The Call of Crows

Chapter 38: A New Saga

Bjorn came out from behind a curtain in the war-time equivalent of a general store, dressed from head to toe in armor.

He had recently taken to pulling his golden hair back into a braid rather than letting it droop down in front of his face. It was better for the steel goggled helmet on his head. He draped a black fur pelt over a new chain mail hauberk, which he wore over a dull blue tunic. Brigandine vambraces protected his wrists. The hauberk and tunic that reached down over his britches and nearly touched the cuffs of leather boots, defending his legs.

His torso was criss-crossed with leather straps and belts that held a loop for a new axe, a sheathe for his sword and a way to stow his spear, bolas and a collection of new throwing axes he bought. His shield had been repaired and refurbished with a fresh coat of black paint with the Valravn painted in bright blue.

"What do you think?" Bjorn asked, spreading his arms and looking at Taya, who was inspecting the armor.

"Hm...too much of...everything." Taya said.

"Ignoring your Sklaveni insanity." Bjorn scoffed.

"Then I think you look rather dashing." Taya smiled.

Bjorn chuckled, "Dashing? I don't look like a prince."

"With the amount of money we're spending on armor, you might as well." Taya shrugged.

"Hey. We divided the fund between each of us and I stayed under budget." Bjorn said.

"What's the fur for? The Mesogeonian's pretty warm."

"It'd be for warmth if I turned the fur inwards. As of now, it's for show. I'm not above a little flamboyance." Bjorn rolled his arms, trying to break the clothing in.

"Alright, alright." Taya said, "Now go finish off the list. I want to try something on."

Bjorn took a bag of coins over to the shopkeeper, who had appeared to have bought up the inventory of every foreign arms dealer that had come by Koinelia in the past three months. They had at least a set of armor from every place imaginable and weapons galore.

"I'm taking this whole set," he said to the shopkeeper, who's eyes lit up with greed upon seeing the sizeable sum of money.

Bjorn started stalking the weapon racks and armor stands once again. They had several sets of armor and a cart's worth of weapons already, but he still needed to get something for the Aotearoans. Normally Bjorn cared little about looks, but he'd found something aesthetically pleasing from everyone's culture. Thing is, Aotearoans didn't really wear much armor. But it wouldn't look right for everyone to be decked out in lamellar and mail with two of them in grass skirts.

Though with enough searching, Bjorn actually managed to find some rather incredibly intricate textiles of Aotearoan origin. The islanders' culture certainly had a fascination with feathers.

Bjorn paid for the clothes and added them to the pile of arms and armor that had been steadily growing near the store's changing curtain as Taya walked out from it wearing her new attire.

Despite her questioning of Bjorn's pelt, she wore a wolf's pelt over their shoulder. Under that was a short, bright green tunic with a leather lamellar chest plate over it and a sheet of plaid fabric over that in the style of a Koini toga, tied on by a single leather belt. She wore a set of leather vambraces and boots as well.

"I half expected you to walk out of that thing nude." Bjorn said.

"Would you have liked that?" Taya smirked.

"Guess we'll never know." Bjorn chuckled.

"But seriously, what do you think? I thought I might as well pull off something with more grandeur given what we splurged on for the others." Taya said.