The Fury of the Northmen

The party was nearing Kalsgard, and had reached the Thundering River. A freezing fog rose from the river as the sun set, and party wasn’t surprised to see the blood-feather raven that had been dogging their path watching them from the far end of the old stone bridge where they had made camp. The fog only intensified with nightfall, and the party prepared to endure a cold and damp night’s sleep. But suddenly, they heard a sound from downriver – the muffled thump of oars in oarlocks. Alert for danger, the party fanned out, some heading out onto the bridge while others headed for the western side of the bridge. A slight breeze parted the mists for a moment, and those on the bridge saw a dark shape materialize out of the fog. There was a crunch of wood scraping on gravel as the longship beached on the riverbank, followed by the sounds of splashing feet, and the war-cries and battle songs of dozens of Ulfen warriors, who came pouring out of the ship!

Shinjiro had advanced down almost to the riverbank, and bore the brunt of the Ulfen assault. He quickly dropped his first assailant, but immediately found himself surrounded by tall bearded men, intent on carving him up with their battle-axes. Sawyer rushed to his aid, but was unable to hack through the press of warrirors around the monk. Bella, up on the bridge, ran to the railing and fired her bow; the arrow took one of the raiders in the back of the skull, just below the rim of his iron helmet, and exited through his throat, and he dropped like a stone. But their aid was not enough to save the outnumbered monk, and axe after axe hewed him like a mighty oak, until, like the oak, he fell.

While everyone else had headed west, Zhustin went down the eastern side of the bridge, hoping to cross under it and catch the raiders from behind. But as he reached the riverbank, he heard the splashing of feet in the shallows, and found himself face to face with another group of Vikings, who had come up with the same strategy for flanking their enemy. Two of the fearsome warriors grinned and closed on him with their axes, while their partners swept on past, confident that this scrawny youth was no match for their friends. Ignoring the painful slashes he took from the axeblades, Zhustin stepped back and let fly with a Color Spray that immediately dropped three of the raiders who were dashing past. Hard-pressed by his two assailants, he took another step back, and those two and one of their buddies also fell, stunned by the display of colors. In a matter of moments, Zhustin had single-handedly disabled nearly a third of the Ulfen force.

When everyone else moved out to investigate the noises, Nicki had hung back by the fire, and at the first sounds of combat, he summoned a particularly intense Flaming Sphere. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to locate any targets in the thick fog – at least until he saw the mist lighting up like a fireworks display from Zhustin’s spells. He rolled his sphere in that direction, and one of the surviving warriors lit up like a candle. Another charged Nicki, and he heard another coming his direction from the west, where the battle still raged.

Back on that side of the bridge several of the attackers, seeing Shinjiro down and Sawyer surrounded, rushed on past seeking other targets. Some swept up onto the bridge, attacking Sandoval and Marie. Just then, Marie heard Sawyer calling. “Shinjiro’s down! He’s hurt – bad!”. Ignoring the cuts from the axeman in front of her, Marie disengaged, and vaulted over the side of the bridge. She rushed to Shinjiro’s side and administered a Cure Moderate Wounds, but even that wasn’t enough to bring the monk all the way back from death’s door, so she backed away and Channeled Positive Energy to heal Shinjiro and several of her other comrades (taking the risk of also healing wounded Ulfen). Revived, Shinjiro leapt back to his feet, and began delivering flurries of blows to the foes around him. Unfortunately, they seemed enraged that a fallen enemy would have the bad manners to get back up and hit them again, so they refocused their attacks on Shinjiro, and once again he went down. With a sigh, Marie cast yet another Cure Moderate, which brought Shinjiro back to consciousness. This time, however, he decided the cool mud of the riverbank was a fine place to rest, and remained lying down.

When Marie left her spot on the bridge, it opened up a space for Bella. With a laugh, she abandoned her bow and drew her rapier and dagger, and began her dance of death. She slipped behind the warrior fighting Sandoval, and tore him apart with her blades. Sandoval stepped back, drawing another raider forward, and Bella repeated the process. Then she and the bard rushed down to join Sandoval. Now the few surviving raiders were the ones who found themselves surrounded, and it wasn’t long until they fell. Back by the campfire, Nicki had summoned another of his Flaming Spheres to immolate one of his attackers, and he and Zhustin had taken care of the other. That only left the ones that Zhustin had left stunned on the riverbank, and Nicki rolled his sphere their direction to make a start on a funeral pyre.

As the party had fought, they’d heard the sounds of combat coming from the east, where the rest of the caravan was camped, and now they rushed that way to see if they could help. A third group of Ulfen had attacked the caravan, preventing their friends from coming to their aid, but had proven no match for Kelda, Ameiko, Sandru, and Koya, and that fighting was also now over.

They kept one of the stunned Ulfen warriors alive, trussing him up for interrogation, and began to search the bodies and ship. The ship bore a name painted on its prow: Aril’s Hammer. Other than food and bedrolls, it was empty. Kelda had never heard of the Aril’s Hammer, but pointed out that there were hundreds of similar longships in Kalsgard. The warriors themselves carried nothing besides their arms and armor, except that each wore a gold arm-ring, each embossed with a stylized depiction of a lion’s head. Kelda explained that arm-rings are a common Ulfen emblem of fealty, given by a jarl or chieftain to his retainers. She pointed out her own arm-ring, which bore the emblem of a falcon. She didn’t recognize the lion’s-head emblem, but perhaps someone in Kalsgard might know more.

Or maybe their captive could tell them. Bella and Nicki turned their attentions to the bound Ulfen warrior, who glared at them defiantly. Most of the rest of the party moved away, not wanting to see what was going to happen next. Bella knelt and smiled warmly at the bearded man, and began sharpening her daggers, thrusting them one by one into the dirt. “We just want to ask you a few questions. We really don’t want to hurt you.” Despite her smile, this was not a convincing statement. “Just tell us who gave you those arm-rings, and why you attacked us tonight.”

The captive spat at her, but Bella kept smiling as she wiped the spittle off her face. “I know you’re not afraid of me, although I can be rather creative with these daggers. But I’m not the one you should be afraid of. He is.” With that, Nicki moved out of the fog from behind the prisoner, delivering his Corrupting Touch. The Ulfen shuddered, but remained defiant. Bella continued. “Just tell us who you’re working for and why you attacked us. That’s all. They’ll never know you said anything.” The Ulfen gritted his teeth, and Nicki touched him again. “Your soul is mine!”, he hissed as the man shook uncontrollably. Nicki touched him yet again, and the captive began to convulse.

When his tremors subsided, Bella stroked his brow tenderly. “You don’t have to go through this. Just answer one little question – who gave you that arm-ring? That’s all. Just tell us that.” Nicki slowly extended his finger towards the prisoner, and his eyes went wide. “No!” he coughed as he tried to scoot backwards away from Nicki. “I’ll tell you! It …” His voice choked off as his tongue swelled to fill his mouth and throat. Blood began to pour from his nose and ears. His eyes bulged as the whites turned red, then he collapsed, dead. “Did you do that?” Bella asked Nicki accusingly, but the sorcerer just shook his head. That had not gone at all as he had expected.

As the teamsters tossed the bodies onto the pyre that Nicki had started by the river, the group discussed what to do next. Kelda was incensed at the attack. “No one raids within the kingdoms – no one! You go south, to other countries, or out to the islands. Actually, there aren’t even that many true reavers any more – it’s too easy just to trade for what you want. No, this wasn’t some random raid – somebody has it in for you. You know, that’s a nice boat – probably worth 1500 gold back in Kalsgard. You were attacked for no reason, and you defeated them, so by rights that boat is yours, unless someone offers you weregild.”

Kelda was confident she could sail the Aril’s Hammer downstream to Kalsgard with a skeleton crew of half a dozen or so. The boat would make somewhat better time traveling with the river current than the caravan would make overland. At places the road would follow the river, but in others, the river took broad loops that the road cut across, and the boat and caravan would be far out of sight of each other. The party was torn as to what to do. On the one hand they liked the idea of claiming the boat as spoils (and a smooth and easy float down the river sounded like a pleasant change from weeks of jolting wagon rides). On the other hand, Shinjiro and Sawyer refused to leave Ameiko unguarded, even for a few days, and Ameiko wasn’t too keen on leaving Sandru and Koya.

Finally, they reached a compromise. They convinced Ameiko to join them aboard the ship, but agreed that they’d put into shore early each afternoon at a place where the caravan could meet up with them for the night. Kelda estimated that with this pace it would take them about four more days to reach Kalsgard, where they could begin to search for Ameiko’s ancestral sword and try to unravel the mystery of who had attacked them.

The PCs earned 571 XP, and are now at 11,169 XP with 15,000 required for Level 5. We’ll be at Rich and Joette’s next week.