[center][b]Northern Road - the Septentrion[/b]
[img]http://www.gd3dart.com/images/sunrise.jpg[/img][/center]

Sevryth Lastren woke to a soft green glow pulsing through his staghide tent. He threw off his fur bedrolls and squeezed the grit of sleep from his eyes, exposing his body to the cold. A yawn escaped his mouth as a cloud of frigid mist. The waking world was a cold, miserable place and his cocoon of warm furs beckoned Sevryth back to blissful sleep. But Sevryth was not so easily tempted; Frostmouth Keep remained a full day's ride away and they could ill afford another night camped out in such dangerous country.

Sevryth threw open the tent's flap and was immersed in the truly cold air outside. It was still dark out; only the faintest glow of blue sky could be seen on the eastern horizon. A dusting of frost covered his tent and the grass that crunched underfoot. He took a few steps away from the tents to a sizable stone jutting out from the grass before unbuckling his belt relieving himself. A frothy puddle of piss formed at the bottom of the rock, steaming vigorously in the predawn air. As he waited for his bladder to empty, Sevryth gazed into the sky and watched as ribbons of green light shimmered and pulsed against the stars. These were the lights of the north, a spectacle reserved only for these extreme latitudes. The peasants who still followed the old ways claimed these bands of shimmering light in the northern skies to be the very breath of their ancient god, while the imperial priests professed that they were signs of Kammeth's power and grace. Whatever they were, the lights of the north had never ceased to astound Sevryth. The sting of the freezing air on his member galvanized the Lastren boy from his reverie. He buckled his belt back over his leather cuisses and returned to the tents.

The campsite was a spartan affair; nothing but a pair of tents and two horses tethered to a large boulder. Loud snoring could be heard from within the other tent. Sevryth rolled his eyes as his partner slept loudly; Davan would sleep until noon if he was allowed it.

"Enlightened Brother," Sevryth said in a calm, yet firm voice as he gently shook the tent with his hand. "Time to wake up." A loud, drawn-out groan could heard from within the tent.

"But it's still dark yet, young lord," a disembodied voice complained.

"We have a long ride ahead of us, Brother. Nearly ten leagues by my guess. We must leave now if we wish to arrive before dark."

"Then if we leave at dawn, we'll arrive in time for supper," retorted a groggy Davan.

"I expect you to be ready to break camp shortly," Sevryth said with finality. With that, he left Davan to wake while he set about dismantling his own tent. Sevryth had rolled his tent, packed his supplies, and was halfway through saddling his horse before Davan even emerged from his tent. Davan was but a few years older than Sevryth, but was already a fat man. A pot belly protruded out from underneath his clerical robes. His fine cotton robes, adorned with an orange sash around his shoulders, were an immaculate white - or at least they had been before yesterday's ride. The oil and dirt in his horse's saddle smeared an unsightly ruddy stain on the robe's backside where his buttocks and thighs had rubbed against the saddle for an entire day.

"You should consider wearing trousers, Brother." Sevryth suggested.

"An Enlightened Brother not in the garb?" Davan scoffed. "Do not be ridiculous! A Brother in trousers is no Brother at all."

Many candles passed as Sevryth waited for Davan to pack his tent and bedrolls. The sky above was gradually changing from black to purple to blue as the sun creeped up toward the horizon, banishing the lights and all but the brightest stars from the sky. A band of pink to the east meant sunrise was nigh; had Davan not been so pokey, they could be a half-candlemark down the road to Frostmouth by now. Sevryth strapped the saddle to Davan's horse while he stuffed his tent and bedrolls into his pack in order to expedite their departure. While Davan strapped his pack to the saddle, Sevryth ran his boot across the trampled grass and raked it upright.

"What in holy Kammeth's name are you doing, young lord?" Davan asked.

"Concealing our campsite," he replied. "This is why I don't make campfires - besides the fact that they attract unwanted attention. It is as simple as sprucing up the grass and leaving."

"What difference does it make?" Davan asked as he flopped upon his saddled horse on his belly, twisting about awkwardly until he could sit upright and put his feet in the stirrups. "It's nearly day."

"Even during the day, this is treacherous country," Sevryth replied as he stepped up on the stirrup of his own Varlander steed and gracefully climbed into his saddle. "We must be cautious and avoid drawing the attention of the savages whenever possible." With that, Sevryth pressed his heels into his horse's haunches and spurred it onward. The ride to Frostmouth was on at last.

The sun rose up over the eastern plains, setting aglow the frost-dusted grassland and hills. Sevryth and Davan moved quickly across the land upon their shaggy grey Varlanders. On such hardy and swift-footed mounts, the two travelers quickly reached the road and continued the northward trek where they left off at dusk the night before.

The Northern Road stretched endlessly northward before Sevryth and Davan. The term 'road' might have been unjust glorification, in truth, the Northern Road was nothing more than a dirt path through the grasses and wildflowers barely wide enough for a single oxcart to pass through. Davan, a southerner accustomed to the wide cobblestone thoroughfares that webbed across Ethica from the Imperial Heartlands, was hardly impressed by the rude dirt road that they set out upon two days ago.

"You call this a road?" Davan had scoffed when they departed Vandaster. "I've seen goatpaths that were better maintained than this." Of all the highways in the Empire, the Northern Road was perhaps the most scarcely traveled. There were no settlements of any size north of the seat of the realm. Nearly all the manors and farms in the Septentrion were to be found to the south of the banks of Stony Run where the clime was more agreeable to settled agriculture. There were no towns or cities north of Vandaster for peasants or burghers to travel betwixt. The only things of interest this far north were the Imperial strongholds anchoring Ethica's northernmost boundaries - the small hilltop keep at Ambush Watch and the seaside fortress of Frostmouth Keep. Imperial soldiers on Imperial business were the only ones who traversed this road-less-traveled, and they were fewer every year.

Though the road was crude, it had the benefit of passing through glorious unspoiled country. Before them, the rolling hills ran gently onward, bisected on either side by the unwavering road. Copses of scraggly pines crowned the hillsides. Between the sparse trees, the meadows were painted with patches of wildflowers. A soft cover of purple-pink heather covered the hills, interrupted occasionally by swathes of blue lupines and yellow St. Bandaran's crown. This was pristine land, no sheep had ever grazed upon this country nor had any serf cut this earth with a plow. It was exactly as Kammeth or Tihune or whomever intended, unsullied by man.

"I did not know any country could be so resplendent," Enlightened Brother Davan exclaimed. "To say nothing of as hard of a land as the Septentrion."

"There is a beauty to this realm, to be sure," Sevryth replied. "It is a difficult place to rule and to live. It is a hard country and life can be ugly here, but in consolation the dominion of House Lastren is the most majestic of all."

Many candlemarks of riding passed and the land sloped down to the north. A breeze rolling southward carried with it the smell of the sea, and it wasn't much longer before they could see it. Perhaps a league ahead of them, beyond a jagged coast of headlands and inlets, the sea stretched on endlessly and melted into the horizon. Whitecaps of distant waves could be seen rolling in toward the land; the sound of their crashing against the cliffs was carried southward on the wind.

"The Bay of Lights." Sevryth declared, gently halting his horse to take in the ridgetop vista. He drank in the smell of seaspray on the wind through his nostrils. "We are almost there, Enlightened Brother."

"Praise Kammeth!" Davan exclaimed. "What an arduous journey it has been, but through the grace of our Celestial Father, we have made it."

"[i]Almost[/i] there," Sevryth reminded, spurring his Varlander onward again. "Another two or three leagues remain from this point."

"Three leagues?!" Davan groaned. "You have a queer definition of 'almost', young lord!"

As the road veered eastward, Davan could not help but vocalize his irritation. "You said this was a bay, did you not? A bay of the Eastern Ocean, no?"

"Correct." Sevryth replied. "To our northeast, the Narsland continues northeastward perhaps 150 leagues as a peninsula. Ultimately, this is a gulf of the ocean."

"So why come do we not simply sail to Frostmouth Keep?"

"It is a long distance by ship just from Vandaster, to say nothing of the southern ports like Luzerne or Westport. At the latitudes at the tip of the Narsland, the winds are temperamental and even in midsummer it is easy for a vessel to be crushed by pack ice. I have heard of perhaps two ships making the passage, but many more have sunk in the attempt. It is simply faster and safer to walk overland."

The next two candlemarks consisted of riding along the coast. Here, the wildflower fields of the inland hills gave way to tufts of yellow-green grass interspersed with scraggly bushes of wild roses. Gulls and cormorants cast shadows around the two riders as they glided up on the updrafts coming off the sea. They passed over the ridges of headlands and down through valleys that ran seaward into coves of pebbled beaches.

Then, upon cresting one last ridge, it came into view at last. Frostmouth Keep.

It was situated at a bay where a wide river met the sea. The coastal plain rose gently up toward it until it formed a great hill of a headland half-eaten into the sea. But a great column of rock had resisted the constant crashing of the waves and stood defiant against the sea as a mighty pillar of stone. Waves crashed against this enormous sea-stack, spraying its gray rock with mist. From its rough-hewn trunk rising out of the sea, the column transitioned from rock to fortification. A fortress stood atop this great rock, carved out of the stone in some places and built up of stone bricks in others. This was a castle both sculpted and constructed, done in such a manner that made it seem like the castle was not built by the hands of men, but rather hewn from the rock by forces of wave, wind, and frost.

But built by mortal hands it was - by Imperial stonemasons, the masters of fortification engineering. Parapeted walls of stones circled about the upper reaches of the citadel in an upward spiral, featuring guard towers whose roofs were outfitted with ballistae and catapults pointed outward toward the headland. The only access to the outside world was a single drawbridge that spanned the gap between the headland and the fortress. Should that be raised, the fortress would be impenetrable by even the largest and best prepared army. The only way that such a fortification could ever be taken would be by starving the defenders out. And if that were to be attempted, an Imperial Regiment would surely be sent from the south to relieve the defenders. It was difficult to imagine Frostmouth Keep from being anything but impregnable.

"By the Gods," Enlightened Brother Davan gasped, "what a castle."

"Indeed," Sevryth agreed. "Welcome to Frostmouth Keep, the end of the Empire."

Sevryth galloped up the great hill to the cliff's edge and halted at the edge of the drawbridge. The iron drawgate across the chasm was lowered, and he could see Imperial soldiers in shimmering plate gathering on the ramparts above the gate and behind the drawbridge. When Davan caught up to him, Sevryth raised an open palm to the soldiers gathering above.

"Who goes there!?" An officer called out from atop the gate, his voice barely-ringing out above the ferocious crashing of waves below.

"I am Sevryth Lastren, son of Anastus Lastren, Noble Lord of the Septentrion, Servant of the Phoenix Emperor, Bulwark of the North!" Sevryth's voice echoed against the stone walls before being drowned out by the crashing of waves.

"State your business!"

"I come to escort Enlightened Brother Davan Goriolus to this place, that he may carry out his duties as chaplain! I come also to fulfill my duties in the defense of my father's realm!"

With that, the gates cranked open, allowing Sevryth and Davan entry into the keep. The two riders trotted across the drawbridge, wet and slick from the seaspray, into a small parade ground beyond the gate - which was ratcheted back down after their passage. A cadre of shining Imperial soldiers stood in formation before the two riders. Two small phalanxes of soldiers flanked a stoic, humorless man clad in ornate commander's armor.

"Taxiarchos," Sevryth reported respectfully as he dismounted his horse.

"Glad to have you back at Frostmouth." The Taxiarchos replied. "We're in need of good men out here, and you Lastren boys are as tough as steelpine." The Taxiarchos looked over to the portly monk struggling off his horse, and nodded over to him as if to say 'Who is this oaf'?

"Right. Taxiarchos Otelio, this is Enlightened Brother Davan Goriolus. He has been appointed to serve as our chaplain, to take the place of the late Dawnbringer Doloros."

"Kammeth guide you, Taxiarchos," Davan greeted with a chipper demeanor. "I am eager to see that the will of our Celestial Father is done here."

"Right," Otelio replied, rolling his eyes.

Out from the sky above, a ugly black bird swooped down upon Sevryth's shoulder and began nipping at the scruffy beginnings of facial hair growing on the Lastren boy's chin. It was a large raven, with several patches of feathers missing around its neck and face and a tail of ratty old feathers. It was a wonder the old bird could even fly. In spite of its unattractive appearance, Sevryth grinned with delight as the bird continued nipping playfully at his scruff.

"I take it you recognize him." The Taxiarchos said, watching Sevryth pet the old raven on its mangy head.

"Tatters, my father's raven," Sevryth affirmed. "I'd recognize him anywhere. What's he doing out here?"

A grim frown crawled across the Taxiarchos' face. "When did you leave Vandaster, young lord?"

"Three days ago," Sevryth diverted his attention from Tatters and his eyes widened upon seeing Otelio's unusually dour face. "Why?"

"Then you would have just missed the message. Lord Lastren's raven arrived this morning. He sent me the message that he had received from a raven from the South," the Taxiarchos sighed before continuing.

"Emperor Taramyth is dead."