The Curse

[HeySeuss]

Tonis and Baldewin, farmers, were sent over the edge.

In the last few weeks, they’d watched neighbors turn on neighbors and the town and farms turn on each other, Straka and the Council, Straka and the militia. Cultists, swords, insanity, plague, drought, famine, death.

Much of this they could do very little about.

But the latest was an outrage that sent men in the militia screaming and howling, for many had prepared for their families

Ditwin and Vridel were also farmers. Brothers, they ran farms side by side, with young wives and newborn children.

All of these men were sick with worry over their families and their livelihoods. It felt as if they’d had everything taken.

The Bates and the Pritchies, rumored to be ambitious in their dreams of revenging themselves upon Myrken, seemed to be the culprits; enough so to the minds of hot-blooded young men.

They spoke with their neighbors, sitting in the tent city and in the walls of the mott and bailey that the Thessilian troops had built. They decided what it was to be done. The decision was to revive an old, old, old custom of their people. Ezekiel Jones, it was rumored, died working for the Remedium, and was known to be honest and simple; his wife was perhaps a gossip, but to these simple men, many women were. They didn’t think Ezekiel Jones, whose reputation was stellar, was involved in any of this. Especially since he died around the same time the crops and animals were destroyed; and Ezekiel was known to be hale and hearty, in the prime of life.

No, they blamed the ones that were known to harbor ambitions, and who threatened to starve out Myrken, to show everyone who was in charge. It was becoming clearer that it wasn’t merely the will of the gods that plagued them. Mortals added to it, out of that most despicable of sins; greed.

These men were all of Northern stock, and they went to others of Northern stock to gather them. The North was harsh and unforgiving, and local events had brought the old blood up singing again.

Soon, they talked to their little community, and formulated a plan based on information they got from a highly placed ally. Tonight, the militia was bedding down and Straka and the Council stuck in the trial at the meetinghouse.

They’d make their presence felt.

***

The Bates farm, while the trial went on, had a group of visitors; a group of in hoods, bearing torches beating drums and blowing deep-throated, basso voiced horns. It was a chilling nocturnal visitation, especially given that they lit a bonfire with oil and dry wood, so it would burn ever so bright and fierce, and gathered along one side, facing the farm of John and Mary Bates, albeit at a distance.

There was a chant, an old war song of vegeance and blood, something passed down along the old religions of the North.

They all turned together and left, after this dark serenade that promised vengeance. One didn’t need to know the Old Tongue to know that. As the ancestors once pillaged by sea, so their descendants had made their point clear; they were not to trod upon lightly by the ambitious.

A message was left in the dirt. The symbol of the Even-Handed was left in the dirt next to it, as well as a brutally chopped up snake. “Der Schuld würde bestrafen!â€

[Jirai]

This had gone on for far too long. Emotions ran high, and simply added to the mess that was Myrken Wood these days. When faced with such a severe drought, the last thing that was needed was for these farmers to refuse to sell what food they had managed to produce. The situation could not continue like this. Proxenus had already pointed out the danger. People were Unhappy. This would be expressed. Was being expressed, with the bonfires and the noise.

So, perhaps there would not be too much surprise when cries of "Fire!" broke out on the Bates farm in the middle of the night.

The fire did not come from anywhere near the bonfire. Dangerous, that, but the fire-watch had been set up, and so the Bates farm would not suffer anywhere near the complete destruction that the Baker farm had. Still, there would be some destruction, and any destruction on a farm during this weather was Not Good. This fire - or rather, fires - was clearly set. No sooner had one small blaze broken out, and men gone to extinguish it, then another would erupt, a distance away. This might suggest that there were several people involved, but not a one was seen. Perhaps this was due to simply to skill, perhaps to magic. Perhaps it was just the will of the gods.

And perhaps, in the rumors that were always the aftermath of any sort of destruction, would be heard: "The Bates deserved it."

The guilty were being punished.

[Dhugal]

Morning would find John Bates and his friends and family gathered outside
his farmhouse. Of the crops, nothing was left. John stood there quietly, staring out at the fields.

"John? We're ready to ride after the bastards Say the word." Wat Miller
stood there with the rest of the Irregulars, waiting for the order.

It didn't come.

Instead, John turned to his four sons. "Get all our wagons hitched up.
Then start loading everything out of the house and barn into them." He started walking towards the barn.

""John? What are you doing?" Wat hurried after his brother in law,
grabbing at John's elbow and turning him around to face him. "We can't
let them do this!''

"It's no use, Wat. There's no one in Myrken who'll miss the Pritchites."

"John, you have to fight this!"

"And prove them right by starting a civil war?" John shook his head, moved into the barn. "No, I'll not shed another's blood over this."

"Seems to me they don’t have any trouble shedding ours!" Wat grumbled "So that's it, you're leaving? Where are you going?"

"East, towards where we started the ditches. There's plenty of space and water by the Siskasoons. And it's too far for any more troublemakers from town to reach easily. Closer to you, actually at that, Wat! " He grinned. "I'll send a rider into town to let the Straka know what's happened."

When word spread of Johns' decision, the other Pritchites began to
pack as well.

And so, the Bates and their in laws and supporters began one by one
the process of leaving farms that had been in their families for years.