Shadowrun - Earthdawn - Mother Speaks

by kubasik

  The trolls stopped their advance a few hundred feet away, taking up positions behind boulders and tucked into huge cracks in the cliff.

  I tried to think.

  I failed.

  Around me my crew shifted. I noticed that they had gathered the swords taken from the Theran sailors. Good. That was good.

  We were outnumbered, under armed, under muscled, still weak from our slavery. That was bad.

  I wanted very much to turn around and foist responsibility for the next few minutes on someone else. But I had seen leaders panic at the moment of crisis before, and it usually meant defeat. I was the leader. Being the leader meant being alone. I had to make a decision. I had to do something. That's all there was to it.

  "Greetings!" I cried out. My voice sounded weak.

  A huge troll, monstrously large, a dozen feet tall, at least, stepped forward. He carried a crystal sword as tall as me, which glimmered ice blue. Heavy fur boots covered with crystal shards covered his feet. Crystal bracers made of hundreds of facets covered his forearms. He wore a giant fur cape.

  Four trolls flanked him, each armed equally well.

  I had little doubt that those five alone could kill us all. The other thirty or so would have a good time watching.

  "Greetings!" I shouted again. I wondered if the trolls spoke Throalic.

  The massive troll stopped and stood as solidly as any rock. The words from his mouth were Throalic, but broken and uncertain. "You. From stone ship?"

  "No!" I replied, hoping against hope that it was the answer that would bring a quick end to the threat of violence.

  The five trolls turned and looked at each other. After a short discussion, the leader asked,

  "Where stone ship warriors?"

  "Dead."

  "Dead?"

  "Dead."

  "How?"

  "We ... we killed them. And some elemental air creatures attacked the ship." The troll looked at me, curious. "Elemental air creatures?" I repeated. Still they looked confused.

  One of the trolls, an old fellow with a few strands of white hair growing from his bald head, stepped forward to whisper into the leader's ear. I realized with a start that the troll wore the robes of a magician. The patterns on it showed jungle vines winding around one another.

  The old troll and the leader exchanged words, and then the leader turned to me and with surprise asked, "Trecka?” He pointed to the sky and repeated the word.

  As that was the best I thought I could do on the matter, I nodded my head and said

  "Trecka."

  The troll's eyes opened. "Where trecka?"

  "Dead."

  "Who killed Trecka?"

  My companions, gathered around me in a semicircle, pointed to me.

  This bit of news had a great impact on all the trolls. They stepped forward as if to get a better look. "You?"

  Their disbelief bothered me, and I placed my hands on my hips. "Me!" Then I jabbed my thumb at my chest. "I killed trecka!" It was only then that I remembered that I hadn't actually killed the monsters, just driven them off. I decided it wasn't a subtlety worth trying to communicate at the moment.

  They stared a while longer, deciding whether to believe me or not. Finally the leader said,

  "Get off our mountain." With that he turned and started to leave.

  "Wait!" I called. I had no idea how to climb off a mountain. I didn't know if anyone else in the group did either. And J'role was in no condition to travel in any case. We needed help.

  He turned, his massive, fleshy face crinkling into deep cracks. He stared.

  "We ..." I gestured to the others. "We need help."

  This seemed to interest him.

  "What you need?"

  "We have someone who is injured. And the ship—it is ruined. We need help getting down."

  "Ha!" he said pointing. "You no kill trecka!”

  "I chased them away," I said, giving in, my voice barely loud enough for them to hear.

  "That is still good. And better because true." The troll smiled, pointed to himself.

  "Vrograth."

  I did the same, speaking my name.

  “Come," he said. "You all give—" he stopped and thought—"two months' labor. We get you off mountain." He turned and started to leave again.

  "What?"

  He turned back, now clearly annoyed. "Come and get help. Stay and get off mountain.

  NOW!"

  "One of our group is wounded ..."

  "Dying?"

  "Maybe. Yes."

  "Leave him. He dies. Way of things." He headed off to join the other trolls, clearly leaving the decision to me.

  "STOP!" I screamed, suddenly extremely frustrated with the choice before me. I climbed over the edge of the ship and dropped several yards down to the ground. Vrograth stood, half turned away from me. As I marched up to him, he turned completely toward me.

  "He's hurt. He can be helped! Do you have a questor of Garlen?"

  "Not for him. He is outsider. No help to us."

  One of the flanking trolls said, "Bad for us to take the weak. Weaken troll clan."

  I reached Vrograth. He towered over me more than twice over. I recall I pointed my finger up at him, as if I had some authority. "I'm not asking you to make him a part of your troll clan ..."

  "No!" Vrograth thundered. "I tell you. You will be part of troll clan. Two months. Those who can help. Dying one cannot. He dies."

  "NO!"

  The massive troll stared down as if I were a child who had just spoken his first lie. "I make rules," he explained carefully.

  "I understand. We will come. Part of troll clan for two months. But we'll bring the dying man. You heal. We'll all be part of troll clan."

  One of the other trolls, a gray skinned warrior with dark red hair, said, "It is bad to bring in the weak."

  "But you could do it if you wanted to."

  "I don't want to," said Vrograth.

  I grabbed him by the fur on his cape as if I might yank him down to my height. "You will!"

  The trolls around him laughed, and the old troll spoke to him in the troll tongue.

  Vrograth's features crinkled into deep creases as he stared down at me. "You will contest me? For a dying man?"

  "Yes."

  He looked me over carefully, then said with a bit of pity. "We will fight until first blood.

  What is the combat?"

  I must have looked startled, for he said, "You challenge me, we fight. I set victory, you set battle." He looked into my eyes, searching for comprehension. His eyes, I remember clearly, were large and green. As pure green as jungle leaves.

  “I don't want to fight you," I said with an idiotic confusion. I spoke the words first from an ethical revulsion. I had learned to fight because the world was a dangerous place, not because I had any particular fondness for it. Then I realized I really didn't want to fight him because he could probably kill me with one awkwardly placed swing of his fist.

  The old troll said to me in much better Throalic than his leader, "It is a custom. A custom of combat. Challenge the warlord" he indicated Vrograth—"and you must fight." He thought for a moment, then added, "Or anyone with more ... power." He shook his head.

  “Authority," he said carefully, smiling at finding the right word. "Excuse me. It's been a while. I am Krattack. We are the Stoneclaw tribe. Our custom allows us to take in the homeless, but not the weak. If you want your dying companion to come with you, then you will have to defeat Vrograth in a contest to first blood."

  The whole process seemed horribly archaic and nonproductive. I asked with a sigh, "But why?"

  The trolls looked at one another, each searching the face of another for an answer. None was forthcoming.

  "Because we do!" Vrograth exclaimed with frustration.

  "Yes, but ...," I began.

  The old troll leapt in to try to help me again. "Releana, you are brave. You are capable.

  You killed Theran poorchat and drove off trecka. Very good. But
this is not something you refuse. Vrograth has given ... hospitality." Again the strange, boyish smile from the ten foot tall troll taking pleasure at his own vocabulary. "But the dying man cannot come.

  If you want to win argument, you must fight. You must. You can stay, or can come without dying man. No problem. But to come with the dying man is to ..." He struggled to find the right words, gave up, and finally said, "It is to fight Vrograth." His eyes were old and kind, and he seemed less restless than the rest of the trolls, who continuously shifted and looked around.

  It seemed I had a choice. The main reason I wanted to go with the trolls was to get help for J'role. If I refused their hospitality, he would die. If I accepted it without the fight, we would have to leave him behind, and he would die. However, if I fought and failed, I might lose Vrograth's hospitality. My motley crew, having put their faith in me, would join me in being stranded on top of a barren mountain with limited food, supplies, and no means of getting us home. This last point troubled me greatly, for who was I to make a decision for all these other people? Maybe I should put it to a vote? Here I surprised myself. If I put it to a vote, they might decide not to worry about J’role, and just leave with the trolls. That would leave me alone with J'role, a worse position than I already had.

  So I decided not to put it to a vote. More than that, I reasoned that they had chosen to put their faith in me, so if I ruined us all, it was their choice to follow an idiot, and they could work their way through the consequences of my actions and decisions just as I would have to.

  That was the valuable lesson I learned that day on the mountain. When you put your fate in someone else's hands, you have no idea where you will end up. Better to trust in yourself, insecurities and all, than think someone else—who might have completely different goals from you—can run your life better than you can. "All right," I said, blundering forward. "I'll fight you." Oddly, Vrograth didn't look the least bit startled.

  "Good."

  3

  Moments after I accepted the challenge the trolls surrounded Vrograth and I, forming a large arena. Some members of my crew worked their way through the circle of trolls for a better view, others watched from the deck of our ship.

  "You accept my challenge," Vrograth bellowed, "a fight to first blood! Now tell me.

  What is the method of our combat?" Around us trolls stood ready to give us whatever weapons they had on them. Spears. Swords. Knives. Maces. Flunchents, which I'd only heard of before, their twin bone blades shiny in the clear, cold morning air. Nearly any weapon I could think of would be provided within seconds. And would be used to kill me just as quickly.

  I thought for a moment of suggesting magic. I might be able to draw enough spells to drop Vrograth to the ground and make him bleed. But the sight of all the powerful magical items around me led me away from this plan. What if the trolls' armor protected them from spells? What if they had magic I could not counter? What if their magic was even more dangerous than their muscles? Something J'role had taught me years earlier came to mind:

  "Unless there is no other choice, never, ever fight someone unless you know you can win.

  Why enter a battle you might lose?" The key was finding a battle I knew I could win. I looked Vrograth over. Tall, muscular. Born to move. He shifted uncomfortably under my stare.

  "CHOOSE SOMETHING!" he shouted.

  Vrograth's declaratory style seemed designed especially for the moment, so I decided to mimic it. Drawing on the deepest tone I could muster, I proclaimed boldly, "We will fight with patience!" and promptly sat down on the ground.

  A stunned silence followed. Vrograth then asked with sincere confusion, "What?"

  "Patience," I said, still bellowing as deeply and loudly as I could. "There is no greater test of strength!"

  "Yes," stammered Vrograth. "Maybe. But ..." He paused, cocked his head to one side, then suddenly exclaimed, "How can one bleed from patience?"

  "I take it you have no children," I replied flatly.

  "Stupid!" he cried, completely losing his deep tones of formal presentation. "This is stupid!"

  "You refuse my challenge?"

  "Yes! No!" He stepped toward men his large, green gray arms spread wide. "How can we fight each other with patience?"

  "We sit here. Whoever loses his patience first loses the contest."

  "Bah! There is no blood. Without blood there is no first blood. Without first blood there is no loser. Your contest is bad."

  He had me there. But the thought of actually fighting him to first blood seemed ridiculous. Not only was I certain I would lose—and thus guaranteed that J'role would not get the help he so desperately needed—but there was no assurance that Vrograth would stop at first blood. I wondered if he could control his strength enough to keep from driving his weapon through my body while seeking a drop of blood.

  "Very well," I said. "We will fight with patience and knives." A murmur went through the trolls circling me.

  "We will fight with patience, as I have already suggested. If one of us loses our patience, the other may take a swing with the dagger."

  "So we fight with daggers!" exclaimed Vrograth, a huge, toothy smile on his face.

  "Not exactly. The loser of patience may not block the blow, nor dodge, nor defend against it in any way." A gasp from the trolls. Wia and Krattack, the old troll, each raised an eyebrow.

  "You are taken by creatures in your head!" he exclaimed. His Throalic deteriorated in his frustration. "This is not fighting, what you say. This is stupid!"

  "Well, Vrograth," said Krattack, with a touch of slyness in his voice, "it is a contest, and it is to first blood."

  "But not with weapons!"

  "There are weapons, now," Krattack answered for me. "She has added knives."

  "But no warrior's ... skill."

  "Oh, yes. The better the skill, the better the cut. First blood can be drawn then."

  "How can I miss if she stands?"

  "You probably won't. But that is her penalty for losing patience."

  Vrograth stood in deep concentration. He narrowed his eyes and stared at me. "How do we compete for patience?"

  4

  We sat on the ground facing each other.—Vrograth's massive frame still higher than my small body. He could have leaned forward and crushed me under his weight. Instead, he was forced to simply look into my eyes and try not to blink.

  I'm sure you two remember the game.

  I'd certainly watched the two of you play it enough times, though I'd never played it myself. I didn't know if I would be good at it, which meant I was not truly following J'role's maxim: "Never, ever fight someone unless you know you can win." I didn't know I could win.

  But there was something in Vrograth's demeanor that reminded me of you—of boys in general. Your belief that sitting still and staring at someone was a challenge made me believe Vrograth would be challenged as well. For my part, I felt quite comfortable sitting still and looking at people. I hoped this natural inclination would survive the pressure of the moment.

  From the moment Vrograth sat down, he seemed to transform himself into a rock. His immobile, nearly lifeless stance leant credence to the idea that trolls had been born from rock and were cousins to the obsidimen. Out of sight, but still a part of my perception, stood the crowd of trolls and former slaves, tightly grouped around us.

  I sat with my eyes locked on his, straining my muscles in an attempt to relax. After a few moments I realized too much effort would doom me. I finally relaxed.

  Vrograth's green eyes stared at me, lifelessly, as if they were somehow independent of his body, strange artifacts carved from elemental earth. But I saw one quiver of muscle in the flesh around his eyes, and then another.

  The impulse to blink came upon me. I strained, opened my eyes wide, let it pass.

  The longer the contest went on, the more I wanted to blink, and I became desperate.

  Perhaps I could blink just a little? So quickly no one would notice. I forced the thought fro
m my head, knowing I could not take that chance, and knowing full well I was tricking myself if I thought I could blink without being noticed.