Eagles and Dragons Tribune Box Set

Prologus

Prologus

A.D. 208

In the dawn mist, at the edge of a far, northern wood, a white stallion caroused, revelling in life, in the moment. His neighing and the sound of his hooves cut through the air to penetrate the ancient forest, heralding the day to the darkness within. He cut right and left and jumped and leaned to full gallop, his footing always sure. Power surged in the muscles beneath his shimmery coat, his mane silver and wild, untamed.

Then there was laughter, laughter to lighten the heart of the darkest recesses of the world. A ringing voice of spring rain and sunlight both. The stallion stopped, ears forward, eyes turned to the wood and the growing light that approached.

As dawn’s pink light finally laced the mist, She came: the mistress of horses, a goddess in shining robes of white and gold. She was tall and slender with red-gold hair, her eyes alight with life from beyond the veil of worlds.

The stallion approached and kneeled, his magnificent head bowed to her.

She sang to him, and he rose to meet her loving hand which caressed his muzzle and neck. On the branches above her were perched three white birds, and about her feet were three white hounds with red-tipped ears, her loyal sentries of earth and air.

Her presence was music, but in a moment the music changed, her demeanour darkened. Her eyes narrowed to dark tidal pools, and the stallion reared in front of her toward the field and down the valley. Calming him with a word of the otherworld, she waited as a wind was born in the West and clouds descended. She smiled, terrible and beautiful at once.

They are here…

The stallion entered the wood at her side as they came, horses and men clad in iron and bronze, clenching sword and spear and shield for war, for the kill. Above these riders soared the dragons, their howls ushering in the battle to come.

She watched the leader, and his head turned quickly to her as he flew past, his war mask brilliant across the green field. At his signal, the riders split into three columns, their mounts beautifully disciplined.

At a word from the goddess, the three birds followed, shot from tree to sky as arrows on the wind. She sighed, her lithe hand outstretched, fingers wrapped about a swaying branch of rowan as though clasping the hand of an old friend.

A moment later, the light of dawn returned and she sat atop the stallion to gallop soundlessly back into the wood, trailed by her running hounds whose ears swayed like field poppies in a spring breeze.