To Far Away Times

[Dracos]

"Take him down."  Dracos starts running after him, though trying to stay a bit to the side so not to block Liandril's shot.

Dracos

[Brian]

Liandral growls, as Nathan already got in the way of his shot, and throws his bow to Rabbit-torc, unsheathing his sword and following.

While he's running away, he fumbles in his belt pouch for something, and clutches it in a fist, and flings it off into the darkness to one side.

It takes you only a few minutes to run him down, not far outside of the camp, and take him to the ground; through the light of Liandral's fire-fly companion, you can see the reflective metal glinting of whatever he's thrown.

Tomas says nothing, lying face-town in the snow.  "Well," Liandral muses.  "That was interesting, wasn't it?"

A sizable contingent of Storm-riders (probably about sixty of them) comes after you, bearing torches so they can see.

[Rezantis]

"Hah. Yes."

Rez, leaving Drac and Liandral to keep Tomas pinned, goes over to pick up whatever it was that Tomas threw.

[Brian]

It's a torc -- actually, two of them.  They look solid gold, and like they're nice quality, too.  One depicts a pair of rabbits (you're pretty sure that the rabbit-torc guy was wearing it yesterday, come to think of it), and the other has a pair of wolves on it.

[Rezantis]

Rez hisses in surprise.  Not at the wolf-torc, which he expected, but the fox-torc.

"Sir Bloom?" he calls out to Drac, turning and walking back towards Tomas, "Why, this man seems to have had something that belongs to you . . ."

[Dracos]

"Oh?"  Dracos looked up, spotting the wolf torc in Rez's hands and then promptly smacking tomas hard across the back of his head with his fist with the intent to knock him unconscious.  Standing up on top of the thief, he reached out, taking his torc, examining it, and slipping it on, breathing in.  Turning to the watching warriors, he considered.  "Take this pathetic wretch away.  I must see to my cousin."  Dracos took the other torc.  "Come on, Sir Nathan."

Dracos

[Brian]

They stare at you numbly for a moment, then nod, dragging the K.O.ed storm-rider away.  By the time you get back to your cousin, he's fine, apparently tended by the priestess.  "Ah, you got ... wait."  Dracos's cousin blinks in surprise.  "Your torc?" he asks in surprise.  "So he was the thief who stole it!"

[Dracos]

Dracos nodded, turning to the priestess for a moment, "Thank you for tending to my cousin, mistress."

Turning back to his cousin, he handed him back the Rabbit-torc, "Indeed.  He will have much to answer for.  But now we must move.  It is not safe to stay here.  We must get back to moving to the keep.  Get everyone you can moving."

Dracos

[Brian]

"Well," a voice interupts, before anyone can do your bidding.  "This is ... an unpleasant surprise."  Lord Markham approaches the group, and frowns.  "My own brother a thief and a traitor to our people.  I think I was wrong ... but at the same, I am still king, now.

"But ... I would also be a fool to deny sense.  If the way is clear -- and I have no respect for Tomas's report, now -- then I concur, driving on would be for the best."

"The way is not clear," the priestess says, shaking her head.

"Explain," Lord Markham says flatly.

Rabbit-torc grunts, putting his torc back on.  "With pleasure," he says dourly.  "After the scene from last night where you called my cousin a drunkard and a madman, I decided that your brother was untrustworthy.  With your watchdogs' eyes on Phil, it was a small matter to slip into Tomas's footsteps."  Lord Markham's face tightens into an angry grimace, but he says nothing, allowing Rabbit-torc to continue.

"He walked out some miles from the force, and then stopped.  As you know, cover is scarce in this land ... but it was dark, and his armor -- gilded, to compensate for something else, I'm sure, reflected much more light than mine.  I couldn't discern his reason for stopping ... but I could see something in the distance that worried me greatly.

"The Dreadmarch is ahead of us, Markham.  They've cut us off, and we've no chance to reach the keep, now.  I watched the priestess here, and her entourage, come into sight, to where they could see the Dreadmarch.  We ... both Tomas and I ... know how to hide in the snow from the evils that lurk in the dark.  But she and her soldiers did not.

"A group of scouts, a good twenty strong, came away from the main force, towards the priestess ... why so few, I can't know, but that they were so few, I was greatful.  The priestess and her warriors fought as they could, a running battle in retreat.  I, as any man, could not stand by and watch, so loosed a battle-cry and drove after them.

"This startled Tomas, and I thought perhaps, perhaps he was merely stunned by the Dreadmarch, and that was why he said and did nothing.  I was sure when I heard him follow me that it was the truth.

"And yet, he did not go to aid the priestess, he cut me from behind, and then left me for dead, stealing my torc away in the process.  Luckily, for all of us, I think, Wardmaster Mattias was with them.  With his aid, they fought off the foe, reached me as Tomas vanished towards our camp again, and then caused all of us to vanish from the eyes of the Dreadmarch.  Thank you again, Wardmaster Mattias."

There's a shimmering in the air, and a man looking much like Parthipan, only perhaps in his late thirties, appears.  "You're welcome," he says quietly.  "We would not have been caught unawares ... yet, I detected some ward over the Dreadmarch itself concealing them from our sight.  And thank you, Lord Farwell, your aid was appreciated in leading us back here."

"Regardless," the priestess says, her voice soft and musical, but penetrating, "we are here, now, and without a way to reach the Keep.  The Dreadmarch is vast, and Gatemaster Eske has not appeared to evacuate our temple.  All who remain in this waste will likely fall, trapped as we are behind what is likely the greatest army of dread that this world has ever known.

"More pertinent than simple thievery is what we shall do.  We've no time to kill one-another, when there lurks in the darkness things all too willing to do the job for us."

As she finishes saying this, the last glimmer of sunlight vanishes behind the mountains to the south, and everything is abruptly plunged into darkness.

[Rezantis]

"There must be a way," Rez states flatly, "Mistress, Sir Loremaster, Lord Markham, do we have any way of contacting Lord Kevin?"

[Brian]

"Mmmm," Mattias muses.  "I can send a message," he says slowly, "to Radagast.  He'll know something is wrong by the fact that we're not there.  If Eske were here, we'd have far less of a problem ... but Eske is still missing."

[Rezantis]

"Hm. Wardmaster . . . forgive me for asking, but how many people can you hide from the view at any given time, and how close could those people come to the dreadmarch before they were seen?"

[Brian]

"The greater the distance, the more people I could hide," he says slowly.  "I don't think I could get everyone through the Dreadmarch, but if we were to stay a few miles distant, I could hide us."

[Rezantis]

"And there's no way we can move an army through the mountains," Rez muses, then looks up, "Are we surrounded by the dreadmarch, or are they between us and the keep?"

[Brian]

"They don't surround us, they're only ahead of us.  We've the freedom to hide anywhere in the wastes," Mattias says slowly.  "The ... the temples await Eske.  We could go there, and gather the remaining priestesses and warriors.  Also, they might have some supplies ... but I don't know how long we can survive out here."

"We've survived for ages without too much trouble," Farwell chuckles, before he sobers up.  "More to the point, though, we've got to figure out what we can do.  I've no qualms about throwing myself upon an endless sea of foe, if I can at least lessen their number.  But I don't wish to leave my wife and children undefended."

Markham nods thoughtfully at this.