HARMONY LODGE 'Her soul is darkly sad. She pours her words on wind.'
Surrounded on three sides by herb gardens and flowering vines, Harmony Lodge sulks behind the loom hut, within easy watch of the women by day. Its lowfires are banked and welcoming, its straw and floor rush always fresh, but no windeyes open to the sun, and its single great oaken door can barred from the outside. In a clan where the freedom wind blows strong, shackles of bronze are bolted to posts by each sleeping platform within.
For Harmony lodge is the mishap house, home to those broken by sickness or the raw power of the rites, wounded in ritual or revenge, by paw of broo or harsh pathmaking of heroquest or initiation. The heroes of this house will fight no more forever, save midst the mockery of nightmare or torture of false vision.
A tiny hut sits beyond the lodge 'mongst garden rows of soothing herb and healing loam. GAMLA THE HEALER oft keeps vigil here by night, offering succour or strong potions to the sore afraid. Her tiny hearth is sanctified by a cedar statue of Jera, rough-hewn as though by hand of child. The goddess smiles on Gamla's labours across a flickering hearth; myriad clay jars of earth and animal organs crowd the floor about the sleeping platform, and rich-scented herbs hang drying from the rafters above.
By day the lost ones of Harmony lodge share the warmth and love of kin, they sit by warm fires in the lodges of their blood, they watch children, and lovers, and women at their looms. By night they are returned to their lodge; the great door is bolted and they are abandoned to their terror.
There are wounds beyond the touch of any healer, wounds of the flesh, wounds of the breath, of the soul. The Other Side is a realm of grim and deadly power, it can tear asunder the unprepared, the ill-wyrded, or those who must stray from well-worn paths. And Unlife stalks the gors, inflicting hideous wounds upon us all; wounds whose blisters sear and weep, and deeper, less obvious wounds that never heal.
TRESNA, ASKUL and DESRAD are brothers three, once elmali weaponthanes whose feats of spears brought terror to our foes. Coaxed by Yelmalian enemies of the plain, they entered the Yelmal paths on the Other Side, and there faced a light that did not heal, a light that blinded and burned their bodies and their breaths. They sit silent now, bathed in the warming light of the true sun, the god they will never abandon. Age's stained cloak is wrapped about them, and hoar-white hair grows from their skin like rot on an ancient tree.
NEVARNA AMADBORN was a fletcher and huntress; raided by goatkin, she watched her husband and children raped and mutilated, and herself endured more than I dare say. A white woman healed her body, cut out the twisting unlife from within, but could not heal her soul. Hers was a small lodge, a forest stead far from the blade-strength of kin. And small steads die. (This is the wisdom of the gors, easily forgotten, yet carved anew in suffering with each generation. It is better we gather in might, behind strong palisades, with weaponthanes and fyrd and strength of kin.)
Nevarna still carries the breath of broo thick about her; she sits apart, and cannot be comforted. She bleeds silence and want. There is none still living to whom she can open the heavy doors of her heart.
MINAR THE GATHERER has been building his funeral pyre for nine seasons now. You can see it on Hero's Height above the urn field, piled high to the height of a man and a half. Minar fell on his first journey, his making way of initiation, braving the eternal battle of IFoughtWeWon. On return, his grieving bloodline carved warrior tattoos with pride into unknowing flesh. Now he gathers wood for his pyre by day, and the children are told to steal from it by night.
REYDALDA MANYCALVES was the Laughing Daughter of our clan, as well-loved as her goddess, a ring-voice and a storm godi who braved many a hero path in the Greater Darkness. In the hour when Harvar Ironfist burned our steads and smashed the altars of the Storm, Reydalda joined many warriors of our tribe and tribes-true at Gamla's Leap.
The heroes gathered to summon the Righteous Wind as of old, to drive the sun-men of Ironfist back to the plains below. Yet two days into the rite, an enemy wind, a Bigger Wind, fell upon them all, and it broke and twisted altar and warrior both. Then screaming Gargarthi fell upon the survivors from the mists, and with them strange golden warriors who spat red balls of madness.
Reydalda was one of the few to survive the slaughter, plucked from the gors by a wandering Odaylan. Her body is now whole, but her breath is tainted forever: when the demon moon rides full Reydalda screams loud in aching, empty anguish.
The outstead vingan sits with her often now by day. Cradledaughter holds her kayling sister's hand and sings the songs of the goddess they love, she gently dyes with henna her sister's close-cropped hair, she wipes the tears that spill silent down the aged face. And she whispers words that none beyond may hear.
Remember brave warrior, the price that others pay, and pledge vengeance for the fallen ones of mishap house. May the song of your deeds lessen their screams, and may the justice-bringers grant them final peace.
No stats are given for the kinsfolk of Harmony Lodge.
John
nysalor_at_... John HughesQuestlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/
Hige sceal �e heardra, heorte the cenre, mod sceal �e mare, �e ure m�gen lytla�.
[Our hearts must grow resolute, our courage more valiant, our spirits must be greater, though our strength grows less.]
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