Hex Crawl 23 #172: Canyon of the Last Stand

Fourteen hexes north, two northwest of Alakran.

Beyond the eminence of Gagaz-Parku there is a remote and desolate valley that narrows with steep sides toward the Scarp. The canyon culminates in a boxed-in end, on whose floor is piled a mound of stones and earth, ten feet high and sixty feet broad, overgrown with the sparse weeds and short shrubs of those highlands.

This place is known in surrounding regions as the "Canyon of the Last Stand,"  but whose stand exactly? That is more of a mystery. Hero, tyrant, rebel company, defiant runaway bride ... all have their stories and legends. Curiosity is dampened by persistent tales of a curse on the mound, so that few have ventured there even to gawk at it.

The Band of Bronze found the answer based on two clues. One was part of the legend of the undead dragon "Dragotha" -- the heroes who slew him hacked off his wings in a battle near his lair, and he ran to the west "until he could run no more." Then he was slain.

The other is a strong clue if interpreted well. It is an older form of a well-known song of lament, a form taught to the armadillo bard Dasypus by the blind singer Ish Shamai, the relevant parts of which we can render here in a more 20th century mode of lamentation.

The men have chased me from my home, O lord

The men have chased me from my home, O lord

The men have chased me from my home, 

And wounded me that I might roam

And follow me to where I’m goin’, O lord

The mountains rise on my right hand, O lord

The mountains rise on my left hand, O lord

The mountains rise also behind

And here is where I make my stand

And there I see the killing band, O lord

The arrows fly so sharp and fierce, O lord

The arrows fly so sharp and fierce, O lord

The arrows fly so sharp and fierce

And still they cannot do their worst

Because I have no skin to pierce, O lord

The fire engulfs me from afar, O lord

The fire engulfs me from afar, O lord

The fire engulfs me from afar

And still it cannot leave a scar

Because I have no flesh to char, O lord

And now they strike me limb from limb, O lord

And now they strike me limb from limb, O lord

And now they strike me limb from limb

I cannot move, I cannot climb

But still I see and still I sing, O lord

And now they bear away my head, O lord

And now they bear away my head, O lord

And now they bear away my head, 

To stand as proof that I am dead

And finally my soul has fled, O lord

 

The mound in fact covers the bones of Dragotha's body; his skull is in the Governor's vault of Shasari and his hacked-off wings rest in his lair-tomb of old. Shargata's necromantic faction swore they possessed a recipe to make a dragon-slaying weapon for use against Razisiz. So the Band of Bronze faithfully collected the ingredients: the ancient text, the Regrets of Urrummittu, from that figure's shrine and tomb beneath Nathrak; the skull of the dracolich from the Governor's vault in Shasari; his wings from his lair itself; and finally, the bones, here. Only when they saw the dragon's whole skeleton, arranged by deceit into a "forge" for the weapon, assemble themselves and rise, did they grasp the horrible truth. The whole quest was a plot to raise Dragotha, powerful of body if bereft of soul, once more from the dead.  
 
The "curse" that peasants speak of, though, is but a superstition; or perhaps a presentiment of the dire events to follow here in the Urig year 7022.