Circle of Stone (reprieve)

I know how you feel Petty, I really do !!

LotR makes you feel safe? What about that Sauron chap --- and the prospect of a world of total darkness?

I remember how my world crashed down around my ears when I learned the James Harriot books were all made up. Based on real life wasn't good enough for me: I wanted those stories to be true!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Well its a fantasy story based on a game of dungeons and dragons- it aint Tolstoy*, I aim for it to be involving and complex enough but remain a relatively light and easy read.

Starting right off with painful human sacrifice made me fear there was some depth involved. If it's nothing more than D&D silliness I might be able to read it without trying to interpret too much, and that would be okay. But in my mind the 'Council of Tyrants' placed you on a literary pedestal that makes all other works dim by comparison.

Starting right off with painful human sacrifice made me fear there was some depth involved.- Halfy

You know me, like to kick off with a joke and a laugh.

This time however they were ready for it. Without a word they moved up to the northern edge of the island and looked out over the fens. The new moon, which was a mere sliver in the sky, shed a soft, watery light but it was enough to pick out the dark silhouette of the distant mountains and the glint of water.

Nothing stirred; the night was filled from horizon to horizon with a tense emptiness as if the world were waiting.

Then the trembling began.

There was no doubt in either of them this time, its source was north in the mountains, or more likely it felt beneath them. As the shaking grew making the branches overhead rattle -the only other sound in the night besides the deep rumbling of the marsh- they saw in the far distance rolling out from the feet of the mountains a blanket of darkness.

It was frightening because the eye could not pierce it. The rumbling ended and the silence was total. But the blackness still tore towards them over the water and then noiselessly swept around and by them, leaving them standing in a twilight world in which the air seemed to be made of dark grains.

The Druid turned to Tain who, only a few feet to her side, was indistinct in this choking haze, the trees had faded to dark outlines behind them and the air was oppressive, breathing it in seemed to burn the lungs. There was a stench like rotting vegetation that rose up from the water all around.

Tain moved towards the Druid keeping her in clear view in the gloom. He had drawn his bow and was ready to take aim although it would be hard to see anything more than five or six feet away and besides his hand was trembling slightly, and not with the cold. It was fear. The sort of fear he had not felt in a long time. Every part of him wanted to run and hide.

The Druid drew her sword and silently but for the beating of their hearts they waited to see what would happen next.

The Druid was first to see the shapes moving in the dark. Under the shroud the moon was just a pale halo above them but with her Elven eyes and the small amount of ineffectual light that did succeed in penetrating through she could see that there were several almost faintly luminous figures slowly rising up out of the waters. In looking on them she felt a cold iciness begin to creep over mind, closing down her thoughts and she had to fight a primitive rising terror in her gut.

The shapes did not move through the marsh but instead seemed to glide silently above the surface of it leaving no wake or reflection. Their skin seemed to give off a faint glow, like a faded firefly. Soon the closest of them was near enough for even Tain to distinguish in the gloom. Appearing in his vision with the same relentless sense of entrapped doom a nightmare induces.

There were men, women and children, all grey and pale, all with eyes downcast.
They drifted, weaving to and fro, back and forth, seemingly randomly across each others paths as if searching for something or someone.

Out of the darkness they heard a strange gurgling sound and saw the crest of a wave approaching from the north; a long wide line of white that stretched away into the black, left and right. It swept passed the drifting figures seeming not to affect them and washed up the islands side, as it did so the closest figure approaching them looked up directly at them and seemed to espy them. It raised up an accusing pointing arm towards them and let out a terrible cry filled with pain and anguish that all but made Tain collapse in terror and indeed his legs were involuntarily buckling beneath him. His mind seemed numbed and he struggled to regain his composure. He focused on his bow, on taking aim. Its reassuring feel in his hands pulled him back out of blackness.

He loosed his bow. The arrow sped through the dark and passed straight through the advancing figures forehead without slowing or seeming to have any effect.

“Damn it!” he swore out of trembling lips, “You're religious. Are you any good against the dead?” Tain asked hopefully in a voice that quavered.

The Druid looked out into the darkness; two more shades alerted by the first were approaching them, homing in on the sound, the island and possibly even their hushed whispered conversation.

“No,” she replied and then turning to Tain asked, “Are you?”

The two shades gliding swiftly in their direction joined the third and all three again cried out their awful anguish into the night. At the sound she turned her gaze back to the figures, again the cold fear crept upon her and she began to shake uncontrollably, more were joining the first three now. She forced herself to focus and turned back to Tain, “Well are you?” she repeated, but where Tain had been there was just empty air.

She looked back down the length of the island just in time to see her companion running southwards, good as his word, heading back into the marsh at impressive speed given the lack of light and poor footing.

“I’m not fighting what someone else has already killed!” his voice floated back as he splashed away into the grim haze, “Well? Come on! Run!”

The Druid turned back to the advancing shades; they were close, having reached now the foot of the cliff beneath the trees directly under her, close enough to see in hideous detail. There was a woman who had a long sad face and at her side a child whose shrill shrieks turned the Druids blood cold. Both had skin which was burnt and peeling from their bones. Behind them came a tall thin man whose sunken eyes spoke of years in the earth.

She could feel the horror of their deaths, it reached out from them.
Tain was right; they had nothing to fight the dead with and a growing uncontrollable panic was blooming in her chest.

She made a decision; there was a sound like flesh being stretched and rung as space bent around her.

ooooooooooooooooooh !

Last bit of this chapter!



Tain was moving with speed, he was relatively certain of the route they had come in by, at least for the first few hundred yards or so. He was also equally certain of how foolish it was to stay and fight something you could not hit.

Besides though he did not want to admit it those shades had terrified him in a way nothing else ever had. Only a fool fought fights they were outmatched in. Yet that was not the reason he had run this time, this time he ran because of pure fear. Even as he ran he was aware of the fact that the fear was alien to him, it was not truly his own.

The darkness around him suddenly seemed to be giving way and then just as if he had burst through a wall he found himself out under the now seemingly harsh light of the moon. All around the chirps and whirrs of the insects greeted him.

He stopped long enough to glance back to see if the Druid had done the wise thing and ran for it when a small bird darted straight passed his nose at high speed. It flew to a halt a short distance ahead, hovered briefly and then completely twisted its shape until it had somehow unfolded itself into the form of the Druid.

Tain stared dumbfounded; it was a sight he considered he would only ever want to see once. And on reflection, one he wished he had never seen at all.

He had heard that druids were shape shifters but he had never actually believed it. Nor had he considered how stomach churning it would be to witness. It felt like his eyes were trying to turn themselves inside out whillst his mind was a strained muscle in trying to comprehend it.

“Is there anything else I should know about you?” he asked weakly.

“Probably,” the Druid replied with a relieved sort of grin.

Tain turned back to see if there was any sign of pursuit but where the wall of blackness had been there was nothing. It was no longer there. Now the marsh simply stretched north to the mountains under the moonlight.

“I do not know how you feel but going to those mountains does not seem like such a good idea any more," the Druid observed, "Not unless you want to ask our dead friends back there if they would show us the way to the lost city,” she added, “What do you think?”

“I think you might also have a problem in locating that hermit, unless you also want to ask them where he is. You know, I never did like marshes much and this one isn’t exactly endearing itself to me,” he said starting to recover somewhat, in that he had at least stopped shaking, “I don’t see how we’re going to get by, whatever they were, without help of some kind. Perhaps your Gnome friends can be of some use. Have they got a priest or anything?”
“They have a shaman?”
“Worth a try, better than staying here at any rate,” Tain said
“Yes we should get out of here, but very carefully in the dark, you were lucky we were not near the nesting grounds or one of the wide pools when you ran or you might have disappeared without a trace,” she said.

Cautiously they headed off through the night.

when I see this thread I start singing "cirlce of liiiiiife!" then I realize it's stone and perhaps it's about stonehenge and I start singing "what's the meaning of stoneheeeeeenge!!!??" (by Ylvis )

You are closer on the stonhenge thing Norc- but you know, you could always read it and find out!

i want to I just don't had the time and now I am so far behind x)

omg. I wrote don't had..... didn't have.

Just had to.



And I really should read it too, the few words I have read haven't been too bad.

yeah, it seems very good

The wind was howling down the corridor outside the boy’s bedroom which was probably why he never heard the sound of Kellius’ footfalls outside the door. He expected a clip around the back of his head and to be sent straight back to bed but instead Kellius just stood in the doorway and regarded him steadily. Then without a word he beckoned to the boy to follow and led him out of the Keep and into the wild night.

In silence Kellius led him across the empty courtyard where the wind swirled the dust and dirt into vortexes in the air. He could hear the horses moving restlessly in the stables. He caught a brief sight as he went by of Felur, his fathers horse, wide-eyed and staring into the night.

Kellius led him around the stables to the long dark shape of the kennels. The hounds were quiet as they approached the doors; there was no sound but the incessant howling of the wind.

Every now and again through gaps in the scudding cloud the full moon would peep. Kellius opened the doors and went inside, the boy followed feeling in his gut as he passed beneath the heavy wooden lintel a stirring of trepidation. His stomach was knotting and he seemed to be acutely aware of his surroundings, his eyes seeming to pick out small details; a twisted nail in a post, the patterns the dust made in the air where a shaft of moonbeam caught it, strands of straw on the floor tossed by the wind. They passed the pens and the stalls where the fiercest hounds were chained, but tonight they lay cowering at the back of their pens.

Finally they came to where the light of the lanterns did not reach. There was a door there in the dark, a door behind which the boy knew something awaited him.

Sweat was forming on his brow despite the chill of the night. He could feel a presence, even through the thick wood, a presence awaiting him.
It was strange what things remained in the memory, the boy, for all his days, had the most vivid memory of the heavy chain and padlock with which the door was secured. He could recall every fleck of rust upon it, the way the wind shook the door so that the chain went loose then taut over and over and the padlock swung back and forth thudding each time off the thick grained wood of the door with a dull repeating 'whump'. A rhythmic, pulsating beat that mirrored the heavy beating of his own heart. The boy watched, almost it seemed in slow motion as Kellius unlocked the chains and opened the door wide for him to enter.

He hesitated, the merest of moments, the sense of anticipation he had earlier felt was now so intense as to be nearly overwhelming but something else drove him on, it overcame his fear, his confusion as to why Kellius had brought him here on this terrible night. He stepped inside without further hesitation and without knowing it to the grudging admiration of Kellius, who thought to himself that this boy would indeed be one day a formidable Baron of Northolt.

Thanks Azriel.

The Baron Ironfang checked his horse at the top of the slope leading down into the valley that marked the southern border of his domain. Beside him Canthiss also brought his steed to a halt, the yellow and purple checked pennant of the Ironfangs fluttering in the morning breeze from atop the standard he bore.

Masquith, Ironfangs horse, pawed the ground restlessly. It was of Northolt stalk, shorter in the leg than the plain horses of Domina but hardier and surer footed in the foothills that made up the majority of Northolt land. On its back Ironfang, no light weight especially as he was attired in his full Baronial clothing which included a gleaming breastplate, stared frowning down at the valley floor.

All was still and dark in the grey light of the hour before dawn. There was a crossroads below where the mountain road to the capital ran westwards across the Norath Bridge and the Northolt road ran southward towards the Port.

Nothing moved along its dusty length. There was a time, when the Baron had been only a boy and his father still alive, when this road was a constant bustle of carts, horses, cattle and travellers going over the mountains to and fro between Futura and Domina.

He looked westward along its empty length to where it disappeared around a great outcrop of rock. The rock was covered in the graffiti of hundreds of people over scores of years; he smiled fondly at the memory of a younger Ironfang and a younger Canthiss who had managed to leave their mark higher up the rock than any before them.

Behind the outcrop the mountains rose to tops of craggy blues and misty cloud, dark specks marked the flight of the far-sighted eagles that haunted the upper crags.

At the mountains foot on the Futura side, but hidden from his view by a shoulder of the land, was the Toll Road and the keep of Southolt, now the home of Baron Erwin.

Ironfang gritted his teeth at the mere thought of the man.
Once, the Toll Road was a profitable enterprise, before the Queens death and the Kings malady, before the borders were closed. But no longer.

Ironfang stared down at the bridge now. The waters of the Norath were placid if swift today; on the night of the accident the spring melt had swelled them into a foaming fury.

The matter of Erwin was one the Baron considered which he had left to long. He would have to speak to Prince Mekhal, the Kings ineffectual eldest son and heir to Futura. He had learned whilst at court that the Prince had been spending more and more time at the Port of Duke Grande, acting in his capacity as Admiral of the Navy. Perhaps it was time Ironfang reminded the royal family of matters occurring on more solid ground.

But politics could wait, he took up his reigns and urged Masquith down the slope to the road and Canthiss followed, the Ironfang pendant fluttering over him. Over the crest of the hill behind them groaned a wagon bearing Ironfangs personal retinue. It was two days ride to the edge of the marsh where the Gnome village nestled and it would be a further week’s travel to the Port and his old friend Grande.

He had just over three weeks before he would have to be back safely over his own borders again and he planned to make use of them.

And this really is all your own work ? Its really very good ! A hell of a lot better than I could ever create,

More or less yes- by that I mean as its based on a D&D game I wrote, so its all my own story, settting and I wrote all the above- but who the characters are and what the characters actually do was completely out of my control and so the way I had to develop the story was an ongoing evolution reflecting their decisions.
So the end product and story was not something I would have predicted or come up with on my own at the start.

The Druid and Tain had not gone far in the dark, the marsh was too treacherous a place. Instead they made camp as best they could on a hillock of tall reeds.

They sat miserably, taking turns to sit hunched in the dark and watch out over the gloomy water -over which a grey mist was rising- until dawn.

By the time the sun had struggled into view it was just a pale yellow gleam in a dense sea of white; they were surrounded in a cloud of thick fog.

They had a brief discussion over their route and in the end opted not to take the same path the Druid had originally followed but instead to skirt out further eastward away from the wider pools and the nesting grounds. They hoped in that way to strike the marshes eastern edge and safer ground.

In the fog the going was very slow and tedious. It failed to dissipate any and for several hours the ground became marshier not less so and they considered changing their course. In the end they decided to perceiver but they moved at a snails pace. It seemed to Tain increasingly likely that they had in fact turned some way north, for they should by his reckoning have found the marshes edge by now.

As the sun disappeared behind the white wall of fog it became clear to them they were going to have to spend another night in the wet, they could not risk going on through the darkness and the fog.

They made camp on a bed of reeds but they were never dry. The only conciliation was that there was no repeat of the previous two night’s excitements but any extra rest this might have afforded them was cancelled out by the discomfort of their forced campsite. The air was filled with clouds of biting insects that got into their hair and crawled inside their clothing, making sleeping in more than brief snatches impossible.

When the sun finally struggled back over the horizon it was still lost in a blanket of fog that diluted its light and bled away all of its warmth.

By late morning the fog had not abated in the slightest but if anything had grown in thickness till anything more than ten feet away became simply a dark shrouded shape of blurry edges. But they did strike more solid ground and shortly afterwards it was becoming clear that the marshlands were finally ending.
Tussocks of grasses and heathers grew here in broad banks.

Low hills of peat crowned in a deep green moss and squatting in pools of dark water loomed up out of the shadowy trails of mist and fog. It was a welcome sight, however bleak.

They stopped for lunch beneath one of the peat banks; its dark soil showing through the green on one side, where it had once been cut for drying and eventual burning. Their meal was frugal taken in the lee of the hill beside a pool of black water.

They washed down the poor fare with a draft of the Druid’s deadly home-brew, which to Tain seemed much less palatable without a roaring fire to accompany it.

After their frugal meal Tain clambered up on top of the peat bank, noting that most of the peat that had been exposed was at the base where the pool of pitch black water was. The rest was reclaimed now by the grasses and only the shape of the bank, half a hill like a crescent moon, gave away its ancient usage.

Standing atop it he had a sudden vision of the people who long ago must have lived in the buildings whose remains they had seen upon the islands; he imagined them cutting the hill away, exposing the peat, stacking it in slabs to be dried and then carried back to feed the fires. How many fires? Just how many people had lived out here in this cold, bleak marsh? And what had happened to them?

From this vantage point Tain could see back out over the fog wreathed wetlands but it was impossible to see the hills nearby in any detail. Turning completely around and looking out east he was surprised to find that not ten or fifteen feet from where he stood, and beneath him, a road ran. A pale sandy coloured ribbon rutted with cart tracks that disappeared right and left into the fog.

Even as he noticed it and was about to call out to the Druid he heard the sound of hooves, loud in the subdued mists. Automatically he dropped flat onto the hilltop and drew his cloak close about himself. He looked back down to where the Druid sat below the bank smoking her pipe, she was standing alertly, obviously she had heard it too.

Tain whispered hoarsely down at her, “Someone’s coming, keep quiet and don’t move.”

Tain strained against the air to identify the sounds; two horses both trotting and a third horse a little way behind, moving slower and a creaking noise; the steady creaking of a carts wheels as they turned.

A moment later two shapes loomed up below him appearing suddenly out of the mist. It was two men on two horses, riding abreast, one of the men was exceptionally tall and broad and both were dressed in finery with furs wrapped close about them against the chill of the fog. Tain could even see the gleam of a breastplate worn by the tall man.

In Tains experience armour came in two types; dented and tarnished or ornamental and polished. From the gleam he thought he could guess which type this was.

The two men passed at a steady pace directly below him but when they were just passing the outcrop of peat the taller man reined his horse to a halt. Tain could see his profile clearly, the face was not exactly handsome, it seemed too large, too wide, as was his nose. But it could just have been the angle at which Tain was looking down at him through the wet grass stalks.

He seemed to be sniffing the air but he did not stop long, a moment only before he shook the reigns and turned away. He and the other man were swallowed up in the fog as quickly as they had emerged from it.

A few moments later a wagon rolled into view its wheels creaking rhythmically. It was drawn by a single stocky horse. The wagon itself was not large and was covered; of the sort Tain had seen many times before when the gentry of Stenor had need for travel. Although in Stenor, he considered, no noble would journey with less than a train of four or five such wagons, appearances and prestige were everything back home, even though often the covered wagons were in fact empty.

The single wagon below him soon disappeared southward into the tendrils of fog and was quickly lost from view. Shortly afterwards even the creak of its axle had faded away.

“Well, who was it?” the Druid enquired when Tain had clambered back down the slope.

“No idea. Couple of rich-types by the look of them. Nobles or merchants. Nobles I'd say, one of them wore armour. Two men and a wagon behind, going south. There's a road just over this hill, it must follow the edge of the marsh. It should take us passed the village.”

“Good,” she said with a nod.

“How far do you reckon?”

The Druid tapped out her pipe on a small rock, replying, “No more than two or three hours on foot I would guess.”

“Well,” Tain responded, shouldering his pack, “sooner started - sooner finished.”

He set off round the foot of the low peat hill and strode up onto the road and the Druid followed him.

Im impressed !

Thanks Azriel.


It was in fact nearly six hours later and evening was drawing in before they saw the lights of the Gnome village twinkling before them between the hills.
Their path through the foggy marsh had taken them further out of their way than they had expected and by the time they passed through the outer fence of the village they were tired, hungry and wet.

The fog had all but dissipated now and only lingered over the open water and in gullies and dells; they could see pale shimmering wisps of it in the falling evening light clinging to the surface of the pools.

Just within the village entrance there was a fenced paddock that when the Druid had stayed here had been empty, but which now sported a blue and white pavilion with a purple and yellow banner hanging limply outside. The pavilion was lit from within by lantern light; various large indistinguishable moving shadows were projected from within onto its hide sides.

A wooden gate had been closed across the road barring their entrance.

The wagon Tain had spied upon the road was sitting at the far end of the paddock and the three horses were clumped together nibbling the short, mossy grass.

Tain leant on the fence, watching the horses graze.

“Those are fine horses,” he said eventually, “Although I don't recognize the breed.”

He made a series of soft crooning noises, turning his head half away from the closest of the horses so he was glancing at it out of only one eye. The horse snorted and shook its head then shortly afterwards trotted over and nestled against his neck.

“Would you look at this,” Tain said indicating the bridle which had been left loosely over the horses head, it was of leather and embroidered with a series of entwined knots and leaf patterns, “This is just the sort of thing my brothers would have on their horse. Plain leather would be just as practical. I bet the saddle is the same, all expense, nothing but show,” he said with derision.

“It has a very disciplined mind. It has been extremely well trained and never mistreated,” the Druid said quietly in blank tones, her face taking on a placid, rigid look for a moment. She patted the horses nose; it responded by whinnying softly. The other two were padding softly over to them in the fading light in case food was being proffered. She indicated across at the wagon at the far end, “I wonder what is in there?” she said.

“If they are nobles it probably had women and wine in it,” Tain said dismissively.

A shadow moved in the pavilion and a man strode forward out of it. In one hand he held a drawn sword but it was point downwards. In his other hand he held a cleaning cloth soaked in oil. He was a well-built man a little taller than Tain but not by much with hair that must have been once black but was now turning a silvery-grey. Tain guessed he was at least in his late fifties but hale with it.

The Druid flicked up her hood, which was deep and hid her face in shadows.

The man came to a halt, stopping on the other side of the gate a little bit more than a swords length away. He scrutinized them both carefully. Eventually he said in a deep, rich voice, “The wagon contained four swine and thirteen sacks of mail. Gnomes are prodigious communicators. As to the horses, they are of our own Northolt breed and we treat them well enough. Not that it is any of your business. Whoever you may be.”

“We can be just two local peasants if you like, no concern to a Lord I'm sure,” Tain responded, smiling.

“Here we have Barons and Dukes, there are no Lords in Futura, of course a couple of local peasants like you would know that,” the man replied sharply, “Come now, whom do you serve? You are not of Grande’s men nor Verence’s of that I am sure.”

“I serve no man and no Lord,” Tain said haughtily, “Or should I say Baron?” he added correcting himself with a disarming grin.

“He who claims to serve no man could be said then to serve none but himself,” the man retorted with a righteous air.

“And he who serves another must subjugate his own will and could be said to fail to serve himself,” Tain replied quickly with a pleasant smile.

“So, peasant are you? That's a quick tongue, and an educated one at that. And you should also know that our peasants do not walk around armed, that is no farmers implement you carry,” the man indicted the sword at Tains side by pointing towards it with his own.

“This old thing?” Tain said patting the hilt of his sword, “Just for show. It was my grandfathers, I use more in cooking than fighting.”

“It must remain here if you are to go on, kitchen tool or no,” the man continued severely, “and your silent companions weapons too,” he added indicating the Druid.

The Druid was not at the best of times inclined to bow to an others desires if, as they so often seemed to her, those desires did not relate to her. She was armed, yes. Against these noblemen? No. This ritual of male hormones was of no interest to her.

“I was not aware,” she retorted, “that any other than the Gnome Chief ruled here, under whose command I am duty bound to return.”

“And it is my command that no one unknown to me should enter this place so armed whilst my master resides here. If you would enter and not breach your command then yield to me so that I may not breach mine,” the man said firmly but they just stared stubbornly back at him, “I have no quarrel with you but I must perform my duty as I see fit. I will give you my name so can you judge me if we meet again. I am called Canthiss, a man of Northolt and I give you my word no person will lay a hand upon your weapons until you yourself claim them back upon your departure, or ours. Now come, what say you?”

Tain looked Canthiss deep in the eye holding the older mans steady gaze. If he was any judge of a man then this one was speaking honestly, besides food and warmth seemed worth the price of sword and bow at this moment in time. He undid the belt that held his sheathed sword saying as he did so, “Where I come from a man is his word. If ever again I have cause to treat with you then it is from this moment and from this word that I will judge you.”

And with that warning he handed over his scabbard, sword, quiver and bow. After a moments hesitation and many grumbling sounds the Druid followed suit with her sword and daggers, thinking as she did so that the whole escapade was idiotic and unnecessary; she did after all have in her various pouches for those who knew which ones to mix and blend enough poison to kill the entire village and a large area of marsh all around it if she so choose to. This sort of thing was why she generally kept away from most people. Nevertheless she obliged Canthiss.

“Thank you,” Canthiss said with a slight bow towards them, “They will be safely stowed in the pavilion.”

He bowed to them and taking up their weapons went into the pavilion with them. He returned a moment later and unlocked the gate, “You may now proceed.”

“Why does every kingdom have to have nobles in them?” Tain grumbled with real rancour as they passed into the village, “I hate nobles."

I am so liking this