Ijah

Ever since Osran had joined them on their south bound journey, Ijah had been concerned about the implications of her being with them. The main worry being other peoples reaction to the half-blood’s presence. She had taken the precaution of avoiding the local populations as much as possible while moving through the Madden Hills, which had been fairly easy to do. The fearful reactions of the few locals who had encountered them had verified her expectations. Many of them had reacted poorly to Ijah’s presence, a foreign woman. How much more disturbing the presence of a monster?

After entering the South Madden Valley, other requirements made avoiding populations centres less and less tenable. Namely, the need for information and supplies would necessitate a stop at one of the larger villages or the nearby town of Madden Crossroads. In less than an eight-day they would move beyond the Madden Hills and have to travel through open lands that were mostly uninhabited. Without supplies and information, from the locals or those who had recently travelled along the Old Trade Road, their chances of successfully reaching the Republic of Caffern would be slimmer. At the very least they would be forced to take the time to hunt and gather as they went, taking longer to reach their destination.

Ijah had also reasoned that the locals, having dealt with the orc for many generations, may not have had the same sensitivities as she. Surely many of them had seen this sort of thing before and over the generations had developed their own customs regarding the half-orc. Her concerns may have been unwarranted, but she had seen no others like Osran. What if the custom was to kill them?

She had meditated on these issues a great deal over the past few days. She had gained some speculative insights and had seen that Osran was not really a monster. She still expected that taking the young woman into civilized areas may yield very negative reactions from the locals. She had decided that it would be unreasonable to ask her to hide or wait outside of the town. Ijah had also decided she was not going to compromise her primary objectives for Osran’s sake. Slowly she shifted her breathing and moved from her trance state back to the waking world.

Darkness had fallen and the fire burned low. Berri stirred and looked to her expectantly while Osran lounged against a fallen tree on the other side of the fire pit. Ijah said, “Tomorrow we will go into town. See what we can find out and ask if there are any other places south of here, where getting supplies would be an option.” Ijah held up a hand, delaying an overly jubilant response from Berri, “I want the two of you on your best behaviour while we are there. Now, get some rest, I will take the first watch.”

Berri was happy, but limited her enthusiasm admirably, Osran seemed to already be asleep. Ijah picked up her sword, stood and moved away from the fire. They had built their camp in a small copse of trees, between the boundary walls of two homesteads, about three suri from the town.

Aratheen remained below the horizon, while Shevaleem was already high above the land just into her waning phase. Light cloud cover sometimes hid the moons, a few other fires dotted the countryside. She could hear dogs or maybe coyotes yapping in the distance. The night was also acceptably warm with a southwestern breeze that kept the worst of the insects away.

Ijah missed her people, her wives especially. Within her family there were wiser women than she, they might have provided better insight into her present predicament. On one hand she knew Osran represented everything that the Great Plan had been put into action to change; the half-blood had been in an abusive patriarchal society, she was now free of that situation and as best as Ijah could tell she was unlearning the expectation of those patterns of abuse. Yet, on the other hand, the plan had been intended for human society, for the children of the goddess, not for the orc, dwarves nor the goblins. Not even for the ancient ones, of which only a remnant population survived. Osran and other half-bloods like her represented a situation that the Kereshi had not specifically considered. The Great Plan, at least in its spirit was for people like Osran, yet, by the literal interpretation, she was other, not a child of the goddess.

Ijah knew that many Kereshi had been forced to adapt to the actual situation they had found themselves in, as compared to the expected situation. Even her own family had been forced to change their planned method of operation. Swampdon had too many male mages just to kill them all, including many members of the Council, which was not specifically patriarchal nor particularly tyrannical. Yet a fundamental law within the Kereshi culture was to kill all male born mages. Males were prone to reckless violence and were generally abusive unless they were properly educated, they certainly could not be trusted with power.

Ijah slowly walked around the perimeter of the trees staying alert for potential dangers. She was not one to typically engage in philosophical or speculative thinking and she found the process somewhat exhausting. Despite all her efforts she had not really come up with anything that changed what she felt she should do. As long as Osran remained with them she intended to instruct the woman as though she were an initiate. If other Kereshi felt she had chosen poorly, then she would deal with the consequences when it came up. She certainly could not continue being distracted by the situation. Too much depended on her being clear minded and alert for potential hazards.

As she came around the southern extent of the little cluster of trees she saw something unusual hanging from a branch. It appeared to be a sack of white or pale material and in the moonlit shadows it appeared to be about the size of a child. Her hand moved to the pommel of her sword, she otherwise remained motionless. She listened and looked, though she heard nothing and at first could see nothing more than the movement of the leaves and smaller branches caused by the wind. After a few moments she thought there was a second such sack hanging from a branch further back, even more shrouded in darkness. Was someone killing children and hanging them in trees?

With no small amount of trepidation she moved forward a couple of paces and extended her sheathed sword to carefully prod the closer of the hanging sacks. There was a slight resistance and then something crumbled against the pressure she had applied. Startled, she pulled her weapon back and was horrified to see a child sized leg bone dangling from the compromised sack. She stepped back a couple of paces, noted something had stuck to the end of her scabbard and took a cautious look in the light of the moon.

A clump of whitish material with wispy threads, dirt and old leaves had stuck to her weapon’s scabbard. She sniffed it but discerned nothing. Carefully she wiped the clump with her hand and discovered it to be a slightly sticky mass, not dissimilar to a spider’s web. For a moment she was at a loss, until she remembered the goblin hunting spiders the druidess of Janderton was reputed to have made. She scanned the branches of the trees again but did not see any large spiders.

She moved forward and peered into the darker areas under the trees. There was in fact a second sack, but as best as she could tell there were no lurking spiders. Preparing herself to jump back should she need to do so, she carefully poked at the hanging sack. Nothing jumped out at her so she reached up, grabbed the hanging limb and pulled on it.

The limb felt papery-dry, as though the flesh had been drained of its vitality. A second yank freed it, and much of what had been hanging within the sack fell to the ground. With a quick scan of the trees she stepped back. Looking at the limb in the moonlight she could clearly see it was not from a human, given the size of it and the shape of the foot, it appeared to have belonged to a goblin. It seemed as though the druidess’ creations had roamed far.

Despite there being no sign of spiders in the immediate area she was concerned that perhaps they would go after her companions. She moved around the copse of trees and went to the camp near the roadside edge of the woods. The fire had burned down to embers, both of her companions were sleeping and there was no sign of giant spiders in the vicinity.

She set the goblin leg aside and kept a close vigil over Berri and Osran.

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