Exalted: Shadow and Steel, Chapter I - Blood and Iron

[Arhra]

Vaya was a kingdom in a bottle. Hemmed by high mountains to the north and south, it lurked in a wide, almost bowl shaped valley, tiny mountain streams trickling into the lazy river that drunkenly wandered towards the west.

The hills turned steeper and densely forested to the east. Pacts with the lords of that forest, ancient and significant, forbade the cutting of any live wood farther than a stone's throw from the old white roads creeping through that place.

The neck of the bottle was to the west, the pursed lips of the mountains drawing in to a single pass, quickly becoming wide, open plains beyond.

Life inside the bottle was ruled by the Most Congenial Peers of Vaya, a line of nobility descended from the gods themselves. They dwelled apart from the people they ruled, their tree wrapped palace built on the ruins of a far older structure. The local people followed their quaint rituals and prayed most fervently to their local gods, to the Peers and to Vaya itself to give thanks for their lot and to avert misfortune.

Vaya had the faded glory of an ancient place, one whose time had passed.

This was not true. It had never been true.

* * *

Surely this journey was cursed.

Such were the thoughts percolating through the minds of the caravan's travellers. The Guild had been running a small trade route through Vaya for longer than living memory. Three caravans vanishing from the face of Creation in two months was unheard of. Only one survivor had made it back to civilisation.

He'd been starved, feverish and mad. A strange burn was seared around the oozing wound on his back and he ranted about choking smoke and blank faced demons, their great round eyes dark and pitiless.

The road god had given no response to the offerings for the journey left at his shrine.

The three caravans were still half a day from the pass, climbing a steadily steepening slope. Pairs of scouts had been periodically sweeping the road ahead, but had not found anything. It was nothing but rocky hills and trees.

Serga Vell, the caravan-master, had decided to press ahead through this pass. He knew the men (and one woman) who had led the other three caravans, or so he claimed, and they were all idiots. Whatever clutch of bandits had tried some scare tactics and managed to run off with that pack of incompenents' caravans, they weren't going to do the same to Serga Vell!

Besides, the other way would take WEEKS, did they know how much that cost?

The caravan master felt confident. His long suffering guard captain had found no less than two godbloods to help guard them. One was a minor Peer, riding near the front upon his horse and the other was a veteran soldier with a shield and armour of gold. Gold was perhaps a bad colour in these troubled times, but Serga Vell would take any help where he could find it.

There came distant thuds and then whistling from above.

Half a dozen oblate spheres smashed down onto the road at random, tossing up dirt around them. The caravan in the middle was struck, smashing the traces holding the horses in place. They broke free, nearly trampling two of the guards as they dashed past the front caravan.

The guards tried to form up, heads scanning side to side for an enemy. People were shouting, the wagoneers trying to pull the horses and calm them. There was a confusion of movement as some travellers decided they wanted to get out of the caravans as others decided that was the safest place to be. Others gawked at the broken wagon.

The spheres split their metal shells and thick smoke hissed forth with a hideous scream. The horses screamed too, fighting against their halters. The smoke didn't move like it should, building up into grey-yellow domes. The middle caravan becamse a shadow inside one, coughing and shouts as people tried to stagger clear, eyes streaming with tears.

The other five domes, forming a misshapen pentagon around the caravans, began closing together as they grew and rolling in towards the center.