Redmask

Redmask
Redmask by Dejan Delic
Biographical information
Race	Human
Gender	Male
Social information
Affiliation	Awl
Occupation(s)	Warrior
Rank	War Leader/Warleader

Redmask was an Awl exile who had returned to the Awl'dan, the traditional homeland of his people, to make war on the the Letherii, his most hated enemy. The name "Redmask" was derived from the full-face, red-scaled mask with black-rimmed eye slits he always wore. He had a short, lithe, and wiry figure and wore a scaled hauberk beneath a rodara wool shirt and rough-woven hooded cloak.

Redmask was a master of the traditional Awl weapons of legend: the Awl'dan cadaran whip and the rygtha crescent axe. With these weapons he was a brutal fighter and easily capable of facing twenty or more opponents. He was also a skilled horse rider.

He was well-versed with the various political entities of the Awl'dan region and the individual legions of the Letherii Army. He enjoyed being the hand of Awl vengeance.

History

According to the stories told by his Letherii enemies, Redmask had been the young son of an Awl clan leader whose wealthy tribe had frequently skirmished with Factor Letur Anict of Drene over control of the tribe's vast herds. The Factor sent agents to the Awl camp to kidnap one of the clan leader's daughters much as the tribes kidnapped Letherii children. Anict adopted her into his family and before long she was indebted. The Factor offered to clear her debt and return her to her father in return for her father's herds. The clan leader agreed, but the girl plunged a knife into her own heart when in sight of her father's camp. In the chaos that ensued, the Factor's soldiers attacked the camp, killing everyone and seizing the herds.

Although unknown at the time, there had been one survivor--the clan leader's young son. Legend held that the red mask was related to a dragon the boy killed shortly after the slaughter of his family. A few years later a new war chief named Redmask appeared and engagements between the Awl and the Letherii began turning in the Awl's favour. But when Redmask spoke at a gathering of the clans arguing to unify them against the Letherii, he could not convince the clan elders. In a rage, he used unwise words which the elders demanded he retract. After he refused, he was exiled and travelled east into the wildlands between Awl and Kolanse.

In Reaper's Gale

Redmask by Puck

Redmask returned to the Awl from exile in order to lead the fractured and decimated clans in war against the Letherii who were systematically taking over the Awl'dan. His personal guardians, for reasons known only to themselves, were two K'Chain Che'Malle--the male K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok and the female Drone Gunth Mach. When Redmask first returned to the plains of the Awl'dan he discovered a battlefield where a contingent of Grey Swords had fallen to the Letherii forces of Drene. The sigils of the foreign mercenaries were unknown to him.

He next appeared in Drene where he surveilled the Drene Garrison for a night and a day to better learn the Letherii's capabilities since the last time he faced them. When he was eventually discovered by agents of the Patriotists, he escaped in a bloody melee that saw more than twenty city guards and a troop of Bluerose Lancers killed. Redmask's guardians ambushed and slew the mounted soldiers who followed him in pursuit. Atri-Preda Bivatt immediately recognised the signs of Redmask's handiwork and did not relish the thought of the war to come.

Redmask tracked down the last remnants of the Renfayar clan, who were led by Masarch and a handful of other youths. The exile took command of the clan forcing the youths to undergo the traditional death night rituals that marked an Awl warrior's transition to adulthood. Then he took Masarch, Kraysos, Theven, and the K'Chain Che'Malle to a Letherii drover camp tending twenty thousand head of Myrid and Rodara stolen from the Awl by Factor Anict. While the K'Chain Che'Malle slaughtered the drovers and their families, the Awl led the herds away.

They brought the herds to the camp of the Ganetok, the last clan to remain strong, where Redmask challenged their war leader, Hadralt, for control of the Awl. Hadralt was contemptuous of Redmask's call for a duel to the death until the exile called upon his K'Chain Che'Malle allies to make the sure there would be no interference from the Copperfaces who served as the war leader's bodyguards. One of the Copperfaces, Natarkas, revealed that Hadralt had murdered his father with poison to succeed him as war leader and Redmask soon coaxed the rest of the truth from Hadralt's mouth. Hadralt had sold Awl land for coin and weapons and betrayed the Grey Swords mercenaries hired as allies in order to confiscate their pay. Eventually he planned to sell out the Awl in return for an estate in Drene and Indebted to do his bidding. After hearing about these betrayals, Hadralt was stabbed in the back and killed by his own Copperfaces.

Redmask by Shadaan

When Redmask took control of the Awl from Hadralt, he was furious to learn that Toc Anaster, one of the Grey Sword commanders, was being held captive in the camp and immediately freed him. Toc revealed that the Grey Swords had been awaiting the First Sword of the K'Chain Che'Malle, but they had not expected Redmask to be Human. As Toc Anaster's body recovered, Redmask kept him near as an advisor on military matters against the Letherii. Other allies among the Awl included Natarkas, the Copperface who remained as an advisor at his side, and the young Masarch, who Redmask instructed on how to conduct himself as a warrior. At the same time, an ancient Elder of the Renfayar clan forced himself into Redmask's company claiming to be the last living witness to the events surrounding the death of Redmask's sister. The Elder said he would hold that information like a dagger over the war leader's heart and warned Redmask that he would ride by his shoulder against the Letherii and speak with the voice of the Awl. He wished him great glory, but he would not allow the war leader to betray them.

Factor Anict commanded Atri-Preda Bivatt to lead the Eastern Army on a punitive expedition against the Awl for the drover massacre and theft. Redmask counted on Letherii arrogance and overconfidence when deciding to meet Bivatt's army at Bast Fulmar. He used the valley's unnatural properties to strip her mage cadres of their magic and employed subterfuge and innovative battle tactics to destroy and humble Bivatt's forces. Natarkas thought there was little honour in this new way of fighting, but the Battle of Bast Fulmar was an Awl victory that saw the Letherii driven to flight.

After Bast Fulmar, Redmask kept his army's movements hidden for a time and the Letherii were unnerved by anticipation. Then Redmask secretly strangled the Elder who threatened him with secrets and declared the Awl would hide no more. He led a night attack on the prepared Letherii forces at the Battle of Pradegar, where the Awl were terribly mauled by the Letherii's unleashed sorcery. Bivatt thought Redmask's impatience had finally led to a mistake.

Redmask, "Today, we will spill yet more Letherii blood." by Tommy Arnold (Official Image)

Neither side had anything left to give and both knew the next battle would decide the campaign. Redmask believed himself untouchable and undefeatable as no one else had earned the favour of the K'Chain Che'Malle. He brought his army to the salt plain of Q'uson Tapi and readied to face the Letherii. The mud-slogged Battle of Q'uson Tapi was another example of innovative tactics, but Letherii numbers and discipline proved overwhelming. Even as the Awl were enveloped and essentially annihilated, Redmask mounted his horse, planning to find and slay Bivatt. When he was joined by his K'Chain Che'Malle guardians, he was sure of his success until the beasts turned on him. Sag'Churok and Gunth Mach cut him to pieces before fleeing the battlefield. From his position guarding the Awl children, Toc Anaster surmised that Redmask had failed the K'Chain Che'Malle and the alliance was over.

When Redmask's body was inspected after the battle and his crimson mask removed, it was revealed that Redmask had the pale face of a Letherii rather than one characteristic of an Awl. Kilava Onass identified the mask as made from the hide of a K'Chain Che'Malle Matron's throat.

In Dust of Dreams

Sag'Churok was revealed to have thought that Redmask "had proved as flawed as any K'Chain Che'Malle of the Hive" and contemplated that perhaps the Matron of Ampelas Rooted had been right, instead, to elect a human like the Elan Kalyth to undertake the search.

Kalyth, to replace Redmask, eventually chose Stormy (as Shield Anvil) and Gesler (as Mortal Sword) of the K'Chain Che'Malle. Kalyth had the Shi'Gal Assassin Gu'Rull snatch the two of them at night from their tent in the midst of the Bonehunter encampment in the Lether Wastelands and had them brought to her for explanations of their kidnapping and of their new roles.

Speculations

In the Letherii stories of Redmask they mentioned that the Awl often kidnapped children of the Letherii. It seems likely that Redmask was one of these children, adopted into the family of an Awl clan leader, much as Factor Anict had kidnapped and adopted the Awl girl he hoped to use as leverage against the Awl.

Notes and references

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