Kellanved's Reach

She looked away, sighing and shaking her head, appalled. ‘Crazy fucking Hood-damned lunatic.’

He poked a stick at the embers of the fire. ‘Better get going. I expect they’ll be here right on our heels.’

She stood and brushed the long leather skirtings of her coat. ‘We’ll assemble supplies and head out within the hour.’ She peered down at him for a time, her expression unreadable, then she gave a curt nod. ‘Oponn be with you.’

‘And with you.’ He waved her off.

As he’d anticipated, Terath immediately cleared her throat loudly and drawled, ‘And who’s gonna be with you on this suicidal heroic last stand?’

He cast an amused look her way. ‘Why you, of course.’

She snorted her disbelief, poked a finger after Jeral. ‘Like the woman said – you’re taking a big chance. What if she decides to withdraw after all?’

Orjin shook his head. ‘She won’t.’

‘Oh? You think so? You know people so well, do you?’

He continued shaking his head while prodding the embers. ‘No. I know soldiers. And there’s no way that one would do anything that would shame her in front of her troops.’

Terath looked to the Dal Hon shaman in his robe of faded tatterdemalion rags. ‘What about you, Yune? You for this?’

The wrinkled elder shrugged. ‘It is for the captain to decide.’

Terath looked to the sky in her exasperation. ‘Why even ask a fatalist for his opinion?’ She sighed. ‘Well, it’ll be a great fight … while it lasts.’

The giant Orhan clapped her on the back and guffawed. ‘That’s the spirit!’

She mouthed curses under her breath and glared.

*   *   *

A lone traveller walked the sandy strand of the cliff-faced shore of south Quon Tali. He’d recently come from Horan, near to the Dal Hon border and the Forest of Horn, having been staying for many months with the priests and priestesses of the large temple to Poliel in that city.

The squat but powerfully built man travelled in a plain loincloth only, his arms, chest, and legs bare and sun-scorched, yet declaring to all his role and his calling, for tattooed upon his flesh, rising from his ankles to his shoulders and onward to his face and wrists, rode emblazoned the likeness of a rampaging boar: Fener – the god of war himself.

Though alone and unarmed he walked without fear. None in their right mind would dare accost any man or woman so inscribed, for everyone knew such an all-embracing display could only be granted by the dispensation of that very god. Likewise, the man carried no pack or other supplies; Fener would dispense all – or not.

And so the man did not flinch or cower when four robe-wrapped figures rose from the wave-splashed boulders of the rocky coast. He merely halted, crossed his arms, and waited calmly for Fener to reveal his purpose.

All four threw back their hoods, revealing two men and two women, all bearing similar boar-visage tattoos upon their faces, though, tellingly, not their arms or legs.

‘Heboric of Carasin,’ one of the men announced, ‘we are sent from your family.’

A lopsided smile crooked the priest’s heavy lips. He knew that by ‘family’ the priests and priestesses before him meant his adopted family of the faithful of Fener, not his long lost and forgotten family of birth. ‘And what word from our family?’ he asked.

‘We are concerned,’ said one of the women.

‘Concerned? Concerned for what?’

‘For your soul,’ the other woman put in bluntly.

‘And what reason have you for such concern?’

The bearded eldest of the four gestured back up the strand. ‘Your consorting with other cults! And this is not the only time, either. We know you have sought out those loyal to the damned meddling Queen of Dreams and taken consultation with them! Not to mention seeking out hermits and ascetics who affect to speak for eldritch powers, such as K’rul.’

Heboric’s thick lips crooked even deeper. ‘Heavy are my crimes indeed.’

The priest’s finger now jabbed at him. ‘Do not mock your duties to Father Boar!’

‘Enough!’ the first woman interjected – she was the youngest of the group, and was blue-hued as a native of the Napan Isles. ‘Enough, brother Eliac.’ She faced Heboric. ‘What of these charges?’

He shrugged his meaty shoulders. ‘I have heard no charges – only an itinerary of my travels.’

Eliac spluttered his outrage; the young woman sighed and crossed her arms within their long loose sleeves. ‘Very well … the family is concerned that you are neglecting your sworn obligations to your god.’

Heboric inclined his head in acknowledgement of this well-mannered enquiry. He crossed his thick arms, the boar forelimb tattoos writhing and twisting as he did so. ‘I consider myself to be pursuing those very obligations with these researches.’

Brother Eliac snorted his scorn and drew breath to speak, but the young priestess raised a hand, silencing him. Heboric was impressed – for one so young to have acquired such authority spoke of great talent. She cocked her head. ‘How so?’