The adventurers, down another man, return for even more.
Spoilers for Wolves upon the Coast follow, of course. 800 words.
HEY, NOW HEAR
What the three-eyed necklace and the grapnel of the
Housebreakers of Cioran,
The Whalekilers
Did in days gone by,
What deeds made their power.
DUGSON, the spire’s climber;
PICTIDÓTTIR, the heirloom’s robber,
PILFERED Culemwarden’s taoiseach
While his town was assailed;
ENDED the bloodline
Of the Tesch-Tesch;
SAILED the oceanward coast
To find Dorbog,
And the depredations of the
DYNDUR and the TWO-FACED DOG.
Awakened before dawn, amidst a deluge,
The Dyndur swarming Culemwarden’s walls,
Their hateful deeds by the dead of night.
Unseen Pictidóttir feeding Cioran’s hounds
To filch his great Cup,
(She had written this boast in the mud.)
While the Ore-men stole away townsmen
From the walls,
Dragging away all fallen.
Dugson,
Naked but for shield & blade
Brought his sword
As the battle was done,
Never striking a foe,
All twisted limb and face,
Maille rotted and rusted,
Who die in the sun.
We should go!
Heaven’s pelting water slowed the return
To the forbidding spire,
Dugson fitted unlike before.
A chick, with hoof & claw
Wings unformed,
Lay beneath the spire.
Dugson did climb!
Two chicks anest and torn nets
His reward.
(Two more devoured, by their brothers)
He dug their shit
Like Bill before,
And found naught but dung.
“Mercy,” he said,
And slew both the starving
Things.
The thievery looming
They chose to shore
Near their namesake’s corpse.
Friggsdag brought fog
A disguise to get past
Culemwarden
Up the Suck,
But for the grunt of rowing men.
West, then
Safety, ha!
Skirting close to obscured auks’ shores
Landing to find
Smells pleasant and sour,
Tasted through the South Wind.
The Whalekillers met the Ocean’s edge,
The End of the World.
Camped next to hilltop stones,
Runes read by
Dugson
Who told of learning Sturla’s letters.
A Norseman’s boast:
"Hwrulf threw this stone from the hill behind which the sun sets.
Before that, he slew a barbarian chief."
The other menhir, larger,
Bore the tongue of the Druid.
Dugson scratched his own letters
On the stone, and
Teeda presented the charms
Knitted of hair & blood.
None would matter
Erelong.
A new Moon’s
Dawn brought the howls of the Dyndur
In the forest near,
And warmth,
Burning off the fog.
South
They sailed past high tide’s rocky shore
To find
Dorbog,
Pummeled by the Western Sea.
Square homes of the Norse,
Round cottages of the Ruis,
Barnacles atop a fortress stacked
Long long ago.
A merchant’s boat unloading
Amidst three warships & fishers’ boats,
Weapons of war, spear & sword.
Norse they heard through the fog
Voices gruff.
“Declare who you are!”
“I am Dugson who fought the Tesch-Tesch &
Fought off the Dyndur
At Culemwarden. They call me ‘the brave’.”
A reply, distrustful:
“It is true the Dyndur roam now.
Who is your companion?”
(Whispered: “What do we call ourselves?”
Silence from Pictidóttir.)
“Teeda … uh … the Brave.”
A voice again, doubting:
“Did you slay the Ogre?”
Dugson nodded
“Donnagh nephew of Dennagh, Dorbog’s lord,
Will not host you,
He keeps the peace.
Leave your weapons.
You may make your trades and go.”
Two dozen soldiers amidst crumbling stone
Spoke of fighting to protect their homes.
“We watch against the enemies
That fall in the sun.”
Dugson spoke:
“That is honorable.”
Pictidóttir was silent.
The people of Dorbog wan,
Drinking out-of-doors,
Rusted blades stacked.
The Whalekillers bought their fare,
Fish,
And learned of a faceless man
Who offered a bounty
For his own face.
The village outside the walls
Had been sacked
By the Dyndur,
Its people and knives taken,
But stores remained.
The Whalekillers stripped the larders.
From one hut hung
Words scribed for a tongue
The Whalekillers knew not.
The man inside had
No lips
No nose
No eyes
No face.
He spoke with sorrow,
But without lips.
A dog
Had taken his face,
A dog
A horse’s size,
A dog
With dangerous tail,
A dog
That mocked.
He promised silver.
“I will get back your face!”
Wishing not to waste the sun,
The Whalekillers
Rowed up the bog River Barrow
Into the fog.
Waterlogged
Deer
Goats
A wolf
A ruin
Marked the waterway’s banks.
The Whalekillers wanted no more
Of this foul place.
They reckoned the Dyndur
And their outrages
To the north,
And camped the putrid left bank.
Thunder rumbled.
The moon’s day’s morning
A tempest,
The Barrow
A torrent, a boiling flood.
They rode, thrashed, to the mouth,
Permitted Dorbog’s docks
In the storm.
Disembarked,
With donkey (not even a shield’s silver!),
With Cioran’s Cup,
Against a laughing dog, and,
A Oath to replace a face
In the storm.
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| Session 3: The First Major Explorations |
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