As of this moment the reaver Galning was no longer pulling the worst shifts imaginable for patrol duty. Ever since the night of Ru's sending off Galning had found himself patrolling either the most boring or the most uncomfortable stretches of borderland, or else sitting around on sentry duty at entry points that nobody ever used. He had assumed that this was part of some punishment for making a complete and total a** out of himself by getting too much into the 'n**.
Oddly, it had been those dismal and desolate look outs that had seen a great deal of activity in the time since then, and Galning had ended up fighting a number of challenges. He had lost all of them. It had been irritating, but after the challenge he had lost two nights ago Galning had sought out the warlord to ask him to think of some other punishment for his behavior at Ru's sending off, even if it were to take the form of a public flogging. He did not explain that it was the shame of losing a fight to his brother that had brought on this request, and it turned out not to matter anyway.
Aesir had told him that he had nothing to do with the assignments that Galning found himself receiving, and told him who was responsible for drawing up duty rosters. The thought that the decision for who to send out on patrols and who to post at which sentry points did not lie with the Warlord was reassuring to Galning. It meant that he had not screwed up so monumentally that news had reached the Warlord. At least until he had brought the matter to his attention personally. That had been spectacularly short sighted of him, but it was too late now to do anything about that. And this way Galning learned new things about the pride.
Apparently patrol duty was not really an obligatory duty when there were as many reavers in the pride as it currently boasted. A lion could volunteer to be put on the roster, at which point he got the shifts that were assigned to him, but he could ask to be removed from the roster at any time. Outlanders who rose to the status of reavers were apparently automatically included to keep them in fighting shape between vikings, since their upbringing might not have made them inclined to practice otherwise. Of all these matters, Galning had no idea. He wondered how many other outlanders were similarly ignorant. In any event, Galning had asked to have his name removed from the roster.
"I do not feel that I am acting in the best interest of the pride if I continue to participate in challenges at the moment," he told the other lion. "I have not won an askorun in, well, in some time and I would not like to think that I am diluting the bloodlines of the pride by allowing inferior warriors to gain entry simply because I, myself, am an inferior warrior."
He had also vowed, although out loud, that he would devote himself to his training and to his own improvement, and that he would take on no more challengers hoping to gain entry to the pride until he had won five consecutive sparring matches. The number seemed a little low to him, but he figured he could always raise it if he did not feel that he had made sufficient progress during that time. Galning felt that there was more honor to be had in setting more challenging goals than in failing to meet a goal that was set because it seemed too difficult to attain.
The lion Galning had spoken to was a retired captain that seemed to hate everyone in the pride and life itself because he was too old and feeble himself to fight anymore. To Galning's very great shame the old captain had snorted at the confession he was subjected to and then pronounced a judgment that had simultaneously humiliated and infuriated his inferior supplicant. The captain's derisive laughter was practically a cackle and quickly turned into a dry coughing spell that lasted for a worryingly long time, but when he recovered his breath the captain's eyes narrowed and he smirked with evident delight as he anticipated the effect his words would have.
"You are certainly an inferior warrior, and to make matters worse you are an inferior Stormborn. While I have learned to expect little from those lions Taraxa is responsible for allowing into the pride, you are quickly becoming worse than he is. He is slovenly and a drunkard, just as you are, but at least he does not fight all that many battles. You, on the other hand, seem determined to flaunt your inferiority and in doing so bring down the quality of all the rest of the pride. If you had not asked to be removed, I would have done so myself before too long to spare the pride any further degradation from a failure like you."
Galning remembered the circumstances under which he had entered the pride. In truth, he and his cousin had not even fought a proper askorun. They had ambushed Taraxa and bullied him, threatening him with violence and death if he did not do as they asked. He had decided to tell the pride that they had defeated him in battle, which seemed to be a face saving gesture for everyone involved, but now Galning realized that among those who mattered it made no difference what was said. Galning's entrance had been tainted from the beginning and now it was his responsibility to improve his standing.
"I will show you that I am not what I have been," Galning said, stumbling over his words. They made sense to him, but obviously the captain to whom he spoke them had trouble discerning what he meant. "I am not a failure."
The captain had not seen fit to reply to Galning's assertions. He had just barked another cackling laugh and coughed into Galning's face. Before Galning could react to this bit of rudeness the captain limped off, coughing, cackling, and muttering to himself about pathetic lions. That was okay. Galning's feelings were too badly hurt and his head too full of new information for him to do much anyway. He had to go home and thing about all of these things.
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