The Spriggan: Adventures of an Amazon Hobbit:  Part 6
By ZuiderZee.



www.geocities.com/Area51/Dungeon/4535

"Volavad's fiery cunny-thatch!" Brayoula took the lit torch from Fjorgun's
hand with a hasty grab. "A morning of warring, a noon of gluttonous feasting
and a twilight of chaos! And what will the night bring now?"

"Nothing unnatural. We already have rain, fog. And some fire." Fjorgun
indicated the distant blaze of Gigurd's steading. "The flames within these
walls are the kind easily dealt with. Not so elsewhere, Brayoula. On such a
night, almost any heat and light is welcome."

Volmor Greenshoulder's wife descended the rain-slicked steps from the great
hall accompanied by Fjorgun and two other men of their clan, a torch and spear
carried in either hand. All around them, people and objects were being
arranged for battle. Sleepers were roused, idle arms were loaded with food to
be stowed away or weapons to be brought out of hiding, idle feet were sent
running to carry these commodities this way and that. No one truly scurried;
order was maintained despite Volmor's condition and Fjorgun's account of what
had happened at the meeting place. Brayoula listened to his tale with ears
burning as though she had been the subject of all the gossip.

Brayoula was an attractive woman, but her bond with the brutish Volmor didn't
make her fairer by comparison. Why she had chosen to marry him was a mystery,
but it was rumored Volmor's stable of forty mountain ponies had much to do
with making the marriage easier.

She perhaps had a weakness for beasts.

Other than that, Brayoula was feisty. Like the mates of powerful men, she
expected trouble and looked for it, and prepared for it. She knew the law and
the people around her. Her cousin was Eldeyed, Gigurd's own widow; the news of
Gigurd's defeat made Brayoula erupt. How Brayoula got along with Eldeyed was
unsure. Fjorgun secretly believed the two women were not cousins, but sisters.
Both had those pantherlike yellow eyes.

Well, Brayoula's eyes were as light as hazel could be and still be regarded as
hazel. Eldeyed's were definitely yellow. They didn't let you forget how rare
and unsettling yellow was in the human iris.

Having those odd, piss-colored orbs stare at you over a feast was an
experience Fjorgun had sat through only once. After his face was spoiled,
Fjorgun didn't attend such gatherings.

Brayoula didn't seem to feel the rain as she emerged from the shelter of the
overhanging hall roof and went down to the yard.

Fjorgun noted how heavily she was dressed. As if Brayoula intended to find
some other house to sleep in. Volmor had been lugged into the hall and rolled
onto his back in the vast arrangement of soft furs that was their bed. Though
Volmor's eyes were closed, he groaned endlessly and his bulging belly made all
the noises of a marshland: bubbles, croaks, peeps and some not readily
identified.

Brayoula hadn't undressed him or even taken off his boots.

"This clan's chieftain is better at failing than winning. Look at one day of
victory has done to him. That gobbler has eaten away our pride and our trust.
What will happen to us now?"

"Our law was obeyed, Brayoula. Chaos has simply breathed on us, not consumed
us entirely. Gigurd's steading on the other hand.hmmmmm. That place is a
shambles. We should be thankful and patient."

"With Volmor in a sorry way.." Brayoula shifted the blazing torch to her other
hand. When she'd met Fjorgun at the door of the hall, she had been careful to
keep the handsome half of his face to her right. "A thought, Fjorgun? I
thought I saw your brow wrinkle suspiciously just now."

"If I could speak freely." He said in a low tone.

"I thought brave folk always spoke thus! Don't let my bond to Volmor give you
any pause. We both know he is overfond of leaving rifts in his speech and it
annoys me.it ANNOYS ME! Gigurd dead and Volmor his killer and now he is on the
brink of death. A pair of towering mistakes and you stood by while slower wits
in the clan bred these follies into a jostling brood of bumbles as only men
can accomplish. Volmor was never one to err on the side of caution!"

"Twice you have mentioned his name as though he were any one of us. I still
have one good ear. It is your custom to say 'my Volmor', as if 'my' was part
of his name. Tonight you do not. Has his behavior strained your affection?"

Brayoula continued on down the stairs with new wrinkles around her lips. "His
behavior has strained more than my affection this day-look around you,
Fjorgun, you still have one good eye. And a fine mass of brains to make sense
of what you were a witness to. Those with more organs of sight and hearing
take in less than you do in any conflict besides outright battle."

Adjusting her long, flowing mantle, Brayoula revealed a wide belt around her
woven dress. Along with the small pouches were sheaths for daggers. It was no
secret the chieftain's wife knew her way around blades of that sort.

"The law was observed. And there were more voices than mine in support of it.
Volmor's too. RhohG-Gollilla-Lu even knew some of it.that anyway was Gigurd's
name for the Kriirling. Even now, our warriors are calling her the
dwarf-witch. This has been a night of guess-work. It was my wish that she
should leave our company and hers that she never join it. To the Kriirlings
credit, she had an uncanny mouth. Both for eating and for jeering.

"I guessed she gave no good accounting of herself and told her thus."

"A dwarf-witch?"

"RhohG, or so she had us call her, rejected all names we tried to give her,
except perhaps Kriirling and hoyden which were honest enough. Indeed, she was
very short, but showed great thews and sinew. She was no scrawny child and
bore weapons and the quickness to use them. Without looking, she caught a
stone kicked at her and dropped it as casually as she might have yawned. She
was not among Gigurd's hunting party at the falls. If she was, tonight would
be a different story, I'll warrant. Vainun the old might have known better
advice. Mine was simply to let the Kriirling go her way."

Brayoula's eyes widened.

"So? And they call me a termagant." She said. "Other than Eldeyed, I've seldom
met a woman I would call formidable. My mother was only a snorting nanny-goat
at her worst. You forget a woman needs inspiration too."

"There has been much name-calling this day. I suppose that alone started the
fight that saw Gigurd's end. But Gigurd is done, most of his fighting men are
finished and those who were at his steading are fled. having fired the place
as they went to keep what they couldn't protect out of the hands of anyone who
might grasp on this opportunity."

"And so Volmor ate himself near to death to show a Kriirling how mighty a man
he was. Bah!"

A flash of lightning came immediately after, distant and white.

"At our place of testing, it was a fair and challenging content. Volmor
thought he could win. All of us did at first. Who would have imagined the
Kriirling's muddled dreams about being descended of giants would have proved
true in a way? As it is, we were able to bring back one elk carcass and a
half. The third she ate.leaving aside only the parts she didn't like. We
couldn't have eaten them either. May the Reckoner be kind to any man who
follows the law of our people if he should run into the dwarf-witch. Vainun
maybe would have warned us, 'O Reckoner, spare us from meeting with the power
that escaped Twunthorvald and those deceivers who carry it, for the brains in
the heads of mankind can be confounded until one sure in law becomes
ever-simple.' And that is sound advice. But not all would have taken that
advice had I quoted it."

"Quote me not quotes, Fjorgun. Are we all accounted for?"

"No, Brayoula. Three went missing from the meeting place before the cry of
fire went up. I believe they made straight for Gigurd's to loot: The guide,
Crushfoot. Toadhands the trader and the bowman with worn teeth known as Nubs.
I vow they will not come back. Not if they run afoul of the Kriirling, surely.
There may be some merit in RhohG, she abided by our law. Which is more than
the three men I mentioned could."

"Three treacherous ones. Good riddance! A few less ugly men."

"We judged the Kriirling by her appearance and were proved very wrong."

"You are only a man." With a wave, Brayoula dismissed the guards. As soon as
they were away, she found Fjorgun's hand and held it. "Fjorgun, you are deep.
Profound, in fact. Volmor.MY Volmor is merely thick. But he may die soon,
leaving me in charge, for he named no successor and our brood is too young.
Marriage or no, we will have each other and you'd like it better than a poke
in the eye with a sharp stick."

Fjorgun grunted. "I've had that."

"And we have a dwarf-witch to thank. Yes, Fjorgun, we must be patient. That
Kriirling may yet run us into more luck. I knew I would have no man to thank
for my successes, but I thought Eldeyed would be the one to help me rise. But
it was a wandering hoyden with a stomach like a mine shaft who did the trick.
And she came and left unbidden! Hah!"

Brayoula took back her hand.

"Well. She will be bad luck to a certain trio of deserters if they should ever
meet tonight." Fjorgun gave her a stern look and crossed the yard,
disappearing into the mist. "May the Reckoner deal justly with us all."

To be continued.