Forgiveness
Thirty-Sixth Day of Ikomi-eza (Ikomi Ascendant) 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)
A thousand leagues and more the plains stretched north of the balmy blue waters, a thousand leagues over which the elk herds strode and the lions stalked, where dwelt the Yayay raiding and trading along the coast, the Tsusax along the banks of the Father of Rivers, living as much off fish as the meat of their herds, the Yarduk, who by cunning craft held the pass through the mountains that held off the frozen breath of the east wind and a thousand thousand other tribes unknown to the men of Orinilu or others of their mariner kin, and far, far to the north, in such lands as came near to the frozen edge of the world, two tribes struggled to survive a frozen winter after a summer of blood.
Low burned the fire in the hearth untended and mournful the horns on the lonely plains, but the Knikut, those the southlanders called hillfolk, for they had found them first in the hills along the coast, knew these plains as no others could and so they endured. Low burned the fires in the camps of the Wyrdoki, but low it had ever burned for there was little wood in this treeless land, only the warmth of beasts and that which the beasts made. Had any of their visitors lingered through the long Black Months of winter they would have found the fumes noisome and the milk of their beasts sour, but such was not the case one cold and moonless night when a herdsman came with beasts in tow to the tall gate of the Danuk.
"Friend comes! Friend comes! Friend comes!" the herder called stomping the still soft snow with wide shoes cunningly wrought.
Twas not without suspicion and not without ill will that the guards looked upon this visitor, but still slowly, grudgingly, the gate was opened. Only then in the red light of crude oil lanterns that they could see the one driving the beasts was not a man at all but a woman. They saw also that though she bore the axe and sling that any traveler on the plains must carry if they do not wish for death she did not carry the spear and bow of a hunter or a warrior.
"I come with the meat of Chief Spirit-Heart," the woman said, a greeting old as the hills and as far spoken as the voice of the wind. In other parts it had been mistaken by foreigners to mean that the Knikut devoured each other as they did the beasts of the land, but that was not so, for the meat of the chief was not that cut from his bones but the meat of his herds, his part of that which made up the wealth of the Wyrdoki as much as the bright tin made the wealth of the Danuk.
The guards looked up in awe and wonderment upon her for they knew the beasts of the chief were not parted from him save in death and to give such Old Horns to a tribe not his own was a great and weighty gift.
"Oaths we have made and bargains we have sealed," the messenger continued. "When we left here two and a half moons past we were even as tribe with tribe, but we would be more than even with you as kith with kith and the bloodshed weighed heavy upon the mind of the chief so he has bid me to give you this that you might think fondly of the Wyrdoki-kin."
"He is dead then?" the eldest of the guards asks, the same man who had once faced against a daemon in man's shape with naught but the spear in his hand.
"Name dead, not heart dead," came the reply after a long silence. "He said the spirits called him and his soul-brother to go south and carry the word of the evil that has been done between us and the webs of the Hollow Ones."
Other things she has that day, that the old chief had seemed filled with a new vigor, as though a new springtime had come over his aged shoulders and the great beast he rode had walked then not through the snow, but over it as though it weighed no more than a feather. The great ivory helm he bore had shone it was said like moonlight on water and all about him the Wyrdoki were filled with awe and wonder and asked that they may joined them. But in that hour Spirit-Heart had spoken to them in as clear and commanding a voice as any of them had heard on mortal lips, filled with sorrow and with resolve.
"Go now and live your life as men must live it, seek peace and find joy in the doing, for I have been called to other paths. If you would honor me as your chief one last time take my herds that are the Meat of the Chief and give them onto the Danuk for the payment that I could not give them before lest we be shamed."
And so it was for the chief's meat along among all the traditional gifts of the Knikut did not ask for gifting in kind and there was no shame in the giving of it to whoever the chief wished... and yet in this the Danuk broke the custom, for though they gave no gift that can be weighed in the hand in recompense they offered a thing more precious by far.
OOC: Not sure how much you guys still care about this, but here is what has been going on in the White Lands.
