Noinsdee, the 29th of Frost, 768 A.E.
White-Hoof threw back his head in frustration and battered his way through the crowd of his worried shamans. They flanked him as he stalked across the prairie of Lesser Aynglica. Because their minds had, as of late, often been joined with White-Hoof’s when he reached out to One-Ear in the Vale and his own entourage of shamans they knew his anguish. They understood how this period of inaction rankled on him and prodded him toward action.
The conduit of change, as well as spokesman for their people in the difficult times that were set to come, lay outside of their ability to help or heal. That was a danger to the future of their entire race. Much had been invested in Bedros, an investment that could not pay off with him wounded as he was and certainly wouldn’t pay off should he die.
So, for two Dees since the craft Bedros and his allies had escaped to the south in – if you could call being carelessly tossed hundreds of Kilomes away in a storm the Gods had called up an escape – White-Hoof had been fuming. While ice was not truly solid land, it was near to it, and some of those icy masses to the south were anchored on islands that had been covered from the sun for Hectoyarres. Yet because it had been covered in ice, it was a land of slumbering power, power they could not tap into.
White-Hoof fumed because on that pseudo-landmass Bedros was fighting for his life on, Bedros gave off a faint flicker of life that White-Hoof could sense in the pit of his gut every Saycund of every Ouer. There was never a moment that passed that he did not know the status of the hope of their people, and it weighed upon him heavily, making him quite understandably irritable. Every fibre of his being made him want to act in any way that could possibly benefit Bedros, yet One-Ear urged them toward caution and patience.
Now White-Hoof had not become leader of his herd by being an impulsive creature, but desperation was beginning to well up in his being. It was this very desperation that one of his shamans saw and decided to seize as an opportunity to voice an idea he had.
The shaman approached White-Hoof as he stood amidst a circle of shamans too afraid to approach within striking range should their leader lash out in fury. As White-Hoof caught sight out of the corner of one of his great brown eyes of the shaman approaching, he snorted in anger and stamped his feet, warning the male off. Yet the young shaman approached anyway, heedless of the gift of a second chance he’d been given.
White-Hoof roared and charged the shaman with his head lowered, emulating the lesser beasts in a shameful display of anger. The shaman stood there in surprise and took a furious goring of horns to the shoulder and chest, tumbling backward from the force of the impact, which rung out in the afternoon air.
As he fell, there was another stab of pain through the impetuous young shaman’s body. White-Hoof stood over him, daring him to get up. He did not. But after a Mynette of snorting, pawing at the ground, and challenging to lesser male to get up, White-Hoof saw what he had done.
In shame, White-Hoof backed away, and the shaman got to his feet amidst the disquieted murmurs of his peers. The lead shaman bid the lesser shaman to stand. As the lesser of the two stood once more, he ignored the pains in his body – on his chest, shoulder, and through his broken tail.
“Why did you challenge me?” White-Hoof demanded in the laboriously slow language of their kind, a series of snorts, clicks, headshakes, kicks at the dirt, and postures.
“I had an idea, but it is one that would require daring and great effort.” The young shaman announced.
“Speak then, for my patience is thin and it makes me prone to acting like a fool. I would know for what my thoughts were disturbed.”
“We all worry about our chosen one, but we cannot help him from afar. I propose then, that one of us goes to him.”
“To what end?”
“I’ll go as a sacrifice to mend his body. A body for a body, and he may be made whole again.”
The shamans snorted in disbelief, unable to believe what was being suggested. A hard look from White-Hoof, which required him to turn his body in a complete circle in order to eye everyone, silenced the side discussion.
“That practice has not been used in many turns of the Saysuhns. Yet you propose we try it against the wishes of One-Ear?” White-Hoof asked.
“One-Ear’s own damaged body is nothing compared to what has befallen our Chosen one, and I think that he uses the indignity of not being whole as a reason to allow our Chosen one to suffer the same fate. The damage to our Chosen one is not so easily overcome. We have all felt that. Greater measures must be taken, or he may not survive to return to us where we can heal him ourselves.”
White-Hoof stared at the young shaman before him who was suggesting a course of action so radical that he had not thought of it himself. He had wished to help but had limited himself to suggesting new ideas to his peer and in some ways superior in the Vale for review. To just act upon instinct and do what this youngster suggested was indeed a powerfully appealing thing. Yet who was he to gamble away the future of their entire people?
The young shaman pursued this tactic while he still had the temerity to continue. “I know your thoughts well enough to know that you worry about not having the right to do this, White-Hoof. Yet who is One-Ear to refuse us? We have every right to act and determine what to do as they do. Yet we will be the ones to save our Chosen one and allow him to fulfill his duties instead of rotting away in lands he was never meant to tread in.”
“You make a powerful argument, but that does not mean that what you suggest can even be done or should be done.”
“The jealous Gods of men interfered with our people once more and carried our Chosen one away. We must respond by recovering him quickly or at least repairing him.” The younger shaman insisted, and his statements were caught up in murmurs of assent from among the others.
“How do you propose getting to Bedros? Who would go and who would give their life for him?” White-Hoof demanded of him.
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“I would give my life, but you would have to find a way to get me there, for I know none. In this I defer to your vastly greater wisdom.”
White-Hoof gave the shaman a long hard look. The others did the same. They moved in until there was a broad semicircle of over a dozen Ox-Men just behind White-Hoof. They all stared at the one who had spoken as if something in his physical appearance could determine the merit of his ideas.
The shaman in question was not the brawniest or largest specimen of their people, but he had a look of great intelligence about him. His eyes were alight with intelligence, and surely, he would become another great shaman among their kind, perhaps even his replacement when the time came. Yet he would give himself for Bedros, and to send another would be a dishonor to the one who offered first. It would doubly be a dishonor after having been wounded by his foolish lead shaman, a lead shaman who would tear at his follower’s chest and shoulder with his horns and then break his tail in a fit of rage instead of listening freely to the ideas of his subordinates.
For several Mynettes this went on. Thoughts and plans formed, were discounted, were altered and changed, and then solidified into something that could actually work if they tried hard enough. All of this happened in White-Hoof’s head while the others watched, almost able to hear the thoughts moving as rapidly as they could through their leader’s head.
“One-Ear’s urge to caution must be ignored in this case. We cannot allow our Chosen one to fall before he has a chance to fulfill his task. We have put far too much of ourselves into him and would not be able to make another like he before it was too late.”
“Then I shall go?” The shaman asked.
“You shall, as there is none other more worthy of the duty you have asked for yourself.” White-Hoof answered, earning a chorus of stomps and snorts of approval. “I shall name you anew as I send you on this endeavor. You will be known as Crooked-Tail from now on, though you will not live to see another of us save for Bedros before your end. As I have broken you in foolishness this Dee, you will break yourself again in a greater fashion to save him who would save us all. In doing so you bring great honor for us and yourself but also hope for our kind.”
Crooked-Tail nodded joyously, hardly feeling the pains in his body any longer. What he was being given was worth enduring this Dee’s trials. They would only strengthen his body and his resolve for what was to come. “How will I get there, for is it not such a horribly far distance away we feel him from?”
“I will bless a piece of this land, and it will always be beneath your feet as you walk to the south.” White-Hoof shook his head, and with it his whole torso. “Walk, nay, you must run. You must run until your body can do no more, and that must be at the very place where Bedros now lies. Remember that your body needs last you no longer than reaching his side, where you will surrender your life into his to heal what we cannot. After that, you will rest forever in our minds and know no weariness.”
“I will do as you say. I am ready to go this Dee.”
“Patience, Crooked-Tail. Graze and gather energy, for you will need it. Gather also what you would need to sustain you on your journey south. Your coat must be thick and healthy to stave off the cold of the Deep South, the land of the ice walkers. And your hooves must be sharp and strong to grip the ice you must cross.”
“When shall I leave then?”
“Soon, quite soon. The others will aid me as I ready your vessel. I need only some of the hair from your legs so that I might tie it to your being, so that it will never let you misstep, and it will always remain solidly beneath your hooves.”
Crooked-Tail stepped over to White-Hoof and let him pluck all the hair he would from his fetlocks. When White-Hoof had finished, he straightened up and held the hair between them. The two held each other’s gaze for a long Mynette, a gaze filled with apology, respect, trust, and forgiveness.
“Go now, and graze on the fields of your home one last time. Taste the crunchy seeds of wheat and the bitter grasses, for those memories will carry you all the way to your end. Even as your belly eats at its own tissues for want of food, the tastes of our land shall linger on your tongue.”
Crooked-Tail bowed stiffly from the waist and rushed off to do as he was bid. As he ran, his bent tail swung excitedly behind him.
White-Hoof turned to the others then, and said, “Come to the water’s edge, bringing with each of you a handful of grasses and a handful of soil. We have much to do and Ouers of singing to do.”
In the twilight, Crooked-Tail stood beside the water’s edge. The entire herd was there, though they sat back on the hills away from where he stood near White-Hoof and the other shamans. In his arms he carried two large baskets of crudely woven grasses that his herd had made for him. Each contained wads of wheat seeds and dense grasses that might help to give him energy as he traveled. It’d last a Wayke at most, even if he rationed it, but if he didn’t make it there as quickly as possible after that had run out, it might be too late for Bedros anyway. Who could say how the currents would fight or favor him though? The lands were their domains, not the waters.
The baskets and their contents were something assembled in the Ouers that White-Hoof and the other shamans had danced and called upon the world to create something powerful and unique if only for a short time. What they had made was a small floating island of soil and grasses that resisted the waves and the water’s attempts to erode and break it apart. It was a thing tied to Crooked-Tail’s being, almost as an extension of his own body. While he needed it, it would never fail him - that was the power of the world itself.
Crooked-Tail regarded the humble-looking chunk of land curiously with his wide brown eyes. It was little more than three Mayters bye a Mayter and a half and at best half a Mayter thick, though not likely even that. It hardly looked like it’d support a calf, let alone a full-grown Ox-Man. Yet Crooked-Tail was a shaman and was not given to judging upon appearance alone. His inner senses, the part of his being that knew the world, could tell that it was far more substantial that it appeared. It rang with the power of life and nature in a way that filled his broad nostrils with an invigorating tang.
“You know your task and how to carry it out. Let your senses and feet guide you. They will not lead you falsely.”
“What will you say to One-Ear?” Crooked-Tail asked guiltily as he looked to his master for what he knew would be the last time.
“We are one great herd, our people, yet we are not one being, but rather individuals. As such, we each have different needs and feelings. Yours are true in this case, or so I will believe until life’s end claims me. You are doing what I wish to but was not brave enough to allow myself to realize.” White-Hoof answered, and his manner was filled with envy and longing that showed Crooked-Tail that he truly did want to go in his place.
The younger shaman nodded stiffly, more like a half bow, but a bow nonetheless. “Then I will do this for both of us, for all of us. Wish your desires to push me along when my legs grow weary.”
“We all will. May the earth that birthed us all recall you with the warmth of a mother’s womb when your task is done, despite the cold environs you end in.”
“Look to the future of our people, White-Hoof. My regrets are only that I cannot aid you in doing so.”
They said no more then, as Crooked-Tail parted from his fellows and stepped down onto the mat of land that had been created for him. Despite his weight, it did not even bob with his added weight. It rested as high on the water as it had before, like it was anchored on solid rock.
Crooked-Tail did not need to look back on his herd. He knew they were all watching as he lifted his first foot and put it in front of the other, and once more after that. The mat of land shifted beneath his feet; ever it put another pace of dry ground in front of him, no matter how many he had already put behind him.
Kilomes passed with the Mynettes and Ouers, carrying him inexorably south across the Inner Seas toward the Mueran Belt, the Outer Seas beyond that, and the Uleaut ice floes beyond even that.
