Brand and Vaeol - Chapter 7

5. Lamashan - 2nd Day Captive, 15th Day on Castrovel   They call themselves ‘lashunta’. Unsure whether that means their kingdom, tribe, or their kind, though it seemingly applies to them all and each, even the tall women and the squat men. They all have the buglike feelers on their brows, which twitch and wave endlessly, seemingly in time with what they are doing or thinking. Also, they all do the thing at times when their feelers quiver, and they apparently speak by thought alone. It is eery watching two or more do something together without ever a word.   The Lady Knight, as we have called her, is named Vah-yeh-ol, nearly as I can make out. Only with her have we spoken, for only she speaks any Elvish. Draxy speaks a little as well, which means she can only talk through us. She is the captain of this patrol and calls herself ‘Outrider’ in Elvish, which I guess names her rank moreso than role. Her arms certainly bespeak high standing. She wears a light cuirass of oil-blue steel strips damascened with bronze, and a silver sunburst as badge, a mark all these warriors bear on breastplates, belts, or shields. Her helm, armbands, spearblade, shield, and greaves also bear damask-work. Her thighs, however, are protected by flaps of more of that odd, fleshy hide, though with ornate bronze rivets. Compared to knights I’ve seen back on Golarion, her armor looks fairly light, though anyone wearing a full suit of plates in this swelter would fall from heat-stroke in a quarter-hour.   I have learned the mystery of their helmet’s wide crest-brims: they are open atop to let through their brow-feelers. The brim wards them if they lie low along the bowl.   With exception of a couple mounted archers, the other lizard-riders bear stocky, heavy-bladed spears between seven and eight feet long, which they seem ready to use either as lances or glaives. Although shorter than lances back home, given the thick brush and rough terrain, I guess them nimbler. Each has a stout bronze heel covering the haft’s half-yard, ending in a counterweight that I doubt not makes an effective club. I have also seen javelins stowed in quivers. They wear blued helms and light breastplates of the same fleshy hide. I almost think it leather treated in some wise to make it waterproof. The men make do with with bearded war-axe set upon a haft roughly two feet long, which they seem comfortable swinging either one-handed or two, and a recurved bow with arrows. They wear even less armor: helms, a targetlike pectoral on the chest, vambraces, a broad hide belt and kilt, and greaves. All the steelwork is oil-blued to protect against the endless damp.   Like the Lady Knight, the women are all tall with large slanted eyes, strong cheekbones, and small noses and chins. While this gives them a rather Elven look, however, if one ignores their hair and skin hues, they would neither look out of stead in Tian Xia. They are fit from lizard-riding, slim on top with muscular, rounded bottoms and thighs. The overall effect I found, well, exotically pleasant.   When we camped, we learned just how pleasant. Both men and women stripped out of armor, washed underclothes, and bathed in a nearby brook. I get hint they’ve been long afield, and prize these comforts. While they refreshed, we were overwhelmed with more female flesh than we’d even dreamed of in weeks. If we hadn’t been weary and half-starved, things might’ve gone livelier. Both sexes wear a loincloth that ties around the waist, tucks back between the legs, and then is drawn back over the girdle to fall over the buttocks. To this, the women add a short halter-jacket similar to what I’ve seen in Vudra, which closes and tightens over the breasts, and I guess provides support while riding.   The Lady Knight took the same opportunity as the rest. A shorter, blue-haired lass, who is by far the buxomest among them, helped her out of armor, leaving her standing in a short caftan of blue light silk. This too shortly followed into the brook, and then her breast-halter too, leaving her bare to our eyes, with but a short tassled loincloth on her golden skin. More intriguing were the dark, pinkish stripes that wound over her back, thighs, and shoulders. Yet I had a hard time not staring at her mulberry-like nipples.   We bedded down in a tight camp; the squat, hairy men sleeping beside but right near the women. They kept discipline that bespoke good training. All night long, they kept a twofold watch - one rounding the edges while another overstood us captives. They have well treated us, as prisoners go, but have stayed sharp. Then also were the riding-lizards, who lay cat-like within a wider ring, some curled while other slept with heads upright. Whenever one of us shifted, they hissed.   Today, the lashunta showed us a travel secret that has me kicking myself. Soon as we were moving, they led us to a half-fallen giant tree leaning up into the darkness overhead. The Lady Knight and another urged their drake-steeds upward, whose claws easily found climbhold. She then paused and bade in Elvish we should also climb. It took some while for us to work up to the first limbs well over a hundred feet up high, for it was steep, while the squat male warriors impatiently. Up high, we found a marvel: a level of entwined tree limbs that could almost make a floor. These huge trees send boughs out that twist and grow together, and which may help support their great bulk. We followed limbs almost wide as a wagon-path, which the clawed steeds trod easily as breath, and the apelike bowmen took with indifferent scorn while we tried to ignore the deep drop into darkness.    Even better, here ruled a woody twilight with faint sky-hints above. The air freshened with wind moving through the leaves. It was still jungle-like hot and damp, compared to home, but we were free from the still dankness. We laughed and even wept at this lightness, after crawling two weeks through the gloomy muck. With the light and air, we also saw more wildlife. Though leaves are still few at this level, we spotted honest-looking birds, though they had two tails and split combs, along with more of the scary hawk-size dragonflies (and spiders - lots of webs!), and whole packs of the squawking hare-squirrels further up where the leaves thicken. While we had slogged along the darkened ground among the toads and grub-slugs, life had been ongoing the whole while, overhead. If only I had sent climbers when we first came, we might have avoided some of the last two weeks’ horrors.   In bad news, Vern’s wound sickened. While Vizzi was whole again under the Lady Knight’s healing hand, Vern was feverish, and his leg red and swollen. He could not walk the tree-boughs for fear of falling. The Lady Knight bade us lay him down on a thwart-spot where several boughs had knitted together. She examined his leg. Then she frowned, which I guessed the same look as we make. She came to me and told his leg must come off.    My heart broke for Vern, for he has been my friend ever since I left Taldor. Yet I have seen enough war wounds to know she spoke true. I agreed. Then I held his hand, along with two burly ape-warriors pinning him down. It was rough battlefield surgery with no niceness, done with a twisted cloth, knife, and a hand-axe. Yet afterward the Lady Knight performed the same healing ritual, and Vern faded into sleep.   We camp tonight among the tree-limbs, among which the Lashunta have strung a stout network they carry with. It was frightful at first to lie upon, and even worse to look downward through the web. Still, it beats sleeping below on the dark ground. We already feel safer, so long as we don’t fall.   While we were setting the network, I got another surprise. One of the burly men was crouched on a bough, tying a net’s first corner thereon, when the thong slipped his fingers. The net fell, where I guessed it would be lost on the dark forest’s floor. The man stretched down his hand, too late I guessed to catch it. Yet then his brow-feelers made the quiver I had earlier seen during their mind-speech. The net’s fall halted. To my surprise, it floated upward, back to his hand, whereat he resumed his knotwork. While I had already seen strong sign of magic from the Lady Knight, I had not forelooked it from a common warrior.       4. Vealae – the Treepaths Homeward Bound (14th of Scoutfare)   Today we headed homeward, too slowly for my taste and not enough food for so great a sith, which now tallies twenty-three and seven Shota. With great hardship we coaxed the Aslanta up to the treepaths, whereby they had not foreguessed fare, and whose height frightened them. We at last had to set their wounded on Shota-back and tie the others together with rope, and then led them up the slopeway. Whatever their fears, they are safer up here with us. Though coeurl prowl the limbs, at least we need not worry of wormthurses, baletoads, and other crawlythings.   It soon became eyesome, however, that, though one Aslanta I had yesterday healed of the coeurl-wound did better, not so his fellow wounded by the moonflower. His leg was rotten and swollen, and if we did nothing soon, we foresaw he would die. So we swiftly camped on a thwartlimb and did what we must. I outlaid Brand that we must offcut the man’s leg. This news he took grimly, though I had already gathered they are warriors and understand such wounds. His Aslanta fellows held the wretch down while I cut and peeled back his skin. Then I bade a Korasha to axe and hack the leg. Though I had ere seen this healercraft, I had never myself done it. I healed the stump, which will prayerfully henceforth stay clean. The man had already swooned. Then we tied him asaddle before Seaevamol and akept northwestward, toward Father-Yaro and home.   I shrive my nerves were shaken from cutting and the wretch’s hurtful groans. I am sick of their red blood’s steely smell, and let Remaue wash it from my face. I bade Less send his warriors if this stead holds any game to hunt. Our stocks will not outlast us back to Son. We must find our own keep and hope Oshis’s wordbode outcomes, and bywardly they bring us help. I am worried. May I lose my scout-team?     5. Vealae – 2nd day on the Treepaths Homeward Bound (15th of Scoutfare)   Another slow dayfare, maybe at best a half-daysworth. In good luck we found a wild milktree and spilled so much sap as we dared. We will mark this stead and bring word back to Son. Always a forehap someone may wish to stead a farmhold here.   Our legless Aslanta at least has had his fever fallen, and his stump shows no new sickness. I hope I did my fleshcraft well. He is weak but has slept most day peacefully. Brand came and thanked me. He bequeathed he owes me a dearth. What he rightly means I am unsure.     6. Lamashan - 3rd Day Captive, 16th Day on Castrovel   The Lashunta call their steeds ‘shotalashu’, as best as I can hear it out. I still can’t tell whether they are lizards or some small dragonkind. If they are lizards, they’re the smartest I’ve ever seen. Each Shotalashu is about horse-size, which makes sense. They have broad bearlike heads with wide mouths, full of many teeth. The Lashunta carry fodder for them and also take them to the upper leaves to graze. Yet I’ve also seen them throw meat scraps as treats to their steeds. With their prehensile claws both fore and aft, they look at home among these giant trees, and climb up and down the beams at ease, even with a rider clutching on a saddle. They have long, agile necks, broad shoulders and hips way more powerful than a horse’s, and I expect nimbler for tree-travel even though they may not be as swift. Their scales run from green-brown to gold and bluish-gray, almost so colorful as their mistresses. The riders keep seats upon cunningly crafted saddles that have not only stirrups but pegs between which they wedge knee and thigh, and also a handle-pommel. Since they use no reins or bridle to master these steeds, they are free to hang on them to keep from fall. How they control their beasts, however, stays a mystery.   The Shotalashu also show a weird loyalty that reminds me more of dogs than horses. At night while acamp, the big lizards gather in an outer ring, above, around, and below, and nearby boughs, where they sleep perched like giant cats. The watch-guards wander among them and even stop to offer scratches if one wakes and accosts them. Uncannier is the way the Shotalashu follow their riders around like large clawed dogs. Even weirder, if a rider wishes to mount and ride, the steed, even if at length, will come to her side without bidding. Either they are the best-trained steeds, or something else is going on.   With exception of one rider that Lady Knight sent away on the first day we met, all the riders are women. Lady Knight seems to have three officers, or sergeants, under her. Of them, tqo are women, and one man, and he seems deferential. For their part, the men accept their role as footmen supporting this tree-lizard cavalry.   I wonder why, being so physically stronger than the women, they do not take advantage. It makes me wonder if they are apelike in wits as well as looks.   In other news, Vern is doing better. His fever had faded and his stump has healed with no further signs of rot. We talked some. He is sad and angry, and curses us ever coming to this godforsaken, savage world. Still, he thanks our captor for he understands Lady Knight has saved his life.   Also, we found food of a kind. We came upon a tree whose leaves were mostly green with purple undersides, and with white lilylike blossoms. Our Lashunta hosts became excited. Straightforth we camped within the nearby limbs. Then they climbed to the tree’s beam. Lady Knight brought me forward. While I watched, a bowman drew forth a hammer and chisel. He then chipped a narrow hole through the bark. Next, forth came a brass spigot, which he jammed into the sapwood. Almost at once, thick soapy sap dripped out. The Lady Knight filled a cup and offered me. Hesitantly, I sipped, and then drank in surprise. For all comparisons, it tasted like a fruity, slightly oily milk. These alien folk milk their trees as we would cows. We all feasted on the creamy sap. The Lashunta even filled buckets and gave it to their Shota-steeds, who drank greedily. This small miracle amid jungle-like savagery greatly improved our mood.