The steadfast ridges

With the reawakening of the ensorcered nornir the small hamlet became a town. The small group of naive bohemians was more than tripled by equally naive adults and elders, and the existing housing was barely enough. The temple tower was transformed into makeshift housing and the banners and flags the valley was known for made for acceptable tents. The nornir of the valley, old and young, were pliable though. When told what to do they would so cheerfully, if not too competently. 

Sosir had sent out messengers to the other hamlets in the valley. He knew an army roamed the briarwoods, he had trained it himself. He hoped to get as many Nornir as possible centralised in his already crowded town so they could at least stand united. 

Over the following weeks the town was expanded with rough but safe housing and many more mouths to feed. The chichi and even more so the bondi turned out to be surprisingly flexible and determined, and as the terraced carrot and tuba fields multiplied, groups of foragers set out and returned from bountiful trips. Sosir did not enjoy his new administrative duties to these people, but he was proud and often felt his wanderlust wane somewhat.

He struggled to explain to the Nornir the reasons for fortifications but he admitted his mistake of training the grendel army out in the thorned deeps. Nevertheless fences were built around the fields and town. Kobolts and stingers were the most dangerous things the weavers had experienced, which meant the fences were little more than mud and stick railings. After Torsuns advice and some of his own experience they designed course and thickly woven vests to serve as armor, and outfitted a small militia with these. Slings and bamboo blowdarts armed these barely fearsome warriors.

“I feel like leading this town is a waste of my abilities.”

Sosir shocked his guests during an evening meeting in his chamber. Torsun, who knew the rough norn a little longer than the rest asked:”pardon Sosir, but I take you don’t mean we and this town are without value?”

“Certainly not! Soft as you lot may seem at times you’re all kin to me now. I’m proud of your drive and willingness to rebuild. I simply know I’m no leader and that I am worth more as a scout.”

The two Norns and the Jotnar looked at each other. They were not quite willing to agree but all in uneasy agreement that Sosir was a norn of action, and not a salving politician when telling others what to do.

“Yer uncomfortable shared looks are all the confirmation I need. Besides, you three have been my mouth and mind for the last weeks anyway. Listen to Torsun, or listen to your gut when he is too soft”: Sosir laughed.

Wrapped with arcane weavings of protection, Sosir headed beyond the forbidden metropolis of the ettins. Norns that had slept for ages had confessed their confusion why the trade routes lo-wards had fallen into disuse, despite the proud Nornir fortresses that dotted the trail? Younger norns did not even call the trails through the ridges trade routes anymore for only rarely even disillusioned adventurers made the journey. Sosir had listened well to these stories and needed to know what happened to these fortress building Nornir. He knew what was coming for the bramboo vales, and he knew he needed allies.

He needed those wrappings, too. The mountains beyond the city were bitterly cold. The peaks and ridges were steep, forcing him to take winding routes. The open but indirect ways through the mountains came not natural to the little norn, who was born and raised in ancient, dense and proud pine forests. The grateful weavers had given him a dense cloak of Nornir hair as a parting gift and he in turn was grateful for it in the icy nights of these razor steep ledges.

Two nights into his quest the way was partially blocked by wooden beams that had tumbled over the road, seemingly utterly out of place on the barren, dusty ledge. Looking up he found the origin of the wood, another of the carved logs peeked from the ledge above him. A slim pathway, combined with awkward rock climbing, took him up the side of the plateau. Tumbled over, marred with fire and cut marks stood the ruins of an ancient fortress. Fallen in battle and destroyed with wrathful determination. He walked through the open gate, scouting the fortress for signs of life. Food storage and resting quarters, courtyard, all lay deserted and dried in the frozen air.

An infirmary was the last chamber he visited before turning around. The chamber was strewn with shattered eggshells, and his stomach twisted into a knot. He had once done the same to a nest of grendel eggs, yet to see it done to those of his own race was too much.

He stumbled outside in the cool, fresh air. He took deep, calming breaths while he thought. He had no idea how long this wasted wreck had lied here in the preserving, dry air. What nightmarish thing had torn down such a grand construct?!

Chattering and marching, shouts and grunts rolled through the stale air. Sosir thought for a moment we was hearing things, that perhaps the ages between now and the wrecking of the bulwark had worn thin and the sounds of battle came through. The noise stayed though, and had grown loud.

Marching in the dry frigid dust of the ledge below was a small band of boney grendels, green, black and brown and all the dark hues in between. They marched on, and Sosir stubbornly followed them, until they camped below another ridge, crowned with a still standing and proud fortress.

Wrapped in his arcane robes and the delicately woven cloak of norn hair, Sosir waited to witness the siege.

Night falls over the solemn mountains, overhead the sun reflects the opposing part of the ring, and it lights the frozen stone. Fiery beacons are lit above the fortress. One by one the fires are lit, and a single torch makes its round around the battlements. The hours of the night pass in a tense silence, and even the weathered umber norn feels his patience is tested. Suddendlu, shockingly loud a bestial shout blasts from the skeletal band.

The deep ring of a solid gong thunders from the fort.

Battle follows, bloody warfare. Climbing, hacking, slashing. The tall Nornir from their veneered bamboo coats and masks hack and slash from the battlements in savage response. The careful rays of morning sun fall upon hellish sights, yet the artificial sun is unfazed and rises nonetheless.

The gates open. Seemingly with little care, they appear to know their enemy, and know not to expect or fear second waves and ruses. Sosir feels their stares upon him despite the height and the distance of his vantage point.

Stoically, the tall warriors move to collect their own dead. Sosir makes his way down to them, and wordlessly joins in with the removal of the vile grendel viscera. Dropping it down the ridge Sosir notes the fresh bloody smell, a rawness he felt he had grown too accustomed to. He also smelled a far worse odor. The rotten bile of hatred assailed him, and he felt anger stirring within him where he though adulthood and experience had purged it.

He joined the Nornir in the fortress as the work was done. He took off his cloak in the resting hall, as the defenders took off their armors. He had expected more to enter, but the three were all. Two elders with tawny blond fur and grey-blond hair, and a fiersome young shenorn with flaming curls of red hair on her head. He could look them all straight in the eyes, something he did a little longer with the girl.

They clean their armor as Sosir blows life into the smoldering fire pit. The girl introduces herself as Sevda, the elders Temur and Soner. Sosir gladly introduces himself and is invited to join their meal of raw honeycombs and soft cheese. To forget the harshness of the battle and their lost brethren, they tell Sosir of their kind.

They are sworn to hold the onslaught of grendels, forevermore if necessary. They are the last of their fortress, and they have not heard of the others for a generation.

“One other have I seen, but it had been torn down into ruin, not even bones to be found of its garrison.”:Sosir admits.

A sorrowful emotion sweeps over the elders, though Sevda shows a determined anger.

“We may well be the last to stand between creation and the devils, but we will never falter!”

Her fire is contagious to Sosir, and he feels as if he could live to be consumed in it.

“I am raising an army in the vales lo-ward. The Nornir there may not be as sinewy and hardened as you are, but your knowledge of siegecraft and war would grant them and their numbers great power!”

A poisonous look darted from Sevdas eyes as he suggested leaving her sworn post, and the elders too seemed none too enthusiastic. To calm the situation Timur continued his history. “These gigantic pinewood beams and walls are filled with the names of countless generations. One time our kind lived in these endless pine forests, perhaps they stood here and were just used up building fortresses, or perhaps they came from elsewhere and the shee merely brought them here.” a tone of veneration carried the words.

“I was born in great pinewood forests. Trees as thick as these beams and greater were as dense as morning mist. Here lived my kin, but also a breed not unlike yourself. Strong and determined, tall as we all are. They too never gave up on oaths. The land had become tamed though, and it was no more the place for me. I left through an ancient portal, something perhaps the gods had left behind. It took me far from the sky scraping pines and the moss and fern soils below them.” He spoke ruefully, to his surprise.

In awe and vehemence the old and ancient listen. Sevda, the brave youth, eyes him with different emotions. Emotions sosir not yet has known, but her spark glows brighter as he tells the tales of his journey. As his tale comes to an end, so does the meal. The fire too glows its last embers, though their hearts glow with a far brighter spark as they share a nest through the night.

The coming days sosir attempts to take the nornir away from the fortress and to share their knowledge in the norn town of his founding below in the vales.

They decline. Honor and determination does not allow them to break the ancient vow to the shee.

In the following weeks Sosir keeps trying to convince the trio to join his militia. He tries to bargain, suggests building a great fortress in the valley, or to educate his norns in their ways and arm them in their manner as to take the fight to the skeletal grendels. Nothing truly works. At first this is only met with some resistance and irritation, but all strongly refuse to break their ancient inherited vow to the shee, and eventually become angry. Sosir simply stops trying after a time.

Sosir stays despite his strong feelings of responsibility to those in the vales. The greatest threat to the awakened people is of his making, and he wants to go back to protect them. He stays for her though he won't admit it to himself.

Torsun had advised him to make notes of all he could learn, and taught him some simple letters. To this end he scribbles and draws what he learns on the inside of the velvety cloak of nornir hair. The lining was starting to look as arcane as the protective sigils and symbols on the outside did, though his notes were of a more practical nature. Fortifications, armor, weapons and even the foodstuffs that could be preserved well in a siege.

Sevda takes Sosir through the burial halls, where the savaged bodies of hundreds of nornir sentinels dried in the ashy frosted mountain air, stacked up on bamboo scaffolding along the high walls and stairs. They take the tall stairs through to the battlements. Walking past many bee skeps Sosir enjoys the sweet fragrance and takes mental notes. For hours they talk, the girl impressively knowledgeable of the insects. The towers and crenelations are decorated with paper lanterns and once-colourful streamers and flags of prayer. Underneath these they stand in the more than playfull winds as she points out the mountain meadows in the distance and bamboo and scraggly pine bushes below.

The elders show him the furred beasts that produce the cheese. To his surprise they are the same as the yettins herd for cheese, despite many days of travel separating the two mountain ranges. As the days stride past he feels his sense of responsibility grow, and his guilt to his retainers as well. 

The tall hardy norns find an armor befitting him, and not a few nights later the threat of a small skeletal horde requires him to use it too. The fight is as short and savage as the first one he witnessed, but in the middle of it all it seems to drag out over ages. At first he struggles in the carapace of bamboo scales and feels suffocated behind the mad looking wooden mask, but as the fight wears on he moves with the weight and flow, and the stone talons become an extension of his paws. The bamboo vest caught the claws and punches, allowing him to fight with absolute fervor. The battle had been won, but Temur had been pulled off the ramparts and Soner was mortally wounded.

After taking the two ancients to the resting chamber, Sevda sent him away. Struggling with her grief and trying to help Soner she could not bear his presence. Exploring the martial monastery alone, Sosir stumbled upon the hold’s infirmary. The nesting material was strewn through the forgotten chamber, pushed towards the cool shade along with the eggs. Shells of a single egg littered the one suntouched spot, but those shells too were touched by the dust of one young life. One small, recent egg seems to have been carelessly placed on the heap of eggs in the back.

Heartbroken, sosir picks it up. Many things now fall into place for him. He cuts the lining of his cloak so the opening can be a pocket. He takes two other eggs and puts the small but weighty things in.

Hoping for an explanation, Sosir scouts the entire castle for Sevda. The halls are cold and deserted. The resting chamber holds only the wounded elder, but his breath has ceased.

The great ceramic gong is heard from the top battlements. Sosir stares out to see a great horde of boney grendels and his heart sinks. Knowing the size of this army, the burden of responsibility becomes too great. With his love shattered, the battle is lost before it will begin. Burdened with the knowledge Sevda lived for her oath and oath alone, there was nothing he could do. 

Trailing back to the bramboo vales he glances back into the onslaught only once. A small figure with fiery red hair rings the great gong, time and time again until it is rung no more.