(OOC: Events have...slightly....overtaken this. I had it half written, plus it took time to finish. Please forgive this now being posted by Svanr - he was there, but it was intended as a first person account of Sarrer d'Tan, warleader for the Clanlands...)
Standing right before the massive gatehouse of Asraniae, Sarrer d'Tan did eye the closed gates. They were tall, sheated in iron, embossed by golden suns.
Concentrating to stand still, her hands resting on her longhafted axe, grounded before her.
These walls, these massive walls....she eyed them hungrily. Assaulting them, taking them, entering the capital of of empire....it was like a fierce, fierce yearning within her.
Behind her, her blood guard stood equally silent....20 veterans who had taken the oath to her a long time ago, scarred and battle-proven.
Ach, what a shame. There never might be another opportunity to storm these battlements....and a strange road it had been, leading her to this spot.
Always independent, Sarrer d'Tan had struck out south from the northlands, unwilling to bend her knee before any of Rathgar's clanleaders. Forging her estates into something of worth in the southlands - it had been good. Until the grey sleep took her. Awakening years later, everything had changed, all she had known....gone. Travelling back to the north, she had found the clan reforged, though for from its former strength.
Sarrer vividly remembered her first encounter with clanleader Bahana d'Kailmamont...though there had been only a few words, years ago.
'So - to be warleader, that is your desire?'
Aye....not for her the sedentary life of a lord.
'Will you bring honour to the clan?'
Sarrer had nodded once.
Only a good while after, after the duel between herself and the clanleader in the circle of shields, after the roar of approval, after the feast....only then had Sarrer noted that the clanleader hadn't asked 'can you bring honour to the clan'....but 'will you bring honour'....interesting.
Though over the years Sarrer had fought against the Imperium, led warriors against Ascalon and against northern clans...the Clanlands had always been mostly at peace. There was no need to take new lands...and while her name had spread, while it became easier to call for warriors in both raid and defense....Sarrer had never found an answer to why d'Kailmamont had accepted her as warleader, knowing of her burning desire to make a song through battle, a desire which had to go squarely against the road the clanleader was taking - of the Clanlands d'Serrai being at peace, having strong but stable borders with all neighbours.
Well, the straight road travelled was supposed to be the best....so at one time she had simply asked d'Kailmamont.
After some time: 'For lands and borders to be protected you do need the blades guarding it to be seen every now and then, aye?'
Ah. So she was to be d'Kailmamonts hound....dangerous, but on a leash, making Clanlander warriors known....it had made sense from that day onwards. At first Sarrer had resented it....but the leash was light and the Clanleader generous.
Arescod had fallen to her - though their warrior king Henry of Arescod had given the Clanlands their worst defeat before, a battle for which he was still revered throughout the Clanlands. Kailmamont had fallen to her, the Talornidr were free of Asrania in part due to her, she had scaled the walls of Hunter’s Hold while held by Nadia the Valkyrie's ilk and again while being held by Asrania....her claims on these estates and her scars both proof of those battles.
Aye, if she was to be a hound, she'd rather it be thus.
But now, with the allied host of the Ardaling Tribes, Súrsdalar, of warriors from Tor Kleykiriya and from Clanlands d'Serrai having broken Asranias attack against the Ardalings, having marched deep into the empires lands the threaten its very capital, a march that will echo a long time....now she was to be denied the glory of taking Asranias walls.
Still, there may well be another chapter to be written here.
And so a warleader and 20 huscarls, their chainmail freshly cleaned of rust from the march, their shields repainted, stood before these gates, awaiting their opening.
'So you think the emperors desire to gain our blades is higher than his fervent wish to display the heads of some of those hated northern barbarians on the battlements as warning, aye?'
d'Sarrer grinned.
'Only one way to find out, eh?'
The gates opened, and a troop of northmen marched into a gauntlet of glowering guards, until recently enemies - to meet an emperor.