewhere nearby where they can find refuge. Tonight when you go to sleep, try to calm your mind, maybe don’t drink before going to bed, be open to the Goddess’ will.”
“Alright then.”
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