Topic: Future's Fortnight with a Norskmann's Bard

Aethelstan

Date: 2006-11-09 13:54 EST
What comfort comes is born of the freedom of dreams...
This harp, made by his hands, must sing.
Will you listen...

Will you come and gather round me near
and listen to Voices born on the air
through time and my poor memory?
Through song he will not be forgotten.
Through memory he will live again.
Live again for all who knew him.

And so she began a story for their entertainment?

Aethelstan

Date: 2006-11-09 14:46 EST
Once, in a town much bigger than this, he had crawled inside a burial box and his closest friends had nailed him firmly in. Outside the palace walls, warriors had come with that box, carried in solemn presentment, and had set up a desperate torrent of remorse and mourning. They offered the box and they begged that the Emperor grant them forgiveness and take them back into service. Behind them, an army of broken men, once bent on treachery, was now repented and ready to throw down their weapons, eager to serve in renewed loyalty and trust.

And the Emperor had such need of loyal men. He bid the gate be opened...just a crack...and he sent his fat and richly adorned advisors filing out to hear the news of the commander's death. Guthorm's death. The boy was barely 15 sommers old. They received the news that he had been murdererd by a mole from the desertlands...one of the Emperor's own fanatics. Oh...the advisors smiled between them. And then they opened the gates wide and bid the broken army in.

There was another who smiled then, wolflike in the wooden darkness.

The fatal mistake was that they had trusted their mole. Halfway through the celebration feast, the Emperor himself demanded the burial box be opened so he could spit on the face of the defeated boy who had dared so much. Gasps arose from warriors newly taken back into the fold. Gasps and surprise at such an insulting show of disrespect. But none made move to stop the Emperor.

And the nails came out, one by one.

The Emperor, dressed in a rich shade of purple reserved only for him, and wearing golden jewelry, leaned over the box, laughing as countless strands of beautiful golden necklaces scraped the lid as it was pulled away...and a seawulf's axe found it's mark that day...and golden strands fell free without a head to keep them.

The carnage was terrible in daylight's hours, with many joining the norskmenns fight, and by nightfall, the conquest inside thick walls was made complete.

And by the next noontide, a new Emperor took his place on the high seat in a ceremony before Mikkleg?rd's landmark pillar built of seven stacked porphyry drums. And a Viking boy set quiet sail over the chains on the Bosporus in the proud, first ship made by his own hand and manned by those who chose to stay with him, as rich in gold as he. Banished they were, out to sea.

Under his guiding hand on the st?rs oar, Guthorm's drakken danced the waves, the prow gnashing teeth and turning a smokey, fire-eyed gaze then toward the Saxon isles far away.

Aethelstan

Date: 2006-11-09 15:24 EST
She cradled the harp in protecting arms as she took her seat to continue yet again to a sea of faces, to strangers and perhaps, perhaps someone who knew him long, long ago....

But it is not the Isles I will sing of this night. It was a few, long years ago, but Guthorm had not forgotten lessons learned and tactics used. And though those tactics could be harsh, harsh enough to destroy limb and life, he was a boy grown into a man not given to flinching. He was a man of Action when the Rhydin he knew and, yes, even loved, was threatened. However odd and misplaced, however strange...who came as Lawspeakers to the land were not welcome with their force.

It came to him, a need to Act. To infiltrate, to find their secrets. They must be stopped before the raiders took it all. Of all, he understood that oh so well, familiar.

He took it on himself to stop them...

Several of the Barrister's friends met the Norskmann's purpose and his resolution hard for revenge. They had a price to pay for his st?rsmann's injury...a price designed to attract attention.

Sylvia, on a moonlit night, in the middle of the street...harsh, the words of give and take between them. Harsh the tang and tinge of threat. And she had taken her fast flight, before blood flowed, before punishment found home. She had children. She had a man to answer to. She did not stay for fist or blade. And Guthorm was glad behind hard eyes, behind hard fists and an unsheathed sword...he bid her wise. But yet, he bellowed after her what she could not bear.

"Coward!"

That bitter taste still hung in the air, long after.

And it tainted others.

The news began to spread - smoldering a newborn fire through the dry-boned leaves in the autumn streets of Rhydin.

Aethelstan

Date: 2006-11-09 16:06 EST
Will you come and gather round me near and listen to Voices born on the air through time and my poor memory?

Fortune held fast and breathed the fire warmer, under skin, under glarings, simmering long until the chill cracked the vessel wide...

The night he came to blows with Sid, long after drinking, long after listening, long after the tangle of their sneerings each to the other, the heat of battle rose its head and neither man nor woman fled its drawing...sucking in and turning angry words to Fight! And fighting, brief, blood flowed against the bone before the night was over!

(The bard's hands few unfettered through the cacophany of strings, dischorded)

And who was there for witness of the fanning flame, but Lucien himself, Mallorek the Barrister, wounded and weary, his healing painful and slow.

He did not know...
He threw himself in and in between to put a stop to madness.

Guthorm smashed his war-hard fist, a glancing blow to bruise Sid's jaw, undeniable for all to see, for Bloods to find Insult and Harm...oh let them come! He bid them come with that bruising blow!

And Mallorek launched on dizzy feet and did his best in a tangle of limbs, but Sid did not fall or run. Mark for mark was called for. Vengeance brings ever more the same in so many hearts and never mind that Lucien, in the middle, wrestling, wrestling, was cast back in force, too close, a victim caught in anger.

Sidelong the Norskmann saw misfortune but neither could stop then, the aiming of the stool...neither man nor woman for any sake, and she wielded the weapon well. Wood met bone in a muffled crack, splinters flew, and nearly healed, a broken rib broke anew.... And it was enough. Proof of fire grown between them, the bruising of dark blood between them. And each to use, as they would and as they must, to fan the flames yet higher.

Let them come....let them come, for surely this would draw attention...
And so he left them, Sid and Lucien, to give their comforts each unto the other.

But the traitor could not stay. Guthorm took his victory with him, hope wrapped about him like a winter's cold cloak.

Aethelstan

Date: 2006-11-13 11:11 EST
Listen to Voices call on air, of Memory calling, Memory calling the Voice from Sleep, Memory?s work is made to keep the Life alive, the Voice to sing - past age, past forgetting, past and forward it sings the words shoreward from the watery depths of forgetfulness?

And their words were thrown like daggers that day in the alleyway, before a few who would follow the warriors bent on harm. At table once, they had been friends. At table once, Guthorm and Shylah, but now no more would they share good drink and conversation. Between them, they took the part, before witness, of obliteration over alliance, over trust.

Divisions must be marked with force, and the Norse, from birth, know best what drives the fickle Norns to play man's fate. They wielded whip and sword to pay the All-Father's price in the spill of blood.

?Traitor!? The accusation came from the mouths of more than one.

?So you seek to accuse Sid.? The staff gripped tight, the old dragon?s tendons white, as Tasslehofl continued his stalking of the two in battle.

?Mayhaps tis YOU who shall lose his life and not me!? Shylah sneered at Guthorm and goaded him from behind her weapons. ?I kan see much better than you ... you with your shifty eyes!? She circled in clear advantage and spat her case against him. ?You forget how I stood by you and fought your bror on the Strand? So this be how you repay your friends?!?

And friends were lining the alley walls, and each bore witness in their way: Taneth and Erinalle, Elijah and Sid herself, all watched the fiery frey turn slow as mud, spiraling down, mired in movement?s answer to power?s Flood. Sid did her best to thwart the battle, but Fate lent no hand and the Trueblood could not hang on.

Guthorm shot forward with a hungry blade, aimed to give him victory. In answer, Tass?s great leather wings tore from his back and stretched out to stop the oncoming blade! But the Norskmann was too fast for intrusion...that sword made its target after fist, both came fast, like sling-shot!

His fist knocked Shylah back and the blade cut deep her arm! And in wilder lunge, her sword brought down and bit across his thigh! Blood ran high, blood ran fast and he could not stand against the wound. She kicked him then, and angry words, they echoed in her reprimand: ?How dare you turn against me!?

And all too fast it was over and done, spilling slippery red on the alley floor. And Sid?s voice pleaded then the old dragon?s skill: ?I dun wan' him to bleed to death?? She knew the why beyond blood and bone out back of the old inn door...she knew. But she could not put more Voice behind it.

Hard the price Guthorm paid that day for vengeance on Rhydin's enemies?treachery seared deep in flesh and friends.