The second greatest horse thief in the Empire

[hullukoira]

Tämä tarina pulpahti mieleeni kun luin welffien armeijakirjasta että päästäkseen kiinni aitoon haltiahevoseen, hevosvarkaan tulisi olla erittäin rohkea ja onnekas (sivu 23, glade riders, kappale 3). Päätin välittömästi kirjoittaa tarinan ylös. Tarina on englanniksi, koskapa se tuli mieleeni englanniksi! Mutta nyt tarinaan...





The second greatest horse thief in the Empire


Heinrich Horsmouth, the second greatest horse thief in the Empire, sneaked quietly through trees and shrubs. The famed forest of Loren around him was silent, the trees barren of leaf. For it was nigh winter, and the cool air was pregnant with the promise of snow.

Heinrich was clothed in a ludicrous garb. His trousers and jacket were of brown leather dabbed with green paint. Into his black woollen cloack and hood were sewn multitude of dead leaves and thin, dead branches. And upon his face, a black mask, such as you could see a thespian sporting whilst playing the part of a villain in a theatric act.

There was a sound like muffled laughter coming from the woodland around Heinrich. He had spotted it some time earlier but had stoically ignored it. Just some squirrels, no doubt. After all the peasants living on the edges of Loren did say that animals of the fabled forest could speak...

'My dear squirrels and groundhogs,' Heinrich whispered as he made his way deeper into the forest. There were no paths as such, but the nearness of winter had opened the shrubbery to errant travellers. 'You might wonder why a man of the Empire trespassess into your forest, and you would rightly do so. Well, I tell you why. For you see, I am the second greatest horse thief in all of the Empire and I am on my way to becoming The greatest. My intent? No less than to sneak into the first elven hall I happen upon, and thence, steal a real elven steed!'

The muffled rustlings coming from around Heinrich halted suddenly, so he hastened to continue his speech. 'Aye, the second greatest horse thief I may be, but only because Kurt, damn him, managed to steal a pegasus from a Bretonnian noble! Noble deed indeed, you say? Hah, petty it was in my books. For what is it to a man to infiltrate a Bretonnian household, and then FLY away with his catch? Eh? And as the noble in question had no other pegasi, he could not very well give chase! Bah! Any could do such deed. But to steal an elven horse, that is another thing entirely.

'I have gathered information about this forest for months, my dear squirrels and hedgehogs,' continued Heinrich. 'That I have. And from the tales of old farmhands and the sayings of ancient midwives I have gathered that a) most woodland elves fall into slumber, a hibernation if you will, during the cold season, and b) that the elves of the forest like to keep their horses near them.'

There was a couch, such as you would hear when a person tries very hard to keep from laughing, stuffing his fist into his mouth as he does so. This was at the point where Heinrich mentioned the hibernating habits of the wood elves. Winking to himself inside his leaven hood, Heinrich continued his tale as he increased his pace.

'Aye, they sleep away the winter months these elves of yours! No wonder then that they are rarely seen when there is snow upon the ground. Snoring they are, no doubt, in their lofty halls, while their servants keep the fires going and tend to the horses! So you see then, my friend squirrel, that it will be quite easy for a master of stealth such as myself, (just look at my astonishing cloack and how it blends to the surrounding wood!), to whisper my way into the first fey abode I come across, find the stables, and spirit away a horse or two. See if I don't!'

Rustlings in the woods around Heinrich faded slowly as he passed deeper into the wilds, and he grinned to himself. Keeping to the north with sun on his back, he made his silent way ahead. In a while, he came into a cliff face, which he easily negotiated. As he raised his head to the level of the scantily wooded tableau, he froze. For there, just ahead of him, a group of elves were sitting around a fire, making merry.

'Damn,' said Heinrich in a stage whisper. 'Clearly not all elves hibernate. But wait! There is an awful lot of laughter coming from those elves. And they are said to be so sombre a bunch. Clearly they are drunk, and so it will be small a feat for a master of sneakiness to sneak by them unnoticed!'

With panfull slowness Heinrich climbed all the way to the top. Ahead of him, the ground sloped downwads and back into even thicker woodland. Silently, Heinrich went on his knees, then on his stomach. And so, beneath the cover of his leafy cloack, he started slowly crawl past the firelit, fey company.

As Heinrich crawled past the elves, their merriment seemed to increase in strenght. They were laughing out loud and chattering gayly in their melodic language. Stoically Heinrich kept to his route, and passing only a few metres from the capering company, he finally made it till the protection of the grey woods. As he was brushing himself down, Heinrich took a good look ahead of him and whistled.

'Lights!' Heirich whispered. 'That is an elven abode ahead, my dear groundhogs, if I'm not mistaken. And where there are elves, there are elven horses! Just let them be sleeping. The elves, I mean, not the horses! It would be quite awkward if I had to carry a sleeping horse back to civilization!'

Heinrich pushed himself through the thickening woods and entered the elven premises just as the sun reached the treetops behind him and made the late autumn woodland look as if it was on fire. Heinrich gasped. For the architecture afore him was stunning. The elves had built their halls around great oaks, working with finest white marble. Everywhere there were intricate, detailed sculptures of forest creatures and carvings of leaf motives. Dead creepers, fiery red in the light of the setting sun, adorned the slender walls. What a sight this would be in the full of summer, Heinrich thought to himself.

Adopting a pose of a sneaking thief, Heinrich pantomimed his way to the largest and loftiest of the buildings. From the open doorway he peeked in. Inside he saw a great hall, warmed by two enormous fireplaces. Upon the marble floor, intricately carved tables and chairs were set. And upon the chairs, there were elves! Elves slumped in various poses of deep slumber! Some of the fey folk even snored quietly.

'Ah!' cried Heinrich in a delighted voice as he sneaked his way in. 'So they do sleep in winter! Splendid! But what splendor their garments! What beauty their jewels! And what novelty their features. Oh but that I could spend a warm summer's day in such high company. But alas, I cannot, being just a lowly human. Still, to the business at hand. I hear a whinny, and methinks it comes from yonder courtyard. Let's make haste afore it's too dark to make our way back!'

Keeping to his pantomime of thievy sneaking, Heinrich weawed a path through the sleeping forms. Here and there he could hear a titter. He made a show of looking at the jewelry adornign the slumbering forms, but kept his hands well clear. It would not do to steal elven jewelry. No now.

As Heinrich stepped into the inner couryards of the elven village, he could finally see his marks. A score of fine elven horses were grazing peacefully the meagre grass of the mouldy green yard. And they were indeed everything Heinrich, the second greatest horse thief in the Empire, could have wished for. Gleaming of hide they were, and flowing of mane. Strong of muscle and noble of stature. Some of the steeds glanced at Heirich, but most took no notice of him.

Enthralled, Heinrich stepper forwards and took a hold of the silken mane of the nearest horse. The steed whinnied a little, but made no further protests. Just then there rose a great glamour from all around Heinrich. Wood elves, clothed in a way that made them near invisible, rose like mushrooms from all round him, with drawn arrows trained upon his form. Heinrich froze.

From the hall, a great merriment could then be heard, and soon a band of noble wood elves made their way to to the courtyard. Their smiles widened as they looked upon their visitor. Some of them whispered to each other in their own language and grinned even wider. Heinrich tried to look as pale and scared as possible. It was not very hard, given the situation at hand. He did, however, keep a good hold of his elven horse.

'My second greatest horse thief in the Empire!' shouted one of the elven nobles, an old geezer of graying complexion. His accent was thick, but his words still quite understandable 'Thou hast given us a great entertainment in such a gray season. Ah! For we have not laughed so fully since a Bretonnian fool of a knight rode slap bang into a great bear in his haste to be away from us! Ai! The drollness of thine crawling past our guardfires, trying to be unseen and unheard! The noise thou made in thine way through our forest! That hilarious mask of thine! Hearken! But that we could keep thou here as our clown, as is a custom in yonder Bretonnia. But alas, it is our most grave a rule that anyone that sees one of our dwelling places must perish, lest he escape and give us away to an enemy. So thou must now die. But do die content, my second best horse thief in the Empire, nay, in the Old World I say, for thou havest the luck to see one of the fabled dwelling places of elves, and the chance to admire our fabled garb and jewelry. It is a chance not given to any before thou, so be happy of thine lot as thou perish.'

'Well spoken!' answered Heinrich, and bowed deep. In the same movement he sneaked his right hand into his trouser pocket. 'It has indeed been an honour to entertain you, kind nobles! But alas it is time I was away with my catch!'

'Away?' quizzed the noble. 'Didst thou not hear? Thou art to die now, poor man!'

'Yes, well, you can always try! Avastamagic!' and with that shout, Heinrich and the horse he had been holding, disappeared from the courtyard, to the utter amazement of all gathered therein. Arrows were unleashed to the spot vacated only hearbeat earlier by Heinrich, and there vere yowls of pain all around as the said shafts found unintentioned marks in the elven onlookers. 'Human magicks,' cursed the old noble, and then shouted, 'To horses! He cannot be far!'

Few miles from the borders of Loren, there was a flash of light and then loud cursing ensued. 'Damned elves!' cussed Heinrich, jumping on one foot, 'they really are fast with those bows. Luckily I had my thicker boots on! Luckily they did not hit the horse! And luckiest of all, thank Sigmar that that magic trinket worked properly!'

With great effort and pain, Heinrich managed to pull out the arrow that had pierced his boot and gotten about half an inch into his calf. As he was about to sit down to bandage his stricken foot he suddenly froze. For in the darkening eve, he could hear the baying of many a hunting horn. The faint glamour came from north, from within Loren.

'Blast the bandages!' cried Heinrich. 'This is not over yet. We had best be off, my horse!'

Heinrich scampered to a near copse, wherein his real horse (well, it was stolen too, if you must know) stood patiently waiting. Heinrich sneaked a noose around the neck of the elven steed, and tied the steed to the pommel of his mare. The elven steed shied the ropes but Heirich was having none of it. He hit the steed, hard. With painful grunt he then mounted his mare. And so, soon after, Heinrich Horsmouth, now the greatest horse thief in the Empire, if not in the whole Old World, disappeared into the deepening gloom with his latest booty.

The End


Hyvää joulua kaikille jotka jaksoi lukea tänne saakka!

[Servu]

Hehe, Heinrich todella jujutti puskajusseja pahemman kerran

Ymmärrän, miksi halusit kirjoittaa tuon pätkän englanniksi. Suomeksi luettuna se olisi kyllä menettänyt osan tunnelmastaan.

Tarina oli kiva lukea ja kieli kuulosti mukavalta. Tunnelma oli kohdallaan, eikä kirjoitusvirheitä pahemmin ollut.

[hullukoira]

tämä tarina sai tosi hyviä kommentteja black libraryn saitilla (fan fiction osasto). joten tein ainakin jotakin oikein!

[DeathWizard]

No näisä sinun tarinoissasi syntyy semmoinen "tunnelma", joka ei kestä suomenkieltä. Jatka samaan malliin.

[Asdrubael]

Loistava tarina! Sopivasti kevyttä tunnelmaa menemättä täysin pilailuksi!

Ja kuten muutkin sanoivat, ei liikaa kirjoitusvirheitä.

[Urgs]

toi oli todella hyvä, mutta welffit ei oo noin tyhmiä kyl ne ois saanut sen kiinni. ^^