Tauren Tale, Chapter 5
#5 of Tauren Tale
Sanja was surprised to see Kazbo's determination. He wasn't looking so well by nightfall, but he was still struggling to make good time.
"There's not going to be a lot of game in this desert." She shrugged. "Rabbits, snakes, mice... but I don't like the idea of stopping to hunt here. We need to get out of Magram territory as soon as possible."
Kazbo nodded silently. Jorga had spent the entire day teaching him words and he had responded in kind all morning. But by mid-afternoon, he had grown so weary that it took all his focus just to put one foot in front of the other.
Sanja felt compelled to voice her thoughts out loud whenever the boys went quiet. There was just something ominous about walking in silence. A feeling of doom, perhaps? When she voiced her thoughts, it felt like they had a better plan then they really did.
"Some of these plants should be good to eat, but we'll have to burn off the spines. When we make camp, we can collect some up."
"Not that we have berries, roots, or even meat," Kazbo suddenly piped up, "but are you certain that cactus is safe to eat?"
"It should be fine," she reassured him. "Plants grow spines to keep animals from eating them. Poisonous plants don't have to do that."
"I'm hungry," Jorga whined.
"I know." She put a hand on his back. "I doubt dinner will be particularly tasty either, but I don't think there's much we can do about it. Don't worry. Once we get to the road, we can take our time, and look for game as we go."
Kazbo looked like he would drop at any moment, so Sanja started looking for a place to camp. It was already dark, and the temperature had dropped.
When they cleared a small rise, the trio was surprised to see a small campfire directly ahead of them. Theodore was cooking something that smelled delicious.
He was the last person on Azeroth that Sanja wanted to see, but there was no point in trying to avoid him now. Unless they wanted to carry Kazbo, they might as well stop.
"So you've decided to come with me to Nijel's Point, eh?" Theodore sneered. "Good! I could use the silver."
"Did you hear something, Kazbo?" Sanja held a hand to her ear and looked around. "No? Well, I suppose it was just the wind."
Kazbo didn't laugh. He laid down in front of the fire and closed his eyes. She doubted he would be awake much longer.
The rogue approached Sanja and put his face directly in hers. His grey eyes sparkled in the firelight. "I should slit your throats while you sleep," he muttered.
"Did we do something to make you hate us?" she asked. "Did my people wrong you somehow? Is that why you are so cruel to us?"
Theodore ground his teeth while picking his words. "I'm cruel to you because you're a half-breed abomination. The man in me wants to put your head on a spike. But the smell of you..." He leaned in close and took a deep breath. "The smell is driving the beast in me wild."
The rogue looked a little crazed. He took a step closer and she took one back.
"To him," Theodore whispered, "you smell a little like a woman and a little like a cow. Those are two things the beast really likes... for two very different reasons."
Theodore had been brutish since she had met him, but until this point, all his words had seemed hollow. Sure, Sanja feared becoming a slave, but she figured this talk was mostly bluster on the rogue's part.
How far away was Nijel's Point? She doubted it was close. If he intended to drag her there by force, then she would make sure it was the longest walk in his life!
But there was something in his manner, now. Something far darker than she had seen previously.
"Do you know what a cow is, Sanja?" He waited a moment for her to respond. "No? We have many of them back in Gilneas - fields full of cows." He licked his lips and she was torn between the desires to fight or flee. "They look like Tauren do, but they walk on four legs."
Theodore smiled and showed too many teeth. "We use their skin to make our shoes. We turn their milk into cheese. And their meat..." He took deep whiff of her and released it into a satisfied sigh. "Oh, how I wish that I were rich enough to have it for every meal!"
"You don't scare me," she said, but it was a half-truth at best. If he didn't scare her, then he sure did worry her.
"Oh no?" Theodore looked sly. He held one hand in front of her face and despite her efforts to keep staring in his eyes, she couldn't resist looking at the curious appendage. Instead of two strong fingers, he had four spindly, little things. They looked a little like pink twigs.
But now, they seemed a little different than they had before. They seemed longer, and darker. And the nails that had been thin, transparent chips before, now seemed dark and thicker, and even more pointed as well.
"What sort of evil..." she gasped. His hand was furry now, and not sleek like her own, but shaggy. His fingers had grown long and each was tipped with a knife blade of a claw.
He held his other hand up and it transformed as well. She looked from his hands back to his eyes, but they too had changed. Grey had been replaced with yellow. They even seemed to shine a bit in the dark.
Theodore lunged forward and Sanja leapt back - barely avoiding the glistening, ivory fangs that banged shut where her muzzle had been only moments earlier.
Suddenly, Sanja was laying on her back and the beast's full weight was upon her. It looked like a wolf, but it like a man as well. She blinked to clear her vision, but the sight did not change. The beast was wearing Theodore's armor, despite him being a good foot taller and many pounds heavier than he had been moments prior.
The Tauren had seen magic before. The druids in their tribe could change into animals - but not monsters! Whatever dark magic was at work here was something she wanted no part of.
Sanja struggled to free herself, but there was little point. The beast was stronger, heavier, and had the advantage of surprise. He had already pinned both her arms and legs to the desert floor.
Jorga was at her side, pushing and kicking at the creature. He yelled in Taurahe, but Theodore ignored him.
Kazbo was awake and standing. He looked nervously between the two and fidgeted in place, clearly unsure what he should do.
The beast explored Sanja's neck with its nose and drank in her scent. He snuffled farther down until he was sticking his nose inside of her vest.
She was very thankful that she had left her top buttoned, despite the desert heat. There wasn't much to see, even when she wasn't wearing it, but she had become increasingly self-conscious lately, as her chest had started to grow. The boys looked at her differently these days, and it made her a little uncomfortable.
"Delicious!" he said in a raspy growl.
The Worgen put his muzzle back up to Sanja's ear. "If I don't scare you," he whispered, "then you are very stupid, stupid girl."
Sanja ground her teeth in fury. "Get off of me this instant," she growled.
The beast put his ears to the side and showed his teeth without a sound. A long tendril of drool dripped from his lips in what she could only presume was a wolfy grin.
The beast sat his full weight on her for another long moment before hopping away and returning to the rock she had seen Theodore sitting on originally.
By the time she was back on her feet, the rogue looked human once more.
Sanja wrinkled her nose. She could still smell the beast on her fur. He stunk in a way that no ordinary wolf did.
Without a word, Theodore began to dine on the rabbit he had roasted. No one asked him to share and he did not offer it.
When he had eaten his fill, he tossed the carcass in the fire and watched it burn.
In an awkward silence, the trio ate a small meal of bitter karras root and roasted cactus. The cactus tasted... "green" was probably the best word for it. It was marginally better than not eating at all. It didn't taste badly, but there was just nothing good about it.
Kazbo slept like a rock, but Sanja tossed and turned. She awoke constantly and glanced to where the rogue laid, only momentarily reassured that he was not coming to get her.
She tossed dry wood on the fire throughout the night and huddled close to her kid brother to stay warm. Despite the heat of the day, the night was bitterly cold and her small vest was not enough to keep her warm.
The rogue left camp without a word before Sanja woke. She let the boys sleep a while more, but as the land brightened, she could delay no longer. They needed to leave Magram land.
The Gnome woke like a lizard on cold morning. He grumbled a lot without saying anything that Sanja could actually translate, and he tried to get up several times before actually succeeding.
Sanja dug through her bag and was pleased to find a blackroot that she had dug out of the prairie soil. She broke off what she judged to be a Gnome-sized portion and handed it to Kazbo. "Chew this as you walk, but don't swallow it."
He eyed the hairy root suspiciously, and with evident distaste, he finally put it in his mouth. He spit it back in his hand so quickly that she was reminded of a rattlesnake striking at a target.
"Yes, it's very bitter," she chuckled. "You'll gain a taste for it eventually. And you're going to need the lift."
She threw her pack around her shoulders and started walking. "Our hunters chew blackroot when they chase an injured animal. We say that that's the price you pay for missing your mark, when you throw a spear. Depending on the beast and the injury, sometimes game can make it a very long way before they drop from exhaustion or blood loss."
"Had I planned my journey for a year, or a hundred," the little man grumbled. "I would not be prepared for an adventure so rugged."
Sanja looked around. She couldn't quite fathom what had been so harsh. The winter would be bad, she knew that. Walking in snow was hard on your hooves, and the cold was impossible to shake. But that was months away.
Jorga gave her a quizzical look.
"I think Kazbo is worried that he isn't strong enough to make this journey."
Jorga scratched his mane. "Really? Don't his people ever travel? Ask him what his village is like."
The boy had not learned many words of Common, so Sanja acted as a translator. But even with all she had been taught, she had to stop the Gnome multiple times. Kazbo loved to use words that meant nothing to the girl.
"He says that his people live... underground?"
"Like rabbits?" the boy asked. "Well, he's small like a rabbit. Perhaps they just hide underground when predators are around? That's what rabbits do."
"No, I think he's saying that his entire village is underground," Sanja said. "I think they live their entire lives inside a mountain, like in a cave, perhaps."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Jorga put his hands up in frustration. "How could you put a whole village inside a cave? Where would they all sit? And what would they eat? Where do they poop?"
Sanja sighed. Boys. She appreciated that the experience was forcing her to learn new words, but playing translator between the two was proving quite tiresome.
"I have no idea where they poop," she said. "If you want to know that, then you're going to need to learn more Common."
Jorga kicked a rock in frustration and Sanja listened as the little man described Gnomeregan.
"I don't understand many of these words. I think he said that it's his job to make things for his village? Or perhaps to protect something?"
"He's a sentry?" Jorga seemed skeptical. Back in Mulgore, their village had several sentries, and without exception, the sentries were a very tough bunch. They wore the heaviest armor, carried the biggest weapons, and they were absolutely fearless. If anyone ever seemed un-sentry-like, it had to be Kazbo.
"I'm sorry," she said in Common, "I just don't understand what it is you protect. Is that a person? Or a place? What is a 'tome'?"
"I speak of books and scrolls, you see. That is the realm of a librarian trustee," he squeaked. "Repositories of knowledge, history, and the arcane. References perhaps obtuse, but hopefully germane."
"Books," she repeated for her brother. "He protects 'books'."
Jorga shrugged. "Perhaps books are very small, like eggs." He cupped his hands, and pretended to be gentle. "And if he doesn't protect them. Bam!" He smashed the invisible eggs and mimed them splattering everywhere. "He could do that."
She frowned and looked between the two. Sanja was tired of asking him the same questions over and over, but now her curiosity was getting the better of her.
"You must think I'm very stupid, but Elizabeth never taught me these words. I can't explain to my brother because I don't know which Taurahe word goes with 'books'."
Kazbo shook his head. "My failure to explain does not make you dumb. Tell me if you will, where Tauren keep their wisdom."
Ah, finally a question that she could understand. "Well, in our spleens, of course," she explained.
Sanja was perfectly serious. Tauren legend held that all the powerful emotions were stored in the body's major organs. The heart held a Tauren's love for his tribe, his brain held his intelligence, grief lived in the lungs, joy in the kidneys, will in the liver, and wisdom in the spleen. Everyone knew that.
Now it was Kazbo's turn to be confused. He had heard of the spleen, but certainly didn't recognize the Taurahe word for it.
Sanja gestured to her side. "The spleen. Wisdom is in the spleen."
Kazbo stared at her for a moment, trying to determine if she was telling a joke, before eventually dismissing the entire idea. She seemed quite serious and it was hard enough to deal with her broken Common. For her to deliver a joke deadpan seemed quite a stretch.
"Your teachers, and to the knowledge that they lead; what resources do they use, what is it you read?"
Read? It was yet another one of those strange words that meant nothing to her. "We learn wise things at night," she explained. "We sit around the campfire and the elders sing us stories of the past. They tell us of the mistakes that great people have made, so that we won't make the same mistakes in the future."
She gestured at her side once more. "Then we keep that wisdom in our spleens."
He waved his hands in frustration, clearly uninterested in the spleen - despite his earlier curiosity.
"The elders read you stories about the past." He put his palms together and then slowly peeled his thumbs away from one another, like a clam opening up and revealing the tasty meat inside. "That brings us back to the books, at last!"
She stared at his hands and he shook them in place.
She shrugged, losing hope that she would ever understand.
Kazbo made a frustrated noise. He looked about and lead the other two to a flat patch of ground where the sandy soil was largely undisturbed. Grabbing a stick, he began to draw strange symbols in the sand.
The Tauren watched in silence as the Gnome created a long row of simple symbols. He drew circles, squares, triangles, lines that crossed, lines that didn't cross... It seemed very abstract to both Sanja and her brother.
He handed the twig to the girl and gestured to the ground.
She looked to Jorga and then back at the sand. Sanja drew a couple of circles to represent eyes, a few lines as a muzzle. She scribbled in some hair.
She gave the twig to Jorga so he could draw the horns.
"Suddenly I'm at a loss for both reference or adage," the Gnome gasped. "Could it be that you lack a written language?"
The Tauren never created a written language of their own. Those Tauren that left Mulgore and interacted with the other people of the Horde quickly learned that writing exists, and a few even learned how to read Orcish.
But those that wandered the prairie with the seasons had little need for reading and writing. Orcs that come to Tauren villages with orders of conscription were told that "Anything worth telling someone is worth saying in person."
Kazbo was silent for a good hour while he digested that thought.