Wallach
| Wallach | |
|---|---|
| English gloss | water buffalo (translation, not identification) |
| Role | Haulage |
| Where found | Eldershore's Ireis fields; a few in Clearhold's wet lowlands; nowhere else |
| Kept / wild | Kept |
| Used for | Plowing, harrowing, and hauling in standing water |
| Associated cities | Eldershore · Clearhold |
| Lexicon | Wallach |
The Wallach is heavy, slow, and strong, with hooves splayed wide to spread its weight over mud. It moves across ground a Dorath would sink into, stands half-submerged for hours without protest, and wallows when not working because it must: it has no sweat glands and cools itself in water instead. Its hide is thin and holds no heat, so it does poorly in the north — not that the north has any use for it, having no flooded fields. To a northern farmer it is an expensive, slow waste.
In Eldershore it is indispensable. Ireis is grown entirely in standing water and no other domesticated animal can enter those fields and stay useful. The Wallach plows, harrows, and hauls the Ireis; without it the crop would be hand-worked and far rarer. It is placid to the point of being taken for dim, and is not: it learns the fields it works, knows the turn ends, and works them without direction.