Drinna

By Jared Gullage

The rage can be a powerful ally or a treacherous enemy.

 

Drinna, a young kunjel, awakes alone and poorly prepared for survival in the vast Sea of Grass. This wasteland is a dangerous place even for those ready to face it—filled with vicious creatures and deadly plants and little water—but all she has is her wits and learning to navigate through. And someone, or something, is stalking her.

 

In addition to being alone and in danger, Drinna is getting ready to undergo Trakia, a ritual in which kunjels learn to control their ability to rage. Without this sacred training, will she be able to control herself and find her way home? Or will the dreaded rage overwhelm her and lead her to her peril?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Champagne Book Group
• Release date: Nov 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781771552745

Jared Gullage

I am a writer, and I think I always have been. Even if I wasn't working to become published, I'd probably still be writing. Mostly, I enjoy fantasy, because it allows me the ability to show parts of ourselves in a place where it blends with parts of our imagination. I currently reside in the Southeastern USA, and am a teacher of High School English, or American Literature. I am seeking to introduce my world of Trithofar to the world.

Book preview

Drinna

JARED GULLAGE

CHAMPAGNE BOOK GROUP

Drinna

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Published by Champagne Book Group

2373 NE Evergreen Avenue, Albany OR 97321 U.S.A.

~~~

First Edition 2020

eISBN: 978-1-77155-274-5

Copyright © 2020 Jared Gullage All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Jeania Schmalhorst

Champagne Book Group supports copyright which encourages creativity and diverse voices, creates a rich culture, and promotes free speech. Thank you by complying by not scanning, uploading, and distributing this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher. Your purchase of an authorized electronic edition supports the author’s rights and hard work and allows Champagne Book Group to continue to bring readers fiction at its finest.

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Version_1

To My Sister, After Mom Passed.

Imagine if we waited at the door

Never sallied forth forever more.

If we never stirred from our bed,

What makes us differ from the dead?

If we watch only from the precipice

Of mother and father’s shaking nest,

What new world could ever be?

Nothing to go and nowhere to see.

Why stay tangled in our thorns,

Or stand looking up at storms?

We cannot wait nor can we stay

In the places where we dismay.

What good is the waking world

When, in our pasts, we stay curled?

Heaven, in us, does not despise,

the living, renewed, to newly rise.

The gift we give to parents passed away:

Their work’s done, so we can live today.

Dear Reader:

This book has been a bit of a passion project for me. Literally. It deals with the idea of emotions and their proper place in our lives. The character of Drinna is a person who must learn the value of controlling herself, as well as when it is appropriate to use her emotions to help her.

As a teacher, I see, all too often, people who either stifle and choke on their emotions, in an attempt to seem stalwart and dignified, or, more commonly, they who feel their emotions are their true selves, and unleash them on others like someone letting slip the dogs of war. I do not think either handling of the complex world of our emotions is appropriate. Ideally, people should come to a balance with their emotions, much like one would sit a horse.

Yes, the beast beneath us is powerful and can take us places swiftly, but the rider must be in control, and the rider must determine where this powerful animal will take us. It is a bad day when the rider allows the beast to run rampant. May we all be people with emotions, not emotions with people.

Jared

Chapter One

Awake

Drinna slapped an insect on her cheek and woke herself. All at once every part of her itched. Sweat beaded in horrible tingles. Bug bites flamed on her skin, and a rash formed like islands in sensitive places. Something poked her back, legs and even her face, as though she were sleeping on hay, no matter how she tried to brush it away.

She rolled onto her back and groaned, desperately clinging to sleep despite her discomfort and the inevitable morning light, not wanting to feed and water japalen or get breakfast going. Her feet, shins, stomach, and arms itched mercilessly. Without opening her eyes, she scratched, but it proved to be like beating down a brush fire with a wet handkerchief. After she attacked one place, ten more itches erupted. She broke the skin. She moaned at the sunshine and blue sky above her.

Sunshine? Blue sky? No hay, or down, or even her own little pallet in the back of the wagon. She woke on grass. The little green stalks poked her everywhere­ through her sheer nightshirt.

Where am I?

She sat up.

The world spun, and her stomach roiled. She groaned, doubled over, and put her hands on her knees. Waiting—always the worst part. The grass blurred and warped in front of her. Her head would crack open at any moment. She knew it would.

Uuggghhh! She groaned, wishing the throwing up would come and be over. At least she would feel better. Where am I? she said again, only momentarily able to ignore the aches and pains, and glanced around. She squinted, then stood. She scratched her arms instinctively, as though against her will.

No camp sounds. Anywhere.

Her mother didn’t ask, Are you all right, Drinnabi? nor did she scold with Wake up, Lazy Rock! It’s blue sky already. Water buckets didn’t rattle or clunk about, and no beasts slurped at them. The pots and pans didn’t sizzle and boil over a smoky campfire. No laughter or singing rang out.

Her parents wouldn’t camp alone, and most other people liked camping near kunjels. People think camping near kunjels is good luck. Really, it’s that we believe in the Protector, and watch out after everyone, her father told her once.

So, there ought to be people around, Drinna reasoned.

Only grass waved like gently lapping waves in the wind. The sky shone clear and blue, without even a cloud to keep the sun out of her eyes. When she finally stopped blinking and bending over sick, she discovered no signs of civilization anywhere. No roads. No houses. No fences.

Everything looks the same as always, she said. I’m still in the Sea of Grass, but how did I get so far out into it? Where’s the road? What happened?

She remembered trying to fish out bits of dried meat from a barrel in the back of the wagon with her hands bound at the wrists. The jostling of the wagon shook three pieces from her grasp, and each one found its way between the floorboard slats, so she eventually gave up. Then the wagon stopped suddenly, and…she couldn’t remember anymore.

"Juhafftrād?" a voice echoed in her mind. So clearly it rang out now she couldn’t be sure she didn’t hear it again. A memory only. It made no sense, but she thought it sounded familiar.

Was it even a word?

Juhafftrād? She said it out loud as though it were somehow important. In her mind, the voice spoke in a low, guttural, monstrous growl. It didn’t even sound like a word at all, but rather a grunt.

Okay, she mumbled, I’m in the Sea of Grass, alone, itching to death. She turned around full circle. Did I rage? Did someone leave me here?

The twine her mother used to bind her wrists had fallen off, replaced by angry, red marks.

It’s just in case you rage in the back of the wagon, her mother said. It’ll give us a little time to get ready.

Drinna assured her she’d never rage against them. Her mother cinched the knots tight with a quick jerk.

Drinna’s head throbbed, and she stopped remembering. The wagon still did not materialize, nor did the road or anything else civilized or useful.

She scratched herself all over as each part begged her attention. Legs, arms, belly, head. Angry red welts erupted in lines along her flesh.

Maybe I did rage and ran out of the wagon. They told me I’d be raging soon, but they never told me about itching or bumps. Again, she examined her wrists. I broke the twine. Am I that strong?

Little clusters of aburon trees, not very tall, huddled like frightened families around her. She plopped down beside one of these in what shade it gave. The ground and grass felt cooler here, and the trees’ flexible trunks bent against and around her backside like a proper seat. Their smooth bark didn’t scratch at her nightshirt, and the big, jagged-edged leaves blocked most of the sun.

She took some of those leaves and, without thinking, rubbed them against her sore and itchy places. Then she did the same with dirt from around the base of the trees. She sighed, then she purred. The itching subsided enough so she could think now.

I’m going to need a hat.

Like a spider, with her knees up in the air, she set to weaving some of the leaves and twigs together until she made a big circle. Several times, she stopped and measured her head with her fingers, carefully lowering her hands down over the hat. She bit her lower lip and squinted at her work, sometimes stuck out her tongue, while pushing leaf stems into place, making sure the leaves overlapped and all faced the same direction—for some reason that mattered—until she constructed a serviceable, broad-brimmed hat for herself. She crowned herself ‘Queen of Wherever’ and stood up to test her crafting. It fit comfortably enough and did well to block the sun, so she smiled.

If you are ever lost, pick a useful task and do it, her mother told her once when they were hunting together. Find some task that needs doing, something you can manage. It will calm you and occupy your time for a moment so you can think. And lastly, she said, pointing with her skinning knife, it’ll solve at least one problem.

Her mother was right. Simply making a hat took her mind from panic’s jaws.

Losing hope is lethal, her mother told her.

Drinna would not allow herself to lose hope. Now, I need something else useful to do, she said, perusing the horizon.

As useful as aburon trees were to kunjels back in civilization, they could do no more for her now. The grass around her? Inedible Fool’s Food everywhere. If you ate it, you’d starve to death feeling full.

Her stomach rumbled, so finding food and water became the next two useful tasks. She figured she could find food easily enough. Thievesfoil and daggerberries grew around here, somewhere, even though the berries would be green and sour this time of year. If lucky, she might scare up a few flusses, little flying mouse creatures, and eat those, along with bugs, mice, or any other creatures she could find.

Losing hope is lethal, she whispered. Even so, a small fear still stalked her. The Sea of Grass did not tolerate the unprepared or the stupid. People who lived in it knew this well. And she could not have been more poorly prepared. She hoped she would not be stupid.

The Great Easterwester Highway, or what the kunjels sometimes called The Great Handshake, carved its way through the Sea of Grass as one of the only safe passages. This heavily trafficked road went west from the city of Waldoris in Thortinis, Drinna’s homeland, until it reached Coth on the western side of the continent of Frosomia. For hundreds of miles, that single road stretched through unremarkable hills covered in grass and scrub, each as useless as the next. Almost no one lived in the middle of the Sea. Nearer either end of the highway, small towns and villages thrived, perhaps an inn or two further out. Folks did try to tame the Sea of Grass, establish civilization out somewhere in the middle, but the Sea of Grass remained wild, untamed, and dangerous.

Every bit as dry and lethally stagnant as a desert, people said it only grew what it wanted to grow, and it forgot water and storms quickly. Water soaked into the grass, and any standing water, the grass covered over and buried, becoming what the kunjels called a trapsump, into which animals and people fell to drown, tangled in grass and roots. Storms rose up with sudden frequency during the late summer— fortunately a while from now—and made travel across the Sea impractical and dangerous.

The grass extended over holes and pits, some of which would simply break a leg or turn an ankle. Others formed tombs waiting to be filled with the bodies of unwary people. No one would ever find Drinna in such a place. Most of the grass out here, where it grew thick, reached up to a person’s knee or higher, even to the waist.

Of course, if the prairie itself didn’t get her, the wildlife might. Lems, vors, gremlins, and hials all lurked out here, somewhere. All of them ate whatever they could catch, and Drinna might be that very whatever. The only knowledge she had of these things were the stories her father told her about them, so she might not readily recognize their sign.

I can’t worry about it. I’m probably near the highway. I won’t have to deal with this much longer. I’ll be back on the road in no time. Now then, which way?

Go the wrong way, and she might cross the continent before finding civilization again. North or south seemed like the only good choices, if she didn’t want to walk a couple hundred miles either east or west.

I’ll scout around, she decided. That’s the next thing. Since the ridge circled around she could walk along the top of it and perhaps get a view without getting lost or wasting precious time, food, and water. Maybe I’ll see something.

She left the shade of the aburons and, adjusting her new hat, crept to the top of the hill behind her. Pride surged within her. One task at a time. She survived. She did not even feel dizzy anymore and could ignore the itching. She used the knowledge her parents gave her. Hours of boring lectures finally made sense, finally had use. Like having a sword you never got to use for anything and suddenly having a battle for it.

The top of the hill revealed…unending hills of more grass. More trees, and here and there bushes growing together in little green dots. Nothing. Still no sign of people.

She slid her ears forward, so they flipped out and scraped along the edge of the hat. The wind hissed through the grass. Distant birds flapped along overhead, completely ignoring her. Grass-hopping insects, like driggits, called with a rising and falling buzz.

Momentarily, she ignored her situation to absorb this strange and dangerous beauty. If not lost, she’d have suggested this very spot to have prayer and meditations before lunch. Her mother would gather up some herbs and burn them in the metal brazier. Her father would use the tip of his sword to draw a sacred square around the entire family. They’d sit and pray for the Protector’s blessings over each other, father to mother, mother to daughter, daughter over each of them. The last time they’d done this, Drinna’s heart wandered. She had been eager to reach Coth, to see the Riving Ocean, the strange markets. She’d said a cursory prayer, her thoughts on spices and music and friends she’d see again.

How did I get this far out? She turned in place. We never come this far away from the road or the wagon.

Every foot of wind-blown grassland between her and something was one more step to take. Many, many steps.

I’ll have to find something. The Sea is huge, but it can’t hide the whole world, she said. Kunjels often talked to themselves, particularly while alone, keeping themselves company.

There’s plenty more ridge to explore, she convinced herself, before pushing her way through shin-high grass. Only Fool’s Food. Inedible, but you could travel through it. Puregrass patches, where only one type of grass grew with any abundance, would be best for traveling. Fool’s Food, sweetgrass, wheat grass, suntouch, zewkgrass, or any of the other benign grasses rarely tolerated the intrusion of the more dangerous types like itchgrass, sting grass, footblade, or tangleweed.

Who doesn’t know what sweetgrass looks like? she said, remembering and reciting what her father once showed her. Fool’s Food? I know what that looks like too. Sting grass has blood on the blade, red edges. Footblade looks like a saw. Tangleweed’s like hair in the morning, growing in every direction. Itchgrass… I’m not sure I know what that looks like. I think sort of dark green, dark with poison. I’ll have to be careful. Can’t scratch, no matter how bad it itches, and it itches bad.

About a quarter of the way around the little bowl-shaped valley, while still recounting to herself, she found a swath of freshly trampled grass. A trail. How did she miss it before? Almost everywhere, the years and years of grass grew woven together like the side of a basket, but here the land lay gouged open.

Not much to go on, but she tracked along it as best she could, down the other side of the hill, trying to get some idea of what could have made it and which direction it went. Maybe her path, but maybe not. She tried to eliminate what couldn’t have done this and what could have before assuming she found her own trail.

If nerns, mefs, or japalen did it, they would have left more sign. Nerns, quill-covered green sheep, usually ate as much as they could before something scared them back into the itchgrass. No dung or hoof prints or paw prints lay anywhere. Mefs kicked up dirt when they hopped along, and they left broken grass stalks and smushed bushes where they landed. Both these animals traveled in herds and never single file. A gremlin trail could mean trouble, but they, too, didn’t hide themselves overmuch. In fact, the big viciouses, the middle-aged males and females, the meanest of a raid of gremlins, marked the trail with piss to scare off enemies and entice mates.

The more she followed this path, the more hopeful she grew. Something to do, a direction to go, and enough to excite her, but what if it didn’t lead to the highway?

It has to be my trail. It’ll lead me back. It must be the right way. What else is out here? What else could have done this?

Her hopes rose as she went downhill again. She pulled at what memories she could to help make sense of this.

~ * ~

Her family left Coth, the great western port of the country of Cheyn, on the western edge of the entire continent of Frosomia nearly a month earlier than normal. They’d only begun setting up the wagon for sales, her mother getting out the spidersilk and grassweave clothing and cloth, the gremlin products like grellum and the earbone chopsticks and the bone plates. Her father did not even get out the balance, with all its little gilded weights, ready to measure the roots and fruits and herbs and spices from Thortinis.

Drinna has to go back home. We can’t stay here with her, he declared over their supper in the Sunrose Inn.

Drinna had growled at her mother earlier that day. Not a groan or a whimper or a mutter, not a whine or complaint, but a throaty, snarling growl. It came out when her mother told her to clean up the wagon before supper and pushed her toward her task.

The first sign of the rage, her father called it, and it meant she would now have to undergo the ritual of Trakia. We have to get her to a proper rage house, he said. There aren’t any trakisen out here, nor any priests I trust enough.

The process, what she heard about it, made her shiver and fear. Without arranging to join another caravan, without talking to any knights for escort, Drinna’s parents set about packing. Her father left them a moment to bring back another merchant they’d traveled with out of Waldoris to buy their stock at only about half price. The understanding merchant, himself a kunjel, offered her father more money, though, which gave some relief.

Her father scared her, saying, ‘we just don’t have time’ and ‘she could rear up at any moment for any reason,’ then loaded her onto the family’s wagon and before the next day’s dawn, rumbled onto the Great Handshake on the arduous weeks-long journey east toward home.

Papa did not even count the money he’d gotten from the kind merchant. I don’t care.

While Mama tied her wrists and explained, Drinna tried to talk a path out of the whole thing. She began with the rumors she’d heard about Trakia from friends and cousins.

Oh, they don’t starve you, Drinna, her mother replied. Wherever did you hear such nonsense?

Lēonish told me. Lēonish was her friend in Westhunt Wolch, her hometown, the son of some farmers who did business with her parents. He said his brothers came back home nearly starved to death. His older brother, Jānon, ate five whole roasted gremlins when he got through.

They give you food. Her mother sighed, tying knots like a sailor. Not too much, though, so your rage stays weak and they can manage you. That’s all. You don’t starve, or no one would survive it.

But they chain you to a wall, don’t they? Lēonish told me they chain you to a wall in a smelly dungeon for a month. In a dungeon in the church. Have you ever thought about having a dungeon in a church?

Well, it’s true about the chains. Most trakisen are in churches, and it’s not a room in an inn. You’re supposed to want to get out of it. All that’s true. But how long you stay there really depends on how long it takes to control yourself. I got through Trakia in about a week and a half. Your father took a little longer. Her mother poked her father’s shoulder, and they both smiled. Some children take a month. Some children take even longer, Drinna. But Lēonish ought not to talk about it, and his brothers should be quiet, too. It’s dishonorable to scare people for fun, and inappropriate to talk about Trakia when you’re not in it yet.

He just explained it to me. That’s all. Why shouldn’t I know?

Part of Trakia is learning to trust people and learning not to worry. Worry makes women rage. In any event, the more prepared you are for it, the harder it is to get through it. It’s supposed to be frightening and worrisome, to get you to rage more often, to get you to learn how to control it.

I don’t understand.

Well, controlling the rage is a lot like controlling your bowels. When you were young, you sklutted yourself, but eventually, you learned to feel it coming, didn’t you? And when that happened, you knew to go off somewhere and release it, didn’t you? I assume you have, as I’ve not been cleaning up after you for a while.

Of course, Mama, Drinna said, giggling.

Well, the rage is like that, but different too. The rage is something you make happen, when you need it. You draw it like a weapon, and you only draw a weapon when you need it. It’s like, um….

You know how people train gremlins to help them hunt and to be pets? Papa said. Drinna nodded. The rage is like a trained gremlin. It protects you from harm and can be sicced on prey or enemies that need a good whooping, her father explained. He grabbed her by her arm and shook her a little, and she laughed again.

But why do we have to go all the way back to Waldoris? We don’t have enough water, do we? What about food? The thought of hard tack or nothing but sweetgrass for near half a month almost made her growl again. The least they could do was buy a bucket or two of mice or flusses or smoked meat or dried fish.

Well, if you keep eating all our food, we won’t have much, said her mother. Water, we can pick up in the Blackbird Inn or crush with our press in the mornings. We have to go back to Waldoris, though.

But why? Don’t they have walls to chain me to in Coth? I’ll bet they have a good and smelly dungeon there, too.

You have to go through Trakia in Waldoris, Drinna, among kunjels, her father declared in his I-am-right voice. I can’t take you to Coth and have you rearing up at people. There’s a good Trakis in Waldoris; I went through Trakia there, and your mother did, and they’ll get you through just fine. I promise.

But Papa, what if I just promise not to rage? Drinna said.

That’s the Child’s Promise, Drinna. Everyone makes it, and everyone breaks it. I made it. Your mama made it. Both of us broke it. You will too. It may be the only promise that’s not dishonorable to make and break.

But why should I rage? she whined later, thinking up more reasons not to go back. I’m used to Coth. I’ve gone there all my life, haven’t I? I’ve got friends there, too.

The rage comes. It just does. You’re a kunjel, explained her father. That day, like most on the road, he wore his old vest and the battered grass hat he made as a matter of tradition on each trip. He left his beard disheveled. Drinna always giggled at his hairy legs visible through his tattered trousers.

He snapped the reins, as if talk of the rage made him anxious to get home all the faster, but it only hurried the long-necked japalen for a few seconds, before their long trunk-shaped legs and thick-padded feet slowed to their normal, thumping pace. The two beasts kept their heads up so they could see the hills over the grass, their leaf-shaped ears scooping at the wind and their lashing tongues tasting it. Drinna volunteered, whenever they stopped, to offer them buckets of water, so she could run her hands along their thick, stiff-haired, scaly hides. She held sweetgrass up and let them scoop it into their mouths with their front bladetooth.

He dressed like this when he traveled; comfortable, though giving the appearance of poverty. Unenvy clothes. Drinna’s many unenvy clothes awaited her in Waldoris. Sometimes, she bought new clothes in Coth with her mother, particularly if trade went well. You could wear good clothes to ceremonies or a wedding or to church, and you could wear them when you sold things, but merchants and working people did not think it right to show their success through clothing on the road, where you had to work and live life. Kunjels wore functional, comfortable clothing that fit well and displayed modesty to the world until the clothes could not be worn any longer.

You don’t know what it’s like, Drinnabi, her mother said, using the pet name again. Who knows what might trigger it? You might smell something unpleasant. Someone might sneer at you, or say something stupid, trying to be funny. You might get to worrying about pickpockets. Worrying about Trakia in Waldoris is bad enough.

The day rolled along. Big, billowy clouds wandered the horizon, casting shadows over the farms and villages both tiny in the distance. The finality of coming to the edge of this populated area, watching it wave goodbye to them now, crept into Drinna’s heart.

Her mother wore her billowy spider-silk dress, the yellow dress the wind loved to ruffle and tousle. It matched well with her green and blonde hair like Drinna’s. She kept her bow in her lap, the one for riding in the wagon, the quiver of arrows between her knees. She watched for wild gremlins, Drinna assumed. She could not wait to learn how to shoot a bow from her mother, an excellent shot. She could have been a huntress back in Westhunt Wolch.

The wagon sang its creaky, groany song, the same song it always sang, but now it seemed sad and disappointed against the quiet. The lovely sky spread wide and clear and proud. Overhead, the sun shone. A fine day, too nice a day to be thinking about misery. It should have been cloudy. Rain would have been better.

She tried for hope even here. Maybe going through Trakia wouldn’t be so bad if it meant she’d learn to read and shoot a bow soon after. It couldn’t last forever, could it? She’d have more privileges. She could help more with selling. She convinced herself her parents would let her explore the city, too, once she’d earned her confirmation bracelet, the ankia, which showed she’d conquered herself and could be trusted.

It’s better for a kunjel to be among kunjels when Trakia starts, her mother reasserted, plucking at the bowstring: the answer to every protest. They don’t have a Trakis in Coth. Father Vallinor is a good man, but he’s no calmist, and he doesn’t work with children going through Trakia. The treaties demand kunjels be confirmed before they live in Coth.

~ * ~

Drinna tripped over some big, dark object in her path. She jumped, screamed, and landed on her rump.

Instantly, she turned and scrambled away from…whatever she’d stumbled upon. She could not understand what she saw, and the stink of fresh death overwhelmed her.

She coughed and yelped. The pain in her wrists and backside completely disappeared. She reeled in confusion and the world spun.

A body!

Someone’s body lay in her path.

That much her mind sorted.

A thought, a single, simple, strangling thought took hold of her.

What if I hurt them? What if I…?

Her mind turned and twisted itself into knots. It tore through her memories, recreating the last few days of her life, like someone tearing the pages from a book and putting them together again all wrong.

The wagon stopped. She remembered…

Something in the way.

Nothing.

Awake.

Alone.

Now, a body lay in her path. A person’s body.

Her muscles tensed. Her stomach lurched. She shook her head and breathed, balled up her hands into fists.

She hunched over, snarling, growling.

I didn’t…but what if I did…I didn’t…but what if…?

Hardly words, little more than guttural, grunting noises only she understood, gushed out from her like violent spurts of vomit.

Her jaw clenched. Every muscle flexed.

Blackness.

~ * ~

The horizon blazed a deep red orange in one direction and brooded a deep, star-dotted blue in the other. Dizziness, itching, and a pounding headache descended with the night, as though Drinna wore a cloak of misery. Biting flies buzzed round her head and arms, the kind that came at dusk to orbit your head and chewed on you if you let them.

Somehow, she’d bruised the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands.