Esmeree soaks her aching body in the steaming water. The past couple weeks have been hard on her, but this bath–a luxury in Cliffs Reach and almost impossibly expensive in Ceilbyrig–is worth every Guilder to her right now. Their hard riding has bruised her legs and rump nearly beyond recognition, and she is grateful that while Hiisi’s libidinous demands have increased, he continues to be satisfied by her fîgo ministrations. Her throat and jaw are more than capable of accepting the punishment that would otherwise be borne by her already abused loins.

She just needs a couple days rest–and this bath–and she’ll be back in travelling shape in no time.

In the balmy night air, the bath water cools slowly, and steam beads on her skin and face. Outside, the ubiquitous squeals of Brackish tourc’h swine and shrieks of isean fowl fill the air. It is near the peak of High Summer, and Wedding Day is coming soon. She hopes her friends in Cliffs Reach are planning something deliciously wicked for the wellborns this year. She hopes Jacobus Robertus figures prominently in those plans, and she hopes somehow he suffers deep personal and financial humiliation as a result of it.

She knows her prayers will be unanswered, of course. She is certain the viscount will make a small fortune as a result of her efforts here in Ymyl Gwland. In her time with Hiisi in these Bracklands, they have captured and ferried to Ceilbyrig over 20 sorcerers. Most of them have been Chroani, lost and confused in these alien lands, but Hiisi hasn’t been squeamish about waylaying Medianists or even fellow Bracks.

Jacobus chose his orgetos well. Hiisi’s tactics are brutal and effective. He has yet to lose a sorcerer, and barring once when two Bracks managed to escape, he’s either killed or captured anyone accompanying his marks. This last time they returned to Ceilbyrig, they led a train of 4 captive sorcerers, 6 slaves, and 15 epos.

After such a successful sojourn, Hiisi has agreed to allow this brief break at the Orphan’s Bag.

Esmeree jumps when the curtain separating her small bath from the rest of the room is jerked back. One of Ongram’s mute wives glares in at her. In harsh hand gestures and hollow barks, she conveys to Esmeree that time is up and others are waiting for the privilege. Damn. She must have dozed off. Esmeree glares back. These Bracks make excellent warriors, and their women are beautiful in their youths, but they certainly become ill-tempered and hairy with age. The cutting-out-the-tongues thing would explain the women’s poor disposition, but she wonders what Hiisi’s excuse is.

As she climbs out of the water and dries herself, she surveys her body. She’s always been thin, and probably much to Jacobus’s chagrin, she still remains so–this life of racing around the Brackland moors seems incompatible with putting on useless weight–but now she is well muscled as well. Her legs and belly are solid from days of riding, her hands and arms strengthened by the fencing exercises conducted by Hiisi and the hardships of living on the moors. As she pulls on her riding braca and blouse, she flexes her fingers and feels the delicious ache of the sore muscles running through her arms and shoulders. At times like this, she feels she can run forever without tiring.

 

The main tavern of the dunum is dark, and indistinct shapes move between the bar and tables. This is a place where people who don’t want to be recognized meet to discuss matters that aren’t to be witnessed or overheard. The Orphan’s Bag is a haunt to bagaudas, bounty hunters, mercenaries, and slavers. Filthy hay covers the floor, and smoky torches burn from braces bolted to the occasional ceiling support.

Almost half a day’s ride north of Ceilbyrig, the Orphan’s Bag is a sprawling place–nearly a town in itself–and is almost always busy, especially in the dead of night. It is the perfect place for people like Esmeree and Hiisi to meet and sell their wares. In its darkened chambers, commodities illegal or immoral anywhere else in the Seven Kingdoms trade hands easily.

As she steps down the stairs to the tavern, Esmeree is busy tying back her long hair–she refuses to adopt the Brackish braids that Hiisi endorses–when she hears her guardian cing bark a warning. "Look alive, inigena!"

Something large and off-white hurls towards her. Esmeree jumps, abandoning her hair and scrabbling for the sica at her hip. Thick black hair falls everywhere, and she only manages to get the awkward weapon halfway from its sheathe before the aballo fruit strikes her in the left breast, bursting messily against her shirt.

"Happy Wedding Day!" Hiisi bellows, and he and his bagaudas cronies burst into laughter.

She doesn’t bother informing him that he’s still a couple days early, and she refuses to give him the satisfaction of letting him see her wipe away the rind and juice. Instead, she finishes drawing her sica from its sheathe and slides onto a vacant stool at the bar. Deprived of her reaction, Hiisi and his cronies return to their wassailing.

The place is far removed from Rat Face’s dive, but many things are universal. The bartender is always late–the drink will always be of lower quality than is truly necessary–and a stranger will always approach her in attempt to end his loneliness. A well-placed swipe of her sica’s sickle-blade in the vicinity of the trader’s hand takes care of the third universal, and the second remains to be seen due to the first.

The bartender is distracted, having some sort of deep conversation with a tattooed oainjyr across the room. Perhaps he is interviewing his next bride? Esmeree feels the intense need for intoxication, despite the disapproving vibrations from her ember’s animus. Ignoring the persistent nagging from her stone, she summons, and the power reaches out to sharply pinch the bartender’s ass. Jumping in surprise, he glares back at Esmeree and finishes up his conversation.

As she waits, Esmeree jerks her sica from the frayed wood of the bar and examines its blade. The strange Chroani sickle-sword is the little brother to the hugely unwieldy falx two-handed scythe-sword. Hiisi’s biting comment weeks ago–that Esmeree allows him to accept the personal danger of their mission alone–struck a chord with her. Ever since, when time allowed, she’s insisted on fencing lessons from him. At first, she was met with derision–and what lessons she got were short and punishing–but Esmeree remained persistent, and slowly Hiisi has come around. He remains insistent that no true lessons can begin until she can wield a Brackish spatha with one hand, and he’s put her on an aggressive regimen to build up her arm strength. Until that happens, however, he’s shown a willingness to only teach her basic EroBernac fencing moves he picked-up from Verole, as well as general sword care and etiquette.

Esmeree still isn’t strong enough to fight with a Brackish spatha (and she doubts she ever will be), so this sica short sword and Verole’s fencing will have to do, at least until she can find her way back to civilization and get herself a proper weapon.

The bartender materializes in front of her. "Hey, witch," he drawls in thick southern Brackish, "Was that a proposition to a love-pact? Because, if it is, you know I’m interested."

"Shut up," she smiles responding in Brackish, "You already have too many wives to satisfy, Ongram. What makes you think you could handle me?"

He leers, "Oh, I think I could handle you just fine." He hesitates, "Or, at least, I’d like to try."

She laughs as he turns to pour her a courmi beer. Ongram fancies himself an old cing–nearly as old as Jacobus, Esmeree guesses, though he hardly shows it–but he has a questionable past. The former mercenary is still strong and vital, and his efficient methods at breaking up bar brawls are testimonials to that fact. A ragged scar runs down the back of his neck and across his chest, the remains of a wound suffered at the hands of a treacherous compatriot.

Esmeree like talking to him and has done so whenever Hiisi brings them back to the Orphan’s Bag. He’s old enough to have borne witness to some of the greatest events in the Seven Kingdoms–such as the War of Ascension between the EroBernd Empire and the Duchies of Ehre and Mut–and even if some of his stories are before his time, he can recount them convincingly.

As he pours, his voice drops, suddenly serious, "Yer makin’ quite a name for yerselves, yä and yer cing." He has switched to EroBernac. Ironically, despite these lands being territories controlled by the EroBernd Empire, the EroBernac tongue is still less spoken and less understood than Brackish.

"What do you mean?"

Ongram turns and sets the frothy mug in front of her. Brown flecks float on the foam. Leaning on the bar, he watches her grimace at her first taste. His eyes glance first at Hiisi and his friends and then around the rest of the bar. "Some cing rode in from Cintubyrig. They said while they were there, a couple men wandered intä town claimin’ tä have traveled fer 2 weeks across the Bracklands on foot. They were the only survivors of an attack by bagaudas–a dewines and a cing. The bagaudas killed their warriors and captured their stone summoner." Ongram watches Esmeree’s reaction carefully, "They said the story has attracted the Rixueramos’s attention in Ve’coDusios."

Esmeree finishes her courmi in one breath. She pushes the mug towards Ongram, "Another one please."

Ongram smiles as he turns to refill her mug.

"Hey, oainjyr!" Hiisi bellows. Esmeree ignores him, and she smiles as his compatriots chide him on her insubordination. Hiisi mutters to himself irritably.

Suddenly, Ongram stiffens, and she senses Hiisi’s presence behind her. "We’ve been talkin’," his voice is thick with the smell of garlic and courmi. "Seems me friends are needin’ an oainjyr. It just sä happens I know of one, yäh? A real matter-o-fact Palpi sellâria!"

"Never had a sellâria before," some faceless bagaudas behind her mutters.

"Ach!" another one grunts, "Their twats are just as slick and graney. What’s the difference?"

"Seems there’s some debate on the matter, yäh?" Hiisi’s voice hisses in her ear. "I’m thinkin’ perhaps a side-by-side demonstration is in order, uh?"

Esmeree doesn’t say anything, and Hiisi mugs to his friends, "There, yä see? Chatty as a Brackish dona she is."

The bagaudas laugh. She drinks deeply from her freshened mug.

"Yäh," Hiisi mutters, "Yä keep drinkin’. We’re goin’ tä the stables tä look over those epos we brought in. When we gets back, we’ll be lookin’ you over, understand inigena?"

He laughs as he and his cronies leave. "Maybe yä can give us an example of that fîgo kiss of yers, yäh?"

Esmeree finishes her mug and pushes it towards Ongram. He dutifully fills it again.

"Don’t say a word," she mutters, "I mix with men like that, I deserve what I get."

Ongram shrugs. It is obvious he’s seen a lot worse. It is the price of running a business like the Orphan’s Bag.

She sighs. "Chatty as a Brackish dona she is", she drawls, imitating Hiisi’s thick burr. "Tell me, oh wizened odocos, why do Bracks cut the tongues from their women?"

Ongram chuckles and shakes his head. "Hells, inigena, we don’t cut the tongues from our bnas."

She frowns, "Then, why…"

"Heritage, pektus, heritage."

"What?"

"Bracks battle clan against clan all the time. Men marry women. Trade and barter is performed. The one constant is the tribe’s identity. It must remain changeless. Tradition, culture, language."

"So? What’s that got to do with cutting out your girls’ tongues?"

"Na, na. We don’t do such things tä our inigenas. How could yä think we’d do such things tä our own daughters?"

"But you just said–"

"Nage. Not our daughters."

Esmeree frowns.

"OK, sä me clan attacks its neighbors. We capture several dunum and take many prisoners. Brack tradition is tä kill the men and boys and marry the girls and women."

Esmeree shrugs. "And?"

"Every clan is different, Esmeree. Every clan has different rituals, different traditions and lore. Every clan speaks a slightly different language."

Her eyes widen, "And you cut out the tongues…"

He nods, "Tä ensure our captive bnas don’t soil our dialect with their own. We need tä keep our clan’s tongue clean. We need tä keep our identity."

She grimaces. "Chatty as a Brackish bride," she sneers, thinking of Hiisi. "Someday," she mutters as she stares at the foam on top of her new drink, "I’m going to go rraakk with that man."

The temperature in the room drops perceptibly. Esmeree looks up to see Ongram glaring hard at her. "What?" she asks, a bit defensively.

He leans over the bar, his eyes intense. "Yer not from these lands, inigena, sä certain leeway is permitted, but let me warn yä, with all love and respect, tä never ever say such words sä casually! Yä might as well be shoutin’ ‘dwarf’ in a room full of ahrounoi."

Esmeree is taken aback, "What are you talking about?"

"In yer safe Palpi lands, they are little more than boogey men and Fée tä frighten children." There is a slight tremor in his voice, and his accent slips. "But up here, the rraakks are very, very real, and their presence is felt in the lives of every man, every bna, and especially every child."

Esmeree blinks, "I’m sorry. I meant no offense."

"Forgiven." Ongram smiles, the gaff already forgotten.

Esmeree looks around the room and reaches for a new topic of conversation. "You know, this could be a real nice place if you cleaned it up a little."

Ongram grunts and laughs. "Used tä be a nice place. This used tä be the dunum of a Brackish rix. A cing by the name of Eean."

Esmeree brightens slightly. Already, the thick beer is making her eyesight fuzzy. "Really? A rix?"

He nods. "Yäh. This dunum was the seat tä over 50 cings. Ruled all the lands a week’s ride in every direction."

"What happened to them?"

He shakes his head, "Pride, I suppose. He refused tä pay tribute and was wiped out tä the man."

"What do you mean? There was a war?"

Ongram shakes his head. "Nage, the rraakks just killed them all. A courier from A__u-Cìoch arrived tä find every man and bna dead in their beds. Only a couple cings had their swords drawn. Total slaughter. It must have happened very quickly."

"And I suppose, all the children were missing, right?" Somehow, Esmeree suspects the mercenary is teasing her, but then she remembers Ongram’s earlier admonishment. He wouldn’t joke about such things, would he?

Ongram smiles, "Yes, they were. Every mosac and inigena. Gone without a trace."

"It must have been Hells of a tribute for the rix to refuse and risk such retaliation."

Ongram looks away. "Yes… it was…"

Esmeree waves her hands. "I don’t want to hear about it."

Ongram shrugs and scratches at the long braids in his silver beard.

"Anyway," she adds, "Why didn’t you keep this place looking nice?"

Ongram laughs, "Sounds tä me like yer wellborn Palpi tastes are beginnin’ tä show, inigena. Compared tä some other Brack dunums, the Orphan’s Bag is practically opulent!"

"Huh," she grunts as she drinks some more. "Seems you could cater to a higher level of clientele."

Ongram shrugs and folds his arms across the bar. "I wouldn’t object, but the people who come are the people who come."

Esmeree examines those arms. She can see by the skin between his fingers that normally his skin is lighter than most Bracks, but his arms have been burnt dark by the High Summer sun. Long scars run the length of each forearm, very much similar to the scars on Drake. Her eyes run the length of Ongram’s right arm until the scars end abruptly at the biceps. There, dark blue tattoos begin where the scars end, and they coil up his arm to his shoulder. Ongram always wears his clothes so that arm is bare. It almost makes him look Synesi.

Her fingers trace the pattern of the tattoos on his skin. "What are these anyway?"

His eyes follow the path her fingers travel. "Yä don’t know?"

She inclines her head and smiles, "No. Are they important?"

He chuckles, "Ah, nage. They’re merely Brackish designs from me clan."

Esmeree sits back in her stool, and her eyes narrow. She’s drunk, but she’s no stupid cuall. "Ongram," she drops her voice to make sure no one else can hear, "You’re no more Brack than I am, and if you don’t tell me where those tattoos came from, I’ll tell everyone here where you’re really from."

Ongram jerks back in surprise, looking as shocked as if she had just struck him across the face. "What? Of course I’m Brackish."

She notes with satisfaction that while feigning outrage, he too keeps his voice low. She had been guessing at first, but now she knows for sure.

"Please, Ongram," she smiles and shakes her head, "I have to hand it to you, your burr is as thick as any cing’s, but every once in a while, you slip up. I recognize the accent, I recognize your face." Her voice drops to a whisper, "I know a Muttese when I see one. Southern coast at that."

Ongram’s face falls, and his eyes shift around the tavern. "Where would yä hear such things about me?"

She shrugs, "Nowhere. I just see things and hear things."

He shakes his head with embarrassment, "And yä just let me carry on and on about Brackish tradition and language and lore, and all the time yä knew! Ach, yä boduus bitch!"

She laughs, "Well, you give me hell for talking about rraakks, I give you hell for pretending to be Brack. We square now, you boduus vitchoor?"

He smiles, "Square." They clench hands.

"So, about those tattoos?"

Sighing, he shifts to give her a better view of the tattoos swirling across his arm. "These are me Dragon’s coils, inigena."

She touches the tattoos, and her ember shivers. Dragons don’t have a very good reputation in the Seven Kingdoms. "Your what?"

"The coils of the Dragon. They protect me."

Without warning, she pinches his arm hard, and he pulls away with a yelp.

"Some protection, Ongram," she grins.

"They work when it counts, gwrach." He pouts as he massages his wounded limb.

"Where did you get them? Who did them?"

He shakes his head. "Na man did this with needle and ink, inigena. They are rewarded tä a warrior when he is true tä his spirit in times of great physical danger."

"I’ve never heard of such a thing."

He shrugs as if to dismiss the issue, "I’m not surprised. It is a small cult. I’m sure any acolyte found in the Seven Kingdoms would be quickly put tä death."

"So, you worship a Brackish god then?"

"Nage, it’s not Brackish. This belief is… older."

 

Esmeree wakes slowly. That thick Gock-damned courmi beer always makes her whole body feel bloated and her tongue fuzzy. The hour must be late, nearly dawn for sure. The tavern is empty, and each torch extinguished. Only weak moonlight shines in through the dirty windows. Her hand closes around straw, and she slowly realizes she’s on the floor under a table. She lays in a pool of vomit, and she can only hope it is hers.

Slowly, carefully, she crawls out from under the table, and using a stool for support, manages to get to her feet. Her head and her stomach seem to try to switch places, and their effort leaves her heaving for some seconds. She can feel her ember summoning furiously. With all this magic, and she still feeling this bad, she must have drank a lot of courmi. Sitting gingerly on the stool, she struggles to count her drinks. Ten? Fifteen full mugs? Could she really have drunk that much?

Considering how she feels, 15 mugs of courmi aren’t out of the question.

She had hoped to be too drunk to perform or care when Hiisi and his friends returned. It seems she succeeded, though she really can’t remember if Hiisi returned or not. She surveys her vomit and urine soaked clothes and assumes even if they did, they would’ve found the other oainjyr more appealing.

She’s going to need another bath.

She cradles her head in her hands and wills her ember to work faster. Suddenly, she wonders what could have awakened her from such a drunken stupor. The room is silent. There are no perceivable noises from the sleepers elsewhere in the dunum.

Bells. Rather, a bell. She heard a bell ring.

Climbing to her feet, she shuffles to the main door and pushes it open. Mist from the Brackish moors begins to drift into the tavern. Fog shrouds the dunum buildings around the tavern. To the left, Seven Kingdoms horses and Brackish epos whinny to each other in the stables. To the right are the additional dorms where she assumes Hiisi is sleeping. At the center of the complex is the well that supplies the dunum with all its water. Standing next to it is a bell hanging from a tall pole, the first of the network that extends north across the Bracklands.

Overhead, the sign to the Orphan’s Bag creaks on its chains in the breeze. The picture depicts a blood-soaked butcher’s bag, a child’s arm reaching from the mouth. Esmeree closes her eyes and shakes her head. The image is disturbing, and she’s never bothered asking Ongram the connection between it and the dunum’s name.

She leans against the doorjamb and deeply breathes in the cool, moist air.

She’s about to wonder at the quietness of the night when she hears the quiet grinding of stone against stone. Snapping her eyes open, all feelings of drunkenness are lost as she frantically searches for the source of the noise.

In the thick mist beyond the bell, she can barely make out three inhumanly blocky shapes slowly approaching the dunum. Esmeree freezes in terror. A breeze circles the courtyard, carrying with it the scent of rotting flesh. She can hear the steady plodding of their stumpy legs, but it is the noise of grinding stone that really sends lightning bolts of terror running through her body. The noise steadily gets louder with their approach.

Esmeree ducks into the tavern and slams the door. What should she do? Her marka is just across the plaza in the stables. She could easily make a run for it, and is about to, when Hiisi’s warning returns to her. Whatever she does, she shouldn’t run.

Opening the door a crack, she looks outside. Somehow, the rraakks are already past the well and getting closer. The rasping of their horny beaks grinding together sets her hackles on end. As she watches, the bell at the well tips as though moved by some invisible hand. When it falls, it rings once, long and loud.

Esmeree shuts the door and backs away. The tavern itself doesn’t seem to provide many places for hiding. Remembering her earlier encounter with the rraakk, she wonders if hiding is what she really needs to do.

When she hears their heavy steps on porch outside, however, she loses her nerve. Tripping painfully over a stool, she scrambles across the floor and cowers behind the tavern’s bar. She summons as quickly as possible, attempting to surround herself with a sheathe of cold, but the results are weak. Her terror colors the spell, the alcohol fouls it.

The doors creak open, and she hears the rraakks enter. They stand motionless in the middle of the room, their stench slowly filling every corner. First one and then three torches spontaneously give life to weak flickering flames. The effect only serves to fill the room with deeper shadows.

The rraakk stand together and seem to wait. Their rasping is incessant, and beneath it Esmeree can now hear a strange hissing whisper.

Esmeree shudders beneath the bar and wonders what they’re up to. Are they looking for her? Are they even now testing the air for her scent? Are they homing in on her magic or her body’s heat?

The rasping continues. Outside, the bell rings once more.

Esmeree nearly screams when something barges noisily down the stairs. It is Ongram, naked except for a pair of braca. His body is bathed in sweat, and even in this weak light, she can see his face is pale with terror.

She watches him carefully as he freezes at the foot of the stairs. Somehow, he masters his fear and faces the rraakks. Pressing his hands together, he bows deeply, and falling to his knees, he bows again. "I serve, I am served," he says in northern Brackish, "The circle is complete."

The rasping increases, but suddenly the hissing becomes a voice. "I command, I am commanded. The circle completes me."

The voice sounds disturbingly human, though high-pitched. Slowly, struggling to keep her breathing quiet and regular, she looks out from behind the bar. Her blood freezes at what she sees.

It is a child, though Esmeree cannot tell whether it is a boy or girl, or even its age. All hair is gone. Its eyes, ears, and nose are gone, gouged out by something large and crude and leaving the face horribly disfigured and scarred. The same is true for its limbs. New skin seems to have only just healed over the jagged shards of bone left when the arms were violently removed. The child hangs in a woven sack strung around the lead rraakk’s powerful neck, and by the shallowness of the sack, Esmeree surmises the child’s legs are likewise missing.

By Kahedin, Esmeree wonders, it looks as if they used those horrible beaks of theirs to do these things!

The child in the sack rolls its disfigured head. "The circle is incomplete," it hisses. "I call, I am called."

Ongram looks from one rraakk to the next and bows again. With their stony beaks and eyeless, heavily wrinkled foreheads, the rraakk’s expressions are unreadable. They simply stand in the room, unmovable, grinding, grinding. "I complete the circle," Ongram answers, "I answer, I am answered."

Bowing again, he turns and rushes from the room.

Esmeree’s eyes drift down from the thick leather straps that crisscross the rraakks’ solid bodies, to the inhumanly huge butchering weapons tied at their hips. Esmeree has heard of the rraakk seax machetes and scramasax "wound knives," but she had always thought the descriptions were exaggerations. Wielded in those massive hands of theirs, Esmeree can now easily believe the tales of injuries these weapons were said to inflict.

With such weapons, why would they choose to gnaw off the arms of a child? Is it simply something they enjoy?

Their fingers are thick, with heavy nails, and yet the child’s bag is finely woven and intricately embroidered. How can this be? Maybe the children are made to weave their own bags before they are dismembered?

Ongram returns, leading three children in tethers. Their faces are wrapped in heavy blindfolds, but Esmeree manages to recognize one of them. She is a Chroani girl Esmeree and Hiisi brought in when they arrived last time. Hiisi had said he sold her quickly, but she never imagined Ongram was the buyer.

Unable to see or hear, the children whimper and cry in terror, sensing and smelling the rraakks’ presence. Esmeree is reminded of a similar procession of fry in the Mill, many years ago. The rraakks react poorly to their noise, and each of them opens their beaks and bellows a harsh screech. Yellow foam boils up from their pale pink throats and sprays across the bound children. The child in the bag likewise screams mindlessly, painfully. Esmeree presses her hands against her ears and cowers. Ongram simply turns away.

Strangely, the noise has a different effect on the captive children. They calm. Before Esmeree’s eyes, their iron shackles unlock and fall to the floor, and each blindfolded child somehow finds its way to their own rraakk. Taking hold of a leather strap hanging from each rraakk’s belt, they wait patiently.

Abruptly, the shrieking stops.

"I serve, I am served," the disfigured child hisses, "The circle is complete."

Ongram bows. There are tears in his eyes, and he has difficulty finding his voice. "I command, I am commanded. The circle completes me."

Gradually, the child in the bag returns to its steady hissing, and the three rraakks turn and lead their new charges from the tavern. As the doors close behind them, the torches extinguish.

Walking on unsteady legs, Ongram makes his way through the darkness to the bar and serves himself two large mugs of courmi beer. One, he sets on the bar over Esmeree’s hiding place. The second, he holds with shaking hands.

His voice cracking with a mixture of terror and sorrow, he looks down at Esmeree and toasts her. "And that, inigena, is the kind of tribute they demand."

The two of them drink until morning.