Mostly for Dave, 'cos I write stories better than tell them...
The girl who sat by the fire wore a bright coat of many colours, like a bird with pied plumage. One half of her face was scored with graceful black lines, proclaiming some great honour or misfortune that had marked her out for all to see. As we feasted and the moon rose high in the heavens, this was the tale she told us...
“Before the time of our grandmothers was the Mournfell War, when the Raiders came not as scavengers, but as an army. Maljah son of Keth was our leader, and he set Forgers working night and day, crafting Dreamers to defend us.
Maljah himself rode a dark Dreamer called Khezapeth, a titan of black steel with blades for hands and eyes blazing pure with witch-fire. He and his honour guard of Dreamers were to hold Mournfell - a place of rocks and devils and rushing water. They held the field not for tactical advantage but for time. They knew that for every House of time they withstood, the soldiers could further fortify the city of Senj’dir and the Sek-herah could spin the weave, setting traps and strengthening the walls of our sweet city.
But when the sun reached the Seventh House, Maljah Keth was finally overcome: he was forced to kneel along with all his honour guard and their Dreamers. The Raiders called for the warriors to leave their cathedrals of black-witched steel and prostate themselves on the hard shale. Our soldiers knelt and offered up their swords with faith, thinking they would be treated with honour until such time as the city of Senj’dir could send blood-gold for their release. Pity them - for the Raiders did not.
From Maljah and each humbled man they cut the tongues from their heads followed by both hands, a finger at a time. Any man who fell senseless with pain they revived with icy drafts of melt water. Finally they slit open the stomachs and drew out the entrails of each warrior, winding them about the hilts of their own swords as a wife draws thread onto a spindle. For the death blow (although whether any of Maljah Keth’s company were alive still to receive this fate I couldn’t say) the Raiders hobbled the Dreamers with ropes and pulled them down upon the carved and bloody warriors, before leaving all of Mournfell to rot.
By now night had covered that land and it was too late for the Raiders to move on; they were forced to set camp a little way down stream where the rush of the melt and the stench of the dead were less likely to disturb their weary rest.
Maljah Keth and his men were strong in spirit as they lived and they were strong in death also. Their broken Dreamers had been forged of black steel and of the tightest weave. Just as cut cloth takes a little time to unravel, so does weave take time for its puissance to ebb. And in the dark of the night on the cold field of Mournfell, a different sort of weave was being wrought. It was spun of the blood of proud men, it was tempered in the dying embers of witch fire and it was fuelled by the hate of the fresh butchered corpses.
A leprous white light burned in the Dreamer Khezapeth’s eyes. Silently, awoken to life once more, the Nightmares rose from their shallow graves, the blood of their once-riders still shining thick and brackish on their dark steel bodies.
Softly as shadows they stalked the Raiders’ camp. Unstoppable, unbreakable and entirely without mercy now they tore skin from flesh and muscle from bone until there was nothing whole left to take revenge upon. No sign of the Raiders camped at Mournfell was ever found - no scrap of broken ward or blade, no drop of blood no lump of flesh. Nothing.
And yet, those who doubt my tale may travel to Mournfell and see for themselves: even now when the meltwater runs, an unnatural blood-red mist rises up from the shadow of the mountains, carrying with it the scent of old magic, corrupted metal and carrion. I myself have never been - we who live in Senj’dir need no proof, for our ancestors were there in the city when the walking Nightmares came.
Our city was besieged by the Raiders but our defences held, praise be to the Sek-herah and the time Maljah had bought us. On the third day we saw a horde of dark shapes striding across the valley. The cry went up: it was Maljah’s company, survived unscathed from Mournfell! That joy was all we needed. As history and any fool can tell you, we defeated the Raiders, smashing their wards and tearing their weave assunder. When the moon rose at last, all was silent around the walls of Senj’dir. Many of our Dreamers had fallen, but all of Maljah’s band stood still.
We threw open wide the city gates and rushed out to tend to our wounded and to sing our heroes home. Honour above all honours we planed to heap upon Maljah Keth and his brave men as those dark cathedrals walked once more through our streets and the crowds cheered.
The Nightmares knelt before the Sek-herah and gave him the broken blade that had belonged to Maljah Keth, so that all the city knew their hero was dead.
The Sek-herah demanded that those who rode the Nightmares should come down from their high cathedrals of steel and stand before the city, so that all may see to whom they owed their thanks.
Khezapeth’s eyes blazed sick and white as he opened his mouth wide and screamed his emptiness and fury. It is said that the sight of Maljah Keth’s bloody head sitting at the heart of the Nightmare where a warrior should be quite turned the Sek-herah’s wits. Khezapeth and his company left the city and none thought to follow them.
For they are loyal and eternal Nightmares of black steel piloted by dead men, and we of Senj’dir have more sense."
(click click for bigger version, damn kieran for doing such intricate stuff in light pencil on the back of fag packets)