The Golem Crafter by Aaron Holloway

Author:Aaron Holloway [Holloway, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

END PART 1: TRAVEL SOUTH

Interlude 1: The Horse Clans

Far to the North, Forests just south of the Sawtooth Mountain Range.

The small stream ran on next to the great northern forest as Kahn Gangshee, standing along its dry banks, bent down to examine the bodies. The trees were tall evergreens and the smell of pine needles filled the air. The creatures at the Khans’ feet had been trampled by him and his honor riders just moments before, so their brokenness was no surprise to him. What did surprise the great clan leader was the fact that they existed here at all. Shadow imps, nearly ten of them, wings shattered, skulls crushed, bodies mangled lay all about him. Kahn Gangshee knew little of these creatures. Only that he felt their wrongness, that they should not be here along the edges of the great pine forests.

"Wise one!" He shouted over the stamping of hooves and the braying of stallions. "I need your counsel!" Slowly an older man and woman, two of the clan’s elders came forward together. The man had once been, as he, Khan of the Golden Riders Clan. Now he advised, as his bones were old, and his muscles lacked the strength they once did. But his mind and his years of knowledge of strategy, hunting, and diplomacy were an invaluable resource to the clan and to Khan Gangshee personally.

The woman was the clans Wise One. Their most powerful shaman, and most insightful seer. The older man helped his life's companion off her horse and down into the solid ground below. The weather on the great open plains north of the elven forest of Lo'sar was kinder during the winter seasons. It was one of the many reasons the clans traveled north, following the great herds of prey animals. But even if the sun was stronger, and the snows were lighter the cold still bit the old and the very young. Winter was almost at its zenith, and so all of the clans took to the northern portions of the open plains where the herd beasts came. Great Kodo’s, Elk, and Deer herds grazed in masses on the winter grass that still found warmth enough to grow.

Even so, where the Khan had taken his clan was further north by many miles then they normally went. So far north that the cold once again had sway enough to endanger the elderly.

The Khan waited with patience as the older couple came to him. The old and the wise were given great deference in the Golden Riders clan. That was the right way, the old way. Even if some of the clans refused to act like it while cloaking themselves in claims of following that same path. Clans like the Blackroot, and Stallion Strikers used the Old Ways as a weapon, wielding it against each other for political gains like some southern kings or princes. But even these were still members of the Clans. They were still better than the Outriders. Those cast out. The blackhearted, and traitors.

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