The solitary brother, Mammoth Noah (17 April 889–1 January 919)
Mammoth Noah led the assault triad of the 4th Platoon, Oratay Company, 17th Stavrian Armour-and-Spirit Regiment. Noah belonged to the Yagovsky matronal house and was raised at the Drobogor Outpost, like every other oratay of Zembla. With one exception: the only one to break with that even, age-old order was Noah’s twin, Mammoth Nil. As it happened, the younger brother—by twelve hours; yes, bringing oratay heroes into the world is no easy labour—had been entranced since childhood by the land fleet of the Great Expanse, and especially its flagship walking fortresses. You see, he had no wish to serve aboard the little ark of the 17th Armour-and-Spirit Regiment, as fate had decreed. Nil dreamed of a career, and pursued the dream with a decidedly un-oratay vigour. He studied charts of the Expanse and the history of battles, raids, sieges and defeats. Besides the exercises customary among Zembla’s oratai, he performed the special drills taught at the fleet schools that trained assault troops for the walking fortresses. At sixteen, with the help of his cousin Pavel Tyurin, who served at the Expanse Flotilla’s headquarters, Nil secured the patronage of the Stavrian tsar himself, touched by the young godkin’s determination. Following oratay custom, he left without saying goodbye, intending to enter the Vasilissian Imperial Oratay Land-Fleet School. And enter it he did.
Nil is now making a fine career for himself aboard the Expanse Flotilla’s second walking fortress. He is already deputy captain of a combat reconnaissance platoon, with a scarlet uniform and the latest armour. His elder brother, meanwhile, is somewhat bewildered: where had his own reflection found all these dreams, and the energy to fulfil them? Noah had dreams too: to serve, as his people had from time immemorial, in the 17th A&S Regiment, and to serve in the same triad as his brother. He loved him, after all. Now his place was occupied by green little Yagr. How Noah hated it when anything in his life strayed from the sacred and proper patterns—and here his twin brother had simply got up and gone away somewhere. When had such a thing ever happened in the Yagovsky matronate? Never.
Mammoth Noah’s Oratay Physical Record
Height — 4 cubits, 22 nails
Reach — 122 nails
Combat weight — 204 measures
Marching weight — 300 measures
Combat run — 4 minutes 35 seconds
Mortar-bomb throw — 123 sweeps
Marksmanship — 9 points
Mammoth Nil’s Oratay Physical Record
Height — 4 cubits, 22 nails
Reach — 122 nails
Combat weight — 204 measures
Marching weight — 300 measures
Combat run — 4 minutes 35 seconds
Mortar-bomb throw — 123 sweeps
Marksmanship — 10 points
