The Lady of the Ice Fort

Introducing the Lady

The Lady of the Ice Fort was sharpening her small war-axe. Rulf was personally chosen by her to be her squire and he truly adored her. Rulf was proud to be a relative to the Yorath family because it meant he had a closer connection to her than being just her squire. He knew everything about her from her morning routine down to how she liked to cut her nails. She couldn’t cut her little fingernail though because it was no longer there. Dwarf-Lords took the tradition of chopping fingers off as a shortcut to respect. Her older brother, Blaid, was only twenty four years old and had already become the head of the Yorath family as well as the Dwarf-Lords.

Aneira Yorath, the Lady, was one of the Dwarf-Lords therefore it was obligatory to carry an axe at all times. Her family was the head of this ruthless gang but she was sent north with the Magee Family to the Ice Fort to live with her new “mate” (Yorath family members didn’t get married) and to birth their new child. They lived together for a week until they took her axe…she took their heads in return. Aneira realised she could not do this on her own so she sent word to her brother, Blaid, to send a garrison of Dwarf-Lords from the Yorath Inn to take over the Ice Fort. They succeeded in their endeavours and she took the Ice Fort for herself. She birthed the boy, named him Bledri and loved him unconditionally despite his paternal roots. These were not common achievements of a sixteen year old girl.

She had stormed the Fort and all the fifteen miles around it. Naturally, the villagers and works-men didn’t appreciate big, bearded gang members trudging through their lands and just taking their crops and materials. Only with their trust, could she live out her days in that Fort watching Bledri grow up to the young man he was sure to become. After some time of working alongside the villagers and offering protection, she owned all the villages, farms, blacksmiths, mines, and the forests. Although she had won them over, the Dwarf-Lords were still too rowdy and often more trouble than they were worth. The villagers didn’t take to them so quickly because they kept taking their wives and daughters. Despite these flaws, she kept the Dwarf-Lords with her as her favoured gang members, but she also started a training programme to recruit all the young men legible to be watchmen. She took Rulf as a squire because she knew his father would dispose of him.