• Chapters
  • Home
WARBAND
  • Amazon
  • Patreon
  • WARCRY – Afterthoughts

    March 10th, 2023

    “Well, that had been a cluster…” Magus Ferox mused to herself as she and her fledgeling warband, which she’d dubbed the Berserkers, rode homeward from the warlock’s tower. The walls of Daoulaive coming into sight in the darkening horizon, she’d had plenty of time to grouse about the events of the day. Her day had started out with a moose trying to eat the trapspringer, and after that things only got worse. They almost got shot to bits by an arcane turret, had to run the gauntlet through dozens of traps because the trapspringer couldn’t see them to deactivate them, and then the same trapspringer almost got eaten by a magic-poisoned warg when he decided to jump over Ferox’s shield spell and face the beast with his daggers…

    She narrowed her eyes on the trapspringer in question. Micah Arclight, the red-headed rogue had wandered into her company shirtless and swaggering, and had almost gotten himself killed by disobeying her orders. Ferox couldn’t say she disapproved of the shirtlessness, but disobeying her had earned Micah a hard shake and a sock to the jaw, once she’d finally caught him. He’d still giggled like an idiot the whole time as she jostled him by his collar and yelled curses at him. Clearly corporal punishment wasn’t going to work with that one. Micah didn’t seem to take her seriously– or worse yet, he liked getting slapped around by women. That last thought made Ferox grimace.

    Micah looked up from where he’d been perched on Gwilyon’s flying carpet, catching Ferox scowling at him. He grinned, and lifted his hand to twiddle his fingers at her in a cheeky greeting.

    Ferox snorted a derisive laugh at him through her nose, and shook her head at him before looking away. A reckless idiot was one thing, but he also just had to be a cute idiot. He had striking red hair and mismatched eyes, honey-toned skin and his frame danced the line between brawny strength and sleek dexterity. She had pinpointed Micah as her problem child, for many reasons. He was going to be troublesome.

    Forcing her gaze away from Micah, she instead scowled at problem child number two. Seiph, the shaman– he’d naysayed her every move and seemed to just be full of opinions. He thought it was too soon for their newly-formed warband to be venturing out, but Teegin had assured her that they’d be fine. They had been fine. Nobody died.

    There had only been… a mishap… where Ferox had -thought- she’d been shot, and she jumped into Seiph’s arms for comfort. Remembering that particular bit of idiocy made her cheeks pinken all over again, and she groaned aloud as she slapped a gloved hand over her face, palm covering her eyes.

    “Feeling unwell, Magus?” Seiph had asked, looking up from where he’d been policing Gwilyon’s questionable driving. The wizard was reading a book and piloting the flying carpet at the same time, causing the shaman some concern. Seiph still had plenty of concern left over for the pained noises his magus was making.

    “Ugh, no. Just– ready to get out of this chainmail.” She lied. Ferox rotated a shoulder just to play it up, and looked away from Seiph. He was blonde and exotic looking, with facial piercings and scars, crimson warpaint and bright yellow eyes. She thought, Why is it always the cute ones?

    “We’re almost home.” Seiph inclined his head toward the city walls. Ferox was forced to agree with him, not for the first time today. He was dreadfully sensible, and she just hated that about him. She was probably going to have to hogtie him and drag him along forcibly for her wackier schemes. That idea made her crack a crooked smile.

    Ferox just happened to cast her gaze further to her left– and then came to an abrupt stop, tugging on the reins of her mount, Ripper. “Anathoth?”

    She couldn’t see him. The towering paladin, riding atop his massive war-moose…. had gone missing. They’d managed to lose a seven foot tall warrior riding on the back of a megafauna, somehow.

    “ANATHOTH?!”

    Gwilyon brought his flying carpet to a halt at the sound of Ferox’s panicked shout, brought the magical conveyence to bear in time to see the magus already bolting back in the direction they’d come. She could follow her warg’s footprints well enough, backtracking to where she hoped she’d find moose tracks.

    They lost a few nerve-wracking hours in the process, but the Berserkers found those tracks, and reclaimed their paladin. He’d fallen asleep in the saddle, his fullplate sort of locking him in an upright snoozing position while his moose, Binky, had just trotted off in whatever direction he wanted.

    It was well past midnight by the time they’d reclaimed the ground they lost. Just to be sure, Micah hung onto Binky’s reins, teasing the moose into following by occasionally shaking his bright-red hair at the animal. The moose seemed to love the color, probably mistaking it for edible snow-growing lichens. The trapspringer would complain loudly when Binky got too close, though. He didn’t want his hair getting eaten again.

    Soon, they were safely behind the walls of Daoulaive. Ferox brought Ripper to a halt and hopped off his back, to address the warband. “Well lads, we made it. Congratulations on a successful first adventure. You’re welcome to stay in the warrior’s hall of my House, or make your way back to your own homes. Till I call on you again.”

    “Not a moment too soon.” Gwilyon muttered, shooing Micah and Seiph off of the back of his flying carpet. “Hard pass on the afterparty, I have a library and sweet, sweet solitude calling to me.”

    “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about our remedial training, Wizard.” Ferox warned Gwilyon, shaking a finger at him. “Combat casting, and how to better choose your spells for tactical situations. Brace yourself, I’m a sink-or-swim style of teacher. I did promise it’d be exciting.” She gave him a threatening grin.

    The wizard gave her big, green eyes and arched his delicate white brow over the rims of his glasses. Then he shook out his long flaxen hair, and told her defiantly, “…Not if you can’t find me, it won’t.” After that bit of bravado, Gwilyon took off on his flying carpet at speed. It shot directly over houses and walls, heading straight for House Mar’Korath.

    “HEY! YOU LITTLE SHIT!” Ferox raised both fists into the air and shook them at Gwilyon’s retreating form. The sound of Micah starting up with his infuriating giggle caused her to spin on her heel. She glared, and he cleared his throat and looked away. Micah still didn’t quite manage to stop grinning, though.

    “So, are we going to party?” Micah asked, changing the subject and sounding hopeful about it.

    “There will be ale and meat, and a warm fire. Benches to sleep on, and breaking fast in the morning. Whether you have the energy to drink too much and act a fool is on you, but I doubt my brother and myself do.” Ferox answered, nodding her head at the paladin who still dozed in his saddle. “Will you be staying, shaman?”

    Seiph turned his gaze in the general direction of House Do’Kerellen. It was dour looking even at this distance, black spires climbing toward the sky. He frowned, and saw no need to rush home. “Why not? Thank you for your hospitality, Magus.”

    His answer had surprised her. Ferox had figured Seiph would take off like a shot, much like Gwilyon had done. Still she welcomed him, and along with Micah, the stablehand and herself, Seiph helped with getting Anathoth down from his saddle. The huge man slept very stubbornly, and didn’t even seem to wake up fully once he was on his feet. Once in the warrior’s hall, servants did him the favor of removing his heavy breastplate and propping him up in a hay-filled corner to nap.

    The floor of the warrior’s hall was strewn with hay, to keep the stones from staining with spilled wine. The hall had seen its fair share of partying, but this late at night only a few dozing Du’Thuranis guardsmen occupied the hall.

    The three remaining Berserkers sat by the fire, and were brought ale and meat. They ate and drank quietly, exhausted and generally fed up with each other. Ferox glared at Seiph, half daring him to say something critical about their performance today, and Seiph stared back at her judgingly. Micah stared between the two of them like a spectator, waiting for explosions to ensue.

    After a while of that, it seemed the shaman was wisely holding his tongue. Ferox finally relented and stood while she announced, “Well, I think I’ll be retiring to my cottage. I’m exhausted, but not too exhausted to make the trek to my own bed.”

    “Can I go, too?” Micah asked, daring to wink at Ferox and give her a troublesome smile. It shocked both of them, Seiph’s eyebrows shooting up and Ferox’s mouth falling open. It was more reflex than anything when Ferox elbow-dropped the trapspringer on the crown of his head, roughly bashing the bony protrusion of her arm into his skull. “Ow, damn! I was kidding, ehehehe!”

    Shaking her head, she walked away from the two, the sound of Micah’s giggling chasing her. Just as Ferox passed through the door to the hall, she overheard Seiph say to Micah admonishingly, “I think you’ve got more balls than brains, friend.” The red-headed troublemaker just giggled louder, and Ferox found herself smiling, too.

  • WARCRY – Farseer

    December 16th, 2022

    Navigating through the city with her hood pulled up, Amaranth moved with purpose through the residential districts, choosing to duck behind houses instead of moving down the snow-shoveled pathways. She crunched through deep snow, uncaring of the cold but mildly irritated by the dampness of her shoes. They would dry quickly anyway– her body heat being so high, it would dry her slippers in a few minutes just as surely as setting them out to dry on warm hearthstones. Still she sighed in relief when she was out of the deep snow, passing through an alleyway to an open area paved in cobblestone.

    She pulled her hood down further over her face as she moved through the marketplace in the center of the city. Ducking behind various stalls and groups of shoppers and merchants, she took a roundabout way to the city’s hub, the Grand Arcanist’s Tower. It was the seat of rule in Daoulaive, currently where the Warlord resided and directed his warbands in various tasks. Prior to the council of houses choosing a Warlord, the city was run by an archmage, the Grand Arcanist. Before Amaranth was born, the last Arcanist was deposed and the current Warlord was put into power. As Amaranth had been told, at the time a more aggressive approach to meeting the citizen’s needs was desired. Their lives had been turned upside down by a seismic event that shook Daoulaive loose from its foundations and sent it sliding across the frozen north on the back of a moving glacier. While magic was keeping the place in one piece, warbands were needed to raid and hunt for food since their normal resources were gone. And so, the Warlord took over leadership of the city from the Grand Arcanist.

    Amaranth stepped into the tower, lightly stepping into the foyer and up the main hallway as if to petition the Warlord, like a handful of other people were doing. But, just off the main hall before reaching the courtroom, a side passage led off at a right angle. She looked around to make sure no one took note, and slipped around the corner and down that narrow hallway. Continuing down it a ways, she eventually reached a small stairwell leading up, with a door tucked under the stairs. Putting her hand on the knob, a small leaf-shaped sigil glowed above the door before she opened it, and passed through it.

    On the other side was a wide, curving hallway whose outer wall was lined with stained-glass windows that glowed with sunshine no matter what the time of day was. The floors were carpeted in green and were lush underfoot, made of growing moss. The inner walls were woven from branches, like trees were coaxed into those shapes and upward. The leaves on those trees were broad and changed colors occasionally, but never fell. The layout of the hallway and the summery-springtime weather inside of it were both illogical and impossible. The door Amaranth had passed through lead to a magical space somewhere else.

    At the end of the curving hallway, where it would seem like it had come full circle, it terminated in a large doorway made of intertwined branches and leaves. The wood parted for her as she approached, leading her out to an open meadow with a bright blue sky above. She wasn’t uncomfortable here, despite the summertime appearance of the place. If she’d stepped into a grassy meadow in the real world, she’d start suffering heatstroke. Snow Elves weren’t built for this kind of weather at all, and required a frozen landscape to survive. Amaranth still thought it was beautiful, and had gawked in awe the first time she saw the meadow.

    In the center of the meadow was a giant tree, bigger than the Arcanist’s Tower itself. Its branches arched across the sky, creating a broad shady swath at its trunk. The trunk was bigger around than most houses, and its bark seemed to encase a warm golden glow, the light pulsing between the cracks of the bark where it was thinner. Amaranth walked toward the tree, shuffling the picnic basket she carried to sit more on her hip.

    “Lady Amaranth. What brings you back so soon?” A voice rang out from the tree, just before a figure passed through its broad trunk as if stepping through a nonexistant door. He was tall and lithe, dressed only in a green vest and brown trousers rolled up to his knees. He was barefoot, his skin pale as snow and his eyes the blue-white of ice. He had a fluffy cloud of white hair curling around his jawline. A Snow Elf just like her, but where she was dark he was pale, the height of what was considered Snow Elf beauty.

    “Teegin! You were absolutely right about the warlock’s tower. Right where you’d said it would be!” Amaranth bounced up to the tall man who lived in the tree, and threw her arms around his neck. He laughed, bending down to indulge her in her enthusiastic hug. When she stepped back, she smiled and told him, “I brought your payment!”

    “Venison stew?” Teegin asked, looking to the basket on Amaranth’s hip. His mouth was already watering, and he imagined he could smell it already.

    “You bet! And a bottle of wine too.”

    “You’re too kind, my lady.” Teegin said, reaching out to take the basket. Amaranth handed it over, and as Teegin turned with it, roots of the great tree wound upward from where they lay to form a table just in time for the white-haired elf to set the basket on top. Roots tangled into two woven chairs situated around the table, and the pair took a seat to dine. Teegin unpacked the meal, setting one vessel of stew before his chair and the other in front of Amaranth, the bottle of wine between them. He provided the tankards– or at least, the magical tree did, in the form of broad leaves growing from the table in the shape of deep drinking bowls. Teegin and Amaranth just snapped the leaves free from the wood, and poured the wine.

    “I didn’t expect you to return with breakfast today. Figured you would return with your payment once you were ready for your next scrying.” Teegin commented, just before lifting a spoonful of stew to his lips. Once the morsel passed them though, he froze in place– and struggled not to make a face. Gulping hard, he swallowed the stew, and forced a smile at Amaranth.

    She was already digging into the stew like nothing was wrong. “Well– what if I went to the warlock’s tower and you know… died? I figured I should pay you, first.”

    Setting his spoon down smoothly, Teegin scoffed. “I wouldn’t send you to your doom, Lady Amaranth. If I’d forseen your death in that place, I would never have told you about it. It’s certainly dangerous, but I’ve sensed that there’s a series of events that must unfold there. When do you plan to go?”

    “Today! After I leave here I’ll head home, armor up and gather my new warband. Then I plan on leading them straight there. We’ll arrive by the afternoon and have the place ransacked by sunset. It’s so close by we won’t even have to camp for the night, we can just ride straight home and be back in town by midnight.” Amaranth answered, setting down her spoon to take a few sips of wine.

    “That’s fantastic. I wish you all the best of luck, Lady Amaranth.” Teegin said. He made no move to continue eating his stew, but picked up his wine to salute her before he sipped it.

    “After today it won’t be just ‘Lady’ anymore, I’ll be a Magus.” Amaranth told him proudly. “Magus Amaranth… ugh. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?” She grimaced.

    “Interesting that they kept the old titles of the magliarchy, but chose a Warlord. Using ‘Magus’ as an honorific was something they did back in my day.” Teegin commented, rubbing his bare jawline as if he were scratching his beard in thought.

    “Back in your day?” Amaranth asked curiously. She still hadn’t been able to suss out how old Teegin was– he was anywhere between thirty and three hundred, judging by the way Snow Elves aged. If he remembered the magliarchy, that put him over sixty or seventy at the least.

    “Mm.” He confirmed wordlessly, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he changed the subject, “Something else they did back in my day– a Magus would operate under a moniker, usually denoting their favored school of magic. An evoker might pick ‘Magus Ignis,’ heralding that he was adept at fire magic, in the old arcane tongue.”

    “Ooh! That’s what I need! I’m an Abjuration specialist– what’s the old word for ‘shield?’” Amaranth asked excitedly.

    “Uh… ‘scutum.’” Teegin and Amaranth both made a face, not liking the sound of the word.

    “Yeah, no. Something else then… something fierce!”

    “Ah– Ferox?”

    “PERFECT! That’s what I’ll be called– Magus Ferox! I can’t hardly wait!” Amaranth picked up her bowl and slurped down the rest of her stew hurriedly, putting the empty vessal back in her basket. Then she noted Teegin’s lack of progress on his own stew. “Not hungry?”

    “Mmm… not just yet, I suppose it takes my belly a while to wake up in the morning.” He chuckled and smiled in answer, lips pursed in an attempt to hide his polite lie.

    “Oh, okay. I’ll just leave the bowl and the wine with you, and I’ll pick up the empty vessels next time I come back for a scrying! And you can bet I sure will, knowing exactly where to find treasure is a scavenger’s dream come true!” Amaranth told him, slinging the basket over her shoulder and rising to her feet. “Want me to bring you more stew when I come back?”

    “Mmm… no, I think I’ll crave another dish by then. Apples are fine and all, but I do miss having a varied diet. I haven’t had fish in ages, maybe that…” Teegin said thoughtfully, hoping fish was an easier dish for Amaranth to cook.

    “You bet! See you later, Teegin!” She waved to him, half turning as she trotted down the pathway back the way she came.

    “Safe travels, Magus Ferox.” Teegin answered with a wave, and Amaranth– Ferox– squealed in excitement at hearing her new title and moniker. She passed through the doorway, the branches closing in behind her.

    Once she was out of his sight, Teegin hummed to himself, and then held out his hand. An apple dropped down from the tree above him, landing directly into his palm. Taking a bite of the fruit, he chewed and hummed thoughtfully again, his ice-blue eyes glowing with magic as his gaze turned to other times and places.

  • WARCRY – Preparations

    November 28th, 2022

    “Lady Amaranth of the Du’Thuranis!” The crier at the gate announced the rider’s name, seeing her ride up to the city over the snowy horizon. Her warg Ripper picked up his pace, starting to lope happily toward home, tail wagging like a pup. Home meant treats, and steaks. Amaranth let the warg sprint to the gate, enjoying the burst of speed and wind rushing through her hair.

    Two gatesmen dove to the sides as Ripper and Amaranth barreled through the gate, and one of the older and braver of the two turned to yell at Amaranth’s retreating back. “Watch it ya little shite! I’ll tell yer mother!”

    Amaranth just cackled aloud in response, her brash laughter sounding just like her father’s to the old gatesman’s ears. She pulled back on Ripper’s reins though, slowing the warg’s approach to the second gate that led into the city proper.

    Daoulaive was built in the shape of a wheel, with the Grand Arcanist’s Tower at its hub, a black spire built out of rare pine-wood. Amaranth’s gaze always went to the tower when she returned home, the spire never stopped being mysterious and impressive. The wood was blackened because each timber had been soaked in boar’s blood, to keep the edifice from burning down. Amaranth had only learned this recently. She’d just assumed that was the normal color of pine-wood, so rare was the material in town. Her people- the Snow Elves- only ever built in stone, as trees were hard to find in the snowy expanses of the far north.

    She passed little A-frame houses built of stone and shale on her way to the stables of the main Du’Thuranis keep. Ripper had his very own stable, away from those of the other mounts– Snow Elves usually rode on caribou, and the warg’s presence tended to spook them. Once she reached Ripper’s stable she dismounted from Ripper’s back, gave the warg a kiss on his fuzzy nose, and then left the stablehand to contend with removing the saddle and brushing down the beast’s wiry fur. Ripper tolerated it with the grace of an annoyed prince, but only because he knew the stablehand would also bring him steaks.

    Amaranth strode confidently down the walkway to her home, a bounce in her step as she approached the cottage. Rather than living in the main keep, she had her own little space to maintain. It was something of a rite of passage for young adult Snow Elves, they learned to live on their own once they were no longer children. Having just turned twenty-two, Amaranth had lived in her cottage for four years now and was well versed in the upkeep of her living space.

    Opening the front door with a key, Amaranth slipped inside and shucked out of her tabard, chain-mail and gambeson. Her undergarments were soaked in sweat. Despite living in the frozen North, the Snow Elves were unusually warm-blooded creatures and maintaining a cool body temperature was difficult. To her, the snowy wasteland had felt like a balmy summer morning. The weight of the chainmail free of her body caused her to sigh in contentment, and she stretched her limbs and rolled the muscles in her neck.

    After likewise divesting herself of her riding boots, Amaranth padded around her cottage barefoot and in her underthings. It was her house and she could do as she pleased, and that included starting a quick stew to simmer over her cooking fire while she took a cool bath. She minced red lichens, winter fungi, frost turnips and plenty of salted venison, dumping the lot in a cauldron of filtered snowmelt before deeming the job done and heading to the bath. By the time she was done soaking in the tub, it was only a little bit burnt to the bottom.

    Amaranth skimmed the good bits of stew off of the top of the pot, ladeling it into two vessels that she wrapped in sheepskin for transport. Then she dressed in leggings, slippers and a simple blue tunic that was cinched in around her waist with a fur-lined belt. To this ensemble she added a hooded cloak, pulling the hood up over her ears and hair. She wanted to escape notice where she was going, packing the two dinners and a bottle of wine into her satchel before making her way out of the cottage and into the city.

  • WARCRY – Scouting

    November 26th, 2022

    “Well I’ll be damned, right where he said it’d be.”

    The rider muttered more to herself than to present company, lowering a spyglass from her eye and slapping it shut with a metallic thunk. Present company was only her mount, a black-furred warg– he chuffed in agreement anyway, being the intelligent beast that he was.

    She peered out across the valley at the warlock’s tower with her own eyes, watching the building closely for a few moments. There was no growth in this valley, only frozen earth and snow, and the occasional stone. It made the morning sun glow harshly against the white horizon, and the tower seemed like a black monolith standing in defiance of that light.

    Watching closely for movement was an important step in the scouting process, the rider reminded herself as she stared at the various open windows. She was not the patient type, and staring at the dark openings in the stone walls quickly turned into a chore. No one was conveniently sticking their head out of the windows, and there were no obvious signs of coming and going from the tower itself. No cart tracks, no footprints. Just an endless sea of undisturbed snow around the tower. It had to be abandoned.

    While forcing herself to maintain her post and monitor the boringly silent tower, the rider started picking at her hair. She twirled it in her fingers, the long black side-locks that hung over her pointed ears and protected them from catching the wind. The rest of her hair was shorn short, barely brushing the nape of her neck and her fringe just past her eyebrows. This was the only part of her hair that she allowed to grow long, and it proved a good distraction when she was bored. By the time she realized she wasn’t paying any attention to the tower at all, she’d already built herself a hair-moustache by pinching the ends of her hair between her lips and nose.

    She pffted the hair out of her face and growled impatiently, leaning forward in the saddle and staring hard at the building for a few more heartbeats. Already hearing the sound of her mother’s scolding voice, she balled her fists in the red tabard she wore over her chainmail. It had the emblem of her mother’s house stitched into the bottom of the cloth, the Thousand-Mile Eye. A burning eye that wept blood, it was a symbol of diligence and infinite perception– she tried to do right by her house and her mother, and forced her eyes open in a staring contest with the tower, until her golden eyes watered in the freezing wind.

    Still nothing. “UGH. This is ridiculous, Ripper. It’s clearly abandoned. Let’s head back home, and get ready to meet our new comrades. Then we’ll ride here together and search the place!” She had infinitely more enthusiasm for her first adventure with her new warband.

    Ripper chuffed again, following the reins as the rider wheeled him away from the edge of the ledge they stood on, going back in the direction from which they had come.

WARBAND

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

 

Loading Comments...
 

    • Follow Following
      • WARBAND
      • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
      • WARBAND
      • Edit Site
      • Follow Following
      • Sign up
      • Log in
      • Report this content
      • View site in Reader
      • Manage subscriptions
      • Collapse this bar