Hall of Mighty Men, Forgefend
Thirteenth of First Seed, Year Twohundred Thirtyfour of the Reckoning
"We'll have to go after them."
Heads bobbed around the table as the armored men somberly contemplated the map of the lands around the City of Fires. The squadleaders had been in the right place at the right time to drive back the barbarians who came just before winter hit, but with the thaw covering the lands now, many in the settlement thought it only a matter of time before the wild men returned. And providence might not favor the defenders of the city again. They had to strike now, before the miscreants rallied and came once more against fathers and mothers and wives who could not defend themselves.
The fathers of Government Hill in fair Kharbarinth had feared just this outcome when the second sons and cousins had petitioned them to be allowed to go forth to Forgefend and make a new home for the Deepkin. The world was wild, untrammeled, untamed, and her vagaries could neither be predicted in full nor guarded against in surety. Where the scions of old had secured the City of Bells against assault with mighty walls, Forgefend had no such defenses to ward her against querulous or insidious assault.
Only the wall of blood and bone and iron and will.
"Assemble your sections. We march with the dawn."
Their coats of glittering scale-mail concealed beneath surcoats of sable and white, their swords sheathed but ready for action, the hundred sons of the city set forth into the untamed wilds of the east. From thence came the wild men, from the great temperate forests of pine and oak and shattered hills. Into these wilds then the men of civilization must venture, or else live forever in fear of barbarism.