The Huntress and Disaster

With my enemies massing I decided I needed some time away from the Kingdom.  I would have considered myself a coward for fleeing but my ego had left me having been long shed so that I could find peace at night with the things I have done in the name of service.  I traveled for the port city of Crisfield with the Woman at my side.  A couple of sundowns of isolation would serve to bolster my confidence and allow me the breathing room to divine a plan of counterattack.  We spent our time on the water, our small boat traversing the canals cut into the wild marsh, my own thoughts deconstructing the alchemy happening around me, the flitterings of many small dragonfly, the peaceful but raucous giant cicada calling to its companions, and the unfathomable plans of the jumping spiders plotting in the reeds around us.  I had nothing to fear from these creatures aside from the bloodthirsty mosquitoes and the biting flies abandoned by their demonic masters so long ago and left to rot out their days in our plane of existence.  My absence while sanctioned by my Lord had left a void as the Mage also traveled.  His eyes toward his own homeland, his cabal of wizards.  It was the Huntress that had stepped up to take charge of our band.

The Huntress
    The Huntress was a traveler, a mercenary like the Ronin.   However unlike the Ronin who used his stealth to advantage the Huntress ensured she was seen.  Her fiery temper and ability to take charge of any situation ensured she was forefront of any fray.  Confrontational and obstinate she frequently battled for control with the Barbarian but had come out the victor this season.  My Lord and his like had been impressed by her confidence, by her ability to lead and had asked me to elevate her to position which I had not minded in the least.  It is she who had overseen the disaster that was too come.  

     Myths are powerful things.  They can remind us of lessons lost, they can warn us of future dangers, and they can charm us into believing we can be better.  A forgotten myth is even more dangerous.  It had been a long time since we have had an attack and when it came we were not ready.  The Barbarian had been on routine assignment, his cart loaded with the Giant, the Ronin and a Squire we had just begun to test.  A quiet lad who had been on the job barely a month.  They had not seen it coming.  They had not heard the roar of her wings or felt the heat of her breath before she was upon them.  It was a cataclysmic strike.  The great beast focused on the Barbarian finding him to be the greatest threat.  She dove into him.  There was a crash as she plowed through the timber of the sturdy forest trees and then the upended the cart itself.  The Giant and young Squire went flying, the Ronin managed to stay inside as the wooden cart righted itself, his extraordinary agile body managing to keep pace with the motion.  The Giant was up first.  His peaceful nature shed itself as if the molting skin of a spider, replaced only with rage.  The Ronin too was on the battlefield, his eye on the fallen Barbarian who did not move and this great creature before him.  She did not move and only then could they see what had hit them.  A dragon.  It was elderly even for those creatures that did not measure time as man would.  There was no fight here.  She did not move.  The Giants anger faded when he saw the state of the once great creature.  Knights from the Kingdom were already arriving having seen her on the horizon and they too could do nothing but stare.  It was not long before the Huntress too was on the scene.  The clerics had now arrived and were taking the now conscious Barbarian to the temple to heal, his wounds severe but not life threatening.  She accompanied him there, these two who would be enemies now found themselves reluctant companions in battle.  Of the Dragon I can not say.  She had not died in that crash, the Knights had taken her without incident to wherever a Knight could keep a dragon.  This story is surely not over.