Stair Kine

Overview

Stair kine are the herd beasts of the Orc kindreds of the Windscar Pacts, named for the cliff stairs they climb sideways, step by step, when a camp moves. A kindred counts its wealth in them: they are its food, its shelter, its trade, and the currency in which wrongs are answered. The other herds the peoples drive between pastures stand under Herd Animals.

Appearance

A stair kine is between a large goat and a small cow in size, deep-bodied on short, strong legs, with split hooves hard enough for scree and stone steps. It carries a double coat: long, coarse outer hair that hangs almost to the knee, and beneath it a dense, soft underwool that loosens in spring and is combed out for felt. The colours are those of the ridges, dun, smoke-grey, and dusty brown, and most beasts carry short horns that sweep back from the brow. They graze head down and steady, and on the stairs they go sideways while the drovers call them on in long falling notes. A herd grunts and bleats in a low, continuous murmur; penned between the tents it smells of dust, dung smoke, and greasy hair.

Habitat and Range

In the High Scars the kindreds move between seasonal camps on the sheltered sides of ridges, and their herds graze the thin grass of the shelves until it gives out; in the calmer months the herds go highest. Below the Shearline, in the Rimward Basins, they draw in to the rims in the dry months and spread across the outer slopes and basin floors after the storms; in a good year every herd within reach is driven down to graze the Long Pan's short green fringe before it browns. Herds come down the Gullstair to the stations of the Soundchain Roads and along the Lee Road to the Leeward Folds. No stair kine lives wild.

Behaviour and Temperament

Stair kine are hardy, thrifty, and stubborn. They crop grass to the root, which is why a kindred moves on before the ground is spent, and they follow the oldest beast of the herd, not the drover. They bunch tightly at a scent of storm or dust and walk into the wind's lee by themselves. Penned in the camp rings they are quiet; driven too far between waters, they lie down and will not rise.

Life Cycle

They drop their young at the end of the windy season, so the calves have the calmer months to grow on the high grass. Cows are milked through the summer, and beasts are slaughtered in the lean months or driven down to be sold. A beast that survives its first winter may give milk and young for ten years.

Uses and Dangers

The herds are the Windscar's living store. Orcs eat their milk and meat fresh, dried, and salted, live in shelters of their hides, and pitch felt tents of their combed underwool; hides, felt, wool, and driven stock are the main goods the kindreds send down the stairs and along the Lee Road. Under the Pacts' retaliation custom a raided herd is answered with animals, and most answers an ordinary Orc ever sees are paid in stair kine. Escorts drive stock down to the Soundchain stations, where its meat and milk feed the corridor in season, and to the yard of the Measure Cistern, where herders sell beasts to the Halflings of the Folds.

Lore and Belief

The kindreds tell the tale of the Still Well against the strongholds: a camp stayed so long at one well that the water soured and the herds sickened, and still no one would move, until Rakhal the Storm-Caller tore the shelters down and drove the camp on to sweet water. To an Orc, a herd that grows restless at a well is the wind telling the camp it has stayed too long. Halfling buyers at the Measure Cistern say a stair kine can count the steps of any stair it has climbed once, and will stop on a step that has moved.

Cattle-raiding is the oldest game and the oldest war on the shelves: young Orcs win their first name by driving off a rival kindred's beasts by night, and the great raids are sung at every gathering, with the count of beasts taken and the names of those who did not come back.

Where It Appears

• The Windscar Pacts
• The High Scars
• The Rimward Basins
• Herd Animals
• Thirstbacks