Greyhawk Musings: A Fistful of Baubles, Part 1: Visions

Hradji Beartooth

Deafened by the roar that chased him through the cavernous arch, Hradji managed to take a few final steps before collapsing to the tiled floor of a vast domed chamber amid a cacophony of coloured glass. The ground shook as though struck by Jascar’s Hammer, far in excess of the clatter of his axe as it rang upon the shards of glass and the mosaic beneath it. A rush of ice crystals sparkled the arctic air around him. His heavy breath added to it, its issue devoid of heat even as it blew from him.

Got to keep moving, he thought, as he dragged his numbed self further into the vault, scraping and grinding the shards of glass under him. It took immense effort, but his legs slowly found pliable strength as sensation returned. He could feel the cold sweat on his skin, winter’s sting piercing his nose and his fingers.

That fucking crone, he seethed. That bitch! He recalled her wry smile. Her cackling laugh. She must have known it was here! But she had not said a thing.

***

The Crone

“Why have ye disturbed my rest, Beartooth?”

She might have been beautiful once, but that was the secret of ages past. What remained had soured. Her tarnished skin brindled. Her breath reeked of decades. Her eyes had dimmed to pales reflections of the soul that had seen too many futures and died the death of all those she had foreseen. A halo of brittle hair caught and captured what little light she allowed within the close, earthen den in which she nested, more of a tangle of branches and twigs than an actual dwelling.

Her small fire cackled as though laughing at his discomfort, its grim smoke melting the snow from his cloak.

Hradji scowled. She had cheek to speak to him like that. As though he were some beggar! He had half a mind to…! But, no. He must not. He swallowed his pride.

“You know why I’m here, old woman,” he said.

“Speak the words, if I am to see.”

“We need weapons of power if we are to defeat our enemies.”

The crone was not satisfied: “What enemies?”

The Stonefists, he thought. Orcs, he thought. What did it matter, he seethed? The old woman knew as well as he the enemies they faced. But that was not what he said. He whispered, exhaled, “Iuz,” for in his heart, he knew where the hitherto unspoken terror lay.

She threw a handful of dust onto the cackling fire. It flashed and flared, masking the foul reek of her body and breath. Her eyes rolled into her lids, becoming the orbs of the corpse she resembled. “What shall ye risk?” she whispered.

Even as Hradji uttered the word, “Anything,” she cackled: “Be careful what ye dare,” she said, “for fate is fickle.”

Damned witch! he thought. Speak plain!

Never suffer the witch to live, his father had always said. But his father has suffered the crone at the edge of the village, much as he did. The women demanded such. Midwife, they said. Healer. The speaker of truths, they said. Damned magic! What possessed women to believe such nonsense! Nevertheless, here he was, seeking her sight.

He shivered, despite the heat in the tiny hovel.

“Get on with it, crone,” he growled.

“Give me thy hand,” she rasped. She took it and cut it. Held it over the flame, the stream of his lifeblood pattering it, sizzling and smoking. She threw another handful of her dust atop it; it flared, it smoked.

“Breathe deep,” she commanded.

His head swam, his vision swirled. He steeled himself. Damned magic, he thought again. Trust in steel, and in courage.

***

His vision had been nothing like this.

He had seen a vision of valleys and tall buildings crawling up and into cliffs. Of ivy and courtyards and coloured glass and water cascading from the most splendid statuary. And in the center of all that, a shining dome of gold. Skrellingshald, she had whispered. Fabled Skrellingshald.

Hradji asked the skalds what they knew of Skrellingshald. They knew little, save that is was ancient and mysterious and a land of eternal summer. The Sisters of Mystery knew even less, only that some power had razed it to the ground when the Ur-Flan reigned. Hradji sailed to Ratik to consult the sages in Marner, for he was not as ignorant as those who dismissed their dusty tomes out of hand. He knew those books held lore and secrets long forgotten, or untainted by so many tellings. Their tomes had not forgotten Skrellingshald, but they named it Tostenhca, and placed it somewhere in the Griff Mountains, high above Tenh. High in the Griffs, where few ventured, and from where fewer returned.

Was Skellingshald worth the risk, he wondered? “Be careful what ye dare,” the crone said, “for fate is fickle.” He dismissed her vague warnings as theatrics meant to mystify, and mire the cautious in their fear.

He mustered his team: A Sister of Mystery to bring good fortune, a skald to tell the tale, trackers, and men who knew the sharp end of an arrow and axe. Those he trusted, kinsmen and clansmen. But Ratik had pressed two upon him, an elf and a mage. He had refused. It is for the best, they said. He grumbled. He argued. But Ratik had pled a worthy case. The elves know the old and hidden ways, they said. And, how can you know the nature of what you find without a mage? Besides, they said, the two we have in mind were seasoned against the orcs and gnolls that infested the caves north of Riverport. He agreed. Reluctantly. And set forth.

High in the Griffs

Snow howled and rolled about him, and had since base camp, cloaking the sheer heights to either side. It invaded his eyes, caught in his throat. Everything smelled of snow. It was nothing he was not used to, what all Rhizians weathered each and every winter. Such weather warmed the Fruztii’s heart. However, such weather did not make for good tracking, or discovering hidden dangers, or finding their way, for that matter; it did mask their approach and deaden any sound that might betray their presence. Fridmund’s song surely would have, had the snow not held it close. Hradji had thought to hush him, but Fridmund’s soft baritone comforted them and passed the time, so Hradji let him sing his songs of warm valleys and lost cities.

Stones dribbled and skipped from the port slope, cutting Fridmund’s stanza short. All eyes darted from height to height, from outcrops to the veils of sparse pines. Tittering cut the silence, a chattering not unlike the squirrels that were all too silent, just then.

Gunnar

The first arrows rained down, their whir buzzing through the silence. Tall, burley Gunnar staggered, his wind driven from him. Even as he pulled the first arrow from his furs, another, and another spun him.

Angnar rushed back from far point, his shield plumed with fletching. The nimble youth ducked and skid upon reaching where Gunnar had been driven to his knee, snow billowing up around them. Angnar gripped Gunnar by the collar as the other tore yet more arrows from his hide and fur, and dragged him to the safety of the nearest snow-rilled outcrop, death chasing them.

Runolf made to join his brother but the barrage of tiny arrows changed his mind. Should he have continued, Angnar would be a twin no more. His headlong run stalled. He slipped and fell, barely catching himself before he was laid full out. The arrows chased him to the sparse treeline, their sharp stone tips finding his furs, his cloak, and the trees before he found safety.

The tittering became full-blown laugher. Shadows darted between the pines in the middle distance. Short shadows.

Kobolds, Hradji raged. Fuckin’ vermin! He darted from tree to tree, and spied the wool-clad young mage peering over the snow-dressed rock that shielded him from the worst of the barrage. Stupid kid, Hradji thought. Stupid, stupid kid! The mage was supposed to be an adventurer, seasoned beyond his years! That was what they said! “Cinniúint,” he bellowed! “Get down!” That was all he needed, for their diviner to meet his end before they truly had use of him. Hradji ignored his own command and bolted across what space remained, landing heavily and pulling the mage to the ground.

“What are you trying to do,” Hradji panted, “get prickled in the eye?”

“I’m counting,” the youth said, shrugging the big man off, poking his head up again. He gestured as an arrow almost did what Hradji warned him one might do, and it ricocheted off a shimmer of air.

Ylva

Ylva too ignored Hradji’s command, weaving across the clearing amid a torrent of arrows and stones and collapsed next to the young mage. Didn’t anyone have any common sense, Hradji wondered? She would have, Hradji thought, had she not been sneaking into the mage’s tent since before they climbed into the lofty range. What was she thinking, dallying with a southern? More arrows skittered and snapped against their rock.

“I think they’re leaving,” she said, risking a look overtop the rock.

The tittering laughter receded. Taunting them.

The elf darted silently past Hradji’s hide, his mottled shadow resolving from the trees as though he had been birthed from them. “Go easy, Scáthú,” Cinniúint said as the elf passed, he too rising and inspecting the fletching of the arrows sprouting from the snows. “I counted two score of them, but I’d guess twice that, judging by how many arrows flew.” Scáthú nodded, and climbed an animal track that only his keen eyes had seen.

Scáthú

The others rose from their hiding places in the face of the courage of the illustrated Flan and the elf of the wood. First Hradji, then fleet-footed Runolf; then his brother Angnar, plucking yet more of the little arrows from Gunnar’s furs and hides.

“Good thing you’re so fat,” Angnar said, dusting off the decidedly unfat Gunnar as he rose to his knees, then his feet, his eyes sweeping across the trees and ridgeline for those kobolds that must surely be waiting for them to reveal themselves.

“What are you waiting for,” Hradji yelled at the brothers, “are you to be shamed by a finger wiggler and an elf no bigger than a gossbarn?”

Angnar and Runolf shared a glance and roused themselves. They would not be outdone by the southerners. They had been raiding for six seasons. Long been bearded and bloodied. They had crossed swords with the Asperdians and the Duxchaners. And they had faced the Fists and lived to fight another day. Their bows strung, they loped ahead of the rest, each advancing in turn, wary as they had not been when listening to Friedmund’s song. Tracks emerged from the drifting snow, few at first, then more, far more.

The others followed at what they assumed was a safe distance, watching over those two who led, and the heights that surrounded them.

A rustle of birds took flight, and Ylva called upon the blessing of Wee Jas, pleading, “Should you desire such, grant your permission that those seeking your boon should walk this oerth long enough to compete their quest,” and as her words ebbed, the flames that writhed about the etched skull of her pendant twisted and blazed, its flare lightening the load of worry that furrowed the brows of those around her. But not Hradji’s. His anger burned hotter than any god’s bobble might. It seethed, bent on release, eager to crush the liten dragons’ skulls.

Cinniúint

They gathered in a circle about the young mage as a flurry of tiny arrows and sharpened sticks rose and fell, and Gunnar and Ylva raised their shields to their flight. A phalanx of the dragon dogs burst from either side of the twins. A pinch of sand spilled from Cinniúint’s fingers as he uttered a string of harsh syllables that seemed more consonant than vowel and all but two of the beasts crashed headlong to the frozen ground in slumber. Those two scattered as the twins made fast work of those scattered about them.

The rain of sticks increased then, and a howl of rage rose to Hradji’s right. He spun to face the largest kobold he had ever seen shaking its spear high above its head. It might have been as tall as a dwarf, a titan of its kind. It brayed with what must have been a rage that matched Hradji’s.

Hradji’s boiled over at the overblown kobold’s nerve. It was just a kobold, regardless its size. He broke from their circle, sprinting across the drifting snow as though it were but inches deep, scaling the rise amid the trees toward the bold little vermin.

It turned and ran, its snout turning back repeatedly as it lost ground to Hradji’s pursuit. Hradji could taste its blood, he could feel its scrawny neck snap in his grip. He inched closer, and closer still, until it was within his reach. It darted left them, round this tree, under that bough. Then burst out upon a narrow clearing. He swung his axe out and round and round again, its blade intent on the kobold’s spine.

Hradji could taste its blood...

The little beastie’s lips cracked open. And it smiled.

The snowy ground gave beneath Hradji’s feet. It cracked. And fell away, snapping inward and down, the snow that had covered the blind spilling in around him. His stomach leapt into his throat. He caught a glimpse of sharpened sticks at the bottom. Smelled the retched foul that wafted up from its exposed depth. His axe flew wide as he groped for the edge of the pit. His chest hit the lip hard, hammering his wind from him. He clawed and tore at the ground. To no avail. He could gain no purchase. He was sliding backwards, back towards his death. He could not believe it. He was to going die in the clutch of a vermin’s trap. He braced himself for the inevitable fall. The inevitable impalement upon the spikes. His foot found a toehold, and he slid no further.

He eyed that damnable kobold as it turned back and approached his despite struggle. It seemed amused by his fruitless attempt to save himself. It crouched, it grinned, and tittered, its bloodlust rising. Licked its lips. It stood, its smile broadening. Waiting. Anticipating. It bristled. It almost capered and danced. Hradji’s eyes locked with the beast. An eternity passed in a moment.

What are you waiting for, he wondered? Finish it!

Its eyes snapped up. It sniffed the air.

Suddenly, its eyes snapped up. It sniffed the air. Tasted it. And yelped, bolting into the tangle of branches behind it, the boughs dancing and shaking off their burden of snow.

Hradji tried to see what had spooked the kobold, but as he turned his head to look, he slid further back, and it took all his strength not to tumble fully backwards.

A delicate hand took hold Hradji’s furs and hauled on them with a strength the northerner would never have expected from so small a frame. With the elf’s help, Hradji was soon out of the pit. He found his feet, his axe, and bent to look for the kobold’s trail.

“Don’t bother,” Scáthú said, his voice light and gentle. “He’s long gone. And there’ll be more traps. And kobolds. The woods are littered with them. We had best return.” With that, the elf turned and made his way back down path.

“Where were you?” Hradji asked, unable to keep the anger from his voice. He could hear Gunnar cursing as he crashed towards them.

“Killing kobolds,” Scáthú said without bothering to turn and face him. “Where do you think I was?”

Gunnar spilled out from the trees, his sword as red as his face.

“You alright?” Gunnar gasped.

Ylva was right behind him. She slowed, taking in what lay around her. The pit. The spikes. Then Hradji.

“I’m fine,” Hradji said, too gruffly. “The others?”

“None too worse for wear,” she said.

What remained of the kobold assault lay scattered about. The little beasts had been brave, Hradji noted, if foolhardy, and they had paid the price for it. But their dead were relatively few in number, considering the number of arrows and javelins sprouting from the ground like saplings surprised by spring’s perfidious dawning, their roots aswirl with sudden snows.

“Where’d the rest of the little shits disappear to?”

The twins motioned north. “For the most part,” Angnar said. Runolf nodded agreement.

“After them, then,” he commanded. He shouldered his axe and made to depart.

Cinniúint and Scáthú exchanged a glance, conferring silently.

Hradji glared at the southerners. “You have something to say?”

“We should be cautious,” Cinniúint said.

Kord’s balls! “Cautious? We have them on the run. Time to finish them off before they can regroup.”

“No,” Scáthú said, either heedless of Hradji’s rising temper, or unmoved by it. Judging by what little he knew of the elf, Hraji suspected the latter. “It’s what the kobolds want you to do.”

“We need to be cautious,” Cinniúint repeated. “We’re close to Tostencha.”

“Bullshit. How can you know that?”

“Because I’ve dreamed what may be,” Cinniúint said, “and in my dream I saw fur-cloaked kobolds atop spires and domes.”

Hradji snorted. “Dreams,” he said, “what of them? They mean nothing.”

Ylva stepped between them. “You yourself have had visions,” she said, her eyes fixed on Hradji. “Do not belittle what you don’t understand.”

Hradji remained unconvinced.

“If you don’t want to believe my dream,” Cinniúint said, “that’s well and good; but believe this, kobolds are notorious for luring the unwary to their doom. I’ve seen more than a few ‘brave’ men rush to an early end, and I’ve no intention of joining them. What’s more, kobolds don’t usually venture far from their lairs, and their dens are always well protected.”

Hradji wavered. He looked to his kin, and a vision of them laid out, thick with arrows, their lifeblood freezing into the snow, haunted him.

He exhaled, venting what remained of his rage. He nodded.

“Send your most able scout forward,” Cinniúint began. “Scáthú will shadow him….”

***

The next hour was indeed cautious. They crept forward from tree to hollow, from rockface to outcrop, their advance slow and measured, their eyes intent, sussing out what might be hidden behind the layered snow, their ears straining to discern the difference between what might be the call of a sentry from the caw of a crow, the chittering of a squirrel, or the grind and groan of limb on bark. Nothing revealed itself. Nothing that prickled Hradji’s nape, anyway. The woods smelled as they should, of pine and snow.

These mountains were all too close, for Hradji’s liking. They soared high, and crowded in, cutting off the sky. He yearned for the sea, where the horizon was plain and clear; where one’s enemies were plain to see, flying their colours, and standing out upon their rails and gunnels. Only the depths were hidden. Black, too deep to plumb, mysterious. Like these tangles and cliffs. What might dwell in such a place, he wondered? He shivered, his mind filled with harpies and hags and giants and dragons. He shook his head and ground his teeth. Those were the terrors of childhood, best left behind at the first hint of whiskers.

Runolf

Hraadji sensed a disturbance ahead. He gripped his battleaxe, and drew another to hurl.

Runolf resolved from the woods ahead, his features both anxious and excited. He closed with Hradji and crouched down, face to face.

“The wizard was right,” he said, his voice quiet and close. He pointed with his chin. “There’s a ruin just beyond this stand of trees.”

Hradji’s heartbeat quickened.

“But he was right about the kobolds, too. If you wait at the treeline and look hard, you can see them keeping to the shadows, up on the rooftops, too.”

“Lead on,” Hradji said to Runolf. He turned to those following. Placed a finger to his lips, and pointed to his eyes, then the trees and heights around him.

He crept forward, and gazed upon a wonder his eyes had never beheld.

A broad boulevard curved though the valley, its length bounded by what must have been opulence before the stonework have begun to collapse in on itself. To either side stood two- and three- and four-story buildings, each fronted by an overgrown garden of denuded branches and pines, each guarded by broken walls and what were likely arched gates, before they too became tumbles of jagged blocks that lay beneath where they once spanned. They were watched over by statuary whose features had long since lost their refinement. Peaked doorways and round and quarter-round holes stared darkly from the now pitted fronts. Balconies thrust out from them, some still true, most defying the inevitability of their joining the detritus beneath them. More of these palaces rose up behind those first, and more still behind them, until the final row must surely perch upon the cliff face, if not burrow into it.

Surely this must be Skrellingshald

But the most glorious sight to behold was the dome in the distance that towered at the centre of this once great city. And the spire that thrust into the heavens from its height. It glistened, it glowed, despite the halo of snow that obscured it and settled upon it. It loomed over all that surrounded it.

Skrellingshald, Hradji breathed. Surely this must be Skrellingshald.

To be continued….

Special thanks to Kristoph Nolen of Greyhawk Online and the Oerth Journal, who reached out to me to submit something to the Journal. If he had not, this piece might not/would not have been written.

It originally saw the light of day in Oerth Journal #34, and can still be found there, forevermore. I encourage you to download the issue, and many more, as the articles within are written by fans of the Greyhawk setting for fans to use as they see fit.

The Art:

Winter-Viking by starcrossedscientist

Crone by chenthooran

Legends-Never-Die by freelex30

Egil-Thane-Uthred-s-Huskarl by chriskuhlmann

Gaze by dropdeadcoheed

Elf-Archer by ienkub

Outlaw by kingkostas

Berserker-Viking by g-reyart

Sebilis by elsobe

Viking-practice by storykillinger

Snow-forest-ruins by crazypalette