Kep'e Bhadur

The northern plains are home to many creatures, herds of game, wolves, the great tigers and the Nomads who revere their independant and ferocious spirit, but it is the wind which rules this land. The Shamans of the Tiger Nomads know the wind and its four faces which blow from the North, South, East and West.

A stiff breeze coming from the east caught the tail of Kep'e Bhadurs topknot. An Eastern wind, he thought, a wind of change, of ill-luck or danger. He could feel its strength gathering as it caught on the fringes of his hide jacket. He could see and hear the snap of the pennons affixed to the lance hafts of his fathers bier. Four lances, each driven deep into the soil of the plains, a colored pennon attached to the butt ends of each, the colors of the four winds, and the litter bearing the flesh which his fathers spirit no longer inhabited. Kep'e faced these but his thoughts travelled elsewhere.

Kep'e stood there alone, his mount, a plains stallion wandered behind him cropping the tough and hardy plants covering the ground. All else had departed, the Shaman Borta last to leave insuring that his fathers spirit would ride the Western winds. But Kep'e knew that his fathers spirit would be lost until his murder was avenged.

Once, generations past, Kep'es ancestors had been the right hand of the great Khakhan, but that was the past. His father and father and father before him had fallen further and further from the favor of the Khans which came and went as the years past. While the favor and influence of his family lessened with the flowing winds of time, the pride and honor of his family did not. Tuli, his father, was brave to the point of recklessness, but cunning and a skilled warrior. His name was sung in the tribal songs, his counsel sought by Chagai son of the aging Khan. Through courage, strength and determination his father had reversed the fortunes of generations of ancestors. Now all that he had achieved was cut down with the knife stroke of an assassin.

The first cold touchs of the storm which was to come began to rain down upon Kep'e. He felt the nudgings of his stallion wishing for the warm familiar closeness of the herd and Kep'e absentlly stroked the stallions muzzle. Heaving a deep breath, gathering in the tidings of the east wind, Kep'e turned away from the remains of his father, his past, and preparing himself to face who he knew must be his fathers assassin, his future as well. Kep'e would revenge himself on his fathers killer, but he could see no future past that for himself since he must kill both his own mothers brother, his clans chieftan, and his other uncle the tribal Shaman.

A dark foreboding filled the heart of Borta the tribal Shaman. The spirits on the winds had howled at him when he offered Tuli up to the great wind. If only Bakul his brother could have faced Tuli and slain him in honorable combat. But he knew that this was just an idle wish. Tuli would have slain Bakul and the fear that Bakul would be supplanted by Tuli would be realized. No, Bakuls knife, and the poison he coated the blade with were the only way. But no matter how necessary, this evil act weighed heavily upon him.

The front of the storm was reaching the campsite, dragging at the felt tents the clan had set that morning. Borta watched the approaching clouds that darkned the horizon and brought an early nightfall along with the storm. His tent was one of the four set at the center of the camp. It faced east, its entrance ringed with totems and wards against the ill-luck and evil that could come from that direction.

Borta watched the approaching clouds boiling across the darkening horizon. A firce lightning cracked and flashed within them. Dark shapes, malignant sprirts heaved and swarmed within the approaching clouds. A sense of unreality, a touch of the sprirt world, settled upon him. The foremost part of the storm seemed to split open and lances of lightning struck the plains, branching and flashing like trees of fire. A nimbus of energy seemd to bounce out across the plains, a ball of white fire thrown from the thunderous discharges of the storm. At first it seemed as distant as the storm on the horizon, but it bounced once, twice and then it was upon him. A flash of white and Borta was swallowed within the ball of fire, it exploded with a noise beyond hearing and Borta fell to his knees.

A stillness had settled upon the camp. Tent flaps were thrown open and the entire clan ringed the the clearing at its center. Borta knelt in front of his tent, his hands pressed over his eyes, his mouth open as if to scream. The wild mane of hair strung with charms which had been a silver black was now a pale white. Standing before him, sabre drawn, stood Kep'e. He looked down at the shaman and speaking to him and to those gathered around he said in a loud voice.

"Borta, I came to claim vengeance on you, by your magics you helped to strike down my father." He looked around the gathered clan "but my father has claimed his own vengeance" and with that he placed his foot on the shamans chest and pushed the cringing man over.

As he fell, bortas hands reached out and a cry broke from those nearest. Bortas eyes as well as his hair were a pale white. Tulis vengeance had come and departed with Bortas sight.

Kep'e turned and faced the north and the Chiefs tent, "Bakul, I claim the right of vengeance, I will fight you with the honor which you denied my father".

"You are a fool boy, but though you be of my blood, I pronounce exile upon you" Bakul then laughed "Run now before I have you beaten and left for the eastern wolves".

"I call you coward, lyer and murderer, Bakul, by the spirit of my father I swear my vengeance upon you." Kep'es voice rose as he spoke and his last words screamed out to be punctuated by the crack and boom of thunder. The storm had arrived.

In the blinding flash and crack of the lightning Bakul saw a shape of ghostly white settle upon Kep'e. The young nomad only recently blooded and allowed in the warriors tent, still thin and growing, was fleshed out with the ghostly physique of an experienced and burly warrior. A crackle of white energy danced across the edge of his sabre. And a smile played across both fleshy and ghostly lips.

"I have come for you Bakul " Kep'e said as he stalked toward the older warrior, but the voice was that of Tuli as was the hand that guided the sabres edge which diveded Bakul's spirit as well as his head from his body.

Kep'e let the sabre rest point first in the ground. He turned from Bakuls dismembered corpse and faced the gathered clan. A voice from his side called out.

"Kep'e Bhadur, I cast you out, by the will of my father, I cast you out." yelled Targota son of Bakul.

Kep'e looked at him and laughed. He raised the bloodied sabre and Targota drew back, but then stood straighter and reached for his own blade. Kep'e looked him in the eye then laughed again. with the bloodied edge of his sabre he cut the topknot, the mark of a warrior, from his head.

"I turn away from such a clan as this," he said then tossed the length of hair into the center of the camp, walked to his stallion and rode into the East and the darkening storm.

With this Kep'e Bhadur son of Tuli left the lands of the Tiger Nomads, crossed through the lands of his enemies and entered into the civilized lands of the south.

Blood was still running from the cut over Kep'es eye. His horse was heaving and its coat was lathered from the exertion of outrunning the half dozen wolf nomads that had been pursuing Kep'e all morning. He slowed his mount then dismounted and began leading his horse at a walk.

Weeks had passed since he had ridden into the lands of the Wolf Nomads. At first, luck had been with him, he'd run across only signs of his hereditary enemy, signs of recent camps, marks in the grass of the passage of the herds which the nomads followed. He had, during his trials of manhood and brief time as a warrior of his tribe, raided into these lands held by the Wolf Nomads. The border between the two peoples flowed back and forth, but now he was far beyond the point where any Tiger nomad had ever raided. This morning his luck had turned.

Prairie dog burrows plagued the nomad lands. These burrows broke legs and lamed cattle and horses alike. The nomads trapped and exterminated these vermin to extinction wherever they found them. But for Kep'e they had been a miraculous source of sustenance. He had been keeping away from the signs of riders and herds and had found an area of the Wolf nomad lands seemingly abandoned. The rough plains grass had grown high, no cropping from the wandering herds, and in this countryside he had come across the familiar burrows and mounds off the prairie dogs but in greater profusion than he had ever encountered before. These minefields of burrows slowed his progress but filled his belly. Every night he made a cold camp and set snares and traps, every morning he would harvest a crop of prairie dogs, he was developing a taste for their stringy meat, though he was getting tired of eating them raw.

This morning he had found eight of the small beasts trapped in his snares. Quickly he set about gutting and skinning them. He was working on number seven when he heard the first howl. Abandoning the carcase he scooped up the six that had been bled and gutted and tossed them in a small sack. He sprinted for his horse, jumped into his saddle and slung the bag from his saddle horn. Howls were coming from the north and now were being answered from the west. Kep'e set his mount into a slow pace, heading south and east. He crossed the small stream, navagating his way past the burrows which dotted the slope south of it. He crested the rise and looked back over his shoulder. A hundred yards behind a large wolf had just broken through the waving plains grass.

In the far distance well behind the Wolf he could see riders, their lance point glinting in the bright morning sun. Kep'e drove his horse foreward.

He had ridden for only a few minutes when the howls coming from behind him were answered by several howls directly ahead. Kep'e set his lance and rode foreward to meet them.

* * *

Three wolves lay dead behind him. luckily they had been strung out seperated by enough distance so that he faced them one at a time. Two he had struck down with his lance before they could spring at him, the third had been quicker, gashing his leg at the calf cutting through his boots. He had been forced to circle against the wolf and slay it finally dismounted with his sabre. The wolf had been tenacious but Kep'e had killed it without being injured again, but the fight cost him time.

He had retrieved his lance and was riding fast across rolling plains, the Prairie dog warrens now behind him. From a hidden rise a mounted wolf nomad appeared, rising as if by magic from the earth. Kep'e urged his mount foreward, he swept down the slope and his lance struck the wolf nomad low below the ribs. The nomad lifted and was tossed from his saddle, the lance bending like a bow. Kep'e let the shaft lower and slide out from the body and rode on.

He had begun by riding south but the wolves and now this nomad had come from that direction so he veered to the East driving his horse foreward at a quick pace.

Only a little way had he traveled before the slain nomads companions caught sight of him. They rode together and were disturbingly close when Kep'e saw them. The plains here were rolling with slope and small streams, yet it appeared as a flat green field until you rode upon a sudden gully or depresion. If there had been time Kep'e would have prefered to have trusted in his marksmanship with his bow rather than facing two lances against his one. Instead he charged forward at the pair and they came at him at a gallop.

They had attached colorful pennons to their lance shafts, an insult to the spirit of the wind, Kep'e spat and as they came at each other swept in at the rider on his right letting the rider on his left have a clear path for his lance to pierce Kep'es side. As the lance points came at him he dropped his torso down an to the right of his mount. The rider on his left rode past his lance needling in through the back of Kep'es thick leather jerkin. A tug, a brief cold touch on his shoulder and the seams of his jerkin burst.

Kep'es own lance drove deep into the righthand nomads mount. The riders lance shot up at the jarring contact and its true aim, luckily for Kep'e, was ruined. The lance, which would have skewered Kep'e like a roast hen, slashed instead across his forehead.

Kep'es lance exploded, its head having been driven in the sturdy shoulder of the nomads mount. Its broken shaft flew from his grasp and the glancing slash of the stricken nomad threw him back almost head over heels from his saddle. Kep'es horse broke into a panicked gallop shoving by the collapsing horse with its shattered shoulder. A lifetime in the saddle left Kep'e stunned but still mounted. He let himself drop across the neck of his mount his hand clasped in the horses mane.

Behind him, unseen by Kep'e, The mounted nomad only glanced in his direction before leaping from his horse and rushing the aid of his companion. Oblivious Kepe rode on.

* * *

Kep'e pressed his mount as much as he dared. It had been three days since he had escaped from the Wolf Nomad patrol. He had passed countless tracks of dog and horse. The Wolf Nomads were astir and with little sign of herd or cattle this meant warriors patroling back and forth across the plains.

The sun had passed from its height and was travelling toward the home of his ancestors. Kep'e felt pride in his success so far but his wounds and lack of rest were wearing at him. The rolling plains were flattening ahead into an expanse of coarse weeds and browned grasses. A strange lines gouged through the plains ahead of Kep'e. They ran Northwest by south east as far as the eye could see. It awoke a curiosity wihin him and having no better trail to follow set off riding to the southeast.

The sun was close to setting when Kep'e first saw the prints of many Wolf Nomad horses. They came from the east and merged with the tracks which he followed. The tracks were very fresh. He brought his mount to a halt and unlashed his bow case from the saddle. Darwing his bow he reatached the case then strung the horn bow. From beside the case he shifted a heavy leather quiver so that it rested by his right leg. He unlaced its cover and drew the war arrows out one by one examing their fletching and checking their length for damage or warping. When he was satisfied he rode foreward with his bow across his lap.

The sun was half obscured by the far horizon as Kep'e rode toward the sounds of battle. Ahead on the dimming landscape he could see several large structures, wagons, an old memory came back to him from his childhood and such men visiting his clan on very rare occasions, long ago. There were only five of these wagons, though each was immense, each longer than three or more horses head to tail. One was overturned and a thick smoke poured from it. Three were drawn together in a half circle and the last was stopped in its track thirty or so yards ahead. Several bodies littered the ground a few near the smoking wreck, a few more around the lead wagon and quite a few before the crescent of the linked wagons. Milling halfway between the wagons and Kep'e were two or three dozen wolf nomads. They were working themselves up for a charge against the wagons.

A fierce chorus of howls coming from human and canine throats pirced the still evening air. The Nomads and their Wolves broke into a ragged charge, as they did so Kep'e urged his own mount into a run. From the wagons a small flight of bolts and arrows shot out felling only two of the nomads. A handful of darting blue streaks of energy lanced out from the wagons striking several of the nomads mounts. One mount went down but its rider tumbleds and rolled to his feet directly in front of the center wagon. Kep'e raced forward as the nomads slashed and hacked at the defenders of the wagon fort. From the center wagon a blond giant lept, a shirt of steel turned the edge of a nomads sabre, and an axe gripped in both hands by this giant split the offending nomad from shoulder to waist.

Kep'e comes across a merchant caravan being set upon by several dozen wolf Nomads. His help causes the Wolf Nomads to break off the attack, they suffer heavy casualities and he is hired on as a caravan guard and proceeds to Chendl.

The Caravan Master refits and they head for Veluna City where they sell the pelts and crafts they traded from the nomads. The Caravan master is pleased with Kep'e and gives him a reference with a cousin in Verbobonc who runs trade throughout the Greyhawk, Kron Hills area, since he won't be gathering another caravan till the next season and his cousins trade goes all year long.

Kep'e along with several other guards arive in Verbobonc searching for the caravan masters cousin and hopefully work, though Kep'e would rather seek adventure. He is still finding the life of these non-nomads shocking and fascinating.

Stats:

3rd Level Chaotic Good Human Male Ranger froom the Tiger Nomads.

STR: 17, DEX: 15, CON: 16, INT: 10, WIS: 14, CHA: 10