Out of Character:
Second Stride in Settyu 1815
Jarn’A’Shartak (IronFist Clan Holding)
The Rebuilt Keep
Drumheller’s quarters
An hour before dawn
Waiting.
At times it is absolutely necessary to be patient and still, to let come what will come, without striving to meddle or hurry it along. That was what she was doing now, waiting. She did not mind, for the time had given her the opportunity to peruse the three chambers – all of which were practically the size of Manor kitchen pantries – that comprised the quarters of one Drumheller Ironfist, who was her quarry, although it was hard to think of him in those terms.
The bond wanted her to think of him in those terms; her mind however, did not. Her mind was winning the battle of course, it usually did, but occasionally the idea of Drumheller as a kind of opponent did slip into her musings from time to time. He was an opponent after a fashion, she wanted to learn his secrets, and he wanted to keep those secrets from her. She wanted to learn all his plans, and he wanted to keep her in the dark.
If she were Drumheller, then she wouldn’t want her to know either.
He would be arriving shortly, of that she was certain, as this would be the first place he would go after arriving with the caravan he was traveling with and serving as a scout for. A part of her wondered, not for the first time, what he was saving the coin he was acquiring for. Perhaps she would add that to the list of topics to strive and obtain answers to.
Even though she had gained entry to his quarters, or what passed for lodgings, as to call them quarters was an absurdity that she wouldn’t entertain further, her perusal had not gained her much more insight into the half-orc of whom she was so intrigued by. Those elements that had gleamed only serving to reinforce what she already knew. What was worse, what she had truly gained from this survey were more questions. A mountain of questions.
He had expected someone would slip in here and acted accordingly.
It had been a simple pair of locks that served as the only confessions to security that had been put on the place. Well made, but simple, and it hadn’t taken her long to pick them. Still, that door was the only way in or out, as far as she knew, although she suspected that Drumheller had set up a system by which he’d know if someone had entered what past as his domain in his absence. He had made those locks, and the door, and practically every item in the three chambers she had scanned. The water closet – a kind of outhouse with a chain for dumping out the used chamber pot and a pump for gaining water was quite ingenious, even though there were similar chambers scattered rounds the whole of the keep. His doing, the entire rebuilt structure was his doing, and her bond holder got the credit.
That annoyed her.
She stopped idly toying with the ink quill in her hands, and turned her eyes once again to the sheep skin map that hung on the wall behind the room’s lone stylishly carved desk. She had spent nearly half a candlemark looking at that desk, and the stacks of neatly ordered papers on it. She had idly rubbed her fingers over the river hued blue mica, with its swirls of green granite, while skimming the ledger – at least she was pretty sure it was a ledger, all the pages were full of numbers and brief notations, & items – but all of it was in a code. Every scrap of it was in a language that she did not yet understand.
Even the symbols seemed strange to her half the time.
Perusing the desks eight drawers hadn’t helped either – each of which was made of dark cherry wood and pine, with their outermost cunningly wrought to look like waterfalls, and the brass handles in the shape of fishes set dead center so that one grasped their bodies to open the drawer – had revealed nothing useful either.
The map was no better, the locations she mostly knew, although there were a handful that she did not, and they had various shaped and varying hued pins in them. For instance the thickly wooded half-moon strip of turf called Bar’Talack’s Split, near Bloody Tusk Hill, had a brown colored pin with an octagon at the end. The caves of Kushakk had a sea green pin, with the end in the shape of a triangle. They had significance, they marked something, and she knew this. The “what” they represented, now that was the mystery.
She wanted to know. She always wanted to know.
She heard him before she saw him; the faint slide step that was his normal stride, being quiet enough that only one with better than average hearing would have detected it.
There could be no doubt that Drumheller knew that she was there. He could no doubt smell her before he opened the door to a room that made a monk’s sell seem large. Her gaze once again was greeted with the distinctive features that were part and parcel of the half-orc named Drumheller, when he opened the chamber’s door, marched in, placed his pack on a shelf, and turned to put his hands on the back of the room’s lone chair.
These distinctive elements were: First, the packs were travel hardened, having seen plenty of wear, but still in excellent condition. The quiver's utilitarian aspect, in stark contrast to many she’d seen, declared the seriousness of the owner to the art of archery more than any award or medal could. The pack was done up ranger fashion, the bed roll down tight, but well clear of the straps to the top flap. You could still easily remove the pack’s contents, while leaving the bedroll where it was. A canteen was strapped to the left side, right underneath a small metal case; a small shovel being strapped to the right.
Second, there were the clothes; the hand that was resting on the back of the chair was clad in a leather glove, with tightly packed metal studs, which would protect its wearer from minor injuries. The index and middle fingers had the leather of the glove removed, and were replaced by coverings made of silk. That was common among highly practiced bowmen, as it made it easier for them to shoot their weapons more precisely and with greater rapidity. A studded leather jerkin covered by a tanned colored canvas in the style called “water proofer” was thrown over a simple tunic, the leaf green coloration of which was only noticeable, as the sleeves of the water proofer were removed. This outer garment seemed a bit too large for the lad, as it ended at his knees.
The studded leather trousers he wore were the same coloration as the water proofer and covered with the same canvas material, with more than enough pockets to store all a healer’s paraphernalia and still have pockets to spare. The oak brown boots he wore, designed to grant good purchase on differing turf no matter the weather, looked like they had been custom fitted.
That was an expense most did without, to their detriment often enough.
Two bandoleers of pouches crisscrossed his tightly muscled chest and stomach, nestling snugly against a belt with more pouches. A single edged long knife almost as long as a short sword and almost as thick as an ax hung from that belt in a straight draw seats. A bow was hooked upon his back, along with a two handed hammerax, each of which could be removed without disturbing ax or bow or quiver. A studded leather vail covered his face, save his eyes and a patch of oakish colored skin around them. A dented and scorched mark half-helm made of simple iron sat atop his head, which like the iron studs, were painted to better serve as camouflage.
He was of a decent height for his age; he was already as tall as some men and he was far from finishing his growth. He had just started to begin filling out too, which was good. He had been too gaunt as a youth, which made it easier for other orclings to beat him bloody. He never complained about that either, but then again she’d never heard him complain about much of anything.
There was something wrong about his eyes, she mused, not for the first time. She had noticed it the first time they met, and she noted it now. They were a brilliant indigo. A purplish blue that would make any jewel envy. They shone like gems, like all the light in the room, and there wasn’t much, were captured, amplified, and reflected in the half-breed’s orbs. At times they were like this, while at others they were like a jar of purple ink that someone mistakenly left outside all night in the midst of winter and that had frozen solid. There was something almost crystalline about them at those times. Still at others the purple seemed to leak into some unknown place and all that were left there was the light blue of dirty snow. That look had truly made her anxious, for it, of all his looks, was the one that was most unreadable.
There was more too, perhaps the most important of which was the lack of emotion that was always there. When she looked into his eyes all she saw was dead, lifeless, soulless intent. Orcs were nearly always easy to read, either as a consequence of an overabundance of facial muscles, or as a result of poor emotive control, she couldn’t say. Still she had prided herself on her ability to always read other beings, her job, no; her life often depended on it. Still looking at this one right that moment she might have been looking at a corpse. It worried her.
The sudden realization that all the affect displayed before, the smile that never reached his eyes, the rich vocal inflections, were all a mask that covered the lifelessness that he carried around somewhere deep inside. The only feelings, the only true ones that Drumheller had displayed, and naturally felt, were a deep abiding sense of obligation and an even deeper abiding sense of shame. She didn’t understand either, and she didn’t think she ever would.
What was more she had been charged with making sure that the breaking - no, the attempted breaking, as nothing that Gothmog and Curznack could have devised would have broken this one, did not turn fatal. The fact that he never begged them to stop, the fact that he never even screamed, hadn’t made matters easier for her or him. She was an Erinyes, she shouldn’t be feeling this way, she shouldn’t be showing any concern for this lad, but she was.
It came to her then, as sudden as a flash of lightening.
The eyes were of the aged that had thought too much and seen more still. Of a wise sage that had spent hours meditating on weighty subjects and had not liked the conclusions reached.
They didn’t belong.
No lad his age should have those kinds of eyes, surrounded by thought wrinkles and worry lines and crow’s feet to make him look to be five and fifty, instead of his actual age of two and ten. Still with the vail up she could not see his face. She had seen it oft enough to know what was there, both before and after the fire… the fire that had been magically started… the fire that had been magically instigated by an incubus… the fire purposefully initiated by her half-brother… the fire made of shadow that would have claimed her life, if this half-orc hadn’t intervened.
She owed him, and she knew it, and she was the kind of devil that paid her debts.
I will find a way to repay you Drumheller Ironfist.
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