Karn - Visual Acuity

He found himself in the slanted hold where the anchor was kept when it was raised, and from that concealment, he peered over the capstan to survey the center square of Albiuto.

After the cold, muffled murk of the lake bed, the center of town was loud, hot, crowded, and bright. The settlement was the center of many caravan routes and was rich in commodities brought from faroff parts of Jamuraa. Soldiers milled about in laughing, arrogant clusters, their cups of ale so full they foamed down upon the planks at their feet. Torchlight glimmered from their dark faces and the irridescent scales of their lizard-skin coats. Here and there, jesters cavorted, entertaining the crowd by juggling torches and knives, singing songs, and exchanging items from their own many pockets with those of others’. Long, low benches—fat logs split down the center and laid out upon the deck—held steaming platters of pork and grilled leeks. Wagons laden with raw haunches of boar and bags of onions stood here and there about the square.

At the far end of the open space, a more orderly group of warriors clustered around a broad table where a map lay spread. Above it stood a lean, young figure, bare to the waist, his powerful physique glistening like carved onyx in the torchlight. He was poised on an upturned barrel, a cane of bamboo in one hand, with which he gestured imperiously at the map.

Despite the distance between them, Karn immediately knew this to be Vuel, rebel son of Sidar Kondo, and knew the map to be a schematic of his father’s arboreal village. Karn tuned his ears to the exact timbre of Vuel’s voice and heard the plans of war.

***

Rath and Storm: Karn's Tale