[Osse]

Bear - Hillmen

Bear lounged in the chair outside his hut and watched the smoke curl lazily out of the chimney-holes around him. The rain had eased over the last few hours, almost to the point of stopping, and with the change had come the unmistakeable smell one gets after a cleansing downpour.

The air felt fresh and clear with a wholesome tinge. He breathed in deeply and stretched his long legs out. No one else was around as they all shunned the rain and the perpetual damp that their thatch roofs had no hope of preventing.

Bear liked the rain; he felt it revived the soil and put a positive feel on the air, all was silent during rain, except the rhythmic drip or surge of dropping water, the flitter of a small bird making a burst for the next tree, the preciously quiet pad of a fox using the chance created by the absence of people to scrounge amongst the quenched fire pits; the sound of life.

Some of the best hunting was after the rain when the animals came to lick the droplets off the leaves. That was something that his country had going for it; it rained a lot.

He removed a battered leather pouch from his jerkin pocket and fumbled around for its contents. Bear removed the long, dark green leaves and bruised them before rolling them into a rough ball and placing them in his mouth. The plant was Harrow’s Leaf, a weedy plant that grew upon the hillsides. When chewed, it had a calming effect. Most of the hillmen had their own supply of the weed as it grew in abundance near the village.

Suddenly, the rain began to pick up again, torn by a thrusting southerly wind that clawed at his clothing and stung his face. Bear heeded it not. He reached down the side of his leg to where he kept his knife and reached once again into his leather pouch for his whetting stone. The blade was somewhat notched, and didn’t hold it’s edge very well. His grandfather had given it him when he came of age, the knife had been all that he had against the wolf that he now wore, that and his formidable strength.

What Bear really wanted was a good knife like the southerners and Bree-men possessed. “Soon I will have one” he thought to himself “…very soon.”

[ October 28, 2003: Message edited by: Osse ]