BattleAxe First Read: Chapter Twenty-Four: Across the Plains of Arcness (Part II)

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Chapter Twenty-Four (Part I) | Table of Contents | Chapter Twenty-Five

SCSF: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to BattleAxe! Last time, Faraday, Jack, Timozel and Yr finally escaped from the underground, and they set out for some friends of Jack.

Now for the reader post:

On the previous part of this chapter, Epistler notes that Faraday wearing a “blouse” does not fit with the world this is set in. Looking closer, I see that there is no mention of her wearing a “blouse” before this, so this is clearly a continuity issue.

PPP: 149

I would also like to clarify that I am quite sure Timozel was not being sincere when he asked Jack if he could get them out with magic.

Chessy notes that Timozel has “done a number” on his axe by digging through the wall like that. I think I should keep track of whether that comes up further.

Wolfgoddess points out that a better explanation for the collapsing tunnel might be that some kind of seal was broken when Faraday and co. got in, which would then cause the entrances to collapse. That might even be a trap for any people who got into the complex without permission!

She further points out that it makes no sense for Yr to stand back specifically, so…

No-Wave Feminism: 33

She also notes that Jack would tear open his hands if he tried to dig through the wall with his bare hands.

Further, she notes that Timozel “putting his shoulders into it” would more commonly be “putting his back into it”.

PPP: 150

Well, let me go on with the second part of this chapter, then!

There is a scene break after Yr thinking about how Timozel has grown up and we pick up with the four of them walking through the night. While they are walking, they are buffeted by “freezing head winds” which cause them to “shiver and stumble”. I presume that Jack is too tired to protect them from the wind like he did on the Barrow. (I should keep a little good faith, after all.) Jack as at the front, “[keeping] them moving” with his pigs coming along. Timozel is by Faraday’s side, supporting her when she slips and sometimes “lending a hand” to Yr, too. None of them feels like talking, as they need all of their energy to keep moving their feet.

We are then told this:

The plains of western Arcness were as barren of life as the plains of Tarantaise had been.

So not at all “barren of life”. Seriously, Douglass, unless this area has been placed under a curse, there is no way that it could be barren of life after a thousand years and that the effect would not be noticeable elsewhere. Yes, the forest there was destroyed, but the area did not stay “broken” forever! Douglass, if you want to say something about this, make sure you are not coming up with nonsense!

It’s Like We’re Smart But We’re Not: 22

IYES: 12

Also, “plains of Tarantaise”? Were they not actually called the “Plains of Tare”? The map and the glossary agree with me…

Well, after some searching, I found 31 instances of “Plains of Tare” (including the glossary) and 8 instances of “plains of Tarantaise”, so it seems fair to me to say that this is an error.

PPP: 151

The greater part of these “southern plains” is used to graze “cattle and sheep” on during the summer (then it is not “barren of life”, now is it?), but as the winter comes, the shepherds and cattlemen drive their herds closer to the “scattered villages”. According to Jack, “only a few hardy pig herds” are still on the plains, and they will go to their shelters soon, too. …I do not exactly see how this is relevant, but no problem.

Then there is a flashback to Timozel asking “where they are going, and how [Jack] plan[s] on getting Faraday to Gorkenfort.” I would like to know that as well, since our only directions so far have been “just go to Gorkenfort”.

Jack said that they have to go north in “as direct a line as possible”. If they can reach something called “Tailem Bend” on the Nordra, they might get horses at “Jervois Landing” for the last bit of the journey through Ichtar. Let me pull up the map…

I see that Tailem Bend is the little westward curve in the Nordra just next to the label “Skarabost”, which is notably not directly north of the Ancient Barrows. I think that merits a point.

PPP: 152

The route from Jervois Landing to Gorkenfort is marked well and Borneheld has put up “plentiful supply stations” along it, so if they are lucky, there should be “few problems”. First you have to get across Skarabost, though… At least I know vaguely where they are going now.

Timozel then asked why Jack and Yr do not take Faraday to “one of the major towns or forts”, like Castille Y León Kastaleon, or even Carlon, because there they could easily get her “the type of transport her rank entitle[s] her to”. Jack then looked at him as if he were a “muddle-headed youth”. Why yes, he probably is a little “muddle-headed” after everything he has been through, something that you pulled him into!

Jack says it is because no one would understand why she wants to reach Borneheld and they would their “utmost” to keep her from going further than Carlon. That makes sense and I can also see how Timozel would miss that. In fact…

Petty Ain’t the Word for You: 35

Timozel then nodded to himself, as that was what he expected. He is not comfortable at all with this journey, or with the companions he and Faraday “had landed”, but he does understand why Faraday wants to be with Borneheld. After all, every “Lady” needs her “Lord” next to her and frets when he is away.

First… “had landed”? He and Faraday did not exactly acquire Jack and Yr; it is rather the other way around, so I think this should be “had landed with”. Also, “Lady” and “Lord” ought not to be capitalised.

PPP: 155 (+3)

Further, this just feels… a bit off. At least, I wonder why we needed that last bit. Could it not just be that Faraday wants to be by Borneheld’s side while he is trying to save Achar? And where would Timozel have got that idea from?

No-Wave Feminism: 34

Cut to the present, as we are told they have made up a “cover story” if anyone meets them during their walk. I think that story would find better use if it is used for Jack’s friends, but what do I know? The story goes as follows:

Faraday, “her maid Yr”, and her escort went across the plains to Arcen when they were hit by Gorgrael’s storm. Timozel was the only one of the escort to “escape the ice spears” and all their horses were killed. While they were lost on the plains, Jack found them as he was driving his pigs to “the hills of the Bracken Range”. As he is a “[g]enial good-hearted fellow” (prove that) he is leading them toward “the towns of Rhaetia to the north-west”. This is apparently a “slender story”, but it needs to do.

Even if someone decides to challenge it, how could they disprove it fast enough to have much impact? I think this would be perfectly fine.

For some further notes… I wanted to complain about the hyphen in “north-west”, but after looking into it a bit, I see that the use of that is quite complicated, and it also depends on the edition used, so I will leave that.

As for the geography… the Bracken Ranges are the range of mountains between Arcness and Skarabost and, as the NRSG noted, they are called the “Fern Ranges”, actually. Rhaetia lies where it is supposed to, in the western end of the Ranges.

Let me look up that name… I see that Rhaetia was a Roman province in the Alps. Why is this area named after a Roman province??

A Better Commando Name: 32

Oh, I also think I can pull up the glossary entry on it. It is called a “small area of Achar” in the west of the Bracken Ranges, which is “controlled by Baron Mascen”. The entry on him calls him “Lord of Rhaetia”. Hmmm, “Mascen” is not that bad a name. I do see that he is only ever mentioned in the glossary, so why bother to name him there?

PPP: 156

There is a scene break, and we pick up with Jack letting them rest just as dawn breaks. It is now the 6^th of October. The last half league, Faraday leaned heavily on Timozel, while Yr began stumbling badly “every forty or fifty paces”, and lost the skin on her hands and knees because of that. Hmm, why can Jack stay on his feet without much trouble, while Yr falls constantly? I find that quite suspect, especially when she is supposed to be quite young physically.

No-Wave Feminism: 35

It is also nice to say that she refuses to seek support with Jack or get onto the pigs for example, because apparently she would rather constantly fall than “admit defeat”. Either way, they are now huddled together “in the lee of a small rise”, trying to keep warm as best they can. Faraday thinks that she needs to “make the journey worthwhile”, because Axis’s life depends on her keeping Borneheld’s “jealous temper” in check. I still do not believe that. She wonders where Axis could be, but is too exhausted to think on it further, and she falls asleep.

Just then, Jack calls for them to wake up and walk on. Faraday (poor her!) gets up, and Timozel puts an arm around her waist. Faraday does not know if that is to support her or for Timozel to support himself. Yr barely manages to keep behind them, “head and shoulders slumped”. Once or twice, Faraday can hear her fall, but by the time she looks around, Yr is getting up again, looking determined. We are then told that Jack is “the freshest of them all”, because he is used to going around the plains in all kinds of weather, but even he stumbles sometimes.

So that is the explanation for why Jack is so fresh? I still do not believe that he, Faraday and Timozel can walk without falling constantly, and Yr cannot. I also do not think that he often spends a day in a tunnel with little to drink before going on the plains, so I truly doubt that he would only be stumbling “occasionally”. I do not believe this, and it feels like Douglass quickly threw this on to paper over these issues.

Well, it is “close to mid-morning” when Jack finally “wave[s] them to a halt”. Faraday and Timozel are apparently in a “catatonic state”, wherein they are only focussed on putting their feet ahead, so they nearly walk into Jack. Yr walks straight into their backs and Timozel puts an arm around her to keep her from falling.

Jack waves ahead, “his voice showing signs of terrible strain” and says that it is “Goodman and Goodwife Renkin’s farm”. Finally we can meet some new people! And they can rest for a bit! Faraday looks ahead and sees “a small farmlet” in a “small dip in the plains” about half a kilometre away. Around it lie “[t]idy fields and gardens”, and the farm itself is “a long, low stone house”, with a well-repaired thatched roof. Um, if the farm is “long”, then it is hardly a “small farmlet”, now is it?

PPP: 157

Some smoke comes from the chimney and is blown away in the wind. Faraday grits her teeth and begins to walk again. She hopes that the Renkins have “both fire and beds”. There is a scene break, and we are then told they have “both and more to offer”. They are startled from “their comfortable spot by the fire” and find “Jack Simple” at the door, with a noblewoman, her maid, and even an Axe-Wielder as escort!

Outside of Jack giving his “muddled” cover story, they are clearly too exhausted to talk, so Goodwife Renkin brings Faraday and Yr to “the big bed built against the far wall”, while Jack and Timozel slump down on the benches “along the wall by the fire”. They fall asleep almost before Goodwife can put blankets over them.

For a moment, the Goodman and Goodwife look at each other with amazement, then the Goodwife “shrug[s] prosaically” (?) and goes over to the larder, thinking that she needs to bake some extra bread for all these guests. The chapter does not end there, as we now get some dream sequences. Let me see… Both are italicised, and both are also a single, massive paragraph, including dialogue. That makes them quite hard to read.

PPP: 159 (+2)

The first dream we see is Faraday’s. She has never “dreamed so wonderfully before”, and is very happy and “free from pain and care”. That would be about time! She is sitting in an “exquisite grove” that is surrounded by trees that stretch endlessly into the sky. Yet, when she looks up, she can see “myriad stars almost as breathtaking as those of the Star Gate”. Of course they cannot be just as good, because the Star Gate needs to be the best thing. Yes, I get that this probably is because she sees them through the atmosphere, and they are supposed to be “less real” because of that, but it still feels like the Star Gate has to be better.

Faraday then looks down. She is sitting “cross-legged” in the centre of the grove on “sweet, cool grass”. She is only wearing a “soft linen shift” and she a newborn baby suckles at her breast. She smiles and strokes the “soft down” on the baby’s head. The baby kneads at her breast with “perfectly formed” fingers, and Faraday feels “infinitely fortunate” to be in the grove with “this babe”. She cuddles the baby for a bit and croons to them.

Hmmm, I do not think we have ever had Faraday think about having children before now… Knowing what I know, I think this is foreshadowing for a later plot development, so I will not complain about it yet. Then a shadow falls over her and Faraday looks up, frowning somewhat at the intrusion.

Then she smiles, because “this strange beast with the body of a man and the head of a white stag [is] her friend”. Ah, so Faraday is in the Sacred Grove, just like Axis was some time ago. I think that Faraday not being afraid of the deer-man is supposed to be because of her not following the Way of the Axe and the Plough any longer? It is still a dream, though, so this might as well be attributable to dream logic… That is certainly why Faraday knows the deer-man is her “friend”, after all.

The man says she must leave the Grove. Faraday frowns, and says that she does not wish to, as she is “free of pain and betrayal” there, and she only trusts the deer-man. The deer-man tells her, “his liquid-brown eyes loving”, that she will come back one day, and then she can stay if she wishes. The Grove fades around her and the dream ends with Faraday screaming that she does not want to go.

Timozel also dreams, though his dream is “far more unsettling”. He is walking down a “long ice tunnel”, only wearing the grey trousers of “his Axe-Wielders uniform”. He does not know where he is, but he does know that he is walking toward “certain doom”. He can see “strange-shaped creatures leaping and cavorting” behind the walls, which he cannot see clearly and does not want to, either.

He wants to run away, but he cannot do so, as a “force greater than his own will” has taken him over and pulls him down the tunnel. He gets closer and closer to “the death that wait[s] for him” until he finally sees “a massive wooden door” at the end. His teeth begin to chatter and “he [feels] his bowels loosen”. Thank you for that, Douglass.

Edgy Equals Mature, Right?: 16

He stops before the door and his hand, “unaided, unasked for”, reaches out and knocks on it. A “dreadful voice” tells him to come, and his hand slides to the “door latch”. He fights it with all his power, until he is “sweating and trembling” with the effort. He manages to slow his hand, but not stop it entirely, and slowly his fingers close on the latch.

The voice tells him again to come, “impatient now”, and Timozel can hear “heavy steps” from the other side. The handle begins to twist in his hand and he screams “no!”, and then he falls unconscious (in his dream, apparently). That is the end of the chapter.

Well, the last dream sequence was quite effective! I am looking forward to Threshold, then… Either way, I will see you in the next chapter!