Refuge in Audactiy 5

At long last, it continues! I've had this bubbling on the back burner for... entirely too long. But I finally have a new chapter available for my patreon people!

Chapter Five

The rest of the sieving went quickly. Varnon's strength gave out mid way through his second lap, but Precept Hannuth simply instructed him to swap the strapping of his shield and continue with his off hand as before, which got Varnon most of the way through his third lap before he was barely able to lift either arm. Hannuth made a comment about good symmetry but Gretchen didn't pay much mind to it. Mostly, her thoughts were stuck pondering the notion that she'd made it, interspersed with pondering the strange alacrity of her healing.

"All green soldiers!" announced the Militant. "Fall into a line from tallest to smallest, and stand attention!"

Gretchen stood herself straighter, taking a moment to scan the others who had been accepted. Fifteen candidates had been deemed worthy, including herself. It was only a third of the training cadre. As the only goblin, she was on the very end of the line, the next shortest of the newly sieved recruits was almost half again her height. It didn't particularly intimidate her, although on some level she knew it probably should, but at this moment all she could think was that she'd managed to stand alongside them. It felt good in a way that she'd never felt at home.

Precept Gaxter came over, and gave Gretchen an appraising look. "You've a solid build for field combat, but you're not sized for sword duties," he said, "and an ogre would barely see you. Best you not be underfoot lest one step on you, and besides, goblinkind are best suited as skirmishers. Mounted spear maybe. Have you ever ridden jackal?"

She shook her head. "No sir! My family left the warrens before I was born." Left unsaid was that humans didn't much care for jackals even before the goblin wars, much less after. Colholme wouldn't tolerate a wild pack near the city much less a domesticated, trained one.

"The King's army has them and uses them for his goblin forces," Gaxter continued. "A good jackal is smarter than a good horse and better suited to battle. I'll put in a requisition for one to be issued to you."

"Sir?" Gretchen asked hesitantly as Precept Gaxter started to turn. He stopped, looking back at her and waiting. "Will we be fighting alongside ogres?"

He laughed. "Not in the green legions unless it comes to open war, and a thin chance even then. Ogres are rare among humans. Probably because humans breed so slowly." He turned the rest of the way and returned to the Militant's side. Gretchen chanced a glance at the rest of the new recruit line, wondering if any of the others knew what Gaxter was talking about. As far as Gretchen had ever heard, ogres were a deadly augment to human forces. Even one was too many if fighting them, and there was never just one. Rumor held that ogres were made by taking an exceptional human warrior and ritually feeding him the willingly given blood of his fellow warriors. But if they were rare among humans, that implies that the stories were either wrong, or only a smaller part of what was actually going on.

Precept Hannuth made a few observations of other green soldiers, and, in the case of one fresh faced youth who hadn't yet managed to scare up a beard, tested his reflexes. All of them were made to sprint the length of the training ground repeatedly in full kit, a veteran marking an hourglass for each of them. Gretchen was pleased to learn that despite her shorter legs, the lowest mark on her hourglass was not the lowest on the field; that distinction fell to Varnon. Given he'd been run around the field before the sprints until his arms all but gave out, though, nobody gave him grief over it.

Sometime late afternoon, almost sundown, they were ordered by Precept Hannuth back into formation. Absent instructions to the contrary, the unspoken consensus between the recruits was to return to the order they been lined up by, height. Precept Gaxter had a series of clay slates, handing one to each of the recruits.

"What, ah..." Gretchen began, but Gaxter pointed to the bottom of the tablet.

"Etch your name on the right side, if you're literate," the Precept said in a tone of voice that suggested he'd said it a thousand times before. "Do you know the Manglot script?"

"I know only Gobberish, not Manglot," Gretchen admitted. Still, she sat on the dirt and pulled her boot knife, mumbling each letter softly as she scraped them with the tip of the tiny blade. "Gaa... urra... ehu... tah... chuu... ehu... ohn. Done." She wasn't pleased with their forms, but for being scraped by knife tip, they were at least legible, if not pretty.

"Not done. Your mother's name, then clan Jegkte at the end."

She added the appropriate letters as ordered, then got back to her feet and handed the tablet to the Precept. He took it and broke it in half top to bottom. The top half he handed back to her while he wrapped the bottom in a strip of leather and stuffed it back in the bag he'd pulled it from. "You are now a soldier of the King's legions. That piece you hold is to be given to your family, that in the event of your death, your possessions and weregild may be given to them and only them. If you do not return overmorrow this piece will be scribed as deserter, and you will be labeled oathbroken. You'll ill favor the consequences of it, I promise you."

Precept Gaxter moved on to the next recruit in line, leaving Gretchen looking at the clay tablet piece in her hands. For a moment, she ran her fingers over the uneven line of the broken edge. Faking that surface would be next to impossible, even for a master sculptor.

"All green soldiers!" announced Militant Forol after all tablets had been signed and snapped. "Return to your homes. Your loved ones. Spend tomorrow in their company. Return to the training field overmorrow at dawn. If you do not return, your name will be stricken from the list of the fresh recruits, and you will not be paid, nor will you be permitted to rejoin the King's legions. Do not waste this time you are given. At one hand past dawn, we will march for Thistlefield, and meet up with other sieved cadres before making for the Eastval pass. You will receive your rations for the march at a finger past dawn and no later. If you are late to formation you'll have a hungry three days ahead of you. You are dismissed."

The recruits and training cadre alike fell out of formation, many of each animatedly talking to one another. Gretchen could see a mix of emotions; excitement, nervousness, bravado, and curiosity seemed the most prominent. She didn't share in most of those feelings; at this point she just wanted to flop down in a chair and do some mending, or maybe take a turn on the loom.

Quite abruptly it struck her that she wasn't going to be doing any of that anymore. No more mending, or arbitration between the younger members. No more washing days, no more passing greeting and chatter with Towbin, although his new apprenticeship more or less meant that was mostly over. But this wasn't really seeing less of the adorable human boy, but no more entirely. She would be gone, patrolling the borders, perhaps fighting the rogari. Fighting alongside other Damallin soldiers, mustered from the four corners of the nation.

Perhaps dying.

It was a sobering thought. The Warrens were quite familiar with death. Hunger, disease, mishap, even violence on occasion, all were a backdrop to life on the outskirts of Colholme.

"Gretchen of Jegkte."

Gretchen jumped a little, turning her head to look the speaker eye to eye. "Ah! Uh... Precept Gaxter?" she replied awkwardly.

"I would see your warren. Or the household serving as such. You will take me there." There was no question in his words; for a moment she felt a stab of anxiety as she remembered how males usually visited the household, and how some months later the female or females whose eye he'd caught would bear their sprogs, but she'd become familiar with the glint in the eyes of both and there was none of that in Gaxter's gaze, or at least, little enough that she could convince herself she was imagining it, and rules of the warren state clearly that she had to deem him worthy and of interest to her.

But now that she was a soldier, he was her superior officer; that was what he'd said was a lesson. No excuses? She had to follow his orders now... right? That realization gave her a shiver of fear. Did that mean he could order her to bear his sprogs? The idea was repellant. She had no desire for sprogs or the activities that presaged them.

"Still your panic, woman." Precept Gaxter smirked at her. "I'm not seeking concubines; I want to consult with your priestess."

Gretchen blinked at him mutely. The household had no priestess. Aunt... well, Maya... led meal prayers but there was no organized worship in the household the way humans held for their gods. Nobody had time for such things; an hour spent with none of the household doing the tasks of making sure they didn't go hungry or cold was an hour assured that someone, or many, WOULD go hungry or cold. Perhaps Dagrat could provide for them-- but in Gretchen's view, Dagrat was a distant figure at best, and if he heard their prayers she saw no sign of it.

"Well?" demanded Gaxter impatiently. "What are you waiting for?"

---

Dusk was fallen by the time Gretchen returned home, the Precept in tow. The day's workout, while intense, wasn't so bad as it normally was, largely because for once she wasn't nursing a host of bruises, scrapes, and small cuts. Still, she was ready to flop down in a chair and do the evening's mending-- or whatever job was needed to fill out the work for the day. Now that she was faced with the prospect of actually leaving, she found herself almost not wanting to go.

But only almost.

The household was filled with bustle and noise as she opened the door; Gaxter didn't bother to wait for her invitation as he strode past her to cross the threshold. Within two seconds all conversation and motion had stopped, as Gretchen closed the door behind herself and both adults and children alike stared at the entirely unexpected sight of Gretchen in the company of a male goblin.

Maya, of course, was first to break out in a huge grin, and let out a crow of jubilation as she begin dancing across the distance from the hearth, the cookpot cleaning rag soot-smudged and dripping greasy soap water still dangling from her hand. "HA! Oh, I knew it! Just needed the right, the proper worthy male to cross your eyes and you'd be-"

"Who is the lead priestess of this warren?" Gaxter demanded, cutting past Maya's gloating and stifling Gretchen's protests before they could even begin.

The adults in the warren shifted uncomfortably. One by one each started to look at Maya. Maya's expression froze in confusion, before she looked at Gretchen and sighed. "There are no priestesses-"

"Your words come from an empty bowel," Gaxter interrupted. "Are you a priestess of Jegkte?"

"... WAS a priestess, long and long ago," Maya finally admitted. "Be seated, the evening meal is not yet cooked and I'll not have a rokmot hort working to cook it. Everyone, back to your jobs."

Of course, not a single soul in the household moved. This was far more interesting than even dinner. Gretchen fervently wished she could sink into the floor.

"I'm not here to sire sprogs, priestess," snapped Gaxter. "What is a T'rulldoyen priestess doing in a drafty hovel like some drek? The king would pay a ransom enough to lift your fortunes from this wretched struggling hovel for your knowledge and service- moreover with a proven T'rull bloodline."

The word was obviously Gobberish, and just as obviously held meaning to Gaxter, Maya, and Liara. However, nobody else seemed to comprehend it. "Guttering poxwipe!" Maya snarled, hurling her rag across the room towards the hearth. "The old ways are dead! The T'rull bloodlines were wiped out in the last war and bollocks to them! Let them moulder and renew the dirt!"

"Clearly not," Gaxter said, turning his gaze to Gretchen. "At least one remains. And her temperament is T'rull to the core." He turned to level his gaze at Maya. "And at least one remains who can plead with Dagrat to awaken it."

Plead with Dagrat? And who or what was a T'rull?