Story:

Chapter 8 – The Grim Legion

Ambushed!

We were perhaps two days away from Yellowspring in the dull hills northwest of Lake Ban.  During Cairngorm's watch, that night, a flaming arrow embedded itself into the ground, quickly followed by a rain of regular arrows.  Cairngorm sounded the alarm, then charged in the direction of the attack.  Tylee flew up, spotted and indicated two archers, but was hit by a spell shaped as a blue dagger of eldritch light that wounded her and knocked to the ground. 

Cairngorm and I ran after the spellcaster, with Hantar's wolfhound Squall hot on the trail.  I managed to knock the sorceress to the ground, while Hantar killed one of the archers.  The second archer managed to escape.  At that point, it appeared we had run out of opponents.

Cairngorm and I dragged the unconscious woman back to the camp to interrogate her.  In the process, we noticed that she had already sustained wounds recently.  We also searched the dead archer, another human, and found on his body a stack of letters wrapped in oilcloth.  All four were from a Dwarven merchant in Bartertown, and sent to four people in a village called Hanto: his mother, his brother, and two friends.  Examination of the contents indicated that these were a second set of letters, the previous one having apparently been gone unanswered.

The wizard, Athela Blacklog, finally regained consciousness.  We questioned her and learned that she had been part of a group of mercenaries hired by the merchant Charboyya to deliver the letters to Hanto.  There, they had met with a contingent of the Grim Legion, who had quarantined the town.  The mercenaries had tried to deliver the letters, but the Legion had tried to confiscate their weapons and prevent them from leaving.  Two mercenaries had died, including the leader; the rest, wounded and stripped of their supplies, had barely escaped with their lives.  Upon seeing our campfire, they had decided to attack and take our own supplies without asking, on the reasoning that they could not afford our refusal if they asked. 

We buried the dead archer, who turned out to be Athela's husband Damien.  No matter that it had been they who had attacked us, Athela was now carrying a fierce hatred for Hantar-jorn, who had killed Damien.  We stayed for a few days to take care of our wounded, then returned to V'strimon.  We let Athela go, resupplied, and decided the head back to check the situation in Hanto.

Hanto

We cautiously made our way to Hanto, a small village which was very similar to the not so fondly remembered Yellowpring and Cherrypit.  But the approaches of the village were devoid of any activity, be it farming, herding, washing, or wood gathering.  We stopped at a distance and took stock of the situation. 

Around the village itself a makeshift palisade had been erected, and a veritable webbing of strings hung with bells and other noisy items had been strung along the entire perimeter.  This would make it difficult for anyone to leave or enter the village undetected.  The front gate was guarded by skeletons, so there must be a nethermancer about.  Near that gate, some namegivers were working on the construction of what looked like a tower of stone masonry.  In addition to the skeletons, we could identify an Ork, a Human, and an Obsidiman all dressed in black, as well as two Cadavermen in black tatters.

We sent Tylee and Eldan to examine the defenses from closer, but they were detected by the watchers and refused entry.  We watched the village for a few hours, looking for any sign of commerce or movement around the village, and discussed plans.  We noticed that villagers were periodically taken to work the fields under escort of a black-clad guard, presumably of the Grim Legion.  Cairngorm heard a noise in a nearby bush, but we were unable to find whoever had been spying on us. 

The next morning, we decided to openly approach the guard of the moment, an elderly Elven woman.  We introduced ourselves, and she gave her name as Dalya Red Roses.  She demanded that only one of us come close enough for conversation; we sent Tylee.  Dalya told her to come back to the gate after sundown, with no more than one companion. 

Aardelea

(To be continued.)

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