Chapter 13
The Darkling merchant could not believe her eyes.
“You killed him,” she said.
“Yes; and your trógling are forfeit,” said Kaz. “But mark me, you trógling; if you want to stay with your mistress, I will not prevent it. If you have affection for her, or if you prefer the familiar to freedom, and having to take responsibilities for yourself, then I ask that she treat you with honour for having chosen her service.”
The six trógling were huddled together, staring at Kaz with a kind of horrified fascination.
One of them ran forward to bow to Kaz.
“Mistress,” he said.
“Just Kaz,” said Kaz. “Go to my friends. Trader Hraazaz was just leaving.”
The Darkling gave an order and the dead Toróg was rapidly stripped of his armour, which was added to the baggage train.
“I will not forget you, Kaz of Alethos,” said Hraakaz.
“I’m memorable,” said Kaz. “But one day, you might be pleased that we part on civil terms; I don’t care enough about Toróg to make you my enemy. But I do care to make Selen and Daze my enemies. And to work towards freeing my kind. But I will never force freedom on them.”
“I hope we never meet again,” said Hraazaz.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Kaz.
The traders passed on into the night, and Kaz, with a whoosh of relief, joined her fellows.
“You idiot, you cast a splint spell, I can’t heal you until tomorrow!” growled Svargia.
“It was a compromise; I cast with all my magical strength to have a sharp blade and to enhance my parry, leaving enough to stop me bleeding out if need be,” said Kaz. “I’ve gone days with a broken arm before, I’ll manage.”
“What possessed you to take it all on yourself?” demanded Protasion.
“I have an enemy but an enemy who gives me respect and might be a reluctant ally,” said Kaz. “She heard my words. Why should we have to kill a trading party? Just because we might be able to do so, doesn’t mean we should always seek combat all the time against everyone. Can you organise a watch? I want to sleep and I’d be very grateful for an Alathan-shaped pillow.”
Alathan lay down beside her, and cradled her carefully.
“You could remove the splint spell and heal her, I believe,” said Lelyn.
“I could. But should I?” said Alathan.
“He should not. He is not here to play nursemaid to me but to train me. Making a compromise is part of the training,” said Kaz.
“You see, she answers you,” said Alathan.
Lelyn sighed.
“She could make more use of you.”
“And if she did, she would mean less to me,” said Alathan. “I am proud of Kaz’s strength and determination to learn. Would you have me diminish her by treating her as fragile? Would you wish your mother and father to step in and stop you doing anything dangerous? How would you grow?”
“I... I see. I’m sorry,” said Lelyn. “I had not considered it like that.”
“But you will, now.”
“I will.
In the morning, Alathan ruffled Kaz’s growing hair.
“I’ll be leaving you all now,” he said.
“I’ll miss you,” said Kaz.
“And I will miss you, but I have things I need to do.”
“Of course.”
He brushed his lips across her brow, and turned to go.
“Look here... sir,” said Protasion, “Appreciating that you are more than you try to seem, and that you have duties, it’s not fair on Kaz to play with her like this. If you’re going to mess her about, just tell her that you have no long-term plans which involve her, and stop playing games.”
“Ah, Protasion, if you only knew,” said Alathan. “My plans for Kaz are long term. But she understands how it must be; we all have our duty. I honour you for having the courage to speak up for your friend. I will not forget such loyalty.”
“You are leaving while she is wounded?”
“Well, Protasion, she is your leader, but does she do her leading or her planning with her arm?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you are her arm whilst she heals.”
oOoOo
Kaz was relieved to have Svargia heal her broken arm when the splint cantrip wore off.
“That feels better,” she said.
“It was a good choice whilst in combat; that bone was in several pieces, and a healing would have been complex,” said Svargia. “Though I’m glad we haven’t had to use the silver star and your healing ritual. I never met a Greater Toróg before, and I’m not in a hurry to do so again.”
“They are violent, vicious, and stupid,” said Kaz. “They are essentially slaves as much as trógling are, and many of them belong to High Toróg priestesses.”
“Or priests?”
“No, males are not permitted. Males do not own property either unless they are initiates or glyph-levels of Tor. And if an initiate is married to a priestess, she would not let him own anything anyway. I did not ask the name of our new acquisition.”
“Zon, lady,” said the new trógling.
“Good, Evgon will find you decent clothing,” said Kaz.
“Why me?” said Evgon.
“You volunteered to be quartermaster,” said Kaz.
“Oh. Yes, so I did,” said Evgon. “I did get extra clothing, as you suggested, though I wasn’t expecting to need it so soon..”
“Nothing left on the Toróg worth saving, after all,” said Kaz. “But I won’t travel with my people inadequately dressed; and if you need more, you can go on into the next village with Rynn to purchase some, I believe we still have some moneys left from that allotted to us, as we saved some by camping a few times.”
“Ample,” said Evgon. “I shall; I got enough for one more trógling, and some of it is a bit girly.”
He took Rynn, and returned with some used, but serviceable clothes for Zon, and a blanket as well as a cloak.
Zon knelt and kissed his hands, and Kaz’s hands too.
“None of that!” said Kaz, roughly. “You’re a free man, and in my service, and therefore it’s my responsibility to kit you out.”
oOoOo
“We could camp by the river and fish, so we have enough to kit out the two new ones properly, in avoiding paying for inns,” said Svargia.
“If you know how to fish, I’m all for it,” said Kaz. “We should try to provide them with basic weapons and armour. I’ve got some monies left from my pay for collecting the seer, but it won’t go far.”
“This is why Adventurers go looking for loot,” said Svargia, cynically. “Well, actually, it’s mostly to fund a better lifestyle in inns or lodgings.”
“We have a very good lifestyle in the temple; I don’t mind working to pay for it,” said Kaz.
Svargia laughed.
“Honey, what I mean is a single room for sleeping, probably a second room, possibly a necessary attached, not something communal, maids carrying a bath up for you, or a big bathhouse as part of where you stay, which is segregated male and female, the best food, fine clothing, and high living.”
“What does it matter if you share a room or not? Bedrooms are for sleeping in. Well, unless someone snores badly. We have a good bathhouse in the temple, we have a females-only time set aside for it, and we eat really well. And I have great clothes, now, and I spent a lot of my pay on leather clothing to be hard-wearing,” said Kaz.
“You sweet innocent,” said Svargia. “We live in the sort of conditions they tease the folk of Rhinopolis about, in their land of Penia, which is poor, which is why ‘Penian’ or ‘in Penury’ is a byword for people who get by on a sparse amount. They mostly herd sheep in the dry, hilly country which borders the great plains, and fish off the peninsula into the Great Lake. But surplus wealth is not to be found. They have no mineral wealth.”
“We have plenty to eat, and good food; I do not see a need for more,” said Kaz. “Why, I’ve grown several inches and put on a lot of muscle since I arrived.”
“You have; you looked half starved,” said Svargia. “Seeing Rynn and Zon is a bit of a reminder of that. Also, their ragged clothing.”
“There are always more slaves, the mistresses do not feel a need to pamper us,” said Kaz. “Those of us who learned how to fight had extra rations; there are Tróglings fed and clothed worse than those two.”
“I’m behind you in wanting to free them all,” said Svargia. “Are we going to rest the mules? If so, I’ll take anyone fishing, who knows how.”
“You can teach me, too,” said Kaz.
The fishermen of the group, Svargia, Kuros, and Protasion, soon amassed enough fish and shellfish for an evening meal, which Kas, Rynn, Zon, and Lelyn cleaned and gutted. Evgon was on watch. There were also two creatures about three feet long, which had the tails of fish and the front ends more akin to lizards or newts, with vicious teeth, which Protasion had waded into a swampy part to catch, using an improvised trident made of a three-pronged branch, sharpened at the ends. He used this to spear the tail, the other spikes each side of the body, and thrust his dagger into the mouth and up into the brain.
“Be careful with these sauricthys,” said Protasion. “There’s a poison sac, just where the tail attaches to the front end, where all the chaos of their unnatural joining ends up. The front half isn’t especially good eating, though Toróg digestions might make it palatable,” he added dubiously. “You can’t just cut off the tail fin, cut round the head, and draw all the bones and guts out as you can with a lot of fish, you would break the poison sac and render the whole inedible. You have to open the belly, here, with a series of shallow cuts, to draw it apart gently, and you can then cut the gut here, and down here, and take out, and see the greenish yellow poison sac on the spine. The brute force way is to cut the whole thing in half below the sac, and eat only what’s below it, but you will miss some good eating there. There are two ligaments here, which hold it; cut each in turn, and you can draw the sac out intact. I understand that in the Selenite Empire it commands high prices, because mixed with innocuous things, it makes a drug which allows dreams to open people to the Godplane for visions... or at least gives them visions. I’m dubious of whether it’s a genuine religious experience or not. Apparently if you eat poisoned sauricthys, you still get the visions but you go into a high fever and die of dehydration because your blood dries up.”
“Bury it,” said Kaz, in revulsion. She followed his instructions to clean the other sauricthys, and buried the poison sack of that, too.
“Even cutting the lizard part off, there’s a good bit of fish,” she said.
“They come bigger, in the Akerusian swamp,” said Protasion. “The biggest give the ducks, uh, the marsh-creepers, a run for their money, I’ve been on a hunt with my father when I was young and saw a marsh-creeper and a sauricthys which had killed each other. Father said that one was too big to be sweet eating, and we weren’t sure how long it had been dead, and it might have had its back broken as well, which would disperse the poison, so we burned both.”
“Only thing to do,” agreed Kaz. “I’ll bear that in mind; one of these big enough to kill a marsh-creeper is not something I want to meet.”
They collected wild food as they went on their way, including the roots of some of the cat-tails that grew at the edge of the river. That night, after building a rough shelter, they feasted well on the fish stew, flavoured with the herbs and wild food, with onions and carrots, and thickened with oatmeal. They ate it all.
“Gruel for breakfast!” laughed Protasion.
“Better gruel for breakfast than wishes,” said Kaz.
“I wonder what the gods eat,” said Lelyn, idly.
“Do they eat?” asked Svargia.
“The tapestries depict the chosen warriors feasting with Alethos,” said Lelyn.
“Yes, but that’s a human point of view,” said Svargia.
“Alathan probably knows, but he isn’t around to ask,” said Protasion.
“I imagine they are partly at least sustained by prayer and worship,” said Kaz. “Otherwise, why would they want a lot of worshippers?”
“It’s a valid point,” said Kuros.
“Just as well,” said Evgon. “Providing for you lot is enough of a chore, I can’t imagine being quartermaster to a god, and asking for numbers, and being told he isn’t sure because there’s a battle ongoing so there might be extra to dinner.”
They all laughed.
“Practical as always,” said Protasion. “I shouldn’t think the dead need any sustenance, so why are they shown feasting?”
“Convivial fellow feeling,” said Kaz. “I expect it tastes and feels like food, and is really a construct to mimic a feast, to help with bonding and so on.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” agreed Lelyn. “I vote Kaz makes breakfast, her gruel is edible.”
Kaz laughed, and agreed.
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