Fan Fiction: The Chronicles of Ghanna and her Kindred

Ghanna was a herder whose family lived in the valley of Dor to the south of the Cloudpiercer. One summer she was sent up to the high pastures to watch the tiny-footed duocorns as they pastured the new grass. When she returned at summer's end she found that the warriors of Talat had come out of the west on raid. Her family was slain, their steading burnt to the ground, their herds stolen, and she was alone with a flock of duocorns and her wits.

She drove the flock back upmountain as far as the first cornice, where the winter snow would not fall too deep, and she picked up the stones that littered the cornice and built shelters for the beasts and for herself. There were no trees on the slope in those days, so she built her shelters like stone hillmounds and cut peat to burn through the winter. Between storms, when the landsharks came prowling, she went out and fought them with her simple herder's staff, to whose ends she had bound two heavy stones. And when spring came she built a forge among her mound-shelters and made herself a new bladestaff.

For three years she lived alone with her flocks, sheltering on the lowest slopes in the winter and pasturing on the highest slopes in the summer. Every spring she repaired her forge and made herself a new and more deadly bladestaff.

In the fourth spring she left her flocks in the lowest slopes and went into Talat. She struck the door of the steading with her staff and broke it down, and standing in the doorway she said, "I am Ghanna of Dor. You slew my father. Which one of you is brave enough to stand against me?" The chieftain of Talat rose and took up his hammer, and it is said that he smiled as he went forward to fight against Ghanna. But she struck him in the belly with her lower blade, and as he bent over she struck him in the head with her upper blade, and so he died. She stepped over his body and said, "I am Ghanna of Dor. You slew my mother. Which one of you is brave enough to stand against me?" The chieftain's daughter rose, and took up the smooth stone that lay beside her, and it is said that she did not smile. And Ghanna slew her also.

Thus she took each of the warriors of Talat in fair combat, until the remainder were too young and too old to fight. Then a young woman rose, carrying a hammer that was too heavy for her, and she came to Ghanna and knelt before her, saying, "I will not fight you. My life is yours."

"I accept it," Ghanna said, and raised her to her feet. "You shall be my sister." And turning to the people of Talat she said, "You shall be my family. We will live together in Talat and in Dor, and our flocks and herds shall pasture together, and we shall have peace." And so it was, and Ghana's steading on the lowest slope of the Cloudpiercer became a great town, and her forge was the mother of all forges on Tuu.

Only once did any challenge her rule, and that was after she was newly risen from childbirth and her sinews were still lax and loose. It was late in the winter, and the rebels had come through the snow, hoping to catch her and her warriors unawares. But a herder high on the slopes caught sight of them, and leaving his flocks to his fellows he slipped down to meet them. Then by special favor or fate, a late blizzard blew up, and the herder came to the rebels in the whiteout and said, "I will lead you to Ghanna's steading." But knowing every stone and scarp as he did, he led them far astray, to a notch in the mountain's side where they might shelter, and there left them. Forty-one days went by before they could venture out of the notch and make their way to the steading, and there they found Ghanna, restored to full fighting condition, her baby on her back and her bladestaff in her hands, and they submitted, and then there was peace again.

Hudor was a great hunter, who hunted the landsharks that preyed on the flocks and herds in the valleys of Talat and Dor and the high meadows below the Cloudpiercer. He loved Ghanna the juggernaut, but she would not have him until he fulfilled three great tasks.

The first was to slay Kut-kara, the great landshark bull of Dor. This deed took three days of stalking and one day of combat. Hudor found that within his body Kut-kara had no heart, but only a massive stone, which he brought back to Ghanna. She bound it to a handle and made it into a hammer for Hudor, and he named it Breakfoe.

Ghanna's next task for Hudor was to recover the red tricorn cow Mula, which the Lugians of Turkara beyond the Cloudpiercer had stolen. Hudor disguised himself as a traveling singer and came into the camp at Turkara. He sang for them and they gave him gifts, and a meal and a place to sleep. When they were all asleep he found the pen where Mula was kept. Its gate was locked with seven locks, each stronger and more cunning than the last. Hudor struck the locks with Breakfoe and shattered all seven with a single blow. Then he slung Mula over his shoulder and carried her back to Ghanna's pastures.

The third task was to block off the pass of Regul, through which the Lugians of Turkara had stolen the cow and through which Hudor had brought her back. He struck the sides of the Pass with Breakfoe and so much stone tumbled down that the Pass was blocked and the forces of Turkara could not get through to Dor.

Then Ghanna wedded Hudor at the Midsummer Festival, and they lived together in peace for seven years, and had sons and daughters.

But Tur, the chieftain of Turkara, was angry that Hudor had taken back Mula and barred his way to Dor, and he schemed and plotted revenge. The only way now from Turkara into Dor was to go anti-sunwise around the Cloudpiercer, a journey of many months: but he undertook it. Like Hudor before him he disguised himself as a wandering singer, and he came to Ghanna's high seat beside her forge in the summer meadows. When he had seen her, he had yet another reason to desire Hudor's downfall.

Tur sang for Ghanna, and when she offered him a reward he asked for a wrench of consummate power and accuracy, so that returning to his home far in the South (so he feigned) he might practice the art of the Technician and cease from wandering. So Ghanna forged for him O-bota, "The Cunning Eye," and gave it to him for his singing. Then Tur went back by the long way to Turkara, and there he worked for seven years, building turrets and siege engines and catapults, each more powerful than the last, mightier than had ever been seen on Tuu. And when his work was finished, he brought up his turrets against the fallen rock in the Pass of Regul, and blasted it free. Then he and his warriors poured in through the gap and came to Ghanna's forge, and Tur slew Hudor with his own hand. Then he knelt at Ghanna's feet and sang another song, which he had made in the long years in Turkara, asking Ghanna for her hand.

But she said, "You have slain my husband, with whom I lived fourteen peaceful and fruitful years. Now you shall send all your warriors back through the Pass, not to return until I summon them, and you shall serve me seven years as my Technician. And then I'll think about it."

So Tur sent his warriors home, and served Ghanna faithfully for seven years. He built her an arsenal of unmatched turrets and catapults and engines. At the end of that time, she told him, "Now call your warriors back." She led the heroes of Dor and Talat and Turkara out into the plains and valleys, Tur following with his arsenal. She brought all the tribes of the Sunward Continent under her rule, and there was peace then and thereafter.

Then Ghanna wedded Tur at the Midwinter Festival, and they lived together seventeen years and had sons and daughters. Then Tur died and Ghanna ruled alone nineteen years after.

Ghanna's children by Hudor inherited his hammer Breakfoe, and her children by Tur inherited his wrench O-bota, and her bladestaff Bau-giva, "Twice-Handed," descended from daughter to granddaughter.

Ghanna's second son by Hudor was called Audor, and as a child he was set to watching his mother's flocks of duocorns. He would throw small stones to chase the landsharks away. As the years went by he grew larger stones, and before he was grown he had gone to the Pass of Regul and taken up each of the stones that his father had cast into the Pass and that his stepfather had blasted away. Audor threw them at the landsharks, and at the walls of the Pass, and at each other, and one by one they broke. This is why the Pass of Regul is floored with fine gravel to this day.

Of all the stones he tested, only six survived, each exceptionally hard and tough. He named them after the six stars that form the southern constellation called the Harp: Supple, Slender, Tuneful, Mirth, Wrath, and Warcry. As the years passed, and he learned greater skill in throwing the six stones, the Lugians stopped calling the separate stones by their separate names, and called the whole array by the name of the Harp.

His story ended sadly, for after spending years out in the wild throwing stones, he came back to his mother's court and found that his half-sister Elda had grown up in his absence, and he fell in love with her. But Lugian ways do not allow even half-brother/sister marriages, so nothing came of it; he went back into the wilds again, and on his death the Harp descended to his nephews. Elda, for her part, never married anyone but preferred the life of a free warrior.

Thus the children of Ghanna lived after her in great renown, and their children after them followed the ways of the blade and the smith, that Kresovus took with him from Tuu to Auberean when the time came.