Cathlyn, Leader Of The Kaumo Uprising -transfered

[Cethegus]

transfered from old forum
Shortstory of my -then- recent character.
Wanted to play one that gets mad over time.

Her name was Cathlyn of the Kaumo people.
She was only 16, when her father died.

It was a beautiful summer day, when she found him, killed by a bear.
They were out hunting, trying to gather some furs-
the foreign traders only accepted the most valuable ones for their
rare iron items, and winter is cold.. without fur, you are done for.

Her fathers torn carcass was still loosing blood, when she,
with tears in her eyes. grabbed that little gear he carried.

She saw the tracks of the beast, but without proper weapons,
it would have been suicide to follow it.

So she left...



Twenty kilometers away, there was a village, and she entered, hoping to find help.
But there was no sign of life, only 7 dead villagers, obviously they were
fighting to protect the children.. which bodies also were here.
And then, while she was still wondering..

Has the bear been here?

Has the beast slaughtered this village too, just like her father?

She heard a sound..behind her..

Swirling around, a lynx was in front of her, and all she had as defense was
a handaxe.
The lynx attacked, and Cathlyn desperatly tried to kill the maneater.

Just when the lynx pushed her to the ground, and tore open her arm, she risked
everything, and tried to hit its head.

And she hit. The lynx immediatly went to the ground, unconcious.

Nearly mad because of the pain in her arm, she hacked, and hacked on the animals skull, and finally it died.
She was out of breath, hungry, and out of options, so she cut it up, and made a fire in the village's former sauna. The smell of the roasting lynx was demonic...



For three days, she stayed first, burning the houses with theyr owners, in order to give them a fire burial- for some reason, she didnt dare to move the bodies...

After that, she looked around the village..and realised it was surrounded by fields-
all where sown!
If she would survive till harvest time, she would be out of problems for winter!
The only problem was having food NOW. The roasted lynx pieces wouldnt last forever.

So she started cutting her clothes into pieces, smiling when she thought how she would look like afterwards- half naked, and full of blood.. like a mad amazon.
She made some loop snares out of her clothes, and set up some small traps-
as the village area was open, it would be very likely that animals would cross.



She rebuild the village sauna, the only building she didnt burn to the ground-
as it had saved her life, probably. And called it her temporary "home".

On the 8th day, she encountered a Njerpez. Quite surprisingly.
She just had made a grainflail,to ensure herself that she would survive till harvest time..a symbol of hope, a crude one.
The Njerpez shouted at her, and drew a sword, grinning,
telling her that he would eat her heart.
Little Cathlyn shivered in fear, and tried to run; but the Njerpez followed her.. and when she reached the point where running would not help her anymore, she decided to stand against this threat too.
And she wondered...
WHY did the Njerpez always have the best foreign equipment?
IRON, everywhere, but for the tribes..

Little Cathlyn was lucky, one of her hits broke the Njerpez arm, and the raider turned and ran..
She followed him..maybe he had some hidden staff somewhere.. or why would the warrior be alone in the woods?
Some berry bushes entered her view..and she realised she had lost the Njerpez tracks because of them.
She sighed..well, at least she was still alive. Again. So she turned around, in order to get back to "home", when the Njerpez entered her view. He had a knive, and he was VERY upset.
"You pay. You die. I will do bad things to you corpse. And then i will search family, and kill too."

And that was the point where something broke in Cathlyn, for the second time.

5 minutes later, the Njerpez was crawling away from her. With her grainflail, she had broken both his arms and legs. He was in great pain, but Cathlyn waited, she just followed him for a while, taking her time, watching him..and when she had enough, she smashed his skull.
The Njerpez carried some food, and a mug, which would allow her to carry water around. She spit on the corpse, and went home.

The next two weeks she was busy, making traps out of the njerpez clothes, collecting stones for a cellar, maybe she would catch something bigger than a black grouse, and the meat would otherwise spoil!


On the day following the finished cellar, she climbed a nearby mountain, and there they were.
Foreigners, carrying theyr distinct blue clothes. She hurried down into the former village, gathering the 4 furs and the fine snake leather she had.. if she was lucky, they would have a bow!
The 3 traders were roaming around nearby, chattering, laughing, and.. felling trees.. in order to stay fit, they told her, grinning.
One of the traders asked her about the sword she was carrying:
"Hey young girl.. thats a fine blade you have. I sold that just recently; stole it?"
She realised..the foreign traders werent good angels that brought the great iron tools..
they just traded with everyone. And that included the menace of the Njerpez.
Also...
the furs she had werent good enough for them.. "We want good furs! Got them? No? Then get lost!"
And she left.. for home.

On the way, a plan rose in her head. Those traders were going to pay.



The only trap she hadnt done till now was her fathers speciality. A pit..with deadly spikes on the bottom. So she carved a shovel. It was ugly, but with sweat, she made 3 pits, just on the crossing of her small fence and her house.

Then, she grabbed her 2 knives, and left everything at home that wasnt utterly necessary. Including her clothes, that was everything except her knives.

Silently, she approached the traders. One was asleep, and the other two didnt notice her.
She weighed the blade in her hands..aimed..and threw it.

And missed. Damn.

The second blade, beeing her last hope, hit the sleeping trader, not doing any damage, but he jumped up, and saw her.
"YOU DAMN BROAD! COME HERE MATES! THE GIRL WANTS TO DIE!".

She ran, arrows hitting trees on her side..but she made it to the fence..and jumped into the house, closing the door, and quickly grabbed the sword-
altough she had barely an idea how to use it.
Would they be so stupid?


They were. Three sounds of crashing pits came to her ears, and she opened the door, sneaking outside. All three were in the traps!


Two were unconcious, but the third had a pierced leg, and tried to talk to her:
"Listen! Help me, please! I will not kill you!".
"Recognize that sword?", she asked, "just little time ago, someone tried to kill me with it. A Njerpez. You sold it to him, didnt you?".
"THATS CALLED BUSINESS, YOU WHORE!", the trader yelled.

"Yeah..i understand. And.. as it is your property..i will give it back to you", Cathlyn answered.



The day after, Cathlyn woke up happily, feeling as one with the world.
Equipped with several iron items, including a pretty neat hunting bow, and armor pieces, she aimed for the neighbouring cities of the driik. The trading tribe.. the tribe that owned more than three quarters of all iron of the inhemo.
She wanted to trade food, and get questions answered:
Why didnt the driik help the other tribes against the Njerpez?
Why didnt the driik throw the traders out?
And..did they also trade with the Njerpez?

For a whole week, she traveled in the driik territory. And as she saw all the riches, and asked questions, she realised that the driik were as bad as the Njerpez, and as bad as the foreigners. Opportunists...
Two cities even had walls; a fortified outpost- and the capital.. thirty people lived here, they had pigs, cows, and every piece of iron you could imagine. And prices..were HIGH.

Cathlyn was hungry. So she stole from a field, and ate the hemp leaves raw. The next day, no driik village would let her in- someone must have seen her stealing.
She tried to explain that it had been just some leaves out of hunger, but the driik guards just raised theyr bows, and told the "Barbarian scumgirl" to leave immediatly.
And so, Cathlyn went back- to her people, to the kaumo.




Half a year passed, and Cathlyn lived, and one day, she also was able to get revenge for her father- when she was with some partners out hunting, and met a bear; maybe not the one that had killed her father, but a big one at least.

She had made a plan, and when she had assembled a group of ten people, she led an attack on a nearby njerpez village.
Loosing only one partner, they gathered a lot of weapons, and food, and armor. As she was the hunting party leader, it was up to her to decide what to do with that...



Cathlyn assembled an army.
Cathlyn equipped an army.
Cathlyn fed an army.
An army, that grew every day
(sidenote. regular crashes, the first ones i ever experienced due to having 30+ party members..)
and that was clothed in IRON.

Every foreign trader they met, and every Njerpez, would not survive to warn others.
Cathlyn grew a habit, just like the Njerpez had threatened her to do, she ate one piece of every dead enemy.. to gain his strength..
They still lived in the former village, which was by now a fenced and heavily trapped area.


And on the first day of the second year,
when Cathlyn had assembled enough soldiers,
and everyone had at least a sword, they went west.
(It was a HELL of work to organize that.
Asking for names/telling to stay did help, altough^^)


One driik village after another fell, and they set up camp in the walled outpost.
The fires of the burning villages rose high in the sky, and Cathlyn knew that now, only one big target was left- the smaller villages would fall sooner or later; the land hadnt seen an army for decades.
And as they let no one escape, no one knew her army even existed.

The capitol.



They went in, hidden by the night. Cathlyn set up a fire in the towns entrance, blocking the way out.. and of course, a townsmen approached: "Hey! You are not allowed to make a fire on our property!".

"I know.", Cathlyn answered, and shot her arrow in the man's head.
Her army, afraid as always when she went..strange..refused to have anything to do with her actions.. but when the towns soldiers came, and tried to attack her, her army charged.


The battle took an hour; Cathlyn herself killed a men,
2 children, and theyr mothers.
(48 corpses...combat logs of 6 to 15 pages each turn...lag from hell...)

And when every one was dead, and Cathlyn sat on the ground,
not able to stand due to her injuries..she said..

"One final day, i hope they kill me. So i might find peace."
And roasted her first human cut of this town.

[Marlowez]

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