Fall, 1330
With the rising of the moon, the heavyset figures broke camp and began trudging quietly through the narrow, rock-strewn ridgeline. Three hundred strong, the furred figures came with thick bundles and large clubs. As the moon glowed, its pale light glinted off of a pair of smooth bovine horns atop each of the figures. The leader of the column turned back to check on her troops, and as she did so a gilded axe, shaped like a fan and carefully wrapped in cloth and cradled on her shoulder, glinted with the shine of copper and lapis lazuli and gold.
Sarangay was a russet-hide minotaur from the Fales Tribe on the dry, barren chaparral escarpment that was the eastern face of the Tusculum Ranges. While the Fales had, like the other tribes, been driven to Nalbin due to pressures from the humans of the continent, unlike the others this tribe had still managed to retain their ties to their past, when minotaurs still resided on Kretan.
Unlike her Kretan ancestors, Sarangay was not a warrior. She had been her tribe’s midwife and apothecary, and while like any member of the Fales the minotaur would occasionally have to fight off humans, wolves, manitcores or even gryphons, her role in the world had been to bring forth and preserve life. Sarangay’s days were spent grinding herbs, tending the ill and wounded and delivering babies.
At least it was until the day her betrothed, Tau of the Lyell tribe, disappeared on the field of Zamar.
Sarangay counted and made sure that her soldiers, the Fales, along with the Vining and Dog tribes were still keeping pace, and then continued her brisk march, following the old trade routes to Cnossos. The men of her tribe and the dozens of neighboring tribes had followed this route to join with the Roja in the war against the Not-men of the North and keep them out of the Sacred Valley of the Stone Labyrinths.
They had failed.
The Roja and hundreds of the best of the minotaurs lay dead on the field of Zamar and the Sacred Valley had been desecrated. Even worse, according to rumors that supposedly coming out from the few survivors lucky enough to escape, the remainder had been enslaved, forced to serve as shock troops, pack animals, or even livestock: fodder for the Tassurian war machine. Of Sarangay’s own tribe not one had returned.
There was not a tribe that had not been significantly affected-supposedly, among the Lyell and the Black Point, not a single adult male remained. Testicles had become a precious resource. In a day, the bull peoples had lost a fifth of its population and the one thing that they could not afford to lose: their future.
That’s where Sarangay came in.
As soon as she heard the stories of what had happened, her comfortable little life and a distant, mundane future with a kind and loving mate had shattered like lake ice in a thaw. Sarangay had set aside her bowls and poutices, modified a linothorax armor from a warrior ancestor to hold her form, and raised and organized a contingent of anyone willing to renew the fight: widows without children, those too young to have a mate, those lamed. They would fight the Tassurian Empire to avenge their brethren, rescue the survivors and restore the broken pride of their people.
Nearly everyone had lost a relative, but a few were still able to send more. Within a week Sarangay had a hundred of her people willing to follow. She was risking the last the Fales had to offer to get their males back, for the midwife knew that to do nothing would but doom her people to a slow death instead of a fast one.
Her runners traveled the trade routes with similar arguments and came back with similar agreements: the survivors of the bull peoples would rally at the Sacred Valley and form a new army. They would harass the Tassurian peripheries while the Not-Men were locked in their mortal struggle with the humans. They would locate any prisoners and free them. They would ally with any of the Wood- and Stonefolk and pixies and perhaps even the humans-anyone willing to help them clear the mountains of the Not-Men. Sarangay could only hope that Tau was among the prisoners, and could be rescued and saved. Granted, it was far more likely that Sarangay and her army would join their fallen predecessors, but they had little left to lose. To continue the life of the minotaurs, the midwife would need to play with death.
A runner came up, stopping as she leapt over the dusty stones and nodded. Sarangay also stopped. For some reason everyone seemed to think of her as the leader, when the midwife had done nothing to deserve that role. All she wanted was vengeance and salvation. From the pale moon glow Sarangay could see that it was Mwi, a distant acquaintance from the Negit Tribe. The buff-hide minotaur was a respected tracker, known throughout the Southern Ranges for her ability to find prey and livestock, but standing there with her bolas slung over her shoulder, Mwi was the one with the look of respect at Sarangay.
{The Lundy and Black Point have already assembled at the rendezvous at the creekhead, with a host of two-half hundred, my Roja.} She said. {My Negit and the Lyell, and the Kuna are a day behind. By the time we approach the sacred valley we should number eight hundred.}
Roja? Sarangay was not even a shaman. How could she be a leader of her entire people?
{The information is good Mwi, but you flatter me-I am Sarangay of the Fales.}
{You are Sarangay of the Fales, and you are the Roja.} Mwi snorted {I do not see anyone else worthy of the name.} The tracker pointed at Sarangay’s half-hidden axe. {Besides, you have your very own rallying staff.} Mwi nodded and then without further comment ran back down the ridge.
The russet-colored bovine watched the tracker disappear into the dark gully below. As her column of minotaurs began descending as well, Sarangay carefully covered her family heirloom and continued her march.
Sarangay possessively guarded her gilded bronze axe, passed down by her family since the time a forgotten ancestor had been a mercenary fighting on the fields of Gyptios. It was the most precious thing she owned-the most precious thing any Fales owned. Created centuries before the Long Retreat, the blue and gold fan axe was her family link to the past, a tie to a time nearly forgotten, of wealth and plenty, of glorious cities that men trembled to approach. For generations the weapon had passed sitting near the honor of the hearth, continuously polished to a gleam by hundreds of hands. When the warriors of her tribe had left, they had taken with them the best weapons and armaments the Fales had, leaving Saragany’s force to scrounge for whatever was left. Sarangay had felt almost sacrilegious taking her ancestor’s axe from its place of honor near the hearth. Yet it was the only true weapon the midwife had, and when Sarangay cut her finger running it along the edge, it was still sharp.
Sarangay hoped that her ancestors would understand the emergency.
There was little sense in protecting the past with the future on the line.
Perhaps the axe had more use as treasure to more weapons for her troops, but Sarangay could not yet bear the thought of selling it to the humans. So a weapon it would be used again centuries later.
She hoped that she could do it justice.
Dido-White Flag
Courtesy of theroguez
With the rising of the moon, the heavyset figures broke camp and began trudging quietly through the narrow, rock-strewn ridgeline. Three hundred strong, the furred figures came with thick bundles and large clubs. As the moon glowed, its pale light glinted off of a pair of smooth bovine horns atop each of the figures. The leader of the column turned back to check on her troops, and as she did so a gilded axe, shaped like a fan and carefully wrapped in cloth and cradled on her shoulder, glinted with the shine of copper and lapis lazuli and gold.
Sarangay was a russet-hide minotaur from the Fales Tribe on the dry, barren chaparral escarpment that was the eastern face of the Tusculum Ranges. While the Fales had, like the other tribes, been driven to Nalbin due to pressures from the humans of the continent, unlike the others this tribe had still managed to retain their ties to their past, when minotaurs still resided on Kretan.
Unlike her Kretan ancestors, Sarangay was not a warrior. She had been her tribe’s midwife and apothecary, and while like any member of the Fales the minotaur would occasionally have to fight off humans, wolves, manitcores or even gryphons, her role in the world had been to bring forth and preserve life. Sarangay’s days were spent grinding herbs, tending the ill and wounded and delivering babies.
At least it was until the day her betrothed, Tau of the Lyell tribe, disappeared on the field of Zamar.
Sarangay counted and made sure that her soldiers, the Fales, along with the Vining and Dog tribes were still keeping pace, and then continued her brisk march, following the old trade routes to Cnossos. The men of her tribe and the dozens of neighboring tribes had followed this route to join with the Roja in the war against the Not-men of the North and keep them out of the Sacred Valley of the Stone Labyrinths.
They had failed.
The Roja and hundreds of the best of the minotaurs lay dead on the field of Zamar and the Sacred Valley had been desecrated. Even worse, according to rumors that supposedly coming out from the few survivors lucky enough to escape, the remainder had been enslaved, forced to serve as shock troops, pack animals, or even livestock: fodder for the Tassurian war machine. Of Sarangay’s own tribe not one had returned.
There was not a tribe that had not been significantly affected-supposedly, among the Lyell and the Black Point, not a single adult male remained. Testicles had become a precious resource. In a day, the bull peoples had lost a fifth of its population and the one thing that they could not afford to lose: their future.
That’s where Sarangay came in.
As soon as she heard the stories of what had happened, her comfortable little life and a distant, mundane future with a kind and loving mate had shattered like lake ice in a thaw. Sarangay had set aside her bowls and poutices, modified a linothorax armor from a warrior ancestor to hold her form, and raised and organized a contingent of anyone willing to renew the fight: widows without children, those too young to have a mate, those lamed. They would fight the Tassurian Empire to avenge their brethren, rescue the survivors and restore the broken pride of their people.
Nearly everyone had lost a relative, but a few were still able to send more. Within a week Sarangay had a hundred of her people willing to follow. She was risking the last the Fales had to offer to get their males back, for the midwife knew that to do nothing would but doom her people to a slow death instead of a fast one.
Her runners traveled the trade routes with similar arguments and came back with similar agreements: the survivors of the bull peoples would rally at the Sacred Valley and form a new army. They would harass the Tassurian peripheries while the Not-Men were locked in their mortal struggle with the humans. They would locate any prisoners and free them. They would ally with any of the Wood- and Stonefolk and pixies and perhaps even the humans-anyone willing to help them clear the mountains of the Not-Men. Sarangay could only hope that Tau was among the prisoners, and could be rescued and saved. Granted, it was far more likely that Sarangay and her army would join their fallen predecessors, but they had little left to lose. To continue the life of the minotaurs, the midwife would need to play with death.
A runner came up, stopping as she leapt over the dusty stones and nodded. Sarangay also stopped. For some reason everyone seemed to think of her as the leader, when the midwife had done nothing to deserve that role. All she wanted was vengeance and salvation. From the pale moon glow Sarangay could see that it was Mwi, a distant acquaintance from the Negit Tribe. The buff-hide minotaur was a respected tracker, known throughout the Southern Ranges for her ability to find prey and livestock, but standing there with her bolas slung over her shoulder, Mwi was the one with the look of respect at Sarangay.
{The Lundy and Black Point have already assembled at the rendezvous at the creekhead, with a host of two-half hundred, my Roja.} She said. {My Negit and the Lyell, and the Kuna are a day behind. By the time we approach the sacred valley we should number eight hundred.}
Roja? Sarangay was not even a shaman. How could she be a leader of her entire people?
{The information is good Mwi, but you flatter me-I am Sarangay of the Fales.}
{You are Sarangay of the Fales, and you are the Roja.} Mwi snorted {I do not see anyone else worthy of the name.} The tracker pointed at Sarangay’s half-hidden axe. {Besides, you have your very own rallying staff.} Mwi nodded and then without further comment ran back down the ridge.
The russet-colored bovine watched the tracker disappear into the dark gully below. As her column of minotaurs began descending as well, Sarangay carefully covered her family heirloom and continued her march.
Sarangay possessively guarded her gilded bronze axe, passed down by her family since the time a forgotten ancestor had been a mercenary fighting on the fields of Gyptios. It was the most precious thing she owned-the most precious thing any Fales owned. Created centuries before the Long Retreat, the blue and gold fan axe was her family link to the past, a tie to a time nearly forgotten, of wealth and plenty, of glorious cities that men trembled to approach. For generations the weapon had passed sitting near the honor of the hearth, continuously polished to a gleam by hundreds of hands. When the warriors of her tribe had left, they had taken with them the best weapons and armaments the Fales had, leaving Saragany’s force to scrounge for whatever was left. Sarangay had felt almost sacrilegious taking her ancestor’s axe from its place of honor near the hearth. Yet it was the only true weapon the midwife had, and when Sarangay cut her finger running it along the edge, it was still sharp.
Sarangay hoped that her ancestors would understand the emergency.
There was little sense in protecting the past with the future on the line.
Perhaps the axe had more use as treasure to more weapons for her troops, but Sarangay could not yet bear the thought of selling it to the humans. So a weapon it would be used again centuries later.
She hoped that she could do it justice.
Dido-White Flag
Courtesy of theroguez
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Cow
Gender Female
Size 733 x 1162px
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