Arphaxad woke up before the caravan master was singing his song. He couldn't sleep much anyway, with all the open sky and wide ground around them. This isn't a proper dwarven hold with its comforting caverns and vaulted ceilings. He will have to make do. Seeing the human cleric bless the red egg from last night and offer it to his god stirred something within the dragonborn. He wasn't a very religious man, but something about the priest's gesture reminded him that he was going on a journey very far away from his adopted family. Where a possibility of danger and death looms close as well as that of adventure. He was in good spirits until the caravan came close to the dark forbidding forest on the way to Lambor's Hold. The feeling of palpable danger was thick in those woods and he could feel it.
He shrugged and shook his head.
No use in acting afraid like a wee kobold...if me da would see me now he would blanch... He cleared his throat and began to recite the only ''prayer'' he was taught in clan Blackstone's halls:
[ +- ] I Am the Warrior
I am the Warrior.
When you see me, I will, most likely, not be attired formally. I will be encased in my steel. It will be dirty, bloody, and battered. I do not have a quick tongue or eloquent speech. I know nothing of the manners of the King's court, or the ettiquette of the formal ball.
I am known by many names. Tank. Meatshield. Fighter. Brawler. Corpse.
I am the Warrior.
I have not the capability, nor the inclination, to hide. I cannot strike from stealth with devastating blows, then fade into the darkness. I cannot incinerate a foe from twenty paces away. I cannot deal death from a distance, safe from the return attacks of my enemy. In order to kill, I must close with the enemy. I see his eyes. I smell his breath. I taste his fear. And he tastes mine.
I cannot bend Nature to do my bidding. I cannot tap into the Nether and force it to do what I command. I cannot study the arcane and master it to my control. I command nought but my mind, my body, and my will. It is by those, and those alone, that I stand or fall.
I have no friends on my journey. No walkers of the void, summoned from the Nether as servants and bodyguards. No loyal beasts of the plains or woods, to defend me and comfort me in my pain. My sole companion is my weapon. I must care for it better than any hunter has ever cared for his beast. I must master it more than any warlock has ever mastered his demon. Without me, it is useless. Without it, I am nothing.
I cannot heal. I cannot shield. I cannot call upon the gods and see my prayers answered. I call to the spirits of my ancestors in the heat of battle, and they are silent. My only ability to protect is to offer myself, my blood and bone and sinew, as a sacrifice. To draw the attacks of our foes. To take the blows that would kill a lesser being, and continue to fight on.
I cannot kill with the speed and grace of the rogue, the suddenness and shock of the hunter, or the flamboyance and power of the mage. When I kill, it is a slow business. Slow and bloody for all concerned, myself included. I fight on, pummelled and battered so that my companions may receive the glory of the kill and the wreaths of victory.
If I die and they yet live, it is an expected sacrifice.
I come in all races, all sizes. I fight under a thousand flags, on a million battlefields. I am dismissed by the highborn, scorned by the noble, lectured by the priest, and forgotten by the peasant. Until the time when the trumpets of battle sound, and those who would destroy them come forth. And then the cry goes up..."Where, oh where, is the Warrior?"
Pray to your gods that I continue to answer that call.
Few do answer the call. Fewer still survive. It is a long and hard road, this way of the Warrior. Along it lie pain, and fear, and death. Scant rewards and scanter gratitude. At the end, for most, is an anonymous grave on some windblown battlefield. If they are lucky.
And yet, I fight on. I do not even know why. Perhaps for glory, perhaps for fame, perhaps for money, perhaps for my country, perhaps for my family. Perhaps it is simply all I know how to do. But fight I will. Whether you appreciate it or not. Whether you even notice it or not. I will be out there, on the battle lines. Fighting. Killing. Dying.
I am the Warrior.
Death is my business.
Be it yours...or mine.
He finished the poem just as the whole group of travellers have risen. He packed up his bedroll, stretched a couple more times and took a simple breakfast from his rations. He listened as the blue-skinned mage and the half-elven bard mused about the legends surrounding the forest they were about to go through. Dragons, goblins, kobolds. All talk of legends. Even If those tales become tangible he would be ready for it. But first we got to do something about food around here...the stew was good (well I made it) but we need more before we can go into those woods who knows how long we could be there?
With his mind set, Arphaxad lumbered over Mork and asked him, '
'Hail caravan master! I wonder if we have time to forage for more food around here before we go in there,'' he gestured towards the tall trees of the forest.
''I reckon we would nae be able to hunt inside that while we move unless I'm mistaken and the legends of the forest won't take too kindly to it?''OOC:
Thinking of looking at the edge of the forest and maybe using my Survival skill to get some food Yay or Nay?
Last edited July 20, 2021 6:18 pm
