Chapter 5:

This chapter is quite long, so I don't know whether I should split it into two or not. We'll see as we go along.

Anyways, everyone is pretty happy after what's happened. Under the Temple's law, when kiddies are taken off to be apprentices to the dragonmaster, the clan from which the boy is taken has to give away all its loot, and after eight days, the temple will reward the clan with riches. Cue four pages of "slices of life" as to how the pottery clan members are preparing for the occasion. Mostly, the women are hiding their loot, especially those items with sentimental value, while the men are eager to give away their stuff and obey temple law. Anyways, there's only one bit that's of any note: Zarq finds a figurine amongst one of the men's possessions, ready to be given away to the clans which will soon come.

It was heavy, like a terimelon, but with a tunnel carved through its center. I turned the figurine this way and that. A brooder dragon, that's what it was, but the strangest likeness of a brooder I'd ever seen, for instead of the mottled greens and reds of a real brooder, it was glazed a soft beige, like the skin upon my inner thighs where the sun never touched. Stranger, its thin tail was lifted high, revealing a rump much like my own, complete with an aperture just large enough for me to squeeze all the fingers of one hand into.

I withdrew them, frowning. The tunnel running through the length of the brooder was glassy and knobbed with tiny bumps.

Uh-oh. I smell trouble. Zarq thinks it's a container for drinking maska. It's not. I'm sure you've already guessed what the fuck it is.

I have since learned the device is used by men during the fertility rite Kana Cinai ki Gourfi, Ride the Brooder's Back. The figurine is filled not with maska, as I'd thought, but with warm water--or warm oil, if one is wealthy--and lined with a peforated leather insert. The figurine is said to increase both the fertility and sexual prowness of the user. Odd practice, no?  Especially for folk who despise the Djimbi for how they interact with dragons.

I shudder now to recall how I'd so blithely held that figurine to my lips. Big Grum Grum did not often bathe, and that figurine, by the stink of it, had been well used.

Ahem.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH!

I...you...they stick their...in...that statue...ugh...my brain hurts. I want to file a complaint on behalf of all dragons in fantasyland on the absolutely disgusting portrayal of our species in this utter filth.

Excuse me. I need a breather.

Anyways, everyone's happy, and the women prepare a feast. People fuck, and a jolly good time is had by all. However, as sunset approaches, the rishi of other clans start gathering by the pottery clan's gates, patiently awaiting the time they can come in and grab loot.

And they do. The serfs from the other clans swarm into the pottery clan's compound and start grabbing things, crazed by greed. People are trampled in the rush, blood and injuries all around, yadda yadda. The women gather and hide in the women's barracks. Zarq kicks up a fuss about her toy she hid a little while ago, and runs out to save it.

"But our pigments!" I howled, loud as the mob outside, suddenly overcome be the injustice of the pillage, thinking only of my beloved fu-lili hidden behind the boxes of pigment in our pottery shed. (Run-on sentence much?) They would take those pigments, discover my fu-lili behind them and take my precious toy as well. (And it would never being me pleasure and comfort again!) "They'll take everything--they will, they will!" (Including my virginity!) .

Well. It took our dear Zarq...sixty-three pages to actually do something on her own initiative instead of being helped out by someone else and forced. I'd have expected such a thing by page five, but oh, you know, all that disgusting infodumping and "woe is me!" had to absolutely come first instead of finding a proper reason for reader empathy to be fostered--oh, silly me. Forget it.

Anyways, Zarq dashes through the swarming crowd to the women's pottery shed and grabs a knife. Although why it isn't already ransacked, considering how thick and greedy the crowd is supposed to be, I have no idea. Anyways, she holds them off single-handedly, a girl of nine, and there's a happy quote:

I was quite off my head with emotion. (Not that it was easy to balance on, anyways.) Quite. I do believe, had I been capable, I would have readily killed all present and never suffered a whit of remorse afterward.

*Claps morosely* Well, that's great. Just great. The evil ravagers are so evil and faceless, you can kill them without feeling remorse. Like orcs. But we all know these rishi from the other clans have only one purpose: to make Zarq's life miserable. Like the evil theocracy, which is so evil that it encourages this sort of ritual. Uh-huhuh. Great job portraying your heroine as likable, Ms. Cross.

Anyways, Zarq's mother catches up with her. Zarq whines and cries about how everything's going to be taken away, and her mother tells her to go stay in the women's barracks while she rallies the other women to do something about it. So Zarq returns to the women's barracks, gets put in charge of a baby while the women of the pottery clan run out and do something. Zarq continues to complain about having to take care of the baby, managing to angst about it in the slew of other things:

I hated Kobo's Dash, who sat at arm's length from me, squeezing the twins against her, for not taking my burden from me. Obtusely, I also hated her for staying behind, for not going to help my mother and the other women save what clays and tools they could.

Isn't that amazingly great? From page one, Zarq's portrayed herself as a self-centered brat. I don't know if bad behaviour and selfishness accounts to being "strong" in Ms. Cross' book, but it doesn't in mine. Even her jumping out and holding the fort at the women's pottery shed could be arguably motivated by her own selfish desires, although I won't deny that at least she cared for the others in that small span of time. Then when the other women go and save their goods and all she has to do is to take care of one baby, she whines and whines like no tomorrow.

Stop it with the angst, please, I've really had enough.

Anyways, the night goes on and it's next morning. The looting crowds have already dispersed, satisfied there's nothing left to take and one by one, the women return to the women's barracks--except Zarq's mother. Again displaying her self-centeredness, Zarq whines and whines to everyone in earshot for anyone of her family, but they're not around. Anyways, there's one full page of the destruction that's been wrought, how everything has been wrecked and the likes. Some of the men have hidden chits in their huts, and the total is a surprising amount, so some of the men go off to buy food--although they are overcharged to five times that amount. How Zarq knows this, I'm not exactly sure.

Anyways, Zarq finds her dad, and they have a nice, touching conversation, something that actually counts in my book as character development. Great wonderful. A breather before we go onto worse things. Cut to that night. Some of the women are leaving the women's barracks in secret, and Zarq suspects it's got something to do with her mother. In a brattish way, she threatens to scream if they don't let her come along.

It seems that the women have hidden the essential tools of their trade in the jungle, with Zarq's mother staying behind to keep them safe. When Zarq sees her mother, here's the following reaction:

I hurled myself at her. (But missed and smashed headfirst into a tree trunk, dashing my brains out. Everyone cheered and ran out of the plot as fast as they could.) She caught me up as though I were much smaller. I burst into tears, then was furious and pounded her with my fists.

Great. Great job making Zarq likable. What was with all that angsting and arm-twisting if you're going to make her act like this, behaving like a spoiled brat and risk everyone being discovered? Oh, whatever. the world revolves around Zarq, remember?

The women form a chain, Zarq included, and pass along the loot they've stashed away in the jungle; tools of the trade, but no food inside. Zarq whines that she's hungry; the other women tell her in not so many words to shut the hell up.

"But we need food!" I felt betrayed that Mother had risked her life in the jungle solely to save the tools of her art and hadn't given a thought to saving so much as a scrap of food for me while she was as it.

Man, I'm starting to like this little prick less and less with each passing moment, and considering I already want to gut her, that's an achievement. Her mother was out there braving the masses, grabbing the means they had to get more food for themselves--so to speak--and all this stupid little brat can think of is how her mother didn't get food for her.

I've known ten-year olds who were far more mature than that, so I'm not going to buy the "but she was really a brat!" excuse, and to be honest, she should act more than her age, if only by a at least a little. Ms. Cross DOES want us to like Zarq, right? Right?

I'm not so sure.

Anyways, the women return with their loot and try to make it look as if it'd been dropped and overlooked. Anyways, the next day, a party is sent out to gather vines and clay for use and trade. Cue one page of description on how horrible cutting lianas is, and two pages on the history of Malacar, which I don't care about, at which the end is a shout-out:

I was flushed with pride at my clever response. Mother was not so impressed.

"Tradition is always right then, hey-o?" she murmured. "But did not Zarq Car Mano defy tradition by uniting rival countries into a nation? Tradition is not something to be followed without question, Zarq. It's rarely as pure and correct as it's made out to be. All tradition means is that something has become accepted over time. That's all. It's good to question some things.

However, WHY things become traditions is not questioned. Things become traditions for a reason, you see, and it's always best to find out whether it's really obsolete before doing away with traditions. Even Pern with its "we've evolved beyond such silly superstitions" and it's people who are afraid of technology for no good reason even admitted that you shouldn't just throw things away Just Because.

And the freaking thing's a shout-out. Three coppers say Zarq's mom is just being used as a mouthpiece for Ms. Cross' views. What the heck it is doing there after a discussion of the region's history, I'm not quite sure, but it's there. Not that its addition did amy more harm than the enormous infodump's already done, anyways.

So there's another page of how great the days were before the empire came, when every clan had their own brooder dragon and the evil theocracy wasn't around, and how the people were all so happy. Anyways, someone grumbles against the emperor and temple, and a fight breaks out. One of the men is murdered, and Zarq and Waisi flee. End chapter.