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Curious Invitations
Prologue
Though my knees hurt like fire, though my spine aches, though the cries of my fellows call for me to pack my scant few belongings, to stow away what little remains of the noble life that I have left so far behind, though I know that I risk death upon Vetiver swords to delay even for but one moment, I cannot leave the hallowed ground of this newly named place. Finnisraen; a half grove of silent oak trees, set within the subtle bend of an unknown river, at the end of a grassy plain that runs as far as the line of trees that hides the burning hillfort. For here within this circle of stones, beside these bowls of earth and thistles, hawk feathers and petals, pebbles and spring water, lies the ashen remains of the Gaelic warrior, Fionn MacSiothaigh. All have gone from the ritual site, hurrying back to the tent encampment to disassemble the yurts and awnings and brightly painted pavilions, for only the second time since our flight from Jahan. Each eager to be away. Eager for the trek north, even though it promises an end to civilisation and what negligible protection this has afforded us. But I cannot move. A sigh hangs in my breast like a dark lantern. Its flame extinguished. Ah, is it not so bitterly true that only if a man has not lain with riches can he live with being poor?
Friday Evening
The
tale that brings me to this point is
dire indeed. Though not for me.
Indeed, these past days, again those
surrounding the dark of another
moon, have probably raised my
profile within this nomadic
gathering more than I can guess. Yet
though through the bond built from
the teachings of battle and loss we
have grown together like trees
planted too close, we have also seen
first hand just how fragile our
lives truly are. We halted in
another sheep-crowded plain, just
like a dozen others back along our
trail, but this time we stopped not
for nothing except for absolute
necessity. For his own reasons,
Thuram Jodassian’s pace since
leaving Jahan was hard, both upon
its travellers, but mostly on its
beasts and vehicles of burden. No
animal and no wagon can withstand
unlimited punishment even on the
surest road, and this new route that
the Khazim wishes to claim is
anything but. Now the oxen were all
but out of grain, and the carts,
drays and caravans battered and
requiring more than the makeshift
mending they had received. So we
halted and our tent encampment
raised once more.
It
did not take long for the scouts to
report that contact had been made
with a group of Gaels from a nearby
hillfort and I was questioned by
Thuram of the correct obeisance that
should be made to draw their favour.
I suggested an offering of gifts, of
good food and drink, and also one
each of the arts of war and peace.
It did not take me long to hear that
while Tormod’s sword arm was to be
the first, my services were to be
part of this barter also. Yet this
did not bring me displeasure. Ever
since I had heard tell that we were
close to Gaelic borders, my heart
had lifted somewhat, for were we not
nearing the place where I was bound?
As the leagues had ground their
inexorable way behind me, for every
stone in the path, for every stuck
wheel or lame ox, was not every mile
not taking me closer to home?
So it was with a lighter step that I went with
the caravan master and his entourage
to the fort. Yet all my elation
turned sour when I saw the state of
the broken stronghold. The
palisade-fenced place displayed all
the wounds of war; blood spattered
the gate, the mud churned with it,
the cobbles dark. Within the
compound, built in the shade of
several trees, the roundhouse,
longhall and other buildings all
showed signs of recent battle. And
the chieftain who greeted us was no
clan leader, but a warlord still
glistening from the sweat of combat.
We stayed with them long enough for
good relations to be forged, for
gifts to be presented, for the
quaffing of celebratory toasts, but
no longer. For we found that only a
few days since had this fort been
held by Vetiver men, and that its
taking had required much bloodshed.
O, the warlord Conant made light of
his losses, but his face and the
faces of his fighters and
battlemaidens betrayed the true cost
of winning back this once-proud
Gaelic fortress. We were promised
that a reprisal would come soon
enough, and that these warriors were
just the vanguard force of a far
larger army. Their strategy was to
lure a greater Vetiver army from
within the impregnable walls of the
city into their ambush. Thankfully
Thuram declined their offer to join
them, not wishing to take sides; and
for once I agreed with him
wholeheartedly. Leaving Tormod and
my welcoming songs behind, our group
returned to the camp, eager to put
some distance between us and the
haunting shadow of that fell place.
And fell it was, for even as we
left, spirits were seen in the
darkness, and the night was filled
with the sounds of yet other
banshees and dread apparitions.
Saturday Morning
After
a night disturbed by many ghosts, I
rose with a heavy heart, not at all
happy to learn I was so close to
Vetiver’s city walls. So close to
the hands that had torched the great
halls of my past and murdered my
father, the mighty Huan the Red. The
very hands that had forced me and my
kin to become outlaws upon our
homelands, who had removed the
ancient dolmen stones of my
ancestors and turned my childhood
home to ash. And it was not to be
long before I came face to face with
these vermin once more. After a
morning with Mianas, aiding the
Saurian in the inspection of a line
of standing stones which formed but
part of the primeval pathways known
as the Dragon’s Spine and hearing
of an archaeologist who was
currently digging all manner of
artefacts from the earth around
them, I returned to the camp to find
a phalanx of guards from the city
had arrived and were demanding taxes
from the caravan. The incident was
especially unpleasant for the
remaining Gaels among us, as there
is no love lost between our two
cultures; and certainly I had
nothing but hatred for the dogs.
Fionn and I bore the brunt of their
brutality and jeers, though I took
it in a feigned good grace, even
when questioned at sword point. They
called me a barbarian, a thief and a
liar; and my only riposte – that
of saying that if all my words were
to be taken as lies what was the use
of me speaking them – was answered
by marking me down to be branded.
Only as I was dragged away to the
blacksmith’s tent to receive my
torture did the caravan act. Led by
Fionn in an impressive melee that
felled both the Vetiven thugs that
held me, my fellows bore down upon
the guardsmen, slaying all but their
scribe, who vanished into the
forest.
Saturday Afternoon
If
I have learned nothing on the road
with this caravan, I have learned
that you cannot judge one man by his
nation and you cannot judge a nation
by one man. Having heard only sagas
of the Isles, I had not known what
to expect of Fionn, but the journey
had afforded me some time to
discover more about my Gaelic
brother. For a start, the warrior
had spent the last few months
teaching me to use a shortsword. And
I greatly needed his instruction.
Due to my taboo concerning blades, I
had never even held an eating knife
and now every weapon felt strange in
my hand. Yet we persevered using his
own bronze leafblade and dagger. As
I knew the Gael’s blades to have
been crafted on the Isles, and that
he had no use for them after Magnus
the blacksmith had forged him a
finer blade, I accepted them as
gifts and knew that with these it
was safe to learn. And learn I did.
Over and over; my clumsy feints and
parries no match for his deftness
and quick moves. Yet slowly I
improved. Enough at least to get one
strike out of ten. And during these
days, where I had at first thought
him callow and crude, now found the
gallowglass pleasant company with an
infectious humour, and so offered
him my hospitality and friendship.
And all this was repaid thrice-fold
by his rescuing; and again I felt a
brotherhood growing between us. A
brotherhood that only the Fates knew
was to be cut cruelly short.
Saturday Evening
Yet
for good or ill, with the slaying of
the Vetiver militia, our part in the
oncoming war had been decided.
Taking scant few possessions, our
cooks and smiths, brewers and
warriors left the encampment for the
scavengers and made their way up
into the battle-scarred fort. Within
we spent the night partaking of the
Lughnasagh festivities and the
crowning – and then killing – of
the Harvest King. Sir Rhodry saved a
Celestial priestess from the stake,
and there was an air of tension for
everyone over the bloodletting and
games. For my own part I tried to
raise morale with sagas from the old
lands, of words from bardic heroes,
and marching songs sung by the
heavy-footed legions of Roma, but
the ever-present threat of attack
dampened the spirit of the evening.
Yet this was as if nothing to the
wicked news of Fionn’s death.
Following
the urgent cries of my name out in
the darkness, my steps ever haunted
by malicious spectres, I came upon
Thuram, Quinn and the Saurian as
they dragged the dead Gael’s body
towards the hillfort. He had been
waylaid by assailants upon the
torch-lit perimeter of our camp and
now only the swift intervention of
the warband’s druid could possibly
keep the spirit within his chest. It
seemed impossible that this fine
warrior had been butchered by
ne’er-do-wells, yet here was his
corpse before me as plain as the
bright blaze of stars on this
moonless night. As far from the
radiance of Lugh as this gallowglass
could ever be. As they laid him down
upon the packed earth of the
longhall, I could only watch through
stinging eyes as the shaman
pronounced that nothing could be
done, that Fionn’s ragged life had
left him and that it had entered the
gates of the Otherworld forever.
Unable to console my grief, I stayed
by his side, a decision which would
soon prove to be the saving of my
own skin.
Sunday Morning
Upon the second
morning, after a long meditation in
the deep woodlands above the
fortress, I made my way back to the
caravan. There I heard dread news;
that in my absence two guardsmen,
the lackeys of the lord whose second
son and mistress I had slain without
the walls of Jahan, had finally
caught up with our entourage. They
spoke of murder, of a Gaelic
culprit, and of a missing jewel the
size of a sovereign. They also spoke
of retribution. Upon their next
return Thuram misdirected their
search, finally allaying their many
questions with answers that
implicated the pair of well-armed farmers seen
earlier that day. And with these
words, they left.
Sunday Afternoon
And
so, as the sun reached its zenith,
the company and the Gaelic warband
gathered at an unnamed bend in an
unknown river for the funereal rites
of Fionn MacSiothaigh, fledgling gallogladh
and now fallen warrior. To the
dolorous beat of the death drum,
they carried his body from the
hillfort and laid it within the
circle I had prepared. There also
they placed his mystical blade, Solas
Beannacht, so newly acquired
from his homeland. And then the
drum’s voice was stilled and I
spoke the words required to properly
send the son of Lugh into the
blessed realm of his lord and
master. I did not dwell on the
unspoken, pausing only enough for
the job to be done with reverence,
for as ever the hour was not with
us. As the torc-clad Gael was
torched upon the pyre, I breathed in
the smoke as if it were ichor, and
knew that another valued soul had
been taken from me by the blades of
the hated Vetivens.
Yet the day was far from finished with us, for
next came the battle that Conant and
his bellicose warriors had awaited.
As me and my fellows fled behind the
dubious safety of the ramshackle
fortifications, the advance guard of
the main Vetiver army attacked. In a
series of lengthy skirmishes, I
joined the Celestial knight, Rhodry,
Snake, Mianas, Magnus and the rest
as we ran from gate to breached
palisade, from hall to outhouse,
struggling to repel the forces of
the enemy. Aided by what few Gaels
remained, we were in part
successful, yet as the main force
was sighted, the chieftain commanded
that the hillfort be burnt to the
ground, and there was nothing for it
but for us to run for our lives. The
Gaels headed for their waiting army,
while we hurried back to the caravan
to dismantle, pack and disembark as
quickly as fleeing hares before
rabid foxes. Yet, though the war
chants and drums of the Vetiven
hordes crowded close, I found myself
returning to the smouldering pyre of
Fionn MacSiothaigh.
Epilogue
And so now I sit as
the Gaelic warrior’s ashes scatter
across the fields in the sudden
wind. I know the road awaits. I know
that death follows fast as ravenous
wolves in the hunt. But I cannot
move. No nearer am I now to undoing
the haunting mystery of the
darkness, or assuaging the dreams
that hunt my sleeping hours; the
meaning of which the Saurian has
only begun to illuminate. This day
was to be one where I would name
Fionn’s blade, brought by
druid’s from far and sacred isles,
but now I must content myself with
the naming of the bronze leafblade
and dagger that he left me. And once
this is completed, I place Iolairn
and Taran at my side and, only then,
gather myself for our flight into
the north.
Since leaving
Finnisraen
Since
striking camp:
The
caravan journeyed with the Gaels for
two weeks, during which time the
following news was much talked over:
•
Balmant has been levelled, although
half the work was already done when
the Gaels arrived. There was
suggestions that it was the work of
the Free-folk, due to noticeable use
of bows, and also because when the
main Gael force turned up, the
previous attackers had fled.
Contrary to this belief, the Gaelic
chief expressed doubts that the
Free-folk could mount a raid against
such a settlement.
•
The other main news among the Gaels
was the rumour that one of the three
contenders for High King, Chief
Ansgar, had assembled a large force
to the west. Many speculated as to
its purpose, though none knew for
sure.
• Before leaving the Gaels, they gave the
caravan a gift of much grain – and
also it was rumoured that they also gave
a greater gift: a token symbolising
a trust with their kin.
The
weeks after leaving the Gaels:
•
Within three days of leaving the
Gaels, the Urdaal made their
presence known again, particularly
within the baggage train where there
was much arguing about who owned
what, and the taking and replacing
of goods already present. Some said
that the new goods had a Vetiven
look about them.
• At the end of the third week, Master Thuram
informed everyone that the Urdaal
had recently won a great victory in
this new land, and reminded all that
we had been spared by their grace
alone - and we should welcome the
presence of so many Urdaal and their
booty that was so weighing down our
carts. Unfortunately, this problem
only grew worse as the countryside
changed from gentle rolling fields
to wooded hills. This slowed the
caravan's progress considerably.
Nobly, Sir Rhodry was the first to
answer Thuram’s call for aid to be
given to the carpenter lest broken
axles and wheels leave us in the
north come the harshness of winter.
The
long haul:
•
From the fourth to the seventh week
after leaving Finnisraen, the
caravan struggled to make headway as
the terrain changed again,
noticeably taking an upwards
incline. The land is now desolate,
with no real signs of civilisation
except the occasional farmstead.
•
The Urdaal chief, Crazy Like a
Snake, arrives with some of his men
and they donate much fresh meat to
the cook. Whilst the guardsmen
drink, talk and make merry around
camp, the caravan master insists
that the audience with the chief be
private. Shooing away his bodyguard,
for several bells loud laughter
accompanied unmistakably by some
drunken boasts, emanate from
Thuram’s travelling tent.
• At congress at the end of the seventh week,
Snake reports to all that he's found
tracks of another caravan moving in
parallel with ourselves and
travelling about two days ahead.
Other Tales:
Thuram Speaks On The Subject Of The
Caravan Thieves
Sir Rhodry And The Priestess
Fionn Mac
Siophaigh:
Banu A’Seabhac (The Dawn
Hawk)
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