CHAPTER 1

The large hall is lit by a huge fire. You see a score of people, maybe a ten all laying about

"Redskin" says some iceman "I thought your kin all burned to death, or ate themselves raw beyond our wall!"

Another iceman says "Don't listen to that cur, he's just mad he can't lay redskin women!" he makes a crying gesture and laughs boldly.

A man with a neck like a horses mane and shoulders as wide as a door sharpens a knife by the fire but replies the laugh, while another clansmen, about the size of the bald man with the pelt-robe but skinnier and hairier, eats a roast grub and spits it out in laughter.

An imposing man wearing a large horned helmet introduces himself as Atila. The measly bald man is Kondlak, merchant. The iceman who laughs is Graz Hal and the other one is Grim Don. The curved man is Pompo and the small one is Dongo, two brothers and guards of the merchant. The man that was up front is Menelaus.

"Are there others?"

"Sleeping. There was a battle yesterday." says Atila "You still haven't said your name"

"Nightcrawler"

He groans.

A swamp man painted in flamboyant colors of gold, green and red sits by the corner crosslegged:

"That is no name for a man, no name at all...Say you, easternling, why have you come unmarred from so many luckless draws?" a green python coils around his arm and hisses  "Who are you anyway?"

"Snake charmers, as our myth tells, are naught but oracles of doom. That is all I will say: That I will not trust a man that consorts with beings as conniving and venomous as a snake! For he may think of them as equals. And say you, snake-charmer, you come to preach your venom to me?"

"East-boil!" laughs Grim Don "Terrible thing! I know not about snakes and oracles, but I know about consorts. And a man that does consort with snakes is a man that is not to be trusted at all!"

"Bladesinger, I will not listen to a word you say! Cur, it was you and your dogs that bit my arm that other day!" says the snakecharmer

"Well deserved!" says Atila "Lunge, you're no man that I can trust, I say that now! But I'd rather have eleven men than ten or even nine!"

"Calm down, what happened?" you reply.

"Orsenmen! A host of them, came from some dark road and bit us! Arrows pelted us from all sides! Molv the archer got hit in the head aye, and the dwarf, poor soul, got a barrel bolt in his tiny chest!" says Menelaus

"It was some host of them, but they are lead by some greater force. No orc band has access to that many arrows and bolts." replies Grim Don "And they seemed to move with some intent, it was no mere pillaging!"

"I tell you what it is! And I've been waiting for you lot to shut up! It's the Dark Rider, master of the dark horse Wardhar! Aye, he killed a minotaur in one swing!" says Graz Hal

"You're the one. Aye, I felled the beast, but it was half undead and it blew with the wind."

"You killed it? Bah!" he cheers. "I don't believe you! I planned to escape with him, but I hope he rests easy..."