65th of Spring, 514 AV
Continued from The Savage and the Soldier.
Continued from The Savage and the Soldier.
Isana Lin had ridden through the Sea of Grass. She had tracked slavers and beasts alike through the sprawling forests of Sylira alongside the Green Company. She had survived a shipwreck, a tavern brawl, and more than one of Vathan’s brutal training sessions. She had knelt before the Windoak, outrun faceless creatures in the dark, and counted herself a member of the most powerful military organisation on the continent. She had faced death half a dozen times, and likely would so again.
None of it had prepared her for the sight of a Myrian laughing.
Most people tended to laugh with their mouths and with their lungs, as was proper. Matar laughed with his whole body, shuddering from the steel points of his boots to the top of his head, armour plated chest clanking with the enormity of the motion. Booming guffaws drifted into the fields lining the road, hit the distant walls of Mithryn and Syliras and wandered back again, sending a pair of ravens spiralling into the sky, screeching their disdain. It went beyond unusual and shot straight into fundamentally wrong. Something in the back of Isana’s mind rebelled at the sight. Myrians were savages, creatures from childhood nightmares and tavern tales. They weren’t meant to have a sense of humour. She wondered how she ought to break that to Matar.
"Sister! Hah!" Massive shoulders rolled under the armour as the savage collected himself, rounding off with a distinctly un-myrian giggle – though his eyes never left the horizon.
"Matar." Isana forced all the authority she could muster into her voice. Her bruised throat spoiled the effect somewhat. "I've had an exceptionally long day. I haven't slept more than three bells, and I was dragged up here by two men who appeared to be operating under the assumption I was here to gut you. I think this would be as good a time as any other for someone to explain to me what exactly is going on." The myrian raised an armoured hand and waved her comment away.
"Is just Farren. This sister. Is joke of his." He ran a hand over the hilt of his sword, as if to convince himself it was still there. "Is at this thing for weeks. Hunting fights for me. Sister does not work for you, I think."
"And why is that? I'll have you know I have a sister." She should have pressed on with her questions, but something in the Myrian's tone struck her as strange. Though that was, perhaps, rather a narrow definition. Everything about the myrian was strange. Last Isana had heard, Rika was studying in Zeltiva, and she told him as much. Somehow, that seemed shocking to Matar. He glanced at her, dark eyebrows creased.
"No. Knights do not have family. Learned this a long time ago." He made that same gesture, slicing a hand across the air ahead of him. Isana blinked in surprise. This was new.
"I have a family, Matar." Matar eyed her as though she had just declared with perfect certainty that the world was, in fact, inhabited solely by pinecones.
"Then you are not knight, puppy." An iron bell could not have been rung with more certainty. She pointedly ignored the jab at her fighting ability. "Knights kill family. Is final test to become knight. Everyone knows this."
Isana frowned. That wasn't how the story went. She'd heard the exact same tale told around a flickering campfire as a squire, albeit featuring the myrians. Though, if she recalled correctly, they had supposedly eaten them too. Strange, how some stories were like millipedes, crawling halfway around the world on a thousand different legs. When she thought about it it made little sense - the population wouldn't survive with every adult that joined the army killing off their relatives, but it was the sort of tale you were told as a child and accepted without further explanation. The sky was blue. Water was bad for parchment. Myrians killed and ate their families.
This was going to be an awfully long discussion. In her present state, a long discussion was one of the last things she wanted, just ahead of a painful death. Now that she thought about it, death may be preferable. At least she wouldn't have to deal with the sharp pain in her chest every time she raised her voice to speak. She nudged Greymane a little closer to Matar's equine monstrosity, overriding the smaller horse's trepidation with a slighter harder tug on the reins than was strictly necessary. A single brown eye rolled back to look at her, glare promising murder. I'm going to regret that on the way back.
"The man we fought last night. He held off two knights." Two knights and a squire. She raised a pair of fingers to emphasise the point, and had to hurriedly lower them again when Greymane seized the chance to drift a few paces off course.
"Do not need fingers. Not halfwit." There was a touch of rebuke in the Myrian's voice. "Your tongue is blunt. Is all."
Isana curled her fingers around the reins, a touch ashamed. How must it have been to have every one you spoke to consider you an idiot? She had been raised speaking common, but to have to learn the language as an adult must have been exhausting. Just learning enough Nader-canoch to call the ancient tongue it by its correct name had taken her days. "Very well. No fingers. Nonetheless, he held off two men in armour. I've never seen anyone fight like that before."
Matar nodded, but said nothing. After a long pause interrupted only by the rattling of the myrian's helmet against his saddle, she broke the silence again.
"You said you travelled with him. Why was he so willing to duel Varner? Did he ever say where he learned the sword?"
Matar laughed again then. Truly laughed, a rumble that seemed to inch out of the links in his mail like the grinding of an earthquake, the sound made his previous display look like a musician's warm-up scale. When he finally regained control of himself, he turned in the saddle to look at her, peeling his eyes from the horizon in only the second time since they'd began speaking. "The first, I do not know. Branner drank much. The second... The second I know. Was that pride in his voice?
"I trained him."
None of it had prepared her for the sight of a Myrian laughing.
Most people tended to laugh with their mouths and with their lungs, as was proper. Matar laughed with his whole body, shuddering from the steel points of his boots to the top of his head, armour plated chest clanking with the enormity of the motion. Booming guffaws drifted into the fields lining the road, hit the distant walls of Mithryn and Syliras and wandered back again, sending a pair of ravens spiralling into the sky, screeching their disdain. It went beyond unusual and shot straight into fundamentally wrong. Something in the back of Isana’s mind rebelled at the sight. Myrians were savages, creatures from childhood nightmares and tavern tales. They weren’t meant to have a sense of humour. She wondered how she ought to break that to Matar.
"Sister! Hah!" Massive shoulders rolled under the armour as the savage collected himself, rounding off with a distinctly un-myrian giggle – though his eyes never left the horizon.
"Matar." Isana forced all the authority she could muster into her voice. Her bruised throat spoiled the effect somewhat. "I've had an exceptionally long day. I haven't slept more than three bells, and I was dragged up here by two men who appeared to be operating under the assumption I was here to gut you. I think this would be as good a time as any other for someone to explain to me what exactly is going on." The myrian raised an armoured hand and waved her comment away.
"Is just Farren. This sister. Is joke of his." He ran a hand over the hilt of his sword, as if to convince himself it was still there. "Is at this thing for weeks. Hunting fights for me. Sister does not work for you, I think."
"And why is that? I'll have you know I have a sister." She should have pressed on with her questions, but something in the Myrian's tone struck her as strange. Though that was, perhaps, rather a narrow definition. Everything about the myrian was strange. Last Isana had heard, Rika was studying in Zeltiva, and she told him as much. Somehow, that seemed shocking to Matar. He glanced at her, dark eyebrows creased.
"No. Knights do not have family. Learned this a long time ago." He made that same gesture, slicing a hand across the air ahead of him. Isana blinked in surprise. This was new.
"I have a family, Matar." Matar eyed her as though she had just declared with perfect certainty that the world was, in fact, inhabited solely by pinecones.
"Then you are not knight, puppy." An iron bell could not have been rung with more certainty. She pointedly ignored the jab at her fighting ability. "Knights kill family. Is final test to become knight. Everyone knows this."
Isana frowned. That wasn't how the story went. She'd heard the exact same tale told around a flickering campfire as a squire, albeit featuring the myrians. Though, if she recalled correctly, they had supposedly eaten them too. Strange, how some stories were like millipedes, crawling halfway around the world on a thousand different legs. When she thought about it it made little sense - the population wouldn't survive with every adult that joined the army killing off their relatives, but it was the sort of tale you were told as a child and accepted without further explanation. The sky was blue. Water was bad for parchment. Myrians killed and ate their families.
This was going to be an awfully long discussion. In her present state, a long discussion was one of the last things she wanted, just ahead of a painful death. Now that she thought about it, death may be preferable. At least she wouldn't have to deal with the sharp pain in her chest every time she raised her voice to speak. She nudged Greymane a little closer to Matar's equine monstrosity, overriding the smaller horse's trepidation with a slighter harder tug on the reins than was strictly necessary. A single brown eye rolled back to look at her, glare promising murder. I'm going to regret that on the way back.
"The man we fought last night. He held off two knights." Two knights and a squire. She raised a pair of fingers to emphasise the point, and had to hurriedly lower them again when Greymane seized the chance to drift a few paces off course.
"Do not need fingers. Not halfwit." There was a touch of rebuke in the Myrian's voice. "Your tongue is blunt. Is all."
Isana curled her fingers around the reins, a touch ashamed. How must it have been to have every one you spoke to consider you an idiot? She had been raised speaking common, but to have to learn the language as an adult must have been exhausting. Just learning enough Nader-canoch to call the ancient tongue it by its correct name had taken her days. "Very well. No fingers. Nonetheless, he held off two men in armour. I've never seen anyone fight like that before."
Matar nodded, but said nothing. After a long pause interrupted only by the rattling of the myrian's helmet against his saddle, she broke the silence again.
"You said you travelled with him. Why was he so willing to duel Varner? Did he ever say where he learned the sword?"
Matar laughed again then. Truly laughed, a rumble that seemed to inch out of the links in his mail like the grinding of an earthquake, the sound made his previous display look like a musician's warm-up scale. When he finally regained control of himself, he turned in the saddle to look at her, peeling his eyes from the horizon in only the second time since they'd began speaking. "The first, I do not know. Branner drank much. The second... The second I know. Was that pride in his voice?
"I trained him."
