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23 | THE WHITE SHIELD
Atan, arrived in the remains of the Feline nation of Hayasa, had found these descendants of ancient Badaria eager to learn what he had learned in the Middle Kingdom. In secret he taught a score of them. Had the Bloodkin discovered twenty Beasts together in a room, they would have taken the Beasts and penned them as cattle to be feasted upon. Atan knew he had not studied the arts of magic long enough to face the true arcane might of the Vampire Mages and Vampire Lords, and he knew that he lacked the knowledge to train his Feline apprentices well. His only option was numbers. He must teach as many as possible, and the best of his students must go out and do likewise. Only in numbers would the Beasts counter the Blood Kingdom, as ever.
Within a year, Atan decided he had to move. He and his apprentices had gone out hunting Vampires occasionally, and the Bloodkin seemed to be getting suspicious. Greater concentrations of Vampires were being seen in the area, and reports had come in of a Vampire Mage. None of his apprentices were ready to begin teaching, and if Atan was captured, magic would dwindle and die once more.
Taurania
They went. Atan and his apprentices, who were collectively calling themselves the White Shield of Atan for their habit of dressing in white, journeyed south into Taurania, which had been virtually brought to its knees but continued to fight on. The Taurians gave them shelter and the White Shield grew. For two years Atan worked with his students, and all their skills improved. At the end of their relatively safe stay in Taurania, the most adept of Atan’s students were ready to begin teaching novices themselves.
Bidding a goodbye to the safety of Taurania, Atan and the White Shield slipped, in groups of threes and fours, across the Bosporus Strait and into Europe proper. There they made for the Noctari living around Mt. Olympus, for the Taurians had told them that they had heard rumors that there was a spirit of fierce resistance yet left in some Noctari. Along the way they found small traveling groups of Longtail nomads, and occasionally one would join the White Shield and begin learning the mysteries of the elements. They also encountered Bloodkin resistance along the way but between force of arms and the two score members of the White Shield with their budding arcane skills, the bloodsuckers were quickly and more importantly, quietly, slain. They could not allow Lord Vinga to discover that magic had returned to the Beasts of the Covenant.
Artemis Again
The Noctari were glad to see Atan, for Artemis, the Protector, as they called her, had spoken through Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi over eighty years ago and told the Noctari that a Beast bearing a white shield would come to them and with their help begin a war in secret aimed at throwing off the shackles of the Blood Kingdom forever. The Noctari eagerly embraced Atan’s teachings, and the White Shield quickly grew to over one hundred members. Atan left most of his best students (mainly Felines from Hayasa) there to teach and continue the training of the new Noctari students, and took twenty‐five with him, journeying west to make contact with the Fangren who had survived the Vampire sacking of Roma yet still dwelled in the Tiber Valley.
The Tiber Valley
On arriving at the Tiber, Atan was greeted by a welcoming party. Word of his coming had preceded him, which meant that surely the Vampires knew who he was now too. The Bloodkin frequently put Beasts to the question and were not kind in their inquiries, so it was assumed that anything not kept strictly a secret would make its way ultimately back to Lord Vinga in the seat of power in the Blood Kingdom. It was now critical to stay on the move and grow his White Shield quickly. Atan gained a score more followers in his short time in the valley of the Tiber, and together they left, aiming to sneak through to southern Tartessia and there recruit freedom fighters they had heard were still actively battling the forces of Vinga.
Andalusia
This would be their most dangerous travel thus far, and Atan was without his best students, whom had been left at Mt. Olympus to train promising Noctari. As they crossed the mountains into the Tartessian Peninsula, they found that they had been expected. A hunting party of Bloodkin, led by a Vampire Mage, found them while a‐camp one night. Six of the White Shield were dead before they could organize, but soon the Vampires discovered that they were up against twenty magic‐users, not one. (The new Fangren members of the White Shield had not learned enough yet to contribute except as hand‐ to‐hand combatants). Atan was not the equal of a Vampire Mage, but once organized and weaving spells together, he and the White Shield bested the Mage and all of his Bloodkin companions. Vinga had underestimated the Beasts. It was to prove a major miscalculation.
Argantonio’s Guerillas
Atan and the White Shield did cross to southern Andalusia, at the very southern end of the Tartessian Peninsula, though they had to make a mad dash through the battle lines of the Vampires to do it, losing three more of their own. Once there, they made contact with the leader of the guerilla movement, an Atavian named Argantonio who was the last descendant of the last king of Tartessos.
Atan took in the plans and operations of the guerillas and could not believe they had not been decimated by the Bloodkin. He had passed through their lines and seen the organization of the Vampires and the power they could bring to bear. How could this small band of Atavians hold the Vampires at bay with no natural barrier to hold them back such as Taurania and Midgaard had? Even they must eventually fall it seemed, for the Bloodkin had taken the isle of Old Anglorum many centuries ago, crossing miles of water to do so.
The answer was nothing Atan could have expected. Argantonio took him to a camp set by itself away from the Atavians and there Atan was astounded to discover a type of Beast he’d never seen before. Scaled, like a lizard, these beings called themselves Lisians. They said they came from the Dunelands across the narrow water at the Rock at the southern tip of Andalusia, from a place called Maraket at the foot of mountains they called the Atlas Mountains. Beasts these Lisians were, but they were not part of the Covenant and had never felt the hand of Vinga. Most crucial: They had not been part of the Beast Empire and the ban on arcane magic that Solomon, the founder of that Empire, had instituted as reaction to the excesses of the Mystarchs. Thus, they still had magic.
The Lisians had always been a reclusive people, they told Atan, but they had kept a secret eye upon the advance of the Blood Kingdom into the Tartessian Peninsula and were alarmed to see that the Atavians who had unknowingly protected Maraket from assault from the north were on the verge of utter defeat. After much debate, the Lisians felt that letting the Atavians discover their presence would be worth the risk if they could prevent a Vampire incursion into the Dunelands, on the edge of which Maraket sat. The Lisians had enough enemies in the Dog Soldiers of Amizeh and occasional raids from under the Atlas Mountains by Undead without bringing down the wrath of the Vampire Palatine upon them.
Thus, centuries ago, the Lisians had begun sending some of their mages to the Atavians, to help them in secret. They could not deploy their magic openly against the Vampires for to do so would be to draw Vinga’s direct attention and ensure defeat. The Lisians had never lost magic, it is true, but their self‐imposed isolation through their history had prevented them from trading ideas with others and learning thereby. Their magical growth had been stunted, and their greatest mages were only a little more powerful than Atan.
Further, the Lisians largely lacked directly offensive magic, for theirs was a culture of born desert warriors, and they used their magic to enhance their physical combat capabilities rather than replace them. The Lisian mages sent to aid the Atavians assisted by strengthening their armor, by lending them extra speed and strength, and by keeping their weapons unnaturally sharp; never enough to alert the Bloodkin that something was amiss beyond some barely troublesome Atavians holding worthless ground and who could be easily taken after Taurania was pacified.
The Wandering One and Prophecy
Those same mages also declined to ever teach the Atavians their arts, for there was a prophecy from the early days of Maraket. It is said that the perhaps legendary founders of Maraket – Ismael and Karina – had written a book of prophecy at the end of their lives called the “Siroccan Saga”. The original was lost long ago, and supposed copies differ somewhat, making it difficult to ascertain the truth, but during their wanderings in the desert, Ismael and Karina had encountered a God they called “the Wandering One.” This God, so the legend goes, taught Ismael and Karina magic, and told them to found a nation at the foot of the Atlas Mountains.
The existing copies of the Siroccan Saga disagree on many things, but one thing that all agree upon was that the Wandering One had prohibited Ismael and Karina from passing on their knowledge to any but the people of the Dunes – the Lisians. The prophecy says that a day would come when the affairs of the larger world would intrude into the desert paradise (as they saw it) of the Dunelands. It said that a Beast would come from beyond the dawn and they would know him by the magic he bore.
This Beast, said the prophecy, would be the key to turning back an enemy that would, unchecked, eventually destroy Maraket and the Lisian nation. The Lisians felt that Atan was the Beast of ancient prophecy, and so for the first time in the history of their people, the Lisians taught an outsider their magic. Atan taught them what he could of his offensive magic in return, and quickly both he and the Lisians grew in power. The Lisians would not join the White Shield, for to expose themselves to the Blood Kingdom at this stage would invite retribution on a scale they could not endure, but they had done more than Atan could have hoped for.
The White Shield now possessed both the magic to enhance warriors and the magic to directly combat the Bloodkin. Though it was too early in the fight to openly employ magic against the Vampires on the battle lines, the morale of the Atavians was greatly improved by this secret weapon they harbored, and they resolved to fight on for as long as Atan needed to expand the White Shield.