When one talks about fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, what often comes to mind are castles. Strangely enough, for most of the games in which I’ve played, and a lot of the fantasy that I write, cities are very important. Even when the campaign takes the characters into the uncharted wilds, or to the fringes of civilization, these campaigns often begin in large cities. I like it that way.

Cities have always had a mystique to them. Great powers had big cities–think Rome, think Constantinople, think Beijing. Those cities thrived on the lifeblood of empire, wealth and power. Wealth and power, in turn, draw people, be they merchants, craftsmen or simply labourers. As the population swelled, cities encountered problems not common to villages. Crime became a common complaint, and the stratification of society. Perhaps the two went hand in hand, I don’t know. It’s the crime and class angle that often leads me to set stories in cities. These easily lead to conflict and are good gardens for rebellious characters and outsiders. Cities also offer one a concentration of another great subject of conflict–politics.

For role-playing games, cities have another draw. Those services one commonly finds in fantasy role-playing games that one might not actually find in the Medieval countryside could be found in many large cities. Merchants to change large sums of coins or other objects of value to portable promissory notes could actually be found in a city. Large inns, rather than small public houses, existed in cities, as did establishments simply for eating and drinking, sometimes termed ordinaries but known today as bars and taverns. And what adventurer hasn’t found a job or fellow adventurers in the local tavern?

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Vladimir Dragov shivered as the sun began its descent. On the snowdrifts before him were dozens of dead Northlanders from his tribe, broken and lifeless. With the waning light the cold crept into his body. His movement grew harder, especially after the battle he had fought today.

A shrill call broke the silence of the snow-covered woods in the distance. Another followed, much closer to where he stood.

Vladimir thought about hiding among his tribal brothers and feigning death, but he knew the Ghourlesh would find him. The monsters would smell his fear and his blood pumping through his veins.

His fur boots iced up with blood and melting snow. A stray flake dropped from the darkening sky, fading into his leather armor. The storm had moved away from the battlefield.

Was anyone else alive? At fourteen winters this had been his first taste of real battle. He had done well, killing five Ghourlesh. Father will be proud.

The Ghourlesh had not been seen this close to the outlying villages in a decade, but scattered sightings had abounded and the Northlanders knew they were there.

Watching and waiting.

That time had come, and they attacked in large numbers against the tribes, striking one village at a time. Within three days seven villages had been put to the torch, bodies piled in sacrificial pyres. Even with the snowstorm running rampant through the area, they had attacked.

Like ghouls they had come, rising from the whiteness of the snow with their painted faces and white hide armor, frosty hair pulled taut behind them.

And so the Northland tribes had united and sent forth one hundred fighting men to stop the Ghourlesh. Vladimir’s father, Ivan Dragov, was the leader of the largest Northland tribe. He had been proud when his two sons, Vladimir and Dimitri, volunteered to fight for their people.

The two groups had met in the woods in the dark morning, with clouds of snow falling from the sky. Chaos had erupted through the blinding storm, Northlanders and Ghourlesh slipping and fighting in the snow. It was one-sided, though, as the Ghourlesh had sheer numbers, dozens facing off against each Northlander.

At first Vladimir was frightened, worrying about having to kill another man. Deer and rabbit were one thing; he had never killed another person before and didn’t know how he would do it. His cousin Oleg, a tribal leader from a nearby village, saw his face and laughed. “These Ghourlesh are not men, like us, they are savages who kill our women and boil our young for stew. They’ve made a pact with the evil of the forest, destroying the trees and the plants with their vileness.”

With a smile and a shrug of embarrassment, Vladimir had gone into battle as a warrior. He hoped that he had left it a man.

Snap.

Vlad turned to see a Ghourlesh a dozen paces away, raising a sword and dagger.

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For those who haven’t seen the Jet Li movie HERO, there’s a brilliant sword fight between Li and Donny Yen. What makes it so unique is that half of the sword fight actually takes place in the minds of both opponents. They imagine the fight between them: each attack, each stroke, each parry, each anticipated counter-move is seen in their minds. Isn’t that the way we write? Our greatest action pieces have to be visualized in the mind first before they come to life on paper. But with something as specific as a sword fight, you have to know what you’re doing before you write in detail about it.

When I submitted my first short story to SwordsEdge.net, it involved a sword fight between a samurai and a demon. As I wrote it, I could feel every single move made by my hero. I stood in the middle of my living room with my own katana in hand – very similar to the one drawn in the accompanying artwork for the story – and I went over every move. I could feel the fatigue growing in his arms. I could feel the sword starting to get heavier and heavier. And every single swing and slice that he made, I could not only see it in my mind, but I could duplicate it in the real world.

One of the reasons that I could feel the fight in both mind and body is because I practice a form of Japanese Swordsmanship called Iai-Batto-Do. “Iai” and “Do” means “the way of the sword”. Iaido is the most common form of Japanese Swordsmanship, which emphasizes the drawing and returning of the sword to its scabbard. “Iai Batto Do” is a more combat oriented art which emphasizes not just drawing the sword correctly, but using it effectively once it’s out of the scabbard.

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He wasn’t dead…not yet. But they were already digging his grave. At least he thought they were. Sounds of metal scraping against sand battled the roaring in his ears for his attention, all punctuated by bits of words, claps of thunder, and an occasional equine squeal.

“…never…” <thunder>

He didn’t recognize the voice, couldn’t turn his head to look for the speaker. It was too dark anyhow, except for the intermittent flashes of lightning. He didn’t remember it being so close to dusk when that first blade plunged into his back. How long had it been since they pulled him off his horse and dragged his bleeding body across the sand?

He imagined hearing the thirsty desert eagerly sucking up the blood as it flowed out of his ruptured heart and across his chest to run in rivulets down through the folds in his rumpled tunic, imagined grains of sand climbing one of top of the other to get higher and higher so they could pour over him and into the wound itself.

“Hurry…” <thunder> “…get…”

Only vaguely was he aware that he’d been moved again, dumped into a shallow hollow barely big enough for his body. Shovelfuls of sand rained down on him like an early spring hailstorm in Amar.

Shapes he recognized as faces hovered over him, illuminated by the ever-increasing flashes of lightning. But whose faces? He couldn’t remember who had done this to him. He tried to remember, but the lightning was too beautiful and entranced him. Pure white light, pure energy. He found himself praying to the lightning, a memory coming to him from somewhere, from a page in some book, in some library, that lightning was a manifestation of the gods. Whose gods, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He prayed to them, prayed for the energy contained in the beautiful white light to bring back his life, prayed for it to seal up the wounds and stop the flow of blood.

The men burying him seemed to not notice the lightning, never flinching as the bolts drew nearer. But even as the lightning closed in on them, its light got weaker…or maybe it was his eyesight failing him. He didn’t know which.

“…face…” <thunder> “…no…”

One of his murderers bent down and wiped sand from his face, from around his eyes. The touch felt strangely gentle even though the movements of the hand were rough and hurried. It reminded him of his wife…. He howled, but only silently, only to himself. He could not remember her name.

Another flash of lightning, closer still, a reflection off a piece of metal. A broken shield, gripped by scarred hands, hovered above him. Try as he might, he could not see the face of the man holding it.

“For…” <thunder> “…yours…d’Fiornese…to mark…they find…” <thunder> “…know…soul…” <thunder>

The words themselves seemed to come from nowhere, but as ethereal as they sounded they had the same force as the brutal swords that had ripped through him. No! He wanted to scream, but his lungs held no air to expel. Heretics! he wanted to yell at them. Bastards!

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Lono swung the shaft of his spear in an arc across the front of his body. He missed–again. He spun the weapon into thrusting position and drove the shark-tooth tip forward. The jagged point pierced air. His right leg buckled from a low blow behind his knee. Small hands balled into tight, hard fists pounded his body. One blow connected against his left temple, dazing him. On one knee, Lono braced his weight against the spear-butt to keep from falling over.

They closed in again, he could not see them but he felt them near. Recovering his wits, he swung his fist and connected with flesh and coarse hair. Something substantial thudded to the ground. One of the attackers was down–temporarily, at least.

The dark interior of Lono’s hut flared into blazing torchlight. Momentarily as dazed as his attackers by the light, Lono squinted. From slit eyes he saw the ka-man, Makani, brandishing a war club in one hand and a lit torch in the other, cursing as he came to assist.

At the ka-man’s arrival the intruders scrambled back into the hole from which they had invaded Lono’s home–a hole they had burrowed in the dark of night, directly into his hut. Even in the torchlight, they were invisible. Only scrambling sounds and the sandy soil shifting under unseen feet indicated their retreat.

A high-pitched scream from underground echoed through some unknown cavern.

“Give me my wife!” Lono shouted in frustration, swinging again at air. The little gods were gone. “Anakai!”

He leapt to the hole, but it was too narrow to enter with his rangy build. The small gods had made the passage diameter enough for their diminutive bodies, and the thin body of his wife. He shouted her name down the hole, terrified for her, imagined the earth around her like a tomb.

He scrambled to his feet, bronze-skinned chest heaving from exertion and the rush of adrenaline. He glanced at the ka-man, whose complexion was similarly bronzed, the common hue found among islanders raised in a warm climate. Makani’s frame was shorter and broader than Lono’s build. Lono ignored the crowd gathering before his entranceway, attracted by the sounds of commotion.

He looked back to the hole. “Why have they done this?”

The ka-man shrugged. “You need to ask them.”

“I can’t scramble through the dirt like some worm!”

“We don’t need to,” Makani said, pointing to the earthen maw that had violated Lono’s privacy and thrown his simple life into chaos. “The little gods work stone, rarely earth. You heard the echo of Anakai’s scream? There must be a stone chamber below, tunnels large enough even for us to pass.”

The ka-man’s blazing torch faded, consumed quickly by a flame Lono attributed to magic. Lono felt despair, the torch’s death a second sunset in a single day’s time.

Makani lit another torch, this one sputtering and not enhanced by magic.

“Gather weapons, water and food,” Makani ordered.

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Now, I have some free time to spend with my daughter, which sounds like a good plan to me.