Age of Ice and Blood: A Pathfinder System Heroic Fantasy Quest

The Twenty Fifth of Elnu-hamba [Elnu Descendent] Year 1348 A. L. (After Landfall)

"We ride!" you call to the pair behind you. Three against three but you are mounted and they are not, hoping that speed and surprise will carry the day and see your oath fulfilled.

"Wait!" the cry goes out, reminding you that you are four and not three, and not all the weapons you have are wrought of steel. "I can give you a blessing, if you want..." Inge's voice trails from urgency to uncertainty. She is hardly blind to the sort of looks the men give her still.

To your surprise it is Tam who speaks. "Right then, do it."

"What... why?" Henri stutters looking to you, but before you can answer Silent Tam speaks more words than you have ever heard out of him at once.

"If we die on this damn island we won't see a priest to ask what's to do right by God, you won't get to see your girl and I won't get to see John and Marry." His children you guess from the tone, doing your best not to show the unease at what you know about this world on your face. You are about to go into deadly battle with men who you lied to, even if only by your silence.

Your stomach clenches and it is not with fear of battle, or the unease of hearing Inge chant words of ice into the night wind.

"We ride!" the second cry rings hollow in your ears as you speak it, as you pass over the last ridge in the rush of Silver's passing.

A single tent lies in the clearing, wrought from the hide of some great beast. A long streaming banner stands on top, blue you think, though mostly seeming black by faint moonlight. Raised voices ring out in alarm and the ring of steel on steel, and even as you try to cast down the ten in the fierceness of your charge a shadow appears before you as if risen from the earth itself.

"Ahzra! Ahrza!" he calls, whether the name of his god, of his companion or simply a cry for help you do not know. Your lance almost finds the center of his chest, but at the last moment he manages to dive aside, turning a crushing blow that might have passed through the fine plates of his armor into merely a bruising one. Bronze flashes in the night and the sword cuts into Silver's flank.

Silver Takes 14 Damage

Inge takes 2 damage from the fall and is immobilized by the weight of the horse

There are screams and hot blood against welling against your leg, the tumble of bodies and for a moment it is all that you can do to struggle free of Silver's still thrashing weight and driven more by rage than skill try to cut your foe off at the knees, but the blow goes wide. You catch a glimpse of a dark face and eyes no less fierce, no less desperate than your own, and once more you are as war, as it was from Dover to Damietta, the cause matters not. An arrow sails out of the dark behind you and catches the man in the shoulder, then a small pained voice calls out not to any mortal aid. There is a flash of cold light and the warrior falls beaten but not dead, his helm tossed from his head and blood polling on the ground.

Behind the back of the tent you hear the ring of metal on metal and the neighing of horses. Tam had found the other warrior, though if he was a skilled as this one you fear that your man would not last long even ahorse against a foe on foot.

Then from the open tent flap strides a man unlike the one you had fought. Of the same southern kindred perhaps, but he wears no armor of bronze and bears no weapon. His eyes are closed but flame flickers and smokes at the edges of them. Yet the first words upon his lips are no curse or other fel working, but in Anwari he calls out. "Hold strangers, what quarrel do you have with us?"


One which we have been given first by a wizard offering healing, then by a uncanny spirit threatening death or worse, you realize and for a moment you quail. Is this what had come of your vow to never be a tool of the mighty again. Behind you Silver still whinnies in pain and you push back the knowledge of what that fall might mean, hot anger burning in your throat.

What do you do?

[] Try to parley, see you can get the skulls without spilling yet more blood

[] Fight on while you still have the advantage

[] Write in

OOC: I was not expecting the first enemy you met to win initiative and get a crit on your horse.