Beyond the Western Deep

Fall of the Evyn-din

There were three Canid soldiers, one with his bow drawn. Sunlight cast down soft pillars through the conifers, motes of dust shimmering within like minerals. The Canid soldiers in the clearing didn’t notice it. Neither too did the pair of Ermehn warriors frozen in their line of sight.

“Couple a’ fine heads for our walltops, eh?” The Canid patrol leader smirked at his quarry. The Ermehn warriors had been hunting grouse, but Bevan and Kraith had not expected to find themselves being hunted in the same fashion.

“Actually,” Bevan spoke up, trying his hardest to remain calm in the face of near-certain death. He gestured to his hunting partner and closest friend in the Northern Wastes, who stood frozen beside him. “Kraith’s head is actually kinda small? Not sure if you keep score or get bonuses or anything, but it’s definitely not worth full value.”

The Canid patrol leader looked slightly taken aback by Bevan’s calm demeanor, but quickly recovered, drawing his sword in a deliberate, slow arc. “I’m sure a few days in Deltrada will cleanse you of that… ill-advised sense of humor.”

“I thought you just wanted our heads?”

“Only after they’ve talked, first.”

“Talked?”

The other two soldiers began to fan out.

“To tell us where your tribe is hiding. So we can destroy it.”

Bevan’s eyes darted back and forth. There were four avenues of escape from death in that forest clearing — one of which involved surrender, so Bevan discounted that immediately. Three avenues of escape, all with pretty high probabilities of–

“Bevan?” Kraith was shaking a bit. Bevan held out a paw, trying to calm him.

“Hey, c’mon, just relax. I’ve got three–”

A Canid stepped a few steps too many to his right, blocking a path out of the clearing.

“–two ideas. Just need to trust me.”

Kraith’s paw clenched suddenly, whatever fear there had been now replaced by rage. “I’ll not let them take us, Bevan.”

“They won’t.” The young Ermehn lowered his stance, preparing to strike out — but Kraith was already moving.

No!

Kraith pushed past Bevan, drawing his blade and charging the bow-wielding Canid soldier. The arrow found him before he could so much as scream, and Kraith fell to the ground in an instant, life completely ripped from him in a matter of moments.

Time seemed to stop, stretched out in Bevan’s mind to an impossible length. The Canid soldiers had their gaze fixed on the mad Ermehn that had mindlessly charged them — but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The moment ended. Time moved quickly to catch up.

Bevan pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it at the Canid soldier nearest to him. It was a sloppy throw, but he was close enough where it didn’t matter. The Canid clutched uselessly at the dagger in his chest, stumbling over to the closest soldier for aid that both knew would never come. Bevan ducked, lunging off his front foot and throwing himself headlong into the underbrush alongside the clearing. A Canid archer could reload their bows in a matter of seconds, but the extra benefit of the stumbling soldier in their path bought him another second or two — just long enough for him to slip between the trees and make himself a hard target.

Dammit, Kraith!

Bevan swerved between the trees, hearing the telltale thunk of arrows hitting just a bit too close for comfort. He knew this part of the forest well — enough to know that any direction he ran resulted in the trees thinning out enough for the archers to get a good shot in. And with a Canid archer chasing you, one good shot was all they needed. There was a marsh to the west that would drag him down to his doom, a river to the east filled with deadly pikes, and a birch forest to the south that provided less cover than an open field. No, Bevan needed to go back north — back the way he came. That meant he either needed to somehow slay two heavily armed and armored Canid soldiers who were easily twice his size, or find a way past them.

Guess we’re going up, then!

The Ermehn leapt high, sinking his claws into a nearby conifer and scrambling quickly into the leaves above. It was a short climb, but the foliage was dense enough to mask him from all but the most intent of observers. Unfortunately, Bevan knew, his pursuers were quite intent.

The madness and chaos of the last minutes quickly melted away into an eery silence. Bevan had gotten far enough ahead of the Canid where they wouldn’t be directly behind him anymore. Still, the forest was wide enough and the Canid senses keen enough where his slightest wrong move could alert any of them, and once a Canid howled for aid, that was the end of it — the sound carried across the valleys, capable of alerting any nearby Canid patrol, or, if there was a garrison nearby, an entire regiment of bloodthirsty troops just itching to mount a few more Ermehn heads on their battlements.

Bevan took a moment then to steady his breathing, catch his breath, and give himself a half-moment to grieve for his best friend.

Oh… Oh gods…

He felt tears welling up — but he pushed them back down. He slammed his eyes shut and grit his teeth.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Bevan had known him since they were young. Kraith’s tribe, the Havran-din, was a small five family village that had been on the brink of starvation after a particularly bad frost near the northern rim. Bevan’s uncle, Evyn, Champion of the Evyn-din, had saved them from death. The Havran-din allowed itself to be absorbed into the larger tribe, abandoning its name and legacy for the Evyn-din without so much as a drop of blood spilt.

Kraith had been like a brother to Bevan — the two of them near inseparable their whole lives, going on hunting trips and scouting runs together in the most dangerous parts of the Wastes. He was the one who had recommended traveling farther south to hunt grouse, even though that meant the possibility of encountering Canid soldiers encroaching on Ermehn territories. Even though it meant the possibility of death.

Kraith had laughed it off. They’d never gotten caught before.

Wait. Wait!

There. The remaining pair of Canid soldiers were below him. Bevan clenched his paw tight around another dagger. He had two left in his belt.

Close. Very close.

He held his breath.

One of the soldiers’ ears perked up.

“In the tree!”

But Bevan was already descending. The two Canid spun around, the archer raising his bow. Bevan twisted to the side, drawing his dagger back as the arrow flew — it slid past him, missing by a hair. As the arrow slammed into the tree, Bevan’s dagger slammed into the archer Canid’s chest.

The two collapsed to the forest floor, sending a cloud of brown, dried pine needles into the air. Bevan was quick to recover, but couldn’t free his dagger from the fallen soldier. The nimble Ermehn ducked under a sword slash — the remaining soldier was already advancing.

“Well, hold on, let’s maybe talk-?” Bevan tried to play for time — any time — but as his paw reached for his last dagger, the Canid soldier charged him, kicking him squarely in the chest and sending him sprawling backward onto the ground. The air had been knocked from his lungs, and the dagger from his paw.

Uh oh.

He couldn’t move. The Canid soldier approached slowly, with an air of superiority — not too surprising, considering. The sword swung this way and that, perhaps in an attempt to instill fear. “Still want to talk, Ermehn? I’m thinking I’ll cut out your tongue first. How’s that sound to you?”

“Well, let me tell you what I think.” Bevan grabbed a pawful of the dried pine needles and threw them up into the Canid’s eyes. He yelped in surprise and recoiled in pain — it was more than enough time for the Ermehn to roll away from the expected blind slash and grab his dagger in the process. He raised his eyes. The Canid soldier was tilting back his head, getting ready to howl.

“Oh no you don’t-!” Bevan threw his last dagger, piercing the soldier’s neck before so much as a sound could be uttered. The Canid grabbed at the dagger, stunned, before falling backward to the forest floor. The pine needles jumped up in a cloud once more, then settled. The forest was quiet again.

*           *           *

Bevan was unable to bring Kraith’s body back to the Evyn-din, instead opting for a small improvised burial in the forest. A small mound of stones near the river would mark his friend’s resting place, though the Ermehn knew that he would never be able to visit it again — at least so long as the Canid remained in these lands.

When he returned to the Evyn-din, the tribe was furious. Evyn called for retaliation — a direct attack on none other than Deltrada Garrison itself.

“How exactly do you plan on scaling the walls?” Bevan asked. He was standing in Evyn’s tent, a crude map of the garrison drawn in the dirt at their feet. “You’d need to move in under cover of darkness, maybe have someone drop a rope-”

Evyn waved a paw dismissively. “We’ll have no need for a sneak attack. I’ve summoned for aid from the neighboring tribes. Anyone who can fight, will fight. We’ll attack the garrison just like Oran attacked that one to the west.”

Bevan rolled his eyes. “Oran got lucky and he still died. Deltrada’s the best-defended garrison in the Wastes. You’re not thinking this through, uncle.”

“And you’re letting Kraith’s death turn you soft!” Evyn sneered. “This isn’t Sunsgrove, nephew. The Ermehn fight for what’s theirs. We have to, or the Canid will keep taking… they’ll keep taking our land. They’ll keep taking our sons and daughters. They’ll take everything.”

“So you’re planning to counter that by… throwing your own life away?”

“We’ll have the numbers, and we’ll have the gods on our side.” Evyn looked to the others in the room — other warriors, tacticians, and advisors. Evyn was their leader — their Champion. He could do no wrong.

“Sounds like you won’t be needing me, then,” Bevan muttered, quietly exiting the tent. Nobody tried to stop him, content to continue their planning with the crude map.

The camp was silent; most of the others huddled around a few smaller campfires scattered about. The Evyn-din was large and powerful, but still subject to the same weather as everybody else in the Northern Wastes.

“You know they’ll fail.”

Bevan turned to face the voice. It was an Ermehn he’d never seen before, dressed in a tartan kilt with tattooes belonging to no tribe he was familiar with. He sat before a nearby campfire, back propped against a log.

“What makes you say that?” Bevan asked the stranger.

But he didn’t say anything in response, simply lowering his head the slightest bit, a knowing roll of the eyes.

“Yeah, who am I kidding?” Bevan sighed.

“You’re not planning on joining them, are you?”

“I don’t believe I’ve much choice in the matter, being the Champion’s nephew and all.”

The stranger shook his head. “You are a free Ermehn. You have a choice, same as us all.”

“Us all?” Bevan raised a brow. “To what tribe do you belong?”

“A rather fascinating one, actually,” he said. The stranger stood up and approached Bevan, never breaking eye contact. “My name is Hardin, and I can assure you that my tribe would never throw its best warriors’ lives away on petty revenge.” He looked behind Bevan at Evyn’s tent, then crossed his arms in dismay. “Your Champion would throw your skills away on a pointless suicide mission, and that would be quite a waste. You’re a rather exceptional scout, Bevan. I heard you slew three Canid soldiers in the southern forests today.”

“Three daggers, three Canid.” The scout sighed. “But I lost my friend.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Hardin said, sounding like he’d had to say it countless times before. Without missing a beat, he cleared his throat and put a paw on Bevan’s shoulder. “But don’t let your uncle throw your life away. Join my tribe.”

“You’re recruiting?” Bevan grinned. “Look at my tattooes, Hardin. I’m Evyn-din.”

“That will most certainly be a problem,” Hardin said, his voice cold and absolute. “The Evyn-din won’t be around after tomorrow, but the Sratha-din will. The Evyn-din will crash against Deltrada like water against the cliffside, while the Sratha-din will bide its time before taking back what’s ours. The Evyn-din will be repelled, and your entire tribe will be destroyed by Canid vengeance.”

“You seem awfully certain of our inevitable failure.”

“We’ve seen it before,” Hardin said. “Oran tried taking a Canid garrison and failed. Now the Canid march on our lands, seeking out any tribe it deems a threat and destroying it. Your tribe would stir the hive once more, and the repercussions will be even worse than before.”

Bevan shrugged, sitting down on the log before the campfire. “Well, I can’t do too much about it. I’m not the Champion. I don’t make these decisions.”

“Then join my tribe,” Hardin said. “I promise you that if you stay here, Bevan, you will perish tomorrow at the foot of Deltrada. You will be but one of countless other Ermehn corpses to be thrown into Canid grave pits and forgotten.”

“Comforting thought,” Bevan said, rolling his eyes. “I could convince my uncle, perhaps-?”

“There’s no convincing a foolish warrior to avoid a glorious battle,” Hardin said. “Come tomorrow, the Evyn-din will be pariahs of the Northern Wastes, their very markings a symbol of Ermehn folly.” He nodded to Bevan. “Your tattoos will show you as complicit in their plan, an Ermehn who refused to listen to reason and set the race back a hundred years.”

Bevan mulled this over for a moment, then a thought struck him. “Actually-…” He held up a claw to Hardin, signaling him to wait. He stood abruptly, then quickly made his way into his tent on the other side of the camp. There, in a crate along with a handful of well-balanced daggers (which he took) was a cloth cowl — a gift from Kraith to help him hide in the tall shrubs in the southern wilds of the Wastes. He pulled it on and threw up the hood.

“If you see me like this,” Bevan asked, returning to the fire, “to what tribe do you think I belong?”

Hardin looked amused. The Evyn-din tattoos were unique on the face, but everywhere else were the generic “charm” tattoos of the southern tribes, wishing for good health, good hunts, strong children, things of that nature.

“I’d say you look like you’ve got something to hide,” Hardin said. “But it works. If you’re insisting on keeping your face markings.”

“I am.” Bevan dropped the hood. “If I’m to abandon my uncle the day before battle, I’ll carry these to my grave.”

Hardin stood, brushing the ash from the fire off his kilt. “Then you’ve decided?”

“What, to die in a pointless battle or join a tribe with a plan?”

“You’ve made the right choice.” Hardin gestured to the edge of the camp. “We’re half a day’s journey to the southwest.”

Bevan nodded, putting the hood up once again. “Then we’d better get going.”

____________________________________

I hope you all enjoyed this last hiatus story! Starting next week, we’ll resume Song of the Eastern Sands, picking up right where we left off!

Before I reveal this week’s awesome guest art, I wanted to share a fun little announcement from my friends at League of Geeks:

That’s right! ARMELLO: FURRY ROAD, coming soon to… oh, right, it was announced on April first! So, it’ll be coming out on absolutely NOTHING! :)

For guest art this week, I wanted to share some incredible artwork from Veigue! There’s a concept floating around on Veigue’s blog that I’ve been loving — basically a Western Deep-themed JRPG (albeit with some human characters and magic thrown in for good measure)!

There are a lot of great character-specific posts that I’ll share hopefully in the coming weeks, but one fun thing about these new pieces is his integration of older characters from the now-on-ice “War of the Western Deep” concept Rachel and I had back before we started publishing the main Western Deep story online. Finn (the Lutren) and Mirren (the Tamian) are both holdovers from that.

My favorite element of Veigue’s amazing pieces is always going to be the color. Everything pops and feels so vibrant — which fits the world to a “T”. We love your work, Veigue, and look forward to seeing more in the future!