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[Lazybones]

Originally Posted by Cerulean_Wings

Good stuff! Loved Mara's back-story, very cool. I don't think you've done something like this in The Doomed Bastards, and I think it's a good way to explain a character's past without having them say it to another character.

I did more of this back in the Travels days (with Lok, especially), to fill in character backstory, but I haven't used it in a while. More on Mara's history today.

And you're writing chapter 26 already? Easy, Lazybones, don't you go about getting carpal tunnel with so much story hour goodness!

Heh, I type fast. I haven't done any KotS writing this week, as I'm editing TDB for a PDF release, but I have a good chunk of story and am working on the outline for the latter part of the module/story.

I haven't gotten H2, any comments from owners? I see that H3 is coming out a bit later this month as well.

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Chapter 13


Mara rubbed a towel around the back of her neck, wiping away the sweat that clung to her under her heavy tunic. She felt hot now, after the workout, but knew that the chill of the air would penetrate every tiny gap in her clothes, turning the beads of sweat into ice.

Her uncle Torvan drank deeply from a leather waterskin, and handed it over to her. She unstoppered it and drank. Growl, watching from a comfortable-looking bed of fallen pine needles short distance away, lifted his head slightly, then dropped it back down between his paws. Mara rubbed her sore arms and envied him.

She was thirteen years old.

“Tomorrow we will start you on the longer blade,” Torvan said.

Mara nodded, and put the waterskin down on the fallen log, next to her wooden practice sword. Her eyes fell to the sword that Torvan had laid against the log in its scabbard, a sleek and deadly weapon with a blade a full forty inches in length. He’d never used it in their sparring, of course, but she’d been tasked with cleaning and oiling the blade, and knew that it was without flaw, and as sharp as a razor.

“Why do you like fighting so much?” she asked him.

Torvan fixed her with the steely gaze that she’d come to know so well. “I hate fighting,” he said finally.

“But we practice so much...”

“The world that we live in is a violent one, Mara,” he said. “There are many things that would kill you, if you let them.”

“The monsters,” she said. She’d learned a lot, in her two years living with her uncle. She’d heard of such things as trolls and giants and dragons, growing up, but it was another thing entirely to know that they were real.

“Yes,” Torvan said. “But the worst by far is men. Men will present you with a pleasant face, and then smile as they slip a dagger into your back. You must always be wary, Mara. As a woman, you have something that men want, and there are those who will not shy of hurting you to get it.”

She nodded grimly.

Torvan seemed agitated at his own words, and Mara was not surprised when he stood, taking up his own practice sword. It wasn’t much bigger than hers, but in his meaty fist it seemed tiny. “Another round, before supper.”

She knew better than to protest; her uncle had no patience with complaints when it came to training. Instead she took up her sword, and headed back into the training circle. Her uncle didn’t wait, slashing his sword at her back, but she was ready for that as well, warned by his earlier words. She spun around, deflecting his stroke with her weapon, and fell back into a defensive stance.

“Good,” he said. “You can never let your guard down, Mara. For someone will be there to take advantage.”

And then there was no more talking, no sound save for the clack as their weapons met quickly and repeatedly in the circle.