Rogue's Report and Reflection

[Occhidiangela]

Chapter 2: Takin' it to the Troggs

Who'll carry the mail?
-I'll carry the mail!
Through the cave?
-Through anything.
What about the Troggs?
-Bugger the Troggs!
You'd bugger a Trogg?
-I'd bugger a chicken!
You no good dirty rotten scoundrel, they ought to lock you up and throw away the key!
-Then who'll carry the mail?

Enough, friend, 'tis a fine drinking game and good for a laugh or two, but I'll carry the bloody mail. An' of course himself wants me to be killin' troggs while I am at it -- though not for the meat, I'll warrant. The Troggs have taken the Gnomes' home, and the gnomes want me to take them out. Fair enough, 'twill earn me a few more mugs of ale, and friend, I'll be buyin' the next round. Take what ye can get, when ye can get yer hand on it -- a lesson from the Demon War, what we Dwarves call the Great Betrayal.

Betrayal. Don't I know that one, from the sharp end.

Ma stopped smilin' much as the Great War boom went all quiet. Pa had work, but there never seemed to be any money, not like aforetimes. Maybe the money kept fallin' into the Void. The granite and limestone quarries reopened. Rebuilding after a war takes a pile o' rocks and wood, mule teams, harnesses. But money was scarce. Repaired tack was more popular and cheaper than new bought, so Pa taught me the ways of repair. No fun that, not like huntin' and trappin'.

Ye does yer share to keep the family a goin' concern, that's the rule. Uncle Tukratt worked with the wheelwright and lived in our loft. While the Great War was on, he'd been scarce. After, Pa and he tolerated one another, een if it was plain to a bairn that they shared no love for one another. In-laws can be ducks and geese in the same pond, some say. Pa got all hot when Nuncle gave to me me first cold forged dagger, though Ma put her foot down about gifts given; that time. See, 'twas Cousin Klint what made me this dagger, an' he's family. Ye see the runes there? He told me that when I could read 'em, I'd understand what they meant. I learnt swift, I did.

Don't be blanchin' like that, friend, this dag cannae be drawn without a sip o' the sanguine. 'Tis my blood will drip, not your'n, as you've been all too kind to me.

The blunderbus was another story, two years and a rain of hard tears later. Every young dwarf dreams of gettin' a blunderbus, don't he? Pa confiscated that, straight away, all of Mom's and Nuncle's arguments fallin' on his deaf ears. No mattter to him that Cousin Klint had etched me name into the butt plate.

"Ye'll ne'er be content to work leather and raise a sept o' the clan, Lee, if ye be fallin' in love with a blunderbus. Fall in that trap, boy, and ye'll be fodder for the King's captains, mark my words. Ain't that right, Tuk? Fodder for the King's captains!"

Pa's crystal ball musta been a workin' on that day. All the village lads what hunted with a blunderbus were called to arms when the Demon War broke out and chaos reigned.

Would I have lived through that war? I dunno, friend, I'd learnt how to be quiet and careful enough, but who can slip past unnoticed when the sergeant calls the company to march? The King's captains count noses and beards just fine, says Nuncle, so maybe 'twas for the best.

Then the quarry shut down with no one left to cut stone, for they was off makin’ cannon towers for the King’s army, for his forts. And this time, payment for war goods came by way of a promise as often as by silver. Ye can’t buy food with promises, nor with “the King Bronzebeard’s gratitude” as them young “nobles” used for payment when they needed some ought or other.

Those days brought the clouds to Pa’s brow to stay. The whippin’s got to be my daily treat. That’s when the wolf, growed up now, got his throat cut. Pa made me do it with my own hands, with him a watchin’, and all over – bah, it don’t matter why, poor pup’s dead.

Ma stopped smilin’ in those days. The older lads went off for sappers and muleskinners, my older sister Emara married off as quick as she found that old man who’d take the dowry Cousin Klint offered as a favor to Ma – Pa would not budge on that affair. Then Uncle Tukrat was shown the outside of the door.

I cannae drink away all of the shouting matches that came of an evening, every evening. The three of them bellowed words no man, nor woman, nor brother should ever say to kin. Straw in the ears only keeps out soft spoken words, and there was little o’ that.

I reckon ‘twas Cousin Klint solved that problem. He was over to take me blunderbuss huntin’, and then learned at last of the confiscation. Ye don’t cross a fella like that one, not if ye have half a wit.

As a rule, Cousin Klint was a dwarf of few words, that lump o' chawbakky in his cheek bein,’ I had guessed, the root of his reserve. That night, he spat his chaw into the fire an’ spoke up right eloquent, he did.

“Tuk, me cousin,” sez he, “yer the flint gonna set fire to the vapor fillin' this house if ye stay. Leah cannae raise her little ones with her brother and husband catterwaulin’ night and day. A war at the hearth kills a lad’s and a lassie's spirit. Me two coppers sez ye’ll be happier scoutin’ fer yer old regiment, and Leah will be happier with one gnarly old cuss to deal with at a time. She can keep the hearth warm for Lee and the little lassie without ye, until this old soppin' cloth dries up. That’s how I see it.”

‘Twas the longest piece o’ speakin’ he ever did, near as I can reckon, more than the usual “nice feed, Leah” or “yer bairns are a growin’ up plump and pink, cousin” that we’d here on the rare day he came for dinner.

The next dawn, Uncle Tukratt left for the 13th King’s Fusiliers, ye’ve heard of them I reckon. It took a few weeks to dawn on me that he’d been Ma’s guardian angel. 'Twas he that kept the rakes and ‘noblemen’ away with their appetites for curiosities and their high handed manners. And the other threats to her person.

He’d taught me to throw a knife and an axe for huntin’ -- the blunderbuss weren’t comin’ back -- for which our bellies ended up bein’ grateful. Never took nuthin’ from me, me Nuncle, ‘cept peace of mind and any dream to stay in Cleef and raise bairns.

Pa and Ma needed me, as did little Megant. Pa kept “lookin’ for extra work” and comin’ home less, almost livin’ at the taverns. They took his money alright, and Ma just took it hard.

Come sunup, those Troggs will take it hard, and sharp, when the meet with me. They’ll not soon forget the lesson I’ll teach ‘em about takin’. They’ll get took for takin’ the gnomes plunder, and I’ll take me ale at dusk. If I wash me mug with a salt tear or two, friend, who’ll take that grief from me? None within my blade’s reach, I reckon.

G'night, friend, and I'll be buyin' the next round.

To be continued . . . When Trolls can read.
Occhi