A Fist Full of Sand Read online

  I turned my attention back to Blue Tusks, anticipating another blow, and it came. It was at an angle this time, and I twisted away, but not soon enough; the blade missed me, but his fist hit my hip, snapping me around and rolling me in the air. I landed with a squish and then slid another few feet over the slippery grass.

  [-1 Hit Point: Bludgeoning damage]

  [Hit Points: 3/8]

 

  Two hefty squishes announced the oncoming Plain Tusks. Fast as a scorpion, I darted away, rolled inside his reach and then out of it, coming up behind him. Plain Tusks spun around, lost his footing in the slick grass, and went down.

  Sting first! I leapt in, onto the orks back, and stabbed my dagger down into the flesh above his belt, below the ribs, and twisted. He was softer inside his thick hide, and I used all of my strength to stir my dagger around before pulling it out, doing as much damage as I could. One diced kidney, coming up!

  cheered Voice.

  A rush of air above my head was Blue Tusks’ shortsword, whistling angrily through the air, but when I stood up, thinking he had missed me, I saw it had been a feint, and his massive fist hit me from the other direction like a tree trunk in the dark. I folded up around his fist to absorb the blow, but it wasn’t enough. Instead I was knocked to the side, and went down again, my entire torso ringing with the impact. I landed, rolled, tried to breathe-- couldn’t.

  [-2 Hit Points: Bludgeoning damage]

  [Hit Points: 1/8]

  said Voice.

  My lungs gasped, trying to pull in air. Behind the long armed statue of Blue Tusks, Plain Tusks also tried to rise. He managed to gain his feet, blood pouring from his side, and then went down, deflated. He did not get up again. I crawled to my hands and my knees, in the mud, and felt something sharp under my empty right hand. It was Plain Tusks’ dagger, the one he had sliced my shoulder with, the one I had kicked out of his hand.

  Blue Tusks turned and took a step towards me. I stood up. My hair hung in limp locks in front of my face, alternately stiff with silt or dripping with muddy sweat. I grasped a dagger in each battered hand, the marks of the chains still fresh on my wrists. A dozen cuts and bruises dripped blood into the silver-gilded meadow, and I thought for a moment of each drop as an offering, to feed the roots of the willows, the hungry mouths of the tiny swimming things that called this small world home. The rest of me might also feed them soon, and I did not begrudge the small scavengers my corporeal remains.

  Blue Tusks, on the other hand, could go to hell before he ever tasted my flesh, even if I had to escort him there myself to make sure of it.

  The ork sucked in a deep breath and bellowed, loud as thunder, screaming hate and anger and promises of violent death in my direction. I stood rooted in the meadow, and let it all wash over me. I am too tiny to absorb all of your anger. I thought at him. It’s wasted on me. And anyway, I have enough of my own.

  I darted in, my right hand raised, my dagger flashing in the moonlight. Blue Tusks took the bait and swatted at me with his sword. It was the same angled blow he had used before. I sidestepped it easily, jumping one ork-stride to the side. Blue Tusks spun, lost his footing for a moment, and my left hand came up and under his ribs, pushing the sharp dagger right through his diaphragm. He doubled over around the weapon. I let it go and used my first dagger to stab him deep in the armpit. I danced away as he fell, but he didn’t come after me, just pulled the dagger from his midsection, and then, gushing blood from two mortal wounds, collapsed.

  [Achieved Level 1]

  [Class acquired: 1st level Ranger, (Total: Ranger 1)]

  [Granted abilities: Precision Fighting, Wilderness Survival]

  [Hit Points: 1/8]

  shouted Voice. It then continued, unreassuringly,

  The voice in my head could stand to sound a little less surprised.

  “Well,” I answered back, with a bravado I did not feel. “That makes one of us.”

  My breath came in gasps, my limbs were shaking with fatigue and spent adrenaline, and an unbidden grin stole across my face. A couple of orks were tougher than anything I had faced before, and the realization crept through me, from the pores of my skin to the marrow of my bones, that this was a victory no one could ever take away from me. I had overcome the forces set against me, and my prize was the experience of having done so. I had succeeded, I had won.

  And I could do it again.

  I flashed my grin at the distant stars above me, breathing in the night, inhaling triumph. “I could get used to this.”

  Voice tried to hold it in, but the snigger came out anyway. it accused me, teasing.

  “Junkie yourself.” I shot back.

  Voice laughed out loud.

  I limped forward and gathered up my twin daggers, stashing them in the rags that made up my clothing. I also took the coil of rope, stuffing it in the backpack, and tried the silver ring on my finger. To my surprise, it shrunk down to fit exactly.

 

  Neat.

 

  “Why would anyone make a cursed item?” I asked, looking nervously at my new ring.

 

  Yes, speaking of first aid kits…

  I limped back to where I had dropped the leather pouch and scooped out a smeared mix of powder paste and mud. I wasn’t at all confident this should be put on my wounds, or eaten, or in fact used for anything at all.

  Voice informed me. Voice seemed to muse on this for a moment. it continued in a somewhat resigned tone,

  I carefully tasted the powder with the tip of my tongue. It was bitter, but I recognized the flavor. If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of being hungry enough to gnaw on anything in the willow family, you don’t forget in a hurry. I looked around for a suitable willow switch and saw one a few meters away, untrampled by the combat.

  [Perception check: Success]

  I used one of the daggers to cut the switch, and then carefully peel the pale, tender bark from the inside. I stuffed a good sized wad into my mouth and started chewing. It tasted awful, but at least it might dull the pain and swelling a bit, and allow me to find someplace to rest.

  [Hunting check: Success]

  Voice sounded very pleased.

  I did a quick search of the orks’ bodies, but found nothing I wanted enough to put up with the stink.

  opined Voice.

  I didn’t fancy my chances against the reflective eyes on the edge of the clearing, which were winking back into existence at the creeping smell of dead ork. Time to leave this carnage and blood soaked bog behind. Eat well, fishies. I set off again downstream at a rather more sedate walk.

  Everything hurt, and I stepped carefully around the river rocks I had leapt amongst earlier. One slip, and I didn’t think I would g
et back up. I dutifully chewed my fibrous wad of willow bark. When I could no longer smell the meadow behind me, I stopped long enough to rinse off my clothes and bind up the worst of my cuts and scrapes. I didn’t stay long in the cold river. I judged it to be another six hours until the sun came up over the Stormshades and gave my stiffening muscles some relief. Right now, I needed sleep more than anything, and someplace safe to do it.

  A few minutes further searching along the stream revealed what I had been looking for: an old, tall alder tree. I took out the frayed coil of rope and put it on the outside of the pack, easily accessible, jumped up into the low hanging branches, and made my way up the central shaft of the tree.

  [Skill acquired: Climb. +2 bonus as a halfling]

  The branches hardly bent under my weight, and I climbed higher, high enough that anything bigger than me would not be able to follow. I judged the owners of the glittering eyes to be ground dwelling scavengers, but you never knew. Scavengers could be tenacious. Take hyenas, for example. The caravaners called them the Dogs of the Desert and claimed they’d eat a lost traveler without even waiting for you to die.

  Voice noted.

  “Hyenas,” I answered back as I climbed, “are not cats.”

 

  “Hyenas aren’t like anything,” I replied, “except maybe crazy.”

  I finally reached the upper part of the tree. Wrapping my legs around several of the small branches, I took out my frayed rope and wound it around the branches, the now slender trunk, and back and forth amongst itself until I had made a sort of nest. Finally, I took the last bit of the end of the rope and tied it around my waist. It meant I wasn’t going to be moving around much, but at a good forty feet above ground, that’s exactly what I wanted. It wasn’t the most comfortable resting spot, but soon my fatigue and the swaying crown of my nest swept me away into dreams.

  I dreamed, vaguely, of being chased. Possibly by the entire forest. Sudden looming leathery trunks rose out of the darkness, hairy with lichen and moss, and punted me back and forth, watering their roots with my blood. I want to eat her! they cried. I want to eat her! I tried to run away, I must go faster, I must, but whipping willow branches tripped me up, entangling me, binding me with frayed ropes…

  I woke instead to a chorus of birds and the dream dissolved, leaving only bruises behind. My arms and legs were entwined with my crude rope nest, which had shifted in the night, but I was still safely ensconced in the upper limits of the alder.

  [Rest bestowed: 5 Hit Points]

  [Hit Points: 6/8]

  I was hungry.

  The tree I was in yielded no bird nests with any easily scavenged eggs, nor were there any slow moving snakes or lizards for me to catch in the brisk morning. I spent a little while trying to catch one of the leaping trout I saw in the stream, but I wasn’t much used to rivers, or fish, and the darting silver streaks easily eluded me.

  [Hunting check: Failed]

  suggested Voice.

  That’s as long as it would take me to scrounge up something and start a fire, anyway. Also, walking would loosen my muscles and warm me up, all of which sounded like a good plan. I set off downstream again. This time I kept mostly to the dry banks and only hopped along the rocks when the underbrush made for slow going.

  Nothing, though, was ever really dry here. Lush vegetation covered the land, and though the stream I was following was far more water than I was used to seeing in one place, high banks and huge, water worn boulders suggested this late summer was still the dry season around here.

  Tributaries joined the stream, the stream became a small river, and a rushing noise ahead of me resolved itself into a waterfall that poured suddenly into a populous, architecturally congested valley.

  Civilization, at last.

  Chapter Two

  Triport, City of Storms. It filled the valley by the bay and crept up the sides of the narrow foothills of the Stormshades, borders obscured by the morning mist. A low lying ceiling of clouds made mysteries of the mountain peaks, and thick fog down by the docks turned the dawn into a shadowless, golden smudge. The buildings were unlike anything I had ever seen, which admittedly consisted only of some long abandoned tombs out on the edge of the Great Sand Sea and a handful of rune covered pyramids, which I knew better than to go near. Triport was nothing at all like the empty and dust swept temples of the desert. Sprawling stone buildings crowded amongst one another, growing outward to the limits of their neighbors, and then upwards into spires and towers and improvised gables and buttresses. Slate tiles lined steep rooftops, making canyons and gullies that shed the current drizzle into the streets below, and every window came equipped with strong shutters.

  Below the archways and rooftops were crowds of people and traffic. I was vaguely aware the world was big enough to have so many people in it, but I had certainly never imagined they would all be in one place. At the same time. No wonder each building came with so many floors; without them, the people would be crawling over each other like a pile of termites.

  Like a termite mound, though, there did seem to be a purpose and hidden order to the place, indiscernible from the vantage point of my waterfall. So then, let’s go see Triport. All these people must have something to eat.

  I made my way downstream, following the water past the outlying farms, complete with donkeys and tame boaroxen, past a few nicer houses with yards, and eventually to a large stone hole in the ground, into which the river disappeared. The hole was not natural stone, but fitted and worked, like some kind of well in reverse. Why would anyone make a well which takes water instead of gives it? Judging by the gutters framing every roof, house and pathway, Triport didn’t lack for water, I supposed.

  I gave the drainage hole a suspicious berth.

  The now cobbled road wound downwards, switchbacking amongst the increasingly tall buildings. More and more people were out and about on the streets, and I stared at them in wonder.

  Many people rode in or were accompanied by some kind of floating vehicle, like the better class of caravan wagons that sailed the edges of the sand dunes. The simplest of these were just wooden sledges, hovering a few inches above the ground and pushed along by their owners, others appeared to be enchanted household items. Two children went downhill on a flying rug, chased by an irate man yelling empty threats, and a group of ten or so people of various races were sitting in a string of floating chairs, hauled along at the front by a dwarf riding a boarox. Some of the chairs on the line were empty, but as I watched, someone waved down the dwarf, handed him a coin, and then helped herself up into one. With a cluck and a tap of the reigns, the line was moving again, while the last woman onboard settled herself in, pulled out a book, and began to read.

  Tall humans dressed in leathers and furs hawked wares gathered from the mountains: pelts and furs from up by the timberline, apples from the nearby orchards, and other raw materials for purposes I had never thought of.

  “Timber!” announced one such trader. “Dried timber! Pine and maple and oak! Firewood or furniture, discount if you haul it away yourself! Must sell today! You there!” She seemed to be talking to me. Cautiously, I approached. “You look like you could use a nice stout walking stick. I have a sale, today only, three copper for this beautiful cane… err,” she took in my size and slight build “…I mean quarterstaff. Utility and self-defense, all in one package!” she continued, regaining her momentum.

  “You have to get rid of all your wood?” I asked in fascination.

  “You’re darn right I do!” Her carrying voice from a moment before lowered to something more conversational and indignant. “My buyer stiffed me on this contract, and now I have a whole pile of unsealed wood to unload before the rain gets it all. I’m going to be sleeping on this stuff tonight if I do
n’t move it.” She gave me an appraising glance. “Two copper?” she asked queringly.

  “What’s a copper?”

  “Oh gosh, you’re one of those? New in town, I suppose. Came to seek your fortune and glory. Where are you from, anyway?”

  “The caravaners brought me in from the Elkylar.”

  “Well, that’s fine enough by me! I take all forms of currency, even the foreign stuff! What have you got?”

  “Umm, I haven’t got any.” I admitted. “Just some rope.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t bother to hide the disappointment in her voice.

  [Charisma check: Failed]

  “You really are new. Let me give you some advice then: get your hands on some money, and do it fast. Broke people don’t last long in this city.” The timber lady dropped me from her attention like a piece of rotten wood and immediately began reeling in another potential customer. “You there, sir! You look like you work with your hands. I have some excellent short oak planks, perfect for shutters, no need to pay the middleman with hurricane season on its way…”

  I continued on. The road forked, and branched, and remelded into alleyways and planked paths and the occasional staircase. The ground beneath me leveled out, as much as I could tell where ground level was, anyway. Saturnine stone inns seemed to sink right into the cobbled road, half buried windows staring at my feet. In other places the road ducked through soaring archways and under some not-so-soaring second story walkways between buildings. Dwarves mixed in with humans, usually in pairs or groups, not much taller than me but easily twice as wide. Occasionally I saw a tall elf, solitary and pale, and even more occasionally, a human sized, autonomous thing that looked like a suit of armor powered by gears and cogs and clockwork. One of these was hanging a sign pointing up the hill that had “Observatory” stenciled on it, along with a few carefully drawn stars. Next to it, a small round man was giving out flyers.