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Women Born of the Woods
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Beyond the White Mountains and the lands of the Beast Uvea are vast plains given to the snorting brathac, hooved demons of great weight and temper. Even the vermin that infest their scales and mange bear a loathing of men to match that of the Beast Uvea's daughters. Sorcerous means exist to cross these plains, including certain signs of ancient Yorm known about the Meddin Sea, but the unruly savages of Emreca rather set crude boats upon lake and river, when they risk such far journeys at all.
The touch of man falls but lightly upon the core of Emreca in this age. It is a land given to the Undergods and their spawn, where the very soil loathes the boot that presses upon it.
Bearding the farthest extent of the White Mountains against the gaze of stamping, fearsome brathac are certain woods, little known to the cowed slaves and cruel women of the Beast Uvea. In the heat of summer, women are born of the woods, lithe of limb, of great beauty and innocence; they wander from the trees to become meat for brathac, or for slinking black gesk come forth from mountain caverns should they live to see the sun set.
From two great stones set upright and soaked in blood by the demon-blooded mother of the Beast Uvea, I watched women of the woods tumble and break beneath the stone hooves of thundering brathac. A sorcery of great power lies hidden there, within the strange trees between demons of the mountains and demons of the plains, but it did not call to me as other than a net of chain and hooks for the incautious - may the fisher remain unknown.
[ Posted by Reason on December 3, 2006 ]
