Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 13

Majutsu-shi no Chikara loosely translates to "Sorcerer's Power"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: River between Moonbeams

Ginga could scarcely stop herself laughing, even as Damon shivered and cursed roundly. Kuruk watched him bathe in the stream, lit by the waning moon, and gave a hooom-prrrooo sound whenever Damon locked eyes with the troll and swore more venomously. Abhilash gave no effort to sparing Damon's manliness or easing his embarrassment. Naenia, meanwhile, looked a mix of proud cat and blushing maiden -- a curious blend belied by the streaks and globs of troll spurt she was also washing off herself. Ginga had only just seen the wide-eyed shock on Naenia's face, mouthfuls of spunk gushing from her lips as the she-ork held onto the mammoth rut-stick with gusto as it bucked and heaved in her arms. Why she'd chosen to fellate Kuruk and further stimulate his tumescence with her arms and breasts, Ginga couldn't fathom... except perhaps that Kuruk now seemed to be able to look away from Damon on occasion and looked at Naenia with something like longing.

"It's not that bad." Naenia burped loudly, dunking herself into the stream and scrubbing her bare breasts thoroughly -- at least to her own satisfaction.

"Never again..." Damon's teeth chattered, but his face was still hot with shame and anger. "I'm never telling anyone... about rutting trolls."

...

Damon spent most of the rest of the night lecturing and cursing Kuruk by turns... trying, however futilely, to get the troll to understand some of his more lucid ranting before sun-up. Kuruk watched and hummed patiently, eagerly listening and watching his master -- distantly hoping for another session of mating that would include him, however briefly. Naenia's mouth and hands had given him expert instruction in how his rutting-club could be used with smaller creatures, but Damon was furious with him... and Kuruk had trouble understanding why.

When the sun shone on South-wold again, Damon looked weary and sickly as though he'd just returned from the Sidero again... even if he was considerably cleaner.

The morning passed in a blur, Akuji mustered provisions into satchels, providing them with "adequate" traveling clothes -- in truth little more than what they were already wearing, along with several more yards of cloth, a handful of needles, small spool of thread, and a small pair of scissors -- and two stout saddle packs that should have been put on an ox or horse. Heavy as they were, Abhilash took a stave and draped the saddle packs over it and likewise set the limb over her shoulder -- counterbalancing effortlessly with one arm. Ginga and Damon were given a spear and hatchet each, several dozen paces of fishing line, with a half-dozen hooks, a couple hollowed gourds for their drinking water or weak wine, and a handful of silver coins, brass buttons, and twice that in copper pence.

All told, their trail rations were half a wheel of cheese, a small wax-sealed clay pot of pickled gerkins and peppers, half a pound of dried goat jerky, a little wooden box of dried cha, and some not-quite-ripe squash that had been saved from their smashed and trampled vines. To cook anything: two small iron pots, and a small granite slab large enough to fry a couple hen's eggs.

They were about to turn their noses north, when Nurcan sounded the meeting bell.

...

"I will not ask you to stay." Nurcan lifted her chin, ignoring Akuji's stony countenance. "We have become practiced grieving our losses, this Spring. We can mourn your leaving with the same tears."

Damon got the distinct impression that only Nurcan felt that way, and Akuji would not meet his eyes. He embraced Nurcan warmly, squeezing her as tightly as she would allow -- even though she hissed and cussed in his ear with a stiff smile.

"Naenia." Damon turned to the she-ork he was leaving behind. "Keep Kuruk out of trouble, and keep my father safe."

"Hmph." She nodded. It was the most she'd said to him since daybreak, even when he'd been trying to get Kuruk to understand the more complex idea of staying with the village.

"Kuruk." Damon walked slowly toward the hulk squatting opposite the crowded villagers still leery of walking too near the behemoth.

Aaaayymonnnn. the sound shook his guts and his head swam, but Kuruk did not sway or move suddenly from where he sat beside the road.

"Stay with Naenia." Damon, whispering, put his hand on Kuruk's broad ursine snout, willing his thoughts into the troll. "Stay, and guard that which is most precious to me."

If Kuruk understood any better, his answer was to blink several times and exhale something like a sigh... it smelled of peat and moist earth. Damon's last stop was in front of his father.

"Stay away from Renks Cairn." Akuji grumbled, still not looking him in the eyes. "Better if you cut northwest from Meadowbrook, toward the Pilgrim's Road... to Tsuro."

"I will." Damon nodded.

He embraced his father suddenly, not daring to part without making sure he knew.

"I love you, da." he tried not to choke on the words, and could not force himself to say goodbye.

"Set it right." Akuji squeezed him, and Damon's shoulder became wet. "Then come home."

Stepping back, they only nodded to one another.

Ginga's parting from her father and mother was far more verbose -- with wailing, laughing and crying, cursing and oaths and Emarari taking several long pulls at a glass bottle he'd long secreted-away.

"C'mere, mah gehl." Emarari bawled, weeping and sniveling on his daughter's shoulder as she patted and assured him. Lunete was likewise beside herself, near hysterics. The Tanner's were a passionate family, wearing their hearts brazen and rampant. Their youngest child, only just walking and talking, fidgeting and fussing and crying without knowing exactly why Mama and Dada were so upset... not fully grasping that GheeGhaa was leaving and wouldn't be home for supper.

Then Ginga and Damon traded places, consoling the other's parents about their long journey ahead. Emarari slapped Damon's shoulders several times, tight-lipped and nodding to keep himself steady, where Akuji and Ginga shared an awkward silence before hugging silently, closely and stepping away from each other. Lunete gave Damon several choice words, a slap on the side of his head, another choice and much more vulgar couplet punctuated by a punch in the chest before finally wrapping her heavy arms around Damon's ribs and sobbing into his shirt.

Finally, Prende stood before them, barring their path north.

"Remember to practice, Damon." She kissed him. Far from the breathy, passion-filled kisses of a lover, Prende's lips grazed his full of promise and longing. He felt a twinge or twisting in his guts, and took a breath to ignore it. An irritating buzzing seemed to emanate from her.

"I will." He nodded dumbly.

"Ginga, I look forward to your return." Prende smiled warmly, rivaling the midday sun's heat.

Ginga blushed darker from the nymph's kiss, smiling and nodding mute answer.

"Daughter and exile of Sidero." Prende's face was full of wonder and questions, her brilliant eyes shining with laughter and the knowing of the timeless fae. "May you find your freedom."

Abhilash, though she could not stop herself blushing and panting, only nodded once her reply.

So, the three left South-wold, and walked north on the road toward Meadowbrook.

...

"What do I tell Inkar-chief?" Tuwile asked, looking north into the haze of the noon-tide horizon, shouldering his newest burdens wrapped in dun sacks.

"Tell her South-wold is guarded by a troll." Naenia shrugged. "Damon's troll. If she cannot understand, she should not be Chief."

"And you?" Tuwile looked at her with new wariness, having spent nearly two full days with the Betrayer and not felt her presence in his mind even once. "What of you?"

"What of me? I am Naenia, exile of Sidero." she gave another shrug, her eyes lingering on the horizon where Damon had vanished. "My fate is tied to South-wold. To Damon's people."

"The nymph?" Tuwile nodded thoughtfully, though he wasn't certain he fully understood.

"All the women are with young; she will not stay." Naenia lied easily. "Her belly is full, here. Her hunger pulls her away. That is the way of it."

Without so much as a nod or grunt of acknowledgment, Tuwile turned and loped toward the Willow Wood and the game trails that led back to the Sidero, the trussed and bundled corpse of a recently slain human bouncing against his back.

"And you." Naenia turned to Kuruk, squatting obediently beside her in the road. "When did you learn to talk?"

Kuruk looked at her, worked his floppy, thin lips. Opening and closing his mouth twice before he blinked and looked back to the north, into the haze in which Damon had vanished.

Aaaayymonnnn. He called softly, his voice shaking Naenia to her bones and filling her head with an unpleasant rumbling. Then Kuruk grunted mournfully and slumped onto his belly like a petulant child, his great limbs stirring the dust of the road slowly and aimlessly.

"Yes. Damon." Naenia narrowed her eyes and followed Kuruk's gaze before turning her attention to the sulking beast at her side. "Get up. We have much to do."

She turned, expecting his obedience. When he wasn't shambling to his feet within two paces, she glanced back and snarled.

"Kuruk!" she snapped, catching his attention between her teeth as they flashed in the sneer of her lips. "Follow."

With a grunt and sigh, the troll followed.

...

"What do you want?" He didn't bother addressing her, either with her assumed name or the hateful one she'd carelessly discarded in a laughably sick ruse. He just stared at her.

"The troll can speak. Some." Naenia crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom and leaned against the doorway. "It will make teaching it easier for you."

"Me?" If this was her idea of a joke, it was in poor taste and his laughter was as bitter as his smile.

"Your hand is not heavy as you think, Akuji, blood of Damon." she straightened, then ducked into his home and moved closer, ignoring his body stiffening -- readying for her to lunge. "If they see you instructing Kuruk, will it ease them? Will it delay them?"

He tried to picture it, tried to quell the shaking fear and anger that made his back a rigid bar. His hands flexed, if only to remind himself to keep breathing, and he blinked at her.

"They have seen the magic. Saw what it did to Kuruk." she continued, looking down into the hearth and reflecting glowing coals with her eyes. "They know the nymph's touch. Command the troll, and your people will not leave."

"Wh-" he worked spit into his mouth and forced his breathing to fill his lungs again. "What makes you so certain?"

"They didn't kill you, here, now." She looked at him, and he wasn't certain if it was amusement or pity in her eyes. She was an ork, so it was probably both.

"Where is it?" he managed after a moment's pause.

"He," the exiled shaman smiled at Akuji, and he was certain there was more than a trace of sneering in it, "is just outside, following loyally and waiting to whine for you. Of everything and everyone here... you smell the most like Kuruk's god."

"Trolls have gods?" Akuji found the notion truly preposterous.

"Kuruk does." Naenia nodded once, pointing at the human's chest. "Your son."

...

By mid-afternoon, the corral was repaired and two houses had new roof beams. Solely on the troll's labor and Akuji's cautious instruction. It allowed several villagers time to walk the fields, picking and clearing, or shepherding the goats or few cattle brought over from Meadowbrook. The neighbors that had come to their aid days ago had left the night before -- and Meadowbrook was soon milling with stories of Akuji's madness and the rampaging troll that laid waste to South-wold.

...

"A second attack?" The road warden scratched his jaw, wishing greatly for a piss and a proper pint before the next inane rabble came about to interrupt his luncheon. "A troll has flattened South-wold completely, you say?"

"Aye, warden, ser. That's word from the folk o'er in Meadowbrook." the deputy was dusting his beaten leather tricorn and loosed the buttons to shake more dirt trapped by his days on patrol. "Were there, yesterday morn' and didn't think it worth the trouble to get flattened and et by a troll, ser."

"No, it wouldn't." The road warden agreed and gave his deputy a solid clap on the shoulder before grabbing his own tricorn from his desk. "I'll take word up'ta the Guild and Ser Majesty's ears, so-to-say. They'll sort the troll in a trice. Best... best give Meadowbrook a wide berth for the next two... make it three rounds."

"Aye, ser." The deputy gave a sloppy salute and brushed out the door, likely headed for the nearest drinking house.

"Trouble?" As hard and seasoned a man as the road warden was, the musical voice still gave him shivers every time he heard it.

"Nothing you lot would be in'erested in, ser." He waved the elf away, not wanting to share company with that like -- though not for the shape of the ears, at all.

"Tell that to my employer." The effeminate, too-symmetrical face bothered the road warden, giving him lascivious and spiteful thoughts by turns.

"Still won't give 'im 'is name?" A dry cough of a chuckle as he straightened his shoulders and motioned the elf out of the doorway of his office. "How much is troll skin worth to Lorryman, that he sent you to ask about that little strip of nowhere?"

If evil could smile, make one aroused and terrified in the same instant, the road warden would wager that's exactly the face the elf was making just then. He didn't care for it. Not really.

"I shall endeavor to inquire." The smile, along with the elf, slipped away and out the door.

"Fuck that creepy fucker." The road warden marched out of his office, off the front step of the dingy building shamelessly nailed to the side of the much larger coaching inn on the northern side of the West Gate Road, hawked and spat as he plucked the reins of his horse from the hitching post and swept up into the saddle. He gave a shiver and settled onto the arse-polished leather and nudged the horse to a brisk walk.

...

Word passed from the gates of Renks Cairn to the ears of Ser Majesty's faithful in a day, but the message had already been received within the Guild and reported to the Tower within an hour of the Acolyte's assessment of South-wold, that morning. The missive arrived via magically compelled bird, in written cipher. The sanctioned communication was reviewed and verified for its authenticity, reported and filed by the Guild in the Tower's records. The Acolyte was given return instructions in similar fashion, and the Third Circle Guild Wizards patted themselves on the back for a job well done before wiping their hands of the whole ordeal. This gave them more time to plan out the Elemental's memorial and see to their own devices -- or vices, as individual habits would dictate.

Nothing remarkable in the frontier village: South-wold. Evidence of around fifty percent casualties during an ork attack (ref: Sidero, et al). The Elemental died shortly after the attack, but was reported as being in greatly diminished capacity. Elemental's final magical efforts appear to have created localized rapid agricultural development, but the village lacks adequate resources/population to reap the full benefits. Local fae (Nymph/Succubus, ref: Lada, also Prende, also Shiawase) took interest and passively fed on grief -- appears to have largely lost interest in the settlement. Village anticipated to struggle and: fail completely within a year, or rebound within two years. Meadowbrook is ambivalent to South-wold's continued success, as crop prices are expected to increase this autumn harvest due to the ongoing drought in the southern boundaries of Renks Cairn. Reduced consumption by South-wold increases available surface water for Meadowbrook's consumption, improving the chances of crop surplus in Meadowbrook during the drought. Honey festival in Corval (ref: SE Renks Cairn, plot 47N13E) coincides with next full moon; request permission to attend and gather royal jelly among other reagents while readily available. ~Acolyte Pembroke Mowbray, Oneiromancer and Wizard of the Second Circle~

...

"The reply is unimpressive. Banal." Prende grinned unpleasantly at Akuji. "Mowbray is given his leave to hunt for reagents -- royal jelly and the like, if you care to know -- and told to report back by the last new moon of Spring. Three ten-days and five, I would say."

"Just like that?" Akuji looked queasy confronted by the nymph's pale, malevolent succubus mien. "No questions or hidden meanings?"

"I will not say you should take this lightly, but his death will pass unnoticed for some time. Days, at least. Longer, if we are fortunate." Prende gave a shrug with one shoulder, slanting her hip and gesturing toward Naenia. "She's seen to disposing of the remains -- acid works best -- and I will take myself away from here far enough that efforts to trace me will not lead them back to you."

"You've thought of everything, it seems." Akuji scowled, not wanting to consider where the she-ork would find enough acid to dissolve an entire human -- only then realizing what Prende was meaning and giving a nauseated shudder.

...

"It won't be like before... no tricks, no surprises." Ginga was holding fast to Damon's wrists as he glowered spitefully at Abhilash. "But she's right; we need the coin and you're our best... well, our best shot."

Damon's head hung down in resignation, wondering how he'd managed to find himself on the north bank of the river in a bordello as the madam's latest attraction.

Maps called it "The Serpent River" but locals just called it "The River" or "The Serpent" as the mood struck. In the brothel called "Your Inn Fancy" that served as an inn for more discreet travelers (or less-discreet criminals), where the occasional constable or deputy would drag a patron (more or less clothed making no difference) out the front doors with almost comical frequency, the locals had that day taken to calling the river "The River, because the Serpent's in room four."

He couldn't excuse himself out of hunger, as they hadn't been anywhere within spitting distance of starving in the time they wound their way around Meadowbrook and out to the Pilgrim's Road four days ago.

Striking a bit of good fortune, they emerged from the border between the stubby hills to the West and the sprawling pastures South of Renks Cairn that hemmed-in the slums huddled against the low walls of the city -- steering well clear of Meadowbrook and Renks Cairn's nearer vassal of Mills, which drew its profits and paid its taxes as much from cattle and tobacco as South-wold had ever drawn ten-fold of maize, lumber, and squash. Ginga had wanted to visit her cousins in Mills, but their route kept them moving further and further west and north-west around Meadowbrook's vast fruit orchards, maize rows and poppy fields. While South-wold easily out-produced Meadowbrook in maize, the latter's production of tree fruit and poppy added fuel to the brewing and distilling trade bolstering Corval to the East. In all, it had taken them six days to cross a span of just shy of thirty leagues -- something an educated surveyor might pace out at near eighty or ninety miles. Owing much of their time spent scrounging roots, stealing from the very fringes of Meadowbrook's southern or eastern-most orchards (much of it nowhere near ripe-enough to eat), and Abhilash snaring the occasional hare or pelting a bird with a small rock, the trio managed progress a bit more than half the time between dawn and dusk. Of course, their actual path struck meanders, hedges, dense brush, thickets, and gullies that forced them to seek alternate routes.