//------------------------------// // 15: Járnviðr // Story: Fimbulvetr // by Alkarasu //------------------------------// Timer Urman, the Knowing One, was old. She was the oldest pony Vsevolod had ever seen - and probably the dirtiest one as well. She was of the same steppe kind as Yangyr, though a bit shorter. Like Kurgash, she was mostly gray, but it was hard to tell if it was her natural color, or if her colors just faded with the age. Her long muzzle was covered in wrinkles and her scowl contained much fewer teeth than one might expect from a pony. It did contain the proper amount of unbridled rage, though, for the horse elder was furious. Most of the rage was directed on the Yelets' prince, and despite being larger and stronger than the old mare, the huge griffon was visibly wilting under her glare. Vsevolod had no idea what they were talking about, but the sight of the prince in such distress wasn't making him feel any better. Especially considering his own position. He was sitting in a wooden cage, together with Helga. A pair of grim-looking stallions were standing outside, ensuring that the griffons would remain inside. The cage was standing on a large cart, filled with crates and baskets of various supplies, beside another similar cage, containing a small earth pony colt. The pony was looking at his sudden neighbors with keen interest, but when he made an attempt to talk, a single glare from the guards made him choke on the words and restrain himself to only looking. In any case, the identity of the colt was not the thing bothering the young griffon. What did was his own status with the horse tribes, since he had very little memory on how he managed to get himself into that cage, or why Georgy was being chewed by an old horse-ghoul. In fact, the only reason why he knew that the old mare was Timer Urman was because Kurgash called her "mother" loud enough to be heard at the cages. The pegasus sported a bandage on her head, covering one of her ears, and looked about as happy as her parent. She had stopped shouting at the prince not long after Vsevolod came back from the sweet land of unconsciousness, where the masterful kick from the unicorn sent him the moment it became clear that the blood on the snow was real. Apparently, Helga got her dose of the same medicine as well, since she was still out cold. The prince's troops stood not too far away, surrounded by even more nomad warriors. They still had their weapons and none of them looked hurt, but they looked nervous, and it was easy to see why. The picture of primitive horse nomad culture Vsevolod made for himself was shattered by the sheer number of gun barrels they've sported. The weapons looked about as crude as those used by the Yelets' griffons, but where griffons brought a rifle, nomads brought a cannon. And if it seemed like a cannon won't be enough, they've brought two. While Vsevolod was looking around, the discussion between the prince and the mare had abruptly ended, with the mare spitting at Georgy's claws and stomping away, followed by Kurgash. The prince sighed, looked at the cage and slowly walked out of the nomads' camp, followed by his troops. The guards allowed them all to pass, but only lowered their guns when the last of the griffons took flight and disappeared. None of them paid any attention to the caged griffons and the pony, so Vsevolod was left to his thoughts. Their captors remembered of their existence only in the evening, and only by giving them a small loaf of bread and a cup of water. His attempts to talk were immediately and violently cut off, so the only entertainment he had left was to keep an eye on Helga and stop her from provoking the guards into hitting them both with the butts of their spears. Helga wasn't happy about it, but, after the second hit, she got the idea and spent most of the day brooding in a corner and preening her damaged wing that was freed from the cast and the bandages while they were out cold. Luckily, it was about the time to do that anyway. The nomad camp around them was not really bustling with activity. Most of its population left in the morning, leaving only several guards in place, and the most exciting thing that happened was the change of guard at the cages. When the sun was setting, the horses came back, and Vsevolod caught a glimpse of Timer and Kurgash walking to a large tent on the other side of the camp. The next day went the same way, only it was harder to keep Helga under control without using words. There's only so much time one can spend preening, and any attempt to even touch the bars of the cage was met with a painful poke with a spear. Writing on the floor with a claw seemed to be allowed, so by the evening all the floor was covered in every fitting citation that Vsevolod managed to remember, including the infamous "Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV." The third day of their sudden captivity began as the previous one. The boredom was really getting on Vsevolod nerves by then, and from them two, he was the patient one. Helga was already examining the cage with the same keen interest she had shown in the clinic, and the glances she stole at the guards became less scared and more hungry. Luckily, that was the day Kurgash decided to remember that she had made some friends along the way. "Greetings, Honored Ancestor!" said the pegasus, trotting to the cage as if it was their usual snow lair. One of the guards, a large greenish-brown unicorn mare, made a motion to stop her, but Kurgash simply walked around her as she was just a part of the scenery. "I'm sorry I had no time to visit you earlier, but my fiancee is sick and I had to tend to him. He might still die, so I can't stay and chat for long." Despite her words being grim, her tone was calm as if she was talking about the weather. Vsevolod silently pointed at the guard, already preparing her spear to punish him for talking. The pony looked at her as if she saw her for the first time, then groaned and made a shooing motion with her wing. The unicorn raised an eyebrow but lowered the spear and stepped back. "I forgot, sorry. Slaves in training are not allowed to talk. They would make an exception for me, but would probably tell on me to your master. I will talk to mother so she'll tell him not to punish you too much." "Slaves?" the chills on Vsevolod's spine returned full force. "We are slaves now?" "Yes!" confirmed Kurgash with a cheer in her voice, that sounded just a little bit forced. "All captives of a battle become slaves. Since that griffon prince said that you are with him, and his warrior shoot my fiance so it was a battle, and uncle Sasyk knocked you out and captured you, you are now his slaves. Don't worry, it's not that bad. I've been a slave too when I was little!" she pointed at the colt in the other cage. The colt was listening to them intently but remained silent. "You just need to work off your cost, and you are free! Or somepony may buy and adopt you!" "But we weren't with the prince!" protested Vsevolod after processing all that information. "We only met him once before!" "Yes, I know," nodded Kurgash, moving closer to the cage and lowering her voice so the guards won't overhear. "But you see, if you are not slaves, then uncle Sasyk is losing two rare slaves and must repay you for knocking you out and all. So if you try to say something like that, he'll just say that you are lying to not to pay him your debt. He would take it to the judge, and the judge is his relative, not yours. Lying to get out of a debt is a serious crime, you'll be punished." "But why won't you tell them that? They would believe you, right?" the prospect of repaying the debt of talking with a prince once was making Vsevolod feel cheated. "Yes!" Kurgash nodded once again. "They will! They will execute you, though. And me." "Why???" the griffon felt his sanity slowly slipping from the absurdity of the nomad customs. "We spent several nights together. I have a fiancee. Spending a night with somepony's fiancee with no one who is not related by blood to both around to be a witness of... you know, that nothing was... done, there's only one punishment for that." "Kurgash, you know I'm not happy about that, but I'm technically still a kid. How that applies to us? I'm not sure I'm even capable of... that yet!" "The griffon prince said that you are an adult by their law!" gladly answered the pegasus. "It's good enough for the elders." "So, my options are to remain a slave for who knows how long, with a perspective of being adopted, somehow convince a corrupt judge that he should pick me over his relative, or be executed along with you for soiling your maiden honor. All of that courtesy of damn Gosha, who couldn't keep his stupid butt over his side of the border and his beak shut. Had I missed anything?" "You can run away and be hunted like a wild animal throughout all the Wild Field!" added Kurgash with a nod. "That is more honorable, than being executed." "Remind me to thank the fair prince if we ever meet him again!" Vsevolod asked Helga. She answered him with an unsure nod, glancing at the guard. "Flee?" she asked, tilting her head. "Flee," agreed the younger griffon. "But not now." "I knew you are honorable griffon, Honored Ancestor!" beamed Kurgash. "But could you stay for a while and teach me to fly?" That Vsevolod had to agree to since he couldn't see a way to escape just yet. Kurgash spread her wings. Still looking a bit plucked, but the new and healthy feather were already pretty large, and those Helga deemed worthy were looking much better from the preening. The pegasus closed her eyes and shifted her ears as if trying to hear something. Vsevolod knew, what it was, he felt it too. The currents in the air were shifting and that caused his own feathers to tingle a bit. "Was nice talking to you, Honored Ancestor! But I need to go, my duties to my fiancee await." "Well, it was good to hear from you as well," admitted Vsevolod. "Hope he'll get better soon." With that, Kurgash left the two griffons with their boredom. Their punishment for talking came in a form that they received no food that evening, and the next day they were released from the cage. That wasn't much of an improvement since they were chained to a large metal bar by their forelegs instead. It allowed more room for movement, let them spread their wings properly for the first time in days, and even left them without a constant presence of the guard, but unlike the cage, there was no hope of slicing the steel of the cuffs with their claws. The whole process was, as it turned out, a preparation for their meeting with the leader of the herd. In the evening, the Knowing One came to see them. Up close the old mare was looking even more ghoulish, yet her eyes were bright and her movements haven't betrayed her age in the slightest. She also had the most intense glare, piercing everyone before her to their very soul and pinning them in place. "Well, well, well, isn't that a sight that the Field hadn't seen for a while!" said Timer, slowly walking around the chained griffons and examining them with keen interest. "Almost fifty years, since the last war, I'd say... and I'd say!" She chuckled, poking Vsevolod with a hoof in the scars on his rear. "You seem to be quite a hunter for one so young. No wonder Gosha said you are an adult, doing that stupid hunt of yours in your age, and with wolves no less, is something that worth the recognition. That shows bravery. And stupidity." Suddenly all the mirth was gone from Timer's voice. "Now, keshe, I wonder which one of those brought you to our land. My naive daughter says that you wanted to join the herds, but we both know why your kind doesn't do that. And we both know that you had an army tailing you from the very border. You were almost at the camp of the Great Khan, too, and none of our patrols was able to even see your trail or your tail. There are coincidences in this world, keshe, but it seems too much for one, don't you think?" the horse elder pinned Vsevolod to the place with her glare and continued. "Now, my future son-in-law is dead, my daughter is a widow before she even of the age to marry, and I have a reason to believe that Yelets is now allied with the elk tribes of the north and shaitan knows who else. You, keshe, is right in the middle of it all." Timer stopped, frowning, and then suddenly nodded and turned to the several important-looking stallions that came with her. Each of them was dressed in the similar gilded carpets as Yangyr. "Those two are mine. Pay Sasyk their price and chain them to my cart. Tell the herd, tomorrow we move to the Khan." With that, the old mare briskly trotted away, leaving Vsevolod frantically thinking about a way to run. Somehow he felt that Timer Urman's lust for knowledge won't be sated by the truth.