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73. [Red Tide] A Whirlpool on Land
🕑 Added 2024-10-28 21:16:53 +0000 UTCRed Tide, Enchantress of the 4th Renown, The Reef, the guest of honor
Cuda Bite, Throne Gazer, Salt Wall, the champions of the Reef, and Turtle Jaw, their Quill, fish out of water
Mockery, Knife Master of the 8th Renown and Quill of the Trolkin, tour guide through the madness
***
9 Meltzend, 61 AW
Trolkin territory, North Continent
111 days until the next Granting
They could see the fires and smell the smoke from the trolkin camp from more than a mile out. Their destination cast a hellish glow on the horizon. The night sky already felt closer to the ground this far north and the towering blazes seemed like fingers clawing it lower.
Red Tide walked alongside Mockery at the front of their small procession, just as the trolkin champion had insisted. Turtle Jaw and Cuda Bite came next, both on foot, sticking close to Red Tide. They were flanked by Salt Wall and Throne Gazer, each riding one of the sleds. The dogs trotted onward as resolute as ever—indifferent to the thickening air, the cacophonous sounds, and even the trolkin woman who came sprinting toward them.
The trolkin approached with her arms flailing and lungs shrieking. As she neared, her bare feet churned up chunks of mud and snow, silver hair streaking out behind her. Throne Gazer readied his trident and Cuda Bite reached for his dagger, but Mockery put up a hand to stay their weapons. The trolkin careened by them as if they didn’t exist. Red Tide watched her disappear into the darkness where they had just come from, fleeing some enemy that only she could see.
“Fuck was that?” Red Tide asked.
Mockery sighed wistfully. “Smoke’s got her. She’s on a journey.”
“No journeys that way,” Salt Wall muttered. “Nothing at all back that way but snow.”
There were more screams ahead—and hysterical laughter, moaning, and manic chanting. At least two hundred trolkin writhed about in the firelight.
Cuda Bite drew closer to Red Tide. “Are we sure about this?”
Red Tide shot him a look. “Stay attached,” she said quietly. “It’s a whirlpool on land.”
“Come!” Mockery said and put her hand lightly on Red Tide’s back, urging her forward. “Come and see our camp.”
Red Tide allowed herself to be led. There was nothing to do in a place like this but give into the currents and hope that it spat her back out.
Mockery entered her camp with a proud tilt of her chin and a wide-swinging arm like the leader of a victory parade. In Red Tide’s mind, the area claimed by the trolkin stretched the definition of a camp. Calling it such was a bit like saying that crabs made a town when they washed up on a beach at low tide. Of course, Red Tide kept this opinion to herself.
Some of the trolkin took notice of Mockery and her guests, edging closer to peer at the oca’em with dilated eyes. Others were too busy with the business of madness to care about their Quill returning with strangers. For the most part, it looked to Red Tide as if the trolkin just plopped themselves down wherever they pleased. Some sprawled in the slush and mud with the detritus of their lives strewn around them—bones and baubles and junk—while the more industrious, or perhaps sane, had taken the trouble to create rough-looking shelters. There seemed to be no organization to any of the varying structures, which ranged from crumbling domes of ice and mud, to tents of animal skin strung between stunted pine trees, to dark burrows that disappeared into snow drifts. There wasn’t a central gathering place or network of pathways. There was no logical perimeter to the camp to organize a defense.
“This is where you live?” Red Tide asked.
Mockery led them on a zigzag path, kicking aside blank-faced trolkin who didn’t clear the way. “No,” she said. “I live in a castle of wonder. This is where I holiday.”
Red Tide swallowed. She had no idea if the trolkin woman was serious, toying with her, or living in a fantasy. Shaking her head, Red Tide tried to make sense of the madness before her.
The oca'em were mostly nomadic, but the pods traveled with purpose, observed routine, and always returned at some point to the Reef for the trading of goods and songs. If there was some logic to how the trolkin organized themselves, Red Tide could not see it. Before her imprisonment in the Grotto, Red Tide had been without a pod. She’d preferred to swim alone. Her fellow champions had proved a tolerable bunch and Red Tide hadn’t often wished for a return to solitude in these last months. As the chaos of the trolkin camp enclosed her, however, she wished for water—she would dive deep and far and escape this chaos.
“Do not fear us, sister,” Mockery said. “I have told my people to be on their best behavior.”
“I’m not afraid,” Red Tide snapped at the taller woman.
Mockery shrugged. “It seems an ugly place, even to my eyes.”
All that ugliness was well lit. There were fires throughout the haphazard camp—more than seemed strictly necessary. The trolkin did not need them for warmth, so the fires were for cooking, or light, or entertainment.
“I look around and I have no wonder why the champions of the north fight so hard to kill us every year,” Mockery continued. She peered down at Red Tide. “You are a creature of beauty, though, sister. Those who would hunt you should feel shame.”
Under the trolkin’s intense gaze, Red Tide huddled deeper into her cloak. “If you say so.”
Smoke hung heavy in the chill air—the burning wood from the bonfires mixed with something else, a piney aroma that tugged invitingly at Red Tide's mind. She actually felt grateful for the smoke. Whenever the wind shifted, it carried in the smell of piss and shit from latrines dug at too short a distance. Or, not dug at all.
“Have you ever given thought to the decisions of the gods?” Mockery asked.
Red Tide raised her eyebrows. “Have you?”
“Of course,” Mockery said. “I spend so much time inside my own head, I think about many things.”
Red Tide blinked her eyes, which stung a bit from the smoke. She had no idea what to say to the trolkin woman.
They passed into an area where the snow was packed down from heavy traffic, mud and roots exposed in places. There were a smattering of pine trees and twice that number of stumps. They had picked up a tail of trolkin as they walked through camp—hooting and grinning and shouting nonsense. Other watched warily from around fires. Red Tide made note of a moaning pile of bodies that would not be distracted from their carnal pursuits.
“I wonder why the gods curse us so,” Mockery said. “All the trolkin you see, they once belonged somewhere else. But then, the gods switched them from that to this. To be marked as monstrous by the gods themselves. What debasement could be left after that?”
“Looks like they’re working hard to find one,” she said, pointing out the orgy to Mockery.
Mockery laughed. “Yes! Agreed.”
The trolkin varied wildly in size and shape. A good many were bigger even than Mockery and towered above the oca'em, some reaching nearly ten feet in height. Others wouldn't have stood out in a land-walker village. The larger trolkin tended toward the pale blue skin and silver hair, like Mockery, while their smaller cousins appeared more human, except for the curling growths of bluish mold that sprouted from their bodies. Some of the trolkin were muscled and stoutly proportioned, while others were rangy in a way that hurt Red Tide to look at, their skin stretched across bones that had elongated too swiftly for the flesh to keep pace. They seemed to be a group perpetually undergoing painful transformation and even the ones that looked comfortable in their skin—like Mockery—were possessed of grisly scars and mutilations.
Red Tide’s fingers twitched. The gods granted the oca’em protection here, but that did not lessen the anxious feeling of being surrounded. She glanced over her shoulder and saw how all her companions walked with hands on their weapons, their eyes flitting across the erratic trolkin. They had all fallen into an uneasy silence—very much unlike the champions of the Reef.
“We don't get many visitors,” Mockery said.
“No shit?” Red Tide replied.
The trolkin grinned. Red Tide sensed that she could say anything to this woman without offending her. Perhaps that was her [Charm+] at work, but Red Tide suspected it went deeper than that. Mockery had developed an attachment to her that made little sense considering they’d first met hours ago.
“This is a place for letting go, for shedding humanity,” Mockery said. “We trolkin do not choose this place, but are driven to it. You see madness. Of course, you would see madness. You have not yet come to the end of the world.”
“No, I haven’t,” Red Tide replied. “You big fucking riddle bitch.”
Mockery clapped her hands and laughed again. The other trolkin—too distant to have overheard—nonetheless mimicked her laugh. “Shut up!” Mockery screamed at them. “Keep to your own feelings!”
Awkwardly, Turtle Jaw chose that moment to edge forward. “Lady Mockery, if I may…?”
“You mayn’t,” she replied.
“Perhaps we should find a… ah… a quiet place?” Turtle Jaw pressed on. “To discuss the terms of an alliance?”
Mockery rolled her eyes and waved Turtle Jaw away. “You should kill that one,” she said to Red Tide. “I have seen him lead two groups of champions to the Granting and always they die badly.”
“He’s changed his ways with us,” Red Tide said.
“Still. Better to be the Quill yourself, yes? Choose your own entourage. Take charge of things.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Red Tide said. She flashed Turtle Jaw a smile that he did not return.
“We can discuss terms here and now,” Mockery said. The words were loud enough for Turtle Jaw, but directed at Red Tide. “I will help you survive on the island. I will not expect any aid there in return. Your enemies become mine, and mine enemies stay mine.”
Cuda Bite glanced over his shoulder at Throne Gazer. “When she says you, why does it sound like she only means Red Tide?”
Throne Gazer elected not to respond, but Cuda Bite’s words were loud enough from Mockery to hear.
“Some of you must die,” Mockery said. She patted Cuda Bite on the shoulder with enough force that his knees buckled. “That’s the strategy, isn’t it? Some die so others can be preserved. Gain strength. And then, maybe in years, protect the champions to come.”
Cuda Bite turned to Turtle Jaw. “Is that our strategy?”
“No,” he said.
“What do you get out of it?” Red Tide asked Mockery.
Mockery grinned at her. “In return, you will spend some time indulging my whims here in the north. Both in the present and next year, after your survival.”
“We have to travel on soon,” Turtle Jaw said quickly. “We’re needed in the ocean.”
“You just got here,” Mockery said to Red Tide with a pout. “A few weeks is all I ask. I will make it worth it for you.” She cocked her head. “It only needs to be you, sister. I don’t need these others.”
“We stick together,” Salt Wall said.
“The more the merrier!” Mockery said. “I assumed you might need some convincing this first night, so I saved a gift for you.”
“What gift is that?” Red Tide asked.
“Ink,” Mockery said. She glanced at Turtle Jaw. “You have seen it on your map, no? I am holding it for you. We can share it.”
Red Tide exchanged a look with Turtle Jaw. They had noticed the blob of Ink waiting in the north, uncollected for weeks now. They assumed the trolkin would prevent them from pursuing it. But now, that power could be theirs.
“What fucked up whims of yours am I supposed to indulge, then?” Red Tide asked.
“Perhaps you have noticed that we lack culture here in the north.”
Behind Mockery, a squat trolkin slowly masturbated into a fire while others counted down from one hundred. Grimacing, Red Tide focused on Mockery.
“I don't know shit about culture,” she replied.
“Our art lives in the smoke, our poetry here in our minds,” Mockery said, vigorously tapping her temple. “But we are in need of music. Your beautiful music.”
“You've never heard me play.”
“Haven't I, sister?” Mockery bowed her head. “In the smoke, past and future are the same.”
None of that made sense to Red Tide, but she wasn’t going to be baited into asking follow-up questions of a lunatic. “That’s it?”
“I have some particular songs in mind,” Mockery said. She bit the tip of her tongue excitedly. “I will teach you how to pluck them.”
They passed by a rusted metal rack where three ram carcasses were hanged by their back legs. The bellies had been opened up and the ground beneath them was soggy with dark blood. Next to the rams, a trolkin leg partly stripped of its skin twisted from a chain. There were other pieces of meat dangling from the rack as well, although Red Tide had more difficulty identifying those given the pulp and bite marks.
Standing watch on the rack was a trolkin of considerable bulk. He was entirely blue-skinned like Mockery and kept his silvery hair shaved atop his head, but wispy and long at the back of his skull. The trolkin wore little besides a stained leather apron, and he wielded a long knife that was meant for carving paths through underbrush. Upon seeing the dogs, he let loose an excited cry.
“The thaw comes early, Lady Mockery!” the butcher shouted. “You honor us with meats!”
The trolkin managed two steps toward the dogsleds. Before the third, the air crackled behind Red Tide, and she tasted sparks in the air. Then, the arc of Throne Gazer's [Eel Sting] lit the night a vivid silver, the bolt striking the trolkin in the chest and hurling him backward. The back of his head struck the meat rack and sent the carcasses swinging. He laid in the bloody snow, seizing and clutching at himself.
Some of the trolkin cheered and whooped at the violence, while others scattered and sprinted away. Throne Gazer stood with his trident still leveled at the butcher, waiting for him to get back up.
And the big trolkin might have regained his feet, if Mockery hadn't pulled one of her knives from the Ink on her chest and pitched it at him. The blade looked flat and dull, yet it vibrated as it moved through the air, and Red Tide sensed a strange weight to the weapon. It landed between the butcher's shoulder blades as he tried to press himself up and caused him to collapse back onto his stomach with a sharp exhale. Mockery's knife—the symbol read [Gravity Blade]—held him there like an anchor.
“What'd I do?” screamed the butcher. “What'd I do?”
“I don't know!” Mockery replied. She turned to face Throne Gazer, walking backward toward her fellow trolkin as she did. “How did Gristle give offense, kind sir?”
“He presumed to take what hasn't been offered,” Throne Gazer said evenly.
“The doggies, you mean?” She rolled her eyes. “But you have so many. In the north, we share. We share smoke, we share food, and in the bad times we share desperation.”
For emphasis, she slapped the dangling leg.
Turtle Jaw cleared his throat. “A misunderstanding, I'm sure–”
“No misunderstanding,” Throne Gazer said, his voice rising clear. “These dogs are mine. These sleds are mine. I have not come here to share. You want culture in this hell? Learn how to treat with guests, Lady Mockery. This reception is pathetic.”
Red Tide scanned the crowd of wild-eyed faces that peered at them in the firelight. Some hooted and clapped as if watching a play, while others grinned and edged closer, tempted to test Throne Gazer. Mockery, meanwhile, knelt down beside the butcher. She looked almost chastened by Throne Gazer’s regal tone.
“Of course,” Mockery said, her eyes down. “Of course, we will not presume upon your possessions.”
Mockery lifted the [Gravity Blade] from Gristle’s back and the butcher took in a grateful breath. She inserted the knife back into her Ink and pulled another—[Sharpest Blade]. The edge glinted in the flickering light, thin as a sheet of parchment.
“Accept my sincerest apologies, Lord Throne,” Mockery said.
And, with that, in one practiced motion, she dragged the knife across Gristle’s throat. Red Tide took a faltering step back as the spray from the trolkin’s neck splattered her shins.
Around them, the trolkin howled.
Comments
sparkc
Incredible job capturing the state of the trolkin. Bravo.
iridium248
Life is cheap way up north.
