Holstein cast a practiced eye over the open prairie and sighed. It was a lovely day. The sun hung high in the afternoon sky casting a golden sheen over the wild wheat that spread out like a grassy sea in all directions around the caravan. He could make out the distant silhouettes of the Vine Forest to the west and the Copper Fang mountain range beyond it, but that was it as far as landmarks of any appreciable size.
The grouzers, reptilian pack beasts that he’d traded for from the orcs of the Silt Sea fens, trundled along at a steady rate having already determined that the grasses along their path were not worth chewing on while they walked. They showed no signs that the occasional rustling of the grass bothered them in the least. A fair confidence considering prairie life tended toward either speed and smaller size or speed and large herds.
This confidence was not shared by the lanky youth that joined up with the wagon at the same time as them.
“Look kid, I know you’re used to having cover with all those trees and all. But you’ll best learn plains threats by lookin’ out and facing them. All that cowering and shakin’ll only leave ya shakin’ and cowerin’ and blind.”
Said kid, a scrawny green-skinned lad called Ropelash, poked his tusked face out and looked around with forced confidence that might’ve fooled other kids in a dare, but Holstein heard the kid’s breathing catching as the agoraphobia started getting the better of him.
“Start easy lad. Watch the ground between us and Lorain’s wagon. It’s best to ease into different environs. Had to learn it hard myself first time I went through a forest.”
Ropelash took his advice and focused on the grouzers and the ground under them and the elder traveller smiled as his breathing settled down a good bit.
“That’s the trick. Focus on what you know to trust. Them grouzers will know if anything threatening comes along, so you know we’re fine as long as they’re calm.” Holstein half-lied. It was true that the lizards would be aware of blatant threats, but having only recently met the plains themselves they’d probably miss some of the trickier beasts that they should be on guard against. They were overconfident like that.
“Thanks, Mr Holstein. I don’t know what’s come over me since we got here.” Ropelash hung his head.
“It’s common fear of the unusual. Ain’t no thing to get under your skin over. You shoulda seen me first time I traveled through yonder forest.” He gestured toward the Vine Forest. “Place is almost as dense as your home hold. I damn near pissed myself from being closed in too much.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Back when I weren’t but a few toothpicks and scrapes myself. I remember it well too, cuz old Wenduhg had to get me to focus on the horses he’d brought. Course they were as twitchy as I was, so that didn’t work so well.”
Ropelash chuckled at the picture of the broad wagonmaster ever having been as gangly as he claimed. “So it’s something like a tradition to be nervous like this?”
“Closer to a natural law than a tradition, way I understand it. Not only are you away from the environment you grew up in, but I know it’s gnawing at you that you’re outside your hold. For as much as we’ve got things covered, it’s still terrifying to be so far from the Trolls, even for me. If you weren’t panicking a bit I’d worry you left your wits back in that soup pot.”
“But the nervousness dies down, right? It’s gonna get easier to handle these things?”
“Tell you same thing I was told about that. You know how it’s hard, taxin’ work to split all the logs for a good fire? The logs never get softer, but you get stronger and you learn to keep the axe sharp so it feels easier. I know I have the same chill run up my spine whenever I go somewhere too dense for my liking, but I learned from the locals how to watch for the threats and what signals a Behemoth approach so I don’t lose my cool much anymore.”
The youth’s yellow eyes darkened with disappointment.
“Don’t worry your head over it. It’s the type of thing that you don’t even notice you’re gettin good at. Just focus on the day’s tasks and one day you’ll ride into a prairie like this and you’ll just sigh and check the wind patterns to see if you’ve got a storm rollin’ through.”
“You can tell that?”
“Shore can. I’ll show you what to look for when you can watch the grass with a level breath. For now, you just get acclimated to having your head out of the wagon. Take your time about it, pushin’ yourself too hard won’t help you none.”
“Okay.” The orc nodded with a barely suppressed shudder of discomfort as he glanced out over the plains before locking his gaze on the grouzers. Holstein grinned at the kid’s enthusiasm as he started humming a tune he’d picked up from a siren drinking party.
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“Mr Holstein?” Ropelash spoke up after an hour “Is that patch of grass over there supposed to be red?”
“Yeah. I’ve had my eye on it for a bit.” The offending patch of grass was several cartlengths off the side of the trail and only a few meters across, but stuck out like a splatter of blood on a silk scarf even several kilometers away. “Probably a patch of bloodgrass that caught a wild horse or something like one. It’s the season for ‘em.”
“Is it like the strangler vines back home?”
“Kinda. Instead of wrappin’ around a whole creature, bloodgrass has these nasty little barbs about yeh long,” he held up his tanned hand with thumb and forefinger two inches apart “that have all these little hooks that make it almost impossible to get them out. They poke up outta the ground if ya step too close and bleed ya out. The blood gets soaked up and turns the blades red for a while. Some apothecaries really like the stuff for their research, so old Jenkins’ll probably have a scout hang back after we pass and harvest it.”
“Why not harvest it while we pass?”
“Two reasons. First, stuff stinks like the corpse it’s been feeding on. Nobody wants to ride through that stink, and it makes most packbeasts jumpy and more trouble than the sale’s worth. Second, if a predator smells blood and sees us all walking by, it might think we’ve got wounded that we’ll leave behind if they chase us. Common behavior for buffalo and a couple other herd critters, and the hunter types ain’t smart enough to tell us from them even with the troll leather. Another thing that’s just not worth the profit.”
“Wouldn’t the scout be in danger if they’re alone?”
“That they are, but we don’t have no amateur scouts on our patrol. They’re all good enough to handle anything shy of a wolf pack by themselves, and they’re smart enough not to try handling something worse.”
“Oh, that makes sense. Like our wranglers for the soups.” Ropelash’s face brightened with the connection.
“Exactly. There are answers for almost everything in life. Most of them are just really specific applications of years of specialized training. Or runnin’.” The man barked a dry laugh. “Honestly, mostly runnin’, all told.”
True to the old trader’s expectation, one of the horseback riders that Ropelash had learned were called scouts or ‘rangers’ depending on some ranking that evaded his understanding pulled his steed to a halt as the caravan passed the malevolently red patch of grass and swung himself sidesaddle. Then the scout pulled out a strange cluster of wooden blocks and rope and proceeded to wrap it around one of his legs.
“Shinblocks.” Holstein answered the unspoken question in the boy’s eyes. “Some clever git figured it’d be a waste to carry metal to retrieve things from bloodgrass patches, so he figured out a way to have replaceable wood blocks strapped to him so he could crawl out and get back the stuff that got stuck.”
“It wasn’t to harvest the bloodgrass?”
“Nah. Way I heard it, the guy was just trying to get his moneybag back after tossing it into the bloodgrass to protect it from thieves. Apparently he was a common enough mark that he had to come up with stuff like that. After someone else figured out how he did it, we figured out how to harvest the stuff.”
“That’s awful roundabout for figuring it out.”
“Well, y’gotta remember that nobody had any interest in the bloodgrass except not getting caught by it until mister moneybags decided he’d use it as a security measure. Weren’t til after that got out that apothecaries figured they might have a use for the stuff. Most folks aren’t as interested in taste-testin’ everything we see as your folk. Part o’ why everyone asks for your recipes.”
“Did anyone figure out what it tastes like?” the orc asked hopefully.
“Yeah. I hear it’s sweeter than yall’s blood pudding but stringy as a facefull of grass. Makes most of us weaker stomached folk sick ‘same way too.”
“So it didn’t really catch on as a treat then?”
“Not in human areas, no. But if the apothecaries don’t buy it all in a timely fashion Jenkins sometimes hands them out to orcs or dwarves for a quick coin. Word of advice; don’t bother asking until we’ve been in town for a few days. Jenkins gets right irate when he thinks folk are tryin’ to trim his profits, and nobody wants to deal with him like that.”
“Oh, I wasn’t going to. Miss Lorain said something similar about the heatrot I helped her scrape out of the den we camped in a few days ago. She said everyone would blame me even if it’s an honest mistake.”
“Good lad, listenin’ to her right. We’ll repeat it often enough though. Very few folk can do what Jenkins does, so we don’t really have the place to tell him if he’s bein’ a git.”
“What does he do that’s so rare? Miss Lorain didn’t say.”
“Course she didn’t. Same reason as I won’t for now. If you’re unlucky enough to get a demonstration, you’ll understand why. For now the only thing you need to know is that he’s the boss for plenty o’ good reasons and nobody likes a ticked off boss.”
“Okay.” The orc’s face betrayed little disappointment, which the human took as a good sign. He knew well that excessive curiosity was far more dangerous than most predators.
As their wagon passed the scout, Ropelash was able to get a decent look at the shinblocks he was strapping on. The wood blocks, four to a shin, were about an inch thick, three tall, and four wide each and had holes through two of the corners for the rope to run through, with it’s middle now looped around the scout’s ankles. From there it went up his shins on both sides, through the holes, then crossed behind his calf and looped through the length between the upper blocks before crossing back behind the calf again to loop through the length between the middle two blocks and again to loop through the length between the lower blocks. Then both ends of the rope threaded through the ankle hoop, pulled taut, and the scout was in the process of wrapping the remaining length of the rope around his leg in a single layer.
Ropelash’s gaze was locked on the arrangement intensely enough that he startled when Holstein spoke.
“If you wanna know how it works you can just ask him when we make camp.”
“Urp. I, I think I’ve got the setup figured. I’ll ask him later though.” the orc stammered out.
“Ye do, do ya? What’s the wrappin part for, ya think?”
“It’s probably so that the barbs get caught on the rope instead of his pants. Rope’s easier to replace than good pants.”
“Huh. And the weird diamond part?”
“Oh, that’s just to distribute the pressure. Muscles need to be able to flex around when they’re being squeezed, otherwise the blood gets stuck and the limb starts dyin. Happened to one of my uncles.”
“You know your way ‘round ropes pretty good kid. Had to learn with all those seasoning pulleys, eh?”
“Yessir. Got my name because I got good with them too.” The orc’s torso wove side to side with pride.
“Then I guess I can leave strappin the goods down to you and I won’t have to whup ya for my crates fallin all around. Sound good?”
Ropelash’s face beamed. “Leave it to me, mister Holstein. I won’t muck up anything about tyin ropes.”
“Good lad.” the human chuckled. “I’ll hold ya to it.”
The sun continued it’s lazy decent through the sky as the caravan pushed along the barely-there path that led through the windblown prairie. Each of it’s members grateful for the massive scroll strapped to the top of the lead wagon, a symbol that a Troll would notice if they went missing and thus the best ward against bandits and Behemoths.