For Part II of Vengt's Tale, please see
http://forum.melee.org/general-discussion/vengt's-tale-part-ii/ Previously, on Vengt's Tale:
A Saracen rider, knight of the desert, bears down on our forsaken hero. In a moment of desperation Vengt discovers the jarid, gleaming in the crimson wreckage. Clutching it now, he utters a prayer to whatever gods he worships. His doom at hand, Vengt casts forth the spear, and closes his eyes to meet death....
Part III: The Scorpion's Tail
Vengt is in hell. "So this is death? I smell the hot breath of the devil. I can hear its loathsome snorting, and ..... and it's licking my face?" He slowly opens his eyes. The rider still sits astride his warbeast, unseeing gaze drinking in the far horizon. The jarid protrudes from his left foot, and he is stone dead. Slowly his corpse slides from the saddle, onto the solid ground below. The horse, suddenly docile, licks Vengt's face again.
"So the rider's own momentum was his undoing? It must have amplified the piercing damage from this throwing weapon to such an extent that even a wound to the foot proved lethal." "Yes," he realizes. "If I am to survive w/out paying upkeep, I must learn to use my foe's own strength against him." It is small lessons like these that, in a young man, can accumulate to become experience, and, one day, wisdom. A warrior he is not, and yet he has his life, and those who would take it from him lie slain.
"Since you won't be needing this," Vengt mounts the maneuverable desert horse. Accustomed to the saddle, he guides his new mount gently onward, following after the footsteps of that Smiling old man which, even now, are fading into the shifting sands.
