Need (Sister Lashan) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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lukeoutbelow2022-06-10 02:56 pm
hasapoint) wrote in lukeoutbelow2022-06-10 02:56 pm
Do not be afraid of light
They smelled the battlefield long before they saw it. The apprentices and little Sisters who hadn't been on this kind of excursion before covered their noses and exclaimed. Vena didn't. As the child of a camp follower she would know to expect this, but her tread slowed and she looked repeatedly at Sister Lashan, especially as the sound of incredible numbers of crows cawing grew louder.
"Nasty, isn't it? Decay is part of death which is part of life," Lashan said firmly, if not totally without sympathy. How young had she been, the last time she was upset by the aftermath of battle? "There's armies that immediately turn around and sort the living from the dying from the dead and take care of that then and there. Not here, they're leaving it for the locals to handle or not and we're local enough. If you fight, you may well fight for people who'll leave you if you fall and move on. Make sure you at least have friends who'll look for you." They pressed on with their wagon. The donkey put its ears back but did not balk.
It wasn't as bad as it would get over the next few days. The bodies - it was now academic who had belonged to which side of whichever meaningless conflict this was - were not much bloated and decayed yet. Flies were not yet overwhelming. Right now the field of bodies was mostly attended by carrion birds, and various other birds that were willing to take advantage of the bounty before them. Finches among them, tiny beaks dipped red. A few other people could be seen picking their way across what had been a perfectly useable pasture. They kept clear. Lashan tasked girls to keep watch for them anyway, pretended not to see the ones who were being sick, and oversaw as dead men were loaded onto the donkeycart. They'd take them away a distance, say the rites, strip them of useful things, get them buried, and come back.
She paused. Something... like a sound. Not a sound. Lashan was hearing something with her mind, closer than the pickers. A threat? She stood like a sentinel and paid attention.
"Nasty, isn't it? Decay is part of death which is part of life," Lashan said firmly, if not totally without sympathy. How young had she been, the last time she was upset by the aftermath of battle? "There's armies that immediately turn around and sort the living from the dying from the dead and take care of that then and there. Not here, they're leaving it for the locals to handle or not and we're local enough. If you fight, you may well fight for people who'll leave you if you fall and move on. Make sure you at least have friends who'll look for you." They pressed on with their wagon. The donkey put its ears back but did not balk.
It wasn't as bad as it would get over the next few days. The bodies - it was now academic who had belonged to which side of whichever meaningless conflict this was - were not much bloated and decayed yet. Flies were not yet overwhelming. Right now the field of bodies was mostly attended by carrion birds, and various other birds that were willing to take advantage of the bounty before them. Finches among them, tiny beaks dipped red. A few other people could be seen picking their way across what had been a perfectly useable pasture. They kept clear. Lashan tasked girls to keep watch for them anyway, pretended not to see the ones who were being sick, and oversaw as dead men were loaded onto the donkeycart. They'd take them away a distance, say the rites, strip them of useful things, get them buried, and come back.
She paused. Something... like a sound. Not a sound. Lashan was hearing something with her mind, closer than the pickers. A threat? She stood like a sentinel and paid attention.
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Much like with people, he hadn’t been around any individual horse long enough to form deep attachment or love. The animals carried him into battle, but so did a breaching tower. Some were better than others. They were equal parts ally and enemy, creatures he had to cut down as much as he had to care for, and died as often as men did. He cared for them as he did for his armor, or for his sword - diligently, but with no particular affection.
The stout plains horses were different from the beasts on the battlefield, sporting hard wooden saddles and unruly if the rider’s hand was weak. Soldiers with money and status would don them in gleaming armor, appearing godlike and fearsome on the battlefield. A horse’s bite or kick could kill just as well as a sword, and they made the most of any animals with aggression in their blood.
Although he wasn’t wearing them, piled in his armor and equipment were a pair of spurs on leather straps, the silvery spiked wheels unremarkable to him but probably quite cruel-looking to an outsider.
He seems pensive as he notices the difference in the horse’s equipment, the lack of bit in particular, and looks back to Lashan.
“This a leisure ride we’re doing? It didn’t sound like it.”
If someone was lost in a forest full of bandits, he’s just going to assume the worst.
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Lashan strokes Thistle's white-flecked face. "Ideally, she's fine and her mother's just missed something and started panicking. We haven't seen anyone too close by and it hasn't been long enough that we're sure something's wrong. But the omens haven't been good and common sense says be ready. Better to look a fool anticipating a fight than to just get jumped and be dead," she says, briefly turning into her mother again to dispense a proverb. "Some girls are searching the fieldlands and outbuildings. I thought I'd take you into the woods with me."
Vena's coming, she and some friends roped in to help carry Guts' armor. Notably, no spurs are evident.
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“There’s a piece missing, Vena. For the boots.”
With the task at hand being horse riding, notices the spurs’ absence right away as he ties the moulded leather around his waist and groin. The observation comes with no blame. He figures the girl must have dropped or forgotten them.
The leather pieces were simple compared to the many overlapping layers of chainmail and plate that would guard a more heavily-armored soldier, but still involved quite a process of tying strings and belts. Not unlike strapping the saddle and bridle to Safflower. Guess they had that in common, he muses to himself.
The dagger that had been looped onto the belt was still there with the rest, at least. So he was allowed some weaponry for now.
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"We train our horses like back in my homeland," Lashan says laconically. She's taken charge of the mare and is feeding her crunchy tidbits out of an open palm, while Thistle crops grass that has grown long in the shadow of the wall. "They're the most responsive horses in the world. This one wouldn't know what to do if you spurred her."
"You should let me help," Vena says, having handed her pieces over. "It'll be faster."
There is a bit of hubbub incoming as the joined twin Healers, in the finery they always seem to wear in public, have left the temple are making their way purposefully towards the gate with a small entourage. They are not here yet, it will be a few minutes before they're in speaking range, but it's clearly only decorum that's kept them from calling out and waving or breaking into their best approximation of a run. Guts will have become more familiar with them over the past week - they come through the bathhouse at the same time, a time period shared with various other Sisters who really don't want to be looked at, touched, or talked to while uncovered.
Noticing this Lashan says, "It will be faster and then we can get out of here before priests start breathing down our necks."
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Guts isn’t sure what the big deal was, but these women knew their animals better than he did, so he acquiesces with a confused look on his face. He’d rather not face all their wraths again if he didn’t have to.
“All right…”
Not like he’d get much use of his spurs with the awkward angle of the stirrups.
When Vena offers to help him with his armor, he hesitates for a moment as he always does. But over the week, he’d gotten used to the girl’s hands helping him change his bandages. He agrees with less fuss than before, kneeling down so that Vena would have easier access to his shoulders. He never seemed to get along with priests, and sharing a bath most certainly didn’t help.
The breastplate was the heaviest piece, and he takes it himself to slide it over his head. It had four straps - a pair for his shoulders and for each side of his chest - and a set of leather chords to tighten it firmly around his ribs.
“First this, then the pauldrons,” he explains the order, ”They’re tied on with chords.”
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Vena gets to it with a look of fierce concentration. She is determined! She looks so cool to her friends! She may need to be corrected at a couple points. "Okay. Raise up your arm... Isn't it hot? Wearing armor?"
"Hot's better than dead," Lashan says, taking this chance to bend and string her recurved bow. She's being a hypocrite about heat. There's a little charm she can use to draw air in against her skin and help cool her, which is more important now that she's old enough that she doesn't sweat like she used to. Vena, knowing about that, gives her a side glance.
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“Yeah. You get cooked real good in the summer, but at least the rich bastards in full plate’ll have it worse.” His retort starts off a little haughty, but slowly mellows down to: “You get used to it.”
He’s adapted well to the miserable cadence of a fighting life. Sometimes it was glorious, but for the most part it was putrid. He preferred the quiet of the forest and the gentle open meadows when he wasn’t on a job. Midland and its neighbors had quite a picturesque countryside.
Even with a few corrections for Vena, she does a good job affixing the armor to him. The pauldrons were simple enough, tied with chords and secured in place by leather straps over his upper arms. The joints fit snugly over his shoulders. The gap in the shoulder plate was tiny - it was unfortunate for him that an arrow had managed to wedge itself in there. Had the metal not made the angle so awkward for the Sister’s spear, the tip might have gone in much deeper.
That left the final parts: he snaps the gauntlet over his left arm, flexing the hand to test the elaborate plates over his fingers, shingled like a roof. He then wraps the right even if he isn’t expecting a sword. Thick straps of fabric are better than nothing.
Occupied with his hands, that just leaves the helmet sitting by itself.
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Lashan's armor is a much lighter affair dominated by a heavy coat, all quilting and leather on the outside, stained and much-mended silk within. It wouldn't stop an arrow but it would keep it from piercing her. Over that goes the lamellar cuirass, many thick interlocking rectangles of boiled leather. It's not much over twenty pounds, but she feels it in a way she doesn't when she's not still recovering from a fight - in a way she hadn't when she was younger, really. Maybe it's just as well that she doesn't have metal armor to speak of these days.
She also has armguards and a helmet with lamellar extensions down the sides and back. No horsehair ornament on it, unfortunately. Lashan doesn't look like someone likely to show up on a Midlands battlefield. Plainsfolk tend towards light and middle cavalry, relying on mobility.
"Not going to be able to avoid it," she mutters, watching the Healer-priests advance. She could hurry Guts into the saddle and they could take off but at this point that would look too much like running away and not enough like plausibly not understanding that the twins really want to tell her something she does not want to hear.
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He approaches Safflower, giving the stout mare a light scratch on the withers to show he was there. When her response seems neutral enough, he mounts himself onto the saddle. Despite the differences in the tack, he’d ridden enough horses - bareback on some occasions - to make the movement look smooth and easy.
A black-tipped ear swivels back curiously, he notices, acknowledging his presence there. Maybe the clink of plate armor was unusual when coming from her back. It returns to its forward position as he seats himself. Similar enough, he thinks, until the horse starts to turn to the left. He stares at the tufty black mane in a moment of puzzlement before he realizes his mistake.
“You weren’t kidding about about the responsiveness.” he remarks to Lashan.
Guts corrects the position of his right leg, the knee askew from adjusting to the different seat. He’d have to be careful with his cues. This unfortunately left him facing the priests they were trying to avoid as they arrived, making awkward eye contact. Up there, he hardly looked like the boy Lashan had taken in, disguised by the layers of steel into something far more menacing.
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The stablehand is probably not going to agree that her favorite isn't the best. Still, Safflower has been trained to be sensitive to many different cues, and tolerant of many different riders and their weird antics on her back. She hasn't spent years racing out across the plains on maneuvers with a war band and a single rider.
The oncoming party slows but the twins press forwards with set jaws, one meeting Guts' gaze and looping her arm in a distinctly protective gesture around the other's shoulders. Forgoing all honorifics, the other calls, "Lashan!"
"You're here to tell me I'm too feeble to ride out and go looking for a girl," Lashan says with disgust. "That's what it condenses down to, isn't it? Time's wasting."
The Healer-priest raises her chin defiantly. "We're here to remind you to find her and bring her back. Not to go into battle. You are mortal, Lashan. Die here, and later, not out there with a sword through you."
"I know last week scared you, but you're reading too much into this," Lashan says. Her voice is dry. "This-" she thumps her lamellar -"is insurance, not a statement of intent. Believe me, children, I can-"
The other priest has been staring intently at Guts, black eyes and set face unreadable. She interrupts the old woman and says, "Give the boy your sword." Lashan stiffens, automatically putting a protective hand over the hilt of her longsword. Basically no one in earshot is any happier; there are gasps, and Vena is holding her friends' hands. The priest goes on. "He doesn't fight like you do. His armor isn't like yours. If it actually comes to battle and not trading arrows at range, he'll survive. Won't you, boy?"
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“A sword’s never failed me before,” he replies with a shrug, indifferent towards the thought of his own survival, ”I’ll be more useful with one.”
The village was so quiet that he’d never shown that side of him, the self-destructive excitement of throwing himself near the edge of death. He couldn’t explain why he did it, just that he did it without thinking, and it made his job far less anxiety-inducing than it should be.
Then again, he doesn’t suspect any bandits marauding around this village to be particularly deadly. If they were, they’d go for richer prey. He gets a glance of Lashan’s reaction out of the corner of his eye, and almost feels a grain of guilt for the public spectacle. He could’ve just asked for weapons when they’d set out and avoided all the scandalized gasps.
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The Healer-priest Vyush - they are identical in face and body, but the one who proposed arming him has her dark hair gathered up off her neck and descending in a single braid - frowns at both of them in a way that seriously accentuates her resemblance to the old woman. She's become accustomed to largely ignoring the shy, baffled, irritable-but-not-malicious youth Guts has been in her presence. "The aim here is to find Galli and return with her or with news of her death. That's the most important thing."
"We were scared, Lashan. We still need you, and not just as - as a strong body," her twin Pretah says, having finished concealing alarm enough to resume that united front. "If giving Guts" - there's just the slightest pause before she says his name -"your sword, yes, fine, for the evening means you don't engage directly than you should do it. For our sakes if not your own. You've sworn, you know."
Vena doesn't say anything out loud but she does stare rather intently at her teacher at that.
Lashan glances between several faces and growls, "Demons' teeth, I hate children" in an undertone before more evenly and loudly saying, "Fine. Boy! Can you work a belt scabbard?" Scabbard and swordbelt are not set up to draw from over the shoulder across the back. The longsword is big enough that it can't hang straight down.
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"Wouldn't be the first time." he replies, full of a pithy bluntness.
Guts isn't picky with where and how he gets his blade, he just feels more at ease with one in hand than without. His relationship with the twins hadn't developed into anything more than a begrudging tolerance of each other, but the change wasn't unwelcome. Now he supposes he owes them a thanks, even if it had more to do with putting a body between Lashan and danger than his own comfort.
That was fine, it was not like he had any particular investment in the girl beyond getting an excuse for an outing. People died all the time, after all, and he was loathe to form any attachments. So they'll use each other to their own benefits.
With a better grasp of the horse beneath him, he turns Safflower away from the healer-priests and positions her parallel to Lashan's big geldling. She can hand it over and they can start heading out once he ties the belt snugly around his waist. He'd have to rearrange his dagger out of the way of the blade, but otherwise he was good to go. They're losing light making a more of a fuss of this than it needs to be.
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The whole sword, tip to pommel, is about as long as the blade of Guts' own sword and markedly lighter. It's considerably larger and its hilt less elegant than the ones she sells, clearly not new, though scabbard and swordbelt are less worn. Probably it will stick out awkwardly at first.
While he's getting the belt she gets into Thistle's saddle. Lashan had been about to use the mounting block set up near the gate, but with her pride stung and these children talking about her as if her bones are spun glass she just uses the stirrup. Her hip screams at her for it and it's not quite as smooth as Guts managed, but she's been a horsewoman all her life. Thistle tosses his head and paws the ground as she settles. He does not understand that his rider's been told not to fight. The prospect rouses him up.
Pretah's eyes widen and she starts to say, "You don't ha-" but it's too late, Lashan's clucking to her gelding. She tells him something in her native tongue and Thistle, head and tail raised, takes off from a trot moving to a canter, through the open gates and out into the fields. His herdmate is going to be inclined to follow, even if Guts hasn't figured out an alternate way to motivate her.
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Safflower seemed to have read his thoughts and started to pace after Thistle as soon as he slips past the gate. Lashan's pride was wounded by the whole affair, that much was obvious, but he doesn't consider it any of his business to pry or try to soothe her.
"Didn't expect a stubborn old woman like you listen to what some priest had to say." he says instead.
The remark comes once they were out of earshot and alone with the trees and the dirt path. It had only been a week, but he missed this already. The freedom of venturing into the world with almost nothing but a weapon and his clothes. He keeps his visor up for visibility - bandits in the woods would likely set up an ambush, and he'd need his eyes to be sharp.
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The two horses take them at a ground-eating lope out past the carefully tended fields, through the weedier cleared area with its saplings trying to become trees, and beyond to a trail the hunters favor, half overgrown now from weeks of little use. Lashan leans back, cueing Thistle to take it slower. She watches the path - while she's an excellent tracker she'd only need to be a middling one to be able to determine that someone's disturbed the foliage traversing it - and spreads out her other senses, dropping most of her shielding. No contact yet, but also no sense of strong distress.
Then the boy decides to run his mouth. Lashan laughs harshly. "It's a wonderful thing I thought I would never know, to have willful children who care if I live or die." With a certain amount of amused malice, she adds, "May you come to know that binding yourself, one day."
She turns in the saddle - Thistle flicks his ears but continues - to open a bag and take out, yes, one of her short swords with scabbard and swordbelt. Exactly what Pretah had suddenly intuited was there. Yes, she's going to strap that on to lie over her thigh rather than trading.
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He is irreverent to the suggestion. The thought of ever having the patience for kids was laughable enough.
Occupied as he was with the tasks of merely living, the idea of being remembered or loved almost never crossed his mind. If he were to be remembered for anything, it would be his sword. It helps that thoughts about those things simply hurt less if he avoided them and never expected anything of the sort.
Deep down he yearned for it, as humans yearned for warmth, but the desire was thickly encased in a wish to be alone that repelled anything else. The latter was far less frightening.
He looks ahead, finding the trail of evergreen trunks forming the bars of an infinitely expansive fence on either side. The trail hadn’t been used much recently, if the overgrowth of ferns and ivy were any indication.
He relies on his senses - the mundane ones - looking for anything that might be awry. Beyond birdsong and the rustle of rodents in the bushes, he couldn’t hear anything particularly notable.
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Of course, they're not really the same. She'd known and taken for granted the embrace of the clan around her. Lashan had been loved, even if she hadn't entirely been understood, from birth until their bloody end. This boy lost that almost as soon as he was physically capable of surviving without being entirely dependent on someone caring for his needs.
Considering that, Guts is better at people than she'd expected. He certainly gets on well enough with Vena, but that doesn't mean all that much, most people do and the girl is accommodating in the extreme. If he'd taken to the gentle, rarefied environment of the enclave his life could have turned in its tracks. He hasn't, of course. He doesn't want to adapt to it, he wants to return to what he knows and is good at. As she'd known, and she's not the sort who'd decide it was for his own good and stop him from leaving. ...Ideally he won't split here and now with a good horse and her own personal longsword.
Lashan spots a broken arrow off the path, chicken-feather fletching still clean and white, and tsks under her breath. If she was still that level of limber she'd swoop in the saddle to pick it up - there'd been a time when she could do just about everything ahorse that she could do on foot. "This is the way she went, all right."
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There was a problem with the plan. He'd done enough horse-riding to know forcing the animal into the thick of a dense forest would be a good way to break its legs or scratch out its eyes. Then he'd be out of a horse to sell. Then he'd be stuck with the longsword, short on money to feed himself and make a new weapon. He would have to make do.
Not that it was a bad weapon, but he had a rather strong attachment to his lump of metal. And maybe he rather liked the food they were giving him on top of that. It was richer than the salty dried meats and nuts and fruit. So the thought is dismissed with the enticement of a good dinner after all this. He gives Safflower a few little pats to the neck. She seemed to have snorted in response to his devilish thoughts.
"Should we bring it with us?" he asks, bringing the mare to an easy stop next to it. He wasn't about to ask a rickety elder to go get it, so he offers. He's done more outlandish things than swoop down on a horse's saddle.
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"Sure. Give her shoulder a slap on that side, that'll let her know not to turn sharply or do something creative when you lean down." Lashan looks back over her shoulder. "I suppose I should tell you the commands for fighting with her. She'll rear or kick on command. Hasn't actually seen combat like Thistle here, but we've got her trained not to bolt when things get lively."
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Some minor relief that the horse had some training. Not as bad as attempting to drag a farmer's workhorse out in to battle, then. He cues for Safflower to stay still before swooping down to give the half-buried arrow a swift tug out of the dirt. He could be limber despite the cobbled together armor plating.
The wooden shaft is spun in his fingers to present the arrow to Lashan fletching-first. Once could dare say it was a playful gesture despite himself. The arrowhead clinked against the metal of his gauntlet.
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She opens up the gap between them and tests her stability in the saddle, starting to call on Fighter's blessing to reinforce her fading strength. Her armor stops being so heavy. Picking up on some otherwise imperceptible shift in her posture and attitude, Thistle tosses his head vigorously, making his tack click. Lashan clucks to him and tells Guts, "Here, watch this."
Leaning forwards she gives the gray gelding a word in her native tongue and he stops to rise up on his hind hooves and paw at the air, snorting with excitement. When he comes down she gives him another cue and he rocks forwards to lash out behind him with his rear hooves in a very fast motion. It's likely to dislodge any sticks and dirt stuck to his hooves and send them flying at Safflower and her rider.
"That's my good boy," Lashan says, and similar, rubbing Thistle's neck and generally getting him to calm back down. She has an advantage in both training horses and getting them to fight for her, in that her gifts work on animals. Compared to people they're uncomplicated creatures, brimming with fear but willing to trust her when she's calm and steady.
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"Hey - " A small protest in annoyance as some twigs land on his helmet. Safflower seems largely undisturbed, huffing and shaking her head to get the dirt out of her mane. Dissatisfied with leaving the interaction end like that, a noise of indignance rises up from somewhere deep in his boy chest as he brushes the detritus off him. He gives the horse's chest a gentle squeeze of the knees to get the mare to trot ahead.
"All right. Is there secret word to get 'em to bite, or...?" He decides to take point, because what good would he be wielding a sword behind the archer? "And what was that word you said?"
He pronounces it about as well as your average Midlander - which is to say, terribly. It was almost as if he was emphasizing all the wrong syllables on purpose. It earns him a puzzled tilt of the ears.
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Instead she grins at the affront to the boy's dignity and lets him pull ahead. Tactical consideration aside he's clearly hoping to shower her with trail debris.
"Oh, she'll decide on that herself if you're both agitated and there's enough targets. She trusts her rider, boy, unless given reason not to. If you're calm, she'll be inclined to calmness. If you want someone dead, well, she won't get it but she'll figure you're on the same side and have a good reason." There's absolutely a couple of specific commands to tell the horse to bite but she doesn't want to tell them to him because right now there's just the two riders and two horses.
The mangling of her language makes her wince. "Break it down into three parts separated like the two parts of 'isn't', first of all." It's going to take some coaching, and Safflower's still not going to do the trick yet. "It's not just the word, it's your posture. You've got to have your weight shifted and your legs clamped enough that she won't throw you and you won't upset her balance and topple her over on top of you. That is not fun, believe me."
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Guts frowns at the trees, reacting in what must be a rather typical fashion to suddenly finding himself in the middle of a language lesson. He'd never learned much language beyond what was necessary to survive, never touched a pen to paper, and finds himself lacking the curiosity of a more scholarly type. At least, he thinks so. He can never see himself piled over books and scriptures. Too boring. Maybe he'll ask again when they aren't in the middle of tracking some lost hunter girl, and a horse-riding lesson might be more tolerable.
Safflower's hooves are muffled by the dirt as they continue onward, his eyes scanning the trail ahead for any signs of a fight or a hunt. The earth and the twigs held nothing for him.
"What about that other word? Bayot? Does that come from the same place?"
Clearly the village had a touch of the foreign to it. There was plenty of syncretism between the quarreling kingdoms he was frequently hired by, but influence from the plainsfolk was less commonly seen. Beyond the nest of six kingdoms, your average inhabitant of Tudor or Wallatoria or Midland was vaguely aware of the Kushan Empire to the east, and that was about it. The knowledge got more specific depending on who was neighboring who. Merchants of Vritannis seemed to have a bit more worldly knowledge, but those were rare to come by.
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