Sworded Tales

Pasts were not something Kurn wished to dwell on, nor were descriptions of deeds accomplished. Give him a task, and he would set to it. There was no firmer judge of a man than to observe him in such trials undertaken — he found it difficult to accept anything that was being said at more than face value and so paid it little heed. As to Erellia’s suggestion, he knew her ‘we’ did not include her, herself; there was little that already escaped her knowledge, so it seemed. Standing around making conversation wasn’t for him.

“Haron,” Kurn motioned the teen to join him as Kurn walked out from under the canopy and back into the rain. “We’re setting camp. Unburden the horses and canvas the gear.”

“Kurn, Haron, leave the horses as they are for now,” Erellia cut through the dampness with a firm tone of command, then her voice resumed its usual timbre, “If you would, please.”

Kurn arrested his exit from the canopy and turned to Erellia, a question for her plans for the evening in his glance, but accepting of her wish. “As you will.”

One of the brown robed men nodded to himself, glad that they were not going to camp here for the night. There were better places and he had thought that they were just using this tent as a rally point. Hopefully they wouldn’t be here long. The priest still served tea as requested, but took the pipe from his mouth and spoke.

“While I’m sure everyone would like to tell their life story,” his firm tone carried well, “I would like to know everyone’s name and something of the skills or profession they have. It makes things easier when the time comes that we may have to rely on those skills as a group. Learned that in the war, as I’m sure many others did.”

“I like to know whom I’m working with,” he added with a smirk, “That being said, let me introduce myself, my name is Marcus of Carroll Keep. I am a priest of Denithrone, though I do have some skill in the magic arts as well. I have been called a great many things, healer, mage, scribe, sage, fair to good cook, and son of a bitch. Though I don’t believe the man who called me that had ever actually met my mother, I could be wrong.”

Marcus shrugged and smoked his pipe, a twinkle in his eye.

The previous, three-way conversation had faded with Erellia’s initial speech; its wake had seen a quick exchange and now this request…one that might finally break the ice that continued to cling to at least some of the assembly.

Seizing the moment and hoping to prevent a renewal of the prior silence, Cheskith spoke next, placing one hand over his heart in the manner that he’d occasionally seen others do when making pronouncements.

“I am Cheskith, Chanter of us,” he began, “Who are called the Silveraean lizardfolk by those of the great open.” It was a perpetual point of confusion that he hoped to forestall.

He continued for the benefit of those who might not have heard the tales of the war. “We who are Chanters have been compared to the bards of the surface, though we see there to be differences profound between us; no song and dance before a crowd. Only the Whisperchant to echo in the soul. And the voice of a Chanter has power in other ways. People and power can both be made to heed it, when there is need.”

And that, he felt, was enough of an introduction. The Denithronian had already implied that the briefer, the better, so he lapsed into silence, letting his hand fall back to his side to indicate that he was done.