by Brett Vonsik
“I am certain it will,” Lady Eriskla agreed with a suppressed smile. “If I may, I have some matters to talk over with your friends. You won’t mind, will you, if I impose upon them a moment?” Her request, though polite, was more a demand, it seemed to Rogaan, but Kantus nodded his approval, despite the challenge she had made to him, and then he agreed only after a moment of hesitation. “I did not think you would. Good dawn, young Kantus.”
She looked to his companions, the Band, with a practiced smile that could win over a king or send you scared for what was to come. “And…good day to all of you, younglings. Suhd, Pax, Rogaan, please accompany me. I have questions.”
Suhd hopped at Lady Eriskla’s words, with a relieved expression. Pax looked at Kantus with narrowed eyes before following Suhd. Rogaan stepped cautiously by Kantus, half-expecting him to take a coward’s punch. Nothing happened, to Rogaan’s disappointment and relief. Rogaan joined the three a short distance from a brooding Kantus. As custom was in this region, younglings did not address a lady before she spoke to them first. Eriskla remained silent for a short while as she inspected the three of them head to sandal, then looked back at Kantus and his Band now scuffing their way to the meat house, mumbling and complaining to each other. Within blade distance, Lady Eriskla’s armed escort stood, an almost big, black-haired man wearing a well-made tunic and breeches of dark-brown hide. The man kept his hand on the hilt of his long-knife buckled to his belt, and he looked to be watching everything with the intensity of a leaper spying prey.
“That was...interesting.” Lady Eriskla spoke plainly, almost too plainly for her station. Her eyes focused on Suhd, and her tone turned to a scolding. “And what did you think to accomplish, lass, by getting in the middle of those young bulls?”
“I...I…” Suhd stuttered with darkening cheeks, and her eyes seeking her feet. “I did no want Pax or Rogaan ta be hurt. Kantus be a brute, especially with da Band of his.” She looked at Pax with watery eyes. “He hurt ya bad da last time ya scuffled.”
“I do not think it would have been Pax or Rogaan that would have gotten the worst of it,” Lady Eriskla stated while glancing at Rogaan. “Your intentions were admirable, lass, but misplaced. Stay out of the way of the young horns when they are about to knock their wits out, otherwise you may also get hurt.” Lady Eriskla then turned her attention and stern gaze on Pax.
“And you,” Lady Eriskla scolded while fixing her gaze on Pax. “You are Rogaan’s friend, or at least pretend to be. Protecting your sister’s honor was something I had not expected of you, but then you always seem to be full of surprises. Regardless, you know of Rogaan’s promise to his father. You should have found spine enough and the wits to avoid a scuffle.” She held up her right hand to silence Pax, who had a protest on his lips. He stood with opened mouth a few moments before biting back the words he planned to speak.
Lady Eriskla then turned her full attention on Rogaan, with stern eyes that made him shiver. “Rogaan. Breaking your promise to your father holds consequences you are not aware of. Up till now you have shown yourself worthy of your father’s Zagdu-i-Kuzu.” Rogaan’s jaw slacked open at her boldness and knowledge. “Do not be so surprised. Your mother speaks much to me, despite hard feelings within the House. Maybe I should speak to Mithraam to postpone the ceremony until you prove yourself more worthy of it.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Rogaan replied with a grumble while finding his mid-calf tanniyn-hide boots to stare at. “I will honor my promise and avoid dishonor for the family. I just wish someone would put Kantus in his box. He....”
“Kantus,” Lady Eriskla interrupted, “…is not your greatest concern. He is a pebble in your boot to be emptied and discarded when you understand this.” Rogaan regarded Lady Eriskla with confusion. She continued, “Stop minding Kantus, Rogaan. What I want to discuss with you, I must do in private.”
Pax and Suhd retreated several steps at Lady Eriskla’s expectant gaze. She turned to talk with Rogaan so nobody would be able to hear her words. “Do you know of where your father travels?”
“No,” Rogaan replied, shaking his head. Had she been waiting here to talk to him about his father? It was not usual for persons of station to be about this early, leaving Rogaan to conclude that more was happening than he knew. Rogaan decided to answer honestly. After all, Lady Eriskla had always treated him well and fairly, despite the circumstances over the family spat…which he still did not understand as well as he wished. Maybe she could enlighten him if he worked his words just right? “He said nothing of his destination, though he looked to be dressed to travel beyond Brigum. Why? What is …?”
“I am uncertain.” Lady Eriskla cut him off, though with a calm casualness. She paused, considering her words before continuing. “Many rumors fill the streets and halls. Rumors of war with the tellens, of war parties in the Borderlands, of the Farratum Anubda’Ner march for Brigum, and farther….”
“The Anubda’Ner,” Rogaan repeated excitedly, and a little too loud at that, by the way Lady Eriskla speared him with her blazing green eyes. Rogaan suffered a strong shiver before clamping his mouth shut in a brood, wondering at her harsh reaction. Why would she not want him to speak too loudly of the region’s protectors? He recalled his readings of Shuruppak’s rebuilding and its new laws that came about from the long War of the Houses some thirty years ago. Most of his reading was from his father’s library and included the titles Shuruppak’s Proclamation of the Govern and Reconstruction and Commoner Revolt of 2612, The Challenge of Houses, and Shuruppak by Sword and Spear. Now only a distant memory for many on the streets, Shuruppak’s civil war reshaped the ruling houses, lessening their hold on the People, and brought rise to Shuruppak’s force of arms as protectors of the People instead of as hands of the Emperor and some of the more powerful Houses’ whimsical desires. Words of such times in the streets and pubs in Brigum were few. Rogaan suspected, though was uncertain, that so little talk was due to the town having been largely untouched in the struggle.
The Anubda’Ner, in the remade nation, were given charge as guardians of Shuruppak’s city-states, defending each region’s capital city, towns, and villages from Turil to the west and all other invaders. The Anubda’Ner were remade to serve the will of the Anubda’Zas, the Houses of Laws…the Me, those chosen by the People of each region to represent them instead of being beholden to the Emperor or the Houses. The Tusaa’Ner, local guardians of towns and villages, and the Kiuri’Ner, protectors of the outer walls and roadways, all answered to their regional Anubda’Ner and local Councils. Now, the Anubda’Ner on the march for Brigum was a sign not of a matter of laws, but of invasion from…Turil, Rogaan feared with a growing lump in his throat.
“Hold your tongue, young Rogaan,” Lady Eriskla scolded. She glanced about, looking for something, but seemed not to find it, which allowed her to relax, slightly. Pax and Suhd only stared at Rogaan, as if he had just grown horns. They must have heard him. The crowd about the Meat House was thinning, as hunters left their families and friends and started to assemble inside the building for the Hunt Talk. “It’s only rumor, but I fear, if true to be, their arrival in Brigum would hold greater meaning for this land and possibly peril for your father. I came to give my sister warning, and learned of your father’s plans for secretive travels.”
Stiffening her back, she continued in a casual, almost resigned manner. “It will be what it will be, regardless. You need to take leave of me to avoid being denied what you have wanted for so long. Say nothing of what we have discussed, and remember your promise. Dishonor upon your father’s name also brings dishonor upon House Isin. That…would be unwise.”
Lady Eriskla whirled away without ceremony, her skirt rising like a sun-shade, then settling before she glided off in the direction of Rogaan’s home, with her escort a pace behind. Always a gossiper, often meddlesome, his mother’s older sister usually had an ear for the tiniest rumors, and a gift for making herself involved, even where others did not wish her to be.
&n
bsp; “The Anubda’Ner,” Rogaan mused with a smile, before turning for the Meat House, collecting Pax and Suhd on his way. Pax immediately started questioning Rogaan, pressing him to reveal what he and Lady Eriskla talked of, with Rogaan revealing nothing of importance. Suhd kept silent, but Rogaan felt her eyes on him, making him uncomfortable, especially since he could only guess at her thoughts and hoped they favored him. Fortunately for Rogaan, the walk was short to their joining with the last of the hunters shuffling through the main door of the plain stone building. Suhd quickly said her goodbyes and well-wishes to Pax, with a hug and a sisterly kiss on the cheek. She then awkwardly offered Rogaan a bashful smile and unsettled glances that brought a tinge of heat to Rogaan’s cheeks, and knots to his innards. She retreated from them, walking westward, toward her home. Rogaan stood, mouth a little agape, lost in watching the sway of her backside until a sharp nudge in the side drew his attention to a grinning Pax, who was motioning him toward the door.
As they entered the Meat House, the stench of blood struck Rogaan powerfully, repelling him backward, almost driving him back outside before he staggered to a stopped on unsteady feet. His head spinning as his legs went weak, Rogaan struggled to keep his feet. A distant voice called to him, an echo -- from where, he could not tell. The words were too garbled to understand. Rogaan felt the urge to sick-up as he fought to keep his feet. With hands now on knees to steady himself, and head low, Rogaan sucked in short then deep breaths to clear his head, and with it the swirling dizziness.
“What be illin’ ya?” Pax asked concern thick in his voice.
“Do not know,” Rogaan replied. “I just went wobbly.” With an effort, Rogaan willed himself upright struggling to take calm, deep breaths. His head started to clear and his roiling guts settled despite the pungent stench that still wafted around him. Determined to join the Hunt, Rogaan pushed on with a wrinkled nose and short, shallow breaths.
The Meat House’s main work area had paving stones like those of the streets outside, only much larger, nearly all stained dark with the blood of countless animals. The powerful stench made it difficult for Rogaan to think of anything more than to take short, shallow, controlled gasps, though he managed a quick glance around in between breaths. To his relief, nobody looked his way. Common folk dressed in everything from plain tunics to hide armor that had seen better days were either talking to those closest or silently standing, many covering their faces with hand or sleeve trying to keep the pungent odor away and maybe not sick-up. The room smelled of blood from slaughter that filled the town’s cook pots and spits. Even Pax’s face, half covered by his hands, was a shade off its usual brown.
By Rogaan’s count, a bit more than fifty hunters and helpers filled the room, many just waiting for something to happen, but some talking, boasting, telling tales, or looking about seeming to measure others. Whether silent or not, most in the crowd looked to the raised area at the far end of the high-roofed, stone-walled room with varying degrees of anticipation. With forced concentration, Rogaan looked for and felt relief that Kantus and his Band were nowhere to be seen.
“It always smells as bad,” Pax informed Rogaan. “I come here sometimes when we be good on coin. Ma no like spoiled meat from da street if she not have ta.”
“Mother gets our meat from this place,” Rogaan confessed, while trying to keep from gagging. Despite his battle with the stench, he felt his cheeks heat a bit and he cast his eyes down from long held guilt for not helping her more. “I have not been inside here for some time, and do not care if I ever come again.”
The din of the crowd quieted suddenly, drawing Rogaan’s attention up from the floor. He swiveled his head left and right, seeking what the crowd was reacting to, but became dizzy, forcing him to cast his eyes down, again, in the hope that it would make the world stop spinning. After a few controlled breaths he felt strong enough to look up, slowly. Rogaan’s stomach growled at him. The crowd was looking at three baraans on the raised platform, all standing like statues. Each wore red-brown tanniyn hide eur armor with layered shoulder, outer thigh and chest plates, and stout rib straps securing the armor in place. Under their armor, dark charcoal tunics were secured at their waists by wide olive belts visible between chest and hip armor, each with red and yellow front tails, signifying Brigum’s colors. Attached to their belts were triple-layered tanniyn-hide hip guards, protecting their upper thighs. The big baraan wore tanniyn-hide wrist guards and thin headbands holding down their hair, each decorated with feathers. Their powerful arms and lower legs were bare, except for markings Rogaan could not make out in any detail. Short bows, quivers filled with feather-fletched arrows, and sword pommels stood high on their backs. Long spears, held in left hands, stood firmly planted to the platform with blades pointed high. Clean-shaven, unflinching faces bore expressions Rogaan could describe only as brewing storms, with hawking eyes sweeping the crowd, taking in everything and everyone. The Wing and Eye markings on the right sides of their faces were plainly visible with the hair of all three baraan, two dark and one sandy-colored, pulled back into tails. Two of the three were no taller than Rogaan -- he sized them up as best he could -- and lean, though the sandy-haired man in the center stood more than a head taller than the others, and was broader in chest and shoulders, and much more heavily muscled. They were the Kiuri’Ner: three of five master protectors of Brigum and the surrounding lands. Despite his best attempts over the years, Rogaan never was able to get closer to these three before today. An unexpected shiver of awe rattled Rogaan as he looked upon what he wished to be.
The crowd fell silent at the raised hand of the largest Kiuri’Ner. Firik Umsadaa, best known and most successful of Brigum’s sharur, the beast hunters, dressed in stout brown and black hide armor that fit him perfectly, climbed the steps before taking a place in front of the Kiuri’Ner. Firik stood silent for a long moment as he surveyed the crowd with an intense, scrutinizing gaze. A tall, lean man, almost as tall as the Kiuri’Ner standing behind him, Firik wore a short beard and tightly knotted top hair of black, each touched with gray. Long knives with simple hide handles hung from his wide black belt, which looked worn of use. Dangling around his neck hung a necklace of claws and teeth. Rogaan assumed them trophies of hunts past. The sharur had the look and attitude of what Rogaan imagined a commander of a guardsmen troupe, a sakal, would be, addressing his warriors before a desperate and important battle.
“What a wretched and ragged bunch of wish-to-be hunters,” Firik insulted as he swept his disgusted gaze across the crowd. A murmur rose. Rogaan made out some of it, grumbles and curses of those closest, and it was obvious many did not like Firik. “Dubsa Jir again chose me Master of Hunt. For all that last hunted for me and failed, you’re to leave…now.”
The room fell silent, with most nervously looking at others to see who would leave. A murmur rose, quickly turning to a clamor, with several baraan shouting curses at Firik with fists raised. Firik stood like a stone, watching them as they accused him of things in past hunts that Rogaan did not understand. Firik remained unmoved, with only his blazing stare a response. The disgruntled folk, shouting and accusing done with only Firik’s gaze showing any recognition of them, now faced the blazing stares of the Kiuri’Ner as well. With a few final curses they reluctantly made their way through the crowd and retreated out the door, all the while grumbling.
“For the rest of you,” Firik arrogantly addressed the crowd. “Listen and obey. No charity will be given to those who fail the Hunt, and especially for those who bring harm to the Hunt Party. Darkness hungers for us in the lands to the east. Only those with courage and obedience to command will survive. Those disobeying my commands or cowering in the face of our prey will not survive me…if they survive tooth and claw. Heed my commands and that of the Kiuri’Ner and your success is assured.” Firik surveyed the crowd, again, with his intense gaze of judgment. When Firik’s eyes looked upon Rogaan, he felt the sharur’s stare bore through him, personally weighing and measuring him. It was unnerving. From t
he murmur and scuffling of feet in the room, it seemed to Rogaan that everyone shared his discomfort, except for the long moment when those eyes rested on him and only him. Firik stepped to the side of the platform as he gestured to the largest of the Kiuri’Ner.
“Kardul,” Firik announced, “will assign and arm each of you as he sees fit. He is a master of the Wilds and leader of Brigum’s Kiuri’Ner. You will pay him the respect he well commands.”
Kardul stepped forward and stood large and in charge. “You’ll sleep and hunt with only that which you carry. No room will be spared in the wagons for anything more than supplies of camp and our kills. I’ll set you to hunting groups after arming at the wagons outside Hunter’s Gate. We’ll head east for a day to the Valley of the Claw, where we’ll be several days hunting large prey. We’ll return on the fourth day, successful in our hunt. Those felling the largest beast will win the favor of the Master of the Hunt, the Kiuri’Ner, and all in Brigum. Those failing a kill won’t be welcomed in the next hunt. Now, make way to the wagons. We leave immediately.”
Firik and the three Kiuri’Ner stepped from the platform and disappeared from Rogaan’s sight as the crowd shuffled their way to the door, pushing, shoving, and cursing. Rogaan sought Pax and found him several persons ahead, being pushed along with the throng. Rogaan fought the crowd at first, receiving curses from those closest, before resigning himself to move with it. He was almost to the door when someone grabbed from behind, pulling him off balance before he could catch his feet. Rogaan pulled free with an angry grunt then whirled, looking for who had grabbed him. Kantus stood before him, smiling and obviously pleased with himself.
