Primeval Thule: 27/8/2213 AR Finnris tells his story. My Mother was a witch. She was burnt alive!

Angry Finnris - Finnris Araya, Narthan, Exile.

Quodeth. Urgak's Camp. 27/8/2213 AR

Finnris Araya, sits apart from the other fighters, a broad Kalayan scarf draped over his head like a hood hides his face in shadow, he is working a whetstone across the edge of a great sword. A group of bruised and cut pit fighters shoot murderous glances at him; their accusatory muttering demonstrates it is not only space that separates them.

Old Megara, the healer enters the common room, takes in the scene and nods to group of trained killers. The pit fighters rise as one and shuffle out of the room, passing the tiny old Katagian lady as respectfully as is possible.

Megara sighs.

“Heroes” she mutters to herself.

“So sulky.”

Megara crosses the room to sit with the barbarian Finnris, placing an amphora full of dark liquid on the table.

“Fin look what I came across in the bazaar this morning, real Nar Highland Firewater.”

Megara winces at the thought of the headache she will have in the morning, a pit fighter training camp with all that yelling, clanging, and banging is not a place to be hungover. The firewater had cost two golden peacocks, a small fortune. Urgak had purchased the liquor. Nar Firewater is rare in Quodeth, and he had searched high and low for it. Urgak and Megara had discussed the situation at length and thought it best Megara talk with the Dhari before someone got killed, which would be bad and without profit a tragedy.

Finnris, his face hidden in the cowl of Kalayan broadcloth raised his head slightly.

“Fin, what has happened?” The old lady’s hand seemed even smaller as she laid it on the barbarian’s brawny forearm.

A low growl came from beneath the hood or was it a gruff sigh, Megara couldn’t quite tell.

“You refuse to see your friends.”

The Dhari shrugged massive shoulders, head lowered, his sandaled feet scratching the floor like a naughty child.

“You’re beating Urgaks fighters bloody in sparring Finnris.” Megara chastised the Narthan.

“The armourers have put up the prices because you have broken so many shields.” She continued.

“And!” Now she was in full flow.

“Torsten the Nimothan will be in the infirmagia for weeks with the broken arm you gave him”

“Puny Nimothan” Finnris muttered.

“Fin” Megara’s tone was the assertive, commanding, the accent thoroughbred Atlantean nobility.

Finnris takes off the broad Kalayan scarf looks up at the great yellow moon in the sky above Quodeth and sighs.

“Those things in the sewers, the gibbering mutations, Megara they brought it all back.” He says flatly, glancing at her from the corner of her eye.

Megara pulls the cork from the amphora and fills a pair of chilled stone cups. As she mixes her draught with chilled spring water, the Narthan drains his cup in one, then sucks in night air savagely through gritted teeth.

“Ha!” Finnris roars, glaring at the empty cup.

“This is good” He grimaces, refilling his cup.

“Brought what back, Fin?” Asks Megara.

She sips the potent spirit. Cradling the cup in both hands.

The Highlander drains a second cup in a single giant swig and slaps his thigh mightily.

“Hoo, ha!” He exclaims.

“This is the good stuff.” The red-faced Dhari grimaces.

“Finnris Araya, tell me!” Little old grandmother Megara, orders Finnris the slayer to tell his tale.

…

The moon is a great silver light over the Highlands of Nar at that time of year, but on this night, it was a dark pale yellow much like the one above Quodeth tonight, Megara.

I and some of the other younger warriors were on guard, the rest of the clan feasted in the White Griffin Lodge, as is customary for the time of year. Chief Evarr Halborn and his wife Elaine hosted great feasts, but none is more significant than the Feast of the Longest Night. On patrol, we joked among ourselves of missing the feast, but we were uneasy of the eerie foreboding moon above. That is when Ma came to us, she bid us be wary, that the yellow moon was a portent, that evil was abroad this night.

We didn’t think the screaming anything more than festive high spirits at first, but it became shriller, more desperate. The shouting coming from the hall was no longer raucous but no full of rage, mindless roaring. Ma led us to the Chief's lodge. To us, it sounded like a battle. Instinctively my stomach knotted. Strange translucent yellow vapours drifted out of the gaps between the wooden walls and large entrance doors. At first, I thought it light from inside spilling out until I noticed the vapour almost slither across the ground surrounding the hall like early morning mist. Then, the lodge doors burst open and outran a naked woman; I did not recognise her; her face was streaming blood from the rents torn across it. She was howling as she fled into the night.

We turned as one to look in the hall; it was a scene from hell.

The feast had turned into an orgy of madness; nothing made sense, the once happy clan rioted inside people were brawling, crying, babbling, hiding and even dancing amidst the chaos.

Ma took control. She bid us first get the small children to safety, for they seemed the least affected. We did this as she gathered about her those who still have their wits. Our numbers swelled, she had us isolate and subdue the most dangerous warriors. We took the Chief down first; he was bellowing like a raging bull. It took a dozen of us to trap him at the back of the lodge, had he been himself I do not think it would be enough. Ma spoke to him in her native Atlantean low and powerful, and he dropped like a stone. She lay her hands on his temple, and he sprang up, like a salmon leaping out of the Jandar river. Confused at first, then with a few more words from Ma, Evarr regained most of his composure, Evarr is one of the toughest men I know, second only to my crazy Grandpa.

It was then Fearghal Keor arrived with a dozen kin, all of them armed. Ma barked orders at him to help. It is challenging not to obey when she uses this voice of command, believe me, I have tried, but Fearghal hesitated, at the time I thought it wounded his pride to recognise her authority, but now I believe he was calculating his response to a change in his plans. Evarrs hulking presence settled it. Fearghal Keor joined us, and in time we had separated the dangerously mad from the troubled and confused.

Many were severely injured; Leaf the Lucky had lost an eye, but thankfully none had died. But that was just the beginning.

We had corralled or bound most of the moon touched, but some still roamed the village. It was Bearn Tuham found her first, Elaine Halborn had been hiding at the back of the hall, behind Evarr’s high roughly hewn seat or rule, below the griffin mantle. Elaine was a beautiful woman, but now she looked more like a wild animal, her eyes white, rolled up into her head, her limbs contorted at unnatural angles. She capered up on to the chair, pointed down the hall and screamed, inhuman, unintelligible it was awful to behold. A big welt burst open on her forehead with a sickening squelch, a horrid third eye just popped out, right there on her forehead it was truly unnatural. Another sprang out of a similar welt on her cheek, and Elaine now had four eyes rolling around on her face, the wailing, I will never forget it, sickening, subhuman, insane. And there she died, just died, dropping in a tangle of broken bones on the chief’s, her beloved husband's chair all four eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Evarr composure leaked out of him like water down a drain, Leafstan his son raced to comfort him.

That’s when Ma sent me to seek a cure. This curse of a terrible mutating madness then death. Ma believed it to be sorcery. She was a healer, blessed of Mitra; she knew things.

She urged me to seek help from the priests at the Temple of the Widest Sky. Although it is only a few days ride from the camp, it is a dangerous journey even in summer, to travel alone through the long night was utterly reckless. I left immediately.

So, across the highlands, I rode to seek help from Mitra’s followers. I knew the way well; my Grandma had retired to the Shrine several years in the past. She said she wanted to mourn my Pa who had died in Katagia when I was but a babe, but I secretly think she also wanted to escape my Grandpas eccentricities.

Ishtar watched over me as I raced across the highlands, nothing troubled my journey, and I arrived at the highland shrine in good time. I described the events of the night of the yellow moon, and the priests wasted no time in providing aid, giving me holy waters and bundles of blessed sweet-scented mountain jasmine. Grandma also gave me her horse. Even in old age, it was the swiftest of steeds, its hooves fleet and sure. I arrived back at the White Griffin Lodge at dusk just three days after I had left.

But everything had changed.

Ma always joked with me that I would be late for my funeral, a tragic irony to be late for hers.

While I was away Fearghal Keor had demanded the clan formally meet, a Moot we call it, to discuss the events of the night of the yellow moon. Many of the clan were sick and unable to attend, some were still mad with the gibbering fever and could not make sense, a few were dying horribly as the mutation took hold, their bodies wracked contorted spasms.

It was at the Moot that Fearghal Keor accused Ma of witchcraft. He claimed she had cursed the tribe with Atlantean sorcery; he reminded them that she was from the hated Katagia. It is true my Ma as Katagian, and the city-state is a hated enemy of the Highland people. Bu Ma was no traitor; she had lived happily among the people for more than twenty years. She had honoured my Pa’ dying wish and brought me to his tribe so that I would learn the Narthan ways.

Fearghal is a reptile; he had pursued Ma’s hand in marriage for years. Widowed as she was and he a prominent warrior, wedding the Keor warrior would have secured her position in the clan and my grandparents’ legacy would have given weight to Feargal’s ambitions. But Astrios Araya, my Ma had spurned all Feargal Keors advances. “He oils his mustaches with perfume like the degenerates of Orech, for Mitra’s sake.” She would joke. And so, he became her enemy. Perhaps this was his revenge, for being rejected, so many times. But I believe there is more to it, he is a cunning brute, and I have not forgotten, he and his kin were conveniently absent the feast that night.

With no Narthan to speak for her, I and my grandparents absent and my Pa long dead, only Bearn Tuham made words on her behalf. Ma was not allowed to speak, for she was Atlantean and only Nathans came to make words at the Moot. Mahad lived happily amongst the clan for more than two decades, she was a famous healer, and many sought the wisdom of her counsel. But sadly, on that night only Bearn dared to support her. Fearghal’s family was healthy, almost entirely untouched by the sickness and Evarr could not overrule their majority claim without inviting a stiff challenge. Fearghal claimed Ma had spread the illness with witchcraft and he demanded her death in the fires of Reth. A terrible punishment. Later Baishum Judocus the outlander told me the Moot was again another night of giddy madness, he believed sorcery to be at work again as on the night of the yellow moon. He said a strange and bitter humour filled the air at the Moot that night. The assembly was chaos; he would go on to say, he had never seen the Chief so subdued, withdrawn and confused. And so, Fearghal the bloodthirsty, Ferghal the ambitious, pride swollen by support from the clan dragged Ma from the White Griffin Lodge and along with a mob of crazed clan folk, cast Ma cursing them, into the everlasting Fire of Reth that burned atop a cairn not far from camp. And there she died. She was burnt alive.

I did not know it; I was too late. To the long hall I went first; sensing all was not well for the camp was all but empty, I found just Baishum, the hardened mercenary, was weeping in the door of the White Griffin lodge. He told me what had happened; he was sorry, ashamed, Narthan law forbade him from speaking, they are going to burn her.

Up to the glen, I raced. But too late. I could hear the screams before I crested the hill and saw the flames. I forced my way through the crowd. By the time I reached the fire, she was dead.

What have you done? I screamed at the Chief. A multitude of expressions clouded across his face, anger, pain, confusion. Fearghal had told him I had run away. I wept, exhausted, numb, heartbroken. Falling to my knees, I gave him the cures the Priest of Mitra had given me, the remedies Ma had told me to fetch. He just looked at me sweat beading his brow despite the chilly highland night, eyes red-rimmed, the whites yellowing and glazed.

Fearghal pompously barrelled his way through the crowd. He bid the clan cast me into the flames as well. Cheers came from his kin. He was now the driving force of the clan.

Rage took me, and I attacked. Fearghal a vastly more experienced warrior than I, also a brute and cunning with it. But I was faster and struck first, taking him to the ground I tore at his face with my teeth, for I had no weapons on me. He was vain, and it is a weakness. Grandpa taught me that. I bit down and tore with my teeth not letting go; I was beaten unconscious by his kin. I woke but wished I was dead. Broken bones, missing teeth, I could only see out of one eye. Fearghal’s kin had beaten me savagely; they had hacked off the warrior braids from head and beard, stabbed, kicked and punched me. They were about to cast me unconscious into the eternal flames when Leafstalk Halborn intervened. Later Baishum told me the Chiefs son Leafstan had laid about them in a rage, scattering them like a sabretooth among sheep.

Evarr had stood with Leafstan protecting me. The mob wanted blood. Fearghal and his kin numbered most of the able warriors of the clan, and the clan would need warriors to survive the long night. So Evarr proclaimed me an outcast to the mob. Regaining his might, Evarr sent the Keors back to their lodges. For several days Evarr kept me hostage in his Lodge. Evarr took no time and used Mitra’s cure immediately, it worked well enough and soon those not yet dead from the gibbering madness would become well again.

Ma was right; the gifts from the Priests of the Shrine fo the Widest Sky cured those in the tribe who were not to far gone. The others touched too much by the plague were placed in the fires of Reth.

Evarr grief struck fell to a brooding silence. All the time the Fearghal’s cronies stalked outside White Griffin Lodge pleading for my death. Fearghal wanted revenge; I had torn off his nose with my teeth. But he would not leave his lodge; he is as vain as he is ambitious.

In the dead of night Leafstan Hallborn & Baishum Judocus secretly escorted me out of the camp. Had they not, Fearghal’s kin would have surely captured me. For several days we rode across east across the Highlands. Leafstan gave me the tools to survive in the wilderness and Baishum shared his knowledge of the backwoods trails, cities, and peoples of Thule. We parted in sadness at the Ghostwood Wilds. An eerie place of whitewood pine and moaning winds.

And so I was outcast with no clan, no parents. Grief consumed me; I lived like an animal in the Dhar Mesh until the Windrunners found me. I stayed with them for many moons hunting beastmen. Then, when I heard tales of an old Narthan fighting in pits of Quodeth, I thought it might be my crazy grandpa and came to look for myself. Reborn I would become a famous warrior return to the tribe and take revenge.

But I got lost in the jungle; it happens more than I would like, I grew up in the highlands, the jungles tangled paths are still a mystery to me. While lost I was captured by slavers traveling to Quodeth, and I found myself in chains again. I pretended not to know the Atlantean tongue they spoke and played the submissive beaten slave until I heard them talking about the nearing City. Then I jumped ship taking slaver bearing the keys with me, my chains dragging us to the bottom of the river, I thanked him for the ride as he drowned, freed myself and swam ashore. No longer lost I walked the last few miles to the city.

And so, I arrived in the City of Bridges, City of Thieves, Quodeth. The rest of the story you know Megara.

Cast:

Narthan Mammoth Hunters - White Griffin Clan

Evarr Halborn, Chief of the White Griffin Clan

Elaine Halborn, The Chiefs beautiful and considerate wife

Leafstan Hallborn, Evarr and Elaine's son

Bearn Tuham. Evarrs trusted captain

Fearghal Keor, a descendant of the great Kal

Grandma, Fionn Araya, Narthan Shield Maiden(retired), blessed of Mitra

Grandpa, Mot Araya, Narthan Adventurer (no fixed abode)

Pa, Narthan Adventurer deceased. Rumoured to have died in the Circus Maxima of Katagia racing a chariot for the famous blue team.

Finnris Araya, Exile

Non-Narthan

Megara, Atlantean, Healer

Ma, Astrios Araya, Atlantean, blessed of Mitra

Baishum Judocus, Mercenary, permanent guest of the White Griffin Clan

Mot Araya - Grandpa

Mot Araya – Grandpa.

Mot is a famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) Narthan warrior, and adventurer whose sandaled feet have trampled across the jeweled thrones of Thule. He was once elected chief by the White Griffin clan but famously refused.

“I will not be told what to do, so how could I tell others their business.” He is rumoured to have said.

“Are you sure you are my grandson and not the spawn of some winged ape?” Mot often jokes with Finn. It was Mot Araya showed Finnris the path of the Slayer.