Jazin Greyhide - Introduction

Manaz azhik, as we say in Darine. My name is Jazin Karizadi, that is Greyhide from the colour of our wagons. You may think that you know all about the Darine from what you have heard others say; I would say forget all that you think you know. We are a proud people, but we are not tied to a place like you; ours is the road, the land and the sky, even on a day like today when it is, as we say, miki mazar, hammering us with rain!

Rain is dangerous. You keep your eyes half-shut, your head down, your mind on where you will be resting rather than what is on the road ahead. That’s what happened to my tribe once, as we were on our way to our next resting place. We wanted to stay dry, keep warm; soon, however, the mud got thicker and our wagons started to stick in it. The horses pulled, whips cracked, men shouted and swore. Distractions, always distractions. We had no idea what was waiting for us.

They killed two of us in the first volley of arrows; Uncle Adizar and his oldest son Rami. We pressed our faces to the floor of our wagon as more arrows came through the hides. Yaikar my oldest brother grabbed a sword and joined the menfolk to defend the women and children. I peered through the hide to see what was going on. It was goblins all right; and not a few hobgoblins with them. They came rushing out of cover, splashing through the mud, screaming their battle cries, swinging their huge rusty, notch-bladed swords. Our men were good but there were too many of the monsters; soon the fighting was going on by the very wagons themselves.

Suddenly, the hides were ripped aside and something huge leapt up and into the wagon. I’d never seen a hobgoblin up close before. He said something in his uncouth tongue and grinned, his yellow fangs glinting in the meagre light. I could smell the stink of his breath from where I lay. Minari and Aramina cowered behind me; my mother and Zaidin were further back, hurling pots at the intruder, who batted them aside as if they were insects. Behind him, I could see more leering faces, baying out in glee. The hobgoblin raised his sword to strike me down – I was the only man in the wagon. And then something happened. Something flashed and flashed again and the faces were gone. The hobgoblin noticed that I was staring past him and half-turned; I took my chance and wrapped myself around his stinking leg. He stumbled, glanced down, raised his arm to strike and then fell heavily through the hides and slid down into the mud. There was blood all over his neck and chest.

A figure leapt after him and over him and I saw a sword, sticky and red, rising and falling, thrusting and lunging, sending goblins into the mud. The figure was a blur of movement in the rain; I never knew someone could move so fast.

My father climbed up into the wagon, asking if everyone was all right. We all nodded, and he jumped out again, shouting to others, checking to see who was still alive.

We had lost Adizar and Rami, and my father’s cousins Kobizan and Marikor. My brother Yaikar was hurt and two wagon horses had been killed. But when we saw how many goblins and hobgoblins had been attacking us, we knew that we had escaped lightly. The figure who had done so much to help us pulled back a damp green hood and the light glinted on long chestnut hair. My father muttered “Kadizai”, which is the Darine word for the Warriors of the Wilds. You may know them as Rangers.

The kadizai introduced herself as Danika. She explained that she had been tracking the band of goblins for some days and thought that she had lost them in the rain. Then she came across the ambush site and did not hesitate to attack. She also told us that the hobgoblin who had climbed into our wagon was their warband leader, and that he had brothers who needed to be found and killed. She could not stay long; she had work to do but she helped us get the wagons free from the mud and observed with us the washing and the three bindings, our ritual for the dead.

It has been a good few years since the ambush but I have thought often of Danika-zin and the way that she helped us. I wanted to be as fast as she was, as brave, as keen with a sword. Kadizai wear the wilderness like a cloak, moving through it as if they were a wind.

My family have not forgotten it either and now they feel that it would be good for the Greyhides to have someone like that in the tribe, to defend us if something like that were to befall us again. The Darine need good fighters. We asked on the road and word came to us that she had last been heard of at the mountain town of Threshold. The closest our tribe was going was Verge, so that is where I bade them farewell and took the road north.