Floodwaters Part 3:

The Call to Arms

Sydney Morrow’s parlor was starting to feel awfully cramped to Lucien and Courvelle. In an unprecedented move, the former noble Morrow had summoned every high-ranking member of the Revenant Blades to his home, to take stock of the increasingly worrying situation in which the continent was finding itself. Looking around, Lucien realized he didn’t know too many of these people--there had been a time when he, Courvelle, Bruir, and Rena were Morrow’s only confidants. But the other two had been dead now for over a year. Lucien recognized Cole, a bluff Fiannan who he was fairly certain would have trounced him in a fight in his prime. And in their respective old ages, could certainly do the same.

 Standing at the front of the room, Morrow looked like he was missing something. Alinya, his assistant and a talented spy in her own right, stalked up behind him with a poorly-hidden smile and handed him a small sheaf of papers. “Ah yes,” Morrow said, sighing as he looked down at the reports. He cleared his throat. “So, my friends and agents, winter was….difficult, to say the least.” Across the room, a number of head bobbed, including Courvelle’s. Lucien remained stoically still. He’d seen worse seasons.

Morrow continued. “While the worst of all possible disasters was averted, we kind of didn’t accomplish as much as we would have liked in Martel. Sure, Adelaide is on the throne and all the traitors--well we assume all the traitors--were flushed out, but the place was burned down by a dragon. So there is that.” He looked over at Lucien and Courvelle. “Not that our agents there did anything less than an excellent job, with the possible exception of my contribution, but the plans there were deeper than we originally expected.” He looked over at Cole. “Cole has told me, repeatedly, that he tried to warn the expedition he was on of a Nerenean menace within their midst, but was repeatedly ignored, even by Fenians. This Aerin Floringras and his new apprentice Aquilinus are, by all rights, people to keep an eye on.” He turned to glance at Alinya. “My assistant here did her best to stop the Hohenshaufers from making the worst decision I’ve ever seen Hohenshaufers make--and I was friends with Bruir!” This got a light chuckle from those assembled, but not from two of his oldest friends. Morrow cleared his throat again, not so certain of the joke now that it had left his mouth. “Sadly, she was only partially effective, even with a back channel to the Imperial Corps worked out through a couple of their agents. From what we’ve seen, there also appears to be a mysterious figure working his way across northern Bayern, assembling a fairly ruthless style of resistance to the Hohenshaufer raids. We will have to keep an eye on THAT in the coming months, to be sure.”

Morrow’s face took on a cast of concern as he glanced at the next report. “Cindir,” he said, calling out to to a cloaked half-elf in the back of the crowd. Courvelle had told Lucien a thing or two about their unlikely spy, a Fiannan who had agreed to help them keep the peace. It seemed she had human family in quite a few places, and believed generally in holding powers accountable--which was as it so happened the ultimate goal of the Revenant Blades. Morrow continued, “Your work in Fianna is highly commendable, and I thank you for, ah, not tipping off some close friends of ours as to your true intent. For those who don’t know, apparently the Fenians have their paws in more things then even we do, and on top of that they supposedly have a long-lost heir of the Martelan royal family on Daoine Island. NOT something I was expecting to hear. Anyway, winter aside, I wanted to bring everyone here to remind you that Spring is on its way and it’s a new opportunity for us to influence people and change things. While the focus is on Bayern and Gora, things are going to get missed, and it would behoove us to spread out and try to find the things that are going on elsewhere while--”

A message bird, previously unnoticed, glided across the room and struck Morrow in the chest, hanging there for a moment while he opened it. “Oh hell,” he said, “It’s from Gora. The invasion has begun.”

Courvelle and Lucien made the mistake of looking at one another and were soon chuckling under their breath.

“I don’t see the humor,” Morrow said, sighing. “I’m literally trying to ignore a war and it hits me in the chest!” 

What followed was a complete loss of control of the room on Morrow’s part. When the laughing stopped and the dust settled, the Blades set down to formulate a plan for surviving the next season.

The Dalma Sea spread out before Lydia, the sun climbing in the Talaran sky. She was alone and finally able to find some peace. The months without her marid, Ahsen, had been difficult. She knew the djinn would return to her someday, but she had just recently been allowed to return to the plane she called home, in the presence of her creator. Knowing how wonderful that must be for her companion, Lydia had tried to give Ahsen a chance to live the life that had been denied to her for so many millennia. 

Just as she was settling down into a trance, Lydia saw a flutter out of the corner of her eye. Pushing back her blue cloak, she snatched it from the air and began to read. It was the note she had been expecting for months, a note that meant Talar was, once again, under siege.

Deep in the grey moor, in the most wondrous city his people had ever created, working in an enchanted forge, the dwarf Darius opened the message that had arrived for him with deep concern, sharing the message with his whisper gnome companion.

In Ankhazir the gnomish illusionist Genly, still out of breath from her mad dash to the throne room, read the message she had received from Queen Halura out loud to the aging ruler, pleading for him to send her east.

Across town from Genly, in a sun-drenched apartment at the College of Forms, Sufir aside the message bird he had received to take the hands of his husband, Ahrin. “I’ll write my letter of leave to the dean today,” he said, embracing the younger man.

Ahrin gave him a serious look. “I’m sure they’ll join us for this. We have to do what we can for the gnomes, after everything that’s happened, and they’ll feel…”

Sufir laughed as Ahrin continued. “I know they will. Let’s call them now.”

The two Elementalists cast a conjuration in tandem. A few moments later two majestic djinn floated in the air before them. The stronger of the two, Ali-Afira, looked down at Sufir as the other, Garoc, clasped hands with his master.

“It’s been a long time, Ali-Afira,” Sufir said. “It’s been a hard road without your guidance.”

The djinn shook his head, smiling. “You have done well, and you are aware that you have. For most things, you do not need me anymore. I have been dwelling in the palace of the Most High again, yet for THIS task I have asked his leave.”

The younger djinn, Garoc, placed a hand on the vaporous shoulder of his master. “Ali-Afira, I believe these humans doubted us.”

Sufir nodded sheepishly. “Given where you were, after so long…”

Ali-Afira placed his hand under Sufir’s chin, tilting it upward to look him in the eyes. “Some debts should not be forgotten, no matter the cost. We will fight for those who fought for us.” 

Magus Amisa, head of the Protector Corps stood, her mouth agape, as she looked out at the pocket plane which had once been called “New Neren” and which would soon, apparently, be the new site of the Imperial Academy of Magic. She turned to look at Magus Aerth, the head of the Academy and theoretically her equal in the hierarchy of the Empire. “You have GOT to be kidding me,” she said. “You’re putting the Academy HERE?”

Aerth looked vaguely sheepish, but before he could respond an intricately-folded message bird flew around his head. He snatched it from the air casually, trying to keep a neutral face as he stashed it in one of his robe’s many pockets.

“And who is THAT from?” Amisa asked, growing even more agitated.

Aerth shrugged, going for nonchalant and landing on “small child in serious trouble.”

“No one important, I’m sure.”

In the palace in Pezane, amid preparations to turn an unused suite into a laboratory for the city’s new Archmage, Rolan Benedeit, Doge Francesca’s centaur assistant Gracca approached her with a letter. “I’m afraid war has come to Talar,” he said solemnly. 

Francesca sighed, exchanging a troubled glance with Rolan as he took her hand. “I hate to say it,” she said to the centaur, “but I think I’d better send you home to see how many of your people you can muster.”

From the shadows of the room, a lizardfolk woman, her face stained red with tattoos, flashed a toothy grin, and an equally toothy dagger, at Francesca. “I hope you have not forgotten us. I don’t like the idea of a desert, but I WILL kill demons for you, my doge.”

In the reconstructed civic district of Nalcira, Magus Toreg awoke from his nest within an unruly pile of papers to find that another document had joined his list of worries. This one had been delicately arranged into the shape of a bird of the high desert. Toreg recognized the craftsmanship immediately. Halura Ironheart, before she had accepted her role as Queen of Gora, had lived in his city for over a year, after all. Unfortunately, there was only one reason that she would reach out to him. On the bird’s delicate wing were the words “it has begun.”

Rubbing his eyes, Toreg jumped to his feet. It was time to pay the queen and Silvershaper back for saving his city. 

In Olwen Grove, in Fianna, a tear of joy dripped off the end of the druid Alera’s face, rolling down into the newly furling blossom of the delicate purple primrose he cupped between his hands. Spring had come, and with it had come this one, tiny blossom--the first flower to bloom in a free Fianna.

In a tiny village named Eisendorf, a young blacksmith worked her father’s forge, missing her friends, but cherishing the longer light of Spring.

“Erinn,” the druidess Dierdre said quietly to the young elf before her.

Erinn nodded. “I know Dierdre. You and Gianna are headed to the south, aren’t you? I believe the demons have finally chosen to breach Talar. It is, after all, marching season.”

Dierdre looked down at her young charge anxiously. “It’s been good to spend the winter with you, Erinn. I know you’ll be all right here, but do take care of yourself.” She gestured out toward the commons of the small island, a verdant field between the ancient seat of all of Fianna and the churning ocean beyond it. A young man, his hair a shocking red, stood contemplating something no one else had any inkling of. A small squirrel, the young sorceror’s  familiar, scrambled across his shoulders, speaking in their own private language. “And, uh,” Dierdre said, “do try and watch out for THAT one while I’m gone…”

In a well-to-do district of Eracia city, Aerin Floringras smiled smugly to himself as he pulled piece after piece of bespoke furniture from his bag of holding, setting them down thoughtfully in his new law office.

On another plane, cast in a sullen red light, the half-elf Marillessar looked down on the tortured lands, dreaming of the moment when he could return to the Eracian Empire, where the webs he had constructed lay in wait. He could be patient, but he would have his revenge.

And in a ruin, deep under the perpetually frozen mountains of the far north, a door that had been shut for thousand of years cracked open. A pair of violet eyes, set into a face blacker than the most desolate gallery of that ancient dwarven city, peered out in cruel amusement on a brand new world.

Floodwaters: Part 2

Rivulets

Dario nearly jumped out of his skin when the man with the tortoise-shell clasp slid into the chair next to him. He had been sitting in his favorite bar in downtown Caer every day for a week, waiting for news from his superiors in the Cult of Neren, but he had expected this particular agent to be long gone from the north. The two had met once before, on a voyage across the Dannan Sea to Arawn Island, where they had been dismayed to find that the Libris Immortalis had robbed them of the army of zombies that had been stockpiled there during the last days of the war. After their return to Caer, the man, whose name Dario suspected he would never know, had been reassigned by their mutual superior, Lamiere. Meanwhile Dario had stayed in Caer, the erstwhile capital of Fianna, now a lonely Imperial outpost occupied mostly by immigrant families of Bevinan descent. That and empty, boarded-up houses. 

“Good afternoon,” Dario said, trying to remain nonchalant. “Didn’t think I’d meet you here.” Dario took a drink of his Bevinan ale, hoping the bitter sting of the pale golden drink would calm his nerves.

“And a good afternoon to you, Dario. On the other hand, I knew precisely where to find you. And unfortunately I have news from the west.”

Dario’s mouth went dry. There had been a delicate operation taking place out on the Feymoor, and Dario had been listening in on as many conversations between guards and military personnel as he could, hoping to hear something. “Is the news what I think it is?”

The man with the tortoise shell clasp nodded imperceptibly. “Crimson and Sable failed, and were killed in the process. Fort Spire remains intact. There’s also some interesting news coming out of Eracia City, but Lamiere hasn’t been able to substantiate any of it. It’s a mix of good and bad for us.”

Dario wondered who “us” was in the man’s sentence? The Cult of Neren? He and Dario? Or some other faction to which the mysterious agent belonged. Dario cleared his throat. “You haven’t heard anything about what we saw on Midwinter, have you?”

For the first time the man smiled, a calm but feral grin. “That’s actually why I came here. With Sable and Crimson gone, Lamiere is moving south. We’re abandoning Caer for the moment.”

Dario frowned. “Are we sure that’s a good idea? After all, this is the closest outpost we have to--”

The man cut Dario off. “I’m not about to question Lamiere’s reasoning in this when he’s giving us the chance to make amends for Arawn. Have you heard of the Book War?”

Dario tilted his head, starting to put things together. “Of course I have, but it hasn’t left Emilia, has it?”

“No,” the man responded, “on the contrary every asset either of the major Libris organizations has is pouring into Emilia to fight this out. And I have it on authority that the ones who owe us an apology are in Terescu as we speak. I intend to go extract that apology, and Lamiere has given me permission to bring you to Emilia, let you build a new spider web there.”

Dario looked around at the faded city that had once been such an important waypoint for the Cult, a place he had occupied for years now, watching all his important contacts draining out after the Council to be replaced by hard-eyed druids and Fenian agents. “When do we leave?” he asked, dropping a few coins on the table and leaving his bitter ale behind.

“Encel, what are you doing up so early?” Halura Steelheart, Queen of Gora, asked her consort. Fomorous “Encel” Silvershaper, Master Artificer of the gnomish nation and the most powerful mage in the east, had crept out of their bed, quietly levitating his way from under the covers, and was now sitting at their kitchen table, a crumpled red message bird in his hand. Beyond him, two broad picture windows looked out onto his massive workshop compound and the peaks of the eastern mountains. Beyond, in the haze, Halura could just make out the high plains of Gora, her home and her kingdom. The kingdom where her husband had been killed, that now belonged almost entirely to the orcs and their demonic allies. Behind her, she knew, lay Talar, the land where she had come to accept her destiny and where, with the help of her consort and his allies, she had proven just how intertwined the fates of Talar and Gora really were.

Encel shook himself out of his reverie and looked up at his consort with a sad smile. “The news finally came, I’m afraid.” Queen Halura sank down next to him and threw her arm around his shoulder. “Fort Pinnacle fell this morning,” Encel continued. “I did some scrying, and it looks like it was vrocks. They probably thought they could take out the watchtower without alerting anyone.”

Halura nodded. “I think everyone will agree that it was a good idea to go behind General Salah’s back and give those emergency birds to the fort commanders.”

Encel turned, distracted by the sound of a heavy pair of clay feet making their way up the stairs. A few moments later, two figures--one a human woman with a distinctly half-elven cast about her, the other a clay golem with the fine features of a Talaran woman. Feather and Kappa had been invaluable allies to Queen Halura during the dark days last autumn when the city of Nalcira fell under the control of extraplanar beings who intended to use it as a final battleground. Their story was a complex one, but during the troubles that plagued Nalcira, they had shared a body. As thanks for their friendship and help, Encel had built a golem body for Kappa, an earth elementalist, to inhabit. The two women were still very close, and Kappa had decided to stay in the Master Artificer’s little citadel until she was entirely comfortable with her new body. Because Kappa had stayed, Feather had stayed, and as a result, Inari, a man whose past was shrouded in otherworldly mystery, must not be far away either. 

Halura looked incredulously at her consort. “You called them up before waking me?”

Encel smiled slyly up at Halura. “I decided you would probably get here at about the same time. You haven’t been the deepest sleeper lately.”

And how could I sleep well? The queen thought to herself. The orcs’ slow advance toward Talar was both a blessing and a curse for her and for all the gnomish peoples. If they breached the Talaran borders then there was a chance they might be able to convince enough armies to fight for them that they could break the orcish army, send them back into their old ways of raiding and pillaging before they had decided their true purpose in life was to slaughter and dominate. There was also a chance that the demons--who still allowed the orcs to think they were on a leash, as far as anyone could tell--would lay waste to Talar, even to the whole continent, and she would die having never seen her home again. No, sleep had not been easy as of late.

Feather sat down at the table, while Kappa opted to stay standing, remembering all too keenly why there were only five chairs at this table now rather than six. Encel explained to them what he had received, and spread it out along the table’s surface for them to read. “I think this gives us every impetus to call a war council,” he concluded, picking the message bird back up and carefully folding it before placing it in one of his robe’s many pockets. “We’ll need to contact our friends in the Fenians, the Imperial Academy, the Elementalists of Talar, everyone we’ve managed to convince to provide us and Talar the smallest amount of aid before the invasion begins in earnest.” He smiled at his old allies. Feather slumped down onto the table, dreadfully certain of what Silvershaper was about to say.  “In short, I called you up here for one purpose, and one purpose only. You’re going to be helping me write a LOT of message birds.”

To a casual observer, it would seem that a bare hillside, surrounded by the windswept heights of the Grey Moor on every side, had begun to crumble and shift under the sheets of pounding rain that washed across the plateau. Looking a little more closely, they might have seen sandstone eyes peeking out from a bald granite head the size of a mansion, but they might not have known why this was happening, or what it was that they were seeing. The creature approaching it, an immense, legless giant who was crawling on his arms and belly across the moorlands, however, knew exactly what it was. Tethra was a Fomorian, the race of demi-gods brought into this world by their slumbering gods, the Titans. Like all of the Fomorii race, Tethra was cursed with a physical deformity--in his case, he had been born without legs. This generally caused him no serious trouble, but it made overland journeys difficult. 

Tethra would be quick to tell you that his missing legs were not his greatest curse. Ever since his birth some fifteen thousand years ago, he had been able to remember in perfect detail every moment of his life. And so Tethra knew with perfect clarity all that there was to know about this creature’s race. The Galeb Duhr, they called them, and even Tethra did not know if they were as old as the stones, or if the stones were as old as the Galeb Duhr.

“Hail, Tethra,” the creature said in a voice that sounded, for a very good reason, like stones grinding together, the words only a little muffled by the driving rain. “What brings you to my plains?”

Tethra smiled. “Well met, Corroch Dhar, but I am just passing through. A group of little folk, of all things, have alleviated me of my burdens. I go to the sea, to find out if any of my brethren there remember me.”

Several large rocks tumbled off of the Galeb Duhr as it laughed. With each movement it became harder to imagine that it had looked like a hillside. “I am sure that you will be able to remind them everything about yourself, Tethra. It is good to lay down our burdens, but I won’t be giving up this land any time soon.”

The two conversed for a few more days, for Corroch’s speech did not come quickly, and as Tethra heaved his enormous body once more across the Grey Moor, he thought he saw the trees of the Wold darkening the horizon to the east. He hummed a song more ancient than the groves of Fianna to himself as he made his way home.

“So it’s over, huh,” Bartholomew said, setting a mug of dark beer down in front of Kerg Balan. The two of them were alone in Bartholomew’s tavern, a grand but homey establishment that had been erected literally in the middle of nowhere. Bartholomew, once an adventurer, had longed dreamed of owning a tavern, but his travels among men had burnt him out on their company. And thus, a tavern no one could find. 

Kerg looked at the beer with delight and took a swig of it before answering the other dwarf’s question. “Ah, Bartholomew, don’t tell her I said this but your beer is better than your aunt’s! But yes, it’s over. I’m no Warleader anymore. Just a humble Clan leader.” The mischievous look on Kerg’s face spoke volumes, but the younger dwarf was having none of it.

A little over a year ago, at an emergency meeting of the dwarven clans, Kerg Balan had been named Warleader, a title not given to any dwarf for centuries. With a majority vote from the dwarven clans, a Warleader could lead without question for a single year. When the clans had been called together, some of the dwarves who lived far to the west among the elves had not been able to attend, and many of them had resented the Balan clan’s ascension ever since. Still, despite the opposition, Kerg had achieved more than any Warleader in memory--by helping Archdruidess Erinn of Fianna, he had ended the Elven War, salvaged the Empire’s arm, provided the military might necessary to intimidate the Eracians into accepting the terms of a miserable treaty with Fianna and its own provinces, and planned and executed two expeditions which had uncovered the deep past of the dwarven people.

Not that he was about to make his findings available to just anyone, even if the information was already getting out. The expedition he had sent to the far north had found an underground citadel that was five millennia old, a settlement that had been the dwarves’ first in this world. A portal from another world had been unearthed, along with ample evidence that Kerg’s ancestors had fled here after facing certain destruction from an implacable foe. And then they had been forced to flee again, their human allies turned against them by a spiteful fomorii named the Scathach and those who were left behind becoming twisted mockeries of dwarves who now called themselves the derro. Before settling into their loose federation of clans, the dwarves had created another amazing city, out on the Grey Moor, and while they had clearly abandoned it as well, he and his clan’s scholars were still trying to figure out exactly what had befallen their second, and greatest, city. Not that the other clans could stay away from what he had found. He might not be warleader any more, but he did still command respect.

Among other things.

“So,” Bartholomew began slowly, “Without your title, how do you honestly think the other clans will treat yours? You know you have my uncle’s oath, but…”

Kerg was used to Bartholomew, the son of his second cousin Galina, being a dwarf of few words and even fewer smiles. And so he was practiced in teasing out the meaning behind the younger dwarf’s words. “You think they’re going to attack us,” he said.

Bartholomew shrugged. “Or undermine you. Or refuse to marry any of you.”

Kerg sighed and took another swig of his beer. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of all that, Bart.” He looked off into the distance, his brows knitting. “Even if Clan Balan dies out, even if we’re wiped off the face of the mountains, even if everyone forgets us, we’ll still have accomplished more than all the Clans have managed together over the last handful of centuries.” He drained his mug and pushed it across the gleaming countertop toward Bartholomew for the barkeep to refill. “So for now, I’m going to celebrate, dammit!” 

Bartholomew couldn’t help but smile at Kerg’s ebullience, and the two sat and drank, telling stories of their travels well into the night.

There were roughly two kinds of days in Rorstad, the capital of Bevin--rainy days, and snowy days. And finally, after months of unrelenting snow, the rain had finally returned. To the dismay of many, however, it had returned with a vengeance. The Illithir was rising fast, and there were reports from the farmlands that the levies were not as high or as secure as they had seemed last year.

In a nondescript stone building near the river, Jacob Van Nuys, spymaster of the Imperial Corps, was suffering under a different sort of deluge. This one was made up entirely of paperwork. Thumbing through his notes, he could see that things were moving. His plans for the Feymoor had worked out, the rookie agents he had recruited for that task handily saving the illegal settlers who had been tricked into building a village on elven lands, stopping the Nereneans who had lured them there with false promises, and protecting Fort Spire from an undead army. He was still waiting on the reports from what was left of the province of Nordest, but it seemed as if his agents there had met just as much success. All in all, without the Corps, the Empire would never survive. But Van Nuys was no longer someone who looked for the spotlight.

Setting the Corps reports aside, Jacob picked up a much less appealing stack of reports, these coming from army outposts in northern Bayern. Hohenshau had, despite all the warnings they’d been given, decided to start raiding again. “Sorry Ganymede, sorry Rico,” Jacob muttered, “I think I’m going to need your expertise up north again.” That, however, left him with a need here in Bevin. With murmurings of eldritch things in the ruins of Sunken Jerecht to the south and in the Haglight Fen, and with the blackscale lizardfolk looking to expand their territory again….well, there were plenty of things to worry about here at home.

“I suppose,” he said to himself, “I’ll just have to find some more willing souls.” He immediately began drafting up a letter to send to certain contacts within the churches, the army, the colleges and academies. He would make do with whomever was willing to heed his call.

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.