April 5, 2025
7 Khordrak
The Ruins of Sharnwick
With Ormar back on his feet, the Torchbearers decided to push on toward New Holbeck, not to stop for any reason. The eyes of wolves followed them at a distance, not howling or pursuing but keeping them in sight. Darkness fell.
As they approached New Holbeck, the glow of a great fire rebounded from the louring clouds above. They hoped the village was gathered around a great bonfire to celebrate the coming of spring. But as they came over the last rise, they saw that New Holbeck was burning.
They put on a burst of speed to reach the village outskirts, and left the wolves behind. Leaving the sleds, they entered the village, looking for survivors.
They saw a limping woman far down a road. Not trusting any figure not to be a wolfman in disguise, they hesitated. A blur of fur swept her into an alley, leaving a bloodstain in the melting snow.
They heard the chapel bell ringing, and followed the sound. The chapel was in flames. A young man was screaming from the steeple. Gunter and Hilda entered the sanctuary, which was smoldering. Before they could open the door to the steeple, Hilda recognized the warmth of the door as a backblast risk.
On guard outside, Moran saw a staggering figure leaning against a house. The man called to him, saying he knew of a root cellar that would be safe from the fire.
Gunter and Hilda climbed onto the roof of the chapel. Seeing that the curate had already climbed to the open belfry, Gunter started to rig a rope for him to climb down, but the sweat and the smoke cost him precious moments.
Moran’s interlocutor screamed and fled left, out of his sight, pursued by a beastman. Reluctantly, Moran moved to investigate, covered by Gunter’s retainer Dorethin.
Gunter got the rope up to the belfry, and waited as the curate tied it off.
Turning the corner, Moran saw that both the man and the beastman were in fact beastmen, turned to face him in defensive stances. The attack came from behind, as a third beastman leapt at him. Dorethin shot it dead, the jaws closing mere inches from the back of Moran’s neck.
Hilda moved to the edge of the roof and readied her wand, but the beastmen were out of range.
Moran and Dorethin began retreating with bounding overwatch. The beastmen realized they couldn’t close and readied their great recurve bows.
The curate began climbing down the rope.
The beastmen loosed their arrows. Moran nimbly dodged the first.
But even as he laughed, the second arrow caught him full in the chest and struck him to the earth, stone dead.
Dorethin broke for the cover of the burning chapel. One of the beastmen pursued her, and as soon as it entered her range, Hilda killed it with all three shots of a magic missile. The beastman that killed Moran lost control of itself and stopped to devour his corpse.
The curate fell, and Gunter didn’t manage to catch him. But he tossed the injured curate to Hilda and ordered her to evacuate them both from the chapel.
As the beastman crushed Moran’s skull in its jaws, Gunter shot it with an arrow. It rose, gore dripping from all its face and chest, and Gunter shot it again, killing it.
The Torchbearers fled from the burning ruins of New Holbeck. In the long term, the selfish, vain, and arrogant Moran would be little lamented. But their tears for his loss were joined by those of frustration at the apparent impunity of the beastmen.
The curate, Brandt, turned out to be a very hale and perceptive specimen. He agreed to be escorted to Vira’s war camp. The Torchbearers fled into the Dornwald and pushed on until morning, planning to move at night for the duration of the journey.
8 Khordrak
Somewhere in the Dornwald
The Torchbearers came upon a fire and fairy lights in the forest. Sneaking ahead, Hilda saw a circle with a revel of satyrs, elves, and a couple of lean houndbears that seemed to have awakened into the unseasonable winter.
Gunter suggested they join the revel, offering some of their dogs’ meat rations (of which they had packed a wide safety margin) as a gift. They did so, and joined the party.
As they danced and drank and ate, they felt their wounds healing and their cares dropping away. The wine was both quick to dizzy them and quick to pass. A troop of creatures, little pine bushes like withered old men, joined the company. Hilda slunk off with a pair of satyrs, and Gunter with a satyr and a lithe elf.
Finally, their satyr host announced it was time to meet the spring and ask the Lady of Twilight a question. Curate Brandt remembered a local legend about a fey creature of the equinox by that name.
The company proceeded up a hill that peaked above the forest canopy. The path was flanked by Nachtgeist ghost stones, themselves built on ruined plinths older than they. The snow was melting and green shoots were beginning to push through it. At the top of a hill, a dolmen perfectly framed the rising sun. Something bothered Gunter about the stars.
As the sun jumped above the horizon, a creature formed from the shadows beneath the dolmen. She was a winged woman with the lower half of a snake; her left half was the rich blue of twilight and her right the gold of morning.
Gunter asked for intelligence on the Ironhand orcs. The Lady told him, “A great host crossed the Eisenfluss three days ago.” The Eisenfluss is a red-running, iron-rich river that forms the northern border of the Mark.
Curate Brandt asked how he could make the beastmen suffer as the people of his village had suffered. The Lady told him, “If this is your desire, seek the dark glen that men call the Circle of Mossy Bones and accept the dark gift you are offered there.”
Hilda said that someone she knows told her that her skills would be required for dark deeds, and asked what those would be. The Lady told her, “You are no longer a soldier; you must begin to play the game.”
Ormar and Smee put their heads together and asked, on behalf of Viraesse, what more she could be doing. The Lady said, “Even as the sweat drips from her brow into the harrowed earth, she flees from her duty. An oath taken must be fulfilled, and the wayward daughter return in victory.”
As the revelers dispersed, one of the satyrs mentioned that spring had finally come. Gunter realized what had been bothering him: the stars were aligned for the spring equinox. Nine full days had passed away at the revel, and it was now:
16th Khordrak
Spring weather had indeed come to the Nachtgeistmark, and the Torchbearers pushed as fast as they could before the snow melted away.
18th Khordrak
The Dornwald
After two more days, the snow melted and the dogsleds became useless. No longer weighed by medical supplies and having consumed near half their rations, the Torchbearers abandoned their sleds and moved the remaining cargo onto the dogs themselves.
20 Khordrak
The Dornwald
After another two days, the Torchbearers came to a valley flooded by an ice dam. Stymied at the prospect of crossing it, they went nearly a full day out of their way to cross below the dam.
23 Khordrak
The Dornwald
As Hilda sat absently poking a puddle with a stick, the puddle began to ripple of its own accord. Gunter threw himself on the ground and heard a large creature approaching. Panic seized the Torchbearers; Gunter and Dorethin climbed a tree and Hilda ordered their dog handlers to scatter into the underbrush, but the rest were still in the open when a giant’s face burst through the canopy.
The giant intoned, “Fee fi fo fum, in the name of Baroness Swallowtail, who has come?”
