Against the Flayed Lord
One would think that the Wyldguard would be uneasy at the prospect of hiring themselves out to one band of wingless to fight against another. After all, it had not been so long ago that their kind were only seen carved in stone or woven in the fine silks of yesteryear. Who is to say if they would not betray their new neighbors to their fellow barbarians when the time came? One would be wronger than a man who doubts the love of Luna, Auspiciously Broken Haywain knew,, thought as he looked over his his high flying company, each of them armed with two quivers worth of arrow each set with their own wing feathers and with a bright tipped pole weapon should any beast dare the sky against them, be it dagger axe, pear or halberd. A few, the young and enthusiastic had loaded themselves down with side arms as well, as though this would be a short patrol with the shelter of the Outer Towers never more than a few hours away.
They would learn, the commander thought grimly.
They would learn or they would die.
Everyone always over burdened themselves on the first long patrol, a lesson best learned in the doing... mostly at least.
"What in the name of the Veiled Face of Mystery do you think you are doing with that cup?!" Gold was far more common in Sezekan than in most of the outside world, the metal one of the few mundane substances able to endure intact from before the Usurpation. That did not mean that it made a good drinking vessel for traveling light.
It sounded like a lot of his newer recruits thought it would be a good idea to turn a flight into battle into a trading expedition. Bastards didn't know what was coming for them.
Auspiciously Broken Haywain did not know what was coming either.
The town they had been asked to protect was set within a ring of timber-made-as-stone, either by the sorcery of the locals or by the whims of the Wyld. like a grey crown upon a hill of crumbling shale. In the middle of it stood the meadhall and temple, in the shape of upturned ships and mayhap as many as fifty houses, as boats on the bizarre fleet with fires lit all between them and men prepared for battle in heavy fur and rings of black iron. Bold they seemed these kin to the skolmings at first and fierce their war masks in the guise of scowling beasts, but beside the thing which came against them they seemed as men cast into the teeth of a blizzard unclothed.
Chariots six times six pulled not by horses but by some unholy abomination with the head and shoulders of a wolf and the forelegs of a lizard with whipping tails, in each of them an archer, man or woman which would seem eerily beautiful to the eye if they had not been flayed alive and ever bleeding. Hey could not name the light of their eyes and he was not sure he wished to, more than the lust for battle, more than the passion of life, the cup that overflowed.
It was all the stranger than alongside these creations of what must be a mad rashka 'artist' six giants with skin of ice heads slung low, hardly seeming to notice or care whence they are going, holding in their hands crude flails made from the whole drunks of young trees and the bones of some beasts larger even than them.
Yet it was not the ice-skinned giants which the locals called 'troll' which most drew the eye from above, for all their stature they seemed to pale into insignificance before the master of the host, the one who had proclaimed himself with wailing tongue with the first days of dawns. He was 'clothed' as his fellows were naked wearing the flayed skin of man in every hue, pale and dark ruddy and sallow, their braided hair his belt, theirs polished bone the studs of his armor and skulls set into every joint
"The Flayed Lord, for your unmarked skin and your pretty feathers!" These were the words spat into the air then with malice and mad mirth.
Against them were arrayed perhaps a six score of the locals, a hundred of the sezekanians on the wing... and ten of the children of Maela, the wind beneath their wings and the light of their souls burning cold like the threat of judgement and damnation.
How do you fight?
[] Pepper the trolls with arrows, see if you can enrage the beasts before they reach the walls
[] Provide support to your Norscan allies, be ready to meet whatever trickery the slaves of the Wylkd unleash
[] Auspiciously Broken Haywain challenges the champion to a duel
[] Write in
OOC: Well that mercenary work certainly.... worked. Now would be your chance to choose charms for Auspiciously Broken Haywain same rules as for the main character, but only if you want to. Otherwise I will choose a set myself. I know it can be tricky to make so many distinct choices for a system many may not be familiar with.
