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Post by Tandar on Dec 4, 2011 20:23:22 GMT -5
[OOC: The following takes place between December 657 and January 658.] Suppressing a shiver as a particularly large snowflake fell down the back of his tunic, Tandar Polaris stood as he finished harnessing the last husky to the gangline. His girlfriend, Brandwyn Elfstone was kneeling at the large, wooden sled, securing their cargo and camping equipment for the long journey ahead. The air was frigid, and snow was falling, rapidly accumulating on the coniferous tree branches. Although the sun had risen hours ago, Polaris couldn’t tell its exact position due to the heavy cloud cover and blanketing fog. As the White Death swept across Norgate Fief during the summer months, thousands fell ill with the plague. Many perished while others fled to neighboring fiefs to get away from the scourge. With the economy in shambles, and transportation sporadic at best, the vast stock of wool Norgate is known for failed to reach the market in Marshwood before snow fell, leaving most of the main roads impassable. Rather than suffer a devastating financial loss, the merchant guild decided to host a sled dog race in order to quickly transport the wool to the market near Marshwood Bay. Each merchant sponsored at least one team. The event would force competitors to follow the Highland Ice Serpent, a treacherous old trail over four hundred miles long winding through the mountains of Araluen and Picta. Upon arriving at the market in Marshwood, teams would be paid for the wool delivered, and the first team to finish would receive a special prize from the barons of Norgate and Marshwood. Tandar walked the entire length of the towline, inspecting it for signs of wear or chew marks from the dogs. Finding none, he doubled back to the sled, looking with fondness at Brandwyn, her cheeks flushed from the cold. He felt extremely thankful at that moment to have her with him, even under such somber circumstances. Tandar considered himself fortunate that neither he nor Brandwyn had gotten sick despite the White Death ravaging the land. The Ranger had been training for the event for the past several weeks, but he was still nervous since he was new to mushing. The huskies were all crossbred specially for dogsledding and were rented locally. All twenty of the dogs were hitched double tandem to the gangline. Tandar glanced around at the other two-person teams performing their pre-race checks. He even noticed some young teens participating. It seemed the event organizers had been forced to open the race to youth as well due to the high number of plague victims. The competition was going to be stiff. Tandar didn’t enter the race for the prize or the money, but he would put up a good fight nonetheless. From the concealment of an evergreen a few feet from the trail, a pair of watchful eyes surveilled the racers preparing their sleds. The eyes came to rest on each weapon worn by the participants and studied how they carried themselves. The unseen observer noted the number of racers before furtively retreating to the protection of the forest. Halt's Playground presents
The Highland Ice Serpent Sled Dog Race
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Post by Brandwyn on Dec 5, 2011 21:20:24 GMT -5
Brandwyn tugged on the cold leather straps to secure the load of wool and their personal supplies to the raised toboggan sled. She couldn’t get the post of the buckle through the hold in the leather with her gloves on and shook them off in frustration. Pulling down hard to tighten the strap as much as possible she finally managed to get it buckled, wrapping her knuckles on the sled basket in the process.
“Ow!” She exclaimed softly and sucked her right knuckles, trying to warm her fingers and take the sting out at the same time. Had they not been half frozen it wouldn’t have hurt so much. She looked up as Tandar went down the line of dogs checking the line and took her fingers out of her mouth and smiled at him, her hands still cupped in front of her chin.
She had been rather surprised when he had asked if she wanted to do the race and her first reaction was ‘of course not! I don’t know a thing about sled dogs!’ but she gave it some thought before answering him and after realizing that she would have him to herself for the most part for about two weeks she decided to give it a go. Standing here in the cold, looking at the man she had fallen in love with and sucking on her sore knuckles she found herself looking forward to and dreading the race at the same time. However she was glad she had said yes for any time spent with him was precious and this would be the longest single block of time they had ever spent together.
“I think that is as tight as I can make it.” Brandwyn gestured toward the loaded sled and then stooped to pick up her gloves but didn’t put them on yet. She pulled out a small round ceramic jar and pulled the cork out of it. She ran her index finger over the ointment inside and spread some on her lips. The camphor and aloe tingled and instantly her already chapping lips felt better. “You should try some of this stuff Rick gave me. It’s great!” she grinned at Tandar. “If my cheeks get any more wind-burned I might just put some on them too,” she laughed holding out the jar to him.
“Looks like most people are ready. I wonder how much longer before we start?” She mused. Now that they were here she was anxious to get under way even though it was going to be a long, cold, hard trek through very rough terrain.
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Mri
Apprentice Scribe
:)
Posts: 207
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Post by Mri on Dec 28, 2011 0:02:49 GMT -5
Alanna was careful to keep her face down as she re-checked both the straps holding down their supplies and those connecting the dogs to each other and the sled. Her cowl was pulled tight to seemingly keep the cold out, but acted more to hide her striking features and the new cut against the right side of her face. It wasn't deep, but in its current scarred state it would be too easily a thing to remember.
She cast a glance at her partner, slightly annoyed that she didn't seem to share her concerns in fading into the background, but then again it was almost impossible with her face. With the exotic features of the Temujai, Yin had brought them nothing but attention from the Araluen men despite all her training in the art of sluethness. Though Alanna had to admit, it was a fantastic use of creating a distraction, but unfortunately that was not what they needed at the moment.
She glared at the sudden smile splitting across Yin's face and turned her attention back to her cargo. Unlike all the other racers here, the boxes were not filled with food, water, and other provisions for they didn't plan on finishing the race; instead they were packed with highly tarriffed goods such as silks, pelts, and salt and three currently drugged, comfortably packed exotic birds. With a planned tip over after a too-sharp curve, they had made sure to pack an extra soft layer between the inside boards and the smuggled goods.
It wouldn't be good for them to lose any of their profits, especially during this time of sickness and failing economy. Not only would it hurt their current payment, but it would also damage their reputation as responsible smugglers. And with them being in the middle of tracking down an Alpha...
Alanna gave her head a slight shake. They had been hunting him for three years already. It would take more than a simple plague and heavy snows to shove them off his trail, especially when they were finally starting to close in on him.
She wondered briefly if he would believe himself to truly be a werewolf like many of his followers did. She'd only come face to face with an Alpha once and though that had been nearly five years ago she hadn't forgot the look of...humanity...in his eyes. Whatever they were preaching to their followers they didn't seem to be believing - well, at least that one hadn't.
As she waited for the race to begin, her thoughts continued to drift and she looked out across the white landscape, wondering where he was.
"Can't hide forever."
Yin turned to stare at her and Alanna held it for a second before turning away. It was time to race.
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Post by Ringulf on Dec 31, 2011 11:56:04 GMT -5
Djolimar fixed the the lead line on to Loki, Loki, his lead dog was a very large black and white with ice blue eyes. He was not as big as Akira his white wheeldog or Bear his other but he was absolutely the most intelligent of the 13 dogs in the rig and most emphatically the Alpha male. Snowflake and Bianca were the only two females but both pure white females almost looked to have a bit of wolf bread into them as evidenced by the yellow amber eyes.
"DJ, Give them their last breakfast off the trail and make sure that wool is secure, I am going to the race cabin to check in and get out instructions, I will be back in a bit keep an eye on things" Fowlur said.
"OK Pa! I got it handled!" Djolimar called to him.
Fortunately he had a very strong bond with Loki, had it not been for that the pack would not have been as obedient without Fowlur around.
The large bail of wool and fleeces were secured toward the front of the sled. their provisions were set a bit beneath that and toward the center. The DJ's spot just before the uprights was a secure little nest of furs behind. He would have the all important job of navigating and tending the load, while his father Fowlur drove the dogs from the rear. Fowlur had been preparing for this for several months and had worked down his previous portly girth to a much more manageable, trimmer stockiness. He had also increased his stamina and endurance as the older Marshman would need to jump of the skids from time to time and run, push or direct the dogs on foot.
It was not going to be easy but DJ had seen how hard he had been training and knew his father would do well.
Now if he could do his job as successfully then they might have a chance of actually winning this race!
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Post by Brandwyn on Jan 4, 2012 14:05:30 GMT -5
Tory secured her backpack over her heavy hooded poncho as Dustin made the final checks on the sled. They had been ready to go at the break of dawn and were as impatient to get started as their team of wooly huskies. Dustin shook his head at her again and she warned him not to bring up the argument again. He thought it foolish for her to carry the pack when she could have placed it in the sled, but Tory was never one to be parted with her satchel containing her maps, a couple of books, a few other personal items and most importantly her journal. She didn't want to chance it going over a cliff with the sled so she had placed it in a small backpack and added some survival supplies. Coiled on the back was a thin, yet very strong braided rope a hundred feet long coiled and tied to the backpack's straps. At the end of the rope was a small grappling hook. Sure, she might tire quicker with the added weight, but looking over the entrants, she still figured she had more stamina than the bulk of them.
When Tandar had first brought up the race and the need for hardy people to rediscover the old dog sled trail between Norgate and Marshwood to move the wool to market, Tory hadn’t wanted to participate. But Tandar wasn’t going to leave her behind in Meric and although she had begged for a few weeks off, hoping to look into Patrick’s death, he had refused, probably knowing what she was going to be up to.
Then she realized that if Patrick had survived the bounty hunter’s shot, he would be long gone from Seacliff and, as she had told herself dozens of times already, he would be keeping a low profile where the other rangers least expected him to go. She didn’t want to admit that those ‘rangers’ probably included her. She still believed he would hook back up with the Banished Brethren. The trouble was, they had no interest in letting her find out where they were. She figured that the trek across the northern border with Picta would at the very least get her out of Meric where every day was like reliving a childhood nightmare and at the best might give her an opportunity to run across the Brethren at some point. It was a long shot, but it was all she had.
“You know, our dogs would probably go faster if we didn’t have to bring along that extra tent you insist on having.” Dustin said slyly and not for the first time. He cocked his head at her, rubbing his chin as if the thought had just occurred to him.
Tory rolled her eyes and then glanced at Tandar and Brandwyn who were a few feet away. “As I said before, you will have to take that argument up with my mentor.” Tory crossed her arms and said imperiously as if bored with explaining something over and over to a small child. “He was the one that agreed to us partnering up only if we maintained the proprieties.”
Dustin glanced at Tandar too and his face fell along with his arms as he slumped in defeat, but it only lasted a moment before his grin was once again on his face. “Well you never know what accidents might befall our gear on the trail,” he quipped and winked at her.
“And thus the reason for my pack,” Tory replied in a triumphant tone as if he had just proven her point from their earlier argument. She grinned when Dustin rolled his eyes at her and then he grabbed her, pack and all and swung her around in a circle.
“Enough of this nonsense, let’s get this thing going!” He laughed and set her on the ground at the back of the sled. Tory laughed and then noticed that everyone was taking their places and the Baron of Norgate was standing on the temporary platform located in the center of the field behind the castle. She took up her place next to the runners with Dustin beside and a bit behind her and he called to the dogs. The lead dog, Karo, flicked his ear back and then gave a commanding yelp and the other dogs seemed to come to attention. For a moment they were all quiet, each of them anticipating the command to run.
The Baron looked up and down the line of sleds and raised his arm, a yellow flag on a short post held high in his hand. Loudly he addressed the crowd, “May good fortune smile on each of you and God be with you and bless you on your journey. We thank you for your service and wish you safe and speedy travels.” With that he dropped his arm swiftly and the flag fluttered to the ground.
Dustin blew in his dog whistle and he and Tory gave a mighty shove on the back of the sled as the dogs lurched forward. Up and down the line of racers the motion was the same. The sound of yelling, whistles and yelping nearly drowned out the wild cheers from the battlements of the castle as those too ill or with other duties to compete were left behind to watch until the racers dwindled out of site.
The Highland Ice Serpent was afoot!
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Post by Brandwyn on Mar 2, 2012 15:55:28 GMT -5
Four days later Brandwyn and Tandar reached the first good-sized stream they had to cross. It was about 25 feet at the narrowest point and although the edges were frozen, the center was not and the water was moving and churning at an alarming rate. Brandwyn signaled the dogs to halt and rest, giving them a ration of food while they rested and she and Tandar figured out what to do.
She brought out a nearly useless map of the northern fiefs that showed very little terrain features and sighed. The river wasn’t marked on the map but she guessed it was coming down from the mountains and likely fed into the Semath at some point. That meant there was no going around it. They were going to have to cross.
“What do you think Tandar? Should we look up or downstream for a better crossing?” She tried to peer up river but her vision was blocked by the thick carpet of pine and spruce trees. She noticed that several were leaning out over the water and many trees had fallen in a recent storm just to their north. It looked like a tornado may have come through there a few months before.
She decided that Tandar and she could do with some lunch as well and reached into the fur bag hanging from the back the sled. It was resting on top of their cargo but if the sled should be in danger they could easily reach the sack and unhook it from the sled. It contained several days’ food rations for themselves and the dogs. On the other side was a roll of furs which also could be salvaged so that they would not freeze if they lost the bulk of their gear loaded on the sled.
Brandwyn pulled out some hais balls and a couple of chunks of smoked ham. The hais balls were mouth-sized balls of oats, nuts, fruit and honey rolled in sugar. They were tasty and designed to replenish energy reserves while being easy to transport and store for long periods of time. They were bundled up in groups of 10 wrapped inside of grape leaves and then wrapped in waxed linen to keep them from getting wet. Brandwyn had made a huge batch of them prior to leaving Meric and had given several packets to Tory before they had left. Unfortunately the only drawback was that here in Norgate the weather was so cold that the balls were nearly frozen through which made them difficult to eat.
She handed Tandar a chunk of ham and then opened the package of hais balls. “Here have a hais-cycle,” she grinned and popped one into her mouth where she sucked on it for several minutes before it was soft enough to bite.
In spite of the fact that she hadn’t been truly warm since they had left Norgate Castle, the last three days had been some of the best in Brandwyn’s life. Except for the evenings when Tory and Dustin camped near to them, she had Tandar all to herself. Most of the time they had been expending too much energy just keeping the sled moving and out of trouble or running uphill pushing it to have much of a chance to talk, but just being with him was enough for her. They were getting a chance to really know each other and an inkling of what living together could be like once they got married – if they got married. That was a subject that had yet to be approached. Brandwyn didn’t want to bring it up, fearing that Tandar would think she was trying to coerce him or manipulate him and she didn’t want to scare him off. She wasn’t sure yet if he was back to his old self before his father’s passing or not and felt it best to leave that topic up to him. She felt confident he would approach the subject when he was good and ready to. Until then she would just enjoy the time they had together.
However she did find herself fantasizing over their possible future frequently during the race. It helped to take her mind off how cold she was, how every muscle was aching and how wind-burned her face was. She was determined not to show any of these discomforts to Tandar or complain about them in the slightest. Each time she felt a twinge in her back from her old war injury, she would remember the flight out of Gallica in front of the Aslavian Army and a faint smile would cross her lips. This was a picnic compared to that grueling ride.
She leaned against the sled, next to Tandar as she munched on her hais balls and ham jerky and contemplated the route in front of them. “I think we may be in the lead at the moment. Or maybe we should check along the river to see if some of the others have crossed elsewhere.”
As they ate and stared at the somewhat formidable object blocking their path, they heard the yelping of another team of dogs and turned toward the sound. Dustin’s dog team was just rounding the bend in the trail. He saw their sled stopped and called out for the dogs to stop while he and Tory dragged their feet and strained to stop their sled down the slight decline toward the river. They moved along side and called out a greeting.
“Hi guys! What’s wrong or are you just stopping for lunch?” Dustin hailed them as he got his dogs settled down.
“A river,” Tory stood staring at it, keeping well back from the edges. “I hate rivers,” she muttered under her breath, hoping no one heard her. The feeling of dread stole over her and settled in a heavy knot in the pit of her stomach. How could they eat with this blocking their path she wondered? Her stomach lurched in anxiety, threatening to send her rather meager lunch back up. She closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down and try to think rationally. The only thing that she could concentrate on though was that the last river would have killed her if not for Chip and right now she didn’t have Chip here. She stood there next to the sled, staring at the angry water and the white tufted rapids as the water swirled over hidden rocks below and she trembled with fear. Her hands were moist and her tongue dry and she broke out in a cold sweat, staring at her doom.
Brandwyn glanced from Dustin over to Tory, who had muttered something under her breath and saw the girl’s ashen face and the fear in her eyes. She knew a little of Tory’s past issues with rivers and wondered what they could do to alleviate her fears of this one.
“Tory, are you okay?” she asked, glancing at Tandar with worry in her eyes, wondering if he knew what to do for her.
Tory shook her head, a quick, slight motion. ‘Definitely not’ she thought but didn’t say it out loud. She had thought, when they signed up for this race, that she would be able to handle this, knowing they were going to have to cross a couple of smaller streams. She’d thought wrong. The water seemed to be calling her name, taunting her, daring her to enter so it could finish the job it started several years ago.
Suddenly her vision of the torrent of water was blocked by Dustin’s handsome face. He grabbed her gloved hands and spun her around so her back was to the water and then gave her a hug. “Sorry Snowfox, I shouldn’t have pulled up so close to the river.” He steered her back to a tree stump and sat her down on it after cleaning off a layer of snow. Then he handed her a large leather cylinder. “Why don’t you work on mapping out the last few miles we travelled and mark this river on it?” He turned toward Brandwyn and Tandar, “She really is something when it comes to making maps!”
Tory nodded and opened her map case, pulling out a large roll of many pages of vellum. She selected the one off the top and rerolled the others, stuffing them back into the waxed leather tube. From a side pocket she pulled out a feather quill pen and a small jar of ink. Her hands were shaking slightly as she studied her map for several minutes and then looked back up the trail in the direction they had come, judging the distances in her mind. Then she began to draw and as she worked on the map, the terror of the river slowly began to ebb.
Dustin left her to the drawing and approached Tandar and Brandwyn, glancing back at Tory every so often. “She warned me ahead of time of this thing with the rivers and we worked this out, hoping it would help her calm down.” He explained.
“Good idea, but how is that going to help when we actually get to the crossing part of things?” Brandwyn asked.
“We have an idea for that too, but it depends on how we end up crossing.” Dustin answered, studying the river. It was too cold and moving too fast and looked to be too deep in this spot to just swim the dogs across pulling the sleds.
“We could build a raft or a bridge.” Tory suggested without taking her eyes off the sheep skin map. “Plenty of logs right back there for us to use.” She nodded her head in the direction of the tornado’s path. She could deal with a bridge, but hoped they wouldn’t opt for a raft. Still either one was better than swimming.
Brandwyn looked up at the trees around them again. She had been thinking along similar lines. Building a full bridge would be difficult in this terrain and time consuming. They would definitely lose their lead on the other racers. She walked around the dogs and up to the edge of the icy water and looked up at the pine trees lining the bank. There were several very tall pines that looked as if they were much taller than the river was wide.
“What if we chop four or five of these big pines down so that when they fall they land over the river? We could drag them together and then lash them together. Then maybe we can get the sleds up on them and push them across the logs.”
Tory looked up from her map and at the trees then another glance as the river, judging the distance. “I think that could possibly work. What do you guys think?” Then she glanced back up the trail, she thought she’d heard something. “I think another team is coming up behind us. I will go up there at the curve and tell them to slow down so they don’t run our sleds over.” She stashed the ink and quill back in their pocket and slung the map case over her shoulder, carefully holding the map she’d been working on so that the ink would not smudge before it dried and scrambled back up the bank to await the next team’s arrival.
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