Dead Men's Secrets
7th of June 867 A.D.
Swift and surefooted are the steeds of Numenor, but the ground ground here is unsure and unknown to you. Between the clinging must and grasping roots, sharp stones peeking through like teeth of the earth, it is only the loyalty of your steeds and the shock of the foe that carries you over the rise and among the trees. With cries of alarm, with curses aplenty the assassins wheel and goad their horses to flight, but one is unsure if they should flee or fight, dropping his bow and struggling with a sword.
Catching up: 70 + 14 (Intrigue) = 84 (Success)
His courage costs him dearly. As the remainder of the hunting party charges in behind you Ular charges ahead spooking his mount, forcing him to struggle with the reigns, even as the remainder of his fellows shoot arrows with the grace of ones long used to the saddle. One after another, after another glance off rings foraged for the arts of Numenor, but in that moment the quarry turns at bay to slash at Ular's face under the tall helm, drawing blood. Seeing just one rider along in their midst the assassins rally, calling out encouragement in a tongue strange to your ears, but as they wheel in among the trees they find to their misfortune that Ular is not alone.
Horses, you had long since learned have a good bit more sense than men. When a rider armed and armored outweighing them half again charges right at them crying ruin most of them have the good sense to get out of the way, not much perhaps, but enough.
Enough to smash one man from his horse with your shield, enough to slash another across the chest through the crude iron and leather lamelar. Enough to sweep the head from the shoulder of the man who had wounded Ular.
"For Numenor!" you cry though it it fallen and take the chase again, the hunting party of Rurick now turned to far bloodier work, under the wide arches of the trees, moss covered rocks now flying, ducking arrows when you must and putting solid trunks between you and the archers when you must.
Contested Roll: 8 + 22 (Martial) = 30 vs 4 + 15 (Martial) +5 (Outnumber) = 24
All around you you see some of the locals raise their weapons rather than their shields, the name of their gods, their king upon their lips. Some fall, some halter, but more of them find their marks, running down the slowest of the foemen, like a pack of wolves upon fleeing elk. At their fore is Rurick himself and you can see in full how the man had earned his crown, not just by the fierceness of his axe, but by keeping his head in battle also, ordering some of cut off the enemy herd them, while those who had been struck he bids to mind the worth of their own lives more than the fury of the chase
Rurick Rally: 84 + 23 = 107
So are the last of the assassins brought low, asking for neither quarter nor mercy, knowing that they will receive none until at last the weary hunting party gathers around the bodies of the fallen, like broken puppets at the feet of a narrow rise. Their armor is squares of soot-blackened armor laced tight and their light helms seems like they are meant to fly horsehair plumes, though all of them had been replaced.
"Khazars!" Prince Signjótr spits, he looks around for the Lady Tzitzak, but none can find her now and as far as the men recall she had vanished near the start of the chaos. What might otherwise have been taken as womanly fright takes a darker meaning given the seeming allegiance of the assassins.
"So they turn against us, all their their words of friendship worth as much as a bucket of warm piss. Did I not warn you brother you should have asked for a boy as hostage."
"She's not a hostage, she was sent as an envoy." The king looks like he cannot quite believe what he is seeing.
"A sacrificial goat you mean?" the prince insists. "You should word of this viper though all the lands that look to you for lordship while we scour the city for those of her countrymen with which she must have conspired."
"How do you know it was conspiracy?"
Insight: 71 + 14 (Intrigue) = 85
It thus transpires that it was the lady who had told of the wolves in this part of the woods and she who had chosen the most likely route to ride And yet... Bloodied men do not make for fair counsel and a king who had just been struck from ambush does not make the best judge for all seem to agree to this lightly
"Why then would she have chosen to ride with us? Why flee only during the attack?" you ask.
"To lead us into ambush! Because she saw her treachery unveiled!" The prince insists, expression darkening with rage.
What do you do?
[] Offer to look for the missing Lady Tzitzak
[] Keep your own counsel now, spirits are too high, but once you are back at the king's hall ask for Thora's counsel
[] Continue to raise objections
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: What's a hunting trip in CK2 without some court intrigue? 
