Turgur quickly takes the large and old-looking leather bound book from its hiding place underneath the wooden floor of the large building. He finds a warm, cosy place near the fire and opens the book on a randomly chosen page. Ensuring one last time he's alone, he starts to read the clearly stained parchment...
"Dunlending land" he says softly to himself. Immediately, some images of what happened there cross his mind, as if it happened just days ago...
It was about fifty years ago... Me, accompanied with my band of thirty veteran Dalish warriors, crossed Dunland. We were sent out to escort some young lad, an important family member, of what seemed to be an important merchant. That would be logical, in fact, since our services came with a great cost... But it was not for nothing that we were this expensive. Our motto was this: "We finish the job, or we die trying! But there's no turning back."
I still remember that grin on Myrdrein's face as we saw the young lad we were to escort to that merchant. So young he was, his face not even adorned with his first beard, yet he already carried a longsword at his side and wore a heavy armour. All of my men mocked him, and even I couldn't resist a grin. But we got payed well, and the ammount of gold waiting for us upon delivering the boy was even larger. So I finally decided to smother the last mockery and leave at once. This was after all quite hostile land...
The Dunlending tribes mostly don't like strangers, yet only the Dragon-clan will really take up arms gladly. No reason there's some kind of feud between the Dragon-clan and the others. At least that is what I think the situation was at that time. During our entire journey through Dunland, we didn't encounter one single problem. Well, who would attack a band of thirty heavily armoured, seasoned warriors on sight? That was our way of thinking at least. Close to the border with Enedwaith, the first encounter with hostiles took place...
We set up camp during the night, in the presumption that we could cross the border the next day and get out of hostile territory. Since we never encountered any trouble, we thought the Dragon-clan decided to leave us be. Alas, nothing was less true... They came during that night. Like shades, they moved through our slightly fortified camp, lighting tents and slitting throats... We did not know how this could've happened, since we had enough guards to warn in case of a pending attack. But anyway, they were inside the camp, and we had to get them out, and keep the boy safe. The foolish boy, I should actually say...
Myrdrein, my second in command, was clever enough to take the boy along with him to the center of the camp, where we surrounded him with a hastily made shieldwall. We could hear the screams of the wounded and smell the stench of blood and excrements. But we were hard. My band and I had seen much worse, or that is what we thought... Finally, the attackers decided to face our rapidly made defence line. "Easy lads! We've fought with fewer numbers against larger groups!" I said. A soft laughter came from our ranks, and even the boy overcame his first fear and drew his blade. But then, some kind of demon-like figure came forward out of the smoke...
I myself am a tall man with my 6.4 feet, but that guy, he was like a half-giant! 6.7 feet at least, I'd say! He wore no armour, only some rags around his waist. His entire body was painted with the blood of my men, or by the blood of some kind of sacrifice... With a vile grin on his rotten teeth, he stepped forward, as if it was the most normal thing you could do, in such a situation. But then, faster than anyone would've deemed possible for such a length, he jumped forward and swung his huge hammer down on the head of one of my men. I still can't believe it what I saw... Despite of his shield he held above his head and his thick steel helmet, the hammer just smashed his head to one bloody mess. We were first too surprised, so it took two more casualties before we regained our conscience and fought back. The tribal warriors attacked us from all sides. But we fought hard and made them pay with their blood for each assault on our formation...
That giant was something else though. He somehow managed to slip behind my men, to enter the circle we formed around our boy. Myrdrein tried to defend the lad, but he payed with his life, after he burried his spear in the giant's shoulder. Yet that man was strong enough to kill without his hammer. I still remember how I shouted at the boy to stay back, while I left my post to fight that man. He hit the boy so hard on his face, that he just broke the lad's neck by the force of the blow... I realised we failed our task, and we all knew we would probably not make it out alive. So we decided to fight back, not to sell our skin cheaply. And desperate warriors that know Death lures over their shoulder, are dangerous opponents... After we quickly killed the giant, I sounded my horn. Oh, how glorious that moment was! With a loud, terrifying roar, we broke our ranks and charged our enemy, who was too surprised to react properly by our act of despair.
We fought long, and hard. I stabbed my enemies, I hacked and slashed them open, their blood covered my entire armour and face. And despite the weariness we felt in our muscles, we carried on to do what we were born to do. To fight, to kill, and to gain glory on the field of death! But alas, we were with too few... One after another, we fell on the blood stained soil. Hammers, swords, daggers and spears pierced our flesh. Arrows rained down on our heads... The ground was covered with wounded and dead men, both Dunlending and Dalish alike. See, death makes all men equal. Where they first stood as enemies, they now lay on the ground as brothers, bonded by their blood drenching the earth...
I myself recall how an arrow pierced my breastplate at the height of my chest. I smacked on the ground by the impact of the blow, and got knocked out by the force of it, in combination with my weariness and other wounds. Soon after, the last of my men followed me and dropped down dead or heavily wounded. Apparently, that was more than enough for those Dragon-tribesmen. They took their dead and wounded warriors with them and left us to die on the field, as food for the crows and other filth... I do not know what happened after that, but it appeared that Tulkas was on our side. It seemed that some other Dunlendings found us and tended the few survivors we had...
I don't feel like writing down much more about this... So let me just say that we offered them the few gold we had as a thanks to their care. After we recovered enough, we, the few survivors of my band took the road again, to find that merchant and bring him the ill news. That would also be the last ill news I bring, for I would not bring this band back to life again. I and the six other warriors parted ways in Bree, each going on his own way. I may not speak of this event to anyone, but I shall always keep the memory of my comrades in arms, my bloodbrothers, fresh in my mind. I shall always remember them for the great men they were. And one day, one day I shall join them again, in the halls of Mandos, where we shall feast and drink and tell tales of our past lives...
A slight smile, expressing both grief for the loss of his friends and joy for the good memories of them, he closes the book and stands up again. Quickly, he hides the old book again, only to walk away, only to find another adventure...
