The Pyre

We are but dust in the wind.

Seasons ago, when first I came to these eerie, forgotten spaces, the creation of the campfire was a holy task, a privilege claimed by the most successful in the hunt. The gift of the Hearth Mother to her forsaken Foundchild. Once the cooked meat was shared and smiles surrounded the firelight, stories, jokes and dreams would be exchanged as freely as the food among us., keeping the encroaching darkness at bay. These were intimate times in the bosom of the Foundchild, tender memories of warmth and laughter at the close of each day in Brown Boar Clan. Another life.

As the flames now grew and sang into the darkening skies above us in these empty lands, my heart leaned back further into the echoes of the hearth-fires of my upbringing. I let my spirit wander back into memory, hearing the tales both tall and true, as boasts of the deeds of my forebears rang out from the mouths of the thanes across the firepit outside the halls of my father. A mighty Wind Lord he is, noble and severe. I think he was truly shocked when the clan Dragonslayer chose me to bear the Holy Duties of Orvanshagor. Certainly, he treated me differently ever after: reverently, yet uneasily, feeling in his heart the Doom that had settled over his only son. He knew that he had lost me. He could barely bring himself to look on my rune-darkened face on those long evenings round the fire. But there was enough distraction from others to set him at ease, hearing the proud stories of his clan-folk – news of raids against the Dragonewts, the legends of Ormskill warriors long past, and harkening to the holy words of the Storm Voices. I myself said but little at such moots. For my tattoo-covered body said it all. And I was ever a man of action, not of words. Will I see him again? Does he yet live?

The pyre burned on. The winds stirred my soul as the scent of the burning bodies stung my throat. I stared at the rising plumes of smoke. I gazed on the insatiable flames, their hypnotic dance. Sensed ripples of the Dream.

The Dream would take me harshly at times back in Lankst. Always the same dream. The Dream of the Dragon. The noise of the winds exploding into the skies around, homes shattering, women and menfolk screaming as one, children charred, their faces melting as the flames from the roaring mouth of the foul Great Beast engulfed all within their path, crops and herds annihilated, fields and rivers burning as the relentless rage of the Flying Death poured out over the land, on and on and on, the total hopeless horror, endless fire taking everyone and every thing and smashing it, burning it, turning all to ash and powder, the terrifying beating and banging of those monstrous wings blowing everything up into the skies, the screams and the dust, the dust of the dead in my eyes in my throat…

Dust in the wind.

A crack, and the pyre shifted, sending fresh sparks up into the evening air, beautiful hues of orange against the deepening purple blue. Orstanor’s face was impassive as he watched the flames gain yet more strength, pushing the spirits of the fallen dead, our brethren, up into the winds of the gathering night. The elf sat far from the flames, her back to the pyre, inscrutable. Nardan was singing a Heortling lament unfamiliar to me, and I let my flute rest its breath on the ground, that I might listen to the sound of the souls of those burning before us accompany his voice into the air.

Aransar sat a ways off. I could not see his face in the blackness. I could only imagine his disgust at the senseless waste we had been drawn into. His anger at those who should have hailed us as brothers, as allies against our common threat. These are things I do not question. The dead made their own way in life. They let the Gods decide their final fate, and the Gods had favoured us. The day had without question been ours. Their Battle Priest had fled before them, and they too now chased his flight into the skies. The Humakti was nowhere to be seen. Taking time in private prayer and meditation following his deliverance at the very hand of his grim God. To know such a hallowed communion humbles a man, shivers him to his core. To worship Death, to face Him; to have known His touch, and yet, at His bidding, live on.. I will never forget this. Feeling the hand of God as my own scorched limbs failed me up on those walls in far-off Balazar, as I dropped into the winds beneath me, as my cry to Orlanth was answered…

How seemed it to you, Torath Manover, when your God forsook you? When you saw your treacherous priest flee and leave you to the slaughter? And how seems it now, as you flow up into the presence of our shared Lord in the Heavens? Leaving behind that once-proud husk to bubble and burn and finally desert you forever. Obsession can seem so close to Destiny.

What will come of us now? we have slain our own people, our kin. Is this to be the future, as long as we bear this blessed and cursed Windsword? Is this the destiny laid upon us by the greatest of my ancestors, the Dragonbreaker? To be set upon by those we would seek to count friends? Where can we turn?

The winds blow us, this way and that. We cannot tell their origin, their path, their destination. We can only move with them, or stand against them. And those that stand against them will soon weather down. We all face the same fate. A man can but account for himself alone. We will pass from this earth as if we were never here.

The flames were starting to calm themselves. I took up my flute, and began to unfetter the dirge growing within me, a final song to all who give all for their life’s short span. With it flew the spirits of Torath Manover, mighty Wind Lord of Orlanth, and his two fell warriors, who stood and fought to the death for their lord whilst outnumbered, in a lost and barren land. Farewell my sister, my brothers. Return to the air above. Cut down like so much hay, lost as chaff to the blowing breezes.

Dust in the wind.