The Braeys Warder

This is one of the short stories that I wrote for the Heroes of Steel KickStarter.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tresebrothers/heroes-of-steel-fantasy-rpg

Andrew

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The Braeys Warder

Graith woke again to the screaming. For the third night in a row, he lay still in the warmth of his bed and strained to listen. It was just the wind howling off the glacier. Was it not? No, that was a human voice. He sat up right and the icy air swept around his old body. It was only the wind in the rocks. “Just the wind,” he grumbled, but he dragged himself out of bed and into the cold expanse of stone that was his room. Stiffly, he pulled on clothes, a jacket, and a heavy cloak. By the time he had finished dressing in the dark, the wind had calmed and the screaming had stopped.

Either they are all dead or it was just the wind. Dark thoughts came uninvited to his mind. At his age, Graith knew he would not sleep again tonight. Lighting his warden’s lantern, Graith tightened a sword belt at his waist and pulled on a pair of long gloves. It was a frigid night on the edges of the Sur-Relliar glacier and it would not do to be caught unprepared.

The boy and his hunting party have been gone far too long. Graith could say boy because he himself was ancient. He had survived more than fifty years in the service of the Braeys’ family, and his father had been alive when the plains of Relliar were not buried under a mountain of ice. But Graemin Braeys was no boy -- he was a man and a skilled hunter with ten others at his side. Still, they were two days overdue.

Graith’s bones creaked as he worked his way down the long staircase to the main hall of the Widhale Lodge. The hall’s stone walls and ceiling glimmered in red light from the low burning fire at the far end of the chamber. A sleepy guard hovering near the fire pit spotted Graith’s lantern light and shifted to attention.

“How is it tonight?” Graith asked the man one of the soldiers he has brought with him to occupy the Lodge, a man by the name of Hurna. Graith had been able to only hand-picked a few of the men and women he had brought with him. The days when he personally knew many of the Braeys’ soldiery were past. Time had moved on. Graith was old and those men and women had been gathered to the breast of Ryethin, the Reaper.

Hurna glanced at him from across the fire pit. “The night is still and cold. That wind’ll flay flesh but the sky is clear. A good moon, too.” Graith’s pointed stare pinned the soldier’s eyes until Hurna looked away. Hurna shifted uncomfortably and pointedly watched the flames. “Namiya is out there watching now. We’re taking turns with the fire to get warm.” 

Graith shook his old head, grumbling audibly. He warmed his hands for a moment and kept his judgmental stare burrowing into Hurna. “I will go join her for a time. When I’m done, you will resume the watch.”

Maybe this would be Hurna’s last invite to the Widhale Lodge. Graith was not a man to displease. The soldiers all knew his temper. “Yes, sir,” Hurna mumbled.

Graith snorted and stomped past him. The wind was screaming and the soldier had left his watch partner alone with the cold and the dark. Graith moved efficiently -- for an old man -- through the lodge. It was not a large place, chiseled out of the icy rock above the Sur-Relliar. It could perhaps hold twenty with a good stock of stores. On the nights when the hunters stayed at the Widhale, it would be packed full with thirty souls.

When Graith drew back the locks on the great lodge door, he was met with blasting cold. While the wind ripped at his tightly wrapped frame trying to find a hole in his defenses, the arctic air simply passed through the layers of heavy clothing and froze his flesh.

The boy and his hunting party have been gone far too long. Graith had led many hunting parties to the Widhale Lodge over his years serving the Braeys. Of all the places, the Sur-Relliar was some of the most dangerous but most abundant grounds for hunting. A successful hunt could bring in enough elk meat to feed the sprawling Braeys clan and their people for months. The Braeys’ took care of their people. Not like those militant, power-grabbing Barons.

Graith has warded the lodge for many hunting parties, but he had immediately felt something different about this one. The nervous energy of the hunters, of Graemin himself, was off, was different. Graith had seen so many hunts; he was not an easy one to fool. But Graemin had stuck to his story and now he was days late to return.

Graith found Namiya on the watch, under clear skies. The sliver of an Evesse-Waning moon gave some shine to the great expanse of ice. But it was the stars that shone the brightest, twinkling in the frigid night air. They exchanged nods; it was too cold to uncover their faces or mouths to talk.

The Sur-Relliar glacier seemed to stretch out forever. Graith’s father had once told him that the on the plains of Relliar the rolling hills and grass had gone on forever. Graemin was out there, out there somewhere on the ice with his ten hunters. Somewhere out there were the gleaming cities of old Relliar, buried under tons of snow and ice.

===

Days ground by slowly in the hunting lodge. The soldiers under Graith’s command were restless and worried. He reminded them of hunting parties long past that had tarried overly long on the ice, but had returned with great heaping sleds full of elk. But Graith's mood was dark and brooding under the Night Mistress’ moon

The Widhale Lodge was not built for extended stays. It was a compact outpost hidden against the edge of the great glacier, secured against the elements and invasion. But it was designed only for occasional and short use. For men and women who were used to living in one of the three bustling, lively halls of the Braeys family, it was a cold and comfortless cave.

The squall came on the fourth day. First, the dawn was met with a gray haze on the northern horizon -- the heavy fall of snow in the distance. As the afternoon wore on and the sun sank, the wind turned to a tempest. Before the sun could race to the horizon, heavy flakes of snow were coming down and the cloying gray clouds obscured the sky.

The storm turned a sour mood within the Lodge to something worse -- nervous tension around a clear deadline. With the hunters still on the ice and a deadly storm descending, there was a very short window of time for the hunting party to reach the Lodge. No one wanted to trudge back to Braeyshaulm without Graemin or the hunters. Far too long, Graith fumed. There was nothing that they could do but put up the storm watch and hope. The great beacons would be the only hope the hunting party had to find the Lodge on the edge of the great ice before they froze to death.

Night fell with heavy snow. The night watch was tripled and two great bonfires were lit against the blasting wind. The storm watch. Both fires were built up around emberblocks which had been dragged out from the Widhale’s lower storerooms. The magically embalmed chunks of wood gave the fire the strength to survive the squall-winds and also turned the fire an unnaturally bright yellow. Hours slipped away, covered in inches of snow. Graith vigilantly refused to leave his post as the watch rotated.

When the scream came, Graith knew he had been a fool for waking each night. The pain and betrayal of a dying man cut straight through the howling wind of the storm and reached not only his ears but stabbed to his heart. It was so different from the howling gale he could never have missed it, even buried under all the rock of the Lodge.

Flying out of the snow and darkness, a heavy body slammed into Namiya and drove her to the ground. She screamed too, a long spear driven through her gut and pinning her flat. The orcen bent over her and roared back at her with savage abandon. Its foolish roar of victory gave Graith the precious seconds to draw his long blade and throw his hold body weight into gutting the creature. It fell to the ground in a wash of gore. Namiya kept screaming. There was no time to help her. Summoned by the storm watch beacons, more orcen swarmed out of the night, descending on the Lodge’s defenders.

In the pelting snow and dark, figures clashed around him, moving in and out of the limited vision. Namiya was still screaming. Barreling out of the night came a towering orcen, its swarthy head and shoulders adorned with a great elk’s antlers and furred cape. The beast’s first swing nearly wrenched Graith’s sword from his hands and shot pain up his arms and shoulders. He was no match for the creature. Its second blow drove past Graith’s defensive stroke on sheer strength alone. The cruel axe blade clipped his shoulder and found flesh to bite. Graith stumbled and slipped in Namiya’s blood. Namiya, now quiet. He crashed into a trampled snow bank in a heap of old and tired bones. The orcen loomed over him and raised the axe. It paused with confusion on its face, and then tumbled sideways into the flames.

A long javelin was lodged in the beast’s back. There were screams of men and metal all around. Graith used his sword to drag his exhausted frame back to his feet. A battle raged around him -- young men and women fighting and dying against the enemy. Reinforcements from within the Lodge met the orcen at the storm-beacons and drove them back. Graith felt dizzy, lost in the middle of it, almost forgotten among the deadly combatants. Blood dripped from his fingers in big streaming drops. His arm felt heavy, his jacket and cloak soaked.

There was a hunter in the fight before Graith, wielding a short curved blade. And then another materialized from the white canvas of falling snow. Suddenly, trapped between two enemies the orcen fell. Their resolve cracked and they fled, leaving the dead and dying behind in churned blood red snow.

Someone was shouting orders. That was good, because Graith did not feel up to it. He stared down at Namiya’s corpse, already freezing in the glacial cold. Ryethin has come among them this night. Someone got an arm under his shoulder, and Graith stumbled along toward the door of the Widhale. When Graith looked to see who it was, he saw Graemin Braeys.

“You’re alive,” Graith uttered, hearing his voice echo, booming around a giant cave in his skull.

They were inside. There was a fire. The hunters had survived. Graemin was alive. Graith was on a table. Who had laid him on a table?

His head lolled to the side. There was the fire again. Two women -- Mariah and Reve -- were working hurried over the flames, heating a blade. Where was Graemin? How did he get on this table? Graith could hear someone talking to him but the voice was muffled and he did not care. He rolled his head to the other side. There was Graemin. And four hunters. Only four? What were they standing around? A large black cloth was spread out over the table and there was something clustered in the center. It was like a nest of fabric full of eggs. There was a cluster of rocks in the center. Rocks? Black rocks that gave off a greenish glow?

Mariah appeared in his view. She said something to him, but she was miles away. A hand pushed a gag into his mouth. Blood dripped onto the stone floor. Graith screamed in pain and then blackness took him.