The stars come out, and brightly shining does the moon cast silvery schemes and shadows upon the treetops and that clearing, embedded into a dale of ancient rock, and, there, by the ancient waystones, those towering menhirs, engraved with patterns so old that time is but a word to them, there burns a fire, foolishly glaring into the dark. I hear...
I hear the cry of the tawny owl returning on her path through the mild spring air, circling above the clearing three times, to and fro she flies. I hear a song, lovely, vibrating in the still air... and peace descends into my heart, and deep fulfilment. And yet, mercilessly and brightly burning are the stars above, and tehy remind me of that ancient dale in those ancient mountainsides long ground to dust, far, far away in the East.
For it was thence that it happened. Before, the tribes of the Dhiudha slowly formed their ranks against the attacks and the rapture of the Oreamm, and slowly started to defend themselves, but to no avail. For savagely fought the Oreamm, as ants might bite off the leg of their foe, with deadly determination, even if they are facing certain death. And as the Oreamm acquired more and more of the weapons of the accursed and blessed steel, they learned the art of making weapons themselves, and more fiercely their attacks bore down upon the beautiful folk. Thus, faced with certain doom and the rout of their race, the wild Dhiudha tribes of the Northeast gathered in a high valley in a hidden range of the mountains for one last and desperate effort, and began to chant. Nine days and nine nights did they chant, and the brilliant stars above them burned a bitter, piercing light to the ebb and flow of the alien melody, vibrant and deathly. And it was there, in the high valley, that they begot the seed of avange, the philosophical stone of the corr dicinn, as it was called in a later language. Great was their effort, and there their enchanters died from exhaustion, and their souls fed the stone with a bitter, searing power. Few of their most elite warriors were chosen, and they were called the Dhiudha na nDhuodhai. Clad in silver mist and black garments, in armour made from strange and alien metalwork, they walked the stair of moonlight and mist, of time and tale and space and along the planes of possibility to carry the seed of avenge. Later on they learned that not the Oreamm were their deadly foes, but they set out to forge weapons out of steel and grinding tathlums that would pass as gemstones with other races, of making the great war axes and spears, and clubs and fighting implements their race was famed for and feared for in those wars and in the wars to come. In stealth they bore upon their foes like the hatchet drives through the fruits of the field-ten thousand Oreamm to the left and ten thousand to their right did fall, like wheat before the scythe. A harvest of heads and a winepressing of blood it were, as they walked amongst the hosts of the Oreamm like the wind shakes the barley. On and on they fought, and bitter were their battles, and they fought with grief in their hearts, for it was the rout of all truth, the end of all beauty, and plague and pestilence followed in the path of this war. The guardians of the seed, however, went away in stealth. Nine were they, and they went on missions stranger than even that of the main host of Dhuodhai, Horoidw and the wild tribes of Dhiudha, missions that led them yonder star and moon, on pathways yonder mist and time.
Still the stars are glaring bright, but there´s also the moon, smiling upon that clearing, and brightly and foolishly the fire burns its eternal dance. And as I step out of the darkness into its warm and radiant light, I smile. Warmly-coloured mead I carry in my pack, and food and drink for a long night of storytelling, and in my heart there are still many tales of terror and beauty, of love, of gain and loss, and I see the weary figure by the fireside stop her chanting and turn towards me, with a knowing smile mirroring mine.
And it feels like home.
