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Windsday, Disorder Week, Sea Season 1627
Trouble is brewing. With the death of Queen Amalda and Queen and Prince Kallyr at the Battle of the Queens, Sartar has been thrown into chaos. Without leadership and with the Lunar threat pulled back in retreat and its own confusion, the clans and tribes of Sartar have turned inward upon themselves, remembering old rivalries and igniting new feuds. Nearby Apple Lane, with the Varmandi now firmly in control of Tarkalor’s Tower, Korol Serpent Tongue has moved quickly to raid the Orlevings, resulting in one Orleving man losing a hand. The Lismelder Greydogs, still stinging from the burning of the Greydog Inn, finally had a taste of vengeance by sneaking into Old Man Village and setting the redsmithy on fire. Elsewhere all over Sartar, similar troubles and vendettas were repeated.
Despite the bad omens for the year reflected in these events, Apple Lane managed to pull in a decent harvest. As Sea season opened the gates to warmer weather, Dornal Seven Blessed approached the Thane about opening a school for the local children (the number of which is steadily growing) in the Temple of All Gods, to teach them numbers, letters, and philosophy. The Thane, however, rebuffed the foreigner’s suggestion.
Aeson paid a visit to Dusa and was amply rewarded.
As we all looked to spring repairs after the tough winter, a sudden warning cry went up. Sneak Rastolfsson came running into the village shouting “They’re coming! They’re coming!” and scaring everyone into action. High upon the Ridge where he was tending the shrine of Three New Stars, the Thane could see the dust of an approaching warband, glinting with armor and on horseback, coming up the Vale towards Apple Lane. Mounting his horse, he quickened his horses hooves with magic so he could beat them back to Apple Lane. Aeson, drilling the fyrd in the yard, quickly set the village into the defensive order around the Tin Inn. Obrast, who had been clumsily poking around the ruins of Gringle’s, hid thinking to throw stink-bombs at the strangers given a chance.
The strangers halted at the edge of the village, just beyond the range of the wards the Thane had set out, and waited for the ritual greeting. The Thane gave it, and the strangers revealed themselves to be none other than Asborn Thriceborn and Queen Leika:
“I am Leika called Ballista of the Taraling clan, daughter of Orlkensor, the son of Londros, the son of Kerreneth who fought for Palashee the Axe, twice Queen of the Colymar Tribe. I come bearing Colymar’s Black Spear, the Anmangarn. I call my tribe to war!”
The Thane gave them water and invited the queen and her retinue to the Thane’s Lodge to listen to these important matters of tribal war from the queen. Everyone gathered around to hear what the queen said. She told us of the troubles in both Sartar and Tarsh, and how Kallyr had tried and failed to summon Argrath of Pavis to war before the Battle of Queens. Had he been there with his raving horde and weird magicians, she bitterly mused, Kallyr would not have died and Sartar would still have its prince, perhaps even its king. Sartar is in turmoil and Argrath is petulantly holed up in Pavis, letting his sacred homeland tear itself apart, while he plays “king” (Leika says with derision) in the desert.
For you see, Argrath is the last known person of the true bloodline of King Sartar, and, therefore, the last rightful heir of the kingdom. Yet, as long as he dallies in Prax, the tribes of Sartar will bicker and argue and ignore the threat of the Lunar Empire until the Red Emperor musters his vast forces once again and marches upon us. To save Sartar, Leika commands us to take the Black Spear to Pavis and summon Argrath back to Sartar.
Sartar must have its King if Sartar is to survive!
Why would this work? First, Argrath is Colymar and Orlmarth, and thus a kinsman to us (Aeson is an honorary kinsman, if you must nitpick). The Anmangarn is one of the most revered and powerful symbols in all of Sartar, representing the oldest and first Heortling clans to return to Dragon Pass after the Dragonkill. Leika is, by right, Argrath’s tribal queen, and he certainly understands the importance of the Anmangarn: he cannot ignore her direct summons. And if he tries to ignore her, she had a vivid suggestion of how to convince him otherwise.
Time is pressing, the Lunars regather their strength, and the chaos among the tribes must not be allowed to continue. We must travel to Pavis immediately, as quickly as possible, she commanded. For this purpose, Leika had a great plan.
“I am not Kallyr,” she ground out between her teeth, “and I will not repeat Kallyr’s Folly.”
Using the coordinated magic of the entire tribe, the Colymar will summon a magical conveyance to carry us to Pavis in a day (a journey of several hundred miles). Leika and Hastur favor the summoning of the Chariot of Ronance, whereas Asborn Thriceborn favors summoning Orlanth’s Stormwalkers. A third choice, proposed to Leika by the Orlmarth Kolating, Stands Aside, as she passed Old Man Village, is to summon the Thunder Bird.
We choose to follow the advice of the Kolating, and selected the Thunder Bird. As if he knew this would be our choice, the ancient-but-timeless Kolating appeared to conduct the dance and summoning. Leika brought out the barrels of Crazy Black Widebrew she brought for us to drink, to put us in the correct state of mind for the forthcoming heroquest.
The ritual dance began. Stands Aside spoke to us and the spirits, sending messengers into Prax to find and summon the Thunder Bird. Asborn and the Wind Lords sang throat-songs of wind and storm to assist the spirits and beckon the Great Feathered Rivals. It was fitting, it seemed, that Stands Aside gave a black raven feather to Obrast, a golden hawk feather to Aeson, and silver eagle feather to Berrik. We got smashingly drunk, and danced and sang through the night.
When dawn came, the new Yelm was quickly covered by a massive thunderhead cloud approaching from the east. Then we noticed clouds were coming from all directions, converging over us, crackling with thunder and lighting. A great voice boomed out, asking a question. Stands Aside responded and the Thunder Bird, massive enough to carry an elephant in each of its giant bronze claws, swooped down out of clouds, lightning rippling over its body, and landed in the middle of Apple Lane, knocking over people and trees, and cracking the lintels of the Temple of Love.
We clambered up onto the Thunder Bird’s back and the great spirit heaved itself into the air, slowly and clumsily climbing at first until the updrafts over Mount Quivin carried us high into the Middle Air (though still below the Red Moon in the west), where the Thunder Bird could soar freely. We swooped across Sartar’s High Road and circled the Hill of Orlanth Victorious. The Thunder Bird screamed abuse at the Brass Owl of Owlflight Ridge, then spread his wings and set out towards the plains of Prax and distant New Pavis.
We saw many landmarks below us: the great granite dome of Tada’s High Tumulus in the north, and the Block much further to the south, as well as the pale gleam of the alkaline flats of the Dead Place.
Trouble soon came to our journey in the form of a tiny raven, which taunted and teased the great Thunder Bird, infuriating him and baiting him into chase. We veered off-course, up and down, and mostly to the south (and not the east we wanted to go towards). Down we dove, clutching to the Thunder Bird as he recklessly chased after Raven, skimming the Eiritha Hills dangerously. Berrik tried to speak to the Thunder Bird using Bronze Huaan, but he ignored us. Then we saw the great storm, Storm Bull’s Desert Storm, that the Raven was leading Thunder Bird straight into. Ignoring the peril, fixated on his rival, the Thunder Bird plunged headfirst into the dangerous Desert Storm.
Soon, we were wracked by poisonous dust and lightning. Even the great Thunder Bird struggled against the raging, primeval storm. We would have died had not Berrik called upon Anmangarn, using all its magic he could, to bend the winds around us.
But our troubles were not over, for Gargarth’s Wild Hunt rode upon the storm, and those cursed and doomed skeletal warriors and steeds, flying upon the Desert Wind, descended on the Thunder Bird and attacked him, lead by the disfigured and burned ghost of the Gargarthi woman Berrik had killed in Tarkalor’s Tower. The Gargarthi ghost had her revenge on us, as the Hunt concentrated their attacks on the Thunder Bird like bees upon a bear, nipping and nicking at the Great Spirit until it bounced off a mountain in exhaustion. As he tried to escape the Desert Storm and the Wild Hunt, struggling to rise into clear air, the Thunder Bird began to fade beneath us, dissolving back into the spirit world from whence it came.
And then we fell.
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