There are old stones and there are young stones, and the city of Tal made the former look like the latter times three. Empires have been born, grown, spawned, and crumpled like cheap hats in the time it takes Tal to settle another inch in its sun-warmed cradle of hills.
Less than a month ago, they found something new and old both. A book buried in a drawer in a desk in a storeroom behind a boarded-up basement wall in a tower that had been paved over and used as a street support longer ago than anyone would care to guess.
The book’s script is Thymatic Pyuun, a language deader than the realm of Demmer-Don-Dimmer. Its author is Slenn, equally so, and an expert at making others much the same.
Slenn the Infinite, Lord of a Hundred Cities, Slenn Eyetaker, Slenn the Talon, Slashbones, the Deathmaker that old mothers tell little children will eat them if they don’t listen. Clutched in the fingers of a hand that had set in motion the end of countless lives, a pen had carefully written out the events of a long life of butcher-work.
Naturally, the book was highly publishable, although perhaps few if any of its readers had quite anticipated the exact… tone… of its contents.
359.238 – Stuck feeding the birds again because father’s drunk a lake’s-worth and can’t be arsed to move. Old prick’s like to drink himself to death, but GARR forbid he make it easy on us and do it quickly.
359.238B – Gald is on my ass again. “Hey Slenn, c’mon, fuck birds, let’s go to town and get drunk.” “Gald, my father drinks enough for all three of us, screw that, I want to feed my damned birds.” “Aww c’mon maaaaaannnn c’mooooonnnn….” Finally told him I would just to shut him up, as soon as I was done with the Sperrows. Little buggers get pecky when they’re hungry.
359.239 – GARR why do I listen to him?! I killed a cop! We go out, HE gets drunk (spends all of BOTH our money on it to boot), I get to pull his dumb ass out of a fight, and then HE mouths off to a cop, and then I end up in a wrestling match with him, and when the knives come out look who’s standing. I don’t think self-defense covers this as an excuse, Gald! I don’t think it does at all!
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me. I’m going to go home and get the birds. If I don’t take them with me, they’ll starve to death before old lakeliver thinks of doing anything about it.
359.240 – So it turns out I missed a couple of the Sperrows yesterday – probably because Gald was nagging me and jostled my arm. It turns out hungry Sperrows’s first choice of pecking target is eyeball. It turns out they’re highly protective of me, probably because I’m the only reason they’ve been fed for the past twelve years.
Anyways, now I’ve killed four cops. Had-killed-for-me. Whatever. I was hoping we could hide out in the hills until this blows over, but fat chance of that now. It’s me, the birds, and Gald. And Gald can carry the damned birdtower until the end of time. A decent start on paying me back for this.
359.240B – I guess we’ll make a break for Nep down south. The birds’ll like the warm, and there’ll be more for them to scrounge up. Which we’ll need because SOMEBODY got ‘tired’ and threw away four bags of feed to salve his poor little achy-wachy back. GARR protect him from me, really do, because if I have to lug the birdtower AND hunt for myself AND talk to myself I think I’ll go crazy and who’ll feed the Drowls then, huh? They’re so fat and stupid they’d be dead in days on their own. You want that on your conscience, GARR?
I hear somethi
360.002 – Well, that was a bit of a break. Long story short, I’m now a bandit chief. It turns out that’s the natural consequence of having the previous chief disembowled by angry Drowls when he’s trying to slit your throat. I always told Gald not to interrupt me when I’m feeding them, and I think ever since that practical example he’s actually paid a little more attention to me. Less to me than to the old chief’s daughter, mind you. Smart lady, and she keeps the others busy so they don’t bug me when I’m trying to feed the birds.
Feed the birds and think, mind you. I don’t think this is the sort of job where you just get to call it quits and leave with a happy goodbye. I figure if we pull in one good haul we can all split with the loot and live happy without worrying about anyone siccing the cops on us for cash.
I’ve had the Marlwings on long patrol for a while. They’ll let us know if anything worth having shows up. A lot better listeners nowadays too – like most of the birds. Getting rid of father’s bad influence might have helped.
360.138 – Busy, busy, busy, but at least now I can delegate a little. To summarize what’s been happening:
-We were late to a good fat caravan, but not too late to plunder its plunderers.
-Who we recruited.
-Who told us about another gang who got a good haul.
-Who led us to their fence.
-Who’s got us a mercenary contract.
-So now we’re working for Nep and we’re going out to hunt bandits in the jungle.
-Had to leave a lot of the birds behind. They’ve been breeding their little tails off. I’ve got three towers now, and a drumful of messenger-Geons for each sergeant. Learned that trick a few whiles ago, good for keeping in touch when you’re spread out.
360.138B – Oh, and I’m still in charge. I think the Drowl story might have had legs. I can thank Gald for that one, or I WOULD if he didn’t keep embellishing it. Nobody looks me in the eye anymore, just the toes. You ever tried talking to someone, eye-to-forehead? It’s uncomfortable.
GARR save me from friends, my enemies don’t need the help.
360.201 – We got back home and didn’t get paid. I’m suspecting that Nep might have hoped us and the bandits would sort each other out. I guess we did since we recruited most of them, but the prospect of paying an extra four-hundred men seems to have tightened up the city purses.
They don’t seem to have touched my birds yet. Time to start getting some whistles carved.
360.210 – Christ that was messy. The Drowls took out the sentries just fine, the Sperrows got peevish at being woken up past sundown and caused a proper ruckus, but still, there’s nothing quite like a proper city-sack once you’re past the front gate for going absolutely batshit. Less a sack and more a subdual, I guess – not as messy as some of the stories I’ve heard. Halla’s still the biggest boss besides me and GARR bless her she can make anybody listen. Except Gald, but I don’t expect miracles, just competence. Going to go see the Sovereign Council and the Laird right now. Demand tribute, extract vows, get some fealty, etc.
360.210B – Well now I’m the Laird of Nep I guess. I didn’t ENJOY having him disembowled by Drowls, but when the man lunges at me with a sword right when we’re negotiating terms what the hell am I supposed to do? I didn’t even want to do it – this Drowl thing is really getting old. Nice birds, friendly as puppies, but damnit people shake around me now when I’ve got them. And I suppose I’m stuck with them, since Halla says I need bodyguards and these are harder to bribe. The shoulder-perches are never coming off. My back aches at the thought of it.
365.987 – First time to sit down and really write for a while. I’d forgotten the last time I’d done this, and looking back, I think this might have gotten out of hand. I’m the Laird of Nep, Count of Mezto, and Duke of Cammerad (it turns out you usually have to deal with a city-state’s neighbours right after you deal with the city-state), and I’m currently locked in a joint struggle against Tresh with Bizto. Whom I’m going to have to backstab later before they stab me. No details, no details, I’ve gone mad with details. I’ll just write down the plain important bits.
-Sperrows absolutely wreck archers as far as skirmisher’s weapons goes, and are very hard to hit when properly trained.
-Marlwings are practically invisible in a night sky, and they can see farther at night than a man can at day. And they’re smart enough to learn signals. I like those birds.
-A Nawk colliding with a horse’s skull wins, provided it hits feet-first.
-A small drum of messenger-Geons for a sergeant, and a heavy cask of Sperrows for a birder. One birder per squad minimum. I miss knowing all my birds by name, but it’s been a long while since that was true.
-Drowls: six. Assassins: a single nasty scrape along my left ribs.
365.987B – Gald still won’t listen to me. GARR, how’d I think having a kid would ever make him grow up? It just gives him another thing to ignore me for. At least he pays more attention to Halla now.
366.486 – Why can’t he pay more attention to Halla? ‘Be quiet,’ we told him. ‘Be calm,’ we told him. ‘Don’t do anything goddamned crazy and weird,’ we told him. Well look what he went and did. Now we have to fight half of Tresh AND Bizto, which has carefully occupied that half of Tresh. All he had to do was smile and nod and look wise and instead he goes “HE’S LYING, LOOK OUT!” and that gives the ambassador an excuse to pull out the knife and now I’m one Drowl short and there’s nothing for it but war.
366.486B – His suggestion of letting my surviving Drowl brood inside the ambassador’s ribcage, however, was inspired.
367.371 – A decisive win at Treshledown. The idiot thought he could flank me at night. Me. Me with the Marlwings. Even though he must’ve had at least six spies in my camp who would’ve told him about them, like I was planning for them to do.
Sometimes this all seems far too easy.
367.372 – Tresh’s Royal Armourer must’ve seen the way the wind was blowing; he already had twelve suits of armour ready to go as tribute when we knocked the palace doors down. Armour for birds, mind you. You know, the things that have to fly. Still, his heart was in the right place, so I guess I’ll do him a solid and leave it there. Besides, his nose makes little Masha giggle.
368.843 – Gald’s dead.
I don’t know what to say. To Halla or Masha.
368.843B – Scratch that, he was just stuck under a dead horse and then he took a nap because he was tired and it was warm. Because.
GARR save him. Mostly from Halla. But don’t save him too much.
372.673 – Bizto, Bizto, Bizto. I’m not sure what your leaders were thinking.
“Here is a valley,” they said. “Surrounded by hills,” they said. “Let’s put our city right at the bottom, surrounded by hills, so Slenn can someday stick siege catapults up in them and chuck enough mortar to build an entirely new city at us until our walls are dust and gravel.”
Well, I’m not going to complain. I’ll marvel, but I won’t complain.
Also, Masha was playing with some of my Nawks today (damned things are still too finicky for anyone but me to rear them; makes breeding more a pain) trying to dress them in that silly armour from ages ago. Gave me an idea.
372.675 – Two new things learned: a Nawk with steel gauntlets on its talons can impact a steel helmet at full force without harm to itself, and an army with a decapitated general is as much use as you’d expect.
I’m out of enemies for now, finally. Maybe I can retire for five minutes with a nice prince who doesn’t talk too much and actually pays attention to me when I tell him not to pet my Drowls. Hell of a way to lose a finger, Gald.
372.675B – The Biztahn counsellor just told me that they were getting their west front pushed in by Nerontingsahn when I came in through their front door. Some days this just doesn’t seem worth it.
372.678 –Gald tells me they’re rebuilding the city around my base camp. Says they’re calling it ‘Talon’ in honor of me. What a cheesy suck-up of a name. GARR why do I listen to him?