Blood and Bone

How it opens

In Jacuruku, the Thaumaturgs march an army east toward the lands of Ardata, impressing into service everyone they find. A village woman named Saeng flees into the jungle with her brother Hanu, who was taken by the Thaumaturgs and is now one of their giant armoured yakshaka. The Adwami tribes gather under a foreign Warleader for a raid into Thaumaturg lands. At sea, K’azz and a few of the Crimson Guard sail west for Jacuruku, while a woman calling herself Spite sets mercenaries digging among standing stones on a desert coast.

Who you meet early

• SaengSaeng lives with her aged mother on the very edge of a village in Jacuruku, where everyone names her a witch. When her brother Hanu comes to her in the night to warn of danger, she flees with him into the jungle.
• HanuHanu, Saeng’s brother, was taken by the Thaumaturgs and is now one of their armoured yakshaka, his tongue sliced away. He comes to Saeng in the night, warns her of danger in their old hand-signs, and guards her as they flee.
• ShimmerShimmer, one of the Avowed of the Crimson Guard, sails west with K’azz and a small guard toward Jacuruku. Rutana, an envoy of Ardata, travels with them as their guide.
• SkinnerSkinner, commander of the Isturé, marches with the Thaumaturg army toward Ardata’s lands as a partner for the campaign. Mara is his High Mage.
• GolanGolan Amaway, lowest ranked of the Adepts, holds the generalship of the Thaumaturg Army of Righteous Chastisement as it marches east. He does not trust his foreign allies, the Isturé.
• Pon-lorPon-lor, a Cohort Leader and Apprentice Thaumaturg of the Seventh Rank, is sent by Golan with twenty men to find a missing yakshaka. A young man who gives his name as Jak comes to him, says he is a bounty man, and claims that a witch has enslaved a yakshaka.
• JatalJatal, a prince of the Hafinaj, leads his family’s contingent to the camp of a foreign Warleader who gathers the Adwami tribes against the Thaumaturgs. At the gathering, the Warleader proposes that they sack the Thaumaturg southern capital of Isana Pura.