Last leg

Fang - One day away from Aquilo...

Balt sat by the fire waiting for the water to boil. Nearby his pony grazed on the green carpet of Spring grass that covered the valleys of Fang. He had one last trip to make to the mine the men from Ostiarium were calling Aquilo, before he re-joined Koshnem's warbands. The young man was not looking forward having to fight is own people.

Despite his captivity and having been taken in by the Aghul he still did not consider one of them. And neither did his adoptive tribe. His mind was cast back almost two years when his expedition reached Fang on a exploratory mission for the city. Ambushed, they had been no match for the ferocity of the clan, and their deadly rain of arrows from the cliff edges. In the end only Balt and his sergeant had survived. Captured. The old man's throat slit without mercy, his blood soaking into the fresh grass of the the new year.

Balt had been taken deep into Fang. Presented to the War-chieftain of the Odonine. He had tortured but had suffered quite a bit at their hands. They marked him with a small woading tattoo in his cheek. The mark of a captured prisoner of war. He would only find out later that it would mark him as one of the Aghul.

The Odonie tribes had as practice to spare one single member of enemy raiding parties. Usually the youngest one, by taking them into their own tribes. In exchange for their lives these prisoners were given the chance to prove their loyalty to the victors. A tradition Balt was grateful for. In time he became the War-Chieftain's mouthpiece when dealing with his own people back in Ostiarium. A translator of sorts. An advisor and teacher to as Koshnem squeezed from him, every last drop of knowledge he had about the Gate city and the newcomers from Helias.

And here he was now. Two years later. On his way to the mines to collect the last shipment of weapons and join the warbands in the coming war against the Odsier. At least he wouldn't be fighting is own people. Balt liked to think he had been a factor in the alliance between the mountain folks of Fang and Ostiarium.

He chuckled. He knew that wasn't so. He was just a tool. A tool stuck in the middle of the Duke and the War-chieftain's interests And he knew when the Odsier wee defeated this alliance might not last long. Especially after Koshnem revealed his secret weapon. The battle-witch Shalia Nix.

No, Ostiarium would not tolerate the use of magik for long. And Balt knew the coming war against the Odsier would eventually pit Ostiarium against Fang.