[IC] An Account of House Andural

The following is written in a well-formed hand, with neat lettering scratched onto sheets of parchment. Notes fill the margins, and here and there words or sentences are marked out and written anew. What seems to be the most recent version reads:

To mention the kingdom of Alterac in these current days brings to mind a black stain on the bright sword of the Alliance; and rightly so, for what, indeed, is a greater crime than to betray one's own sworn shield-brethren? The once proud nation, cradle of tradition and artistry, whose crafty sons bore the honour of their lineages upon their shoulders and whose lissom daughters held the songs of ancient days close to their hearts, has reaped its own ruin from the seeds of treachery.

Yet despite the corruption wrought by Perenolde and his circle of craven nobles, men unworthy to bear the names of their ancestors, and despite the ravages that brought Alterac to her ignoble fall, the memory of what Alterac once was is still alive; a glowing ember in the hearts and minds of a few.

She who writes these pages is the lady Amirah Andural, daughter of Medryn, who was called the Wise, and Helena of the house of Aislinghall of Lordaeron. I, Amirah Andural, loyal servant of the Grand Alliance and last heir of House Andural, testify to the truth of these words, written so that an old and honourable name may be neither sullied by association with its traitorous kin nor forgotten amidst the unforgiving annals of history.

((to be continued...))

Of Owain and the Lion

It is said that many generations ago, before the Seven Kingdoms were conceived, when the mountains and dells that are now called Alterac were naught but the dwelling of a handful of rough chieftains and their men, he who was first in the land – the man before whom the other chieftains bent knee – was a man named Lugh. Now Lugh was a brave man, ruddy faced and proud as a spear-shaft in his bearing, a chieftain who kept safe the bothies and byres of his men from wild beasts and rough-handed raiders alike.

Yet if there was one thing that Lugh could not bear, it was to face a challenge without conquering it; and the challenge that Lugh most greatly embraced was not that of the battlefield, but that of the hunt. And so one autumn, reports of a great cat drifted through the whole region; a lion of the mountain crags more fearsome than any that had ever been seen in those parts, a tawny beast with paws that could crush a man's skull with one blow, with teeth that could rip the throat of a sheep and bear it away before either spear or arrow could be loosed.

Lugh was in the prime of his years; his strength had never been greater, never his sinews more handsomely knit to his bones nor the aim of his spear-arm more true. When Lugh heard the reports of the great mountain lion, he gathered his men and his hounds, chose his favourite hunting spears, the finest among them decorated with a collar of white heron feathers, and set out for the mountain clefts where last the beast had been seen.

Now the bothy closest to those hills belonged to a man by the name of Owain an-Dwyrel, or Owain of the Dwyrel Valley, and it was with him that Lugh and his hunting-company lodged for some weeks while they sought the great beast. After these weeks the frost began to set into the soil, into the bones and heart of Lugh's companions; but still the chieftain refused to call off the hunt, nor to leave the challenge unmet and untried. And then one morning, when it was nearly winter, Lugh's hounds picked up a scent.

The hunting party chased the beast all throughout the day, rising into the mountains until their hearts grew faint within even the most stalwart of them, save, it seemed for Lugh himself. And then, when it seemed that all would be in vain, a great baying of the hounds went up, and breathed fresh heart into the men; they leapt forward after the pack, their spears flashing in the light of the westering sun. And there, brought to bay at last against a snow-encrusted rock face, was the great tawny lion. The beast was twice the size of any other lion of those lands, its muscles rippling beneath a coat of dusty gold, its teeth like the jagged white peaks that ringed the land; and for a single moment all men there were struck with amazement.

The cat snarled and thrashed even as the hounds howled around it, and as the pack closed in, the beast flung each hound that leaped forward hard against the cliff face, and none rose again. Then Lugh the hunter gave a great cry and leapt forth, his spear raised high to pierce the beast through its snarling throat; but the lion was faster than the chieftain, its speed twice that of any other man or beast, and it pinned Lugh the Proud beneath its paws. His spear clattered from his hand onto the rock face, its handsome crown of heron feathers bent and broken, and the cry of Lugh was that of such horror that it echoed from the mountain peaks until snow began to break and tumble and fall on a distant slope.

The great lion raised its head and screamed, its claws raking into the chieftain's side, and all seemed lost in the space of a man's breath; but then Owain an-Dwyrel, his own spear plain and unadorned, gave a wild shout and leapt forth to plunge the spear-point deep into the beast's throat. With a noise like a thousand winter winds, the cat fell lifeless against the cliff-face, and the life of Lugh the chieftain was spared by the hand of Owain an-Dwyrel, a man who before had been no one.

It is told that Owain's words, when he lifted the wounded Lugh from the rock, were: 'I have proved to be the best of my lord's hounds today, and if my lord is willing, I will be so always.'

Then Lugh, who was thereafter known as Lugh the Scarred, granted to Owain an-Dwyrel all the lands of the Dwyrel Valley, its fertile fields and the hills surrounding, and raised him to be a chieftain in his own right, one who might have men beneath him and spear-bearers of his own. And thereafter Owain was known as Owain of the Shining Spear and his house and family were granted much honour among the proud mountain-dwellers. Owain took a silver hound as the symbol of his house, a testament to the quick wit and the bravery with which he had both saved the life of his chieftain and had slain the greatest beast ever to stalk the land.

And thus did Owain an-Dwyrel, called Owain of the Shining Spear, become the first lord of the honourable house of an-Dwyrel, a lineage which in later days was simplified into the common tongue as the house of Andural.