Our travel to Banner was relatively uneventful, two weeks of doldrums punctuated by the occasional travelers, mostly traders pushing small wagons. Small villages clung to an existence in places where small streams crossed the road, taking advantage of the opportunity to trade with people along the road while providing themselves with fresh water as it wandered in and out of their lives. Some villages did better than others, evidenced by the quality of their clothing – or even, in some cases, by its presence. One village was so poor that its inhabitants worked their fields naked, and the people fled when they saw armed riders passing down the road.
I pondered the determination of these people, carving out a living in hostile lands with little more than stone, wood, and their own wits to defend themselves with. It no longer amazed me to think of the lengths to which my ancestors went in order to establish an empire – the fanatical drive for personal security bent itself into a search for power over everything, denying even death if they could. Perhaps this was the outcome of all endeavors of the mortal races – seeking dominion over the world as a proxy fulfilling the drive to secure one’s personal life.
I believe, should I bring back the life of the Empire in my journey, that I will see to it that even the least slave should be provided with clothes and food. No person, save perhaps the condemned, should ever be born into a life of fear. I suppose that would mean those purchasing slaves would have to establish their ability to provide for their chattel, but I suppose considering such laws would be putting the cart before the horse. I would worry about it if and when I got that far.
As we continued southward, I noticed small elements of the natural adjusting to a slightly warmer climate. Six days outside of Banner I noticed some trees maintained green leaves, and the smell of autumn was still tempered with the moist remnants of summer. Deer were still a month or more from the rut, and when they appeared they were still in herds divided by sex. A small parade of antlered males crossed the road before us, probably twelve of them in all, and each had a rack I would have been happy to mount above the hearth at the inn, if I weren’t saving the space for the skull of my first dragon. Maybe sometime if I opened a regular hunting lodge I would consider such a trophy. We also saw occasional turkeys scrabbling in the patches of snow beneath the trees, looking for grubs and seeds.
Bingo shot a doe for us along the way, and we ate well. I had brought some spices with me from the inn – Duchan’s wife set me up with a small package of dried salts and herbs which went wonderfully well with the game.
Three days before we reached Banner, we came upon a small village whose aged sign gave its name as “Vanard.” We entered shortly before nightfall, and decided to avail ourselves of the local inn rather than continue on and camp. As we approached it, the run-down nature of the place quickly became apparent…the buildings were showing extreme wear, as if they had not been tended to in years. One’s roof had collapsed in some long while before. In the center square of the town, a short picket fence surrounded an enormous aged oak tree, whose leaves showed only the slightest hint of yellow in the gathering twilight.
From the tree, ropes hung, garnered with old bones that hung together by their own dried sinews. Beneath the shadows of the tree, a group of children knelt as if in prayer around a man wearing a very wide-brimmed Montessori hat. He saw us approach from outside of town, and as looked up he gestured welcome to us and waved us closer. He called out to us, “Hello, travelers, join us here!”
I began to tie my horse to a tree just outside the circle of houses defining the center of town, when I caught sight of the side of a building just before me. Painted on the side of the building was one word, roughly slathered on – “Acamar”.
As I was reading this and its meaning registered with me, both Bingo and Sered called out warnings. “Ware behind, movement,” Sered said, while Bingo whispered “Look at the children.”
I spared a glance at the children, who were standing up and beginning to slowly approach us, climbing over their little fence and into the weed-grown street. Several carried toys, some carried nothing at all. Their clothes were ragged and torn, where they had any. They were emaciated, flesh hanging loosely from their bones, and when I moved my eyes to the preacher, I saw his skin was white with oozing, scabby pustules upon it.
Not a good sign.
I was, unfortunately, not looking behind me. Else I might have caught a glimpse of the four other child-like figures dancing from shadow to shadow, heading towards me. I was thrown to my feet before I could even look, and when I was able to roll over to see, there was a creature that might have once been a small boy leaning down and hammering at me with a heavy wooden soup-ladle. He bloodied my face while the others stabbed at me with a variety of kitchen utensils. I dodged the stab of a meat knife and rolled to avoid a crushing blow from the ladle, and decided it was time to evacuate the area.
I ripped a hole in the fabric of the real and pulled a flood of the ephemeral stuff of nightmare over me, which seized the children surrounding me and vanished them from my sight. I rode the wash away from where the little creatures were going to reappear shortly, and it carried me as though the world was momentarily a dream, through the jumble of my companions and their assailants, to the opposite side of them.
When I came to a halt, I saw the children re-materialize around my former position, shaking with what I assumed was rage and hunger. They each started and whipped their gaze around, though only one found me with his eyes – the little boy ran after me, swinging his ladle wildly around his head and hissing like the rattle of a snake. In the moment I had bought myself, I invoked the radiant crown of revolving stars around my head, sending one singing burst of light at the preacher. The gaunt man-like thing had loped across the dirt commons to engage Karac, and was clawing around the Dwur’s shield with sharp yellowed talons. My burst of light hit, and where it did the flesh crisped around it.
The old creature screamed out, but did not turn from Karac. Sered was being dragged about by a pack of the terrible little urchins, swinging his sword from one to the other. Bingo was running headlong down the road, turning to send shots back into the jumble of enemies and the occasional chaser.
It was just as Sered was being overwhelmed by the pile of carnivorous toddlers – one stabbing at him with a knife buried in a terry-cloth doll – I landed a burst of ice shards I’d drawn from the essence of Levistus’ frozen wastes on the old preacher-man. It again howled with rage, a howl that was cut short as Karac’s axe swung cleanly through its neck. The thing’s head tumbled quickly across the road, and from its neck a spout of dust emerged like smoke from a fire.
The body fell like a bag of sticks, to the ground. As if it were a bell ringing out over the square, each and every one of the former children turned to observe the fall of their leader, and almost as quickly bolted for the shadows and darkness. Some made their way into the homes, slamming their doors behind them. Others simply disappeared into the woods around the town. From the occupied houses, we saw an occasional drape twitch as the creatures peeked out of the windows.
Panting, we all regrouped in the square to examine our wounds and begin moving out. It didn’t take long to determine that our original plan to stay here for the night was probably unwise to persist with. We also considered what to do to prevent this town’s inhabitants from waylaying other travelers.
We burned the town. Every building, and even the tree in the center of town, we put to the torch. Whether these creatures would survive, we took no further concern on ourselves. We eliminated the place which would attract other travelers along this road. We rode on for another hour, the rising smoke behind us growing taller in the gathering dark.
A few days later, our arrival Banner took place with no fanfare, a city whose buildings were of mixed architectures, and equally mixed with old ruined structures. Banner’s war of the Robe, some two hundred years ago, did a great deal of damage to the infrastructure. Much of that was never repaired. Still, it was a busy city – standards bearing the sign of the house of Andelyn were scattered about, and soldiers bearing his mark milled about town on various errands.
We’d reached Banner in the early evening, when the glows of the city were just becoming visible against the low clouds which scudded across the sky. The center of town was dominated by the ruins of Bael Nerath – towers in varying states of disrepair, all of which had faint glows to them, enchanted using methods similar to the Feyspires of legend.
When Bael Turath fell, the survivors – mostly humans – who came north formed a new, minor empire, called Bael Nerath. The entire Nentir Vale was dominated by this empire – more a kingdom, really, too small to be considered a genuine empire. The Grand King of Bael Nerath had used magics similar to the Turathian nobility’s (no doubt stolen from us) to raise his towers and construct this jewel of humanity’s efforts here. What he didn’t count on were the Morrigu – the humanoid races, who had banded together, and the coming war with them. The Morrigu, despite their cultural barbarism, wield great power of a primal nature, and their own fell gods rival even those of my empire – and so it should come as no surprise to a historian to find an echo of the Turathian/Arkhosian conflict in the writhings of the Nerathian/Morrigu one. As we did with our enemies, Bael Nerath and the Morrigu horde exhausted themselves upon one another.
Which left Banner a shattered husk of a city. Now, torches, lanterns, and candles in various windows demonstrate the tenacious will of humans and their allies in rebuilding this city.
Keeping our heads down, an inn was located while doing our best to avoid notice. We located an inn named “A Distant Field”, and settled into rooms to enjoy the feeling of a bed beneath our backs that night. During the evening over dinner, we found many people who accepted Andelyn’s victory, but still held a sense of loyalty to the family of Gavilan. As well, we heard rumor of Del Clem – surprisingly, he turned out to be half-brother of a mercenary leader named Addawyr of the Night, who set himself as the defender of Banner and who had opposed the concept of a returned “Grand King.” Apparently, he still held these views and was keeping himself out of sight as a result of Andelyn’s victory.
Rumor also had it that a strange plague was infecting the people of the City of a Thousand Tents, called Tarsis, which was directly upon our route southward. We all discussed this and decided that although we would travel to Tarsis, we would not spend a great deal of time there and minimize our time and exposure.
Over the next couple of days, we restocked our supplies and discovered to our good humor a shop called “Candle’s Keep” – run by a dunkel named Morvar, yet another brother of Jindar, Devar and Quelvar. From him we acquired ritual components for our Shadow Walk rituals, it was hoped in order to accelerate our further travel south.
Realizing we were going to be in need of a medic and a healer, I and the others asked several local shopkeeps and innkeepers to determine if there might be a gathering place, or notable individuals who might be looking to join a group such as ours. We came upon one – a Dwur priest of Moradin, who went by name of Morin Winterpeak.
We invited him to a meal with us that evening, and he joined us at the Distant Field. After the introductions went around, we settled in to the food and began talking.
“So where did you all come from?” Morin asked around a mouthful of roast chicken.
“We started our trip in Al’Veydra, but we have spent the last eighteen months in the Feywild.” Karac took a gulp from his mug.
“Sounds difficult,” Morin nodded.
Sered leaned in. “It was, but it is over and past. At some point it will make a good story.” He looked over at me, pointedly referring to this journal. “But what about you? How did you end up here?”
“The group I was riding with was slaughtered several weeks ago, and this was the closest city I could run to.” He was obviously unhappy about this.
“How did this happen?” I pressed him on it.
“Not sure, actually. Wasn’t there. They’d gone ahead while I was putting a shoe back on my horse. They weren’t but an hour or two ahead of me, and I found them all on the road. Well, I found what was left of them.” He paused for a moment, touching the small golden anvil around his neck.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope whatever or whoever beset them finds justice at some point.” I could feel Sered’s eyes on me as I said this, probably irritated that I could hold some sense of Pelor’s mantle.
“Where are you all headed?” Morin sat back for a moment.
“South – first to Tarsis to reprovision, then on further to Abbor Alz and the Bonegate. Heard tell there’s a Shadrim army formed up there and moving, and that’s where we’re going.” Karac told him.
Morin looked over at me. “This something you’re interested in, then?”
I nodded. “Yes, though I would like to see Bael Turath reborn, I don’t want it as it was. We were too reckless, too power-hungry. If it is ever to accomplish what it set forth to do, we must not lose sight of the purpose of an empire – to provide safe lands for all its peoples, not just its rulers.”
He squinted, contemplating that. I suppose it is hard to trust my kind even now, hundreds of years after our empire fell. Goes a long way to show the many ways we went wrong, for people to remember us this way.
Eventually he leaned back into his food and started eating again. Around a mouthful of steamed or boiled greens, he said, “Well, you have the look that you could use a bit of Moradin’s guidance, if building something is your goal.”
Sered concurred. “There is more to it, but your assistance would be welcome, yes.” We all muttered general assent.
“A full share, and a place to stay in Al’Veydra should you want or need it, is what we are offering.” I said to him.
He nodded. “That’ll do.”
The conversation continued for a while, before we broke off to either sleep or pursue our own concerns. I went to bed early, knowing we were headed out with early light the next morning.
The morning, as expected, was grey and misty, and a dampness settled into practically every nook and cranny in our clothes and armor.
We rode out, with the expectation that we’d reach Tarsis by the end of the week. Tarsis sits on the edge of the Hastwith Wastes, where the scrub and steppe around Banner becomes full -fledged desert. Settled initially by refugee slaves from the fall of Bael Turath, this town was the nearest outpost of my former home. We met our time expectation, though the view which greeted us as we crested the rise that morning was both disturbing and unexpected.
The City of a Thousand Tents was ruined.
Contrary to its nickname, Tarsis did have several wooden buildings, though tent-makings were the dominant structure. In a land with so little rain, cloth buildings were a practical and inexpensive means of expanding. Obviously not the most secure, though. Everywhere we looked, cloth was shredded, smoke rose from various burned husks, and no one walked upon the streets.
On investigating, we found several buildings locked tight, and within them were survivors. After some convincing, we got a few to come out and speak with us. The city had been taken by plague, all right, but not a natural sort – this plague was of the undead. As Al’Veydra might have gone had we not stepped in and destroyed the threat brewing in Cozule, Tarsis had no such defenders as we.
The dead had run rampant among the easily-torn buildings, and had overrun the entire town. In the end, we located perhaps sixty survivors, and in a hasty discussion decided it best to turn back to Banner with them. Their leader, Ragul, explained that the dead had a master, named Corfyr (whose name we recognized from the writings of Casava when we’d gone through his journals). Although Ragul made it plain that he and his people had no intention of abandoning their city, when we explained that there would be no help coming from Banner, he realized that his clinging to this place would spell doom for himself and all who followed him.
In the end, I convinced him that a return to Banner was the only way to secure a future for his people. We also offered them welcome in Al’Veydra, should they choose to travel further north – for extra hands and backs in our growing town would always be welcome.
Knowing we could not outrun a horde of chasing undead, we fired up a Shadow Walk ritual – and completed it only just in time. As the sun set below the low dunes to the Southwest, we caught sight of the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of ghouls racing through the town towards us. The ritual took hold, and we sped away into the shadows.
Over the ensuing eight hours, we recovered the territory we’d crossed over the last week, returning these refugees to Banner. Karac and I spent time examining the band, making sure there were no stragglers and getting a feel for what sorts of shelter and transport might be needed for them. Upon getting them to Banner, he and I spent additional time tracking down a set of wagons and pack animals to help them establish themselves. Having spent a great deal of my own personal money on this, I made a point of drawing up a note for Ysolde and Duchan back in Al’Veydra, instructing them to assist these people in settling down there, and to offer what work might be available to them. After putting my seal on the wax, I retired to bed – the others had secured our rooms in A Distant Field once again.
Waking in the evening, I heard a bit of a commotion downstairs, and descended to investigate.
I found a small band of Hesrith Andelyn’s men, armored and standing about, and many of Ragul’s people waking from the floor of the Inn’s common room. It was perhaps midafternoon, and although it took me a moment, I eventually recognized the person leading the group of soldiers. It was Tyle Quell, who had been sent to Banner to establish a relationship with Gavilan, the blind boy-king. Given how he was wearing Andelyn colors, it would seem that after Gavilan’s defeat and disappearance he had been quick to assure his safety.
The men with him were considerably older than him, so from the look of it he’d come out somewhat ahead. I wondered if the Lady Quell knew whether her son was still alive.
He opened brusquely: “Who are you, and who are all these people you’ve brought here?”
Sered was already in the room. “These are refugees from Tarsis, we’ve brought them here and intend to send them on to Al’Veydra.”
“Yes, and why are you sending them to my home?”
I’d had enough. “It’s our home as well. We are Fellbane, and Shard Keep is our homestead.”
“Who are you, devilborn? What is it to you? What authority do you have to do this?”
“Tarsis is overrun with the undead, as would be your home if we hadn’t acted. Casava’s rival, Corfyr, has utterly destroyed Tarsis – these people are the only living survivors, refugees of a doomed community. We intend to send them where we know they will be cared for.”
Sered stood up and approached us, as I continued. “We have space and a community that can accommodate them – and I may even have work for some of them.”
Tyle contemplated what he had been presented with. I thought it over and walked closer, extending a hand. “Look, I think we’ve gotten off on a bad foot. I’m sorry that is so, it’s been a long night. Is it possible for an ‘extended’ patrol to escort them up to Al’Veydra? I can perhaps supply you cash to help with a payment to get a platoon on the job. Would that be possible?”
He took my hand briefly, and thought over my idea. “The money will help smooth things over in getting these people out of here. I can also arrange riders ahead to prepare things in Dayven and Al’Veydra to give them a resting place on the journey.”
“That will have to do, I suppose.” I sorted out a handful of coins and slipped them into a pouch, which I passed on to him.
“Where are you all going that you can’t accompany them?”
“We are headed further south, we’re investigating other leads. That we actually happened to run upon this situation was coincidental – we were intending to simply restock and move on, but presented with this situation, what choice did we have?”
He nodded, looked around at the rest of us, and walked out with his men.
We checked our gear around, and after determining that we were set, we settled in on dinner. We stayed up quite late, discussing our plans – in the end we decided to return to the vicinity of Tarsis via Shadow Walk, and then continue on conventionally towards Abbor Alz and the Bonegate.
The journey was long – on the order of 30 days – but we eventually did reach Abbor Alz. A great many minor things occurred en route to our destination, but none were of consequence or significance…although the point where Bingo was attacked and stung by a scorpion the size of a small dog was a bit dramatic. Morin got to him in time, so it all worked out in the end. The Hastwith finally gave way to scrub again, and even some areas of trees, though we were fast approaching a ridge of mountains that had risen up from the distance. Badham’s wall, wherein lies the Bonegate.
As we neared the edge of the desert, with the mountains rising up before us, we crossed what had once been a battlefield – corroded weapons, remnants of buckle straps, even occasional bones were visible protruding from the sand. In the late-evening sun the shadows these cast were spiky and irregular. Moving on further, ancient remnants of buildings – the occasional wall, and plenty of rubble strewn about where other walls once stood – decorated the sands.
Looking down, I saw here a pitted sword, there a broken shield. A sand-scrubbed femur, stained yellow and orange. An ancient, dented helmet. A wooden spear-shaft, broken and splintered where the head would be. The hilt of a dagger. Battlefield detritus was everywhere, when you looked.
Which was moving.
I caught myself, and looked back. The hilt sat motionless, half-buried in the sand. I rubbed my eyes, thinking a piece of errant sand might have interfered with my vision, and looked back to the broken weapon.
It was gone.
I looked up, and around, in time to see the sun finish sinking beneath the horizon far in the distance, its orange rays playing along the undersides of the thin clouds overhead. A gentle breeze stirred with the sudden absence of the sun’s heat, tainted slightly with the scent of desert flowers and ancient grit. I resigned myself to having simply imagined the phantom weapon…
When the desert exploded up around us. A whirlwind of sand, bones, and fragments of every nature whirled up just behind me, engulfing Morin and Sered in its stinging, pummeling force. From within it, I heard the distant trumpets of a legion of the Cairn Jale – the calling horns of a Crimson Legion. Sered’s and Morin’s surprised outcry was muffled by the flying sands. I could see now, the cloud was reaching up from the sands, not just blowing around them, as if the souls of the fallen inhabited the ground and were striking out with the desert and their ancient remains.
I could not spend a great deal of time watching this, as additional foes became evident. Enormously long constructs of metal – mostly broken armor and weapons – crawled with alarming speed up out of the sands and approached at a clip that would give even our horses a match. Their swinging arms comprised of blades and rusted edges weaved dangerously through the air as they scuttled along. Most disturbingly, a cloud of green mist – with distinct borders, and with amoebic protrusions reaching out, seeking something, was rapidly approaching me. A sphere of flame, looking identical to the spell of the same name, quietly rolled in on an angle at Bingo.
With the two insectlike constructs fast approaching me, I spurred my mount to carry me around the far wall of rubble. As I did I also blasted at the cloud with a spray of ice, freezing a few small clouds which fell as a fine greenish snow from amidst its roiling depths. I had heard of these ‘living’ spells, remnants of battlefield trauma trapped in the essence of magic itself. Looking around at the battlefield and our own broken position, I felt the best decision at this point would be to retreat. As I drew breath to give voice to this, Sered beat me to it and called out “Time to go!”
I spun and made best speed out, with one of the metallic centipedes in hot pursuit. Bingo pinged it with an arrow, which bent one of its legs and slowed it just enough that it couldn’t catch up. Though we all broke in a variety of directions, we all circled and regrouped a mile or two away, after opening up distance and pulling way ahead of our pursuers. We resumed our path, heading towards the rising crest ahead of us, and a few small threads of smoke that seemed to indicate a campsite.
Reaching Abbor Alz, we pulled up at the edge of the mountain’s crater, to look down into the caldera and view the remnants of the city of Vor Kragal. I’d never visited the capital when I lived in our height, but of course you can’t be Shadrim and not hear stories of it.
Now, though, the jewel of our empire lay in ashes before me. This, more than anything before, described to me how viciously broken my home had become. I was forced to my knees, seeing it, and for a while my eyes swam with the sorrow and memory of my home – lost now in the ashes swirling on the soft breeze from the desert.
Some towers remained – the Charspire, whose explosive turmoil drove my superiors to launch the ill-fated expedition deep into Arkhosia, still stood. Its blackened bone exterior rose like an eagle’s eyrie fully a kilometer above the sunken streets of the city, easily topping the caldera’s rim for a view out into the wastes beyond. Other landmarks, such as the Pyramid of Lost Tales, and the Tower of the Mirror King, were also visible, but the city itself was a wasted husk buried under feet of ash. Still, the wind did its work, and streets were certainly visible.
We circled the city and ended up at a blasted section of ground on the edge, and observed the remnants of an army’s camp, emptied only days before. We also met an elderly Shadrim who had set himself up here, named Shakrath, living on a high overlook that gave view to the inner city as well as the outer steppes and fields. He explained this place to be “Yasadoun’s Folley,” the site of a fortress constructed a few centuries back by a warlock named – surprisingly enough – Yasadoun. This ill-fated fellow had envisioned himself the unearther of Vor Kragal, and had constructed his fortress to act as the guardian of the area (preventing others from plundering the riches of the city) and as his staging ground for excavating the place, which at the time was buried entirely under ash.
Apparently on the eve of the completion of his fortress, the very last stone set into place, a massive meteorite utterly destroyed the keep, and Yasadoun with it. Pieces of the keep and the meteor were apparently still to be found here from time to time.
Shakrath explained to us that the city had washed itself of its ashen cover – apparently the caldera had been entirely full – only a few decades ago, the Charspire pulling the city up behind it. Most of the ash had blown away, revealing the city below. Since then, many had come to try to brave the reaches beneath the city, but few came back, and those that did were lucky to bring their sanity with them, much less trinkets from Bael Turath.
He also told us of Kaenig’s army. Kaenig, whom I had thought dead so many centuries ago, has apparently been returned from his howling Abyssal grave to lead this army. He and several of his retinue had descended into the city only recently, and he had returned with his arm miraculously changed – it was entirely bronze. Shakrath explained that he must have found the Pool of Bronze, where innumerable fiends had been sentenced to destruction for actions considered crimes even by my own ancestors. The Pool is apparently animated by their shattered spirits, and now demonstrates remarkable properties in its metal.
He told us legends of this pool, that Kaenig was only the second to ever return changed after immersion. The one person prior had been driven made by his own souvenir – an arm that replaced one lost to a battle some years prior. Kaenig had also returned with an arm, though I could not recall him ever having lost one before his death.
Still, this boon he had recovered from the Pool was considered an omen of good fortune by his men, and Shakrath explained that he had then mounted the army and driven it south – south, towards the seat of the former empire of Arkhosia. To defeat an empire already lost to time hardly seemed sane to me…but then, Kaenig was in thrall to the Abyss, hardly the most logical source of motive.
As evening fell around us, and the tea we shared with Shakrath cooled, we debated the question of what was next to follow. Do we pursue this army southward, wrest it from its general, and lead it back to tackle Hesrith Andelyn? Do we abandon our pursuit? Venture into the city ruins before us in hopes of recovering some of Bael Turath’s lost treasures?
Sered, that evening, expressed his misgivings on the entire enterprise. I fear we may not be able to keep him with us, from the sound of his convictions. He could not seem to draw the conclusion of how this would all benefit Al’Veydra or any other township…I also wonder if he is not simply balking at my heritage. Granted, Bael Turath was not the most beneficent of empires, and my blood holds a legacy of that power. I cannot truly blame him for not trusting me. Still and all, I wondered at why he bothered to accompany us on this journey at all when he knew from the outset what my plan was. Further, I wondered at what future he saw if we didn’t do this, if instead the armies of Andelyn were allowed to control the Bannerlands, creating an empire directed from behind the scenes by demonic masters, rather than the ones we could choose.
I suppose we will have to discuss it further in the morning…
