“Are you with the
Brass Horde or the Bastard Horde”? With
these words, Karakhim warrior Old Boggy and Karakhim thief Zubatai knew that
God-Khan Gurag’s Golden Horde had been split asunder by his death. And that, if they did not answer the steppe
horsemen’s question correctly, Gurag’s death would be followed by their own.
“Bastard,” Zubatai
answered. He surmised that “bastard”
referred to Gurag-Sukh, the God Khan’s bastard son, whose forces occupied the
war encamped of Kuzla Ka in front of them.
The looks on the faces of the Bastard Horde Karakhim told him he was correct,
but that did not make answering the question any less painful.
Zubatai and Old
Boggy had sworn their allegiance to the Bataan clan, now ruled over by
Gurag-Bataan, the late God Khan’s daughter.
If only temporarily, if only to save the life of his comrades…Zubatai
had nevertheless already betrayed his family.
The centaur-like
leader of the horsemen introduced himself as Muke, and said he was glad not to
have to spill the blood of fellow Karakhim.
He was only referring to Zubatai and Old Boggy – he only acknowledged
the Westerners when he asked Zubatai why the outlanders were trespassing on
Karakhim land. Zubatai lied, and told
them they were his henchman. But he told
the truth when he said that they had come from Tal Skallar, where he had
scouted the defenses for the God Khan and hoped to further undermine by
establishing a drug trade between Tal Skallar and The Jade City in Mu Leng.
This seemed to
please Muke, so Zubatai asked him about the whereabouts of his uncle Temujin, a
shaman who was last seen at Kuzla Ka and who the party hoped could relieve
Ketil Gravelborn of his cursed shield, and the mysterious “hand centaur” of its
apparent curse. Muke frowned.
“Your uncle is
indeed a guest of Khan Gurag-Sukh, here at Kuzla Ka. But he will not be for long. He has refused to initiate the ritual to
transform Gurag-Sukh into a God Khan, and for that the Khan will execute him.”
Zubatai told Muke
that perhaps he could persuade his uncle to perform the ceremony. Muke saw the opportunity in this, and he and
his horsemen escorted Zubatai and his band to an audience with the Khan.
The party went up
on a steep incline towards a wooden stockade surrounded by many hundreds of
yurts. Karakhim warriors were attended
by men with the heads of horses. These
“reverse-centaurs” were said to be the byproduct of the ritual of bonding elite
Karakhim warriors like Muke to their horse.
Though able to perform manual labor with the dexterity of a human, they
had the intelligence of their equine ancestors, and had to be led along as
slaves.
The non-Karakhim in
the party – Ketil the Dwarf, Jacques Roqumare the dandy fighter and Quofalcon
Serpenthelm the thief – looked at these horse-headed slaves with
bewilderment. But the Karakhim looked at
them with equal bewilderment. For save a
glowing, aging horse that carried the party’s remaining children, they all rode
Rus War Ostriches. Muke in particular
seemed to think Zubatai and Old Boggy, their fellow Karakhim, were blasphemous
for using birds as mounts instead of the holy horse of their people.
Finally the group
dismounted and entered the largest yurt in the compound. There, beyond a fire pit sat the centaur-like
Gurag-Sukh, Khan of the Bastard Horde.
At one side of his throne was Gurag-Sukh’s blind bride Galdai. At the other was Negay, his right hand man,
also an elite centaur-like creature.
Below the throne
was Kipchi, who bore the marks of a necromancer, whose arts were forbidden in
Karakhim. And next to him was a cage,
with withered old man inside. He had
clearly been beaten, and had a look of terrible despair. Zabutai immediately recognized the man as his
uncle, the shaman Temujin. Temujin’s
eyes lit up upon seeing his nephew.
Before there could
be a reunion, The Khan was eager to hear of Tal Skallar. Zubatai was truthful, telling him of the War
Bears that protected the city. The
Necromancer interjected, wishing to hear about Tal Skallar’s legendary ghoul
market. Jacques tried to curry favor with
The Necromancer by showing him the sigil that could gain entry. The Necromancer started copying it unto a
papyrus scroll before Jacques withdrew it.
This did not please the Necromancer.
The Khan explained
what had divided the Karakhim Golden Horde.
His sister Gurag-Bataan wished to have peace between the Karakhim, Tal
Skallar and Mu-Leng. The steppe could be
a natural trade route that the Karakhim could benefit from, as it was a more
direct route than The Silk Road that caravans traveled to avoid falling prey to
the horsemen.
But Gurag-Sukh
believed that without warfare and expansion the Karakhim would turn on one
another and destroy themselves. Already,
peace had split the Golden Horde into two.
Zabutai sought a
middle ground. He told them of their
plan to smuggle narcotics from Mu-Leng to Tal Skallar. This, he said, would allow both trade and
war…as the citizens of Tal Skallar would grow weakened from their substance
abuse.
The Khan thought
this a good plan, and offered Zabutai a chance to save his uncle if he could
indeed convince him to perform the ritual needed to elevate him to God-Khan.
Temujin shouted “Never!”
and was whipped by The Necromancer. Temujin
stood firm. Gurag-Sukh was not The God
Khan’s rightful heir. The new God Khan
must have the pure-blood of the previous God-Khan running through his
veins.
The Khan suggested
that if he were not born with this blood, than it could be obtained by from his
half-sister – if the party slew her.
Temujin begged his nephew and his friends not to do this. This was too far for even Zabutai.
The Necromancer
suggested that blood could be obtained in another way. It could be drained from the body of the late
God-Khan, if they party could infiltrate his tomb. If this would spare the life of Gurag-Bataan,
Temujin reluctantly agreed. Still, the
party would need another element for the ritual – the feather of a Khiimori, a
dangerous black Pegasus.
Zabutai and his
fellow outlaws agreed to embark on these quests, which greatly pleased the
Khan. As a token of good faith, he
allowed Temujin to lift the curse on Ketil’s kite shield. Temujin laid his hands on it and spoke the
words of his ancestors. As he did, an
unholy black smoke rose from the shield.
With that, the curse was gone.
Ketil could remove it, and swing his axe without being weighed down by
the ghouls’ dark magic.
The Necromancer was
intrigued by the sight of undead magic.
He then asked the party whether they had seen any unusual sights, claiming
they could help him deliver prophecy The Khan.
The party described the giant sea turtles they had found many hundreds
of miles inland, which The Necromancer said meant that the Karakhim would
triumph against a naval power which would likewise flounder on dry land.
Then the party
showed The Khan and Necromancer the evidence of the strangest sight on the
steppe – the cursed hand centaur. At
this sight, the warrior Negay and The Necromancer both grew agitated. The Necromancer ordered the hand centaur
taken out of The Khan’s tent.
Jacques had grown
fond of the hand centaur, and pleaded with The Necromancer for its return. He was only able to convince the Necromancer
by giving him the sigil that allowed a man to enter the Ghoul Market unmolested
by the undead. The Necromancer took it,
but refused to allow the hand centaur back inside the tent. The Khan intervened, demanding that The
Necromancer honor the bargain that he struck lest he bring dishonor on them
all.
The hand centaur
returned, and Jacques guided him to Temujin.
The Shaman grasped the hand centaur’s hand, which jutted from its neck
like arm where a horse’s head might be. As
he spoke holy words, he began to shake.
The hand centaur reared back on his hind legs, but the seemingly weak
Temujin held firm with his grasp.
Moreover, with
supernatural strength Temujin pulled on the hand and arm until another arm
began to emerge from the hand centaur. A
head followed, covered in what resembled amniotic fluid. Finally the hand centaur’s full torso
emerged, and soon he emerged as another elite Karakhim centaur warrior. The Khan recognized him, and asked,
“Tabo! Where have you been these many months?”
Before Tabo could
answer, The Necromancer struck him with a dagger. Jacques Roqumare, who had developed an
affinity for the hand centaur, tried to strike at The Necromancer with his
rapier. He missed, as did his comrades
as they too tried to strike the elusive magic-user. Even when their blades made contact, The
Necromancer was able to deflect them with enchanted bracers.
Negay, The Khan’s
right-hand man (or centaur, as the case may be), joined The Necromancer in
combat, wishing to keep Tabo, the former hand centaur, silent as well. His sword bounced off Old Boggy’s plate
mail. Negay cursed Old Boggy for
breaking the traditions of the Karakhim with his heavy, Western armor.
The Necromancer
reached for his wand. Fire began to
emerge from its tip as he prepared to cast a fireball spell. But he risked damaging his ally Negay, and
setting the yurt on fire. Instead, he
cast a hold person spell on Ketil, freezing the dwarf in place.
Quofalcon retreated
to the rear of the tent. In part to keep
himself from being fried by a fireball, and in part so he could have room to
use his crossbow. He hit The Necromancer
with a bolt. Enraged, but out of
offensive spells, the Necromancer stabbed Quofalcon. Old Boggy, once again shrugging off Negay’s
sword with his plate mail, was able to hit the Necromancer with his two handed
sword.
Zabutai called to
Brutal Master, his War Ostrich, which joined the fray. But The Necromancer slipped on a ring and
magically vanished from sight.
The Khan started
taking on Negay in combat, and asked the party to find the traitorous
Necromancer. Zabutai’s uncle, the shaman
Temujin freed Ketil from the hold person spell.
Ketil and the others followed a blood trail outside, only to find it led
to a number of horses. The Necromancer
could be long gone by now.
But when they saw
a horse without a rider gallop away, they guessed the invisible Necromancer was
riding it. Zabutai, Quofalcon and Ketil
took the horse down. It fell on the
invisible Necromancer, crushing him. As the life drained out of him he reappeared. The party took his magic ring, wand and the
bracers that deflected their blows.
When the party
returned to The Khan’s tent, they saw that Negay had been restrained by The
Khan’s men. The Khan asked Tabo, the
former hand centaur, to explain what had happened. Tabo said he’d been cursed by The
Necromancer, who he’s seen with Negay plotting with a Mu-Leng wizard named
Palla Ba. Furthermore, The Necromancer
had cursed The Khan’s wife with blindness to prevent her from discovering his
treachery. Enraged, the Khan beheaded
Negay.
The Khan then
thanked the party, inviting them to drink the blood of Negay, as is Karakhim
tradition. They did so, but Old Boggy
shit himself, while Jacques vomited all over The Khan’s wife. Scabs quickly covered her.
It wasn’t the blood
drinking ritual that had caused this upheaval.
As the crowd gathered to watch the ceremony, The Scarlet Curse started
speaking to the party. It told them to
spread the disease they were infected with to the Karakhim in the tent, and
they could not feel relief until they did so.
The Khan’s anger
returned, and he wanted to know if the party carried a plague. Zabutai lied and said they didn’t, blaming
Old Boggy and Jacques’ reactions on the drink.
Temujin backed him up and declared the party plague-free, but he knew
the truth. Later, the party would ask
him to cure them of The Scarlet Curse, but Temujin said it was beyond his
powers as a shaman. Perhaps the
physicians of The Jade City could cure them.
Muke took the party
to a tent where they could rest and heal, and the next morning they set out to
retrieve the feathers of a Khiimori for The God Khan ceremony. As they journeyed through the steppes, they
came upon an abandoned a giant rock with the face of a man. They asked one of their remaining freed child
slaves, Braha, to sit on it, so they could test if it was a rock giant. It wasn’t, and the boy played on the rock
face with glee. But they spotted a giant
shoe in the distance, and decided not to take their chances.
Then they found an
abandoned witch’s yurt. It was in a
plateau of dried lava covered with a thick layer of dirt. Nearby were crimson dying death worms, which
the party avoided for fear of its electric bit or the acidic explosion that
were known to occur when the worms died.
They searched the
yurt, finding some unidentified potions and pelts, which they took. They also found the acid-eaten remains of
what appeared to be the witch. They took
that as a sign to move on as well.
Finally, they
reached a one hundred foot tall conical rock formation with a nest on top. It was further north than the Khiimori nest
was reputed to be, but Quofalcon and Zabutai climbed it anyway. There, they found a giant vulture. Quofalcon spied a wand nearly identical to
The Necromancer’s. He took it, and in
doing so woke the giant vulture.
Zabutai and
Quofalcon decided they could take the vulture alone, so they began descending
down their ropes. Zabutai dodged the
vulture’s attack as he dangled fifty feet from the ground. Quofalcon held the wand between his teeth.
The vulture then
dove and attacked the others on the ground.
Jacques and Old Boggy successfully hit the Vulture with their
blades. The Vulture tried to fly up to
its nest, but not before grabbing Quofalcon with his beak. Whatever damage the bite didn’t do, the fall
did as the vulture dropped Quofalcon to his death. Quofalcon still held the wand in his teeth,
spitting it out just long enough to say “avenge me!”
When the giant
vulture swooped down to feast on the Quofalcon, Old Boggy delivered the
vengeance the thief had asked for.
This was the third
death the party had faced in as many days.
Khiimori were known to be dangerous creatures. Could they retrieve a feather from one so
depleted? What about the God Khan’s
tomb, reportedly occupied by bandits?
They might need to find aid if they wished to complete the quest to make
Gurag-Sukh God Kahn, thereby saving Temujin from the executioner’s blade.
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