Common Worlds

September 14 2004

After entering the most outlying part of Pavis County, the dawn comes red, smoky and late. As the sun begins to peek out, the Yelornans all stop and offer prayers to their Star Maiden goddess, thanking her for protecting everyone through the darkness.

The cloaked strangers with them take sightings, measurements and make notes as the sun rises, and speak prayers in Dara Happan to a god you are unfamiliar with--"Penendros."

Nearing the city walls, everyone can see that something is wrong. Thief Town, the squatter community outside the New City, has swollen to twice its normal size. Lunar pennants and standards fly at a hastily dug fortification at the Griffin Gate to the Old City. Plumes of smoke rise from several spots in the main ruins and Zebra Town.

"It has upon it quite the appearance of complication,," says the Issaries guide, stating the obvious. "And more there be too. Now with the dawn, I am assured by Issaries-who-guides-us that we are being followed. None too close though."

Scouting by the Young Riders reveals that the ferries across the Zola Fel at the new city have been stopped, and that two files of the Granite Phalanx have dug in a position in and around the ruined Griffin Gate, preventing anyone from entering or exiting. Sable Riders run scouting patrols out of this spot, but are clearly reconaissance forces who do not come after riders who stay distant from the walls.

No obvious lunar presence shows itself at the troll break, but there's a good sized Sable camp at the northern entrance of the Zola Fel, on the Garden side.

All that means that there is no easy, direct way into the Rubble. Certainly not by daylight.

With twilight upon you, Garusharp gathers his prayers and magic about him and disappears off toward the walls of the old city. Will's blessing offers him further reassurance.

Close up the ancient blocks are even more impressive, bearing thousands of marks of battle and wind scourings. Even in their neglected state, ordinary climbers would have trouble with them, and ordinary men would hesitate because the stones themselves seem to silently radiate a message: "You, pitiful mortal, you may not pass."

In the half light and shadows cast by the setting sun, Garusharp freehands his way to the top of the wall a hundred yards south of the Granite Phalanx pickets at the Wyvern Gate. It is twilight of Waterday, the beginning of Clayday, Mobility Week, Dark Season 1621

Below him a cluster of ruins the size of a normal city spreads out from the gate, then peters out into icy stubble fields dotted with fallen walls. Hills rise within the walls, each covered with ancient fortifications. Some are whole and manned, others ruined and abandoned. Watch fires burn brightly from all the manned towers of the largest fort.

A mile or more away across the city, the icy river gleams by the fitful moon's glow. And across that, there's the distant sense of motion--slow moving cavalry (Cavalry?? they are the right size, but they move strangely) coming from the river and heading toward the northwest corner of the ruins.

Fires burn in distant ruins across the river and before the cavalry.

After taking this in, perhaps 60 yards forward into the ruins some sound and motion draws your attention. Shortly after that, a fetid stink reaches your nose.

In a partially collapsed and burned ruin, twisted, unclean figures move about. You hear guttural orders and see their attempts to start a small fire. Several of them move back and forth between two sections of the ruin. They are obviously where they are for the same reason you are--this is just outside of the perimeter of the gate guards.

Working to get a better view, Garusharp moves along the wall's top. As twilight fades into night, he sees hideous goatlike faces reflect the sickly light of the fire. A forward scout with scrawny little horns that wave about like a snake's tongue capers nearer to you, still unaware of your presence, watching instead toward the Lunar position.

The hair on the back of Garusharp's neck goes up as he hears snips of grunted prayers to their obscene and hideous spirits. Their tongue is a twisted mess of languages, but you pull one word out as it is repeated again and again: Ma-ll-ia Ma-ll-ia Ma-ll-ia Ma-ll-ia.

The mistress of disease.

Their ceremony has only begun. The shaman at the center of the magic lifts a tied dog up, croaks some dreadful benediction at the center of his circle, runs a knife along its side and parades it in a circle around his ritual space. The dog shudders and squirms, whimpering as its blood pours out on the ground, the walls and the other goat men gathered for the ritual.

It seems likely that this is just the first and least of several sacrifices.

Garusharp decided to find a spot in the ruins to run his ambush, a place where he could fire on both camps if necessary.

Will, Oshun and the others worked their subtle magics to move undetected to near the gate, where Will's Pavis magic made amazing progress moving stones and boulders out of the path of the combined Unicorn and Zebra cavalry, which promptly charged. Oshun joined the charge while Will attacked one edge of the shield wall from foot.

Rasa has pulled what simple magic it can together and is attempting to pass through the Dara Happan line unnoticed, in order to reach the tower of the Rass and his magical resources.

After some initial success, the experience and training of the Marble Phalanx is beginning to tell. Even though they have taken casualties and they're being attacked from two sides, their lines have held and they have twice pushed the cavalry charges off.

In the ruins behind Garusharp, the noise of the broo ritual is no longer quiet and whispered. It rises with screams and loud, horrific invocations.