In Dreams - Session 02
General Summary
After Mungo makes an abortive attempt to carve some meat from the cougar, he dumps its carcass a short distance from the camp. A few hours later, Eric is on watch when, in the dim light shed by the three moons, he sees a small flock of winged creatures descend on the dead animal. They feed for a short time but then begin to fly towards the camp. Eric awakens the others and casts Faerie Fire again; the blue light illumines half a dozen bat-winged creatures with long proboscises—blood-sucking stirges! A round of missile fire from the group kills a few of the creatures as they close. One drinks deep from Eric's horse before Sylman stabs it, causing it to explode in a shower of blood. Another punctures Mungo's shoulder; Karsus bludgeons it with his quarterstaff, and then Mungo kills the last of them with his bow as it flies away. Eric's horse does not survive. The group decides to move camp a few hundred metres away from the carnage.
Despite the short night, they decide to press on the next morning. Eric rides in the wagon with Sylman. As they get closer to the mountain north of Redwall, called Harrowcrown, the prairie grasses start to give way to rougher, more scrub-like terrain.
On the fifth day they continue to press northwards, now through an increasingly rocky landscape. The summit of Harrowcrown looms large to the northeast.
On the sixth day of their journey, they start to turn eastward. The day is oppressively hot, even for mid-summer, and they are glad for their water supplies.
That night, Sylman is on the first watch when he spots a distant campfire, about 800 metres to the northeast. After he alerts the others, it's decided that he and Karsus will sneak closer.
To avoid detection, Karsus stays hidden some 200 metres from the campfire, while Sylman moves in. He spots three orcs sitting around a fire against the backdrop of a rocky outcropping. No horses can be seen and they carry only light equipment. Sneaking in closer, he overhears them saying that they would be here for only a few more days before going back to Standing Rock, and that Gulgar would be pleased that they hadn't seen anyone.
Sylman and Karsus return to their own camp and inform the others. Mungo and Sylman know well of Gulgar—the leader of a faction of orcs which split off from the friendly Dead Eye Tribe, kidnapped some humans, and imprisoned them in the Tomb of Blood Overflowing. Sylman's underground contacts have informed him that Gulgar's faction now calls itself the Spiritbinders, and have engaged in attacks against other orc tribes.
Karsus has heard of Standing Rock in his history studies—a location far to the north of Redwall Citadel, used by the orcs as a rallying point for their forces during the conflicts that arose from Asturia's initial invasion of orcish lands many years ago.
The group decides to attack the orcs during the night. They arm up and Mungo dons his chainmail. Sylman sneaks in first to close range, while the others follow as stealthily as they can.
When they move in, only one of the orcs is on guard. However he easily spots Mungo and Eric from a long distance away and raises the alarm. Sylman fires arrows at the orcs from close range, killing one and wounding another, while a long-range shot from Mungo injures the third. The two injured orcs scramble over the rocky outcropping to the other side, where their horses are tethered, and mount up and ride away. Sylman pursues them on their third horse. He is able to hit one of the orcs with another bowshot but the moonlit chase ends abruptly when his horse steps in a snare and breaks its leg. Sylman is launched from the horse and tumbles through the air before bouncing to a stop. Picking himself up, he watches the wounded orcs ride away to the north. He puts the injured horse out of its misery and walks back to the others.
The orcs were travelling light, and the party finds nothing of interest in their gear or campsite. Eric takes one of their obsidian daggers as a souvenir.
The following days are cooler. On the seventh day the party is able to look north across the forested valley that separates Harrowcrown behind them from the mountains to the north.
On the eighth day, they see clouds and rain or snow on the far side of the valley, but the sky above remains clear.
That night, during Karsus's watch, he turns his eyes to a particular corner of the sky. Soon enough he sees the flaming trails of a meteor shower, seen annually at this time since the dawn of recorded history, and known to Asturian scholars as the Draconids. Karsus recalls what he knows of them. To the lizardfolk, the streaks of flame represent the fiery venom of one of their gods, a feathered basilisk named Xochalakana, and his promise to one day destroy the world so it could be reborn. To the faithful of the Gazel Ministry, the flames in the sky are known as the tears of Saint Sarutas, a missionary who was burned at the stake by the druids of the northern forests. The orcs, more prosaically, see the flames as the fiery urine of one of their gods, pissing on the world for reasons opens to interpretation.
To Karsus this meteor shower has a more personal meaning. A year ago he was still at the university and observed the Draconids from its mountain observatory. It was only a few days afterwards that he first heard the voice that changed his life forever. Now, gazing at the night sky, he feels an unnerving chill. Something is not right about the tongues of flame. But his watch ends without incident.
The following mid-day the group arrives at the approximate location Lord Ashwood provided for Sinzil's tomb, part-way up the long slope of the mountainside. They find a suitable camping location next to a stream, with some trees for shelter and forage for the horses, and decide to break into teams of two to search for the tomb: Mungo and Karsus in one team, and Eric and Sylman in the other. The mountainside is divided into a grid of half-mile squares with each team given about half a day to search each square of the grid.
They search for the rest of the ninth day and all of the tenth. Late in the afternoon of the eleventh day since they set out from Redwall, Sylman and Eric spot some worked stone behind the bushes and brambles of the mountainside. Looking more closely, Sylman sees that this is a sealed stone passageway into the side of the mountain, partially covered by fallen rocks. The stonework is carved in the lizardfolk style but faded and overgrown. They bring the news to the others and the group resolves to explore the ruin the following day.