Chapter 28: Chapter 25 – Crouching Meats, Hidden Embroidery

“Why, yes, mister Thompson, most societies out there still rely on more primitive means to preserve foods for long periods of time. It might be a good idea to take some time to travel the lands and see how life is for most, instead of just living in luxury few in the world would even be able to relate to.” Garth Wainwrought, Professor of socioeconomics in the Levain Institute of Higher Learning.

A massive adult Thunder Lizard like the specimen they just hunted down easily weighed in the neighborhood of tens of tons, a good portion of it edible flesh, and normally, an orcish tribe that hunted one would halt their travels for days to a week to preserve the copious amounts of flesh as best they can before rot sets in and made it inedible. However, as Cal offered to transport the flesh that had not been worked on yet in her storage for the tribe, they decided to just keep to their prior travel schedule, and simply worked the animal’s bounty in portions during the evenings in which they settled for the night.

 

As it was, she herself chose to partake in the work as every orc that was not assigned either to that night’s guard or cooking duty busied themself butchering the colossal beast. The orcs separated and processed the creature’s entrails first of all, as they were the fastest to spoil, a literal horde of them busied themselves as they washed the various entrails clean with water stored in the many self-refilling tanks the caravan carried. Cal noticed that the intestines and stomachs - for the creature had a multitude of stomachs like cattle, six in its case - were kept aside and laid on the smoke racks, while the rest of the entrails were processed immediately into dinner for the night.

 

For the triumphant hunters were served a feast from the great Thunder lizard they hunted, a thick, spiced stew of root vegetables, beans, as well as pieces of the beast’s gizzards and kidneys, grilled skewers of lungs and liver, interspersed with chunks of onions and peppers, and thick slabs of choice parts of the beast’s fatty meat roasted on fire simply seasoned with salt and pepper. For the tables where the mages - and Cal - seated themselves however, were plates of extra delicacy reserved for them. A dish of very rich porridge made from the nutty flour and salted, buttery tea was cooked with the brain of the creature, and topped with pieces of its heart, grilled until the outside turned to a crisp. While the main delicacy were the creature’s spongy inner footpads, cooked for hours in a thick, rich bone broth, and served in slices so thin Cal could see through it when she picked a slice up. As she popped a slice into her mouth, she was greeted with a truly wonderful texture, chewy, yet crunchy at the same time, while it took on the rich flavors of the bone broth and the pepper-vinegar sauce it was dressed in.

 

The majority of the meat, Bogdan explained, would be turned into a form of preserved sausages or meat cakes, which easily kept for up to three months in summer conditions, and would easily last the tribe all through the winter. Cal watched - and helped - while the orcs laboriously cut the meat of the beast into thin strips and heavily smoked them, until the meat turned to a consistency not unlike dried meats. The smoke-dried meat strips were then crumbled by hand, then pounded with a mortar and pestle until it formed a powder, which were then mixed with copious amounts of rendered fat and flavored with dried wild berries, herbs, and spices. The thick paste that formed was then stuffed into prepared containers made from the beast’s intestines or stomach, formed into either long sausages or spherical cakes, and then smoked again for a night.

 

Cal naturally tasted some of the finished product, which the orcs called Pymk, and found the taste… not unpleasant, but not exactly a delicacy either. That is until the orcs showed her how they usually served it. She had to admit that when fried in fats over a hot stone the preserved meat cake took on a much more pleasant taste, as the molten fats contained gave it a juiciness that made it very rich, if a bit greasy, and when chopped up and cooked into a stew instead, the meat paste within crumbled apart and enriched the flavor of the stew itself, while its sturdier outer layer became pleasantly chewy bits in the stew.

 

The rest of the beast was not put to waste either. The supple inner layer of the skin of the beast, while far from ideal to be used for making armor, for it produced rather brittle leather, if one that excelled when faced with prolonged exposure to the elements - the caravan still had several wagons draped in thunder lizard leather from Bogdan’s grandfather’s times -, were sectioned and cured to form large sections that would later be made into tarps to drape more wagons, while the hardened outer layer were left to soak in oils over a week while pressed under weights, and later fashioned into various tools - the hardened skin had assumed a consistency not unlike that of ivory after the treatment, even if its dull gray color was unchanged.

 

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What fascinated her somewhat was what they planned for the creature’s bones. Most of the bones were simply worked into tools and weapons - a worthy purpose, for the bones of the aged creature proved very durable indeed, something Cal learned the hard way since it took her half an hour of hard work to even punch a small hole through its thick skull. The great skull of the mighty beast was kept as a trophy, and after it was properly cleaned, was set atop Bogdan’s wagon, with a rough throne made from bones crafted atop it for him. It would certainly allow for a grand entrance for the tribe when they arrived at Gal-Morogh.

 

The rib bones of the creatures on the other hand, were appropriated by the craftsmen in the caravan, as they planned to craft a grand tent for the chieftain with the rib bones as the support struts, one that would project the might of the tribe to visitors at first sight. A project already in the works even as they travelled - Cal learned that while the orcs usually just slept in their wagons or under the open skies when they travelled, they would have tents set up when they chose to settle in an area for a prolonged period of time, with the tents folded up and carried in the wagons when they left again.

 

That Orcs practiced embroidery and were highly skilled at it fascinated and surprised her. Before her eyes, she watched as many of the orc matrons - and some of the younger warriors too, as long as they were deft with their fingers, Davor and Mira amongst them - worked on large sheets of canvas, their deft fingers embroidered scenes that depict of the hunt, of war, of revelry, and of triumph into the blank sheets using only needles and threads, while others created mesmerizing tribal patterns in colorful threads as an outline. The tent, she imagined, would be a true work of art when it was finished. What baffled Cal even more was how the embroidery looked like from the other side of the canvas. It was made with such expertise that where the embroidery outside might depict a scene of triumph in battle, the inside would show a scene of peaceful pastures and grasslands instead. The orcs had worked to embroider both sides of the canvas at the same time, with different images on each side, the inside full of depictions of nature and clouds, and wild animals as they frolicked.

 

Contrary to the detailed style of embroidery that were prevalent in the Al-Shan Empire however, the orcs focused less on details, and their art were filled with broad strokes and vibrant colors that nonetheless conveyed emotions and brought various scenes to the mind of a spectator. Cal has watched in complete fascination as Mira worked a pattern that depicted her father and a white figure Cal realized was herself locked in combat with a stylized thunder lizard, whereas the small loops she made at the back of the canvas arranged themselves into patterns that brought to animals at rest by a lakeside to mind. Davor proved no less deft with his fingers, and even Bogdan himself joined the work, where he personally embroidered the stylized emblem of the clan on the pieces that would serve as the entrance flaps of the tent.

 

It took the orcs nearly two weeks before the rest of the beast was processed properly into preserved meats and other sundries. A timeline that would normally force them to discard a portion of the meat due to spoilage, but rendered irrelevant due to the way time was held to a stasis within her storage artifact. As it was, they made somewhat slower pace than expected to Gal-Morogh, as between the hunt and the period where they were busy with the thunder lizard’s flesh they had slowed down some, but by her calculations they would still make it to the gathering with three or four days to spare.

 

She couldn't wait to lay her eyes on the largest orcish city on the plains, and the festivities to come.

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