Oura and Her Arbalest
by C. J. Heckman
“Have you ever heard the story of Ouoros and his bow?”
Aurek looked up from the rags he was rinsing in the wash basin. The old leper was lying on a bulrush mat beneath the windowsill. He was wrapped from head to toe in bandages soaked through with sweat. The other acolytes must have brought him inside to give him a moment’s escape from the summer sun while he died. The end was never easy for the lepers; it came slowly, and the heat only made things worse.
Aurek soaked the cleanest-looking rag he had in basin water and walked over to the old man’s side. “I imagine every boy in Innispar has heard that story,” said Aurek. He laid the cool rag across the leper’s forehead. The acolytes of the River Temple could not do much for the lepers other than make them comfortable while they died. This one did not have long.
“Tell me the story,” said the old man. He looked up at Aurek with one bloodshot eye that peered between the yellowed bandages covering his face.
Aurek sat down beside the leper’s bulrush mat. He tried to recall the story as his father had once told it.
“In elder days, there was a king named Heimar who ruled in the mountains. His castle was at Redpeake and overlooked the mouth of the Irion River that runs through Innispar and all the lands beyond. Heimar was descended from dragons, and their greed was in his blood.
“So it was that he ordered his people to build a great wooden dam beside Redpeake. There was a sluice at the top of this dam, and Heimar would only let the waters of the Irion flow if the Lords of Innispar paid him tribute.
“The Lords begrudged this tax, but their people depended on the Irion to water their crops when the rains were fickle. They paid tribute to Heimar but promised their fealty to any man that might destroy his dam.”
Aurek glanced down at the old leper, half expecting him to have slipped into that final sleep that comes before the end, but the old man was still listening.
“In the third year of Heimar’s dam, a man named Ouoros came out from the southern wilds. Ouoros was half-giant, and could sleep only in a barn, when he slept indoors at all. He quickly became famous for his strength, and for his skill with a bow, for he could bring to full draw a longbow that stood at the height of two men. During his time in Innispar, Ouoros heard that a crown was promised to whomever brought down the dam and thought himself the man to do it.”
The leper cleared his throat with a sudden hacking noise that startled Aurek. The old man began to recite his own addition to the story in a voice that wavered like wind over the mountains.
“In the third year of Heimar’s dam, a woman named Oura lived in a town south of Innispar called Polsfeld. Oura’s town was suffering, for that year the Lords of Innispar could not afford what King Heimar demanded, and so the Irion did not flow.
“Oura’s husband, Uthir, was a farmer, and his crop failed in the drought. It was a hard year for all the farmers of Polsfeld, and Oura knew they would not survive another like it. But Oura was a clever woman, one learned in the ways of wheels and levers and springs. In secret, she worked on plans for a machine that could destroy Heimar’s dam.”
The leper paused there and looked up at Aurek expectantly.
Aurek didn’t want to upset the old man, but the River Temple was after all the house of Ouoros, the River-God-Made-Flesh, and he could not help but correct him.
“Friend,” said Aurek gently, “there is no Oura in this story.”
“Just continue.”
Aurek obliged. He knew the old could sometimes become delirious before the end.
“In search of the means to destroy Heimar’s dam, Ouoros journeyed far into the north until he came to Haelstrum Vale, where there are snowstorms year-round that peel the very bark off the trees. Ouoros ventured deep into this valley, until he came to its heart, and found an old tree there that had weathered the perils of its bitter home for nigh on a century. He cut it down and fashioned from its frostbitten wood a great bow larger than any made before. It was a bow only Ouoros was fit to draw, and even he would draw it but once.”
There the leper interrupted again.
“In search of the means to construct her machine, Oura gave her plans to her husband, Uthir, and had him present them to the people of Polsfeld. Oura knew the townsfolk would trust the thought of a man more easily and, because of this precaution, her plans were well received. The farmers of Polsfeld entrusted Uthir with their modest savings and urged him to travel to Innispar and construct his machine. But Uthir fell ill before he could depart, and so Oura took the funds they had raised and set out for Innispar alone.”
The leper coughed and fell silent.
“Would you like to finish this other tale?” offered Aurek.
“Just finish what you know.”
Aurek sighed and continued.
“Ouoros returned home and walked to the foot of Heimar’s dam. A crowd gathered in his wake, eager to see if the giant’s strength would deliver them from the Mountain King’s greed. Mists were rolling in from the heights of the mountains that day, and most folk could not even see the sluice at the top of Heimar’s dam. But Ouoros was not deterred, his eyes pierced through the fog as easily as the arrow he let fly.
“So mighty was Ouoros that his great bow was shattered by the force of his shot. It fell to the ground in splinters as his arrow soared upwards into the mist. A long silence followed, and many wondered if the arrow had missed its mark. Then a distant roaring sound put all doubt to rest. Heimar’s dam came tumbling down, and a cheer went up from all the people of Innispar that rivalled the rush of the Irion. That day, Ouoros became the first King-Beside-the-River. He ruled Innispar wisely for thirty years just as his son Ossir rules us today.”
Aurek looked down and saw that the leper’s eyes were closed, not in the sleep of death but rather a sort of strained reverie. At length, the old man spoke.
“The skilled craftsmen of Innispar would not take money from a woman, so Oura went to Leper Row. We toiled long and hard for her, and we were proud to receive wages for labor, rather than beg for alms. We built Oura’s machine. If I close my eyes, I can still see it: an arbalest as long as a man is tall, with a winch like a wagon wheel that pulled its prod to draw.
“It took us a day and a night to drag it to the spot Oura had chosen, a cliff that jutted out beneath Heimar’s dam, closer than that fool Ouoros or his flock ever came to it. The mists were indeed thick that morning, but it didn’t concern Oura, for she had made calculations the night before. She knew exactly where to place the machine and at what angle to aim it.
“There was a crack like thunder when the bolt hit the sluice. Then down came the logs, and the rocks, and the water. We scrambled to get out of the way, but I lost many friends to the Irion that day. Oura first among them.”
Aurek was quiet for a long while after the leper finished his tale. He feared speaking up would only lead to the old man furthering his blasphemy before the end.
“I know you don’t believe me,” said the leper. “No one ever does. It used to bother me that no one believed. But Oura wouldn’t mind. She would say the water flows to Polsfeld all the same,” with that old man rolled onto his side, turning his back to Aurek, and fell silent.
Copyright © 2022 by C. J. Heckman
