DKMortals/SessionSixty-Three

[ST] Snow continues to swirl around the victorious Haslanti as the army stops to gather its wounded. Fortunately, few Haslanti were injured in the attack, but the snow is covered with steaming gore. Wounded sharma low in lakes of their own offal, their blood already beginning to ice over. A few of the more impetuous tribal warriors are belting out a victory song as they strip trophies from fallen Dogs.

[Avia] "Your weather is terrible," Avia tells Miruna. Her voice is muffled: she wears a thick scarf across her mouth. "We have to get to shelter."

[ST] Jonah gags into his gloved fist as he wipes his sword off on the snow. "These things smell awful. Do they piss through their skin or something?"

[Miruna] He avoids gagging at the stench as much as he can. "Tipped their hand, yeah? I'll take it."

[Avia] "We have to get out of the storm," Avia repeats. She looks at the sharma. "Unless we want to cut their bellys open and last the storm that way."

[Avia] It was meant as a prod to move them to action. She would desert first.

[ST] "Not even if I got to share one with you," Jonah says, turning away. "Don't know why they're taking trophies. Just gonna smell bad."

[Avia] "They're tribals. Perhaps they respect a strong stench."

[ST] "Yet we chose to live among them..." Jonah shakes his head. "The wonders of dying a Prince."

[Avia] It was true. Why else would she have joined a provincial northern military group, except that she had nothing in her life worth living for.

[Miruna] The cold was cutting through him, reminding him of why he'd ahd to leave his clan. "We're Haslanti. We can march through this. Spend a few more years up here, you might know what you're talking of," he glares at her, mostly because glaring was the only non-pathetic expression he could manage at the moment. The pain of the scar tightened all his face muscles in sympathy.  :Jonah, gather them up. We move soon. If we c

[Miruna] "Jonah, gather the tribespeople up. We move soon. If we can, I want them to figure out where the sharma riders are going."

[Miruna] *If they can

[ST] Jonah snaps off a salute that looks almost serious, rolling his eyes at Avia as he trots off to marshall the troops for departure.

[Avia] Avia sighs. "If I lose a finger to frostbite, and I will shove it down your throat so that you choke to death," she informs Miruna mildly. She huddles deeper into her cloak.

[Avia] She is of little use as the search progresses. She walks her elk beside the Haslanti troops as they struggle through the snow, and regards Miruna through narrowed eyes as he consults with scout leaders and snaps orders.

[Miruna] "You know, when you die of cold you go mad first. Strip naked before you die. I've seen a man kill another trying to stop him from taking off his pants in knee deep snow. So, you want revenge for the wind out here, wait for that before you come see me, eh?" He grinned stiffly, only the crinkling around his eyes visible behind his scarves and wooly hat. Like as not she'd not believe him.

[Miruna] Miruna rides near the infantry, wanting to see how the conscripts had taken their first action. Not that they'd really done anything, but moments like this were still what he had to guage how they'd react to a real battle. The scouts knew their business, so he left them too it. He had an army to run.

[ST] The Haslanti Scouts range out in all directions, the most skilled trackers trying to pursue the fleeing tracks of the sharma. The rapidly falling snow quickly makes this difficult, but they move on, following nothing but their instinct - or their noses.

[ST] The conscipts laugh and joke to keep themselves warm. Someone has brought a pig's bladder - it goes scudding back and forth between the ranks that slog through the rising snow.

[ST] Scouts report that the trail winds south, cutting between a pair of small Emeralds. A pillar of smoke has been spotted rising from the larger. The sharma tracks continue south.

[Avia] "Go there," Avia suggests immediately. Killing the Black Dogs at the Emerald and taking their fires was a reasonable compromise, surely.

[Miruna] He nods. "We won't catch up to them in this, not with the foot. Let's save what we can."

[Avia] Avia works her stiff fingers in her gloves, and wonders what use there was for a fingerless swordswoman.

[ST] The scouts arrive first, and do a quick run around the perimeter of the Emerald. By the time Miruna, Avia, and the bulk of the forces arrive, they have already reported back that the area is clear. Standing amongst the thin trees at the lip of the Emerald, the Once Dead have a commanding view of the entire area. Near the center, smoke winds upwards in a massive black column from the ruins of

[ST] a central meeting house.

[ST] Arranged around it in a rough circle are half a dozen mean dwellings that smoke or list on shattered timbers. This was a small Emerald, with probably only about twenty inhabitants, and looks to have been devastated hours earlier.

[Miruna] "Probably where the Sharma came from."

[ST] Strange hillocks of piled up snow lie here and there amongst the burning ruins. There is no movement but the steady snowfall.

[Avia] Avia knees her elk over, takes a spear from an infantrymen, and pokes at the snow drift with the butt of it.

[Miruna] They'd find more than they could stomach of this most like. Well, like he'd said, they'd save what they could. And avenge the rest. Parading through the chain with the leaders of the Dogs' heads in a sack would help turn the fear they were spreading to hate and resistance.

[ST] The spear moves smoothly into the hillock, which rises over Avia's head, before it hits something solid. Then, the pile above her shifts alarmingly.

[Miruna] "Send scouts to the second emerald, see if thats burned to the earth yet."

[ST] Jonah nods, snapping off the orders as Avia begins her strange exploration. His pale cheeks burn red when his scarf shifts enough to reveal them. The world around them is descending into murky twilight. It must be late afternoon now, though the blizzard makes it difficult to tell.

[ST] Avia starts to spring back as the pile of snow shifts, but she's not quite fast enough. Her poking has dislodged something... important. She gets a brief vision of the snow sliding, of -things- sliding over each other, and then a mound of corpses collapses upon her, pinning her under the blood-crusted bodies of dozens of slain Haslanti and their elk.

[ST] Shouts of alarm break out among the troops. Some recoil at the sight, while others look towards the other, undisturbed piles of snow that lie around the area.

[ST] Avia, for her part, is pinned beneath hundreds of pounds of weight, the smell of blood heavy in her nostrils. It is difficult to breathe.

[Avia] She closes her eyes. She knew what these were- what she was surrounded by. This is nothing, she tells herself. Nothing.

[Miruna] He jumps off his Elk, digging corpses off her with little regard for nicety. They were dead, she was not, for now. He just hoped she hadn't been struck by a rack of antlets or a weapon someone had died with.

[Avia] She used to have nightmares like this.

[ST] "Avia!" Jonah shouts, scrambling down the hill in his haste. He joins Miruna, digging with his hands through the mound of corpses. Many of them are fused by a slick of frozen blood, making for difficult going.

[ST] The vast majority of them are young to middle aged, strong and armed. Warriors. Their wounds are ghastly. They are missing faces, arms, legs, heads. Some are little more than flayed torsos.

[Avia] She struggles, still keeping her eyes closed. She thrusts her hand forward, and she can feels a frozen face in the palm of her hand before she pushes it out of the way. An elk is in her way next- she bashes at its horns with her fist, finally splintering them, before she can move on. All the while, she feels the press of corpses around her. She hears her name, distantly. "Rook!" she calls. "Raven! I'm here, I'm

[Avia] trapped!"

[Miruna] He digs towards her noise. It was awkward going - they couldn't get onto the pile itself because they might cause it to shift and crush her, so they had to work slowly into it.

[ST] Avia's hand breaks free, clawing towards the light. She moves, struggling to work her way free, and then the shifting of bodies buries her once more. Jonah gives a cry of alarm. "Hold on, just hold on!"

[Avia] She can feel herself panicking. She couldn't be alone. The others had to be rescuing her. "Cardinal!" she shouts. "Sly Hawk! Get me out! Get me out!"

[ST] Soldiers begin to run towards the pile, digging wildly, but their efforts are as much a hindrance as a help.

[Miruna] "Get back and help with the bodies we dig off, damn you." He had to catch one of the idiot's by his hood and pull him away from jumping on the bodies over where Avia's hand had briefly reached the surface.

[ST] Jonah cuts his palm on a jutting elk antler, but keeps digging, manhandling the blood-soaked creature out of the way with a heave that snaps its neck audibly.

[Avia] Her hand thrusts through the pile again, touches cold air. A dead hand presses against her thigh, dead lips touch her cheek. She lunges for the spot of light ahead, and warmth grips her arm and beings to pull her out. "White Raven?" she whispers, through frozen lips. No. No, he was dead. She was.....

[Avia] Her face is dead white as they pull her out, and tears turn to ice on her cheeks.

[Miruna] He catches her hand and pulls, leaning back and straightening his legs. He hoped he didn't dislocate her shoulder, but it wasn't time for niceties. Something shifted slightly and she rose a few feet to air. He went over in a heap, sliding down the spread pile they'd made from the heap of the collapse. The bodies were slippery with ice.

[ST] "Steady," Jonah says, patting her face gently to stir her. He uses the wounded hand, unthinking, smearing blood over her left cheek. He casts a look at Miruna, his panicked expression saying: "What now?"

[Avia] She opens her eyes. "Jonah." She turns her head. "...Miruna. You dug me out."

[Avia] She licks her lips. There had been a moment there, trapped in that nightmare, she'd felt the dead around her, like a friendly breath in her ear. She closes her eyes again. "Thank you."

[Miruna] "Get her warm. And get one of the Tribe shamans. The Red Elk." He remembered their shaman from when he was young. A severe woman. She would have made sure her successor was capable if she had to kill half her apprentices to cull them. The Haslanti all knew how to live through the cold, but the Tribes had to live with it every day. He'd trust their cures first.

[ST] "It's nothing," Jonah says. "But all those names... Rook, Raven... I wonder if I should be jealous." At Miruna's suggestion, he rises and darts away. By the time the Red Elk shaman, a young woman with furious red tattoos climbing down her face arrives, Avia has mostly recovered.

[Miruna] He covered her with his goathide cloak, the inner face still covered in thick raw wool. "Someone start a fire." They'd need its warmth even if they didn't need hot water for a tea or some such.

[ST] "This hardly seems to warrant my attention," she snaps. Not yet thirty by the look of her. "The outlander just received a shock. One, I might add, we all share."

[Avia] Avia is recovered enough now that her eyes narrow in anger. "No. I don't need you. Go."

[ST] As if to emphasize the point, behind her, a pair of Ferret tribesmen cry out on astonishment. One of them has dug about a foot down through the snow. A dark slick of red ice lies beneath. Others are moving about the hills (more carefully, now) revealing them to be mountains of Haslanti dead.

[ST] "I will NOT go," the woman says crisply, looking at Miruna. "Until I have an explanation for what has happened here."

[Avia] She hates the shaman the more for being right. She is ashamed that the others had seen her so. Babbling just from being surrounded by a little death. "It is done," Avia says irritably. "Let it be."

[Miruna] "Theres more dead here than this emerald could have held," he says, obviously, starting to assimilate the information around him rather than just reacting to the immediavy of crisis. "They must have marched their prisoners here. They know we were coming, or maybe some other purpose to concentrate them before they killed them?"

[ST] "Not prisoners, I think," the shaman says. She kicks out with a boot, revealing a broken spear. "Weapons. This was a war party, slain to a man. A war party that looks to be larger than the one we now belong to." She snorts, with a sly glance at Avia. "And rather less full of Greenfielders."

[Avia] "Yes. You can only expect so much out of undisciplined tribal rabble." The venom of the retort marks how rattled Avia remains.

[Miruna] He frowns. The local tribes should have had their strength concetrated with the otehr Haslanti in defending the main Greenfield. Who'd battled the Dogs here? "Set a camp for the night. Away from here. The Crossbowmen will dig first, a new unit spelling the last every hour." He'd learn who had fought who by the morning, and where the forced had come from.

[ST] Her eyes blaze fire. "I am not the one swaddled like a babe," she snaps, before rounding on Miruna again. "Why this show? Why pile them like this? For us to see?"

[ST] Jonah rolls his eyes at Avia behind her back.

[ST] "I see the man from before," Kragos says. The blind Dreamseer is being led by a girl of about sixteen who takes this as the gravest responsibility of her life, face solemn above a nest of furs. "His shadow has fallen heavily upon the people here, and smothered the bright fires."

[Avia] Avia flexes her fingers. "Then I will cut him to pieces, when our forces meet. Headless, a beast is no threat to anyone"

[Miruna] He shakes his head. "I don't know. And from what I've heard the Dogs aren't ones to do any work they don't have to," he scowls, thinking. "Shaman. Can we stay here digging through the night, trying to learn what happened, or will this place be too dangerous after the sun sets?"

[ST] "I do not believe he is a man..." the Dreamseer says slowly, looking at her. Eerily, his missing eyes seem to bore into her from beneath his linen blindfold. "He is something more. Or less."

[ST] "My name is Fierce Kestrel," the shaman says, as if he should be mortified he does not know it. She crosses her arms in front of her defiantly. "Proper prayers should make the place safe enough for a few of us to remain here, but I would not caution having the bulk of our army. It may be too tempting a target for a hungry po."

[Avia] "Whatever he is, the," Avia says. She forces herself to look at the frozen heap she'd clawed her way out of. "If he can be killed, I will kill him."

[Avia] Fierce Kestrel. She is briefly amused.

[Miruna] "That's our task, Avia." He thinks for a moment. "We'll leave for the night. Give what peace you can to the dead here, Fierce Kestrel. In the morning, we can see what their deaths tell us, and recount our dreams from the night. Perhaps they will offer us more." Hours of sun melting the snow tthey'd ahve to march over would help things as well. If the storm didn't abate, they'd be stuck wherever they camped for days

[ST] Fierce Kestrel nods. "Very well. We will follow soon." She stalks off, kicking up sprays of snow as she goes.

[ST] "I wonder if she grew into that name or they gave it after they realized what a bitch she was..." Jonah mutters. The Dreamseer casts a perturbed glance his way.

[Avia] Avia shrugs.

[Avia] "People react that way to gaining authority. Particularly if it is limited."

[Miruna] "Kragos, give our men what comfort you can tonight. Especially the conscripts. They will be missing home." He grins behind the safety of his scarves at Jonah's remark. Almost a worthy successor, Kestrel. Then he got to the work of organizing the army and getting it to camp. The greener soldiers had to be forced to dig their latrines properly - difficult work in feet of snow over hard ground, but a necessity that the

[Miruna] The greener soldiers had to be forced to dig their latrines properly - difficult work in feet of snow over hard ground, but a necessity that the new soldiers had to be taught.

[ST] As the camp settles in, shamans from a dozen tribes whisper slightly dissonant prayers, burning incense, piling the bodies of man and elk alike in pyres back in the devastated Emerald. It is difficult work, and sweat pours down Kestrel's face despite the cold, her heart burning wildly in her breast as she dances. The spirits remain quiet, and no ghosts rise to strike.

Battle of the Scatter

Haslanti Forces 526

Black Dogs 310

=

[ST] Jumail knew fear. He was more afraid now, free, riding across the tundra of the Haslanti and laughing like a madman, than he had ever been in the black hole of Shanarinara. He had been fool enough to admit to the crime, to tell them that he hadn't meant to kill the whore. It had been true, but the truth had damned him, banished him to a reeking prison cell without light or comfort.

[ST] He had starved, he had been preyed upon, reduced to an animal scrambling for slop in the corners. He had slitted his eyes against the sun that shone down through his narrow window and prayed that the reeking cell would not be his tomb. He would give anything to be back there now.

[ST] The other Dogs ride alongside him whooping, laughing, trying to put a brave or manic face on their raw terror. It is what drives them, propels them. Fear. Fear, of what they have transformed into, fear of what they will do next, fear of how much they will enjoy it. Most of all, fear of Wyald. The one who leads them.

[ST] Wyald races along at the front of the horde, darting from time to time back across the ranks of his troops to claw one to bloody ruin. His is tall, broad, corded with muscle, his face dumb, apelike. His eyes are a bright yellow, their pupils slitted like a cat. A fall of filthy, tangled dark hair falls down his back.

[ST] Around his neck, dried tongues and ears rot slowly - not even snowflies will dare to land on him. Among them bounces a strange little totem, a green pendant that bounces with each of the sharm's strides. The mount itself seems terrified of Wyald, a creature more bestial and reeking than it could ever hope to be.

[ST] It bolts with maddened terror, trying to escape the thing latched to its back. As were they all.

[ST] Wyald holds his standard aloft, screeching wildly. Atop the wooden pole has been lashed the corpse of Aline, formerly captain of the sharma riders. Its head has been sawed off and hastily replaced with the severed head of a sharm. The corpse sways back and forth in a herky-jerky dance as Wyald's mount bounds forward, raining blood drops that freeze before they hit the ground.

[ST] "YOOOOO HOOOOOOO!" the insane man screams, his voice carrying across the winds to the Haslanti, wild and reckless. "LITTLE HASLANTI! HEEEERE WE COOOOME!"

[Avia] Avia jumps down from her perch atop a dead tree. She finds Miruna already talking to his staff, or whatever Haslanti called them. "Miruna. You have to put me somewhere I can get to him to kill. The van, or the front, whatever tactics you use."

[Miruna] His voice carries well over the flat tundra. The army wakes fast, with time to properly don armor. Time to avoid a panic. He gathers what he can to take to the side, hoping to catch the Dogs in a trpa as they ride into the camp. The conscripts, the slow, they could form the rock on which he'd destroy the raiders.

[Avia] Military jargon had never come easily to her. Avia's body is tight with tension, and her eyes stray constantly to the darkness.

[Miruna] "Avia, you stay with the conscripts then, in teh camp. They won't hold when he gets near, so don't try. Use everything left in teh camp and tie him down! Don't let hsi force wheel or ride away."

[Miruna] He spends most of his time chivvying crossbowmen. They'd have a clearer shot from his ambush rather than from among the tents, and enough of the spearmen were formed in time to provide a guard for them.

[Avia] She nods, her eyes bright with terrible anticipation.

[ST] The conscripts form up, doubling and redoubling their lines, standing shoulder to shoulder and awaiting the charge. Torches, hurriedly lit, are arranged throughout the ranks, bolstering them. It makes them a target, but that's the point - this is where the Dogs must go, if the battle is to be successful.

[Avia] Avia stands at their front, Blue Heron naked in her hand. Her eyes move constantly, and she paces restlessly. She leans toward the fight like a finely-trained falcon, and simultaneously disturbs and reassures the convicts.

[Miruna] He gathers most of the cavalry - all the spear, leaving the elk bowmen to do as they would - as well as spearmen and crossbowmen. The conscripts, remaining spearmen, and the tribal warriors made up a large enough force that the trap might work. He got the ambushers hidden behind a rise to the side of where the Dogs were coming from. He stationed the spears to guard his bowmen's flank, in case they got mousetrapped them

[Miruna] He stationed the spears to guard his bowmen's flank, in case they got mousetrapped themselves. It was good work for the minutes warning they had.

[ST] The Dogs come on, arranged in a simple formation. Their infantry, ragged and ill-equipped, form the center of their line. On either wing, the sharma riders are deployed to prevent a cavalry assault or charge in for one of their own. At their front rides Wyald, laughing madly, shaking his standard as he advances to the edge of the torchlight. He capers, dodging between errant bolts loosed

[ST] by undisciplined soldiers as he screeches out a challenge.

[ST] "WE'RE GOING TO WEAR YOUR SKINS, LITTLE HASLANTI!"

[ST] Avia recognizes him.

[ST] He has the voice of Rook, her old companion, although he looks almost nothing like him, more than half-mad, completely wild. The little pendant that bounces around his neck is the clincher. She recognizes it. He had kissed it, when last she saw him, before he and Bright Wing were overrun by the enemy.

[Avia] For a moment, she doesn't see the ears. She doesn't see the body of his subordinate hoisted up like a flag, or the blood and murder that surrounded him like a smell . She just feels a bloom of joy, winter becoming spring at last. He was alive! She was not the last. She was not alone.

[Avia] Then it dims, and she is aghast.

[Avia] "Rook?" she whispers. It ...couldn't be him. Not Rook, with his roguish charm and lazy smile. Not Rook, who had played with the street urchins whenever they stopped in a city. This wasn't him. This capering madman.. couldn't be him.

[ST] "AVIA!" he brays, as if finding her here is the most natural thing in the world. "Going to die a Haslanti slut?" He gives the standard a shake. There is a dry rustle, as of corn husks.

[Avia] She grabs the saddle of an elk and the dumps the rider unceremoniously from the saddle with the flat of her hand. Miruna's thin pretence of a calvary, to hide the force of true calvary over the ridge. She breaks ranks without a thought. The elk's d leaps gracefully across the snow, pulling its head back and snorting as it smelled the blood.

[Avia] "Rook. You're alive." It was a stupid thing to say, but everything else- the anger, the fear, the hope hidden beneath it all- it chokes her throat. "I thought you were dead."

[Miruna] Miruna watches, head over a ridge. He doesn't bother to curse quietly. He wouldn't be heard anyway. He wasn't letting her anywhere near the conscripts anymore. They needed to elarn discipline, not idiot heroics.

[ST] "Oh, I've been places, sister," he laughs, a crazed, grating thing. "And I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Let me show you!" He lunges at her, lashing out with a massive, rusted blade.

[Miruna] When the Dogs got a bit closer, he'd attack. Hopefully that happened before Avia died. If not, the dogs seemed to be curlign around her. It would at least disrupt their formation.

[Avia] For a moment she just stands frozen. She hadn't even expected him to attack her. It's her elk that leaps out of the way, and then she reacts automatically, Blue Heron moving to block. He had always been good.

[Avia] But she had always been better.

[Avia] Her eyes narrow. "What happened to you?" His rusty blade had come away from the encounter with another chip, but Blue Heron still shone. Elk and sharma circle each other, the eyes of their riders each fixed on the other.

[ST] "You'll see," he hisses. "Oh, you'll ALL see."

[Avia] "You can't beat me, Rook. Whatever you call yourself now. You never could." Her elk shifts restlessly under her. "Lay down your arms, and I'll see they don't kill you."

[ST] "Kill me? Kill ME?" He breaks off in a gale of wild, psychotic laughter. "Oh, sister. Just wait until you see what I can do now."

[Avia] She readies herself. He would change his mind once she had beaten him. He had too.

[Avia] She touches her heels to her elk's flank, but instead of skewering him as she threatened, she launches herself from the saddle and tackles him, dropping him from his sharma into the snow. Close up, the smell is terrible. She rolls off him and stands, Blue Heron at the ready. She wasn't a fool either, and she fought better on foot.

[Avia] "Go on. Show me your tricks." The curl of a contemptuous smile touches her lips - but Rook knows her too well to be fooled. She was uneasy.

[ST] Blade clashes on blade as the two move around each other. Rook - or Wyald - springs from the back of his terrified sharm with a laugh, hammering away with his greatsword, but Avia's moves are more precise, deliberate. She drives him back, inflicting several wounds. He howls, and the Dogs barrel in, the foot forming a wedge to hammer at the conscripts while the cavalry fan out on each wing.

[Miruna] He grins with fierce pride. She was still standing. THis Wyald might be one for men to fear, but they were Once Dead.

[Miruna] He waits as the enemy charges forward, letting them ovecommit. The way the sharma-riders were spreading to engulf the infantry he'd left in the camp would leave them spread out and unsupportable, ripe for his elk.

[Miruna] The time came and he roared, running from the lip of the swale and charging for the enemy. It had been more important for him to be able to see, to be able to time things right, to be seen charging in teh fore, than it had been for him to be mounted, so he had left his elk behind. The cavalry swiftly overtook him.

[Miruna] The crossbowmen's first volley fell into the enemy only yards before they hit home. He hoped that the shock of their force appearing at the Dogs' flank would dull their charge with confusion. The conscripts didn't give them much of a chance even for that, launching their own countercharge when they saw him.

[ST] The volley of crossbow shots take the first ranks of the Dogs entirely unawares, shearing through flesh and inferior armor alike, dropping them by the score. Elk riders emerge to slash across the sharma. The foriegn beasts are larger, but much slower, and the elk move amongst them easily, chopping down rider and mount alike. Haslanti war cries rise, triumphant.

[ST] The Dogs waver, and the battle nearly ends right there. But then Wyald laughs, the sound booming, amplified more than any human should be able to produce, loud enough that it nearly deafens Avia. His entire body seems to convulse.

[ST] "COME ON, DOGS!" he hoots, as the pendant-the luck charm- around his neck begins to flicker, to run like water, to expand over his form. It melts, covering him, and he screams again as he suddenly grows.

[Avia] Avia hesitates and drops back. Several times she had seen a chance for a killing blow and turned her blade at the last moment. He would surrender. He had to. Fuck.

[ST] Bones creak and muscles tear as Wyald turns inside out, becoming a thing many times taller and wider than a man, its surface muscular, striated, coated with gelid blood. Five brilliant green eyes open on its chest. A barbed tail rises behind it, opening and closing. Six apelike arms flex, one casually tossing aside Wyald's blade, now toylike in its grip.

[ST] "HERE'S MY TRICK," Wyald booms, and nothing less than raw terror drives the Dogs back into the fight. "DO YOU LIKE IT?"

[Avia] "No..." Avia pales and takes several steps back. "No. You are not Rook. This is a demon's trick."

[Avia] The ring on her finger, the ring Merry Owl had pressed into her hand as he died, seems to burn.

[Miruna] Well, he was a man for their work he was. "Destroy the dogs!" he howls, his words loud but weak compared to Wyald's inhuman boom. Nothing he could do about that. The troops needed to hear something from him.

[ST] The roaring, insane laugh of the creature washes over the Haslanti forces, spreading icy fear in the hearts of the most stalwart warriors. The blind Kragos moans in low terror. At Miruna's side, a stern-faced warrior of the Ox tribe is wetting himself.

[Miruna] "Leave him to the Dead boys!" Miruna screams, charging accross the snow. He had to be seen doing it. THat drove him through the fear the thing projected. If he didn't stand to it, the force would collapse.

[ST] "NOW!" Wyald booms thunderously. "TEAR THEM APART, MY DOGS!" With guttural howls, the Dogs drive themselves into the stunned Haslanti, their expressions little less terrified than those of the troops they fall in among, rending and tearing. The sharma that still live hammer into the flanks of the conscripts, rending with tosses of their horned heads. As Haslanti flinch from the monstrous form

[ST] of Wyald, the Dog infantry pour into the gaps. "Please," a greenfielder conscript begs, sinking to his knees and weeping. "Please." His head goes flying.

[Avia] Avia hardens her heart. Whatever that thing was...it wasn't her brother. Not any more. She raises Blue Heron, almost in salute. "White Raven, given we wings. Spirits of my brothers and sisters, harden my blade." Before he had died, she had sworn by a dozen gods. Now she prayed to them.

[Avia] She charges the monster. The ape's hands plunge into the snow around her, tossing Haslanti soldiers into the air around her. She dodges past them and leaps to catch onto an elbow as it rises into the air, carring her with it. With a cry like a shrieking bird, she jumps, Blue Heron slashing at the bright green eyes.

[ST] One of the eyes vanishes in a spurt of dark blood. Wyald gives a scream that is equal parts pained and amiable. "HERE IS ONE WHO WANTS TO LIVE!"

[Miruna] "Heres one who'll see you die!" He slams his mace into the thing's knee, hoping the joint was as comparatively vulnerable on monsters as it was on armor and men. If he could get the thing to fall, it would be seen. If not, at least he would be. His soldiers would take heart. "Kill them men. Avenge the Scatter!"

[ST] Seeing the two Once Dead land a blow against the hulking monster seems to have an effect, at least among the most stalwart of the soldiers. "Come on!" Kestrel shouts. "Red Elk! Show them the color of their swine's blood!" She leaps into the fray, laying about her with a staff, and others follow. All across the army, from these cores of bravery, the flame of resistance spreads, and the

[ST] Haslanti give back as good as they get.

[ST] NOw the Dogs drop as well, snarling. The two sides are engaged at brutally close range now, hacking wildly in an uncoordinated melee in which everyone seems to fight for themselves.

[Miruna] Miruna circles Wyald, smashing at his knees and ankles, hoping to at least distract him for Avia to slip her sword in. He has to focus completely to dodge the wild swings of the thing's long arms. The army was left to itself.

[Avia] Avia drops into the snow and stares at a large foot descending on her. She rolls out of the way; Wyald hadn't meant to stomp her. He just didn't care. As though she were no danger to him now. It made her angry. She jumps to her feet and races for the barbed tail. She catches as it whips back and forth and begins to work her way up the tail and then the spine. Its bones are near the surface, hooked and curving

[Avia] through the skin, and the whole creature is slick with blood.

[Miruna] The closest flank was crumbling back, the Dogs gainin success there. He saw it in glimpses as he desperately dodged and circled. Nothing he could do to help but kill this thing.

[Miruna] Then he saw somethign else from the corner of his eye - Kragos running cluimsily at the head of the spearmen he'd left to guard the crossbows. The blind man was yelling hoarsely, driving right at the Dogs that had turned their back to the swale as they pushed the Haslanti line inwards.

[Avia] He does not seem to notice her until she stands on its shoulders, and then it tries to shrug her off, as though she had been a gnat, or a flea. She keeps her feet; she had fought behemoths before. "Wylad," she purrs. "You have forgotten what we were. What I was." And she raises Blue Heron and drives it through his skull.

[ST] Wyald howls in pain, and his scream seems to weaken his forces, causing their rampage to slow, then to stop, then to reverse as the Haslanti overrun them, screaming savagely, wildly.

[ST] "Kill the beast! KILL THEM ALL!"

[Miruna] Kragos's force had decimated the Dogs on the flank near to Miruna. Most of them were fleeing now - away from the Haslanti and away from Wyald, fodder from the crossbowmen looking over them.

[ST] Seemingly behind the scenes, the battle has turned heavily against the Dogs. Their flanks crumble as the Haslanti sweep in, manic in their attacks, as if hoping to make up for their earlier bout of terror. Only the center holds, where the Dogs still have more fear for the beast that leads them than the screaming madmen who are nibbling away at their edges.

[ST] With a scream, Wyald reaches up with a massive hand, grabbing Avia and hurling her from his back, sending her skidding across the snow and ice. As Miruna's blow buckles his knee, he staggers back, hissing, laughing.

[ST] "Not... bad.... not bad at all. But you... won't get out of this... alive. DOGS, NOW, OR I'LL CHASE YOU ALL THE WAY TO THE GATES OF OBLIVION!"

[ST] With a piercing scream, he leaps into the middle of the Haslanti line, heedless of the spears that pierce him as he rends and tears.

[Miruna] Miruna dodges and strikes, carefully picking through Wyald's wild attacks. His army takes much the same strategy, dodging around clumps of undisciplined Dogs before surrounding and destroying them, pulling away from larger units to let the crossbowmen shred them. With the forces so intermixed, there is no line anymore. Kragos pulls his spearmen into the thick of the fighting, letting no man hold him back. Conscripts s

[Miruna] With the forces so intermixed, there is no line anymore. Kragos pulls his spearmen into the thick of the fighting, letting no man hold him back. Conscripts slowly gather to his force, almost doubling its size, althouhg the spearmen proudly keep the guard around the man himself.

[Avia] Avia jams her fingers into the ice, slowing her skid. Wyald's blood had splashed against her arms and drips down the enameled white heron on Avia's chest. From her vantage point at his shoulder, Avia had seen the dogs' reversals . With determination, now, but no anger, she gets to her feet and chases him.

[Avia] She kills dogs when they get in her way, until even in the chaos of battle they spin away from her, clearing a path to the howling mad monster that lead them. She sees a whispered prayer for her success on the face of a young man just before a Haslanti spear sinks into his ear.

[Avia] His gelid blood seems to melt off him, into a red fog. Taking a tip from Miruna, Avia hacks at the back of Wyald's legs, Blue Heron in one hand and her unnamed chopping sword in the other.

[ST] Even as his massive legs fail, muscles snapping loudly, whipping like cables as Avia chops away, Wyald wades into the Haslanti, pulping soldiers with each clench of his massive fists. He does not even look to see whether they are his own any longer.

[Avia] Blood flies slickly from Blue Heron, but the blade is as unstained as ever. Avia dances out of the way as the main body of the monster collapses, and begins to treat the pieces of the monster as individual problems. She hacks of his tail, and severs the tendons in his arms that allow him to control his grip.

[Avia] The living Haslanti have gotten out of the way of his death throws, so he is surrounded only by corpses now. Fruits of spite. Avia stands between his helpless arms and looks up at the green eyes.

[ST] Bit by bit, the creature's attacks fail, slow, until it it staggering forward on hands and knees, leaving a trail of its blood and shattered bodies behind it, strange, alien spoor. Spears, knives, and bolts jut from its raw flesh, giving it the look of a porcupine. It looks down at Avia, those of its eyes that still work blinking slowly.

[Miruna] Much slower than either of the others, Miruna finally catches up to Wyald after the fight had been turned to a killing, and at the border of it becoming a desecration. He retrieves the things head, protecting it from the soldiers, from Avia. Better it be whole when they paraded it through the streets.

[Avia] "You ought to have surrendered," she says quietly.

[ST] After Miruna hacks the head from the thing, its stump gushes blood explosively. The muscled body shudders, shivers, and begins to dissolve, revealing a bleeding, crushed form within - a man. Rook.

[Avia] Avia walks forward, and kneels beside the man who had been her brother.

[ST] With the fall of their leader, the Black Dogs go mad. Some flee into the night, screaming, to be cut down by Elk riders. Others throw themselves on Haslanti blades. As Jonah approaches a weeping woman to take her prisoner, she draws away from him and uses her shattered knife to cut her own throat.

[ST] Rook is naked now, save for his good luck charm. The pendant lies against his wasted flesh, throbbing softly. His eyes are their familiar brown, less crazed now. His body looks old, withered, much smaller than it did even before his transformation.

[ST] "Avia..." he manages. "So you did... beat... me."

[Avia] "I told you I would." She takes his hand.

[ST] He smiles. He has a rotten, jack-o-lantern grin. Most of his teeth have fallen out long ago. The bones of his knobby hands shift almost painfully in her grip.

[ST] "Maybe I was waiting for someone to stop me. Maybe I hoped... I don't know. There is no excuse. No forgiveness."

[Avia] "What happened? When you and Bright Wing stood against that horde...We thought you died."

[ST] "They took us, alive, though we tried to avoid that..." he wheezes. "I told Bright Wing I would protect her, but I couldn't. They took us... used us.. chained us naked in the black cells of Cherak. No sunlight, almost no food, no hope of escape." He coughs, weakly. "One of them left me my lucky pendant. To bring me luck, he joked."

[ST] "After a month, I heard it speaking to me... in my dreams, then when I was awake. Tiny voices... in the dark. It could help me escape, it told me. It could... give me power. But it demanded a sacrifice."

[Avia] There's no accusation in her voice when she says it. "You killed Bright Wing."

[ST] "Your heart's deepest wish, it said. What you would die to protect. It was her. It was her. I snapped her neck. She looked at me... she looked at me, she begged me to stop, but she was too weak. And then, I felt the power. I was taken to a place of green light and screams, thrown upon an anvil by a woman with the voice of a buzzing insect, hammered into something... new."

[ST] "And the voice told me: 'You have crossed the bridge.'"

[Avia] "I've heard of her work. And after?"

[ST] "I fought my way free. I became the wild man. The thing inside me ate my soul... do you need to... know any more?"

[Avia] "No. If I could give you peaceful rest, I would."

[ST] "Maybe... you have, Avia. Thank... you. It's more than I deserved, after all my sins." He smiles once more, hideous, distorted, and dies.

[Avia] She starts to cry as the grip of his hand relaxes in hers.

[Miruna] Miruna roars, shaking the blood drenched head of the monster Wyald at the sky.

[ST] The Haslanti forces have been badly mauled, but those that are alive are even more eager to celebrate. An answering roar rises from the gathered army, echoing wildly. Kestrel pulls Jonah close impulsively and kisses him. He blushes furiously as she shoves him aside almost desultorily a moment later. The infamous Black Dogs are slain or scattered to the winds, never to trouble the League again.

[ST] Kragos, covered in blood that isn't his own but otherwise unharmed, is lifted high by cheering tribespeople, blushing slightly as he says "No, no, this victory belongs to the Triad..." Tears stream from under his blindfold. For once, his troubling visions are forgotten.

[Miruna] Miruna orders the beer opened. Their carts held stocks for the men's small daily rations for weeks of chasing and hunting down of the Dogs. Now they cemented the celebration of their destruction.

[Avia] As the others celebrate, Avia slips away. She takes Rook's body with her and buries it in a field a day's ride away. The field is on a rise, and the grave would catch the morning sunlight. She says the appropriate rites but does not mark the spot. She drops his amulet into a cavernous ice cave, near a break in the surface. May it lie there forever, in the dark.

[Avia] Now she was truly the last.

Battle of the Scatter

Casualties:

Black Dogs 100% casualties (310 killed, annihilated)

Haslanti 40% casualties (~105 killed)