Four Seasons of the Warrior (chap 1)

The Free Peoples (chap 2)

Fall, of the 37th year of the reign of S'aarth








         They called themselves The Free Peoples, because they were tied to no land, nor kingdom. Others Might call them nomads, traders, wandering tribes, many other names, not all kind.





         But they were only free in terms of geography, Ayliah thought, to herself. The People had binding customs and rules, traditions and rituals, that were, in their way, more restrictive than those of any of the Landed people, in her opinion. They may not be bound by regional law of the geographical area they were in, in many ways, but laws amongst themselves were tight, and brutal.


         Ayliah was bitter, to this point, because her father had just sold her betrothal to Gemani, for his eldest son to take. This was not purely bad, as Gemani had a large and prosperous convoy, with many of his family having skills to sell, that landed people would pay highly for, and he was a shrewd trader, who usually got top coin for what he sold, service or product. And his son, Gervais, would inherit ownership of the convoy, when germani died, or became too old to run it, himself.


         Well, not full ownership, she reminded herself, just majority shares. But it was the same thing.


         The problem, such as it were, was twofold. The first being she wasn't consulted, at all. Yes, men of The Families were responsible for the protection of, and provision for, their women, creating a situation where women were effectively owned by the men in their lives. A woman couldn't even manage shares she owned...they may be her shares, but the man responsible for her controlled them. Her anger on this point came from the fact that she was used to Father at least asking her input, and often following her advice, and, in this, very important situation, he hadn't. The second part of her distaste for this situation was that Gervais, when she had met him at Gathering, three years ago, had been a conceited, arrogant, boastful lout. A very pretty one, true, but nonetheless.


         He probably wouldn't ever ask her opinion on business matters, much less take heed of advice, despite the fact that she was well known in the Families for her sharp eye for profit, and her judgement as to what quality goods were being traded, and what the local market would bear in trade matters.


         Completely unfair, she thought, as she reached the banks of the stream, on the forest's edge. She set her water barrels down, and unclipped the shoulder yoke from them, then prepared to dunk the first, to fill it, when something odd caught her eye.


         On the other side of the stream, slightly swollen still, from the intense storms of the last two days, laid a body. Apparently dead. She gasped, and turned, to return to the camp, and fetch someone to help her. At least give the dead Landed man a decent internment.


         When she returned to the camp, breathless, the men were engrossed in campfire discussion. Knowing better than to interrupt, Ayliah went to her home tent, where she found Mother, and Caysieh, her younger sister.


         "Mother! Come quickly! At the stream! There is a Landed on the far bank, and I think he's dead!"


         Her mother fussed a bit about her chivvying, but she and Caysieh came along, eventually.


         Arriving back at the stream, Mother gazed across, at the body. "How, young lady, do you propose we go about reaching the Landed, yonder, and to what purpose?"


         "Motheeerrr," Aiyliah said, almost whined, in exasperation, "I have a line, If you and Caysieh will belay, I can wade across, probably, without much danger. As to why, is it not the law of the Free Peoples to succor the ill and injured, or to bury the abandoned dead, when such is called for?"


         "Alright, Ayliah, you make your case well. Tie yourself off, Caysieh and I will belay, from around the darkwood tree, there.", Ayliah's mother indicated the tree.


         She affixed the line, double wrapping it around her waist, before tying it off, and her mother and sister made a single half turn of it, over the trunk of the tree, so that the line came back at the stream. They took a strong grip of the line, waited, as Ayliah walked to the edge of the waters, and took in the slack, then started loosing the rope step at a tie, as Ayliah entered the stream, striking out at an upstream angle towards the other shore.


         The current was strong enough to make her movement somewhat crabbed, keeping her on an almost straight progression towards her destination. The stream never got more than mid-thigh deep, but the pressure the water exerted was intense, and she arrived at the opposite bank well tired. Nonetheless, she untied the line, swung it around a nearby bush, with a half-knot in it, so the stream wouldn't pull her bight away, downcurrent. Then she walked, still puffing with exertion, to the body.


         It...He, she corrected, had been wearing Forest People's woolbark cloth, in a very durable weave. But whatever he'd been through, it was enough to turn those raiments into shredded rags. His top had been, by all appearances, a patterned print, made of multiple hues of green, brown, and black, predominately green, while what remained of his leggings had been predominately brown, and also contained more defined grays and blacks, compared to the more pronounced greens of the top.


         Both pieces of clothing, in both coloration and what remaining evidence of cut, were unfamiliar to her, though her family often traded in these woodlands, and even bought woolbark cloth of this type of weave. The top appeared to be a combination of a jerkin and tabbard, with wooden toggle buttons tying into rawhide loops from the upper left shoulder, to the center of the hips, while the leggings appeared to be full pants, buckling closed with a wooden buckle and leather belt, both integrated into the pants, but the shape seemed to be created by wrapping crossing strips of fabric around each-other, on the outside of the thigh, creating knots along it, while stitching those same strips of fabric together in an interlacing pattern of on-point squares, which caused the patterning of the cloth to break and weave, throughout the garment. A broken piece of something, a staff, drilled into a triangle of shiny brown...rock?...broken, apparently across his back, was somewhat tangled in his body by a carry strap.


         He must be a woodlands hunter, she thought, dressed like this to confuse his prey's eyes.


         On his back now, she knelt, and placed two fingers on the slightly depressed path along his throat, where one could feel the pumping flow of living blood in a person whose heart yet beat, and felt a thready, but present, rhythm. Knowing there was life, yet, she began to inspect him for other injuries., starting with breathing, which, though quiet, and somewhat shallow, seemed healthy enough. As inspection progressed, though, she found multiple scrapes and bruises, along with some quite nasty gouges. But most significantly, she fund a shallow depression just behind the hairline, on the front of his skull. Prying his eyelids open, she was satisfied to see that each contracted, when exposed to light, and better, a low, almost imperceptible, sound of pain came from her "discovered body".