Osytha

Osytha

The Badger Knight
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COUNTRY ROADS, TAKE ME HOME​

Sequel to A Little White Lie

Mi casa es tu casa.​

Winter is slow to release its grip, this year. Hochtar began with sleet and torrential rain, stymying the waxing sun’s efforts to see in warmer days, budding trees, sprouting grass, and colours of swelling life. Even now towards the month’s end, with an almost clear blue sky above, a chill sits heavy in the air, and everything is… more still than it should be, like the world hasn’t yet dared to rouse from its hibernation through the darkest days.

That air moves softly down here in a valley. Up high against the skyline are the dark suggestions of moorland, but lower as the land dips — the two-tone blend of tan and green as heavy turf struggles to awake through last year’s casualties, cut through here and there revealing brown limestone deposits underneath, limestone which has been stacked into drystone walls wending and weaving along and across the slopes. Alders, solitary or in lonely little huddles, their grey boughs still mostly bare, form the odd road or boundary marker along this cultivated valley.

And a river flows through here. Not large, certainly not like the mighty Wesend further east to which this one is a tributary, but still deep and wide enough to be worth a watermill or two. Especially now with the heavy downpours’ influence still in effect upon it, plus the first hints of icemelt off the Mhearas westward of here. Up on the moorland, you can see those majestic white peaks rising to the horizon. But down here on the path which winds along beside the waterway, the steep dale walls hide them from view.

Osytha crouches at the rushing river’s bank, hand dipped in to fill her canteen while beside her, Forbítter guzzles greedily of those frigid waters. Not a good idea to sup here were these the first rains after a parched summer, no, but now the rivers should be well-purged and safe enough to risk. For a while.

“We should reach Corndon mid-afternoon,” she announces to her travelling companion. Her other travelling companion besides the horse, that is: a lilac-hued devahni, standing slightly taller than the other woman and at least as well-muscled. That wind gently lifts strands of her auburn hair and drags them against the ram’s horns which curl beside her head. “It’s a pretty small place, but there’s a coachin’ inn there that’s comfortable enough. They do a fairly decent rye beer, and all.”

Syr Badger straightens up, shaking cold droplets off her hand with a few flicks of the wrist. She looks back over her shoulder at Xenovia as she fixes her canteen back to her belt, and gives her a small grin.

“How’re you holdin’ up?” she asks. “Missin’ Addie’s chowder yet?”
 
'How could I not?' Wrapped in a thick winter cloak -unlined, of course- Xenovia looked every bit the wanderer she had claimed herself to be for the past ten or so years. Back in her own clothes, greatsword cradled in her arms, the devahni had taken to admiring the landscape whilst Osytha refilled their waterskins.

Clumps of skeletal alders waved to them from down the way, beckoning them on. Across the river, higher up, wooly clouds paused their grazing to watch the pair, curious, until they weren't. Xenovia found it impressive, the way they kept themselves from falling. Such simple creatures, prone to random acts of self-destruction, and yet there they were, happy and contented, black faces bleeting, sharing the latest hillside gossip.

'Suppose this is all familiar to you?' Xenovia gestured about herself, at the moss-covered walls and solitary stone huts which may or may not be shelters for the valley's hardiest residents. 'I remember passing through valleys just like this back in my glory days,' she grins back, breath misting in the frigid air.

Winter has yet to relinquish its grip on the land, but Xen can feel it growing looser with every day that passes, see it in the land around them. New life springing from the old. Renewal. Lambs prancing about after their mothers.

'Be nice to sleep in a bed again,' a nod, turn. 'Though, perhaps it's the beer you're most looking forward to, no?'

Ember eyes twinkle mischeviously as she sets heel before toe, closing on the Badger Knight, and the mean-spirited mount looming over her. Forbítter. A good name, strong, and memorable. Like Yūgen. Or Leofric.
 
Gentle as it is, Xen’s little jab elicits a pained groan out of her companion. Osytha feels the all-too-fresh ghost of that truly awful bender — but especially the days-long hangover which had haunted her after. That rye isn’t sounding as appealing as it did a second ago.

“Reckon I’ll keep goin’ easy on the grog,” she assures Xen, tossing the other waterskin her way. “Gills¹ and small beer only for myself, thank’ee kindly.”

Forbs lifts his head up from the stream, his chin and neck dribbling down with water. He lets Osytha know he’s all done by nuzzling into her shoulder and snuffling a little too wetly over her gambeson. To her dismay, its tall collar doesn’t prove quite tall enough.

“Eyah, disgustin’ beggar,” she laughs, only mildly horrified.

The big stallion lumbers around as Osytha leads him from the bank and up toward the road proper. She lifts her head skyward at the valley’s silhouette. Allows the breeze to tickle her face, then draws it in with the bellows of her chest. Suppose this is all familiar to you? The clean mist of flowing water, heather and turf and sheep riding crisp early spring winds; fresh air. Beats a lot of places in Crown’s Hold, that’s for sure.

“More or less,” she answers as to its familiarity. “I never really left the Leah until I joined the order, so I don’t have old memories specifically of Corndon,” Osytha adds, as they begin to trudge their way along once more. “But the shape of the land, whinny and heather, the stones… sheep and grass. Aye, I recognise it well enough—”

Her silver-streaked ponytail whips around at the sound of fast-approaching drumming, and there back the way they came, she sees its source: a galloping chestnut palfrey emerging from behind steep green slopes at a bend in the road about two hundred yards back. Its rider is a shortish blond fellow, whose cloak billows enough to expose a simple tabard split vertically into two colours — dull red on his left, and wheat-field yellow on his right. Rodhan livery.

Osytha guides Forbítter away to the side of the road, where she watches the speeding rider quickly loom upon them. She sees him glance their way, but the way his eyes keep flicking to the path beyond them suggests the two women are not his real focus.

“Another courier,” the badger mutters, loud enough for Xen to hear. “Must be relayin’ — they don’t push their horses that hard unless it’s urgent. Something bad’s brewin’…”


¹ Pronounced ‘jill’ — a variable unit of volume, which here means a half-pint. Unrelated to fish… I think.
 
Xenovia keeps to the grassy verge as they venture onwards. She's never heard of Corndon let alone seen the place. Idle thoughts fill her mind, and she wonders if the sleepy little village is even big enough to be marked on a map. A quill-point of civilisation hidden deep within the sloping dales, exposed limestone protruding like the world's bones from earthen flesh.

Hoofbeats on the road behind them draw Xenovia's attention. The velvet-wrapped greatsword in her arms sings in unison with the blood warming her veins as she turns. Senses deepen. Horse sweat and fear. A heady mix so early in the day.

“Must be relayin’ — they don’t push their horses that hard unless it’s urgent. Something bad’s brewin’…”
​
'Something bad's always brewing, Os. This is Altalusia.' The rider breezed past at a rate of knots, hooves beating furrows into the sucking mud, the ground still soaked from last night's rains and the turning of seasons. 'Give a nobleman the world and they'll still require more from you. Offer a token of peace when it doesn't suit 'em and they'll spit in your face.' The messenger disappeared from sight around the corner. The hoofbeats faded from existence.

Shaking out her mane, Xen placed a hand on Osytha's shoulder as she brushed past.

'We should go,' she said, sticking to the dew-slick grass, so as to keep from muddying her boots further. 'That messenger wasn't just riding someplace, he was running from something.' She had seen fear reflected in a thousand faces and it always looked the same. 'Corndon - How far, roughly?'
 
Osytha bores holes into the messenger’s back with her stare until another wind in the road takes him, and his horse, out of sight behind a turfy howe. She’s not the only one; many a pair of yellow eye follow that urgent movement from their places of rumination across the hills, though their gazes are rather more placid about it.

“Fourteen miles from here? Give or take.” Which at a brisk walk, means… “So we’re about four hours out, barrin’ that we pick up the place.”

Riding double won’t really help, either, not for that extended distance. It isn’t good for a horse, for starters. But Osytha is also still working on Forbs, and the beast remains a tad temperamental. He’s barely been broken in enough to tolerate Syr Badger’s weight; adding a second person will most likely just get them bucked off.

Mean bastard, she thinks, fondly looking into his murderous, horsey eye.

But he’s been well worth the trouble. Swift, strong, sturdy — and spirited. Osytha’s not sure she’s even managed to push him to his limits yet. There’s always some spare burst of speed and power to coax out of him, and surprisingly, he’s willing to give it. Forbítter doesn’t get tired. The more his body tells him to slow down, the more angrily he fights against it.

Osytha finds her attention drifting, away behind to where the breakneck rider had sped from. It’s been a quiet enough journey on their part, despite some tense omens… yet theirs isn’t the only road through these lands. In fact they’d passed another one just a half hour ago, and she’d bet the meagre forward pay granted to fill her empty purse, that things are not quite so peaceful down that other path.

“A decent walk yet,” declares the knight, “but a straightforward one. This road will take us right to Corndon. River flows through the town, and all.”

At which point Osytha brings Forbítter to a stop, and pulls back the cover on her bow holster. She catches Xen’s eye as she threads the weapon’s forward-curled horizontally across her calves.

“You did say he was runnin’ from trouble.” Osytha heaves, hard, and slips the loose end of a bowstring into place. “Just in case, you know?”

Readied now, the bow goes back into its protective holster as they resume their pace. “If said trouble has horses of its own, might be best if you break from the road — they won’t be able to follow up these slopes. Reckon you could still find your way to Corndon if we’re separated, Xen?”
 
'"Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." Ain't that what they always say?' Whomever or whatever had the messenger in such a hurry wasn't like to go down without a fight, and the devah would just as soon avoid any bloodshed. With any luck, the two of them would be safe and tucked up in Corndon's one and only inn by the time the storm broke, though she had her doubts, Sod's law being what it was.

'I reckon so,' she nodded, lips drawn back in a snarl. ''Course, that'd leave you to face the music alone.'

One knight against many, most like. Men-at-arms or bluebloods on destriers of their own, it wouldn't matter much in the long run. Perhaps Forbítter could outpace his pursuers. Just as likely he threw Osy before they even reached the village. Flighty beasts, were horses. Those bred for war were not so different when push met shove.

Xen felt a pang of concern nestle down in her stomach, the blade in her arms warming at the thought of impending violence.

'I could shift, if'n you think Forbs is up to it?' Innocent as a wolf in sheep's clothing, she looked up at Osytha, fangs bared in a devilish grin. 'If'n you think you're up to it, that is?' She made it sound like a challenge, but the concern was still there, rooted deep, a parasite leeching upon her resolve.

Look to yourself before worrying about others, a voice from her past reminded her. 'Tis survival, and you won't survive by lettin' such weakness as compassion into your life. No, saer!

'I don't normally get me kit off in front of strangers, but since we're properly acquainted now,' she let Osytha fill in the rest, firebug gaze going to the sword cradled in her arms. 'I will need ya to take care of my beloved, though. My pack, I can handle.' The thick leather bore proof of its most recent mawings like scars upon flesh. 'What d'ya reckon?'
 
“I reckon…”

Long, pale lines worn through to the packed gravel beneath, upon a snaking hump which keeps feet and hooves dry above the stream beside it. There’s a story to this road; the bones of ancient, marching ambitions, now barely kept from sinking beneath the green-blanket march of time. Gobinh’s stone crosses loom on the ridges above, marking and reminding shepherds of the way for when its all other signs truly have disappeared.

Osytha stares along the suggestion of a track. This road has seen much history. Most of it forgotten. Makes it feel almost a hungry thing, ready to swallow up the lost just as readily as it might guide them.

“… I reckon I don’t much like the thought of leavin’ you behind,” Osytha concludes. She reaches up, slips her foot snug into a stirrup, and bounces smoothly over into the saddle. “I’ll handle Forbs, don’t you worry. And Yūgen, too — on my oath. Let’s get yon runeblade secured, then, uh… I’ll give you some privacy, aye?”
 
'No need for any oaths where your word will do,' said Xen, shrugging her pack from her shoulders and setting it upon a stretch of ruined wall, stones packed tight together by long-dead hands and worn down by time. Dry stone in mossy cloaks fouled by rain, sleet and snow, bird muck, and bullish skulls making their way to the market.

Never make a promise y'can't keep, girlie, 'cause it'll only bite ye in the arse, come t' end.

Sometimes running was all you could do to survive. Xen liked Osytha's skin well enough, but she liked her own even more. Is that why you stuck your neck out for her that night? A ghost from her past asked her as she unclasped her raincape. That why you keep on risking it? For the Osytha's and the Vyn's? For the loners and outcasts? Buckles popped. Winter sleeves shed like snakeskin from lilac arms. Fashionable in the South. Less so here.

The diamond of fabric protecting her throat and collarbone comes away with a whisper, warm flesh prickling at the touch of cold, natural as swapping one form for another. 'Sweet of you to worry,' says the devahni of a sudden, glancing over her shoulder at the waiting knight, who has distanced herself a touch. Not enough to carry her from sight, mind.

'Is something wrong? You've gone red as a pomegranate.'

Xenovia's tail swished from side to side, mischief writ in the way she continued to take off her personal effects, slow and languid, like a house cat settling into a sunspot. Whatever shame or embarassment she might have felt had diminished with the years spent aside Elum. Devah of many different colours and stripes. Close to the land and its ways. Closer than a city girl like her could ever claim to be.

The clothes come off.
 
Yūgen goes snug and secure in amidst the rest of her bags and holsters lashed onto the riding tack. More securely, even. Which is perhaps completely unnecessary — Xen herself has said that blade is bonded to her so strongly, she wouldn’t be able to lose it if she tried. Still. Better safe than sorry.

“Is something wrong? You've gone red as a pomegranate.”​

Osytha smiles down at the back of Forbs’ head. The beast’s mane holds her undivided attention, which might otherwise be drawn to the curious movements and new shapes her peripheral vision is telling her about not far down the road.

“Careful, Xen,” she calls back, picking a bit of debris out from the flowing black mane. “You keep teasin’ like that, and I’ll begin to think you mean summat by it.”

Which wouldn’t be so bad, in Osytha’s opinion. Xenovia’s got a lot of fine qualities to her; a good heart, the courage to back it up, smarts, plus a dash of wisdom to boot. And that cute button nose of hers doesn’t hurt, either.

Oh, and cheeky sense of humour as well. Assuming it’s as much a joke as all that, anyway.

The reins creak softly in her hand as she leans forward, giving Forbs a good rub along his withers. Things over in Xen’s direction are about to get a whole lot more interesting than they already are, and if Osytha wants to stay in the saddle, she had better help Forbítter keep his excitement in check.
 
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