Tauren Tale, Chapter 6
#6 of Tauren Tale
Jorga was picking up Common quickly, but Kazbo absorbed Taurahe like a new-born calf. They never had to teach him a word twice and he picked up phrases that they had not even explained.
But despite all his linguistic skills, both Sanja and Jorga could not help giggling whenever the Gnome said the word "Tauren". It was supposed to be boomed from the bottom of the speaker's hooves, and said with a rumble. There was just something disjointed about hearing "Tauren" squeaked like a mouse.
"I'm really impressed," Sanja said, "with how quickly you are learning our language."
"Thank you," the Gnome grumbled.
She bent over as she walked and put a hand to his back. "I would think you'd be proud, but you seem..." She cocked her head sideways. "Is something upsetting you? Apart from walking, I mean?"
"Very funny," he squeaked in Taurahe. "I am fine."
"So then why the sad face?"
Kazbo sighed and seemed to search for the right words. "I do not like Taurahe."
"You don't?" Jorga said. "Do you think it's difficult?"
"No, it is easy. But I hate it." He crossed his arms and walked in silence for a while. "Speaking Taurahe words is like..." He made little fists and looked from one of the siblings to the other. "It is like biting your ears."
They put their hands over their ears in unison. "It's like you're biting my ears?" Jorga gasped.
"How do you mean?" he sister added.
Kazbo squeaked in frustration and his face turned slightly more pink. "I do not know many Taurahe words. I can not make words... line up."
"'Line up?' You mean that you can't make rhymes?" Sanja asked.
"Yes, that is it." He seemed a little relieved to get the thought conveyed. "I do not know Taurahe words to make rhymes."
The Taurens sighed in relief.
"Oh, I see what you mean. I never really understood why you bother to do that anyhow," Sanja said. "What's the point? Why do you even try to speak in rhymes?"
Kazbo seemed annoyed once more. Not angry at his fellow travelers, but frustrated with his inability to communicate his thoughts. "That is how Gnomes talk. Babies speak without rhymes. Without rhymes, it is not words." He flailed in frustration. "Is biting ears."
Sanja and Jorga shared an irritated look.
"I make you angry?" the little man squeaked.
"A little, yeah," Sanja gruffed. She fixed the Gnome with a knitted brow while her brother stomped ahead in silence. "It sounds like you think that my people are just stupid barbarians because we don't play idiotic games when we talk!"
She put her fists on her slender hips and came to a complete stop. Kazbo knew that she was serious, since the pair only stopped walking when the Gnome needed to rest.
"Well, I'm sorry if you think that," she fumed. "Perhaps we just have more important things to do than to see who can make up better rhymes."
"I am sorry. Not mean to make you angry," Kazbo apologized. "Not think Gnomes better than Tauren because of rhymes. Only Gnomes talk in rhymes. Do not..." He made a tiny growling sound. "Not have word... Do not need people to talk like Gnomes."
Kazbo started walking again and gestured for his two friends to come with him. "At home," he asked Sanja, "you make food?"
The girl set her jaw for a moment before deciding to answer. "Do I cook? Yeah, sure, sometimes. I like to cook."
The little man gestured at the desert plants around them. "You cook cactus at home?"
"Cactus?" she gasped. "No, we cooked cactus last night because we didn't have anything else to eat. It wasn't really even really cooking. I just burned the spines off of the cactus so we wouldn't get them stuck in our lips."
Sanja thought about her village, her utankan, and smiled. "At home, I help make bread, and I help roast the meat."
"Bread good. Meat good," Kazbo said. "Cactus bad."
"You mean that they taste good?" she asked. "Well, sure, bread and meat are delicious. Perhaps I'll get to bake you bread some day. But I doubt that anyone really likes eating cactus."
"You like cooking cactus?"
Sanja felt confused about his sudden obsession with cactus. "Well, like I said, it wasn't really cooking, but no I don't like cooking it."
Kazbo nodded and grinned. "Taurahe same as cactus. Good to speak to you. Good to speak to Jorga. Not like... no rhymes."
"That sounds like something Dad says," Jorga interjected. "To get what you want, sometimes you have to do things that you don't want to do - or do them in a way that wouldn't rather."
Kazbo pointed at the boy and nodded. "That, yes."
"I suppose that's okay," Sanja agreed. "The Tauren don't rhyme. I had never even heard of such a thing until I met Elizabeth. She taught me a few rhymes she called 'limericks'."
"Elizabeth taught you limericks?" the little man said. His face lit up like the morning sun. "Tell me limericks!"
"No!" Sanja nearly shouted. She covered her mouth with her hands. "I couldn't. Most of them were about Orcs, and they weren't very nice. And besides..." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "They weren't the sorts of words that a girl can say to a boy."
"I... good." Kazbo smiled and pointed to his head to indicate that he understood. "You make up new limerick. Make up nice limerick."
"No, I don't think I could." Sanja waved her hands. "Besides, I don't think Taurahe is supposed to be rhymed. It's supposed to be sung."
"Sung?"
"Well, sure. The Tauren sing everything that's important," she explained to the Gnome. "We sing when a calf is born, or when an elder dies. We sing as we leave for battle, or to welcome another tribe to join us. We sing all of our stories. Every story is a song."
"You sing?" Kazbo asked.
"Well, of course I do! Every Tauren sings."
"You sing Kazbo a story?"
"Okay," she said with a smile, "if you would like me to."
Sanja began to sing in unhurried, deep tones. It was beautiful and melodic, wholly unlike the songs of any other race. Her story wasn't bright like a colorful bird, but it was breathtaking, like a mountain partially shrouded in mist.
Otaha was the greatest hunter who ever had lived.
He could run for a day and a night without stopping to catch his breath.
He spear never trembled and his aim never faltered.
His family never went hungry and there was always leather -
to clothe his calves as they grew.
He was the greatest hunter. The greatest hunter who ever did live.
Otaha decided that he would hunt Arra'chea, the mother of all kodos.
His tribe did cheer when they heard the news;
and Otaha headed out alone to hunt the kodo goddess.
He walked across the breadth of Mulgore.
He climbed perilous cliffs, and ascended the Bluff of the Eternals.
Otaha was the greatest hunter who ever had lived.
He tracked her prints and he followed her spoor.
Until, at last, he faced Arra'chea.
Atop that high mountain, it was just the goddess of the kodos,
the mightiest hunter, and the spear that he held.
But Arra'chea did not charge him. She did not flee from his sight.
She was the mother of all kodos. The goddess Arra'chea.
"Why do you hunt me, Otaha," she asked. "Your people have meat in their bellies,
tools made from bone, and tents of stretched hide."
"I am the hunter, and you are the prey," he told the goddess.
"But you have come alone," she said. "You are not strong enough to carry
my meat back to your village. You could not drag my hide back down the mountain."
"I am the hunter, and you are the prey," he told the goddess.
"But you have traveled too far," she explained. "My flesh would spoil
before you could return. I would die without purpose, if you do this today."
But he was the hunter, and she was the prey.
"You do not seek me" the goddess explained.
"I think you search for a purpose - a reason for being."
Otaha dropped his spear and groveled before her.
"I think that I must," he prayed to the goddess. "I need more than this."
Arra'chea chewed on her cud and the ground began to tremble and shake.
The air filled with the sound of distant hooves.
"Return to your utankan," the goddess did speak. "Do not forget your spear."
Your destiny awaits you, Otaha.
The valley had filled with Centaurs. They dotted the land.
They walked, like prey, on four legs, but they carried hunters' spears in their hands.
The Centaurs were a challenge, the like Otaha had never seen.
He crept across the valley, back to his village and home.
But his sons and daughters lay dead. His family murdered by invaders.
His destiny awaits, a destiny alone.
The Tauren fled to The Barrens, never to return.
A bull from this tribe, a cow from that.
They found calves that the Centaur had left alone to starve.
The Tauren formed new tribes, and wandered in exile.
"Oh, why did this happen?" They sang to the heavens.
Otaha followed at a distance and listened to their cries.
For twenty summers and twenty winters, until he was impossibly old,
he followed the scattered tribes.
He sang to them all of his folly and how he had cost them their families.
He carried his spear, as Arra'chea had bid him.
But he hunted no prey and ate only bread.
He fathered no more calves. His bloodline was lost.
When he could walk no further, he laid down in the sand.
No tears were shed for Otaha, no songs of grief filled the desert air.
But the tribes continued to tell this story from one generation to the next.
And Otaha had found his purpose, as the goddess had said that he must.
For his life was a warning. Skill without purpose is a danger to us all.
Kazbo listened to the song as they walked. When it was over, he smiled. "I like your song. You sing good. But why were they never to return? The Tauren did return to Mulgore," he said.
"Yes, that's true," Sanja said. "And that is why you will never hear a Tauren speak ill of Orcs."
The trio stopped when they crossed Theodore's camp for a second time. There was still a little light remaining, but Sanja was hesitant to push Kazbo to walk any further.
And besides, she reasoned, by making camp before nightfall, that left a little time to look for anything more tasty than cactus.
Theodore ignored the trio, and for that Sanja was thankful. Kazbo collapsed in a heap.
"Could you gather some wood?" she asked her brother, "I'll try to find something decent to eat."
But before anyone could leave camp, they heard the unmistakable sound of galloping hooves.
Sanja and Jorga grabbed rocks and prepared to throw them. Even the exhausted Kazbo jumped to his feet as the Centaur ran up.
The beast was horrid, and terrified the Tauren even more so than did Theodore's enchanted form. Neither had seen a Centaur before, but the sight was every bit as frightening as their father had promised.
The creature was taller than Sanja and had a muscular, tanned chest. Its head was shaved, save for a long braid of hair that erupted from the back of his skull. Dark brown fur covered each of his shoulders. The man's torso ended at his hips, where the body of a small, dark brown stallion began.
The creature's smell was intense. She had helped tan horse hides before and the unforgettable smell of sweat and dirt was much the same. But it would have taken a stack of hides several feet thick to measure up to the smell of a living Centaur.
"Halt!" the man shouted in Common. "Who are you to trespass on Magram land?" He leveled his spear at Sanja, the obsidian head only inches from her muzzle. She stepped slowly backwards, towards the campfire, but she did not loosen her grip on the two rocks she held.
Theodore stepped casually in front of Sanja. "I'm just a friend," he said. He pushed the spear away with disinterest, as if the Centaur were merely offering it as a gift. "I'm passing through to reach the Trail of Woe."
"No friend of the Magram travels with Tauren!" he shouted. His fists tightened on the spear's leather grips. His wrists were wrapped in leather bracers, and matching leather bands decorated his legs and the base of his tail.
"Oh them? They're just my slaves," Theodore explained. The Magram had raised his spear once more, but the rogue just stepped closer; leaving little room to maneuver the weapon in the space between them. "Perhaps you would you like to buy them? I was planning on selling them when I reached Nijel's Point. But for a fair price, they could be yours now."
"Buy them?" the Centaur shouted. He shifted the spear to his right hand so that he could put his face directly in Theodore's. "They are Tauren, and on Magram land. Their lives are forfeit!"
Sanja swallowed hard and tried to control the trembling that threatened to overwhelm her. If their choices were a lifetime of servitude or being left with the Magram, then she'd opt for slavery every time.
"Leave them with me," the Centaur growled in the Gilnean's face, "and you may go."
"That's not going to happen, friend. Those two are valuable property." The rogue stepped forward, crowding the Centaur a little more.
The Magram stood his ground, but he lifted his head so that Theodore was just staring at his sweaty chest.
"Offer me fifty pieces of silver for the pair." He smiled, showing too many teeth. "I could let the boy go for fifteen, but I would never leave the girl for less than forty."