dinsdag 30 april 2013

Logs

A burning log cracked in the hearth. From across the room, Thorald glared at her as an aging woman with coppery hair was stitching a nasty gash that had parted his brow. Triskele stared back, without any emotion, as she slowly ran her hand over the grey pelt of an enormous, wolf-like hound at her feet. She had a split bottom lip, that was it. Thorald growled as the woman finished.
“Hells, mother! Took your time!”
Ysold Grár walked off to grab more ale for the family.
“Be glad I did, boy. You want a festering wound instead of a clean scar?”
Thorald kept his sullen silence, Triskele simply turned her gaze to the hound again. The animal looked up at her affectionately. It licked her hand as Ysold came back with mugs in her hands.
“I should spank you both, acting like wild dogs to one another.” She slammed two mugs down and filled them to the brim with foaming ale. Thorald's glare deepened.
“Spank your little girl over there for her behaviour, I'm the one looking out for us. Triwold looks the other way, Ysengrim is a coward, it all comes down to me. She's turning out to be a bigger problem than we -”
“Hold your tongue, boy.”
Triskele had to smile as the words growled from the corner near the hearth. There, in the dancing light of the fire, sat a giant of a Nord, with arms like carved stone and a mane of silver hair. There wasn't a single spot on his tanned skin that was not covered in either patterns of woad or the light, pink tissue of scars. His voice was low and hoarse, yet as always his words had the ability to strike like thunder.
“Triwold is a great man, Ysengrim is wise, and your sister is unlike any of you. You think she'd still sit here otherwise? You have your worth, my son, but do not anger me with your arrogance. Do that again, and you will not set foot here for a month.”
A spark in the hearth seemed to set the ice blue eyes of Thornn Grár ablaze for a single moment as he stared his youngest son down. Thorald seemed to shrink. Then he grabbed his mug and stomped up the stairs. Ysold tutted her lips and Thornn stood up, slowly, and cracked his neck as he walked to the carved doors of the house.
“With me, pup.”
Triskele got to her feet, whistling. The hound pricked up its ears.
“Come along, Fenrir.”
The animal padded after the two, into the cold of night.

Crack!
Triskele stood with her arms folded as her father swung down the axe. On the chopping block, a log split in two, as if it was made of butter instead of solid, hard pine. Thornn sniffed, put the wood aside, and grabbed a new log.
“How's the lip?”
To their side, the calming sounds of the river running over gravel and cobbles was like a soothing song. Further ahead, an owl flew over, hooting softly. Triskele ruffled Fenrir's fur as he sat down at her feet.
“I hardly feel it.”
“Thorald will feel his pride for days to come.”
“He started.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“You started months ago.”
Triskele furrowed her brow. Thornn swung down the axe again. Crack!
“How did I?”
“When you started trailing off, pup.”
“I don't see how I-”
“Do you know why I've built this mill?”
Thornn interrupted her and dropped the axe. With a single step he came to stand right in front of his daughter and cupped her chin in his broad, calloused hand. Triskele did not resist as he firmly raised her chin, forcing her to look at him. She defied the world, yes. But never her father.


“Why did I build this mill, Triskele? ”
“To split logs.”
“Make another joke and you will rue it, pup.”
She sighed. “You built it for mother, for us.”
He let go of her chin and folded his arms, just like her. As they stood like that, under the light of the paling moon and the rose-coloured sky in the east, nothing and no one could ever doubt they were father and daughter.
“I did. After a lifetime of fear, excitement, glory, sorrow, danger, agony, bounty and loss, I knew that you can only dabble the dice with fate so many times until the gods decide you angered them one time too many. If I would not have chosen this den for our pack, you would not have been born, Triskele.”
She cast down her gaze to the cobbles below their feet. Her father was the only one who was able to make her feel humble. Thornn continued.
“Think of that, the next time you descend into some pit of hell. I'm proud of you, always have been. There's a strength in you your brothers could learn from, if they would be willing to see it. That strength allows you a certain freedom and a certain opportunity. But there's bold, and there's reckless. Would you toss my work here aside, what I have built so you could live, for a rush? You can achieve great things, my youngest. Do not die before you've had the chance.”
Triskele parted her full, pale lips as her father turned around briskly, grabbing yet another log for the chopping block.
“But I am achieving things.”
“No, you are playing games.”
At her feet, Fenrir looked at a hopping hare in the distance. She frowned, fidgeting with the scabbard of her dirk.
“I'm after something, father.”
“You could do better, and we both know it. Use your head, think. Consider your steps. It is a great thing to have a goal, but as long as you're toying with your journey, you'll never reach it. You're all over the place.”
Triskele looked away. She inhaled deeply, sensing and smelling her environment. The cold air filled her lungs, the fresh smell of pine and cold water awakened her, prickled her skin, and a breeze made her mop of unevenly cut, black hair dance on her shoulders. She suddenly looked at her father's broad back. The logs had his full attention again.
“I should go.”
“And where is my pup off to?”
“Windhelm.”
Even though she could not see his face, she knew her father was smiling.
“Good hunting, my Tris.”
She turned around, then looked at Fenrir, who had eagerly jumped up.

“If it's all right, I'm taking him.”







zondag 7 april 2013

Dawn

“Gods curse you, Tris. This again?!”

Cerdim turned his head to glance over his shoulder, in his usual sly and almost lazy demeanor. The Dunmer seemed to consider life itself a jape, a jest, a comedy he'd play along with until his inevitable end would come. There was not much in this world he actually took seriously. So when he saw his companion's giant of a sibling stomp towards the log they had seated themselves upon, he had to grin.

This should be good.

Beside him, Triskele regarded her brother with her characteristic calmth. She did not bother with a reply. Her sibling, the youngest by the looks of it, halted in front of them and pointed a dirty finger at the Dark Elf. Cerdim fixed his one, dark-red eye on it, as if he was looking at a bug.
“What have we told you about...this? And your business with this fellow?”
The short female rose from the log, stretching her limbs slowly. “A few things. I've forgotten.”
“Stop acting coy, sister. We told you it had to stop. This Ashlander is bad news and so is...whatever you're doing with him!”
Cerdim's smirk only grew more broad. The oaf made it sound as if he and his companion did inappropriate things to each other in whatever abandoned cave or shack they ventured across. As entertaining – and rousing – as that thought was to the Dunmer, the truth was as far from that image as it could get. He kept his silence as his one-eyed stare trailed over the short frame of Triskele Grár. Oh yes, the idea of doing exactly that which the world thought they did was more than appealing to him, but he had already lost an eye in his life, and had little interest in losing another along with other parts. Cerdim had traveled with his raven-haired companion many a time, and had yet to see a single male who left an impression on her. She was cold, his slender friend, cold and harsh and calculated, almost as much as he was. It's why he valued her so.
Triskele folded her arms across her chest. Her blue eyes narrowed.
“You're drunk, Thorald. And you're interrupting.”
“Stop pissin' about, little sister. Come inside and let this vermin be on its way.”
“What did you call me?”
“I called you what you are – my little sister. Now come along.”
Cerdim smiled, scratching the cloth covering the empty socket that once held an eye. Wrong.
Triskele did not move. Her jaw tightened. “I'm not little.”
“You bloody are. Come on.”

Thorald grabbed her upper arm, but his wits were muddled and what was worse: he had called her 'little'. As soon as his fingers pinched in Triskele's arm, she spat in his face and gave him a hard push. Her tall brother fell with his back in the dirt of the riverbank, and a moment later Triskele jumped on top of him, aiming a clenched fist for his face. Cerdim never dropped his calm, amused smile as he lazily stood up from the log, cracking his neck side to side. He took a deep breath, the cold of night filling his lungs, completely at peace, as if he did not even hear the two siblings behind him in the dirt, beating the living hell out of one another. Cerdim strapped his bow across his back and shot a look over his shoulder.
“I'll see you soon, Tris.”
His companion, held in a firm clench by Thorald's upper arm around her neck, gritted her teeth as she rammed an elbow into her brother's groin. As he let go of her with a wail, she took the moment of respite to give Cerdim a curt nod.
“Of course, Cerdim.”
She panted and turned around, just in time to dodge the wooden beam Thorald swung at her. Her brother roared in anger, and the last Cerdim glimpsed was the image of both Triskele and Thorald grabbing each other's hair, pulling and kicking. He smiled, and walked away.

Cerdim did not stop walking, not until dawn. As he quietly scaled the woods, his thoughts were with the barrow. There was no doubt in his mind – nobody had touched the place. If the stories were true, he would come across a very royal amount of bounty, if they would manage to find the doors nobody had found before. He calmly hopped over a small stream, scaring off a wandering deer. His thoughts turned to his short friend. For the past year they had raided tombs together, ever since they had run into each other near the barrows around Windhelm. They had both aimed arrows at one another, and had in the end decided to let the other live, at least until they had made their way to the surface. Luckily for him, she had deemed him worthy of drawing breath as soon as they had crawled out of that pit. As I do her, and I don't think that of many people. He frowned as he thought of their past endeavours. Cerdim was an outcast, an outlaw, a thug without much of a conscience left to him. He was honest about his goals and his purpose – there was no nobility to his cause. That was why he did what he did. But Triskele, she was different.
She never wants a choice part, never wants a big share, and if I insist, she dumps it somewhere. I have raided with her for over a year, and still I know not what moves her to do this...

His trail of thoughts stopped along with his feet. Ahead of him lay the bleak stones he had been looking for. He whistled a song between his teeth as he made his camp under a large sentinel nearby, the smell of pine, dew and snow cheering him up. After a while Cerdim sat down, his back resting against the bark of the tree, his single red eye on the barrow ahead.

He'd wait here.