“Who the fuck wrote this dreck?”

Rumoured response of Ogluk, the founder of the first university in the Wolzuk confederacy, after reading Ciornio of Atrarta’s opinions on Woose.

Hans Draiger. 22 Sextilis, 1582 AAA. Carfani Southern Coast.

Uln sat with crossed knees by the smoky hearth at the center of their hut, turning the skewered rabbit over the fire, while Draiger sat on a flat stone(the huts being outfitted by souls who didn’t quite get the concept of sitting down) behind her, combing her long red hair and searching for lice by the early morning light. Although most humans would have found it somewhere between odd and disgusting, Draiger found it oddly relaxing. Their packs, rifles, pikes and blades lay stacked against the sides of the surprisingly spacious hut, next to their sleeping bag and bedroll.

All in all, it made for a rather unconventional image of domesticity.

“You two awake?” a wyvern croaked, from directly above them.

Draiger startled, accidentally pulling Uln’s hair.

“Fuck!” Uln yelped.

“Clearly yes” the wyvern continued, poking his-most wyverns adopted a more or less male voice when speaking human languages, but this one had a male’s red streaked snout-head in through the hut’s broad chimney.

“Bloody hell, come in through the doorway next time” Hans muttered.

“Apologies, you walkers aren’t used to dealing with us” the wyvern said.

Draiger decided to be diplomatic and not mention that from what he knew, it was also rather rude to approach a wyvern from above, that being a warrior’s usual method of attack and all.

Uln got up and stomped out to the flap of the tent, made out of rotted, faded blue wool stained with what looked suspiciously like blood.

Draiger guessed the flap was made out of the coats of Teresian soldiers killed in the last war. The Wyverns didn’t make their own textiles.

Draiger got up and began hurriedly pulling on his clothes, regretting that he didn’t have Uln’s ability to shrug off any but the most intense cold. By the time he was done pulling on his stockings, breeches, doublet, coat and cloak(all of which he knew to be necessary in the bitter cold) and followed her out, Captain and Glaive were standing outside, while the third wyvern-that Draiger now recognized as Wheat-was perched on top of the stone hut.

A trio of humans in thick white coats and with scarves around their necks stood behind the wyverns.

Commonwealth aircrew.

“The bodies?” Hans asked.

Captain nodded. “The commonwealth wants to talk to you”. She stepped away, letting the leader of the aircrew step up. She was a short, hard faced woman, Fusangese or Kaizoku in appearance, with a short sword and a pistol hanging from her belt. She shook Draiger’s hand. “Captain Feiyan, of the Commonwealth Airship Shield Splinterer”

“Hans Draiger, and my wife, Uln Draiger.”

“Good to meet you. Now, onto business. We’ve come out here for the same reason you are. To prevent this unfortunate incident from leading to something worse.”

“Alright. You probably already know that I saw the bodies, yes?”

“Yes.” Feiyan nodded.

“Right. Three of them, shot to death with arrows and bullets, at least one finished off with pikes. There was also a tyrant sicklehawk, but we killed it.”

“Arrows? Did you recover any?”

“Yeah. I left it back in Foothold with my landlady; her husband’s going to try and see if he can match it. Grey goose feathers, bodkin point, short and thin.”

“Doesn’t sound like anything used by the militias. That lot use broadheads. Woosestoppers.”

He winced at the description.

“Anyway, the arrow is in good hands. All three of them were killed in a way that suggests they were on the ground when it happened. If they’d been shot out of the sky, they wouldn’t have been so close together. So it was an ambush. What they were doing on the ground in the middle of nowhere, I have no clue. I’m not a skein leader.”

Feiyan shrugged. “Probably putting down to deal with something. I believe the attackers signalled them down, pretending to be lost or the like, then killed them.”

“That’s how we take harpies. Put out meat, nail them when they come down to scavenge. Same principal.” Uln said.

“There were artillery pieces taken at the same time, and the watchman bludgeoning, yeah? Do they remember anything?” Hans added.

“We talked to one of them. He said they looked like locals, militia most likely. He remembered one of them stood out, though. Archer with an odd looking bow, short, burly. Accent he couldn’t place. He died suddenly about a day after talking to him. That sometimes happens, with head injuries. No evidence of foul play.”

“Besides getting smashed on the head.” Wheat said.

“Besides getting smashed on the head.” Feiyan said, smirking slightly.

“Bloody hell.” Hans said.

That’s four they’ve murdered, and this is still just a game to the Commonwealth.

“Fucking bastards. And they call us savages.” Uln added.

“So a human died. That means you’ll start taking this seriously?” Glaive asked.

“The situation in the eastern peninsular is difficult. We can’t just go ploughing in, that’ll set off a war. We have to gather evidence, make it absolutely clear that the perpetrators are guilty and not being set up. That’s going to take time.”

“You know who did it. The patriot’s brigade or republicans or whatever they call themselves. You’ve got airships, they don’t. Think about it.” Glaive continued.

Hans nearly buried his head in his hands in frustration.

Bloodthirsty wyverns, arrogant Commonwealth, bigoted Carfani, and the Woose are the only ones with their heads screwed on straight.

“Hopefully I don’t have to explain the difficulties involved in using air power against our own people. We do that, Carfane rebels and even if we can get it back under control, it’s going to be a festering canker on the Commonwealth for decades. Oh, and everyone involved is going to have to explain their actions to the High Queen, which may or may not start yet another civil war.”

“Fair enough.” Glaive said. The croaking voice and still face meant that Hans couldn’t figure out if she was sincere or not.

Hans decided he’d have to have a word with Glaive before this was over.

“I can assure you, none of my war skeins will be attacking Carfane.” Captain said.

“Good.” Feiyan said.

*

Gravel crunched under his feet as he walked down to the trade grounds, lower in the valley. There were dozens of windbreaks down there, with glider-travois held up under cover, and bales of feathers and fur stacked ready for transport.

Uln walked ahead of him, her raven feathered cloak worn over a cheap woollen coat, with the scabbard of her falchion poking out from underneath. There were Woose everywhere, some of them cutting deals, others resting about, and a few humans as well, their tall, skinny frames meaning they easily stood out.

A gunshot rang out, and Hans flinched. Uln’s hand shot to her falchion, then he saw it was a couple of Woose shooting at marks, a man in a battered Teresian army coat behind them.

“Just test firing” Hans said.

“Good.” Uln answered.

A grey haired old, long bearded old Woose broke off from a cluster of talking people.

“What are you coming to trade?” the greybeard asked,

Uln shrugged and switched to the Carfani trade pidgin, a mishmash of half a dozen Woose dialects and Brythwic. “Long journey and we had to get ready to move quickly. Don’t really have anything on us. You want to know what’s going on out east, we’re the people to talk to, though.”

The man nodded, then suddenly paused and stared at Uln for a moment.

“What’s your name?”

“Uln. Uln Draiger.”

The man face lit up, and him and Uln started talking rapidly in her native dialect of Woose, reverting to her natural high pitched, loud accent.

Hans caught words here and there-“Uncle”, “Long time”, “How’s my mother?”. His command of that dialect was less than perfect. Uln had taught him most of it, but he had little opportunity to practise except with her, and his voice was low pitched enough to make it near unintelligible when he spoke it.

Uln turned back, grinning. “This is my uncle, Olam. Olam, this is my Hulan”-Husband, essentially-“Hans Draiger”

Hans hugged the old man, the usual greeting amongst Woose.

“Olam taught me how to shoot the musket we had and thrust spears, back when I was a girl.” Uln said.

“That I did. Could never throw the things properly, though, so Uln’s mother had to teach her that” Olam said.

Hans laughed. He’d never been able to get the hang of throwing weapons either, and didn’t see much point when guns were available.

“Hey, it’s Uln!” Olam called out in Woose to an old woman and a couple of girls.

“Mother!” Uln said, laughing.

Hans realized he was about to discover the joys of meeting the parents. Nearly a decade after the marriage, at that.

The woman scrambled up and hugged Uln, and the girls followed.

“Who are you?” one of the girls asked.

“Hans Draiger. Uln’s Hulan.”

“Are you a human?” one of them asked.

“Yes” Hans laughed.

Olam gestured for them to sit down.

Hans sat down cross legged with the others, leaning his back on a bale of furs.

“Long time, yeah?” Olam said.

“A few years back we tried to head out to your territories, but you’d cleared out. Just squatters and a bunch of Woose Uln didn’t recognize.”

“Humans ran us off.” the older of the girls said.

Wutram, Uln’s mother, took a deep breath.

“Some humans set themselves up as farmers further down our valley. Built a fort and all. We welcomed it, at first. Reckoned we could barter knives and axes and muskets off them, and get food and shelter if we needed it. Sell them pelts, maybe even learn to farm. We told them it was our land, but they were welcome to settle. They agreed. Then we had a hard winter, were running low on food. They wouldn’t give us food. We were getting desperate.”

She paused for a moment.

“Your father got reckless trying to take a reaper(1) and got hurt real bad. We tried everything we had to treat the wound. Didn’t work, it just got worse and worse. So we figured that they had a doctor with them, they could help. Took him down. Asked for help. They told us no. Told them they were right on our land, and that they had to help us. They didn’t change their mind. So we were pretty angry by now. A few of the young men, the fighters, wanted to go in there and teach them a lesson. Besides, they had plenty of fat sheep in their barn. I was against it at first, but then I realized we were all going to starve if we didn’t try something.”

Olam took over.

“I led the fighters down. We had three muskets by then, and a dozen or so fighters, including the women. Went right in, speared a bunch of sheep, let the rest loose so we could hunt them down later. Well, after that, I was pretty pleased with myself. Your father even started making a recovery, once he had some food in him. Then they came after us, a couple of weeks later. It was a massacre. They’d brought guns and armour and witches and dogs. We lost half a dozen fighters in that alone. I was lucky to get out alive. One of them carved up my hand with one of those, what do you call them? Swords? Yeah, one of those.”

He raised his right hand, pulling his sleeve back, and Hans saw that it was mutilated; one finger gone, another two paralyzed, and a puckered scar ran across the flat of his hand.

“After that, we realized we were gone if it came to another fight. A few wyverns saved us, gave us food for the winter. After that, we decided to get out of there. If another fight happened, we were done for. We headed out west, decided to set up as traders on West Point territory. Ended up out here. Got into a few skirmishes with other clans. We won most of them; we had guns and steel hatchets, and fighting experience. Your father didn’t make it, though. He’d recovered well enough from his wounds, but he was speared by another clan when they tried to stop us passing through their territory. He didn’t suffer.”

Uln blinked in shock. “How long ago?”

“About six winters ago.” Olam said.

“And they call us savages.” Uln muttered, bitterly. He could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

Hans put an arm around her shoulders.

“It’s all right, aunty, he’s in a better place now.” one of the girls said.

“I know, I know.” Uln buried her head in her hands, and he could hear her sobbing. He wanted to say something, anyway, to comfort her, but he couldn’t think of anything.

He just pulled her closer and let her cry into his chest.

1: Shaggy therizinosaur, so called because their claws resemble a harvesting scythe.