Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

Dazed and upside down, Dashyl couldn't focus on anything that was going on around him. Overhead, an incredible jumble of razorwigs whizzed by, their bodies blocking out the sky until it seemed like thousands of lights were flashing before the boy's eyes. The noise was deafening, like he was about to be caught in the sharp, grinding gears of some dangerous machine. Dashyl closed his eyes and tried to move, but his body felt numb and tingly. He squeezed his eyes tighter and waited for the noise to stop roaring above him.

As quickly as the swarm had crashed over him, the last of the razowigs leapt over the ditch. The full light and sudden quiet cleared Dashyl of his confusion. He could see Fretly hiding behind his igwaza as it bit into the segmented body of a razorwig that must have fallen into the ditch. The igwaza easily crunched through the creature's exoskeleton as it became lunch for the runner. Beyond this fracas, Soern smashed at what must have been multiple razorwigs around him. The carapids were soon exterminated and Fretly ran to Dashyl's side.

"Dash, are you okay, oh my, are you okay," Fretly asked as he knelt next to Dashyl. At that moment, Dashlyl felt his heart beating hard in his throat and he had trouble moving his jaw. All he could do to answer was shake his head.

"Soern," Fretly yelled. "Dashyl is hurt. His neck has been slashed open and he is bleeding a lot."

"I am checking on my runner. Find some kind of cloth and apply pressure to his wound," Soern shouted back.

"Forget the igwaza, you dumb kirzan, Dashyl might be dying here," screamed Fretly.

Soern rummaged through his pack and retrieved a few strips of cloth and a pouch. He handed a piece of the cloth to Fretly. "Here," he said, "take this and apply pressure. He will be okay. Just don't let him bleed out." Soern changed his focus to Dashyl. "You'll be okay, son. Try to be calm. I've got to attend to my runner. If he has a broken leg, then its no use mending him. But if I can help him, we need him to cross the plains. The other igwaza are not big enough to carry me." "Besides, I can't afford to replace this igwaza," he muttered as he returned to his injured runner.

"Whatever you say," Fretly snorted as he held the cloth firmly against the gash in Dashyl's neck. "Your left cheek is cut pretty bad, too. Your chin is scraped up and your bottom lip is busted open." Fretly squinted as he continued. "I thought you would have seen us bolt for the ditch. We would have waved you down."

Soern came over and took Fretly's place tending to Dashyl. "The leg wasn't broken and I don't think there were any ligament tears. I sewed up the wound and he should be able to run again just fine. Now let's look at you." The kirzan held Dashyl's face with one of his big hands. "I'll have to sew up your neck and cheek. It's going to hurt. On the bright side, the razorwig's legs are so sharp that the wounds heal up with with hardly any scar. You'd never guess that I've been sliced up more times than I can count by razorwigs. Well, you might guess that I've been sliced up, but you'd never tell where the razorwigs got me."

Soern pulled out a needle and some threadlike material from his pouch. "Here we go," he said as he threaded the line on the the needle. "This needle is from the proboscis of another type of carapid. One carapid slices you open and another carapid closes you up. Isn't that life on Rynaga, eh?"

Dashyl didn't have time to consider an answer as he felt the needle bite into his flesh. He couldn't open his mouth to scream, so he screamed and hyperventilated through his teeth.

"Hold on, Dash," Fretly consoled. Dashyl calmed down and clenched his jaws tight. Once his neck was finished, he hardly felt the cheek being worked on, the numbness had reached the top of his head.

"Soern, look," Fretly called out as he pointed farther down the ditch. Three razorwigs were leaping down the ditch in their direction.

"Leave this to me," Soern said, grabbing up his hammer. The hefty kirzan waited calmly as the slashing carapids raced towards him. At just the right moment, he twirled his hammer in his hand twice then brought it down on the head of the lead razorwig. Wasting no time, he jumped into the air, spun around and smashed the other two hapless creatures with one great arcing blow.

Soern turned around, let his hammer fall to the ground and stood with his arms in the air and his face beaming. "Ha ha," he laughed, "I've still got the moves!"

"Oh yeah? What happened to your beard," Fretly asked, cracking a bit of a smile.

"What..." Soern asked as he frantically grabbed at the area under his chin where the majority of his beard used to be. "Blast, one of those confounded beasts sliced off my beard," Soern said before sputtering out a long stream of kirzan curses.

The old warrior trudged back to where Fretly was continuing to clean up Dashyl. "Here, let me feel your jaw," Soern said once again taking Dashyl's head in his immense hands. He rubbed Dashyl's temples and felt where his bottom jaw connected to his skull. Pain shot through Dashyl's head and he winced. "Hm, you might have broken your jaw or damaged your skull. We'll have to wait until the swelling goes down. Dashyl nodded and just tried to relax and not think about the pain that draped itself over every part of his body.

"Oh, I may still have the moves, but it takes more out of me." Soern let out a long, loud sigh and collapsed on the ground next to Dashyl. "Time to rest," he said. "Then we need to think about our next move."

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

The igwaza Dashyl rode was considerably slower than the other two. Soern and Fretly were increasing their distance ahead of the boy and he had no idea how to make his runner run faster. "Goooo," he yelled and dug his heels into the animal's hide. The reptilian creature grunted and Dashyl quit trying to make it go faster. "You're probably already running as fast as you can," he told it. Dashyl turned around to take another queasy glimpse of the swarm on his tail. "But will it be fast enough," he muttered.

Facing forward, Dashyl noticed that Soern and Fretly had vanished. He could see no sign they were ever running in front of him or that they had ever been on the plains with him. Dashyl's mind raced faster than his mount, which was careening down the road so fast that Dashyl could hardly keep his eyes open. An even greater fear seized his heart and tears came to his eyes, not from the wind but from the fear that he was suddenly alone. 

All that was in front of the boy was the open road cutting its path through the unending grasslands. What was Dashyl rushing towards, he didn't know. But he did know he was running from a dangerous swarm of razorwigs, a type of carapid that could be deadly for some reason. He could now hear the faint noise of the swarm over the galloping of the igwaza's feet. The sound was not exactly a buzzing, it was a sound more like a thousand knife blades being sharpened simultaneously. 

Dashyl did not want to look back. He just wanted to close his eyes and let the igwaza take him where it would. Even with his eyes shut, he could hear the shhhkk, shhhkk, shhhkk sound growing louder, closer. But there was another sound, also growing louder, something familiar. His own name. Was the swarm calling out his name?

The bewildered boy spun around to make the madness make sense and immediately it did. Soern, calling Dashyl's name from the back of his speedy igwaza, was gaining on him. "Stop," he heard Soern bellow. Dashyl gave the command in kirzan to stop and the igwaza gracefully came to rest, panting heavily, eyeing the swarm behind it. 

"There's a ditch back there," Soern yelled once he had caught up to the boy. "We might be safe in it. Come on!" Soern's runner adroitly spun around on its hind legs and ran the other direction. Dashyl's igwaza soon followed. They were now running full speed towards the swarm. He could see the individual razorwigs now. The carapids shot themselves forward in great leaps using their back legs. Dashyl could also see the danger. The forelegs of the razorwigs had razor sharp edges that sliced through the grass stalks and presumably anything in their path. 

Soern disappeared into what must have been the ditch a little ways off to the side of the road. He popped up a moment later without his igwaza and waved his hands in the air. Once Dashyl realized his igwaza was headed straight for Soern and the ditch, he closed his eyes. The swarm loomed right above him now like the crest of a wave ready to break.

The massive wave of carapids crashed over the ditch just as Dashyl's igwaza leapt for safety. The boy heard Soern cry out and his igwaza gurgle in pain, then pain shot through Dashyl's cheek and neck and he cried out. His eyes shot open in time to realize he was flying through the air headfirst into the opposite side of the ditch. His chin hit took the brunt of the landing as his body slammed into the dirt wall and then crumpled into a heap at the bottom of the ditch. 

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

Dashyl could barely feel the igwaza runner galloping beneath him. The tops of the golden grass stalks whipped by him in a mustardy blur, the wind deafened his ears, his heart felt as light as it had ever felt. Dashyl laughed and screamed, then let the wind force its way down his throat, puffing out his cheeks. Tears shot away from the corners of his eyes and his nose began to ooze, but he didn't care.

"This is incredible," Dashyl shouted to his companions who were ahead of him on their own igwazas. Dashyl's was the smallest and must have been the slowest runner of the three. Unable to contain himself, the young boy let out another yell, "Wooooooo!" Fretly turned around. He heard me, Dashyl thought, but Fretly did not focus on his friend who was following him. Instead, he looked past Dashyl, back toward the tree line. His eyes filled with fear before he turned back around and began urging his igwaza to run faster.

Reluctantly, Dashyl turned around to have a look. He instantly became queasy not looking in the direction the igwaza was running. Fighting the urge to close his eyes, Dashyl saw what he first thought was a line of smoke or fog obscuring the tree line far in the distance. But the cloud did not disperse or rise into the air. Rather, this cloud hovered over the tops of the grass stalks and was getting closer. Dashyl could look no longer and faced forward again. Even though the weird cloud moved toward them quickly, the igwaza could surely outrun whatever it was, he reasoned. Then Dashyl looked back once more. The cloud had moved closer than he figured. It must be moving extremely fast, he thought, but how? Dashyl's body suddenly pumped adrenaline due to fear instead of exhilaration. He finally understood, they were being chased by a razorwig swarm.

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

"Let's just jog the igwaza at first as we go," Soern called out as he took the lead on the road across the plains. He said a couple commands in the kirzan tongue and the three igwaza started trotting at a medium pace. "We'll head due east," Soern continued. "We could run the igwaza the whole way across the plains, but then we'd have to rest a day on the other side. I would like to keep them fresh enough so we can keep moving and not stay in one place for too long out in the open. If we run into trouble, then we can run away from it."

The road they followed was flat and not heavily rutted. They slowly lost elevation after the initial steeper decline from the tree line. The sky was clear and even though the temperature was a little warm, the breeze from trotting was just enough to keep the riders cool. Dashyl imagined the sky being full of airships of every size and color. He had only seen them from afar, but marveled at their ability to soar high above Rynaga. Compared to the previous day's ride, today the young sarion felt like he was soaring smoothly through the sky on his igwaza.

"Riding this way is much easier," Dashyl announced.

"Igwaza runners are built for speed. The faster they go, the more natural the motion and the easier it is to ride them," Soern explained.

"Let's run. I want to run," Dashyl begged.

"Be careful, you may just get a chance to before long," Soern warned.

"It couldn't hurt to just run a little ways so Dash could get the feel," reasoned Fretly. "If we do have to go all out, he would be used to it and not freaked out."

"Good idea, Fretly, but why don't we wait a little bit longer. We can run them right before we break to eat," said Soern. Dashyl smiled at Fretly when he looked back at him and thrust his fist in the air. Fretly shook his head and laughed.

The three riders didn't say much for the rest of the morning. Dashyl now thought that jogging the igwaza was more hypnotizing than anything. Their motion seemed to rock him gently and almost lull him to sleep. The scenery didn't help either as it was all level grasslands as far as the eye could see. Behind them, he could still make out the thin, dark mustache of the tree line on the horizon. Dashyl started to ask if they could run when Soern stopped suddenly.

"Hush," Soern said sharply to Dashyl as he put his finger to his lips and squinted.

"Was that thunder," asked Fretly. No one answered, but there did seem to be a soft rumbling fading away overhead.

"Is that smoke above the tree line where we just came from," asked Dashyl as he pointed back down the road.

"That's smoke," Soern said as if he had a sinking feeling.

They heard another muffled boom from the tree line followed by more smoke billowing into the sky.

Fretly and Soern looked at each other and then at Dashyl. Soern said with urgency, "Boy, you're going to get your wish, now. We've got to run!"

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

The three travelers had eaten, rested their legs and were now scouting the lowlands that rolled away from their vantage point down to the horizon. Soern squinted as he scanned the view, sweeping his head from side to side. The kirzan hummed as he pondered the state of the plains they were about to cross.

"How far does it stretch," asked Dashyl. 

"A fair ways. And we'll be exposed the whole time. Of course, so will anyone who tries to attack us," Soern replied.

The tree line reached from north to south as far as they could see, as if the woods had been planted a long time ago and the planter had run out of saplings all of a sudden. A strong wind started to blow into their faces as they gazed at the unending sea of golden grass before them. 

Soern inhaled deeply through his nose. "Ah, even this far north you can smell the sea. The winds from the coast can travel all the way up the plains, bringing a reminder of salted air. That smell will get stronger and stronger as we get closer to Trader's Haunt. It will grow so thick, that once you are in the gates of the city, the salty air will choke you and you won't ever want to smell that place again. But now, in the fresh air of the plains, good memories of the coast are all it inspires."

"This Trader's Haunt place sounds terrible. Why do we have to go there," Dashyl asked. "Isn't there any other place to catch an airship?"

"Son," Soern said, "We are in the hinterlands of Veratar here. We are far from the safety of the Protectorate cities, or even important independent cities. The Legion prefer to stick to the coast and sail past these lands, viewing them as strategically irrelevant. The only reason airships go to Trader's Haunt is because the goods that can be gotten there are so precious and rare that their potential owners want to procure them as quickly as possible."

"Oh," is all Dashyl said.

"Besides," continued Soern, "I need to return to my post. My duties do not allow me the time to escort you all the way to Legion lands. I suppose I could let you keep the igwaza runners and send you off alone, but how would you find your way, who would defend you? This is the quickest, safest way for you to return home or go wherever it is you want to go next. You must leave this area before the people hunting you have figured out that you have left so you can throw them off your trail."

"I agree," chimed in Fretly. "This really is the best way, Dash. We'll be fine, Trader's Haunt isn't as bad as our big friend here makes it seem. When I came for the Center of Death Tournament, we were able to go quickly from the airship anchor to the outer gates without much fuss. Trust us. Wait until you see the airships!"

Dashyl smiled at his two companions. "Okay," he said.

"Well," Soern said as he sighed, "things look clear from up here. No razorwig swarms, no Krill Assassins waiting to ambush us, no vaygr crouching among the blades of grass ready to pounce on us." Soern laughed and kept laughing as he mounted his igwaza runner. "Come on, let's go, you two."

Dashyl's Quest: The Tournament Plains

"Ah, it's been so long since I've ridden one of these things, my backside isn't used to it," Fretly moaned as he shifted from cheek to cheek on the back of his igwaza.

"At least you knew what to expect," snapped Dashyl. "Both my legs are numb, but my feet are swollen and throbbing." Dashyl let out a loud, fake sob.

"Hush, you two," Soern growled at them. "Even though we are on a road, we are in the wild. You never know what could be lurking among the trees."

"Like what, vaygr" Dashyl asked, his eyes growing big. He had never seen a vaygr in the wild, but he knew they could be vicious and deadly if encountered.

"Perhaps. To our luck, vaygr don't hunt much on the Tournament Plains, they are too exposed to large mob kilwings that patrol the skies over the plains, especially here in the northern end."

Fretly scowled. "Those flying carapids? I've heard that the larger ones will kill and attack vaygr. Would they attack us?"

"No, as long as we stay in a group, the mob kilwings won't bother us. It's the razorwigs I'm worried about," Soern admitted.

"What are those, they sound icky," asked Dashyl, crinkling his nose.

Soern stopped his igwaza and the other two stopped behind him. He turned around on his mount and said, "We're in the late days of the Forlan cycle, soon the Blossoming will be turning to the Reaping. During the Senna cycle, razorwigs will begin to cross the plains in great swarms. One does not want to be in the path of a razorwig swarm. Right now, they are feeding on the new growth of these woods. If we disturb them, they could decide to take flight and swarm early."

"Why don't we want to be in a razorwig swarm," asked Dashyl.

"Because...just trust me," Soern said as he nudged his igwaza onward. "We'll be clear of the trees very soon and drop down to the plains. We'll stop to rest and eat at the tree line. We can scout the plains from the high ground to see if we spot anything unpleasant and prepare for it."

Dashyl and Fretly exchanged glances and then both grimaced, their current pain interrupting any fear of a gruesome future fate.

Dashyl's Quest

“Rise and ring,” Groernen said loud enough to wake everyone. He banged two spoons together when nobody stirred.

“Okay, I’m up,” Soern said as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“I’ve made a hearty breakfast for you travelers,” Groernen said, beaming a bit too much. Fretly and Dashyl gave the cook dirty looks as they sat down at the table and began to eat. Those dirty looks turned to smiles as the meal pleased their mouths and made the two glad to be awake.

“After you finish eating, get your sleeping sacks ready and everything else you have,” Soern ordered.

Soern took the longest to get ready and his two companions sat in their chairs full of questions, questions Soern waved off as he packed. After a while of this hustle and bustle, Soern announced, “The igwaza are loaded and everything’s ready.”

The four of them walked outside the hut. The morning light hung low on the horizon. Around the back of the hut, in a small pen, three igwaza stood loaded with supplies for the journey, each of them picking up one foot and then the other in anticipation of running.

“Have you ever ridden an igwaza runner before,” Soern asked.

Fretly nodded yes, but Dashyl said, “No.”

“Ah, well, you’re in for a treat, my boy,” Soern said. “There’s nothing like riding a speedy igwaza in the cool morning air.”

Soern put his hand in the middle of Dashyl’s back and walked him over to the igwaza the boy would be riding. “Grab this last large horn on its neck for leverage and throw your leg over its back. The runners have been bred to have a break in their back horns to make a natural riding seat. You’re small, so you might slide around on the smooth skin there. You can tie yourself in if you need to.”

Dashyl grabbed the horn and flung his leg over the igwaza but immediately slid off the other side onto the ground. Soern erupted into laughter. “Okay, I will put you on and we’ll tie you in.” Dashyl didn’t feel so bad when Fretly did the same thing when he tried to get on his igwaza.

“Do we need to tie you in, too,” asked Soern.

“No, I’ll get it,” Fretly snapped back. And on the second try, he did.

With Fretly and Dashyl on their rides, Soern mounted his. Soern’s igwaza was almost twice as large as the other two. It’s muscles rippled under its thick hide as it steadied itself under the Kirzan’s weight. “This is Ragnish, my igwaza. I’ve raised him since he could fit in the palms of my hands. You’ll be hard pressed to find a bigger, faster runner in all of Veratar. Dash, we’ll have you ride in the middle so your igwaza can simply follow the other two and won’t stall or run off on its own course.”

“Got it,” replied Dashyl.

Soern turned to his brother. “My brother, thank you for taking up my duties for me while I am gone.”

“It is no trouble, my brother. Londa can handle the cooking duties for a few days. I’ll not let any ruffians get through to Anchorwatch on my watch,” Groernen said as he patted Ragnish’s hindquarters.

“Farewell, then. I will see you soon unless the road does not see me return,” Soern said, quoting the old Kirzan saying.

“Farewell, my friends,” Groernen called out as the three riders rode away from the hut.

“Good bye,” Dashly and Fretly called out in unison.

The three travelers pointed their igwaza into the rising sun and set out on the road to Trader’s Haunt.

For a long time the travelers rode in silence. The questions that Dashyl and Fretly had earlier faded with the road dust that their mounts kicked up into the air. The road rose in elevation a bit and the trees eventually came close to the sides of the road engulfing it in shade.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Dashyl finally stopped concentrating on staying seated on his igwaza and just enjoyed watching the scenery pass. “How long is the journey,” he asked Soern, the questions from this morning once again popping up in his head.

“A few days,” he replied. “We’ll keep this pace while we are among the trees, but once we are out on the plains, we’ll pick up the pace and break into a run.”

“I see,” Dashyl said. Suddenly, he felt a twinge of guilt and all the other questions he wanted to ask fell away.

“Soern,” Dashyl said somewhat weakly, “I found your letters.”

“Oh boy,” muttered Fretly.

Soern turned around on his igwaza and looked at Dashyl, “What?”

“I was bored and I found your chest and got curious,” Dashyl explained. “I couldn’t read most of them, but I did find some written in the Sarion tongue.”

“Yes, and those are the ones you read,” Soern asked.

“Yeah, they seemed like love letters,” admitted Dashyl.

“True, that they are…were,” Soern replied.

“You were in love with a Sarion,” Dashyl asked.

Soern turned forward again and let out a deep sigh. “Yes, I was,” he said. “I met Yishala when I was competing in the tournament. I thought she was a weapons dealer. Initially, she told me she wanted to make business connections back in Denholm where I am from. She claimed she wanted to become a supplier for the Shrieve Council in Denholm.”

“What happened,” asked Dashyl.

“She was not what she seemed,” was all Soern said.

“I’m sorry,” Dashyl consoled.

“Ah, there is no need to be sorry. The times we had together were some of the best in my life.” Soern continued, “My boy, if you have a chance to love, let nothing keep you from it. Even if it ends in heartache, experiencing the way love fills you up and gives each day a brighter intensity, it is worth more than all the riches you can imagine.”

“I can imagine quite a lot,” Fretly chimed in.

Dashyl wanted to laugh at his friend’s comment, but he could tell Soern was in no mood for mirth. He did not say any more and rode on caught up in memories that took him far away.