Chapter 6, Ground work

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"I do have to wonder, are there really people willing to overlook true transgressions? I can't help but wonder why? I am not exactly innocent in this, ah... Who am I kidding, you know I am not. I can only appreciate that you have put these people before me. I ask you, please. Grant me yet another day..."

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Year of Wrath 1231, Season of Harvest, D.1 

     We had been waiting for this day, the first days of the harvest in the outer fields. The humans were busy with their tasks, didn't even notice us. I finally got a few others from the Clan to join me with the scouting missions. Ghet and Yvet were with me today, two others from the Chief's raiding crew were with us too. An old burly brute of a warrior named Knoll, he had perpetually bloodshot eyes due to his favorite nighttime activity. He and the Chief would drink themselves into the cool of the night, joking and laughing about their past. It was always entertaining to listen to their stories, when they would tolerate us listening in.

     The other was another woman from the Chief's crew named Cori. She was a little taller than me, though her arms were much bigger than mine. I should ask if she would practice with me, she seemed about as strong as Hob, to me anyway. She had really taken a liking to the spear work the Chief had made everyone learn after my suggestion. Like a stream flowing through the rock, her spear work was flawless. 

     We had our eyes on a very small wagon full of sugar beets and herbs. We were waiting for the farmer to leave, he was busy fussing over one of the wheels. It had been knocked askew from Knoll throwing a stone at the spokes of the thing. Knocked the wood clean off its bracketing. We spotted this easy prey while we were heading toward the city to fan out and gather more information about potential targets. We were hoping to find out when the farmers from the south were going to start heading up to sell their excess goods in the markets. 

     We really couldn't pass up the chance at this though. Those beets preserve well, and the herbs would break up the monotony of the rest of the food we had. Cori stalked further ahead to get closer. We came up behind her, moving quietly through the saw grass along the out skirts of the field. She whispered to me "Is there any reason we are choosing this one? He seems to have bigger carts and wagons we could try those too." She seemed genuinely curious to me, not really questioning me.

     "Because this is last cart of the day, While we were watching him on top of the hill, remember the other four farmers that came up and talked to him for a while." I asked her.

     "Yes, what of it, I couldn't understand that language of theirs"

     "The last cart of the day, the smallest one he has. Meaning, if this one goes missing, he probably won't hurt from it. We don't want to down a farmer, means we won't be able to hit this farm again later, or next year." I explained.

     "Makes sense" Knoll had moved up besides us "You know, I never really appreciated how much time you had spent watching these humans. I wouldn't have given that much thought. Its similar to how we shouldn't hunt down the whole herd of deer. Have some for next year."

     Ghet chimed in, "Exactly. Now lets get ready, I just stole his hammer, he will have to go get another one and leave the cart behind for now."

     "What? I didn't even see you do it!" I exclaimed, all three of the others hushed me at that, with varying states of annoyed on their face. Like a tired parent done with their children for the day. 

     "I've been part of the hunting party for a very long time Ilgor, me and Knoll" Ghet grinned at me, "You learn eventually."

     The farmer got up and dusted off his pants, and started walking back to farm house. We waited until he went inside and hurried to pull the cart quickly back into the tree line. I covered the wheel tracks we made in the soft dirt as we went. We just got to the tree line when the farmer came back out of the house. Well inside the forest when we heard him yell. Ghet stayed behind to watch and give us a warning if they found the covered tracks. 

     I took his place and pushed the cart from behind while Cori and Knoll pulled. We could still hear the farmer yelling faintly as we found our trail back to the village. We were almost back when Ghet showed back up. 

     "Nothing, he didn't notice the broken grass or your covered tracks, Ilgor. Good job on the cover, so you are listening when I'm teaching." He teased me, bumping into my shoulder as he started pushing too. "He got back to the cart spot, and lost it. Started ranting about those greedy boys from the dock side. Maybe we can use that to our advantage next time. Good to know about the local mischief."

     "You're right, a few little thieves from human lands could be useful. Nice catch," I bumped into him, and grinned "So you do listen when I'm teaching you how to speak common"

     Cori and Knoll laughed from upfront. We were well received when we got back to the village. We were going through the motions with the offering to the Chief, though Mother had said a very different prayer today. It honestly caught the Chief off guard. 

     Mother hand began speaking in a rhythmic cadence, that reminded us of a fireside drum beat. She kept her voice low and pitched up at each new stanza to the prayer. "Oh Great Chief Bhal, Please give this lowly worm a voice to speak. I beseech thee to grant us knowledge, to know the worthy." She raised her hands and lifted her staff "Oh Great Chief Bhal, grant us the eyes and sharpen our ears to see the champions among us, for those that may be of use to you" Her staff began to glow with a pale light, and she approached the offerings and waved her arm over it. She then pointed her staff at our little crew, and a small bolt of light shot out at Ghet and Me. It startled us both, we really didn't understand what had just happened.

     "Oh Great Chief Bhal, Benevolent Father, grant us the favor to survive this Season of Harvest. Grant us the eyes to see the worthy to continue the Clan" She tapped her staff against the stones on the ground, it resonated out. The sound as if traveling in slow waves, it was as if it was a tap that had echoed through a long empty hall.  A small fire appeared and it was strange. Mother's eyes rolled back, and the small flame split in three, and slowly drifted toward the Chief, Me and hovered over the High Priestess. 

     She gasped, and snapped back to herself, and tapped her staff on the stones again. Only this time the sound was clear, pure. That tap of her staff, the only sound that could be heard over the waves smacking the bluffs, or the muttered tones of the crowd around us. "It is done, Chief, Bhal is pleased with the offerings for the clan."

     The Chief grunted, and gave the food out to the Clan to begin preserving for the Season of Waiting. He dismissed us all, and walked off with the High Priestess. I looked to other three, they seemed surprised at what had just happened. Knoll had a perfect comical "O" shape to his open mouthed stare. 

     "I've never heard Mother give that prayer before" I told them.

     Knoll answered first, "Chief is pissed, he went off to talk with Mother. I suppose he will want to know why as well. But, Ilgor, that is an old prayer. We don't hear it much. Its supposedly for having Bhal recognize the efforts of the village. But..." He trailed off.

     "It was supposed to send of a fire to everyone in the village." Cori said in a slightly stunned voice. "Haven't we been worthy?" She turned and walked off with Knoll, she continued talking with him in hushed, furtive tones.

     Ghet left as well, he didn't say a word. I went after Mother and Father, I wanted to hear what they were going to talk about. I caught up to them, and hide behind a jutting rock face from the bluff wall. I was glad they hadn't turned around the entire time, there really wasn't anywhere to hide while following them. I was expecting them to, and to receive a punishment for trying to eavesdrop on them. I was lucky.

     "I feel my age these last few months, I needed to know who had promise. To be honest, I'm not surprised Bhal favors Ilgor. She was been making great strides in her development and the way she leads the raids." The high priestess sounded tired. 

     "Yes, she has. Though I find it irritating that my boys want to raid with her more and more. It's almost like they want to just see how she's operating, but these days I'm not so sure." That was a surprise. How many of Chief's crew had asked to join me?

     "Ilgor, you can stop hiding." Mother scolded me. I didn't move for a moment, I was surprised, I thought I wasn't heard. I felt like a child who had been caught wetting the bed, one that had tried to hide it. Flushing slightly, I sheepishly moved out from behind my rock and walked over to them. I tried to keep my head high and look confident. But, Mother just smiled at me, and tapped the Chief on the arm saying. "Father, why don't you send her off, something to keep her preoccupied" 

     The Chief crossed his arms and looked down at me, he grunted out "Go see the smith and help him for a while. We need to keep up our end of the deal." Annoyed, but somehow not mad. Did they want me to hear this? Did they know I would follow them? I remember stories of others following Mother and Father to listen to what they talked about. But they always came back scared to ever do it again. At least that's what Yvet and Hob told me. 

     The village was lively as ever as I walked through to go see Caleb. The pleasant chatter coming from the caves was nice, the smell of drying herbs over kilns wafted over. Sweet and bold, the smell of sage was also mixed in. Many of the Clan waved at me as I walked by, some asked what I was up to, some wanted to talk with me. 

     I spoke with one of my friends for a while, she fussed over fixing my braid. She kept telling me there were too many hairs out of place and insisted on fixing it. Over an hour later and my head sore from her pulling on hair like a blind man stalks through middle of a crowd, she announced it was done. A few others had come up to talk to us while she worked. They wanted to know how the raids were, asked what was so different about that prayer today. They talked about what I had seen in the city, and they wanted to know more about them too.

     Finally I had to tell them that the Chief wanted me to get going, I hugged my friend and a few of the others and set back off. As I was making my out over the stream, I noticed those kobolds heading away from Caleb's fenced area. I'd have to ask Caleb what he actually traded with them sometime. 

     I found the old smith hammering away at his anvil. Sweat dripping from his face and into his beard from the heat of the forge. He didn't notice me as I strolled into his workshop, I sat down on one of the stumps he had apparently cut for the fence around the wagon. I noticed he had carved out the back so that it was almost a chair. I watched him work for a while.

     He had been hammering away at a long spiral shape that he was slowing working into a bar again. He was methodical, hammering away until he had seen something I couldn't and reheated it until it glowed bright white again while he worked his bellows. He removed the piece and began working it again in the same fashion. Working it back into a long dowel, then moving it to the horn on the anvil and shaping it quickly again into a spiral. He returned it to the fire and repeated the bar shaping process. 

     After a while he flattened out his bar and shaped it into a rough triangular head. He flipped the metal around and began hammering away at the other end flattening that out too. He worked this into a cone and punched two holes through the side. I could finally recognize it as a spear head. He then returned it to the fire, and turned around. He jumped a little when he saw me, like a cat startled to see its own shadow after a long nap.

     "You know you really need to stop doing that, Ilgor." He sighed and shook his head "Scare me half to death ev'time" 

     "I didn't want to disturb your work, spoil your focus. Besides I like watching you work." I smiled at him. Tilting my head, letting my braid thump off my shoulder and whip around my back. 

     "How long were you there anyway?" He asked as he removed the spear head from the forge. I watched while he hammered at the edges making a clean bevel along the sides. I waited until he returned the piece to the fire.

     "Long enough to see that spiral thing. What was that?" I walked over to his side. Careful to stay out of where his elbow would land, and just off to his side so that the sparks wouldn't blast out at me. I had learned to stay out from under his strikes after one rather unfortune incident. 

     "I'm trying out a new pattern for my steel, I'm going for a wave in the center along the middle." 

     "Why a pattern?"

     "You never stop experimenting with your craft. I wanted to try a new pattern simply because I wanted to." He pulled the piece back out the fire and began working on the edges again. 

     I walked over to the table where the Chief had a few of the boys drop off the armor we were supposed to work on. It was mostly leather, with a few metal arm guards. Celeb said they were in okay shape, but we would need to trim off excess material to fit to the Clan. That it would be better to trim it now, while the leather wasn't too soft or too dried out. 

     I head his hammer strikes cease again, and he called to me from the other side of the shop. "I'll have you start trimming up the bodies of those before we do those pauldrons. Go grab your knife, I left it next to the grinding wheel. I sharpened it for you. Start by opening the body and remove about a half from either piece." He began hammering again.

     He had shown me the last time I worked with him how to trim leather. How to hold the knife and slowly glide it though the material. He was faster than me, but when I complained about it, he laughed and said it comes with practice. He had taken one of his old knifes and cut the handle down to fit my hand for me. 

     He had made, what he called a template, for me to follow while I cut through the material. Said that any fitting needed beyond this trimming could be done by making a new belts and buckles for them. A one size fits all affair. I grabbed the knife and took the pauldrons off one set and began working. 

     I tuned out Caleb and his hammer while I worked. I focused trying to follow the template without ruining the rest of the chest piece. I finished up one, and moved onto the next. I started again, and was fishing this one when my hand slipped and I cut out a grove near the waistline of the leather. 

     "Damnit!" I yelled. Caleb walked over and looked at it. My hands were tired, and my callouses were getting raw in them. He sat down in front of me, and took the piece. Turned it over a few times, inspecting. I was waiting for him to tell me it was unfixable.

     "You know, your people don't have much of a culture." He told me, scratching his beard.

     I was curious about that. We had a lot of culture, we had our own traditions. "What do you mean? Did you want to learn about our ways?"

     "In due time, but I mean that aesthetically, you just look like a bunch of homeless children out here. You steal what you can from others, you live in nothing but rags mostly." He had a way of saying that as a statement of fact, which I suppose it was. But, It was still rather annoying.

     "What does ethically mean" I stumbled over the word that he spoke.

     He chucked "Es-teh-tic-cal-lee" He enunciated the word again "It roughly means a way of looking, or a certain motif about how you look. The Dwarves like geometric designs and dark red stone, that's their aesthetic. The humans of Glaion like their crowded markets and their Griffon symbols. The Gnomes like subtle swirls and tree symbols. Those are aesthetics. Your clan, just seems to be a mash of whatever you happen to take."

     "I suppose your right, we don't really care much about how we look, only that its comfortable and functional." I told him.

     "There's a merit in that, perhaps your clan doesn't need a look about them. From how everyone talks you do seem to have your own way of doing things. I don't think I could learn that chirpy language of yours, to know though" He chuckled again, but continued "I have an idea for this armor, something that I don't see often. I think it would look good on your people. Though it would be more work to make, but it is more easily repaired with less material."

     "You are kind Caleb. Why would you want to help us like this? Why do you want to help us be more distinct? Or in general at all?"

     "I hail from Zybtine, a land in the far east by the desert. We put great pride in how we look, we tend to recognize patterns and colors before we recognize faces. Though some would say this is also a failing of ours." He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, "I just think personally your people might be able to benefit from a bit of refinement. Besides I like you, Ilgor. I want to see you become a great craftsmen." 

     I flushed a little at the genuineness of it "I'm not so sure about the armor, wasn't the original Idea here so that we could cover it up so people would know we were wear it? Besides you haven't told me how I'm going to fix this cut I made in the material." 

     "Oh, that, we will just stitch it back together, and make a wider belt for it. Or we can turn it into Brigandine." 

     "Brigandine, what is that?" 

     "A kind of scaled armor, of overlapping plates of material. So in this case, it'll be leather. It means that that cut doesn't really matter. The only difference is that we cut up all the leather and put it back together. I think we should leave the pauldrons though, I like how they look." He continued on "Besides wearing clothes over it could work, though learning how to do that is also what I'm talking about."

     "What do you mean? Are you talking about aesthetic again?" I sighed and put the leather down, Caleb really wanted to talk about this. 

     "Yes, Ilgor, you're people shouldn't have to live in rags, why do you do this?" I paused, I took my time in answering him, it was a good question. That was something I never really thought about. Never even gave it a second thought. "Ilgor, do you mind if I ask something?"

     "Not at all" 

     "Do all the men and woman of your Clan dress in rags that reveal so much?" He looked me right in the eyes as he said it.

     "What's wrong with my vest? My chest is covered. My undershirt sits low enough that it doesn't 'reveal' anything, its practically a skirt with long tails as it is." I huffed.

     "From the front yes, but do you realize how many times I have to look away to preserve your modesty when you are bending over to work on something, or when you start to sweat and that thin material gets damp? That is what I speak of. Speaking with you, and your Clan has made this old man realize that you are not beasts."

     I flushed deeply this time, and looked down at my vest. I didn't really know what to say. But he continued on "I see now that you are an intelligent people capable of thinking and rational thought. Perhaps if more humans saw you as not rag wearing savages, they might treat you better. I want to teach you how to make actual clothes, how to make it so your warriors can wear it over their armor. Maybe even develop a style for your people, deepen your roots. Give your Clan a respectable identity."

     I got up off the stump, and looked at him. He didn't get up from his kneeling position with the cut leather in his hands. I looked him in the eyes and told him "I would love to learn more, I'll keep in mind what you said though. To be honest, we recently came into possession of a large amount of cloth. It would be nice to have more of the Clan here learning besides me though." 

     Celeb grabbed my hand and told me "Ilgor, my friend, I would like to see your people grow, in anyway I know how. You have been kind to me these last few weeks, you have broken the monotony. I know you don't talk of your culture much, but I do think, you at least would benefit from the knowledge. Whether it is teaching you sewing and tailoring, to helping your clan with protection."

     I hugged him, I felt his face grow warm. "Thank you, to have any human helping us seemed impossible not long ago. But, Celeb?"

     "Yes, my friend?"

     "Lighten up, my family and me are an affectionate people" and I chuckled. "Quit blushing every time you see something, we are so used to the clothing we wear, that only out right nudity is frowned upon in my Clan. Stop getting flustered by me hugging you."

     "Its just the way I was raised"