Chapter 1: Meetings

Location Bloody Claw, Red Blade Territory
Time Pre-Dusk 5900 hours (6 hours before dusk)

Kin waited nervously as the guild master read the coloured flashes in the message crystal.

“Your village priest says that you are one of the village’s best hunters,” commented the Master.

“Yes, Guild master. I am good with the bow, the spear and the sword. I am also a decent tracker.”

“It takes more than that to become a caravan guard, you know.”

“I also have my own shard mount,” Kin said.

“Why does a promising young lad like yourself want to consort with filthy outlanders anyway?”

“My parents have debts they cannot pay. Caravan guards are paid good money. I should be able to repay the debts in no time,” he lied. The truth was his parents were one of the more prosperous tube farming families in his village. There was no debt. He was desperate to see the lands beyond his village, beyond the lands of the Red Blade tribe. He wanted to see the lands of the White Wands, of the Blue Waves, the Green Spores, and the Black Spire tribes. And he wanted to meet the people of those lands despite, the fact that this was not the proper attitude for a Red Blade warrior. Of course if he had explained all of this, there was no way the Guild master would have given him a job.

“Humph! Well it just so happens that Caravan Master Pophur lost a guard to a bandit attack during his last journey. Trading guild law states that the caravans must have at least two guards, although almost all have four or more. Pophur is rather miserly and has a habit of trying to get away with just two. Well it has cost him this time. He has been stuck here for a five-day. The warriors there are far too pious to risk contamination by association with foreigners. I wish I could avoid it myself, but the traditions of my family have laid the responsibility for maintaining trade upon my shoulders.”

The Guild master removed a message crystal from a shelf and used his flute to record a message. He passed both the new crystal and the one given to him by his village priest back to Kin. “Take that to Pophur. I doubt he will refuse you a job even if you have no experience. He will doubtless leave as soon after dusk as possible.”

“I thought Caravans did not travel during the Short Nights. It was my intention to arrive at this village well before the Caravan Season.” He had gained his 20th hundred-day (the minimum age for a Caravan guard) during this cycle’s Short Nights. He had left his home village, the embarrassingly named Village of the Blushing Flower, as soon as the nights were long enough to get to the next village. He had skimped on night sleep pushing hard during the night to make the next village before the deadly dawn. He caught up on sleep as best he could during both dusk and dawn sleep. He had made his way to Bloody Claw because it was the main trading village between the Red and the White territories.

“It is well into the Lengthening now. Villages are so close together in these parts that Caravan Season starts a couple of five-days early. I would not worry about it. Despite your misinformation, things have turned out well for you.”

“How do I find this Master Pophur?” Kin asked.

“Turn right as you exit the guild hall. Follow the white arrows. They will take you to the foreign quarter. Once there ask for him by name. I must warn you that he is a White Wand; so stingy that not a skerrick of colour escapes his skin. You will have to hold your nose with that one. Oh, the heavy burden of familial responsibility.”

“Many thanks Guild Master Jud. May fortune favor you.” Kin bowed and left.

Like the day nest of his own Village of the Blushing Flower (how he and his friends complained about the name of his village when they were young) the day nest of the Village of the Bloody Claw was an Eldarholme, created by the same long dead people who had created the crystals and the Artificia. Smooth corridors and rooms were tunneled deep into the rock. They had to be deep to escape the heat of the burning sun. Not to mention the predation of the poisonous day life. Like most of the crystals in the Tribe of the Red Blade territory, the crystals embedded in the Eldarholme walls were tinted red. Arrows painted on the wall in different colours were a later addition made by the human upstarts.

It turned out that it was not that hard to find Pophur. He was a fat White Wand in his 60’s with unkempt yellow hair. His pale skin glistened with sweat in the heat as the foreign quarter was far too near the surface for comfort. His gut hung over his white breech-clout and he smelled.

In direct contrast to the ugliness of Pophur was the lovely figure standing next to him. Her hair was the purest white he had ever seen. The white skin that seemed so unhealthy on Pophur looked strikingly beautiful on her. Her hair hung over her face. He could barely glimpse her eyes though the curtain of her hair. She was not wearing a breech-clout or a flute. She was naked as a child or a slave. Yet she was too full figured to be a child, Kin guessed that she was 2 or 3 hundred-days older than Kin himself. If she were a slave then she should have a seal of bondage (usually a disc or rectangle of metal fastened to her arm or leg). There were contraptions of vertical metal bars strapped to the outside of her thighs, by the process of elimination they had to be seals of bondage. When he saw the scar on her throat he felt sympathetic pain in his own throat as he realised her voice had been removed for the crime of singing.

“Master Pophur, Master Jud sent me to you with this recommendation,” Kin said, handing over the message crystal.

Pophur took his white flute from his belt and played a quick activation command at the crystal and read the results. “A caravan guard, ha. A bit young, but I guess that beggars can’t be choosers. You’re hired. We leave an hour after dusk,” he stated.

Kin winced. An hour after dusk the ground would still be as hot as a furnace from the heat of the day. “Is that a seal?” he asked pointing at the metal bars on the girls thighs.

“What else would it be? Do you think that free adult White Wand women prance around nude?” asked Pophur.