savagegoose' story

[savagegoose]

\"So you want to know my story stranger? well for the price of a few ales i\'ll be happy to tell you.\"


i dont rightly remeber whe ni was born , or how old I am. I recall becomeing aware when my parents where killed.

you remeber the barbarian invasions? yes my parents died then, not that i was unhappy.

They where slave drivers ;  and poor. I was worked every day of my life on that pitiful excuse for a farm.

The best thing that could have happened watching my father cut down, and mother dragged away screaming.

Life as a barbarian wasnt too bad, it sure beat  the hard labour and  watery gruel i remeber from my childhood.

\" now how about that ale? \"


\" thank you good sir.\"


Yes i was taken as Barbarian, i learned to ride, and shoot the bow. i guess it was the fact I didnt run from them like everyone else that made the khan take interest in me. That and i was busy eating instead of running... hehehe.

They took all the childern as booty, I was the only one not crying.

we where too tired to  practice fighting as farm boys. As barbarians we had little time to learn anything else.


I remeber the 1st night we returned to their camp. all the boys where paired off with a clans boy and made to fight.

How those men laughed at us,  We all got soundly beaten, My one was a ruthless  hairy oaf called Atullka.

All i could do was run. How i remeber those laughs. he was twice the size of me, all muscle. and stinking horse skin coat, he would grab me and throw my , crush me, twist my limbs till i squeeled.

i vowed never to let it happen to me again.

after the beatings we where split up into differnt groups, more slave related work and fighters.

I was put in the slave working group.

\" you smile? you think thats funny? \"

\"I didnt think so\"

\"You wonder how i got to be a fighter ; from being in the slave workers party? well i seem to be out of ale. It will cost you another ale to hear that part of my story. it was after I killed my 1st man. \"

[hook]

/me offers savagegoose another ale :]

\"do carry on\"

[savagegoose]

well it took many years. i worked the horses , o many many horses, each fighter had  half a dozen or more.

You see the \" hoarde\" wasnt  a hoarde of warriors, it was a hoarde of horses \" bwaaa haa haaa haa !\"

on a raid it was usual for a fighter to take 5 or so and leave the rest at camp. wellbase camp.

that ws my job , to treat the wounde d horses that made it back, maintain the base camp , but mainly maintaining the camp

was healing the horses. the reason you people thought the hoard was so large wasnt that there was 100 000 fighters

it was cuz there was 10 000 fighters raiding one town one day , another 100 miles away the next, another one another 100 the

next  few days, they rested their horses!!! \"  chuckle :-) \"


but that wasnt for me just yet, i had to water the wounded, tend their wounds , prepare the balms that healed.

oh and take the abuses if all wasnt right when the fighters returned.

remeber atulka?  yes you see , every slave  had a task master , someone to make sure their life wasnt too comfortable.

Mine was atulka he made sure mine wasnt comfortable every oportunity he could.

 I had to learn to ride, when the hoarde moved, we all rode, we rode hard. changing horse  hourly. Some changed on the gallop

hauling up the team , rein in 1 hand, then  rope tying with the other, leaping from saddle to saddle.


I watched, i admired. i learned.

----
\"ahhh all this ale makes me hungry, are you hungry stranger? good  lets have a pie\"


\" barkeep another round of ales  with the pie! \"

----

yes where was I oh yes ,  I practiced the saddle change , when i was  off excercising a team.or watering them.


it took some practice,  but the horses are smart animals, really smart, once you  give the right signals they know what to

do. a double tugg on the  team rope meant to come forward, a double shake meant to  lay off.

the hard trick was tying the mount you where riding onto the team while the lead rope was slack.


but after many clandestein practise runs i had managed it. i was feeling comfortable,

many a day i would ride hard and fast jumping from one horse to the next , maybe 20 transfers a day.

I was prideful,  next move we did , i dont know where to wher ei had no ideas back then, it was a large salty lake,

we where on the edge of it , and faced a feirce proud nation of naked blue painted men, not good for much too honarable to be slaves too populous

to be slaughtered.  too poor to loot. we had taken much gold form the settled kingdoms and couldnt cross the salt lake, and the blue mens land bordering was unknown.

 i decided i would \" show off \" my new skill.
atulka was riding behind me.
i waited till the khans troop came riding past, as they always patrolled the ranks keeping an eye on things, up and down talking to the men.

 i heard them come up the thunder of their large  teams. and gave my team a tugg.  they came up next to me.

i was excited, i grabbed the guiede rope and knotted it to my mounts  reins, lifted my left knee to the saddle and waited to jump

the lead horse moved over to me, and i sprang up from my shin, and lept thru the air , arm  ready to grasp around the targets neck.

then  I felt  my left ankle .  wrench backwards , and all the horses bolted off ahead! i smasmashed to the ground, lucky not too break my skull! my hands cut, and faced grazed severly,  several troops circled, and all the boys came back to laugh and watch.

atulka had lassoed my leg and skillfully  reined in his horse just as i lept.. very skillfully.

 he rode up and abused me. as i lay on the ground.

\" HAA HAA   a slave boy thinks he hes a warrior !!!! ha haha haah haaa \"


i looked  up with  blood  blocking my eyes, my vision wasnt red form the blood it was red from RAGE


 \" I WILL KILL YOU ATUKLA , I WILL CUT OUT YOU BLACK HEART AND FEED IT TO THE DOGS I SWEAR BY WHATEVER GOD HEAR MY RAGE

I  W I L L   K I L L   Y O U !! \" I Screamed.


he rode up to me and knocked me over with the horse as  they do , laughed and said \" you wont live till dusk , animal. \"

and he kicked his beast to the gallop. dragging me behind.

i rolled over to my back and let the major damage destroy my leather hide coat , as i was taught. holding my head up and using arms to balance myself from rolling. and tumbling, i was told that was death

he half killed me that day. but luckily the troop  leader was not far away and , reined him in.


yelled at him and beat him with a whip, !! a most insulting treatment for a warrior, whips where reserved for animals and slaves.

i knew to get beck on a mount, a  wounded slave was left if  he was too wounded to ride,  the troop rode on ,
and i tied myself to the saddle, as best i could, and thundered on  in a daze.

i remeber a trooper  riding up, and saying \" control your rage boy, control your rage. \"

and handing me a healing potion.

[BlueScreenJunky]

\"sorry to interrupt sir, here\'s your pie... and I hope you eventually kicked his butt\"
The lanlord gives savagegoose a wink and turns away to welcome some new customers.

[savagegoose]

\" ahh my blood  still  boils when i recall that day. i need  a stiff drink. how about a liquour? \"

\" thank you \"

you see killing slaves wasnt allowed,  torments and beatings where fine, but the dragging was out of orders.


also delaying the progress of the horde was frowned upon.  if a serious delay was caused the culprit could be killed out of hand

by the khan order. a flight of several dozen arrows finishing the matter in a minute.


there was a meeting, next great camp, the matter had been decided.

as we had sworn to kill each other, and a valid grudge was my right we would be allowed to duel. even a slave has the

right if he was  wronged.


honour was such that i wouldnt be allowed to be just slaughtered, atulka would be dishonoured if he killed an untrained slave

his family would be shamed, i had toi present a viable challenge, their family honour depended upon it.

it was his families duty to train me!  

not as  a warrior mind you, but in the weapon, of choice that the troop leader decided. a weapon that would provide

a fair challenge, a just battle. and untill I was deemed worthy of the fight the duel would postponed.

now i was allowed to train in a weapon!

i was the centre of attention amongs the workers. gossip was rife,  what willi be trained in? would i kill atulka? and

gain right to his  teams and weapons?  people i had never seen smile , smiled at me. troop leaders who never paid heed

to me other than to ask about their monts came up and inspected, made comments on what i should be trained in.



inspected my wounds, and inspected my bones and muscles.

\" Too weak for horse bow, tooo old needs to be trained younger \"

\" he as good frame,  more muscle would make him right \"

\" long arms long arms good pull, no muscle \"


the blade i say the blade, good reach, he handles the horse well , a duel by blade on horse back \"

 
A shifty looking old man came thru the crowd. \" Daggers make it quick, he\'s a slave i say daggers \"

the gathered men laughed.

i had seen all their trainings, daggers was done in  loin cloth and naked, training with dull blades, and grazings

marked wounds,  in duels amongst wariors blood drawn;  a major  arterry, was called a victory.  and honour served.

for me it would be to the death. i dodnt like daggers.



 the bow was like a life long skill, many a journey was brokne up with 3 teams.

a lead team that dropped leather balls,  a middle team that shot arrows into the balls at the gallop ,

and a rear team that collected the balls with lances.

the rear team would charge forward and to the front with the collected balls.  the  middle team would  store their bows

and fall to the rear. drawing  lances.  and of course the lead team would fall to the middle drawing the bows.


of course slaves where resposible for collectiing any missed balls, and we made a game of it too.

seeing who could collec the ball. there where never many balls left for the slaves to colect,

and derision was laid upon any troop that missed a ball , or  left arrows for the slaves to collect.

accountoing was done when at the end of  the day , arrows where counted and the troop that lost the most

where generally derinded and jeered at.

everyone of the warriors  participated at this sport, more like training. and competion got feirce.

I didnt  quite understand the whole honour thing yet, but being the best warriors was the pinacle of this societies

accomplishments. or so i thought.



I would dearly have loved to take part in the running training. usually at a good speed as well. i was sure if the bow was the decided

weapon they would have to let me participate, they almost never train in bow at camp.

as i lay there fntasysing about how wonderful it would be for the bow to be the weapon for the duel, the decision had been made


I was the lance.

\" he is very agile on the horse, the lance is best, \" the troop leader called out \"  IT IS DECIDE THE DUEL SHALL BE DECIDED

BY LANCE . I MATULKA DECREE \"


\" he bellowed at me , you boy heal up, you will collect balls with a lance from now on. heal up. Oh and you ride with me \"

[hook]

it\'s everything really nice, but isn\'t it so that we won\'t have horses in PS? ...at least not underground