Hello and welcome to my collection of short pieces set in my fantasy world, Nornlain. I'll be periodically collecting what I have written into these sets and posting them here, so if you enjoy reading them then make sure to follow!
I'm not always sure what information about my setting is well known or even publicly posted, so feel free to ask questions if you need to better understand something.
Enjoy!
Devon coughed, a coarse hacking thing that had been shredding his lungs for the past week. This Wistfall has been especially harsh, the air thicker with wist than he had ever felt before.
Crone Mara had left Thepathos as soon as the season started, taking many of the most devout followers with her.
Her damned paranoid instincts left his farmland half untended, unable to get enough hires for a full harvest to be completed.
Bah. A storm had never made its way to Thepathos in the sixty years he lived here, and he wasn’t about to abandon it because a crazy old woman had worse joint pain than normal. Even the local mage band stood their ground. Could she really know better than the bright minds from the three Universities? Of course not.
He lowered himself from the highest branches of the tree with his wistrope. It had gotten pretty rough alongside him, and he’d need to take it to be purified at the end of the harvest. Brushing off the dust and glitter he took his full basket back to the collection point.
The air was thick enough with wist to block out the sun, a little early for the glimmer eclipse sure, but not that bad a sign.
The bad sign was seeing his farmhands packing up the household as he arrived.
“What is the- ahem, *khoff*,” His lungs protested the harsh volume of his voice, cutting him short. “What is the meaning of this?” The words came out weak.
“The storm’s well overtaken the fields to the north, it’s going to be here in a matter of hours!” His youngest farmhand said in a panicked voice.
“We were looking for you, mister. Swear it! But the fields are so hard to see through in this fog.” Another one excused.
Devon fumed. This was unthinkable, it just couldn’t be! He had everything here, he’d helped make this town what it was today. How long would it take to rebuild? He had made big investments this past year, and was still in plenty of debt. There was no way he would survive if he gave up now.
“Drop the supplies, stop loading the carts! We're making defenses, shoring this place up as best as we can!”
“Yes mister.” Came the learned reply from the farmhands.
Cloth and grain dropped to the ground, workers picking up rope and daub. Surfaces were smeared and cracks sealed. Devon still had a good few barrels of fruit puree, which coated the outside of each of his buildings.
Animals were let out of their pens and guided to ditches in between paths, where they were slaughtered. Lines of blood, upending the nature of containment, and liquid tight seals were all vital to the protection process. It wouldn’t work if the heart of the storm got close, but it might just withstand the monsters and magic rolling through.
He wished he had invested more into a proper armoury. One and a half sets of armour to split between him and his five last men. He took the greathelm, and gave his most loyal minion the skullcap. Two gambisons went to the men who best fit, and the greaves and gloves went to the last two.
Weaponry was in even shorter supply. He took his shortbow and gave the sword to the man in the skullcap, everyone else used improvised weaponry. Pitchforks became tridents and kitchen knives daggers, preparing everyone for the incoming battle.
The plan was to be defensive, guiding the wistbeasts away from his buildings and into the deeper fields, coming out of hiding only to shore up defenses as the storm got worse.
The sky was a fractured rainbow when they finished entrenching themselves. Each crack collected back to the center of the storm, now visible on the horizon.
Tremors shook through the earth as a stampede of wistbeasts came into view. His helmet rattled and he settled in down with his spare hand, clutching bow and arrows in his balled fist.
He knocked an arrow, steadying his breath before pulling back. He held in a cough and got his sight in on a giant serpent three fields down. He loosed his shot and doubled over in pain as he coughed.
Small amounts of blood spattered on the inside of his helmet, the coppery smell overwhelming him. He swallowed his fear and his blood, and looked out.
It was a clean hit, the arrow sunk into soft flesh, but the beast did not seem deterred. The serpent rushed out and flattened a family's thatch hut. It’s lashing tail dug great ditches into the paths and split small trees.
Their protection was working at least. The wind bent around the estate, parting the fields before stopping at the ditches of blood. Dust slipped off the fruit mash on the building surface, only small crystals forming at the edges.
Their entrenchments weren’t faring as well. Wistbugs buzzed close, undeterred by their defenses. They were quick to dispatch with a swing of a dagger, but they were too numerous to put down. A mosquito with cat’s paws grabbed onto Devon’s back and bit into his neck.
He grabbed the bugger and threw it off to the side, furious and driven by the pain.
Another arrow knocked, but it slipped from his fingers before he could aim. His hands were numb and unresponsive.
His breathing went shallow as he slipped into the mud, paralyzed from the neck down by the damned mosquito beast.
He could only blink the mud from his eyes and watch as the corpses of beasts piled up on their entrenchment, his loyal men fighting tooth and nail four their survival.
His consciousness drifted out, and was startled back into motion as the corpse of one of his men collapsed onto his back.
The fern laden bear that had gored him was slain on return, a pitchfork stabbing cleanly into its neck.
Suffocating under the weight of a grown man, his weakened lungs slowly trickled full of blood.
Devon thought himself dead. He reached up and took off his helmet, wheezing in pain, and barely realized he was still alive.
But miraculously, he was.
The heart of the storm passed over nearby hills, and Devon could only look in awe as the entire landscape shifted, twisting under the incredible might of the storm, cracking reality and reforming it new.
He crawled out of the mud and viscera, and looked out to his buildings. Only the mill and the barn had been lost. They were his oldest buildings, most susceptible to the storm. He’d saved everything else.
Two of his farmhands died defending his worth. He swore that he’d give their families all the compensation he could.
They’d need it. His buildings were all that stood in this town now. Half of it had been packed away a week ago, and now the other half was rubble.
Devon puked up blood, and considered himself incredibly lucky.
Emile woke to the sound of increased activity in his dorm. Five roommates, all early worms that he had to suffer with. He’d stayed up especially late last night reading the latest printing of ‘The Well Studied Adventures of Ainsel Wistcroft’. It was half adventure novel, half research paper, and incredibly beloved by Emile when compared to the near endless churn of academic treatises.
He slogged to the kitchen nook and finished the pitcher of coffee, his cup taking a fair share of the black sludge left at the bottom of the pitcher. He joked in his letters home that access to this elixir of energy was worth the price of his room and board itself.
Collecting his supplies and winding his wisthread into a tight skein he left to his first lecture.
The outdoor auditorium was a classic of Frevilles education, though many more learning halls were being crafted by Pathomedos architects recently. It was clear and sunny the entire school year, with monsoon season being when the students took time off to visit home. This morning was much like the others, the sun just warming the grass and waking the flower gardens as he arrived at his bench.
Today’s lesson would be taught by Professor Crawley, a short Rumberg man of eighty years. Emile got along well with Crawley, both aware of their position as Achi Foreigners in a place that rarely saw their type, and practically thought them both Merkish.
“Hello!” Crawley said, in his daily sing song style.
Emile always said hello back, along with the more excited students.
Crawley’s classes were on the identification and classification of Wistbeasts. Beginner classes were in the afternoon and covered the forming and longevity of the classic forms. The advanced morning classes focused on forming combat and control methods in the field.
Immediately Crawley started marking on the large marking wall with a piece of chalk and his wisthread as a guiding compass and ruler. He sketched out the basic shape of an owl headed beast, and Emile copied down the shapes on his slate. He marked out ideas of form and function as he copied, getting just a little ahead of the lesson in the hope of impressing the teacher.
The illustration had the head of an owl, with oversized eyes and an underbite to the beak, coming from a serpentine body with the texture of a wooden fencepost. In the corner was a mage for scale, about a third the size of the beast.
“This beast is found in a salt mine and has already killed a dozen miners before you arrived, how do you approach?”
Class continued, with students splitting into groups to discuss strategies and figuring out what the best answer was.
Richard pulled himself onto his horse by his wisthread, which wrapped around his foot and hooked into the saddle. He rode the dying path to Borsel, a town that was neglected by the Achi army and struggled with many bandits. The bandits worked up and down the Sallak river, hopping borders when the heat was too high.
Borsel was small, disconnected, and neglected. Richard knew the type, whether person or town. They got bullied by scrawny tyrants who picked on the weakest and most vulnerable. He worked to even out that imbalance. For a price.
Mira, his short tawny horse, bristled and stopped in the middle of the trail. Her eyes flicked out, animal instincts knowing that something was wrong, even if Richard hadn’t noticed yet. He readied his halberd and tightened his wisthread around his feet more.
Shrubs rustled ahead of him and he kicked his legs and pulled the thread, guiding Mira to turn straight around and run. However as she spun in a galloping pose, he saw a group of men had emerged from the shrubs behind him.
“Y’can’t just run off now!” The best dressed among the mob jeered. Richard found that even when bandits didn’t have official leadership, there was a good correlation between who had the best hat, and who called the shots. This leader wore a red silk bonnet, a classic fashion style among Gedarans.
“I think we’d all like it if I could.” He replied, in Gedaran rather than Merkish, hoping to get the momentum of the conversation on his side.
“You can leave as soon as you drop your weapon,” The leader replied. “Your Gedaran is pretty good. No wonder they hired you.” He added.
Richard frowned. They knew he was coming for a fight, so this would be a harder sell.
“How many of you think you could take me one on one right now?”
“That’s not how this works!” One of the rowdier ones chirped back. He was clearly the bloodthirsty type.
“Doesn’t matter. It means that at least one of you will die in this fight. Sure, you might have lived this long stealing from poor folk who didn’t deserve it, but how many times have you bested a man like me?”
He didn’t wait for a response, instead swinging his halberd in a wide arc to push back those who had crept too close.
“You haven’t! I know you’re type. You run away before any authorities can defend your prey, tails between your legs.”
Richard spat on the ground and growled at his prey.
“Pathetic, Pathetic,” He said it once in Gedaran, and once in Merkish.
The man in the red hat stammered.
“W-well. Depping dammit! I don’t care! You’re not going to just let us go!” He shouted, charging at Mira with his sword.
Richard effortlessly bashed the man’s blade out of his hands and slashed quickly across his chest, a medium depth cut that rapidly shed blood.
“Tell them to kneel and I will let one of them attend to your wound.” He told the leader.
“To the hells with you grass-eater! Men! GO!”
Richard was the first to spin into action, followed only seconds later by Mira. The bandits had no reflexes for battle, and by the time the last of them started moving, Richard had ended two of their lives.
His halberd outreached all of their weapons two fold, and very few of them knew how to defend against a horseman trying to end them.
After three fell, many saw how this would end for them, and ran off into the taller grass and shrubs.
The remaining could barely put up a fight. Richard took one thrown knife to the back, while his attention was focused on defending Mira above everything. It didn’t penetrate his silk undershirt, but would leave a bruise.
When the battle was over, eight lay on the ground in pain and three lay in dead silence. Richard grabbed the man in the red hat, who now also had a red shirt, and pulled him onto Mira.
“Where are you taking me?” He asked.
“You’re going to help me kill your boss and burn out any lingering threats.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I decided to cut open your chest, and not your neck. But you could give me the chance to reconsider.”
The man gripped tight and the two rode off.
The battlefield was a muddy mess, turned over by hundreds of marching feet. The battlefield had long been a place for armies in Senvilterre to settle things.
Only two men stood on it today.
Grainus, the wise.
His apprentice, Alphonze.
Only one would leave here alive.
Grainus looked across the field to his student, sad that it had to end this way.
"Alphonze. You have gone too far! Your corruption of my arts ends here!"
Alphonze was not a young man, already in his mid-thirties. Grainus had known him since he was a young boy, and could hardly believe that time could change someone so much.
"I did exactly what you taught me! You always said- everyone said; I have incredible potential, and I need to apply it."
He screamed raw, sounding like a furious teenager more than a grown man.
"Well? I've applied myself! I'm a greater mage than you ever were!"
"You stole other men's power and made it their own!"
Alphonze chuckled to himself.
"Heh, that may be. But your thread will be the finest addition to my collection."
"Over my dead body!" Grainus snapped, firing his thread forward.
"That's the plan, master."
Alphonze's thread had already twisted in the air, forming a thicker coil. It withstood the impact of Grainus' thread, and slipped in size as it avoided being bound.
The mud made Grainus' approach slow, his feet sucked to the earth as he charged ahead.
Alphonze pulled his thread back and formed it into a sling, then loaded a stone into it.
The thread cracked at a supernatural speed, but the stone was caught by a net Grainus formed at the last second.
Grainus flung a handful of mud from the ground, which was spiked into the earth, leaving only a few spatters on Alphonze's cheek.
"I only wish this fight could've lasted longer, master. I had so many tricks to show you. Oh well."
The wisthread expanded outwards, creating an unstoppable assault from all sides towards the old man.
"Alphonze!" Grainus cried out, his limbs rapidly bound to his chest.
"Silence!" Alphonze said, and with the word thread tightened around Grainus' neck.
Blood was blocked from the man's brain, and his consciousness fluttered away. He barely had the willpower to return his assault.
His wisthread had snuck beneath the mud, undetected, and pulled a tight snare around Alphonze's foot.
The thread shot into the air and pulled the mage with it.
Alphonze struggled from his dangling position, at least a hundred feet off the ground, but couldn't free himself.
With Grainus still being choked by thread, Alphonze was in a tricky situation. If he let Grainus go, he would certainly be bound and captured, then put on trial for his crimes.
Alphonze was still rising, and if he didn't let Grainus go, then he would be dropped after the old man died. Few mages could survive a fall from over a thousand feet.
Alphonze hoped he could be one of those few.
The raiders had never come this far south before. Achi was a long ways away. Yet they had a small band at this farmland, taking their lot from the houses and threatening my family.
"Please, just take what you want, but leave my family alone."
The gruff commander who had me kneeling before him grunted.
"I think some of us would want to set this whole place ablaze. I can call them off, of course, but what can you offer to make it worth my time?"
I didn't know what to say. I wouldn't let him harm my son or daughters, and I was the only parent they had left. I couldn't be taken from them.
"I have an idea," He said with a wicked grin.
"You face the ground on all fours, and I get in a few lashes, to keep my arm loose."
I didn't hesitate.
"Yes sir, please. If you promise to let us go after that," I whimpered.
He laughed, a wicked snorting thing.
"You're excited for this, aren't ya?"
He pulled the wist from his belt, already tightly woven into a whip.
"Now, I know your type prides themselves on being so much better with numbers than us simple Merkish folk, so keep count of the lashes, will ya?"
"Yes sir," I swallowed, and screwed my eyes shut.
He gave no warning before the first strike came.
I screamed, the wist twisting my flesh into rows as it cut, bending the very flow of my blood into clean rivers along my back.
"What was that? Speak up!"
"One!" I screamed.
The second lash came an instant later.
"Two!"
I didn't know how long he would keep this up. Each whip made the path for the threads a little deeper, more accurate. Only along those lines did the wist strike, but that only meant the parts that were focused on cut deeper with each lash.
"Three!"
He never said how many lashes he planned on giving me. I could hardly think straight as the pain was unbearable. Only my drive to protect my children kept me counting each hit.
"Fo-ho-hour!" I was trembling, already struggling to keep myself off the ground. The blood was soaking into my pants.
He hadn't struck in a few seconds, and I loosened my posture for a split second of the respite.
He had been waiting for that moment, it seems.
I couldn't say the number before my arms buckled beneath me in pain and I slammed my face into the dirt.
"Speak up, Giulian!"
"Five..." I said, through a mouthful of dirt.
He sighed.
"You're no fun to whip. You're clearly already broken."
I opened my eyes and stared at the man.
"I think I'll see how someone with a little more backbone takes the whips. You and your kids are free to go."
I nodded, tears still flooding my eyes.
He kicked me one time before he jumped onto his horse and rode off with his men.
I had won.
Olivia Baxter was the latest in a long line of gladiators, warriors who used their wist to fight for the crowd's entertainment. The arenas were plentiful across Senvilterre, but had recently been popping up in more places across Cantumland.
Today she fought in the Achi capital, a private bout for the Grand Immah. She would fight his bodyguard, and paid handsomely for the work.
The fight took place inside the war tent, a reasonably sized thing, large enough to have a good bout. It was nowhere near the size of the big-top arenas she had fought in before. The silence of the small audience was a change as well.
Luckily, she never depended on the cheers to push her forward.
Her wist slung out fast, darting straight towards her opponent. It was her deadly 'rope dart' technique. Unlike many gladiators, her attacks were direct and focused, rather than broad and sweeping. It was hard to see coming, and hard to counter.
The guard shifted his body out of the way, and attempted a snare on her wist, but she had already retracted it back to herself. She kept a short grip on her next attack, cracking the thread like a whip towards her foe.
It wouldn't reach, but a good part of fighting for entertainment was always making the approach and sounds of a great attack, even if you spend a lot of time swinging at air.
The limited space to run made the next moment especially difficult. Her foe sent a wave down his thread, billowing it back and forth, filling the space between them. Normally Olivia would make space and reposition to a blind spot in the opponent's patterns, but she had no room to do so right now.
Achus looked disinterested, so she knew she couldn't make this a waiting game between her and her opponent. She knotted the end of her thread into a solid ball, and shot it out once again towards her foe. The straight shot let her avoid contacting the thread, which meant the guard would spend that moment figuring out which parts of his thread were closest, and pulling them in around the attack.
He was too slow, and the strike connected straight with his jaw. He stumbled, and lost his focus on his thread, tangling it with hers rather than making a controlled snare.
The twisted ropes quickly bundled under Olivia's control, and the woman was able to force it all to the side and rush him. Two more unarmed strikes on a man who clearly was better suited to fighting on horseback, and the fight was over.
Achus gave some curt applaus, alongside the others watching with him, and Olivia bowed.
Can you make links in the stories to entries in Nornlain?