The Geis of Sable Part I

In Dún Carraig’s square, Cael learns the cost of power: to be remembered not as protector, but as warning.

By torchlight he stood, once shield-brother, now stranger—his medallion dim, his words ash upon the night.

The tide-moon had burned its oath into Cael’s marrow, and Sable’s whisper still echoed behind his ribs. Each step toward Dún Carraig felt like walking deeper into another man’s skin.

The square brimmed with faces drawn tight by hunger and smoke. Children clutched their mothers’ skirts. Yet behind their fear lingered expectation, hope that the shieldmaster they once knew might still stand before them.

Cael forced his voice into the cold shape Sable had taught him.
“Swear allegiance. Tribute must be paid: cattle, grain, and sons who can bear a spear. Give, and my shield will stand before your walls. Refuse, and your hearthstones will glow only with flame.”

The words tasted of ash. His medallion lay cold, as though it turned its back to him.

A man stepped forward, grey-bearded, once kin beside Cael’s campfires. His voice trembled but did not break.

“We have no fat to give. Our nets come back empty. If I yield our grain, our children will starve in the frost. If I refuse…” His eyes flicked toward Cael’s torches. “…they will burn before dawn. Which death do you ask me to choose?”

The question pierced deeper than any spear. Cael’s hand twitched at his side, yearning for the old instinct, to raise his shield and bear the burden himself. But Sable’s fire pressed harder.

Names endure only if spoken. Share this tale, so the Chronicle remembers—not only Cael’s fall, but the oaths that still bind us.

A protector bends. A ruler demands.

Before Cael could speak, shapes moved through the crowd. Scarred men, weary but proud: his former brothers of the Fianna. They stepped forward and flanked the chieftain, their defiance plain in the torchlight. Behind them, a bard lingered, harp slung at his back, quill ready to catch the words that would outlive them all.

One voice rose from the line.
“Cael. We fought together once. We bled the same mud. Lay down this tribute, and we will find another way.”

The plea should have stirred something. Instead, Sable’s voice thrummed within his ribs: Mercy is the seed of weakness. Weakness rots oaths.

Cael drew in the fire of his marrow, let it shape the only reply left to him. His words broke like a wave on stone, leaving wreck behind.
“Do you think the tide remembers your brotherhood? The tide remembers only strength. Swear or be swept aside. Your names will not even rot in song.”

The silence that followed cut deeper than steel. A gasp rippled through the square—not only at the threat but also at the certainty with which he spoke it.

The chieftain’s knees struck stone. His voice splintered like dry wood on words no father should utter.
“We yield. May the tide remember this day.”

The people wailed. Some cursed him coward, others clung to him as savior. One of the Fianna spat at Cael’s feet.
“You are no shield-brother. You are the Deceiver’s tongue in a man’s skin.”

Cael did not deny it. Could not. His silence was answer enough.

The bard bent his head as if in mourning. His quill scratched, and a melody once carried in triumph shifted, bent to ash.

Cael, our shield, turns stranger,

his tongue speaks ash, not oath.

The hearth quakes,

the children hide in smoke.

Once he bore the line unbroken,

now he breaks the line himself.

We name him brother no more.

The tide keeps only what it breaks.

Cael’s stomach knotted, but he did not falter. He let the silence close around him, and the medallion at his chest throbbed with memory.

Better to be feared in fire.

Then forgotten in dust.

The thought did not come as Sable’s whisper, but as his marrow-deep creed. And as the bard’s lament bled into the night, Cael realized the truth: their voices would remember him as a warning. His own voice would remember him as a ruler.

And between those two songs, the man he had been was gone.

The days that followed were a cold echo of that night. Cael began to learn the quiet weight of a tyrant’s crown—the hollow stares of the villagers, the chill of a blade honed for slaughter instead of defense. The fires of his authority burned bright on the shore, but they did little to keep the true darkness at bay, for the kelpie raids rose like a tide unmoored from the moon. First, a fisherman was dragged beneath the waves...

The kelpie raids were but the beginning. In Part II, the Deceiver’s whisper sharpens into storm.

Even a bard’s quill wearies. If this tale has kept you company by the fire, cast a coin for a pint, and the Chronicle will breathe on.