Deadlands of Old
Baron
She smiled at me passed the tears beginning to glisten in her eyes by the dusk’s last golden light. As I stepped through the tall stalks of wheat between us she stuffed a thick wool cloak into her rucksack and picked up our father’s sword.
“It’s time. I’m ready to go now.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her one last time. “If we do this, it won’t just be stories any more. Mother always made it sound so wonderful, so glorious, but remember father’s warnings too. The dangers will be real now. The ghasts and goblins and ghouls….”
“And the dragons too brother! Dragons and fae and strange things that dance in the water. But most of all a real chance to make our own future. We’ll never have that here now. Noble born is not so noble when you are third and fourth child. All the days and toil of our lives will be sold for our brother’s greed, and we have had this argument before,” she said.
And indeed we had. She pulled her dark braid over her shoulder and set her stance a little wider. It was her usual sign the conversation was over. So we exchanged crooked smiles and short nods, and then turned toward the East, hand in hand, to find the mists, as our mother had told us to. This was our last goodbye to home so many years ago.
We found those mists. We travelled from world to world and wrote our own tales of adventure and glory. I found my fortune, and my sister found her doom. I remember the heartbreak and the rage of that moment. I remember drowning in the wild eyed frenzy and blood that followed it. But I tremble now and grip my cup with fear because I cannot remember her name. My sister’s name is gone from me, as is all image of the thing that took her. Only the feeling of the horror is left.
What will be left to you when the grey crawls inside? You, yes, all of you there, reading my thoughts across the dream. I know you’re there, as surely as you know my pains. We are of the same kind. We have fought from shore to shore, seen shadows vanquished by the eldritch flames and dragons laid low by flashing steel, that we might say we are the righteous and this Fortannis is our own.
We’ve cried out together, “All Hail the Glorious Dead, who brought us here to victory!”
But as we sit inside the taverns of our memories now, telling stories by the fire of battles won and triumphs earned through tragic sacrifice. There is laughter in our throats and tears in our eyes and that familiar grain of the old worn tables rough beneath our fingers. Should we not stop here to ponder?
No. That is not our way. We live for the adventure, the glory, and the gold; and we fight for survival and justice and dreams...
But I hear it. The question buried deep in the back of our minds.
How much has been sundered by the making of our wars?
We broke all bounds chasing our honor across the mist. We crossed from world to world without a thought. Fortannis was made small for our sake.
But in that grey between there is now a stirring. It is a whisper rising, a thing that lurks inside the longing of our hearts.
And suddenly, at last, we feel that call toward home, and tremble, and know to be afraid.
There, I hear my sister call to me in warning,
In the grey between it gathers, yearning to tell its tale. It is the story of one world, our Fortannis no more. And all swords will fail when the word is spoken.
“It’s time. I’m ready to go now.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her one last time. “If we do this, it won’t just be stories any more. Mother always made it sound so wonderful, so glorious, but remember father’s warnings too. The dangers will be real now. The ghasts and goblins and ghouls….”
“And the dragons too brother! Dragons and fae and strange things that dance in the water. But most of all a real chance to make our own future. We’ll never have that here now. Noble born is not so noble when you are third and fourth child. All the days and toil of our lives will be sold for our brother’s greed, and we have had this argument before,” she said.
And indeed we had. She pulled her dark braid over her shoulder and set her stance a little wider. It was her usual sign the conversation was over. So we exchanged crooked smiles and short nods, and then turned toward the East, hand in hand, to find the mists, as our mother had told us to. This was our last goodbye to home so many years ago.
We found those mists. We travelled from world to world and wrote our own tales of adventure and glory. I found my fortune, and my sister found her doom. I remember the heartbreak and the rage of that moment. I remember drowning in the wild eyed frenzy and blood that followed it. But I tremble now and grip my cup with fear because I cannot remember her name. My sister’s name is gone from me, as is all image of the thing that took her. Only the feeling of the horror is left.
What will be left to you when the grey crawls inside? You, yes, all of you there, reading my thoughts across the dream. I know you’re there, as surely as you know my pains. We are of the same kind. We have fought from shore to shore, seen shadows vanquished by the eldritch flames and dragons laid low by flashing steel, that we might say we are the righteous and this Fortannis is our own.
We’ve cried out together, “All Hail the Glorious Dead, who brought us here to victory!”
But as we sit inside the taverns of our memories now, telling stories by the fire of battles won and triumphs earned through tragic sacrifice. There is laughter in our throats and tears in our eyes and that familiar grain of the old worn tables rough beneath our fingers. Should we not stop here to ponder?
No. That is not our way. We live for the adventure, the glory, and the gold; and we fight for survival and justice and dreams...
But I hear it. The question buried deep in the back of our minds.
How much has been sundered by the making of our wars?
We broke all bounds chasing our honor across the mist. We crossed from world to world without a thought. Fortannis was made small for our sake.
But in that grey between there is now a stirring. It is a whisper rising, a thing that lurks inside the longing of our hearts.
And suddenly, at last, we feel that call toward home, and tremble, and know to be afraid.
There, I hear my sister call to me in warning,
In the grey between it gathers, yearning to tell its tale. It is the story of one world, our Fortannis no more. And all swords will fail when the word is spoken.