RP Session 4: "A Halfday's Ride"

As Rory and Adalric took the lead in their flight and Corson and Rhoderick followed after Lancaelad and Tovrunn, now both perched on Ogre's mighty back, positioned themselves in their pursuer's paths. Passing into a trance, eyes almost rolling back in her head, and with tallow, brimstone, and powdered iron clutched in her fist Tovrunn reached out to Erik to grant her power to fulfil one prayer. To ask the God of the hunt and harvest to lend her power to destroy and foul the land ran against everything her patron stood for, and yet... Erik had once been a man, a man foremost amongst the Rjurik and unlike the gods of old Erik knew what it was to fight a foe.

It was Tovrunn's only hope. And so she reached out. Out beyond the mantle. Out to the heavens.

Lancaelad felt Tovrunn go limp, as if the life were draining from her body. He skin paled, her breath shallowed and she grew cold - so cold that without her armour he could feel it radiating off her meanwhile the riders behind them drew closer and closer and closer. Just as his nerve was threatening to break his betrothed drew in a shuddering gasp of a breath and went through a sudden, jerking range of arcane motion while chanting a prayer in the ancient Rjurik dialect, and with a roar a ball of flame exploded at Ogre's back.

A voice that was not Tovrunn's came from he throat, and it commanded "RIDE" and Lan whipped at his reigns and began the hasty diamond that the druid had instructed, the roaring orb at his heels.

Riding hard ahead, Corson chanced a glance back and saw a trail of flame the height of a man's waist trailing behind the shape of his companions, sending oily smoke billowing into the sky. The riders at their back vanished behind the cloud, and Lan and Tovrunn became nothing but a wavering silhouette against the flames.

For a moment Tovrunn felt it - the edges of a god. She felt blood call out in communion, felt it intermingle for a moment with the font that was its origin. The old father of the forests. At once she sensed the stern disapproval of a father, the protective care of a mother and she felt the roots of her soul begin to loosen from her body. She could see the field, feel the heat of the fire, but it felt like it was at a great distance down a dark tunnel. And somewhere in the fathomless blackness of that dark tunnel the silhouette of a mounted figure, darker than the darkness, turned and watched her.

It was all she could stand. Tearing her eyes from the watcher her awareness burst from the tunnel just as Ogre hammered down the last side of the arrow Lan had scored into the field. Behind them, not far off she could hear the screaming of horses and the shocked cries of men. The flames leaned away from them in the cool winter breeze that rippled the field and whispered to the fallow grass in a voice that sounded somehow familiar - almost like words in a language she'd forgotten.

Them with a snort of frustration and wide-eyed stomp Lan wheeled the massive warhorse and hammered after the vanishing shapes of Corson and Rhoderick.

The small party were riding hard, but Rory could feel fatigue in their face. They lingered when they should make haste, their efforts diminished even as they should double. They were pushing, but they were spent. Little by little the whole group were slowing. Lancaelad on his monstrous charger, now burdened by another rider, was not closing the ground he needed to. Little by little his hope faded that he could get them all to safety.

It was a slow death meted out by the yard.

With the last of her energy Tovrunn cast out a spell to their rear, where the wind would protect the divinely inspired virulence from the worst of the flames. Where men blinded by smoke and horses shocked must be funnelled. They would undoubtedly ride through, but though the spell had served her well, determined foes had broken through it before...

The riders regrouped as the fire began to spread toward them, the orb still rolling ponderously to the west. A couple of the horses shied, swinging their heads and retreating from the flames despite their riders' curses. One even threw its rider in its fear of the flame. The rest quickly mastered their animals, first retreating and then breaking to the east to circle around the flames and return to the chase, redoubling their efforts and plunging into the pall of grey ash with cries of challenge.

As they broke out of the smoke the warriors were at a full gallop, and it was then that a clutch of green tendrils writhed from the ground, wrapping themselves around the horse's legs and dragging them to a brutally sudden halt. Those that halted or stumbled were thrown from their mounts. Others who evaded the spell didn't manage to evade the falling bodies of their comrades, and falling horses thrashing in panic became tangled in the legs of their fellows, bringing yet more down into a heap and into the reach of the vines.

Corson had found his mount surprisingly fresh and his stamina held - he wasn't one of these pampered nobles after all - and he chanced a look back. The squire of the Green couldn't count how many fell, for the smoke and the flame and the growing dark, but after a few seconds he saw the shimmer silhouettes of a paltry six riders still galloping at their backs against the heat-haze of the building inferno that was becoming a too-common backdrop to their flight. The other twenty-some might well recover their mounts if their injuries were not too severe (though he could not imagine that the bone-crunching fall from the saddle at a full gallop would leave most men still hungry for battle) but they would never do so in time to catch up.

It was all Lan could do to keep pace, though he found himself closing the distance to Rhoderick at a dogged pace. More used to sail than saddle, the battle-priest was struggling against both his animal and his own fatigue, and the struggle was going poorly. Lan too chanced a look back, but all he could tell was that there were still riders, though they looked fewer.

The fires behind them were spreading slowly through the fields, but the angry cries of the fallen were swallowed swiftly by the distance. Now far at the rear, what Lancaelad could hear were hooves hammering through the soft sod behind them and they were closing the gap quickly. Ahead Corson and the man who called himself Rory must be nearing almost a mile distant, and Rhoderick was perhaps half that. If their pursuers encircled them it would take precious minutes for their allies to turn back, and worse still Lan had last seen his armour in the Green Squire's arms!

Somewhere in the distance a dark line marked the highway that led to the lights of the City of Endier, but there was no way they'd get there in time. He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead.

Then the knight realised something - the sound of hooves was growing quieter not louder.

Chancing a glance back, trusting Ogre to pulverise his way through the crops for a moment, Lan saw their foes (in far fewer numbers than he'd feared) wheeling and riding back towards their fellows. Did his eyes deceive him? No! It seemed that these brigands' taste for battle had left them now that the numbers were fair.

Relief surged through the knights body and he found a reserve of energy that he'd been holding back for a final desperate fight, and spurred Ogre forward. Perhaps they'd survive this journey yet!

Somewhere on the edge of consciousness, holding on to her spell more firmly than her wits, Tovrunn felt more than saw a glow from the earth itself. Erik's blessings had prevailed this day when all other allies had abandoned them. And with that thought, she lapsed into reverie.End of Session 4