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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    She lay on the log to get out of the cold mud which leached the trickle of the sun's warmth from her. She rarely moved far from the village when the air and water turned cold and gray clouds hid the sun, but this morning the cold sky was blue. Once the sun rose above the treetops its warmth would fill her with its energy, push away the lethargy that made her lazy in the cold months.

    Her tail tip, dangling in the water, felt the rumbling vibration that could only be the voice of a male elder. Her tail-tip was not sensitive enough to understand what was said, but she felt the urgency in his call. She retrieved her fishing spear from the mud, stood, and jumped into the river's edge where the cold brown water began sucking away what warmth she had gained from her sunbath.

    The voice was clearer, a deep, resonant, rumbling that echoed down the fingers of the river. Her jaws picked up the sound and focused it in her ears. Only the males could speak the farspeach, and only one of the ancient, giant males could speak from such a distance.

    "Trouble, humans. Blood in the water, blood on their spears."

    The message repeated, and then a second message followed through several repetions:

    "Scouts out. Observe but do not interfere. Everyone else go to shelter. Avoid humans until their madness passes."

    When the ancient male paused the elder males took up the chorus and the message propagated down all the winding bayous of the delta.

    She clutched her spear and slowly swam in the serpentine motion which would slowly build speed as it warmed her against the river's chill. Ahead were trees so old and massive that their roots had pushed down the ground forming a maze of tiny channels between their trunks and beneath their outstreached roots.

    In the center of the island a fire was already building amid the cluster of mud-and-reed huts. Its warmth was welcome after the cold of the river, and her aunts and cousins were gathering.

    The males were gone. Naturally. Even the young males would want to be seen to be guarding the village. It was unlikely that humans would venture into the swamp, and less likely the males would allow them near the village, but males would guard anyway.

    Matriarch stood by the fire, watching. Counting. When enough of the tribe had gathered she might speak. Or not. She probably knew nothing the rest of them didn't already know.

    On the far side of the fire her age group clustered. As she walked to join them the deep voice of Matriarch said, "Kaasraa, attend me."

    "Yes, Matriarch?" she asked.

    "I may need you. Stand near and attend me."

    "Yes, Matriarch."

    The eyes of the others turned to her for a moment. Her status had just improved. She took a stand behind her elder and she couldn't help but pose a little.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-06-25 at 05:40 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #2
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    The male was young enough that his scutes were almost flat beneath his skin, though the ridges above his eyes and the crest on the top of his skull were beginning to show. The shiny slickness of his skin was another indication of his youth. Kaasaa glanced at the back of her own hand, at the wrinkling of her own smooth skin, and was amused to realize that she was judging the boy's youth from the perspective of two or three summers of seniority.

    Her attention snapped back to the conversation when the youth spoke again.

    "Grandfather said to bring to you the message, but I saw nothing with my own eyes. Just the taste of blood in the water. Meatbeast and another that I have never tasted. Much blood."

    "Humans sit on the backs of the meatbeasts to fight one another," Matriarch said. "It is so," she said to the doubtful faces.

    Continuing, she said to the youth, "Tell Grandfather that the village of Twelve Trees is provisioned and defended. Our warriors are his to command. Our hunters will remain within half a day of the village until the human madness passes."

    "Yes, Matriarch," he replied.

    "One more thing," she said. "Kaasaa, attend me."

    Startled to be addressed in the council hut so full of elders, she stammered, "Y-ess, Matriarch?"

    "Go with Eeahs, watch and learn. You are my eyes. When you see what I must know, return to me."

    It was a half second before she realized that Eeahs was the boy. Realizing that, another question occurred to her.

    "How will I know when I see what you must know?"

    "You will know, or else we will know that you will never become my replacement."

    It was a thought she had trouble absorbing. Matriarch? Matriarchs were old and frighteningly powerful. She was hardly mature...

    "You are dismissed. Equip yourself, eat, and feed Eeahs. Go with my blessing."

    She rose to her feet, aware that the roof-beams that forced Matriarch to duck were well above her head. As she left she saw jealousy in the postures of some of the elders. Clearly some of her aunts wished for the favor Matriarch had shown to her. Her path would be tricky now, to navigate the heirarchy of village politics. Why had Matriarch chosen her over all of her crechemates? Even over older, more powerful females?

    "Which way to the larder?"

    "What?" She had forgotten the boy.

    "I hunger."

    "Oh. No. Stay with me. I want to be sure you don't over-eat. We will have a bite before we go. A small bite.

    "Here is the armory. We will need packs and tools."

    "Females are strange," he mumbled as she pulled aside the hide covering the hut across the mud from the council hut.

  3. - Top - End - #3
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    He swam well, she noted as she navigated a difficult log-jam choking the flow of the cold, dark river. Much of the time she couldn't see him, but she could feel the pressure waves of his passing in the bones of her jaws and along her flanks where her broad belly scales merged with the smaller scales that covered her back and limbs.

    Of course her spear hampered her movement, as did her harness and her packs. His own packs were smaller and he carried no weapon, but even so he moved so effortlessly that it soon became apparent that he was letting her keep up.

    Then he slowed and came to a stop in the center of the channel. Inflating his throat-bladder he began to grunt in a voice not much deeper than that of a juvenile, but it still resonated enough to make ripples on the surface of the river.

    "Messenger seeking passage," he repeated three times before the thunderous reply from a nearby male, obviously many years older and much larger, vibrated through her body.

    The boy accelerated straight down the channel then and she followed, her skin still tingling from the unseen male's powerful voice. The sensation was pleasant, and frightening, and exciting.

    As she worked to keep up with the boy's easy, fluid movement, her mind drifted. She wondered what it would feel like to have his scales slide along hers, to twine their tails together, to feel the sensation of his voice pulsing all over and through her body...

    Then he did grunt in his high voice and her fantasy faded. In her imagination his voice had been much deeper.

    "Wake up!" he said in normal speech, his head above the water. "We have to get out and walk."

    In the moonlight she could see steep clay walls on either side of the channel, and above them trees. They were different from the trees she knew, but the air carried the scent of rosin. These were the living trees which so often floated into her swamp as logs and were harvested by the village for firewood, glue, and medicine. Ahead on the constricted channel a pile of them blocked the channel.

    The boy was already climbing the bank toward a notch a body-length above him. She saw an easier path up the log-pile and moved toward it.

    "NO!" the boy commanded. "This way!"

    Annoyed, she continued toward the logs.

    "Do you want to die?" he hissed.

    She looked at him with a sarcastic comment at the back of her throat, then saw him pointing.

    Atop the logs a pair of eyes gleamed red in the moonlight. Large eyes. And the head between them was twice as large as hers. It was watching her.

    A bark-eater. They were smaller in the swamp, and tasty, but several of her aunts bore scars from their huge orange teeth. The teeth of this one were the size of a pair of hand-shields, and they gleamed white in the moonlight.

    She turned back to the clay bluff and climbed, and tried to ignore the eyes that followed her.

    In the forest above the river the moonlight was filtered by the treetops and she had to close the clear lenses of her eyes to see. Darkness transformed into half-light. The boy was a vivid white shape standing on the pale grey ground. Tree trunks began at the floor of the forest as pale grey, but darkened as they rose until they merged with the charcoal patterns of the canopy.

    The boy set off at a half-run and skirted a blackness on their right which was a lake of water which had invaded the forest. Channels of the lake intruded on the forest, and the banks on either side of their sinuous path were lined with the stumps of trees about half her height.

    Dawn was breaking as the boy lead her back to where a gentle grassy slope went down to the river. She was trying to hide it from her guide, but her exhaustion must have been apparent.

    "Not much farther," he said just before he dove into the water.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-06-06 at 10:16 AM.

  4. - Top - End - #4
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Her exhaustion was made worse by the fingers of cold that leeched the strength from her burning muscles. Now the warmth of movement was not enough to offset the river's cold, and her only thought was to crawl onto a sand bar or bank and soak in what little warmth the winter sun offered.

    She reacted with dull surprise when Eeahn turned her toward such a sandy bank, and as she struggled out of the water she became aware of the twenty or so males already there lounging on the sand.

    "Grandmother of Twelve Trees offers greetings and the warriors of her village at your call," he was saying.

    The very large male to whom he spoke had a very red wattle that would inflate to a huge farspeech bladder. His old, worn out harness sheathed many stone throwing kniver as well as a gleaming metal long-knife. He also wore a skirt of human-cloth which was, or had become, mud-brown.

    Simply leaving the cold of the river had been enough restore her blood flow, and though she began to think better, the sudden pain, as of thousands of knives stabbing her tired muscles at once, distracted her, making it difficult for her to follow the conversation.

    "She is Grandmother's eyes," the boy was saying.

    The elder looked at her then, but she was too tired for maidenly modesty. She simply waited while he examined her.

    "And what have Grandmother's Eyes seen?"

    "Nothing," she said after she realized he had spoken to her. "But I have tasted blood in the cold water."

    "You will taste more," he said. "Go with Eeahn, rest in the sun. Tonight, perhaps, we will have something for you to see."

    "Grandfather! I..."

    He paused when the elder raised a hand.

    "Your task is to keep Grandmother's Eyes alive. Tonight she and you will have need of your strength and wits. Go, rest now."

    If his words had not been enough the dismissive wave of his hand was. He lead her up the gentle slope of sand to a place where the red clay bluff trapped what sunlight there was. Older males moved away from them as the pair streched out and faced their backs to the sun. With a sigh she gave in to her fatigue.

    Her last thought was that the politics of males was different. She would have to watch and learn if she was to survive in their world.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-06-25 at 06:00 PM.

  5. - Top - End - #5
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Sometime during her sleep she had scooped out a shallow pit in the sand. She could only assume that the wind-break of the low bluff had been enough to trap the mid-day sun and allow her cold-fatigued body to begin to overheat. With the sun now on its way down and shadows growing long the cooling comfort of midday now became an unwelcome chill.

    She raised her head and looked around. To her left was another depression in the sand, but the boy was not in it. Another male, this one about her age to judge by the thickness of the scutes that shaded his eyes and the deeper orange color of his farspeech bladder, sat on a nearby log watching her.

    "Hello," she said as she sat up and found her spear lying beside her.

    "Grandmother's Eyes open at last," he said. He had not moved, nor had he said anything improper, but she felt uneasy. Perhaps it was the tension in the way he sat, or his staring eyes.

    She tried to not let her aprehension show as she got to her feet.

    "What has Grandmother sent you to see?" he asked. "I could show you many things."

    "Ahsi!" growled a voice behind her.

    "Eeahn," the unfamiliar male said.

    "What are you doing?" Eeahn challenged as he stepped between them.

    "Making sure that no harm comes to Grandmother's Eyes while you are gone."

    "I am here now."

    There was a silence then which went on for an uncomfortable minute too long. The stranger stood, leaning forward as if to intimidate Eeahn.

    "It is lucky for you that you have Grandfather's protection."

    "It is lucky for you that you have that excuse," Eeahn said.

    The two stood facing off, then the older male laughed and walked away.

    "Is that how males treat each other?" she asked.

    "Ahsi is jealous. Someone will have to kill him one day."

    "You?"

    "Grandfather wishes for you to see something before the light is gone," the boy said. He pulled a fish from his front pouch. "I ate already. You can eat while we walk."

    She took the fish and he turned to walk away upstream.

    She hurried to catch up to him, and from a half-step behind she matched his pace.

    "What does it mean that you have Grandfather's protection?"

    "Grandfather forbids his rangers to fight."

    "You are a ranger?"

    "I am being tested."

    "Tested?"

    "Grandfather tests us all. Those who do not fail become rangers."

    "Is Ahsi a ranger?" she asked.

    "Eat your fish," the boy said.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-06-15 at 11:33 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #6
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Kaasaa had no words for what she was seeing. The river was hidden below its bluff to her right, visible by the light of the setting sun on its far bluff. A broad field, trodden by many feet, was halved by a slow creek that fell into a ravine which met the river on the clearing's far side.

    And over the broad, sloping field lay a redness that could only be blood. What at first appeared to be mounds of some burrower was actually bodies. Many bodies. Some were larger: meatbeasts wearing strange harnesses. Most were humans.

    "What am I seeing?" she asked herself.

    Eeahn answered. "Three days ago two great bands of humans came here and killed each other."

    "There are so many!"

    "Over five thousand."

    "That must be every human in the river valley!"

    "These are not from the valley," Eeahn said. "They are from far away. They walked many days to come here."

    "They came here to die?"

    "They did not all die. This is but a tenth of the humans that came here. The humans mostly moved on. The first group in the night after the killing, the second in the next day after killing many wounded who had not died."

    "A tenth?"

    "If that much. I saw none of this. After the second group left, men came out of hiding and took what the others had not, and in the night goblins came.
    "There have only been carrion eaters today, but the goblins may come back tonight. And other predators as well. There is a lot of wasted meat out there."

    "Are there any watchers now? Humans? Goblins?"

    "No, else Grandfather would not have let you come."

    She stood and walked into the blood soaked field.

    "Hey! Stop!" Eeahn said, but she walked on.

    A sun-bloated man puffed out around the metal skin he wore. A meat-beast had thrashed before it died, and then she saw what the beast had crushed. And she saw everywhere death.

    Death's smell was just beginning. Soon it would become overpowering.

    Did humans worship Death to make so willing a sacrifice? Grandmother had said 'madness.' Were humans all insane?

    A gleam in the dirt turned out to be a spear with a metal tip as long as her forearm and sharpened on both sides, with a shaft that was longer than her height. At its base it had a spiked knob. It was much heavier than her fishing spear.

    "It is iron," Eeahn said. "Useless. If it were bronze..."

    "What else did Grandfather wish me to see?"

    "Come," he said, leading her back to the safety of the brush.

    She kept the spear.

  7. - Top - End - #7
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    The village had burned. Low stone walls remained, mostly. Some had tumbled, whether in the fires that had blackened them, or in the attack, which was evidenced by the bodies of men and animals scattered around the ruins.

    A living dog was startled and barked ferociously but settled quickly as they moved away from the small body it guarded.

    The animals were otherwise gone. Humans always had animals. And there weren't enough bodies. Unlike the field, the village had few, though still too many, bodies. There were too many houses.

    "Where did they go?" she asked.

    "I am told they were chained and went away with the attackers."

    "Why?"

    "I was not told," Eeahn answered. He was about to speak, then closed his mouth.

    "What?" she demanded.

    "I am to allow you to learn from what you see. I am not to instruct you."

    "I ask you to tell me what you think I do not see."

    "Traps. Humans keep their animals in traps." he pointed to a wicker dome, now overturned, with a few brown feathers stuck in the weaving, then toward a fence. "Even the meatbeasts are kept in traps. Perhaps they mean to keep them in traps until they can eat them or their eggs?"

    "Huh," she said. The purpose of the strange arrangement of poles and bars was obvious now that the boy had pointed it out. They kept their animals trapped for future eating. Would they eat their own kind? But there had been a glut of meat on the field, and even here, and none appeared to have been eaten, other than by carrion eaters.

    She said nothing, but looked at the village again. "What next?" she asked.

    "Grandfather's island. It is near." He walked toward the river.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-06-23 at 09:45 PM.

  8. - Top - End - #8
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Grandfather's Island was a narrow crescent between two channels of the river. Its ridge was crowned with resin trees, and sweet-sap trees lined the border between the stony ridge and the sandbank that sloped up from the river to meet them. Twenty males were on the sand waiting, arranged from the smaller youths near the water's edge to the massive elders higher up the slope. They faced Grandfather, who stood at the top of the slope facing the crowd.

    Heads turned as she and Eeahn climbed onto the sandy beach. She had never seen so many adult males in one place, and never more than one without her aunts present. She saw in a few the desire to pounce, and never had she felt more vulnerable.

    She clutched both her spears against her shoulder as they made their way to Grandfather, with Eeahn ignoring the challenging looks of some, even among the elders. Among her aunts she would have called such looks 'jealousy,' but here she sensed a deadly intent.

    When they were in the clear space near Grandfather Eeahn stopped and said, "I have done as you commanded."

    With a hand on her spine he gently pushed her toward the giant lizardman and turned back toward the river.

    "You are the guardian of Grandmother's Eyes," Grandfather said. "Remain with her. Take your places behind me so that she may see."

    Kaasraa imagined the looks they were giving behind her back, but said nothing as she and her guard took a spot to one side behind the eldest.

    "Gachuud," Grandfather said, addressing an elder wearing a harness made of the skins of venomous snakes. "Tell us what you know of the human madness."

    "For ten days we watched as humans in great numbers moved along the river as far East as the merging of the Brown Flow and the Cold Water. Many were mounted on meatbeasts, and these ranged farthest, burning and gathering up the humans they did not kill to walk them away to the South. What they gathered from the villages they put on their great carts and whipped the meat beasts so they would drag them away. The rest they burned."

    "Did the villagers not fight?" asked another elder.

    Gachuud answered, "Some did. This angered the riders. They killed more."

    "Why did they do these things?" asked another elder.

    Grandfather cut off his reply, saying, "Aahkass has that answer."

    Aahkass was an elder wearing an old, cracked harness made by humans with metal buckles and rivets that were rusted. When he spoke his voice was as brittle as his harness, with squeeking from his farspeech bladder and occaisonal pauses to cough his throat clear, as if he had inhaled water he could not quite expell.

    "Two moons past the human elders of the South called up the warriors of their tribes," he wheezed. "They came North saying the Northern humans owed fealty to Southern elders. Their debts unpaid, the Southern elders determined to take the wealth of the Northern clans and place their own elders in their stone huts.
    "The Northern elders were slow to respond, which the Southern elders think a weakness. The Northern human soldiers from the far North and East are comming South now, and they have long fought the goblins and their kin. The Northern folk think they will destroy the Southern soldiers."

    "How long until they arrive?" an elder just downslope of the top tier asked.

    "Days," Aahkass said.

    "Then the killing will end soon?" asked another downslope elder.

    "The humans believe the fighting will last at least until the heavy cold."

    "How do you know this?"

    "I spoke to some before they died."

    "You killed humans?" a top tier elder asked.

    The males down the slope became agitated. They began to mumble among themselves, and one shouted, "They'll kill us all!"

    "With so many dead, who can know ..." the wheezing elder tried to say, but the rising disapproval of the gathering drowned his soft voice.

    Kaasraa shared their concern. Her aunts told tales of the indiscriminate vengeance of humans, who would slaughter a village of innocents to pay for the killing of a single man.

    "IT WAS DONE AT MY ORDER!" Grandfather boomed, his voice deepened and resonating in his partially inflated farspeech bladder.

    The gathering quieted, and then they noticed Grandfather's gaze on the ripples of the river which cast back the last blue of the sky before night set in. A swimmer approached.

    He was long and thin and obviously fatigued as he crawled out of the water. No one helped him as he stood on shakey, cold-weary legs and struggled up the soft sand slope.

    When he reached the top he paused to catch his breath. Grandfather waited as whispers and rumblings from the gathering grew louder.

    "News from Trade-Village. Human riders approach, and our friends fear they will be taken and kept as meatbeasts. Their word, 'slave.' I do not know it. They say it is setting aside the will of a man to make of him an animal. I do not understand how this can be."

    "Humans are strange," a voice said.

    "What do we care what humans do if they leave us alone?"

    "How do you know the counsel of the humans of Trade-Village?"

    "I was among them when their scout returned. Twenty riders are on the only road. Tomorrow they will strike."

    "Then it seems we shall need to find a new village with whom to trade," an elder said.

    "They are our friends!" the slender male said. "Can we flip our tails at them in their time of need?"

    "Humans are treacherous! Murderous! Let them kill each other!"

    The heated argument that followed was mostly one-sided, with much of the shouting being done by those opposed to aiding the village and the slender male arguing against the crowd. A few elders took his side, but it was obvious to all that he was loosing. Most elders didn't bother to even join the argument.

    It quickly devolved to repeating points which had already been made until only the aide of an elder was arguing against the thin lizardman. Sensing the mood of the gathering the aide grew disdainful.

    "Let them kill one another, I say." Many sounds of agreement rose from the gathering, and he ammended, "We say. We can trade with whichever side wins. In all of this you have not given a single good reason we should risk our lives and the security of our villages by taking sides in a fight between humans."

    "Because they are our friends." The bass growl of Grandfather's voice cut through the murmers of the crowd, and the frogs and crickets of the evening filled the silence.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-08-05 at 08:09 AM.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    After a moment of silence Grandfather pointed to his left and said, "Those of you who wish to fight to this side."

    The gathering shuffled to one side or another as the individuals changed places. Grandfather pointed to the right and said, "Of those who do not wish to fight, let those who wish to help the villagers come to this side."

    A half dozen of the males remained in the center. The rest were about evenly divided.

    "Each of you," Grandfather said to the center group, "Must carry word of what we have done to the villages. The villages must look to their defenses in the cold moons. Divide the work so you can warn them as quickly as possible."

    The center column made its way into the river. The thin lizardman stepped from the first group to the second, saying, "I didn't know that saving the villagers without killing humans was an option."

    Some others joined him until Grandfather said, "Some killing will be needful."

    The thin lizardman turned back to rejoin the first group but Grandfather said, "Kennk, stay. You must return to the Trade Village."

    Kennk stopped between the groups, looking at Grandfather.

    "The task I have for you is a most difficult one. We cannot protect them over the cold time. They must move to a hidden place. Turtle Island has food and dry ground. You must lead them there.

    "Even in the year's end when the water is low humans have difficulties moving in the swamp. You must help them because they will need their boats to carry their supplies.

    "We who go to fight the invaders will only be able to give them days; when the elders of the invaders discover what has happened we all must be gone: villagers and lizardfolk.

    "Do you understand what you must do?"

    The thin lizardman said, "I must move the humans to Turtle Island and they may not wish to go. I must teach them to survive in the swamp before the cold takes my strength."

    The thin male asked, "Grandfather, should not an elder be given the task?"

    "No. The humans know you. The cold will take the strength of the elders sooner. Ask their counsel, but the responsibility is yours."

    "Yes, Grandfather." Kennk turned to those on Grandfather's right and said, "Those who follow me, come."

    The group following Kennk began to enter the river. Of the ten remaining, five were elders. Grandfather said, "We will buy time for the rest. If we destroy the riders, how long until the others look for them?"

    "Three days. No more than six," a deep voice wheezed.

    "How can it be done?"

    Another elder said, "In the hours before dawn, the humans will sleep. They may set a watch, but he will wish to sleep. We may come upon them them."

    "Agreed. Anything else?"

    "The meatbeasts will scent us," said another. "We must let the wind blow our scent away from them. We do not have to worry about the humans.

    "Good. When we are finished we must make everything appear to their best scouts that they simply vanished. We can leave no trace of our interference."
    Last edited by brian 333; 2021-08-18 at 12:54 PM.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Grandfather turned to Kaasaa, and this time she felt the power of his gaze: she was a fish in clear water under the heron's eye. Unused to the attention of large males, she felt uneasy. He could have her, unresisting. No power of her will could make her body obey any other command.

    When his gaze broke she felt foolish. Why would a male as magnificent as he desire her? A child, unproven. Unworthy of his attention. His voice, deep and soft, soothed her. She came alert to the present, her fantasy forgotten.

    "And what would Grandmother's eyes see?" he asked.

    "Advise me, grandfather," she said. "Much of this I do not understand. I think I understand the politics of the village, but I do not understand the politics of males. Always you seem on a knife's point, ready to kill. I do not know what the deaths of so many humans means. Or why we should save some when it would anger many more humans to come and kill us. I cannot return to Grandmother having seen so much and understanding so little."

    Grandfather nodded. "Eeahn, how would you advise her?"

    "She should return to the village. Grandmother will know what she has seen."

    "You are her guardian. You would go with her," Grandfather rumbled.

    "I... Grandfather, I am needed here. I am fastest in or out of water. No human can feel my tread..."

    "Would you take Grandmother's Eyes into battle?"

    "She? Grandfather, she has seen what there is to see. Send her back with those going to the villages."

    "I do not command Grandmother's Eyes."

    " But... You..."

    "When you are an elder you will learn that there is much you do not command," a wheezing voice whispered.

    Kaasaa was startled to realize that the wheezing elder had approached them unheard.

    "We are ready for battle at your order," he wheezed.

    "You may come and go as you wish," Grandfather said. "Eeahn is your guard until you return to Grandmother. You asked my advice and this is it: Come to watch us make war on those who would harm our friends. Stay hidden. When the fight is done, go to the village of the trading humans and help them as you may. When the human villagers are safe, return to your village. You will understand more about what you have seen, and have this understanding to give to Grandmother."

    Grandfather turned to the elder and said, "The battle plan is yours. Lead us."
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-02-12 at 10:35 AM.

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    The wheezing elder led them upriver with Grandfather in the rear, just behind Kaasaa. As they swam, Aahkaas rumble-wheezed between whistling breaths at the surface. She did not understand, at first, that there was meaning to his sounds until others answered his calls. It was not far speech they used, though their deep tones would carry for some distance in the cold river. And it did not thrill her the way the rumbling of large males had done before.

    They spoke a language of males, she reasoned. A language of challenge and force. A language of killing. The thought chilled her even more than the river's cold.

    Ahead, when she tilted her head for a breath, was the smell of woodsmoke and charred meat. And a flicker of firelight reflecting on the treetops caught her eye. With another rumble of command, half the swimmers slowed and the other half swam on against the slow, icy current.

    She marveled again at the ability of males to tolerate cold. To remain alert and active when her only desire was to curl up on a beach and wait for the sun.

    She and Eeahn and five of the males, two of them elders, crawled up the clay bank of the river and waited beneath the overhanging branches of a medicine bark tree. The elders lay with their paddle-like tails in the water, waiting for Grandfather's signal. Eeahn thrust his head above the bank to look, but one of the elders held her by her foot when she tried to join him.

    She considered protesting. Grandmother's Eyes must see! But to do so would have made noise which could have endangered them all, and she was certain she would see much more than she wanted to see this night anyway. Instead, she watched the flicker of light in the treetops.

    She felt Grandfather's signal in the damp sand: an imperative pulse of unheard sound. The two elders crawled over the edge of the embankment, followed by the younger four males, Eeahn last. She crawled up after, careful to maneuver her spears in a way that avoided snags of the brush. Eeahan stopped her there, and huddled with her, tense in the anticipation of the fight.

    On the far side of the human camp, where the intense heat of the large fire ruined her night vision, big hot shadows stood with little motion. A crash, then another, was followed by the screams of many meatbeasts. They surged away from the dark, toward the fire. As the beasts moved, the ones nearest the fire stopped, and two wings of the herd animals swung around the fire to meet each other. Two of the screaming beasts appeared to be struggling, but they were inexplicably drawn into the fire. Their thrashing scattered the fire, and the beasts screamed even louder.

    It was only then that she realized that around the fire humans lay. Some had been trampled by the beasts, and they added their screams to the night, while others scrambled to evade the hooves. Some went to the beasts nearest the fire, but most scattered away from them.

    The chaotic scene was difficult to see in the dark, with the powerful heat of the fire. She kept closing and opening her clear eyelids, hoping to see what was happening in the confusion.

    She saw darker shapes of the lizardmen on the far side of the fire, their lesser body heat rendering them invisible in the glare of the scattered fire, except where they shadowed heat sources behind them. At first it did not appear that the humans were aware of the males, and many of them fell, dead or adding their screams to the night.

    Then the meatbeasts broke again. One group charged toward the river and the other struggled toward the wood, dragging it's trailing member into the fire. That was when she finally saw the rope that bound them; a human hacked at the rope with a short sword. The beasts parted again. A pair of them charged toward her hiding place, and trampled the shape of a lizardmen that tried to divert them.

    Eeahn grabbed her spear, her fishing spear, and lunged toward them, but the rope still joining the pair caught the trunk of a tree, and both of their heads jerked backwards, flipping the horses off their feet. A human following them saw Eeahn, but not the many-pronged spear. It jerked to a stop in much the same way as the horses, folding over the spear that impaled it. Just behind another human swung wildly with a large club, fighting a lizardmen that fell when the human's club struck. With a jerk Eeahn pulled the spear from the dying human and hurled it at the club-wielder. The light spear's impact caused it to drop it's club before it could complete it's intended death blow, and then Eeahn was on it, wrestling it to the ground and slashing it with a black-rock knife.

    One of the humans began to chant, a strange sound that vibrated beneath her ear-scales, and on the far side of the fire a lizardmen who could only be Grandfather rumbled in the strange male language. With a flash, five orbs raced from the chanting human into the lizardman nearest to it. The male fell. From Grandfather's side came a figure of water, black in the darkness, spouting hissing steam as it rolled across the burning debris. It impacted the human, engulfed it. The human struggled in vain against the black blob.

    The surviving humans tried to gather, their backs to the remnant of the fire, but they were cut down by stones and stone knives hurled from the darkness.

    The screaming animals and humans were silenced one by one by the warriors. As silence fell over the once noisy camp, a human, until that moment lying unmoving and presumed dead, jumped to it's feet and ran toward the river. Eeahn was after it, diving from the high bank into the water with hardly a splash. The thrashing of the human suddenly ended, and for a long moment there was silence. And then Eeahn climbed from the water alone.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-02-14 at 10:14 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #12
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    The rose of dawn concealed the carnage, but the males were cleaning up much of the mess of the previous night. Most of the dead humans were already in the river, flowing away from the camp, but the dead meatbeasts were another matter.

    Four of the lizardmen could lift one, if there was a way to hold it. A complicated rig of poles and straps was helpful, but it took time to assemble. They worked at it as the forest brightened. Meanwhile, the males had not all come through the fight without injury, and their methods of treatment the were less than efficient. True healing was not a male gift.

    The few spells she could cast she reserved for the worst wounds. A head injury, a deep leg wound that threatened to bleed out, and a gut wound. For the rest she used bandages ; the dead humans had no need of their clothing. She wanted herbs and saps for poultices and the relief of pain, but those would have to wait for the larders of the villages. She did what she could, knowing that it would not be enough. Grandfather approached as she tended Sia for a foot crushed under the hoof of one of the live meatbeasts.

    "This space will be returned to it's natural state before the evening, and by then we must all be gone. Where would Grandmother's Eyes go then?"

    "It is over now; I suppose I should go back to the village and tell what I have seen."

    "That may be wise," Grandfather rumbled. "I might suggest that there is more to see. Our scouts are out, watching for humans. The dead here will be floated away as far as the currents will take them, but the living meatbeasts may be useful to the villagers.

    "Humans do not sleep through winter, and they require food. We will drive the meatbeasts to them. It may be that there is something to see of the villagers before the cold of winter takes your strength. Would you wish to go with the warriors given that task?"

    "Grandfather, in the creche we are taught to avoid humans, even as we are taught their words. Is that teaching wrong?"

    "Humans are not all the same. Even among the tribes we know, there are differences. Humans are supremely dangerous because of this.

    "Here we have a village of humans who trade with us, and who do not make war. They do not fear us as other human villages may. I would preserve them, if I can. Having humans who fear us take their place might bring back the hunters who took our skins in the days of my Grandfather.

    "If Grandmother's eyes can see what my eyes miss, perhaps new ideas can be made. Or perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps it only endangers us all to take one side in a fight between humans."

    "Grandfather, I will see what I can, but already the cold takes my strength."

    "I do not command. I only ask. The meatbeasts will be driven down this road soon. By mid-day they will reach the village."
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-02-16 at 09:57 PM.

  13. - Top - End - #13
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    The sun warmed the chill of the night's swim from her core, as did the walk. She had never gone so far on dry clay and crushed stone, but the road meandered through the forest following a natural ridge. Kaasaa reasoned that it might be above the river's spring flood, except where it crossed gullies that drained the woods on her right.

    Somewhere to her left the river meandered, and she imagined the wounded lizardmen following the dead humans downriver to insure none were snagged on rocks or fallen trees until they reached the bark-eater's lake. She couldn't make herself forget, much as she wished to, that three of their own flowed with them.

    More of the lizardmen would have joined them had they not used the night, and the meatbeasts against them. The males had been proud of their work, praising their deeds and their prowess.

    Mmmk, Sahat, and Thesss did not join in their celebrations. They would never again share their blood with the tribes. No more young would carry their faces in the years to come. Yes, it was good that the males were cunning and strong, but this war-making...

    Was the cost worth the gain? Grandfather didn't know. Would Grandmother?

    Her feet and hips began to hurt as the sun rose as high as the winter sky would allow. Walking so far was difficult for one whose paths had all been in water. Yet she feared the chill, the lethargy, that the river would bring. Again, the males appeared to be stronger than she in this. They drove the exhausted animals simply by walking behind and to either side. Grass-eaters rightly feared the scent of meat eaters.

    The scent of wood smoke and dung caught in her nostrils, then the human village appeared in a turn of the trail. Like the houses of her village they were roofed in palmetto and reed. None were round. They made squares and had square cages around them enclosing squares of plants in neat rows. She realized the plants were caged, not to keep them in, but to keep plant-eaters out when one of the meatbeasts reached for a vine tied to a pole with twine.

    And then she noticed the humans. So many! Two eights of houses, and eight eights of humans of all sizes and a variety of shapes. Then came the slender warrior through the throng as it gathered to look at five lizardfolk leading meatbeasts into their village.

  14. - Top - End - #14
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    The humans were too similar to be seen as individuals. Perhaps they didn't value individuality the way lizardfolk did. And yet they did come in a variety of sizes, and the clothing they wore came in a variety of patterns.

    She noticed that while most had long brown fur growing from their heads, some had white strands mixed in, and the humans deferred to those with the whitest fur. These appeared to be the weaker ones. Even the largest humans, the ones she would have assumed to be their elders, were silent when the white-furred ones spoke.

    And the words they used! She and her creche-mates had been taught human-speech. She could not understand what these humans said. At first she thought they simply spoke too quickly, but their voices rose and fell, and there were strange cadences to their statements. Individual words were difficult to pick out from the stream of sounds.

    Kennk appeared to have mastered their style, but she could understand him. Usually. He used words she didn't know, and from time to time she thought he meant things that the words he used didn't mean. It was clear that something was wrong with their teaching. Perhaps, like Kennk, they needed to speak with humans to understand human speech.

    Like lizardfolk males, the humans seemed to want to discuss everything, even when they knew what they must do. It was simple: take what was needful and follow those who were preparing the way.

    Some argued over what was needful. Some did not wish to leave. Some did not trust Kennk.

    The males of her kind would have argued so, until Grandfather or the Eldest made his will known. Females would have offered suggestions without confronting one another directly, until Grandmother or the Eldest made her will known. Humans seemed to argue, confront, and challenge every detail, even after the whitest-fur had spoken.

    Not all, though; the smallest of them watched, mostly silently. The middle-sized ones spoke amongst themselves, but never in challenge to the larger humans. None of the small ones were grouped by size and monitored by a female Elder, so it took her a while to reason out that they were younglings.

    Kaasaa would have to look for other differences. She must be wary that she might assume a human would react like one of her kind. They were alien.

    "Kanafeeyerskin"

    The tiny thin human had appeared unnoticed beside her. It's garb was simple, and appeared too large draped on it's tiny body, but it's fur was very long and full, and worn in a wind-blown pattern, unlike the larger humans whose fur appeared to conform, loosely, to various patterns.

    It carried the smallest human...

    No, the object was stitched cloth patterned to appear to be a tiny human. The living one carried the replica under it's arm, squeezed against it's torso.

    "Kanafeeyerskin," it repeated.

    Kaasaa carefully enunciated, "I do not understand your words."

    The small one reached out slowly and touched the back of her hand with hot, very soft fingertips. The claws on its hands were flattened and very thin. They appeared useless; such claws could never catch game or aid in climbing.

    Her own hand twitched. No lizardfolk would touch her so, with a gentle single stroke of fingers across the back of her hand. The sensation was strangely fascinating.

    "Dry," the human said. "Smooth."

    Kaasaa was pleased to hear words she understood. She replied, "Warm. Soft."

    A larger human with fur of the same color, tightly woven as a rope, and wearing a cloth of similar color barked a stream of sounds and the tiny human ran to it. The larger human scolded the smaller, who appeared attentive to the stream of words. The larger took the hand of the smaller and marched away with the smaller in tow, but the smaller turned and flapped it's free hand in Kaasaa's direction, almost dropping the cloth human to do so. Kaasaa imitated the gesture.

    She would have to study humans. Perhaps the next week would tell her the answers to all of the puzzles around these humans. Perhaps, as with this incident, the week would end with more puzzles unsolved.

    Would Grandmother already know the answers?
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-02-24 at 11:24 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #15
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    She and her guardian made a nest beneath a large oak on the north side of the caged plants and she tried to catch the last of the setting sun's rays. By full dark she was asleep. Rarely did she dream and recall that she had dreamt. Even rarer were glimpses of those dreams remembered.

    On waking, she remembered.

    In almost-darkness she hatched from her soft-shelled egg and crawled down a mountain of logs and slick mud that was larger than the dam of the bark-eaters. The warm pool of muddy water at the bottom was relaxing, soothing, but she had to climb out on two feet and face a giant.

    Grandmother looked down on her tiny hatchling, and Kaasaa recalled the journey she had undertaken with Eeahn. The cold river, the night in the forest, the pain that came from the cold, and the blood in the water. Every detail, as though drawn on the mud of the teaching room floor.

    When she came to the memory of building the night's nest with Eeahn, Grandmother gently rumbled her approval.

    "Grandmother, should I return and tell you all of this?" Kaasaa asked.

    Grandmother shrank, then. Or did Kaassaa grow? She was huge, looking down on a tiny hatchling. Unseen behind her was Eeahn, similarly grown huge, with a bright red far speech bladder. He had become, somehow, Grandfather. And she?

    "Perhaps," tiny Grandmother said. "If you both survive. There is yet much for you to learn."

    Tiny Grandmother became a warm flame which grew brighter and warmer, until it's brightness hurt her eye.

    She woke beneath the tree with a yellow beam of sunlight piercing the treetops to land on her face.

    "Shall we return to your village?" Eeahn asked, wierdly echoing her own question.

    "I think I have decided to stay and help the humans. I had a dream..."

    After a silent moment he said, "I thought it was a sending."

    "A what?"

    "A spell. I heard you speak to Grandmother."

    "In my dream I did."

    "Ah. I thought it was a spell."

    "I think we should help the humans who wish to go to the island now, and make a second trek for those who are not yet ready. Some of the human males should be taken to the place of death so they can bear witness. Time wasted in discussion is not productive."

    "Yes, Elder." His far speech bladder puffed in amusement, and she threw a twig at him in mock indignation.

    "I will inform Kennk."

    The first group was ready before the sun was halfway up the sky. Twenty, all together. The six small, leaky boats of the village were loaded with far more gear than lizardfolk would have wanted. There was an abundance of cloth, which appeared strange at first, until the younglings were placed into the boats. They quickly made nests of the material. Kaasaa reasoned that, like other furred creatures, humans were warm-bloods that lacked fur on their bodies. They used the cloth as substitute fur. It did little to help the adults, who shivered as they walked the water-path in water that rose, at times, to their waists.

    In the deeper water, or finally, when exhaustion finally defeated them, the adult humans joined the younglings and shivered in wet cloth nests as the lizardmen pushed and pulled the boats the rest of the way. Finally, as the sun lowered and the trees blocked it's beams, the humans staggered onto the dry land her kind knew as Turtle Island.

    The largest young, or smallest adults, took charge, then, and began to erect a cloth village under the direction of their elders. Kaasaa was begining to comprehend their speech, and made another discovery: she was able to identify the females!

    Unlike her kind, there was no creche overseen by elders. Human females each kept one or two particular younglings to themselves. Unlike most warm-bloods, the younglings were often of different sizes. Once she learned to see them as individuals, she began to see the patterns.

    Each female oversaw some of the younglings, (her own eggs, perhaps?) Each male was overseen, with various degrees of contention, by a female. The males spoke freely among themselves, and were the hardiest on the trek through the swamp, but rarely spoke to any but the female that supervised him. The females spoke freely among themselves or to the younglings, and kept the very smallest under close watch. Some of the very smallest were tiny and weak, but could generate a great, squealing noise at random intervals. The first of these that she noticed she mistook for a cloth human replica until it began to make it's noise.

    And she noticed that this group did not have enough males. Perhaps this was a similarity with her own kind: males would stay to defend while the younglings were taken to safety.

    Humans were different. She could not allow casual similarities to influence her. She must know them for what they were.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-03-13 at 02:30 AM.

  16. - Top - End - #16
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    She lay prone on a log that had crashed some time ago, tearing a hole in the forest canopy that allowed the weak sun to filter down to the dark scutes along her spine. Her body greedily sucked in its warmth, relaxing her for the first time since the cold night trek...

    Was it only four nights past? It seemed longer, as if she had lost track of time. So much had happened in a short time.

    Her hand clenched on the human spear in the moment before her mind registered the rustle of leaves.

    "Are you sleeping?" Eeahn asked.

    "No. Warming."

    "Ah. I have something to show you."

    "Are the humans arguing again?"

    "Still. That is no surprise. This is something else. Come."

    She picked up both spears in one hand, a grip that had become comfortable surprisingly quickly.

    "Why do you keep that?" Eeahn asked.

    "I don't know. To remind me of the field of death, perhaps."

    "I could not forget that place if I tried. Come, this way."

    "What are you showing me now?"

    "Grandmother's Eyes must see what there is to see," he answered.

    "I have a name, you know," she said.

    "Kaasaa," he rumbled, and it echoed weakly in his still yellow-orange farspeech bladder. She did not hiss the amusement she felt for fear of hurting his pride, and because in that moment she imagined her reaction to the dream-version of him.

    Winter was beginning to rob her of her wits, she concluded.

    The underbrush cleared, and the shadows deepened. Forest giants grew wildly spaced with their branches meshing to conceal the sky. Dangling loops and tendrils of vines hung down, and fern thickets grew up to meet them, but long avenues and pillared cathedrals opened vast spaces beneath the green roof.

    "Beautiful..."

    "There is more," Eeahn said. Coming to a thick, tall fern cluster, he pulled the plants aside and revealed a wall. There were cartouches on the blocks of what was obviously a structure. By it's size and shape it could have been Grandmother's council house.

    "Human made?" But if so, why were the cartouches so familiar? They resembled the simple learning of the early school-room lessons, but their meanings remained obscure.

    "Grandfather says they were ours. In the time before winter our kind prospered here, he says."

    "You don't believe him?"

    "I can almost read them. This is a name, Builder, maker, perhaps? It makes my head hurt, but I try every time I come here. There are many such houses. And some are larger. If our kind lived here it was many lives of trees in the past. We are not what we were then. I think, perhaps, as a people we are smaller."

    "This place is beautiful."

    Eeahn pivoted into a crouch, as if he had heard something she had not. Fifty feet away a large fern swayed with no breeze to stir it, but what caused it to move remained unseen.

    "A hunter," Eeahn said.

    "Animal?"

    "Perhaps. The humans must be finished with their cloth village. Let us go learn the wishes of their elders."

    "Do they have Elders? They show no respect to the words of any."

    "Kennk would know. Perhaps. I can only understand a word in a hundred. I'm not sure how much more he knows."

    "I know that tomorrow we must make two treks, and the day after conceal the path. We must be gone and hidden from the killers before they decide to make a battlefield of our villages."

  17. - Top - End - #17
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    The trek to the human village was less arduous, perhaps because the growing winter had eased somewhat, and the sun burned bright and hot. The cold of the muddy water was a relief when the sun heated her blood through the black scales of her head and back. The morning swim became a race among the younger lizardfolk, whose antics amused the elders that followed. Eeahn proved fastest of them all, until she felt an eye on her.

    It was a powerful intuition, as of a malevolent watcher whose desire was to cause her harm. Pausing to look revealed no hidden observer, and when she tried to explain the feeling to her guardian his playful mood vanished. Thereafter he was never more than a body-length from her.

    Convincing the villagers that they must leave proved easier than she thought it would: Kennk had ventured with some of the human males to the abandoned village. What they had to say when they returned convinced most of the rest. The few who disagreed would not stay by themselves.

    There was too much to take, and too little they were willing to leave behind. One of the elders devised a plan; the strongest villagers and lizardmen would make many trips, a few miles into the swamp. There they would stage all the human goods and gear that they could gather. Once the village goods were away from danger, the porters would begin to transfer the materials to the new village site. Scouts would keep watch, and rangers would cover their tracks. They would alert the porters to any approach of the human killers, which would give them all time to slip away.

    Then it fell to organizing the journey of the humans. Females and young would go to the island. The boats would be needed for the gear. The youngest would have to be carried. Kaasaa went with them.

    What had been, that morning, a joy, became in the afternoon an ordeal. The third time the human tripped and fell with the youngling in her arms, Kaasaa acted. Taking the wailing youngling on her back, she swam slowly alongside the female.

    She had learned that human mother's tended their own younglings. Some had two, three, or even four, all of various sizes. There was no creche, no matron to supervise each age group. Human females were fiercely protective of their younglings.

    The mother protested, but in a moment she realized that Kaasaa was not taking her child away. And after some anxious squalling, the youngling realized she wasn't going to be dunked into the water again, though her feet dangled in it on either side of Kaasaa's back.

    The lizardmen, seeing her, began to compete among themselves; who could carry the most younglings. Who could carry the largest. Two decided to race, back and forth along the line of struggling marchers, each with a youngling on his back. The young whooped and shouted, apparently from joy, and the marchers whooped back. The play seemed to give them energy, and the humans began to slog clumsily through the swamp with greater energy.

    Eeahn did not join them, though he did take on some of the gear that appeared to overburden a couple of the nearby humans. His senses were on the trees that lined their path, but the feeling of being watched did not return.

    Their arrival on Turtle Island was a celebration. The humans in the new cloth village had spent the day preparing, and warm fires, warm human food, and human nests of cloth had been made ready.

    Seeing that the humans were being welcomed, Eeahn said, "Come."

    He lead her to a place where stone circles had sunk into the water. He took her fishing spear and swam out between them, diving to look into the portals that opened into their interiors. Before long he had two good-sized scaleless fish, and they found a place where the late afternoon sun sent shafts of warmth down into a thicket of yellow grass. Laying side by side with their backs toward the sun, they ate their meals in comfortable silence.

    Warm, with full bellies, they lay still, enjoying the silence around them and the distant noise of the human village. His tail brushed hers, inadvertantly, she thought at first. The second time his tail tried to curl around hers, and she jerked away in surprise. Too late to avoid hurting his feelings, she sat up.

    "I'm going to teach them to make a fishing spear tomorrow," she said.

    "All of them?" Eeahn asked.

    "The ones who want to learn."

    The sun was dropping faster, and the wind of autumn night was rising.

    "Let's go back to the village," she said. "Rest by a warm fire tonight, so we will have energy tomorrow. There are many things we will have to teach, and the sky will soon grow cold and grey. Our time is running short.

  18. - Top - End - #18
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    A greyfur called Sslenah was easy enough to approach with a fish in her hands. Eeahn stood back with the spears.

    It was easy enough to see the elder had been female once, but humans whose eggs had all been laid became something else. They became male-like, except that the males, mostly, had fur on their faces. And human elders of both sexes both grew in power and lost it.

    Unlike her own kind, who became more powerful with age until their hearts failed or their brains filled with blood in a sudden catastrophe, humans grew weaker, more frail, and less active over time. Their younger adults cared for them, perhaps even worshipped them. And they listened when a white-fur spoke. But it was those whose fur bore only streaks of white, whose black or dark brown fur turned the color of steel whose commands the village obeyed.

    Kaasaa had chosen her human words carefully and ordered them in the arrangement that seemed to fit the human style of speaking.

    "I caan maanny ffissh hunt. Soon I muss sssleeep in the cold time. Who would ffeed your young? The make sspeear ffor ffissh I would teeach your young. They may ffeed you well."

    Within the hour the offered fish had been roasted on a fire and a dozen gawky, thin, human females came to the rock where she sat warming in the sun and on the sun-warmed skin of the rock.

    She began the lesson as her creche matron had. She handed her spear to a youngling and said, "To ffissh one musst need sspeear. Making one iss today."

    It was hours before she realized that many of the nearly constant sounds they made was laughter at her way of speaking. By then she had listened to their speech enough to understand them and to begin copying their patterns.

    They began with braided bark twine. The annoying thicket shrubs which filled virtually every sunlit bank on the bayous had a single desirable trait: its bark could be ripped into long, thin strips, and the white sap that oozed from it, tacky and annoying while new, when heated, became a bonding substance almost as good as rosin.

    By the time they each had a braided cord about an arm span in length two or three of the younglings had vanished. The rest appeared unconcerned, so she began the next step.

    The ant-infested thorn-tree provided them many sharp quills, and several injuries due to the soft nature of human skin. Eight of the human young went with her to select pig-nut saplings from which to fabricate the spears' shafts.

    As the sun lowered in the sky and grew red, they worked at binding the quills tightly to the shafts. It proved most difficult for the younglings with the smallest hands and arms.

    As the sun set and the younglings set the glue of the braided bark over hot fires, there were three serviceable spears, and another three that would survive long enough to catch a few fish. The last two would probably fail on the first attempted use. No matter: they now knew how to make a new one. When the younglings had completed toasting the white sap black she inspected each one without showing a sign of favoritism

    "Ssleeep tonight. Ffirsst light tomorrow we ffissh."

    As they made their bed of palmetto leaves and hay, Eeahn said, "None of them swim well enough to fish."

    "I have thought of that," she answered. "There was a game we played in the creche. I will teach it."

    ***

    The morning sun was not yet above the trees when the eight human younglings and their teacher stepped into the water. They formed a line across the narrow waterway. Kaasaa had no need to tell them to make noise; it was the one thing they did well without need of encouragement.

    The line splashed toward the shallow narrow where Eeahn stood with her fishing spear. A youngling slipped and came sputtering to the top. One of the younglings stabbed with its spear and missed.

    "Aim below ffissh. Sspeearss in waters ffor ssplaassh," she said. About half the children complied.

    Eeahn had a fish on her spear. He tossed it up onto the bank and in a fluid motion jabbed. A second fish wriggled on the spear before it joined the first. She admired his grace and economy of motion, the very minimal movements that the task required...

    One of the younglings announced a catch as she held the fish high, squealing in excitement. It was a whiskered fish.

    "Wait!" She yelled as the younglings gathered, and then she saw the youngling try to pull the fish from the spear.

    With a flex of its body its flared fin jabbed the hand of its captor and as bright red spouted the wounded fish escaped.

    There was a delay between the injury and the scream. When it came the other younglings joined. Some circled their injured companion while the rest surged up the bank. The human's blood flowed, thankfully, forcing the fish-slime out of the wound, but it appeared to mesmerize the injured youngling.

    Kaasaa propelled herself with her tail, lifted the injured child, and set her on the bank. Human voices, obviously responding to the younglings' cries, preceded the sounds of many human feet splashing through the muddy underbrush.

    She spread the fingers of the human's hand, much like her own, save for the extra digit and the thumb which could bend no more than halfway from the forward position. Her sensitive claws traced the lines of tendons and bones and explored the path of the wound. Blood-flow had become a trickle, but a squeeze caused it to spray again.

    With no damage to the bones or tendons, a simple spell could heal the injury. The sibilant words flowed; the power coursed through her hands and into the wound. A drop of clear fluid formed and fell as the wound closed.

    The girl scooted back and was grabbed by a human. It was then that she saw the crowd of humans were looking past her, their bodies tense. Looking behind her she saw Eeahn, holding her human spear in a fighting stance.

    "No!" she shouted at him as she batted the flat of the blade. "No! We do not kill here!"

    "Peassse!" she said turning to the humans. "Peassse! No ffightss!"

    Eeahn dropped the spear. The humans relaxed. Over the muttering of the adults she could hear the youngling speaking as it showed its hand. There was blood on its clothing and arm, but the wound had healed without a scar.

    The humans were speaking far too quickly for her to understand, but more of them were looking at her as the youngling showed its hand. Kaasaa slowly stood, carefully avoiding a hostile posture. The youngling ran to her and wrapped its arms around her waist.

    "Thank you!" it said as it squeezed her.

    None of the lizardfolk would perform such an intimate act without carefull preparation. Among her kind it would be an advance toward mating. Unwanted, such an act would be cause to fight. She resisted the urge to push the youngling away, then with great effort placed her own hands on the human"s shoulders. Awkwardly returning the gentle squeeze, she repeated, "Thhank you."

    When the human's finally turned back to the village the younglings went with them. Kaasaa turned to express her disappointment to Eeahn, then saw the large girl, one of the ones who had crafted a better spear. She had a fish impaled on it.

    "This girrl knowss ffissh."

    "Amaboy," the youngling said.

    "Sslowly sspeak," she said. "Undersstand isss hard."

    "I'm a boy."

    "Male youngling?"

    "Yes."

    "You hhave no ffur," she insisted as she stroked her chin and throat.

    "I do too," he replied, touching the dark haze beneath his nose. "It'll grow thicker soon."

    "Younglings hhave no ffur? Hhow does one tell male ffrom ffemale?"

    "You just know," he said. "Like you. You're a girl, right?"

    "Yess. I hhave no color at my thhroat. My sscaless are not ridged."

    "All the others make way for you," he said. "Lizardfolk are a matriarchy. Females rule."

    "There isss much we muss learn off one anothher," she said. "Ffemaless not rule, not males. Together. Elderss rule."

    "Us too," the boy said as his strangle flexible mouth twisted.

    "The ffissh," she said. "It isss not whissker ffissh. Hhold itss lip to remove."

    She showed him how to take the fish off of the spear, and explained that it was the fins of the whisker fish that were dangerous. She was about to give him the two Eeahn had caught and send him back to the cloth village.

    "How do you fish when you don't have a line to chase them?" he asked.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-04-04 at 10:17 PM.

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    Among the roots and walls of the old village they stalked the greenback fish. Stale, leaf-choked pools and rotted stumps were their homes. They tasted bland, but were nutritious. The human boy managed to catch half a dozen by the time the sun began it's fall from the sky.

    "This almost looks like writing," he said, rubbing his fingertips along a row of cartouches.

    "They ssay, 'In the time of Bird-Female Moonlight the breath-taker illness came. With her prayerss and ssongss sshe healed many.' "

    "You can read them?"

    "Ssome. Thiss iss youngling writings, tellss off sshee who lived here."

    The human looked around at the flooded, ruined houses. "There must be hundreds of stories like that! Can you read them all?"

    "Only thossse ssimpleessst oness. Much hass changed in long yearsss."

    "Can you teach me to read them?"

    "Perhapss. Today not. Today you musst return ffrom your hunt with catch."

    His face twisted strangely as he held up the string of fish, then he began to splash back toward the cloth village.

    "One day I will read all of the writing on the walls," she heard him say.

    ***

    Two weeks among the humans was a strange joy to Kaasaa, and a strange disappointment. The males finally portaged the village gear and livestock to the canvas village, and they learned that the invading humans had burned their homes. Many shouted and argued about this every evening, but in the dwindling daylight they did the work needed to survive. Some fished, some hunted tree-dwellers and mud-diggers, and some gathered acorns and other foods that she would have left for swine. The humans looked able to survive the winter.

    When the cold night came and she and Eeahn lay in torpor through the next day, enjoying the timelessness of the cold, she knew their time had come. The sun brought them enough warmth to move the next day, and they informed the humans they would be leaving.

    Dawn of the following day found them less than five miles from the human camp, but they were situated on the North bank of a bayou and the low winter sun reached them early. By noon they were back in the channel making time toward her village.

    Eeahn was unusually playful, showing off his speed and agility as they swam. Below and ahead of her, he blew a stream of bubbles that tickled her as she swam through them. Side-by side, their flanks brushed, their tails bumped. He surged ahead, lagged behind and caught up again, and at one point snatched a fish, which they shared.

    When the sun was going down and she was beginning to look for a warm, south-facing slope, she saw a loud splash where Eeahn had been. A lizardman stood where the splash had been, ripples spreading away in all directions. He raised a long human knife, its shiny blade pitted with black spots, and struck.

    "Defender of nothing!" The lizardman said as it raised the blade again.

    Unaware of her own actions, she found herself holding the polished human spear, its blade between the seventh and eighth scutes to the right of Ashi's backbone.

    Blood in the water was the only sign of Eeahn, until her fishing spear's many points flashed up from the water and into his attacker's throat.

    Ahsi looked at the spear as the long knife fell from his hand, then his inner eyelid slid half closed. Kaasaa became aware of his weight when he slumped. With a shove of the stout spear's stave she pushed him away.

    She pulled the shaft of her fishing spear and Eeahn came up with it, his hands gripping the shaft like turtles' jaws. His breath snorted when his nostrils breached. Grabbing his arm she dragged him to the near bank.

    Three wounds. The scutes of his neck had deflected one blow: only his skin was cut. Had the rogue lizardman struck between the second and third scutes, Eahn would have lost his head. The second wound drove into his side, possibly into his lung. It went between the ribs, but how deep? Was the flowing blood filling his lung with every pulse? The third was a twisted track along his right arm: a defensive wound. It was a horrible gash, and possibly a crippling wound, but it would not be fatal.

    She concentrated her spells on the lung. The sun had gone from the sky by the time her prayers were done. And he still breathed.

    Exhausted, she slept. And dreamed. On a log lay a beautiful lizardfolk female. A large male slid on his belly up the mudbank to her, crooning deep in his farspeech bladder. He was speaking to her, but she couldn't understand his words. He drew cartouches in the mud, but they had no meaning. Eventually he left the way he came, leaving only the slide-marks behind.

    Grandmother came to the bank and spoke, but her words were disordered. Disorganized.

    "I do not understand," Kaasaa said. "What are you trying to tell me?"

    Grandmother looked up, behind Kaasaa, and bowed, as a youngling to a matron. Looking behind her, Kaasaa saw a towering giant of a lizardfolk female. Like Grandmother, she bowed.

    "My daughter, it is you who give meaning to the world. Do not seek the meanings meant for others. Find your meanings within yourself."

    "Holy, I am a murderer. How can I ever find meaning in that?"

    The giant waved its hand and she saw a blood-stained pool, on the bank of which a sobbing, grief-stricken lizardfolk female repeated prayers and incantations until long after her spirit had the strength to power them.

    "I see a life-giver," the giant said.

    She became warm and radiant, until Kaasaa had to close her eyes against the glare.

    "I was hungry," a voice said. Eeahn's voice. It wasn't part of her dream.

    Her eyes snapped open, and the full light of the winter sun forced her to immediately close them. Looking away from the sun, she tried again. Eeahn sat beside her crunching green-brown crabs of the marsh. A wet leather bag on the ground between them moved, and one of the crabs tried to escape. She snatched it and popped it into her mouth.

    "Where did..."

    "I woke early. You were tired, and I was hungry. Go ahead, I had my breakfast already."

    She gulped down a dozen before she realized how hungry she was, and finished the last of them slower. As she ate she tried to get a better look at his wounds.

    The twisted scar on his hand and forearm showed. The scales no longer aligned. He would shed many times before that scar faded. The neck wound showed less from the front. Perhaps her healing had been more efficient there. The stab wound she could not see beneath his arm.

    He hissed amusement, and finally said, "Eat the last one and I will show you."

    As she crunched, he stood and raised his arm. The death blow had healed. There was a little pucker and a white seam, but that would be gone with his spring shedding. The wound on his neck was more visible. But the bone of the scute was covered by healing skin. She felt it's reflexive twitch when her talons touched it.

    "Excuse me," she said. "I'm sorry."

    "It's okay," he said. "You can touch me. If you want."

    She traced the wound of his arm with talons and eyes. It appeared that he had deflected the blade with his arm rather than that the blade had cut into him. It was not fully healed, she discovered, when he flinched from her probing fingers.

    She was about to apologize again, but she saw something in his eye. In the next moment she realized that it had been there since the night of the cold-river. A moment later she realized she was standing there holding his hand.

    She dropped it and stepped back. "We have to go," she said.

    "Yeah," he said, with the slightest rumble of his far speech bladder.

    By mid-day they had left the pool and its corpse far behind. Eeahn had lost the enthusiasm of the previous day, and as they came nearer to her home he slowed.

    "Are you tired?" she asked. "We can rest in the sun if you like."

    "No." He said it abruptly. Then again, "No."

    "You seem to be slowing. Perhaps the loss of blood..."

    "No, I..." He paused, then said, "I don't want this to end. And the nearer we come to Twelve Trees..."

    She thought about that for a time, then asked, "Will you sing for me?"

    Slowly, as if he thought he was being teased he began to croon a melody. It was one the males sang in the creche pool. But she only listened as they traveled, and the song shifted to a lower octave, one she had never heard him use, and it began to vary from the original pattern. Pleasing, rythmic pulsing of the water against the pressure lines on her face and on either side of her body.

    Her mind drifted. Her body slid against his. Their tails paddling in unison, caressing with each stroke. Her blood rushed in her ears.

    When her mind cleared they were in a familiar channel. She thought it odd that the place she had hunted so many times remained unchanged after her absence. She realized it was her perspective that had changed. She was different, not the world.

    "I go no farther," Eeahn said.

    "You are not coming to report to Grandmother?"

    "I must report to Grandfather. Daylight is short, and the matrons will not welcome me."

    And she knew why. Males did not winter in the village. He was no longer a youngling.

    "Will I see you again?" she asked.

    "If Grandfather allows it. I will call you in the warming days."

    He gave her the fishing spear and sped away. When she could no longer see him she turned and walked to Grandmother's house.

    ***

    Her tiny hut began to warm in the spring, and the bed of damp, rotted leaves covered in wet clay that she had guarded while the winter torpor held her mind woke her. At first she dreamed that Eeahn was calling her, but the voices were high pitched.

    Voices?

    She woke, then, and began to answer the tiny voices. One by one they popped from the leaves. When she could hear no more voices inside the mound, she opened her mouth and sang to them.

    They entered her mouth in answer to her call. What was, on the males, a far speech bladder was, on mature females, a brood pouch. The younglings, no more than the length of her hand, with a few retaining deflated yolk sacs against their bellies, crawled in. They crawled beneath her tongue on either side of her mouth and into her brood pouch.

    She would spend the first two weeks of their lives in the creche pool with them, until they grew too large to brood. Then the matrons would take over.

    The matrons would say she was too young. But Eeahn's younglings would be agile and intelligent. Grandmother had known. Kaasaa knew she had much to learn, but Grandmother knew that too.
    Last edited by brian 333; 2022-04-15 at 12:43 AM.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    I hope I built enough of the lizardfolk culture into the story for players and DMs to use. As always, use what you like, and modify or discard the rest.

    Feel free to ask any questions you like, and to critique what has been presented. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, because I don't bring them to the forums

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    I thought the world/culture building and the writing were wonderful. I actually checked the world building forum daily looking for updates to your story. If you have more, please post them!
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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    I just finished reading this story. Wonderful work! You give us a glimpse of an alien culture, physiology, and mind without going so far afield that we can no longer understand it as a story. For what it's worth, it's absolutely something that I would read as a published short story.

    For feedback: I feel like the "Grandmother's eyes as test" subplot kinda fell through. She never reports back to Grandmother.
    Last edited by TaiLiu; 2022-04-17 at 12:14 AM.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Quote Originally Posted by TaiLiu View Post
    I just finished reading this story. Wonderful work! You give us a glimpse of an alien culture, physiology, and mind without going so far afield that we can no longer understand it as a story. For what it's worth, it's absolutely something that I would read as a published short story.

    For feedback: I feel like the "Grandmother's eyes as test" subplot kinda fell through. She never reports back to Grandmother.
    I did drop the ball on that. I intended her arrival in the village to be a final report, and I had intended more dream sequences which would be apparent at some point as 'check ups by Grandmother.' The final dream sequence was supposed to be her first communion with the female lizardfolk deity, and I kind of missed that too.

    In my defense, from the start I intended to have the story end in the brood-pond of the village, and as that grew closer, I grew anxious to write it.

    So, Kaasaa is now an official candidate to be the next Grandmother, but will have a lot of proving herself to do in the next eighty years.

    Were there any aspects of the culture that I glossed over or that a DM might have trouble working around?

  24. - Top - End - #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Melayl View Post
    I thought the world/culture building and the writing were wonderful. I actually checked the world building forum daily looking for updates to your story. If you have more, please post them!
    Thanks. I usually world build through stories, and I have quite a collection in this topic already. You may find a few if you search for my posts. I generally post rough drafts and edit minimally, and since my stories here are less important than the world building details they reveal, most of the time the plot is a bit thin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    I did drop the ball on that. I intended her arrival in the village to be a final report, and I had intended more dream sequences which would be apparent at some point as 'check ups by Grandmother.' The final dream sequence was supposed to be her first communion with the female lizardfolk deity, and I kind of missed that too.

    In my defense, from the start I intended to have the story end in the brood-pond of the village, and as that grew closer, I grew anxious to write it.
    Got it! Totally understandable.

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    So, Kaasaa is now an official candidate to be the next Grandmother, but will have a lot of proving herself to do in the next eighty years.
    Good for her. I'm sure she'll do great. :>

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    Were there any aspects of the culture that I glossed over or that a DM might have trouble working around?
    I thought it was great, although what drew me in was the story and not its utility as DM's tool.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    The narrative structure forces me to think through aspects of world building that I might not otherwise consider

    Example: how do lizardfolk deal with romance? It's not in any source book of which I am aware, but I hope it came out in the story.

    In this case, males make a rumbling 'song' in the water that females find stimulating, but males and females live in segregated societies. The males are more independent and range far from the villages, visiting rarely and never staying for long. Thus, the females choose the males to whom they are attracted and they meet away from the village for courtship.

    It also brought out the idea that both sexes are dominated by their elders. The females compete socially for dominance, but fall in line with the decisions of the elders, while male competition tends to be more physical, but their competition is supressed by their elders.

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    Default Re: Lizardfolk of the Northern River Deltas

    Quote Originally Posted by brian 333 View Post
    The narrative structure forces me to think through aspects of world building that I might not otherwise consider

    Example: how do lizardfolk deal with romance? It's not in any source book of which I am aware, but I hope it came out in the story.

    In this case, males make a rumbling 'song' in the water that females find stimulating, but males and females live in segregated societies. The males are more independent and range far from the villages, visiting rarely and never staying for long. Thus, the females choose the males to whom they are attracted and they meet away from the village for courtship.

    It also brought out the idea that both sexes are dominated by their elders. The females compete socially for dominance, but fall in line with the decisions of the elders, while male competition tends to be more physical, but their competition is supressed by their elders.
    I loved the elder aspect of their society. Especially the part where they age differently than humans—that's both alien and conceivable.

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