Born a Monster

Chapter 40

Pygmies of Ponuktiri

I’m supposed to say that fourteen weeks went by in a flash, but mostly it was drudgery. I won’t detail the near-weekly (eleven) times we seriously considered exorcising Madonna and Dimmihammas, nor the discussions of Kismet’s literature, nor the night when the innkeep slashed my throat when I wanted to know what was for dinner.

Okay, maybe that last one deserves some explanation, because it wasn’t entirely her fault. I didn’t understand the level of pressure she was under as I ate through her larder, progressively and noticeably growing. Plus, there was just no privacy, so we were constantly exposed to the grating habits of each other.

Look, you weren’t there, it wasn’t her fault. Besides, I’m obviously fine.

Anyway, we missed the night the Octons attacked the docks. We stayed indoors during both the flood and the storm that carried off three people who weren’t indoors. I even carved pogs out of a spare piece of firewood, and we played games based on the planning we’d done before the sack of Narrow Valley.

.....

In raw numbers, the dragon’s fleet was largest, but he couldn’t take on everyone. The Daurians had a number of vessels, but couldn’t leave their island without a vast number of escaping criminals. The kraken-spawn...

We couldn’t get a good read on the kraken-spawn. We eventually concluded that she had something going on underneath the waves, something that took up most of her attention.

And during the few days between storms, we practiced vigorously, shopped with abandon, and spoke about getting a new inn, and ended up back in the same one by nightfall.

Officially, the storm season ended with the Week of Thawing, when winter officially became spring. Nobody told the storms, because there was a big one that hit most of the Isles and took three ships, including the one we’d taken to Ponuktiri.

“Well, that’s just great.” Kismet said, on the morning we discovered it. “Not only is our ghost-filled cave actually filled with cannibal pygmies, but NOW, because someone burned their chief’s daughter...”

“Which I said I was sorry about.” Madonna said.

“...because they’re on the warpath and the local People of the Coward don’t want to get involved, now we’re out in the wilderness with a bunch of tiny burrowing bears with NO WAY OFF THE ISLAND!”

Properly speaking, burrowing bears weren’t members of the ursine family, being closer related to badgers, but that was definitely not the time to be nit-picking details.

“Well, if we can find a choke-point on the island, we can hold them off.” I said.

“I don’t see one of those, boss.”

“Well, we can take the high ground, at least.” I said.

“Cursed mesa?” Dimmihammas asked. “I mean, I’d rather be cursed than dead, I suppose.”

“If we let them surround us, it’s over.” Gamilla said, fingering her monkey-bone amulet. As I may have mentioned, lesser magical trinkets, the kind that go away with the new moon or full moon, are plentiful. We had warding amulets, just ... nothing that protected us from the threat we were actually facing.

#

The pygmies clearly also had no problems getting cursed, since there were eight of them already at the path ahead of us.

Narces stuck two arrows into one of them, but the others scattered among the rocks. The wounded one howled, but only a single spear bounced off my palm-wood shield as we approached.

The downed pygmie rattled off a rhyme as we approached, turned his head, and spat.

“Waters of the deep, hear my plea, grant my request. I am Rhishisikk, spawn of Titans, and shaman of the dream. Bury this death-curse, and wash it clean of harmful intent. Drown Curse!”

“You’ve become good at that.” Madonna said.

“Practice.”

That, and the untrained just don’t focus their curses properly. Not that I was an expert, either.

“So, it’s safe?”

“It’s safe, Gamilla.”

There were no words; Gamilla walked up, slit his throat, and rolled his corpse off the path.

“Spirit of the recently dead, accept this peace, and progress to your place in the afterlife. I am Rhisishisikk, Shaman and Truthspeaker. Take my testimony that you died in combat, and be on your way. Funeral Prayer!”

The remnants of his spirit threw my words to the ground and was urinating upon them as he faded away, to wherever spirits that do not leave ghosts go. I guess you just can’t make everybody happy.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” Kismet said.

I shrugged. “Not a lot of friendly uses for death mana.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is.” Madonna said. “It’s not as if there’s a spirit on this island large enough to re-animate one of them as the Hungry Dead.”

“Not that we know of.” I said, proceeding up the path. Incidentally, that’s a risk. If you’re the only one with a shield, you get to walk first up a path, drawing spears and darts rocks and clear the path of ...

“Oh, well that’s clever.” I said, taking a knee to examine it closer.

“That,” Dimmihammas said, “Is just a collection of claws on a small loop of twine, meant to scare us more than...”

“Stay back.” I said. “That’s enchanted.”

“Poppycock.” He said, reaching out and putting his tiny paws straight into the thing’s maw. He screamed, of course, but that was the pygmy’s sign to attack. Two of them were dead by the time we had breathing room to examine his savaged wrist.

Three down, five to go.

“Give me a healing potion.” Dimmihammas said. I pulled a healing potion from my inventory.

“It’s past its moon-date, but it might work.” It didn’t. We had to stop the bleeding with tree bark, and wrap the wound in clean linen.

We advanced in a frog-like fashion, Gamilla searching for traps, and I looking for curses. We’d advance to the area we’d cleared, and search again.

For those of you in lands where magic is part of civilization, perhaps I should explain. The section of Athal we were from didn’t have any known magic tutorials in our Systems. Most people were born without a Lore statistic had no ritual, no ceremony, to force it open. Most people WITH a Lore statistic had it at rank one, and no way other than constant use to raise it.

Anyway, we came upon the grisly murder scene just before highsun.

#

There were three of them, arrayed around the corpse of a burrowing bear.

“They were in the process of butchering it when something the size and power a real bear came upon them.” I said. “Suddenly.”

“Bupkus.” Dimmihammas said. “How could you possibly know that?”

I pointed to a spear leaning up against a tree. “One of them didn’t even have time to grab his weapon.”

“And the rest?”

“The totem spirit is looking directly at us, right now.”

And a good three dozen lives, but she wouldn’t care about those.

“What does he want?” Kismet asked.

“She, and so far, just the devils off the island.”

“Blatant racism!” Madonna said.

“Because of the taint you bear.” I said.

[Quest available: Exterminate the pygmie tribe on Ponuktiri island, and cast their bodies into the sea.]

I relayed all of this to the others. “I have reservations about this quest, I think they outnumber us at least three to one, and likely even more than that.”

Madonna scoffed. “In one cave network. A day or two of burning, if you can protect me.”

Gamilla shrugged. “I’m willing to wait until tonight, but right now it may be an us or them situation.”

“I’d feel better with about two score more arrows, but I’m in.” Narces said.

“It feels like we haven’t given them enough chance for peace.” Kismet said. “I mean, I don’t like the way they’re behaving, but to wipe out an entire tribe just because one guy’s daughter tried to stab one of us seems... extreme?”

“Well, they’ve lost six of their warriors today. They should know, now, how much this is going to cost them if they make a war of it. But I’m with Gamilla; if they come after us at night, that’s because they’ve made a blood feud of it. We can’t build a raft and fight off their numbers.”

“We should make camp here on the mesa, near that trail, boss.”

“After we scout and make certain that’s the only way up here.” Gamilla said.

It wasn’t.

#

The elves of the Greywood had such a ritual of course, but they didn’t disclose that fact to outsiders.