Legends of Klane Kalonia 03 : The Great Burning
Table of Contents
Part 1 : Journey to Ironhope Part 2 : The Anvil & Hammer Part 3 : Around the Town Part 4 : Violence & Intimidation Part 5 : The Order of the Silent Word Part 6 : The First Day of the Games Part 7 : The Last Day of the Games Part 8 : The Auction Part 9 : The Duel Part 10 : An Early Departure Part 11 : The Great Burning Part 12 : Exodus Part 13 : Lucalle Part 14 : AberstonePart 10 : An Early Departure
A last dawn came to Ironhope, for today the town would burn.
Muttu had ridden out early from camp with a few trusted men. His body still ached from the combat where he’d been bested by the thin young man who had broken his axe and stolen the spoils of the Burning he believed belonged to him. His pride was bruised more than his body, though, and he was brooding on how he might be avenged. He wished to see the disposition of the carts and horses Klane would be leading out of Ironhope and so he made his way into town before the muster on the game field.
He was too late. Inspecting the ground on the western side of town, he could see the churning of mud, the tracks of carts and the hoof prints of horses but that was all. Klane and his party had already left. Spotting that something strange had dropped on the ground, he dismounted. Muttu didn’t recognise the fallen book for what it was but he picked it up. Thorawn would want to see this.
Muttu’s instinct was to gather his men and ride in pursuit of the departing town’s people and the rag tag band of Riders who protected them. Yet for the moment, Klane had not only out fought him but out thought him. The demands of the Great Burning could not be denied. There was a town to burn today, but after that…
Thorawn studied the book which Muttu had found, feeling deeply uneasy. It wasn’t so much the book itself that disturbed him. The Order of the Silent Word might imagine that they operated in secrecy but the Conclave knew much more about them than they realised. The Conclave tolerated the existence of the Order because without it, Rider life and frequent Great Burnings would not be sustainable. Some practical knowledge had to be preserved and so long as there were no history books or frivolous stories of any kind, there wasn’t a strict prescription against writing as such, whatever some of the more zealous Riders might imagine.
Still, the level of knowledge that ought to be permitted within the hidden libraries of the transient towns in the Great Forgetting, was a constant source of debate and friction within the Conclave. Thorawn himself, as a representative of the Trassamul Enclave inclined towards a more hard line attitude than was considered normal in the Conclave, but although he viewed this book with distaste, there was nothing technically criminal about it. It was just a book concerning the care of tamed birds, both for hunting and for harvesting eggs and feathers.
However, finding this manual left behind, did suggest that there had been a library here and that this oddly independent Rider who had called himself Alderon had just left with at least a part of its books. That was useful information. The Conclave would need to keep a close eye on the new settlement those people would make.
But if the book was only unsettling, more disturbing was the strange weapon the youth had wielded in the ritual combat. Thorawn had fully expected Muttu to dispatch the youngster and had been as astonished as his protege, when it was Muttu who found himself forced to concede. What was that thing the lad had in his hand? Thorawn had never even heard of a klane, let alone seen one. It troubled him greatly. And so it should…
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