Two days later – at sea
“How fast the hunter becomes the hunted,” Hengist mused. He stood at the back of the captured longboat, watching four ships full of Mabinne’s soldiers a league or so away, in pursuit. The early-morning sun was casting long shadows from the ships onto the sea, making them easier to locate. A few paces across the water was the second captured longboat, bearing thirty-six soldiers.
We’ll have to find this island, Hengist reminded himself. Find someplace to set up a defense. Some spot where the twins can use their powers to their best advantage. They have that crystal they took from Mabinne. They claim it enhances magic-users’ power. Will that be enough to tip the scale?
Hengist shrugged. All would depend on how far ahead of Mabinne’s troops they could make landfall, and so far there was no land in sight. He walked forward and seated himself across from Mabinne.
Her hands were now free, necessarily as she had to eat, drink, and perform necessary tasks. She sat now, leaning against the side of the boat. She gave Hengist a speculative look.
“Was I really so bad to you,” Hengist said, a slight smile on his face, “that I drove you to this?” He held up his hammer-fist, and then used it to tap his wooden leg.
Mabinne frowned. “You killed my husband. You took me, and then took me as your slave.”
Hengist leaned forward. “And then I made you my wife. I bequeathed my lands and property to you. I loved you.”
“I know.” Mabinne looked down. “I know that, yes. But I ask you, were our positions reversed, would you have ever stopped seeking revenge?”
“I suppose not. But you had your revenge against me, and then went on to seek it against my people.”
“As did you, raiding into Beretan?”
“A fair point.” Hengist looked up at the blue sky. “I suppose we are both to blame.”
“But you…” Mabinne stopped suddenly. She remembered Hengist’s narrative of the war in his father’s time:
“Sweet,” Hengist said gently, “the town we are heading for was occupied by Beretanian troops for three years. Beretan invaded the south side of this peninsula, along with Mondria, while the Jutlanders came at us from the west. Port Stronghold held out, but the invaders swept over most of the countryside. Towns, villages, farms were burned, whole families taken into slavery. This academy you speak of, it’s on the south end of Beretan near the coast, yes?”
“On a cliff overlooking the ocean, yes.”
“And many of the workers, the cooks, stable-men, drovers and so on are Ikslunders, yes?”
“Why, yes,” Mabinne replied in some confusion; she had noted that as a girl in the academy, but had never given it any thought; the tall, fair Ikslunders were just servants and workers, surely?
“Slaves,” Hengist said.
“Gods beneath us,” Mabinne breathed. “Where does it stop?”
“I fear it does not,” Hengist said.
“We’re all quite mad,” Mabinne whispered.
They sat in silence for some time, with only the wind in the sails for company. Then:
A shout came from from the front of the longboat: “Land!”
Mabinne and Hengist stood. Mabinne squinted, looking at the faint green strip of land visible to the west. “That should be it,” she said. “That should be our island.”
Hengist nodded. “Oarsmen! To the oars! Move us to that land, as fast as possible!”
They landed in the early afternoon. Hengist’s boat touched the beach first, with the second longboat arriving minutes later. The four ships of Mabinne’s fleet had closed the gap, and with them only a few hundred paces from the beach, Hengist’s forces only had moments to spare.
There was a row of tents just off the sand, under some odd-looking trees. The sun shone down brightly from a clear sky. “No cover,” Hengist mused, “save one big rock. Wonderful.”
Agneyastra and Kristol came to stand by his side. “Where do you want us?”
“I’m not sure yet. Let’s get off the boat. Mabinne, you’re coming with me. No, don’t look at me like that; I’ll carry you if I must, but I’d rather not.”
They clambered over the sides of the ship, dropping into the shallow water and wading up to the beach. Hengist watched Mabinne; she was looking at the row of tents, a little too intently to suit him.
What was left of the Ikslunder infantry leaped off their longboat and scurried towards the trees.
Hengist stopped. He held Mabinne by one arm, but she was ignoring him, watching the tents.
Why is Mabinne watching those tents? She’s powerless…
…unless she left someone behind who is not…
Hengist pulled on Mabinne’s arm. The big rock outcrop he had noticed was a few paces away; it was the only natural cover in sight. “Come on,” he urged her. He looked over his shoulder at the twins. “Follow me. Stay alert.”
There were only two guards on the camp, but both were accomplished magic-users. They waited until the line of Hengist’s remaining infantry was almost to the tree line before they struck. They stepped a pace away from the row of tents, two young women, both Beretanian from their looks and dress. They raised their hands. A skirl of wind picked up sand and blasted it at the infantry, blinding them. A blast of fire followed, incinerating half the line.
Kristol reached towards the Beretanians and gestured. Spears of ice shot from her fingers, skewering the Beretanians. Agneyastra followed with a blast of flame that reduced Mabinne’s magic-users to screaming, bubbling torches.
Behind them, Mabinne’s soldiers were landing. General Kokko was in the forefront. He looked up the beach, saw a big, obviously crippled Ikslunder dragging away his army’s leader. “Lady Mabinne!” he shouted.
Agneyastra gestured; Mabinne’s general went up in flames.
“Form up!” Hengist roared at what was left of his troops. There were, maybe, twenty, to withstand what appeared to be a hundred or more Jutlander infantry.
The soldiers looked around them. Half of their comrades lay in the sand, burning into char. The trees were nearby, offering cover and perhaps escape, but they were Ikslunders, warriors born, and so they formed a line and drew swords.
Mabinne’s men did likewise.
Hengist dragged Mabinne behind the one big rock outcrop. He could barely see over the monolith.
The Ikslunders, screaming like furies, charged down the beach. The Jutlanders, the last few of them still jumping down from the beached ships, hurried to form up to meet them. Both sides came together with a great clashing of steel.
In front of the rocks, Agneyastra and Kristol looked at each other.
“As good a place as any,” Kristol smiled at her sister.
“As good a place as any,” Agneyastra agreed.
Agneyastra took the soul crystal from a pouch on her belt. She held her right hand out to her sister, the soul crystal in her palm.
Kristol took her sister’s hand in her left hand. They walked forward, slowly. Halfway to the water, they shared one last look. Then they clasped their hands, tighter, until the soul crystal crushed.
The twins threw their heads back, screaming, as the power raced through them, overwhelming their control. Flames and ice burst from them.
Hengist grabbed Mabinne. He threw her to the sand behind the great rock and threw himself on top of her. “Keep your head down,” he ground out. “Close your eyes. This will be bad.”
The twins exploded, the mass of their bodies lost in a maelstrom of fire, ice and steam that wiped the opposing forces away. Flames rushed and crackled, down the beach, over the ships. Ice spicules rose from the sand, skewering infantrymen before flashing away into steam. The water of the sea itself boiled, froze, and boiled again. The Jutlander ships and Ikslunder longboats alike shuddered, burned, cracked apart from frost, then burned again. The very ground shook.
Finally, a blast of steam rolled away from the beach. Hengist and Mabinne were caught up in the fringes, rolled a few paces away from the rock, lifted in the air and slammed down again. The last thing Hengist saw was an Ikslunder longboat, blown a hundred paces out to sea, burning furiously, while a Jutlander ship lay across the beach, broken open by a dozen spikes of ice.
The End?
Nope.
Not dead yet!
And they lived happily ever after…
I somehow doubt that…
Replying to RC Dean from the morning thread:
1. Non-replicable? It doesn’t work for emergency surgeries, of course, but I would think you could have at least (does some math on population of Oklahoma) 90 or so centers. That is as bad as the dumbasses who said the US couldnt have 3000 breweries. (My calculation says about 30000).
2. I have never met him in person, but he seems pretty cool when I have heard him interviewed on podcasts (econtalk is one I remember) and stuff.
3. Yeah, it doesnt work great with 3rd party payer model…but thats the point. Same for the boutique doctors offices that dont take insurance too. There is a limit while the current system exists, but, calling back to the dumbasses from point #1, that is like saying that no one will pay for private schools as long as public schools exist. Yes, a change like vouchers would expand the number of private schools. That limit of 90 I mentioned is probably under current system. Blow up the 3rd party model and that number would probably go to 900.
Like I said, can’t recall the details. But the question remains: since his model is so successful, why hasn’t it been replicated?
Don’t get me wrong – I’d love to not have the third party payer model so utterly dominant. The hard question is, how do you get from where we are to where we would like to be?
I’m going to see a doc next month who is cash only. She bailed from the system and appears to be doing quite well.
Also, there is a very reasonable concierge practice in town.
I’ve heard the doc many times on different podcasts, and he’s a heavy promoter of the Free Market Medical Association (https://fmma.org/)
We are clearly moving slowly in that direction – for people willing to write checks anyway. Too many appear to be unable to think outside the insurance paradigm. Even though conventional care sucks balls.
I’m going to see a doc next month who is cash only.
Some states restrict these practices. NH is (or used to be, there was a bill last term to change regulation of cash-only practices) one of them. I think there is only one in NH, and it’s a small one, due to these regulations.
Live Free or Die?
Tar and Feathers.
” The hard question is, how do you get from where we are to where we would like to be?”
First step is to get a lot of the certificate of need laws rescinded, and start letting people see the effects of a free market in at least one aspect of med care. Second is to open up the number of slots for Doctors, no more AMA artificially keeping the numbers down. Same goes with the ABA, which is just as important, frankly.
Dr Diversity at your service, Pronoun Specialist
Post-apocalypse chapter incoming!
An allegory for our upcoming war with Russia, perhaps?
Thanks, Animal! You’re a helluva storyteller!
Did the twins literally blow up?
Real good!
Wondertwin Powers, activate!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FouDjI3GzEI
Kristol’s T-shirt says “This Side”
Agneyastra’s T-shirt says “Towards Enemy”
The ending reminds me of the old serials.
Apparently with suicidal twins destroying both sides.
Have to wait and see how the 2 of them deal with the future.
I think I’ve seen this movie.
I was expecting a href=”https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bwq5RYrm5kE&pp=ygUNemFyZG96IGVuZGluZw%3D%3D”>this.
Oh, fuck it, this.
Not this? https://youtu.be/88jytHOsDos
Or Too Many Husbands.
I was thinking this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDd6AfAzq7M
From the ded thred
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_wizard_amendment
This is awesome. More than the actual text but that it passed the state senate unanimously and was going to be voted on by the state house before the sponsor pulled it.
Per the AM thread, anyone who things the seventies was the decade of ugliness is eithera fool or a liar.
She could use a comb or hairbrush.
I was too young to look at such things. I just remember a lot of brown and rust and harvest gold and pea green. I hated the clothes my mom got for me. Picture the Wizard of Oz, and when MTV came out everything turned from shades of brown to neon.
Leisure suits were awesome.
I think you are my age TOK – 52ish. I remember toughskins, “silk” shirts, and her.
Yep, 51. Bell bottoms, suspenders, wide collars.
Heh. Mork set the pace.
Suspenders, florescent green or orange, so my wife can find me in a crowd and I can keep my pants on.
I think I’ve posted it before, but I grew up in the 70s as well, and when I had coloring books, I tried to color the people as wearing plaid pants.
“R C Dean on May 15, 2023 at 10:43 am
Can’t recall the details, but I seem to recall an article that their model is basically non-replicable on any scale.
And the guy running it is a massive asshole that a lot of people quit and refuse to have anything to do with.
The whole post your prices thing is useless as long as we have third party payers negotiating (or dictating, in the government’s case) the prices they will pay across the board with massive discounts and cost shifts. Plus nobody, but nobody, pays the full cash price anyway.”
The certain person’s characteristics aside, the model could work if we scrapped the insurance-based healthcare model. So, never gonna happen.
Or I could have read the comments first. Bah.
Who read the comments anyway?
LOL!
https://twitter.com/Millerita/status/1658154278933106693
Heh
Down below was this
Another daily ray of sunshine.
I like Yuengling.
Just me or does this sound god-awful?
https://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Season-1/dp/B0B8NT89QY
🏳️🌈
Woke feminist fever dreams. They miraculously gain the ability to instantly murder all the wrongthinkers.
In reality, it would be DEATH to all middle school girls. Mean Girls was prophecy.
My daughter informs me that TikTok informed her that the high school mean girl pipeline goes straight to nursing.
A world ruled by teenage girls. How fun.
Ruled by naked force even, no quicker way to utopia.
“If women ruled the world there would be no wars.”
If women ruled the wars there would be no world.
Women cannot de-escalate.
As my Dad likes to say, if bullshit were electricity they’d be a powerhouse.
How many episodes until there’s only one woman left alive?
No more than 30.
28 Days Later.
There can be only one!
My wife got like 10 minutes into the Cleopatra documentary and couldn’t stand how it was all completely made up garbage.
The BBC had a 4-episode series called Collateral. Complete feminist fantasy. What few men there were were incompetent and/or villians, except for the one guy who spouted every proggie platitude and had sex with three of the women in the series (one of which was a lesbian priest living in sin with an illegal Asian immigrant — I am not making this up.)
Ah, the Monday memes.
https://twitter.com/TCC_Grouchy/status/1657081519595216901/photo/1
Why do these hoomanz always laugh in my presence?
What’s so funny about Felix Diccus? That’s his name.
How does the animal identify?
Sunshine
“An attack on my life has left me scarred and deformed…”
Rumors that I had a heart attack are completely false. I am alive and healthy.
These guys get it.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/05/u-colorado-wants-everyone-to-assume-people-are-transgender-until-theyre-told-otherwise/
Ridiculous.
No.
Fuck/You
^
You may be too close to Boulder, it might leak onto you.
I see Tundra is already sharing the preferred pronouns they use.
Mrs. TOK is on her roller derby team’s “Diversity” committee. (She had to pick one committee and they had a vacancy). Now there are public and private pronouns, so you have to remember twice as much for every person. Using the same for everyone almost sounds like a step forward.
Just print a number on everyone’s clothing and address them by that number.
Tattoo it on their forearms.
Difficult/Asshole
Absolutely. We are creating a lot of friction in our lives to accommodate a small percentage of other people.
My pronouns are fluid such that you must use at least half of all other pronouns before you can reuse one.
So, password protected?
Maybe I should use an RSA token for pronouns.
I’m glad I don’t live with our interact with crazy people. Hopefully that trend continues.
Sad, but I think it’s time.
‘Archer’ to End With Season 14 at FXX, Sets Premiere Date
Nobody needs another Simpsons skin-suiting.
I forget when I stopped watching.
I think I saw the first four seasons, then I got rid of cable and my mental state improved dramatically. Missing Archer is a small price to pay.
I thought they quit after the mother died.
I thought that was like 3/4ths of the way through last season.
She went to the beach with her husband, that was the end of season 12?
I didn’t know they made a 13.
I was thinking the actress herself.
You may be correct that there was a season following her death.
Thanks, Animal. Looks like a “happy ending” is going to be in place. No artificial magic left so the happy couple will have to initiate their own. Another week to wait…
Heh. I was about to say the last two stab each other to death and their enjoined skeletons, still clutching swords, are found two years later.
Finally catching up on the morning links.
That Miller Lite add is horrendous.
“We’re composting old ads, turning them into soil, growing hops, and giving those to women brewers.” So are we supposed to buy the women’s beer? I though this was an ad for Miller Light.
At least Miller hasn’t gotten to the feminist trope that women brewers were accused of being witches and were driven out of the business.
Picked 3 tent caterpillar nests off the apple trees. Need some witch help
My neighbors have a dog named Hazel, does that count?
Great news if you like a yeasty beer. 😁
*raises hand*
So, Miller, how many of your brewers are women?
Of course they did.
FBI Asks Judge to Delay Seth Rich Laptop Release for 66 Years
I don’t know why they are worried about it.
“Hard drive malfunction, all data is lost.”
We all know there would be no consequences for that.
Any news more recent than October? 😉
┐( ∵ )┌
Was Seth Rich a government employee in possession of government documents? If not, then FOIA requests for private papers is ridiculous. Taking control of them (leaving aside the legality of that) doesn’t suddenly make them government property.
They’re government papers if they’re evidence.
And if they’re not evidence, why is the FBI retaining them?
I’m sure that loophole will be never be abused.
Likewise, takings clause doesn’t apply to evidence because it’s government property. Actually that’s pretty much how firearms are handled now.
It’s already constantly abused. Just ask Trump.
Releasing that information would compromise an active investigation, which they estimate will take 66 years to complete.
What, the laptop they said they didn’t have?
They only had it because a friend needed someplace to keep it, and they never looked inside, double pinky promise.
SugarFree worthy.
Apologies in advance.
I’m surprised it wasn’t Rachel Levine.
That’s the cover. Who can imagine what horrors lurk within?
I guess you haven’t seen the other covers.
I’m dead.
No thanks.
You know you want to click.
C’mon, just one little teeny tiny click. It’s not like it’s Goatse or anything like that.
She looks better than the guy they had in last year or the “plus size model”.
Summoning Tre after hours will not work. He will reply tomorrow morning.
He would probably disagree with my assessment.
I expect so.
Croce gets it
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nobody+likes+a+fat+girl%2C+jim+croce%2C+youtube&atb=v198-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc05cbe7coh0
My husband would like a word…
No Feinstein?
Has Playboy done trans or fat centerfolds yet?
Ha! I was about to say Playboy stopped printing any nudes at all, but decided to Google before I stepped in it, and sure enough, they brought back nudity after 1 year of abstinence. Gee, I wonder why…
The writers aren’t putting out good articles lately?
Back in the day, one would look at the pictures and read the articles.
Because sex sells?
She was quite the beaut in her heyday.
Mrs. TOK is on her roller derby team’s “Diversity” committee. (She had to pick one committee and they had a vacancy). Now there are public and private pronouns, so you have to remember twice as much for every person. Using the same for everyone almost sounds like a step forward.
Mrs. TOK is on her roller derby team’s “Diversity” committee. (She had to pick one committee and they had a vacancy). Now there are public and private pronouns, so you have to remember twice as much for every person. Using the same for everyone almost sounds like a step forward.
Address everyone as “Comrade”. Problem solved.
Comrade Comrade, even
“Fellow Traveler”
DeSantis bans state funding for diversity, inclusion programs at Florida public universities
Florida governor also banned universities from requiring students to write ‘diversity statements’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that bans all state funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the state’s universities on Monday.
DeSantis signed the legislation, SB 266, on the campus of New College of Florida, an institution to which he has made drastic changes this year. SB 266 prevents any public university from using state funding to pay for DEI programs, and it also grants university presidents more authority over hiring practices.
Yeah for Florida Man
Watch. The universities will rename the programs “Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity” and carry on. Eventually a judge will agree the new law doesn’t apply to IED programs, just DEI programs.
That move will blow up on them unexpectedly.
Haven’t you heard? Not letting publicly funded schools engage in leftist propaganda is fascism.