Aster Isle Museum

Floodwaters: Part 1

Marching Season

It had been months now since Captain Berkant of the Talaran Army had accepted a post at Fort Pinnacle, a small and unassuming garrison at the southernmost tip of the eastern mountain range, straddling the border between Talar and Gora. The fortress itself was built to be as inconspicuous as possible, constructed by gnomish masons into a gap between a steep hillside and the tall stone formation the locals called The Pinnacle. Berkant, being from Ankhazir, was shocked at first by the quiet and solitude of his new posting. Fort Pinnacle was serving primarily as heavily armed watchtower.

It had been three years since the orcish army, fighting alongside summoned demons, had breached Gora and begun driving gnomish refugees into Talar. For nearly as long, the people of Talar had failed to see the signs that the orcs would come west, despite the gnomes’ dire warnings that this new army was nothing to be trifled with. And then, the previous summer, after Talar had made what was, in Berkant’s mind, a terrible mistake in seceding from the Empire, orcish scouts had been spotted as far west as Castle Kyr, and hobgoblin raiding activity had tripled over that season. Things had quieted down once the weather cooled and the windy season had begun in the Goran high desert, but tension had been mounting recently with the knowledge that orcs considered spring their marching season--as an old adage about the scourges of the steppes said, “March in spring, conquer in summer, feast in autumn, starve in winter”. Orcs were formal in the way they did things, even if that form made absolutely no sense to humans, and one thing they were known for was their penchant for spending the lean winter dreaming of battle.

Berkant realized he had been woolgathering, staring out onto the flat plateau of Gora’s western desert as the light from the setting sun faded slowly, when he heard First Lieutenant Hamide’s sword jangling behind him. “Captain, I’m here to relieve you,” the soft spoken young officer said. From what Berkant had been told, Hamide had once been something of a firebrand. But she had been at Nalcira when it became a battleground for the djinn and arapashni. After what she had witnessed there, she wanted to be as far away from the city as she could. Personally, he would have picked someplace nicer than Fort Pinnacle for a retreat.

Berkant smiled. “Thank you lieutenant, my mind was wandering. I’m ready for a rest.”

Hamide’s nose wrinkled, a look of concern on her face. “It might just be a memory of Nalcira, but...do you notice a bad smell?”

Berkant frowned, taking a moment to sniff the air. It was there, faintly--a sulfurous, rotten smell, shifting with the breeze. “Yes, it’s there. I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t smell like an army, it doesn't quite smell like an old latrine…”

As the two Talaran officers conversed, trying to discern the source of the disturbing odor, the line of twilight moved further and further west, finally enveloping Fort Pinnacle itself as the sun became a thin line somewhere in their homeland. And in that moment, they struck.

A rustle of feathers, a whistle of wind, and the thing--it looked to Berkant like a mix between a vulture and a man, the stench of it overwhelming--hooked a talon deep into Hamide’s back, blood suddenly gushing out to stain the stone battlements behind her. Glancing around frantically, Berkant saw several more of the things, they must be demons, land on the battlements and down in the yard of the fortress, quiet and deadly as wind, taking out all four patrolmen, leaving a mangled mess of the quartermaster and the smith down below. He tried to cry out, to warn the platoon enjoying their evening meal inside the fortress that all was not well, that they were all going to die In that instant he looked up to see another vrock, this one plummeting down from above, land on his shoulders, forcing him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. The demon, a grin of pleasure on its twisted face, very deliberately raised a talon and brought it slowly to his chest, ready to silence his breath forever. Berkant, however, had been picked to lead this platoon for his record of always keeping his head, and, looking away from the gleeful demon, he reached into a small leather pouch attached to his belt, grabbed a small red object, and hurled it up and away. As the vrock’s talons sank into his lungs, there was little more that he could do.

The message bird, a bright red one pre-folded and written for a very specific emergency, sailed lazily up and north, into the mountains above. In terse, precise language written in terse, precise handwriting, the message read:

From: Captain Berkant, Fort Pinnacle

To: High Artificer Silvershaper

Fort Pinnacle has fallen

The border has been breached

Hamil rubbed his hands together in anticipation as the gangplank descended from the old Araden carrack, a ship that could only be the Alakhshab. Proving Hamil’s conjecture, he saw the balding head of the old trader Masoud peek out of the ship’s cabin. This should be good, Hamil thought. Masoud had never failed to bring him something interesting. Masoud waved Hamil toward the ship--did he seem a little reluctant?--and Hamil strode toward the gangplank, ready to get first rights on anything the Araden had brought across the Aster Sea.

As he stepped across the gangplank, Hamil looked out over the bay of Cordillera. Always a busy port, it was swarming with ships right now, the winds having shifted with the coming of spring which made a trip from Arad or Duvrain an easy and profitable thing. Hamil watched as a Ishannan ship sat, moored at the edge of the harbor, watched over by two Imperial customs galleys and allowed no closer by Eracian law.

The warmth of spring in Cordon was not something that had begun to seem real yet for Hamil. He had spent much of the winter in the frozen north beyond human and even dwarven civilization, the cold seeping into his bones and beyond. Fighting giants and barbarians, crossing frozen lakes, and helping to excavate ancient ruins hadn’t really been his style--and he still had the scars from a very unexpected wolf bite on his backside to prove it--but the spoils had been beyond his wildest expectations, and the shop he and his daughter ran together was becoming something of a legend for the exotic and finely-crafted weapons, armor, and relics he now sold.

Nevermind the fact that one of the local Master Armors had very nearly succeeded at burning down his shop. The magical items would have been just fine anyway.

Mamoud came forth from the ship’s cabin just as Hamil reached the deck, and the two of them clasped arms in the custom of coastal Arad. “It’s good to see you, Hamil!” the older man said, but he seemed exhausted, even sick.

Hamil raised an eyebrow at him. “Rough voyage,  Masoud?”

The merchant, dressed in a rich red silk robe, shook his head. “Not really no, my friend, I am just getting a little too old for such a voyage.”

It was beyond obvious to Hamil that Masoud was lying to him. Would I have been this suspicious before I went north? It was an easy question. Hamil’s voyage had definitely made him more paranoid. Him and everyone else who was there.

“So,” Hamil said, ready to ignore the merchant’s prevarication and move on to the main event, “What did you bring me this time, Masoud?”

At this the merchant smiled genuinely. “Such interesting things, Hamil. I hear your fortunes have begun to grow in the last season, perhaps there are some things here I would not have made an effort to show you before.”

Hamil gave the trader a good-natured grimace. “Good to know I finally rate your best wares.”

“Oh I did not say that!” Masoud said as he beckoned Hamil to follow him into the ship’s hold. The next hour was spent haggling and bargaining as Hamil tried hard not to let himself be overwhelmed by the luxurious and often enchanted goods--many of them contraband and even more of them clearly looted from tombs and ruins--and in the end, both of them felt cheated. That was as good a sign as any that it had been a fair trade.

“So Masoud,” Hamil said as he signed the bill of sale, and as Masoud’s sailors loaded Hamil’s spoils up on to a large cart, “will you be in town for a while? I could use a drinking partner.”

Masoud looked a little regretful--for years the two of them had tried to outdrink Hamil’s wife, now dead at the hands of the Nereneans’ armies, but to no avail. “Yes,” he said, “we can talk about old times. I’ll be here for three days or so, unless something goes wrong.”

Hamil noticed a tremor in Masoud’s voice, but thought better of pressing it. “Well, you know where my shop is, come and see me any time! I’d better head back that way.”

Masoud nodded. Hamil had turned and was adjusting a few things on the cart when he heard the sound of a door swinging open, followed by the hiss of Masoud’s breath. Looking up momentarily, Hamil saw one of the porters stumbling against the frame of a cabin door that lead to a smaller store room where Masoud normally kept his food and sundries. Masoud lunged for the door, closing it as quickly as he could, but something caught Hamil’s eyes before it shut.

A snake skin, shed and lying on the planks of the deck. A snake skin as long as a man.

Hamil took his leave from Masoud, the older man pretending pleasantries as he hustled Hamil down the gangplank.

Whatever that was, it’s not my problem, Hamil told himself, firmly and repeatedly, as he made his way back to his shop. But he had a feeling, deep in his gut, that it might very well become his problem whether he liked it or not.

“Can you believe this, Gunnr?!” Henrik shouted, his young and still gawky frame barely able to carry the pile of riches in his arms.

Gunnr turned around, shaking his head ruefully at his younger brother. “What, did you not believe any of the stories our Papa told us?” Truth be told, Gunnr was a little dazzled himself, a sack of silver coins bouncing against his leg in time as he walked through the pine woods of northern Bayern. All around them, other Hohenshaufers, all members of a recently formed group of mercenaries based around the town of Hokblad, moved northward through the forest. Having sacked the small town of Maldenburg with almost no resistance, they were hustling back across the Hohenshau border, where they would divide up their spoils and plan their next raid. Papa was right, Gunnr thought angrily, the Empire took everything from us. And we just let it happen, for centuries!

Luckily for Gunnr, Henrik, and their cohorts, the Council of Caer, held nearly a year ago, had given Hohenshau her freedom, and the Winter’s Althing, a meeting of all the clans in Heideberg not three weeks ago had broken the last of Hohenshau’s chains. They were free to raid the weak farmers and burghers of Bayern again, and take what was rightfully theirs.

Gunnr noticed that their sergeant, Kajsa, had stopped ahead of them, her stern scowl stopping Henrik dead in his tracks. “We’re not home yet boys,” she said, her voice quiet but unmistakably stern. “Concentrate on moving quickly and quietly. We’ll count our coins when we’re back at camp.”

Henrik saluted, nearly dropping a brass lamp he was keeping under the crook of his arm. The brothers moved on, as silently as they could manage, through the pine needle mast of the forest floor. Going by Kajsa’s maps, they were soon within about a mile of the border. Without warning, the entire front rank of the raiders, Kajsa among them, disappeared from sight, and the forest began to echo with gurgling cries of pain. Gunnr’s heart was in his throat as he began running forward, trying to see what had happened to the troop’s leaders. Just as he reached the edge of a deep pit, filled with wooden stakes and now with the bleeding bodies of the people he admired most, he heard a sickening thump. He knew what he would see before he turned, but he had to anyway. He had to be sure.

Henrik stood behind him, wavering, the brass lamp rolling across the forest floor to fall into the spike trap. In Henrik’s chest were three green-fletched arrows. Gunnr made eye contact with his little brother, but before he could say any words of reassurance, searing pain and a staggering impact sent him reeling. Looking down, he saw the throwing axe that had lodged its way into his shoulder. His consciousness faded as the weight of it tipped him over, down into the pit. 

Dita sighed, a tear coming to her eye as she retrieved her arrows from the young man’s chest, wiping each clean with a rough cloth before returning them to her quiver. She spotted her aunt Jetha’s lamp down in the pit, but as she turned to climb down into it, she saw blood, still wet, on one of the spikes, and suddenly felt so enervated she was forced to sit down abruptly on the ground. She was still looking up at the branches of the fir trees above her, trying to force back her tears when  she saw Ewald’s face, three days of stubble and a grimace marring it, hovering over her.

“Was it really necessary, Ewald? Did things have to get this bad so fast?”

Dita’s old friend sat down next to her, groaning as his sore back tried to bend. The two of them had lain in wait for hours, finishing up their vindictive defenses while the Hohenshaufers went to work on Maldenburg, and neither of them was still so young that it had been easy on their bones. “As much as I hate to say it,'' Ewald began quietly, “I think that ranger was right. If we’re going to survive, or at least give them pause, we’re going to have to show them that we’re willing to fight, and that just because they sack our villages doesn’t mean they know the land well enough to make it their playground. I didn’t know they would bring across such younglings though.” Ewald frowned, looking down at the axe wound he’d carved in the shoulder of a boy no older than nineteen. Impulsively, Ewald reached out and took Dita’s hand, for what must have been the first time since he’d returned from the Feylands. 

Dita smiled slightly, then got up and dusted herself off. “Well, we’d better go see what the damages to town were, and get the others back here to help us carry all of this home. It’s not like those are going to be the last of them.” The two of them crept through the woods with a hundred times the grace the raiders had shown. This hurts more than I thought it would, Dita thought to herself as the odor of blood began to blend with the bright scent of the forest.