Thursday, January 31, 2013

I'm on a Boat

He awoke to the soft lapping of waves and the smell of freshly burnt ash.  Above him stretched the noonday sun.  The familiar shape of a longboat beneath his back and the full suit of battle armor that weighed him down yielded no immediate clues, such was the life of a thane.  Yet there were no voices.  Sitting up, he viewed the deserted deck.

Well, not entirely deserted, gold and jewels and decorated arms and armor filled the bottom of the boat.  This was a burial ship, but where was the body, he wondered.  Someone important must have died.  Perhaps in the battle at the great mound?  That was yesterday, was it not?  He vaguely recalled leading a charge up the hill to bash down the shields and throw aside the spears of those hated enemies of his.  He stood glorious at the top, unscathed from battle and victorious, holding the standard in one hand and the enemy standard bearer in the other.  In the growing dusk, the cheers of his people in recognition sounded from up below him.  He was a war hero.  And then there was that sharp prick in his chest.

He looked down, and a shiny fish dripping red water had pulled itself from the emblem on his chest. Turning, a ragged, blood strewn warrior held the spear haft, only able to pull himself up on his knees with the support it gave him.  Then darkness fell.

Back in the boat, he looked around.  No land in sight, just the sun up above and that ash-scented burial ship.  Taking his armor off, he felt his back and his chest, only able to feel the scars of his battles, plus one more.  Was he off to the ancient halls of brave warriors, or had the guiding hand lost his boat in the process?  A closer inspection of the ship was all he could do to while away the time.  There was the sword of the king, and a set of his decorative armor.  Both were silver with fish motifs on the scabbard and the chest-plate.  Small sapphires glinting blue in the light decorated the scales.  That was a torque of his cousin, famed in battle as much as he, before the great mound.  It was only iron with a plainer motif, but it held near as much weight as any of the other pieces set around the ship.  Some he did not recognize, but could see the value in them, some he remembered on the corpses of his enemies, picking out the scratches his blade had brought down across them.  The wooden planks of the ship were all grey with a faint trace of soot, almost as if the burning has started but stopped suddenly, something only a mighty wave could have done.  Yet here were all the ship's cargo attesting to the calmness of their voyage so far, wherever he was headed.

As his curiosity changed to boredom, he had the thought that it was rather inconvenient that no food or water appeared to be packed for these trips, for a hunger was about to set in, and his thirst for ale was never-ending.  That was it, he was drunk on a boat in the ocean with sunstroke.  It certainly fit better than some hero's death from a backstabbing coward.  The treasure must be a hallucination.  If he could find the oars from under them, he might be able to row back to the mead hall and make up a story of fighting sea snakes to cover for his idiocy.

He may match his cousin in battle, but most of his renown was from stories like that, plausible, though if he had been a worse teller of tales he would assuredly have been found out by now.  It was a bit unfair, really.  He was expected to behave like a supremely confident warrior who had wrestled down a giant boar, only yo have it stolen by the wolves, to have dived from the tops of cliffs to punch sea serpents in the head, or to have snuck into the enemy camp to steal a kiss from the lips of the queen before sneaking back out.  Like any other sane man, he would never do such things, though the last one admittedly have a bit more ale fueled truth than the rest.

Too much clutter filled the belly of the boat, so he started throwing some over the side, the less impressive hallucinations.  If his folly had conjured up tricks with his eyes, he may as well get the benefit of his pretty dreams while they lasted.  Eventually he found his prize, two long oars buried deep down at the sides.  Looking up he spied the sun's descent and pointed his eyes to it.  Using a particularly stout shield as a seat, he began to row.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Some Almost Cave-Men

Frost blanketed the plains in a thin layer, stretching out for miles into the distance.  Ugnok could tell it was morning by the faint lightness on the horizon.  Turning he picked his way back down the side of his hilltop vantage point into the valley the tribe called home.  The ritualistic greeting of the sun he had performed all these years as a tribal shaman seemed less important these days, and nobody paid enough attention to his comings or going to notice his lapse of duty anyway.  Rather than huddle on a cold ridge he could be searching for mushrooms or getting a nap before the tribe packed up camp to head out on the trail.

Some of the elders had suggested just staying until the bounty of deer that filled the area were depleted, but it wasn't like anywhere else they had gone was worse.  Maybe they would head back toward the caves.  Ugnok had always loved the caves, especially as a child.  His mother told him to stay by the campfire and not wander into the dark places as a child, but he never listened.  The first time he fell down a hole, he panicked, calling out for someone, anyone.  Nobody came; hours passed.  Feeling around he had crawled back up and out, worse a few bruises and cuts.  The second time he fell from higher, knocked himself out, and had to guess where he needed to climb.  He did not fall a third time.  Since then his hands were calloused as much from the ceremonial knife as from ascending and descending ridges like this and the caves of his youth.

By the time he had reached the bottom, the top of the hill was lit up, sendiing out a long shadow stretching like a finger across the valley.  He might have gone up one of the smaller hills, but this one was less forested at the top, and closer to camp anyway.  Ugnok took the long way back anyway.  No need to be the first one stirring in camp if he couldn't help it.  When he did arrive, the fire was back, blazing to heat the deer they killed the day before.  Ulna tended it with Urutar sitting close by watching and waiting.

Ugnok thought his friend's fascination with fire probably rivaled his own with darkness, possibly in a significant way, if his old teacher had lived to see it grow.  Sabre-teeth don't mind stringy men in funny outfits for breakfast though.  "What signs does the sun bring us, Shaman?" Urutar said, looking up from the fire.  For a hunter, he had a great gift in noticing things sneaking up on him, though all the ones who lived long shared that trait or were paranoid to the point of perfection.  "The frost covers the plains and soon melts at the movement of the sun.  The signs point to good weather and a fine catch at before sundown," Ugnok replied as he sat down next to Urutar.  His teacher had at least taught him the basics of telling the fortune.  Seeing hundreds of suns rise and set didn't hurt his bluff either.  "Like the sun, we must move, following the finger out across the valley."

Ugnok knew that the elders could hear him in their huts around the central fire, for they surely were awake, though still in their furs.  They may not hold much personal respect for him, but he was the shaman, so they kept their ears open.  It helped when he agreed with them.  "We must eat quickly then.  Come, the meat is hot now." Urutar pulled his knife out, cutting off a chunk of the deer and splitting it in two.  Ugnok managed to catch Ulna's subtle sigh and eyeroll before she left to rouse the others.  She had doubtless been kept waiting by Urutar claiming it wasn't hot enough, knowing he really just wanted to watch the way the fire flamed a bit longer.