Bond Sister! Worry no longer, for your brother has finally had a chance to write again!

It has been quite a long few months, and I can only apologize for any distress you found in my silence. In my defense, I have had quite an adventure, sailing into the furthest north where the air itself teeters on the verge of freezing solid!

I lost the trail of the Jing, sadly, having to turn back from my course around the north of the continent. It was no cowardice that drove me, I assure you, but the ship and my crew simply could not push further. Truly, the sons and daughters of Ji the Mariner were masters of the ocean to have made such a passage.

That is not to say that I do not have any interesting tales to tell. I admit with such a quarry ahead, I had neglected to make a thorough catalog of the coast of the continent which lay across the narrow sea from the folk of Banu and Khem, which the scattered archipelago of the bronze men seems a part. My previous hosts had not spoken highly of the place, regarding it as a land of barbarians and savages. In Khem, they called this land's people “Kasin,” meaning the People of the Black Trees. The people of Banu referred to them as a land of ruddy, fair-haired horsemen who warred among themselves in a thousand tiny tribes in a manner not dissimilar to the cloud tribes of the Wall in the south.

Both were true enough. Docking on the cold northern shore to resupply, my scouts came upon some of the latter folk, who rode about at a distance. They did not fly, thankfully enough, but their steeds did move with the alacrity of the wind. Lighting a great bonfire on the shore, I was able to show my good intentions with a feast laid out before it and tempt some to speak with me.

The fellow I spoke to, a chieftain who called himself Leucos, was a physically impressive fellow, barrel chested and ruddy with a shaggy mane of yellow hair and a truly impressive mustache. He was not the most articulate fellow though, and the gap of languages proved difficult, but I was able to convey via the Banu tongue that I was only here to repair my “Sea-Mound.” He was wary of me AS I did not bother to hide my might, but my demeanor assuaged the poor fellow’s fears, and he declared that he would allow me my berth on the land of his clan for a few days.

I did not learn much of value in interviewing him. He was an incurious man, and his elders did not accompany the hunting bands. I learned the names of a dozen odd tribes, and I am quite sure at least half of the names were some form of insult or curse in his tongue. Not uncommon with such primitive folk.

I also learned that I would not be much welcome inland and was warned away from their mounds and monuments. Apparently, unlike our erstwhile nomad foes, these folks had no aversion to building, and their priestly caste had some mastery over the earth, allowing them to construct both temporary settlements as well as large sacred sites.

This was a partial misunderstanding, as I found out when I sailed further south.

Away from the northern end of the continent, the eponymous “black trees” became much more obvious. I have never seen a more tangled or ominous wood outside the deepest recesses of the Emerald Seas where even the horned folk did not lightly tread. Our forests in the south are often well spaced. There is an air of cultivation there. The lingering influence of the Great Diviner brings a certain order to the wilderness. It was not so here. The leaves hung thick and dark, and the roots and trunks tangled. In many places, there was barely space for even a small man to pass between the trunks.

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Not that this seemed to impede the fellows we came upon while cutting lumber for some of the greater repairs. I will not lie, that night gave me a bit of a scare. I awoke from my cultivation to find my men’s camp surrounded by what seemed like a legion of ghosts. They were men though, daubed in a white paint which gave them only the presence of the plants and trees of the wood even to my senses. There was something of a scuffle, and I admit I lost my patience a tad.

Once the survivors had fled and the crew had begun to peel the bodies from the splintered trunks, I spotted another set of eyes watching us from the woods. I stood forth and offered a challenge. I was only a little surprised when a speckled owl emerged from the canopy and transformed into a woman. She spoke in a broken form of the bronze men’s tongue and asked me of which city I hailed.

That was the start of getting some real dialogue out of these fellows. The woman and the white painted men were of rival tribes, and it seemed the bronze men had some dealings with the nearer tribes. Minor colonies along the coast traded goods, and most importantly, weapons. The folk of the wood coveted the islanders' bronze and for good reason.

Now, I say this in confidence, not wishing to be killed by a golden-eyed assassin, but the higher quality bronze in those isles is not unequal to that produced by secret smithies of the Bai clan. They are more than able to cleave iron and good steel. For a folk who still seemed mostly armed with bone and stone, you can see how this would be an advantage.

This is how I came to be forced to explain to an owl woman in a broken forest that I was not, in fact, an arms dealer. She was disappointed, but we were able to make a deal. Having seen my strength, she offered to purchase my services as a warrior instead. That is how I acquired so much information. I certainly got some good exercise in those months!

I said earlier that there was a misconception with Leucos. The great structures of stone these people called sacred, which, upon seeing, I must admit deserve some reverence, are not built by them. They are great artificial mountains, circles and inhuman fortresses overgrown with ten thousand years of growth.

They say in an age before the seasons began to turn and all this land was cloaked in ice, it was home to giants. These giants built and lived as men do and warred terribly with a race of creatures which I suspect are some far flung cousins of underworld dragons. These creatures are described as great reptilian beasts whose breath was poison and whose blood was pestilence. Their tales seem confused as to the origin of mankind in this. Some of them say they were the diminished children of the giants, made withered and sickly by the worms. Some say the giants shaped them from wood and clay when the pestilence rendered the giants all sterile.

I found that last story an interesting parallel to our own stories of origin, our shaping by the Nameless Mother from river clay. Their gods and great spirits arise from these giants and early culture heroes as you might expect. The only name which came up almost universally among the tribes I spoke too is “Tuiston,” regarded as a father deity, something akin to the Sun or the Nameless Father.

Of their cultures and practices, I can say less since there are so very many of them. There are scores of tribal groupings within which you see the divisions of clans. It is not so dissimilar to what you see in texts describing the period before the three heroes and their kingdoms. Hah! I wonder in a thousand years, will an empire emerge here too? Will a mighty king or queen seize an old palace of the gods and rule as emperor or empress? The land is certainly expansive enough!

I am on my way home, Bond Sister. You can pick my mind for the rest of the details when I arrive.

* Excerpt from the letters of Zheng Lu, King of Explorers