These Old Bones

7-2

"That was good." Tiera followed Viriili with her eyes, a look of appreciation on her face. "Still, she's just a kid. Admittedly, this is the first time I've seen her actually act like a kid, but you're not going easy on her at all, are you?"

"Not at all." He looked at his own 'sword' branch, held in his other hand, and scratched his beard again. "Half measures only get you half drunk."

"Uh, no. They just take longer to get you drunk." Tiera laughed at his analogy.

"Same thing." He tossed aside the 'sword' branch, looking over at the weapons roll on Tiera's horse. "We'll get her onto real swords tomorrow. Get her used to the weight and balance. I've been working through some patterns for her to copy."

"By the Patrons' tears! You've, we've, been working her pretty hard for days." Tiera pointed at Viriili, soundly thrashing a mere sapling of a tree. "Don't you think she should have at least a day's rest?"

"Aye. That's why I'm having her do patterns." He screwed up his forehead at Tiera's attitude. Training was training, no matter who was receiving the training. "She's got the basics. It's time for the real work to start."

"You're a monster." Tiera bumped her shoulder into him as they walked.

Brorzjav didn't know how to respond to that. He only knew what he knew and, after training more than his fair share of young recruits, he knew training had to be hard and continuous, even on 'rest' days. There was always plenty of time to relax and rest after training ended. Of course, after training ended usually meant heading out to war, but there were times, when regiments got rotated from the front lines, where recruits could relax and rest. If they weren't injured. Or dead.

And wars didn't last forever. On occasion, Kings and Chiefs and what-have-yous would surprise everybody and make peace. Brorzjav hated those times. Sat, doing nothing until the high muckety-mucks decided they'd had enough of peace and wanted to kill each other. Again.

Tiera nudged him out of his memories and pointed towards Viriili, stood on a small hill, waving her arms at them. She didn't seem upset, or scared. Only trying to grab their attention. Brorzjav made a mental note to make sure Viriili didn't wander too far from them in future. Getting closer, they saw the girl pointing at something beyond the hill.

Climbing the hill, he and Tiera caught sight of what had made Viriili so excited. There, patchwork and damaged, at first, was a road. A simple, flagged road with two tracks of flags the correct distance apart for the wheels of a cart, but a road, nonetheless.

"This is new." Brorzjav crouched down, thankful for Viriili's unasked for healing allowing his knees to bend with less pain. He lifted a flagstone, checking the workmanship. "Never seen roads here before."

"Not so new. I'd say this road is about twenty, thirty years old. Probably from King Turszav's time." Tiera kicked at a couple of broken stones.

"King? King Turszav? Where is this place?" Brorzjav dropped the flagstone, looking around at the landscape that looked so familiar, yet now felt so alien.

"This? This is just over the border from your home, Grey." Tiera swept her hand out towards the landscape ahead. "This is the Steppes."

-+-

By mid-afternoon they reached the true border between the Hraalfeld and the Steppes. The raging river Jurdza. Cutting a deep crevice through the landscape with powerful currents crashing against the steep sides of the banking, the river was a treacherous obstacle to pass. Or, at least it was, in the past. Brorzjav remembered crossing this river, as a boy, almost becoming swept away. Grabbing onto one of the many rocks that littered the river.