It Begins with Justice

In the aftermath of the Battle of Glorn's Crossing, it was apparent to Wolverhampton that Kage the  Assassin was still thirsty for blood.  The clever lizardman had been frustrated by the quarter given to the bandits of the Crossing, a habit so rare when fighting monsters in the howling wilderness.  Now he was determined to execute the whole lot.

Wolverhampton could not let this happen, for he knew from the Annals of the Red Knight that to begin a campaign with a massacre is not a good omen.  It is better to end with a massacre, and so a massacre now would mean an end rather than a beginning and therefore not a good idea.

Wolverhampton did confuse himself while reciting the received wisdom of the Red Knight, but he was sure of one thing: "Let us not execute them all, but rather give trial to the worst, punish them as a public spectacle, and then spare the rest.  That way the bards will sing of our heroism, mercy, and the bringing of the Red Rule of Law to the land, taking the place of the decrepit hand of necromancy that lurks behind the walls of Castle Fircrest!"

Kage was sanguine, "Fine human.  I will humor you.  Then I will blast a bandit in the face with my fiery breath!"

Jetberry gave charity to the downtrodden women of the Inn, and sent a few of them to the Realm of the Sunstaff for training in the arts of Companionship, for she had been contacted by a clandestine spy of the Lady of the Shawl, Mortisha, and a relationship, if not and alliance was broached.

And so the Company of the Verdant Glade left Glorn's Crossing triumphant in arms and honor, and leaders of company of men, for seven had bent their knee to the cause of the Peoples' Liberation of Blackburn.

Now they marched to visit the Wisewoman Maude of Tameril and inform her of her own lineage and of the impending crusade.  Maude was welcoming and kind but unconvinced of the wisdom and righteousness of Peoples' Crusade.  Nor was she suitably impressed by the evidence of her patrimony. "My place is here now, not in Westfall."

Wolverhampton was not concerned with the woman's prevarication and impatient to draw his sword again in righteous battle.  Word came to his ears that the waterways downstream of Blackburn had been contaminated and he knew in his heart that the culprit was the oozing bile of iniquity that laired in his ancestral keep.  Avaunt!

Some days of travel later, the Peoples' Company rested at the Sheppard's Inn, in the Highlands above Fircrest.  Assassin and Bard enjoyed a warm bed while Wolverhampton the Wanderer slept with his retainers in the huts out back, retelling again the legends of the Red Knight.

The morn would be a day of reckoning!