Flowers aren't enough...Need the sage to connect his spirits.
Zeri reached up and touched her forehead with the tips of her fingers. Eyes wide and pupils strained tight with disbelief.
Go, find some sage.
"I...I d-don't know if--"
Quickly.
She let out an exasperated, frightened sigh. What was she to do?? She had only by sheer chance weaved her way through the battle without being run down, and by that same sheer chance happened upon that store tent, which had just so happened to be burning and giving off that strong telltale scent. Could she be so lucky again, in the middle of all of this?
"I'll try," she said, taking a few steps back, as if her feet were ahead of the rest of her body in starting this new pursuit.
"I'll t-try."
And then she turned from the two men, the shaman and the newcomer of whose presence she was aware but not having truly registered, and went jogging back into the dust and chaos.
* * * * *
Samujin had lived all his life in the
Taagi Baara Steppes. His clan had seen its every corner in their vast travels, so they all liked to believe, from the vast wild interior to the Eaglehead to the encroaching likes of
cities near the coasts like Volta or
Dornoch to the Bystra Stone and the River it was so named after. There had been many dangers inherent in the rugged land of the Steppe, these centaurs but one of many, and through his life's many challenges he had been made stronger. He was a warrior not necessarily because he wanted to be, but more so because he had to be, and he readily answered the call. He protected his family, the other families of his clan, against the rival bows of men and against the ravages of
monsters.
Yet not all foes were the same. Some he remembered the transgressions of more vividly than others, for what they had taken away had been most precious.
And here, attacking the Sri'aht encampment, this had never been more true. With a small band of other warriors from his clan, all of them having answered the elders' summons back at Arrow's End for this endeavor, he had shot down many of these brutal centaurs. The battle was on the wane, the sound and ferocity of it less intense than when it had first erupted, but it was not yet over. Samujin's sense was that the warband of Arrow's End was winning, comfortably so, and it was also his sense that the Sri'aht's numbers were not quite what they had expected to encounter--all the better.
One of the clan warriors helped him light another torch, with which he touched the flame to another yurt and set it, too, ablaze. The last had been a store of herbs and alchemical supplies, and this here a stockpile of centaur-made arrows and bows. Many of the nomads had come to pillage, yes, but things of little value, or things of more value to the enemy than to the nomads, things that were not treasures or gold, could be destroyed to deprive the centaurs (those who were not here and would be returning later) of supplies.
And it was then that Samujin heard a desperate cry for help, and looked.
* * * * *
Zeri had gone through the encampment much as she had previously. Keeping her ears perked as best she could through the general clamor, listening intently for fights and for hooves that sounded close, and trying her best to weave through the yurts and raided goods to avoid them. The ceaseless dust, like before, challenged her sense of direction to its upper limit and, like before, she resorted to navigating about by using corpses as
landmarks among the sea of yurts. Nomad with the trampled leg here, turn left. Two centaurs fallen atop one another, keep going straight for three yurts. Horse with the arrow in the eye, must be getting close. It was awful, horrid, and seemed to rob her spirit of vitality to be so pragmatic, so numbly distant from the dead, but...she had to. Weylin's fate depended on her.
She hid for a moment, ducking inside of a smaller yurt, when she saw a pack of four centaurs before they had seen her. She crouched down into a small ball of an orc just beside the tent flap, listening and trying to peek under to see if they had passed. A sound. Inside the yurt. A...whimper? Zeri looked, startled. There was a small female centaur, her arms held out to either side protectively, shielding two even smaller cowering centaur children. The female centaur's face was resolute, even if fear lined the edges of her expression. Zeri raised a finger to her lips, a gesture of
Shh, quiet, please be quiet. None of the three centaur children said or did anything, and outside the patrol was gone. Zeri mouthed the words
Thank you, hoping they might know Common, and departed the yurt.
Zeri ran. Weaved through the camp.
The wind changed, and at last she picked up the scent of smoke again, and through the dust she could see a smoke stack again. She hurried. Running quickly and passing by a few mounted
skirmishes at intersections of the paths through the camp. She ran and ran.
And when she got close to the burning yurt, she realized something was wrong.
This wasn't it. This yurt was on fire, but it was still standing, and that undercurrent smell of burning herbs she now realized wasn't there beneath the acrid scent of smoke. No, no, no! She must have gotten turned around somewhere--maybe when she had to hide. Zeri, distraught, grabbed at her hair with her free hand and squeezed a fistful of it, stumbling about in a disoriented manner as thoughts rapidly assailed her mind on what to do and where to go now.
She never heard the centaur coming, only saw him by chance when she turned and he was already reared up onto his hind legs, spear raised high in both hands, ready to plunge, eyes consumed with a bloodlust born of prolonged pitched battle glaring down at her. Zeri tried to jump back--out of the way. Too late to dodge completely. The centaur drove his spear down and it pierced into her right thigh and clean through it, the spearhead bursting out through the back of her thigh and Zeri tumbled to the ground, her leg impaled.
Her scream of pain was abject. Full of agony and terror. She cried out, desperately, for help.
The centaur wrenched the spear side to side, only halfway trying to yank it free, trying with more vigor to inflict further damage and suffering upon his victim. Zeri's scream was renewed with each jerk and twist, her heart pounding, and she was quickly lapsing into shock.
As she lay her back and the struggle continued, she saw, upside down, a group of five nomads who had appeared some small distance away.
"HELP ME! PLEASE!"
Four of the nomads readied their bows, and the centaur, warily, halted in his torture and glared their way and prepared to flee. But one among the nomads raised his hand. Made that hand into a fist. Stop. And the others, slightly bemused, nevertheless lowered their weapons.
Samujin, his memory long and his grudges deep, looked to the orc girl impaled by the centaur's spear with disdain. And then he clicked his tongue and turned his horse away. The other nomads followed, and they all rode away, leaving Zeri to whatever fate may come.
Weylin Kyrel
