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"Soomeboody recaeled ae wee tale froom tha keengs toornament!"
A Tale Told on a Cold Winters Night:
So, you've heard of the Highlanders, have you? Monsters of men, the Urlghains. Not a one of them shorter than eighteen hands, with muscles that bulge like sacks of melons and a command of the common language rivaling that of a toddler with a mouth full of rocks. My boy, I have seen the Highlanders in action, and the stories don't do them justice.
It was many years ago when the King fell ill, when Wizard Dacius convened a tournament to find men and women fit to be champions of the realm. Your uncle and I joined up to serve the King, though that reward was surely attractive as well. We gave our all, let me tell you, we survived the trials well into the third day. But then we got cocky and rushed through an obstacle course. "Retrieve the iron ring from its plinth," Dacius had commanded us, completely neglecting to mention the pair of boars guarding it.
Now, the only way to fight a boar is to come prepared with a hefty spear to brace against its charge and a crossguard so it doesn't shove down the shaft and gore you out of spite. We had handaxes and no desire to get opened neck-to-groin like your great-uncle Phestivius.
Don't give me that look. There ain't no shame in recognizing a fight you can't win.
The rest of the contestants managed themselves, mostly. The Paladin behind us smote his boars with a longsword, a druid charmed them with a few words of animal tongue, and this one street brat slipped a knife into their haunches and ran around the course until they bled out.
They were absolute pikers compared to the Urlghain.
I'd met this Mott Casns before, can't say that I was impressed. He ate like a dog, had no indoor voice whatsoever, and he seemed simple-minded even by the low standards of the Highlanders. But he had a greatsword as long as he was tall and seemed to be a match for a pair of boars even if his partner had been left behind in the obstacle course. Certainly the crowd thought so. The cheers and the shouts of encouragement were deafening.
There he stood with his brow majestically furrowed, absentmindedly pulling straw from his beard while one hand rested on his sword. Opposed to him were two adult boars that had been summoned from the lowlands of the Greysight Vale that very morning; a breeding pair confused and hostile to anything which walked on two legs.
"Weall naow, that's just a pahr oof wee leettle piggies," he bellowed as he set aside his sword.
That shut some of us up, at least the ones who'd talked with him at length and had developed low opinions of his intelligence. We were all thinking "Oh gods, we've sent a child out to get torn apart by wild beasts."
So, the boars charged him. Mott just stood there with this big stupid grin on his face, arms folded on his hairy chest. And I don't care if it's impossible, I swear on tomorrow's sunrise that I saw him take the first boar by the tusks and shove it aside. The dumb animal ran headfirst into a wooden post with an impact you could feel through your feet. It was still twitching, but even a blind man could see that he'd just turned a bull boar into so many pounds of bacon.
That left the other one. And this wasn't no milky old sow, this was a she-boar in her prime. She came in biting and thrashing and squealing fit to raise demons, but the Highlander danced around her like
a kid around a maypole. Except children don't punch and kick the maypole into submission, so that comparison really doesn't work.
The end came when the she-boar lunged for his leg. She may not have had the full tusks of her mate, but her own set would have crippled the man for life if she connected. Of course, there wouldn't be a legend of Mott Casns if she'd bit him. No, he stepped around her, snaked one hairy arm under her belly and hefted her over his own head. Very few men can lift a dead pig, let alone a live, squirming one. But twist as she might, the she-boar could not break his iron grip.
Oh, the Highlander roared. His howl resounded off the palace walls. It set our teeth on edge and made grown men clasp their ears. The she-boar herself was momentarily frightened into silence. And just as I began to wonder why he hadn't yet passed out, he heaved that pig into the air. It tumbled and writhed like a cat does to land on its feet, but this pig was no housecat. No, it landed shoulder down on an old flagstone with a thud and a crack.
There was still plenty of fight left in the she-boar. It grunted and snorted and glared at Mott with anger as pure as an animal can muster. The spirit was willing, as they say, but the flesh was pulped and bloody and full of broken bones. She tried to stand. Once. Twice. Each time, her foreleg gave out and she collapsed with a grunt of pain. After the third time, she just gave up and lay there keening in pain.
I could hear this because the spectators had gone silent. Every last one. Even Mortimer Dacius, who had contemplated the incomprehensible and taken tea with strange gods, was blinking as if he couldn't believe what his lying eyes had shown him.
Two wild boars killed bare-handed in the time it takes to eat an apple. If that's incredible, it can't hold a candle to what came next. The Highlander quietly sought out a cleric from the spectators, led her by hand into the arena, and beseeched her to "Visit yoor gawd's mercies oopon tha poor beastie." Again and again he asked her, even when the Cleric explained that magical healing would be useless if the bones weren't set, and the she-boar wouldn't let anyone get near enough to do the job.
I'm sure there's more to the story of what happened that day, but I lost my taste for spectating the moment I saw tears running down the berserker's cheeks. But I saw him later that night, with a massive mug of beer in one hand and the other arm around a pair of comely young maidens, a whole roasted ham hock on the plate before him. He was as happy as any man sitting in his chair should be.
That, laddie, is what the Highlanders are. They're a force of nature unto which other forces of nature yield. They are vicious and gentle, steeped in tradition but living entirely in the present, and Mott Casns was a giant among them.
So, you've heard of the Highlanders, have you? Monsters of men, the Urlghains. Not a one of them shorter than eighteen hands, with muscles that bulge like sacks of melons and a command of the common language rivaling that of a toddler with a mouth full of rocks. My boy, I have seen the Highlanders in action, and the stories don't do them justice.
It was many years ago when the King fell ill, when Wizard Dacius convened a tournament to find men and women fit to be champions of the realm. Your uncle and I joined up to serve the King, though that reward was surely attractive as well. We gave our all, let me tell you, we survived the trials well into the third day. But then we got cocky and rushed through an obstacle course. "Retrieve the iron ring from its plinth," Dacius had commanded us, completely neglecting to mention the pair of boars guarding it.
Now, the only way to fight a boar is to come prepared with a hefty spear to brace against its charge and a crossguard so it doesn't shove down the shaft and gore you out of spite. We had handaxes and no desire to get opened neck-to-groin like your great-uncle Phestivius.
Don't give me that look. There ain't no shame in recognizing a fight you can't win.
The rest of the contestants managed themselves, mostly. The Paladin behind us smote his boars with a longsword, a druid charmed them with a few words of animal tongue, and this one street brat slipped a knife into their haunches and ran around the course until they bled out.
They were absolute pikers compared to the Urlghain.
I'd met this Mott Casns before, can't say that I was impressed. He ate like a dog, had no indoor voice whatsoever, and he seemed simple-minded even by the low standards of the Highlanders. But he had a greatsword as long as he was tall and seemed to be a match for a pair of boars even if his partner had been left behind in the obstacle course. Certainly the crowd thought so. The cheers and the shouts of encouragement were deafening.
There he stood with his brow majestically furrowed, absentmindedly pulling straw from his beard while one hand rested on his sword. Opposed to him were two adult boars that had been summoned from the lowlands of the Greysight Vale that very morning; a breeding pair confused and hostile to anything which walked on two legs.
"Weall naow, that's just a pahr oof wee leettle piggies," he bellowed as he set aside his sword.
That shut some of us up, at least the ones who'd talked with him at length and had developed low opinions of his intelligence. We were all thinking "Oh gods, we've sent a child out to get torn apart by wild beasts."
So, the boars charged him. Mott just stood there with this big stupid grin on his face, arms folded on his hairy chest. And I don't care if it's impossible, I swear on tomorrow's sunrise that I saw him take the first boar by the tusks and shove it aside. The dumb animal ran headfirst into a wooden post with an impact you could feel through your feet. It was still twitching, but even a blind man could see that he'd just turned a bull boar into so many pounds of bacon.
That left the other one. And this wasn't no milky old sow, this was a she-boar in her prime. She came in biting and thrashing and squealing fit to raise demons, but the Highlander danced around her like
a kid around a maypole. Except children don't punch and kick the maypole into submission, so that comparison really doesn't work.
The end came when the she-boar lunged for his leg. She may not have had the full tusks of her mate, but her own set would have crippled the man for life if she connected. Of course, there wouldn't be a legend of Mott Casns if she'd bit him. No, he stepped around her, snaked one hairy arm under her belly and hefted her over his own head. Very few men can lift a dead pig, let alone a live, squirming one. But twist as she might, the she-boar could not break his iron grip.
Oh, the Highlander roared. His howl resounded off the palace walls. It set our teeth on edge and made grown men clasp their ears. The she-boar herself was momentarily frightened into silence. And just as I began to wonder why he hadn't yet passed out, he heaved that pig into the air. It tumbled and writhed like a cat does to land on its feet, but this pig was no housecat. No, it landed shoulder down on an old flagstone with a thud and a crack.
There was still plenty of fight left in the she-boar. It grunted and snorted and glared at Mott with anger as pure as an animal can muster. The spirit was willing, as they say, but the flesh was pulped and bloody and full of broken bones. She tried to stand. Once. Twice. Each time, her foreleg gave out and she collapsed with a grunt of pain. After the third time, she just gave up and lay there keening in pain.
I could hear this because the spectators had gone silent. Every last one. Even Mortimer Dacius, who had contemplated the incomprehensible and taken tea with strange gods, was blinking as if he couldn't believe what his lying eyes had shown him.
Two wild boars killed bare-handed in the time it takes to eat an apple. If that's incredible, it can't hold a candle to what came next. The Highlander quietly sought out a cleric from the spectators, led her by hand into the arena, and beseeched her to "Visit yoor gawd's mercies oopon tha poor beastie." Again and again he asked her, even when the Cleric explained that magical healing would be useless if the bones weren't set, and the she-boar wouldn't let anyone get near enough to do the job.
I'm sure there's more to the story of what happened that day, but I lost my taste for spectating the moment I saw tears running down the berserker's cheeks. But I saw him later that night, with a massive mug of beer in one hand and the other arm around a pair of comely young maidens, a whole roasted ham hock on the plate before him. He was as happy as any man sitting in his chair should be.
That, laddie, is what the Highlanders are. They're a force of nature unto which other forces of nature yield. They are vicious and gentle, steeped in tradition but living entirely in the present, and Mott Casns was a giant among them.
