Elizabeth of Caranth stepped out of Scorpion Keep on a bright Winter morning. She'd arrived with a few weeks to spare until the twin's eighth birthday. Bobo chirped and Elizabeth smiled as she nodded.
"It is a beautiful morning. I know what you want Bobo…very well, just remember there are plenty of hawks and eagles around here. They'd look upon you as a tasty morsel." Elizabeth smiled as she stroked Bobo's head.
Bobo threw herself up into the air and her wings flared out as she began flapping and rose up along the stone wall of the Keep.
Elizabeth watched for a minute as Bobo flew out over the wall to the south of the Keep.
"Morning Elizabeth." Happy said as she came out.
"Good morning Happy." Elizabeth smiled. "How are you?"
"Not too bad. Would you be up for a walk this morning?" Happy asked.
Elizabeth smiled.
"Certainly, you are what my people would call a friend-family." Elizabeth smiled.
Happy smiled and nodded her approval even as they turned and began walking towards the southern gate.
"I hope you are well too." Happy said as they passed through the portcullis.
"I am, thank you." Elizabeth nodded even as she wondered when Happy would ask what she truly wanted.
"Since meeting you after our Lady arrived here, the number of stories I've heard, along with all you seem to know, even much more than normal people." Happy seemed to pause, unsure of her next words. "Are you the wise Lady?" Happy finally asked.
Elizabeth smiled at first and then laughed wholeheartedly.
"No Happy. I'm merely someone who has walked this world in Athena's steps awaiting revenge for a very long time." Elizabeth explained.
"Revenge? What revenge do you need? Can we help?" Happy asked.
Elizabeth shook her head.
"Nay, that task has been settled already, thanks to our Lord's hammer." Elizabeth explained.
"Lord Walter has already gotten revenge for you? I've been beside him since almost the very beginning but I've never seen you with us during any fight." Happy said as she stopped.
"That's because when the revenge was delivered I was with our Lord's parents traveling up to the Keep." Elizabeth said even as her hand pointed off towards the south.
"Didn't you want to be there? Or see it done?" Happy asked.
"In the worst way." Elizabeth said with a fierceness that shocked Happy. "But I had my responsibilities to see to at the time. And I have been obeying Athena for far too long to stop. But I did see it done." Elizabeth nodded.
"I'm puzzled. As best as I recall the only fight we had been part of when his parents were journeying here would have been when we defeated king Merrick." Happy frowned.
"May he be tormented in the foulest pit of Hades." Elizabeth spit.
Happy frowned looking at her as they continued walking.
"If you were south of here when we fought Merrick, how did you see it happen?" Happy asked.
"The skills of the Bard are not my only skills Happy." Elizabeth said as she stopped walking. She gestured for a few moments and Happy watched as something seemed to be taking form in front of them. A disturbance similar to the mirror magic of Sylvester's formed and then as if peering back in time Happy saw the inside of Lord Beyon's castle. Happy could see the back of Merrick, Ralph at his side and Paige bound on the floor before him.
"Bobo, brought me word that my dear friend had been captured and taken to Mahn. I paused our Lord's family and I cast this same spell. I've added a time component to it so you can see what I saw. As I peered in I gave hope to my friend as she lay there on the stone bound and silenced. As our Lord summoned so much of Athena's power it burst into the hall through the cracks of the door." Elizabeth said.
Happy watched as she saw what happened before the door was destroyed. She could hear Bobo through the "window", sounding for all she could tell, like she was rejoicing in that light. She watched as Ralph used the distraction and drove his long dagger deep into Merrick's thigh. And even as Merrick doubled over, screaming in pain, the door was obliterated as Lord Walter's hammer flew in and struck Merrick in the head and his head simply exploded into a mist of fragments.
"Oh how I enjoyed his agony. First as he realized he was witnessing his true death coming for him. And then Ralph drove that blade into his leg. With all his strength, the edge you had put on the blade and the magic Sylvester had imbued it with, that blade pierced his femur completely. And finally the hammer destroyed him in a way that almost nothing could have brought Mahn back." Elizabeth explained and then dismissed the magic before them.
"So, what did Mahn do that you wanted revenge for?" Happy asked in a small voice.
Elizabeth took in a deep breath before she began walking again.
"Not long after Mahn and his people came to this continent they destroyed my home village. I arrived from my post three days later to find it all in ruin. One elder was barely still alive. I was successful in addressing his wounds enough that eventually he was able to tell me what happened. I cared for him and along with the others who arrived, buried the bodies of my family and friends not taken, until he could be moved to another tribe. And then I set out on vengeance." Elizabeth said as her eyes peered off in the vast sky of the south.
"Wait." Happy said as she stopped and looked at her.
Elizabeth smiled.
"The kingdom of Krammer has existed for like two hundred years or longer…how?" Happy faltered. "You don't look like an Elf and you certainly aren't a dwarf."
"I'm not, I was part of the Coos tribe far off to the North." Elizabeth told her.
"Then how? I'm confused…did you drink longevity potions or something?" Happy asked as they stood beside Lake Athena.
"No…very well, it is an involved story. Are you sure you have the time?" Elizabeth asked.
"Oh hell yeah!" Happy almost screamed.
"Well then, if I'm going to share this, then let us go up to the Lord's chambers so I can share this with my friend as well." Elizabeth told her.
As they turned to head back to the Keep they heard a shrill chirp and Elizabeth suddenly turned back even as her hand swept back and pulled her bow off of her back.
Happy watched in amazement as Elizabeth's other hand drew an arrow off the bow and nocked it to the bowstring. A quick pull, and a moment's adjustment of her arms and the arrow sailed off into the sky. Happy looked and saw Bobo flapping furiously and a golden eagle diving towards her. The arrow sailed just over the top of Bobo and struck the eagle in the back, just past where the neck joined the torso. The eagle just dropped even as Bobo flew down to Elizabeth.
"I warned you little one." Elizabeth smiled even as Bobo swooped in and landed on her shoulder.
Bobo began chirping and clicking her beak rapidly.
"I know, that's why I warned you, did you think I was kidding you?" Elizabeth asked.
Bobo ruffled her feathers and clicked her beak and Elizabeth laughed.
"Oh Bobo, one of these days little one." Elizabeth said before petting the bird and they turned to walk back up to the Keep.
Elizabeth stood in the living room of the Lord's chambers as The Lord and Lady, along with Happy sat looking at her. Lady Paige looked radiant as she was in the fifth month of her pregnancy with the twins they would name after Cabe and Allie.
"There is a celestial alignment my people always revered but not as in a good way, but in a sense it needed to be avoided. We called it Caranth. It happens every thirty two years. And I have now seen it pass with my own eyes ten times." Elizabeth said and she smiled as Paige and Happy gasped. "Yes, I am more than three hundred years old."
"My people had medicines that can either induce labor or stave it off for days or even weeks if need be. And any woman who was pregnant and would give birth during the week of the alignment would avail themselves of these medicines. Either to have the child early or to delay it until after. After they learned what the alignment seemed to produce, almost no children in any generation were born during it." Elizabeth smiled.
"Caranth is a word that means contrary of nature." Elizabeth smiled. "And as it turns out, I was very contrary as my birth happened despite the success of the medicines for others. I was born at the peak of the alignment. What this meant of my rebellious self, I didn't seek the way of women in my tribe. I wasn't satisfied with the life of gathering, cooking, cleaning a home and caring for a man or children. Thankfully for me my Grandfather was one of the elders and I was granted a dispensation. I learned with the boys. Many of the children mocked me, but they learned the hard way that was unwise. My bones and muscles grew and toughened and I was challenged as any male in my tribe would be to complete the same tasks required of them."
"To that end as a youngling of sixteen winters I was assigned to a distant watch tower for orcs or other dangers. Every three months I took my monthly post on one of the passes the orcs sometimes would use to come into our valley. The last time I was relieved I came back to find my home, fresh in ruins. Almost a third of who I believed were men from our tribe lay on the ground as shriveled up corpses. Including who I thought were my Father and two older brothers. Most of the women and children were gone, either taken or ran off. Including my Mother and two younger sisters. I found one elder still clinging to life." Elizabeth looked out the window at Selase as she sat listening to her.
"I wasn't a complete idiot at the time, I used the knowledge I had gained from watching my Mother treat the sick and wounded and I was able to bind his wounds and apply herbal remedies to help stabilize him. Once that was accomplished I climbed the tower where our warning gong was and I beat it for three beats, paused and struck it a fourth time, as was our signal. I don't know what other watches were still out there, but they needed to know what happened. When the elder regained consciousness he was in extreme agony. I didn't understand, his wounds were addressed and medicines to relieve pain had been applied and given to him to swallow but still the pain was harrowing for him." Elizabeth sighed.
"Necromantic magic." Walter said sadly.
Elizabeth nodded as she pointed to Walter.
"Of course at the time I didn't know that, I had thought I had remembered wrong. But when the first watch appeared nearly a day later he confirmed I had made the medicines properly. My tribe had over one thousand people and now I was one of eight members left. One of the older watches decided he would claim me as his. The other five began arguing that they should be my mate." Elizabeth looked disgusted. "As if any of them were even slightly attractive to me. Or that I would willingly submit to any of them."
"I could hear them arguing out in the ruins as I cared for the surviving elder. I knew I was going to have to be careful, one on one they had not a chance, but if they tried as a group, I'd probably fail. I picked up my blades and kept them on me at that point. My mind worked with what I knew of, what was left of our village and I had a strategy of fighting and retreat, if it came to it. For now they seemed content to argue and pseudo fight with each other, trying to "earn" the right to take me." Elizabeth sighed.
"At one point the elder had slipped past the pain and into delirium. It was in this state that he was able to relive what had happened and gave me the knowledge of what had transpired. He echoed a word many times, "Mahn". But I had no clue what it meant until he finally said, "The devil Mahn, he was their leader." He described a ghastly green magic that destroyed people, turning them into shriveled corpses. He explained he was using it on him when the house they were in collapsed on him. Mahn had thought he died or wasn't worth the effort to dig him out."
Elizabeth's right fist ground into the palm of her left hand the whole time.
"I knew what I needed to know now and I stood as I cursed our tribal deities for allowing this. As I did, the makeshift door moved and I guess they had finally selected which of them would claim me. Too bad for him. My anger amplified my strength and knowing this was for my life, body and future, I didn't hold back. I struck first, without hesitation or remorse. My blade sank deep into his chest and then I kicked his dying body off my blade and back out of what remained of the hut the elder was in." Elizabeth said through gritted teeth.
"Two of the others began to run over as I stepped out of the hut." Elizabeth said fiercely. "I am not for any of you. Seek to take me and you will be in the cold embrace of death as this fool is. If you wish to live, then take our elder from here and go to one of our sister tribes and seek refuge there." I told them coldly. "The two idiots decided they could take me. And maybe in truth if I had been alone, they could have. But I wasn't alone. As the two continued to charge a small owl swept out of the sky and her claws tore at the second man's eyes and blinded him. The other didn't seem to notice and continued to charge me. My blade emerged from his back a moment later. I kicked his body off my blade as I did the other."
"Anyone else wish to die? I told the others and they all shook their heads." Elizabeth smiled. "Then take this fool and the elder and leave, do not seek me out again." Elizabeth sighed.
"Thankfully they listened and left. I turned and grabbed my bag of what remained of my possessions and began walking south, following the swathe of the horde that had destroyed my home. That is until that small owl swooped in and landed on a tree branch. I smiled at the owl and nodded my head in thanks and reverence. The owl blinked her eyes before clicking her beak and whistling several times. I was well versed in the language of birds by my Grandfather, so I knew exactly what she said." Elizabeth smiled at Bobo on her shoulder as the bird nuzzled her head.
"But that is not to say I wasn't surprised by the depth of her language, nor did I understand it all. Bobo introduced herself and told me if I wanted revenge against Mahn, there was only one way to get it. But she would take me to she who would see it done. At this point I knew that trying to go after someone with that many people with them would be suicidal. So it, at least, made sense to see what this person could tell me. I'd always be able to pick up their trail with ease even if I came back in five years." Elizabeth smiled.
"I'd asked where we needed to go and she said to Middle Sister. Middle Sister is one of three volcanoes at least six days towards the East from where we were. Middle Sister and North Sister hadn't erupted in over ten thousand years, South Sister was still a risk, she'd last erupted less than two thousand years at the time. I nodded and turned as I began walking the path that would eventually take me to Middle Sister. Bobo flew down and landed on my shoulder and she's been my friend ever since." Elizabeth said with love.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! For anyone interested, the Coos tribe is a real native American tribe who lived in what we call the state of Oregon. The Three Sisters are 3 actual volcanoes also in Oregon. Caranth and the myth of it are solely from my Muse.
To the Adventure! -Tim