Odela's Grimoire VI
17th of late spring
The tournament passes like a column of bulls. The Footman wins a test of archery, and the others make foreign enemies. One of them is a great beast named Angmar the Cut-Tooth as strong as five men, the winner of the test of melee.
At Lord Glas’ feast he breaks away with the Brythonman, and they duel to death, as was promised the fight before. Llwd, the holder of the spear of the Worm King, dies. Blood-bound to our company, he is promised to aid the mad Ruisyman in his quest to bring the wild druid of lost Stemullen to justice.
I heed to take his pale ward, that angry youth from Collecan, back to his town before we make our journey. Dead — all dead, by the oremen of the black woods. Already I have sworn to take on the mystery of flesh to stone as the men at the shore, my experiments having only touched at the door of whatever grim demon ushers such workings. I feel a presence there, but my poisoned leg remains.
Before the folles of Blulach ended, I made my way to the druid-lands in the marshes of the north on the trail of that mad rider. I reach him soon by horse, and come across his pressing by a circle of such druids.
I know nothing of their tongue, nor they of mine. Crude gesture gets me some small way to the secret of the stone men before one of them, older and bearded, makes a sign before picking up a serpent and swallowing it. From then he speaks perfect lingua ecclesia and explains them quite plainly; despair is the second half of stone. The heart must transform first, before the body may follow.
The ruisyman leaves with his own map of the wild druid as well as their word that fate shall keep his judgement. Their blessing, and their curse.
We quickly gather our company in blulach before riding north by the coast with new horses for all. Our other goods are nets and rope.
The ride is easy over a day and a night. Only that we spy a village of the deepest druid-kind, and I am well weary of them. They hold perhaps the greatest knowledge I may learn of whatever pacts are made with the forces of Satan in these lands, but those words are buried to me.
We made the way to some ugly beach lined with bones. Wards of skulls and teeth strung across the rocks, and a festering hovel of some lower beast.
That is when we were attacked. The wild man clambered like a dog across the rocks, and seemed to step between the gross and subtle worlds like breathing. Only Angmar’s keen eyes on the sand for his foot steps revealed his presence.
He was quickly taken by nets against the stones, but nearly killed some of our number. Tied fast and hobbled, he was put on a horse snarling and biting.
He would be executed on a ride through Blulach, and it was too dangerous to cut through the woods, so we would ride over the north face of the island to reach Dorbagh.
And through the town of Cloyne, for our sins. Followers of the wild man, however such a thing may have come to pass. Here, I wondered but did not think, at my cursed leg, my pitiful craft, the many battles to come at the hands of the oremen, the terrible cost of such things as justice in the eyes of Lucifer.
So then I swore that I would bathe in the blood of they that followed the mad druid. Only a few, I was sure. Something that could be put aside as a riot or an attack. A man dead, and his blood for a rite I had learned. Then another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another.
Angmar, the Footman, a boy-archer from Blulach — all joining the dead. The Footman having killed the druid, it was a matter of honour between he and Angmar - Foít, holder of the spear of the Worm King, dies. Angmar takes an arrow in the throat as he stands over the body, plaga upon him by a survivor.
I had set a fire, hoping to break the fighting spirit, but it had left me only some protection, and now an awful heat. There was I, and the mad rider barely alive, and some folk mad or callous enough to help me in the work of filling a fresh trench with man’s blood. Swirling amidst the choking earth, turning black and red.
Stripped nearly bare, I lay down in the pit. My wounds gently closing as though caressed by hands as sharp as kind. But nothing for my leg, as ever sick with the Worm King's touch. The magic does not cleanse it.
As I stood again, looking at the fire consuming the little stables of the house, I felt no reason to take up my armour. To wipe the wet soil like crushed insects from my skin. I took up my horse, and then the road to Dorbagh.
We did pass a town across the bridge to that side of the island, Colmwarden. Quiet and unfriendly, we did not take hosts where none were offered.
But beyond that place was a hovel, strewn with bones and the miasma of foul works, and was quickly proof of that bone taking giant our company had slain many moons ago. Sagging dead, emptied out, lay amidst pelts of rats teeming in this dank shrine.
I felt at once that this place was some gate, like the profaned spring. A spirit lay here, sleeping, and it might be roused by whatever power is kept in my Sinister Hand. But we had little time to get ahead of the trouble, onto Dorbagh.
I washed my self at the well in Lost Stemullen - some modesty still needed as we head to our judgement.
We arrive, simply, and come to the great hall. I explain myself amidst others, and speak in conlator where others may use their own tongue. I say that we were bound to bring the wild man who led to Stemullen’s doom to his justice, that we had a lead from Blulach, that we brought the warrior Angmar with us, and that all our efforts came to a riot in Cloyne where he was killed in the fighting, as were many others.
In this, I feel no shame, and only the details may change.
Lord Donnagh, as his part, holds grim. He says that we are barred from his hall, but may not leave his lands - soon, we shall know his mind at full, whatever that may be from a man sat upon doom after doom. I have made my position so uneasy, and the displeasure of Mish the druidess does me greater pain.
Damn it all, this business of lordships. I think for my sake, I should make a heavy business with the greater powers quite soon and be done with this land. Sail to a place not so easily governed. Soon, at least, the oremen shall have utterly destroyed all but the last holds. But it would then leave only Lord Glas’ little christendom, and that may be against my credit…