Raven's Nest

An Iron Age Fantasy with heart.

"I generally don't like stabbing, but…" Quintrach said sweetly as the man fell. "It's a stupid thing to do unless he's your last living enemy." She cut some fabric from one of the dead Nauthran and wiped her sword clean with it. "It's something my mother taught me when I was a girl." She made eye-contact with one of the Nauthran. "Never stab an enemy unless you know you won't need your sword immediately after." She turned and went to Provatonious. "That and always clean blood from your sword as soon as you're able."

Having escaped the massacres in her homeland of Greantalia with many others, Ilonastial is faced with old challenges in a new home among the ruins of an old city. With winter coming they all need shelter, safety, and food. Finding food was a gift Ilonastial was born with, but it was a gift that failed her when she needed it most. It was the gift that had her and some others sent to a nearby abandoned village. Well, nearly abandoned.

Remnants of Darklander villages surrounding the old city were suffering their own problems. Problems that're all too familiar. Harsh winters, Nauthran slavers, and the whims to the Fates had left too many dead and enslaved. In one village, Nauthran Raids were so brutal that nobody would take the role of weiganfraujan, warrior leader, except for a faíhu herder named Varghnan. A man unqualified, unwilling, and unhappy with the arrangement.

Warriors sent as an envoy of peace from new inhabitants of the old city were coincided with a Nauthran attack which, although suspicious, should have been taken as a good omen.

Should have been. An alliance between the Darklanders and the strange new arrivals was the only chance of survival for both groups, but there was reluctance. Even an Otherness inhabitant pushing the groups together didn't seem to help.

Then the fates played their cruellest game causing Ilonastial to meet Varghnan.

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So you know, there's some swearing, some violence and some reference to sex and sexual assault. It's not "Game of Thrones" level, but it's mentioned. There's nothing graphic and it has to do with the story.