Send a spelling or grammar correction to: Tracy Johnson
This is a first draft of a story set in the world of Greyhawk.
It is based on a home campaign so some of the people, places and things
may be different. Any helpful comments or suggestions are very welcome.
Thanks
Jason Zavoda
"Should never have trusted that cursed, old nomad." Welf muttered
under his breath.
The big mercenary shifted the halberd in his hands and raised it
to his shoulder. The pressure of the haft was reassuring, but he grimaced
at the sight of the worgs. To his right, near the front of the wagon they
used as their guardpost, Gentian was finishing off the last of the worgs
trapped in the magic web. Straight ahead, the worgs were already peeling
away from where the pack had brought down the merchants and their thugs.
Welf struck. He brought the halberd arcing down and split a worg
in two. The blade sparked on a stone as it passed through the beast and
buried its edge in the oerth.
Hoofbeats brought up Welf's head as he raised his blade again.
Kassar and his horses had circled round and now charged the worgs once
more.
"Kassar!" Welf called out in greeting and surprise.
The nomad's saber slashed this way and that as he chopped at the
hairy backs and heads. Kassar leaned far out from his saddle, one hand on
the pommel, one leg hooked around the cantle.
Worgs scattered, the pack broke apart. They left behind the bloody
ruin of half a dozen men and the bodies of two of their own. One kill
belonged to Welf, the other to Kassar. The men from the camp had been
overwhelmed before they could do more than take a single swing or stab at
their attackers.
A long howl split the air. Ears prickled at the sound. Some worgs
answered the cry and it came again.
Kassar rode past the worgs, heading up the road for the trail above
the camp. The howl came blasting down at him. He cursed, turned his mount
and called to Moroedd to follow.
Silver shimmering in the darkness of the woods caught the nomad's
eye. A wolf stepped into sight. Sleek as water in moonlight, and colored
the same. The beast was graceful as an elf, gliding in swift, carefree
motion as it approached. Behind the wolf came two more. These were huge
and black, almost invisible in the dim light cast from the torches set
along the road.
One of the black pair sounded its cry again. Then the silver wolf
leapt down the trail. As she bounded forward the others followed. Kassar,
his mount half-turned, was directly in their path.
Life on the plains of the north was harsh. The land was beautiful,
wide and free, but there was no safety beyond the strength of a swordarm
or the power of a shaman's spells. Kassar had been cursed with both and a
desire for neither.
His greatest pleasure in life, above the sleeping blanket, was
stealing, and horses were his passion. The crafty, old nomad combined the
two, becoming the greatest horsethief of the north, and used his natural
born skills to aid him. Over the years he'd honed all three, warrior,
shaman and thief, so that they were sharp as the edge of his saber.
As the silver wolf approached Kassar's shaman's eye began to
twitch. He could see beyond the shape that the creature wore and viewed
the woman in all her forms, one layered upon another. She-wolf,
were-beast, an elf with silver hair and dusky skin. Their eyes locked
and both knew each other for what they were.
A totem bag that Kassar wore at his side began to tingle like
the passing of lightning. The claws of a tiger that circled his next began
to burn. The saber in his hand burst in life with a golden shimmer. No
greater foe was there to the Tiger nomads than a wolf.
* * *
(To Be Continued...)