Umolka made a disgusted noise and fanned her deformed right hand in front of her face. The smell of the dead was overpowering, as she was finding out was often the case, and in the hear of midsummer it was amplified tenfold. The young Thayan adjusted and lifted her worn brown robes before bending back over to grab a hold of the arm belonging to the body at her feet, and lift. Flies rose as their resting place was disturbed and formed an all too familiar cloud of buzzing annoyance.
She ignored the few that landed atop her tattooed scalp and continued to drag the the body of the large slave. Sweat stung as it dripped into her eyes, but she ignored that as well, her eyes focused on the man. At one time he may have been considered handsome for a foreigner; he had deep tanned skin and long hair bleached by the sun, with a strong jaw line and a broad, muscular build. The perfect stock for a rich Thayan.
This summer, though, Talona had been particularly busy. The man's long and matted beard, like so many others, was crusted with bile from his last days of life. His tongue was swollen and twisted, obscenely large. Black Tongue had taken this farming project by surprise as it had many others this summer. It had begun with the slave population, and then jumped to the citizens of the farm houses and estates with relative silence. It wasn't until the first slaves began dying of asphyxiation that the local populace became aware of the situation.
By then it was too late. Umolka had been actively helping the church of Talona since three years previous, when she was fourteen years old, and this had turned out to be the worst outbreak of any virus she'd seen in person. The few communities it affected were small in number, but black tongue turned out to be a deadly disease; they only managed to keep a handful from death.
Now came the messy task of cleaning up, and that came solely to Talona's church. Umolka sighed in exertion as she dropped the corpse beside the growing pile of bodies waiting to be burned. She gladly accepted a rag from the tall acolyte by her, using it to wipe her grimy face dry of dirt and sweat, and then handed it back to her with a curt nod.
Soon after the bodies were gathered from the slave quarters, the five Talontar that had done so met on the outskirts of one of the fields. A magical storm was brewing overhead, no doubt implemented by the mages who owned this area of land to keep the fields well moistened, but it would be an hour or two before the rain began to fall. One at a time the Talontar sat in the soil, in their dirtied and plague-ridden robes, offering cursory greetings.
Three represented the church of Talona proper -- Naht, a tall and willowy Mulan woman, had an appearance that would have won her any husband she may have wished, her skin dark and her features classically beautiful, hearkening back to her Mulhorand ancestry. She was young, a year younger than Umolka, and an acolyte in the church proper.
Sarii was the current high priestess of the small church house in Umolka's home city of Tyrtauros; she was a plain woman, short and possible of Rashemi stock. She carried the imposing air of any proper high priestess, but unlike the traditions of most churches she was in robes worse tattered than most. Sarii was also the only among the group who sported a full head of hair, and despite the heat and filth of their tasks it hung loose around her shoulders.
The third was Karath, one of the only men in the small church's clergy. He bore no tattoos on his bald head, but ritual scarring in whorls and skulls. His pale skin and flushed cheeks indicated, much like Umolka's, that he was less than healthy as a whole.
Across from these three sat Umolka and her elder druid mentor Sveta, representing the Lady of Poison's small druidic tradition. Unlike druids of other faiths they could easily have been mistaken for their church-going brethren, nothing but their bare feet indicating they followed a more nature-driven way of life. Sveta was an old woman, easily the oldest here, and wore atop her head a skullcap of purple cloth accented by fine silver. In fact, she was more finely outfitted than the high priestess, the only one here without soiled old robes on; hers were clean.
Sarii cleared her throat and glanced toward the two druids, the first to speak.
"We will burn the bodies after the rains come."
Sveta nodded silently in agreement, the woman's hooped earrings jingling ever so slightly.
"Also, as the family of at least this farmstead has perished along with their slaves, we will be petitioning to the Tharchion to take control of this business for the church's profit." Sarii continued her voice soft. "As this has always been the case in the city, I only will even ask due to the price of this land. There will be many wanting it for their own use.
"I'm assuming this is agreeable to all of you?" Each head in the circle bobbed in a slow nod. "Wonderful," she stated, her voice lacking in enthusiasm of any sort, "we will sleep here for the night. As the house will be ours, it is ours to utilize."
It was at this point that Sveta spoke up, which visibly surprised the younger priestess. The druid's dark eyes looked to Sarii as she spoke, a smile twisting up over her wrinkled features.
"It is ours to utilize, but the danger is not gone. We mustn't forget that Talona's anger is easily riled, especially in these situations. Sleep and act as you wish, but show her the proper respect. Not all of us are blessed enough to avoid her attentions."
Her gaze pointedly fell to the high priestess, who straightened up considerably and returned the openly hostile stare. "My student and I have brought enough food to last us all the night. We will prepare it within the hour."
"If you would pardon me," Sarii interjected, "I would like to have a few words with her druid-ness in private."
Sveta's wicked smile remained as she stood slowly and followed the priestess into the nearby slave's quarters. The other clergy looked between each other almost awkwardly as some kind of whispering fight could be heard in the silence of the midday sun.
Karath, Umolka and Naht shared uneasy looks with one another. After it was clear the two women would not immediately come storming back out of the small building, and the sound of the two arguing was still prevalent, it was Karath who braved speaking first.
"What in the world are they both so worked up about?" The young man tapped a finger in the dirt and glanced between the other two. Naht shrugged lazily and removed a small knife from her belt, absently toying with it. Umolka turned to Karath and smirked a tad.
"Oh, I know why. Sveta doesn't care much for the priestess."
"Hn? And why is that?" He leaned in closer, curiously, and Umolka did the same, hushing herself further.
"Sveta told me that she tried training Sarii into the druidic traditions once, but she decided she didn't like her teacher and tried to poison Sveta!" A giggle erupted from the young woman and the scarred man looked at her strangely.
"But unlike your priest, my mentor is unable to be injured by the Lady s poisons. Sarii didn't realize that Talona has blessed her with protection so she can properly harm others with it.
"So Sarii tries killing her, and Sveta realizes what she had tried to do. She tried to be discrete. I think," Umolka rubbed at her chin in thought," that my mentor told me she was pricked by a needle while Sarii thought she was sleeping.
"Sveta was much younger then, so she grabbed the kid and started beating her on the backside with the staff she carries. She paused again in her long storytelling, offering another of her strange grins to the man. I've heard this story many times. Bruised the hells out of her with the thing and threatened to kill her if she was ever so stupid again.
"So Sarii left that night, and Sveta didn't see her for years. When she came back to Tyrtauros after spending some time in the north, she found that she had been accepted as an acolyte, and took High Priest many years later when the High Priest of the time was killed.
Karath looked surprised and laughed under his breath.
"By her behavior I can t say that I find this surprising, but it definitely gives me some things to think about. Name's Karath." He bowed his head slightly in a typical Thayan style of greeting. Umolka returned the greeting with another smile.
"Umolka. And your friend, what is her name?"
Karath nodded toward the silent, tall woman, who uttered her own name before turning her attention back to the small knife. "Naht."
"Anyway," Karath began to speak again, glancing up toward the roiling clouds, "I hope they're done by the time the rains roll in. I don t know about the two of you, but I don t like the idea of being sopping wet and stuck in a dead person's cot."
"Definitely sounds unpleasant. Are you a priest?" Umolka offered the scarred one a sidelong glance.
"Hm? No, no. I m in training, acolyte; I began not too long before Naht here. We're both pretty inexperienced still. I think that's why she brought us out here. We re both kind of old to be starting. But from what I've gathered, they we don t get a whole lot of new recruits." He smiled wryly and ran a hand over his scalp.
Umolka nodded knowingly, closing her eyes. She could hear, if she strained hard enough, Sarii and Sveta's argument coming to a close. The door creaked open and the two stepped out, all three of the students standing almost simultaneously in respect.
"Come on inside, then." Sarii said, stiff-lipped. "Sveta and her charge will make us supper"
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Naht's lip curled as she looked into the clay bowl, filled with a cloudy brown broth with bits of gristly meat. She looked to the druids sitting across from her with some degree of suspicion, then to the others. All of them were silently sipping from the bowls, eyes closed. With a sigh she took a tiny sip of the amazingly bitter broth. Her face screwed up in disgust.
"You need not drink if you find it foul, high-blood." Sveta's elderly voice broke the silence of slurping as she looked to the dark-skinned young woman. The irony was not lost on Umolka; Sveta had obviously been born of purely Mulan ancestry, and possessed the same shade of tanned beauty Naht did. The acolyte stuttered and shook her head, knowing that her mentor was glaring daggers at her.
Umolka continued with an explanation. "We don't always have the option of decent food while we're out in the wilds. More often than not we don't eat this well." Her explanation was that same sarcastic tone her teacher had used.
"Where," Karath interrupted, obviously attempting to be the one to bridge any gap between the two sides, "will we be burying the ashes once we burn their bodies?"
Sarii placed the empty bowl down on the floor and turned her head his way. "We'll probably just spread them over the crops. Burned bodies don't seem to continue the spread of Talona's touch, at least not most of the time. I can t say I've ever seen it happen with black tongue, at least."
"Not with black tongue. Sarii is correct. But," Sveta set her bowl in her lap and looked toward the man, "if it is one of the more virulent diseases, it would be a mistake to assume that this is always the case. There are more kinds of vicious diseases out there then even our church's handful of tomes can describe."
"Also; the three of you may sleep in here. Umolka and I will sleep outside. We do not need cots." All of them saw Umolka's shoulder slump ever so slightly on realizing she would once more be sleeping on the hard ground, though it was obvious Sveta didn't care much for her student's preference.
After finishing their broth, Umolka and Sveta excused themselves and left for the outside as quickly as possible. Once the priest and her acolytes had retired for the night, Sveta turned to the younger druid and raised a grey brow.
"Well. That job is done. I don't imagine any of them will wake up." Her voice was soft and conspiratorial, and there was a cruel smile across her face. Umolka nodded in agreement and run her hand across her eyes.
"Karath was not so bad. But this will be for the best."
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The next morning, as expected, all three lay in their cots cold as stone. The poison Sveta had placed in their broths was more swift than Umolka could have possibly imagined; their expressions still peaceful. As she dragged Karath's bed from his excrement-laden cot, she couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. This, like others, quickly passed