The Fires of Cerran

Chapter Thirty-Three

The rains soon came, as harsh and fierce as any amongst the company had known. The winds shrieked and howled, the earth beneath them became sodden, the embankments of the roadside became like muddied cheeks or open wounds, bleeding mucked blood onto the plains below. About them, every few miles, hung large signs warning of the infamous hounds that stalked the lands. Ser Ramon, at the rear of the troop, kept a close eye on the plains, but the flats were misted, and his vision dulled from weariness and weather, and shadows and illusions crept upon him more than he wished to acknowledge.

To him, every mound of Earth or misshapen boulder harboured the terrible image of those mire beasts.

Ahead, Lenren kept the troop moving, his robes flowing and flapping in the winds, his hood his only saving grace from the hard rain, which felt to him almost meant for him. It followed them, relentlessly pounding them with the might of an angry god or vengeful spirit. And there was no place to hide, no safe corner to wait for respite, no tavern or inn house to dry your head and rest your ride, here was unbroken land, unconquered and unclaimed. Many had tried, and Lenren recalled stories of men who had set camp on these vicious moorlands, only to have been found, or in some cases lost, to the unforgiving wilderness of which they attempted to tame. He recalled times that the royal carriages had made way East, towards the military camps on the Eastern Edge, heavily armoured and surrounded by loyal men, only to evade these roads and lands as best they could.

Along the way, tattered flags, placed along the right side of the road, offered a sign of hope to any who dared travel these lands. It had become a tradition, to Astriel's mind, when Ser Baydon the brave, hand of King Brodon the Conqueror, had been offered a wager by the first Lord of Sera, to cross the lands alone, with nothing but a sword and a flag to win his daughter's hand in marriage. Ser Baydon was a formidable fighter, a brute of force that was well placed amongst the finest of his time, and he was never to be outdone by a snivelling High Lord. Now, Astriel had read several accounts of this wager, with one from Celtic of Sera, a monk and chronicler, saying that the man came upon Sera after fourteen days carrying the head of a great hell hound in one hand and the heart of an unnamed terror in the other, and that he threw them on the ground at the foot of the High Lord and took his bride to bed her. Others however, such as those written in the hand of Arch Chancellor Valmarion, the first of Arch Chancellor of the West, stated that the men did indeed come upon Sera after some days, though here they were uncounted, whereupon he lay before the High Lord barring the scars of many duels with beasts, and that we was without his right ear, and that he begged to never walk amongst those lands again. In all accounts the man won the wager, but his mental state and the manner in which he did so, varied most often. To her mind, Celtic's version was the greater of the two.

Melran was weary of these lands, she had travelled them before, and she was fiercely motivated to move from them as quickly as she could. About her, the grey lands sprouted only rough patches of twisted vines and sprawling weeds. Bushes that held only dark berries, poisonous to most, hung plentiful within the embankments of the main road. Ahead, the East became clearer, the mountainous regions were wrapped in blankets of thick fog and whirling winds of rain and sleet. Dark clouds moved overheard, and the rain thundered down upon them as they came upon the boglands through which she travelled before. Lenren slowed ahead, beside the road lay a small runestone, now crumbling and being pulled down by the serpentine weeds. He looked down, seeing the Elder tongue etched on the sun-bleached stone.

'What does it say?' Astriel asked as she came upon him.

'Some dispute what The Welling have decided upon, but to most it means only this, forgive us Terinen, Mighty of All, these lands are forsaken to Darkness untold.' He returned, eyeing the misted landscapes about them. Both Melran and Ramon came to them now, and all looked upon the runes and shivered.