Fel Winds Rising
Seventeenth Day of the Second Month 294 AC
The familiar sound of silvery wings wakes you with the dawn a few moments after the magic of the ring had loosed its grip. Impatient as she might sometimes be, Dany is always considerate of the two hours you have to sleep each night. Breakfast does not have the same consideration though as she keeps up two conversations, one lighthearted smalltalk and the other an account of your newest guest, and hopefully ally.
Not that she or you do not trust the high officers of the Legion with the account in principle, but you can see the wisdom of not spreading Lolth's name any further under the light of day or explain why you consider Selwys, as she had introduced herself, less trustworthy than devils or even outright demons, who at least have Yss' touch keeping them back from their worst instincts. You
do trust your sister's judgement that the once-priestess despises the fate that had seen her soul tattered and worn away through the long ages, the goddess who had been deaf to her plea.
Hate is a fire that can drive one to action, and hopefully caution in the face of a strange world is the restraint that will keep Selwys from acting rashly.
"Time will tell how fortuitous her return to flesh was," you muse.
"Time and the House of Mirrors," your sister counters.
"It was not in her mind to betray us when she pledged to remain in Sorcerer's Deep in service to the throne."
"I look forward to her report then, in principle at least," you reply wryly.
"There will no doubt be headaches and worries aplenty, but better to know than not to."
Alas not all worries are as distant as the quill of the apostate priestess or the depths below Venthar in far off Sothoryos. The day that had begun with your sister's arrival turns darker with the evening. The skies to the north where Gornath lies over the horizon had been bleak and sullen since you had marched out from Sathar, but where before there had been a curtain of low clouds, seemingly natural save for its resiliency, there now descends a veil of whirling darkness blacker than night. A storm crowned in deathly flame and winds fit to tear flesh from bone. Though you have no wings in this form you can feel it in your bones, and you are not the only one.
"There is something strange about the storm, a power deeper than mortal sorcery can account for," Amrelath hisses, thin wisps of smoke escaping his jaws in agitation, though you do no think the suddenly wary cavalry company you had been riding with would take 'he is as nervous as you are' well. "It tastes of death and ruin, a broken bridge to hollow halls stretching. Be wary, I am not certain the skyships' artifice will be enough to ward it off."
It is perhaps for the best that most of the legions' soldiers do not speak draconic, they look troubled enough at the sight of it.
And so as she has done many times these past few days Dany peers into the future, reading the patterns of bones and the wisps of smoke carried by the unnatural winds, the dreams of dragons long dead. The answer proves both bleaker and stranger than you had expected.
"Someone or some
thing is moving an army, like we moved the legions," Dany concludes.
Dead bones and weeping souls on black winds riding, the shard of prophecy seems to still hang in the air.
"How the hells do you move an army with a storm?" Ser Richard asks more angry than disbelieving.
"We moved an army with a stone arch and dream-forged sorcery," you point out.
What do you do about the storm?
[] Scout yourself
[] Send in the moonchasers
[] Wait, it is still far away, no reason to overextend yourself against strange magics
OOC: You cannot tell which city reinforced Gornath other than the fact that it definitely wasn't Mardosh. They are keeping their word.
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