The Last Storm

The sigil of house Fostonway is a Thunder Feather slayed by a scorpion bolt. How I delight every time a glauch sees it, he instinctively knows what it means, they known about the shared history of our house. It’s the only pleasure that a man like myself can complied to. The battle that occurred in Stormpeak, and the siege of the city of Crueh Chan is engraved in the memory of every citizen of those mountains forever, and I’m thankful for that. May my house is never forgotten in the sands of time.
It was almost one thousand years ago, or so the stories say. My ancestor, Royce Estrid was a commander of a small detachment of 800 mounted knights. He was a seventh son of a seventh son like myself, so he would not inherit nothing of his father. Nevertheless he fought bravely in all the wars that his house would take him, cleaving Minotaur skulls and trampling tuskens under his war steed.
One fine day of storms, he, along with three of his brothers, marched to war to a faraway land of never ending rains and thunders. The last weather he saw of his house would be the weather that he would see for the rest of his life. Some kind of goddess woke and rally the common folk against their feudal masters, gathering enough support to awake the need for independence in the whole region.
We don’t care about the religion of the locals, but their religion was…particular. They adore the storms and the thunderbirds that inhabit the region, and had a goddess of war. A human woman was choose as a vessel for what they called “the one who wields and brings the storms”. Bollocks, just a wicked old wench with some kind of special powers. Nothing that a war lance to the hearth could not fix, Royce latter find out.
After a campaign of terror in the land, slaughtering the smallfolk and burning their crops and demolishing their cliff dwellings that bitch finally got out of her pompous mountain fortress.
In only a few minutes, my ancestor was surrounded by an army of angry fanatics and hundreds of Thunderbirds and their riders. The famous Riders of the Storms. In the lands of the glauchs there is always a storm somewhere, but that day the skies really roared like some kind of angry god mourning some loss, like the sky itself was going to swallow the whole world apart. Most of the army became deaf thanks to it. The rain rendered the archers useless in the fight, and the constant thunder roars make it difficult to rely orders. But on he marched with his marauding band of knights against the enemy lines.
The ensuing battle was pure chaos, as the wills of the fanatics was that of the storms. Maybe it was. The two sides clashes with one another in what can only be described as an ocean boiling and swallowing itself. The constant charges broke the bones of the fanatics, spreading their blood in the ground. One slash here and there, like a barrage of knifes in the darkness, almost comparable to a wall of steel and sheer determination. Javelins were thrown to no avail, and the thunderbirds from time to time would come to the ground to pick up an officer and make him fly, until they drop him, after that they would climb again and only drop on top of us heavy balls of iron. Many heads were crush.
But no matter the possibilities, our knights marched towards victory and the army on the ground finally broke the fanatic’s backs, driving them to their sacred city, were we took up the scorpions and onagers and lay siege to the mountain. That was the time when the wench revealed herself. The whole region was flooding, but whit a whim of her only rained on top of us, and the thunders destroyed many of the siege equipment. Finally, when she got tired of the attackers, she fall down with her mighty thunderbird and wreak havoc. She felled down like a storm and took the lives of many a good soldier. The lightning’s were hitting the mountain, so in a minute a great amount of debris fall on top of us again. But my ancestor endure anyway.
The great hound that was my ancestor barked and the world turned white. His horse wept blood and the earth did groan, he reared up from the lake of blood and water that had formed. The Thunderbird did laugh and the world grew black. It stretched giant claws and snatched Royce.
Contorting his body and using hooks he escaped, holding on to the feathers of the damned animal, latching on to dear life. He challenged Lady Hawkwind to a duel, and she foolishly accepted. They animal lowered and stood on to the ground, in the middle of the ferocious fight, nobody stop to bat an eye to them.
They started to trading blows. Royce with his lance and shield, and Lady Hawkwind with her great sword, the Wielder of Storms. Each time she hit the aegis of Royce with her sword, a thunder roared.
Of course, my ancestor was cleverer than a warrior, and the stupidity of normal men was replaced with cunning. The bitch was enthrall with the fight, after all she was a goddess of war and nothing else. So he ordered a few of his men to manned the scorpions and throw two bolts against the great bird.
She never saw it coming, and when the bird died of his wounds, the empathic connection that both had shatter her mind. She screamed like the roaring storm that she was, hurling bolts of energy around everyone in a fit of rage. Leaving Royce alone to piece her hearth with a lance.
In the end, the storm subsided and only her mangled body was left of the carnage. The body of a goddess, and my ancestor killed her.
He never returned home to be branded as a hero. He stayed in the lands of the storms, forever. Bringing his wife and children to populate the place with his newly formed noble house, after his father gave him lands and a couple castles to honor the service that he had given to the empire.
House Fostonway remains there to this day. Battling a god each time she has the nerves to revive and come again. She has killed hundreds of knights of our family, and we have killed her at least five more times. The faces of our ancestors that were killed in the storms haunts my dreams. I named my last son, my seventh son, Royce, in honor of the man who killed a god. I only hope that he doesn’t have to end like the first Royce. Killed in a storm while a great thunderbird laughs

Historical Basis

The mithological origins of the Noble House Fostonway. Historical acounts differ and doubt about the details described in the tale. Mostly because the war described was an indisputable lose to the Edekhan Empire, and the Lady Hawkwind described in the tale actually reincarnated mid battle and continued to figth on, killing most of the Estrid brothers, nephews, cousings and such. Historians have the general consensus that the tale is just a fabrication to justify the origin of a noble house and nothing more than fables to feed on the ego of the house leader.