Overview
Morning at Dun Dwym turns up a wizard, a woodsman and a spy, and news that the king rode out hunting before dawn. The company follows him over the river into Kildealg, the Blackthorn Wood, on a trail that turns to blood, and comes at last to a Builder arch standing open in a clearing.
The Story Brief
Come morning, they found other strangers. A shell and pearl salesman whom the marked wizard Dirdenach simply called “the spy”. The wizard and his gaunt, emotionless “man”, Chúl, were in Dun Dwym to trade pine trees from an estate he was building on the north shores of the Mwrost for stout white oak which the Balwens are known to nurture in their Blackthorn Wood.
The King had gone hunting, with his hunstman, Llan, it turned out. The Sword of Balwen, Hugh, did not seem happy with it.
Using Dinl-Chi’s roar again, they parted the mist on the rope bride across the river from Dun Dwym to the Blacthorn Wood. Siúlóir used one of his traveling tricks to get them safely across to the woodside.
Pursuing tracks of 2 men and a pig into the forest, they found quickly that they were being followed at a distance by 2 P’ntri. Quickening their pace, but still many hours behind, they noticed trickles of blood on the trail, continuing for over an our of quick movement through the forest.
Finally, they found a poplar tree, exploded near the base, fallen across the road crushing the body of a pig. The trail ahead had something dragged ferociously across it, obscuring all further traces, leading into a dark, hulking grove of ancient, brooding oaks squatted down in a dark circle with their high, wild branches laced together.
The party was saved from encountering “a nightmare” in the parlance of the P’ntri who signaled to them (on account of their Vulfen companion!).
They found the hand of Llan, the huntsman. The front half of the pig had been dragged into the clearing.
Parlaying with the P’ntri, whose called himself Of the Eye, they learned the Huntsman was with an elder P’ntri and that Glenys had continued on alone. The second of the two who had trailed them never showed himself at all.
Moving through the wood behind a P’ntri warrior was a challenge, but they managed it. Finally, they came to a clearing: a builder stone arch, shining in the sunlight, a white, elder P’ntri singing to the huntsman Llan, and treating him with unfamiliar herbal medicine. After some conversation, they determined that Glenys had gone through the awakened Arch. There were flickers of blue awakened light in the Builder stone, but no passage and no Glenys.
Perturbations in the light and a sense that something was pounding against the space in the arch from the other side like a beater on the skin of a bodhran, led Siúlóir to flex his powers and step into the archway, it burning to full life, to vanish through a lens of blue light.
Long, tense, terrible minutes followed.
Finally, the light rushed back into the arch and the Wayfinder and King Glenys tumbled violently out of it, as if thrown, Glenys’ burning silver blade arcing through the air and striking a massive boulder by the little brook, searing its way into the stone before a mighty flash of power set them all back on their heals. The king lay silent, and the siar groaned.
The Company Assembled
Personis Dramatae
Dirdenach and Chúl
Dafydd, Shell and Pearl
Hugh, the Sword of Balwen
Of the Eye
Of the Tree
Llan the Huntsman
Threads
The clearing in Kildealg, and the arch gone dark again. Siúlóir and King Glenys lie where the light threw them. Glenys’ silver blade is buried in the boulder by the little brook, still searing its way into the stone. The flash set everyone back on their heels and the king has not moved. The siar groaned — so at least one of them came back breathing.
Still pulling:
- Whether Glenys is alive, and whether all of him came back through the arch.
- What Siúlóir found on the other side, and what it costs a Wayfinder to fetch a king out of it.
- The blade searing into the boulder, and still lit. Balwen steel does not do that.
- A second Builder structure awake, this one across the river from Dun Dwym. Episode 1’s waking near the Godswood, and the Night Lodge Gods’ hand in it, now has company.
- Something was pounding on the far side of the arch to get through. It did not get through this time.
- The nightmare squatting in the ring of old oaks, which took Llan’s hand and stopped there.
- The second P’ntri, who followed them the whole way into Kildealg and never once showed his face.
- Why a king rode into that wood at dawn, alone, without his Sword.
- Dirdenach and Chúl, still at Dun Dwym buying oak out of Kildealg.
- Dafydd, still selling shells and pearls in a dun whose king has just vanished.