Somewhere far away, beneath a purple evening sky. The chirping of strange birds and the hum of insects fills the air. A fat pondering river bends across the landscape, dark and murky. A shimmering silver fish, its scales like mirrors, races elegantly across the water. A brown-black eel, almost the same color as the river, follows closely behind. The pair circle each other playfully, darting above and below the surface in a watery dance. They both plunge deep beneath the surface and emerge as a pair of otters, one sleek and golden, the other dark and mangy. They circle eachother floating on their backs, splashing water at eachother, before the mangy one swims ashore and into a thicket, emerging as a raven. The other does likewise, and emerges as an egret. The pair flap into the air together, soaring wingtip to wingtip for miles above sun-baked ochre plains reaching as far as the eye can see. As the sun is just about to set, they swoop back down and into the long grass, near the river. They disappear again for a moment before rising up again as a lioness and a mastiff.
The lioness laughs with the voice of a human woman when she sees the form of her companion. "You take the fun right out of mocking you, you know."
"What do you mean?" replies the mastiff in the voice of a man.
"How can I call you a whipped dog when you make a point of demonstrating it?"
"Very funny. I suppose we don't all have your...Pride?". The hound snickers and the lioness groans.
"That was beneath you."
"Nothing's beneath me!" cries the mastiff as he suddenly leaps at and tackles the lioness. "Except you, devil woman." he says before slobbering over her face.
"Devil woman? You're one to talk" she says, twisting her head away and then kicking upwards, rolling over and reversing the pin so that she's over him now. "There, got you right where I want you. That rainy little island will just have to go on without us." chuckles the lioness.
"I've been gone for over a year, what makes you think I mean to go back at all?"
"For a man who can change his face at will, you've always been a terrible liar. You've been telling me the same thing since you were a boy, one would think you'd get better at it by now."
"I suppose I've had more important things to practice at." says the mastiff with a great push. The pair roll through the obscuring grass until they emerge on the muddy riverbank, a pale scrawny mousy-haired lad of about ten in a black tunic, and a dark-haired girl of about the same age in a gown of shining silver. They lie side by side on the riverbank and look up at the emerging stars.
"You'll be back soon enough. He'll ask you where you've been, you'll puff up, you'll blow the fires out, you'll give a great big speech about how 'you've walked your way since the beginning of time', but you'll still be back. And you'll do as you're bid, like always. How you can put your love and faith into a man like that, I will never understand."
"It's easy to love folly in a child, I suppose."
"He's a brat is what he is, he's never satisfied and he never learns."
"He's the strongest of any of them, and strength is the origin of peace. The dragon won't stop thrashing around until it has a head."
"If you want a strong king, go crown an ox. Love is the origin of peace."
"I've thought of having him gelded now and then."
"He'd have your head if he heard you talking like that."
"Wouldn't you pay good money to see him try?" The pair chuckles.
The girl sighs and rolls her shoulders. "Animals are so exhausting. Still, it's good to practice now and then."
The boy looks over and asks, suddenly serious, "Don't suppose you've had much practice at rats lately?"
The girl looks back and frowns. "No...and I thought you knew me better than that."
"I believe you, but you know I had to ask." he looks back up at the sky with a sigh. "There's been too much going on in too small a place in too short a time. It can't be coincidence."
"It could very well be, the only reason it doesn't seem so is because you're just still just a sad little bastard boy who can't hear an earthquake without thinking of dragons under the ground."
"I was right about the dragons if you'll recall, and I'm right about this. You'd know that if you weren't still just a rude little rich girl who spends all her time in a puddle."
The girl smiles. "What a pair are we" she says. The boy smirks. She kisses him on the forehead. The boy and girl begin to transform again, this time aging gradually into adulthood, a man and a woman. She kisses him again, properly. The river grass begins to grow around them, encircling them, beginning to envelop them. She puts her hand on his chest, and he takes it into his, only after a long blissful moment for him to push it back and turn his head aside, regretfully.
"You know I can't." says the young man, solemnly. The grass suddenly stops, and shrinks away.
"I know. But one of these days you will."
He turns his head to look out over the dimming landscape with a faint smile. "It's days like these make it hardest to say no. The winter is over, the air is fresh, flowers are blossoming. Things are coming back to life".
A thunderclap shakes Adwen from her dream.
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Despite the storm raging across the Salisbury Plain that night, spirits could not possibly be higher in the great hall of Sarum Castle. A son at last had an hour before been born to the Earl's house. While the countess recuperates, Roderick is celebrating with his knights uproariously. Uncharacteristically jovial and drunk, he presents himself liberally around the crowded hall, drinking, joking and singing with everyone from his most esteemed officers to his basest sergeants. Dancing and music fills the castle, even the servants fill the kitchens and store rooms with country quadrilles. Huge fires fill every pit, blasting away the cold and any thought of the rain outside.
Things have been jubilant in general at the court of Salisbury since the Frankish war. The episode with the rats notwithstanding, the harvest was excellent, more men made it back than could have ever been hoped, and the knights of the shire are flush with more gold than they knew what to do with. Fine silks, furs, and velvets don even the humbler gentry. The court of not only Salisbury, but of many a castle and manor hall, has become awash with foreign minstrels and courtesans. The incident of the rats aside, the shire prospers, as do its people. New settlements are cropping up, new castles being raised, such as that at Pillarford. Craftsmen, artisans, and laborers have flooded the market towns and prospered from good prices and generous pay. The taverns and brothels have never been more full, and the beggars have never eaten better.
The hall is packed with knights, ladies, squires, damsels, knaves and wenches alike. "GOD SAVE THE BASTARD KING OF COOORNWALL!" belts out the crowd in the last chorus of a bawdy drinking song, the Earl loudest among them. Old Sir Elad and stocky Sir Bar are arm-wrestling at the head table, evenly matched. Lady Indeg, the rich aging widow, flits between handsome and impecunious young men on the dance floor. Sir Hywel of Tilshead is having a drinking contest with Bishop Roger, which his eminence seems to be winning. Rhidian has a pair of blushing ladies at his arms leaning on a far wall, recounting to them tales of his illustrious battle prowess.
A series of new colorful tapestries deck the walls and give their own accounts. One shows a stylized history of Brutus and his conquest of the giants, another the sack of Rome by the Belgae, another the burning of Vortigern in his tower at Snowdon, and yet another the victory over the Franks, the burning of their cities, the supplication of King Ragnachar before the Earl and the Prince, and the honorable conduct given to the captive ladies. The last is sure to feature, in their own modest places subordinate to the likes of Madoc and Roderick, the likenesses of the battle commanders and heroes of note. Even the banished Terwynn and green bastardly Leiryn are featured. Lord Wayford leads the other knights, behind only Sir Elad, most easily recognized for having his sword raised. The Praetor of Levcomagus and his division are conspicuously and deliberately absent from this rendition.
In the place of pride on the wall however, as it has for four years now, hangs the black pelt of the monstrous bear of Imber, slain by Sirs Eliver, Bleddyn, and Arcadia, when they were merely squires. A few strips are missing, used to adorn a handsome trio of cloaks for the beast's killers, but the bulk of the hefty black pelt remains. The large iron nails required to keep it hung could be used to crucify a smallish giant.
The reveling goes late into the night, loudly, as does the storm. No one knows the hour, and very few care. About half the guests are either drunkenly immobile or have retired elsewhere. Those who remain, including the Earl and many of his principle courtiers, carry on as before. At what is later surmised to be about three past midnight, a great wind howls, lightning strikes somewhere nearby with a deafening and thunderous crack, and suddenly the roaring fires of the castle are suddenly snuffed out. There is surprise and confusion, more than a few squeals.
""What happened?"
"This isn't funny"
"Just a draft, I think"
"Oh! pardon me-" *SLAP*
"Keep your mitts to yourself, you rogue!"
"Wait I remember this, is some conjurer about to tell a story?"
"Merlin's not here...is he?"
"Must've just been a draft"
"Some draft!"
After no wizard emerges with a light show, it is concluded that a freakish draft had merely blown in. The fires are re-lit, and the incident is quickly forgotten.
A few minutes later however, Sir Hywel of Tilshead lets out a roaring laugh and doubles over. He points up at the wall, where the bear pelt usually hangs. No trace of it remains, save for the huge nails. The crowd begins to laugh at what is received to be a marvelous prank. The Earl walks up with a shaking belly and shouts out "Alright, who's the jester? Sir Eliver? How in hell did you manage that?!" When Eliver has to confess that he didn't take the pelt, other commonly known jesters are interrogated in turn, none can take credit. The Earl raises his hands incredulously. "Well come now, gentlemen, if must've been someone. It didn't walk out!"
No sooner does he say this, that a serving wench screams and points upwards. The dark, imperceptible shadows above the rafters are penetrated by a pair of glowing red eyes. More screams accompany the first, revelers begin backing away. The eyes disappear for a moment, and then a huge black shape comes hurtling down into the crowd, accompanied by its glowing red eyes. A pair of knights are crushed insantly as it lands. It stretches up before the earl, standing on hind legs. It's a bear. It's THE bear, come back to life. The Earl raises his arm to protect himself, and the bear nearly strikes it off his body as his powerful claw swipes at him, and sends him reeling to the floor. Blood flies from the stroke, speckling the knights either side of him, one of whom the bear proceeds to bite across the neck with a horrible scream. After the initial stun wears off, spearmen from the doors rush to strike the beast down. Their iron pierces its hide, but it hardly seems to notice. More die, including an unlucky serving wench and a brave squire. At a rush, Sir Hywel of Tilshead runs at the bear head on with a carving knife in hand and pushes it into the huge fire, himself following it. It catches alight instantly with a roar, and then seems to collapse, as if nothing but a hollow pelt. Sir Hywel, now among it on the fire and now wrapped in burning fur, is beyond saving. Aid is rushed to Sir Roderick, bleeding badly and groaning on the ground. One of Lady Ellen's serving maids enters to see what all the fuss is about.
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The next morning.
Bleddyn is in a daze. He came down with a fever a few days ago. His head spins, his ears ring, and he can't see clearly. He has a vague impression that something is very wrong. He can smell smoke, he can hear screaming and the thundering of hooves. He feels himself dragged from his sickbed and carried like a sack of potatoes over a big man's shoulder. Big Llud, he thinks. He sees grass next, he's being taken somewhere, or away from something. He looks up and he can see the church, and a stream of peasants running into it for safety. He hears a whistle and a thud, and then the world comes racing up at him all at once. He lands on his side, his legs propped up by something very large laying on the ground. A row of dark shapes approach, hard to see at a distance in his current state with the stars in his eyes, obscured also by the smoke billowing in from the village. Someone steps over him, some man he can make out, wearing a roman helmet and lorica, holding an old spatha. A tall dark figure approaches, as it does it looks to be a man on horseback. The roman swings his sword about a few times, reacquainting himself with the sensation, he walks towards the figures while more peasants stream past him. Bleddyn can only just about hear the old roman declare "You'll leave these people be, or you'll have Gaius Renatus to answer for it!" before Bleddyn's world turns to black.
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The day after that.
The mood is somber at Castle Salisbury. The Earl lives for now, but is badly hurt. The demon bear nearly took his arm off. Worse yet, Countess Ellen has taken ill at her child bed. Sir Elad sits on the comptal throne as acting regent for the time being. The Strawcutter looks even older than usual. Most of the minstrels and courtesans have fled, no patronage is worth that kind of horror. Everyone has begun to consider the fact that they might have an infant for their new lord. The lightning which struck the night of the incident had toppled the steeple of Salisbury Cathedral, damaging many of the nearby buildings as well. The popular conclusion was that the land was under some kind of curse. Its extent and its purpose is anyone's guess. Many have become more sympathetic to the House of Amig, and Sir Lycus has collected many comiserators around himself in the days since the incident.
The only consolation is that there seems to be help on the way. In one stroke of good luck, the ladies of the lake are performing their periodic procession through the area, as they do every few years to give blessings to the land maintain the power of the sacred places. A rider was dispatched to beg their assistance, and it would appear that they have answered. Two beautiful women, each with pale skin and flowing dark hair approach the dais. Each is dressed in a sheer otherworldly gown, like clouded water, one blue and the other green. The hall is somehow brightened by their presence. They are followed in procession by their acolytes, maids in silver and white with floral crowns, blue green and gold ribbons hanging from them.
Sir Elad climbs down from the dais and bows before the ladies in turn. "My ladies, thank you for coming, you are most welcome at Salisbury."
"Your Lord and Lady have always been good friends of our order. If it is within our crafts to help them, then it shall be done." says the Green Lady of the Lake.
"Black Magic is a blight on the land, and if it is not stemmed, it will spread. It' is fortunate that we were nearby" says the Blue Lady of the Lake.
"We are most glad for your help in this regard. We are already deeply in your debt, but what can you tell us of this magic?" says Elad.
"We will not know much until we have seen the afflicted, and I think it would be better to wait to discuss such matters until after our work is done." says the Green Lady.
The Ladies and their acolytes are taken to the bedchamber of Roderick and Ellen, where they are given privacy to administer their arts.
***
Some time later, a hard-ridden messenger bursts into the hall and kneels before Sir Elad. The Marshall walks down to him and listens to his hushed report. He curses, and thanks the messenger. He then calls the principal knights of the court to accompany him to the solar. This includes all player knights who have featured in previous adventures, including Terwynn, who Roderick has pardoned on his sickbed.
When all are assembled, he orders the door shut, and he slumps down in a chair, rubbing his brow.
"I've just had word that the village of Imber has been burned to the ground, and all its people have been slaughtered. Neither Sir Bleddyn of Barleyfield nor his wife or children have been found."