Lissean's March
Lissean blinked one side of eyes as he tiredly noticed the drizzle resuming. The march through the forest was like this from the day they left; a sudden unseasonal front of rain as opposed to the dry summer before. Everything was muddy and soaked. The dirt in these tree-covered hills had become slippery and black, squelching with every footstep. Rilan, the clever hain shaman that he was, built sandals from sticks, hide, and lashed vine in a way to spread the load of their feet. This little victory had sped up the march for the dozen of them as they held their spears close. Lissean now cared about the rain about as much as his brethren around him. A fire burned in all of their hearts that all but dried them off. They were armed with spears.
The hain of these lands never fought with spears before the last few years. The tips would glance off the shell of an enemy hain tribesman. However, they were not out hunting for beasts or fish, or even fighting hain, for that matter. They knew that their new enemy was clever enough to be above such stations and they were definitely not hain.
"Keep all your eyes peeled, we're in the fibrehead territory now." The leader, Tarok, scanned the branches above as much as the undergrowth below. "They're cleverer than fibrelings and stay in bigger groups. Don't let them surprise you or their hair will suffocate you."
Lissean shuddered. Disgusting creatures. the fibreheads were not furred like most beasts, but they had long strands of oily fibres growing from their heads. Those grotesque heads. Most of their body was similar to a hain, if imposingly taller, but their arms were shorter, their feet were warped, and their heads were blunt and sunken. They had no shells either, they had bare skin and bones, like beasts.
"Is it true, Rilan?" Lissean whispered ahead to the clever hain.
Rilan turned his head to look behind him with wizened eyes.
"Are the fibreheads made by Jaan?" Lissean asked, "Will we turn into them if they capture us?"
Being a more rational sort, as well as the clan shaman, Rilan solemnly shook his head. He had made his protest of this attack clear, citing how little was actually known about these creatures since they started contesting the tribe's hunting grounds. "Lissean, I can tell you that Jaan's creations put a fear in one's heart that is not present with these fibreheads. It does not serve a benefit to feed such paranoia."
Lissean huffed and narrowed his eyes. He always hated when the shaman spoke without certainty. He was meant to listen to the gods! "We will wipe them out anyway! They took the life of my grandfather! The gods
are with us against these murderers!"
Rilan looked ahead again and sighed through his nostrils. There was no contesting with the revenge in young Lissean. He should know -- he had attempted it on the road for the past few days. The foe's nature would not matter.
"A tragedy it was, but as for the gods-" Rilan cut himself off as the entire band halted. Tarok had put up his fist to halt everyone.
Lissean's rage was replaced with an alertness bordering on fear. Even with the drizzle becoming rain, he had heard it, too. There was rustling in the bushes ahead. His head flicked this way and that, angling to look at the branches above as well as the ground in following his leader.
There was a bloodcurdling shout of rage as a tall, bronzed shape leapt out over a fallen log, an axe held high in one hand. Weled barely had time to raise his shield before the slate axe landed upon his head with a disgusting crack. The scraggly hair flowing from the fibrehead's scalp was its last movement as it halted, impaled on Tarok's spear. Weled crumpled to the ground and the situation was realised with the blood spilling from his split white skull shell.
"Ambush!" Tarok shouted as the initial attacker's scream was joined by several others. The tall, fleshy, hairy, deformed hainoids leapt out from behind the log, in turn, each with stone mace or axe in hand. Lissean shouted right back and rushed for the nearest one he saw.
Lissean thrust his weapon, the spear was deflected. This fibrehead had a smoother face than the first, but his eyes were just as wide as Lissean's. Lissean feinted forward to fend the creature off. "I'll kill you, you twisted freak!" Lissean's language went completely unrecognised by the fibrehead. "I'll kill you like you killed grandfather!"
Around Lissean, the fight was swiftly causing many injuries on both sides, but it was not looking good for the hain. Tarok was fighting valiantly, but he took a strike on his forearm that put a nasty crack on his shell. Sil and Polian had been knocked unconscious. The hain were tougher but the fibreheads were bigger. The rain fell down harder around them.
"DIE!" Lissean thrust his spear forward again, but as he stepped, the sticks of his sandal snapped. He fell beak first into the mud. He rolled his head to one side and immediately closed his eyes against the incoming stone of his opponent's mace, but instead, there was quite another sensation. A cry of alarm from the fibreheads sounded. Many squelching footsteps faded away in the beating rain.
Lissean stood up quickly, observing the fibreheads retreating one way and his companions retreating the other way. Unlike the fibreheads, the hain were climbing trees. In this weather, that could only mean one thing.
"Flood!" Tarok shouted. Lissean heard it for a second before it washed his ankles and threw him off his feet. The black, watery torrent was irresistible as it tossed him over and spilt into his mouth. He was blind and deaf from the noise and muddy water. He held onto his spear as tightly as he could.
He felt it tug suddenly as the direction skywards suddenly became clearer. He couldn't let go against the force of this flood djinn. He couldn't or he would die.
He grabbed onto the haft of his spear with his other hand as well and surfaced above the rushing water. Screaming fibreheads were being swept away, but Rilan, the shaman, was perched on a branch with Tarok, holding onto the other end of Lissean's spear with all his strength. "Pull yourself in, Lissean!" the shaman shouted over the water.
Lissean could feel the pressure of his blood against the back of his eyes. He could do nothing but obey. He climbed up his spear with Rilan's help. There was a slide down the spear haft and he gasped. He reassured his grip. Hand over hand, he edged his way up. Both Rilan and Tarok pulled Lissean up with a strained vocalisation onto the branch. Lissean he promptly slumped against its solid, safe surface.
The water rushed on below. They all caught their breaths. The mourning over their fallen brethren would have kept them silent, had the indomitable Tarok not lent his comment.
"That was lucky," Tarok said over the rain, nursing his cracked arm. "The gods must be watching you, Lissean."
Still shuddering from the fear of his near-death experience, Lissean pushed himself upright to see the scenario around him. All except the three killed hain had made it into trees. Weled, Sil, and Polian were friends of Lissean. Their families would lament their fates. Lissean's own grief was held behind temper, built by curiosity. There was not a fibrehead in sight. "They're all dead, aren't they?"
"As far as we know," Rilan replied, looking into the distance. "They have not witnessed a flood season, judging by the way they acted. They tried to outrun the djinn." Without prompt, the rain began to settle into a drizzle again.
"But you can't outrun a flood djinn. How did it come so suddenly?" Lissean snapped his head to look at Rilan. "Was the djinn there to help out battle against the fibreheads!? Zetiron has blessed us!"
Both Rilan and Tarok gave Lissean a look.
"What? Surely we have victory today because of him!"
Lissean extended an arm to the point in the distance he was staring at before. "Lissean, look."
The young hain craned his body to one side to see. He simply saw more flood waters. "What are you pointing at?"
"Look closer, see how the water eddies upwards there?" Rilan spoke softly and reverently.
"Upwards?" Lissean angled his head toward the distance in confusion. The point in the distance suddenly exploded in water as a shape flew into the air, double the height of the tallest tree in sight, and curved back. It was followed by an even greater splash as a wave swelled without prompt and engulfed the lesser shape. The smaller shape leapt forth a few metres away, travelling fast.
"The flood djinn are fighting. They care not for us." Rilan explained. The shaman turned his head to Lissean once again and offered a downturned palm, "The lord of the sky, Zetiron, he commands the djinn. But if he were involved, it would not be to bless us. He merely wanted our defeat to be changed into a victory."
Lissean narrowed his eyes again. He hated when Rilan spoke without certainty, but ambiguity was worse. "Fights against the fibreheads have always been indecisive. How could this not be assistance?"
Rilan continued to watch the roiling elementals dancing in the distance. "It was indecisive. That's the point. Zetiron does not bless or curse anything. He merely changes things that have gone unchanged."
Lissean slumped onto the bough again. He wasn't sure whether to be joyous or despondent.
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