Session 1 : The StridersAlthough they have long abandoned their nomadic ways, the Ten Tribes of the Oak are still migratory within the territories they have settled. For instance, the Nine Ravens Tribe camp throughout the season of fire at the village of Thorned Nest near to the banks of the Maruto River, but they are always careful about moving the entire tribe to Silent Waters before the time of Concordance which ends the season of Fire. Early in the month of Descending Fire, a group of 7 tribesmen set out from Deep Hollow to make their way to Silent Waters, bearing news that the tribe were preparing for their annual journey to the autumnal home. The group was led by Cunning Mantis, who was already earning a reputation as a hunter to match that of his brother, Rahaen. With him were his friend Sharp Rock, the diminutive Little Bird, the two brothers Lazy Log and Hungry Hog (who were well-liked in the tribe, even though they were clearly shiftless), their sister, Pi Yen, and Jao, son of Jiun. Although Jao is the oldest of the group, he has yet to be named. The shaman Whispering Leaves, who raised him, has not yet come to a conclusion as to the right name for his quietly competent nephew. At the age of 25, Jao is wiry, almost gangly, and moves with a certain grace. His broad face is dominated by the impression given by a pair of boss eyes. Like his companions, he dresses in armour made of hides stretched over an ironwood frame and carries a spear, a skinning knife and a coup stick. He also carries a message for his cousin, Wary Monkey, who leads the caretakers at Silent Waters and who has been instructed by the shaman to keep an especial eye out for the rare Maruto mushrooms which grow in the hills around it. The shaman himself is away to the north, visiting Listening Skull, the shaman of the Bone Faces tribe. But Jao will not see Wary Monkey this day. As the group are crossing a broad dell in the rainforest, Jao becomes aware of a strange silence beyond the watering hole. Signalling to Cunning Mantis to wait, he shins up a tree to look. In the tall grasses beyond the watering hole he can see the ripples of two moving creatures - mansize or larger - which have now turned and are heading straight for the tribesmen. Jao slides down and signals this to Cunning Mantis, who divides his spearmen in three hides on the ground, telling Lazy Log to take Pi Yen up into the trees to wait there. Jao crouches in a bush, silently waiting. But the silence is broken by Hungry Hog who has chosen a cover containing wasp vines and is unable to keep still. His agitation draws the approaching tread of the creatures and when Jao peeps from hiding he sees a pair of claw striders - their monstrous reptilian heads, big as an ox's, hanging low and their tails held out behind them for balance. Hungry Hog moves again and then one of the striders is on him, clutching with its mouth and kicking with its viciously taloned feet. Despite herself, Pi Yen screams and then everybody is moving at once, tribesmen spilling out to face the striders. Jao comes rushing out, too late to save the now dismembered lad, and the other Strider comes rushing towards him. He leaps back before the creature, slashing ineffectually with his spear, which grazes off the thick plates of hide that cover it. Meanwhile, Cunning Mantis has dropped his spear low and caught the other strider on the tip as it charged him, using its weight to drive the point into its soft underbelly. But the beast rears its full weight against the spear, biting and clawing at its tormenter. Faster than the strider, Jao ducks behind the tree, poking his spear through a gap in the branches and cutting the beast twice. Lazy Log throws down a rope to help him climb up, but instead Jao takes the end and ties a noose in it, then swings round the bulk of the tree to loop the end over the chunky plates of the retreating creature's tail, trapping it. The strider sets its feet into the earth and begins to strain against the tree, the ash creaking as its roots pop out of the ground. Jao rushes out and drives his spear deep into the strider's unprotected flank. Engraged, the beast turns and comes lunging for him, biting once, twice, and eventually catching his shoulder with its terrible jaws. Jao drops his spear. In the background he hears the sharp wooden crack as Cunning Mantis's ironwood spear-shaft breaks and the other strider falls on him. The beast at Jao's shoulder shifts its jaw, preparing to crush his ribcage down into his lungs. And time slows to a crawl. Jao's vision darkens and for a moment day becomes night, the pale light of the silvery moon caressing all the landscape. The passing insects have slowed to a crawl. Even the strider preparing to bite down is barely mobile. And Jao is suddenly aware of another figure in the clearing - a pale man, effeminate and impossibly beautiful, who stands placidly amidst the carnage, watching Jao with knowing eyes. The youth is far fairer than even the loggers who come from the western lands beyond the forest. He is speaking to Jao and says something further, which Jao cannot understand. And then he smiles and Jao knows that this pale youth is proud of him. Time is nearly motionless now as the figure steps closer to him, leaning over the body of the strider to leave a single clear kiss, fresh and cool as the light of the new moon on the wondering man's brow. And then he turns and steps out of Jao's field of view. Jao looks down at the strider. Very calmly he puts his hands on either side of his head, gritting his teeth as his right arm grinds in its wounded socket. Then with great calm deliberation he drives his fingers into the creature's eyes, pushing deeper and deeper into the soft tissue beyond until their tips meet in the middle. The strider's jaw flops open and its heavy body collapses. It flops helplessly on the ground before him, and he barely staggers out from being caught by its weight. Blood covers him and the corpse in a great wash and he can no longer tell how much is the beast's, how much his own. He looks up, but the pale youth is gone. Cunning Mantis is dead, ripped apart by the other strider, which is thrashing on the ground with a spear driven through its gut and out the back. Jao is suddenly starving. He drops to his knees and his knife slices open the belly of the strider before him. Hungrily, he drags out the entrails, scrabbling amongst its ribs until he finds the still-warm heart, from which he wrings the tasty, tasty blood. By the time the feeding frenzy passes, he rises to find that the second strider has regained its feet. The beast faces him, pawing the ground, preparing for one final charge, and Jao could swear that he can sense fear in this remorseless predator's eyes. The strider charges, and as it comes, Jao leaps backwards. In midair, he catches the rope that still joins the tail of the dead strider with the bulk of the tree. He loops the rope in his hands and drops it over the charging creature's head, ending up atop its shoulders, hauling back with all his might. There is a loud snap and then the second strider drops lifeless beside its mate. Jao releases the rope and looks down at his hands. To his surprise, they are covered with a fine layer of scales and their four fingers are articulated in two opposable pairs. That's strange, he thinks as the blood leaves his head and he topples to the ground. The dream only lasts moments, but it feels like hours. The full moon hangs over a silver'd forest. He is running through the forest. It feels like hours. Amongst the tangle of leaf and shadow he spies what he is seeking, its armoured eye swiveled to look at him. A chameleon. A voice, sweet as a lullaby, whispers in his ear, "Exalted...." He comes to. The three survivors of his kinfolk are debating what to do. Lazy Log thinks he is a demon. Pi Yen is worried that he's hurt. Sharp Rock cuffs Lazy Log upside the head, telling he's a fool, it's obvious to all with a brain that brother Jao is one of the forest gods. And indeed, an observer might well think that. For where Jao was tall before, he is now even taller, but no longer skinny, instead wrought of great cords of muscle. His skin is a rich grey-green like the leaves of the Forest Oak and covered with tough, tiny, interlocking scales, and a long, articulate tail trails from the base of his spine down to his great curved feet with their pairs of opposable toes. Jao opens his eyes, now independently mobile, and peers at his three kinsmen . They do look tasty. But he knows them and it seems beneath his dignity to dine on them. Besides, what he really hungers for is ... Chameleon. There is one hanging in a tree above the lagoon, catching flies. It does not even hear Jao as he scales the far side of the tree, not until it is too late. At the last moment, the chameleon leaps from its branch for the safety of the tree beyond, but Jao's tongue snakes out to catch it and draw it back in to the crunch of his jaw. Its blood is sweet and heady, not like the acrid blood of the striders, and with that blood comes memory, a sense of identity. A glimpse of a lost love, a lost world, a fabulous golden city where manlike reptiles in decadent garb walk the avenues and promenades. The vision ended, Jao returns to his folk, comforts them. Reassures them. He carries the bodies of Cunning Mantis and Hungry Hog up into the high branches of an ironwood tree where he lays them out in nets so that the birds, children of the sky, may take them back into the heavens where the dead sojourn. From atop that mighty tree his gaze runs away west to where the forest gives out and the fires of the westerners besmirch the sunset sky with soot. To the north, the forest stretches illimitable. To the east it breaks against the side of a pair of mighty mountains, rising on the north of the river. And as his gaze swings south he shivers, remembering a darkness. He sings the funeral rite for Cunning Mantis and Hungry Hog, and from the lower branches the three survivors join his song. The night is late by the time they reach Silent Waters. The three tribesmen move through the darkness with less fear than they otherwise would, for there is a god amongst the trees and he watches over their path now. It is in the last wood, before the barrier of wasp-vines and ironwood fencing that rings the camp, that they first smell the burning - not hearth-fires but something more prolific, more sinister. Jao tells the others to follow cautiously, then bounds into the woods. Silent Waters has been raided. The exterior fencing has been scorched into a bone-white ash and the camp is deserted. At the east end, near the great Pool of the Falls, where the site's spirit guardian dwells, there are three burial mounds - one larger and two smaller. Jao scrapes away a little earth until he uncovers the hand of one of the corpses - fingers thick with spearman's victory rings, carved from ironwood. He recognizes the trappings of the Green Shadows, one of the corrupted tribes who provoke war to take slaves, whom they sell to the westerners. Replacing the earth over the body, he instructs his three followers to do what they can to tidy the site, appease the spirit and ensure adequate burial for anyone whom the Green Shadows may have missed. And then he goes into the forest, finds the trail of the slaves and their guards, and begins to run. From the tracks, Jao correctly determines that there are a little over two dozen of his tribesfolk prisoner, and that they are tied or chained together, being marched single file. Their captors appear to be 16 in number - with half of them guarding the prisoners and the others spread out in a loose ring around the line. The trail leads west-northwest, pressing hard for Green Shadows lands. The slavers have a good lead on Jao but the Exalt is much, much faster. Before the moon has sunk below the treetops he is within hearing range of his quarry. Taking to the trees, still in his beastman form, Jao silently leaps from branch to branch, taking a long cut round the enemy formation and placing himself in the branches over the trail ahead of them. The outer ring of scouts passes beneath him and then he can see the slave train. The Nine Ravens men and women are bound at the wrist and have their ankles hobbled. A burlap sack is bound over each of their heads. The train is led by Ari Jackalstooth, a famous warrior of the Green Shadows who killed a jackal with his bare hands when he was only 12. As he passes beneath him, Jao drops off of his branch, hanging by his chameleon tail, and hoists Ari into the air, throttling him. He then smashes the unconscious warrior into the man next to him, knocking him out too. A guardsman hurls a spear and Jao drops to the ground to avoid it, flipping over to land on his feet. Guards come rushing towards him and the young Lunar extends claws of sharp bone from the tips of his fingers, then rushes to meet them. The struggle that follows is short and clearly one-sided. Jao ends up with a couple of shallow spear cuts. The Green Shadows end up with eleven dead or maimed, and five fled into the woods in terror. In the melee, Jao has cut loose some of his kinfolk and they are already freeing each other and gathering up the spears and knives of their former captors. Green Briar, whom Jao freed first, tells him that Wary Monkey was amongst those slain in the attack on Silent Waters. Jao kills all of the wounded slavers, except for Ari Jackalstooth, who is trussed hand and foot across his own spear, to be dealt with later. While this is happening one of the younger tribesmen, Curious Ember, searches Ari's body and recovers the device with which the Green Shadows burnt away the forest wall around Silent Waters - a strange cylinder of malachite with ancient runes across its surface. As Jao is explaining who he is to the tribe, Curious Ember activates the cylinder, sending a column of white fire into the sky behind the Exalt. She then presents the cylinder to her new master as fealty and all of the Ravens kneel to offer their thanks to the new god that walks among them.
Everyone is exhausted and very close to the Green Shadows borderlands,
while Silent Waters is many miles distant. Although he has not
admitted it to anyone else, Jao knows that he is now quite badly
wounded - a combination of spear-cuts and the damage the claw
strider did to his shoulder. Instead of making the long trek back
to the burnt out camp at Silent Waters, he decides instead to take
the freed captives north into Bone Faces
territory to meet up with his uncle, the shaman Whispering Leaves.
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