75 Zi'da 722
Once everyone had finally managed to get a decent night's sleep, Dan set out to see if he could find the flock of mud hens that he had seen the wolves coming back with. If he could successfully locate them, it would be a good resource for Rosebay.
He marked the area that he was heading to on the map, as everyone was expected to when they were heading outside the bounds of Rosebay itself, and rounded up Cal to go with him, since the other man also knew something about hunting.
He brushed Cloud, the older and fractionally taller of his two grey ponies, enough to be sure that no bit of grit or dirt would be pressed painfully into her skin when he saddled her. He left Cal to deal with his own gear, trusting that he would be called in if there was a problem.
Finally saddled up, bow slung on his back and spear in hand, he made sure Cal was ready to go, then swung up onto Cloud. Hood snugged down over his forehead, gloves protecting his hands from the cold, he grinned, slotted his spear into the holder on his saddle, and nudged the pony to an easy amble, beckoning Cal to follow.
They probably made an odd looking pair, but Dan paid no heed to it. He'd been odder in his time, and the wilds were his home. He navigated by the angles to various landmarks, his gaze constantly flickering from place in wary appreciation of the dangers out here and his free hand pointing which way to go. He finally paused near a patch of muddy ground, signing, "Stop," as he slid down and approached it from the side so as not to bury any prints still there with his own footprints and Cloud's hoofprints.
The Lumen wolves had come through here, he recognised with a relieved grin, crouching to get a better look at the overlapping prints. He beckoned Cal over, pointing out how to recognise the differences between wolves to the less experienced hunter. "You can tell the comparative heights of two animals by the size of the print and the length of the stride. You can tell which is the heavier by the depth of the print. Do you see here, they covered this patch of ground in both directions? But one set of prints - the ones on top of the first set - are heavier even when everything else remains the same. The wolves must have had a successful hunt and were carrying small prey home with them for the rest of the pack."
Cal nodded and traced a slightly uneven print with a finger. "This one must have been lame. Injured in the hunt maybe?"
"Could be," Dan agreed, and straightened.
He followed the tracks until they petered out in a rocky area. Then he quartered the area slowly, using his height advantage in Cloud's saddle - even as small and sturdy as she was, his head was still higher when he was in the saddle than it was when he was on foot - until he spotted movement and dust on the edge of his range, and turned her in that direction. He kept eyes, ears and nose alert for any signs of what was raising the dust, and eventually got close enough to work out that it was a flock of mud hens. He heard them before he saw them - sharp calls and scrattling in the dirt. He could see further from horseback than he could on foot, not to mention move more easily, and a horse was a familiar enough sight out here that sometimes the animals around the area ignored it as just another herbivore. Sometimes.
The advantage of using Sign on a hunting trip was that you could discuss things at length, silently, without making so much noise that whatever you were hunting would be scared away. Dan and Cal squatted in a slight hollow and made cautious plans. If Dan had been on his own, he would just have rode slowly on, with his bow ready and an arrow on the string for when the birds launched themselves from under Cloud's hooves. Then again, when he was on his own, he only had himself to feed.
With two of them - him and Cal - they could set up something of a drive, where one circled around the flock and sent them flying towards the other, who would be waiting with weapon ready. This did seem to be a roosting spot, so they didn't want to kill so many that the rest were scared off. Better to be able to harvest the flock on a regular basis than to just kill them all off. On the other hand, it would make a pleasant change to be eating bird-meat for once rather than beans and/or turnips.
Cal volunteered to do the driving, so Dan found a good spot to wait, and readied himself. He jabbed a handful of arrows into the ground at his feet, where he could pull and nock them faster than from a quiver. Quivers were better if you expected to be moving, because you wouldn't lose any of your arrows changing places, but he wasn't, so he could use other methods.
He drew another arrow and nocked it on the string. With one finger above the arrow and two below, he slowly raised the bow and waited.
The birds came hopping and fluttering Dan's way soon enough - the advantage of being the driver meant that Cal didn't even need to worry about being stealthy.
Rather than go for a tricky eye or neck shot, he aimed for the body of the nearest bird - a male - as it stood frozen for just a moment too long. The arrow slammed home with a puff of brown feathers, not quite where he'd aimed it, but close enough. It crumpled slowly, one broken wing flapping in the dirt and filling the air with dust. Dan hastily nocked a second arrow, drew it back until the string hit his usual spot against his cheekbone, and loosed a second shot at another bird. By that time, the rest of the flock were fleeing, moving too fast for him to get a clear shot, so he fired as fast as he could into the mass of birds and hoped to get lucky. Two more birds dropped out of the sky, and he grimly finished off the one that had only been winged before he went looking for the rest of his used arrows.
Once he had found them, he cleaned them, checked them for damage, and then slid them back into his quiver. Cal joined him in the search, passing arrows over to Dan when he found them first.
With the birds flown and gone (for now) it was also easier to study their roosts and nests, made in the hollows of the ground. Dan turned slowly, marking the angles and approximate distance from landmarks on a crude map. Once he got back to Rosebay, the information could be transferred to the main map that everyone used, but this would ensure that he didn't forget any of it.
Finally, Dan put the crude map away, drew his knife, and braced himself for the messy, smelly, task of cleaning the birds so that they didn't go off or get tainted by their own guts before he could get them back to Rosebay. He moved a short distance away from the mud hen roosting grounds in the hope that the other birds wouldn't be scared off by the blood and stray feathers.
Then he ground-tied Cloud, settled on the ground himself, and parted the belly feathers of the first bird. He made a neat cut up the belly, stuck his hand inside, and with two neat, sharp tugs, broke the connections at throat and anus. With birds this size, that was all it took for the internal organs to come slithering out in a stinking mess.
Cal wrinkled his nose, and went to dig a small hole so that they could bury anything that they weren't taking back with them.
Dan wrinkled his own nose, and began on the next bird. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could clean up. The feathers would be useful too, but plucking them could wait until they were back in Rosebay and he had sacks handy to store the feathers in.
"Signed words" Spoken words
Note
The opening refers to this event: Rharne Calendar
71st 73rd of Zi'da - Insomnia Plague: For two nights, the people of Rharne suffer from an inability to find sleep. Sleep aids, chemical and medicines increase in demand during this episode. Scholars try to investigate the phenomenon, but it clears up before their findings product any conclusions.
71st 73rd of Zi'da - Insomnia Plague: For two nights, the people of Rharne suffer from an inability to find sleep. Sleep aids, chemical and medicines increase in demand during this episode. Scholars try to investigate the phenomenon, but it clears up before their findings product any conclusions.
He marked the area that he was heading to on the map, as everyone was expected to when they were heading outside the bounds of Rosebay itself, and rounded up Cal to go with him, since the other man also knew something about hunting.
He brushed Cloud, the older and fractionally taller of his two grey ponies, enough to be sure that no bit of grit or dirt would be pressed painfully into her skin when he saddled her. He left Cal to deal with his own gear, trusting that he would be called in if there was a problem.
Finally saddled up, bow slung on his back and spear in hand, he made sure Cal was ready to go, then swung up onto Cloud. Hood snugged down over his forehead, gloves protecting his hands from the cold, he grinned, slotted his spear into the holder on his saddle, and nudged the pony to an easy amble, beckoning Cal to follow.
They probably made an odd looking pair, but Dan paid no heed to it. He'd been odder in his time, and the wilds were his home. He navigated by the angles to various landmarks, his gaze constantly flickering from place in wary appreciation of the dangers out here and his free hand pointing which way to go. He finally paused near a patch of muddy ground, signing, "Stop," as he slid down and approached it from the side so as not to bury any prints still there with his own footprints and Cloud's hoofprints.
The Lumen wolves had come through here, he recognised with a relieved grin, crouching to get a better look at the overlapping prints. He beckoned Cal over, pointing out how to recognise the differences between wolves to the less experienced hunter. "You can tell the comparative heights of two animals by the size of the print and the length of the stride. You can tell which is the heavier by the depth of the print. Do you see here, they covered this patch of ground in both directions? But one set of prints - the ones on top of the first set - are heavier even when everything else remains the same. The wolves must have had a successful hunt and were carrying small prey home with them for the rest of the pack."
Cal nodded and traced a slightly uneven print with a finger. "This one must have been lame. Injured in the hunt maybe?"
"Could be," Dan agreed, and straightened.
He followed the tracks until they petered out in a rocky area. Then he quartered the area slowly, using his height advantage in Cloud's saddle - even as small and sturdy as she was, his head was still higher when he was in the saddle than it was when he was on foot - until he spotted movement and dust on the edge of his range, and turned her in that direction. He kept eyes, ears and nose alert for any signs of what was raising the dust, and eventually got close enough to work out that it was a flock of mud hens. He heard them before he saw them - sharp calls and scrattling in the dirt. He could see further from horseback than he could on foot, not to mention move more easily, and a horse was a familiar enough sight out here that sometimes the animals around the area ignored it as just another herbivore. Sometimes.
The advantage of using Sign on a hunting trip was that you could discuss things at length, silently, without making so much noise that whatever you were hunting would be scared away. Dan and Cal squatted in a slight hollow and made cautious plans. If Dan had been on his own, he would just have rode slowly on, with his bow ready and an arrow on the string for when the birds launched themselves from under Cloud's hooves. Then again, when he was on his own, he only had himself to feed.
With two of them - him and Cal - they could set up something of a drive, where one circled around the flock and sent them flying towards the other, who would be waiting with weapon ready. This did seem to be a roosting spot, so they didn't want to kill so many that the rest were scared off. Better to be able to harvest the flock on a regular basis than to just kill them all off. On the other hand, it would make a pleasant change to be eating bird-meat for once rather than beans and/or turnips.
Cal volunteered to do the driving, so Dan found a good spot to wait, and readied himself. He jabbed a handful of arrows into the ground at his feet, where he could pull and nock them faster than from a quiver. Quivers were better if you expected to be moving, because you wouldn't lose any of your arrows changing places, but he wasn't, so he could use other methods.
He drew another arrow and nocked it on the string. With one finger above the arrow and two below, he slowly raised the bow and waited.
The birds came hopping and fluttering Dan's way soon enough - the advantage of being the driver meant that Cal didn't even need to worry about being stealthy.
Rather than go for a tricky eye or neck shot, he aimed for the body of the nearest bird - a male - as it stood frozen for just a moment too long. The arrow slammed home with a puff of brown feathers, not quite where he'd aimed it, but close enough. It crumpled slowly, one broken wing flapping in the dirt and filling the air with dust. Dan hastily nocked a second arrow, drew it back until the string hit his usual spot against his cheekbone, and loosed a second shot at another bird. By that time, the rest of the flock were fleeing, moving too fast for him to get a clear shot, so he fired as fast as he could into the mass of birds and hoped to get lucky. Two more birds dropped out of the sky, and he grimly finished off the one that had only been winged before he went looking for the rest of his used arrows.
Once he had found them, he cleaned them, checked them for damage, and then slid them back into his quiver. Cal joined him in the search, passing arrows over to Dan when he found them first.
With the birds flown and gone (for now) it was also easier to study their roosts and nests, made in the hollows of the ground. Dan turned slowly, marking the angles and approximate distance from landmarks on a crude map. Once he got back to Rosebay, the information could be transferred to the main map that everyone used, but this would ensure that he didn't forget any of it.
Finally, Dan put the crude map away, drew his knife, and braced himself for the messy, smelly, task of cleaning the birds so that they didn't go off or get tainted by their own guts before he could get them back to Rosebay. He moved a short distance away from the mud hen roosting grounds in the hope that the other birds wouldn't be scared off by the blood and stray feathers.
Then he ground-tied Cloud, settled on the ground himself, and parted the belly feathers of the first bird. He made a neat cut up the belly, stuck his hand inside, and with two neat, sharp tugs, broke the connections at throat and anus. With birds this size, that was all it took for the internal organs to come slithering out in a stinking mess.
Cal wrinkled his nose, and went to dig a small hole so that they could bury anything that they weren't taking back with them.
Dan wrinkled his own nose, and began on the next bird. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could clean up. The feathers would be useful too, but plucking them could wait until they were back in Rosebay and he had sacks handy to store the feathers in.
Filler Text
Filler Text
Filler Text
