From The Collections Of Rhye

the Saib and Durin

The rain clouds drifted across an incoherent morning , swallowing the light in a tense shade of grey. A shallow wind curled around mountainsides, to dip into the valley down below.
Sweet smell of honeysuckle and mild mildew drifted across the flaps of canvas tents that sprawled across the mangled valley floor. The trampled flower beds and burnt berry bushes still added a speck of red and yellow to the otherwise green undergrowth.
From the mid ribs of tall grass,
Battle hammers pressed against the black soil and chiseled figures sat just behind them, drinking, laughing, and brooding. These were the wielders of Almut, the northern district of the city of Rhys. They were soldiers, predators, hungry, religious, battle born; they were men and they bled crimson faith.

Amongst this assembly for war, a short man sat shaping a femur into a flute, his callous hands firm and intricate. His smooth self and an indignant pot belly gave him a homely aura.

"Saib....looks like the rains will come before mid break. If we wait till then, perhaps it will afford them an unfair advantage." Said a taller man, twirling his hammer in his hands as if was carved from wood.

'Eh?!' Came an intangible reply.

'We must attack now, give us but the command and...'

'Your point Durin? you are my second so you can fish out the pearls from shit. Not the other way round.'
The shorter man tensed his features, his relaxed muscles contracting to shape the  man's physique into a grizzly built boar.
Then he chuckled, obviously amused with what he said.

'We must use the battle reserve to our advantage' said the Durin, trying to keep disgust out of his speech.

' To what end?'

'These are men of the land. They farm and they fight for their loves. Ask our reserve to pillage their crop, tear their women and claim their boys and daughters. That would be enough to break morale and make their ranks go wild with emotion. Make em' easy minced meat.' Said the man with a grin.

The Saib scowled and drew his dagger to his chin, scratching an itch across it's scarred expanse.

'Wild with emotion eh?'

'Aye'

'Have you been in a wild hunt? Other than the whores you beat, i mean.'

'No.' Said the Durin,through gritted teeth, as his knuckles went white with rage.

'The thing about men in love, is that they can always love again. But you take away their fear of being able to love, they are left with nothing to lose.' Said the Saib with a sense of depraved gravity.

'You kill their fathers, rape their wives, and take their daughters for your whores, tell my man, what is that would keep an animal so wounded from tearing your throat out if it's rest?'

'But they are men!!' Implored the Durin.

'Exactly. All men are animals.' Said his Saib cutting him short.

'What do we do then?'

'You do nothing. Don't hurt their mothers or abuse their wives, like you did with your sisters. We don't need them wild.'

'Then?'

'We need them to be men enough to feel, but broken enough to do nothing about it.
For that, Durin, you will make sure our reserve delivers the bloody under-things of their daughters before that coming rain hits their side of camps.'

The taller man smiled, the sky cracked, and a wicked wind licked the earth.

With that, it began to rain; that's when the wailing and cries punctuated the valley hollow.