The Blasted Plains; the Cold War

[limeeka]

The wind swept plains of the eastern province of a Kingdom to the south. The chill of a biting wind taking away any warmth from a body that was already cold at its core. One could hear the thunder in the distance, a repeating roll across the grassy hills.
A horse along the line stamped its hooves, it could sense the comming of the storm, that thunder, the fall of an armies feet on the ground.
She raised her flag high, a red flag that could be seen so clearly in an expanse that went for miles without ever seeing its like till the rise or fall of the sun behind the dull haze that always covered the blue sky. The White Tree, its branches blooming out from a narrow trunk that rooted into that red field. The horsemen, a dozen or so of them in their patch-work of armors and arms turned and retreated down the dark side of their hill away from the marching army.
For sometime have the few, the last of the Hunters still loyal to their origin, hid from their persuers. Those that wore the colors of their sworn enemy, the nation that had betrayed them and Queen who had shattered them.

***

"They widened their patrols." said Grim, a grizened old dwarf who wore the the three red knots of a Commander in the legion of the White Tree, a legion reduces to a scraping band of vagabonds in the waste lands reserved for the filth of the last Magus war.
"Our supplies are starting to run low for the month... The cooks are having to sift the grain out of the weavils more often these days." said a half orc man, wearing two knots of a captain. His face was a clear marker of his orcish dessent, small black eyes under a thick brow, his skin a tint of green. If it were not for these his size would have made him seem the bastard child of an ogre rape. "And where about one weeks march from any of the supply lines... Who ever is commanding on the other side got us pretty well figured."
"We can't win here." said a womans voice, her back turned to the other too. It was a deep voice for a womans, yet not without a feminen quality. Her hair was of a ravens darkness, cropped short and braided for the necessities of a soldiers life. Her left ear was mostly missing, replaced by a silver clip that took its shape and clipped about what was left of it. She turned, fierce green eyes staring at her two top commanders with an expression that had lost more of its emotion with each passing day. Limeeka, "The Bloody" as many said in whispers.
"Grim..."
"Ma'am!" said the old dwarve sharply
"The last patrol came within a days hard ride from the camp, we need to move. Send two companies of the Sword to Beggars Rock, have then ransack whatever they can find. Especially anything made of metal. Hector..."
"Ma'am!" said the half-orc
"I want the rest of our ground forces marching south till the reach the flats... Avoid the clans if you can, we'll use them as a buffer. If all is clear for a full moon ride east. Theirs an old estate on the shore, belongs to a woman by the name of Ivory. Respect her and her men. They are well isolated from the nearest city loyal to the crown. Grim, your to meet with them their." Limeeka paused, comming over to look at the crude map rolled out on the rough wooden table set out before their three tents. "I'll be taking whats left of the Red Guard North to lead off enemy forces. They have been playing it safe for now, widening their patrols in a circle with massive infantry divisions. When they find the tracks of two dozen heavy horse turning their flank I've no doubt they'll pull back and try to protect their rear."
The two officers nodded their heads, looking at eachother with that stare of well familiarity that was always followed by the opening of one of their few stolen wines. "Strength and Honor."
"Strength and Honor" she replied.

Limeeka "The Bloody" Exiled Commander-Hunters of the White Tree

"I fear no king with a thousand men and all the riches of the world. I fear but a single man, with a sharp blade and nothing left to loose."
-Kraikken, "The Beast"

[Nym Zeal]

((Great writing but a little back history might be helpful. I had to question a friend in another kingdom to even figure out which queen you were refering to, especially as I didn't recall Kraikken being involved with Magus in the last war, which I was correct on as far as I can tell. As for south of GM, there isn't a kingdom directly south but there is a drought there at the moment.))

[limeeka]

Why was it that the moon seemed green in the haze? She had asked that question once, the answer a mild shrug of ignorance. It was under this same light that she had taken her Trial by Fire, a test that all Hunters must take before becomming a true member of the ranks. The scars still burned... Three, running a diagonal line down her face stealing away any vestige of beauty on a weathered skin.
She had killed the monster that had inflicted it, returned to the camp with its head in her hands. She was one of only five that had passed that trimesters Trial, all others had joined the many lost to the desolate hills. And now those who had survive fight those they had lived to protect, Kavanagh.
On their master, their High Commanders imprisonment for treason against the crown the Hunters began to split. Leaderless, two factions formed. Those, sworn to the Crown and those sworn to the White Tree.
Vastly outnumbered, she knew the chance of victory on the field was impossible, the heavy infantry of Kavanagh was well trained, she knew, she had trained them. They have the supplies, and the time to simply starve out any pockets of resistance. So it was perhaps the first of their lucky breaks when the enemy took the bait.
Riding hard, keeping as close as they dared to keep their animals fresh and the tracks on the ground for the enemy scouts new.
However... It became clear that as they led, they were being herded. Straight into clan territory, it was a clever general they faced, perhaps even the Queen herself for Limeeka knew none other who was as ruthless and cunning.
So as they spurred their horses forward past the markers of the Tecutin Clan, Limeeka prayed that luck was still with them.

Limeeka "The Bloody" Exiled Commander- Hunters of the White Tree


"From the ashes of the Magus War rose a new order, those few who pledged themselves to defend the green fields of their mother land from the darkend wastes of a corrupted province, the twisted remains of a usurpering noble that had staged a war that never started. Few new the players of this, Cold War, yet forever would the hills remember the devestation brought in a single day."

-excerpt. Journals of Marius the Blind, Council to Queen Danielle
"The Queens Gambit"

[limeeka]

"How do you feel traitor, knowing that you die unhonored and forgotten.!" said Captain Dias of the Iron Brigade. Grims axe and his sword clashed together in locked bringing them close to eachother. Grims face was a twist of old scars and dwarven rage that gave strength to the old muscles in his arms to match against his human contender. Dias, a tall and lean man who possessed a cursed strength and speed that he used with a devils glee. It had earned him the name, the "Demon" some time ago.
"What do you know of honor Dias, you who have betrayed the origin of the Hunter!"
Dias smirked as he leaned into his great sword so that he may look nearly level in to the old dwarves hard eyes. "When I kill you, who will say who is the dishonored."
"You shame the memory of your ancestors, your father would have been better to take his life then spawned you!"
"Fool!" screamed Dias in a sudden fit of rage as he pushed Grim away causing the old dwarve to stumble and fall.
Dias' heavy foot falls placed him just over Grim trailing the tip of his sword up the crest of his chest plate to the weaker joints about his throat. "I grant you the privilage to watch the slaughter of what is left of your rebel scum from the seats of your ancestors old man."
"At least there will be an after-life for me, I am not so sure for you demon!" spat Grim with the last bit of his racial difiance comming to rest as Dias drove his sword through Grim's throat.
"We shall see old man. We shall see." said Dias as he looked to the sky, the carrion already beginning to circle.

* * *

Beggars Rock had been a trap... Two companies of the Sword, crippled and lost, turned to dust as they wondered away from the sight of their slaughter. The silent bell of the Collegium rang clearly in the courtyard, its mournfull sound the tears that could not be shed from an eye that was forever still.

Limeeka "The Bloody"-Exiled Commander-Hunters of the White Tree

I was not born of Hate
I was not born of Desire
I was not born of Fortune, Duty
Or any rational.
I can no longer feel any of these
All I want is revenge
Cold, hard... and final.
-unknown

[limeeka]

The bell rings...
I can hear it, the mournfull sound of death lingering just beyond this dark place... this limitless place. My prison.
Incarcerated, I, for crimes tried and sentenced without spoken word.
Crimes commited without thought or hezitation...
Treason.
Yet can the scorpion be made a criminal for its nature?
I fight the waves, yet as I struggle do they become stronger. A tide that allows one the merest glimps of shore before dragging one back again. The rock of hell do I push up to the tip of every mountain to never have it topple over the far side.
The goal that cannot be attained. Punishment for crimes commited... That crime.. what was that crime again? Why must I redigest the constant filth of these memories like some glutton. I wade in pools of a mental excriment, the musings of a mind slowly fading into its multible phases.
Who are they that I confront? I am, what I am who I believe I am... Yet who am I in the minds of others?
A shadow...
A villian..
A monster..
...a friend...
NO! How dare they press these images upon me, I... I... who am I.. Long ago does it seem that simple question has lost its meaning. When am I... how long have I... Days, hours... years.. If one cannot percieve themselves how do they percieve the shift of time around them? Quickly would the darkness settle... with its yellow eyes... evil yellow eyes...
I am.. I am something that is equal to what I was. A sum of a gathered parts.. What am I? A voice, many voices? Wandering in the inky space that is my universe. A sum of my gathered parts... No...
I am greater then the sum of my parts..
Like the rise of a sun, the darkest hours of the night now past as the light rushes out to banish the void do I know!
I am Greater Then the Sum of My Parts!
I am Kraikken! ...the Beast...

"I'm sorry Fox..." sighed the scorpion, "It's in my nature."
-The Scorpion and the Fox


Limeeka arose from her few hours of sleep, the coals of the nights fire casting a cherry glow in the deep bowels of a cave. The red flames danced so queerly... so.. alive. Sleep came back quickly, yet something odd lulled in the back of her mind as the darkness closed about the concious mind that nagged to discover it.

[limeeka]

"The wall... What do you think Ma'am?" Limeeka reached over and took the offered looking glass and held it up.
"Defence looks light... Mostly scarecrows from what I can tell." she said panning across the gray stone wall that stretched for miles in either direction. "Which raises an interesting question."
"Who the hell's been chasing us?" said one of the riders squinting at the wall with a hand over his eyes.
"Kavanagh forces havent recovered enough since the plague, and the seperatists likely havent forgotten enough of their pride to march in formation..."
"Especially given clan activity as of late.." added Limeeka as they all came to a pause as another man down the line said what had come to everyones minds.
"Mercenaries."
"Well... Mercs to the rear, the wall infront of us and about an endless plain of clan territory all around us." said Limeeka to her dozen horsemen of the Red Guard.
"Makes one wish we still had some drink left." Skip, the youngest of the "Hunter Knights" that had once formed the personal guard of Kraikken.
"We'll go down a few more miles... with so few men, there may be dead spots." Limeeka's horse whinnied as if sensing the riders impatience to move again.
"Kitting the wall?" said one.
"Something like that." she replied as the Red Guard fell back off the hill.

Limeeka "The Bloody" Exiled Commander- Hunters of the White Tree

"You pretend to control the darkness, the cyclone that cannot be attained... The depths that cannot be known for their very inky-ness that blinds and surrounds. I have surrendered to this place. I am one with the many."
Magus and the Beast

[nicholersl]

whoa i have not read any of these this one is great ;D ;D

[limeeka]

The slow moving caravan rocked back and forth on the bumpy road across the rocky terrain of the blasted flats. Hector gripped the railing he ducked below to fit his great size in the considerably low roof. "Will she make it?" he said with a quiet voice, the steely eyes of a half-orc softened in this small space. The older maid looked up at him from her crouched position at the foot of the bed where a human woman was being treated for what looked to be a high fever. She nodded her head before replying in a hushed tone. "But we need to get to fresh water... How much longer till we reach the estate?"
Hector glanced outside, the sound of the drums in the far distance heralding the comming of their persuers. "Night fall... at the earliest..." he replied. There was a pause of silence between them, the wheels of the cart grinding against the hard road.
"Your going out their arent you?" the older woman finally said. Hector turned to leave the cart stopping before the curtain to look slightly over his shoulder. "Take care of Maria." he said before jumping down to the ground.
A horse men came riding up immediately to his side handing over the riegns of a large gray quarter horse that Hector hefted himself up on too. He straightened himself up while checking the straps across his paudlrons and chest plate. "I need ten volenteers Micheal..." Micheal was a human man armored as one of the Hunters of the Shield, the closest to a clergy the Hunters had.
"Aye sir!" he said with a smart salute before spuring his spotted mare about to run down the lines and spread the order for volenteers.
Every Hunter amoung them would have known what the order was called for, the sound of the drums in the distance, those horrid drums, could tell a thousand tales of a thousand campiegns in these wretched lands. The Horde... Weapons were drawn, armor was donned and ten men stepped forward. Their injuries covered, the wear on their face covered by the hard steel set in their hearts. Hector looked across at these ten men, these men who choose to face the horde, out numbered, to give their comrades a chance for safety. He glanced back once at the caravan that shrank in the distance as the sound of the drums drew nearer. He smiled briefly, glancing down at the small rag tied to his bracer.
"Strength and Honor." he said to the repeated shout of those doomed to walk the long road with him.

Limeeka "The Bloody" Exiled Commander-Hunters of the White Tree

"Though I pray for peace, do I always train. Starring across the horizon for war."
-Memories of Kahal Krahloone, Royal Guard of Golden Horn

[limeeka]

Green, Commander of the Iron Brigade, First born of clan Krahloone, son of Kahal. His name was that in a place of honoring, named for a human. A Human who had earned the respect of the greatest of the Red Mountain warriors, his father.
The command tent was of remarkable size, yet not to any sense of flamboyance from the Commander, it was the giant girth of a Minotaur that made it such a grand thing. A spartan of a man, his personal affects numbering only among his military ones neatly rolled and oiled on the rolled blankets set in the corner beside his man servants. A simple table and make shift chairs dominated the tents center, the surface of scattered with maps and scrolls that had yet to be read or sent. However, for a place of such central importance it was eerily quiet.
A man stood at attention at the tents entrance, a tall and lean man who possessed an aura of wickedness that had helped earn him his entitlement of the Demon. Steely gray eyes stared blankly ahead despite the twist of contempt on his pale narrow face. Captain Dias barely moved before the deep tremble of Green's voice broke the silence that had consumed the area.
"So much as breath heavily Captain, and I will have you hung." said Green, who turned around to focus his golden eyes on Dias with a fiery anger that was said to give his mane and fur their red color. Orc knuckles braided through his mane chimed together as he tossed the great head with an annoyed huff while stepping lightly over to the table to take a narrow quill into his massive hand. He scratched a note onto a rice paper parchment before carefully, slowly, placing the quill into the ink well. "You disobeyed a direct order... Further more, you saw it fit to unlawfully put to death two dozen Hunters who are protected by the Treaty of the Three Kingdoms..."
"Seeds of hate have sowed in his heart, black tree's reach into a bloodied soil... Ink is the matter of this being." said a voice in the tents corner, hidden away from the yellow light of the later day. A feminine voice possessed of a snakes quality. Green paused for a moment to consider the words of this shadowed voice without the merest hint of annoyance which shown so clearly on Dias's face that it sparked a flare in Green's eye when he glanced back at him. Dias could not bring his disgust for the sooth-sayer under control well enough, yet Green allowed this minor prejudice to slide under the matter at hand. "Her beloved Majesty, Queen Danielle of Kavanagh, has made it quite clear what the conditions are for continued service to the Iron Brigade. All that can be captured, are to be sent to the tower for reducation... The taint of evil implanted by Sub Commander Roan of the White Tree will be cleansed and the conditioned Hunters will be returned to their posts at the wall..." the wind outside of the tent howled, so did nature personify the tension building in this large space that quickly became smaller. "Now for your crimes... Captain Dias.." Dias struck himself to perfect attention, his chin held high and ready to receive the law of the Commander. "Reduction in rank, two months reduced pay, one month of no pay, extra duty for 40 days and 40 nights. Captain Dias is hence forth a Lieutenant of the Iron Brigade and stripped of his command of the Legionary forces.... Have you anything to add Lieutenant?" said Green as he finished scratching down the last bit of his order on the rice paper. Dias' voice was horse with the effort it took to control the rage that built on his fair skin
"No, sir."
"Very well.. Dismissed" said Green turning his back to Dias who quivered where he stood before turning out of the tent by throwing the flap aside.
"hmm..." the woman in her corner, clicking together long metal sticks that held her knit work together. "Much anger... The sun turns dark in day, not even the bones of the sky offer his heart light in the pitch of night." she said into the room that had now seemed to large for a tired Minotaur. Green could not even muster a reply for her as he set to working on the several scrolls that had yet to be opened.


Limeeka "The Bloody" Exiled Commander-Hunters of the White Tree
"Where do the gods go to do war? Search for the land of nothing, and at last see the wrath lain by their hands."
-Excerpt from the scattered writings of Marius, "War of the Walkers"

[limeeka]

Like the ebony stones about them, a dozen figures stood in their inky robes in circled. A single light shown down into their center, angled down from a hole in the cave that they occupied, the lunar glow of a sharp winters moon... The hunters moon. A rock formation, illuminated by the moon light, was the object of their attention. Filled with an oily liquid that danced with the colors of a rainbow, white, red, green, blue, and an odd strain of black that seemed to seep up from the rocks themselves.
Of different sizes and shapes were these men, despite the uniformity of their costum, the slight features allowed escape from their cloth discerning many a race among their number.
It was some time, during their silent vigil of the pool, before one spoke. His voice was a darkling thing, like the thick cord of a violin crossed slowly. "What is the word from the front?"
another across from him, his voice of a much higher pitch spoke first, yet slowly, as if delicately choosing his words. "All is moving well, in the direction we have lain... The Tree is in its autumn...and the Iron Crown is none the wiser."
another spoke, yet his words without the carefull selection, a bark from his beaked muzzle that betrayed the draconic ancestry. "What of the red one! It is said the shard has whispers."
"We... cannot confirm this at this time.." said the careful one before being cut off by another beast of some reptillian heritage.
"What you mean is you can't get close enough.."
"As if you could!" screached a harsh tongue in the circle. There were several grumbles and murmurs among those gathered before the one who had broken the silence raised his hand into the air bringing about a hushed silence.
"We musnt bicker among ourselves... Although our shared enemy has taken a major blow, we must not underestimate their ability to... rebound." came the mellow voice of an older human in the crowd as what appeared to be the leader lowered his arm. There was some grudging agreement to his statement with some nods and grunts of acknowledgment. All of those gathered had, at one time or another, suffered at the hands of the Red One, and the Tree.
"What of Roan... He could become, a powerfull ally." said one among the crowd, a suggestion that had come up more then once in the gathered council.
"No, Roan's part in this was purely coincidentle, however nicely his conflicts fell into our plans he is still a rogue Magi."
"Walker I believe.."
"Perhaps, as is the Iron Crown, in theory. What of the Elder?"
"His absence is a sign of a continued neutrality, one can safely assume."
"I dont like assumptions..." spat another random voice in what was a conversation that turned many sides.
"And the Heralds?" said what was the only woman among those gathered, her voice so distant one could wonder at her presence was real or not.
"The Collegium is in the hands of the Elder, what is left of the Heralds are scattered among the old land and the horn." said the dragonic voice.
"What of the Collegia?" said the woman.
"We know nothing of the Collegia." said the dragonic
"And the Boy king?" when she said it there was a collective pause.
"We must learn more." said the man with the highly strung voice.
"Indeed." replied the woman
The deep voiced one rose his hand once again, the silence quickly settling. "Find what we can on the Boy King, send speed and good tidings to the men of black metal... And release the demon from its cage."
All those gathered bowed into the circle over the pool of water before turning their backs on it and walking in their seperate directions

"Their are few greater sorrows, then a wayward savoir."
-Marius the Blind, lessons of the first "Magus War"