Power Awakens

Svelte Smithy was, as his named indicated, from a family of Black Smiths, however, he didn’t enter the usual family business, when he had attended his naming day the local Latent was known not to be particularly strong. However, the village was lucky that a Latent could visit his village at all. The Latent had been a bit perplexed when he moved onto Svelte, he was clearly strongly latent in Black Smithy but he was also equally strong in martial forms. The Latent gave the relative rare honour of the choosing to Svelte.

Amazingly, Svelte chose the Martial Forms over his family trade, the whole family had taken this particularly badly but the following twelve years seemed to ease their upset somewhat. With Svelte’s natural prodigious strength and excellent hand to eye co-ordination, he had excelled at all the Martial Forms. Svelte had advanced rapidly within the Bruk Northern Lancers; he was now a Captain of the Lancers in charge of a full Quotient.

Svelte was in the middle of his usual third day circuit of the Northwest Range of Bruk, near a village called IronMast, when his two Midrange Scout leaders came racing into the partly pre-pared camp.

“This better be good Carl,” snarled Svelte. “Two of you at once, you know the protocol.”

“Yes Sir” replied Carl, “This is something you’d need to either see for yourself or get confirmation, so I found the Advance Range Scout Leader and appraised him of the situation, and I brought Nuggett, one of his men back with me to confirm what I am about to say.”

Svelte visibly calmed and waved at Carl to carry on “We scouted IronMast, me and Denesh, and we both couldn’t believe what we saw. The village had a swath of destruction seven paces wide. I mean it was as if the hand of Gia had smashed a two league gouge straight through the village, and I mean straight, it didn’t deviate at all.”

Svelte stared at the soldier’s incredulous “What has the Goddess of death to do with this, you know I don’t believe in all that nonsense, I follow Baln the Creator, get to the point man, do you think Gia has come down to Cromus to have a chat with us mortals?”

“No, beggin your pardon Cap’ain, I was just saying it looked like Gia as an accountain of the dead straight line an all. But I wan’t a sayin it was Gia, anyhows, we knows what caused this, there was obviously a battle with the IronMast regular guards and some citizens as there where at least fifty ter sixty bodies strewn around the place. We followed the line of devastation as fast as we could and then we saw it, straight from a Storytellers tale, it was a Demolt sir, I swera it, the description was identical to the one I heard last Spring Tine, you know, the celebration at the beginning of summer, we had a Storyteller in our village, he described a Demolt perfectly. They don’t move too fast but they are unstoppable, Nuggett here can confirm what we saw, but he has never heard of a Demolt before, go on Nuggett tell him what you saw.”

Svelte listened to Nuggett’s description, as he was detailing the creature he had seen, Svelte felt an increasingly level of concern, he had seen a picture of a Demolt when he had received his commission at the Main Hall in Mank. Nuggett described almost exactly the same creature as if he was trying to describe the very picture that Svelte had seen.

“Sergeant Lenin” shouted Svelte, “Gather the men, break the camp, and split off two Observer Quads, rear and forward, make them the fastest riders, we may need them. You have fifteen minutes; anyone not ready will be left behind”. Just under forty minutes later the Quotient crested the hillock above IronMast, at a trot the Lancers flowed past IronMast, giving reassurance to the towns Elders without pausing to discuss the events, Svelte had a premonition that time was not on their side.

Just over fifteen Leagues out from IronMast the remaining scouts met Svelte,

“Report” ordered Svelte. Scout leader Grahem Leafblower reported swiftly and succinctly, explaining that the Demolt was just over two Leagues in front of their present position, he had thought it safe to ride back as the Demolt had not deviated from his current line in the last twelve Leagues, Svelte, felt sickened by the knowledge, as the Demolt destination was blatantly obvious, Bowltown, with over fifty thousand residents, the Demolt would cause chaos.

Svelte knew that the horses, already tired by the previous ride, would have to be pressed to their limit. “Forced Canter, double time” shouted Svelte, “Full engagement, forward Observer Quad to report to the Captain of the Guard at Bowltown, full Gallop at one League, remaining Lancers No Disengagement, No Quarter”

Without a sound of disgruntlement, the Lancers set off, Svelte was proud of the men, the orders he had given would mean certain death for a number if not all of his Quotient, however, he knew he had to try and do something to stop the Demolt from getting into Bowltown.