Keepers of Lore/Regions/Balance's Retreat/Sir Balanss of Ramea

Sir Balanss of Ramea

This epic was written by Bowie Ironsides, who heard various parts of its oral form during his journey through the Divide Mountains, the originating location of this tale, and compiled it into this thrilling novel.

The following yarns compile the life of Sir Balanss of Ramea. It may not be entirely complete but it includes the story of the hero’s youth, the acquiring of immortality from a god of war, the hero’s ultimate triumph and inevitable tragedy.

The narrative in italics was written by Lord Bowie, the regular writing is the traditional lore.

The Novel

The Birth of Destiny

It was a cold morning late in winter when the Lady of the Arlacks Family birthed their firstborn son. Her husband, the Lord, had prayed and begged the gods for a boy. His offerings and rituals proved successful. They were a noble family from what we now call the Alley of Swords, but at the time a realm called Ramea.

The boy was named Balanss.

As time flowed on like a calm river, it became clear to the boy’s parents that he would live the life of the sword. Even in early childhood he could not resist the desire to play with weapons and combat his imagination. His fascination led to awe whenever he saw real nobles marching through the village in full gear. At night, he would beg his father to tell him tales of battle, conquest, and victory. These stories were supposed to put him to bed, but instead he would stay awake to the very end. His mind was being crafted for war, a born warrior.

When the boy turned to near manhood, he began formal lessons in sword fighting and technique. Though he was not the best in his class, his instructor immediately recognized the boy’s passion. The other boys often ridiculed him because he would never play with them, only train. They said that in the first real battle he experienced, he would be the very first one to die. Balanss hated the joke because it meant he would not get the chance to test his mettle. He was too obsessed with his battlelust to care about death, all he wanted was to fight - and win.

It came to pass that he became a knight and joined the ducal army. Very quickly he finally got his first taste of blood. It was a small skirmish on a dry field one autumn. The skirmish broke early and the soldiers went back to their camps. There were a total of fourteen casualties the whole day. One of those kills belonged to Balanss...

Balanss' First Kill

Marshal Varochana led her army onto the field calling the formation to her flag beacons. As they raised the order, Balanss saw that he and his unit were to march in a line formation. Far ahead of them they began to see the incoming enemy. Another small army led by Marshal Avport from across the river.

Lining up, the nobles and their units prepared for battle. When the trumpet played the two sides marched into each other. No one rushed. The lines took their time walking. Evidently this was not a major conflict. But Balanss was too eager to wait for the enemy so he began to speed up his march, causing his line to do the same in order to keep formation. As he broke into a run, he noticed the enemy had quickened their pace as well. Finally, he thought, real action.

But only a few soldiers unleashed their battle roar and only a few gave it their all. Balanss picked out one of those. He challenged the one that seemed like the strongest, fiercest, unbeatable foe. They dueled on the field.

Balanss, in his youth, was swift but not as precise, whereas this man was seasoned and restrained. The foe conserved his attacks and moved in a direction that forced Balanss to circle. When the foe suddenly stopped and began moving the other way it dislodged Balanss’ stride and caused him to stumble. That was when the foe struck. Balanss took a hit on the chest and fell down. Like a crack of lightning the foe leapt towards Balanss with his sword ready to drop down into the boy’s heart, but Balanss rolled out of the way and tripped the man down. Even faster than the man, Balanss was on top of his foe strangling him. His blood was rushing like a waterfall. His heart was beating like thunder. The man was swinging his fists and gagging at the same time. Balanss took two shots to the head and eased his grip because of the daze, and the foe almost broke free until Balanss regained focus, grabbed his blade and launched it into his opponent’s throat. The contest was over. Balanss was victorious.

His Marshal called the retreat, as did the enemy’s, and the skirmish was over. Before Balanss left the corpse he took a souvenir: a bronze necklace of a water serpent which hung around the man’s split open throat. It was soaked in blood, permanently stained, now a valued trophy.

Balanss’ pride as a warrior swelled. He had proved himself worthy. He had defeated a more formidable foe. It was now time for him to take on a bigger role in the army and those ambitions decided his future. He would declare himself a hero.

Heroism Unmatched

More skirmishes came, and eventually a full out war broke out. This was exactly what Balanss wanted. There was nothing else in life that attracted him, captured him, as much as combat. While he watched his younger siblings grow up to learn different arts such as music, poetry, rhetoric, he was satisfied with the mastery of war.

During this war Balanss made his name as a recognized warrior. Enemies feared him, allies wanted to fight beside him, he had become a renowned hero.

Rising the ranks, he became a Marshal of his very own army, the Valley Headhunters. The children would circle around him hoping he would take them as his squire, and the woman could not resist the gleam of his name. Marshal Balanss Arlacks, hero of Ramea.

Balanss had become everything he wanted to be and more. The war continued and he successively grew his persona as a great hero. His story became better known, embellished in some parts, exaggerated beyond belief in others, but all of them centred on his record number of kills on the battlefield. It was as if he could never be defeated.

Divinity Gained

Late in the Ramea-Xafdia war a significant event occurred in the hero’s life, his death. Although unlike other heroes who fall and earn immortality through legend and song, when Balanss died he earned actual immortality...

The Death of Balanss

It was one evening near the mountain when his unit was ambushed. A swarm of enemy raiders launched into Balanss’ camp and slaughtered everyone. Balanss fought hard and desperate only to be overwhelmed. After a long bloody twenty minutes of combat, Balanss was finally struck down.

Lying dead near the mountain, after the battle was over and the victorious army vacated, the corpse of Balanss was visited.

A nymph from the mountain hopped down and knelt beside him. She caressed his hair and examined his many wounds. Like a gentle breeze she laid a kiss on his cheek, the kiss of life. Balanss was revived in a panic as he still felt danger around him but the nymph touched his chest and smiled at him. Her eyes vast and unfathomable, she stared deep into him and gave him an immediate sense of calm.

Balanss was speechless. He gazed about the darkness seeing the many corpses of his friends and allies, then the beauty of the nymph beside him. He noticed the pool of blood he was laying in, the wounds on his body which leaked the blood but lacked the sting of pain.

He asked the nymph,

“Am I dead?”

“Yes.” She replied.

He sat up and sighed. Looking about again he accepted the ambush and the defeat, yet he could not figure out the nymph, so he spoke again.

“Who are you?”

“I was sent by a god to speak with you.”

“Then speak. Answer all the questions you already know I will ask.”

“Very well Balanss. I am here to revive you by means of a contract. If you agree to our terms you will wake up tomorrow morning in the realm of the living and never again be taken to death.”

“What are the terms?”

“My god is one favourable to war. You are one of its favourite heroes and it does not wish for you to die. So much entertainment you bring. Yet because of your current circumstance it is unable to revive you without a reason. This contract is its viable way of returning you to the stage, so to speak. If you want life back, and life eternal, you must swear on that immortality that you will continue to fight as a hero. Since you lived to fight and since you will be revived for the purpose of war, if you cease your function you will end your life.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You have already died on the battlefield Balanss. Your next death must come away from it. Stay on the battlefield and you will live forever. As long as you keep fighting, you will be immortal. Find yourself without lethal opposition and you will die as surely as you are dead right now. Your wounds of now returning to you, the blood lost now will gush out from you once again and your body will decay as fast as the time lost from now to that fateful moment.”

“Should I be given another chance why should I not take it to experience other things? Would not your god be just as satisfied?”

“No. My god is one of war. You are its favourite hero, not ordinary noble. If you are not fighting, you are not performing for my god therefore you are no longer useful. If you wish to return to the dust I will depart now with that answer. If you wish to return to life and see another dawn you must kiss me.”

Balanss hesitated for just a moment, then grabbed the nymph and kissed her passionately. Another kiss of life, this one the kiss of immortality!

After the nymph left with a smile, Balanss stood and spoke to the night sky.

“In my life I was devoted to combat. It brought me to my death. Now, revived, I can return to what I love most and never have to worry about its ultimate consequence. I have been given an unimaginable gift, one I will keep secret lest my enemies discover my power, but one I will not shy from exploiting. Beware Xafdia, the knight of your reckoning is here.”

When the morning came, Balanss was the only one to wake up. He looked about him as he did during the night. The scene was the same. Corpses, pools of blood, but this time no sign of the nymph. He looked at his body to see the wounds still there, this time not so deep, yet this time they hurt. He winced and rolled to his side.

He was alive again!

Heroism Unbridled

When the hero Balanss returned to the army, it was as if he was reborn. More furious more courageous more spectacular than before, Balanss brought a new terrifying violence to his combat. The other nobles said he was merely taking revenge for the slaughter of his unit, and most agreed until the months went on and Balanss’ rampage did not end. The man ceaselessly led units further and further into enemy territory. Bolder and more daring plans he accomplished by thrusting deeper towards the enemy capital. When his allies had to retreat for refit, Balanss continued on. It was unlike anything ever seen before. Balanss was more than a hero on the battlefield, he was a juggernaut.

Without letting up, Balanss managed to fight the waves of enemies that fell on him, killing them all with gory delight. The Xafdites begged the Rameans to stop this horrible man, but neither side had any control over him. Balanss annihilated his enemies.

It was said in those days that the war ended because of Balanss. The one man army massacred the enemy forces without reservation. They said that a single man forced the enemy realm to surrender. But the nobles back home were hesitant to celebrate the bloodbaths. They tried to justify Balanss’ sudden eruption as the desire to join his fallen unit. Since he was the only man to survive the ambush, many believed he felt guilty and searched for death. Fortunately, they would all tell each other, Balanss was too extraordinary a swordsman to be defeated and while the poor man fought for either death or redemption he just so happened to kill all of his opponents. This is what they told each other at the dinner tables, or in the council halls. It was their way of assuring themselves that the man had not gone completely insane. It was their way of assuring themselves that he was still on their side and would not suddenly turn back on them.

Their security was an illusion.

When Balanss finally finished off the remaining combatants in the Xafdite army, he quickly realized he no longer had any opponents, which meant he would surely die. With quick resolution, and rising temper, Balanss turned around and began to fight his own army. He turned on his own realm.

Beyond Brutal

Like a sweeping plague Balanss launched himself against Ramea’s military might. The realm went into full alarm and put up every guard they could to stop the unstoppable. Balanss tore down barricades, launched himself over walls by using a catapult, and slaughtered the knights he originally fought beside.

Weeks and months passed as Balanss fought the armies. The Marshal’s were entirely ignorant to why the man could not be killed. They tried every tool of war they possessed, from four foot thick spears, to burning oil, to even threatening to execute his family. Balanss unflinchingly found them all and killed them.

A great terror swept the realm as he came closer and closer to wiping out all of the armies. No one could be sure what he would do when he finished fighting. Would he turn on the civilians and begin butchering innocence? Would he finally leave the realm to find another ripe harvest of soldiers to kill? It was horror.

Final Battle

Then one summer afternoon Balanss was riding furiously towards a keep that contained some armed guards, desperately seeking battle. As he rode a woman leapt in front of his horse and was trampled. He stopped to discover what happened. When he got off his horse and came closer to her body for inspection he realized with a gripping chill that it was his mother. Broken and battered she looked him in the eye and wept bloody tears. Then she died...

Balanss Surrenders

Balanss held her in his arms and witnessed the woman who brought him into this world. A woman who must have been destroyed by grief over the monster she created, the man who would now be notorious as a slayer and a reaper of blood. He began to weep and moan loudly. Yelling with emotion to the day sky he wished the nymph’s return to take the curse off of him.

With his mother in his arms, he felt a crushing remorse. The faces of everyone he killed paraded through his soul and his heart tearing him apart. Friends, foes, family, all of them mercilessly murdered by his hand. It was only now, right that instant, when Balanss questioned the price of his immortality. Earlier he was drunk with the lust for battle to save his life but now over the busted body of his mother he slowed down to really consider the true depth of the deal he had made. Was immortality worth surrendering his principles, ethics, or his humanity? Balanss had taken the lives of countless victims to maintain his own. He questioned the worth of his life versus the worth of the multitude. He should have done this earlier.

After weeping all he could weep and cursing all he could curse he finally dropped his mother and remounted his horse. Slowly, he rode up to the keep filled with frightened soldiers, dismounted and walked to the gate.

Unarmed he yelled,

“Guards! I am Balanss Arlacks of Ramea…I surrender to you! In the name of the god who traded me immortality for my soul, I surrender! Please, kill me! Shoot arrows through me! Dismember me with your swords! I am a demon, a monster, a cursed wraith! “

The guards thought it was a trick and shouted back that they would not open the gate. Balanss yelled louder.

“Kill me you fools before the rage returns! If I continue any longer I will wipe out all of humanity! This must be where I die….you must end my life now!”

One shouted back,

“We heard that you cannot be killed! If we open the gates you will certainly massacre all of us.”

Balanss took off all of his armour, threw away his weapons and knelt before the keep nude. He raised his hands to the gate and with stirring passion cried out,

“The life of Balanss ended in the ambush near the West Peaks. What is kneeling before you is the enslaved corpse of that noble. His soul must be dissolved to vapour after what I have done with his body….Nymph of the god of war, I call to you. I will no longer perform for your master. Tell it I surrender. I am its puppet no more!”

In that moment, the man that was once a heroic noble decayed into rotted flesh and bones right before the guards’ eyes. Astonished, they realized the emphatic man was telling the truth all along. But they could not release him from his torment, only he could release himself from the contract.

Balance’s Retreat

That final summer afternoon Balanss stopped fighting, that final surrender turned him into dust.

To commemorate the horrible but powerful story of Sir Balanss, the guards commissioned a stone statue placed of the kneeling supplicating hero right on the spot where he died in front of the gates. A castle eventually grew around the statue. It is unclear if the statue still remains, but the name of the castle echoes the great epic of Balanss. The castle is forever known as Balance’s Retreat.