Tales from Tauren

Covet Waste

Note: TALES FROM TAUREN is a companion piece to my fantasy novel, THE BRETON BOYS. For full context and to avoid spoilers, I recommend reading the source material first before diving into these folktales.

Covet Waste

c. 600

Two darthags sat beside a fire in the farthest corner of Slate Cove, the northern-most tip of the Desolate Peninsula. The first was a deep brown creature who stared into the flames contemplatively, inhaling long, slow drags of yellow smoke from a gray stone pipe. The other was bigger than the first and blacker than the nearly perpetual night that plagued these distant reaches of Covet Waste, save for a pure white stripe that ran from his forehead to his black nose. He nursed a steaming clay cup of drink, periodically turning his head to scan the thick woods behind him, his attention roused at the slightest sound.

This time, it was no small disturbance that caught his ear, but a loud rustling from deep in the darkness, growing steadily louder and more destructive as it approached.

"For a darthag," Malgrin said cheekily to the creature that tumbled forth into the light of the fire, "you are not very stealthy, Alamirk."

Bogden chuckled into his pipe while Alamirk retorted, "It was not my idea to seclude ourselves in this forsaken stretch of dirt, all covered in thick bracken and loose rock, when we could have hidden just as easily in the southern mountains."

Malgrin ignored his complaint and said, "What have you heard, brother?"

Alamirk shook his head and sat down on the small boulder beside Bogden.

"Perhaps we should go back," he sighed. There is a Threshold not far from here, it is not too late to return."

"And be slain like the centaurs, or our cousins, the fauns?" Malgrin argued. "No. We stay here where we can live freely in the open."

"We are utterly isolated in these empty mountains!" Alamirk shot back.

"Would you prefer a life in the sun?"

Alamirk's silence conceded that he would not.

"What have you heard?" Bogden asked again after several moments.

"She is plotting," Alamirk answered gravely, but Malgrin merely scoffed.