Bruin woke to the smell of willow bark, pain came first.
Not sharp—remembered. The kind that lived in bone and refused to be argued with.
Bruin opened his eyes to a ceiling of roots and packed earth. His leg was wrapped in linen and willow bark, bound tight and careful. Every breath tugged at old damage.
Beside him knelt Oona, the hare druidess. She held a shallow wooden bowl filled with rose petals—crimson, pale pink, one darkened almost to black. She tipped the bowl, and the petals fell, slow and deliberate.
She watched how they landed.
“You were struck from below,” she said. “By choice.”
Bruin exhaled. “Aye.”
The ruined town along the River Ebbe returned to him—broken cobblestones, sagging walls, the river itself sliding past the outskirts thick with mud, slow and indifferent.
The water tower rose not at the town’s heart, but close enough to matter. It loomed over a bent market quarter where streets narrowed and roofs had fallen in. You could see it from almost anywhere. You only went there if you meant to.
Bruin had been searching the buildings clustered around its base when he heard wings settle above.
A raven.
He looked up in time to see the bird already on the upper platform, talons rifling through a hidden cache wedged beneath warped iron plates. Coins glinted. Jewels flashed.
The raven had found the treasure first.
Bruin climbed anyway.
By the time he hauled himself onto the narrow platform, the raven mage was stuffing the last of it into a satchel. They locked eyes.
Words were exchanged—short, sharp, pointless.
Then they collided.
No spells. No distance. Claw to claw.
They slammed into the railing as the tower groaned beneath them. Below, the town sprawled at a crooked angle—alleys twisting away, empty windows staring up, the muddy ribbon of the Ebbe visible between buildings.
Bruin had the edge. He felt bone crack beneath his grip.
Then the spell struck.
Arcane force surged up from the street below, shuddering the tower’s supports. The structure lurched, iron screaming. The raven tore free long enough to uncork a vial and drink. Green light crawled through black feathers as wounds sealed just enough.
Across the street, half-hidden in the ruins of a leaning counting house, the squirrel mage stood with both paws raised. Her eyes were fixed upward. She had waited until both fighters were fully committed.
She did not miss.
From elsewhere a crossbow string twanged.
Pain exploded through Bruin’s side as the bolt punched in clean. His grip failed.
The raven leapt from the platform, clutching the satchel of coins and jewels, wings beating low over rooftops as it fled toward the outer streets.
Bruin went over the edge.
The sky spun.
Cobblestone rushed up.
Steel rang.
Duncan stood in the broken square below, boots planted wide, both paws locked around the grip of a zweihander nearly as tall as he was. The blade was scarred, heavy.
“Oi!” Duncan roared, thick Albian burr echoing off the ruins. “Eyes on me, ye great striped bastard!”
The monstrous badger charged.
The zweihander screamed through the air, biting stone and fur. Duncan barely kept his footing as the impact shuddered up his arms. The badger hit back like a landslide, claws tearing sparks from steel, driving him backward step by brutal step.
Gaston moved in close, blade flashing—not to kill, but to turn strikes aside, to spoil angles, to keep the badger from getting a clean hold. It was not enough. The creature was too strong, too furious, fighting not to win but to deny.
Then Bruin hit the cobblestones.
The sound cut through the square like a snapped bone.
Duncan faltered. The badger did not.
It surged forward, slamming into him, claws raking across the zweihander’s flat and nearly tearing it from his grip. Duncan stumbled, boot slipping on loose stone.
Luck—thin and sudden—intervened.
A broken cart wheel collapsed under the badger’s weight. Just for a breath, its charge went wide.
Gaston seized that breath.
“Now!” he shouted.
Duncan didn’t argue. He threw the zweihander—not at the badger, but at its feet. The blade struck stone and skidded, forcing the creature to hesitate.
That hesitation cost it.
Gaston hooked an arm under Bruin’s shoulder and hauled. Pain flared as Bruin’s weight dragged, but Gaston did not slow. Duncan snatched the zweihander back up, swung it one-handed in a wild, desperate arc that shattered a crate and filled the air with splinters.
The badger burst through them anyway.
A claw caught Duncan’s sleeve, ripped cloth and fur, missed flesh by a whisper.
Another step and it would have them.
Then Duncan kicked loose a stack of rotted barrels. They collapsed into the narrow lane with a wet, wooden crash, choking the passage just enough.
They ran.
Not cleanly. Not bravely. Running because staying meant death.
They vanished into the alleys curling away from the tower, the badger’s roar following them until distance—and more luck than they deserved—finally swallowed it.
Oona let the last rose petals fall. They formed a jagged break.
“You escaped,” she murmured. “That is not the same as winning.”
Bruin forced himself upright, pain flaring through his leg.
“The raven took the treasure.”
“Yes,” Oona said. “And you were not meant to die for it.”
Game 2 of our Burrows & Badgers 2nd Ed campaign had Aaron, Vincent and myself face off in the middle of Moorham. Our warbands seeking treasure and hidden secrets. The most epic moments of the game are recounted above, Ser Bruin climbing the water tower to face off against Corvitz, only for both to come under intense attention from elsewhere, arrows, magics and bolts streaking up at them. The other moment had Gaston narrowly miss barrelling into Fennel. This angered Brund, her badger protector. He didn’t hesitate and hurtled into the cat. A claymore wielding squirrel joined the fray, but the sound of Bruin (not to be confused with Brund) hitting the ground with a clatter brought everyones attention from the scuffle.
Post game the Twisted Claw Scoundrels aided some nearby settlers and were fed for their support. They also happened up a Frankish noble, named Baron Étienne-Lucien de Fromagecourt-sur-Ébrelle, sworn enemy of Ser Bruin. This enmity seems to stem from a matter of etiquette around a social gala at the Northymbran Royal Court. He has joined with the Twisted Claw Scoundrels to seek satisfaction for the slight.
Poor Ser Bruin…
Until next time,
Owen