Born unto the Kaldron, Nevyn sat beneath his favourite tree. He had come of age not one week hence and had been told by his village leader that he must chose a profession before the turning of the fall. His arms had always been powerful, his footfall quick and quiet; and his village were known throughout the area for their skill at making longbows.

Nevyn considered his abilities and his standing within the villages: A solitary figure at heart, he had been told by friends that he could be quite hard to get to know but would hold steadfast to any who befriended him. When needed he knew that he could work in groups and be an essential member of the team but he also saw that he worked best alone when it came to trying to get what he wanted in life. He admitted that he was an inquistive boy who liked to know how things worked and why but he did not like authorities lording it over him and instead would chose what he wanted to do and when.

What could he possibly do that meant he could work alone but also as part of a greater team...? A Sword fighter? no, while he knew how to handle a sword it was not a strong-point in his training. Being a magic user of any sort was out of the question - he had about as much magic in his whole body as the village herbalist had in her little toenail!

TBC........

While pondering his situation Nevyn munched on his stock of apples his dear mother had given to him. Biting into one particularly sweet apple a memory came back to him from the previous spring when his best friend Jackobi and he had been practicing with their bows in a nearby field.

They had been training with special arrows which had their heads blunted and wrapped in bits of old cloth to make them safe should they hit some poor unfortunate as they walked past. They did not fly as true as normal arrows but it was said that if you could master archery with the training arrows then you would be able to become a Grand Master in archery one day.

Jackobi had had the mad notion of placing an apple on his head and betting Nevyn that he could not shoot it off from 50 paces. Nevyn had taken that challange and had moved back to the distance his friend said. He had aimed, pulled back the string and let loose the arrow. His breath held, he watched the arrow fly and strike its mark - a perfect shot - the apple tumbled to the ground behind Jackobi. Amazed, he shouted to the wind "Huzzah! Huzzah!". Both of the boys had then rolled on the grass laughing and joking about Nevyns ability and the fact that one day he would prove to be a brilliant archery in some far-flung army or war-band.

Having remembered that wonderful spring, Nevyn broke down and weeped. Just three weeks after that glorious day Jackobi had been killed in a tragic accident while in training to become a Ranger.

When Nevyn went to Jeremiah's house, who had been Jackobi's father, to give him solace he had been made to swear an oath never to become a Ranger as Jackobi had so badly wanted to be. Jackobi had grown up wanting to be a Ranger, just like his father and his father's father, but Jeremiah was insistant that he did not want to lose another person that he cared about almost as much as he had cared for his son. With the promise made Nevyn was now unsure which way to take his training, but he knew that he had many a month to go before he had to chose one way or another.

Pulling himself out of his reverie, it suddenly struck Nevyn what path he should take. It was so obvious that he could not imagine how he had not thought of it before! While he had promised not to become a Ranger, he had never promised not to be an Archer for hire by those in need.

The next day Nevyn got dressed in his best cloathes and went to see the village elder and asked his advice on the best course of action in his desire to become a Mercenary Adventurer. With the knowledge secured on how to achieve his goals Neyvn set out, his whole future ahead of him, bright like the sun glinting off a newly crafted arrow head.

Sitting by the fire in his small homestead in East Tilia Nevyn was contemplating his recent past, and thinking over his actions and words. It seemed that of late, despite having found a new family of sorts within the boundaries of Yessex, he had managed on several occasions to put a foot wrong and ended up the worse for wear. There was that rather large blunder with my Pen-Thane and then this most recent encounter within the plane of fire with that new mage, Troy...who although he may bluster and spout unnecessary wisdom at any given moment does indeed possess much wisdom and should therefore be revered rather than mocked.

“Your actions have not been very Kaldron, have they?” he spoke aloud to no-one in particular.

Watching a log burn through in the fire, with a sudden exhalation of brilliant flame, Nevyn saw then that his past had made him stray from his ancestral path. He had been given a new path to follow, that of the Spirit Warrior, but one which he now knew he would be unable to follow unless he re-learnt how to be Kaldron. His past was the key to unlocking his future.

Pouring a small glass of mead, and taking a sip, he thought back to his days of training to be an archer and adventurer. Thoughts of the family he had built up around him flowed into his conciousness and threatened to overwhelm him with sorrow. That was the crucial point of it all. There was his pain, his agony, there had the arrogance been born and fed.

How had events unfolded...? It seemed so long ago now, so distant. Nevyn watched the fire and remembered......

It had taken a long three weeks to reach the principality of Worcester and the man who he hoped would take him on and give him tutelage in the finer points of adventuring. There were many skills needed to survive the wilderness, and it would take a good length of time to become good enough that he be able to hire himself to those who could afford him.

Nevyn recalled that over the next two years and a quarter he had built up a small group of friends and associates whom had come to mean much to him. A mixed bunch they were, but though their races and cultures were varied they came to live in somewhat of a harmony under the tutelage of Master Tannling. They lived and trained each day in the middle of the great forest to the west of the large town known as Worcester. Being surrounded by the trees suited him as his natural instincts as a Kaldron was to be among nature.

Nevyn had used the wood to build a small dwelling sunk partially into the ground, with thatch on the roof and clay on the walls. The two who had become his closest friends, Theodor, a lesser Mhainite noble and Cleoraata, or Cleo as she was known, a Kaldron like Nevyn, lived under the same roof as Nevyn. They helped him tend the small patch of land out front that held a herb garden and a small orchard of peaches and apples, used as food and as a mead.

They learnt much in this time from each other and from their tutor. Over time Cleo had become a comfort to Nevyn both mentally and physically, and then, just at the turning of the seasons into spring each noticed that her belly had started to swell and the normal female cycle displaced. A date was set for the marrying of the two, at Alban Eiler, a special time for all Kaldron. A feast and a joining would be had and all in the group invited.

For some time Nevyn had seen evidence of a rather large and presumably well-fed Boar, wandering to the south of the training area. It would make a perfect spit-roast for the banquet so he packed several spears, his hunting bow, and provisions for several days and nights hunting and set out after the beast. Just before he left he enjoined Theodor to the protection of Cleoraata, safe in the knowledge that he would guard her well.

For several days he searched for the beast, finding no sign of it, until at last a trampling of an area that had obviously held mushrooms came to his attention. There, at the edge of a stream, were boar prints and they lead further south. The prints were fresh, so Nevyn unhitched his spears and held them ready then followed the tracks until he found the boar out in a small clearing. With careful aim he threw the first spear which sunk home in the hind quarter of the beast. An alarming high pitched squeal bellowed forth from its lungs and it spun and charged. Nevyn stood his ground, took aim, and when the boar was a scant few feet from him he had thrown it with all his might straight into the creatures exposed neck. As the beasts momentum carried it forward Nevyn had dived out of its path and landed in a patch of gorse. Checking that it was dead he had readied it for travel, hoisting it over his shoulders and heading back north to his home.

When he was but half a days travel from the homestead an ill dread had hit him hard. Something was badly wrong back home. Dumping the dead boar Nevyn took off running and soon winded himself so that he had to slow to a jog. Several hours later the first signs that his intuition had proven justified showed themselves. Branches lay on the floor of the wood, having been hacked off with axes; streams defiled and several thin lines of black smoke rising from where the settlement should be.

Nevyn had paused briefly to ready his body and bow and to pray to Lady Tasmina, then had set off the final short distance to whatever lay in store for him. What he had found was not a pretty sight.

In the middle of the training ground was carnage. At a distance there seemed to be many dead animals and humans, but on closer inspection the mounds turned out to be people, clothed in furs and with marks and symbols on their foreheads.

“Kuul, damn them!” Nevyn muttered to himself. “A worse set of foes a man could not wish for. Cleo. Theodor. Where are you? Safe, I prey.”

Many of his friends lay dead there, though they had taken a fair few Kuul with them to the afterlife. Rounding a corner, into the dwelling area, and Nevyn saw a sight that made him cry out. There was Master Tannling, lifted high on a pole arm, thrust up his anus and out between his shoulder blades. The agony of the death was still etched into his face and all Nevyn could do as he looked up at him was cry.

In front of Master Tannling was a figure larger than the rest, and with a tattoo on his forehead instead of the usual paint-marks. So the master had taken a Noble down before he had been overwhelmed. Good.

Truly worried now for the safety of Cleo, Nevyn rushed out to his home, now roofless from fire and with the door demolished. Inside was a sight so heinous that it forced Nevyn back out into the sun and to vomit over and over until nothing but bile would come. Weeping, exhausted and bereft, Nevyn crawled back into his home and to the corpse of Cleo and his unborn babe. It had been unceremoniously cut from its mothers womb and laid to one side to die, presumably while Cleoraata still lived, judging from the way her out-stretched arm tried to reach the babe.

“I shall have Vengeance for this. Cleoraata, my darling, I shall either lie with you in Tasmina's Garden this night or those Kuul responsible for this shall pay, and pay dearly.”

Somewhat became clear in Nevyn's mind. Amongst all of the bodies there were but a scant few Mhainite bodies. Theodor was not among them. There should be a lot more Mhainites dead here, so they must have been taken by these Kuul for slaves. Indeed, the tracks leading North-west suggested that there were many people shuffling along at an uneasy pace.

Nevyn took an axe from the woodpile and turned the remaining walls of his house into a pyre over his Cleo, which he doused with mead from the few remaining barrels and then set alight. Walking over to Master Tannling he had hacked through the pole in two swift strokes and set about burying him and his fellow students in shallow graves. There would be time to build a cairn over them later, should he survive the coming fight.

Nevyn's revenge had been swift and strong. The details are hazy to his memory, such was his blood-lust. But many an arrow sped true and the Kuul were picked off one by one without their fellows knowing of the danger creeping up on them from the shadows. Nevyn does remember killing the guards of the slaves, who had taken the keys for the shackles and freed themselves, taken arms and aided Nevyn in his Vengence.

But in that last battle against the Kuul, Theodor had fallen also. With no more tears to cry, Nevyn held him as he died, as his last words were spoken, “I tried to protect Cleo, my Friend. But they came too fast and strong.”

“Hush, Theo. I know you did all you could, I blame you not. Keep my lady company at Tasmina's bountiful table until such time as I am bidden join you. Your work here is done, while mine is but beginning.”

Nevyn and the other survivors had trudged a weary journey back home, where they formed a cairn over the burial mound, so their dead would not be forgotten. In council the next day it was agreed that they should all go their own separate ways once more, to take up whatever destiny and the Troll Lords should throw their way.

Nevyn had headed East towards Yessex, having heard that there were problems arising from all quarters but that good and stead-fast men and women of many races had joined forces to battle the dark.

He wanted vengeance still but he would not show that openly to others. His past was to be buried, but with it went that which truly made him a Kaldron, his forgiveness and kindness.

Surviving the long trek from west to east had hardened Nevyn, and it had cost him dear. Any that had known him just one year ago would not have recognised the soul residing in the body now for it had changed greatly.

Nevyn gained money from hires all along the way and finally arrived in Yessex with a decent amount that would help him settle down after he had found a semi-permanent hire.

The rest of that particular story is known by most around here he realised. That is when I had come into the lives of these good people and this is where I am now. I have changed, and it helped me survive, but now I must be willing to try to reclaim some of my heritage.

If I am to go down the path I seek and was enjoined to take then I must surely learn to be a teacher once more. I should speak to my friends and colleagues and betters to find out with whom I should train in the ways of a Spirit Warrior and to reclaim my Kaldronness. This is not going to be easy Nevyn thought. Not at all easy.

[NOTE from Nevyn's aide]

Nevyn completed his quest. He gained back his honour and name and helped to save the Kingdom. He died in doing this along with many other brave souls. We believe he is at peace.