02
The ancient warrior scuffed her dust crusted boots along the road. Every other step accompanied by the clink of the pan and cup hanging from her traveling pack. The straw mattress and skunky brew of the last village inn felt like a hazy memory, and the distant purple foothills hid the little town as they rolled away toward the horizon.
Around the swordmarm, the wide plain of mesmerizing grass stretched for colorful miles in all directions. The tall pasture land whorled with vibrant hues as patches of different lowland plants spurned the teasing winds.
The old woman’s image, topped with a shock of white hair, wavered in a heat mirage from far down the road. The cruciform of the great sword stood propped against the figure’s shoulder. Taller than its bearer, the weapon rocked with each shuffling stride like a cleric’s standard.
From this perspective, far ahead, the ambushers studied her. They waited in a shady glen of trees. With perfectly whistled and chirped bird calls, the bandits spoke to each other. They were hidden, camouflaged. A lurking danger, impossible to see among the thick twisting trunks and the dappled shadows of the leafy canopy above.
Out in the sun, the drunk amiably stumbled along. She squinted up into the bright summer sky. Sunlight radiated through her thin skin and warmed her bones. There were no pebbles in her scraping boots. Her belly pleasantly sloshed; full of grilled rabbit and a squirt, or three, from the skin of her breakfast grog. The wrinkled folds that hooded her eyes were bunched into a contented smile. She paused to adjust the small pack on her shoulders, dampening the light clank of the little dangling iron pan and tin cup.
Humming, and tottering along, she grinned at the gentle buzz of alcohol that softened her journey. Summer air danced, trailing hints of clover, decaying wood, the subtle brown nose of sun-dried grass.
A mile distant, the green tops of a small forest crested, marking where they grew around the road. The old woman grinned inwardly, it would be a fine spot for lunch…and a nap! Road dirt crunched, as she quickened her step, eager for the cool air of the shadowy copse. Along the worn path as she walked, the orange meadow gave way to a vivid red, then a sunny yellow.
In chittering calls, the leader of the ambushers laid out plans for the assault. His flighty whistles sounded exactly like an argument between small seed eater birds.
Though, land-talking was not their primary language, those in hiding could still communicate complex ideas. They constructed simple words using only sounds utterly indistinguishable from the woods.
Mimicking the creaking trees, the leader hissed. “We wait. Patience. Wait. It comes middle. Circle mouse. Sleep it. Sleep it, adder. Careful. Mouse, sleep.”
Dappled shadows under the trees shared nothing. The brittle grass revealed not a soul, and the rustling leaves of the trees told no tales. Crickets called, birds tinkled, and the wind whispered.
Finally beneath the edge of the canopy shadow, the white haired barbarian breathed a sigh of relief. She was beginning to sweat under the watching sun.
Pausing for a moment, she inhaled the cool air. Her legs hummed, warm and pleasant from the long walk, but the knees were beginning to complain. She balanced against a crusty tree trunk, and dipped a few times to work grumpy joints. At her feet, the timber’s chunky roots spread and dug into the ground like potter’s fingers.
Satisfied she’d worked out the stiffness, she moved the sword to the other shoulder, and went deeper into the glade. Her pack, pot, and pan, clinked against her gait.
The little thicket was lovely. The swordmarm discovered a small clearing right off the road that bisected the collection of trees. Obviously a common stop for travelers; the dried grass was trod flat. There were several smooth stones in a circle around a blackened bit of earth. This last, peppered in the ash of countless camp fires.
The short woman peered around the wood, and pressed her senses through the trees and grass, like baker’s dough.
She was alone.
The forest breathed with the small and myriad life that called it home, but the warrior was free to relax. The squat lady set her tall blade against the tree, hooking the ringed crossguard on the remnants of a branch. Grunting, she loosed the knots securing her pack and slowly eased it from her shoulders. The tin cup, and iron pan thunked as she let it slip to the ground. Free of the extra weight, she heaved a deep sigh, then stretched her arms over head, and rolled her feet onto pointed toes.
Swiftly, she dipped forward and with her fingertips gripped her ankles. She pulled deeply, slowly, and held her stretch, groaning over the uncomfortable pressure from her gut.
The old woman plopped to her seat and ran through a few of the other stretches she was taught a lifetime ago by the hated Skillmaster. Her bones creaked, but felt good, as the blood moved freely through her limbs.
Damn the master, but gratitude for the skills, she thought.
She moved her rump to one of the sit stones and picked up a stick to poke at the ashes of the campfire. The acidic smell of old rendered fat and moist ash rose with the light dust. The pit wasn’t soaked, but it had been a long time since it glowed with flames.
Glancing around the clearing, she spotted a few bits of tinder and flammable things, but not enough for a proper cook.
Rounded shoulders shrugged, and she yanked the drawstring that closed her knapsack. Thrusting her arm in, up to the elbow, she hunted for her afternoon repast. Her furrowed face screwed into an expression drawing the deepest concentration as she rooted about in the bag. She squinted, with the tip of her tongue clenched between thin lips. Before long, out came a hard crumbly cheese, wrapped in checkered cloth. Followed by a few dry finger thick sausages, linked in stiff pig intestine. Finally, she freed her beloved wineskin filled with grog.
The lady smacked her gob noisily, and threw her white matted side braids over her shoulder. From under her bracer, she drew a short crescent bladed utility knife.
A grin parted her wrinkles like curtains to either side of her face, and she began to carve small coins of greasy pork sausage, and expertly flick them into her mouth.
“Patience. Wait, adder. Wait,” the leader thrummed to the ambushers. His voice whirred, like a flying grasshopper.
“Leader. Mouse has great fang. Sword. Danger,” one of the stalkers said. His was the purr then squawking chut-ta-tusk of a fluffy tailed squirrel.
Yet another ambusher chimed in, also in a thick squirrel chitter. “Cheese. Mouse has cheese!”
The woman stacked flaked crumbles cut from the rind onto the sausage and nibbled. Her eyes kept drifting to her wineskin. She chewed thoughtfully, fighting the delicious thirst. Carefully, she set the food in the cheese cloth on the stone beside her, and bent to retrieve her grog. Around her the noisy critters of the weald seemed to be enjoying the summer day as much as she.
Her tongue felt thick and dry as she ran it over the roof of her mouth, almost able to taste the watery spirits. The scarred and cracked hands had a mild but perceptible tremor as she pulled the cork from the wineskin. Cheap booze sloshed as she jiggled the container to check her reserves. Half gone, she chewed her bottom lip. She rolled her head back, slowly closed her eyes, and squirted the cheap hooch, once, twice, to the back of her throat. She swallowed it in small portions, savoring the burn, and hissed the last drops through her teeth. Blindly, she corked the skin, forcing herself to ration, though her throat still felt parched. Perhaps, just one more…
That was when the first arrow hit…square between her eyes.
“Ouch!” the woman cried. Her hand flew to her aching forehead. There a thin pen length object stood proud, buried in her skin. She tugged at the stinging object that had stuck her face. When she pulled at the barbed thing, it painfully drew her creased brow with it.
Growling a curse, she yanked hard, plucking a pale bit of flesh as the missile came free.
The swordmarm glared at it, as blood began to stream down her nose. Realization dawned in the brief moment she examined it. It had a tiny knapped glass tip with barbs, a thin reed shaft, and a cottony puff at the end.
The drunkard shrieked as an arrow buried deep in the wattle of her neck. Another, in the back of her wrist. Yet, another through her cheek.
She leaped to her feet from her sitting position, the sausage knife inverted in her fist, held high like a scorpion tail ready to attack.
Diminutive cackles echoed from nowhere as another volley of the darts pelted her. A few arrows pierced her leather pants, embedding in her thighs. Others penetrated her back, her shoulders.
More raucous laughter from little lungs, and more sharp pricks.
With her burnt hand the woman reached for her great sword, hanging from the tree behind her.
Just as her gnarled fingers gripped the leather wrapped blade, her head spun. Blinking, suddenly confused, her heart fluttered, she felt light, and giddy. Something hot roared behind her ears, and a deep flush reddened her weather worn cheeks.
She was oddly reminded of a fine liquor, for which, she had once bartered. The trader said it was distilled by the desert peoples of the east. It had a rich earthy fennel flavor. A single shot of that delicious syrup could knock an old shine like her, right on her ass.
Whatever coated these little arrows was worse.
The barbarian’s eyes rolled up in her skull. She pitched forward and smacked her face on her sitting stone, with a sickening slap.
The world went black.
Pain.
Dull thudding pain dripped from her nose backward to the peak of her spine. It traced along her features, like dipping her face into a glacial stream.
Grey eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes. The evening sky swayed into focus. The miniature pastel light of fairies flitted from tree to tree in the canopy above.
The ancient warrior groaned thickly, through the jellied blood packed into her throat and nose. A familiar feeling and flavor.
Blinking with her brow high, her mind fogged as she tried to turn her head. Had she been on a tear? She didn’t remember yet another barroom brawl. Flexing her fists, she didn’t feel dried blood cracking, or the soreness of split knuckles. The elbow and shoulder skin of her burnt arm weren’t torn from movement.
Her deeply etched face frowned as she struggled to piece together the day. Dried plasma on her cheeks cracked like a summer lakebed. What rotten piece of drama had she churned up this time? She sniffed at her skin. No hint of stale musk. Scooping her tongue along the inside of her cheek she tasted no vomit. She ran it across the teeth on other side when she hit…
An arrow! It had pierced right through her cheek, half inside, half out.
She sat up. Around her the nighttime forest hummed. She was in the clearing near the road. Her knapsack lay deflated beside her. Her great sword, the leather wraps filthy with dust, was only a few feet away.
She mused, a moment, at how her robbers must have been surprised when they tried to take her old friend.
The checkered cloth that held her cheese was empty, stomped into the dirt with finger length humanoid foot prints. All traces of her greasy sausage were to the wind. Her little iron pan, and tin cup had also grown legs.
The old warrior bit the tip of the arrow piercing her cheek and snapped it with her fingers. She pulled the fangless shaft from her flesh, and spat the puny arrowhead on the ground with a dollop of blood. Gripping the cartilage of her nose between the palm pad of her thumb and her curled fingers, she yanked it back over the bone and stifled a grunt. Plugging one nostril with a thumb, the drunk rocketed a thick glob of snot and gore into the ash pit. Then cleared the other, before snorting deeply, and hawking another coagulated wad onto the ground. Fresh claret trickled through the creases radiating from her lips. She dusted herself off and plucked more of the arrows from her body.
“Fuck!” she cried and all the fairies above scattered, dimming the peaceful clearing significantly.
Stumbling to her feet, the swordmarm patted around the scene of the crime. The greatest offense. Her wineskin. Gone. All at once, she noticed that her mouth felt like a desert mesa; her teeth, like pale, wind-corroded rocks.
She scowled from one side of the dark wildwood road to the other. No other sign of her ghostly attackers. The bruised and bloodied woman snatched up her empty sack and her sword.
Kicking the road dirt, she screamed at the night. “Fucking brownies! I hate brownies!”
Somewhere in the distant wild dark, she swore she could hear the tiny echo of laughter.
