The Great Hall of Karak-Ankor was a testament to the stubborn, unyielding will of its people. It was not built, but carved from the very heart of the mountain. Colossal, four-sided pillars of unadorned granite held up a ceiling so high that the torchlight barely reached it. The air was cool and smelled of coal smoke, hot metal, and the faint, clean scent of subterranean water. The constant, rhythmic BOOM of the Great Forge, the industrial heart of the kingdom located leagues below, was a sound that echoed in the very bones of the stone, a constant, powerful heartbeat.
Astrid Stonehand felt deeply out of place here. She was a huntress, a woman of the high peaks and the silent, snow-dusted forests. She was more comfortable with the tension of a bowstring than the tension of a political debate. She stood with the other clan chieftains, her practical, hardened-leather armor a stark contrast to the ceremonial mail and heavy, fur-lined cloaks of the old lords around her. Her hand rested on the familiar wood of her yew bow, a silent anchor in a sea of posturing and pride.
For weeks, the High Council of Clans had been locked in a bitter, circular argument. They were leaderless. The death of High Chieftain Storn Ironhand had left a power vacuum, and every clan was vying to fill it. They argued over ancient mining rights, over insults traded a century ago, over everything except the one thing that mattered.
"Our miners are being slaughtered by these… Ashen," Astrid had argued an hour ago, her voice clear and sharp in the booming hall. "An entire expedition from my clan, gone. The Frostfang clan lost a hunting party. This is not a random beast. This is a plague."
Gunnar Frostfang, the powerful and charismatic chieftain of the most traditionalist clan, had dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "The mountains have always had their beasts, girl. The men of Karak have always met them with steel. This is a northern problem. It requires a northern solution, not the hand-wringing of a southern king."
Astrid seethed in silence. Gunnar was a master of appealing to their pride, a pride that she feared would be the death of them all.
Their argument was cut short by the sound of a great horn, its call echoing strangely from the mouth of the city's great tunnel entrance. It was the signal for the arrival of an outsider. A tense silence fell over the Great Hall. Outsiders were rare in Karak, and rarely welcome.
Minutes later, the messenger was escorted in. It was Captain Brand of the Aethelburg Royal Guard. He was a tall man, and though his armor was of the southern style, he had the broad shoulders and steady, grey eyes of a man with northern blood. He walked into the center of the hall, undaunted by the hundred pairs of hostile eyes that watched him, and gave a crisp, respectful nod to the assembly.
He presented his sealed scroll case not to any one chieftain, but to Old Man Hakon, Storn's aged second, who now sat uneasily on the High Chieftain's stone throne. Hakon broke the King's seal, and his wispy eyebrows climbed his wrinkled forehead as he read. He then handed it to his lore-keeper, who read the summons aloud, his voice a thin, reedy thread in the vast chamber.
The words of King Valerius, of a "Celestial Tyrant," a "common enemy," and a "Council of the Sundered Sky", echoed in the hall. It was a plea for a unified world.
Gunnar Frostfang was the first to laugh. It was a loud, booming, contemptuous sound.
"A 'Council of the Sundered Sky'!" he roared, stepping forward. "The sky of the Heartland may be sundered, but the stone of Karak remains strong! This is the plea of a weak and desperate king, a heretic who declared his own god dead and now begs for our northern steel to save his broken kingdom."
He turned to the assembled chieftains, his voice resonating with charismatic fury. "We have all heard the tales from the south. This King Valerius is a kinslayer who murders his own dukes in their chapels. His city is overrun with a death cult, and he fights a war of words while our miners die. The problems of the Heartland are not our problems. To answer this summons is to invite their plague into our halls. Let the south burn! Karak will endure!"
A roar of approval went up from half the chieftains. Pride was a powerful force in these mountains.
Astrid felt a cold knot of dread in her stomach. She saw the future in that moment: Karak, isolated and proud, being slowly and systematically devoured by the Ashen while the rest of the world fought, united, without them. She had to speak.
She strode forward, her footsteps silent on the stone floor, and stood opposite Gunnar. The hall fell quiet, surprised by her boldness.
"You speak of endurance, Gunnar," she said, her voice quiet but carrying a hunter's deadly focus. She pulled a warped, blackened piece of metal from a pouch at her belt and threw it onto the floor between them. It was the head of a miner's pickaxe, retrieved from the site of the last massacre. "This was not made by any beast of our mountains. Its corruption is unnatural. It is the same plague that infects the south, and you are a fool hiding from a blizzard in a house with no roof."
She turned to the council. "You speak of southern problems. High Chieftain Storn is dead because he faced this northern problem alone, and in his desperation, he was driven to use the very poison that has infested the south. His pride killed him. Do you wish for all of Karak to share his fate?"
Her words hit their mark. A murmur of unease went through the hall. Storn's death was a deep source of shame for them all.
"This is not about saving a southern king," Astrid pressed, her voice rising with passion. "This is about saving ourselves. We must go to this council. Not to bow, but to gather intelligence. To forge alliances. To learn what they know of this enemy. To turn all of Aethelgard into a weapon. Because our old ways, our pride and our steel, are no longer enough."
The debate raged. The chieftains were split. Gunnar's appeal to their pride and tradition was a powerful force. But Astrid's cold, hard logic, and the grim reality of the Ashen threat, could not be denied. Old Man Hakon, too weak to force a decision, declared the council deadlocked.
Astrid knew then that waiting for unity was a death sentence.
She stepped forward and addressed the throne directly. "If the High Council of Karak is too blinded by pride to see the truth, then Clan Stonehand will not share in its blindness. My clan has lost more brothers and sisters to the Ashen than any other. We will seek answers, and we will find allies."
She turned, her piercing gaze sweeping across the assembled leaders.
"I will go to this Council in Aethelburg," she declared. "I will go in the name of Clan Stonehand, and in the memory of High Chieftain Storn, who died because he stood alone. Any chieftain who places the survival of his people above the bitterness of his pride is welcome to join my delegation."
She did not wait for a reply. She turned her back on the stunned, divided council and strode from the Great Hall, her bow slung over her shoulder. Gunnar Frostfang stared after her, his face a mask of pure, murderous fury.
The summons had not united the North. It had broken it in two.
---
The Chronicle of the Fallen
Time Period Covered: Approximately Day 304 of the Age of Fear
Victims of The Reaping: 0
Victims of the Covenant: 6
Deaths from Ashen Attacks: 29
Deaths from Civil Unrest: 2
Total Lives Lost: 37
Of Note Among the Fallen:
— A Royal Messenger from Aethel, ambushed and killed by Covenanter sympathizers in the southern marches. His dispatch was lost.
— The entire flock of a prized sheep-herder in a remote valley in Karak, found twisted into monstrous, Ashen forms.