A Miscreant's Tale

And all I wanted to do was take a piss. The foremen were already glowering down from glistening horse flanks when I sued for a quick break, relief for distended water-holders. I guess my balls impressed them; everyone else had sealed their word-makers, locked those jaw-hinges up tight. They'd killed one of us already; the crooked-nosed chap with the pock-marks and war-slashes had speared that sass-mouth right through, shattered his spine, split his sternum with that iron shaft-head; that kid was still pinned to that tree trunk way back there near the byway, the place where those dusty out-roads split. He's still dangling from that birch. It was a heroic strike, the strength of worm-wrestlers, or so the others said. That whipper snapper would bleach in the sun. That one with a twisted mustache, the boar-helm bearer, huge fellow with the linden shield strapped across his back, unfurled his whip, let that split-tail drag along the ground. At length, he assented, gave me permission to go off a ways. I set my scythe down and then I hustled away from the work crew. Of course, I was mindful of the taut bow strings, the nocked war-shafts behind me. I heard animal-gut go tight in the sun, ash-wood bend, creaking; they were just waiting for it. I went just as far as those stern guys would allow. They were killers through and through. For want of a war, they'd gladly serve in the harvest-crews, supervise the miscreant workers; they'd spill ignoble blood in the easiest ways and then boast about it over beer and venison, when the mead-hall fires blazed bright and the scop sang songs of whooped-up bullshit. I ended up stubbing my toe on a stone jutting up from the ground, ere I reached that upward land-heave that marked our northward boundary, the highest point betwixt the southern tree-lines, and the glistening silver thread winding away in the distance; that was the spooky Nithrangoth, haunt of frightful things; it was the dead land highway. That was a haunted water-road, feared by all, even the war-girt! That goddamned weathered stone point was obscured in the dry, rustling grass-blades, neatly interred in the loam of the surrounding leaf-droppers, those stunted brush-tangles, cloth-clutchers newly denuded by the autumnal wind-stream. There was a deep, earthy-smell set loose when I dug up the wet organics festering around that pointed tip, tried to tear up that cursed bit of chiseled stone. It was the smell of death, of old-time decay. I whiffed the same smell when cold war-shafts pinned me to ground, and guffaws somehow softened the thunder of horse hooves.