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COUNTER CHARGE JOURNAL

Being a True and Accurate series of narratives for Our Times

Vol. 1

MMXIX

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Contents The Fenulian Cycle ............................................. 3

The Brotherhood Sundered .................................. 6

A New Watch ..................................................... 8 Remembering the Fallen .................................... 14

Tannhauser’s War Journal ............................... 16

The Fairy Campaign ......................................... 19

An Unlikely Ally............................................... 24

Many thanks to our artist contributors. Their images do the work when our words yet fail us.

Daniel Read – Mounted Elven Lord p. 4, Mounted Basilean Lord p.16

Luis Agustus – Men at Arms p. 7, Militia p. 8, Survivors p. 14

Paul Speedly – Necromancer p. 12

Duglas Jon – Reapers p. 19

Jeffery Swann – Rearing Dragon p. 20

Jon Gunns – Mounted Revenants p. 21

Andy Ransome – Ronny the Bard p. 22

Tyler Shultz – Ogres p. 24

Elizabeth Beckley-Bradford – Blaster p.25

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A Notation by the Editor

Pardon, fellows, our idle hands. Through much blood and fear have our peerless scribes paid the way to bring us these most rare stories of our land. Some give us the briefest glimpses into the horror that surrounds us. Others are but a small part of greater works that will fill our later volumes. First written verse of heralded fables and living accounts of our crumbling world stand shoulder to shoulder, a bastion against ignorance. But fear not; the ink is fresh on our dedication. It is for the betterment of the whole of our fine civilization that we toil. To educate, and dare we hope, entertain you, in these darkest of times.

Forever yours in solemn toil,

T.Roller

Editor

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Excerpt from

The Deum Bello Manuscript The Fenulian Cycle

As translated by Ben Stoddard

Behold the days of divinity are past

For the Gods are torn asunder

The silver shards of sinful pride

And the wyrd of Calisor Fenulian

That lead the gods to wicked ends.

Herein lies the folly of this Hero of Ages

The glories he won now turned to ash

Upon the Abyssal pyres of shame.

We are told of Calisor’s fame:

He wrought the Dragon Tongue,

That bound the draconic to the elven.

His power he won through willful force

The pride of his people to wear

Wonders he forged of Gold, Blood and Magic

Bending the cosmos to his will.

His greatest feat he had yet to earn,

And terrible would be his undoing so wrought.

To win the heart of Primovantor’s daughter.

All Hail! We sing of Elinathora!

The fairest of man

And muse of Calisor’s portentous desires.

Of her beauty, no canto can compare

The azure of her eyes, the chestnut of her hair.

The golden softness of her gentle fingers

And the grace whereby she glided across the ground

The subtle enchantments of her being

Stole over the great elven heart of Calisor.

Too late did Calisor seek to steel his heart

Which her gilded voice did unwittingly steal

In its place a leaden lump remained

Too cold to bear his forlorn anguish.

His attempts to make a humble trade

Betwixt their noble born breasts,

Wrought with pure elvish craftsmanship.

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That he might win her worthy affection:

He sang in turn laments and praise

Each foray most earnest, but still

She kept her stalwart defenses

Still keeping his noble heart imprisoned.

He worked wonders for her,

Moved the heavens to weep,

The ground he painted each day anew

In colors to mirror his timeless passion

For that gentle creature alone did burn.

Yet still the daughter of Primovantor would not be moved.

In courtly dance the two did twist

He a moth in the flame of her ways

Yet she would always stay his hand.

If ever the topic of love was raised

She spurred his every word.

Elinathora! In thy wise vanity didst thou see?

Thy mournful epithets forever will name thee

The Mother of Sorrows, the Bringer of Sadness.

In thy breast a painful truth did grow:

That Fenulian and his protests of love,

Their elven shadow far too long,

Despite thine earnest attempts

Did swallow thee in the end.

Thus began the bottomless melancholy

That would drive the world and all in it asunder.

Calisor’s pride and the refusal of a

Maiden’s hand did swallow his timeless soul.

So it was, his bright days grew ever dimmer

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The light of the foresung hero began to fade,

as soulful yearning

Grew to darkest obsession, and Calisor fell ever father to despair.

Taking to Nature’s Gardens

He walked its welcoming paths

to spare his mind grief

There he came upon that Tarnished Son

Whose heart was wreathed in shadow.

Oskan! That vile Deceiver!

Oh the traps he lays! The webs he weaves!

The Father of Lies himself.

The Duem Bello Manuscript is, by its Elven nature, an involved saga of several stages. We hasten to assure our readers the further stages will be forthcoming in future volumes of this educational work.

-Ed.

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The Brotherhood Sundered As recorded by Louis Cox-Brusseau

The birds, as ever, were the first to flee. Those who survived said later that the only warning was when the forests fell silent on the dawn of the first day of summer. The skies were clear and empty, with no bird visible to the eye nor able to be heard; their absence was noted by the woodsmen as an omen of the greatest ill. They said later that by the fourth day after the birds departed, the great woodlands of the Brotherhood - once home to all the game and wild beasts known to Man - were as somnolent as the grave. On the seventh day after the forests fell silent the earth itself split apart. It began with the roar of tortured stone and the howl of splintered wood. Great fissures yawned wide in the ground, swallowing men and livestock whole. Entire villages and towns were utterly obliterated, the dwellings of commonfolk and nobles alike either sucked into the ravenous earth, or collapsed where they stood, burying their inhabitants alive. The greatest of the Brotherhood’s fortresses, once bulwarks against the Abyss, fared no better. The pride of the Brotherhood, its inviolate and implacable citadels, were shattered and ground to dust as the earth itself moaned and shuddered, heaving whole armies into the dark depths beneath the world. So it was that the once-proud and noble realm of the Brotherhood ceased to exist in a single day. The devastation of the commonfolk and the eradication of the nobility consigned the warrior-nation to the grave. The constituent orders of the Brotherhood, the ancient fraternities of warriors who had existed to hunt down and shield the world from the horrors of the Abyss, were likewise sundered. In the days and weeks that followed, there would be survivors who emerged from the rubble and tortured earth to discover a world turned upside down. The devastation had been absolute, and the struggle for survival in its aftermath was bitter and desperate, as the lakes and rivers ran dry and the once-rich forests yielded little in the way of sustenance. Many of those who survived the cataclysm lived only to die mere months later to starvation and thirst. And yet for those who lived, having survived the destruction of the world as they knew it, the greatest trial was yet to come.

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On the fourteenth day after the skies fell silent, the crows returned to the broken forests of the Brotherhood’s former lands. And as the cries of carrion-birds echoed once more through the desolate woodlands and shattered plains where cities and towns had once stood, the shadow of the Abyss fell upon the lands of the living, and the denizens of the underworld poured forth once more.

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A New Watch As noted by Ben Stoddard

The thick clouds of steam pressed down on Cressio Prometus like a heavy mist, obscuring the path before him and blinding him to anything more than a few feet away. The young knight picked his way carefully through the ruins covering the old trail he knew led to his order’s stronghold. He could hear the sounds of a monstrous waterfall in the distance and it filled his steps with an anxious speed. Long had his brothers in arms held out against the forces of evil that dwelt within the cavernous Abyss which lay at their very door. Yet the demons had resurged and with them came rumors that the Abyss had expanded, swallowing entire cities into its gaping maw. Only the decision to melt the glacial remnants of Winter’s War had finally quelled the fires of that hellish place, forcing the demons back and flooding their fiery depths with icy water. It was the remnants of that event which now obscured the path before him. But Cressio was not fooled, nor was anyone else who had ever fought against the dark and its minions. The demons had only been

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pushed back, they were not defeated. For now, however, his only concern was the welfare of his brothers who kept the watch against this threat.

Cressio cut an imposing figure in the swirling mists, his broad shoulders accentuated by the heavy plate that covered his body. A curved blade was attached to his waist, a gift to him from his father, the head of his order within the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, the loose conglomeration of knights that thronged the borders of the Abyss, acting as safeguard against the evil therein. Dusty brown hair was cropped close to his scalp and blue eyes stared out from beneath a heavy brow. He had yet to see his twenty-fifth winter, but already he had won some renown for his swordsmanship. For that he had been sent on a pilgrimage to the Forsaken Isles to see if he could tame one of the beasts there to serve as his mount. His failure to do so had made his return voyage crushingly more difficult as he’d borne his shame, a pillar of stone on his shoulders. He had heavily weighed how face his father. Then the demons and their allies attacked.

He had fought his way through the swarms of fiends alongside dwarves, elves, men, and even halflings to find himself here. He witnessed the terrible destruction visited upon the world by all kinds of evil. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the onslaught had ended and the alliances disbanded. After what seemed like an eternity, Cressio’s weighted steps had finally brought him here. He’d heard of the deluge that had come from the Green Lady’s decision to melt the ice left over from the cruel goddess Winter’s war against the world of Mantica, but still he hoped that some mercy might have spared his order from the destruction.

The clouds of steam suddenly parted as a warm gust of wind pushed through their tendrils and Cressio gasped as he beheld the fate of his home. The trail before him ended at the gates of a small cemetery that was surrounded on one side by a high, wrought iron fence. Beyond a few of the grave markers and melancholy statues that stood in various states of wreckage, the ground gave way to nothingness. From there stretched the great, smoldering canyon that was the Abyss. Cressio looked across the rift to its northern side where titanic waterfalls poured over its lip and tumbled down into the infinite dark below. White steam mingled with black smoke as it twined up out of the depths, millions of unquenchable fires being stilled by the cold water, twining heavenwards in a convoluted dance.

Cressio slumped to his knees, his breath escaping his lungs in a wretched sigh. The wind died down, allowing the mist to begin creeping in to cloud his vision. It again obscured the absence of the stronghold, causing the grave markers and statues to appear as shadows in the grayness. Cressio sat in anguished silence, the clouds writhing around him

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like a living beast. Something swelled inside him, causing his chest to burn; his lungs felt like they couldn’t contain enough air. The ground spun beneath him and he leaned back, pitching his face toward the sky and cried out his anguish. Muffled by the mist, it still tore through the air, filling it with the harsh sound of sorrow.

As he lowered his eyes, he saw one of the gray shadows from the cemetery detach itself from its fellows and began walking towards him. Cressio jumped to his feet and drew his sword in one swift motion as the figure approached slowly. Finally, a man appeared in the mists, dressed in a simple set of robes, plainly set except for his right hand, which was covered by an exquisite golden gauntlet. He was bald with a bushy beard wreathing his face. Hard eyes stared out from beneath a furrowed brow.

“Who are you?” Cressio held his blade at the ready.

“I once lived here, a long time ago.” The man replied, gazing behind him towards the now obscured graveyard.

“I don’t know you. I’ve lived here most of my life. I know every member of our Order. I’ve never seen you!” Cressio pointed his sword accusingly at him. The man gave a sad smile that didn’t touch his eyes and laughed quietly.

“I guess you could say I am a ghost, then. Although I have lost my place to haunt and so must look elsewhere. I’d say it is about time, anyways. I have never stayed in one place for very long in any case.” The man shifted his gaze to look at the young knight. “But what about you? You’ve also lost your home, though I fear the wound will be far fresher

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for you. What will you do? You can put the sword down, I’m not going to attack you. As you can see, I am unarmed in any case.” Cressio did not lower his blade, and the man sighed.“You still have not answered my question. Who are you?” Cressio demanded.

“I told you, I am a ghost of the past. A pilgrim who has lost more homes than he has saved. I call this place home, but I do not belong here. My name is irrelevant, and I have no wish to utter it here. Perhaps I will take a new name, as I have lived under this one and it has brought me nothing but sorrow.”

“What are you doing here?” Cressio felt the bitterness radiating from the man, and his sorrow was infectious. Cressio slowly began to let the point of his sword drop.

“I had a lover once, again this was long ago, but her body was buried here.” He motioned with his hand back towards where the remnants of the cemetery lay. “I came to give my final respects, we had a son together but he is now lost. I came to tell her that and plead her forgiveness. But it seems as though that damnable Abyss has taken both of them now.” The man sighed again and looked heavenward. “Now I am just going to look for a quiet place to die, if the gods will even permit me that small mercy.”

“I… I understand some of your melancholy, old man.” Cressio spoke slowly, sheathing his sword as he did so. It seemed that this wanderer was no threat to him, perhaps a bit senile and more than a little odd, but not threatening. Cressio pointed to the gauntlet the man wore. “That is beautiful work.” The man looked down at his hand and gave another sad laugh.

“I would give it to you were I able, but that would only dishonor my son’s memory.” He sighed. “I would rather not talk any more about me. What about you? You say you were part of this order? Where will you go now, then?”

“My father was the head of the order, but my uncle disagreed with his choice to join the Brotherhood. They did not part on the best of terms. I am hoping that if I go to him, he will take me in, if he hasn’t fully forsaken me as my father’s son. It may be a hopeless endeavor, but it is the best that I can think of for now.”

“And where is this uncle of yours now?”

“West, on the Ardovikian Plain. At least that’s what my father always told me. He was very sad about how things had ended, but knew that he had a duty here to fight the Abyss.His brother had made it clear that his vows and their blood were incompatible.” Cressio stopped himself, ashamed, he was sharing family secrets with a complete stranger! The man laughed.

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“Don’t worry, boy, I won’t tell anyone. I have no one who would listen to me in any case.” The man walked forward and placed his gauntleted hand on Cressio’s shoulder. “Your plan is a good one. Go to your family, cling to them. Nothing in this world is constant, but family is better than most sanctuaries to weather the storm by.” With that the man stepped around the young knight and began walking further into the mists.

“Goodbye, Ser Prometus,” The man called over his shoulder as he disappeared in the fog, “maybe we’ll meet again on your journey.” Cressio spun to stare after him, but he was already gone.

“Wait!” He called out, “how do you know my name?” There was no reply, Cressio simply sat in a gray world of swirling mist and stared after the self-proclaimed ghost. The only sound that of the waterfalls in the distance.

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Remembering the Fallen As transcribed by Louis Cox-Brusseau

Cedwin Mallory Accolon

Edric Sigmunt

Maric

Sansloy Vasya Kalla

The names continue down the scroll, but I stop reading there.

I wind the small scroll back into the cylinder into which it fits neatly, and place it on the table before me.

Tonight the names are hard to read. Vasya and Kallas most of all. I still remember

Vasya's easy arrogance, the sneer he'd bequeath upon me if he caught me poring over the names of the fallen, maudlin and brooding. He died better than most of us could hope to, encircled by a ring of shattered shields and broken men he'd laid low before finally succumbing to over a dozen gaping wounds.

Kallas too. Kallas I will remember until my own death-day comes upon me, though

I will always try to forget. Kallas, my brother, I'm sorry I couldn't make it faster for you. Torn apart by hounds and feral beasts is no death for a knight.

I lose myself in remembrance for some time. When I stir from my reverie, it is to

the sound of horns sounding and sergeants shouting. The last of the banners have been assembled, and the new brothers of our Order have been sworn in, their bone-and-black surcoats freshly marked with the cross from which the Black Order, one of the surviving orders of the once-mighty Brotherhood, takes its name.

Another night I'll complete my ritual of reading the names of the fallen and

remembering their deeds. For now, as Vasya might have said, the dead can wait - the living have oaths to fulfil. There are beasts to hunt and fallen brothers to avenge.

I place the cylinder bearing the scroll in a pouch on my belt, and as I reach for my armour I silently promise that I will come back alive to finish remembering the dead.

-from the journal of Ludovic Tyr, Knight-Captain of the Black Order of the Brotherhood

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Tannhauser’s War Journals Entry 5, 2

As interpreted by Daniel Read

Gasping for breath in the muddy ditch, surrounded by anxious faces looking to him for leadership, Emil Tannhauser steadied himself and wiped the sweat from his brow. The girl was largely unhurt and was retrieving some of her arrows from the corpses in the ditch. If she was shocked at the events of the last few hours, she wasn’t letting it show.

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The three men at arms were not nearly as sanguine, the youngest was trembling visibly, the eldest of the three trying to calm him down with quiet words. The third sat pale eyed and almost catatonic. He’ll be trouble later, Tannhauser reflected.

The priest was on his knees as he had been for the last half an hour, bent over the prostrate form of something that a few hours earlier, the veteran soldier had thought to be a demigod. That wasn’t the only thing I had been wrong about, he pondered grimly. The priest was rocking back and forth, muttering mantras over and over. Was he traumatized or praying? Tannhauser couldn’t tell. The man-thing wasn’t dead, but it oozed a golden liquid like blood and both its wings were gone. There was no way anything remotely human could survive that sort of mauling. But was it even remotely human?

We’re as screwed as a Goatman at the Rhordian Spring Solstice thought Tannhauser, I just hope that thing with the horns didn’t see us when it flew over. He let his mind drift back to the start of this debacle, ignoring the charnel house all around him. Maybe that would be the key to getting them out of here.

+++

A military man to his bones, Tannhauser had never seen a more beautiful sight in his whole life. It reminded him of the Primovantian martial frescoes, remnants of which could be glimpsed in the hall of antiquities back home. It was one of the military drills of Ganatus come to life from his famous treatises of war. Serried ranks of Men at Arms marched with trigonometric precision, describing complex shapes as officers hollered commands in a lyrical chant. Deceptively mobile Arbalests with inscribed prayers were wheeled into position as well made and ruddy faced women astride white panthers raced around in elliptical arcs at an impossible speed to the flanks of the column. Priests busied themselves with unguents and oils, blessing the sons and daughters of Basilea with their God’s favour. At all times the keening sound of the Bolisean pipe underscore could be heard, played by fresh faced boys in martial dress whose talent at holding the note would perhaps be equal to their bravery in battle. This was exactly the event he had been sent to witness and document, the drills and field conduct of the largest human military in the world. His superiors back home in Geneza would surely be pleased with his report.

They all looked so young! Tannhauser was used to the scarred and weather-beaten men of his own unit, veterans of countless conflicts back home and witnesses to the horror of war in the human realms. But the Basileans were a people apart – smooth skinned young people without blemish it seemed, in shades of coffee and alabaster, their hides unmarked and glowing. But these were no innocent youths, Tannhauser knew. These were soldiers of

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many winters and campaigns whose apparent youth was testament to the Basilean art of battle healing. It was rare for an army to take to the field without scores of priests who could heal the most grievous of wounds with a word, or a laying on of hands. Consequently, scars were few, amputations even less so, and battle-hardened commanders wore the cherubic faces of much younger men. It felt like a perversion of nature and entropy. And probably was.

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The pipes fell silent, signaling an arrival. From silence, suddenly to cacophony as thunderous wing beats drowned out even the sound of Tannhauser’s own heartbeat and the Elohi were here. Sweeping down from the heavens, they almost blotted out the sun. Huge humanoids with feathered wings, twice the height of normal men and clad in shining armour that glinted so sharply that he was forced to cover his eyes for fear of being blinded. The well drilled forces of Basilea, previously the most impressive thing on the field and glorying in martial arrogance, all to a man, fell to their knees in a supplication. Cavalrymen bent their heads low and made their beasts do the same. The head priest, eyes fixed upon the angelic beings as they came in to land on the nearby ridge, gauged that they were satisfied with the proffered obeisance and in the ringing yet sonorous tones of his native tongue, bid the army rise. As if nothing had occurred, preparations for battle resumed immediately, but perhaps slightly more muted than before. The thundering of angelic wings ceased as the Elohi took position on a high escarpment of rock overlooking the field of battle.

He used his glass to observe the beings on the ridge, so largely human and yet not human at all. They were impassive with no trace of emotion on their immaculately carved faces, it was if a sculptor had assembled them using mathematical formulae for the proportions of the perfect human being, golden section, symmetry and structure. Yet beneath the angelic countenances something squirmed to be free, as if something liquid ached to ooze through the human mask and show itself unadorned, a sort of darkness around the edges of the light. These weren’t human beings, they were perhaps the furthest thing there was from a human being, yet they copied and mimicked them to perfection. “Perhaps too perfect”, Tannhauser mused. They made him nervous.

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The Fairyland Campaign

Chapter 1: Muster Dictated from the telling of Spruce by Russ Barnes

Where does the tale of the Countess begin…in the Primovantor Empire, I suppose. As the story goes the Countess was an heir to a great fiefdom in the empire. She was friend to the Elves and acquired the whispering skills to talk to the dragons. One even became her trusted mount. When the great ice melts began that flooded the plains and formed the Infant Sea her land and people were lost. During the time of the floods the Countess and her troops fought off the northern scavengers and Abyssal elements that were driven into her lands. In one mighty last stand her army and the Countess fell. The sea consumed them all.

Time passed. There were no legends or tales, for most of the people who had known her story were lost. A few told vague recollections to their children of a Primovantor Countess and her dragon. The Countess and her dragon had no tomb, no ceremony, or account of her last stand. This would suit the Abyssal and other creatures of the shadows for so many of their ranks were sent back to hell by her power. The old creatures of Mantic may remember though.

Lady Ilona heard of the Countess’ story from some of the Abyssal creatures she had captured. Some of the creatures were there at the fall of Primovantor. The Lady sent out her undead troops in search of proof of this tale. The Lady was known to search out the truth behind old stories for hopes of finding artifacts or maybe bring a dragon back from the dead. Dragons were coveted by Vampires as favored mounts. Her undead slaves returned with the remains of the Countess and her Dragon. They had been right where the demons said. Remnants of the Countess’ army were found scattered on the shores and depths of the Infinite Sea.

When the troops arrived with their quarry, the Lady Ilona was surprised that it was not bone she saw but flesh and marrow on the dragon. The Countess’s body was untouched excepting a deep gash from a blow she took to the head. Her skin was pale white. Ilona called her necromancers to her library and the skeleton warriors brought the Countess to the tower. Lady Ilona and her necromancers searched feverishly though massive library of scrolls and books she had collected through her many long years.

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Dark plumes of smoke, the mixing of elixirs, and the chants of long dead languages were heard coming from the castle’s tower.

The story began to unfold in front of Lady Ilona. The horrific wound to the head was definitely made by a northern battle axe. Lady Ilona also sensed there was some necromancy or dark magic at work within the countess. Days turned into weeks, and then months until the eyes of the Countess opened. The necromancers’ skill and dark magic worked within her. The Countess awakened from

centuries of sleep. The spell she was under was finally broken. The wound was mended but left a hideous scar. From that day forth she wore a mask over her face to hide the wound. Lady Ilona consoled the Countess. Their stories were shared between the two and kept as a sacred bond between them. The Lady had found a confidant, a warrior and a general.

Lady Ilona showed the Countess the corpse of her dragon. She fell to the floor, weeping fiercely. Suddenly she rose, a low, sonorous chant rising from within her. An eerie glow began to seep from the amulet adorning her breast. She fell, fainting onto the still form of her friend. The amulet’s crimson glow engulfed the Countess and the dragon. Lady Ilona covered her eyes and stepped back; she could sense the power of the magic before her. As the glow began to fade she saw the dragon standing to its full height, holding the countess gently in its massive claws. It was a creature of living bone, muscle, and sinew with a heart of pure fire. Ilona absentmindedly waved one of her skeletons to approach the pair. It was smashed to powder by a strike of that scaled tail. No one could approach the Countess. The dragon, who seemed more dead than alive, stood guard over her and kept his ground.

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After an age, which is no time to the patience of the undead, the Countess awoke. After centuries of silence the dragon and his rider were reunited. Both were changed;

both knew they were different but the bond of a dragon and its rider is a bond beyond life. The Countess remembered “Vinarth Protector of Creatures” well and he did her. The once proud dragon was now one of the living dead and much of his memory was gone. The Countess began to re-animate her long-lost soldiers or what was found of them, again using her amulet to breathe life into them, though not as they were. The now skeletal horsemen fell into ranks with the ground support units that had been drug from beneath the waves. Lady Ilona introduces the

Countess to her werewolves. They reminded the Countess of her pack of the battle hounds she had bred to massive sizes. They would have their use.

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Lady Ilona was impressed with the Countess and her force. The Countess quickly became Lady Ilona’s lieutenant. She was leader of the Black Templars’ Celeres, “The Swift Squadron".

Over time Lady Ilona and the Countess talked about the amulet in more detail. Ilona could sense it was somehow joined to the Countess. With all her knowledge, even she could not remove it or understand its true power. A magic artifact from the Primovantor Empire but how and why the Countess had it was unknown.

Word came back to Ophidia, then to Lady Ilona’s castle of fairies in the Land of Mantic. Lady Ilona summoned the local bard to tell the story. Ronnie the Bard entered and with a flourish began to sing,

The fairies once graced the whole of this land,

living without age or care,

but as times became troubled,

from the abyss demons bubbled,

they vanished into thin air!

The people all ask me “Are they still here?”

as I sing of their breathtaking feats,

some are just fables,

just fit for the playbills,

but others ring true heartbeats,

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That forest so black, Galahir by name

hides the ruins of Muir,

an old rotten fortress,

a black-shelled tortoise,

Still holds fairy presence so pure,

Their courtly dances dazzle the heart

but a darker purpose they hide,

secrets so old,

treasures so bold,

for which many a hunter has died.

The Countess looked to her Lady. “This is my quest: to find you the Fairy secrets in the fortress ruins of Muir.” The Countess’s arm rose as she brought her hand to a fist. Celeres knows her sign to muster; the horns blare and the troops shamble into their ranks. Silently the Countess and Vinarth lead the Swift Squadron out of the castle. The clank of armor and rattle of bones are the only sounds heard.

To be continued in our second tome!

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An Unlikely Ally As transcribed by Louis Cox-Brusseau

The ogre regarded me quizzically. Up close, I understood Baelden's fear of the beasts. Although they resembled mortal men in their appearance far more than their Giant kin, there was a bestial quality to the gimlet-bright eyes now peering at me from beneath furrowed, crag-like brows that I found unsettling. This one was a brute, as well - twelve feet of knotted muscle stacked upon scarred muscle tattooed with the brands of the most violent of the Ogremeet's clans.

I repeated my question, although I knew the ogre had heard and understood perfectly well the first time. Though many of their kind feign an inability to speak our language, it is my contention that they are possessed of a far greater intelligence than that with which we credit them.

I asked him why he had journeyed so far south, and whether he was alone. The Ogremeet is four months' march North through the most inhospitable terrain. Seldom do the ogres venture so far south. Whether this one was emissary or raider I had yet to decide.

The ogre cocked his head. Maybe I would get no response. Maybe this one was no emissary but a savage who did not speak our language, after all. I was readying myself for a confrontation when, to my surprise, our guest rumbled a reply.

"Three brothers south brings Gymir, two brothers of one blood and one father-brother of witch's flesh born."

I was surprised to say the least. Although I had less experience of these man-beasts than some of my comrades in the Brotherhood, I understood the ogre to mean that three more of his kinsmen had made the journey south, one of whom, if I was not mistaken, was a witchbreed. A shaman. Rare indeed are such creatures, mixing the fearsome strength and atavistic savagery of the ogre with the uncanny intellect and power of the magic-touched.

"You are Gymir?" I asked.

The great ogre rolled his shoulders, cracking scarred joints and flexing muscles tattooed with runic wards and sigils I did not recognize. A low rumble left the beast's lips,

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and I realized that our guest was laughing, a wet, gurgling sound that sent chills down my spine.

"I am Gymir-Whose-Laugh-Stinks-of-Killing."

-from the journal of Ludovic Tyr,

Knight-Captain of the Black Order of the Brotherhood

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Being a True and Accurate series of narratives for Our Times

Suitable for Honest Folk and Children Supported by the Generosity of the Patriarchal Benevolence Society

And Readers such as Yourself

Any resemblance to Real or Actual personages or creatures is

coincidental and flattering

In our Next Volume readers can look forward to Further Educational Exploits of

our current narratives and new, Controversial and Questionable texts we

provide solely as a Counterpoint to Known and Trusted texts.

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